Tag: Jack Smith

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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

Former Trump Attorney: Jack Smith Has More Than Enough Evidence To Indict Trump In Docs Case

When Donald Trump was still president, one of the attorneys who defended him was Ty Cobb, and now Cobb is speaking out on the matter of the classified documents Trump took from the White House to his Mar-a-Lago resort.

During an interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett, Cobb was asked:

“There is so much attention on the Alvin Bragg indictment,” said anchor Erin Burnett. “I do know, though, that you think that there is another and a bigger charge more significant charge about to come in the special counsel’s investigation into the classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, and that you think that Jack Smith will charge Trump with obstruction, and he’s going to do that likely within 60 days. Why that specific charge and why that, at this point, accelerated timeline?”

Cobb replied:

“I think … the evidence is falling into place so neatly on those offenses. On the false statements to the FBI, to the Department of Justice on the attempts to conceal documents both in connection with the grand jury subpoena and in connection um what with the post search events. So I think that case is coming together rapidly and in a way that is virtually unassailable, and it may well overtake, I think it will well overtake, the January 6th investigation. Keep in mind, there are two different grand juries on those two matters, and there’s no obligation that they be brought at the same time.”

“So I think that case is accelerating,” Cobb continued. “I think the evidence, you know, it’s coming over the transom in waves, and it’s all falling neatly into place. And it should not be difficult, given the fact that ever since the government noticed big gaps in the documents that Trump had left at the White House and what he had previously known to have, including the letters from his, you know, friends in North Korea ever since they started trying to get those documents and retrieve the classified documents, there has been false statement after false statement. There have been, you know, failures to cooperate. There has been an attempt to have employees lie to people. So the evidence is building brick by brick, and there isn’t a good brick in there for the former president.”

That led Burnett to inquire, “You think all this could happen, just to be clear, within the next 60 days charge?”

“I do,” Cobb said. “I think the evidence has come together fast enough to that that could be easily charged. And if it is charged that quickly, I think it could, you know, quickly overtake the Bragg case as the lead case, most likely to get to trial before November of 2024.”

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Donald Trump GOP January 6 Mike Pence The Trump Adminstration

Mike Pence Is About To Send Trump To Federal Prison For A Very Long Time

In a move that almost no one saw coming, former vice president Mike Pence announced today that he won’t appeal an order that he testify before a grand jury empaneled by Special Counsel Jack Smith, who is looking into whether or not failed ex-president Donald Trump tried to illegally overturn the 2020 election.

NBC News reports:

The decision not to fight the order could provide special counsel Jack Smith with remarkable access to one of the key people with critical insight into Trump’s thinking and efforts to cling to power. 

Robert Costa of CBS News noted that the move by Pence is not only historic, but it’s the worst possible development for Trump, who is facing indictment on federal charges related to the 2020 election and the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

“This Pence development today is significant and potentially historic. A former vice president is now willing, within certain specified constitutional grounds his lawyers fought to arrange, to testify about potential illegal acts by a president.”

“Trump’s lawyers might try to appeal Pence’s decision, but they keep losing efforts to assert exec. priv. with this grand jury. That means Pence could appear before Jan. 6 grand jury in the coming weeks to testify under oath about what exactly Trump did and said in private.”

“Think about what this means,” Costa said.

“The special counsel could now get a first-hand account of what Trump specifically said to Pence in Oval Office meetings ahead of Jan. 6, as long as Pence and his lawyers do not consider those conversations related to his specific constitutional role.”

Mike Pence, to borrow a phrase, knows where the bodies are buried. He had access to the innermost workings of the Trump administration, including efforts to overturn the election and the Capitol insurrection.

In other words, whether he likes it or not, Mike Pence is potentially on the verge of sending Donald Trump to federal prison for a very long time.

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Crime Donald Trump

Jack Smith Has A ‘Killer Witness’ Who Can Send Trump To Prison For A Very Long Time

According to one of Donald Trump’s former assistants, the failed ex-president was so cavalier with who saw classified documents he kept at Mar-a-Lago in violation of federal law that he would write to-do lists on those files and give them to her.

ABC News reported Monday that Molly Michael has spoken with investigators working for Special Counsel Jack Smith, and what she had to say was terrifying.

Michael told investigators that — more than once — she received requests or taskings from Trump that were written on the back of notecards, and she later recognized those notecards as sensitive White House materials — with visible classification markings — used to brief Trump while he was still in office about phone calls with foreign leaders or other international-related matters.

The notecards with classification markings were at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate when FBI agents searched the property on Aug. 8, 2022 — but the materials were not taken by the FBI, according to sources familiar with what Michael told investigators.

Michael will make one hell of a “killer witness” for Smith at trial, according to former federal prosecutor Harry Litman, who told MSNBC host Chris Jansing :

“This playing around with notecards shows he’s cavalier, shows he’s very Trumpian. But what you read, Chris, is the real punch line. Knowing that the FBI wants to interview her, he said you don’t know anything about the boxes. And by the way, we know that is clearly a lie. It sounds like it anyway because she takes a picture and gives it to him. So, he knows, and the picture is in the indictment.”

Michael, who is identified as “Employee 2” in the federal indictment, is pure gold as a witness, Litman continued.

“She’s going to be a killer witness here. No deal, no ax to grind. In fact, was loyal to Trump. Goes to Mar-a-Lago with him after, and then finally leaves when she knows he’s basically breaking the law and obstructing justice. She gives absolute killer evidence about his trying to keep more than the boxes he had given up already to the FBI, and that’s why the search ensued. Very, very powerful witness, she’s going to be.”

A big problem for Trump, Litman noted, is that so many of the witnesses who have been loyal to him so far and refused to cooperate with Smith are now looking at massive legal bills they simply cannot hope to pay.

“For example, Jenna Elis, saying why is he not paying our fees? That’s exactly the kind of posture that is dangerous for Trump because if you are in financially dire straits, that is one real reason you would go to the prosecution and try to cooperate. One quick additional point about Molly Michael, by the way. She is present when Trump makes the statement to Evan Corcoran, ‘What if we told [the FBI] nothing? Could we just pretend there is nothing there?’ So, to the extent, he tried to make that a credibility battle between Corcoran, she is there to break the tie in a very persuasive fashion.”