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      Classified Trump schedules were moved to Mar-a-Lago after FBI search – sources

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      Classified Trump schedules were moved to Mar-a-Lago after FBI search – sourcesExclusive: Junior aide took the box, including some classified documents, from a government-leased office in Palm Beach to Mar-a-LagoDonald Trump’s lawyers found a box of White House schedules, including some that were marked classified, at his Mar-a-Lago resort in December because a junior aide to the former president had transported it from another office in Florida after the FBI completed its search of the property, according to two sources familiar with the matter.The former president does not appear to have played a direct role in the mishandling of the box, though he remains under investigation for the possible improper retention of national security documents and obstruction of justice. Special counsel seeks to compel Mike Pence to testify about January 6Read moreKnown internally as ROTUS, short for Receptionist of the United States, the junior aide initially kept the box at a converted guest bungalow at Mar-a-Lago called the “tennis cottage” after Trump left office, and she soon took it with her to a government-leased office in the Palm Beach area.The box remained at the government-leased office from where the junior aide worked through most of 2022, explaining why neither Trump’s lawyer who searched Mar-a-Lago in June for any classified-marked papers nor the FBI agents who searched the property in August found the documents.Around the time that Trump returned to Mar-a-Lago from his Bedminsiter golf club in New Jersey at the end of the summer, the junior aide was told that she was being relocated to a desk in the anteroom of Trump’s own office at Mar-a-Lago that previously belonged to top aide Molly Michael.The junior aide retrieved her work belongings – including the box – from the government-leased office and took them to her new Mar-a-Lago workspace around September. At that time, the justice department’s criminal investigation into Trump’s retention of national security documents was intensifying.Several weeks after the junior aide moved into her new workspace, federal prosecutors told Trump’s lawyers in October that they suspected the former president was still in possession of additional documents with classified markings despite the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago on 8 August.The Trump legal team subsequently hired two private contractors with security clearances to search Trump properties around Thanksgiving: Trump Tower in New York, Trump Bedminster and an external storage unit that turned up two additional documents marked “SECRET”, the Guardian has reported.But the justice department was not satisfied, and it pressed the Trump legal team to get the contractors to conduct the third known search of Mar-a-Lago in early December – at which point the contractors discovered the box of presidential schedules, some with classified markings.Kevin McCarthy denounced for giving January 6 tapes to Fox News hostRead moreThe Trump legal team alerted the FBI, which sent federal agents down to collect the box and its contents the following day.A few weeks later, Trump’s lawyers started exploring whether they could get a better understanding of the sensitivity of the small number of schedules marked as classified, for the junior aide had kept sole custody of the box throughout that period.It was at that point that the junior aide revealed for the first time that she could find out exactly what they were, because Michael – whose desk she inherited after she left the Trump political team at the end of the summer – had told her to scan all of the schedules on to her laptop.A lawyer for the junior aide declined to comment on Thursday night.When the Trump legal team told the justice department about the uploads, federal prosecutors demanded the laptop and its password, warning that they would otherwise move to obtain a grand jury subpoena summoning the junior aide to Washington to grant them access to the computer.To avoid a subpoena, the Trump legal team agreed to turn over the laptop in its entirety last month, though they did not allow federal prosecutors to collect it from Mar-a-Lago and handed it over just outside the gates of the property.It was later in January – as the justice department retrieved the laptop – that federal prosecutors in the office of the Trump investigation special counsel Jack Smith issued a grand jury subpoena for a manilla folder marked “Classified Evening Briefing” observed in the former president’s bedroom, the Guardian first reported.TopicsDonald TrumpMar-a-LagoLaw (US)US politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      In Wisconsin’s supreme court race, a super-rich beer family calls the shots

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      In Wisconsin’s supreme court race, a super-rich beer family calls the shotsMembers of the Uihlein dynasty are pouring millions into opposite sides of one of this year’s most important electionsWhen Wisconsinites vote on Tuesday in primary elections for a justice’s seat on the state’s supreme court, few will be aware that much of the big money pouring into this race hails from just one family whose fortunes flow from beer.‘Stakes are monstrous’: Wisconsin judicial race is 2023’s key electionRead moreMillions of dollars have been injected into the battle by members of the Uihlein family, a manufacturing dynasty with roots in Milwaukee. The huge sums could help determine the balance of power on the state’s top court and in turn influence critical areas of public life – from abortion to voting rights, and potentially even the 2024 presidential election.The source of the Uihleins’ fabulous wealth traces back to 1875, when Joseph Schlitz, the owner of a brewing company, died in a shipwreck off the Isles of Scilly. Control of the firm passed to four Uihlein brothers who were next in the line of inheritance and who went on to build the brand into the largest beer producer in America. Schlitz became ubiquitous under the jingle: “The beer that made Milwaukee famous.”Though its star has fallen, Schlitz beer is still popular in the midwest, and the Uihleins have gone on to become even richer and more powerful. They have also diversified their wealth and in recent years have started to wield it as a political weapon.Tuesday’s election for a Wisconsin supreme court position has been the target of huge amounts of Uihlein money – surprisingly, on both sides of the political divide. On one side stand the billionaire couple Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein, owners of the Wisconsin-based shipping supplies company Uline, who are on track to pump millions of dollars into the race in support of a conservative judicial candidate, Dan Kelly.On the other side, Richard’s cousin Lynde Bradley Uihlein, a prominent funder of progressive causes, has already invested hundreds of thousands of dollars to support the liberal-leaning judges vying for the supreme court seat.An expensive raceHow just one family rose to such pre-eminence in political spending, only to become split between opposing factions, is a very Wisconsin story. The state once prided itself on its campaign finance rules that put voters before donors, bore down on conflicts of interest and corruption, and required openness and transparency.But in 2010, the US supreme court unleashed untold amounts of corporate and individual wealth into elections through its controversial ruling Citizens United. Five years later the Republican-controlled Wisconsin legislature lifted the ceiling on personal donations to political parties in the state.The result was an avalanche of outside spending on elections in Wisconsin, which in recent cycles has become an increasingly key battleground state with the ability, through its 10 electoral college votes, to make or break presidential campaigns. The abundance of money has now reached even the lesser-known contests over judicial positions, as Tuesday’s primary amply illustrates.Four candidates are running in the primary: two conservatives, Kelly, a former supreme court justice, and judge Jennifer Dorow; and two liberals, the county court judges Janet Protasiewicz and Everett Mitchell. The two candidates who gain most votes in the primary will face off in the general election in April.Revealed: Trump secretly donated $1m to discredited Arizona election ‘audit’ Read moreConservatives currently command a 4-3 majority on the Wisconsin supreme court, but with the retirement of one of the conservative justices there is now a chance to flip the court. That would potentially allow progressives to legalise abortion, push back extreme Republican gerrymandering in the drawing of electoral maps and resist any election-denying challenges in next year’s presidential battle.With stakes so high, vast sums are already being channeled by outside groups into political TV and radio advertising. The Brennan Center’s Buying Time 2023 database has already recorded more than $6m of political ad orders for the primary alone – a statistic that might be overshadowed once the general election gets underway.A slew of special interests have waded into the race, with an offshoot of the anti-abortion group Susan B Anthony Pro-Life America promising to invest six figures in Kelly’s campaign. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that Kelly himself has predicted that total outside donations could reach $20m – a sum that dwarfs anything Wisconsin has ever seen – bragging that he was the candidate best placed to attract the cash.The Brennan Center’s counsel Douglas Keith said that the supreme court election was on track to be the most expensive in Wisconsin history, “and could very well end up being the most expensive in the country’s history”.“It’s escalating rapidly,” said Barry Burden, a political science professor at University of Wisconsin – Madison. “If $15m, $20m, $25m is spent on this race it’s more than you see in governor’s races in some states.”A family dividedAmid the millions being flung at the election, the Uihlein family name stands out – both for the sheer scale of its spending and for the fact that family members are fighting each other across the political schism.Over the past decade, Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein have joined the top five biggest Republican mega-donors in the US. They have lavished more than $230m on federal candidates alone.Among the politicians they have championed are some of the most notorious allies of Donald Trump. They include Ron Johnson, the Republican senator from Wisconsin, who ran a racially charged re-election campaign last November, and Marjorie Taylor Green, the extremist congresswoman from Georgia.The Uihleins live in a suburb of Chicago, but their heritage lies in Wisconsin. Richard’s great-grandfather was August Uihlein, one of the four brothers who inherited the Schlitz beer empire following the fateful shipwreck.According to the Brennan Center’s database of ad spending and official Wisconsin campaign finance records, Richard and Elizabeth have already given $40,000 of their own personal fortune to support Kelly, while injecting almost $2m more into the supreme court race through an outside group. Fair Courts America, a Super Pac largely bankrolled by Richard Uihlein, was created in 2020 with the aim of combatting the “woke mob” by shifting the balance of state and federal courts towards the far right.Latest figures compiled by the Brennan Center show that Fair Courts America has already placed TV and radio ad orders of $1.8m backing Kelly. “Madison liberals are trying to take over the Wisconsin supreme court,” one of the Super Pac’s ads says. “That’s why we need to elect conservative justice Dan Kelly.”Deploying her vast wealth in the opposite direction is Lynde Bradley Uihlein, another direct heir to the Schlitz brewing empire. Her grandfather, Harry Lynde Bradley, founded the Bradley Foundation, a rightwing powerhouse that has created a network of thinktanks and dark money groups that has helped transform Wisconsin over the past decade into a conservative bastion.Like her cousin Richard, Lynde Uihlein operates largely in the shadows, to the extent that it remains unclear why she would have bucked the family tradition and sided with progressive rather than conservative causes. She has given $20,000 of her own wealth – the maximum allowed under Wisconsin law – directly to the campaign coffers of the liberal-leaning judge Protasiewicz.In addition, she has donated $200,000 to Democratic groups in the past year as well as $250,000 to A Better Wisconsin Together, a political fund that funnels dark money – contributions whose origins cannot easily be traced – to progressive statewide candidates.Conservative donors pour ‘dark money’ into case that could upend US voting lawRead moreA Better Wisconsin Together has become the main financial backer of the two liberal candidates in the state supreme court race, pumping almost as much cash into the election as its conservative rival, Fair Courts America. The latest tally from the Brennan Center shows A Better Wisconsin Together ordering $1.6m of political TV and radio ads in the primary election alone.Keith of the Brennan Center said that the financial injection of rival Uihlein money in the election raised a profound question: “Do we want who sits on our state supreme courts to be decided as a result of a fight between the members of one of the wealthiest families in the state?”Matthew Rothschild, executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, a non-profit monitoring money and politics, said this week’s election was a “grotesque example of what happens when you get rid of campaign donation limits that restrict how much the super-rich can throw around.“We’re suffering the results: the voice of the average person is being drowned out.”TopicsWisconsinLaw (US)US politicsUS political financingfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Fox News hosts thought Trump’s election fraud claims were ‘total BS’, court filings show

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      Fox News hosts thought Trump’s election fraud claims were ‘total BS’, court filings showComments by Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham revealed in $1.6bn Dominion defamation lawsuit Hosts at Fox News privately ridiculed Donald Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen while simultaneously peddling the same lies on air, according to court filings in a defamation lawsuit against the network.Rightwing personalities Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham are among those named in the $1.6bn action brought by Dominion Voting Systems, the seller of electronic voting hardware and software that is suing Fox News and parent company Fox Corporation for maligning its reputation.From colonialism to Putin: what did Tucker Carlson defend in 2022?Read more“He’s acting like an insane person,” Hannity allegedly wrote of Trump in the weeks following the election as the host continued to push the so-called “big lie” during his top-rated prime time show, aided by a succession of election deniers he had on as guests.Even billionaire Fox owner Rupert Murdoch was dismissive of the former president’s false allegations, the filing alleges, calling them “really crazy stuff” in one memo to a Fox News executive, and criticizing Trump’s scattergun approach of pursuing lawsuits in numerous states to try to overturn his defeat.It was “very hard to credibly claim foul everywhere”, Murdoch wrote, adding in another note that Trump’s obsession with trying to prove fraud was “terrible stuff damaging everybody”.Meanwhile, Carlson, one of the network’s most prominent and controversial stars, was disdainful of Sidney Powell, a senior Trump attorney who repeatedly claimed Dominion’s machines flipped votes cast for Trump to Joe Biden.“Sidney Powell is lying,” he wrote to a producer, the Dominion lawsuit alleges. He referred to Powell in a text as an “unguided missile” and “dangerous as hell”.Trump, Carlson said, was a “demonic force” who was good at “destroying things. He’s the undisputed world champion of that. He could easily destroy us if we play it wrong.”Fellow host Ingraham told Carlson that Powell was “a complete nut. No one will work with her. Ditto with Rudy,” referring to the former New York mayor and Trump supporter Rudy Giuliani.Hannity, meanwhile, said in a deposition “that whole narrative that Sidney was pushing, I did not believe it for one second”, according to Dominion’s filing.Other internal communications revealed that Fox News executives, hosts and researchers used phrases including “mind-blowingly nuts”, “totally off the rails” and “completely BS” to describe the false election theories they were publicly promoting.All were included in a 192-page redacted summary judgment brief filed on Thursday at the Delaware superior court by Dominion’s attorneys. A trial is scheduled to begin in mid-April.The company claims multiple Fox News employees deliberately amplified false claims that Dominion had changed votes in the 2020 election, and that Fox provided a platform for guests to make false and defamatory statements.“From the top down, Fox knew ‘the Dominion stuff’ was ‘total BS’,” the brief states.“Not a single Fox witness testified [in depositions] that they believe any of the allegations about Dominion are true. Indeed, Fox witness after Fox witness declined to assert the allegations’ truth or actually stated they do not believe them.”Top US conservatives pushing Russia’s spin on Ukraine war, experts sayRead moreThe brief highlighted an 8 November 2020 interview on Maria Bartiromo’s show in which Powell insisted Dominion voting machines were used to engage in election fraud.Bartiromo knew what Powell intended to say before the interview, according to the filing, in part because Powell had forwarded an email to her revealing her source came from a woman who got her information from “the wind”.The Fox News executive responsible for Bartiromo’s show, David Clark, admitted in a deposition he “would not have allowed that claim to be aired” if he knew about the “crazy” theory from the email.The filing also shows how Hannity and others were critical of their own network for its early call of Arizona for Biden on election night, which enraged Trump. Hannity texted Carlson and Ingraham that the call “destroyed a brand that took 25 years to build and the damage is incalculable”, while Carlson called it an “act of vandalism”.Attorneys for the cable news station argued in a counterclaim that the lawsuit was an assault on the first amendment. They said Dominion had advanced “novel defamation theories” and was seeking a “staggering” damage figure aimed at generating headlines and chilling protected speech.“Dominion brought this lawsuit to punish FNN [Fox News Network] for reporting on one of the biggest stories of the day – allegations by the sitting president of the United States and his surrogates that the 2020 election was affected by fraud,” the counterclaim states. “The very fact of those allegations was newsworthy.”Fox responded to the new claims in a statement to ABC News. “There will be a lot of noise and confusion generated by Dominion and their opportunistic private equity owners, but the core of this case remains about freedom of the press and freedom of speech.”Associated Press contributed to this reportTopicsFox NewsRupert MurdochSean HannityDonald TrumpUS politicsLaw (US)newsReuse this content More

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      Untouchable review: Trump as ‘lawless Houdini’ above US justice

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      ReviewUntouchable review: Trump as ‘lawless Houdini’ above US justice Elie Honig offers a powerful indictment of the former president and those who have failed to bring him downThis book by a former federal prosecutor is subtitled “How Powerful People Get Away With It” but its overwhelming focus is Donald Trump and Merrick Garland, the most famous unindicted miscreant of modern times and the attorney general most responsible for the failure, so far, to prosecute any of his offences.People vs Donald Trump review: Mark Pomerantz pummels Manhattan DARead moreElie Honig writes that a “staggering parade” of Trump’s henchmen have been indicted, convicted, imprisoned or all three: Michael Cohen, Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, Steve Bannon, Peter Navarro, Rick Gates, George Papadopoulos, Lev Parnas, Igor Fruman, Thomas Barrack, Elliott Broidy, Sam Patten, George Nader, Allen Weisselberg and – last but not least – the Trump Organization itself.And yet, somehow, “a lawless Houdini … stands at the epicenter of the carnage, untouched, undeterred, and, if anything, emboldened”.Honig thinks the district attorney of Fulton county, Georgia, is still “the most likely to indict Trump” for his efforts to tamper with election results. But Honig makes a powerful case that “the prime opportunities to hold Trump criminally accountable for his actions have passed”, as federal and state prosecutors, especially Garland, “have fumbled away their best chances and inexcusably allowed years to lapse without meaningful action”.In the last four years, justice department leaders have zigzagged between extremes. First there was the wildly political and persistently dishonest William Barr, whose efforts to keep Trump safe ranged from keeping his name out of the indictment of Cohen for illegal hush money paid to Stormy Daniels, to Barr’s flatly false assertion that evidence developed by the special counsel Robert Mueller was “not sufficient to establish that the president committed an obstruction of justice offense”.Then came Garland, who is the opposite of Barr but who so far has managed to be nearly as helpful to Trump as his predecessor.“The problem,” Honig writes, “is in seeking to … restore political independence [for the justice department], Garland has gone too far …“It’s one thing to do the job without regard to politics. But it’s another to contort ordinary prosecutorial judgement to avoid doing anything that might even be perceived as political or controversial.”Honig prosecuted more than a hundred members of the mafia. He recounts several such cases, highlighting the similarities between the chiefs of famous families like the Luccheses and Gambinos and the man at the top of the Trump Organization.One way in which they operate the same way is to make sure subordinates lie to protect their boss, without being directly ordered to do so. For example, Cohen perjured himself when he said Trump’s efforts to build a tower in Moscow ended before the Iowa caucuses in 2016. They actually continued for months, into the “heart of the presidential campaign”.Honig writes: “Trump never said to Cohen, ‘I need you to lie for me.’ Instead, Trump openly lied in public about the timing of the Russia deal ‘for all to see’ – including Cohen.“Therein lies the beauty of being a boss. Trump never said the magic words that would have obviously given rise to criminal liability.”Honig also focuses on the dubious ethics of the former Manhattan district attorney Cyrus Vance Jr, who bungled a chance to indict two of Trump’s children over the Trump Soho project, then did the same with an investigation of Trump himself.The lawyer for Donald Trump Jr and Ivanka Trump was Marc Kasowitz. As the New Yorker, ProPublica and WNYC reported, Kasowitz gave Vance a $25,000 campaign contribution in January 2012 – just five months before meeting with Vance about the Trump kids’ case.Vance returned Kasowitz’s contribution just before his meeting with Kasowitz. Three months after the meeting, Vance dropped the case against the Trumps. Incredibly, just a few weeks after that, “Vance accepted a brand new, even larger campaign contribution from Kasowitz, who personally donated almost $32,000 and raised at least $18,000 more.” Five years later – only after the New Yorker had reported those additional contributions – Vance returned Kasowitz’s contribution again!“This much is beyond dispute,” Honig writes. “The sequence here looked terrible.”But no one comes out looking worse than Garland. Trump was protected while he was in the White House by a decades-old justice department memoranda which concluded it was impossible to indict a sitting president. After 21 January 2021, Trump lost that protection. But for many months, Garland did nothing concrete to take advantage.Honig offers the seven-count indictment he says he would have brought against Trump if he were the prosecutor in charge. It would include:
      Count 1: obstruction of justice. The Mueller report’s description of Trump’s firing of the FBI director James Comey and his attempts to fire special counsel Mueller provides overwhelming evident that “Trump obstructed justice”.
      Count 2: campaign finance violations connected to hush money paid to two of Trump’s alleged former girlfriends.
      Count 3: bribery, extortion, foreign election aid and witness retaliating and tampering, all of which were the subject of Trump’s first impeachment.
      Count 4: conspiracy, obstruction of an official proceeding and election interference – the subject of the second impeachment.
      Myth America review: superb group history of the lies that built a nationRead moreHonig’s final conclusion: while “Garland plays by Marquess of Queensbury rules”, Trump is “a remorseless street brawler”. Garland could have brought criminal charges “but he didn’t, at least not in a timely manor … As many advantages as the system gave to Trump, and as aggressive and effective as he has been in explaining them, Garland still could have achieved some measure of justice, if he had just done his job.”This week brought the news that Jack Smith, the special counsel belatedly appointed by Garland to investigate Trump, had subpoenaed Trump’s former vice-president, Mike Pence, as part of his investigation of the former president’s post-election activities.Perhaps the justice department will manage to defy expectations and return an indictment against Donald Trump. This powerful book, however, offers very little hope for that most desirable outcome.
      Untouchable: How Powerful People Get Away With It is published in the US by Harper
      TopicsBooksLaw (US)US crimeUS politicsPolitics booksDonald TrumpJeffrey EpsteinreviewsReuse this content More

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      People vs Donald Trump review: Mark Pomerantz pummels Manhattan DA

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      ReviewPeople vs Donald Trump review: Mark Pomerantz pummels Manhattan DAProsecutor who helped convict John Gotti thinks Alvin Bragg let Trump slip from the hook. His memoir proves controversial Mark Pomerantz is a well-credentialed former federal prosecutor. As a younger man he clerked for a supreme court justice and helped send the mob boss John Gotti to prison. He did stints in corporate law. In 2021, he left retirement to join the investigation of Donald Trump by the Manhattan district attorney. Pomerantz’s time with the DA was substantive but controversial.Trump porn star payment a ‘zombie case’ that wouldn’t die, ex-prosecutor says in bookRead moreIn summer 2021, he helped deliver an indictment for tax fraud against the Trump Organization and Alan Weisselberg, its chief financial officer. At the time, Cy Vance Jr, the son of Jimmy Carter’s secretary of state, was Manhattan DA. Pomerantz also interviewed Michael Cohen, Trump fanboy turned convicted nemesis, pored over documents and clamored for the indictment of the former president on racketeering charges.For Pomerantz, nailing Trump for his hush money payment to Stormy Daniels, the adult film star who claims an affair Trump denies, didn’t pass muster. But that avenue of prosecution was a “zombie case” that wouldn’t die. It still hasn’t: a Manhattan grand jury again hears evidence.Pomerantz saw Trump as a criminal mastermind aided by flunkies and enforcers. He believed charges ought to align with the gravity of the crimes. But as Pomerantz now repeatedly writes in his memoir, Alvin Bragg, elected district attorney in November 2021, did not want to move against Trump. In early 2022, Bragg balked. In March, Pomerantz quit – and leaked his resignation letter.“I believe that Donald Trump is guilty of numerous felony violations of the penal law,” Pomerantz fumed. “I fear that your decision means that Mr Trump will not be held fully accountable for his crimes.”Now comes the memoir, People vs Donald Trump: An Inside Account. It is a 300-page exercise in score-settling and scorn. Pomerantz loathes Trump and holds Bragg in less than high regard. He equates the former president with Gotti and all but dismisses the DA as a progressive politician, not an actual crime-fighter.In a city forever plagued by crime and political fights about it, Bragg’s time as DA has proved controversial: over guns, trespassing, turnstile jumping, marijuana and, yes, the squeegee men.Bragg is African American. This week, a group of high-ranking Black officials protested against Pomerantz’s attacks. In response, Pomerantz called Bragg “respected, courageous, ethical and thoughtful” but said: “I disagreed with him about the decision he made in the Trump case.”In his resignation letter, Pomerantz wrote: “I have worked too hard as a lawyer, and for too long, now to become a passive participant in what I believe to be a grave failure of justice.”Trump, he now writes, “seemed always to stay one step ahead of the law”. That may conjure up images of Road Runner and Wile E Coyote but Pomerantz is serious. “In my career as a lawyer, I had encountered only one other person who touched all of these bases: John Gotti, the head of the Gambino organised crime family.”The Goodfellas vibe is integral to Trumpworld. In The Devil’s Bargain, way back in 2017, Joshua Green narrated how Trump tore into Paul Manafort, his then campaign manager, shouting: “You treat me like a baby! Am I like a baby to you … Am I a fucking baby, Paul?” It was if Trump was channeling Joe Pesci.With the benefit of hindsight, Pomerantz concludes that the US justice department is better suited to handle a wholesale financial investigation of Trump than the Manhattan DA. Then again, the attorney general, Merrick Garland, has a lot on his plate. An insurrection is plenty.Pomerantz’s book has evoked strong reactions. Trump is enraged, of course. On Truth Social, he wrote: “Crooked Hillary Clinton’s lawyer [Pomerantz says he has never met her], radically deranged Mark Pomerantz, led the fake investigation into me and my business at the Manhattan DA’s Office and quit because DA Bragg, rightfully, wanted to drop the ‘weak’ and ‘fatally flawed’ case. This is disgraceful conduct by Pomerantz, especially since, as always, I’ve done nothing wrong!”Really?In December, a Manhattan jury convicted the Trump Organization on 17 counts of tax fraud and the judge imposed a $1.6m fine. Alan Weisselberg pleaded guilty and testified against his employer. Trump and three of his children – Ivanka, Don Jr and Eric – are defendants in a $250m civil lawsuit brought by Letitia James, the New York attorney general, on fraud-related charges. That case comes to trial in October 2023, months before the presidential primary. Sooner than that will be the E Jean Carroll trial, over alleged defamation and a rape claim Trump denies.Significantly, state prosecutors say Pomerantz may have crossed an ethical line.“By writing and releasing a book in the midst of an ongoing case, the author is upending the norms and ethics of prosecutorial conduct and is potentially in violation of New York criminal law,” J Anthony Jordan, president of the District Attorneys Association of the State of New York, announced.Never Give an Inch review: Mike Pompeo as ‘heat-seeking missile for Trump’s ass’Read moreBragg accused Pomerantz of violating a confidentiality agreement. Pomerantz is unbowed. “I am comfortable that this book will not prejudice any investigation or prosecution of Donald Trump,” he states on the page. No formal ethics complaint has appeared.Pomerantz also offers a window on personalities that crossed his path. Cohen receives ample attention. Pomerantz lauds Trump’s former fixer for his cooperation but reiterates that Cohen pleaded guilty to perjury.His conduct left Pomerantz shaking his head. Cohen’s liking for publicity could be unsettling. So was his Oval Office tête-a-tête with Trump over the payment to Daniels. Pomerantz was disgusted. Trump and Cohen, he writes, defiled America’s Holy of Holies, its “sanctum sanctorum”.No harm, no foul. Cohen’s lawyer, Lanny Davis, announced: “Mr Cohen will continue to cooperate with DA Bragg and his team, speaking truth to power – as he has always done.” On Wednesday, Cohen met the Manhattan DA for the 15th time. Pomerantz is gone. The show goes on.
      People vs Donald Trump: An Inside Account is published in the US by Simon & Schuster
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      Mike Pence subpoenaed in Trump special counsel investigations – reports

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      Mike Pence subpoenaed in Trump special counsel investigations – reportsFormer vice-president and former Trump official Robert O’Brien issued subpoena though nature of requests is not known Former US vice-president Mike Pence and the former national security adviser Robert O’Brien have been subpoenaed by the special counsel leading investigations into classified documents found at former president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and efforts to overturn the 2020 election result, according to media reports on Thursday.Pence was issued a subpoena by special counsel Jack Smith, though the nature of the request was not immediately known, ABC News reported, citing sources. The action follows months of negotiations involving federal prosecutors and Pence’s lawyers.Judge who told Pence not to overturn election predicts ‘beginning of end of Trump’Read moreO’Brien has been asserting executive privilege in declining to provide some of the information that prosecutors are seeking from him, according to CNN.Pence’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Smith’s office declined to comment on both reports from CNN and ABC.Trump’s former acting Department of Homeland Security secretary, Chad Wolf, was interviewed by justice department lawyers in recent weeks as part of the ongoing special counsel investigation related to 2020 election interference, the report added, citing sources.The US attorney general, Merrick Garland, named Smith as special counsel in November to oversee investigations of Trump, shortly after Trump said he would seek the Republican nomination for president again in 2024.The first investigation involves Trump’s handling of highly sensitive classified documents he retained at his Florida resort after leaving the White House in January 2021.The second investigation is looking at efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election’s results, including a plot to submit phony slates of electors to block Congress from certifying Democrat Joe Biden’s victory.Grand juries in Washington have been hearing testimony in recent months for both investigations from many former top Trump administration officials.Last month, Garland named a separate special counsel, Robert Hur, to probe the improper storage of classified documents at Biden’s home and former office.In late January, Pence said he was not aware though he takes “full responsibility” after classified documents were found at his Indiana home.The documents were discovered after a review of his personal records was conducted in the wake of classified material being found at Biden’s home in Delaware.TopicsUS newsMike PenceDonald TrumpMar-a-LagoLaw (US)US politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      January 6 rioter with Confederate flag sentenced to three years

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      January 6 rioter with Confederate flag sentenced to three yearsKevin Seffried threatened a Black police officer with a pole attached to a Confederate flag during the Capitol attack A Delaware man who threatened a Black police officer with a pole attached to a Confederate battle flag as he stormed the US Capitol was sentenced on Thursday to three years in prison.Kevin Seefried, 53, tearfully apologized for his participation in the 6 January 2021 riot before US district judge Trevor McFadden sentenced him.“I never wanted to send a message of hate,” Seefried said.McFadden said it was deeply troubling that Seefried wielded the flagpole as a weapon against the officer. “Bringing a Confederate flag into one of our nation’s most sacred halls was outrageous,” the judge said.McFadden allowed Seefried to remain free until he must report to prison at a date to be determined.Justice Department prosecutors had recommended a prison sentence of five years and 10 months for Seefried, a drywall mechanic from Laurel, Delaware.Seefried and his adult son, Hunter, stormed the Capitol together after attending the “Stop the Steal” rally, where then President Donald Trump addressed thousands of supporters in Washington. Kevin Seefried was the 12th rioter to set foot inside the building that day, according to prosecutors.In October, McFadden sentenced Hunter Seefried to two years of imprisonment.Widely published photographs showed Kevin Seefried carrying his Confederate flag inside the Capitol after he and his son, then 22, entered the building through a broken window.Kevin Seefried told an FBI agent that he did not view the Confederate flag as a symbol of racist hate. FBI agents said they did not find any evidence linking him or his son to any far-right extremist groups.Seefried is embarrassed and ashamed that many may view him as a racist, his lawyers said in a court filing.“He had brought the flag as a symbol of protest, but had not considered the logic of those who see the flag as a symbol of American racism,” they wrote. “Now that photos of him with the flag have become iconic symbols of the horror of January 6, Mr. Seefried completely understands the harm he has caused.”Within a minute of entering the building, Kevin Seefried jabbed his flagpole at Capitol Police officer Eugene Goodman and joined other rioters in chasing the officer up a flight of stairs, a harrowing scene captured on video. Seefried was the first rioter to encounter Goodman near the base of the staircase, prosecutors said.Goodman, who testified at the Seefrieds’ trial, said Seefried cursed at him and jabbed at him with the base of his flagpole three or four times without making contact. Goodman recalled that Seefried asked where members of Congress were counting the votes and said: “You can shoot me, man, but we’re coming in.”“That flagpole was not only a weapon capable of causing serious injury; a Confederate Battle flag was affixed to it and it was brandished by a man standing at the front of a volatile, growing mob towards a solitary, Black police officer,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing.Goodman led rioters away from the Senate chamber as senators and then Vice-President Mike Pence were being evacuated. He also directed Senator Mitt Romney to turn around and head away from the mob.McFadden convicted the father and son of riot-related charges in June after hearing two days of trial testimony without a jury.Nearly 1,000 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the January 6 riot. More than 500 of them have pleaded guilty, mostly to misdemeanors. Approximately 400 have been sentenced, with over half getting terms of imprisonment ranging from seven days to 10 years.TopicsUS Capitol attackLaw (US)newsReuse this content More

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      California moves to disbar Trump’s lawyer John Eastman over 2020 election

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      California moves to disbar Trump’s lawyer John Eastman over 2020 electionFormer president’s attorney charged with misleading courts and making false statements about voter fraud in election California attorney regulators said on Thursday they will seek to disbar attorney John Eastman over his involvement in former US president Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election.The state bar of California charged Eastman, a former personal lawyer to Trump, with 11 counts of ethics violations, including misleading courts and making false public statements about voter fraud in the 2020 election.Eastman participated in a strategy “unsupported by facts or law” to obstruct the count of presidential electors in Congress following Democrat Joe Biden’s election victory, the bar’s complaint said.George Cardona, the bar’s chief trial counsel, said his office will ask a court to revoke Eastman’s law license.An attorney for Eastman, Randall Miller, disputed the allegations on Thursday, saying it was Eastman’s responsibility as a lawyer to provide Trump with a range of legal options to contest the election results.Eastman, a former law professor at Chapman University in California, drafted legal memos suggesting then vice-president Mike Pence could refuse to accept electoral votes from several swing states when Congress convened to certify the 2020 vote count. Pence rebuffed his arguments, saying he did not have legal authority.Eastman also represented Trump in a long-shot lawsuit at the US supreme court seeking to invalidate votes in four states where Trump had falsely claimed evidence of widespread voter fraud.Eastman repeated many of those claims at a rally outside the White House on 6 January 2021, after which a mob of Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol and delayed the congressional certification of the election.A state bar court will weigh the charges against Eastman and recommend any discipline. The California supreme court would need to approve disbarring or suspending Eastman.TopicsDonald TrumpLaw (US)CaliforniaUS politicsnewsReuse this content More