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Tag: jack smith (lawyer)

  • ABC: Trump allegedly discussed sensitive nuclear submarine information with a Mar-a-Lago member | CNN Politics

    ABC: Trump allegedly discussed sensitive nuclear submarine information with a Mar-a-Lago member | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    Former President Donald Trump allegedly discussed potentially sensitive information about US nuclear submarines with a member of his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, following his presidency, ABC reported Thursday.

    The member is Australian billionaire Anthony Pratt, sources told ABC. A source familiar with the matter confirmed to CNN’s Kaitlan Collins that Pratt, who had a close relationship with Trump when he occupied the Oval Office, was interviewed by the special counsel probing Trump’s retention of classified documents after leaving office. Another source told CNN’s Kristen Holmes that Pratt is on the list of potential witnesses for when the trial begins.

    Sources told ABC that Pratt allegedly went on to share the information he received from the former president during an April 2021 meeting with “more than a dozen foreign officials, several of his own employees, and a handful of journalists.”

    ABC also reported that according to sources, a former Mar-a-Lago employee told investigations that he was “bothered” by the former president disclosing such information to someone who is not a US citizen. He added that he heard Pratt sharing potentially sensitive information minutes after his meeting with the former president, sources told ABC.

    These allegations were not included in special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment of Trump over his handling of classified documents. But the incident was reported to and investigated by Smith’s team, according to ABC.

    A Trump spokesperson slammed ABC’s report, telling CNN that the claims “lack proper context and relevant information.”

    “The Department of Justice should investigate the criminal leaking, instead of perpetrating their baseless witch-hunts while knowing that President Trump did nothing wrong, has always insisted on truth and transparency, and acted in a proper manner, according to the law,” the spokesperson said.

    CNN has reached out to Pratt, who did not respond to multiple requests for comment. A spokesperson for Smith declined to comment.

    Pratt allegedly told investigators that after he told Trump that Australia should buy submarines from the US, the former president went on to share how many nuclear warheads US submarines carry and “how close they can get to a Russian submarine without being detected,” sources told ABC. But Pratt told investigators that he was not shown any government documents, the sources said.

    His company, Pratt Industries, opened a plant in Ohio while Trump was president. Trump attended the opening and praised the businessman in his remarks.

    Another source told CNN’s Collins that during that visit, Pratt planned to unveil two plaques, an official one celebrating the plant’s opening in the US and a second one that he had told Trump about beforehand. The second plaque, which Pratt kept a secret until the day of the visit, read, “Make America and Australia Great Again.” But officials attending the plant’s opening quickly pulled it down and advised Pratt against the move, that source said.

    CNN previously obtained an audio of a July 2021 meeting Trump had in his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club, during which the former president acknowledged that he held on to a classified Pentagon document about a potential attack on Iran. The audio, exclusively reported by CNN, was a critical piece of evidence in the special counsel’s indictment.

    Trump is facing 40 counts in the classified documents case, including willful retention of national defense information and conspiracy to obstruct justice. It is one of four cases in which the former president has been indicted.

    Trump, who is seeking to return to the White House and remains the GOP front-runner, asked the judge presiding over the case late Wednesday to delay the trial until after the 2024 elections. A similar request was previously denied.

    This story has been updated with additional reporting.

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    October 5, 2023
  • CNN Exclusive: Special counsel election probe continues with focus on fundraising, voting equipment breaches | CNN Politics

    CNN Exclusive: Special counsel election probe continues with focus on fundraising, voting equipment breaches | CNN Politics


    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Special counsel Jack Smith is still pursuing his investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election a month after indicting Donald Trump for orchestrating a broad conspiracy to remain in power, a widening of the probe that raises the possibility others could still face legal peril.

    Questions asked of two recent witnesses indicate Smith is focusing on how money raised off baseless claims of voter fraud was used to fund attempts to breach voting equipment in several states won by Joe Biden, according to multiple sources familiar with the ongoing investigation.

    In both interviews, prosecutors have focused their questions on the role of former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell.

    According to invoices obtained by CNN, Powell’s non-profit, Defending the Republic, hired forensics firms that ultimately accessed voting equipment in four swing states won by Biden: Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Arizona.

    Powell faces criminal charges in Georgia after she was indicted last month by Atlanta-area district attorney Fani Willis, who alleges that Powell helped coordinate and fund a multi-state plot to illegally access voting systems after the 2020 election.

    Powell pleaded not guilty to the charges.

    Those charges center around a voting system breach in Coffee County, Georgia, a rural, Republican district that voted overwhelmingly for Trump in 2020. Willis’ indictment describes the breach, and Powell’s alleged involvement, as central to the broader conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia.

    Powell has also been identified by CNN as one of Trump’s un-indicted co-conspirators listed in Smith’s federal election indictment.

    New details about Smith’s ongoing investigation indicate federal prosecutors are scrutinizing a series of voting breaches following the 2020 election that state investigators have been probing for more than a year.

    Exactly how this recent line of inquiry fits into Smith’s ongoing criminal investigation remains unclear. Smith’s grand jury in Washington, DC, is set to expire on Sept. 15 but it can be extended beyond then.

    The special counsel’s office declined to comment.

    According to sources, witnesses interviewed by Smith’s prosecutors in recent weeks were asked about Powell’s role in the hunt for evidence of voter fraud after the 2020 election, including how her nonprofit group, Defending the Republic, provided money to fund those efforts.

    Powell promoted Defending the Republic as a non-profit focused on funding post-election legal challenges by Trump’s team as it disputed results in key states Biden had won. Those challenges and fundraising efforts underpinning them were all based on the premise that evidence of widespread voter fraud was already in hand.

    But according to documents reviewed by CNN and witness testimony obtained by the House select committee that investigated January, 6, 2021, the group was used to fund a desperate search to retroactively back-up baseless claims that Trump’s lawyers had already put forward in failed lawsuits challenging the results in several states.

    A series of invoices and communications obtained by election integrity groups including The Coalition for Good Governance and American Oversight show Defending the Republic contributed millions of dollars toward the push to access voting equipment in key states.

    In a court filing after her indictment in Georgia, Powell denied involvement in the Coffee County breach but acknowledged that “a non-profit she founded” paid the forensics firm hired to examine voting systems there.

    Powell did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.

    Smith’s team has specifically asked witnesses about certain conspiracy theories pushed by Powell including that Dominion Voting Systems had ties to former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and featured software he used to rig his own election. The software company has previously said the turnout in those Venezuelan elections, not the voting system, was manuipulated.

    One witness who met with Smith’s team earlier last month, former NYPD Commissioner Bernie Kerik, spoke at length about how Trump allies accessed voting systems in Antrim County, Michigan, shortly after Election Day. Kerik also discussed the origins of a theory that voting machines could switch votes from one candidate to another, according to his lawyer Tim Parlatore.

    Kerik also acknowledged the breach of voting systems in Coffee County during his interview with federal prosecutors, Parlatore told CNN, adding that while his client raised the topic, the conversation did not delve into specifics.

    Kerik and another witness who met with Smith’s team in recent weeks were both asked if Powell was ever able to back-up her various claims of fraud, including conspiracy theories that foreign countries had hacked voting equipment.

    Both were also asked about Defending the Republic and how it was used as a source of funding efforts to find evidence of voter fraud, sources told CNN.

    In addition, special counsel prosecutors have also heard from other witnesses about efforts to breach voting equipment in other states.

    In April, an FBI agent and a prosecutor from Smith’s special counsel’s office interviewed a Pennsylvania resident named Mike Ryan, who used to work for a wealthy Pennsylvania Republican donor named Bill Bachenberg.

    coffee county election office vpx

    Inside the election office involved in latest Trump indictment

    During his interview, which Ryan described to CNN, Ryan says he told federal investigators that Bachenberg worked with Powell and other Trump lawyers to access voting systems in Pennsylvania and other states after the 2020 election.

    Bachenberg, who helped organize Pennsylvania’s fake electors, was subpoenaed by the House select committee last year but there is no public indication he testified. Ryan says he told federal investigators that after the 2020 election Bachenberg was in direct contact with Trump and a host of the former president’s most prominent allies – including lawyers Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman – participating in strategy calls about efforts to overturn the election results in multiple states.

    It is unclear if Bachenberg has been contacted by Smith’s team or the FBI. Bachenberg did not reply to requests for comments from CNN.

    Breaches in Pennsylvania and Michigan

    Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson also told CNN that she’s spoken to investigators at both the state and federal level about the push to access voting systems.

    Benson says when she met with Smith’s team earlier this spring, she, like Kerik, was asked specifically about efforts related to Antrim County, Michigan, where Powell and a lawyer named Stefanie Lambert helped fund a team of pro-Trump operatives who accessed voting systems shortly after Election Day in 2020.

    Stefanie Lambert listens during a court hearing in Detroit, Michigan, in October 2022.

    The operatives then produced a report claiming votes were flipped from Trump to Biden in Antrim County. That report was then used as supposed evidence to support the dozens of failed lawsuits that Powell filed on Trump’s behalf alleging voter fraud. The report was since debunked.

    “I believe the investigation at the federal level is broad and is meticulous and is looking at all the ways in which democracy was attacked in 2020. And so I would expect everything is on the table, every law that was violated,” Benson told CNN last month referring to the special counsel’s interest in efforts to access voting systems.

    Lambert was charged last month by state prosecutors in Michigan for her alleged involvement in a conspiracy to access voting machines there. Lambert is also linked to a breach in Fulton County, Pennsylvania, where she provided legal representation for the county itself after two Republican county officials secretly allowed a forensics firm to copy voting machine data in an effort to help Trump overturn his 2020 loss in the state.

    The breach is currently the subject of an ongoing probe being conducted by a prosecutor selected by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

    Lambert and Bachenberg both received copies of voting system data from Fulton County during the breach, according to the recent civil lawsuit that names both individuals.

    Lambert has also been identified by CNN as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Georgia indictment, which alleges she worked with Powell to secure voting system data that was copied from Coffee County and was tasked with helping collect invoices from the forensics firm hired through Defending the Republic.

    In a statement to CNN, Lambert did not elaborate on her ties to Bachenberg but defended her election-related work, saying, “I am a zealous advocate for my clients. I haven’t broken any laws.”

    Emails obtained by American Oversight indicate Bachenberg was involved in discussions about funding for the Arizona audit and helped facilitate a similar review in Pennsylvania.

    In a September 2021 email containing a summary of the final report on the controversial election audit conducted in Arizona, Bachenberg wrote that “PA will be one of the next domino’s [sic] to fall.”

    That same month, Republicans in the Pennsylvania Senate launched a “forensic investigation” of the state’s 2020 election results.

    Source link

    September 5, 2023
  • A day of legal action in Trump imbroglio previews a chaotic 2024 election year | CNN Politics

    A day of legal action in Trump imbroglio previews a chaotic 2024 election year | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    A whirl of developments in a quartet of cases in four separate cities encapsulate the vast legal quagmire swamping Donald Trump and threatening to overwhelm the entire 2024 presidential campaign.

    But Monday’s hectic lawyering was just a tame preview of next year when the ex-president and current Republican front-runner may be constantly shuttling between courtroom criminal trials and the campaign trail.

    A day of legal intrigue brought revelations, judgments, disputes and filings in cases related to Trump’s bid to overturn the 2020 election, the classified documents case, efforts to thwart Joe Biden’s win in Georgia, and even in a defamation case dating back to Trump’s personal behavior toward women in the 1990s.

    It’s already almost impossible for voters who may be asked to decide whether Trump is fit for a return to the Oval Office – or at least to carry the GOP banner into the election – to keep pace with all the competing legal twists and the scale of his plight.

    A confusing fog in which all the cases blend together could work to the former president’s advantage as he seeks a White House comeback while proclaiming he’s a victim of political persecution by the Biden administration.

    But the deeper his legal mire gets, Trump’s rivals for the GOP nomination are getting braver in suggesting that his fight against becoming a convicted felon could be a general election liability. Trump’s dominance in the GOP primary has been boosted from his criminal indictments to date. But the sheer volume of cases unfolding alongside his campaign is increasingly daunting.

    In Washington, Trump’s lawyers just beat a deadline to file a brief in a dispute over the handling of evidence ahead of a trial in the election subversion case, and accused the government of seeking to muzzle his voice as he runs for a new White House term.

    In another glimpse into the breadth of special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation that could prove troubling to the ex-president, CNN exclusively reported that Trump ally Bernie Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner, met Smith’s investigators for an interview on Monday. The discussion focused on what Trump’s former attorney and Kerik’s associate, Rudy Giuliani – otherwise known as Co-Conspirator 1 – did to try to convince the former president he actually won the 2020 election. The question will be a key one when the case finally comes to trial.

    Trump’s tough day in the courts had opened with a judge in Manhattan throwing out his defamation counter suit against E. Jean Carroll, which he did in stark language that recalled the ex-president’s loss in an earlier civil trial in which the jury found he sexually abused the writer.

    Then, in a surprise move in West Palm Beach, Florida, the Trump-appointed judge who will oversee his classified documents trial asked lawyers for co-defendant Walt Nauta to comment on the legality of prosecutors using a Washington grand jury to keep investigating. The fact the probe is still active despite several indictments is hardly a good sign for Trump. And Judge Aileen Cannon’s move revived debate over whether she was favoring the ex-president’s team following criticism of her earlier handling of a dispute over documents taken from Trump’s home in an FBI search.

    There were also new signs in Atlanta that indictments could be imminent in a probe into efforts to steal Biden’s election win in the key state, as it emerged that ex-Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, a Republican and CNN political contributor, has been subpoenaed to testify to a grand jury.

    All of this frenzied activity unfolding on one day represents just a snapshot of the complex legal morass now surrounding Trump. It’s just a taste of the enormous strain the ex-president is about to feel as he campaigns for a return to the Oval Office. The crush of cases will also impose increasing financial demands. Already, Trump’s leadership PAC has been diverting cash raised from small-dollar donors to pay legal fees for the former president and associates that might instead have gone toward the 2024 campaign.

    In several of the cases on Monday, there were signs of the extraordinary complications inherent in prosecuting a former president and the front-runner for the Republican nomination. Judges, for instance, are faced with decisions that would normally go unnoticed by the public in the court system but that will now attract a glaring media and political spotlight.

    And while Monday was notable for a head-spinning sequence of legal maneuvering, it did not even encompass all of the pending cases against Trump. He is also due to go on trial in March – in the middle of the GOP primary season – in a case arising from a hush money payment to an adult film star. As with his other indictments, Trump has pleaded not guilty.

    For all his capacity to operate in the eye of converging storms of scandal and controversy, Trump’s mood is becoming increasingly agitated. In recent days he has attacked Smith, the Justice Department, the judge in the election subversion case, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell, and even the US national women’s soccer team after they crashed out of the World Cup on penalties.

    One of Trump’s most incendiary posts on his Truth Social network was at the center of one of Monday’s legal dramas – wrangling between Smith’s prosecutors and Trump’s lawyers over the handling of evidence at the center of the forthcoming trial.

    Prosecutors cited Trump writing on his Truth Social network on Friday, “If you go after me, I’m coming after you!” in a filing that requested strict rules on how he could use evidence that will be turned over to the defense as part of the pre-trial discovery process. Trump’s lawyers had asked for an extension to Monday’s deadline, but Judge Tanya Chutkan refused, in a fresh sign of her possible willingness to schedule a swift trial, which the ex-president wants to delay until after the 2024 election.

    In its brief, the defense proposed narrower rules than those sought by prosecutors. Spats over discovery aren’t unusual early in a trial process. But Trump’s filing added insight into how his team will approach a case in which he has pleaded not guilty.

    “In a trial about First Amendment rights, the government seeks to restrict First Amendment rights,” the attorneys said in the court filing.

    When it comes to Smith’s indictment, Trump’s lawyers are arguing that he was within his rights to claim the election was stolen. Smith’s strategy is, however, apparently designed to avoid a First Amendment trap, and alleges that the criminal activity occurred not in what Trump said, but in actions like the ex-president’s pressure on local officials over the election and on former Vice President Mike Pence to delay its certification.

    The Trump team’s filing went on to claim that the case was in itself an example of political victimization of their client, underscoring the fusion between his courtroom defense and his presidential campaign.

    “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,” the filing said.

    In a Monday night order, Chutkan signaled she would hold a hearing this week on the dispute and told the parties to come up with, by 3 p.m. Tuesday, two options for when such a hearing could be held this week.

    Any prolonged debate over the terms of the pre-discovery process – let alone the many other expected pre-trial motions – will play into the hands of the defense. Trump is showing every sign that part of his motivation in running for a second White House term is to reacquire executive powers that could lead to federal cases against him being frozen. The timing of the January 6, 2021, case, and any potential conviction, is therefore hugely significant with a general election looming in November 2024.

    Trump has called for the recusal of Chutkan, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama. His legal team has called for a shift of trial venue away from the diverse US capital, potentially to West Virginia, one of the Whitest and most pro-Trump states in the nation. These pre-trial gambits are unlikely to succeed. But they help to create extreme pressure on the judge and to build a case for Trump supporters that the legal process is biased against him – a narrative that could provide especially inflammatory if he is eventually convicted.

    Trump’s rhetoric about the case has raised some concerns about the possibility of witness intimidation – especially as some of his supporters who were tried for their part in the mob attack on the US Capitol on January 6, have testified that they were spurred to action by his rhetoric.

    CNN observed increased security around Chutkan on Monday. Security is also increased around the Superior Court in Fulton County, Georgia, where a decision is expected in days on whether to hit Trump with a fourth criminal indictment.

    Any normal political candidate would have seen their political ambitions crushed by even one of the cases in Trump’s bulging portfolio of legal jeopardy. It is, however, a sign of the ex-president’s extraordinary and unbroken hold on the Republican Party and its voters that he is still the runaway front-runner in the primary.

    But one of his top rivals, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, is slowly becoming more willing to criticize Trump publicly, after being cautious about alienating Trump supporters who feel the ex-president is the victim of a political witch hunt. DeSantis told NBC that “of course” Trump lost the 2024 election, as he blitzes early voting states New Hampshire and Iowa and makes the case that the ex-president’s legal exposure is a distraction the GOP cannot afford if it is to oust Biden from the White House after a single term. It may seem absurd that DeSantis is risking his political career by stating the obvious truth about the 2020 election, but Trump has made signing up to his false reality a test of loyalty among base voters.

    And Pence, who rejected Trump’s public pressure to thwart the certification of Biden’s election – a scheme at the center of Smith’s case – indicated over the weekend that he may testify in Trump’s trial if required to do so by law.

    The spectacle of a former vice presidential running mate testifying against the man who picked him for his ticket would be an extreme twist even in the Trump era of shattered political conventions.

    Thanks to Trump’s unfathomable and widening legal nightmare, nothing about the 2024 election is going to be anywhere near normal.

    Source link

    August 7, 2023
  • Takeaways from the arraignment of Donald Trump in the special counsel’s election subversion case | CNN Politics

    Takeaways from the arraignment of Donald Trump in the special counsel’s election subversion case | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    Former President Donald Trump pleaded not guilty in a Washington, DC, federal courthouse Thursday to federal criminal charges stemming from his plots to overturn the 2020 election, in a 27-minute proceeding where the first flashes of the defense’s tactics emerged.

    It was the third occasion that Trump was arraigned on criminal charges this year, and the hearing marked the public debut of the team of lawyers in special counsel Jack Smith’s office who will be leading the prosecution.

    Here are takeaways from the hearing:

    In the classified documents case that Smith has also brought against the former president in June, the Trump team has sought to slow-walk the schedule for the proceedings. There were hints of a similar strategy in the first hearing in the election subversion case.

    Much of Thursday’s hearing was staid and to-script. But the tone sharpened when the judge said the prosecutors should file recommendations for the trial date and length in seven days, and that the Trump team should respond within seven days after that.

    Trump attorney John Lauro told the judge that they would need to look at the amount of evidence they’ll be receiving from the government – which he said could be “massive” — before they could address that question.

    “There is no question in our mind, your honor, that Mr. Trump is entitled to a fair and just trial,” Lauro said, nodding both to Trump’s right to a speedy trial as well as his right to due process.

    Prosecutor Thomas Windom previewed that the special counsel would propose this case unfolding under a normal timeline under the Speedy Trial Act, which sets a time limit – unless certain exemptions are sought – for criminal cases to go to trial.

    Judge Tanya Chutkan intends to schedule a trial date at an August 28 hearing, a magistrate judge said Thursday. Before the trial, Chutkan may need to preside over disputes over whether the case should be dismissed to do legal flaws, when the trial should start and what evidence can be presented to a jury.

    Trump may argue that a trial should wait until after the 2024 election, an argument his legal team made unsuccessfully in the classified documents case, and his lawyers have also previewed efforts to seek a change of venue for the case, with claims that the DC jury pool is politically biased against the former president and 2024 Republican front-runner.

    There’s likely to be more added to the pile of legal problems on the former president’s plate.

    In Georgia, in the coming weeks, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is expected to bring charges in her election subversion probe and it’s possible that Trump will be indicted in that.

    And then there’s the other case from Smith alleging Trump mishandled classified documents from his White House and then obstructed the probe into the materials. That case is currently scheduled to go trial next May, and there will be regular pre-trial proceedings (at which, Trump is not required to appear) before that. There’s also the criminal case that Manhattan prosecutors brought against Trump for a 2016 campaign hush money scheme, currently slated for trial in March.

    Additionally there’s number of civil lawsuits he faces, including a second defamation case brought by E. Jean Carroll, well as the New York attorney general’s civil fraud case against his family and businesses.

    This court calendar is overlaid against his 2024 campaign schedule as well. The first Republican presidential debate, for instance, is on August 23.

    Though Trump will not be required to appear in court for hearings on pre-trial matters, he may seek to do so, if he embraces a strategy of making a spectacle out of the election subversion case. Speaking on the airport tarmac, Trump made brief remarks that the prosecution was political after Thursday’s hearing, and he routinely fundraises off of every new development putting him in deeper legal trouble.

    Thursday marked the public debut of the Smith team that will handle the election subversion prosecution. (Some of the special counsel lawyers who are leading the classified documents case were previously involved in the public proceedings stemming from the lawsuit Trump filed last year challenging the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago).

    Smith himself attended the hearing, as he did for Trump’s first appearance in the classified documents case in Florida earlier this year. As the courtroom waited for the hearing to start, Smith and Trump occasionally looked over at one another – Smith looking towards Trump more often than Trump looked over to him.

    Windom – who moved from the US attorney’s office in Maryland to play a central role in the federal election subversion investigation, spoke on behalf of the government Thursday. Also at the prosecutors’ table was Molly Gaston, an alum of the DC US attorney’s public integrity section, which handles some of the most politically sensitive cases for the Justice Department.

    Gaston was a lead prosecutor on last year’s contempt of Congress case against ex-Trump adviser Steve Bannon, and also worked on the prosecutions of Rick Gates – a former Trump campaign aide – and Paul Manafort, Trump’s 2016 campaign chairman. Gaston was also present in the courtroom Tuesday when the foreperson of the grand jury for the 2020 election probe returned the indictment against Trump.

    Trump was represented by Lauro and Todd Blanche at Thursday’s hearing. Lauro is a relatively recent addition to the Trump legal team and is handling the 2020-election related matters.

    Blanche, meanwhile, has been across several Trump cases. He is representing Trump in Smith’s classified documents prosecution as well is in the 2016 campaign hush money case brought by Manhattan’s district attorney.

    Evan Corcoran, who has not formally entered an appearance in the case, attended the hearing, sitting on the row in the courtroom well behind the defense table.

    Lauro did the talking for the defense at Thursday’s hearing. He’s also made himself a prominent defender of the former president in the public arena, with multiple appearance in recent days on CNN and other networks.

    While the defense lawyers were mostly there Thursday to walk Trump through the steps of a first appearance and arraignment, Lauro had the opportunity to show the vigor with which he’ll argue on behalf of his client. He didn’t get into the substantive defense arguments that he has previewed in TV hits, but his insistence that the Trump team may need more time before nailing down a trial schedule was emphatic.

    “All that we would ask, your honor, is the time to fairly defend our client. And to do that we need a little time,” he said.

    While Trump’s hearing Thursday largely followed the script of the arraignments he’s had in the classified documents and the 2016 hush money criminal cases against him. But it was happening in a courthouse that has had to constantly had to process and re-process the violence of January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol that his election lies helped provoke.

    For the last two-and-a-half years since the attack, the former president has been a stalking horse in the DC courthouse, which has hosted the proceedings for more than 1,000 Trump supporters who have been have been charged for the riot.

    Judges have obliquely acknowledged the role the former president played in egging on the mob, while recounting the direct view they had to the violence that day. Defense attorneys and prosecutors have argued over how much of the blame should be placed on him. Metropolitan and Capitol police officers are frequently seen in the courthouse to testify about the physical and psychological trauma they suffered from the riot. And defendants and their families, in their pleas for mercy, have invoked Trump as well.

    In the election subversion case, Trump’s attorneys have previewed arguments that the case should be moved elsewhere, given the city’s political bent. But the DC federal courthouse is where hundreds of his supporters have received fair trials, with some securing acquittals, in the Capitol mob cases.

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    August 3, 2023
  • What happened this week and what’s next in Trump legal world | CNN Politics

    What happened this week and what’s next in Trump legal world | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    Donald Trump’s legal schedule is getting fuller by the day as the political season heats up, with the former president facing multiple criminal charges with more possibly on the way.

    This week, Trump was indicted on charges of leading a conspiracy to overturn his 2020 presidential election defeat and had to travel to Washington, DC, to plead not guilty in federal court.

    Now comes a flurry of legal filings and the possibility of yet another indictment, this time in Georgia, where a grand jury is looking at efforts to flip his defeat in the Peach State.

    READ: Tracking the criminal indictments in one place

    Here’s what happened this week and what’s next:

    Special counsel Jack Smith dropped the hammer against Trump on Tuesday, charging the former president with conspiracy and attempting to obstruct Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s electoral victory. That effort ultimately led to the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.

    “(F)or more than two months following election day on November 3, 2020, the defendant spread lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the election and that he had actually won,” the indictment states.

    “These claims were false, and the Defendant knew they were false,” it adds, referring to Trump. “But the defendant disseminated them anyway – to make his knowingly false claims appear legitimate, create an intense atmosphere of mistrust and anger, and erode public faith in the administration of the election.”

    READ: CNN’s annotation of the indictment

    Trump took the short trip from his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club to appear in federal court on Thursday to enter a not guilty plea to all charges.

    The arraignment was at a courthouse that’s been central to the efforts to hold people accountable for the January 6 riot. Over 1,000 people charged in Capitol riot cases have made a similar appearance as Trump’s – the building is located within sight of the Capitol and judges there have overseen trials or sentencing of the rioters.

    One of the next major issues in the Trump case will be when to set a trial date. Judge Tanya Chutkan – who has sentenced multiple rioters – appears to be moving quickly on that front.

    The Trump team signaled Thursday that it doesn’t think this case can be sent to trial in the normal timeline as dictated under a federal law known the Speedy Trial Act that allows for exemptions in certain circumstance. The special counsel’s office disagrees.

    Trump has until Tuesday to file a motion that would pause the clock under the Speedy Trial Act, which would help to slow the pace down, and prosecutors have until August 13 to issue any objection to the request.

    Another critical filing will be next Thursday, when the special counsel must propose a trial date and say how long it will likely take them to put on their case before the jury. Trump must respond by August 17.

    The next hearing – the first before Chutkan – will be August 28. Trump does not have to appear in person.

    Meanwhile, the first Republican primary debate is August 23, though it’s unclear if Trump will participate.

    Meanwhile, Smith’s indictment cites six unnamed co-conspirators who allegedly worked with Trump to support his efforts. CNN can identify five of the six.

    “Co-Conspirator 1” is former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani. “2” is former Trump lawyer John Eastman, who masterminded the plan to appoint false electors and is now facing disbarment proceedings in California. “3” is former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell, who worked with Giuliani in court. “4” is former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, who Trump at one point hoped to install as acting attorney general to help him overturn the election. “5” is pro-Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro, who sent an email to Giuliani about the fake electors plot.

    The identity of “6” is unclear. The indictment says this person is a political consultant who is tied to the fake elector slate in Pennsylvania.

    The next moment in the criminal case against Trump is Thursday, August 10, when a magistrate judge in Florida will hear the plea of Mar-a-Lago maintenance worker Carlos De Oliveira, who allegedly attempted to delete security camera footage at the former president’s resort after the Justice Department issued a subpoena for it.

    Trump, via court filing Friday, pleaded not guilty to the charges recently added to the case and indicated to the court that he would not be physically present for the arraignment.

    Lawyers for co-defendant Walt Nauta will be present to enter their client’s plea to the new counts.

    READ: Mar-a-lago indictment annotated

    A grand jury hearing evidence in Smith’s investigation returned the superseding indictment in late July against Trump, who had already faced 37 criminal charges, charging the former president with one additional count of willful retention of national defense information and two additional obstruction counts.

    Also next week, Trump’s lawyers will have a chance to respond to claims by prosecutors that he is unwilling to travel to a secured facility to access classified documents being turned over to the defense for the case. By August 10, Trump will have to respond to Smith’s proposal for a protective order restricting access to classified discovery in the case, and in the filings with the proposal, prosecutors have said that Trump has requested to view the documents in Mar-a-Lago or Bedminster – a request Smith’s team opposes.

    Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is expected to ask a grand jury to file charges by September 1 in her probe into efforts by Trump and allies to overturn Georgia’s 2020 presidential election result.

    “The work is accomplished,” Willis told CNN affiliate WXIA at a back-to-school event. “We’ve been working for two and half years. We’re ready to go.”

    Security at the Fulton County courthouse has notably increased in anticipation of Willis’ actions.

    READ: Timeline of Trump’s efforts in Georgia to overturn the election

    A federal judge last week dismissed a $475 million defamation lawsuit Trump brought against CNN that accused the network of defaming him by using the phrase “the big lie” and allegedly comparing him to Adolf Hitler.

    District Judge Raag Singhal, a 2019 appointee of Trump’s, said that use of the phrase or similar statements are opinion that don’t meet the standard for defamation.

    “CNN’s use of the phrase ‘the Big Lie’ in connection with Trump’s election challenges does not give rise to a plausible inference that Trump advocates the persecution and genocide of Jews or any other group of people. No reasonable viewer could (or should) plausibly make that reference,” Singhal wrote.

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    August 2, 2023
  • Trump and team seek to destroy credibility of his election subversion trial before a date is even set | CNN Politics

    Trump and team seek to destroy credibility of his election subversion trial before a date is even set | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    Donald Trump and his legal team are escalating efforts to discredit and delay a trial over his alleged attempt to overturn the 2020 election, as his fight to avert criminal convictions becomes ever more indistinguishable from his presidential campaign.

    The former president’s attorney Sunday vowed to petition to relocate the trial from Washington, DC, claiming that a local jury won’t reflect the “characteristics” of the American people. And as prosecutors seek a speedy trial, he warned that his team will seek to run out the process for years in an apparent attempt to move it past the 2024 election.

    Trump demanded the judge set to hear the case recuse herself in a flurry of assaults on the process that may fail legally, but will play into his campaign narrative that he is a victim of political persecution by the Biden administration designed to thwart a White House comeback.

    Trump pleaded not guilty when he was arraigned in Washington last week – his third such plea in a criminal case in the past four months. But his new efforts to tarnish an eventual trial in this case mirror his long-term strategy of seeking to delegitimize any institution – including the courts, the Justice Department, US intelligence agencies and the press – that contradicts his narrative or challenges his power.

    They unfolded as the precarious nature of his position after his third indictment began to sink in and the ramifications for the 2024 election widened.

    Mike Pence, speaking on CNN this weekend, did not rule out providing testimony in a Trump trial if compelled, which would be a staggering potential scenario for a vice president to provide evidence against his ex-running mate.

    Trump’s former Attorney General William Barr, meanwhile, dismissed one of the arguments the ex-president and his allies have turned to – that he was simply exercising his right to freedom of speech in seeking to reverse the election result in 2020. Barr, who told Trump there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud during his final weeks in office, also said Sunday that “of course” he would appear as a witness at the trial if asked.

    Trump’s status as the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination has left his rivals with a painful political tightrope walk as they seek to take advantage of his plight while avoiding alienating GOP primary voters. But several candidates stiffened their criticism of the former president over the issue this weekend as campaigning heated up.

    Pence said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that in the tense days ahead of Congress’ certification of President Joe Biden’s election, Trump asked him to put loyalty to him above his oath to the Constitution and halt the process. “I’m running for president in part because I think anyone who puts themselves over the Constitution should never be president of the United States,” Pence told Dana Bash.

    And Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis went a tiny bit further in his criticism of Trump, while still arguing that the Biden administration is weaponizing justice against the former president. On a campaign swing through Iowa on Friday, DeSantis – who is battling to preserve his tottering status as the No. 2 Republican in primary polls – said Trump’s false claims about election fraud were “unsubstantiated.”

    In a subsequent interview with NBC, DeSantis added: “Whoever puts their hand on the Bible on January 20 every four years is the winner.”

    “Of course, he lost,” DeSantis said. “Joe Biden’s the president.” The Florida governor also, however, chastised people in the media and elsewhere for acting like “this was the perfect election.”

    The fast-moving developments since Trump’s indictment last week are offering a preview of one of the most monumental criminal trials in American political history. They also suggest this case, and two others in which Trump has pleaded not guilty – to mishandling of classified documents and to charges arising out of a hush money payment to an adult film actress – are certain to deepen a corrosive national political estrangement.

    Defense teams have the right to use every courtroom mechanism within legal bounds to their client’s best advantage. Attempts to delay trials with pre-trial litigation are not unusual and prosecutors and defense lawyers often differ over matters of procedure and evidence. But Trump’s case is unique, given the visibility of the accused, the fact that he’s a former president running for another White House term, and that he is using his power and fame to mount a vitriolic campaign outside the courtroom to drain public confidence in the justice system. It is becoming increasingly clear that there is no distinction between his legal strategy and his political one in an election that is now consumed by his criminal exposure and the possibility of convictions.

    In posts on his Truth Social network that highlighted a furious state of mind, Trump on Sunday demanded the recusal of Judge Tanya Chutkan, an Obama appointee who is presiding over the case, and a venue change out of the capital. He blasted special counsel Jack Smith as “deranged” and claimed that the US was being “destroyed.” On Saturday night, in a speech in South Carolina, Trump demanded that Senate Republicans do more to protect him.

    His threatening rhetoric is already having a direct impact on pre-trial preparations as both parties shadow box ahead of a decision by the judge on a trial date.

    Smith’s prosecutors asked the court late Friday to impose strict limits on how Trump can publicize evidence that will be handed over as part of the discovery process. Trump’s team sought an extension of a Monday afternoon deadline to file on the matter, but Chutkan refused their request. Prosecutors want the judge to impose a protective order limiting how Trump could use such evidence because of his previous public statements about witnesses, judges, attorneys and others. In their filing, they included a screenshot of a Truth Social post in which Trump warned: “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!”

    Trump’s lawyer John Lauro argued on “State of the Union” Sunday that the special counsel was seeking to withhold evidence about the case from the press and the American people that “may speak to the innocence of President Trump.”

    Trump is seeking to delay and prolong the trial so that the country won’t have a final answer on his alleged culpability until after the election. If Trump wins the White House in November 2024, he will again gain access to executive powers and status that could freeze federal prosecutions against him or mitigate any guilty verdicts.

    Lauro said on CBS News’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday that he had not known any similar case go to trial within two or three years of an indictment. He also said on other talk show appearances that he planned to relitigate the 2020 election, which he said had never been drawn out in court, as a way of challenging Smith’s charges. Trump, however, made multiple attempts to have the 2020 result overturned in court, and judges repeatedly threw out his claims of voter fraud as having no merit.

    Lauro also further revealed his hand on defense strategy by arguing that despite being told multiple times by officials and campaign advisers that he lost the election, Trump’s actions were not criminal since he was convinced he won.

    “The defense is quite simple. Donald Trump … believed in his heart of hearts that he had won that election,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. “And as any American citizen, he had a right to speak out under the First Amendment. He had a right to petition governments around the country, state governments, based on his grievances that election irregularities had occurred.”

    But Barr, a conservative Republican who had been a staunch Trump defender until the very end of his administration, said that while Smith’s case was certainly “challenging,” he didn’t think it “runs afoul of the First Amendment.”

    Trump’s prospective defense raises the possibility that any future politician could create an alternative reality that bears no relation to the facts of an election outcome, and then take actions designed to retain power.

    Barr sought to clear up what he said was confusion about the case. “This involved a situation where the states had already made the official and authoritative determination as to who won in those states, and they sent the votes and certified them to Congress,” Barr said on “Face the Nation.”

    “The allegation, essentially, by the government is that, at that point, the president conspired, entered into a plan, a scheme that involved a lot of deceit, the object of which was to erase those votes, to nullify those lawful votes.”

    Another claim by Trump’s team being amplified on conservative media is that the former president cannot get a fair trial in Washington, where he won only 5% of the vote in the 2020 election. Lauro instead suggested one of the most pro-Trump states in the union, where the ex-president racked up nearly 70% of votes cast in the last election. “I think West Virginia would be an excellent venue to try this case,” he said on CBS.

    Most legal experts think a change of venue is unlikely. Such a step would implicitly strike at the heart of the legal system since it would suggest that verdicts and juries in one jurisdiction are more valid than those elsewhere and could set a precedent that politicians could choose juries in politically advantageous regions.

    Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, one of the handful of Republicans running for the 2024 nomination on an explicitly anti-Trump platform, insisted that Trump could get a fair trial in the nation’s capital.

    “I believe jurors can be fair. I believe in the American people,” Christie said on “State of the Union.”

    Christie: I believe DC jurors can be fair to Trump

    Christie, a former federal prosecutor in a blue state, also rejected the argument that Trump’s post-election conduct is protected by the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech. He argued that proof of Trump’s culpability lies in his failure to immediately seek to stop the ransacking of the US Capitol by his supporters during the certification of Biden’s victory on January 6, 2021.

    “He didn’t do that. He sat, ate his overdone hamburger in the White House Dining Room he has off the Oval Office and enjoyed watching what was going on,” Christie said.

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    August 2, 2023
  • Donald Trump has been indicted in special counsel’s 2020 election interference probe | CNN Politics

    Donald Trump has been indicted in special counsel’s 2020 election interference probe | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    Donald Trump has been indicted on criminal charges by a federal grand jury in a case that strikes at the former president’s efforts to remain in the White House after losing the 2020 election and undermine the long-held American tradition of a peaceful transfer of presidential power.

    Trump is scheduled to appear at the Washington, DC, federal courthouse at 4 p.m. ET on Thursday.

    As part of special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation, Trump was charged with: Conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights.

    “(F)or more than two months following election day on November 3, 2020, the defendant spread lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the election and that he had actually won,” the indictment states.

    “These claims were false, and the Defendant knew they were false,” it adds, referring to Trump. “But the defendant disseminated them anyway – to make his knowingly false claims appear legitimate, create an intense atmosphere of mistrust and anger, and erode public faith in the administration of the election.”

    The plot to overturn the 2020 election shattered presidential norms and culminated in an unthinkable physical assault on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, as Congress met to certify President Joe Biden’s victory. Even before that, Trump engaged in an unprecedented pressure campaign toward state election workers and lawmakers, Justice Department officials and even his own vice president to persuade them to throw out the 2020 results.

    Smith told reporters that he will seek a “speedy trial” and encouraged members of the public to read the indictment.

    “The attack in our nation’s capital on January 6 2021, was an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy, and as described in the indictment, it was fueled by lies,” Smith said in a brief statement. “Lies by the defendant targeted at obstructing the bedrock function of the US government nation’s process of collecting, counting and certifying the results of a presidential election.”

    The indictment alleges that Trump and co-conspirators “exploited” the January 6 attack on the US Capitol by continuing efforts to convince members of Congress to delay the certification of the election.

    “As violence ensued, the Defendant and co-conspirators exploited the disruption by redoubling efforts to levy false claims of election fraud and convince Members of Congress to further delay the certification based on those claims,” according to the indictment.

    The indictment also says that Trump had deceived many rioters to believe then-Vice President Mike Pence could change the election results to make Trump the victor.

    Six unindicted co-conspirators were included in the filing.

    Among the six are four unnamed attorneys who allegedly aided Trump in his effort to subvert the 2020 election. Also included is one unnamed Justice Department official who “attempted to use the Justice Department to open sham election crime investigations and influence state legislatures with knowingly false claims of election fraud.”

    The indictment also mentions an unnamed “political consultant who helped implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding.”

    The first count Trump is facing, conspiracy to defraud the United States, is brought under a statute that can be used to prosecute a broad range of conspiracies involving two or more people to violate US law.

    Two other counts relate to obstruction of an official proceeding – brought under provisions included in a federal witness tampering statute that has also been used to prosecute some of the rioters who breached the Capitol.

    Those counts carry a maximum sentence of 20 years imprisonment. The appropriateness of using the law to prosecute the rioters has been litigated in the Capitol breach cases.

    Trump also faces a conspiracy against rights charge under a Reconstruction-era civil rights law. The law prohibits two or more people from conspiring to “injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any….the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States.”

    It carries a 10 year maximum sentence of imprisonment, unless the conspiracy results in death.

    Smith’s move to bring charges will test whether the criminal justice system can be used to hold Trump to account for his post-election conduct after he was acquitted in his impeachment trial related to his actions that day.

    The indictment is the second time in two months that Smith has brought charges against Trump. In June, Trump was charged with retention of classified documents and conspiracy with a top aide to hide them from the government and his own attorneys. And separately in March, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg indicted Trump on state charges of falsifying business records.

    Trump has pleaded not guilty in both cases – and is likely to do so again when he’s arraigned on the latest charges.

    Trump at age 4. He was born in 1946 to Fred and Mary Trump in New York City. His father was a real estate developer.
    Trump, left, in a family photo. He was the second-youngest of five children.
    Trump, center, stands at attention during his senior year at the New York Military Academy.
    Trump, center, wears a baseball uniform at the New York Military Academy. After he graduated from the boarding school, he went to college. He started at Fordham University before transferring and later graduating from the Wharton School, the University of Pennsylvania's business school.
    Trump stands with Alfred Eisenpreis, New York's economic development administrator, in 1976 while they look at a sketch of a new 1,400-room renovation project of the Commodore Hotel. After graduating from college in 1968, Trump worked with his father on developments in Queens and Brooklyn before purchasing or building multiple properties in New York and Atlantic City, New Jersey. Those properties included Trump Tower in New York and Trump Plaza and multiple casinos in Atlantic City.
    In 1979, Trump attends an event to mark the start of construction of the New York Convention Center.
    Trump wears a hard hat at the Trump Tower construction site in New York in 1980.
    Trump and his family, circa 1986. Trump was married to Ivana Zelnicek Trump from 1977 to 1990, when they divorced. They had three children together: Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric.
    Trump uses his personal helicopter to get around New York in 1987.
    Trump stands in the atrium of Trump Tower.
    Trump attends the opening of his new Atlantic City casino, the Taj Mahal, in 1989.
    Trump signs his second book, has published at least 16 other books, including “The Art of the Deal” and “The America We Deserve.”” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”1637″ width=”1600″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump and singer Michael Jackson pose for a photo before traveling to visit Ryan White, a young child with AIDS, in 1990.
    Trump dips his second wife, Marla Maples, after the couple married in a private ceremony in New York in December 1993. The couple divorced in 1999 and had one daughter together, Tiffany.
    Trump putts a golf ball in his New York office in 1998.
    An advertisement for the television show
    A 12-inch talking Trump doll is on display at a toy store in New York in September 2004.
    Trump attends a news conference in 2005 that announced the establishment of Trump University. From 2005 until it closed in 2010, Trump University had about 10,000 people sign up for a program that promised success in real estate. <a href=Three separate lawsuits — two class-action suits filed in California and one filed by New York’s attorney general — argued that the program was mired in fraud and deception. In November 2016, just days after winning the presidential election, Trump agreed to settle the lawsuits. He repeatedly denied the fraud claims and said that he could have won at trial, but he said that as president he did not have time and wanted to focus on the country.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”2073″ width=”2928″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump attends the US Open tennis tournament with his third wife, Melania Knauss-Trump, and their son, Barron, in 2006. Trump and Knauss married in 2005.
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    Trump poses with Miss Universe contestants in 2011. Trump had been executive producer of the Miss Universe, Miss USA and Miss Teen USA pageants since 1996.
    In 2012, Trump announced his endorsement of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
    Trump speaks in Sarasota, Florida, after accepting the Statesman of the Year Award at the Sarasota GOP dinner in August 2012. It was shortly before the Republican National Convention in nearby Tampa.
    Trump appears on stage with singer Nick Jonas and television personality Giuliana Rancic during the 2013 Miss USA pageant.
    In June 2015, during a speech from Trump Tower, <a href=Trump announced that he was running for president. He said he would give up “The Apprentice” to run.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”1667″ width=”2500″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump — flanked by US Sens. Marco Rubio, left, and Ted Cruz — speaks during a CNN debate in March 2016. Trump dominated the GOP primaries and emerged as the presumptive nominee in May of that year.
    Members of the Trump family pose for a photo in New York in April 2016. Behind Trump, from left, are daughter Tiffany, daughter-in-law Vanessa, granddaughter Kai Madison, son Donald Jr., son-in-law Jared Kushner, daughter Ivanka, wife Melania, son Eric and daughter-in-law Lara.
    Trump speaks during a campaign event in Evansville, Indiana, in April 2016. After Trump won the Indiana primary, his last two competitors dropped out of the GOP race.
    Trump delivers a speech at the Republican National Convention in July 2016, accepting the party's nomination for president.
    Trump faces Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in <a href=the first presidential debate, which took place in Hempstead, New York, in September 2016.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”2774″ width=”4931″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump apologizes in a video, posted to his Twitter account in October 2016, for vulgar and sexually aggressive remarks he made more than a decade ago regarding women. Trump said, referring to lewd comments he made during a previously unaired taping of “Access Hollywood.” Multiple Republican leaders rescinded their endorsements of Trump after the footage was released.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”1360″ width=”2417″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump walks on stage with his family after he was declared the election winner in November 2016.
    Two days after winning the election, Trump meets with President Barack Obama at the White House. Three days after mocking Trump as unfit to control the codes needed to launch nuclear weapons, Obama told his successor that he wanted him to succeed and would do everything he could to ensure a smooth transition. Obama said.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”2022″ width=”3000″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump <a href=shares a meal in New York with Mitt Romney in November 2016. Trump and his transition team were in the process of filling high-level positions for the new administration, and Romney was reportedly in the running for secretary of state. That job ended up going to Rex Tillerson.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”2000″ width=”3000″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump arrives for his inauguration ceremony in January 2017.
    Trump is joined by his wife and his five children as he takes the oath of office from Chief Justice John Roberts. Melania is holding a family Bible and a Bible that belonged to former President Abraham Lincoln. Next to Melania, from left, are Trump's children Barron, Donald Jr., Ivanka, Tiffany and Eric.
    The new president kisses the first lady as they dance at one of <a href=three inaugural balls. The president, known for his affinity of over-the-top gold fixtures, went for classic Americana with a touch of retro glitz.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”2186″ width=”2940″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump shakes hands with FBI Director James Comey during a White House reception in January 2017. <a href=Trump fired Comey a few months later, sweeping away the man who was responsible for the FBI’s investigation into whether members of Trump’s campaign team colluded with Russia in its election interference. The Trump administration attributed Comey’s dismissal to his handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email server.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”2001″ width=”3000″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump <a href=has a phone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, one of several world leaders he talked to after taking office. Joining Trump in the Oval Office, from left, were Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, Vice President Mike Pence, senior adviser Steve Bannon, press secretary Sean Spicer and national security adviser Michael Flynn.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”1946″ width=”3500″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump, in front of a portrait of his 2016 opponent Hillary Clinton, <a href=surprises visitors who were touring the White House in March 2017. The tour group, including many young children, cheered and screamed after the president popped out from behind a room divider.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”2000″ width=”3000″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump watches as Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, right, administers the judicial oath to Neil Gorsuch during <a href=a White House ceremony in April 2017. Gorsuch was chosen by Trump to replace Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in 2016. Holding the Bible is Gorsuch’s wife, Marie Louise.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”2000″ width=”3000″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump points at Sergey Kislyak, Russia's ambassador to the United States, while hosting Kislyak and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, left, at the White House in May 2017. <a href=The meeting with Lavrov was the highest-level encounter between the US administration and Moscow since Trump’s inauguration.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”1067″ width=”1600″ loading=’lazy’/>
    From right, President Trump, first lady Melania Trump, Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi attend an inauguration ceremony for the Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology. The facility is in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. <a href=See more photos from Trump’s first foreign tour in May 2017″ class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”1428″ width=”2000″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump touches the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest prayer site, while in Jerusalem in May 2017. Trump became <a href=the first sitting US president to visit the wall.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”2000″ width=”3000″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Pope Francis stands with Trump and his family during <a href=a private audience at the Vatican in May 2017. Joining the president were his wife and his daughter Ivanka.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”2045″ width=”3000″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump <a href=looks up at the sky during the total solar eclipse in August 2017. He eventually put on protective glasses as he watched the eclipse with his wife and their son from the White House South Portico.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”2091″ width=”3000″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump talks with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer during a meeting in the White House Oval Office in September 2017. The end result of that meeting was Trump <a href=bucking his own party and siding with Democrats to support a deal that would ensure passage of disaster relief funding, raise the debt ceiling, and continue to fund the government into December.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”2043″ width=”3000″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump, accompanied by the first lady, puts on a bomber jacket that he received from US forces in Tokyo in November 2017. Trump was on <a href=a five-nation tour of Asia that lasted nearly two weeks.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”2000″ width=”3000″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump gestures during <a href=his State of the Union address in January 2018. Trump declared that the “state of our union is strong because our people are strong. Together, we are building a safe, strong and proud America.”” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”1806″ width=”3000″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump holds his notes while hosting a <a href=listening session with student survivors of mass shootings, their parents and teachers in February 2018. The visible points included prompts such as “1. What would you most want me to know about your experience?” “2. What can we do to help you feel safe?” and “5. I hear you.”” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”2000″ width=”3000″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron walk to the Oval Office before a meeting at the White House in April 2018. Speaking before US lawmakers from both the Senate and the House,<a href= Macron pressed the United States to engage more in global affairs, contrasting with the steps the Trump White House has taken toward isolationism since he came into office.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”1844″ width=”3000″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Three Americans<a href= released by North Korea are welcomed at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland by Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in May 2018. Kim Dong Chul, Kim Hak-song and Kim Sang Duk, also known as Tony Kim, were freed while Pompeo was visiting North Korea to discuss Trump’s upcoming summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”2999″ width=”3000″ loading=’lazy’/>
    In this photo provided by the German Government Press Office, German Chancellor Angela Merkel talks with a seated Trump as they are surrounded by other leaders at the G7 summit in Charlevoix, Quebec, in June 2018. According to two senior diplomatic sources, <a href=the photo was taken when there was a difficult conversation taking place regarding the G7’s communique and several issues the United States had leading up to it.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”2000″ width=”3000″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump sits with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during <a href=their historic summit in Singapore in June 2018. It was the first meeting ever between a sitting US president and a North Korean leader. At the end of the summit, they signed a document in which they agreed “to work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.” In exchange, Trump agreed to “provide security guarantees” to North Korea.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”2000″ width=”3000″ loading=’lazy’/>
    A close-up of Trump's shirt cuff reads
    Trump announced in July 2018 that Brett Kavanaugh, foreground, was his choice to replace Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, who retired at the end of the month. Kavanaugh, who once clerked for Kennedy, <a href=was confirmed in October 2018.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”2000″ width=”3000″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump and Britain's Queen Elizabeth II inspect a guard of honor during <a href=Trump’s visit to Windsor Castle in July 2018.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”2095″ width=”3000″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump shakes hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the end of <a href=their summit in Helsinki, Finland, in July 2018. Afterward, Trump said he believed it had significantly improved relations between the two countries. “Our relationship has never been worse than it is now. However, that changed as of about four hours ago. I really believe that,” Trump said during a joint news conference. The Putin meeting was the last part of Trump’s weeklong trip to Europe.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”1942″ width=”3000″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Rapper Kanye West stands up during his Oval Office meeting with Trump in October 2018. West and football legend Jim Brown <a href=had been invited for a working lunch to discuss topics such as urban revitalization, workforce training programs and how best to address crime in Chicago. ” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”1800″ width=”2700″ loading=’lazy’/>
    A White House staff member reaches for the microphone held by CNN's Jim Acosta as he questions Trump during a news conference in November 2018. Later that day, in a stunning break with protocol, the White House said that it was <a href=suspending Acosta’s press pass “until further notice.” A federal judge later ordered the White House to return Acosta’s press pass. ” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”2091″ width=”3000″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Donald and Melania Trump join former US presidents and their wives at <a href=the state funeral of George H.W. Bush in December 2018. In the front row, from left, are the Trumps, Barack and Michelle Obama, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”1424″ width=”2124″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump and Vice President Mike Pence meet with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer at the White House in December 2018. In the meeting, part of which was open to the press, <a href=Trump clashed with Schumer and Pelosi over funding for a border wall and the threat of a government shutdown. Parts of the federal government did eventually shut down. The shutdown lasted a record 35 days.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”2000″ width=”3000″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Pelosi and Pence clap during Trump's State of the Union address in February 2019. Because of the record-long government shutdown, <a href=Trump’s speech came a week later than originally planned.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”1953″ width=”2930″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump boards Air Force One in Kenner, Louisiana, in May 2019.
    Trump shakes hands with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as the two <a href=meet at the Korean Demilitarized Zone in June 2019. Trump briefly stepped over into North Korean territory, becoming the first sitting US leader to set foot in the nation. Trump said he invited Kim to the White House, and both leaders agreed to restart talks after nuclear negotiations stalled.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”1733″ width=”2600″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Crowds gather around the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool to watch Trump speak in July 2019. <a href=Trump’s “Salute to America” ceremony featured military flyovers, music and a largely apolitical speech that struck a patriotic tone. But the event drew considerable scrutiny in the days leading up to it, as some felt it was politicizing the military. There were also critics who said the event, with its massive VIP section and tickets for political donors, had the sheen of a partisan affair. ” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”2000″ width=”3000″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump officially launched his re-election campaign with a rally in Orlando in June 2019.
    Trump speaks to the media on the South Lawn of the White House in June 2019.
    Trump shares a laugh with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson during a working breakfast at the G-7 summit in Biarritz, France, in August 2019.
    Melania Trump greets Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau with a kiss on the cheek prior to a group photo at the G-7 summit in August 2019. <a href=The photo quickly circulated on social media.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”1814″ width=”2679″ loading=’lazy’/>
    In September 2019, Trump shows an <a href=apparently altered map of Hurricane Dorian’s trajectory. The map showed the storm potentially affecting a large section of Alabama. Over the course of the storm’s development, Trump erroneously claimed multiple times that Alabama had been in the storm’s path.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”2968″ width=”4448″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Money sticks out of Trump's back pocket as he boards Air Force One in Mountain View, California, in September 2019.
    Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg watches Trump as he enters the United Nations to speak with reporters in September 2019. Thunberg, 16, <a href=didn’t mince words as she spoke to world leaders during the UN Climate Action Summit. She accused them of not doing enough to mitigate climate change: “For more than 30 years, the science has been crystal clear. How dare you continue to look away?” Trump later mocked Thunberg on Twitter.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”1467″ width=”2200″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky meets with Trump on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in September 2019. A day earlier, the White House <a href=released a transcript of a conversation that Trump had in July with Zelensky. According to the transcript, Trump repeatedly pushed for Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden, a former vice president and potential 2020 political rival. There is no evidence of wrongdoing by Biden. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that she would be opening a formal impeachment inquiry on Trump. Trump has insisted he did nothing wrong in his phone call with Zelensky, saying there was “no pressure whatsoever.” The House impeached him in December, and the Senate acquitted him in February.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”1625″ width=”2437″ loading=’lazy’/>
    House Speaker Nancy Pelosi points at Trump during <a href=a contentious White House meeting in October 2019. Democratic leaders were there for a meeting about Syria, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said they walked out when Trump went on a diatribe and “started calling Speaker Pelosi a third-rate politician.” Pelosi said, “What we witnessed on the part of the president was a meltdown.” Trump later tweeted this photo, taken by White House photographer Shealah Craighead, with the caption “Nervous Nancy’s unhinged meltdown!” Pelosi then made it the cover photo for her own Twitter account.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”2000″ width=”3000″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump and the first lady watch as a US Army carry team moves a transfer case containing the remains of Chief Warrant Officer 2 David C. Knadle in November 2019. Knadle, 33, was killed in a helicopter crash while serving in Afghanistan.
    Trump holds his notes while speaking to the media in November 2019. Trump repeatedly said he told Gordon Sondland, the US ambassador to the European Union, that he wanted
    The Trumps greet Britain's Queen Elizabeth II during a NATO reception held at Buckingham Palace in December 2019.
    Faith leaders pray with Trump in Miami during a rally for evangelical supporters in January 2020.
    Trump meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, in the White House Oval Office in January 2020. At right is Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
    Trump pumps his fist after <a href=signing a new North American trade agreement in January 2020. The US-Mexico-Canada Agreement replaces the North American Free Trade Agreement, which Trump railed against during the 2016 campaign.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”2000″ width=”3000″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump delivers the <a href=State of the Union address in February 2020, a day before the Senate acquitted him in his impeachment trial. There was tension throughout the speech with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. At the beginning, Trump appeared to snub her for a handshake. At the end, Pelosi ripped up her copy of the speech.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”1573″ width=”2359″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump holds up a newspaper at the National Prayer Breakfast in February 2020. It was a day after he was acquitted in his impeachment trial.
    Trump arrives to speak at a campaign rally in Phoenix in February 2020.
    Trump holds a news conference about the coronavirus outbreak in February 2020. He defended the White House's response to the outbreak, stressing the administration's ongoing efforts and resources devoted to combating the virus.
    Trump looks at a coronavirus model while touring the National Institutes of Health in March 2020.
    Trump <a href=addresses the nation from the White House Oval Office in March 2020. Trump said he was sharply restricting travel to the United States from more than two dozen European countries, a drastic step he framed as an attempt to contain the coronavirus.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”2335″ width=”3719″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Instead of a handshake, Trump and Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar greet each other with a bow as Varadkar visited the White House in March 2020. Because of the coronavirus outbreak, the White House canceled a St. Patrick's Day reception that Varadkar was slated to attend.
    Trump introduces Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, after Trump declared the coronavirus pandemic to be a national emergency in March 2020.
    A close-up of Trump's notes shows where the word
    Trump ripped into NBC News' Peter Alexander, seated, during a White House coronavirus briefing in March 2020. Alexander had asked Trump whether he was giving Americans
    Trump hands a pen to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell during a bill-signing ceremony for the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act in March 2020.
    Trump leaves the White House Rose Garden following a coronavirus briefing in April 2020. During the briefing, Trump threatened to leave after Playboy correspondent and CNN analyst Brian Karem attempted to ask a question about social distancing. He has vented his frustrations on several occasions.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”2000″ width=”3000″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump wears a face mask while visiting a Ford plant in Ypsilanti, Michigan, in May 2020. But it was during a part of the tour where reporters were not allowed.
    Trump tours the Ypsilanti Ford plant, which was making ventilators and personal protective equipment during the coronavirus pandemic.
    Dr. Anthony Fauci looks down as Trump speaks in the White House Rose Garden in May 2020. Trump was unveiling <a href=Operation Warp Speed, a program aimed at developing a coronavirus vaccine by the end of the year.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”1845″ width=”3000″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump holds a Bible outside St. John's Episcopal Church during a <a href=photo op in Washington, DC, in June 2020. Part of the church was set on fire during protests the night before. Before Trump’s photo op, police cleared out peaceful protesters with rubber bullets, tear gas and flash bangs.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”2000″ width=”3000″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump arrives at <a href=his campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in June 2020. It was his first rally since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, and the indoor venue generated concerns about the potential spread of the virus. About 6,200 people showed up to the BOK Center, which seats 19,199.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”1930″ width=”3000″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump walks on the South Lawn of the White House <a href=after returning from his campaign rally in Tulsa.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”2000″ width=”3000″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump arrives at Mount Rushmore for his <a href=Independence Day celebration in Keystone, South Dakota, in July 2020.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”1067″ width=”1600″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump wears a face mask in July 2020 as <a href=he visits the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. This was the first time since the pandemic began that the White House press corps got a glimpse of Trump with a face covering.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”2001″ width=”3000″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump plays catch with former New York Yankees pitcher Mariano Rivera as he greets youth baseball players on the South Lawn of the White House in July 2020.
    Trump signs executive orders <a href=extending coronavirus economic relief in August 2020. It came after Democrats and the White House were unable to reach an agreement on a stimulus bill.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”1663″ width=”2500″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Supporters look on as Trump delivers remarks at a rally in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, in August 2020.
    Trump is accompanied by the first lady as he arrives for <a href=his nomination acceptance speech in August 2020. “I stand before you tonight honored by your support, proud of the extraordinary progress we have made together over the last four incredible years, and brimming with confidence in the bright future we will build for America over the next four years,” Trump said in his speech, which closed the Republican National Convention.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”1688″ width=”3000″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Lightning flashes as Trump exits Air Force One in August 2020. He was returning from a campaign rally in Londonderry, New Hampshire.
    <a href=Trump tours an area affected by civil unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in September 2020.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”1379″ width=”3000″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump arrives to speak at a <a href=campaign rally in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in September 2020.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”2000″ width=”3000″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump and the first lady pay respects to Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in September 2020. <a href=The president was booed as he appeared near the coffin.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”1066″ width=”1600″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Judge Amy Coney Barrett reacts as Trump <a href=introduces her as his Supreme Court nominee in September 2020. She was confirmed a month later by a Senate vote of 52-48.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”1334″ width=”2000″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump speaks to the White House press corps after <a href=the New York Times reported that he paid no federal income taxes in 10 out of 15 years beginning in 2000. Trump denied the story and claimed that he pays “a lot” in federal income taxes.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”1333″ width=”2000″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden take part in <a href=the first presidential debate in September 2020. At center is moderator Chris Wallace, who had his hands full as the debate often devolved into shouting, rancor and cross talk that sometimes made it impossible to follow what either candidate was talking about.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”1125″ width=”2000″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump walks from Marine One after returning to the White House in October 2020. On October 2, the president tweeted that he and his wife <a href=had tested positive for the coronavirus.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”1864″ width=”3000″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Secret Service agents stand on the South Lawn of the White House as the president is flown to Walter Reed Medical Center on October 2, 2020. He stayed at the hospital for three nights, receiving medical treatment after <a href=his Covid-19 diagnosis.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”2000″ width=”3000″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump briefly left the hospital to wave to his supporters from the back of an SUV. A Secret Service agent is seen in the front seat wearing a full medical gown, a respirator mask and a face shield.
    Despite his doctors saying he was
    Trump, in his first public event since he was diagnosed with Covid-19, gives a <a href=campaign-style speech from the balcony of the White House on October 10, 2020.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”2000″ width=”3000″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump tosses face masks to the crowd as he takes the stage for a campaign rally in Sanford, Florida, on October 12, 2020.
    Trump speaks to NBC News' Savannah Guthrie at his town-hall event in Miami in October 2020. Trump and Biden held <a href=separate town halls instead of debating each other in a town-hall format. The schedule change came about after Trump was diagnosed with the coronavirus. The Commission on Presidential Debates proposed a virtual debate, but Trump refused to take part and Biden went ahead with plans for his own town hall. Trump’s campaign later arranged its own town hall — on a different network, during the same hour.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”1333″ width=”2000″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump speaks during his <a href=second debate with Biden. Because the first debate quickly descended into a glorified shouting match, the Commission on Presidential Debates instituted an unprecedented change this time around: The candidates had their microphones cut off while their opponent responded to the first question of each of the debate’s six segments.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”1333″ width=”2000″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump walks with first lady Melania Trump after a day of campaign rallies in Michigan, Wisconsin and Nebraska in October 2020.
    Trump speaks at the White House after Election Day came and went without a winner. Trump attacked legitimate vote-counting efforts in <a href=his remarks, suggesting that attempts to tally all ballots amounted to disenfranchising his supporters. He baselessly claimed a fraud was being committed. “Frankly we did win this election,” he said, despite millions of votes still outstanding. A few days later, Biden was projected as the actual winner.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”1066″ width=”1600″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump plays golf in Sterling, Virginia, in November 2020. He was at the course when Joe Biden was projected as the winner of the presidential election.
    Trump, days after losing the presidential election, <a href=prepares to deliver an update on the administration’s coronavirus efforts. He inched closer to acknowledging he would not be president after January 20, though he stopped well short of recognizing his loss. “This administration will not be doing a lockdown,” he said. “Hopefully whatever happens in the future — who knows which administration it will be? I guess time will tell — but I can tell you this administration will not go to a lockdown,” Trump said in the White House Rose Garden.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”1334″ width=”2000″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump arrives to speak to supporters at a rally in Washington, DC, in January 2021. His speech included calls for his vice president to step outside his constitutional bounds and overturn the results of the election. A short time later, Trump supporters <a href=breached the US Capitol while Congress was meeting to certify the Electoral College’s votes for president and vice president. The Capitol was put on lockdown and the certification vote was paused after the rioters stormed the building.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”2080″ width=”3000″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump talks to the media at the White House one day before <a href=he was impeached for a second time. Ten House Republicans joined House Democrats in voting for impeachment, exactly one week after pro-Trump rioters ransacked the US Capitol. The impeachment resolution charged Trump with “incitement of insurrection.” Trump likened the impeachment push to a “witch hunt.” He said the speech he gave to his supporters on January 6, the day the Capitol was breached, was “totally appropriate.” He was acquitted on February 12, 2021.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”1334″ width=”2000″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump waves goodbye as he boards Marine One for the last time in January 2021.
    Trump gives a farewell speech at Joint Base Andrews before heading to Florida and skipping <a href=the inauguration of Joe Biden. “I will always fight for you,” he said in front of a crowd of family and friends. “I will be watching. I will be listening, and I will tell you that the future of this country has never been better. I wish the new administration great luck and great success. I think they’ll have great success. They have the foundation to do something really spectacular.”” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”2002″ width=”3000″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump acknowledges his children and other family members on the tarmac of Joint Base Andrews.
    Trump acknowledges his supporters after landing in West Palm Beach, Florida, on his last day in office.
    Trump prepares to speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando in February 2021. He was making <a href=his first public remarks since leaving the White House.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”1953″ width=”2930″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump <a href=speaks at a Republican convention in Greenville, North Carolina, in June 2021. During his speech, Trump baselessly claimed that his election defeat was “the crime of the century.”” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”1666″ width=”2500″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump holds <a href=his first post-presidency rally at the Lorain County Fairgrounds in Wellington, Ohio, in June 2021.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”2696″ width=”4048″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump points while speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February 2022.
    Trump is seen in the reflection of a camera lens as he appears at the National Rifle Association's annual convention in May 2022. Trump — and other GOP leaders who spoke at the event in Houston — <a href=rejected efforts to overhaul gun laws, and they mocked Democrats and activists calling for change.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”2000″ width=”3000″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump is seen with former first lady Melania Trump and several other family members as they attend <a href=the funeral of his first wife, Ivana, in New York in July 2022.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”1704″ width=”2500″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump gestures as he departs Trump Tower in New York in August 2022. He was on his way to the New York attorney general's office, where <a href=he invoked the Fifth Amendment at a scheduled deposition. Trump was to be deposed as part of a more than three-year civil investigation into whether the Trump Organization misled lenders, insurers and tax authorities by providing them misleading financial statements. Trump and the Trump Organization have previously denied any wrongdoing.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”1666″ width=”2500″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump holds a rally in Youngstown, Ohio, in September 2022. The former president used his endorsement to help US Senate candidates emerge from crowded Republican fields.
    Trump speaks at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, on Tuesday, November 15. He announced that he will <a href=seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”1333″ width=”2000″ loading=’lazy’/>
    Trump delivers remarks at a fire station in East Palestine, Ohio, in February 2023. Trump has criticized the Biden administration's handling of the train derailment disaster in East Palestine.
    Trump sits with his defense team at his arraignment in New York in April 2023. The former president <a href=pleaded not guilty to 34 felony criminal charges of falsifying business records. It is the first time in history that a current or former US president has been criminally charged.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”1666″ width=”2500″/>
    Trump speaks at a Georgia Republican Party convention in Columbus on Saturday, June 10. This was Trump's first campaign stop since his <a href=federal indictment over his alleged mishandling of classified documents after leaving office.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”2000″ width=”3000″/>

    In pictures: Former President Donald Trump

    The new special counsel indictment comes as Trump remains the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. The first two indictments have done little to impact his standing in the race.

    Trump’s March indictment marked the first time in US history that a former president had faced criminal charges. Now there are three separate, concurrent cases where the president is facing felony allegations, which are all going to play out as Trump seeks to return to the White House in 2024 following his loss to Biden in 2020.

    The so-called fake electors plot was an unprecedented attempt to subvert the Electoral College process by replacing electors that Biden had rightfully won with illegitimate GOP electors.

    Trump supporters in seven key states met on December 14, 2020, and signed fake certificates, falsely proclaiming that Trump actually won their state and they were the rightful electors. They submitted these fake certificates to Congress and to the National Archives, in anticipation that their false claims would be embraced during the Electoral College certification on January 6.

    At the time, their actions were largely dismissed as an elaborate political cosplay. But it eventually became clear that this was part of an orchestrated plan.

    “Under the plan, the submission of these fraudulent slates would create a fake controversy at the certification proceeding and position the Vice President-presiding on January 6 as President of the Senate to supplant legitimate electors with the Defendant’s fake electors and certify the Defendant as president,” the indictment states.

    Senior Trump campaign officials orchestrated the fake electors plot and directly oversaw the state-by-state mechanics – linking Trump’s campaign apparatus to what originally looked like a hapless political stunt by local Trump supporters.

    Federal investigators have subpoenaed the fake electors across the country, sent FBI agents to interview witnesses about their conduct, and recently granted immunity to two fake electors from Nevada to secure their grand jury testimony.

    In Michigan, the state’s attorney general charged the 16 fake electors who signed certificates falsely claiming Trump won Michigan in the 2020 election with multiple felonies. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is also expected to ask a grand jury this month to bring charges related to efforts in Georgia to subvert the election results.

    This story is breaking and will be updated.

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    August 1, 2023
  • Trump’s legal team meets with special counsel as federal indictment looms | CNN Politics

    Trump’s legal team meets with special counsel as federal indictment looms | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    Donald Trump’s defense lawyers and special counsel Jack Smith met Thursday in Washington, DC, without the former president’s team getting any guidance about timing of a possible indictment, sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

    The meeting happened on the same day that the grand jury hearing evidence from the special counsel’s probe into election subversion efforts by Trump and his allies was seen at the federal courthouse.

    A court official said that there will not be any grand jury indictment returns on Thursday. Grand jury proceedings are secret and it’s unclear what Thursday’s developments mean for Smith’s investigation.

    Since receiving a letter from Smith indicating he’s a target of the investigation earlier this month, Trump had argued against a meeting between his attorneys and Smith’s team because the former president believed the indictment was already a done deal, two sources familiar with his thinking said.

    In seeking a meeting with Smith’s team, Trump’s lawyers hoped to at least delay any potential plans for the grand jury to hand up an indictment Thursday, people briefed on the plans said.

    Another source familiar with the legal team’s thinking told CNN they also expected to discuss the logistics of how a potential indictment and arraignment of the former president would work.

    “My attorneys had a productive meeting with the DOJ this morning, explaining in detail that I did nothing wrong, was advised by many lawyers, and that an Indictment of me would only further destroy our Country,” Trump said on Truth Social.

    Trump’s political and legal strategy has been to delay any possible trials – including until potentially after the 2024 election – and to put the Justice Department in an uncomfortable position where they are pursuing a prosecution of President Joe Biden’s chief 2024 rival even as primary voters are beginning to have their say.

    Every day they can push back an indictment is a day that pushes back an ultimate trial date.

    The members of Trump’s legal team who attended Thursday’s meeting with Smith were John Lauro and Todd Blanche, sources familiar with the matter told CNN. Lauro recently joined the team to handle matters related to the 2020 election and the run-up to the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.

    Blanche has represented Trump in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case and the Manhattan criminal case stemming from a hush-money scheme.

    This is the second time Trump is facing potential charges brought by Smith’s team. Before Trump was charged in Florida in Smith’s probe into the mishandling of classified documents from his White House, he also was notified by prosecutors that he was a target of that investigation.

    Prosecutors aren’t required to give investigatory targets such a warning. Around the time Trump was given the heads up about the potential classified documents charges against him, his lawyers also met in early June with prosecutors for Smith’s team. The classified documents indictment was brought against him later that month.

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

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    July 27, 2023
  • Special counsel received documents from Giuliani team that tried to find fraud after 2020 election | CNN Politics

    Special counsel received documents from Giuliani team that tried to find fraud after 2020 election | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    Among the materials turned over to special counsel Jack Smith about supposed fraud in the 2020 election are documents that touch on many of the debunked conspiracies and unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud peddled by former Donald Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani.

    The documents had been withheld by former New York Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik, who claimed they were privileged, only to be handed over to Smith on Sunday at what appears to be the late stages of the federal investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

    The files include affidavits claiming there were widespread “irregularities,” shoddy statistical analyses supposedly revealing “fraudulent activities,” and opposition research about a senior employee from Dominion Voting Systems that are central to civil litigation and a federal criminal probe stemming from a voting systems breach in Colorado.

    The documents turned over by Kerik also connect him and other members of the Trump legal team to the efforts to smear a Dominion Voting Systems executive – efforts that are now the subject of both civil litigation and the Colorado state criminal investigation.

    The tranche includes a 29-page dossier on the executive, Eric Coomer, detailing his anti-Trump rhetoric on social media, as well as his background working for the voting machine company. The header of the document describes it as written by a lawyer in North Carolina for the “Hon. Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, Trump Legal Team, and Other Associated Attorneys Combatting Election Fraud, 2020 Presidential Election.”

    Coomer has brought a defamation lawsuit against the Trump campaign, Giuliani and others who promoted claims that he was connected to a plot to rig the 2020 election.

    The documents turned over by Kerik also include a 105-page report from after the 2020 election compiled by the Trump campaign and Giuliani that contained the campaign’s unfounded allegations of fraud, including witness statements and false allegations of over-votes and illegal votes.

    They also include communications between investigators hired by Giuliani – including Kerik – about the debunked report about irregularities in Antrim County, Michigan, that Trump was repeatedly told was bogus but continued to tout up to and on January 6, 2021.

    One example is a memo titled “Briefing materials for Senate members” sent by Katherine Friess – a former Trump lawyer – to Kerik, Steve Bannon and an email address known to belong to Giuliani on January 4, 2021.

    For months, Kerik had tried to shield some of the documents from investigators in Congress and the Justice Department, citing privilege. Then, in recent weeks, Kerik gave the documents to Trump’s 2024 campaign to review. After that review, the campaign declined to assert privilege, according to Kerik’s lawyer, Tim Parlatore, who then turned over the documents to the Smith’s office on Sunday.

    “I have shared all of these documents, appropriately 600MB, mostly pdfs, with the Special Counsel and look forward to sitting down with them in about two weeks to discuss,” Parlatore said.

    That interview with federal investigators in Smith’s office has now been set for early August.

    This tranche of documents turned over to Smith further illustrates the scope of unproven fraud claims that were being circulated to high-level Trump allies at the time.

    One of the research documents turned over by Kerik was a report on so-called U-Voters, a theory that there is “an army of phantom voters,” who have accumulated on the voter rolls over the last several years, “who can be deployed at will.”

    The report was referenced in late December 2020 letters sent to the Justice Department and to then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell by Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano, a top promoter of Trump’s election reversal gambits who ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2022. The letter to McConnell, signed by other Pennsylvania Republicans as well, asked him to dispute the election’s certification.

    The Kerik documents also include several versions of a research memo purporting to analyze the Pennsylvania election and claiming to find an “indication” of fraud. The Trump team’s focus on Pennsylvania, and how its bogus claims of fraud there affected election officials in the state, has been the subject of scrutiny by Smith.

    In addition, the internal communications handed over by Kerik suggest Trump’s team attempted to seize on an earlier Government Accountability Office report about the Department of Homeland Security’s cyber arm to undercut what Trump was told – and embraced – during a February 2020 Oval Office meeting about election security.

    They include the GAO report and what appears to be a memo highlighting the fact that “DHS Critical Infrastructure and Security Agency (CISA) failed to fully execute multiple strategies to secure the 2020 Presidential elections.”

    The memo seeks to counter CISA’s public statement that the election was “the most secure in American history,” based on security programs officials presented to Trump during the February 2020 briefing. Trump had seemed to embrace the programs in early 2020, to the point of suggesting the agencies hold a press conference so he could take credit for their work, CNN reported Monday.

    This headline and story have been updated with additional reporting.

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    July 25, 2023
  • Special counsel accuses Trump co-defendant of seeking ‘unnecessary’ delay | CNN Politics

    Special counsel accuses Trump co-defendant of seeking ‘unnecessary’ delay | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    A request Monday from Donald Trump’s aide and co-defendant Walt Nauta to delay a Friday hearing in the classified documents case was met with sharp opposition from special counsel Jack Smith, who said in a court filing that such a postponement was an “unnecessary” delay.

    The spat highlights how even the most incremental, procedural developments in the historic federal criminal case against Trump and Nauta could become mired in disputes – especially when it comes to scheduling as prosecutors want to go to trial in less than six months and Trump lawyers have been adept at delaying other legal fights he’s facing.

    In Nauta’s filing requesting the delay, the Trump aide did not propose a new date for the hearing, which is scheduled to occur before US District Judge Aileen Cannon in Fort Pierce, Florida, and will cover how certain issues around the classified materials in the case will be handled.

    Nauta cited a bench trial that his main lawyer, Stanley Woodward, has in Washington, DC, this week as the reason for proposing a delay.

    Smith fired back in his filing that Nauta has provided no reason why his Florida-based lawyer, Sasha Dadan, couldn’t handle the hearing.

    “An indefinite continuance is unnecessary, will inject additional delay in this case, and is contrary to the public interest,” the Smith team said in their filing.

    In a new filing later Monday, Trump’s defense team and the special counsel’s office said July 18 would be an agreeable date for the first appearance before Cannon on classified information procedures. The hearing will not be on the schedule until the judge orders a date.

    Nauta and Trump also face a deadline Monday for filing their response to the special counsel’s proposal that the trial begin in mid-December. Smith has already previewed that the defendants have some objections to that proposed date.

    In the fight over when the coming hearing on classified procedures should take place, Nauta claims he had “little notice” that prosecutors were going to bring the charges in the Southern District of Florida – where he would be required to have an attorney licensed in the Sunshine State – and said his DC attorney’s initial inability to get notices from the docket until then hampered his efforts to flag the scheduling conflict.

    Nauta also raised his defense team’s lack of security clearances as an issue, while claiming that it was not reasonable to expect his new Florida-based attorney to take the lead on the matters slated for discussion at Friday’s hearing “barely a week after she has been retained by Mr. Nauta.”

    Smith’s team shot back that Woodward, the DC-based lawyer, has yet to fill out the form required in the security clearance process.

    “Almost a month has passed since the grand jury returned its indictment. There is a strong public interest in the conference occurring as originally scheduled and the case proceeding as expeditiously as possible,” the Smith team said.

    While Trump entered his not guilty plea in the case on June 13, Nauta was only able to enter his not guilty plea last week due in part to delays in retaining a Florida counsel.

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

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    July 10, 2023
  • Trump hits campaign trail as indictment roils 2024 race | CNN Politics

    Trump hits campaign trail as indictment roils 2024 race | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    Former President Donald Trump is set to return to the campaign trail Saturday, traveling to Georgia and North Carolina for speeches at a pair of state Republican conventions as news of his federal indictment roils the party’s 2024 presidential race.

    The pre-planned stops come the day after the Justice Department unsealed its indictment laying out the government’s case that Trump and aide Walt Nauta mishandled classified national security documents.

    Trump’s speeches will mark his first public outings since he was indicted for a second time in less than three months, with probes into election interference efforts in Georgia and his actions surrounding January 6, 2021, in Washington threatening to pose further legal troubles.

    The visits will give Trump a chance to respond to the charges in a campaign-style as he mounts battles on both the political and legal fronts. The former president is scheduled to appear Tuesday in a federal courtroom in Miami, where he will be read the charges against him.

    So far, Trump has cast his prosecution as a politically motivated effort to stop his bid for the presidency. He has described special prosecutor Jack Smith as “deranged” and the case against him as a “hoax,” while accusing President Joe Biden of similarly mishandling classified documents.

    “I had nothing to hide, nor do I now. Nobody said I wasn’t allowed to look at the personal records that I brought with me from the White House. There’s nothing wrong with that,” he said Friday on his social media platform Truth Social.

    Trump released a four-minute video Thursday evening repeating many of his past claims, including that the Justice Department is being weaponized and that the investigations into him represent “election interference.”

    “I am an innocent man. I did nothing wrong,” Trump said in the video.

    News of the former president’s indictment Thursday was met at his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey with a belief that he would benefit politically as conservatives rallied around him.

    Trump spent Friday morning in Bedminster playing golf with Florida Rep. Carlos Gimenez as his allies made rounds of phone calls to shore up support for the former president.

    After the indictment was unsealed Friday, concern began to settle in, a source familiar with the mood at Bedminster told CNN, as Trump aides began to acknowledge the legal implications. His team still thinks Trump will likely benefit politically – at least in the short term – the source said, but aides have grown more wary of how the indictment will play out legally.

    Trump has long avoided legal culpability in his personal, professional and political lives. He has settled a number of private civil lawsuits through the years and paid his way out of disputes concerning the Trump Organization. As president, he was twice impeached by the Democratic-led House but avoided conviction by the Senate.

    But after leaving office, the Justice Department’s criminal investigations into the alleged retention of classified information at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election cast dark clouds over the former president. Smith’s investigation into January 6, 2021, and efforts to overturn the election is still ongoing.

    In March, the Manhattan district attorney in New York indicted Trump on charges related to hush-money payments to a former adult star. In Georgia, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is expected to announce in August whether there are any charges in her investigation into attempts by Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election in the state.

    On the campaign trail, many of Trump’s Republican 2024 presidential rivals responded to the news of his indictment by attacking the Justice Department – another indication that they see advantage among conservative primary voters in defending a former president who remains popular with the party’s base.

    Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday accused the DOJ of “weaponization of federal law enforcement” while vowing, if elected president, to “bring accountability to the DOJ, excise political bias and end weaponization once and for all.”

    Former Vice President Mike Pence had called on the Justice Department to release the indictment against his former boss. After it did so, he did not comment on its contents while campaigning in New Hampshire.

    Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and Trump’s United Nations ambassador, characterized the indictment as “prosecutorial overreach” in a statement Friday, adding that it was time to move “beyond the endless drama and distractions.”

    North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who entered the GOP race earlier this week, said Saturday that Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents is not something voters want to spend their time on.

    “When we’re on the road in Iowa the last two days and here in New Hampshire talking about the economy, energy policy, national security – those are the things that are hitting every American every single day,” Burgum told Fox News.

    Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, another onetime ally and close adviser to Trump who has emerged as his chief critic in the 2024 race, described the details of the indictment as “damning.”

    “This is irresponsible conduct,” he told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Friday, adding that “the conduct that Donald Trump engaged in was completely self-inflicted.”

    “The bigger issue for our country is, is this the type of conduct that we want from someone who wants to be president of the United States?” Christie said.

    Another Trump critic, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, said the former president should drop out of the race “for the good of the country.”

    “This is unprecedented that we have a former president criminally charged for mishandling classified information, for obstruction of justice. This obviously will be an issue during the campaign,” Hutchinson told Tapper on Friday in a separate interview.

    “For the sake of the country, he doesn’t need this distraction. The country doesn’t need this distraction, as well.”

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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    June 10, 2023
  • There’s a new chief judge in DC who could help determine the fate of Donald Trump | CNN Politics

    There’s a new chief judge in DC who could help determine the fate of Donald Trump | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    A new chief judge in the federal courthouse in Washington, DC, is poised to take over as that position has become one of the most influential in the nation’s capital, playing a key role in deciding issues that could factor into whether former President Donald Trump is indicted.

    Chief Judge Beryl Howell, who has served in that role since 2016, has repeatedly green-lit Justice Department requests to pursue information about Trump’s actions, from his top advisers and lawyers and even inside the White House. She’ll be succeeded by James “Jeb” Boasberg, a fellow Barack Obama appointee and one-time Brett Kavanaugh law school roommate who’s well-known in Washington.

    While presiding over the highly secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in 2020 and 2021, Boasberg encouraged the declassification of information so that the public could read proceedings related to the FBI’s probe into possible collusion between Trump and Russia.

    If the Justice Department were to indict Trump, the case would be randomly assigned to one of the district court’s judges, meaning the chief could handle the case but may not. Still, the chief judge has unusual sway over the pace and scope of investigations as the Justice Department attempts to enforce its grand jury subpoenas, obtain warrants and access evidence it has collected by arguing to the chief judge in sealed proceedings.

    “This court would be ready,” Howell said in a recent interview with CNN, when asked about the historic possibility of a Trump indictment. She added any judge on that court “would do it justice.”

    Howell, who steps down from the position on Friday, may conclude her tenure by issuing decisions in sealed cases related to special counsel Jack Smith’s investigations into Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his handling of classified material at Mar-a-Lago. Already, she granted Kash Patel – a former administration official – immunity for testimony he provided the grand jury investigation. She also held off a Justice Department request to place Trump in contempt for his alleged failure to turn over subpoenaed classified documents.

    The DC federal courthouse has embraced its role in major criminal investigations of politicians in the past. A framed Time Magazine is displayed outside the courthouse with the District Court’s Watergate-era Chief Judge John Sirica on the cover. Howell, in recent years, has nodded to Sirica, who allowed federal investigators access to records related to then-President Richard Nixon that hastened his resignation.

    Sirica embraced an unusually public role in one of the most fraught criminal investigations ever in Washington. Howell and Boasberg prefer working behind the scenes.

    “Neither of us will be Time’s person of the year,” Boasberg told CNN.

    Much of Howell’s work on those cases remains under seal, but details have trickled out on approximately 10 cases related to Smith’s investigation. Those include ongoing challenges around a grand jury subpoena of former Vice President Mike Pence and the Justice Department’s attempt to force Trump defense attorney Evan Corcoran to answer potentially incriminating questions about his interactions with Trump on classified records at Mar-a-Lago.

    Still, the chief judge’s role generates attention because the cases before the court in recent years have been so politically charged – and sometimes criticized publicly by Trump himself.

    Fan social media accounts sprung up about Howell, with one TikTok user getting tens of thousands of views. The posts generally highlight Howell’s no-nonsense quips and vivid facial expressions in public speeches.

    Howell said she and other judges were shocked to discover the clips of her on TikTok.

    “I just do my job. We’re all pretty much a bunch of nerds,” she said. “For a nerdy lawyer, getting novel, important cases is a dream.”

    Howell said she’s been surprised and at times uncomfortable with being the focus of attention in the investigations around Trump. Still, she regularly pens searing opinions allowing for public and congressional access to grand jury-related matters.

    Following the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, Howell became one of the most cutting voices in the federal government’s response, handling several proceedings of rioter defendants early on. She also had to manage a courthouse in lockdown during the Covid-19 pandemic, as it faced an influx of new criminal cases like it never had before.

    The courthouse was closed on January 6, but Howell recognized as she watched the rioters overwhelm the Capitol building that the DC District Court would handle the brunt of cases. She called the senior judges who had largely reduced their case loads and asked them if they would take on more criminal rioter cases.

    “We’re going to be very busy,” Howell remembers telling them. Nearly all agreed to take on full criminal dockets – a testament to the DC bench’s camaraderie.

    Later, in a riot defendant’s proceeding that the public was able to listen to by calling in on a phone line, Howell spoke furiously about how she could see armed guards from her chambers’ window overlooking the National Mall.

    “We’re still living here in Washington, DC, with the consequences of the violence that this defendant is alleged to have participated in,” she said at the hearing in 2021.

    In the known cases during the Robert Mueller special counsel investigation and the current Smith probe, Howell has repeatedly sided with investigators seeking confidential information in their probes.

    In her last weeks as chief, Howell has made clear in her orders that she is trying to make public as much as she can – though there are severe limitations from higher courts that protect the secrecy of the grand jury in ongoing investigations.

    She allowed the Justice Department access to GOP Rep. Scott Perry’s phone contents in the election interference investigation, a ruling now under appeal at the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. Howell also ruled against Trump in attempts he made to protect presidential communications with former White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, Deputy Patrick Philbin and vice presidential advisers Greg Jacob and Marc Short, eliciting their testimony.

    Yet she is denying requests from journalists for access to grand jury records from the ongoing Trump January 6 investigation.

    One of those opinions railed against the DC Circuit precedent that severely limits when judges, including her, can allow grand jury materials to be released.

    “If public interest in a significant and historical event or high-level government officials could serve as the sole ground to justify the disclosure of grand jury matters in exceptional circumstances, the petitioners’ case here would be incredibly strong,” Howell wrote. “Unfortunately for petitioners, that is not the standard for disclosure of grand jury material.”

    Boasberg recently told CNN that he hopes to keep a similar approach to Howell on transparency around sealed proceedings – doing what he can to make public information under the law, when it’s possible.

    Chief U.S. District Judge for the District of Columbia Beryl A. Howell

    At the FISA court, Boasberg released redacted orders he wrote, chastising the FBI for relying on applications to the court that contained misleading information, including when the investigators sought to surveil Carter Page, a former Trump adviser who was criminally investigated after the 2016 campaign but never charged.

    In one partially redacted opinion, Boasberg wrote that the “frequency and seriousness of these errors in a case that, given its sensitive nature, had an unusually high level of review at both DOJ and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have called into question the reliability of the information proffered in other FBI applications.”

    More recently, Boasberg had before him the Justice Department’s lawsuit seeking to compel GOP megadonor Steve Wynn to register as a foreign agent for his alleged efforts to lobby the Trump administration on behalf of the Chinese. Boasberg agreed with Wynn to dismiss the case, and it is now on appeal before the DC US Circuit Court of Appeals.

    Like Howell, Boasberg did not hide his concerns about appeals court precedent that he said constrained his approach. He also showed his sense of humor. The Wynn opinion included multiple references to lyrics by the 1990s hip hop band the Fugees, as a member of the band was accused of having connections to the alleged influence scheme.

    Boasberg was confirmed to the federal bench in 2011, after receiving a nod from President George W. Bush for a position on the DC Superior Court eight years prior. The local DC Court is where the former college basketball player cut his chops as assistant US attorney, specializing in homicide prosecutions.

    In DC legal circles, he’s earned a reputation for being friendly with a wide social circle and grew up with several prominent Washingtonians.

    “Jeb is so social and Beryl is very reserved,” said Amy Jeffress, a prominent Washington defense lawyer whose spouse, Christopher “Casey” Cooper, is also a judge in the DC District Court.

    Boasberg is currently the president of the Edward Bennett Williams Inn of Court, a professional advancement organization for DC attorneys that regularly brings together top prosecutors and defense lawyers.

    As a student at Yale Law School, Boasberg lived in a house with now-Justice Kavanaugh and six other law students. The group of former roommates still remain close and organize annual trips together.

    “Fairness is very important to him,” said Jim Brochin, an attorney who lived with Boasberg in the eight-person Yale Law house.

    Brochin pointed to Boasberg’s experience as a prosecutor trying murder cases, including some of the “hardest” cases his office had at the time, as well as his time as a judge leading the FISA court.

    “He is not afraid of tackling hard subjects,” Brochin said. “Nothing fazes him.”

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    March 16, 2023
  • Mike Pence asks judge to block subpoena for Jan. 6 testimony | CNN Politics

    Mike Pence asks judge to block subpoena for Jan. 6 testimony | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    Former Vice President Mike Pence has filed a motion asking a judge to block a federal grand jury subpoena for his testimony related to January 6 on the grounds that he is protected by the Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause, according to a source familiar with the filing.

    Pence had publicly signaled that he planned to resist the subpoena, arguing it was “unconstitutional and unprecedented.” His legal team filed the motion Friday night, the same day former President Donald Trump’s attorneys asked a judge to block Pence from speaking to a grand jury about certain matters covered by executive privilege.

    The Pence motion – filed as part of sealed proceedings – seeks to stop testimony pertaining to his legislative functions around January 6, which could potentially include a broad swath of testimony. It is separate from Trump’s motion, which argues that the former president can shield former aides from sharing internal communications.

    Special counsel Jack Smith is seeking documents and testimony related to January 6, 2021, and wants Pence to testify about his interactions with Trump leading up to the 2020 election and the day of the attack on the US Capitol.

    But the former vice president asserts that because he was also acting as president of the Senate that day, he is shielded by the Speech or Debate Clause, which protects lawmakers from certain law enforcement actions targeted at their legislative duties.

    Pence has written a memoir detailing his interactions with Trump leading up to January 6, which could complicate efforts to resist the subpoena.

    His team previously indicated to the Justice Department that he’d be open to answering questions if they were limited to the matters he had previously discussed publicly, including in his book, a source told CNN.

    Pence’s legal team did not comment. The Justice Department also did not comment.

    Since taking over the investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election, Smith, who has a reputation for moving quickly, has accelerated the probe’s pace and began imposing tight deadlines on subpoenas. Smith also is simultaneously investigating Trump’s handling of classified documents after leaving office.

    Trump huddled with several members of his legal team at his Mar-A-Lago resort in Palm Beach last week to discuss Smith’s investigations, according to a source familiar with the meeting.

    Smith recently subpoenaed Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows and Trump’s former national security adviser Robert O’Brien in both of the Trump-related probes, and investigators have sat down with his former acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf as part of the probe into 2020 election interference.

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    March 6, 2023
  • Pence subpoenaed by special counsel investigating Trump | CNN Politics

    Pence subpoenaed by special counsel investigating Trump | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    Former Vice President Mike Pence has been subpoenaed by the special counsel investigating Donald Trump and his role in January 6, 2021, a source familiar with the matter told CNN.

    Special counsel Jack Smith’s office is seeking documents and testimony related to January 6, the source said. They want the former vice president to testify about his interactions with Trump leading up to the 2020 election and the day of the attack on the US Capitol.

    The subpoena marks an important milestone in the Justice Department’s two-year criminal investigation, now led by the special counsel, into the efforts by Trump and allies to impede the transfer of power after he lost the 2020 election. Pence is an important witness who has detailed in a memoir some of his interactions with Trump in the weeks after the election, a move that likely opens the door for the Justice Department to override at least some of Trump’s claims of executive privilege.

    Pence’s attorney Emmet Flood is known as a hawk on executive privilege, and people familiar with the discussions have said Pence was expected to claim at least some limits on providing details of his direct conversations with Trump. Depending on his responses, prosecutors have the option to ask a judge to compel him to answer additional questions and override Trump’s executive privilege claims.

    ABC News first reported on the subpoena.

    Pence’s office declined to confirm he had been subpoenaed. A spokesman for the special counsel declined to comment to CNN on the matter.

    Months of negotiations preceded the subpoena to the former vice president, CNN has reported.

    Justice Department prosecutors had reached out to Pence’s representatives to seek his testimony in the criminal investigation, according to people familiar with the matter. Pence’s team had indicated he was open to discussing a possible agreement with DOJ to provide some testimony, one person said.

    That request occurred before the department appointed Smith to oversee two Trump-related investigations, the January 6-related probe and another into alleged mishandling of classified materials found at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago residence.

    In November, Pence published his memoir that detailed some of his interactions with Trump as the former president sought to overturn the results of his election loss to President Joe Biden. Pence and his team knew that the book’s publication would raise the prospect that the Justice Department would likely seek information about those interactions as part of its criminal investigation, people briefed on the matter told CNN.

    Pence rebuffed an interview request from the House select committee that investigated the January 6 insurrection, but allowed top aides to provide testimony in the House’s probe, as well as in the Justice Department’s criminal investigation. The DOJ successfully secured answers from top Pence advisers Greg Jacob and Marc Short in significant court victories that could make it more likely the criminal investigation reaches further into Trump’s inner circle.

    There are no plans for Trump’s team to challenge the grand jury subpoena of Pence at this time, according to a source familiar with its thinking. But it would still be possible for Trump to attempt to assert executive privilege over some conversations they had, if Pence declines to detail those conversations to the grand jury.

    So far, Trump’s team has lost those challenges when Pence’s deputies and two White House counsel’s office attorneys testified, following Chief Judge Beryl Howell’s rulings that they must answer questions they initially refused to because of confidentiality around the presidency.

    Howell’s tenure as chief judge of the DC District Court ends in mid-March, meaning a different federal judge, James Boasberg, could be the one to field privilege disputes in the continuing grand jury investigation.

    CNN reported earlier Thursday that Smith had also subpoenaed former Trump national security adviser Robert O’Brien in both of the Trump-related probes, according to a source familiar with the matter. O’Brien has been asserting executive privilege in declining to provide some of the information that prosecutors are seeking from him, the source said.

    Trump’s former acting Department of Homeland Security secretary was separately interviewed by Justice Department lawyers in recent weeks as part of the probe into 2020 election interference, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

    Rather than appearing before a federal grand jury, former acting secretary Chad Wolf was interviewed under oath by Justice Department lawyers and FBI officials, something one of the sources characterized as a “standard” first step for prosecutors.

    This story has been updated with additional details.

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    February 10, 2023
  • First on CNN: Trump’s former national security adviser subpoenaed in special counsel probes of classified documents, January 6 | CNN Politics

    First on CNN: Trump’s former national security adviser subpoenaed in special counsel probes of classified documents, January 6 | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    Former national security adviser Robert O’Brien has been subpoenaed by special counsel Jack Smith in both his investigation into classified documents found at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and the probe related to efforts to overturn the 2020 election, according to a source familiar with the matter.

    O’Brien has been asserting executive privilege in declining to provide some of the information that prosecutors are seeking from him, the source said.

    CNN has reached out to O’Brien for comment.

    O’Brien considered resigning from his post over Trump’s response to the violence on January 6, 2021, but ultimately decided to remain in the job, CNN previously reported. The National Security Council should have been involved in the handling of classified documents at end of the Trump presidency, and O’Brien may have knowledge of how those records ended up at Mar-a-Lago.

    Separately, Trump’s former acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf was interviewed by Justice Department lawyers in recent weeks as part of the ongoing special counsel investigation related to 2020 election interference, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

    Rather than appearing before a federal grand jury, Wolf was interviewed under oath by Justice Department lawyers and FBI officials, something one of the sources characterized as a “standard” first step for prosecutors.

    Wolf declined to comment on his recent interview with federal investigators, which was first reported by Bloomberg. A spokesman for Smith also declined to comment.

    The interview comes after Wolf’s former deputy, Ken Cuccinelli, testified last month before a federal grand jury as part of Smith’s election interference probe. When Cuccinelli was asked at the time whether privilege claims arose, he said: “They did, and I didn’t say anything.”

    O’Brien, Wolf and Cuccinelli were previously interviewed by the House select committee that investigated the January 6 insurrection.

    For the time being, Smith has not sought testimony from a handful of other potentially relevant Trump administration officials, including former Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller or former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, two other sources tell CNN.

    In the days after the January 6 attack, Wolf urged Trump and all elected officials to condemn the violence on Capitol Hill, calling what transpired “tragic and sickening.”

    “While I have consistently condemned political violence on both sides of the aisle, specifically violence directed at law enforcement, we now see some supporters of the President using violence as a means to achieve political ends,” Wolf said at the time. “This is unacceptable.”

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    February 9, 2023
  • Developments in Trump documents probe foretell a 2024 campaign clouded by legal tangles | CNN Politics

    Developments in Trump documents probe foretell a 2024 campaign clouded by legal tangles | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    There’s never been a presidential campaign like it.

    Donald Trump is taking every step of his bid for a third consecutive Republican nomination amid a darkening storm of legal uncertainty.

    The twice-impeached former president, who tried to steal an election and is accused of fomenting an insurrection, launched his first two-state campaign swing on Saturday as he seeks a stunning political comeback.

    Then on Monday, Trump’s potential exposure – in two of his multiple strands of legal peril – appeared to grow, foreshadowing a campaign likely to be repeatedly punctuated by distractions from criminal investigations.

    In a new twist to his classified material saga, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins and Katelyn Polantz reported that two people who found two classified documents in a Trump storage facility in Florida testified before a federal grand jury. Federal prosecutors are also pushing to look at files on a laptop of at least one staff member around Trump at Mar-a-Lago, CNN reported. The former president has not been charged with a crime, but these developments are the latest sign of an aggressive approach by special counsel Jack Smith in probing the matter. And it shows how a regular drumbeat of legal problems could detract from the former president’s attempts to inject energy into a so-far tepid campaign – especially given the multiple criminal threats he may face.

    On another front, The New York Times reported that a district attorney in Manhattan is presenting evidence to another grand jury probing Trump’s alleged role in paying hush money to adult film star Stormy Daniels. Last week, a district attorney in Georgia said decisions are imminent on charges related to Trump’s effort to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state. It is not known whether the ex-president is directly targeted by the investigation. This all comes as Smith is also probing Trump’s role in the US Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021.

    The unique and extraordinary legal tangle surrounding Trump means that a third straight US election will be tainted by controversies that will drag the FBI and the Justice Department further into a political morass. (President Joe Biden is also facing a special counsel investigation over his handling of documents from his time as vice president, and former Vice President Mike Pence, who’s eying a 2024 bid, is under DOJ review for similar issues.) This follows the Hillary Clinton email flap in 2016 and investigations into the Trump campaign’s links with Russia during that White House bid, as well as Trump’s false claims of voter fraud in 2020.

    The fact that Trump is seeking the presidency again, under an extraordinary legal cloud, could have significant consequences for the wider 2024 campaign. Some of his potential Republican rivals, wary of trying to take him down, might hope that his legal troubles will do the job for them. Perceptions that Trump is caught in a web of criminal investigation might also further tarnish his personal political brand, which has already contributed to some Republican loses in national elections in 2018, 2020 and 2022.

    Still, Trump is a master of leveraging attempts to call him to account, legally and politically. He’s already built a central foundation of his new presidential quest around the idea that he’s being political persecuted by Justice Department investigations and what he claims are rogue Democratic prosecutors.

    “We’re going to stop the appalling weaponization of our justice system. There’s never been a justice system like this. It’s all investigation, investigation,” the ex-president said on the trail over the weekend.

    This is a message that may be attractive to some of Trump’s base voters who themselves feel alienated from the federal government and previously bought into his claims about a “deep state” conspiracy against him. It’s also a technique, in which a strongman leader argues that he is taking the heat so his followers don’t have to, that is a familiar page in the authority playbooks of demagogues throughout history.

    As is normal, it is not known what the people who found the classified documents at the Florida storage facility may have said to the grand jury. But the ex-president is being investigated not just for possible violations of the Espionage Act, but also for potential obstruction of justice related to the documents.

    The two individuals, who were hired to search four of Trump’s properties last fall months after the FBI executed a search warrant at his Mar-a-Lago resort over the summer, were each interviewed for about three hours in separate appearances last week. The extent of information they offered the grand jury remains unclear, though they didn’t decline to answer any questions, one of the sources familiar with the investigation said.

    Ryan Goodman, a former special counsel at the Department of Defense, told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Monday that the latest development was a sign of an advanced special counsel investigation and could indicate that Smith was leaning toward indictments.

    “It sounds like he is trying to lock in their testimony, to understand how they would testify at trial, whether it is incriminating evidence against Trump or exculpatory evidence that the prosecutors would then have that and have it solidified.”

    The simple, politically charged act of investigating an ex-president was always bound to create a political furor. The fact that Trump is running for the White House again multiplies the stakes and means profound decisions are ahead for Attorney General Merrick Garland if evidence suggests Trump should be charged.

    On a more granular level, the report about the grand jury underscores that for all the political noise, the investigation into Trump’s haul of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago is taking place inside its own legal bubble.

    This remains the case, despite the political gift handed to Trump with the discovery of classified documents at Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware, home and at a Washington office he once used that should have been handed back when he left the vice presidency. Some classified material was also found at Pence’s Indiana home.

    Those discoveries allowed Trump to claim that he was being unfairly singled out, even if the cases have significant differences. Any Trump attempt to argue that he, like Biden and Pence, inadvertently took documents to his home will be undermined by the fact that he claimed the material belonged to him, and not the government, and what appears to be repeated refusals to give it back.

    Fresh indications of the momentum in the Trump documents special counsel probe followed the latest sign of a lopsided approach to the controversy over classified material by House Republicans, who are hammering Biden over documents but giving Trump a free pass.

    House Oversight Chairman James Comer was, for example, asked by CNN’s Pamela Brown this weekend why he had no interest in the more than 325 documents found at Trump’s home but was fixated upon the approximately 20 classified documents uncovered in Biden’s premises by lawyers and an unknown number also found during an FBI search of the president’s home this month.

    “If someone can show me evidence that there was influence peddling with those classified documents that were in the possession of President Trump, then we would certainly expand it,” the Kentucky Republican said. He went on to accuse Biden and his family of being “very cozy” with people from the Chinese Communist party but offered no evidence of such links or that they had anything to do with classified documents. His remarks left the impression that his committee is seeking to find evidence to condemn Biden but is treating Trump differently – exactly the kind of double standard the GOP has claimed the DOJ is employing toward Trump.

    The two special counsel investigations probing Trump and Biden’s retention of secret documents are unfolding independently. In a legal sense, there is no overlap between them. But they will both be subject to the same political inferno if findings are made public.

    Were Trump, for instance, to be prosecuted – over what so far appears to be a larger haul of documents and conduct that may add up to obstruction – and Biden is not, the ex-president would incite a firestorm of protest among his supporters. Even though the sitting president enjoys protections from prosecution because of historic Justice Department guidance, it’s hard to see how the political ground for prosecuting just one of them could hold firm – especially if Biden and Trump are rival presidential candidates in 2024.

    From the outside, it appears as if Biden and Pence were far more cooperative with the DOJ and the FBI after some classified documents were found at their properties than Trump has been. It took a search warrant for FBI agents to get into Mar-a-Lago, and the ex-president claimed that presidential documents that belonged to the federal government when he left office belonged to him. But voters might find it hard to understand nuanced legal differences between the two cases – a factor the House Republican counter-attack based on Biden’s documents made more likely.

    As the political fallout from the classified documents furor deepened on Monday, the country got a reminder of the treatment that can await lower-ranking members of the federal workforce when secret material is taken home.

    CNN’s Holmes Lybrand reported that court documents show that a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, who stored files with classified information at his Florida home, will plead guilty in February to one count of unlawful retention of national defense information.

    Robert Birchum served in the Air Force for more than 30 years and previously held top secret clearance. According to his plea agreement, he stored hundreds of files that contained information marked as top secret, secret or confidential classified outside of authorized locations. A plea agreement stated that “the defendant’s residence was not a location authorized to store classified information, and the defendant knew as much.”

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    January 30, 2023
  • Two words no president wants to hear | CNN Politics

    Two words no president wants to hear | CNN Politics

    A version of this story appeared in CNN’s What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.



    CNN
     — 

    There’s something ringing in Joe Biden’s ears that no president ever, ever wants to hear: special counsel.

    These are the independent lawyers appointed, usually by attorneys general, to look, without conflict of interest, into actions involving the president or his administration. While you might have forgotten their names, you’re familiar with their work.

    Watergate. Iran-Contra. Whitewater. The Russia investigation. Teapot Dome.

    Other investigations include inquiries into the George W. Bush administration’s leak of the identity of an undercover CIA agent whose husband questioned intelligence about Iraq, the government’s ultimately deadly siege of the Branch Davidian compound and Jimmy Carter’s peanut business.

    Note that I’m including special counsels, special prosecutors, independent counsels and independent prosecutors here. A law that authorized independent prosecutors or independent counsels, who had more autonomy from the Department of Justice, lapsed in 1999 after high profile and expensive inquiries during the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations into the Iran-Contra affair and during the Clinton administration into Whitewater. In the years since, the Department of Justice has adopted regulations to enable to the attorney general to call up a special counsel when needed.

    Since Carter, only Barack Obama has emerged from the White House without having a special counsel or special prosecutor look at his administration. See lists of these investigations compiled by the A-Mark Foundation and The Washington Post.

    Now, there are two special counsels at the same time. One, Jack Smith, is looking into the multiple investigations involving former President Donald Trump, ranging from his effort to overturn the 2020 election to his handling of classified data and stonewalling that led the FBI to search Mar-a-Lago last summer.

    The other, appointed this week, is Robert Hur, who will assess what should happen as a result of classified documents being found both in a Washington, DC, office used by Biden following his vice presidency, and locked up in the garage at his Wilmington, Delaware, home, where he also keeps his Corvette.

    Both Biden and Trump’s teams have denied wrongdoing.

    All of Hur’s previous appointments to official positions have come during Republican administrations, including his appointment to be US attorney in Maryland by former President Donald Trump. He served as law clerk for federal judges appointed by former President Ronald Reagan, including the late Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist. He once held a top position as an assistant to current FBI Director Christopher Wray, also a Trump appointee, but one who has been criticized by Trump. As US attorney in Maryland, he oversaw a corruption case where Baltimore’s former Democratic mayor was sentenced to prison for three years following a children’s book scandal.

    Smith, who is coordinating Trump investigations, worked at the Justice Department during the Obama administration. While at the public integrity unit of the Justice Department, Smith was involved in the decision to prosecute former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, a Republican who was convicted of corruption, although the Supreme Court later vacated the conviction. He was also involved in the failed prosecution of former Sen. John Edwards, a Democrat.

    The two special prosecutors can expect very different treatment by the subjects of their investigations.

    Biden’s White House has promised to cooperate with Hur; Trump has already written off Smith.

    “The Special ‘Prosecutor’ assigned to the ‘get Trump case,’ Jack Smith(?), is a Trump Hating THUG whose wife is a serial and open Trump Hater, whose friends & other family members are even worse,” Trump said in the opening of a screed on his social media platform Thursday.

    There are some important distinctions in terms of what kind of power a special counsel has. Between 1978 and 1999, as part of an ethics in government law, the attorney general could ask a three-judge panel to appoint an independent prosecutor with near total authority to bring charges. Read more from the Congressional Research Service.

    More recently, attorneys general have appointed special counsels, who have some autonomy, but still ultimately report to the attorney general. That chain of command was abundantly clear when Trump’s attorney general William Barr slow-walked the release of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on the Russia investigation in a way that seemed beneficial to Trump.

    Thus, it’s Merrick Garland, or his successors, who will ultimately decide what to do with the findings by Smith and Hur.

    While the White House said it will cooperate with the special counsel, the fact is that it is developing a credibility gap on this issue.

    Biden’s lawyers found classified documents in Biden’s office in November and in his home in December. But when the administration first publicly addressed the findings this month, they didn’t mention the documents found in the home.

    “Not only did this make it look like Biden had something to hide, it set up the kind of drip, drip of disclosures guaranteed to supercharge a Washington scandal,” CNN’s Stephen Collinson wrote Friday.

    The White House, however, has pushed back on that perception, arguing the discoveries of all classified documents were ultimately disclosed.

    “When the president’s lawyers realized that the documents existed, that they were there, they reached out to the Archives. They reached out to the Department of Justice. rightfully so, I may add. That is what you’re supposed to do,” argued White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre at the White House Thursday.

    CNN’s White House team published a deep dive report looking at the final days of Biden’s vice presidency in early 2017, the period that appears to have resulted in these classified documents ending up at his home, locked up next to his Corvette, as Biden said Thursday, and at the Penn Biden Center.

    The discovery that set off this scandal was made by a Biden attorney looking into “a manilla folder marked ‘VP personal,’” according to one person in the report.

    CNN’s reporting, based on that source, is that there are 10 classified documents, including US intelligence memorandums and briefing materials that covered topics including Ukraine, Iran and the United Kingdom. There is also a memo from Biden to Obama and briefing memos meant to prepare Biden for one phone call with the prime minister of Britain and another with Donald Tusk, in his capacity as president of the European Council.

    While there are two probes, each with a special counsel appointed to look into the leaders’ handling of classified material, it’s important not to conflate them. The larger issue for Trump is that he fought giving documents to the National Archives as required by law and may have obstructed attempts by the government to retrieve them.

    “Based on what we know now, Biden is unlikely ever to face charges, whereas Trump is at high risk because of his obstructive conduct and other factors absent from the Biden case,” Norm Eisen, the ethics lawyer who helped Democrats during Trump’s first impeachment, writes for CNN Opinion. “The cases have special counsels and classified documents in common — but little else.”

    Earlier in the Trump classified documents saga in 2022 I talked to the government transparency activist Thomas Blanton at National Security Archive about how the US government classifies way too much material.

    The Biden classified documents saga could help prove his points. He told me there are clearly things related to intelligence sources or nuclear weapons that need to be kept secret. However…

    “The constant struggle is to push against the bureaucratic imperatives that cause ‘secure-a-crats’ to cover their rears for the most part with classified documents, but ensuring that the real secrets that will get people killed get really protected.”

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    January 14, 2023
  • Giuliani subpoenaed amid special counsel investigation into Trump’s fundraising | CNN Politics

    Giuliani subpoenaed amid special counsel investigation into Trump’s fundraising | CNN Politics


    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Special counsel Jack Smith’s team has subpoenaed Donald Trump’s former attorney Rudy Giuliani, asking him to turn over records to a federal grand jury as part of an investigation into the former president’s fundraising following the 2020 election, according to a person familiar with the subpoena.

    The subpoena, which was sent more than a month ago and has not been previously reported, requests documents from Giuliani about payments he received around the 2020 election, when Giuliani filed numerous lawsuits on Trump’s behalf contesting the election results, the person said.

    Prosecutors have also subpoenaed other witnesses who are close to Trump, asking specifically for documents related to disbursements from the Save America PAC, Trump’s primary fundraising operation set up shortly after the 2020 election, according to other sources with insight into the probe.

    Taken together, the subpoenas demonstrate prosecutors’ growing interest in following the money after the 2020 election as part of their sweeping criminal probe around Trump’s efforts to overturn his loss of the presidency.

    Save America was part of broader fundraising efforts by Trump and the Republican Party that raised more than $250 million after the election. Since then, the political action committee has compensated several lawyers who now represent Trump and his allies in January 6-related investigations.

    The subpoenas to other witnesses in addition to Giuliani were sent in late December, according to the other sources.

    The information the prosecutors seek is still being collected, the sources said. With Giuliani, the investigators have prioritized getting financial information from him, one person said.

    The inquiry to Giuliani came from David Rody, a former top prosecutor in New York who specializes in gang and conspiracy cases and is assisting Smith with examining a broader criminal conspiracy after the election, according to some of the sources.

    In response to being informed of CNN’s reporting on Giuliani’s subpoena and asked for a statement, Ted Goodman, his adviser, said, “The mayor is unaware of the specific claims by this so-called ‘anonymous source,’ and therefore is not in position to respond.”

    A spokesman for the special counsel’s office declined to comment.

    A representative for Trump has not responded to a request for comment.

    CNN previously reported the Justice Department in September subpoenaed witnesses for financial details about the Save America PAC, and that a portion of Smith’s office would dig into possible financial and campaign contribution crimes. The Giuliani subpoena and other December subpoenas represent a new round of inquiry, now from Smith’s office, which took shape over the holidays.

    After the election, Trump and the Republican National Committee raked in millions of dollars as they told supporters the election was being stolen, marketing the fundraising effort as election defense. At the time, some officials working on the fundraising effort knew that Joe Biden’s electoral win was legitimate, despite Trump’s insistence it was fraudulent, the House Select Committee found in its own investigation.

    Smith’s office hasn’t brought any charges. Federal prosecutors in New York previously investigated Giuliani for activities in Ukraine during the Trump presidency. While that led to prosecutors accessing his electronic devices, they declined to charge him with any crime.

    Giuliani is likely to be a central figure in any probe of Trump’s close political circles after the election. After serving as Trump’s private attorney during the Mueller investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, the former chief federal prosecutor and mayor of Manhattan dove into Trump’s attempts to claim electoral victory. He unsuccessfully argued a case before a federal judge in Pennsylvania – where Trump sought to throw out the popular vote – and connected with state lawmakers as he tried to convince them of election fraud.

    In the weeks after the 2020 election, Giuliani also held freewheeling press conferences, repeating allegations that he never could prove.

    A Trump campaign attorney told the January 6 committee that Giuliani had asked to be paid $20,000 a day for his post-election work for Trump. The campaign declined to pay him that, according to election and House select committee public records.

    Subpoenas issued last year to a wide swath of Trump-connected witnesses also asked questions about the Save America PAC, including how its funds were used in 2020 and early 2021, and about Giuliani, as CNN previously reported.

    Giuliani hasn’t personally received distributions directly from the PAC, according to campaign finance records. Yet his company, Giuliani Partners, was paid $63,400 for travel reimbursement by Trump’s campaign committee in mid-December 2020. Giuliani’s New York-based security company also received a $76,500 payment from another Trump-backed entity, the Make America Great Again PAC, for travel expenses, in early February 2021, according to the records.

    In addition to the financial inquiry, Smith’s office is also pursuing possible criminal cases around the Trump campaign’s use of fake electors in battleground states and the pressure on Congress and then-Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the election’s result. In all of those schemes, Giuliani was a central player.

    In his House select committee testimony, Giuliani explained that his team working with Trump pivoted to focus on state legislatures that could block the election result after his attempts failed in the courts. The New York state bar suspended him from practicing law because of his 2020 election efforts, and he’s also facing an attorney discipline proceeding in Washington, DC.

    He declined to answer some questions the House asked about his work for Trump after the election, citing attorney confidentiality. Giuliani could try to make similar claims in the federal investigation, though the Justice Department has legal mechanisms in which it can try to overcome witness refusals to answer questions.

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    January 9, 2023
  • House January 6 committee handing over investigative materials to DOJ | CNN Politics

    House January 6 committee handing over investigative materials to DOJ | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    The House select committee investigating January 6, 2021, has started handing over evidence and transcripts from its probe to the Department of Justice, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

    Special counsel Jack Smith, who was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland to oversee parts of the DOJ’s investigation into the insurrection, sent a letter to the committee earlier this month requesting all of the information from the panel’s investigation, one of the sources told CNN.

    Smith’s investigators will ultimately have all of the evidence the House committee has obtained, the source said.

    The handover comes during a key week for the committee. The panel on Monday held its final public meeting, during which committee members voted to refer former President Donald Trump to the DOJ on at least four criminal charges. The panel is slated to release its full final report on Wednesday.

    A spokesperson for the committee declined to comment. A spokesperson for the special counsel did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment.

    The committee has been sending documents and transcripts over the course of the last week, the second source added, with the production focusing specifically on former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Trump’s former election lawyer John Eastman.

    The panel has also started to share transcripts of witness interviews pertaining to the false slates of electors and the pressure campaign by Trump and his allies on certain states to overturn the 2020 election results.

    The department has also received Meadows’ text messages from the committee.

    Punchbowl News was first to report some of these details.

    California Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a member of the committee, said on CNN on Monday, “We’ve actually given some transcripts to the Department of Justice during the last month,” adding that the committee would begin making transcripts public on Wednesday.

    The DOJ investigation being led by Smith is examining Trump in its extensive probe into January 6, and it appears that federal investigators are already looking at much of the conduct that the select committee has highlighted.

    During its Monday meeting, the committee laid out the case for both the public and the Justice Department that there’s evidence to pursue criminal charges against Trump on multiple criminal statutes, including obstructing an official proceeding, defrauding the United States, making false statements and assisting or aiding an insurrection.

    But whether the department brings charges will depend on whether the facts and the evidence support a prosecution, Garland, who will make the ultimate call on charging decisions, has said.

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    December 20, 2022
  • The latest on Donald Trump’s many legal clouds | CNN Politics

    The latest on Donald Trump’s many legal clouds | CNN Politics

    A version of this story appears in CNN’s What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.



    CNN
     — 

    Former President Donald Trump has been campaigning in between his many different court appearances for much of the year.

    But his decision to attend the first day of his $250 million civil fraud trial in New York created another opportunity to appear on camera from inside a courtroom when the judge allowed photographers to document the moment before proceedings got underway.

    Keeping track of the dizzying array of civil and criminal cases is a full-time job.

    He is charged with crimes related to conduct:

    • Before his presidency – a hush money scheme that may have helped him win the White House in 2016.
    • During his presidency – his effort to stay in the White House by overturning the 2020 election.
    • After his presidency – his treatment of classified material and alleged attempts to hide it from the National Archives.

    Trump denies any wrongdoing and has pleaded not guilty in all of the criminal cases. He alleges a “witch hunt” against him. But each trial has its own distinct storyline to follow.

    Here’s an updated list of developments in Trump’s very complicated set of court cases, beginning with the one playing out in Manhattan this week.

    The civil fraud trial, unlike Trump’s multiple criminal indictments, does not carry the danger of a felony conviction and jail time, but it could very well cost him some of his most prized possessions, including Trump Tower.

    New York Attorney General Letitia James brought the $250 million lawsuit in September 2022, alleging that Trump and his co-defendants committed repeated fraud in inflating assets on financial statements to get better terms on commercial real estate loans and insurance policies.

    Judge Arthur Engoron has already ruled that Trump and his adult sons are liable for fraud for inflating the value of his golf courses, hotels and homes on financial statements to secure loans.

    The trial portion of the case, playing out in court in Manhattan, will assess what damages will be levied against Trump and how Engoron’s decision to strip Trump of his New York business licenses will play out.

    In May, a federal jury in Manhattan found Trump sexually abused former advice columnist E. Jean Carroll in a luxury department store dressing room in the mid-1990s and awarded her about $5 million.

    A separate civil defamation lawsuit will only need to decide how much money Trump has to pay her. That case for January 15 – the same day Iowa Republicans will hold their caucuses, the first date on the presidential primary calendar.

    In August, Trump was indicted by a federal grand jury in special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the aftermath of the 2020 election. The former president was arraigned in a Washington, DC, courtroom, where he pleaded not guilty.

    The case is based in part on a scheme to create slates of fake electors in key states won by President Joe Biden.

    In late September, Judge Tanya Chutkan rejected Trump’s request that she recuse herself from the case. Chutkan, a Barack Obama appointee, has overseen civil and criminal cases related to the January 6, 2021, insurrection and has repeatedly exceeded what prosecutors have requested for convicted rioters’ prison sentences.

    Chutkan set the trial’s start date for March 4, 2024, the day before Super Tuesday, when the largest batch of presidential primaries will occur. The trial marks the first of Trump’s criminal cases expected to proceed.

    Trump has been charged in Manhattan criminal court with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to his role in a hush money payment scheme involving adult film actress Stormy Daniels late in the 2016 presidential campaign.

    The former president pleaded not guilty at his April arraignment in Manhattan.

    Prosecutors, led by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, accuse Trump of falsifying business records with the intent to conceal $130,000 in payments to Daniels made by former Trump attorney and fixer Michael Cohen to guarantee her silence about an alleged affair.

    Trump has denied having an affair with Daniels.

    The trial was originally scheduled to begin in late March 2024, but Judge Juan Merchan has suggested the date could move. The next court date is scheduled for February.

    Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is using racketeering violations to charge a broad criminal conspiracy against Trump and 18 others in their efforts to overturn Biden’s victory in Georgia.

    The probe was launched in 2021 following Trump’s call that January with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in which the president pushed the Republican official to “find” votes to overturn the election results.

    The August indictment also includes how Trump’s team allegedly misled state officials in Georgia; organized fake electors; harassed an election worker; and breached election equipment in rural Coffee County, Georgia.

    One co-defendant, bail bondsman Scott Hall, has pleaded guilty to five counts in the case.

    Fulton County prosecutors have signaled they could offer plea deals to other co-defendants.

    Willis this week issued a subpoena to former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, a Trump ally, who in turn demanded an immunity deal in exchange for testimony.

    Trial for two co-defendants is expected to begin this month and could last three to five months. A trial date has not been set for Trump, who has pleaded not guilty.

    Federal criminal court in Florida: Mishandling classified material

    Trump has pleaded not guilty to 37 federal charges brought by Smith over his alleged mishandling of classified documents. Smith added three additional counts in a superseding indictment.

    The investigation centers on sensitive documents that Trump brought to his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida after his White House term ended in January 2021.

    The National Archives, charged with collecting and sorting presidential material, has previously said that at least 15 boxes of White House records were recovered from Mar-a-Lago, including some classified records.

    Trump was also caught on tape in a 2021 meeting in Bedminster, New Jersey, where the former president discussed holding secret documents he did not declassify.

    Smith’s additional charges allege that Trump and his employees attempted to delete Mar-a-Lago security footage sought by the grand jury investigating the mishandling of the records.

    Trial is not expected until May, after most presidential primaries have concluded.

    There are other cases to note:

    Trump’s namesake business, the Trump Organization, was convicted in December by a New York jury of tax fraud, grand larceny and falsifying business records in what prosecutors say was a 15-year scheme to defraud tax authorities by failing to report and pay taxes on compensation provided to employees.

    Manhattan prosecutors told a jury the case was about “greed and cheating,” laying out a scheme within the Trump Organization to pay high-level executives in perks such as luxury cars and apartments without paying taxes on them.

    Former Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg pleaded guilty to his role in the tax scheme. He was released after serving four months in jail at Rikers Island.

    Several members of the US Capitol Police and Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police are suing Trump, saying his words and actions incited the 2021 riot.

    The various cases accuse Trump of directing assault and battery; aiding and abetting assault and battery; and violating Washington laws that prohibit the incitement of riots and disorderly conduct.

    In August, Trump requested to put on hold the lawsuit related to the death of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, citing his various criminal trials. The estate of Sicknick, who died after responding to the attack on the Capitol, is suing two rioters involved in the attack and Trump for his alleged role in egging it on.

    Other lawsuits have been put on hold while a federal appeals court considers whether Trump had absolute immunity as the sitting president.

    Former top FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok, who was fired in 2018 after the revelation that he criticized Trump in text messages, sued the Justice Department, alleging he was terminated improperly.

    In summer 2017, former special counsel Robert Mueller removed Strzok from his team investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election after an internal investigation revealed texts with former FBI lawyer Lisa Page that could be read as exhibiting political bias.

    Strzok and Page were constant targets of verbal attacks by Trump and his allies, part of the larger ire the then-president expressed toward the FBI during the Russia investigation. Trump repeatedly and publicly called for Strzok’s ouster until he was fired in August 2018.

    Trump is set to be deposed this month as part of the case, according to Politico.

    A federal judge dismissed Trump’s lawsuit against Hillary Clinton, the Democratic National Committee, several ex-FBI officials and more than two dozen other people and entities that he claims conspired to undermine his 2016 campaign with fabricated information tying him to Russia.

    “What (Trump’s lawsuit) lacks in substance and legal support it seeks to substitute with length, hyperbole, and the settling of scores and grievances,” US District Judge Donald Middlebrooks wrote.

    Trump appealed the decision, but Middlebrooks also ruled that the former president and his attorneys are liable for nearly $1 million in sanctions for bringing the case.

    Trump launched a Hail Mary bid in July to revive the sprawling lawsuit, relying on a recent report from special counsel John Durham that criticized the FBI’s Trump-Russia probe.

    Trump’s former lawyer Cohen sued Trump, former Attorney General William Barr and others, alleging they put him back in jail to prevent him from promoting his upcoming book while under home confinement.

    Cohen was serving the remainder of his sentence for lying to Congress and campaign violations at home, due to Covid-19 concerns, when he started an anti-Trump social media campaign in summer 2020. Cohen said that he was sent back to prison in retaliation and that he spent 16 days in solitary confinement.

    A federal judge threw out the lawsuit in November. District Judge Lewis Liman said he was empathetic to Cohen’s position but that Supreme Court precedent bars him from allowing the case to move forward.

    Trump sued journalist Bob Woodward in January for alleged copyright violations, claiming Woodward released audio from their interviews without Trump’s consent.

    Woodward and publisher Simon & Schuster said Trump’s case is without merit and moved for its dismissal.

    Woodward conducted several interviews with Trump for his book “Rage,” published in September 2020. Woodward later released “The Trump Tapes,” an audiobook featuring eight hours of raw interviews with Trump interspersed with the author’s commentary.

    Trump-filed lawsuits: The New York Times, Mary Trump and CNN

    The former president is suing his niece and The New York Times in New York state court over the disclosure of his tax information.

    A New York judge dismissed The New York Times from Trump’s lawsuit regarding disclosure of his tax returns and ordered Trump to pay the newspaper’s legal fees. Trump is still suing his niece Mary Trump for disclosure of the tax documents. She had tried to sue him for defrauding her out of millions after the death of his father, but the suit was dismissed.

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    December 7, 2022
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