The January 6 Committee subpoenaed the Coup Plot leader, Donald Trump, in October. He was to produce documents subpoenaed by the Committee by November 4. Trump’s lawyers requested more time, and the January 6 Committee extended the deadline one week, to November 11. “We have informed the former President’s counsel that he must begin producing records no later than next week and he remains under subpoena for deposition testimony starting on November 14th.”
Rather than comply with the subpoena, Donald Trump is once again obstructing Congress, and obstructing justice. NBC News reports, Trump sues Jan. 6 committee over subpoena compelling him to testify and provide documents:
Former President Donald Trump on Friday sued the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot, arguing its subpoena seeking his testimony and documents tied to the Capitol attack was invalid.
The lawsuit, which seeks to block enforcement of the subpoena, is the first official indication that Trump does not intend to participate in a deposition scheduled for Monday, though there was little expectation that he would comply with the subpoena.
The January 6 Committee should find him in contempt of Congress, and refer the matter to the full Congress for a vote to hold him in contempt of Congress, and to refer it to the Department of Justice for prosecution.
Hey, Merrick Garland. Anything new? A hopeful nation that believes in the rule of law wants to know.
— Steven Beschloss (@StevenBeschloss) November 9, 2022
Note to Merrick Garland and his team:
It's no longer "60 days before the election."— Duty To Warn 🔉 (@duty2warn) November 9, 2022
Trump’s lawyers argued that the former president has “absolute testimonial immunity” from being compelled to appear before Congress and that the panel lacked the constitutional authority to issue the subpoena.
They also argued that the subpoena failed to advance a valid legislative purpose, claiming that its “purpose is partisan, not legislative — to punish President Trump, and to score political points.”
The U.S. Supreme Court has previously rejected Trump’s bogus assertion of “absolute testimonial immunity” (no man is above the law), and numerous federal courts have rejected Trump’s bogus assertion that the January 6 Committee lacks “a valid legislative purpose.” Trump’s horseshit lawyers are trying to reargue claims they have already lost for the improper purpose of delay, in bad faith. The court should impose sanctions.
[A] lawyer for Trump, David A. Warrington of the Dhillon Law Group, said in a statement: “Long held precedent and practice maintain that separation of powers prohibits Congress from compelling a President to testify before it.”
“President Trump joins Presidents of both parties in insisting that the legislative branch honor the boundaries set forth in the Constitution, instead of catering to base partisan impulses,” Warrington added.
Hey you hack, Donald Trump is not president, he is citizen Trump. The U.S. Senate maintains a web page entitled Instances of Sitting and Former Presidents & Sitting Vice Presidents Who Have Testified Before Congressional Committees. You are full o’ shit.
In the other matter of Donald Trump stealing classified documents in violation of the Espionage Act and the Presidential Records Act, another of Trump’s horseshit lawyers is trying to jam the Special Master appointed to oversee the materials seized by the FBI at the Coup Plotter’s home in exile at Mar-a-Lago.
The Washington Post reports, In filing, Trump lawyers again claim he had right to declassify documents:
Donald Trump’s lawyers provided a more detailed explanation in a court filing Thursday evening as to why they say the former president had the authority to personally declassify sensitive government documents, though they again stopped short of saying Trump actually declassified materials that he kept after leaving the White House.
Note: It is irrelevant under the Espionage Act and the Presidential Records Act whether the documents are classified or declassified. It is the wrongful possession and handling of government documents that matters. Trump’s bullshit declassification argument is just n attempt to gaslight the public. The Judge will not fall for it.
The legal team’s explanation was included in a 67-page response to the Justice Department’s appeal of a lower court’s decision to appoint an outside arbiter to sift through the thousands of documents seized from Trump’s Florida residence on Aug. 8 to see if any should be shielded from criminal investigators because they are privileged.
There is no such privilege, as the 11th Circuit has ready ruled based upon precedent.
Trump’s lawyers acknowledged that there is a process to declassify documents, which they stated includes going to the person who originally classified the document — or to that person’s supervisor — to declassify them.
The president, they said in the filing, would be considered the supervisor of whoever classified any of the documents, some of which deal with the most sensitive government secrets involving countries including Iran and China.
While the argument in the filing is a hypothetical and does not advance what the public knows about the case, it provides a broad window into one possible defense Trump’s legal team may employ if the criminal probe into the presence of the documents at Mar-a-Lago results in criminal charges.
The Justice Department is investigating possible mishandling of classified material, obstruction and destruction of government records, and experts say prosecutors have amassed considerable evidence, including witness testimony and video surveillance.
“The Government again presupposes the documents bearing classification markings are, in fact, classified,” Trump’s lawyers said in their appeal response. They later said, “Yet the government contends President Trump, who had unfettered authority to declassify documents, willfully retained classified information in violation of the law.”
The Justice Department asked last month for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit to reverse a Florida judge’s decision to appoint the special master to review the documents, arguing that the former president had no right to possess the seized materials after he left office and that there was no legal basis for an outside review.
The review led by Raymond Dearie — the court-appointed special master — is ongoing, though he is only reviewing the documents that were recovered in an FBI search that do not have classified markings. The Justice Department earlier won an appeal that barred Dearie from reviewing the more than 100 documents marked as classified that the FBI seized from Trump’s property.
The bulk of the Trump legal team’s response to the broader appeal on Thursday was technical, with the lawyers arguing that the court did not have the proper authority to overturn Dearie’s appointment.
But the lawyers also detailed why they say Trump has a personal claim to the seized materials — despite more than a year of efforts by the National Archives and Records Administration and Justice Department to retrieve them — and subsequently has the right to a special master in this case.
Under the Presidential Records Act — which requires presidents to preserve records and phone calls pertaining to official presidential duties — Trump had the authority to designate materials as personal or presidential, his legal team wrote.
“Trump’s decision to retain certain records as “personal” and to not provide same to the Archives at the end of his presidency constitutes a demonstrable, and effective, exercise of his discretion under the” Presidential Records Act, the filing reads. “Indeed, President Trump was still the President of the United States, when, for example, many of the documents at issue were packed (presumably by the [General Services Administration]), transported, and delivered to his residence in Palm Beach, Florida.”
This is a totally bullshit argument misinterpreting the law.
Prosecutors have previously tried to rebut in their own court filings any potential claim by Trump that he declassified the documents. They said that even if Trump did provide evidence showing he declassified the documents while in office, the government would still need to understand which documents were declassified, and any risks to national security that declassifying them could pose. [Sources and methods.]
When Judge Aileen M. Cannon first appointed the special master, she said the review would include the classified documents, and she barred the Justice Department from using those documents in its criminal probe until the special master review is complete.
Since the appeals court already overturned that portion of the ruling, there’s less at stake for the Justice Department in the special master review. But prosecutors are blocked from using the 13,000 seized nonclassified documents until the review is complete.
The Special Master, Judge Dearie, originally had a November 30 deadline, but that deadline has been extended to December 16.
The government said in its appeal that those unclassified documents are critical to the investigation, and could help them conduct witness interviews and corroborate evidence.
“In short, the unclassified records that were stored collectively with records bearing classification markings may identify who was responsible for the unauthorized retention of these records, the relevant time periods in which records were created or accessed, and who may have accessed or seen them,” the government said in its appeal.
In a final bid at obstruction of justice, Trump plans to announce that he is running for president next Tuesday, somehow believing that this will insulate him from further criminal investigation and prosecution. Yeah, just like Hillary Clinton was insulated from a criminal investigation during her bid for the presidency, and the Russia investigation into Donald Trump in 2016. Fucking idiot.
Republicans have urged Trump not to announce he is running after he caused the worst midterm performance of any party out of power in the modern era. President Biden’s first midterm performance for president is one of the best in modern history: Only in 1934 (FDR), 1962 (JFK), 2002 (Bush) did the president’s party not lose Senate seats and fewer than 10 House seats.
Trump urged to delay 2024 launch after GOP’s uneven election:
It was supposed to be a red wave that former President Donald Trump could triumphantly ride to the Republican nomination as he prepares to launch another White House run.
Instead, Tuesday night’s disappointing results for the GOP are raising new questions about Trump’s appeal and the future of a party that has fully embraced him, seemingly at its peril, while at the same time giving new momentum to his most potent potential rival.
Indeed, some allies were calling on Trump to delay his planned announcement next week, saying the party’s full focus needs to be on Georgia, where Trump-backed football great Herschel Walker’s effort to unseat Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock is headed to a runoff that could determine control of the Senate once again.
“I’ll be advising him that he move his announcement until after the Georgia runoff,” said former Trump adviser Jason Miller, who spent the night with the former president at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. “Georgia needs to be the focus of every Republican in the country right now,” he said.
Trump sought to use the midterms as an opportunity to prove his enduring political influence after losing the White House in 2020. He endorsed more than 330 candidates in races up and down the ballot, often elevating inexperienced and deeply flawed candidates. He reveled in their primary victories. But many of their positions, including echoing Trump’s lies about a stolen 2020 election and embracing hardline views on abortion, were out of step with the political mainstream.
Trump did notch some wins Tuesday, particularly in Ohio, where his pick for the Senate, “Hillbilly Elegy” author JD Vance, sailed to easy victory after Trump’s endorsement catapulted him to the front of a crowded primary pack. In North Carolina, Rep. Ted Budd, an early Trump pick, kept an open Senate seat in GOP hands.
But Trump lost some of the night’s biggest prizes, particularly in Pennsylvania, where Dr. Mehmet Oz, who only narrowly won his Senate primary with Trump’s backing, lost to Democrat John Fetterman. Trump-backed candidates also lost governors’ races in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Maryland, and a Senate race in New Hampshire, though Trump seemed to celebrate the latter, bashing Republican Dan Bolduc for trying to moderate his stances by backing off his embrace of Trump’s election lies.
Trump endorsed “election deniers” in Arizona lost the U.S. Senate race and secretary of state races, and are on the verge of losing the U.S. Senate race and secretary of state races in Nevada as well.
UPDATE:
Put another big one on the board; insane conspiracy weirdo, election denier, and all-around bad dude Jim Marchant loses in NV.
— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) November 12, 2022
Truly remarkable: election denier Republicans lost Secretary of State races in every major battleground state
— Ari Berman (@AriBerman) November 12, 2022
Nevertheless, “Former President Donald Trump will announce his plans to run for president in 2024, and it will be a ‘professional, very buttoned-up announcement,’ his longtime advisor Jason Miller said Friday.” What, no descent down a golden escalator at Trump Tower? Trump will make a ‘professional’ and ‘buttoned-up’ 2024 bid announcement, top advisor says, despite many urging him to delay:
“President Trump is going to announce on Tuesday that he’s running for president, and it’s going to be a very professional, very buttoned-up announcement,” Miller told Steve Bannon on his “War Room” podcast.
Miller said that he had done a “run-through” with Trump’s logistics team, and they were “ready to go.”
The former Trump aide and CEO of right-wing social media platform Gettr added that he had spoken to the former president on the golf course that morning about his announcement plans.
“Look, there doesn’t need to be any question. Of course, I’m running,” Miller said Trump told him. “I’m going to do this, and I want to make sure that people know that I’m fired up, and we gotta get the country back on track.”
Trump has long been hinting at his plans to run in 2024, which would be his third presidential run.
However, the former president has experienced an unexpected setback following the GOP’s lackluster midterm results, for which many in the party have directly blamed Trump.
Many Trump-endorsed candidates in competitive races lost or underperformed, and an expected Republican “red wave” failed to materialize.
Miller’s comments to Bannon marked a change in tone from earlier this week when he told Newsmax he was advising Trump to hold off until after the Georgia Senate run-off in December.
While reports suggest many around Trump are urging him to delay his 2024 announcement until after the Georgia race, he appears determined to stick to his schedule, based on comments from those close to him and his campaign’s emails to supporters.
[T]he former president is reportedly furious about the midterm results behind closed doors and is becoming increasingly isolated as members of his inner circle grow tired of his ranting.
The criminal grand juries sitting on Donald Trump’s seditious insurrection on January 6, 2021, and his theft of government documents in violation of the Espionage Act and the Presidential Records Act, need to issue their indictments ASAP. The DOJ should not be deterred by Trump’s gaslighting that this is a political “witch hunt” and that the DOJ has been “politicized” – a laughable accusation after some in the Trump administration’s DOJ helped to plan his coup d’état on January 6, 2021.
Dear Attorney General Merrick Garland: all I want for Christmas is Donald Trump and his fellow coup plotters to be indicted for seditious conspiracy, election interference and inciting an insurrection. Indicting him under the Espionage Act and Presidential Records Act, and for obstruction of justice is just icing on the cake.
UPDATE: The Coup Plotter in chief failed to show for his deposition, as everyone expected. “an. 6 panel weighs ‘next steps’ after Trump fails to show for deposition”, https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/3735386-jan-6-panel-weighs-next-steps-after-trump-fails-to-show-for-deposition/?email=066c0990fa413d52c3842f29a42abb22ffa00eae&emaila=02c3337a6605235631b8cab2e023d54e&emailb=e0d37ab6f97ed06914f0e75a1ebed673001a81f7f84978ff9209f3e23f7ba5d3&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Jan.%206%20next%20steps
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol says it is considering “next steps” after former President Trump failed to appear for his Monday deposition following a subpoena last month.
In a joint statement from Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and Vice Chairwoman Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), the panel bashed Trump for filing a lawsuit Friday challenging the subpoena, accusing him of “hiding” after he was compelled to appear for testimony Monday.
“Even though the former President initially suggested that he would testify before the committee, he has since filed a lawsuit asking the courts to protect him from giving testimony. His 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,” the two said in a statement.
“The truth is that Donald Trump, like several of his closest allies, is hiding from the Select Committee’s investigation and refusing to do what more than a thousand other witnesses have done,” they added.
The committee has in other cases extended deadlines for those who have engaged with it, and it has likewise acted swiftly in cases where people have defied subpoenas, including forwarding votes to hold those such as former White House strategist Stephen Bannon in contempt of Congress.
“In the days ahead, the committee will evaluate next steps in the litigation and regarding the former president’s noncompliance,” Thompson and Cheney wrote.
It’s unclear if the committee would move to hold Trump in contempt of Congress while Democrats remain in control during the lame-duck session or if the Department of Justice (DOJ) would pursue the recommendation.
But the justice system in this instance won’t move swiftly enough to aid the committee, which is due to sunset at the end of this Congress and holds little chance of being revived by Republicans should they overtake the House, as is expected after last week’s midterm elections.
-It is past time for the DOJ to step up to the plate and indict ALL of the Coup Plotters for seditious conspiracy and inciting an insurrection. There is more than enough evidence.
NBC News reports, “Inside the Justice Department’s decision on whether to charge Trump in Mar-a-Lago case”, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/trump-mar-a-lago-documents-possible-charge-justice-department-rcna56485
In February, a week before the National Archives warned the Justice Department that former President Donald Trump had kept Top Secret documents at his Florida compound, Asia Janay Lavarello was sentenced to three months in prison. She had pleaded guilty to taking classified records home from her job as an executive assistant at the U.S. military’s command in Hawaii.
Cases like Lavarello’s are a major part of the calculus for Justice Department officials as they decide whether to move forward with charges against the former president over the classified documents found in his Florida home, current and former Justice Department officials tell NBC News. In another example, a prosecutor advising the Mar-a-Lago team, David Raskin, just last week negotiated a felony guilty plea from an FBI analyst in Kansas City, who admitted talking home 386 classified documents over 12 years. She faces up to 10 years in prison.
A charging decision may be looming as the Mar-a-Lago investigation enters what appears to be a decisive phase.
People familiar with the deliberations of Attorney General Merrick Garland and his top aides say the AG does not believe it’s his job to consider the political or social ramifications of indicting a former president, including the potential for violent backlash. The main factors in his decision, these people say, are whether the facts and the law support a successful prosecution — and whether anyone else who had done what Trump is accused of doing would have been prosecuted. The sources say Justice Department officials are looking carefully at a cross section of past cases involving the mishandling of classified material.
Garland himself previewed his approach in a July interview with “NBC Nightly News” anchor Lester Holt… Holt prefaced a question by saying that “the indictment of a former president, of a perhaps candidate for president, would arguably tear the country apart. Is that your concern, as you make your decision down the road here, do you have to think about things like that?”
Garland answered, “We pursue justice without fear or favor.”
And when Holt asked whether Trump becoming a candidate would affect the decision-making, Garland simply repeated that the Justice Department intended to hold anyone guilty of crimes accountable.
Experts say the public evidence in the Mar-a-Lago case seems unambiguous.
“If Trump were anyone else, he would have already faced a likely indictment,” said Bradley Moss, a lawyer who often represents intelligence agency employees in cases involving classified information.
“It would be entirely outside of the rule of law to not indict him,” said former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, an NBC News contributor who played a key role in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe. “The whole point is to treat people similarly. And when you look at past cases, it compels that you have to bring a case.”
Former prosecutors with experience in cases involving classified information say that based on the public information alone, the Justice Department has enough evidence to charge Trump with the mishandling of national defense information. Less clear is whether there are aggravating factors — such as whether the Justice Department can prove Trump obstructed justice by failing to turn over documents despite a grand jury subpoena.
The addition of Raskin, an experienced former terrorism prosecutor, and David Rody, another veteran prosecutor who left a law firm partnership to join the investigation, is widely seen as an effort to beef up the prosecution team in the event the case goes to trial.
“The National Security Division doesn’t try a lot of cases like this — they would want to bring in trial lawyers,” said Joyce Vance, a former U.S. Attorney and an NBC News contributor. “It looks to me like they are building a trial team.”