The Justice Department is investigating the mishandling of classified material from the Trump White House after he left office: The case of Mar-a-Lago

Former President Donald Trump got another boost in his bid to challenge the FBI search of his Florida home, with US District Judge Aileen Cannon reshaping the plan put forward by the special master she appointed to review the materials seized at Mar-a-Lago last month.

Dearie has shown himself to be far less sympathetic to Trump’s claims than Cannon, who Trump had nominated in 2020 and was confirmed by the Senate after the November 2020 election.

It’s unclear what the delay and the other opportunities Trump will have to hamstring the review will mean for the larger Justice Department investigation, which is looking at whether crimes were committed in how documents from the Trump White House were handled.

With the intervention of the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this month, the department was allowed to resume the criminal probe’s use of the documents marked as classified, which may well be the heart of the investigation.

Is Mar-a-Lago documents saying that Trump mishandled classified material? The Justice Department investigation continues into whether documents from the Trump White House were illegally mishandled when they were brought to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida after he left office. A federal grand jury in Washington has been empaneled and has interviewed potential witnesses to how Trump handled the documents. At least 15 boxes of White House records were recovered from Mar-a-Lago, which included some classified records, according to the National Archives.

Cannon on Thursday rejected part of the special master’s plan that would have forced the former President’s legal team to back up his out-of-court claims that the FBI planted evidence.

Cannon noted that the order appointing a special master contemplated that there would not be a requirement for anyone to lodge objections prior to the review of any of the Seized Materials.

In another boost for Trump, Cannon said Trump’s legal team does not have to provide certain details about his executive privilege claims in the special master review.

The judge removed the requirement for Trump to specify if he believed that barred disclosure within the Executive Branch or disclosure outside of it was covered by executive privilege.

Those discoveries allowed Trump to claim that he was being unfairly singled out, even if the cases have significant differences. Any Trump attempt to argue that he, like Biden and Pence, inadvertently took documents to his home will be undermined by the fact that he claimed the material belonged to him, and not the government, and what appears to be repeated refusals to give it back.

The Attorney General Investigates a Case Study of the Gingrich-Flynn-Bell-Following Interference in the 2018 Georgian Presidential Election

In explaining the “modest enlargement” of the timeline, Cannon pointed to the issues the parties had faced in securing a vendor to digitize the seized materials for the review.

“In conversations between Plaintiff’s counsel and the Government regarding a data vendor, the Government mentioned that the 11,000 documents contain closer to 200,000 pages. The Trump team wrote on Wednesday that the estimated volume was the reason why many of the Government’s selected vendors have declined the potential engagement.

The prosecutor in Georgia said he wanted to question Newt Gingrich, Michael Flynn and a few other people about Trump’s interference in the election.

Now that the grand jury is over, it is up to Fani and the district attorney to make charging decisions. The decisions made by Willis will be relevant in the presidential race in 2024.

CNN previously reported that during a heated Oval Office meeting, Flynn and Powell floated outrageous suggestions about trying to overturn the election, three weeks after Trump pardoned Flynn.

Gingrich was also involved in a plan to have Republican fake electors sign certificates falsely stating that Trump had won the state and that they were the state’s official electors even though Democrat Joe Biden had won, the petition says.

Compelling testimony from witnesses who don’t live in Georgia requires Willis to use a process that involves getting judges in the states where they live to order them to appear. She filed petitions on Friday that could lead to subpoenas.

The grand jury could vote on an indictment in a matter of months. If jurors in New York City indict Trump, he will have to appear in criminal court to enter a plea.

Investigating Donald Trump’s 2020 Election Campaign: An Investigation into a Possible Attempt by a Fulton County Election Judge to Obtain a Neglectible Voting Machine

Flynn didn’t immediately respond to email and phone messages seeking comment, and his lawyer also didn’t immediately return an email seeking comment. Gingrich gave the questions to his attorney, who didn’t comment. Herschmann could not immediately be reached.

Willis has said she plans to take a monthlong break from public activity in the case leading up to the November midterm election, which is one month from Saturday.

Each of the petitions filed Friday seeks to have the potential witnesses appear in November after the election. The process for getting testimony from out of state witnesses sometimes takes a while, so it appears that Willis is going to restart activity after she takes a break.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who’s overseeing the special grand jury, signed off on the petitions, certifying that each person whose testimony is sought is a “necessary and material” witness for the investigation.

The plan to run television ads that were false about fraud in the 2020 election was a plan he was involved in along with others associated with the Trump campaign.

The petition seeking Flynn’s testimony says he appeared in an interview on conservative cable news channel Newsmax and said Trump “could take military capabilities” and place them in swing states and “basically re-run an election in each of those states.”

The meeting with Powell and other people at the White House in December of 2020 focused on topics such as invoke martial law, seizing voting machines, and appointing Powell as special counsel to investigate the 2020 election.

The petition states that Herschmann was an adviser to Trump for a time in the summer of 2020 and that he was present for several meetings related to the 2020 election.

A cyber investigations, operations and forensic consultant named Penrose worked with Powell and others who were associated with the Trump campaign in late 2020 and early 2021.

According to his letter, he communicated with Powell and others about a proposal to hire the SullivanStrickler company to copy voting system data and software from Coffee County, which is about 200 miles southeast of Atlanta. Penrose did not immediately respond to an email and phone message seeking comment.

He petitioned for Lee to testify, claiming he was part of the effort to get an elections worker to lie about election fraud in Fulton County. He could not immediately be reached for comment.

Subpoenaing the Special Grand Jury: Implications for the Commission on the Capitol Hill Insurrection and Donald Trump

Georgia has special grand juries that investigate complex cases with a lot of witnesses and logistical concerns. They can subpoena witnesses for questioning as well as the target of an investigation, unlike regular grand juries.

Instead, the special grand jury wrote a final report with recommendations for the district attorney’s office about how to proceed, including potential violations of state law — though Willis does not have to follow those suggestions if she decides to seek indictments from a regular grand jury.

New testimony and evidence presented during the final hearing on the Capitol Hill insurrection show that Donald Trump knew he had lost the election, but still tried to subvert the results, leading to the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

One consideration to bear in mind is that the committee’s highly choreographed televised hearings did not include any cross examination of witnesses, so it’s hard to tell how some of the most incriminating testimony about Trump’s behavior would hold up under the far higher evidentiary standard required in a court of law. Still, the report – and transcripts of its depositions expected to be sent to the DOJ – could be useful in fleshing out any criminal case by the special counsel, and in preparing the public for the possibility of any move by Smith to charge Trump.

Trump tried to replace the acting Attorney General with someone who would embrace election fraud claims and pressed for alternate slates of electors, according to witness emails and text messages from the House committee.

The man who set this all in motion is the panel’s top Republican, Liz Cheney of Wyoming. The answers to the questions will allow us to protect our republic.

“The need for this committee to hear from Donald Trump goes beyond our fact-finding. This is a question about accountability to the American people. It is necessary for him to be accountable. Thompson said that he is required to answer for his actions.

The subpoena could also give the bipartisan committee some cover from pro-Trump Republicans who claim that it is a politicized attempt to impugn Trump that has not allowed cross-examination of witnesses. If it wished to enforce a subpoena, the committee would have to seek a contempt of Congress referral to the Justice Department from the full House. It took such a step with Trump’s political guru, Steve Bannon, who was found guilty on two counts of contempt of Congress and soon faces a sentencing hearing.

That’s because if Republicans take back control of the House, which they’re favored to do, the January 6 committee as it’s currently constructed will cease to exist – giving the panel less than three months to issue a final report of its findings.

The committee showed footage from Fort McNair, where the congress took refuge during the insurrection.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and other top officials are shown in the video working the phones and coordinating with Trump cabinet members and others to secure the resources needed to quell the insurrection.

The footage also showed two phone calls between Pelosi and then-Vice President Mike Pence, who took on an impromptu leadership role on January 6, coordinating the emergency response.

The new footage showed Schumer making physical contact with the Attorney General. During their heated phone call, Schumer implored Rosen to intervene directly with Trump, and tell Trump to call off the mob. During the call Pelosi said that the rioters were breaking the law at the President’s instigation.

CNN said in August that Chao, who was the wife of Senate Minority LeaderMitch McConnell, had met with the committee. But after condemning the attack in her resignation letter in early 2021, Chao has largely stayed out of the national spotlight, with her recent comments to the committee providing fresh insight into her thinking on the deadly attack.

At a certain point, it was impossible for me to keep on with my work given my personal values and philosophy. I was an immigrant to this country. I believe in this country. I believe in the peaceful transfer of power. I believe in democracy. She said that it was a decision that she made alone.

The committee showed a new video deposition from Hutchinson where she talks about Trump’s January 2020 call in which he urged the Georgia secretary of state to find the votes he needed to win.

I spoke to Mark, and he didn’t think we were going to pull it off. That call was crazy. And he looked at me and just started shaking his head. And he’s like, ‘No, Cass, you know, he knows it’s over. He knows he lost. But we’re going to keep trying,’” Hutchinson was speaking to the committee.

Hutchinson also said that she witnessed a conversation between Meadows and Trump where he was furious the Supreme Court had rejected a lawsuit seeking to overturn the election result.

“The President said … something to the effect of, ‘I don’t want people to know we lost, Mark. This is not good. It’s time to figure it out. We need to figure this out. I don’t want people to know that we lost. Hutchinson said.

While there are still questions surrounding erased text messages from Secret Service agents around the insurrection, the panel obtained messages and emails showing the agency receiving warnings before January 6, 2021, about the prospect of violence, as well as real-time reports of weapons in the crowd ahead of Trump’s speech at the Ellipse.

“I got the base FIRED UP,” Miller texted Meadows on December 30, 2020, appearing to take credit for amplifying the violent rhetoric about January 6 that was circulating on the pro-Trump website The Donald dot win.

In Thursday’s hearing, Adam Schiff claimed that the Secret Service received online threats against Vice President Mike Pence in advance of the Capitol insurrection, in which he would be a dead man walking.

The committee has assembled evidence that a group of Trump legal advisers – and namely, ex-Wisconsin state Judge Jim Troupis and lawyer Kenneth Chesebro – were looking at Congress’s certification as they put the fake electors plan in motion.

After their conversation on November 3, 2020, Jacob drafted a memo to Short, which the committee said it obtained from the National Archives and presented for the first time on Thursday.

The memo suggests that the Vice President shouldn’t be perceived as having decided the questions about electoral votes prior to all the facts being known.

The new emails that Tom Fitton sent to two Trump advisers were revealed by the committee. One email contains a draft statement for Trump to declare victory on Election Night.

Despite saying for months that they wanted to hear from Thomas, members of the panel downplayed the significance of her testimony following her interview, and it was clear ahead of Thursday that she was not expected to be a central part of the hearing that was instead solely focused on Trump.

The panel did use testimony from several other high-profile witnesses who had been interviewed since the most recent hearing earlier this summer, but her absence was notable.

On Donald Trump’s investigation of the Mar-a-Lago attack on the US Capitol, January 2021: Implications for the judiciary and for public opinion

There are multiple federal and state investigations underway about the attack on the US Capitol in January of 2021.

There isn’t any certainty that Trump will be charged in any of the cases. The legal cloud around him seems to be darkened by the pattern of recent days.

Then on Monday, Trump’s potential exposure – in two of his multiple strands of legal peril – appeared to grow, foreshadowing a campaign likely to be repeatedly punctuated by distractions from criminal investigations.

As the House select committee hearing continued, the Supreme Court let it be known that it didn’t want Trump to derail the Justice Department probe into classified material he kept at Mar-a-Lago.

The court turned down his emergency request to intervene, which could have delayed the case, without explaining why. Conservatives who supported Trump were not mentioned, though they did seem to believe that Trump owes them a debt of loyalty.

As is normal, it is not known what the people who found the classified documents at the Florida storage facility may have said to the grand jury. The ex-president is being probed for possible obstruction of justice related to the documents, as well as for possible Espionage Act violations.

While television stations beamed blanket coverage of the committee hearing, more news broke that hinted at further grave legal problems the ex-President could face from another Justice Department investigation – also into January 6. The DOJ has the power to indict people, unlike the House’s version.

The grand jury in the case used the Fifth Amendment and various legal privileges to get testimony from MarkMeadows, the White House chief of staff.

CNN reported late on Wednesday night that an employee at the Florida club had told the FBI that they had been told by the ex- President to move boxes out of a basement storage room. The FBI also has a video of a staffer moving boxes.

Still, David Schoen, who was Trump’s defense lawyer in his second impeachment, told CNN’s “New Day” that though the details of what happened at Mar-a-Lago raised troubling questions, they did not necessarily amount to a case of obstructing justice.

In private discussions with Trump’s team as well as court filings, the Justice Department has made clear that it believes Trump failed to comply with a May subpoena ordering the return of all documents marked as classified and that more government records remain missing.

On Thursday morning, New York Attorney General Letitia James asked a state court to block the Trump Organization from moving assets and continuing to perpetrate what she has alleged in a civil lawsuit is a decades-long fraud.

James wrote in her application that she believed Trump and his children would engage in fraudulent conduct right up to the trial unless checked by the court.

Jack Smith, the special counsel of the Justice Department, is investigating Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election and his role in the January 6, 2021, insurrection. In New York, a criminal probe led by the Manhattan district attorney is still underway, and Trump’s namesake business is fighting a civil fraud lawsuit from the state attorney general.

The hurdles investigators may face when trying to prove a case against the former president are likely to increase because of Trump’s involvement in efforts to block the certification of the 2020 election.

Why didn’t the Select Committee on January 6 ask me to testify? When the U.S. Senate listened to Budowich, Trump and Cheney

The vehemence of the rhetoric Trump used to respond to the crisis can often be seen by the seriousness of the crisis he is facing.

First Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich mocked the unanimous 9-0 vote in the select committee to subpoena the former President for documents and testimony.

Pres Trump won’t be intimidated by their rhetoric or actions. Trump-endorsed candidates will sweep the Midterms, and America First leadership & solutions will be restored,” Budowich wrote on Twitter.

The former President stirred up a political reaction from his supporters when he weighed in on his social network with another post that failed to answer the accusations against him.

“Why didn’t the Unselect Committee ask me to testify months ago? They waited until the end of the meeting to ask why. The Committee is a total BUST. Trump wrote.

It will take months and involve expensive legal battles to follow a similar path if Trump refuses to testify. It’s unclear whether the Justice Department would consider this a good investment, especially given the advanced state of its own January 6 probe. Despite the fact that the committee is likely to be swept into history, Republicans will likely take over the majority of the House after the elections.

Given the slim chance of Trump complying with a congressional subpoena then, many observers will see the dramatic vote to target the ex-President as yet another theatrical flourish in a set of slickly produced hearings that often resembled a television courtroom drama.

But the committee’s Republican vice chair, Rep. Liz Cheney, said the investigation was no longer just about what happened on January 6, but about the future.

After losing her primary to a Trump-supported challenger, the lawmaker from Wyoming said that she wouldn’t be returning to Congress because of the former President’s conduct.

The Trump-Russian Investigation of the Helson and a Counterintelligence Expert Witness: Two Trials, One in Northern Virginia, and One in Florida

Mr. Helson’s testimony on Thursday capped three days of questioning of him and another F.B.I. prosecution witness, a counterintelligence analyst, both of whom at certain points seemed to undermine the prosecution’s case. Mr. Durham appeared upset with the testimony of F.B.I. officials.

This is the second trial for Mr. Durham, whom Mr. Barr appointed to lead the investigation in the spring of 2019. In the first trial Mr. Durham accused the lawyer of providing false information but he was acquitted.

In the new trial, which began on Tuesday at a federal courthouse in Northern Virginia and in which testimony is expected to conclude Friday, with closing statements likely on Monday, Mr. Durham and his team have had to grapple with significant questions about the quality of their evidence.

The possibility of allowing federal officials to return to Trump’s property – likely with Trump’s own lawyers present – is just one option on the table as the Trump team grapples with how best to protect the former President from legal jeopardy. No firm decisions have been made while sources familiar with the situation say Trump’s legal team is continuing to weigh how accommodating or adversarial they should be toward the Justice Department.

In June of this year, Corcoran drafted a statement stating that there were no more classified documents at the Florida residence of Trump.

The approach came even as Trump continues to indulge legal theories that the records he took with him at the end of his presidency are his personal property and that he first heard from Tom Fitton.

“The general belief in Trump World is that this is much ado about nothing and the sooner we get past it the better,” said a person close to Trump, adding that the former President has told allies he “wants to move on.”

According to people with knowledge of the situation, the battle to get them back has been played out in secret in a court proceeding. One resolution that could happen is the Justice Department getting a judge to order the Trump team to work with them to arrange for another search.

Sources close to the former President say he has become more agreeable to the approach advocated by some of his lawyers, including the former Florida State Attorney General who joined the legal team in August. Kise had faced headwinds from Trump and some of his more aggressive advisers.

Federal prosecutors have taken a more aggressive stance in the Trump inquiry since last summer, when the Justice Department disclosed it had evidence that records Trump kept in Florida had been concealed or removed, raising the need for an obstruction investigation.

Among the complicating factors has been Trump’s personal views on the document dispute. After initially saying that his team had cooperated, he changed his mind and said that all they had to do was ask for documents to be returned. On social media and in court filings, Trump has argued that he owns the Mar-a-Lago documents. “I want my documents back!” the former President said in early October.

Trump lawyer Christina Bobb had to hire her own lawyer after signing an attestation in June which declared that Trump’s team had conducted a “diligent search” to comply with the Justice Department’s subpoena and returned all documents with classified markings. Bobb told investigators that one of Trump’s lawyers drafted the attestation for her to sign. A source with knowledge of the event said Bobb was rushed to Mar-a-Lago to sign the attestation, but she insisted on first adding a line that her knowledge was “based upon the information that has been provided” to her.

The Rise and Fall of the Ex-President: Donald Trump and the Rise of the 2024 Midterm Reionization Era in the U.S.

Corcoran has insisted to colleagues that he does not believe he faces any legal risk and has not hired a lawyer, according to sources familiar with his situation.

Clark Cunningham said that it is possible that the special grand jury has found criminal conduct in the Trump campaign’s Georgia activities after the election.

Judge McBurney wrote that Mr. Graham called the secretary’s staff to inquire about re-examining certain Absentee Ballots in Georgia.

— The situation is even more fraught because Trump is already an active candidate for the 2024 White House race and has already rooted his campaign in a narrative of persecution, especially regarding investigations into his conduct after the last election. He is promising a vengeance against his enemies if he is re-elected.

Trump dropped his clearest hint yet Saturday of a new White House run at a moment when he’s on a new collision course with the Biden administration, the courts and facts.

Kelly made a serious point about how Trump is shattering convention by shining a light on the role of ex-presidents in national life. He again may be about to leap to the center, in the most contentious of ways, of the national psyche and political debate.

The potential presidential campaign of the ex- President could cause more upheaval than his four years in office because of the open legal and political loops involving him.

And while fierce differences are emerging between Democrats and Republicans over policy on the economy, abortion, foreign policy and crime in the 2022 midterms – while concerns about democracy often rank lower for voters – there is every chance the coming political period revolves mostly around the ex-President’s past and future.

There’s a rising prospect next month’s election will install a Republican majority in the House that will effectively mean a return of Trumpism to political power given the hold the ex-President maintains over the House GOP. Some leading “Make America Great Again” Republicans are already speaking of a possible drive to impeach Biden and have already signaled they will use their powers to investigate to rough up Biden for a possible clash with Trump in 2024.

Kaluza Lake, a serial perpetrator of voter fraud in Arizona, has a chance to confront the pro-Trump Congressman Joe Biden

In Arizona, one of the ex-President’s favorite candidates, GOP gubernatorial hopeful Kari Lake – a serial spreader of voter fraud falsehoods – is again raising doubts about the election system. Lake told AZTV7 on Sunday that he is afraid that it will not be fair.

One of the most powerful pro- Trump Republicans told the New York Post last week that impeachment of Biden was on the table. South Carolina GOP Rep. Nancy Mace, however, told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union” Sunday she did not want to see tit-for-tat impeachment proceedings after Trump was twice impeached. She said she was against the process being “weaponized.” But when asked whether Biden had committed impeachable offenses, she said: “That is something that would have to be investigated.”

An already pro-Trump Republican presence in Washington is likely to expand after the midterms. Scores of Trump-endorsed candidates are running on a platform of his 2020 election fraud falsehoods, raising questions over whether they will accept results should they lose their races in just over two weeks.

The Manhattan District Attorney is presenting evidence to a grand jury that former President Donald Trump may have committed crimes in connection with hush money payments to an adult film actress in 2016, according to a person familiar with the investigation.

Democrats are trying to get Trump back into the political spotlight. President Joe Biden equated MAGA followers with “semi-fascism” and some campaigns have tried to scare critical suburban voters by warning pro-Trump candidates are a danger to democracy.

The Ex-President’s Debate with the House Committee on Ethics, Laws, and Politics: The Case for a General Secretary of State or the 2024 White House

With inflation and gasoline prices in the air, it’s more important than ever for voters to head to the polls, and this could cause trouble for the party in power in Washington.

The ex-President told supporters at a Texas rally on Saturday that he will probably have to run again.

It will be done with a level of discipline and rigor that it deserves according to Cheney.

He is not going to have his first debate against the circus and the food fight that preceded it. This is a far too serious set of issues.”

The committee has taken most depositions behind closed doors and used testimony in high quality presentations. Only its most sympathetic witnesses have appeared in person. While this has helped create a powerful narrative that has painted a picture of shocking derelictions of duty by Trump on January 6, it has also deprived viewers of seeing witnesses under cross examination. It is not possible to assess whether the case would be in compliance with standards in a court of law.

The prospect of video testimony over an intense period of days or hours is likely to be unappealing to the former President because it would be harder for him to dictate the terms of the exchanges and control how his testimony might be used.

Garland could face a dilemma about whether to implement the law to its fullest extent or if prosecuting a former commander in chief would cause political turmoil in the country and tear it apart.

The country gets closer every day to a political and judicial precipice that could see a former president indicted for the first time ever. The ex-commander in chief’s 2024 White House bid would make this historic twist even more inflammatory and amount to his greatest stress test yet of America’s legal and governing institutions and its brittle unity.

A Tax Case against the Former President, Mr. Bragg, for Public Expenditure $sim$20 – $125$ Years After the Grand Jury

Mr. Bragg’s tax case grew out of a broader investigation into the former president and whether he fraudulently inflated the value of his properties to obtain favorable deals from lenders and insurers. The district attorney wanted to question an old friend of the former president, but they chose Mr. Weisselberg, who had been with the Trump company for decades. Mr. Weisselberg and the two corporations were indicted for special perks when he resisted the pressure campaign.

“Weisselberg’s acts were done to benefit himself and not done to benefit the company and we expect to show that at trial and be acquitted,” said one of the company’s lawyers, Susan R. Necheles. (While the prosecutors could argue that the scheme saved money for the company, which did not pay payroll taxes on the perks, the defense is expected to argue that in fact, the company lost money as a result of the arrangement.)

The lawyers could argue that Mr. Weisselberg had faced years in prison if he had refused to testify. The plea deal calls for him to serve five months in jail, but with good behavior, he is likely to spend only 100 days there.

Yet if he lied on the witness stand, the judge overseeing the case could impose up to a 15-year prison sentence, according to his lawyer, Nicholas A. Gravante Jr., a partner at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, who said his client was meeting with both prosecutors and the company’s lawyers “to assure that his testimony goes smoothly.”

The case against Mr Trump has been characterized as a witch hunt by him, using it to build support for his political base.

Mr. Graham can invoke the speech or debate clause, which protects him from questions about his constitutionally protected activities, according to his office.

However, he added, those objections may have to be hashed out in open court — a risk for the senator, Mr. Cunningham said, “because it may disclose to public view both the topics the grand jury is exploring and his unwillingness to answer such questions.”

The Mueller investigation into a Mar-a-Lago investigation of Trump’s correspondence with a grand jury in Washington, DC, after the 2018 October 13 phone call

But Raffensperger could prove to be a particularly compelling witness. His profile grew after the 2020 election when he resisted Trump’s efforts to pressure him to “find” the votes necessary for Trump to win Georgia in an infamous January 2021 phone call.

Several high-profile supporters of Mr. Trump have been fighting in courtrooms around the nation to argue that they should not have to. So far, their track record has been mixed.

Sources tell CNN that, on October 13, she spent several hours before a grand jury in Washington, DC. When approached then at the courthouse by CNN, one of his attorneys, Stanley Woodward, refused to say what Patel’s matter was about, and only confirmed that he represented the Trump adviser.

Judge Beryl Howell of the DC District Court has granted Patel immunity from prosecution on any information he provides to the investigation, the people said.

After a confidential proceeding, the court made a decision and it is under seal. At that time, he declined to answer questions by asserting his Fifth Amendment protection from self-incrimination.

CNN has previously reported that according to court records and sources, a small group of advisers around Trump have legal risks related to the situation at Mar-a-Lago, though it is unclear if he is a target of the DOJ probe.

He served as a national security and defense official during the Trump administration, and this summer became one of Trump’s designees to interact with the National Archives and the Justice Department as both agencies have tried to repossess classified records Trump kept from his presidency. He has argued in several media interviews that Trump should be allowed to release classified information because he declassified some records before he left office.

Taken together, the investigative moves underscore that there is continued grand jury activity in the Mar-a-Lago documents case, at a time when the Justice Department has newer inquiries into unsecured national security records underway involving President Joe Biden and former Vice President Mike Pence.

The 2020 Post-2020 Election and the January 6 Insurrection: Why is Willis a Republican? How President Trump and the Georgia House Select Committee have fought back

Trump, who is running for the White House in four years, denies any wrongdoing. He made a claim that Willis was a Democrat, and still promotes a false claim that he won the election in Georgia.

2020 Election and Jan. 6 insurrection: Justice Department investigation: The Justice Department has an investigation of its own into the post-2020 election period. While the DOJ has not publicly commented on the case, a grand jury in Washington has been hearing testimony from witnesses. Pat Cipollone and Patrick Philbin, the former White House counsel and deputy White House counsel, had been subpoenaed by the DOJ.

Special counsel Jack Smith subpoenaed the Secretary of State of Georgia in regards to the Justice Department’s investigation into efforts to change the results of the 2020 election and the US Capitol attack.

The FBI searched a storage unit in Florida and a golf club in Bedminster, NJ, after a search warrant was executed in New York. The extent of information they offered the grand jury remains unclear, though they didn’t decline to answer any questions, one of the sources said.

Trump lambasted his fellow Republican for their refusal to say that he won the election in Georgia, and also for their repeated claims of election fraud.

“The people of Georgia are angry, the people of the country are angry. And there’s nothing wrong with saying that, you know, um, that you’ve recalculated,” Trump said in one part of the call.

The Georgia Republican has already spoken with the House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection, and he testified publicly this summer about the threats he received after standing up to Trump.

The public has a better idea of the lengths the former president and his allies went to try to keep Trump in the Oval Office, as Smith and his new team have taken charge of the January 6 probe.

But each sign that once slow burning efforts to work through the trauma of the post-election period are heating up brings a parallel warning that the future threat to truth and democracy remains acute. Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, for instance – a key force in the incoming GOP House majority that is likely to try to shut down or obstruct investigations into Trump – is embroiled in yet another controversy over the insurrection.

The Georgia Republican said that if she had her way, the mob that smashed into the Capitol would have been armed. She denied White House condemnations that she was joking. This came a couple of days after the ex president said that he might go back to work if he is re-elected, and also that he would demand the end of the constitution if he becomes president again.

It is remarkable how tight a hold Trump’s unprecedented attempt to overturn a presidential election still has on Washington politics – even if many Americans are more concerned with feeding their families and paying rent amid raging inflation. The impact of Trump’s campaign of lies is damaging. Only 34% of Republican-aligned adults, down from 43% in October, are very confident that elections reflect the will of the people.

“It’s been over 700 days since the Washington Post published the full hour audio … of that highly incriminating phone call – 700 days for the DOJ to finally get around to subpoena him. When does it happen? Under Jack Smith.

If they believed that Smith was less beholden to politics as a result of his appointment after a period of spent abroad, they were guilty of “wishful thinking” and should not have been involved in the case.

Preet Bharara, a former US attorney for the Southern District of New York, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday that Smith’s appointment and his assembling of a high-powered team of experienced prosecutors represented bad news for Trump.

“I don’t think they would’ve left their former positions, both in government and private practice, unless there was a serious possibility that the Justice Department was on a path to charge. He said that he believed it would happen in a month.

Of the two investigations, legal experts say the one regarding classified documents may move ahead the fastest after several failed attempts by Trump in court to delay it. A judge on Monday formally dismissed Trump’s case challenging the Mar-a-Lago evidence collection and in which she had appointed a special master. That gives the Justice Department full access to tens of thousands of records and other items found among documents marked as classified in Trump’s beach club and private office.

The fact that the Daniels case dates back to an election that is now more than six years old, even as the nation faces another White House campaign, could also raise questions for the public, especially given the uncertainty about the case for anyone outside the small bubble of the investigation. Arizona Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union” on Sunday that “nobody in our nation is or should be above the law.” But he also said: “I would hope that, if they brought charges, that they have a strong case, because this is … unprecedented. Risks are involved here.

“We’re now coming up against a timeframe in which it is a challenge to finish either case, if it is brought, to finish it before the election,” said CNN legal analyst Jennifer Rodgers on “Newsroom” on Monday.

Rodgers thought that a case would be brought on January 6 as soon as possible, and that it would probably take more time.

While Smith is following legal procedures, the political context makes it even more incumbent on the DOJ to demonstrate to Americans that it had no choice, for instance, to mount an unprecedented search at an ex-president’s home.

That’s yet another reason why the turn of the year and the early months of 2023 are beginning to look like a moment of reckoning for both Trump and those who are investigating him.

With Mr. Rosen’s deputy, Richard Donoghue, also on the line, Mr. Trump launched into the same tired, disproved and discredited allegations he had propagated so often at rallies, during news conferences and on social media. None of it was true, and Mr. Donoghue told him so. Mr. Trump was incensed that his own appointees at the Justice Department wouldn’t affirm his baseless allegations, so he ordered them to just say that the election was corrupt and leave him and the Republican congressmen alone.

It was a remarkable statement, even for a president who had serially abused the powers of his office. Having been told by the very department that had investigated his claims of fraud that they were untrue, Mr. Trump told the acting attorney general and his deputy to lie about it and said he would take it from there.

Two years after rioters stormed the US Capitol, the Justice Department’s sprawling criminal investigation into the effort to block the peaceful transition of power enters a new phase with the special counsel adding two right-hand prosecutors to an experienced team that will ultimately determine whether former President Donald Trump or his allies should face prosecution.

A person familiar with the situation says that he is adding two long-time associates who specialize in public corruption cases, as well as the former chief of the DOJ’s public integrity section.

Another source said that the expansion under Smith restored the office to being able to investigate broad conspiracy cases. They join a team of more than 20 prosecutors from DOJ, as well as senior advisers brought into the department in recent months, who were already investigating Trump and his allies.

CNN was able to get his bearings in the federal courthouse in DC on Thursday where he was speaking to another special counsel prosecutor about the extremist group cases and sitting in on an Oath Keepers trial.

The Investigating of the 2018 January 6, 2021, Democratic Reionization Rifle Experiment in Michigan: The Special Counsel and the State of the Investigation

According to the Justice Department, more than 950 defendants have been arrested for their alleged participation in the January 6, 2021, riot, with more than 500 being found guilty. A rioter who was shot by a Capitol Police officer and two people in the crowd who suffered heart attacks were among four people who died in the attack. The DOJ says that five officers died of injuries after the riot, one by stroke and four by suicide.

And where the House select committee hit brick walls in its probe – including with recalcitrant witnesses who claimed privileges, or, like Mark Meadows, bailed on cooperating with congressional investigators midway through – DOJ prosecutors now working under Smith will have certain tools to dismantle those barriers. They include legal proceedings about piercing the shield of confidentiality surrounding a president.

The special counsel has a massive amount of evidence already in-hand that it now needs to comb through, including evidence recently turned over by the House January 6 committee, subpoena documents provided by local officials in key states and discovery collected from lawyers for Trump allies late last year in a flurry of activity, at least some of which had not been reviewed as of early January, sources familiar with the investigation told CNN at the time.

Smith himself sent subpoenas to election officials in seven battleground states and received a trove of material. Included in the response from Michigan’s secretary of state is an email from a county official who was reporting two voicemails they received in December 2020 from individuals seeking access to voting equipment. The clerk said that one call came from someone claiming to work for the legal team.

“POTUS expectations are to have something intimate at the ellipse, and call on everyone to march to the capitol,” rally organizer Katrina Pierson wrote in an email days before the Capitol attack.

Donald Trump Jr told investigators that his father does not use email or text messaging. As for other messaging apps, “I’m not sure he’d even know what they were,” Trump Jr. said.

The style in which Trump pressed state officials to upend the election results was indicative of his style of asking ambiguous questions. Michigan’s former Senate Majority Leader said that he remembers that he never made a specific ask. “It was always just general topics.”

The committee investigation has revealed more details of the overarching plots that the DOJ has been investigating, including a scheme to put forward slates of illegitimate Trump electors from battleground states that Biden won to pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence and Congress to stop certifying the results.

“It was pretty obvious that the ex-president was the center of this conspiracy, but he was certainly assisted by many others, including … Mark Meadows and the like,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat who served on the committee.

The evidence collected by the committee shows that most of the state based operatives were not aware of what was about to happen. They testified that they were told alternate electors were being put together in case the election was changed because of a legal challenge.

Meanwhile, top Trump campaign officials distanced themselves from the effort after the last prominent election challenge – a far-fetched petition at the Supreme Court – petered out on December 11, 2020.

Investigations of the Snowmass 2020 Subcommission with the Depth of Justice and a former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson

The Department of Defense would have a much easier case to prove if it continued to work on the scheme after Congress certified it, says a New York University School of Law professor.

A memo outlining the plan on December 9 suggests those advisers saw the alternate electors crucial not only in the event of a court ruling that reversed Trump’s electoral loss, but if a “state legislature” or “Congress” deemed the Trump electors as the valid ones.

While the committee referred Trump to the DOJ for criminal prosecution, it also named some of his allies as potential coconspirators in its final report. One of them was a former White House chief of staff.

The committee is investigating a lot of things, and has evidence showing Meadows’ involvement in several of them. The most surprising evidence came from the thousands of text messages that he made to the committee before he stopped cooperating with the investigation.

Meadows and Giuliani, Trump’s one-time attorney, were involved in early conversations about putting forward fake slates of electors, according to testimony that former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson gave to the committee.

The committee has released transcripts which show that Hutchinson, who was a committee member, told them that in the winter of 2020 and onward, Meadows burned documents around a dozen times in his fireplace.

After producing the texts to congressional investigators, Meadows changed gears and did not show up for subpoenaed testimony before the House. The Justice Department decided not to bring charges against him because he refused to cooperate with them.

The department of justice and the county district attorney may have access to witness testimony and records that have been unavailable to the committee, including testimony from the chief of staff for the president, who invoked his Fifth Amendment rights.

Parlatore insisted Trump and his team “were not looking to overturn the will of the people, only to ensure that the will of the people was accurately counted,” adding that Trump was “absolutely opposed” to the violence that took place at the US Capitol.

Investigation of the Mar-a-Lago Search for Donald Trump and an Insurrection Against the Ex-Lawyer Michael Cohen

The two people who got the classified documents in a Florida storage facility for Donald Trump testified before a federal grand jury in Washington that is looking at the former president’s handling of national security records, according to sources familiar with the investigation.

The two people who were hired last fall to look at four of Trump’s properties were each interviewed for about three hours last week.

By pushing for access to computers, investigators are trying to determine if there is an electronic paper trail regarding the classified documents, another source said.

Even after the political gift of the discovery of classified documents at Biden’s Delaware home and Washington office, this still remains the case. Some classified material was also found at Pence’s Indiana home.

Jack Smith and his staff have used the federal grand jury almost weekly to question witnesses in the Mar-a-Lago investigation.

Attorney Robert Costello, at the request of Trump’s legal team, testified Monday for nearly three hours in front of the grand jury in an effort to discredit the testimony of the former president’s ex-lawyer Michael Cohen, who has admitted to paying $130,000 to Daniels just before the 2016 election to stop her from going public about an alleged affair with the former president.

Now the Manhattan DA’s Office has summoned witnesses to testify about the hush-money payments before a newly empaneled grand jury, according to the source.

The former president stated in a social media post that this was a continuation of the greatest witch hunt he had ever seen.

The twice-impeached former president, who tried to steal an election and is accused of fomenting an insurrection, launched his first two-state campaign swing on Saturday as he seeks a stunning political comeback.

Stop Arming the Justice System: A Special Counsel Investigation of Biden’s Secret Documents Campaign against the Ex-President Donald Trump

We are going to stop weaponization of the justice system. There’s never been a justice system like this. The ex-president said over the weekend that it was all an investigation.

This is a message that may be attractive to some of Trump’s base voters who themselves feel alienated from the federal government and previously bought into his claims about a “deep state” conspiracy against him. It’s also a technique, in which a strongman leader argues that he is taking the heat so his followers don’t have to, that is a familiar page in the authority playbooks of demagogues throughout history.

Ryan Goodman, a former special counsel at the Department of Defense, told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Monday that the latest development was a sign of an advanced special counsel investigation and could indicate that Smith was leaning toward indictments.

“It sounds like he is trying to lock in their testimony, to understand how they would testify at trial, whether it is incriminating evidence against Trump or exculpatory evidence that the prosecutors would then have that and have it solidified.”

Fresh indications of the momentum in the Trump documents special counsel probe followed the latest sign of a lopsided approach to the controversy over classified material by House Republicans, who are hammering Biden over documents but giving Trump a free pass.

The chairman of the House Oversight Committee was questioned by CNN’s Pamela Brown over the weekend about why he didn’t pay attention to the more than 325 documents found at Trump’s home but was focused on the approximately 20 classified documents found at Biden’s house.

The two special counsel investigations probing Trump and Biden’s retention of secret documents are unfolding independently. There’s no overlap in the legal sense. But they will both be subject to the same political inferno if findings are made public.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/31/politics/trump-documents-grand-jury-2024-campaign/index.html

A public safety lecture on a potential prosecution of a former president via a federal RICO case for unlawfully retaining national defense information

As the political fallout from the classified documents furor deepened on Monday, the country got a reminder of the treatment that can await lower-ranking members of the federal workforce when secret material is taken home.

According to CNN, court documents show that a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel will plead guilty in February to a charge of unlawfully retaining national defense information.

Now she could be facing a much bigger case: the potential prosecution of a former president. Considering the known facts and Willis’s demonstrated skill at presenting juries with sprawling conspiracy cases, a lengthy RICO trial is a distinct possibility. But it’s an approach she would be choosing in the highest-pressure context imaginable — one that would require both a huge investment of her office’s resources and a political appetite for a good deal of backlash and spectacle.

Jackson gave her positive marks for going after President Trump. I think it is a brave move. I believe it is the right move. She paused. “Yeah, that’s my praise.” And her criticism? Jackson sighed and said Willis had come to the State Senate to make a presentation about public safety, talking about gangs and other crime. Jackson found that murders were up, but other major crimes were down, while he studied local crime statistics. As Willis spoke, “I’m literally looking at the statistics — like, they’re on my desk right in front of me,” Jackson recounted. She said that she struggled with that. “I mean, I understand what it is to be a politician. And I understand that we have to respond to public pressure. I do not think we need to add fuel to the fire. And there have been times — I’m trying to be very careful here, because I respect her — but there have been times in which I felt like she added fuel to a fire that we could have easily put out.”

But the morning after we spoke, I sat in the back of a courtroom where the judge was holding a series of preliminary hearings for jail inmates, all Black men, who had been arrested and held since mid-July. The man accused of stealing equipment from a landscaping truck had been in jail for 112 days and the other had been locked up for 116. It turned out that the initial police report had overestimated the amount of damage, presenting the crime as a felony rather than what it actually was, a misdemeanor.

The Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney Ordered the Public Report of the Special Purpose Grand Jury on the Conduct and Afterglow of the 2020 Georgia General Election

The writer Mark Binelli contributes to the magazine. He wrote about the opera director Yuval Sharon and the tangled legal aftermath of a deadly biker brawl. Nydia Blas is an Atlanta-based visual artist who is interested in storytelling through a Black female perspective. She was named one of The British Journal of Photography’s Ones to Watch in 2019.

“Having reviewed the final report, the undersigned concludes that the special purpose grand jury did not exceed the scope of its prescribed mission,” the order reads. “Indeed, it provided the District Attorney with exactly what she requested: a roster of who should (or should not) be indicted, and for what, in relation to the conduct (and aftermath) of the 2020 general election in Georgia.”

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney ordered the limited release earlier this week, writing in his order that the report’s introduction and conclusion, as well as concerns the panel had about witnesses lying under oath, will made be public on Thursday.

The grand jury thought perjury charges should be filed for some witnesses, according to the final report. In an interview with The New York Times, she told them that there were multiple indictments recommended by the grand jury.

After the hearing in January, media outlets said it was time to publish the report with no redactions.

McBurney’s order says that some parts of the report should be released to the public while others are kept secret until further action by prosecutors.

Unlike regular grand juries, which don’t meet for a long time and consider many cases, this body spent roughly eight months interviewing more than 70 witnesses and gathering evidence, though it does not have the power to issue indictments.

Jurors voted to have that report made public, but the judge had questions about the applicability of prior precedents that have generally barred such reports from outlining alleged crimes without an indictment.

McBurney found that the uniqueness of the special purpose grand jury left him with a decision that “is not that simple,” calling the investigation “entirely appropriately a one-sided exploration” that means it would not be fair to have that exploration made public outside of a court setting if and when indictments are issued.

We have to be aware of protecting the rights of future defendants. “We want to make sure that everyone is treated fairly, and we think for future defendants to be treated fairly, it’s not appropriate at this time to have this report released.”

Though the work of the special grand jury was largely conducted behind closed doors, relevant public court filings have given clues as to potential targets of the investigation who might have broken laws. Those details include:

Willis told the court that decision are imminent, but he remained tight-lipped about indictments. At least 17 people were notified they may be considered targets of the investigation, including Giuliani, Shafer and the rest of the fake electors, though the DA was disqualified from investigating new Lt. Gov. Burt Jones by Judge McBurney because of a conflict of interest.

The DC Circuit judges asked Trump’s side what they wanted to know about the documents. The court order doesn’t explain any further what’s happened with documents. But Corcoran also was ordered to hand over a number of documents, including handwritten notes and notes transcribed of a verbal conversation.

To overcome the shield of attorney-client privilege, prosecutors alleged in writing to the judge that the former president used his attorney in furtherance of a crime or fraud, according to one source.

The person familiar with the situation told CNN that when he first testified to the grand jury, he was asked about what happened in the lead-up to the August search of Trumps Mar-a-Lago residence.

It was unclear on Tuesday whether the Justice Department has developed new evidence to argue there was criminal planning, or whether prosecutors are resting on the same arguments made when prosecutors sought a search warrant for Mar-a-Lago last year. At that time, they had cause to believe federal records were moved or concealed within the beach club, and they have been investigating both mishandling of national security records and obstruction of justice.

The move was nothing more than a politically motivated witch hunt against President Trump, designed to prevent the american people from returning him to the White House.

The big question is whether the portions will include any bits of information that shed new light on what Trump himself did two years ago and whether the special grand jury concluded that the former president committed any crimes.

The Atlanta Grand Jury Investigatees Donald Trump’s 2020 Election Campaign, and he’s not going to be surprised by a big name

In 2020, Trump lost to Biden by over 12,000 votes. The former president has insisted that there was nothing problematic about his activities contesting the election.

Cunningham told CNN that the report referred to is either done on Donald Trump’s behalf or directly by him.

The cross section of citizens that worked so hard on this case, concluded that some of the work done for the former president to overturn the election results was a crime, he said. “I think that’s terrifically significant.”

The special grand jury, barred from issuing indictments, penned their final report as a culmination of its seven months of work, which included interviewing 75 witnesses, from Giuliani to Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and South Carolina GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham.

Its final report is likely to include some summary of the panel’s investigative work, as well as any recommendations for indictments and the alleged conduct that led the panel to its conclusions.

The grand jury in Fulton County will make the decision on the charges now that the special grand jury has finished its work.

The foreperson of the Atlanta-based grand jury that investigated former President Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election told CNN on Tuesday that the panel is recommending multiple indictments and suggested “the big name” may be on the list.

“Can you imagine doing this for eight months and not coming out with a whole list” of recommended indictments, Emily Kohrs told CNN. It isn’t a short list. It is not.

She said there might be some names you wouldn’t expect on that list. But the big name that everyone keeps asking me about – I don’t think you will be shocked.”

The number of indictments the special grand jury recommended in the investigation of the alleged misconduct of the state attorney general counsel, Erin Burnett Out Front

Kohrs declined later Tuesday to disclose exactly how many indictments the special grand jury recommended be brought as part of the investigation, saying only that she believes it is more than 12.

Asked by CNN’s Kate Bolduan on “Erin Burnett OutFront” whether the number of people was “more than a dozen,” Kohrs replied: “I believe so. That’s probably a good assumption.”

I have heard the president on the phone more times than I can count, she said. CNN said that at least one additional call by Trump to a state official was part of the investigation.

Kohrs believed that the prosecutors acted in a non-partisan way and tried to keep the proceedings fair despite the claims of Trump.

She told CNN in the phone interview that she did not think there was bias on their part. I know that they were always concerned about accidental coloring of our opinions one way or the other. They told us that they didn’t want any of their opinions to affect any of our opinions, or any of their additional knowledge to affect our knowledge.”

“Personally, I hope to see her take almost any kind of decisive action, to actually do something,” Kohrs said. I think there have been a lot of times in recent history where someone got called out for something that people had a problem with and nothing happened.

What happens when something actually happens? I’d love to see that happen. Don’t make me take back my faith in the system,” Kohrs said. If this whole thing just disappears, I would be disappointed at this point. That’s the only thing that would make me sad.”

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/21/politics/fulton-county-trump-grand-jury-foreperson-ebof/index.html

A Foreperson Who Don’t Elect: Michael Flynn and the Fulton County District Attorney Who Decided to Obstruct the 2020 Election

The foreperson also told CNN that she was “pleasantly surprised” by the friendliness of some witnesses, including key Trump insiders like former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn, even though he invoked privilege and declined to answer some questions.

“Some of those people fought not to be there, but once they were there, they were willing to have a conversation, and I respect the hell out of that,” Kohrs said. “Flynn was honestly very nice in person. He was a very nice man. He was intriguing. But I don’t recall him saying anything earth-shattering.”

The American judicial system is so good, that a 30-year-old woman who says she doesn’t vote in the presidential election could play a big part in an indictment of a former US president.

Fani Willis, the Fulton County district attorney who conducted the sweeping investigation in which Kohrs played a role, is still considering what, if any, charges should be brought against Trump or anyone else for trying to overturn the election in 2020. The decision will be made by the prosecutors, not the special grand jury that heard from witnesses and prepared a report.

She is teasing that the special grand jury may have recommended charges for Trump and that she hopes something comes of it all.

The former US Attorney on CNN – a personal encounter with a PR tour by Kohrs, or what happened to a former president?

She has done Interviews with The New York Times, NBC News, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and CNN after she was first revealed as the foreperson.

On CNN on Wednesday, the former US Attorney said that prosecutors have got to be aware that potential jurors could be affected by a 15-minute PR tour by Kohrs.

I am straining for the correct word but it would be the biggest thing that has happened in criminal law in American history. This has never happened to a former president,” Litman said.

According to a source familiar with the situation, the special grand jury was not given permission to speak to the media, nor did they know that KOHRS was going to go public.

“She didn’t do anything violative of her obligations,” Kreis said. I don’t think she had anything to do with Fani’s strategy or the case.

Kohrs told reporters McBurney gave the jury instructions, and she seemed to consider exactly how far she could go before answering reporters’ individual questions – though she also seemed to enjoy the opportunity to dish about the grand jury proceedings.

On the other hand, Kohrs’ simple act of publicly embracing the role is a fascinating example of the US justice system, which ultimately relies on everyday people.

There are portions of the interview with CNN that interest you. I noted the responses in italics and paraphrased Bolduan’s questions.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/22/politics/georgia-grand-jury-emily-kohrs-what-matters/index.html

What happened in Georgia Grand Jury emily Kohrs what mattered (I think it didn’t come out of the room)

I think if you look at the page numbers of the report, there’s about six pages in the middle that got cut out. It isn’t a short list and should be allowed for spacing.

It was a process where we heard his name a lot. We definitely heard a lot about former President Trump, and we definitely discussed him a lot in the room. And I will say that when this list comes out, you wouldn’t – there are no major plot twists waiting for you.

I don’t want to speak out on something that the judge, like I said, consciously chose not to release at this point. I don’t know if I would interfere with the DA’s investigations. I don’t know if I would be able to change the procedures in any way. I don’t want to cross that line.

I wouldn’t say that. I would say that – I would say that it ended up included there because it was less pointed of a suggestion than some of the other things we may have written in the parts of the report the judge chose to keep confidential.

I will say that I thought it was important to keep it separate as well, at least in my opinion, not anybody else’s but mine. There is a difference between what we were called to investigate and what happened in the room.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/22/politics/georgia-grand-jury-emily-kohrs-what-matters/index.html

Is the Grand Jury in Washington D.C. to Impanel Regular People, a State Senator’s Supremum?

I enjoy being part of this process. I think it’s amazing to actually be able to be a part of this process for once. It is a great privilege to be able to make the system work for the first time.

The peek into the world of politics, government, and all the different things that it entails has been fascinating, as has having the curtain lifted, and allowing us to see what’s going on. I am very happy that I did it.

I believe it is the opposite. I think that grand jury’s decision to impanel regular people instead of politics made them avoid the question of bias. Because they chose to get, instead of anyone else, they chose to get 16 random people.

I am not. I am cautious about my safety. I’m aware of my safety, but I’m not worried. I don’t think I should be – I don’t think I did or any of the jury members did anything that says we believe one way or the other about politics, about any of these issues.

I think we got empaneled to find facts, and I believe we did our best to share those facts with the district attorney.

Timothy said that unless there is inconsistent information, he expects indictments at both the federal and Georgia levels.

“They were present for really significant events. The special counsel wants to know what the president thought of the election results and what happened on January 6. And they both had direct communications with him about the events preceding the riot at the Capitol,” he said.

Correspondence between Smith and Trump on racketeering charges and the role of the judiciary in prosecuting the case against Trump

Smith will not stop because he is related to someone, according to Heaphy. “He believes that the law entitles him to all of that information, and he’s determined to get it.”

Republicans regained control of the House in January and expired the House Select Committee that they had previously testified to. In December, the former president was referred to the Justice Department on four criminal charges, but members of the panel stressed those referrals were used to document their views even though Congress can’t bring charges.

According to a source with knowledge of the investigation, prosecutors in Atlanta are looking into the issue of racketeering and conspiracy charges in relation to Donald Trump’s campaign to overturn the election in Georgia.

Willis kicked off her investigation in early 2021, soon after the infamous January phone call became public in which Trump pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” the votes necessary for Trump to win Georgia’s electoral votes.

The author said that he is a fan of RICO because jurors are very intelligent. “They want to know what happened. Someone wants to make an correct decision about their life. A prosecutor’s office and law enforcement can use RICO to tell the whole story.

John Floyd, a lawyer with deep expertise in racketeering cases, is assisting Fulton County on multiple cases, including Willis gang indictment against the rapper Young Thug, where she is currently using the RICO Act and introducing song lyrics as evidence.

The Importance of Bragg’s Indictors for the Recovery of the Judgmentary Power of the Ex-President

Trump claimed over the weekend in a post on social media that he would be arrested on Tuesday and urged his supporters to protest. But there has been no official announcement of a criminal indictment.

We are in the midst of a new territory. We don’t know what this does long term politically. We’d rather he just not be indicted than get some potential boost,” a source involved with Trump’s campaign told CNN.

— The first Republican nominating contests are nearly a year away, so it’s impossible to judge how GOP primary voters and a national electorate might react to any indictment of the ex-president. Sununu, who has also been considering a presidential run, accused Democrats of building sympathy for Trump with probes like Bragg’s in a way that could “drastically change the paradigm as we go into the ’24 election.” There is a sense among some voters that it is time to move on from the drama, chaos and legal thickets thrown up by Trump. The ex-president’s attempt to get his supporters into power cost the Republicans in swing states in the elections of last year. There has been debate regarding whether Trump’s appeal is so damaged that he could not win a general election.

Republicans across the board are not in favor of Bragg’s efforts, calling them politically motivated. They opened their own investigations, and that is five times fast. Here’s representative Jim Jordan:

Inside the Trump Investigations: A Closer Look at a Democratic Majority Charged with Public Protection for Stormy Daniels

The weakest case out there, according to Speaker Kevin McCarthy. At a news conference he said that he had spoken to Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican who is investigating the government’s use of force against political opponents.

McCarthy did break with the former president on his calls for protests around any announcement of an indictment, telling reporters, “I don’t think people should protest this, no.” He stated that they want calm out there. Nobody hurt, violence or harm to anything else.”

Trump’s social media post prompted several of his Republican critics to line up beside him. It just feels like a politically charged prosecution here, according to the former Vice President who is weighing a campaign to challenge Trump for the nomination. I think the American people don’t want to see that.

The Bragg investigation was building a lot of sympathy for the former president according to New Hampshire Republican Gov. Chris Sununu who said it was time for Republicans to move on from Trump. He added: “I (had) coffee this morning with some folks, and none of them were big Trump supporters, but they all said they felt like he was being attacked.”

There is an issue of whether the political division and trauma of putting Trump on trial would be in the wider national interest, at least in a fairly constrained case that seems to hold less lasting constitutional implications than those connected to the January 6 investigations. History may not look kindly on any failed prosecution.

CNN takes a closer look at the legal drama surrounding Donald Trump. On Tuesday, March 21, at 9 pm, you can watch CNN Primetime: Inside the Trump Investigations.

There are plans for protesters in New York and Washington, DC while a grand jury is empaneled to look into the alleged involvement of Donald Trump in a scheme to pay Stormy Daniels.

In New York City – where the grand jury has been meeting – all NYPD officers are expected to be in uniform and ready for deployment Tuesday, according to an internal memo that a source shared with CNN. There is no real threat on Tuesday, law enforcement officials told CNN.

The memo came in response to Trump’s social media posts over the weekend that called on his supporters to protest in response to a potential arrest, echoing the calls he made for protests in Washington, DC, in response to his 2020 election loss – protests that later turned violent when scores of his supporters stormed the Capitol. The US Capitol Police force are not currently tracking any direct or credible threats to the US Capitol, according to an intelligence assessment obtained by CNN.

Amid the uncertainty over how the yearslong investigation will wrap, several advisers to the former president expressed frustration at the lack of information around a potential indictment and the logistical complications that would come with an appearance in New York, where Trump would be arraigned.

Cohen made himself available to the DA’s office as a rebuttal witness Monday but was “not needed,” according to a statement provided to CNN by his lawyer.

Grand jury probes of obstruction of justice in the U.S. Senate, Justice and Judiciary: a panel discussion on Bragg’s possible indictment

On Capitol Hill, House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, House Oversight Chairman James Comer and House Administration Chairman Bryan Steil said they intend to investigate whether Bragg and his office used federal public safety funds as part of its grand jury probe in an extraordinary move to intervene in the investigation.

They added that if Bragg does indict Trump, Bragg’s actions “will erode confidence in the evenhanded application of justice and unalterably interfere in the course of the 2024 presidential election.”

We will not be intimidated by attempts to undermine the justice process, nor will we let baseless accusations deter us from fairly applying the law … In every prosecution, we follow the law without fear or favor to uncover the truth. Our skilled, honest and dedicated lawyers remain hard at work.

The three chairmen called a possible indictment “an unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial authority” and said it was based on “a novel legal theory untested anywhere in the country and one that federal authorities declined to pursue.”

They did not set a date for his appearance in Congress, but they said they expect him to be there soon. Bragg was given a Thursday deadline to respond to them and set up a possible appearance.

House Republicans are huddling at their annual retreat in Orlando, Fla., and the former president, who is running for the GOP nomination in 2024, is dominating the conversation.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy fielded several questions about Trump at a press conference Sunday evening, and largely focused his response on attacking Bragg’s tenure and legal approach, instead of defending Trump’s behavior.

“One of the reasons we won races in New York is based upon this DA of not protecting the citizens of New York, and now he’s spending his time on this,” McCarthy said. The statute of limitations are no longer in place. He said that an indictment would not hold up if he wanted to do it.

Bragg’s investigation of the relationship between the Trump Attorney and his lawyer, Miguel Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., has not been charged

The House Republicans sought to promote their legislative agenda in the majority, but they still had to contend with questions about Trump.

The Hispanic Republicans at the press conference asked about Bragg’s probe. Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., used the same refrain most GOP lawmakers have used, telling reporters, “It certainly smells like it’s political.”

Sources told CNN that the case of Trump attorney Evan Corcoran was thrown out because the prosecutors were able to prove his legal services were used in furtherance of a crime.

The judges from the DC Circuit want more information and arguments by early wednesday morning and have set a deadline for Trump and his lawyers to respond by midnight.

Two advisers said that the former president appears to have resigned himself to the likelihood of an indictment, with one close adviser calling his perceived distancing from the matter “compartmentalization.”

CNN reported exclusively Tuesday evening that the communications between Daniels and the lawyer representing Trump have been handed over to the Manhattan district attorney. The exchanges may indicate that the Trump Attorney could be out of the defense of the President.

CNN has not yet seen the records in question, but that doesn’t mean there is a conflict or confidential information was shared with his office. He says he neither met nor spoke to Daniels. Ethics experts said the impact that the disclosure will have on the case will depend on the circumstances and the substance of the communications.

What Donald Trump’s Special Counsel told CNN: “Don’t You Wanna See Me?” the New York Grand Jury Orbifold Can Come Into Disrepute

An adviser to Donald Trump questioned whether an indictment from the New York grand jury could interfere with his plans to attend a rally in Texas on Saturday.

Over the weekend, Trump on his social media page called for protests of what he said was his impending arrest. A sign that he’s listening to his advisers is that he’s moved away from that language in the last few days.

Still, federal officials, including those at the FBI and Department of Homeland Security, are monitoring what they say has been an uptick in violent rhetoric online, including calls for “civil war,” since Trump made those calls. But so far, it’s been limited to chatter and has lacked the actionable information, coordination and volume that preceded the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, US officials and security experts told CNN.

As speculation mounts that former President Donald Trump could soon be indicted over hush money payments to an adult film actress in 2016, Alvin Bragg may have to make a history-making decision.

It’s obvious that this is a sham. And something that we want to know: were federal funds involved? It seems like it grew out of the special counsel probe, because of legislative concerns we have as Congress.

The Mueller investigation of Donald Trump in the era of hush money, and the effect of his conviction on the case for grand jury fingerprinting

If the grand jury does indict Trump, the logistics of bringing him in for fingerprinting for an arraignment will be an enormous test of Bragg’s ability to coordinate with the former president, his lawyers, the Secret Service and the police. Bragg and his staff have concerns about their security. Trump has always said he is innocent, and he’s been lobbing abuse at the DA on social media all weekend.

An increasingly circus-like atmosphere in Washington, New York and Florida, where Trump now lives, is making the drama around the various cases even more tense and confusing – and, to some extent, taking the focus away from what may be a moment of dubious history. The uproar from House Republicans appears to be designed to distract from evidence and fuel Trump’s claim that he is the victim of an endless political vendetta.

According to Norm Eisen of the CNN legal analyst, the piercing of the bedrock legal protections was very unusual and would not bode well for Trump since he may have committed a crime. This could involve not just the mishandling of classified documents but also possible obstruction of justice. Eisen told Wolf Blitzer on The Situation Room on Wednesday that it worsened what was probably Trump’s most federal legal peril.

Cohen’s conviction may affect his credibility in a trial, since it could show that he lied to Congress. Bragg would have to test Cohen’s trustworthiness at a grand jury or trial. “It’s very much in their interests, to take a beat, step back and decide,” he said. “This kind of thing happens all the time, as prosecutors decide whether and how to bring cases.”

One of the thread of political drama that could go on was laid bare this week when a potential Republican challenger to Trump in the GOP primary tried to make peace with the unpopular president while other White House hopefuls rushed to his defense. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis told a crowd on Monday that he doesn’t “know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star” and later implied in an interview that if he won the Oval Office, he would be far more disciplined than Trump was in his riotous four years as president. It was reminding Americans of the daily drama Trump served up for four years, as news of the legal troubles he has gone through made its way onto TalkTV.

“The governor can’t afford to be marginalized from the get go,” one DeSantis adviser told CNN’s Steve Contorno amid Trump’s attacks on the governor. “He clearly made the calculus it was time to push back.”