Thread: Legal Charges Against Trump

• The Justice Department and former President Donald Trump's lawyers face a Friday midnight deadline for submitting proposals for how the special master review of the documents seized at Mar-a-Lago -- including classified documents -- should work.

With the Friday submission, the Justice Department and the Trump team will also be addressing questions about the review's logistics that are wonky, but stand to carry significance over how quickly the review will move and how much it will hinder the criminal investigation into the handling of documents from Trump's White House.

Government’s Proposed Candidates

The Honorable Barbara S. Jones (ret.) – retired judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, partner in Bracewell LLP, and special master in In re: in the Matter of Search Warrants Executed on April 28, 2021 and In the Matter of Search Warrants Executed on April 9, 2018.

The Honorable Thomas B. Griffith (ret.) – retired Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, special counsel in Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP, and Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School.

Plaintiff’s Proposed Candidates

The Honorable Raymond J. Dearie (ret.) – former Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, served on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, formerly the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York.

Paul Huck, Jr.—founder, The Huck Law Firm, former Jones Day partner, former General Counsel to the Governor, former Deputy Attorney General for the State of Florida.

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Edit:

Barbara Sue Jones
Born: 1947 (age 75 years), Inglewood, California, United States
Education: Temple University, Mount St. Mary's University, Beasley School of Law, Mount Saint Mary's University Los Angeles
Appointed by: Bill Clinton

Thomas Beall Griffith
Born: July 5, 1954 (age 68 years), Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan
Education: Brigham Young University, University of Virginia, University of Virginia School of Law
Appointed by: George W. Bush

Raymond J. Dearie
Born: June 4, 1944 (age 78), Rockville Centre, New York
Education: Fairfield University (B.A.), St. Johns University School of Law (J.D.)
* Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court
Appointed by: Ronald Reagan

Paul Huck, Jr.
Born: July 22, 1940 (age 82), Covington, Kentucky
Education: University of Florida (BA), Fredric G. Levin College of Law (JD)
Appointed by: Bill Clinton

I'll start with this first from the NYT…..

• National security attorney Bradley Moss wrote, "With yet another court filing, it is increasingly clear there is no evidence of Trump's alleged 'standing declassification order,' and no evidence that these particular classified records were ever declassified."

Former Pentagon special counsel Ryan Goodman wrote, "Gosh, I wonder why President Trump's side did not claim he declassified MAL documents, and instead just said this milquetoast line. Easy bet: Because they do not want to be caught in a false statement to a court - subject to sanctions and 18 USC 1001."

https://twitter.com/rgoodlaw/status/1568419811067330560

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The rest of the story from politico…….

• Trump, DOJ tangle over '''special master''' to review seized Mar-a-Lago documents

The Justice Department and former President Donald Trump presented dueling visions Friday night of the process and personnel for an outside review of documents seized from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate last month as part of an FBI investigation into alleged illegal possession of classified documents.

Prosecutors and lawyers for Trump each presented two options for potential “special master” candidates to U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon, who declared in an order Monday that she plans to appoint a third-party to sift through the seized records and decide what information investigators are entitled to keep.


The Justice Department proposed Barbara Jones, a former federal judge and Bill Clinton nominee who has filled the same special master role in three of the most politically sensitive investigations in recent years, including probes into Trump lawyers Michael Cohen and Rudy Giuliani.


Prosecutors also offered up former federal appeals court judge Thomas Griffith, a George H.W. Bush appointee who retired in 2020 from the powerful D.C. Circuit.

Trump, on the other hand, proposed Raymond Dearie, a retired chief federal judge and Ronald Reagan appointee in the Eastern District of New York who also served on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Dearie, who most notably presided over the corruption cases against FIFA officials, also signed one of the warrants the FBI used to surveil 2016 Trump campaign aide Carter Page.

Trump’s lawyers also nominated Paul Huck Jr., who appears to have significant ties to figures in Trump’s orbit. The former Jones Day attorney advised Florida Gov. Charlie Crist in 2007-2008, serving in his administration at the same time Trump’s current attorney, Chris Kise, was also advising Crist, who was then a Republican but is now a Democrat. Huck is married to Barbara Lagoa, a federal appeals court judge Trump also considered for the Supreme Court. Lagoa is one of 11 judges on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, where a three-judge panel is soon expected to consider DOJ’s appeal of Cannon’s special master order.

Another disagreement emerged over the timeline of the special master review. DOJ proposed that the review be completed by Oct. 17, while Trump’s attorneys argued that it would take more than twice as long, requesting 90 days for the process to play out.

Cannon will now consider the proposals, as well as the Justice Department’s broader objections to the special master review before deciding next steps.

Prosecutors have said if she does not act by Thursday on their request to essentially carve-out the potentially classified documents from the special master review, they plan to take their request to the Atlanta-based 11th Circuit. The Justice Department has also asked Cannon to lift the portion of her Monday order that temporarily bars investigators from reviewing documents that contain potential national-security secrets.

So far, neither side appears to have formally rejected the other side’s special master candidates, but prosecutors told Cannon that they’d only gotten Trump’s names “shortly after” 6 p.m. Friday.

The main sticking point in the special master plans laid out by both sides seems to be the set of roughly 100 documents with classification markings, such as “Top Secret.” In connection with their appeal filed Thursday, prosecutors are asking that the potentially classified records be excluded from the review process the special master would undertake.

Trump’s attorneys say that material should also be subject to assessment by the special master and they argue that Trump has the right to see and potentially assert executive privilege over any classified records that qualify as presidential records under federal law.

Notably, in the Friday night filing, Trump’s attorneys once again did not echo Trump’s claim that he had declassified any of the materials he possessed at Mar-a-Lago.

Another point of disagreement: the special master’s bill. Prosecutors say Trump should bear the entire cost, since he is the one who requested the independent arbiter. Trump’s team wants to go dutch, with each side paying half the bill.

The next action in the legal fight is expected Monday morning, when Trump’s attorneys face a deadline to respond to the Justice Department’s request that Cannon exempt the records with classification markings from the special master review. Trump’s lawyers signaled Friday that they plan to oppose such a carve-out.

• Trump presses court to keep blocking DOJ access to records

Former President Trump is fighting a request from the Department of Justice (DOJ) to allow its review of classified materials taken from Mar-a-Lago to continue, with Trump’s legal team arguing the investigation is “at its core is a document storage dispute that has spiraled out of control.”

The filing continues to assert the former president has broad power to control his records even after he leaves office, even the classified records that the Justice Department argued Trump can have no possible claim to, and thus do not require review by a third-party special master.

In the filing, Trump’s legal team pushed back against the idea that there was any possible damage from the mishandling of records

“There is no indication any purported ‘classified records’ were disclosed to anyone. Indeed, it appears such ‘classified records,’ along with the other seized materials, were principally located in storage boxes in a locked room at Mar-a-Lago, a secure, controlled access compound utilized regularly to conduct the official business of the United States during the Trump Presidency, which to this day is monitored by the United States Secret Service,” they wrote.

The response from Trump’s team came after the Justice Department last Thursday indicated it planned to appeal a federal district court judge’s ruling green-lighting a special master, also asking her to approve a partial stay that would exclude some 300 classified records from their review.

“The classification markings establish on the face of the documents that they are government records, not Plaintiff’s personal records, DOJ wrote.

“And for several reasons, no potential assertion of executive privilege could justify restricting the executive branch’s review and use of the classified records at issue here.”

But Trump’s team claimed Monday that classification status matters little within the Presidential Records Act (PRA) and that Trump’s document issues should be sorted with the National Archives, or NARA.

“Of course, classified or declassified, the documents remain either presidential records or personal records under the PRA,” they wrote.

“At best, the government might ultimately be able to establish certain presidential records should be returned to NARA. What is clear regarding all of the seized materials is that they belong with either President Trump…or with NARA, but not with the Department of Justice.”

Trump fights back against DOJ in dispute over classified records

https://storage.courtlistener.com/re...18763.84.0.pdf

I wonder what legal charges were driving the golf course meeting yesterday? Maybe those 40 subpoenas got into his head or there is something else lurking. At any rate, he had some high power folks there including McCarthy and Nunes. Hannity might also have been there. Interesting to see that the paranoia is now so deep that they have to find secure locations for their plotting.

Former Pres. Trump is having trouble finding top-notch lawyers to represent him as he faces multiple investigations.
Author David Enrich explains why and talks about his new book, “Servants of the Damned."

• Judge appoints special master, denying DOJ access to classified records

A federal judge on Thursday denied the Justice Department’s (DOJ) motion to access the classified records stored at Mar-a-Lago and installed a recently retired judge to serve as the special master former President Trump requested.

The duo of orders from federal district Judge Aileen Cannon will ignite a Justice Department appeal to the 11th Circuit and also taps Judge Raymond Dearie to serve as the special master — the one candidate both the DOJ and Trump’s legal team could agree on.

The order requires Dearie to complete his review by Nov. 30 — a slightly shorter deadline than the 90-day window Trump requested, but one that punts the determination past the midterms. In a rare instance of siding with the DOJ, Cannon required Trump to pay for the full cost associated with a special master.

Cannon’s decision came after the DOJ asked for a partial stay of the judge’s motion, arguing they should be able to review the more than 100 classified documents taken during the search and arguing Trump could have no possible claim to the records as either personal property or under executive privilege.

“If the court were willing to accept the government’s representations that select portions of the seized materials are—without exception—government property not subject to any privileges, and did not think a special master would serve a meaningful purpose, the court would have denied plaintiff’s special master request,” Cannon wrote.

“The court does not find it appropriate to accept the government’s conclusions on these important and disputed issues without further review by a neutral third party in an expedited and orderly fashion.”

Dearie only announced his full retirement in late August from the U.S. District Court for Eastern New York after working as a senior judge since 2011.

A Reagan appointee, Dearie has worked as a judge since 1986, including a seven-year stint on the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, or FISA court.

During that time Dearie was among the judges to approve the 2016 warrant to surveil Trump campaign foreign policy advisor Carter Page as the Justice Department investigated Russian interference in the presidential election.

ORDER DENYING MOTION FOR PARTIAL STAY PENDING APPEAL: https://storage.courtlistener.com/re...18763.89.0.pdf

^Hopefully the 11^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will grant the DOJ an emergency stay

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• Letitia James Rejected Settlement Offer from Trump: Report

New York Attorney General Considers Suing Donald Trump and at Least One of His Adult Children After Rejecting Settlement Offer

New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) rejected a settlement offer from Donald Trump’s attorneys and is considering filing a lawsuit against the former president for fraud — along with at least one of his adult children, the New York Times reported on Thursday.

Such a lawsuit would mark a culmination of a yearslong investigation that began in early 2019, after Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen testified before Congress that his former boss inflated or deflated assets to obtain tax benefits. That testimony sparked both civil and criminal investigations against Trump and his self-named business. The Trump Organization, which was charged criminally by former Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance (D), faces trial in October, following the guilty plea of its former chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg.

The civil investigation has been looking into several properties, including Trump’s 212-acre Westchester estate known as Seven Springs, Trump International Golf Club Scotland, Trump National Golf Club Westchester, Trump Park Avenue, and 40 Wall Street. In court filings, James previously alleged that Trump inflated the size of his Trump Tower triplex by nearly three times, and the company valued rent stabilized units 66 times higher than an outside appraiser did.

With the civil and criminal investigations running parallel to each other, Trump and his adult children Ivanka Trump, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. — who are senior executives in his business — faced high-stakes questioning in their depositions. Eric Trump asserted his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination in response to more than 500 questions, and his father reportedly did the same more than 400 times.

It's the last bit in the "judge's" ruling that should scare the shit out of Americans....the "judge" is giving trump special consideration due to his former position, thus breaking the rule that all are equal under the law. I can promise you, that piece of whale dung ain't no more special than me when it comes to the law. Who's next to get this special consideration? A famous retired celebrity?

Originally Posted by Topper

It's the last bit in the "judge's" ruling that should scare the shit out of Americans....the "judge" is giving trump special consideration due to his former position, thus breaking the rule that all are equal under the law. I can promise you, that piece of whale dung ain't no more special than me when it comes to the law. Who's next to get this special consideration? A famous retired celebrity?

Unfortunately "all" did not have Executive Privilege for four years. But I would still expect national security to be a more important issue.

A special master could still review the documents and determine which ones could not be used in future litigation.

It's a stalling tactic with the judge's complicity.

• DOJ appeals to block part of judge's ruling in Mar-a-Lago search

The Department of Justice on Friday appealed part a federal judge's ruling that halted the ongoing review of documents seized at former President Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence.

Driving the news: "The district court has entered an unprecedented order enjoining the Executive Branch’s use of its own highly classified records in a criminal investigation with direct implications for national security," the department wrote in the Friday evening filing.

• DOJ asked the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to "stay only the portions of the order causing the most serious and immediate harm to the government and the public by (1) restricting the government’s review and use of records bearing classification markings and (2) requiring the government to disclose those records for a special-master review process."

The big picture: The appeal comes a day after U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon appointed Judge Raymond Dearie to review the evidence seized at Trump's Florida residence.

• Cannon on Thursday also rejected the DOJ's request to resume its criminal investigation into the classified documents seized at Mar-a-Lago.
• The Justice Department has argued that the criminal investigation cannot be separated from the intelligence community's review.

Justice Department asks appeals court to block Trump judge's Mar-a-Lago ruling

READ: Justice Department's filing with a federal appeals court in Mar-a-Lago case: https://s3.documentcloud.org/documen...-lago-case.pdf

someone is going to jail

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• Trump, DOJ lawyers to convene for first conference with special master

The newly appointed special master who will review the documents recovered from Mar-a-Lago on Friday directed lawyers for former President Trump and the Department of Justice (DOJ) to meet with him in New York on Tuesday for their first conference.

Judge Raymond Dearie, who was appointed as special master in the case on Thursday, called for a meeting and invited the two parties to suggest items for discussion, according to a court filing. https://thehill.com/regulation/court...pecial-master/

About a day before team trump responds to the DOJ, so………

• Trump's Former Accounting Firm Now Turning Over His Financial Records To Congress

Donald Trump’s former longtime accounting firm has begun turning over financial records to Congress as part of lawmakers’ investigation into the former president’s business practices, The New York Times reported Saturday.

Mazars USA cut ties with Trump and his businesses in February after the firm said it could no longer stand behind financial information that had been provided by Trump and his operations. Consequently, financial statements Mazars prepared for Trump from mid-2011 to mid-2020 “should no longer be relied upon,” the company warned.

The House Oversight Committee has received a first batch of documents from Mazars following a legal settlement regarding various financial information from 2014 to 2018, the Times reported.

More documents are expected to be provided in the near future, according to the newspaper.

“They have sent us a number of documents. We’re reviewing them,” committee Chair Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) told the Times Saturday. “Mazars is being very cooperative,” she added.

The lawmaker declined to offer any other specifics.

The committee will use the information in its investigation of allegations of conflict of interest when Trump was in office, and any possible violations of the Constitution’s emoluments clause. The clause prohibits federal officials from receiving payments or significantly valuable gifts from foreign governments.

Financial records that must be turned over to Congress under the settlement include any document that indicates false or undisclosed information about Trump or his companies’ assets, income or liabilities.

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• Trump faces new legal problem in DOJ pressure allegations

Former President Trump is facing a new political quagmire as Senate Democrats open an investigation into allegations he pressured the Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate his political opponents. Former U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman wrote in a new book that the Justice Department under Trump pushed his office to pursue criminal cases against former Secretary of State John Kerry and others viewed as political opponents of Trump.

Democrats, who have been happy to elevate Trump and his conduct in the wake of an FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago estate, will look into the matter, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) announced Monday night.

“I welcome the investigation,” Berman said Tuesday morning on MSNBC. “The conduct that occurred was so outrageous and unprecedented. A light needs to be shined on it.”

Berman, who served as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) from 2018 until he was forced to resign in 2020, alleges in his new book that his office was pursuing charges stemming from a guilty plea by former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen.

He also cited an investigation into former Trump White House official Stephen Bannon, who was eventually charged and later pardoned before Trump left office.

In another instance, Berman said the DOJ referred a criminal case targeting Kerry to his office days after Trump sent two tweets attacking Kerry for communicating with Iranian officials about the Iran nuclear deal.

The Justice Department suggested the SDNY cite Kerry using a statute from 1799 that had never been successfully prosecuted, Berman said Tuesday morning.

The allegations levied by Berman, who ultimately left his post after then-Attorney General William Barr told him he had been fired at Trump’s request, present the latest headache for Trump as he preps for a 2024 presidential campaign.

While Trump has not made an announcement, he is viewed as more likely than not to jump into the race.

With that political backdrop, Democrats have seized on opportunities to elevate the former president’s conduct, which has made him unpopular with many independent voters. They’ve sought to tie him to GOP candidates for the House and Senate — a not terribly challenging task given Trump’s efforts to hold power over the GOP through primary endorsements.

President Biden earlier this month delivered a speech decrying Trump and “MAGA Republicans” who are aligned with him as an urgent threat to democracy, framing the midterms as a matter of protecting democratic values.

Democrats have been happy to discuss Trump’s handling of classified materials, which is at the center of a DOJ investigation into dozens of documents the former president took with him to his Mar-a-Lago home upon leaving office. The FBI searched the property last month after it was unable to get the materials back from Trump.

Trump’s conduct around the 2020 election and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol will likely be brought back into the public eye in the weeks before the midterms as a House panel focused on Jan. 6 plans to resume its work.

Trump allies are a focus of an investigation in Georgia into a scheme to send alternate electors to Congress who would back Trump over Biden in 2020, despite Biden winning the state.

Berman’s claims in his new book are the latest Trump-centric controversy that Democrats have said they will look into.

Durbin wrote to Attorney General Merrick Garland on Monday night, as first reported by The New York Times, asking the Justice Department to provide documents related to Berman’s claims, specifically the cases related to Cohen and Kerry.

“The claims made by former U.S. Attorney Berman indicate astonishing & unacceptable deviations from DOJ’s mission to pursue impartial justice—and compound the already serious concerns raised by then-AG Barr’s 2020 efforts to replace Mr. Berman and install a Trump loyalist at SDNY,” Durbin said in a statement.

Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, said Berman’s allegations could pose legal trouble for Trump down the line if the Justice Department decides to open an investigation based on Durbin’s findings.

Tobias downplayed any imminent probe involving Barr, noting that the former attorney general is likely more useful as an ally in Democratic investigations into Trump than as a target of one. Barr has appeared before the House Jan. 6 committee, and he has in recent weeks appeared on Fox News to undercut Trump’s defenses against the search of his Mar-a-Lago estate.

“It will at least be another political headache for Trump as the allegations continue to multiply,” Tobias said.

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Extra

• Judge refuses Lindell motion to dismiss suit brought by voting machine company

A Minnesota District Court judge on Monday denied MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell’s motion to throw out a lawsuit brought by a voting technology company that claims he defamed it by pushing the false narrative that the 2020 election was stolen.

Smartmatic, a company that provided election technology and services to Los Angeles in the 2020 election, alleges in the complaint that both Lindell and MyPillow defamed the voting tech company by falsely promoting the theory that its machines had been hacked or rigged in favor of President Joe Biden. Lindell is a staunch supporter of former President Donald Trump and has falsely maintained since 2020 that Trump won the election over Biden.

Smartmatic also alleges that Lindell, who has advertised promo codes for MyPillow products to viewers and listeners during TV and radio segments where he pushed the false narrative that voting technology was rigged in the 2020 election, used deceptive trade practices.

The complaint is one of a flurry of cases filed after the 2020 election by Smartmatic and Dominion, another voting technology company, against Trump allies and media outlets who have spread false allegations about the companies’ voting systems.

Lindell moved to dismiss Smartmatic’s complaint, arguing that the company failed to adequately plea the defamation claim, and that the deceptive trade practices claim fails because Lindell was acting in a personal, not professional, capacity when making statements about the 2020 election. MyPillow separately moved to dismiss Smartmatic’s complaint, arguing that it is shielded by the First Amendment and that it did not make any statements about Smartmatic. The company also argued that Lindell’s statements can’t be imputed to MyPillow.

U.S. District Judge Wilhelmina Wright on Monday denied both Lindell’s and MyPillow’s motions to dismiss the complaint. The court concluded that Smartmatic has alleged sufficient facts to support its defamation claim, including its claims that Lindell’s statements were false, that his defamatory statements were communicated to outside parties, that he knew or should have known his statements were false and that he acted with actual malice in promoting them.

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Little more

• Tom Barrack: Trump ally goes on trial for 'espionage lite' and obstruction

Jury selection begins Monday in the trial of a former Donald Trump adviser whom authorities allege was involved in a two-year effort to try to influence the policy decisions of the Trump campaign and administration to benefit the United Arab Emirates.

Tom Barrack, a wealthy businessman who served as the chair of Trump's Presidential Inaugural Committee and an adviser to his campaign, was indicted last year along with his assistant Matthew Grimes and an Emirati official for allegedly acting as a secret backchannel for the Gulf nation.

Barrack and Grimes allegedly conspired to capitalize on Barrack's close relationship to Trump by promoting the UAE's interests through media interviews, advocating for a candidate preferred by the UAE to serve as US ambassador to the country, helping UAE officials in their dealings with the White House, and by pushing back against a proposed summit at Camp David to resolve a dispute involving Qatar and Gulf states. The summit never happened.