ReportWire

Tag: trump criminal cases

  • 2023 In Review Fast Facts | CNN

    2023 In Review Fast Facts | CNN

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    Here is a look back at the events of 2023.

    January 3 – Republican Kevin McCarthy fails to secure enough votes to be elected Speaker of the House in three rounds of voting. On January 7, McCarthy is elected House speaker after multiple days of negotiations and 15 rounds of voting. That same day, the newly elected 118th Congress is officially sworn in.

    January 7 – Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, is pulled over for reckless driving. He is hospitalized following the arrest and dies three days later from injuries sustained during the traffic stop. Five officers from the Memphis Police Department are fired. On January 26, a grand jury indicts the five officers. They are each charged with second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression. On September 12, the five officers are indicted by a federal grand jury on several charges including deprivation of rights.

    January 9 – The White House counsel’s office confirms that several classified documents from President Joe Biden’s time as vice president were discovered last fall in an office at the Penn Biden Center. On January 12, the White House counsel’s office confirms a small number of additional classified documents were located in President Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware, home.

    January 13 – The Trump Organization is fined $1.6 million – the maximum possible penalty – by a New York judge for running a decade-long tax fraud scheme.

    January 21 – Eleven people are killed in a mass shooting at a dance studio in Monterey Park, California, as the city’s Asian American community was celebrating Lunar New Year. The 72-year-old gunman is found dead the following day from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

    January 24 – CNN reports that a lawyer for former Vice President Mike Pence discovered about a dozen documents marked as classified at Pence’s Indiana home last week, and he has turned those classified records over to the FBI.

    January 25 – Facebook-parent company Meta announces it will restore former President Donald Trump’s accounts on Facebook and Instagram in the coming weeks, just over two years after suspending him in the wake of the January 6 Capitol attack.

    February 1 – Tom Brady announces his retirement after 23 seasons in the NFL.

    February 2 – Defense officials announce the United States is tracking a suspected Chinese high-altitude surveillance balloon over the continental United States. On February 4, a US military fighter jet shoots down the balloon over the Atlantic Ocean. On June 29, the Pentagon reveals the balloon did not collect intelligence while flying over the country.

    February 3 – A Norfolk Southern freight train carrying hazardous materials derails in East Palestine, Ohio. An evacuation order is issued for the area within a mile radius of the train crash. The order is lifted on February 8. After returning to their homes, some residents report they have developed a rash and nausea.

    February 7 – Lebron James breaks the NBA’s all-time scoring record, surpassing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

    February 15 – Payton Gendron, 19, who killed 10 people in a racist mass shooting at a grocery store in a predominantly Black area of Buffalo last May, is sentenced to life in prison.

    February 18 – In a statement, the Carter Center says that former President Jimmy Carter will begin receiving hospice care at his home in Georgia.

    February 20 – President Biden makes a surprise trip to Kyiv for the first time since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine almost a year ago.

    February 23 – Disgraced R&B singer R. Kelly is sentenced to 20 years in prison in a Chicago federal courtroom on charges of child pornography and enticement of a minor. Kelly is already serving a 30-year prison term for his 2021 conviction on racketeering and sex trafficking charges in a New York federal court. Nineteen years of the 20-year prison sentence will be served at the same time as his other sentence. One year will be served after that sentence is complete.

    February 23 – Harvey Weinstein, who is already serving a 23-year prison sentence in New York, is sentenced in Los Angeles to an additional 16 years in prison for charges of rape and sexual assault.

    March 2 – SpaceX and NASA launch a fresh crew of astronauts on a mission to the International Space Station, kicking off a roughly six-month stay in space. The mission — which is carrying two NASA astronauts, a Russian cosmonaut and an astronaut from the United Arab Emirates — took off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

    March 2 – The jury in the double murder trial of Alex Murdaugh finds him guilty of murdering his wife and son. Murdaugh, the 54-year-old scion of a prominent and powerful family of local lawyers and solicitors, is also found guilty of two counts of possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime in the killings of Margaret “Maggie” Murdaugh and Paul Murdaugh on June 7, 2021.

    March 3 – Four US citizens from South Carolina are kidnapped by gunmen in Matamoros, Mexico, in a case of mistaken identity. On March 7, two of the four Americans, Shaeed Woodard and Zindell Brown, are found dead and the other two, Latavia McGee and Eric Williams, are found alive. The cartel believed responsible for the armed kidnapping issues an apology letter and hands over five men to local authorities.

    March 10 – The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation announces that Silicon Valley Bank was shut down by California regulators. This is the second largest bank failure in US history, only to Washington Mutual’s collapse in 2008. SVB Financial Group, the former parent company of SVB, files for bankruptcy on March 17.

    March 27 – A 28-year-old Nashville resident shoots and kills three children and three adults at the Covenant School in Nashville. The shooter is fatally shot by responding officers.

    March 29 – Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich is detained by Russian authorities and accused of spying. On April 7, he is formally charged with espionage.

    March 30 – A grand jury in New York votes to indict Trump, the first time in American history that a current or former president has faced criminal charges. On April 4, Trump surrenders and is placed under arrest before pleading not guilty to 34 felony criminal charges of falsifying business records. Prosecutors allege that Trump sought to undermine the integrity of the 2016 election through a hush money scheme with payments made to women who claimed they had extramarital affairs with Trump. He has denied the affairs.

    April 6 – Two Democratic members of the Tennessee House of Representatives, Rep. Justin Jones and Rep. Justin Pearson, are expelled while a third member, Rep. Gloria Johnson, is spared in an ousting by Republican lawmakers that was decried by the trio as oppressive, vindictive and racially motivated. This comes after Jones, Pearson and Johnson staged a demonstration on the House floor calling for gun reform following the shooting at the Covenant School. On April 10, Rep. Jones is sworn back in following a unanimous vote by the Nashville Metropolitan Council to reappoint him as an interim representative. On April 12, the Shelby County Board of Commissioners vote to confirm the reappointment of Rep. Pearson.

    April 6-13 – ProPublica reports that Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife, conservative activist Ginni Thomas, have gone on several luxury trips involving travel subsidized by and stays at properties owned by Harlan Crow, a GOP megadonor. The hospitality was not disclosed on Thomas’ public financial filings with the Supreme Court. The following week ProPublica reports Thomas failed to disclose a 2014 real estate deal he made with Crow. On financial disclosure forms released on August 31, Thomas discloses the luxury trips and “inadvertently omitted” information including the real estate deal.

    April 7 – A federal judge in Texas issues a ruling on medication abortion drug mifepristone, saying he will suspend the US Food and Drug Administration’s two-decade-old approval of it but paused his ruling for seven days so the federal government can appeal. But in a dramatic turn of events, a federal judge in Washington state says in a new ruling shortly after that the FDA must keep medication abortion drugs available in more than a dozen Democratic-led states.

    April 13 – 21-year-old Jack Teixeira, a member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard is arrested by the FBI in connection with the leaking of classified documents that have been posted online.

    April 18 – Fox News reaches a last-second settlement with Dominion Voting Systems, paying more than $787 million to end a two-year legal battle that publicly shredded the network’s credibility. Fox News’ $787.5 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems is the largest publicly known defamation settlement in US history involving a media company.

    April 25 – President Biden formally announces his bid for reelection.

    May 2 – More than 11,000 members of the Writers Guild of America (WGA) go on strike for the first time since 2007. On September 26, the WGA announces its leaders have unanimously voted to authorize its members to return to work following the tentative agreement reached on September 24 between union negotiators and Hollywood’s studios and streaming services, effectively ending the months-long strike.

    May 9 – A Manhattan federal jury finds Trump sexually abused former magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll in a luxury department store dressing room in the spring of 1996 and awards her $5 million for battery and defamation.

    June 8 – Trump is indicted on a total of 37 counts in the special counsel’s classified documents probe. In a superseding indictment filed on July 27, Trump is charged with one additional count of willful retention of national defense information and two additional obstruction counts, bringing the total to 40 counts.

    June 16 – Robert Bowers, the gunman who killed 11 worshippers at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue in 2018, is convicted by a federal jury on all 63 charges against him. He is sentenced to death on August 2.

    June 18 – A civilian submersible disappears with five people aboard while voyaging to the wreckage of the Titanic. On June 22, following a massive search for the submersible, US authorities announce the vessel suffered a “catastrophic implosion,” killing all five people aboard.

    June 20 – ProPublica reports that Justice Samuel Alito did not disclose a luxury 2008 trip he took in which a hedge fund billionaire flew him on a private jet, even though the businessman would later repeatedly ask the Supreme Court to intervene on his behalf. In a highly unusual move, Alito preemptively disputed the nature of the report before it was published, authoring an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal in which he acknowledged knowing billionaire Paul Singer but downplaying their relationship.

    June 29 – The Supreme Court says colleges and universities can no longer take race into consideration as a specific basis for granting admission, a landmark decision overturning long-standing precedent.

    July 13 – The FDA approves Opill to be available over-the-counter, the first nonprescription birth control pill in the United States.

    July 14 – SAG-AFTRA, a union representing about 160,000 Hollywood actors, goes on strike after talks with major studios and streaming services fail. It is the first time its members have stopped work on movie and television productions since 1980. On November 8, SAG-AFTRA and the studios reach a tentative agreement, officially ending the strike.

    July 14 – Rex Heuermann, a New York architect, is charged with six counts of murder in connection with the deaths of three of the four women known as the “Gilgo Four.”

    August 1 – Trump is indicted by a federal grand jury in Washington, DC, in the 2020 election probe. Trump is charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights.

    August 8 – Over 100 people are killed and hundreds of others unaccounted for after wildfires engulf parts of Maui. Nearly 3,000 homes and businesses are destroyed or damaged.

    August 14 – Trump and 18 others are indicted by an Atlanta-based grand jury on state charges stemming from their efforts to overturn the former president’s 2020 electoral defeat. Trump now faces a total of 91 charges in four criminal cases, in four different jurisdictions — two federal and two state cases. On August 24, Trump surrenders at the Fulton County jail where he is processed and released on bond.

    August 23 – Eight Republican presidential candidates face off in the first primary debate of the 2024 campaign in Milwaukee.

    September 12 – House Speaker McCarthy announces he is calling on his committees to open a formal impeachment inquiry into President Biden, even as they have yet to prove allegations he directly profited off his son’s foreign business deals.

    September 14 – Hunter Biden is indicted by special counsel David Weiss in connection with a gun he purchased in 2018, the first time in US history the Justice Department has charged the child of a sitting president. The three charges include making false statements on a federal firearms form and possession of a firearm as a prohibited person.

    September 22 – New Jersey Democratic Senator Bob Menendez is charged with corruption-related offenses for the second time in 10 years. Menendez and his wife, Nadine Arslanian Menendez, are accused of accepting “hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes” in exchange for the senator’s influence, according to the newly unsealed federal indictment.

    September 28 – Dianne Feinstein, the longest-serving female US senator in history, dies at the age of 90. On October 1, California Governor Gavin Newsom announces he will appoint Emily’s List president Laphonza Butler to replace her. Butler will become the first out Black lesbian to join Congress. She will also be the sole Black female senator serving in Congress and only the third in US history.

    September 29 – Las Vegas police confirm Duane Keith Davis, aka “Keffe D,” was arrested for the 1996 murder of rapper Tupac Shakur.

    October 3 – McCarthy is removed as House speaker following a 216-210 vote, with eight Republicans voting to remove McCarthy from the post.

    October 25 – After three weeks without a speaker, the House votes to elect Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana.

    October 25 – Robert Card, a US Army reservist, kills 18 people and injures 13 others in a shooting rampage in Lewiston, Maine. On October 27, after a two-day manhunt, he is found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot.

    November 13 – The Supreme Court announces a code of conduct in an attempt to bolster the public’s confidence in the court after months of news stories alleging that some of the justices have been skirting ethics regulations.

    November 19 – Former first lady Rosalynn Carter passes away at the age of 96.

    January 8 – Supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro storm the country’s congressional building, Supreme Court and presidential palace. The breaches come about a week after the inauguration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who defeated Bolsonaro in a runoff election on October 30.

    January 15 – At least 68 people are killed when an aircraft goes down near the city of Pokhara in central Nepal. This is the country’s deadliest plane crash in more than 30 years.

    January 19 – New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Arden announces she will not seek reelection in October.

    January 24 – President Volodymyr Zelensky fires a slew of senior Ukrainian officials amid a growing corruption scandal linked to the procurement of war-time supplies.

    February 6 – More than 15,000 people are killed and tens of thousands injured after a magnitude 7.8 earthquake strikes Turkey and Syria.

    February 28 – At least 57 people are killed after two trains collide in Greece.

    March 1 – Bola Ahmed Tinubu is declared the winner of Nigeria’s presidential election.

    March 10 – Xi Jinping is reappointed as president for another five years by China’s legislature in a ceremonial vote in Beijing, a highly choreographed exercise in political theater meant to demonstrate legitimacy and unity of the ruling elite.

    March 16 – The French government forces through controversial plans to raise the country’s retirement age from 62 to 64.

    April 4 – Finland becomes the 31st member of NATO.

    April 15 – Following months of tensions in Sudan between a paramilitary group and the country’s army, violence erupts.

    May 3 – A 13-year-old boy opens fire on his classmates at a school in Belgrade, Serbia, killing at least eight children along with a security guard. On May 4, a second mass shooting takes place when an attacker opens fire in the village of Dubona, about 37 miles southeast of Belgrade, killing eight people.

    May 5 – The World Health Organization announces Covid-19 is no longer a global health emergency.

    May 6 – King Charles’ coronation takes place at Westminster Abbey in London.

    August 4 – Alexey Navalny is sentenced to 19 years in prison on extremism charges, Russian media reports. Navalny is already serving sentences totaling 11-and-a-half years in a maximum-security facility on fraud and other charges that he says were trumped up.

    September 8 – Over 2,000 people are dead and thousands are injured after a 6.8-magnitude earthquake hits Morocco.

    October 8 – Israel formally declares war on the Palestinian militant group Hamas after it carried out an unprecedented attack by air, sea and land on October 7.

    November 8 – The Vatican publishes new guidelines opening the door to Catholic baptism for transgender people and babies of same-sex couples.

    November 24 – The first group of hostages is released after Israel and Hamas agree to a temporary truce. Dozens more hostages are released in the following days. On December 1, the seven-day truce ends after negotiations reach an impasse and Israel accuses Hamas of violating the agreement by firing at Israel.

    Awards and Winners

    January 9 – The College Football Playoff National Championship game takes place at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles. The Georgia Bulldogs defeat Texas Christian University’s Horned Frogs 65-7 for their second national title in a row.

    January 10 – The 80th Annual Golden Globe Awards are presented live on NBC.

    January 16-29 – The 111th Australian Open takes place. Novak Djokovic defeats Stefanos Tsitsipas in straight sets to win a 10th Australian Open title and a record-equaling 22nd grand slam. Belarusian-born Aryna Sabalenka defeats Elena Rybakina in three sets, becoming the first player competing under a neutral flag to secure a grand slam.

    February 5 – The 65th Annual Grammy Awards ceremony takes place in Los Angeles at the Crypto.com Arena.

    February 12 – Super Bowl LVII takes place at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona. The Kansas City Chiefs defeat the Philadelphia Eagles 38-35. This is the first Super Bowl to feature two Black starting quarterbacks.

    February 19 – Ricky Stenhouse Jr. wins the 65th Annual Daytona 500 in double overtime. It is the longest Daytona 500 ever with a record of 212 laps raced.

    March 12 – The 95th Annual Academy Awards takes place, with Jimmy Kimmel hosting for the third time.

    March 14 – Ryan Redington wins his first Iditarod.

    April 2 – The Louisiana State University Tigers defeat the University of Iowa Hawkeyes 102-85 in Dallas, to win the program’s first NCAA women’s basketball national championship.

    April 3 – The University of Connecticut Huskies win its fifth men’s basketball national title with a 76-59 victory over the San Diego State University Aztecs in Houston.

    April 6-9 – The 87th Masters tournament takes place. Jon Rahm wins, claiming his first green jacket and second career major at Augusta National.

    April 17 – The 127th Boston Marathon takes place. The winners are Evans Chebet of Kenya in the men’s division and Hellen Obiri of Kenya in the women’s division.

    May 6 – Mage, a 3-year-old chestnut colt, wins the 149th Kentucky Derby.

    May 8-9 – The 147th Annual Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show takes place at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens, New York. Buddy Holly, a petit basset griffon Vendéen, wins Best in Show.

    May 20 – National Treasure wins the 148th running of the Preakness Stakes.

    May 21 – Brooks Koepka wins the 105th PGA Championship at Oak Hill County Club in Rochester, New York. This is his third PGA Championship and fifth major title of his career.

    May 22-June 11 – The French Open takes place at Roland Garros Stadium in Paris. Novak Djokovic wins a record-breaking 23rd Grand Slam title, defeating Casper Ruud 7-6 (7-1) 6-3 7-5 in the men’s final. Iga Świątek wins her third French Open in four years with a 6-2 5-7 6-4 victory against the unseeded Karolína Muchová in the women’s final.

    May 28 – Josef Newgarden wins the 107th running of the Indianapolis 500.

    June 10 – Arcangelo wins the 155th running of the Belmont Stakes.

    June 11 – The 76th Tony Awards takes place.

    June 12 – The Denver Nuggets defeat the Miami Heat 94-89 in Game 5, to win the series 4-1 and claim their first NBA title in franchise history.

    June 13 – The Vegas Golden Knights defeat the Florida Panthers in Game 5 to win the franchise’s first Stanley Cup.

    June 18 – American golfer Wyndham Clark wins the 123rd US Open at The Los Angeles Country Club.

    July 1-23 – The 110th Tour de France takes place. Danish cyclist Jonas Vingegaard wins his second consecutive Tour de France title.

    July 3-16 – Wimbledon takes place in London. Carlos Alcaraz defeats Novak Djokovic 1-6 7-6 (8-6) 6-1 3-6 6-4 in the men’s final, to win his first Wimbledon title. Markéta Vondroušová defeats Ons Jabeur 6-4 6-4 in the women’s final, to win her first Wimbledon title and become the first unseeded woman in the Open Era to win the tournament.

    July 16-23 – Brian Harman wins the 151st Open Championship at Royal Liverpool in Hoylake, Wirral, England, for his first major title.

    July 20-August 20 – The Women’s World Cup takes place in Australia and New Zealand. Spain defeats England 1-0 to win its first Women’s World Cup.

    August 28-September 10 – The US Open Tennis Tournament takes place. Coco Gauff defeats Aryna Sabalenka, and Novak Djokovic defeats Daniil Medvedev.

    October 2-9 – The Nobel Prizes are announced. The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to jailed Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi for “her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all,” according to the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

    November 1 – The Texas Rangers win the World Series for the first time in franchise history, defeating the Arizona Diamondbacks 5-0 in Game 5.

    November 5 – The New York City Marathon takes place. Ethiopia’s Tamirat Tola sets a course record and wins the men’s race. Kenya’s Hellen Obiri wins the women’s race.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Reports: Trump told Mar-a-Lago member about calls with foreign leaders | CNN Politics

    Reports: Trump told Mar-a-Lago member about calls with foreign leaders | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]


    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Mar-a-Lago member and Australian billionaire Anthony Pratt said then-President Donald Trump told him about his private calls with the leaders of Ukraine and Iraq, according to reports published Sunday about private recordings of Pratt, a key prosecution witness in Trump’s classified documents case.

    The reports from The New York Times and “60 Minutes Australia” revealed previously unknown recordings of Pratt candidly recalling his conversations with Trump – and build on existing allegations that Trump overshared sensitive government material.

    In the tapes, Pratt says Trump shared insider details about his phone calls with world leaders during his presidency. Pratt also offers searing critiques of Trump’s personal ethics.

    CNN previously reported that Pratt gave an interview to special counsel Jack Smith, who charged Trump with mishandling national security materials by hoarding dozens of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago in Florida. (Trump pleaded not guilty.) Pratt is also on Smith’s witness list for the trial, which is scheduled for May.

    Concerns about Trump’s freewheeling approach to state secrets are at the center of that case. Past reports from ABC News said Trump discussed potentially sensitive information with Pratt about US nuclear submarines. The new reports Sunday expand what is known about Pratt’s recounting of their conversations to include foreign policy matters.

    “It hadn’t even been on the news yet, and he said, ‘I just bombed Iraq today,’” Pratt said in one recording that was made public Sunday, recalling a conversation with Trump.

    Pratt then recalled Trump’s description of his December 2019 call with Iraqi President Barham Salih. According to Pratt, Trump said, “The president of Iraq called me up and said, ‘You just leveled my city. … I said to him, ‘OK, what are you going to do about it?’”

    The recordings also indicate that Trump spoke with Pratt about his now-infamous September 2019 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in which Trump pressured Zelensky to help him win the 2020 election by publicly launching unfounded corruption probes into Joe Biden. That phone call formed the basis of Trump’s first impeachment.

    “That was nothing compared to what I usually do,” Trump told Pratt about the Zelensky call, according to the tape. “That’s nothing compared to what we usually talk about.”

    In statements to The New York Times, Trump pointed out that Pratt is “from a friendly country in Australia, one of our great allies,” though he didn’t deny the conversations described in the tapes. A Trump spokesperson said the tapes “lack proper context.”

    CNN has reached out to the Trump campaign and Pratt’s company, Visy, for comment.

    These latest disclosures could be used by Smith’s prosecutors as evidence that Trump had a pattern of sharing sensitive government information with unauthorized people, including political donors and well-connected businessmen in his orbit. It’s unclear whether prosecutors already had possession of the tapes that were made public on Sunday.

    The new recordings also shed light on Pratt’s candid, private thoughts about Trump’s behavior. It’s unclear who Pratt was speaking to, but Pratt said in one tape that Trump “says outrageous things nonstop,” and compared his business practices to “the mafia.”

    “He knows exactly what to say — and what not to say — so that he avoids jail. But gets so close to it that it looks to everyone like he’s breaking the law,” Pratt said in one tape.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Michigan AG drops charges against fake GOP elector after he agrees to cooperate | CNN Politics

    Michigan AG drops charges against fake GOP elector after he agrees to cooperate | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    One of the pro-Donald Trump fake electors charged in Michigan has agreed to cooperate with state prosecutors in exchange for getting his case dismissed.

    James Renner, 76, is the first defendant to strike a deal with prosecutors. Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, charged the group of 16 fake electors earlier this year.

    This is the most significant development in the case since Nessel filed the charges in July. She was the first prosecutor in the nation to charge anyone in connection with the Trump-backed fake elector scheme.

    As part of the deal, Renner agreed to provide “complete and truthful testimony whenever called upon” by prosecutors, at any hearings or trials related to the 2020 fake electors, according to court filings. This includes describing what happened in the room where he and others signed the sham certificate in December 2020.

    Like all of the other defendants, Renner originally faced eight felony charges, including forgery and conspiracy to publish a false statement. If he provides misleading or false testimony at any future cases, prosecutors could refile the felony charges.

    The fake GOP electors tried to subvert the Electoral College process in 2020 by signing illegitimate certificates falsely proclaiming that Trump won the presidential election in Michigan. This was part of the Trump campaign’s multi-state effort to overturn the election that he lost.

    The remaining 15 defendants include current and former state GOP officials, a Republican National Committee member, a mayor from central Michigan and a Grand Blanc school board member. They have all pleaded not guilty.

    Court filings indicate that Renner signed his deal with prosecutors on October 10. It only became public Thursday when Renner appeared at a brief hearing in Ingham County District Court.

    “We are excited for this result,” Renner’s attorney Clint Westbrook said at the hearing.

    Westbrook later told CNN in a statement that, “after conversations with the Attorney General’s office, all charges against our innocent client, Jim Renner, were dismissed.” A spokesperson for Nessel told CNN in a statement that, “we dismissed the case against James Renner under a cooperation agreement.”

    According to documents obtained by CNN, Renner met with state investigators in September for a proffer interview, which is often a precursor to a plea deal or non-prosecution agreement.

    Renner explained how he got involved in the post-election effort and identified eight of the other fake electors by name as attending the signing ceremony in December 2020, which could help prosecutors.

    But some of his other comments could support the argument from defense attorneys in the case that their clients met as a legal “contingency” so Trump could continue contesting the election results.

    He said the group of fake electors was “led to believe” that they needed to sign the faux Electoral College certificates because Michigan’s GOP-run legislature could still reject Joe Biden’s electors and recognize the pro-Trump slate instead. Some of the GOP officials running the meeting – which was conducted in private – also mentioned “ongoing lawsuits” related to the 2020 election, according to the document obtained by CNN.

    Even though Trump lost Michigan in 2020 by more than 154,000 votes, Renner said “it was his belief Donald Trump may have the ability to win the election” when he signed the certificate, according to the document, which described Renner’s interview with state investigators.

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

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

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

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    This story has been updated with additional reporting.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

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

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

    [ad_1]


    Washington
    CNN
     — 

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

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

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

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

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

    Powell pleaded not guilty to the charges.

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

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

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

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

    The special counsel’s office declined to comment.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    coffee county election office vpx

    Inside the election office involved in latest Trump indictment

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

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

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

    Breaches in Pennsylvania and Michigan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Trump pleads not guilty in Georgia election subversion case | CNN Politics

    Trump pleads not guilty in Georgia election subversion case | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    Former President Donald Trump has pleaded not guilty in the sprawling Fulton County election interference case, according to a new court filing.

    Trump had been scheduled to be arraigned in person on Wednesday. Georgia law allows criminal defendants to waive their in-person appearance and enter a formal plea through court filings.

    His arraignment marks the fourth time that Trump has pleaded not guilty to criminal charges since leaving the presidency. In this case, Trump is charged with racketeering in his alleged efforts to upend the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia.

    Several of the former president’s co-defendants have also waived their in-court appearances and have pleaded not guilty, including Sidney Powell and Trevian Kutti. Defendants who do not waive their appearance will attend court as scheduled on September 6.

    Though no official date for Trump to go to trial in Georgia has been set, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, a Democrat, has asked the judge overseeing the case last week to schedule a trial for all 19 defendants for October 23, 2023.

    In response, lawyers for Trump said they oppose the proposed date and have previewed the likelihood of pre-trial disputes that will drag the proceedings. Several co-defendants, including his former chief of staff Mark Meadows, have sought to move their cases from Georgia state court to federal court, a more advantageous legal spot and a move that also would have the effect of delaying the proceedings.

    Trump faces more than a dozen charges, some of which relate to efforts to put forth fake electors to falsely claim that the then-president won Georgia in 2020. He surrendered last week and agreed to a $200,000 bond and other release conditions, including not using social media to target the co-defendants and witnesses in the case.

    He has also been indicted in three other cases: one related to a hush-money payment to an adult-film star in 2016 in Manhattan, another involving the alleged mishandling of classified national defense documents and a third federal investigation related to efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

    This story has been updated with additional background information.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Trump reacts to Georgia indictment for first time on camera: ‘I have four of them now’ | CNN Politics

    Trump reacts to Georgia indictment for first time on camera: ‘I have four of them now’ | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    Former President Donald Trump on Thursday reacted for the first time on camera to the Georgia indictment that accuses him of being the head of a “criminal enterprise” to overturn the 2020 election, dismissing the criminal charges as a “witch hunt” and a “horrible thing for the country.”

    “I have four of them now, if you look. I mean, this is not even possible,” Trump said on Fox Business. “Four, over the next, last couple of months. And frankly, it discredits everything. And they’re all very similar in the sense that they’re, there’s no basis for them.”

    The former president also called on members of his party “to be tough,” saying that “the Republicans are great in many ways, but they don’t fight as hard for this stuff. And they have to get a lot tougher. And if they don’t they’re not going to have much of a Republican Party.”

    After the 41-count Georgia indictment was unsealed Monday, Trump railed against the state charges on social media and announced plans to hold a “news conference” regarding his baseless claims of election fraud.

    Thursday evening, however, Trump wrote on Truth Social that the event was “no longer necessary” because his legal team would present the evidence to support his claims in court.

    In a post, Trump said, “Rather than releasing the Report on the Rigged & Stolen Georgia 2020 Presidential Election on Monday, my lawyers would prefer putting this, I believe, Irrefutable & Overwhelming evidence of Election Fraud & Irregularities in formal Legal Filings as we fight to dismiss this disgraceful Indictment by a publicity & campaign finance seeking D.A., who sadly presides over a record breaking Murder & Violent Crime area, Atlanta. Therefore, the News Conference is no longer necessary!”

    Earlier Thursday, multiple sources familiar with the planning told CNN that the “news conference” was unlikely to go forward in any substantive capacity, if it were to happen at all.

    Trump had informed a few of his advisers about the press event he announced for Monday at 11 a.m. at his Bedminster golf club. In the days since that post, Trump has been advised against holding one and cautioned that it could complicate his ongoing legal issues, one person told CNN.

    Trump has made false claims about election fraud for nearly three years without proof. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger have both reiterated the election there was not “stolen.”

    The former president’s comments about holding a “news conference” caught several members of his team off guard as his legal team focused on the details of his required surrender at a jailhouse in Georgia by next Friday. Liz Harrington, an aide to Trump, had prepared a report but it remains to be seen whether that document will still be released next week.

    Harrington has been a serial promoter of lies about the 2020 election, as CNN has reported.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

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

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

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    “Worse, it does so against its administration’s primary political opponent, during an election season in which the administration, prominent party members, and media allies have campaigned on the indictment and proliferated its false allegations,” the filing said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Trump heads to South Carolina after a week filled with his legal drama | CNN Politics

    Trump heads to South Carolina after a week filled with his legal drama | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    Former President Donald Trump is set to visit South Carolina on Saturday, wrapping up a week that has been defined by his historic third indictment.

    Trump’s Saturday trip to the early-primary state – he’ll visit Columbia, South Carolina, for the state GOP’s Silver Elephant Dinner – follows a Friday night stop in Alabama. The two were his first campaign events after his arraignment Thursday in Washington,DC, in special prosecutor Jack Smith’s investigation into his efforts to remain in the White House despite losing the 2020 election to President Joe Biden.

    In Montgomery on Friday night, Trump conflated his actions in seeking to overturn the 2020 election with those of Democrats, including Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Stacey Abrams after the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election, in the wake of their losses. He said he faces “bogus charges.”

    He also said if he is elected in 2024, he would appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Biden’s family.

    “When they indicted their political opponent and they did that, I said, well, now the gloves are off,” Trump said of Biden. “The Republicans better get tough, and they better get smart, because most of them look like a bunch of weak jerks right now. … You have to fight fire with fire. You can’t allow this to go on.”

    Trump’s campaign on Friday went on the attack against the prosecutors who have brought cases against or are investigating the former president. It released a video attacking those prosecutors one day after Trump was arrested and arraigned for a third time.

    The video attacks Smith, New York Attorney General Letitia James, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis, dubbing the group the “Fraud Squad.”

    “Meet the cast of unscrupulous accomplices he’s assembled to get Trump,” the narrator says in the video of Biden.

    The video also uses footage of Biden falling off his bike and tripping up the stairs to Air Force One.

    Lashing out over the costs of defending himself and his allies in myriad legal battles, Trump also called for the Supreme Court to “intercede.”

    “CRAZY! My political opponent has hit me with a barrage of weak lawsuits, including D.A., A.G., and others, which require massive amounts of my time & money to adjudicate,” Trump complained on Truth Social. “Resources that would have gone into Ads and Rallies, will now have to be spent fighting these Radical Left Thugs in numerous courts throughout the Country. I am leading in all Polls, including against Crooked Joe, but this is not a level playing field. It is Election Interference, & the Supreme Court must intercede.”

    His campaign has used the legal proceedings as a fundraising tool, hauling in small-dollar donations.

    “Trump is in THE AIR!” his campaign said in an email to supporters Thursday. “Before he arrives at the courthouse for his hearing, can 10,000 pro-Trump patriots sign on to defend him & end the witch hunt?”

    A handful of GOP presidential candidates, including former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former Texas Rep. Will Hurd and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, have criticized Trump’s actions.

    Hurd, on Fox News on Thursday, said that Trump’s court appearance was the “third time in four months in courts. It’s unacceptable, we didn’t have to be here.”

    Former Vice President Mike Pence’s campaign is selling T-shirts and hats branded with the phrase “Too Honest,” referencing a phrase Trump allegedly uttered to Pence when he refused to go along with the then-president’s request to reject electoral votes and change the outcome of the 2020 election.

    According to the federal indictment, in one conversation on January 1, 2021, Trump told Pence he was “too honest” when the then-vice president said that he lacked the authority to change the results.

    After Trump was indicted earlier this week, Pence said that “anyone who puts themselves over the Constitution should never be president” and added that Trump “was surrounded by a group of crackpot lawyers who kept telling him what his itching ears wanted to hear.”

    However, much of the Republican field has so far refused to take aim at Trump over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, which are at the heart of the federal charges he faces in Washington.

    Trump’s top-polling rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, on Friday said he would pardon Trump if he is elected in 2024. He also defended the former president, arguing that the laws federal prosecutors say Trump broke were “never intended to apply to this type of situation.”

    The Florida governor, who was campaigning in Iowa, told reporters his candidacy for president would be focused on the future and starting to heal “divisions in this country.”

    DeSantis indicated that he would pardon Trump if he were convicted, echoing comments he recently made on “Outkick” with Clay Travis.

    “I’ve said for many weeks now, I don’t think it’s in the best interest of the country to have a former president – that’s almost 80 years old – go to prison. Just like Nixon or Ford pardoned Nixon, you know, sometimes you got to put this stuff behind you,” he said.

    DeSantis’ comments underscored the reality that most of Trump’s 2024 GOP rivals see little to gain by angering a base that is still largely supportive of the former president.

    South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott on Friday criticized the Justice Department for the “weaponization of their power” in his first on-camera reaction to the third indictment and arraignment of Trump.

    Scott told reporters following an immigration roundtable event in Yuma, Arizona, he believes DOJ spends “a lot of time hunting Republicans” while protecting Democrats, specifically referencing the president’s son Hunter Biden.

    “My perspective is that the DOJ continues to weaponize their power against political opponents. It seems like they spend a lot of time protecting Hunter Biden and Democrats and a lot of time hunting Republicans,” Scott said.

    The most recent polls show that Trump remains the clear front-runner in the 2024 GOP primary. A poll of likely Republican caucusgoers in Iowa from The New York Times/Siena College released Friday showed Trump with 44% support, compared to DeSantis’ 20% and Scott’s 9%, with no other candidate topping 5%.

    His lead is even wider nationally. Trump holds the support of 54% of likely GOP primary voters, a New York Times/Siena College poll released earlier this week found, while DeSantis has 17% support and no other candidate exceeds 3%.

    Just 17% of likely Republican primary voters think that Trump has “committed any serious federal crimes,” and only 10% more say that although they don’t think he committed a serious crime, he “did something wrong in his handling of classified documents.” Three-quarters (75%) say that after the 2020 elections, Trump “was just exercising his right to contest the election,” while only 19% believe he “went so far that he threatened American democracy.” And 71% say that regarding the investigations Trump is facing, Republicans “need to stand behind Trump.”

    The Republican base could be at odds with the broader electorate: Two-thirds of Americans (65%) say that the charges Trump faces over efforts to overturn the 2020 elections are serious, according to a new poll from ABC News and Ipsos conducted after Trump’s latest indictment.

    There are broad partisan gaps in views of the seriousness of the new charges, with 91% of Democrats calling them serious along with 67% of independents, though just 38% of Republicans agree. The gap between Democrats and Republicans widens to 65 points when looking at those who call the charges “very serious” (84% of Democrats feel that way vs. 19% of Republicans; 53% of independents say the same).

    While many of Trump’s rivals are carefully avoiding direct confrontation with the former president, Trump is taking direct aim at DeSantis.

    Top Trump advisers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita sent an open memo on Thursday attacking DeSantis’ efforts to reboot his campaign.

    “DeSantis’s campaign is marred by idiocy,” the memo reads, as it touts Trump’s lead in polls over his GOP rivals.

    The memo compared DeSantis’ campaign to Sen. John McCain’s 2008 bid and argued both campaigns overspent and didn’t fundraise enough. The late McCain and Trump had a bitter feud for years.

    “John McCain did not spend the opening week of his reboot explaining why his staff produced a video with Nazi imagery, and defending his comments that slavery provided ‘some benefit’ to enslaved Americans – while attacking black Republicans publicly in the process,” the memo reads, referencing several recent missteps DeSantis and his campaign have made.

    Developments on Capitol Hill also underscored that most of the GOP has not abandoned Trump.

    North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, a member of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s Republican leadership team, on Thursday called on Congress to scrutinize the federal investigation into Trump’s actions.

    Tillis said in a statement that the new indictment carries “a heavy burden” to show that “criminal conduct actually occurred.”

    [ad_2]

    Source link

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

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

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

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

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

    Here are takeaways from the hearing:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • 21 Donald Trump election lies listed in his new indictment | CNN Politics

    21 Donald Trump election lies listed in his new indictment | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]


    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Special counsel Jack Smith said Tuesday that the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol was “fueled by lies” told by former President Donald Trump. The indictment of Trump on four new federal criminal charges, all related to the former president’s effort to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election, lays out some of those lies one by one.

    Even in listing 21 lies, the 45-page indictment does not come close to capturing the entirety of Trump’s massive catalogue of false claims about the election. But the list is illustrative nonetheless – highlighting the breadth of election-related topics Trump was dishonest about, the large number of states his election dishonesty spanned, and, critically, his willingness to persist in privately and publicly making dishonest assertions even after they had been debunked to him directly.

    Here is the list of 21.

    1. The lie that fraud changed the outcome of the 2020 election, that Trump “had actually won,” and that the election was “stolen.” (Pages 1 and 40-41 of the indictment)

    Trump’s claim of a stolen election whose winner was determined by massive fraud was (and continues to be) his overarching lie about the election. The indictment asserts that Trump knew as early as 2020 that his narrative was false – and had been told as such by numerous senior officials in his administration and allies outside the federal government – but persisted in deploying it anyway, including on January 6 itself.

    2. The lie that fake pro-Trump Electoral College electors in seven states were legitimate electors. (Pages 5 and 26)

    The indictment alleges that Trump and his alleged co-conspirators “organized” the phony slates of electors and then “caused” the slates to be transmitted to Vice President Mike Pence and other government officials to try to get them counted on January 6, the day Congress met to count the electoral votes.

    3. The lie that the Justice Department had identified significant concerns that may have affected the outcome of the election. (Pages 6 and 27)

    Attorney General William Barr and other top Justice Department officials had told Trump that his claims of major fraud had proved to be untrue. But the indictment alleges that Trump still sought to have the Justice Department “make knowingly false claims of election fraud to officials in the targeted states through a formal letter under the Acting Attorney General’s signature, thus giving the Defendant’s lies the backing of the federal government and attempting to improperly influence the targeted states to replace legitimate Biden electors with the Defendant’s.”

    4. The lie that Pence had the power to reject Biden’s electoral votes. (Pages 6, 32-38)

    Pence had repeatedly and correctly told Trump that he did not have the constitutional or legal right to send electoral votes back to the states as Trump wanted. The indictment notes that Trump nonetheless repeatedly declared that Pence could do so – first in private conversations and White House meetings, then in tweets on January 5 and January 6, then in Trump’s January 6 speech in Washington at a rally before the riot – in which Trump, angry at Pence, allegedly inserted the false claim into his prepared text even after advisors had managed to temporarily get it removed.

    5. The lie that “the Vice President and I are in total agreement that the Vice President has the power to act.” (Page 36)

    The indictment alleges that the day before the riot, Trump “approved and caused” his campaign to issue a false statement saying Pence agreed with him about having the power to reject electoral votes – even though Trump knew, from a one-on-one meeting with Pence hours prior, that Pence continued to firmly disagree.

    6. The lie that Georgia had thousands of ballots cast in the names of dead people. (Pages 8 and 16)

    The indictment notes that Georgia’s top elections official – Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger – a republican – explained to Trump in a phone call on January 2, 2021 that this claim was false, but that Trump repeated it in his January 6 rally speech anyway. Raffensperger said in the phone call and then in a January 6 letter to Congress that just two potential dead-voter cases had been discovered in the state; Raffensperger said in late 2021 that the total had been updated and stood at four.

    7. The lie that Pennsylvania had 205,000 more votes than voters. (Pages 8 and 20)

    The indictment notes that Trump’s acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen and acting deputy attorney general Richard Donoghue had both told him that this claim was false, but he kept making it anyway – including in the January 6 rally speech.

    8. The lie that there had been a suspicious “dump” of votes in Detroit, Michigan. (Pages 9 and 17)

    The indictment notes that Barr, the attorney general, told Trump on December 1, 2020 that this was false – as CNN and others had noted, supposedly nefarious “dumps” Trump kept talking about were merely ballots being counted and added to the public totals as normal – but that Trump still repeated the false claim in public remarks the next day. And Barr wasn’t the only one to try to dissuade Trump from this claim. The indictment also notes that Michigan’s Republican Senate majority leader, Mike Shirkey, had told Trump in an Oval Office meeting on November 20, 2020 that Trump had lost the state “not because of fraud” but because Trump had “underperformed with certain voter populations.”

    9. The lie that Nevada had tens of thousands of double votes and other fraud. (Page 9)

    The indictment notes that Nevada’s top elections official – Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, also a Republican – had publicly posted a “Facts vs. Myths” document explaining that Nevada judges had rejected such claims.

    10. The lie that more than 30,000 non-citizens had voted in Arizona. (Pages 9 and 11)

    The indictment notes that Trump put the number at “over 36,000” in his January 6 speech – even though, the indictment says, his own campaign manager “had explained to him that such claims were false” and Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers, a Republican who had supported Trump in the election, “had issued a public statement that there was no evidence of substantial fraud in Arizona.”

    11. The lie that voting machines in swing states had switched votes from Trump to Biden. (Page 9)

    This is a reference to false conspiracy theories about Dominion Voting Systems machines, which Trump kept repeating long after it was thoroughly debunked by his own administration’s election cybersecurity security arm and many others. The indictment says, “The Defendant’s Attorney General, Acting Attorney General, and Acting Deputy Attorney General all had explained to him that this was false, and numerous recounts and audits had confirmed the accuracy of voting machines.”

    12. The lie that Dominion machines had been involved in “massive election fraud.” (Page 12)

    The indictment notes that Trump, on Twitter, promoted a lawsuit filed by an alleged co-conspirator, whom CNN has identified as lawyer Sidney Powell, that alleged “massive election fraud” involving Dominion – even though, the indictment says, Trump privately acknowledged to advisors that the claims were “unsupported” and told them Powell sounded “crazy.”

    13. The lie that “a substantial number of non-citizens, non-residents, and dead people had voted fraudulently in Arizona.” (Page 10)

    The indictment alleges that Trump and an alleged co-conspirator, whom CNN has identified as former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, made these baseless claims on a November 22, 2020 phone call with Bowers; the indictment says Giuliani never provided evidence and eventually said, at a December 1, 2020 meeting with Bowers, “words to the effect of, ‘We don’t have the evidence, but we have lots of theories.”

    14. The lie that Fulton County, Georgia elections workers had engaged in “ballot stuffing.” (Pages 13 and 14)

    This is the long-debunked lie – which Trump has continued to repeat in 2023 – that a video had caught two elections workers in Atlanta breaking the law. The workers were simply doing their jobs, and, as the indictment notes, they were cleared of wrongdoing by state officials in 2020 – but Trump continued to make the claims even after Raffensperger and Justice Department officials directly and repeatedly told him they were unfounded.

    15. The lie that thousands of out-of-state voters cast ballots in Georgia. (Page 16)

    The indictment notes that Trump made this claim on his infamous January 2, 2021 call with Raffensperger, whose staff responded that the claim was inaccurate. An official in Raffensberger’s office explained to Trump that the voters in question had authentically moved back to Georgia and legitimately cast ballots.

    16. The lie that Raffensperger “was unwilling, or unable,” to address Trump’s claims about a “‘ballots under table’ scam, ballot destruction, out of state ‘voters’, dead voters, and more.” (Page 16)

    In fact, contrary to this Trump tweet the day after the call, Raffensperger and his staff had addressed and debunked all of these false Trump claims.

    17. The lie that there was substantial fraud in Wisconsin and that the state had tens of thousands of unlawful votes. (Page 21)

    False and false. But the indictment notes that Trump made the vague fraud claim in a tweet on December 21, 2020, after the state Supreme Court upheld Biden’s win, and repeated the more specific claim about tens of thousands of unlawful votes in the January 6 speech.

    18. The lie that Wisconsin had more votes counted than it had actual voters. (Page 21)

    This, like Trump’s similar claim about Pennsylvania, is not true. But the indictment alleges that Trump raised the claim in a December 27, 2020 conversation with acting attorney general Rosen and acting deputy attorney general Donoghue, who informed him that it was false.

    19. The lie that the election was “corrupt.” (Page 28)

    The indictment alleges that when acting attorney general Rosen told Trump on the December 27, 2020 call that the Justice Department couldn’t and wouldn’t change the outcome of the election, Trump responded, “Just say that the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen.” (Deputy attorney general Donoghue memorialized the reported Trump remark in his handwritten notes, which CNN reported on in 2021 and which were subsequently published by the House committee that investigated the Capitol riot.)

    20. The lie that Trump won every state by hundreds of thousands of votes. (Page 34)

    The indictment says that, at a January 4, 2021 meeting intended to convince Pence to unlawfully reject Biden’s electoral votes and send them back to swing-state legislatures, Pence took notes describing Trump as saying, “Bottom line-won every state by 100,000s of votes.” This was, obviously, false even if Trump was specifically talking about swing states won by Biden rather than every state in the nation.

    21. The lie that Pennsylvania “want[s] to recertify.” (Page 38)

    Trump made this false claim in his January 6 speech. In reality, some Republican state legislators in Pennsylvania had expressed a desire to at least delay the congressional affirmation of Biden’s victory – but the state’s Democratic governor and top elections official, who actually had election certification power in the state, had no desire to recertify Biden’s legitimate win.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • GOP senator says Trump should drop out and calls classified documents case ‘almost a slam dunk’ | CNN Politics

    GOP senator says Trump should drop out and calls classified documents case ‘almost a slam dunk’ | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]


    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy described the case against former President Donald Trump for allegedly mishandling classified documents as “almost a slam dunk” and said he thinks Trump should drop out of the 2024 presidential race.

    “I mean, you’re just asking me my opinion. But he will lose to Joe Biden, if you look at the current polls,” he told CNN’s Kasie Hunt on “State of the Union.”

    “I think any Republican on that stage in Milwaukee will do a better job than Joe Biden. And so I want one of them to win. If former President Trump ends up getting the nomination, but cannot win a general, that means we will have four more years of policies which have led to very high inflation … and to many other things which I think have been deleterious to our country’s future,” the Louisiana senator said.

    The comments from Cassidy, who was one of seven GOP senators who voted to convict Trump in 2021 at his second impeachment trial, mark some of his strongest criticism of Trump to date. They come as the various charges against Trump continue to dominate the GOP primary, with the former president widely viewed as the party’s front-runner.

    Trump has been indicted by a federal grand jury in the special counsel’s investigation into the aftermath of the 2020 election and on dozens of federal counts related to the special counsel investigation into mishandling of classified documents. He also faces charges in Georgia over efforts to overturn Biden’s 2020 victory in the state, and in New York, where he is accused of falsifying business records related to his role in a hush-money payment scheme involving adult film actress Stormy Daniels.

    Trump has denied all wrongdoing and deemed many of the cases politically motivated.

    Of the 91 charges against Trump in the four different criminal cases spanning four different jurisdictions, Cassidy called those related to mishandling classified documents “almost a slam dunk.” He mentioned the recording of the 2021 meeting in Bedminster, New Jersey, where Trump discussed holding secret documents he had not declassified. “If it’s proven, we may have a candidate for president who’s been convicted of a crime,” Cassidy said.

    He added that President Joe Biden “needs to be replaced, but I don’t think Americans would vote for someone who’s been convicted.”

    Cassidy previously told CNN that he didn’t think Trump would be able to win a general election, pointing to the GOP’s disappointing performance in last year’s midterm elections, when several candidates endorsed by the former president were defeated.

    When pressed on whether he would vote for Trump should he become the GOP nominee, Cassidy demurred.

    “I’m going to vote for a Republican,” Cassidy said.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Trump asks judge to reject gag order requested by prosecutors in federal election interference case | CNN Politics

    Trump asks judge to reject gag order requested by prosecutors in federal election interference case | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    Former President Donald Trump’s attorneys argued in a court filing Monday that a gag order requested by special counsel Jack Smith in the federal 2020 election interference case is unconstitutional, overly broad and an effort to censor the former president during the 2024 presidential race.

    “The Proposed Gag Order is nothing more than an obvious attempt by the Biden Administration to unlawfully silence its most prominent political opponent,” Trump’s attorneys said in the response.

    Trump is asking US District Judge Tanya Chutkan to deny the prosecutor’s request for a gag order entirely, requesting a hearing on the matter. Chutkan, an Obama appointee overseeing the criminal case in Washington, DC, hasn’t yet made a decision on the request for a gag order.

    Justice Department prosecutors previously said a limited gag order on the former president is needed to protect the integrity of the trial in March. The prosecutor’s argument for a gag order pointed to false public statements Trump previously made around the 2020 election “to erode public faith in the administration of the election and intimidate individuals who refuted his lies.”

    The federal election interference investigation is one of four criminal cases against the former president. Trump is facing four charges in this case, including obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to defraud the United States.

    Prosecutors previously asked Chutkan to reel in Trump’s public statements and posts on social media and specifically asked the judge to limit Trump’s ability to speak about “the identity, testimony, or credibility of prospective witnesses” and “statements about any party, witness, attorney, court personnel, or potential jurors that are disparaging and inflammatory, or intimidating.”

    Trump has already been ordered not to intimidate potential witnesses or talk to them about the facts of the case.

    “The prosecution may not like President’s Trump’s entirely valid criticisms, but neither it nor this Court are the filter for what the public may hear,” Trump’s attorneys wrote in the Monday night filing. “Let’s be clear: the prosecution hopes to create a contempt trap for President Trump and his attorneys.”

    Trump’s attorneys wrote in the filing that he has not intimidated anyone and that “it is absurd to suggest the prosecution and the Court are ‘intimidated’ by critical social media posts.”

    Trump has used social media to take aim at special counsel Jack Smith and Chuktan. Prosecutors also cited his criticism of former Vice President Mike Pence and former Attorney General Bill Barr – both of whom could be called as witnesses in the trial next year.

    Trump’s legal team also responded to prosecutors request for a court order that would block them from polling potential jurors for the case without the court’s approval first. Defense attorneys can poll residents who could make up the jury pool in their case with general questions around the issues of the case. Those findings can be used to argue for a change of venue.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • The identities behind the 30 unindicted co-conspirators in Trump’s Georgia case | CNN Politics

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

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    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.

    A November 19, 2020 photo shows Trump campaign advisor Boris Epshteyn at the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington, DC.

    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.

    Former New York Police Department Commissioner Bernie Kerik at Trump National Golf Club on June 13.

    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 at a hearing in front of Michigan lawmakers in December 2020.

    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.

    Burt Jones, Georgia's Republican Lieutenant Governor

    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.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • House Judiciary Committee expected to launch inquiry into Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis | CNN Politics

    House Judiciary Committee expected to launch inquiry into Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    The Republican-led House Judiciary Committee is expected to open a congressional investigation into Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis as soon as Thursday, a source tells CNN – the same day former President Donald Trump is slated to surrender at the county jail after being charged for participating in schemes to meddle with Georgia’s 2020 election results.

    The committee is expected to ask Willis whether she was coordinating with the Justice Department, which has indicted Trump twice in two separate cases, or used federal dollars to complete her investigation that culminated in the fourth indictment of Trump, the source added. The anticipated questions from Republicans about whether Willis used federal funding in her state-level investigation mirrors the same line of inquiry that Republicans used to probe Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who indicted Trump in New York for falsifying business records to cover up an alleged hush money scheme.

    Meanwhile, Georgia Republicans could launch their own state-level investigation into Willis’ probe, according to GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who has spoken to top officials in the state about a potential probe. She has also been pushing for a congressional-led inquiry into Willis, who has previously dismissed GOP accusations accusing her of being partisan and consistently defended her investigation.

    “I’m going to be talking to (House Judiciary Chair) Jim Jordan, (House Oversight Chair) Jamie Comer, and I’d like to also ask (Speaker) Kevin McCarthy his thoughts on looking at doing an investigation if there is a collaboration or conspiracy of any kind between the Department of Justice and Jack Smith’s special counsel’s office with the state DA’s,” Greene told CNN. “So, I think that could be a place of oversight.”

    It all amounts to a familiar playbook for House Republicans, who have been quick to try to use their congressional majority – which includes the ability to launch investigations, issue subpoenas and restrict funding – to defend the former president and offer up some counter programming amid his mounting legal battles. But they’ve also run into some resistance in their extraordinary efforts to intervene in ongoing criminal matters, while there are questions about what jurisdiction they have over state-level investigations.

    As their target list on behalf of Trump grows, House Republicans are also cranking up the heat on their own investigations into the Biden family.

    Just this week, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy vowed to move ahead with an impeachment inquiry of President Joe Biden after the House returns from August recess if the Biden administration does not turn over more documents and information related to the Republican led investigations related to Hunter Biden – the strongest sign yet that House Republicans are poised to launch an impeachment inquiry of the president.

    A McCarthy spokesperson did not respond to CNN’s request for comment to elaborate on the speaker’s remark that opening an impeachment inquiry hinged on whether committees received the “bank statements, the credit card statements and other” documents they were asking for.

    House Oversight chair James Comer has subpoenaed six banks for information regarding specific Biden family business associates, received testimony from Hunter Biden’s associates and reviewed hundreds of suspicious activity reports related to the Biden family at the Treasury Department. The Kentucky Republican has not yet subpoenaed bank records from Biden family members themselves. He boasted in June on Fox Business that “every subpoena that I have signed as chairman of the House Oversight Committee over the last five months, we’ve gotten 100% of what we’ve requested, whether it’s with the FBI, or with banks, or with Treasury.”

    The House Judiciary chair, GOP Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, just subpoenaed four individuals involved in the Hunter Biden criminal probe and has requested a number of documents and interviews pertaining to special counsel David Weiss’ ongoing criminal investigation.

    There is still some skepticism among more moderate Republicans, however, about whether they should be trying to intervene in ongoing investigations and whether an impeachment inquiry is warranted.

    Behind the scenes, members of the House Judiciary panel, who would help oversee an impeachment inquiry, have recently been discussing how all signs are pointing towards the House launching one in short order.

    “We had even some of our more moderate members saying that the oversight wasn’t serious if the next step wasn’t an impeachment inquiry,” Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, a top Trump surrogate and Judiciary panel member, told CNN about a recent committee call. “There was great interest among my Judiciary colleagues to really include and involve everyone in the conference. There’s a real desire to get everyone on board and go through the evidence with those who might remain skeptical.”

    Trump’s allies have called for Congress to expunge Trump’s two previous impeachments, a move that has sparked pushback by many even among House Republicans.

    Greene, who spoke with McCarthy on Tuesday, said she doesn’t think the votes are there yet for expunging Trump’s previous two impeachments, even as the former president continues to promote the idea on Truth Social. But she said, “I think the impeachment inquiry looks very, very good.”

    “He is spending the recess talking about it constantly,” Greene added of McCarthy. “I really feel strongly that that’s something that’s going to happen.”

    Even before Trump’s indictment in Fulton County his congressional allies were laying the groundwork to take aim at Willis and broader election laws.

    GOP Rep. Russell Fry of South Carolina introduced a longshot bill earlier this year to give current and former presidents and vice presidents the ability to move their civil or criminal cases from a state court to a federal court as the investigation in Fulton County was ongoing. Fry introduced the bill shortly after Trump was indicted by Bragg on more than 30 counts related to business fraud.

    The Judiciary Committee, which has jurisdiction over Fry’s bill, is examining ways to move this bill forward and schedule a markup, two sources familiar with the process told CNN.

    Fry, who tweeted shortly after the Fulton County indictment that the outcome underscores the need for his bill, said in a statement to CNN, “these rogue prosecutors shouldn’t be able to wield unwarranted power and target our nation’s top leaders for their political agendas.”

    Separately, the House Committee on Administration has been working on a conservative election integrity package that Republicans are calling “transformative,” but Democrats frame as “designed to appease extremist election deniers.”

    Republicans argue the bill gives states the tools to strengthen voter integrity, implement selection reforms in Washington, DC, and protects conservatives’ political speech. Democrats, meanwhile, contest the legislation attacks the freedom to vote, burdens election workers and creates less transparency in elections.

    One of the nine hearings that Republicans held on the bill, which recently passed out of committee and is ready for a floor vote in the House, was held last month in Atlanta.

    The top Democrat on the panel, Rep. Joe Morelle of New York, accused Republicans of playing defense for Trump through the field hearing, which Republicans have said was not the case.

    “One might ask, why are we here in Georgia? The answer is simple. We’re here because in 2020, Joe Biden won and Donald Trump lost. There was no widespread voter fraud in Georgia, there were no suitcases full of fake ballots, no voting machines changed any votes. In fact, we know of only one possible crime that took place, because it was recorded on tape,” Morelle said.

    Democrats on the House Oversight Committee have also accused their Republican counterparts of coinciding the release of key interview transcripts with days consumed by Trump’s legal woes, according to a recent memo released by Democratic committee staff.

    An Oversight Committee spokesperson said in a statement to CNN, “to be clear, there was absolutely no connection between the transcript releases and anything else covered in the news.”

    The types of moves Republicans made on behalf of Trump in the wake of the Fulton County indictment are not necessarily new. After Trump was indicted by the Department of Justice in two separate cases, Greene called for Congress to defund Smith’s office, who is overseeing the two federal indictment cases, and House Freedom Caucus members issued a statement Monday that they would not support even a short-term government spending bill that does not address what they see as the weaponization of the Department of Justice.

    Gaetz recently introduced a resolution to censure and condemn the judge presiding over Trump’s federal indictment in the 2020 election subversion case.

    Despite the partisan back and forth, Trump’s Capitol Hill allies remain unfazed. But, not all Republicans have bought into the Trump defensive strategy.

    “Nobody is paying attention other than the people who are obsessed with Trump,” a senior Republican lawmaker told CNN.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • New trove of emails and documents turned over to prosecutors in Georgia election subversion case | CNN Politics

    New trove of emails and documents turned over to prosecutors in Georgia election subversion case | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    A trove of emails and documents uncovered by state investigators looking into a voting systems breach in Georgia is being turned over to the Fulton County prosecutors who brought the sweeping racketeering case against former President Donald Trump and his allies.

    More than 15,000 emails and documents connected to Misty Hampton, the former election supervisor for Coffee County, were discovered this month by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation – after attorneys for the rural county’s board of elections claimed the information had been lost.

    Hampton has been charged alongside Trump and 17 other co-defendants with trying to subvert the 2020 election results in Georgia. She has been accused of facilitating the unlawful breach of Coffee County’s voting systems.

    The Georgia Bureau of Investigation had been looking into the Coffee County incident since the summer of 2022. Earlier this month, the agency completed its investigation and gave the case file to Fulton County prosecutors to be included as part of discovery to be turned over to defendants in the Trump election interference case.

    While it’s unclear what’s in the trove of emails and documents, the Coffee County breach features prominently in the Fulton County indictment. Prosecutors say Trump allies illegally breached the voting systems in hopes of finding proof that the election was fraudulent. Prosecutors also have evidence tying Trump campaign lawyers to the breach.

    Sidney Powell, the former Trump campaign attorney charged with crimes stemming from the Coffee County voting systems breach, has centered her defense around the claim that access to the data was authorized by Hampton. Powell and pro-Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro are the first two defendants to go to trial, with jury selection set to begin Friday.

    In text messages previously obtained by CNN, Hampton allegedly gave Trump attorneys a “written invitation” to access Georgia voting systems.

    RELATED: Georgia prosecutors have messages showing Trump’s team is behind voting system breach

    Hampton’s attorney Jonathan Miller said he believes that the newly discovered emails and content will exonerate her.

    “There is nothing in the 15,000 emails that would do anything to make my client culpable of a crime, and I look forward to reviewing it all,” Miller told CNN. “She was acting under authority of Georgia statutes in doing what she did, and the evidence is going to show that. She did not commit any crimes.”

    Hampton and Powell each face seven charges in Fulton County, including conspiracy to commit election fraud and computer trespassing, in addition to racketeering. A trial date for Hampton has not been set, and Miller said his client has not received a plea offer she is “willing to facilitate.”

    All but one defendant, bail bondsman Scott Hall, who has agreed to testify for the prosecution, have pleaded not guilty.

    The security of Georgia’s elections had been the subject of litigation even before the 2020 presidential contest. The Coalition for Good Governance, a nonprofit organization, sued the Georgia secretary of state over the issue in 2017. Hampton’s alleged involvement in the Coffee County breach came to light as part of that ongoing civil lawsuit.

    “Few people believed the bizarre claims made by the Coffee County Board of Elections and their attorneys that Misty Hampton’s emails were suddenly lost shortly after she was terminated in February 2021,” the coalition said in a statement.

    The board of elections did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

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

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

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

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

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

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

    READ: Tracking the criminal indictments in one place

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

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

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

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

    READ: CNN’s annotation of the indictment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    READ: Mar-a-lago indictment annotated

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    [ad_2]

    Source link

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

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

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    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.’”

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Trump claims he can’t get a fair trial in DC as latest indictment dominates GOP primary | CNN Politics

    Trump claims he can’t get a fair trial in DC as latest indictment dominates GOP primary | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    Former President Donald Trump, who is facing charges in Washington, DC for allegedly conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election, claimed on Sunday that he wouldn’t receive a fair trial in the nation’s capital as he continues to rail against his latest indictment.

    “No way I can get a fair trial, or even close to a fair trial, in Washington, D.C. There are many reasons for this, but just one is that I am calling for a federal takeover of this filthy and crime ridden embarrassment to our nation,” Trump said in a Truth Social post.

    If he were to ask in court to move his federal criminal case out of Washington, DC, the former president would join three dozen January 6, 2021, riot defendants who have asked to move their cases out of DC.

    No judges – even those appointed by Trump – have ever agreed. And appeals courts and other judges have overwhelmingly kept high-profile cases in the districts where charges are filed.

    Several January 6 defendants have argued that there’s been too much pretrial publicity in DC for a fair trial and that the jury pool in the city would be too biased.

    But the Supreme Court has previously held that trials can still be fair even if they have received widespread publicity, and the DC District Court has used specific questioning of potential jurors and instructions to try to ensure fair trials for January 6 defendants.

    Just last week, prosecutors argued against a Capitol riot defendant’s change of venue request in the DC federal court, arguing that many politically known defendants, including Trump’s adviser Roger Stone, have been fairly tried in the downtown Washington courthouse.

    The court also refused to move the trial of the co-conspirators of Richard Nixon in the Watergate scandal, at a time when the city was also voting heavily Democratic.

    “The fact that most District residents voted against Donald Trump does not mean those residents could not impartially consider the evidence against those charged in connection with the events on January 6,” Justice Department prosecutors wrote in a court filing at the end of July – an assertion that the judges of the DC District Court have widely agreed.

    Still, Trump attorney John Lauro on Sunday cast doubt on the idea that Trump could receive a fair trial in the nation’s capital. In an interview on CBS’ “Face The Nation,” Lauro suggested West Virginia as a more diverse alternative.

    “We would like a diverse venue. A diverse jury … that reflects the characteristics of the American people,” Lauro said. Speaking to CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union” Sunday, Lauro also advocated for cameras in the courtroom in order to show the public “what kind of prosecution is going on.”

    When Lauro expressed similar concerns about a fair trial at Trump’s arraignment last week, the magistrate judge responded: “I can guarantee everybody that there will be a fair process and fair trial in this court. So let me just respond to that comment, Mr. Lauro, I’m certain of that.”

    The DC appeals court has found that voting patterns shouldn’t play into where a trial is held and that national news coverage can work against the need to move a trial.

    “Scandal at the highest levels of the federal government is simply not a local crime of peculiar interest to the residents of the District of Columbia,” the DC Circuit Court of Appeals found about the Watergate conspirators’ trial in 1976.

    DC jurors on major January 6 cases, including an Oath Keepers seditious conspiracy case, sometimes spend days deliberating and have delivered nuanced verdicts, including some acquittals.

    Trump’s latest indictment comes against the backdrop of the 2024 GOP primary contest. Republican candidates have largely sought to walk a fine line between knocking the former president’s growing legal troubles and not alienating his base of supporters.

    GOP presidential hopeful Chris Christie on Sunday touted his experience as a prosecutor in the heavily Democratic state of New Jersey on Sunday as he told Bash he always got convictions on political corruption cases.

    “So my view is, yeah, I believe jurors can be fair. I believe in the American people. And I believe in the fact that jurors will listen fairly and impartially,” Christie said.

    Former Vice President Mike Pence, who recently made his sharpest condemnation of Trump, told CBS on Sunday he “would hope” Trump can receive a fair trial in Washington.

    Notably, according to the law in DC determined during the Watergate conspirators’ case and other appeals court decisions, defendants can ask for a change of venue, but if they are denied, they can’t appeal it until after the trial takes place.

    That’s one reason why the January 6 defendants’ trials have gone forward without delay even though so many attempted to move their cases out of Washington, DC.

    Other high-profile cases where defendants have tried and failed to move their cases then also failed to overturn their convictions later with appeals include the Enron-related trial of Jeffrey Skilling in Houston and Boston Marathon bomber Dzokhar Tsarnaev, who was tried in Boston.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Who is Steve Jones, the judge who’ll decide whether to move Fulton County defendants’ cases to federal court? | CNN Politics

    Who is Steve Jones, the judge who’ll decide whether to move Fulton County defendants’ cases to federal court? | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    Federal district Judge Steve Jones of the Northern District of Georgia will hear requests from three of the 19 defendants hoping to move their Georgia election subversion cases out of state court.

    The group, which includes former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, is trying to get the case dismissed under federal law – a determination that may impact Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ case against former President Donald Trump and others. Meadows and others will present evidence about whether to move the case, while the judge has allowed the state court case to proceed in the meantime.

    Jones, a Barack Obama appointee, was confirmed by the US Senate in 2011 by a 90-0 vote. A former Superior Court judge, he grew up in Athens, Georgia, and graduated from the University of Georgia School of Law in 1987.

    So far, Jones has shown that he would like to avoid a circus while not giving short shrift to Meadows’ arguments, said Steve Vladeck, a CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at the University of Texas School of Law. The orders Jones has already issued have hewed tightly to the relevant statutes and case law, and he has moved the proceedings along very efficiently.

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

    Jones has overseen high-profile cases before.

    In July, he declined to toss three lawsuits claiming that Georgia’s congressional and legislative districts were drawn in a way that discriminates against Black voters. He slated a trial on the matter for September.

    In 2020, Jones blocked the state’s six-week abortion ban, which later took effect after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. In 2019, he rejected an attempt by a voting rights group to restore to the rolls 98,000 Georgia voters who had been removed after being classified as “inactive” after a new state law took effect.

    In that case, Jones found that the 11th Amendment of the Constitution and the principles of sovereign immunity “do not permit a federal court to enjoin a state (or its officers) to follow a federal court’s interpretation of the State of Georgia’s laws.” Jones also determined that the group, Fair Fight Action, failed to show that its claim had a substantial likelihood of success.

    Next, Jones will weigh movement in the case in which Trump is accused of being the head of a “criminal enterprise” that was part of a broad conspiracy to overturn his electoral defeat in Georgia. Trump, who faces 13 charges, is also expected to try to move the case to federal court, according to multiple sources familiar with his legal team’s thinking.

    [ad_2]

    Source link