Tag: Justice Department

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Capitol Insurrection January 6

Jan. 6 Committee Likely To Refer Meadows, Giuliani And Two Others For Criminal Charges

The House Select Committee investigating the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol is expected to refer former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and ex-president Donald Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, to the Justice Department for criminal charges, according to CNN.

The panel is weighing criminal referrals for former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, right wing lawyer John Eastman, former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark and Trump’s former lawyer Rudy Giuliani, the sources said.

The committee has not officially decided whom to refer to the Justice Department for prosecution and for what offenses, sources said. The four individuals who are among those under consideration, and whose names have not been previously reported, provide a window into the panel’s deliberations.

On Thursday, committee chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) confirmed that the panel will make a final decision on who to refer to the DOJ on Sunday.

“I think the more we looked at the body of evidence that we had collected, we just felt that while we’re not in the business of investigating people for criminal activities, we just couldn’t overlook some of them.”

Committee member Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) echoed Thompson’s comments, noting:

“I think anyone who engages in criminal actions needs to be held accountable for them. And we are going to spell that out.

“The gravest offense in constitutional terms is the attempt to overthrow a presidential election and bypass the constitutional order. Subsidiary to all of that are a whole host of statutory offenses, which support the gravity and magnitude of that violent assault on America.”

Additionally, the House Select Committee is also debating whether or not to refer former president Trump for criminal charges, with Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) telling NPR:

“I think the facts support a potential charge against the former president.”

Categories
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
Congress GOP Justice Department

Jim Jordan’s 1,050-Page ‘Report’ On The DOJ Gets A Brutal Fact Check From The Washington Post

Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee (led by Ohio’s Jim Jordan) told the media on Friday that they would be releasing a “1000-page report” documenting the alleged politicization of the Justice Department and FBI.

And yet, when the report came out and was examined by Philip Bump of The Washington Post, it soon became clear that Jordan had just dumped a massive nothing burger that was little more than attachments, letters, and other worthless information that has been public knowledge for months.

News broke early Friday: The Republican minority on the House Judiciary Committee was releasing a “1,000 Page Report” on alleged politicization of the FBI and the Justice Department. The length was mentioned in the group’s tweet and in its press release, reinforcing the heft that 1,000 pages of documentation would obviously convey.

There’s just one problem with this assertion: The report itself was less than 50 pages. Most of the rest of the document was letters sent by the minority members of the committee to various people. In fact, there were more than 1,000 pages of material that wasn’t the report itself, instead mostly those letters.

Included were pages with nothing but signatures on the letters: There were more than seven times as many pages that had nothing of substance on them except signatures than there were pages in the report.

Letters. Signatures. A 50-page missive that had been hyped as a giant tome that would blow the lid off the DOJ.

As Bump notes, the entire thing was laughable and suggests just how desperately Republicans are clutching at straws in the final days before next week’s midterm election.

Here’s a graph breaking down what was in the ballyhooed report:

Impressive, huh? A lot of fluff and not much actual content.

And a quick fact-check by The Post also put a serious dent in the report’s credibility.

This is an intentional tactic, of course. Conservative media outlets like the Daily Caller (“ ‘Rotted At Its Core’: House Judiciary GOP Releases Massive 1,000-Page Report On Alleged FBI Misconduct”) and Fox News (“House Republicans release 1,000-page report alleging politicization in the FBI, DOJ”) included the purported length of the document in their article headlines. The idea is that the Judiciary Republicans either have 1,000 pages of analysis to share with the country or, at least, 1,000 pages of evidence to bolster their claims. At most, they have about two dozen.

So what exactly did we learn Friday as a result of Jim Jordan’s pathetic bid for attention and relevance? That the GOP is running (yet again) on lies and misinformation. It’s all they have.

Categories
Crime Donald Trump Justice Department

DOJ Has Evidence Against Trump In Document Heist Case It Has Yet To Unseal: Court Filing

The Justice Department has more evidence against failed, one-term, twice-impeached former president Donald Trump that it has not yet unsealed and could be what sends him to prison for espionage and other crimes, according to a court filing made Friday in a federal appeals court, according to The New York Times.

In a 53-page brief before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta, the Justice Department broadly challenged the legal legitimacy of orders last month by Judge Aileen M. Cannon, who blocked investigators from using the materials and appointed an independent arbiter to sift them for any that are potentially privileged or Mr. Trump’s personal property. The Justice Department already succeeded in persuading a panel of the Atlanta-based court to exempt about 100 documents marked classified from Judge Cannon’s move — a decision the Supreme Court declined to overturn this week.

The brief also addresses the issue of evidence the DOJ has not yet unsealed.

“Here and before the district court, the government has referred to evidence developed in its investigation to inform the courts of the relevant facts,” DOJ wrote. “Where possible, the government refers to portions of the affidavit accompanying its search warrant application that have been unsealed or to other information in the public record.

“Of necessity, however, the government cannot publicly disclose all the sources of its evidence, particularly while the investigation remains ongoing.”

What could the additional evidence be? Potentially, statements from witnesses who may have seen the former president hiding or moving classified documents from one location to another, which could also mean that the DOJ is already planning to serve more search warrants at other Trump properties. The FBI could also have Trump and other figures under audio and video surveillance to determine what he may be doing with any materials still in his possession.

The very fact that the Justice Department has to keep some evidence under wraps suggests that it must be explosive and could wind up serving as the foundation of a legal case against Trump.

Categories
Crime Donald Trump Espionage Justice Department

Michael Cohen Has Some Advice For The DOJ As They Look For More Missing Trump Documents

Now that we know disgraced, one-term, twice-impeached former president Donald Trump wanted to use stolen classified files he took illegally before he left the White House and trade them for information on his ties to Russia, the ex-president’s former attorney, Michael Cohen, has some advice for the Justice Department.

Appearing on MSNBC with host Ali Velshi on Sunday, Cohen urged the DOJ to indict Trump and stop playing games:

This whole issue is absolutely crazy. The fact that we have to sit there, and play this game with a former president of the United States? ‘I want my documents back?’ He’s not entitled to them.”

Cohen added:

“First and foremost, they are not his. Second of all, we know that he has more documents. We know that because in the file folder, it would specifically state the number of documents in them. Well there are more of them obviously out there.”

And then Cohen made a very important point that can indeed be helpful to Justice Department investigators:

“On top of that, we should find out whether or not he photocopied any of the documents as well. Now he is playing the art of the deal, and he did not write that book anyways. But he’s playing the art of the deal, where he says ‘I will trade you this for that,’ — this is beyond unheard of.”

The time has come to throw the book at Trump, Cohen concluded:

“If it was you, certainly if it was me, we would be in jail in 24 hours. The fact they are placating him only gives him the belief that he has more power than what he originally does. And think about what he is asking: ‘I will trade you this top-secret information, but I want information on the Russian investigation.’ Well here is a little side note for Donald, I hope he’s watching the program today. You are the president of the United States for four years, you had your lapdogs from Jeff Sessions to Attorney General Bill Barr in there. You could’ve gotten them, of course you could have.”

Indict the son of a bitch. Put the bastard on trial. And if he’s found guilty, lock his sorry ass up for what’s left of his life. We’re begging you, Attorney General Garland: Do it for the good of the country.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j260wFX-Lb8&feature=emb_logo