Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2

[Rick Plant]

Team Trump keeps admitting to an ongoing crime



As the president, Donald Trump ran the country as an extension of his personal real-estate fiefdom. As the former president, he’s taking an equally lawless attitude toward the classified materials that he removed from the White House at the end of his term.

Trump reportedly rebuffed advisors who urged him to return boxes of presidential records stashed at Mar-a-Lago, saying, “They’re mine.” Trump has even ordered his lawyers to recover all the documents the FBI recovered from Mar-a-Lago. Astonishingly, his legal team appears to be laying the groundwork to challenge the seizure.

The ludicrous claim that Trump owns these documents undercuts his excuse for having any records in his home in the first place. By law, the outgoing president must turn over all records for posterity.

Not just the sensitive, classified or privileged.

All of them.

Trump’s lawyers claim that overzealous General Services Administration movers inadvertently removed the 15 boxes of documents from the White House and took them to Mar-a-Lago. It was all a misunderstanding, see?

If so, why was the National Archives locked in months of bitter negotiation just to get the first 15 boxes back? The accident excuse is also hard to square with reporting from the Post that Trump personally and furtively supervised the packing – out of sight of even his close aides. Incidentally, the GSA flatly denies packing those boxes.

The National Archives won the protracted custody battle for the boxes in early 2022, a year after Trump left office. When they were returned, staff found a trove of highly sensitive national defense information, including hundreds of pages marked as “classified.”

Some were labeled “HCS,” for Human Intelligence Control System. These materials are closely guarded because they can reveal the identities of CIA informants, critical intelligence assets who could be killed if their cover is blown. Others were marked ORCON, which means that the agency that originally classified the document must approve further dissemination.

Archive staffers informed the Justice Department, which kicked off the criminal investigation into the mishandling of classified information and obstruction of justice.

Trump had another chance to come clean on June 3 when FBI investigators arrived at Mar-a-Lago to remove additional records, which had been subpoenaed by a grand jury. Team Trump handed over a few more scraps of sensitive material that day, and at least one of his lawyers signed a document attesting that there was no more.

During that visit, Trump’s lawyers showed the FBI a basement storage area where documents had been kept. After the visit, Justice Department lawyers told Team Trump to secure the room and not touch anything.

Evidently, there was still something worth safeguarding in there. Moreover, if Team Trump started shifting documents around after the Justice Department specifically told them not to, they could be committing obstruction of justice.

Keep in mind that it was illegal for Trump to be hanging on to any presidential records, let alone priceless government secrets. By showing the basement cache of presidential records to the FBI, Team Trump was admitting to an ongoing crime.

Later that month, Trump was hit with another subpoena, this time for the surveillance footage of the storage room. The footage reportedly showed boxes being moved in and out of the storage room shortly after one of Trump’s contacts with the Justice Department.

The Justice Department clearly believed that there were more sensitive documents at Mar-a-Lago, hence the search on August 8. The search yielded 11 sets of classified documents, which were removed from Trump’s bedroom, office and basement.

The affidavit that supplied the probable cause for the search was unsealed Friday, in a highly unusual move. The unredacted portions of the document reveal little about why the FBI expected to find not only additional classified documents but also evidence of obstruction of justice. The Justice Department cited the need to safeguard witnesses from harassment as one reason for redactions. That seems to confirm speculation that one or more sources inside Mar-a-Lago cooperated with the FBI.

If the affidavit seems underwhelming, it’s because the probable cause is already in plain sight. No one disputes that Trump removed more than 15 boxes of records at the end of his term.

He fought to hang onto them for nearly a year.

When Trump got one last chance to hand over the documents, his lawyer lied and said they’d all been returned. The subpoenaed surveillance footage may even have captured Team Trump’s attempts to hide documents from investigators.

Trump’s boasts that he owns the documents are undercutting his lawyers’ attempts to portray a brazen theft as an accident.

All evidence points to Trump knowingly and willfully removing classified documents for his own purposes.

Read More Here: https://www.businessinsider.com/fbi-11-sets-classified-documents-mar-a-lago-raid-2022-8



'Doesn't hold water': Watergate prosecutor blasts Trump's demands to slow down FBI investigation



On Tuesday's edition of MSNBC's "The Beat," Watergate prosecutor Nick Akerman laid out the key problems with former President Donald Trump's demand that a federal judge appoint a special master to review the documents the FBI seized from Mar-a-Lago as part of their probe into mishandled classified information.

"What do you see going on here?" asked anchor Ari Melber.

"Well, I think there is really no need for a special master at this point," said Akerman. "They've already gone through it. They went through it before the judge even issued her initial order this week. They found some documents that may be covered by attorney-client privilege, but they've really completed their task. There's nothing else. Trump's claim of executive privilege really doesn't hold water. All those documents belong to the government. The executive privilege belongs to the current executive, not to Donald Trump."

Akerman continued that he doesn't think this suit — being heard by a Trump-appointed judge sympathetic to the former president's claim — will significantly delay the investigation. "The government knows what these documents are ... they've all been cataloged. They probably have all been fingerprinted at this point, so there really is nothing for a special master to do, even if he were appointed. So the investigation will go forward. There's a grand jury presumably sitting in the District of Columbia that's doing this. It's not in Florida. The only reason it's happening in Florida is, because under the law, the Justice Department is required to get a search warrant in the district in which the search warrant is being executed. So, the investigation itself through the FBI, agents, the grand jury, it's not going to stop. There's no way — if Trump thinks this is some way to stop the clock, or to run the clock, it's not going to happen here, because the investigation will go forward."

Making the problem even worse, noted Akerman, is that the judge would have to make sure the special master has the clearance to review the documents in the first place.

"You have to have someone who has a high classified information category," said Akerman. "It's got to be somebody who's passed a very rigorous standard of being able to look at these documents. So even if the judge were to appoint somebody tomorrow, it's going to take a few days for somebody to be cleared for classified information. I've done this most recently. You spend the whole day just filling out the form. They ask you everything you've ever done in your entire life, and you have to lay it all out accurately or you're in trouble."

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

Timeline comes into focus for possible Trump prosecution in Georgia

A Georgia prosecutor offered a preview of where her investigation of former President Donald Trump is headed.

Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis gave an update of the special grand jury investigation into Trump's efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss, saying during a press conference on an unrelated case that she expected her probe to conclude by January, reported the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“As you know, many people are unsuccessfully fighting our subpoenas,” Willis told reporters. “We will continue to fight to make sure that the grand jury and the public gets the truth, and I am very hopeful by the end of the year that I’ll be able to send this grand jury on their way.”

A judge on Monday rejected Gov. Brian Kemp's attempt to block his testimony in the case, but agreed that his deposition should be postponed until after November's election, when he's facing a rematch against Democrat Stacey Abrams, and Willis bristled when a reporter suggested she had politicized the probe.

“I’ve been very specific and determined to get rid of that accusation that this is just some political stunt and we were trying to impact the election,” Willis said.

Trump's anger at Kemp has seemingly cooled in recent months, and he has stopped calling for the governor's defeat, but the state's Democrats say he's “terrified of angering Trump and getting bullied again.”

“The question for Kemp is the same as ever: Do you stand with truth or Trump? You can’t have it both ways,” Jason Carter, the Democratic nominee for governor in 2014. “The sad thing is, he knows it. He knows Trump is a dangerous bully and he still won’t stand up to him.”

If the special grand jury issues a recommendation for possible criminal charges by early next year, Willis could then convene a regular grand jury, which is authorized to hand up indictments.

Read More Here:

https://www.ajc.com/politics/politics-blog/the-jolt-district-attorney-fani-willis-sets-trump-probe-timeline/ANLA3QW4KVC6PFQEAHLRGAVP2I/



DOJ has an ‘obligation’ and can then ’deal with the repercussions of MAGA violence: Alberto Gonzalez

Former George W. Bush Attorney General Alberto Gonzales argued on CNN on Tuesday that current Attorney General Merrick Garland has an obligation to enforce the law and should not be deterred by Donald Trump supporters threatening violence if their MAGA leader is arrested.

CNN's Kasie Hunt played a clip of President Joe Biden discussing the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol while campaigning in Pennsylvania.

"My Republican friends in Congress, don't tell me you support law enforcement if you won't condemn what happened on the 6th," Biden said. "Don't tell me."

"What do you make of that?" Hunt asked. "President Biden responding to President Trump and many of his supporters?"

"You know, I would go a little but further," Gonzales replied. "I would say don't tell me you believe in the rule of law, don't tell me you believe in democracy, if you are not willing to condemn what happened on Jan. 6 so listen, i think we have issues on both sides of the aisle, quite frankly, but I certainly agree with the sentiment that don't tell me that you support the police if you're not willing to condemn what happened on Jan. 6."

"He also talked," Hunt said. "President Biden talked at some length about political violence and he seemed to be responding to Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) when he said, if such and such, this is President Biden, if such and such happens, there will be blood in the streets. of course, potentially referring to Lindsey Graham saying over the weekend that there would be riots in the streets in the event that the former president is indicted over the search down at Mar-a-logo. What was your take on the president's pushback to those comments?"

"Let me comment first on Sen. Graham's comments, which I thought were terrible, quite frankly," Gonzales said. "The notion that there should be any kind of violence in response to what may happen in our courts, again, the procedure is going to go according to the Constitution. Former President Trump, if he is in fact charged and tried, it will be pursuant to the protections afforded any defendant in our country."

"And so, you know, whatever the repercussions or outcome of anything that happens with respect to the search at Mar-a-Lago, there shouldn't be violence in response to that," Gonzalez continued. "So I condemn what Sen. Graham said. I think it was inappropriate and I think it was wrong."

Gonzales said that if Garlarnd, "believes a crime has been committed and he believes he can prove that crime, beyond a reasonable doubt in our courts, then he has an obligation to move forward. The most he can do at that point is of course prepare, have the federal government prepare for any kind of reaction that may arise as a result of the charges, as a result of the trial, as a result of a conviction. But make no mistake about it, he has an obligation as the attorney general to make sure that crimes are prosecuted. and you know, and deal with the repercussions when they occur."

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

‘Every time he opens his mouth he incriminates himself’: Legal experts stunned by latest DOJ Trump revelation



Legal experts were quick to react to the U.S. Dept. of Justice near-midnight filing, a 36-page response to Donald Trump's legal team's deemed for a "special master" to review all the evidence federal agents seized at Mar-a-Lago on August 8 – a demand they have been saying was inappropriate to begin with and either too early or too late.

That demand, filed with a federal judge appointed by Donald Trump after the 2020 election, likely became moot quickly as DOJ had wasted no time in completing its review of the 20 cartons of documents, classified and Top Secret documents, and other White House records Trump apparently took with him to his Florida residence.

The special master demand allowed the Dept. of Justice to "speak" through its filing, which is public, and includes the now-viral damning photo displaying the "Top Secret" headings, or covers, of numerous national defense and national security documents sprawled out on the rug of a room at Mar-a-Lago office, which Trump's team refers to as "45 Office."

Now that the experts have had 12 hours overnight to absorb the DOJ's latest filing, they remain dumbfounded as to the severity of its impact on, if nothing else, public perception of the growing and apparent criminal case the federal prosecutors appear to be putting together against the former president.

"DOJ says FBI found one current and one expired official passport, and one expired personal passport, with classified documents in a desk drawer — seemingly tying Trump himself to the unauthorized retention of govt docs," reports The Guardian's Hugo Lowell, who points in part to this portion of the DOJ's filing that reads:

“The location of the passports is relevant evidence in an investigation of unauthorized retention and mishandling of national defense information; nonetheless, the government decided to return those passports in its discretion."

Retired Harvard professor of law Laurence Tribe, who wrote a well-known book on the U.S. Constitution, slammed Trump.

"So even Trump’s complaint about the passports the FBI seized at Mar-a-Lago and has since returned turns out to have backfired! Every time he opens his mouth, he incriminates himself further," Tribe tweeted.

Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance, also now a professor of law, and an MSNBC/NBC News legal analyst offered this insight.

"A rare moment where we can thank Trump for something. Without his Ill-advised lawsuit asking for a special master, DOJ would not have had this opportunity to explain the situation with such clarity," she writes.

Former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner adds: "After Trump’s lawyers certified that everything had been returned to the government, the search of MAL [Mar-a-Lago] uncovered tons of ADDITIONAL highly classified documents that had’t been returned, including CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS IN TRUMP’S DESK DRAWERS!"

Tribe sarcastically responded to Kirschner's remarks.

"A new Trump defense," he writes, mocking the former president: “'How in the world would I know what was in MY DRAWERS? Who do you think I am? Houdini? Spiderman? Sheesh. Lots of people are saying NOBODY knows that stuff. They’re saying I’m being treated worse than anybody in world history. Much worse. Hugely worse.'”

Attorney George Conway, who withdrew from consideration to be Trump's Solicitor General, posted a screenshot of a recent Trump "truth," a post from his Truth Social account.

It reads: "Terrible the way the FBI, during the Raid of Mar-a-Lago, threw documents haphazardly all over the floor (perhaps pretending it was me that did it!), and then started taking pictures of them for the public to see. Thought they wanted them kept Secret? Lucky I Declassified!"

Conway, who occasionally question's Trump's mental state, writes, "Not a parody. Evidence of guilt, and of a highly disordered personality."

Read More Here: https://twitter.com/tribelaw/status/1564984250914557954

[Rick Plant]

DOJ reveals why FBI seized Trump's passports — and how it incriminates him further



Two weeks ago, former President Donald Trump angrily accused FBI agents of confiscating his passports while executing the search at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida.

"Wow! In the raid by the FBI of Mar-a-Lago, they stole my three Passports (one expired), along with everything else," Trump posted to Truth Social at the time. "This is an assault on a political opponent at a level never seen before in our Country. Third World!"

Ultimately, Justice Department officials returned his passports. But as part of a legal filing late Tuesday night, attorneys for the government explained there was an actual, valid reason why the passports were seized, according to Newsweek — and that reason further incriminates Trump.

"The agency said the former president's claim the FBI agents had improperly taken three of his passports while looking for sensitive material removed from the White House at his Florida home is 'incorrect,'" reported Ewan Palmer. "The Department of Justice explained that the passports were seized by the FBI as they were held in a desk drawer in Trump's office which also included classified documents, and therefore within the scope of the search warrant and relevant to the investigation."

"The government seized the contents of a desk drawer that contained classified documents and governmental records commingled with other documents," explained prosecutors in the filing. "The other documents included two official passports, one of which was expired, and one personal passport, which was expired. The location of the passports is relevant evidence in an investigation of unauthorized retention and mishandling of national defense information."

As The Guardian's Hugo Lowell noted on Twitter, by seizing Trump's passports and cataloguing that they were in the same drawer as classified information, the Justice Department now has clear evidence that Trump himself must have been reviewing and holding onto these documents personally — as opposed to his staffers or lawyers doing so.

This comes as the Justice Department released damning new pictures as part of the same filing, showing documents with prominent "SECRET" and "TOP SECRET" cover pages that were seized as part of the search warrant at Mar-a-Lago.

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-passport/

[Rick Plant]

Trump special master stunt backfires as DOJ deploys 'legal battering ram' in late-night filing



Legal and political experts said Donald Trump made a self-inflicted blunder when he pushed for a special master to review the documents seized at Mar-a-Lago, which allowed the Department of Justice to address his claims in a 36-page document filed shortly before midnight on Tuesday, which included 18 pages of exhibits including a photo of documents with highly classified control labels.

"I have read the entire Government filing. I spend all day, every day, litigating against the Government, so some of this is familiar stuff to see. This particular brief is very well-done," attorney Bradley Moss tweeted.

"To sum it up, Trump took plainly marked classified records to [Mar-a-Lago], he delayed, obstructed and resisted Government efforts to recover them, he (or his staff) concealed the records from investigators, and they got caught doing so," Moss explained.

Former Deputy Assistant AG Harry Litman summarized DOJ's arguments.

"Facts (11 pages): Trump's assertion he cooperated is a joke; in fact he delayed access repeatedly," Litman wrote. "Law: (20 pages): first principles: these are not his records. He has no legal entitlement to challenge anything."

"Once again, Trump hoist on his own petard," Litman wrote. "The DOJ 's justification for a fairly full new factual recitation is that Trump went running to another court that hadn't reviewed the affidavit and needs facts--which we get too--showing that claim of having been cooperative is bogus."

"More evidence Trump disobeyed subpoena and concealed more docs," wrote attorney Ryan Goodman.

He noted Trump's push for a special master, "opened the door for DOJ to publicly correct the record in a response brief. Trump's legal team, and their client, again with self-inflicted wounds."

Attorney and Vox writer Ian Millhiser agreed.

"If I were Trump’s lawyers, I would not have filed a motion seeking a fairly minor form of relief, knowing full well that this motion would give the notoriously taciturn DOJ an opportunity to lay out much of its criminal case to a public that is still forming its opinion about it," Millhiser wrote.

Journalist Kurt Eichenwald wrote, "Of the many mistakes Trump has made in life, the biggest one was filing this motion for a special master, because it opened the door for DOJ to unload on him in its response and reveal how he engaged in criminal obstruction of justice by lying in response to a grand jury subpoena."

"Robert Mueller danced around clearly implicating Trump in obstruction of justice," wrote Trump biographer Tim O'Brien. "The DOJ filing tonight has no such hesitation — it’s a legal battering ram that lays out a clear pattern of obstruction."

Attorney Teri Kanefield wrote, "Just to point out the obvious: Trump keeps lying to the FBI and when he filed his lawsuit, he lied to the court. Here's where the DOJ says, oh and by the way, Trump lied when he told you that the search was to enforce the Presidential Records Act."

Trump's filing may have even implicated more people.

"DOJ suggests Trump counsel and Trump custodian — understood to be Christina Bobb — committed obstruction by representing that all docs from WH were in one storage location when they weren’t, and that all docs were turned over in response to subpoena when they weren’t," journalist Hugo Lowell reported.

Civil rights attorney Matthew Segal said, "I struggle to understand how in the year 2022 anyone is still vouching for any factual claims on behalf of Donald Trump, let alone doing so in a signed certification to the FBI and DOJ."

Defense attorney Sara Azari concluded, "Trump is screwed."

But for some, the filing raised even more questions.

"After reading the DOJ's Response tonight, I'm even more intrigued about how the FBI found out that there were more classified records at MAL, including outside of the storage room. All of which led to the search warrant being obtained," former prosecutor Katie Phang noted. "Who ratted on Trump to the Feds?"

Read More Here: https://twitter.com/hugolowell/status/1564824297130139648



Trump is a 'deranged, defective personality' we're watching 'self-destruct in real time': George Conway



On Wednesday's edition of CNN's "All In," conservative attorney George Conway tore into former President Donald Trump for his scheme to hoard classified information at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida — now the subject of a massive FBI investigation and an intense back-and-forth with the DOJ in a Florida court.

The most remarkable thing, noted Conway and anchor Chris Hayes, is that Trump had numerous chances to simply comply with the law and not face any jeopardy — and refused to do it at every turn.

"I watched Trump do all kinds of things," said Hayes. "Previous life and public life, where he seemed either to be breaking the law or flirting with breaking the law. He encouraged Russian sabotage, criminal sabotage of the election, right? Cheered it on. He attempted to blackmail a foreign leader used foreign policy like dirty tricks against his opponent. He attempted the first ever, essentially, coup in U.S. government history, so he can stay in power. All the motives are clear, he did not have to do this. It is so wild that he has brought this on himself by deciding to just hoard and steal a bunch of documents that weren't his and lie about it."

"And not only that, but he could have given those documents he had last year, and this would have been over!" exclaimed Conway. "It's incomprehensible. He's a sociopath, and he's a narcissist. He's a sociopath who knows no bounds, no rules, does not care about the rights of others, only cares about himself. Even if he cares about himself, you think you would know enough not to do this."

Trump's insistence on keeping highly classified documents, said Conway, is a sign of a "defective" worldview.

"He can't help himself," said Conway. "Everything belongs to him. He is the center of his own universe. We are all abstractions to him. We belong to him. The generals across the river at the Pentagon belong to him. They were my generals. These documents, they were my documents. The presidency, it is mine, I get to keep it. If I don't get to keep it, someone's stealing it from me. This is a deranged, defective personality that is self-destructive to the core, and we are watching him self-destruct in real time."

Watch below:

[Rick Plant]

'Smoking gun' DOJ evidence suggests Trump committed a 'willful violation of the law': legal expert



Former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade believes she may have identified the equivalent of "smoking gun" evidence after analyzing DOJ's late-night court filing which included 18-pages of exhibits.

"In a 36-page brief responding to Trump’s motion to appoint a special master to review the material seized by the FBI, the Justice Department explained that three of the classified documents were recovered from Trump’s private office, known as 'the 45 Office.' According to DOJ’s recent brief, classified documents in that office were 'commingled' in a desk drawer with three passports," McQuade wrote for The Daily Beast. "While the government did not disclose the name on the passports, Trump himself has complained that during the search, the FBI “stole” his three passports. It seems a safe bet that the passports DOJ recovered were Trump’s."

McQuade noted footnote six, which said, "The location of the passports is relevant evidence in an investigation of unauthorized retention and mishandling of national defense information; nonetheless."

"In other words, the presence of the passports in the same drawer as the classified records tends to tie the unauthorized possession of these documents to Trump himself," she wrote. "A photo included with the filing shows the items that were recovered from his office. Among the classification markings on the documents are 'Top Secret,' meaning that the disclosure of the material could cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security of the United States."

McQuade wasn't the only expert to focus on the wording in the footnote.

Berkeley Law Prof. Orin Kerr wrote, "In a footnote, DOJ explains that while they returned the passports voluntary, legally they could have kept them as evidence: They were in a desk drawer mixed together with illegally mishandled classified documents, so they could help prove who had mishandled the documents."

Attorney Ryan Goodman agreed the location is important.

"Active passports in same drawer as classified docs. Prosecutors could even note that at trial," Goodman wrote.

McQuade concluded that the location of the documents could suggest a "willful" violation of law.

"To the extent Trump may be inclined to pin all blame on his lawyer who signed a document in June attesting that all of the classified documents had been returned, the documents in his personal desk drawer are a problem for him. The former president would need to explain away the notion that he himself possessed these documents long after the government asked for their return, and despite personal assurances from Trump when Counterintelligence Section Chief Jay Bratt visited Mar-a-Lago in June to inspect the storage of documents," McQuade wrote. "The former president’s continued retention of the documents, even after the repeated requests to return them, suggests a willful violation of the law."

Read More Here: https://www.thedailybeast.com/are-trumps-passports-the-fbis-smoking-gun



Former top Trump aides: Probably 'more highly classified documents at Bedminster' or his kids' homes



Many Americans watching the national security crisis of Donald Trump‘s alleged unlawful possession, retention, and refusal to return documents likely containing some of the country’s top, most-closely guarded secrets have been wondering if the Dept. of Justice has been able to acquire all the documents taken from the White House, and if Trump was able to make any copies of those documents.

Two former top aides to the former president suggest there may be cause for concern on that front.

“I have been saying this since the @FBI raid,” former Trump longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen said via Twitter Wednesday. “I believe #Trump has copies, potentially other documents as well, at other locations including his children’s homes, Weisselberg’s florida home, Bedminster, NJ golf course, Fifth Avenue apartment, etc…”

Weisselberg is Allen Weisselberg, the former CFO of the Trump Organization who began working for the Trump family in 1970. Earlier this month he pleaded guilty to 15 criminal felony charges.

Former Trump National Security Adviser John Bolton, who first began working for the federal government in 1972, also says there may be more documents hidden in places other than Mar-a-Lago.

“Well given that it’s Donald Trump we’re talking about,” Bolton told Sky News (video below), “I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more highly classified documents at Bedminster or some some other residence of his.”

AFP



Conservative legal expert thinks Trump is 'likely to be charged' with obstruction of justice



In an op-ed published in the National Review this Wednesday, conservative commentator Andrew McCarthy predicts that former President Donald Trump is facing "the very serious prospect of being indicted for obstruction of justice and causing false statements to be made to the government."

McCarthy cites a portion of the recently released affidavit justifying the FBI's search of Mar-a-Lago that reads, “There is also probable cause to believe that evidence of obstruction will be found at the PREMISES" for his reasoning.

The filing provides the most detailed account yet of the motivation for the FBI raid this month on Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, which was triggered by a review of records he previously surrendered to authorities that contained top secret information.

McCarthy, a former Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, writes that he thinks the Justice Department has a much stronger obstruction case against Trump than it does for his alleged mishandling of classified information.

"If there is convincing proof of attempts to conceal or destroy government records, especially highly classified ones, that could change the equation. The Justice Department typically takes very seriously any tampering with witnesses or evidence," McCarthy writes. "I am not saying the former president is guilty of such behavior — and again, we don’t know what the government represented to the court in this regard. But it might well be possible for the Justice Department to prosecute a narrow obstruction case without having to expose classified intelligence and the identities of, at least, most of its informants."

McCarthy goes on to write that he's seen enough proof to think that Trump "is likely to be charged."

"Proving potential charges against Trump does not involve navigating the same complications that would arise from trying to prove classified-information offenses," he writes. "Just as critical, they involve conduct that would be very easy for the public to understand, and for which the average person would be indicted."

AFP



Trump investigation is 'like a narcotics case': former prosecutor



On Wednesday's edition of MSNBC's "The Beat," former federal prosecutor and white-collar criminal defense attorney Danya Perry broke down the legal predicament of former President Donald Trump as the FBI investigates his improper hoarding of highly classified information at his Mar-a-Lago country club in Palm Beach, Florida.

Specifically, Perry argued that Trump's situation is similar to that of people caught in major drug busts — and his potential lines of defense are just as limited.

"Even if Trump had attempted to declassify — and I say attempt because which don't know he successfully did it — the fact that he had the records in his possession since the beginning evidence of his guilt?" asked anchor Katie Phang.

"In some ways this is like a narcotics case," said Perry. "This is if you have it in your possession, yes, you can argue I didn't realize that white powdery substance was cocaine. But that's a difficult argument. I've never seen that argument succeed."

Furthermore, noted Perry, the Justice Department already has some evidence Trump did, in fact, know exactly what he was doing.

"We saw some tells in the filing," said Perry. "Some of the documents as you pointed out earlier were in his office, in his desk, and they were intermingled with his personal documents and his passports. So that's another tell that he had to know. And if he saw them, if he put eyes on them and they're in his residence, I do agree that's an open-and shut case.

Watch below:

[Rick Plant]

Trump ‘admits possession’ with Truth Social post that is ‘evidence of his guilt’: analysis



Legal experts were stunned on Wednesday when Donald Trump took to his Truth Social website and essentially admitted his guilt hours before his lawyers had a deadline to respond to the bombshell, late-night DOJ filing.

At question was a photo taken by FBI agents showing documents with classification markings on cover sheets.

"The folders were arrayed by agents at Mar-a-Lago after being removed from what the filing indicated was Mr. Trump’s office — they were not discovered scattered on the floor, according to two federal law enforcement officials," The New York Times reported. "Files or documents are not tossed around randomly, even though they might appear that way; they are usually splayed out so they can be separately identified by their markings. The ruler seen in the image is to give a sense of their size in relation to other objects."

The newspaper reported "the genesis of the photograph appears to be in keeping with standard protocols for how federal agents handle evidence they come across in a search."

But Trump offered his own thoughts on Truth Social.

"There seems to be confusion as to the 'picture' where documents were sloppily thrown on the floor and then released photographically for the world to see, as if that’s what the FBI found when they broke into my home. Wrong! They took them out of cartons and spread them around on the carpet, making it look like a big 'find' for them," Trump posted. "They dropped them, not me - very deceiving."

Maggie Haberman of the New York Times noted, "Trump has moved off suggesting things were planted and now says documents were 'in cartons' at his house/club…which he says even though his lawyer signed a document asserting all material was in the storage area and went back, per DOJ."

Josh Dawsey of The Washington Post described it as, "They took out the documents that our lawyers said we didn't have and took pictures of them."

Trump's post shocked legal experts.

Former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti tweeted, "Trump's admission that the classified material was 'in cartons' at his residence is evidence of his guilt."

It would be like a defendant taking issue with a FBI photo showing bricks of cocaine on the floor of his residence instead of 'in cartons.' It admits possession," Mariotti explained.

Former Mueller prosecutor Andrew Weissman said, "Trump is a criminal defense lawyer's nightmare."

"His uninhibited mouthing off is actually serving to make the criminal case against him stronger," Weissman wrote.

https://twitter.com/renato_mariotti/status/1565101591891480576



Legal experts say Trump lawyers may need their own lawyers after 'damning' DOJ filing



The Justice Department on Tuesday said in a filing that former President Donald Trump and his legal team "likely" tried to conceal classified documents after being hit with a grand jury subpoena.

The 36-page filing, which came in response to Trump's dubious request to appoint a special master to review the documents seized by the FBI from his Mar-a-Lago residence, details the DOJ's evidence of obstruction of justice. The DOJ filing suggests that Trump and his team may have tried to mislead investigators when Trump attorney Christina Bobb signed a document affirming that all classified documents sought by the National Archives had been returned.

The DOJ filing included a photo of some classified documents that were seized from Trump's Mar-a-Lago office, some of which are labeled "Top Secret," "Secret" and "Sensitive Compartmented Information."

"Lordy, there are pics," tweeted conservative attorney George Conway.

The filing detailed extensive efforts to recover the documents that led investigators to believe that "government records were likely concealed and removed … and that efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government's investigation."

Agents during the August 8 Mar-a-Lago search found material so sensitive that "even the FBI counterintelligence personnel and DOJ attorneys conducting the review required additional clearances before they were permitted to review certain documents," according to the filing.

The filing also includes a written document signed by Bobb affirming that Trump had turned over all relevant documents in response to a grand jury subpoena seeking records he withheld after turning over 15 boxes of materials to the National Archives earlier this year. When the FBI searched the property, they found more than 100 more classified documents, which "calls into serious question the representations made in the June 3 certification and casts doubt on the extent of cooperation in this matter," the filing said.

The filing said that agents came to believe that Bobb and fellow Trump attorney Evan Corcoran may have obstructed the investigation.

"The former President's counsel explicitly prohibited government personnel from opening or looking inside any of the boxes that remained in the storage room, giving no opportunity for the government to confirm that no documents with classification markings remained" after Bobb signed the document, the filing said, undercutting Trump and his lawyers' claims that he was "cooperating fully" with the probe.

The filing came after Trump's lawyers sought to have a judge appoint a special master to review the seized documents for potentially privileged information. The DOJ said in a filing on Monday that a "filter team" had already reviewed the files for possibly privileged documents. The DOJ argued that Trump's request is now effectively moot and rejected Trump's demand to return the documents "because those records do not belong to him."

"The former President cites no case — and the government is aware of none — in which executive privilege has been successfully invoked to prohibit the sharing of documents within the Executive Branch," the filing said.

Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump-appointee, signaled earlier this week that she may be inclined to grant Trump's request for a special master. But the move would do little to impact the investigation and some legal experts believe that Trump's request already backfired.

"It opened the door for DOJ to publicly correct the record in Response brief," tweeted Ryan Goodman, an NYU Law professor. "Trump's legal team, and their client, again with self-inflicted wounds."

Former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, who served on special counsel Bob Mueller's team, agreed that the Trump request was a "huge misstep."

"DOJ has used its response to disclose damning proof of a series of crimes, which it would not otherwise have been able to do," he wrote. "And one very compelling photo."

Weissmann in an appearance on MSNBC also suggested that Trump's attorneys may need to lawyer up themselves.

"You need to withdraw as counsel and you need to get the best defense counsel you can possibly get and stop talking," Weissmann warned Trump's lawyers. "They are clearly going to be interviewed and, at the very least, they're going to be witnesses… And I say at the very least because they could be in worse trouble here."

Conway, a frequent Trump critic, agreed that all signs suggest that the DOJ may prosecute Trump's lawyers as co-defendants: "I think it would be almost crazy NOT to anticipate such an indictment at this point."

https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1564841394383925250



Trump lawyer John Eastman spent the morning pleading the 5th to Georgia grand jury



Donald Trump lawyer John Eastman spent the morning testifying to the special grand jury called in Fulton County, Georgia, where he was asked about attempts to overthrow the 2020 election in the state.

Eastman penned the so-called "coup memo," which demanded that then-Vice President Mike Pence stop the electoral college count on Jan. 6, 2022.

“And all we are demanding of Vice President Pence is this afternoon at 1p.m., he let the legislators of the state look into this so we get to the bottom of it, and the American people know whether we have control of the direction of our government, or not,” he said.

His theories were ones that concerned White House lawyers.

“I don't remember why he called me,“ White House lawyer Eric Herschmann said in the House Select Committee probe earlier this year. “He started asking me something about dealing with Georgia and preserving something potentially for appeal.”

He continued: “I said to him, 'are you out of your f*cking mind?' right. I said, ”I only want to hear two words coming out of your mouth from now on — orderly transition.”

District Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer, presiding over the Fulton County case, said that judicial records proved that Eastman spoke with Georgia lawmakers about the 2020 election, as well as crafting the memos mentioning Georgia to the president.

“I do think there is a logical correlation” between the grand jury investigation and Eastman’s experience and information about the events being investigated, Marlow Sommer explained.

The Santa Fe, New Mexico lawyer appeared virtually before the court, and according to his lawyers Charles Burnham and Harvey Silverglate, Eastman pleaded his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

"By all indications, the District Attorney's Office has set itself on the path of criminalizing controversial or disfavored legal theories, possibly in hopes that the federal government will follow its lead," the statement said.

If Eastman's only concern was controversial or disfavored legal theories he wouldn't need to be concerned about incriminating himself.

Read the full statement here: https://twitter.com/KFaulders/status/1565033542643482629