The Injunction Discriminates Between Gingrich, Flynn, and his Allies in the Campaign to Overturn the 2020 Presidential Election

The department added that the injunction “would prohibit the government from using any aspect of the seized records’ contents to support the use of compulsory process to locate any additional records.”

The privacy claims that are being worked through in the criminal investigation surrounding Trump were highlighted in the discussion. The former President is arguing that at least some of the documents are his and shouldn’t be allowed to be used by Justice Department investigators.

But other lawyers in Mr. Trump’s circle — who have argued for taking a more adversarial posture in dealing with the Justice Department — disagreed with Mr. Kise’s approach. They talked Mr. Trump out of the idea and encouraged him to keep fighting, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Mr. Kise wants a voluntary search by an outside group to take place. Along with his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla., Mr. Trump frequently spends time at his club in Bedminster, N.J., and an office in Manhattan.

In May, a grand jury was empaneled in Fulton County to look into the actions of the former president and his allies in their attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

The district attorney filed petitions in court seeking to have Gingrich and Flynn testify before a grand jury, as well as Eric Herschmann and other people who were part of the White House.

CNN reported that while in the Oval Office Flynn and Powell floated crazy ideas about how to overturn the election.

The House select committee investigating the January, 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol sent a letter to Gingrich seeking his cooperation to discuss his role in promoting false claims that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen.

Defending the 2020 Georgia Election Fraud Campaign by Summarising “False Claims” against President Donald J. Trump and other Democratic Advisers

Compelling testimony from witnesses who don’t live in Georgia requires Willis to use a process that involves getting judges in the states where they live to order them to appear. The petitions she filed Friday are essentially precursors to subpoenas.

Sources familiar with the situation tell CNN that the district attorney may begin issuing indictments as early as December if the grand jury completes its work quickly after the elections.

Flynn didn’t respond to email or phone messages for comment and his lawyer also didn’t return an email seeking comment. Gingrich referred the questions to his attorney. Herschmann was not able to be reached.

After the November elections, which are one month away, Willis will take a monthlong break from public activity.

The petitions want to have potential witnesses show up in November after the election. But the process for securing testimony from out-of-state witnesses sometimes takes a while, so it appears Willis is putting the wheels in motion for activity to resume after her self-imposed pause.

Each person’s testimony is needed for the investigation, and so Judge McBurney signed the petitions certifying it was a necessary and material witness.

The plan he was involved in was to run television ads that “repeated and relied upon false claims about election fraud”, and encouraged members of the public to contact state officials to overturn the results based on those claims.

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

He also met with Trump, attorney Sidney Powell and others at the White House on Dec. 18, 2020, for a meeting that, according to news reports, “focused on topics including invoking martial law, seizing voting machines, and appointing Powell as special counsel to investigate the 2020 election,” Willis wrote.

She wrote that the House committee revealed that Herschmann and others had conversations with people associated with the Trump campaign to influence the outcome of the November 2020 elections in Georgia and elsewhere. Specifically, he had a “heated conversation” with Eastman “concerning efforts in Georgia,” she added.

She identified Penrose as “a cyber investigations, operations and forensics consultant” who worked with Powell and others known to be associated with the Trump campaign in late 2020 and early 2021.

In addition, he communicated to Powell and others about an agreement to work with SullivanStrickler to copy the voting equipment data in Coffee County, as well as in Michigan and Nevada. The email and phone message did not reach Penrose.

In his petition for Lee’s testimony, he claimed that he was part of an effort to pressure the elections worker, who had been the subject of false claims about election fraud. He couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

When Donald Trump’s riotous exit from power came to a halt, the Supreme Court and the judiciary aren’t interested

Special grand juries are impaneled in Georgia to investigate complex cases with large numbers of witnesses and potential logistical concerns. They can compel evidence and subpoena witnesses for questioning and, unlike regular grand juries, can also subpoena the target of an investigation to appear before it.

When its investigation is complete, the special grand jury issues a final report and can recommend action. If the district attorney wants a regular grand jury to indict, that’s his decision.

The House January 6 committee voted to subpoena him after laying bare his depraved efforts to overthrow the 2020 election and his dereliction of duty as his mob invaded the US Capitol.

“The need for this committee to hear from Donald Trump goes beyond our fact-finding. This is a question about accountability to the American people. He must be accountable. He is supposed to answer for his actions.

But the developments that could hurt Trump the most happened off stage. They reflect the extraordinary legal thicket surrounding the ex-President, who has not been charged with a crime, and the distance still left to run for efforts to account for his riotous exit from power and a presidency that constantly tested the rule of law.

While Trump has repeatedly confounded predictions of his imminent demise, there is still a sense that he is sliding into an ever deeper legal hole.

The Supreme Court told the Congress it was not interested in getting sucked into Trump’s attempt to derail a Justice Department probe into classified material he kept at Mar-a-Lago.

The court turned down his emergency request, which could have delayed the case. Conservative justices who were elevated to the bench and who seem to believe that they owe Trump a debt of loyalty were not dissented.

A Democrat’s View of Oscillations in the White House: The Case of the Mar-a-Lago Event on January 6

For all the political drama that surrounds the continuing revelations over one of the darkest days in modern American history on January 6, it’s the showdown over classified documents that appears to represent the ex-President’s most clear cut and immediate threat of true criminal exposure.

The former President has a point in asking why the panel waited so long to call him. He is on thin ice when it comes to criticism of the conduct of the investigation, as a result of its obstruction and attempts to prevent former aides from testifying. And it is not unusual for investigators to build a case before approaching the most prominent potential target of a probe.

A man was seen leaving a Washington, DC courthouse with his former boss. A person familiar with the situation told CNN that Short was compelled to testify for the second time. Another Trump adviser, former national security aide Kash Patel, was also seen walking into an area where the grand jury meets. Patel would not tell reporters what he was doing.

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. The FBI has seen the footage of the staffer moving the boxes.

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.

The lawyer who defended the President in his second impeachment stated that the Mar-a-Lago incident did not amount to obstruction of justice, even though it raised troubling questions.

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.

James wants a preliminary injunction to stop Trump and his children from engaging in fraudulent conduct until her case is decided.

Trump has branded the James probe as a stunt and denied wrongdoing. The Justice Department hasn’t charged the former President, nor anyone else in its investigation over the Capitol insurrection. The House committee can’t bring criminal charges, but they are discussing whether to send them to the Justice Department. The FBI searched Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago and found classified documents which the president labeled a witch hunt.

The probes are just one of the many connected to Trump. There is a new investigation in Georgia over attempts by the former President and his allies to get rid of the election in a crucial 2020 swing state.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/14/politics/trump-jan-6-subpoena-supreme-court-mar-a-lago/index.html

Why didn’t the Unselect Committee tell Taylor Budowich to sufficiently subpoena the ex-President?

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.

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

“Pres Trump will not be intimidate(d) by their meritless rhetoric or un-American actions. Budowich wrote that Trump’s candidates will sweep the Midterms, and restore America First leadership and solutions.

The former President posted on his Truth Social network that could not answer the accusations against him but that was intended to cause a political reaction from his supporters.

Why didn’t the Unselect Committee invite me to testify months ago? Why did they wait until the very end, the final moments of their last meeting? The Committee is a total debacle. Trump wrote.

Given the ex-President’s history of obstructing efforts to examine his tumultuous presidency, it would be a surprise if he does not fight the subpoena, although there might be part of him that would relish a primetime spot in a live hearing.

The subpoena could also give the bipartisan committee some cover from pro-Trump Republicans who claim that it is a politicized attempt to impugn Trump that has not allowed cross-examination of witnesses. The committee would have to refer the contempt of Congress referral to the Justice Department if it wanted to enforce a subpoena. It took such a step when Trump’s former strategist, Steve Bannon, was found guilty of two counts of contempt of Congress.

It will not be easy to follow a similar path if Trump refuses to testify. The advanced state of the Justice Department’s own investigation makes it difficult to know whether this is a good investment. There is a good chance the committee will get swept into history with the Republicans expected to take the majority in the House.

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

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

“With every effort to excuse or justify the conduct of the former President, we chip away at the foundation of our Republic,” said the Wyoming lawmaker, who won’t be returning to Congress after losing her primary this summer to a Trump-backed challenger.

Where is the beef? – Judge Raymond Dearie, the Special Master of Mar-a-Lago Donald Trump’s Freedom of Information

A court-appointed special master expressed his frustration with the limited information he is getting from both the Justice Department and defense lawyers for former President Donald Trump.

“Where’s the beef? I need some beef,” Judge Raymond Dearie, acting as the third-party reviewer of the seized documents, said during a half-hour conference call with the attorneys from both sides.

Dearie will need to make his decisions about the private of documents by mid-December after Tuesday’s discussion and previous orders. Around 100 classified records were seized at Mar-a-Lago and split out from Dearie’s work, and the Justice Department is challenging at a federal appeals court the special master process on the whole.

Dearie wondered why the two sides couldn’t determine if the letter was sent, which would be vital to the judge’s decision on whether the letter should be kept confidential.

When Dearie of the Eastern District of New York has just one month to deal with so many assertions, he does not want to be interacting with nonsense objections.

There is a certain incongruity here, unless I am incorrect and I have been wrong before. The counsel may address that in a submission, according to Dearie.

The parties have not yet indicated how many of the thousands of pages seized atMar-a-Lago Trump are in dispute and will have to summon the special master.

Mr. Graham, who is partially protected by the speech or debate clause, might return to the federal courts if the district attorney wants to question him about his constitutionally protected activities.

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

The case could represent a serious threat to Mr. Trump if it goes forward, according to legal experts.

In recent months, a number of high-profile allies of Mr. Trump have argued that they should not be required to appear in court. So far, their track record has been mixed.

A federal judge ordered Donald Trump’s adviser to testify before a jury looking into Mar-a-Lago’s handling of federal records.

The people said that a judge in the DC District Court granted immunity to the person who provided information to the investigation.

The decision of the court is not public, as it was confidential at the time of the subpoenaed grand jury. He would not answer questions if he declared his Fifth Amendment protection from self-incrimination.

According to court records and sources, one of President Trump’s advisers who may have legal risk related to the Mar-a-Lago situation is known to CNN, though it’s unclear if he is a target of the DOJ investigation.

He was one of the national security and defense officials in the administration who were given the ability to talk to the National Archives and the Justice Department about repossessing Trump’s classified records. He has claimed in conservative media interviews he personally witnessed Trump declassifying records before he left the presidency, and has argued Trump should be able to release classified information.

Mar-a-Lago: The Grand Jury’s Search for a New Type of Exotic State and an Unusual Neighborhood

A number of witnesses were subpoenaed by the grand jury looking at Mar-a-Lago, including many who were present on August 13 when the FBI searched the mansion.