Tag: mark meadows

Judge rejects Mark Meadows’ request to postpone surrender and arrest in Fulton County

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Washington — A federal judge in Georgia rejected a request by former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to postpone his surrender and arrest in Fulton County, Georgia, as an attempt to move the case to federal court is litigated, according to a court order issued Wednesday.

“The clear statutory language for removing a criminal prosecution, does not support an injunction or temporary stay prohibiting District Attorney Willis’s enforcement or execution of the arrest warrant against Meadows,” Judge Steve Jones wrote in a brief ruling.

Meadows’ attorneys had asked the federal court to block Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ enforcement of an arrest warrant as they worked to convince the judge to move the Georgia state case to federal court.

Jones wrote Wednesday the law does not allow for federal court interference in the state case at the current juncture, and the prosecution of Meadows must continue while the federal court considers the broader request to transfer the case.

Meadows, who served as chief of staff in the Trump White House, argued last week that his case should be moved to federal court because the allegations contained in Willis’ indictment against him occurred while he was acting in his formal capacity as White House chief of staff.

“Nothing Mr. Meadows is alleged in the indictment to have done is criminal per se: arranging Oval Office meetings, contacting state officials on the President’s behalf, visiting a state government building, and setting up a phone call for the President. One would expect a Chief of Staff to the President of the United States to do these sorts of things. And they have far less to do with the interests of state law than, for example, murder charges that have been successfully removed,” his attorneys wrote last week.

On Tuesday, Willis pushed back, writing in a federal court filing, “Lawfully arresting the defendant on felony charges after allowing the defendant ample time to negotiate a surrender neither deprives the defendant of the ability to seek removal nor does it impact this Court’s jurisdiction to consider removal.”

Court filings this week revealed a back-and-forth between Meadows’ attorneys and Willis, in which his legal team fought to delay the Friday afternoon deadline Willis had set for all 19 defendants charged in the Trump case to surrender and officially be arrested.

“Your client is no different than any other criminal defendant in this jurisdiction,” Willis wrote to Meadows’ legal team, according to a copy of an email provided in court filings.

Another Trump ally, former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, made a similar attempt to postpone his arrest, asking the federal judge in Georgia to issue an emergency stay on the matter. On Wednesday, Judge Jones also denied that request, writing that law dictates that “the state court retains jurisdiction over the prosecution and the proceedings continue.”

A federal court hearing on moving the Meadows case is set for August 28.

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August 23, 2023
Chris Christie Names The Trump Insider He Thinks Secretly Flipped

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Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said Donald Trump should be very worried about a close member of his inner circle from his final year in office.

“I’ve said all along I think Mark Meadows is already a cooperating witness,” Christie told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Monday. “He has all the looks of a cooperating witness, running into coffee shops away from the press.”

Meadows was White House chief of staff during much of the final year of Trump’s presidency including the period after the election, which is the focus of the indictment on federal charges of election obstruction and conspiracy.

Christie, who was also a member of the Trump inner circle during that period, said the former president should have special reason to be concerned about Meadows’ potential cooperation.

“He was a very involved chief of staff, in my experience,” Christie said. “He made sure he was in every meeting and every conversation. And we remember, there are hundreds of text messages that he turned over to the special counsel that he kept.”

Christie said that Meadows could deliver the “worst testimony” against Trump of anyone other than family members.

A number of observers have zeroed in on Meadows as someone who may be cooperating with prosecutors given his months of near silence. That belief was only bolstered by the indictment, where Meadows is barely mentioned despite his close involvement in White House activity in the period between the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Christie was one of the first prominent Republicans to endorse Trump in 2016 after abandoning his own presidential campaign, and was close to him through much of his presidency ― even developing a COVID-19 infection while helping to prep Trump for the 2020 debates.

He spent a week in the ICU.

Christie has since turned into a Trump critic and is running against him for the Republican presidential nomination.

See more of Christie’s conversation with Cooper below:

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August 7, 2023
The Fulton County charges against Donald Trump face a major test Monday. Here’s what to watch for | CNN Politics

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CNN
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Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis will lay out the first details of her sprawling anti-racketeering case against former President Donald Trump, his White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and 17 other co-defendants at a federal court hearing on Monday morning.

This will be the first time that substantive arguments will be made in court about the four criminal cases brought against Trump this year.

The subject of the hearing, set to begin at 10 a.m., is Meadows’ motion to move his case to federal court and possibly have it thrown out, but it’s much more than that – it could end up acting as a mini-trial that determines the future of Fulton County’s case against the former president.

Willis is expected to preview the case that she is planning to bring against the 19 co-defendants, getting on the public record some of her evidence and legal arguments for why Trump and his allies broke the law when pressuring Georgia election officials to meddle with the 2020 results.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who received the January 2021 call from Trump to “find” the votes that would reverse his loss, has been subpoenaed to testify, along with an investigator in his office and two other lawyers who were present on the call.

Here’s what to watch for:

Meadows is one of several defendants who have filed to move their cases from Georgia state court to federal court, and Trump is expected to file a similar motion.

Several defendants who have filed similar removal notices, including ex-Georgia Republican Party chair David Shafer and Cathy Latham, who served as a fake elector, have argued they were acting at Trump’s direction.

Meadows is arguing that the charges against him in Georgia should be dismissed under a federal immunity claim extended, in certain contexts, to individuals who are prosecuted or sued for alleged conduct that was done on behalf of the US government or was tied to their federal position.

While he may still face an uphill battle to move his case, Meadows is “uniquely situated” in Willis’ case, said Steve Vladeck, a CNN analyst and professor at the University of Texas School of Law.

“Folks should be wary of this being a bellwether,” Vladeck said, describing the dispute instead as an “opening salvo in what is going to be a long and complicated series of procedural fights.”

If US District Judge Steve Jones grants Meadows’ or another defendant’s request to move the prosecution to federal court, it does not ultimately doom Willis’ case.

For one, it is not clear whether Meadows’ co-defendants would join him in the federal forum, and even if the judge accepts Meadows’ claim that his case should play out in federal court, it does not mean that Jones will buy Meadows’ arguments that the charges against him should be dismissed.

For instance, in Trump’s New York case, in which he was charged by the Manhattan district attorney with 34 counts of falsifying business records, a federal judge rejected the former president’s bid to move the case to federal court.

US law allows defendants in state civil suits or criminal cases to seek to move those proceedings to federal court if those defendants face charges based on conduct they carried out “under color” of the federal government.

While such proceedings are not uncommon in civil lawsuits against current and former federal officials, they are extremely rare in criminal cases, legal experts told CNN, meaning Jones will be navigating in uncertain legal territory.

“This is just that rare case where there is just not a lot of law,” Vladeck said.

Meadows is arguing that under the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, the federal court should dismiss the charges against him, because the conduct underlying the charges was conducted as part of his duties as a close White House adviser to Trump.

“If Mr. Meadows had absented himself from Oval Office meetings or refused to arrange meetings or calls between the President and governmental leaders, that would have affected his ability to provide the close and confidential advice that a Chief of Staff is supposed to provide,” Meadows’ lawyers wrote in a court filing.

Beyond Meadows’ participation on the Raffensperger call, Willis has also highlighted as alleged acts in the racketeering conspiracy his surprise visit to an Atlanta election audit and a request Meadows and Trump are said to have made to a White House official to compile a memo on how to disrupt the January 6, 2021, election certification vote in Congress.

“In order to prevail, Meadows has to convince the court that when he was banging on the audit door he wasn’t representing the private interests of Donald Trump,” said Lee Kovarsky, a University of Texas law professor and expert in the removal statute.

Willis, in her response to Meadows’ filings, is leaning on a federal law known as the Hatch Act, which prohibits government officials from using their federal office to engage in political activity, including campaign-oriented conduct. She argues Meadows’ involvement in the pressure campaign on Georgia election officials is clearly conduct he was not allowed to engage in as a federal officer, and therefore he is not entitled to the federal immunity defense.

The Hatch Act framing is a “nice way of illustrating that he was acting outside the scope of his official duties,” Kovarsky said, adding that Willis will not have to prove that Meadows violated the federal statute to be successful in the argument.

Willis’ filings in the dispute also appear to be a shot across the bow at Trump and any attempt he could make with similar claims.

“An evaluation of the actions named in the indictment makes clear that all of them were intended to ‘interfere with or affect’ the presidential election in Georgia and elsewhere in order to somehow transform Mr. Trump from an unsuccessful candidate into a successful one,” the district attorney’s office said. “The activities are precisely the type which other courts have already determined to be ‘unofficial’ and therefore beyond the color of the defendant’s office.”

Key witnesses potentially taking the stand

Jones, a Barack Obama appointee, has shown that he would like to avoid a circus while also not giving short shrift to Meadows’ arguments, Vladeck said. The orders the judge has already issued have hewed tightly to the relevant statutes and case law, and he has moved the proceedings along efficiently.

The judge is “by the book, which includes quickly and quietly,” Vladeck said.

Still, the hearing could feature some revelatory moments, as Willis appears to be preparing to put on the stand several witnesses to the pressure campaign Trump and Meadows are accused of applying to Georgia election officials.

In addition to Raffensperger, Willis subpoenaed Frances Watson, who was chief investigator in the Georgia secretary of state’s office. According to the grand jury indictment, Meadows arranged a call between Trump and Watson, and texted Watson himself to offer Trump campaign funding toward speeding up a ballot review in Fulton County.

Willis also subpoenaed two lawyers who were on the Trump-Raffensperger phone call on Trump’s behalf: Kurt Hilbert and Alex Kaufman.

“The central question is: Were Meadows and Trump acting in the context of … their federal positions, or were they just candidates for office or campaign staff acting in the state of Georgia?” said Elliot Williams, a CNN legal analyst and former Justice Department official. “Raffensperger will come to testify as to, ‘Maybe I actually think these guys were acting on behalf of the campaign, not the presidency.’”

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August 2, 2023
Judge rejects Mark Meadows’ bid to move Georgia election interference case to federal court | CNN Politics

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CNN
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A federal judge on Friday rejected former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows’ bid to move his Georgia criminal case to federal court, a significant setback for Meadows and a troubling sign for former President Donald Trump.

US District Judge Steve Jones found that the allegations against Meadows contained in the Fulton County district attorney’s indictment on election subversion charges were largely “related to political activities” and not to Meadows’ role as White House chief of staff.

“The evidence before the Court overwhelmingly suggests that Meadows was not acting in his scope of executive branch duties during most of the Overt Acts alleged,” wrote Jones, a Barack Obama appointee.

The Friday ruling has significant implications for the former president and his 18 co-defendants in the Fulton County district attorney’s sprawling racketeering case, though the judge said the ruling did not apply to the other defendants. Meadows was the first of five defendants who already filed motions to move the case to federal court – and Trump is expected to do so, too.

Meadows unsuccessfully argued that his case, now playing out in Georgia state court, should be moved because the allegations in the indictment were connected to his official duties as White House chief of staff. His lawyers wanted the case in federal court so they could try to get it dismissed altogether, invoking federal immunity extended to certain individuals who are prosecuted or sued for conduct tied to their US government roles.

The judge’s decision could set the tone for the other defendants also trying to move their cases. It’s an ominous sign for the defendants who are hoping to invoke the same federal immunity protections.

The judge explicitly stated in his ruling that he is not offering any opinion about Fulton County’s underlying criminal case against Meadows, who has pleaded not guilty.

Jones wrote in the decision that Meadows had not met even the “‘quite low’ threshold for removal” to federal court, because his activities for the Trump campaign were outside the scope of his federal role as White House chief of staff.

“The Court finds that the color of the Office of the White House Chief of Staff did not include working with or working for the Trump campaign, except for simply coordinating the President’s schedule, traveling with the President to his campaign events, and redirecting communications to the campaign,” Jones wrote. “Thus, consistent with his testimony and the federal statutes and regulations, engaging in political activities is exceeds the outer limits of the Office of the White House Chief of Staff.”

The Hatch Act, which prohibits federal officials from engaging in political activity as part of their official duties, was “helpful in defining the outer limits of the scope the White House Chief of Staff’s authority,” the judge said.

“These prohibitions on executive branch employees (including the White House Chief of Staff) reinforce the Court’s conclusion that Meadows has not shown how his actions relate to the scope of his federal executive branch office. Federal officer removal is thereby inapposite,” the judge wrote in the decision.

Meadows on Friday swiftly appealed the ruling to the US 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The indictment identifies eight overt acts Meadows allegedly took in furtherance of the scheme to overturn the 2020 election results. Meadows argued that these actions were part of his federal duties – and thus, the case should be moved to federal court – but Jones disagreed.

“The Court finds insufficient evidence to establish that the gravamen, or a heavy majority of overt acts alleged against Meadows relate to his role as White House Chief of Staff,” Jones wrote, adding that “Meadows failed to provide sufficient evidence that these actions related to any legitimate purpose of the executive branch.”

One of Meadows’ most critical actions was his participation in Trump’s phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in early January 2021, when Trump infamously prodded Raffensperger to “find” enough votes for him to overcome Joe Biden’s margin of victory.

Jones ruled that this phone call “was made regarding private litigation brought by President and his campaign” and was “therefore outside Meadows’ federal role as an executive branch officer.”

Meadows other actions in late 2020, including contacts with state lawmakers that Trump hoped would help him undermine the election results, also weren’t tied to his government role, Jones concluded.

“The Court finds that the underlying substance of those meetings and calls were related to political activities and not to the scope of Meadows’s federal office,” the judge wrote.

The ruling is also a personal blow to Meadows, who took a significant risk by testifying about the removal bid at a recent hearing, where he was questioned under oath by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ team. Prosecutors could potentially use his testimony against him in future proceedings.

After the charges against Trump and his 18 co-defendants were filed, the former president’s lawyers signaled they intended to try to move Trump’s case to federal court, just as Trump had unsuccessfully sought to do in his New York criminal case. Trump’s lawyers told the judge overseeing the state case on Thursday that he may seek to move the case to federal court, but they haven’t filed the legal motions yet.

Trump has 30 days from the time he entered his not-guilty plea to file to move his case.

CNN has reached out to lawyers for Meadows and Trump for comment.

In addition to Meadows, Jeffrey Clark, the former Trump administration DOJ official, and three Georgia GOP officials who served as Trump’s fake electors have also filed to move their cases to federal court. Former Georgia Republican Party Chairman David Shafer and former GOP Coffee County Chairwoman Cathy Latham have a joint hearing scheduled on September 20, while the third fake elector seeking federal removal – Shawn Still, a Georgia state senator – has a hearing on September 18.

While Meadows’ motion was rejected, Shafer, Still and Latham have made a slightly different argument: They say they acted as fake electors at Trump’s direction. But unlike Meadows, who worked in the White House in 2020, the fake electors have a more tenuous link to the federal government, as nominees to serve as real electors for Trump if he won Georgia, who would’ve participated in the federally mandated Electoral College process.

In his decision Friday, Jones noted that his ruling regarding Meadows “does not, at this time, have any effect on” the other defendants who are also trying to move their case to federal court. Those motions are still pending before Jones, and evidentiary hearings are scheduled for later this month.

“The Court will assess these Defendants’ arguments and evidence following the forthcoming hearings…. independent of its conclusion” in the Meadows case, Jones wrote.

There are several reasons why it would be advantageous for Meadows and the other defendants to move their cases to federal court. In addition to making immunity claims under the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, a federal trial would likely have a jury pool more sympathetic to Trump and his co-defendants.

While the state courthouse for this case is based in deep-blue Fulton County, the federal court district that includes Fulton also contains the more-Republican northern part of the state.

At his hearing last month, Meadows surprisingly took the stand trying to help move his case to federal court, testifying for more than three hours about what happened in the White House after the 2020 election.

Meadows tried to argue that all of his work as the president’s top adviser fit into his role as chief of staff – even when it spilled into politics.

“It’s still part of my job to make sure that the president is safe and secure and able to perform his job. And that’s what I was doing,” Meadows said, later adding, “serving the president of the United States and … it takes on all kinds of forms.”

But the Fulton County prosecutors peppered Meadows with questions about how his official job involved things like setting up phone calls involving campaign lawyers, such as Trump’s infamous January 2021 phone call Raffensperger.

Jones concluded that some of Meadows’ high-stakes testimony on the witness stand was lacking – and even used some of it against him in the ruling.

“When questioned about the scope of his authority, Meadows was unable to explain the limits of his authority, other than his inability to stump for the President or work on behalf of the campaign,” Jones wrote, saying he would give Meadows’ testimony on that topic “less weight” than the other evidence.

Jones also cited Meadows’ acknowledgment that the lawyers he included in the phone call with Georgia’s secretary of state were working for Trump or his campaign – not the government.

Fulton County prosecutors also subpoenaed Raffensperger to testify at Meadows’ hearing, where Raffensperger said plainly there was no role for the federal government in certifying Georgia’s elections.

“It was a campaign call,” Raffensperger testified.

This story has been updated with additional details.

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August 2, 2023
Trump may try to move the Fulton County criminal case to federal court. Here’s why | CNN Politics

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CNN
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Just hours after former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows was dealt state charges accusing him, along with 18 other defendants including Donald Trump, of taking part in a broad criminal conspiracy to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results, he mounted an effort to move his case to federal court.

The former president is also expected to try to move the case to federal court, according to multiple sources familiar with his legal team’s thinking.

The attempt to transfer his case from the Superior Court in Fulton County, Georgia, to the federal court for the US Northern District of Georgia – a process officially referred to as “removal” – is the first in what is expected to be a series of major pre-trial issues District Attorney Fani Willis must navigate as she pursues convictions against the 19 defendants.

Successfully transferring their cases to federal court could provide some key advantages.

For starters, litigating the effort could help delay things, a strategy Trump has employed time and time and time and time again.

Should the case actually go to trial in the federal court, Trump and Meadows or others could end up with a jury pool more sympathetic than the one they might get from around Atlanta, where the state courthouse for this case is based. The district that includes Fulton County also includes the heavily Republican northern part of the state.

And if the case is removed to federal court and goes to trial, the limits of Georgia’s RICO statute – which has been used aggressively and successfully by Willis – could be under the microscope of a federal judge, who would be able to field novel legal challenges to it by a defendant.

“There’s very few cases in Georgia interpreting the RICO statute,” said Andrew Fleischman, a Georgia criminal defense attorney, adding that a successful removal in this case would allow a federal judge to “ask a bunch of questions” about the 1980 state law.

Other advantages include the fact that unlike the Fulton County courtroom where the proceedings are expected to unfold, cameras are not allowed in federal courts, something that could be advantageous for Trump, who is running for president again.

Trump and Meadows could also argue in federal court that they are protected because their efforts were part of their official duties as president and White House chief of staff, respectively.

Some major questions over the removal possibility loom large, including whether a successful removal bid would transfer the entire case of 19 people to federal court or if it would allow the defendant to sever their case from the others, with some remaining in state court.

Just as with the criminal case charging people with trying to overturn an election, there is very little precedent here for judges to follow.

While there have been ample removal proceedings in civil cases, and the case law in that scenario is very well established, “criminal removal is very rare – especially in cases with multiple defendants,” said Steve Vladeck, a CNN Supreme Court analyst and University of Texas School of Law professor, who clerked for the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers Georgia.

Clark Cunningham, a law professor at Georgia State University, said he believes “the whole indictment moves as one.”

“And of course, that’s going to be fine with the other defendants, they would rather be in federal court. They would rather have things move slowly. The question would be would the district attorney then try to sever out the people that were not federal (employees),” he said. “Those things remain to be seen.”

Willis said on Monday that she plans to try the 19 defendants together, so fighting the removal request will likely be a top priority for her office in the coming days and weeks. That alone could upset her hopes to bring the case to trial next March.

Meadows, in a court document filed Tuesday afternoon, argued that Willis’ case against him should be transferred to district court that includes Fulton County because the alleged conduct of his that creates the basis of Willis’ charges was done as part of his job as the last White House chief of staff during Trump’s tenure.

He’s citing a federal law that allows civil action or criminal prosecution to be removed to federal court if the lawsuit or prosecution relates to conduct performed “under color” of a US office or agency.

Willis accused Meadows of participating in a number of the 161 “overt acts” that make up the RICO charge, including traveling to a site in Cobb County, Georgia, where a ballot audit was taking place so he could “observe the signature match audit being performed there … despite the fact that the audit process was not open to the public.”

He’s also being accused of breaking state law when he took part in a January 2021 phone call that included Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in which Meadows and Trump urged Raffensperger to take part in the fake electors scheme.

“Nothing Mr. Meadows is alleged in the indictment to have done is criminal per se: arranging Oval Office meetings, contacting state officials on the President’s behalf, visiting a state government building, and setting up a phone call for the President. One would expect a Chief of Staff to the President of the United States to do these sorts of things,” Meadows’ filing states.

District Judge Steve Jones, an appointee of Barack Obama, has scheduled a hearing for August 28 on the issue.

Though Meadows was the first defendant in the Fulton County case to mount a removal bid, he likely won’t be the last.

In addition to Trump, the former president’s ex-lawyer Rudy Giuliani – who also faces 13 charges in the case – argued during his radio show on Tuesday that the same law Meadows cited in his filing “almost an automatic removal” to federal court.

“As a person acting as (Trump’s) agent – that’s what a lawyer is, his agent – I have a right to remove it to federal court,” Giuliani said, arguing some of the other defendants could also make similar removal claims.

For Trump, a potential removal bid won’t be a new exercise. The former president attempted the same thing in the hush money criminal case brought against him in New York, but a federal judge rejected that effort last month. Trump has pleaded not guilty in that case.

Legal experts told CNN that Trump’s arguments for removal in the Georgia matter would likely be stronger than the ones he put forth in New York, but that his case for removal likely won’t be ironclad.

“Every one of the alleged crimes he did as a candidate, not as president, in my opinion,” said Clark Cunningham, a law professor at Georgia State University. “But he does have an argument. And it’s going to have to be heard out in the federal courts.”

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August 2, 2023
The identities behind the 30 unindicted co-conspirators in Trump’s Georgia case | CNN Politics

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CNN
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Fulton County’s sweeping indictment against former President Donald Trump and 18 additional co-defendants also includes details involving 30 “unindicted co-conspirators” – people who Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis alleges took part in the criminal conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election.

Some of the co-conspirators are key Trump advisers, like Boris Epshteyn, while several others are likely Georgia officials who were the state’s fake electors for Donald Trump.

One of the unindicted co-conspirators who appears multiple times in the indictment is Georgia’s Republican Lt. Gov. Burt Jones. Willis was barred by a state judge from investigating Jones after she hosted a fundraiser last year for Jones’ Democratic opponent when he was a state senator running for lieutenant governor.

The 98-page document alleges the 30 unindicted co-conspirators, who are not named, “constituted a criminal organization whose members and associates engaged in various related criminal activities” across the 41 charges laid out in the indictment.

“Prosecutors use the ‘co-conspirator’ label for people who are not charged in the indictment but nonetheless were participants in the crime,” said Elie Honig, a CNN senior legal analyst and former federal and state prosecutor. “We do this to protect the identity and reputation of uncharged people – though they often are readily identifiable – and, at times, to turn up the pressure and try to flip them before a potential indictment drops.”

CNN was able to identify some of the co-conspirators by piecing together details included in the indictment. Documents reviewed from previous reporting also provide clues, especially the reams of emails and testimony from the House January 6 Committee’s report released late last year.

CNN has been able to identify or narrow down nearly all of the unindicted co-conspirators:

The indictment refers to Trump’s speech on November 4, 2020, “falsely declaring victory in the 2020 presidential election” and that Individual 1 discussed a draft of that speech approximately four days earlier, on October 31, 2020.

The January 6 committee obtained an email from Fitton sent on October 31 to Trump’s assistant Molly Michael and his communications adviser Dan Scavino, which says, “Please see below a draft statement as you requested.”

The statement Fitton wrote also says in part, “We had an election today – and I won.”

The indictment states that co-conspirator 3 appeared at the infamous November 19, 2020, press conference at the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington, with Rudy Giuliani, one of the defendants in the case. Epshteyn was there.

The indictment also includes two emails between co-conspirator 3, John Eastman and Kenneth Chesebro, two lawyers who pushed the strategy of then-Vice President Mike Pence trying to overturn the election on January 6, 2021, including one with a draft memo for options of how to proceed on January 6.

According to emails released by the January 6 committee, Epshteyn was the third person on those emails.

Individual 4 received an email from co-defendant David Shafer, who was then Georgia’s Republican Party chair, on November 20, 2020, that said Scott Graham Hall, a Georgia bail bondsman, “has been looking into the election on behalf of the President at the request of David Bossie,” according to the indictment.

CNN obtained court documents that show Shafer sent this email to Sinners in November 2020: “Scott Hall has been looking into the election on behalf of the President at the request of David Bossie. I know him.” Hall is one of the 19 defendants charged in the indictment.

The indictment notes an additional email from December 12, 2020, from Shafer to Individual 4 advising them to “touch base” with each of the Trump presidential elector nominees in Georgia in advance of the December 14, 2020, meeting to confirm their attendance.

CNN reporting from June 2022 reveals an email exchange between Sinners and David Shafer on December 13, 2020, 18 hours before the group of alternate electors gathered at the Georgia State Capitol.

“I must ask for your complete discretion in this process,” Sinners wrote. “Your duties are imperative to ensure the end result – a win in Georgia for President Trump – but will be hampered unless we have complete secrecy and discretion.”

Kerik’s attorney, Tim Parlatore, confirmed to CNN that his client is the unnamed individual listed in the indictment as co-conspirator 5. The indictment refers to co-conspirator 5 taking part in several meetings with lawmakers in Pennsylvania and Arizona, states Trump was contesting after the 2020 election.

That included the meeting Kerik attended at the White House on November 25, 2020, with a group of Pennsylvania legislators, along with Trump, then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Giuliani, Jenna Ellis and individual 6.

Parlatore took issue with Willis’ definition of co-conspirator in the case of Kerik, saying that the indictment only refers to him in the context of receiving emails and attending meetings.

The indictment says on November 25, 2020, Trump, Meadows, Giuliani, Ellis, Individuals 5 and 6 met at the White House with a group of Pennsylvania legislators.

According to the January 6 committee report, Waldron was among the visitors who were at the White House that day, along with Kerik and attorney Katherine Freiss. Cassidy Hutchinson, former aide to Meadows, explained that their conversation with the president touched on holding a special session of the Pennsylvania state legislature to appoint Trump electors.

The indictment also says on December 21, 2020, Sidney Powell, a defendant in the case, sent an email to Individuals 6, 21 and 22 that they were to immediately “receive a copy of all data” from Dominion’s voting systems in Michigan.

The Washington Post reported last August that the email stated Waldron was among the three people to receive the data, along with Conan Hayes and Todd Sanders.

Waldron is the only person who was involved in both the White House meeting and received the Powell email.

The indictment says Giuliani re-tweeted a post from co-conspirator 8 on December 7, 2020, calling upon Georgia voters to contact their local representatives and ask them to sign a petition for a special session to ensure “every legal vote is counted.” The date and content of the tweet match a tweet posted by Jones, who was at the time a state senator.

Jones, who was elected lieutenant governor in November, appears more than a dozen times throughout the indictment as co-conspirator 8, including as a fake elector.

After the 2020 election, Jones was calling for a special session of the Georgia legislature, something Gov. Brian Kemp and former Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan refused to do.

On Thursday, Pete Skandalakis, the executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys Council of Georgia, told CNN that he will appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Jones’ role in the state’s 2020 election interference case, after a judge blocked Willis from investigating him last year.

The indictment lists several emails sent to co-conspirator 9 related to preparations for the fake electors who met on December 14, 2020, including an email from Chesebro “to help coordinate with the other 5 contested States, to help with logistics of the electors in other States hopefully joining in casting their votes on Monday.”

According to emails obtained by the January 6 committee, that email was sent to an account belong to the Georgia GOP treasurer, which at the time was Brannan.

Co-conspirator 9 is also included in the indictment as one of the 13 unindicted co-conspirators who served as fake electors.

Co-conspirators 10 and 11 are Georgia GOP officials Carolyn Fisher and Vikki Consiglio

The indictment says on December 10, 2020, Ken Chesebro sent an email to Georgia state Republican Chair David Shafer and Individuals 9, 10 and 11, with documents that were to be used by Trump electors to create fake certificates.

The January 6 committee obtained as part of its evidence an email from Chesebro sent on December 10 sent to Shafer and three other email addresses. One is for Carolyn Fisher, the former Georgia GOP first vice chair, one is for the Georgia Republican Party treasurer and one is for the Georgia GOP assistant treasurer, the role Consiglio was serving in 2020.

The email contains attachments of memos and certificates that could be used to help swap out the Biden electors with a slate of electors for Trump.

Both co-conspirators 10 and 11 also served as fake electors in Georgia.

Co-conspirators 2 and 8-19 are the fake electors

Of the 30 unindicted co-conspirators, 13 are listed as the fake electors for Donald Trump, who signed papers “unlawfully falsely holding themselves out as the duly elected and qualified presidential electors from the State of Georgia,” according to the indictment.

Three of the 16 Georgia fake electors were charged in the indictment: David Shafer, Shawn Still and Cathleen Alston Latham.

The other 13 fake electors, according to the fake electors certificate published by the National Archives, are Jones (co-conspirator 8), Joseph Brannan (co-conspirator 9), James “Ken” Carroll, Gloria Godwin, David Hanna, Mark Hennessy, Mark Amick, John Downey, Daryl Moody, Brad Carver, CB Yadav and two others who appear to be Individuals 10 and 11.

Several of the fake electors who were not charged are only listed in the indictment for their role signing on as electors for Trump, while others, like Jones, appear in other parts of the indictment as being more actively involved with the alleged conspiracy.

The indictment says Individual 20 was part of a meeting at the White House on December 18, 2020, with Trump, Giuliani and Powell, known to have discussed the possibility of seizing voting machines.

The December 18 meeting featured prominently during some of the hearings from the January 6 committee. All but two of the outside advisers who attended have been named as co-defendants in the indictment already: former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn and former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne.

The meeting featured fiery exchanges between Trump’s White House lawyers and his team of outside advisers, including on whether to appoint Sidney Powell as special counsel to investigate voter fraud, according to the indictment and previous details that have been disclosed about the meeting.

The outside advisers famously got into a screaming match with Trump’s White House lawyers – Pat Cipollone and Eric Herschmann – at the Oval Office meeting. Cipollone and Herschmann, along with Meadows, pushed back intensely on the proposals, Cipollone and Herschmann testified to the January 6 committee.

Co-conspirators 21 and 22 are Conan Hayes and Todd Sanders

Co-conspirators 21 and 22 are Conan Hayes and Todd Sanders – who are both affiliated with Byrne’s America Project, a conservative advocacy group that contributed funding to Arizona’s Republican ballot audit. Hayes was a former surfer from Hawaii and Sanders has a cybersecurity background in the private sector.

The indictment says on Dec. 21, 2020, Sidney Powell sent an email to the chief operations officer of SullivanStrickler, saying that individual 6, who CNN identified as Waldron, along with individuals 21 and 22, were to immediately “receive a copy of all data” from Dominion’s voting systems in Michigan.

According to the Washington Post, Conan and Todd were the other two people listed on the email to receive the data.

The final eight co-conspirators listed in the indictment are connected to the effort to access voting machines in Georgia’s Coffee County.

Co-conspirator 25 and 29 are a Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan and analyst Jeffrey Lenberg

The indictment says that Misty Hampton allowed co-conspirators 25 and 29 to access non-public areas of the Coffee County elections office on January 18, 2021. Logan and Lenberg were the two outsiders granted access to the elections office that day by Hampton, according to surveillance video previously obtained by CNN. No one else was given access to the office that day, according to a CNN review of the footage.

The indictment also notes that co-conspirator 25 downloaded Coffee County election data that SullivanStrickler then had uploaded to a separate server. Documents previously obtained by CNN show five accounts that downloaded the data – one account belongs to Logan and none of them belong to Lenberg. Still, CNN could not definitively determine who exactly downloaded the data.

Logan and his company conducted the so-called Republican audit of the 2020 ballots cast in Arizona’s Maricopa County.

The indictment says that co-conspirator 28 “sent an e-mail to the Chief Operations Officer of SullivanStrickler LLC” directing him to transmit data copied from Coffee County to co-conspirator 30 and Powell. CNN has previously reported on emails Penrose and Powell arranged upfront payment to a cyber forensics firm that sent a team to Coffee County.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

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August 2, 2023
Trump rages as former acolytes turn against him under legal heat | CNN Politics

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CNN
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Donald Trump’s wealth, power and fame acted like a magnet for new associates keen to enter his orbit. But now, key figures who sought a share of his reflected glory are turning against him to save themselves.

The ex-president absorbed a trio of blows Tuesday that worsened his legal peril and underscored how the 2024 election – in which he is the front-runner for the GOP nomination – will play out in the courts rather than traditional voting battlegrounds.

In the most significant development, ABC News reported that Trump’s former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, had met federal prosecutors multiple times and had categorically undermined the ex-president’s narrative about a stolen election. Meadows was the gatekeeper to the Oval Office in the critical days when Trump was allegedly plotting to steal the 2020 election after voters rejected his bid for a second term. CNN has reached out to Meadows’ attorney for comment.

In another damaging twist, former Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis, who blanketed television networks after President Joe Biden’s victory to falsely claim he was elected because of fraud, reached a plea deal with Georgia prosecutors. Ellis on Tuesday tearfully confessed to the felony of aiding and abetting false statements that she and other lawyers told Peach State lawmakers. She was the third former Trump acolyte to agree to testify against the ex-president and others this week. The election subversion prosecution brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is now following the classic playbook of a racketeering case wherein smaller fish are peeled away for reduced sentences to secure their testimony against the alleged kingpin.

“If I knew then what I knew now, I would have declined to represent Donald Trump in these post-election challenges. I look back on this experience with deep remorse,” Ellis said.

Ellis was a comparatively junior figure in Trump’s schemes to overthrow the election, although there is reason to believe she was in critical meetings of interest to prosecutors. Her guilty plea also looks like terrible news for former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who also served as a Trump lawyer after the election and with whom Ellis worked closely.

Her repudiation of her own behavior marks an ominous omen for Trump because it shows that while falsehoods about election fraud are still a potent political force in the GOP and conservative media, it’s the truth that matters in court. Under the legal system, the former president could face a level of accountability that the US political system, which is still buckling under his influence, can’t match.

One of Trump’s former associates was feeling no remorse when he arrived in court in New York on Tuesday seeking to undermine another Trump legal defense. The former president’s longtime fixer, Michael Cohen, came face to face with his ex-boss for the first time in five years when he took the stand in a civil trial in which prosecutors are seeking to end Trump’s ability to do business in the state. Cohen has already gone to jail for tax fraud, making false statements to Congress and campaign finance violations – some of which were linked to his work for Trump before he launched his political career. Cohen once vowed to take a bullet for his former boss but has left no doubt that he’s been itching to testify against him for many months. While his own conviction raises credibility issues about his testimony, Cohen implicated Trump on Tuesday, saying his former boss directed him to inflate his net worth on financial statements.

“Heck of a reunion,” Cohen told reporters after testifying under Trump’s gaze.

Each of Tuesday’s legal dramas threatened to undermine Trump’s position in separate cases, to which he has pleaded not guilty, and emphasized how the Republican front-runner’s bid to recapture the White House will be shadowed by his criminal liability.

And for someone who has the exaggerated sense of loyalty harbored by Trump – albeit one that mostly goes one way – the spectacle of three former associates turning against him will be especially irksome.

While the crush of legal cases bearing down on him hasn’t diminished his dominance in the GOP presidential race, there are increasing signs that the courtroom pressure is beginning to grate on a former president who, in a lifetime of business, personal and political scrapes, has made an art form of dodging accountability.

In a rage-filled stream of consciousness on his Truth Social network on Tuesday night, Trump lashed out at the ABC report about Meadows.

“I don’t think Mark Meadows would lie about the Rigged and Stollen 2020 Presidential Election merely for getting IMMUNITY against Prosecution (PERSECUTION!),” the former president wrote.

“Some people would make that deal, but they are weaklings and cowards, and so bad for the future our Failing Nation. I don’t think that Mark Meadows is one of them, but who really knows? MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”

This came only a day after Trump absurdly compared himself to Nelson Mandela, who spent 27 years in prison – much of it in a tiny cell on Robben Island – enduring forced labor in a quarry for opposing the racist apartheid system in South Africa. After his release, the Nobel Peace Prize winner remade his divided nation as president and became a symbol of unity, humility, racial healing and forgiveness – qualities rarely shown by Trump.

“I don’t mind being Nelson Mandela, because I’m doing it for a reason,” the ex-president told supporters in New Hampshire.

Trump’s persecution complex is revealing, however. The former president is portraying himself as a bulwark against a government that he claims is weaponized against him and his supporters. The idea that he is a political martyr who is being unfairly targeted by the Biden administration – despite 91 charges across his four criminal indictments – may be his only credible campaign tactic. After all, he may be a convicted felon by Election Day in less than 13 months. While that prospect doesn’t seem to faze Republican primary voters, it may be a serious vulnerability among a broader electorate.

Legal watchers in Washington have speculated for months about the activity of Meadows, a former North Carolina congressman who became the last chief of staff of Trump’s turbulent White House term.

During his testimony before a federal grand jury, Meadows was also asked about efforts to overturn the election as well as Trump’s handling of classified documents, CNN previously reported.

But if, as ABC News has reported, he has been granted immunity by special counsel Jack Smith and met federal prosecutors multiple times, that qualifies for the over-used term of “bombshell.”

Haberman on why latest news on Mark Meadows feels ‘different’

Meadows is also a key figure in the Fulton County, Georgia, probe, where he made a failed effort to have his case elevated to federal court after unsuccessfully arguing his actions at the behest of Trump’s election thwarting effort fell under his official duties.

Meadows, who met Smith’s team at least three times this year, told investigators he did not believe the election was stolen and that Trump was being “dishonest” in claiming victory shortly after polls closed in 2020, according to ABC.

The agreement is the first publicly known in the special counsel’s investigation into the events around January 6, 2021. The exact terms of Meadows’ deal with prosecutors are not clear, but often such agreements allow a person with valuable information about an investigation immunity from prosecution in exchange for fully cooperating.

The reported details of Meadows’ testimony could be hugely damaging for Trump because a fundamental plank of the ex-president’s defense relies on the notion that he sincerely believed that the election was stolen and that his actions were not therefore criminal because they were an exercise of his right to free speech.

It has long been the case that while those around Trump in business and politics often find themselves slipping deep into legal trouble, he skips free. The apparent decisions of Meadows, Ellis and Cohen – together with the mass of legal threats now facing the former president – suggest that charmed life is about to meet its biggest challenge yet.

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August 2, 2023
What we know about the document Trump mentioned in the taped Bedminster meeting | CNN Politics
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Washington
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The tape of a conversation with Donald Trump and others made at his golf club in New Jersey has become perhaps the most critical publicly known evidence in the federal indictment against the former president.

Special counsel Jack Smith has charged Trump with mishandling classified information after leaving the White House. And the recording – parts of which were made public by CNN earlier this week – features Trump in July 2021 discussing what he called a “highly confidential” Pentagon document that contained “secret” US military plans to attack Iran.

Trump has offered a firehose of differing and contradictory explanations of what he claimed happened. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Here’s a breakdown of what we know about the document, and what Trump has said about it.

Prosecutors revealed some key details in their 44-page indictment against Trump. Importantly, prosecutors said Trump “showed and described” the document during the recorded meeting.
The audiotape was recorded on July 21, 2021.

The meeting was at Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey.

Trump attended the meeting with two of his staffers, plus a writer and a publisher.

None of the people in the room with Trump had security clearances.
CNN and other news outlets reported that one of the Trump staffers was Margo Martin, a communications specialist, who previously worked with Trump during his presidency. The other staffer in the room was Liz Harrington, a Trump spokesperson.

The writer and publisher were there to interview Trump for the then-upcoming autobiography of Mark Meadows, who was Trump’s final chief of staff.

Meadows’ memoir, which was released in December 2021, appears to reference the meeting.

“The president recalls a four-page report typed up by Mark Milley himself,” Meadows’ book says, referring to the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. “It contained the general’s own plan to attack Iran, deploying massive numbers of troops, something he urged President Trump to do more than once during his presidency. President Trump denied those requests every time.”

The book additionally bashes Milley for bad-mouthing Trump in the press. During the taped meeting, Trump is heard using the “highly classified” Iran attack plan to push back on Milley’s public comments that Trump tried to start a war.

Before indicting Trump, federal investigators asked witnesses about the Bedminster tape and the Pentagon document, while they were testifying to the grand jury. Investigators also questioned Milley.

The special counsel’s grand jury also heard from Martin, the Trump aide who attended the Bedminster meeting. Immediately after her testimony, prosecutors issued a new subpoena to Trump, demanding that he return the Pentagon document about Iran, and related material.

Trump’s team turned over some Milley-related documents, but said it couldn’t find the specific document that Trump mentioned during the meeting with Meadows’ biographers.

Prosecutors charged Trump with mishandling 31 sensitive documents, though it’s unclear if any of the charges pertain to the Iran attack plan. Regardless, prosecutors quoted extensively from the Bedminster tape in the indictment, demonstrating that after leaving the White House, Trump knew he still possessed sensitive government secrets, and that they hadn’t been declassified.

George Conway reacts to newly obtained audio of Trump discussing classified documents

Trump has offered several convoluted and contradictory explanations about the Bedminster meeting.

At a CNN town hall on May 11, Trump was asked if he showed classified documents to anyone after leaving office. He said, “Not really. I would have the right to. By the way, they were declassified.” When pressed again on the same question, he said, “Not that I can think of.”

After his indictment, but before the tape became public, Trump ramped up his denial, telling Fox News “there was no document” shown at Bedminster, just news clippings.

“There was no document. That was a massive amount of papers and everything else talking about Iran and other things,” Trump said in the interview which aired on June 19. “And it may have been held up or may not, but that was not a document. I didn’t have a document, per se. There was nothing to declassify. These were newspaper stories, magazine stories and articles.”

But CNN’s report Monday about the Bedminster tape revealed that Trump told those in the room, “These are the papers,” while discussing the Iran plans. That line was not in the indictment.

After a 2024 campaign event Wednesday in New Hampshire, Trump told Fox News that after leaving the White House, he held onto “copies of different plans” as well as “newspaper articles” and magazine clippings. His comment about possessing “plans” raised eyebrows, because it was seen as an indication that he did in fact mishandle the US attack plan for Iran.

Shortly after those comments, a Trump campaign spokesperson told CNN Trump was referring to “political plans.”

Trump later told reporters he was actually referring to “plans for a golf course” and “building plans.” He also repeated his denial that he “didn’t have documents.”
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June 28, 2023
Trump lawyers told DOJ they couldn’t find classified doc discussed in audio

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Attorneys for former President Donald Trump have informed the Justice Department that they have been unable to locate a classified document related to Iran sought by investigators that was discussed during a recorded meeting, two people with knowledge of the case confirmed to CBS News.

The classified document in question came to the Justice Department’s attention through an audio file it obtained in the course of special counsel Jack Smith’s probe into the former president’s retention of sensitive records and alleged obstruction of the investigation. The audio, recorded by a Trump aide, includes remarks Trump made to two ghostwriters for his last White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, related to Iran and how to confront it militarily, the people said, requesting anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

One person said it was not clear if the document exists, or if Trump was misidentifying something to the group assembled during the recording. They added that the tape is in the possession of prosecutors.

CNN first reported the existence of the recording and that Trump’s lawyers told the Justice Department that they were unable to find the classified document referenced.

The recording — from a July 2021 meeting at Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey — is a crucial piece of evidence that prosecutors obtained in recent months and presented in grand jury proceedings examining the former president’s actions related to sensitive records, CBS News has previously reported.

CBS News has reported that, according to two people familiar with the matter, Trump can be heard on the recording conceding that there were national security restrictions on the classified memo because it detailed a potential attack on Iran. It is not clear from the recording whether Trump was in possession of the document at the time or was just describing its contents to at least three people who were present during the meeting, the people said. CBS News has not listened to the audio.

Trump aide Margo Martin, who recorded the meeting, and the other individuals who were working on an autobiography of Meadows were present at the meeting, CBS News previously reported. The sources said that on the audio, the former president mentioned the classified document when he was talking about Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who according to The New Yorker, had fought in the last days of the Trump administration to keep the president from attacking Iran.

Witnesses brought before the grand jury, per the people with knowledge, have been asked about this exchange and any other mentions by Trump of any classified documents or maps or talk of Milley.

The subpoena for the document was issued in or around March, a person with knowledge said. The subpoena was first reported by CNN.

Representatives for Trump were unavailable for comment.

Robert Costa, Catherine Herridge and Robert Legare contributed reporting.

Trump Investigations

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June 2, 2023
Appeals court rejects Trump’s motion to block Mark Meadows, former aides from testifying in special counsel probe

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Washington – A federal appeals court in Washington has denied former President Donald Trump’s attempt to shield his one-time chief of staff Mark Meadows and other top aides from testifying before a grand jury in special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into Trump’s actions around the 2020 presidential election and his alleged role in the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol attack.

Trump had appealed D.C. District Chief Judge Beryl Howell’s rejection in March of his claims of executive privilege over the testimony of his former advisers. Howell’s decision had compelled a group of aides to testify in the probe.

The sealed case appeared on the appeals court’s federal docket in late March with little identifying information, followed by a sealed emergency request on Monday that the appeals court intervene before the aides were called to testify. Tuesday’s order — from Judges Patricia Millett, Robert Wilkins, and Gregory Katsas — indicated that the request had been denied. Grand jury proceedings remain shielded from public view under federal law.

The decision came as Trump was about to be arraigned in Manhattan Tuesday on charges related to a “hush money” payment made to adult film star Stormy Daniels.

While some of the former president’s aides — including former national security adviser Robert O’Brien and top White House aide Stephen Miller — have complied with subpoenas from Smith’s office to appear before a grand jury, they have not testified about their interactions and exchanges with Trump, citing possible executive privilege concerns, according to people familiar with the matter. Both men, spotted in the federal courthouse where the special counsel convenes grand juries in the Trump matters over the last few months, were included in Howell’s March 15 order.

Trump has unsuccessfully sought to shield many of his former White House aides from special counsel subpoenas, arguing to Howell that his conversations and communications with aides while he was president are protected from scrutiny. Howell – whose term as chief judge expired last month – largely rejected those claims and compelled many of the witnesses to testify.

The ruling comes as the new chief judge, James Boasberg, ruled this week that Trump’s claims of executive privilege over former Vice President Mike Pence’s testimony did not hold up. Boasberg ordered Pence to testify about Trump’s effort to reverse the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, rejecting the former president’s arguments. The judge did in part rule in Pence’s favor, ordering prosecutors to refrain from asking Pence about his role as president of the Senate during the Capitol riot, which Pence argued was constitutionally protected by the separation of powers.

Pence said he is consulting with legal counsel on the next steps and will follow the law.

The former president has consistently denied any wrongdoing and has criticized Smith’s investigation as partisan.

Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Smith, a former federal prosecutor, to oversee the Jan. 6 investigation and the Justice Department’s probe into the mishandling of classified documents from Trump’s time in office.

Evan Corcoran, Trump’s defense attorney, was forced to testify before a grand jury in the records case on Friday after Howell ruled that attorney-client privilege did not apply.

A spokesperson for the former president did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Robert Costa contributed reporting.

Assault On The U.S. Capitol

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April 4, 2023
Concern grows over violent rhetoric amid Trump’s legal battles

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Concern grows over violent rhetoric amid Trump’s legal battles – CBS News

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There are new fears of violence regarding the rhetoric surrounding former President Donald Trump’s legal battles. On Friday, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg received a threatening letter containing white powder. Trump is awaiting a New York grand jury’s decision on a possible indictment. CBS News chief election and campaign correspondent Robert Costa discussed the latest on Trump’s legal woes.

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March 24, 2023
Judge Rejects Trump’s Claims Of Executive Power, Orders Aides To Testify In Jan. 6 Probe

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A federal judge has ordered several top aides to former President Donald Trump to testify before a grand jury as part of a criminal investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, according to Friday reports by ABC News and CNN.

Trump’s legal team tried to claim executive privilege to get his former aides out of testifying and providing documents to special counsel Jack Smith, who had issued subpoenas as part of a broader probe into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the U.S. Capitol. But in a sealed order last week, Judge Beryl Howell rejected Trump’s efforts and ordered Mark Meadows, his former chief of staff, to testify, among others.

Howell also ordered testimony from John Ratcliffe, Trump’s former director of national intelligence; Robert O’Brien, his former national security adviser; Stephen Miller, his former top aide; and Dan Scavino, his former deputy chief of staff.

Ken Cuccinelli, a former top official at the Department of Homeland Security, was also included in the judge’s order. So were former Trump aides Nick Luna and John McEntee.

Trump’s legal team is expected to appeal Howell’s decision, per ABC News.

Howell in October rejected Trump’s claim of executive privilege to block testimony from some of former Vice President Mike Pence’s top aides, Greg Jacob and Marc Short. In that decision, the judge ruled that it’s up to the current president to assert executive privilege, not a former president.

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March 24, 2023
Highlights from the latest release of January 6 transcripts | CNN Politics

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CNN
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The House January 6 committee on Sunday released another wave of witness interview transcripts.

The new release is part of a steady stream of transcript drops from the House select committee in recent days, complementing the release of its sweeping 845-page report.

The latest transcript drop comes as the panel winds down its work with the House majority set to change hands from Democrats to Republicans on Tuesday at the start of the new Congress.

The transcripts released so far have shed new light on how the House committee conducted its investigation of the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol – and new details about what key witnesses told the panel.

Here are some of the highlights from the latest disclosures:

Mark Meadows, former President Donald Trump’s White House chief of staff, provided the select committee with 6,600 pages of email records and approximately 2,000 text messages, according to a transcript of a deposition for which Meadows did not appear in December 2021.

Investigators ran through some of the items they had hoped to ask Meadows about if he had appeared, including a December 2020 email from Meadows stating, “Rudy was put in charge. That was the President’s decision,” according to the committee transcript.

The committee also hoped to ask Meadows about certain passages in his book, specific text message exchanges and his outreach to the Justice Department “encouraging investigations of suspected voter fraud.” The committee also planned to ask Meadows about his communications regarding deploying the National Guard on January 6, “including a January 5th email from Mr. Meadows in which he indicates that the Guard would be present at the Capitol to, quote, ‘protect 153 pro-Trump people,’ end quote.”

The committee similarly convened no-show deposition meetings for former Trump aide Dan Scavino, former Trump administration official Peter Navarro and right-wing media personality Steve Bannon, who previously worked in the Trump White House. The brief transcripts of those meetings document the failure of the witnesses to appear and communications the committee had with the witnesses or their representatives.

In a transcript with Alexandra Preate, who worked as a spokeswoman for Bannon, the committee asked about their text exchanges. In one, the two appeared to be discussing – days after the Capitol was attacked – 1 million people surrounding the Capitol after Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20, 2021.

The committee interviewer quotes Bannon’s text as saying, “I’d surround the Capitol in total silence.”

When asked if she and Bannon talked about bringing people back to Washington, DC, even after January 6, Preate said, “I don’t recall that” and it was “not my deal.” Preate also said she believes Trump lost the election.

Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel told the committee that the former president called her on January 1, 2021, and asked her about her relationship with then-Vice President Mike Pence.

“I do have a recollection of him asking me what my relationship was with the Vice President, and I said I didn’t know him very well,” McDaniel told the select committee, according to a transcript.

McDaniel said she could not recall if they specifically discussed the role Pence would play in certifying the Electoral College vote five days after that call. But McDaniel said that later on, after the US Capitol attack, Trump conveyed to her privately “in one way or another that, you know, the Vice President had the authority to – I don’t know the correct legal term, but he had the authority to not accept the electors.”

She also said Trump called her on January 7 but they did not talk about the attack.

The panel revealed during its hearings over the summer that Trump called McDaniel directly in December to tell her about the plan for a group of states to submit alternate slates of electors and connected her to his elections lawyer John Eastman, but her full transcript reveals more details about what was shared between the RNC, Trump White House and the Trump campaign at the time.

In the lead-up to January 6, McDaniel testified that she did not know that the alternate slates of electors were being considered for anything other than contingent electors in case legal challenges changed state election results. She added she was not privy to a lot of those discussions and that she was going through ankle surgery around the time of the Capitol attack.

McDaniel told committee investigators that after that December call, she called the Trump campaign’s counsel Justin Clark, who gave her the impression that the campaign was aware of the so-called alternate elector plan and was working on it. She also testified that on December 14, when she was informed that false electors met, she sent a note to former Trump White House aide Molly Michael.

As for fundraising emails from the RNC about the 2020 election, McDaniel said the RNC worked closely with Clark but that once Giuliani took over Trump’s legal efforts, he “was doing his own thing and didn’t really reach out to the RNC.”

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January 1, 2023
Jan. 6 takeaways: Final revelations from investigation

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Destroyed documents. Suggestions of pardoning violent rioters. Quiet talks among cabinet officials about whether then-President Donald Trump should be removed from office.

Interview transcripts released by House investigators in recent days — more than 100 so far — give further insight into the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and the weeks leading up to it, as Trump tried to overturn his defeat in the presidential election. The nine-member committee conducted more than 1,000 interviews, and the lawmakers are gradually releasing hundreds of transcripts after issuing a final report last week. The panel will dissolve on Tuesday when the new Republican-led House is sworn in.

While some of the witnesses were more forthcoming than others, the interviews altogether tell the full story of Trump’s unprecedented scheming, the bloody chaos of the attack on the Capitol and the fears of lawmakers and the Republican former president’s own aides as he tried to upend democracy and the popular will.

Some highlights from the interview transcripts released so far:

WHITE HOUSE AIDE TELLS ALL

Previously little-known White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson drew national attention when she testified in a surprise hearing this summer about Trump’s words and actions around the Jan. 6 attack — his rage after security thwarted his efforts to go to the Capitol that day with his supporters and how he knew that some of his supporters were armed.

The committee has so far released four of her closed-door interviews, revealing new details about what she said she observed in her time as an aide to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. Among other revelations, Hutchinson told the committee she had seen Meadows burning documents in his office fireplace “roughly a dozen times” after the 2020 election.

She said she didn’t know what the documents were or whether they were items that legally should have been preserved. A spokesman for Meadows declined to comment.

Hutchinson also spoke at length about her moral struggles as she decided how much to disclose — even doing research on Watergate figures who similarly testified about working in President Richard Nixon’s White House.

“My character and my integrity mean more to me than anything,” Hutchinson says she decided, returning to the committee with a new lawyer in June after three previous interviews.

PARDONS FOR EVERYONE?

After the insurrection, Trump floated the idea of a blanket pardon for all participants, but the White House counsel at the time, Pat Cipollone, discouraged the idea, according to testimony from Johnny McEntee, an aide who served as director of the presidential personnel office and was interviewed by the panel in March.

Trump then asked about limiting pardons to only those people who entered the Capitol but who did not engage in violence, but that idea was also met with some pushback, McEntee recalled. He said Trump appeared persuaded by the advice and said he was not aware that the idea ever came up again.

Separately, McEntee said that Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., told him he was seeking a preemptive pardon from Trump as he faced a federal child sex trafficking investigation. Gaetz did not receive such a pardon and has not faced any charges in connection to the probe.

Hutchinson testified that Meadows’ office became so inundated with pardon requests at the end of Trump’s term that some turned to Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner to help facilitate.

THE 25TH AMENDMENT

The panel interviewed several of Trump’s Cabinet secretaries about discussions of invoking Section 4 of the 25th Amendment — the forceful removal of Trump from power by his own Cabinet. While some acknowledged it had been discussed, it appears that it was never a likely scenario.

Former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says he spoke fleetingly with then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo about the idea after the insurrection.

“It came up very briefly in our conversation,” Mnuchin testified in July. “We both believed that the best outcome was a normal transition of power, which was working, and neither one of us contemplated in any serious format the 25th Amendment.”

Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the committee he witnessed a brief conversation between the two Cabinet secretaries in the White House and heard the phrase “25th Amendment.” His transcript has not yet been released, but investigators quoted Milley’s interview to both Pompeo and Mnuchin in their interviews.

Pompeo told the committee he didn’t recall the conversation. “I would have viewed someone speaking about the potential of invoking the 25th Amendment as just absolutely preposterous,” he said.

Vice President Mike Pence later dismissed the idea in a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., saying the mechanism should be reserved for when a president is medically or mentally incapacitated.

Pence chief of staff Marc Short told the panel he thought the talk was “a political game.” The process would have taken weeks to play out, he said, and Democrat Joe Biden was set to be inaugurated Jan. 20.

TRUMP FAMILY TESTIFIES

The committee interviewed two of the former president’s children, Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump, about their conversations with their father during the Jan. 6 attack and in the days before and after.

Trump Jr. did not answer many of the committee’s questions, frequently saying he did not recall events or conversations. He did explain why he texted Meadows the afternoon of Jan. 6, as the attack was unfolding, to say that his father needed to “condemn this s—” immediately and that Trump’s tweets had not been strong enough. “My father doesn’t text,” Trump Jr. said.

Ivanka Trump, who was in the White House with her father on Jan. 6, was also vague in many of her answers. She spoke with the committee about working with her father to write his tweets that day, encouraging him to make a strong statement as the rioters broke into the Capitol. And she testified that she heard Trump’s side of a “heated” phone call with Pence that morning as her father tried to encourage Pence to object to the congressional certification that day. Pence refused to do so.

She also testified that she received a call and a text from Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who was in the Capitol as it was under siege. Collins told her that “the president needs to put out a very strong tweet telling people to go home and to stop the violence now.”

‘GIVE ME FIVE DEAD VOTERS’

Trump lawyer Christina Bobb testified that Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a top ally of Trump, asked some of the former president’s advisers for evidence of fraud so he could “champion” it after the election. Trump falsely claimed there had been widespread fraud, despite court rulings and election officials in all 50 states who said otherwise.

Graham told lawyers he would love to support the cause.

“Don’t tell me everything because it’s too overwhelming,” Bobb quotes Graham as saying. “Just give me five dead voters; give me, you know, an example of illegals voting. Just give me a very small snapshot that I can take and champion.”

He did nothing with the information he was given, Bobb said. Graham voted on Jan. 6 to certify Biden’s presidential election win.

NATIONAL GUARD FRUSTRATION

The mob that stormed the Capitol would have faced a much harsher law enforcement response had it been comprised mostly of African Americans, testified retired Army Maj. Gen. William Walker, who led the D.C. National Guard at the time. Walker is now the House sergeant at arms.

“I’m African American. Child of the sixties,” Walker testified. “I think it would have been a vastly different response if those were African Americans trying to breach the Capitol. As a career law enforcement officer, part-time soldier … the law enforcement response would have been different.”

The National Guard didn’t arrive at the Capitol for several hours, leaving overwhelmed police officers at the mercy of the violent mob as Pentagon officials said they were sorting out the necessary approvals. More than 100 officers were injured, many seriously, as Trump’s supporters beat them and ran over them to get inside.

Walker expressed deep frustration with the delays and says he even considered breaking the chain of command and sending the troops with authorization. Lawyers advised him strongly not to do so, he said.

He said he didn’t think the holdup was because the insurrectionists were mostly white.

“I don’t think race was part of the military’s decision paralysis,” he said in his April interview, adding, “I think they just didn’t want to do it.”

EXTREMIST GROUP LEADERS

Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio asserted his 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination in response to some questions, with his attorney at times telling investigators his client did not belong to the extremist group, whose associates are now facing rare sedition charges in a federal case prosecuted by the Justice Department. But Tarrio himself told investigators he took the title of chairman.

Tarrio, who had been released from jail on the eve of the insurrection, wasn’t present for the attack. But prosecutors claim he kept command over the Proud Boys who attacked Congress and cheered them on from afar. Proud Boys were some of the first rioters to break through the Capitol perimeter.

He told the panel that the first degree of membership in the Proud Boys is “that you are a Western chauvinist” and that you “refuse to apologize for creating the modern world.”

Tarrio met Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the extremist group Oath Keepers, in a garage the night of Jan. 5, ahead of the attack. “I still don’t like Stewart Rhodes,” Tarrio said.

Rhodes, who was also interviewed by the panel, was convicted in November of seditious conspiracy for what prosecutors said was a plot for an armed rebellion to stop the transfer of presidential power. They said Rhodes rallied his followers to fight to defend Trump and discussed the prospect of a “bloody” civil war.

In his February testimony to the panel, Rhodes spoke at length about his views of the world but declined to answer any questions about his involvement on Jan. 6 and amassing weapons. He said he feels like a political prisoner.

“I feel like a Jew in Germany, frankly,” Rhodes told the committee.

___

Associated Press writers Nomaan Merchant, Farnoush Amiri, Lisa Mascaro and Michael Balsamo contributed to this report.

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December 30, 2022
Mark Meadows burned documents, testimony reveals: CBS News Flash Dec. 29, 2022

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Mark Meadows burned documents, testimony reveals: CBS News Flash Dec. 29, 2022 – CBS News

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The January 6 committee released another batch of documents, detailing how then-chief of staff to former President Trump — Mark Meadows — burned documents during the transition period, according to key witness Cassidy Hutchinson. TikTok has been banned from electronic devices managed by the House due to security concerns. And New Yorkers flocked to Times Square to celebrate the annual “Good Riddance Day,” throwing scrawled messages about this year’s disappointments into the trash.

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December 29, 2022
Trump White House took QAnon theories seriously, former aide says: CBS News Flash Dec. 28, 2022

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Trump White House took QAnon theories seriously, former aide says: CBS News Flash Dec. 28, 2022 – CBS News

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Trump White House took QAnon theories seriously, former aide saysThe January 6 committee has released more transcripts, including from interviews of Cassidy Hutchinson — the former aide to Mark Meadows, former President Trump’s chief of staff. She discusses how QAnon theories were taken seriously. In a now viral TikTok video, two friends are seen being harassed at a California In-N-Out Burger. A Denver man, who hurled racist and homophobic slurs, was later charged with a hate crime. And Wednesday night’s Kennedy Center Honors airs on CBS at 8 p.m. EST.

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December 28, 2022
Jan. 6 committee transcripts show link between Trump and Nevada fake electors

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New transcripts of closed-door testimony to the Jan. 6 House committee show Donald Trump and his allies had a direct hand in the Nevada Republican Party’s scheme to send a phony electoral certificate to Congress in 2020 in a last-ditch attempt to keep the former president in power.

The documents made public Wednesday evening included interviews with state party leader Michael McDonald and Republican National Committeeman Jim DeGraffenreid in February. Both men served as fake electors in Carson City on Dec. 14, 2020.

That day, six Nevada GOP members signed certificates falsely stating that Trump won Nevada in 2020 and sent them to Congress and the National Archives, where they were ultimately ignored. The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol is digging into the role that these fake electors in key battleground states had in Trump’s attempt to cling to power after his 2020 defeat.

McDonald and DeGraffenreid invoked Fifth Amendment protection hundreds of times in their separate interviews with the Jan. 6 committee, refusing to answer questions about their involvement and the extent to which Trump’s top allies had helped in orchestrating the plot.

But the transcripts still provide a view into the Trump team’s coordinated efforts in Nevada to overturn the results of the election — efforts that included direct communication between McDonald and the president himself.

According to the transcript of McDonald’s interview, on Nov. 4, 2020, the day after the election, McDonald said in a text exchange, “I have been on the phone this morning with the President (Trump), Eric Trump, Mark Meadows, and Rudy Giuliani. There is a major plan.”

“They want full attack mode,” McDonald later wrote in another text message describing that call. “We’re gonna have a war room meeting in about an hour.”

Both McDonald and DeGraffenreid turned over their communications to the Jan. 6 committee related to the fake elector scheme. The FBI also seized McDonald’s cellphone in June as part of an investigation into the scheme.

Those documents, detailed at length in the transcripts, included text messages, emails and internal memorandums distributed by the national GOP arm; handwritten charts, templates for press releases and the phony certificate itself; and talking points “explaining the rationale for the electors.”

The planning was extensive, the transcripts show, and began as early as four days before the election, when state party officials began discussing whether Nevada’s Republican secretary of state, Barbara Cegavske, would sign off on the alternate slate of electors.

DeGraffenreid, in a text conversation with party officials, said Cegavske “might do a lot of things, but sending a slate of Republican electors without them being clearly the winners of the popular vote is not one of them.”

Cegavske ultimately certified President Joe Biden’s victory in Nevada, defending the results as reliable and accurate despite attacks from Trump and others within her own party, which led the Nevada Republican Party to censure her. She later conducted an investigation that found no credible evidence of widespread voter fraud throughout the state.

Meanwhile, the day before the slate of fake electors met, the transcripts show McDonald grew increasingly frustrated with the RNC’s direction over how to conduct the certificate signing. It appeared that he had gone back and forth with the RNC about logistics of the ceremony: the location, how they would publicize it and what they would say in their speeches.

“RNC essentially put us in a box on what we can say, but doesn’t sound too bad,” Shawn Meehan, one of the fake electors, said in a text to DeGraffenreid.

Meehan also told DeGraffenreid that McDonald wanted a smaller group that would plan the final details over breakfast, and that he is “stressing on the optics.” It was visible to several of the fake electors — that same day, another fake elector had texted DeGraffenreid that McDonald was upset with “mixed messages and direction on publicity for tomorrow.”

“He’s very concerned RNC will cut cord if it looks bad and steal credit if we do well,” Meehan messaged.

“I know,” DeGraffenreid responded. “He’s concerned that we look like foolish crybabies.”

Ultimately, the Nevada Republican Party would press forward, and after nearly two months of planning, McDonald, DeGraffenreid and the other fake electors gathered outside the Capitol building in Carson City for a ceremony.

“History made today in Carson City, Nevada,” the state party would write on social media after the ceremony, “as @McDonaldNV leads our electors in casting Nevada’s 6 electoral votes for the winner of Nevada, @realDonaldTrump and @Mike_Pence!”

McDonald did not immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday evening. A lawyer for DeGraffenreid said he declined to comment.

The nine-member committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot will dissolve when Republicans take over the House next month. The committee on Thursday released its full 800-plus page report of its 18-month investigation, which they hope will lead to criminal charges against Trump and his key allies.

Assault On The U.S. Capitol

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December 23, 2022
‘He knows he lost’: Cassidy Hutchinson testified that Trump acknowledged he lost 2020 election | CNN Politics

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Washington
CNN
—

Shortly after the 2020 election was called for Joe Biden, then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows told his aide, Cassidy Hutchinson, that President Donald Trump knew he lost but wanted to keep fighting to overturn the results, according to a newly released transcript from the House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection.

The transcript of Hutchinson’s September 14, 2022, interview with the committee, which took place after she testified publicly, was released Thursday by the panel. It details post-election conversations that Hutchinson described, where multiple people said Trump acknowledged he had lost but was unwilling to concede.

Hutchinson testified that Meadows told her on November 18, 2020, that Trump “has pretty much acknowledged that he’s lost,” the transcript says.

“A lot of times he’ll tell me that he lost, but he wants to keep fighting it, and he thinks that there might be enough to overturn the election,” Meadows told Hutchinson that day about Trump, according to her retelling of the conversation.

Hutchinson also testified that in late December 2020, Meadows lamented to her that Trump would get upset any time he mentioned the transition, telling the committee that Meadows said something to the effect of: “he’s just so angry at me all the time I can’t talk to him about anything post-White House without him getting mad that we didn’t win.”

“Later in the interview, Hutchinson told the committee she spoke with Meadows immediately after a call with Georgia officials on January 2, 2021, where Trump pushed officials to help overturn the election results there.”

“He said something to the effect of, ‘he knows it’s over. He knows he lost. But we are going to keep trying. There’s a chance he didn’t lose. I want to pull this off for him,’” Hutchinson said, recounting what Meadows told her about Trump.

In a September 15 deposition, Hutchinson echoed her testimony that she heard about Trump fighting with his security detail on January 6, according to another deposition transcript.

Hutchinson, who faced an onslaught of public criticism and pushback from Trump allies after she revealed the story she was told about Trump supposedly lunging at the driver of his presidential SUV on January 6, 2021, because he was angry that they wouldn’t take him to the US Capitol. During that public hearing, she said she heard the story from Tony Ornato, who was serving as deputy White House chief of staff at the time.

But after her public hearing and the avalanche of pushback, Hutchinson said she had “no doubts” about her previous testimony.

“I have no doubts in the conversation that I had with Mr. Ornato on January 6th. I have no doubts in how I’ve relayed that story privately and publicly” Hutchinson said, according to the transcript, which was released Thursday.

She also shared that Ornato made “sarcastic offhand remarks” to her about the story at least two times after he initially mentioned it – on January 19 and April 16 – according to the transcript.

“I have no doubts about the two instances on January 19th and April 16th about the conversation,” Hutchinson added.

In the April 16 call, Hutchinson described a phone conversation to committee investigators where Ornato made a comment like “it could be worse. The president could have tried to kill – he didn’t say kill – the president could have tried to strangle you on January 6.”

Hutchinson acknowledged that Ornato did not specify he was referring to the incident on January 6 but she said, “I assumed from the context of our phone call and from the conversations that we had had while still at the White House that he was referencing that incident. I have no reason to believe that he was referencing any other incident.”

In June, Hutchinson publicly testified that Ornato told her about an altercation between the former president and the head of his Secret Service detail when he was told he could not go to the Capitol on January 6.

The committee wrote in its report summary, which was released Monday, that they were unable to get Ornato to corroborate Hutchinson’s testimony about the alleged altercation in the presidential SUV.

The committee summary said both Hutchinson and a White House employee testified to the committee about the Ornato conversation. But “Ornato professed that he did not recall either communication, and that he had no knowledge at all about the president’s anger.”

The committee also released six more interview transcripts Thursday night, shedding new light on their closed-door sessions with key witnesses.

In one transcript, Sarah Matthews, a former White House deputy press secretary, told the committee that Trump tried to get then-White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany to hold briefings about supposed fraud tied to Dominion voting machines – but McEnany refused.

“She felt uncomfortable promoting the Dominion conspiracy theory, and that the president had asked her to talk about that during interviews” Matthews told committee investigators. “He did request her to do briefings on it as well, but we did not.”

Matthews added that Trump encouraged McEnany to also put forward these conspiracy theories on cable news hits, which she said made McEnany uncomfortable and led to her attempting to avoid Trump after the election.

Matthews testified publicly over the summer about how Trump’s conduct on January 6 led her to resign by the end of that day.

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December 23, 2022
New details emerge from transcripts of Jan. 6 committee’s witness interviews

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New details emerge from transcripts of Jan. 6 committee’s witness interviews – CBS News

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The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol is set to release its final report, and has also released transcripts of its interviews with key witnesses. CBS News congressional correspondent Nikole Killion has the latest from Capitol Hill. Then, CBS News chief election and campaign correspondent Robert Costa joined John Dickerson on “Prime Time” to discuss what we’ve learned from the transcripts.

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December 22, 2022
CBS Weekend News, December 17, 2022

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CBS Weekend News, December 17, 2022 – CBS News

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Jan. 6 House committee to meet Monday, could recommend criminal charges; University of Notre Dame athletes spread cheer to children fighting cancer

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December 17, 2022