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Tag: 2021 United States Capitol riot

  • Prosecutors appealing length of prison sentences for Proud Boys leaders convicted of Jan. 6 plot

    Prosecutors appealing length of prison sentences for Proud Boys leaders convicted of Jan. 6 plot

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    WASHINGTON — The Justice Department is appealing the length of prison sentences for four Proud Boys leaders convicted of seditious conspiracy in the U.S. Capitol attack, challenging punishments that were significantly shorter than what prosecutors had recommended, according to court filings on Monday.

    U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly sentenced former Proud Boys national leader Enrique Tarrio and three lieutenants to prison terms ranging from 15 to 22 years after a jury convicted them in May of plotting to stop the peaceful transfer of presidential power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden after the 2020 presidential election.

    Tarrio’s 22-year sentence is the longest so far among hundreds of criminal cases stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol, but prosecutors had sought 33 years behind bars for the Miami man.

    Prosecutors also had recommended sentences of 33 years for former Proud Boys organizer Joseph Biggs, of Ormond Beach, Florida; 30 years for Proud Boys chapter leader Zachary Rehl, of Philadelphia; and 27 years in prison for chapter leader Ethan Nordean, of Auburn, Washington.

    Kelly sentenced Nordean to 18 years, Biggs to 17 years and Rehl to 15 years.

    Defense attorney Norm Pattis, who represents Biggs and Rehl, said in a text message that the government’s appeals are “ridiculous.”

    “Merrick Garland needs a new hobby horse,” Pattis said of the attorney general, whose Justice Department secured the convictions.

    Nicholas Smith, Nordean’s attorney, sarcastically said in an email that his client “is encouraged by the government’s agreement that errors led to the judgment and sentence in his case.”

    Prosecutors also are appealing the 10-year sentence for Dominic Pezzola, a Proud Boys member from Rochester, New York. Prosecutors sought 20 years in prison for Pezzola, who was tried alongside the four group leaders. Jurors acquitted Pezzola of seditious conspiracy but convicted him of other serious charges.

    The Justice Department already is appealing the 18-year prison sentence for Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, who was convicted of seditious conspiracy in a separate Jan. 6 case, as well as the sentences of other members of his anti-government militia group.

    Prosecutors had requested 25 years in prison for Rhodes. U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta sentenced him to 18 years.

    Also on Monday, a Proud Boys member who joined others from the far-right group in attacking the Capitol pleaded guilty to obstructing the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress for certifying Biden’s victory. William Chrestman, 49, of Olathe, Kansas, also pleaded guilty to threatening to assault a federal officer during the riot at the Capitol.

    Kelly is scheduled to sentence Chrestman for his two felony convictions on Jan. 12. Estimated sentencing guidelines for his case recommended a prison term ranging from four years and three months to five years and three months.

    Chrestman brought an axe handle, gas mask, helmet and other tactical gear when he traveled to Washington, D.C., with other Proud Boys members from the Kansas City, Kansas, area, On Jan. 6, he marched to the Capitol grounds with dozens of other Proud Boys leaders, members and associates.

    Chrestman and other Proud Boys moved past a toppled metal barricade and joined other rioters in front of another police barrier. He shouted a threat at officers and yelled at others in the crowd to stop police from arresting another rioter, according to prosecutors.

    Facing the crowd, Chrestman shouted, “Whose house is this?”

    “Our house!” the crowd replied.

    “Do you want your house back?” Chrestman asked.

    “Yes!” they responded.

    “Take it!” Chrestman yelled.

    Chrestman also pointed his finger at a line of Capitol police officers, gestured at them with his axe handle and threatened to assault them if they fired “pepper ball” rounds at the crowd of rioters, according to a court filing accompanying his guilty plea.

    Chrestman, a U.S. Army veteran, has been jailed since his arrest in February 2021.

    More than 1,100 people have been charged with Capitol riot-related federal crimes. Approximately 60 of them have been identified as Proud Boys leaders, members or associates.

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  • A proposed gag order on Trump in his federal election case is putting the judge in a tricky position

    A proposed gag order on Trump in his federal election case is putting the judge in a tricky position

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    WASHINGTON — A proposed gag order aimed at reining in Donald Trump‘s incendiary rhetoric puts the judge overseeing his federal election interference case in a tricky position: She must balance the need to protect the integrity of the legal proceedings against the First Amendment rights of a presidential candidate to defend himself in public.

    U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan will hear arguments Monday in Washington over whether Trump has gone too far with remarks such as calling prosecutors a “team of thugs” and one possible witness “a gutless pig.”

    It is the biggest test yet for Chutkan, underscoring the unprecedented complexities of prosecuting the former Republican president as the judge vows not to let political considerations guide her decisions.

    Ending the stream of Trump’s harsh language would make the case easier to manage. But among the difficult questions Chutkan must navigate is how any gag order might be enforced and how one could be fashioned that does not risk provoking Trump’s base and fueling his claims of political persecution as he campaigns to retake the White House in 2024.

    “She has to think about the serious risk that it’s not just his words that could trigger violence, but that she could play into the conspiracy theories that Trump’s followers tend to believe in, and that her act of issuing a gag order might trigger a very disturbing response,” said Catherine Ross said, a George Washington University law school professor.

    “If we allow that to stop a judge from doing what is called for, that’s a big problem for rule of law. But on the other hand, if I were the judge, I would certainly be thinking about it,” she said.

    Short of issuing an order, Chutkan has already suggested that inflammatory comments could force her to move up the trial, now scheduled to begin in March, to guard against tainting the jury pool. Judges can threaten gag order violators with fines or jail time, but jailing a presidential candidate could prompt serious political blowback and pose logistical hurdles.

    Chutkan, who was nominated to the bench by President Barack Obama, isn’t the first judge to confront the consequences of Trump’s speech. The judge in his civil fraud trial in New York recently imposed a limited gag order prohibiting personal attacks against court personnel following a social media post that maligned the judge’s principal clerk.

    Special counsel Jack Smith’s team envisions a broader order, seeking to bar Trump from making inflammatory and intimidating comments about lawyers, witnesses and others involved in the case that accuses the former president of illegally plotting to overturn his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden. Trump’s lawyers call it a “desperate effort at censorship” that would prevent Trump from telling his side of the story while campaigning.

    A complicating factor is that many of the potential witnesses in the case are themselves public figures. In the case of Trump’s vice president, Mike Pence is also running against Trump for the GOP nomination. That could open the door for Trump’s team to argue that he should be permitted to respond to public broadsides he sees on television or seek a competitive edge by denouncing a political rival for the White House.

    Burt Neuborne, a longtime civil liberties lawyer who challenged gag orders on behalf of defendants and lawyers in other cases, questioned whether a formal order was necessary because witness intimidation is already a crime and the court can guard against a tainted jury by carefully questioning prospective jurors before trial. A gag order may also slow down the case because it’s likely Trump either violates it and the judge will want to punish him or Trump will challenge the order in advance, he said.

    “And so in some sense, you may be playing directly into his hands by essentially creating yet another mechanism for him to try to push this until after the 2024 election because my sense is that any gag order that she issues will eventually reach the Supreme Court,” Neuborne said.

    But Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney in Michigan, said she believes the judge can issue a narrow enough order that withstands legal challenges and protects both the case and Trump’s abilities to campaign.

    “Especially in this case, where Donald Trump has made it apparent that he will say all kinds of outrageous and vitriolic things about the parties, about the judge, about witnesses unless she acts,” said McQuade, a University of Michigan Law School professor. “So in some ways she has, I think, a responsibility to act here.”

    There is some limited precedent for restricting speech of political candidates who are criminal defendants.

    In one case, a federal appeals court in 1987 lifted a gag order on U.S. Rep. Harold Ford Sr., a Tennessee Democrat charged in a fraud case. Ford, who was ultimately acquitted, claimed the case brought under Republican President Ronald Reagan’s administration was racially and politically motivated.

    Ford’s gag order prohibited him from even sharing his opinion of or discussing facts of the case. The court noted that Ford would soon be up for reelection and said the gag order would unfairly prevent him from responding to attacks from his political opponents and block his constituents from hearing the “views of their congressman on this issue of undoubted public importance.”

    Another appeals court in 2000 upheld a gag order challenged by then-Louisiana Insurance Commissioner Jim Brown in a fraud case, noting the order allowed assertions of innocence and other general statements about the case.

    The court, however, also noted that the judge briefly lifted the gag order to avoid interfering with Brown’s reelection campaign, saying that the “urgency of a campaign, which may well require that a candidate, for the benefit of the electorate as well as himself, have absolute freedom to discuss his qualifications, has passed.”

    Chutkan herself has experience with gag orders.

    In 2018, she imposed an order restricting the comments of lawyers in the case of Maria Butina, a Russian gun activist who pleaded guilty to working in America as a secret agent for Moscow. The order followed prosecutors’ admission that they had wrongly accused Butina of trading sex for access as well as public comments by her lawyer that Chutkan said had “crossed the line.”

    The next year, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson imposed a gag order on Trump ally Roger Stone in his obstruction and witness tampering case after he posted a photo of judge with what appeared to be crosshairs of a gun. Though she warned she could jail him if he violated the order, she instead barred him from using social media months later after he again publicly disparaged the case against him.

    But that order was in direct response to a specific action, said Bruce Rogow, Stone’s attorney in that case. He said he was dubious that Trump’s attacks, “while in very poor taste,” posed the kind of danger to merit a gag order.

    “Trump’s talk may be déclassé, but the First Amendment defends his right to present his distorted view of the world up to the point that he presents a true threat to people or the administration of justice. Not easy to measure,” Rogow wrote in an email. “Like obscenity, one knows it when you see it.”

    ____

    Richer reported from Boston.

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  • Prosecutors reveal a reason for Capitol rioter’s secretive sentencing: His government cooperation

    Prosecutors reveal a reason for Capitol rioter’s secretive sentencing: His government cooperation

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    A Pennsylvania man’s guilty plea and prison sentence for attacking police during the U.S. Capitol riot has remained under seal for months, but a court filing on Monday reveals a reason for the unusual secrecy: He cooperated with federal authorities after the Jan, 2021, siege.

    Prosecutors want to keep certain details of Samuel Lazar’s cooperation under wraps, but they have acknowledged for the first time that he supplied the government with information as part of a plea agreement.

    Publicly releasing information that Lazar provided could interfere with ongoing investigations, according to a joint court filing by prosecutors and Lazar’s attorney. The filing, which is dated Friday but was docketed on Monday, also says Lazar “named individuals responsible for criminal conduct who may not have been charged.”

    More than 1,100 people have been charged with Jan. 6-related crimes, and hundreds of them have pleaded guilty. But it is rare for records of a guilty plea and sentence to be sealed, even in cases involving a defendant’s cooperation. Court hearings and records are supposed to be open and available to the public unless there’s a compelling need for secrecy.

    Lazar, 37, of Ephrata, Pennsylvania, was released from federal custody on Sept. 13 after serving a 30-month prison sentence. His cooperation with the government was discussed at a March 2023 sentencing hearing that was closed to the public, the joint filing says.

    A coalition of news outlets, including The Associated Press, on Friday renewed its request for the court to unseal records of Lazar’s guilty plea and punishment. Prosecutors and Lazar’s attorney are asking for 30 days to redact records of his cooperation before they are publicly released.

    U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who sentenced Lazar, didn’t immediately rule on either request.

    In May, Jackson had rejected the initial request from media outlets to release any sealed records that may exist. Jackson said the case law cited by the press coalition “plainly recognizes that there may be circumstances where a need for secrecy can be outweighed by competing significant interests.”

    Lazar was arrested in July 2021 on charges that he came to the Capitol on Jan. 6 dressed in tactical gear and protective goggles and used chemical spray on officers who were trying to hold off the mob of Donald Trump supporters.

    Videos captured Lazar approaching police lines outside the Capitol and discharging an orange chemical irritant toward officers, an FBI agent said in a court filing. Lazar shouted profane insults at police through the bullhorn, calling them tyrants and yelling, “Let’s get their guns!”

    Lazar remained jailed for nearly two years before his sentencing. A magistrate judge who ordered Lazar’s detention concluded that his pretrial release would pose “a concrete, prospective threat to public safety.”

    Attorneys for the news outlets questioned why records of Lazar’s guilty plea and sentence remained under seal even after his release from prison.

    “The press, the public, and presumably even the police victims of Lazar’s violence on January 6 therefore have no idea how or why this January 6 riot participant, deemed just a couple of years ago to be too dangerous to release, is now free,” the lawyers wrote on Friday.

    As recently as last month, the Justice Department refused to say why the case remains under wraps, while attorneys for Lazar did not respond to multiple requests for comment from The AP.

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  • Proud Boys member who disappeared ahead of his sentencing in the Jan. 6 attack has been arrested

    Proud Boys member who disappeared ahead of his sentencing in the Jan. 6 attack has been arrested

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    A member of the Proud Boys extremist group who disappeared days before he was supposed to be sentenced for his role in the U.S. Capitol riot has been arrested, the FBI said Friday.

    Christopher Worrell, of Naples, Florida, was on house arrest when he went missing last month ahead of his sentencing hearing in Washington, where prosecutors were seeking 14 years behind bars on convictions for assault, obstruction of Congress and other offenses.

    Andrea Aprea, a spokesperson for the FBI office in Tampa, confirmed Worrell’s arrest, but said she had no further details. Jail records show he is at the Collier County Jail, but a spokesperson for the Collier County Sheriff’s Office referred all questions to the FBI.

    Worrell’s attorney, William Shipley, didn’t immediately return a phone message on Friday.

    Worrell, 52, had been on house arrest in Florida since his release from jail in Washington in November 2021, less than a month after a judge substantiated his civil-rights complaints about his treatment in the jail. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth found Worrell’s medical care for a broken hand had been delayed, and held D.C. jail officials in contempt of court.

    He was convicted after a bench trial in May of assauling officers with pepper spray gel as the mob of Donald Trump supporters attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Authorities say Worrell, dressed in tactical vest, bragged that he “deployed a whole can” and shouted insults at officers, calling them “commies” and “scum.”

    Prosecutors say Worrell then lied on the witness stand at trial, claiming that he was actually spraying other rioters. The judge called that claim “preposterous,” prosecutors said in court papers.

    Worrell’s lawyer wrote in court papers that his client brought the spray gel and tactical vest to Washington for defensive purposes because of previous violence between Proud Boys and counter-protesters. His lawyer wrote that the chaotic scene at the Capitol “could have contributed to misperceptions creating inaccuracies” in Worrell’s testimony at trial.

    More than three dozen people charged in the Capitol attack have been identified by federal authorities as leaders, members or associates of the Proud Boys, whose members describe it as a politically incorrect men’s club for “Western chauvinists.”

    Former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio was sentenced earlier this month to 22 years in prison — the longest sentence that has been handed down in the Jan. 6 attack. Tarrio and three Proud Boys associates were convicted of seditious conspiracy and other crimes for what prosecutors said was a plot to stop the transfer of power from Trump to Democrat Joe Biden.

    More than 1,100 people have been charged with federal crimes in the Jan. 6 riot. More than 650 have been sentenced, with approximately two-thirds receiving time behind bars, according to an Associated Press review of court records.

    ____

    Richer reported from Boston.

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  • Trump lawyers say prosecutors want to ‘silence’ him with gag order in his federal 2020 election case

    Trump lawyers say prosecutors want to ‘silence’ him with gag order in his federal 2020 election case

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    Lawyers for former President Donald Trump are slamming prosecutors’ request for a narrow gag order in his 2020 election subversion case in Washington, calling it an effort to “unconstitutionally silence” his political speech

    ByALANNA DURKIN RICHER Associated Press

    September 26, 2023, 6:51 AM

    Former President Donald Trump pauses before ending his remarks at a rally in Summerville, S.C., Monday, Sept. 25, 2023. (AP Photo/Artie Walker Jr.)

    The Associated Press

    Lawyers for former President Donald Trump are slamming prosecutors’ request for a narrow gag order in his 2020 election subversion case in Washington, calling it an effort to “unconstitutionally silence” his political speech.

    In court papers filed late Monday, attorneys for Trump urge U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan to deny the proposal to bar the Republican ex-president from making inflammatory and intimidating comments about witnesses, lawyers and other people involved in the criminal case.

    Trump’s attorneys call the request a “desperate effort at censorship” that would prevent him from telling his side of the story on the campaign trial as he runs to retake the White House in 2024.

    “The prosecution may not like President’s Trump’s entirely valid criticisms, but neither it nor this Court are the filter for what the public may hear,” his legal team wrote. “If the prosecution wishes to avoid criticism for abusing its power, the solution is simple: stop abusing its power. The Constitution allows no alternative.”

    In seeking the order earlier this month, special counsel Jack Smith’s team pointed to what it said is a pattern of “false and inflammatory” statements by Trump about the case as well as comments meant to intimidate or harass people he believes are potential witnesses against him. Prosecutors told the judge that a “narrow, well-defined” order was necessary to preserve the integrity of the case and to avoid prejudicing potential jurors.

    Trump’s lawyers said prosecutors haven’t proved why such an order would be necessary, saying that his social media posts haven’t intimidated any possible witnesses and that there’s no real concern his comments would taint the jury pool.

    Trump’s lawyers have also asked the judge to recuse herself from the case, saying her past public statements about him and his connection to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol call into question whether she can be fair.

    There’s a high bar for recusal, and Smith’s team has said there is no valid basis to have the judge removed from the case.

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  • New book alleges Trump’s ex-chief of staff’s suits smelled ‘like a bonfire’ from burning papers

    New book alleges Trump’s ex-chief of staff’s suits smelled ‘like a bonfire’ from burning papers

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    NEW YORK — A former aide in Donald Trump’s White House says chief of staff Mark Meadows burned papers so often after the 2020 election that it left his office smoky and even prompted his wife to complain that his suits smelled “like a bonfire.”

    Cassidy Hutchinson, who was a prominent congressional witness against former President Trump before the House Jan. 6 committee, described the burning papers in a new book set to be released Tuesday. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the book, “Enough.”

    Hutchinson was a White House staffer in her 20s who worked for Meadows and testified for two hours on national television about the White House’s inner workings leading up to and including the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

    Trump and Meadows tried to challenge the former president’s election loss in several states. Both are under indictment in Georgia for what prosecutors have called an illegal conspiracy to overturn the results.

    In her book, Hutchinson writes that starting in mid-December, Meadows wanted a fire burning in his office every morning. She says that when she would enter his office to bring him lunch or a package, she “would sometimes find him leaning over the fire, feeding papers into it, watching to make sure they burned.”

    Hutchinson had previously testified to the House Jan. 6 committee that she had seen Meadows burning documents in his office about a dozen times.

    Hutchinson said she did not know what papers he was burning but said it raised alarms because federal law regarding presidential records requires staff to keep original documents and send them to the National Archives.

    She said one day when Republican Rep. Devin Nunes of California came to meet with Meadows, the congressman asked Hutchinson to open the windows in Meadows’ office because it was smoky. She said she warned Meadows he would set off a smoke alarm.

    Later, in the days after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, when Trump’s staffers began packing to move out of the White House, Hutchinson said Meadows’ wife arrived to help and asked the aide to stop lighting the fireplace for Meadows because “all of his suits smell like a bonfire” and she could not keep up with the dry cleaning.

    A message seeking comment from Meadows’ attorney was not returned Monday.

    Hutchinson in her book also described a moment on the morning of Jan. 6, when she said former New York City Mayor and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani groped her backstage as Trump addressed his supporters in Washington.

    She said Giuliani slid his hand under her blazer and her skirt and ran his hand on her thigh after showing her a stack of documents related to his efforts to overturn the election.

    Giuliani denied the allegation in an interview on Newsmax last week, calling it “absolutely false, totally absurd.”

    “First, I’m not going to grope somebody at all. And number two, in front of like 100 people?” he said.

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  • Prosecutors seek narrow gag order on Trump in DC elections case after ‘inflammatory’ public comments

    Prosecutors seek narrow gag order on Trump in DC elections case after ‘inflammatory’ public comments

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    WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors are seeking an order that would prevent Donald Trump from making “inflammatory” and “intimidating” comments about witnesses, lawyers and other people involved in the criminal case charging the former president with scheming to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

    Special counsel Jack Smith’s team said in a motion filed Friday that such a “narrow, well-defined” order was necessary to preserve the integrity of the case and to avoid prejudicing potential jurors.

    Prosecutors had foreshadowed for weeks their concerns about Trump’s verbal attacks, but Friday’s request marks the first time they have proposed formal action to rein in speech that they say risks tainting the case and causing court workers and witnesses to live in fear of being targeted. The motion lays out what prosecutors say is a pattern of “false and inflammatory” statements about the case as well as comments meant to intimidate or harass people he believes are potential witnesses against him.

    “Since the grand jury returned an indictment in this case, the defendant has repeatedly and widely disseminated public statements attacking the citizens of the District of Columbia, the Court, prosecutors, and prospective witnesses,” prosecutors wrote. “Through his statements, the defendant threatens to undermine the integrity of these proceedings and prejudice the jury pool.”

    They said Trump’s rhetoric has already had an impact, noting how jurors in the trial of a man convicted of participating in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol recently sent a note conveying concern that he might have information about their identity.

    If the order is granted, Trump would be forced to dramatically limit the type of comments he makes about the case even as he seeks to turn his criminal woes — the Washington prosecution is one of four that he currently faces — to his political advantage while running to reclaim the White House in 2024. Still, it was not immediately clear what sanctions Trump could face if he fails to curb his speech or how the judge, Tanya Chutkan, might enforce even a limited gag order.

    Trump showed no signs of toning down his words, complaining about the motion on Truth Social shortly after it was filed and repeating his claim that the FBI and Justice Department had been “weaponized.” He repeated his familiar refrains that President Joe Biden was “crooked” and that Smith was “deranged.”

    “They Leak, Lie, & Sue, & they won’t allow me to SPEAK,” Trump wrote.

    Trump’s lawyers also oppose the request, prosecutors wrote in their motion, and a Trump spokesperson said in a statement that prosecutors were “corruptly and cynically continuing to attempt to deprive President Trump of his First Amendment rights.

    “This is nothing more than blatant election interference because President Trump is by far the leading candidate in this race. The American people — the voters — see right through this un-Constitutional charade and will send President Trump back to the White House,” the spokesperson said.

    Beyond the narrow gag order, prosecutors also asked for an order that would prevent the Trump team from contacting District of Columbia residents to conduct polling, jury studies and focus groups without the judge’s permission.

    The efforts to weaken faith in the court system, the prosecutors wrote, mirror his attacks on the 2020 election, which he falsely claimed that he had won.

    “The defendant is now attempting to do the same thing in this criminal case — to undermine confidence in the criminal justice system and prejudice the jury pool through disparaging and inflammatory attacks on the citizens of this District, the Court, prosecutors, and prospective witnesses,” they wrote.

    Among the statements cited by prosecutors in their motion is a a post on his Truth Social platform days after the indictment in which Trump wrote, in all capital letters, “If you go after me, I’m coming after you!” He has also repeatedly alleged on social media that the case against him is “rigged” and that he cannot receive a fair trial.

    And he has attacked in personal terms the prosecutors bringing the case — calling Smith “deranged” and his team “thugs” — as well as the Chutkan, the judge presiding over the case.

    The issue surfaced last week with the disclosure by the Justice Department that it sought to file a motion related to “daily” public statements by Trump that it said it feared would taint the jury pool. Chutkan on Friday granted permission to prosecutors to file a redacted motion publicly, with names and identifying information of individuals who say they’ve been harassed as a result of Trump’s attacks blacked out.

    Also Friday, Smith’s team pushed back against the Trump team request to have Chutkan recuse herself from the case. Defense lawyers had cited prior comments from Chutkan that they say cast doubt on her ability to be fair, but prosecutors responded that there was no valid basis for her to step aside.

    ____

    Follow Eric Tucker on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP

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  • Man who threw flagpole at police during Jan. 6 riot gets more than 6 years in prison

    Man who threw flagpole at police during Jan. 6 riot gets more than 6 years in prison

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    WASHINGTON — A Tennessee man who wrote on social media about wanting to “take over the Capitol building” before the Jan. 6, 2021, riot, where he threw a flagpole at a police officer’s head, was sentenced on Wednesday to more than six years in prison.

    Joseph Padilla, of Cleveland, Tennessee, was convicted in May of assault with a dangerous weapon, obstruction of Congress and other charges after a bench trial in Washington’s federal court.

    Padilla has been behind bars since his February 2021 arrest. U.S. District Judge John D. Bates, who found him guilty after the bench trial, ordered him this week to serve 6 1/2 years in prison.

    Prosecutors say Padilla, a former prison corrections officer, spent hours the day of the riot verbally and physically attacking police, who were trying to beat back the angry mob of Donald Trump supporters as lawmakers met in the Capitol to certify then-President-elect Joe Biden ‘s electoral victory.

    After other rioters attacked police with objects such as crutches and a hockey stick, Padilla launched a flagpole toward officers, hitting one of them in the head, prosecutors said in court records. Prosecutors say he then lied under oath on the witness stand about it, claiming he was trying to hit another rioter.

    A day after the riot, Padilla wrote on social media that he was “proud” of his actions, adding: “It’s guns next, that’s the only way,” prosecutors said. Prosecutors also pointed to several of Padilla’s social media comments calling for a revolution ahead of Jan. 6.

    “We’ve gotta do it on the 6th or never at all. We have to take over the Capitol Building, immediately pass acts dissolving the current Legislative body, and fill the places with uncompromising Patriots from among those of us there,” Padilla wrote in one post in late December 2020.

    Padilla’s lawyer told the judge that his client, a U.S. Army veteran, “regrets ever having gone to the Capitol on January 6th, 2021.” Padilla’s lawyer said the man has lived an “exemplary life” despite a “troubled upbringing,” which included a stint of homelessness, and that his actions on Jan. 6 were “not typical of his life pattern.”

    Padilla “states that every day is torture having to live with the fact that his actions are the direct reason for his family’s separation and hardship. He understands that his actions on January 6th caused himself and his family the pain and suffering they now deal with daily,” defense attorney Michael Cronkright wrote in court papers.

    An email seeking comment was sent to Conkright after Wednesday’s hearing.

    More than 1,100 people have been charged with federal crimes stemming from the riot, which left dozens of police officers injured and halted Congress’ certification of Biden’s victory. Over 650 defendants have pleaded guilty. More than 600 have been sentenced, with over half receiving terms of imprisonment ranging from three days to 22 years.

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  • Trump’s comments risk tainting jury pool in federal election subversion case, special counsel says

    Trump’s comments risk tainting jury pool in federal election subversion case, special counsel says

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    Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith is warning that former President Donald Trump’s “daily” statements risk tainting a jury pool in Washington in the criminal case charging him with scheming to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential el…

    ByERIC TUCKER Associated Press

    September 5, 2023, 7:12 PM

    FILE – Special counsel Jack Smith speaks to the media about an indictment of former President Donald Trump, Aug. 1, 2023, at an office of the Department of Justice in Washington. A slim majority of Americans approve of the U.S. Justice Department indicting Donald Trump over his efforts to remain in office after losing the 2020 election, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

    The Associated Press

    WASHINGTON — Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith warned Tuesday that former President Donald Trump‘s “daily” statements threaten to taint a jury pool in Washington in the criminal case charging him with scheming to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

    Trump’s provocative comments about both Smith’s team and U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan — who is presiding over the case — have been a central issue since the indictment was filed last month. Prosecutors have repeatedly signaled their concerns about the impact of Trump’s social media posts and Chutkan explicitly cautioned against inflammatory remarks from Trump that could intimidate witnesses or contaminate potential jurors.

    The posts continued Tuesday both before and after the latest concern flared, with Trump earlier in the day circulating a New York Post story about Chutkan on his Truth Social platform and openly mocking the idea that she could be fair in his case. Later in the evening, he issued another post in which he attacked Smith as a “deranged” prosecutor with “unchecked and insane aggression.”

    Tuesday’s complaint from the Justice Department underscores the extent to which Trump’s social media attacks are testing the patience of prosecutors and risk exposing him to sanctions from the judge, who last week set a trial date of March 4, 2024, in an effort to keep the case moving. Trump has faced admonitions in other cases, too, with a condition of his release in a separate prosecution in Atlanta being that he refrain from intimidating co-defendants, witnesses or victims in the case.

    The subject surfaced again in a dispute over a motion that the Justice Department said it wanted to file under seal, with an accompanying redacted version to be filed on the public docket. Defense lawyers objected, countering that they were entitled time to review the Justice Department’s filings and any proposed sealed exhibits before they could be docketed.

    But prosecutors said it would untenable to take several weeks to decide whether “every ordinary filing that refers to Sensitive Materials may be docketed.”

    “Such a requirement would grind litigation in this case to a halt, which is particularly infeasible given the pressing matters before the Court — including the defendant’s daily extrajudicial statements that threaten to prejudice the jury pool in this case, as described in the Government’s motion,” the Smith team wrote.

    Chutkan set deadlines for next week for additional filings that she said may be filed under seal.

    Trump faces three other prosecutions besides the federal election subversion case. He’s charged with 18 other people in a state case in Atlanta with plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia; faces federal charges from Smith accusing him of illegally hoarding classified documents; and is accused in New York of falsifying business records in connection with a hush money payment to a porn actor.

    ____

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  • Attorney John Eastman surrenders to authorities on charges in Georgia 2020 election subversion case

    Attorney John Eastman surrenders to authorities on charges in Georgia 2020 election subversion case

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    ATLANTA — John Eastman, the conservative attorney who pushed a plan to keep Donald Trump in power, turned himself in to authorities Tuesday on charges in the Georgia case alleging an illegal plot to overturn the former president’s 2020 election loss.

    Eastman was booked at the Fulton County jail and is expected to have an arraignment set in the coming weeks in the sprawling racketeering case.

    He was indicted last week alongside Trump and 17 others, who are accused by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis of scheming to subvert the will of Georgia voters in a desperate bid to keep Joe Biden out of the White House. It was the fourth criminal case brought against the Republican former president.

    Trump, whose bond was set Monday at $200,000, has said he will surrender to authorities in Fulton County on Thursday. His bond conditions prohibit him from intimidating co-defendants, witnesses or victims in the case, including on social media. He has a history of attacking the prosecutors leading the cases against him, including Willis, often using racist language and stereotypes.

    Eastman said in a statement provided by his lawyers that he was surrendering Tuesday “to an indictment that should never have been brought.” He lambasted the indictment for targeting “attorneys for their zealous advocacy on behalf of their clients” and said each of the 19 defendants was entitled to rely on the advice of lawyers and past legal precedent to challenge the results of the election.

    A former dean of Chapman University law school in Southern California, Eastman was a close adviser to Trump in the run-up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by the president’s supporters intent on halting the certification of Biden’s electoral victory. He wrote a memo laying out steps Vice President Mike Pence could take to interfere in the counting of electoral votes while presiding over Congress’ joint session on Jan. 6 in order to keep Trump in office.

    The indictment alleges that Eastman and others pushed to put in place a slate of “alternate” electors falsely certifying that Trump won and tried to pressure Pence into rejecting or delaying the counting of legitimate electoral votes for Biden, a Democrat.

    Bail bondsman Scott Hall, who was accused of participating in a breach of election equipment in rural Coffee County, also turned himself in to the Fulton County Jail on Tuesday morning.

    Two other defendants, former Justice Department lawyer Jeffrey Clark and former Georgia Republican Party chair David Shafer, have filed paperwork to transfer the case to federal court. Willis has filed paperwork in Fulton County Superior Court, where the indictment was filed, seeking a March 4 trial date. Legal maneuvering, such as the attempts to move the case to federal court, could make it difficult to start a trial that soon.

    Lawyers for Clark argued in a court filing Monday that he was a high-ranking Justice Department official and the actions described in the indictment “relate directly to his work at the Justice Department as well as with the former President of the United States.” Shafer’s attorneys argued that his conduct “stems directly from his service as a Presidential Elector nominee,” actions they say were “at the direction of the President and other federal officers.”

    Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows last week made similar arguments in a federal court filing, saying his actions were taken in service to his White House role.

    Clark was a staunch supporter of Trump’s false claims of election fraud and in December 2020 presented colleagues with a draft letter pushing Georgia officials to convene a special legislative session on the election results, according to testimony before the U.S. House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Clark wanted the letter sent, but Justice Department superiors refused.

    Shafer was one of 16 Georgia Republicans who signed a certificate declaring falsely that Trump had won the 2020 presidential election and declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors even though Biden had won the state and a slate of Democratic electors was certified.

    Lawyers for Shafer and the district attorney’s office on Tuesday agreed to a bond of $75,000. Also Tuesday, a court filing showed that bond has been set at $10,000 for Shawn Still, another of the fake electors who was elected to the Georgia state Senate in November 2022 and represents a district in Atlanta’s suburbs.

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  • Justice Department seeks 33 years in prison for ex-Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio in Jan. 6 case

    Justice Department seeks 33 years in prison for ex-Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio in Jan. 6 case

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    The Justice Department is seeking 33 years in prison for Enrique Tarrio, the former Proud Boys leader convicted of seditious conspiracy in one of the most serious cases to emerge from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, according to court documents filed Thursday.

    The sentence, if imposed, would be by far the longest punishment that has been handed down in the massive Jan. 6 prosecution. Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, who was convicted of seditious conspiracy in a separate case, has the received the longest sentence to date — 18 years.

    Tarrio, who once served as national chairman of the far-right extremist group, and three lieutenants were convicted by a Washington jury in May of conspiring to block the transfer of presidential power in the hopes of keeping Republican Donald Trump in the White House after he lost the 2020 election.

    Tarrio, who was not at the Capitol riot itself, was a top target of what has become the largest Justice Department investigation in American history. He led the neo-fascist group — known for street fights with left-wing activists — when Trump infamously told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” during his first debate with Democrat Joe Biden.

    During the monthslong trial, prosecutors argued that the Proud Boys viewed themselves as foot soldiers fighting for Trump as the Republican spread lies that Democrats stole the election from him, and were prepared to go to war to keep their preferred leader in power.

    “These defendants and the men in their command saw themselves as the foot soldiers of the right — they were prepared to use, and they did use, force to stop the ‘traitors’ from stealing the election,” prosecutors wrote in their court filing.

    Prosecutors are also asking for a 33-year-sentence for one of Tarrio’s co-defendants, Joseph Biggs of Ormond Beach, Florida, a self-described Proud Boys organizer.

    They are asking the judge to impose a 30-year prison term for Zachary Rehl, who was president of the Proud Boys chapter in Philadelphia; 27 years in prison for Ethan Nordean of Auburn, Washington, who was a Proud Boys chapter president; and 20 years for Dominic Pezzola, a Proud Boys member from Rochester, New York. Pezzola was acquitted of seditious conspiracy but convicted of other serious charges.

    Tarrio wasn’t in Washington on Jan. 6, because he had been arrested two days earlier in a separate case and ordered out of the capital city. But prosecutors alleged he organized and directed the attack by Proud Boys who stormed the Capitol that day.

    Defense attorneys argued there was no conspiracy and no plan to attack the Capitol, and sought to portray the Proud Boys as an unorganized drinking club whose members’ participation in the riot was a spontaneous act fueled by Trump’s election rage. Tarrio’s lawyers tried to argue that Trump was the one to blame for extorting a crowd outside the White House to “ fight like hell.”

    Attorneys for the Proud Boys say prosecutors’ proposed sentences are extreme. Noting that the chaos on Jan. 6 was fueled by Trump’s false election claims, a lawyer for Biggs and Rehl told the judge that “believing the commander in chief and heeding his call should yield some measure of mitigation.”

    “The defendants are not terrorists. Whatever excesses of zeal they demonstrated on January 6, 2021, and no matter how grave the potential interference with the orderly transfer of power due to the events of that day, a decade or more behind bars is an excessive punishment,” attorney Norm Pattis wrote.

    Like in the case of Rhodes and other Oath Keepers, prosecutors are urging the judge to apply a so-called “terrorism enhancement” — which can lead to a longer prison term — under the argument that the Proud Boys sought to influence the government through “intimidation or coercion.”

    U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta agreed with prosecutors that the Oath Keepers’ crimes could be punished as “terrorism,” but still sentenced Rhodes and the others to prison terms shorter than what prosecutors were seeking. Prosecutors had asked Mehta to sentence Rhodes to 25 years behind bars.

    Tarrio, of Miami, and his co-defendants will be sentenced before U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly in a string of hearings starting later this month in Washington’s federal court.

    It’s the same courthouse where Trump pleaded not guilty this month in the case brought by special counsel Jack Smith accusing the Republican of illegally scheming to subvert the will of voters and overturn his loss to Biden. Trump has denied any wrongdoing.

    Tarrio and three of his lieutenants were also convicted of two of the same charges Trump faces: obstruction of Congress’ certification of Biden’s victory, and conspiracy to obstruct Congress.

    ____

    Richer reported from Boston.

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  • Trump lawyers seek April 2026 trial date in federal election subversion case

    Trump lawyers seek April 2026 trial date in federal election subversion case

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    WASHINGON — Lawyers for Donald Trump asked a federal judge Thursday to put off until 2026 a trial in Washington on charges that the former president plotted to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

    The suggested April 2026 date is a counterproposal to the Justice Department’s recommendation last week that the trial should begin Jan. 2, 2024. Special counsel Jack Smith’s team is expected to oppose the Trump team’s request, which seeks to put off his trial until nearly a year and a half after the 2024 presidential election, in which Trump is currently the early front-runner for the Republican nomination.

    The question is ultimately up to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is expected to set at least a tentative trial date during an Aug. 28 court hearing.

    In a court filing Thursday evening, Trump’s lawyers say the years-long delay is warranted because of the “massive” amount of information — prosecutors have already produced more than 11.5 million pages — they have to review and because of scheduling conflicts with the other criminal cases Trump is currently facing. As it stands, they said they would have to review about 100,000 pages per day in order to meet the Justice Department’s proposed trial date.

    “If we were to print and stack 11.5 million pages of documents, with no gap between pages, at 200 pages per inch, the result would be a tower of paper stretching nearly 5,000 feet into the sky. That is taller than the Washington Monument, stacked on top of itself eight times, with nearly a million pages to spare,” the defense lawyers wrote.

    They also contend that the case concerns unprecedented questions that will take time to sort out.

    “No president has ever been charged with a crime for conduct committed while in office. No major party presidential candidate has ever been charged while in the middle of a campaign — and certainly not by a Justice Department serving his opponent,” the lawyers wrote. “These and numerous other issues will be questions of first impression, requiring significant time for the parties to consider and brief, and for the Court to resolve.”

    Trump’s 2024 calendar is expected to be packed with court dates and campaign appearances.

    He is confronting both a presidential primary season and four criminal cases in four different cities. Next March 25, he is set for trial in a New York state case related to an alleged hush money payment to a porn actor. Prosecutors in Fulton County, Georgia, where Trump was charged earlier this week with trying to undo the results of that state’s presidential election, have proposed a March 4 trial date — though that is likely to slip given the complexity of a sprawling racketeering case that involves 19 defendants.

    And a federal judge in Florida has set a May 20 trial date on charges that Trump illegally hoarded classified documents and concealed them from investigators.

    “President Trump must prepare for each of these trials in the coming months. All are independently complex and will require substantial work to defend. Several will likely require President Trump’s presence at some or all trial proceedings,” the defense lawyers wrote, adding that the cases would involve pre- and post-trial hearings that will conflict with prosecutors’ proposed trial calendar.

    ____

    Follow Eric Tucker on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP

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  • Trump assails judge in 2020 election case after she warned him not to make inflammatory remarks

    Trump assails judge in 2020 election case after she warned him not to make inflammatory remarks

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    NEW YORK — NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump is assailing the federal judge overseeing the election conspiracy case against him, days after she warned him not to make inflammatory statements about the case.

    The former president made posts Monday on his social media network calling U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan “highly partisan” and “ VERY BIASED & UNFAIR!” because of her past comments in a separate case overseeing the sentencing of one of the defendants charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

    Chutkan in a hearing Friday imposed a protective order in the case limiting what evidence handed over by prosecutors the former president and his legal team can publicly disclose. She warned Trump’s lawyers that his defense should be mounted in the courtroom and “not on the internet.”

    Trump posted about the case online anyway, firing off about the judge.

    A spokesperson for special counsel Jack Smith declined to comment Monday.

    Prosecutors sought the protective order after calling attention to another earlier post on Trump’s social media platform, in which he said he would be “coming after” those who “go after” him. The prosecutors said improper of sharing evidence could have a “harmful chilling effect on witnesses.”

    Chutkan said that if anyone makes “inflammatory” statements about the case, she would be inclined to move more quickly to trial to prevent any intimidation of witnesses or contamination of the jury pool.

    The judge agreed with Trump’s defense team on a looser version of a protective order barring the public release only of materials deemed sensitive, like grand jury material. But prosecutors consider most of the evidence in the case to be sensitive, and she largely sided with the government on what will get that label and protections.

    Protective orders are standard in criminal cases to protect the disclosure of sensitive information that could impact the trial.

    In his social media post Monday, Trump quoted from remarks Chutkan made in a 2022 sentencing hearing for Christine Priola, an Ohio woman who pleaded guilty last year to obstructing Congress’ certification of Biden’s electoral victory – one of the same charges Trump is facing.

    “The people who mobbed that Capitol were there in fealty, in loyalty, to one man — not to the Constitution, of which most of the people who come before me seem woefully ignorant; not to the ideals of this country, and not to the principles of democracy,” Chutkan said, according to a transcript of the October 2022 hearing. “It’s a blind loyalty to one person who, by the way, remains free to this day.”

    Prosecutors with special counsel Smith’s team have asked the judge to set a Jan. 2 trial date, which is less than two weeks before Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses. That prompted other angry posts online from Trump last week.

    Trump and his lawyers claimed prosecutors’ proposed protective order that sought to prevent the public release of all evidence they provide the defense would violate his First Amendment rights of free speech. And the Republican has vowed to keep talking about the case— and his other legal challenges —as he campaigns again for the White House.

    Trump spoke about the case while he was campaigning at the Iowa State Fair over the weekend, declining to tell reporters whether he would comply with the protective order. He said, “The whole thing is a fake — it was put out by Biden, because they can’t win an election the fair way.”

    ITrump, in another post Monday, wrote of Chutkan: “She obviously wants me behind bars. VERY BIASED & UNFAIR!”

    Chutkan, a former assistant public defender who was nominated to the bench by President Barack Obama, was confirmed to the bench with Republican support in a 95-0 vote in the Senate in 2014.

    She has been one of the toughest punishers of rioters who stormed the Capitol. federal judges in Washington have sentenced nearly 600 defendants for their roles in the attack, which was fueled by Trump’s baseless claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen by fraud.

    The case cited in Trump’s post, however, is one where Chutkan actually imposed a sentence that was lighter than prosecutors sought. She sentenced Priola to 15 months in prison. Federal prosecutors had asked for 18 months.

    ___

    Associated Press writers Alanna Durkin Richer in Boston, Lindsay Whitehurst in Washington and Thomas Beaumont in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report.

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  • The Pentagon plans to shake up DC’s National Guard, criticized for its response to protests, Jan. 6

    The Pentagon plans to shake up DC’s National Guard, criticized for its response to protests, Jan. 6

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    WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is developing plans to restructure the National Guard in Washington, D.C., in a move to address problems highlighted by the chaotic response to the Jan. 6 riot and safety breaches during the 2020 protests over the murder of George Floyd, The Associated Press has learned.

    The changes under discussion would transfer the District of Columbia’s aviation units, which came under sharp criticism during the protests when a helicopter flew dangerously low over a crowd. In exchange, the district would get more military police, which is often the city’s most significant need, as it grapples with crowd control and large public events.

    Several current and former officials familiar with the talks spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. They said no final decisions have been made.

    A key sticking point is who would be in control of the D.C. Guard — a politically divisive question that gets to the heart of what has been an ongoing, turbulent issue. Across the country, governors control their National Guard units and can make decisions on deploying them to local disasters and other needs. But D.C. is not a state, so the president is in charge but gives that authority to the defense secretary, who generally delegates it to the Army secretary.

    According to officials, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is weighing two options: maintaining the current system or handing control to U.S. Northern Command, which is in charge of homeland defense.

    Senior officials have argued in favor of Northern Command, which would take control out of the hands of political appointees in Washington who may be at odds with the D.C. government, and giving it to nonpartisan military commanders who already oversee homeland defense. Others, however, believe the decision-making should remain at the Pentagon, mirroring the civilian control that governors have on their troops.

    The overall goal, officials said, is not to decrease the size of the district’s Guard, but reform it and ensure it has the units, equipment and training to do the missions it routinely faces. The proposal to shift the aviation forces is largely an Army decision. It would move the D.C. Air Guard wing and its aircraft to the Maryland Guard, and the Army aviation unit, with its helicopters, to Virginia’s Guard.

    An Army official added that a review of the D.C. Guard examined its ability to provide rapid response, mission command and coordination with other forces when needed over the past four years. The review, which led to the recommendations, involved the District Guard and Army leaders.

    D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s office did not respond to a request for comment Friday on the proposed changes.

    But Bowser and other local officials have long claimed that the mayor’s office should have sole authority to deploy the local guard, arguing that the D.C. mayor has the responsibilities of any governor without the extra authorities or tools.

    When faced with a potential security event, the mayor of D.C. has to go to the Pentagon — usually the Army secretary — to request National Guard assistance. That was true during the violent protests in the city over the killing of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer in 2020, and later as an angry mob stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in an effort to overturn the election of Joe Biden as president.

    As the Jan. 6 riot was unfolding, city leaders were making frantic calls to Army leaders, asking them to send Guard troops to the Capitol where police and security were being overrun. City leaders complained heatedly about delays in the response as the Pentagon considered Bowser’s National Guard request. City police ended up reinforcing the Capitol Police.

    Army leaders, in response, said the district was demanding help but not providing the details and information necessary to determine what forces were needed and how they would be used.

    Army officials were concerned about taking the Guard troops who were arrayed around the city doing traffic duty and sending them into a riot, because they were not prepared and didn’t have appropriate gear. And they criticized the city for repeatedly insisting it would not need security help when asked by federal authorities in the days leading up to Jan. 6.

    The swirling confusion spurred congressional hearings and accusations that political considerations influenced the Trump administration’s response to the unrest in the Democratic-majority city. Defense officials rejected those charges, and blamed the city.

    Within the Pentagon, however, there are broader concerns that D.C. is too quick to seek National Guard troops to augment law enforcement shortfalls in the city that should be handled by police. In recent days, a city council member suggested the D.C. Guard might be needed to help battle spiking local crime.

    The restructuring is an effort to smooth out the process and avoid communications problems if another crisis erupts.

    An Army investigation in April 2021 sharply criticized the D.C. Guard, saying troops lacked clear guidance and didn’t fully understand how to use helicopters appropriately during the civil unrest in June 2020.

    The probe was triggered by widespread objections, including from Congress, after one of the D.C. Guard helicopters hovered low enough over protesters near the Capitol One Arena to create a deafening noise and spray protesters with rotor wash. There were also concerns that the Guard used a medivac helicopter — with medical markings — to make such a “show of force” against the crowds gathered to protest Floyd’s death.

    The report found that the use of medical helicopters was appropriate because it was an emergency, but the episode raised worries among defense leaders about the need for improved planning, training and oversight of the D.C. Guard’s use of aviation and calls for a stricter approval process.

    _____

    Associated Press writer Ashraf Khalil contributed to this report.

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  • Prosecutors seek Jan. 2 trial date for Donald Trump in his 2020 election conspiracy case

    Prosecutors seek Jan. 2 trial date for Donald Trump in his 2020 election conspiracy case

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    Prosecutors with special counsel Jack Smith’s team asked a judge on Thursday to set a Jan. 2 trial date for former President Donald Trump in the case charging him with plotting to overturn his 2020 election loss.

    Prosecutors said in court papers that they want the case before U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan to move to trial swiftly in Washington’s federal court, setting up a likely battle with defense attorneys who have already suggested they will try slow things down. Smith’s team says the government’s case should take no longer than four to six weeks.

    The date is just under two weeks before the first votes are set to be cast in the Republican presidential race, with Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses scheduled for Jan. 15.

    The early front-runner in the 2024 Republican presidential primary faces charges including conspiracy to defraud the United States for what prosecutors say was a weekslong plot to subvert the will of voters and cling to power after he lost the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden.

    The indictment accuses Trump of spreading lies about election fraud he knew were false to sow distrust in the democratic process and pressuring Vice President Mike Pence and state election officials to take action in a brazen attempt to cling to power.

    Trump, who pleaded not guilty last week, says he is innocent and has portrayed the investigation as politically motivated. His legal team has indicated it will argue that he was relying on the advice of lawyers around him in 2020 and had the right to challenge an election he believed was rigged.

    Trump was already scheduled to be in a courtroom in the heat of next year’s presidential primary season, with a March 25 criminal trial scheduled in a separate case in New York stemming from hush money payments made during the 2016 campaign.

    The former president is scheduled to go to trial in May in another case brought by Smith over his handling of classified documents found at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.

    He’s also gearing up for a possible fourth indictment, in a case out of Fulton County, Georgia, over alleged efforts by him and his Republican allies to illegally meddle in the 2020 election in that state. The county district attorney, Fani Willis, a Democrat, has signaled that any indictments in the case would likely come this month.

    Trump has already said he will push to have the 2020 election case moved out of Washington, claiming he can’t get a fair trial in the heavily Democratic city, which voted overwhelmingly for Biden. But it’s extremely difficult to convince a judge that a jury pool is so biased that a trial must be moved. And judges in Washington, including Chutkan, have repeatedly rejected similar efforts by Trump supporters charged in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack.

    Smith’s Washington case accuses Trump of orchestrating schemes to enlist slates of fake electors in seven battleground states won by Biden to sign false certificates representing themselves as legitimate electors and try to use the investigative power of the Justice Department to launch sham election fraud probes. When his efforts failed, prosecutors say, he badgered Pence to disrupt the ceremonial counting of electoral votes before Congress on Jan. 6, 2021, the day an angry mob of his supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol.

    In an early glimpse into the intense legal fighting to come in the case, prosecutors and defense attorneys have been arguing over a protective order that would place rules on what Trump’s legal team can do with evidence handed over by the government as they prepare for trial. Protective orders are not uncommon in criminal cases and are usually imposed with little legal wrangling.

    But Trump’s lawyers say prosecutors’ proposal — which seeks to prevent Trump and his lawyers from publicly disclosing evidence handed over by the government — is too broad and would restrict his First Amendment rights. They are urging the judge to impose a more limited protective order that would restrict only the public sharing of information deemed “sensitive,” like grand jury materials.

    In urging the judge to impose the order, prosecutors noted Trump’s tendency to use social media to talk about the legal cases against him and expressed concern that he would share sensitive information that could intimidate witnesses.

    Chutkan is expected to hold a hearing on the matter on Friday in Washington’s federal court.

    ___

    Follow the AP’s coverage of former President Donald Trump at https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump.

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  • Special counsel got a search warrant for Twitter to turn over info on Trump’s account, documents say

    Special counsel got a search warrant for Twitter to turn over info on Trump’s account, documents say

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    Special counsel Jack Smith’s team obtained a search warrant in January for records related to former President Donald Trump’s Twitter account, and a judge levied a $350,000 fine on the company for missing the deadline to comply, according to court documents released Wednesday.

    The new details were included in a ruling from the federal appeals court in Washington over a legal battle surrounding the warrant that has played out under seal for months. The court rejected Twitter’s claim that it should not have been held in contempt or sanctioned.

    Smith’s team repeatedly mentioned Trump’s tweets in an indictment unsealed last week that charges the former president with conspiring to subvert the will of voters and cling to power after he lost the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden.

    Trump, a Republican, has pleaded not guilty to charges including conspiracy to defraud the United States and obstruction of Congress’ certification of Biden’s win. He posted on his Truth Social platform on Wednesday that the Justice Department “secretly attacked” his Twitter account, and he characterized the investigation as an attempt to “infringe” on his bid to reclaim the White House in 2024.

    It’s unclear what information Smith may have sought from Trump’s account. Possibilities include data about when and where the posts were written, their engagement and the identities of other accounts that reposted Trump’s content.

    The search warrant underscores the breadth of the investigation and the lengths Smith has gone to to obtain evidence to build his case. In a recent signal that Smith’s investigation is continuing, former New York Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik met Monday with investigators from special counsel Smith’s team.

    Prosecutors obtained the search warrant on Jan. 17 directing Twitter to produce information on Trump’s account after a court “found probable cause to search the account for evidence of criminal offenses,” according to the ruling. The government also obtained a nondisclosure agreement that had prohibited Twitter from disclosing the search warrant, the filing says.

    The court found that disclosing the warrant could risk that Trump could jeopardize the ongoing investigation by giving him “an opportunity to destroy evidence, change patterns of behavior” or notify his allies, the filing says.

    Twitter objected to the nondisclosure agreement, saying four days after the compliance deadline that it would not produce any of the account information, according to the ruling. The judges wrote that Twitter “did not question the validity of the search warrant” but argued that the nondisclosure agreement violated its First Amendment right to communicate with Trump

    Twitter said if it had to turn over the records before the judge assessed the legality of the nondisclosure agreement, it would prevent Trump “from asserting executive privilege to shield communications made using his Twitter account,” the document says.

    The warrant ordered Twitter to provide the records by Jan. 27. A judge found Twitter to be in contempt after a court hearing on Feb. 7, but gave the company an opportunity to hand over the documents by 5 p.m. that evening. Twitter, however, only turned over some records that day. It didn’t fully comply with the order until Feb. 9, the ruling says.

    X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, sent an automated reply to a request for comment, saying it would respond soon.

    In the broader case against Trump, his legal team has indicated it will argue that he was relying on the advice of lawyers in 2020 and had the right to challenge an election he believed was rigged.

    Trump used his Twitter account in the weeks leading up to his supporters’ attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to spread false statements about the election that prosecutors allege were designed to sow mistrust in the democratic process. The indictment details how Trump over Twitter encouraged his followers to come to Washington on Jan. 6, pressured his Vice President Mike Pence to reject the certification and falsely suggested that the mob at the Capitol — which beat police officers and smashed windows — was peaceful.

    The warrant arrived at Twitter amid rapid changes instituted by Musk, who purchased the platform last year. Since taking over he’s transformed the influential site, laying off much of its staff, including workers dedicated to ferreting out misinformation and hate speech.

    He also eliminated Twitter’s policy on COVID-19 misinformation and welcomed back a long list of users who had been previously banned, including neo-Nazis, COVID deniers and Trump, who was kicked off after the attack on the Capitol for glorifying violence.

    Trump has yet to post to the site since being allowed back on. As Trump once did, Musk has used the platform as a partisan megaphone.

    Last year Musk urged his many online followers to vote Republican in the midterm elections. This year he hosted Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis for a glitch-filled campaign kickoff.

    The election conspiracy case is the second case Smith has brought against Trump. The former president is also facing dozens of felony counts stemming from classified documents found at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

    Trump’s legal team in court papers Wednesday urged the judge to allow for the reestablishment of a secure facility at Trump’s home where the former president can discuss classified evidence with his attorneys while they prepare for trial in that case.

    Prosecutors say Trump should only be to do so at sensitive compartmented information facilities — or SCIFs. But Trump’s lawyers say “immense practical and logistical hurdles and costs” would make traveling to government-approved locations difficult. He wants to recreate the same secure facility at Mar-a-Lago in which he was allowed to discuss classified materials as president.

    ___

    Richer reported from Boston. Associated Press reporters Michelle Price, David Klepper and Lindsay Whitehurst contributed to this report.

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  • Donald Trump wants his election subversion trial moved out of Washington. That won’t be easy

    Donald Trump wants his election subversion trial moved out of Washington. That won’t be easy

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    WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump and his legal team face long odds in their bid to move his 2020 election conspiracy trial out of Washington, arguing the Republican can’t possibly get a fair trial in the overwhelmingly Democratic nation’s capital.

    Criminal defendants routinely try to have their cases moved to increase their chances of getting a favorable jury. Trump and his attorney say they’re eying West Virginia, which Trump easily won in 2020.

    But there’s a notoriously high bar for proving the jury pool is so biased or tainted by pretrial publicity that the trial must be moved. Such efforts have failed in some of the most high-profile American trials in recent memory. And judges appointed by presidents of both political parties in Washington’s federal court — including the judge overseeing Trump’s trial — have repeatedly rejected similar attempts by many of the more than 1,000 Trump supporters charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

    “Jurors’ political leanings are not, by themselves, evidence that those jurors cannot fairly and impartially consider the evidence presented and apply the law as instructed by the court,” U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, the judge appointed to Trump’s case, wrote last year in denying one Jan. 6 defendant’s bid to change venue.

    Trump’s defense team has yet to formally make such a request in the case accusing Trump of conspiring with allies to overturn his 2020 presidential election defeat. But Trump’s lawyer, John Lauro, said on CBS News on Sunday that it “absolutely” plans to do so.

    “The president, like everyone sitting in this room, is entitled to a fair trial, and we’re going to get that,” Lauro said.

    Trump faces charges including conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and obstruction of Congress in the first case that seeks to hold the former president criminally responsible for his efforts to cling to power after he lost to Democrat Joe Biden. He has denied any wrongdoing, and he claims that special counsel Jack Smith is targeting him in an effort to hurt his 2024 campaign.

    If Trump’s case stays in Washington, his trial will take place less than a mile (1.6 kilometers) from where the Capitol was attacked on Jan. 6 by an angry mob whipped up by his election lies and intent on stopping the certification of Biden’s electoral victory. The courthouse, which has a view of the Capitol dome from its windows, has already been the site of several high-profile Jan. 6 trials, including the seditious conspiracy cases against leaders of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers extremist groups.

    Even in some of the most intensely publicized and politically charged cases in U.S. history, judges have ruled that fair and impartial jurors can be found — with proper questioning — in the communities where the alleged crimes occurred.

    Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was tried about 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) from where he and his brother placed bombs near the finish line. Zacharias Moussaoui, the only man convicted in a U.S. court for a role in the Sept. 11 attacks, was tried in Virginia, not far from the Pentagon. Those charged in the Watergate scandal were tried in Washington.

    One of the rare federal defendants who had a trial relocated was Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. The trial was moved to Colorado after the judge ruled it was impossible for McVeigh to get a fair trial anywhere in Oklahoma. He was ultimately put to death in 2001 for the bombing, which killed 168 people and injured hundreds more.

    Changes of venue can make sense in cases that are particularly notorious in a community, but Trump’s fame or infamy is hardly limited to the District of Columbia, said Vida Johnson, a Georgetown University law professor who previously worked as a public defender in D.C. Superior Court.

    “There’s just no real basis for it,” she said of Trump’s suggestions to move the trial. “You’re looking for an unbiased jury, but he’s just as well known in any place.”

    A slew of Jan. 6 rioters who have unsuccessfully tried to get their cases relocated have claimed they can’t get a fair trial in a district where 92% of voters cast ballots for Biden in 2020. In trying to make the case his trial should be moved to Virginia, a lawyer for an Oath Keepers associate claimed that D.C. residents “have shown that their powers of intelligent, rational thinking are suspended when Trump is involved.”

    Chutkan — an appointee of President Barack Obama who has a reputation for being one of the toughest punishers of Jan. 6 defendants — last year rejected claims by Capitol riot defendant Russell Dean Alford that an impartial jury can’t be empaneled in Washington. Careful questioning of prospective jurors can root out any biases, Chutkan said, citing a 1976 ruling that found no basis for moving a Watergate-related case out of Washington.

    Even so, Chutkan agreed to send a written questionnaire to prospective jurors before Alford’s trial to “screen for prejudice.” On the first day of his trial, Alford’s lawyers again pressed to move the proceedings elsewhere, citing the jury pool’s answers to the questionnaire. But Chutkan said there’s no evidence “people wouldn’t have equally strong views” in another district.

    “What we’re looking for is not people without opinions,” she said. “What we’re looking for is people who are able to put aside their opinion and focus their decision solely on the evidence presented in this courtroom.”

    In the Justice Department’s massive prosecution of the Jan. 6 attack, only two defendants so far have been fully acquitted of all charges. And those were bench trials decided by judges, not juries.

    But prosecutors don’t have an unblemished trial record. Juries or judges have acquitted at least 39 riot defendants of one or more charges, according to an Associated Press review of court records. In one of the most high-profile Jan. 6 trials yet — against Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and associates — only two of five defendants were convicted of seditious conspiracy, even though all were found guilty of serious charges.

    Johnson, who tried dozens of cases in front of D.C. juries, said the high number of well-educated jurors with college degrees and advanced degrees in Washington can actually help defendants.

    “I think you’re more likely to find jurors that actually really understand the legal concepts that would benefit a defendant in a criminal trial, like the burden of proof, the concept of reasonable doubt,” she said. “So I actually think that, in some ways, this is a better place for a defendant to get a fair trial.”

    ___

    Richer reported from Boston.

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  • Trump lawyers urge judge to narrow proposed rules on evidence sharing in election subversion case

    Trump lawyers urge judge to narrow proposed rules on evidence sharing in election subversion case

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    Donald Trump’s legal team told a judge overseeing the election conspiracy case against him on Monday that prosecutors’ proposed protective order aimed at preventing the public disclosure of evidence is too broad and would restrict his First Amendment rights.

    Lawyers for the early 2024 Republican presidential primary front-runner said the judge should impose a more limited order that would bar the public release only of materials deemed “sensitive” — such as grand jury documents — rather than all evidence handed over by the government in the case accusing Trump of conspiring to overturn his 2020 election loss.

    Prosecutors have said a protective order — not unusual in criminal cases — is particularly important in Trump’s case because of his penchant for using social media. They have expressed concern that Trump could improperly share sensitive case information online that could have a “harmful chilling effect on witnesses.”

    In their filing Friday seeking the order, prosecutors included a screenshot of a post from Trump’s Truth Social platform that same day in which he wrote, in all capital letters, “If you go after me, I’m coming after you!”

    Trump’s lawyers said that citing that post to claim there’s a danger Trump might publish grand jury information was “a provocative claim when searching for headlines, perhaps, but one that falters under minimal scrutiny.”

    The former president’s legal team said his post was “generalized political speech” and had nothing to do with the case. A Trump spokesperson said last week that the post was in response to “dishonest special interest groups and Super PACs.”

    Trump’s lawyers, who have characterized the case brought by special counsel Jack Smith as an attack on his right to free speech, told the judge that the need to protect sensitive information about the case “does not require a blanket gag order over all documents produced by the government.”

    “In a trial about First Amendment rights, the government seeks to restrict First Amendment rights,” Trump’s lawyers wrote. “Worse, it does so against its administration’s primary political opponent, during an election season in which the administration, prominent party members and media allies have campaigned on the indictment and proliferated its false allegations.”

    Trump’s lawyers accused President Joe Biden of trying to capitalize on the indictment in posting what they called a “thinly veiled reference” to Trump’s prosecution just hours before Trump’s court appearance last week. They included a screenshot in their court filing of a tweet from from Biden’s campaign account, which included a video of the president drinking from a mug emblazoned with “Dark Brandon” — a meme featuring Biden with lasers for eyes — and the caption: “A cup of Joe never tasted better.”

    The defense filing was in response to the request Friday from Smith’s team for the protective order, which would impose rules on what Trump and his defense team can do with evidence shared with them by the government as they prepare for trial in the case unsealed last week.

    Trump’s lawyers on Saturday had asked for an extra three days to respond to prosecutors’ request for the protective order, saying they needed more time for discussion. But Judge Tanya Chutkan, who was nominated to the bench by former President Barack Obama, swiftly denied that request.

    Prosecutors said that they are ready to hand over a substantial amount of evidence to Trump’s legal team and that much of it includes sensitive and confidential information.

    The prosecutors’ proposed order seeks to prevent Trump and his lawyers from disclosing materials provided by the government to anyone other than people on his legal team, possible witnesses, the witnesses’ lawyers or others approved by the court. It would put stricter limits on “sensitive materials,” which prosecutors said would include grand jury witness testimony and materials obtained through sealed search warrants.

    Trump has denied any wrongdoing in the case, as well as another prosecution brought by Smith that accuses him of illegally hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.

    He has has characterized all the cases against him as an effort to take down his 2024 campaign. His legal team has indicated that it will argue that he had relied on the advice of attorneys around him in 2020 and that Trump had a right to challenge an election that he believed had been stolen.

    Trump pleaded not guilty last week to four felony counts, including conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and conspiracy to obstruct Congress’ certification of Biden’s electoral victory. The charges could lead to a lengthy prison sentence in the event of a conviction, with the most serious counts calling for up to 20 years.

    It’s the third criminal case brought this year against the the early front-runner in the 2024 Republican presidential primary. But it’s the first case to try to hold him responsible for his efforts to remain in power during the chaotic weeks between his election loss and the attack by his supporters on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

    Smith also charged Trump in June with dozens of felony counts alleging the former president illegally kept classified records after he left the White House and obstructed government efforts to get them back. A new indictment recently unsealed in that case accuses Trump of scheming with Mar-a-Lago staffers to try to delete security footage sought by investigators.

    Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart in that case imposed a similar protective order in June that prohibits Trump and his legal team from publicly disclosing evidence turned over to them by prosecutors without prior approval.

    ____

    Richer reported from Boston.

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  • Trump’s attack on ‘filth and decay’ in nation’s capital just the latest in his personal feud with DC

    Trump’s attack on ‘filth and decay’ in nation’s capital just the latest in his personal feud with DC

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    WASHINGTON — Washington has never been a particularly friendly place for Donald Trump. And after pleading not guilty to federal charges that he had tried to overturn the 2020 presidential election, Trump was quick to show that the feeling was mutual.

    “It was also very sad driving through Washington, D.C., and seeing the filth and the decay and all of the broken buildings and walls and the graffiti,” he said on the tarmac of Reagan National Airport in Virginia, just a few miles away. “This is not the place that I left. It’s a very sad thing to see it.”

    Trump’s comments drew some skepticism due to the fact that he basically was on two blocks of the district’s streets. His route to and from the airport took him past one of the district’s larger shelters for homeless people, but “filth and decay” drew some eye rolls from longtime Washington defenders.

    “He’s just talking off the top of his head and angry to be back in D.C.,” said Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, Washington’s non-voting delegate in the House of Representatives. “He saw D.C. for less than a minute.”

    Norton also pointed out that when Trump last left Washington as president, the downtown federal area was essentially a militarized zone, with massive fences around the U.S. Capitol after Trump supporters overran the building on Jan. 6, 2021.

    In fairness, heavily Democratic Washington — while generally cool to all Republican presidents — was distinctly hostile to the Trump administration. Multiple Trump Cabinet members were publicly berated by activists while eating in district restaurants. And Trump’s decision to skip the Kennedy Center Honors every year was usually a relief for organizers, who would have faced annual boycott threats from different artists if he did attend.

    Trump got just over 4% of the presidential election vote in the district in 2016 and 5.4% in 2020.

    He continued his attacks on the city Sunday, calling for a federal takeover of the nation’s capital. In a post on Truth Social, he called Washington a “filthy and crime ridden embarrassment to our nation” and said he wouldn’t be able to get a fair trial there.

    “It has always been (Trump’s) pattern to vilify the district,” said Bo Shuff, executive director of D.C. Vote, one of the organizations leading the uphill fight for statehood. “It is easy to vilify a people who have no voice in the government.”

    Republicans in Congress have taken up the anti-Washington mantra, as has Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, one of Trump’s challengers for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination. Trump was indicted by a grand jury of Washington residents, and DeSantis has joined in with Trump’s lawyers in arguing that he can’t receive a fair trial in Washington.

    “Washington, DC is a ‘swamp’ and it is unfair to have to stand trial before a jury that is reflective of the swamp mentality,” DeSantis said on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, after Trump’s indictment.

    Schuff said Trump’s behavior Thursday mimicked the pattern of his presidency. “He didn’t spend any time in D.C. when he was in D.C. He spent it at one of two buildings, the White House and his hotel,” Shuff said.

    He noted that “every bit of land” that Trump was on when he was in town for the court appearance was under federal control.

    During Trump’s turbulent four years in office, he and the local government publicly sparred multiple times — in tones ranging from playful to deeply personal. When Trump floated the idea of a massive July 4 military parade complete with tanks rolling through the streets, the D.C. Council mocked him.

    When mass protests broke out in the summer of 2020 over the death of George Floyd and wider police brutality and racial issues, Trump and Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser faced off multiple times. Trump accused Bowser of losing control of her city; he eventually declared his own multi-agency lockdown that included low-flying helicopters buzzing protesters. Bowser responded by having “Black Lives Matter” painted on the street in giant yellow letters one block from the White House.

    After Trump’s departure, a newly Republican-held House of Representatives continued the fight, with the House Oversight and Accountability Committee aggressively using its powers to essentially vet new Washington laws and manage its government. In March, the committee summoned Bowser and two members of the D.C. Council and grilled them for three hours about the district’s rising crime rates.

    Shuff said Trump’s portrayal of Washington in such dystopian terms hasn’t necessarily spread throughout the Republican Party. But it has established itself among the wing of the party that holds Trump in the highest esteem.

    “I believe that the folks who utilize this tactic are not numerous, but they’re boisterous,” he said. “The rhetoric is a little stronger, but the tactic is the same we’ve seen.”

    During the March hearing on crime in Washington, several conservative Republican members spoke of the district in terms that indicated a fairly thin understanding of the on-the-ground situation.

    Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado repeatedly asked D.C. Council Member Charles Allan why public urination was legal in Washington; it isn’t.

    Rep. Gary Palmer of Alabama asked why 25-year-old defendants in Washington are allowed to be charged as minors; they aren’t.

    Undeterred, Palmer told the assembled Washington political leadership, “You’ve got crappy schools. Your schools aren’t only dropout factories, they’re inmate factories.”

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  • Prosecutors ask judge to issue protective order after Trump post appearing to promise revenge

    Prosecutors ask judge to issue protective order after Trump post appearing to promise revenge

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    The Justice Department has asked a federal judge overseeing the criminal case against former President Donald Trump in Washington to step in after he released a post online that appeared to promise revenge on anyone who goes after him.

    Prosecutors on Friday requested that U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan issue a protective order concerning evidence in the case, a day after Trump pleaded not guilty to charges of trying to overturn his 2020 election loss and block the peaceful transition of power. The order, different from a “gag order,” would limit what information Trump and his legal team could share publicly about the case brought by special counsel Jack Smith.

    Such protective orders are common in criminal cases, but prosecutors said it’s “particularly important in this case” because Trump has posted on social media about “witnesses, judges, attorneys, and others associated with legal matters pending against him.”

    Prosecutors pointed specifically to a post on Trump’s Truth Social platform from earlier Friday in which Trump wrote, in all capital letters, “If you go after me, I’m coming after you!”

    Prosecutors said they are ready to hand over a “substantial” amount of evidence — “much of which includes sensitive and confidential information” — to Trump’s legal team.

    They told the judge that if Trump were to begin posting about grand jury transcripts or other evidence provided by the Justice Department, it could have a “harmful chilling effect on witnesses or adversely affect the fair administration of justice in this case.”

    Prosecutors’ proposed protective order seeks to prevent Trump and his lawyers from disclosing materials provided by the government to anyone other than people on his legal team, possible witnesses, the witnesses’ lawyers or others approved by the court. It would put stricter limits on “sensitive materials,” which would include grand jury witness testimony and materials obtained through sealed search warrants.

    A Trump spokesperson said in an emailed statement that the former president’s post “is the definition of political speech,” and was made in response to “dishonest special interest groups and Super PACs.”

    It’s unclear when Chutkan might rule on the matter. Chutkan, a former assistant public defender who was nominated to the bench by President Barack Obama, has been one of the toughest punishers of rioters who stormed the Capitol in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack fueled by Trump’s baseless claims of a stolen election.

    The indictment unsealed this week accuses Trump of brazenly conspiring with allies to spread falsehoods and concoct schemes intended to overturn his election loss to President Joe Biden as his legal challenges floundered in court.

    The indictment chronicles how Trump and his Republican allies, in what Smith described as an attack on a “bedrock function of the U.S. government,” repeatedly lied about the results in the two months after he lost the election and pressured his vice president, Mike Pence, and state election officials to take action to help him cling to power.

    Trump faces charges including conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and conspiracy to obstruct Congress’ certification of Biden’s electoral victory.

    It’s the third criminal case brought this year against the the early front-runner in the 2024 Republican presidential primary. But it’s the first case to try to hold Trump responsible for his efforts to remain in power during the chaotic weeks between his election loss and the attack by his supporters on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

    Smith has also charged Trump in Florida federal court with illegally hoarding classified documents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate and thwarting government efforts to get them back.

    The magistrate judge in that case agreed to a protective order in June that prohibits Trump and his legal team from publicly disclosing evidence turned over to them by prosecutors without prior approval. Prosecutors are seeking another protective order in that case with more rules about the defense team’s handling of classified evidence.

    After his court appearance on Thursday in the Washington case, Trump characterized the prosecution as a “persecution” designed to hurt his 2024 presidential campaign. His legal team has described it as an attack on his right to free speech and his right to challenge an election that he believed had been stolen.

    Smith has said prosecutors will seek a “speedy trial” against Trump in the election case. Judge Chutkan has ordered the government to file a brief by Thursday proposing a trial date. The first court hearing in front of Chutkan is scheduled for Aug. 28.

    Trump is already scheduled to stand trial in March in the New York case stemming from hush-money payments made during the 2016 campaign and in May in the classified documents case.

    ____

    Richer reported from Boston.

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