The House Judgment Committee’s Subpoena of Trump: Implications for Voter Fraud and Election Deniers
The committee’s decision to subpoena Trump in late October was a major escalation in its investigation, a step lawmakers said was necessary because, members allege, the former president was the “central player” in a multi-part effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Armed with new witness interviews and unreleased footage of the violence of Jan. 6, 2021, the panel is planning to argue that Mr. Trump’s lies about widespread voter fraud inspired far-right extremists and election deniers who present a continuing threat to American democracy.
This could be academic anyway because of it. Given the possibility of a Trump legal challenge to the subpoena, the issue could drag on for months and become moot since a possible new Republican House majority would likely sweep the January 6 committee away as one of its first acts.
“They are trying to make the case that Trump is Oz,” said CNN’s John King, interpreting the committee’s subpoena of Trump. The little guy behind a curtain trying to pull a machine is what he presents himself as.
It’stempt. The full House, which is controlled by Democrats until at least January, could vote to hold him in contempt of Congress, something it’s done with several other uncooperative witnesses.
Prosecution. If found guilty, Trump could potentially be jailed for a minimum of 30 days. Bannon will be sentenced for failing to comply with the House subpoena later this month.
Why did the President Trump and Jefferson get involved in the investigation of the 2020 presidential campaign? George Conway says he’s afraid to talk about his campaign
The Trump critic and conservative lawyer George Conway said during an interview on CNN that he wasn’t sure whether to believe it or not. “This is about laying a marker. This is about triggering a response (from Trump).”
The Supreme Court has made it known where it stands on Trump’s presidency when it ignored his attempt to block the National Archives from sharing information with the committee.
He also argued to the court that he shouldn’t have to reveal inner workings about his 2020 presidential campaign, “including his political beliefs, strategy, and fundraising. President Trump did not check his constitutional rights at the Oval Office door. The Subpoena to President Trump is invalid because of his First Amendment rights.
Cheney, who serves as vice chair of the House committee, singled out people who invoked the Fifth Amendment or refused to testify rather than elaborate on their communications with Trump on January 6, 2021, including:
Ford later testified as a former president in 1983 to a Senate subcommittee. The last time a president took questions from lawmakers was 39 years ago, according to the Senate Historical Office.
Even though he was subpoenaed, President Thomas Jefferson refused to appear at the trial of the Vice President for treason. Jefferson did ultimately provide some documents. Burr was eventually acquitted.
The Mueller Investigation into the January 6 Capitol Reaction of the Pro-Trump Activist Associated with the National Reinvestigation Investigation
The Supreme Court did rule New York investigators could get access to the financial documents. Trump’s company will go on criminal trial this month on charges of violating tax laws.
The judge forced him to comply with subpoenas from the New York Attorney General about his business practices. He invoked the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination during that deposition.
New York’s Attorney General Letitia James requested a state court to block the Trump Organization from moving assets and continuing to perpetrate a long-standing fraud.
The House January 6 committee has no timetable for those battles that have dragged on for years. The Justice Department will not publicly engage in any activity this close to an election, and voters could well hand control of the House to Republicans in November.
The January 6 committee must finish all of its work by January 3, 2023 if it’s going to continue after the next Congress.
“We are obligated to seek answers directly from the man who set this all in motion,” she said. Everyone is entitled to those answers, so we can act now to protect our republic.
The chairman of the select committee argued that Trump was at the core of what happened on January 6th. We would like to hear from him.
The committee aired previously unseen footage from Fort McNair, the DC-area Army base where congressional leaders took refuge during the insurrection and scrambled to respond to the unfolding crisis.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat, said during the hearing that the footage highlights how Trump administration officials and congressional leaders worked around Trump to put down the riot that he had incited. New material from January 6 will be presented after these behind-the-scenes clips are shown.
Pelosi talked on the phone to the Governor of Virginia 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.
The new footage showed Schumer dressing down then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen. During their heated phone call, Schumer implored Rosen to intervene directly with Trump, and tell Trump to call off the mob. Pelosi said the pro- Trump rioters were breaking the law, at the president’s instigation.
The events at the Capitol were shocking, and it was something that I could never put aside, stated one of the former members of the Cabinet who testified on Thursday.
The events at one point made it impossible for me to continue, as I had personal values and my philosophy. I arrived in the country as an immigrant. I think in this country. The transfer of power is something I believe in. I believe in the rights of the people. And so I was – it was a decision that I made on my own,” she said.
A call from Meadows about Donald Trump saying he had lost the election and how the Senate is trying to find a solution to the problem
Cassidy Hutchinson, the former top aide to Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, provided new testimony to the committee relaying anecdotes of Trump acknowledging he had lost the election.
I said to Mark that he can’t possibly think we’re going to pull this off. Like, that call was crazy.’ And he looked at me and just started shaking his head. He said that he knows it’s over. He knows he lost. But we’re going to keep trying,’” Hutchinson told the committee.
Hutchinson claimed that she witnessed a conversation between Trump and Meadows that was upset about the Supreme Court rejecting the lawsuit.
“The President said … something to the effect of, ‘I don’t want people to know we lost, Mark. This is not good. Figure it out. We need to figure it out. I don’t want people to know we lost,’ Hutchinson said.
Secret Service Erasure and the Secret Service Investigation of the Insurrection: a Panel Hearing on Donald Trump’s Electoral Campaign
During Thursday’s hearing, the panel revealed some of what they learned after obtaining a million records from the Secret Service.
There are still questions surrounding erased text messages from Secret Service agents that are related to the insurrection and the panel obtained messages and emails that show the agency was warned about potential violence before Trump spoke at the El.
Days before January Trump’s communication adviser, Jason Miller, boasted to Meadows that he “got the base FIRED UP,” and shared a link to a pro-Trump webpage containing hundreds of threatening comments about killing lawmakers if they went ahead with certifying Joe Biden’s legitimate electoral victory, according to a new text message the panel showed Thursday.
According to the Democrat, the Secret Service received an online threat against the Vice President, if he didn’t do the right thing.
No matter the outcome, Trump was going to declare victory. Trump’s former campaign manager told the panel he understood that the president planned to demand victory in the election even if he weren’t elected.
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 says that it is necessary for the public to not view the Vice President as having decided about the electoral votes before the full facts are known.
The committee revealed that conservative activist Tom Fitton sent new emails to two Trump advisers a few days before the election. One email contains a draft statement for Trump to declare victory on Election Night.
The members of the panel downplayed the significance of Thomas’ testimony, and it was clear at the last minute that she would not be a central part of the hearing that was focused on Trump.
But her absence was notable considering the panel did use testimony from several other high-profile witnesses who had been interviewed since the committee’s most recent hearing earlier this summer.
Detection of Trump’s Decay at Mar-a-Lago: Breaking the Legal Holes in the U.S. Senate
The House voted to subpoena him in January after laying bare his depraved efforts to overthrow the election and his neglect of duty as his mob wreaked havoc in the US Capitol.
But the developments that could hurt Trump the most happened off stage. The legal thicket surrounding the ex- President, who hasn’t been charged with a crime, makes it even harder for investigators to find out what went wrong during his presidency.
Since launching his presidential campaign in 2015, there has been a sense that Trump is sliding into an ever deeper legal hole, as he has repeatedly confounded predictions of his imminent demise.
As the House select committee hearing went on, the Supreme Court sent word from across the road that it’s got no interest in getting sucked into Trump’s bid to derail a Justice Department probe into classified material he kept at Mar-a-Lago.
The court did not explain why it refused to intervene, which could have delayed the case. Conservative justices who were elevated by Trump to the bench, and whom he believes owe his loyalty, did not dissent.
For all the political drama that goes on in the United States, it is the clash over classified documents that appears to represent the most clear cut threat of true criminal exposure to the ex President.
News that the Justice Department could be investigating the ex- President further into January 6 caused television stations to show more coverage of the committee hearing. Unlike the House’s version, the DOJ’s criminal probe has the power to draw up indictments.
Marc Short, a former chief of staff for then-Vice President Mike Pence, was spotted leaving a courthouse in Washington, DC. Short had been compelled to testify to the grand jury for the second time, according to a person familiar with the matter, CNN’s Pamela Brown reported. An area where the grand jury meets is where another one of Trump’s advisers was seen walking. 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 staffer is shown moving the boxes in the FBI footage.
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. There was evidence that the FBI may have been involved in obstruction of justice after they showed up at the Trumps home in August.
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.
There are probes that are connected to Trump. There is another investigation going on in Georgia concerning attempts by the former President and his allies to overturn the election in a critical 2020 swing state.
Why Didn’t the Unselect Committee Appoint a Republican Speaker? After the First Donald Trump Voted in December, Trump re-joint
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.
The Select Committee voted 9-0 to issue a subpoena for documents and testimony, but that was mocked by the first Trump spokesman.
Pres Trump does not want to be intimidated by their rhetoric or actions. Budowich said that Trump-endorsed candidates will sweep the Midterms and restore America First leadership and solutions.
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 summon me to testify months ago? The final seconds of their last meeting are why they decided to wait until the end. Because the Committee is a total ‘BUST,’” Trump wrote.
“Long-held precedent and practice maintain that separation of powers prohibits Congress from compelling a President to testify before it,” Trump attorney David A. Warrington said in a statement announcing Trump’s intentions.
Rep. Liz Cheney and the Associated Committee on Ethics in the Geico-Presidential Corrupt Crimes of January 6, 2016
The committee’s Republican vice chair, Rep. Liz Cheney said the investigation was no longer only focused on 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.
As the panel wrapped up its evidentiary hearings on Thursday, it was not certain whether it had succeeded in convincing the jury. Americans who blamed the rampage on Mr. Trump received a lot of evidence for their opinion, while those who started out in his camp were largely ignored.
The little change in opinion since the hearings began, based on an array of polls, underscored how much American politics has changed in recent years. Many voters have been locked into their viewpoints, seemingly immune to contrary information. Most of Mr. Trump’s supporters were loyal and did not care that the congressional investigation was a partisan exercise.
The former president who tried to overturn a free and fair election to hang onto power was the odds-on favorite to win his party’s nomination and remained the dominant figure in his political party. While the committee extensively documented the plot for history’s sake, it could not enforce accountability for it.
Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson stated in his opening remarks that in addition to presenting evidence, the panel could also hold a committee vote on further investigative actions.
The video clips of Roger Stone, who was an associate of the president, were shared by the panel. Stone was pardoned a few weeks before Trump left office.
Hearing Recap Take Aways from Trump: Can You Believe I Lost to The F***ing Guy?” – A Reply to Stone
Stone said that she thought it would still be up in the air. To claim victory is the key thing to do when that happens. Possession is nine-tenths of the law. No, we won, f*** you.”
The committee also played audio from another Trump adviser, Steve Bannon, who refused to testify before the committee and is awaiting sentencing for contempt of Congress. The audio shows a plan to proclaim the election invalid.
He is going to just declare victory. He’s gonna declare victory. But that doesn’t mean he’s a winner. He’s just gonna say he’s the winner,” he said.
Despite publicly declaring he won, Trump privately admitted he lost the election. Testimony from former White House officials demonstrate that while the president was publicly forging a campaign to overturn the election, he privately was acknowledging his loss.
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. And he was looking at the TV and he said, ‘Can you believe I lost to this f***ing guy?’ “
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/13/1125333531/jan-6-hearing-recap-takeaways-trump-subpoena
A Call to the Secret Service: Kevin McCarthy Tells Pence to Leave His Defend, or Does Trump Wanna Leave His Country?
“I vaguely remember him mentioning that he was a professor, and then he turned the call over to Mr. Eastman, who talked 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 them.”
“They think that their group of people will outnumber the police so they will be free to march into D.C.,” said the email from the Secret Service.
In previous hearings, the panel said that many wouldn’t get into the Ellipse because they would have to go through some type of security device.
“Do you believe this?” 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 for Pence’s safety. An agent warned that Trump might not be good for Pence after he commented on his no. 2. Within two minutes, there were 24,000 likes on Trump’s message.
Mick Mulvaney confirms GOP Rep’s account of McCarthy’s call to Trump. On January 6th, Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy asked Donald Trump to abandon his supporters as his staff was running for their lives.
“Kevin, maybe these people are just more upset about this than you are,” the president told them. Maybe they’re more upset.’ “
Trump was at the center of it all. There was more information on President Trump’s state of mind 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 at the center of the story and he was the one who committed the crime.
Even when top law enforcement officials told the President his election-fraud claims were false, Trump still repeated the nonsense to a wide audience, over and over again. pic.twitter.com/PIRy9XSF3O
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/13/1125333531/jan-6-hearing-recap-takeaways-trump-subpoena
The New Donald Trump: A Challenge to the Rule of Law, Accountability, and Political Persecusion in the Age of Civil Liberation
“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.”
Former President Donald Trump is set to answer questions under oath Wednesday as part of the defamation lawsuit brought by former magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll.
A federal judge last week gave the go-ahead for the testimony, saying that the former president should not be permitted to run out of time.
Trump and the Justice Department argued he wasindeed a federal employee, and he denied the allegations to reporters when asked about them. They argued the Justice Department should be substituted as the defendant, which, because the government cannot be sued for defamation, would end the lawsuit.
Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled against Trump and DOJ. They appealed. A federal appeals court in New York ruled that Trump was in fact a federal employee after he denied the rape allegations against him.
The jury can use an adverse inference against the person if they decline to answer questions in civil cases.
Donald Trump and his movement are putting new challenges toaccountability, free elections and the rule of law in a new state of political turmoil.
The moment when Trump is on a collision course with the Biden administration, courts, and facts is the time when he dropped his clearest hint yet of a new White House run.
Trump’s current prominence on the political scene was already highly unusual. One-term presidents typically fade fairly fast into history. But it is a testament to the firm hold he maintains over much of the GOP that he’s still a key player nearly two years after losing reelection. It is time to move on from Trump despite growing talk about whether his legal and political troubles could convince some GOP primary voters to back him.
Those controversies also show that given the open legal and political loops involving the ex-President, a potential 2024 presidential campaign rooted in his claims of political persecution could create even more upheaval than his four years in office.
And while fierce differences are emerging between Democrats and Republicans over policy on the economy, abortion, foreign policy and crime in the 2022 midterms – while concerns about democracy often rank lower for voters – there is every chance the coming political period revolves mostly around the ex-President’s past and future.
Trump’s men and women are also stepping up their activity. As part of his appeal against a prison sentence handed down last week for dodging a congressional subpoena, Steve Bannon plans to reveal the Biden regime. Lindsey Graham has called on the Supreme Court to block the subpoena for him to testify in the Georgia investigation.
The Trump Organization, tax fraud, and grandy larceny: the Trump Organization’s case against ex-president Joe Biden
One of the ex-president’s favorite candidates, the GOP gubernatorial hopeful in Arizona, has expressed doubts about the election system in the past. Lake told AZTV7 that he was afraid it might not be fair.
One of the most powerful pro-Trump Republicans, Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, the party’s number three leader in the House, told the New York Post last week that impeachment of Biden was “on the table.” Nancy Mace did not like the idea of impeachment proceedings after Trump was impeached twice. She said that she was against the process being weaponized. She said that it would have to be investigated if Biden had committed impeachable offenses.
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.
On another politically sensitive front, the Trump Organization’s criminal tax fraud and grandy larceny trial begins in Manhattan on Monday. The trial could affect the ex-president’s business empire and cause fresh claims from him that he is being treated unfairly because of his political beliefs. The $250 million civil suit was filed against the Trump Organization by the New York Attorney General who said they ran tax and insurance fraud schemes to enrich themselves for years.
They tried to bring Trump back to the political 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 High-profile Ex-President’s Correspondence Committee: A Review of the Charges, Deposition Evidence, and Follow-up of the Capitol Attack
The party in power could be in dire straits if the voters are worried about inflation and spikes in gasoline prices.
At a Texas rally on Saturday, the ex-president told supporters he would probably have to do it again.
“It may take multiple days, and it will be done with a level of rigor and discipline and seriousness that it deserves,” Cheney told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“This isn’t going to be, you know, his first debate against Joe Biden and the circus and the food fight that that became. This is a far too serious set of issues.”
The prospect of video testimony over an intense period of days or hours is likely to be unappealing to the former President because it would be harder for him to dictate the terms of the exchanges and control how his testimony might be used.
If there is evidence a crime was committed, Garland would face a dilemma over whether the national interest lay in implementing the law to its full extent or whether the consequences of prosecuting a former commander in chief in a fractious political atmosphere could tear the country apart.
A decision to charge an ex-president running for a non-consecutive second White House term would undoubtedly cause a firestorm. But sparing him from accountability if there’s evidence of a crime would send a damaging signal to future presidents with strongman instincts.
“This is not a situation where the committee is going to put itself at the mercy of Donald Trump in terms of his efforts to create a circus,” Cheney said.
The committee informed the former president’s lawyer that he has to produce records no later than next week and remain under a subpoena for deposition testimony on November 14.
The scope of the committee’s request was expansive — pursuing documents from Sept. 1, 2020, two months before the election, to the present on the president’s communications with the groups like the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys — as the panel looks to compile a historical record of the run-up to the Capitol attack, the event itself and the aftermath.
Other high-profile people found in the order are:Roger Stone, Stephen Bannon,Jeffrey Clark, John Eastman, and more.
The U.S. Capitol Jan. 6 Attack and the Correspondence Between a Former President and a House Subpoena
She said they wouldn’t have disagreements because the committee was working in a collaborative way. We are going to have to make those decisions.
The committee did not provide any additional information after it received correspondence from the former President and his counsel.
Lawyers for Trump had accepted service of the subpoena from the committee as of October 26, according to sources familiar with the matter. Trump has criticized the committee but not said whether he would comply with the subpoena.
“I think that he has a legal obligation to testify but that doesn’t always carry weight with Donald Trump,” committee vice chair Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said during an event last week.
WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump is suing the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol to avoid cooperating with a subpoena requiring him to testify.
Trump is challenging both the legitimacy of the committee – which multiple courts have upheld – and is claiming he should be immune from testimony about the time he was president.
Trump said that if he met the House’s demands, he would reveal conversations with Justice Department officials and members of Congress about the 2020 election, as well as spending governmental business.
The lawsuit raises a number of protections around the presidency that have never been tested by an appeals court, and it was brought into a court that doesn’t weigh in on his standoffs with House Democrats.
Since Trump’s team replied on November 9 that he wouldn’t testify and found no records to turn over related to personal communications, the House hasn’t respond substantively, the court papers said.
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. His lawyers said the search didn’t find anything.
The suit filed Friday evening contends that, while former presidents have voluntarily agreed to provide testimony or documents in response to congressional subpoenas in the past, “no president or former president has ever been compelled to do so.”
Reply to “Comment on ‘Possibility of a political path’” by Judicial Branch Chairman Thomas Tsallis
The committee “insists on pursuing a political path, leaving President Trump with no choice” but to involve the judicial branch in the dispute, says the committee’s chairman.
The letter said that personal communications between the president and members of Congress as well as extremists would be examined. The deadline for Trump’s response was extended by the nine-member panel.