Tag: Justice Department

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Abuse of Power Justice Department Supreme Court

Clarence Thomas Is Now A Step Closer To Being Criminally Referred To The DOJ

Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas is a step closer to being criminally referred the U.S. Department of Justice for expensive trips and other perks he received from a top Republican donor, some of which were valued at hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Last week, ProPublica revealed the connections between Thomas and billionaire megadonor Harlan Crow.

One of the trips Thomas took was to Indonesia.

IN LATE JUNE 2019, right after the U.S. Supreme Court released its final opinion of the term, Justice Clarence Thomas boarded a large private jet headed to Indonesia. He and his wife were going on vacation: nine days of island-hopping in a volcanic archipelago on a superyacht staffed by a coterie of attendants and a private chef.

If Thomas had chartered the plane and the 162-foot yacht himself, the total cost of the trip could have exceeded $500,000. Fortunately for him, that wasn’t necessary: He was on vacation with real estate magnate and Republican megadonor Harlan Crow, who owned the jet — and the yacht, too.

But there were many other jaunts around the globe for Justice Thomas and his wife, Ginni, who worked to try and overturn the results of the 2020 election so that Donald Trump could remain in office despite having lost in a landslide to President Joe Biden.

The Campaign Legal Center (CLC) has written a committee of federal judges who oversee matters related to members of the judiciary and is requesting a formal criminal referral of Thomas to the Justice Department, noting:

Campaign Legal Center respectfully requests that the Judicial Conference exercise its authority pursuant to 5 U.S.C. § 13106(b) and refer Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Attorney General because there is “reasonable cause to believe” that he “willfully failed to file information required to be reported” under the Ethics in GovernmentAct (“EIGA”).

Specifically, Justice Thomas’ public statement on April 7, 2023, and recent news reporting, confirm that for over twenty years he did not file required gift disclosures of private plane and yacht travel from one individual. There is reasonable cause to believe that the omissions were willful because Justice Thomas (1) previously reported private plane travel from the same individual in compliance with the law, but stopped the disclosures after negative media attention; and (2) has a history of omitting significant information from his financial disclosure reports.

Thomas has served on the Supreme Court since 1991.

 

Categories
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.”

Categories
Crime Donald Trump Espionage Justice Department

New Evidence Suggests Trump Obstructed Justice – Moved Classified Docs To Hide Them From FBI

New evidence in the form of text messages from a former aide to disgraced ex-president Donald Trump may be exactly what Special Counsel Jack Smith needs to prove that the twice-impeached former president did indeed actively engage in obstruction of justice by moving classified documents in order to hide them from FBI agents who searched his Mar-a-Lago resort in August of last year.

According to The Washington Post:

Justice Department and FBI investigators have amassed fresh evidence pointing to possible obstruction by former president Donald Trump in the investigation into top-secret documents found at his Mar-a-Lago home, according to people familiar with the matter.

The additional evidence comes as investigators have used emails and text messages from a former Trump aide to help understand key moments last year, said the people, who like others interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing criminal investigation.

The new details highlight the degree to which special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the potential mishandling of hundreds of classified national security papers at Trump’s Florida home and private club has come to focus on the obstruction elements of the case —whether the former president took or directed actions to impede government efforts to collect all the sensitive records.

Federal investigators, using “witness statements, security camera footage, and other documentary evidence,” believe that boxes which contained classified materials were moved from a storage area at Mar-a-Lago after a subpoena was served and that Trump “personally examined” some of the boxes in question.

“While Trump’s team returned some documents with classified markings in response to the subpoena, a later FBI search found more than 100 additional classified items that had not been turned over,” The Post adds.

These latest details come from court documents requesting a search of Mar-a-Lago for the purpose of proving that “evidence of obstruction will be found at the premises.”

The statute cited in the documents is 18 USC 1519, which makes it a felony to alter, destroy, mutilate or conceal a document “with the intent to impede, obstruct, or influence the investigation or proper administration of any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency.”

Trump will be in Manhattan next Tuesday to be fingerprinted and photographed in connection with crimes he allegedly committed when he paid off adult film actress Stormy Daniels to conceal an affair he had with her so it wouldn’t become public during his 2016 run for the White House.

The failed, one-term former president could also face felony charges in the state of Georgia for allegedly attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

 

Categories
GOP Justice Department U.S. Senate

Cory Booker Expertly Debunks Republican Lies About The DOJ At Wednesday Hearing: VIDEO

Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) used a Wednesday appearance by Attorney General Merrick Garland before the Senate Judiciary Committee to debunk one lie after another that Republicans are fond of using when it comes to the Justice Department.

It was a master class in debate and logic by Booker, who followed Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) in questioning AG Garland.

First up was the lie Republicans have been repeating all over Fox News that the DOJ had allowed the classification of the drug fentanyl to expire. All drugs are considered for classification from time to time, but the one for fentanyl doesn’t expire until 2024. Garland also confirmed that fentanyl will undoubtedly be classified as a dangerous drug when 2024 arrives.

Booker then moved on to the issue of policing:

“On policing. It took really important steps to ensure that the thought enforcement agencies are engaging in the best practices to make themselves and the public safer. Some of these policies the department has adopted in his making great progress on, including limitations on chokeholds, guidelines for no-knock warrants, which is extraordinarily dangerous for police officers themselves.

“And a cleaner standard for the use of deadly force. Even in the Trump EO included the need for us to have a database that is, I guess, called an accountability database, to serve as a repository for officer misconduct records within the next eight months. Now this past January. Trump’s executive order which was issued in June of 2020 also directed the attorney general to create such a database to collect this information.”

The New Jersey Democrat also mentioned that the Biden administration had worked with Congress on grant programs that fund efforts to help local cops with training and ways to help reduce police violence.

In less than 5 minutes time, Booker effectively swatted down the bullshit that flows from members of the GOP anytime they open their mouths about the Justice Department.

Categories
Congress Donald Trump Jr. GOP Justice Department The Trump Adminstration

WATCH: Democrat Shreds Jim Jordan For Not Investigating DOJ Abuses When Trump Was POTUS

A hearing of the House Judiciary Committee turned into a reminder of what a hypocritical horse’s ass the chairman, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), is when it comes to investigating the abuses of power in the Trump administration.

At the hearing, committee member Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) noted:

“I’ve been concerned about the weaponization of the federal government program. And I think it was pretty clear during the previous administration, [former Trump attorney] Michael Cohen went to jail for doing what Donald Trump asked him to do. Donald Trump was called Individual 1. He didn’t go to jail. He didn’t even go to jail when the administration changed, and Merrick Garland came in.”

The Tennessee Democrat added that Trump’s former attorney and fixer had been returned to prison simply because he dared to write a book about what he’d done on disgraced ex-president’s behalf.

“It’s come out; it was the Justice Department that did that. Could we go, Mr. Chair, back into those issues and look at the weaponization that occurred during the Trump [administration], particularly that Michael Cohen incident?”

When Jordan said he only remembered the lies Michael Cohen allegedly told during his congressional testimony, Congressman Cohen asked, “But you do remember he went to jail?” 

Jordan: “I remember that too.”

Congressman Cohen continued to press:

“And they put him back in when he was going to publish a book because they wanted him to not comment on it, and you do remember that when they put him back in jail, they put him in solitary confinement?”

Jordan: “I don’t recall the details.”

Cohen:

“Should we not be able to study that because you don’t know it? That’s weaponization!”

Jordan continued to hem and haw, trying to raise the red herring of parents being targeted for speaking out at school board meetings, but Congressman Cohen reminded him, “I’m all for parents, but that’s not the issue. The issue is the weaponization of the Justice Department that happened under Trump like never before in our country’s history.”