Monthly Archives: September 2022

Heres the kicker. Cannon says, Plaintiff has claimed injury from the threat of future prosecution and the serious, often indelible stigma associated therewith. Well, yes, Trump may be harmedbecause there is probable cause to believe crimes have been committed and the FBI may have evidence of it. Trump is in a world of legal trouble because of his own actions and for no other reason than that, period.

The same week that the Justice Department appeals Cannons decision, we have learned that the DOJ sent dozens of subpoenas to high-level Trump operatives and advisers, now making clear that virtually all of Trumps efforts to remain in office are under investigation. We do not know of, nor have we seen any evidence that directly links the Mar-a-Lago national security investigation with the fake electors, Trump campaign financing, or the violence that erupted on January 6, 2021. But one thing is clear. Trumps attorneys are also receiving subpoenas.

Sadly, this is not surprising. Since the 2020 election, Trump lawyers have been in the news for efforts to overturn the results. Four Trump attorneys in particularRudy Giuliani, Sydney Powell, Jenna Ellis, and Boris Epshteynhave been in the sights of the January 6 committee for months. All had played some role, according to the committee chair, Representative Bennie Thompson; the attorneys spread the Big Lie, and at least two, Giuliani and Epshteyn, participated in the fake elector scheme. News reports state that federal agents seized Epshteyns phone pursuant to a warrant. A judge in the Michigan 2020 election case called for Trump attorneys, including Powell and others, to be investigated for ethics violations. The judge said it was about undermining the Peoples faith in our democracy and debasing the judicial process to do so.

Excerpt from:

Judge Aileen Cannon Thinks Poor Donald Trump May Be Stigmatized - The New Republic

WASHINGTON Former President Donald Trump has set up his office on the second floor of his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida as part replica of the Oval Office and part homage to his time in the real White House.

On the wall during a visit last year were six favorite photographs, including ones with Queen Elizabeth II and Kim Jong Un. On display were challenge coins, a plaque commemorating his border wall and a portrait of the former president fashioned out of bullet casings, a present from Jair Bolsonaro, the so-called Trump of Brazil.

This has become Trumps fortress in exile and his war room, the headquarters for the wide-ranging and rapidly escalating conflict with investigators that has come to consume his post-presidency. It is a multifront war, with battlefields in New York, Georgia and the nations capital, featuring a shifting roster of lawyers and a blizzard of allegations of wrongdoing that are hard to keep straight.

Never before has a former president faced an array of federal, state and congressional investigations as extensive as Trump has, the cumulative consequences of a career in business and eventually politics lived on the edge, or perhaps over the edge. Whether it be his misleading business practices or his efforts to overturn a democratic election or his refusal to hand over sensitive government documents that did not belong to him, Trumps disparate legal troubles stem from the same sense that rules constraining others did not apply to him.

The story of how he got to this point is historically unique and eminently predictable. Trump has been fending off investigators and legal troubles for a half century, since the Justice Department sued his family business for racial discrimination and through the myriad inquiries that followed over the years. He has a remarkable track record of sidestepping the worst outcomes, but even he may now find so many inquiries pointing in his direction that escape is uncertain.

His view of the legal system has always been transactional; it is a weapon to be used, by him or against him, and he has rarely been intimidated by the kinds of subpoenas and affidavits that would chill a less litigious character. On the civil side, he has been involved in thousands of lawsuits with business partners, vendors and others, many of them suing him because he refused to pay his bills.

While president, he once explained his view of the legal system to some aides, saying that he would go to court to intimidate adversaries because just threatening to sue was not enough.

When you threaten to sue, they dont do anything, Trump told aides. They say, Psshh! he waved his hand in the air and keep doing what they want. But when you sue them, they go, Oooh! here he made a cringing face and they settle. Its as easy as that.

When he began losing legal battles as president with regularity, he lashed out. At one point when the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, a traditionally liberal bench based in California, ruled against one of his policies, he demanded that aides get rid of the court altogether. Lets just cancel it, he said, as if it were a campaign event, not a court system established under law. If it required legislation, then draft a bill to get rid of the judges, he said, using an expletive.

But his aides ignored him and now he finds himself without the power of the presidency, staring at a host of prosecutors and lawyers who have him and his associates in their sights. Some of the issues at hand go back years, but many of the seeds for his current legal jeopardy were planted in those frenetic final days in office when he sought to overturn the will of the voters and hold onto power through a series of lies about election fraud that did not exist.

Many Americans could be forgiven if they have lost the thread of all the investigations amid the blizzard of motions and hearings and rulings of recent weeks. But they essentially break down this way.

Long before he became president, by many accounts, Trump played it fast and loose in business. The question is whether any of that violated the law. For years, according to his own associates, he inflated the value of his various properties to obtain loans.

Letitia James, the New York state attorney general, has been examining his business practices for more than three years to determine if they constituted fraud. When she summoned Trump to testify in a deposition, he invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to respond to questions on the grounds that his answers might incriminate him more than 400 times.

Trump has assailed James as a partisan Democrat who is coming after him for political reasons. As a candidate in 2018, she was an outspoken critic of Trump, calling him an illegitimate president and suggesting that foreign governments channeled money to his familys real estate holdings, which she characterized as a pattern and practice of money laundering.

But Trumps lawyers recently sought to settle the case, which could indicate concern about his legal risk, only to have their bid rejected by James. Because her investigation is civil, not criminal, she would have to decide whether her findings warrant a lawsuit accusing the former president of fraud.

The Manhattan district attorneys office, now led by Alvin L. Bragg, has looked into some of the same issues as part of a criminal investigation and is about to bring the Trump Organization, the former presidents family business, to trial on charges of fraud and tax evasion starting Oct. 24.

Allen H. Weisselberg, the longtime chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, has pleaded guilty to 15 felonies, admitting that he conspired with the company to carry out a scheme to avoid paying taxes on lavish perks. Weisselberg is obliged as part of his plea agreement to testify at the upcoming trial. But Trump is not a defendant, and Weisselberg has refused to cooperate with the broader investigation.

But Bragg has indicated skepticism that there is sufficient evidence to convict Trump. The district attorneys public suggestion that Trump would probably not face charges led to the resignation of two prosecutors leading the investigation, one of whom said in a resignation letter that the former president was guilty of numerous felony violations and that it was a grave failure of justice not to hold him accountable.

Trump put himself in possible legal jeopardy in the swing state of Georgia on Jan. 2, 2021, when he called Brad Raffensperger, the secretary of state, and demanded that he find 11,780 votes, just enough to reverse the outcome and take the state away from Joe Biden. During the call, Trump warned Raffensperger, a Republican, that he faced a big risk if he failed to find those votes, an implied threat the Georgian defied.

Trumps allies likewise sought to pressure state officials to change the results and, as they did in other key states that went for his opponent, tried to orchestrate a slate of fake electors to send to Washington to cast Electoral College votes for the defeated president instead of Biden, who won Georgias popular vote.

Fani T. Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, has cast a wide net, pressing for testimony by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and informing Rudy Giuliani, the former presidents lawyer, that he is a target of her investigation.

Willis appears to be building a possible case of conspiracy to commit election fraud or racketeering through a coordinated effort to undermine the election. In addition to Giuliani, multiple allies of the former president have been told they are targets, including the state party chair and members of the slate of fake electors.

Trump has dismissed Willis, a Democrat who was elected in the same 2020 balloting that he lost, saying her inquiry is, in the words of a spokesperson last year, simply the Democrats latest attempt to score political points by continuing their witch hunt against President Trump.

The House committee investigating the Capitol attack of Jan. 6, 2021, composed of seven Democrats and two Republicans, has done more to lay out a possible criminal case against Trump in the public space than any of the former presidents pursuers.

Its series of hearings over the summer, which could resume Sept. 28, showcased testimony by Trumps own advisers indicating that he was repeatedly informed that the 2020 election was not stolen, that what he was telling the public was not true, that there was no basis to challenge the outcome and even that the crowd he summoned on Jan. 6 included some armed people.

The committee documented just how wide-ranging Trumps efforts to hold onto power were how he pressured not just Raffensperger but officials in multiple states to change the outcomes, how he contemplated declaring martial law and seizing voting machines, how he tried to force the Justice Department to intervene even though he was told there was no case, how he plotted with congressional allies to orchestrate fake electors and ultimately how he sought to strong-arm his own vice president into blocking Bidens victory.

The committee has no power to prosecute, but it has gone to court to enforce subpoenas to testify and prompted criminal charges of contempt of Congress by the Justice Department against Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro, two former Trump aides. Bannon has been convicted and is awaiting sentencing; Navarro has asked a court to throw out his case.

But though lawmakers cannot indict Trump, they are debating whether to make a criminal referral recommending that the Justice Department do so. That has little substantive meaning, but it would raise the stakes for Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Garland remains in some ways the biggest mystery as Trump seeks to thwart investigators. An even-tempered, widely respected former prosecutor and appellate judge, Garland has said little to tip his hand, but his department is clearly pursuing multiple strands in its investigation of what happened leading up to and on Jan. 6.

The department has interviewed or brought before a grand jury former White House aides like Pat A. Cipollone and Marc Short; seized the phones or electronic devices of Trumps allies like John Eastman, Jeffrey Clark and Mike Lindell, and even a member of Congress; and blitzed out some 40 subpoenas recently to former White House aides like Stephen Miller and Dan Scavino and others close to the former president.

After spending much of the last 18 months prosecuting hundreds of Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol, Garlands team now seems to be examining multiple angles, including the fake electors plan, Trumps fundraising operation as he promoted false claims about election fraud and the former presidents own role in seeking to overturn the election.

What remains unclear is if Garland has a theory of the case yet. While the subpoenas indicated that investigators were looking at, among other things, efforts to obstruct, influence, impede or delay the certification of the presidential election, the department has yet to charge people around Trump and therefore has not laid out any legal conclusions about the actions taken by his camp.

One person who is not known to have been subpoenaed yet is Trump, but it remains a possibility. Bracing for the day the investigators show up on his own doorstep, Trump has been busy looking for lawyers to represent him because so many of his past lawyers no longer want to be involved with him or face legal trouble of their own.

In case Trump did not expose himself to enough legal trouble in his final days in office, he made decisions as he left the White House that would come back to haunt him as well.

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The latest threat to the former president stems from his insistence on flying home with thousands of documents owned by the government, including hundreds marked with varying classified designations, and his failure to give them all back when asked.

Garlands team has indicated in court filings that it is looking at not only criminal charges related to mishandling classified documents but also obstruction of justice. A lawyer for Trump signed a document stating that he had returned all classified papers in his possession, which proved to be false when FBI agents searched Mar-a-Lago and found boxes of them. Investigators indicated the files were probably concealed and moved rather than turned over.

Trumps legal strategy in the papers case mirrors the approach he has often taken over the years find ways to delay and throw his adversaries off balance. By persuading a federal judge he got confirmed in the last days of his presidency to block investigators from using the retrieved documents while they are examined by a special master, he has hindered prosecutors for now.

But that may not last forever. He said this past week that I cant imagine being indicted but conceded that it was always possible because prosecutors are just sick and deranged. He went on to assert that he declassified the papers he took, even though there is no known record of that.

But his real strategy was clear this is a political battle as much as a legal one, and he warned darkly that there would be big problems if he were indicted because his supporters, I just dont think theyd stand for it.

Told by radio host Hugh Hewitt that his critics would interpret that as inciting violence, Trump said: Thats not inciting. Im just saying what my opinion is. I dont think the people of this country would stand for it.

c.2022 The New York Times Company

See the rest here:

Where six investigations into Donald Trump stand - Baltimore Sun

America's democracy crisis will not end anytime soon. Donald Trump and his acolytes in the Republican-fascist party continue to incite acts of right-wing violence, including terrorism, on a nationwide scale as part of their plan to end American democracy and replace it with authoritarianism and one-party rule.

The Big Lie continues to spread across the United States. A majority of Republicans now subscribe to the repeatedly disproven theory that the 2020 Election was somehow illegitimate, that Trump is the "real" president and Joe Biden is a pretender and usurper. "MAGA" is American neofascism; it hasfully conquered the Republican Party.

Even President Biden who is committed to political moderation and remains eager to find "unity" with "traditional" Republicans for the good of the country is finally issuing public warnings that today's Republican Party and the MAGA movement are basically enemy agents working to undermine America from within.

This moment of crisis demands bold, immediate leadership and collective action, not just from Biden and other leading Democrats but from rank-and file-Americans as well. But the urgency of stopping Trump and his forces is hamstrung by how the rule of law in a democracy operates slowly and justice often takes a very long time if it ever does arrive.

Will Donald Trump eventually be prosecuted, convicted and then imprisoned for his apparent high crimes, which may include violating the Espionage Act? Attorney and author Kenneth Foard McCallion believes that the answer is probably no.

McCallion is a former Justice Department prosecutor who also worked for the New York State Attorney General's office as a prosecutor on Trump racketeering cases. As an assistant U.S. attorney and special assistant U.S. attorney, he focused on international fraud and counterintelligence cases that often involved Russian organized crime.

McCallion is also the author of several books, including "Profiles in Cowardice in the Trump Era" and "Treason & Betrayal: The Rise and Fall of Individual-1."

In this wide-ranging conversation, he offers his view that Donald Trump, along with his inner circle and his businesses, operate like an organized crime family. McCallion saysthese attributes and behavior help to explain Trump's affinity for foreign demagogues and other corrupt elements, including Eastern European and Russian criminal organizations.

McCallion reflects on his personal experience prosecuting Trump and his organizations, and the challenges of going up against a man he describes as a likely sociopath and a skilled pathological liar.

McCallionexplains the approach that Merrick Garland and the Department of Justice will likely take in prosecuting Trump for the government documents he stored at Mar-a-Lago and the events of Jan. 6. Any such prosecution will require both overwhelming irrefutable evidence and a simple and direct story to tell a jury about Trump's misdeeds. McCallion also says that contrary to some media reports, Trump can definitely still be prosecuted even if he announces he is running for president.

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Toward the end of this conversation, McCallion outlines a likely scenario for the final disposition of such a prosecution. He believes that Trump may be brought down by a litany of civil lawsuits that will cripple him financially, not by a high-profile criminal case in which the former president is "perp-walked" in handcuffs and then sent to prison.

This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

How are you feeling, given everything that's happening? With your expertise and experience, how do you process all these events? What are you seeing?

The next book I'm working on is actually titled "Civil War II," but the ending is yet to be written. Over the last few weeks, I've been shocked at the extent of what we are learning about the Espionage Act and the hiding of secret government documents by Trump at Mar-a-Lago.

Why did he do that? I don't know.But I do believe that kind of hubris, and that inability to really let go of the mantel of the presidency, may in the end be his undoing. Trump has certainly left himself open for being prosecuted for serious crimes related to espionage and various other things.

That kind of hubris, and that inability to really let go of the mantel of the presidency, may in the end be Donald Trump's undoing.

There are encouraging signs. I was quite delighted that a friend and former mentor of mine, Raymond Dearie, who is a retired district judge from the Eastern District of New York, where I was in the U.S. attorney's office, will most likely be the special master [reviewing the Mar-a-Lago documents]. I was worried that the Justice Department and the attorney general had dozed off and napped for several months, but it appears they are hard at work now.

The Jan. 6 committee really gave the Department of Justice a lot of impetus and momentum. There are also good indications that justice may actually be done with the New York attorney general's [civil] case, and perhaps the Manhattan DA's [criminal] case too.

Is there actually anything shocking about any of the things Trump and his allies have done? Donald Trump has been a public criminal for decades. Jan. 6 was in many ways a predictable event and was announced beforehand.My point of view is pretty simple. We know who Donald Trump is. There is a long pattern of his evil behavior. What is "shocking" about any of this? He is utterly predictable.

Those of us who know Donald Trump also understand that he is probably beyond reformation and may actually be psychopathic. However, I think it's important to say that Donald Trump's behavior and presidency, and what he continues to do, has been a shock to the democratic system. We cannot lose the capacity to be outraged at Trump's behavior. We need to have that sense of outrage in order to protect the country's democratic institutions, which are under attack right now.

Where are the consequences for Donald Trump and his apparent criminal acts and other wrongdoing?

I do believe that the Justice Department probably should have moved much faster with the Mar-a-Lago documents, given that we are entering an election season. However, we need to uphold the principle that no man is above the law no matter what time of year it may be, political happenings or not.

It's never a convenient season for the rich and powerful to be held accountable. It's almost a perfect storm at this point between the Department of Justice investigation, the New York attorney general's investigation and various civil suits against Trump. The pot is boiling now in several different respects. One or more of these investigations will almost certainly lead to the undoing of the Trump Organization.

There is also significant personal liability for Donald Trump for the obstruction of justice and for a long list of crimes that are now being investigated. Attorney General Garland and the Justice Department really have to follow through this investigation to its logical conclusion. The evidence is overwhelming. Any honest prosecutor is not going to want to say, "I pulled my punches," or, "I let Donald Trump go just because he's the former president."

You have a lot of experience with Donald Trump. You faced him and his organization as a prosecutor. When you saw his candidacy in 2016 and then saw him win the election, what were you most afraid of?

I worked with the organized crime section of the Justice Department when I went up against Donald Trumpand his lawyer, Roy Cohn.We were primarily investigating labor racketeering, involving unions that were dominated by various organized crime families, including the Teamsters and others. In our investigation, we found that Donald Trump and some other developers used their connections with organized crime to get immunity from strikes by entering into corrupt contracts promising "no-show" jobs, for example. These corrupt contracts gave Trump and others a competitive advantage.

It quickly occurred to us, and I think it's apparent to all of us now, that Trump and his organization are just another organized crime family. They try to maintain the code of silence, but that hasn't been entirely successful. There is a complete disregard for the law. In terms of fraudulent intent, even if they could have made money honestly, Trump and his people like many organized crime-controlled companies try to cut corners.

It quickly occurred to us [in the DOJ], and I think it's apparent to all of us now, that Trump and his organization are just another organized crime family.

They take advantage of their connections with organized crime and their connections with corrupt foreign leaders, such as Putin. Russian organized crime always had a very close connection with the Trump organization. After Trump's casinos in Atlantic City went under and the banks started pulling back their financing, Trump and his organization and his development projects have been financed through shady money from Eastern Europe and Russia, from the oligarchs.

They have been Trump's lifeblood for his financing. His worldview has always been oriented towards the countries where oligarchs and dirty money are prevalent. Donald Trump was dead set on attempting to convert the United States into a replica, to some extent, of the antidemocratic, authoritarian, oligarchical systems we see in Hungary, Russia and various other parts of Eastern Europe.

Given your experience with Trump, what did the news media and the American public fail to understand about this man? Or perhaps, what were they afraid to acknowledge?

Many people naively thought that Trump, despite his outlandish behavior, was just being hyperbolic and not seriously intentioned. What they didn't realize is that Trump bought into his own nonsensical worldview. Millions of adoring people worship Donald Trump as he has said, he really could walk down Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and his followers would still love him.

Did Trump really believe that the election was stolen from him in 2020? The frightening thing is that Trump has not only convinced many of his followers of that, he has probably convinced himself of that, which makes him the most dangerous kind of dictator or autocrat. He has lost all sense of any ability to pull back from the brink. Donald Trump is not restrained by any of the guardrails of our normal democratic processes. He and Steve Bannon and the rest of that inner circle have brought the United States to somewhere quite different than this country's ever been before.

But in the end, I do believe that the pendulum will swing back, much as it did with, for example, Sen. Joe McCarthy in the 1950s with his Red scare. I truly think the wheel will turn and we're not going to go over the cliff.

Where does that hope and belief come from? Trump has escaped responsibility for decades.

Trumphas lost all sense of any ability to pull back from the brink. He is not restrained by any of the guardrails of our normal democratic processes.

As bad as things are now, and as divided as the country is, there have been other times in our past where we have faced great difficulties. Yet somehow we survived the turmoil and the storms and got to a better place. I think it's a constant struggle. We are in the midst of one of those fundamental struggles, with Trump and his movement and the assault on democracy and the rule of law.

As you said, Merrick Garland could have moved earlier. I'm one of the people who wondered what the hell he was waiting for: Lock him up! Help me understand what the law requires, versus what political expediency demands.

The Department of Justice has to be thorough here. When I was with the Department of Justice, as a young prosecutor, I'd be anxious to bring organized crime figures to trial. But like Trump, many heads of crime families delegate the dirty work to other people. So to nail Trump and hold him responsible beyond a reasonable doubt, you really don't want to leave anything to chance. You need overwhelming evidence.

I think we're really getting to the point where we have that critical mass, especially after the Mar-a-Lago search and the documents obtained there. That was a fumble by Trump on the five-yard line. He might well have gotten away with not facing a criminal indictment for all he had done before that, but he had the audacity and the hubris to take top secret government documents with him after leaving office.

People of ambition and of monumental ego, like Donald Trump, have blind spots. Trump is bringing himself down. What I really fear is that a smarter Trump-like figure, maybe like Ron DeSantis, could actually do a lot more damage than Donald Trump.

In my view, Trump is a criminal genius. When you go up against somebody like that in court, how do you prepare?

When I did my cases, it was much like building a brick house. You have to do it from the foundation up, but there's always a moment when a prosecutor has butterflies in his stomach. When you have to cross-examine a Trump-like figure or the head of an organized crime family or someone of that type more generally, there is anxiety even when you have overwhelming evidence against them

Remember, these people are pathological liars. I'm sure that Donald Trump, if he was given a polygraph, would pass with flying colors. It's a matter of experience, plus a natural sociopathic ability to lie.

Trump's had a lot of experience with lying and the courts. He has some pretty good counsel, but I think over the next few months that most of the documents taken from Mar-a-Lago are going to be turned back over to the Justice Department. We'll see the wheels of justice continue at that point. Letitia James, the attorney general in New York, will get a very solid result against the Trump Organization, as will the DA in Manhattan, Alvin Bragg. Those cases are not against Trump personally, but against his organization. His chief lieutenants will be brought down and face very substantial fines for their economic and financial sleight of hand.

What do you think the approach to prosecuting Trump will be? The evidence seems overwhelming, but nothing's decided until you're in court.

It has to be laid out very simply for the jurors. It's basically two plus two equals four. You have Trump with these documents, some of them in a basement, but some of these top-secret documents were found by the FBI next to his passport in a private part of his desk. These documents were close to him every day. Trump certainly had knowledge and awareness of the documents; he knew they were top secret. He knew they had been taken from the White House. I think that you would just put it to a jury that you don't leave your common sense and good reason at the door when you are sworn in as a juror.

It's basically two plus two equals four. ...Trump certainly had knowledge and awareness of the documents; he knew they were top secret. He knew they had been taken from the White House.

We spend our entire lives evaluating people, separating truths from falsehoods and connecting the dots. It's much the same way that organized crime figures were brought down. Al Capone, for example, was put in prison not for the many murders he committed, but for tax fraud. With Trump, it will be the same thing. It's a very simple story you can tell. With top secret documents, the story tells itself.

What do you think Trump was doing with the top secret and other highly classified documents?

Actually, on this point, I give Trump somewhat the benefit of the doubt. I think his ego would not let him leave all the trappings of power back in the White House. In his mind, he had to take something. Now, did he foreclose the issue of selling the documents for money if necessary, or using them for political purposes? Those avenues were available to him as well, but I doubt Trump had a clear-cut plan. He knew they were top secret documents and he took them. It is not a requirement that the prosecution establish his intent, other than an intent and a willfulness to keep top secret documents out of the government archives and in his own personal possession. Mar-a-Lago is a place that is crawling with potential spies, Chinese and otherwise.

Donald Trump engaged in a flagrant violation of his national duty. That willfulness and intent and recklessness is, I believe, sufficient for a criminal conviction.

So how do you approach finding a jury where you won't have one person who is going to nullify in Trump's favor. That's the practical problem. Is it possible to find an honest jury that is not tainted by Trumpists?

In jury selection, I always tell a client: You're never going to get the jury that you want, but you want a jury that's going to call the balls and strikes the way they really are. You don't want jurors who are dead set against you and supporting the opposition. Through your jury challenges, you can just weed out those people as best you can. You have to keep in mind that a lot of people underestimate jurors. For example, in the Paul Manafort trial some of those jurors were actually predisposed to be favorable to Donald Trump's worldview. Yet they found that Paul Manafort had violated the law on several counts and should be held liable under the criminal laws.

The jury system is a risky one. It's somewhat of a mystery, even to me, with all my decades of experience. But by and large, the guilty are convicted and the innocent can go free in our system, with some notable exceptions of course. Some jurors are reached by external forces, organized crime, political or otherwise. But by and large, I think the system is more or less equitable. It will be a great day for the justice system when Trump and some of his chief lieutenants are held accountable.

How do you explain to the average person what a RICO case is? How would you approach that type of prosecution in the case of Trump?

The racketeering laws are extremely flexible. It is much like describing an organized crime family that has a certain structure. The person at the top is calling the shots and the other members may not know what each of the others are doing. However, they subscribe to and agree with the overarching principles and goals of the organized crime family. In this case, that is to keep Donald Trump and his minions in power, to hold onto the White House through means fair and foul primarily foul. Trump and his minions reject the basic norms of democracy.

They've used mail and wire fraud and engaged in various other violations of federal and state law over an extended period of time as well. That is really the informal definition of a racketeering conspiracy. Trump and his minions have engaged in that behavior.

But I think that Garland and the Justice Department may well steer clear of an extremely complex RICO-type case and just go with some very pointed, targeted violations. These violations are clear: espionage and various other laws. There are the facts and evidence to support racketeering and conspiracy charges. But the problem is that the more you complexify a case, the more likely it is to run on for weeks. Jurors are human beings; you can start losing some of them.

In my opinion, the Garland Justice Department learned a lot from the Jan. 6 committee hearings. It's probably going to follow that more simplified, direct, powerful route in bringing its prosecutions.

What can the Department of Justice prove conclusively about Donald Trump in order to hold him criminally accountable? It is easy to list all of Trump's acts of perfidy, immortality and wrongdoing, but that may not be enough to prosecute and convict him. It may all be wrong, but is it clearly illegal?

I think the Justice Department is going to focus on two scenarios. One will be the events leading up to Jan. 6. The coordinating and fundraising, the attack on the Capitol, the attempted election subversion and related happenings. The Justice Department has built a pretty strong case that Trump was the lead instigator of that demonstration and the assault on Congress. The other focus will be on the Espionage Act and related charges regarding the documents at Mar-a-Lago.

What does the Department of Justice do if and when Trump announces that he is running for president? Do they have to hold off for another four years if he wins?

It is conceivable that Donald Trump might do some time. But I would not put the odds on him being handcuffed and perp-walked, with the press photographing him.

If the Department of Justice gets an indictment, it should happen sometime later this year. They wouldn't do it in the window from now to November, the political season, but maybe the end of this year or early next year. One of the things people don't realize, and maybe Trump doesn't realize, is that once he declares for the presidency he will not have the Republican National Committee and other groups paying for his legal defense at that particular point. Trump is an extremely cheap individual who will have to pay out of pocket for millions of dollars in legal fees.

The Justice Department will not stop or pause, except for the political season in the midterms. They will not stand down just because Trump is a presidential candidate. Whether he is a presidential candidate or not, Trump and his supporters are still going to say it's a political prosecution.

The best defense for Trump is to attack the prosecutors. The prosecutors have to take a few punches and be vilified in the press, as they were after the Mar-a-Lago search. Although he waited too long, Merrick Garland did hold a press conference, as well he should have. The Justice Department is not a punching bag. It's entitled to protect itself and its reputation.

Many observers are claiming that if Trump announces his candidacy, the Department of Justice will not proceed with prosecuting him because of some type of informal rule or guideline. Garland and the DOJ will pause everything at that point, and perhaps drop it entirely, because to prosecute a presidential candidate would look too "political."

Absolutely not. If they did such a thing, they would be violating their oaths and professional ethics. The rest of the country would be wondering why there's one set of laws for us and another set of law for Trump and his kind.

What happens if Donald Trump is prosecuted and not convicted? What are the next steps, as a legal matter?

I can see the O.J. Simpson scenario playing out here. O.J. beat the criminal rap, but he was done in by the civil cases. Although there's a focus on the Department of Justice investigation, there are a host of civil cases out there against Trump. Trump will be involved in litigation for years, whether or not he beats a criminal rap.

Many people with public platforms keep proclaiming that Donald Trump is going to jail. That it's inevitable and we are eventually going to see Trump do a perp walk.Is he going to jail, in any version of this universe? What are the real range of practical or realistic consequences for him?

If I were a betting man, I would not put the odds on Donald Trump being handcuffed and perp-walked with the press photographing him on the way to a jail cell. The Justice Department has to pursue the investigation to an indictment and then prosecute it. As you know, not every case reaches trial. There is always the possibility of plea deals. Yes, it is conceivable that Donald Trump might do some time. But it's more likely that there would be some sort of plea deal to some of these offenses, in order for Trump to avoid a jail sentence. Trump would have to allow himself to actually admit guilt for some of these crimes.

In the real world, yes, some of the guilty do escape justice. But with the focus on Trump and the evidence that's available, I believe there will be a day of reckoning. Exactly what the consequences are after that is anybody's guess.

Here is my best-case scenario. Donald Trump takes a plea offer. There are some fines and he agrees to not run for public office again. But he then continues to be a public menace, agitating for right-wing terrorism, threatening democracy, repeating Jan. 6 and inciting other unrest. But what message is sent if the Department of Justice makes a deal with him? If Trump is not convicted and put in jail, what does that mean for the future of the country?

Keeping Trump from the White House again is a real benefit to the country. He'd have to agree to that in any plea deal. Trump would have to explicitly promise not to run for public office again. Will he continue to agitate and attempt to grab press headlines? Of course, but the Republican Party and his followers, at some point, have to move on. Donald Trump has had his moment. In the end, the country will get past Donald Trump.

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Former federal prosecutor: A "day of reckoning" is coming for Trump but he's not going to jail - Salon

The line between imagination and delusion is thin, as Donald Trumps initial reaction to an FBI search at Mar-a-Lago in August demonstrated. In the first days afterward, the former president saw the search as a political gift, not a blow: a chance to rally his base, put would-be challengers like Ron DeSantis in their place, and reconsolidate his eroding position as the leader of the Republican Party.

Over time, it has become clear that the FBI finding reams of top-secret documents at his club is not, in fact, a boon to Trump. Even with the presidential-records investigation slowed down by a sympathetic judge, the probe has exacted costs both political and monetary, including a $3 million prepayment to a lawyer aware of Trumps tendency to stiff people who provide services. Nearly every Trump adviser youve ever heard of, plus a few you havent, has been subpoenaed by the Justice Department in an investigation into election subversion, and the House committee looking into the same matter will return to public hearings later this month. The New York attorney general just rejected a settlement offer in an investigation into Trumps business.

David A. Graham: Trump opened Pandoras prosecutorial box

No single strategy can handle the range of problems Trump faces. With some clever forum-shopping, he managed to get the FBI investigation into the hands of a judge whom he appointed late in his termshe was confirmed after the 2020 electionand whose rulings have baffled and appalled legal experts. But this is a stalling tactic, not a solution, and not every judge draw will be so lucky. A second strategy is to cry political persecution, which is good at rallying the minority of the population who already stands behind him but unlikely to win over those who dont, especially because the claims are so unpersuasive.

This brings us to a third gambit: threats. If the people pursuing these criminal investigations into his conduct dont back off, he warns, someonenot him, mind youmight do something dangerous. In this heads-I-win, tails-you-lose logic, the justice system can either exempt Trump from the rule of law or risk someone destroying it by other means. Nice democracy youve got here. Shame if someone tried to make it great again, again.

In an interview yesterday, the conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, a Trump critic turned flatterer, asked whether being criminally indicted would dissuade Trump from running for president in 2024. Trump took the answer in a dark direction.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Donald Trumps mafia mind-set

I dont think the people of the United States would stand for it, he said. I think if it happened, I think youd have problems in this country the likes of which perhaps weve never seen before. I dont think the people of the United States would stand for it.

The implication was clear enough that Hewitt felt the need to throw Trump a preemptive lifeline: You know that the legacy media will say youre attempting to incite violence with that statement.

Thats not inciting, Trump replied. Im just saying what my opinion is. I dont think the people of this country would stand for it.

But theres no need to believe hes merely making an analytical judgment. Anyone else can see as clearly as Hewitt what Trump is doing. As The Atlantics editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, has noted, Trump commonly uses this mob-boss-derived method: He speaks in fluent innuendo and implication, making his desires clear while leaving himself just enough vagueness to be able to smirkingly deny it.

Read: The lurking menace of a Trump rally

Like a Mafia dons warnings, this Dons warnings serve as a kind of intimidation, trying to make authorities who care a great deal about the government, civil peace, and the reputations of their agencies (as Attorney General Merrick Garland clearly does) wonder whether its really worth enforcing the law against this particular would-be defendant.

These threats might also actually occasion violence. By now, everyoneTrump, Hewitt, you, mehas seen this happen. Sometimes, the violence comes from mentally disturbed individuals who think theyre doing what Trump wants, such as Cesar Sayoc, who sent bombs to Trump critics shortly before the 2018 midterms, or Ricky Walter Shiffer, who was killed after attempting to attack an FBI office in Cincinnati just days after the Mar-a-Lago search.

Other times, the violence comes from Trump backers who simply listen to what he says: the kinds of people who slugged protesters at campaign rallies after he waxed nostalgic for the good old days of rough treatment and offered to pay legal bills, or who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, after Trump called on them to fight like hell.

If there was a time when Trump didnt know how people would respond when he makes these veiled threats, it has passed. He understands now, and does it anyway. His persistence also helps show why his claims that his exhortations on January 6 were not incitement are not to be believed.

This very real menace also makes Trumps threats ultimately self-defeating. When he speaks this wayor when he embraces QAnon, or whatever fringe view he happens to be espousing at the momentit riles up his backers, but it also drives away voters he needs to be a viable political force. This means the threats are unlikely to be Trumps salvation, even as they could inflict real harm on American democracy. He seems not to care.

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Trump's Threats of Violence - The Atlantic

By Leesa K. Donner*

Impeached twice, investigated by the New York StateAttorney General, and raided by the FBI but the American establishment cannot understand the unwavering political power of Donald Trump. The popularity of Orange Man Bad vexes them. They whine about his continued prominence and cannot fathom why Trump remains standing after the many knock-out punches that should have dropped him to the mat. Perhaps it is because these people do not understand Mr. Trump or what makes his steadfast following tick.

It is almost as if they do not believe they won in 2020. Every day since that fateful election,Donald J. Trumphas graced the front pages of the legacy media almost without exception. Two years later and with midterms rapidly approaching, the Liz Cheney wing of the Republican party remains perplexed. In aNew York Timescolumn recently, Never-Trumper David Brooks marveled at the continued political strength of the former president:

One of the stunning facts of the age is the continued prominence of Donald Trump. His candidates did well in the G.O.P. primaries this year. He won more votes in 2020 than he did in 2016. Hisfavorability ratingswithin his party have been high and basically unchanged since late 2016. In a range of polls, some have actually shown Trump leading President Biden in a race for re-election in 2024.

Then, as the left (among whom Brooks must be counted) lurched uncontrollably into the truth. His prominence is astounding because, over the past seven years, the American establishment has spent enormous amounts of energy trying to discredit him,Brookswhined.

In a rare display of rational thinking, Brooks outlined the many strategies employed by the establishment to take Trump out: This included, but was not limited to, the immorality tactic, various impeachment schemes, and the so-called exposure ploy, which were designed to unmask him as a terrible human being. Frustrated and nonplussed by the inadequacy of these efforts, the thought occurs to Brooks, and likely others, that The barrage has probably solidified Trumps hold on his party.

He got that right.

Joe Biden& Company appear to have settled upon the strategy of damning the entire lot of Trumpists. By going after the electorate (an unusual approach to be sure), the establishment hopes to marginalize the Trump advocate. The idea is to corner the pro-Trump crowd, and make them appear radical, which is why words like white supremacist, semi-fascist, and UltraMAGAare being tossed around ad infinitum.

Why employ such a divisive tactic? Because it is designed to persuade the folks who live in the political center. Brooks even admitted as much. The job was to peel away independents and those Republicans offended by and exhausted by his antics, he wrote. However, trying to make everyone who supports Mr. Trump into a lunatic has a downside, as is evident by this story shared byThe New York Timescolumnist:

This week, I talked with a Republican who was incensed by Bidens approach. He is an 82-year-old migr from Russia who is thinking of supporting Ron DeSantis in the 2024 primaries because he has less baggage. His parents were killed by the Nazis in World War II. And now Bidens callingmea fascist?! he fumed.

One wonders if the president and his party satraps have become so insular, they cannot recognize the strategy of making Trump supporters out to be an archetypal anti-Christ is not working. Much like the elderly migr mentioned above, it may actually be backfiring.

And so, it appears MAGA man and his millions of followers have gotten into their heads, and the establishment is utterly exasperated. The Never-Trump elite may be frustrated that they have not been able to rid the earth of Orange Man Bad, but they continue to search almost without pause for an answer. It is if they are locked inside a political maze without entrance or exit. Perhaps they are so confounded because taking the time to understand the average Trump supporter is beneath them. It is class politics to the core a concept which Donald Trump has fundamentally turned on its head. Although the Shakespearean provenance is disputed, this quote aptly describes the situation: Love me or hate me, both are in my favorIf you love me, Ill always be in your heartIf you hate me, Ill always be in your mind.

*About the author: Leesa K. Donner is Editor-in-Chief of LibertyNation.com. A widely published columnist, Leesa previously worked in the broadcast news industry as a television news anchor, reporter, and producer at NBC, CBS and Fox affiliates in Charlotte, Pittsburgh, and Washington, DC. She is the author of Free At Last: A Life-Changing Journey through the Gospel of Luke.

Source: This article was published by Liberty Nation

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Never Trumpers Frustrated And Whining Over Donald Trump OpEd - Eurasia Review

We all remember Sept. 11, 2001. An attack caused by hate, ignorance and fear of American democracy was fomented and planned by one man, Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda.

We all remember Jan. 6, 2021. An insurrection caused by hate, ignorance and fear of American democracy was fomented and planned by one man, Donald Trump, a Republican.

Barack Obama ordered bin Laden killed for his crimes against America.

Joe Biden ordered al-Zawahiri (Osama bin Ladens No. 2) killed for his crimes against America.

Trump, a Republican, is being investigated for his potential crimes against America including top secret government records taken and improperly stored in his house, electoral interference in Georgia, the Jan. 6 Insurrection, and his business dealings.

On Aug. 28, Republican U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham stated publicly there will be riots in the streets if Trump is prosecuted.

Behaviors have consequences.

No man or woman is above the law, including Trump.

Had Trump accepted his attorney generals proclamation that Trump lost the 2020 presidential election, Trump could be playing golf contentedly. Recently, Trump spent his time in a deposition pleading the Fifth Amendment over 400 times so as not to incriminate himself.

Are more Trump depositions coming? Is a Trump prosecution coming? Are riots in the streets coming?

Solution? Elect Democrats Susan Wild and Tom Malinowski to Congress to maintain the Constitution I took an oath upon enlistment to support and defend against foreign and domestic enemies.

Reggie Regrut is U.S. Army Reserve veteran who lives in Phillipsburg.

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Elect Democrats to thwart the threat to democracy from Donald Trump | Letter - lehighvalleylive.com

A SPAC set to take former President Donald Trumps new media company public could be facing another setback. Heres the latest.

What Happened: A shareholder vote for SPAC Digital World Acquisition Corporation DWAC was delayed to October after failing to generate enough votes to extend the vote on a merger with Trump Media & Technology Group.

The SPAC failed to pay proxy firm Saratoga Proxy Consulting which helped solicit votes from public shareholders. The amount owed is said to be six figures.

Digital World Acquisition Corporation CEO Patrick Orlando told Saratoga Proxy Consulting it did not have money to pay the consulting bill, according to a report from the Financial Times.

A new proxy firm called Alliance Advisors has been hired to help share information on the merger vote, now delayed until October.

The SPAC is actively seeking shareholder approval to extend the merger vote date for one year to September 2023.

Around 40% of public shareholders of Digital World Acquisition voted in favor of the merger vote extension. A 65% vote in favor is required to approve the extension of the merger deadline.

The current shareholder deadline to vote on the merger vote extension is Oct. 10, 2022.

The SPAC can extend its deadline to March 8, 2023 without shareholder approval. If the merger extension to September 2023 is not approved, the company would have to complete the merger by March 8, 2023 or liquidate its assets.

Related Link: Donald Trump Themed Alternative Investments To DWAC: 3 Stocks And 1 ETF To Watch

Why Its Important: The latest report of the SPAC having no money available to pay the proxy firm comes on the heels of another company linked to providing work for Trump Media & Technology Group not being paid.

Truth Social, a social media platform owned by Trump Media & Technology Group, stopped making payments to its web-hosting provider. Fox Business Network reported that RightForge claimed Truth Social was $1.6 million behind in payments to the company.

Among the risk factors in the SPAC merger agreement were mentions of the previous history of bankruptcies by companies linked to Trump. The SPAC said, there can be no assurances that TMTG will not also become bankrupt.

An investigation in 2016 by USA Today highlighted numerous lawsuits filed against Trump and his company over not being paid for their work. The report also found violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act against Trump-affiliated companies.

Trump brushed off the report at the time.

Lets say that they do a job thats not good, or a job that they didnt finish, or a job that was way late. Ill deduct from their contract, absolutely, Trump said. Thats what the country should be doing.

Truth Social is currently available on Apple Inc AAPL devices via the iOS store. The app saw a surge in downloads after the FBI raid at Mar-a-Lago. The app is taking pre-orders for devices that use the Android operating system, owned by Alphabet Inc GOOGGOOGL. Google has denied the company from being added over concerns of a lack of content moderation.

The report also comes as Digital World Acquisition executives like Orlando could make hundreds of millions of dollars if the merger goes through and face potential losses if the merger is not approved.

DWAC Price Action: Digital World Acquisition shares are down 3.2% to $22.67on Monday, versus a 52-week range of $9.84 to $175.

Photo: Courtesy ofGage Skidmoreon flickr

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Deadbeat SPAC: Donald Trump's Social Network Isn't Paying Its Bills. Is This The Final Setback? - Digital World Acq (NASDAQ:DWAC) - Benzinga