The Trump 2024 thread...

[Chip]

Are you just finding out about the Johnson quote?

Read it when I was about thirteen. When my John Bircher dad was raving about commies, I quoted it to him and he got really mad.

[Chuck Naill]

Well, Chip, better late than never.

[Chip]

Late? I turned 13 in 1962.

Once again, are you trying to be stupid or does it come natural?

[TSherbs]

Trump's screed on social media yesterday suggests that he was told that he will be charged regarding the documents handling.

And there are other cases brewing out there.

Trump's caps key got stuck again. Typical.

Meanwhile, Chris Sununu, a governor I am familiar with from the state next to mine, made clear that he is not running and openly scolded the GOP and other contenders for self-serving and misguided policies. Most of the country doesn't know Sununu, and I don't like him (I have met him), but his points have some merit (I believe). He's a lightweight, but that doesn't mean that he is wrong. He just might not be all that relevant.

[Chip]

Multiple witnesses subpoenaed in Florida in Trump Mar-a-Lago case

Involvement of top prosecutor Jay Bratt in the Florida grand jury could suggest questions about Espionage Act violations

Hugo Lowell
7 Jun 2023

Federal prosecutors have subpoenaed multiple witnesses to testify before a previously unknown grand jury in Florida in the criminal investigation into Donald Trump’s handling of national security materials and obstruction of justice, according to people familiar with the matter. The new grand jury activity at the US district court in Miami marks the latest twist in the investigation that for months has involved a grand jury that had been taking evidence in the case in Washington but has been silent since the start of last month.

Trump aide Taylor Budowich is scheduled to testify before the Florida grand jury on Wednesday, one of the people said, and questioning is expected to be led by Jay Bratt, the justice department’s counterintelligence chief detailed to the special counsel Jack Smith, who is leading the investigation.

The previously unreported involvement of Bratt could suggest the questioning may focus on potential Espionage Act violations, particularly whether Trump showed off national security documents to people at his Mar-a-Lago resort – a recent focus of the investigation. Bratt, who was seen arriving in Miami on Tuesday by the Guardian, has previously appeared for grand jury proceedings in the espionage side of the investigation, as opposed to the obstruction side, which has typically been led by Smith’s other prosecutors or national security trial attorneys. A justice department spokesperson declined to comment.

But the underlying reasons as to why prosecutors in the special counsel’s office impaneled the new grand jury in Florida, and whether it is now the only grand jury active in the case after the Washington grand jury has sat dormant for weeks, remains an open question. Prosecutors would most probably prefer to bring charges in Washington, where the judges at the US district court are more familiar with handling national security cases – though Florida also has a robust national security section – and the jury pool skews more Democratic.

The impaneling of grand juries has to do with where prosecutors believe a crime was committed. And the most straightforward reason for the Florida grand jury is that prosecutors have developed evidence of criminal activity at Mar-a-Lago, which is in the southern district of Florida.

In this investigation, prosecutors considering charges against Trump for retaining national security material may have concluded from the evidence that he was still president when classified documents were moved to Mar-a-Lago, meaning his “unlawful possession” only started in Florida. Similarly, if prosecutors have also developed evidence that Trump knew he had retained national security documents after he left office at Mar-a-Lago, for instance by waving them around or showing people, that could present hurdles to charging Espionage Act violations in Washington.

The venue for an obstruction of justice charge is more difficult to deduce, meanwhile, because the courts have provided little guidance about how it should be applied under section 1519 of the US criminal code, which prosecutors listed on the affidavit for Mar-a-Lago search warrant. Generally, other obstruction statutes hold that the venue depends on where the impeded proceeding was taking place. In the Trump documents investigation, the subpoena last year demanding the return of classified documents was issued in Washington. The US court of appeals for the DC circuit, however, has ruled in previous cases that the correct venue is where acts of obstruction took place. If prosecutors are considering obstruction charges for Trump’s steps to conceal classified documents after the subpoena, Florida could be the venue.

Separate to the question of why prosecutors impaneled a new grand jury in Florida is what it indicates in terms of the status of the criminal investigation. If both the Florida grand jury and the Washington grand jury are active, that could indicate prosecutors are considering charges in both places and against the same targets. But if the Florida grand jury is the only grand jury in operation, that could suggest several things.

It could be that the investigation in Washington is largely finished, and prosecutors have finalized whether to charge Trump and others there, but are still weighing separate charges in Florida. Or prosecutors might have concluded charges in Washington and are at risk of dismissal over improper venue because the crimes occurred at Mar-a-Lago, and are moving the entire case to Florida. Moving the entire case to Florida would not necessarily be that burdensome for the special counsel, legal experts said, and would just involve prosecutors reading out transcripts of testimony previously delivered to the Washington grand jury, in addition to questioning new witnesses.

For months, prosecutors have examined whether the failure by Trump to fully comply with a subpoena demanding the return of any classified documents was a deliberate act of obstruction, according to multiple people with knowledge of the case.

Last June, the since-recused Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran found 38 classified documents in the storage room at Mar-a-Lago and told the justice department that no further materials remained there – which came into question when the FBI seized 101 additional classified documents months later. Corcoran later told associates he felt misled because he had asked whether he should search elsewhere at Mar-a-Lago, like Trump’s office, but was waved off, the Guardian first reported. Corcoran’s notes also showed he told Trump he had to return all classified documents in his possession.

The investigation has also been focused on whether Trump showed off national security materials at his other properties like the Trump Bedminster golf club in New Jersey, including a document concerning military action against Iran, people close to the case said.

Prosecutors have seemingly been trying to identify whether that Iran document was the same document Trump referenced on an audio recording in which he said he could not discuss it because he did not declassify it while in office – though he should have, the Guardian previously reported. To that end, prosecutors have showed an Iran document to some witnesses who appeared before the Washington grand jury and asked whether they had ever seen the material by Trump or anyone else. It was not clear whether any witness confirmed seeing the document, one of the people said.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...e_iOSApp_Other

[Chip]

Trump lawyers notified that he is the target of classified documents probe

Dan Whitcomb, Sarah N. Lynch and Jacqueline Thomsen
June 7, 2023

June 7 (Reuters) - Federal prosecutors have notified former U.S. President Donald Trump's attorneys he is the target of an investigation into his handling of classified materials, a person familiar with the matter said on Wednesday, adding to his legal troubles as he campaigns for the White House in 2024.

The Justice Department typically notifies people when they become targets of an investigation to give them an opportunity to present their own evidence before a grand jury. The notification does not necessarily mean Trump will be charged. News of the notification to Trump's legal team surfaced just two days after his attorneys met with Justice Department officials to discuss the case. The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Trump's attorneys in the documents case could not be reached for comment.

Trump's legal team was notified on Monday, the person said. Although there are some signs that the documents investigation is coming to a close, the timing of when a person is told they are a target cannot necessarily be used as a predictor of when charges might be brought, said David Schoen, an attorney who represented Trump ally Steve Bannon during his criminal trial on contempt of Congress charges. "Sometimes they are issued at the beginning of a long investigation and sometimes at the conclusion of an investigation," he said.

Trump, the front-runner in the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, has repeatedly described the multiple investigations as politically motivated.

A federal grand jury has been investigating Trump's retention of classified materials after leaving the White House in 2021. A second criminal investigation is looking into alleged efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden. A spokesperson for Special Counsel Jack Smith, who is leading the probes, declined to comment.

Investigators in August 2022 seized roughly 13,000 documents from Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida. One hundred of these were marked as classified, even though one of Trump's lawyers had previously said that all records with classified markings had been returned. Trump has defended his retention of documents, suggesting that he declassified them while he was president. However, Trump has not provided evidence of this and his attorneys have not made that argument in court filings.

Trump is the first current or former U.S. president to face criminal charges, having pleaded not guilty in April to felony charges for allegedly falsifying business records relating to hush money paid to a porn star before the 2016 presidential race.

Trump handed over 15 boxes of records in January 2022, a year after leaving office, but federal officials came to believe he had not returned all the documents. The Justice Department issued Trump a grand jury subpoena in May 2022 asking him to return any other records bearing classified markings, and top officials traveled to Mar-a-Lago to retrieve the materials. Trump's attorneys turned over 38 pages marked as classified to FBI and Justice Department officials and showed them a storage room at Mar-a-Lago, but did not permit the agents to open any of the boxes. One of Trump's lawyers also signed a document attesting that all records with classified markings had been returned to the government - a claim later proven false after the FBI searched his home.

Trump's legal woes are growing. A jury in federal court in Manhattan in May decided in a civil lawsuit that Trump must pay $5 million in damages for sexually abusing former Elle magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll and then defaming her by branding her a liar. Trump also faces a criminal investigation by a county prosecutor in Georgia relating to his efforts to undo his 2020 election loss in that state.


https://www.reuters.com/legal/federa...co-2023-06-07/

[Chip]

The charges against Trump and what they mean

Rachel Weiner and Sarah Frostenson
June 9, 2023

Trump faces 37 federal charges in the indictment unsealed Friday, including 31 alleged violations of the Espionage Act. Here is what prosecutors say he did to break the law over three dozen times, and the possible penalties he faces on each charge.


(Created with Datawrapper/The Washington Post)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...fbc473d6473425

[TSherbs]

37 federal charges?

Wow.

[Chip]

Two lawyers have left Trump’s legal team.

Maggie Haberman and Alan Feuer
June 9, 2023

Two of former President Donald J. Trump’s lawyers who had been engaging directly with the Justice Department have left his team, according to a social media post by Mr. Trump and a statement from the lawyers. The lawyers, James Trusty and John Rowley, left Mr. Trump’s legal team a day after he was indicted on seven federal counts related to his handling of government documents at his Florida home and resort, Mar-a-Lago.

“For purposes of fighting the Greatest Witch Hunt of all time, now moving to the Florida Courts, I will be represented by Todd Blanche, Esq., and a firm to be named later,” Mr. Trump wrote in the post. “I want to thank Jim Trusty and John Rowley for their work, but they were up against a very dishonest, corrupt, evil, and “sick” group of people, the likes of which has not been seen before. We will be announcing additional lawyers in the coming days.”

In a joint statement put out shortly after Mr. Trump’s announcement, the two lawyers wrote that they had tendered their resignations. “It has been an honor to have spent the last year defending him, and we know he will be vindicated,” they wrote. The departures of Mr. Trusty and Mr. Rowley came a month after the resignation of a third lawyer on Mr. Trump’s team, Timothy Parlatore. Days after Mr. Parlatore stepped back from representing Mr. Trump, he went on CNN to complain about how another lawyer close to Mr. Trump, Boris Epshteyn, had created conflict inside the legal team.

On Thursday night, within two hours of the legal team being briefed on the indictment, Mr. Trusty was one of the faces on cable news defending Mr. Trump, appearing on CNN to denounce the case against him. Mr. Trusty and Mr. Rowley were two of the three lawyers who attended a meeting with Justice Department officials, including the special counsel Jack Smith, three days before the indictment.

Two people familiar with the matter said that Mr. Trusty and Mr. Rowley had repeatedly complained about working with Mr. Epshteyn. One of these people, with direct knowledge of events, said that was part of the reason for the departures. That person said Mr. Trusty and Mr. Rowley are still on good terms with Mr. Trump. Mr. Blanche, who is already representing Mr. Trump in the case against him in a Manhattan state court, represents both Mr. Trump and Mr. Epshteyn.

In their statement, Mr. Trusty and Mr. Rowley said the case’s shift to Florida made it “a logical moment for us to step aside and let others carry the cases through to completion.” They added, “We have no plans to hold media appearances that address our withdrawals or any other confidential communications we’ve had with the president or his legal team.”

Mr. Parlatore, by contrast, went on CNN and directly blamed Mr. Epshteyn when he departed the team.

A spokesman for Mr. Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment about those tensions.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/06...e=articleShare

[Chip]

Here's a cool conspiracy theory: Boris Epshteyn (who was born in Moscow) is actually a deep-cover sleeper agent. Over the last year or so, he's been busy in the storage rooms, bathrooms, offices, and other classified document dumps at Mar-a-Lago, copying documents and transmitting them to his real bosses in Moscow. Hence the reported "tensions" with the other lawyers.

[TSherbs]

Born in Moscow for real, or born in Moscow like Obama was born in Kenya (for not real)? (Not that it matters much, but, you know, Trump was just lying out of his ass back before 2010.)

[TSherbs]

Trump's lawyers (the new ones) are working, no doubt, on how to spin this recording:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/09/polit...ion/index.html

[Chip]

Born in Moscow for real, or born in Moscow like Obama was born in Kenya (for not real)?

Moscow for real, in 1982. Came to the US with his Russian parents in 1993. Been Trump's buddy since 2016. He worked for the Sinclair Group, a far-right "news" conglomerate until 2019. Another Russian connection for Trumpsky.

[TSherbs]

So some (many?) people are saying that Trump's numbers will get a bump from the 37 indictments. But in a national election? I doubt it. Could he get more votes than 2020? I doubt it. He looks pathetic to me even now. Joe is old, but he is not a scorched earth wild man with little self-control, no humility, no empathy, and questionable decision-making judgment.

[TSherbs]

From Ruth Marcus today :

>>>Prosecutors use the term “speaking indictment” to describe a charging document that narrates a story of criminal conduct. This indictment all but shouts: This man is a danger to the country. He is a liar. He is a hypocrite. He is a crook. It does not say, but I will: He should never again be allowed anywhere near the levers of power.<<<

Preach it.

[dneal]

From Ruth Marcus today :

>>>Prosecutors use the term “speaking indictment” to describe a charging document that narrates a story of criminal conduct. This indictment all but shouts: This man is a danger to the country. He is a liar. He is a hypocrite. He is a crook. It does not say, but I will: He should never again be allowed anywhere near the levers of power.<<<

Preach it.

Curious that you're never so adamant about this when it's your side that does it.

[Chip]

[dneal]

For those whose attention span is deeper than political cartoons and headlines as the endless "We got him now!!!" conclusions, you might listen to the opposing view.

It would help to know the history of Special Counsel Jack Smith, who lost 9-0 in the Supreme Court for his political prosecution of Bob McDonnell, with Justice Roberts specifically pointing out "...the broader legal implications of the government's boundless interpretation of the federal bribery statute."

[Chuck Naill]

Honestly, @dneal, neither would be my source for information. I know nothing of Jack Smith. Since it was Trump’s attorneys that provided the most damning information, Mr Smith didn’t need much prosecutorial experience to see that the man needed to be brought to trial.

If we were talking about a mountain climber who didn’t pay any attention to the elevation when considering the need for O2, you might think they were acting foolishly. This is how I see Trump. He’s the person hiking the AT who calls 911.

[Chuck Naill]

Trump never took the job seriously. He didn’t value alliances or seek to make them. I can imagine no situation where he would be someone who I would be able to depend. Since you are a person with military experience, what do you find engaging about him?