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  1. #926
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
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    Where’s that american mango sellin’ tax cheat? The IRS is coming for you, next.




    Former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort has agreed to pay $3.15 million to settle a civil case brought by the Justice Department last year over undeclared foreign bank accounts, court documents show.

    The big picture: The lawsuit, filed in April 2022, alleged that Manafort failed to report over 20 foreign bank accounts, which he controlled in countries including Cyprus, the United Kingdom, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, in 2013 and 2014.


    • The government sought for Manafort to pay penalties, fines and interest in response “for his willful failure to timely report his financial interest in foreign bank accounts," according to the initial Justice Department complaint.


    State of play: Details of the settlement were announced in court documents dated Feb. 22 and filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.


    • The documents did not specify when or how Manafort would pay the settlement.


    A lawyer for Manafort did not immediately respond to an Axios' request for comment.

    Flashback: Manafort was sentenced to 7.5 years in prison in 2019 after being convicted on criminal tax, conspiracy and bank fraud charges as a result of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into potential Russian interference in the 2016 election.


    Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

  2. #927
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
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    Zoe Tillman - Trump 2020 campaign's failed defamation case against the Washington Post re: coverage was officially tossed out last night -- Trump attys didn't take up the judge's offer to amend the complaint and try again after February's dismissal order, see: https://twitter.com/ZoeTillman/statu...55128975523840





  3. #928
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    Doesn't dismissed with prejudice mean the plaintiff can sue?

  4. #929
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
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    As I understand, the judge gave trump and company a chance to correct the complaint......

    Trump attys didn't take up the judge's offer to amend the complaint and try again
    Quote Originally Posted by Topper View Post
    dismissed with prejudice
    Google

    the ruling is the final judgment in the case

  5. #930
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
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    a start......



    The former president was told that he could appear before a Manhattan grand jury next week if he wishes to testify, a strong indication that an indictment could soon follow.

    The Manhattan district attorney’s office recently signaled to Donald J. Trump’s lawyers that he could face criminal charges for his role in the payment of hush money to a porn star, the strongest indication yet that prosecutors are nearing an indictment of the former president, according to four people with knowledge of the matter.

    The prosecutors offered Mr. Trump the chance to testify next week before the grand jury that has been hearing evidence in the potential case, the people said. Such offers almost always indicate an indictment is close; it would be unusual for the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, to notify a potential defendant without ultimately seeking charges against him.

    In New York, potential defendants have the right to answer questions in the grand jury before they are indicted, but they rarely testify, and Mr. Trump is likely to decline the offer. His lawyers could also meet privately with the prosecutors in hopes of fending off criminal charges.

    Any case would mark the first indictment of a former American president, and could upend the 2024 presidential race. It would also elevate Mr. Bragg to the national stage, though not without risk.

    Mr. Trump has faced an array of criminal investigations and special counsel inquiries over the years but has never been charged with a crime, underscoring the gravity of Mr. Bragg’s inquiry.

    Mr. Bragg could become the first prosecutor to charge Mr. Trump, but he might not be the last.

    In Georgia, the Fulton County District Attorney is investigating whether Mr. Trump interfered in the 2020 election, and at the federal level, a special counsel is scrutinizing Mr. Trump’s effort to overturn the election results, as well as his handling of classified documents.

    The Manhattan inquiry, which has spanned nearly five years, centers on a $130,000 payment to the porn star, Stormy Daniels, in the final days of the 2016 presidential campaign. The payment was made by Michael Cohen, Mr. Trump’s former fixer, who was later reimbursed by Mr. Trump from the White House. Mr. Cohen is expected to testify in front of the grand jury, but has not yet done so.

    The district attorney’s office has already questioned at least six other people before the grand jury, according to several other people with knowledge of the inquiry.

    Mr. Bragg’s prosecutors have not finished the grand jury presentation and he could still decide against seeking an indictment.

    Mr. Trump has previously said that the prosecutors are engaged in a “witch hunt” against him that began before he became president, and has called Mr. Bragg, a Democrat who is Black, a politically motivated “racist.”

    A spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office declined to comment.

    Even if Mr. Trump is indicted, convicting him or sending him to prison will be challenging. The case against the former president hinges on an untested and therefore risky legal theory involving a complex interplay of laws, all amounting to a low-level felony. If Mr. Trump were ultimately convicted, he would face a maximum sentence of four years, though prison time would not be mandatory.

    Mr. Trump’s lawyers are also sure to attack Mr. Cohen, who in 2018 pleaded guilty to federal charges related to the hush money.

    The $130,000 payout came during the final stretch of the 2016 presidential campaign, when Ms. Daniels’s representatives contacted the National Enquirer to offer exclusive rights to her story about an affair with Mr. Trump. David Pecker, the tabloid’s publisher and a longtime ally of Mr. Trump, had agreed to look out for potentially damaging stories about him during the 2016 campaign, and at one point even agreed to buy the story of another woman’s affair with Mr. Trump and never publish it, a practice known as “catch and kill.”

    But Mr. Pecker didn’t bite at Ms. Daniels’s story. Instead, he and the tabloid’s top editor, Dylan Howard, helped broker a separate deal between Mr. Cohen and Ms. Daniels’s lawyer. Mr. Trump later reimbursed Mr. Cohen through monthly checks.

    In the federal case against Mr. Cohen, prosecutors said that Mr. Trump’s company “falsely accounted” for the monthly payments as legal expenses and that company records cited a retainer agreement with Mr. Cohen. Although Mr. Cohen was a lawyer, and became Mr. Trump’s personal attorney after he took office, there was no such retainer agreement and the reimbursement was unrelated to any legal services Mr. Cohen performed.

    In New York, falsifying business records can amount to a crime, albeit a misdemeanor. To elevate the crime to a felony charge, Mr. Bragg’s prosecutors must show that Mr. Trump’s “intent to defraud” included an intent to commit or conceal a second crime.

    In this case, that second crime could be a violation of New York State election law. While hush money is not inherently illegal, the prosecutors could argue that the $130,000 payout effectively became an improper donation to Mr. Trump’s campaign, under the theory that because the money silenced Ms. Daniels, it benefited his candidacy.

    That would be a novel legal theory for any criminal case, let alone one against the former president, raising the possibility that a judge or appellate court could throw it out or reduce the felony charge to a misdemeanor.

    This is not the first Manhattan grand jury to hear evidence about Mr. Trump. Before leaving office at the end of 2021, Mr. Bragg’s predecessor, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., had directed prosecutors to begin presenting evidence to an earlier grand jury. That potential case focused on the former president’s business practices, in particular whether he fraudulently inflated his net worth by billions of dollars in order to secure favorable terms on loans and other benefits.

    But Mr. Bragg, soon after taking office last year, grew concerned about the strength of that case and halted the presentation, prompting two senior prosecutors leading the investigation to resign.

    Still, the portion of the investigation concerned with Mr. Trump’s net worth is continuing, people with knowledge of the matter said.

    Defendants rarely choose to testify before a grand jury and it is highly unlikely that Mr. Trump would do so. As a potential defendant, he would have to waive immunity, meaning that his testimony could be used against him if he were charged. Although he could have a lawyer present in the grand jury to advise him, the lawyer would be prohibited from speaking to the jurors, and there would be few limits on the questions prosecutors could ask the former president.

    In recent years, Mr. Trump has been wary of answering questions under oath, given the legal intrigue swirling around him. When the New York attorney general deposed him last year in a civil case, Mr. Trump refused to provide any information, availing himself of his Fifth Amendment right to refuse to answer questions more than 400 times over the course of four hours. If he testifies about the hush money to this grand jury, he will not have that option.


    Last edited by S Landreth; 10-03-2023 at 04:32 PM.

  6. #931
    In Uranus
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    Look him up!

  7. #932
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    I think this year is going to be a bad one for the orangutang in a suit. (sorry orangutangs)

  8. #933
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
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    ^^Charges could be filed within 3 weeks

    ^Looks that way, but I do hope he wins the Republican presidential nomination

    ___________

    Extra


    • Judge: Trump trade adviser Navarro must surrender White House-related emails


    A federal judge has ordered former Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro to turn over to the government hundreds of emails that he sent or received during his nearly four years as a White House aide.

    In an opinion on Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly rejected a slew of arguments Navarro’s attorneys floated in a bid to knock out a civil suit the Justice Department filed in August to recover messages that Navarro handled through a personal ProtonMail account but refused to return to the National Archives after President Donald Trump left office.

    Kollar-Kotelly said the privately held emails were plainly subject to the Presidential Records Act, particularly a provision Congress passed and President Barack Obama signed in 2014. It requires work-related messages created or sent on a personal messaging account be forwarded to an official account within 20 business days.

    “Dr. Navarro contends that he has no statutory duties under the PRA. … This position would defeat the entire purpose of the statute, i.e., to ensure that Presidential records, as defined, are collected, maintained and made available to the public,” wrote Kollar-Kotelly, an appointee of President Bill Clinton. “The PRA makes plain that Presidential advisors such as Dr. Navarro are part and parcel of the statutory scheme in that they are required to preserve Presidential records during their tenure so that they can be transferred to [the National Archives and Records Administration] at the end of an administration.”

    Navarro argued that the personal-account provision didn’t apply to messages he received, only to those he sent, but the judge dismissed that contention.

    “All the emails in Dr. Navarro’s personal email account, whether created or received, are therefore subject to being assessed as potential Presidential records if they arose out of his employment in the administration,” she wrote.

    An attorney for Navarro did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    The tone of Kollar-Kotelly’s 22-page opinion was brutal, but the lawsuit is far from Navarro’s biggest legal worry. He is facing a trial in the coming months on two criminal, misdemeanor charges of contempt of Congress for defying subpoenas from the special House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and Trump’s role in fomenting doubt about the 2020 presidential election results.

    Despite his role as a trade adviser, Navarro drew the attention of congressional investigators because in his final weeks in the White House, he shifted his focus toward efforts to help Trump overturn the 2020 election results. He prepared a report based on discredited claims of fraud and worked with longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon and GOP lawmakers to strategize ways to object to the results on Jan. 6, 2021.
    Last edited by S Landreth; 10-03-2023 at 10:11 PM.

  9. #934
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
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    A federal judge ruled Friday that the Access Hollywood tape — in which former President Trump is heard boasting about groping women — can be introduced as evidence in the civil trial for writer E. Jean Carroll's defamation lawsuit against him.

    Driving the news: Carroll has accused Trump of raping her in a Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s, and sued him after he denied the claim and painted her as a liar. Trump had asked to exclude the tape from evidence at the trial, as well as testimony from two other women who alleged he sexually assaulted them.


    • In the 2005 tape, which made national news when it became public in the lead-up to the 2016 election, Trump is heard saying, "I’m automatically attracted to beautiful women — I just start kissing them, it’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait."
    • "And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the p----."
    • Trump has since claimed that the conversation does not reflect his actual behavior with women.


    A representative for Trump did not immediately respond to an Axios' request for comment.

    What they're saying: Judge Lewis Kaplan wrote in the order that "a jury reasonably could find, even from the Access Hollywood tape alone, that Mr. Trump admitted in the Access Hollywood tape that he in fact has had contact with women’s genitalia in the past without their consent, or that he had attempted to do so."

    Worth noting: Carroll brought a separate sexual assault lawsuit against Trump after New York enacted the Adult Survivors Act last year. The new law allows adult survivors of sexual violence to sue over attacks that occurred decades ago.

    Trump loses bid to keep tape out of rape defamation case

  10. #935
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
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    The news gets better.


    • Cohen to testify before grand jury next week ahead of potential Trump indictment: report


    Former Trump attorney Michael Cohen will testify before a grand jury in Manhattan next week as New York investigators appear to potentially be close to filing an indictment against the former president.

    The New York Times reported Friday that people with knowledge of the matter said Cohen will testify as part of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s investigation into payments that were made to adult film star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election in exchange for her silence about their affair.

    Cohen told reporters last week that he expected to be called to testify in the probe “very soon.” He has met with investigators more than a dozen times during the investigation.

    Cohen pleaded guilty to multiple charges including campaign finance violations in 2018 for paying $130,000 in campaign funding for Daniels. He was sentenced to a few years in prison but was released early as the COVID-19 pandemic took effect.

    Cohen has said former President Trump directed him to make the payment, while Trump has admitted he reimbursed Cohen for the payment but said it was unrelated to the campaign.

    Cohen will likely be a major witness in Bragg’s case if prosecutors move forward with an indictment. Trump’s defense would likely attack Cohen’s credibility, as another one of the charges Cohen pleaded guilty to was lying to Congress.

    The Times reported that Cohen being scheduled to testify before the grand jury could be a sign that an indictment is coming soon.

    Another potential sign came after Trump was invited to testify before the grand jury next week, as an invitation often signals a decision on whether to file an indictment is imminent.

    A spokesperson for the district attorney’s office declined to comment to the Times, while Cohen’s attorney, Lanny Davis, said that he is only able to say that they are cooperating with the investigation and that they “appreciate” Bragg and his team’s professionalism.

    The Times reported that almost every major figure involved in the situation will have testified before the grand jury once Cohen does next week, except for Daniels herself.

    Trump indictment? Possibility throws wrench into campaign plans

  11. #936
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
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    just for fun




    Jenna Ellis, an attorney for Donald Trump who helped drive his false claims about the 2020 election results, has admitted in a Colorado disciplinary proceeding that she misrepresented evidence at least 10 times during Trump’s frantic bid to subvert his defeat.

    “Respondent made these misrepresentations on Twitter and on various television programs, including Fox Business, MSNBC, Fox News, and Newsmax,” Colorado’s top disciplinary judge Bryon Large wrote in a six-page opinion. “The parties agree that by making these misrepresentations, Respondent violated [a state attorney rule of conduct], which provides that it is professional misconduct for a lawyer to engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation.”

    Large issued a public censure of Ellis for her stipulated conduct.

    Ellis is the latest Trump attorney involved in the former president’s post-election efforts to face discipline. Rudy Giuliani had his license temporarily suspended and is awaiting a final ruling from a bar discipline proceeding in Washington, D.C. John Eastman is preparing for disciplinary proceedings in California. And Jeffrey Clark has temporarily delayed bar discipline proceedings against him in Washington while attempting to bring the fight into federal court.

    But Ellis is the first attorney of the group to acknowledge she misrepresented the evidence of fraud. Among her admitted misrepresentations:

    — Ellis claimed on Nov. 13, 2020 that Hillary Clinton didn’t concede the 2016 election.

    — On Nov 20, 2020, Ellis claimed Trump’s team had evidence of a “coordinated effort in all of these states to transfer votes either from Trump to Biden, to manipulate the ballots, to count them in secret.”

    — On Nov. 30, 2020, Ellis said on Fox that Trump “won in a landslide.”

    — On Dec. 5, 2020, Ellis claimed the Trump team found 500,000 illegal votes had been cast in Arizona.

    Both Ellis’ attorney and the disciplinary attorneys bringing the case against her agreed that there was no precedent for the case against Ellis — an effort to aid a sitting president’s bid to undermine confidence in the American election system.

    Large noted that Ellis wasn’t Trump’s counsel of record in any lawsuits challenging the election. But he also noted that Ellis admitted her actions violated “her duty of candor to the public.”

    “The parties agree that two aggravators apply — [Ellis] had a selfish motive and she engaged in a pattern of misconduct — while one factor, her lack of prior discipline, mitigates her misconduct,” Large determined.

  12. #937
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    I'll be happy with anything that stops this maniac from being president.

  13. #938
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
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    What to know about 2 other Donald Trump accusers allowed to testify at E. Jean Carroll rape trial

    In the same ruling allowing a jury to see the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape, a federal judge gave the green light for two other women accusing former President Donald Trump of sexual misconduct to testify against him in E. Jean Carroll’s lawsuit.

    For Senior U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, the accusations leveled by businesswoman Jessica Leeds and People magazine writer Natasha Stoynoff were too similar to Carroll’s to discount.

    “Mr. Trump’s attempt to minimize the similarity between his alleged actions with respect to Ms. Leeds and Ms. Stoynoff, on the one hand, and Ms. Carroll on the other is not very persuasive,” the judge wrote in a 23-page opinion on Friday. “The alleged acts are far more similar than different in the important aspects. In each case, the alleged victim claims that Mr. Trump suddenly attacked her sexually. In the cases of Ms. Carroll and Ms. Stoynoff, he allegedly did so in a location after closing a door behind him, which gave him privacy. In all three cases, he allegedly did so without consent.”

    Carroll alleges that Trump raped her in the dressing room of a Bergdorf Goodman store in the mid-1990s. She and the former president are preparing for trial in April, which the presiding judge said would amount to a “he said, she said” case.

    “There will be no physical evidence supporting either side at trial,” Kaplan noted, adding that the credibility of Trump’s accusers will weigh heavily upon the trial.

    At least 26 women have accused Trump of some form of sexual misconduct.

    With a high-profile federal court showdown shining a light on three of those cases, Law&Crime breaks down Leeds’ and Stoynoff’s allegations — and how they may affect the Carroll v. Trump trial.


    1. The women’s allegations against Trump span more than a quarter of a century.


    The “Access Hollywood” tape nearly derailed Trump’s career when he boasted to Billy Bush about grabbing women “by the p—-.” Both women claim that Trump practiced what he preached in the video, in alleged incidents decades apart.


    1. All three women say that Trump’s alleged actions amount to state or federal crimes.


    Carroll’s lawsuit against Trump under New York’s Adult Survivors Act went out of the way to accuse the former president of having committed six crimes, including rape in the first degree.


    1. All three women shared their accounts with reporters after the “Access Hollywood” tape went public.


    In addition to the similarities in their stories, Carroll and Leeds are linked by an interviewer: CNN’s Anderson Cooper, who spoke to both women.


    1. Trump insulted all of the women after they stepped forward with their allegations — in remarkably similar ways.


    After Carroll went public with her rape allegations, Trump offered a curious denial to reporters: “She’s not my type.” The former president repeated that defense multiple times since then, even spelling out in a deposition that he meant that he didn’t find Carroll attractive.

  14. #939
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
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    Adult film actress Stormy Daniels met with Manhattan prosecutors on Wednesday, her attorney said, amid the criminal investigation into former President Trump in connection with a hush payment Daniels received.

    Daniels’s appearance comes as a grand jury hears evidence in the probe, which revolves around a $130,000 payment that Trump’s then-personal attorney paid to Daniels in October 2016.

    “At the request of the Manhattan DA’s office Stormy Daniels and I met with prosecutors today. Stormy responded to questions and has agreed to make herself available as a witness, or for further inquiry if needed. #teamstormy,” Clark Brewster, Daniels’s attorney, wrote on Twitter.

    Daniels later retweeted Brewster’s note and thanked him for “helping me in our continuing fight for truth and justice.”

    Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal attorney, made the payment weeks ahead of the 2016 election in exchange for Daniels’s silence about an affair she claimed to have had with the former president a decade earlier. Trump has denied the affair.

    Trump reimbursed Cohen for the payment, and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s (D) office is reportedly weighing bringing state charges of falsifying business records against the former president.

    Trump’s attorney has said the former president was the victim of extortion and called the potential case “outrageous” during an appearance on ABC on Monday.

    Cohen, who is expected to be a key witness, testified before the grand jury earlier this week. Trump was also given an invitation to testify, both signs that prosecutors could be close to seeking an indictment.

  15. #940
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
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    Georgia Grand Jury Says It Heard Another Taped Call Of Trump Pressurizing Official

    A special grand jury that investigated whether Donald Trump and his allies illegally meddled in the 2020 election in Georgia heard a recording of the former president pushing a top state lawmaker to call a special session to overturn his loss in the state, according to a newspaper report.

    The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Wednesday that it spoke to five members of the special grand jury who said they heard a recording of a phone call between Trump and Georgia House Speaker David Ralston that had not previously been reported and has not been made public.

    Ralston, who died in November, did not call a special session in the weeks after the November 2020 election.

    The five grand jurors — three men and two women — spoke to the newspaper but declined to be named because they were concerned about their safety and privacy.

    Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis opened the Georgia investigation in early 2021, shortly after another recording of a phone call between Trump and a top state official was made public. During that Jan. 2, 2021, phone call, Trump suggested that Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger could “find” the votes needed to reverse his narrow loss in the state.

    “All I want to do is this: I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” Trump said during the call. “Because we won the state.”

    In a separate recording made public in early 2021, Trump can be heard talking to the lead investigator in Raffensperger’s office in December 2020, pressing her to look into Fulton County, saying she would “find things that are gonna be unbelievable.” Trump also told her, “When the right answer comes out, you’ll be praised.”

    The special grand jury, which was seated in May, heard from about 75 witnesses and considered other evidence before wrapping up its work in December. It did not have the authority to issue indictments but instead produced a report with recommendations for Willis.

    The foreperson of the special grand jury said in news interviews last month that the panel recommended that numerous people be indicted, but she declined to say who. It is ultimately up to Willis to decide whether to go to a regular grand jury to seek one or more indictments in the case. She said during a hearing in January that decisions in the case are “imminent.”

  16. #941
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
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    Law enforcement agencies are prepping for a possible Trump indictment as early as next week

    Local, state and federal law enforcement and security agencies are preparing for the possibility that former President Donald Trump will be indicted as early as next week, according to five senior officials familiar with the preparations.

    Law enforcement agencies are conducting preliminary security assessments, the officials said, and are discussing potential security plans in and around the Manhattan Criminal Court, at 100 Centre Street, in case Trump is charged in connection with an alleged hush money payment to Stormy Daniels and travels to New York to face any charges.

    The officials stress that the interagency conversations and planning are precautionary in nature because no charges have been filed.

    The agencies involved include the NYPD, New York State Court Officers, the U.S. Secret Service, the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, and the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, the officials said.

    NBC News has reached out to all of those agencies for comment, and all have declined to comment.

  17. #942
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    Trump attorney ordered to testify before grand jury investigating former president

    In a monumental ruling Friday, a federal judge ordered Donald Trump attorney Evan Corcoran to provide additional testimony as part of an investigation into the former president’s handling of classified documents, a source familiar with the matter told CNN.

    Corcoran has the potential to become one of the most crucial witnesses in special counsel Jack Smith’s criminal investigation into possible mishandling of classified records after the Trump presidency and obstruction of justice.

    District Judge Beryl Howell said in an order under seal that Justice Department prosecutors have met the threshold for the crime-fraud exception for Corcoran, the source said.

    The decision hands Trump yet another loss under seal in court as his team and allies have tried to hold off Smith’s investigators from learning about direct conversations the former president had with some of his closest advisers.

    The development is particularly notable because of accusations prosecutors would have made about Trump as they argued to the judge for the grand jury testimony.

    Corcoran, an attorney-turned-witness, had previously testified to the grand jury but declined to answer some questions, citing attorney-client privilege. The department argued to the judge he should not be able to avoid answering, because his discussions with the former president may have been part of an attempt to plan a crime.

    Howell’s ruling is one of her last on sealed grand jury disputes as chief judge. The Obama appointee has repeatedly green-lit Justice Department requests to pursue information about Trump’s actions during her tenure as chief of the DC District Court, but she rotates out of the administrative role on Friday.

    When Corcoran first testified to the grand jury in January, he was asked about what happened in the lead-up to the August search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence.

    Corcoran had drafted a statement in June that attested Trump’s team had done a “diligent search” and there were no more classified documents at Trump’s Florida residence.

    After that, the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago and found hundreds of government records, including classified material, raising questions about the lawyer’s attestation.

  18. #943
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    Just for fun.

    Donald Trump Names Day He’ll Be Arrested In New Truth Social Screed

    Donald Trump suggested on Saturday morning that he will be arrested Tuesday on charges relating to the $130,000 he allegedly paid in hush money to adult actor Stormy Daniels.

    The former president also called on supporters to “protest, take our nation back” ― in what commentators interpreted as a call to violence ― in the venomous rant on his Truth Social platform, hours after he shared his first post on Facebook since being banned following his incitement of the 2021 U.S. Capitol riot.



    ________


    New chief judge in Washington to oversee secret Trump proceedings

    A new judge takes over leadership of the U.S. trial court in Washington on Friday, inheriting oversight of secret proceedings involving special counsel criminal investigations into former President Donald Trump’s retention of classified documents and efforts by him and his allies to undo his 2020 election loss.

    James “Jeb” Boasberg becomes chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, replacing Judge Beryl Howell as her seven-year term comes to an end.

    The chief judge has sole discretion over sealed federal grand jury proceedings. That means Boasberg will immediately take over responsibility for handling certain issues that may arise in the special counsel investigations involving Trump, who in November announced he was seeking the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

    Boasberg also would assume the same responsibilities if a grand jury is formed in a separate special counsel investigation into President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents after leaving the vice presidency. Biden, a Democrat, is expected to seek re-election in 2024.

    As chief judge, Boasberg is poised to rule on certain legal arguments raised in the grand jury probes, including efforts to restrict witnesses from testifying. Grand jury proceedings are kept from public view.

    In an interview, Boasberg declined to comment on his impending grand jury oversight duties. He praised his predecessor, saying the court was fortunate to have had Howell as its leader “in this very fraught period.”

    “She’s led the court in a terrific way through COVID and dislocations, and she also has maintained a very cohesive court not driven by partisan divides,” Boasberg said.

    Boasberg, an appointee of Democratic President Barack Obama, has served on the court since 2011. He previously was picked in 2002 by Republican President George W. Bush for the local D.C. Superior Court. Both times he was easily confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

    Special Counsel Jack Smith, appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland in November to handle the two Trump investigations, is presenting evidence to multiple grand juries. At issue are Trump’s retention of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida after leaving office in January 2021 and attempts to interfere with the peaceful transfer of power following Trump’s loss to Biden.

    Another special counsel, Robert Hur, was named by Garland in January to look into classified records found at Biden’s home in Delaware and former office in Washington.

    No sitting or former president has ever been indicted.

    Boasberg, a tall and deep-voiced former member of Yale’s basketball team, is well-prepared to handle the cases and lead the court through the intense scrutiny any indictment would bring, according to fellow judges and his former law clerks.

    U.S. District Judge Casey Cooper in Washington, who has known Boasberg since they attended Yale together, said Boasberg is “exactly the sort of independent thinker you would want in that position,” calling him “incredibly balanced and thoughtful and fair.”

    Howell praised Boasberg’s readiness to take on high-profile and novel issues, “whether arising out of the grand jury or not, that draw the spotlight of national attention.”

    During her tenure as chief judge, Howell regularly heard legal arguments in special counsel investigations.

    These included a challenge by an unidentified, foreign-owned company to a grand jury subpoena issued by then-Special Counsel Robert Mueller as he examined the 2016 Trump campaign’s contacts with Russians and, more recently, Republican congressman Scott Perry’s bid to block investigators from accessing his cellphone and messages relating to actions involving the 2020 election results.

    Boasberg has faced tough assignments before. In 2020 and 2021, he presided over the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which hears government requests for secret surveillance warrants. His tenure came after the Justice Department’s internal watchdog had highlighted failures in the department’s process for seeking the secret warrants.

    Boasberg oversaw Special Counsel John Durham’s criminal case against former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith, who pleaded guilty in 2020 to altering an email used to justify a government wiretap of former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Boasberg sentenced Clinesmith to a year of probation and 400 hours of community service.

    After the 2020 election, Boasberg rejected a challenge by Republican state lawmakers and others who were contesting Trump’s defeat and had asked him to block congressional certification of Biden’s election win.

    “Courts are not instruments through which parties engage in such gamesmanship or symbolic political gestures,” wrote Boasberg, who referred the lawyer behind the case, Erick Kaardal, to the court’s grievance committee for acting with “potential bad faith.”

  19. #944
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    Quote Originally Posted by S Landreth View Post
    Donald Trump suggested on Saturday morning that he will be arrested Tuesday on charges relating to the $130,000 he allegedly paid in hush money to adult actor Stormy Daniels.
    He means charged.

    " Many people believe that criminal charges arise only after a person has been arrested. But that's not necessarily accurate. You can be charged with a crime even if police have not taken you into custody."

    Can I Be Charged with a Crime Before Being Arrested?

    If any of his supporters believe he will be arrested Tuesday , they are even more stupid that I think they are, which I dont think it is possible
    The sooner you fall behind, the more time you have to catch up.

  20. #945
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    A lot of people are saying it will the biggest and most watched arrest ever, like nobody has ever seen before.

  21. #946
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    Michael Cohen, the former personal attorney to former President Trump, said on Sunday that he was asked to appear as a rebuttal witness at the Manhattan District Attorney’s office on Monday but added he did not know any other details on the matter.

    MSNBC’s Alex Witt asked Cohen if he expected any other witnesses to be at the office, citing multiple reports. Cohen said he was asked to go to the DA’s office as a rebuttal witness but was not aware of whether that would be before the grand jury or just a meeting. He indicated the DA’s office was bringing another witness in on Monday but did not know who that individual was.

    “I was asked to make myself available and to be at the DA’s office tomorrow as a rebuttal witness,” Cohen said.

    When Witt asked if it was a rebuttal “to whom or what” Cohen said that had not been clarified.

    “I don’t know who the person is. Obviously once I find out who the person is I’ll know what the issue is because I was personally involved,” he said. “Again, I don’t know. It’s a little premature for me to be answering any questions on a topic that I, again, I don’t know who the person is and whether or not that person is or is not going to tell the truth.”

    Trump indictment mystery solved: surprise Trump grand jury witness is Giuliani lawyer Robert Costello, source says

    __________




    A law enforcement source said the New York Police Department along with federal, state and local agencies are gearing up for a possible indictment against former President Donald Trump in New York as early as next week.

    The NYPD and other law enforcement agencies — including the U.S. Secret Service and the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force — are preparing security plans in and around the Manhattan criminal courthouse where Trump will potentially appear if he is charged in connection with a $130,000 alleged hush money payment to Stormy Daniels, an adult film star, according to the source. Daniels alleges the money was paid to keep her quiet about a sexual encounter with Trump years earlier.

    Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg addressed the security issue in an email to employees Saturday, telling them that "your safety is our top priority." The contents of the email, which were first reported by Politico, were confirmed to CBS News.

    "We do not tolerate attempts to intimidate our office or threaten the rule of law in New York," Bragg wrote. "Our law enforcement partners will ensure that any specific or credible threats against the office will be fully investigated and that the proper safeguards are in place so all 1,600 of us have a secure work environment."

    An indictment of a former president would be a first in American history as Trump seeks the GOP nomination for president in 2024.

    __________


    • BrooklynDad_Defiant! - Believe me when I tell you Hillary Clinton was not worried for ONE SECOND when they were busy chanting "lock her up" all that time.


    I love that she gets the last laugh. https://twitter.com/mmpadellan/statu...92809596723203



  22. #947
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    Obstruction




    Prosecutors in the special counsel's office have presented compelling preliminary evidence that former President Donald Trump knowingly and deliberately misled his own attorneys about his retention of classified materials after leaving office, a former top federal judge wrote Friday in a sealed filing, according to sources who described its contents to ABC News.

    U.S. Judge Beryl Howell, who on Friday stepped down as the D.C. district court's chief judge, wrote last week that prosecutors in special counsel Jack Smith's office had made a "prima facie showing that the former president had committed criminal violations," according to the sources, and that attorney-client privileges invoked by two of his lawyers could therefore be pierced.

    Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in his handling of classified documents.

    In her sealed filing, Howell ordered that Evan Corcoran, an attorney for Trump, should comply with a grand jury subpoena for testimony on six separate lines of inquiry over which he had previously asserted attorney-client privilege.

    Sources added that Howell also ordered Corcoran to hand over a number of records tied to what Howell described as Trump's alleged "criminal scheme," echoing prosecutors. Those records include handwritten notes, invoices, and transcriptions of personal audio recordings.

    In reaching the so-called prima facie standard to pierce Corcoran's privilege, Howell agreed prosecutors made a sufficient showing that on its face would appear to show Trump committed crimes. The judge made it clear that prosecutors would still need to meet a higher standard of evidence in order to seek charges against Trump, and more still to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

    "It is a lower hurdle, but it is an indication that the government had presented some evidence and allegation that they had evidence that met the elements of a crime," Brandon Van Grack, a former top national security official in the Justice Department who is now in private practice, told ABC News.

    Howell found that prosecutors showed "sufficient" evidence that Trump "intentionally concealed" the existence of additional classified documents from Corcoran, sources said, putting Corcoran in an unwitting position to deceive the government.

    It's unclear what evidence Howell may have reviewed under seal from both DOJ and Trump's attorneys to help her arrive at her decision.

    In response to ABC News, a Trump campaign spokesperson said, in part, "Shame on Fake News ABC for broadcasting ILLEGALLY LEAKED false allegations from a Never Trump, now former chief judge, against the Trump legal team."

    "The real story here, that Fake News ABC SHOULD be reporting on, is that prosecutors only attack lawyers when they have no case whatsoever," the spokesperson said.

    A spokesperson for the special counsel's office declined to comment to ABC News.

    The developments described by sources illustrate another dimension of the former president's ongoing legal vulnerabilities. As Smith's classified documents probe marches forward, prosecutors in New York are mulling a separate indictment against Trump over hush payments he allegedly paid to an adult film star ahead of the 2016 presidential election. Trump also faces scrutiny in Georgia over his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in the state, and Smith is continuing his own probe into Trump's attempts to interfere in the 2020 election.

    Central to Smith's efforts in the classified documents probe is determining whether lawyers who represented the former president falsely certified in response to a grand jury subpoena that Trump had returned all classified records to the government or whether Trump himself sought to conceal records that he might have unlawfully retained.

    Federal prosecutors have claimed that lawyers for Trump certified in June 2022 that a "diligent search" of Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate turned up just 38 classified documents stored in a secured storage room. But two months later, when FBI agents raided the premises, they found more than 100 additional documents marked classified -- some of which were located outside of the storage room, including in Trump's office desk, prosecutors said.

    In her order last Friday, Howell was unsparing in her criticism of Trump's actions since early last year in response to the government's attempts to retrieve all classified documents taken from the White House. At one point she described Trump's interactions with officials from the National Archives as a "dress rehearsal," sources said, for his later efforts at misdirection in response to the grand jury subpoena.

    As ABC News has previously reported, investigators sought to compel the testimony of Corcoran and another Trump attorney, Jennifer Little, as part of their probe, citing the crime-fraud exception, which allows for attorney-client privilege to be pierced in cases where it is suspected that legal services were rendered in the commission of a crime. Sources told ABC News that Howell ordered Little's testimony as well, with the exception of one of the topics for which she sought to assert attorney-client privilege.

    Sources said prosecutors have sought to question Corcoran on how he aided another Trump attorney, Christina Bobb, in drafting the June 2022 statement to the Justice Department, which Bobb ultimately signed.

    Attorneys for Trump were expected to appeal Howell's Friday ruling, sources said.

  23. #948
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    Update



    Known criminal investigations of Trump




    Former president Trump's possible indictment this week is just one of several legal challenges bearing down on the leading 2024 Republican presidential candidate.

    Why it matters: An indictment would be historic — no U.S. president has ever faced criminal charges — but the legal woes swirling around Trump don't stop with the Manhattan district attorney.


    • Trump faces several other high-stakes cases — including probes into his efforts to subvert 2020 election results, handling of presidential records, and business fraud — launching the Republican frontrunner into uncharted territory.


    Driving the news: A grand jury in Manhattan appears to be nearing an indictment as part of the years-long investigation into Trump's role in hush money paid to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in 2016.


    • Citing "ILLEGAL LEAKS" from the Manhattan DA's office, Trump took to Truth Social over the weekend to predict he will be arrested this week as part of the probe.
    • Trump called the case against him "FULLY DEBUNKED" and urged his supporters to "PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK."


    Zoom out: The looming possibility of an indictment comes amid several other legal inquiries into the ex-president.




    Trump is also under criminal investigation by a special counsel in two high-stakes federal cases.


    • Attorney General Merrick Garland tapped veteran prosecutor Jack Smith to lead the Department of Justice's probe into Trump's efforts to interfere with the lawful transfer of power after the 2020 election.


    • Smith is also tasked with examining whether Trump illegally retained classified documents at Mar-a-Lago and obstructed the government's efforts to get them back.


    In another case in New York, Attorney General Letitia James filed a civil lawsuit accusing Trump and his family of financial fraud.


    • James, who is seeking to permanently bar Trump and members of his family from running a business in New York, alleged the former president "falsely inflated his net worth by billions of dollars."
    • In January, a judge declined to throw out James' lawsuit against Trump, increasing the odds that the former president will face trial later this year.
    • Since it's a civil case, James can't file criminal charges against Trump, but he could still face heavy fines and restrictions if he loses at trial.


    ___________




    An appeals court on Wednesday rejected attempts by former President Trump’s legal team to challenge a Friday ruling ordering his attorney Evan Corcoran to produce documents related to the probe into the potential mishandling of records at Mar-a-Lago.

    A three-judge panel for the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with special counsel Jack Smith and backed a lower court judge who on Friday issued a sealed ruling directing Corcoran to cooperate on several lines of inquiry he had rebuffed, citing attorney-client privilege.

    ____________

    Just for fun.




    More Americans than not believe that former President Trump should face charges in the Manhattan district attorney’s investigation into a hush money payment he made before the 2016 election, according to a new The Economist/YouGov poll.

    Forty-six percent of respondents to the survey said that Trump, who over the weekend had said he expected to be arrested on Tuesday in the probe, should be indicted for his actions, compared to 34 percent who said he shouldn’t. The remaining 20 percent were unsure.

  24. #949
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    Trump $250 million fraud case: Trial date still firm

    ‘That’s written in stone’: Judge rejects Trump’s pleas to delay trial in $250 million fraud case

    A Manhattan judge held firm on plans for a trial this autumn in the $250 million lawsuit accusing former President Donald Trump, his adult children and his business of fraud.

    “This case is complex, but it’s not complicated,” Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron declared in court on Tuesday. “It all boils down to whether the statements of financial condition are true, and the rest as Rabbi Hillel famously said, is all commentary.”

    Trump’s attorneys asked the judge to postpone the Oct. 2 trial by six months, deep into the presidential campaign season. Attorney Christopher Kise returned to court with a more modest request of a couple of weeks, which would move the trial to Oct. 23.

    Engoron remained skeptical of the request.

    “I don’t want to move this trial, not only because I said I don’t want to move it,” said Engoron, noting that he thinks it isn’t necessary.

    Ultimately, his original trial date held firm.

  25. #950
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    Trump, family failed to disclose more than 100 foreign gifts, congressional report says

    Former President Trump and members of his family failed to disclose more than 100 gifts worth nearly $300,000 that they received from foreign governments during his presidency, according to a report House Oversight and Accountability Committee Democrats released on Friday.

    The report, based on White House records that the committee requested from the National Archives last June, identified 117 undisclosed foreign gifts received by the former president, former first lady Melania Trump, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, and Trump’s daughter and adviser Ivanka Trump.

    Trump’s youngest son Barron Trump and the Kushner children were also listed as recipients of some of the undisclosed gifts.

    The president and his family are not allowed to personally keep gifts worth more than $415 from foreign governments and instead must accept them on behalf of the United States. The gifts, which must be publicly disclosed, are then turned over to the National Archives.

    After Trump left office, the State Department reported that it was “missing items of a significant value”, finding that a “lack of accurate recordkeeping and appropriate physical security controls contributed to the loss of the gifts.” A later report also said that the president’s office had failed to provide a foreign gift listing for 2020.

    In other news

    Jared Kushner's concealed $2 billion in Saudi-backed funds.

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