Tag: The Trump Administration

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Capitol Insurrection Crime Donald Trump Elections January 6

Former White House Aides Subpoenaed By Jack Smith About Trump’s Ties To Jan. 6 Attack: Report

Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith has subpoenaed former Trump administration aides who have knowledge of former president Donald Trump’s possible culpability for the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol that left five people, according to the New York Times.

Smith’s team of prosecutors interviewed former DHS Cybersecurity chief Chris Krebs, whose life was threatened after he said the 2020 presidential election had been free of fraud or improprieties. Trump also fired Krebs for his comments.

The investigators appear focused on Mr. Trump’s state of mind around the firing of Mr. Krebs, as well as on establishing a timeline of events leading up to the attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob on Jan. 6, 2021. The latest subpoenas, issued roughly two weeks ago, went to officials in the personnel office, according to the two people familiar with the matter.

Investigators working for the special counsel are also interested in determining if Trump and his allies attempted to evaluate the loyalty of federal officials who were working for the disgraced ex-president at the time of the 2020 election and its aftermath. John McEntee, a former Trump personal aide, who allegedly questioned the loyalty of Krebs and developed a “loyalty test” for administration officials, was “seen going into the grand jury in recent months.”

Sources also told the Times that Smith’s team of prosecutors are looking into how top Trump administration officials approached the Justice Department hoping to the DOJ to declare the results of the 2020 election invalid so that millions of ballots could be destroyed and a new election held in key battleground states that the failed one-term former president lost to Joe Biden.

 

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Congress Fox News GOP The Trump Adminstration

WATCH: Fox Host Asks GOP Rep. Why He Didn’t Probe The $640 Million Jared And Ivanka Made While Trump Was POTUS

Ever since Fox News wound up having to shell out $787.5 million to Dominion Voting Systems for lying about the 2020 election, it seems that hosts at the network have been much more willing to question the bullshit that their Republican guests spew.

Case in point, Fox News host Arthel Neville, who asked Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) why the GOP-controlled House doesn’t bother to investigate the hundreds of millions of dollars Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump made while Donald Trump was president.

The discussion began when Burchett noted that he believed the family of President Joe Biden had laundered at least $10 million while Biden was vice president.

“When the Biden family went to mob school, I believe they fell asleep during the money laundering because it is very clear where the money is coming from, the communist Chinese and many of our enemies across this world,” Burchett alleged.

That’s when Neville asked about the Trumps.

“But I do want to mention this, that absolutely, according to the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, on record, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump made up to $640 million while her father was in office, and they were official advisers to the president,” Neville noted. “If you would explain to our viewers why the Hunter Biden scenario is different.”

Burchett asserted that the earnings of Jared and Ivanka “were not hidden,” adding, “That was business dealings that they were doing, and they are business people. Whether it was, I think that that should be looked at as well.”

Neville: “So if the problem is corruption and compromise, wouldn’t any income of such of that substantial amount be problematic for our country while someone is in office and their family members are receiving those sorts of payments?”

The congressman replied, “I think so. There’s there should be no stone left unturned. But apparently, this is one that they refuse to even look at.”

Don’t hold your breath waiting on Republicans to investigate the many alleged criminal actions of the Trump family while Daddy Don was in office. They don’t plan to. Not now and not ever.

 

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Donald Trump The Trump Adminstration

Lawsuit Claims Giuliani Sold Presidential Pardons And Split The Profits With Trump

A lawsuit filed by a former aide to Rudy Giuliani accuses the former New York City mayor of selling presidential pardons and splitting the profits of those sales with indicted former president/sex offender Donald Trump.

The Independent reports that the suit was filed in a New York court on Monday, alleges that Giuliani bragged that he had sold pardons from Trump and made a cool fortune from the endeavor.

A former aide to former Trump attorney Rudolph Giuliani says he told her the ex-New York City mayor and then-president Donald Trump were offering to sell presidential pardons for $2 million apiece, according to court documents.

The bombshell allegation was levied in a complaint filed against Mr Giuliani by Noelle Dunphy, a New York-based public relations professional who is suing him for “unlawful abuses of power, wide-ranging sexual assault and harassment, wage theft, and other misconduct” committed while she worked for him in 2019 and 2020.

According to page 25 of the lawsuit:

(Giuliani) also asked Ms. Dunphy if she knew anyone in need of a pardon, telling her that he was selling pardons for $2 million, which he and President Trump would split. He told Ms. Dunphy that she could refer individuals seeking pardons to him, so long as they did not go through “the normal channels” of the Office of the Pardon Attorney, because correspondence going to that office would be subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.

If indeed Trump did agree to sell pardons with Giuliani’s help, the two could be facing enormous legal jeopardy, especially if Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith decides to pursue the accusations found in Dunphy’s lawsuit.

Smith is currently investigating if Trump committed crimes connected to the 2020 election and his removal of classified documents from the White House which he later took with him to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

 

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Crime Donald Trump GOP January 6 The Trump Adminstration

Stephen Miller Likely A ‘Target’ Instead Of A ‘Witness’ For Special Counsel Jack Smith: Report

Former Trump administration adviser Stephen Miller spent six hours before a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, giving testimony about what transpired on January 6, 2021, according to NBC News.

The grand jury is investigating the role former President Donald Trump played in the Jan. 6 riot and efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. Miller was a senior adviser to the president and the director of speechwriting at the time of the riot.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for Washington, D.C., last week denied an emergency motion filed by Trump’s legal team to block the testimony of several of the former president’s White House aides, including Miller.

But was Miller being questioned about Trump’s role in the Capitol insurrection, or might he be a target for Special Counsel Jack Smith?

MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace noted that in 2020 Miller appeared on “Fox & Friends” and commented, “As we speak, an alternate slate of electors in the states is going to vote, and we’ll send those results up to Congress.”

Wallace added:

“I mean, he’s got a mountain of publicly facing criminal exposure on all four of the criminal counts. If Jack Smith decides to create the architecture of the conspiracy, the chief co-conspirator to Donald Trump is Stephen Miller.”

Charlie Sykes of The Bulwark concurred with Wallace.

“In a conspiracy, you need more than one person, and who is at the center of all of this? Who is writing the speeches?” asked Sykes. “We’re speculating here. Stephen Miller might not simply have been a witness. He may end up being a target here because if there was a conspiracy, he was a co-conspirator. He is the Rasputin of the Trump administration. He is the whisperer.”

“You can see all of the ways he was part of this plot to overturn the election, and more specifically, part of the plot to obstruct the official proceeding of the U.S. Congress,” Sykes continued. “So, he’s right there at the center. So, it’s very interesting that he would be here at this stage of the investigation and would testify personally.”

Miller had better get used to the idea that his name will be on at least one indictment when Smith’s grand jury hands them down in the near future.

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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.