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  1. #726
    Thailand Expat helge's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Switch View Post
    I am not required to explain anything to anyone who deliberately chooses to misunderstand a point.
    OK

    I didn't misunderstand anything and understand your post.

    Minor pedantry was however, that your argument was build on facts that you had wrong.

    Peace

    (and I do not pretend to be stupid )

  2. #727
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
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    An accountant for former President Trump has testified that the former president reported major losses on his tax returns every year for a decade, including a $700 million loss in 2009.

    The Associated Press reported on Wednesday that Donald Bender, who has served as Trump’s accountant and prepared Trump’s personal tax returns for years, testified in the criminal tax fraud trial against the Trump Organization that Trump lost money in every year from 2009 to 2018.

    The losses include net operating losses from some of the businesses he owns through the Trump Organization.

    “There are losses for all these years,” Bender said.

    Bender was granted immunity to testify at the trial.

    The Trump Organization is facing dual probes from the Manhattan district attorney and New York attorney general’s offices over potential financial misdeeds.

    In Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s (D) criminal probe, in which Bender testified, the Trump Organization has been charged with helping top executives avoid paying income taxes on the compensation they received on top of their salaries.

    Former CFO Allen Weisselberg pleaded guilty to 15 charges he faced for tax evasion in August. But has said that he came up with the plan alone, without Trump or his family knowing, the AP reported.

    Bender’s testimony came on the same day that the Supreme Court rejected an appeal from Trump to prevent the House Ways and Means Committee from obtaining his tax returns. House Democrats and Trump have been engaged in a battle over obtaining the returns for years.

    Trump refused to publicly release his tax returns during the 2016 presidential election, as is normal for most major presidential candidates, saying that he was under audit. But IRS regulations do not prevent someone from releasing their returns while under audit.

    House Democrats have said they need to investigate how the IRS conducts routine presidential audits, while Trump’s lawyers have denounced their attempts as politically motivated.

    Despite the legal victory for the committee, they might not have much time to review the documents, as Republicans will retake the majority in the House in January and are likely to withdraw the committee’s request to review the materials.

    New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) is pursuing a civil suit against the Trump Organization, alleging that Trump inflated property values when working with potential investors and deflated them on federal tax forms.

    Trump ripped the high court’s ruling, calling it “unprecedented” and saying the institution “has become nothing more than a political body.”

    ____________




    Now We Know When the New York Attorney General’s Fraud Case Against Donald Trump Will Go to Trial

    For nearly four years, New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) gathered evidence in her pursuit of Donald Trump before actually filing her lawsuit accusing the former president, his family and his business empire of pervasive fraud. A Manhattan judge has decided that the road to trial will be much speedier than an investigation.

    It has been tentatively scheduled to come to a head on Oct. 2, 2023, a little more than a year after the lawsuit’s filing.

    _____________




    Federal appeals judges appeared skeptical Tuesday that former President Trump should have been awarded a third-party special master to review the documents stored in his Florida home as the Justice Department works to nullify the appointment.

    Lawyers for the DOJ and Trump appeared before a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, the latest battleground as the Justice Department seeks to expedite its access to more than 22,000 pages of government documents stored at Mar-a-Lago.

    The arguments did not seem to bode well for the Trump team, with one of the judges asking amid the arguments, “What are we doing here?”

    On the bench were two Trump appointees — Judge Britt Grant and Judge Andrew Brasher — who previously sided with the Justice Department, granting its request to siphon off the classified materials from the special master review and allowing them to be turned over to investigators.

    But the Justice Department hopes to more quickly gain access to the remaining documents in order to inform its investigation, potentially speeding ahead of likely ongoing legal challenges to the review by Judge Raymond Dearie, the special master.

    Trump attorney James Trusty was almost immediately interrupted by Grant after he referred to the search of Trump’s home as a raid, apologizing for using “a loaded term” after the judge inquired whether deeming it the execution of a search warrant would be more accurate.

    And at another point, Chief Judge William Pryor, a George W. Bush appointee, questioned why Trump should be entitled to a special review of the contents collected during the search at his home when few other criminal defendants — let alone those who have yet to be charged — are afforded a similar process.

    “Other than the fact that this involves the former president, everything else about this is indistinguishable from any pre-indictment search warrant,” Pryor said.

    “And we’ve got to be concerned about the precedent that we would create that would allow any targets of a federal criminal investigation to go into a district court and to have a district court entertain this kind of petition … and interfere with the executive branch’s ongoing investigation.”

    Trusty struggled to answer the judge’s questions about prior case law, noting the novel nature of the search of the home of a former president.

    “It’s not special treatment. It’s just basic facts of where we are. This is a situation where a political rival has been subjected to a search warrant [where] thousands of personal materials have been taken,” he said.

    But at another point, Pryor seemed irritated that Trusty had not demonstrated the ability to meet one of the key tests when seeking the return of seized property — that the government showed a callous disregard for a plaintiff’s constitutional rights.

    “The entire premise of the exercise of this extraordinary kind of jurisdiction would be that the seizure itself is unlawful,” he said.

    “And if you can’t establish that, then what are we doing here?”

    The Justice Department on Tuesday pushed back against the use of a special master,

    “What he wants is not really the documents back. As I said, he already has them back,” Sopan Joshi argued on behalf of the government.

    “What he wants is to prevent the government from using the documents, and I’m not sure that that would ever be a valid justification,” he added, noting such a move would usually come through a motion to suppress evidence at a later stage.

    Joshi also argued that Trump’s attorneys had laid out a dizzying list of supposed privileges to justify scheduling the records from prosecutors.

    Trump’s attorneys, Joshi said, initially raised attorney-client privilege issues only to later bring up executive privilege issues, then claimed some of the documents may have been declassified, then moving to claim some of the presidential records could be his personal property.

    “This just sort of emphasizes how anomalous and extraordinary what the district court did here was,” he said.

    The hearing was the latest development in the Mar-a-Lago case since Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the appointment of a special counsel, Jack Smith, to take over both the documents investigation and the DOJ investigation into the events of the Capitol riot.

    In court, Trump’s lawyers also argued their position was weakened as they have yet to gain access to an un-redacted copy of the warrant used to gain access to Trump’s property.

    Trump’s team filed a motion to Florida District Court Judge Aileen Cannon – who first appointed the special master – to force DOJ to release the warrant, but it’s unclear if such a motion should be directed to Judge Bruce Reinhart, who first approved the document.

    Dearie, the special master, is set to hold a status conference with the two sides next week, where Trusty said they will review some 930 remaining documents.

    “The big swaths of that will be decided with a legal ruling rather than kind of a one-by-one look at the document,” he said.

    _________




    Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Tuesday testified before a Fulton County, Ga., special grand jury probing 2020 election interference in the state after a months-long attempt to avoid appearing.

    Graham, an ally of former President Trump, had cited constitutional arguments as he sought to block a subpoena from the Fulton County district attorney, but the Supreme Court earlier this month paved the way for Graham’s testimony.

    “Today, Senator Graham appeared before the Fulton County Special Grand Jury for just over two hours and answered all questions,” Graham’s office said in a statement. “The Senator feels he was treated with respect, professionalism and courtesy. Out of respect for the grand jury process he will not comment on the substance of the questions.”

    A judge in July approved the subpoena from District Attorney Fani Willis (D), who expressed interest in hearing from Graham about calls he made to Georgia’s top elections official, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R), following the 2020 presidential election.

    Raffensperger, who has also testified before the grand jury, claimed Graham suggested to him that he should discard some ballots during one of the calls. Graham has denied Raffensperger’s account.

    In a separate call, Trump pressed Raffensperger following the election to “find” the roughly 11,000 votes required to overturn President Biden’s victory in the state, a request Raffensperger resisted as he voiced disagreement with Trump’s unfounded claims of mass electoral fraud.

    Graham looked to quash Willis’s subpoena, citing the Constitution’s Speech and Debate Clause, which provides some protections for lawmakers in testifying, among other arguments.

    A federal trial judge in September shielded Graham from testifying in fact-finding inquiries related to election procedures and allegations of voter fraud in the state, ruling it constituted “protected legislative activity,” but otherwise allowed his appearance to move forward.

    Graham appealed the ruling to an Atlanta-based federal appeals court, but a panel affirmed the prior decision and indicated the South Carolina Republican could object to specific questions in the lower court.

    Graham then sought emergency relief from the Supreme Court, but the justices rebuffed his request while indicating that constitutional guardrails should apply in his appearance.

    His appearance on Tuesday marks the latest Trump ally to testify before the grand jury. Others include Rudy Giuliani, other pro-Trump attorneys and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.

    Willis has previously indicated charges in the criminal probe may come before the end of the calendar year.
    Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

  3. #728
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    Buckaroo Banzai's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by S Landreth View Post
    Former CFO Allen Weisselberg pleaded guilty to 15 charges he faced for tax evasion in August. But has said that he came up with the plan alone, without Trump or his family knowing,
    Dont the fact that trump signed the tax returns defeat that argument?

  4. #729
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
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    Thanksgiving wishes from E. Jean Carroll

    _________


    • E. Jean Carroll - Dearest friends, tonight, a few minutes after midnight, we filed the rape suit against the former president.


    I give thanks to the greatest civil rights attorneys in the nation:

    Robbie Kaplan! Matt Craig! Joshua Matz! Shawn Crowley! Rachel Tuchman! https://twitter.com/ejeancarroll/sta...58201047105537

    __________



    E. Jean Carroll, a writer who has alleged former President Donald Trump raped her in the mid-1990s, filed an upgraded lawsuit against him on Thursday, the first day that a new state law in New York went into effect, AP reports.

    Catch up quick: Carroll has been in the middle of a high-profile defamation suit against Trump, for which the former president sat for a deposition in October and a trial is set to begin next year.


    • Until now, however, Carroll had been unable to pursue legal action for the actual alleged assault due to the state's statute of limitations. But now, the Adult Survivors Act allows adult survivors of sexual violence to sue over attacks that occurred decades ago.


    The big picture: Carroll filed the new lawsuit "minutes" after the new law entered into effect and she is seeking compensatory and punitive damages for psychological harms, dignity loss, pain and suffering, and reputation damage, AP reported.


    • It's possible the presiding judge in the defamation case will decide to include the new claims in the trial beginning next year, per AP.
    • At least hundreds of lawsuits are expected to be lodged by sexual assault victims under the new Adult Survivors Act.


    What they're saying: Carroll “intends to hold Donald Trump accountable not only for defaming her, but also for sexually assaulting her, which he did years ago in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman," her attorney, Roberta Kaplan, said in a statement, AP reported.


    • In a statement last week, Alina Habba, a lawyer for Trump, said the expected new filing was, "completely inappropriate and we will take up this issue with the court," the New York Times reported.


    The Trump Organization and Kaplan did not immediately respond to an Axios' request for comment.

  5. #730
    Days Work Done! Norton's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by S Landreth View Post
    Carroll “intends to hold Donald Trump accountable not only for defaming her, but also for sexually assaulting her, which he did years ago in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman
    If true, very wierd. Trump sneaks into a female dressing room in a large department store and boffs her. All against her will?

  6. #731
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    Quote Originally Posted by Norton View Post
    If true, very wierd. Trump sneaks into a female dressing room in a large department store and boffs her. All against her will?
    As Jimmy Carr once said, ‘rapists are hard to identify, because women usually kiss with their eyes closed’. Not sure if Trump could use this fact as a defence?

  7. #732
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Buckaroo Banzai View Post
    Dont the fact that trump signed the tax returns defeat that argument?
    maybe not. look at 1-5.04 § 7206(2) and 2-4.04 [5] Intent https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-utl/tax_crimes_handbook.pdf

    and think...........

    CFO Allen Weisselberg pleaded guilty to 15 charges he faced for tax evasion in August. But has said that he came up with the plan alone

  8. #733
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
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    Trump's new nemesis

    Donald Trump and his allies have ramped up their war against newly appointed special counsel Jack Smith, reviving a playbook they hope will defang the latest unprecedented legal threat bearing down on the former president.

    Why it matters: This isn't 2017. The political and legal conditions that allowed Trump to emerge virtually unscathed from Robert Mueller's Russia investigation no longer apply. No amount of mudslinging — or claims he "won't partake" in the investigation — will protect Trump from indictment if Smith determines he has the goods.


    • "I was described by Steve Bannon ... as a pit bull," former top Mueller prosecutor Andrew Weissman tweeted. "Jack Smith makes me look like a golden retriever puppy."
    • "Jack Smith came after me. If he goes after Donald Trump with the same unrelenting ferocity, Trump will be in trouble," Intercept journalist James Risen wrote in a column detailing Smith's role in a CIA leak prosecution.


    Driving the news: Trump's allies on Capitol Hill and in conservative media have already accused Smith — who is still working remotely from Europe, where he was a war-crimes prosecutor at The Hague — of political bias, citing his wife's donations to Democrats.


    • Garland appointed Smith to avoid the perception of a conflict of interest after Trump declared his 2024 candidacy, but that hasn't stopped some Republicans from accusing the registered independent of being a secret liberal.
    • Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) are among those who have sought to discredit Smith's appointment, branding it as the latest example of DOJ "politicization" under President Biden.


    Catch up quick: Smith, a widely respected veteran federal prosecutor, was tapped by Attorney General Merrick Garland to take over two of the most explosive investigations involving a former president in modern history.


    • The first is the Justice Department's sweeping probe into Trump's efforts to interfere with the lawful transfer of power after the 2020 election, including the scheme to certify false slates of electors on Jan. 6, 2021.
    • The second is examining whether Trump illegally retained classified documents at Mar-a-Lago and obstructed the government's efforts to get them back.


    Between the lines: At least three major factors distinguish the new special counsel from the challenges and constraints of the Mueller investigation:


    1. Protection: Trump is no longer in office, meaning the Justice Department policy that barred Mueller from indicting a sitting president does not apply. The tools Trump wielded to discredit and jam up the investigation — threatening to fire DOJ officials, dangling pardons and using his bully pulpit — are no longer available to him. Nor is his loyalist Attorney General Bill Barr, who cushioned the blow of the final Mueller report by releasing a summary before making it public.
    2. Timing: Both Garland and Smith have stressed that the appointment will not slow the pace of either investigation. Smith is inheriting teams of prosecutors and agents that have already made significant headway, unlike Mueller, who had to "fly and build the plane simultaneously," as Weissman wrote in a recent N.Y. Times column.
    3. Scope: The sprawling Mueller probe involved both criminal and counterintelligence elements, with much of the key information buried in the bowels of a hostile foreign power. By comparison, the House Jan. 6 committee has already unearthed massive amounts of evidence expected to be referred to DOJ, while the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case is viewed by many legal experts as open-and-shut.


    The bottom line: The lionization of Mueller by online liberals ended in disappointment and reinforced Trump's Teflon reputation.


    • Smith, like Mueller, is only human. But the similarities between the two special counsels' situations largely end with the title they share.
    • In 2010, after being criticized for closing corruption cases into members of Congress, Smith told the N.Y. Times: "[I]f I were the sort of person who could be cowed — ‘I know we should bring this case, I know the person did it, but we could lose, and that will look bad,’ I would find another line of work."

  9. #734
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    Six fucking years of investigations and Trump has yet to be convicted of a crime. Do Americans even realize that non-Americans are looking at you and wondering what the delay is? Because it's pretty obvious he's a traitor and criminal to most of us.

    Better hurry up, or President DeSantis is just going to make it all go away. After 2 years and a dozen investigations into Hunter Biden, of course.
    Originally Posted by sabang
    Maybe Canada should join Nato.

  10. #735
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    Quote Originally Posted by pickel View Post
    Six fucking years of investigations and Trump has yet to be convicted of a crime. Do Americans even realize that non-Americans are looking at you and wondering what the delay is? Because it's pretty obvious he's a traitor and criminal to most of us.

    Better hurry up, or President DeSantis is just going to make it all go away. After 2 years and a dozen investigations into Hunter Biden, of course.
    The delay was that he was the president with all the benefits that the office provides including the fact that you can't indict a
    sitting president.
    I dont know from what country you are from, but how many of your presidents have you indicted? or were all of the saints?
    The sooner you fall behind, the more time you have to catch up.

  11. #736
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    Quote Originally Posted by Buckaroo Banzai View Post
    I dont know from what country you are from, but how many of your presidents have you indicted? or were all of the saints?
    Well, we don't have Presidents in Canada. But our current Prime Minister did show up at an inquiry today to testify on why he invoked the Emergencies Act (basically Martial Law to you Mercans) earlier this year. No refusals to testify, no appeals, no obfuscation by lawyers delaying proceedings. You know, like how it happens in civilized countries.

  12. #737
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    Quote Originally Posted by pickel View Post
    Six fucking years of investigations and Trump has yet to be convicted of a crime. .
    Certainly is strange looking on. There are SO many cases against him, and none have been able to get traction.

    The new special council looks like someone who does not fuck around though, and I get the feeling things might start to move very quickly.

  13. #738
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    Quote Originally Posted by pickel View Post
    Well, we don't have Presidents in Canada.
    Oh... a Canadian ehh. Its ok I won't hold that against you, you seem like a nice fella and it's not your fault you were born in 'anada
    I guess someone has to do it.

  14. #739
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by nidhogg View Post
    The new special council looks like someone who does not fuck around though, and I get the feeling things might start to move very quickly.
    something about the wheels of justice

    ____________



    ‘That Is Incorrect’: Special Counsel Swats Down Claim by Donald Trump’s Lawyers That Rudy Giuliani Case Empowers Judge in Mar-a-Lago Probe

    After facing a brutal reception before the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, attorneys for former President Donald Trump tried to salvage a lower court’s ruling gumming up the Department of Justice’s criminal investigation of records seized at Mar-a-Lago by pointing to the case of his lawyer Rudy Giuliani.

    The 11th Circuit’s three-judge panel, comprised of two Trump appointees and a George W. Bush appointee, asked Trump whether a court ever asserted equitable jurisdiction to block the government from reviewing seized records pending review by a special master. Trump’s legal team claimed that the Giuliani case provided a precedent for that.

    In a short but sharp reply on Thursday, special counsel Jack Smith replied that the comparison was inapt.

    “That is incorrect,” the single-paragraph letter, signed by Smith and U.S. Attorney Juan Antonio Gonzalez, states in part.

    In Giuliani’s case, the judge did not “enjoin the government” from reviewing records seized from the ex-New York City mayor’s apartment. Federal prosecutors themselves requested a special master because Giuliani’s status as a lawyer implicated attorney-client privilege concerns.

    The government notes that is not the case with Trump.

    “Moreover, the records there were seized from an attorney’s office, the review was conducted on a rolling basis, and the case did not involve a separate civil proceeding invoking a district court’s anomalous jurisdiction,” Smith’s letter states.

    “None of those is true here” in the Trump case, Smith added.

    Federal prosecutors ultimately declined to recommend charges against Giuliani, but the investigation of Trump continues. The search warrant indicated that authorities suspect possible violations of the Espionage Act, obstruction of justice and concealment and removal of government records.

    As of press time, the 11th Circuit has not ruled on whether to allow the special master review currently pending before Senior U.S. District Judge Raymond Dearie to proceed. The three-judge panel appeared to leave little doubt earlier this week, however, that they believed U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s rulings stood on shaky jurisdictional ground. Cannon’s ruling conceded that Trump did not prove a “callous disregard” for his rights by the FBI, and Trump’s attorneys agreed at the hearing that they had not proven that.

    “If you can’t establish that, then what are we doing here?” Chief Judge William H. Pryor Jr., the sole George W. Bush appointee on the panel, bluntly asked Trump’s attorney James Trusty.

    The two other members of the panel, U.S. Circuit Judges Elizabeth “Britt” Cagle Grant and Andrew L. Brasher, are Trump appointees who ruled against the former president before when they reversed portions of Cannon’s ruling related to classified materials. The FBI found more than 100 documents marked classified up to “Top Secret” and above in Mar-a-Lago, and Cannon initially ordered the government to stop scrutinizing them for their investigation until a special master reviewed them.

    Federal prosecutors have continued investigating those materials ever since the 11th Circuit’s ruling in September, and now, they are hoping the court will allow them unfettered access to the tens of thousands of other files without classification markings.

  15. #740
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
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    Special Master Throws Curveball to Trump and DOJ, Nixes Upcoming Hearing About Various Issues and Tells Both Sides to Instead Answer Questions in Writing

    The special master overseeing former President Donald Trump’s spat with federal investigators over an increasingly small collection of documents on Monday told attorneys on both sides of the matter to forget about appearing in court for a hearing he scheduled for next month.

    Special Master Raymond J. Dearie made the announcement in a brief minute order posted directly to the federal docket.

    The order notes that “there are no matters requiring counsel to travel to Brooklyn for an in-person conference,” and justifies the last-minute change in the proceedings on “further review of the record.”

    Dearie’s latest order elides those issues in favor of direct questions about a very small number of documents. In lieu of arguing over various complaints and concerns, the special master wants the attorneys to explain if they do or don’t agree about “the categorization” of certain “records under the Presidential Records Act.”

    The minute order refers directly to those documents in question – in a sense – by identifying them via the Bates numbering system:

    In each case, the parties’ spreadsheet summarizing their respective categorizations and disputes reflects that the parties have a PRA dispute despite both sides categorizing the document as a “personal record.” a. Bates no. 156b. Bates nos. 476-79c. Bates nos. 3971-77d. Bates nos. 4017-18e. Bates nos. 12246-48f. Bates nos. 15167-68g. Bates nos. 17993-95h. Bates no. 179962. Do the parties dispute the PRA categorization of Bates no. 7017? The parties’ spreadsheet reflects differing categorizations but also lists the document as not being in dispute.

    The special master also singles out some apparent discrepancies in previous filings entirely made by Trump’s attorneys:

    Does Plaintiff assert executive privilege with respect to Bates no. A-054 and A-055 (documents 15 and 16 of the Filter Materials)? Compare ECF 160-1 at 2 (letter from Plaintiff’s counsel noting that “there is no further matter to resolve” as to each) with ECF 187-1 at 4 (subsequent letter from government reporting that each document is disputed based on Plaintiff’s assertion of executive privilege).

    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,” government attorneys noted in a late October filing after reaching a compromise on two distinct document categories, noting, that in regard to the documents in those filter groups, “[Trump] previously did not assert attorney-client privilege or attorney work product doctrine.”

    Monday’s order suggests a very limited decision on the overall disagreement could be in the offing. Dearie previously said that he anticipates issuing his report and recommendations as to the state of the disputed documents on Dec. 16, 2022.

    ____________




    Former Trump White House counselor Kellyanne Conway met Monday with investigators from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, according to multiple reports.

    Conway was seen entering the O’Neill House Office Building, where the panel conducts its depositions and interviews.

    Conway was not publicly subpoenaed by the committee and, according to NBC News, told reporters that “I’m here voluntarily” when leaving the room during a break.

    She was not in the Trump administration on Jan. 6, but, according to reporting from The Washington Post, Conway called an aide to the former president and urged him to call off his supporters who were storming the Capitol and noted that she had received a call from the Washington, D.C., mayor’s office seeking help in securing assistance from the National Guard.

    Conway’s attorney and the Jan. 6 committee did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

    _____________




    CNN Asks Judge to Toss Trump Defamation Lawsuit over ‘Persistent Association’ to Adolf Hitler: ‘Such Rhetorical Allusions to History Are Not Actionable’

    CNN has struck back at Donald Trump over the former president’s defamation complaint against the network.

    In a motion filed Tuesday, CNN asked U.S. District Judge Anuraag Singhal to dismiss the Trump’s lawsuit.

    As Law&Crime previously reported, Trump claimed that the network’s “persistent association” of Trump to Adolf Hitler and Hitler’s “Big Lie” — that Jews were the source of Germany’s problems — amounts to defamation.

    CNN insists that the five CNN-published pieces at issue contain speech that is protected as both opinion and non-defamatory.

    “The Complaint seeks to silence any criticism of Plaintiff’s debunked claim that the 2020 presidential election was ‘stolen,'” the motion says. “The lawsuit, though, does not even try to prove this claim is true, for the simple reason that evidence of material election fraud does not exist.”

    CNN says that Trump’s claims are “untenable and repugnant to a free press and open political debate” and require dismissal under both Florida law and the First Amendment.

    “The supposed ‘falsity’ (that ‘Big Lie’ allegedly conveys that Plaintiff would be ‘Hitler-like’ in any future political role and associates the Plaintiff’s character with that of Adolf Hitler) is unverifiable political expression,” the motion says. “The ‘Big Lie,’ a phrase widely used by not just CNN but many journalists and commentators to refer to Plaintiff’s unfounded claims of election fraud, and any alleged association resulting therefrom are also ‘rhetorical hyperbole’ and ‘pure opinion’ under well-established principles of defamation law.”

    The 21-page motion also systematically takes aim at Trump’s claims using what it describes as a “roadmap” to guide the court to the conclusion that the lawsuit must be dismissed.

    “Each [publication] is obviously ‘opinion’ in label, tone, and content,” CNN says in its motion (citations omitted). “The Complaint does not identify any specific falsity in any cited passage.”

    As to Trump’s claim that portions of a Jan. 25, 2021 op-ed piece by Prof. Ruth Ben-Ghait, a CNN contributor, is defamatory, CNN argues that her use of the phrase “Big Lie” is “rhetorical hyperbole” and “does not refer to Hitler or Nazism.”

    Ben-Ghiat’s op-ed, CNN argues, “does not state a literal fact that Plaintiff is Hitler or will literally implement policy programs from Nazi Germany.”

    “Instead, Publication A uses ‘Big Lie’ as an expression of contempt for Plaintiff’s conduct,” the motion continues. “Thus, ‘Big Lie’ is the same as the ‘loose language or undefined slogans that are part of the conventional give-and-take in our economic and political controversies — like ‘unfair’ or ‘fascist’ — and is not a false statement of actual fact.”

    “Such rhetorical allusions to history are not actionable,” the motion adds.

  16. #741
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
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    The Treasury Department sent six years of former President Trump's federal tax returns to the Democratic-led House Ways and Means Committee, a spokesperson confirmed to Axios Wednesday.

    The big picture: House Democrats have been trying for years to obtain Trump's tax returns from the Internal Revenue Service as part of its investigation into the service’s presidential audit program, even as the former president fought for years to block its release.


    • The Supreme Court last week denied Trump's emergency application asking it to block the committee from obtaining his tax returns.


    Driving the news: "Treasury has complied with last week’s court decision," a Treasury spokesperson told Axios.


    • CNN first reported the committee had access to the returns.
    • The House Ways and Means Committee did not immediately provide comment to Axios.


    Background: After the Treasury Department denied the committee's request to turn over the documents in 2019, committee chair Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.) filed a lawsuit enforcing its inquiry.


    • Trump's lawyers argued the committee wanted to publish the records and didn't actually have a legitimate legislative purpose for them.
    • The Department of Justice under the Biden administration argued in a 2021 opinion that the committee's request was legitimate and that the Trump-era Treasury Department had no valid reason to refuse it, Axios Jacob Knutson reports.


    Of note: The tax returns are not expected to be released to the public any time soon, per CNN.

    ____________




    Second Federal Judge Rejects Donald Trump’s Claim He’s ‘Absolutely Immune’ from Civil Suits for His Role in the Jan. 6th Attack

    A second federal judge has rejected Donald Trump’s claim of absolute immunity from civil liability in connection with the attack on the U.S. Capitol, giving advocacy groups another opportunity to hold the former president liable under the Voting Rights Act and the Ku Klux Klan Act.

    In a subheading of his 23-page ruling, Senior U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan declared flatly on Monday: “Former President Trump is Not Absolutely Immune From Damages Liability.”

    The judge, who previously dismissed other Jan. 6-related claims against Trump and the Republican National Committee, explained that presidents defending against actions for damages can typically invoke “absolute” privilege when the conduct at issue relates to official duties.

    “However, immunity does not protect acts that former President Trump undertook outside the outer perimeter of his official duties,” Sullivan noted.

    After the 2020 election, the Detroit-based Michigan Welfare Rights Organization sued Trump and the RNC under the Voting Rights Act and the KKK Act, a Reconstruction-era law initially designed to protect the rights of newly freed enslaved people from white supremacists. Together with the NAACP and three Black voters from Detroit, the group noted that Trump and the RNC directed their election-subversion efforts in places with large populations of color.

    https://storage.courtlistener.com/re...322.59.0_1.pdf


    _____________




    South Carolina’s Supreme Court has unanimously ordered former White House Chief of staff Mark Meadows to testify to an Atlanta-area grand jury investigating Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the election in Georgia.

    “We have reviewed the arguments raised by [Meadows] and find them to be manifestly without merit,” South Carolina’s Supreme Court justices wrote in a brief opinion.

    The decision affirmed a lower court’s ruling requiring Meadows to testify to the Fulton County grand jury investigation led by District Attorney Fani Willis. Meadows was initially scheduled to appear for testimony on Nov. 30, and it’s unclear if that appearance is still on track.

    Attorneys for Meadows and a spokeswoman for Willis did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    The five-member court’s decision was just three paragraphs long. It cited the “exigent circumstances involved” but did not go into detail about the dispute.

    Willis sought Meadows’ testimony in September as part of her expansive investigation into efforts by Trump and his allies to disrupt the election process in Georgia, including his push for Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the state

  17. #742
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
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    An appeals court on Thursday ruled to scrap the appointment of a special master to review documents seized from former President Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence.

    Why it matters: It's a major defeat for Trump and victory for the Department of Justice, which has pushed to end the special master review. The decision allows the department to continue its probe into the former president's handling of classified documents.

    What they’re saying: “The law is clear,” the appeals court wrote. “We cannot write a rule that allows any subject of a search warrant to block government investigations after the execution of the warrant. Nor can we write a rule that allows only former presidents to do so.”


    • “Either approach would be a radical reordering of our caselaw limiting the federal courts’ involvement in criminal investigations. And both would violate bedrock separation-of-powers limitations.”
    • “Accordingly, we agree with the government that the district court improperly exercised equitable jurisdiction, and that dismissal of the entire proceeding is required,” it continued.
    • “To create a special exception here would defy our Nation’s foundational principle that our law applies ‘to all, without regard to numbers, wealth, or rank.’”


    The big picture: The ruling comes after a three-member panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit last week seemed inclined to grant the DOJ's appeal of the special master's appointment during oral arguments.


    • The DOJ argued that a federal judge "erred in ordering a special-master review for claims of executive and attorney-client privilege and enjoining the government’s use of the seized records in the meantime."
    • Trump sought the special master, arguing that some of the records may be protected by attorney-client privilege or executive privilege.




    Worth noting: The three-panel judge includes the circuit’s chief judge, Bush-appointed William Pryor, and two judges appointed by Trump.

    State of play: The DOJ has appointed Jack Smith to oversee federal criminal investigations into Trump's handling of classified documents and efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.




    ____________

    • DOJ subpoenas filmmaker for Jan. 6 footage


    The Justice Department has subpoenaed a documentarian for footage he took of the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.

    Alex Holder was subpoenaed the same day newly appointed Special Counsel Jack Smith took over a Justice Department investigation into the effort to block the peaceful transition of power, as well as its investigation into the storage of government records at former President Trump’s Florida home.

    A spokesperson for Holder said, “As we did with the other two subpoenas, we will 100 percent comply,” with DOJ’s order.

    Holder is ordered to appear before a grand jury on Jan. 30.

    Holder’s miniseries, Unprecedented, was released in July.

    “When we began this project in September 2020 we never could have predicted that our work would one day be subpoenaed by Congress,” Holder said in a statement shared on Twitter.

    “As a British filmmaker I had no agenda coming into this. We simply wanted to better understand who the Trumps were and what motivated them to hold onto power so desperately.”

    https://thehill.com/policy/national-...jan-6-footage/

    ____________

    • Trump’s company blames tax fraud on ‘greedy’ Allen Weisselberg at NYC trial


    Lawyers for former President Donald Trump’s family real estate business asked a Manhattan jury Thursday not to hold the company responsible for financial fraud committed by its veteran money man.

    In her closing argument, defense lawyer Susan Necheles said the Manhattan district attorney’s criminal tax fraud case against the two Trump Organization entities — Trump Corporation and Trump Payroll Corporation — was about former Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg’s false tax returns, which his employer was not responsible for.

    “We are here today for one reason and one reason only: the greed of Allen Weisselberg,” said Trump Corp. lawyer Necheles. “Along the way, he messed up. He got greedy. Once he got started, it was difficult for him to stop.”

    The former CFO, who described himself as Trump’s “eyes and ears” from a financial standpoint in a 2015 deposition, will soon be sentenced to five months in jail after pleading guilty to the fraud in August. His deal was in exchange for testifying for the prosecution and a shorter prison sentence.

    Weisselberg’s deputy, company Controller Jeff McConney, 67, who handled the paperwork in question, spent days on the stand under immunity, which he received because he testified before the grand jury that signed off on the charges. He claimed he followed the boss’s orders when he broke the law.

    Both men admitted to omitting $1.7 million in luxury work expenses from Weisselberg and other executive’s taxable income, reducing the amount they owed in taxes for 15 years. Purchases on the Trump Organization’s dime included rent on a Manhattan apartment, Mercedes-Benz car leases, furniture in Weisselberg’s Florida home, and his grandkids’ private school tuition. The Trump Organization’s chief operating officer, Matthew Calamari Sr., who is not charged, enjoyed many of the same benefits.

    To find the entities guilty, the jury must find Weisselberg was a “high-ranking managerial agent” at the Trump-owned company when he devised and carried out the tax dodging scheme. The panel must also find the CFO was acting in the scope of his employment partially to benefit the company.

    A full-time Trump Organization employee for decades, Weisselberg described receiving his yearly bonuses totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars as an independent contractor. That meant the business didn’t owe payroll taxes. Weisselberg said he knew the fraud benefited the company.

    By subtracting the cost of the lavish expenses from the executives’ hefty annual bonuses and salary — an illegal practice known as “backing out” — they paid the company back.

    “Over and over again, Allen Weisselberg and Jeff McConney testified that Allen Weisselberg committed these crimes solely to benefit himself,” said Necheles. “In other words, no intent to benefit the corporation.”

    Prosecutors say the fraud that Weisselberg got rich off was no secret and intended to benefited his employer as much as it benefited him. They were expected to deliver their summation later Thursday.

    The Trump entities stand to shell out $1.7 million if convicted, considerably less than how much they owe in attorneys’ fees. Trump is not charged in the case, which he’s called a witch hunt.

    https://nordot.app/97111706827258265...22757532812385

    ____________

    • Second key Tina Peters deputy pleads guilty, agrees to testify against the indicted Mesa County clerk


    A second key former deputy to indicted Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters pleaded guilty Wednesday to criminal charges stemming from a breach of the county’s election system last year, agreeing as part of a deal with prosecutors to testify against Peters in her upcoming trial.

    Sandra Brown, Mesa County’s former elections manager, pleaded guilty to one count of attempting to influence a public servant, a felony, and one misdemeanor count of official misconduct.

    As part of the plea, Brown agreed to cooperate with authorities in their investigation into Peters. If she doesn’t honor the cooperation agreement, the original charges against her — including conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, a felony — will be reinstated.

    In exchange, Brown will avoid a prison sentence and can only be ordered jailed for a maximum of 30 days. She will be sentenced at a later date to a two-year deferred judgment, which means that as long as she doesn’t break any laws during that time, she won’t be subject to additional penalties.

    A 15-page arrest warrant for Brown, who was arrested in July, alleged she misrepresented to the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office who would be attending a sensitive election system software update in May 2021. An email included in the document shows Brown messaging state elections officials to let them know that Gerald Wood would be attending the update, when in fact, according to authorities, he was never going to be there.

    Investigators allege that Wood’s identity was stolen by Peters, a Republican, to surreptitiously get another man, Conan Hayes, a former pro surfer and election conspiracy theorist, into the Dominion Voting Systems software update.

    https://coloradosun.com/2022/11/30/s...y-guilty-plea/

  18. #743
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    Quote Originally Posted by S Landreth View Post
    Why it matters: It's a major defeat for Trump and victory for the Department of Justice, which has pushed to end the special master review.
    Nonsense !!
    it s another small win for trump. His special master gambit was simply another delaying tactic, to kick the can past the midterms in the hope of favorable results that would had afforded him more abstraction and delays. And as such it worked as far as moving the needle past the midterms, unfortunately for him ,he did not get the desired results from the midterms.
    But that's just another chapter in the "As the stomach turns" soap opera that is what American politics has become.

  19. #744
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
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    ^wrong

  20. #745
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    Quote Originally Posted by S Landreth View Post
    ^wrong
    ^ How?

  21. #746
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
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    My link says it all.........

    Quote Originally Posted by S Landreth View Post


    An appeals court on Thursday ruled to scrap the appointment of a special master to review documents seized from former President Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence.

    Why it matters: It's a major defeat for Trump and victory for the Department of Justice, which has pushed to end the special master review. The decision allows the department to continue its probe into the former president's handling of classified documents.

    What they’re saying: “The law is clear,” the appeals court wrote. “We cannot write a rule that allows any subject of a search warrant to block government investigations after the execution of the warrant. Nor can we write a rule that allows only former presidents to do so.”


    • “Either approach would be a radical reordering of our caselaw limiting the federal courts’ involvement in criminal investigations. And both would violate bedrock separation-of-powers limitations.”
    • “Accordingly, we agree with the government that the district court improperly exercised equitable jurisdiction, and that dismissal of the entire proceeding is required,” it continued.
    • “To create a special exception here would defy our Nation’s foundational principle that our law applies ‘to all, without regard to numbers, wealth, or rank.’”


    The big picture: The ruling comes after a three-member panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit last week seemed inclined to grant the DOJ's appeal of the special master's appointment during oral arguments.


    • The DOJ argued that a federal judge "erred in ordering a special-master review for claims of executive and attorney-client privilege and enjoining the government’s use of the seized records in the meantime."
    • Trump sought the special master, arguing that some of the records may be protected by attorney-client privilege or executive privilege.




    Worth noting: The three-panel judge includes the circuit’s chief judge, Bush-appointed William Pryor, and two judges appointed by Trump.

    State of play: The DOJ has appointed Jack Smith to oversee federal criminal investigations into Trump's handling of classified documents and efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.



    You’re dead wrong

  22. #747
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    Quote Originally Posted by S Landreth View Post
    My link says it all.........



    You’re dead wrong
    Al that might be correct but it does not change the fact that he delayed the process until after the midterms

  23. #748
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Buckaroo Banzai View Post
    Al that might be correct but it does not change the fact that he delayed the process until after the midterms
    You're arguing with a cut and paste moron that lacks the capacity for original thought. And of course you're correct, just another baldy delaying tactic.

  24. #749
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
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    another one who's wrong

  25. #750
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by harrybarracuda View Post
    ...I posted actual facts...
    Nope. You run around teakdoor posting one-liners like a silly school girl.

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