Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2

[Rick Plant]

The fact that Trump didn’t walk with the J6 mob doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be charged: ex-FBI counsel



The Justice Department won a huge case on Thursday after charing five members of the Proud Boys militia with seditious conspiracy. Each of the four leaders were found guilty, while the lower-level "soldier" was found not guilty.

According to Andrew Weissmann, former FBI general counsel and top prosecutor for special counsel Robert Mueller's team, the next step from the militia groups is to look at those organizing the conspiracy and that means former President Donald Trump.

There's a huge domestic terrorism problem in this country," Weissmann explained. "This is a really difficult and important case for DOJ to have brought and to have won. And I think that's what you're going to hear about [from Merrick Garland]. But to your point, there's been such a call-and-response relationship to groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers and others with the former president that everyone is going to be thinking, 'Okay, you've gotten not just foot soldiers, not just their leaders such as the leader of the Proud Boys, but what about the actual leader of what happened on January 6th?' ... And I think for [special counsel] Jack Smith, it's not that this is evidence, it really makes it that much more important for him, if he can get the proof that they should be charging — yes. I mean, you do not, sort of, omit the leader of an organization. So he has got to be feeling that pressure now."

"A second component of that is that you don't have to be present," Weissmann continued. "You don't have to be the person pulling the trigger, going into the bank and doing the robbery. If you were the mastermind, you're just as responsible. This is just like in a mob case. The boss of the family is not collecting the money and threatening people and doing all of this leg work. Obviously, Jack Smith knows that well, but it's very useful to see that jurors have no problem with that. ... And it's not like the former president didn't want to be present on that day. There were other people, as is so often the case with him, who prevented the worst. It's bad enough, what he did, but you had other people preventing it from being worse. He was planning to be there! And leading them at the scene. But that's no reason not to be able to charge him."

After Garland's press conference about the conviction, Weissann said that folks should not assume that if there is no "connective tissue" between the Proud Boys and Trump that he can't be charged.

"I don't think that's going to happen. I think he is going to be charged," Weissmann explained.

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

Kari Lake's lawyers slapped with $2,000 sanction for pushing election conspiracy theories in court



Lawyers for failed pro-Trump Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake have been hit with sanctions by the Supreme Court of Arizona for pushing a conspiracy theory that 35,000 extra ballots were added to the voting rolls of Maricopa County, reported The Arizona Republic on Thursday.

"Attorneys for Gov. Katie Hobbs and Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, both Democrats, sought sanctions against Lake for bringing what they called a frivolous and unfounded lawsuit," reported Stacey Barchenger. "The order signed by Chief Justice Robert Brutinel declined to award Hobbs and Fontes their attorneys fees and said Lake's lawyers must pay $2,000 to the court clerk for repeatedly claiming it was an 'undisputed fact' that 35,563 ballots were added to the results at Maricopa County’s third-party ballot processor, Runbeck Election Services. Hobbs, Fontes and Maricopa County all disputed the claim."

"Even after the Supreme Court itself said Lake did not show evidence to prove ballots were added, her attorneys Bryan Blehm and Kurt Olsen made the claim again in an April court filing," said the report. "'Sometimes campaigns and their attendant hyperbole spill over into legal challenges,' the Arizona Supreme Court order reads. 'But once a contest enters the judicial arena, rules of attorney ethics apply.' Those rules build confidence in the judicial system, the court said, noting that sanctions can deter lawyers from making false statements in the future."

An earlier court decision allows Lake's team to continue on with another trial reviewing her baseless claims about the election. "We respectfully disagree with the court's holding, but look forward to presenting our case at trial," said Olsen in an email to The Republic.

Lake has refused to concede her election loss, pushing a variety of false and unsubstantiated allegations of misconduct in Maricopa County.

She has subsequently faced a criminal referral filed by the Secretary of State's office, after she showed what appeared to be images of real voter signatures in a rant about election integrity on social media, which would be a violation of Arizona state law.

Read More Here: https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/arizona/2023/05/04/ariz-supreme-court-hits-lake-attorney-with-sanctions-on-election-suit/70177506007/

[Rick Plant]

Can prosecutors use the Proud Boys to get to Roger Stone — and Trump?



This week, members of the far-right "Western Chauvinist" group the Proud Boys were convicted of seditious conspiracy for their role in the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol — a massive victory for federal prosecutors, who also recently won a similar case against the militia group the Oath Keepers.

But this could just be getting started. According to New York University law professor Ryan Goodman on CNN Thursday, these cases could be used to go after former President Donald Trump, using his associate Roger Stone as an intermediate step.

"This hopefully sets up much stronger deterrent against the both anti-government extremists, in the case of the Oath Keepers, and the white supremacist paramilitary groups, in the case of the Proud Boys, that the Justice Department will be able to bring formidable charges against them, like seditious conspiracy," said Goodman.

"And they've already brought over 600 cases," said anchor Pamela Brown. "Prosecutors in this case described the Proud Boys as Donald Trump's army that was willing to do whatever it took to keep him in power. We also know that the chairman, Enrique Tarrio, had ties to Roger Stone. What could this mean for possible charges against Trump? What would prosecutors need to show?"

"So, there is this big question about whether or not prosecutors will be able to connect Trump to the violent assault on the Capitol," said Goodman. "I think there's a lot of information that they'll be able to connect to other efforts to overturn the election, pressure on Mike Pence, et cetera, but this is the key one, and we should recall that the January 6th Select Committee in the House made a criminal referral to the Justice Department, saying they had sufficient evidence that called for at least an investigation as to whether or not President Trump aided and abetted an insurrection. The fact that we have this verdict is important as a foundation to that kind of a claim. Once again, if there were an acquittal in the case, that would just go away. It would not really be on the table. It is on the table."

"So, the question is, in part, what you asked with Roger Stone: is there enough connective tissue?" Goodman continued. "Will they be able to connect dots if there are dots to be connected? Because Roger Stone is deeply involved with the Proud Boys. He even swore an oath to the Proud Boys, according to the January 6th committee.

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

Rule 43: Trump could go to jail if he refuses to attend trial after Jack Smith indictment



An obscure federal rule could yank Donald Trump off of the campaign trail -- and could land him in custody -- if special counsel Jack Smith indicts him and the ex-president balks at attending the trial proceedings.

In a column for the Daily Beast, Trump biographer David Cay Johnston explained that the former president would not have the option of skipping a federal trial brought by the Department of Justice in the same manner as he has with the E. Jean Carroll rape and defamation trial currently ongoing in Manhattan.

As Johnston notes, a DOJ indictment could force the former president off the campaign trail at a critical junction if his lawyers were unable to get a delay until after the election.

At issue is what is known as is Rule 43 which mandates the accused in felony trials must be in attendance during their trials.

"Under Lewis v. United States, an 1892 Supreme Court decision which formed the basis for Rule 43, Trump would be required to attend every minute of his trial," Johnston wrote before elaborating, "The high court held in Lewis that a 'leading principle that pervades the entire law of criminal procedure' is that once an individual is indicted 'nothing shall be done in the absence of the prisoner… in felonies it is not in the power of the prisoner, either by himself or his counsel, to waive the right to be personally present during the trial.'"

He then added, "That standard applies even if Trump were free on his own recognizance or on bail."

Making matters worse for a recalcitrant Trump, Johnston wrote, "If he [Trump] tried to boycott the trial, he would be arrested and held in custody until the trial ended."

Federal court is not the only place where the former president faces jail time while a trial is ongoing.

"A similar attendance rule applies for criminal trials in New York, where Trump was indicted last month on 34 felony counts connected with hush money paid in 2016 to Stephanie Clifford, better known as the porn star Stormy Daniels. The mandatory attendance rule also applies in Georgia, where Trump is under investigation by Fani Willis, the Fulton County district attorney," the columnist added.

You can read more here: https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-trumps-legal-jeopardy-will-test-american-democracy



Insider witness could help DOJ determine if Trump hid classified documents



A confidential insider witness who worked for Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago could help the Justice Department as it intensifies its efforts to determine whether the former president sought to conceal sensitive classified documents after the agency issued a subpoena in May 2021 demanding their return, The New York Times reports.

The DOJ has issued a new wave of subpoenas as part of an aggressive effort to understand how Trump stored classified documents he took from the White House and determine who had access to them, how Mar-a-Lago’s camera system works and what the former president told his aides and attorneys about what documents he had and where they were kept, the report said.

Maggie Haberman, Adam Goldman, Alan Feuer, Ben Protess and Michael S. Schmidt write for The Times: “At the heart of the inquiry is whether Mr. Trump sought to hide some documents after the Justice Department issued a subpoena last May demanding their return.”

“The existence of an insider witness, whose identity has not been disclosed, could be a significant step in the investigation, which is being overseen by Jack Smith, the special counsel appointed by Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. The witness is said to have provided investigators with a picture of the storage room where the material had been held. Little else is known about what prosecutors might have learned from the witness or when the witness first began to provide information to the prosecutors.”

At least four additional Mar-a-Lago employees and another person with knowledge of Trump’s thinking when he initially returned material to the National Archives have been subpoenaed in recent weeks, according to the report.

“Two people said that nearly everyone who works at Mar-a-Lago has been subpoenaed, and that some who serve in fairly obscure jobs have been asked back by investigators,” the report said.

Read More Below:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/04/us/politics/trump-documents-subpoenas-justice-department.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

[Rick Plant]

Jack Smith isn’t *just now* investigating Trump’s Saudi-funded golf tournaments. The NYT reporting says that the subpoenas issued an unknown amount of time ago. This isn’t a new development. It’s an already in progress thing that we’re just now belatedly learning about.

How long ago did Smith decide to target Trump’s golf dealings with the Saudis? What was he looking for? What has he found? Is this probe into these golf tournaments complete? Are there going to be criminal charges relating to it?

We have no answers to any of these questions yet.

But the point is, we’re just now finding out that Trump’s Saudi-backed golf tournaments have already been part of Jack Smith’s probe for awhile.

Trump may not have known until now that his golf tournaments were under criminal investigation either.

So if you’re concerned that all these “new” avenues of Jack Smith’s probe could lead it to drag on forever before indictment, keep in kind that none of these things are “new.” They already happened, and are largely or entirely done. They’re just newly reported.

We all learned on Wednesday night that Matthew Calamari and his son would be testifying against Trump to the grand jury the next morning.

The Calamaris must have been dragged into this probe *months* ago. And we didn’t know about it until a few hours before the testified.

Think about how many key aspects of this probe are just now belatedly becoming public.

Now think about how many other key aspects of this probe there must be that haven’t become public yet, and won’t until the indictment drops.

Do not assume that someone or something is not a part of this probe, just because you haven’t seen any *reporting* about someone or formatting being a part of this probe.

We didn’t know until *this week* that Calamari and the Saudis were involved in the probe all along.

[Rick Plant]

Special counsel could be nearing charges in Trump probe

Prosecutors in Special Counsel Jack Smith's probe of former President Donald Trump are in their final steps and will soon decide whether to bring charges, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

Smith is investigating Trump's and his allies' attempts to overturn the 2020 election's results as well as Trump's attempt to obstruct a separate probe into the handling of classified documents found at his Mar-a-Lago resort.

Testimony by former Vice President Mike Pence, former deputy chief of staff for communications Dan Scavino "appears to point to efforts by Mr. Smith’s team to determine whether a crime was committed and decide whether to file charges in the coming months," according to sources speaking to WSJ.

"The grand-jury activity comes as other prosecutors obtained a victory in the investigation into the Jan. 6 pro-Trump riot at the Capitol, when a jury on Thursday found four leading figures of the Proud Boys, including its former chairman Enrique Tarrio, guilty of seditious conspiracy, the gravest charge brought in connection with the attack," WSJ's report stated.

Read the full report over at The Wall Street Journal: https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-trump-probe-special-counsel-zooms-in-on-possible-criminal-charges-42f60b4

[Rick Plant]

Will Pence testimony bring Trump closer to federal indictment?
https://www.cbsnews.com/video/will-pence-testimony-bring-trump-closer-to-federal-indictment/

[Rick Plant]

Evidence shows fake elector indictment is likely coming: former prosecutor

Evidence from the prosecutors investigating efforts by former president Donald Trump and others to overturn President Joe Biden’s victory in Georgia shows that it's likely only a matter of time until an indictment is filed, a former U.S. Attorney said on Friday.

Alex Wagner of Wagner Tonight asked Barbara McQuade, who served as the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan from 2010 to 2017, about the wording used by Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis' prosecution team. That came after it was announced that 8 of the 16 fake "electors" who convened to declare former President Donald Trump the winner of Georgia in 2020 have accepted an immunity agreement.

Wagner presented a transcript of an exchange between one of Willis' prosecutors and one of the fake electors' defense attorney. Part of the transcript reads., "Either [Elector E] is going to get this immunity, and he's going to answer the question... or we're going to leave. And if we leave, we're ripping up his immunity, agreement, and he can be on the indictment."

"Am I right to focus on this exchange between the prosecutor and one of the defense attorneys where the prosecutor says his name will be on the indictment?" Wagner asked. "Not a potential indictment, but the indictment."
McQuade responds that, "Your reading is fair, Alex. 'The' indictment suggests it's not an if but a when, McQuade said.

"Right now we are kind of sorting out who is going to be a witness and who is going to be a defendant," she added.

McQuade further said that prosecutors "want to go after the bigger fish" in these cases.

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