Tag: Jack Smith

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Crime Donald Trump Justice Department

Jack Smith Accuses Trump Of ‘Threatening’ Mark Meadows – Judge Considering Penalties

Multiply-indicted former president Donald Trump is once again in very hot water due to his inability to keep his threats to himself, and could be on the verge of being punished legally for his actions.

Special Counsel Jack Smith has filed an emergency motion with U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan accusing the disgraced ex-president of threatening his former chief of staff Mark Meadows.

ABC News reports:

In a filing Wednesday night to the judge presiding over Trump’s federal election interference case in Washington, Smith’s team said Trump’s “harmful” post on Truth Social was trying to “send an unmistakable and threatening message to a foreseeable witness in this case.”

Smith’s team argued to U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan that the alleged threat is just one more example of why a limited gag order in the case is needed as soon as possible.

Chutkan had issued such a gag order early last week but then temporarily suspended it after the former president’s legal team appealed the judge’s order to a higher court.

Here’s the post that drew the court filing from Smith. It was made on Trump’s failing Truth Social site:

I don’t think Mark Meadows would lie about the Rigged and Stollen 2020 Presidential Election merely for getting IMMUNITY against Prosecution (PERSECUTION!) by Deranged Prosecutor, Jack Smith. BUT, when you really think about it, after being hounded like a dog for three years, told you’ll be going to jail for the rest of your life, your money and your family will be forever gone, and we’re not at all interested in exposing those that did the RIGGING — If you say BAD THINGS about that terrible “MONSTER,” DONALD J. TRUMP, we won’t put you in prison, you can keep your family and your wealth, and, perhaps, if you can make up some really horrible “STUFF” a out him, we may very well erect a statue of you in the middle of our decaying and now very violent Capital, Washington, D.C. Some people would make that deal, but they are weaklings and cowards, and so bad for the future our Failing Nation. I don’t think that Mark Meadows is one of them, but who really knows? MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!

The filing from Smith’s team alleges that Trump has a “long and well-documented history of using his public platform to target disparaging and inflammatory comments at perceived adversaries. When the defendant does so, harassment, threats, and intimidation foreseeably and predictably follow.”

Just last week, Judge Chutkan issued a limited gag order that specifically prohibited Trump from attacking the special counsel or members of his team, court staff, or any witnesses in the ongoing case, which is scheduled for trial in March of next year.

Smith notes in the filing, “Recent social media posts targeting a known witness in this case in an attempt to influence and intimidate him” necessitate a more stringent gag order.

 

Categories
Crime Donald Trump Elections GOP

Meadows Immunity Deal Is ‘Crack In The Dam’ That Could Destroy Trump And The GOP: Report

Former Trump administration White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows is now cooperating with Special Counsel Jack Smith and providing testimony to a grand jury that could serve as the final nail in the political coffin for disgraced ex-president Donald Trump and many top Republicans.

ABC News reports that Meadows reached an immunity deal with Smith and has been spilling the beans regarding efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

(Meadows) has spoken with special counsel Jack Smith’s team at least three times this year, including once before a federal grand jury, which came only after Smith granted Meadows immunity to testify under oath, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The sources said Meadows informed Smith’s team that he repeatedly told Trump in the weeks after the 2020 presidential election that the allegations of significant voting fraud coming to them were baseless, a striking break from Trump’s prolific rhetoric regarding the election.

That, according to Washington Post reporter Carol Leonnig, is another piece in the puzzle, especially since many members of the GOP have said that Meadows’ autobiography has been cited by prominent Republicans for why they believe the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump.

“We have seen texts and exchanges that Mark Meadows had with people in the White House counsel’s office and other lawyers in which he made fun of the claim that there was an election that had been stolen. There was fraud enough in states such as Georgia to call those counts into question. As I remember one of those text exchanges, he said even my son hasn’t found enough dead people that voted in Georgia to raise questions about this. So, it’s pretty powerful stuff.”

That’s where the autobiography comes into play, Leonnig added:

“If he’s acknowledging that those were false, it reveals to most of us reporters who have been covering this for a long time that the jig is up for a host of other Republican leaders who have been trading on this story, to stay connected to voters, that they think are riled up about this. To stay connected to a group of people that they are misleading in order to get their votes. People who gobble up conspiracy theories, distrust the government, and can be loosely misled and led astray.”

In other words, Leonnig continued, the immunity deal could be a “crack in the dam” of GOP denial.

“It will be really interesting to watch what happens for other Republican leaders who have insisted that the election was stolen. Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, Jim Jordan, a host of people, many of whom are closely tied to Mark Meadows and Donald Trump.”

It’ll be fun to see what lies people such as Graham, Cruz, and Jordan try to use to cover the lies they’ve been telling for three years about the 2020 election. And it’ll also be interesting to see exactly what Trump knew, when he knew it, and just how large of a role he played in possibly illegal activities for the purpose of remaining in office.

Stay tuned. All rats are about to be exposed to the light of truth.

 

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Crime Donald Trump

Jack Smith Mocks Trump’s Request That Criminal Charges Against Him Be Dropped In Brutal Court Filing

Special Counsel Jack Smith is letting failed, one-term former president Donald Trump know in no uncertain terms that the law applies to him and will be enforced to the maximum extent for his alleged crimes.

In a brutal 54-page response to a motion filed two weeks by attorneys for the disgraced ex-president, Smith makes it clear that the “defendant is not above the law.”

Trump is claiming that he has “presidential immunity” from any actions he took while still serving as head of state, including trying to overturn the 2020 election and his possible involvement in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Smith, however, is having none of such nonsense, writing in his response to the Trump motion, “He is subject to the federal criminal laws like more than 330 million other Americans, including Members of Congress, federal judges, and everyday citizens. None of the sources the defendant points to in his motion—the Constitution’s text and structure, history and tradition, or Supreme Court precedent—supports the absolute immunity he asks the Court to create for him.”

The special counsel also notes that Trump’s attempts to “draw a parallel between his fraudulent efforts to overturn the results of an election that he lost and the likes of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and George Washington’s Farewell Address” are absurd on their face.

“These things are not alike,” Smith explains in the brief. “The more apt parallel the defendant identifies is to judges, who, like a former president, enjoy absolute immunity from civil damages liability for certain conduct but who are ‘subject to criminal prosecutions as are other citizens.’ The same is true for the defendant.”

Smith concludes his brief with this flourish, “For the foregoing reasons, the Court should deny the defendant’s motion to dismiss the indictment on the ground that a former president is immune from criminal prosecution.”

According to the U.S. Constitution, no one is above the law, whether he’s a former president, a Supreme Court justice, or a janitor. We are all equal under the law and subject to what it says. If we aren’t, then the American Revolution was pointless and we might just as well go back to having a king rule us with absolute impunity.

 

Categories
Crime Donald Trump Espionage

Trump’s Comments On Israel ‘Giving Prosecutors New Material’ To Convict Him In Classified Docs Case

With his every word about the ongoing battle between Israel and Hamas terrorists who attacked the country a week ago, failed former president Donald Trump is strengthening the criminal case against him for his alleged stealing of classified documents when he left the White House.

Just this week, the Washington Post notes, Trump made the case against him even more airtight by suggesting that he has a “willful disregard for protecting national security secrets.”

During a campaign rally in Florida on Wednesday, the disgraced ex-president, who is facing 91 criminal counts in multiple jurisdictions, remarked:

“I don’t think this has ever been told. They’ll say, ‘Oh, it’s classified information.’ Maybe it is, but I don’t think so.”

The former president then proceeded to tell a story about a U.S. operation in 2020 that killed Gen. Qasem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s Quds Force. Trump claimed that Israel was an important partner in the effort but backed out at the last minute. “We had everything all set to go, and the night before it happened, I got a call that Israel would not be participating in this attack,” Trump said. “Nobody’s heard this story before, but I’d like to tell it to Club 47 because you’ve been so loyal and so beautiful.”

Seconds later, Trump told his supporters,  “I can do whatever I want, but I did nothing wrong.”

That’s some deeply flawed logic. If you can do whatever you want, then how could it possibly be wrong? The volume of indictments against Trump certainly suggest he isn’t above the law and he did something illegal in the eyes of the Justice Department.

Even one of Trump’s former attorneys thinks the former president is making a huge mistake with his comments.

“Trump’s public statements erode his defenses enormously,” said Ty Cobb, who served as a White House lawyer in the Trump administration but has become an outspoken public critic of the former president. “Flip-flopping between ‘I had the power’ with the classified documents and “there was a process” — both acknowledge the possession of the classified documents.”

Trump has also seriously undercut his defense during interviews such as the one he gave to NBC’s “Meet the Press” just last month.

Trump kneecapped a key defense strategy his lawyers have raised in that case — that he was fighting the election results based on advice from attorneys.

Trump said in the interview that he decided for himself the election was stolen from him. “It was my decision,” the former president said, though he acknowledged he also listened to lawyers. “You know who I listen to? Myself. I saw what happened.”

Once more, it’s clear that Donald Trump is his own worst enemy and will likely be the primary reason he loses in court and winds up incarcerated for the remainder of his life.

 

Categories
Crime Donald Trump Justice Department

Jack Smith Is About To Get Trump’s ‘Trove Of Secrets’

A court filing from Special Counsel Jack Smith makes it clear Smith is demanding that failed former president Donald Trump either “put up or shut up” regarding whether or not he wants to use a specific legal defense in the 2020 election interference case brought against him by the Department of Justice, according to a former U.S. Attorney.

Barbara McQuade, who served as U.S. Attorney for Eastern District of Michigan in the Obama administration, notes in an article she wrote for MSNBC that the motion is to the point and could prove devastating for Trump’s legal team and his overall defense.

In a motion filed this week, the special counsel asked Judge Tanya S. Chutkan to order Trump to provide formal pre-trial notice of any intent to rely on advice of counsel as a defense in the federal election interference case. According to the motion, Trump and his lawyers have ‘repeatedly and publicly’ stated an intent to assert the defense at trial. The Dec. 18 exhibit list deadline, Smith argues, is the time for Trump to put up or shut up.

If Trump uses the defense, McQuade explains, he’ll lose the protections found in the attorney-client provisions of the law, which means he could then be forced to turn over any and all documents between him and his lawyers, which is about as risky as it gets when dealing with a criminal case.

Smith’s demand is important because this defense would trigger two significant consequences — a waiver of attorney-client privilege and a duty to produce all documents related to the advice. Until now, Trump has been able to have it both ways — protect testimony and documents from disclosure as privileged, while also claiming that his conduct was lawful because he simply relied on what his lawyers told him.

Those documents could prove especially damning, as they might well show exactly how Trump planned and carried out his attempted coup that culminated in the horror of January 6, 2021.

No matter what happens with the motion in the long run, McQuade concludes, it will force Trump to make a decision that could send him to prison for decades.

Regardless of whether Smith’s motion succeeds, at some point Trump will have to decide whether asserting what may be a flimsy defense is worth sharing his trove of secrets.

Will he or won’t he? We’re about to find out.