Category: Espionage

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Crime Donald Trump Espionage

DOJ Studying Two Federal Cases As They Consider Charging Trump With Espionage: Report

As U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and Justice Department prosecutors consider whether or not (and when) to charge disgraced former president Donald Trump for violating several federal laws by illegally hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort, two other cases of espionage are being carefully studied.

Ken Dilanian of NBC News reports one of the cases comes from Hawaii and the other from Kansas.

In February, a week before the National Archives warned the Justice Department that former President Donald Trump had kept Top Secret documents at his Florida compound, Asia Janay Lavarello was sentenced to three months in prison. She had pleaded guilty to taking classified records home from her job as an executive assistant at the U.S. military’s command in Hawaii. 

“Government employees authorized to access classified information should face imprisonment if they misuse that authority in violation of criminal law,” said Hawaii U.S. Attorney Claire Connors, who did not accuse Lavarello of showing anyone the documents. “Such breaches of national security are serious violations … and we will pursue them.”

[…]

In another example, a prosecutor advising the Mar-a-Lago team, David Raskin, just last week negotiated a felony guilty plea from an FBI analyst in Kansas City, who admitted talking home 386 classified documents over 12 years. She faces up to 10 years in prison.

The fact that the DOJ is looking at those two cases, according to former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade, suggests Trump is in very hot water.

Appearing on MSNBC, McQuade noted:

“There are two questions that prosecutors ask themselves when deciding whether to bring charges. The first is: can we charge? That is, is there sufficient evidence to prove the case? That’s the first question, but then there’s that second question: should we bring a case? That’s when the government looks to whether or not there’s a federal — substantial evidence to bring a case.”

McQuade then explained her reasoning.

“We want to have uniformity in the kind of cases you prosecute. In cases involving the mishandling of classified documents, typically prosecutors look for some aggravating factor beyond just mishandling. If you innocently bring home a document in your briefcase, typically that is not prosecuted. you might be disciplined. you might lose your clearance you might lose your job, but probably not be criminally prosecuted.”

Other factors are also involved, McQuade concluded:

“It’s some of those factors that she mentioned in the Hawaii case and others, whether the person acted willfully, that is they knew they were violating the law. Whether they were disloyal to the United States, sold them to a foreign government for example, or whether they obstructed justice.

“That’s probably the factor that is most salient in the Trump investigation.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMVFu5ey3QE&feature=emb_logo

Categories
Crime Donald Trump Espionage

Trump Admits He Stole Classified Documents During Wacko Sunday Rally In Arizona

During a rally in Mesa, Arizona on Sunday that was held in the middle of a dirt field, disgraced, one-term, twice-impeached former president Donald Trump admitted that he did indeed steal classified documents before he left office.

Specifically, Trump told his supporters:

“I had a small number of boxes in storage… There is no crime. They should give me immediately back everything they have taken from me because it’s mine.”

In legal terms, what Trump said is considered to be a “summation exhibit,” which means the evidence came directly from the suspect. It’s a bit like being questioned by the police and flat-out telling them you did indeed commit the crime. At that point, all that’s left for prosecutors is the paperwork.

Legal experts were stunned by Trump’s admission of guilt, and they noted the Justice Department now has exactly what they need to indict, put on trial, and convict the disgraced ex-president.

Former FBI general counsel Andrew Weissmann, who served as a prosecutor during the Russiagate investigation, explained:

“This is what we call a summation exhibit. Proof from the defendant’s own mouth. And on video.”

Former special counsel Ryan Goodman echoed Weissmann:

“There is more than ample evidence to indict Trump for crimes listed in the FBI search warrant. The question will come down to aggravating factors for Garland DOJ to consider. Outrageous, open defiance of the law —like this — must surely rank high among those factors.”

Attorney George Conway noted:

“As I’ve long said, his pronouns are I/me/mine.”

The ball is now in Merrick Garland’s court. The time has come to charge Trump and let the country know the law applies to everyone.

 

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Crime Donald Trump Espionage

FBI Source In Trump Classified Document Investigation Shot And Left For Dead

It sounds like something from a James Bond film, but it actually took place in Québec.

According to Radio Canada:

Provincial police have arrested a man in connection with the shooting in the parking lot of a hotel complex in Estérel, Que. on Friday, about 100 kilometres north of Montreal in the Laurentians.

The man, 53, is expected to appear by video conference at the St-Jérôme courthouse Sunday or Monday. 

Valeriy Tarasenko was injured during the shooting, according to Estérel Mayor Frank Pappas and Radio-Canada’s police sources. He is being treated in hospital for serious, but non-life-threatening injuries, police say.

Pretty routine so far, until you find out that Valeriy Tarasenko had ties to a woman who pretended to be an heiress to the Rothschild fortune so she could gain access to Mar-a-Lago, the Palm Beach resort owned by failed, one-term, twice-impeached former president Donald Trump.

Mar-a-Lago, of course, has been the focus of attention from the FBI and U.S. Department of Justice since a search warrant was served there on August 8, unearthing hundreds of classified and top secret documents that the ex-president illegally removed from the White House.

And then there’s the woman who pretended to be someone else. Her name is Inna Yashchyshyn, and she thought it would be cool to take on a new identity so she could mingle with the rich and famous (or in some cases infamous) at Mar-a-Lago.

It was initially reported that Yashchyshyn was Russian, setting off alarm bells and suggestions that she might be working as a spy for the Kremlin. But she denies denies any such motive, telling The New York Post in September:

“What boils my blood most is people even thinking I’m Russian or a Russian agent,” she said in a phone interview, refusing to disclose her current location for fear of reprisals. “Russian people don’t exist to me since they invaded my country and killed my family and took homes.”

Not strange enough? Well, there’s another twist, and it’s a doozy:

In the months before the shooting, Mr. Tarasenko met with the FBI and turned over a host of documents and photos tied to an investigation into Ms. Yashchyshyn, her trips to the former president’s estate, and businesses she formed – two with Mr. Tarasenko – over the past seven years, records and interviews show.

Tarasenko was an FBI source. Was he one of the people who suspected Trump had classified information at Mar-a-Lago and reported it? If so, does that mean that either Trump or those close to him tried to have Tarasenko killed? Or was that done by Russian assassins?

Just when we thought the secret document scandal had reached the apex of bizarre, it takes a new turn that suggests more is yet to come.

 

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Donald Trump Espionage Russia

Trump Wanted To Trade Mar-a-Lago Files For ‘Sensitive Documents’ About His Ties To Russia: Report

Disgraced, one-term, twice-impeached former president Donald Trump told aides that he wanted to make a deal with the National Archives to return classified and top secret documents he stole from the White House and spirited away to his Mar-a-Lago resort in exchange for “sensitive” documents that he was convinced would prove his 2016 campaign did not conspire with Russia to guarantee he was elected.

According to Maggie Haberman and Michael Schmidt of The New York Times:

Mr. Trump, still determined to show he had been wronged by the F.B.I. investigation into his 2016 campaign’s ties to Russia, was angry with the National Archives and Records Administration for its unwillingness to hand over a batch of sensitive documents that he thought proved his claims,” before adding, “In exchange for those documents, Mr. Trump told advisers, he would return to the National Archives the boxes of material he had taken to Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Fla.

Trump’s aides “never pursued” his harebrained plan, but the very mention of such a scheme “…demonstrates how Mr. Trump spent a year and a half deflecting, delaying and sometimes leading aides to dissemble when it came to demands from the National Archives and ultimately the Justice Department to return the material he had taken, interviews and documents show.”

In doing so, Trump may have opened members of his staff and even his attorneys up to charges of obstructing justice, if only because they didn’t immediately report his actions to federal authorities.

The Justice Department believes the failed ex-president still has classified materials in his possession, according to a separate report from The Times.

A top Justice Department official told former President Donald J. Trump’s lawyers in recent weeks that the department believed he had not returned all the documents he took when he left the White House, according to two people briefed on the matter.

The outreach from the official, Jay I. Bratt, who leads the department’s counterintelligence operations, is the most concrete indication yet that investigators remain skeptical that Mr. Trump has been fully cooperative in their efforts to recover documents the former president was supposed to have turned over to the National Archives at the end of his term.

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Crime Donald Trump Espionage Justice Department

Trump Attorney Ready To ‘Cooperate’ With Justice Department In Mar-a-Lago Case

 

A member of failed, one-term former president Donald Trump’s legal team has lawyered up and told the Justice Department she’s ready to “cooperate” with prosecutors investigating the ex-president for allegedly taking classified documents from the White House to his Mar-a-Lago resort in violation of federal law, according to The Washington Post.

Christina Bobb, has told other Trump allies that she is willing to be interviewed by the Justice Department about her role in responding to the subpoena, according to people familiar with the conversations. Another, M. Evan Corcoran, has been counseled by colleagues to hire a criminal defense lawyer because of his response to the subpoena, people familiar with those conversations said, but so far has insisted that is not necessary.

When asked if she had indeed agreed to assist the DOJ with the ongoing investigation, Bobb responded:

“I’m sorry, I’m not allowed to talk about it.”

Another attorney Trump recently hired, former Florida Solicitor General Christopher Kise, is trying to get the former president to find an “off ramp” to avoid facing criminal charges.

Kise told others he wanted to de-escalate the Trump team’s pugilistic approach to federal prosecutors, according to three people familiar with his comments.

Continuing to attack the Justice Department and the FBI, he argued, was likely to cause federal authorities to be more aggressive. Kise has suggested to other Trump advisers that the best solution would be to try to find an “off-ramp” with the Justice Department before a possible indictment or trial; he has said he thinks Trump can avoid criminal charges.

But if Bobb is ready to tell what she knows to the Justice Department, it seems unlikely that Kise’s rosy scenario of avoiding charges will come to pass.

Bobb also denies that she was ever actually defending Trump on the documents case, which is odd since she did a majority of the interviews in the weeks after the ex-president’s Palm Beach club was searched by FBI agents:

Despite giving numerous interviews in the days immediately after the FBI search in which she was identified as a lawyer for Trump, Bobb told a fellow RSBN anchor during a Sept. 23 broadcast that she was not acting as a Trump attorney while serving as custodian of the records in responding to the subpoena. The difference is important: The Justice Department team investigating the handling of the documents would face few hurdles to compel her to testify if she had not been serving as Trump’s lawyer at the time.

“I think people were a little bit confused,” Bobb told her fellow anchor. “I am on President Trump’s legal team. I do work for him on election issues. I was never on the legal team handling this case, just to be clear on that. Which is why I came in as the custodian of records — because I wasn’t on that team.”