Tag: Espionage

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Crime Donald Trump Espionage Russia

Did Trump’s Motive For Stealing Classified Documents Involve Russia?

As he continues to investigate the matter of classified documents former president Donald Trump illegally removed from the White House and took with him to Mar-a-Lago when he left office, Special Counsel Jack Smith is focusing in on Russia as the motive for why the failed ex-president took thousands of secret files and stored them at his Palm Beach golf resort.

In what may wind up being the greatest irony of all, according to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Murray Waas, Special Counsel Smith and a grand jury he impaneled believe Trump’s obsession with Russia led him to steal the information.

As he left office, Waas has learned, Trump desperately tried to declassify thousands of pages of secret documents that detailed Russia’s efforts to help defeat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.

But Trump was stymied in his efforts to make the records public, leading the outgoing president to rage to aides that the documents would never see the light of day.

Now, sources close to Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation tell me that prosecutors have questioned at least three people about whether Trump’s frustrations may have been a motive in Trump taking thousands of pages of classified papers from the White House to Mar-A-Largo, in potential violation of federal law. One of those people was compelled to testify before a federal grand jury, the sources say.

The sources say that prosecutors appear to believe the episode may be central to determining Trump’s intent for his unauthorized removal from the White House of the papers.  Insight into the president’s frame of mind—his intent and motivation, are likely to be the foundational building blocks of any case that the special counsel considers seeking against Trump.

That has led Smith to take a close look at conversations between the White House counsel, the Justice Department, and then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in the last frantic hours of the Trump administration.

The sources familiar with some aspects of the special counsel’s investigation further disclosed to me that prosecutors sought information regarding the following issues:   the witnesses were asked about any conversations they personally had with then-president Trump or any of their White House colleagues about the Russia papers; they were asked about conversations between senior Justice Department officials and attorneys with the White House counsel’s office, including two former senior lawyers in the office, John Eisenberg and Pat Philbin, regarding Trump’s presidential order to declassify the Russia papers; and they also were asked about the circumstances surrounding a memo written by Trump’s then Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, the day following Trump’s declassification order, in which Meadows appeared to reverse course and related that the papers would not be released before the concerns of other agencies regarding the Privacy Act were fully assuaged.

“It was very clear from what they asked that their emphasis was on Trump and Meadows,” one person said.

Another former aide to Trump, Kash Patel, has publicly stated that he saw all of the records the disgraced ex-president wanted declassified, telling Breitbart:

 “It’s information that Trump felt spoke to matters regarding everything from Russiagate to the Ukraine impeachment fiasco to major national security matters of great public importance—anything the president felt [the public] had a right to know is in there and more.”

So it was Russia that allegedly helped elect Trump, Russia that led to his impeachment, and Russia that may wind up sending him to prison for the rest of his life if Smith’s investigation proves Russiagate was what Trump clung to even after he left the White House.

Right about now, Donald Trump is probably wishing he had never heard of Russia or his BFF, Vladimir Putin.

 

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Crime Donald Trump Espionage

Jack Smith Will Have No Choice But To Charge Trump With Espionage: Legal Expert

Based on recent reporting that failed former president Donald Trump may have shown classified documents people who visited him at his Mar-a-Lago resort, Special Counsel Jack Smith will be charging the ex-president with espionage as well as obstruction of justice, a state attorney said Wednesday.

On April 2, The Washington Post reported that Trump may have shared classified information with others.

As investigators piece together what happened in May and June of last year, they have been asking witnesses if Trump showed classified documents, including maps, to political donors, people familiar with those conversations said.

That, according to Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg, would constitute a direct violation of the Espionage Statute found in federal law.

During an appearance on “Deadline: White House” Wednesday, Aronberg noted:

“I think the reason that they asked about the map is another statute, 18 USC 719 (e), ‘The Espionage Statute,’ says that someone who is unauthorized to have possession of a map and then shows it to someone who can’t see it violates that statute,” Aronberg explained. “So, they’re not just going after him for obstruction, but also espionage, which is punishable by up to ten years in prison. That’s why there’s a lot of trouble ahead. That’s why Bill Barr is saying, hey, this is the tough one. It’s not New York that will do in the former president in. I think it’s the Mar-a-Lago documents because there’s a direct tie between the former president and the alleged criminality there.”

Keep in mind that’s ten years for each count of violating the Espionage Statute. And Trump could be charged for every single time he took the documents out and showed them to others who didn’t have a valid security clearance. Two people would be 20 years. If he showed them to 10 people, he’d be facing a century in federal prison.

Things are about to get much worse for Donald Trump. The only question that remains is when Smith will hand down the indictments against the former president and exactly what crimes the former president will be charged with.

 

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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

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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.