Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2

[Rick Plant]

'Substantial likelihood' Trump has criminal exposure over Mar-a-Lago obstruction: CNN legal analyst



According to CNN legal analyst Carrie Cordero, the largest legal threat hovering over Donald Trump's decision to hoard top secret documents at his Mar-a-Lago report will be criminal obstruction which carries twice the jail time than certain provisions contained within the Espionage Act.

Speaking with "Inside Politics" host Abby Phillip, Cordero said Trump faces the likelihood of criminal charges related to obstruction.

"The maximum penalty is 20 years in prison, which is twice as long as the penalty under the espionage act," host Phillip prompted. "As you've noted, the fact that these documents were classified is important, but not essential to what the federal investigators are looking at here."

"Well, so they had to recover the documents because they were classified information, but it also was presidential records that were retained by the former president at his residence that he was no longer entitled to have," Cordero reported. "So we have both pieces of that."

"Look, the affidavit that was released was very heavily redacted," she continued. "It's clear there was a part of it that established probable cause, even though it was redacted we know from the headings there was probable cause, information demonstrating probable cause that there were documents that needed to be recovered there."

Adding, "And there also is this obstruction side of it," she elaborated, "Both of them potentially carry significant criminal penalties. But the details of the investigation really matter as to the former president in terms of what his knowledge was, who was involved in packing the boxes, who was actually in the back and forth conversations with the Justice Department, and may have misled them about not returning documents."

"I think there's a substantial likelihood that him and people around him have criminal exposure, both on the obstruction case, and on the mishandling of classified information," she continued. "That does not mean that we are going to see the former president go to jail. There is a wide range of potential charges, pleas on misdemeanors that could end up, if it turns out that the information simply sat in the boxes, was never seen by outside people, was never seen by media, foreign governments, other people not having access to it, those facts we still don't know. And on the obstruction piece, what really matters is, who was involved in potentially misleading or making false statements to the Justice Department and we don't know on the outside at this stage whether that was the former president, or whether that was his advisors or legal counsel."

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

So, Wood tried to steal the 2020 election from the American people based on lies and bogus conspiracy theories and uses Criminal Donald's go to word "Witch Hunt" when he's asked to appear in front of the grand jury for his election crimes. These right wing MAGA criminals all feel they are above the law. We will see if they still feel that way when they go to jail for treason.

Pro-Trump lawyer says he's been subpoenaed by Georgia grand jury investigating 2020 election



WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Conservative attorney L. Lin Wood said he had been subpoenaed to appear before a special grand jury in Georgia investigating former U.S. President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

"The devil is after me today!!!" Wood said in a statement shared on Telegram late on Friday. "...the Fulton County DA attacks me as you can see from the email below to my attorney, Ibrahim Reyes, by demanding that I testify before the 'Trump Witch Hunt' grand jury!!!"

Wood, who gained notoriety after the 2020 election by promoting conspiracy theories of fraud in the race, joins a growing number of Republicans who have been asked to appear before the special grand jury to answer questions about Trump's attempts to reverse his loss in Georgia, a battleground state that helped propel Democrat Joe Biden to the presidency.

The investigation has ensnared Senator Lindsey Graham, Trump's former chief of staff Mark Meadows, personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani as well as several of the former president's allies.

"I have NO relevant knowledge to offer to the grand jury," Wood said. "It is just harassment."

Wood shared a letter on Telegram sent to his lawyer Reyes by Trina Lucas, a deputy chief investigator with the Fulton County District Attorney's office. Lucas informed Reyes that the "grand jurors have requested that we subpoena your client, L Lin Wood to provide testimony before them."

The letter adds that if Reyes could not or would not accept the subpoena on Wood's behalf, "we will begin the material witness subpoena process."

© Reuters

[Rick Plant]

Trump Tries Mobster-In-Chief Role With Attacks On Law Enforcement

The ex-president is ready to "burn down the republic" if need be to stop prosecutors from going after him, according to a former GOP congressman

WASHINGTON ― America can have peace and tranquility. Or it can have a criminal prosecution of Donald Trump. It cannot have both.

Presenting this mob-like ultimatum appears to have become the former president’s strategy as the FBI and the Department of Justice close in on Trump’s possession of and refusal to return top secret documents he took with him to his Florida social club when he left the White House following his failed coup attempt.

“Nice store you got here. Be a shame if something happened to it,” said Glenn Kirschner, a federal prosecutor who spent more than two decades in the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, D.C., comparing it to “protection rackets” used by organized crime. “Nice country you got here. Be a shame if a civil war destroyed it.”

In near daily statements on his social media platform, in fundraising emails and in interviews, Trump has called law enforcement officials corrupt, illegitimate and reminiscent of Soviet Russia as he demands that prosecutors drop their investigations.

Even more ominously, Trump, via his legal team, delivered a message to Attorney General Merrick Garland on Aug. 11, three days after the search of his Mar-a-Lago residence, that might have been lifted from the film “The Untouchables”:

“President Trump wants the attorney general to know that he has been hearing from people all over the country about the raid. If there was one word to describe their mood, it is ‘angry,’” Trump’s lawyers revealed in a lawsuit trying to block release of the seized documents to prosecutors. “The heat is building up. The pressure is building up. Whatever I can do to take the heat down, to bring the pressure down, just let us know.”

“It’s the language he uses,” said Stuart Stevens, a longtime GOP consultant who left the party after it fell under Trump’s sway. “Trump is a gangster.”

Trump’s inflammatory language has already forced the FBI and prosecutors to guard against violence from Trump followers. One Trump supporter is dead after a shootout with police following his attempt to attack the FBI field office in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Trump’s office did not respond to HuffPost’s queries for this story.

Danya Perry, a former prosecutor in the U.S. attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York, a center for mob investigations, called Trump’s message “a lightly veiled threat” delivered only after he had first stoked rage among his followers.

“It also lays bare that he knows he easily could calm down his supporters but actively chooses not to, just as the 187 minutes of purposeful inaction during the insurrection,” she said, referring to the three hours that Trump allowed the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol to continue before asking his people to leave. “His message to AG Garland is that he can do it the easy way or the hard way. And that does sound like a scene out of an old mob movie.”

A Long History Of Stoking Violence

Neither Trump’s connections to actual organized crime figures nor his glorification and support of violence on his behalf is new. As a New York City developer, Trump boasted about working with mob-connected businesses in his construction projects. One of his early mentors was Roy Cohn, an actual mob lawyer.

Trump during his 2016 campaign frequently encouraged his supporters to physically attack protesters at his rallies. As president, he encouraged police officers to rough up criminal suspects as they arrested them.

At his Jan. 6, 2021, pre-insurrection rally, he told his followers to march on the Capitol to intimidate his own vice president and Congress into letting him remain in office ― even though he knew many in the crowd he had assembled in Washington that day were armed.

And not long after his departure from office, Trump was already priming his followers to respond aggressively if prosecutors charged him.

“If these radical, vicious, racist prosecutors do anything wrong or illegal, I hope we are going to have in this country the biggest protests we have ever had in Washington, D.C., in New York, in Atlanta and elsewhere, because our country and our elections are corrupt,” he said at a Texas rally in January.

Trump has never explained what he meant by “racist,” but Fani Willis and Alvin Bragg, the district attorneys of Fulton County, Georgia, and Manhattan, respectively, are both Black.

His attacks on law enforcement only increased as the scope of the investigations against him became clearer and reached a fever pitch after the Aug. 8 search of his tennis and croquet club in Palm Beach.

On Aug. 11, Trump posted the message: “STOP COMMUNISM IN OUR COUNTRY!” The next day, he accused the FBI of “planting information” during the search. On Aug. 14, he wrote: “The FBI has a long and unrelenting history of being corrupt.”

On Aug. 16, he claimed the FBI agents had “opened their arms and grabbed everything in sight, much as a common criminal would do.”

And on Aug. 19, he posted on his Truth Social site a series of statements that edged close to advocating revolt: “The law enforcement of our Country has become that of a Third World Nation, and I do not believe the people will stand for it ― between Fraudulent Elections, Open Borders, Inflation, giving our Military to the Enemy, and so much more ― how much are we all expected to take?”

“Trump continues to use a wink-wink, nod-nod approach to political violence, attacking his target as being corrupt and treating him viciously and unfairly,” said Mary McCord, a former top official at the Justice Department. “We’ve seen for years now that Trump’s followers interpret this as a call to action, and many respond, as they did on Jan. 6. Now his targets are the FBI and DOJ. It’s reasonable to ask whether Trump is attempting to wield his own ‘mob,’ the supposedly angry people all over the country, to influence law enforcement action and, potentially, the courts.”

GOP Eager To Join In The FBI-Bashing

Former Republicans, meanwhile, said that even more worrisome than Trump’s statements attacking law enforcement are all the Republicans who are siding with him against the FBI and Justice Department.

Sen. Ted Cruz, for example, called the Mar-a-Lago search “corrupt and an abuse of power,” comparing it to actions by President Richard Nixon, who resigned rather than face impeachment over the Watergate scandal. “What Nixon tried to do, Biden has now implemented: The Biden Admin has fully weaponized DOJ & FBI to target their political enemies,” the Texas Republican wrote.

Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel also compared the search to Nixon’s behavior in a Fox News interview: “President Trump is right when he compared this to Watergate. This is the government using an agency to spy on a potential opponent’s campaign. And this is truly frightening. It is not what our democracy stands for.”

David Jolly, a former GOP congressman from Florida, said the party’s transformation has been depressing. “It’s just an awful moment. Would have been unbelievable 10 years ago,” he said, adding that the comparison to organized crime falls short. “I think ‘mob behavior’ fails in its description of an individual willing to burn down the republic for his own vanities.”

Stevens, a top aide in the George W. Bush presidential campaigns of 2000 and 2004 and the Mitt Romney campaign in 2012, said Republicans’ willingness to repeat Trump’s attacks on law enforcement no longer surprises him.

“The reality is we’re a democracy sliding into autocracy. And it’s what the Republican Party, the vast majority of it, really wants,” he said. “It’s a systematic effort to degrade and discredit every institution of a civil society. You attack the voting systems. You attack law enforcement. You attack the judiciary…. That is how you destroy a democracy. That is their goal. And the sooner we acknowledge that, the sooner we can deal with it and try to stop them.”

In addition to the probe into his mishandling of classified documents, Trump is also under investigation by the Justice Department for his attempted coup to remain in power, including the plan to create fraudulent slates of electoral votes from states he had lost. A Georgia prosecutor is separately investigating his and his allies’ attempts to coerce state officials into falsely declaring Trump the winner there.

Trump, despite losing the election by 7 million votes nationally and 306-232 in the Electoral College, became the first president in more than two centuries of elections to refuse to hand over power peacefully. His incitement of the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol ― his last-ditch attempt to remain in office ― led to the deaths of five people, including one police officer; the injury of an additional 140 officers; and four police suicides.

Nevertheless, Trump remains the dominant figure in the Republican Party and is openly speaking about running for the presidency again in 2024.

And that, to authoritarianism expert Ruth Ben-Ghiat, remains baffling.

“I don’t know of another case where a coup leader who got together a bespoke thug army to overthrow the democratic order is at liberty and thinking of running for president again,” the New York University history professor said. “Sitting authoritarian leaders do stage ‘shock events’ if their power is threatened, but it is specific to the U.S. that an individual in private life could have so many extremists who possess private arsenals and are ready to do his bidding.”

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-mobster-threats_n_63080d75e4b063d5e619d144

[Rick Plant]

Retired CIA counter-terrorism chief walks through how Trump stealing top secret documents hurts America



Retired CIA counter-terrorism chief Douglas London warned that it's still not even known the extent to which Donald Trump stealing documents from the White House has impacted the world. There are some things included in the docs that can't even be reported in court without redactions because they're top secret.

"There is classified information for reason," London explained. "The controls on those documents are meant to protect the way it is collected, more than the information itself. And, clearly, from the affidavit we've seen released, it was human information, meaning it was information from human sources. That means that the clues that might be in the intelligence or classified pieces of information that the president took with him to Mar-a-Lago provide clues and pointers that adversaries might use to identify the means of that information getting out. It's serious business. But really, we don't even know how the depth of it. We've talked a lot and heard a lot about the searing formation but we don't know with the names of those programs were because they were so sensitive. The names themselves are classified."

Last year, the CIA revealed that over the years previously, dozens of informants were either killed, compromised or misled the U.S., the New York Times reported. It led to serious problems within the intelligence community. Incidents like what happened with Trump can lead to fears about other informants coming forward with details that could help global safety.

"Intelligence reporting tends to be very clinical," London explained. "It's like technical information. There's not a lot of humor or color before we wanted to be very straightforward and easy to understand. You have to make adjustments with the style of your consumer. President Trump was hard to support. His attention was hard to secure and maintain we had found ourselves using a lot of graphics and images just to get his attention. Things that were sort of catchy, maybe kind of conforming a bit more to it he would appreciate, sort of the headlining approach. And when he did get enthusiastic about certain reporting, these questions were less about the nature of the information, the reliability, but how it played for something on his agenda or interests. Which is why he might want to secure a picture or something. We generally precluded him from doing it by making it an electronic part of the tablet. So, it was not something you just walk away with."

He recalled the meeting Trump did with the Russian ambassador and the intelligence he gave to them that was obtained by an independent government partner. Such behavior compromised the relationship and there was a fear that Trump may have exposed a sensitive CIA source.

Host Mehdi Hasan criticizes Republicans for spending years attacking Democrats over Hillary Clinton's emails, which they claimed were put in danger due to her server, which was never hacked and remained secure. Trump, by contrast, took classified documents from their folders to take to his golf course. The purpose is still unknown.

See the full conversation below:

All 'competent foreign intelligence services' were trying to get into Trump's Mar-a-Lago: former FBI official



According to the former deputy Assistant Director of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division, a myriad of foreign intelligence services were, and still are, focused on getting access to Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort which makes the shocking revelation that he kept top secret documents there even more disturbing.

Speaking with MSNBC host Katie Phang, ex-FBI agent Peter Strzok said the Florida resort was a hotbed of intrigue.

"Do you agree that it is a possibility that the Russians, especially with that very tight cozy connection that the Russians have had through [Vladimir] Putin with Donald Trump, that they would have been interested and possibly tried to infiltrate Mar-a-Lago to get to some of that data? " host Phang asked.

"Katie, absolutely the Russians but not just the Russians," the former FBI official replied.

"Any competent foreign intelligence service, whether those belonging to China, those belonging to Iran, Cuba, certainly including Russia are all interested and are interested in gaining access to Mar-a-Lago," he continued. "Which, especially considering the information coming out right now about the absolute lack of any control or memorialization of who gets access to Mar-a-Lago at any given time, particularly in the context of the fact it appears the classified documents were strewn all over the facility and not just in the storage room."

"Classified documents were recovered from his office, from the pine hall, from a multitude of places," he elaborated. "So, if you are a foreign intelligence service, yes, of course regardless of the knowledge of classified documents being there, the intelligence services are going to have been trying to gain access."

Watch:

Legal experts bash 'pandering' judge running to Trump's defense — and predict he'll be charged with obstruction



Former prosecutors Cynthia Alksne and Glenn Kirschner sounded the alarm about the judge who granted Donald Trump's demand for a "special master" to review the documents at Mar-a-Lago for any possible attorney-client privilege, while speaking to MSNBC fill-in host Michael Steele.

Kirschner pointed out that never in his 30 years practicing law has he ever seen a judge make a ruling before she'd heard from the opposing side.

"I went back and looked at U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon's order, and here is what she said," Kirschner began. "Before I read this one sentence, Michael, mind you that she entered this tentative order before the Department of Justice prosecutors even had an opportunity to weigh in on the issue. She said quote, 'The court hereby provides notice of its preliminary intent to appoint a special master in this case.' And she has only heard from Trump's defense team."

He said that he's never heard a judge announce a "tentative ruling" before both parties have been heard.

"I think this indicates a judge who has extraordinarily poor judgment at best, and at worse is biased in favor of Donald Trump," he continued. "As a footnote, I think it is worth mentioning that she was confirmed by the Senate, Mitch McConnell's Senate after Donald Trump lost the presidential election."

Alksne straight-up called it "pandering. I think that is the legal term for this garbage."

She went on to say that there likely won't be a so-called "special master" appointed. The government seems to be indicating that they've already searched through the documents with those who have the appropriate level of clearance. The appointment of a special master would mean that they had to find someone who has the highest level of clearance to handle such documents in a secure facility. The problem, however, is that there is no "special master" for executive privilege cases. The Justice Department is likely to appeal the decision to a higher court that will overrule Judge Aileen Cannon, and likely, publicly humiliate her.

"I do not think there will be a special master," Alksne explained. "He has requested a special master, basically, because Rudy got one in the attorney-client case. This isn't an attorney-client privilege case. They've cited the wrong statutes as they are trying to appoint the special master. There is no special master in executive privilege cases. And in the Presidential Records Act, executive privilege cases — those must be filed in D.C. This is filed in Florida. So, it is in the wrong jurisdiction. And there is no special master for classified information cases. So, I think it is only a matter of time when the pandering ends by the Trump judge that there will not be a special master and that this is a delay tactic."

Kirschner called "pandering" a nice characterization.

"There's also the possibility of an obstruction of justice charge. Trump may have escaped accountability under the obstruction of Robert Mueller's probe, but he no longer enjoys the protection of the executive branch and the Justice Department's decision not to indict a sitting president. Kirschner called the likely charges of obstruction "more than just a possibility."

"The reason it is such an important criminal charge that the FBI agent who drafted the affidavit, in support of the Mar-a-Lago search warrant, included in what they are criminally investigating, is because it does not matter the nature of the documents," said Kirschner. "They could be classified, they could have been magically declassified by Trump, not really but that is when he is claiming. They could be confidential secrets, secret SCI special access programs. They could be whatever, and the fact that Trump and company secreted them, concealed, them and refused to produce them even after being subpoenaed for them — is what makes this obstruction of justice regardless of the classification of those documents."

Alksne also said that the blacked-out portion of the affidavit is likely the "obstruction" part of the case against Trump.

"It is the heart and soul of this investigation," she explained. "And the decision on prosecution ultimately will be based, in my, opinion, on the obstruction if there is national security damage. That assessment is being undergone right now."

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

Morning Joe serves notice to Trump supporters what will happen to them if they riot over an arrest

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough called out Republican hypocrisy on rioting after Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) floated the possibility of mass violence if Donald Trump was indicted.

The Department of Justice is investigating Trump's handling of classified documents after leaving the White House, and "Morning Joe" host spent much of Monday's program bashing Graham for suggesting rioting would be warranted if the former president faced prosecution.

"Yeah, you know, actually, he said he was off the Trump train, that he stepped off after Jan. 6, after those riots," Scarborough said. "He cared about the riots until three people and a hound dog chased him in Washington National Airport, then he got right back on the train. It's fascinating that he talks about riots. I don't have a really good memory, I can't remember, but I think we had riots on Jan. 6, and when you had leaders trying to get people like Lindsey Graham to support an investigation into those riots, he had no interest in that, had no interest in investigating those riots."

"But now, he is worried about riots in the future, coming from Republicans, coming from his party, coming from Donald Trump supporters?" Scarborough continued. "Again, also, the irony is so rich, these people that talked about riots, Black Lives Matter riots, it's all they talk about. Seriously, it acts as if there were no peaceful marches at all -- riots, riots, it's all they talk about. Yet they're fine when Trump riots are actually putting democracy at risk, when they're trying to overturn an election result. Lindsey is even fine threatening riots, saying, you know, Trump supporters will riot in the streets, there will be violence if he is held to account, if he broke the law."

Scarborough said those threats coming from GOP lawmakers were dangerous, and he warned Trump supporters they would suffer the same fate as Jan. 6 rioters if they took to the streets to commit violence to protest criminal prosecution.

"Lindsey, if you are trying to stir up Republican riots, if you think Republicans are going to riot in the street, Republicans are going to riot in the street, they're not above the law," he said. "They'll be arrested. They'll go through the same thing that people who listened to Donald Trump on Jan. 6 are going through. If you break the law, you're held to account. If the answer to Republicans threatening violence on the FBI, the answer to Republicans threatening violence in the streets. It's not backing down. It's holding those people accountable, just like you hold Donald Trump accountable if they break the law."

"If these Republicans were true leaders and the true focus was the United States of America and was serving our country, they would lead and say, when someone has done something wrong, when someone has threatened our democracy, when top-secret documents that threaten our nation and lives are being stolen from our U.S. government, from our country, one must be held to account," Scarborough added.

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

Fulton county DA smacks down Lindsey Graham’s latest attempt to wriggle out of grand jury subpoena



Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis has filed a 15-page response to U.S Senator Lindsey Graham's motion to "quash" a subpoena ordering him to appear before the grand jury investigating Donald Trump's attempts and those of his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Willis dissects and obliterates Graham's motion point by point, accusing him of merely re-submitting his original arguments which the court has already rejected. She also destroys Graham's central argument, that his telephone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger had a "legislative purpose."

"Provided with an opportunity to demonstrate to this Court that his subpoena should be narrowed or partially quashed, Senator Graham has decided to once again argue that every avenue of inquiry available to the Special Purpose Grand Jury requires quashal," Willis writes in the motion posted by Politico's Kyle Cheney.

"Because Senator Graham largely repeats the same arguments he has already presented, he has failed to respond to this Court’s own findings," Willis writes.

"The most glaring example of this is the heart of the Senator’s position: that his phone calls to Secretary Raffensperger were, by the nature, inherently legislative acts, and the Special Purpose Grand Jury’s inquiry actually only contemplates the phone calls. This is precisely the opposite of what this Court has found: 'the specific activity at issue involves a Senator from South Carolina making personal phone calls to state-level election officials in Georgia concerning Georgia’s election processes and the results of the state’s 2020 election. On its face, such conduct is not a ‘manifestly legislative act.'"

Willis then uses Graham's grandstanding against him.

"Senator Graham explicitly told reporters that he had tried to persuade Raffensperger to adopt a different method of signature verification, one which the Senator preferred to the method being used at the time in Georgia. He went further to say that he wanted to discuss how Raffensperger could make the process 'better,' explicitly not for some future legislative purpose, but to alter either the ongoing recounts or the upcoming Senate runoff elections."

And while she does not indicate a conspiracy, Willis carefully notes that "Senator Graham was not the only person with signature verification on their minds on November 13, 2020. On the very same day that the Senator called Secretary Raffensperger, attorney Lin Wood filed a filed a federal suit against Raffensperger and the Georgia State Election Board."

"Still later on that same day," Willis adds, "former President Trump tweeted 'Georgia Secretary of State, a so-called Republican (RINO), won’t let the people checking the ballots see the signatures for fraud. Why? Without this the whole process is very unfair and close to meaningless. Everyone knows that we won the state. Where is [Governor Brian Kemp]?' Secretary Raffensperger did not fail to note the significance of a lawsuit by one of the former president’s allies being filed on the same day as telephone calls from the Senator, another of his allies, followed by a statement by Trump himself, all focusing on the same issue."

Willis also quotes the well-known former Director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, Walt Schaub, saying: "On its face, [Senator Graham’s] explanation suggests misconduct. Any call by a sitting chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee to a state election official during an ongoing count of votes is inherently coercive and points to an attempt to influence the outcome of the ballot counting."

Schaub concludes, "the conduct Senator Graham has admitted is deeply troubling. There can be no legitimate reason for the Judiciary Committee’s chairman to call a top election official regarding an ongoing vote count."

https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2022/08/fulton-county-da-smacks-down-lindsey-grahams-latest-attempt-to-wriggle-out-of-grand-jury-subpoena/



Former federal prosecutor blasts Lindsey Graham's 'organized crime types' threat



A former federal prosecutor is leveling strong criticism against U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham after the South Carolina Republican appeared to threaten violence if the Dept. of Justice charges Donald Trump. The former president is believed to be under multiple criminal investigations, including for his alleged mishandling of the nation’s top defense intelligence. Last week multiple legal experts including former DOJ officials said it seemed clear Trump would be charged.

“I’ll say this. If there’s a prosecution of Donald Trump for mishandling classified information, after the Clinton debacle,” Graham told Fox News Sunday night, “there’ll be riots in the streets.”

Some took that not as a prediction but as a promise – and a threat.

“Why would a US Senator say this?” asked Joyce Vance, a U.S. Attorney for eight years under President Barack Obama and now a Distinguished Professor of the Practice of Law at the University of Alabama School of Law and a frequent MSNBC/NBC News legal analyst.

“It’s the classic threat of organized crime types against prosecutors. ‘Nice little ___ you’ve got there. Shame if anything happened to it,'” Vance noted. “Republicans, who’ve done nothing meaningful, like impeach Trump, after 1-6, now openly condone violence?”

“Is threatening violence if things don’t go their way the new normal for the GOP?” Vance continues. “Would it work for BLM or groups protesting anti-abortion prosecutions too? Can the GOP also do this if they don’t like future election outcomes? These are no longer just theoretical questions.”

Yale Professor of History Dr. Joanne Freeman appears to agree with Vance.

“And…..that’s a threat,” she writes. “That’s basically saying: if you do this thing that we don’t like, you’ll be VERY sorry. In this case, it means: if you end up prosecuting” Trump, “you’ll pay for it.”

“That’s not democratic governance. And it’s certainly not the rule of law.”

Former Obama Senior Advisor Dan Pfeiffer also weighed in, stating: “Give us what we want or our people will be violent is now the standard GOP response to everything — criminal prosecutions, passing gun laws, losing elections.”

https://www.rawstory.com/former-federal-prosecutor-blasts-lindsey-graham-s-organized-crime-types-threat/

[Rick Plant]

White House: Lindsey Graham just proved Biden's 'semi-fascism' claim is correct

The White House says U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham's threat of "riots in the streets" should the Dept. of Justice decide to prosecute Donald Trump proves President Joe Biden's label of "semi-fascism" for the "MAGA Republicans" is correct.

"We have seen MAGA Republicans attack our democracy. We have seen MAGA Republicans take away our rights. Make threats of violence, including this weekend, and that is what the President was referring to when you all asked me last week about the 'semi-fascism' comment," White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told a reporter Monday (video below) when asked about Sen. Graham's threat.

President Biden "was clear, not all Republicans," Jean-Pierre stressed.

"There are some mainstream Republicans he mentioned, governor of Maryland Larry Hogan, and talked about him and what he's been doing."

"But we have seen these MAGA extreme Republicans making these kinds of comments, which is, which is dangerous. And and this is what we are talking about," she said, "when President Biden was making his comments last week."

"Look, this is a president that believes when you are President of the United States, it is your duty, it is your responsibility to have the strongest voice we have when it comes to democracy, when speaking about democracy. And that's what you're going to continue to hear from this President."

Sunday evening in what some, including legal experts saw as a clear threat, Sen. Graham declared, "If there’s a prosecution of Donald Trump for mishandling classified information ... there’ll be riots in the streets.”

Thursday night at a Maryland rally President Biden infuriating the right told supporters, "It’s not just Trump, it’s the entire philosophy that underpins the — I’m going to say something, it’s like semi-fascism.”

“The MAGA Republicans don’t just threaten our personal rights and economic security,” Biden said. “They’re a threat to our very democracy. They refuse to accept the will of the people. They embrace political violence. They don’t believe in democracy.”

“I want to be crystal-clear about what’s on the ballot this year,” Biden continued. “Your right to choose is on the ballot this year. The Social Security you paid for from the time you had a job is on the ballot. The safety of our kids from gun violence is on the ballot.”

“MAGA Republicans don’t have a clue about the power of women. Let me tell you something: They are about to find out.”

“I respect conservative Republicans,” Biden added. “I don’t respect these MAGA Republicans.”

The White House says Senator Lindsey Graham's threat of "riots in the streets" should the Dept. of Justice decide to prosecute Donald Trump proves President Joe Biden's label of "semi-fascism" for the "MAGA Republicans" is correct.

Watch: https://twitter.com/i/status/1564349829681238016

[Rick Plant]

Mueller prosecutor: There are more crimes Trump could be charged with

The former counsel for the FBI and prosecutor on Robert Mueller's team noted that there are quite a few more crimes that Donald Trump could be charged with after stealing documents from the government.

According to legal expert Andrew Weissmann, the Justice Department affidavit cited three crimes, but he's got several more that could be added.

18 USC section 402 is a contempt charge that can be levied when someone disobeys a lawful order. In Trump's case, this means his refusal to comply with the subpoena he was issued in the spring. Staff at the National Archives told the Washington Post over the weekend that they believe Trump still has documents at Mar-a-Lago, even after the search warrant, the subpoena, and several other attempts to get them back.

Another possible charge, according to Weissmann is 18 USC section 641, deals with Trump actually stealing the documents. Like stealing a painting from the White House, Trump stole government property, which is illegal.

The third is 18 USC section 1001, which is lying to the government. Trump's lawyer took that a step further and even lied to the court in an official statement, which is going to cause her a lot of problems.

18 USC section 2 and 371 are about aiding and abetting and conspiracy to defraud the United States.

"Whoever commits an offense against the United States or aids, abets, counsels, commands, induces or procures its commission, is punishable as a principal," section 2 says.

Section 371 suggests, "each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both."

Read more here: https://twitter.com/AWeissmann_/status/1564415876530667520



Former intel chief: Trump has created serious 'issues' by hoarding documents at Mar-a-Lago

On Monday's edition of CNN's "The Situation Room," former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper outlined the severity of the problem former President Donald Trump has created for the intelligence agencies by stashing boxes of highly classified information at his Mar-a-Lago country club in Palm Beach, Florida.

One of the biggest issues, Clapper noted, is that the intelligence community has little way of knowing who has seen the documents, and what has been compromised.

"How challenging is it for the intelligence community to conduct a damage assessment of all these documents, which were clearly improperly stored and shuffled around a beach resort for more than a year?" asked anchor Pamela Brown

"Well, it's going to be a challenge. There's no question about it," said Clapper. "One of the things that concerns me is the chain of custody from the time the documents were in the White House and who had access to them, who packed them, how were they protected when they were transported, who had access to them at Mar-a-Lago, which that in itself, I think, is going to be a difficult challenge to sort out."

One of their only options, Clapper argued, is to assume everything was compromised.

"The intelligence community, I think, will have to approach this with a worst-case assumption, meaning that the documents, assume the documents were exposed to a sophisticated adversary, a foreign intelligence service," said Clapper. "What is it they could glean from an examination and study, scrutiny of these documents? And doing it, of course, in such a way, particularly when the results of the assessment are promulgated that it not jeopardize the conduct of the investigation. So this is a tricky proposition, no question about it."

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