Trump says he took the Fifth Amendment in NY investigation
By MICHAEL BALSAMO, MICHAEL R. SISAK and MICHELLE L. PRICE
14 mins ago
NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump invoked the Fifth Amendment and wouldn't answer questions under oath in the New York attorney general's long-running civil investigation into his business dealings, the former president said in a statement Wednesday.
Trump arrived at state Attorney General Letitia James' offices in a motorcade shortly before 9 a.m., announcing more than an hour later that he "declined to answer the questions under the rights and privileges afforded to every citizen under the United States Constitution.”
“I once asked, ‘If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?' Now I know the answer to that question,” the statement said. “When your family, your company, and all the people in your orbit have become the targets of an unfounded politically motivated Witch Hunt supported by lawyers, prosecutors and the Fake News Media, you have no choice.”
Trump says he took the Fifth Amendment in NY investigation
By MICHAEL BALSAMO, MICHAEL R. SISAK and MICHELLE L. PRICE
14 mins ago
NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump invoked the Fifth Amendment and wouldn't answer questions under oath in the New York attorney general's long-running civil investigation into his business dealings, the former president said in a statement Wednesday.
Trump arrived at state Attorney General Letitia James' offices in a motorcade shortly before 9 a.m., announcing more than an hour later that he "declined to answer the questions under the rights and privileges afforded to every citizen under the United States Constitution.”
“I once asked, ‘If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?' Now I know the answer to that question,” the statement said. “When your family, your company, and all the people in your orbit have become the targets of an unfounded politically motivated Witch Hunt supported by lawyers, prosecutors and the Fake News Media, you have no choice.”
Trump says he took the Fifth Amendment in NY investigation
By MICHAEL BALSAMO, MICHAEL R. SISAK and MICHELLE L. PRICE
14 mins ago
NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump invoked the Fifth Amendment and wouldn't answer questions under oath in the New York attorney general's long-running civil investigation into his business dealings, the former president said in a statement Wednesday.
Trump arrived at state Attorney General Letitia James' offices in a motorcade shortly before 9 a.m., announcing more than an hour later that he "declined to answer the questions under the rights and privileges afforded to every citizen under the United States Constitution.”
“I once asked, ‘If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?' Now I know the answer to that question,” the statement said. “When your family, your company, and all the people in your orbit have become the targets of an unfounded politically motivated Witch Hunt supported by lawyers, prosecutors and the Fake News Media, you have no choice.”
continues......
nothing?
There was no collusion.”
“I don’t know any Russians.”
“I have nothing to hide.”
“I’ll sit down and talk to anyone.”
“We do everything by the book.”
“Only the guilty plea the fifth.”
“Very legal, very cool.”
“Fully exonerated.”
“Essentially no obstruction.”
“Very friendly and totally appropriate.”
“No quid pro quo.”
“Imminent threat.”
“I thought he was Israeli.”
“I don’t know what a burner phone is.”
“I would bet if you took a poll in the FBI I would win that poll by more than anybody’s won a poll.”
Either scenario is
plausible at this point. The Justice Department has long been aggressive
about investigating former officials whom it suspects of improperly handling
classified material, including Hillary Clinton and David Petraeus. If the
F.B.I. search merely leads to a legalistic debate about what’s classified, it
probably will not damage Trump’s political future.
But it also seems possible
that the search is a sign of a major new legal problem for him. People familiar
with the search told The Times that it was not related
to the Justice Department’s investigation into the Jan. 6 attack and Trump’s
role in it. And it’s unlikely that Merrick Garland, the attorney general,
would have allowed the search-warrant request — or that a federal judge would
have approved it, as was required — unless it involved something important.
“I don’t think you get a
judge to sign off on a search warrant for an ex-president’s house lightly,”
Charlie Savage, a Times reporter who has been covering legal issues since the
George W. Bush administration. “I think the world looks pretty different
today than it did 48 hours ago.” (It’s even possible that Trump could be
prosecuted over classified documents alone, although that might not keep him from
holding office again.)
Support for Trump outside Mar-a-Lago yesterday.Saul Martinez for The New York Times
As Charlie emphasizes,
there is still much more that’s unknown about the search than known. That
probably won’t change until the Justice Department gets much closer to making
a decision about how to conclude its investigation. “A central tenet of the
way in which the Justice Department investigates and a central tenet of the
rule of law is that we do not do our investigations in public,” Garland
recently said.
But at least two big points
seem clear. First, even though Garland has said that nobody is above the law,
the Justice Department will not treat Trump like any other citizen. The bar
for filing criminal charges against him will be higher, given that he is a
former president who may run again — against the current president.
“The considerations when you’re
talking about a political leader are certainly different and harder,” Andrew
Goldstein, a former federal prosecutor who investigated Trump’s ties to
Russia, recently told The Times.
“You have the very clear and important rule that the Department of Justice
should try in every way possible not to interfere with elections, to not take
steps using the criminal process that could end up affecting the political
process.”
Still, some legal experts
who previously criticized Garland for moving too timidly in investigating
Trump said they were encouraged by the Justice Department’s recent signs of
boldness, including the Mar-a-Lago search. Andrew Weissmann, another former
prosecutor who previously investigated Trump, is one of those experts (as he
explained in this New Yorker interview).
Quinta Jurecic, a senior editor at Lawfare, is another. “At what point does
not investigating and not prosecuting a former president itself indicate that
the rule of law is being undermined because it sends a signal that this
person is above the law?” Jurecic told us.
She added: “That doesn’t
mean that this is going to translate to an indictment of the president.”
The second point is that
Trump appears to be a subject of multiple criminal
investigations — and prosecutors may decide that his violations of
the law were so significant as to deserve prosecution. One of those
investigations is by state prosecutors in Georgia, who may not be as cautious
about charging a former president as Garland seems likely to be.
Either way, the answer will
probably become clear well before November 2024. Prosecutors — especially at
the Justice Department — generally try to avoid making announcements about
investigations into political candidates during a campaign. (James Comey’s
decision to ignore that tradition and announce he had reopened an
investigation into Clinton late in the 2016 campaign was a notable exception,
and many experts believe he erred in doing so.)
The rest of today’s
newsletter summarizes the latest Times reporting about the F.B.I. search of
Mar-a-Lago — and also gives you a quick overview of the multiple
investigations Trump is facing.
The latest
Before the raid, Justice Department officials had
grown concerned that Trump had kept some documents,
despite returning others.
If convicted, could Trump be barred from holding
office? A relevant law is untested.
The Justice Department did not give the White House
advance notice of the search, President Biden’s press secretary said.
Prosecutors in Georgia are investigating efforts by
Trump and his allies to overturn his 2020 election loss there, including
a phone call in which Trump asked an election official to “find”
additional votes. The Times’s Annie Karni explains the possible
charges.
The Justice Department is also questioning witnesses
before a grand jury about Trump’s efforts to
reverse his election loss. And federal prosecutors are
examining his allies’ plan to submit fake electors from key states
to disrupt certification of Biden’s win.
Trump faces a few other investigations, some of which
could result in civil but not criminal penalties. The main exception is
a criminal inquiry into his business by the Manhattan district attorney,
but that seems to have
unraveled.
Trump will face questioning under
oath today by the New York attorney general’s office, which
is investigating his business practices.
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago 2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy 2013: London ON, Chicago; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE) 2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston 2020: Oakland, Oakland:2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana 2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
moderate R's will continue to vote R regionally, as they believe that is still a safe and ethical choice. moderate R's will likely not vote trump if he's on the ticket in 2024. and he desperately needs them.
I really really hope you are right
I’ve toyed with the thought of hoping trump gets the nomination for that reason. However it’s a huge gamble
kind of reminds me of Kansas though. When it’s just abortion and a direct vote you’ve got 60 percent supporting pro choice. If it’s a legislation thing, it’s 60 percent voting for republicans who will outlaw it. Kansas showed one thing. A Democratic position can pass only when republicans don’t have to actually vote for a democrat. It’s easier to vote for a position than it is to vote for a different party
I'm going to be surprised if he is the nominee. Even if he says he is running soon I think he will bow out about a year from now. He will only do that to raise money and stoke his ego.
The GOP does not want that fucker to run. He'll leave before the other potential nominees have to start trashing him.
They might not want it, but they have wasted literally every opportunity to throw him under the bus. I have to think the GOP could have been rid of him by now if they wanted it. Even after Jan 6th if they kept up that narrative and removed him from office, people would have moved on. As long as they let him hang around, they are stuck with him
Yeah, there’s been so much evidence since the most recent Jan six hearings, to conclude the Rs are still on board with this fella. The extremists are no matter what, and the very few “reasonable moderates “ shrug and vote R no matter what. Some of the public defense of trump by moderates in the senate since the raid has been startling, considering the overwhelming amount of evidence he tried to overthrow the govt and their impeachment defense was exposed as a complete lie.
Whether it’s Cruz trying to incite violence against democratic citizens, or Rs using the courts, using gerrymandering or independent legislature theories, they are in the process of taking full control of the country, whether they shoot at us or not. And of course 2A gives them latitude if they choose.
To many, it’s just politics, just both sides, and they want to continue with their peaceful American love story successes no matter what America looks like in two and a half years.
Trump says he took the Fifth Amendment in NY investigation
By MICHAEL BALSAMO, MICHAEL R. SISAK and MICHELLE L. PRICE
14 mins ago
NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump invoked the Fifth Amendment and wouldn't answer questions under oath in the New York attorney general's long-running civil investigation into his business dealings, the former president said in a statement Wednesday.
Trump arrived at state Attorney General Letitia James' offices in a motorcade shortly before 9 a.m., announcing more than an hour later that he "declined to answer the questions under the rights and privileges afforded to every citizen under the United States Constitution.”
“I once asked, ‘If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?' Now I know the answer to that question,” the statement said. “When your family, your company, and all the people in your orbit have become the targets of an unfounded politically motivated Witch Hunt supported by lawyers, prosecutors and the Fake News Media, you have no choice.”
And so it begins. I know its the Daily Mail but still, it's coming.
EXCLUSIVE: Locked and loaded: Palm Beach police have received intelligence warning that armed pro-Trump protesters are planning to descend on Mar-a-Lago following FBI raid
Palm Beach police have requested that all departments in Palm Beach County be on the lookout for armed motorists near Donald Trump's home
Supporters of the former president began arriving in their cars and camped out outside former President Trump's Mar-a-Lago last night
They arrived shortly after it emerged that the FBI was searching the former president's home as part of an investigation into whether he took classified documents from the White House to his Florida residence
'These are dark times for our Nation, as my beautiful home, Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents,' Trump said in statement
He accused the FBI of a double standard and said the bureau 'allowed' Hillary Clinton to 'acid wash' 33,000 emails
His family members and supporters say the raid was an attempt to thwart a potential 2024 campaign
Palm Beach police have notified surrounding police departments, including the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office, that it received intelligence today informing them that armed pro-Trump protesters are expected near Mar-a-Lago following last night's FBI raid, a Florida law enforcement source has told DailyMail.com.
The Palm Beach police has notified surrounding departments in the county, requesting that all departments be on the lookout for armed motorists parking near Donald Trump's home in the coming hours.
Protesters often park in the parking lot of a Publix supermarket on Southern Boulevard in West Palm Beach and walk to the area of the property, where street parking is not allowed.
Dozens of furious Trump supporters began to descend on Mar-a-Lago last night shortly after he revealed the FBI had raided his house as part of an investigation into whether he took classified records from the White House to the Florida residence.
Trump, disclosing the search in a lengthy statement, claimed that agents had opened up a safe at his home and described their work as an 'unannounced raid' that he called 'prosecutorial misconduct.'
He accused the FBI of a double standard, claiming the bureau 'allowed' Hillary Clinton to 'acid wash' 33,000 emails from her time as secretary of state.
Those in his camp said the raid was a clear attempt to thwart a potential 2024 presidential run.
I wouldn’t want to be a journalist assigned there from a non favoured network.
These people will be pissed and standing outside with nothing to do.
I’m just waiting for trump to let them use his lawn in anticipation of a possible arrest. The cops can’t do a thing if he lets them on the property unless there is some zoning issue with large gatherings. Then he has a buffer and no one knows what happens if the FBI needs to come back
I wouldn’t want to be a journalist assigned there from a non favoured network.
These people will be pissed and standing outside with nothing to do.
I’m just waiting for trump to let them use his lawn in anticipation of a possible arrest. The cops can’t do a thing if he lets them on the property unless there is some zoning issue with large gatherings. Then he has a buffer and no one knows what happens if the FBI needs to come back
My guess is things will happen slowly enough that they'll be gone by the time anything would come of it.
1995 Milwaukee 1998 Alpine, Alpine 2003 Albany, Boston, Boston, Boston 2004 Boston, Boston 2006 Hartford, St. Paul (Petty), St. Paul (Petty) 2011 Alpine, Alpine 2013 Wrigley 2014 St. Paul 2016 Fenway, Fenway, Wrigley, Wrigley 2018 Missoula, Wrigley, Wrigley 2021 Asbury Park 2022 St Louis 2023 Austin, Austin
I wouldn’t want to be a journalist assigned there from a non favoured network.
These people will be pissed and standing outside with nothing to do.
I’m just waiting for trump to let them use his lawn in anticipation of a possible arrest. The cops can’t do a thing if he lets them on the property unless there is some zoning issue with large gatherings. Then he has a buffer and no one knows what happens if the FBI needs to come back
My guess is things will happen slowly enough that they'll be gone by the time anything would come of it.
Wonder how they could even arrest him logistically.
secret service isn’t letting him out of their sight. He also gets a bigger detail once he is a candidate again.
you’ve got competing interests within the government.
is there a liberal version of tucker carlson people on this forum have been watching that I'm not aware of? my lord.
They said trump would beat Clinton… he did they said they were going to storm the capital… they did
they said there is a civil war coming
they said a lot of other stuff too that seemed crazy at the time. They did it all
im just listening to them
Didn’t those same people say Trump won and it would be proven and Trump would be president again? Not to mention they said Hilary and Hunter would be in jail. Say enough things, some of it is bound to come true.
Either scenario is
plausible at this point. The Justice Department has long been aggressive
about investigating former officials whom it suspects of improperly handling
classified material, including Hillary Clinton and David Petraeus. If the
F.B.I. search merely leads to a legalistic debate about what’s classified, it
probably will not damage Trump’s political future.
But it also seems possible
that the search is a sign of a major new legal problem for him. People familiar
with the search told The Times that it was not related
to the Justice Department’s investigation into the Jan. 6 attack and Trump’s
role in it. And it’s unlikely that Merrick Garland, the attorney general,
would have allowed the search-warrant request — or that a federal judge would
have approved it, as was required — unless it involved something important.
“I don’t think you get a
judge to sign off on a search warrant for an ex-president’s house lightly,”
Charlie Savage, a Times reporter who has been covering legal issues since the
George W. Bush administration. “I think the world looks pretty different
today than it did 48 hours ago.” (It’s even possible that Trump could be
prosecuted over classified documents alone, although that might not keep him from
holding office again.)
Support for Trump outside Mar-a-Lago yesterday.Saul Martinez for The New York Times
As Charlie emphasizes,
there is still much more that’s unknown about the search than known. That
probably won’t change until the Justice Department gets much closer to making
a decision about how to conclude its investigation. “A central tenet of the
way in which the Justice Department investigates and a central tenet of the
rule of law is that we do not do our investigations in public,” Garland
recently said.
But at least two big points
seem clear. First, even though Garland has said that nobody is above the law,
the Justice Department will not treat Trump like any other citizen. The bar
for filing criminal charges against him will be higher, given that he is a
former president who may run again — against the current president.
“The considerations when you’re
talking about a political leader are certainly different and harder,” Andrew
Goldstein, a former federal prosecutor who investigated Trump’s ties to
Russia, recently told The Times.
“You have the very clear and important rule that the Department of Justice
should try in every way possible not to interfere with elections, to not take
steps using the criminal process that could end up affecting the political
process.”
Still, some legal experts
who previously criticized Garland for moving too timidly in investigating
Trump said they were encouraged by the Justice Department’s recent signs of
boldness, including the Mar-a-Lago search. Andrew Weissmann, another former
prosecutor who previously investigated Trump, is one of those experts (as he
explained in this New Yorker interview).
Quinta Jurecic, a senior editor at Lawfare, is another. “At what point does
not investigating and not prosecuting a former president itself indicate that
the rule of law is being undermined because it sends a signal that this
person is above the law?” Jurecic told us.
She added: “That doesn’t
mean that this is going to translate to an indictment of the president.”
The second point is that
Trump appears to be a subject of multiple criminal
investigations — and prosecutors may decide that his violations of
the law were so significant as to deserve prosecution. One of those
investigations is by state prosecutors in Georgia, who may not be as cautious
about charging a former president as Garland seems likely to be.
Either way, the answer will
probably become clear well before November 2024. Prosecutors — especially at
the Justice Department — generally try to avoid making announcements about
investigations into political candidates during a campaign. (James Comey’s
decision to ignore that tradition and announce he had reopened an
investigation into Clinton late in the 2016 campaign was a notable exception,
and many experts believe he erred in doing so.)
The rest of today’s
newsletter summarizes the latest Times reporting about the F.B.I. search of
Mar-a-Lago — and also gives you a quick overview of the multiple
investigations Trump is facing.
The latest
Before the raid, Justice Department officials had
grown concerned that Trump had kept some documents,
despite returning others.
If convicted, could Trump be barred from holding
office? A relevant law is untested.
The Justice Department did not give the White House
advance notice of the search, President Biden’s press secretary said.
Prosecutors in Georgia are investigating efforts by
Trump and his allies to overturn his 2020 election loss there, including
a phone call in which Trump asked an election official to “find”
additional votes. The Times’s Annie Karni explains the possible
charges.
The Justice Department is also questioning witnesses
before a grand jury about Trump’s efforts to
reverse his election loss. And federal prosecutors are
examining his allies’ plan to submit fake electors from key states
to disrupt certification of Biden’s win.
Trump faces a few other investigations, some of which
could result in civil but not criminal penalties. The main exception is
a criminal inquiry into his business by the Manhattan district attorney,
but that seems to have
unraveled.
Trump will face questioning under
oath today by the New York attorney general’s office, which
is investigating his business practices.
If it’s just about recovering documents and related charges, that would be a huge mistake by garland. Trump could have declassified all his documents at the end of his term. It’s nothing more than administrative oversight. This needs to be serious, something approaching treason or creating danger to Americans, or garland just gave trump a win back your reputation card with swing voters.
is there a liberal version of tucker carlson people on this forum have been watching that I'm not aware of? my lord.
They said trump would beat Clinton… he did they said they were going to storm the capital… they did
they said there is a civil war coming
they said a lot of other stuff too that seemed crazy at the time. They did it all
im just listening to them
Didn’t those same people say Trump won and it would be proven and Trump would be president again? Not to mention they said Hilary and Hunter would be in jail. Say enough things, some of it is bound to come true.
If he becomes president again they will be in jail. They also think he won, and think that it’s proven he did.
Not saying everything they say makes sense. Some of it does require him being president again though which also isn’t out of the question.
They feel they need to do their part to make that happen by whatever means necessary
I actually think DeSantis is meaner than Trump. Trump just did whatever he did for himself, which often involved going with the christofascist flow (despite being, I would guess, an agnostic).
DeSantis, if he could, would get draconian in punishing women and abortion providers. He's already shown he wants to go after "woke" corporations. Trump wasn't even smart enough for this, but DeSantis wants an entire country that conforms to "tradition" and those that don't should be dealt with severely.
Yes DeSantis is nasty. He suspended a locally elected DA for not prosecuting abortion cases, while there are no cases to even prosecute, and he gets the thumbs up from moderates,
..
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis took the extraordinary step on Thursday of suspending the locally elected prosecutor of Hillsborough County, home to Tampa. Andrew Warren, the suspended prosecutor, promptly denounced the move as an “illegal overreach.”
The suspension of this Democratic official, announced by the Republican governor at a news conference where he was flanked by Hillsborough County’s Republican sheriff and other local officials, is the latest chapter in the GOP’s sustained attacks on reproductive rights and transgender rights in Florida, as well as broader criminal justice reform efforts.
DeSantis based the suspension on Warren’s statements that his office would not prosecute abortion-related cases and cases involving anti-transgender laws. DeSantis also mentioned Warren’s policies establishing a presumption against prosecuting certain behaviors.
DeSantis claimed that with those statements and policies Warren “neglected” his duties and “display[ed] a lack of competence” to carry out his duties.
DeSantis replaced Warren with Susan Lopez, a local judge who is a member of the conservative legal organization the Federalist Society. His decision effectively kicked the Democratic Party out of an office it won in both 2016 and 2020, in a county that DeSantis himself lost by nine percentage points in 2018.
Florida Representative Anna Eskamani, a Democrat and fierce critic of DeSantis, called the governor’s move “a fascist approach to governing, if you can even call it governing.”
But the broad move by DeSantis against Warren included no such report underlying it. It also made no mention of any cases that DeSantis objects to. The governor’s executive order instituting the suspension only mentions the prosecutor’s “public proclamations of non-enforcement.”
Either scenario is
plausible at this point. The Justice Department has long been aggressive
about investigating former officials whom it suspects of improperly handling
classified material, including Hillary Clinton and David Petraeus. If the
F.B.I. search merely leads to a legalistic debate about what’s classified, it
probably will not damage Trump’s political future.
But it also seems possible
that the search is a sign of a major new legal problem for him. People familiar
with the search told The Times that it was not related
to the Justice Department’s investigation into the Jan. 6 attack and Trump’s
role in it. And it’s unlikely that Merrick Garland, the attorney general,
would have allowed the search-warrant request — or that a federal judge would
have approved it, as was required — unless it involved something important.
“I don’t think you get a
judge to sign off on a search warrant for an ex-president’s house lightly,”
Charlie Savage, a Times reporter who has been covering legal issues since the
George W. Bush administration. “I think the world looks pretty different
today than it did 48 hours ago.” (It’s even possible that Trump could be
prosecuted over classified documents alone, although that might not keep him from
holding office again.)
Support for Trump outside Mar-a-Lago yesterday.Saul Martinez for The New York Times
As Charlie emphasizes,
there is still much more that’s unknown about the search than known. That
probably won’t change until the Justice Department gets much closer to making
a decision about how to conclude its investigation. “A central tenet of the
way in which the Justice Department investigates and a central tenet of the
rule of law is that we do not do our investigations in public,” Garland
recently said.
But at least two big points
seem clear. First, even though Garland has said that nobody is above the law,
the Justice Department will not treat Trump like any other citizen. The bar
for filing criminal charges against him will be higher, given that he is a
former president who may run again — against the current president.
“The considerations when you’re
talking about a political leader are certainly different and harder,” Andrew
Goldstein, a former federal prosecutor who investigated Trump’s ties to
Russia, recently told The Times.
“You have the very clear and important rule that the Department of Justice
should try in every way possible not to interfere with elections, to not take
steps using the criminal process that could end up affecting the political
process.”
Still, some legal experts
who previously criticized Garland for moving too timidly in investigating
Trump said they were encouraged by the Justice Department’s recent signs of
boldness, including the Mar-a-Lago search. Andrew Weissmann, another former
prosecutor who previously investigated Trump, is one of those experts (as he
explained in this New Yorker interview).
Quinta Jurecic, a senior editor at Lawfare, is another. “At what point does
not investigating and not prosecuting a former president itself indicate that
the rule of law is being undermined because it sends a signal that this
person is above the law?” Jurecic told us.
She added: “That doesn’t
mean that this is going to translate to an indictment of the president.”
The second point is that
Trump appears to be a subject of multiple criminal
investigations — and prosecutors may decide that his violations of
the law were so significant as to deserve prosecution. One of those
investigations is by state prosecutors in Georgia, who may not be as cautious
about charging a former president as Garland seems likely to be.
Either way, the answer will
probably become clear well before November 2024. Prosecutors — especially at
the Justice Department — generally try to avoid making announcements about
investigations into political candidates during a campaign. (James Comey’s
decision to ignore that tradition and announce he had reopened an
investigation into Clinton late in the 2016 campaign was a notable exception,
and many experts believe he erred in doing so.)
The rest of today’s
newsletter summarizes the latest Times reporting about the F.B.I. search of
Mar-a-Lago — and also gives you a quick overview of the multiple
investigations Trump is facing.
The latest
Before the raid, Justice Department officials had
grown concerned that Trump had kept some documents,
despite returning others.
If convicted, could Trump be barred from holding
office? A relevant law is untested.
The Justice Department did not give the White House
advance notice of the search, President Biden’s press secretary said.
Prosecutors in Georgia are investigating efforts by
Trump and his allies to overturn his 2020 election loss there, including
a phone call in which Trump asked an election official to “find”
additional votes. The Times’s Annie Karni explains the possible
charges.
The Justice Department is also questioning witnesses
before a grand jury about Trump’s efforts to
reverse his election loss. And federal prosecutors are
examining his allies’ plan to submit fake electors from key states
to disrupt certification of Biden’s win.
Trump faces a few other investigations, some of which
could result in civil but not criminal penalties. The main exception is
a criminal inquiry into his business by the Manhattan district attorney,
but that seems to have
unraveled.
Trump will face questioning under
oath today by the New York attorney general’s office, which
is investigating his business practices.
If it’s just about recovering documents and related charges, that would be a huge mistake by garland. Trump could have declassified all his documents at the end of his term. It’s nothing more than administrative oversight. This needs to be serious, something approaching treason or creating danger to Americans, or garland just gave trump a win back your reputation card with swing voters.
C’mon, we’re talking a former SCOTUS nominee, not a spiked diet Dr. Pepper swilling former attorney giving testimony before the 1/6 committee.
Analysis: Citizen Trump may have broken a law that President Trump made a felony
Not many people know exactly why FBI agents searched former president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate on Monday, but most are operating on what’s been revealed by Trump’s team and public reporting: The FBI search was largely or entirely a function of the investigation into Trump’s retention of documents after leaving the White House.
That material included some documents that were classified.
As The Post’s Philip Bump notes, if Trump is found to have violated federal law in removing and retaining classified documents without authorization, he could be convicted of a felony punishable by five years in prison. And that conviction would be a felony carrying that punishment because of a law signed by President Trump.
Here’s how that happened:
During Trump’s first year in office, a central tool used for surveillance by the intelligence community — Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act — was set to expire. Shortly before it did, Congress passed an extension of the authority for another five years.
But that didn’t come without turmoil. Trump came into office angry at the intelligence community for revealing to reporters that it believed Russia had interfered in the 2016 election. He excoriated intelligence agencies on Twitter — and continued to do so as the contours of the investigation into that interference became clear. ...
On Jan. 18, 2018, he signed it into law.
While what became law was S. 139, Congress replaced the legislation with H.R. 4478, which extended Section 702 for another five years. This is a common process because sometimes Congress hollows out existing legislation and replaces it entirely with other legislation to move the process forward more quickly.
H.R. 4478 includes the following provision:
Whoever, being an officer, employee, contractor, or consultant of the United States, and, by virtue of his office, employment, position, or contract, becomes possessed of documents or materials containing classified information of the United States, knowingly removes such documents or materials without authority and with the intent to retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than one year, or both.
With Trump’s signing, S. 139 into law, that became: “ … shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than five years, or both.” (Emphasis added.) And, with that, it became a felony.
And so, you can see how Trump absconding with classified material to Mar-a-Lago would facially violate the law as articulated.
Philip argues that Trump may now claim he declassified these documents while still president, even if no formal record of the declassification was made. This introduces a slew of other questions, since that material would now presumably be publicly available in some form.
Trump says he took the Fifth Amendment in NY investigation
By MICHAEL BALSAMO, MICHAEL R. SISAK and MICHELLE L. PRICE
14 mins ago
NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump invoked the Fifth Amendment and wouldn't answer questions under oath in the New York attorney general's long-running civil investigation into his business dealings, the former president said in a statement Wednesday.
Trump arrived at state Attorney General Letitia James' offices in a motorcade shortly before 9 a.m., announcing more than an hour later that he "declined to answer the questions under the rights and privileges afforded to every citizen under the United States Constitution.”
“I once asked, ‘If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?' Now I know the answer to that question,” the statement said. “When your family, your company, and all the people in your orbit have become the targets of an unfounded politically motivated Witch Hunt supported by lawyers, prosecutors and the Fake News Media, you have no choice.”
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
I find it interesting that the media is now reporting that the information about additional boxes of documents being at Mar-I-Lieo came from an “informant.” Why is this interesting? Because “informants” are typically folks who have committed a crime and agree to inform because they are aware that crimes are being committed in exchange for a lighter sentence when the shit hits the fan or new identity and relocation or their conscience has them report to law enforcement what they know or have witnessed. As such, “informants” also wear wires or agree to have their phone conversations tapped/taped. So, was this “informant” in the inner circle? At the White House before POOTWH left office? And/or at MAR-I-Lieo post transition? Who is it? And what do they know or witness that lead them to inform, become one or otherwise participate in the resulting investigation? There’s meat and potatoes here.
How’s that for fruit from the poisonous tree or beef in the hamberder?
How do they know? That wouldn’t be in the search warrant. That’s purposely vague and the only document not in possession of the FBI
if there is a leak that’s not good
It was the WSJ that CNN was saying was reporting this. WSJ is owned by Rupert Murdick and the POOTWH camp was notorious for leaking, and I don’t mean on a bed in the VIP suite at The Ritz in Moscow. I think you can connect the dots.
Trumpworld informant reportedly told FBI about classified docs at Mar-a-Lago
The search of Donald Trump’s Florida residence comes after a FBI source reportedly revealed that the ex-president was concealing classified national defence information from the government he once ledAn insider with knowledge of what government records former president Donald Trump still possessed more than 18 months after he left the White House reportedly tipped off FBI officials to a cache of classified documents at the ex-president’s Palm Beach, Florida home and office. According to Newsweek, two “senior government officials” have said the Monday search of Mr Trump’s rooms at Mar-a-Lago — the mansion turned private club where he spends most of his year — came after a confidential FBI source provided agents with information on “what classified documents [Mr Trump] was still hiding and ... the location of those documents”.https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-informant-fbi-mar-a-lago-b2142596.html
does anybody else think there is a cell out there that may be planning to blow up a federal building? mcveigh blew one up in retaliation for waco. there are way more hardcore trump supporters out there than there ever were waco sympathizers. i think the heat on trump could trigger someone to so something worse.
some of these right wing anti government types are serious as a heart attack.
all i know is the feds better make this air tight with a bulletproof legal case, and they had best be prepared to protect all of us from the fallout that is sure to happen.
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.- Hemingway
does anybody else think there is a cell out there that may be planning to blow up a federal building? mcveigh blew one up in retaliation for waco. there are way more hardcore trump supporters out there than there ever were waco sympathizers. i think the heat on trump could trigger someone to so something worse.
some of these right wing anti government types are serious as a heart attack.
all i know is the feds better make this air tight with a bulletproof legal case, and they had best be prepared to protect all of us from the fallout that is sure to happen.
I donno man, you’ll have plenty of commenters here saying many Rs are reasonable and won’t go to war for trump.
Yet as you cite, the Rs are on the warpath right now and we went from news cycles about what a great batch of laws the Dems passed to trump is a victim and the Dems are on another witch hunt. This better be a big deal.
You don’t indict former presidents for parking tickets and poor document retention policies, despite what Hal posts on here. Garland has been silent for two days now, fully knowing the firestorm he was creating, while he hides behind “we don’t comment on investigations.” That policy is for everyone else, not former presidents.
does anybody else think there is a cell out there that may be planning to blow up a federal building? mcveigh blew one up in retaliation for waco. there are way more hardcore trump supporters out there than there ever were waco sympathizers. i think the heat on trump could trigger someone to so something worse.
some of these right wing anti government types are serious as a heart attack.
all i know is the feds better make this air tight with a bulletproof legal case, and they had best be prepared to protect all of us from the fallout that is sure to happen.
Of course. 100% someone is planning something, doing something is possible too but not 100%. Some of these people tried to kidnap a sitting governor and then do who knows what to her. Regardless of the trial outcomes, they were going to do it I believe
this is all pointless though as their odds of getting a conviction are near zero. No way they can exclude every trump supporter from a jury and all they need is one. It would be like excluding someone specifically because of their race. It’s going to be hard for the DOJ to look good after this with no conviction, no matter the evidence.
does anybody else think there is a cell out there that may be planning to blow up a federal building? mcveigh blew one up in retaliation for waco. there are way more hardcore trump supporters out there than there ever were waco sympathizers. i think the heat on trump could trigger someone to so something worse.
some of these right wing anti government types are serious as a heart attack.
all i know is the feds better make this air tight with a bulletproof legal case, and they had best be prepared to protect all of us from the fallout that is sure to happen.
I donno man, you’ll have plenty of commenters here saying many Rs are reasonable and won’t go to war for trump.
Yet as you cite, the Rs are on the warpath right now and we went from news cycles about what a great batch of laws the Dems passed to trump is a victim and the Dems are on another witch hunt. This better be a big deal.
You don’t indict former presidents for parking tickets and poor document retention policies, despite what Hal posts on here. Garland has been silent for two days now, fully knowing the firestorm he was creating, while he hides behind “we don’t comment on investigations.” That policy is for everyone else, not former presidents.
i actually kind of think garland needs to make a statement in this case. if for no other reason than to stop the narrative that this is a politically motivated hit job on trump.
i agree though. they took 25 boxes out of there and they were tipped off by someone who knew what was there and exactly where it was.
trump can leak the warrant and what was taken and why, but why would he? he gets more sympathy by saying it was a hit job and providing no further information.
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.- Hemingway
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“I would bet if you took a poll in the FBI I would win that poll by more than anybody’s won a poll.”
Fox & Friends, 6/15/18
Good morning. What should you make of the F.B.I.’s search of Donald Trump’s home? We offer a guide.
Two scenarios
Perhaps the central question about the F.B.I.’s search of Donald Trump’s Florida home is whether it is a relatively narrow attempt to recover classified documents — or much more than that.
Either scenario is plausible at this point. The Justice Department has long been aggressive about investigating former officials whom it suspects of improperly handling classified material, including Hillary Clinton and David Petraeus. If the F.B.I. search merely leads to a legalistic debate about what’s classified, it probably will not damage Trump’s political future.
But it also seems possible that the search is a sign of a major new legal problem for him. People familiar with the search told The Times that it was not related to the Justice Department’s investigation into the Jan. 6 attack and Trump’s role in it. And it’s unlikely that Merrick Garland, the attorney general, would have allowed the search-warrant request — or that a federal judge would have approved it, as was required — unless it involved something important.
“I don’t think you get a judge to sign off on a search warrant for an ex-president’s house lightly,” Charlie Savage, a Times reporter who has been covering legal issues since the George W. Bush administration. “I think the world looks pretty different today than it did 48 hours ago.” (It’s even possible that Trump could be prosecuted over classified documents alone, although that might not keep him from holding office again.)
As Charlie emphasizes, there is still much more that’s unknown about the search than known. That probably won’t change until the Justice Department gets much closer to making a decision about how to conclude its investigation. “A central tenet of the way in which the Justice Department investigates and a central tenet of the rule of law is that we do not do our investigations in public,” Garland recently said.
But at least two big points seem clear. First, even though Garland has said that nobody is above the law, the Justice Department will not treat Trump like any other citizen. The bar for filing criminal charges against him will be higher, given that he is a former president who may run again — against the current president.
“The considerations when you’re talking about a political leader are certainly different and harder,” Andrew Goldstein, a former federal prosecutor who investigated Trump’s ties to Russia, recently told The Times. “You have the very clear and important rule that the Department of Justice should try in every way possible not to interfere with elections, to not take steps using the criminal process that could end up affecting the political process.”
Still, some legal experts who previously criticized Garland for moving too timidly in investigating Trump said they were encouraged by the Justice Department’s recent signs of boldness, including the Mar-a-Lago search. Andrew Weissmann, another former prosecutor who previously investigated Trump, is one of those experts (as he explained in this New Yorker interview). Quinta Jurecic, a senior editor at Lawfare, is another. “At what point does not investigating and not prosecuting a former president itself indicate that the rule of law is being undermined because it sends a signal that this person is above the law?” Jurecic told us.
She added: “That doesn’t mean that this is going to translate to an indictment of the president.”
The second point is that Trump appears to be a subject of multiple criminal investigations — and prosecutors may decide that his violations of the law were so significant as to deserve prosecution. One of those investigations is by state prosecutors in Georgia, who may not be as cautious about charging a former president as Garland seems likely to be.
Either way, the answer will probably become clear well before November 2024. Prosecutors — especially at the Justice Department — generally try to avoid making announcements about investigations into political candidates during a campaign. (James Comey’s decision to ignore that tradition and announce he had reopened an investigation into Clinton late in the 2016 campaign was a notable exception, and many experts believe he erred in doing so.)
The rest of today’s newsletter summarizes the latest Times reporting about the F.B.I. search of Mar-a-Lago — and also gives you a quick overview of the multiple investigations Trump is facing.
The latest
The Trump investigations
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the democrats don’t need to do a thing, except get blamed for the liberal witch hunt
I Know Where The Documents Are...Do You?
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Whether it’s Cruz trying to incite violence against democratic citizens, or Rs using the courts, using gerrymandering or independent legislature theories, they are in the process of taking full control of the country, whether they shoot at us or not. And of course 2A gives them latitude if they choose.
To many, it’s just politics, just both sides, and they want to continue with their peaceful American love story successes no matter what America looks like in two and a half years.
EXCLUSIVE: Locked and loaded: Palm Beach police have received intelligence warning that armed pro-Trump protesters are planning to descend on Mar-a-Lago following FBI raid
Palm Beach police have notified surrounding police departments, including the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office, that it received intelligence today informing them that armed pro-Trump protesters are expected near Mar-a-Lago following last night's FBI raid, a Florida law enforcement source has told DailyMail.com.
The Palm Beach police has notified surrounding departments in the county, requesting that all departments be on the lookout for armed motorists parking near Donald Trump's home in the coming hours.
Protesters often park in the parking lot of a Publix supermarket on Southern Boulevard in West Palm Beach and walk to the area of the property, where street parking is not allowed.
Dozens of furious Trump supporters began to descend on Mar-a-Lago last night shortly after he revealed the FBI had raided his house as part of an investigation into whether he took classified records from the White House to the Florida residence.
Trump, disclosing the search in a lengthy statement, claimed that agents had opened up a safe at his home and described their work as an 'unannounced raid' that he called 'prosecutorial misconduct.'
He accused the FBI of a double standard, claiming the bureau 'allowed' Hillary Clinton to 'acid wash' 33,000 emails from her time as secretary of state.
Those in his camp said the raid was a clear attempt to thwart a potential 2024 presidential run.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11096513/Palm-Beach-police-expecting-armed-pro-Trump-protesters-descend-Mar-Lago-raid.html
@mrussel1 check some of the photos in the above link. These people don't concern you?
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These people will be pissed and standing outside with nothing to do.
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secret service isn’t letting him out of their sight. He also gets a bigger detail once he is a candidate again.
you’ve got competing interests within the government.
Say enough things, some of it is bound to come true.
..
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis took the extraordinary step on Thursday of suspending the locally elected prosecutor of Hillsborough County, home to Tampa. Andrew Warren, the suspended prosecutor, promptly denounced the move as an “illegal overreach.”
The suspension of this Democratic official, announced by the Republican governor at a news conference where he was flanked by Hillsborough County’s Republican sheriff and other local officials, is the latest chapter in the GOP’s sustained attacks on reproductive rights and transgender rights in Florida, as well as broader criminal justice reform efforts.
DeSantis based the suspension on Warren’s statements that his office would not prosecute abortion-related cases and cases involving anti-transgender laws. DeSantis also mentioned Warren’s policies establishing a presumption against prosecuting certain behaviors.
DeSantis claimed that with those statements and policies Warren “neglected” his duties and “display[ed] a lack of competence” to carry out his duties.
DeSantis replaced Warren with Susan Lopez, a local judge who is a member of the conservative legal organization the Federalist Society. His decision effectively kicked the Democratic Party out of an office it won in both 2016 and 2020, in a county that DeSantis himself lost by nine percentage points in 2018.
Florida Representative Anna Eskamani, a Democrat and fierce critic of DeSantis, called the governor’s move “a fascist approach to governing, if you can even call it governing.”
But the broad move by DeSantis against Warren included no such report underlying it. It also made no mention of any cases that DeSantis objects to. The governor’s executive order instituting the suspension only mentions the prosecutor’s “public proclamations of non-enforcement.”
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Analysis: Citizen Trump may have broken a law that President Trump made a felony
Not many people know exactly why FBI agents searched former president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate on Monday, but most are operating on what’s been revealed by Trump’s team and public reporting: The FBI search was largely or entirely a function of the investigation into Trump’s retention of documents after leaving the White House.
That material included some documents that were classified.
As The Post’s Philip Bump notes, if Trump is found to have violated federal law in removing and retaining classified documents without authorization, he could be convicted of a felony punishable by five years in prison. And that conviction would be a felony carrying that punishment because of a law signed by President Trump.
Here’s how that happened:
While what became law was S. 139, Congress replaced the legislation with H.R. 4478, which extended Section 702 for another five years. This is a common process because sometimes Congress hollows out existing legislation and replaces it entirely with other legislation to move the process forward more quickly.
H.R. 4478 includes the following provision:
With Trump’s signing, S. 139 into law, that became: “ … shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than five years, or both.” (Emphasis added.) And, with that, it became a felony.
And so, you can see how Trump absconding with classified material to Mar-a-Lago would facially violate the law as articulated.
Philip argues that Trump may now claim he declassified these documents while still president, even if no formal record of the declassification was made. This introduces a slew of other questions, since that material would now presumably be publicly available in some form.
Read more about this possible defense here.
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Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
How’s that for fruit from the poisonous tree or beef in the hamberder?
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if there is a leak that’s not good
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Trumpworld informant reportedly told FBI about classified docs at Mar-a-Lago
The search of Donald Trump’s Florida residence comes after a FBI source reportedly revealed that the ex-president was concealing classified national defence information from the government he once ledAn insider with knowledge of what government records former president Donald Trump still possessed more than 18 months after he left the White House reportedly tipped off FBI officials to a cache of classified documents at the ex-president’s Palm Beach, Florida home and office. According to Newsweek, two “senior government officials” have said the Monday search of Mr Trump’s rooms at Mar-a-Lago — the mansion turned private club where he spends most of his year — came after a confidential FBI source provided agents with information on “what classified documents [Mr Trump] was still hiding and ... the location of those documents”.https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-informant-fbi-mar-a-lago-b2142596.html
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some of these right wing anti government types are serious as a heart attack.
all i know is the feds better make this air tight with a bulletproof legal case, and they had best be prepared to protect all of us from the fallout that is sure to happen.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Yet as you cite, the Rs are on the warpath right now and we went from news cycles about what a great batch of laws the Dems passed to trump is a victim and the Dems are on another witch hunt. This better be a big deal.
You don’t indict former presidents for parking tickets and poor document retention policies, despite what Hal posts on here. Garland has been silent for two days now, fully knowing the firestorm he was creating, while he hides behind “we don’t comment on investigations.” That policy is for everyone else, not former presidents.
this is all pointless though as their odds of getting a conviction are near zero. No way they can exclude every trump supporter from a jury and all they need is one. It would be like excluding someone specifically because of their race. It’s going to be hard for the DOJ to look good after this with no conviction, no matter the evidence.
i agree though. they took 25 boxes out of there and they were tipped off by someone who knew what was there and exactly where it was.
trump can leak the warrant and what was taken and why, but why would he? he gets more sympathy by saying it was a hit job and providing no further information.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."