Tag: Trump crimes

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Crime Donald Trump Espionage Justice Department

Michael Cohen Warns: Trump Will Blackmail DOJ By Threatening To Give Top-Secret Information To Foreign Countries

Michael Cohen, who served as Donald Trump’s personal attorney for over a decade, says he believes his former client may attempt to share top-secret information with foreign countries if the Justice Department indicts him for violations of the Espionage Act.

Appearing on MSNBC Sunday, Cohen was asked by host Michael Steele:

“Based on everything you know about him, why do you think he wanted to keep those top secret documents at Mar-a-Lago.”

Cohen responded:

“He’s gonna use it as a get out of jail free card. It’s a way to extort America turn around to say if you put me in jail, if you go after me — he’ll even say his children — I will have my loyal supporters who you do not know who has copies of information that may have been, and again this is my conjecture, that I would take those documents, I will release them to Iran, to China, to North Korea, to Russia.

“You want to take me down, I’ll take the whole country down.”

Cohen added:

“Remember, and I’ve said this with you 1000 times, Mike, Donald Trump doesn’t care about this country,” he continued. “He doesn’t care about anyone or anything other than himself.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mGz5ZoKjQ0&feature=emb_logo

Based on Trump’s past actions and behavior, Cohen is probably correct. But if the failed, one-term president does indeed give away classified information to our adversaries, he needs to keep in mind that he could wind up like Ethel and Julius Rosenberg: On federal death row, waiting to be executed, and so can anyone who assists him.

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Crime Donald Trump Espionage Justice Department

DOJ Now Believes Trump Was Up To ‘Something Nefarious’ With Top-Secret Documents: Report

The Justice Department now believes that failed, one-term former president Donald Trump was up to “something nefarious” by keeping classified and top-secret documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort.

Washington Post reporter Amber Phillips noted on MSNBC Friday that new court filings prove the DOJ has a very important motive for getting the documents back into federal custody:

“Step back and try to think about this because there is a lot going on, and it’s all heating up right now. I think we’re right to be talking about this Mar-A-Lago raid a lot, and that’s because the FBI agents had to go out there and spell out examples of crimes they think Trump or his allies committed in Trump’s residence, and a judge agreed that there is possible cause. I mean, it’s right there. This is pretty serious.”

But it was what Phillips said next that’s most terrifying and worth keeping an eye on in the weeks ahead:

“Now the question that I have and legal experts have that I talk to have said is, did the FBI just want the documents badly enough to go in there and get them and then they’re done, or do they think there was some kind of misuse, and yesterday’s hearing, I thought, in court, reading a little bit of the tea leaves underscored that the FBI and the Justice Department are concerned that something nefarious was going on. There is still an ongoing case, we’ll mess up our prosecution if we keep this going. That is the No. 1 case to follow, and after that there is another Justice Department investigation into Jan. 6 that has hundreds of defendants, and they’re looking into President Trump’s words and actions regarding the Electoral College votes, and we could talk more about that in a minute. But it is a big one.”

 

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Crime Donald Trump Justice Department

DOJ May Release One Piece Of Incriminating Evidence And Turn The Tables On Trump: Report

As disgraced former president Donald Trump continues to press for the full and unredacted search warrant affidavit to be released by the Justice Department, there’s one piece of highly incriminating evidence the DOJ may make public, according to former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, who was a member of Robert Mueller’s investigative team in the Russia probe.

Weissmann was a guest on MSNBC’s “The Beat” Friday, and was asked by host Ari Melber:

“What portion do you expect — for people to understand, because we’ve heard a lot of legal terms and redactions, there is more information coming — how much it is and how much of that is a win or loss is to be explained?”

Weissmann responded:

“So remember that the district court — the magistrate judge has seen the entire affidavit, so when the government was saying it’s all something that’s sensitive to a criminal investigation or it’s all something sensitive from a national security perspective or witnesses, he has in front of him the affidavit. So he can sort of see, are there portions that don’t implicate those concerns? So the thing that I think we will still not see is anything that could reveal the identity of witnesses. I don’t think we’re going to learn anything about the substance of classified information, those kinds of documents, so if we’re concerned, for instance, was there nuclear information? I don’t know that we’re going to see that, and I think leads, things about various things that the Department might still be doing, so things that they saw in the surveillance tapes if that’s in the affidavit, all of that could be fairly redacted.”

However, Weissmann added, there is one portion of the affidavit that would potentially be devastating for Trump and literally turn the tables on his claims of innocence:

“An area where I do think we could see something that would be very useful is the whole back-and-forth between the Department and Donald Trump and his people. That’s something that Donald Trump knows, those people can clearly put it out there and I could see the judge saying, you know what, I don’t really see how that implicates so much the concerns here from a national security perspective. Maybe some of the substance would be redacted, but that seems like it would give us a fair amount of detail on something, and more than we know now.”

Indeed, a record of the DOJ communicating with Trump, asking for return of the classified documents and his refusals to do so would prove the FBI had no choice but to use a search warrant to get ahold of those top secret papers. That alone would be clear evidence that Trump has been lying all along.

 

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Congress Crime Donald Trump GOP Social Media

Twitter Smacks Down Jim Jordan After He Says Donald Trump Is The Victim For Hoarding Secret Documents

There are few Republicans who are more disgustingly sycophantic toward failed, one-term, twice-impeached former president Donald Trump than Rep. Jim Jordan.

So it should come as no surprise that ever since the FBI served a search warrant at the disgraced ex-president’s Mar-a-Lago golf resort on Aug. 8, Jordan has been saying and tweeting out all sorts of specious allegations, suggesting that the Justice Department is out to get Trump, the FBI is targeting the Donald, and somehow all of this is an extension of the Russia investigation which was looked at by former Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

But a tweet Jordan sent out today is getting him pelted with enormous social media blowback, mainly because he’s asserting that Donald Trump is the victim despite the fact that he’s the one who was hoarding top secret documents in violation of federal law.

Here’s the tweet:

Read that again and see if you can follow Jordan’s twisted logic. If there was someone at Mar-a-Lago who told the FBI Trump had thousands of classified documents, then “they” spied on Donald before he was president, while he was president, and after he left office. Does that make sense to anyone other than a mindless MAGA minion who thinks Trump is the reincarnation of Jesus?

Also, why is it a bad thing that someone decided to inform the feds about the fact that Trump had secretive papers he should have turned over before he left the White House? Isn’t that actually a very good thing because those files are now under wraps instead of floating around for a hostile foreign power to get ahold of and use against the United States?

Not to Jim Jordan. To him, it confirms his paranoid theory that “they” are out to get Trump. That, of course, completely overlooks the fact that if Trump hasn’t done anything wrong, he has nothing to worry about.

Let’s see what Twitter has to say about the matter.

Jim Jordan never runs out of ways to plant his foot right in his mouth, does he?

Categories
Donald Trump WTF?!

Trump’s Current Legal Team Features A Former Right-Wing TV Host And A Lawyer For A Parking Garage Company

Now that he’s facing the greatest legal jeopardy of his entire life on multiple fronts (including from the Justice Department, which almost always wins), failed, one-term twice-impeached president Donald Trump’s so-called legal team is composed of a former right-wing TV host who lost her television gig when her network went belly up and a lawyer who represents a parking garage company.

In other words, Trump is screwed, and it’s all a result of the fact that he doesn’t like to pay his attorneys and is considered to be a “difficult” client.

The Washington Post has a fascinating report on Trump’s lawyers, and they note that most reputable and competent attorneys won’t even take Donald’s phone calls:

Ordinarily, the prestige and publicity of representing a former president, as well as the new and complex legal issues at stake in this case, would attract high-powered attorneys. But Trump’s search is being hampered by his divisiveness, as well as his reputation for stiffing vendors and ignoring advice.

“In olden days, he would tell firms representing him was a benefit because they could advertise off it. Today it’s not the same,” said Michael Cohen, a former lawyer for Trump who was convicted of tax evasion, false statements, campaign finance violations and lying to Congress in 2018. “He’s also a very difficult client in that he’s always pushing the envelope, he rarely listens to sound legal advice, and he wants you to do things that are not appropriate, ethically or legally.”

So who exactly has been Trump been able to get to represent him? It’s almost laughable when you hear the pathetic credentials of his current defense team:

People familiar with the search for legal help said the effort includes Susie Wiles, a close adviser to Trump, and attorney Christina Bobb, who was present at Mar-a-Lago during the search and signed for the list of documents taken. Former campaign adviser Boris Epshteyn is taking a prominent role, and former White House aide Kash Patel is advising informally. Patel is raising money for a “legal offense” fund by selling merchandise such as tank tops and beanies emblazoned with the logo “K$H.”

“You get these guys who just live to be around him, and mistakes get made,” a lawyer who isn’t part of the team said. “These guys just want to make him happy.”

Here’s the Trump “dream team,” which sounds a hell of a lot more like a nightmare:

  • Christina Bobb: “Bobb was previously a host on the far-right, pro-Trump television network One America News. At OAN, Bobb covered the Arizona Republican Party’s review of 2020 ballots — which ultimately confirmed Joe Biden’s win in the state — while also raising money for the effort and conferring with Trump advisers.”
  • Lindsey Halligan: “Whose practice, according to a professional biography, focuses on insurance claims at residential and commercial properties. She was admitted to the Florida bar in 2014.”
  • Alina Habba: “Leads a three-attorney firm with an office near Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, N.J. Her professional experience includes serving as general counsel to a parking garage company.”

Former Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz says he’s worried Trump isn’t properly represented:

“Good lawyers should have been working on this case for months. He needs a big and good and very experienced defense team with experience trying cases.”

Problem is, “good lawyers” don’t want a client like Donald Trump. And that could wind up leading to a long prison stay for the disgraced ex-president.