Thread: Legal Charges Against Trump

Originally Posted by Topper

Fixed that for ya

Actually he hadn't left office when he started filing these lawsuits, but whatever floats your boat.

• Trump pushes for un-redacted affidavit’s release, despite the risks

Former President Trump is pushing for the full, unredacted release of the affidavit that led to the search warrant for his Mar-a-Lago estate, a move that carries risks for both Trump and the Justice Department.

“Pres. Trump has made his view clear that the American people should be permitted to see the unredacted affidavit related to the raid and break-in of his home,” Taylor Budowich, a spokesperson for the former president, said Thursday after Federal Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart said he may be willing to unseal portions of the document.

Reinhart ordered Justice Department officials to suggest redactions to the document by next Thursday.

“Today, magistrate Judge Reinhard rejected the DOJ’s [Justice Department’s] cynical attempt to hide the whole affidavit from Americans,” Budowich continued. “However, no redactions should be necessary and the whole affidavit should be released, given the Democrats’ penchant for using redactions to hide government corruption, just like they did with the Russia hoax.”

Trump and his supporters have for years believed the FBI and Justice Department are biased against the former president, arguing that the bureau improperly surveilled his 2016 presidential campaign.

Trump separately posted on Truth Social, his social media platform, calling for the “immediate release” of the unredacted affidavit, citing the need for transparency. He also called for Reinhart to recuse himself from the case without giving a clear reason.

The rhetoric from Trump and his camp follows a similar playbook, experts say, in which the former president demands the release of potentially sensitive information.

If the government and judge decline to release the full, unredacted document, it allows Trump and his allies to claim federal law enforcement is hiding something, further fueling distrust among Trump supporters.

“It certainly is consistent with a project of delegitimizing law enforcement and law enforcement targeting him in particular,” said Dan Richman, a law professor at Columbia University. “Because he knows, as everybody knows, the government will regardless of the case be averse to the disclosure of search warrants as an institutional matter.”

The affidavit, which was used to convince Reinhart that there was enough evidence to support the probable cause needed to obtain a search warrant, contains information about the federal law enforcement investigation into Trump’s handling of material marked classified following his departure from the White House.

The Justice Department has argued that released the affidavit could jeopardize an ongoing investigation, as well as the sources of information in the case. Releasing identifying information about those sources could lead to threats. Reinhart, for example, has been subjected to threats since signing off on the warrant for the Mar-a-Lago search.

Beyond the risks for the Justice Department, there could be some risks for Trump should the full affidavit come out.

“There is a risk if it seems like he was sharing intel with unauthorized parties while out of office,” said one former Trump adviser, who noted that such details could ultimately be redacted by the government.

Experts also pointed out that the affidavit could reveal exchanges between the Justice Department and Trump’s team discussing the need to return sensitive materials, ultimately showing the government had made multiple good faith efforts to secure the documents in question before resorting to a search warrant.

The release of the affidavit could also carry political risks for Trump if it bolsters the case that Trump mishandled classified information.

Polling has already showed a significant percentage of voters believe Trump may have broken the law as president.

A Politico-Morning Consult poll released days after the Mar-a-Lago search found roughly half of registered voters approved of the raid, though only 15 percent of Republicans approved. And 58 percent of voters said they believe Trump definitely or probably broke the law as president.

While calls to release the affidavit are likely to galvanize his hardcore supporters, it could ultimately create further concerns for the broader public. Trump will have to win over a broader base to win the White House if he runs for president in 2024.

Richman, the Columbia law professor, said he would not expect it to be the end of the matter if the judge opts to release the affidavit with limited or no redactions, saying the government would likely appeal such a decision.

“I would expect that central to the appeal would be the broader institutional question of whether this ought to be done,” Richman said. “It could set a really poor precedent for high profile searches in the future.”

DOJ might be honing in.......

• Justice Department issues new subpoena to National Archives for more January 6 documents

The Justice Department has issued a new grand jury subpoena to the National Archives for more documents as part of its investigation into the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, two sources familiar with the investigation tell CNN.

This latest subpoena, issued on August 17, is in addition to a subpoena the Department of Justice sent to the Archives earlier this year, requesting the same documents and information that the Archives had previously handed over to the House select committee investigating January 6.

This new subpoena, which has not been previously reported, is understood to request additional documents and data from the Archives, pertaining to a period of time both before and after January 6.

Thomas Windom, an Assistant US Attorney, who is leading the criminal probe into the effort to impede the transfer of power after the 2020 election, including the potential role played by former President Donald Trump and allies to organize a group of fake electors who could keep Trump in power despite losing the election. The US Attorney's Office declined to comment.

The subpoena requests that the documents be produced by the end of August.

The new subpoena is the latest indication that the Justice Department is ramping up its investigation and has broadened the scope of its probe into the potential role White House staff played in events leading up to the attack on the Capitol that day.

Last week, CNN and others reported that Trump White House lawyer Eric Herschmann, who pushed back on efforts by the former President and his allies to overturn the 2020 election, had been subpoenaed by a federal grand jury investigating the events surrounding January 6.

Other Trump lawyers, including Pat Cipollone and Patrick Philbin, have also been subpoenaed, and DOJ officials have been gearing up to try to access direct communications with Trump when he was in office, which could set off a legal fight over executive privilege.

• Judge gives Trump until Friday to clarify request for special master on records seized by FBI

A federal judge on Tuesday responded to former President Trump’s lawsuit requesting a special master to review the documents collected by the FBI from his Mar-a-Lago residence, giving Trump a Friday deadline to clarify his request.

U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida Judge Aileen Cannon issued an order for Trump to elaborate on how the court has jurisdiction and precisely what he wants the court to order in the case.

She also asked Trump’s team to provide more details on whether it served the Department of Justice (DOJ) with the suit and on the lawsuit’s effect on another proceeding determining if parts of the affidavit that supported the search warrant should be released.

The request was one of two brief orders filed on Tuesday by Cannon, who was nominated to the position by Trump in 2020. She also issued a separate one asking two of his attorneys to correctly format and resubmit their motions to appear pro hac vice, which allow lawyers to appear in courts in which they are not admitted for a particular case.

The former president filed the lawsuit on Monday to temporarily block the FBI from reviewing the documents it seized from his Florida home until the agency appoints a special master to provide outside oversight, marking Trump’s first major legal action since agents executed a search warrant at the property on Aug. 8.

A letter released by the National Archives on Tuesday said the DOJ seized at least 700 pages of classified materials when it first recovered documents from Trump’s Florida home in January. Authorities separately seized another 11 sets of classified documents earlier this month.

Trump has repeatedly attacked the FBI and the search as being politically motivated, and he has said the materials include those protected by attorney-client privilege and potentially executive privilege.

He alluded to the forthcoming suit on Friday, claiming the FBI violated his Fourth Amendment rights protecting against unreasonable searches and seizures.

His attorneys outlined many of those concerns in Monday’s motion, asking the court to appoint a special master, who generally ensures a court’s orders are carried out. The appointment is typically rare in the context of the execution of a search warrant.

The request comes after the DOJ began its common practice of leveraging a “filter team” to examine the documents, which is designed to avoid prosecutors seeing protected materials.

Trump also asked the court to require the government to provide a more detailed property receipt, which lists the seized materials, and to return any documents outside the scope of the search warrant.

A federal judge signed off on the warrant days before the search took place, permitting agents to search the “45 Office,” all storage rooms and other areas at Mar-a-Lago available to be used by Trump and his staff in which boxes or documents could be stored.

The warrant allowed the agents to seize any property in those areas that constituted evidence of violations of the Espionage Act and two other statutes.

The laws included one statute that bars the concealment, removal and mutilation of government documents, and the other prohibits similar actions when done “with the intent to impede, obstruct, or influence [an] investigation.”

^ The orange one is throwing anything he can at the wall, but not much is sticking. The title of the motion "Donald Trump vs. The United States of America" sums it up nicely.

^He is and this should be entertaining.

Same subject, more detail into the judge’s request,……

• Judge Overseeing Trump Suit Against U.S. Has Some Questions

Federal Judge Has Several Questions for Trump’s Lawyers in Court Fight Over Mar-a-Lago Warrant

A federal judge overseeing former President Donald Trump’s litigation against the United States government has several questions for counsel regarding the FBI’s search and seizure of what are purported to be secret executive branch documents from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.

“The Court is in receipt of . . . Plaintiff’s Motion for Judicial Oversight and Additional Relief,” wrote U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon before firing off several specific areas of concern for Trump’s assemblage of attorneys.

Cannon, a Trump appointee, ordered the attorneys to file, “on or before” Aug. 26, answers to the following questions in order to “facilitate [an] appropriate resolution”:

(1) the asserted basis for the exercise of this Court’s jurisdiction, whether legal, equitable/anomalous, or both;

(2) the framework applicable to the exercise of such jurisdiction;

(3) the precise relief sought, including any request for injunctive relief pending resolution of the Motion;

(4) the effect, if any, of the proceeding before Magistrate Judge Bruce E. Reinhart; and

(5) the status of Plaintiff’s efforts to perfect service on Defendant.

Reinhart is the magistrate judge who signed off on the underlying Aug. 5 warrant to search Trump’s palatial Florida estate. That warrant led to an Aug. 8 search that resulted in federal agents uncovering and seizing a cache of materials. Proceedings directly involving the warrant are ongoing in Reinhart’s courtroom.

Trump’s lawyers asked the court — before the case was assigned to Judge Cannon — to (1) appoint a special master, or disinterested party, to review the materials seized; (2) to ban the government from reviewing the materials until the special master is appointed; (3) to promulgate a “more detailed” list of the items taken, and (4) to demand a return of any items seized outside the scope of the warrant.

The original filing from Trump’s legal team does not seek the quash the warrant itself. Still, Trump dubiously characterized the move as a significant Fourth Amendment action to “strongly” assert his rights against the FBI’s “unnecessary, unwarranted, and unAmerican Break-In” of his home (capitalization in original).

“They took documents covered by attorney-client and executive privilege, which is not allowed,” Trump claimed.

The practice of appointing a special master to sort out such material is not uncommon.

Cannon appeared to wonder why Trump’s lawyers filed a separate case to make the aforementioned requests rather than to litigate the matter before Reinhart.

Reinhart has noted that Trump’s attorneys never filed anything on the record in connection with the warrant, thus rendering their viewpoints on the issues at hand — aired frequently on television broadcasts but not where they count in court — unofficial at best.

Trump has frequently argued, however, that Reinhart is “biased” against him.

“The wrongful, overbroad warrant was signed by a Magistrate Judge who recused himself just two months ago, from a MAJOR civil suit that I filed, because of his bias and animus toward me,” Trump claimed on Monday.

Trump also suggested on Monday that he “would have given” the materials “to the National Archives until they are required for the future Donald J. Trump Presidential Library and Museum” without the need for a “despicable raid” at Mar-a-Lago. That claim is slightly at odds with a letter released later on Monday. That letter suggests that Trump’s attorneys were attempting to slow down the process of document transmission to the National Archives.

The letter also states that Trump cannot assert claims of executive privilege over his executive branch documents because they are earmarked to remain with the executive branch.

Cannon’s list of questions on Tuesday called for a filing but notably did not schedule a hearing on the matter.

Half the problem is he's scraping the bottom of the lawyer barrel.
No one reputable wants to represent him and end up in front of the beak themselves.

Originally Posted by Cujo

No one reputable wants to represent him and end up in front of the beak themselves.

You're suggesting the judicial system of NaGastan no longer exists, if fear of retribution is its stick.

• Criminal trial for Trump Organization to start in October with jury selection

A judge has cleared the way for a trial in the criminal case against the Trump Organization and its longtime chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, to begin this fall.

The case has the potential to shine a bright light on the business practices of former President Donald Trump, through internal company records that he fought hard to keep secret.

In the first public courtroom proceeding in this case in almost a year, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan denied multiple defense motions to dismiss the case and ordered jury selection to begin Oct. 24.

Weisselberg and the Trump Organization were indicted in July 2021 on charges they conspired through a variety of gimmicks and deceptions to evade federal, state and local taxes, an alleged scheme that stretched over 16 years and allegedly saved Weisselberg close to $1 million.

Since then, all of the action in the case has taken place in correspondence and behind closed doors. Throughout late 2021, the Manhattan District Attorney's Office continued to gather evidence, interviewing witnesses and presenting evidence to a grand jury.

On Jan. 1, a new Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, was sworn in, replacing Cyrus Vance Jr., who brought the indictment. Donald Trump went to the Supreme Court of the United States twice in an effort to block Vance's team from gathering documents. He failed both times.

In February, two senior investigators quit the District Attorney's office because they believed Bragg was unlikely to charge Donald Trump individually with crimes.

One of the attorneys, Mark Pomerantz, told Bragg in a letter his team had gathered voluminous evidence of financial crimes committed by Trump, connected with false and misleading statements about his finances.

"I fear that your decision means that Mr. Trump will not be held fully accountable for his crimes," Pomerantz wrote. "I have worked too hard as a lawyer, and for too long, now to become a passive participant in what I believe to be a grave failure of justice."

In a statement in April, Bragg insisted the investigation of Trump is ongoing, and pledged to inform the public when the probe ends. Bragg has not brought charges against Trump, and allowed a grand jury hearing evidence in the probe to lapse at the end of April.

Reached by phone in February, former Trump lawyer Ron Fischetti told NPR he believed his client is in the clear.

"I'm very happy – and you can quote me on that," he said.

Whether or not there are additional indictments, the Trump Organization and Weisselberg now are set to be tried by a local Manhattan jury. Prosecutors will likely present evidence they say shows that Donald Trump personally wrote checks for private school tuition for two of Weisselberg's family members, amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars. The income was never declared, the indictment says.

Prosecutors also say that the Trump Organization deducted the value of un-taxed benefits such as rent and utilities from Weisselberg's compensation, and recorded it in a ledger. Both Weisselberg and the Trump Organization have pleaded not guilty and denied all wrongdoing.

Lawyers for Weisselberg and the Trump Organization have attacked the case against them as politically motivated. Weisselberg's lawyers said their client is "collateral damage in the Manhattan District Attorney's and New York Attorney General's years-long pursuit of Mr. Weisselberg's long-time boss, Donald J. Trump."

They also argued that the case is deeply flawed because it relies on information gathered from an untrustworthy source: former Trump executive Michael Cohen, who was convicted of tax evasion and campaign finance crimes in 2018.

On Friday, Judge Merchan denied almost all defense motions, but did remove one count against the Trump Organization of criminal tax fraud in the third degree.

Extra

D.A. Bragg: Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg to Serve 5 Months in Jail & Testify in Upcoming Criminal Trial Against Trump Organization – Manhattan District Attorney's Office

Originally Posted by OhOh

You're suggesting the judicial system of NaGastan no longer exists, if fear of retribution is its stick.

No I'm not.

oops. DP

Can anyone else see the problem with the complaint?

There’s a hint

• Tea Party seeks removal of anti-Trump raid judge

Tea Party Patriots Action, the long-influential conservative group, has filed a federal complaint against the Obama-appointed magistrate ( not true ) who approved the FBI raid of former President Donald Trump’s winter home, the Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

In a long complaint filed in the Judicial Council of the 11th Circuit, Tea Party Patriots CEO Jenny Beth Martin’s argument was to the point: Florida-based Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart had it out for Trump.

“Judge Reinhart has a conflict of interest and a pattern and history of hostility to President Trump,” said the filing, which listed several examples including social media attacks and donations to anti-Trump critics, such as former President Barack Obama and 2016 GOP foe Jeb Bush.

Martin’s legal complaint, provided to Secrets, seeks to have the judge removed from the case and even dumped from the bench.

“Judge Reinhart should be disciplined and removed as a federal magistrate because of his failure to meet the standards of ethical conduct and character necessary for the public to have confidence in the nonpartisan role of a judge in a matter of this extreme public interest,” the sixth of seven charges in the ethics complaint said.

Reinhart signed off on the raid and has subsequently leaned to making some of the search warrant public, as Trump and the media have sought.

On Monday, the West Palm Beach magistrate gave the Justice Department and the FBI until tomorrow to argue against the release.

In the meantime, critics of his earlier action to OK the search for classified documents inside the resort have dug up ample evidence of Reinhart’s anti-Trump liberal past, including donations and social media attacks. Martin also cited a case involving Hillary Clinton in which Reinhart recused himself as an example that he should have followed in the Mar-a-Lago case.

“The entire episode of the unprecedented search of the former president’s home, authorized by a political appointee of President Trump’s successor, and approved by a federal magistrate who has been outspoken in his opposition to and loathing of President Trump threatens the principle of ‘equal justice under law’ and the confidence of the American people in an unbiased judiciary,” the complaint said.

Originally Posted by OhOh

You're suggesting the judicial system of NaGastan no longer exists, if fear of retribution is its stick.

He's fully entitled to a Public Defender, just like poor people. Private Lawyers can choose their clients.

Originally Posted by OhOh

You're suggesting the judicial system of NaGastan no longer exists, if fear of retribution is its stick.

The lawyers are mostly afraid of not being paid. Trump is known for not paying his lawyers.

Originally Posted by OhOh

You're suggesting the judicial system of NaGastan no longer exists, if fear of retribution is its stick.

Give me a freaking break. No decent lawyer wants to work for Trump because he is a con man and a fraud, who often does not pay his bills.

Trump Having Hard Time Finding Lawyers Because They Want To Be Paid: Journalist | HuffPost Latest News

• Judge Allows Evan Corcoran, James Trusty to Appear for Trump

Judge Finally Gives Trump Lawyers Permission to Appear in Mar-a-Lago Warrant Dispute After Days of Failed Attempts

A federal judge in Florida has approved the appearances of two out-of-state Donald Trump attorneys in a court skirmish connected to a search warrant executed on Aug. 8 at the ex-president’s palatial Mar-a-Lago club and residence.

U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon, a Trump appointee to the Southern District of Florida, issued the approval order late Wednesday after several days of wrangling by two Trump attorneys. Those attorneys, James M. Trusty of Washington, D.C. and M. Evan Corcoran of Baltimore, Maryland, sought to appear in Cannon’s Florida courtroom for Trump’s case only — a process known as pro hac vice admission. As a general rule, lawyers can apply for pro hac admission in connection with a specific proceeding — the phrase means “for this occasion only” — if they’re members in good standing of their own local bar, if they agree to work through “local counsel” (someone who is licensed in the forum jurisdiction), and with the permission of the court. However, attorneys admitted pro hac become subject to the ethics rules of the forum jurisdiction, as Judge Cannon rather sternly noted up front in a Wednesday order:

PAPERLESS ORDER granting . . . the Motions to Appear Pro Hac Vice, Consents to Designation, and Requests to Electronically Receive Notices of Electronic Filing for Attorneys James M. Trusty and M. Evan Corcoran. The Court reserves the power to withdraw permission for special appearance at any time. Failure to abide by any court order or failure to appear at any scheduled matter may result in immediate revocation of counsels’ pro hac vice status. Local counsel must be ready to adequately represent the party at any time. Signed by Judge Aileen M. Cannon on 8/24/2022.

Trusty and Corcoran are joined by attorney Lindsey Halligan of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, as local counsel.

Both men’s initial pro hac applications on Mon., Aug. 22 were flagged as deficient by the court clerk; the judge then summarily denied the applications because the documents were not filed correctly.

The pro hac filing fee is $200 (or $400 in total, since two attorneys have requested admission). However, the same receipt number is noted under both sets of pro hac filings, suggesting that the men filed twice but were not double billed.

The trio of Trump attorneys on Monday filed a motion to challenge parts of the Mar-a-Lago warrant that resulted in the seizure of hundreds of pages of documents — many of them marked with the nation’s highest degree of classification. The document does not directly seek to quash the warrant itself, Law&Crime has noted from the inception of the case.

Judge Cannon has asked Trump’s lawyers to explain several questions before she moves forward with the matter, including questions about whether she has the jurisdiction to hear the claims.

Trump has asserted various claims of privilege over the materials, but the National Archives and Records Administration seems to be of the position that Trump cannot assert executive privilege against the administration of Joe Biden, the current executive. In other words, a theory floated in a recently revealed NARA letter, the executive branch needs to have access to the documents of the executive branch no matter who is the executive.

Was looking how Fox News was reporting the judge’s decision to unseal redacted Trump Mar-a-Lago affidavit.

Sources familiar with the investigation told Fox News Digital that the FBI also seized boxes containing records covered by attorney-client privilege and potentially executive privilege during its raid.

Trump and his legal team have filed a motion requesting the appointment of a special master to review those records covered by attorney-client privilege.

But Fox News has learned that a Department of Justice "taint" or "filter" team has been reviewing documents seized by the FBI since Aug. 8.

The Justice Department’s use of a "taint" or "filter" team, while standard procedure, could complicate Trump’s legal team’s efforts for the appointment of an independent special master to examine the seized records, as it is likely they have already been inspected by DOJ officials.

Who would have guessed? After taking inventory of documents collected, copy everything for the case that will be filed at a later date.

Originally Posted by S Landreth

Both men’s initial pro hac applications on Mon., Aug. 22 were flagged as deficient by the court clerk; the judge then summarily denied the applications because the documents were not filed correctly.
.

Not a great start by the hired guns.....

Originally Posted by nidhogg

Not a great start by the hired guns.....

"The best people, only the best.." Donald J Trump


"Be Best" Svetlana T., page 37 third advertisement from left.