Thread: Legal Charges Against Trump

• What to watch ahead of Trump Organization tax fraud trial this week

The Manhattan District Attorney’s long-awaited trial against the Trump Organization begins on Monday, coming three years after authorities began investigating the business for alleged tax fraud.

The Trump Organization is accused of helping top executives avoid income taxes on compensation and luxury perks. Former President Trump is not personally accused of any crime in this case.

Jury selection begins on Monday and the trial could last more than a month.

Here’s what you need to know about the trial beginning this week at the New York State Supreme Court.

Longtime Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg will testify as a star witness in the Manhattan trial in return for a reduced sentence.

He was charged with tax fraud last year and pleaded guilty this August to 15 counts related to tax evasion.

Prosecutors said Weisselberg earned nearly $2 million in off the books compensation over a decade from the Trump Organization, including perks like a Mercedes-Benz for him and his wife.

Weisselberg has intimate knowledge of the company’s financial dealings.

The company’s corporate leadership — consisting of the Trump Corporation and Trump Payroll Corp. — allegedly orchestrating a scheme from 2005 to June 2021 to assist executives in avoiding paying taxes on perks like fancy cars and luxurious, rent-free apartments, according to the indictment.

The Trump Organization’s senior vice president and controller, Jeffrey McConney, was given limited immunity to testify last year and could also appear at the trial.

Trump will not attend or testify

The Trump Organization controls the former president’s real estate properties, golf courses and even his media and television pursuits.

While Trump himself signed off on some checks in question, he is not on trial. He also will not be testifying or even attending the trial.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) has said the investigation is ongoing and Trump could still face criminal charges.

Trump has called the case a witch hunt, while the Trump Organization has denied the allegations and said it looked forward to having its day in court.

Organization faces fine of more than $1 million

The Trump Organization faces a maximum fine of $1.7 million if the business is found guilty of the charges, according to the New York Times.

But that’s likely to be a slap on the wrist compared to the company’s annual profits.

The Trump Organization consists of around 500 entities but is privately owned, meaning it does not risk a falling stock price from a guilty verdict.

Trump is unlikely to suffer serious political damage regardless of the outcome, but a guilty verdict could hamper his company’s ability to get loans and make deals. New York City, for one, could use the legal cloud as new justification for seeking to oust the company from running a city-owned golf course.

First trial involving Trump since he left office

This is the first trial involving Trump since he left the White House last January.

Trump faces several other cases, including two separate Department of Justice (DOJ) investigations: one probing whether he violated any laws by stashing classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate and another related to his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

A Fulton County, Ga., grand jury is also investigating Trump’s efforts to sway the 2020 election results in the state.

New York Attorney General Letitia James also filed a separate lawsuit seeking to stop the Trump Organization from doing business in the state.

That case, slated to begin Oct. 31, accuses the business of inflating and deflating property valuations for financial gain.

All you need to know.......yada, yada, yada. Skip to The bottom line

• The top DOJ prosecutor taking on Trumpa

The classified documents case against former President Trump is the biggest test yet for a prosecutor who has built his career going after convicted spies, Blackwater guards, Chinese companies and some of Trump’s close associates.

Why it matters: Jay Bratt, who leads the Justice Department’s counterintelligence division, keeps a low profile. But he’s at the center of an unprecedented investigation into a former — and potentially future — president.

• "You're talking about sitting on top of a volcano,” said David Laufman, a partner at Wiggin and Dana who used to be chief of DOJ's counterintelligence division—and Bratt’s boss.

The big picture: Lawyers who have worked with Bratt over the course of his decades-long career emphasize his rare combination of litigation and leadership expertise at the intersection of national security, espionage, technology, sanctions, foreign governments, free speech and politics.

• Bratt is the chief of the Justice Department's Counterintelligence and Export Control Section, or CES. It enforces laws regarding export controls and sanctions, national security, cybersecurity and espionage.
• At the beginning of the special master review, Bratt traveled to Florida to lead the government’s rebuttal to Trump's legal team, detailing how DOJ uncovered evidence suggesting violations of the Espionage Act, illegal retention of government records and obstruction of a federal investigation.

"These cases don't happen that frequently," Brandon Van Grack, a former attorney in the national security division at the Justice Department, told Axios.

• He noted that Bratt has handled similar cases “not just as a national security division attorney or supervisor, but also directly as a prosecutor at the U.S. Attorney's Office. Those experiences are different and complementary. There are very few people who can say that."
• Bratt declined to comment for this story.

Details: Laufman, who hired Bratt as his deputy while he was leading CES, said Bratt provided valuable counsel in deciding to require two of Trump's former aides, Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn, to obtain "foreign agent" registrations.

• "Those cases seem like child's play compared to the maelstrom of political controversy surrounding the Mar-a-Lago case," Laufman said.
• Previously, Bratt oversaw the prosecution of Blackwater guards who killed 14 Iraqi civilians and wounded 17 others.

also handled or supervised several cases involving the Espionage Act, one of the laws that Trump is accused of violating.

• Bratt prosecuted James Hitselberger, a sailor charged with unauthorized retention of national defense information while serving in Bahrain.
• Bratt represented the U.S. government in the 2014 parole hearing for Jonathan Pollard, a former U.S. Navy analyst convicted of spying for Israel.
• He was involved in prosecuting Bryan Underwood, a former security guard at a U.S. consulate in Guangzhou, China who pleaded guilty in 2013 to trying to sell to photos and information about the compound to Chinese officials.
• He also worked on the case against Stephen J. Kim, a former State Department contractor who pleaded guilty in 2014 to leaking information from a highly classified report about North Korea to a Fox News reporter in 2009.

Bratt also helped oversee investigations of two Chinese telecommunications firms — Huawei for Iran sanctions violations, and ZTE for selling equipment containing items of U.S. origin to Iran and North Korea.

The bottom line: "Under remarkable pressures, they have played it straight up the middle," Laufman said of Bratt and his team's approach to the Trump case so far. "And every time they've been before a truly independent and neutral judicial arbiter they have prevailed."

• DC court fast-tracks Trump appeal of rape accuser E. Jean Carroll’s lawsuit

The District of Columbia Court of Appeals on Tuesday said it would expedite former President Trump’s challenge of a defamation suit filed by writer E. Jean Carroll, who accused Trump of rape.

Carroll, a longtime columnist for Elle magazine, accused Trump of raping her in a New York City department store in the 1990s. She sued the former president for defamation three years ago after he dismissed her allegations against him and accused her of lying.

The D.C. Court of Appeals scheduled oral arguments for Jan. 10, according to a new filing obtained by Axios, to answer the specific legal question of whether Trump made the allegedly libelous statements against Carroll within the scope of his role as president of the United States.

In the complex series of legal moves that followed Carroll’s initial suit, Trump’s legal team attempted to dismiss and delay the case, and eventually to countersue Carroll for bringing the lawsuit against him in the first place.

The Justice Department then moved to step in and argue that Trump could not be sued in his personal capacity, since he made the statements during his tenure in the White House, and that the Justice Department should be substituted as defendant in the case.

The former president sat for his deposition in the case earlier this month after his legal team repeatedly attempted to delay the proceedings.

All active judges on D.C.’s highest court will hear the January arguments before the trial reportedly scheduled for February, according to the filing.

“We are pleased that the DC Court of Appeals set an expedited schedule to determine the issue certified by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. As we’ve said several times by now, we are eager to get to trial on all of E Jean’s claims as soon as possible,” Carroll’s attorney Robbie Kaplan said in a statement.

DocumentCloud

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• National Archives denies Trump referral to DOJ was connected to Dems

The National Archives is denying Republican accusations that its decision to refer Donald Trump’s handling of classified records to the Justice Department had anything to do with an inquiry from a top House Democrat.

House Republicans have been raising questions over the timing of the referral, which occurred on Feb. 9 — the same day House Oversight Committee Chair Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) wrote to the agency to raise questions about Trump’s handling of sensitive documents that he retained at his Mar-a-Lago estate. But that timing is “entirely coincidental,” Acting National Archivist Debra Steidel Wall wrote in a letter to congressional Republicans on Tuesday.

The Archives’ inspector general operates with complete independence from the broader agency, Wall said, and did not receive Maloney’s letter, which was directed to the Archivist.

“At no time and under no circumstances were NARA officials pressured or influenced by Committee Democrats or anyone else,” Wall wrote.

Wall directed congressional inquiries about the ongoing investigation to DOJ, which is spearheading the probe into Trump’s handling of documents. DOJ had requested NARA “not share or otherwise disclose to others information related to NARA’s recovery of the 15 boxes at this time in order to protect the integrity of DOJ’s ongoing work,” Wall wrote.

https://www.archives.gov/files/foia/...ames-comer.pdf

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• Trump, children may be called to testify in company’s fraud trial, judge says

Former President Trump and his adult children may be called to testify in the Trump Organization’s fraud trial in New York, the presiding judge said on Monday, according to multiple outlets.

As jury selection got underway, Judge Juan Merchan said Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and Ivanka Trump could be called to testify in the fraud trial. Michael Cohen, the president’s former personal lawyer, may also be called to testify, Merchan said.

The company was indicted in July 2021 for allegedly compensating its executives through high-end perks to evade taxes. The former president himself is not charged in the case.

The Trump Organization’s former Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg is set to testify in the trial as part of plea deal announced in August. Weisselberg faces a five-month jail sentence given that he provides “truthful testimony” in the trial. He must also repay nearly $2 million to tax authorities.

Trump turned to his social media platform Truth Social on Monday to decry the trial as part of a “Democrat Witch Hunt” and suggested that the timing — just two weeks before the midterm elections — was politically motivated.

The Trump Organization’s criminal fraud trial is separate from a civil lawsuit brought against the former president and his three adult children last month. New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) announced in late September that her office was suing the members of the Trump family for allegedly manipulating property values to enrich themselves.

So many articles when there is only one I'd love to see:

Trump convicted of xxxx and sentenced to xx years in a federal/state penitentiary after all appeals exhausted. He will join several of his former fellow accused and convicted, including Bannon, Giuliani, Price, Kelly, Mnuchin, Jordan, Gaetz, Collins, Nunez, Kushner, Trump, Trump, Trump Jnr, Huckabee-Sanders, Kellyanne Conway, Flynn, Miller, deVos, Pence, Graham, Pompeo and McConnell. This is not a complete list

Originally Posted by panama hat

This is not a complete list

No it isn’t. All of his supporters who broke the law should be included. I’ll update the Right-wing domestic terrorist thread later today.

A preview.........

Jail time 7 ½ years and a different supporter 2 years in prison

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• Trump loses latest bid to shield tax returns from House committee

A federal court cleared the way Thursday for a Democratic-led House committee to review former President Trump’s tax returns, although the Supreme Court could still block the action.

Judges on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a ruling that courts won’t stand in the way of the House’s chief tax committee seeing Trump’s financial documents, denying a petition by the former president to reconsider a previous ruling.

Democrats on the committee were quick to show their approval of the ruling.

“The law has always been on our side,” House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass.) said in a statement. “Former President Trump has tried to delay the inevitable, but once again, the Court has affirmed the strength of our position. We’ve waited long enough—we must begin our oversight of the IRS’s mandatory presidential audit program as soon as possible.”

Ways and Means oversight subcommittee Chairman Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) said Trump’s tax records should be seen by the public.

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• Fulton County DA urges Supreme Court to let Graham face questioning in Georgia election probe

Atlanta-area prosecutors on Thursday asked the Supreme Court to clear the way for Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) to face questioning before a grand jury as part of an investigation into 2020 election interference in Georgia.

In court papers, the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office urged the court to turn away Graham’s request that he be allowed to avoid testifying while he continues to contest his subpoena.

“Should the Senator’s application be granted, the Grand Jury’s work will be delayed indefinitely, ensuring that information which could either clear the innocent of suspicion or increase scrutiny on the guilty will continue to lie beyond the Grand Jury’s grasp,” Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) wrote in the court filing.

Graham filed his application last week to Justice Clarence Thomas, who handles emergency matters arising from Georgia and who agreed earlier this week to temporarily halt the legal proceedings until further notice.

Graham is one of several high-profile Trump allies who Willis has pursued as part of an investigation into the potentially criminal effort to disrupt the 2020 election in Georgia in favor of former President Trump.

• Trump's Got A New Huge Problem As Top National Security Prosecutor Joins Classified Docs Probe

Prosecutors have gathered evidence that could result in charges against Trump and now one of the nation’s top national security prosecutors has joined the investigation.

National security law experts interviewed by The Washington Post say prosecutors appear to have amassed evidence in the case that would meet some of the criteria for bringing charges against the former president — an unprecedented action that they said likely would only happen if the Justice Department believes it has an extremely strong case.

David Raskin,who served for many years as a senior federal prosecutor in New York City, and more recently has worked as a prosecutor in Kansas City, Mo., has been quietly assisting in the investigation into Trump and his aides, according to the people familiar with the matter, who like others interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe an ongoing investigation. Raskin is considered one of the most accomplished terrorism prosecutors of his generation.

The DOJ isn’t messing around. They are seriously looking at charging Donald Trump. The Justice Department would not bring in one of its top national security prosecutors if they were not looking at building a case against the failed former president.

The Justice Department doesn’t bring weak cases or cases that they might lose, so if they charge Trump, it will be because they have an airtight case against him.

Trump won’t have the resources to go toe to toe with the United States government in a potential trial.

Other news has leapfrogged ahead of it, but the investigation into Donald Trump’s theft of classified documents is rolling along and getting more serious.

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• John Eastman Asks Judge to Reconsider Georgia Fraud Findings

John Eastman Asks Federal Judge to Reconsider Crime-Fraud Findings on Trump’s Knowledge About ‘Wrong’ Voter Fraud Claims

Judge Carter rejected Eastman’s request on Friday, and Eastman filed a notice of his appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit shortly after. In his six-page order, the judge said Eastman “does not carry his burden of showing a likelihood of success on the merits, because the contents of the affidavit do not alter the Court’s conclusion.”

“Eastman’s affidavit presents no evidence that the Court ‘manifestly failed’ to consider when ruling that the crime-fraud exception applies,” the judge wrote.

Eastman’s motion was filed eight days after Carter ordered 33 documents from Eastman’s Chapman University account to be released to the Jan. 6 Committee. The emails were among 562 Carter reviewed at the committee’s request, and they’re to be the final batch of Eastman’s Chapman emails the judge will review since the unusual case opened in January.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/re...40.377.0_1.pdf

History

Former President Donald Trump’s election lawyer John Eastman is asking a California federal judge to reconsider his ruling that Trump knowingly filed false numbers regarding voter fraud, submitting a sealed email record that he says “clearly shows that the President’s lawyers took great care to ensure all court filings were accurate.”

In a 10-page motion filed Thursday, Eastman’s lawyer Charles Burnham asks U.S. District Judge David O. Carter to reconsider his Oct. 19 order that the crime-fraud exception applies to several privileged emails because Trump knew numbers regarding voters fraud “were wrong but continued to tout those numbers, both in court and in the public.” Carter also concluded that some emails “make clear that President Trump filed certain lawsuits not to obtain legal relief, but to disrupt or delay the January 6 congressional proceedings through the courts,” which Burnham’s filing said is not true.

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• Full D.C. Circuit Rejects Donald Trump’s Bid to Reconsider Ruling Turning Over Tax Records to Congress

The full bench of the D.C. Circuit unanimously declined to rehear former President Donald Trump’s bid to block the release of his tax returns to the House Ways and Means Committee.

A three-judge panel of the court previously rejected Trump’s request in August, rejecting the argument that upholding the subpoena would impose burdens on all former presidents.

“While it is possible that Congress may attempt to threaten the sitting President with an invasive request after leaving office, every President takes office knowing that he will be subject to the same laws as all other citizens upon leaving office,” Senior U.S. Circuit Judge David B. Sentelle, a Ronald Reagan appointee, wrote on Aug. 9. “This is a feature of our democratic republic, not a bug.”

Despite the 3-0 ruling against him, Trump decided to seek further review before the full 11-member bench. Each judge on it — including three appointed by Trump — joined the single-page order denying him a hearing.

“Upon consideration of appellants’ petition for rehearing en banc, and the absence of a request by any member of the court for a vote, it is ORDERED that the petition be denied,” the order read in its entirety. Among the names on the per curium order were Trump-appointed U.S. Circuit Judges Gregory G. Katsas, Neomi Rao, and Justin R. Walker.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/re...40.377.0_1.pdf - https://lawandcrime.com/trump/full-d...s-to-congress/

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• Lindsey Graham Once Again Urges SCOTUS to Throw a Wrench in Fulton County DA’s Election Probe, Claims He ‘Shall Not Be Questioned’

Attorneys for U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Friday submitted a reply brief in a U.S. Supreme Court case which seeks to excuse him from testifying about his telephone calls surrounding the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.

“The importance of this case comes not so much in the underlying events — Senator Graham’s phone-call investigation into Georgia’s election process in the leadup to his vote under the Electoral Count Act certifying President Biden’s election,” the reply begins. “The importance comes instead in the separation-of-powers, federalism, and institutional interests that will be harmed without adjudication if the District Attorney’s state-court inquisition goes forward without the chance for full appellate review.”

The 23-page reply is the final document necessary for the Supreme Court to issue a ruling on the matter.

Graham filed the emergency application for a stay and injunction on Oct. 21. The matter is an appeal of two prior rulings: a federal district court refused to pause Graham’s testimony in a probe by Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis (D) into attempts to subvert Georgia’s 2020 election result, and a federal appeals court gave what Graham’s attorneys called a “cursory acquiescence” to that district court ruling.

“Without a stay, Senator Lindsey Graham will soon be questioned by a local Georgia prosecutor and her ad hoc investigative body about his protected ‘Speech or Debate’ related to the 2020 election,” the original Oct. 21 application reads. “This will occur despite the Constitution’s command that Senators ‘shall not be questioned’ about ‘any Speech or Debate.’ U.S. Const. art. I, § 6, cl. 1. It will occur in state court, without the consent of the federal government. And it will undisputedly center on Senator Graham’s official acts — phone calls he made in the course of his official work, in the leadup to the critical vote under the Electoral Count Act.”

In the reply brief, Graham reiterated the argument that he “shall not be questioned”

https://lawandcrime.com/supreme-cour...be-questioned/

• GOP bracing for Trump indictment soon after Election Day

Republican aides and strategists privately expect Attorney General Merrick Garland to pursue an indictment of former President Trump within 60 to 90 days after Election Day, predicting the window for prosecuting Trump will close once the 2024 presidential campaign gains momentum.

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• Trump asks Supreme Court to block release of his taxes to House

Former President Trump filed an emergency appeal with the Supreme Court Monday after a lower court declined to reverse its ruling mandating that he turn over his tax records to the House Ways and Means Committee.

Trump on Thursday lost his latest bid to block the panel from accessing his records after the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to reconsider a unanimous August ruling from one of the court’s three-judge panels ordering their release.

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• Trump Org. CFO will spill tax fraud to New York jury, prosecutors say

Convicted ex-Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg will give the “inside story” of how the company allegedly used years-long tax fraud scheme to boost executive pay, Manhattan prosecutors said Monday.

The teaser came during opening remarks in the firm’s long-awaited New York Supreme Court criminal trial — one case in an increasingly complex web of legal woes for former President Donald Trump. The former president is not involved in the case, but the charges could lead to financial penalties for the Trump Organization if a jury finds it engaged in a 15-year scheme to pay Weisselberg off the books.

“This case is about greed and cheating, cheating on taxes,” Susan Hoffinger, the chief of investigations for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, told the court on Monday. “The scheme was conducted, directed and authorized at the highest level of the accounting department.” Weisselberg’s testimony “will give you the inside story of how he conducted this tax scheme.”

In opening statements, Hoffinger detailed allegations that Trump personally paid private school tuition for Weisselberg’s grandchildren and signed a lease for the top lieutenant’s Upper West Side apartment overlooking the Hudson River, because he wanted him to live in Manhattan rather than commuting from Long Island.

Trump Corp. attorney Susan Necheles, meanwhile, tried to insulate the former president and urged the jury not to let their opinions of Trump cloud their judgment.

“You must not consider this case to be a referendum on President Trump or his politics,” she said. “It started and it ended with Allen Weisselberg. Allen Weisselberg did this.”

Weisselberg pleaded guilty in August to all 15 counts he faced, including tax fraud and larceny. Now he’ll play star witness in the expected month-long trial, where prosecutors must convince a jury that Trump Org. units — the Trump Corporation and Trump Payroll Corporation — share responsibility for concealing $1.76 million in compensation.

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• Hillary Clinton Motions for Sanctions in Trump RICO Case

‘A Reasonable Attorney Would Never Have Filed This Suit’: Hillary Clinton Seeks Sanctions Against Trump and His Lawyers for ‘Factually and Legally Defective’ RICO Case

Former secretary of state and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton filed her motion for sanctions against Donald Trump and his lawyers for filing a “factually and legally defective suit,” calling the former president’s failed RICO case a “political stunt.”

The 32-page motion was also filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida on behalf of John Podesta, Robbie Mook, the DNC, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Charles Halliday Dolan, Jr. (who previously filed his own motion for sanctions), Fusion GPS, Glenn Simpson, Nellie Ohr, Bruce Ohr, Igor Danchenko, and Rodney Joffe. Though Trump alleged each figured in some way into an alleged racketeering plot against his 2016 campaign and presidency, the case went nowhere.

Despite the allegations of a grand conspiracy, U.S. District Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks dismissed the case “in its entirety” after the various defendants sought that very outcome. Middlebrooks concluded that a federal statute of limitations passed on claims related to the 2016 election and that the case had little to no merit.

Middlebrooks also retained jurisdiction in the event that the defendants sought sanctions. That time has come.

The sanctions filing began by urging Middlebrooks not to waste an opportunity to make Trump and his lawyers pay fees and costs, and be subject to “other relief the Court finds just” for filing a lawsuit that was “unwarranted on the facts, unsupported by the law, and imposed substantial burdens both on Defendants and this Court.”

https://s3.documentcloud.org/documen...-sanctions.pdf

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• Judge Allows Poll Workers’ Entire Defamation Case Against Rudy Giuliani Over False Election Fraud Claims to Move Forward to the Discovery Phase

Two election workers in Georgia won a victory in federal court on Monday as a judge declined to dismiss their defamation lawsuit filed against former New York City mayor and Donald Trump’s longtime friend and erstwhile election attorney Rudy Giuliani.

Filed in December 2021, Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye“ Moss allege that the man once known as “America’s mayor” defamed them when he falsely claimed they had engaged in election fraud as ballot-counters at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta, Georgia.

“As election workers across the state worked long hours carefully ensuring the accuracy of the election, the Trump Campaign and its allies, including Giuliani, engaged in a media offensive that at best questioned, and at worse condemned, their work,” U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell wrote in a 25-page opinion accompanying the order denying the motion to dismiss.

The opinion takes stock of the allegedly defamatory actions and Giuliani’s role in spreading that information around:

On December 3 [2020], plaintiffs—who had been counting absentee ballots and participating in the recount in Fulton County at the State Farm Arena—were drawn into this offensive, when “Trump Campaign surrogates testified before the Georgia Senate, alleging that fraud and misconduct had occurred during Georgia’s November 2020 election.” In support of their allegations, “a lawyer assisting the Trump Campaign played snippets,” of a “State Farm Arena security camera video showing grainy images of two women,” later identified as plaintiffs, “counting ballots.” The Trump Campaign witnesses alleged that after “Republican observers had been asked to leave the arena[,] in contravention of Georgia law,” the women in the video clip and “other election workers [had] produced and counted 18,000 hidden, fraudulent ballots.” The witness “referred to ‘suitcases of ballots [stored] under a table, under a tablecloth’” and stated that one of the women in the video clip “had the name Ruby across her shirt somewhere,” but did not otherwise identify the women by name. The same day, the Trump Campaign repeated the same allegations on Twitter, sharing the Edited Video “and tweet[ing] that it showed ‘suitcases filled with ballots pulled from under a table AFTER supervisors told poll workers to leave room and 4 people stayed behind to keep counting votes.’” Giuliani shared the Trump Campaign tweet “repeatedly . . . on his own Twitter account” on December 3 and 4, repeating the same caption.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/re...38720.31.0.pdf https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile...scovery-phase/
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Fun.

• Ninth Circuit Fast Tracks John Eastman’s Stay Request Over Judge’s Email Order, But Jan. 6 Committee Got the Emails Over the Weekend Anyway

The 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals could act this week on John Eastman’s appeal of a California federal judge’s order that orders him to disclose more Chapman University emails to the Jan. 6 Committee, emails which the judge ruled show a criminal effort to obstruct election proceedings and defraud the United States through false voter fraud information in the battleground state of Georgia.

A clerk on Saturday gave the committee until Tuesday to respond to a request from Eastman’s lawyers to stay U.S. District Judge David O. Carter’s Oct. 19 order while the court considers the full appeal, which Eastman said also will challenge the judge’s two previous crime-fraud findings from March and June.

But the landscape changed drastically Sunday night when Eastman filed a motion with the 9th Circuit that the committee has already accessed the disputed emails, with his lawyer Anthony Caso writing that the committee accessed them through a link he’d requested not be accessed until the 9th Circuit decided the stay request.

“Instead of honoring that request, counsel for the Select Committee notified Dr. Eastman’s counsel at 6:26 pm PDT and 6:40 pm PDT that the Select Committee had ‘downloaded and examined’ the disputed documents, falsely asserting that there was no motion for stay pending before the Ninth Circuit at the time,” according to the nine-page motion.

“As a consequence of their having already downloaded and examined the eight disputed documents, the Select Committee has asserted that the dispute is now moot,” according to the motion. “Dr. Eastman disagrees. If, on appeal, this Court holds that the district court’s crime-fraud ruling was erroneous, those privileged documents should not have been ordered produced to, and examined by, the Select Committee.”

https://lawandcrime.com/2020-electio...eekend-anyway/

• Chief Justice Roberts temporarily shields Trump tax records from House

The Supreme Court on Tuesday temporarily halted a House panel from accessing the tax records of former President Trump ahead of their expected release.

The move, which comes in response to an emergency request Trump filed on Monday, was ordered by Chief Justice John Roberts, who handles emergency matters arising in the District of Columbia. Roberts requested a response by Nov. 10.

The latest development comes after a lower court cleared the way for the House Ways and Means Committee to obtain the records of Trump and his businesses from the Treasury Department as part of a long-running legal battle.

During Trump’s presidency, the department resisted the committee’s request, but later agreed to comply after the Biden administration entered office.

Federal law mandates that tax returns are generally confidential unless an exception applies, one of which includes a written request by the House Ways and Means Committee. The issue in Trump’s litigation in large part turns on whether this exception is constitutional.

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• Judge dismisses Meadows lawsuit against Jan. 6 committee

A federal judge has thrown out Mark Meadows’ year-old lawsuit over subpoenas from the House’s Jan. 6 select committee, concluding that the former White House chief of staff was constitutionally barred from bringing it in the first place.

In a 27-page ruling issued Monday night, U.S. District Court Judge Carl Nichols said that the Constitution’s “speech or debate” clause — which prohibits lawsuits against lawmakers for anything associated with their legislative work — applied in the case of the committee’s subpoenas to Meadows issued in the fall of 2021.

“The record makes clear that the challenged subpoenas are protected legislative acts,” Nichols wrote in the decision.


Meadows is likely to appeal the ruling, effectively putting his testimony out of reach for the Jan. 6 select committee, which is slated to dissolve at the end of the year. Meadows’ attorney, George Terwilliger, said: “We will review the decision carefully and consider any further steps that may be appropriate.’'

The ruling, however could have implications for many of the other suits filed against the Jan. 6 committee by Trump allies — many of which have similarly landed in Nichols’ court.

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• Supreme Court clears way for Graham to face questioning in Georgia election probe

The Supreme Court on Tuesday cleared the way for Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) to face questioning before a grand jury investigating 2020 election interference in Georgia, while emphasizing that the inquiry must abide by constitutional safeguards for lawmakers.

The court’s move was a legal setback for Graham, one of several high-profile allies of former President Trump whom Atlanta-area prosecutors have pursued as part of a probe into the potentially criminal effort to disrupt the 2020 election in Georgia.

The development came in an unsigned, two-paragraph order. Justice Clarence Thomas, who briefly paused the case last week in his capacity as the justice responsible for handling the emergency application, referred the matter to the full court. There were no noted dissents from Tuesday’s order.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) obtained a subpoena for Graham’s testimony in July, before her efforts quickly became ensnared in legal wrangling.

Willis has indicated her interest in two phone calls Graham made in the weeks after the 2020 election to Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) and members of his staff, as well as any possibly related coordination that may have occurred between Graham and the Trump campaign.

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• Court chaos continues as right-wing True the Vote leaders are thrown in jail

The two leaders of the far-right group True the Vote have been hauled off to jail as of Monday afternoon, according to Votebeat Texas

Gregg Philips and Catherine Engelbrecht were told that until they follow a federal judge's order to identify the man they say is an FBI informant in a defamation case they must remain in jail.

The case involves a right-wing conspiracy theory about misconduct by the technology company Konnech, which has since sued True The Vote for defamation. They allege that the group is targeting their company in a viral social media campaign that is damaging their business and it has resulted in a barrage of threats against the CEO and his family.

Philips and Engelbrecht claimed that an unidentified man, allegedly an FBI agent, helped investigate the company for they say giving poll worker information to China. In fact, they're misconstruing an actual case in which the CEO, Eugene Yu is accused of compromising a very small amount of county employee voter data to China.

"Of course, that criminal case does not show anything resembling the election fraud True the Vote has falsely claimed went down in the U.S." said Votebeat Texas.

The group is the same one behind the 2,000 mules movie that alleges a slew of unfounded election conspiracies.

• Trump aide offered immunity to testify before grand jury about Mar-a-Lago docs

The Justice Department has offered Trump aide Kash Patel an immunity deal to testify before a grand jury probing former President Donald Trump's mishandling of documents marked as classified found at Mar-a-Lago, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.

Patel appeared before a grand jury probing the handling of the documents last month and repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment.

The immunity deal for Patel wouldn't necessarily shield him from prosecution and wouldn't protect him from any information investigators receive independent of his testimony.

But experts argue the extension of an immunity offer, nonetheless, could signal the advanced stage the investigation is currently in and how investigators are increasingly zeroing in on Trump's attempts to hold on to documents that were among the most highly protected government intelligence.

Patel didn't immediately respond to a text message seeking comment, and it's not clear how he or his team will respond to the DOJ's offer. A lawyer representing Patel declined to comment. Department of Justice officials declined to comment.

On Aug. 9, the day after FBI agents raided Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate and found scores of documents marked classified, Patel issued a statement calling the raid "unlawful" and saying "corrupt government gangsters" had engaged in "the blatant weaponization of our government for political gain."

On Monday, Patel appeared on "The Benny Show," a right-wing podcast, and said, "I'm all in with the boss, and you know that." Patel was responding to a question about whether he would accept the FBI director post if Trump were to be reelected in 2024.

"First I tell people, let's win the midterms," Patel said. "And then let's see what he does and, you know, you and I think I know what he's going to do. And then it's a two-year lift and you know what, they're going to come after us."

___________

• Trump, company settle with protesters who allege they were assaulted by security

Former President Trump reached a settlement on Wednesday with several protesters who accused his security team of assaulting them outside Trump Tower in 2015.

Just days after jury selection got underway, Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba and the four protesters signed a joint statement agreeing to settle the case. The statement noted that both parties agree that all people “have a right to engage in a peaceful protest on public sidewalks.”

The group of protesters were demonstrating outside of Trump Tower in September 2015 over then-presidential candidate Trump’s derogatory comments about Mexican immigrants when they claim they were assaulted by Trump’s security team.

One protester, Efrain Galicia, accused Trump’s former head of security Keith Schiller of hitting him in the head as Schiller tried to take away a cardboard sign. Galicia and several other protesters sued Trump, his campaign, his company, Schiller and other security guards over the incident.

The protesters’ attorney Benjamin Dictor said in statement on Wednesday that his clients were “proud” to have settled the case and received “written recognition” from Trump of their right to protest on the sidewalk.

“Powerful men may put their names on buildings, but the sidewalk will always belong to the people,” Dictor said.

Habba, Trump’s lawyer, said in a statement that they were “happy to finally put this matter to rest once and for all” with Wednesday’s settlement.

____________

• Trump lawyers saw Thomas as "key" to disrupting 2020 election count

Emails that emerged Wednesday underscore the extent to which former President Trump's top legal advisers zeroed in on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas as "being key" in their bid to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Driving the news: "We want to frame things so that Thomas could be the one to issue some sort of stay or other circuit justice opinion saying Georgia is in legitimate doubt," Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro wrote in an email on Dec. 31, 2020, to John Eastman and other members of Trump's legal team.

• Thomas could "end up being the key," Chesebro also said in the newly disclosed emails, which were released by Eastman's attorneys last week to the Jan. 6 committee and obtained by Politico.
• He added that Thomas would be "our only chance to get a favorable judicial opinion by Jan. 6, which might hold up the Georgia count in Congress."
• "I think I agree with this," Eastman wrote later that morning.

Between the lines: Chesebro in another email on Dec. 31 laid out his strategy to disrupt the election certification process.

• "[I]f we can just get this case pending before the Supreme Court by Jan. 5, ideally with something positive written by a judge or justice, hopefully Thomas, I think it’s our best shot at holding up the count of a state in Congress," he wrote.

The big picture: Eastman, a central figure in Trump's attempts to subvert election results, is the conservative legal scholar who championed the theory, along with Trump, that the vice president could unilaterally reject electors.

• The messages were part of eight emails that Eastman sought to shield from the Jan. 6 select committee, but a judge ordered that the emails be released, Politico reports.
• Thomas' wife, Ginni Thomas, has also emerged as a central player in the Jan. 6 select committee's investigation, as she was in touch with Trump advisers about schemes to overturn the 2020 election.
• In September, Ginni Thomas sat for a closed-door interview with the Jan. 6 committee.

Originally Posted by S Landreth

Thomas' wife, Ginni Thomas, has also emerged as a central player in the Jan. 6 select committee's investigation, as she was in touch with Trump advisers about schemes to overturn the 2020 election.

Oh Dear

• Judge says he’ll appoint monitor for Donald Trump’s company

A Manhattan judge said Thursday he will appoint an independent monitor for former President Donald Trump’s real estate empire, restricting his company’s ability to freely make deals, sell assets and change its corporate structure.

Judge Arthur Engoron ordered the outside watchdog for the Trump Organization as he presides over a lawsuit in which New York Attorney General Letitia James alleges Trump and the company routinely misled banks and others about the value of prized assets, including golf courses and hotels bearing his name.

James’ office says the Trump Organization is continuing to engage in fraud and has taken steps to dodge potential penalties from the lawsuit, such as incorporating a new entity in Delaware named Trump Organization LLC — almost identical to the original company’s name — in September, just before the lawsuit was filed.

Engoron, in an 11-page order, barred the Trump Organization from selling or transferring any noncash assets without giving the court and James’ office 14 days notice. The to-be-named monitor will be charged with ensuring the company’s compliance and will immediately report any violations to the court and lawyers for both sides.

The Trump Organization must also grant the monitor access to its financial statements, asset valuations and other disclosures, must provide a full and accurate description of the company’s structure and must give the monitor at least 30 days notice of any potential restructuring, refinancing or asset sales, Engoron said.

The company must also pay for the monitor, he said.

Engoron’s decision to appoint a monitor is just the latest ruling he’s made against Trump or his interest. While presiding over disputes over subpoenas issued in James’ investigation, the judge, a Democrat, held Trump in contempt and fined him $110,000 after he was slow to turn over documents, and he forced him to sit for a deposition. In that testimony, Trump invoked his Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination more than 400 times.

James, a Democrat, is seeking $250 million and a permanent ban on Trump, a Republican, doing business in the state. In the interim, she wants an independent monitor to review and sign off on some of the company’s core business decisions, including any asset sales or transfers and potential corporate restructuring.

“Our goal in doing this is not to impact the day-to-day operations of the Trump Organization,” said James’ senior enforcement counsel, Kevin Wallace. He said the desired oversight would be “limited” and wouldn’t involve intricacies, such as how many rounds of golf or hotel rooms they were booking in a given year.

“The Trump Organization has a persistent record of not complying with existing court orders,” Wallace said. “It should not be incumbent on the court or the attorney general to spend the next year looking over their shoulder, making sure assets aren’t sold or the company restructured.”

Trump sued James in Florida on Wednesday, seeking to block her from having any oversight over the family trust that controls his company. Trump’s 35-page complaint rehashed some claims from his previously dismissed lawsuit against James in federal court in New York, including that her investigation of him is a “political witch hunt.”

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• Jan. 6 committee extends subpoena deadline after Trump doesn't hand over documents

The House committee investigating the attack on the Capitol gave former President Donald Trump an extra week to provide requested documents after lawmakers said Friday that they did not receive any records from a subpoena issued last month in connection with the Jan. 6 riot.

The initial subpoena deadline was 10 a.m. ET Friday for any communications Trump may have had regarding extremist groups involved in the riot and any attempts in the past year to contact witnesses testifying before the Jan. 6 committee.

The Oct. 21 subpoena also called for Trump to provide testimony at the Capitol or by videoconference on Nov. 14.

In a joint statement Friday, the committee's chair, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and vice chair Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said that while they were allowing additional time for the documents, they were not changing the date for Trump's deposition.

“We have received correspondence from the former President and his counsel in connection with the Select Committee’s subpoena," they said. "We have informed the former President’s counsel that he must begin producing records no later than next week and he remains under subpoena for deposition testimony starting on November 14th."

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• Judge shoots down Mike Lindell's bid to reclaim seized phone, access warrant affidavit

A federal judge on Thursday sharply rejected an effort by Mike Lindell, the MyPillow CEO, to reclaim a cellphone seized by the FBI in September.

U.S. District Court Judge Eric Tostrud ruled that the Justice Department had easily justified the seizure of Lindell’s phone in connection with an investigation into a breach of Colorado voting systems after the 2020 election.

Lindell has been a longtime ally in former President Donald Trump’s effort to subvert the election and lodge discredited claims of widespread fraud. He has not been charged with any crimes connected to the effort.

Tostrud, a Trump appointee based in St. Paul, Minn., also denied an effort by Lindell to access the affidavit justifying the seizure.

He described the affidavit as “extensive,” totaling 80 pages, and said it included identities of confidential informants and cooperating witnesses, as well as details of “recorded communications.”

The judge said the exposure of sensitive details in the sealed submissions could interfere with the probe being conducted by Washington-based prosecutors and the FBI.

“Premature disclosure of these materials would significantly undermine the Government’s ongoing criminal investigation, giving Plaintiffs (and potentially, other targets of the investigation) a window into the Government’s investigation that could compromise the investigation as a whole,” Tostrud wrote in his 36-page order.

The judge also said there would be no practical way to provide a redacted version to Lindell.

Lindell disclosed the seizure of his phone shortly after it occurred, confirming that agents confronted him at a Hardee’s drive-through in Mankato, Minn. He subsequently disclosed the details of the search warrant, which agents furnished to him after seizing his phone and questioning him.

Special Master Sets Schedule in Mar-a-Lago Documents Case

Special Master Sets Aggressive Schedule as Mar-a-Lago Document Dispute Between Trump and DOJ Heads for December Clash

The special master overseeing former President Donald Trump’s dispute with the federal government over a cache of marked-as-classified documents has just established a timetable for how and when the case will move forward in the coming days and weeks.

In a brief scheduling order posted on the federal docket late Monday evening, Special Master Raymond J. Dearie announced that he was planning to consult the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration later this month in order to ascertain the agency’s “practices and guidance documents concerning the categorization of materials under the Presidential Records Act.”

Dearie’s inquiry is premised on a section of the court order establishing his power to oversee the ongoing document dispute between the 45th president and the U.S. Department of Justice.

The order by U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon, notes, in relevant part:

In categorizing Seized Materials as personal items/documents or Presidential Records, the Special Master may consult with the National Archives and Records Administration…

In advance of the NARA consultation, Dearie asked for Trump and DOJ attorneys, if they wish to be heard, to submit a letter of no more than three pages by this coming Thursday, Nov. 10, 2022.

Trump successfully petitioned the reviewing court to appoint the special master after claiming that some of the documents seized by FBI agents from his Mar-a-Lago home in August actually belonged to him personally – and may touch upon attorney-client privilege issues.

The appointment of the special master confounded legal experts. The DOJ has expressed severe reservations with the state of affairs – even going so far as to warn about potential national security concerns – and has appealed the order granting Dearie authority over the matter.

The process, so far, has been slow-moving and time-consuming. In a conference call with attorneys for both sides last month, the special master expressed doubt about the ex-president’s privilege claims.

“It’s a little perplexing as I go through the log,” Dearie reportedly said. “What’s the expression — ‘Where’s the beef?’ I need some beef.”

After that light dressing down, attorneys for Trump and the DOJ reached a compromise on two distinct document categories. That resolution was catalogued in a late October letter from the DOJ.

The large collection of documents culled from the FBI raid has been spit into several batches for review by an internal DOJ filter team referred to as “Filter A,” “Filter B,” and “Filter C” materials.

“[Trump] withdraws his initial claims of attorney-client privilege and attorney work product doctrine with respect to the following Filter A and C Materials,” the DOJ letter says, nothing, that in regard to the documents in those filter groups, “[Trump] previously did not assert attorney-client privilege or attorney work product doctrine.”

In the Monday order, Dearie also scheduled a status hearing for Dec. 1, 2022. That hearing, the special master notes, “will be an opportunity for the parties to elaborate upon their respective positions.”

The arguments advanced during that hearing are likely to be high-stakes. Dearie anticipates an aggressive schedule immediately thereafter – his report and recommendations are currently slated to be released on Dec. 16, 2022.

_____________

Trump’s company appeals judge’s decision to appoint monitor

Former President Donald Trump’s company is appealing a judge’s decision to appoint an independent monitor to oversee its business dealings while it is being sued for fraud by New York’s attorney general.

Lawyers for the Trump Organization filed paperwork Monday seeking to challenge Manhattan Judge Arthur Engoron’s decision, issued last Thursday, in a mid-level state appellate court. They are also seeking a stay to prevent Engoron’s ruling from taking effect while the appeal is pending.

In court papers, the company’s lawyers argued that Engoron overstepped his bounds by requiring an outside watchdog keep tabs on the Trump Organization for the duration of Attorney General Letitia James’ civil case.

Engoron’s ruling, the lawyers said, essentially handcuffed the company — restricting its ability to freely make deals, sell assets and change its corporate structure, and putting “immediate and unlawful prejudgment restraint” on what they said was nearly $5 billion in assets.

A message seeking comment was left with James’ office.

James’ lawsuit, the product of a three-year investigation, alleges Trump and the Trump Organization misled banks and others about the value of prized assets, including golf courses and hotels bearing his name.

James, a Democrat, is seeking $250 million and a permanent ban on Trump, a Republican, doing business in the state.

____________

Trump Loses Bid to Stay Court Monitor Pending Appeal

Trump Fails to Pause a Ruling Putting His Business Under Court-Appointed Monitor as Fast-Tracked Appeal Rages on

Former President Donald Trump cannot pause a ruling imposing a court-appointed monitor pending appeal, a Manhattan judge ruled on Wednesday.

“The application for an interim stay is denied pending determination of the motion by a full bench,” Justice Angela M. Mazzarelli wrote in a handwritten ruling for New York’s Appellate Division, First Department.

The denial falls one day after Trump filed a notice of appeal seeking to overturn a preliminary injunction that his attorney Alina Habba described as “overly broad, overreaching, and unenforceable on its face.”

____________

Trump-Appointed Judge Advances Dominion's OAN Lawsuit

A federal judge in Washington, D.C. will allow a defamation lawsuit brought by a voting machine company against a right-wing network to proceed, rejecting the network’s claims that a defamation case in Colorado involving some of the same parties would address the same issues raised in the D.C. action.

U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols rejected a motion Monday in the lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems against One America News, the conservative media organization owned and run by Robert Herring and his son Charles Herring.

OAN had moved to dismiss the case entirely or, alternatively, have a stay issued pending resolution of a Colorado state case involving a one-time Dominion employee. In the alternative, the defendants argued, the case should be moved to Colorado, where Dominion is headquartered, and argued that the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia didn’t have jurisdiction over them.

In its motion, Dominion relied heavily on a legal concept known as the Colorado River doctrine, so named for a a 1976 Supreme Court case that held that a federal court may “stay or dismiss a federal action in favor of a concurrent action in state court under ‘exceptional circumstances.'”

OAN argued that a Colorado state case against Donald Trump by Eric Coomer, a former Dominion executive, is a “parallel” case that addresses the same issues that Dominion raises in its own lawsuit. In Coomer’s case, the now-former Dominion employee sued Trump, Rudy Giuliani, “Kraken” attorney Sidney Powell, OAN, Newsmax, the Gateway Pundit and other right-wing commentators over repeated assertions that that Coomer bragged on a conference call — dubbed by the conspiracists as the “Antifa conference call” — that voting machines were rigged in Biden’s favor.

OAN argued that because the Coomer case involves the same parties and the same alleged defamatory statements, Dominion’s D.C.-based lawsuit shouldn’t proceed at all, or at least until the Colorado case was resolved.

U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols found these arguments unpersuasive.

“Coomer no longer works for Dominion, and Dominion is not a party to the Colorado suit,” Nichols wrote.

Nichols, a Trump appointee, agreed with Dominion that the cases are not parallel.

The ruling marks the latest failure by a conservative media network and other pro-Trump defendants to scuttle defamation lawsuits brought by Dominion, Smartmatic, and others who say that they were damaged by false claims of election interference.

“We are pleased to see this process moving forward to hold OAN accountable,” a spokesperson for Dominion told Law&Crime in an emailed statement. OAN did not immediately respond to Law&Crime’s request for comment.

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• Rudy Giuliani Dealt Another Setback in Multi-Billion Dollar Legal Brawl with Smartmatic, as Judge Revives Once-Dismissed Count

Rudy Giuliani has been dealt another setback on Wednesday in a multi-billion dollar legal battle accusing him of defaming the Smartmatic voting machine company to propagate 2020 election conspiracy theories.

In March, a Manhattan judge advanced Smartmatic’s lawsuit against the Fox Corporation, Maria Bartiromo, Lou Dobbs, and Giuliani, who succeeded in dismissing only some of the counts against him. Jeanine Pirro and Sidney Powell were able to scuttle the lawsuit against them entirely.

On Wednesday, the judge agreed to revive one of the counts that Giuliani had successfully dismissed. That count alleged that Giuliani defamed the company by claiming that their “election technology was designed and used to fix, rig and steal elections.”

“Since such a defamatory statement impugns the basic integrity of SUSA’s business, ‘an action for defamation lies and injury is conclusively presumed,'” Manhattan Supreme Court Justice David Cohen wrote in a seven-page ruling.

Smartmatic filed its $2.7 billion lawsuit in February 2021, accusing Fox of engaging in a “disinformation campaign, which has damaged democracy worldwide and irreparably harmed Smartmatic and other stakeholders who contribute to modern elections.

Rudy Giuliani Dealt Setback in Smartmatic Defamation Case

• Trump Lawyers Must Pay Thousands for Clinton RICO Lawsuit

Judge Sanctions Trump’s Lawyers for ‘Shotgun’ RICO Suit Over Russia Probe, Suggests ‘Bar and Disciplinary Authorities’ Might Be Needed

A federal judge in Florida sanctioned lawyers for former President Donald Trump who represented him in his failed lawsuit against Hillary Clinton over the 2016 presidential election.

Further sanctions could be on the way. Thursday’s order against four attorneys and two law firms does not resolve a separate motion filed by Clinton, who was one of 31 defendants in a sprawling lawsuit characterizing the Russia investigation as a massive racketeering plot.

U.S. District Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks slapped the attorneys with hefty fines — and suggested that “Bar and disciplinary authorities” may want to step in for further action.

“The rule of law is undermined by the toxic combination of political fundraising with legal fees paid by political action committees, reckless and factually untrue statements by lawyers at rallies and in the media, and efforts to advance a political narrative through lawsuits without factual basis or any cognizable legal theory,” Middlebrooks wrote in a blistering ruling. “Lawyers are enabling this behavior and I am pessimistic that Rule 11 alone can effectively stem this abuse. Aspects may be beyond the purview of the judiciary, requiring attention of the Bar and disciplinary authorities. Additional sanctions may be appropriate.”

Earlier this year, Trump sued Clinton — and dozens of other people and organizations who often serve as fodder for right-wing outrage, including the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Party law firm Perkins Coie, former FBI Director James Comey, former FBI agent Peter Strzok, former FBI attorney Lisa Page, and former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele — in March, accusing the defendants of engaging in a racketeering “plot” against him in the 2016 presidential election, which he won.

Judge Middlebrooks, a Bill Clinton appointee, dismissed the case in September, finding that it was an attempt at “settling of scores and grievances” and lacked legal merit. But Thursday’s sanctions order came from a motion by a lesser known defendant.

Charles Dolan, a Virginia resident with business connections to another defendant, Igor Danchenko, was also named in the suit. The Trump team described Dolan as a “longtime participant in Democratic politics, having previously served as chairman of the DNC, state chairman of former President Bill Clinton’s 1992 and 1996 presidential campaigns, adviser to Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign, and having been appointed by Clinton to two four-year terms on an advisory commission at the U.S. State Department.”

In reality, Dolan’s involvement with Clinton’s campaign was simply volunteering to knock on doors in New Hampshire in the last week before the 2016 election.

In his ruling Thursday, Middlebrooks sided firmly with Dolan and against Trump’s lawyers — Alina Habba and Michael T. Madaio, from the firm Habba Madaio & Associates, and their co-counsel Peter Ticktin and Jamie Alan Sasson, from The Ticktin Law Group.

“When Suing Someone It Helps to Know Where They Live.”

Writing at times in the first person, Middlebrooks, a Bill Clinton appointee, implied that Dolan would have succeed on any one of the three possible grounds for a sanctions motion under Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

“Rule 11 sanctions are properly assessed (1) when a party files a pleading that has no reasonable factual basis; (2) when the party files a pleading that is based on a legal theory that has no reasonable chance of success and that cannot be advanced as a reasonable argument to change existing law; or (3) when the party files a pleading in bad faith for an improper purpose,” Middlebrooks wrote (citations omitted). “Here, all three are true.”

Middlebrooks was not pleased.

“While alone not of great significance, this response reflects the cavalier attitude towards facts demonstrated throughout the case,” the judge wrote in his ruling Thursday, adding that Trump’s narrative “remained unchanged” despite multiple credible corrections from Dolan and his lawyers.

Middlebrooks also dismantled Trump’s claims that “nearly all” of the allegations against Dolan came directly from the federal indictment against Danchenko by special counsel John Durham, who led the investigation into the Clinton campaign’s allegations of collusion between Russia the 2016 Trump campaign.

“But this is simply not so,” Middlebrooks wrote. “As was the practice throughout the Amended Complaint, Plaintiff cherry-picked portions which supported his narrative while ignoring those that undermined or contradicted it. Mr. Trump’s lawyers persisted in this misrepresentation after being warned by the sanctions motion, and they doubled down on this falsehood in their response to the motion.”

In addition to the baseless RICO claim, the judge wrote, Trump’s team pushed an allegation that Dolan committed “conspiracy to commit injurious falsehood.”

The judge also noted that despite Trump’s claim that the defendants, including Dolan, conspired to “maliciously prosecute” him, he was not actually prosecuted.

Questioning whether Rule 11 sanctions were enough to deter such conduct, Middlebrooks fired a shot across the bow to disciplinary authorities and in the meanwhile, imposed fines. He ordered Trump’s lawyers to pay $50,000 in sanctions and $16,274.73 in Dolan’s attorneys fees and costs.

DocumentCloud

• DOJ Wants Trump to Swear to Mar-a-Lago Inventory

In Just-Unsealed Filing, DOJ Asks Mar-a-Lago Special Master to Force Trump to Confirm Seized Files Are Authentic in a Sworn Affidavit

In a just-unsealed filing, the Department of Justice asked the special master reviewing thousands of documents seized from Mar-a-Lago for attorney-client and other privileges to force former President Donald Trump to verify the inventory through a sworn affidavit.

Such an order would compel Trump to affirm or dispute the authenticity of the records that the FBI seized from Mar-a-Lago in August on the record and under penalty of perjury. It would also make the former president provide evidence to his insinuations that documents may have been planted.

“The Special Master has received an affidavit of accuracy from the government. Since the Court appointed the Special Master to ensure fairness, integrity, and even-handedness in the review process […], Plaintiff should be required to verify or correct the property inventory just as the government has done,” the Justice Department’s National Security Division chief Jay I. Bratt wrote in a 20-page filing.

Filed under seal on Nov. 8 and released publicly on Monday, the document summarizes the government’s arguments as to the legal issues before Senior U.S. District Judge Raymond Dearie, the special master recommended by Trump and appointed by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon to preside over the privilege review.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/re...8763.173.0.pdf

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• Trump Fights to Keep Special Master in Mar-a-Lago Case

Trump Fights to Keep Special Master Review of Files the FBI Seized from Mar-a-Lago, Calls Search of His Home an ‘Invasion’

Former President Donald Trump’s attorneys filed a motion on Thursday asking an appellate court to maintain a system to have a special master review the thousands of files the FBI seized from Mar-a-Lago without classification markings.

“The unprecedented nature of this investigation — an invasion into President Trump’s home by the administration of his political rival — demands not only fairness, but the perception of fairness,” Trump’s attorneys Christopher Kise and James Trusty wrote in an 82-page legal brief. “The perception of fairness is not the only reason to question the Government in protecting President Trump’s rights.”

Despite the fact that it was executed pursuant to a court-authorized warrant, Trump’s claimed their client was subjected to an “unlawful search and seizure.”

Every judge who examined the case to date has affirmed its lawfulness. Even Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who appointed a special master to review the case, found that “there has not been a compelling showing of callous disregard for [Trump]’s constitutional rights.”

The first words of the summary of Trump’s brief sets the tone for the remainder — an attack on the legitimacy of the Justice Department’s investigation.

“This investigation of President Trump by the administration of his political rival is both unprecedented and misguided,” the brief states. “In what at its core is a document dispute that has spiraled out of control, the Government wrongfully seeks to criminalize the possession by the 45th President of his own Presidential and personal records.”

The conservative 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which is considering the fate of the special master, has shown deep skepticism about Trump’s arguments.

In September, the court’s three-judge panel blocked two key facets of a lower court judge’s order appointing a special master to review the files seized from Mar-a-Lago: the inspection of the classified files and the injunction preventing the Department of Justice from using them in their ongoing criminal investigation. Trump appointed two of the judges behind that ruling.

The Justice Department initially only sought relief as to the more than 100 documents with marked up to top secret and above, a small portion of the more than 11,000 other files.

Now, the Justice Department seeks broader relief that would overturn Judge Cannon’s order in its entirety, including for the apparently unclassified files. Such an order would end the work of Senior U.S. District Judge Raymond Dearie.

Trump’s attorneys argued that Dearie should be able to finish that work.

The Justice Department’s reply is now due on Nov. 17.

Read Trump’s legal brief here.

___________

• Trump sues to block Jan. 6 committee subpoena

Former President Trump sued to block a subpoena from the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack on Friday night, as deadlines approach for him to produce documents and sit for a deposition.

The committee unanimously voted to subpoena the former president during its public hearing last month.

After Trump missed a deadline to produce documents last week, the Jan. 6 committee agreed to provide a one-week extension. The subpoena also requested that the former president appear for a deposition next Monday.

However, Friday’s filing argued that the subpoena was invalid, claiming that Trump has “absolute immunity from being compelled to testify before Congress” as a former president. Trump also argued that the subpoena was an “unwarranted intrusion on the institution of the Presidency” and that it sought information protected by executive privilege.

“As a result of the Committee’s self-described ‘unprecedented’ action, President Trump has been put in the untenable position of choosing between preserving his rights and the constitutional prerogatives of the Executive Branch, or risking enforcement of the Subpoena issued to him,” the filing claimed.

Trump was widely expected to fight the subpoena from the beginning given his hostility toward the committee, which he has frequently called a “witch hunt.”

https://thehill.com/regulation/court...ttee-subpoena/

___________

• Supreme Court clears way for Jan. 6 panel to access records of Arizona GOP chair

The Supreme Court on Monday cleared the way for the House panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection to access phone records belonging to the Arizona Republican Party’s chairwoman.

The brief order was unsigned, but conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito indicated they would have granted the request for relief filed by Kelli Ward, the GOP chairwoman, and her husband.

The Jan. 6 panel — which has subpoenaed T-Mobile, Ward’s phone carrier — has expressed interest in her role as a phony pro-Trump elector following his loss in Arizona during the 2020 election.

Ward and her husband, Michael Ward, were among a group of 11 Arizonans who signed a fake election certificate purporting to show that former President Trump won the state.

The couple sought emergency relief in the Supreme Court after lower courts denied their bid to shield the records that congressional investigators are pursuing as part of their probe of last year’s pro-Trump riot at the Capitol.

https://thehill.com/regulation/court...ona-gop-chair/

____________

• Justice Dept.: Navarro contempt trial should be timed to aid Jan. 6 committee

The Justice Department on Thursday urged a federal judge to expedite the criminal trial of Peter Navarro, a former Trump White House aide charged with defying a subpoena from the Jan. 6 select committee.

Speed is important, assistant U.S. attorney Raymond Hulser said, because it might force Navarro to cooperate with the select committee before it dissolves at the end of the year.

“I’m here to express that strong desire by the U.S. attorney to try the case, if possible, while the committee is in existence,” Hulser said, calling the trial a “catalyst” for Navarro’s cooperation.

“As we all know, the trial of matters makes things very pointed,” Hulser said. “If there is any possibility that a person can be convinced by the pressing nature of a criminal trial to say, ‘OK, I will go and I will answer questions. I will provide documents,’ we would like to be a catalyst.”

Hulser added that such cooperation wouldn’t negate the criminal charges against Navarro.

But U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta bristled at the suggestion that criminal proceedings could be a tool to aid the select committee’s investigation.

“I don’t want these proceedings to be a lever in the way the U.S. attorneys suggested it might be,” Mehta said.

Navarro was indicted earlier this year for refusing to comply with a select committee subpoena for documents and testimony related to his involvement with efforts to help Donald Trump subvert the results of the 2020 election. The panel wants to interview him about his involvement in strategizing with Republican members of Congress to lodge challenges to the electoral votes of numerous states won by Joe Biden. Navarro claimed he couldn’t testify because his conversations with Trump were subject to executive privilege — a prospect the House rejected when it voted to hold him in contempt of Congress in the spring.

DOJ’s suggestion that the contempt trial could be a tool to coerce Navarro’s testimony to the select committee was unusual. Typically, Congress has viewed criminal contempt referrals as purely “punitive” — meant to punish those who defy its will, not to ultimately obtain their testimony or records. When lawmakers want to coerce testimony from a recalcitrant witness, they’ve traditionally filed a civil lawsuit.

Prosecutors have already secured the conviction for another witness who refused to testify to the Jan. 6 committee: Steve Bannon. A jury found the former Trump aide guilty in July, and U.S. District Court Judge Carl Nichols recently sentenced Bannon to four months in prison. Bannon is appealing his conviction and Nichols agreed to delay his sentence while his appeal is pending.

Mehta ultimately rejected the government’s proposed timeframe for Navarro’s proceedings and set trial to begin Jan. 11, a week after the committee’s authorization is set to expire.

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/1...ittee-00066363

• Hunter Biden, Galileo Cited in Trump's Twitter Suit Appeal

Trump’s Lawyers Cite Galileo and Hunter Biden’s Laptop in 9th Circuit Appeal of Twitter Lawsuit Dismissal

Lawyers for former President Donald Trump are asking the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to reinstate Trump’s lawsuit over alleged Democratic-induced censorship at Twitter, saying the case “presents the most important Free Speech issue of our day.”

A 96-page opening brief says government officials suppress speech by “colluding with social media platforms to remove ideas from the public square,” referencing Galileo’s house arrest plight “for spreading heretical ideas.”

“Thousands of dissidents today are arrested or killed by despotic governments eager to suppress ideas they disapprove of,” according to the brief. “But this is not the American way. We believe the path to truth is forged by exposing all ideas to opposition, debate, and discussion.”

The brief says government officials “use social media platforms as cat’s paws to suppress opinions and information about matters that Americans consider of vital interest—including those that turn out to be correct or at least debatable, such as that the Hunter Biden laptop was authentic, the COVID virus leaked from a laboratory, COVID vaccines provide weak protection that does not outweigh the risk of vaccine injury, and the 2020 election was stolen.”

A 96-page opening brief says government officials suppress speech by “colluding with social media platforms to remove ideas from the public square,” referencing Galileo’s house arrest plight “for spreading heretical ideas.”

“Thousands of dissidents today are arrested or killed by despotic governments eager to suppress ideas they disapprove of,” according to the brief. “But this is not the American way. We believe the path to truth is forged by exposing all ideas to opposition, debate, and discussion.”

The brief says government officials “use social media platforms as cat’s paws to suppress opinions and information about matters that Americans consider of vital interest—including those that turn out to be correct or at least debatable, such as that the Hunter Biden laptop was authentic, the COVID virus leaked from a laboratory, COVID vaccines provide weak protection that does not outweigh the risk of vaccine injury, and the 2020 election was stolen.”

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• Former White House aide Hutchinson will testify Wednesday before Atlanta-area grand jury

Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson will testify Wednesday before an Atlanta-area special grand jury probing efforts by former President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia, a source familiar with the matter told CNN.

Hutchinson, a former top aide to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, previously cooperated with investigations by the House select committee investigating January 6, 2021, and the Justice Department.

CNN reported last month that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis had secured Hutchinson’s cooperation in the investigation.

Hutchinson could offer Georgia prosecutors insights about what she witnessed in the West Wing, as well as specific steps her former boss took related to Georgia. In public testimony before the January 6 committee this summer, she revealed how Trump and his inner circle were warned about the potential for violence on January 6, and how the former president wanted to join the throngs of his supporters at the Capitol.

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• Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp to testify in Trump election probe on Tuesday

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) will testify in the Fulton County probe into former President Trump's alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election on Tuesday.

Why it matters: Kemp is the highest profile Georgia official to be subpoenaed to testify before the district attorney's special grand jury, which conclude with criminal charges against Trump if they find he violated state law by seeking to overturn the election, per Axios' Emma Hurt.

The big picture: Kemp had initially agreed to testify, but his attorneys sought to quash it following a disagreement with the district attorney's office.

• Kemp's lawyers said the order to testify in person had political motivations and had "devolved into its own mechanism of election interference" by seeking to influence the midterm elections.
• A judge ruled in August that Kemp must testify, but delayed his testimony until after the gubernatorial election.
• The Atlanta Constitution-Journal first reported the news that the governor will testify on Tuesday and Axios has confirmed it.

Worth noting: Kemp became a Trump target after resisting his request to help overturn the 2020 election results and defeated former U.S. Sen. David Perdue in the GOP primary before going on to win re-election.

• Michael Flynn must testify in Georgia election interference investigation, judge says

A Florida judge on Tuesday ordered former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn to testify in a Georgia grand jury’s probe into the 2020 presidential election.

Sarasota County Circuit Judge Charles Roberts found that Flynn was a “material and necessary witness” in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’s (D) investigation into interference in Georgia’s 2020 election and ordered him to appear before a special grand jury on Nov. 22.

As Flynn is a resident of Florida, Willis needed approval from a Florida judge to compel the former national security adviser’s testimony in the Georgia probe.

Flynn sought to avoid the subpoena, claiming he was not a “necessary or material witness” and that the probe generally could not subpoena Florida witnesses as a civil inquiry.

However, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney has previously declared the Fulton County investigation to be a criminal proceeding, a decision that Roberts honored.

Several major GOP figures, including former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.), have unsuccessfully attempted to avoid testifying in the Fulton County probe.

After hearing from Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) on Tuesday, the special grand jury is set to hear from former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson and former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows on Wednesday and Graham on Thursday, according to CNN.

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• Despite Setbacks, Mary Trump Will Keep Suing Her Uncle

Donald Trump’s Niece Files Notice of Appeal After New York Court Dismisses Inheritance Fraud Lawsuit Against Trump Family

Mary L. Trump, the niece of former president Donald Trump, filed a notice that she intends to appeal a recent court ruling that dismissed a lawsuit filed against her uncle and other members of the family.

While the notice of appeal is largely a procedural filing, Mary Trump’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan included an outline of the reasons for the appeal.

It reads, in full:

The Supreme Court erred in multiple respects in granting Defendants’ motions to dismiss. First, the Supreme Court erred by misstating and/or misapplying the applicable legal standard requiring that a release have been knowingly and fairly made in order to later be enforced with respect to claims that were unknown at the time of the release, including fraud claims. Second, the Supreme Court erred by failing to address in its analysis Plaintiff’s well-pleaded allegations that (1) Defendants threatened to bankrupt her and her interests, and leave her paying taxes on money she did not have, for the rest of her life if she did not comply with Defendants’ demands, (2) Defendants terminated the health insurance keeping her infant nephew alive, as well as Plaintiff’s own health insurance, in order to pressure Plaintiff to accede to their demands, and (3) Plaintiff’s legal counsel at the time was arranged by a trustee loyal to Defendants, and as a result, counsel did not provide Plaintiff with adequate and proper representation. Third, the Supreme Court erred by misconstruing the terms of the releases, including the structure of the related contracts in which they are found, and the context and circumstances in which they were executed. Finally, the Supreme Court erred by failing to address or decide the other grounds on which Defendants sought dismissal, including with respect to the statute of limitations and application of the fraud discovery rule.

In 2020, Mary Trump sued the ex-president, her late uncle Robert S. Trump, and ex-federal judge Maryanne Trump Barry on allegations that the trio of siblings defrauded her out of millions of dollars from an inheritance she received from her father, Fred C. Trump Jr., who died in 1981.

That substantial inheritance included 70 acres of land in New York City with more than 50 buildings and a shopping center, interest in buildings that held hundreds of apartments, and part of a 153-acre development. Additionally, she was named the beneficiary of a trust established by her father’s father Fred C. Trump Sr. in 1976.

While valued at several million dollars, Mary Trump’s interests were still a minority stake in the family real estate business. Her aunt and uncles were the fiduciaries who kept watch over her interests at the time she inherited them in 1981 – when she was 16 years old.

“Rather than protect Mary’s interests, they designed and carried out a complex scheme to siphon funds away from her interests, conceal their grift, and deceive her about the true value of what she had inherited,” the lawsuit alleged.

On Tuesday, a New York Supreme Court Justice Robert R. Reed dismissed the lawsuit. In the ruling, the low-level court held that Mary Trump had forfeited all rights to her inheritance – including the right to sue for alleged fraud – when she signed a settlement agreement in a breach of contract case against her family in 2001.

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Just for fun. You never know……

• Can Trump Be Disqualified from Being President Again?

Legal Efforts to Disqualify Trump from Holding Office Again Intensify After He Announces 2024 Presidential Campaign

Within hours of Donald Trump’s official announcement that he was entering the 2024 presidential race, legal efforts to prevent the former president from seeking reelection kicked into gear.

Democratic members of Congress are considering whether to back a plan to adopt a federal law that would disqualify Trump from holding office, while advocacy groups are urging state officials to bar Trump in their own capacity. Additionally, groups that have already sued the former president multiple times in the past (such as CREW), have vowed to challenge Trump’s candidacy in court.

Democratic Congressman from Rhode Island Rep. David Cicilline circulated a “dear colleague letter” on Tuesday urging his fellow representatives to support legislation that would bar former President Trump from ever holding federal office in the future.

The legislation is grounded in the principle that the Fourteenth Amendment expressly disqualifies individuals who took part in an insurrection from holding office.

The Congressman went on to argue that the “Constitution clearly intended to bar insurrectionists from holding high office in the United States”— which appears to be a fair reading of the language itself.

Less clear, however, is whether Trump sufficiently “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” to the extent that his actions would trigger this prohibition. Cicilline made the argument that “the January 6th Committee Hearings, the 2021 impeachment trial, and other reporting” have proved “that Donald Trump engaged in insurrection on January 6th with the intention of overturning the lawful 2020 election results.”

• Judge: Monitor Must Report Trump Org's 'Suspicious' Activity

Judge Instructs Court Monitor Overseeing Trump Organization: ‘Immediately’ Report ‘Unusual,’ ‘Suspicious’ or ‘Fraudulent’ Activity

The independent monitor appointed to oversee the Trump Organization as the New York attorney general’s fraud lawsuit unfolds must report any “unusual,” “suspicious” or “fraudulent” activity, a Manhattan judge instructed on Thursday.

Earlier this month on Nov. 3, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron granted New York Attorney General Letitia James’s request to put former President Donald Trump’s business empire under a monitor’s watchful eye during the litigation.

For now, the court monitoring remains in force, and Engoron provided more detailed instructions regarding its operation on Thursday.

Within five days of any request by the monitor, the Trump family or business must provide “any statement of financial condition, other asset valuation disclosure, or other financial disclosure to any persons or entities, including, without limitation, lenders, insurers, other financial institutions, or taxing authorities.”

They must also provide, within that time, “any non-privileged document, book, record, or other information bearing on any of the foregoing, or reasonably necessary to assess the accuracy of any representation.”

By Nov. 30, the Trump Organization must disclose a “full and accurate” corporate structure.

“Defendants are hereby ordered to provide the Monitor, at least 30 days in advance, information about any planned or anticipated restructuring of the Trump Organization, its subsidiaries, and all other affiliates, including trusts, or of any plans for disposing, refinancing, or dissipating any significant Trump Organization assets,” the supplemental order states. “In the absence of any such activity , Defendants shall provide the Monitor with a sworn statement on a monthly basis that no such activities have been undertaken.”

Should Judge Jones discover anything amiss, the supplemental order instructs her to take quick action.

“The Monitor shall immediately report to this Court and the parties any unusual and/or suspicious and/or suspected or actual fraudulent activity,” the order states.

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• Writer Who Accused Trump Of Rape To Sue Him For Battery

A New York writer who accused Donald Trump of raping her in a Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s will sue him next week for battery under a new state law, according to a court document filed Thursday.

Attorneys for E. Jean Carroll filed a copy of the lawsuit they plan to bring against Trump in federal court in Manhattan on Nov. 24. That’s the day the new law — The Adult Survivors Act — goes into effect. The law temporarily lifts the statute of limitations for a year on civil claims for sexual offenses.

Carroll already has a defamation suit against Trump for publicly denying and denigrating her rape allegation against him.

The new suit is yet another major legal complication for Trump just days after he announced a third run for the White House.

“Trump committed battery against Carroll when he forcibly raped and groped her,” states a copy of the complaint. “Trump intentionally, and without her consent, attacked Carroll in order to satisfy his own sexual desires,” it adds.

His “physical contact with Carroll was offensive and wrongful under all the circumstances,” the complaint states. “Trump continued to attack and rape Carroll despite her attempts to fight against him.”

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• Mark Meadows Can't Pause Ruling Favoring Jan. 6 Committee

Mark Meadows Loses Effort to Pause a Federal Judge’s Ruling in Favor of the Jan. 6th Committee

Former President Donald Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows cannot pause a ruling allowing the Jan. 6th Committee to enforce its subpoena for documents and testimony, a federal judge ruled on Thursday.

In late October, U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee, found that he did not have subject matter jurisdiction to weigh into the dispute between Meadows and the Committee. Meadows asked the judge to reconsider that decision and stay his prior ruling in order to maintain the status quo.

But Nichols found that putting a hold on his October opinion would not affect the stay of play.

“Because the Congressional Defendants (for whatever reason) did not pursue affirmative claims against Meadows, the Court’s dismissal of Meadows’s claims does not obligate him to take any action,” Nichols wrote. “And because Meadows never sought (and thus the Court never granted) preliminary injunctive relief against the Congressional Defendants, the dismissal of his claims does not allow those Defendants to take any action that they were prevented from taking by Court order.”

The Committee sought Meadows’s testimony, documents, and cell phone records, which were being held by Verizon.

“As for Verizon, it has never been a party to this litigation, and thus the Court has never ordered Verizon to take or refrain from taking any action,” Thursday’s ruling states.

On Sept. 23, 2021, the Jan. 6th Committee issued a subpoena to Meadows, telling him the panel found “credible evidence of your involvement in events within the scope of the Select Committee’s inquiry.”

“It appears that you were with or in the vicinity of President Trump on January 6, had communications with the President and others on January 6 regarding events at the Capitol, and are a witness regarding activities of that day,” the committee’s chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), wrote at the time. “Moreover, it has been reported that you were engaged in multiple elements of the planning and preparation of efforts to contest the presidential election and delay the counting of electoral votes. In addition, according to documents provided by the Department of Justice, while you were the President’s Chief of Staff, you directly communicated with the highest officials at the Department of Justice requesting investigations into election fraud matters in several states.”

Citing reporting by Reuters and ProPublica, the Committee added: “We understand that in the weeks after the November 2020 election, you contacted several state officials to encourage investigation of allegations of election fraud, even after such allegations had been dismissed by state and federal courts, and after the Electoral College had met and voted on December 14, 2020.”

“Moreover, at least one press report indicates you were in communication with organizers of the January 6 rally, including Amy Kremer of Women for America First,” it continued, referring to the longtime tea party operative.

nice way to start a weekend

• Garland Names Special Counsel To Lead Trump-Related Probes

Attorney General Merrick Garland named a special counsel on Friday to oversee the Justice Department’s investigation into the presence of classified documents at former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate as well as key aspects of a separate probe involving the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and efforts to undo the 2020 election.

The move, being announced just three days after Trump formally launched his 2024 candidacy, is a recognition of the unmistakable political implications of two investigations that involve not only a former president but also a current White House hopeful.

Garland said Friday that Trump’s announcement of his presidential candidacy and President Joe Biden’s likely 2024 run were factors in his decision to appoint a special counsel. Garland said the appointment would allow prosecutors to continue their work “indisputably guided” only by the facts and the law.

Though the appointment installs a new supervisor atop the probes — both of which are expected to accelerate now that the midterm elections are over — the special counsel will still report to Garland, who has ultimate say of whether to bring charges.

The role will be filled by Jack Smith, a veteran prosecutor who led the Justice Department’s public integrity section in Washington and who later served as the acting chief federal prosecutor in Nashville, Tennessee, during the Obama administration. More recently, he has been the chief prosecutor for the special court in the Hague that is tasked with investigating international war crimes.

The Justice Department described Smith as a registered independent, an effort to blunt any attack of perceived political bias.

“The extraordinary circumstances here demand it,” Garland said of the appointment.

The special counsel’s probe will combine the investigation into “whether any person or entity unlawfully interfered with the transfer of power following the 2020 presidential election” and the investigation into the classified documents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.

Representatives for Trump, a Republican, did not immediately return messages seeking comment.

There was no immediate reason provided for the decision or for its timing. Garland has spoken repeatedly of his singular focus on the facts, the evidence and the law in the Justice Department’s decision-making and of his determination to restore political independence to the agency following the tumultuous years of the Trump administration.

And there does not seem to be an obvious conflict like the one that prompted the last appointment of a special counsel to handle Trump-related investigations. The Trump Justice Department named former FBI Director Robert Mueller as special counsel to lead the investigation into potential coordination between Russia and the Trump 2016 presidential campaign.

^should be fun. Can't wait to see him in orange

Laurence Tribe - If a special counsel was to be appointed, I can think of no-one better suited than Jack Smith. Vast experience prosecuting public corruption cases, treacherous national security violations, and crimes against humanity. Absorbs complex facts instantly. Perfect for Donald Trump. https://twitter.com/tribelaw/status/1593702646984196096

Originally Posted by S Landreth

nice way to start a weekend

Indeed! Great news! Lock him up!

Interestingly, the GOP said last month they would not pay baldy orange cunto's legal bills if he ran again.

They've been paying out millions.

Trump is the dumb fuck son of a corrupt very smart scammer and he inherited funds derived from shady deals instigated by his father mostly allowed by corrupt American politicians along the way.

I'm not American but it must be clear to most people that American policies are not formed in favour of the American taxpayer but in favour of the select few that dont give a tinkers cuss about anyone else but themselves and their own pockets.

The most evil so called democracy in the world and not one American can put their hand up and call these criminals for the injustices they perform.

And they still claim to be Worlds police retaining law and order globally.

What a fucking joke.