Investigating the 2020 Georgia Insurrection with a Subpoena Committee: Senator Lindsey Graham, Mark Meadows, and I. J. R. Gingrich

Several key allies of Trump, including Lindsey Graham and MarkMeadows, are trying to fight off subpoenas as part of the state investigation into efforts to interfere with the Georgia 2020 election.

The Fulton County District Attorney is leading the investigation into election interference and on Friday filed additional petitions to get testimony from out-of-state witnesses.

Flynn and Powell, who had been pardoned by Trump, talked about changing the outcome of the election when they were in the Oval Office.

CNN reported that the House select committee had written to Gingrich asking for his voluntary cooperation to investigate his role in promoting false assertions that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen.

During a quiet time around the mid-term election, she wants to bring witnesses to testify before the grand jury in the coming weeks. Sources previously told CNN indictments could come as soon as December.

The district attorney hopes to complete the grand jury work after the elections, and could begin issuing indictments as early as December, according to sources familiar with the situation.

The footage of congressional leaders mobilizing to ensure that Congress could both fulfill its constitutional duty by certifying the election results and protect the Capitol and the people inside provides a stark contrast to the actions of Trump that day. The committee showed that Trump ignored pleas from his team to make a statement to stop the violence.

The committee voted Thursday to subpoena Trump for documents and testimony, marking an escalation in the panel’s efforts to obtain testimony from the former President.

The committee’s leaders argued that Trump was at the center of efforts to overturn the 2020 election that led to the violence of the insurrection, and as a result they needed Trump’s testimony to tell the complete story of January 6.

“We are obligated to seek answers directly from the man who set this all in motion, and every American is entitled to those answers so we can act now to protect our republic,” said Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo.

The committee needs to hear from Donald Trump. Accountability is a question for the American people. He has to be held accountable. He needs to answer for his actions.

Of course, the panel is issuing the subpoena nearing the end of recognition as a select committee, which is likely an acknowledgment that Trump is not going to comply. It could lead to a lengthy court fight if Trump objects to the subpoena.

The committee’s final report and its corresponding transcripts will inform how Republicans, particularly in the House, will seek to make good on their promise of investigating Biden and his administration on a variety of fronts, which includes in part relitigating January 6, when they take control of the House next month.

CNN has obtained additional footage from Fort McNair that wasn’t shown by the committee. CNN will broadcast exclusive footage on Thursday, during a special edition of Anderson Cooper. The footage shows congressional leaders after being evacuated from Capitol and trying to figure out what was happening at the overrun Capitol, begging for help as they desperately tried to quell the insurrection.

Pelosi was talking to Virginia’s governor about sending reinforcements to the Capitol. Other footage showed Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., speaking to acting Attorney General Jeff Rosen.

Two calls were made between Pelosi and Vice President Mike Pence, who was in charge of the emergency response on January 6.

Schumer dressed down Jeffrey Rosen in new footage. 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 told Rosen that the pro-Trump rioters were “breaking the law… at the instigation of the President of the United States.”

In personal terms, Elaine Chao talked about her disgust toward the attack when she spoke to the committee, the day after she resigned from her post as transportation secretary.

It was not possible for me to continue, given my personal values and philosophy. I arrived in this country as an immigrant. I believe in this country. I believe in the peaceful transfer of power. I’m a big believer in democracy. And so I was – it was a decision that I made on my own,” she said.

CNN reported that Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to the Trump administration, told the select committee that she was contacted by someone trying to influence her testimony.

“I remember looking at Mark, and I said ‘Mark, he can’t possibly think we’re going to pull this off. Like, that call was crazy.’ And he shook his head as he looked at me. And he says that he knows it’s over. He knows he lost. Hutchinson said that they were going to keep trying.

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.

In an audio clip, Gen. Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that while in the Oval Office, Trump said something to the effect of “We lost, we need to let that issue go to the next guy.”

On January 6, one Secret Service agent texted at 12:36 p.m., according to the committee, “With so many weapons found so far; you wonder how many are unknown. I think it could be sporty after dark.

The texts show that beginning on Election Day, Meadows was connecting activists pushing conspiracy theories and strategizing with GOP lawmakers and rally organizers preparing for January 6. Trump Jr. was texting with ideas for keeping his father in power that he thought were plausible, two days after the election.

Rep. Schiff and Senator Parscale Testified Against Pence During the Alexandrian Pilger Insurrection at the 2020 U.S. Capitol

Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff said in Thursday’s hearing that that the Secret Service received alerts of online threats made against Vice President Mike Pence ahead of the Capitol insurrection, including that Pence would be “‘a dead man walking if he doesn’t do the right thing.’”

“It was a premeditated plan by the President to declare victory no matter what the actual result was,” committee member Rep. Zoe Lofgren said during Thursday’s hearing. “We also interviewed Brad Parscale, President Trump’s former campaign manager. She said that he knew that President Trump would say he won the election even if he lost.

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 states that the public shouldn’t view the Vice President as having decided questions about disputed electoral votes before all the facts are known.

In the days leading up to the election, Tom Fitton sent two emails to Trump advisers. An email has a draft of a statement for Trump to make after Election Night.

The committee members interviewed Thomas last month, but her testimony was not used as part of the last hearing before the election.

She was not present because the panel used testimony from other high-profile witnesses who had been interviewed since the committee’s most recent hearing.

The 2019 January 6 Subpoena of Donald Trump: Defending the Ex-President from the US Capitol Insurrection to the 2020 White House

The January 6 committee voted to subpoena him after it was revealed that he was involved in a plan to subvert the 2020 election and that he failed to fulfill his duty while his mob invaded the Capitol.

But the developments that could hurt Trump the most happened off stage. The legal thicket surrounding the ex-president and the distance left to run for efforts to account for his presidency that constantly tested the rule of law are reflected in these images.

Donald Trump is heading for a period of maximum legal and political risk over his role in the US Capitol insurrection and hoarding of classified documents that will collide with his efforts to electrify a low wattage 2024 White House bid.

The court ignores politics at a time when approval ratings of the 6-3 conservative-leaning court have dipped to new lows, while liberals, including President Joe Biden, attack the legitimacy of the institution. The order was issued during the hearing of the House select committee’s investigation of the January 6, 2021, US Capitol attack.

The court turned down his emergency request to intervene, which could have delayed the case, without explaining why. No dissents were noted, including from conservative justices Trump elevated to the bench and whom he often seems to believe owe him a debt of loyalty.

For all the political drama that surrounds the continuing revelations, it is the clash over classified documents that appears to have the most severe threat of criminal exposure to the ex-president.

While television stations broadcast the committee hearing, they also reported on the news that could lead to more problems for the ex- President. Unlike the House’s version, the DOJ’s criminal probe has the power to draw up indictments.

Trump’s team has been keeping tabs on those testifying before the grand jury, and even foots the legal bill for a number of Trump’s aides who have appeared. Some believe the transcripts can shed some light on the investigation.

CNN’s Brown had reported late on Wednesday that a Trump employee had told the FBI about being directed by the ex-President to move boxes out of a basement storage room at his Florida club after Trump’s legal team received a subpoena for any classified documents. In addition, there is a staffer moving the boxes for the FBI.

On the face of it, this development is troubling since it could suggest a pattern of deception that plays into a possible obstruction of justice charge. On the initial search warrant before the FBI showed up at Trump’s home in August, the bureau told a judge there could be “evidence of obstruction” at the resort.

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.

But he added: “If President Trump or someone acting on behalf knew … that they didn’t have the right to have these documents in their possession, the documents belonged to the government or the American people, et cetera, and knowingly disobeyed the subpoena, knowingly hid the documents or kept the documents from being found, then that could theoretically constitute obstruction.”

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.

“There is every reason to believe that the Defendants will continue to engage in similar fraudulent conduct right up to trial unless checked by order of this Court,” James wrote in an application for a preliminary injunction linked to her $250 million suit against Trump, his three eldest children and his firm.

Trump has branded the James probe as a stunt and denied wrongdoing. The former President and others were not charged in the Capitol insurrection. The House select committee can’t bring criminal charges because it’s talking about sending them to the Justice Department. Trump has also blasted the DOJ’s investigation into classified documents unearthed during the FBI search of his residence at Mar-a-Lago as a witch hunt and political persecution.

There will be a rush of activity in investigations related to the election. If Trump does decide to run for president, the moves of his associates could be more complicated, because they could be indicted.

The First Day of 2019: When the Unselected Committee of the House Select Committee is a Total BUST: Donald Trump, his Team, and the Foundation of Our Republic

As always, Trump came out fighting on Thursday, one of those days when the seriousness of a crisis he is facing can often be gauged by the vehemence of the rhetoric he uses to respond.

After the committee was subpoenaed, Trump offered a glimpse of how he would use an appearance before it to make a political statement. In a 14-page letter, he made multiple false and debunked claims about election fraud, and lashed out at the panel itself, branding them “highly partisan political hacks and mobsters whose sole function is to destroy the lives of many hard-working American patriots.”

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.

Then the former President weighed in on his Truth Social network with another post that failed to answer the accusations against him, but that was clearly designed to stir a political reaction from his supporters.

“Why didn’t the Unselect Committee ask me to testify months ago? The final moments of their last meeting were what they decided to wait until. The Committee is a total BUST. Trump wrote.

Trump’s attorney, David Warrington, said in a statement with the release of the lawsuit in part that “long-held precedent and practice maintain that separation of powers prohibits Congress from compelling a President to testify before it.”

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.

Controversies that are about to come to a head underscore that the nation is far from dealing with and moving on from Trumps tumultuous single White House term. GOP Rep. Liz Cheney, the vice chair of the House select committee investigating January 6, 2021, alluded to that reality when she said on Sunday that the panel wants to avoid Trump turning his potential testimony into a “circus.”

With every effort to excuse or justify the conduct of the former president, we chip away at the foundation of our Republic, said a Wyoming lawmaker who lost her primary this summer to a Trump supporter.

Reply to the Report on ‘Can you believe I lost to this guy?’ by Thompson, D-Miss., J. P. Farah

Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., noted in his opening remarks that the panel was convening as a “formal committee business meeting,” which meant that in addition to presenting evidence, it could also hold a committee vote on further investigative actions.

The panel also shared video clips of longtime Trump associate Roger Stone, who was previously convicted of lying to Congress, among other crimes. Stone was sentenced to more than three years in prison before Trump pardoned him weeks before leaving office.

“I really do suspect it will still be up in the air,” Stone said. “When that happens, the key thing to do is to claim victory. There is nine-tenths of the law for possession. No, we won, f*** you.”

At times, President Trump acknowledged the reality of his loss after the election. Although he publicly claimed that he had won, privately, he admitted that Joe Biden would take over as President. You can see this pic ofurgTGKVD3y

Despite publicly declaring he won, Trump privately admitted he lost the election. According to testimony from former White House officials, the president privately acknowledged his loss while he was forging a campaign to overturn the election.

Communications Director Alyssa Farah recalled this comment from Trump: “I popped into the Oval just to give the president the headlines and see how he was doing. He looked at the television and said, ‘Can you believe I lost to this guy?’

Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/13/1125333531/jan-6-hearing-recap-takeaways-trump-subpoena

Sen. Correspondence to J. C. Thompson: Secret Service and Congressional Investigations of John McCarthy’s Call to Trump on Jan. 6

“I vaguely remember him mentioning that he was a professor, and then essentially he turned the call over to Mr. Eastman, who then proceeded to talk about the importance of the RNC helping the campaign gather these contingent electors in case any of the legal challenges that were ongoing changed the result of any of the states,” McDaniel said.

Secret Service had tips about expected violence on Jan. 6. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said on Dec. 26, a Secret Service field office shared a tip that had been received by the FBI. The source said that the Proud Boys were going to march with guns in D.C.

The panel described how the crowd that arrived on January 6 was heavily armed, and that many of them wouldn’t enter the Ellipse because they would have to go through an x-ray machine.

Do you think this is true? House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., can be seen saying to House Majority Whip Rep. Jim Clyburn, after being informed that members on the House floor were donning tear gas masks in anticipation of a breach.

The Secret Service was worried about Pence’s safety. The documents show that an agent warned that it would probably not be good for the man they were speaking to. Another agent said there were 24,000 likes on Trump’s tweet within two minutes.

Mick Mulvaney confirms GOP Rep’s account of McCarthy’s call to Trump. The congressman from Washington has previously disclosed that Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy asked Trump to abandon his supporters as his staff was running for their lives.

The president told Kevin that he might be more angry with these people than he is. Maybe they are more upset than before.

‘Trump was central player’. The hearing went into more detail about the state of mind of President Trump after he lost the election.

“[Trump] tried to take away the voice of the American people in choosing their president and replace the will of the voters with his will to remain in power,” said Thompson. “He is the one person at the center of the story of what happened on Jan. 6.”

“The emails show that President Trump knew that the specific numbers of voter fraud were wrong but continued to tout those numbers, both in court and to the public,” Judge Carter wrote. He added in a footnote that the suit contained language saying Mr. Trump was relying on information provided to him by others.

“Our Nation cannot just punish foot soldiers”: The 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals has given a Special Master to review materials seized from President Trump’s home

“Our nation cannot only punish the foot soldiers who stormed our Capitol,” she said. “With every effort to excuse or justify the conduct of the former president, we chip away at the foundation of our Republic.”

Trump went to court to secure an order requiring that a third attorney review the materials seized in the search. The documents marked as classified were not allowed to be used in the criminal probe because they were excluded from the review.

Calling the records “extraordinarily sensitive,” the Justice Department had asked the court to stay out of the dispute while legal challenges play out.

The DOJ, in its filing, argued that the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals found that Cannon “abused her discretion” and inflicted “a serious and unwarranted intrusion on the Executive Branch’s authority to control the use and distribution of extraordinarily sensitive government records.”

Two orders from the US District Judge are at issue. She has authorized a special master to review seized materials – including those with classified markings. Cannon temporarily restrained the Justice Department from using a subset of documents as part of its criminal probe.

A panel of judges on the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals, however, acting upon a request from the Justice Department, agreed to freeze portions of those orders while the legal dispute plays out.

“The Eleventh Circuit lacked jurisdiction to review, much less stay, an interlocutory order of the District Court providing for the Special Master to review materials seized from President Trump’s home,” Trump told the Supreme Court last week.

The special master in the case of Mar-a-Lago was held up until the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals halted the review of the seized documents.

The End of the White House: The Case of Donald J. Trump and the Rise and Fall of the Trump Throat in the 2020 Presidential Campaign

“Any limit on the comprehensive and transparent review of materials seized in the extraordinary raid of a President’s home erodes public confidence in our system,” the filing said.

US Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said Cannon, who was appointed by Trump, “fundamentally erred” in appointing a special master in the first place and noted the Justice Department is appealing that decision in the lower courts.

Former President Donald J. Trump signed a document swearing under oath that information in a Georgia lawsuit he filed challenging the results of the 2020 election was true even though his own lawyers had told him it was false, a federal judge wrote on Wednesday.

The committee has fought for months to get access to hundreds of Mr. Eastman’s emails, viewing him as the intellectual architect of plans to subvert the 2020 election, including Mr. Trump’s effort to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to block or delay congressional certification of the Electoral College results on Jan. 6, 2021. Acrime-fraud exception pierces typical attorney-client privilege that often protects communications between lawyers and clients.

Donald Trump’s movement is posing new challenges to accountability, free elections and the Rule of law, as well as sparking a new wave of political turmoil.

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.

Trump went away after losing reelection in 2020, but he is back in the center of US politics due to a series of confrontations. It’s likely to deepen polarization in an already deeply divided nation. The early stages of the presidential race will likely be impacted by Trump’s characteristic chaos, since he has returned to the spotlight.

If a presidential campaign based on the ex President’s claim that he was coerced into taking office would happen, it would cause more upheaval than his four years in office.

The coming political period is likely to focus on the past and future of the ex- President, as Democrats and Republicans continue to spar over policy on the economy, abortion, foreign policy and crime.

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.

Ex-President Krista Lake in New York: The Trump Organization is going on trial for tax fraud and it could expose a “disagreement to democracy”

One of the ex-presidents favorites for governor in Arizona, Krista Lake, is once again raising doubts about the election system. “I’m afraid that it probably is not going to be completely fair,” Lake told AZTV7 on Sunday.

The New York Post reported that one of the most powerful pro-Trump Republicans said there was an impeachment of Biden 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 Trump Organization is going on trial for tax fraud on Monday in New York. The ex-President hasn’t been personally charged but the trial could impact his business empire and prompt fresh claims from him that he is being persecuted for political reasons that could inject yet another contentious element into election season. New York’s Attorney General, who is a Democrat, filed a $250 million lawsuit against Trump and three of his adult children for running tax and insurance fraud schemes to enrich themselves for years.

Democrats tried to bring Trump back to the forefront. 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.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/24/politics/donald-trump-circus-analysis/index.html

The Mueller investigation of the attempted transition of power: Donald J. Cheney, the DOJ, and the committee on a case against a new White House bid

Before voters head to the polls, inflation and spikes in gasoline prices appear to be more of a factor, which could bring bad news for the party in power.

The ex-President told supporters at a rally in Texas on Saturday regarding the possibility of a new White House bid, “I will probably have to do it again.”

Cheney told NBC that it may take multiple days, and that it would be done with a level of rigor and seriousness that it deserves.

This is not going to be his first debate against Joe Biden and the circus, which turned into a food fight. This is a serious set of issues.

The committee has taken most depositions behind closed doors and on video and used testimony throughout its highly produced 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. This has made it difficult to assess whether the committee’s case would stand up to more rigorous evidentiary requirements in a court of law.

The former President would be hard pressed to control how his testimony would be used if video testimony were to be a part of the trial.

Trump has been accused of using justice as a weapon against himself in his bid to become the next president. The law is Garland’s stated business but if Trump were to attempt to overthrow an election, the precedent would be set and the national interest would be jeopardized.

Indicting an active candidate for the White House would surely spark a political firestorm. The DOJ is debating whether to appoint a special counsel in the future to prevent accusations of political bias by the Biden administration, according to people familiar with the matter.

Trump’s lawyers had been dreading the prospect of a special counsel, concerned it could drag out the investigation they have fought continuously in court. And Trump himself has complained about the matter, likening the prospect to former special counsel Robert Mueller, who oversaw the Russia investigation.

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 defense lawyer working on January 6 related matters stated that they have no idea who will be charged.

Special Counsels aren’t Immune from Political Attacks: Attorney General Merrick Garland is the Central Deputy Attorney General of the DC US Attorney’s Office

Special counsels don’t always get immunity from political attacks. Both former special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation and special counsel John Durham’s investigation into the origins of the FBI’s Russia probe came under withering criticism from their opponents.

Top Justice officials have looked to an old guard of former Southern District of New York prosecutors, bringing into the investigations Kansas City-based federal prosecutor and national security expert David Raskin, as well as David Rody, a prosecutor-turned-defense lawyer who previously specialized in gang and conspiracy cases and has worked extensively with government cooperators.

According to sources and hisLinkedIn profile, Rody has left a lucrative partnership at Sidley Austin recently to join the DOJ’s criminal division in Washington.

The team at the DC US Attorney’s Office handling the day-to-day work of the January 6 investigations is also growing – even while the office’s sedition cases against right-wing extremists go to trial.

A high-ranking fraud and public corruption prosecutor who had moved out of a supervisor position has joined the investigative team, along with another prosecutor with years of experience in criminal appellate work.

The decision of whether to charge Trump or his associates will ultimately fall to Attorney General Merrick Garland, whom President Joe Biden picked for the job because his tenure as a judge provided some distance from partisan politics, after Senate Republicans blocked his Supreme Court nomination in 2016.

In March, Garland avoided answering a CNN question about the prospect of a special counsel for Trump-related investigations, but said that the Justice Department does “not shy away from cases that are controversial or sensitive or political.”

“What we will avoid and what we must avoid is any partisan element of our decision making about cases,” Garland said. “That is what I’m intent on ensuring that the Department decisions are made on the merits, and that they’re made on the facts and the law, and they’re not based on any kind of partisan considerations.”

Garland made hard decisions that went beyond Trump. People briefed on the matter say that the long-running investigation of Hunter Biden is nearing conclusion. There is a decision on the investigation of Gaetz, after prosecutors recommended against charges.

“They’re not going to charge before they’re ready to charge,” one former Justice Department official with some insight into the thinking around the investigations said. “But there will be added pressure to get through the review” of cases earlier than the typical five-year window DOJ has to bring charges.

How those disputes resolve in Georgia – including whether courts force testimony – could improve DOJ’s ability to gather information, just as the House Select Committee’s January 6 investigation added to DOJ’s investigative leads from inside the Trump White House.

Trump has also foiled the DOJ’s efforts to keep things quiet in the weeks leading up to the election, leading to a steady barrage of headlines related to the investigation.

The outcome of the intelligence review of those documents may determine if criminal charges will be filed, according to one source familiar with the Justice Department’s approach.

Two people familiar with the investigation said that a federal judge ordered an adviser for Trump to testify before the grand jury.

The Justice Department is closer to charging the case after the DC District Court granted immunity from prosecution to a man who provided information to the investigation.

The Select Committee Investigated a Response to Trump’s Suspense About the 2020 White House and Other Apparent Discrimination Activities

The source said that the Select Committee began sending documents and transcripts as of last week and that the production centered on former White House Chief of Staff MarkMeadows and John Eastman.

The committee also said it “received correspondence from the former President and his counsel in connection with the Select Committee’s subpoena” but did not provide additional information.

Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the vice chairwoman of the committee, previously said the committee was “in discussions” with Trump’s attorneys about testifying under oath in the probe. But it remains unclear whether those discussions will lead to him sitting for a deposition.

The broad document request even asked for all documents and communications relating or referring “in any way” to members of the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys, or other extremist groups from September 1, 2020, to the present. The panel’s document request spans 19 different categories.

Trump filed a lawsuit in Florida on November 11 to try and get rid of the subpoena. His lawsuit sought to challenge both the legitimacy of the committee – which multiple courts have upheld – and claim he should be immune from testimony about the time he was president.

The House demanded that Trump reveal conversations he had with Justice Department officials and members of Congress about the 2020 election and spending governmental business, a claim that would violate executive branch privilege protections, according to the lawsuit.

On November 9, when Trump told his team he wouldn’t testify, the House responded by not responding substantively, according to court papers.

If he met the House’s demands, Trump said he would violate the executive branch’s privilege protections including revealing conversations with Justice Department officials and members of Congress.

The lawsuit also raises some protections around the presidency that have never fully been tested by appeals courts, and Trump brought the lawsuit in a court that, unlike DC, hasn’t weighed in on his standoffs with House Democrats over the past several years.

Trump provided to the court his team’s recent letters with the committee, which show that the House panel tried to zero in last week on obtaining records of his electronic communication on personal phones, via text or on other apps from January 6, 2021. The House also said it sought to identify every telephone and other communication device Trump used from Election Day until he left the presidency, according to the letters.

But Trump’s legal team responded to the House this week that Trump “voluntarily directed a reasonable search for documents in his possession” that could fit those two categories. The search found nothing, his lawyers said.

The Mueller Investigation into the mishandling of the Trump White House: a statement from the Thompson-Cheney panel and the Justice Department’s investigation into the Mueller investigation

The committee can sometimes hold witnesses in contempt of Congress for ignoring the subpoenas, but there is little it can do to force them to comply quickly.

Thompson and Cheney said in their statement on Monday, “[Trump’s] attorneys have made no attempt to negotiate an appearance of any sort, and his lawsuit parades out many of the same arguments that courts have rejected repeatedly over the last year.”

In the summary of its report released earlier this week, the panel revealed it is aware of “multiple efforts by President Trump to contact Select Committee witnesses,” adding that DOJ is aware “of at least one of those circumstances.”

Trump and his company have always maintained innocence and denied wrongdoing and criminality in all matters. Trump has also won dismissals of two lawsuits this week in cases brought by his niece and his former attorney.

Is there a chance that Trump mishandled classified material? The Justice Department continues its investigation into whether paperwork from the Trump White House was mishandled after he left office. A federal grand jury in Washington has been empaneled and has interviewed potential witnesses to how Trump handled the documents. The National Archives has previously said that at least fifteen boxes of White House records were recovered from Mar-a-Lago.

The Special Counsel appointment at Trump Mar-a-Lago and the January 6, 2020, insurrection: The case for a new special counsel

A special counsel is a lawyer appointed to lead an independent investigation and, if necessary, to prosecute anyone suspected of crimes. The person has to come from outside the government. A special counsel is often appointed if the usual investigative bodies under the Justice Department have a conflict of interest.

Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to oversee the criminal investigations into the retention of national defense information at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and parts of the January 6, 2021, insurrection.

Jack Smith is the former chief prosecutor for the special court that investigated war crimes in Kosovo.

The former president slammed the special counsel appointment as an “appalling announcement” and said it was an “horrendous abuse of power”.

The former president said on Friday that until the announcement, he believed federal investigations were over. He repeatedly called the investigations political and said it was not a fair situation and would not be a fair investigation, telling the crowd at Mar-a-Lago, “You’d really say enough is enough.”

The ruling removed a major obstacle to the Justice Department’s investigation into the mishandling of government records from Trump’s time in the White House.

The appeals court says the law is clear. “We cannot write a rule that allows any subject of a search warrant to block government investigations after the execution of the warrant. We can not write a rule that only allows former presidents to do so.

The 11th Circuit said that either approach would be a “radical reordering of our caselaw limiting the federal courts’ involvement in criminal investigations” and that “both would violate bedrock separation-of-powers limitations.”

Trump’s legal team broadly argued that a special master is necessary to ensure the Justice Department returns any of his private documents seized during the search of Mar-a-Lago.

The criminal charges being considered include obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the federal government, and insurrection. The committee will discuss the referral recommendations on Monday.

There are signs that once slow burn efforts to work through the trauma of the election are heating up, and that show that the threat to truth and democracy remains acute. The insurrection and the turmoil it has caused has led to another controversy for Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a key force in the incoming GOP House majority that is likely to try to shut down or obstruction investigations into Trump.

The Georgia Republican said that if she had her way, the mob that smashed into the Capitol would have been armed. She then rebuffed White House condemnations of her comments by insisting she was joking. The ex-president’s voter fraud claims have been stepped up by him in a sign of how his potential second term might unfold if he gets elected to another four year term.

It is incredible that Washington is still in a holding pattern over Trump’s attempt to overturn the presidential election even if many Americans are more interested in feeding their families and paying rent. And Trump’s campaign of lies is having a damaging impact. Even after Republicans won the House last month, a new CNN/SSRS poll published Monday found that only 34% of Republican-aligned adults are even somewhat confident that elections reflect the will of the people – down from 43% in October.

Smith and his new team have been given the investigation at a crucial moment as the public knows more about the lengths that the old president and his allies went to keep Trump in the White House while Congress hit the limits of their power.

700 days have gone by since the Washington Post published the full hour audio of his phone call, and the DOJ has yet to subpoena him. When does it happen? Under Jack Smith.”

If Trump’s legal team thought that Smith’s appointment after a period spent abroad meant he was less likely to be influenced by the politicized aftermath of the January 6 attack and that a fresh mind would lean against indictments, they were guilty of naive thinking.

According to Bharara, the appointment of Smith and his assembling of experienced prosecutors represented bad news for Trump.

If the Justice Department was on a path to charge, they wouldn’t have left their former positions in government and private practice. And I think it’ll happen in a month,” he said.

Attorney General Merrick Garland has vowed that no one is above the law and that investigations will go where the evidence leads. The reality of the legal process makes preparing and conducting trials take a long time. The prospect of a prosecution of a former president and current presidential candidate is so politically explosive that it would be optimal for any proceedings to take place well before the climax of the 2024 White House race.

“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.

“So, I think they will bring a case on the documents side, if they can, as soon as they can,” Rodgers said, adding that any case on January 6 would probably take more time.

Smith is following legal procedures, but the political context makes it incumbent on the DOJ to demonstrate to Americans that it had no choice when it came to searching a former president’s home.

That is one of the reasons why the turn of the year and the first part of the year are going to be crucial for Trump and those who are investigating him.

According to the source, additional charges for Trump could be included in the final report. It will provide justification from the committee’s investigation for recommending the charges.

The impact of House referrals may not have been known because the Department of Justice investigation is already examining Trump. The committee can make up to six other referrals, which could include ethics referrals to the House Ethics Committee, as well as discipline referrals and campaign finance referrals.

The recommendations under consideration of obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to defraud the federal government match allegations the select committee made against Trump and his elections attorney John Eastman in a previous court proceeding seeking Eastman’s emails. According to a court proceeding, a judge agreed with the House that they could get information about the work Eastman did for Trump because it was probable he and his friend were planning to steal from the US.

Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Trump, criticized the committee in a statement, saying that it was a “Kangaroo court” of “Never Trump partisans who are a stain on this country’s history.”

The committee has been careful in crafting the recommendations and has uncovered important information, according to Rep. ZOE L OF gren.

“We spent a huge amount of time not just on what the code sections are and the bottom line recommendation, but the facts – and I think it’s really important when we discuss whatever it is we are going to do and we’ll have a vote on it, that people understand the facts behind the conclusions we reach,” the California Democrat said on “The Lead.”

The Mississippi House Select Committee on Investigating the Trump-Measurement Correspondence: Report on Trump’s Co-Conspirators and Occupation of Congress

When charging defendants in connection with the attack on the US Capitol, the Justice Department has mainly focused on criminal statutes related to the violence, such as obstruction of a congressional proceeding and seditious conspiracy.

The committee will hold its final public meeting on Monday and the panel’s full report will be released Wednesday, according to Thompson. The Mississippi Democrat said the panel will approve its final report Monday and make announcements about criminal referrals to the Justice Department, but the public will not see the final report until two days later.

While the committee made the historic move of referring Trump to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution, it also named several Trump allies as potential co-conspirators in its final report. One of them was former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.

Special counsel Jack Smith sent a letter to the select committee on December 5 requesting all of the information from the panel’s investigation, a source told CNN.

The committee is in a very important week. The panel on Monday held its final public meeting, during which committee members voted to refer former President Donald Trump to the DOJ on at least four criminal charges. The panel is slated to release its full final report on Wednesday.

Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, has told CNN the panel is expecting to release “hundreds” of transcripts, but there are some witnesses with sensitive material that the panel has agreed to protect.

The transcripts of witness interviews relating to the false slate of electors and the pressure campaign by Trump and his allies to overturn the election results are going to be shared by the panel.

The Garland Committee on Investigations of the 2016 November 11 Referencing Presidential Campaign and the Ornato Conversation, with Rep. Jonathon Hutchinson and Rep. Zoe Lofgren

Garland will make the final call on charging, as long as the facts and the evidence support a prosecution.

The evidence presented in the final report and the information revealed by the panel’s trove of transcripts will be the first time the DOJ gets a real look at what the panel has and could inform the DOJ’s criminal probes into January 6 more so than the criminal referrals the select committee made.

The summary released Monday also claimed the panel has a “range of evidence suggesting specific efforts to obstruct the Committee’s investigation.” Attorneys paid by Trump’s political committee or allied groups have certain incentives to defend the president rather than representing their own clients.

The panel said they had concerns about witnesses who still depended on their income or employment by organizations linked to President Trump and the America First Policy Institute.

“Certain witnesses and lawyers were unnecessarily combative, answered hundreds of questions with variants of ‘I do not recall’ in circumstances where that answer seemed unbelievable, appeared to testify from lawyer-written talking points rather than their own recollections, provided highly questionable rationalizations or otherwise resisted telling the truth,” the panel added.

“The public can ultimately make its own assessment of these issues when it reviews the Committee transcripts and can compare the accounts of different witnesses and the conduct of counsel,” the summary previewed.

The committee summary said both Hutchinson and a White House employee testified to the panel about the Ornato conversation. But “Ornato professed that he did not recall either communication, and that he had no knowledge at all about the President’s anger.”

The committee said it collected evidence to show that Trump raised about a quarter of a billion dollars between the election and the rallies on January 6.

The Trump campaign and the RNC sent millions of emails to their supporters, with messages stating that the election was rigged and that their donations would prevent Democrats from being able to steal the election.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat, has said the panel has evidence that members of the Trump family and inner circle – including Kimberly Guilfoyle – personally benefited from money that was raised based on the former president’s false election claims, but the panel has never gone as far to say a financial crime has been committed.

DOJ initially asked the panel for all of its transcripts back in May, but committee members, particularly Thompson, felt strongly the depositions were the property of the committee.

Aides and advisers to the former president are also hoping the release of the panel’s transcripts will provide new information about the DOJ criminal investigation into January 6.

At various points during the committee’s hearings, Trump’s allies and advisers were surprised by snippets of testimony they were unaware of before hearing publicly, including that of Ivanka Trump.

McCarthy has vowed to hold hearings next year on the security failures that led to the Capitol breach and has called on the select committee to preserve all of its records and transcripts.

The Justice Department’s Jan. 6, 2020, riot investigation: A joint investigation of the February riots in Washington, D.C., under Robert J. Harbach

According to a person familiar with the matter, he is adding two associates who have specialized in public corruption cases, including the former chief of the DOJ’s public integrity section.

The expansion under Smith shores up the office’s ability to examine broad conspiracy cases and determine the avenues of the investigation, another source said. 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.

Despite Attorney General Merrick Garland’s assurances that Smith’s appointment won’t slow down the dual Trump-related probes, setting his office up does take time. Smith’s team is still working to find a permanent physical office location but has begun changing over email addresses for staffers who had previously been using their usual Justice Department accounts.

Harbach was seen by CNN getting his bearings in the federal courthouse in DC on Thursday, speaking to another special counsel prosecutor about extremist group cases and briefly sitting in on an ongoing Oath Keepers seditious conspiracy trial.

More than 500 people have been found guilty of participating in the January 6, 2021, riots, according to the Justice Department. Four people died in the attack, including rioter Ashli Babbitt who was shot by a Capitol police officer, two members of the crowd who suffered heart attacks, and one who died of an overdose. The DOJ says five officers died after the riot and 140 were injured.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/06/politics/january-6-justice-department-jack-smith-trump-investigation/index.html

What the DOJ needs to know about the 2016 Capitol attack: When Donald Trump Jr., Senator Zoe Lofgren and Mark Meadows failed to cooperate with the special counsel

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 ongoing legal proceedings about piercing the shield of confidentially that normally surrounds a president.

A lot of evidence already in-hand is what the special counsel needs to comb through as it works to get to the bottom of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

“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 congressional investigators that his father did not use email or text messaging. I am not sure he would know what messaging apps were, said Trump Jr.

Trump’s style of making ambiguous asks rather than direct demands was also on display as he pressed state officials to upend the election results. He never made a specific ask and was the former Senate Majority Leader of Michigan. It was always topics of general interest.

“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.

According to the evidence collected by the committee, many of the state-based operatives and fraudulent electors themselves were largely in the dark about what the endgame of the gambit was. Several testified that they believed alternate electors were being assembled as a contingency plan in case there was a legal challenge that changed the result in their state.

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.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/06/politics/january-6-justice-department-jack-smith-trump-investigation/index.html

Fake Slates of Elections: Mueller’s Investigation of the Trump-Mumford Democrat Refereed to by Goodman and Hutchinson

“DOJ would have a lot of an easier case to prove if the scheme was continued by the people who were working on it,” according to Ryan Goodman.

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.

Meadows repeatedly comes up in the committee’s investigation, with evidence showing his involvement on some level in every gambit to overturn the election. He turned over thousands of texts to the committee before he stopped cooperating with the investigators.

Cassidy Hutchinson, a former White House aide, said that Trump and Giuliani were involved in discussions about fake slates of electors.

Transcripts released by the committee also reveal that Hutchinson testified before the committee how Meadows regularly burned documents in his fireplace around a dozen times – about once or twice a week – between December 2020 and mid-January 2021.

After producing the texts to congressional investigators, the speaker did not show up for the testimony that was subpoenaed. A lawsuit he filed challenging the subpoena was unsuccessful, but the Justice Department opted not to bring criminal charges for his lack of cooperation.

The summary of the report pointed out that criminal prosecutors could have access to materials that lawmakers didn’t have.

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.