What do you think about the report on the presidential election in 2020 by a grand jury in Georgia?
Jack Smith, Mark Meadows, and the Associated Press: Secret Court Battles for Donald Trump and Other White House Officials in the 2020 Election
According to sources and court records, special counsel Jack Smith has at least eight secret court battles he is locked in trying to get some of the more important details about Donald Trump’s actions after the 2020 election.
The result of the disputes could have far-reaching ramifications, as they deal with a presidential candidate in just a few years and could lead courts to change the law around the presidency in ways they haven’t done before.
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.
Criminal lawyers say that grand jury investigations that involve government officials often are sealed due to the testimony of grand jury witnesses who have access to confidential information.
About half a dozen cases are still ongoing in court, either before Chief Judge Beryl Howell or in the appeals court above her, the DC Circuit. 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.
More challenges from subpoenaed witnesses – including former Vice President Mike Pence – are expected to be filed in the coming days, likely under seal as well. The protections around the vice president may be raised by Pence.
“I think we are in extraordinary times. Part of it is I think President Trump continues to assert these theories long after they’ve been batted away by the court,” Neil Eggleston, a former White House counsel who argued for executive privilege during the Clinton administration and the Whitewater investigation.
In Whitewater, witnesses tried to refuse to testify when a federal grand jury needed information because the court in DC ruled the privilege claims wouldn’t hold up. But in the Trump investigations, witnesses aligned continue to test whether he still may have special confidentiality protections.
The source said that Short appeared before the special grand jury under a subpoena. His appearance was previously reported by The Associated Press.
The congressman’s lawyers objected to the government’s ability to access data from his phone, saying it was protected by Congress under the Speech or Debate Clause. According to the court records, an appeals court panel blocked the DOJ from viewing the records so far, even though Howell refused to keep them from investigators. The case is set for oral arguments on February 23 at the appeals court in Washington. The circuit court also has a request from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press to unseal documents in the case.
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 tried to keep investigators from seeing a draft of his autobiography, which discussed his efforts at the Justice Department on behalf of Trump. Clark had tried to mark the draft outline about his life as an attorney work product.
The Justice Department secured a court order for Trump adviser Kash Patel to answer questions under oath in the Mar-a-Lago investigation. In October, while the grand jury was interviewing him, he refused to answer questions because of his Fifth Amendment protection. Prosecutors fought for more answers by immunizing his testimony, CNN previously reported.
Recommendations from the grand jury report about possible charges will not be made public. That’s because some of the people named in those recommendations may not have appeared in grand jury proceedings so far.
The Justice Department is not interested in talking about the grand jury investigations and will not admit they are happening.
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.
“To advance the policy goals underlying grand jury secrecy, it may well be necessary for a court to more frequently decline to release judicial opinions ancillary to grand jury investigations that are the subject of intense press attention as opposed to matters that have attracted little public attention,” lawyers from the DOJ’s civil division wrote.
Portions of a highly anticipated report by the Atlanta-area special grand jury that investigated Donald Trump’s actions in Georgia after the 2020 election will be released Thursday, giving the public its clearest look yet into the two-year probe into Trump and his associates’ efforts to reverse his election defeat.
On Thursday, the report’s introduction and conclusion, as well as concerns the panel had about witnesses lying under oath, will be made public. McBurney noted that some information in those sections might be redacted.
The big question is whether the portions will include any bits of information that shed new light on what Trump himself did two years ago and whether the special grand jury concluded that the former president committed any crimes.
The investigation conducted by the Fulton County District Attorney seeks to determine whether Trump committed crimes or if a conspiracy was involved in the campaign to overturn the Georgia election results.
Trump lost to Joe Biden in Georgia by nearly 12,000 votes in 2020. The former president denied there was any problem with his activities following the election.
The Fulton County grand jury is considering recommendations for indictments in the investigation of former President Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 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. That is terrifically significant.
Kohrs said that as part of the probe, she heard Trump on calls separate from the infamous post-election one he made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, asking him to “find” the votes necessary to win Georgia.
Portions of the grand jury’s final report, released last week, made it clear that the grand jury believed perjury charges were warranted for some witnesses. Kohrs earlier on Tuesday also told The New York Times that the grand jury recommended multiple indictments, though she didn’t provide names.
Its final report is likely to include some summary of the panel’s investigative work, as well as any recommendations for indictments and the alleged conduct that led the panel to its conclusions.
The Fulton County grand jury will make the decisions about whether or not to prosecute after the special grand jury has finished its work.
According to a Democrat in the hearing on the report last month, the special grand jury may have recommended multiple indictments and that her decision to bring charges is imminent.
The foreperson of the Atlanta-based grand jury that investigated former President Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election told CNN on Tuesday that the panel is recommending multiple indictments and suggested “the big name” may be on the list.
Emily said it would be impossible to do this in eight months and not have a whole list of recommended indictments. “It’s not 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.”
The CNN Insider Spotlight on the Special Grand Jury Foreperson ebof investigation of the 2016 Georgian Presidential Referendum
She said it was more than 12 that the special grand jury recommended be brought as part of the investigation.
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 is probably a good supposition.
“Yes, I am positive I have heard the president on the phone more than once,” she said. CNN previously reported that at least one additional call by Trump to a Georgia state official was part of the investigation.
Despite Trump’s claims that the prosecutors are liberal zealots on a “witch hunt,” Kohrs said she believed Willis and her team acted in a non-partisan fashion and tried to keep the proceedings fair.
She told CNN that she didn’t believe there was any bias on the part of the team. “I know for a fact that they were always very worried about accidentally coloring our opinions one way or the other … They told us they did not want their opinions to affect ours or our knowledge.
I hope to see her take a lot of decisive actions, to actually make a difference. “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 many times do we see something happen? I would love to see something happen. Don’t make me take back my faith in the system,” Kohrs said. “The only thing I would be disappointed in, at this point, is if this whole thing just disappears. 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
Michael Flynn, the probe of the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack, and the 2020 riots investigation, a parliamentary source close to Kohrs
The foreperson said she was surprised by the friendly demeanor of some witnesses, such as Michael Flynn, who invoked privilege and refused to answer some questions.
“Some of those people fought not to be there, but once they were there, they were willing to have a conversation, and I respect the hell out of that,” Kohrs said. “Flynn was honestly very nice in person. He was very nice. He was definitely interesting. I do not remember him saying anything jaw-dropping.
The top investigator on the House committee that probed the January 6, 2021, US Capitol attack said Wednesday it is “likely” that the Georgia and federal investigations into efforts to subvert the 2020 presidential election will produce indictments.
For major events, they were present. The special counsel will want to hear about the president’s understanding of the election results and also what happened on January 6. He said the two had direct communication with him about the riots at the Capitol.
How does the grand jury work? A phone conversation with Ivanka Trump and D.C. Kushner during a special grand jury in New York
Smith won’t stop because of the family relationship, according to Heaphy. “He believes that the law entitles him to all of that information, and he’s determined to get it.”
Ivanka Trump and Kushner previously testified to the House select committee, which expired in January after Republicans took control of the House. The panel referred the former president to the Justice Department on four charges in December but members of the committee stressed that the referrals were used as a way to document their views since Congress cannot bring charges.
If the Manhattan District Attorney charges Donald Trump, it will be the first-ever indictment of a former president in the US. It is worth taking a closer look at how the legal system works and how it applies to Trump.
You’ll recall the foreperson for the special grand jury in Georgia spoke to CNN and other news outlets last month. She drew some criticism from legal watchers that she publicly discussed the broad outlines of evidence – but also made clear that it is a grand jury of regular people who must agree with prosecutors that there is enough evidence to bring a case.
The turn of phrase has been attributed to a former judge of the New York Court of Appeals, Sol Wachtler. Someone will repeat the phrase if they are watching the coverage of a possible Trump indictment.
I contacted the author of the new book, “Untouchable: How Powerful People Get Away with It”, to get a primer on how grand juries and indictments work. Our conversation, conducted by phone, is below.
A trial jury has to be unanimous and the prosecutor only needs the votes of a majority of the jury in a grand jury.
In some instances, including New York, there’s a limited right of a potential defendant to present some evidence, but no defense lawyers are allowed in the room.
How fast can you go? An example of minor variations in grand juries in New York, but not in the federal system: The case of Fulton County
WOLF: We have grand juries for election interference in Georgia, federal declassified documents and the Manhattan District Attorney’s office. How much variation is there in grand juries between city, county and federal?
Here’s an example of one of the minor variations in New York State, but not in the federal system, meaning for DOJ. There is a limited right to be given notifications, and the chance to testify or present evidence, which we have seen play out over the last week with Trump asking Robert Costello to testify.
WOLF: All of these cases have been going on, at some level, literally for years. They’re both potentially coming to a head at the same time. That is going to feed the “witch hunt” narrative that Trump pushes.
HONIG: Especially given that all three investigations have been pending for years. January 6 was pending for two-and- change years. Mar-a-Lago is going on about two years. The two-plus years is Fulton County and the six-and-a-half years is hush money.
I think the argument will be, when you have three or four different investigations, all of which have been outstanding for multiple years – if they all culminate within a fairly brief stretch as we head into the 2024 election, as multiple people, including Donald Trump, have declared their candidacies.
HONIG: I’ve been critical of all three investigations for moving too slowly. I don’t assume the worst. I don’t assume that that’s being done intentionally to get it as close to the election as possible.
They are moving too slow and that is the most likely scenario. They’re too myopic and bureaucratic in their approach. I have said that about Attorney General Garland and the Fulton County District Attorney.
HONIG: It isn’t a formal deadline. But it is a widely observed practice that you don’t want to take an overt dramatic step like drop an indictment or hold a trial close to an election.
Sometimes it is understood as a 90-day rule, sometimes it is a 60-day rule. It’s not likely that Donald Trump and/or prosecutors will be forced to try a case in the summer of 2024 because of the presidential election.
