Tag: Justice Department

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

Categories
Congress Fox News GOP Justice Department

WATCH: Jim Jordan Gets Nervous When Maria Bartiromo Urges Him To Impeach Merrick Garland

As eager as he usually seems when it comes to attacking everything President Joe Biden or his administration does, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) seemed to get more than a bit nervous when urged to impeach Attorney General Merrick Garland by Fox News host Maria Bartiromo on Sunday.

Bartiromo, host of “Sunday Morning Futures,” told Jordan:

“The first thing that Republicans should do when they take back Congress is impeach Merrick Garland. What are your plans for Merrick Garland?”

The Ohio Republican replied:

“Well, you, you — they’re right that we have to look real closely at the Justice Department. And I think we may have to do some major changes. There may need to be structural changes at the FBI. I mean, you may need — the Washington field office has way too much power. You may need to disperse power around.”

Jordan added that he believed disgraced former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn had been treated unfairly even though he lied to the FBI, which just so happens to be a felony:

“Because we know they went to set up Michael Flynn back in the early days of the Trump administration. So, maybe we need to deal with their funding.”

Set him up? He was asked questions and he gave untruthful responses. That’s a crime.

While he was at it, Jordan also suggested that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act shouldn’t be reauthorized because it was used to investigate possible collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia.

“And then there’s also the impeachment question which I think the committee will look at. That will be a decision for the entire conference under then-Speaker McCarthy.”

The radicals in the GOP (which is now the vast majority of the party) have said ever since Biden took office that they plan to try and impeach him if they win the midterm elections. It’s yet another reason they need to be soundly defeated at the ballot box and never again given power.

Categories
Crime Donald Trump Espionage Justice Department

Trump Attorney Ready To ‘Cooperate’ With Justice Department In Mar-a-Lago Case

 

A member of failed, one-term former president Donald Trump’s legal team has lawyered up and told the Justice Department she’s ready to “cooperate” with prosecutors investigating the ex-president for allegedly taking classified documents from the White House to his Mar-a-Lago resort in violation of federal law, according to The Washington Post.

Christina Bobb, has told other Trump allies that she is willing to be interviewed by the Justice Department about her role in responding to the subpoena, according to people familiar with the conversations. Another, M. Evan Corcoran, has been counseled by colleagues to hire a criminal defense lawyer because of his response to the subpoena, people familiar with those conversations said, but so far has insisted that is not necessary.

When asked if she had indeed agreed to assist the DOJ with the ongoing investigation, Bobb responded:

“I’m sorry, I’m not allowed to talk about it.”

Another attorney Trump recently hired, former Florida Solicitor General Christopher Kise, is trying to get the former president to find an “off ramp” to avoid facing criminal charges.

Kise told others he wanted to de-escalate the Trump team’s pugilistic approach to federal prosecutors, according to three people familiar with his comments.

Continuing to attack the Justice Department and the FBI, he argued, was likely to cause federal authorities to be more aggressive. Kise has suggested to other Trump advisers that the best solution would be to try to find an “off-ramp” with the Justice Department before a possible indictment or trial; he has said he thinks Trump can avoid criminal charges.

But if Bobb is ready to tell what she knows to the Justice Department, it seems unlikely that Kise’s rosy scenario of avoiding charges will come to pass.

Bobb also denies that she was ever actually defending Trump on the documents case, which is odd since she did a majority of the interviews in the weeks after the ex-president’s Palm Beach club was searched by FBI agents:

Despite giving numerous interviews in the days immediately after the FBI search in which she was identified as a lawyer for Trump, Bobb told a fellow RSBN anchor during a Sept. 23 broadcast that she was not acting as a Trump attorney while serving as custodian of the records in responding to the subpoena. The difference is important: The Justice Department team investigating the handling of the documents would face few hurdles to compel her to testify if she had not been serving as Trump’s lawyer at the time.

“I think people were a little bit confused,” Bobb told her fellow anchor. “I am on President Trump’s legal team. I do work for him on election issues. I was never on the legal team handling this case, just to be clear on that. Which is why I came in as the custodian of records — because I wasn’t on that team.”

Categories
Elections Justice Department

DOJ Turns Up The Heat On Election Coup Plotters: 40 Subpoenas Issued

The Justice Department turned the heat up considerably today, issuing 40 new subpoenas and seizing dozens of cell phones as part of the ongoing investigation into efforts by former president Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

The New York Times reports that two of Trump’s senior advisers — Boris Epshteyn and Mike Roman — had their phones taken by the FBI. Epshteyn, who is Russian-American, served as a strategic adviser to Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign. Roman worked in the field of opposition research from 2017 to 2018, and after the 2020 election he was the person who handed the list of fake electors that were to be given to then-vice president Mike Pence. The Trump team had hoped Pence would submit the fake electors to a joint session of Congress on January 6, 2021 in an effort to hold up certification of the electoral vote count.

Trump’s former social media director, Dan Scavino, was also served with a subpoena on Monday, as was ex-New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, who set up a “war room” with former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani on Jan. 6 at the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C.

The Justice Department is reportedly focusing in on the activities of Trump’s Save America PAC, which has provided millions of dollars to the ex-president since he left the White House. That would suggest that investigators suspect financial crimes, an alleged specialty of Trump’s that has led to legal problems for him in the past.

Trump is also facing indictment for illegally removing classified documents from the White House and storing them at his Mar-a-Lago resort. That investigation is also gaining momentum as the DOJ now believes Trump still has top secret files in his possession and could be attempting to move them from one location to another to prevent them from being discovered by authorities.

 

Categories
Crime Donald Trump Espionage Justice Department

Former Trump Attorney Predicts DOJ Will Indict Donald ‘Relatively Soon’

Now that we know failed, one-term, twice-impeached former president Donald Trump had some of the most sensitive nuclear documents the U.S. government possesses, there are new calls for Trump to be indicted by the Justice Department if only to send a message to others that no one is above the law and highlight the seriousness of such actions.

Former Trump attorney Michael Cohen said Wednesday on MSNBC that he’s convinced his former client will indeed be indicted “relatively soon.”

Host Joy Reid predicted that “No one will stop him. He’s untouchable.”

Cohen disagreed:

“I’m not so sure I would agree with that statement. Yes, he’s gotten away with so much already from obstruction of justice, witness tampering, tax fraud, wire fraud, bank fraud, and misrepresentations. He’s gotten away with a litany of things and however, and this makes me scratch my head. The taking of classified documents, I mean, nuclear top secret documents should no longer be a Republican versus a Democratic issue, and I listened to all of the pundits on television whether, you know, it’s this station, CNN, Fox, listen to them all. This is an American issue, and I don’t understand what we’re doing. It’s not a question of whether the law is being applied equally to all. It is not. For God’s sake. The DOJ, they are tiptoeing around Donald as if he was the king, right? The supreme leader or a monarch…”

Cohen added that Trump cannot be above the law:

“I do think there’s going to be an indictment and relatively soon. I believe there will also be congressional hearings with Donald in the hot seat where, you know, either he’ll come in willingly which I don’t think he will or via subpoena. I mean, the real questions that they have to be asking right now is, you know, where are the documents that were in the empty top secret files that were found at Mar-a-Lago? I mean, that’s really the big question, and who did Donald give them to or show them to.”

Let’s hope Cohen is right. It’s way past time for Donald Trump to face the bar of justice.