The investigation into Trump and insurrection has entered a new phase after two years
The Mueller Investigation into the Use of the Trump White House Papers and Other Sensitive Government Documents at Mar-a-Lago
On the face of it, this development is troubling since it could suggest a pattern of deception that plays into a possible obstruction of justice charge. On the initial search warrant before the FBI showed up at Trump’s home in August, the bureau told a judge there could be “evidence of obstruction” at the resort.
Cannon referenced the characterization of the 200,000 pages in ordering the postponed deadlines. She also nixed the idea of the special master reviewing privilege assertions in tranches. The judge made it clear that any motions to get the property back from Trump would be heard on her docket. When Dearie allowed the litigation to begin, Trump objected to the search warrant being approved by the judge.
It is not known what the delay and other opportunities Trump will have will mean for the Justice Department investigation into how the documents from the Trump White House were handled.
With the intervention of the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this month, the department was allowed to resume the criminal probe’s use of the documents marked as classified, which may well be the heart of the investigation.
The understanding of how those sensitive government documents were mixed with other materials at Mar-a-Lago is something prosecutors are closely reviewing.
The Case against Donald Trump: A New Look at the Seized Materials Disassembly from the 2020 U.S. Presidential Reionization
Cannon on Thursday rejected part of the special master’s plan that would have forced the former President’s legal team to back up his out-of-court claims that the FBI planted evidence.
Cannon wrote that no requirement would be imposed on the parties at this stage, prior to the review of any of the Seized Materials.
In another boost for Trump, Cannon said Trump’s legal team does not have to provide certain details about his executive privilege claims in the special master review.
The Justice Department had been trying to investigate the mishandled government records from Donald Trump’s time in the White House.
The documents were taken from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence when the Justice Department searched it in August for possible Espionage Act and other crimes.
Cannon explained that the issues the parties had faced in securing a vendor to take the seized materials for the review was why there was a modest enlargement of the timeline.
Earlier this week, the department said in a court filing that Trump’s team had indicated the data hosting companies didn’t want to work with the former President. The issue now is the size of the evidence collection.
The document dispute has had complicating factors including Trump’s personal views. He initially claimed that his team had cooperated with investigators but later said on his social media page that “All they had to do was ask” for documents to be returned. Trump has made the case on social media and in court that he is the owner of the documents. “I want my documents back!” The former President said so in early October.
The National Archives had been trying to get Mr. Trump to return presidential records that he failed to turn over, and Alex Cannon became a point of contact for them. Mr. Cannon refused to give Mr. Trump’s message because he was not sure if it was true, the people said.
A special grand jury was empaneled to investigate potential crimes stemming from Trump’s unsuccessful attempts to reverse his election loss in Georgia.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who is leading the investigation into 2020 election interference, filed additional court petitions on Friday seeking to secure testimony from the out-of-state witnesses in front of the special grand jury meeting in Atlanta.
The 2020 U.S. Senate Apparent Stealth Election: Investigating a hush money plot to steal $14times $32$ from Gingrich
CNN reported that during the heated Oval Office meeting, Flynn and Powell floated outrageous suggestions about overturning the election, three weeks after Trump pardoned Flynn.
CNN reported last month that the House select committee investigating the January, 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol sent a letter to Gingrich seeking his voluntary cooperation to discuss his role promoting false claims that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen.
She filed court paperwork Friday to try to issue subpoenas to Eric Herschmann, as well as two other individuals who she believes have valuable insight to give to the grand jury.
— This development came with all eyes on New York after expectations soared this week that Trump could soon face indictment in a distinct case arising from an alleged scheme to pay hush money to adult film star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. The grand jury in the matter didn’t meet on Wednesday, leading to more speculation. But it will sit on Thursday, a source familiar with the investigation told CNN’s John Miller.
Flynn didn’t immediately respond to email and phone messages seeking comment, and his lawyer also didn’t immediately return an email seeking comment. Gingrich referred questions to his attorney, who declined to comment. Herschmann could not immediately be reached.
Willis has said she plans to take a monthlong break from public activity in the case leading up to the November midterm election, which is one month from Saturday.
Potential witnesses can be summoned in November after the election. When it comes to getting testimony from out-of-state witnesses, the process can take a while, and so she is putting the wheels in motion for activity to resume.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney signed off on the petitions certifying that each person’s testimony was a necessary and material witness for the special grand jury.
He was involved in the plan to run TV ads that relied on false claims about election fraud and encouraged members of the public to contact state officials to challenge the results of the election.
The petition says that Flynn appeared in an interview with Newsmax and that he said that if Trump took military capabilities he could re-run an election in some states.
According to news reports, his meeting with Trump and Powell focused on topics such as ” invoking martial law, seizing voting machines, and appointing Powell as special counsel to investigate the 2020 election.”
She wrote that the House committee also revealed that Herschmann had “multiple conversations” with Eastman, Giuliani, Powell “and others known to be associated with the Trump Campaign, related to their efforts to influence the results of the November 2020 elections in Georgia and elsewhere.” Specifically, he had a “heated conversation” with Eastman “concerning efforts in Georgia,” she added.
She said Penrose was a cyber investigations, operations and forensics consultant who had worked with Powell and others associated with the Trump campaign.
He also communicated with Powell and others regarding an agreement to hire data solutions firm SullivanStrickler to copy data and software from voting system equipment in Coffee County, about 200 miles southeast of Atlanta, as well as in Michigan and Nevada, Willis wrote. Penrose did not immediately respond to an email and phone message seeking comment.
In order to get Lee’s testimony, the man asked if he was part of an effort to pressure the worker who was subject of false claims about election fraud. He could not immediately be reached for comment.
State Law, Public Information, and the High Courts: Special Grand Juries and their Report to the Florida District Attorney’s Office Presented to the FBI
Grand juries are empaneled by local courts and have different rules than federal grand juries. There is not a statute in Georgia that says special grand juries should be kept secret. In fact, the statute says reports issued by special grand juries should be published if the grand jury recommends it. The judge gave her and others permission to speak to the media, albeit with limitations.
Instead, the special grand jury wrote a final report with recommendations for the district attorney’s office about how to proceed, including potential violations of state law — though Willis does not have to follow those suggestions if she decides to seek indictments from a regular grand jury.
He was told by the federal court that he can’t keep quiet about communications with Trump, his client, leading up to the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago last summer. he was told to turn over notes he had thought to be work as an lawyer in the probe. Corcoran would have had a window into many of the moments where Trump and his team were responding to the federal government’s efforts to get classified documents back.
The sworn statement that Bobb submitted to the Justice Department included a caveat that she was making the certification “based upon the information that has been provided to me.”
CNN’s Brown reported late on Wednesday that a Trump employee told the FBI about being told to move boxes from a basement storage room at his Florida club after their legal team received a subpoena for any classified documents. The FBI also has surveillance footage showing a staffer moving the boxes.
A witness account of what Trump did after a subpoena was served is relevant to the criminal investigation that is looking into obstruction, destruction of government records and other possible crimes.
“The government also developed evidence that government records were likely concealed and removed from the Storage Room and that efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government’s investigation,” prosecutors wrote at the time. There was evidence that boxes were not returned prior to the review.
The panel subpoenaed Trump last month seeking a wide array of documents by 10 a.m. Friday and for Trump to sit for an interview under oath beginning on November 14 and “continuing on subsequent days as necessary.”
“The need for this committee to hear from Donald Trump goes beyond our fact-finding. This is a question about accountability to the American people. He has to be held accountable. He must answer for his actions.
There is no certainty that Trump will be indicted in any of the cases. The legal clouds around him are appearing to be darkening in the recent days.
While Trump has frequently defied gathering investigative storms, and ever since launching his presidential campaign in 2015 has repeatedly confounded predictions of his imminent demise, there’s a sense that he’s sliding into an ever-deeper legal hole.
As the House select committee hearing went on, the Supreme Court sent word from across the road that it’s got no interest in getting sucked into Trump’s bid to derail a Justice Department probe into classified material he kept at Mar-a-Lago.
The court denied his request to intervene, which could have delayed the case. There was no dissents, including from the conservative justices who seemed to believe that Trump owes them a debt of loyalty.
As is normal, it is not known what the people who found the classified documents at the Florida storage facility may have said to the grand jury. But the ex-president is being investigated not just for possible violations of the Espionage Act, but also for potential obstruction of justice related to the documents.
The Department of Justice may be asked to investigate Donald Trump and his associates after their actions around January 6. But the most significant potential areas of criminal liability for the ex-President are in the hands of Attorney General Merrick Garland – over the January 6 case and the classified documents storm – and prosecutors in Georgia, who are investigating attempts by Trump and his allies to overthrow the 2020 election in the key swing state.
Using the Fifth Amendment or citing various legal privileges was a strategy that the grand jury saw from several of the most prominent witnesses, including Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, according to Kohrs.
David Schoen, who defended Trump in his second impeachment, told CNN that the details of the Mar-a-Lago incident did not constitute a case of obstruction of justice.
TheJustice Department has made clear in private discussions that it thinks Trump did not comply with a May subpoena ordering the return of documents marked as classified, and that there are more missing.
On Thursday morning, New York Attorney General Letitia James asked a state court to block the Trump Organization from moving assets and continuing to perpetrate what she has alleged in a civil lawsuit is a decades-long fraud.
James wrote that there was every chance that the defendants would engage in similar fraudulent conduct up to the trial unless the court ordered them to stop.
In recent years, the Justice Department investigation into White House documents seized from former President Donald Trump is one of the most politically damaging probes.
The Georgia investigation was instigated by a phone call from Trump to the Georgia secretary of state, asking him to find the votes necessary for Trump to win the state. Trump has referred to it as a “perfect” phone call.
Reply to the “comment on ‘What happened to the ex-President’s attempt to subpoena him'” by R.C. Budowitz
As always, Trump came out fighting on Thursday, one of those days when the seriousness of a crisis he is facing can often be gauged by the vehemence of the rhetoric he uses to respond.
A unanimous vote to subpoena the former president was mocked by the first Trump spokesman.
Predes Trump wont be intimidated by their rhetoric or actions. Budowitz said that the candidates would sweep the Midterms, and that America First leadership and solutions would be restored.
The former President weighed in on his Truth Social network with a post that was not answers to the allegations against him, which stirred a political reaction from his supporters.
The Unselect Committee didn’t ask me to testify a long time ago. Why didn’t they stop at the end of the meeting? The committee is a total BUST. Trump wrote.
Given the ex-President’s history of obstructing efforts to examine his tumultuous presidency, it would be a surprise if he does not fight the subpoena, although there might be part of him that would relish a primetime spot in a live hearing.
pro-christ Republicans claim that it is a politicized attempt to impugn Trump that has not allowed cross-examination of witnesses, and the subpoena will give them cover. If it wished to enforce a subpoena, the committee would have to seek a contempt of Congress referral to the Justice Department from the full House. The move was taken with Trump’s former strategist, Steve Bannon, who was found guilty of contempt of Congress and will be sentenced soon.
It would take months to try and follow a similar path if Trump refuses to testify. It’s unclear whether the Justice Department would consider this a good investment, especially given the advanced state of its own January 6 probe. Republicans are poised to take over the House majority following the elections, which is why the committee will be swept into history.
Given the slim chance of Trump complying with a congressional subpoena then, many observers will see the dramatic vote to target the ex-President as yet another theatrical flourish in a set of slickly produced hearings that often resembled a television courtroom drama.
The investigation was not just about January 6, but about the future, said Rep. Liz Cheney, the committee’s Republican vice chair.
“With every effort to excuse or justify the conduct of the former President, we chip away at the foundation of our Republic,” said the Wyoming lawmaker, who won’t be returning to Congress after losing her primary this summer to a Trump-backed challenger.
The Trump World: The Return of Donald Trump’s Personal Property to the Department of Justice and a Campaign for the Restoration of the Rule of Law
Sources tell CNN that Donald Trump’s legal team could allow federal agents to return to the former President’s residence in order to satisfy the Justice Department’s demands regarding all sensitive government documents.
Even as Trump continues to discuss legal theories that the records he took with him at the end of his presidency are his personal property, his team is making an argument in court that they first heard from Tom Fitton.
“The general belief in Trump World is that this is much ado about nothing and the sooner we get past it the better,” said a person close to Trump, adding that the former President has told allies he “wants to move on.”
People familiar with the situation say that there was a battle behind the scenes in the court where they were going to get their return. One potential resolution could involve the Trump team being asked by the DOJ to arrange for another search.
Sources close to the former President said that he is more open to the idea of a cooperative approach by some of his lawyers, including Chris Kise, who joined his legal team following the FBI search in August. Kise had faced a few challenges from Trump and his advisers.
Federal prosecutors have taken a more aggressive stance in the Trump inquiry since last summer, when the Justice Department disclosed it had evidence that records Trump kept in Florida had been concealed or removed, raising the need for an obstruction investigation.
Corcoran has insisted to colleagues that he does not believe he faces any legal risk and has not hired a lawyer, according to sources familiar with his situation.
Former President Donald Trump and his movement are posing new challenges to accountability, free elections and the rule of law, ushering in a fresh period of political turmoil.
Trump dropped his clearest hint yet that he will run for president at a time when he has a new confrontation course with the courts and facts.
After losing his reelection, Trump went away, but a flurry of confrontations has returned him to the center of US politics. It’s likely to deepen polarization in an already deeply divided nation. And Trump’s return to the spotlight probably means next month’s midterm elections and the early stages of the 2024 presidential race will be rocked by his characteristic chaos.
If the former president’s claims of political persecution are true, a presidential campaign centered on his claims could create more upheaval than any of his four years in office.
The coming political period is likely to be based on the past and future of the ex- President due to fierce differences between Democrats and Republicans over policy on the economy, abortion, foreign policy and crime.
Defending President Joe Biden: The Phenomenology of Rep. Elise Stefanik and the Democratic-Republican Causality of the Trump Organization
The Trump lawyers tapped to deal with the committee’s subpoena demands have been coordinating with other members of the former president’s legal team while determining how to proceed, according to a source familiar with the matter.
One of the candidates favored by the ex President is vying to become the next governor of Arizona. Lake said that he is afraid that it is not going to be fair.
One of the most powerful pro-Trump Republicans, Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, the party’s number three leader in the House, told the New York Post last week that impeachment of Biden was “on the table.” South Carolina GOP Rep. Nancy Mace, however, told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union” Sunday she did not want to see tit-for-tat impeachment proceedings after Trump was twice impeached. She said she was against the process being “weaponized.” She said it would have to be investigated if Biden had committed impeachable offenses.
There will be more pro-Trump Republicans in Washington after the elections. If a lot of Trump-endorsed candidates lose their races, there are questions over whether they will accept the results.
On another politically sensitive front, the Trump Organization’s criminal tax fraud and grandy larceny trial begins in Manhattan on Monday. The ex-President hasn’t been personally charged but the trial could impact his business empire and prompt fresh claims from him that he is being persecuted for political reasons that could inject yet another contentious element into election season. The New York Attorney General has filed a $250 million civil suit against Donald Trump and his family for allegedly running tax and insurance fraud to enrich themselves for years.
Democrats have made their own attempts to return Trump to the political spotlight. Some campaigns warn suburban voters that pro- Trump candidates are dangerous to democracy after President Joe Biden equated the followers of the alt-right group with the Ku Klux Klan.
Charges and prosecutions in the race for a second White House term: a challenge for the ex-President to defend himself against a criminal investigation
But raging inflation and spikes in gasoline prices appear to be a far more potent concern before voters head to the polls, which could spell bad news for the party in power in Washington.
The ex-President told supporters at a rally in Texas on Saturday regarding the possibility of a new White House bid, “I will probably have to do it again.”
Cheney told NBC that it may take multiple days, and that it will be done with rigor and seriousness.
This isn’t going to be his first debate against Joe Biden, and it’s not gonna be the food fight that happened. This is not a trivial set of issues.
But interview transcripts released by the committee also reveal gaps that could stymy federal investigators, witnesses with faltering memories and testimony about Trump’s tech-avoidance.
The former president wouldn’t like the idea of video testifying for long periods of time because it would be harder for him to control how his testimony was used.
It would be a difficult dilemma if there is evidence of a crime, whether the national interest was served in implementing the law to its full extent or whether the consequences of prosecuting a former commander in chief could tear the country apart.
A decision to charge an ex-president running for a non-consecutive second White House term would undoubtedly cause a firestorm. But sparing him from accountability if there’s evidence of a crime would send a damaging signal to future presidents with strongman instincts.
In a statement, Mr. Graham’s office said that he is partly shielded by the speech or debate clause and that he “may return” to the federal courts “if the district attorney tries to ask questions about his constitutionally protected activities.”
However, he added, those objections may have to be hashed out in open court — a risk for the senator, Mr. Cunningham said, “because it may disclose to public view both the topics the grand jury is exploring and his unwillingness to answer such questions.”
Legal experts think the case is a serious threat to Mr. Trump, because he was recorded trying to find more votes than needed to win the election.
In recent months, a number of high-profile allies of Mr. Trump have been waging battles in courtrooms around the nation, arguing that they should not have to participate. Their track record has been mixed so far.
A federal judge on Tuesday ordered Donald Trump adviser Kash Patel to testify before a grand jury investigating the handling of federal records at Mar-a-Lago, according to two people familiar with the investigation.
Judge Beryl Howell of the DC District Court has granted Patel immunity from prosecution on any information he provides to the investigation, the people said.
The decision by the court was sealed after the Justice Department subpoenaed the patient to testify. At that time, he declined to answer questions by asserting his Fifth Amendment protection from self-incrimination.
As CNN has previously reported, Patel is one of a handful of advisers around Trump after his presidency who could have legal risk related to the Mar-a-Lago situation, according to court records and sources, though it’s unclear if he is a target of the Justice Department probe.
During the time of the Trump administration, he was a national security and defense official, but he became one of the people that the president chose to interact with the National Archives and the Justice Department. He has claimed in conservative media interviews he personally witnessed Trump declassifying records before he left the presidency, and has argued Trump should be able to release classified information.
The Special Counsel for the FBI’s Search of Mar-a-Lago: a request for all the information from the panel’s investigation
A flurry of activity surrounding the FBI’s August search of Mar-a-Lago included the issuance of subpoenas to other witnesses, one source said.
Special counsel Jack Smith sent a letter to the select committee on December 5 requesting all of the information from the panel’s investigation, a source told CNN.
CNN has previously reported that Cassidy Hutchinson, a former Trump White House aide, told the select committee that she was contacted by someone attempting to influence her testimony.
The request for documents and communications pertaining to members of the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys and similar groups from September 1, 2020 to the present is broad. A panel’s document request goes by 19 different categories.
Trump’s lawyers had been dreading the prospect of a special counsel, concerned it could drag out the investigation they have fought continuously in court. And Trump himself has complained about the matter, likening the prospect to former special counsel Robert Mueller, who oversaw the Russia investigation.
A special counsel is a lawyer appointed to lead an independent investigation and, if necessary, to prosecute anyone suspected of crimes. The person has to come from outside the government. A special counsel is typically appointed when the usual investigative bodies under the Justice Department, such as the FBI, have a conflict of interest in carrying out a probe.
Garland said that it is in the public interest to appoint a special counsel because of recent developments, including the former president announcing he is a candidate in the next election and the sitting president expressing his intention to be a candidate.
Jack Smith, the former chief prosecutor for the special court in The Hague, where he investigated war crimes in Kosovo, will oversee the investigations.
The 11th Circuit Upheld the Rule of Law in the Special Counsel Investigation of Mar-a-Lago and the Exclusion of the Interior Department
The former president spoke at the America First Gala on Friday night and called the special counsel appointment a horrible abuse of power.
The former president on Friday indicated that he had believed federal investigations into him were slowing down or over until the announcement from Garland. He told the crowd at Mar-a-Lago that the investigations would not be a fair investigation, and he repeatedly called them political.
Judge Raymond Dearie was the special master in the Mar-a-Lago case until the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals halted his review of the seized documents.
The appeals court upheld the law. “We cannot write a rule that allows any subject of a search warrant to block government investigations after the execution of the warrant. Only former presidents can do so and we can’t make a rule about it.
The 11th Circuit said that either approach would be a “radical reordering of our caselaw limiting the federal courts’ involvement in criminal investigations” and that “both would violate bedrock separation-of-powers limitations.”
The Trump legal team said that the Justice Department needs to return any private documents seized during the search of Mar-a-Lago.
Prosecutors are examining whether there was obstruction of justice, criminal handling of government records and violations of the Espionage Act, which prohibits unauthorized storage of national defense information.
The House Select Committee on the January 6, 2021 Attack: Summary and Analysis of witness emails, texts and testimony from the committee and the DOJ
The report from the House select committee on the January 6, 2021, attack will be released on Wednesday and it will be the first time criminal investigators, politicians and members of the public have had a chance to read it.
The transcripts of witness interviews will be shared by the panel regarding the false slate of electors and the pressure campaign that was enacted by the former president to overturn the 2020 election results. DOJ has also received all of Meadows’ text messages from the committee.
The committee’s investigation has given a fuller and more nuanced picture of the interconnected plots that the DOJ has been investigating, including a scheme to put forward slates of illegitimate Trump electors from battleground states that Biden won to pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence and Congress to halt the certification of the results.
“Indeed, both the Department of Justice and the Fulton County District Attorney may now have access to witness testimony and records that have been unavailable to the Committee, including testimony from President Trump’s Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, and others who either asserted privileges or invoked their Fifth Amendment rights,” the summary said.
A panel said witnesses and lawyers were unnecessarily combative, answered hundreds of questions with variant of ” I do not recall”, appeared to testify from lawyer- written talking points rather than their own recollections, or otherwise resisted telling the truth.
The public can make its own assessment when it looks at the committee transcripts and the testimony of different witnesses, according to the summary.
The summary details that the panel was ultimately unable to get former White House deputy chief of staff Tony Ornato to corroborate a bombshell moment during the public hearings, in which Hutchinson recalled Ornato describing Trump’s altercation with the head of his security detail when he was told he would not be taken to the Capitol following his speech on the Ellipse.
The committee gathered evidence that shows that Trump raised about a quarter of a billion dollars after the election and through the January 6 rallies.
Witness emails, text messages and testimony from the House January 6 committee show Trump’s role in pushing alternate slates of electors, pressing battleground state officials to overturn the election results, attempting to replace the acting attorney general with someone who would embrace election fraud claims and laying the groundwork early on to call his followers to the Capitol.
According to Rep. Lofgren, the panel has evidence that members of the Trump family and inner circle were personally benefited from money raised as a result of the false election claims by the former president.
The committee felt the depositions were their property, even though DOJ had initially asked them for all of the transcripts.
A source close to the legal team of the former president told CNN that they would be interested in the committee transcripts to see whether they were omitted from telling the true story because they deviated from the truth.
Aides and advisers to the former president are also hoping the release of the panel’s transcripts will provide new information about the DOJ criminal investigation into January 6.
Various Republican lawmakers have sought to discredit the select committee’s work since its inception and have argued that the panel has not addressed the security failures that led to the US Capitol breach. Five House Republicans were subpoenaed by the committee, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, and did not cooperate with the investigation. The panel took the unprecedented step of referring the four returning members of Congress to the House Ethics Committee.
McCarthy wants the select committee to save all its records and transcripts in order to investigate the security failures that led to the Capitol breach.
Investigation of the investigation of Donald Trump and the DOJ into January 6 and January 2022: A Trump lawyer and a new DOJ prosecutor in Mar-a-Lago
“The referral itself is pretty much worthless,” Trump lawyer Tim Parlatore said on “CNN Newsroom.” The Department of Justice does not have to follow it. For a long time, we have been dealing with an investigation. Really what this does, If anything, it just politicizes the process.”
The criminal referrals sent to the Justice Department this week were unprecedented, according to Parlatore. Committee members said they believed Trump was guilty of at least four federal crimes.
“It’s political noise, but it doesn’t have any effect, as of right now, on our defense,” said Parlatore, who represents Trump in the Justice Department probes into January 6 and the potential mishandling of government documents at Mar-a-Lago.
Parlatore told CNN on Saturday that he was sure there weren’t any more records with classification markings still at Mar-a-Lago, saying, “Everything that was found has been turned over.”
A federal judge has asked former President Donald Trump’s attorneys to turn over the names of the individuals hired to search four properties for documents late last year, a source familiar with the order told CNN.
Two people who found two classified documents in a Florida storage facility for Donald Trump have testified before a federal grand jury in Washington that’s looking at the former president’s handling of national security records at his Mar-a-Lago residence, according to sources familiar with the investigation.
The DOJ tried to hold Trump and his office in contempt for not complying with a subpoena after the search of his Mar-a-Lago resort.
Also on Thursday, the Justice Department argued for continued secrecy around any grand jury proceedings following the May 2022 subpoena and August search, after media organizations sought access to more of what is happening in court behind closed doors.
According to a person familiar with the matter, he will be getting two associates who specialize in public corruption cases, as well as the former chief of the DOJ’s public integrity section.
Smith and his new team have inherited the January 6 probe at a crucial juncture, as the public has a better understanding of the lengths the former president and his allies went to try to keep Trump in the Oval Office but also as congressional investigators hit the limits of their powers.
It takes a while for Smith to be set up, despite Attorney General Garland assurances that he won’t slow down the probes. Smith’s team is still trying to find a permanent physical office location but has begun changing email addresses for staffers who used their usual Justice Department accounts.
Harbach sat in on an ongoing Oath Keepers seditious conspiracy trial as he was speaking to another special counsel prosecutor about extremist group cases.
The DOJ Investigation of the January 6 Marching riot: Investigating Donald Trump’s campaign against a candidate claiming to be a lawyer
Over 1,250 defendants were taken into custody for their alleged participation in the January 6 riot, with over 500 of them being found guilty. The rioter who died of an overdose was one of four people who died in the attack. The DOJ says five police officers died after the riot because of their injuries, one by stroke and four by suicide.
And where the House select committee hit brick walls in its probe – including with recalcitrant witnesses who claimed privileges, or, like Mark Meadows, bailed on cooperating with congressional investigators midway through – DOJ prosecutors now working under Smith will have certain tools to dismantle those barriers. They are looking at legal proceedings about piercing the shield of confidentially that surrounds a president.
Smith got a lot of material, including subpoenas to election officials in seven battleground states. In December of 2020, a county official in Michigan received two voicemails from people asking if they could vote, and included an email from the secretary of state. One call came from someone claiming to work for Trump’s post-election legal team, the clerk wrote.
“POTUS expectations are to have something intimate at the ellipse, and call on everyone to march to the capitol,” rally organizer Katrina Pierson wrote in an email days before the Capitol attack.
Donald Trump Jr. told investigators that his father doesn’t use texting or email. I think he would not know what messaging apps were, said Trump Jr.
Trump’s style of making ambiguous asks rather than direct demands was also on display as he pressed state officials to upend the election results. Mike Shirkey, the former Senate Majority Leader from Michigan, said he does remember that he never made a specific ask. It was all about general topics.
Campaign staff testified that Trump was behind the drive to carry out the maneuver, and the panel collected other evidence that Trump was in the loop about its operation – including with a phone call to RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel.
The evidence collected by the committee shows that many of the state operatives and fraudulent electors were not sure what was going to happen. Several of them testified that they were under the impression alternate electors were being assembled as a contingency plan in case Trump prevailed in a legal challenge that changed the result in their state.
The last major election challenge ended on December 11, 2020, so top Trump campaign officials distanced themselves from the effort.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/06/politics/january-6-justice-department-jack-smith-trump-investigation/index.html
The House Select Committee’s January 6 Investigation of the Jack-Smith-Trump Scheme: Correlating Campaigning with Congress and Identifying Trump Co-conspirators
For those who continued working on the scheme with Congress’ certification in mind, “DOJ would have a much easier case to prove,” said Ryan Goodman, a New York University School of Law professor and former Department of Defense general counsel.
A memo outlining the plan on December 9 states advisers saw the alternate electors as crucial in the event of a court ruling that reversed Trump’s electoral loss.
While the committee made the historic move of referring Trump to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution, it also named several Trump allies as potential co-conspirators in its final report. One of them was former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.
Meadows repeatedly comes up in the committee’s investigation, with evidence showing his involvement on some level in every gambit to overturn the election. In the thousands of text messages that he turned over to the committee, Meadows showed us some of the most fascinating evidence to have come from him.
The texts show that, on Election Day, she was connecting activists pushing conspiracy theories with GOP lawmakers and rally organizers. After the election, Trump Jr. was texting Meadows with ideas for keeping his father in power that were plausible and sophisticated.
According to testimony that Cassidy Hutchinson gave to the committee, there were discussions about putting forward fake slates of electors and that it was at least partly done by Donald Trump and his former attorney, Giuliani.
Transcripts released by the committee also reveal that Hutchinson testified before the committee how Meadows regularly burned documents in his fireplace around a dozen times – about once or twice a week – between December 2020 and mid-January 2021.
After producing the texts to congressional investigators, Meadows changed gears and did not show up for subpoenaed testimony before the House. The lawsuit he brought was unsuccessful, but the Justice Department wouldn’t bring criminal charges for his lack of cooperation.
The committee noted in their report that criminal prosecutors had access to materials that weren’t in the lawmakers’ possession.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/06/politics/january-6-justice-department-jack-smith-trump-investigation/index.html
Investigating the Mar-a-Lago hush-money probe of the former US Sen. Marco Rubio, J.P.C. Murdoch, and an indictment
Parlatore insisted Trump and his team “were not looking to overturn the will of the people, only to ensure that the will of the people was accurately counted,” adding that Trump was “absolutely opposed” to the violence that took place at the US Capitol.
The two individuals who were hired to search four of Trump’s properties last fall were each interviewed for about three hours in separate appearances last week.
They were hired to look for evidence after the FBI executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago. The extent of information they offered the grand jury remains unclear, though they didn’t decline to answer any questions, one of the sources said.
By pushing for access to computers, investigators are trying to determine if there is an electronic paper trail regarding the classified documents, another source said.
From the outside, it appears as if Biden and Pence were far more cooperative with the DOJ and the FBI after some classified documents were found at their properties than Trump has been. The ex-president claimed that the federal government documents that were taken into custody by the FBI were owned by him. The legal differences between the two cases may be hard for voters to understand, as a result the House Republican counter-attack was more likely.
Special counsel Jack Smith and prosecutors who now work for him have used the federal grand jury nearly weekly to question witnesses in the Mar-a-Lago investigation.
Trump – who has denied having an affair with Daniels and says the probe by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, is politically motivated – has been agitating for his team to get his base riled up and believes that an indictment would help him politically, multiple people briefed on the matter told CNN, though in private, he has called the looming development “unfair.”
Now the Manhattan DA’s Office has summoned witnesses to testify about the hush-money payments before a newly empaneled grand jury, according to the source.
The Mueller investigation of a two-state campaign swing against the Kremlin-Ampanis candidate, Avatar Muhammad Ali, and the Defense attorney Evan Corcoran
For his part, the former president said in a social media post that this is “a continuation of the greatest witch hunt of all time” and added, “NEVER HAD AN AFFAIR.”
The twice-impeached former president, who tried to steal an election and is accused of fomenting an insurrection, launched his first two-state campaign swing on Saturday as he seeks a stunning political comeback.
“We’re going to stop the appalling weaponization of our justice system. There hasn’t been a justice system like this before. The ex president said on the trail that it was all investigation.
This message may appeal to Trump’s base voters, who have already bought into his claims of a “deep state” conspiracy against him. It’s also a technique, in which a strongman leader argues that he is taking the heat so his followers don’t have to, that is a familiar page in the authority playbooks of demagogues throughout history.
On Monday, a former special counsel at the Department of Defense said that Smith was likely to be indicted, as the latest development is a sign of an advanced special counsel investigation.
It sounds like he’s trying to lock in their testimony at trial, whether it’s incriminating proof against Trump or exonerating evidence that the prosecutors will have, to make sure they can present it in court.
A key sealed case revealed Wednesday is an attempt to force more answers about direct conversations between Trump and his defense attorney Evan Corcoran, where the Justice Department is arguing the investigation found evidence the conversations may be part of furthering or covering up a crime related to the Mar-a-Lago document boxes.
House Republicans are giving Trump a free pass over the classified material in the Trump documents probe, and there are fresh indications that the probe is taking off.
House Oversight Chairman James Comer was, for example, asked by CNN’s Pamela Brown this weekend why he had no interest in the more than 325 documents found at Trump’s home but was fixated upon the approximately 20 classified documents uncovered in Biden’s premises by lawyers and an unknown number also found during an FBI search of the president’s home this month.
The two special counsel investigations probing Trump and Biden’s retention of secret documents are unfolding independently. There isn’t an overlap between them in a legal sense. But they will both be subject to the same political inferno if findings are made public.
The Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney’s Order on the Sensitivity of the Special Grand Jury to a Motion to Overturn Georgia’s 2020 Presidential Election
As the political fallout from the classified documents furor deepened on Monday, the country got a reminder of the treatment that can await lower-ranking members of the federal workforce when secret material is taken home.
The court documents show that the retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, who resided in Florida, will plead guilty in February to one count of unlawful retention of national defense information.
The final recommendations of a special grand jury investigating attempts to overturn Georgia’s 2020 presidential election will largely be kept under wraps, a judge has ruled.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney wrote in an eight-page order released Monday that there are due process concerns for people that the report names as likely violators of state laws, but he found that three sections that do not mention specifics can be released later this week, on Thursday.
The report will be made public on Thursday, along with concerns the panel had about witnesses lying under oath. McBurney mentioned that some information might be nixed.
The decision Monday comes after a Jan. 24 hearing where District Attorney Fani Willis’ office argued against publishing the report and a consortium of media outlets said it should be published with no redactions.
McBurney’s order is a slight compromise, writing that certain parts of the report should be shared with the public while others merit secrecy until further action by prosecutors.
Unlike regular grand juries, which meet for a much more limited time and consider multiple cases, this rarely used body spent roughly eight months interviewing more than 70 witnesses and gathering evidence, though it did not have the power to issue indictments.
The jury decided to have the report made public, but the judge had questions about the applicability of prior precedents that had generally barred such reports from outlining alleged crimes without an indictment.
McBurney also pointed out that what the special grand jury saw was not a trial where a defendant presents his or her side of a case, but was instead “largely controlled by the District Attorney.”
“We have to be mindful of protecting future defendants’ rights,” Willis said. We don’t think it’s appropriate to have this report released at this time because we want to make sure everyone is treated fairly.
There are questions as to how transparent the courts will be regarding these cases, and how quickly documents could be filed in court.
She made false statements to government bodies, made threats related to election administration, and solicited election fraud in document preservation requests she made to Georgia officials.
When Corcoran first testified to the grand jury in January, he was asked about what happened in the lead up to the August search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence. The prosecutors went to court to force him to respond after he declined to do so.
To overcome the shield of attorney-client privilege, prosecutors alleged in writing to the judge that the former president used his attorney in furtherance of a crime or fraud, according to one source.
Corcoran recently appeared before the grand jury for roughly four hours and is the third attorney to testify before the grand jury. He has not yet appeared a second time, and it remains to be seen if he ultimately does.
Regardless of whether the Justice Department has new evidence to prove that there was criminal planning or not, prosecutors are expected to argue that Mar-a-Lago was searched due to criminal planning. They suspected that federal records were concealed within the beach club, and they have been investigating both misplacements of national security records.
The move was a political witch hunt against President Donald Trump to stop the American people from returning him to the White House, said a Trump spokesman.
The Mueller and Starr Investigations in the Trump era Revisited: Multiple Sessions During the January 6 Appointment Controversy
The result of the disputes could have far-reaching implications, like the separation of powers and attorney-client confidentiality that they have never done before.
The special counsel has a massive amount of evidence already in-hand that it now needs to comb through, including evidence recently turned over by the House January 6 committee, subpoena documents provided by local officials in key states and discovery collected from lawyers for Trump allies late last year in a flurry of activity, at least some of which had not been reviewed as of early January, sources familiar with the investigation told CNN at the time.
By comparison, Robert Mueller’s grand jury investigation into Trump had a smattering of sealed proceedings where investigators used the court to pry for more answers, and independent counsel Kenneth Starr’s Whitewater investigation ultimately totaled seven similar sealed cases.
There are at least half a dozen cases that are still unresolved in court, either before the Chief Judge of the DC Circuit or in the appeals court above her. Most appear to follow the typical arc of miscellaneous cases that arise during grand jury investigations, where prosecutors sometimes use the court to enforce their subpoenas.
In Whitewater, after the court in DC ruled that privilege claims wouldn’t hold up when a federal grand jury needed information, other witnesses shied away from trying to refuse to testify, Eggleston recalled. But in the Trump investigations, witnesses aligned continue to test whether he still may have special confidentiality protections.
Pat Cipollone, former Trump White House counsel, and deputy White House counsel Patrick Philbin were the subject of an appeal over whether they could decline to answer questions regarding their dealings with Trump during his presidency. Both men cited various privileges when they testified to the grand jury in September, but were forced to appear a second time and give more answers after court rulings in November and December, CNN previously confirmed. Though they have already testified twice, Trump’s team filed an appeal.
The congressman had a cell phone that the Justice Department seized during the January 6 investigation and his lawyers challenged the ability to access the data on it under the speech or debate clause. The DOJ has not been able to view the records yet because an appeals court panel has refused to allow them, according to court records. The case is set for oral arguments on February 23 at the appeals court in Washington. The circuit court had a request from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
Howell has released redacted versions of two attorney confidentiality decisions she made last year giving prosecutors access to emails between Perry and three lawyers – John Eastman, Jeffrey Clark and Ken Klukowski – before January 6, 2021.
Clark wanted to keep investigators from learning of his efforts at the Justice Department for Trump before January 6. Clark tried to show the outline about his life as an attorney.
On Monday, they argued to Howell that with the intense public interest around the cases, there should be even more secrecy than when the court releases other records.
The big question is whether the portions will include new information about what Trump did in the past or whether the special grand jury concluded that the former president committed crimes.
CNN Investigating the 2020 Midterm Election: Donald Trump, the FBI, and the General Relativity of the Associated Investigative Panel
In the year 2020, Trump lost to Joe Biden in Georgia by over 12,000 votes. There was no problem with the activities that the former president undertook during the election.
Cunningham added to CNN that “there is no doubt that whatever (the report is) referring to is either conduct that was done directly by Donald Trump or done on his behalf.”
“That would tell us that this cross section of citizens, having spent nine months working hard at this, has concluded that at least some of what was done on behalf of the former president to overturn the election results was a crime,” he said. “I think that’s terrifically significant.”
The special grand jury, barred from issuing indictments, penned their final report as a culmination of its seven months of work, which included interviewing 75 witnesses, from Giuliani to Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and South Carolina GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham.
The final report will likely include some information about the work of the panel, as well as any recommendations for indictments and the conduct the panel believed led it to its conclusions.
A grand jury in Fulton County would decide on charges, even though no one is currently charged in the case.
According to CNN, the grand jury that investigated the attempted overturn of the 2020 election is planning on indicting multiple individuals and that a big name may have been involved.
Emily says that it would be hard for her to do it for eight months and not have a complete list of recommended indictments. It isn’t a short list. It is not.
She continued, “There may be some names on that list that you wouldn’t expect. But the big name that everyone keeps asking me about – I don’t think you will be shocked.”
Erin Burnett Out Front: How many people are there? A telephone interview with Kerry Kohrs in the Grand Jury for the Foreperson of the Georgia State Assembly
The 24 jurors that were present for the grand jury never heard witness testimony together. So far, no one else has spoken publicly.
Asked by CNN’s Kate Bolduan on “Erin Burnett OutFront” whether the number of people was “more than a dozen,” Kohrs replied: “I believe so. That’s probably a good assumption.”
The president denies any wrongdoing as he begins his campaign for the White House. He’s always made aFalse claim that he won the election in Georgia, despite his claims that he is politically biased.
She said that she has heard the president on the phone more than once. CNN has reported that at least one more call by Trump to the Georgia state official was part of the investigation.
The prosecutors did not act in a partisan way and tried to keep the proceedings fair despite Trump’s claims that they were liberal zealots.
“I don’t believe there was bias on the part of the DA’s team,” she told CNN in the phone interview. “I know for a fact that they were always very worried about accidentally coloring our opinions one way or the other … They told us that they don’t want anyone else’s opinions or knowledge to affect us.
“Personally, I hope to see her take almost any kind of decisive action, to actually do something,” Kohrs said. “There are too many times in recent history that seem to me like someone has gotten called out for something that people had a problem with, and nothing ever happens.”
“How often does something actually happen? I would really like to see it happen. Don’t make me take back my faith in the system,” Kohrs said. If this whole thing disappears, I’m not going to be happy. That’s the only thing that would make me sad.”
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/21/politics/fulton-county-trump-grand-jury-foreperson-ebof/index.html
The Media Tour of the Racist D.A.’s Special Grand Jury: Celebrating Trump’s 2020 Presidential Campaign with a Media Tour for Investigating the Willis Indictment
The foreperson also told CNN that she was “pleasantly surprised” by the friendliness of some witnesses, including key Trump insiders like former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn, even though he invoked privilege and declined to answer some questions.
The people who didn’t want to be there were willing to have a conversation, and I respect that. “Flynn was honestly very nice in person. He was a nice person. He was intriguing. But I don’t recall him saying anything earth-shattering.”
It’s a marvel of the American judicial system that Emily Kohrs, a 30-year-old woman who has described herself as between customer service jobs and who said she didn’t vote in the 2020 presidential election, could play a pivotal role in the potential indictment of a former US president.
Trump dismissed Kohrs and the Willis investigation in a post on his social media network. Now you have a great young woman who is very energetic. He wrote that he was afore person of the Racist D.A.’s Special Grand Jury and that he was doing a Media Tour revealing their inner workings and thoughts.
Kohrs is cagily answering questions, teasing that the special grand jury may have recommended charges for Trump and saying she hopes something comes of it all.
An interview with Georgia Grand Jury Emirily Kohrs: What Matters about a First Attorney’s Special Representative in the United States
She was the foreperson and she has done interviews with The Associated Press, NBC News, The New York Times, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and CNN.
The former US Attorney said on CNN that prosecutors needed to be aware of the risk that a potential jury pool could be contaminated by a 15-minute PR tour.
In terms of magnitude, I’m straining for the right words but it would be the biggest thing to happen in the criminal law in American history. This has never happened to a former president,” Litman said.
Anthony Michael Kreis, an assistant professor of law at Georgia State University, told Murray that while Kohrs’ media tour was unusual – particularly in a case where no one has yet faced charges – Kohrs was within her rights to discuss the case as long as she didn’t delve into grand jury deliberations.
“She didn’t do anything violative of her obligations,” Kreis said. “I don’t think she did anything that jeopardized Fani Willis’ strategy or her ability to bring her case.”
McBurney gave the jury instructions, but she seemed to think of how far she could go before she answered reporters’ individual questions.
The US justice system depends on everyday people, and in that sense, the simple act of publicly embracing the role is a fascinating example.
Here are parts of the fascinating interview with CNN. I wrote down the questions and responses and have pasted them into italics.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/22/politics/georgia-grand-jury-emily-kohrs-what-matters/index.html
On the Report of the Grand Jury Trial of Andrews, Michael Kohrs, Attorney General, Jeremiah Wong, Tomaszewski, November 21, 2016
The report has about six pages in the middle that were cut out. Allow for spacing, it’s not a short list.
It was a process where we heard his name a lot. We definitely heard a lot about former President Trump, and we definitely discussed him a lot in the room. And I will say that when this list comes out, you wouldn’t – there are no major plot twists waiting for you.
I do not want to speak out on something that the judge did not choose to release at this point. I am not certain if I would interfere with the investigations. I don’t know if I would interfere with procedures in some way. I do not want to cross that line.
I would not say that. I would say that it was included because it was less pointed of a suggestion than some of the other things we might have written in the report the judge chose to keep confidential.
I will say that I thought it was important to keep it separate as well, at least in my opinion, not anybody else’s but mine. There is a difference between crimes committed in the room and the crimes we were called to investigate.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/22/politics/georgia-grand-jury-emily-kohrs-what-matters/index.html
“What Is The Right Choice” of Grand Jury Members and What It Tells About Me, the Attorney General, and the House of Representatives
I have enjoyed being a part of this process. I think it’s amazing to actually be able to be a part of this process for once. I think it’s a privilege to be able to actually be a part of the system for once and making it work.
This has been great to see how the world of politics, government, and different things is portrayed through the eyes of regular people. And I’m so glad that I did it.
I think it’s the opposite. I think that by choosing to have a grand jury, by choosing to impanel regular people, they very specifically chose to avoid politics, to take bias out of the question. They decided to get 16 random people, because they chose to.
I’m not. I am careful about my safety. I am aware of my safety, but not worried. I don’t think I should either, I don’t think the jury members did anything that supports one way or the other about politics or these sorts of issues.
I think we did our best to find the facts and share them with the district attorney and her office.
According to Timothy, unless there is an unreliable source of information, I think there will be indictments in Georgia and at the federal level.
They were there for important events. The special counsel will want to hear from the president about his feelings regarding the election results on January 6. He said they communicated with him about the events preceding the Capitol riot.
Inside the Trump Investigations: CNN Primetime on the Report of Ivanka Trump’s ‘Porn Star’ Stormy Daniels
“He will not stop because of a family relationship, because of purported executive privilege,” Heaphy said of Smith. He wants all of the information, because he believes that the law entitles him to it.
Ivanka Trump and Kushner previously testified to the House select committee, which expired in January after Republicans took control of the House. In December, the former president had four criminal charges referred to the Justice Department by the panel, but members of the committee insisted the referrals were a way to document their views, since Congress couldn’t bring charges.
CNN does a better job of examining the legal drama surrounding Donald Trump. Watch “CNN Primetime: Inside the Trump Investigations” Tuesday, March 21 at 9 p.m. ET.
The grand jury empaneled to look into Donald Trump’s alleged role in a scheme to pay porn star Stormy Daniels was preparing to vote on possible charges.
In New York City – where the grand jury has been meeting – all NYPD officers are expected to be in uniform and ready for deployment Tuesday, according to an internal memo that a source shared with CNN. Law enforcement officials told CNN that although Tuesday is a “high alert day,” there is currently no credible threat.
The memo came in response to Trump’s social media posts over the weekend that called on his supporters to protest in response to a potential arrest, echoing the calls he made for protests in Washington, DC, in response to his 2020 election loss – protests that later turned violent when scores of his supporters stormed the Capitol. The intelligence assessment obtained by CNN states that the US Capitol Police force does not currently have any credible threats to the US Capitol.
A source close to the Trump legal team told CNN that should Trump be indicted, they do not expect any arrest or initial appearance to happen before next week. They didn’t have any idea when a potential indictment would happen, as of Monday night, after they were told that nothing was going to happen Tuesday.
Cohen made himself available to the DA’s office as a rebuttal witness Monday but was “not needed,” according to a statement provided to CNN by his lawyer.
The DC Circuit Circuit Judges Revised the Communication between Evan Corcoran and Timosi Tacopina of the Pseudosen Investigated During the 2016 Indictment Investigation
On Capitol Hill, the House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, the House Oversight Chairman James Comer and the House Administration Chairman Bryan Steil said they will look into the use of federal public safety funds as part of the grand jury probe.
A spokesperson for Bragg responded by saying that the district attorney’s team “will not be intimidated by attempts to undermine the justice process, nor will we let baseless accusations deter us from fairly applying the law.”
We follow the law without fear or favor to expose the truth in every prosecution. Our skilled, honest and dedicated lawyers remain hard at work,” the spokesperson continued.
According to CNN, sources said that the sealed ruling stated that Evan Corcoran had his legal services used in furtherance of a crime so attorney-client privilege didn’t apply.
In order to get more information and arguments by wednesday morning the judges of the DC Circuit set a deadline for Trump and his attorneys to respond by midnight.
Two advisers said that the former president seems to have resigned himself to the idea of an indictment and that one close adviser calls him a paranoid person.
According to CNN, the communications between Daniels and Trump have been turned over to the Manhattan district attorney’s office. The possibility that the Trump attorney could be out of defense has been raised by the exchanges dating back to when Daniels was seeking representation.
CNN has not seen the records in question, and Tacopina denies that there is a conflict or that confidential information was shared with his office. He says he neither met nor spoke to Daniels. The impact of the disclosure on the case will depend on the circumstances, according to ethics experts.
What is the worst legal peril of Donald Trump, as a candidate for the presidency, and why is it an ill-odd thing to do?
An adviser to Trump questioned if an indictment from the New York grand jury could derail plans for the presidential candidate to go to Texas on Saturday.
We are in new territory. We do not know what this does politically. A source in Trump’s campaign said that they would rather he not be indicted than get a boost.
Trump called for protests on his social media page, saying he was about to be arrested. He has moved away from that language in the past few days, after being told by his advisers and allies to tone it down.
Still, federal officials, including those at the FBI and Department of Homeland Security, are monitoring what they say has been an uptick in violent rhetoric online, including calls for “civil war,” since Trump made those calls. But so far, it’s been limited to chatter and has lacked the actionable information, coordination and volume that preceded the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, US officials and security experts told CNN.
An increasingly circus-like atmosphere in Washington, New York and Florida, where Trump now lives, is making the drama around the various cases even more tense and confusing – and, to some extent, taking the focus away from what may be a moment of dubious history. And a mounting partisan uproar led by House Republicans, meanwhile, appears designed to blur the facts, distract from the evidence and fuel Trump’s claim he’s the victim of an endless political vendetta.
Norm Eisen, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and CNN legal analyst, said the piercing of this bedrock legal protection was highly unusual and an ill omen for Trump, since Corcoran’s testimony could be used to suggest he committed a crime. This could involve obstruction of justice due to the handling of classified documents. “It considerably worsens what was probably Trump’s most federal legal peril,” Eisen told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on “The Situation Room” on Wednesday.
Cohen’s conviction for lying to Congress may make him a weak link in any trial, since his credibility may be in tatters. Bragg will have to determine if Cohen is trustworthy now before a grand jury or trial. He said it was in their interests to take a beat and decide. “This kind of thing happens all the time, as prosecutors decide whether and how to bring cases.”
One thread of the political drama that could occur is that a potential GOP White House contender may try to get rid of Trump in the Republican primary in four years. Ron DeSantis told a crowd on Monday that he isn’t sure what goes into paying for a porn star’s silence because he doesn’t know what the real deal is and later said in an interview that he would be far more disciplined than Donald Trump was in his four years as As Americans were reminded of the daily drama Trump was guilty of for four years, DeSantis told Piers Morgan to focus on the big picture and put points on the board.
“The governor can’t afford to be marginalized from the get go,” one DeSantis adviser told CNN’s Steve Contorno amid Trump’s attacks on the governor. It was time to push back, he clearly made the decision.
There are other Republicans who are also seeking a political opening. Trump’s allies in the House have been demonstrating his enduring strength with the grassroots voters who sent them to Washington by attacking the Manhattan district attorney. They are using government power to try to keep Trump from being held to account and to deflate his legal threats, like they did with Trump before. GOP House committee chairs have, for instance, demanded Bragg’s testimony and have pledged to find out whether his probe used any federal funds.
It is possible the attorney’s appearance before the grand jury will break the investigation of the Mar-a-Lago handling of classified documents and the possibility of obstruction of justice when federal officials tried to get the documents back.
