Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2

[Rick Plant]

'Stephen Miller might not just be a witness but a target': Conservative says of Trump's 'Rasputin'



Donald Trump's former top aide Stephen Miller appeared before the federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., investigating the Jan. 6 attack.

Discussing the matter, MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace explained that she has stacks of tapes of Miller appearing on Fox News and talking about the plot to overturn the election. In one Dec. 14, 2020 appearance, Wallace said that Miller was stressing Jan. 20 being the only thing written in stone. He claimed that there was more than enough time to certify Trump as the winner.

"As we speak," Miller told Fox & Friends in 2020, "an alternate slate of electors in the states is going to vote, and we'll send those results up to Congress."

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

Conservative commentator Charlie Sykes noted that it was a key point he, too, was going to make.

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

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

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

'I'd feel queasy': Former prosecutor says Fox News headed for 'full-blown journalistic and legal disaster'



Fox News faces jury selection this week in the landmark $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems, which alleges the network maliciously spread lies about the electoral process and about the security and legitimacy of Dominion's election equipment.

The network maintains it has not engaged in defamation. But given the publicly available evidence, they will have an unusually hard time defending their case, argued former federal prosecutor Elie Honig on CNN Tuesday.

"We've already seen so many of these damaging texts and emails from Fox executives and hosts in the case, in which they acknowledge that the nonsense they were putting on their air and putting guests on their air sharing, they knew to be false," said anchor Jake Tapper. "If you were a Fox attorney defending Fox, how would you feel going into jury selection this week about your case?"

"I'd feel queasy, Jake," said Honig. "I would not want to be in the position of defending Fox here. I think they're headed for a full-blown journalistic and legal disaster. It is very difficult to successfully sue a media outlet for defamation in this country. What you have to prove is what we call 'actual malice,' meaning the statements were false, and the defendant made those statements knowingly or with reckless disregard of the truth. Now, that's a very high bar. But here, we have Fox's own texts in black and white, where they call the election fraud claims, and I quote, 'nuts,' 'insane,' 'BS,' and so you contrast that with the things that Fox said on air, and I think Fox is in a very difficult position here."

"The judge granted partial summary judgment to Dominion in this case," said Tapper. "What does that mean? How significant is it?"

"Well, that's a big win for Dominion, because the judge has now ruled as a matter of law," said Honig. "In fact, these statements about election fraud were false. That's not even going to the jury, so the judge will tell the jury, I instruct you, jury, these statements were false, your only job is to decide that actual malice question. Did fox know or were they reckless? And so, with that ruling, Dominion's really halfway to where they need to get."

Watch below:

[Rick Plant]

Will Trump attend his rape trial? Judge wants to know



NEW YORK (AP) — A federal judge wants to know if ex-President Donald Trump plans to attend a New York trial this month resulting from a columnist’s claims that he raped her in a department store dressing room in the 1990s.

Judge Lewis A. Kaplan issued an order Monday directing parties in the case to notify him by April 20 whether they will be present throughout the trial, scheduled to start April 25 in Manhattan federal court. And later in the day, he rejected a request that names of anonymous jurors be released to lawyers, saying Trump’s latest public statements about a criminal case against him in state court show jurors might be harassed if their identities got out.

A writer, E. Jean Carroll, sued Trump in November, saying he raped her in early 1996 after a chance meeting at the Bergdorf Goodman department store. He has repeatedly and emphatically denied it in language sure to be highlighted for a jury that will decide whether the rape occurred and if Trump defamed Carroll with his comments.

The rape claims were made immediately after a temporary state law took effect allowing adult rape victims to sue their abusers, even if attacks happened decades ago.

Trump’s lawyers did not respond Monday to requests for comment on Kaplan’s order.

Attorney Roberta Kaplan, no relation to the judge, said Carroll “intends to be present for the entire trial.”

In his order, the judge asked “each party” to notify him in writing whether he or she intends to attend the entire trial. If not, he asked to be told what dates and times each individual will be absent.

The judge said the order was not to be construed to suggest whether either side is obliged to be present throughout the trial or what legal consequences could result from a decision not to be present the entire time.

The judge was likely interested in learning exactly when Trump might be in court because of the special security arrangements that would be required for a Secret Service-protected former president who is campaigning for a second term in office.

Last week, Trump arrived in a motorcade for a New York state court arraignment where he pleaded not guilty to a 34-count felony indictment charging him with breaking the law in a quest to silence women who claimed extramarital affairs with him years before his successful campaign for the presidency on the Republican ticket in 2016.

Judge Kaplan cited public comments Trump made after the appearance, as he rejected a request by lawyers on both sides in the rape case to be told the names of anonymous jurors. Recently, he ruled that the jury will be anonymous, citing in part the “strong likelihood” that there could be “harassment or worse” of jurors by Trump supporters.

“The likelihood of such difficulties since the Court made those findings only has increased. That is so in view of Mr. Trump’s public statements,” he said, citing media reports characterizing Trump’s statements as attacks against the presiding judge over his criminal case.

The judge also cited “the threats reportedly then made, presumably by Mr. Trump’s supporters, against that judge and members of his family.” In a footnote, the judge cited media reports including a story that said the judge in the criminal case got death threats after Trump’s arrest.

In October, Trump underwent a videotaped deposition in which he was questioned about Carroll’s claims, which were first made publicly in a 2019 memoir by the former longtime Elle magazine columnist.

In the deposition, Trump was dismissive of Carroll’s claims, saying: “Physically she’s not my type.”

Even if Trump decides not to attend the trial, it is likely that significant portions of his deposition will be watched by the jury.

In recent weeks, the judge has denied requests by Trump’s lawyers to exclude testimony from two women who made sexual abuse claims against Trump in circumstances similar to those alleged by Carroll and from two individuals who worked at the department store at the time the rape allegedly occurred.

He also has ruled that jurors can hear misogynistic remarks Trump made about women in 2005 on an “Access Hollywood” tape.

The Associated Press generally does not identify people who allege they have been sexually assaulted, unless they come forward publicly, as Carroll has done.

https://www.nbc29.com/2023/04/10/will-trump-attend-his-rape-trial-judge-wants-know/



Trump’s Latest Accounting Gambit Just Failed

Donald Trump tried to delay turning over accounting documents by using a little-known firm in Texas. A New York judge just put the kibosh on it.



Already drowning in legal trouble from his recent arrest and two other potential criminal indictments on the horizon, former President Donald Trump continues to delay the New York attorney general’s attempt to bankrupt him—this time, by finding Republican-friendly accountants in Texas.

His family company, the Trump Organization, was forced to scramble and find new accountants early last year amid accusations it regularly faked business records to inflate assets. The shunned Trumps settled on Whitley Penn, a relatively unknown accounting firm that doesn’t even rank among the “Big Four”—not even among the big four in North Texas.

But a potential reason Trump selected Whitley Penn became obvious to AG Letitia James’ investigators last month, when the small firm made clear it wouldn’t simply comply with her team’s subpoenas in New York seeking information about the Trump Organization’s latest finances.

In a March 23 letter, Whitley Penn’s lawyer cited “constraints imposed by confidentiality obligations” and explained how Texas law shields clients from undue intrusions of privacy.

Claiming that it “takes no position on the outcome here,” the Texas accounting firm serving as the Trumps’ “independent auditor” said it would only turn over records “if the Trump Organization consents” or if a judge steps in.

Luckily for James, a judge just did that.

New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur F. Engoron—a judge who has grown exasperated at Trump’s delay tactics and had to intervene half a dozen times to force the former American president to comply with the most basic legal processes—issued an order Friday compelling Whitley Penn to turn over the relevant documents.

In a single year, Engoron has ordered Trump to show up to his deposition at the AG’s office, slapped him with a $110,000 fine for not turning over records, forced him to share documents, and repeatedly batted down attempts to get him replaced as judge.

And so on April 7, Engoron weighed in yet again—this time signing off on an agreement between the AG’s office and Trump’s lawyers that permits the accounting firm to turn over records—and get a certified public accountant to answer investigators’ questions.

The AG’s Office now expects Whitley Penn to hand over what it requested in its Feb. 14 subpoena: any agreement it has with the Trumps, as well as copies of any internal Trump Organization documents it has inspected to prepare the company’s financial statements. Investigators also want any communications Whitley Penn had with the accountants it replaced over at MazarsUSA.

Those communications could prove pivotal, after MazarsUSA ditched the Trump Organization once it became clear that Trump’s financial statements were based, at times, on nothing more than his own self-aggrandizing bluster.

While respectable accountants normally stand by their assessments and number crunching, MazarsUSA placed an alarming disclaimer on Trump’s financial documents, saying its CPAs “have not audited or reviewed the accompanying financial statement,” leaving a gaping hole for accountability. AG investigators may soon discover if Trump’s new outside auditors have the same conveniently cozy and lazy arrangement.

Whitley Penn’s lawyer in New York City, Christopher E. Duffy, did not respond to a request for comment. Neither did the Trump Organization nor the AG’s Office.

But these documents could be pivotal for investigators to see whether the Trumps continue to overstate the value—and even the physical size—of the properties they own across the country.

In September, James sued Trump for $250 million for “persistent and repeated fraud” in a lawsuit that seeks to kill off his company and bar its executives from running businesses in New York. Her civil lawsuit is a mirror image of a criminal investigation that was originally led by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, though prosecutors there have opted instead to pursue separate charges over the way he allegedly faked business records to hide a hush money payment to a porn star to keep quiet about his extramarital affair.

James’ case against Trump is scheduled to go to trial in October, one of the many trials he faces between now and the general election in 2024. Trump launched a presidential bid last year to return to the White House for a second term, though he’ll go through several rounds of legal hell on the way toward the finish line. James’ lawsuit threatens to siphon nearly $1 billion from the real estate tycoon, which would severely harm his reputation and spending power in the coming months.

Although it’s civil in nature, James’ fraud investigation might still uncover evidence that could be handed over to Manhattan criminal prosecutors. Trump is scheduled to be deposed by AG investigators in New York on Thursday, which would mark the second time this former head of state would have to answer the AG’s questions under oath. Last time, he tried to pull a power move and shift the meeting at the last minute away from the AG’s offices in Lower Manhattan over to his more comfortable digs at Trump Tower—something The Daily Beast exposed last September.

In their recent subpoena, investigators expressed an interest in interviewing Camron Harris, a CPA and “audit partner” at Whitley Penn. Harris did not respond to questions on Monday.

The small Texas firm’s co-founder and chief financial officer, Jim Penn, has a long history of giving to Republican political campaigns and has contributed more than $53,000 to the GOP since just 2020. He was the first person at his firm to donate to Trump’s 2016 campaign, and he did it again the next time around.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-latest-accounting-gambit-just-failed

[Rick Plant]

Legal expert: Jack Smith could charge Donald Trump with espionage after latest revelations



A little over a week ago, The Washington Post reported that among the things former President Donald Trump was doing with the documents he took from the White House was showing them off to people visiting him at Mar-a-Lago.

Trump was already in hot water for having the documents and spending a year refusing to give them back. What this adds to the piece of the story, reporter Michael Schmidt explained, is another piece of Trump's "intent."

"Yeah, his son kills elephants, and he's got classified maps," said MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace.

National security experts have feared what else Trump was doing with the documents and whether they were in a safe and secure place.

Wallace went on to ask if there was a connection between special counsel Jack Smith's probe and the recent statements from former Attorney General Bill Barr, sounding more confident that Trump will be indicted for obstruction of justice. She noted that Barr sounded so invested and as if he testified himself.

Schmidt said that one thing he's observed from Barr is that no one else in the Trump universe has the savvy and political instincts to "move around on the chess board" of politics. Barr has already tried to maneuver himself into the best position in the past year. Wallace agreed, observing that he seemed to play to the audience.

But it was Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg that warned these new factoids could get Trump charged with espionage.

"I think the reason that they asked about the map is another statute, 18 USC 719 (e), 'The Espionage Statute,' says that someone who is unauthorized to have possession of a map and then shows it to someone who can't see it violates that statute," Aronberg explained. "So, they're not just going after him for obstruction, but also espionage, which is punishable by up to ten years in prison. That's why there's a lot of trouble ahead. That's why Bill Barr is saying, hey, this is the tough one. It's not New York that will do in the former president in. I think it's the Mar-a-Lago documents because there's a direct tie between the former president and the alleged criminality there."

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

'Takes your breath away': Morning Joe panel stunned by Trump's latest praise of dictators



A panel on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Wednesday expressed shock over former President Donald Trump's latest praise for authoritarian dictators.

At the start of the segment, the show played excerpts of a Tuesday night interview Trump conducted with Fox News' Tucker Carlson in which he gushed over the "look" of Chinese leader Xi Jinping, and also praised the purported high intelligence of Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.

"It takes your breath away," commented panelist Willie Geist. "He's talking about Xi like a matinee idol: The Hollywood look... the brains, all of it."

Geist went on to argue that Trump's praise of Putin seems particularly ill-timed given how the Russian leader has wasted more than a year and gotten tens of thousands of his own soldiers killed for making only small gains in his invasion of Ukraine.

Host Joe Scarborough said that this is part of a pattern that Trump has been engaged in for years.

"You look at the people that he praises, and first of all, it's abhorrent that he's praising some of the most evil leaders on the world stage," he said. "This is something that he did starting here in 2015 when he came on our show and talked about how great Vladimir Putin was and how horrible Barack Obama was."

Scarborough added that it was "very disturbing for the cult-like followers that he still has that will worship a guy who worships the biggest tyrants."

Watch:

Legal expert doesn't understand why Trump's lawyers are 'spinning things that are clearly false'



Donald Trump's new lawyer appeared on the Sunday morning political talk shows this weekend appearing to explain how Trump ended up with 15 boxes of federal documents — including classified ones — in his desk drawer.

James Trusty offered: "Yeah, I mean can you imagine — does anybody in their right mind really think that Donald Trump came down to Mar-a-Lago while still president, I guess, in January, and said hey, these are the boxes I packed, let's be careful with those. That goes in the dining room that goes in the closet."

"Who put that classified document in his desk drawer?" Lawrence O'Donnell asked on his Monday evening show.

Joining O'Donnell on MSNBC, former FBI general counsel and now NYU Law Professor Andrew Weissmann explained Trusty's answer isn't a very good one. He began with the supposition that every American has the right to a lawyer and that the lawyers have their own jobs to do in these situations, but ultimately acknowledged it wasn't that much of an excuse.

"There is a difference between what you see Mr. [Joe] Tacopina or Mr. Trusty doing and essentially spinning out things that are clearly false, so why even bother?" Weissmann asked. "I mean, you can go ahead and mislead the public when you know that is what you are doing in dodging questions, on the one hand. And on the other, you have Susan Necheles, one of Trump's counsel. And you know, when she was asked about this right after the arraignment, she gave, I thought, the best answer. She didn't try to defend it. She said, 'Look, he was angry.''"

Weissmann went on to explain that in this case, it's probably the best any lawyer can do when they're trying to maintain their own professional integrity.

"One of the concerns I have about the newest member is that he left a large law firm to now be a solo practitioner, meaning he has one and only one client," Weissmann said. "It is going to be really hard for that person to say 'no' to his one client. So, I don't expect that we are going to see more of the Susan Necheles path and I think we're going to see more of the things that you've been showing on your show."

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

Special counsel probes Trump over fundraising off false election fraud claims: report



Special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation of Donald Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol is now probing the former president’s fundraising in the aftermath of the 2020 election, The Washington Post reports.

Investigators are looking into whether Trump or his staff tried to fleece contributors over claims of election fraud the former president knew to be false, and in recent weeks Smith’s office has sent subpoenas to Trump advisors and former campaign staffers in connection with the probe, eight people with knowledge of the investigation told The Post.

Investigators are focusing on the period Nov. 3, 2020 to Trump’s last day in office on Jan. 20, 2021.

Prosecutors are investigating whether wire fraud laws that bar falsehoods made in emails for the purpose of scamming donors were broken.

The Post reports that the “subpoenas seek more specific types of communications so prosecutors can compare what Trump allies and advisers were telling each other privately about the voter fraud claims to what they were saying publicly in appeals that generated more than $200 million in donations from conservatives, according to people with knowledge of the investigation.”

Prosecutors used a similar legal theory in the investigation of former Trump advisor Stephen K. Bannon over misrepresentations over building a border wall in fundraising emails.

Read More Here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/04/12/trump-fundraising-fraud-special-counsel/



Trump advisor smacked down by appeals court over demand to keep hundreds of government documents



Former Trump White House trade adviser Peter Navarro's bid to hold onto hundreds of government documents has been rejected by a federal appeals court, POLITICO reported on Wednesday.

"'There is no public interest in Navarro’s retention of the records, and Congress has recognized that the public has an interest in the Nation’s possession and retention of Presidential records,' the three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals concluded in a unanimous two-page order," reported Kyle Cheney. "The Justice Department sued Navarro last year, seeking to reclaim hundreds of records — contained in Navarro’s personal ProtonMail account — that the government said should have been returned to the National Archives after the Trump administration came to an end in January 2021."

"Navarro acknowledged that at least 200 to 250 records in his possession belong to the government, but he contended that no mechanism exists to enforce that requirement — and that doing so might violate his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination. Last month, U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly rejected that claim, ordering Navarro to promptly return the records he had identified as belonging to the government," said the report. "But Navarro appealed the decision, rejecting the notion that the Justice Department had any legitimate mechanism to force him to return the records. And he urged the court to stay Kollar-Kotelly’s ruling while his appeal was pending. But the appeals court panel ... rejected Navarro’s stay request."

Among the judges who rejected Navarro's claim was Neomi Rao, a hard-right Donald Trump appointee who holds the seat once occupied by Justice Brett Kavanaugh. The other two judges on the panel, Patricia Millett and Robert Wilkins, are appointees of President Barack Obama.

In addition to the documents dispute, Navarro faces a criminal charge of contempt of Congress for his refusal to comply with House investigators in the January 6 probe that concluded at the end of last year.

A federal judge put Navarro's trial on hold temporarily in January. He faces up to a year in jail if convicted of the offense.

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/12/appeals-court-peter-navarros-presidential-records-00091771



Jack Smith 'drilling down' to hunt for wire fraud in Trump's campaign emails: reporter



Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith is now partially treating the January 6 probe as a wire fraud investigation, with a focus on whether former President Donald Trump and his allies committed a crime by using lies about the election being stolen to raise money for a cause they knew was illegitimate, according to new reporting by The Washington Post.

Reporter Devlin Barrett elaborated on the implications of this move on CNN Thursday evening.

""We've known that they were looking — the special counsel's office was looking at this question of was there essentially wire fraud or some sort of fraud in the email fundraising that went on after the election," Barrett told host Anderson Cooper.

"What's important here, I think, is, we're seeing them drilling down onto this question to ask a very specific question, which is: how are these email solicitations? How are they crafted? How are they written? How are they changed and edited? And what were the people making those pitches for money saying to each other about these claims? Because there's one comparison case where you could say that the claims that were being made, the appeal is being made for money, were being made by people who in some ways may have known that they were not telling the truth."

"And that is the real question that prosecutors have to try to answer here," added Barrett. "Was there a known misstatement, known misrepresentations to just generate money? Because these appeals generated tens of millions of dollars."

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

Trump's 'most loyal aide' interviewed on classified docs as special counsel builds obstruction case



A man described as Donald Trump's "most loyal aide" has been interviewed by special counsel Jack Smith's team in preparation for an obstruction of justice case against the former president.

According to The New York Times, longtime Trump aide Walt Nauta agreed to an interview after classified government documents were recovered from Mar-a-Lago. The documents were said to have included a sensitive map.

"Investigators have compiled extensive witness testimony, texts and emails from a number of key witnesses. They have constructed a timeline of Mr. Trump's actions and movements and interviewed dozens of people, including close advisers to Mr. Trump as well as staff members at Mar-a-Lago and former administration officials who had knowledge of how he handled documents in different settings," the report said. "They have heard from witnesses who described Mr. Trump being urged repeatedly in 2021 by aides and advisers to return material to the National Archives, and then how he handled the grand jury investigation by the Justice Department that began early last year and resulted in a subpoena for any remaining classified material in Mr. Trump's possession."

The report said that the special counsel's office is now believed to have interviewed all people with knowledge of the classified documents.

It was not immediately clear if Smith was also considering charging Trump with the Espionage Act, which was cited in a Mar-a-Lago search warrant.

Trump may have shown the classified map to aides, visitors, and a journalist, the Times noted.

"The question of whether Mr. Trump was displaying sensitive material in his possession after he lost the presidency and left office is crucial as investigators try to reconstruct what Mr. Trump was doing with boxes of documents that went with him to his Florida residence and private club, Mar-a-Lago," the report observed.

Earlier reports indicated that Nauta was spotted moving the classified documents at Mar-a-Lago before and after the Department of Justice issued a subpoena for their return.

Read More Here: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/12/us/politics/trump-map-classified-documents-justice-department.html



Law enforcement source shuts down Trump's claims of people 'crying' during his arraignment



In an interview on Fox News with Tucker Carlson that aired Tuesday night, former President Donald Trump told the host that people “were actually crying” in the Manhattan courthouse as he was being arraigned on charges brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

“They were incredible. When I went to the courthouse which is also a prison in a sense, they signed me in and I’ll tell you people were crying. People that work there. Professionally work there that have no problems putting in murderers and they see everybody. It’s a tough, tough place and they were crying. They were actually crying. They said I’m sorry,” Trump told Carlson.

But according to a law enforcement source speaking to Yahoo News, Trump wasn't telling the truth.

“Zero,” said the source when asked about the truth to Trump’s claims. “There were zero people crying. There were zero people saying ‘I’m sorry.’”

Last Tuesday, Trump turned himself in to New York authorities and was arraigned on 34 counts related to allegedly falsifying business records to hide a hush-money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels.

The source went on to say Trump only interacted with a handful of district attorney employees and had extremely limited exposure with others during his arraignment at the courthouse.

Read the full report over at Yahoo News: https://news.yahoo.com/trumps-tale-of-crying-manhattan-court-employees-was-absolute-bs-law-enforcement-source-says-160349195.html



Judge slaps Fox News with special master to determine if it withheld critical Dominion evidence



A judge on Wednesday said that he would appoint a special master tasked with determining whether Fox News withheld crucial evidence in the defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems.

CNN reports that Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis on Wednesday repeatedly expressed "exasperation and frustration" with Fox News' attorneys while lawyers representing Dominion delivered a presentation alleging that they did not receive all of the information they should have during the discovery process.

"I am very concerned... that there have been misrepresentations to the court," Davis said. "This is very serious."

In addition to examining whether Fox News properly handed over all relevant information as part of discovery, Davis said that the special master would also look into Fox made "untrue or negligent" statements to the court when it argued that Fox Corporation founder Rupert Murdoch didn't have any formal role at Fox News.

Although Fox attorney Dan Webb insisted that "nobody intentionally withheld information" related to the case, Judge Davis nonetheless said he was "very uncomfortable" with Fox's actions and ordered them to preserve "any and all communications" it had related to Murdoch's role at Fox.

The trial in Dominion's $1.6 billion lawsuit against Fox News is due to begin next week.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/12/media/fox-news-dominion-special-master/index.html



'Particularly repugnant': Former prosecutor accuses Jim Jordan of obstruction of justice



Former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner walked through the recent battle between Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH).

In response to a congressional subpoena, Bragg launched a lawsuit against Jordan for interfering with law enforcement, but Kirschner describes a much more serious issue with Jordan's actions

Jordan plans to take the committee to New York to host a Republican-led hearing attacking Bragg for the crime rate in New York City.

Responding to headlines that Jordan is "taking his fight to NYC," Kirschner said he would have written that Jordan is "taking his obstruction to NYC."

He cited an editorial from Dennis Aftergut in the Bulwark, saying, "since February, he has hosted hearings that have flopped harder than a distracted trapeze artist. As Francis Wilkinson wrote in the Nation yesterday, Jordan doesn’t 'seem able to manufacture a political hit for a new era.'"

Aftergut goes to explain that this jaunt is taxpayer-funded, meaning the political stunt is being paid for by everyday Americans who must send in their taxes by Monday.

"As a former career prosecutor who worked with countless victims," Kirschner explained, "I find this particularly repugnant Jim Jordan using victims as props for political gain and what if this lawsuit that Alvin Bragg just filed to stop Jim Jordan from obstructing defendant Donald Trump's prosecution."

After doing some research into the judge who was assigned the case, Kirschner explained it was Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil. She's a Trump-appointed judge who dismissed the defamation suit from Karen McDougal against Tucker Carlson. McDougal alleged in her lawsuit that Tucker Carlson defamed her when he said that she personally extorted Trump for the hush money.

The judge claimed that Tucker Carlson's "statements are rhetorical hyperbole and opinion commentary intended to frame a political debate, and as such, are not actionable as defamation." The judge continued that the "'general tenor' of the show should then inform a viewer that [carlson] is not 'stating actual facts' about the topics he discusses and is instead engaging in 'exaggeration' and 'non-literal commentary.'"

The lawsuit resulted in a slew of headlines quoting the judge saying that no one can believe anything Carlson says.

Kirschner asked the judge, "Do you think the Fox News viewers believe him?"

He pledged to keep an eye on the story, but regardless of what is decided in the case before Vyskocil, it'll likely be appealed.

Watch:

They're on thin ice': NY Times reporter reveals Fox News' perilous position



New York Times reporter Jeremy Peters has been in the courtroom watching the Dominion Voting Systems defamation case against Fox News, and he said it's becoming clear the network's lawyers "are on thin ice."

In a debate with the other panelists, MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace questioned why Fox News hasn't settled with Dominion.

"Every day, more damaging stuff comes out," Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg said. "How many times do you have to step on a rake before you get hurt? I think they haven't settled because they'd have to go on the air every 30 minutes and say, 'We were wrong. The election was not stolen. Go on with your day.' They are so worried about losing their audience with Newsmax. They'd rather go down with a sinking ship than make those admissions."

Peters explained that he heard Fox is already focusing on an appeal because they assume they're going to lose. Meanwhile, Dominion isn't going to settle without a public apology. Something like that might destroy the network, though.

"That's where executives are looking because they realize that it's going to be a tough case for them to win in Delaware," he explained. "They also — that's exactly right, this point about having to apologize, Dominion wants not only a lot of money from Fox but they want an apology. They want an acknowledgment from Fox that it was wrong to report what it did about voter fraud and its machines. They are not going to get that absent some major, major change in thinking inside Fox that I'm just unaware of."

"I'm not even aware of any kind of discussions taking place around that. So this case, I think, is going to be with us for a while. And it's just the lack of a settlement so far is just one more way that is so extraordinary. You just don't see cases like this go to trial. You don't see cases like this where there are reams of damning evidence that points to actual malice in the way that there is in this case, so this one is one for the books."

Watch:

No good, very bad day for Fox': Legal expert says judge is 'losing confidence' in truthfulness



A state judge in Delaware on Wednesday dealt a massive blow to Fox News in the $1.6 billion defamation suit brought by Dominion Voting Systems, accusing the network's legal team of misrepresenting facts and withholding evidence, and appointing a special master to determine the extent of the misconduct.

This is a devastating setback for Fox, argued CNN analyst Oliver Darcy on "OutFront" — and it worsens its legal prospects in the trial, which is scheduled to start with jury selection this week.

"So another dramatic day in court, I think we should say," said anchor Erica Hill. "What else happened today?"

"There's no way to cut it other than to say this was a no good, very bad day for Fox News in court on the eve of this $1.6 billion trial," said Darcy. "Jury selection, as you said, is slated to start tomorrow. The judge is really losing confidence in Fox, and he thinks at this point that it's possible they misled the court and withheld evidence. Like you said, he's going to be appointing a special master to investigate that."

Should that special master find evidence that Fox and its legal team did deliberately mislead the court, Darcy continued, "it will spell very bad news for the company in the trial."

"This case is supposed to start on Monday with opening arguments, and Fox is not in a great position," said Darcy. "They're saying, of course, that they weren't intentionally withholding evidence. But the judge saying in court, he is very concerned, he says. This is very serious, and he says this is very — he's very uncomfortable right now. Not the way you really want to go into $1.6 billion defamation case."

In addition to denying they withheld evidence, Fox News maintains its news coverage of the 2020 presidential election was not in any way defamatory of Dominion.

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

Trump’s Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe testified today against Trump to the DOJ grand jury, per ABC News. Another crucial witness, whose testimony the DOJ spent forever fighting for in court, is now in the can. Getting closer to Trump’s DOJ indictment by the day.

Today, two former Directors of National Intelligence testified today in two separate federal grand jury investigations into Donald Trump for espionage and an attempted coup.

Just like... sit and think about that sentence for a minute.


Former DNI John Ratcliffe is latest Trump adviser to appear before Jan. 6 grand jury: Sources
A judge ruled last month that a number of top aides must appear

https://abcnews.go.com/US/former-dni-john-ratcliffe-latest-trump-adviser-jan/story?id=98568821