Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2

[Rick Plant]

Former DOJ official points to key questions special counsel might have about Trump's bogus fundraising after 2020 defeat



Special Counsel Jack Smith is bringing in more of those linked to Donald Trump's campaign and White House to give details about the actions around Jan. 6 and the attempt to overturn the election.

Mary McCord, former acting assistant attorney general for national security, pointed to then-Director of National Intelligence John Radcliffe and what he was briefing Donald Trump about during the events leading up to Jan. 6.

"Here we are getting at the core of what was known to the president about the potential violence," she explained. "This is something I've been interested in. What was he getting briefed on every day as part of his intelligence briefing? Was he being told about the type of planning that was going on across the country by his supporters, including his most violent supporters, and including private, unlawful militias like the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys, what was being briefed to him?"

Another question she had is about how Trump perceived any reports that he was given about the information. According to several reports, Trump often didn't pay attention to his briefings. But if they were his supporters being discussed, it could have piqued his interest.

MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace highlight some of the moves made by the Trump campaign after it was clear that they'd lost the 2020 election. The campaign was pushing out a number of fundraising pleas claiming they needed money for election protests, recounts, and other fights. Wallace accused Trump of being all in it for the grift.

"This is sort of classic white-collar prosecution 101," explained McCord, who also served as a U.S. Attorney for 20 years. "Follow the money. I was very relieved to hear the reporting, see the reporting in The Washington Post that this is an area of inquiry, because I think — I don't know that it shows that he is closer to charges than a week ago. But it is an area where there's a lot of precedents — if the facts establish that there was wire fraud here, it is something that is very well-known. It's not novel. It's not unprecedented."

"There are abundant cases like this, including the case that was brought against Steve Bannon and others back regarding their fraudulent fundraising for money to build the wall. That was a lie. They didn't use all the money to build the wall they were indicted for that. some of them pleaded guilty. Then, of course, former President Trump pardoned Steve Bannon before he went to trial."

The other point, she explained, is even if there isn't enough evidence once Jack Smith gets emails and communications and other documents, all of the conversations, all of the digital ads were distorting the facts and asking for money.

"Even if there's insufficient evidence to say the people approving the ads really knew the election wasn't stolen and nevertheless claimed a rigged election, even if they think, 'oh, leeway for fund-raising for a campaign'. There's other things that are likely demonstrably false. One was the claim it was used to create an election defense fund. That did not happen. That's what the 'We Build the Wall' did."

"The other was the money would be used for recounts and efforts like that to challenge the election. And that is not what happened. And I don't think that was ever what was intended to happen. I guess we will see what the documents show. Instead, that money was just simply used for campaigning. There are other ways of showing fraud than just, 'did you truly believe that the election had been rigged,' or 'did you know that there was no substantial evidence of fraud in the election?'"

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

'New York hates you': Trump motorcade gets hostile greeting in NYC

Former President Donald Trump's motorcade arrived in New York City on Thursday to chants of "New York hates you."

Trump had traveled to New York to participate in a deposition after New York Attorney General Letitia James sued him for what was called "staggering" business fraud.

A video of the greeting by protesters gathered at the Attorney General's office in downtown Manhattan showed them chanting "New York hates you" as the former president's motorcade arrived.

Watch the video at this link: https://twitter.com/i/status/1646510618583924737



'Nervous' Trump's Michael Cohen lawsuit is a sign Alvin Bragg has him cornered: legal expert

Donald Trump's decision to sue Michael Cohen for $500 million is a sure sign of desperation and indicates he fears Manhattan District Attorney has him dead to rights on the 35 felony counts filed against him last week.

That is the opinion of Loyola Law School professor Jessica Levin, who claims the lawsuit appears problematic at best and purely frivolous.

In her column for MSNBC, Levinson wrote that Trump's suing his former lawyer is a preview of what to expect when the former president's latest team of attorneys square off with Bragg's team in a Manhattan courtroom later this year.

According to the legal analyst, "Filing a case against Cohen is a classic Trumpian move. Trump uses lawsuits like stump speeches. Despite his claims that others weaponize the legal system against him for political purposes, that is precisely what Trump has done, and appears to be doing here. Filing a lawsuit, even one that may later be tossed out as frivolous, allows Trump to claim that what Cohen allegedly did to him is so egregious that he had to resort to using the legal system."

Levinson noted that Trump is trying to assert that Cohen is a serial liar who also happens to have exposed factual information about their dealing together and that conflict of assertions will unlikely undermine the $500 million lawsuit if Trump doesn't drop it before it reaches a judge.

"Trump appears to allege that Cohen divulged truthful information about him that is covered by the attorney-client privilege, but also that Cohen spread numerous falsehoods about him. These two arguments may prove to be at odds," she wrote, "If Trump feels his best legal strategy is to undermine Bragg’s key witness, that may indicate the weakness of the other arguments we will see inside the courtroom."

Calling it an "inescapable irony" that "Trump is trying to hush up the person previously in charge of making his hush money payments," Levinson concluded that "Trump’s suit against Cohen may show us no more than how nervous Trump is about the criminal case pending against him."

You can read more here: https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/trump-lawsuit-michael-cohen-legal-ground-rcna79418



Trump has 'gotten so boring' people just want him to go away: former associate

Reacting to an NBC live remote outside a Manhattan courthouse where no one -- not even the local TV stations-- were awaiting the arrival of Donald Trump today, former Trump business associate Donnie Deutsch suggested the former president's legal problems have become tedious and people are quickly losing interest in him.

Appearing on "Morning Joe," Deutch was asked about the lack of interest in Trump on Thursday morning after the media and onlooker crush that greeted his indictment last week which led him to reply, "I'm bored."

"It's gotten so boring," Deutsch admitted. "We indicted a U.S. president for the first time in our history just ten days ago, or whatever the day was, and you hear this new charge you just start to blank over it."

"It's just -- he's gotten to be, as the indictments, and they'll continue to add up we'll see obstruction of justice, we'll probably see Georgia, I'm hearing this from more and more people, they want -- not the 20%, not his base, not what we see in the polls there but the overall general populace --has had enough. This latest chapter seems to be 'enough already, I can't look at this guy anymore, I don't want to see this guy anymore.'"

"There is a saturation point; you thought we would have hit it years ago. but something feels a little different this time," he added.

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

Donald Trump attends deposition in 'fraudulent scheme' civil lawsuit

Former President Donald Trump will attend a deposition Thursday concerning a civil lawsuit filed by Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James, CNN reports.

Per CBS News, the suit is filed against "Trump, three of his children, and the Trump Organization" for "orchestrating an extensive fraudulent scheme," asking for "$250 million and a raft of sanctions that would effectively cease the company's operations in New York."

The former president's deposition attendance is Trump's first trip back to the Empire State "since he pleaded not guilty last week to 34 charges" regarding "hush money payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels," according to CNN.

Regarding James' case against the Trumps and the organization, Trump attorney Alina Habba told CBS News, "President Trump is not only willing but also eager to testify before the Attorney General today."

She emphasized, "He remains resolute in his stance that he has nothing to conceal, and he looks forward to educating the Attorney General about the immense success of his multi-billion dollar company."

CNN reports the Trump family and the Trump organization "denied wrongdoing."

https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/13/politics/trump-deposition-civil-lawsuit-new-york-trump-organization/index.html



Appeals court declines to support Trump's immunity claim in E. Jean Carroll rape lawsuit



A federal appeals court has declined to rule on whether then-President Donald Trump was acting within his scope of employment when he allegedly defamed writer E Jean Carroll after she claimed to have been raped by him.

ABC News reported that the D.C. Court of Appeals clarified its position in response to Carroll's defamation lawsuit.

"We have never adopted a rule that has determined that a certain type of conduct is per se within (or outside of) the scope of employment, and we decline to do so now," the court said in a filing.

Trump's legal team had argued that he could not be sued because he was acting in his official capacity when he said that he would not have raped Carroll because she was not his "type."

A second lawsuit that Carroll filed is scheduled to go to trial in New York on April 25. It was not immediately clear if Carroll's original lawsuit would proceed after the appeals court ruling.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/appeals-court-declines-rule-trump-acting-federal-employee/story?id=98559524



Dominion v. Fox News: major defamation case heads to trial



A closely-watched civil trial that pits vote machine maker Dominion against Fox News and tests the extent of free speech rights for media in America -- even when broadcasting alleged election falsehoods -- is due to start Thursday with jury selection.

The proceedings could be one of the most consequential defamation cases ever heard in the United States and threaten financial and reputational damage for Rupert Murdoch's conservative TV network.

The stakes "are pretty high for Fox News," Nicole Hemmer, a historian specializing in media at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, told AFP.

Dominion Voting Systems sued Fox News in a Delaware court in March 2021 for $1.6 billion.

It alleges that the 24-hour news behemoth promoted Donald Trump's false claims that its machines were used to rig the 2020 presidential election that he lost to Joe Biden.

The company argues that Fox News aired the falsehoods while knowing they were untrue.

Dominion says that the network began endorsing Trump's conspiracy narrative because the channel was losing its audience after it became the first television outlet to call Arizona for Biden, projecting the Democrat would win the presidency.

Fox News denies committing defamation. It claims it was only reporting on Trump's allegations, not supporting them, and is protected by free speech rights enshrined in the First Amendment of the US Constitution.

A judge last month denied a bid by the right-leaning network to have the suit dismissed and ordered the case to go to trial.

"If found responsible for defamation, the network will potentially face a judgment in the neighborhood of $1 billion -- not enough to bankrupt the network, but enough to have real ramifications for its future planning and overall financial health," said Hemmer.

But that is a big if, as it is difficult for plaintiffs to win defamation suits in the United States due to the First Amendment.

'Actual malice'

Dominion will have to prove that Fox News acted with actual malice, a tough burden to meet.

That bar has been a bedrock of US media law since the 1964 New York Times Co. v. Sullivan case that saw the Supreme Court rule in the newspaper's favor.

Dominion's lawsuit has already proved embarrassing to Fox, however.

The 92-year-old Murdoch admitted in a deposition in the case that some on-air hosts had "endorsed" the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.

He denied though that the network in its entirety had pushed the baseless claim, according to court documents filed by Dominion in February.

A separate filing showed that Murdoch had described comments by former Trump advisors Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell pushing Trump's claims as "really crazy stuff. And damaging."

Dominion's lawyers have also released a trove of internal Fox News communications that show what commentators really felt about Trump, who counted on Fox for steady support.

"I hate him passionately," star anchor Tucker Carlson said of the ex-president, despite being supportive on air.

Fox News has accused Dominion of "cherry-picking and taking quotes out of context."

The network has overcome several crises in recent years and was the most watched cable news channel for a seventh year in a row last year, well ahead of competitors like MSNBC and CNN.

Jury selection is expected to finish this week, with the trial proper expected to start Monday.

© Agence France-Presse



An ominous sign for Fox News: Media critic breaks down pre-trial hearings in Dominion defamation suit



This Monday, April 17, the trial in Dominion Voting Systems' $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News is scheduled to begin. Defamation, thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court's unanimous ruling in New York Times v. Sullivan back in 1964, is extremely difficult to prove. And attorneys for Dominion have to show that Fox News acted with "actual malice" when, in late 2020 and early 2021, it promoted the bogus, repeatedly debunked conspiracy theory that Dominion's voting equipment was used to help now-President Joe Biden steal the election from then-President Donald Trump.

The very nature of defamation lawsuits, thanks to the late Chief Justice Earl Warren and his colleagues, gives Dominion an uphill climb. But Washington Post media critic Erik Wemple, in an April 13 column, lays out some reasons why he believes that pre-trial hearings in the case are an ominous sign for Fox News.

During the process known as "discovery," opposing sides in a case are required to share evidence. Wemple notes that Eric M. Davis, the judge in the case, "sanctioned Fox for withholding evidence after Dominion claimed that it hadn't received germane materials from the company." And Judge Davis also reminded Fox News' attorneys "that under the relevant law, there's no protection for publishing damaging falsehoods alongside the truth."

"One of Dominion's motions aimed straight at the heart of Fox News' defense," Wemple explains. "In filing after filing, Fox News has insisted that actions such as inviting Trump-aligned lawyers Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani on air to voice their theories about a Dominion election conspiracy responded to the newsworthiness of allegations from Trump and his other allies. Media organizations, the network argues, 'cannot be held liable for accurately reporting newsworthy allegations made by newsworthy figures, even if those allegations ultimately turn out to be false.'"

Wemple continues, Not so fast, Dominion retorted. 'That is not the law,' its lawyers argued in a pre-trial motion. Dominion asked the court to preclude Fox News from arguing 'newsworthiness' as a factor in determining its liability under the legal standard in defamation cases. On Tuesday, (April 11), Davis prohibited Fox News lawyers from making such arguments but said witnesses could mention newsworthiness as a consideration in their editorial decision-making."

Dominion, Wemple observes, has been trying to poke holes in Fox News' argument that it featured attorney Sidney Powell and other conspiracy theorists after the 2020 election because her claims were newsworthy.

"Newsworthiness" is essential to Fox's defense — or at least to its explanation of why it featured several guests who peddled lies about the presidential election," the Post media critic notes. "And if Fox News takes 'newsworthiness' seriously, where were all the 'fair-and-balanced' segments in which conspiracy theorists faced opposing voices equipped with debunking information?.... The legal and PR disasters are compounding for Fox News."

Wemple adds, "Surely, the network girded itself for some unfavorable headlines stemming from the lawsuit. But the discovery phase of proceedings produced a bonanza of revelations, documenting how Fox executives steered programming not according to the facts, but for their audience's thirst for comforting falsehoods. And now comes the finding that Fox wasn't forthcoming with all the evidence of its misdeeds."

© Agence France-Presse

[Rick Plant]

Trump's ex-intelligence director testifies in classified docs investigation



Former president Trump's prior acting Director of National Intelligence, Richard Grenell, has reportedly testified before a grand jury that is investigating Trump’s handling of classified documents at his Florida Mar-a-Lago golf resort.

Grenell was identified by CNN as he was leaving the Washington, D.C., courthouse. About a year ago, Grenell was accused of having Nazi ties by a U.S. congressman when Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) said Grenell "used to hang out with Nazis when he was supposed to be representing us in Germany."

Grenell had been subpoenaed to testify in special counsel Jack Smith’s criminal investigation, CNN reported, citing a source familiar with the matter.

CNN further reported that, while serving under Trump, Grenell sought to declassify documents that Trump thought would benefit him in an earlier investigation into potential Russian ties. He has been seen at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort as recently as last week, the agency said.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/13/politics/grenell-trump-documents-grand-jury/index.html



Expert warns Trump is putting all Black prosecutors at risk with racist threats



A legal expert is sounding the alarm that former President Donald Trump's racially-charged attacks and threats against Black prosecutors investigating him could escalate safety threats for Black prosecutors all over the country, reported ABC 7.

"Former President Donald Trump continues to criticize Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg after pleading not guilty to 34 felony counts last Tuesday," reported Crystal Cranmore. "Trump's attacks don't stop there, from social media posts threatening death and destruction to his rallies. He's taken shots at a Georgia prosecutor investigating possible criminal behavior by Trump in the 2020 presidential election surrounding his efforts to overturn the results. The former president has also condemned New York Attorney General Letitia James for looking into his business dealings, calling each of these three Black prosecutors racist."

In particular, Trump has ramped up the hostilities against Bragg, calling him a "Soros backed animal" and posting an image of himself wielding a baseball bat next to a picture of the Manhattan prosecutor. Bragg has endured a steady stream of death threats amid the controversy, including envelopes of white powder mailed to his office.

Only 5 percent of prosecutors around the country are Black — and they could be next for threats, argued former prosecutor Melba Pearson.

"The danger of this rhetoric is that it encourages bad actors to do certain things. These are lives that are at stake," said Pearson. She added that the hostility could dissuade some Black people from going to work in prosecution at all: "I've seen it amongst those considering running for office because it's not just the calculus of is this something I want to do. The next level is, what about security?"

Bragg's prosecution of Trump stems from the former president's alleged $130,000 hush payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels. The Georgia attorney, Fani Willis, is running a separate investigation of the effort to interfere with certification of the election in that state, which focuses in part on Trump's phone calls to state officials.

Watch:

Jack Smith is building up the 'motive' for Trump's fraud that will 'satisfy' a jury: legal expert



New reporting this week indicates that Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith is zeroing in on the possibility of charging Trump's fundraising around "election defense" as wire fraud, on the premise that he and his allies knew his conspiracy theories about the presidential election of 2020 to be false and no such defense fund was ever created, despite millions being raised for it.

On MSNBC Thursday, former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance outlined a key step Smith appears to be taking to build that case.

"The special counsel's investigation into Trump's fundraising in and around January 6th and his claims of a stolen election," said anchor Alex Wagner. "As you see this, the legal implications of Jack Smith broadening that investigation, not just to what Trump did to potentially overthrow an election and subvert democracy, but potentially fundraise off of it — which, I've got to say, let's not lose sight of the fact of how ambitious that is, not just to steal the election, but to potentially raise money off of it. What legal peril does that add to the case here in terms of Donald Trump's exposure?"

"Well, it adds a lot," said Vance. "Wire fraud is sort of a bread-and-butter crime for federal prosecutors, and it carries a maximum 2-year penalty, so it's serious business," said Vance. "It does something really important if Jack Smith is able to make it out, and perhaps even if he doesn't charge it, and that is to help explain motive."

Motive, Vance explained, is "rarely an element" of establishing a crime in these sorts of cases — however, "motive satisfies juries' curiosity. A lot of times, juries want to understand, why did someone do something that just was so clearly criminal that makes no sense? When you learn that there is a financial motive to continue perpetrating the Big Lie, even when it's clear that it still is a lie, that gives a jury higher comfort level."

"The wire fraud charge involves creating a scheme where you intend to defraud people with false information. And you can do it, as you've mentioned, via email, but it can also involve radio or television, lots of great options here for Jack Smith to pursue, because we know Trump was trying to get people to continue to give him money on a variety of different media in order for him to be able to, as he said, pursue a fair outcome in the election, when in fact, he knew he had lost. It's a very compelling place."

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

'Legal hell’: Criminal defendant Trump goes back under oath in another case

For the second time in two weeks, Defendant Donald Trump traveled under court order to New York. This time he was deposed by New York Attorney General Leticia James in a $250 million civil case alleging business fraud. It comes as the Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg goes on offense against Trump and his allies in Congress. MSNBC Chief Legal Correspondent is joined by Mueller Vet Andrew Weissman and Defense Lawyer Danny Greenberg on “The Beat.”

[Rick Plant]

Meet the prosecutor who indicted Trump and scares him more than anyone

[Rick Plant]

Trump lawyer withdraws from documents case after becoming a potential witness
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/04/15/trump-corcoran-mar-a-lago-documents/

[Rick Plant]

Trump walks into Manhattan courtroom after arrest

Watch: