Shown below is a list of recent news stories reporting on probes of President Trump, his administration and businesses. The reports are listed in reverse chronological order, and are drawn primarily from news stories relating to investigations and the U.S. Congress of major claims of wrongdoing.
Note: Excerpts below are from the authors' words except for subheads and "Editor's notes" such as this. This segment of our near-daily summary of Trump Watch News and Commentary encompasses news stories that began in 2021. For material in 2020, kindly visit a link for it that will be posted soon here.
-- Andrew Kreig / Justice Integrity Project editor
2021-23
A crowd of Trump supporters surrounded a newly erected set of wooden gallows outside the Capitol Building on Jan. 6. "Hang Mike Pence!" members of the crowd shouted at times about the Republican Vice President who had announced that he could not comply with the president's call to block election certification that day. The wooden gallows near the Capitol Reflecting Pool was just one example of the racist and anti-Semitic imagery on display at the riot. The noose is a racist symbol of the lynching of Black Americans. (Photo by Shay Horse via NurPhoto / Getty).
September
Sept. 30
Washington Post, Prosecutors cite Trump’s supposed gun purchase as possible crime, Spencer S. Hsu and Devlin Barrett, Sept. 30, 2023 (print ed.). A legal argument about whether to issue a gag order cites his recent interaction with a gun seller.
Federal prosecutors said in a Friday night filing that former president Donald Trump may have broken the law if he bought a handgun at a recent campaign stop in South Carolina.
“The defendant either purchased a gun in violation of the law and his conditions of release, or seeks to benefit from his supporters’ mistaken belief that he did so,” the court filing argues. “It would be a separate federal crime, and thus a violation of the defendant’s conditions of release, for him to purchase a gun while this felony indictment is pending.”
The prosecutors were referring to social media posts by the Trump campaign earlier this week, when a staffer posted a video of Trump — who is the Republican frontrunner for the 2024 presidential nomination— at the Palmetto State Armory, a gun store in Summerville, S.C.
The video “showed the defendant holding a Glock pistol with the defendant’s likeness etched into it. The defendant stated, ‘I’ve got to buy one,’ and posed for pictures,” the prosecutors’ filing states, noting that the staffer posted the video with a caption that said: “President Trump purchases a @GLOCKInc in South Carolina!”
The campaign staffer later deleted the post and retracted the claim, saying Trump did not purchase or take possession of the gun. The latter claim, prosecutors note in their filing, is “directly contradicted by the video showing the defendant possessing the pistol.”
Only further confusing the issue, Trump reposted a video of the interaction made by someone else, which had the caption: “MY PRESIDENT Trump just bought a Golden Glock before his rally in South Carolina after being arrested 4 TIMES in a year.”
The prosecutors raised the South Carolina incident in arguing that the judge in D.C. overseeing Trump’s pending federal charges of obstructing the 2020 election results should impose a gag order on the former president because of public statements he has made attacking prosecutors, the judge and potential witnesses. Those statements, prosecutors argue, could intimidate jurors or bias the pool of prospective jurors.
“The defendant should not be permitted to obtain the benefits of his incendiary public statements and then avoid accountability by having others — whose messages he knows will receive markedly less attention than his own — feign retraction,” the prosecutors wrote.
The judge overseeing the case, Tanya S. Chutkan, has scheduled an Oct. 16 hearing for lawyers to debate the request for a limited gag order to stop Trump from spreading prejudicial pretrial publicity.
Prosecutors argued in court filings that just as Trump knowingly spouted lies that the 2020 election had been stolen in the hopes of undoing those results, the former president now is attempting to undermine confidence in the judicial system by pumping out near-daily “disparaging and inflammatory attacks” about potential jurors, witnesses, prosecutors and the judge.
Sept. 29
New York Times, Biden Issues a Blistering Attack on Trump, Peter Baker, Sept. 29, 2023 (print ed.). During an appearance in Arizona, President Biden portrayed former President Donald J. Trump as a budding autocrat with no fidelity to the tenets of American democracy.
President Biden issued a broad and blistering attack against former President Donald J. Trump on Thursday, accusing his predecessor and would-be successor of inciting violence, seeking unfettered power and plotting to undermine the Constitution if he returns to office in next year’s elections.
In his most direct condemnation of his leading Republican challenger in many months, Mr. Biden portrayed Mr. Trump as a budding autocrat with no fidelity to the tenets of American democracy and who is motivated by hatred and a desire for retribution. While he usually avoids referring to Mr. Trump by name, Mr. Biden this time held nothing back as he offered a dire warning about the consequences of a new Trump term.
“This is a dangerous notion, this president is above the law, no limits on power,” Mr. Biden said in a speech in Tempe, Ariz. “Trump says the Constitution gave him, quote, the right to do whatever he wants as president, end of quote. I never heard a president say that in jest. Not guided by the Constitution or by common service and decency toward our fellow Americans but by vengeance and vindictiveness.”
Mr. Biden cited recent comments by Mr. Trump vowing “retribution” against his foes, accusing NBC News of “treason” and suggesting that the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark A. Milley, might deserve to be put to death. The president also decried plans being developed by Mr. Trump’s allies to erode the independence of major agencies, wipe out much of the top ranks of civil service and make senior government officials personally loyal to him.
“Seizing power, concentrating power, attempting to abuse power, purging and packing key institutions, spewing conspiracy theories, spreading lies for profit and power to divide America in every way, inciting violence against those who risk their lives to keep Americans safe, weaponizing against the very soul of who we are as Americans,” Mr. Biden said. “This MAGA threat is a threat to the brick and mortar of our democratic institutions. It’s also a threat to the character of our nation.”
The gloves-off assault on Mr. Trump represented a marked shift for Mr. Biden, who has spent months mostly talking up the benefits of his policies while ignoring the race to choose a Republican nominee to challenge him.
But repeated speeches claiming credit for “Bidenomics” have not moved his anemic approval ratings, as many voters tell pollsters they worry about the 80-year-old president’s age.
Meidas Touch Network, Commentary: Jack Smith Files BLISTERING REPLY Calling Out Trump’s Threats, Ben Meiselas, Sept. 29, 2023.
MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on the powerful reply brief filed by Special Counsel Jack Smith in the Washington DC federal criminal case before Judge Tanya Chutkan involving criminal defendant Donald Trump where the government is seeking a limited gag order of Donald Trump.
Sept. 27
New York Times, Judge Finds Trump Inflated Property Values, a Win for N.Y. Attorney General, Jonah E. Bromwich and Ben Protess, Sept. 27, 2023 (print ed.). The decision will simplify the path for Attorney General Letitia James, who has accused former President Trump of overvaluing his holdings by as much as $2.2 billion.
A New York judge ruled on Tuesday that Donald J. Trump persistently committed fraud by inflating the value of his assets, and stripped the former president of control over some of his signature New York properties.
The decision by Justice Arthur F. Engoron, right, is a major victory for Attorney General Letitia James in her lawsuit against Mr. Trump, effectively deciding that no trial was needed to determine that he had fraudulently secured favorable terms on loans and insurance deals.
Ms. James has argued that Mr. Trump inflated the value of his properties by as much as $2.2 billion and is seeking a penalty of about $250 million in a trial scheduled to begin as early as Monday.
Justice Engoron wrote that the documents in the case “clearly contain fraudulent valuations that defendants used in business.”
While the trial will determine the size of the penalty, Justice Engoron’s ruling granted one of the biggest punishments Ms. James sought: the cancellation of business certificates that allow some of Mr. Trump’s New York properties to operate, a move that could have major repercussions for the Trump family business.
The decision will not dissolve Mr. Trump’s entire company, but it sought to terminate his control over a flagship commercial property at 40 Wall Street in Lower Manhattan and a family estate in Westchester County. Mr. Trump might also lose control over his other New York properties, including Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan, though that will likely be fought over in coming months.
Justice Engoron’s decision narrows the issues that will be heard at trial, deciding that the core of Ms. James’s case was valid. It represents a major blow to Mr. Trump, whose lawyers had sought to persuade the judge to throw out many claims against the former president.
In his order, Justice Engoron wrote scathingly about Mr. Trump’s defenses, saying that the former president and the other defendants, including his two adult sons and his company, ignored reality when it suited their business needs. “In defendants’ world,” he wrote, “rent-regulated apartments are worth the same as unregulated apartments; restricted land is worth the same as unrestricted land; restrictions can evaporate into thin air.”
“That is a fantasy world, not the real world,” he added.
The judge also levied sanctions on Mr. Trump’s lawyers for making arguments that he previously rejected. He ordered each to pay $7,500, noting that he had previously warned them that the arguments in question bordered on being frivolous.
Repeating them was “indefensible,” Justice Engoron wrote.
Mr. Trump still has an opportunity to delay the trial, or even gut the case. Mr. Trump has sued Justice Engoron himself, and an appeals court is expected to rule this week on his lawsuit. But if the appeals court rules against him, Mr. Trump will have to fight the remainder of the case at trial.
New York Times, Former President Trump’s lawyers said a gag order in an election case would strip him of his First Amendment rights, Alan Feuer, Sept. 27, 2023 (print ed.). Lawyers representing former President Donald J. Trump against federal charges accusing him of seeking to overturn the 2020 election offered an outraged response on Monday to the government’s request for a gag order, saying the attempt to “muzzle” him during his presidential campaign violated his free speech rights.
In a 25-page filing, the lawyers sought to turn the tables on the government, accusing the prosecutors in the case of using “inflammatory rhetoric” themselves in a way that “violated longstanding rules of prosecutorial ethics.”
“Following these efforts to poison President Trump’s defense, the prosecution now asks the court to take the extraordinary step of stripping President Trump of his First Amendment freedoms during the most important months of his campaign against President Biden,” one of the lawyers, Gregory M. Singer, wrote. “The court should reject this transparent gamesmanship.”
The papers, filed in Federal District Court in Washington, came 10 days after prosecutors in the office of the special counsel, Jack Smith, asked Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, who is overseeing the election interference case, to impose a narrow gag order on Mr. Trump. The order, they said, was meant to curb Mr. Trump’s “near-daily” barrage of threatening social media posts and to limit the effect his statements might have on witnesses in the case and on the potential jury pool for the trial. It is scheduled to take place in Washington starting in March.
The lawyers’ attempt to fight the request has now set up a showdown that will ultimately have to be resolved by Judge Chutkan, an Obama appointee who has herself experienced the impact of Mr. Trump’s menacing words.
One day after the former president wrote an online post in August saying, “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU,” Judge Chutkan received a voice mail message in her chambers from a woman who threatened to kill her. (The woman, Abigail Jo Shry, has since been arrested.)
Gag orders limiting what trial participants can say outside of court are not uncommon, especially to constrain pretrial publicity in high-profile cases. But the request to gag Mr. Trump as he solidifies his position as the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination has injected a current of political tension into what was already a fraught legal battle.
That tension has only been heightened by the fact that Mr. Trump has placed the election interference case — and the three other criminal indictments he is facing — at the heart of his campaign.
His core political argument — that he is being persecuted, not prosecuted — may be protected in some ways by the First Amendment but has also put him on what could be a collision course with Judge Chutkan. Early in the case, she warned Mr. Trump that she would take measures to ensure the integrity of the proceedings and to keep him from intimidating witnesses or tainting potential jurors.
Former President Donald J. Trump is shown visiting a South Carolina gun shop on Sept. 25, 2023, and holding a Glock, which shows his face in an oval on the grip and says “Trump 45th” on the barrel (New York Times photo by Doug Mills).
New York Times, Former President Trump told a gun store he’d like to buy a Glock pistol, which is raising legal questions, Maggie Haberman and Alan Feuer, Sept. 27, 2023 (print ed.). Officials have increasingly voiced concerns about threats of violence related to the former president’s trials, as he faces charges that would make it illegal for a store to sell him a firearm.
A spokesman for former President Donald J. Trump posted a video on Monday showing him at a gun shop in South Carolina, declaring that he had just bought a Glock pistol.
The post on X, formerly known as Twitter, included video of Mr. Trump, the front-runner for the Republican Party’s nomination for president who is facing four criminal indictments. He looked over the dullish gold firearm, a special Trump edition Glock that depicts his likeness and says “Trump 45th,” as he visited the Palmetto State Armory outlet in Summerville, S.C. “I want to buy one,” he said twice in the video.
“President Trump buys a @GLOCKInc in South Carolina!” his spokesman, Steven Cheung, wrote in his post. The video showed Mr. Trump among a small crowd of people and posing with a man holding the gun. A voice can be heard saying, “That’s a big seller.”
The statement immediately set off an uproar and prompted questions about whether such a purchase would be legal. Mr. Trump is under indictment on dozens of felony counts in two different cases related to his efforts to reverse the results of the 2020 election and to his possession of reams of classified documents after he left office.
There were also questions about whether the store could sell a firearm to Mr. Trump if people there knew that he was under indictment.
Federal prosecutors are asking a federal judge in the case that accuses Mr. Trump of breaking several laws in his efforts to stay in office to impose a limited gag order after he made repeated threats against prosecutors and witnesses in various cases against him. Mr. Trump’s lawyers were under a late-Monday-night deadline to respond to the government’s request for the order.
But within two hours of the initial post on social media, Mr. Cheung deleted his post, and issued a statement saying, “President Trump did not purchase or take possession of the firearm. He simply indicated that he wanted one.”
A man who answered a phone registered to the shop’s owner hung up when a reporter called. A salesperson at the Summerville location, who declined to give her name or answer additional questions, said Mr. Trump had not bought a gun.
- Meidas Touch Network, Analysis: Trump Directs House GOP to Shut Down Government and Blame Biden, Ben Meiselas
The late financier, sex trafficker of underage victims, companion and advisor to the powerful, and philanthropist Jeffrey Epstein is show in a collage with scenes from the island in the Caribbean he owned before his death in prison
Washington Post, JPMorgan agrees to $75 million settlement over ties to Jeffrey Epstein, Aaron Gregg, Sept. 27, 2023 (print ed.). JPMorgan Chase will pay $75 million to resolve a lawsuit with the U.S. Virgin Islands alleging it facilitated disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking operation.
The banking giant admitted no wrongdoing under the terms of the settlement, a large portion of which will be distributed to charities. It also sets aside $10 million to support mental health services for Epstein’s survivors.
Get a curated selection of 10 of our best stories in your inbox every weekend.
“This settlement is a historic victory for survivors and for state enforcement, and it should sound the alarm on Wall Street about banks’ responsibilities under the law to detect and prevent human trafficking,” USVI attorney general Ariel Smith said in a statement.
Smith also said JPMorgan agreed to “implement and maintain meaningful anti-trafficking measures,” which includes a commitment to elevate and report suspicious activity in the future.
Sept. 25
New York Times, As Trump Prosecutions Move Forward, Threats and Concerns Increase, Michael S. Schmidt, Adam Goldman, Alan Feuer, Maggie Haberman and Glenn Thrush, Sept. 25, 2023 (print ed.). As criminal cases proceed against the former president, heated rhetoric and anger among his supporters have authorities worried about the risk of political dissent becoming deadly.
At the federal courthouse in Washington, a woman called the chambers of the judge assigned to the election interference case against former President Donald J. Trump and said that if Mr. Trump were not re-elected next year, “we are coming to kill you.”
At the Federal Bureau of Investigation, agents have reported concerns about harassment and threats being directed at their families amid intensifying anger among Trump supporters about what they consider to be the weaponization of the Justice Department. “Their children didn’t sign up for this,” a senior F.B.I. supervisor recently testified to Congress.
And the top prosecutors on the four criminal cases against Mr. Trump — two brought by the Justice Department and one each in Georgia and New York — now require round-the-clock protection.
As the prosecutions of Mr. Trump have accelerated, so too have threats against law enforcement authorities, judges, elected officials and others. The threats, in turn, are prompting protective measures, a legal effort to curb his angry and sometimes incendiary public statements, and renewed concern about the potential for an election campaign in which Mr. Trump has promised “retribution” to produce violence.
Given the attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, scholars, security experts, law enforcement officials and others are increasingly warning about the potential for lone-wolf attacks or riots by angry or troubled Americans who have taken in the heated rhetoric.
In April, before federal prosecutors indicted Mr. Trump, one survey showed that 4.5 percent of American adults agreed with the idea that the use of force was “justified to restore Donald Trump to the presidency.” Just two months later, after the first federal indictment of Mr. Trump, that figure surged to 7 percent.
New York Times, Analysis: The Wrecking-Ball Caucus: How the Far Right Brought Washington to Its Knees, Carl Hulse, Sept. 25, 2023 (print ed.). Far-right Republicans are sowing mass dysfunction, and spoiling for a shutdown, an impeachment, a House coup and a military blockade.
When it comes to his view of the United States government, Representative Bob Good, a right-wing Republican who represents a Virginia district that was once the domain of Thomas Jefferson, doesn’t mince words.
“Most of what Congress does is not good for the American people,” Mr. Good declared in an interview off the House floor as the chamber descended into chaos last week. “Most of what we do as a Congress is totally unjustified.”
Though his harsh assessment is a minority opinion even among his Republican colleagues, it encapsulates the perspective that is animating the hard right on Capitol Hill and, increasingly, defining a historically dysfunctional moment in American politics.
With a disruptive government shutdown just days away, Washington is in the grip of an ultraconservative minority that sees the federal government as a threat to the republic, a dangerous monolith to be broken apart with little regard for the consequences. They have styled themselves as a wrecking crew aimed at the nation’s institutions on a variety of fronts.
They are eager to impeach the president and even oust their own speaker if he doesn’t accede to their every demand. They have refused to allow their own party to debate a Pentagon spending bill or approve routine military promotions — a striking posture given that unflinching support for the armed forces has long been a bedrock of Republican orthodoxy.
Defying the G.O.P.’s longstanding reputation as the party of law and order, they have pledged to handcuff the F.B.I. and throttle the Justice Department. Members of the party of Ronald Reagan refused to meet with a wartime ally, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, this week when he visited the Capitol and want to eliminate assistance to his country, a democratic nation under siege from an autocratic aggressor.
And they are unbowed by guardrails that in past decades forced consensus even in the most extreme of conflicts; this is the same bloc that balked at raising the debt ceiling in the spring to avert a federal debt default.
“There is a group of Republican members who seem to feel there is no limit at all as to how you can wreck the system,” said Ross K. 
Baker, a professor of political science at Rutgers University. “There are no boundaries, no forbidden zones. They go where relatively junior members have feared to tread in the past.”
- New York Times, Biden, Warning Trump Could ‘Destroy’ Democracy, Moves Past G.O.P. Primary
- New York Times, With a Huge Lead in the Polls, Trump Is in Rarified Territory
Meidas Touch Network, Analysis: Trump Vows to Ban All News Media That Doesn’t Praise Him, Brett Meiselas, Sept. 24-25, 2023. Donald Trump continues to tell us his fascist intentions should he be reelected. Will the mainstream media finally listen?
Donald Trump launched into his most overtly fascist assault on the First Amendment in a Sunday night tirade, promising that he will remove from the airwaves any news media that is not friendly towards him should he be reelected as president of the United States.
Trump specifically took aim at NBC News to make his point t (ironically, NBC is the network that employed and elevated Donald Trump during The Apprentice days, shown above in a publicity photo from the show), writing that the network “should be investigated for its ‘Country Threatening Treason.’”
Trump then made his intentions crystal clear:
“I say up front, openly, and proudly, that when I WIN the Presidency of the United States, they and others of the LameStream Media will be thoroughly scrutinized for their knowingly dishonest and corrupt coverage of people, things, and events. Why should NBC, or any other of the corrupt & dishonest media companies, be entitled to use the very valuable Airwaves of the USA, FREE? They are a true threat to Democracy and are, in fact, THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE! The Fake News Media should pay a big price for what they have done to our once great Country!”
Washington Post, As possible shutdown nears, a disconnect between political rhetoric and budget reality, Jeff Stein and Marianna Sotomayor, Sept. 25, 2023 (print ed.). Lawmakers in both parties have called for getting serious about the rising federal debt. The shutdown fight ignores its key drivers.
Time is running out for Congress to prevent a government shutdown, as Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) tries to defuse the demands of ultraconservatives in the House who are demanding aggressive spending cuts.
When lawmakers return Tuesday, both the House and the Senate will try different tactics to fund the government past the fast-approaching deadline — each looking to jam their preferred legislation through the other chamber in a risky game of brinkmanship. Current spending laws expire on Sept. 30, so the government will shut down at 12:01 a.m. on Oct. 1 without action.
U.S. braces for costly government shutdown in eight days
In the House, the GOP majority failed several times last week to reach consensus on a short-term funding bill, known as a continuing resolution. Most of the conference says they want to avert a shutdown, but a small group of far-right members who oppose a short-term extension have blocked that option. So Republicans will try to pass some separate bills that would fund the government for the full fiscal year.
The Senate will begin work on its own short-term spending bill on Tuesday, aiming to send it to the House by the weekend with hours to go before a shutdown starts — where it would probably have enough votes to pass, but only with support from Democrats, a red line for many in the GOP.
But while the far-right rebels in McCarthy’s caucus say the rising national debt is such a threat that it’s worth forcing the government to close down in pursuit of spending cuts, the uncomfortable fiscal reality is that most of what is driving federal borrowing to record levels isn’t even up for discussion this week.
Conservatives want to pare federal discretionary spending back to 2022 levels, which would mean cutting more than $100 billion from agency budgets each year.
That’s a lot of money, but hitting the goal would require severe cuts to a small portion of the federal budget — mostly programs that provide services like education, medical research and aid for families in poverty. The government’s biggest annual expense, though, and the main projected drivers of U.S. debt, are the retirement programs Medicare and Social Security. The United States spends more than $6 trillion every year. McCarthy’s caucus is tying itself in knots over how to make cuts from domestic discretionary spending, which accounts for less than one-sixth of that total.
Looking at it another way, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects that the annual federal deficit is expected to rise to nearly $3 trillion per year by next decade, up from roughly $2 trillion this year. If the conservatives in the House GOP get everything they’re seeking now, that number could drop to about $2.8 trillion per year.
“The people back in my district, they’re tired of the way this town works,” said Rep. Elijah Crane (R-Ariz.), who joined other conservatives in the last week to stymie McCarthy’s attempts to move spending bills. “They understand there’s no appetite to spend money we don’t have, and they expect me to do whatever I can to stop it, and to change how we do business. It’s not always the most comfortable thing.”
But the disconnect between the political rhetoric about the shutdown and the reality of the budget math underscores how little lawmakers are doing to try to rein in the long-term federal spending imbalance. Without a deal, the federal government will shut down, hurting economic growth and leading to the suspension of a wide range of essential public services.
Meidas Touch Network, Analysis: Trump Directs House GOP to Shut Down Government and Blame Biden, Ben Meiselas, Sept. 24-25, 2023. This is Trump’s second directive to compliant House Republicans via his social media posts
Donald Trump has issued his latest order to House Republicans: shut down and refuse to fund the United States government and then blame President Biden for the catastrophic fallout.
On September 20, Trump issued his first directive to compliant House MAGA Republicans, telling them that a “very important deadline is approaching at the end of the month” and “this is the last chance to defund these political prosecutions against me.”
In his latest post, Trump orders the House GOP: “UNLESS YOU GET EVERYTHING, SHUT IT DOWN.
Trump goes on to say that Republicans shouldn’t worry about the damage that will be caused to the country, as he claims President Biden will get blamed for it. Trump also tells House Republicans not to listen to Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell if he wants to make a deal with Democrats, because Trump says McConnell is “weak” and “dumb.”
MAGA Republicans in the House continue to take their orders directly from Donald Trump and do whatever he says. They have followed his directives, bringing the country to the brink of a catastrophic shutdown.
New York Times, As Trump Prosecutions Move Forward, Threats and Concerns Increase, Michael S. Schmidt, Adam Goldman, Alan Feuer, Maggie Haberman and Glenn Thrush, Sept. 25, 2023 (print ed.). As criminal cases proceed against the former president, heated rhetoric and anger among his supporters have authorities worried about the risk of political dissent becoming deadly.
At the federal courthouse in Washington, a woman called the chambers of the judge assigned to the election interference case against former President Donald J. Trump and said that if Mr. Trump were not re-elected next year, “we are coming to kill you.”
At the Federal Bureau of Investigation, agents have reported concerns about harassment and threats being directed at their families amid intensifying anger among Trump supporters about what they consider to be the weaponization of the Justice Department. “Their children didn’t sign up for this,” a senior F.B.I. supervisor recently testified to Congress.
And the top prosecutors on the four criminal cases against Mr. Trump — two brought by the Justice Department and one each in Georgia and New York — now require round-the-clock protection.
As the prosecutions of Mr. Trump have accelerated, so too have threats against law enforcement authorities, judges, elected officials and others. The threats, in turn, are prompting protective measures, a legal effort to curb his angry and sometimes incendiary public statements, and renewed concern about the potential for an election campaign in which Mr. Trump has promised “retribution” to produce violence.
Given the attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, scholars, security experts, law enforcement officials and others are increasingly warning about the potential for lone-wolf attacks or riots by angry or troubled Americans who have taken in the heated rhetoric.
In April, before federal prosecutors indicted Mr. Trump, one survey showed that 4.5 percent of American adults agreed with the idea that the use of force was “justified to restore Donald Trump to the presidency.” Just two months later, after the first federal indictment of Mr. Trump, that figure surged to 7 percent.
Washington Post, Opinion: Trump isn’t as strong as he looks — his GOP rivals are letting him win, E.J. Dionne Jr., Sept. 25, 2023 (print ed.). To understand why Donald Trump is once again skipping a Republican presidential debate, realize that the conventional way of looking at the GOP’s nomination contest has things largely backward. Trump’s standing in the polls is less about his strength than about the weakness of the rest of the field — and the traditional Republican Party.
Trump wants his foes to stay weak. By not showing up, he reduces them to squabbling bit players trying to bring each other down while the major contenders offer pale imitations of his own message and values.
Republican voters once open to someone other than the former president are concluding that if they’re going to get Trumpism, they might as well go with the guy who invented it. And they’re getting little useful advice from party leaders who — as Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) told his biographer McKay Coppins — see Trump as a disaster but are too timid to say so publicly.
It didn’t have to be like this, because the strength of Trump’s lock on the party is vastly exaggerated.
Sure, Trump has an unshakable base, those who would stick with him if he were indicted a dozen more times. But that hard core accounts for no more than about 35 percent of the Republican primary electorate. There really is (or was) room for someone else to break through.
But not one of them has inspired real excitement, and the politician who once seemed best placed to take Trump on, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, has had a miserable year.
As a result, Trump has been able to combine his base with a fair share of the largest group of Republicans: those with a more or less positive view of the former president but willing to support someone else.
Not so long ago, such Republicans were flocking to others, particularly DeSantis. Trump seemed anything but inevitable at the beginning of 2023. Many in the party blamed him (and the candidates he backed) for its disappointing showing in the 2022 midterms.
Sept. 23
New York Times, Analysis: Request for Gag Order on Trump Raises Free Speech Dilemma, Charlie Savage, Sept. 23, 2023 (print ed.). Federal prosecutors are putting the prospect of political violence at the heart of their argument to limit Donald Trump’s statements about the election case.
The request by prosecutors that a judge impose a gag order on former President Donald J. Trump in the federal election-subversion case presents a thorny conflict between the scope of his First Amendment rights and fears that he could — intentionally or not — spur his supporters to violence.
There is little precedent for how the judge overseeing the case, Tanya S. Chutkan, should think about how to weigh strong constitutional protections for political speech against ensuring the functioning of the judicial process and the safety of the people participating in it.
It is one more example of the challenges of seeking to hold to account a norm-shattering former president who is being prosecuted in four cases as he makes another bid for the White House with a message that his opponents have weaponized the criminal justice system against him.
“Everything about these cases is making new law because there are so many gaps in the law,” said Paul F. Rothstein, a Georgetown University law professor and a criminal procedure specialist. “The system is held together by people doing the right thing according to tradition, and Trump doesn’t — he jumps into every gap.”
Citing threats inspired by the federal indictments of Mr. Trump, a recently unsealed motion by the special counsel, Jack Smith, has asked Judge Chutkan to order the former president to cease his near-daily habit of making “disparaging and inflammatory or intimidating” public statements about witnesses, the District of Columbia jury pool, the judge and prosecutors.
A proposed order drafted by Mr. Smith’s team would also bar Mr. Trump and his lawyers from making — or causing surrogates to make — public statements “regarding the identity, testimony or credibility of prospective witnesses.” It would allow Mr. Trump to say he denies the charges but “without further comment.”
Sept. 15
Washington Post, Trump’s Georgia trial won’t start in October, judge says, Holly Bailey, Sept. 15, 2023 (print ed.). A Georgia judge ruled Thursday that Donald Trump and 16 of his co-defendants won’t have to go to trial in October with two defendants who have sought a speedy trial, effectively denying an Atlanta-area prosecutor’s bid to try all 19 together in the sprawling criminal case alleging interference in Georgia’s 2020 presidential election.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee said in a Thursday order that he could move to sever additional cases but said for now that former Trump campaign attorneys Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell will stand trial beginning Oct. 23. He did not issue a trial date for Trump and 16 other associates, but he denied a bid by former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and others seeking to pause proceedings while their efforts to move their cases to federal court play out.
McAfee wrote “that severing the remaining 17 co-defendants is simply a procedural and logistical inevitability.”
“Severance is an absolute necessity. Additional divisions of these 17 defendants may well be required,” the judge added. “That is a decision for another day once the many anticipated pretrial motions have been resolved and a realistic trial date approaches.”
Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D), whose office is leading the case, has argued that separate trials would be a “logistical quagmire” for the court system, witnesses and anyone else involved in the case. Setting additional court dates will likely be a challenge for McAfee, given an avalanche of motions from the various defendants, each specific to their defense and schedule. Among the challenges: Trump does not want to be tried with anyone seeking a speedy trial and is expected to try to delay his proceedings until after the 2024 election. Meadows wants to stand trial alone, but only after he exhausts his appeals on his request to move his case to federal court.
McAfee presided over a motions hearing Thursday for Chesebro and Powell, the second in a series of what he has said would be weekly hearings to listen to arguments on dozens of pending motions in the overall case — including filings from Trump and several of his co-defendants seeking to dismiss charges. He repeatedly spoke of the scheduling challenges in the case, including plans for a likely expedited jury selection process for Chesebro and Powell so that opening statements in their trial can begin by early November.
Politico, Hunter Biden’s lawyer accuses House Republicans of ‘congressional manipulation,’ Betsy Woodruff Swan,Sept. 15, 2023 (print ed.). The first son’s lawyer said House Republicans’ “improper interference” is more dangerous than Hunter Biden’s prior possession of a gun.
Hunter Biden’s lawyer said Thursday that prosecutors caved to House Republicans’ political pressure when they secured an indictment of the first son.
Just hours after a grand jury indicted Hunter Biden on charges related to gun possession, his top defense attorney, Abbe Lowell, sent a tranche of documents to three congressional committees. The materials were accompanied by a cover letter lambasting the three Republican committee chairs investigating the Biden family. POLITICO obtained the letter and is publishing it here, along with some of the materials. Those materials include a lengthy letter Lowell sent the Justice Department accusing whistleblowers of committing crimes by revealing protected information about the president’s son. Lawyers for those whistleblowers have long held that they scrupulously followed the law in making disclosures to Congress.
Lowell opened the letter by saying lawmakers were focused solely on trying “to move the needle of political support for the 2024 election” rather than conducting legitimate oversight. And he indicated he believes Hunter Biden’s indictment was the result of their pressure.
“Your blatant efforts achieved your goal as the U.S. Attorney in Delaware today filed gun charges against our client — charges that are unprecedented when not part of some other criminal conduct and have been found unconstitutional by a federal court of appeals — and who reversed his earlier decision that such charges were not warranted,” Lowell wrote. “Your improper interference now affecting a federal prosecutor is a much greater threat to society than the 11 days that Mr. Biden possessed an unloaded gun.”
The letter marks a major escalation in the fight between the president’s son and the Hill Republicans who have made him a focus of their recently announced impeachment inquiry targeting the president.
The letter also accuses the committee’s witnesses of violating “federal laws protecting grand jury and tax information,” and accuses Republicans of misusing their investigation “to dump wholesale protected tax information about Mr. Biden” into public view.
Politico, Prosecutors: No grounds for judge to recuse in federal case against Trump over 2020 election, Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein, Sept. 15, 2023 (print ed.). The former president’s lawyers contend Judge Tanya Chutkan should step aside due to prior comments.
Special counsel Jack Smith’s office on Thursday sharply rejected former President Donald Trump’s push for U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan to step aside from the federal criminal case related to his bid to subvert the 2020 election.
In a 20-page filing, prosecutors said Trump had failed to show any bias by Chutkan against Trump, despite allusions she made to him in a pair of sentencing proceedings against Capitol riot defendants in 2021 and 2022. Rather, argued senior assistant special counsels Molly Gaston and Thomas Windom, Trump “cherry-picks” from Chutkan’s quotes at those hearings to cast accurate and appropriate statements as inappropriate commentary.
Politico, 'They did it to me': Trump says Biden impeachment inquiry might be motivated by revenge, Kelly Garrity, Sept. 15, 2023 (print ed.). Trump told former Fox and NBC host Megyn Kelly that GOP attempts to indict Joe Biden could be next.
Former President Donald Trump has “no idea” whether Republicans will vote to impeach President Joe Biden.
But he does have a theory on what motivated House Republicans to launch a Biden impeachment inquiry: revenge.
“They did it to me,” Trump told former Fox and NBC host Megyn Kelly during an hourlong interview on SiriusXM radio that aired Thursday. “And had they not done it to me, I think, and nobody officially said this, but I think had they not done it to me … perhaps you wouldn’t have it being done to them.”
Democrats twice led the charge in impeaching Trump, first on charges of abusing his power and obstructing congressional investigations and later for “incitement of insurrection,” following the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Trump was acquitted by the Senate both times.
On Tuesday, Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced the decision to open an impeachment inquiry into Biden over allegations of bribery and corruption. Some Republicans have said there is a lack of smoking-gun evidence linking Biden to money his son Hunter received from Ukraine and China.
In the interview with Kelly, Trump warned that attem
Sept. 14
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee hears motions from the attorneys in Atlanta on Wednesday. (Jason Getz / Pool / AFP/ Getty Images)
Meidas Touch Network, Commentary: Judge in Trump RICO Case make MOST IMPORTANT Order Yet, Michael Popok, Sept. 14, 2023. Georgia Judge McAfee just declared that Trump will not be going to trial in 2023 with his former attorneys Chesebro & Powell, and is most likely to go to in trial until late 2024, as he also ruled that the other 17 conconspirators will NOT be tried together but in groups of several in 2024, and rejected any effort by Meadows or others to delay their cases while they appeal their attempt to get to federal court.
Michael Popok of Legal AF explains why the Fulton County DA must change course, propose groups of trials and make sure Trump is in “group 1” in early 2024 before the election.
Meidas Touch Network, Commentary: Hunter Biden STRIKES BACK with MASSIVE Lawsuit Against Trump Aide, Sept. 14, 2023. MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on a new federal lawsuit filed by Hunter Biden in California against former Donald Trump aide for hacking and data manipulation.
Sept. 13
Politico, Owen Shroyer, InfoWars host and colleague of Alex Jones, gets 60 days for Jan. 6 misdemeanor, Kyle Cheney, Sept. 13, 2023 (print ed.). A judge on Tuesday sentenced InfoWars broadcaster Owen Shroyer — who shadowed his boss and ally Alex Jones onto Capitol grounds on Jan. 6, 2021 — to 60 days in prison for breaching the restricted area.
U.S. District Judge Tim Kelly, right, handed down the sentence after contending that Shroyer, who never entered the Capitol building, played a role in “amping up” the mob at a 
sensitive moment during the riot. Shroyer’s foray onto Capitol grounds came even though Shroyer had been ordered to stay away from the area under a court-sanctioned agreement for disrupting a House impeachment hearing in 2019.
The sentence — half of the Justice Department’s call for 120 days in prison — closes a chapter in what all sides agreed was a “unique” prosecution stemming from the mob attack on the Capitol. Shroyer was facing only misdemeanor charges for his conduct that day and pleaded guilty to breaching restricted Capitol grounds earlier this year.
Prosecutors say Shroyer shadowed Jones from the Ellipse, where former President Donald Trump addressed supporters before urging them to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue, to the Capitol. When they arrived, they witnessed the chaos that had begun unfolding at the building. Jones, who was trailed by a large throng of supporters, a security detail and other leaders of “Stop the Steal” groups, circled the Capitol and asked police for permission to exhort the crowd to deescalate the violence.
Jones has not been charged in connection with the Jan. 6 attack, but prosecutors said Shroyer, using a megaphone, delivered chants that further fueled the riot after breaching the protected perimeter of Capitol grounds. They also noted in court filings that Jones and his large cohort continued to traverse the perimeter of the Capitol despite police signaling they wanted people to leave the area.
Shroyer is seeking to frame his criminal case as a national flashpoint for First Amendment speech. He addressed InfoWars viewers and reporters for an hour after his sentence, saying he intends to appeal his case — to the Supreme Court if necessary — and that he has become a “martyr for free speech.”
Shroyer pointed out that prosecutors, in seeking his 120-day jail term, focused heavily on his comments in the lead-up to Jan. 6 and his chants of “1776” on the day of the riot. He contended that he was in Washington in his capacity as an opinion journalist for InfoWars. In remarks to Kelly, Shroyer also argued that when he exhorted the crowd that day, he was trying to capture their attention so he could assist Jones in trying to redirect the mob away from the Capitol.
Kelly rejected that contention, saying his review of the video of Shroyer’s actions did not appear to show Shroyer making an attempt to play a deescalating role. After leaving the courthouse, Shroyer said their disagreement over that episode stemmed from Kelly’s lack of familiarity with managing large crowds.
Kelly also said he paid minimal attention to prosecutors’ arguments about Shroyer’s speech in the lead-up to Jan. 6. “There’s nothing wrong with the phrase ‘1776,’” Kelly said, adding that his main concern was Shroyer “amping up the crowd with a bullhorn.”
Kelly also said Shroyer’s role as a journalist — which he noted the Justice Department challenged — played no role in his ultimate sentence, saying the conduct Shroyer was charged with had nothing to do with his media role.
The case against Shroyer has been pending for more than two years and raised questions about whether Jones was under scrutiny as well. Shroyer and his attorney Norm Pattis — who also represents Jones — noted that Shroyer agreed to turn over his phone to prosecutors and sit for a proffer session after he was charged. They also noted that he agreed to plead guilty to the misdemeanor and be cooperative with the government after being assured it would result in a lenient recommendation from prosecutors.
Sept. 12
Washington Post, The team Jack Smith built to convict Trump, Perry Stein, Sept. 12, 2023 (print ed.). Maligned, praised and in the spotlight, these prosecutors are preparing to try Trump on federal charges in D.C. and Florida.
The federal investigations have led to indictments totaling 44 charges, to which Trump has pleaded not guilty. Trump also denies wrongdoing in Georgia, where he faces 13 state-level charges, and New York, where he faces 34 charges of falsifying business records in a state case related to hush money payments during the 2016 election campaign.
The Justice Department has been reluctant to disclose the names of individual prosecutors on Smith’s team, citing a rise in threats against them that has prompted extensive security precautions. That’s a departure from the practice of former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, who confirmed which prosecutors were investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election and potential ties to the Trump campaign if reporters asked.
Still, as the Trump investigations have moved into the pretrial phase — and more documents that require prosecutors’ signatures are filed on public dockets — a clearer picture is starting to emerge.
Washington Post, Trump hearings expected in at least Florida and Georgia this week, Perry Stein and Devlin Barrett, Sept. 12, 2023 (print ed.). To help you keep track of the four — yes, four — pending criminal Trump trials, here is a guide to what comes next, followed by a recap of what happened last week.
Looking ahead:
In Georgia, where Trump and 18 co-defendants face state charges for trying to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 victory, the judge schedules weekly hearings to review the many requests he is getting from defendants and prosecutors. At Thursday’s hearing, we may get more insight into when Trump will go on trial there.
Sometimes lawyers and judges decide to argue an issue under seal — meaning the public doesn’t get to see the particulars. One such fight erupted last week in D.C., where Trump faces federal charges of trying to block the election results. Prosecutors and defense lawyers are expected to file court papers in the dispute this week.
The fight is related to Trump’s “daily extrajudicial statements,” prosecutors say. The term sounds cool, but they actually mean it in a bad way — that Trump is speaking out of school on his case, something the Justice Department has complained about before.
That’s not the only legal issue potentially being dealt with behind closed doors this week. Lawyers in the Florida indictment, which involves alleged mishandling of sensitive documents, are overdue for a sealed hearing on the classified evidence the government plans to present.
Sept. 10
Palmer Report, Analysis: Donald Trump just stepped in it, Bill Palmer, right, Sept. 10, 2023. Any remotely savvy politician knows that attending 
a sporting event is a dicey proposition. If the crowd is going to be politically mixed, you’re going to get cheered, but you’re also going to get booed. If you don’t want the optics of everyone sharing footage of you getting booed, you have to limit yourself to specific sporting events where you know the voting demographics are going to heavily lean your way.
Donald Trump is an extraordinarily unsavvy politician. And he doesn’t appear to have any political advisers at this point who have any idea how anything works, or are willing to say “boo” to him about anything. So of course Trump decided to attend the college football game between Iowa and Iowa State on Saturday – and let’s just say it didn’t go well for him.
Various pieces of video footage show that while appearing at the game in Iowa, Donald Trump was subjected to a good amount of cheering and a good amount of booing. He was also subjected to multiple middle fingers from football fans who were situated nearby him.
This was all a strategically dumb move. Trump gained nothing by attending this game. If he were simply trying to show his face in the state of Iowa and get headlines about being in the state, there were plenty of smarter ways to do it.
Earlier this week there were headlines about the “Trump 2024 campaign” barely even existing in Iowa, with minimal infrastructure. Palmer Report pointed out at the time that Trump clearly isn’t running for anything, and is instead just going through the bare minimum motions so that his suckers will keep sending him quasi-campaign donations that he can use for his mounting legal bills.
Donald Trump’s decision to attend this weekend’s Iowa vs Iowa State college football game appears to have been an attempt at pushing back and demonstrating that he does have a presence in Iowa. But it was a lazy, simplistic, and poorly thought out move. All Trump did was help spawn endless viral posts on social media about him getting booed and flipped off. And it demonstrated that he really doesn’t have a serious political operation in Iowa, or else he could have been steered toward a less inept photo op.
Sept. 9
New York Times, Trump Investigations: Judge Denies Meadows’s Request to Move Georgia Case to Federal Court, Richard Fausset and Danny Hakim, Sept. 9, 2023 (print ed.). Moving the case would have given Mark Meadows, above, a former White House chief of staff, one key advantage: a jury pool that was more favorable to Donald Trump.
Georgia prosecutors leading the criminal election interference case against former President Donald J. Trump and 18 of his allies notched a victory on Friday when a judge rejected an effort by Mark Meadows, Mr. Trump’s former White House chief of staff, to move his case from state court to federal court.
Mr. Meadows would have faced the same state felony charges had his case been heard by a federal judge and jury, including a racketeering charge for his role in what prosecutors have described as a “criminal organization” that sought to overturn Mr. Trump’s 2020 election loss in the state. But removal to federal court would have given him key advantages, including a jury pool that was more favorable to Mr. Trump.
Conducting a trial in federal court would have also increased the likelihood that the United States Supreme Court, a third of whose members were nominated by Mr. Trump, would ultimately get involved in the case.
The setback for Mr. Meadows came in the first of many rulings that are expected for the defendants who are seeking to have their cases moved out of state court. Mr. Trump has not filed for a removal to federal court, but he is widely expected to do so.
However, the ruling, by Judge Steve C. Jones, right, of the Northern District of Georgia, does not bode well for any of those efforts. An early trial is already scheduled to start in state court on Oct. 23 for two defendants, Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell, who have invoked their right for a speedy trial under Georgia law.
The question of where the trials will take place is significant in another way as well. Unlike in federal court, the proceedings in state court will be televised, setting the stage for long-running public trials focused on efforts by Mr. Trump and his allies to cling to power.
“There is no federal jurisdiction over the criminal case,” Judge Jones, who was nominated by President Barack Obama, wrote in his ruling. “The outcome of this case will be for a Fulton County judge and trier of fact to ultimately decide.”
A lawyer for Mr. Meadows did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“Meadows had the strongest of the removal cases,” said Norman Eisen, who was special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during Mr. Trump’s first impeachment. “If Meadows has failed, then there’s little hope for Clark, or for that matter Trump,” he added, referring to Jeffrey Clark, a defendant and former Justice Department official who has also filed to move his case to federal court.
In a filing this week, Mr. Trump’s lawyer, Steven H. Sadow, notified the presiding Fulton County Superior Court judge, Scott McAfee, that Mr. Trump might seek to move his case; he has until the end of the month to decide.
A key issue for Judge Jones was whether Mr. Meadows’s actions, as described in the 98-page indictment, could be considered within the scope of his job duties as White House chief of staff, which would qualify his case for removal under federal law. Removal is a longstanding legal tradition meant to protect federal officials from state-level prosecution that could impede them from conducting federal business; it is rooted in the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which makes federal law “supreme” over contrary state laws.
In the hearing on Mr. Meadows’s request, Fulton County prosecutors argued that he had overstepped the bounds of his chief-of-staff duties by acting as a de facto agent of Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign. They noted that he had arranged and participated in the now-famous Jan. 2, 2021, call between Mr. Trump and Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, in which Mr. Trump said he wanted to “find” roughly 12,000 votes, enough to reverse his election loss in the state.
The prosecutors said that with such actions, Mr. Meadows had violated the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from engaging in political activities while they are on the job. Among the examples they noted was a text message that Mr. Meadows sent on Dec. 27, 2020, to an official in Mr. Raffensperger’s office, in which he offered financial assistance from the “Trump campaign” for a ballot verification effort.
Mr. Meadows’s lawyers emphasized that a chief of staff’s job often occupies a messy place where policy and politics converge — and that was among the reasons that some observers thought he had the best shot at removal to federal court.
But Judge Jones decided that the actions ascribed to Mr. Meadows in the indictment were not within the scope of his federal duties.
The evidence, he ruled, “establishes that the actions at the heart of the state’s charges against Meadows were taken on behalf of the Trump campaign with an ultimate goal of affecting state election activities and procedures.”
Washington Post, Georgia special grand jury recommended charges for Lindsey Graham in Trump case, Holly Bailey, Sept. 9, 2023 (print ed.). An Atlanta-area prosecutor ultimately declined to seek an indictment against the Republican senator from South Carolina, shown above in a file photo.
An Atlanta-area special grand jury that spent months investigating alleged 2020 election interference in Georgia by Donald Trump and his allies agreed the former president should be indicted in the case and also recommended charges for one of Trump’s closest associates, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) — though a prosecutor ultimately declined to seek an indictment for him in the case.
The recommendations were contained in a 26-page final report presented in January to Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D) and made public by a judge Friday, Robert McBurney, shown below.
The report by the special grand jury, which was an investigative body and did not have the power to issue criminal indictments, largely echoed Willis’s theory of the case, recommending charges for Trump and numerous others alleging a sweeping criminal conspiracy to subvert Joe Biden’s legitimate election win in Georgia.
New York Times, Trump Name to Come Off Bronx Golf Course After Deal With Casino Bidder, Stefanos Chen and Dana Rubinstein, Sept. 9, 2023 (print ed.). Bally’s Corporation will pay millions to operate the golf course, and hopes that removing the former president’s name from it will help its chances of winning a casino bid.
The sole bidder seeking to build a casino in the Bronx has moved one step closer to realizing its pitch, by buying out the multimillion-dollar lease on a public golf course operated by Donald J. Trump’s company.
The first order of business: removing the Trump name.
Bally’s Corporation, a large casino and entertainment company, has purchased the license to operate the Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point, a 180-acre golf course that the city had tried, and failed, to wrest from the control of Mr. Trump’s company.
The price of the transaction, which required approval from the Parks Department and the New York City comptroller, has not been disclosed, but one person familiar with the deal said the company would pay at least tens of millions of dollars for the remainder of the contract, which is expected to expire in 2035. The deal, which was first reported by The New York Post, is scheduled to close on Tuesday.
The new operator is expected to change the name of the golf course to Bally’s Links, according to people familiar with the transfer, removing the giant Trump sign embossed in stone that greets commuters exiting the Whitestone Bridge.
Bally’s officials said in February that they would seek to strike out the name of the former president, whose association with the project might sour their chances of winning a license.
The change was welcome news to some elected officials. Former Mayor Bill de Blasio, following the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, tried to terminate the Trump Organization’s lease of the public golf course, arguing that the city had the right to do so because the former president had engaged in criminal activity. The argument failed in court.
Sign up for the New York Today Newsletter Each morning, get the latest on New York businesses, arts, sports, dining, style and more. Get it sent to your inbox.
“I am delighted that Trump’s name will no longer deface city parkland,” Brad Lander, the city comptroller, said in a statement.
A spokeswoman for the Trump Organization did not respond to a request for comment.
The proposal is expected to be one of at least 11 bids for up to three casino licenses in the New York City area.
New York Times, Trump Investigations: Judge Denies Meadows’s Request to Move Georgia Case to Federal Court, Richard Fausset and Danny Hakim, Sept. 9, 2023 (print ed.). Moving the case would have given Mark Meadows, above, a former White House chief of staff, one key advantage: a jury pool that was more favorable to Donald Trump.
Georgia prosecutors leading the criminal election interference case against former President Donald J. Trump and 18 of his allies notched a victory on Friday when a judge rejected an effort by Mark Meadows, Mr. Trump’s former White House chief of staff, to move his case from state court to federal court.
Mr. Meadows would have faced the same state felony charges had his case been heard by a federal judge and jury, including a racketeering charge for his role in what prosecutors have described as a “criminal organization” that sought to overturn Mr. Trump’s 2020 election loss in the state. But removal to federal court would have given him key advantages, including a jury pool that was more favorable to Mr. Trump.
Conducting a trial in federal court would have also increased the likelihood that the United States Supreme Court, a third of whose members were nominated by Mr. Trump, would ultimately get involved in the case.
The setback for Mr. Meadows came in the first of many rulings that are expected for the defendants who are seeking to have their cases moved out of state court. Mr. Trump has not filed for a removal to federal court, but he is widely expected to do so.
However, the ruling, by Judge Steve C. Jones, right, of the Northern District of Georgia, does not bode well for any of those efforts. An early trial is already scheduled to start in state court on Oct. 23 for two defendants, Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell, who have invoked their right for a speedy trial under Georgia law.
The question of where the trials will take place is significant in another way as well. Unlike in federal court, the proceedings in state court will be televised, setting the stage for long-running public trials focused on efforts by Mr. Trump and his allies to cling to power.
“There is no federal jurisdiction over the criminal case,” Judge Jones, who was nominated by President Barack Obama, wrote in his ruling. “The outcome of this case will be for a Fulton County judge and trier of fact to ultimately decide.”
A lawyer for Mr. Meadows did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“Meadows had the strongest of the removal cases,” said Norman Eisen, who was special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during Mr. Trump’s first impeachment. “If Meadows has failed, then there’s little hope for Clark, or for that matter Trump,” he added, referring to Jeffrey Clark, a defendant and former Justice Department official who has also filed to move his case to federal court.
In a filing this week, Mr. Trump’s lawyer, Steven H. Sadow, notified the presiding Fulton County Superior Court judge, Scott McAfee, that Mr. Trump might seek to move his case; he has until the end of the month to decide.
A key issue for Judge Jones was whether Mr. Meadows’s actions, as described in the 98-page indictment, could be considered within the scope of his job duties as White House chief of staff, which would qualify his case for removal under federal law. Removal is a longstanding legal tradition meant to protect federal officials from state-level prosecution that could impede them from conducting federal business; it is rooted in the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which makes federal law “supreme” over contrary state laws.
In the hearing on Mr. Meadows’s request, Fulton County prosecutors argued that he had overstepped the bounds of his chief-of-staff duties by acting as a de facto agent of Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign. They noted that he had arranged and participated in the now-famous Jan. 2, 2021, call between Mr. Trump and Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, in which Mr. Trump said he wanted to “find” roughly 12,000 votes, enough to reverse his election loss in the state.
The prosecutors said that with such actions, Mr. Meadows had violated the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from engaging in political activities while they are on the job. Among the examples they noted was a text message that Mr. Meadows sent on Dec. 27, 2020, to an official in Mr. Raffensperger’s office, in which he offered financial assistance from the “Trump campaign” for a ballot verification effort.
Mr. Meadows’s lawyers emphasized that a chief of staff’s job often occupies a messy place where policy and politics converge — and that was among the reasons that some observers thought he had the best shot at removal to federal court.
But Judge Jones decided that the actions ascribed to Mr. Meadows in the indictment were not within the scope of his federal duties.
The evidence, he ruled, “establishes that the actions at the heart of the state’s charges against Meadows were taken on behalf of the Trump campaign with an ultimate goal of affecting state election activities and procedures.”
Sept. 8
Washington Post, Georgia special grand jury recommended charges for Lindsey Graham in Trump case, Holly Bailey, Sept. 8, 2023. An Atlanta-area prosecutor ultimately declined to seek an indictment against the Republican senator from South Carolina, shown above in a file photo.
An Atlanta-area special grand jury that spent months investigating alleged 2020 election interference in Georgia by Donald Trump and his allies agreed the former president should be indicted in the case and also recommended charges for one of Trump’s closest associates, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) — though a prosecutor ultimately declined to seek an indictment for him in the case.
The recommendations were contained in a 26-page final report presented in January to Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D) and made public by a judge Friday.
The report by the special grand jury, which was an investigative body and did not have the power to issue criminal indictments, largely echoed Willis’s theory of the case, recommending charges for Trump and numerous others alleging a sweeping criminal conspiracy to subvert Joe Biden’s legitimate election win in Georgia.
Emptywheel, Analysis: Cleta Mitchell Skates, Emptywheel (Marcy Wheeler, right,), Sept. 8, 2023. While grand jurors expressed lukewarm 
support for charging three Senators -- David Purdue, Kelli Leoffler, and Lindsey Graham -- they expressed far more support for charging Cleta Mitchell, above, who nevertheless was not charged.
Judge McBurney has released the report from Fanni Willis’ special grand jury.
The grand jury recommended charges against a number of people who weren’t charged. Most attention has 
focused on the recommendations to charge David Purdue, left, Kelli Loeffler, and Lindsey Graham. I had always thought that Lindsey wouldn’t be charged because he is protected by Speech and Debate (a judgment that may be supported by the DC Circuit’s still-sealed partial reversal of Beryl Howell’s ruling permitting DOJ to access some Scott Perry records from his phone).
But it seemed there was less support for those charges, generally, than for others.
By wide margins, the grand jury voted to charge Cleta in conjunction with the January 2 call to Brad Raffensperger, the fake electors plot, and the RICO charge. But she — a prominent Georgian — was not charged.
Sept. 7
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee hears motions from the attorneys in Atlanta on Wednesday. (Jason Getz / Pool / AFP/ Getty Images)
Washington Post, Georgia prosecutors in Trump election case estimate four-month trial, Holly Bailey, Sept. 7, 2023 (print ed.). Such a timeline would force Donald Trump to spend a third of a year sitting in an Atlanta courtroom, possibly while also running for president and juggling three other criminal cases.
A trial involving former president Donald Trump and 18 others accused of conspiring to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia will probably take four months, once a jury is selected, and feature testimony from more than 150 witnesses, prosecutors said in court Wednesday.
Such a timeline would force Trump to spend a third of a year sitting in an Atlanta courtroom with his co-defendants, possibly while running for president and juggling three other criminal cases, including federal charges that he conspired to overturn the 2020 election to stay in power.
The estimate came during a hearing over motions by two of the defendants — former Trump campaign attorneys Kenneth J. 
Chesebro, right, and Sidney Powell, below left — who have invoked their rights to a speedy trial. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, who is overseeing the matter, granted those motions Wednesday, setting a joint trial date of Oct. 
23 for Chesebro and Powell.
But Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D), whose office is leading the case, wants all 19 defendants to be tried at the same time starting on that date. Prosecutors on Wednesday reaffirmed that argument, insisting that separating the cases would mean months-long trials for each of the defendants involving the same witnesses and the same evidence — which they said would be burdensome to the court and parties involved.
“One trial or 19 trials, the evidence is exactly the same,” said Will Wooten, a deputy Fulton County district attorney. “The witnesses are exactly the same.”
McAfee did not reject a joint trial of Trump and his 18 co-defendants, but he peppered prosecutors with questions and appeared deeply skeptical that proceedings for all 19 could begin next month. He noted efforts by some of the defendants to move their cases to federal court and existing motions from Trump and others who have said they will not be ready for trial by late October.
“It just seems a bit unrealistic to think that we can handle all 19 in 40-something days. That’s my initial reaction,” McAfee said.
It was the first major hearing since a Fulton County grand jury last month approved a 41-count indictment charging Trump and 18 associates in what prosecutors allege was a vast criminal conspiracy to change the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. It was the first time prosecutors had appeared before McAfee since he was assigned to oversee the case, and at times, they appeared unprepared for his intense questioning about scheduling issues in a sprawling case that is facing legal tests in both state and federal court.
McAfee has assumed the role of legal traffic cop in the sprawling racketeering case, tackling the logistical challenge of setting deadlines and trial dates for the 19 defendants who are already at odds over how and when they should be tried. McAfee, who was nominated to the bench this year, previously worked as a state inspector general and a federal and state prosecutor, including under Willis when she ran Fulton County’s complex trial division. He plans to hold a hearing every week to work through the mountain of motions that have already been filed or soon will be.
Former President Donald Trump is shown in a photo collage with columnist E. Jean Carroll, who won a civil suit against him in 2022 in New York City on claims of sexual batery and defamation.
New York Times, Trump’s Next Defamation Trial Will Skip to What Damages He Should Pay, Benjamin Weiser, Sept. 7, 2023 (print ed.). E. Jean Carroll’s suit is scheduled for a January trial. The judge ruled she did not have to prove a second time that Donald J. Trump defamed her after she accused him of raping her.
A federal judge ruled Wednesday that the writer E. Jean Carroll, who won a recent defamation lawsuit against former President Donald J. Trump, doesn’t have to prove again that he defamed her in another lawsuit she has filed against him when it goes to trial in January.
She must show only what damages, if any, Mr. Trump must pay for comments he made in 2019 after she first publicly accused him of raping her in a Manhattan department store dressing room decades ago. Mr. Trump called her accusation “totally false,” said he had never met Ms. Carroll and that he could not have raped her because “she’s not my type.”
Ms. Carroll, 79, won a separate defamation lawsuit in May based on comments Mr. Trump posted last October on his Truth Social website calling her claim a “complete con job” and “a Hoax and a lie.”
In that case, a Manhattan jury found Mr. Trump, 77, liable for sexually abusing Ms. Carroll and awarded her $2.02 million in damages for the attack. Jurors also awarded Ms. Carroll $2.98 million in damages for defamation.
The judge, Lewis A. Kaplan of Federal District Court, said in his ruling Wednesday that Mr. Trump’s statements in 2019 were “substantially the same” as those that prompted the defamation award in May.
“The trial in this case shall be limited to the issue of damages only,” Judge Kaplan wrote.
Lawyers for Ms. Carroll and Mr. Trump issued brief statements after the ruling was filed.
Ms. Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta A. Kaplan, said, “We look forward to trial limited to damages for the original defamatory statements Donald Trump made about our client E. Jean Carroll in 2019.”
Alina Habba, who represents Mr. Trump, said she was confident the earlier verdict “will be overturned on appeal, which will render this decision moot.”
Mr. Trump has also asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit to delay the pending defamation trial, which is scheduled for Jan. 15, until an appeal by Mr. Trump related to the case is resolved.
Politico, Investigation: The Giuliani aide who ‘vanished,’ Betsy Woodruff Swan and Kyle Cheney, Sept. 7, 2023 (print ed.). Documents reviewed by Politico — and also in the hands of federal prosecutors — offer new details about Rudy Giuliani’s ill-fated efforts to reverse the 2020 election.
In December 2020, an adviser to Rudy Giuliani circulated a draft email addressed to the White House seeking “provisional” security clearances for the former mayor and members of his team as part of their work to keep Donald Trump in power.
The adviser, Katherine Friess, also helped Giuliani, right, woo potential donors to finance Trump’s effort to reverse the results of the election. She helped draft a “strategic communications plan” for a final push to keep Trump in office, a document that became a focus for Jan. 6 investigators and that called for placing paid ads on radio and TV alleging widespread voter fraud. At the same time, Friess warned other Trump aides that their claims about dead people voting in Georgia were weak — but Trump continued to trumpet those claims anyway.
Friess, a national security consultant with deep roots in Washington, kept a low profile, but in November and December 2020, she was Giuliani’s jack-of-all-trades. A host of emails and documents exchanged by Friess and other Giuliani aides have been turned over to special counsel Jack Smith, according to a person familiar with the investigation granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive material.
Dozens of those documents, which have been reviewed by POLITICO, add new detail to the public understanding of how Trump’s allies operated after Election Day — and how they grappled with obstacles both immense and quotidian.
Sept. 6Politico, Trump’s co-defendants are already starting to turn against him, Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney, Sept. 6, 2023 (print ed.). There’s a nascent courtroom strategy by some people close to Donald Trump: Heap blame on the former president.
As Donald Trump's four criminal cases march toward trials, some of his aides, allies and co-defendants are pointing fingers at the former president. | Dana Verkouteren/AP Photo
The finger-pointing among Donald Trump’s inner circle has begun.
And as his four criminal cases march toward trials, some of his aides, allies and co-defendants are pointing at the former president
Sept. 5
Washington Post, Ex-Proud Boys leader Tarrio receives 22 years, the longest Jan. 6 sentence yet, Tom Jackman and Spencer S. Hsu, Sept. 5, 2023. Henry “Enrique” Tarrio was found guilty in May of plotting to unleash political violence to prevent Congress from confirming the results of the 2020 election.
Former Proud Boys leader Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, described by a judge as “the ultimate leader” who “was motivated by revolutionary zeal” in organizing members of his far-right group to spark the breach of the U.S. Capitol, was sentenced Tuesday to 22 years in prison, the longest sentence yet among the hundreds convicted of disrupting the peaceful transfer of presidential power on Jan. 6, 2021.
Sign up for Fact Checker, our weekly review of what's true, false or in-between in politics.
Tarrio, 39, was convicted of seditious conspiracy and obstructing the congressional proceeding meant to confirm the 2020 presidential election as part of a riot that U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly said broke America’s long democratic tradition of peaceful transfers of power. Tarrio was the last of five Proud Boys to be sentenced after all were convicted in May following a 15-week trial.
Tarrio, of Miami, was convicted even though he wasn’t in Washington on Jan. 6. He had been arrested two days earlier for burning a “Black Lives Matter” flag torn down from a D.C. church during an earlier protest in the city following President Donald Trump’s defeat. He was banned from the city as a result.
But prosecutors said he had recruited people to join in a violent assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6 to keep Trump in power and messaged them “Don’t f---ing leave” as they led the storming of the building, causing the electoral vote count to stop for about six hours. Kelly cited that message Tuesday in ruling that Tarrio still had a leadership role on Jan. 6, even if he wasn’t in D.C. Tarrio denied planning an incursion into the Capitol and gave interviews after the riot saying he did not endorse that move by multiple Proud Boys, some of whom were among the first to enter the building.
Prosecutors asked for a 33-year sentence for Tarrio, one of the most high-profile defendants who have gone to trial in the Capitol attack. But they also asked for 20 years or more for each of Tarrio’s four co-defendants, and Kelly declined to impose such terms.
From left to right, Proud Boys members and Jan. 6 insurrectionists Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachery Rehl, Enrique Tarrio and Dominic Pezzola
The judge agreed that the convictions qualified for an enhanced terrorism penalty under federal law and increased the federal sentencing guidelines for Tarrio and his co-defendants: Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola. The judge, however, declined to sentence each defendant within the advisory ranges, saying repeatedly that “the terrorism adjustment overstates your role in the offense,” and that the Proud Boys did not have the intent to kill or cause mass casualties.
Tarrio apologized for his actions and those of the Proud Boys, saying the police officers who defended the Capitol, some of whom were in the audience Tuesday, “deserve nothing but praise, respect and to be honored as the heroes they are. I am extremely ashamed and disappointed they were caused grief and suffering.” He also said he had early doubts about whether the election was stolen but kept them to himself. “Every medium I turned to told me my anger was justified,” Tarrio said. “It wasn’t. … I do not think what happened that day was acceptable.”
As for Tarrio’s apology, the judge said: “I’m glad he’s sorry for what happened to the law enforcement officers that day. But I think we’re talking past each other in many ways. I don’t have any indication that he is remorseful for the actual things that he was convicted of. … There’s only so much that statement can go toward assuring me that deterrence is not warranted.”
In an orange jail coverall, Tarrio stood with both hands on a lectern and lowered his head briefly as the judge imposed the sentence, and his mother let out a sob in the gallery behind him. As he left the courtroom, he looked back at his family and supporters, held up two fingers, and blew a kiss with a smile.
As for Tarrio’s apology, the judge said: “I’m glad he’s sorry for what happened to the law enforcement officers that day. But I think we’re talking past each other in many ways. I don’t have any indication that he is remorseful for the actual things that he was convicted of. … There’s only so much that statement can go toward assuring me that deterrence is not warranted.”
In an orange jail coverall, Tarrio stood with both hands on a lectern and lowered his head briefly as the judge imposed the sentence, and his mother let out a sob in the gallery behind him. As he left the courtroom, he looked back at his family and supporters, held up two fingers, and blew a kiss with a smile.
After a trial lasting nearly five months, Tarrio and three of his top lieutenants were convicted in May of seditious conspiracy and five other felonies, including obstruction of an official proceeding and destruction of federal property. Tarrio didn’t testify in his own defense, but his lawyers argued that he hadn’t planned an incursion of the Capitol.
Sept. 2
Washington Post, Trump’s Truth Social facing a key funding deadline, Drew Harwell, Sept. 2, 2023. The ‘blank check’ ally of former president Donald Trump’s media start-up was once a stock-market star. It’s now days away from potential liquidation.
When former president Donald Trump’s media start-up announced in October 2021 that it planned to merge with a Miami-based company called Digital World Acquisition, the deal was an instant stock-market hit.
With the $300 million Digital World had already raised from investors, Trump Media & Technology Group, creator of the pro-Trump social network Truth Social, pledged then that the merger would create a tech titan worth $875 million at the start and, depending on the stock’s performance, up to $1.7 billion later.
All they needed was for the merger to close — a process that Digital World, in a July 2021 preliminary prospectus, estimated would happen within 12 to 18 months.
“Everyone asks me why doesn’t someone stand up to Big Tech? Well, we will be soon!” Trump said in a Trump Media statement that month.
Now, almost two years later, the deal faces what could be a catastrophic threat. With the merger stalled for months, Digital World is fast approaching a Sept. 8 deadline for the merger to close and has scheduled a shareholder vote for Tuesday to extend the deadline another year.
If the vote fails, Digital World will be required by law to liquidate and return $300 million to its shareholders, leaving Trump’s company with nothing from the transaction.
For Digital World, it would signal the ultimate financial fall from grace for a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, that turned its proximity to the former president into what was once one of the stock market’s hottest trades. Its share price, which peaked in its first hours at $175, has since fallen to about $14.
Digital World’s efforts to merge with Trump Media have been troubled almost from the start, beset by allegations that it began its conversations with the former president’s company before they were permitted under SPAC rules.
August
Aug. 31
Washington Post, Trump enters not guilty plea in Georgia election case, waives hearing, Holly Bailey and Amy Gardner, Aug. 31, 2023. The former president had been scheduled by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee to be arraigned in Atlanta next Wednesday
Donald Trump entered a plea of not guilty to charges alleging he participated in a vast criminal conspiracy to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia and waived his right to an in-person arraignment hearing in the matter, according to a new court filing from his attorney in the Fulton County election interference case.
The written plea was filed Thursday by Steve Sadow, an Atlanta criminal defense attorney who was tapped Aug. 24 to lead the former president’s Georgia-based legal team. The filing means Trump won’t return to Atlanta on Wednesday, where Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, who is overseeing the proceedings, has scheduled a series of arraignment hearings for Trump and the 18 co-defendants in the sprawling criminal racketeering case.
In the filing, titled “President Trump’s entry of plea of not guilty and enter of waiver of appearance at arraignment,” the former president stated that he was “freely and voluntarily” waiving his right to be present at his arraignment and have his charges read to him in open court.
Trump is facing 13 counts in the Georgia case, including violating the state’s racketeering act, soliciting a public officer to violate their oath, conspiring to impersonate a public officer, conspiring to commit forgery in the first degree and conspiring to file false documents. The former president has denied any wrongdoing and has condemned the investigation, led by Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D), as a “political witch hunt.”
Trump surrendered last week at the Fulton County Jail, a notorious Atlanta lockup where he was booked and quickly released on a $200,000 bond that includes restrictions on his conduct, including provisions that bar him from intimidating witnesses or fellow co-defendants or making any “direct or indirect threat of any nature against the community.”
Trump’s attorney has signaled he will vigorously challenge the charges against his client, who he has said should have never been charged in the case. Sadow has said he will file a motion to dismiss the charges and move to sever Trump’s case from other co-defendants, including former Trump campaign attorney Kenneth Chesebro, who are seeking a speedy trial in the matter.
Separately Thursday, Gov. Brian Kemp (R) told reporters at a news conference that he would not call a special session of the General Assembly to seek to remove Willis from office, as several conservative lawmakers have requested. Kemp said his concerns about “highly charged indictments” during an election cycle “have been well-documented,” but his intervention would be improper and possibly even unconstitutional.
“We have a law in the state of Georgia that clearly outlines the legal steps that can be taken if constituents believe their local prosecutors are violating their oath by engaging in unethical or illegal behavior,” he said. “Up to this point I have not seen any evidence at that D.A. Willis’s actions or lack thereof warrant action by the Prosecuting Attorney Oversight Commission. But that will ultimately be a decision that the commission will make.”
Trump is expected to follow his former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows in seeking to move his case from state to federal court. Meadows spent more than four hours testifying on Monday before U.S. District Court Judge Steve C. Jones, who is considering Meadows’s petition to move his case to federal court, where he will then seek to dismiss charges.
In his testimony, Meadows sought to portray himself as Trump’s gatekeeper and depicted his involvement in efforts to question Joe Biden’s legitimate victory in Georgia as part of his duties as Trump’s top White House aide and senior adviser. His attorneys have argued that should qualify his case for federal removal since they say he was acting under the “color” of his federal position.
But prosecutors have argued Meadows’s post-election efforts, including a visit to a suburban Atlanta ballot processing center and arranging the now-infamous Jan. 2, 2021, phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R), violated the federal Hatch Act, which prohibits government officials from using their official roles to influence an election. They say Meadows saw “no distinction” between his White House work and the Trump campaign and have pressed Jones to deny Meadows’s petition — an outcome which could have sweeping effect on other current and future removal requests in the case, including Trump’s expected petition.
New York Times, Trump Asks to Dismiss Suit as A.G. Says He Inflated Worth by $2.2 Billion, Jonah E. Bromwich, Ben Protess and William K. Rashbaum, Aug. 31, 2023 (print ed.). Before Donald J. Trump was indicted four times over, he was sued by New York’s attorney general, who said that for years the former president, his business and members of his family had fraudulently overvalued their assets by billions of dollars.
Before any of those criminal trials will take place, Mr. Trump is scheduled for a civil trial in New York in October. During the trial, the attorney general, Letitia James, will seek to bar him and three of his children from leading their family business, the Trump Organization, and to require him to pay a fine of around $250 million.
On Wednesday, Ms. James fired an opening salvo, arguing that a trial is not necessary to find that Mr. Trump and the other defendants inflated the value of their assets in annual financial statements, fraudulently obtaining favorable loans and insurance arrangements.
The fraud was so pervasive, she said in a court filing, that Mr. Trump had falsely boosted his net worth by between $812 million and $2.2 billion each year over the course of a decade.
Letitia James, New York’s attorney general, asked a judge to find, without a trial, that former President Trump had fraudulently overvalued his assets.
“Based on the undisputed evidence, no trial is required for the court to determine that defendants presented grossly and materially inflated asset values,” the filing said.
But Mr. Trump’s lawyers, in their own motion, argued that the entire case should be thrown out, relying in large part on a recent appellate court decision that appeared as if it could significantly narrow the scope of the case because of a legal time limit. Mr. Trump had received most of the loans in question too long ago for the matter to be considered by a court, his lawyers argue.
New York Times, Trump, Under Oath, Says He Averted ‘Nuclear Holocaust,’ Ben Protess, Jonah E. Bromwich and William K. Rashbaum, Aug. 31, 2023 (print ed.). During a deposition in his civil case, former President Trump offered a series of strange defenses, digressions and meandering explanations.
Under oath and under fire, Donald J. Trump sat for a seven-hour interview with the New York attorney general’s office in April, part of the civil fraud case against him and his company.
But as lawyers from the office grilled Mr. Trump on the inner-workings of his family business, which is accused of inflating his net worth by billions of dollars, he responded with a series of meandering non sequiturs, political digressions and self-aggrandizing defenses.
Asked about his authority at the Trump Organization while he was in the White House, Mr. Trump responded that he considered the presidency “the most important job in the world, saving millions of lives.”
“I think you would have nuclear holocaust, if I didn’t deal with North Korea,” he explained, and then added: “And I think you might have a nuclear war now, if you want to know the truth.”
Although Mr. Trump invoked his constitutional right against self-incrimination when initially questioned by the office last year, he answered questions from the attorney general, Letitia James, and her lawyers in the April deposition, a transcript of which was unsealed on Wednesday.
The transcript shows a combative Mr. Trump, who was named as a defendant in the case alongside his company and three of his children, at times barely allowing lawyers to get a word in. The former president frequently seems personally offended by the idea that his net worth is being questioned.
Mr. Trump is seeking to have the case thrown out. A judge could rule on that effort next month, but for now, the case appears headed to trial in early October.
Below are some of the highlights from the transcript of his deposition:
New York Times, Trump Could Clinch the Nomination Before the G.O.P. Knows if He’s a Felon, Reid J. Epstein, Maggie Haberman, Charlie Savage and Jonathan Swan, Aug. 31, 2023 (print ed.). The federal election interference case — one of four involving Donald Trump — is set to start just before Super Tuesday and a cascade of primaries.
By the time Donald J. Trump is sitting at his federal trial on charges of criminally conspiring to overturn the 2020 election, he may have already secured enough delegates to effectively clinch the Republican Party’s 2024 presidential nomination.
The former president’s trial is scheduled to start March 4, by which point five states are expected to have held nominating contests. The next day, March 5, is Super Tuesday, when 15 states, including delegate-rich California and Texas, plan to hold votes that will determine if any Trump challenger has enough political oxygen to remain a viable alternative.
Primaries in Florida, Ohio and Illinois come two weeks later. Florida and Ohio will be the first winner-take-all contests, in which the top vote-getter statewide seizes all of the delegates rather than splitting them proportionally. Winner-take-all primaries have historically turbocharged the front-runner’s path to the presidential nomination. Mr. Trump’s federal trial, if it proceeds on its current timeline, won’t be close to finished by then.
The collision course between the Republican Party’s calendar and Mr. Trump’s trial schedule is emblematic of one of the most unusual nominating contests in American history. It is a Trump-dominated clash that will define not only the course of the 2024 presidential primary but potentially the future direction of the party in an eventual post-Trump era.
Palmer Report, Analysis, One and done, Bill Palmer, right, Aug. 31, 2023. It’s now been a full week since Donald Trump’s fourth arrest. At this rate he might consider himself lucky that there hasn’t been a fifth one already. But it’s also been a full week since something else: Trump’s one and only tweet since leaving office.
Back when Trump was reinstated to Twitter, the owner of the platform publicly begged Trump to return. But it never did happen. Instead Trump continued to spend all day every day pandering to his niche base on his own niche social network. The ferocity with which Trump rants and raves on Truth Social, basically talking to no one, suggests that he’d love to be back on Twitter and have a real audience. But even his one tweet last week is now very much looking like a one-off.
We’ve heard all kinds of speculation about how Trump might have an exclusive contract with Truth Social. But even if so, that doesn’t come within a million miles of adequately explaining why he never returned to Twitter. Deals like that are made to be renegotiated or worked around. And really, what is Truth Social going to do to Trump in retaliation for returning to Twitter? Ban him from his own platform? Truth Social is such a niche failure that there would be no platform without Trump.
Instead, Trump’s failure to return to Twitter is probably the biggest giveaway that he’s not really running for anything. Twitter is a huge marketing and outreach opportunity for any political candidate. Trump in particular has shown an affinity, almost an addiction, to tweeting. It allowed him to speak directly to the general public in real time. And by declining to tweet, he’s throwing away that opportunity.
Is this because Trump is so senile? His incoherently embarrassing rambling on Truth Social is at least mitigated by the fact that so few people are on there reading it. If he were posting these same screeds on Twitter, the general public would see that his brain is now a bag of cats, and his faux-campaign would probably be closer to finished. So are Trump’s handlers trying to protect him from himself by giving him flimsy and misleading excuses about why he shouldn’t tweet?
If you think about it, the only two things Trump ever seemed to enjoy about politics were rallies and tweeting, and now his babysitters have managed to convince him to very rarely do either one of them. Instead they have him tucked away rambling on a failed social media platform that no one uses. Trump’s handlers seem to view him as being so far gone, they have to keep him in a box. And Trump, for his part, seems to be so far gone that his handlers can convince him of anything. Whatever reasons they’ve fed him for why he should do very few rallies and stay off Twitter, he’s swallowed it.
New York Times, Giuliani Is Liable for Defaming Georgia Election Workers, Judge Says, Alan Feuer, Aug. 31, 2023 (print ed.). The ruling means that a defamation case against Rudy Giuliani, stemming from his role in seeking to overturn the 2020 election, can proceed to a trial.
A federal judge ruled on Wednesday that Rudolph W. Giuliani, right, was liable for defaming two Georgia election workers by repeatedly declaring that they had mishandled ballots while counting votes in Atlanta during the 2020 election.
The ruling by the judge, Beryl A. Howell, below left, in Federal District Court in Washington, means that the defamation case against Mr. Giuliani, a central figure in former President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to remain in power after his election loss, can proceed to trial on the 
narrow question of how much, if any, damages he will have to pay the plaintiffs in the case.
A lawyer for Mr. Giuliani declined to comment.
Judge Howell’s decision came a little more than a month after Mr. Giuliani conceded in two stipulations in the case that he had made false statements when he accused the election workers, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, of manipulating ballots while working at the State Farm Arena for the Fulton County Board of Elections.
Mr. Giuliani later sought to explain that his stipulations were solely meant to get past a dispute with Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss about discovery evidence in the case and move toward dismissing the allegations outright. But Judge Howell, complaining that Mr. Giuliani’s stipulations “hold more holes than Swiss cheese,” took the proactive step of declaring him liable for “defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, civil conspiracy and punitive damage claims.”
Politico, Judge rejects Navarro’s ‘executive privilege’ claim for defying Jan. 6 committee, Kyle Cheney, Aug. 31, 2023 (print ed.). The ruling paves the way for Navarro’s trial to begin next week on contempt-of-Congress charges.
Peter Navarro, a former senior White House adviser to former President Donald Trump, failed to prove that Trump asserted executive privilege to block him from testifying to the House Jan. 6 select committee, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.
The ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta keeps on track Navarro’s Sept. 5 contempt-of-Congress trial, where he will face jurors on two charges that he defied the committee’s subpoena for testimony and documents related to Navarro’s role in Trump’s bid to subvert the 2020 election.
Navarro has long claimed that Trump asserted privilege to block him from appearing before the Jan. 6 select committee in early 2022 when the panel subpoenaed him. But Navarro has never produced direct evidence to back that claim and, more importantly, Trump and his attorneys have repeatedly declined to say whether Navarro was accurately reflecting their conversations.
Mehta cited Trump’s refusal to corroborate Navarro’s claims as the most compelling reason that he found Trump did not, in fact, seek to block Navarro’s testimony to the select committee.
“There was no formal invocation of executive privilege by [Trump] after personal consideration nor authorization to Mr. Navarro to invoke privilege on his behalf,” Mehta said.
Navarro’s trial, which is likely to be brief, will head to jury selection on Tuesday. Mehta’s ruling means the former Trump trade adviser will not be able to argue to the jury that he believed Trump asserted privilege and effectively blocked him from complying with aspects of the select committee’s subpoena.
In addition, Mehta noted that even if he had shown Trump asserted privilege, the select committee had indicated it planned to ask him questions about topics that did not touch on his communications with Trump and therefore wouldn’t be covered by any privilege assertion.
Old Goats, Commentary: She's The Boss,.Jonathan Alter, Aug. 30-31, 2023. Judge Chutkan and Trump’s approaching Day of Judgment.
John Lauro was in a predicament Monday that bodes well for the survival of the Republic.
Lauro is Donald Trump’s lead attorney in the most important trial the former president faces — the one that will resolve whether he is guilty of masterminding a coup against the government and people of the United States.
In federal court, Lauro began talking trash in a loud and aggressive manner. He sounded like he was on a cable show, not standing before the bar of justice.
Judge Tanya Chutkan, who next year will become one of the most famous American jurists in American history (even though the trial will not be televised), brought Lauro up short. Twice, she told him to “turn down the temperature.” Lauro finally comprehended that in this courtroom—in front of this judge— properly “representing” Trump will mean more than channeling his indignation. So he complied.
But it was too late. Lauro had asked for a 2026 trial date—a ludicrous bid—and refused to show up this week with a more reasonable proposal. Bad move. With the trial date now scheduled for March 4, 2024, the day before Super Tuesday, Lauro is caught between his client — who wants him to pursue a noisy political case in court — and Judge Chutkan, who made it clear that any such strategy will blow up in the Orange Menace’s face.
Lauro knows he must do it Trump’s way or be fired, which means he’ll put on a blustery MAGA defense in front of a District of Columbia jury that isn’t likely to buy it.
And so in the course of a few days, the notion of the Republican Party nominating a convicted felon for president has gone from liberal fantasy to strong possibility.
While Trump’s attorneys will file various motions to delay, legal experts this week are predicting that these motions will be quickly adjudicated — often by Chutkan herself. And there is no provision in federal law for a higher court to overturn a trial date.
Trump’s best hope — a change of venue — doesn’t seem likely. Efforts by insurrectionists to avoid being tried in the District of Columbia have all failed. So prepare for some momentous history to unfold next spring. The Day of Judgment is nearly upon us.
Politico, Joe Biggs, Proud Boys leader, gets 17-year prison sentence for role in Jan. 6 attack, Kyle Cheney, Aug. 31, 2023. Biggs is the first of four Proud Boys leaders convicted of seditious conspiracy to face sentencing.
Joseph Biggs, a Florida leader of the Proud Boys on Jan. 6, 2021, has been sentenced to 17 years in prison for conspiring to derail the peaceful transfer of power — the second-longest sentence of the hundreds handed down since the violent assault on the Capitol.
“That day broke our tradition of peacefully transferring power,” said U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Kelly as he delivered his sentence. “The mob brought an entire branch of government to heel.”
Biggs is the first of four Proud Boys leaders convicted of seditious conspiracy to face sentencing. The others include Philadelphia Proud Boys leader Zachary Rehl, Seattle Proud Boys leader Ethan Nordean and former national Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, who will all be sentenced between Thursday and early next week.
A fifth member of the group, Dominic Pezzola, who was acquitted of seditious conspiracy but convicted of other Jan. 6 felonies, faces sentencing on Friday. He smashed a Senate-wing window of the Capitol with a stolen police riot shield, triggering the mob’s breach of the building.
Kelly, an appointee of Donald Trump, applied a “terrorism” enhancement to Biggs’ sentence, a distinction that so far has only been applied to members of the Oath Keepers similarly convicted of seditious conspiracy. Kelly spoke at length about his decision to apply that label and how it compared to other, more stereotypical acts of terrorism that involve mass casualties or bombings.
“While blowing up a building in some city somewhere is a very bad act, the nature of the constitutional moment we were in that day is something that is so sensitive that it deserves a significant sentence,” Kelly said.
The sentence is an important marker in the fraught aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack. Prosecutors, who had asked for a 33-year sentence for Biggs, said he and his co-conspirators were the driving force behind the violence that unfolded that day, facilitating breaches at multiple police lines and helping the crowd advance into the building itself. A jury convicted the five men of multiple conspiracies in June, after a four-month trial that recounted their actions in painstaking detail.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason McCullough urged Kelly to severely punish Biggs as a way to deter others who might consider similar actions in the future aimed at disrupting the government. The fear and effect on society caused by Jan. 6 , he said, is “no different than the act of a spectacular bombing of a building.”
“There’s a reason why we will hold our collective breath as we approach future elections,” McCullough said. “We never gave it a second thought before Jan. 6. … They pushed us to the edge of a constitutional crisis.”
“It’s almost seductive in how tangible a future act like this could be,” the prosecutor added. “It doesn’t take the step of amassing bomb-making equipment to bring the United States government and our society to the brink of a constitutional crisis. It just takes slick propaganda and an environment where you encourage people to basically say, ‘It’s us against them,’ and we’re going to use force to achieve our political ends.”
Prosecutors say the group amassed a force of 200 hand-selected Proud Boys and marched them to the Capitol, where many of them skirmished with police or removed barriers intended to keep the crowd at bay. Nordean and Biggs were convicted of dismantling a black metal fence that was one of police’s last obstacles before the crowd reached the building.
Biggs, who didn’t take the stand during the trial, spoke for the first time about the charges as he pleaded with Kelly for a lenient sentence. He said he had withdrawn from politics and refused to engage in it with other Jan. 6 defendants detained at the D.C. jail where he’s been housed for more than two years. Biggs said he had always planned to quit the Proud Boys after Jan. 6 to focus on his daughter.
“I know that I have to be punished,” he said, but begged Kelly to allow him to “take my daughter to school one day and pick her up.”
The Proud Boys’ trajectory toward Jan. 6 became a major focus of the trial. The group, which had become infamous for street fighting with left-wing activists, had aligned itself with Trump, who famously told the group to “stand back and stand by” during a debate with rival Joe Biden.
Prosecutors say the group feared that if Trump lost the election, they would become marginalized and quickly embraced his false claims of election fraud. The group attended two pro-Trump marches in Washington, D.C., that were marred by street violence, including a Dec. 14 event in which four Proud Boys were stabbed outside a bar. That violence fueled the group’s fury at police in Washington, prosecutors said, which the members displayed openly on Jan. 6.
When Trump told supporters on Dec. 19, 2020 to amass in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, Tarrio and the Proud Boys leaders quickly responded and began assembling a new chapter that they described as a group of more disciplined and obedient men who would follow their orders. That group, which they dubbed the “Ministry of Self-Defense,” became the core of the group that descended on the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Biggs’ attorney Norm Pattis argued that too harsh a sentence would erode trust in government and have a similarly perverse result: making Americans fearful of attending protests.
“I think we’re an ongoing threat to ourselves in this republic right now,” he said. “Just how, how we are in a situation where a presidential candidate, indicted four times by state and federal officials, is in a statistical dead heat with the incumbent. … The government’s suggestion that [Biggs] is some domestic threat, he’s going to go out and make things worse — you just can’t get much worse than that.”
Aug. 29
New York Times, Judge Sets Trial Date in March for Trump’s Federal Election Case, Alan Feuer and Glenn Thrush, Aug. 29, 2023 (print ed.). Judge Tanya Chutkan rejected efforts by Donald Trump’s legal team to postpone the trial until 2026.
The federal judge overseeing former President Donald J. Trump’s prosecution on charges of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election set a trial date on Monday for early March, rebuffing Mr. Trump’s proposal to push it off until 2026.
The decision by Judge Tanya S. Chutkan to start the trial on March 4 amounted to an early victory for prosecutors, who had asked for Jan. 2. But it potentially brought the proceeding into conflict with the three other trials that Mr. Trump is facing, underscoring the extraordinary complexities of his legal situation and the intersection of the prosecutions with his campaign to return to the White House.
The district attorney in Fulton County, Ga., has proposed taking Mr. Trump to trial on charges of tampering with the election in that state on March 4 as well. Another case, in Manhattan, in which Mr. Trump has been accused of more than 30 felonies connected to hush-money payments to a porn actress in the run-up the 2016 election, has been scheduled to go to trial on March 25.
And if the trial in Washington lasts more than 11 weeks, it could bump up against Mr. Trump’s other federal trial, on charges of illegally retaining classified documents after he left office and obstructing the government’s efforts to retrieve them. That trial is scheduled to begin in Florida in late May.
The March 4 date set by Judge Chutkan for the federal election case at a hearing in Federal District Court in Washington is the day before Super Tuesday, when 15 states are scheduled to hold Republican primaries or caucuses.
Judge Chutkan said that while she understood Mr. Trump had both other trial dates scheduled next year and, at the same time, was running for the country’s highest office, she was not going to let the intersection of his legal troubles and his political campaign get in the way of setting a date.
“Mr. Trump, like any defendant, will have to make the trial date work regardless of his schedule,” Judge Chutkan said, adding that “there is a societal interest to a speedy trial.”
Mr. Trump has now been indicted by grand juries four times in four places — Washington, New York, Atlanta and Florida — and prosecutors have been jockeying for position. All of them are trying to find time for their trials not only in relation to one another, but also against the backdrop of Mr. Trump’s crowded calendar as the candidate leading the field for the Republican Party’s 2024 presidential nomination.
New York Times, Meadows Testifies in Bid to Move Georgia Trump Case to Federal Court, Richard Fausset and Danny Hakim, Aug. 29, 2023 (print ed.). Mr. Meadows, a former White House chief of staff, told a judge he believed his actions regarding the 2020 election fell within the scope of his job as a federal official.
A battle over whether to move the Georgia racketeering case against Donald J. Trump and his allies to federal court began in earnest on Monday, when Mark Meadows, right, a former White House chief of staff, testified in favor of such a move before a federal judge in Atlanta.
Under questioning by his own lawyers and by prosecutors, Mr. Meadows stated emphatically on the witness stand that he believed that his actions detailed in the indictment fell within the scope of his duties as chief of staff. But he also appeared unsure of himself at times, saying often that he could not recall details of events in late 2020 and early 2021. “My wife will tell you sometimes that I forget to take out the trash,” he told Judge Steve C. Jones of United States District Court.
At another point, he asked whether he was properly complying with the judge’s instructions, saying, “I’m in enough trouble as it is.”
The effort to shift the case to federal court is the first major legal fight since the indictment of Mr. Trump, Mr. Meadows and 17 others was filed by Fani T. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, Ga. The indictment charges Mr. Trump and his allies with interfering in the 2020 presidential election in the state. Mr. Meadows is one of several defendants in the case who are trying to move it to federal court; any decision on the issue by a judge could apply to all 19 defendants.Lawyers for Mark Meadows made their bid to a judge to move the Georgia case against Donald Trump and his allies to federal court, Aug. 28, 2023.
Washington Post, Meadows testifies in Atlanta; March trial date for Trump in D.C., Devlin Barrett, Maegan Vazquez, Perry Stein and Rachel Weiner, Aug. 29, 2023 (print ed.). U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan has scheduled Donald Trump’s D.C. trial on charges of attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election for March 4, 2024.
At a separate hearing in Atlanta, Trump’s former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, has been testifying for hours about Trump’s efforts to reverse Joe Biden’s victory in Georgia; the purpose of that hearing is to see if Meadows can move his state-level indictment to federal court. Trump is a front-runner in the Republican 2024 presidential contest, and the D.C. trial’s starting date is the day before the Super Tuesday primaries.
Here’s what to know
- Trump is the only person indicted in the D.C. case so far, but his indictment alleges he enlisted six unnamed conspirators in his efforts to overturn Joe Biden’s election victory and hang on to power.
- Trump is the first former U.S. president to face criminal charges. He has been indicted in four cases — all while leading the Republican field in the 2024 presidential nomination race. He has denied wrongdoing in each case.
- Meadows, right, is one of Trump’s 18 co-defendants in a separate, state-level indictment related to efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.
Reporting from Atlanta: Holly Bailey and Amy Gardner:
Under questioning from his own attorney, Mark Meadows, left, repeatedly described the post-election atmosphere at the Trump White House as chaotic. He testified that because he was viewed as someone who had “the ear of the president,” he was deluged by phone calls and emails, including from people questioning the outcome of the 2020 election.
“It felt like my phone number was plastered on every bathroom wall in America,” Meadows said of the calls.
A small murmur spread through the courtroom when Mark Meadows walked in with his lawyers, given that he was not required to attend and it was unclear if he would. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis did not attend the hearing. At least a half-dozen members of her prosecution team filed into the courtroom on the heels of the defense, and Meadows greeted several of them with a smile and a handshake.
As he testified, Mark Meadows repeatedly turned and faced toward the U.S. District Court Judge Steve C. Jones, who is presiding over the removal hearings, directing his answers to him. Jones has played an active role in Monday’s hearing — often interrupting Fulton County prosecutor Anna Cross to either tell Meadows he had not answered her question or to pose questions of his own.
Mark Meadows also said a large part of his job as White House chief of staff was setting up phone calls and managing the president’s calendar. He said he attended numerous meetings and listened in on many phone calls that were political in nature simply to end the conversations at the right time.
In one White House meeting between Donald Trump and Pennsylvania lawmakers cited in the indictment, Meadows disputed that he attended the meeting other than to inform three of the lawmakers that they had tested positive for the coronavirus and would have to leave without seeing the president.
Former Trump chief of staff Meadows repeatedly insisted in his testimony in Atlanta there was a “federal nexus” to all of his actions mentioned in the Georgia indictment. He defended his participation in meetings and phone calls described by prosecutors as part of a plot to subvert the 2020 election results because he said there was a federal interest in “free and fair elections.”
- Politico, Trump’s trial run: How an onslaught of court dates could sideline him from the campaign trail
- New York Times, Americans still put their trust in juries. Will Donald Trump’s trials break that faith? Aug. 28, 2023.
- New York Times, Lawyers for Mark Meadows made their bid to a judge to move the Georgia case against Donald Trump and his allies to federal court, Aug. 28, 2023.
Aug. 28
U.S. Department of Justice Special Counsel Jack Smith announces indictment of former U.S. President Trump on June 9, 2023.
Associated Press, Trump trial set for March 4, 2024, in federal case charging him with plotting to overturn election, Eric Tucker, Lindsay Whitehurst, Michael Michael Kunzelman, Aug. 28, 2023. A judge on Monday set a March 4, 2024, trial date for Donald Trump in the federal case in Washington charging the former president with trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election, rejecting a defense request to push back the case by years.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan rebuffed claims by Trump’s attorneys that an April 2026 trial date was necessary to account for the huge volume of evidence they say they are reviewing and to prepare for what they contend is a novel and unprecedented prosecution. But she agreed to postpone the trial slightly beyond the January 2024 date proposed by special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution team.
“The public has a right to a prompt and efficient resolution of this matter,” Chutkan said.
If the current date holds, it would represent a setback to Trump’s efforts to push the case back until well after the 2024 presidential election, a contest in which he’s the early front-runner for the Republican nomination.
The March 2024 date would also ensure a blockbuster trial in the nation’s capital in the heat of the GOP presidential nominating calendar, forcing Trump to juggle campaign and courtroom appearances and coming the day before Super Tuesday — a crucial voting day when more than a dozen states will hold primaries and when the largest number of delegates are up for grabs.
“I want to note here that setting a trial date does not depend and should not depend on the defendant’s personal or professional obligations,” Chutkan said.
Chutkan has so far appeared not only cool to Trump’s efforts to delay the case but also concerned by social media comments he’s made outside court. This month, she warned Trump’s legal team that there were limits on what he can say publicly about evidence in the investigation. She also reiterated her intention Monday for Trump to be “treated with no more or less deference than any defendant would be treated.”
The Washington case is one of four prosecutions Trump is facing. A March 4 trial would take place just weeks before a scheduled New York trial in a case charging him in connection with a hush money payment to a porn actress. Meanwhile in Atlanta on Monday, where Trump and 18 others were charged with trying to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows was arguing to try to get the charges against him transferred from state court to federal court.
The setting of the trial date came despite strong objections from Trump lawyer John Lauro. He said defense lawyers had received an enormous trove of records from Smith’s team — a prosecutor put the total at more than 12 million pages and files — and that the case concerned novel legal issues that would require significant time to sort out.
“This is one of the most unique cases from a legal perspective ever brought in the history of the United States. Ever,” Lauro said, calling it an “enormous, overwhelming task” to review such a “gargantuan” amount of evidence.
Prosecutor Molly Gaston countered that the public had an “exceedingly” strong interest in moving the case forward to trial and said that the crux of the evidence has long been well known to the defense. Trump, she noted , is accused of “attempting to overturn an election and disenfranchise millions.”
“There is an incredibly strong public interest in a jury’s full consideration of those claims in open court,” Gaston said.
Washington Post, Opinion: Eastman’s defense is shattered in state bar proceeding, Jennifer Rubin, right, Aug. 28, 2023. John Eastman, the lawyer allegedly 
at the center of the unprecedented and outrageous scheme to overthrow the 2020 election, faces criminal prosecution in Georgia and has been identified as an unindicted co-conspirator in special counsel Jack Smith’s federal case. And Eastman must defend a bar complaint in California that threatens to revoke his law license.
At a critical hearing last week in the California bar proceedings, designated legal expert Matthew A. Seligman submitted a 91-page report, which I have obtained from the state bar, that strips away any “colorable,” or legally plausible, defense that Eastman was acting in good faith in rendering advice to the now four-times-indicted former president Donald Trump.
This report has serious ramifications for Eastman’s professional licensure and his defense in Georgia. Moreover, his co-defendant and co-counsel in the alleged legal scheme, Kenneth Chesebro, who has employed many of the same excuses as Eastman, might be in serious jeopardy in his Oct. 23 trial. (Another lawyer, Sidney Powell, also requested a speedy trial.)
In his report, Seligman addressed whether “the legal positions advanced by Dr. John Eastman in relation to the counting of electoral votes for the 2020 presidential election” were reasonable.
If one follows Seligman’s legal and historical analysis, one must conclude Eastman and his legal cohorts (including co-defendant Chesebro) likely knew that their “advice” was beyond the pale
The significance of stripping away the legal plausibility of the cockamamie scheme to undermine our democracy cannot be overstated. Consider how Seligman’s conclusion shatters not only Eastman’s but also Trump’s most likely defenses.
Politico, Trump’s trial run: How an onslaught of court dates could sideline him from the campaign trail, Kyle Cheney, Aug. 28, 2023 (print ed.). The former president is a defendant in four criminal cases and three civil cases — and they could all go to trial before the 2024 election.
Donald Trump’s path to the GOP nomination is littered with court dates. He is a defendant in seven pending cases: four criminal prosecutions and three civil lawsuits. Starting this fall and continuing through the first half of 2024, he is likely to face a near-constant string of trials that will overlap, and perhaps overshadow, the primary calendar.
The cases vary in their potential to interfere with Trump’s campaign. He is unlikely to attend his three civil trials, all of which are scheduled over the next six months. But he’ll be required to be in court for his four criminal trials across four jurisdictions, and those could last for weeks at a time while voting is underway.
On Monday, the schedule may crystallize further. That’s when the judge overseeing Trump’s federal case on election fraud has signaled she will choose a trial date. If she opts for a trial in early 2024, as prosecutors have requested, Trump’s already packed courtroom calendar will get much more complicated.
Here’s a look at what we know about Trump’s upcoming trials, the key variables that could shake them up and how they will intersect with the primaries, which begin in January.
New York business fraud lawsuit: Trial date: Oct. 2, 2023, New York City Before his criminal trials begin in earnest, Trump and his business empire will go on trial in a civil lawsuit filed by New York Attorney General Tish James. The lawsuit alleges a raft of financial mismanagement and malfeasance.
Aug. 27
At their debate Wednesday in Milwaukee, Republican presidential candidates raise their hands in answer to whether they would support Donald Trump as the GOP nominee if he's convicted in his criminal cases (Debate photo by Win McNamee of Getty Images).
Washington Post, Opinion: Their hands don’t lie: Republican candidates trash the trial by jury, Ruth Marcus, right, Aug. 27, 2023 (print ed.). There were two surrenders 
this week — one by Donald Trump, and one to Donald Trump.
The second, by almost every Republican presidential candidate, was more important, more predictable and far more terrifying.
The signature moment of Wednesday’s debate was the raising of hands to pledge fealty to Trump over the rule of law, and if the ritual has become unsurprising at this point in Trump’s reign over the GOP, this particular manifestation bears noting.
Because the formulation put to the candidates — would you support Trump even if he were convicted by a jury? — was so stark, and the response so appalling. Every candidate on the stage — with the exception of former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson and, depending on how you interpret his hand gestures, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie — effectively declared that a trial by jury is just another American institution that must yield to the demands of Trump.
Pause to consider the implications of this answer. To answer that you would support Trump notwithstanding a jury verdict — to shoot up your hand in the eager manner of Vivek Ramaswamy or to gauge the room like a calculating Ron DeSantis — is to say: I do not trust the judgment of the American people.
Going Deep with Russ Baker! Investigative Commentary: The Scary Truth About the GOP Candidates and Their Appeal, Russ Baker, right, founder of the investigative site Who, What W,hy and author of the best-selling Family of Secrets, Aug. 27, 2023. What 
the Fox debate revealed about 
hatred, fear and race.
Note: As I was preparing to publish the essay below, with its discussion of race and the GOP, a young white man attempted to enter the campus of a historically black college in Jacksonville, Florida, but was turned away by a security officer after refusing to identify himself. He then went to a nearby discount store, where he shot and killed three black employees. “This shooting was racially motivated, and he hated Black people,” said Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters.
It’s hard to contemplate what follows without considering the impact of GOP rhetoric on impressionable people like the perpetrator.
It’s been a few days now since the first GOP debate on August 23, and pretty much everyone has already weighed in with their performance assessment. The spectacle had an average of 12.8 million viewers, which, without their star, Trump, was a larger than expected audience.
Me, I’m still wrestling with a notion I couldn’t get out of my mind.
It struck me as emblematic of larger issues that, while discussed endlessly, never result in clarity: the kinds of people who want to lead us, how they present themselves — and what all this says about their voters and advocates.
Each contender seemed to be auditioning for the role of apex predator — although they sometimes inadvertently morphed, however briefly, into a different, less alarming guise.
New York Times, Trump Investigations: Donald Trump and His Co-Defendants in Georgia Are Already at Odds, Richard Fausset and Danny Hakim, Aug. 27, 2023 (print ed.). Some defendants have already sought to move the case to federal court, while others are seeking speedy or separate trials.
Even as former President Donald J. Trump and his 18 co-defendants in the Georgia election interference case turned themselves in one by one at an Atlanta jail this week, their lawyers began working to change how the case will play out.
They are already at odds over when they will have their day in court, but also, crucially, where. Should enough of them succeed, the case could split into several smaller cases, perhaps overseen by different judges in different courtrooms, running on different timelines.
Five defendants have already sought to move the state case to federal court, citing their ties to the federal government. The first one to file — Mark Meadows, Mr. Trump’s chief of staff during the 2020 election — will make the argument for removal on Monday, in a hearing before a federal judge in Atlanta.
Federal officials charged with state crimes can move their cases to federal court if they can convince a judge that they are being charged for actions connected to their official duties, among other things.
In the Georgia case, the question of whether to change the venue — a legal maneuver known as removal — matters because it would affect the composition of a jury. If the case stays in Fulton County, Ga., the jury will come from a bastion of Democratic politics where Mr. Trump was trounced in 2020. If the case is removed to federal court, the jury will be drawn from a 10-county region of Georgia that is more suburban and rural — and somewhat more Trump-friendly. Because it takes only one not-guilty vote to hang a jury, this modest advantage could prove to be a very big deal.
The coming fights over the proper venue for the case are only one strand of a complicated tangle of efforts being launched by a gaggle of defense lawyers now representing Mr. Trump and the 18 others named in the 98-page racketeering indictment. This week, the lawyers clogged both state and federal court dockets with motions that will also determine when the case begins.
Already, one defendant’s case is splitting off as a result. Kenneth Chesebro, a lawyer who advised Mr. Trump after the 2020 election, has asked for a speedy trial, and the presiding state judge has agreed to it. His trial is now set to begin on Oct. 23. Another defendant, Sidney Powell, filed a similar motion on Friday, and a third, John Eastman, also plans to invoke his right to an early trial, according to one of his lawyers.
Washington Post, Analysis: Trump’s Georgia case could get real — quickly, Aaron Blake, right, Aug. 27, 2023. Key defendants charting their own course 
could reveal the strength of the case against the former president.
Former president Donald Trump’s Georgia indictment occupies an unusual space among his four criminal cases.
For a start, it might be the most compelling case, by virtue of how many associates — 18 — were also charged in the alleged conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election. There’s also the possibility that the proceedings could be televised. Finally, there is substantially more reason to believe that Trump won’t stand trial before the 2024 election in this case than there is in the three other cases.
Nonetheless, we are about to learn some significant things — and soon.
Already three key defendants have forced the issue in ways that could draw back the curtain on the strength of the case against Trump.
New York Times, These are the people who have been charged in the election inquiry in Georgia, Aug. 26, 2023 (print ed.). The indictment Georgia prosecutors filed Aug. 14 in an election interference case targeting former President Donald J. Trump and his associates includes 41 criminal charges against 19 people who are accused of helping him seek to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state.
- New York Times, Why Are Trump’s Accused Co-Conspirators Smiling for Their Mug Shots? Aug. 26, 2023.
- New York Times, Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Dept. official, was booked in the Georgia case, leaving two defendants left yet to surrender, Aug. 25, 2023.
Former President Donald J. Trump and several of his fellow defendants, in mug shots released by the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office in Atlanta (Photos by Fulton County Sheriff’s Office).
New York Times, Donald Trump’s mug shot is unprecedented. And that’s just the beginning of its significance, our critic writes, Vanessa Friedman, Aug. 26, 2023 (print ed.). As soon as it was taken, it became the de facto picture of the year. A historic image that will be seared into the public record and referred to for perpetuity — the first mug shot of an American president, taken by the Fulton County, Ga., Sheriff’s Office after Donald J. Trump’s fourth indictment. Though because it is also the only mug shot, it may be representative of all of the charges.
As such, it is also a symbol of either equality under the law or the abuse of it — the ultimate memento of a norm-shattering presidency and this social-media-obsessed, factionalized age.
“It’s dramatically unprecedented,” said Sean Wilentz, a professor of American history at Princeton University. “Of all the millions, maybe billions of photos taken of Donald Trump, this could stand as the most famous. Or notorious.” It is possible, he added, that in the future the mug shot will seem like the ultimate bookend to a political arc in the United States that began decades ago, with Richard Nixon’s “I am not a crook.”
In the photo, Mr. Trump is posed against a plain gray backdrop, just like the 11 of his fellow defendants whose mug shots were taken before him, including Mark Meadows, Sidney Powell and Rudolph Giuliani.
Aug. 26
World Crisis Radio, World Strategic Roundup and Activisim Recommendations: Twilight of Trump, Webster G. Tarpley, right, historian, commentator, Aug. 26, 2023 (129:41 mins.). In 
Atlanta, MAGA boss is arrested for fourth time as mindless corporate media keep raving that indictments only make him stronger! Three Trump co-defendants allege he ordered their misdeeds, foreshadowing flipping to come;
Activating Fourteenth Amendment ban on insurrectionists holding federal office rapidly gains prestigious bipartisan support from scholars and elected officials; Need legal action now by states to banish Don from ballot well before primary voting starts in January 2024;
Prigozhin ends as homicidal monster and his top staffers fall victim to assassination Putin’s secret police; Wagner mercenary units, Putin’s Foreign Legion, decapitated and in disarray; Prigozhin’s epitaph is statement admitting that there was no NATO threat to Russia on eve of February 2022 invasion -- an embarrassing fact for Mearsheimer, Chomsky, RFK Jr., Wagenknecht and other avid appeasers;
Ukrainian forces capture Robotyne on road to Melitopol and Sea of Azov, widening the breach in the first Russian defense line; Repeated strikes on Moscow and targets inside Russia; Debate on how many axes of attack are optimal;
BRICS may be viewed as a pressure group, a propaganda agency, a school of rhetoric, a brand of nostalgia, or a photo op, but they are incapable of joint action: no joint currency to challenge US dollar and no moral standing as they support the butcher of Ukraine who is making them starve;
GOP debate shows absolute depravity of this moribund party; 60 years since Martin Luther King’s ”I have a dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial; Trump’s rogue’s gallery photo depicts cornered kingpin snarling into the abyss.
Politico, Trump’s trial run: How an onslaught of court dates could sideline him from the campaign trail, Kyle Cheney, Aug. 26, 2023. The former president is a defendant in four criminal cases and three civil cases — and they could all go to trial before the 2024 election.
Donald Trump’s path to the GOP nomination is littered with court dates. He is a defendant in seven pending cases: four criminal prosecutions and three civil lawsuits. Starting this fall and continuing through the first half of 2024, he is likely to face a near-constant string of trials that will overlap, and perhaps overshadow, the primary calendar.
The cases vary in their potential to interfere with Trump’s campaign. He is unlikely to attend his three civil trials, all of which are scheduled over the next six months. But he’ll be required to be in court for his four criminal trials across four jurisdictions, and those could last for weeks at a time while voting is underway.
On Monday, the schedule may crystallize further. That’s when the judge overseeing Trump’s federal case on election fraud has signaled she will choose a trial date. If she opts for a trial in early 2024, as prosecutors have requested, Trump’s already packed courtroom calendar will get much more complicated.
Here’s a look at what we know about Trump’s upcoming trials, the key variables that could shake them up and how they will intersect with the primaries, which begin in January.
New York business fraud lawsuit: Trial date: Oct. 2, 2023, New York City Before his criminal trials begin in earnest, Trump and his business empire will go on trial in a civil lawsuit filed by New York Attorney General Tish James. The lawsuit alleges a raft of financial mismanagement and malfeasance.
- New York Times, Trump Is Booked at Atlanta Jail in Election Interference Case, Richard Fausset and Danny Hakim, Aug. 25, 2023 (print ed.). Former President Trump entered a rear entrance of the Fulton County Jail to be booked on racketeering charges. He left 20 minutes later.
Politico, Trump’s trial run: How an onslaught of court dates could sideline him from the campaign trail, Kyle Cheney, Aug. 26, 2023. The former president is a defendant in four criminal cases and three civil cases — and they could all go to trial before the 2024 election.
Donald Trump’s path to the GOP nomination is littered with court dates. He is a defendant in seven pending cases: four criminal prosecutions and three civil lawsuits. Starting this fall and continuing through the first half of 2024, he is likely to face a near-constant string of trials that will overlap, and perhaps overshadow, the primary calendar.
The cases vary in their potential to interfere with Trump’s campaign. He is unlikely to attend his three civil trials, all of which are scheduled over the next six months. But he’ll be required to be in court for his four criminal trials across four jurisdictions, and those could last for weeks at a time while voting is underway.
On Monday, the schedule may crystallize further. That’s when the judge overseeing Trump’s federal case on election fraud has signaled she will choose a trial date. If she opts for a trial in early 2024, as prosecutors have requested, Trump’s already packed courtroom calendar will get much more complicated.
Here’s a look at what we know about Trump’s upcoming trials, the key variables that could shake them up and how they will intersect with the primaries, which begin in January.
New York business fraud lawsuit: Trial date: Oct. 2, 2023, New York City Before his criminal trials begin in earnest, Trump and his business empire will go on trial in a civil lawsuit filed by New York Attorney General Tish James. The lawsuit alleges a raft of financial mismanagement and malfeasance.
- New York Times, Trump Is Booked at Atlanta Jail in Election Interference Case, Richard Fausset and Danny Hakim, Aug. 25, 2023 (print ed.). Former President Trump entered a rear entrance of the Fulton County Jail to be booked on racketeering charges. He left 20 minutes later.
The Waiola Church in flames during the devastating fires on the island of Maui in Hawaii on Aug. 8, 2023 (Photo by Matthew Thayer of the Maui News via the Associated Press).
Washington Post, Hawaii utility faces collapse as others delay on extreme weather risks, Evan Halper, Aug. 26, 2023 (print ed.). One after another, utilities confront massive liabilities for wildfires. With the Maui fire, Hawaiian Electric faces potential insolvency, accused of being slow to respond to threats of extreme weather.
The multibillion-dollar liabilities faced by Hawaiian Electric for the deadly wildfire in Maui — compounded by Maui County’s lawsuit against the utility on Thursday — are reverberating through the electricity industry and is forcing a reckoning for power companies and their customers, nationwide.
Get a curated selection of 10 of our best stories in your inbox every weekend.
Hawaiian Electric, which serves nearly all of Hawaii’s 1.4 million residents, is careening toward insolvency, much like Pacific Gas & Electric did in California in 2019. Investors in the company are scrambling to sell their shares, and bond rating agencies are downgrading the Hawaii utility’s ratings because of its role in potentially causing or contributing to the most deadly U.S. wildfire in a century.
It is a pattern playing out with frequency across the West, and likely to spread to other states as much of the electricity industry finds itself unable or unwilling to meet the growing challenge of adapting power systems to extreme weather. In Texas this week, the power grid is again on the brink, with officials urgently asking customers to reduce usage, even after upgrades were made in the wake of the electricity system’s collapse in winter storms in 2021 that left 200 people dead.
In Hawaiian Electric’s case, it did not power down its lines in advance of expected hurricane-force winds, a major focus of lawsuits filed against it by Maui County and other litigants.
“It is just crazymaking that we all know we will back in the same place in a year, talking about another city destroyed, by another utility using the same excuses, the same playbook and probably even the same faulty equipment from the 1980s,” said Jay Edelson, an attorney who recently helped secure Oregon wildfire victims a landmark verdict against the power company PacifiCorp. “Why do these companies keep making these decisions? I don’t understand what is going on in these boardrooms.”
Washington Post, Over 100 confirmed safe on Maui’s list of people missing after wildfire, Timothy Bella and Kyle Rempfer, Aug. 26, 2023. Maui County officials released a list of 388 people Thursday who are still “unaccounted for” after the devastating fires this month, as part of Hawaii’s efforts to “un-duplicate” people reported missing. Within a day of making the list public, at least 100 people were crossed off.
“They were reported to be safe and sound,” Steven Merrill, special agent in charge of the FBI Honolulu Division, said during a news conference Friday. “Again, we don’t take that for granted. We still understand that there’s hundreds more that we’re still looking for and we will not stop until we find those.”
The list of names released Thursday was “a subset of a larger list” that still needs to be vetted, Merrill added.
“The 388 names were names that we had more information on. That’s why we released that first,” Merrill said. “That being said, I don’t want to lose sight of the fact that we still have hundreds of other names where we still need more information.”
The validated list of names from the FBI released Thursday night is the first of its kind for unaccounted people since the Aug. 8 disaster in Lahaina, the country’s most devastating wildfire in a century.
“We’re releasing this list of names today because we know that it will help with the investigation,” Maui Police Chief John Pelletier said in a news release. “We also know that once those names come out, it can and will cause pain for folks whose loved ones are listed. This is not an easy thing to do, but we want to make sure that we are doing everything we can to make this investigation as complete and thorough as possible.”
Before the validated list was released, the estimated number of unaccounted people had fluctuated this week in what Hawaii Gov. Josh Green (D) described as the FBI’s efforts to “un-duplicate” people reported missing.
After Maui County Mayor Richard T. Bissen said Monday that the number of missing was believed to be at around 850, Merrill estimated Tuesday that there were more than 1,000 in an unconfirmed list.
Merrill said that efforts to confirm those who are unaccounted for have been complicated due to a lack of detail in some reports and the wide array of lists of tracking the unaccounted-for individuals.
- Washington Post, Democrats and Republicans deeply divided on extreme weather, Post-UMD poll finds
- New York Times, Lahaina Inferno Began After Firefighters Departed a ‘Contained’ Scene
Washington Post, FIFA provisionally suspends Spanish soccer official Luis Rubiales, Victoria Bisset, Aug. 26, 2023. FIFA on Saturday provisionally suspended the president of Spain’s soccer federation after he kissed a player following Spain’s World Cup final win over England.
The sport’s governing body said in a statement that Luis Rubiales, who has refused to resign despite international outrage over Sunday’s incident, would be barred from all football-related activities at a national and international level for an initial period of 90 days. The organization announced disciplinary action against Rubiales on Thursday.
Saturday’s decision also banned both Rubiales and the Spanish soccer federation, which has threatened legal action over the accusations, from contacting the player at the center of the allegations, Jenni Hermoso.
In statements released Friday, the midfielder said she “never consented to the kiss he gave me,” adding that she and her family had come under pressure to publicly support Rubiales.
Dozens of players on Spain’s women’s team have said they will refuse to play further matches until the Spanish federation, RFEF, removes the president from his post.
Rubiales also faced criticism for grabbing his crotch at the end of the World Cup final while Spain’s Queen Letizia and Princess Sofía, 16, stood nearby.
Threats To U.S. Democracy
At their debate Wednesday in Milwaukee, Republican presidential candidates raise their hands in answer to whether they would support Donald Trump as the GOP nominee if he's convicted in his criminal cases (Debate photo by Win McNamee of Getty Images).
Washington Post, Opinion: Their hands don’t lie: Republican candidates trash the trial by jury, Ruth Marcus, right, Aug. 25, 2023. There were two surrenders this week — one by Donald Trump, and one to Donald Trump.
The second, by almost every Republican presidential candidate, was more important, more predictable and far more terrifying.
The signature moment of Wednesday’s debate was the raising of hands to pledge fealty to Trump over the rule of law, and if the ritual has become unsurprising at this point in Trump’s reign over the GOP, this particular manifestation bears noting.
Because the formulation put to the candidates — would you support Trump even if he were convicted by a jury? — was so stark, and the response so appalling. Every candidate on the stage — with the exception of former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson and, depending on how you interpret his hand gestures, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie — effectively declared that a trial by jury is just another American institution that must yield to the demands of Trump.
Pause to consider the implications of this answer. To answer that you would support Trump notwithstanding a jury verdict — to shoot up your hand in the eager manner of Vivek Ramaswamy or to gauge the room like a calculating Ron DeSantis — is to say: I do not trust the judgment of the American people.
Washington Post, Following Elon Musk’s lead, Big Tech is surrendering to disinformation, Naomi Nix and Sarah Ellison, Aug. 26, 2023 (print ed.). Social media companies are receding from their role as watchdogs against conspiracy theories ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
Social media companies are receding from their role as watchdogs against political misinformation, abandoning their most aggressive efforts to police online falsehoods in a trend expected to profoundly affect the 2024 presidential election.
An array of circumstances is fueling the retreat: Mass layoffs at Meta and other major tech companies have gutted teams dedicated to promoting accurate information online. An aggressive legal battle over claims that the Biden administration pressured social media platforms to silence certain speech has blocked a key path to detecting election interference.
And X CEO Elon Musk has reset industry standards, rolling back strict rules against misinformation on the site formerly known as Twitter. In a sign of Musk’s influence, Meta briefly considered a plan last year to ban all political advertising on Facebook. The company shelved it after Musk announced plans to transform rival Twitter into a haven for free speech, according to two people familiar with the plans who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive matters.
The retrenchment comes just months ahead of the 2024 primaries, as GOP front-runner Donald Trump continues to rally supporters with false claims that election fraud drove his 2020 loss to Joe Biden. Multiple investigations into the election have revealed no evidence of fraud, and Trump now faces federal criminal charges connected to his efforts to overturn the election. Still, YouTube, X and Meta have stopped labeling or removing posts that repeat Trump’s claims, even as voters increasingly get their news on social media.
Trump capitalized on those relaxed standards in his recent interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, hosted by X. The former president punctuated the conversation, which streamed Wednesday night during the first Republican primary debate of the 2024 campaign, with false claims that the 2020 election was “rigged” and that the Democrats had “cheated” to elect Biden.
On Thursday night, Trump posted on X for the first time since he was kicked off the site, then known as Twitter, following the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol. Musk reinstated his account in November. The former president posted his mug shot from Fulton County, Ga., where he was booked Thursday on charges connected to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. “NEVER SURRENDER!” read the caption.
This combination of photos shows Republican presidential candidates, top row from left, Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.), Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy; bottom row from left, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, former vice president Mike Pence, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson. (AP)
Associated Press, Republican candidates fight each other, and mostly line up behind Trump, at the first debate, Jill Colvin, Sara Burnett and Jonathan J. Cooper, Aug. 24, 2023. The Republican presidential candidates vying to be the leading alternative to front-runner Donald Trump fought — sometimes bitterly — over abortion rights, U.S. support for Ukraine and the type of experience needed to manage an expansive federal government during the first debate of the 2024 campaign.
But when it came to arguably the most consequential choice facing the party, virtually everyone on the debate stage in Milwaukee on Wednesday night lined up behind Trump, who declined to participate, citing his commanding lead. Most said they would support Trump as their nominee even if he is convicted in a series of cases that range from his handling of classified documents to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his role in making hush money payments to a porn actress and other women.
New York Times, These are the people who have been charged in the election inquiry in Georgia, Aug. 26, 2023 (print ed.). The indictment Georgia prosecutors filed Aug. 14 in an election interference case targeting former President Donald J. Trump and his associates includes 41 criminal charges against 19 people who are accused of helping him seek to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state.
- New York Times, Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Dept. official, was booked in the Georgia case, leaving two defendants left yet to surrender, Aug. 25, 2023.
Former President Donald J. Trump and several of his fellow defendants, in mug shots released by the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office in Atlanta (Photos by Fulton County Sheriff’s Office).
New York Times, Donald Trump’s mug shot is unprecedented. And that’s just the beginning of its significance, our critic writes, Vanessa Friedman, Aug. 26, 2023 (print ed.). As soon as it was taken, it became the de facto picture of the year. A historic image that will be seared into the public record and referred to for perpetuity — the first mug shot of an American president, taken by the Fulton County, Ga., Sheriff’s Office after Donald J. Trump’s fourth indictment. Though because it is also the only mug shot, it may be representative of all of the charges.
As such, it is also a symbol of either equality under the law or the abuse of it — the ultimate memento of a norm-shattering presidency and this social-media-obsessed, factionalized age.
“It’s dramatically unprecedented,” said Sean Wilentz, a professor of American history at Princeton University. “Of all the millions, maybe billions of photos taken of Donald Trump, this could stand as the most famous. Or notorious.” It is possible, he added, that in the future the mug shot will seem like the ultimate bookend to a political arc in the United States that began decades ago, with Richard Nixon’s “I am not a crook.”
In the photo, Mr. Trump is posed against a plain gray backdrop, just like the 11 of his fellow defendants whose mug shots were taken before him, including Mark Meadows, Sidney Powell and Rudolph Giuliani.
Aug. 25
At their debate Wednesday in Milwaukee, Republican presidential candidates raise their hands in answer to whether they would support Donald Trump as the GOP nominee if he's convicted in his criminal cases (Debate photo by Win McNamee of Getty Images).
Washington Post, Opinion: Their hands don’t lie: Republican candidates trash the trial by jury, Ruth Marcus, right, Aug. 25, 2023. There were two surrenders this week — one by Donald Trump, and one to Donald Trump.
The second, by almost every Republican presidential candidate, was more important, more predictable and far more terrifying.
The signature moment of Wednesday’s debate was the raising of hands to pledge fealty to Trump over the rule of law, and if the ritual has become unsurprising at this point in Trump’s reign over the GOP, this particular manifestation bears noting.
Because the formulation put to the candidates — would you support Trump even if he were convicted by a jury? — was so stark, and the response so appalling. Every candidate on the stage — with the exception of former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson and, depending on how you interpret his hand gestures, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie — effectively declared that a trial by jury is just another American institution that must yield to the demands of Trump.
Pause to consider the implications of this answer. To answer that you would support Trump notwithstanding a jury verdict — to shoot up your hand in the eager manner of Vivek Ramaswamy or to gauge the room like a calculating Ron DeSantis — is to say: I do not trust the judgment of the American people.
Washington Post, Following Elon Musk’s lead, Big Tech is surrendering to disinformation, Naomi Nix and Sarah Ellison, Aug. 26, 2023 (print ed.). Social media companies are receding from their role as watchdogs against conspiracy theories ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
Social media companies are receding from their role as watchdogs against political misinformation, abandoning their most aggressive efforts to police online falsehoods in a trend expected to profoundly affect the 2024 presidential election.
An array of circumstances is fueling the retreat: Mass layoffs at Meta and other major tech companies have gutted teams dedicated to promoting accurate information online. An aggressive legal battle over claims that the Biden administration pressured social media platforms to silence certain speech has blocked a key path to detecting election interference.
And X CEO Elon Musk has reset industry standards, rolling back strict rules against misinformation on the site formerly known as Twitter. In a sign of Musk’s influence, Meta briefly considered a plan last year to ban all political advertising on Facebook. The company shelved it after Musk announced plans to transform rival Twitter into a haven for free speech, according to two people familiar with the plans who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive matters.
The retrenchment comes just months ahead of the 2024 primaries, as GOP front-runner Donald Trump continues to rally supporters with false claims that election fraud drove his 2020 loss to Joe Biden. Multiple investigations into the election have revealed no evidence of fraud, and Trump now faces federal criminal charges connected to his efforts to overturn the election. Still, YouTube, X and Meta have stopped labeling or removing posts that repeat Trump’s claims, even as voters increasingly get their news on social media.
Trump capitalized on those relaxed standards in his recent interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, hosted by X. The former president punctuated the conversation, which streamed Wednesday night during the first Republican primary debate of the 2024 campaign, with false claims that the 2020 election was “rigged” and that the Democrats had “cheated” to elect Biden.
On Thursday night, Trump posted on X for the first time since he was kicked off the site, then known as Twitter, following the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol. Musk reinstated his account in November. The former president posted his mug shot from Fulton County, Ga., where he was booked Thursday on charges connected to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. “NEVER SURRENDER!” read the caption.
Aug. 24
This combination of photos shows Republican presidential candidates, top row from left, Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.), Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy; bottom row from left, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, former vice president Mike Pence, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson. (AP)
Associated Press, Republican candidates fight each other, and mostly line up behind Trump, at the first debate, Jill Colvin, Sara Burnett and Jonathan J. Cooper, Aug. 24, 2023. The Republican presidential candidates vying to be the leading alternative to front-runner Donald Trump fought — sometimes bitterly — over abortion rights, U.S. support for Ukraine and the type of experience needed to manage an expansive federal government during the first debate of the 2024 campaign.
But when it came to arguably the most consequential choice facing the party, virtually everyone on the debate stage in Milwaukee on Wednesday night lined up behind Trump, who declined to participate, citing his commanding lead. Most said they would support Trump as their nominee even if he is convicted in a series of cases that range from his handling of classified documents to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his role in making hush money payments to a porn actress and other women.
New York Times, Witness in Trump Documents Case Changed Lawyers, and Then Testimony, Maggie Haberman and Alan Feuer, Aug. 23, 2023 (print ed.). Federal prosecutors described the shift in a court filing that highlighted conflicts of interest in the overlapping legal representation of witnesses and defendants in the case.
An employee of former President Donald J. Trump changed his grand jury testimony in the documents case after the Justice Department raised questions about whether his lawyer had a conflict of interest in representing both the employee and a defendant in the case, prosecutors said in a court filing on Tuesday.
Aug. 24
New York Times, Trump Is Booked at Atlanta Jail in Election Interference Case, Richard Fausset and Danny Hakim, Aug. 24, 2023. Former President Trump entered a rear entrance of the Fulton County Jail to be booked on racketeering charges. He left 20 minutes later.
The former president arrived in a motorcade and entered a rear entrance of the Fulton County Jail to be booked on racketeering charges. He left after 20 minutes. He later returned to X, formerly known as Twitter, and posted his mug shot.
The case is the fourth time criminal charges have been brought against former President Donald J. Trump this year, but Thursday was the first time that he was booked at a jail and had his mug shot taken.
Mr. Trump spent about 20 minutes at the Fulton County Jail, submitting to some of the routines of criminal defendant intake. He was fingerprinted and had his photo taken.
- New York Times, Donald Trump hired Steve Sadow, a veteran criminal defense lawyer in Atlanta who has taken on a number of high-profile cases, Aug. 24, 2023.
- New York Times, Fulton County officials released Donald Trump’s mug shot, the first taken in the four criminal cases he’s faced this year, Aug. 24, 2023.
Aug. 22
New York Times, Trump Dominates in New Iowa Poll, Anjali Huynh, Aug. 22, 2023 (print ed.). The survey suggests a remarkably stable G.O.P. race in the state less than five months before the caucuses.
Former President Donald J. Trump leads his closest rival by double digits in a poll of likely Iowa caucusgoers released Monday, a showing that demonstrates both his continued political dominance and the remarkable stability of the Republican race.
The survey, conducted by The Des Moines Register, NBC News and Mediacom before and after Mr. Trump’s latest indictment in Georgia, found that 42 percent of Republican voters in the state planned to support Mr. Trump, who held a lead of 23 percentage points over Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, with 19 percent support. In third place was Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, with 9 percent.
The findings, which come as Mr. Trump’s rivals have poured significantly more time and money into the state, were consistent with the results of a poll by The New York Times and Siena College released this month. That survey found Mr. Trump with 44 percent support among likely Iowa G.O.P. caucusgoers, Mr. DeSantis with 20 percent support and Mr. Scott with 9 percent. Other rivals who showed single-digit support in the Times/Siena poll have been unable to improve their positions, according to the poll released Monday.
The first-in-the-nation caucuses will take place on Jan. 15, 2023, the earliest nominating contest in Iowa since 2012, when it held the caucuses the first week of January. This year’s contest is seen as the best chance for Republicans to slow Mr. Trump on his way to the nomination.
Washington Post, In Trump cases, experts say defendant’s rhetoric will be hard to police, Devlin Barrett, Spencer S. Hsu and Isaac Arnsdorf, Aug. 22, 2023. Donald Trump’s advisers see a win-win scenario in pretrial skirmishes over what he can say about indictments.
At her first hearing overseeing the 2020 election obstruction case against former president Donald Trump, U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan tried to draw a line in the sand: “I intend to keep politics out of this.”
Legal experts say that will be a tricky — perhaps impossible — task, especially in a criminal prosecution in which politicians or their aides are the alleged perpetrators, witnesses and victims, and the defendant is running for president.
On Monday, a state court judge in Atlanta issued strict limits on Trump’s public statements as conditions of his release on election-related charges there. But policing and enforcing those kinds of rules will be a challenge for judges in many jurisdictions, including Chutkan, who is presiding over the case brought by special counsel Jack Smith in Washington.
“It’s right and good that Judge Chutkan is making it clear that she’s not going to focus on politics. That’s a very no-nonsense federal judge thing to say,” said Kenneth White, a former federal prosecutor in California who specializes in free-speech issues. “But even if she’d like this to be completely divorced from politics, it can’t be. It’s steeped in politics.”
Aug. 21
Washington Post, Opinion: Trump’s kid-glove treatment highlights an unequal justice system, Jennifer Rubin, right, Aug. 21, 2023. Four-time indicted former president Donald Trump never tires of painting himself as a victim. He and his supporters claim there’s a two-tiered justice system. They have a point on that score, but not in the way they intend.
Trump is well-lawyered. He’s famous. And he’s White. In our system, that means he’s in a far better position than many defendants.
No one, for example, has seriously considered pretrial detention for Trump — or even electronic monitoring or asking him to relinquish his passport. He’s not getting the same treatment as everyone else.
A 2019 report from the Prison Policy Initiative found:
As of 2002 (the last time the government collected this data nationally), about 29% of people in local jails were unconvicted — that is, locked up while awaiting trial or another hearing. Nearly 7 in 10 (69%) of these detainees were people of color, with Black (43%) and Hispanic (19.6%) defendants especially overrepresented compared to their share of the total U.S. population. Since then, pretrial populations have more than doubled in size, and unconvicted defendants now make up about two-thirds (65%) of jail populations nationally.
Black defendants are more likely to be detained pretrial and be assessed higher bonds. Pretrial incarceration, which can go on for months given trial backlogs, can put defendants in physical danger, deprive children of a parent, send their families into financial collapse and increase pressure to strike a plea deal.
And let’s not sugarcoat the conditions defendants awaiting trial must endure. The Fulton County Jail, where Trump might spend just minutes during processing, is notorious for “overcrowding and detainee deaths.” A jail designed to hold 1,125 instead holds 2,500; more than 60 inmates have died between 2009 and 2022 — 15 last year alone. It has been described as smelly, cold, bug-infested, filthy and decrepit.
New York Times, Bail for Trump Set at $200,000 in Georgia Election Interference Case, Danny Hakim, Maggie Haberman and Richard Fausset
Aug. 22, 2023 (print ed.). Donald Trump will have to pay cash upon being booked in Atlanta, which was not the case in the three other criminal cases involving the former president. Former President Donald J. Trump’s bail was set at $200,000 on Monday in a sprawling racketeering case charging Mr. Trump and 18 associates with election interference in Georgia.
The move came as it became clear that Mr. Trump and the other defendants will be required to pay cash upon being booked in Atlanta, which was not the case in the three other criminal cases involving the former president.
Aug. 20
Fani Willis, left, is the district attorney for Atlanta-based Fulton County in Georgia. Her office has been probing since 2021 then-President Trump's claiming beginning in 2020 of election fraud in Georgia and elsewhere. Trump and his allies have failed to win support for their claims from Georgia's statewide election officials, who are Republican, or from courts.
Proof, Investigative Commentary: The Trump Trials, Vol. 21: Does a New Georgia Statute Empower Georgia Republicans to End the RICO Case Against Donald Trump? Seth 
Abramson, left, Aug. 20, 2023. This Proof series—authored by a longtime criminal defense lawyer and leading Donald Trump biographer—unpacks recent events in the historic trials of the disgraced former president.
Introduction: In the State of Georgia, a new statute signed into law by the state’s Republican Party governor goes into effect in October 2023. The details of the statute are discussed in more detail here, but the upshot is that it allows an ostensibly nonpartisan but in fact political-appointee-filled, partisan “commission” (called the Prosecuting Attorneys Oversight Commission) to remove prosecutors for a series of pre-delineated reasons there’s already nationwide chatter the commission will ignore—instead using its new powers to eliminate prosecutors in Georgia who dare to go after powerful Republicans like Donald Trump (unsurprisingly, the commission will be largely, if not exclusively, comprised of Republicans appointed by fellow Republicans).
Some people are terrified that this new law—despite being signed by a man (Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp) who stood up to Trump after the 2020 presidential election—will be used to scuttle the sprawling Trump indictment just announced by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. In fact, this fear has led to what is now the query most commonly posed to Proof: “Does this new statute empower Georgia Republicans to end the RICO case against Donald Trump?”
This article attempts to exhaustively answer that important—and timely—question.
Washington Post, Opinion: Why Trump’s Georgia case likely can’t be removed to federal court, Jennifer Rubin, right, Aug. 20, 2023. Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows last week filed a petition to move Georgia’s racketeering case against him from state court in Fulton County to the federal court for the Northern District of Georgia. He was granted an evidentiary hearing on Aug. 28.
The removal request raises a host of issues regarding him and former president Donald Trump in the case alleging a conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Meadows will need to produce evidence to justify removal at an Aug. 28 hearing.
While all 19 defendants, facing a total of 41 counts, are charged with state law violations, a federal statute allows a defendant in certain circumstances to “remove” the case to federal court. The reason behind the statute, according to an American Bar Association (ABA) article, was to “to protect those who worked for the federal government, whether directly or indirectly, in the event that they were sued or prosecuted for conduct performed while working in their capacity as a federal officer or working under the direct control and supervision of a federal officer.”
Why seek removal to federal court? In the case of Meadows (and perhaps other defendants), the motive might be nothing more than jury-shopping. Legal scholars Laurence H. Tribe, Donald Ayer and Dennis Aftergut explained in a recent Atlantic article that a defendant removing his case to federal court would “get a shot at a jury pool drawn from the entire Northern District of Georgia and not just from Fulton County, which is seated in purple-to-blue Atlanta.”
Defendants seeking removal to federal court might also think there could be an advantage in putting a state court prosecutor on unfamiliar turf in a 
federal courtroom, or they might prefer that the judge conduct the voir dire interview of prospective jurors (as is the case in federal court), not the attorneys (as is done in state court).
If Meadows thought he’d get a break in finding a more friendly judge, however, he might be disappointed. If Meadows succeeds in removing the case, state court Judge Scott F. McAfee, right, appointed by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp just this year, would be out; seasoned U.S. District Court Judge Steve C. Jones, appointed by President Barack Obama, would be in. To the extent that the Trump gang thinks there are “Trump” judges and “Obama” judges, Meadows might have preferred to try his luck with McAfee.
In any event, Meadows’s effort to scramble into federal court might well fail.
Meidas Touch Network, Commentary: Trump Co-Defendant RUINS HIS ENTIRE LIFE for Trump with Disastrous Decision, Aug. 20, 2023. Karen Friedman Agnifilo reports on the sordid ordeal of Donald Trump’s co-defendant in Fulton County, Georgia: Ken Cheseboro who ruined his life and reputation for Trump.
Meidas Touch Network, Commentary: Trump Co-Defendant RUINS HIS ENTIRE LIFE for Trump with Disastrous Decision, Aug. 20, 2023. Karen Friedman Agnifilo reports on the sordid ordeal of Donald Trump’s co-defendant in Fulton County, Georgia: Ken Cheseboro who ruined his life and reputation for Trump.
Aug. 19
New York Times, How Many of Trump’s Trials Will Happen Before the Election? Benjamin Weiser, Ben Protess, Jonah E. Bromwich and William K. Rashbaum, Aug. 19, 2023 (print ed.). Former President Trump is the target of four separate criminal indictments, but the prosecutions could drag on for months or even years.
Three different prosecutors want to put Donald J. Trump on trial in four different cities next year, all before Memorial Day and in the midst of his presidential campaign.
It will be nearly impossible to pull off.
A morass of delays, court backlogs and legal skirmishes awaits, interviews with nearly two dozen current and former prosecutors, judges, legal experts and people involved in the Trump cases show. Some experts predicted that only one or two trials will take place next year; one speculated that none of the four Trump cases will start before the election.
It would be virtually unheard of for any defendant to play a game of courthouse Twister like this, let alone one who is also the leading contender for the Republican nomination for the presidency. And between the extensive legal arguments that must take place before a trial can begin — not to mention that the trials themselves could last weeks or months — there are simply not enough boxes on the calendar to squeeze in all the former president’s trials.
Meidas Touch Network, Commentary: Trump now facing INDICTMENT in ANOTHER State, Dina Sayegh Doll, Aug. 20, 2023. Trump could soon be facing charges in another state - this time in Arizona - for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Dina Sayegh Doll reports.
Aug. 18
New York Times, Lawyers for Donald Trump are seeking to delay the Jan. 6 trial until April 2026, Alan Feuer, Aug. 18, 2023 (print ed.). The lawyers said the extraordinary delay was needed given the historic nature of the case and the volume of discovery materials they will have to sort through in the coming months.
Lawyers for former President Donald J. Trump asked a judge on Thursday to reject the government’s proposal to take Mr. Trump to trial in early January on charges of seeking to overturn the 2020 election and to instead push back the proceeding until April 2026 — nearly a year and a half after the 2024 election.
The lawyers said the extraordinary delay was needed because of the historic nature of the case and the extraordinary volume of discovery evidence they will have to sort through — as much as 8.5 terabytes of materials, totaling over 11.5 million pages, they wrote in a filing to Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, who is overseeing the case.
In a bit of legal showmanship, Gregory M. Singer, the lawyer who wrote the brief, included a graph that showed how 11.5 million pages of documents stacked atop one another would result in a “tower of paper stretching nearly 5,000 feet into the sky.”
That, Mr. Singer pointed out, was “taller than the Washington Monument, stacked on top of itself eight times, with nearly a million pages to spare.”
Aug. 17
New York Times, ‘Biased.’ ‘Corrupt.’ ‘Deranged.’ Trump’s Taunts Test Limits of Release, Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Swan and Alan Feuer, Aug. 17, 2023 (print ed.). Some lawyers have said that if former President Trump were an ordinary citizen issuing these attacks, he would be in jail by now. The question is whether he will face similar consequences.
Just days ago, the judge overseeing former President Donald J. Trump’s prosecution on charges of seeking to subvert the 2020 election admonished him against violating the conditions of his release put in place at his arraignment — including by making “inflammatory statements” that could be construed as possibly intimidating witnesses or other people involved in the case.
But Mr. Trump immediately tested that warning by posting a string of messages on his social media website, Truth Social, that largely amplified others criticizing the judge, Tanya S. Chutkan.
In one post, written by an ally of Mr. Trump’s, the lawyer Mike Davis, a large photo of Judge Chutkan accompanied text that falsely claimed she had “openly admitted she’s running election interference against Trump.” In two other posts, Mr. Trump wrote, “She obviously wants me behind bars. VERY BIASED & UNFAIR.”
After eight years of pushing back at a number of institutions in the United States, Mr. Trump is now probing the limits of what the criminal justice system will tolerate and the lines that Judge Chutkan sought to lay out about what he can — and cannot — say about the election interference case she is overseeing. He has waged a similarly defiant campaign against others involved in criminal cases against him, denouncing Jack Smith, the special counsel who brought two federal indictments against him, as “deranged”; casting Fani T. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, Ga., as “corrupt”; and even singling out witnesses.
Some lawyers have said that if Mr. Trump were an ordinary citizen issuing these attacks, he would be in jail by now. The question is whether Mr. Trump will face consequences for this kind of behavior ahead of a trial.
“He is absolutely in my view testing the judge and testing the limits, almost daring and taunting her,” said Karen Agnifilo, who has a three-decade legal career, including as the chief assistant in the Manhattan district attorney’s office. Ms. Agnifilo added that Mr. Trump is so far benefiting from his status as a candidate for office, facing fewer repercussions from the judges in the cases than other vocal defendants might.
So far, Judge Chutkan has merely warned Mr. Trump against making “inflammatory statements” about the case or people involved with it, saying she would do what she needed to keep him from intimidating witnesses or tainting potential jurors.
She has also told Mr. Trump’s lawyers that she may be forced to agree with the government’s proposal to go to trial sooner than they like as a way to protect the jury pool.
Aug. 16
Fani Willis, left, is the district attorney for Atlanta-based Fulton County in Georgia. Her office has been probing since 2021 then-President Trump's claiming beginning in 2020 of election fraud in Georgia and elsewhere. Trump and his allies have failed to win support for their claims from Georgia's statewide election officials, who are Republican, or from courts.
Politico, Why the new charges against Trump are different, Erica Orden, Aug. 16, 2023 (print ed.). The Georgia case sweeps more broadly than prior indictments — and for the first time, some of the charges carry a mandatory minimum prison sentence.
At the start of the week, Donald Trump faced 78 felony counts across three criminal prosecutions. Then, near midnight on Monday in Fulton County, Ga., District Attorney Fani Willis added a fourth case with 13 more.
In some ways, the new charges resemble the old. Like special counsel Jack Smith, Willis has accused Trump of orchestrating a conspiracy to overturn the 2020 presidential election. And like Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Willis has accused Trump of falsifying documents, albeit very different types of documents and for very different reasons.
Beyond the similarities, though, the Georgia case stands apart. In terms of the sheer scope of wrongdoing it alleges, the 98-page indictment sweeps far more broadly than any of the previous indictments against Trump. And for the first time, a panoply of high-ranking aides, attorneys and allies have been named as co-defendants alongside Trump.
Some of the charges entail automatic prison time under the Georgia criminal code. For instance, if convicted of conspiring to solicit a public official to violate the oath of office, Trump would face a minimum one-year mandatory prison sentence. (Willis alleges Trump committed that crime by pressuring the speaker of the Georgia House to call a special session to appoint fake electors.) The crime of first-degree forgery similarly carries a mandatory prison sentence of at least one year.
The prospect of mandatory prison time is a first among Trump’s criminal cases. In his other cases, some charges — like allegedly falsifying business records in his New York hush money case — are unlikely to result in any prison time for a first-time offender. Other, more serious charges — like Trump’s alleged violations of the Espionage Act and his alleged obstruction of justice in his federal case involving classified documents — typically result in significant prison sentences, but federal judges have discretion.
Washington Post, Here’s who else was charged in the Georgia case, Holly Bailey, Amy Gardner, Patrick Marley and Jon Swaine, Aug. 16, 2023 (print ed.). Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows, John Eastman and Sidney Powell are among the 18 others who were indicted.
Former president Donald Trump was not the only person criminally charged in the Atlanta area in his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia. Eighteen of his close allies and supporters were also charged in a sprawling anti-racketeering case.
Here are the others:
Rudy Giuliani. Charges: Violation of the Georgia RICO Act; three counts of solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer; three counts of false statements and writings; conspiracy to commit impersonation of a public officer; two counts of conspiracy to commit first-degree forgery; two counts of conspiracy to commit false statements and writings; and conspiracy to commit filing false documents.
Giuliani served as Trump’s personal attorney and was central to efforts by the Trump team to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory in several battleground states, including Georgia, by promoting unsupported claims of vast election fraud. He continued to do so even as many state and federal officials — including William P. Barr, Trump’s attorney general — disputed those claims. Giuliani’s December 2020 appearances before the Georgia legislature, where he peddled disproved conspiracy theories of voter fraud, and his role in organizing an alternate slate of Trump electors have drawn scrutiny from Fulton County prosecutors.
Mark Meadows. Charges: Violation of the Georgia RICO Act; solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer. Meadows, Trump’s White House chief of staff in 2020, played a key role in efforts to overturn Trump’s loss in Georgia. In the chaotic weeks after Election Day, Meadows often organized and sat in on Trump’s phone calls with Georgia state officials, including Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R), as Trump pressured them to reverse Biden’s victory in the state. Meadows, right, communicated with Trump allies, including Giuliani, as they pushed election conspiracy theories and plotted ways to keep Trump in office. Meadows took a particular interest in Georgia, making a surprise December 2020 visit to a ballot-counting center outside Atlanta — an incident Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D) cited when she sought to subpoena Meadows to appear before the special-purpose grand jury. Meadows unsuccessfully fought his subpoena before appearing before the panel in November
John Eastman. Charges: Violation of the Georgia RICO Act; solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer; conspiracy to commit impersonating a public officer; two counts of conspiracy to commit first-degree forgery; two counts of conspiracy to commit false statements and writings; conspiracy to commit filing false documents; filing false documents.
Eastman, right, a conservative attorney who once clerked for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, played a key role in developing an outlandish legal strategy to try to help Trump stay in power by using the vice president’s ceremonial role overseeing the election certification proceeding. Eastman and Giuliani met with Georgia state senators in December 2020 and urged them to disregard the election results. Eastman told senators that the Republican-controlled legislature could appoint a pro-Trump slate of electors and then the president of the U.S. Senate — at the time, Vice President Mike Pence — could determine whether that slate should be counted in Congress’s certification of the election rather than the Biden electors. He also falsely asserted, without evidence, that Trump lost Georgia in part because 66,000 underage people and 2,500 felons had voted in the state that year. A New Mexico judge ordered Eastman to appear before the investigative grand jury last year.
Kenneth Chesebro. Charges: Violation of the Georgia RICO Act; conspiracy to commit impersonating a public officer; two counts of conspiracy to commit first-degree forgery; two counts of conspiracy to commit false statements and writings; conspiracy to commit filing false documents. Chesebro, right, an appellate attorney who studied under and worked with Harvard Law professor Lawrence Tribe, was the first to suggest that alternate Trump electors could be recognized on Jan. 6, 2021. He first shared the strategy with a friend representing the Trump campaign in Wisconsin before connecting with Eastman, Trump lawyer Boris Epshteyn and Giuliani to coordinate across six more swing states, including Georgia. He was subpoenaed by the special-purpose grand jury and has argued that his communications with the Trump campaign were protected by attorney-client privilege, although he was never paid for his work.
Sidney Powell. Charges: Violation of the Georgia RICO Act; two counts of conspiracy to commit election fraud; conspiracy to commit computer theft; conspiracy to commit computer trespass; conspiracy to commit computer invasion of privacy; conspiracy to defraud the state. Powell, a former federal prosecutor, was one of Trump’s more extreme allies in his efforts to subvert the 2020 election results, voicing a series of baseless conspiracy theories including that voting machines had been rigged for Biden. In Georgia, she alleged Gov. Brian Kemp (R) and Raffensperger, the secretary of state, were taking payoffs as part of that scheme — a claim that unsettled some Trump allies and led to her exit from Trump’s official post-election legal team. Still, Powell kept filing lawsuits alleging fraud across the battleground states, including in Georgia, and she remained in Trump’s orbit. At a White House meeting in December 2020, Trump considered naming Powell as a special counsel to investigate the election — an event that has drawn the scrutiny of Fulton County prosecutors investigating Powell’s efforts to undermine the Georgia vote. A subpoena request for Powell also suggested prosecutors are looking into what role she might have played in an alleged breach of election data in Coffee County, Ga.
Washington Post, What the indictment means, what happens next, Amber Phillips, Aug. 16, 2023 (print ed.). What’s the maximum sentence if he’s convicted? Will he pose for a mug shot?
Trump is charged with a crime — racketeering — that carries up to 20 years in prison. Trump has been charged with violating Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO in legal circles. A federal version of the law was originally designed to prosecute mob bosses who were leading complex criminal enterprises. Georgia’s version, which is one of the most expansive in the country, allows prosecutors to weave together several alleged crimes — in this case, conspiracy to defraud the state, false statements and writings, impersonating a public officer, forgery, computer theft and dozens of others — into one charge that carries up to 20 years in prison.
New York Times, Why Pardons in Georgia Are Especially Hard to Get, Danny Hakim and Richard Fausset, Aug. 16, 2023 (print ed.). Felons must wait five years to seek a pardon, and it does not come from the governor: They must appeal to a five-member board
Donald J. Trump has raised the idea in the past that as president he could pardon himself from federal crimes. While no president has ever pardoned himself, there is little restriction on the presidential pardon authority laid out in the Constitution.
But in the Georgia case, Mr. Trump would have no such power if he is re-elected, because a president’s pardons apply only to federal crimes.
Beyond that, getting a pardon in Georgia is not just a matter of persuading a governor to grant clemency. People convicted of state crimes are eligible to apply for pardons only five years after they have completed serving their sentences. Even then, it’s not the governor who decides but the State Board of Pardons and Paroles.
And while criminals can ask the parole board to commute sentences right away, the board “will consider a commutation of a sentence imposed in other than death cases only when substantial evidence is submitted” showing “that the sentence is either excessive, illegal, unconstitutional or void” and that “such action would be in the best interests of society and the inmate.
Trump lawyers Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani hawking their false claims that they could prove election fraud caused Democratic nominee Joe Biden's presidential victory in 2020.
Proof: Exclusive Report: An Annotated List of the 30 As-Yet Unindicted Georgia Co-Conspirators in the Just-Released Trump Indictment in Fulton County, Seth Abramson, left, Aug. 15-16, 2023. The 98-page indictment just announced by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis contains 30 unnamed co-conspirators identified by number. Proof reveals, for the first time, who these people are.
Introduction: “Open-source intelligence” (OSINT)—that is, reliable public records, including major-media reporting and government reports—allows us to identify nearly all of the thirty Donald Trump co-conspirators Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis declined to indict (or name) in her recent 98-page indictment of Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows, John Eastman, Kenneth Chesebro, Jeffrey Clark, Jenna Ellis, below right, Mike 
Roman and eleven less-well-known individuals.
Note that Trump, Giuliani, Eastman, Clark, and Chesebro together comprise four of the seven individuals identified explicitly or implicitly in the recent indictment Jack Smith brought in Washington, D.C. on behalf of the Department of Justice’s Office of the Special Counsel. The three other Trump-affiliated persons listed above are facing indictment—thus, a last-chance opportunity to cooperate with both state and federal prosecutors and investigators—for the very first time.)
Some of these thirty individuals will likely be indicted at some point in the future, either in the State of Georgia or elsewhere. But others may not have been indicted or even named because they’re currently cooperating individuals or have done enough to indicate that they one day might be that prosecutors are holding off on indicting them.
What is clear, however, is that these names could matter just as much as the names of the nineteen individuals who were indicted as Trump’s Georgia co-conspirators.
Why?
(1) First, because thirty is more than nineteen.
(2) Second, because some of the thirty unindicted co-conspirators may well have been selected for non-indictment because they’re already cooperating.
(3) Third, because by definition some of the thirty unindicted co-conspirators may have been more tangential to the Georgia Conspiracy, which means—for a few of them—they were more central to other components of Trump’s post-election crimes.
(4) Fourth, these thirty unindicted individuals are as or more interesting than the nineteen for the simple reason that they remain an unknown—a mystery. And it seems everyone loves a mystery.
Indeed, given how many coup foot-soldiers and coup plotters have now been indicted, the idea that the list of infamous individuals not yet indicted or listed as unindicted co-conspirators—men and women like Steve Bannon, Peter Navarro, Cleta Mitchell, Ginni Thomas, Roger Stone, Donald Trump Jr., Kimberly Guilfoyle, Ali Alexander, Alex Jones, Christina Bobb, Kash Patel, Cindy Chafian, Bianca Gracia, Garrett Ziegler, Michael Flynn, Lindsay Graham, Ted Cruz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Andy Biggs, Paul Gosar, Scott Perry, Tommy Tuberville, Louie Gohmert, and others—are all going to go unindicted (even as some surely will, as some surely didn’t commit any identifiable crime for all their unethical conduct) has now become a non-starter.
There simply can be no doubt that many, many more indictments—both superseding and otherwise—are yet to come. The list of unindicted but now-identified Trump co-conspirators below is certainly a great place to start in imagining what direction the January 6 investigation(s) might head in next.
Seth Abramson, shown above and at right, is founder of Proof and is a former criminal defense attorney and criminal investigator who taught digital journalism, 
legal advocacy, and cultural theory at the University of New Hampshire. A regular political and legal analyst on CNN and the BBC during the Trump presidency, he is a best-selling author who has published eight books and edited five anthologies.
Abramson is a graduate of Dartmouth College, Harvard Law School, the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and the Ph.D. program in English at University of Wisconsin-Madison. His books include a Trump trilogy: Proof of Corruption: Bribery, Impeachment, and Pandemic in the Age of Trump (2020); Proof of Conspiracy: How Trump's International Collusion Is Threatening American Democracy (2019); and Proof of Collusion: How Trump Betrayed America (2018).
Washington Post, Analysis: 4 things revealed by Trump’s latest indictment, Aaron Blake, Aug. 16, 2023 (print ed.). The indictment features 41 counts — 13 against Trump — and charges against Trump-aligned lawyers including Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. The core of the indictment, a racketeering charge, implicates all 19 defendants.
That brings the total number of criminal charges this year against the runaway front-runner in the GOP presidential primary to 91.
The indictment is Trump’s second involving his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and the second to be brought outside federal court. Trump was charged on the federal level in special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation of his broader efforts on the election front. Smith’s probe into Trump’s refusal to return classified documents also brought an indictment.
You can read the full indictment here.
Aug. 15
Washington Post, Trump charged in Georgia election probe, Holly Bailey and Amy Gardner, Aug. 15, 2023. In fourth indictment, former president is accused of crimes related to effort to overturn 2020 results. Donald Trump’s charges include violating the state’s racketeering act and soliciting a public officer to violate their oath. The historic indictment follows a 2½-year investigation by Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis.
New York Times, Trump Indicted in Georgia; Has 10 Days to Turn Himself In; Is Accused of Leading Push to Reverse 2020 Vote, Richard Fausset and Danny Hakim, Aug. 15, 2023. Former President Donald J. Trump has 10 days to turn himself in to face accusations that he and 18 other people orchestrated a “criminal enterprise” to reverse the results of the 2020 election in Georgia and subvert the will of voters — sweeping charges by a local prosecutor that invoked a law associated with taking down mobsters.
The 41-count indictment also brings charges against some of Mr. Trump’s most prominent advisers, including Rudolph W. Giuliani, his former personal lawyer, and Mark Meadows, who served as White House chief of staff at the time of the election.
All 19 defendants — a wide-ranging group that includes a former senior Justice Department official, the former chairman of the Georgia Republican Party and lawyers who were part of the “elite strike force team” who amplified Mr. Trump’s claims — were charged under the state’s racketeering statute, which was originally designed to dismantle organized crime groups.
Mr. Trump and the other defendants, prosecutors wrote, “knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump.”
Mr. Trump, who is currently leading in polls among the Republican candidates for president in 2024, has now been indicted in four separate criminal investigations since April, including a federal indictment earlier this month over his attempts to cling to power after losing the 2020 race.
The prosecutor bringing the Georgia case, District Attorney Fani T. Willis of Fulton County, said she would be seeking a trial date within the next six months — timing that would only add to Mr. Trump’s complicated legal calendar and raise the prospect of that he could face four criminal trials in the midst of his campaign to regain the presidency.
Here’s what to know:
The indictment laid out eight ways the defendants were accused of obstructing the election, including by lying to the Georgia state legislature, creating fake pro-Trump electors, and soliciting Vice President Mike Pence. Read the annotated indictment.
The indictment spells out 161 separate actions that prosecutors say the defendants took to further a criminal conspiracy, including events like Mr. Giuliani’s false testimony about election fraud to Georgia lawmakers in early December and Mr. Trump’s telephone call to the Georgia secretary of state in early January urging him to “find 11,780 votes.”. Read about the 19 defendants and the charges they face.
Mr. Trump continued to denounce the indictment on Tuesday, saying in a post on his social media platform that he would hold a news conference next Monday and release an “Irrefutable” report that would somehow prove his false claims of election fraud in Georgia.
Although the Georgia case covers some of the same ground as the federal indictment unsealed earlier this month, there are crucial differences between state and federal charges. Even if Mr. Trump were to regain the presidency, the prosecutors in Georgia would not report to him, nor would he have the power to attempt to pardon himself if convicted.
Aug. 12
Fani Willis, left, is the district attorney for Atlanta-based Fulton County in Georgia. Her office has been probing since 2021 then-President Trump's claiming beginning in 2020 of election fraud in Georgia and elsewhere. Trump and his allies have failed to win support for their claims from Georgia's statewide election officials, who are Republican, or from courts.
New York Times, Trump Election Interference Case to Go to Grand Jury in Georgia Early Next Week, Richard Fausset, Aug. 12, 2023. Atlanta-area prosecutors have indicated that they will go before a grand jury early next week to present the results of their investigation into election interference by former President Donald J. Trump and his allies, raising the possibility that within days Mr. Trump could face a fourth criminal indictment.
On Saturday, two witnesses who have received subpoenas to testify before the grand jury — Geoff Duncan, the former lieutenant governor of Georgia, and George Chidi, an independent journalist — revealed that they had received notices to appear before the grand jury on Tuesday.
ImageDonald J. Trump in a blue suit among a crowd of people, some of whom are taking pictures with their phones.
A state-level indictment of Mr. Trump in Georgia would follow closely on the heels of a federal indictment, unveiled this month, that is also related to the former president’s attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. But unlike with federal convictions, Mr. Trump, if re-elected president, could not attempt to pardon himself if convicted of state crimes in Georgia.
Moreover, while the federal case brought by the special counsel Jack Smith names only Mr. Trump, details have surfaced suggesting that a Georgia indictment could name numerous people, some of them well known and powerful, who played roles in the multipronged effort to help Mr. Trump overturn his narrow 2020 election loss in the state.
Mr. Chidi informed The New York Times on Saturday that he had received the notice to appear. Mr. Duncan on Saturday told CNN, where he is an on-air contributor, that he had received the notice to appear.
Fani T. Willis, the district attorney in Fulton County, Ga., has spent two-and-a-half years investigating whether Mr. Trump and his allies interfered in the 2020 election in the state. Other investigations of the former president have resulted in indictments in New York, Florida and Washington, D.C.
In New York, Mr. Trump was indicted in April on state charges stemming from his alleged role in paying hush money to a porn star. In June, he was indicted in Miami in a federal case related to his alleged mishandling of classified documents; the federal indictment regarding election interference came on Aug. 1.
Mr. Trump has pleaded not guilty in those cases.
Washington Post, Newly appointed Judge Scott McAfee gets Trump criminal case in Georgia, Yvonne Wingett Sanchez, Aug. 15, 2023. One of the newest judges on the Fulton County Superior Court bench, Scott McAfee, has been assigned the sprawling racketeering case that charges former president Donald Trump and 18 allies with scheming to undo Trump’s 2020 election defeat in Georgia and elsewhere.
McAfee, a lifelong Georgian who lives in Atlanta, was nominated to fill a vacancy on the bench earlier this year by Gov. Brian Kemp (R), who had previously praised McAfee as “a tough prosecutor” who could “bring those to justice who break the law.”
Though McAfee was assigned the case soon after the indictment was handed up on Monday evening, it could be transferred to a different judge later in the process.
McAfee has worked off and on in the public realm for more than a decade, including eight years as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Justice Department in the Northern District of Georgia, where he prosecuted drug trafficking organizations, fraud and illegal firearms possession, according to a March 2021 news release from Kemp’s office. McAfee also worked on the state level as an assistant district attorney in Fulton County, where he handled many felony cases, from armed robbery to murder, the news release said.
Before he became a judge, McAfee served as the Georgia inspector general under Kemp, investigating claims of fraud, waste and abuse in the executive branch of state government.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, right (Photo via Superior Court of Fulton County).
Here are the specific charges Trump faces in Georgia
As a judge, he has previously allowed video of court proceedings to air online, including on a YouTube channel that bears his name and title. He speaks to attorneys and defendants with a hint of a Southern drawl, the channel shows, and an American flag stands behind his chair on an elevated bench.
A father of two, McAfee earned his law degree from the University of Georgia. He plays the cello and majored in music as an undergraduate at Emory University in Atlanta.
McAfee is running for election to a full four-year term in 2024, according to his campaign website. Judicial elections in Georgia are nonpartisan. McAfee’s priorities include clearing a backlog of cases that piled up during the pandemic and holding violent offenders accountable.
“I look forward to continuing my service as your Fulton Superior Court Judge, delivering timely justice for all,” his website said.
Palmer Report, Analysis: Donald Trump unhinged late night meltdown after getting indicted in Fulton County, Bill Palmer, Aug. 15, 2023. Donald Trump should be accustomed to getting criminally indicted by now. Tonight he got hit with his fourth indictment (fifth if you count superseding indictments). At about 1:30 in the morning, Trump awoke from his stupor and proceeded to erupt on social media.
Trump isn’t exactly taking the news well: “So, the Witch Hunt continues! 19 people Indicated tonight, including the former President of the United States, me, by an out of control and very corrupt District Attorney.” Trump added that it all “Sounds Rigged to me!”
Make no mistake, this is a statement of surrender by Donald Trump. If he had any idea how to fight these charges, he’d be focused on that. By skipping straight to the whining and gibberish, Trump is admitting that he has no idea how to survive this.
New York Times, Two Months in Georgia: How Trump Tried to Overturn the 2020 Vote, Danny Hakim and Richard Fausset, Aug. 15, 2023 (print ed.). The Georgia case offers a vivid reminder of the extraordinary lengths former President Trump and his allies went to in the Southern state to reverse the election.
When President Donald J. Trump’s eldest son took the stage outside the Georgia Republican Party headquarters two days after the 2020 election, he likened what lay ahead to mortal combat.
“Americans need to know this is not a banana republic!” Donald Trump Jr. shouted, claiming that Georgia and other swing states had been overrun by wild electoral shenanigans. He described tens of thousands of ballots that had “magically” shown up around the country, all marked for Joseph R. Biden Jr., and others dumped by Democratic officials into “one big box” so their authenticity could not be verified.
Mr. Trump told his father’s supporters at the news conference — who broke into chants of “Stop the steal!” and “Fraud! Fraud!” — that “the number one thing that Donald Trump can do in this election is fight each and every one of these battles, to the death!”
Over the two months that followed, a vast effort unfolded on behalf of the lame-duck president to overturn the election results in swing states across the country. But perhaps nowhere were there as many attempts to intervene as in Georgia, where Fani T. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, is now poised to bring an indictment for a series of brazen moves made on behalf of Mr. Trump in the state after his loss and for lies that the president and his allies circulated about the election there.
- New York Times, A grand jury in Georgia could decide within days about a Trump indictment. Here’s what to know
New York Times, Prosecutors Object to Trump’s Proposal to Discuss Evidence at Mar-a-Lago, Alan Feuer, Aug. 15, 2023 (print ed.). The arguments in the classified documents case stem from the government’s attempts to put a protective order in place governing the handling of a trove of discovery materials.
The federal prosecutors overseeing the classified documents case against former President Donald J. Trump objected on Monday to his proposal to discuss highly sensitive discovery evidence at a secure location at Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence in Florida.
Last week, Mr. Trump’s lawyers asked Judge Aileen M. Cannon, who is presiding over the case, to let the former president discuss the classified discovery evidence in the “secure facility” that he once used for such materials when he was in office. That facility, the lawyers said, was “at or near his residence,” an apparent reference to Mar-a-Lago, which is in West Palm Beach.
But in their own filing to Judge Cannon, prosecutors in the office of the special counsel, Jack Smith, said that Mr. Trump was seeking “special treatment that no other criminal defendant would receive” by requesting to discuss the classified material at home.
“In essence,” one of the prosecutors, Jay I. Bratt, wrote, “he is asking to be the only defendant ever in a case involving classified information (at least to the government’s knowledge) who would be able to discuss classified information in a private residence.”
Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Bratt went on, was especially unsuited to house discussions about classified material given that it is a social club with “more than 25 guest rooms, two ballrooms, a spa, a gift store, exercise facilities, office space, and an outdoor pool and patio.”
Moreover, Mr. Bratt wrote, “the Mar-a-Lago club had hundreds of members and was staffed by more than 150 full-time, part-time and temporary employees” who, from January 2021 to August 2022, worked at or attended “more than 50 social events, including weddings, movie premieres and fund-raisers that together drew tens of thousands of guests.”
Prosecutors want Judge Cannon to force Mr. Trump to discuss and review the classified discovery evidence in one of the SCIFs — or secure compartmented information facilities — run by the federal courts in Florida.
The dueling arguments over using Mr. Trump’s secure facility at Mar-a-Lago stem from the government’s attempts to put a protective order in place governing the handling of a trove of classified discovery materials that prosecutors are legally bound to turn over to Mr. Trump’s lawyers as part of the prosecution.
Those materials, the prosecutors noted in their filing to Judge Cannon, include far more than the 32 sensitive national security documents that Mr. Trump has been charged with taking with him after he left office. They also include what the government described as classified emails “about highly classified briefings given to then-President Trump” and “classified witness statements about then-President Trump’s knowledge about classified information.”
In their filing, prosecutors also reasserted their belief that one of Mr. Trump’s co-defendants in the case, Walt Nauta, his personal aide, should have only limited access to the classified discovery materials. That is despite Mr. Nauta also being charged with the former president and a third defendant — Carlos De Oliveira, the property manager at Mar-a-Lago — with conspiring to obstruct the government’s repeated efforts to retrieve the documents from Mr. Trump.
The prosecutors want Judge Cannon to impose a restriction that only Mr. Nauta’s lawyers can have free rein over the classified discovery, but can ask on a case-by-case basis to show it to him. They argued that Mr. Nauta should not be permitted to look at the materials without limitations because he no longer has a security clearance and has “not established that he has a need to know the sensitive information in the classified documents.”
The prosecutors are likely to request similar restrictions for Mr. De Oliveira.
This latest round of arguments about the protective order in the classified documents case came just days after the judge in the other federal case that Mr. Trump is facing — the one accusing him of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election — also imposed a protective order over the handling of discovery materials.
In that case, the judge, Tanya S. Chutkan, barred Mr. Trump and his lawyers from sharing or publicly commenting on any evidence, like witness interviews or grand jury testimony, that was designated as sensitive. Judge Chutkan also cautioned Mr. Trump against making any “inflammatory statements” about the case that might be construed as an attempt to intimidate witnesses or taint potential jurors.
Documents being stored at indicted former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago complex in Florida according to a Department of Justice indictment unsealed on June 9, 2023 (Photo via Associated Press).
Palmer Report, Analysis: Jack Smith fires back at Donald Trump, Bill Palmer, right, Aug. 15, 2023. Because Donald Trump is going on federal criminal trial for having stolen classified documents, some of the evidence in the case against him is naturally classified. Like all defendants, he and his attorneys have a right to view that classified evidence to some degree, as part of the discovery process. But now Trump is whining about him and his attorneys having to travel to a secure location to view it.
To that end, Trump made a court filing requesting that a secure SCIF be installed at his Mar-a-Lago home. Trump doesn’t actually need this, and it’s pretty obviously just an attempt on his part at furthering his delusion that he’s somehow still in office. As part of his unhinged fantasies, he can tell himself that the new SCIF at Mar-a-Lago is there because he’s still the President of the United States.
But Jack Smith is having none of it. He’s firing back with a court filing accusing Trump of seeking “special treatment” and plainly stating that there’s “no need” for a SCIF to be installed. There’s no way to know what this idiot judge Cannon will do with these kinds of rulings. But keep in mind that her ability to help Trump is very narrow and limited. Even if she improperly orders that a SCIF be installed in Trump’s home, it’s not going to magically help him in any real way. The fact that Trump is reduced to these kinds of pointless sideshow battles simply means he has no strategy for actually winning his criminal trials.
Washington Post, The judge in Donald Trump’s Manhattan criminal case declined to remove himself from the proceedings, Shayna Jacobs, Aug. 15, 2023 (print ed.). A judge overseeing Donald Trump’s criminal indictment for allegedly falsifying business records on Monday rejected arguments from the former president’s legal team that he should recuse himself and said he would continue to preside over the state court case.
In an 11-page ruling, New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan said it would not be in the public interest for him to step down from the case, which involves hush money payments during the 2016 campaign and was the first of three criminal indictments filed against Trump since March.
Trump’s lawyers said Merchan should be disqualified from overseeing the case based on a $15 donation he made to Democrat Joe Biden’s campaign in 2020 and two $10 donations he made to political organizations that oppose Republicans.
Trump’s lawyers also argued that Merchan’s adult daughter stood to potentially profit from decisions in the case because she heads a digital marketing agency that is hired by Democratic candidates and organizations that strongly oppose Trump.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and his prosecution team said Merchan should not recuse himself, saying there was no actual stain on his ability to be impartial.
Aug. 14
Associated Press, Indictment returned in Georgia as grand jury wraps up Trump election probe, Kate Brumback, Aug. 14, 2023. A grand jury in Georgia that has been investigating former President Donald Trump over his efforts to undo the 2020 election results in that state has returned an indictment, though it was not immediately clear against whom.
There was no immediate confirmation from Fulton County prosecutors about who was charged and for what, but the existence of indictments became apparent around 9 p.m. when the judge who for months has been presiding over the grand jury investigation was presented by clerk’s office officials with a set of papers in a courtroom packed with reporters anticipating news.
Inside the courthouse, cameras offered live feeds of the movements of the judge and other county officials, but no one offered clarity as to when an indictment might be released.
The grand jury heard from witnesses into the evening Monday in the election subversion investigation into Donald Trump, a long day of testimony punctuated by the mysterious and brief appearance on a county website of a list of criminal charges against the former president that prosecutors later disavowed.
Prosecutors in Fulton County presented evidence to the grand jury as they pushed toward a likely indictment, summoning multiple former state officials including the ex-lieutenant governor as witnesses.
But the process hit an unexpected snag in the middle of the day, when Reuters reported on a document listing criminal charges to be brought against Trump, including state racketeering counts, conspiracy to commit false statements and solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer.
Reuters, which later published a copy of the document, said the filing was taken down quickly. A spokesperson for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said the report of charges being filed was “inaccurate,” but declined to comment further on a kerfuffle that the Trump legal team rapidly jumped on to attack the integrity of the investigation.
The office of the Fulton County courts clerk later released a statement that seemed to only raise more questions, calling the posted document “fictitious,” but failing to explain how it got on the court’s website. The clerk’s office said documents without official case numbers “are not considered official filings and should not be treated as such.” But the document that appeared online did have a case number on it.
Asked about the “fictitious” document Monday evening, the courts clerk, Che Alexander, said: “I mean, I don’t know what else to say, like, grace … I don’t know, I haven’t seen an indictment, right, so I don’t have anything.” On the question of whether the website had been hacked, she said, “I can’t speak to that.”
Trump and his allies, who have characterized the investigation as politically motivated, immediately seized on the apparent error to claim that the process was rigged. Trump’s campaign aimed to fundraise off it, sending out an email with the since-deleted document embedded.
“The Grand Jury testimony has not even FINISHED – but it’s clear the District Attorney has already decided how this case will end,” Trump wrote in the email, which included links to give money to his campaign. “This is an absolute DISGRACE.”
Trump’s legal team said it was not a “simple administrative mistake.” Rather it was “emblematic of the pervasive and glaring constitutional violations which have plagued this case from its very inception,” said lawyers Drew Findling, Jennifer Little and Marissa Goldberg.
It was unclear why the list was posted while grand jurors were still hearing from witnesses in the sprawling investigation into actions taken by Trump and others in their efforts to overturn his narrow loss in Georgia to Democrat Joe Biden. It was also unclear whether grand jurors were aware that the filing was posted online. They still would need to vote on charges, so the counts listed in the posting may or may not ultimately be brought against Trump.
Newsweek, Fulton County Responds to Trump Charging Document, Andrew Stanton, Aug. 14, 2023. Fulton County responded to a document appearing to show a list of potential charges facing former President Donald Trump.
Reuters reported on Monday that the Fulton County District Attorney's office uploaded, then removed a document showing several charges Trump could possibly face in the investigation into his alleged attempts at overturning the 2020 presidential results. The Office of the Fulton County Clerk of Superior and Magistrate Courts responded to the report in a statement first reported by Atlanta News First's Brandon Keefe.
"The Office of the Fulton County Clerk of Superior and Magistrate Courts has learned of a fictitious document that has been circulated online and reported by various media outlets related to The Fulton County Special Purpose Grand Jury," the statement reads.
New York Times, How Trump Benefits From an Indictment Effect, Jonathan Swan, Ruth Igielnik, Shane Goldmacher and Maggie Haberman, Aug. 14, 2023 (print ed.). In polling, fund-raising and conservative media, former President Trump has turned criminal charges into political assets.
Early on March 18, former President Donald J. Trump hit send on a social media post saying he would be “arrested on Tuesday of next week.”
“Protest,” he wrote on his Truth Social website. “Take our nation back!”
Mr. Trump’s prediction was based on media reports, according to his lawyers, and his timing was off by two weeks.
Yet the statement set in motion events that profoundly altered the course of the Republican nominating contest. Donors sent checks. Fox News changed its tune. The party apparatus rushed to defend Mr. Trump. And the polls went up — and up.
These series of falling dominoes — call it the indictment effect — can be measured in ways that reveal much about the state of the Republican Party. To examine the phenomenon, The New York Times reviewed national and early state polls, interviewed Republican primary voters, examined federal campaign finance records, analyzed hundreds of party emails, scrutinized the shifts in conservative media coverage and talked to operatives inside the campaigns of Mr. Trump’s rivals.
Aug. 13
Emptywheel, Analysis: Alberto Gonzales Lectures Jack Goldsmith about Perception versus Reality in a Democracy, Emptywheel (Marcy Wheeler), right, Aug. 13, 2023. I never, never imagined I’d see the day when Alberto Gonzales would school Jack Goldsmith on how to defend democracy.
Once upon a time, remember, it fell to Goldsmith to school Gonzales that the President (or Vice President) could not simply unilaterally authorize torture and surveillance programs that violate the law by engaging in cynical word games.
But now, Goldsmith is the one befuddled by word games and Gonzales, right, is the one reminding that rule of law must operate in the realm of truth, not propaganda.
In a widely circulated NYT op-ed last week, Goldmith warned that democracy may suffer from the January 6 indictment of Donald Trump because of the perceived unfairness (Goldsmith doesn’t say, perceived by whom?) of the treatment of Trump.
Rather than parroting perceptions, in his op-ed, Gonzales corrects a core misperception by pointing out a key difference between Hillary’s treatment and Trump’s: Hillary cooperated.
By contrast, Goldsmith simply ignores the backstory to virtually every single perceived claim in his op-ed.
To argue that 300 of Trump’s supporters should be charged and he should not is simply obscene. American democracy, American rule of law, is no doubt in great peril and the prosecutions of Donald Trump for the damage he did to both will further test them. But those of us who want to preserve democracy and rule of law have an ethical obligation not just to parrot the manufactured grievances of the demagogue attempting to end it, absolving ourselves of any moral responsibility to sort through these claims, but instead to insist on truth as best as we can discern it.
Aug. 12
Trump counsel John Lauro, left, and Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith
Washington Post, Trump’s free speech must be limited to protect trial, witnesses, judge says, Spencer S. Hsu and Tom Jackman, Aug. 12, 2023 (print ed.). The U.S. judge overseeing Donald Trump’s prosecution for allegedly criminally conspiring to overturn Joe Biden’s election victory said that while every American has a First Amendment right to free speech, it is “not absolute” and that even the former president’s campaign statements must yield to protecting the integrity of the judicial process.
In her first hearing over Trump’s federal case in D.C., U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, right, said that “the fact that he is running a political campaign” will have no bearing on her decisions and “must yield to the orderly administration of justice.”
“If that means he can’t say exactly what he wants to say about witnesses in this case, then that’s how it’s going to be,” Chutkan said Friday, repeatedly warning the former president and his defense about limits on what he can potentially reveal about government evidence in the case. “To the extent your client wants to make statements on the internet, they have to always yield to witness security and witness safety.”
“I caution you and your client to take special care in your public statements about this case,” the judge said after the 90-minute hearing, “I will take whatever measures are necessary to safeguard the integrity of these proceedings.”
Palmer Report, Analysis: Judge Chutkan pretty much just told Donald Trump that it’s all over for him, Bill Palmer, right, Aug. 12, 2023. Judge Chutkan just told Trump that the more he runs his mouth, the more urgency she’ll show in getting the case to trial. As I’ve said, at this point he can’t do anything to help himself. His antics can only serve to make his life much, much worse for him.
Trump’s only “strategy” at this point is to somehow magically delay this trial until after the election – an essentially impossible goal to begin with – and now he’s being told that his antics will only result in an even swifter trial. He now has no strategy whatsoever.
The judge also said she doesn’t care that Trump wants to run for office, and that it won’t be a factor in her decision making.
I know some of you were hoping the judge would wave a magic wand and send Trump through a trap door into a holding cell. But I did try to warn you that it’s not how things work – and not how they would work with any defendant.
Consequences for misbehaving criminal defendants are incremental, but they are absolutely real. Trump just got hit with a protective order and a swift trial timeline. If he wants to run his mouth more, he’ll get hit with more consequences.
The kicker is that Trump can’t even get anywhere by complaining about what the judge just did to him. “The judge said the more I run my mouth the quicker we’ll go to trial, that’s so unfair!” If he’s looking to play victim to his base, that’s not much of a talking point.
Keep in mind that after the judge warned Trump to shut up on the E. Jean Carroll case, he did indeed shut up (until immediately after the trial, at which point he mistakenly thought he could get away with it). So there is precedent for Trump backing down in these situations.
In fact there’s a lot of precedent for Trump backing down under threat. In spite of the media portraying him as always doing whatever he wants and always getting away with it, that’s truly never how he’s operated in the political realm.
Aug. 11
Washington Post, Opinion: DeSantis’s ‘slitting throats’ rhetoric repels moderates he might need, George F. Will, Aug. 11, 2023. Disclosure: The columnist’s wife, Mari Will, is an adviser to Republican presidential candidate Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.).
Ron DeSantis is eager to become president — to sit, as it were, in Lincoln’s chair — so he can start “slitting throats.” Washington, formerly The Swamp, will be The Abattoir.
Perhaps the folks at the New Hampshire barbecue had a delicious frisson of danger — the thrill of proximity to a roughneck — when DeSantis said that in taking on “these deep state people” he will “start slitting throats on Day One.” But try to name a president who talked that way. Maybe Richard Nixon on the tapes he assumed would never become public — a discouraging precedent.
Florida’s Republican governor has a penchant for advertising his toughness — something truly tough people need not, and do not, do. There are, for example, his startlingly many references to kneecapping. In a tweet he boasted that “We have kneecapped ESG” — environmental, social and corporate governance investment criteria — “in the state of Florida.” President Biden “is deliberately trying to kneecap our domestic energy production.” “We kneecap [local police departments] with our clemency power.” Florida Democrats seeking a special legislative session devoted to gun violence would “kneecap” law-abiding citizens. He said that whoever leaked the draft of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision was trying “to kneecap a potential majority” of the justices.
If DeSantis wonders why polls show that he has regressed in his costly competition with Donald Trump, he might rethink his evident decision to leapfrog the former president on the spectrum of loutishness. What comes after the promise of throat-slitting? A Corleone-style vow to put the severed heads of horses in the beds of the woke?
Inhibitions on verbal coarseness perish in contemporary American culture, which Twitter shapes and reflects. Polls indicate that since the DeSantis campaign’s stumbling start in a technologically botched Twitter event, his public exposure has coincided with a widening of the gap between his support among Republicans and Trump’s. This is probably not coincidental.
Washington Post, GOP lawmaker warns of ‘civil war’ at fundraiser for indicted Trump electors, Amy B Wang and Patrick Marley, Aug. 12, 2023 (print ed.). Michigan state Rep. Matt Maddock (R) warned supporters at a recent fundraiser at his home that a “civil war” would break out or that people would get shot if the government continued to target conservatives, according to audio of the event obtained by the Messenger, which first reported the remarks.
Maddock, whose wife was one of 16 “fake electors” charged with felony crimes in Michigan last month, told the crowd that it had been a “difficult” time for them recently. The event — billed as the “Free The 16 Electors Poolside Party!” — was held at the Maddocks’ home to raise legal defense funds for the fake electors, according to a copy of the invitation.
“If the government continues to weaponize these departments against conservatives, and the citizens and the taxpayers, what’s going to happen to this country? Does anyone have any idea, if this doesn’t stop?” Maddock is heard asking in the recording.
His question prompted several responses from the audience, each one waved off by Maddock as not the answer he had in mind.
“Someone’s going to get so pissed off, they’re going to shoot someone,” Maddock continued, according to the recording. “Or we’re going have a civil war or some sort of revolution. That’s where this is going. And when that happens, we’re going to get squashed.”
Many Republicans — including former president Donald Trump — have accused Democrats of “weaponizing” the government for handing down consequences to those who tried to overturn 2020 election results or who participated in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, in which a pro-Trump mob sought to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s victory.
Maddock’s rhetoric, however, was especially inflammatory. His wife, Meshawn Maddock, is one of 16 Republicans who were charged with forgery and other felonies last month by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, the first and so far only criminal prosecution against Trump electors. At the fundraiser, Matt Maddock compared prosecuting Trump electors to Nazis’ attempts to subdue Jewish people before leading them into gas chambers during the Holocaust.
“They want to make damn sure that anyone who questions the election or disputes the election in 2024 is threatened by what they’re doing to our electors and other people throughout this nation — that you will not say anything,” Matt Maddock told the crowd. “You are going to shut the eff up and you are going to walk into that gas chamber. That’s what they want, because that’s what’s coming for us.”
According to documents from Nessel’s office, the 16 fake electors charged last month not only falsely declared duly elected status, but they also falsely claimed they had “convened and organized in the State Capitol” — the location where such proceedings must legally be held — despite meeting at state GOP headquarters instead.
Aug. 10
Proof, Investigative Report: DOJ and the NYT Say the First January 6 Coup Memo Was Written in November 2020. They’re Wrong, Seth Abramson, Aug. 10-11, 2023. The first coup memo appeared in October 2020—and this “October Memo” informed the November and December 2020 Chesebro memos and John Eastman’s December memos. How do we know? From the men themselves.
On November 18, 2020, the New York Times reports, attorney Kenneth Chesebro wrote a memo about the possible use of alternate electors by the 2020 Trump presidential campaign in Wisconsin. On December 6, 2020, Attorney Chesebro wrote a far broader memo about such electors potentially being a key to Donald Trump remaining in the Oval Office.
Three days later—on December 9, 2020—Chesebro wrote yet another such memo. By the end of the month, Chesebro’s fellow Trump legal adviser, John Eastman, had spilled an enormous amount of words both in writing and in in-person discussions pushing precisely the same ideas that Chesebro had earlier articulated. Both Chesebro (Co-Conspirator 5 in the Trump January 6 indictment) and Eastman (Co-Conspirator 2 in that indictment) now face the prospect of significant legal jeopardy for their various “coup memos,” even as the authors of other documents deemed coup memos appear not the be on Department of Justice Special Counsel Jack Smith’s radar at all.
The New York Times Wades In
In a series of recent reports by Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter and now book-published Trump biographer Maggie Haberman, the Times tells readers that the three Chesebro memos mentioned atop this Proof report were the “earliest” indications from within Trumpworld that a so-called “fake elector” plot was afoot.
That is untrue.
Moreover, this inaccuracy could be damaging to the current prosecution of Trump by the Department of Justice’s Office of the Special Counsel, as these Times reports, so lauded and repeated by other major-media outlets, have had the following key effects:
- Cementing the false idea, among not just American voters but also apparently Jack Smith and his attorneys and investigators, that the “fake elector” plot was wholly a post-election one;
- cementing the false idea, among not just American voters but also apparently Jack Smith and his attorneys and investigators, that the plot emerged from the fringes of Trumpworld and slowly moved toward its center; and
- cementing the false idea, among not just American voters but also apparently Jack Smith and his attorneys and investigators, that individuals with enormous power and cultural capital within Trumpworld were in no way involved in the plot when they may well have been.
And more broadly—given that Attorney Smith and his team have so far, at least in public filings, focused almost exclusively on the “fake elector” plot and (in more recent days) Trump’s possible fundraising crimes while ignoring the extension of his conspiracy to the civilian leadership at the Pentagon and the use of Sidney Powell and her agents to advance (via false federal affidavits regarding supposed foreign election interference that Jason Funes told Congress resulted from “blackmail” and “force[d]” testimony) the pro-martial-law plot known as the Waldron Plot—the recent New York Times reporting gives federal investigators no foothold whatsoever to understand this video of one of the architects of January 6, top Trump adviser and convicted criminal Steve Bannon.
Seth Abramson, shown above and at right, is founder of Proof and is a former criminal defense attorney and criminal investigator who teaches digital journalism, legal advocacy, and cultural theory at the University of New Hampshire. A regular political and legal analyst on CNN and the BBC during the Trump presidency, he is a best-selling author who has published eight books and edited five anthologies.
Abramson is a graduate of Dartmouth College, Harvard Law School, the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and the Ph.D. program in English at University of Wisconsin-Madison. His books include a Trump trilogy in print: Proof of Corruption: Bribery, Impeachment, and Pandemic in the Age of Trump (2020); Proof of Conspiracy: How Trump's International Collusion Is Threatening American Democracy (2019); and Proof of Collusion: How Trump Betrayed America (2018).
Aug. 9
Politico, Special counsel obtained search warrant for Donald Trump’s Twitter account, Kyle Cheney, Aug. 9, 2023. Twitter’s initial resistance to complying with the warrant resulted in a federal judge holding the company in contempt and levying a $350,000 fine.
Special Counsel Jack Smith obtained a search warrant for Donald Trump’s Twitter account, @realDonaldTrump, earlier this year, according to newly revealed court documents.
Twitter’s initial resistance to complying with the Jan. 17 warrant resulted in a federal judge holding the company, now called X, in contempt and levying a $350,000 fine. A federal court of appeals upheld that fine last month in a sealed opinion. On Wednesday, the court unsealed a redacted version of that opinion, revealing details of the secret court battle for the first time.
“Although Twitter ultimately complied with the warrant, the company did not fully produce the requested information until three days after a court-ordered deadline,” according to the 34-page opinion by a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. “The district court thus held Twitter in contempt and imposed a $350,000 sanction for its delay.”
It’s unclear what Smith was seeking from Trump’s account. Trump used the account actively in the run-up to the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, promoting false claims of election fraud, calling his supporters to Washington to “stop the steal” and mounting attacks on his rivals. Obtaining data from Twitter might have revealed patterns about Trump’s use of the account, whether others had access to it and whether there were any draft statements that were unsent.
The existence of the warrant shows that prosecutors acquired access to the inner workings of what was once the most powerful megaphone in American politics and perhaps on the world stage. Trump was banned from Twitter just days after Jan. 6, after the company found his tweets to be in violation of its terms. Elon Musk, right, who took over Twitter last year, restored Trump’s access, but the former president has not yet tweeted from the account since his return.
Twitter’s fight with Smith’s team was rooted in prosecutors’ decision to serve the warrant along with a “nondisclosure order” that prohibited Twitter from notifying Trump — or anyone else — about the warrant’s existence.
Aug. 8
Washington Post, There were doubts about alternate electors across seven states and within the Trump campaign, Amy Gardner, Patrick Marley, Yvonne Wingett Sanchez and Josh Dawsey, Aug. 8, 2023 (print ed.). Six weeks after the 2020 election, senior campaign officials for Donald Trump called a group of loyal Pennsylvania Republicans to walk them through how they would convene two days later to cast the state electoral votes for the sitting president.
There was a problem: Joe Biden had already been declared the certified winner in Pennsylvania. So a number of the Republicans on the Dec. 12 conference call, who had volunteered to serve as Trump electors if he won the state, said they were uncomfortable portraying themselves as legitimate electors, according to a federal indictment filed against Trump last week accusing him of trying to overturn the 2020 election.
The campaign officials, led by lawyer Rudy Giuliani, told the electors they were meeting on a contingency basis only, the indictment says. After the call, campaign officials circulated language to add to the Pennsylvania elector certificates to be submitted to Washington asserting that the votes were intended to count only if Trump prevailed in litigation in the state.
Campaign officials urged one another to keep this new language under wraps so that other states would not copy it. “If it gets out we changed the language for PA it could snowball,” one campaign official wrote, according to the indictment.
The allegation that campaign officials sought to prevent electors in other states from learning about the language used in Pennsylvania is a key new revelation in the four-count, 45-page federal indictment, which accuses Trump of a sprawling effort to “retain power” illegally with the help of six co-conspirators.
Trump’s defenders have long insisted that the elector scheme was legal because the slates met as mere placeholders, to be activated only if the campaign won in court. Prosecutors now charge that Trump, Giuliani and others intended all along to use the electors to falsely claim the outcome of the election was in doubt, facilitating an effort to obstruct the certification of Biden’s victory in Congress on Jan. 6, 2021.
- Read the indictment here.
Politico, John Eastman, awaiting potential indictment, asks judge to postpone his disbarment proceedings, Kyle Cheney, Aug. 8, 2023. The lawyer who advised Donald Trump in the weeks leading up to Jan. 6 is known as “co-conspirator 2" in the special counsel’s newest case.
Attorney John Eastman, an architect of Donald Trump’s last-ditch efforts to subvert the 2020 election, is asking a California judge to postpone disbarment proceedings lodged against him, saying he’s increasingly concerned he’s about to be criminally charged by special counsel Jack Smith.
“[R]ecent developments in the investigation have renewed and intensified [Eastman’s] concerns that the federal government might bring charges against him,” his attorneys Randall Miller and Zachary Mayer wrote in an Aug. 4 filing posted to the court’s public docket on Monday.
Miller said the growing concern about criminal charges might prompt Eastman to assert his Fifth Amendment rights during disbarment proceedings. The Fifth Amendment generally allows people to refuse to provide testimony that could be used against them. But invoking the Fifth Amendment in the disbarment proceedings would jeopardize Eastman’s ability to defend his law license, his lawyers wrote.
“[Eastman] requests that the Court exercise its discretion to stay the State Bar’s disciplinary proceeding against him pending resolution of a parallel criminal investigation being conducted by Special Counsel Jack Smith and any trial or other proceedings that may result from that investigation,” Miller and Mayer wrote.
Bar discipline authorities have charged Eastman with multiple violations of professional rules and ethics — as well as the law — in his effort to upend the certified results of the 2020 election. Eastman’s bar discipline trial began in June — and he had even testified for several hours without asserting his Fifth Amendment rights. But it was postponed to late August after the proceedings ran longer than the initially anticipated two weeks.
New York Times, Previously Secret Memo Laid Out Strategy for Trump to Overturn 2020 Election, Maggie Haberman, Charlie Savage and Luke Broadwater, Aug. 8, 2023. A lawyer allied with Donald Trump first detailed a plot to use fake electors to subvert President Biden’s win in a memo uncovered in last week’s indictment.
A lawyer allied with President Donald J. Trump first laid out a plot to use false slates of electors to subvert the 2020 election in a previously unknown internal campaign memo that prosecutors are portraying as a crucial link in how the Trump team’s efforts evolved into a criminal conspiracy.
The existence of the Dec. 6, 2020, memo came to light in last week’s indictment of Mr. Trump, though its details remained unclear. But a copy obtained by The New York Times shows for the first time that the lawyer, Kenneth Chesebro, acknowledged from the start that he was proposing “a bold, controversial strategy” that the Supreme Court “likely” would reject in the end.
But even if the plan did not ultimately pass legal muster at the highest level, Mr. Chesebro argued that it would achieve two goals. It would focus attention on claims of voter fraud and “buy the Trump campaign more time to win litigation that would deprive Biden of electoral votes and/or add to Trump’s column.”
The memo had been a missing link in the public record of how Mr. Trump’s allies developed their strategy to overturn Mr. Biden’s victory. In mid-December, the false Trump electors could go through the motions of voting as if they had the authority to do so. Then, on Jan. 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence could unilaterally count those slates of votes, rather than the official and certified ones for Joseph R. Biden Jr.
While that basic plan itself was already known, the memo provides new details about how it originated and was discussed behind the scenes. Among those details is Mr. Chesebro’s proposed “messaging” strategy to explain why pro-Trump electors were meeting in states where Mr. Biden was declared the winner. The campaign would present that step as “a routine measure that is necessary to ensure” that the correct electoral slate could be counted by Congress if courts or legislatures later concluded that Mr. Trump had actually won the states.
But the indictment portrayed the Dec. 6 memo as a “sharp departure” from that proposal, becoming what prosecutors say was a criminal plot to engineer “a fake controversy that would derail the proper certification of Biden as president-elect.”
“I recognize that what I suggest is a bold, controversial strategy, and that there are many reasons why it might not end up being executed on Jan. 6,” Mr. Chesebro wrote. “But as long as it is one possible option, to preserve it as a possibility it is important that the Trump-Pence electors cast their electoral votes on Dec. 14.”
FRAUDULENT ELECTORS
Read the previously unreported memo from Dec. 6, 2020.
It was not the first time Mr. Chesebro had raised the notion of creating alternate electors. In November, he had suggested doing so in Wisconsin, although for a different reason: to safeguard Mr. Trump’s rights in case he later won a court battle and was declared that state’s certified winner by Jan. 6, as had happened with Hawaii in 1960.
Fani Willis, left, is the district attorney for Atlanta-based Fulton County in Georgia. Her office has been probing since 2021 then-President Trump's claiming beginning in 2020 of election fraud in Georgia and elsewhere. Trump and his allies have failed to win support for their claims from Georgia's statewide election officials, who are Republican, or from courts.
New York Times, Georgia Grand Jury Is Likely to Hear Trump Case Next Week, Danny Hakim and Richard Fausset, Aug. 8, 2023. The Georgia investigation may be the most expansive legal challenge yet to the efforts that former President Trump took to stay in power after the 2020 election.
The fourth criminal case involving Donald J. Trump is likely to come to a head next week, with the district attorney in Atlanta expected to take the findings from her election interference investigation to a grand jury.
The Georgia investigation may be the most expansive legal challenge yet to the efforts that Mr. Trump and his advisers undertook to keep him in power after he lost the 2020 election. Nearly 20 people are known to have been told that they could face charges as a result of the investigation, which Fani T. Willis, the district attorney in Fulton County, Ga., has pursued for two and a half years.
Ms. Willis has signaled that she would seek indictments from a grand jury in the first half of August. In a letter to local officials in May, she laid out plans for most of her staff to work remotely during the first three weeks of August amid heightened security concerns. Security barriers were recently erected in front of the downtown Atlanta courthouse, and at lunchtime on Tuesday, 16 law enforcement vehicles were parked around the perimeter.
On Tuesday afternoon, two witnesses who received subpoenas to appear before the Fulton County grand jury said in interviews that they had not received notices instructing them to testify within the next 48 hours, a sign that the case will not get to the jury until next week.
Earlier this month, Mr. Trump was indicted in a federal case brought by the special counsel Jack Smith, in an investigation also related to election interference that listed a number of unindicted co-conspirators. The Georgia inquiry, elements of which overlap with the federal case, involves not just the former president, but an array of his aides and advisers at the time of the 2020 election, several of whom are expected to face charges.
If Mr. Trump were to be convicted in a federal prosecution, he could theoretically pardon himself if he were re-elected president. But presidents do not hold such sway in state matters. Moreover, Georgia law makes pardons possible only five years after the completion of a sentence. Getting a sentence commuted requires the approval of a state panel.
New York Times, Donald Trump has settled on a political defense: “I’m being indicted for you,” Nick Corasaniti and Trip Gabriel, Aug. 8, 2023. The former president, who has made his 2024 campaign principally about his own personal grievances, is attempting to convince supporters to see themselves in him
As lawyers for Donald J. Trump float various legal arguments to defend him in court against an onslaught of criminal charges, the former president has settled on a political defense: “I’m being indicted for you.”
In speeches, social media posts and ads, Mr. Trump has repeatedly declared the prosecutions a political witch hunt, and he has cast himself as a martyr who is taking hits from Democrats and the government on their behalf.
“They want to take away my freedom because I will never let them take away your freedom,” Mr. Trump told the crowd at a campaign event in New Hampshire on Tuesday. “They want to silence me because I will never let them silence you.”
In two previous campaigns, 2016 and 2020, Mr. Trump presented himself to voters as an insurgent candidate who understood their grievances and promised to fight for them. Now, however, Mr. Trump has made his 2024 race principally about his own personal grievances — attempting to convince supporters to see themselves in him. He continues to argue, falsely, that the 2020 election was stolen from him, and to present it as a theft also against his voters. The legal jeopardy he now faces from multiple indictments, he tells followers, is the sort of persecution that they, too, could suffer.
New York Times, Former N.Y.P.D. Commissioner Bernard Kerik Interviewed by Jan. 6 Prosecutors, Alan Feuer, Aug. 8, 2023. Mr. Kerik, a close ally of the pro-Trump lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani, was asked about Mr. Trump’s fund-raising efforts and attempts to investigate fraud in the 2020 election.
Prosecutors in the office of the special counsel Jack Smith are pressing forward with their investigation into former President Donald J. Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election, asking at least one witness this week about fund-raising efforts by Mr. Trump’s political action committee.
The witness, Bernard B. Kerik, sat for a voluntary interview on Monday with prosecutors in what is known as a proffer session. A former New York City police commissioner, Mr. Kerik was instrumental in helping Rudolph W. Giuliani, a former mayor of New York and one of Mr. Trump’s chief lawyers after the election, investigate claims of fraud in the vote results.
Mr. Kerik’s interview was first reported by Politico.
Mr. Kerik also told prosecutors that if Save America had provided money to Mr. Giuliani’s team, it might have more accurately vetted the claims of fraud, Mr. Parlatore said.
Proffer sessions are based on an agreement between prosecutors and people who are subjects of criminal investigations. The subjects agree to provide useful information, sometimes to tell their side of events, to stave off potential charges or to avoid testifying under subpoena before a grand jury. In exchange, prosecutors agree not to use those statements against them in future criminal proceedings unless it is determined they were lying.
Mr. Giuliani sat for his own proffer session over two days in June and was asked several questions about a key aspect of Mr. Smith’s investigation: a plan by Mr. Trump and his allies to create fake slates of pro-Trump electors in key swing states that were actually won by President Biden. Prosecutors were said to have focused specifically on the role played in that effort by John Eastman, another lawyer who advised Mr. Trump about ways to stay in office after his defeat.
Among the questions prosecutors asked Mr. Kerik were several related to Mr. Trump’s main postelection fund-raising entity, Save America PAC. The special counsel’s office has been drilling down for months into whether the political action committee raised millions of dollars on claims that there was widespread fraud in the election, but ultimately earmarked the money for things other than investigating those claims.
Mr. Kerik told prosecutors that the team Mr. Giuliani had assembled to look into the allegations of fraud received no money from Save America PAC, even though it was one of the chief groups assigned the task of hunting down evidence that the election had been marred by cheating, Mr. Kerik’s lawyer, Timothy Parlatore, said on Tuesday.
Justice Department Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, left, and former President Donald Trump, shown in a collage via CNN.
New York Times, Opinion: The Prosecution of Trump May Have Terrible Consequences, Jack Goldsmith (Harvard Law School professor and former George W. Bush administration assistant attorney general and special counsel to the general counsel of the Department of Defense, Aug. 8, 2023.
It may be satisfying now to see Special Counsel Jack Smith indict former President Donald Trump for his reprehensible and possibly criminal actions in connection with the 2020 presidential election. But the prosecution, which might be justified, reflects a tragic choice that will compound the harms to the nation from Mr. Trump’s many transgressions.
Washington Post, Judge asks prosecutors to justify use of 2 grand juries in Trump documents case, Perry Stein, Aug. 8, 2023 (print ed.). Judge Aileen M. Cannon on Monday asked federal prosecutors to explain the use of grand juries in Florida and Washington in the classified documents case against Donald Trump even though charges were filed in South Florida.
Cannon, the federal judge in South Florida assigned to the case, posed the question in a court filing Monday and told federal prosecutors to respond by Aug. 22.
Donald Trump has been indicted in three cases and is under investigation in one other. The Washington Post is keeping track of where each Trump investigation stands. Here is a breakdown of all 78 charges Trump faces.
“The response shall address the legal propriety of using an out-of-district grand jury proceeding to continue to investigate and/or to seek post-indictment hearings on matters pertinent to the instant indicted matter in this district,” Cannon wrote.
Trump and two aides — Waltine “Walt” Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira — were charged this summer in a 42-count indictment that accuses the former president of improperly retaining 32 classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida residence and private club, and seeking to thwart government attempts to retrieve them.
Prosecutors first charged Trump and Nauta in June and added charges in a July superseding indictment. De Oliveira was first charged in the superseding indictment.
For many months, Justice Department prosecutors had questioned witnesses in the Florida case before a federal grand jury in Washington. The secret proceedings yielded much of the evidence at the crux of the case. But in May, the grand jury activity appeared to continue at a federal courthouse in Miami. Ultimately, prosecutors filed charges in a West Palm Beach courthouse — a courthouse in the same district as Miami and the area where Mar-a-Lago is located.
Prosecutors said in a court filing last week that they continued to use the grand jury in Washington after they initially charged Trump in June to investigate alleged instances of obstructing the investigation. The focus of the July superseding indictment was on obstruction, alleging that all defendants tried to delete security footage that the government wanted as evidence in the case.
“The grand jury in this district and a grand jury in the District of Columbia continued to investigate further obstructive activity, and a superseding indictment was returned on July 27, 2023,” prosecutors wrote in the filing.
Prosecutors included that revelation in a motion asking the judge to consider holding a hearing to determine whether Nauta’s attorney has too many conflicts of interest to provide his client with adequate legal advice.
The government lawyers said Stanley Woodward — the Nauta attorney — has represented at least seven other clients whom prosecutors have interviewed about Trump’s alleged efforts to keep classified documents in defiance of the government’s demand they be returned. Two of Woodward’s clients could be called as government witnesses in the trial, the filing by the government said.
If that happens, Woodward may need to cross-examine his other clients as part of defending Nauta, said the prosecutors leading the Justice Department investigation.
The requested hearing — known as a Garcia hearing — is fairly common in legal proceedings. At the hearing, prosecutors said Cannon should inform Nauta and the two witnesses, whose names have not been made public, of their legal rights and the potential conflicts their attorney poses. Lawyers are generally required to flag to a judge any potential conflicts of interest they encounter.
Cannon said Nauta’s lawyers are expected to respond to the judge’s question about the two grand jury locations and the prosecutors’ request for the Garcia hearing.
Trump also has pending civil matters including a lawsuit in New York brought against him by E. Jean Carroll, an advice columnist who in 2019 accused him of sexually assaulting her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room.
Aug. 7
New York Times, Trump Calls for Judge’s Recusal as His Lawyer Deems Effort to Overturn Election ‘Aspirational,’ Luke Broadwater and Maggie Astor, Aug. 7, 2023 (print ed.). Former President Donald J. Trump spent the weekend on the attack on Truth Social while his lawyer, John F. Lauro, ran through a gantlet of interviews Sunday morning.
Appearing on five television networks Sunday morning, a lawyer for former President Donald J. Trump argued that his actions in the effort to overturn the 2020 election fell short of crimes and were merely “aspirational.”
The remarks from his lawyer, John F. Lauro, came as Mr. Trump was blanketing his social media platform, Truth Social, with posts suggesting that his legal team was going to seek the recusal of Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, the federal judge overseeing the case, and try to move his trial out of Washington.
With his client facing charges carrying decades in prison after a federal grand jury indicted Mr. Trump for his role in trying to overturn the election, his third criminal case this year, Mr. Lauro appeared in interviews on CNN, ABC, Fox, NBC and CBS. He endeavored to defend Mr. Trump, including against evidence that, as president, he pressured his vice president, Mike Pence, to reject legitimate votes for Joseph R. Biden Jr. in favor of false electors pledged to Mr. Trump.
“What President Trump didn’t do is direct Vice President Pence to do anything,” Mr. Lauro said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “He asked him in an aspirational way.”
Mr. Lauro used the same defense on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” when asked about Mr. Trump’s now-infamous call to Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger. During that call, President Trump pressured Mr. Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” to win the state and suggested that Mr. Raffensperger could face criminal repercussions if he did not.
“That was an aspirational ask,” Mr. Lauro said.
His portrayal of Mr. Trump’s approach is at odds with two key moments in the indictment.
In one, prosecutors say that on Jan. 5, 2021, Mr. Trump met alone with Mr. Pence, who refused to do what Mr. Trump wanted. When that happened, the indictment says, “the defendant grew frustrated and told the Vice President that the defendant would have to publicly criticize him.”
Mr. Pence’s chief of staff, Marc Short, then alerted the head of Mr. Pence’s Secret Service detail, prosecutors said.
That same day, after The Times reported that Mr. Pence had indeed told Mr. Trump that he lacked the authority to do what Mr. Trump wanted, the president issued a public statement calling the report “fake news.” According to the indictment, Mr. Trump also falsely asserted: “The Vice President and I are in total agreement that the Vice President has the power to act.”
Aug. 6
New York Times, Trump’s Legal Team Is Enmeshed in a Tangle of Possible Conflicts, Alan Feuer, Ben Protess and Maggie Haberman, Aug. 6, 2023 (print ed.). Former President Trump’s cast of lawyers is marked by a web of overlapping interests encompassing witnesses, co-defendants and potential targets.
M. Evan Corcoran, right, a lawyer who accompanied former President Donald J. Trump to court this week for his arraignment on charges of trying to overturn the 2020 election, has given crucial evidence in Mr. Trump’s other federal case — the one accusing him of illegally hoarding classified documents.
Another lawyer close to Mr. Trump, Boris Epshteyn, sat for an interview with prosecutors this spring and could be one of the former president’s co-conspirators in the election tampering case.
And Mr. Epshteyn’s lawyer, Todd Blanche, is defending Mr. Trump against both the documents and election case indictments.
The legal team that Mr. Trump has assembled to represent him in the twin prosecutions by the special counsel, Jack Smith, is marked by a tangled web of potential conflicts and overlapping interests — so much so that Mr. Smith’s office has started asking questions.
While it is not uncommon for lawyers in complex matters — like large mob cases or financial inquiries — to wear many hats or to play competing roles, the Gordian knot of intertwined imperatives in the Trump investigations is particularly intricate and insular.
Some of the lawyers involved in the cases are representing both charged defendants and uncharged witnesses. At least one could eventually become a defendant, and another could end up as a witness in one case and Mr. Trump’s defender in a different one.
All of that sits atop another thorny fact: Many of the lawyers are being paid by Save America PAC, Mr. Trump’s political action committee, which has itself been under government scrutiny for months. Some of the witnesses those lawyers represent work for the Trump Organization, Mr. Trump’s company, but their legal defense has not been arranged by the company, but rather by Mr. Trump’s own legal team, a person with knowledge of the matter said.
Although clients might choose to stick with their lawyers despite a conflict, just this week, prosecutors under Mr. Smith sent up a warning flare about these issues. They asked Judge Aileen M. Cannon, who is overseeing the documents case, to conduct a hearing “regarding potential conflicts” arising from the complex client list of one lawyer, Stanley Woodward Jr.
Mr. Woodward represents Walt Nauta, Mr. Trump’s personal aide and one of his co-defendants in the documents case. Mr. Woodward has also worked for at least three witnesses in the broader inquiry who could be called to testify at trial.
Washington Post, Analysis: Trump indictments add to pressure on government funding bills, Paul Kane, Aug. 6, 2023 (print ed.). A government shutdown looms as far-right lawmakers vow to slash funding for Justice Department investigations into Donald Trump.
Congress is already off to a slow start on its annual work on funding federal agencies. Only one of 12 bills has been approved by the House, and not one has been through the Senate.
This means the best-case scenario is for Congress to pass a stopgap funding bill ahead of the Sept. 30 fiscal-year deadline to keep agencies running on their current budgets while lawmakers try to hash out their mess.
But House Republicans are governed by a small band of far-right conservatives who traditionally hate such short-term continuing resolutions, as the measures are known on Capitol Hill. And the most recent charges against former president Donald Trump have angered those lawmakers, some of whom are threatening to block any bill that provides funding to the Justice Department unless they get to chisel away at money that in any way contributes to special counsel Jack Smith’s investigations.
Aug. 5
Emptywheel, Analysis: Protective Order: Who Is the Victim of Trump's 18 USC 241 Charge? Emptywheel (Marcy Wheeler, right), Aug. 5, 2023. One interesting question raised by Trump's threats against those prosecuting him is whether Joe Biden is included among the victims of the 18 USC 241 count charged against Trump.
Yesterday, one day after Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadhyaya warned Trump not to engage in witness tampering, he posted first a video claiming that the prosecutors who are prosecuting him — none of whom Joe Biden appointed — were Biden’s accomplices in an attempt to win the election. He followed that with a tweet threatening, “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!”
Shortly thereafter, two prosecutors who were career prosecutors in the Trump Administration before they came to report to Merrick Garland, Molly Gaston and Thomas Windom, filed a motion for a protective order. While the ostensible goal of the motion was to accelerate the process of sharing discovery in a way that won’t end up in a tweet somewhere, they did use it to alert Judge Tanya Chutkan of Trump’s tweet.
The Government’s proposed order is consistent with other such orders commonly used in this District and is not overly restrictive. It allows the defendant prompt and effective use of discovery materials in connection with his defense, including by showing discovery materials to witnesses who also agree to abide by the order’s terms.
All the proposed order seeks to prevent is the improper dissemination or use of discovery materials, including to the public. Such a restriction is particularly important in this case because the defendant has previously issued public statements on social media regarding witnesses, judges, attorneys, and others associated with legal matters pending against him.
Contrary to the claims of Trump and dozens of lawyers who haven’t read the indictment, it’s really not about his First Amendment right to lie, which is undoubtedly why he’s staging an early attempt to make this about his ongoing First Amendment right to lie.
Emptywheel, Analysis: Protection Racket: Donald Trump Thinks He's More Special Than Steve Bannon, Emptywheel (Marcy Wheeler, right), Aug. 5, 2023. Donald Trump thinks he is so much more special than Steve Bannon, he needs a more special protective order than his former aide.
As you no doubt know, Trump and his January 6 prosecutors had a bit of a spat about the protective order governing evidence in the case. The timeline goes like this.
Aug. 4
Emptywheel, Analysis: Trump's Family Is Not in His Prosecution, Emptywheel (Marcy Wheeler), Aug. 4, 2023. Yesterday, three arraignments in, Trump remains unattended by any family members in his criminal prosecutions. But even more striking, Trump is alone in his indictments, without any of the key roles played, including by his daughter and most trusted advisor, laid out in the overt act
U.S. Department of Justice Special Counsel Jack Smith announces the first indictment of former U.S. President Trump on June 9, 2023.
New York Times, Analysis: How Jack Smith Structured the Trump Election Indictment to Reduce Risks, Charlie Savage, Aug. 5, 2023 (print ed.). The special counsel layered varied charges atop the same facts, while sidestepping a free-speech question by not charging incitement.
In accusing former President Donald J. Trump of conspiring to subvert American democracy, the special counsel, Jack Smith, charged the same story three different ways. The charges are novel applications of criminal laws to unprecedented circumstances, heightening legal risks, but Mr. Smith’s tactic gives him multiple paths in obtaining and upholding a guilty verdict.
“Especially in a case like this, you want to have multiple charges that are applicable or provable with the same evidence, so that if on appeal you lose one, you still have the conviction,” said Julie O’Sullivan, a Georgetown University law professor and former federal prosecutor.
That structure in the indictment is only one of several strategic choices by Mr. Smith — including what facts and potential charges he chose to include or omit — that may foreshadow and shape how an eventual trial of Mr. Trump will play out.
The four charges rely on three criminal statutes: a count of conspiring to defraud the government, another of conspiring to disenfranchise voters, and two counts related to corruptly obstructing a congressional proceeding. Applying each to Mr. Trump’s actions raises various complexities, according to a range of criminal law experts.
At the same time, the indictment hints at how Mr. Smith is trying to sidestep legal pitfalls and potential defenses. He began with an unusual preamble that reads like an opening statement at trial, acknowledging that Mr. Trump had a right to challenge the election results in court and even to lie about them, but drawing a distinction with the defendant’s pursuit of “unlawful means of discounting legitimate votes and subverting the election results.”
While the indictment is sprawling in laying out a case against Mr. Trump, it brings a selective lens on the multifaceted efforts by the former president and his associates to overturn the 2020 election.
“The strength of the indictment is that it is very narrowly written,” said Ronald S. Sullivan Jr., a Harvard Law School professor and former public defender. “The government is not attempting to prove too much, but rather it went for low-hanging fruit.”
For one, Mr. Smith said little about the violent events of Jan. 6, leaving out vast amounts of evidence in the report by a House committee that separately investigated the matter. He focused more on a brazen plan to recruit false slates of electors from swing states and a pressure campaign on Vice President Mike Pence to block the congressional certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory.
Aug. 3
New York Times, Former President Trump is set to appear in court in Washington on Thursday, where he is expected to plead not guilty, Glenn Thrush, Aug. 3, 2023. The former president’s appearance before Magistrate Judge Moxila A. Upadhyaya on election subversion charges comes about six weeks after his arraignment over sensitive documents.
Former President Donald J. Trump is expected to appear at 4 p.m. on Thursday in the U.S. federal courthouse at the foot of Capitol Hill, the site of a yearslong government effort to hold accountable those who tried to subvert democracy.
Mr. Trump’s appearance before Moxila A. Upadhyaya, a federal magistrate judge, comes about six weeks after his arraignment in Miami on charges of mishandling government documents after he left the White House and seeking to block investigators.
His second federal indictment is likely to follow a cadence similar to his first.
The former president will fly down on his private jet from his golf club in Bedminster, N.J. He is expected to arrive between 3 and 4 p.m., at the E. Barrett Prettyman courthouse, the venue for dozens of trials stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
The U.S. Marshals Service, which is responsible for security inside federal courthouses, will escort him to an area where he will be booked for a third time this year. (He was arraigned in New York in the spring in connection with a hush-money payment to a pornographic actress before the 2016 election.)
The sheriff in Fulton County, Ga., where another potential indictment connected to Mr. Trump’s efforts to undermine the 2020 election looms, has suggested that if Mr. Trump is charged, he will be processed like anybody else, mug shot and all. That will not happen on Thursday: The marshals did not photograph Mr. Trump in Miami, and they will not take his picture in Washington, according to a law enforcement official involved in the planning.
- Read the indictment here.
New York Times, Analysis: In 2024 Race, Trump Is Also Trying to Outrun Prosecutions, Lisa Lerer and Reid J. Epstein, Aug. 3, 2023. Former President Trump has long understood the stakes: The courts may decide his cases, but only voters can decide whether to return him to power.
The indictment of former President Donald J. Trump on charges of conspiring to overthrow the 2020 election ensures that a federal jury will determine whether he is held accountable for his elaborate, drawn-out and unprecedented attempt to negate a vote of the American people and cling to power.
But it is tens of millions of voters who may deliver the ultimate verdict.
For months now, as prosecutors pursued criminal charges against him in multiple jurisdictions, Mr. Trump has intertwined his legal defenses with his electoral arguments. He has called on Republicans to rally behind him to send a message to prosecutors. He has made clear that if he recaptures the White House, he will use his powers to ensure his personal freedom by shutting down prosecutions still underway.
In effect, he is both running for president and trying to outrun the law enforcement officials seeking to convict him.
That dynamic has transformed the stakes of this election in ways that may not always be clear. Behind the debates over inflation, “wokeness” and the border, the 2024 election is at its core about the fundamental tenets of American democracy: the peaceful transfer of power, the independence of the nation’s justice system, the meaning of political free speech and the principle that no one is above the law.
Washington Post, Michigan Republicans charged in connection with 2020 voting machine tampering, Patrick Marley and Aaron Schaffer, Aug. 2, 2023 (print ed.). A Michigan grand jury charged a former state lawmaker and a losing candidate for state attorney general as part of an investigation into the improper acquisition of voting machines.
A Michigan prosecutor charged a former state lawmaker and a losing candidate for state attorney general Tuesday as part of an investigation into the improper acquisition of voting machines.
Special prosecutor D.J. Hilson since last year has been looking into efforts by a group of conservatives to persuade election clerks to give them voting machines as they attempted to prove the 2020 presidential election had been wrongly called for Joe Biden over Donald Trump. The group never turned up any proof, and courts in dozens of cases across the country ruled that the election was properly decided.
Former attorney general candidate Matthew DePerno (R) was charged with improper possession of a voting machine, conspiracy to unlawfully possess a voting machine, conspiracy to gain unauthorized access to a computer system and willfully damaging a voting machine, according to Hilson. Former state representative Daire Rendon (R) was charged with conspiracy to unlawfully possess a voting machine and using false pretenses with the intent to defraud, he said. Both were arraigned Tuesday and released.
Politico, ‘Everything has fallen off a cliff': Battleground state GOPs nosedive in Trump era, Adam Wren, Zach Montellaro, Holly Otterbein, Lisa Kashinsky and Natalie Allison, Aug.3, 2023 (print ed.). State Republican parties across the country are struggling. Can they recover? Does it matter?
Former President Donald Trump and Michigan Republican attorney general candidate Matt DePerno standing behind Michigan Republican secretary of state candidate Kristina Karamo as she speaks at a podium during a rally.
Perhaps no state provides as great a microcosm of the current political moment as Michigan, where the state party has been caught in infighting between Kristina Karamo, the party’s new chair, and Matt DePerno, the GOP’s 2022 attorney general candidate
Michigan’s Republican party is broke. Minnesota’s was, until recently, down to $53.81 in the bank. And in Colorado, the GOP is facing eviction from its office this month because it can’t make rent.
Around the nation, state Republican party apparatuses — once bastions of competency that helped produce statehouse takeovers — have become shells of their former machines amid infighting and a lack of organization.
Current and former officials at the heart of the matter blame twin forces for it: The rise of insurgent pro-Donald Trump activists capturing party leadership posts, combined with the ever-rising influence of super PACs.
“It shouldn’t surprise anybody that real people with real money — the big donors who have historically funded the party apparatus — don’t want to invest in these clowns who have taken over and subsumed the Republican Party,” said Jeff Timmer, the former executive director of the once-vaunted Michigan GOP and a senior adviser to the anti-Trump Lincoln Project.
Among some state GOP officials, the mood is grim. One Michigan Republican operative, who was granted anonymity because he wasn’t authorized by the state party to comment, said of that state party: “They’re just in as bad a place as a political party can be. They’re broke…Their chair can’t even admit she lost a race. It’s defunct.”
The demise of the GOP state parties could have a profound impact on the 2024 election. Operatives fear that hollowed out outfits in key battlegrounds could leave the party vulnerable, especially as Democrats are focusing more on state legislative races. Traditionally, state parties perform the basic blocking and tackling of politics, from get out the vote programs to building data in municipal elections.
But not all Republicans are concerned. In fact, some argue that modern politics in the age of super PAC make state parties relics of the past.
New York Times, Trump Indictment Leaves Unnamed ‘Co-Conspirators’ With Tough Choices, Alan Feuer, Luke Broadwater and Ben Protess, Aug. 3, 2023 (print ed.). The special counsel’s decision not to charge six people said to have played critical roles in the effort to keep Donald Trump in office seemed to give them a chance to cooperate with prosecutors. Some appear to be unwilling.
By the time Jack Smith, the special counsel (shown above in a file photo), was brought in to oversee the investigation of former President Donald J. Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election, the inquiry had already focused for months on a group of lawyers close to Mr. Trump.
Many showed up as subjects of interest in a seemingly unending flurry of subpoenas issued by a grand jury sitting in the case. Some were household names, others less familiar. Among them were Rudolph W. Giuliani, right, John Eastman, Jeffrey Clark, Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell.
On Tuesday, most of these same lawyers showed up again — albeit unnamed — as Mr. Trump’s co-conspirators in a federal indictment accusing him of a wide-ranging plot to remain in office despite having lost the election.
The appearance of the lawyers at the center of the case suggests how important prosecutors judged them to be to the conspiracy to execute what one federal judge who considered some of the evidence called “a coup in search of a legal theory.”
New York Times, Trump Election Charges Set Up Clash of Lies Versus Free Speech, Michael S. Schmidt and Maggie Haberman, Aug. 3, 2023 (print ed.). The indictment of former President Donald J. Trump over his efforts to retain power accuses him of conspiracies built on knowing falsehoods. His supporters say he is protected by the First Amendment.
Running through the indictment charging former President Donald J. Trump with conspiring to overturn the 2020 election was a consistent theme: He is an inveterate and knowing liar.
The indictment laid out how, in the two months after Election Day, Mr. Trump “spread lies” about widespread election fraud even though he “knew that they were false.”
Mr. Trump “deliberately disregarded the truth” and relentlessly disseminated them anyway at a “prolific” pace, the indictment continued, “to make his knowingly false claims appear legitimate, create an intense national atmosphere of mistrust and anger, and erode public faith in the administration of the election.”
Of course, Mr. Trump has never been known for fealty to truth.
Throughout his careers in business and politics, he has sought to bend reality to his own needs, with lies ranging from relatively small ones, like claiming he was of Swedish and not German descent when trying to rent to Jewish tenants in New York City, to proclaiming that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States.
If you repeat something enough, he has told confidants over time, people will believe it.
By and large, this trait has served him well, helping him bluster and bluff his way through bankruptcies and then to the White House and through crises once he was there: personal scandals, two impeachments and a special counsel’s investigation when he was in office.
But now he is being held to account in a way he never has been before for what a new special counsel, Jack Smith, is asserting was a campaign of falsehoods that undermined the foundations of democracy.
Already, Mr. Trump’s lawyers and allies are setting out the early stages of a legal strategy to counter the accusations, saying that Mr. Trump’s First Amendment rights are under attack. They say Mr. Trump had every right to express views about election fraud that they say he believed, and still believes, to be true, and that the actions he took or proposed after the election were based on legal advice.
New York Times, Former Vice President Mike Pence has an extraordinary role in a criminal case against his onetime boss and current rival, Shane Goldmacher, Maggie Astor and Luke Broadwater, Aug. 3, 2023 (print ed.). Mike Pence, shown above left in a file photo, is playing an extraordinary role in a historic criminal case against his onetime benefactor and current rival, whose angry supporters once threatened Mr. Pence’s life.
Former Vice President Mike Pence’s remarkable transformation from Donald J. Trump’s most loyal lieutenant to an indispensable, if reluctant, witness for his prosecution became clear this week, when he emerged as perhaps the central character in a stinging indictment accusing the former president of a criminal conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election.
From a tense Christmas Day phone call between the two men to the fresh revelation that Mr. Pence kept “contemporaneous notes” on the tumultuous period leading up to Jan. 6, 2021, the indictment detailed Mr. Pence’s efforts to block his former boss’s schemes and laid bare the rupture in their relationship.
“You’re too honest,” Mr. Trump berated Mr. Pence as he refused to go along with the election plot, according to the indictment.
Yet Mr. Pence has been loath to embrace the role of Trump antagonist, even as he has repeatedly suggested that Mr. Trump’s push to overturn the 2020 vote is disqualifying. He casts Mr. Trump as more a victim of unfortunate circumstances than the mastermind of an election-stealing conspiracy.
The bipartisan U.S. House Jan. 6 insurrection investigating committee opened its hearings on June 9, 2022 (Photo by Win McNamee via Getty Images).
New York Times, Trump Jan. 6 Indictment Relies Heavily on House Panel’s Work, Luke Broadwater, Aug.3, 2023 (print ed.). The special House committee that investigated the attack on the Capitol created the road map for the charges against the former president.
In taking the monumental step of charging a former president with attempting to steal an American election, Jack Smith, the Justice Department special counsel, relied on an extraordinary narrative, but one the country knew well.
For a year and a half, the special House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol introduced Americans to a sprawling cast of characters and laid out in painstaking detail the many ways in which former President Donald J. Trump tried to overturn the 2020 election. In doing so, it provided a road map of sorts for the 45-page indictment Mr. Smith released on Tuesday.
“In a lot of ways, the committee’s work provided this path,” said Soumya Dayananda, who served as a senior investigator for the House Jan. 6 panel. “The committee served as educating the country about what the former president did, and this is finally accountability. The congressional committee wasn’t going to be able to bring accountability; that was in the hands of the Department of Justice.”
Mr. Smith’s document — while far slimmer than the 845-page tome produced by the House investigative committee — contained a narrative that was nearly identical: An out-of-control president, refusing to leave office, was willing to lie and harm the country’s democracy in an attempt to stay in power.
With televised hearings drawing millions of viewers, the panel introduced the public to little-known lawyers who plotted with Mr. Trump to keep him in power, dramatic moments of conflict within the Oval Office and concepts like the “fake electors” scheme carried out across multiple states to try to reverse the election outcome. Its final report laid out specific criminal charges that a prosecutor could bring against the former president.
New York Times, Analysis: For the court of public opinion, Donald Trump is relying on a “whataboutism” defense, Peter Baker, Aug. 3, 2023 (print ed.). As the former president faces multiple criminal indictments, he and his defenders try to shift attention by pointing to President Biden’s son Hunter.
Former President Donald J. Trump now faces 78 felony counts in three different criminal cases, not to mention a slew of civil lawsuits and trials alleging all sorts of wrongdoing. At least in the court of public opinion, though, his defense can be boiled down to three words.
What about Hunter?
From Mr. Trump’s team to conservative media to the Republican Party leadership, the reaction to the latest blockbuster indictment accusing the former president of nothing short of trying to subvert democracy focused not on the evidence against him so much as the foibles and scandals of President Biden’s son.
The real outrage, Mr. Trump’s defenders maintained, is Hunter Biden’s shady business dealings. The Justice Department, they claimed, is only going after the former president to cover up for the current president. Mr. Trump is a victim persecuted by his enemies, so the argument goes, while Hunter Biden is a one-man crime wave who personifies the Washington swamp.
The wave of whataboutism from Trump world crested with this week’s indictment but has been building for months, a way of shifting attention from the former president’s kaleidoscopic legal troubles. The strategy provides the former president’s hard-core base a narrative to embrace that absolves him of any misconduct while muddying the waters enough to cause at least some independents and swing voters to throw up their hands out of a sense that, well, they all do it.
New York Times, Cardinals Superfan Is Charged With Joining Jan. 6 Capitol Attack, Eduardo Medina, Aug. 3, 2023. Daniel Donnelly Jr. wears an all-red outfit in appearances at the team’s stadium in St. Louis. Prosecutors say he was in similar attire when he used a shield to help rioters on Jan. 6.
A St. Louis Cardinals superfan known as Rally Runner was charged on Wednesday with joining a mob during the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, where, wearing his signature red face paint, he used a riot shield to push against police officers to help other rioters advance, the Justice Department said.
The man, Daniel Donnelly Jr., 43, of St. Louis, was charged with one count of civil disorder, a felony, and several misdemeanor offenses, including disorderly conduct in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly conduct in a Capitol building, impeding passage through the Capitol grounds and theft of government property, the federal 
agency said in a news release.
Daniel Donnelly Jr. wears a red “Keep America Great” hat and red face paint (Photo via U.S. Department of Justice).
A staunch supporter of the Cardinals, Mr. Donnelly in recent years became something of a mascot of the Major League Baseball team as he ran laps outside Busch Stadium, wearing all-red attire and face paint and believing that his jogs would generate more runs for the team.
New York Times, Opinion: What Makes Jack Smith’s New Trump Indictment So Smart, Randall D. Eliason (right, a former chief of the fraud and public 
corruption section at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia), Aug.3, 2023 (print ed.). This is the indictment that those who were horrified by the events of Jan. 6, 2021, have been waiting for. The catalog of misdeeds that Donald Trump is accused of is extensive, some reflected in other prosecutions over classified documents and hush-money payments or in civil lawsuits.
But this case — a sitting U.S. president’s assault on democracy — is by far the most consequential. And from the looks of this indictment, the prosecution’s case is going to be thorough and relentless.
The charging decisions in the indictment reflect smart lawyering by the special counsel Jack Smith and his team. The beauty of this indictment is that it provides three legal frameworks that prosecutors can use to tell the same fulsome story.
It will allow prosecutors to put on a compelling case that will hold Mr. Trump fully accountable for the multipronged effort to overturn the election. At the same time, it avoids legal and political pitfalls that could have delayed or derailed the prosecution.
Aug. 2
New York Times, Here’s a guide to the details of the indictment, and the new information released by prosecutors, German Lopez and Ian Prasad Philbrick, Aug. 2, 2023. The two previous indictments of Donald Trump focused on his personal conduct, one involving a sex scandal and the other his handling of classified documents. Yesterday’s indictment is different. It involves arguably the most central issue in a democracy: an attempt to subvert an American election.
“At the core of the United States of America vs. Donald J. Trump is no less than the viability of the system constructed” by the founders, our colleague Peter Baker, The Times’s chief White House correspondent, wrote. “Can a sitting president spread lies about an election and try to employ his government’s power to overturn the will of the voters without consequence?”
In today’s newsletter, we’ll explain the details of the indictment and focus on the new information that prosecutors released yesterday.
The charges
The new indictment lays out a scheme that, by now, is widely known: Trump falsely claimed the 2020 election results were rigged and tried to rally federal officials, state lawmakers and his supporters, including rioters at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to overturn his loss to President Biden.
The bipartisan U.S. House Jan. 6 insurrection investigating committee opened its hearings on June 9, 2022 (Photo by Win McNamee via Getty Images).
New York Times, Trump Jan. 6 Indictment Relies Heavily on House Panel’s Work, Luke Broadwater, Aug. 2, 2023. The special House committee that investigated the attack on the Capitol created the road map for the charges against the former president.
In taking the monumental step of charging a former president with attempting to steal an American election, Jack Smith, the Justice Department special counsel, relied on an extraordinary narrative, but one the country knew well.
For a year and a half, the special House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol introduced Americans to a sprawling cast of characters and laid out in painstaking detail the many ways in which former President Donald J. Trump tried to overturn the 2020 election. In doing so, it provided a road map of sorts for the 45-page indictment Mr. Smith released on Tuesday.
“In a lot of ways, the committee’s work provided this path,” said Soumya Dayananda, who served as a senior investigator for the House Jan. 6 panel. “The committee served as educating the country about what the former president did, and this is finally accountability. The congressional committee wasn’t going to be able to bring accountability; that was in the hands of the Department of Justice.”
Mr. Smith’s document — while far slimmer than the 845-page tome produced by the House investigative committee — contained a narrative that was nearly identical: An out-of-control president, refusing to leave office, was willing to lie and harm the country’s democracy in an attempt to stay in power.
With televised hearings drawing millions of viewers, the panel introduced the public to little-known lawyers who plotted with Mr. Trump to keep him in power, dramatic moments of conflict within the Oval Office and concepts like the “fake electors” scheme carried out across multiple states to try to reverse the election outcome. Its final report laid out specific criminal charges that a prosecutor could bring against the former president.
New York Times, Opinion: What Makes Jack Smith’s New Trump Indictment So Smart, Randall D. Eliason (right, a former chief of the fraud and public corruption section at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia), Aug. 2, 2023. This is the indictment that those who were horrified by the events of Jan. 6, 2021, have been waiting for. The catalog of misdeeds that Donald Trump is accused of is extensive, some reflected in other prosecutions over classified documents and hush-money payments or in civil lawsuits.
But this case — a sitting U.S. president’s assault on democracy — is by far the most consequential. And from the looks of this indictment, the prosecution’s case is going to be thorough and relentless.
The charging decisions in the indictment reflect smart lawyering by the special counsel Jack Smith and his team. The beauty of this indictment is that it provides three legal frameworks that prosecutors can use to tell the same fulsome story.
It will allow prosecutors to put on a compelling case that will hold Mr. Trump fully accountable for the multipronged effort to overturn the election. At the same time, it avoids legal and political pitfalls that could have delayed or derailed the prosecution.
Associated Press, In Jan. 6 cases, 1 judge stands out as the toughest punisher, Michael Kunzelman and Alanna Durkin Richer, June 12, 2022. An Ohio couple climbed through a broken window of the U.S. Capitol and livestreamed a video of themselves inside. A Texas mortgage broker posed for a selfie in front of rioters breaching the building. An Indiana hair salon owner celebrated on Facebook a day after she joined the pro-Donald Trump mob.
Federal prosecutors did not seek prison time for any of them after they pleaded guilty to petty offenses for their actions on Jan. 6, 2021.
The judge had other ideas.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan (right, assigned to handle the federal indictment of Donald Trump on Aug. 1, 2023) put them all behind bars, describing it as the appropriate punishment for their participation in the riot that halted the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory, sent lawmakers running for their lives and left dozens of police officers beaten and bloodied.
As the number of people sentenced for crimes in the insurrection nears 200, an Associated Press analysis of sentencing data shows that some judges are divided over how to punish the rioters, particularly for the low-level misdemeanors arising from the attack.
“We’re asking judges to do what they think is right, and they don’t agree on what’s right,” said Greg Hunter, a lawyer defending several Jan. 6 defendants.
A House committee that held it first public hearing on Thursday cast a wide net in its investigation of the insurrection, examining how President Trump and his allies tried to undermine the election results. So far, the Justice Department’s criminal investigation has focused primarily on the hundreds of Trump supporters who broke through police barricades, shattered windows, attacked officers and stormed into the Capitol.
Chutkan, a former assistant public defender who was nominated to the bench by President Barack Obama, has consistently taken the hardest line against Jan. 6 defendants of any judge serving on Washington’s federal trial court, which is handling the more than 800 cases brought so far in the largest prosecution in Justice Department history.
Chutkan has handed out tougher sentences than the department was seeking in seven cases, matched its requests in four others and sent all 11 riot defendants who have come before her behind bars. In the four cases in which prosecutors did not seek jail time, Chutkan gave terms ranging from 14 days to 45 days.
New York Times, Opinion: What Trump Knew and What Trump Did, David French, right, Aug. 2, 2023. At last. The federal criminal justice system is going to legal war 
against one of the most dishonest, malicious and damaging conspiracies in the history of the United States. Tuesday’s indictment of Donald Trump, brought by the special counsel Jack Smith’s office, is the culmination of a comprehensive effort to bring justice to those who attempted to overthrow the results of an American presidential election.
In the weeks after the 2020 election, the legal system was in a defensive crouch, repelling an onslaught of patently frivolous claims designed to reverse the election results. In the months and years since the violent insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, the legal system has switched from defense to offense. With all deliberate speed, prosecutors first brought charges against Trump’s foot soldiers, the men and women who breached the Capitol. Next, prosecutors pursued the organizers of Trumpist right-wing militias, the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, who had engaged in a seditious conspiracy to keep Trump in the White House.
And now, Smith is pursuing Trump himself — along with six yet unnamed co-conspirators — alleging criminal schemes that reached the highest level of American government. This is the case that, if successful, can once and for all strip Trump of any pretense of good faith or good will. But make no mistake, the outcome of this case is uncertain for exactly the reason it’s so important: So very much of the case depends on Trump’s state of mind.
At the risk of oversimplifying an indictment that contains four distinct counts — conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy against rights — it can be broken down into two indispensable components. First, it will be necessary to prove what Trump knew. Second, it will be necessary to prove what he did. Let’s take, for example, the first count of the indictment: 18 U.S.C. Section 371, conspiracy to defraud the United States. The statute is designed to criminalize any interference or obstruction of a “lawful governmental function” by “deceit, craft or trickery.”
Aug. 1
New York Times, JAN. 6 RIOT ‘FUELED BY LIES,’ INDICTMENT SAYS; Trump Faces 4 Counts in His Push to Overturn 2020 Election, Alan Feuer and Maggie Haberman, Aug. 1, 2023.
Donald Trump is accused of a conspiracy to defraud the U.S., a conspiracy to threaten others’ rights and the obstruction of a proceeding before Congress.
The charges are the first to emerge from a sprawling federal investigation into Mr. Trump’s attempts to cling to power after losing the presidency.
Washington Post, DEVELOPING: Jan. 6 grand jury probing efforts to overturn 2020 election issues indictment, Devlin Barrett, Spencer S. Hsu, Perry Stein and Josh Dawsey, Aug. 1, 2023. Trump indicted on four counts, including obstruction and conspiracy. Indictment is the first to emerge from special counsel Jack Smith’s probe of the underpinnings of the Jan. 6 riot and the campaign to reverse Joe Biden’s victory.
A grand jury investigating the efforts of former president Donald Trump and others to overturn the results of the 2020 election has returned an indictment, though the document remained under seal and it was not immediately clear who was charged, or with what alleged crimes.
Reporters observed a prosecutor with special counsel Jack Smith’s office and the foreperson of a grand jury that has been active for many months examining the events surrounding Jan. 6 deliver the indictment Tuesday evening to a magistrate judge in federal court in Washington, D.C.
- Read the indictment here.
That grand jury panel gathered Tuesday, and left the courthouse in the afternoon.
The indictment could mark a major new phase in Smith’s investigation of the former president and his aides and allies, coming nearly two months after Trump and his longtime valet were indicted for allegedly mishandling classified documents and scheming to prevent government officials from retrieving them.
Trump, who has pleaded not guilty in the documents case, denies all wrongdoing related to the 2020 election as well. He announced on social media on July 18 that his lawyers had been told he was a target in the election-focused probe.
Smith, shown above, was tapped in November to take charge of the both high-profile investigations, after Trump launched his 2024 presidential election campaign and Attorney General Merrick Garland — an appointee of President Biden — concluded that an independent prosecutor should oversee the probes.
Indictment is the first to emerge from special counsel Jack Smith’s probe of the underpinnings of the Jan. 6 riot and the campaign to reverse Joe Biden’s victory.
A state grand jury in Fulton County, Ga., is also considering whether to file broad charges against Trump and his lawyers, advocates, and aides over their efforts to undo the 2020 election results. A decision on that front is expected in August, although previous plans to announce a charging decision have been delayed. Michigan and Arizona are also investigating aspects of the efforts to block Biden’s victory in their states.
Washington Post, Michigan Republicans charged in connection with 2020 voting machine tampering, Patrick Marley and Aaron Schaffer, Aug. 1, 2023. A Michigan grand jury charged a former state lawmaker and a losing candidate for state attorney general as part of an investigation into the improper acquisition of voting machines.
A Michigan prosecutor charged a former state lawmaker and a losing candidate for state attorney general Tuesday as part of an investigation into the improper acquisition of voting machines.
Special prosecutor D.J. Hilson since last year has been looking into efforts by a group of conservatives to persuade election clerks to give them voting machines as they attempted to prove the 2020 presidential election had been wrongly called for Joe Biden over Donald Trump. The group never turned up any proof, and courts in dozens of cases across the country ruled that the election was properly decided.
Former attorney general candidate Matthew DePerno (R) was charged with improper possession of a voting machine, conspiracy to unlawfully possess a voting machine, conspiracy to gain unauthorized access to a computer system and willfully damaging a voting machine, according to Hilson. Former state representative Daire Rendon (R) was charged with conspiracy to unlawfully possess a voting machine and using false pretenses with the intent to defraud, he said. Both were arraigned Tuesday and released.
July
July 31
New York Times, Trump Crushing DeSantis and G.O.P. Rivals, Times/Siena Poll Finds, Shane Goldmacher, July 31, 2023. Donald Trump leads Ron DeSantis and others across nearly every category and region, as primary voters wave off concerns about his escalating legal jeopardy.
Former President Donald J. Trump is dominating his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, leading his nearest challenger, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, by a landslide 37 percentage points nationally among the likely Republican primary electorate, according to the first New York Times/Siena College poll of the 2024 campaign.
Mr. Trump held decisive advantages across almost every demographic group and region and in every ideological wing of the party, the survey found, as Republican voters waved away concerns about his escalating legal jeopardy. He led by wide margins among men and women, younger and older voters, moderates and conservatives, those who went to college and those who didn’t, and in cities, suburbs and rural areas.
The poll shows that some of Mr. DeSantis’s central campaign arguments — that he is more electable than Mr. Trump, and that he would govern more effectively — have so far failed to break through. Even Republicans motivated by the type of issues that have fueled Mr. DeSantis’s rise, such as fighting “radical woke ideology,” favored the former president.
Overall, Mr. Trump led Mr. DeSantis 54 percent to 17 percent. No other candidate topped 3 percent support in the poll.
Below those lopsided top-line figures were other ominous signs for Mr. DeSantis. He performed his weakest among some of the Republican Party’s biggest and most influential constituencies. He earned only 9 percent support among voters at least 65 years old and 13 percent of those without a college degree. Republicans who described themselves as “very conservative” favored Mr. Trump by a 50-point margin, 65 percent to 15 percent.
New York Times, Analysis: This is why former President Trump is so hard to beat, Nate Cohn, July 31, 2023. In the half century of modern presidential primaries, no candidate who led his or her nearest rival by at least 20 points at this stage has ever lost a party nomination.
Today, Donald J. Trump’s lead over Ron DeSantis is nearly twice as large: 37 points, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll of the likely Republican primary electorate released Monday morning.
But even if it might be a mistake to call Mr. Trump “inevitable,” the Times/Siena data suggests that he commands a seemingly unshakable base of loyal supporters, representing more than one-third of the Republican electorate. Alone, their support is not enough for Mr. Trump to win the primary. But it is large enough to make him extremely hard to defeat — perhaps every bit as hard as the historical record suggests.
Here’s what we know about the depth of the support — and opposition — to Mr. Trump from our poll, and why it’s so hard to beat the former president.
The MAGA base, defined
It’s populist. It’s conservative. It’s blue collar. It’s convinced the nation is on the verge of catastrophe. And it’s exceptionally loyal to Donald Trump.
As defined here, members of Mr. Trump’s MAGA base represent 37 percent of the Republican electorate. They “strongly” support him in the Republican primary and have a “very favorable” view of him.
Of course, there’s still plenty of time left before the Iowa caucuses in January. The candidates haven’t even set foot on a debate stage. And while no candidate has ever lost a nomination with so much support, no candidate with so much support has faced so many criminal indictments and investigations, either.
New York Times, Ron DeSantis invoked Donald Trump’s legal trouble, suggesting he might step up his attacks on his rival, Nicholas Nehamas, July 31, 2023 (print ed.). Ron DeSantis’s remarks to a voter in New Hampshire suggest he may step up his attacks against the man who leads him in national polls by a wide margin.
Two days after former President Donald J. Trump used a demeaning nickname to describe Ron DeSantis to a packed hall of Iowa Republican activists, Mr. DeSantis pointedly invoked the federal indictment against his chief rival, saying that if Mr. Trump had “drained the swamp like he promised,” then he probably “wouldn’t be in the mess that he’s in right now.”
Speaking to reporters on Sunday after a campaign event in New Hampshire, Mr. DeSantis, the governor of Florida, added that Mr. Trump’s use of “juvenile insults” served as a reminder of “why there are so many millions of voters who will never vote for him going forward.”
Mr. DeSantis has generally not used Mr. Trump’s legal troubles against him, and has instead focused on criticizing the Biden administration for what he terms the “weaponization” of federal law enforcement.
But as Mr. DeSantis seeks to reset his ailing campaign by cutting staff and organizing more informal events in the face of a fund-raising shortfall, his comments suggest he may be taking a less timid approach against the man who leads him in national polls by a wide margin. Even allies have said that his campaign has lacked a coherent message about why voters should choose him over Mr. Trump.
Fani Willis, left, is the district attorney for Atlanta-based Fulton County in Georgia. Her office has been probing since 2021 then-President Trump's claiming beginning in 2020 of election fraud in Georgia and elsewhere. Trump and his allies have failed to win support for their claims from Georgia's statewide election officials, who are Republican, or from courts.
Washington Post, Atlanta braces for possible indictments for Trump and his allies in 2020 election investigation, Holly Bailey, July 31, 2023. It is one of several investigations into attempts to reverse Donald Trump’s loss in 2020. A charging decision is expected during the first three weeks of August.
For more than two years, people here and across the country have watched and waited for clues that the high-profile Georgia investigation into whether former president Donald Trump and his allies broke the law in their attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state was winding to an end.
That speculation hit fever pitch in recent days with the installation of orange security barriers near the main entrance of the Fulton County Courthouse in downtown Atlanta. It was the most visible sign yet of the looming charging decision in a case that has ensnared not only Trump but several high-profile Republicans who could either face charges or stand witness in a potential trial unlike anything seen before in this Southern metropolis.
It is one of several investigations into attempts to reverse Trump’s loss in 2020, including a sprawling Justice Department probe overseen by special counsel Jack Smith that has sparked its own intensifying waiting game in recent days. Smith and his team have interviewed or sought information from several witnesses also key to the Georgia investigation. Trump has said he received a letter from the Justice Department saying he could face criminal charges for his efforts after the election that preceded the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
While the pace of Smith’s investigation has been unpredictable, Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis took the unusual step of publicly telegraphing that she plans to announce a charging decision in the Georgia case during the first three weeks of August, a period that opens Monday.
“The work is accomplished,” Willis (D) told Atlanta’s WXIA-TV Saturday. “We’ve been working for two-and-a-half years. We’re ready to go.”
In Atlanta, local, state and federal law enforcement officials have been privately meeting for months to plan enhanced security measures in anticipation of that announcement. anticipation of that announcement.
All eyes are now on two criminal grand jury panels sworn in on July 11 — one group that meets on Mondays and Tuesdays, the other that meets on Thursdays and Fridays. One of the panels will probably decide whether charges should be filed in the closely watched election interference case — a decision that could put Trump, who is now under indictment in two other criminal cases, in even more legal peril.
Carlos De Oliveira, center, made his first court appearance here on Monday morning, July 31, in Miami (Associated Press photo).
Washington Post, Carlos De Oliveira makes first court appearance in Trump documents case, Shayna Jacobs and Perry Stein, July 31, 2023. Carlos De Oliveira — the second person charged alongside Donald Trump in a case involving the alleged hoarding of sensitive government materials at Mar-a-Lago — made his first court appearance here on Monday morning and was released on a personal surety bond, with an arraignment scheduled for Aug. 10.
Chief Magistrate Judge Edwin G. Torres read De Oliveira the charges against him and informed him of his legal rights. De Oliveira did not have an attorney who is accredited to practice in Florida, so he was unable to enter a plea before the judge. His Washington, D.C.-based attorney, John Irving, was in court with him.
Trump and his longtime valet, Waltine “Walt” Nauta, were charged in the case last month and face additional counts in the indictment that charged De Oliveira. Both Trump and Nauta have pleaded not guilty to the initial charges. They could also be arraigned on the new charges at the hearing scheduled for Fort Pierce, Fla., on Aug. 10, though prosecutors have said they will not object if a judge allows Trump and Nauta to waive their appearance.
Torres imposed the same conditions of release on De Oliveira as were set for Trump and Nauta, prohibiting De Oliveira from speaking to witnesses about the facts of the investigation. Torres imposed the same conditions of release on De Oliveira as were set for Trump and Nauta, prohibiting De Oliveira from speaking to witnesses about the facts of the investigation.
Outside the courthouse, Irving told reporters he looked forward to seeing the government’s evidence against his client. “Unfortunately the Justice Department decided to file these charges against Mr. De Oliveira," he said, "and now they have to put their money where their mouth is.”
Here’s what else to know about De Oliveira and the charges against him:
The 56-year-old Floridian has worked at Mar-a-Lago for more than a decade and was promoted to be the estate’s property manager in January 2022. In the early years of his employment, he impressed Trump by redoing ornate metalwork on the door at Mar-a-Lago, according to people familiar with his work.
Carlos De Oliveira's journey from failed witness to Trump's co-defendant
De Oliveira was charged with four crimes, including one count of making false statements and representations when he denied to the FBI any involvement in or knowledge of the moving of boxes at Mar-a-Lago that contained classified material.
Palmer Report, Analysis: No wonder Donald Trump’s campaign is broke, Bill Palmer, right, July 31, 2023. Recent quarterly fundraising numbers revealed that President Joe Biden raised about twice as much money for his 2024 campaign as Donald Trump did.
These numbers weren’t surprising. Not that many people want to give money to someone’s “campaign” when they know the money is just going to be spent on his legal costs and they know he’s going to prison anyway. Some superfans are going to give money to Trump’s fake 2024 campaign anyway, out of symbolism or spite. But any potential Trump donor who’s thinking in pragmatic terms is going to simply hang onto their money.
The whole thing creates a catch-22 for Trump. Not enough people are donating to his campaign because they know it’s not real, so there isn’t enough money in the pot to begin with. Then Trump keeps raiding the piggy bank to pay for his legal costs, and pretty soon it’s empty. That point was always going to arrive eventually, and it looks like it’s arriving now.
Trump’s “Save America” PAC is so short on money, it recently had to request a $60 million refund from another Trump related PAC, according to the New York Times. It goes to show how politicians like Trump tend to shuffle money around from entity to entity for their own purposes. But if there’s not enough money coming in to begin with, and Trump is bleeding it all dry with his legal costs, then it doesn’t do much good to shuffle money around. At some point there just aren’t the funds.
So here we are fifteen months out from the 2024 election, and Donald Trump’s campaign fundraising apparatus is already running out of money. It goes to show that you can’t just pretend to run for President as a way of paying your legal bills, and expect enough people to get on board to keep things afloat. This whole thing was a transparent house of cards, and it’s starting to tumble from a financial standpoint already.
This also proves once and for all that Donald Trump’s base cannot magically save him. If Trump’s base were large enough and willing enough, his 2024 election coffers would be overflowing with money. Instead he’s only managed to raise a hilariously small amount of money for a supposed “frontrunner,” and it doesn’t even appear to be enough to cover his legal bills.
If things are looking bad for Trump now, consider that he’s days away from being criminally indicted for January 6th, and he’ll likely go on trial for that in federal court in Washington DC this year. We’re talking about Trump being tried, convicted, and sentenced to prison while it’s still 2023. In the eyes of donors, Trump is already having trouble selling himself as a viable candidate. That’s not going to get easier when he’s sent to prison.
July 28
Justice Department Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, left, and former President Donald Trump, shown in a collage via CNN.
New York Times, Trump Faces Major New Charges in Documents Case, Alan Feuer, Maggie Haberman and Glenn Thrush, July 28, 2023 (print ed.). The office of the special counsel accused the former president of seeking to delete security camera footage at Mar-a-Lago. The manager of the property, Carlos De Oliveira, was also named as a new defendant.
Federal prosecutors on Thursday added major accusations to an indictment charging former President Donald J. Trump with mishandling classified documents after he left office, presenting evidence that he told the property manager of Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence in Florida, that he wanted security camera footage there to be deleted.
The new accusations were revealed in a superseding indictment that named the property manager, Carlos De Oliveira, as a new defendant in the case. He is scheduled to be arraigned in Miami on Monday.
The original indictment filed last month in the Southern District of Florida accused Mr. Trump of violating the Espionage Act by illegally holding on to 31 classified 
documents containing national defense information after he left office. It also charged Mr. Trump and Walt Nauta, right, one of his personal aides, with a conspiracy to obstruct the government’s repeated attempts to reclaim the classified material.
The revised indictment added three serious charges against Mr. Trump: attempting to “alter, destroy, mutilate, or conceal evidence”; inducing someone else to do so; and a new count under the Espionage Act related to a classified national security document that he showed to visitors at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J.
The updated indictment was released on the same day that Mr. Trump’s lawyers met in Washington with prosecutors in the office of the special counsel, Jack Smith, to discuss a so-called target letter that Mr. Trump received this month suggesting that he might soon face an indictment in a case related to his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. It served as a powerful reminder that the documents investigation is ongoing, and could continue to yield additional evidence, new counts and even new defendants.
Prosecutors under Mr. Smith had been investigating Mr. De Oliveira for months, concerned, among other things, by his communications with an information technology expert at Mar-a-Lago, Yuscil Taveras, who oversaw the surveillance camera footage at the property.
That footage was central to Mr. Smith’s investigation into whether Mr. Nauta, at Mr. Trump’s request, had moved boxes in and out of a storage room at Mar-a-Lago to avoid complying with a federal subpoena for all classified documents in the former president’s possession. Many of those movements were caught on the surveillance camera footage.
The revised indictment said that in late June of last year, shortly after the government demanded the surveillance footage as part of its inquiry, Mr. Trump called Mr. De Oliveira and they spoke for 24 minutes.
Two days later, the indictment said, Mr. Nauta and Mr. De Oliveira “went to the security guard booth where surveillance video is displayed on monitors, walked with a flashlight through the tunnel where the storage room was located, and observed and pointed out surveillance cameras.”
The warrant authorizing the search of former president Donald Trump’s home said agents were seeking documents possessed in violation of the Espionage Act.
New York Times, The Trump Classified Documents Indictment, Annotated, Charlie Savage, Updated July 27, 2023. The Justice Department on Thursday released an updated version of an indictment charging former President Donald J. Trump with 40 criminal counts. They relate to Mr. Trump’s hoarding of sensitive government documents after he left office and his refusal to return them, even after being subpoenaed for all remaining records in his possession that were marked as classified. The indictment supersedes one released June 8, adding three criminal charges for Mr. Trump and naming an additional defendant.
Federal prosecutors said former President Trump told the property manager that he wanted security camera footage at Mar-a-Lago to be deleted.
A Times investigation went inside Mar-a-Lago, where thousands partied near secret files.
July 22
Justice Department Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, left, and former President Donald Trump, shown in a collage via CNN.
New York Times, Trial in Trump Documents Case Is Set for May 2024, Alan Feuer, July 22, 2023 (print ed.). The federal judge overseeing former President Donald J. Trump’s prosecution on charges of illegally retaining dozens of classified documents set a trial date on Friday for May 2024, taking a middle position between the government’s request to go to trial in December and Mr. Trump’s desire to push the proceeding until after the 2024 election.
In her order, Judge Aileen M. Cannon, right, said the trial was to be held in her home courthouse in Fort Pierce, Fla., a coastal city two-and-a-half hours north of Miami that will draw its jury pool from several counties that Mr. Trump won handily in his two previous presidential campaigns.
Judge Cannon also laid out a calendar of hearings, throughout the remainder of this year and into next year, including those concerning the handling of the classified material at the heart of the case.
The scheduling order came after a contentious hearing on Tuesday at the federal courthouse in Fort Pierce where prosecutors working for the special counsel, Jack Smith, and lawyers for Mr. Trump sparred over when to hold the trial.
Judge Aileen Cannon rejected Donald Trump’s request to delay the trial until after the election but pushed the start date past the prosecutors’ request.
The timing of the proceeding is more important in this case than in most criminal matters because Mr. Trump is now the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination and his legal obligations to be in court will intersect with his campaign schedule.
Indeed, the date Judge Cannon chose to start the trial — May 20, 2024 — is one day before the primary in the key swing state of Georgia. But it falls after the bulk of the primary race contests will have already taken place.
- Meidas Touch Network, Commentary: Judge Cannon Makes MAJOR RULING on Trump Criminal Trial Date, July 21, 2023. Legal AF hosts Ben Meiselas and Michael Popok report together on the major ruling by Judge Aileen Cannon setting a trial date in the federal criminal case brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith.
Washington Post, Before Jan. 6, Mark Meadows joked about Trump’s election claims, Josh Dawsey, Carol D. Leonnig and Jacqueline Alemany, July 23, 2023 (print ed.). In a text, Meadows wrote that his own son was unable to find more than a handful of votes potentially cast in the name of dead voters, people familiar with message say.
Mark Meadows joked about the baseless claim that large numbers of votes were fraudulently cast in the names of dead people in the days before the then-White House chief of staff participated in a phone call in which then-President Trump alleged there were close to 5,000 dead voters in Georgia and urged Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to overturn the 2020 election there.
In a text message that has been scrutinized by federal prosecutors, Meadows wrote to a White House lawyer that his son, Atlanta-area attorney Blake Meadows, had been probing possible fraud and had found only a handful of possible votes cast in dead voters’ names, far short of what Trump was alleging. The lawyer teasingly responded that perhaps Meadows’s son could locate the thousands of votes Trump would need to win the election. The text was described by multiple people familiar with the exchange.
The jocular text message, which has not been previously reported, is one of many exchanges from the time in which Trump aides and other Republican officials expressed deep skepticism or even openly mocked the election claims being made publicly by Trump, according to people familiar with the investigation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the criminal investigation.
July 21
New York Times, Collision in Court: Trump Grand Jury Proceedings Delay a Jan. 6 Verdict, Alan Feuer and Maggie Haberman, July 21, 2023. A defense lawyer was late. A judge grew irked and hauled the prosecutor out. The events reflect some issues that stem from Donald Trump’s crowded legal calendar.
For several months, Federal District Court in Washington has been ground zero for the Justice Department’s various attempts to deal with the legacy of former President Donald J. Trump.
The courthouse, which sits on Constitution Avenue, is where hundreds of rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, have been prosecuted. It is where a grand jury investigated Mr. Trump’s handling of classified documents, a case in which charges were ultimately brought in Florida. And it is where a separate grand jury continues to examine the former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election in a case in which Mr. Trump was recently told that he could soon face an indictment.
On Thursday, two of these legal proceedings collided in an unusual spectacle, as a federal judge hauled the prosecutor leading the election interference investigation out of a grand jury proceeding and summoned him into his courtroom. The judge, Trevor N. McFadden, was apparently upset that the prosecutor, Thomas P. Windom, had kept a lawyer representing a witness in front of the grand jury from appearing on time for the reading of a verdict for a Jan. 6 defendant whom the lawyer was also representing.
While the incident came to an end quickly and seemed to have resulted in little more than a public display of tension, it nonetheless reflected the complexities that have ensued from Mr. Trump’s crowded legal calendar.
The former president has now been indicted in Florida in the classified documents case and in New York City on charges involving hush money payments to a porn star before the 2016 election. He could soon be charged twice more — in Washington and Georgia — in connection with his efforts to tamper with the 2020 election. All of this, unfolding even as Mr. Trump runs again for office, has put enormous strain on everyone involved — from the courts to the lawyers involved in the various legal efforts surrounding him.
New York Times, SPAC Tied to Trump’s Media Company Will Pay $18 Million to Regulators, Matthew Goldstein, July 21, 2023 (print ed.). Digital World will pay a penalty to the Securities and Exchange Commission to settle an investigation into its planned merger with Trump Media & Technology Group.
The Securities and Exchange Commission said on Thursday that it had reached a settlement with the cash-rich shell company that planned to merge with former President Donald J. Trump’s social media company, potentially paving the way for the much-delayed deal to proceed.
Under the settlement, Digital World Acquisition Corp. will pay a penalty of $18 million and revise some of its corporate filings to comply with federal securities laws. The S.E.C. was investigating whether Digital World had flouted merger laws governing special purpose acquisition companies.
The S.E.C. charged Digital World, a special purpose acquisition company, with misleading investors with its disclosures.
“These disclosure failures are particularly problematic because investors focus on factors such as the SPAC’s management team and potential merger targets when making financial decisions,” said Gurbir S. Grewal, director of the S.E.C.’s division of enforcement.
Digital World had announced a tentative settlement in a regulatory filing this month.
But many hurdles remain for Digital World to complete its merger with Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of Truth Social, a Twitter-like platform that has become the former president’s primary megaphone to reach his supporters on the internet.
Digital World, which had raised $300 million from investors in a September 2021 initial public offering, is facing a Sept. 8 deadline to complete its deal with Trump Media or will be forced to liquidate and return the cash. This week, the SPAC announced plans to seek shareholder approval to extend that deadline, but Trump Media has not yet signaled it is willing to keep the pending deal alive beyond Sept. 8.
Soon after Digital World and Trump Media announced a deal to merge in October 2021, the S.E.C. opened an investigation into whether preliminary merger discussions between the two parties had violated federal securities laws.
Shell companies are set up to raise money from investors and then find a company to buy, but they are not allowed to hold serious merger discussions before they go public. Such companies have a limited time — usually two years — to complete a merger before they are required to return the cash they raised to investors.
Last month, federal prosecutors in New York charged three men — two brothers and a former Digital World board member — with taking part in a scheme that generated $22 million in illicit trading profits ahead of the proposed merger.
July 20
New York Times, Analysis: Trump’s Legal Woes Mount as Trial Dates and Campaign Calendar Collide, Charlie Savage, July 20, 2023. Former President Trump is facing a tangle of criminal and civil trials that will overlap with next year’s presidential primaries.
As former President Donald J. Trump campaigns for the White House while multiple criminal prosecutions against him play out, at least one thing is clear: Under the laws of physics, he cannot be in two places at once.
Generally, criminal defendants must be present in the courtroom during their trials. Not only will that force Mr. Trump to step away from the campaign trail, possibly for weeks at a time, but the judges overseeing his trials must also jostle for position in sequencing dates. The collision course is raising extraordinary — and unprecedented — questions about the logistical, legal and political challenges of various trials unfolding against the backdrop of a presidential campaign.
“The courts will have to decide how to balance the public interest in having expeditious trials against Trump’s interest and the public interest in his being able to campaign so that the democratic process works,” said Bruce Green, a Fordham University professor and former prosecutor. “That’s a type of complexity that courts have never had to deal with before.”
More broadly, the complications make plain another reality: Mr. Trump’s troubles are entangling the campaign with the courts to a degree the nation has never experienced before and raising tensions around the ideal of keeping the justice system separate from politics.
Mr. Trump and his allies have signaled that they intend to try to turn his overlapping legal woes into a referendum on the criminal justice system, by seeking to cast it as a politically weaponized tool of Democrats.
Already, Mr. Trump is facing a state trial on civil fraud accusations in New York in October. Another trial on whether he defamed the writer E. Jean Carroll is set to open on Jan. 15 — the same day as the Iowa caucuses. On Jan. 29, a trial begins in yet another lawsuit, this one accusing Mr. Trump, his company and three of his children of using the family name to entice vulnerable people to invest in sham business opportunities.
Because those cases are civil, Mr. Trump could choose not to attend the trials, just as he shunned an earlier lawsuit by Ms. Carroll, in which a jury found him liable of sexual abuse.
New York Times, Analysis: Quick to Mock MAGA, Biden Stays Silent on Trump Indictments, Reid J. Epstein, July 20, 2023. Former President Trump is facing a tangle of criminal and civil trials that will overlap with next year’s presidential primaries. The president has taken swipes at Republicans, including a video playfully featuring Marjorie Taylor Greene as a narrator, but he and his allies are avoiding one target: his predecessor’s legal woes.
For months, President Biden has appeared to delight in needling Donald J. Trump and his Republican allies, trying at every turn to make MAGA and ultra-MAGA a shorthand for the entire party.
This week, Mr. Biden cheekily highlighted a video in which Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia derisively ticks through his first-term accomplishments and likens him — not positively — to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. “I approve this message,” the president commented on the video, which was viewed more than 43 million times in 24 hours.
Mr. Biden recently did a victory lap when Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama promoted local spending in the bipartisan infrastructure bill, which Mr. Tuberville had voted against.
And his campaign took a shot at Mr. Trump for not visiting Wisconsin during his current presidential bid, accusing him of a “failure to deliver on his promised American manufacturing boom.”
New York Times, A Year of Upheaval on Abortion’s Front Lines, Kate Kelly and Marisa Schwartz Taylor, July 20, 2023. A Supreme Court decision created a 50-state patchwork of differing abortion laws. Volunteers and groups have tried to fill the gaps in health care and support.
The year since the Supreme Court rescinded a constitutional right to abortion by reversing the landmark Roe v. Wade decision has been a time of fear and retrenchment for groups that provide abortion services and support abortion rights. It has been a period of elation and opportunity for those who oppose them. And it has produced widespread confusion as organizations across the ideological spectrum scramble to keep up with legal, political and social fallout from the court decision.
The first few months after the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health “just felt like the Wild, Wild West,” said Maren Hurley, who works as an abortion doula in North Carolina.
Ms. Hurley’s state, which provided abortion access up to 20 weeks of pregnancy, saw an influx of patients from states with tighter restrictions for much of that first year. But as of July 1, access was rolled back to 12 weeks in most cases as part of a new state law.
Groups that provided funding for abortions in Alabama and Louisiana, where the procedure is mostly illegal now, have had to change their approach. Providers of telehealth services and medication abortion have felt obligated to restrict their client base to roughly half the states in America or fewer at any given time.
Hey Jane, which prescribes abortion medications that can be delivered to homes, has grown busier. Indigenous Women Rising, which provides abortion services to Native women across the country, has doubled its abortion budget to help women travel to states where abortion remains accessible. Private pilots established Elevated Access, which provides free flights to out-of-state abortion seekers.
Washington Post, Opinion: 2024 won’t be a Trump-Biden replay. You can thank Gen Z for that, Celinda Lake and Mac Heller, July 20, 2023 (print ed.). Every year, 4 million Americans turn 18 and gain the right to vote. And unlike previous generations, Gen Z votes.
It’s easy to envision the 2024 presidential election becoming the third straight contest in which a veteran Democrat goes up against Donald Trump. Once again, the Democrat wins the popular vote but swing states are tighter. Could go either way — and has, right?
But things are very different this time, and here’s why: The candidates might not be changing — but the electorate has.
Every year, about 4 million Americans turn 18 and gain the right to vote. In the eight years between the 2016 and 2024 elections, that’s 32 million new eligible voters.
Also every year, 2½ million older Americans die. So in the same eight years, that’s as many as 20 million fewer older voters.
Which means that between Trump’s election in 2016 and the 2024 election, the number of Gen Z (born in the late 1990s and early 2010s) voters will have advanced by a net 52 million against older people. That’s about 20 percent of the total 2020 eligible electorate of 258 million Americans.
And unlike previous generations, Gen Z votes. Comparing the four federal elections since 2015 (when the first members of Gen Z turned 18) with the preceding nine (1998 to 2014), average turnout by young voters (defined here as voters under 30) in the Trump and post-Trump years has been 25 percent higher than that of older generations at the same age before Trump — 8 percent higher in presidential years and a whopping 46 percent higher in midterms.
Celinda Lake, a Democratic Party strategist, was one of two lead pollsters for Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign. Mac Heller is a documentary film producer, most recently of “Rigged: The Voter Suppression Playbook.”
Former advice columnist E. Jean Carroll, center, at federal court with her lawyer Roberta Kaplan, left, on April 25 in New York City (Associated Press photo by Seth Wineg).
Disclosures in the E. Jean Carroll rape lawsuit echoed Trump's words in "Hollywood Access" videotape, reported upon above, that arose during the 2016 presidential campaign. Shown Then: The front page of a 2016 New York Daily News edition contrasts with Trump's claimed innocence in the Carroll case.
Politico, Trump loses bid for new trial in E. Jean Carroll case, Erica Orden, July 20, 2023 (print ed.). A jury’s verdict finding Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation should stand, a federal judge ruled.
A federal judge on Wednesday denied Donald Trump’s bid for a new trial two months after a jury found that he sexually abused and defamed the writer E. Jean Carroll.
In his motion for a new trial, Trump argued that because the jury found him liable for sexual abuse but not rape, which is what Carroll originally alleged, the jury award of $2 million in compensatory damages for the sexual abuse claim was excessive.
He also argued that the jury award of $2.7 million in compensatory damages for the defamation claim should be reduced, largely because he disputed the testimony of an expert witness on which it was based. And Trump said an additional punitive damages award of $228,000 violated his constitutional right to due process.
Carroll, shown in a 1990s file photo, alleged that Trump sexually assaulted her in the dressing room of a luxury Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s. She testified during the trial that he penetrated her with his fingers, but she said she couldn’t be certain that he had inserted his penis because he was pressed up against her in a way that blocked her view.
In a 59-page decision, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, left, wrote that “the proof convincingly established, and the jury implicitly found, that 
Mr. Trump deliberately and forcibly penetrated Ms. Carroll’s vagina with his fingers, causing immediate pain and long lasting emotional and psychological harm.”
He said that the former president’s argument “therefore ignores the bulk of the evidence at trial, misinterprets the jury’s verdict, and mistakenly focuses on the New York Penal Law definition of ‘rape’ to the exclusion of the meaning of that word as it often is used in everyday life and of the evidence of what actually occurred between Ms. Carroll and Mr. Trump.”
“The jury in this case did not reach ‘a seriously erroneous result,’” he wrote. “Its verdict is not ‘a miscarriage of justice.’”
Separate from his motion for a new trial, Trump is also contesting the verdict before a federal appeals court. That appeal remains pending.
Carroll, meanwhile, has a separate defamation lawsuit pending against Trump. The trial over that lawsuit is scheduled for January 2024.
On Wednesday, a lawyer for Carroll, Robbie Kaplan, said, “Now that the court has denied Trump’s motion for a new trial or to decrease the amount of the verdict, E Jean Carroll looks forward to receiving the $5 million in damages that the jury awarded her” at trial. She added that Carroll “also looks forward to continuing to hold Trump accountable” at next year’s trial.
New York Times, Trump Hush Money Case Will Remain in New York State Court, Judge Rules, Jonah E. Bromwich, July 20, 2023 (print ed.). Lawyers for former President Donald J. Trump had sought to move the first criminal case against him to federal court, but a judge put an end to the effort.
A judge on Wednesday denied former President Donald J. Trump’s request to move the Manhattan criminal case against him from state to federal court.
The federal judge, Alvin K. Hellerstein, had signaled in a hearing last month that he was predisposed against moving the case brought by the Manhattan district 
attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, right. Mr. Bragg’s prosecutors have charged Mr. Trump with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, stemming from a hush money payment made to a porn star in 2016.
Mr. Trump’s lawyers had argued the case should be heard in federal court because it related to conduct he engaged in while president.
But in the order Judge Hellerstein issued Wednesday, he echoed his contention at the hearing that Mr. Trump’s lawyers had failed to show that the behavior at issue — reimbursements to Mr. Trump’s former fixer, Michael D. Cohen, for the hush money payment — was somehow related to the office of the presidency.
Judge Hellerstein wrote that the evidence overwhelmingly suggested that the matter involved something personal to the president: “a cover-up of an embarrassing event.”
“Hush money paid to an adult film star is not related to a president’s official acts,” he concluded in the order. “It does not reflect in any way the color of the president’s official duties.”
More On Assaults On Democracy
Justice Department Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, left, and former President Donald Trump, shown in a collage via CNN.
Proof via Substack, The Trump Trials, Vol. 17, Investigative Commentary: The Disconcerting News We Got on the Day of the Trump Target Letter That No One Is Talking About, Seth Abramson, July 19-20, 2023. This new Proof series—authored by a longtime criminal defense attorney and leading Trump biographer—will unpack recent events in the historic trials of disgraced former president Donald Trump.
Attorneys like me—and really just anyone who believes in the rule of law and in equal justice under law—were pleased to see the recent breaking news: Donald Trump has received a target letter from the Department of Justice’s Office of the Special Counsel.
But The Trump Trials series at Proof must call two disconcerting additional pieces of information to the attention of readers—both of which came to us along with what in other circumstances would have been unsullied good news and to which (and perhaps this is a third item of concern) major media seems not to have paid as much attention at all:
- No one but Trump received a target letter over the weekend. As those who have been following the January 6 research at Proof will be well aware, the list of those with potential legal liability for the events of January 6 is extraordinarily long. Given that common prosecutorial strategy is to charge the kingpin last (for many reasons, including that you can often get lower-level malfeasors to “flip” on their bosses), it is truly bizarre that at this point only Trump has been informed that he is in imminent danger of being indicted and arrested. It raises the specter of a Robert Mueller-style disaster, in which DOJ artificially restricts its investigation of known malfeasance to the point that almost none of the guilty parties are ultimately touched by the investigation.
- So how can such a dismal potential near future provide us with the glimmer of hope we all need today? Because it raises the prospect of Smith filing superseding indictments down the line. But if no Trump co-conspirators are charged, and if Trump is charged with only a small fraction of what we know for certain he did, very few will consider that justice.
Washington Post, Analysis: ‘Fake elector’ charges show how Trump’s allies played with fire, Aaron Blake, July 20, 2023 (print ed.). The Michigan indictments reinforce the evidence that at least some of those involved knew this wasn’t exactly on the up-and-up When Michigan Republicans were planning in late 2020 to submit a slate of electors who supported Donald Trump — despite Trump having lost the state by nearly three points — then-state GOP Chairwoman Laura Cox thought better of it.
“I was very uncomfortable with that, as per my lawyers’ opinion,” Cox told the congressional Jan. 6 committee last year.
So she said she proposed an alternative: Instead of submitting the electors as if Trump had won, the party would sign a document merely offering the electors as a contingency in case the courts somehow awarded Michigan to Trump.
Those involved did not adopt Cox’s plan. The courts didn’t overturn Michigan’s result. And now the 16 people who signed a document falsely claiming they were duly elected have been indicted.
Michigan on Tuesday became the first state to charge so-called “fake” Trump electors. The 16 electors who signed that document are each charged with eight felonies, including forgery.
- Washington Post, Opinion: Michigan indicts alleged plotters in fake elector scheme. Here’s what it means, Jennifer Rubin
Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary: The world must coordinate a defense to attacks against representative democracy, Wayne Madsen, left, July 
19-20, 2023. Part 3 in our series.
In our previous two articles, we reported on the coordinated attacks on national legislatures by far-right forces that were encouraged by an unholy alliance of fascist-rule nations like Russia; “libertarian” high-tech billionaires, including Peter Thiel and Elon Musk; and white nationalist, Nazi, and like-minded political groups in the United States, Germany, Canada, Brazil, and other nations.
The attacks on the legislatures of Germany, the United States, Canada, and Brazil were preceded by a few less-known assaults by far-right forces on the legislatures of Macedonia and South Korea.
It is clear that the far right has a particular disdain for representative democratic institutions. The present collection of Nazi and fascist malcontents and chaos agents, all aided and abetted by troll farms in Russia, follow in a long line of similar pathetic dregs of society who helped enable the fascist dictatorships of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Falangist Spain, and other tinpot regimes around the world. A common thread that runs through all the far-right assaults on parliamentary government is the lack of initial action or response from law enforcement. Police agencies, many of which are rife with far-right officers and other personnel, are in dire need of vetting and purging. The same applies to the military, particularly in the United States, Brazil, and Germany.
Previous Series Segments:
- Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary:The international Plot to attack democratic legislatures, Wayne Madsen
- Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary: Democracy under siege: the coordinated attacks on the national legislatures of the U.S., Canada, and Brazil, Wayne Madsen
New York Times, Republicans Shrug at Latest Possible Trump Indictment, Shane Goldmacher and Maggie Haberman, July 20, 2023 (print ed.). News of a case related to Jan. 6 brought a muddled response from some of Donald Trump’s 2024 rivals, and familiar attacks on President Biden.
The indictments of Donald J. Trump — past and pending — are becoming the background music of the 2024 presidential campaign: always there, shaping the mood, yet not fully the focus.
Like so much of the Trump presidency itself, the extraordinary has become so flattened that Mr. Trump’s warning on Tuesday that he was facing a possible third indictment this year, this time over his involvement in the events that led to the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol, drew shrugs from some quarters of his party and a muddled response from his rivals.
At one Republican congressional fund-raising lunch on Tuesday in Washington, the news of a likely third Trump indictment went entirely unmentioned, an attendee said. Some opposing campaigns’ strategists all but ignored the development. And on Capitol Hill, Mr. Trump’s allies quickly resumed their now-customary defensive positions.
Two and half years ago, the deadly riot that left the nation’s seat of government defiled had threatened to forever tarnish Mr. Trump’s political legacy. His supporters had stormed the Capitol to stop the certification of his defeat, stoked by their leader who had urged them to “fight like hell.” Even long-loyal Republicans broke with him as shattered glass littered the Capitol complex.
Video still from a police body camera filed by the FBI allegedly shows Federico G. Klein physically engaging with police at the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol
Washington Post, Former Trump State Dept. appointee guilty in Jan. 6 tunnel assaults, Spencer S. Hsu and Tom Jackman, July 20, 2023. Former Trump appointee Federico Klein found guilty in Jan. 6 tunnel assaults on police.
A former political appointee of former president Donald Trump was found guilty Thursday of joining assaults on police on Jan. 6, 2021, that included one of the most prolonged attacks on officers by rioters in a tunnel at the Lower West Terrace of the U.S. Capitol.
Federico G. Klein, a State Department appointee with a top-secret clearance, was convicted on all counts, including 10 felony charges involving six violent confrontations with multiple law enforcement officers and obstruction of the electoral vote count, after a week-long bench trial before U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden. A co-defendant, Steven Cappuccio, was convicted of six felony counts, but McFadden acquitted him of the obstruction charge and a misdemeanor, ruling that Cappuccio was not politically savvy enough to intend to stop the electoral vote count.
Klein and Cappuccio separately made their way to the Lower West Terrace, where their victims were. One included D.C. police officer Daniel Hodges, who in one of the day’s most harrowing events was recorded on camera being pinned to a metal door frame by the mob with Klein’s help, while Cappuccio ripped away his baton and gas mask while yelling, “How you like me now, f-----r!”
A third co-defendant, Christopher Joseph Quaglin, was found guilty on 14 other counts on the first day of trial last week after admitting to stipulated facts. Klein and Cappuccio were charged with 21 counts overall, including eight counts of assaulting police, robbery, rioting and obstruction of an official proceeding (Congress’s confirmation of the 2020 presidential election result).
“No police officer,” McFadden said, “should have had to endure these attacks without provocation.” He pointed to specific video evidence presented during the trial to reject Klein’s claims that he acted unintentionally.
All three men and four other co-defendants previously convicted and sentenced were active parts of a mob that pushed, shoved, struck, punched and sprayed police, prosecutors said. At times they used officers’ own weapons against them, including batons, riot shields and chemical spray, prosecutors said. Video clips showed officers vomiting and screaming in pain from assaults, while others testified about being tackled into the crowd and being kicked repeatedly in the helmet.
“There are many violent offenses in this case because the defendants were relentless in their attacks on officers and their attempts to enter the building,” federal prosecutor Ashley Akers said in an opening statement.
Klein, 42, served in the Marine Reserves in Iraq before working on Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and gaining a mid-level State Department appointment. Prosecutors said he, Cappuccio and Quaglin independently made their way to the Lower West Terrace, where police dug in against the mob that afternoon unaware that other Capitol entrances were already breached.
Prosecutors specifically accused Klein of using a stolen police riot shield to smash up against one officer repeatedly, as another rioter reached over the shield to grab the officer’s baton.
“You can’t stop this!” Klein told other officers while pushing against them, wearing an olive-green coat and red ball cap. Klein also wedged a riot shield between doors police were trying to shut, prosecutors said.
Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) shakes hands with Daniel Hodges, a D.C. police officer, at a hearing for the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Testifying for the government, Hodges described the confrontation with Klein and Cappuccio, as he was pinned against a door frame in a passageway police were defending to prevent rioters from reentering the building. Rioters used stolen police shields to press against officers, shouting “Heave! Ho!” to time their surges. Video footage showed Cappuccio yanking away Hodges’s mask while his arms are immobilized, pulling it off his head and punching him in the face.
Washington Post, Former Trump aide at D.C. courthouse for grand jury appearance, Spencer S. Hsu, Josh Dawsey and Jacqueline Alemany, July 20, 2023. An aide to Donald Trump was at a federal courthouse in Washington D.C. on Thursday for a grand jury appearance that is part of an investigation of the former president, as the Justice Department moves toward deciding whether to criminally charge Trump in connection with his efforts to subvert the results of the 2020 presidential election.
William Russell served in the White House as a special assistant and the deputy director of presidential advance operations and continued to work as a personal aide for Trump after Trump left office in January, 2021. Russell was asked to appear Thursday after making prior grand jury appearances, according to people familiar with the matter, who like others interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity because of grand jury secrecy rules.
A data expert who worked with the Trump campaign on the 2020 election also was scheduled to appear before a grand jury at the courthouse, two people familiar with the matter said.
A Justice Department team led by special counsel Jack Smith has been examining efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election including the events that led up to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.
July 19
Associated Press, Michigan charges 16 fake electors for Donald Trump with election law and forgery felonies, Joey Cappelletti, July 19, 2023 (print ed.). Michigan’s attorney general filed felony charges Tuesday against 16 Republicans who acted as fake electors for then-President Donald Trump in 2020, accusing them of submitting false certificates that confirmed they were legitimate electors despite Joe Biden’s victory in the state.
Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, announced Tuesday that all 16 people would face eight criminal charges, including forgery and conspiracy to commit election forgery. The top charges carry a maximum penalty of 14 years in prison.
The group includes the head of the Republican National Committee’s chapter in Michigan, Kathy Berden, as well as the former co-chair of the Michigan Republican Party, Meshawn Maddock, and Shelby Township Clerk Stan Grot.
In seven battleground states, including Michigan, supporters of Trump signed certificates that falsely stated he won their states, not Biden. The fake certificates were ignored, but the attempt has been subject to investigations, including by the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
“The false electors’ actions undermined the public’s faith in the integrity of our elections and, we believe, also plainly violated the laws by which we administer our elections in Michigan,” Nessel said in a statement.
The 16 individuals are set to appear for arraignment in Ingham County at a date provided to each by the court, according to Nessel’s office.
Phone and email messages seeking comment Tuesday from several of the people charged were not immediately returned.
One of those charged, John Haggard, 82, of Charlevoix, told The Detroit News on Tuesday that he he didn’t believe he did anything wrong.
“Did I do anything illegal? No,” Haggard said.
GOP state Sen. Ed McBroom, who chaired a GOP-led Senate panel to investigate Michigan’s 2020 presidential election that found no wrongdoing, said he previously spoke with one of the fake electors. It was clear, McBroom said, that the effort was organized by “people who put themselves in a position of authority and posing themselves as the ones who knew what they were doing.”
“They were wrong,” McBroom told The Associated Press. “And other people followed them when they shouldn’t have.”
Berden and Mayra Rodriguez, a Michigan lawyer who was also charged Tuesday, were both questioned by congressional investigators as part of the U.S. House panel’s investigation into the Jan. 6 insurrection.
In January of last year, Nessel asked federal prosecutors to open a criminal investigation into the 16 Republicans.
“Obviously this is part of a much bigger conspiracy,” she said at the time.
Electors are people appointed to represent voters in presidential elections. The winner of the popular vote in each state determines which party’s electors are sent to the Electoral College, which meets in December after the election to certify the outcome.
False Electoral College certificates were also submitted declaring Trump the winner of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Investigations are underway in some other states that submitted fake electors, but not all.
A Georgia prosecutor investigating possible illegal meddling in the 2020 election has agreed to immunity deals with at least eight fake electors. And Arizona’s Democratic attorney general is in the very early stages of a probe. Nevada’s attorney general, also a Democrat, has said he won’t bring charges, while Wisconsin has no active investigation and the attorney general has deferred to the U.S. Justice Department.
There is no apparent investigation in Pennsylvania and former Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who is now governor, said he didn’t believe there was evidence the actions of the fake electors met the legal standards for forgery.
A group of other Trump allies in Michigan, including former GOP attorney general candidate Matthew DePerno, are facing potential criminal charges related to attempts to gain access to voting machines after the 2020 election.
According to documents released last year by Nessel’s office, five vote tabulators were taken from Roscommon and Missaukee counties in northern Michigan, and Barry County in western Michigan. The tabulators were subsequently broken into and “tests” were performed on the equipment.
A grand jury was convened in March at the request of a special prosecutor to consider indictments, according to court records. The special prosecutor, D.J. Hilson, wrote in May in a court document that “a charging decision is ready to be made.”
New York Times, Trump Says He’s a Target in Special Counsel’s Investigation Into Jan. 6, Maggie Haberman, July 19, 2023 (print ed.). It would be the second time the special counsel has notified Donald Trump that he is likely to face indictment, this time in connection with the Capitol riot.
Former President Donald J. Trump said on Tuesday that he recently received a so-called target letter from the special counsel Jack Smith in connection with the criminal investigation into his efforts to hold onto power after he lost the 2020 election, a sign that he is likely to be indicted in the case.
It would be the second time Mr. Smith has notified Mr. Trump that he is a target in a federal investigation. The first, in June, was in connection to the investigation into Mr. Trump’s handling of national defense material after he left office and his alleged obstruction of efforts to retrieve it.
“Deranged Jack Smith, the prosecutor with Joe Biden’s DOJ, sent a letter (again, it was Sunday night!) stating that I am a TARGET of the January 6th Grand Jury investigation, and giving me a very short 4 days to report to the Grand Jury, which almost always means an Arrest and Indictment,” Mr. Trump posted on his social media platform, Truth Social, after a news inquiry into whether he had been told he is a target.
A person close to Mr. Trump confirmed he had received the letter.
It is not clear what specific aspect of Mr. Smith’s investigation into the efforts to obstruct the transfer of power that Mr. Trump may be indicted in.
Washington Post, Opinion: 2024 won’t be a Trump-Biden replay. You can thank Gen Z for that, Celinda Lake and Mac Heller, July 19, 2023. Every year, 4 million Americans turn 18 and gain the right to vote. And unlike previous generations, Gen Z votes.
It’s easy to envision the 2024 presidential election becoming the third straight contest in which a veteran Democrat goes up against Donald Trump. Once again, the Democrat wins the popular vote but swing states are tighter. Could go either way — and has, right?
But things are very different this time, and here’s why: The candidates might not be changing — but the electorate has.
Every year, about 4 million Americans turn 18 and gain the right to vote. In the eight years between the 2016 and 2024 elections, that’s 32 million new eligible voters.
Also every year, 2½ million older Americans die. So in the same eight years, that’s as many as 20 million fewer older voters.
Which means that between Trump’s election in 2016 and the 2024 election, the number of Gen Z (born in the late 1990s and early 2010s) voters will have advanced by a net 52 million against older people. That’s about 20 percent of the total 2020 eligible electorate of 258 million Americans.
And unlike previous generations, Gen Z votes. Comparing the four federal elections since 2015 (when the first members of Gen Z turned 18) with the preceding nine (1998 to 2014), average turnout by young voters (defined here as voters under 30) in the Trump and post-Trump years has been 25 percent higher than that of older generations at the same age before Trump — 8 percent higher in presidential years and a whopping 46 percent higher in midterms.
Celinda Lake, a Democratic Party strategist, was one of two lead pollsters for Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign. Mac Heller is a documentary film producer, most recently of “Rigged: The Voter Suppression Playbook.”
Washington Post, Judge seems skeptical of Trump desire to delay documents trial until after 2024 election, Perry Stein and Mark Berman, July 19, 2023 (print ed.). The federal judge presiding over Donald Trump’s trial for allegedly mishandling classified documents appeared skeptical Tuesday about the former president’s request that it be delayed until after the 2024 election, though she also appeared wary of prosecutors’ request to begin the proceedings this year.
During a hearing in federal court, U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon, right, did not set any new date for the trial, saying she would consider both sides’ arguments and make a decision on the timing “promptly.”
The hearing marked the first time that lawyers on both sides of the case appeared before Cannon, with federal prosecutors and the former president’s defense attorneys gathering in a courthouse about an hour north of downtown West Palm Beach.
Trump was not in court for the hearing Tuesday afternoon, which had been expected to focus on administrative procedures regarding classified materials and the disagreement between the two sides about when the trial should begin. Federal prosecutors have argued for starting a trial in December, while Trump’s attorneys lobbied for scheduling it after next year’s election, since Trump is running for president again.
Trump says he received a target letter in federal Jan. 6 investigation
The hearing also took place amid a backdrop of churning legal tumult for Trump, who is already facing criminal charges in Manhattan, a civil trial in New York related to fraud allegations and another civil case accusing him of defamation. A district attorney in the Atlanta area is also investigating whether Trump and his allies broke the law in their efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in that state, with charging decisions expected there next month.
And on Tuesday morning, hours before the hearing in Fort Pierce, Trump announced on social media that he had received a letter identifying him as a target of the long-running federal investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Such a letter does not guarantee that charges will be brought, but it does suggest investigators have gathered enough evidence to link the recipient to a crime.
In his social media post about the target letter, he assailed special counsel Jack Smith, the prosecutor leading that investigation along with the separate case focusing on Trump’s handling of classified materials.
Special counsel Jack Smith makes a statement in Washington on June 9. (Tom Brenner for The Washington Post)
Last month, the investigation involving the classified materials led to charges against Trump and a longtime aide, Waltine “Walt” Nauta. The two men were charged in a 38-count indictment that accused the former president of improperly retaining 31 classified documents at his Florida residence and enlisting his aide to help him secretly keep some of the materials despite government efforts to have them returned.
Both Trump and Nauta pleaded not guilty during court appearances before magistrate judges in Miami.
Much of the attention going into Tuesday’s hearing was on Cannon, who Trump named to the bench in 2020. She had previously drawn intense scrutiny for intervening last year in the Justice Department’s investigation into Trump’s handling of classified materials, agreeing with his request to order an outside review of documents seized from Mar-a-Lago, his residence and private club. A federal appeals court panel later overturned her decision.
Trump says he was asked if he wishes to appear before grand jury
While the hearing in Fort Pierce was largely expected to focus on the nuts and bolts of conducting a criminal case based so heavily on classified government materials, an early point of contention between prosecutors and the defense has been over when the trial will begin. A day before the hearing, Cannon directed the two sides to come to court prepared to discuss that topic.
Trump remains the front-runner for the Republican nomination next year, and his attorneys have contended that holding the trial before the election is complete could impact its outcome, along with his ability to get a fair trial.
Former advice columnist E. Jean Carroll, center, at federal court with her lawyer Roberta Kaplan, left, on April 25 in New York City (Associated Press photo by Seth Wineg).
Disclosures in the E. Jean Carroll rape lawsuit echoed Trump's words in "Hollywood Access" videotape, reported upon above, that arose during the 2016 presidential campaign. Shown Then: The front page of a 2016 New York Daily News edition contrasts with Trump's claimed innocence in the Carroll case.
Politico, Trump loses bid for new trial in E. Jean Carroll case, Erica Orden, July 19, 2023. A jury’s verdict finding Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation should stand, a federal judge ruled.
A federal judge on Wednesday denied Donald Trump’s bid for a new trial two months after a jury found that he sexually abused and defamed the writer E. Jean Carroll.
In his motion for a new trial, Trump argued that because the jury found him liable for sexual abuse but not rape, which is what Carroll originally alleged, the jury award of $2 million in compensatory damages for the sexual abuse claim was excessive.
He also argued that the jury award of $2.7 million in compensatory damages for the defamation claim should be reduced, largely because he disputed the testimony of an expert witness on which it was based. And Trump said an additional punitive damages award of $228,000 violated his constitutional right to due process.
Carroll, shown in a 1990s file photo, alleged that Trump sexually assaulted her in the dressing room of a luxury Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s. She testified during the trial that he penetrated her with his fingers, but she said she couldn’t be certain that he had inserted his penis because he was pressed up against her in a way that blocked her view.
In a 59-page decision, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, left, wrote that “the proof convincingly established, and the jury implicitly found, that Mr. Trump deliberately and forcibly penetrated Ms. Carroll’s vagina with his fingers, causing immediate pain and long lasting emotional and psychological harm.”
He said that the former president’s argument “therefore ignores the bulk of the evidence at trial, misinterprets the jury’s verdict, and mistakenly focuses on the New York Penal Law definition of ‘rape’ to the exclusion of the meaning of that word as it often is used in everyday life and of the evidence of what actually occurred between Ms. Carroll and Mr. Trump.”
“The jury in this case did not reach ‘a seriously erroneous result,’” he wrote. “Its verdict is not ‘a miscarriage of justice.’”
Separate from his motion for a new trial, Trump is also contesting the verdict before a federal appeals court. That appeal remains pending.
Carroll, meanwhile, has a separate defamation lawsuit pending against Trump. The trial over that lawsuit is scheduled for January 2024.
On Wednesday, a lawyer for Carroll, Robbie Kaplan, said, “Now that the court has denied Trump’s motion for a new trial or to decrease the amount of the verdict, E Jean Carroll looks forward to receiving the $5 million in damages that the jury awarded her” at trial. She added that Carroll “also looks forward to continuing to hold Trump accountable” at next year’s trial.
New York Times, Trump Hush Money Case Will Remain in New York State Court, Judge Rules, Jonah E. Bromwich, July 19, 2023. Lawyers for former President Donald J. Trump had sought to move the first criminal case against him to federal court, but a judge put an end to the effort.
A judge on Wednesday denied former President Donald J. Trump’s request to move the Manhattan criminal case against him from state to federal court.
The federal judge, Alvin K. Hellerstein, had signaled in a hearing last month that he was predisposed against moving the case brought by the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg. Mr. Bragg’s prosecutors have charged Mr. Trump with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, stemming from a hush money payment made to a porn star in 2016.
Mr. Trump’s lawyers had argued the case should be heard in federal court because it related to conduct he engaged in while president.
But in the order Judge Hellerstein issued Wednesday, he echoed his contention at the hearing that Mr. Trump’s lawyers had failed to show that the behavior at issue — reimbursements to Mr. Trump’s former fixer, Michael D. Cohen, for the hush money payment — was somehow related to the office of the presidency.
Judge Hellerstein wrote that the evidence overwhelmingly suggested that the matter involved something personal to the president: “a cover-up of an embarrassing event.”
“Hush money paid to an adult film star is not related to a president’s official acts,” he concluded in the order. “It does not reflect in any way the color of the president’s official duties.”
More On Assaults On Democracy
Washington Post, Analysis: ‘Fake elector’ charges show how Trump’s allies played with fire, Aaron Blake, July 19, 2023. The Michigan indictments reinforce the evidence that at least some of those involved knew this wasn’t exactly on the up-and-up When Michigan Republicans were planning in late 2020 to submit a slate of electors who supported Donald Trump — despite Trump having lost the state by nearly three points — then-state GOP Chairwoman Laura Cox thought better of it.
“I was very uncomfortable with that, as per my lawyers’ opinion,” Cox told the congressional Jan. 6 committee last year.
So she said she proposed an alternative: Instead of submitting the electors as if Trump had won, the party would sign a document merely offering the electors as a contingency in case the courts somehow awarded Michigan to Trump.
Those involved did not adopt Cox’s plan. The courts didn’t overturn Michigan’s result. And now the 16 people who signed a document falsely claiming they were duly elected have been indicted.
Michigan on Tuesday became the first state to charge so-called “fake” Trump electors. The 16 electors who signed that document are each charged with eight felonies, including forgery.
Washington Post, Opinion: Michigan indicts alleged plotters in fake elector scheme. Here’s what it means, Jennifer Rubin, right, July 19, 2023. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, in a stunning development, on Tuesday filed eight criminal charges against the 16 Republicans in her state who submitted a phony slate of electors in hopes of flipping the state from Joe Biden to Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election. The charges include forgery, conspiracy to commit forgery and conspiracy to commit election forgery, each carrying a potential penalty of five to 14 years in prison.
Nessel’s charges are the first criminal cases involving the phony elector scheme that preceded the Jan. 6, 2021, riot aimed at stopping the peaceful transfer of power to the 2020 election winner, Biden. The Michigan attorney general did not reach beyond the state to indict Trump or his aides for engineering the scheme. But in Georgia, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is investigating Trump’s attempts to compel state officials to “find” enough votes to flip the state to his column and then enlist a set of fake electors; she has signaled that she will bring charges in August.
After a magistrate in Ingham County, Mich., signed off on the charges Tuesday, Nessel released a video explaining her action. The 16 defendants and/or their attorneys were then notified and defendants given a week to turn themselves in or face arrest.
Nessel’s move, ahead of possible Jan. 6-related indictments by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith, was a bold one, but also reflected considerable restraint. She left Smith plenty of latitude to proceed against Trump, his lawyers and top aides.
In that sense, Nessel struck a balance between prosecuting possible violations of state law and avoiding interfering with a federal investigation. She had previously attempted to refer the Michigan electors’ case to the Justice Department, but in the absence of federal action, she proceeded on her own. Nessel did not coordinate with either Smith or other state attorneys general before filing her case. Her closely guarded move might have taken Smith by surprise.
The allegations detailed in Nessel’s affidavit are compelling: The Republican fake electors met clandestinely at the GOP headquarters, were not allowed to take in their phones and took an oath of secrecy. The Republicans falsely attested that they had met in the legislature and were “duly organized” and that they had proceeded in “the manner provided by law.” That phony slate was then submitted to the U.S. Senate and to the National Archives.
All of this followed a Nov. 20, 2020, meeting at the White House where Trump invited Michigan Republican legislators to discuss overturning the election results. Michigan Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey and Michigan House Speaker Lee Chatfield issued a statement after the meeting: “We have not yet been made aware of any information that would change the outcome of the election in Michigan and as legislative leaders, we will follow the law and follow the normal process regarding Michigan’s electors.” The phony electors had other ideas.
A model prosecution memo recently released by Just Security, an online forum for analysis of U.S. policy on law, rights and security, described how Trump and his cronies organized Republicans in battleground states that Biden had won, including Michigan, “to sign and submit false certificates claiming that they were the authorized to cast votes, on behalf of their respective states, in the Electoral College for Donald Trump.”
Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary:The international Plot to attack democratic legislatures, Wayne Madsen, left, author of 23 books and former U.S. Navy intelligence officer and NSA analyst, July 17-18, 2023. Current law enforcement and judicial investigations in the United States, Brazil, Germany, and other countries point to a coordinated effort by far-right political parties and politicians – backed by anti-democratic dictatorships in Russia, Saudi Arabia, and – to a lesser extent, China -- to physically attack legislatures in order to bring about fascist rule. The threat to democratic legislatures has not been this severe since the 1930s, which saw a Nazi-led arson attack on the 
German Reichstag in Berlin in 1933 and the siege by fascists of the French National Assembly in Paris in 1934.
The analysis being undertaken by WMR will present the links between the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Congress, the January 2, 2022 arson attack on the South African Parliament, and the January 8, 2023 attack on the Brazilian Congress had more in common than occurring during the month of January. 
These attacks were closely linked to a vast network of fascist movements backed by far-right political operatives within the U.S. Republican Party and similar parties and organizations in North and South America and Europe.
The arson attack on the South African Parliament had similarities to the 1933 Reichstag fire. Although a mentally ill black man, Zandile Christmas Mafe, was charged with the arson and later confessed to the crime, it turned out that he had links to far-right South Africans who supported the parole of Janusz Waluś, the convicted Polish assassin in 1993 of Chris Hani, the General Secretary of the South African Communist Party and chief of staff of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC).
WMR will also point to far-right attacks on the Macedonian Parliament in 2017 and the South Korean National Assembly in 2019 that may have served as rightist dry runs on future attacks in Washington, Cape Town, and Brasilia. We will also address failed attempts by the far-right to attack legislatures in Germany, Canada, and New Zealand.
Shadowy dark money, the sources for which include Russian oligarchs, anti-democracy and “libertarian” billionaires, and right-wing foundations, has supported groups targeting democratic legislatures that are also known as the “peoples’ houses.”
The international nature of the fascist movement to neuter legislatures centers around the activities of Donald Trump propagandist and accelerationist agitator Steve Bannon and other fascist apparatchiks, including Brazilian Deputy Eduardo Bolsonaro, the son of former President Jair Bolsonaro. Eduardo Bolsonaro’s fingerprints are found on both the January 6th insurrection in Washington and the January 8 insurrection in Brasilia this past January 8th. Acceleration is a term applied to far-right movements that are attempting to bring about fascist rule through civil strife. The accelerationist blueprint includes attacks on legislatures. Accelerationist rhetoric often invokes such historical events as the 1605 Gunpowder Plot to blow up the British House of Parliament in London and assassinating King James I, the storming of the Bastille in Paris on July 14, 1789, and the February 27, 1933 Nazi-backed arson attack on the Reichstag in Berlin.
The network of far-right anti-vaxxers, neo-Nazis, white nationalists, and other right-wingers responsible for the failed attempt to storm the Reichstag would continue to advocate for the storming of legislatures. In fact, there had already been a successful security breach of a legislature, that of Michigan in Lansing. On May 1, 2020, several armed protesters, some brandishing semi-automatic weapons, occupied the Senate and the House of Representatives. The gun-wielding protesters attempted to intimidate lawmakers who were debating Covid lockdown measures in the state. The protest was led by Michigan United for Liberty, a group that was connected to several other far-right organizations in the United States. Among those who occupied the legislature in Lansing were individuals later arrested and convicted in a plot to kidnap and assassinate Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer and seize control of the state government.
There were links between the Reichsbürger coup plotters and the QAnon movement in the United States, the Russian government, anti-vaxx zealots like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who had stoked up the German far-right, including members of AfD and Generation Identity, in an August 29, 2020 speech at the Victory Column in Berlin. Kennedy Jr.’s speech was just hours prior to the attempted storming of the Reichstag building. Kennedy, who shamelessly attempted to invoke the spirit of the famed 1963 West Berlin speech of his uncle, President John F. Kennedy, said to the delight of the German far-right that “today Berlin is again the front against totalitarianism.” He added that the “surveillance state,” “5G phone networks,” and Covid-19 lockdowns were part of some diabolical international grand conspiracy. Recently, Kennedy claimed that Covid-19 had been genetically-engineered to spare Jews and Chinese, more pabulum for the global far-right conspiracists.
Kennedy’s current vanity campaign to capture the Democratic presidential nomination is not only supported by Bannon and his global network of fascists, including Chinese expat multi-billionaire Guo Wengui, currently in jail in New York awaiting trial on federal fraud charges, but also wealthy high-tech figures like Twitter and PayPal investor David Sacks, former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, and former Facebook executive Chamath Palihapitiya. Sacks, like far-rightist Twitter owner Elon Musk, is a native of apartheid-era South Africa.
Those who fear the world stands on the same precipice of a worldwide fascist takeover have a reason for such concern. Not since the 1930s has there been a coordinated attempt by fascists to attack the instruments of democracy. Their first target has always been the chief symbol of democracy, legislatures elected by popular suffrage.
Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary: Democracy under siege: the coordinated attacks on the national legislatures of the U.S., Canada, and Brazil, Wayne Madsen, left, July 18, 2023. Under siege: the coordinated attacks on the national legislatures of the U.S., Canada, and Brazil -- Second in our Series of Democracy Under Attack.
The international support expressed for the various sieges of national legislatures was predictable. Russian state media was quick to point to the weakness of American democracy demonstrated by the attack on the U.S. Capitol. Of course, if the tables had been turned and it was the Russian State Duma that was under siege, Russian security would have dealt a deadly blow to the protesters. And as evidence of the double dealing of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny, he condemned the decision by Twitter to suspend Donald Trump’s account in the wake of the January 6th insurrection, citing the danger of government censorship but failing to state that Trump’s suspension was the decision of a private company and not a government agency.
The support for the January 6th insurrection by non-state actors like Olavo de Carvalho, the Virginia-based far-right political guru of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro; far-right Liberal Democratic Party leader Vladimir Zhironovsky, a booster of Vladimir Putin; and New York-based billionaire Chinese expat Guo Wengui pointed to the foreign support for the insurrectionist. Guo’s financial support for Trump’s far-right ideologist Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast added fuel to the fire, particularly after Bannon, on January 5, 2021, told his followers that “all hell is going to break loose tomorrow.”
The presence of Brazilian Deputy Eduardo Bolsonaro in Washington on January 6 was all the more suspicious given the fact that his father, the Brazilian president, had voiced support for the Capitol siege because, as he stated, there were “a lot of fraud reports about the U.S. election.” Jair Bolsonaro would cite similar fraud in the Brazilian election that saw him lose to leftist leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in the October 30, 2022 election.
Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary: The world must coordinate a defense to attacks against representative democracy, Wayne Madsen, left, July 19, 2023. Part 3 in our series.
In our previous two articles, we reported on the coordinated attacks on national legislatures by far-right forces that were encouraged by an unholy alliance of fascist-rule nations like Russia; “libertarian” high-tech billionaires, including Peter Thiel and Elon Musk; and white nationalist, Nazi, and like-minded political groups in the United States, Germany, Canada, Brazil, and other nations.
The attacks on the legislatures of Germany, the United States, Canada, and Brazil were preceded by a few less-known assaults by far-right forces on the legislatures of Macedonia and South Korea.
It is clear that the far right has a particular disdain for representative democratic institutions. The present collection of Nazi and fascist malcontents and chaos agents, all aided and abetted by troll farms in Russia, follow in a long line of similar pathetic dregs of society who helped enable the fascist dictatorships of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Falangist Spain, and other tinpot regimes around the world. A common thread that runs through all the far-right assaults on parliamentary government is the lack of initial action or response from law enforcement. Police agencies, many of which are rife with far-right officers and other personnel, are in dire need of vetting and purging. The same applies to the military, particularly in the United States, Brazil, and Germany.
Palmer Report, Analysis: So who else is getting indicted for January 6th alongside Donald Trump? Bill Palmer, July 19, 2023. Donald Trump has now revealed that on Sunday, he received a target letter from Jack Smith regarding January 6th. It’s possible that other people also simultaneously received target letters, but if that’s the case, none of them have gone public with it yet. Given how quick Republicans are to whine about these things and play the victim, you’d think anyone else who received a target letter over the weekend would have announced as much by now.
So does this mean Trump is the only one getting indicted? Probably not. Over the past few months various major media outlets have reported that people like Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Michael Flynn, John Eastman, and numerous others were all being examined by Jack Smith’s grand jury.
It’s not realistic to expect that Jack Smith has concluded that there’s enough evidence to indict Donald Trump but none of his alleged co-conspirators. Nor is it realistic to think that they’ve all flipped on Trump. So at least some other people – probably a lot of other people – are probably also getting indicted by Jack Smith for January 6th. But it may not happen all at once.
New York Times, Target Letter to Trump Raises Possibility of Obstruction and Fraud Charges, Charlie Savage, July 19, 2023 (print ed.). A person briefed on the matter said the letter cited three statutes that could be applied in a prosecution of former President Trump.
In the two and a half years since a mob laid siege to the Capitol in an effort to prevent Congress from certifying Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s electoral victory, a wealth of evidence has emerged about Donald J. Trump’s bid to stay in power after the 2020 election.
Mr. Trump and his allies peddled spurious claims of voter fraud, pressured officials in states he narrowly lost and recruited false slates of electors in those states. He urged Vice President Mike Pence to delay certification of Mr. Biden’s win. And he called on a huge crowd of his supporters to march on the Capitol and “fight like hell.”
Now, Mr. Trump appears almost certain to face criminal charges for some of his efforts to remain in office. On Tuesday, he disclosed on social media that federal prosecutors had sent him a so-called target letter, suggesting that he could soon be indicted in the investigation into the events that culminated in the riot.
Mr. Trump did not say what criminal charges, if any, the special counsel, Jack Smith, had specified in issuing the letter.
New York Times, Republicans Shrug at Latest Possible Trump Indictment, Shane Goldmacher and Maggie Haberman, July 19, 2023. News of a case related to Jan. 6 brought a muddled response from some of Donald Trump’s 2024 rivals, and familiar attacks on President Biden.
The indictments of Donald J. Trump — past and pending — are becoming the background music of the 2024 presidential campaign: always there, shaping the mood, yet not fully the focus.
Like so much of the Trump presidency itself, the extraordinary has become so flattened that Mr. Trump’s warning on Tuesday that he was facing a possible third indictment this year, this time over his involvement in the events that led to the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol, drew shrugs from some quarters of his party and a muddled response from his rivals.
At one Republican congressional fund-raising lunch on Tuesday in Washington, the news of a likely third Trump indictment went entirely unmentioned, an attendee said. Some opposing campaigns’ strategists all but ignored the development. And on Capitol Hill, Mr. Trump’s allies quickly resumed their now-customary defensive positions.
Two and half years ago, the deadly riot that left the nation’s seat of government defiled had threatened to forever tarnish Mr. Trump’s political legacy. His supporters had stormed the Capitol to stop the certification of his defeat, stoked by their leader who had urged them to “fight like hell.” Even long-loyal Republicans broke with him as shattered glass littered the Capitol complex.
July 18
Trump Defense Secretary Mark Esper, shown in a file photo at right with then-President Trump, has published a harsh assessment of Trump's willingness to break law and other norms to retain power and punish his perceived opponents.
New York Times, Trump and Allies Forge Plans to Increase Presidential Power in 2025, Jonathan Swan, Charlie Savage and Maggie Haberman, July 18, 2023 (print ed.). Former President Trump and his backers aim to strengthen the power of the White House and limit the independence of federal agencies.
Donald J. Trump and his allies are planning a sweeping expansion of presidential power over the machinery of government if voters return him to the White House in 2025, reshaping the structure of the executive branch to concentrate far greater authority directly in his hands.
Their plans to centralize more power in the Oval Office stretch far beyond the former president’s recent remarks that he would order a criminal investigation into his political rival, President Biden, signaling his intent to end the post-Watergate norm of Justice Department independence from White House political control.
Mr. Trump and his associates have a broader goal: to alter the balance of power by increasing the president’s authority over every part of the federal government that now operates, by either law or tradition, with any measure of independence from political interference by the White House, according to a review of his campaign policy proposals and interviews with people close to him.
Mr. Trump intends to bring independent agencies — like the Federal Communications Commission, which makes and enforces rules for television and internet companies, and the Federal Trade Commission, which enforces various antitrust and other consumer protection rules against businesses — under direct presidential control.
July 14
Washington Post, Arizona escalates probe into alleged efforts to swing 2020 election for Trump, Yvonne Wingett Sanchez, July 14, 2023 (print ed.). Arizona’s top prosecutor is ramping up a criminal investigation into alleged attempts by Republicans to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in the state by signing and transmitting paperwork falsely declaring Donald Trump the winner, according to two people familiar with the investigation.
This is one of several investigations into attempts to overturn the election results. There is a federal criminal probe being led by special counsel Jack Smith, who was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland to examine the sprawling efforts in several states intended to reverse Trump’s loss.
Smith’s team has interviewed and subpoenaed about a dozen Arizonans. In Georgia, Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D) has spent more than two years investigating efforts by Trump and others to overturn his narrow loss in the state, and she is expected to announce a charging decision this summer.
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (D) assigned a team of prosecutors to the case in May, and investigators have contacted many of the pro-Trump electors and their lawyers, according to the two people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to candidly describe the probe. Investigators have requested records and other information from local officials who administered the 2020 election, the two people said, and a prosecutor has inquired about evidence collected by the Justice Department and an Atlanta-area prosecutor for similar probes.
It is unclear if the investigation will broaden into other attempts to undermine President Biden’s victory in the state, including a pressure campaign by Trump and his allies to thwart the will of voters and remain in office.
Insurrectionist and former police chief Alan Hostetter (Orange County Register photo by Paul Bersebach via Associated Press).
Washington Post, Former police chief convicted of felonies after defending himself with false Jan. 6 claims, Rachel Weiner and Spencer S. Hsu, July 14, 2023 (print ed.). Defendant aired conspiracy theories about the election, the police and the Justice Department in court.
On Jan. 6, 2021, Alan Hostetter and Russell Taylor were shoulder to shoulder in the battle they had predicted would come if the 2020 presidential election results unseating President Donald Trump were not discarded.
Under a photograph of the men taken during the riot and posted on Instagram, Hostetter wrote: “We are just getting started.” Hostetter had driven to D.C. while Taylor flew, so they could carry weapons with them to the Capitol, including bear spray, hatchets, knives and stun batons.
But last week, the two squared off in a federal courtroom, with Taylor admitting from the witness box that what they had cast as a patriotic cause was a criminal conspiracy to keep Congress from doing its work. Hostetter, acting as his own attorney, was accusing his former friend of taking part in a much broader conspiracy orchestrated by the federal government.
A police chief turned yoga instructor who helped organize a “brigade” of Californians on Jan. 6, Hostetter was convicted Thursday of four felonies — conspiring to obstruct and obstructing an official proceeding, and trespassing and engaging in disorderly conduct with a dangerous weapon.
“No reasonable citizen of this country, much less one with two decades of experience in law enforcement, could have believed it was lawful to use mob violence to impede a joint session of Congress,” U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth said in court. “Belief that your actions are for a greater good doesn’t negate consciousness of wrongdoing.”
Hostetter is one of several Jan. 6 defendants to represent himself, using the public platform to insist without evidence that the 2020 presidential election was stolen and that the Capitol riot was a distraction instigated by federal agents. Both false claims have been amplified by Trump himself in recent months. Experts say the convictions of Hostetter and other rioters are probably deterring political violence even as most Republicans continue to support Trump and his falsehoods related to the justice system.
Lamberth interrupted Hostetter’s closing argument to say he had watched video of a hearing in Pennsylvania in late 2020 at which Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani failed to present any evidence of election fraud. “I was so dumbfounded that the lawyer representing the president would make such a poor presentation,” Lamberth said, adding he was also “dumbfounded because I had known” Giuliani “in my previous life.” Lamberth, a Ronald Reagan appointee, was an assistant U.S. attorney when Giuliani was in Justice Department leadership.
“Citizens can make up their minds on politics or other bases,” he said. “Courts have got to have evidence.”
Washington Post, Man sentenced to 7 years in Jan. 6 assaults that forced an officer to retire, Tom Jackman, July 14, 2023 (print ed.). Prosecutors sought a 15-year term for Kyle Fitzsimons, shown above, whose attack on one officer forced him into medical retirement.
The bloodied face of Kyle Fitzsimons, a butcher from Maine who repeatedly attacked police officers at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, became one of the more memorable images of the insurrection. A federal judge supplied the last line of the caption for that image Thursday, ordering Fitzsimons to spend more than seven years in prison.
Fitzsimons, 39, wearing a butcher’s coat with “Kyle” embroidered on the chest and wielding an unstrung archery bow, twice charged into the phalanx of officers protecting the upper West Terrace tunnel on the afternoon of Jan. 6, at one point grabbing the shield strap and wrenching the shoulder of Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell. The officer testified that the pain was so bad he considered using his gun to shoot Fitzsimons before he was freed. He suffered a partially torn rotator cuff and labrum, and was forced to take a medical retirement.
Video also captured Fitzsimons hurling his bow like a spear into the crowd of officers, striking one in the head, and also being involved in a tussle with D.C. Police Sgt. Phuson Nguyen, during which the officer’s gas mask was dislodged and another rioter then poured chemical spray into Nguyen’s face before the mask snapped shut. Nguyen testified that he got knocked down at the same time, and “I thought that was it for me. I thought that’s where I’m going to die.”
Officers recall battling thundering mob in Jan. 6 trial of Maine man
Pushed back from the tunnel, Fitzsimons can be seen on video gathering himself, and then simply running back into the police lines again, fists flailing. During these attacks, Fitzsimons was hit from behind by a crutch being swung by another rioter, surveillance video showed, opening up the bloody head wound which later required staples to close. Fitzsimons’s trial attorney, Natasha Taylor-Smith, said the gory photo made Fitzsimons “the poster boy for Jan. 6.”
Gonell attended the sentencing hearing, and told U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras of the terror he experienced that day facing a relentless mob, and the shoulder injury which still bothers him. Then he pulled out a badge and showed it to the judge. “Kyle Fitzsimons is the reason I have this retirement badge,” Gonell said. “I did not want this. I wanted to earn it. I had seven years left to retirement, and he robbed that from me.” Gonell said he is still fighting with the government over a $21,000 bill for his shoulder surgery.
Prosecutors argued that the injury to Gonell merited an increase in his possible sentence, and also asked Contreras to add more time because Fitzsimons’s actions in obstructing a congressional proceeding amounted to a terrorist act. The government requested a sentence of more than 15 years, noting that rioter Peter Schwartz recently received a 14-year term.
But Contreras rejected the government’s proposed sentencing enhancements, and set the guideline range at roughly 10 to 12½ years in prison. Then the judge said he felt the advisory sentencing guidelines “possibly overstate the seriousness of the offense,” and that other defendants who had assaulted police had received sentences of less than 10 years.
As of early June, Contreras had handled 19 Jan. 6-related sentencings and gone below the government’s recommendation in every one, according to a Washington Post database.
Before Jan. 6, Fitzsimons openly disputed the results of the 2020 election and in December 2020, he posted a request on the “Lebanon Maine Truth Seekers” Facebook page trying to organize a caravan to D.C. on Jan. 6, the page’s administrator said. He got no takers.
July 13
Politico, Justice Department appeals Jan. 6 prison sentences for Stewart Rhodes, Oath Keepers, Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein, July 13, 2023 (print ed.). Prosecutors are dissatisfied with the severity of the sentences handed down by the federal judge overseeing the case.
The Justice Department on Wednesday appealed the sentences handed down to seven members of the Oath Keepers — including founder Stewart Rhodes — for their roles in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, a signal that prosecutors are not satisfied with the severity of the jail terms delivered by the federal judge overseeing the case.
U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta sentenced Rhodes to 18 years in prison — the harshest sentence for any Jan. 6 defendant — reflecting his leadership of 
what Mehta, left, characterized as a dangerous criminal conspiracy aimed at violently derailing the transfer of presidential power.
Nevertheless, the sentence for the Yale Law School graduate and disbarred attorney was seven years shorter than the 25-year prison term prosecutors recommended and four years below an agreed-upon “guidelines range” based upon Rhodes’ conduct.
In a series of filings, prosecutors also signaled they were appealing the sentences — all delivered by Mehta, an appointee of President Barack Obama — of several other defendants convicted for their own role in Rhodes’ alleged conspiracy.
Many of Rhodes’ coconspirators faced sentences that similarly fell below the guidelines ranges for their conduct — in some cases by several orders of magnitude. Among those who, like Rhodes, were convicted of seditious conspiracy:
- Florida Oath Keeper leader Kelly Meggs received a 12-year term; DOJ sought 21 years.
- Roberto Minuta of New York was sentenced to 4.5 years; DOJ sought 17 years.
- Joseph Hackett of Florida received a 3.5-year sentence; DOJ sought 12 years.
- Ed Vallejo of Arizona received a 3-year sentence; DOJ sought 17 years.
- David Moerschel of Florida was sentenced to three years: DOJ sought 10 years.
DOJ also appealed the conviction of two Oath Keepers acquitted of seditious conspiracy but convicted of conspiring to obstruct Congress:
Jessica Watkins of Ohio, who was sentenced to 8.5 years in jail; DOJ sought 18 years.
Kenneth Harrelson of Florida, who was sentenced to 4 years; DOJ sought 15.
The sentences reflected the fact that Mehta viewed Rhodes as the key driver of the conspiracies. During sentencing hearings, several of the defendants similarly pointed to Rhodes, claiming they were manipulated and ginned up by him to participate in the attack on the Capitol.
Dozens of Oath Keepers, many of whom were performing security details for speakers at Trump’s Jan. 6 rally, would later join the mob and lead one of the early surges into the building. Once inside, the group split up, with half heading toward the Senate and the other half toward the House. Three Oath Keepers who joined them pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy and cooperated with prosecutors.
A DOJ spokesperson declined to comment. The court filings are bare-bones, noting the government’s objection to the sentences but not providing a rationale, which is likely to come in formal briefs filed in the coming months.
The government’s appeals will go to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, located just blocks from the Capitol and in the same federal courthouse where the trials were held. They’re likely to be considered in tandem with appeals filed by the same defendants challenging both their convictions and their sentences.
New York Times, House Republicans Criticize F.B.I. Director During a Contentious Hearing, Adam Goldman and Glenn Thrush, July 13, 2023 (print ed.). Stoked by former President Trump, congressional Republicans have been trying to undermine the F.B.I.’s legitimacy with the public.
Republicans bombarded Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, on Wednesday with criticisms about his role in investigating former President Donald J. Trump, efforts to address extremist violence and the bureau’s electronic surveillance practices during a contentious House Judiciary Committee hearing.
Committee Republicans, led by the chairman, Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, treated Mr. Wray as if he were a hostile witness — repeatedly interrupting his attempts to answer their rapid-fire queries with shouted rebuttals. Most sought to portray the nation’s premier law enforcement agency, and Mr. Wray, who was appointed by President Donald J. Trump, as a political tool of the Democrats.
Time and again, Mr. Wray, a registered Republican, rejected accusations that he had sought to shield President Biden or his son, Hunter Biden, or that he had targeted Mr. Trump. The F.B.I.’s search of the former president’s Mar-a-Lago estate last August as agents sought to recover sensitive documents from his time in office, Mr. Wray added, was lawful, restrained and prompted by a court order.
“The idea that I’m biased against conservatives seems somewhat insane to me, given my own personal background,” Mr. Wray said, responding to Representative Harriet M. Hageman, a Wyoming Republican who unseated Liz Cheney last year, as she claimed that he had perpetuated a “two-tiered” system of justice. In earlier questioning, he flatly denied that the bureau was being weaponized.
“The F.B.I. does not and has no interest in protecting anyone politically,” he said when another committee Republican asked if he was “protecting” the Bidens.
The five-hour session produced little in the way of new information. Mr. Wray, who has adopted a cautious approach in previous congressional testimony, repeatedly refused to answer questions about open investigations but at times was visibly annoyed. Still, the hearing highlighted a political reorientation of sorts for Republicans. In decades past, they defended the bureau as a bulwark of law and order, but are now seeking to erode public confidence in the agency’s impartiality, stoked by Mr. Trump’s anger and mistakes the F.B.I. made while investigating him.
U.S. Department of Justice Special Counsel Jack Smith announces indictment of former U.S. President Trump on June 9, 2023.
Emptywheel, Analysis: Poof! How Jack Smith Made 800,000 Pages into 4,500, Emptywheel (Marcy Wheeler), July 13, 2023. Amid the argument that DOJ has already packaged up almost all of the unclassified evidence needed to defend the stolen document case, DOJ has hinted there might be another grand jury.
Emptywheel, Analysis: Jay Bratt to Chris Kise: You Already Made that Frivolous Presidential Records Act Argument, Emptywheel (Marcy Wheeler), July 13, 2023.
In a filing rebutting Trump's claim to need an indefinite delay of his trial, Jay Bratt reminded Chris Kise that he already made the frivolous Presidential Records Act argument he claims he needs more time to make.
Ilene Proctor International Public Relations, Commentary: Donald Trump: A Life Spent Failing Upwards, Ilene Proctor, right, July 13, 2023. Or, How Americans learned to 
Live and Love/Hate Trump’s Suck-cesspool Policies.
How does this bloviating whale of a male always seem to fail upwards?
Trump has an amazing capacity for not only evading responsibility but then surviving and triumphing. Despite decades of various crimes, how does he not succumb to the mountain-high criminal indictments, arrests, and investigations that would mess with any mere mortal but ironically only makes Trump more popular among his followers?
Perhaps it is his mind over anything that matters that shelters the man from what should be the inevitable payoff for all his crimes. The power of his narcissism and sociopathy only strengthens him. His charisma intoxicates his cult and elected enablers to maintain the lie that it's all just political mumbo jumbo toward the Republicans' leading presidential candidate and likely nominee. Helping not hurting his resolve to win the presidency again is his belief that the GOP-led legislatures will continue to pass laws undermining voting rights, giving impetus to a proven loser that he doesn't have to actually win to regain power.
Trump’s a gifted grifter that plays a kind of a crypto spiritualism scheme. He figured out in 2016 that he could mish mash his political doomsday kibble of sex/marriage/white/male/Christian theocracy, guns, Obama/racial animus, hysteria, paranoia, and COVID fears that his grass route supporters need mixed with some well-chosen hate groups that would meld together and respond with resound every time he took to his political pulpit, where he would proclaim that all protesters were orchestrated by RINOS and liberal devils to destroy him.
July 12
New York Times, Trump Lawyers Seek Indefinite Postponement of Documents Trial, Alan Feuer and Maggie Haberman, July 12, 2023 (print ed.). The former president’s legal team argued in a court filing that no trial date should be set until all “substantive motions” in the case were resolved, setting up an early key decision by Judge Aileen M. Cannon.
judge on Monday night to indefinitely postpone his trial on charges of illegally retaining classified documents after he left office, saying that the proceeding should not begin until all “substantive motions” in the case had been presented and decided.
The written filing — submitted 30 minutes before its deadline of midnight on Tuesday — presents a significant early test for Judge Aileen M. Cannon, the Trump-appointed jurist who is overseeing the case. If granted, it could have the effect of pushing Mr. Trump’s trial into the final stages of the presidential campaign in which he is now the Republican front-runner or even past the 2024 election.
While timing is important in any criminal matter, it could be hugely consequential in Mr. Trump’s case, in which he stands accused of illegally holding on to 31 classified documents after leaving the White House and obstructing the government’s repeated efforts to reclaim them.
There could be complications of a sort never before presented to a court if Mr. Trump is a candidate in the last legs of a presidential campaign and a federal criminal defendant on trial at the same time. If the trial is pushed back until after the election and Mr. Trump wins, he could try to pardon himself after taking office or have his attorney general dismiss the matter entirely.
Some of the former president’s advisers have been blunt in private conversations that he is looking to winning the election as a solution to his legal problems. And the request for an open-ended delay to the trial of Mr. Trump and his co-defendant, Walt Nauta, a personal aide, presents a high-stakes question for Judge Cannon, who came into the case already under scrutiny for making decisions favorable to the former president in the early phases of the investigation.
Former President Donald Trump is shown in a photo collage with columnist E. Jean Carroll, who won a jury verdict that he sexually attacked her three decades ago.
New York Times, Presidency Doesn’t Shield Trump From Carroll’s Suit, Benjamin Weiser, Justice Dept. Says, July 12, 2023 (print ed.). In a reversal, the department said it could no longer argue that Donald Trump was acting in his official capacity when he insulted E. Jean Carroll.
The Justice Department said Tuesday that it would no longer argue that President Donald J. Trump’s derogatory statements about E. Jean Carroll in 2019 were made as part of his official duties as president — a reversal that gives new momentum to her case.
Ms. Carroll, 79, who won $5 million in damages in a trial accusing Mr. Trump of sexual abuse in the 1990s and defamation after he left the White House in January 2021, now is trying to push forward a separate lawsuit over comments that he made while president. That case has been mired in appeals. If a judge ultimately finds that those earlier comments were part of Mr. Trump’s official duties, that case would most likely be dismissed.
The Justice Department had taken the position, first during the Trump administration and later under President Biden, that Mr. Trump was acting in his official capacity when he called Ms. Carroll a liar and denied her accusation that he had raped her nearly 30 years ago in a Manhattan department store dressing room.
But the department said in a court filing Tuesday that new evidence had surfaced since Mr. Trump, 77, left office — including in the recent civil trial in which a Manhattan jury found Mr. Trump liable for sexually assaulting Ms. Carroll decades ago.
July 11
Fani Willis, left, is the district attorney for Atlanta-based Fulton County in Georgia. Her office has been probing since 2021 then-President Trump's claiming beginning in 2020 of election fraud in Georgia and elsewhere. Trump and his allies have failed to win support for their claims from Georgia's statewide election officials, who are Republican, or from courts.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Grand jurors who will consider Trump charges to be selected Tuesday, Bill Rankin and Jeremy Redmon, July 11, 2023 (print ed.). The selection of two Fulton County grand juries will be made Tuesday, with one of the panels expected to decide whether to hand up an indictment for alleged criminal interference in the 2020 presidential election.
One set of jurors is likely to be asked to bring formal charges against former President Donald Trump and other well-known political and legal figures. In a letter to county officials almost two months ago, District Attorney Fani Willis indicated the indictment could be obtained at some point between July 31 and Aug. 18.
The selection of two Fulton County grand juries will be made Tuesday, with one of the panels expected to decide whether to hand up an indictment for alleged criminal interference in the 2020 presidential election.
One set of jurors is likely to be asked to bring formal charges against former President Donald Trump and other well-known political and legal figures. In a letter to county officials almost two months ago, District Attorney Fani Willis indicated the indictment could be obtained at some point between July 31 and Aug. 18.
Willis began her investigation shortly after hearing the leaked Jan. 2, 2021, phone call in which Trump asked Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” the 11,780 votes he needed to defeat Joe Biden in Georgia. She later convened a special purpose grand jury which examined evidence and heard testimony over an almost eight-month period. Its final report, only part of which has been made public, recommended multiple people be indicted for alleged crimes.
Ray and Robyn Epps in an undisclosed location last year (New York Times photo by Alan Feuer).
New York Times, The Case That Could Be Fox’s Next Dominion, Jeremy W. Peters and Alan Feuer, July 11, 2023 (print ed.). Tucker Carlson repeatedly endorsed a conspiracy theory about an Arizona man, who may sue Fox News for defamation. Legal experts say it would be a viable case.
Robyn Epps, on the left, is wearing a coral-colored T-shirt with a flower in the middle. Ray Epps is wearing a white shirt. Behind them is a mobile home.
Of all the distortions and paranoia that Tucker Carlson promoted on his since-canceled Fox News program, one looms large: a conspiracy theory that an Arizona man working as a covert government agent incited the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol to sabotage and discredit former President Donald J. Trump and his political movement.
What’s known about the man — a two-time Trump voter named Ray Epps — is that he took part in demonstrations in Washington that day and the night before. He was captured on camera urging a crowd to march with him and enter the Capitol. But at other points, he pleads for calm once it becomes clear the situation is turning violent. He can be seen moving past a line of Capitol Police at the barricades, but never actually goes inside the Capitol.
Federal prosecutors have not charged Mr. Epps with a crime, focusing instead on the more than 1,000 other demonstrators who acted violently or were trespassing in the Capitol. The Justice Department’s sprawling investigation into the attack remains open, however, and Mr. Epps could still be indicted.
Yet for more than 18 months, Mr. Carlson insisted that the lack of charges against Mr. Epps could mean only one thing: that he was being protected because he was a secret government agent. There was “no rational explanation,” Mr. Carlson told his audience, why this “mysterious figure” who “helped stage-manage the insurrection” had not been charged.
He repeated Mr. Epps’s name over and over — in nearly 20 episodes — imprinting it on the minds of his viewers.
Mr. Epps was in the Marine Corps but said in his deposition before the Jan. 6 committee that he had otherwise never worked on behalf of any government agency. He and his wife, Robyn, have fled Arizona and are in hiding in another state, having sold their wedding venue business and ranch after receiving death threats from people who appeared to believe the conspiracy theory. And his legal jeopardy is far from over given that prosecutors are still unsealing new cases in connection with Jan. 6.
Now lawyers representing Mr. Epps and his wife are proceeding with plans to sue Fox News for defamation. “We informed Fox in March that if they did not issue a formal on-air apology that we would pursue all available avenues to protect the Eppses’ rights,” said Michael Teter, a lawyer for Mr. Epps who sent the network a cease-and-desist letter asking for an on-air apology and a retraction. After Mr. Teter did not hear from Fox about his request, he began to prepare the suit. “That remains our intent.”
Mr. Epps declined to comment on his potential suit. A Fox News spokeswoman declined to comment.
Mr. Carlson also declined to comment. But he continues to push the false notion that the Jan. 6 attack was staged by anti-Trump elements inside the government. On a podcast last week, Mr. Carlson claimed that the riot “was not an insurrection” and that the crowd that day was “filled with federal agents.”
July 4
Trump counsel Rudy Giuliani leads a news conference at Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington, DC on Nov. 19, 2020. At left above is attorney Sidney Powell and above right is Jenna Ellis, whom the Trump White House announced earlier as among its lawyers.
Palmer Report, Opinion: It’s a bad day to be Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, or John Eastman, Bill Palmer, right, July 4, 2023. DOJ Special Counsel Jack Smith has already criminally indicted Donald Trump and his co-conspirator Walt Nauta in the Espionage Act probe. Smith is also investigating Trump for his 2020 election crimes, and that probe is expected to cast a much wider net. We’re now starting to see just how wide.
Over the past week various tidbits in the media have suggested that Jack Smith is closing in on the attorneys who helped Trump pretend the 2020 election was stolen. This culminated in the news that Smith had done a proffer interview with Rudy Giuliani, one of the attorneys who fraudulently led that charge.
Now the Wall Street Journal says that Jack Smith’s team spent that interview asking Rudy Giuliani not only about Trump, but also about the other attorneys. That list includes Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis, Kenneth Chesebro, and John Eastman. Some of the names on this list are exactly who we’d have expected.
It now very much appears that most or all of these attorneys will end up criminally indicted for their roles in Trump’s 2020 election plot. It would also be a good guess that one or more ends up flipping on the others. Everyone knows how this works. The first to flip gets the most lenient deal, sometimes even immunity. At that point everyone else is screwed and pretty much has to flip as well, but their testimony is less useful, so they get less leniency. Given that Giuliani is already in there doing a proffer session – a prelude to a cooperating plea deal – the others will at least have to strongly consider trying to hurry up and cut a deal first.
In any case we now have confirmation of a number of Jack Smith’s targets. Of course this only represents one aspect of his investigation. Other reports have pointed to Smith investigating the fake electors for their roles in the 2020 plot, and of course Donald Trump himself. At this point we’re just waiting for plea deals to be announced and/or indictments to happen.
June
June 29
New York Times, Court Throws Out New York’s Civil Case Against Ivanka Trump, Jonah E. Bromwich, Ben Protess and William K. Rashbaum, June 29, 2023 (print ed.). The decision could mean that claims against Donald J. Trump and his company might also be limited.
A New York appeals court on Tuesday dismissed the New York attorney general’s civil case against Donald J. Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump and potentially limited the case against the former president and his family business, which is set to go to trial in October.
Last year, the attorney general, Letitia James, filed a lawsuit against Mr. Trump, his company and three of his adult children, including Ms. Trump, left, accusing them of fraudulently overvaluing the former president’s assets by billions of dollars to receive favorable loans.
On Tuesday, the Appellate Division of the State Supreme Court in Manhattan said in a unanimous ruling that Ms. James’s claims against Ms. Trump should be dismissed because the attorney general missed a deadline for filing the case against her. Ms. Trump was no longer a part of the Trump Organization after 2016, the ruling noted.
The appeals court effectively left it to the State Supreme Court judge presiding over the case to determine whether the claims against the other defendants — including Mr. Trump, his company and his two adult sons — should be limited.
Ms. James’s case rests on the company’s annual financial statements, which she says contained inflated numbers. The company continued to use those statements until at least 2021, she said. And Mr. Trump’s name was on the documents, even after he ascended to the White House.
In January, the State Supreme Court judge, Arthur F. Engoron, denied Mr. Trump’s motion to dismiss the case, saying that some arguments that the former president’s lawyers made were “borderline frivolous.” But Mr. Trump appealed, resulting in the decision on Tuesday.
Based on the appeals court’s ruling, it’s possible that Justice Engoron may have to limit claims related to two of the bigger transactions cited in the complaint: a hotel deal in Chicago and the purchase of a golf resort in Florida.
The ruling represented a rare legal victory that could strengthen Mr. Trump’s hand heading into the civil trial scheduled for Oct. 2 — and as he seeks the presidency again. Mr. Trump and his family business had endured a punishing series of losses in civil and criminal cases, and the appeals court’s decision might embolden him in any potential settlement talks.
A lawyer for Mr. Trump, Christopher M. Kise, said in a statement that the decision represented “the first step toward ending a case that should have never been filed.”
“The correct application of the law will now limit appropriately the previously unlimited reach of the attorney general,” he said. “We remain confident that once all the real facts are known, there will be no doubt President Trump has built an extraordinarily successful business empire.”
A spokeswoman for Ms. James, Delaney Kempner, said that the office had sued Mr. Trump and his company “after uncovering extensive financial fraud that continues to this day.”
“There is a mountain of evidence that shows Mr. Trump and the Trump Organization falsely and fraudulently valued multiple assets and misrepresented those values to financial institutions for significant economic gain,” she said. “Those facts haven’t changed.”
Ms. James’s lawsuit was filed last year on Sept. 21 against Mr. Trump, his business, Ms. Trump and his two adult sons.
It accuses the former president of lying to lenders and insurers about the value of his assets, and says that he violated state criminal laws and, “plausibly,” federal laws. The case lays out detailed accusations of how Mr. Trump’s annual financial statements overstated the worth of nearly all of his best-known properties — from Trump Tower and 40 Wall Street in Manhattan to Mar-a-Lago in Florida — to get better terms from the lenders and insurers.
The suit seeks $250 million that the attorney general contends the Trumps made through deception, and asks a judge to essentially bar the former president from doing business in New York if he is found liable at trial. Justice Engoron has already appointed a monitor to oversee the Trump Organization’s business transactions.
Although Mr. Trump invoked his constitutional right against self-incrimination in an interview last year, he answered Ms. James’s questions in a deposition in April.
Mr. Trump’s lawyers could argue at trial that the financial statements included disclaimers, and that the values were unaudited estimates. They could also argue that setting property values is subjective, more of an art than a science, and that the lenders and insurers were hardly victims.
“The transactions at the center of this case were wildly profitable for the banks and for the Trump entities,” Mr. Kise said in a statement issued after his deposition in April. Mr. Kise contended that once the facts were revealed, “everyone will scoff at the notion any fraud took place.”
June 28
Washington Post, It’s not just Mar-a-Lago: Trump charges highlight his New Jersey life at Bedminster, Jacqueline Alemany, Josh Dawsey and Spencer S. Hsu, June 28, 2023 (print ed.). Two of the most vivid scenes in the former president’s indictment take place at his Bedminster golf club, which has not been searched by the FBI.
The 49-page indictment against Donald Trump for mishandling classified documents and obstructing justice is largely focused on how boxes of sensitive documents ended up crammed into the nooks, crannies and even a chandelier-adorned bathroom of Trump’s Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago.
But two of the indictment’s most vivid scenes took place about 1,200 miles to the north.
Prosecutors accuse Trump of showing off classified documents to employees and others not authorized to see them — not once, but twice at his sprawling golf club on the rural plains of New Jersey.
According to the indictment, Trump bragged in July 2021 about a sensitive military plan with two of his staffers, as well as the writer and publisher of a forthcoming book, The Chief's Chief, from his former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, during a session at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster.
In an audio recording of the session near the club’s pool, Trump can be heard acknowledging the secrecy of the documents to the group — who included communications staffers Liz Harrington and Margo Martin, according to people familiar with the matter, some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the criminal case.
“See, as president I could have declassified it. Now I can’t,” Trump tells the group on the recording, which was obtained this week by The Washington Post. “Isn’t that interesting? It’s so cool.”
Washington Post, Judge suggests he’s unlikely to move Trump’s New York criminal case to federal court, Shayna Jacobs, June 28, 2023 (print ed.). A federal judge suggested Tuesday he is likely to rule against Donald Trump’s effort to have the criminal case accusing him of falsifying business records moved from state court to federal court.
U.S. District Court Judge Alvin Hellerstein did not rule on the matter but offered what he called his present takeaways at the end of a three-hour hearing on Tuesday, acknowledging conclusions that work against Trump.
Trump’s lawyers have sought to have the case involving $130,000 paid to an adult film actress in 2016 moved to federal court because they say the payment was related to his duties as president and because it involves federal legal questions. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s (D) office says the case belongs in state court and a personal issue that mostly preceded Trump becoming president in 2017.
Hellerstein said Tuesday it was clear to him that Trump’s record-keeping in connection with a $130,000 payment made on his behalf in 2016 was a personal matter, not one having to do with his presidency.
Longtime Trump adviser and lawyer Michael Cohen, who is now a key witness against him in the district attorney’s case, was acting as a representative of Trump privately when he arranged to pay Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet about an alleged sexual affair with Trump years earlier, the judge said.
Hellerstein also noted that the state court is equipped to handle the matter.
“There is no reason to believe that an equal measure of justice couldn’t be rendered by the state court,” he said.
The judge said to expect his official ruling in about two weeks.
Trump was indicted in New York Supreme Court in late March on 34 counts of falsifying business records related to the payment to Daniels. Prosecutors said Trump purposely concealed the nature of reimbursement payments to Cohen by claiming they were routine legal fees.
Raw Story, Ex-staffer describes Trump fantasizing about sex with Ivanka, Adam Nichols, June 28, 2023. Ex-staffer describes Trump fantasizing about sex with Ivanka (shown together in a 1990s file photo).
Former President Donald Trump made sexual comments about his daughter Ivanka that were so lewd he was rebuked by his Chief of Staff, former Trump official Miles Taylor writes in a new book.
The comments are used by Taylor, right, to highlight almost daily instances of sexism in the Trump White House that were so bad one senior female official told the writer, “This is not a healthy workplace for women.”
"Aides said he talked about Ivanka Trump's breasts, her backside, and what it might be like to have sex with her, remarks that once led (former Chief of Staff) John Kelly to remind the president that Ivanka was his daughter," Taylor writes.
"Afterward, Kelly retold that story to me in visible disgust. Trump, he said, was 'a very, very evil man.'"
The video player is currently playing an ad.
The details contained in the upcoming new book, “Blowback: A Warning to Save Democracy from the Next Trump,” were outlined in an exclusive interview with Newsweek Wednesday.
Taylor, a former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security who admitted to anonymously writing a 2018 op-ed in the New York Times titled “"I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration,” said, "There still are quite a few female leaders from the Trump administration who have held their tongues about the unequal treatment they faced in the administration at best, and the absolute naked sexism they experienced with the hands of Donald Trump at worst."
He said “undisguised sexism” was aimed at everybody from lowly staff members to cabinet secretaries.
He remembered Kirstjen Nielsen, Trump’s former secretary of homeland security, being called “sweetie” and “honey” and having her makeup critiqued by the president.
Taylor said, at one point, Nielsen whispered to him, "Trust me, this is not a healthy workplace for women.”
And Taylor said senior counselor Kellyanne Conway called Trump a “misogynistic bully," a comment that she denied making when contacted by Newsweek.
"He's a pervert, he's difficult to deal with," Taylor told Newsweek. "This is still the same man and, incredibly, we're considering electing him to the presidency again."
He added, “He's setting a very vile tone within the Republican Party, and in a sense has normalized pretty derisive views towards women in general.”
Trump was found liable of sexual abuse in a recent civil trial brought by writer E. Jean Carroll.
New York Times, Can DeSantis Break Trump’s Hold on New Hampshire? Jonathan Swan, Maggie Haberman and Shane Goldmacher, June 28, 2023 (print ed.). Donald Trump is looking to the state as an early chance to clear a crowded field, while Ron DeSantis’s camp is banking on winnowing the Republican race to two.
Former President Donald J. Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida are set to hold dueling events on Tuesday in New Hampshire, but from vastly different political positions: one as the dominant front-runner in the state, the other still seeking his footing.
Strategists for both campaigns agree that the state will play a starring role in deciding who leads the Republican Party into the 2024 election against President Biden.
Mr. Trump sees the first primary contest in New Hampshire as an early chance to clear the crowded field of rivals. And members of Team DeSantis — some of whom watched from losing sidelines, as Mr. Trump romped through the Granite State in 2016 on his way to the nomination — hope New Hampshire will be the primary that winnows the Republican field to two.
“Iowa’s cornfields used to be where campaigns were killed off, and now New Hampshire is where campaigns go to die,” said Jeff Roe, who runs Mr. DeSantis’s super PAC, Never Back Down. Mr. Roe retains agonizing memories from 2016, when he ran the presidential campaign of the last man standing against Mr. Trump: Senator Ted Cruz of Texas.
June 27
New York Times, Audio Undercuts Trump’s Assertion He Did Not Have Classified Document, Maggie Haberman and Alan Feuer, June 27, 2023 (print ed.). A recording of a meeting in 2021 in which former President Trump described a sensitive document in front of him appears to contradict his defense.
An audio recording of former President Donald J. Trump in 2021 discussing what he called a “highly confidential” document about Iran that he acknowledged he could not declassify because he was out of office appears to contradict his recent assertion that the material he was referring to was simply news clippings.
Portions of a transcript of the two-minute recording of Mr. Trump were cited by federal prosecutors in the indictment of Mr. Trump on charges that he had put national security secrets at risk by mishandling classified documents after leaving office and then obstructing the government’s efforts to retrieve them.
The recording captured his conversation in July 2021 with a publisher and writer working on a memoir by Mr. Trump’s final chief of staff, Mark Meadows. In it, Mr. Trump discussed what he described as a “secret” plan regarding Iran drawn up by Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Defense Department. Mr. Trump was citing the document in rebutting an account that General Milley feared having to keep him from manufacturing a crisis with Iran in the period after Mr. Trump lost his re-election bid in late 2020.
The audio, which is likely to feature as evidence in Mr. Trump’s trial in the documents case, was played for the first time in public on Monday by CNN and was also obtained by The New York Times.
New York Times, Court Throws Out New York’s Civil Case Against Ivanka Trump, Jonah E. Bromwich, Ben Protess and William K. Rashbaum, June 27, 2023. The decision could mean that claims against Donald J. Trump and his company might also be limited.
A New York appeals court on Tuesday dismissed the New York attorney general’s civil case against Donald J. Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump and potentially limited the case against the former president and his family business, which is set to go to trial in October.
Last year, the attorney general, Letitia James, filed a lawsuit against Mr. Trump, his company and three of his adult children, including Ms. Trump, accusing them of fraudulently overvaluing the former president’s assets by billions of dollars to receive favorable loans.
On Tuesday, the Appellate Division of the State Supreme Court in Manhattan said in a unanimous ruling that Ms. James’s claims against Ms. Trump should be dismissed because the attorney general missed a deadline for filing the case against her. Ms. Trump was no longer a part of the Trump Organization after 2016, the ruling noted.
The appeals court effectively left it to the State Supreme Court judge presiding over the case to determine whether the claims against the other defendants — including Mr. Trump, his company and his two adult sons — should be limited.
Ms. James’s case rests on the company’s annual financial statements, which she says contained inflated numbers. The company continued to use those statements until at least 2021, she said. And Mr. Trump’s name was on the documents, even after he ascended to the White House.
In January, the State Supreme Court judge, Arthur F. Engoron, denied Mr. Trump’s motion to dismiss the case, saying that some arguments that the former president’s lawyers made were “borderline frivolous.” But Mr. Trump appealed, resulting in the decision on Tuesday.
Based on the appeals court’s ruling, it’s possible that Justice Engoron may have to limit claims related to two of the bigger transactions cited in the complaint: a hotel deal in Chicago and the purchase of a golf resort in Florida.
The ruling represented a rare legal victory that could strengthen Mr. Trump’s hand heading into the civil trial scheduled for Oct. 2 — and as he seeks the presidency again. Mr. Trump and his family business had endured a punishing series of losses in civil and criminal cases, and the appeals court’s decision might embolden him in any potential settlement talks.
A lawyer for Mr. Trump, Christopher M. Kise, said in a statement that the decision represented “the first step toward ending a case that should have never been filed.”
“The correct application of the law will now limit appropriately the previously unlimited reach of the attorney general,” he said. “We remain confident that once all the real facts are known, there will be no doubt President Trump has built an extraordinarily successful business empire.”
A spokeswoman for Ms. James, Delaney Kempner, said that the office had sued Mr. Trump and his company “after uncovering extensive financial fraud that continues to this day.”
“There is a mountain of evidence that shows Mr. Trump and the Trump Organization falsely and fraudulently valued multiple assets and misrepresented those values to financial institutions for significant economic gain,” she said. “Those facts haven’t changed.”
Ms. James’s lawsuit was filed last year on Sept. 21 against Mr. Trump, his business, Ms. Trump and his two adult sons.
It accuses the former president of lying to lenders and insurers about the value of his assets, and says that he violated state criminal laws and, “plausibly,” federal laws. The case lays out detailed accusations of how Mr. Trump’s annual financial statements overstated the worth of nearly all of his best-known properties — from Trump Tower and 40 Wall Street in Manhattan to Mar-a-Lago in Florida — to get better terms from the lenders and insurers.
The suit seeks $250 million that the attorney general contends the Trumps made through deception, and asks a judge to essentially bar the former president from doing business in New York if he is found liable at trial. Justice Engoron has already appointed a monitor to oversee the Trump Organization’s business transactions.
Although Mr. Trump invoked his constitutional right against self-incrimination in an interview last year, he answered Ms. James’s questions in a deposition in April.
Mr. Trump’s lawyers could argue at trial that the financial statements included disclaimers, and that the values were unaudited estimates. They could also argue that setting property values is subjective, more of an art than a science, and that the lenders and insurers were hardly victims.
“The transactions at the center of this case were wildly profitable for the banks and for the Trump entities,” Mr. Kise said in a statement issued after his deposition in April. Mr. Kise contended that once the facts were revealed, “everyone will scoff at the notion any fraud took place.”
Insurrectionists riot at the U.S. Capitol to keep Donald Trump in office on Jan. 6, 2021 despite his defeat in the U.S. presidential election in November (Photo via Shutterstock).
New York Times, Senate Report Details Jan. 6 Intelligence and Law Enforcement Failures, Luke Broadwater, June 27, 2023. Democrats released a scathing report detailing how federal officials missed, downplayed or failed to act on multiple threats of violence.
Democrats on the Senate Homeland Security Committee on Tuesday released a scathing report that detailed how the F.B.I., the Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies repeatedly ignored, downplayed or failed to share warnings of violence before the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
The 106-page report, entitled “Planned in Plain Sight,” highlighted and added to evidence already uncovered by the now-defunct House Jan. 6 committee, news reporting and other congressional work to provide the most comprehensive picture to date of a cascading set of security and intelligence failures that culminated in the deadliest assault on the Capitol in centuries.
Aides said Senate staff obtained thousands of additional documents from federal law enforcement agencies, including the Justice Department, before drafting the report. It includes multiple calls for armed violence, calls to occupy federal buildings including the Capitol and some of the clearest threats the F.B.I. received but did little about — including a warning that the far-right group the Proud Boys was planning to kill people in Washington.
“Our intelligence agencies completely dropped the ball,” said Senator Gary Peters, Democrat of Michigan and the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee. He added: “Despite a multitude of tips and other intelligence warnings of violence on Jan. 6, the report showed that these agencies repeatedly — repeatedly — downplayed the threat level and failed to share the intelligence they had with law enforcement partners.”
The report determined the F.B.I.’s monitoring of social media threats was “degraded mere days before the attack,” because the bureau changed contracts for third-party social media monitoring. The committee obtained internal emails showing that F.B.I. officials were “surprised” by the timing of the contract change and “lamented the negative effect it would have on their monitoring capabilities in the lead-up to Jan. 6.”
But the investigation made clear that monitoring was not the only issue. It faulted the F.B.I. for failing to act on an array of dire warnings.
On Jan. 3, 2021, the F.B.I. became aware of multiple posts calling for armed violence, such as a Parler user who said, ”Come armed.” On Jan. 4, Justice Department leaders noted multiple concerning posts, including calls to “occupy federal buildings,” discussions of “invading the capitol building” and individuals arming themselves “to engage in political violence.”
Still, the report highlighted interviews with two F.B.I. leaders who said they were unaware that Congress could come under siege.
“If everybody knew and all the public knew that they were going to storm Congress, I don’t know why one person didn’t tell us,” Jennifer Moore, the special agent in charge of the F.B.I. Washington Field Office’s intelligence division, told the Senate investigators. FBI Director Christopher Wray, a Republican and Federlist Society member, is shown at right.
New York Times, Judge Denies Request to Seal Witness List in Trump Documents Case, Alan Feuer, June 27, 2023 (print ed.). The order by Judge Aileen Cannon means the identities of some or all of the Justice Department’s 84 potential witnesses in the case against the former president could become public.
The federal judge overseeing former President Donald J. Trump’s prosecution on charges of illegally holding on to sensitive national security documents denied on Monday the government’s request to keep secret a list of witnesses with whom Mr. Trump has been barred from discussing his case.
The ruling by Judge Aileen M. Cannon, in the Southern District of Florida, means that some or all of the list of 84 witnesses could at some point become public, offering further details about the shape and scope of the case that the special counsel Jack Smith has brought against Mr. Trump.
The government’s request to keep the names of the witnesses secret “does not offer a particularized basis to justify sealing the list from public view,” Judge Cannon wrote in her brief order. “It does not explain why partial sealing, redaction or means other than sealing are unavailable or unsatisfactory, and it does not specify the duration of any proposed seal.”
One of the conditions that a federal magistrate judge placed on Mr. Trump when he walked free from his arraignment this month was a provision prohibiting him from discussing the facts in his indictment with any witnesses in the case. The indictment accused Mr. Trump of willfully retaining 31 individual national security documents and obstructing the government’s repeated efforts to reclaim them.
While the identities of the witnesses remain unknown, many of them are believed to be aides and advisers close to Mr. Trump — among them, several who work or worked with him at Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence in Florida. As part of the conditions the magistrate judge imposed, Mr. Trump was also barred from discussing the case with his co-defendant, Walt Nauta, who remains his personal aide.
In a separate order issued on Monday, Judge Cannon asked Mr. Trump’s legal team to respond by July 6 to Mr. Smith’s request to delay the start of the trial until Dec. 11.
Judge Cannon also scheduled a hearing for July 14 for the parties to discuss how to handle the significant amount of highly sensitive material involved in the case under a law known as the Classified Information Procedures Act. That hearing will be conducted mostly, if not entirely, under seal.
Washington Post, Analysis: How Trump convinced his base that his indictments were aimed at them, Philip Bump, June 27, 2023 (print ed.). Visitors to Donald Trump’s campaign website are immediately implicated in his current legal travails.
“They’re not after me,” text in the primary image on the site reads. “They’re after you … I’m just standing in their way!”
As though attribution were needed, the quote is sourced to Donald J. Trump, 45th president of the United States.
Sign up for How To Read This Chart, a weekly data newsletter from Philip Bump
This idea that Trump faces a legal threat as a proxy for his base of support was offered explicitly during Trump’s speech at the Faith and Freedom Coalition over the weekend.
“Every time the radical-left Democrats, Marxist, communists and fascists indict me, I consider it a great badge of courage,” Trump said. “I’m being indicted for you, and I believe the you is more than 200 million people that love our country.”
That phrasing is dripping with hyperbole. Trump’s federal indictment came at the hands of an experienced federal prosecutor who is in no realistic way a “radical-left Democrat,” much less any of the other (contradictory) categories offered. Trump’s implication that his base of support numbers 200 million is heavily inflated.
Those exaggerations have a purpose. Two hundred million Americans is more than three-quarters of the adult population, but it’s also obviously more than half of the country, bolstering Trump’s long-standing claim that he is leading a “silent majority” (despite earning less than a majority of the vote in the 2016 primaries, 2016 election and 2020 election). His framing of his opponents as politically opposed to that base — using vaguely defined pejoratives very familiar to supporters who remember the Cold War — is also familiar in a terrain littered with “Republicans in name only.”
Everyone agrees with him and anyone who doesn’t is a traitor. Simple enough.
New York Times, Justice Dept. asking about 2020 fraud claims as well as fake electors, Josh Dawsey and Devlin Barrett, June 27, 2023 (print ed.). Special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation of efforts to overturn the 2020 election results is advancing on multiple tracks, people familiar with the matter said.
The Justice Department’s investigation of efforts by Donald Trump and his advisers to overturn the 2020 election results is barreling forward on multiple tracks, according to people familiar with the matter, with prosecutors focused on ads and fundraising pitches claiming election fraud as well as plans for “fake electors” that would swing the election to the incumbent president.
Each track poses potential legal peril for those under scrutiny, but also raises tricky questions about where the line should be drawn between political activity, legal advocacy and criminal conspiracy.
A key area of interest is the conduct of a handful of lawyers who sought to turn Trump’s defeat into victory by trying to convince state, local, federal and judicial authorities that Joe Biden’s 2020 election win was illegitimate or tainted by fraud.
Investigators have sought to determine to what degree these lawyers — particularly Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, John Eastman, Kurt Olsen and Kenneth Chesebro, as well as then-Justice Department lawyer Jeffrey Clark — were following specific instructions from Trump or others, and what those instructions were, according to the people familiar with the matter, who like others interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe an ongoing investigation.
Special counsel Jack Smith’s team has extensively questioned multiple witnesses about the lawyers’ actions related to fake electors — pro-Trump substitutes offered up as potential replacements for electors in swing states that Biden won.
Trump’s allies have argued that there was nothing criminal about preparing alternate electors in case state legislators blocked Biden slates.
Giuliani, Ellis, Clark, Eastman, Chesebro and Olsen or their representatives either did not respond to requests for comment or declined to comment Monday.
Smith, a longtime federal prosecutor who was appointed special counsel by Attorney General Merrick Garland in November, charged Trump this month with 37 counts alleging that he willfully retained classified documents at his Florida residence after leaving the White House and obstructed government efforts to retrieve them.
June 26
Palmer Report, Analysis: Jack Smith has flipped someone who was at the Willard Hotel for January 6th, Bill Palmer, June 26, 2023. One of the key aspects of Donald Trump’s 2020 election overthrow plot was his “command center” ahead of January 6th at the Willard Hotel.
Name any disreputable Trump political adviser, and the odds are that they were in that Willard Hotel room. But the whole thing hasn’t gotten a ton of media coverage, mostly because no one who was inside that room has spilled the beans about what was really going on – until now.
The DOJ criminally indicted Owen Shroyer for January 6th-related crimes a year and a half ago, and has been attempting to flip him ever since. Just days ago Shroyer finally cut a cooperating plea deal. This immediately jumped out at us because Shroyer is Alex Jones’ top sidekick. But our friends at MeidasTouch are now pointing out that this runs deeper. Shroyer was at the Willard Hotel ahead of January 6th, meaning he’s given up everything that went on at the “command center” while he was there.
This is bad news for everyone who was in the room at this “command center.” It was a mix of Donald Trump’s top political advisers and actual members of the Oath Keepers, to give you an idea of just how much criminality might have been taking place in that room. Jack Smith and the DOJ now have their “in” when it comes to the Willard Hotel plot. It’s bad news for Donald Trump and any number of his political allies.
New York Times, As Legal Fees Mount, Trump Steers Donations Into PAC That Has Covered Them, Shane Goldmacher and Maggie Haberman, June 26, 2023 (print ed.). A previously unnoticed change in Donald Trump’s online fund-raising appeals allows him to divert a sizable chunk to a group that has spent millions on his legal fees.
Facing multiple intensifying investigations, former President Donald J. Trump has quietly begun diverting more of the money he is raising away from his 2024 presidential campaign and into a political action committee that he has used to pay his personal legal fees.
The change, which went unannounced except in the fine print of his online disclosures, raises fresh questions about how Mr. Trump is paying for his mounting legal bills — which could run into millions of dollars — as he prepares for at least two criminal trials, and whether his PAC, Save America, is facing a financial crunch.
When Mr. Trump kicked off his 2024 campaign in November, for every dollar raised online, 99 cents went to his campaign, and a penny went to Save America.
But internet archival records show that sometime in February or March, he adjusted that split. Now his campaign’s share has been reduced to 90 percent of donations, and 10 percent goes to Save America.
New York Times, In a pitch to evangelicals, Donald Trump cast himself as Christian crusader who helped end Roe v. Wade, Neil Vigdor, June 26, 2023 (print ed.). Former President Donald J. Trump told an evangelical gathering that no president had done more for Christians than he did.
One year after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, former President Donald J. Trump reminded a gathering of evangelical activists in the nation’s capital how he had shaped the court’s conservative supermajority that ended nearly 50 years of constitutional protections for abortion.
Appearing at a Faith & Freedom Coalition gala in Washington on Saturday night, he cited his appointment of three of the six justices who voted to strike down the law as a capstone of his presidency. And he cast himself as an unflinching crusader for the Christian right in a meandering speech that lasted nearly 90 minutes.
“No president has ever fought for Christians as hard as I have,” he said, adding, “I got it done, and nobody thought it was even a possibility.”
It was the eighth appearance by Mr. Trump in front of the group, whose support he is seeking to consolidate in a crowded G.OP. competition for the 2024 nomination, though he is the front-runner in the field. He said that Republican voters were skeptical of claims by some of his rivals that they were stronger opponents of abortion, and suggested that the skepticism had arisen on the campaign trail.
June 25
2016 Republican Presidential nominee Donald J. Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton during their third debate in 2016 at a time they were accusing each other of being a "puppet" following many weeks in which Trump and his allies led rallies chanting "lock her up" regarding Clinton.
Washington Post, Fact Checker Analysis: Why wasn’t Hillary Clinton also indicted, Trump asks. Here’s why, Glenn Kessler, June 25, 2023 (print ed.). Since the final weeks of the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump has referred often to Hillary Clinton’s emails, but the references have increased in urgency and frequency as he continues to deploy them in response to special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into his own handling of classified documents. He has posted comments on Truth Social at least seven times in the last three weeks, both before and after he was indicted on federal criminal charges that he repeatedly broke the law by hiding classified documents in his home.
Why wouldn’t “Deranged Jack Smith” look at “Hillary’s 33,000 emails that she deleted and acid washed,” he wrote in a post on June 13 and again on June 16. “CROOKED HILLARY DELETED 33,000 EMAILS, MANY CLASSIFIED, AND WASN’T EVEN CLOSE TO BEING CHARGED! ONLY TRUMP - THE GREATEST WITCH HUNT OF ALL TIME!” he posted on June 5. Trump’s allies have echoed the comparisons in hundreds of social media postings as they suggest there is a two-tiered justice system.
In a speech at his Bedminster, N.J., golf club the evening of his arraignment, Trump was more expansive, making many false claims about materials found on the private email server Clinton maintained as secretary of state. As usual, Trump mixes partial facts and invented assertions into a stew of false equivalence. Let’s try to untangle it.
June 24
New York Times, Prosecutors Seek to Delay Donald Trump’s Documents Trial to December, Glenn Thrush, June 24, 2023 (print ed. ). The special counsel argued that the August date set by the judge did not allow enough time to deal with the complications of classified evidence, but still proposed a relatively speedy timetable.
Jack Smith, the special counsel (shown above), has asked a federal judge to move back the start of the trial of former President Donald J. Trump and his co-defendant, Walt Nauta, in the classified documents case from August to Dec. 11, according to a Justice Department filing made public late Friday.
The Justice Department proposal still calls for a relatively speedy timetable; Judge Aileen M. Cannon’s earlier ruling set the initial trial date at Aug. 14, but it was considered something of an administrative place holder, with both sides anticipating significant procedural delays.
In their filing, prosecutors said the additional time would be needed to obtain security clearances for defense lawyers and deal with the procedures around classified evidence. It would also give defense lawyers more time to review the volumes of materials prosecutors have turned over to them, the filing said.
Mr. Smith and his team argued in the filing that the trial should still be fast-tracked despite its enormous political implications, because it “involves straightforward theories of liability, and does not present novel questions of fact or law,” nor is it particularly “unusual or complex” from a legal perspective.
New York Times, Former Trump Campaign Official in Talks to Cooperate in Jan. 6 Inquiry, Alan Feuer and Maggie Haberman, June 24, 2023 (print ed.). Michael Roman, a top official in former President Donald J. Trump’s 2020 campaign, is in discussions with the office of the special counsel Jack Smith that could soon lead to 
Mr. Roman, right, voluntarily answering questions about a plan to create slates of pro-Trump electors in key swing states that were won by Joseph R. Biden Jr., according to a person familiar with the matter.
If Mr. Roman ends up giving the interview — known as a proffer — to prosecutors working for Mr. Smith, it would be the first known instance of cooperation by someone with direct knowledge of the so-called fake elector plan. That plan has long been at the center of Mr. Smith’s investigation into Mr. Trump’s wide-ranging efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
The talks with Mr. Roman, who served as Mr. Trump’s director of Election Day operations, were the latest indication that Mr. Smith is actively pressing forward with his election interference investigation even as attention has been focused on the other case in his portfolio: the recent indictment of Mr. Trump in Florida on charges of illegally keeping hold of classified documents and then obstructing the government’s repeated efforts to retrieve them.
In the past few weeks, several witnesses with connections to the fake elector plan have appeared in front of a grand jury in Federal District Court in Washington that is investigating the ways in which Mr. Trump and his allies sought to reverse his defeat to Mr. Biden. Among them was Gary Michael Brown, Mr. Roman’s onetime deputy, who was questioned in front of the grand jury on Thursday.
The office of the special counsel is negotiating with Michael Roman, who was closely involved in the efforts to create slates of pro-Trump electors in states won in 2020 by Joseph R. Biden Jr.
Former President Donald Trump is shown in a photo collage with columnist E. Jean Carroll, who accused him of raping her three decades ago, with her civil suit scheduled on trial in New York City.
New York Times, Is There a Price That Keeps Trump Quiet? E. Jean Carroll May Find Out, Benjamin Weiser, June 24, 2023 (print ed.). The writer’s lawyers are going after former President Trump again for defamation. But is there an award high enough to keep him from saying what he wants to?
How much money must E. Jean Carroll win to stop Donald J. Trump from talking about her?
A Manhattan jury last month ordered the former president to pay $3 million in damages for defaming Ms. Carroll when he said her accusation that he had raped her decades earlier was a lie. The next day, Mr. Trump appeared on CNN, and again accused Ms. Carroll of making up her story and for good measure called her a “wack job.”
Now, Ms. Carroll is seeking millions of dollars more to stop the river of invective.
Forbes magazine says Mr. Trump is worth $2.5 billion, but his actual wealth is in much dispute — he has said his net worth fluctuates with his mood. As he seeks the presidency again, he has used his legal troubles, which include state and federal indictments, to raise money by tearing into prosecutors and plaintiffs.
Mr. Trump became a celebrity and then the nation’s chief executive largely through the power of an untrammeled tongue, creating fascination even among opponents with his unpredictable and cruel verbal assaults. He is also famous for his love of money, bragging about his fortune and flaunting its gilded prizes.
Ms. Carroll and her lawyers are trying to win a jury award that would bring his competing desires into economic equilibrium. But is there any amount of money that could persuade the former president to keep her name out of his mouth?
June 23
New York Times, If Donald Trump’s trial is held in Fort Pierce, Fla., the jury would be drawn largely from counties he won in 2020, Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Swan and Alan Feuer, June 23, 2023 (print ed.). If Judge Aileen Cannon sticks to her initial decision to hold the trial in Fort Pierce, Fla., the jury would be drawn largely from counties that Donald Trump won handily in his previous campaigns.
When Judge Aileen M. Cannon, left, assumed control of the case stemming from former President Donald J. Trump’s indictment for putting national security secrets at risk, she set the stage for the trial to be held with a regional jury pool made up mostly of counties that Mr. Trump won handily in his two previous campaigns.
She signaled that the trial would take place in the federal courthouse where she normally sits, in Fort Pierce, at the northern end of the Southern District of Florida. The region that feeds potential jurors to that courthouse is made up of one swing county and four others that are ruby red in their political leanings and that Mr. Trump won by substantial margins in both 2016 and 2020.
She left open the possibility that the trial could be moved — and political leanings are not necessarily indicative of how a jury will decide — but the fact that the trial is expected to draw jurors who live in places that tilt Republican has caught the attention of Mr. Trump’s allies and veterans of Florida courts.
“For years, it’s been a very conservative venue for plaintiffs’ lawyers,” said John Morgan, a trial lawyer who founded a large personal injury firm. Describing the various counties that feed into Fort Pierce, he said, “It is solid, solid Trump country.”
In Okeechobee County, a rural county where just over 16,000 people voted in the 2020 election, Mr. Trump won 71.5 percent of the vote, according to the county’s election tally. In Highlands County, a rural area where more than 52,000 people voted in that election, Mr. Trump won with 66.8 percent of the vote.
In Martin County, where more than 98,000 people voted, Mr. Trump got 61.8 percent of the vote. In Indian River County, which contains Vero Beach and where more than 97,000 votes were cast, Mr. Trump got 60.2 percent of the vote.
Only St. Lucie County, where about 172,000 votes were cast, is a swing district. Mr. Trump eked out a victory there over President Biden in 2020 with 50.4 percent of the ballots cast, the data shows, and also won the county narrowly in 2016.
Dave Aronberg, an outgoing Florida state attorney in Palm Beach County, said he could recall few major or politically sensitive cases in the Fort Pierce courthouse. He agreed that the Fort Pierce counties provide a “much more conservative jury pool,” although he suggested that a number of prospective jurors could be drawn from St. Lucie, which is more politically diverse.
Judge Cannon, who was appointed by Mr. Trump in 2020, disclosed in an order on Tuesday that the trial and all the hearings connected to it would likely be held in Fort Pierce, about 120 miles north of Miami along the east coast of Florida.
- New York Times, Judge in Trump Documents Case Sets Tentative Trial Date as Soon as August, Alan Feuer, Maggie Haberman and Charlie Savage, June 21, 2023 (print ed.). The judge set an aggressive schedule for moving the case forward, though the proceedings are likely to be delayed by pretrial clashes.
Documents being stored at indicted former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago complex in Florida according to a Department of Justice indictment unsealed on June 9, 2023 (Photo via Associated Press).
Palmer Report, Analysis: Turns out the DOJ knew what it was doing with Bedminster, Bill Palmer, right, June 23, 2023. Ever since the DOJ had the FBI search Donald Trump’s primary residence at Mar-a-Lago last year, folks on social media have been frantically yelling “what about Bedminster?”
It’s been frankly a little surreal. Were people under the impression that the DOJ simply forgot that Trump had a secondary residence? All along I’ve tried to point out the obvious: the DOJ surely followed every possible investigative angle regarding Bedminster as well, and if there was anything to find, it happened a long time ago. The fact that it wasn’t made public at the time was just standard procedure. After all, we wouldn’t have even found out the FBI had gone into Mar-a-Lago if Trump hadn’t blabbed about it at the time.
Sure enough, the Guardian is reporting today that the DOJ turned its focus to Bedminster almost immediately after the Mar-a-Lago search and seizure operation. This dates back to even before Jack Smith was on the case.
In other words, the DOJ didn’t naively or obliviously forget that Bedminster existed. There was never any chance of that. It was all over Bedminster from the start. In fact at least one of the incriminating recordings of Trump that will be used at trial was recorded at Bedminster. So it’s clear that a ton of investigative work was done on that front. And it was never as simple as the endless “search Bedminster!” tweets that we’ve had to put up with for the past nine months. Simply sending in the FBI to search the place wouldn’t have produced the incriminating recording of Trump.
As for the question of whether there are or were any classified documents at Bedminster, keep in mind that there was obviously more than enough evidence to get a search warrant for the place. So there’s a good chance the Feds already searched Bedminster, and it simply wasn’t made public.
This also points to at least the possibility that Jack Smith could end up bringing a separate criminal case against Donald Trump in federal court in New Jersey. We’ll see. But at this point it’s abundantly clear that all those frantic “what about Bedminster” tweets were for naught. The DOJ was always several steps ahead of such tweets, not behind. Then again, that was fairly self evident to begin with. In spite of what some of the most useless social media pundits would have you believe, the DOJ are not a bunch of naive oblivious idiots. They’ve been all over Bedminster since before anyone thought to start frantically tweeting about Bedminster.
June 22
Washington Post, Opinion: Trump has it all wrong: He needs someone else to be president, Jennifer Rubin, right, June 22, 2023. Defeated former president Donald Trump has it all wrong. He apparently thought he could avoid prosecution by running for president; instead, he forced languid Attorney General Merrick Garland to appoint firebrand special counsel Jack Smith, who, unlike Garland, had no qualms about moving expeditiously against Trump.
But Trump still doesn’t get it: To protect himself from prosecution and possible federal incarceration, the last thing he should want is to win the presidency. Trump, his supporters and the media have become infatuated with the myth of “self-pardon.” Until recently, the word was not used, which gives you a hint that the concept is flawed.
“The Constitution specifically bars the president from using the pardon power to prevent his own impeachment and removal,” Laurence H. Tribe, Richard Painter and Norman Eisen wrote in The Post in 2017. “It adds that any official removed through impeachment remains fully subject to criminal prosecution. That provision would make no sense if the president could pardon himself.”
New York Times, Few of Trump’s G.O.P. Rivals Defend Justice Dept. Independence, Jonathan Swan, Maggie Haberman, Charlie Savage and Jonathan Weisman, June 22, 2023 (print ed.). The evolution of the Republican Party under the influence of former President Trump calls into question a post-Watergate norm.
Donald J. Trump has promised that if he wins back the presidency he will appoint a special prosecutor to “go after” President Biden and his family.
But he’s not the only Republican running for president who appears to be abandoning a long-established norm in Washington — presidents keeping their hands out of specific Justice Department investigations and prosecutions.
Mr. Trump, who leads the G.O.P. field by around 30 percentage points in public national polls, wields such powerful influence that only a few of his Republican rivals are willing to clearly say presidents should not interfere in such Justice Department decisions.
After Mr. Trump’s vow to direct the Justice Department to appoint a “real” prosecutor to investigate the Bidens, The New York Times asked each of his Republican rivals questions aimed at laying out what limits, if any, they believed presidents must or should respect when it comes to White House interference with federal law enforcement decisions.
June 20
Washington Post, Investigation: FBI resisted opening probe into Trump’s role in Jan. 6 for more than a year, Carol D. Leonnig and Aaron C. Davis, June 20, 2023 (print ed.). In the Justice Department’s investigation of Jan. 6, key officials also quashed an early plan for a task force focused on people in Donald Trump’s orbit.
Hours after he was sworn in as attorney general, Merrick Garland, right, and his deputies gathered in a wood-paneled conference room in the Justice Department for a private briefing on the investigation he had promised to make his highest priority: bringing to justice those responsible for the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
In the two months since the siege, federal agents had conducted 709 searches, charged 278 rioters and identified 885 likely suspects, said Michael R. Sherwin, then-acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, ticking through a slide presentation. Garland and some of his deputies nodded approvingly at the stats, and the new attorney general called the progress “remarkable,” according to people in the room.
Sherwin’s office, with the help of the FBI, was responsible for prosecuting all crimes stemming from the Jan. 6 attack. He had made headlines the day after by refusing to rule out the possibility that President Donald Trump himself could be culpable. “We are looking at all actors, not only the people who went into the building,” Sherwin said in response to a reporter’s question about Trump. “If the evidence fits the elements of a crime, they’re going to be charged.”
But according to a copy of the briefing document, absent from Sherwin’s 11-page presentation to Garland on March 11, 2021, was any reference to Trump or his advisers — those who did not go to the Capitol riot but orchestrated events that led to it.
A Washington Post investigation found that more than a year would pass before prosecutors and FBI agents jointly embarked on a formal probe of actions directed from the White House to try to steal the election. Even then, the FBI stopped short of identifying the former president as a focus of that investigation.
A wariness about appearing partisan, institutional caution, and clashes over how much evidence was sufficient to investigate the actions of Trump and those around him all contributed to the slow pace. Garland and the deputy attorney general, Lisa Monaco, charted a cautious course aimed at restoring public trust in the department while some prosecutors below them chafed, feeling top officials were shying away from looking at evidence of potential crimes by Trump and those close to him, The Post found.
In November, after Trump announced he was again running for president, making him a potential 2024 rival to President Biden, Garland appointed special counsel Jack Smith to take over the investigation into Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election.
On June 8, in a separate investigation that was also turned over to the special counsel, Smith secured a grand jury indictment against the former president for mishandling classified documents after leaving office. Trump was charged with 31 counts of violating a part of the Espionage Act, as well as six counts arising from alleged efforts to mislead federal investigators.
The effort to investigate Trump over classified records has had its own obstacles, including FBI agents who resisted raiding the former president’s home. But the discovery of top-secret documents in Trump’s possession triggered an urgent national security investigation that laid out a well-defined legal path for prosecutors, compared with the unprecedented task of building a case against Trump for trying to steal the election.
Washington Post, Hunter Biden reaches tentative deal to plead guilty on gun and tax charges, Devlin Barrett and Perry Stein, June 20, 2023. The president’s son would get about two years probation and enter a diversion program, people familiar with the negotiations said
The agreement, which must be approved by a judge, would involve the president’s son pleading guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges and a charge of illegal weapons possession related to lying about drug use on a handgun purchase form.
President Biden’s son Hunter has reached a tentative agreement with federal prosecutors to plead guilty to two minor tax crimes and admit to the facts of a gun charge under terms that would likely keep him out of jail, according to court papers filed Tuesday.
Any proposed plea deal would have to be approved by a federal judge, and it was not immediately clear what day Hunter Biden, 53, might appear in court to enter his guilty plea.
The agreement caps an investigation that was opened in 2018 during the Trump administration, and has generated intense interest and criticism since 2020 from Republican politicians who accused the Biden administration of reluctance to pursue the case. The terms of the proposed deal — negotiated with Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss, left, a holdover from President Donald Trump’s administration — are likely to face similar scrutiny.
The court papers indicate the younger Biden has tentatively agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges of failure to pay in 2017 
and 2018. The combined tax liability is roughly $1.2 million over those years, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe details of the agreement that are not yet public. Prosecutors plan to recommend a sentence of probation for those counts, these people said. Biden’s representatives have said he previously paid back the IRS what he owed.
Additionally, Biden plans to admit to illegally possessing a weapon following his 2018 purchase of a handgun. As part of that admission, he expects to be entered in a diversion program, a less punitive form of sentence typically applied to people with substance abuse problems. In all, prosecutors would recommend two years of probation and diversion conditions. If Biden successfully meets the conditions of the diversion program, the gun charge would be removed from his record at the end of that period, the people said.
New York Times, Hunter Biden Investigation: Republicans, Claiming Double Standard, Vow to Keep Investigating Bidens, Kayla Guo, June 20, 2023. Congressional Republicans accused President Biden of orchestrating a lenient penalty for his son, while Democrats argued that bringing any charges reflected the Justice Department’s independence.
Congressional Republicans on Tuesday blasted the plea deal Hunter Biden reached with the Justice Department, accusing President Biden of orchestrating a lenient penalty for his son and promising to intensify their investigations of the Biden family.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy said the agreement, in which Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors for failing to pay taxes on time and could avoid prosecution on a separate gun charge, “continues to show the two-tier system in America.”
He and many other Republicans drew a contrast between the charges against Mr. Biden and the 37-count indictment the Justice Department unsealed this month against former President Donald J. Trump on charges that he mishandled highly classified national security documents and lied to and obstructed investigators looking into the matter.
“If you are the president’s leading political opponent, D.O.J. tries to literally put in you jail and give you prison time,” Mr. McCarthy told reporters at the Capitol. “If you are the president’s son, you get a sweetheart deal.”
Mr. Trump is accused of willfully retaining national defense secrets in violation of the Espionage Act, making false statements and engaging in a conspiracy to obstruct justice — far more serious crimes than the ones for which the younger Mr. Biden was scrutinized.
Leading Democrats argued that bringing any charges at all against the president’s son reflected the independence of the Justice Department, noting that the United States attorney who led the investigation into Hunter Biden, David C. Weiss, was appointed by Mr. Trump.
“This development reflects the Justice Department’s continued institutional independence in following the evidence of actual crimes and enforcing the rule of law even in the face of constant criticism and heckling by my G.O.P. colleagues who think that the system of justice should only follow their partisan wishes,” Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, said in a statement.
Still, Mr. McCarthy said the deal should only “enhance” congressional Republicans’ investigation into the Bidens.
Representative James R. Comer of Kentucky, the chairman of the Oversight Committee undertaking that inquiry, said he would do just that in a statement calling the charges against Hunter Biden a “slap on the wrist.”
New York Times, Judge in Trump Documents Case Sets Tentative Trial Date as Soon as August, Alan Feuer, Maggie Haberman and Charlie Savage, June 20, 2023. The judge set an aggressive schedule for moving the case forward, though the proceedings are likely to be delayed by pretrial clashes.
The federal judge presiding over the prosecution of former President Donald J. Trump in the classified documents case set an aggressive schedule on Tuesday, ordering a trial to begin as soon as Aug. 14.
While the timeline set by the judge, Aileen M. Cannon, is likely to be delayed by extensive pretrial litigation — including over how to handle classified material — its brisk pace suggests that she is seeking to avoid any criticism for dragging her feet or for slow-walking the proceeding. In each of four other criminal trials she has overseen that were identified in a New York Times review, she has initially set a relatively quick trial date and later pushed it back.
The early moves by Judge Cannon, a relatively inexperienced jurist who was appointed by Mr. Trump in 2020, are being particularly closely watched. She disrupted the documents investigation last year with several rulings favorable to the former president before a conservative appeals court overturned her, saying that she never had legitimate legal authority to intervene.
Brandon L. Van Grack, a former federal prosecutor who has worked on complex criminal matters involving national security, said the trial date was “unlikely to hold” considering that the process of turning over classified evidence to the defense in discovery had not yet begun. Still, he said, Judge Cannon appeared to be showing that she intended to do what she could to push the case to trial quickly.
Documents being stored at indicted former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago complex in Florida according to a Department of Justice indictment unsealed on June 9, 2023 (Photo via Associated Press).
New York Times, How Classified Evidence Could Complicate the Documents Case, Charlie Savage, June 20, 2023 (print ed.). Prosecutors and defense lawyers appear to be preparing for a pretrial fight over showing sensitive evidence to the jury and the public.
Lawyers for former President Donald J. Trump have told the judge overseeing his documents case that they have started the process of obtaining security clearances, the first step of what is likely to be a major fight over classified evidence before his trial.
Mr. Trump is facing 31 counts of unauthorized retention of national security secrets under the Espionage Act, along with accusations that he obstructed the government’s efforts to retrieve sensitive files — including by defying a subpoena.
Here is a closer look at the tricky legal issues raised by the role of classified evidence in the case.
The Espionage Act is a World War I-era law that makes it a crime to mishandle national security secrets. To prove that Mr. Trump violated the charged provision of the act, prosecutors must show that he possessed, without authorization, closely held information “relating to the national defense” that could harm the United States or aid a foreign adversary, and that he failed to return it to the government.
Each of the 31 counts is based on a different sensitive document the F.B.I. found in its court-authorized search of Mr. Trump’s club and estate, Mar-a-Lago. As described in the indictment, they include 21 marked “top secret,” nine marked “secret” and one without a classification stamp that contained restricted information about “military contingency planning.”
What is ‘graymail’?
It is a threat by a defendant to reveal classified information during a trial in the hope of forcing the government to drop a criminal charge. While the government could choose to declassify such information so that it could be freely discussed in open court, security officials may see that as too risky. But the Constitution gives defendants a right to a public trial and the public a right to see trials.
Joshua L. Dratel, a defense lawyer with a security clearance who has handled terrorism cases involving classified evidence, said defense and intelligence officials often did not want to give up information for prosecutors to use in pursuing a case.
“It’s routine, if not invariable, that you’ll get a plea offer in a case in which the government says, ‘If we have to provide classified discovery to you, this offer is no longer on the table,’ and those can be very attractive plea offers,” Mr. Dratel said. “That’s because there is a tremendous tension between intelligence agencies and prosecutors that defense lawyers can exploit.”
Mr. Trump, however, is not expected to accept any plea deal.
June 18
Washington Post, Opinion: As Trump is arrested, Republicans honor the insurrectionists, Dana Milbank, right, June 18, 2023 (print ed.). Donald Trump could not have 
asked for a nicer arraignment-day celebration.
During the very same hour in which the former president surrendered to federal authorities in Miami, his Republican allies in the House were, in their most visible and official way yet, embracing as heroes and martyrs the people who sacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in hopes of overturning Trump’s election defeat.
In the Capitol complex, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), with sidekick Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and four other far-right lawmakers, held a “hearing” that honored participants in the riot, family members of Jan. 6 rioters and organizers of the attempted overthrow of the 2020 vote.
Technically, Gaetz couldn’t call such a hearing, because he isn’t a committee chairman. But House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who is trying to win back the support of extremists such as Gaetz, let it happen anyway.
Gaetz did his all to make the proceedings look official. There were congressional seals on his nameplate and on the big screen behind him. A meeting room in the Capitol visitor center was arranged to appear like a committee room, with lawmakers facing the witnesses. Gaetz advertised the “field hearing” as part of how “the 118th Congress is investigating the weaponization of the federal government.”
He impersonated a chairman — “you are recognized,” “thank you for your testimony,” “I’ll recognize myself [for] questions,” “her time has expired” — and the others played along (“Thank you for the opportunity to testify,” “I yield back”). Gaetz said testimony could be used “for the official record [of the] House” or for “work in the Judiciary Committee, upon which I serve, or the Oversight Committee.” C-SPAN carried the proceedings live.
June 16
Washington Post, Trump rejected lawyers’ efforts to avoid classified documents indictment, Josh Dawsey and Jacqueline Alemany, June 16, 2023 (print ed.). The former president was not interested in attempting to negotiate a settlement in the classified documents investigation.
One of Donald Trump’s new attorneys proposed an idea in the fall of 2022: The former president’s team could try to arrange a settlement with the Justice Department.The attorney, Christopher Kise, wanted to quietly approach Justice to see if he could negotiate a settlement that would preclude charges, hoping Attorney General Merrick Garland and the department would want an exit ramp to avoid prosecuting a former president. Kise would hopefully “take the temperature down,” he told others, by promising a professional approach and the return of all documents.
But Trump was not interested after listening to other lawyers who urged a more pugilistic approach, so Kise never approached prosecutors, three people briefed on the matter said. A special counsel was appointed months later.
Kise, a former solicitor general of Florida who was paid $3 million upfront to join Trump’s team last year, declined to comment.
That quiet entreaty last fall was one of many occasions when lawyers and advisers sought to get Trump to take a more cooperative stance in a bid to avoid what happened Friday. The Justice Department unsealed an indictment including more than three dozen criminal counts against Trump for allegedly keeping and hiding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida.
Trump, 77, now faces the most legally perilous moment of his life playing out in a federal court — charges that could bring decades in prison. He pleaded not guilty in Miami on Tuesday and vowed to fight the charges.
“President Trump has consistently been in full compliance with the Presidential Records Act, which is the only law that applies to Presidents and their records,” Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement. “In the course of negotiations over the return of the documents, President Trump told the lead DOJ official, ‘anything you need from us, just let us know.’ Sadly, the weaponized DOJ rejected this offer of cooperation and conducted an unnecessary and unconstitutional raid on the President’s home in order to inflict maximum political damage on the leading presidential candidate.”
The PRA is not the only law applying to presidents and federal documents, as evidenced by the charges filed against Trump.
nce the National Archives first asked for the return of presidential documents in Trump’s possession in February 2021 and until a grand jury issued its indictment this month, Trump was repeatedly stubborn and eschewed opportunities to avoid criminal charges, according to people with knowledge of the case, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to reveal internal details. They note that Trump was not charged for any documents he returned voluntarily.
Interviews with seven Trump advisers with knowledge of the probe indicate he misled his own advisers, telling them the boxes contained only newspaper clippings and clothes. He repeatedly refused to give the documents back, even when some of his longest-serving advisers warned of peril and some flew to Mar-a-Lago to beg him to return them.
When Trump returned 15 boxes early last year — leaving at least 64 more at Mar-a-Lago — he told his own advisers to put out statements to the National Archives and to the public that “everything” had been returned, The Washington Post has previously reported. But he quietly kept more than 100 classified documents.
Later, facing a grand jury subpoena, the indictment alleges the former president worked quietly with an aide to move boxes without telling his own lawyers, leading to a false attestation that every document had been returned.
“It was a totally unforced error,” said one person close to Trump who has been part of dozens of discussions about the documents. “We didn’t have to be here.”
Trump time and again rejected the advice from lawyers and advisers who urged him to cooperate and instead took the advice of Tom Fitton, the head of the conservative group Judicial Watch, and a range of others who told him he could legally keep the documents and should fight the Justice Department, advisers said. Trump would often cite Fitton to others, and Fitton told some of Trump’s lawyers that Trump could keep the documents, even as they disagreed, the advisers said.
In an interview Wednesday, Fitton said he dined with Trump on Monday night at his club, eating filet mignon with the former president one day before his first court appearance on the document charges. “I saw him last night; he’s in a good mood. He’s serious and ready to fight under the law.”
Fitton, who appeared before the grand jury and was questioned about his role in both the Mar-a-Lago documents case and the investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, acknowledged he gave the advice to Trump but declined to discuss the details of their conversations. He added that he read the indictment and did not believe it laid out illegal or obstructive conduct. Multiple witnesses said they were asked about Fitton in front of a grand jury and the role he played in Trump’s decisions.
Washington Post, The dozens of attorneys who have defended Trump since 2016, Timothy Bella, Julie Vitkovskaya and Adrian Blanco, June 16, 2023. The many attorneys who've represented Trump since 2016 follow a similar pattern used by an eclectic crew that has defended him, including in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case.
As former president Donald Trump pleaded not guilty to federal charges that he kept and hid top-secret documents in his home, he has found himself in a familiar position in Florida: He needs a new lawyer.
Trump was accompanied in court for his arraignment by two lawyers, but The Washington Post has reported that his team is actively hunting for another veteran litigator to take the case after several high-profile resignations from his defense.
Trump faces 37 felony counts for allegedly stashing secret papers throughout his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Fla., after leaving the White House and allegedly hiding them from the government. He was also arraigned in April in state court in New York City on fraud charges stemming from alleged 2016 hush money payments to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels, and he remains under investigation in Georgia’s Fulton County for his efforts to undo Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election.
But Trump attorney Alina Habba’s statement to reporters this week that the people running the country “hate Donald Trump” follows a similar pattern used by an eclectic crew of dozens of lawyers who’ve defended the former president through his many legal cases during and after his time in the White House — and as he again seeks the Republican presidential nomination. Some of them have been his personal attorney or represented his campaign. Others worked in the White House during Trump’s time in office. Some have remained loyal to Trump and defended him in court and on television, while others, such as Michael Cohen, have gone scorched-earth against their former boss.
As Trump continues his 2024 campaign amid a series of federal and state legal woes, here is a list of many of the attorneys who’ve represented him in some of his biggest court fights in recent years.
New York Times, Analysis: Why Trump’s Miami Crowd Was Relatively Tame, Despite Calls for Vengeance, Alan Feuer, June 16, 2023 (print ed.). The indictment of former President Trump prompted calls for retribution that did not materialize. The Jan. 6 prosecutions may have been a deterrent.
Twice in recent months, allies of former President Donald J. Trump have used violent language to criticize the criminal charges brought against him, calling for vengeance and encouraging Mr. Trump’s supporters to respond to the indictments as though they were acts of war.
Both times — first in April in Manhattan and then on Tuesday in Miami — police and civic leaders raised concerns that the angry rhetoric could lead to violent protests when Mr. Trump appeared in court. Both times, in both cities, the crowds that actually showed up for Mr. Trump were relatively tame and fairly small.
But just because the aggressive words did not result in aggressive actions hardly meant they were not corrosive to the fabric or the practice of democracy, scholars of political violence said.
They did, however, note that after the cataclysmic events of Jan. 6, 2021, many Trump supporters have become more reluctant to act on statements by Mr. Trump’s allies suggesting that a second American Revolution might be coming or calling for civil war.
Washington Post, Will Walt Nauta flip? Trump keeps valet close as that question hovers over the classified documents case, Jacqueline Alemany, Josh Dawsey, Spencer S. Hsu and David Ovalle, June 16, 2023 (print ed.). As the former president’s personal aide goes from servant to equal co-defendant, the pressure rises to cooperate with the government.
The night before pleading not guilty to federal charges that he broke the law dozens of times by keeping and concealing sensitive government documents in his Florida home, Donald Trump sat down to dinner at his Miami Doral golf resort with his top lawyers, influential advisers — and his alleged co-conspirator.
Waltine “Walt” Nauta, right, wasn’t there serving the former president, or escorting famous guests to his table before fading into the background as he has at times in the past, people familiar with the dinner said.
This time, the personal aide, who was charged with conspiring with Trump to hide classified documents from the government, dined at the club’s swanky steakhouse, BLT Prime, as a guest of the former president. Joining them around the table was a large group that included Trump’s political advisers, his lawyer Christopher Kise, Nauta’s lawyer, Stanley Woodward, and right-wing media figure Tom Fitton. Nauta was quiet throughout the dinner, three people with knowledge of the matter said.
Nauta’s seat at the table with the country’s 45th president has come at a steep cost.
The 40-year-old body man from Guam now faces 20 years in prison if convicted of the most serious charge against him. Sporting a wide scarlet tie a few shades deeper than his boss’s candy red one, Nauta, once a Navy sailor, made his first appearance in a Miami federal courthouse Tuesday to face charges that he obstructed justice, withheld and concealed a document from the government, and lied to FBI agents.
A key question hovering over the case now is whether Nauta will cooperate with prosecutors against Trump in hopes of a lesser sentence.
Nauta — who spent Tuesday bizarrely toggling between the roles of co-defendant, equal under the law to Trump, and dutiful “body man,” subservient to the former president — has showed no signs that his loyalty to Trump is waning.
New York Times, The Radical Strategy Behind Trump’s Promise to ‘Go After’ Biden, Jonathan Swan, Charlie Savage and Maggie Haberman, June 16, 2023 (print ed.). Conservatives close to Donald Trump are laying out a “paradigm-shifting” legal rationale to erase the Justice Department’s independence from the White House.
When Donald J. Trump responded to his latest indictment by promising to appoint a special prosecutor if he’s re-elected to “go after” President Biden and his family, he signaled that a second Trump term would fully jettison the post-Watergate norm of Justice Department independence.
“I will appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family,” Mr. Trump said at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., on Tuesday night after his arraignment earlier that day in Miami. “I will totally obliterate the Deep State.”
Mr. Trump’s message was that the Justice Department charged him only because he is Mr. Biden’s political opponent, so he would invert that supposed politicization. In reality, under Attorney General Merrick Garland, two Trump-appointed prosecutors are already investigating Mr. Biden’s handling of classified documents and the financial dealings of his son, Hunter.
But by suggesting the current prosecutors investigating the Bidens were not “real,” Mr. Trump appeared to be promising his supporters that he would appoint an ally who would bring charges against his political enemies regardless of the facts.
June 15
New York Times, In interviews, Democrats celebrated the Trump indictment, but were divided over whether the case was good for the country, Reid J. Epstein, Anjali Huynh and Alyce McFadden, June 15, 2023 (print ed.). The satisfaction is nearly universal, but comes with a queasy aftertaste: Democrats are relishing the possibility that Donald J. Trump will get his comeuppance at last. But when the mocking laughter fades, in its place remains a much more lasting anxiety. What will this do to the country?
While President Biden and his top allies have largely stayed silent about Mr. Trump’s indictment, rank-and-file Democrats were far more eager to talk, responding with a mix of jubilation and deep apprehension about how the federal prosecution of a former president and current White House candidate could convulse American politics.
Interviews this week with more than 60 Democratic members of Congress, state legislators, liberal activists and party officials found near-universal agreement that Mr. Trump deserved to face federal charges for his handling of classified documents, but a notable divide over whether the indictment was good for the country or even for their party.
“I don’t want to see this chaos machine do any more damage to the country, to hurt any more people,” Representative Greg Landsman of Ohio, a moderate freshman from Cincinnati, said in an interview Tuesday, referring to the former president. “Democrats, Republicans, independents, everyone has to sort of take a disposition of seriousness.”
New York Times, A grim Donald Trump, president no longer, was humbled in the courtroom, Glenn Thrush, June 15, 2023 (print ed.). The former president and the special counsel were 20 feet from each other. But they exchanged not a word during their first, nearly hourlong encounter.
A grim Donald J. Trump leaned back from the defendant’s table inside a jammed 13th-floor courtroom in Miami on Tuesday, jaw set, arms crossed, his back muscles tensing visibly under his dark suit jacket.
About 20 feet away, in the second row of the visitors’ gallery, was Jack Smith, the special counsel who had put him there, alert and poker-faced. Mr. Smith looked on as three Justice Department lawyers under his supervision offered Mr. Trump a bond agreement to release him on his own recognizance, without bail, that was respectful and accommodating, but profoundly humbling.
After a 50-minute courtroom encounter unlike any other in the country’s history, Mr. Trump exited by a side door recessed in dark wood paneling, but not before allowing himself a curious peek over his shoulder at the 40 or so reporters crammed into the room.
About a minute later, Mr. Smith and his team walked to the opposite side of the room and left wordlessly. He did not look back.
The first-ever arraignment of a former president on federal charges coincided with the first public encounter between the two men, Mr. Trump and Mr. Smith, at the center of the Mar-a-Lago documents case. The two did not say a word to each other. But these most dissimilar of adversaries are locked in a legal battle with immense political and legal implications for a polarized nation.
Washington Post, House votes to table GOP measure to censure, fine Adam Schiff, John Wagner, June 15, 2023 (print ed.). The Republican-led House voted to table a measure Wednesday that would censure Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) for pressing allegations that former president Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign colluded with Russia.
Twenty Republicans voted with Democrats to table the measure — effectively killing it — in a vote of 225 to 196. Two Republicans and five Democrats voted present.
The resolution also sought to fine Schiff, the former House Intelligence Committee chairman, $16 million, which its sponsor, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), says is half the cost of an investigation into the alleged collusion.
Luna introduced the measure Tuesday, the same day Trump was arraigned in a federal courthouse in Miami on charges that he broke the law dozens of times by keeping and hiding classified documents in his Florida home. Luna’s measure was a privileged resolution, which meant that under House rules, it had to be considered by Thursday.
The resolution alleged that Schiff “purposely deceived his Committee, Congress, and the American people” and “used his position and access to sensitive information to instigate a fraudulently based investigation.” It also said that Schiff “behaved dishonestly and dishonorably on many other occasions.”
“He abused his position of authority, lied to the American people, cost American taxpayers millions and brought dishonor to our chamber,” Luna said in floor remarks Tuesday.
As Schiff spoke to reporters after the vote, Luna rolled by on a foot scooter and interrupted him by saying she’ll file the same measure next week.
Schiff, meanwhile, said it “showed a lot of courage” for 20 of his Republican colleagues to vote against the “crazy MAGA folks.”
“I’ve been here long enough to remember the tea party movement and the destruction that brought, but that was quaint compared to what they’re doing now,” Schiff said.
“This is really an effort, at the end of the day, to distract from Donald Trump’s legal problems, to gratify Donald Trump by going after someone they feel was his most effective adversary,” Schiff said Wednesday during an interview on CNN.
“I’m flattered by it, but the fact that Speaker [Kevin] McCarthy would take up this MAGA resolution when we have so many pressing challenges before the country is really a terrible abuse of House resources,” he added.
Most of the Republicans who sided with Democrats were a mix of moderates in swing districts and far-right members, including Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who opposed the severity of the punishment. Other Republicans voting to table the motion, included Rep. Kay Granger (R-Tex.), chair of the Appropriations Committee, and Rep. Michael R. Turner (R-Ohio), who chairs the Intelligence Committee and who worked with Schiff when he led the panel.
New York Times, Trump’s Hearing in Miami Opens a Long Legal Saga Alongside Campaign, Glenn Thrush, Nicholas Nehamas and Eileen Sullivan, June 15, 2023 (print ed.). Donald Trump, now twice indicted since leaving the White House, surrendered to federal authorities and pleaded not guilty, striking a defiant tone.
Donald J. Trump, twice impeached as president and now twice indicted since leaving the White House, surrendered to federal authorities in Miami on Tuesday and was arraigned on charges that he had put national security secrets at risk and obstructed investigators.
Mr. Trump was booked, fingerprinted and led to a courtroom on the 13th floor of the Federal District Court, where his lawyer entered a plea of not guilty on his behalf.
Sitting among the spectators about 20 feet away was Jack Smith, the special counsel overseeing the investigation that led to the 38-count indictment of Mr. Trump and his personal aide, Walt Nauta, who was also present for the proceedings but did not enter a plea.
Mr. Trump, who spent much of the arraignment with his arms folded and a grim expression, and Mr. Smith, a flinty former war crimes prosecutor rarely seen in public since taking charge of the case, did not talk to each other at the hearing, or even exchange glances.
The 50-minute hearing, both mundane and momentous, marked the start of what is sure to be at least a monthslong process of bringing Mr. Trump to trial against the backdrop of a presidential race in which he is the front-runner for the Republican nomination.
Mr. Trump has also been indicted in an unrelated case by the Manhattan district attorney, who has charged him in connection with a hush money payment to a porn star ahead of the 2016 election. He faces a separate inquiry by a prosecutor in Fulton County, Ga., who is scrutinizing his efforts to reverse his election loss in Georgia in 2020, and Mr. Smith is pressing ahead with a federal investigation into Mr. Trump’s efforts to retain power and the ensuing Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob.
Outside the courthouse, amid a heavy police presence, small groups of pro-Trump demonstrators voiced their support for the former president, who has denounced the indictment as the latest installment in a long-running and politically inspired witch hunt against him.
New York Times, Here are the likely next steps in the documents case, Alan Feuer and Maggie Haberman, June 15, 2023 (print ed.). Now that former President Donald J. Trump has entered a plea of not guilty at his arraignment in Miami, the criminal case against him will, barring an unforeseen event, settle into a traditional trajectory.
The case against Mr. Trump, accusing him of illegally retaining national defense documents and obstructing the government’s efforts to retrieve them, is the first time that federal charges have been filed against a former president. But the case’s passage through the legal system should, with any luck, proceed like other criminal matters, if against the backdrop of the political calendar.
The only date set so far for a further step is a hearing on June 27 at which Mr. Trump’s co-defendant and personal aide, Walt Nauta, will enter his plea. A spokesman for Mr. Trump, Steven Cheung, said he was unsure whether Mr. Nauta and Mr. Trump have a joint defense agreement.
The parties will begin a slow but steady rhythm of status conferences, meeting every couple of months in court as the government starts to provide evidence to the defense through what is known as the discovery process. That evidence will help Mr. Trump’s lawyers decide what motions they plan to file in attacking the charges against him.
Mr. Trump will also have to finalize the members of his legal team. To that end, he met privately with a handful of Florida-based lawyers at his club in Miami, Doral, on Monday night, according to a person close to him who was not authorized to speak publicly about the efforts to remake his legal team. Mr. Trump found himself needing additional lawyers after the two who had taken lead on the documents case, James Trusty and John Rowley, resigned the day after the charges were filed.
MeidasTouch Network, WOW: Biden SETS RECORD with STUNNING Surprise Court Victory, Michael Popok, June 16, 2023. Michael Popok of Legal AF reports on the confirmation of Dale Ho, voting rights expert and first ACLU attorney since Ruth Bader Ginsberg to be confirmed as a federal judge and puts him on track for a potential future Biden Supreme Court pick, as Biden increases his record setting federal judge confirmations to 134.
MeidasTouch Network, Jack Smith Files FIRST MAJOR MOTION in Trump Criminal Case, June 16, 2023. Michael Popok of Legal AF reports on new breaking developments with the Special Prosecutor’s office filing its motion for protective order with Judge Cannon in the Trump Mar a Lago criminal case against Trump, requiring that trump not review any of the material unless supervised by his counsel, and that he not disseminate any of the government’s documents or information to any one else by social media or otherwise or face severe consequences.
Washington Post, Garland defends special counsel, Trump classified-documents probe, Perry Stein, June 15, 2023 (print ed.). The attorney general, who did not mention Donald Trump in his responses to reporter questions, said the Justice Dept. would be monitoring any threats that emerge as a result of the investigation and indictment of the former president.
Attorney General Merrick Garland, right, on Wednesday afternoon defended the Justice Department’s classified-documents investigation of former president Donald Trump, who has been calling Jack Smith, the special counsel in charge of the probe, a “thug” and a “lunatic.”
In his first public comments since Trump was indicted last week, Garland would not answer specific questions about the investigation, but said that he had faith in the “integrity” of the probe and would let the indictment and future court filings speak for the Justice Department.
“Mr. Smith is a veteran, career prosecutor. He has assembled a group of talented prosecutors and agents who share his commitment to integrity and the rule of law,” Garland said at an event at Justice Department headquarters focused on reducing violent crime. “Any questions about this matter will have to be answered by their filings in court.”
Trump faces 31 counts of willful retention of national defense information, along with three counts of withholding or concealing documents in a federal investigation, false statements and conspiracy to obstruct justice. Each willful retention count represents a different classified document the former president allegedly withheld — 21 that were discovered when the FBI searched his Florida home and private club in August 2022, and 10 that were turned over to the FBI in a sealed envelope two months earlier.
He pleaded not guilty in a federal court in Miami on Tuesday.
Garland appointed Smith in November to handle the day-to-day operations of the investigation three days after Trump formally announced his 2024 presidential run.
New York Times, A simple test: Would Donald Trump be charged with a crime if he were someone else? David Leonhardt, June 15, 2023 (print ed.). Two weeks ago, a federal judge sentenced Robert Birchum, a former Air Force lieutenant colonel, to three years in jail for removing hundreds of secret documents from their authorized locations and storing them in his home and officer’s quarters.
In April, a judge sentenced Jeremy Brown, a former member of U.S. Special Forces, to more than seven years in prison partly for taking a classified report home with him after he retired. The report contained sensitive intelligence, including about an informant in another country.
In 2018, Nghia Hoang Pho received a five-and-a-half-year sentence for storing National Security Agency documents at his home. Prosecutors emphasized that Pho was aware he was not supposed to have taken the documents.
These three recent cases are among dozens in which the Justice Department has charged people with removing classified information from its proper place and trying to conceal their actions. That list includes several former high-ranking officials, like David Petraeus and John Deutch, who each ran the C.I.A.
Now, of course, the list also includes Donald Trump, who was arraigned in a Miami federal courthouse yesterday and pleaded not guilty to 37 charges.
Are federal prosecutors singling out Trump because of his signature role in American politics? Or are they basing their decision to indict him solely on the facts of the case?
Sean Trende, a political analyst with RealClearPolitics, has offered a helpful way to understand these questions — and specifically when a former president should, and should not, be charged with a crime.
Start by thinking about all the other people who had engaged in behavior similar to that for which the ex-president was charged with a crime. If just some of those other people were charged, the ex-president should not be, Trende wrote. Prosecutors have a large amount of discretion about which cases to bring, and they should err on the side of not indicting a former president because of the political turmoil it is likely to cause, he argued.
RawStory, Trump supporters left empty-handed after he promised 'food for everyone' at Miami's Versailles: report, Tom Boggioni, June 15, 2023. According to a report from Laine Doss of the Miami New Times, aides and supporters of Donald Trumpwalked away hungry after his visit to the popular Versailles Café in Miami's Little Havana following his arraignment on conspiracy and Espionage Act charges on Tuesday.
The former president made a highly-publicized stop at the cafe after pleading not guilty before a Florida magistrate where he was serenaded by fans with "Happy Birthday" the day before his birthday and he proclaimed "food for everyone" to the cheering crowd.
As Doss of the Miami New Times is reporting, not so much as a crumb was served up on the former president's dime.
"The local press was on hand to capture footage of the large crowd milling outside to greet their man. Inside the bakery, Trump supporters fawned over their man, regaling the soon-to-turn-77-year-old with a rousing rendition of 'Happy Birthday a day early and holding a group prayer," she wrote before adding, "A glad-handing Trump was heard to declare, 'Food for everyone!'"
Palmer Report, Analysis: How do we know Walt Nauta didn’t secretly flip on Donald Trump already? Bill Palmer, June 15, 2023. When Donald Trump was arraigned in federal court this week, the magistrate judge ordered Trump not to directly communicate about the case with any witnesses, including his co-defendant Walt Nauta. If Trump violates this, he could face penalties up to and including pretrial detention.
Various observers have pointed out that it’s not exactly practical to enforce this. Nauta is still, bizarrely, Trump’s valet. They’re around each other all the time. There would be numerous opportunities for them to discuss the case while no one is around. It would be almost too easy for the two of them to plot some obstruction strategy together, without anyone knowing it. But that’s the thing: too easy.
This revelation took me back to the same question I’ve asked everyone to keep in mind whenever something happens in this case that seems kind of dumb: is Jack Smith an idiot? Because unless Smith is an idiot, he’s probably not going around doing a series of dumb things.
Does Jack Smith strike you as the kind of person who would be too oblivious to realize that if he indicted Trump and Nauta together, they’d try to discuss the case while awaiting trial? If this is such an obvious thing that you and I can see this coming from the cheap seats, then Smith certainly saw it coming when he made the decision to indict them together. And he’s certainly planned for it in some way.
We have no idea what that plan looks like, of course. But one way or another, Smith knew that Trump and Nauta were going to be sitting around Mar-a-Lago discussing the case with each other after the arraignment. So what did he put in place to circumvent that?
The most poetic scenario would be that Smith already cut a cooperation deal with Nauta – and that Nauta’s entire arrest and arraignment were a ruse so that Trump would end up discussing the case with Nauta, who could then sell him out. Such a scenario might be too cute. But there are other scenarios that aren’t quite so on the nose. How many times has it been reported that Smith cultivated multiple unidentified cooperators within Mar-a-Lago? Perhaps those cooperators have now been tasked with catching Trump and Nauta discussing the case.
These aren’t novel, hypothetical ideas. This isn’t some 3D chess. These are simply the kinds of tactics that prosecutors – particularly on the federal level, in these kinds of organized crime style cases – often use to catch targets in the act. We see it time and again. It’s why so many federal criminal targets end up with additional charges such as witness tampering tacked on by the time they get to trial. Such charges have a higher conviction rate, and help ensure that the target goes to prison even if the jury doesn’t like the original charges.
For instance, after Paul Manafort was indicted, prosecutors fairly quickly managed to catch him trying to tamper with a witness, and used it against him as part of the criminal proceedings. This is how the Feds like to operate. It’s how things work.
In that sense, it’s ludicrous to suggest that Jack Smith – one of the smartest and savviest and most successful prosecutors the DOJ has ever put in charge of a case – is too naive to realize that Trump might talk to the witnesses, and too helpless to do anything about it.
If anything it’s Donald Trump who’s too naive and helpless to have any idea what he’s up against. This guy was sitting there with boxes of classified documents in his bathroom. That’s how little of a plan or a clue he had about what he was even trying to do. He doesn’t suddenly have a magical plan now. Trump is precisely the kind of overconfident idiot who would think he can get away with tampering with witnesses. And Jack Smith is precisely the kind of prosecutor who would let Trump walk into that trap.
Jack Smith isn’t going to telegraph to us what he has in place to keep tabs on Donald Trump, because then Trump would know. But just look at what all was in Smith’s indictment text. He was that savvy, that thorough, that far ahead of the game. There’s no world in which Smith is now just naively and helplessly letting Trump tamper with witnesses.
June 13
Washington Post, Trump pleads not guilty to federal charges, Shayna Jacobs, David Ovalle, Devlin Barrett and Perry Stein, June 13, 2023. Former president faces 37 counts, including obstruction and willful retention of classified documents. “We most certainly enter a plea of not guilty,” Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche said in court.
Donald Trump pleaded not guilty Tuesday to federal charges he broke the law by keeping and hiding top secret documents in his Florida home — the first hearing in a historic court case that could alter the country’s political and legal landscape.
“We most certainly enter a plea of not guilty,” Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche said in court.
Wearing a dark suit and red tie, the former president arrived shortly before 2 p.m. at the the federal courthouse in Miami, where a few hundred people, most of them Trump supporters, had gathered waving flags and chanting. Within 15 minutes, he was processed by the U.S. Marshals, which included taking his fingerprints with a digital scanner.
As the first American former president to be accused of federal crimes, Trump faces the possibility of years in prison. Earlier in the day, Trump publicly attacked the veteran prosecutor heading up the case, calling special counsel Jack Smith a “Thug” and a “lunatic” in social media posts.
Helicopter television crews tracked Trump’s motorcade heading to the courthouse — a scene similar to his April court appearance in New York City, where he faces state charges of fraud stemming from 2016 hush money payments. After Trump entered the courthouse, one of his lawyers spoke to reporters gathered outside. “What we are witnessing today is the blatant and unapologetic weaponization of the criminal justice system,” Alina Habba said.
Trump, who is again seeking the Republican presidential nomination, faces the remarkable prospect of sitting at a defendant’s table for federal and state trials that may overlap with the presidential primaries or nominating conventions. He is also under investigation in Georgia’s Fulton County, where the district attorney is weighing whether to charge Trump and his supporters with crimes related to their efforts to undo Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential victory. Smith is separately conducting a federal investigation into those issues.
- New York Times, Trump to Appear in Miami Court on Classified Material Charges
New York Times, Donald Trump has options for fighting the charges against him, but those arguments might face challenges, Alan Feuer, Maggie Haberman and Ben Protess, June 13, 2023 (print ed.). Former President Donald J. Trump and his advisers have been scrambling down to the wire to assemble a legal team for his first scheduled court appearance on Tuesday after being charged with mishandling classified documents and obstructing the government’s efforts to retrieve them.
But even when Mr. Trump figures out who will represent him, the lawyers will face a more significant challenge: how to rebut the charges in a criminal case in which their options may be limited.
While no one knows precisely how Mr. Trump will go about attacking the most serious charges he has faced, his options for using the legal system to delay the case, turn it into a political circus or paint himself as a victim of federal prosecutors are numerous and varied.
Even before his indictment, Mr. Trump, his allies and his lawyers had hinted at some of the arguments they could raise.
Washington Post, Opinion: Aileen Cannon should not preside over the Trump trial, Jennifer Rubin, right, June 13, 2023. Democracy defenders and advocates for the rule of law were elated when the indictment of former president Donald Trump was unsealed, revealing a damning array of evidence that should finally vindicate the principle that the law applies to presidents and ex-presidents just as it does to all other Americans.
Elation was tempered, however, when Judge Aileen M. Cannon’s name appeared on court documents. She infamously botched a civil case brought by Trump to recover the very same documents now at issue in the criminal case, a decision so lacking in logic and precedent that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit swiftly repudiated her ruling and sent Trump packing.
The 11th Circuit’s ruling was particularly dismissive in reversing Cannon, left: “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. Nor can we write a rule that allows only former presidents to do so.” Specifically, the panel held she didn’t have jurisdiction and should not have ruled on the case.
To make matters worse, in the civil case, Cannon posited that Trump deserved special treatment because he is a former president (“[a]s a function of Plaintiff’s former position as President of the United States, the stigma associated with the subject seizure is in a league of its own”). A judge who begins with the unconstitutional premise that Trump is not subject to the law like any other defendant would have a hard time sustaining public faith in the process. Any rulings for Trump would be regarded as evidence of bias; rulings against would be seen as efforts to restore her shattered reputation.
It borders on absurd that an inexperienced judge appointed to the bench by the defendant to whom she threw lifeline would try the case after getting slammed by the circuit court for even touching his civil gambit. This might be the most important criminal trial in U.S. history, with enormous implications for democracy, the rule of law and national security.
Some could argue that having been rebuked once, Cannon might have been chastened. She could therefore be a judge who would give the Justice Department every chance to make its case. But the risk that a wildly misguided and slipshod judge could have reformed is far too great to entrust her with the most important criminal case in our lifetimes. She and the 11th Circuit owe both Trump and the American people an expertly run trial free from the appearance of bias.
- New York Times, Trump Supporters’ Violent Rhetoric in His Defense Disturbs Experts
- New York Times, In his first remarks since his federal indictment, Donald Trump cast his campaign as the “final battle”
June 12
Documents being stored at indicted former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago complex in Florida according to a Department of Justice indictment unsealed on June 9, 2023 (Photo via Associated Press).
New York Times, How a Personal Aide Came to be Charged as Trump’s Co-Conspirator, Alan Feuer, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, June 12, 2023 (print ed.). A regular presence at Donald Trump’s side, Walt Nauta, right, is said to have been central to helping thwart government efforts to retrieve classified documents.
A Navy veteran and a regular presence at Donald Trump’s side, he is said to have played a central role in helping to thwart government efforts to retrieve classified documents.
On May 25, as former President Donald J. Trump was at the Saudi-backed LIV golf tournament at his course in Sterling, Va., one of his aides was photographed leaning toward him and dutifully adjusting the collar of his white pullover, a moment of closeness that had become routine for the pair.
The timing of the photograph was noteworthy: One day earlier, the aide, Walt Nauta, had been notified by the government that he was a target of a federal investigation into Mr. Trump’s handling of classified documents, suggesting that charges against Mr. Nauta were likely.
On Friday, prosecutors unsealed those charges. Mr. Nauta, a 40-year-old Navy veteran, was charged with conspiracy, making false statements and withholding documents as part of Mr. Trump’s effort to thwart the government’s attempts to reclaim the classified documents Mr. Trump had taken with him when he left the White House.
Mr. Nauta’s story is, among other things, a cautionary tale about what loyalty to Mr. Trump can bring. After serving his country in the military and serving as a valet in the White House, Mr. Nauta stayed with Mr. Trump as a personal aide — and now faces the prospect of years in federal prison for having apparently carried out his wishes.
Washington Post, Trump’s Miami court date brings fears of violence, rally plans, Shayna Jacobs, David Nakamura, Hannah Allam and Isaac Arnsdorf, June 12, 2023 (print ed.). Defiant statements from the former president and his political allies, as well as violent rhetoric in online forums, have put law enforcement officials on alert ahead of a Tuesday court appearance.
Federal and local authorities on Sunday ramped up security preparations ahead of Donald Trump’s first appearance in federal court on criminal charges here, monitoring online threats and potential gatherings of far-right extremists while marshaling more police officers to be on duty.
Escalating violent rhetoric in online forums, coupled with defiant statements from the former president and his political allies, have put law enforcement officials on alert for potential disruptions ahead of Trump’s court appearance. He is facing a 37-count federal indictment, 31 of which allege he willfully kept classified documents in his possession after leaving the White House.
Authorities were monitoring plans for pro-Trump rallies in Miami, including one outside the federal courthouse on Tuesday purportedly organized by a local chapter of the Proud Boys, a far-right extremist group, some leaders of which were found guilty of seditious conspiracy in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The case, filed by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith, marks the first time a former president has been indicted on federal charges. Though Trump — who leads the Republican field in early polling for the party’s 2024 presidential nomination — was arraigned in a New York court in April on state charges of falsifying business records, legal experts said the federal charges pose a more serious legal threat and carry potentially stiffer punishments if he is found guilty.
June 11
The warrant authorizing the search of former president Donald Trump’s home said agents were seeking documents possessed in violation of the Espionage Act.
Washington Post, Indictment says Trump lied to keep classified secrets, Devlin Barrett, Josh Dawsey, Perry Stein and Jacqueline Alemany, June 11, 2023 (print ed.). The former president faces 37 criminal charges, according to a 49-page indictment unsealed Friday against him and a loyal servant who is accused of lying to cover up his boss’s alleged crimes.
Former president Donald Trump stashed sensitive intelligence secrets in a bathroom, his bedroom and a ballroom at Mar-a-Lago, according to a scathing 49-page indictment unsealed Friday against him and a loyal servant who is accused of lying to cover up his boss’s alleged crimes.
The grand jury indictment tells a story of hubris and hypocrisy, describing a wealthy former president living among neck-high stacks of boxes with classified documents scattered inside them, sometimes literally spilling out of their containers. In the prosecutors’ telling, neither Trump nor any of his aides or lawyers appeared bothered by the sprawl of sensitive papers until government agents came calling. Then, the former commander in chief allegedly set out to hide some of what he had.
The document, complete with color photographs and witness accounts of breathtaking criminal conduct, lays down a marker for a legal and political battle to come that could reshape the 2024 presidential race, the politics of national security, and the public’s perception of the Justice Department and the 45th president of the United States.
“Wouldn’t it be better if we just told them we don’t have anything here?” Trump allegedly asked when his lawyers told him in May 2022 that they had to comply with a grand jury subpoena seeking the return of any documents marked classified. In that same conversation, he praised a lawyer for Hillary Clinton for what he claimed was the act of deleting 30,000 of her emails when she was in government.
“He did a great job,” Trump allegedly said.
Such private comments stand in stark contrast to Trump’s public statements as a 2016 candidate and as president about the importance of protecting classified information. As recounted in the indictment, Trump often used the issue as a rhetorical dagger against Clinton, declaring in September 2016 that “one of the first things we must do is enforce all classification rules and to enforce all laws relating to the handling of classified information.”
New York Times, Trump Indictment Shows Critical Evidence Came From One of His Own Lawyers, Maggie Haberman, Alan Feuer and Ben Protess, Updated June 12, 2023. Evan Corcoran, who was hired to represent Donald Trump after prosecutors issued a subpoena for classified documents, could be a key witness in the trial.
The two indictments filed so far against former President Donald J. Trump — one brought by the Manhattan district attorney, the other by a Justice Department special counsel — charge him with very different crimes but have something in common: Both were based, at least in part, on the words of his own lawyers.
In the 49-page federal indictment accusing him of retaining classified documents after leaving the White House and scheming to block government efforts to retrieve them, some of the most potentially damning evidence came from notes made by one of those lawyers, M. Evan Corcoran, right.
Mr. Corcoran’s notes, first recorded into an iPhone and then transcribed on paper, essentially gave prosecutors a road map to building their case. Mr. Trump, according to the indictment, pressured Mr. Corcoran to thwart investigators from reclaiming reams of classified material and even suggested to him that it might be better to lie to investigators and withhold the documents altogether.
Earlier this year, over Mr. Trump’s objections, the special counsel overseeing the investigation, Jack Smith, obtained the notes through an invocation of the crime-fraud exception. That exception is a provision of the law that allows prosecutors to work around the normal protections of attorney-client privilege if they have reason to believe and can demonstrate to a judge that a client used legal advice to further a crime.
The ruling agreeing to the Justice Department’s request by Judge Beryl A. Howell, then the chief judge of the Federal District Court in Washington, was crucial to the shape and outcome of the investigation.
Mr. Trump’s legal fate could now hinge on testimony and evidence from two men he paid to defend him: Mr. Corcoran, who is still a member of his legal team, and Michael D. Cohen, a former lawyer for Mr. Trump who has helped prosecutors in New York with their case related to the former president’s payment of hush money to a porn star before the 2016 election. Mr. Cohen pleaded guilty to federal charges, including one related to that hush money payment, in 2018. Mr. Corcoran has not been accused of any wrongdoing.
Their complicated involvement in the two cases reflects the perils of the former president’s long habit of viewing lawyers as attack dogs or even political bosses rather than as advocates bound by ethical rules.
- New York Times, Here’s what to expect from former President Trump’s court appearance on Tuesday
U.S. Department of Justice Special Counsel Jack Smith announces indictment of former U.S. President Trump on June 9, 2023.
New York Times, Analysis: Trump Documents Case Puts U.S. Justice System to the Test, Peter Baker, June 11, 2023 (print ed.). A Challenge to Democracy and the Rule of Law.
Former President Donald J. Trump has a lot at stake in the federal criminal case lodged against him. He could, in theory, go to prison for years. But if he winds up in the dock in front of a jury, it is no exaggeration to suggest that American justice will be on trial as well.
History’s first federal indictment against a former president poses one of the gravest challenges to democracy the country has ever faced. It represents either a validation of the rule-of-law principle that even the most powerful face accountability for their actions or the moment when a vast swath of the public becomes convinced that the system has been irredeemably corrupted by partisanship.
Mr. Trump, his allies and even some of his Republican rivals have embarked on a strategy to encourage the latter view, arguing that law enforcement has been hijacked by President Biden and the Democrats to take out his strongest opponent for re-election next year. Few if any of them bothered to wait to read the indictment before backing Mr. Trump’s all-caps assertion that it was merely part of the “GREATEST WITCH HUNT OF ALL TIME.” It is now an article of faith, a default tactic or both.
Jack Smith, the special counsel, and his prosecutors knew that defense was coming and have labored to avoid any hint of political motivation with a by-the-book approach, securing the assent of judges and grand jurors along the way. Moreover, their indictment laid out a damning series of facts based on security camera video, text messages and testimony from within Mr. Trump’s own team; even some who have defended him in the past say it will be harder to brush aside the evidence in a courtroom than in the court of public opinion.
- New York Times, Donald Trump’s indictment will either show that even the most powerful face accountability or convince a swath of the public that the system is partisan.
- New York Times, When presidents like Richard Nixon or Bill Clinton faced legal trouble, they defended themselves, but did not call the entire process into question.
New York Times, A Trump-appointed judge will continue to oversee Donald Trump’s case unless she recuses herself, a court official said, Charlie Savage, June 11, 2023 (print ed.). The chief clerk of the courts for the Southern District of Florida added that Judge Aileen M. Cannon had been randomly assigned to the case. Charlie Savage
The criminal case against President Donald J. Trump over his hoarding of classified documents was randomly assigned to Judge Aileen M. Cannon, a court official for the Southern District of Florida said on Saturday.
The chief clerk of the federal court system there, Angela E. Noble, also confirmed that Judge Cannon, right, would continue to oversee the case unless she recused herself.
The news of Judge Cannon’s assignment raised eyebrows because of her role in an earlier lawsuit filed by Mr. Trump challenging the F.B.I.’s search of his Florida club and estate, Mar-a-Lago. In issuing a series of rulings favorable to him, Judge Cannon, a Trump appointee, effectively disrupted the investigation until a conservative appeals court ruled she never had legitimate legal authority to intervene.
Under the district court’s procedures, new cases are randomly delegated to a judge who sits in the division where the matter arose or a neighboring one, even if it relates to a previous case. That Judge Cannon is handling Mr. Trump’s criminal indictment elicited the question of how that had come to be.
Asked over email whether normal procedures were followed and Judge Cannon’s assignment was random, Ms. Noble wrote: “Normal procedures were followed.”
Mar-a-Lago is in the West Palm Beach division, between the Fort Lauderdale division and the Fort Pierce division, where Judge Cannon sits. The district court’s website shows that seven active judges have chambers in those three divisions, as do three judges on senior status who still hear cases.
Ms. Noble wrote that certain factors increased the chances that the case would land before Judge Cannon.
For one, she said, senior judges are removed from the case assignment system, or wheel, once they fulfill their target caseload for the year. At least one of the senior judges is done, she wrote, adding that she was highly confident that the other two “are very likely at their target,” too.
In addition, she wrote, one of the seven active judges with chambers in Fort Lauderdale is now a Miami judge for the purpose of assignments. Another is not currently receiving cases.
A third active judge, Donald Middlebrooks, draws 50 percent of his criminal cases from the Miami division, she wrote, decreasing his odds. (Judge Middlebrooks this year ordered Mr. Trump and his lawyers to pay nearly a million dollars in sanctions for having filed a frivolous lawsuit against nearly three dozen of his perceived political enemies, including Hillary Clinton.)
Judge Cannon, Ms. Noble wrote, “draws 50 percent of her cases from West Palm Beach, increasing her odds.”
The clerk clarified another matter: whether Judge Cannon would continue to handle the case. Since news of Judge Cannon’s assignment emerged early Friday, observers have speculated that it could only be an initial assignment before being handed to another judge.
But Ms. Noble confirmed that no court practice would return the case to be assigned to another judge. In short, Judge Cannon’s assignment is permanent unless she were to step aside.
New York Times, Opinion: Other Americans Have Been Sent to Prison for Much Less Than This, Oona A. Hathaway, June 12, 2023 (print ed.). Oona A. Hathaway, right, is a professor of law and political science at Yale University and former special counsel to the general counsel at the U.S. Department of Defense.
Donald Trump is facing a 37-count indictment in federal court on charges connected to his retention of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. The charges include 31 counts of violating the Espionage Act for willfully retaining, without authorization, documents relating to national defense. As a former president with no formal security clearances, Mr. Trump no longer had a legal right to even view the documents, much less keep them.
According to the indictment, the items included top secret documents detailing the military capabilities of foreign countries and the “military activities and planning” of several foreign countries. The documents also described “nuclear capabilities of a foreign country,” “military contingency planning of the United States,” “military options of a foreign country and potential effects on United States interests,” “military operations against United States forces” and information concerning “nuclear weaponry of the United States.” The information is of concern to at least seven national security agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Defense and the National Security Agency.
An ordinary person facing these charges would almost certainly enter a plea deal and spend years in prison, but Mr. Trump is far from ordinary. With Mr. Trump now the leading contender for the Republican nomination, his lawyers will probably attempt to delay the trial until after the 2024 presidential election. If he becomes the G.O.P. nominee and then wins the presidency, it is likely that the case will be put on hold while he serves, as executive branch precedent holds that a sitting president cannot be criminally prosecuted. Even so, the indictment is a step toward holding him to account for putting U.S. national security at terrible risk. His own Justice Department vigorously enforced the Espionage Act, sending people to prison for much less than the actions described in the indictment of Mr. Trump.
Perhaps the most famous defendant sent to prison by federal prosecutors with violating the Espionage Act while Mr. Trump was president is Reality Winner, an Air Force veteran who was working for a military contractor when, not long after Mr. Trump became president, she printed out a single classified document, took it home and mailed it to the news website The Intercept. The report, which was classified top secret, stated that Russian hackers had gained access to voter registration rolls during the 2016 election. She was charged by federal prosecutors with a violation of the Espionage Act and, after pleading guilty to a single count of unauthorized transmission of national defense information, was sentenced to 63 months in prison.
Nghia Pho, who worked for the National Security Agency’s hacking unit, was also sent to prison while Mr. Trump was president for violating the Espionage Act. Mr. Pho faced charges for taking classified documents to his Maryland home in order to get extra work done at night and on weekends in hopes of improving his performance evaluations. This came to light after the information was believed to have been stolen by Russian hackers using the antivirus software on his computer. He pleaded guilty to a single count of willful retention of national defense information and, like Ms. Winner, was sentenced to more than five years in prison.
Then there’s Julian Assange, the eccentric founder of WikiLeaks. He was initially charged by U.S. federal prosecutors for several counts of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion. This was for the unauthorized disclosure of a trove of classified documents that he received from Chelsea Manning, an Army intelligence analyst, and posted on his website. A superseding indictment charged Mr. Assange with several counts in violation of the Espionage Act, including section 793(e), the same provision under which Mr. Trump has been charged. News outlets roundly criticized the Assange indictment as a threat to the First Amendment, since his actions were consistent with common reporting practices, albeit on a much larger scale. He remains in prison in London and is facing imminent extradition to the United States for trial.
The case against Mr. Trump is different from most Espionage Act cases in one respect: Most people charged under the act, including Ms. Winner and Mr. Assange, did not just retain sensitive information but also transmitted it. The indictment of Mr. Trump focuses on his retention of national security information, not his transmission of it — though in the indictment he is accused in two instances of sharing classified information with people not entitled to it. Mr. Pho never transmitted classified documents or showed them to anyone, though his decision to take them home made them vulnerable to Russian hackers. Mr. Trump, too, stored documents in almost comically insecure conditions — such as in a bathroom —but the indictment does not document unauthorized access by foreign adversaries. As a result, the potential harm done to U.S. national security is huge, but the actual damage is less clear.
Also unclear is why Mr. Trump went to all this trouble to keep so many classified documents he knew he was not permitted to have. Did he intend to sell them? Use them for some other personal advantage? Did he just want to keep them to impress his friends and associates by flashing the government’s most closely guarded secrets? A tape of Mr. Trump bragging about his secret documents calls to mind Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old Massachusetts Air National Guardsman who apparently posted hundreds of top secret Pentagon documents on social media to impress his fellow gamers — and who almost certainly will spend much of the rest of his life in prison as a result.
June 11
New York Times, Trump Supporters’ Violent Rhetoric in His Defense Disturbs Experts, Michael S. Schmidt, Alan Feuer, Maggie Haberman and Adam Goldman, June 11, 2023 (print ed.). The former president’s allies have portrayed the indictment as an act of war and called for retribution, which political violence experts say increases the risk of action.
The federal indictment of former President Donald J. Trump has unleashed a wave of calls by his supporters for violence and an uprising to defend him, disturbing observers and raising concerns of a dangerous atmosphere ahead of his court appearance in Miami on Tuesday.
In social media posts and public remarks, close allies of Mr. Trump — including a member of Congress — have portrayed the indictment as an act of war, called for retribution and highlighted the fact that much of his base carries weapons. The allies have painted Mr. Trump as a victim of a weaponized Justice Department controlled by President Biden, his potential opponent in the 2024 election.
The calls to action and threats have been amplified on right-wing media sites and have been met by supportive responses from social media users and cheers from crowds, who have become conditioned over several years by Mr. Trump and his allies to see any efforts to hold him accountable as assaults against him.
Experts on political violence warn that attacks against people or institutions become more likely when elected officials or prominent media figures are able to issue threats or calls for violence with impunity. The pro-Trump mob that attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was drawn to Washington in part by a post on Twitter from Mr. Trump weeks earlier, promising that it would be “wild.”
New York Times, In his first remarks since his federal indictment, Donald Trump cast his campaign as the “final battle,” Jonathan Swan, Maggie Haberman and Nicholas Nehamas, June 11, 2023 (print ed.). Donald J. Trump delivered his first post-indictment public remarks on Saturday at the state G.O.P. conventions in Georgia and North Carolina, as his federal indictment dominates the political landscape.
Former President Donald J. Trump on Saturday cast both his indictments by prosecutors and his bid for the White House as part of a “final battle” with “corrupt” forces that he maintained are destroying the country.
The apocalyptic language came in Mr. Trump’s first public appearance since the 38-count federal indictment against him and a personal aide was unsealed — and in a state where he may soon face additional charges for his efforts to pressure Georgia election officials to overturn his 2020 election loss there. It was Mr. Trump’s second indictment in less than three months.
“This is the final battle,” Mr. Trump said in the speech to several thousand activists, delegates and members of the media who gathered in Columbus, Ga., at a brick building that was once an ironworks that manufactured mortars, guns and cannons for the Confederate Army in the Civil War.
Mr. Trump spoke about the threats to the nation. But his escalating language also showed something more fundamental was in increasing jeopardy: his own freedom.
New York Times, A Trump-appointed judge will continue to oversee Donald Trump’s case unless she recuses herself, a court official said, Charlie Savage, June 11, 2023 (print ed.). The chief clerk of the courts for the Southern District of Florida added that Judge Aileen M. Cannon had been randomly assigned to the case. Charlie Savage
The criminal case against President Donald J. Trump over his hoarding of classified documents was randomly assigned to Judge Aileen M. Cannon, a court official for the Southern District of Florida said on Saturday.
The chief clerk of the federal court system there, Angela E. Noble, also confirmed that Judge Cannon, right, would continue to oversee the case unless she recused herself.
The news of Judge Cannon’s assignment raised eyebrows because of her role in an earlier lawsuit filed by Mr. Trump challenging the F.B.I.’s search of his Florida club and estate, Mar-a-Lago. In issuing a series of rulings favorable to him, Judge Cannon, a Trump appointee, effectively disrupted the investigation until a conservative appeals court ruled she never had legitimate legal authority to intervene.
Under the district court’s procedures, new cases are randomly delegated to a judge who sits in the division where the matter arose or a neighboring one, even if it relates to a previous case. That Judge Cannon is handling Mr. Trump’s criminal indictment elicited the question of how that had come to be.
Asked over email whether normal procedures were followed and Judge Cannon’s assignment was random, Ms. Noble wrote: “Normal procedures were followed.”
Mar-a-Lago is in the West Palm Beach division, between the Fort Lauderdale division and the Fort Pierce division, where Judge Cannon sits. The district court’s website shows that seven active judges have chambers in those three divisions, as do three judges on senior status who still hear cases.
Ms. Noble wrote that certain factors increased the chances that the case would land before Judge Cannon.
For one, she said, senior judges are removed from the case assignment system, or wheel, once they fulfill their target caseload for the year. At least one of the senior judges is done, she wrote, adding that she was highly confident that the other two “are very likely at their target,” too.
In addition, she wrote, one of the seven active judges with chambers in Fort Lauderdale is now a Miami judge for the purpose of assignments. Another is not currently receiving cases.
A third active judge, Donald Middlebrooks, draws 50 percent of his criminal cases from the Miami division, she wrote, decreasing his odds. (Judge Middlebrooks this year ordered Mr. Trump and his lawyers to pay nearly a million dollars in sanctions for having filed a frivolous lawsuit against nearly three dozen of his perceived political enemies, including Hillary Clinton.)
Judge Cannon, Ms. Noble wrote, “draws 50 percent of her cases from West Palm Beach, increasing her odds.”
The clerk clarified another matter: whether Judge Cannon would continue to handle the case. Since news of Judge Cannon’s assignment emerged early Friday, observers have speculated that it could only be an initial assignment before being handed to another judge.
But Ms. Noble confirmed that no court practice would return the case to be assigned to another judge. In short, Judge Cannon’s assignment is permanent unless she were to step aside.
Washington Post, Trump indictment thrusts Biden into unprecedented territory, Matt Viser, June 11, 2023 (print ed.). Biden’s leading adversary is being prosecuted by Biden’s Justice Department — a highly sensitive dynamic that is already fodder for Republicans.
The month before he was sworn into office, President Biden vowed to keep a significant distance between himself and any actions the Justice Department might take under his watch.
“I’m not going to be telling them what they have to do and don’t have to do,” he said in a CNN interview in December 2020. “I’m not going to be saying, ‘Go prosecute A, B or C.’ I’m not going to be telling them. That’s not the role. It’s not my Justice Department, it’s the people’s Justice Department.”
The comments encapsulated a core aspect of Biden’s run for office: his promise to restore confidence in American institutions after the chaotic tenure of President Donald Trump, who often showed little compunction about employing the levers of government for his own ends.
That notion — the ironclad separation of law and politics — will now be tested like rarely before in American history.
Trump, who is Biden’s predecessor and also his leading 2024 opponent, has now been indicted and charged with crimes that Biden’s own Justice Department is prosecuting. Anything the president says that is critical of Trump will probably be seized upon by Republicans as evidence that he is trying to influence the legal case. Any appearance he makes with his own attorney general, Merrick Garland, will face intense scrutiny and could fuel further attacks.
“President Biden has to keep a moat between himself and the Justice Department,” said Douglas Brinkley, an author and presidential historian. “You definitely don’t want to see Biden and Merrick Garland whisper together. They barely can be seen at a public event together now. They certainly can’t be in huddle mode. That’s a strange scenario in itself.”
World Crisis Radio, Historical Commentary: Trump indictment makes June 8-9 a glorious rebirth of freedom in fight to prevent fascist dictatorship in 2024! Webster G. Tarpley, right, author and strategic reformer, June 10-11, 2023 (120 mins.). Trump charged with 37 criminal felony counts in greatest reckoning of his lifetime; charges include illegal retention of 31 documents in violation of 1917 Espionage Act, conspiracy to promulgate false statements, obstruction of justice, and dissemination of secrets as papers were shown to random visitors; Hapless body man Walt Nauta also accused;
US national security and armed forces imperiled owing to lawless hoarding of state secrets; Majority of damning evidence comes from Don’s own lawyers and employees in form of emails, texts, tapes, and memos;
VI Amendment considerations of venue have dictated transfer of case to south Florida, but role of pro-MAGA renegade judge Aileen Cannon is threat to United States and must be rejected;
South Florida federal bench runs rocket docket along lines of Alexandria, Virginia-which could deprive Don of his most potent weapon of delay;
Orgy of whataboutism in reactionary media cannot hide Trump’s lack of any elements for a coherent defense in face of overwhelming evidence; Will he attempt a plea bargain in extremis, including ending his White House bid on model of Agnew in 1973?
Putin has staked his hopes of conquest on Trump’s second term; So, as Trump’s chances decline, the power of Russian aggression also diminishes;
The essence of globalization has been the catastrophic ascendancy of the predatory financier oligarchy over the modern nation state; The current twilight of globaloney is likely to enhance the role of the state! Indictments met by mass indifference, with no spontaneous riots or general strikes to protest, protest, protest!
June 10
U.S. Department of Justice Special Counsel Jack Smith announces indictment of former U.S. President Trump on June 9, 2023.
New York Times, Justice Dept. Unseals Indictment Against Trump, Alan Feuer, Maggie Haberman, William K. Rashbaum and Ben Protess, June 10, 2023 (print ed.). Federal prosecutors unsealed the indictment Federal prosecutors unsealed the indictment laying out the government’s case against former President Donald J. Trump on Friday, detailing their allegations that he mishandled classified documents after leaving office and obstructed the government’s efforts to reclaim them.
Jack Smith, the special counsel who is bringing the case, made a brief statement to the press on Friday at his office in Northeast Washington at 3 p.m., his spokesman said. laying out the government’s case against former President Donald J. Trump on Friday, detailing their allegations that he mishandled classified documents after leaving office and obstructed the government’s efforts to reclaim them.
The indictment gives the clearest picture yet of the files that Mr. Trump took with him when he left the White House. It said he had illegally kept hold of documents concerning “United States nuclear programs; potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack; and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack.”
The indictment names one of his personal aides, Waltine Nauta, as a co-conspirator who assisted in obstructing the investigation into the former president’s retention of sensitive defense documents at his resident and resort in Florida.
Prosecutors presented evidence that Mr. Trump shared a highly sensitive “plan of attack” against Iran to visitors at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J. in July 2021 — and was recorded on tape describing the material as “highly confidential” and “secret,” while it admitting it had not been declassified.
In another incident in Sept, 2021 he shared a top secret military map with a staffer at his political action committee who did not have a security clearance.
The filing includes many pictures of what appear to be bankers’ boxes, some containing highly sensitive national documents, which were haphazardly moved by Mr. Nauta and other aides at Mr. Trump’s behest. Some of the boxes appear to be sagging — and on Dec. 7, 2021 Mr. Nauta found that one of the boxes had toppled and spilled its contents on the floor.
The files that splayed on the carpet included the designation “SECRET/REL TO USA, FVEY” — which meant that they were meant to be seen by officials from the U.S., U.K. New Zealand and Australia with high-level security clearances.
Mr. Trump is expected to appear in Federal District Court in Miami on Tuesday afternoon. Judge Aileen M. Cannon is scheduled to preside over that initial hearing, according to people familiar with the matter. It was not clear whether Judge Cannon, who was criticized by a higher court for handing Mr. Trump a series of unusually favorable rulings during the early stages of the investigation, would remain assigned for the entirety of the case.
The warrant authorizing the search of former president Donald Trump’s home said agents were seeking documents possessed in violation of the Espionage Act.
Washington Post, Indictment says Trump lied to keep classified secrets, Devlin Barrett, Josh Dawsey, Perry Stein and Jacqueline Alemany, June 10, 2023. The former president faces 37 criminal charges, according to a 49-page indictment unsealed Friday against him and a loyal servant who is accused of lying to cover up his boss’s alleged crimes.
Former president Donald Trump stashed sensitive intelligence secrets in a bathroom, his bedroom and a ballroom at Mar-a-Lago, according to a scathing 49-page indictment unsealed Friday against him and a loyal servant who is accused of lying to cover up his boss’s alleged crimes.
The grand jury indictment tells a story of hubris and hypocrisy, describing a wealthy former president living among neck-high stacks of boxes with classified documents scattered inside them, sometimes literally spilling out of their containers. In the prosecutors’ telling, neither Trump nor any of his aides or lawyers appeared bothered by the sprawl of sensitive papers until government agents came calling. Then, the former commander in chief allegedly set out to hide some of what he had.
The document, complete with color photographs and witness accounts of breathtaking criminal conduct, lays down a marker for a legal and political battle to come that could reshape the 2024 presidential race, the politics of national security, and the public’s perception of the Justice Department and the 45th president of the United States.
“Wouldn’t it be better if we just told them we don’t have anything here?” Trump allegedly asked when his lawyers told him in May 2022 that they had to comply with a grand jury subpoena seeking the return of any documents marked classified. In that same conversation, he praised a lawyer for Hillary Clinton for what he claimed was the act of deleting 30,000 of her emails when she was in government.
“He did a great job,” Trump allegedly said.
Such private comments stand in stark contrast to Trump’s public statements as a 2016 candidate and as president about the importance of protecting classified information. As recounted in the indictment, Trump often used the issue as a rhetorical dagger against Clinton, declaring in September 2016 that “one of the first things we must do is enforce all classification rules and to enforce all laws relating to the handling of classified information.”
New York Times, Analysis: Trump Documents Case Puts U.S. Justice System to the Test, Peter Baker, June 10, 2023. A Challenge to Democracy and the Rule of Law.
Former President Donald J. Trump has a lot at stake in the federal criminal case lodged against him. He could, in theory, go to prison for years. But if he winds up in the dock in front of a jury, it is no exaggeration to suggest that American justice will be on trial as well.
History’s first federal indictment against a former president poses one of the gravest challenges to democracy the country has ever faced. It represents either a validation of the rule-of-law principle that even the most powerful face accountability for their actions or the moment when a vast swath of the public becomes convinced that the system has been irredeemably corrupted by partisanship.
Mr. Trump, his allies and even some of his Republican rivals have embarked on a strategy to encourage the latter view, arguing that law enforcement has been hijacked by President Biden and the Democrats to take out his strongest opponent for re-election next year. Few if any of them bothered to wait to read the indictment before backing Mr. Trump’s all-caps assertion that it was merely part of the “GREATEST WITCH HUNT OF ALL TIME.” It is now an article of faith, a default tactic or both.
Jack Smith, the special counsel, and his prosecutors knew that defense was coming and have labored to avoid any hint of political motivation with a by-the-book approach, securing the assent of judges and grand jurors along the way. Moreover, their indictment laid out a damning series of facts based on security camera video, text messages and testimony from within Mr. Trump’s own team; even some who have defended him in the past say it will be harder to brush aside the evidence in a courtroom than in the court of public opinion.
- New York Times, Donald Trump’s indictment will either show that even the most powerful face accountability or convince a swath of the public that the system is partisan.
- New York Times, When presidents like Richard Nixon or Bill Clinton faced legal trouble, they defended themselves, but did not call the entire process into question.
Washington Post, ‘We are getting pretty good at this’: Trump and aides plot response, Michael Scherer, Josh Dawsey and Isaac Arnsdorf, June 10, 2023. Advisers aim to use the prosecution to rally support within the GOP base, but acknowledge the legal peril for the former president.
Former president Donald Trump was ready Thursday night when he got the call saying he had been indicted by the Justice Department.
He had already shot a defiant video, in front of a mustache-twirling print of Teddy Roosevelt’s portrait, denouncing charges that had not yet been filed against him. His team had pushed out an ad that tarred special counsel Jack Smith “as a tainted radical-left prosecutor” deployed by a “pack of rabid wolves.”
He dictated a Truth Social post within minutes at his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey, and his team began pushing out premade content and reposting the chorus of Republican leaders coming to his defense by attacking federal prosecutors.
On the patio, he put on a playlist of favored classics (Elvis, Luciano Pavarotti); took calls from his most loyal allies; and chatted with lawyers, the televangelist Paula White-Cain and her husband, Jonathan Cain, the former keyboardist of the rock band Journey, according to people familiar with the events. By Friday morning, he was on the golf course before the indictment was unsealed, advisers said.
“We are getting pretty good at this,” said one adviser close to Trump, who like others interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations or campaign strategy.
But those first hours proved to be the easy part, one of the last moments in an unprecedented legal drama that gave him full control over his own fate. By midday Friday, the order had begun to slip away. His legal team had crumbled and supporters of his 2024 rivals inside the party started to express optimism that this time would be different from the April indictment he had received from a New York prosecutor in connection with hush money he allegedly paid to an adult-film star.
Washington Post, Trump indictment thrusts Biden into unprecedented territory, Matt Viser, June 10, 2023. Biden’s leading adversary is being prosecuted by Biden’s Justice Department — a highly sensitive dynamic that is already fodder for Republicans.
The month before he was sworn into office, President Biden vowed to keep a significant distance between himself and any actions the Justice Department might take under his watch.
“I’m not going to be telling them what they have to do and don’t have to do,” he said in a CNN interview in December 2020. “I’m not going to be saying, ‘Go prosecute A, B or C.’ I’m not going to be telling them. That’s not the role. It’s not my Justice Department, it’s the people’s Justice Department.”
The comments encapsulated a core aspect of Biden’s run for office: his promise to restore confidence in American institutions after the chaotic tenure of President Donald Trump, who often showed little compunction about employing the levers of government for his own ends.
That notion — the ironclad separation of law and politics — will now be tested like rarely before in American history.
Trump, who is Biden’s predecessor and also his leading 2024 opponent, has now been indicted and charged with crimes that Biden’s own Justice Department is prosecuting. Anything the president says that is critical of Trump will probably be seized upon by Republicans as evidence that he is trying to influence the legal case. Any appearance he makes with his own attorney general, Merrick Garland, will face intense scrutiny and could fuel further attacks.
“President Biden has to keep a moat between himself and the Justice Department,” said Douglas Brinkley, an author and presidential historian. “You definitely don’t want to see Biden and Merrick Garland whisper together. They barely can be seen at a public event together now. They certainly can’t be in huddle mode. That’s a strange scenario in itself.”
June 9
The warrant authorizing the search of former president Donald Trump’s home said agents were seeking documents possessed in violation of the Espionage Act.
New York Times, Justice Dept. Unseals Indictment Against Trump, Alan Feuer, Maggie Haberman, William K. Rashbaum and Ben Protess, June 9, 2023. Federal prosecutors unsealed the indictment Federal prosecutors unsealed the indictment laying out the government’s case against former President Donald J. Trump on Friday, detailing their allegations that he mishandled classified documents after leaving office and obstructed the government’s efforts to reclaim them.
Jack Smith, the special counsel who is bringing the case, made a brief statement to the press on Friday at his office in Northeast Washington at 3 p.m., his spokesman said. laying out the government’s case against former President Donald J. Trump on Friday, detailing their allegations that he mishandled classified documents after leaving office and obstructed the government’s efforts to reclaim them.
The indictment gives the clearest picture yet of the files that Mr. Trump took with him when he left the White House. It said he had illegally kept hold of documents concerning “United States nuclear programs; potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack; and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack.”
The indictment names one of his personal aides, Waltine Nauta, as a co-conspirator who assisted in obstructing the investigation into the former president’s retention of sensitive defense documents at his resident and resort in Florida.
Prosecutors presented evidence that Mr. Trump shared a highly sensitive “plan of attack” against Iran to visitors at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J. in July 2021 — and was recorded on tape describing the material as “highly confidential” and “secret,” while it admitting it had not been declassified.
In another incident in Sept, 2021 he shared a top secret military map with a staffer at his political action committee who did not have a security clearance.
The filing includes many pictures of what appear to be bankers’ boxes, some containing highly sensitive national documents, which were haphazardly moved by Mr. Nauta and other aides at Mr. Trump’s behest. Some of the boxes appear to be sagging — and on Dec. 7, 2021 Mr. Nauta found that one of the boxes had toppled and spilled its contents on the floor.
The files that splayed on the carpet included the designation “SECRET/REL TO USA, FVEY” — which meant that they were meant to be seen by officials from the U.S., U.K. New Zealand and Australia with high-level security clearances.
Mr. Trump is expected to appear in Federal District Court in Miami on Tuesday afternoon. Judge Aileen M. Cannon is scheduled to preside over that initial hearing, according to people familiar with the matter. It was not clear whether Judge Cannon, who was criticized by a higher court for handing Mr. Trump a series of unusually favorable rulings during the early stages of the investigation, would remain assigned for the entirety of the case.
Washington Post, Trump charged in secret documents case, He is the first former president to face federal criminal charges, Devlin Barrett, Perry Stein and Josh Dawsey, June 9, 2023. The charges include willful retention of national defense secrets, obstruction of justice, false statements and conspiracy, which carry the potential of years in prison if he is found guilty. Trump will appear in federal court in Miami for an arraignment on Tuesday.
Former president Donald Trump said Thursday night that he’s been charged by the Justice Department in connection with the discovery that hundreds of classified documents were taken to his Mar-a-Lago home after he left the White House — a seismic event in the nation’s political and legal history.
A seven-count indictment has been filed in federal court naming the former president as a criminal defendant, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a case that has yet to be unsealed. The charges include willful retention of national defense secrets, obstruction of justice and conspiracy, which carry the potential of years in prison if Trump is found guilty.
Washington Post, Live updates: Trump, indicted over classified document handling, must appear in federal court, Kelsey Ables, Adela Suliman and John Wagner, June 9, 2023. Trump, who is the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, will appear in federal court in Miami for an arraignment on Tuesday at 3 p.m.
Former president Donald Trump is expected to be arraigned in federal court in Miami on Tuesday in connection with a criminal investigation that found hundreds of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida after he left the presidency.
Trump, who is again seeking the Republican presidential nomination, has been indicted on seven charges, people familiar with the matter told The Washington Post, including willful retention of national defense secrets, obstruction of justice and conspiracy. Trump has denied any wrongdoing.
Washington Post, Trump can still run for president in 2024 after being indicted twice, Perry Stein, March 30, 2023, updated June 8, 2023. Though a former president has never been convicted of a crime, even that wouldn’t bar Trump from running again. And some advisers think the indictments could be a good thing for his campaign.
Even a guilty verdict in either of the cases pending against him would not disqualify Trump’s bid for office, according to Anna G. Cominsky, a professor at New York Law School, or keep him from serving if he were elected.
“There are actually not that many constitutional requirements to run for president,” Cominsky said. “There is not an explicit prohibition in the Constitution in respects to having a pending indictment or even being convicted.”
2016 Republican Presidential nominee Donald J. Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton during their third debate in 2016 at a time they were accusing each other of being a "puppet" following many weeks in which Trump and his allies led rallies chanting "lock her up" regarding Clinton.
New York Times, Indictment Brings Trump Story Full Circle, Peter Baker, June 9, 2023 (print ed.). Former President Trump assailed Hillary Clinton for her handling of sensitive information. Now, the same issue threatens his chances in the 2024 election.
There was a time, not that long ago really, when Donald J. Trump said he cared about the sanctity of classified information. That, of course, was when his opponent was accused of jeopardizing it and it was a useful political weapon for Mr. Trump.
Throughout 2016, he castigated Hillary Clinton for using a private email server instead of a secure government one. “I’m going to enforce all laws concerning the protection of classified information,” he declared. “No one will be above the law.” Mrs. Clinton’s cavalier handling of the sensitive information, he said, “disqualifies her from the presidency.”
Seven years later, Mr. Trump faces criminal charges for endangering national security by taking classified documents when he left the White House and refusing to return all of them even after being subpoenaed. Even in the what-goes-around-comes-around department of American politics, it is rather remarkable that the issue that helped propel Mr. Trump to the White House in the first place now threatens to ruin his chances of getting back there.
The indictment handed up by a federal grand jury at the request of the special counsel Jack Smith effectively brings the Trump story full circle. “Lock her up,” the crowds at his campaign rallies chanted with his encouragement. Now he may be the one locked up if convicted on any of the seven reported counts that include conspiracy to obstruct justice and willful retention of documents.
The indictment is the second brought against the former president in recent months, but in many ways it eclipses the first in terms of both legal gravity and political peril. The first indictment, announced in March by the Manhattan district attorney, charged Mr. Trump with falsifying business records to cover up hush money to an adult film actress who alleged that they had a sexual tryst. The second is brought by a federal prosecutor representing the nation as a whole, the first in American history against a former president, and concerns the nation’s secrets.
While Mr. Trump’s defenders have tried to brush off the first as the work of a local elected Democrat concerning issues that, however unseemly, seem relatively petty and happened before he took office, the latest charges stem directly from his responsibility as the nation’s commander in chief to safeguard data that could be useful to America’s enemies.
Republican voters may not care if their leader slips money to a porn star to keep quiet, but will they be indifferent about impeding authorities seeking to recover clandestine material?
Perhaps. Mr. Trump certainly hopes so. The Manhattan indictment only seemed to boost his poll ratings rather than hurt him. And so he immediately cast the latest indictment as part of the most extravagant conspiracy in American history, one that in his telling seems to involve a wide range of local and federal prosecutors, grand jurors, judges, plaintiffs, regulators and witnesses who have all lied for years to set him up while he is the one truth teller, no matter what the charges.
“I never thought it possible that such a thing could happen to a former President of the United States, who received far more votes than any sitting President in the History of our Country, and is currently leading, by far, all Candidates, both Democrat and Republican, in Polls of the 2024 Presidential Election,” he wrote on his social media site, making multiple misleading assertions in a single sentence. “I AM AN INNOCENT MAN!”
New York Times, A Times investigation went inside Mar-a-Lago, where thousands partied near secret files. (From 2022), Anjali Singhvi, Mika Gröndahl, Maggie Haberman, Weiyi Cai and Blacki Migliozzi, Dec. 15, 2022. A Times investigation shows how Donald J. Trump stored classified documents in high-traffic areas at Mar-a-Lago, where guests may have been within feet of the materials.
Mar-a-Lago is the primary home of former President Donald J. Trump. It is also a private club reserved for 500 members and a venue for parties and fund-raisers that are frequently attended by hundreds of people at a time.
New York Times, These are some of the charges Mr. Trump faces, Charlie Savage, June 9, 2023 (print ed.). Taking a look at what the prosecutors may have to prove to a jury. A grand jury has charged former President Donald J. Trump with a total of seven counts, according to two people familiar with the indictment.
While the precise details of all the charges are not yet clear, the people familiar with the matter said the charges include willfully retaining national defense secrets in violation of the Espionage Act, conspiracy to obstruct justice, and making false statements.
Here is a closer look.
New York Times, Republicans in Congress are decrying the indictment, vowing retaliation, Luke Broadwater, June 9, 2023 (print ed.). House Republicans reacted with outrage on Thursday night to the federal indictment of former President Donald J. Trump, vowing to use their majority in Congress to fight the Justice Department.
“WITCH HUNT,” was posted on the Twitter account of the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee within minutes of news of the indictment becoming public.
The chairman of that panel, Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, has used his perch to attempt to pressure the Justice Department over what he views as unfair treatment of Mr. Trump. Mr. Jordan this week sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland demanding unredacted documents concerning the investigation of the special counsel, Jack Smith.
“It’s a sad day for America,” Mr. Jordan said in a statement on Thursday. “God bless President Trump.”
Members of Congress have no power to stop criminal charges, but they can attempt to interfere with prosecutors through their legislative powers, such as issuing subpoenas, demanding witness interviews or documents, restricting Justice Department funding and using the platform of their offices to attempt to publicly influence the case.
Several Republicans who are closely allied with Mr. Trump said, without evidence, that the indictment was an attempt to distract from their investigation into President Biden’s family, including his son Hunter’s business dealings. They made clear that they would target federal law enforcement in retaliation.
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, said the case against Mr. Trump was a “stain on our nation that the F.B.I. and D.O.J. are so corrupt and they don’t even hide it anymore.” She added, “We must win in 2024. We must beat these sick people.”
Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida and one of Mr. Trump’s closest allies, predicted that the former president would prevail against the charges, and that his rivals would be imprisoned.
“This scheme won’t succeed. President Donald Trump will be back in the White House and Joe Biden will be Hunter’s cellmate,” Mr. Gaetz wrote on Twitter.
It was the second time this year that House Republicans rallied to Mr. Trump’s defense after he was charged criminally. In April, Speaker Kevin McCarthy pledged to use the investigative powers of the House to hold Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, “accountable” after Mr. Trump was charged in New York with 34 counts of falsifying business records.
New York Times, Judge Appointed by Trump Will Oversee Case, at Least Initially, Alan Feuer, Maggie Haberman, William K. Rashbaum and Ben Protess, June 9, 2023. Judge Aileen M. Cannon, right, who Mr. Trump appointed to the bench in 2020, is scheduled, for now, to preside over his first appearance in Federal District Court in Miami.
The Justice Department took the momentous step to file criminal charges against Donald Trump after an investigation of his handling of classified files; Mr. Trump’s indictment will be initially overseen by a federal judge who has been criticized for handing him unusually favorable rulings.
Former President Donald J. Trump’s criminal indictment on charges stemming from his handling of classified documents will be overseen — at least initially — by a federal judge who a higher court criticized for handing him a series of unusually favorable rulings during the early stages of the investigation, according to five people familiar with the matter.
The judge, Aileen M. Cannon, who Mr. Trump himself appointed to the bench in 2020, his final year in office, is scheduled, at least for now, to preside over the former president’s first appearance in Federal District Court in Miami on Tuesday, the people said. But it was not clear whether Judge Cannon would remain assigned for the entirety of Mr. Trump’s case.
Judge Cannon’s involvement was earlier reported by ABC News.
While judges are typically given cases by a random process, it is also customary to hand incoming matters to judges who have dealt with related ones.
Last fall, Judge Cannon presided over an unusual and highly contentious legal battle between the Justice Department and Mr. Trump’s lawyers over whether to pause the documents investigation so that an outside arbiter could review thousands of records seized by the F.B.I. from Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s private club and residence in Florida.
Ruling for Mr. Trump, Judge Cannon effectively froze a significant portion of the government’s inquiry, barring prosecutors from using the materials seized from Mar-a-Lago for any “investigative purpose” connected to the case against Mr. Trump until the work of the arbiter, known as a special master, was finished.
An appeals court sitting in Atlanta ultimately overruled Judge Cannon, scrapped the special master’s review and allowed the investigation of Mr. Trump to resume unhindered.
In a sharply critical decision, a three-member panel of the appeals court said Judge Cannon never had the proper jurisdiction to intervene in the case and order the review. The court also chided her for stopping federal investigators from using the files seized from Mar-a-Lago, saying there was no justification for treating Mr. Trump differently from any other target of a search warrant.
“It is indeed extraordinary for a warrant to be executed at the home of a former president — but not in a way that affects our legal analysis or otherwise gives the judiciary license to interfere in an ongoing investigation,” the court wrote.
the Trump drama play out without commenting, convinced that it is better they be seen as governing. Biden is about to leave the White House for a daylong visit to North Carolina, where he will visit a community college for an event on workforce training and, later, the Army base Fort Liberty, where he will meet with service members.
Washington Post, Trump charged in secret documents case, Devlin Barrett, Perry Stein and Josh Dawsey, June 9, 2023 (print ed.). Former president, shown above in a file photo and the first ever to face federal criminal charges, posts on social media that he must appear in court in Miami on Tuesday, The former president posted on social media that he must appear in court in Miami on Tuesday.
Former president Donald Trump said Thursday night that he’s been charged by the Justice Department in connection with the discovery that hundreds of classified documents were taken to his Mar-a-Lago home after he left the White House — a seismic event in the nation’s political and legal history.
Several Trump advisers confirmed the charges. Trump, who is the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, said he has been summoned to appear in federal court in Miami on Tuesday at 3 p.m. A seven-count indictment has been filed in federal court naming the former president as a criminal defendant, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a case that has yet to be unsealed.
The charges include illegal retention of government secrets, obstruction of justice and conspiracy, according to people familiar with the matter. It is the second time Trump has been criminally charged since March, when he was indicted in state court in New York on 34 counts of falsifying business records related to hush-money payments from 2016. Trump, who has denied wrongdoing in both cases, is the only former president ever charged with a crime.
“I have been indicted, seemingly over the Boxes Hoax,” Trump posted on social media site Truth Social. He claimed he was being treated unfairly. “I never thought it possible that such a thing could happen to a former President of the United States,” he said in a screed that ended: “I AM AN INNOCENT MAN!”
A spokesman for special counsel Jack Smith, who has been running the investigation since November, declined to comment.
The charges cap a high-stakes investigation that began in early 2022 and slowly built steam over the summer, until FBI agents conducted a court-ordered search of Trump’s home in early August which turned up 103 classified documents, even after Trump’s advisers had claimed they had conducted a diligent search in June for such papers and handed over all they could find.
In the months since that raid, investigators have been gathering evidence to determine whether the former president deliberately set out to obstruct law-enforcement efforts to recover the top-secret material at his Florida home and private club.
Much of the investigation centered around the actions of Trump and his closest advisers following a May subpoena from the government for the return of all documents with classified markings. Witness and videotape evidence gathered by the FBI indicated that Trump may have sought to keep documents, despite having turned over some material to authorities in response to the subpoena.
The Warning, Steve Schmidt compares recent attacks on Donald Trump from former Vice President Mike Pence and former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, June 8-9, 2023. Steve says that Christie's direct style is more likely to impact Donald Trump's ability to be the Republican nominee, which is important for the future of democracy.
June 7
Justice Department Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, left, and former President Donald Trump, shown in a collage via CNN.
The Independent, Investigative Report: Prosecutors ready to ask for Trump indictment on obstruction and Espionage Act charges, Andrew Feinberg, June 7, 2023. The Independent has learned that prosecutors are prepared to ask grand jurors to vote on charges as early as Thursday
The Department of Justice is preparing to ask a Washington, DC grand jury to indict former president Donald Trump for violating the Espionage Act and for obstruction of justice as soon as Thursday, adding further weight to the legal baggage facing Mr Trump as he campaigns for his party’s nomination in next year’s presidential election.
The Independent has learned that prosecutors are ready to ask grand jurors to approve an indictment against Mr Trump for violating a portion of the US criminal code known as Section 793, which prohibits “gathering, transmitting or losing” any “information respecting the national defence”.
The use of Section 793, which does not make reference to classified information, is understood to be a strategic decision by prosecutors that has been made to short-circuit Mr Trump’s ability to claim that he used his authority as president to declassify documents he removed from the White House and kept at his Palm Beach, Florida property long after his term expired on 20 January 2021.
That section of US criminal law is written in a way that could encompass Mr Trump’s conduct even if he was authorised to possess the information as president because it states that anyone who “lawfully having possession of, access to, control over, or being entrusted with any document ...relating to the national defence,” and “willfully communicates, delivers, transmits or causes to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted or attempts to communicate, deliver, transmit or cause to be communicated, delivered or transmitted the same to any person not entitled to receive it, or willfully retains the same and fails to deliver it on demand to the officer or employee of the United States entitled to receive it” can be punished by as many as 10 years in prison.
It is understood that prosecutors intend to ask grand jurors to vote on the indictment on Thursday, but that vote could be delayed as much as a week until the next meeting of the grand jury to allow for a complete presentation of evidence, or to allow investigators to gather more evidence for presentation if necessary.
A separate grand jury that is meeting in Florida has also been hearing evidence in the documents investigation. That grand jury was empaneled in part to overcome legal issues posed by the fact that some of the crimes allegedly committed by Mr Trump took place in that jurisdiction, not in Washington. Under federal law, prosecutors must bring charges against federal defendants in the jurisdiction where the crimes took place.
Meidas Touch Network, Breaking: DOJ Prepared to INDICT Trump as Meadows Makes STUNNING Move, June 7, 2023. MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on the breaking news that Special Counsel Jack Smith is ready to indict Donald Trump as early as this week and that Mark Meadows, the former Trump chief of staff shown above in a file photo, has agreed to plead guilty to several federal charges as part of a deal he has already received for limited immunity in exchange for his testimony.
Jack Smith has been leading an inquiry into Mr. Trump since his appointment in November (Pool photo by Peter Dejong).
New York Times, Grand Jury Hints at Unknown Complexities in Donald Trump Documents Inquiry, Alan Feuer, Maggie Haberman and Ben Protess, June 7, 2023 (print ed.). A previously unknown federal grand jury in Florida has recently started hearing testimony in the case. The latest twist in the inquiry into former President Donald J. Trump’s handling of classified documents is the surprise revelation that a previously unknown federal grand jury in Florida has recently started hearing testimony in the case.
The grand jury in Florida is separate from the one that has been sitting for months in Washington and has been the center of activity for prosecutors as they investigate whether Mr. Trump mishandled classified documents after leaving office or obstructed efforts to retrieve them. Among those who have appeared before the Washington grand jury in the past few months or have been subpoenaed by it, people familiar with the investigation said, are more than 20 members of Mr. Trump’s Secret Service security detail.
But there are indications that the Washington grand jury — located in the city’s federal courthouse — may have stopped hearing witness testimony in recent weeks, according to three people familiar with its workings.
As for the Florida grand jury, which began hearing evidence last month, only a handful of witnesses have testified to it or are scheduled to appear before it, according to the people familiar with its workings. At least one witness has already testified there, and another is set to testify on Wednesday.
It is an open question why prosecutors impaneled the Florida grand jury — which is sitting in Federal District Court in Miami — and whether it is now the only one hearing testimony. This uncertainty, which is largely due to the secret nature of grand juries, serves to underscore how much about the management of the documents case by the special counsel Jack Smith remains out of public view.
“We know a tiny fraction of what agents and prosecutors know, and so it is hazardous, if not impossible, to figure out the government’s strategy from afar,” said Chuck Rosenberg, a former U.S. attorney and F.B.I. official. “It is like the guy berating an umpire for missed calls from the cheap seats.”
But even though much is shrouded in mystery, legal experts and people familiar with the inquiry suggested that there could be a number of reasons Mr. Smith may have chosen to use a grand jury in Florida for at least some elements of the case. His decision could have significant effects on how the inquiry plays out.
In simple terms, the people familiar with the matter said, if both grand juries are in operation, it suggests that prosecutors are considering bringing charges in both Washington and Florida. It is possible that Mr. Trump could be charged in one jurisdiction while other people involved in the case are charged in the other.
But if only the Florida grand jury is currently hearing testimony, it suggests two possibilities.
One is that the investigation in Washington is largely complete and that prosecutors are now poised to make a decision about bringing charges there while still weighing other potential indictments in Florida.
The other is that Mr. Smith has decided that Florida is the proper venue for any charges he might bring in the case and has moved the entire grand jury proceeding there, they said.
(Another possibility is that the Florida grand jury is merely hearing evidence as a convenience to local witnesses — though that option would seem less likely since more than one witness has appeared before it.)
Politico, DOJ counters QAnon Shaman’s bid to toss his Jan. 6 sentence, Kyle Cheney, June 7, 2023 (print ed.). Jacob Chansley’s claim is based on footage aired by Tucker Carlson.
The Justice Department on Tuesday blasted as “meritless” a bid by Jan. 6 rioter Jacob Chansley — famously known as the QAnon Shaman — to unravel his conviction for obstructing Congress’ proceedings on Jan. 6, 2021, which landed him in prison for more than two years.
Chansley’s legal effort, fueled by Capitol surveillance footage provided to Fox News’ Tucker Carlson by Speaker Kevin McCarthy, distorts the “overwhelming” evidence of his criminality, argued Assistant U.S. Attorney Kimberly Paschall in a blistering 31-page filing. In fact, Carlson’s footage covered roughly four minutes of Chansley’s trip through the Capitol and was nearly all subsequent to the most egregious examples of his conduct that day, the prosecutor wrote.
“The Tucker Carlson footage primarily shows Chansley’s movements from approximately 2:56 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. Prior to that time, Chansley had, amongst other acts, breached a police line at 2:09 p.m. with the mob on the Capitol steps … and faced off with members of the U.S. Capitol Police for more than thirty minutes in front of the Senate Chamber doors while elected officials, including the vice president of the United States, fled,” Paschall wrote. “Chansley then entered the Senate Gallery unescorted at 2:52 p.m., where he proceeded to scream obscenities, while other rioters rifled through the desks of U.S. Senators on the floor below.”
“All these actions were captured by Senate floor cameras, a journalist’s footage, MPD body-worn cameras, other rioter’s footage, and/or Capitol CCV cameras; all of these actions were before the footage in question,” Paschall continued.
Chansley has claimed that the clips aired by Carlson were a new wrinkle in his long-winding case that he deserved access to before pleading guilty — that it showed him being “escorted” by police. He claimed that his previous lawyer shouldn’t have agreed to the terms of prosecutors’ plea offer before having a chance to review all surveillance footage from that day.
But DOJ’s Tuesday filing skewered that argument, contending the vast majority of the footage had been turned over to Chansley and his previous lawyer in advance of his guilty plea and sentencing. And that, in some cases, the footage Chansley’s lawyer had access to at the time was even more detailed than what Carlson aired.
For example, DOJ indicated that by May 2021, Chansley’s lawyer had obtained body-worn camera footage from two D.C. police officers who observed Chansley walking through the halls with a Capitol Police officer, Keith Robishaw, en route to the Senate chamber. (The scene was among those aired by Carlson, but the surveillance footage lacks audio, unlike body-worn cameras, which capture sound.)
And Robishaw’s explanation for his actions has been well-known. Footage shows he had been trying to convince Chansley and others to leave the chamber, only for his requests to go ignored — until a phalanx of D.C. officers surged into the chamber and cleared it of remaining rioters.
Justice Department Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, left, and former President Donald Trump, shown in a collage via CNN.
Washington Post, Trump Investigations: Trump’s lawyers meet with Justice Dept. to argue against charging him in classified documents case, Jacqueline Alemany, Spencer S. Hsu, Perry Stein, Devlin Barrett and Josh Dawsey, June 6, 2023 (print ed.). Attorneys for Donald Trump came to the Justice Department on Monday morning to make their case that the government should not charge the former president in connection with his possession of classified documents after leaving office, a person familiar with the situation said.
Among the lawyers at the meeting were John Rowley and James Trusty, according to multiple people familiar with the situation, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss it.
In late May, Rowley and Trusty sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland asking for a meeting to discuss what they call the unfair treatment of Trump by special counsel Jack Smith, who is leading the probe.
It is not unusual for lawyers for high-profile defendants to seek an audience with senior Justice Department officials toward the end of a federal criminal investigation. But it would be uncommon for such meetings to take place with the attorney general, the nation’s top law enforcement official. Instead, they would usually be held with the chief of whichever Justice Department division is handling an investigation and potential prosecution, or sometimes the deputy attorney general.
And in Trump’s case, a meeting with the attorney general would be even more unusual and problematic because the investigation is being led by Smith, whose special counsel appointment gives him greater autonomy than other prosecutors in the Justice Department. Under department regulations, the attorney general may overrule the special counsel only if the special counsel has failed to follow Justice Department policies and practices.
Smith was appointed to lead the case in November, after Trump launched his 2024 bid for president. His team of federal prosecutors is investigating whether Trump or those close to him mishandled classified documents the former president kept after leaving office, or obstructed government efforts to retrieve them.
A grand jury has been hearing testimony from dozens of witnesses in recent months at the federal courthouse in downtown Washington. Investigators also have surveillance video showing boxes of documents being moved at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida residence and private club, and an audio recording of Trump talking about having an apparently classified document in his possession.
Politico, Trump scores 50 endorsements from the West Virginia state legislature, Meridith McGraw, June 7, 2023. Nearly half the elected Republicans in the state house have signed a letter backing the former president.
Nearly half of the West Virginia state legislature has signed on to a letter endorsing Donald Trump in the Republican primary, marking an early show of strength from the former president as the campaign gets underway.
“As President, Donald J. Trump fought for conservative Republican principles and delivered responsible America First policies that greatly benefited West Virginia, our nation, and the world,” reads a letter signed by members of the state House of Delegates and Senate and obtained by POLITICO. “President Trump exhibited strength and determination within his service to our country, as he bravely countered unwarranted attacks, never wavering from his commitment to the American people.”
The letter is signed by 50 members total, including 40 West Virginia Delegates and ten Senators. It was organized by Delegate Josh Holstein from Boone County and constitutes slightly less than half of the Republicans serving in the W.V. capitol: there are 100 members in the House of Delegates, 89 of which are Republicans, and there are 34 members of the W.V. state Senate, 31 of which are Republican.
“It’s really not been that big of a lift in West Virginia. The President is extremely popular. He’s absolutely considered to be the leader of the party and in West Virginia and many of us are happy to jump on early and support them on behalf of our constituents,” said Holstein, who said he worked with the Trump campaign to organize the letter.
Washington Post, Trump-funded studies disputing election fraud are focus in two probes, Josh Dawsey and Amy Gardner, June 6, 2023 (print ed.). A decision by then-President Donald Trump’s campaign to spend more than $1 million for two firms to study whether electoral fraud occurred in the 2020 election has become an increasing focus of federal and state investigators in recent weeks, according to people familiar with the matter.
In recent days, the district attorney in Georgia’s Fulton County has asked both firms to provide research and data as investigators intensify their probe into Trump’s attempt to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.
Not only has the office asked for information and data about Georgia, three people familiar with the inquiries said, but it also is seeking other communications with Trump officials and detailed information about the campaign’s activities in other states. The research is likely to be used as the prosecutors try to build a broader case, alleging racketeering, according to the three people.
In addition, on the federal level, Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith is questioning witnesses about the companies’ work and has obtained hundreds of pages of emails and research, two people familiar with the matter said.
Both firms, Berkeley Research Group and Simpatico Software Systems, are said to be cooperating with the inquiries. The two companies declined to comment for this article. Four other people familiar with one or both of the probes spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose internal details.
Earlier this spring, federal prosecutors obtained evidence from Berkeley employees that in late 2020, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows berated employees at the firm after they said there was not enough evidence to overturn the election results and encouraged them to find fraud, people with knowledge of the testimony said.
June 6
Washington Post, Opinion: 6 tough topics the media must not ignore in 2024 coverage, Jennifer Rubin, right, June 6, 2023. After the CNN town hall debacle, the mainstream political media should carefully consider their proper role in the 2024 GOP primary race, which includes former president and coup-instigator Donald Trump, several Trump imitators who continue pushing the “big lie” and a flock that traffics in white Christian nationalism.
Given that experience and fidelity to the truth are no longer prerequisites for the GOP nomination (as we saw in 2016), the media must assume the responsibility of helping voters sift between fact and fiction. When so many candidates wander far from reality and reject democratic values, the media takes on the special obligation to tease out the truth. They cannot be passive observers.
That requires more than transcribing the candidates’ conflicting claims. The media must refrain, for example, from false equivalencies and amplification of lies. They become liars’ enablers when, for example, they make assertions such as: Former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson says President Biden won in 2020, a claim Trump disputes. Treating truth and lies as worthy of equal consideration makes the media complicit in MAGA deception.
Whether in debates, interviews, brief press availabilities, or print and online analyses of candidates’ views, outlets would be wise to follow at least six guidelines:
- Do not countenance the ‘big lie.’
- Pressure Trump’s opponents to state their objections.
- Challenge candidates on nonsensical “woke” attacks.
- Push candidates to justify their positions.
- Press candidates on abortion.
- Challenge candidates on voter suppression.
June 3
Justice Department Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, left, and former President Donald Trump, shown in a collage via CNN.
New York Times, Trump Lawyer’s Notes Could Be a Key in the Classified Documents Inquiry, Alan Feuer and Maggie Haberman, June 3, 2023 (print ed.). M. Evan Corcoran recorded recollections of his legal work for Donald Trump. The audio is now with prosecutors, unnerving some aides to the former president.
Turning on his iPhone one day last year, the lawyer M. Evan Corcoran recorded his reflections about a high-profile new job: representing former President Donald J. Trump in an investigation into his handling of classified documents.
In complete sentences and a narrative tone that sounded as if it had been ripped from a novel, Mr. Corcoran recounted in detail a nearly monthlong period of the documents investigation, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Mr. Corcoran’s narration of his recollections covered his initial meeting with Mr. Trump in May last year to discuss a subpoena from the Justice Department seeking the return of all classified materials in the former president’s possession, the people said.
It also encompassed a search that Mr. Corcoran undertook last June in response to the subpoena for any relevant records being kept at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s private club and residence in Florida. He carried out the search in preparation for a visit by prosecutors, who were on their way to enforce the subpoena and collect any sensitive material found remaining there.
Government investigators almost never obtain a clear lens into a lawyer’s private dealings with their clients, let alone with such a prominent one as Mr. Trump. A recording like the voice memo Mr. Corcoran made last year — during a long drive to a family event, according to two people briefed on the recording — is typically shielded by attorney-client or work-product privilege.
But in March, a federal judge ordered Mr. Corcoran’s recorded recollections — now transcribed onto dozens of pages — to be given to the office of the special counsel Jack Smith, who is leading the documents investigation.
The decision by the judge, Beryl A. Howell, pierced the privilege that would have normally protected Mr. Corcoran’s musings about his interactions with Mr. Trump. Those protections were set aside under what is known as the crime-fraud exception, a provision that allows prosecutors to work around attorney-client privilege if they have reason to believe that legal advice or legal services were used in furthering a crime.
Judge Howell, in a sealed memorandum that accompanied her decision, made clear that prosecutors believe Mr. Trump knowingly misled Mr. Corcoran about the location of documents that would be responsive to the subpoena, according to a person familiar with the memo’s contents.
Mr. Corcoran’s notes, which have not been previously described in such detail, will likely play a central role as Mr. Smith and his team move toward concluding their investigation and turn to the question of whether to bring charges against Mr. Trump. They could also show up as evidence in a courtroom if a criminal case is ultimately filed and goes to trial.
New York Times, Lawyers Unable to Find Document Trump Discussed in Recorded Conversation, Alan Feuer and Maggie Haberman, June 3, 2023 (print ed.). Prosecutors issued a subpoena for a description of military options for Iran mentioned by the former president during an interview. But Mr. Trump’s legal team said they could find no such document.
Shortly after learning that former President Donald J. Trump had been recorded discussing what appeared to be classified material describing military options for confronting Iran, federal prosecutors issued a subpoena to his lawyers seeking the return of all records that resembled the document he mentioned, two people familiar with the matter said on Friday.
But Mr. Trump’s legal team has informed the Justice Department that it was unable to find any such records in his possession, the people said. It is unclear whether prosecutors have been able to track down the document themselves, leaving open the possibility that the material remains at large or that the famously blustery Mr. Trump incorrectly described it on the recording.
The subpoena, which was issued in March, sought any and all records pertaining to Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and to Iran, including maps or invasion plans, according to the people familiar with the matter. As part of their investigation, prosecutors have been asking witnesses whether Mr. Trump showed people a map he took with him when he left office that contains sensitive intelligence information.
The subpoena, which was reported earlier by CNN, mentioned General Milley because Mr. Trump brought up the classified document at a meeting as a way to rebut what he perceived as criticism from Mr. Milley about military decisions concerning Iran. The meeting, which took place in July 2021 at Mr. Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, N.J., was between Mr. Trump and two people helping with a book being written by the final Trump White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows.
A small number of aides to Mr. Trump also attended, including Margo Martin, who routinely sat in on and recorded book interviews granted by Mr. Trump, and Liz Harrington, the former president’s spokeswoman.
The subpoena appears to have been prompted by testimony that Ms. Martin gave about the recording to a federal grand jury investigating the documents case, according to the people familiar with the matter. A similar subpoena for records related to the document on Iran was issued to at least one other person who was at the meeting at Bedminster.
Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Mr. Trump, denounced what he said were conclusions based on “fake leaks that were clearly partisan.”
Throughout the investigation of Mr. Trump by the Justice Department and then by a special counsel, Jack Smith, prosecutors have expressed concern that Mr. Trump has failed to fully comply with efforts to retrieve all the classified material in his possession.
A central part of their inquiry is whether the former president obstructed the government’s repeated attempts to get the material back — first through a subpoena that was issued last May and then through a search warrant executed in August at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s private club and residence in Florida.
Fani Willis, left, is the district attorney for Atlanta-based Fulton County in Georgia. Her office has been probing since 2021 then-President Trump's claiming beginning in 2020 of election fraud in Georgia and elsewhere. Trump and his allies have failed to win support for their claims from Georgia's statewide election officials, who are Republican, or from courts.
Washington Post, Investigation: Georgia probe of Trump broadens to activities in other states, Amy Gardner and Josh Dawsey, June 3, 2023 (print ed.). An Atlanta-area investigation of alleged election interference by former president Donald Trump and his allies has broadened to include activities in Washington, D.C., and several other states, according to two people with knowledge of the probe — a fresh sign that prosecutors may be building a sprawling case under Georgia’s racketeering laws.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D) launched an investigation more than two years ago to examine efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn his narrow 2020 defeat in Georgia. Along the way, she has signaled publicly that she may use Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) statute to allege that these efforts amounted to a far-reaching criminal scheme.
In recent days, Willis has sought information related to the Trump campaign hiring two firms to find voter fraud across the United States and then burying their findings when they did not find it, allegations that reach beyond Georgia’s borders, said the two individuals, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly about the investigation. At least one of the firms has been subpoenaed by Fulton County investigators.
Willis’s investigation is separate from the one at the Department of Justice being led by special counsel Jack Smith, but the two probes have covered some of the same ground. Willis has said she plans to make a charging decision this summer, and she has indicated that such an announcement could come in early August. She has faced stiff criticism from Republicans for investigating the former president, and the ever-widening scope suggests just how ambitious her plans may be.
The state’s RICO statute is among the most expansive in the nation, allowing prosecutors to build racketeering cases around violations of both state and federal laws — and even activities in other states. If Willis does allege a multistate racketeering scheme with Trump at its center, the case could test the bounds of the controversial law and make history in the process. The statute calls for penalties of up to 20 years in prison.
“Georgia’s RICO statute is basically two specified criminal acts that have to be part of a pattern of behavior done with the same intent or to achieve a common result or that have distinguishing characteristics,” said John Malcolm, a former Atlanta-based federal prosecutor who is now a constitutional scholar at the conservative Heritage Foundation. “That’s it. It’s very broad. That doesn’t mean it’s appropriate to charge a former president, but that also doesn’t mean she can’t do it or won’t do it.”
Among Willis’s latest areas of scrutiny is the Trump campaign’s expenditure of more than $1 million on two firms to study whether electoral fraud occurred in the 2020 election, the two individuals said. The Post first reported earlier this year that the work was carried out in the final weeks of 2020, and the campaign never released the findings because the firms, Simpatico Software Systems and Berkeley Research Group, disputed many of Trump’s theories and could not offer any proof that he was the rightful winner of the election.
In recent days, Willis’s office has asked both firms for information — not only about Georgia, but about other states as well. Trump contested the 2020 election result in Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Ken Block, the CEO of Simpatico Software Systems, declined to comment on what he has turned over to investigators. A lawyer for the Berkeley Research Group also declined to comment. A spokesman for Willis declined to comment on the investigation. Lawyers for Trump also declined to comment.
It is unclear if Willis will seek indictments of people for alleged actions that occurred outside of Georgia, such as those who participated in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. RICO experts say it’s unlikely she will do so. But, these experts said, the law allows Willis to build a sweeping narrative of an alleged pattern of behavior to overturn the 2020 election, with Georgia as just one piece. Evidence and actions from outside the state, such as Trump’s statements from Washington that inspired some of the rioters and parallel efforts to overturn other states’ results, could be presented as additional evidence that helps establish that pattern.
“The Georgia statute is broadly written” to allow the inclusion of violations of federal law as well as some other states’ laws, said Morgan Cloud, a law professor at Emory University in Atlanta and expert on the state’s RICO law. “For example, acts to obstruct justice committed in Arizona might be relevant if the goal of the enterprise, of the racketeering activity, was to overturn the 2020 presidential election nationally, as well as in Georgia.”
New York Times, Two More Oath Keepers Members Sentenced for Sedition in Jan. 6 Case, Zach Montague, June 3, 2023 (print ed.). A federal judge sentenced two members of the Oath Keepers militia to less than four years in prison for seditious conspiracy on Friday, placing a brake on the government’s effort to impose lengthy terms on members of the group for roles in the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021.
The two men, David Moerschel and Joseph Hackett, who traveled from Florida to join the Oath Keepers in Washington on Jan. 6, received terms of three years and three and a half years, respectively.
Judge Amit P. Mehta, left, who has presided over three separate Oath Keepers trials that all have now concluded, diverged from federal guidelines in his decisions in Federal District Court in Washington this week. Prosecutors had requested 12 years for Mr. Moerschel and 10 years for Mr. Hackett.
The prison terms were a marked contrast to the ones Judge Mehta handed down last week to the group’s leader, Stewart Rhodes, and one of his deputies, Kelly Meggs. They received 18 years and 12 years, respectively. The judge veered toward leniency with members lower in the Oath Keepers’ hierarchy. Two others convicted of seditious conspiracy were sentenced this week to no more than four and a half years in prison.
“Sentencing shouldn’t be vengeful; it shouldn’t be such that it is unduly harsh simply for the sake of being harsh,” Judge Mehta said at the end of Mr. Moerschel’s hearing.
On the day of the riot, both Mr. Moerschel and Mr. Hackett marched in a “stack” formation led by Mr. Meggs, forcing their way past police officers and into the Capitol.
Both were also part of a group chat for members in Florida in which Mr. Rhodes repeatedly encouraged people to come to Washington to dispute the election results.
“We need to make those senators very uncomfortable with all of us being a few hundred feet away,” Mr. Rhodes wrote to the group two weeks before Jan. 6.
Prosecutors emphasized on Friday that Mr. Moerschel had brought his own weapons with him ahead of the riot, storing his AR-15 rifle and semiautomatic pistol among a cache of weapons that members had amassed in Virginia a day earlier. They told the judge that they believed Mr. Moerschel came to Washington ready to heed “the impulses of madmen” like Mr. Rhodes and Mr. Meggs, and stood ready to take up arms in Washington if called upon to do so by the Oath Keeper leaders or former President Donald J. Trump.
June 2
The Atlantic, Inside the Meltdown at CNN, Tim Alberta, Photographs by Mark Peterson, June 2, 2023. CEO Chris Licht (shown above in a CNN/Warner Brothers 
photo)) felt he was on a mission to restore the network’s reputation for serious journalism. How did it all go wrong?
“How are we gonna cover Trump? That’s not something I stay up at night thinking about,” Chris Licht told me. “It’s very simple.”
It was the fall of 2022. This was the first of many on-the-record interviews that Licht had agreed to give me, and I wanted to know how CNN’s new leader planned to deal with another Donald Trump candidacy. Until recently Licht had been producing a successful late-night comedy show. Now, just a few months into his job running one of the world’s preeminent news organizations, he claimed to have a “simple” answer to the question that might very well come to define his legacy.
“The media has absolutely, I believe, learned its lesson,” Licht said.
The Warning with Steve Schmidt, Steve Schmidt explains why CNN has proven to be unfit to cover Donald Trump, June 2, 2023 (18:47 mins.). Steve Schmidt reacts to the profile of the Head of CNN, Chris Licht, in The Atlantic. Steve explains how Licht's lack of character led to the debacle at the Trump Town Hall and will continue to lead to a failure in covering the former President.
The Guardian, ‘Extra Trumpy’: Atlantic profile of CNN chief Licht details town hall disaster, Martin Pengelly, June 3, 2023. Network chief executive reportedly wanted New Hampshire event to be ‘extra Trumpy’ but broadcast prompted wide condemnation
The CNN chief executive, Chris Licht, wanted the network’s New Hampshire town hall with Donald Trump last month to be “extra Trumpy”, according to a report on Licht’s attempts to remodel the news giant and how controversy over the Trump event continues to reverberate through US politics and media.
In a lengthy profile published on Friday, Tim Alberta of the Atlantic wrote: “Licht wasn’t scared to bring a bunch of Maga enthusiasts onto his set – he had remarked to his deputies about the ‘extra Trumpy’ make-up of the crowd CNN was expecting – and he damn sure wasn’t scared of Trump.
‘Extra Trumpy’: Atlantic profile of CNN chief Licht details town hall disaster
The CNN chief executive, Chris Licht, right, wanted the network’s New Hampshire town hall with Donald Trump last month to be “extra Trumpy”, according to a report on Licht’s attempts to remodel the news giant and how controversy over the Trump event continues to reverberate through US politics and media.
In a lengthy profile published on Friday, Tim Alberta of the Atlantic wrote: “Licht wasn’t scared to bring a bunch of Maga enthusiasts onto his set – he had remarked to his deputies about the ‘extra Trumpy’ make-up of the crowd CNN was expecting – and he damn sure wasn’t scared of Trump.
“The way to deal with a bully like Trump, Licht told his journalists, was to confront him with facts.”
But Trump, wholly unsurprisingly, threw facts out of the window.
The former president repeated his lies about the 2020 election being stolen; abused E Jean Carroll, the writer against whom he had just been found liable for sexual assault and defamation; insulted his host, Kaitlan Collins; and otherwise revved up a crowd which responded with glee.
Before the town hall, Alberta wrote, Licht’s wish for an “extra Trumpy” crowd caused internal concern. After the event, amid widespread condemnation, Licht told Alberta he did not regret the crowd because it represented the Republican base.
Trump does dominate the Republican primary for 2024, capitalising on unprecedented legal jeopardy to lead his closest challenger, the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, by about 30 points in most polling averages.
Alberta shadowed Licht for months for the Atlantic as the executive attempted to redirect a network that took an adversarial stance when Trump was in power.
Licht said: “The mission was to go after this guy … Right or wrong. I’m not saying he’s a good guy. He’s definitely not. But, like, that was the mission.”
Trump, Licht said, “changed the rules of the game, and the media was a little caught off guard and put a jersey on and got into the game as a way of dealing with it. And at least [at] my organisation, I think we understand that jersey cannot go back on. Because guess what? It didn’t work.”
CNN, Licht said, should simply do “journalism” and aim to be “trusted … There has to be a source of absolute truth. There’s good actors, there’s bad actors, there’s a lot of shit in the world. There has to be something that you’re able to look at and go, ‘They have no agenda other than the truth.’”
He also said such an approach did not make him “a fascist rightwinger who’s trying to steal Fox viewers.”
June 1
Justice Department Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, left, and former President Donald Trump, shown in a collage via CNN.
New York Times, Trump Was Taped Discussing Sensitive Document He Had Kept After Leaving Office, Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Swan and Alan Feuer, June 1, 2023 (print ed.). Federal prosecutors obtained the recording as part of their investigation into former President Trump’s handling of classified documents.
Federal prosecutors investigating former President Donald J. Trump’s handling of classified material have a recording of Mr. Trump from 2021 discussing a sensitive military document he had kept after leaving the White House, two people briefed on the matter said.
In the recording, Mr. Trump suggested he knew the document was secret and had not declassified it, one person briefed on the matter said.
The existence of the recording could undermine Mr. Trump’s repeated claim that he had already declassified material that remained in his possession after he left office. Prosecutors are scrutinizing whether Mr. Trump obstructed efforts by federal officials to retrieve documents he took with him after leaving office and whether he violated laws governing the handling of classified material.
The existence of the recording was reported earlier by CNN.
The recording was made during a meeting Mr. Trump held in July 2021 with people helping his former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, write a memoir of his 10 months in the White House, according to the people briefed on the matter. The meeting was held at Mr. Trump’s club at Bedminster, N.J., where he spends summers.
Until now, the focus of the documents investigation has been largely on material Mr. Trump kept with him at Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence in Florida, rather than in New Jersey.
Mr. Meadows did not attend the meeting, but at least two of Mr. Trump’s aides did. One, Margo Martin, routinely taped the interviews he gave for books being written about him that year.
On the recording, Mr. Trump began railing about his handpicked chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark A. Milley, who was described in media accounts at the time as having guarded against Mr. Trump’s striking Iran in the final days of the presidency, according to the people briefed on the matter.
Mr. Trump then began referencing a document that he had with him, saying that it had been compiled by General Milley and was related to attacking Iran, the people briefed on the matter said. Among other comments, he mentioned his classification abilities during the discussion, one person briefed on the matter said. Mr. Trump can be heard handling paper on the tape, though it is not clear whether it was the document in question.
The Justice Department obtained the recording in recent months, a potentially key piece in a mountain of evidence that prosecutors have amassed under the special counsel, Jack Smith, since he was appointed in November to oversee the federal investigations into Mr. Trump.
The warrant authorizing the search of former president Donald Trump’s home said agents were seeking documents possessed in violation of the Espionage Act.
New York Times, Prosecutors Scrutinize Handling of Security Footage by Trump Aides in Documents Case, Alan Feuer, Maggie Haberman and Ben Protess, June 1, 2023 (print ed.). Investigators are trying to determine if there was an attempt to obstruct them from accessing security footage from near where classified material was stored.
For the past six months, prosecutors working for the special counsel Jack Smith have sought to determine whether former President Donald J. Trump obstructed the government’s efforts to retrieve a trove of classified documents he took from the White House.
More recently, investigators also appear to be pursuing a related question: whether Mr. Trump and some of his aides sought to interfere with the government’s attempt to obtain security camera footage from Mar-a-Lago that could shed light on how those documents were stored and who had access to them.
The search for answers on this second issue has taken investigators deep into the bowels of Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s private club and residence in Florida, as they pose questions to an expanding cast of low-level workers at the compound, according to people familiar with the matter. Some of the workers played a role in either securing boxes of material in a storage room at Mar-a-Lago or maintaining video footage from a security camera that was mounted outside the room.
Two weeks ago, the latest of these employees, an information technology worker named Yuscil Taveras, appeared before a grand jury in Washington, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Mr. Taveras was asked questions about his dealings with two other Trump employees: Walt Nauta, right, a longtime aide to Mr. Trump who served as one of his valets in the White House, and Carlos Deoliveira, described by one person familiar with the events as the head of maintenance at Mar-a-Lago.
Phone records show that Mr. Deoliveira called Mr. Taveras last summer, and prosecutors wanted to know why. The call caught the government’s attention because it was placed shortly after prosecutors issued a subpoena to Mr. Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, demanding the footage from the surveillance camera near the storage room.
The call also occurred just weeks after Mr. Deoliveira helped Mr. Nauta move boxes of documents into the storage room — the same room that Mr. Deoliveira at one point fitted with a lock. The movement of the boxes into the room took place at another key moment: on the day before prosecutors descended on Mar-a-Lago for a meeting with Mr. Trump’s lawyers intended to get him to comply with a demand to return all classified documents.
Politico, ‘Deranged leadership’: Oath Keeper who entered Capitol on Jan. 6 turns on Stewart Rhodes, Kyle Cheney, June 1, 2023. Roberto Minuta, the third Jan. 6 defendant to be sentenced for seditious conspiracy, got 4.5 years in prison.
Roberto Minuta, one of more than a dozen Oath Keepers who surged with a mob into the Capitol on Jan. 6, lashed out at the group’s founder, Stewart Rhodes, on Thursday as he prepared to face sentencing for his conviction on seditious conspiracy.
Minuta said Rhodes was part of a “deranged leadership” that turned the Oath Keepers “into a political ‘rah-rah Trump’ disaster” that duped many of the group’s members into criminal activity.
“I was misled and naive,” Minuta said, shortly before U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta sentenced him to 4½ years in prison.
Mehta credited Minuta’s comments and expressions of remorse for his actions but said his efforts to downplay his actions and involvement were belied by his clear violent intentions in the weeks preceding Jan. 6.
“Steeping yourself and cloaking yourself in this tradition of the founders and violent uprising and believing that the Second Amendment allows individual citizens to gather up arms to battle their government?” Mehta said. “The law doesn’t permit that.”
Minuta is the third Jan. 6 defendant sentenced for seditious conspiracy, the gravest charge leveled by prosecutors against about a dozen defendants charged for their role in the Jan. 6 attack.
Mehta sentenced Rhodes last week to 18 years in prison, the longest sentence handed down yet in the 1,000 cases prosecuted stemming from the violent Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol. Mehta also sentenced Oath Keeper Kelly Meggs to 12 years in prison last week. Their sentencings are the start of the most significant reckoning for the Jan. 6 rioters whom prosecutors have described as the key drivers of the violence and chaos.
Jan. 6 in 180 seconds
The judge described Rhodes as an ongoing danger to the republic who used his Yale Law education and charisma to manipulate supporters and gin up chaos and destruction. Rhodes, he found, was a key driver of the mayhem on Jan. 6, positioning the Oath Keepers to be at the forefront of a potential violent clash to prevent the transfer of power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden.
Minuta’s lawyer, William Shipley, similarly piled on Rhodes, calling him a “parasite” who used the Oath Keepers organization.
Minuta, in his remarks, said his fury at the government was driven in part by the Covid-era destruction of his business and threats he received when he opened his Newburgh, N.Y., tattoo shop in violation of local restrictions. He said that anger fused with claims by Trump and others that the election had been stolen led him to make incendiary comments on social media. He apologized for both his words and his conduct on Jan. 6.
Minuta also said his entry into the Capitol was simply about aiding police, who he claimed had asked for assistance — a proposition Mehta said was belied by Minuta’s words and actions the entire day.
“You weren’t there to help them,” Mehta said. “You may have convinced yourself of that. But there isn’t any shred of evidence that would be consistent with that intent.”
The judge added that the jury found Minuta culpable of acting in concert with other Oath Keepers whose conduct was even graver — and the law makes him culpable for the actions of his co-conspirators.
“Operating with others gives people greater courage, it gives them the ability to do more harm and it gives them the ability to have a far greater impact than they can do on their own,” Mehta said.
But Mehta also sharply diverged from prosecutors, who initially sought a 17-year sentence, and tried to cast Minuta in a similar light as Rhodes. Assistant U.S. Attorney Troy Edwards described him as a “dangerous individual to others and his republic” with a “warped sense of patriotism that calls for violence against the government when he disagrees with it.”
May
May 31
New York Times, Trump White House Aides Subpoenaed in Firing of Election Security Expert, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, May 31, 2023. The special counsel is scrutinizing the dismissal of Christopher Krebs, who contradicted former President Trump’s baseless claims about the 2020 election.
The special counsel investigating former President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to cling to power after he lost the 2020 election has subpoenaed staff members from the Trump White House who may have been involved in firing the government cybersecurity official whose agency judged the election “the most secure in American history,” according to two people briefed on the matter.
The team led by the special counsel, Jack Smith, has been asking witnesses about the events surrounding the firing of Christopher Krebs, who was the Trump administration’s top cybersecurity official during the 2020 election. Mr. Krebs’s assessment that the election was secure was at odds with Mr. Trump’s baseless assertions that it was a “fraud on the American public.”
Mr. Smith’s team is also seeking information about how White House officials, including in the Presidential Personnel Office, approached the Justice Department, which Mr. Trump turned to after his election loss as a way to try to stay in power, people familiar with the questions said.
The investigators appear focused on Mr. Trump’s state of mind around the firing of Mr. Krebs, as well as on establishing a timeline of events leading up to the attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob on Jan. 6, 2021. The latest subpoenas, issued roughly two weeks ago, went to officials in the personnel office, according to the two people familiar with the matter.
Mr. Krebs enraged Mr. Trump when his agency, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, released a statement nine days after the 2020 election attesting to the security of the results. The statement added a sharp rebuke — in boldface type — to the unfounded conspiracy theories that Mr. Trump and his allies were spreading about compromised voting machines.
“There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes or was in any way compromised,” the statement from Mr. Krebs’s agency read.
Five days later, Mr. Trump tweeted that Mr. Krebs was “terminated” after releasing a “highly inaccurate” statement about the 2020 election.
Mr. Krebs later testified to the House special committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol that before his firing, he was aware of “skepticism” among Trump allies about his “loyalty to the president.
May 29
New York Times, Trump Looks Like He Will Get the 2024 Crowd He Wants, Shane Goldmacher, Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman, May 29, 2023 (print ed.). Both Gov. Ron DeSantis, above right, and Senator Tim Scott entered the presidential race last week, with others to follow. For former President Trump, above left, the more the better.
Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida officially entered the presidential race last week, but he appears farther than ever from the one-on-one matchup that his allies believe he needs to wrest the nomination from former President Donald J. Trump.
Former Vice President Mike Pence is burrowing deeper into Iowa, crucial to his effort to dislodge the Republican front-runners, even before he has announced his bid. Former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey is intensifying preparations for another campaign, with an expected focus on New Hampshire. And Republican donors and leadership on Capitol Hill are showing fresh interest in Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, who kicked off his campaign last week. Even candidates who have barely been mentioned are suddenly expressing interest in 2024.
The rapidly ballooning field, combined with Mr. Trump’s seemingly unbreakable core of support, represents a grave threat to Mr. DeSantis, imperiling his ability to consolidate the non-Trump vote, and could mirror the dynamics that powered Mr. Trump’s takeover of the party in 2016.
It’s a matter of math: Each new entrant threatens to steal a small piece of Mr. DeSantis’s potential coalition — whether it be Mr. Pence with Iowa evangelicals or Mr. Scott with college-educated suburbanites. And these new candidates are unlikely to eat into Mr. Trump’s votes. The former president’s base — more than 30 percent of Republicans — remains strongly devoted to him.
May 28
Jessica Watkins, second from left, and Donovan Ray Crowl, center, both from Ohio, walk down the east front steps of the U.S. Capitol with other Oath Keepers members on Jan. 6, 2021 (Reuters photo by Jim Bourg).
Emptywheel, Analysis: Oaths Broken, Oath Keepers Bowed: Sentences for 2 more in marquee Jan. 6 conspiracy case, Brandi Buchman, May 28-29, 2023.
Raw emotions positively dominated a federal courthouse in Washington, D.C. this week as the Justice Department secured significant sentences for two more Oath Keepers involved in a larger conspiracy to forcibly stop America’s transfer of power on Jan. 6, 2021.
On the heels of an 18-year-sentence delivered to a defiant Elmer Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the far-right group, and a 12-year-sentence handed down to Kelly Meggs, Rhodes’ deputy on the 6th, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta sentenced Oath Keeper Jessica Watkins, right, 
once the founder of the Ohio Regular Militia, to 8.5 years and Kenneth Harrelson, below left, a ground team leader on the 6th, to four years.
Both were acquitted of the sedition charge in this case but they were found guilty of multiple felonies including serious obstruction charges. Sedition itself is rarely prosecuted in the United States and rarer still are these prosecutions successful since the bar to prove this sort of conspiracy is set so high.
This week marked a victory for the Justice Department, the rule of law, and the victims of Jan. 6 even if Donald Trump, the man who started it all, has yet to bear any real legal responsibility for his role in inciting an attack on the U.S. Capitol to stay in power.
That day may come. But in the meantime, the willing pawns in Trump’s betrayal of the U.S. Constitution and common decency alike will now begin to serve their time.
Underlining the severity of events, prosecutors initially sought an 18-year sentence for Watkins noting the jury’s conclusion that her true objective on Jan.6 was to storm the Capitol, use her body—and the bodies of her recruits—to violently obstruct the certification of the 2020 election, and intimidate Congress and impede police.
May 27
Washington Post, More Oath Keepers convicted with Rhodes for Jan. 6 attack are sentenced, Spencer S. Hsu, May 27, 2023 (print ed.). Army veterans Jessica Watkins and Kenneth Harrelson brought weapons to Virginia before marching into the Capitol in 2021, but were acquitted of seditious conspiracy.
A self-styled militia leader and bar owner from Ohio and a former welder from Florida were sentenced to 8½ years and four years in prison Friday for joining Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes in disrupting Congress’s confirmation of Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election victory in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack.
Army veterans Jessica Watkins and Kenneth Harrelson were acquitted of seditious conspiracy but convicted on other felony counts in November at trial with Rhodes and his on-the-ground leader, Kelly Meggs. Rhodes and Meggs were convicted of seditious conspiracy and sentenced Thursday. Rhodes received 18 years in prison, the longest for any Jan. 6 defendant. Meggs was sentenced to 12 years.
On Friday, U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta told Watkins after a two-hour sentencing hearing: “Nobody would suggest you’re Stewart Rhodes; I don’t think you’re Kelly Meggs. But your role in those events is more than that of just a foot soldier.”
He added, “As someone who takes a greater role in a conspiracy, you bear a greater responsibility not just for your conduct but for the conduct of those you bring to it.”
Watkins, 40, of Woodstock, Ohio, recruited three other people and was recorded on Jan. 6 on a walkie-talkie-style app saying she was walking with a group of about 30 to 40 people to the Capitol and “sticking together and sticking to the plan,” before she eventually met up with a group led by Meggs. The group marched single-file up the east Capitol steps and joined a mob that entered the Columbus doors by force.
Harrelson, 42, a former Army sergeant from Titusville, Fla., received firearms training with Meggs in Florida and, according to prosecutors, served as “Meggs’ right-hand man” in setting up video meetings and relaying instructions to other Florida Oath Keepers about stashing weapons for a “Quick Reaction Force” if violence erupted. Harrelson recorded himself yelling “Treason!” at Capitol occupants as he entered with Meggs.
Outside of Rhodes and Meggs, Watkins received the longest sentence to date for any Jan. 6 defendant who has not been convicted of assaulting a police officer. But Harrelson received a fraction of his co-defendants’ time and close to the 45-month average sentence for 22 other Jan. 6 defendants who were convicted of obstructing Congress but not found guilty of conspiring with an organized group or of committing violence.
Mehta found that Watkins’s and Harrelson’s actions qualified for an enhanced terrorism sentencing penalty for offenses calculated to coerce the government, but the judge slashed years off the penalties sought by prosecutors. Mehta noted that Watkins, like Harrelson, had been acquitted of conspiring to use force to oppose government authority, and that she turned herself in and cooperated short of pleading guilty.
The judge added that of 2,000 to 3,000 communications exchanged by co-conspirators, he found only “a couple dozen” by Harrelson. That suggested lesser intent and explained why the jury also acquitted him of conspiring to obstruct Congress, while he was convicted of actually obstructing it, plotting to interfere with police and destroying evidence, the judge said.
“What distinguishes you from everyone else so far is that there not a single word on a Signal communication that anyone would consider extremist, radicalized, encouraging someone to engage in violence, or words like ‘civil war,’ ‘revolution,’ or thinking about death,” Mehta said. “You are not someone who bears the same responsibility or culpability as the others.”
Watkins was accused of merging her local Ohio armed group with the Oath Keepers in 2020. She became a recruiter and organizer in advance of the Capitol attack, bringing firearms and other weapons and storing them outside Washington.
Watkins texted others, telling them to prepare for violence to keep Trump in office, beginning on Nov. 9, 2020, six days after the election, and she spoke of getting recruits “fighting fit by innaugeration” and uniting Oath Keepers and other extremist groups. “Be prepared to fight hand to hand,” she wrote. “Now or never.”
May 26
New York Times, Oath Keepers Leader Is Sentenced to 18 Years in Jan. 6 Sedition Case, Alan Feuer, May 26, 2023 (print ed.). The sentence for Stewart Rhodes was the longest so far in the federal investigation of the attack and the first issued to a defendant convicted of sedition.
Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the far-right Oath Keepers militia, was sentenced on Thursday to 18 years in prison for his conviction on seditious conspiracy charges for the role he played in helping to mobilize the pro-Trump attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The sentence, handed down in Federal District Court in Washington, was the most severe penalty so far in the more than 1,000 criminal cases stemming from the Capitol attack — and the first to be increased for fitting the legal definition of terrorism.
It was also the first to have been given to any of the 10 members of the Oath Keepers and another far-right group, the Proud Boys, who were convicted of sedition in connection with the events of Jan. 6.
For Mr. Rhodes, 58, the sentence was the end of a tumultuous and unusual career that included Army service, a stint on Capitol Hill and a law degree from Yale. His role as the Oath Keepers’ founder and leader thrust him into the spotlight and will now send him to prison for what is likely to be the better part of his remaining days.
At a dramatic, nearly four-hour hearing, Judge Amit P. Mehta chided Mr. Rhodes for seeking for years through his leadership of the Oath Keepers to have American democracy “devolve into violence.”
“You, sir,” Judge Mehta went on, directly addressing the defendant, “present an ongoing threat and a peril to this country, to the Republic and the very fabric of our democracy.”
As the hearing opened, prosecutors urged Judge Mehta to sentence Mr. Rhodes to 25 years in prison, arguing that accountability was needed for the violence at the Capitol and that American democracy was on the line.
Kathryn L. Rakoczy, one of the lead prosecutors in the case, told Judge Mehta that Mr. Rhodes had been calling for attacks against the government for more than a decade and that his role in the Jan. 6 attack was part of a longstanding pattern.
The Oath Keepers leader, Ms. Rakoczy said, exploited his talents and influence to goad his followers into rejecting the results of the 2020 election and ultimately mobilized them into storming the Capitol in two separate military-style “stacks” in a violent effort to keep President Donald J. Trump in office.
“It is conduct that threatened — and continues to threaten — the rule of law in the United States,” she said.
Ms. Rakoczy also noted that Mr. Rhodes had shown no remorse for undermining the lawful transition of power and continued to advocate political violence. Just four days ago, she said, Mr. Rhodes gave an interview from jail, repeating the lie that the election had been marred by fraud and asserting that the government was “coming after those on the political right.”
“It’s not going to stop until it’s stopped,” Mr. Rhodes said during the interview, adding that the country needed “regime change.”
As if to prove the government’s point, Mr. Rhodes — in an orange prison smock and his trademark black eye patch — gave a defiant address to the court, blaming the news media for demonizing the Oath Keepers for leading the Capitol attack. He also compared himself to the Soviet-era dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and to the beleaguered main character in the Kafka novel “The Trial.”
“I am a political prisoner,” Mr. Rhodes said.
The hearing opened a week of sentencing proceedings for eight other members of the Oath Keepers who were convicted at two separate trials — in November and January — of charges that included not only seditious conspiracy but also the obstruction of a congressional proceeding to certify the 2020 election. One of Mr. Rhodes’ deputies, Kelly Meggs, who once led the group’s Florida chapter, was set to be sentenced later on Thursday.
The process for sentencing all the defendants began on Wednesday, when some police officers and congressional staff members testified about the horror they experienced on Jan. 6.
Several spoke through tears on the witness stand, describing lasting symptoms of post-traumatic stress and survivor’s guilt, particularly after many of their colleagues resigned and some died by suicide in the months after the attack.
“I am an introverted, depressed shell of my former self,” said Harry Dunn, a Capitol Police officer who encountered members of the Oath Keepers in the Capitol rotunda. When Mr. Dunn referred to the officers who were injured on Jan. 6 as “real oath keepers,” he shot an angry glance toward Mr. Rhodes and other members of the group in the courtroom.
In court papers filed this month, prosecutors dwelled on the importance of severely punishing Mr. Rhodes and his subordinates, stating that the acceptance of political violence was on the rise in the United States and that lengthy prison terms were needed to serve as a deterrent against future unrest.
“As this court is well aware, the justice system’s reaction to Jan. 6 bears the weighty responsibility of impacting whether Jan. 6 becomes an outlier or a watershed moment,” the prosecutors wrote. “Left unchecked, this impulse threatens our democracy.”
In court on Thursday, prosecutors persuaded Judge Mehta to increase Mr. Rhodes’ sentence by arguing that his repeated calls for violence against the government and his plan to stage an arsenal of weapons outside Washington in case of an emergency on Jan. 6 should be punished as an act of terrorism.
“This wasn’t blowing up a building,” Ms. Rakoczy said. But “organizing an armed force” and advocating “bloody civil war” came “pretty close,” she said.
The government had asked to apply the terrorism enhancement in four previous Jan. 6 cases, but judges — including Judge Mehta — had denied the requests each time.
From the outset of the hearing, Mr. Rhodes’ lawyers — Phillip Linder and James L. Bright — were constrained in their efforts to ask for leniency, unable to fully claim that Mr. Rhodes was remorseful or no longer presented a threat to the government, knowing that his stemwinder statement to the court was coming.
May 25
Richard “Bigo” Barnett in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office on Jan. 6, 2021. Mr. Barnett was sentenced to more than four years in prison on Wednesday, May 24, 2023 (Agence France-Presse photo Saul Loeb via Getty Images).
New York Times, Jan. 6 Rioter Who Reclined in Pelosi’s Office Given Sentence of More Than 4 Years, Alan Feuer and Zach Montague, May 25, 2023 (print ed.). Richard “Bigo” Barnett, who was pictured with his foot on a desk in the speaker’s office, had been convicted of eight crimes for his role in the attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters.
On Arkansas man who became notorious for putting his foot on a desk in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office during the attack on the Capitol by supporters of President Donald J. Trump was sentenced on Wednesday to four and a half years in prison.
The man, Richard “Bigo” Barnett, was found guilty at a trial in January of eight criminal offenses, including interfering with law enforcement during a civil disorder and obstructing the certification of the 2020 election that took place at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
After deliberating for less than three hours, a jury in Federal District Court in Washington rejected Mr. Barnett’s testimony that he had ended up in Ms. Pelosi’s office suite while looking for a bathroom and that the 950,000-volt stun gun he was carrying that day was not working.
Prosecutors argued during the trial that Mr. Barnett, 63, arrived at the Capitol “prepared for violence” and intending to stop Mr. Trump from leaving office after losing the 2020 election.
In court papers filed before the sentencing hearing, prosecutors accused Mr. Barnett of seeking to profit from his case by selling autographed photos of himself leaning back with his foot on a desk in Ms. Pelosi’s office and by considering seeking copyright protections for an obscene note he left Ms. Pelosi that day, reading in part, “Hey Nancy, Bigo was here.”
Understand the Events on Jan. 6
On Wednesday, prosecutors sought to emphasize the lasting scars inflicted by the rioters. They cited Emily Berret, a staff member for Ms. Pelosi who recalled that of eight colleagues who were trapped inside the speaker’s office when the mob first overwhelmed the Capitol, six exited public service shortly thereafter.
Prosecutors also accused Mr. Barnett of lying several times in testimony during his trial, adding that he showed “brazen disrespect for every form of authority he encountered.”
“Barnett recognizes no authority but himself and is willing to do ‘whatever it takes’ to get what he wants,” the prosecutors wrote, “even if it requires harming others, stealing or breaking the law.”
Just before issuing the sentence, Judge Christopher Cooper said he was dismayed by the way Mr. Barnett had sought to cash in on his notoriety.
“You’re 63 years old; you’re too old for this nonsense,” he said. “But for better or worse you have become one of the faces of Jan. 6, and I think you enjoy it.”
Mr. Barnett was among the first defendants arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 assault and quickly became one of the best-known rioters, along with figures like Jacob Chansley, the so-called QAnon Shaman, who stormed the building in a horned helmet and was later sentenced to 41 months in prison.
Mr. Barnett has also frequently and vocally criticized the Justice Department for overreaching in its efforts to investigate the Capitol attack. He has also accused the police officers who defended lawmakers that day of instigating the assault on the building by using what he has described as excessive force.
His lawyers, Jonathan Gross and Bradford Geyer, had asked Judge Cooper to sentence Mr. Barnett to only one year in prison and to give him credit for the nearly four months he spent behind bars before his trial. The lawyers said in court papers that Mr. Barnett still believed the police used a “disproportionate response” during the attack.
“Mr. Barnett is outspoken about his political views and has attended dozens of rallies in his life, but was always peaceful, never violent,” the lawyers wrote.
More than 480 people have been sentenced so far in connection with the Capitol attack, and about 275 are serving at least some time in prison, Justice Department officials say. The terms have ranged from a high of 14 years to only days behind bars.
May 24
Justice Department Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, left, and former President Donald Trump, shown in a collage via CNN.
Proof, Investigative Commentary on The Trump Trials, Vol. 15: New Indictments Now Expected; NYC Criminal Trial Date Set; a Finding of Sexual Abuse and Defamation, Seth Abramson, left, May 24, 2023. This new Proof series—authored by a longtime criminal defense attorney and leading Trump biographer—will unpack recent events in the historic trials of disgraced former president Donald Trump.
Department of Justice Special Counsel Jack Smith is said to be wrapping up the significantly easier part of his two-part remit—the Mar-a-Lago stolen doments probe—and according to the Wall Street Journal, Donald Trump and his lawyers expect the former president to be indicted. You can read about this here.
Apparently Trump and his counsel are now so certain he’s about to be indicted—potentially for Obstruction of Justice but maybe also, now, given the evidence Smith has that Trump well knew that he could not legally take the documents, under the even-more-serious Espionage Act—that they have made an extraordinary request to meet in private with Attorney General Merrick Garland.
This request is certain to go nowhere, as it would constitute unprecedented interference by Main Justice in the work of one of its special counsels (albeit just the sort of interference Trump eagerly sought from his own DOJ when he was president) and because it includes in its sole paragraph a wholly baseless claim that the famously independent and nonpartisan Smith is in fact some sort of Democratic Party operative, but it does underscore that if Trump were still President of the United States this would be the moment that he’d fire Smith in the same way he repeatedly tried to fire Robert Mueller during the Trump-Russia investigation.
What is so stunning about the current situation is that with Trump already under dozens of felony indictments in Manhattan; with the near-certainty that he’ll soon face federal felonies in D.C. for stealing (and possibly seeking to profit from) classified documents from the White House; with Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis apparently planning to indict Trump in August on state felonies; with Smith currently widening rather than narrowing down his second-stage federal criminal investigation into Trump (the one involving January 6); and with Trump himself making sure that his Sexual Abuse and Defamation trial will continue to be in the news for the rest of this year and next (see below), we’re looking at a presidential candidate who’ll be in more civil and criminal legal trouble by far than any candidate in American history.
Indeed, as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis readies himself to announce his candidacy tonight (Wednesday, May 24, 2023) in a Twitter Spaces event with white supremacist Elon Musk, it is clearer than ever before that DeSantis does not expect to beat Trump so much as expect him to eventually be forced out of the 2024 campaign by outside forces.
May 22
Justice Department Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, left, and former President Donald Trump, shown in a collage via CNN.
New York Times, Prosecutors Sought Records on Trump’s Foreign Business Deals Since 2017, Alan Feuer, Maggie Haberman and Ben Protess, May 22, 2023. The special counsel scrutinizing former President Trump’s handling of classified documents issued a subpoena seeking records related to seven countries.
Federal prosecutors overseeing the investigation into former President Donald J. Trump’s handling of classified documents have issued a subpoena for information about Mr. Trump’s business dealings in foreign countries since he took office, according to two people familiar with the matter.
It remains unclear precisely what the prosecutors were hoping to find by sending the subpoena to Mr. Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, or when it was issued. But the subpoena suggests that investigators have cast a wider net than previously understood as they scrutinize whether he broke the law in taking sensitive government materials with him upon leaving the White House and then not fully complying with demands for their return.
The subpoena — drafted by the office of the special counsel, Jack Smith — sought details on the Trump Organization’s real estate licensing and development dealings in seven countries: China, France, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Oman, according to the people familiar with the matter. The subpoena sought the records for deals reached since 2017, when Mr. Trump was sworn in as president.
The Trump Organization swore off any foreign deals while he was in the White House, and the only such deal Mr. Trump is known to have made since then was with a Saudi-based real estate company to license its name to a housing, hotel and golf complex that will be built in Oman. He struck that deal last fall just before announcing his third presidential campaign.
The push by Mr. Smith’s prosecutors to gain insight into the former president’s foreign business was part of a subpoena — previously reported by The New York Times — that was sent to the Trump Organization and sought records related to Mr. Trump’s dealings with a Saudi-backed golf venture known as LIV Golf, which is holding tournaments at some of his golf clubs. (Mr. Trump’s arrangement with LIV Golf was reached well after he removed documents from the White House.)
Former President Donald Trump is shown in a photo collage with columnist E. Jean Carroll, who won a jury verdict that he sexually attacked her three decades ago.
New York Times, E. Jean Carroll Seeks New Damages From Trump for Comments on CNN, Benjamin Weiser, May 22, 2023. Former President Trump’s repeated denials that he sexually abused Ms. Carroll “show the depth of his malice” and merit heavy damages, her lawyer wrote.
Monday’s court filing argues Mr. Trump’s statements “show the depth of his malice toward Carroll, since it is hard to imagine defamatory conduct that could possibly be more motivated by hatred, ill will or spite.”
“This conduct supports a very substantial punitive damages award in Carroll’s favor both to punish Trump, to deter him from engaging in further defamation, and to deter others from doing the same,” the filing says.
Ms. Carroll’s lawyer, Ms. Kaplan, said in an interview Monday that Mr. Trump’s statements on CNN made pursuing the pending defamation lawsuit all the more important.
May 19
Washington Post, D.C. police officer arrested, accused of leaking info to Proud Boys leader, Spencer S. Hsu and Peter Hermann, May 19, 2023. Lt. Shane Lamond told Henry “Enrique” Tarrio that police had a warrant out for him in advance of his arrest in the burning of a Black Lives Matter flag, prosecutors say.
A D.C. police lieutenant was arrested Friday after he was accused of telling the leader of the far-right Proud Boys that he would be arrested for his actions after a December 2020 pro-Trump rally in Washington, obstructing the investigation ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack and lying to federal investigators afterward.
Fast, informative and written just for locals. Get The 7 DMV newsletter in your inbox every weekday morning.
Shane Lamond, a 24-year veteran of the D.C. police and then the department’s head of intelligence, was indicted on one count of obstruction of justice and three counts of making false statements and will be arraigned later Friday in U.S. District Court in Washington, prosecutors said.
Lamond, 47, of Stafford, Va., was in touch with former Proud Boys chairman Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, who was arrested on Jan. 4, 2021, for his part in burning a Black Lives Matter flag stolen from a historic African American church weeks earlier. Tarrio and three other Proud Boys leaders were convicted of seditious conspiracy in the Capitol riot earlier this month. In his trial, Tarrio’s defense argued that his communications with Lamond showed the Proud Boys did not conspire to commit violence and that the group had shared its plans with law enforcement.
Proud Boys revealed: Videos, secret chats show how Jan. 6 plot unfolded
But Tarrio’s prosecutors and Friday’s indictment cited other messages showing how much Lamond was sharing with Tarrio during the weeks leading up to the attack. Prosecutors alleged in Tarrio’s trial that the Proud Boys’ anger at police deepened when they received advance word that Tarrio would be arrested in Washington and that it contributed to their planning for violence in opposing federal authority, a key element of their convictions.
Background:
Washington Post, Evidence jurors saw that led to Proud Boys’ convictions, Adriana Usero, Rachel Weiner, Spencer S. Hsu and Frank Hulley-Jones, May 7, 2023. Watch trial evidence jurors saw before convicting four members of the right wing group of seditious conspiracy in the Capitol attack.
To convict Proud Boys leader Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, shown above in an Associated Press photo, and three close allies of seditious conspiracy, prosecutors pulled from thousands of videos and text messages indicating that by Jan. 6, 2021, the right-wing group’s anger and aggression toward government authority had been growing for weeks.
The Proud Boys were mobilized by President Donald Trump’s false claims of election fraud and by their own frustration with D.C. police, whom they saw as failing to protect them during street clashes with far-left protesters in late 2020. When Trump called for a “wild” rally in D.C. on Jan. 6, prosecutors said, Tarrio created a hand-picked “Ministry of Self Defense” or MOSD to lead the Proud Boys that day.
The Justice Department argued the Proud Boys’ leadership, which communicated in several encrypted group chats, viewed members as “Trump’s army” ready to do the president’s bidding. No concrete plan for taking the Capitol or stopping the transfer of power on Jan. 6 was found among those messages. But prosecutors tied discussions of revolution and revolt to video of Proud Boys leading the mob on Jan. 6, arguing that the group was unique in its embrace of violence as a political tool. They made that case using both encrypted messages and public pronouncements on Parler, a conservative social media site.
May 15
Washington Post, Durham report sharply criticizes FBI’s probe of 2016 Trump campaign, Devlin Barrett and Perry Stein, May 15, 2023. The long-awaited report on how the government probed Russian interference in the 2016 election seems likely to fuel, rather than end, partisan debates about politicization within the Justice Department and FBI.
Special counsel John Durham, right, has issued a long-awaited report that sharply criticizes the FBI for investigating the 2016 Trump campaign based on “raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated intelligence” — a conclusion that may fuel rather than end partisan debate about politicization within the Justice Department and FBI.
Durham was appointed in 2019 by President Donald Trump’s attorney general, William P. Barr, to re-examine how government agents 
hunted for possible links between the Trump campaign and Russian efforts to interfere in the presidential election. The report, coming almost four years to the day since Durham’s assignment began, will likely be derided by Democrats as the end of a partisan boondoggle, while Republicans will have to wrestle with a much-touted investigation that didn’t send a single person to jail.
Many of the details of FBI conduct described by the Durham report were previously known and had been sharply criticized by the Justice Department’s inspector general, which did not find “documentary of testimonial evidence of intentional misconduct."
Durham goes further in his criticism, however, arguing that the FBI rushed to investigate Trump in a case known as Crossfire Hurricane, even as it proceeded cautiously on allegations related to then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
Durham’s report finds the FBI failed to live up to its standards, and failed “to critically analyze information that ran counter to the narrative of a Trump/Russia collusive relationship throughout Crossfire Hurricane is extremely troublesome.”
The FBI’s handling of key aspects of the case was “seriously deficient,” Durham wrote. He concluded that the bureau failed in its responsibility to the public, causing “severe reputational harm” to the FBI. Durham said that failure could have been prevented if FBI employees hadn’t embraced “seriously flawed information” and had followed their “own principles regarding objectivity and integrity.”
Barr personally asked foreign officials to aid Durham probe of FBI, CIA activities
In particular, the report notes that while the FBI gave Clinton’s team a defensive briefing when agents learned of a possible evidence by a foreign actor to garner influence with her, agents moved quickly to investigate the Trump campaign without giving them a defensive briefing.
New York Times, In Final Report, Trump-Era Special Counsel Denounces Russia Investigation, Charlie Savage, Glenn Thrush, Adam Goldman and Katie Benner, May 15, 2023. John Durham, the Trump-era special counsel who for four years has pursued a politically fraught investigation into the Russia inquiry, accused the F.B.I. of having “discounted or willfully ignored material information that did not support the narrative of a collusive relationship between Trump and Russia” in a final report made public on Monday.
Mr. Durham’s 306-page report revealed little substantial new information about the inquiry, known as Crossfire Hurricane, and it failed to produce the kinds of blockbuster revelations impugning the bureau of politically motivated misconduct that former President Donald J. Trump and his allies suggested Mr. Durham would uncover.
Instead, the report — released without substantive comment or any redactions by Attorney General Merrick B. Garland — largely recounted previously exposed flaws in the inquiry, while concluding that the F.B.I. suffered from confirmation bias and a “lack of analytical rigor” as it pursued leads about Mr. Trump’s ties to Russia.
“An objective and honest assessment of these strands of information should have caused the F.B.I. to question not only the predication for Crossfire Hurricane, but also to reflect on whether the F.B.I. was being manipulated for political or other purposes,” he wrote. “Unfortunately, it did not.”
Mr. Durham said he was not recommending any “wholesale changes” to F.B.I. rules for politically sensitive investigations and for national-security wiretaps, which have already been tightened in recent years. He did recommend that the Justice Department consider assigning an official to internally challenge steps taken in politically sensitive investigations.
The report amounted, in part, to a defense and justification of a lengthy investigation that developed only two cases, both of which ended in acquittal.
Mr. Durham repeated his own insinuations, presented in court filings, that information developed by Hillary Clinton’s campaign had helped fuel the Russia investigation.
He also repeated criticisms made in 2019 by an inspector general who uncovered how the F.B.I. botched wiretap applications used in the inquiry.
In a statement, the F.B.I. emphasized its numerous reforms since the 2019 report.
“The conduct in 2016 and 2017 that Special Counsel Durham examined was the reason that current FBI leadership already implemented dozens of corrective actions, which have now been in place for some time,” it said.
After four years of investigation into the Russia inquiry, John Durham’s final report condemned the F.B.I. but found little new information.
New York Times, Here’s how the former attorney general William Barr’s quest to find flaws in the Russia inquiry unraveled, (From January), Charlie Savage, Adam Goldman and Katie Benner, Jan. 26, 2023. The review by John Durham at one point veered into a criminal investigation related to Donald Trump himself, even as it failed to find wrongdoing in the origins of the Russia inquiry.
It became a regular litany of grievances from President Donald J. Trump and his supporters: The investigation into his 2016 campaign’s ties to Russia was a witch hunt, they maintained, that had been opened without any solid basis, went on too long and found no proof of collusion.
Egged on by Mr. Trump, Attorney General William P. Barr set out in 2019 to dig into their shared theory that the Russia investigation likely stemmed from a conspiracy by intelligence or law enforcement agencies. To lead the inquiry, Mr. Barr turned to a hard-nosed prosecutor named John H. Durham, and later granted him special counsel status to carry on after Mr. Trump left office.
But after almost four years — far longer than the Russia investigation itself — Mr. Durham’s work is coming to an end without uncovering anything like the deep state plot alleged by Mr. Trump and suspected by Mr. Barr.
Moreover, a monthslong review by The New York Times found that the main thrust of the Durham inquiry was marked by some of the very same flaws — including a strained justification for opening it and its role in fueling partisan conspiracy theories that would never be charged in court — that Trump allies claim characterized the Russia investigation.
Interviews by The Times with more than a dozen current and former officials have revealed an array of previously unreported episodes that show how the Durham inquiry became roiled by internal dissent and ethical disputes as it went unsuccessfully down one path after another even as Mr. Trump and Mr. Barr promoted a misleading narrative of its progress.
Mr. Barr and Mr. Durham never disclosed that their inquiry expanded in the fall of 2019, based on a tip from Italian officials, to include a criminal investigation into suspicious financial dealings related to Mr. Trump. The specifics of the tip and how they handled the investigation remain unclear, but Mr. Durham brought no charges over it.
Mr. Durham used Russian intelligence memos — suspected by other U.S. officials of containing disinformation — to gain access to emails of an aide to George Soros, the financier and philanthropist who is a favorite target of the American right and Russian state media. Mr. Durham used grand jury powers to keep pursuing the emails even after a judge twice rejected his request for access to them. The emails yielded no evidence that Mr. Durham has cited in any case he pursued.
There were deeper internal fractures on the Durham team than previously known. The publicly unexplained resignation in 2020 of his No. 2 and longtime aide, Nora R. Dannehy, was the culmination of a series of disputes between them over prosecutorial ethics. A year later, two more prosecutors strongly objected to plans to indict a lawyer with ties to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign based on evidence they warned was too flimsy, and one left the team in protest of Mr. Durham’s decision to proceed anyway. (A jury swiftly acquitted the lawyer.)
Now, as Mr. Durham works on a final report, the interviews by The Times provide new details of how he and Mr. Barr sought to recast the scrutiny of the 2016 Trump campaign’s myriad if murky links to Russia as unjustified and itself a crime.
Mr. Barr, Mr. Durham and Ms. Dannehy declined to comment. The current and former officials who discussed the investigation all spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the legal, political and intelligence sensitivities surrounding the topic.
A year into the Durham inquiry, Mr. Barr declared that the attempt “to get to the bottom of what happened” in 2016 “cannot be, and it will not be, a tit-for-tat exercise. We are not going to lower the standards just to achieve a result.”
May 14
New York Times, Opinion: We’re Asking the Wrong Questions About the Trump Town Hall, Bill Sammon, May 14, 2023. Mr. Sammon is the former managing editor of the Washington bureau of Fox News.
As a former executive of Fox News, I never expected to write this: CNN performed a valuable journalistic service this week by hosting a spirited town hall with Donald Trump.
The Warning, Steve Schmidt explains why CNN’s Donald Trump Town hall was an affront to journalism, Steve Schmidt, May 12, 2023. This represents the lowest moment in the media company’s history.
He explains why CNN CEO Chris Licht’s decision to go forward with this put Kaitlan Collins in a very bad spot, and his response to the the blowback from the event demonstrated incredibly flawed thinking. Steve goes on to break down why this disaster stands in stark contrast to true journalism demonstrated by illustrious figures such as Edward R. Murrow.
May 12
The Guardian, CNN was lambasted by even its own media reporter for what was seen as an event pandering to Trump voters, Hugo Lowell, May 12, 2023. Trump’s team revels in town hall victory as CNN staff rages at ‘spectacle of lies’; Questions also linger over what the network offered the ex-president in exchange for what some called a Trump infomercial.
Donald Trump believes he got everything that he wanted from the controversial town hall hosted by CNN, according to multiple people close to him, even as it embarrassed the network and prompted a wave of outrage, including from many of its own staff who were upset that it gave Trump a platform to lie to a large audience.
The former president was interested in doing a town hall mainly because it would give the campaign material to clip for social media. He was interested in doing it on CNN because the campaign reached an understanding – which a spokesperson denied – that it would book more Trump surrogates.
Trump was not particularly concerned by whether the broadcast would get high ratings, though he told CNN’s chief executive, Chris Licht, right, backstage that he would boost their ratings, to which Licht nodded and said he should have “a good conversation and have fun,” two of the people said.
Trump’s advisers saw the town hall ultimately as a strategic win for the former president, who revelled in playing off the live audience of Republican and Republican-leaning voters in New Hampshire, which is hosting the first 2024 GOP presidential primary, and talked over the CNN moderator, Kaitlan Collins, as she tried to factcheck him in real time.
Afterwards, Trump allies joked that the event in their eyes amounted to an hour of Trump infomercials and should be recorded as an in-kind campaign contribution, and that Trump’s nearest rival for the nomination, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, would be crushed in a similar debate.
The event – which saw Trump mock the writer E Jean Carroll, whom he had just been found liable of sexually abusing – may not help him in a general election, especially among female voters.
Joe Biden later tweeted: “It’s simple, folks. Do you want four more years of that? If you don’t, pitch in to our campaign.”
In stark contrast to the Trump camp’s jubilation, the mood inside CNN was dour amid widespread reports of internal disgust. The network’s own media reporter Oliver Darcy wrote in his newsletter on Wednesday that it was “hard to see how America was served by the spectacle of lies that aired on CNN”.
But the Trump campaign appears to have got what it wanted out of the CNN town hall in part because it negotiated the terms of the event with an unusual degree of leverage, according to multiple people familiar with how the planning unfolded.
For starters, Trump’s team for months played hard to get with CNN – which first reached out to do a town hall almost as soon as Trump announced his 2024 candidacy. However, the campaign had always been more likely to go with CNN over NBC or Fox News, the other major networks in talks to host an event.
The campaign already had pro-Trump commentators and surrogates appearing on Fox News shows, and while MSNBC has recently had higher ratings than CNN, the liberal network was seen by advisers as being inhospitable ground compared with the Licht-era CNN that has tried to cater more to Republicans.
Trump’s team also figured that CNN worked for its needs because it could have Collins as the moderator, a rising star who co-hosts the network’s morning show but has also remained on the Trump beat and has taken care to preserve her relationship with the ex-president.
Pairing Collins with Republicans who mostly voted for Trump in 2020 was as close to home turf as the campaign could get. The team said it would have rejected Jake Tapper, after he threatened to ban Republicans who endorsed Trump’s 2020 election lies from his shows.
The campaign also made sure the pre- and post-town hall coverage featured Trump surrogates on air. Among the bookings: former Trump White House press aide Hogan Gidley, pro-Trump congressmen Brian Mast and Byron Donalds, as well as pro-Trump senator JD Vance.
A spokesperson for CNN denied that the network made any formal agreement to book surrogates as guests in order to host of the town hall.
Not every moment in the town hall was seen as a win for Trump, though, as his own missteps may have created more legal headaches for a man already surrounded by multiple investigations.
But Trump was personally jubilant on the flight back to Florida and played It’s a Man’s World by James Brown, people familiar with the matter said.
American Oversight, American Oversight Receives Indication That Durham Investigation Has Closed, Staff Report, May 12, 2023. John Durham’s Politicized Investigation — And William Barr’s Role in It.
On Friday, the Department of Justice dropped a key objection to the release of more than 4,500 pages of documents related to the Durham investigation, the Trump-era inquiry into the origins of the FBI’s probe of the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia.
The DOJ had previously withheld the records claiming that their disclosure would interfere with an ongoing law enforcement investigation. Instead of filing an anticipated brief that would have defended the withholdings, the department withdrew its assertion of the “ongoing investigation” exemption — strongly suggesting that the Durham investigation has been closed.
The reversal was announced in a motion filed in the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit American Oversight brought in August 2019 to compel the release of documents related to the Durham inquiry, including communications between Durham and senior Justice Department officials and any communications Durham or DOJ officials may have had with the Trump White House or Congress.
Statement from American Oversight Executive Director Heather Sawyer:
“The Durham investigation remains an alarming example of former President Trump’s weaponization of the Justice Department for his own political ends. Tasked with proving Trump’s allegations of a ‘deep state’ plot against him — and given nearly four years and millions of taxpayer dollars to do so — Durham found no wrongdoing. It’s long past time for the American people to see the full extent of the inquiry’s work and its influences and we look forward to the release of these records.”
American Oversight first requested the records in June 2019, after then Attorney General William Barr had instructed Durham to initiate the politicized investigation of the roots of the inquiry into potential ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 campaign. That original FBI inquiry ultimately led to the larger investigation headed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
Lawyers for the Justice Department had previously argued the government could properly withhold more than 4,500 pages of records and one voicemail audio recording responsive to American Oversight’s requests under the FOIA exemption designed to protect ongoing investigations.
The New York Times reported in January that, after four years, the Durham inquiry was winding down “without uncovering anything like the deep state plot alleged by Mr. Trump and suspected by Mr. Barr.” Records previously obtained by American Oversight through the litigation revealed that Barr met frequently with Durham in the period directly after the Mueller investigation ended — 18 times in seven months — raising questions about potential political interference.
Palmer Report, Opinion: The Durham probe just ended with a whimper, Bill Palmer, right, May 13, 2023. The Durham probe just ended with a whimper. When Bill Barr appointed John Durham to investigate the “origins” of the Trump-Russia investigation, there was a ton of excitement about it among Trump supporters, and a ton of fear and loathing about it from anti-Trump people.
We were supposed to believe that this Durham probe would somehow magically hand Trump the ability to remain in office forever, or allow Trump to con voters into reelecting him in 2020, or something like that. But at the time it seemed pretty clear that Barr was merely appointing Durham as a way of appeasing Trump, who is and always has been so clueless about how politics works, he actually thought Durham could magically help him.
Now it’s reported that the Durham probe has officially closed. It ended up having zero impact on the political or legal landscape, just as we all knew it would. It didn’t change a single mind. It didn’t hand Trump or the GOP a single talking point it could use to change a single mind. This probe was never magically going to help Trump. These people simply do not have magical powers – and the demise of the Durham probe is merely the latest reminder of that.
May 11
New York Times, Trump’s Falsehoods and Bluster Overtake CNN Town Hall, Jonathan Weisman, May 11, 2023 (print ed.). Facing questions from the audience and the moderator, Donald Trump insisted, falsely, that the 2020 election was rigged. He also dodged questions on abortion, praised Jan. 6 rioters and mocked E. Jean Carroll.
Former President Donald J. Trump, shown above in a CNN photo with its moderator, used a raucous town hall meeting in New Hampshire — broadcast live on CNN — to resume the lies and name-calling that marked his presidency, signaling to voters that criminal investigations, a jury holding him liable for sexual abuse and ongoing struggles with swing voters have not changed him a bit.
He pressed his false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him, praised the rioters who violently attacked the Capitol and suggested that Congress allow the federal government to default on its debt, at the risk of a global economic crisis. A day after a Manhattan jury ordered him to pay $5 million in damages to E. Jean Carroll, who accused him of sexually abusing and defaming her, he called her a “wack job,” and then called CNN’s moderator, Kaitlan Collins, “a nasty person.”
CNN had been criticized by some Democrats for giving Mr. Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, such a platform. And from the outset, the former president showed how difficult a live television interview can be, though his bluster did not seem calibrated to appeal to swing voters.
Mr. Trump had not appeared on a major television channel outside the conservative media bubble since 2020, and his prevarications, half truths, lies and name-calling on Wednesday showed he had not changed his politics ahead of his run for another presidential term.
Even after a New Hampshire Republican voter asked if he would drop his polarizing talk, he hedged, saying he would drop it if there is no election fraud. He then showed he was unrepentant about the deadly attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, praising the rioters.
“They were proud. They were there with love in their heart,” he said, adding, “That was a beautiful day.”
Among the subjects Mr. Trump addressed:
A day after a jury found Mr. Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation, he viciously mocked his accuser, E. Jean Carroll. The audience laughed along. “I have no idea who this woman is,” he said. “This is a fake story.” He then called Ms. Carroll “a wack job.”
He lied continuously about the 2020 election, raising allegations on election fraud that have been repeatedly debunked. And he showed no contrition for behavior around the 2020 election that has sparked criminal investigations in Washington and the state of Georgia.
He counseled Congress to allow the federal government to default on its debt in June if President Biden did not come the Republicans’ way on deep spending cuts. A default could precipitate a global economic crisis. Mr. Trump shrugged: “Might as well do it now because we’re going to do it later,” he said.
In one of the few overtures to swing voters, Mr. Trump repeatedly dodged questions on whether he would sign a nationwide abortion ban or say at what stage of pregnancy abortion should be illegal. “What I will do is negotiate so that people are happy,” he said.
Mr. Trump hedged on the future of American military aid to Ukraine, saying Europe needed to spend more and that his emphasis would be ending the war, not ensuring Ukraine’s victory.
He also insisted that he now has no more classified documents at his Palm Beach, Fla., home at Mar-a-Lago, an answer that could impact the ongoing federal investigation of his handling of highly classified records after his presidency.
Mr. Trump also proudly defended his administration’s policy of separating young children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border. When the policy was first exposed, he had denied it was happening. On Wednesday, he said such cruelty was necessary to deter families from illegally crossing the frontier.
New York Times, The chairman of CNN issued a robust defense of his decision to host a town hall with former President Trump, Michael M. Grynbaum, May 11, 2023. “People woke up and they know what the stakes are in this election in a way that they didn’t the day before,” Chris Licht said in a morning call at the network.
The chairman of CNN, Chris Licht, issued a robust defense on Thursday of his decision to broadcast a live town hall with former President Donald J. Trump, an unruly and bracing event that has prompted criticism inside and outside of the network.
On a network-wide editorial call, Mr. Licht, right, congratulated the moderator, Kaitlan Collins, above, on “a masterful performance” before acknowledging the public backlash. “We all know covering Donald Trump is messy and tricky, and it will continue to be messy and tricky,” he said. “But it’s our job.”
“I absolutely, unequivocally believe America was served very well by what we did last night,” Mr. Licht added. “People woke up and they know what the stakes are in this election in a way that they didn’t the day before. And if someone was going to ask tough questions and have that messy conversation, it damn well should be on CNN.”
The town hall, which aired in prime-time on Wednesday, featured Mr. Trump deploying a fusillade of falsehoods, sometimes too quickly for the moderator to intercept.
Ms. Collins interrupted and corrected Mr. Trump again and again, calling out his lies about a rigged 2020 election and his depiction of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot as “a beautiful day.” Mr. Trump, however, often talked right over her. The live audience, a group of Republicans and Republican-leaning independent voters, often cheered him on, even when he derided Ms. Collins as a “nasty person.”
“While we all may have been uncomfortable hearing people clapping, that was also an important part of the story,” Mr. Licht said on Thursday, “because the people in that audience represent a large swath of America. And the mistake the media made in the past is ignoring that those people exist. Just like you cannot ignore that President Trump exists.”
Critics said it was reckless for the network to provide a live forum to Mr. Trump, given his track record of spreading disinformation. Even the network’s own commentators appeared taken aback by what had transpired on its airwaves. “We don’t have enough time to fact check every lie he told,” Jake Tapper told viewers on Wednesday night.
Mr. Licht, who took over CNN last year after the network was acquired by Warner Bros. Discovery, has had a rocky tenure, and some journalists there have bristled at his public comments that the network had veered too far into an anti-Trump stance when Mr. Trump was in the White House. Mr. Licht has said CNN must appeal to more centrists and conservative voters, a strategy that has support from his corporate superiors.
There were signs on Thursday that frustration inside CNN about the town hall were bubbling up. The network’s own media newsletter, “Reliable Sources,” published a tough assessment after the event, noting, “It’s hard to see how America was served by the spectacle of lies that aired on CNN Wednesday evening.”
Palmer Report, Opinion: Donald Trump’s dumpster fire of a town hall was a disaster for both him and CNN, Bill Palmer, May 10, 2023. It’s easy enough to understand why Donald Trump felt he needed to do a “town hall” with CNN. Trump can barely string two sentences together these days without going completely off script and humiliating himself – no doubt why his handlers have mostly kept him out of the public eye over the past year. But now he’s been criminally indicted, he’s about to be indicted again, he’s increasingly being seen as a criminal defendant and not a candidate in a future election, and he has to try to find a way to change that. This town hall was a bad idea, but it was the kind of low percentage play that a desperate and nearly finished Trump had to try.
It’s far less clear why CNN felt it needed to do this town hall with Trump. New CNN boss Chris Licht has invoked a strategy of dumping the network’s most popular faces and shifting the content heavily in favor of right wing lies. It’s seemingly been an attempt at courting Fox News’ audience. But instead it’s saddled CNN with historically low ratings. This strategy has been a total failure, and Licht, right, is already on his last legs. Fully getting in bed with Trump for a “town hall” was precisely the kind of move that Licht couldn’t afford to make, because there was zero upside, and the real risk of permanently alienating what’s left of CNN’s audience.
In any case, Trump’s desperate desire to portray himself as a candidate, along with Licht’s desperate desire to fail, added up to one of the most hideously odious “town halls” in presidential electoral history. Host Kaitlan Collins (who conveniently used to work for right wing propaganda outlet Daily Caller) allowed Trump to walk all over her. And the audience appeared to consist entirely of die hard Trump supporters, meaning it wasn’t a town hall, it was a Trump rally.
Trump spent the entire time smirking, blowing off questions, making incoherent remarks, lying about the 2020 election, and – bizarrely yet predictably – attacking E. Jean Carroll. It was ugly enough that you half seriously wondered if Trump would end up owing Carroll another five million by the time the night was over. And now it’s fair to wonder if Chris Licht will still be employed at CNN by the end of the week. This is the kind of singular debacle that can get a failing newcomer fired much quicker than they otherwise would have.
The thing is, everyone knew this town hall was going to be a disaster. MSNBC scheduled Rachel Maddow to appear as an on-air guest, on her night off, while the CNN town hall was going on. MSNBC guessed that regular CNN viewers would be so disgusted by this town hall, they’d end up switching to MSNBC partway through it, and that guess was probably correct. By the end of the evening, nearly every trending topic on social media was some kind of condemnation of CNN. It was that kind of debacle.
And yet for all the ugly blows that CNN took for this town hall, there was never any possible upside. Even if ratings did end up being strong, an hour’s worth of ratings aren’t worth much. And for all the longtime viewers that this debacle chased away, there was no chance of gaining any new viewers. Everyone in the industry knows that you can only court right wing viewers by telling them the lies they want to hear 100% of the time, and not merely the 50% or 67% of the time that CNN’s new formula is based on.
Nor will this help Donald Trump any. Again, there’s a reason his handlers have spent the past two-plus years trying to keep him out of the public eye as much as possible. There’s a reason his handlers have convinced him not to go back onto Twitter, even with his account reinstated. They know that the more Trump puts himself out there, and the more voters in the middle see that he’s just as nasty ever and fairly senile on top of it, the more quickly Trump’s 2024 facade will fade. Of course it’ll all be over for Trump once the DOJ truly gets ahold of him. But Trump’s sudden desperation to put himself out there, after two years of hiding, is only going to help hasten his downfall before the DOJ can even finish him off.
May 9
Donald J. Trump, left, and E. Jean Carroll (New York Times file photos).
New York Times, Live Updates, Trump Is Found Liable for Sexual Abuse and Defamation, Benjamin Weiser, Lola Fadulu and Kate Christobek, May 9, 2023. Jury Awards $5 Million to E. Jean Carroll in Civil Case.
A Manhattan jury on Tuesday found former President Donald J. Trump liable for the sexual abuse of the magazine writer E. Jean Carroll in a widely watched civil trial that sought to apply the accountability of the #MeToo era to a dominant political figure.
The federal jury of six men and three women also held Mr. Trump, 76, liable for defaming Ms. Carroll when he posted a statement on his Truth Social website in October, calling her case “a complete con job” and “a Hoax and a lie.”
The jury determined that Carroll had proven Mr. Trump sexually abused her, but they rejected the accusation that she had been raped. Sexual abuse is defined in New York as subjecting someone to sexual contact without their consent.
The jury awarded Ms. Carroll, 79, a total of $5 million in damages.
Although more than a dozen women have accused Mr. Trump of sexual misconduct over the years, allegations he has always denied, Ms. Carroll’s case is the first such claim to be successfully tested before a jury.
The jury’s unanimous verdicts came after three hours of deliberation in Federal District Court in Manhattan. Its findings are civil, not criminal, meaning Mr. Trump has not been convicted of any crime and faces no prison time.
The jury determined that Carroll had proven Mr. Trump sexually abused her, but they rejected the accusation that she had been raped. Sexual abuse is defined in New York as subjecting someone to sexual contact without their consent.
The jury awarded Ms. Carroll, 79, a total of $5 million in damages.
Although more than a dozen women have accused Mr. Trump of sexual misconduct over the years, allegations he has always denied, Ms. Carroll’s case is the first such claim to be successfully tested before a jury.
The jury’s unanimous verdicts came after three hours of deliberation in Federal District Court in Manhattan. Its findings are civil, not criminal, meaning Mr. Trump has not been convicted of any crime and faces no prison time.
The jury has found that Carroll did not prove Trump raped her, but they did determine that he had sexually abused her. The jurors also found that Trump had defamed Carroll when he called her accusations false. They awarded her $5 million damages.
The accusation at the heart of the trial that just ended in Manhattan federal court sounds like a classic criminal case — an alleged sexual assault in the dressing room of a luxury department store.
But the jury of nine New Yorkers were not asked to decide if former president Donald J. Trump was guilty of raping the writer E. Jean Carroll as she testified he did in the mid 1990s. No criminal charges were ever brought.
Instead, Ms. Carroll sued Mr. Trump for battery and defamation.
That means the jury was asked to determine Mr. Trump’s “liability” — whether Mr. Trump is legally responsible for harming Ms. Carroll in ways that meet New York State’s definition of battery.
The jurors began their deliberations just before noon on Tuesday. Their verdicts must be unanimous.
To have Mr. Trump found liable for battery, Ms. Carroll must clear a lower bar than the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard of a criminal trial. Instead, jurors must find that the “preponderance of the evidence” supports Ms. Carroll’s claim to have been raped, sexually abused or forcibly touched by Mr. Trump, meaning the jury believes the accusation is more likely true than untrue. The jury must also decide how much to award Ms. Carroll in damages if they side with her.
The jury also examined Ms. Carroll’s defamation claim, stemming from a 2022 post on Truth Social in which Mr. Trump called Ms. Carroll’s case “a complete con job” and “a Hoax and a lie.” The jurors have to decide if Mr. Trump knew what he was saying was false but said it anyway to meet a standard known as “actual malice.”
Six men and three women found Donald Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming the writer E. Jean Carroll but rejected her rape accusation.
Former President Donald Trump is shown in a photo collage with columnist E. Jean Carroll, who accused him of raping her three decades ago, with her civil suit in the hands of a New York City jury as of Tuesday, May 9.
Washington Post, Live Updates: Lawyers speak after jury finds Trump sexually abused E. Jean Carroll, Shayna Jacobs, Kim Bellware and Mark Berman, May 9, 2023.A Manhattan jury has found that Trump sexually abused and defamed E. Jean Carroll, and awarded $5 million in damages.
Here’s what to know
Carroll first publicly accused Trump in 2019, during his presidency, writing in a memoir the same year that they bumped into each other at Bergdorf Goodman, the department store. She said Trump violently attacked her in a dressing room.
Trump has assailed Carroll and accused her of making up the story to sell books. His attorneys argued during the trial that her story was not believable.
Carroll testified in graphic detail during the trial about the alleged attack. Trump, who was under no obligation to appear, did not testify or attend the proceedings.
After the verdict:
- Trump attorney Joe Tacopina approached and shook hands with the other side. He congratulated and hugged attorney Roberta Kaplan and shook E. Jean Carroll’s Carroll’s hand.
- E. Jean Carroll left the courthouse and walked past microphones and reporters who had gathered outside hoping to hear from her after the verdict. Carroll, accompanied by her lawyer Roberta Kaplan, entered a Volkswagen and left the area.
- Former president Donald Trump, who did not testify or show up in court, wrote on his social media platform: “I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHO THIS WOMAN IS. THIS VERDICT IS A DISGRACE — A CONTINUATION OF THE GREATEST WITCH HUNT OF ALL TIME!”
The jurors in this civil case in Manhattan were tasked with weighing whether to find former president Donald Trump liable on two claims that writer E. Jean Carroll included in her lawsuit: battery and defamation.
After two weeks of testimony, the jurors deliberated for a little under three hours before siding with Carroll on both claims.
The jurors did not find that Trump had raped Carroll, which she has contended for nearly four years.
But the jurors concluded that Trump sexually abused her, and that she was injured as a result. They awarded Carroll $2 million in compensation for those injuries, along with $20,000 in punitive damages, also concluding that Trump’s actions were reckless.
The jurors were also asked to consider whether Carroll generally convinced them that Trump defamed her with a statement he posted to social media last year, assailing her as a liar. Jurors fully agreed that Trump did so, awarding her nearly $3 million for damages on that count.
Donald Trump was ordered to pay $5 million in damages to writer E. Jean Carroll, who accused the former president of sexually assaulting her in a Manhattan department store years ago and defaming her after she went public with her claim. Carroll, 79, smiled as the verdict from the nine-person civil jury was announced Tuesday afternoon in a Manhattan court.
“Decorum will be maintained in the courtroom. No shouting. No jumping up and down. No race for the door. Just remain seated and quiet,” Judge Lewis A. Kaplan had warned the gallery before bringing the jurors in.
Trump's deposition video for the alleged rape trial released on May 5 shows him calling his accuser, E. Jean Carroll, a liar and a sick person. (Video: Obtained by The Washington Post)
- Earlier coverage: New York Times, In Rape Trial, Jury Must Now Decide if It Believes Carroll or Trump
New disclosures in the E. Jean Carroll rape lawsuit echo Trump's words in "Hollywood Access" videotape, reported upon above, that arose during the 2016 presidential campaign. Shown Then: The front page of a 2016 New York Daily News edition contrasts with President Trump's claimed innocence in the Carroll case.
Donald Trump, actress Arianne Zucker and actor Billy Bush shown together after Trump exchanged his views with Bush about assaulting women, as shown on the notorius Access Hollywood outtake disclosed during the 2016 presidential campaign. The notorious video clip above was shown to the Carroll-Trump jury, as was a deposition by Trump last October (illustrated by a still photo below) in which he explained his Access Hollywood comment by saying that powerful men have so acted with women for "millions" of years.
Palmer Report, Opinion: If Donald Trump and CNN still go though with their “town hall” after this verdict, they’ll each only be hastening their own downfall, Bill Palmer, right, May 9, 2023. If the scuzzbuckets at CNN still want to go through with this Donald Trump town hall tomorrow after a trial jury found him liable for sexual battery today, let them.
People in the political middle will tune in just to see Trump melt down, they’ll be reminded what a piece of trash he is, they’ll see how senile he’s become, and it’ll hasten his political downfall before we even get to his criminal trials.
Even if Trump’s people have negotiated with CNN to keep him from being asked about his legal troubles, you just know he’ll go off script and end up ranting about his legal troubles anyway. There’s a reason Trump’s handlers have worked so hard to mostly keep him out of the public eye over the past two years. It’s very risky for Trump to be wading back into this kind of public exposure, which can and likely will go very poorly for him. It’s just that with his criminal troubles making it harder and harder to keep up the illusion that he’s going to be a candidate in 2024, he no longer feels like he has a choice.
And if CNN goes through with the town hall, it’ll also hasten CNN’s downfall (which at this point is necessary). CNN will be seen as casting its lot with a guy who was just found liable for sexual battery by a trial jury. If CNN wants to take that kind of ugly long term reputational blow just to slightly boost ratings for a couple hours, so be it.
Let’s also remember that none of this is ever about Trump’s base, a small-ish group whose votes are already locked in, making them irrelevant. It’s only ever been about convincing average Americans in or near the middle – the ones who decide elections – that Trump is a criminal.
Trump’s base wasn’t why he won in 2016. Trump’s base couldn’t help him in 2020. Trump’s base can’t do anything to keep his 2024 pipe dream alive. Trump’s base has always been the most irrelevant group in all of politics.
This is about mainstream American audiences. Donald Trump has largely been in hiding for two and a half years. Let the American mainstream tune in and be reminded of who and what he really is. Let them hear him say distasteful things about the woman he was just found liable for having sexually assaulted. Let them be turned off by it. Let them also see that he now struggles to remember what he’s talking about for more than twenty seconds at a time. Let mainstream Americans figure out right here, right now, in 2023, that Trump is way too far gone to be viable for 2024 – and once that happens, perhaps the media will have to begin dropping the act as well.
Palmer Report, Opinion: Donald Trump has bonkers meltdown about judge’s order, appears to get his trials mixed up in the process, Bill Palmer, right, May 9, 2023. With his life now consisting of nothing but indictments, trials, and being on the wrong end of the justice system, Donald Trump has become completely enraged about his lack of a future. He’s also slipping quite badly in the cognitive department, as evidenced every time he opens his mouth these days. It’s turning out to be a rather lousy combination for him.
For instance, on Monday, the judge in his Manhattan criminal trial issued a protective order barring Trump from publicly revealing any of the evidence against him that he learns through the discovery process. This is not a gag order that prevents him from publicly discussing the case in general. And it only applies to his Manhattan criminal case.
But Trump posted this to his social media network today: “Waiting for a jury decision on a False Accusation where I, despite being a current political candidate and leading all others in both parties, am not allowed to speak or defend myself, even as hard nosed reporters scream questions about this case at me. In the meantime, the other side has a book falsely accusing me of Rape, & is working with the press. I will therefore not speak until after the trial, but will appeal the Unconstitutional silencing of me, as a candidate, no matter the outcome!”
Wait a minute here. Trump appears to be claiming that he’s been barred from publicly speaking about the E. Jean Carroll civil rape trial that’s currently taking place and is about to go to the jury. But that’s a completely different case, different trial, different kind of legal proceeding, different jurisdiction, and different judge, from the Manhattan criminal trial in which he’s been barred from revealing evidence. In fact, in the Carroll trial, Trump just declined the opportunity to defend himself on the witness stand.
Trump appears to be confusing his current civil rape trial and his upcoming Manhattan criminal trial, which is nothing short of surreal. It’s understandable for outside observers on social media to get Trump’s various trials mixed up. But these trials are Trump’s life. He should be spending all day every day consulting with his legal team about the latest developments in these cases. Instead, he doesn’t seem to even be able to grasp which is which, and he’s out there carrying out some fantasy that he’s somehow magically going to be a 2024 presidential candidate instead of being in prison. Trump’s life is being ripped to pieces by these trials, and he doesn’t even appear to understand which trial is which.
Palmer Report, Opinion: Judge hits Donald Trump with protective order in criminal case, Bill Palmer, right, May 9, 2023. Donald Trump has spent a lifetime thumbing his nose at the law. He’s previously gotten away with it because no one ever bothered to criminally charge him with anything prior to his time in office, and he wasn’t able to be prosecuted while he was in office.
But now that he’s been booted from office, he’s become powerless. He’s unable to stop the criminal charges that are being brought against him. He’s also unable to stop the civil cases that are being brought against him for his criminal acts. And now that he’s on the wrong end of things, he’s unable to manipulate the process in his favor.
To that end, the judge in the Manhattan (Alvin Bragg) criminal case against Donald Trump has now issued a protective order barring Trump from speaking or posting about any of the evidence in the case. If Trump decides to violate this order, so be it. In such case the judge will crack down with incrementally severe penalties until Trump is feeling enough pain that he stops violating the order. Those penalties can ultimately include tossing him in a cell – and that will happen if Trump pushes the judge far enough.
May 8
New York Times, In Trump Case, Alvin Bragg Pursues a Common Charge With a Rare Strategy, Ben Protess, Kate Christobek, Jonah E. Bromwich, William K. Rashbaum and Sean Piccoli, May 8, 2023 (print ed.). A review of more than two dozen cases brought by the Manhattan district attorney shows that in at least one sense, Donald Trump’s indictment stands apart.
A lawyer was accused of stealing $1.2 million from his law firm and covering it up. An insurance broker was accused of taking $350,000 from a client and covering it up. And a former president was accused of orchestrating a $130,000 hush-money payment to a porn star and covering it up.
All three men were prosecuted by the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, left, and each faced the same felony charge: falsifying business records.
The charge, a staple of his office’s white-collar work, can only be elevated from a misdemeanor to a felony if the defendant falsified the records in an attempt to commit or conceal a second crime.
Although the district attorney’s office is not required to identify the second crime at the outset of the case, Mr. Bragg prosecuted both the lawyer and the insurance broker for additional crimes — including grand larceny — telegraphing why their false records charges were bumped up to felonies. Only the former president, Donald J. Trump, was indicted for falsifying business records, and no other crimes.
A New York Times analysis of about 30 false business records cases brought by Mr. Bragg and his predecessor — based on court records, interviews and information the office provided — shows that in this respect, the case against Mr. Trump stands apart. In all but two of the indictments reviewed by The Times, the defendant was charged with an additional crime on top of the false records charge.
The decision to charge Mr. Trump with 34 counts of falsifying business records — and no other crimes — highlights the unique nature of the case, the first indictment of a former American president. Mr. Bragg, a Democrat, has drawn criticism from Mr. Trump’s allies, who say that he bumped up the charges to a felony for political reasons.
But Mr. Bragg has argued that if the Trump indictment is unusual, it is only because the facts of this case are unusual as well, and the charge must fit the facts: Mr. Trump is accused of covering up a payoff to a porn star to bury a sex scandal in the days before a presidential election.
- Meidas Touch Network, Trump THREATENS Prosecutors in New Posts after Returning to America, Ben Meiselas, May 8, 2023 (16:02 mins.). Meidas Touch host Ben Meiselas reports on new posts by Donald Trump that he made as soon as he returned to America from Ireland and Scotland.
Recent Relevant Headlines
Former advice columnist E. Jean Carroll, center, at federal court with her lawyer Roberta Kaplan, left, on April 25 in New York City (Associated Press photo by Seth Wineg).
- Washington Post, Jury is hearing closing statements in Carroll’s civil case against Trump
- New York Times, In Trump Case, Alvin Bragg Pursues a Common Charge With a Rare Strategy
- Palmer Report, Analysis: Jack Smith likely has more than just one “inside witness” at Mar-a-Lago against Donald Trump, Bill Palmer
- Palmer Report, Analysis: Here’s the thing about Jack Smith investigating Donald Trump’s Saudi-backed golf tournaments, Bill Palmer
- Washington Post, Opinion: E. Jean Carroll might deliver the first significant hit to Trump, Jennifer Rubin
- Raw Story, Trump lawyer Tacopina fell 'into a trap' during E. Jean Carroll cross-examination: legal expert
- New York Times, Prosecutors are investigating whether Donald Trump and his allies used false claims of election fraud to solicit donations
May 7
In an image released and annotated by the U.S. Justice Department, Peter Schwartz, circled in red, carried a wooden tire-knocker on Jan. 6, 2021 at the U.S. Capitol.
New York Times, Jan. 6 Rioter Gets 14 Years for Police Attacks, Longest Sentence Yet in Inquiry, Alan Feuer and Zach Montague, May 6, 2023 (print ed.). A Pennsylvania welder who attacked police officers at the Capitol with a chair and then chemical spray was sentenced on Friday to slightly more than 14 years in prison, the most severe penalty handed down so far in connection with the events of Jan. 6, 2021.
At a hearing in Federal District Court in Washington, the man, Peter Schwartz, 49, joined a growing list of people charged with assaulting the police on that day who have received stiff sentences. Until now, the longest sentence in a Jan. 6 case had been the 10-year term given to Thomas Webster, a former New York City police officer who was found guilty last year of swinging a metal flagpole at an officer at the Capitol.
The sentence could presage more long prison terms to come. In a separate case on Friday, prosecutors recommended 25 years in prison for Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers militia, who was convicted of seditious conspiracy in November along with one of his lieutenants. The prosecutors said holding Mr. Rhodes accountable at his sentencing hearing, scheduled for May 24, would be essential to preserving American democracy. His punishment, they said, could help decide whether “Jan. 6 becomes an outlier or a watershed moment.”
In the case of Mr. Schwartz, who went to the riot armed with a wooden tire knocker, prosecutors had asked Judge Amit P. Mehta for a sentence of 24 years and six months in prison — more than twice Mr. Webster’s sentence. While Judge Mehta declined to go that high, he said that his decision to issue a term of 170 months was necessary given Mr. Schwartz’s substantial history of violent offenses, and lack of remorse for his actions.
“There are not many who have come before this court with a criminal history like yours,” Judge Mehta said.
Mr. Schwartz was convicted at a trial in December of, among other acts, three counts of assault with a dangerous weapon, one count of interfering with law enforcement officers during a civil disorder and one of obstructing the certification of the election, which was taking place inside the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Politico, 8 false Trump electors have accepted immunity deals, lawyer says, Kyle Cheney, May 5, 2023. The new revelation is the latest sign that a Georgia prosecutor is advancing her investigation into Donald Trump’s bid to subvert the 2020 election.
Eight Republican activists who falsely claimed to be legitimate presidential electors for Donald Trump have accepted immunity deals from the Atlanta-area district attorney investigating Trump’s bid to subvert the 2020 election.
Kimberly Debrow, a lawyer for the false electors, revealed the arrangement — reached last month — in a court filing Friday, opposing a bid by District Attorney Fani Willis, above left, to disqualify her from representing the large group.
It’s the latest indication of Willis’ advancing investigation, which she recently revealed could result in charges — possibly against Trump himself and a slew of high-profile allies — as soon as July.
New York Times, In Trump Case, Alvin Bragg Pursues a Common Charge With a Rare Strategy, Ben Protess, Kate Christobek, Jonah E. Bromwich, William K. Rashbaum and Sean Piccoli, May 7, 2023. A review of more than two dozen cases brought by the Manhattan district attorney shows that in at least one sense, Donald Trump’s indictment stands apart.
A lawyer was accused of stealing $1.2 million from his law firm and covering it up. An insurance broker was accused of taking $350,000 from a client and covering it up. And a former president was accused of orchestrating a $130,000 hush-money payment to a porn star and covering it up.
All three men were prosecuted by the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, left, and each faced the same felony charge: falsifying business records.
The charge, a staple of his office’s white-collar work, can only be elevated from a misdemeanor to a felony if the defendant falsified the records in an attempt to commit or conceal a second crime.
Although the district attorney’s office is not required to identify the second crime at the outset of the case, Mr. Bragg prosecuted both the lawyer and the insurance broker for additional crimes — including grand larceny — telegraphing why their false records charges were bumped up to felonies. Only the former president, Donald J. Trump, was indicted for falsifying business records, and no other crimes.
A New York Times analysis of about 30 false business records cases brought by Mr. Bragg and his predecessor — based on court records, interviews and information the office provided — shows that in this respect, the case against Mr. Trump stands apart. In all but two of the indictments reviewed by The Times, the defendant was charged with an additional crime on top of the false records charge.
The decision to charge Mr. Trump with 34 counts of falsifying business records — and no other crimes — highlights the unique nature of the case, the first indictment of a former American president. Mr. Bragg, a Democrat, has drawn criticism from Mr. Trump’s allies, who say that he bumped up the charges to a felony for political reasons.
But Mr. Bragg has argued that if the Trump indictment is unusual, it is only because the facts of this case are unusual as well, and the charge must fit the facts: Mr. Trump is accused of covering up a payoff to a porn star to bury a sex scandal in the days before a presidential election.
Mr. Bragg also said, at a news conference on the day of Mr. Trump’s arraignment, that an option for the second crime could be a federal election law violation, under the theory that the hush money illegally aided Mr. Trump’s candidacy.
And on Thursday, Mr. Trump’s lawyers sought to move the case from New York State Supreme Court to federal court, citing those comments as part of the justification for the legal change of scenery. The former president’s lawyers may in part be using the request to move the case as a way to gain more clarity on the second crime.
Washington Post, Opinion: There’s a war raging. It’s against normal politics, E.J. Dionne Jr., right, May 7, 2023. The distemper in public opinion can be explained by 
many factors, including a social hangover from the pandemic and economic jitters, even in the face of a strong job market. But there’s a powerful case that at the heart of our uneasiness is a widespread sense that politics just isn’t normal anymore.
Let’s get the obvious out of the way: “Normal” is a problematic concept. Legal segregation was seen by many White people as “normal” for a long time. It needed to be overthrown. The word was deployed for decades to marginalize and mock LGBTQ people, as Andrew Sullivan underscored with the ironic title of his classic book on homosexuality published in the mid-1990s, “Virtually Normal.”
Nonetheless, in a democratic republic, “normal” politics involves a series of commitments that most citizens, I’d wager, rightly buy into. A modest catalogue of our departures from these callings brings home how strange matters have become.
The obvious example: Normal means accepting the outcome of a legitimate election your side lost and offering no sanction to a violent mob attack on the U.S. Capitol to overturn the result.
Yet a recent CBS News/YouGov poll found that 69 percent of Republicans and those who lean their way don’t believe President Biden is a legitimate president, and 75 percent say the idea that Donald Trump won in 2020 is a reason to vote for him.
Washington Post, Evidence jurors saw that led to Proud Boys’ convictions, Adriana Usero, Rachel Weiner, Spencer S. Hsu and Frank Hulley-Jones, May 7, 2023. Watch trial evidence jurors saw before convicting four members of the right wing group of seditious conspiracy in the Capitol attack.
To convict Proud Boys leader Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, shown above in an Associated Press photo, and three close allies of seditious conspiracy, prosecutors pulled from thousands of videos and text messages indicating that by Jan. 6, 2021, the right-wing group’s anger and aggression toward government authority had been growing for weeks.
The Proud Boys were mobilized by President Donald Trump’s false claims of election fraud and by their own frustration with D.C. police, whom they saw as failing to protect them during street clashes with far-left protesters in late 2020. When Trump called for a “wild” rally in D.C. on Jan. 6, prosecutors said, Tarrio created a hand-picked “Ministry of Self Defense” or MOSD to lead the Proud Boys that day.
The Justice Department argued the Proud Boys’ leadership, which communicated in several encrypted group chats, viewed members as “Trump’s army” ready to do the president’s bidding. No concrete plan for taking the Capitol or stopping the transfer of power on Jan. 6 was found among those messages. But prosecutors tied discussions of revolution and revolt to video of Proud Boys leading the mob on Jan. 6, arguing that the group was unique in its embrace of violence as a political tool. They made that case using both encrypted messages and public pronouncements on Parler, a conservative social media site.
Here is what jurors saw unfold through the Proud Boys’ eyes and in their own words.
Justice Department Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, left, and former President Donald Trump, shown in a collage via CNN.
Palmer Report, Analysis: Jack Smith likely has more than just one “inside witness” at Mar-a-Lago against Donald Trump, Bill Palmer, right, May 7, 2023. It’s not a surprise that Jack Smith has a cooperating witness inside Mar-a-Lago.
It would be a surprise if he didn’t. He’s reportedly subpoenaed nearly everyone who works there. How many waiters or gardeners are really willing to go to prison for obstruction of justice just to help Trump? Smith likely has several inside witnesses at Mar-a-Lago by now. What is newsworthy is that we’re learning about this, because such things are kept super quiet, until we get to the end of the process.
The New York Times now knows that Jack Smith has inside help at Mar-a-Lago – something it would be almost impossible for the New York Times to know unless it came from Smith’s team. Smith appears to be putting it out there that he has an anonymous inside witness, in order to scare certain other Mar-a-Lago employees into also cooperating.
The intriguing part is that right after the New York Times article reveals that Smith has inside help, the article then states that Smith believes one specific Mar-a-Lago witness named Walt Nauta is being dishonest in his testimony. It feels like prosecutors are letting Nauta know that they have other Mar-a-Lago witnesses who can nail him for perjury, in an effort to motivate him to come clean.
So why not just call up Nauta and tell him that they have him nailed? Why put it in the news? This approach lets every Mar-a-Lago witness know that if they also “forgot” to say something important in their testimony, now is the time to get back in there and fully cooperate, while they still can.
In other words, this feels like the kind of “all call” you issue when you’re about to start indicting everyone, and you want to give holdouts one last chance to immediately come in and cooperate so they don’t get indicted.
Palmer Report, Analysis: Here’s the thing about Jack Smith investigating Donald Trump’s Saudi-backed golf tournaments, Bill Palmer, right, May 6, 2023. It’s important to understand Jack Smith isn’t just now investigating Donald Trump’s Saudi-funded golf tournaments. The New York Times reporting says that he issued subpoenas in the matter an unknown amount of time ago. This isn’t a new development. It’s an already-in-progress thing that we’re just now belatedly learning about.
How long ago did Smith decide to target Trump’s golf dealings with the Saudis? What was he looking for? What has he found? Is this probe into these golf tournaments complete? Are there going to be criminal charges relating to it? We have no answers to any of these questions yet.
But the point is, we’re just now finding out that Trump’s Saudi-backed golf tournaments have already been part of Jack Smith’s probe for awhile. So if you’re concerned that all these “new” avenues of Jack Smith’s probe could lead it to drag on forever before indictment, keep in kind that none of these things are “new.” They already happened, and are largely or entirely done. They’re just newly reported.
This happens all the time with these kinds of probes. For instance we all learned on Wednesday night that Matthew Calamari and his son would be testifying against Trump to the grand jury the next morning. If the Calamaris finally testified this week, they must have been dragged into this probe months ago. And we didn’t know they were even a part of this probe until a few days ago.
Think about how many key aspects of this probe are just now belatedly becoming public. Now think about how many other key aspects of this probe there must be that haven’t become public yet, and won’t until the indictment drops.
Do not assume that someone or something is not a part of this probe, just because you haven’t seen any reporting about someone or something being a part of this probe. We didn’t know until this week that Calamari and the Saudis have been involved in Jack Smith’s probe all along. What all else has been a part of this probe all along that we still don’t know about?
Washington Post, Arizona official targeted by election deniers now struggles with PTSD, Yvonne Wingett Sanchez, May 7, 2023. Anger and resentment welled inside the local leader as he surveyed the mourners at his friend’s funeral reception last year.
Bill Gates, 51, a lifelong Republican elected to the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, stood with his wife and a friend and ticked off the names of those gathered around them who had betrayed him, their party and their country.
Gates stewed that they had done nothing as he and other leaders in Arizona’s most populous county faced relentless criticism, violent threats and online harassment for upholding the results of the 2020 presidential election. They helped spread baseless conspiracies about the voting process that turned him and his colleagues into targets. They stood by as his family lived in fear and briefly fled their home.
Because of their actions and inactions, Gates said, his integrity had been questioned. He was labeled a traitor who should be shot or hung. One person wrote on social media that his daughters should be raped. He worried his own parents, avid Fox News viewers, might believe the lies about him.
New York Times, Opinion: Tucker Carlson’s Dark and Malign Influence Over the Christian Right, David French, right, May 7, 2023. On April 25, the far-right network Newsmax hosted a fascinating and revealing conversation about Tucker Carlson with Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, one of America’s leading Christian conservative advocacy organizations.
Perkins scorned Fox News’s decision to fire Carlson, and — incredibly — also attacked Fox’s decision to fire Bill O’Reilly. These terminations (along with the departures of Glenn Beck and Megyn Kelly) were deemed evidence that Fox was turning its back on its conservative viewers, including its Christian conservative viewers.
What was missing from the conversation? Any mention of the profound moral failings that cost O’Reilly his job, including at least six settlements — five for sexual harassment and one for verbal abuse — totaling approximately $45 million. Or any mention of Carlson’s own serious problems, including his serial dishonesty, his vile racism and his gross personal insult directed against a senior Fox executive. It’s a curious position for a Christian to take.
Similarly curious is the belief of other Christians, such as the popular evangelical “prophet” Lance Wallnau, that Carlson was a “casualty of war” with the left, and that his firing was a serious setback for Christian Republicans. To Wallnau, an author and a self-described “futurist,” Carlson was a “secular prophet,” somebody “used by God, more powerful than a lot of preachers.”
Other prominent Christian members of the American right applauded Carlson’s “courage” or declared — after The Times reported that Carlson condemned a group of Trump supporters for not fighting like “white men” after “jumping” an Antifa member — that Carlson did “nothing wrong.” Rod Dreher, editor-at-large at The American Conservative, said, “I hope Tucker Carlson runs for president,” and a “Tucker-DeSantis ticket would be the Generation X Saves The World team.”
I’m going to pause now and confess that I was once naïve. I was especially naïve about human nature. As a much younger Christian, I’d read stories of unholy violence and hatred unleashed in Jesus’ name in religious conflicts of even the recent past and think, “Thank God that’s over.” I felt comfortable in my Christian conservatism. My conservatism reflected my best effort to discern the policies that would contribute to justice and human flourishing, while my Christianity hovered over everything, hopefully (though not always, I must confess) infusing my public engagement with humility and kindness.
After all, isn’t “love your enemies” a core Christian command? The fruit of the spirit (the markers of God’s presence in our lives) are “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control,” not Republicanism, conservatism and capitalism.
But the temptations — including the will to power and the quest for vengeance — that plagued the Christians of the past still plague the Christians of today. These temptations can plague people of any faith. If you infuse an issue or set of issues with religious intensity but drain a movement of religious virtue, then profound religious conflict — including violent conflict — is the inevitable result. Indeed, we saw religious violence on full display when a mob stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and it is no coincidence that one of Carlson’s most mendacious projects was his effort to recast the Jan. 6 insurrection and its aftermath as a “patriot purge.”
The great tragedy is that a moment of dangerous national polarization is exactly when a truly Christian message that combines the pursuit of justice with kindness and humility would be a balm to the national soul. A time of extraordinary social isolation, where people report less companionship, less time with friends, and less time with family, is exactly the time when a healthy church community can be a beacon of inclusion and hope.
May 4
Politico, Proud Boys leader found guilty of seditious conspiracy for driving Jan. 6 attack, Kyle Cheney, May 4, 2023. Jurors also convicted the leader and three others of conspiring to obstruct Congress’ proceedings on Jan. 6 and destroying government property.
A jury on Thursday convicted Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the Proud Boys, and three allies of a seditious conspiracy to derail the transfer of power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden, a historic verdict following the most significant trial to emerge from the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Jurors also convicted the four men — who also include Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs and Zachary Rehl — of conspiring to obstruct Congress’ proceedings on Jan. 6 and destroying government property. The jury deadlocked on seditious conspiracy against a fifth defendant, Dominic Pezzola, but convicted him of obstructing Congress’ Jan. 6 proceedings as well as several other felony charges.
Prosecutors cast Tarrio and the Proud Boys leaders as the most significant drivers of the Jan. 6 attack, assembling a “fighting force” that arrived at the Capitol even while Trump addressed a crowd of supporters near the White House. Members of the group were present for and involved in multiple breaches of police lines. They later celebrated their role in the breach.
The verdict punctuates an extraordinary chapter in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack. Prosecutors have now secured seditious conspiracy convictions or guilty pleas for 14 Jan. 6 defendants — five associated with the Proud Boys and nine associated with the far-right Oath Keepers — the gravest charges arising from the assault on the Capitol.
All five defendants were convicted of a third conspiracy: a plan to prevent members of Congress and law enforcement from discharging their duties on Jan. 6. They were also convicted of felony civil disorder and destruction of government property — specifically a black metal fence that Nordean, shown above, and Biggs, shown at right in a mug shot, were accused of dismantling while rioters faced off with police. Pezzola was separately found guilty of destroying a Senate-wing window with a police riot 
shield, which the jury also convicted him of robbing from a Capitol Police officer.
The jury has not reached a verdict on whether the other four defendants were culpable for Pezzola’s destruction of the Capitol window or his assault of the officer whose riot shield he subsequently stole. The jury is continuing to deliberate on other unresolved counts, including Pezzola’s alleged role in the seditious 
conspiracy and conspiracy to obstruct Congress’ proceedings. The jury also remained deadlocked on an assault charge against all five defendants for another Proud Boy’s hurling of a water bottle at police.
Images of Pezzola, shown left in a mug shot, smashing the Capitol window quickly proliferated after the attack and became a symbol of the brazen assault on Congress, which forced lawmakers and then-Vice President Mike Pence to flee for safety.
The trial was an odyssey of its own — initially slated to begin last July but postponed amid the publicity of the Jan. 6 select committee hearings that heavily featured the role of the Proud Boys. Jury selection began in December, and the trial dragged from mid-January through late April — marked by protracted disputes among the lawyers, mistrial motions by the defense and innumerable delays. The jury deliberated for about five days before reaching the partial verdict on Thursday. It’s unclear whether the jurors will resolve the remaining counts or end in a deadlock.
Prosecutors say the Proud Boys leaders viewed their fortunes as increasingly tethered to Trump’s in the 2020 election, and they were ecstatic when Trump invoked the group — telling it to “stand back and stand by” — during a presidential debate that fall. His comments drove a recruitment boom for the Proud Boys, who struggled to vet incoming group members.
After Trump’s defeat in the November election, the Proud Boys quickly became cheerleaders for his false claims the election was stolen and viewed his departure from office as an existential threat to themselves and their group. When Trump urged supporters to descend on Washington to pressure Congress to block Biden’s election — “Be there. Will be wild,” Trump famously tweeted — that’s when Tarrio and his allies decided to violently oppose the transfer of power, prosecutors say.
Former President Donald Trump is shown in a photo collage with columnist E. Jean Carroll, who accused him of raping her three decades ago, with her civil suit scheduled on trial in New York City.
New York Times, Trump Will Offer No Defense in Rape Trial, His Lawyer Says, Lola Fadulu, Benjamin Weiser and Kate Christobek, May 4, 2023 (print ed.). The lawyer said he would call no witnesses to rebut E. Jean Carroll’s account of being assaulted by Donald Trump at Bergdorf Goodman.
A lawyer defending former President Donald J. Trump against the writer E. Jean Carroll’s lawsuit accusing him of rape said that he would present no witnesses during the trial, which completed its sixth day Wednesday.
The lawyer, Joseph Tacopina, right, had earlier told Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, left, that Mr. Trump would not come to Manhattan federal court to testify in the civil case.
Mr. Trump, who is again running for president, went to Scotland and Ireland this week. When a reporter asked him why he was in Ireland instead of New York for his civil case, he responded that he had a longstanding agreement to travel there, according to a recording posted on Twitter on Wednesday. “I hear we’re doing very well in New York,” Mr. Trump added.
Even without witnesses, Mr. Trump’s lawyers can still use testimony they have elicited during cross-examinations of Ms. Carroll and others who testified on her behalf when they make their closing argument, likely Monday. Judge Kaplan told jurors that they would likely receive the case to begin deliberations early next week.
The attack happened during a visit to the luxury department store Bergdorf Goodman one evening in the mid-1990s, Ms. Carroll has said. As she was leaving through a revolving door, Mr. Trump entered and recognized her, she testified, and persuaded her to help him shop for a gift for a female friend. She said the former president went on to rape her in a dressing room in the lingerie department.
New York Times, Judge Dismisses Trump’s Lawsuit Against The New York Times, Liam Stack, May 4, 2023 (print ed.). Former President Donald J. Trump, who had sued The Times, three of its reporters and his niece over an investigation into his tax returns, was ordered to pay The Times’s legal expenses.
A New York judge dismissed former President Donald J. Trump’s lawsuit against The New York Times on Wednesday, saying the newspaper’s Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation into his finances was clearly protected by the First Amendment.
When Mr. Trump filed the lawsuit in 2021, he accused the paper and three of its reporters of conspiring in an “insidious plot” with his 
estranged niece, Mary L. Trump, right, to improperly obtain his confidential tax records for a series of stories published in 2018.
In a ruling filed on Wednesday afternoon, Justice