Third trump Indictment the Charm, And Still More To Come

Ask, and it shall be given you. Seek, and ye shall find. Knock, and it shall be opened unto you.
-- Matthew 7:7 

Well, I demanded indictments and BY GOD Special Counsel Jack Smith delivered with regards to trump's involvement in the January 6th Insurrection. Via Dareh Gregorian and Ryan J. Reilly at NBC News:

Former President Donald Trump was indicted Tuesday on charges he conspired to defraud the country he used to lead and attempted to prevent the peaceful transfer of presidential power to Joe Biden. 

“The purpose of the conspiracy was to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election by using knowingly false claims of election fraud to obstruct the government function by which those results are collected, counted and certified,” the indictment from special counsel Jack Smith’s office says. 

The indictment marks a historic moment for a nation less than 250 years old — the first time a former president has faced criminal charges for trying to overturn the bedrock of democracy, a free and fair election. While Trump's failure to reverse his defeat was a credit to the guardrails of that democracy, the ability to prosecute him may renew the stress test on the constitutional design.

The allegation that Trump used "dishonesty, fraud, and deceit" to subvert the 2020 election with "pervasive and destabilizing lies about election fraud" comes after a sprawling investigation that included testimony from dozens of White House aides and advisors ranging in seniority up to former Vice President Mike Pence.

The indictment accuses Trump of taking part in three criminal conspiracies: "to defraud the United States by using dishonesty, fraud and deceit" to obstruct the electoral vote process; to "impede the January 6 congressional proceeding at which the collected results of the presidential election are counted and certified;" and "against the right to vote and to have that vote counted."

There is a link to the indictments provided here.

I would like to refer to Emptywheel for her legal expertise, but she's only posted a quick review and promises to have more later (and gives us clues as to who the yet-indicted co-conspirators are):

It’s late here, so this may be my only analysis before you all wake up.

But I wanted to lay out the structure of the Trump indictment.

The indictment charges him, alone, with four crimes:

18 USC 371 (conspiracy to defraud the US)

18 USC  1512(k) (conspiracy to obstruct the vote certification)

18 USC 1512(c)(2) (obstructing the vote certification)

18 USC 241 (conspiracy to violate civil rights)

They all are entirely overlapping. That is, Trump’s conduct, and those of 6 alleged co-conspirators, is cited in all those charges.

These are four charges for the same crime. So if the DC Circuit or SCOTUS overturns how DOJ has applied 1512, there are two back stops.

The other most important part of this indictment is who is named as a co-conspirator (and who might well be charged, as far as we know, today, separately by sealed indictment):

• Co-Conspirator 1, an attorney who was willing to spread knowingly false claims and pursue strategies that the Defendant’s 2020 re-election campaign attorneys would not. (Rudy Giuliani)
• Co-Conspirator 2, an attorney who devise and attempted to implement a strategy to leverage the Vice President’s ceremonial role overseeing the certification proceeding to obstruct the certification of the presidential election. (John Eastman)
• Co-Conspirator 3, an attorney whose unfounded claims of election fraud the Defendant privately acknowledged to others sounded “crazy.” Nevertheless, the Defendant embraced and publicly amplified Co-Conspirator 3’s disinformation. (Sidney Powell)
• Co-Conspirator 4, a Justice Department official who worked on civil matters and who, with the Defendant, attempted to use the Justice Department to open sham election crime investigations and influence state legislatures with knowingly false claims of election fraud. (Jeffrey Clark)
• Co-Conspirator 5, an attorney who assisted in devising and attempting to implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding. (WaPo says this is Kenneth Chesebro, and I think that’s sound.)
• Co-Conspirator 6, a political consultant who helped implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding. (Note: Emptywheel doesn't speculate but others are thinking it's Boris Epshteyn)

I argued since April 2022 that DOJ could — and should — charge Trump first and build in the stuff around him. I reiterated that a few weeks ago.

There’s a lot here...

One thing I would note is how Jack Smith spelled out more indictments are coming, not just for the conspirators but that trump is still on the hook for other matters the grand jury haven't voted on yet. For example, there's charges related to the Fake Electors scheme that Conspirator Number 6 oversaw that haven't been directly indicted yet (possibly waiting for Georgia's indictments on their Fake Electors to set up the charges for that state and several others).

Why these charges matter is that Smith presents as a legal matter before the courts strong evidence that donald trump has been - still is - lying about the 2020 election results, and using those lies to conspire against the Constitution and the United States and the People it represents.

Throughout the indictments, time and again Smith and his team point out where trump had been told the election results were fair, there was no proof of stolen or faked ballots, and yet trump still schemed to undo those results. Worse, trump and his co-conspirators were planning out ways to disrupt the formalities of our electoral system through means of violence: First towards trump's own Vice President Pence and towards Congress, and then violence towards any Americans who would rise up in protest against trump's coup attempt.

For all of trump's screaming that these indictments are a "WITCH HUNT", for the love of God the whole world witnessed what happened on January 6th when trump's rally turned into a riot that smashed into the halls of the Capitol. There's been hundreds of court cases that convicted - or forced plea deals - almost half of the trumpian MAGA rioters by now. There's been two-plus years of Congressional hearings and grand jury inquiries into trump's misconduct that presented enough evidence that the Justice Department can now take to trial.

We've seen real witch hunts, by the by: Far Right Republican pursuits after Bill Clinton in the 1990s that only uncovered adulterous affairs that had nothing to do with financial or political crimes; Far Right Republican allegations against Obama for everything they feared but could never prove; Far Right Republican attacks on Hillary's handling of Benghazi and her emails, which all turned into nothingburgers that could never stand up in a court of law.

We've never been in a moment like this, with a former President Loser of the Popular Vote (Twice) facing criminal charges for attacking constitutional norms and in most respects the nation itself. All because we've never had as blatant a con artist and would-be mafia boss like trump reach that level of power before.

Gods help us, our nation needs this moment to force trump into the crucible of a courtroom, to face the reality of the schemes he's plotted and the sins he's committed. Anything to stop him from his constant Big Lies that have brought us to this place. Anything to stop him before he can lie and bully his way back into the Presidency where the law will be impotent to hold him accountable (ever again, if he gets his wish of dismantling every federal system to stay in power for the rest of his aging life).

Let Justice be done. For everything that the United States represents in the long arc of human history.

The Stakes for the Rule of Law vs. trump (w/ Update)

MAGA trump voter: My President committed 37 counts of federal criminality!
Every sane person who voted for Hillary and then Biden: In a row?
-- I'm Gen Xer dammit, of course I fucking quote from Clerks

So, the day after the big announcement, more details emerged as the Special Counsel moved to unseal the indictments (because trump just wouldn't shut up about them on social media).

Special Counsel Jack Smith showed up, gave a brief speech about the importance of national security, the seriousness of obstruction and espionage, the right of trump (and fellow defendant Walt Nauta) to presumption of innocence before a court of law, and the need for a speedy trial. (via Emily Olson and Barbara Sprunt at NPR): 

"We have one set of laws in this country and they apply to everyone," Smith said. "Adhering to and applying the laws is what determines the outcome of an investigation. Nothing more, nothing less...

"Today, an indictment was unsealed charging Donald J. Trump with felony violations of our national security laws, as well as participating in a conspiracy to obstruct justice.

"This indictment was voted by a grand jury of citizens in the Southern District of Florida. And I invite everyone to read it in full to understand the scope and the gravity of the crimes charged.

"The men and women of the United States intelligence community and our Armed Forces dedicate their lives to protecting our nation and its people.

"Our laws that protect national defense information are critical to the safety and security of the United States and they must be enforced.

"Violations of those laws put our country at risk.

"Adherence to the rule of law is a bedrock principle of the Department of Justice, and our nation's commitment to the rule of law sets an example for the world...

"It's very important for me to note that the defendants in this case must be presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

"To that end, my office will seek a speedy trial on this matter consistent with the public interest and the rights of the accused. We very much look forward to presenting our case to a jury of citizens in the Southern District of Florida."

The actual indictment count might be 38 - I keep reading different numbers - but 37 is more poetic and I don't wanna lose the quote above, so let's roll with that. ANYway.

Emptywheel takes a moment to document the 31 times trump allegedly withheld documents (all the times he refused to return them to the National Archives), which included the ones he eventually returned in June 2021. Consider 5. June 2020 concerning nuclear capabilities of foreign country (TS/XX/XX/ORCON/NOFORN), or 8. October 4, 2019 military capabilities of foreign country (S/REL TO USA FVY), or 13. Undated document concerning military capabilities of foreign country and United States (TS/SI/TK/NOFORN), or 19. Undated document concerning nuclear weaponry of US (S/FR), or... AAAAAAAAAAaaaaaa.

What's important are the dates of each document and the importance those documents had as classified materials, and you'll spot a lot of those documents involve the military capabilities of foreign nation(s) that could be pretty valuable commodities for the nations opposed to them.

In this, you see how damaging trump's mishandling of these documents are: Our allies' military secrets exposed, or worse exposure of our ability to gain intel on our antagonists. Worst of all, our own nation's military and nuclear secrets, exposed to the world while sitting in trump's Mar-A-Lago ballroom (or in the bathrooms. /headdesk).

Digby over at Hullabaloo has her thoughts:

I just read through it quickly and it’s much, much worse than we thought. He had very sensitive documents including war plans and classified info about America’s nuclear arsenal and showed them to people. He kept them in totally insecure locations, including an unlocked bathroom and a ballroom at Mar-a-Lago. When they asked for them back he moved them around, rummaged through them and tried to get his lawyer to lie about what was in them...

There's a link to the full indictment if you want to read it all. Apparently, by the second page of the document you w-- OH MY FUCKING GOD.

Well okay it probably won't get worse than t--

Did trump AT LEAST keep all these documents in secure parts of Mar-A-Lago?

(blank stare) The White and Gold Ballroom?!?!

Great. Not only could the Chinese guests sneak in and snap photos of all the classified stuff, they could bring their own DJ and dance to Milli Vanilli songs 'til the sun came up.

I shouldn't joke. This is serious business. We are dealing with the reality that a former President of the United States violated his oath of office to "preserve, protect and defend" our nation. We're dealing with - considering the number of classified documents trump released to the wild where any visitor without clearance could access them - one of the largest failures of national security since the likes of Robert Hannsen and Aldrich Ames.

As David A Graham points out at The Atlantic:

But Trump faces his own political complications. Voters have proved fairly willing to forgive politicians’ personal failings, especially in recent decades and especially when it comes to Trump. (The Manhattan case, for example, stems from hush-money payments to an adult-film actor who has claimed a sexual liaison.) But the removal of the documents is an act that stems directly from his role as president, and it implicates the very security of the country. The documents removed are reported to have included detailed information about Iran’s missile program and intelligence programs in China—the sorts of things that are kept under tight wraps in government facilities, but were reportedly stuffed haphazardly in storage areas at Mar-a-Lago...

In Trump’s long career in and out of the courts, he has not yet faced a legal peril this serious, but just how serious it is will not be clear until the charges emerge. Prosecutors could use several laws to bring those charges, with different standards and different penalties.

His defense will face difficulties, including the huge amounts of evidence obtained in the search, as well as a ruling that one of his lawyers had to turn over information that otherwise would have been shielded by attorney-client privilege. Trump will likely try to spin the charges as concerning “process crimes,” as though those are not just crimes, and deflect from the papers themselves. He has also claimed that he declassified all of the papers at the end of his presidency, but he produced no evidence for that, and his lawyers have avoided making the claim in filings. Reports last week said that prosecutors have a recording in which he seems to acknowledge that he cannot show a document to visitors because it is classified. And if he’s charged for refusing to return the documents, their classification status will not matter. (Graham wrote this before the indictment's release, and the charges do point out trump acknowledged he held classified docs AND refused to return them)

The number of charges do not shock me, because this is trump and to me his flagrant abuse of the legal system is limitless (I was hoping for more). I'm also aware these are merely the charges being brought in South Florida: There are pending federal indictments in DC on these classified documents matters as well.

And for all the details provided in this matter, we're talking about the human element of any criminal prosecution: The jury. It's going to be their job to weigh the state's evidence and listen to trump's arguments about why this is a witch hunt why he shouldn't be found guilty. Even with the legal system's batting averages of oft-times getting at least one Guilty verdict out of a major crimes case, there is no given of victory for the rule of law here. This is trump: his shamelessness can translate into convincing enough jury members to believe his gaslighting (then again, his failures in recent courtroom matters suggest juries can suss out the gaslighting for what it is and convict). trump can easily push for jury nullification in some form, especially a hung jury forcing a mistrial. Everything is at risk.

The greater risk is if trump survives this - and other - felony indictments at the federal and state levels. If he does, he goes into the Republican 2024 primaries vindicating his "success" and ability to thwart those who would stop him. If trump can then win a second term, you can look to how he behaved in pushing out those who were disloyal to him and how he insisted on using the Justice Department to persecute those opposed to him. And then multiply that by 100, because trump will know he can't leave unfinished business like the way it was left in 2020.

trump will shred every intelligence agency he felt complained about his lack of security protocol, he will decimate the Justice Department and fill every opening with lackeys regardless of skill or experience (he will likely fill them with incompetents whose only value is loyalty to him alone). trump will resume his plan of filling the federal benches with judges who will owe him favors (SEE: Aileen Cannon, who is reportedly in line to preside over this case!). trump will gut the federal government across every department and every branch, and he will ensure complete control to where he will never face accountability like this again.

trump is, based on the evidence presented by Smith, a clear and present danger to the national security of the United States. trump is a threat to every allied nation we have, who will immediately close off every shared intel we have with them because they know what he will do with it. trump will turn our nation away from our strongest, most reliable allies we've had over the centuries - France, the UK, NATO, Japan, half of South America, most of Central America and the Caribbean - and align us with corrupt regimes like Russia, who profits from trump's reckless disregard for the Constitution and rule of law.

This is what you're still voting for, Republicans. What the hell. You're doubling down on a business failure and national security risk. You have a chance to choose better - well, sort of - this time. Take it. 

And let justice be done.

Update: It keeps getting worse. There's photographic proof trump stored multiple boxes in the Mar-A-Lago bathrooms.

From the Slate article

Where's the toilet paper?

AND WHY THE FUCK IS THERE A CHANDELIER IN THE BATHROOM??!?!?!!?!?!

The Braggadocio of a Con Artist Moron (w/ Update)

I don't know when or who originated the phrase "LORDY THERE ARE TAPES" but by now it's clearly referring to donald trump and his ongoing cons where he's caught on audio or film bragging about the crimes he's pulling (via Digby quoting from CNN): 

Federal prosecutors have obtained an audio recording of a summer 2021 meeting in which former President Donald Trump acknowledges he held onto a classified Pentagon document about a potential attack on Iran, multiple sources told CNN, undercutting his argument that he declassified everything.

The recording indicates Trump understood he retained classified material after leaving the White House, according to multiple sources familiar with the investigation. On the recording, Trump’s comments suggest he would like to share the information but he’s aware of limitations on his ability post-presidency to declassify records, two of the sources said...

As Digby notes:

I guess this recording is seen as proof that Trump’s daft insistence that he declassified everything in his mind is bogus because he told these people that it was classified and he couldn’t share it. Needless to say, Trump would just say that he was lying about the document still being classified in order to protect the country but it doesn’t look good.

As I was writing this blog post, it turned out that David A. Graham at The Atlantic also titled his article "LORDY THERE ARE TAPES" and this is where I found out it was James Comey who originated the phrase when Congress questioned him about trump firing him back in 2017. So that little mystery solved, while Graham spells out how troubling this is for trump:

In the ongoing classified-documents scandal, though, the tapes seem to exist. CNN and The New York Times report that Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith, who is investigating Trump’s removal of secret records to Mar-a-Lago, has obtained a recording in which the former president discussed his possession of a sensitive document. According to the outlets, Trump indicates that he knows it’s classified and is aware he cannot share it.

The content of the tape is important for any prosecution of Trump, which would have to prove he knew that what he was doing was wrong. But the circumstances of the recording are also revealing about how Trump operates, and the way he seems to understand bad press as a graver threat than criminal prosecution...

I would argue otherwise, but let's give Graham his points:

Given that mishandling of classified materials by former officials is apparently common, Smith appears to also be focusing on whether Trump attempted to hide the documents from the federal government once they were requested and then subpoenaed. Reports indicate that Trump had boxes moved to hide them and lied to his attorneys about the material, and an aide allegedly inquired about how long surveillance video was maintained. (Lordy, maybe there are lots of tapes.)

Aside from the egregious violation of the Stringer Bell rule—or perhaps just the Richard Nixon rule—that recording evidence of one’s own criminality represents, the tape would demonstrate yet again Trump’s reckless disregard for the law. Consider the circumstances for the recording. In July 2021, two writers working with former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows on his autobiography interviewed Trump at his Bedminster, New Jersey, club. Meadows was not present...

Trump was, as usual, in a score-settling mood. A recent New Yorker report had claimed that in the final days of his administration, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley had taken steps to prevent Trump from ordering a strike on Iran. The story was opaque on its sourcing, but it narrated events from Milley’s own perspective. Trump, who likes to portray himself as a dovish, isolationist opponent of warmongering generals, was furious. At the meeting with the two writers, Trump brandished a report that he claimed was Milley’s plan for an assault on Iran, and said that the general had repeatedly urged him to mount an attack...

But Trump was reluctant to show the memoir writers the actual document, according to the reports, because he knew it was still classified and they did not have security clearances. He may not have always been so fastidious. Smith is reportedly also investigating whether Trump showed several visitors a classified map.

The recording that Smith has obtained was reportedly made not by the writers but by Margo Martin, a Trump aide who “​​routinely taped the interviews he gave for books being written about him that year,” according to the Times. The former president was apparently worried about being misrepresented or misquoted...

Because Lord knows a liar on the scale of trump himself hates to get misquoted. It is interesting to note that trump is claiming the classified documents absolve him of any warmongering towards Iran, but then refuses to let others confirm what was in those documents. trump is either lying about the contents of those docs, or was honestly exposing classified materials to people who didn't have proper clearance. Either way, he's fucked.

(As a side note, one of the reasons there were recorders in the Oval Office was because Kennedy and LBJ both wanted verbal evidence of the things the CIA and other agencies were telling them, because there had been a breakdown of trust after the Bay of Pigs. Also, for their memoirs. Nixon ironically had the system removed when he stepped into office in 1969 but re-installed it later for those reasons. I digress.)  

This is Graham's view of trump's actions:

To summarize: Trump’s fear of damaging press—whether in the Milley reports or the Meadows book—was so much greater than his fear of criminal accountability that he ended up making an incriminating recording that could be a key piece of his own prosecution.

This is where I disagree. trump wasn't and isn't afraid of bad press. In his mind, all press is good, because it gets him the attention he craves, and he bulldozes through every terrifying report of his damaging behavior without a care. Look at how he handled the Access Hollywood revelations, look at how he ignores every red flag thrown up about his terrible business record, look at how he mocks anyone who questions what he does.

donald trump did what he did because he was convinced - remains convinced, even as criminal investigations tighten around him like chains - he was and still is above the law. As a celebrity, as a business CEO billionaire (although that is questionable), as the President of the United States Loser of the Popular Vote Twice. 

This is why he screams on social media about "WITCH HUNTS" that are honest criminal investigations into the federal and state laws he's violated. This is why he excuses away every bullying phone conversation he has with other people to lie or cheat for him as "perfect in every way." This is why he whines like a five-year-old about how everyone else is "unfair" to him whenever he's held accountable.

This is why donald trump brags about breaking laws, because he believes nobody can force him to answer for the crimes he's done.

And why not think like that? After all, there's been reports since the 1980s about trump pulling unethical if not illegal stunts with his business plans and property holdings. At any time over the decades, the legal authorities - the FBI, the IRS, the state attorneys, the Manhattan DA's office, the SEC, anybody - could have dug into the allegations of money laundering and tax evasion that were out there. But none of them did. They were too busy going after Martha Stewart, who went to jail for less than anything trump's ever done.

All these years of getting away with his fraudulent schemes - the failed casinos, the sham university, the products with TRUMP stamped over them that few people really bought - gave trump the delusion he was untouchable. And given his needs - to be adored (not loved), to be feared, to be worshipped - this always leads trump to happily and openly brag about what he's done. Everybody else can be guilty, but not him: trump deems himself perfect in every way.

This is why trump's defense in the Carroll sexual assault trial failed: His own deposition had him claiming that what he did was allowed, that celebrities - that men of power like himself - had the privilege to do whatever they - meaning himself - liked.

trump couldn't let go of all those Presidential records he had because he knew they gave him power, that they were symbols of his office. This is why he keeps claiming "those documents are MINE" as though they were personal belongings instead of government documents. It's why trump held onto classified materials he knew were still classified, because he could show them off to others and brag while doing so.

One of the things to ALWAYS remember about trump, more than his sins of lying, his wrath, his lust, his greed: trump's PRIDE must always dictate that he pose himself as greater than he is. trump must always brag about things - not only lie about things that never happen, but crow about the things that did - in order to make himself look good. Always.

Just remember the full Biblical warning about Pride: Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.

trump is all about the haughty and the pride. Here comes his fall.

Update 6/2: The media now reports that trump's own lawyers - required by that warrant to turn over such things - cannot find the classified documents that trump bragged about having. This means one of three things.

1) trump never really had a military plan by Gen. Milley to attack Iran, and he was just lying to the witnesses in order to impress them. This is actually the easiest thing for trump, because all this means is he lied - again! - to a mainstream media that has always forgiven his gaslighting.

2) trump still has those documents secured somewhere his lawyers were barred from searching, meaning he is openly defying a warrant to hand over such materials. His lawyers will be in trouble, even trump could be in trouble before Special Counsel Smith even drops indictments on him. One possible response will be the courts issuing Smith's team a blanket warrant to search EVERY property where trump could be hiding that document - and any others that the National Archives are certain haven't been recovered.

3) trump gave up those documents to someone else. This is the nightmare scenario: trump may have sold those documents to a third party - say, a foreign nation that has a vested interest in what the U.S. may do to Iran - to profit himself at the expense of U.S. intelligence services. It doesn't even matter if trump gave those plans to an allied nation: any information from those docs could be parsed for evidence of how our intel agencies acquired their intel, exposing field agents and reliable sources to potential harm if our "allies" don't like the idea of people among them working for us. THIS is straight-up espionage, the level of crime we haven't seen since Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen. 

We are looking at a former President Loser of the Popular Vote Twice being charged with some of the highest crimes in the law books.

All Which Wicked Designs (w/ Update)

All which wicked designs, wars, and evil practices of him, the said Charles Stuart, have been, and are carried on for the advancement and upholding of a personal interest of will, power, and pretended prerogative to himself and his family, against the public interest, common right, liberty, justice, and peace of the people of this nation, by and from whom he was entrusted as aforesaid.

-- "The Charge Against the King," published 1648 

One of the thoughts that's come to me this week as we look at the growing evidence that Donald Trump, former President of the United States, betrayed his oath of office - by taking executive papers that did not belong to him, and treating the classified documents he took with him in such brazen ways at his private resort where such secrets were exposed - is that we've never had someone with such high rank abuse the powers of the Presidency in so gross a manner.

None of the other Presidents were this horrifying in their cluelessness, their ignorance of federal laws, their disdain for the Constitutional limits of the office needed to ensure our government worked for the people it served. In our modern era, for all that Democrats could rail about the likes of Richard Nixon (who was caught abusing power), Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and George W. Bush, none of them could be accused of being national security risks on the scale trump is behaving. For all that Republicans could rail about the likes of John F Kennedy, Lyndon B Johnson, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama, none of them ever came close to getting investigated for violating our national security on the scale trump already is (and in Clinton and Obama's cases, the GOP really tried to dig through the dirt).

Because that's what we're all seeing today from the court-ordered release of the affidavit that led to the FBI search warrant at Mar-A-Lago earlier this month (which Betty Cracker at Balloon Juice labeled today as Happy Redacted Affidavit Day). All frivolity and schadenfreude aside, the affidavit even in its redacted form revealed a lot of incredible (and horrifying) details, some of which Emptywheel went into detail at her site:

The affidavit spends three paragraphs describing how, after NARA made a referral on February 9, 2022, the FBI opened an investigation to learn:

• How classified documents were removed from the White House
• Whether the storage facilities at Mar-a-Lago were suitable for storing classified materials
• Whether there were anymore classified documents at Mar-a-Lago or elsewhere
• Who had removed and retained the documents in unauthorized spaces

In a probable cause paragraph, it explains that there were 15 boxes with classified information at Mar-a-Lago and there was probable cause to believe there were more.

There’s a redacted paragraph that may describe the basis for suspecting obstruction. A later sentence in the probable cause paragraph describes that there likely will be evidence of obstruction at MAL.

The affidavit explains that this is an investigation into (among other things) 18 USC 793e — which I was among the first people to predict. This means that DOJ maintains that Trump was not authorized to have these documents...

One of Trump's consistent defenses he throws out there on social media and through his lawyers is how his status as President - even as a former President - means he can keep "his" documents and to hell what the Presidential Records Act says. What the Justice Department is setting out in the affidavit is that NO, when it comes to classified documents even former Presidents do not have that authority (and arguably that they shouldn't be abusing that authority when they are sitting in the Oval Office). Just what sort of documents did the FBI find trump was hoarding? As Emptywheel noted:

It does have paragraphs defining:

• 18 USC 793(e), the Espionage Act
• EO 13526, the Executive Order governing classified information
• Confidential, Secret, and Top Secret classifications
• Secure Compartmented Information
• Special Intelligence, which is SIGINT
• HCS, which refers to clandestine human spying
• FISA
• NOFORN, material not permissible to share with foreign governments
• Originator Controlled, meaning whoever created controls it
• Need to know
• 32 CFR Parts 2001 and 2003 which describes the Storage requirements for classified information
• 18 USC 1519, obstruction
• 18 USC 2071, willfully removing information
• 44 USC 2201, the Presidential Records Act
• 44 USC 3301(a), the Federal Records Act

The stuff I highlighted in bold are the ones most troubling regarding national security matters. HCS is also known as "Clandestine Human Intel": Ever see the first Mission Impossible movie? That's the NOC List we're talking about. 

Ever hear of a fellow named Richard Welch? He worked as a CIA operative, specifically in Greece, at the height of the Cold War. In 1975, a former CIA agent published a book naming names, Welch among them, and a month after the book came out Welch was assassinated by Greek insurgents. Leaking the names of operatives can get them killed. NOC (Non-Official Cover) agents are those deep in high-risk operations, where getting exposed would compromise them at best and at most get them killed. For Trump to have such lists in his possession is a serious breach of security.

Trump also had FISA and NOFORN documents. FISA relates to NSA search warrants to track overseas communications: Those docs could expose to any foreign power who among their officials and citizens might be under U.S. surveillance. NOFORN are documents our government doesn't want foreign government - even our allies - seeing as it might compromise our dealings among them. It's literally in the description: NOT PERMISSIBLE TO SHARE. Given the number of foreign "friends" and business allies Trump has, what are the odds any of them got a chance to see NOFORN documents?

Half of these documents are not even supposed to leave certain rooms of certain buildings, that's how sensitive that information can get. How the hell did Trump and his lackeys get their hands on them and take those docs to Mar-A-Lago in the first place...?

And if you'll note the part that says 32 CFR pt. 2001 and 2003 describing storage requirements for classified information, the FBI was mortified that not only did Trump have all these classified documents at his luxury resort Mar-A-Lago, he didn't store them properly at all. The warrant search revealed trump had documents intermixed with others, kept in different rooms across the place, even in trump's bedroom and closets. Anybody could have seen any of it. And given the lapses in security at Mar-A-Lago - not just the Chinese showing up during trump's Presidency but a Russian-born immigrant with fake IDs in the last few days! - there's even the likelihood documents got walked off by people who had no legal authority to even look at them.

If Trump was so eager to keep all of "his" documents, he showed almost no care in treating them with any concern for our nation's safety.

Which leads to the Big Question, as asked by Digby over at her blog:

What was he doing with those documents?

It appears that some of the information they retrieved was extremely sensitive. He kept Human, Signals, and FISA intelligence in an unsecure location for over a year, some of it in a container at the bottom of his closet. WTF????

One of the latest excuses is that he was writing his “memoirs” or preparing for his presidential library. There is zero evidence that he is “writing” anything (he always employed a ghost writer anyway) and there are no plans for a presidential library. It seems obvious that he had some kind of ulterior motive and I’m no longer convinced that it had to do with him wanting to show off his presidential memorabilia to his sycophants. I think he either thought he could cover up his own deeds by taking the documents or that he was preparing to rain down vengeance on his enemies and reward his friends. That’s how he operates...

As Digby notes, there are multiple reasons Trump took these documents. One is how a number of documents could expose his own criminal misdeeds before he took office and then during his tenure. The DOJ does accuse Trump of obstructing ongoing federal investigations (the 1519 claim), which could cover anything from his involvement in the January 6th Insurrection to anything related to his ties to Russia or other foreign agents. The other reason has to be Trump's desire to profit from his access: he is massively in debt and indebted to other nations who propped up his overseas businesses and his flailing administration.

Remember this always: Trump does what he does to benefit himself, no one else. If he has to expose our nation's biggest military and foreign policy secrets to enrich himself, Trump will do that in a heartbeat. And there's every likelihood he already has.

This is why I can't imagine any other President sinking to the levels of betrayal that we're finding trump this evening. Even the worst Presidents we can think of - Harding, Nixon, Tyler, Buchanan, Grant, Andrew Johnson, LBJ - when it comes to corruption and misbehavior in the White House never even came close to threatening to sell out our nation's secrets in the way Trump threatens to do.

The closest examples I can even think of in our American history goes back to our days as a British colony, back to the days of Charles I, who sought to rule the United Kingdom with The Divine Right of Kings to indulge his own anger and ego, who tried to bully his way over Parliament and did so badly it led to their Civil War and to his dethronement (and execution when he kept betraying Parliament by making secret deals with Scotland, which won't be unified with England until 1707).

Trump is behaving in the same bullying manner as Charles I: demanding an Executive Privilege he no longer holds; spreading the big lie of still being President even after his Popular Vote and Electoral loss in 2020, stirring up calls for Civil War that could spill the blood of thousands of Americans; insisting that the laws of Presidential records and national security do not apply to him.

In times like this, one thinks back to what Patrick Henry said about our nation's need to free itself from the tyranny of the likes of Charles I, and how our legal system MUST step up and hold Trump to account for his acts against America's defense and well-being.

Update 7/27/23: Well this is a bit of a shock. I had submitted this article to the FWA Royal Palm Literary Awards, but worried this was a bit too wordy and hyperbolic to get considered. But it made Semi-Finalist status!

Update 8/31/23: This is an even bigger stunner. Today I got word from the Royal Palm judges that this article reached FINALIST status! This means I could be up for the top three awards in the Non-Fiction - Blogging category this October at the Florida Writers Association Awards ceremony. This was one of the few I quibbled over - "War Crimes" and "Dreading the Oncoming Storm" I thought were home runs, but alas - but it's turning into a well-received essay.

We will see how things play out this October. Thank you all by the by for following this blog!

Update 10/22/23: This article received the GOLD achievement for this year's Royal Palm Literary Awards for Nonfiction - Published Blog or Article!

This is an incredible moment for me, and I'm grateful that this work has been chosen (mutters "Still think 'War Crimes' is more passionate though) by the FWA judges.

Just to mention, this article is going to be part of a published collection I'm currently working on, so this is something nice I can add into the book cover and blurb info. ;-)

Release The Full Mueller

I admit I put a lot of faith into Robert Mueller's investigation into Russia's involvement with our 2016 election cycle. As I wrote earlier:

Even with all that Mueller did find regarding the Russian end of the scandal - which produced real results, numerous arrests/plea deals/convictions, and exposed the facts of how foreign influence in our elections is an ongoing problem - the investigation closed - thanks to incoming Attorney General William Barr who rewrote and redacted the final report - before any direct links between trump's 2016 campaign and Russian operatives could be proved. At best, Mueller found evidence that trump obstructed the investigation, but he couldn't pursue an arrest and tried to get Congress to file impeachment (which they failed to do. The Democratic House decided to impeach over trump's misdeeds with Ukrainian military aid)...

There is still fallout from what the Mueller investigation achieved, due to how AG Barr bent and warped reality to protect trump from accountability. The legal fight over how Barr mishandled the final report - the conclusions Mueller found, which should have led to trump facing obstruction charges - kicked up a notch last week when the judges overseeing the matter found Barr did bad bad things. Via NPR and AP News:

The Justice Department under Attorney General William Barr improperly withheld portions of an internal memo Barr cited in announcing that then-President Donald Trump had not obstructed justice in the Russia investigation, a federal appeals panel said Friday.

The department had argued that the 2019 memo represented private deliberations of its lawyers before any decision was formalized, and was thus exempt from disclosure. A federal judge previously disagreed, ordering the Justice Department to provide it to a government transparency group that had sued for it.

At issue in the case is a March 24, 2019, memorandum from the head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel and another senior department official that was prepared for Barr to evaluate whether evidence in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation could support prosecution of the president for obstruction of justice.

Barr has said he looked to that opinion in concluding that Trump did not illegally obstruct the Russia probe, which was an investigation of whether his campaign had colluded with Russia to tip the 2016 election.

A year later, a federal judge sharply rebuked Barr's handling of Mueller's report, saying Barr had made "misleading public statements" to spin the investigation's findings in favor of Trump and had shown a "lack of candor..."

While it does not look like this would lead to anything like re-opening the investigation, this may clear a path towards re-opening the final Mueller Report itself, which was so heavily redacted on Barr's orders to where any meaningful understanding of trump's role in the scandals were covered up.

There is serious evidence that donald trump and his campaign aides were directly involved in foreign agents to disrupt and corrupt our nation's electoral system back in 2016. These are problems we are still facing today. A full review of the Mueller Report will show us who the bad actors are, and show us where the faults are in the system so we can get these problems fixed.

Gods, we need to know. And we need to make sure this disaster never happens again.

Hoping for trump's Last Chapter

I like a good detective story myself. Lots of nonsense written, though. 'Criminal discovered in last Chapter. Everyone dumbfounded.' A Real crime - you'd know at once!
-- Mysterious Affair at Styles, Agatha Christie 

Okay, back to blogging about how much trouble donald "Loser of the Popular Vote (Twice)" trump is this year.

In case you're having trouble keeping track of what trump is in trouble for, Bess Levin at Vanity Fair created a simple list of oh twenty or so criminal and civil cases/investigations/trials. If you can't afford the VF firewall, Mahablog cribbed a cheat sheet for us cheapskates: The list seems to be in order of severity/likelihood of trump getting convicted/held liable. Just to keep it simpler than this, let me just list the big ones:

*The Classified Document/Mar-a-Lago investigation

*The Justice Department investigation into January 6/plot to overturn the election

*Fulton County (Georgia) district attorney Fani Willis’s criminal investigation into election interference

*The Manhattan District Attorney’s Criminal Case Against the Trump Organization, Etc.

*The New York Attorney General’s Civil Investigation Into the Trump Organization

The biggest questions regarding each of these are: 

1) How serious are the charges?

2) Is there clear-cut evidence of a crime (aka The Smoking Gun)?

3) Will the authorities (US Department of Justice, state attorneys, county attorneys) bring charges and go to trial?

4) What are the consequences if trump is found guilty? 

For what I know, it looks like this:

The Classified Documents at Mar-A-Lago started out as a seeming back-burner issue compared to trump's involvement in the January 6th Insurrection, but when the FBI got a search warrant to recover more boxes of presidential documents earlier this August, this case moved to the top of the list.

1) How serious are the charges? Massive. The fact it had to take a search warrant approved by the US Attorney General and a judge underscores how serious this is. When it was just the likelihood of trump and his handlers violating the Presidential Records Act, it was still a serious matter because there were felonies attached to the deed under 18 USC 2071 (and the possibility trump could get blocked from any future elected office). Bumping this all up to really fucking serious matter are the allegations trump hoarded classified / top secret documents that violate national security matters covered by 18 USC 793, which is putting us into ESPIONAGE-level (we're talking Rosenbergs/Hanssen/Ames level) charges. Along all of this, the warrant specified possible Obstruction charges (where trump may have taken/hidden/destroyed documents relevant to other federal inquiries) are in play with 18 USC 1519, which seems almost like an afterthought.

2) Is there clear-cut evidence of a crime? The fact trump had boxes of records taken from the White House still at Mar-A-Lago 18 months after he left - and that he and his lawyers lied that he had kept more - should be clear-cut enough. While trump himself doesn't seem to think what he did was a crime - he kept telling his National Archives contacts that the docs "are mine" - and indeed wants those documents back, the fact is the Presidential Records law spells it out very clear that the documents belong to the federal government (represented by the National Archives). trump's ignorance of the law is no excuse. 

With regards to the other related charges - especially the espionage stuff - it all depends on what the FBI finds among the documents recovered: if there are indeed classified documents including stuff on nuclear security matters (something trump has NO unilateral power to declassify) among what trump hoarded, that's evidence of espionage and we're talking Crime of the Century (atop everything else trump's done).

3) Will the Justice Department bring charges and go to trial? Given how much has already taken place - the months of fighting over the recovery of these docs to begin with, with the escalation to search warrant to underscore how serious this is - we're not talking so much about IF the DOJ will press charges, it's a question of When. It may take months for the FBI to secure all the documents and dust them for fingerprints (part of the espionage matter is determining if uncleared persons had access), as well as interviewing other potential witnesses to anything happening with those docs. 

The government has trump dead-to-rights on violating 18 USC 2071. The more serious matters involving 793 and 1519 are not yet confirmed. But if trump DID violate 793 - even once by sharing classified documents with a foreign agent of any kind - it would be insane for Justice to overlook trump when they've gone after people like Reality Winner who release one measly document as a whistleblower. They'd HAVE to go after trump for mishandling classified info with his level of brazenness. And if they find trump violated the 1519 obstruction, the DOJ would have to pursue THAT because if they don't it will encourage future acts of obstruction against other investigations they're running. 

This is too public a case now: Roll over on any of this and they become trump's bitches like everyone else who've rolled over.

4) What are the consequences for trump if found guilty? Again, it depends on the number of charges the Justice Department will put on the table. Every felony, it should be noted, carries with it fines and jail time: minimum times aren't given, but the maximum for 2071 (b) - the one directly related to trump - is three years; the max for 793 is ten years per count (and from what I've read the Justice guys can use each document (thousands of them) as separate counts!); and the maximum for 1519 is twenty years (again, if Justice can identify separate acts of obstructing, those would be separate counts!). Given the severity of the charges - especially 793 - it is unlikely trump won't get the minimums if found guilty, but he won't get the maximums either due to political optics. It all depends on HOW MANY counts trump will face.

Whew. That was just part one...

The DOJ Investigation Into January 6 not only covers the planning of the riotous insurrection that day, but also the plotting to overturn the election through other means - such as Fake Electors - before January 6 became a last-ditch effort.

1) How serious are the charges? Pretty serious, if there are any to write about. The grand jury - if there is one - into this matter has been tight-lipped, there's been little evidence at all that there's even an investigation until the House Select Committee started referring possible charges back in June from their inquiry to Justice for consideration. What we do know is that the DOJ has been pursuing those rioters who were directly involved in storming Capitol Hill, getting many of them to plead out and testify towards others' involvement, which are signs of laying a foundation of evidence to pursue the higher-ups who planned the attack. The only evidence we have that trump may be under investigation is a subpoena from January 6th prosecutors asking the National Archives (see above) to hand over any documents they may have on the matter (whish may be where the 1519 charges above are heading).

At the least, considering the insurrection itself, trump may be looking at an Incitement charge under the anti-riots law 18 USC 2101, likely under a(2) to organize, promote, encourage, participate in, or carry on a riot. A lot depends on what else the Justice Department digs up from other testimony and evidence.

2) Is there clear-cut evidence of a crime? The riot itself is pretty fucking obvious. They've used clips from it for a Star Trek episode for Q's sake. The trick is proving any direct link between the rioters and trump, and that what trump did was intentional to cause that crime in the first place.

This is where the House Select Committee's role investigating the Insurrection has been helpful. They've brought in documents and eyewitnesses who confirm trump's behavior leading up to and during the riots to provide evidence of awareness (other people warning him of the illegality of the riot) and intent (his documented behavior, especially his refusal to respond to calls for help for 187 minutes). Future committee sessions are arguably going to provide proof of links between the planners and rioters that could prove criminal behavior

3) Will the Justice Department bring charges and go to trial? Given the severity of the matter - there was almost an overthrow of the entire federal government! - the DOJ dare not sweep this one under a rug. It does not help trump any that he is running again to be President with every sign that he has learned from his mistakes and will seize power earlier - corrupting every legal safeguard in the Executive branch especially the Justice Dept. itself - and more ruthlessly than before.

The argument revolves around what charges the DOJ could bring to the table. The 2101 anti-riot law is the most likely one, but others - such as evidence trump was involved in the scheme to deploy fake electors in battleground states which violates 52 USC 20511 2(b) involving the procurement, casting, or tabulation of ballots that are known by the person to be materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent under the laws of the State in which the election is held - are of serious enough matters that the people involved - not just trump but the people who agreed to be fake electors and the people who schemed the whole thing - need to be held to account.

4) What are the consequences for trump if found guilty? Again, it depends entirely on what charges end up getting filed. With the anti-riot law, trump would be looking at fines and a five-year maximum. If we throw in the fake electors charges, trump could face fines and another five-year maximum as well. Any other charges would require further review.

Onto part three...

The Georgia Voter Interference affair, a state-level investigation that could also apply federal charges - if pursued - along with the state charges the Fulton County DA can bring to trump and others (for example, Rudy Giuliani was openly named "a target" of the grand jury proceedings he was forced to testify in this past week).

1) How serious are the charges? Serious enough that before the Mar-A-Lago warrant happened, THIS was the legal matter most observers believed was the one trump couldn't wriggle out of. What DA Willis is looking into are the possibilities trump attempted to coerce false testimony from state-level election officials - including Secretary of State Raffensperger - to "find me 11780 votes" (a very specific number that would have flipped the state from Biden) and then provide a slate of fake electors in violation of state law (as well as that 52 USC 20511 mentioned above).

2) Is there clear-cut evidence of a crime? This one has the best smoking gun of them all: trump himself on a phone call to Raffensperger where trump lies to him about having other states going along with the ruse, where trump clearly tries to pressure the state official to "find him" those extra votes, and where trump implied Raffensperger and other Georgia officials would be in legal trouble if they didn't help him. If it quacks like extortion and coercion...

3) Will the Justice  Appropriate legal authorities bring charges and go to trial? This is one of those matters where trump is facing state violations for willfully tampering with election results - under this law here and also this law - as well as federal code (again with the 52 USC 20511). Given how DA Willis is pursuing this matter - she's even working to compel Georgia governor Kemp to testify! - this may likely be a serious matter when it passes the grand jury to trial sooner rather than later (although delays by Lindsey Graham - who had applied his own pressures in favor of trump, even though he's not even the Senator from that state - may actually push this investigation into 2023). Whether the DOJ pursues this depends on their other fake electors probes related to the January 6th investigation.

4) What are the consequences for trump if found guilty? The federal charges would be the same as mentioned above for the 20511 code, a five-year max per charge. 

At the state level, trump would be looking at jail time if convicted of a first-degree felony (maximum three years on each count), but merely fines if convicted as a second-degree misdemeanor. The tricky thing is what happens if he's convicted on any of the felonies: Would trump pressure the state's governor - if it remains Republican under Kemp - for a pardon? While the pardon gets him out, it does leave him vulnerable to any civil matters on this, as well as the fact he'd have to admit as part of the pardon deal that he committed the crimes he's accused of (which also admits he knowingly lied about voter fraud and that he lost for real). If trump succeeds in stealing the vote for himself in 2024 after getting convicted in Georgia, the legal ramifications of having trump in state prison interfering with his ability to even show up at Inauguration to take the oath of office would be incendiary at least.

Welcome to the fourth one, Gods for such a lazy man trump has been busy breaking a lot of laws...

Heading up now to New York, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Criminal Case vs Trump Organization actually had some fireworks last week.

1) How serious are the charges? It's a little serious, but not as bad as the other matters already mentioned. Mostly because trump himself is not at any severe risk.

In one of those oddities of the legal system, the case getting pursued here filed tax fraud charges on the Trump corporation rather than on trump the person. Even though you would think - logically - that trump as CEO making all the decisions were criminally liable as well.

If any one person was charged, it was the financial officer Allen Weisselberg, who pled out last week to many of the charges applied to him. The deal is going to be half-and-half to most observers: Weisselberg will get five months in prison (with some of it served as home arrest, it sounds like) and will make himself available to testify "if the court case proceeds further to trial," but he will NOT testify directly against trump... which is where it gets frustrating. WHO in the end is actually going to be put on trial here?

2) Is there clear-cut evidence of a crime? There was enough evidence for criminal charges already made. At least fifteen years' worth of tax filings that trump and company had spent decades hiding from review, and there was enough on Weisselberg to compel a guilty plea from him before trial.

3) Will the Manhattan DA's office (insert Law & Order donk-donk noise here) bring charges and go to trial? This is the good thing: They already have. The charges were filed last year, and this past February the legal attempt to dismiss all charges was overruled (the judge did dismiss one of the fifteen charges). Jury selection on the matter is set to begin October 24 (mark your calendars!). 

The bad thing is, it does not look like the DA in charge - previously Cy Vance, now Alvin Bragg - is going to pursue the matter any further than having the company itself on trial. In spite of anger from some of the assistant DAs - several who resigned in protest - Bragg is worried about pursuing a case if there's not enough evidence to convict trump himself with absolute certainty. Granted, the caution is warranted (when you come at the trump, you best not miss...), but the assistant DAs who pursued the investigation were certain trump committed more felonies. Also, what would happen if during trial more evidence comes to light that trump is hiding more acts of fraud, or if there's perjury involved, or anything similar. Would those matters be pursued if they happen? A lot of this depends on who will actually testify at the trial (would the defense lawyers risk putting trump himself under oath on the stand?).

4) What are the consequences for trump the Organization if found guilty? As things stand, the consequences for trump himself seem non-existent. HE'S not on trial, technically it's his business that is.

Thing is, I cannot tell what kind of penalties a conviction would apply to a legal corporate entity. I'm not a lawyer and definitely not an expert on business law. I'm waiting on word back from people I'm asking about this...

Where the conviction(s) would not look good for anyone associated with the organization - trump and his family members (Donald Jr, Eric, Ivanka, son-in-law Jared) he's kept as his inner circle - it doesn't seem likely any of them will face jail time or direct fines. Weisselberg's insistence to not testify directly against trump may be the shield that saves him. 

But if the corporation is found guilty... There would be definitely fines and financial penalties of some sort. There may be - if severe enough - legal cause to dissolve the company (I would assume): If that happens, what would trump use as a base of his corporate "empire"? Is this Organization an umbrella of all of trump's holdings - his properties, his golf courses, his hotels and office buildings, and so on - and would all of those holdings be vulnerable to something like asset forfeiture? Again, I really need to find out what the actual stakes are.

And, finally... oh this has taken all day to write...

The other New York case, the state Attorney General’s Civil Case against Trump Organization. Different from the Manhattan (county) criminal case - both in the level of investigation and as a civil court matter - AG Letitia James has gone after trump in the most direct way possible, which involved getting the man himself to testify under oath, something the other major cases haven't done (yet).

1) How serious are the charges? Reasonably serious, even for a civil matter where the possibility of jail time isn't certain (but possible). 

Where the criminal case in Manhattan focused on specific instances of tax fraud, the state's case has looked at a larger picture where trump's organization misled tax agencies (both state and federal) as well as banks regarding the values of various properties and holdings. Given the fact that when trump gave his deposition last week he invoked his Fifth Amendment right from self-incrimination over 440 times, we could be looking at that many number of liability counts against trump himself if this goes to trial.

2) Is there clear-cut evidence of a crime? As similar to the Manhattan criminal probe, AG James found enough to justify a grand jury hearing into the whole thing. Given the complexity of the legal code when it comes to business and taxes, there may not be a "clear-cut" proof, but if it can be mapped out to potential jurors then there's a case here.

3) Will the NY Attorney General's office bring charges and go to trial? This is almost a certainty: James has dug up too many items for investigation - at least 440 of them to force trump to zip his lips - to just walk away from the matter. Unlike a criminal case - where DA Bragg has concerns about 100 percent proof before going after trump - in a civil matter the burden of proof for the state is lesser, so AG James is more likely to proceed on some charges of some kind.

An interesting development due to trump's invoking his Fifth is that James could charge trump with more direct liability than he would have faced if he had answered any of the questions. This would mean trump, from what I'm gathering, would have to pay more severe fines out of his own pocket (considering how he's a clown living on credit, this would be disastrous to him).

4) What are the consequences for trump AND the Organization if found guilty? As mentioned earlier, as a civil matter trump may not see jail time. But in terms of money...

Where I have a question about the penalties on a company under criminal charges, with the civil charges it's clear the Attorney General can invoke a "death penalty" on the company if repeated and persistent acts of fraud take place. Considering AG James can well bring 440 charges to the courtroom against trump, that's a noticeable amount of repeated and persistent fraud.

If the trump Organization is fully dissolved, where would that leave trump financially? Again, are we talking about most of his properties getting seized in forfeiture? Are we talking about getting fined to the point where his creditors - waiting on reportedly millions of dollars in loan payments - will bail on him and he can't borrow one more penny?

If there are legal experts with a better sense of what's at stake, I do hope to hear back from them.

So... WHEW. That's the top five major criminal/civil matters trump is facing this 2022.

So about the OTHER fifteen or more...

Just go to jail, trump. It'll make it easier on everybody else.

What Did The Secret Service Know...?

As the House Select Committee investigation the January 6 Insurrection offers a - for now - final presentation about donald trump's refusal to stop the riot he started, one major development in their ongoing pursuit of the facts is how the Presidential security detail - aka The Secret Service - deleted text messages from their phones when they shouldn't have (via Paul Rosenzweig at the Atlantic (paywall)):

The United States Secret Service is reported to have permanently deleted or lost a host of data, including text messages, that relate to the January 6 insurrection. The Secret Service says that the deletions came about as part of a routine, long-planned update to its phone system and that, as part of this update, it factory-reset its agents’ mobile devices, deleting all data. Skeptical observers suspect a cover-up of the agency’s errors, and more apocalyptic critics see the data deletion as part of a possible conspiracy to support President Donald Trump’s attempted coup. The entire episode is now under criminal investigation by the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general...

Those texts, like emails, are considered government records, and there's supposed to be procedures in place to secure them for review by the proper authorities (National Archives) before anything else happens to them:

Secret Service officials told The Washington Post that the deletions were not malicious—that they were simply part of a phone-system update. But best practice today for any system update is for the new system to be backward-compatible with older systems. Nobody who isn’t trying to conceal something wants to lose message history—not for messages about January 6 and not for more mundane ones about, say, procurement or leave approval. Migrating without the capacity to roll back is simply unheard-of these days.

Furthermore, why did the planned migration continue after the Secret Service received a data-retention notice from Congress on January 16? Was that notice not transmitted to the IT department? Were the Secret Service’s lawyers unaware of the retention notice—to say nothing of the agency’s obligations under federal law to preserve records for the National Archives...?

The entire situation reeks of coverup and obstruction. The timing of this move is questionable at best. And the people involved in the decision-making at the White House and Secret Service agency happen to have every reason to make those text messages disappear (via Amanda Carpenter at The Bulwark):

One person Hutchinson testified communicating with at length is shaping up to become a central figure in the investigation—and his involvement raises further troubling questions about the Secret Service.

Tony Ornato is a Secret Service agent who, in a highly unusual move, left his position leading Trump’s security detail to serve as Trump’s deputy White House chief of staff for operations. In that post, he oversaw the Secret Service—the agency that had employed him and to which he has since returned. He is now the assistant director of the Secret Service Office of Training.

The fact that a Secret Service agent who left the agency to work for one president as a high-ranking official in the service of his administration—effectively leaving the civil service to become a political appointee—was then allowed to just slide back into the Secret Service under the next president of another party raises obvious questions about potential political bias in the agency...

Ornato was a person in close personal contact with trump through much of trump's tenure as President Loser of the Popular Vote (Twice). This was someone likely prone to accede to trump's demands regardless of the legality. At another point in the narrative coming from Carol Leonnig (author of the must-read Zero Fail book detailing the modern corruption within the Secret Service itself), she documents a confrontation between Ornato and another senior official about what was happening with Vice President Pence's security situation on January 6th as the rioters swarmed the Capitol building:

Around this time, (National Security Advisor Keith) Kellogg ran into Tony Ornato in the West Wing. Ornato, who oversaw Secret Service movements, told him that Pence’s detail was planning to move the vice president to Joint Base Andrews.

“You can’t do that, Tony,” Kellogg said. “Leave him where he’s at. He’s got a job to do. I know you guys too well. You’ll fly him to Alaska if you have a chance. Don’t do it...”

While Ornato claims that conversation didn't happen, and Kellogg testified favorably about Ornato to the Committee, that little moment plays into the skeptics' accusations that the Secret Service was about to spirit Pence away from Congress in an attempt to sabotage the Electoral Count certification.

This part of the Insurrection plot would have been where - as trump failed to convince Pence to overturn the Electoral Count - the riot would force Pence to flee before certification could be done. Senator Chuck Grassley, as Senate Pro Tempore (backup leader of the Senate based on age/seniority), had promised the day before he would step in for Pence and accept the fake Electors trump and his handlers were trying to submit for certain states to flip the Electoral Count his way.

If trump couldn't get Pence to do him the big favor, Grassley sure as hell would.

Stories abound about how - at the point where VP Pence's Secret Service agents were encouraging him to jump into a limo and drive to safety - Pence refused to let his guards escort him away from a genuine threat rioting just on the other side of the Capitol building wall from himself, implying he knew full well if he did that he was pretty much kidnapped. "I trust you, but I know you're not the one behind the wheel."

The missing Secret Service texts would likely have revealed communications between the agents back at the White House following trump's orders and the agents at the Hill trying to protect Pence. At the best, those messages would have exposed trump's demands to get Pence to either play ball or make way for someone who would. At worst, those messages might have exposed more violent threats from trump to Pence. We may not know, if those texts are indeed long gone.

Either way, whatever was on those text messages were more damaging to trump's situation than whatever punishments - destroying evidence and committing obstruction - that the Secret Service agents involved could live with.

The sad thing about the Secret Service: They're supposed to do the right thing. They're hired to protect people, they're trained to go against the instinct of self-preservation, they're drilled into the noble idea of taking a bullet for the President (and the President's Family, and anyone else assigned to their care).

But this is how corrupt the agency has become. It's not that they're taking a bullet for donald trump: It's that they're committing crimes like obstruction, and covering up the possibility they were going to commit other crimes against Pence (someone else who deserved their protection).

This is how corrupting an influence donald trump has been. However bent the Secret Service was - again, go read Zero Fail - before trump entered the White House in 2017, when he left in 2021 the Secret Service was completely broken.

Gods help our Executive Branch. Not President Biden, not Vice President Harris, not their families and not anybody else that the Secret Service is supposed to protect. 

The guards can no longer be trusted.

 

The trumpian Farce Exposed

One of the Marxes - it might be Karl, but it's probably Groucho - once quipped that history repeats, first as tragedy and then as farce.

The tragedy was Richard Nixon, a smart ambitious but spiritually broken man who rose to the height of political power but threw it all away in a self-destructive cycle of paranoia and failure.

The farce, if you've probably figured out by now, is donald trump, not as smart and without any soul at all but still ambitious and greedy in a gaslighting con artist way.

Part of the comparison comes from the fact that these are two men who faced political adversity and responded in different ways. In Nixon's case, he resigned in the face of a likely impeachment and fall from grace as a means of retaining some dignity on which he could build a reputation for statesman at least within his own party's ranks.

In trump's case, he faced political adversity by doubling down on the gaslighting lies, stirring up violent insurrection, and speeding out of town with boxes of illegally-kept official records refusing to admit he was ever the loser he truly was.

trump's farce is under examination because it came out this week after forced to reveal the official White House telephone logs on the day - January 6 2021 - that trump riled a mob into violent acts, there is a gap of seven-plus hours in those logs during the hours of the rioting.

As David Frum at the Atlantic notes (paywalled): 

We know the president spoke by phone during that gap. As the crowd came crashing toward the office of the Republican House leader Kevin McCarthy, McCarthy called the president to demand he stop the violence. Trump instead excused it. “Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.” Witnesses reported seeing the president on the phone many other times during the day.

As president, Trump often avoided using official lines. He used multiple phones of his own. He borrowed phones from other people...

Trump’s phone choices were powerfully intentional. What was he intending on January 6? The answer is obvious: concealment. But concealment of what?

Trump’s actions that day were not secret. They all happened in full public view. He incited a crowd to attack Congress in order to overturn by violence his election defeat. He refused to act to protect Congress and the Constitution when the attack began, and for a long time afterward...

Trump encouraged the violence and welcomed it in real time. The whole world saw that.

But the world does not know everything about January 6—not yet, anyway—and Trump’s phone behavior may suggest the answer to the most important remaining questions:

1. Did Trump in any way authorize the attack in advance?

2. Did Trump in any way communicate or coordinate with the attackers as the attack unfolded?...

Frum doesn't speculate on it but his second point - that trump spoke at least once to his war room people coordinating the riot from the Willard Hotel - is probably the big reason why trump edited/burned/flushed those seven hours from the official records. Unable to make sure they would keep their stories straight about who called whom and when and then edit judiciously to hide those calls, trump and his handlers probably figured to cut whole pages out of the logs and taunt Congressional and Justice Department investigators with blatant acts of destroying records and committing obstruction.

This seven-hour gap in the phone logs created flashbacks for many of the reporters and historians who covered the Watergate scandal of Nixon's administration. One of the details of that scandal was how, even with the shattering revelation that Nixon recorded many conversations in his Oval Office, there were missing or erased gaps in those conversations that made people suspicious about what potential criminal misdeeds were mentioned. The infamous 18-and-a-half-minute gap was in truth a set of different gaps of various minutes, but all added together into one memetic concept of an accusatory self-own.

(Arlo Guthrie would later joke that the length of the 18-and-a-half-minute gap fit the same time as his epic "Alice's Restaurant" ballad, as though Nixon was rolling up a joint and enjoy the hell out of Guthrie's shaggy dog story)

Others are noticing the similarities, and the criminal overtones of both (via Alex Shepherd at New Republic (also paywalled)):

It’s longer—by nearly three hours—than the Grateful Dead’s longest concert. Longer by an hour than a flight from New York City to Seattle. It’s only 30 minutes shorter than the longest baseball game played in the modern era—though that game was played over the course of two days. More to the point, it’s more than 20 times longer than the gap in the Watergate tapes that caused a scandal for President Richard Nixon, ultimately leading to his resignation in 1974...

For Democrats, the gap is also an opportunity to return the focus onto Trump’s own role in the attempted coup, as well as the Republican Party’s extensive efforts to protect him from facing accountability. For months, even amid a series of damaging revelations, most of the attention has focused on Trump’s efforts to prevent congressional investigators from accessing records relating to his activities on January 6. Slowly but with increasing surety, Trump has become a larger focus of the January 6 committee’s efforts. The way this lengthy gap in the official record recalls the Watergate scandal is advantageous to those seeking accountability: It provides an accessible and familiar reference point both to make their case and to underscore its seriousness in ways that people who haven’t been following the story closely might more easily understand...

I can personally recall how the Republicans during the tenure of both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama would run around screaming "Worse than Watergate" every time a perceived scandal would crop up to justify a retaliation against Democrats for the shame the fall of Richard Nixon inflicted on the GOP's reputation. In Clinton's case, it led to a prolonged investigation into Whitewater and Foster's suicide that all culminated in an honestly minor scandal of blowjobs, and in Obama's case setback after setback of Republicans jumping on incidents - even a tragedy like Benghazi - that refused to blow up to the level of a Watergate.

And now here we are again - with a Republican Party left holding the bag of a trumpian administration so mismanaged and scandal-plagued that trump holds the dishonor of being the only man impeached twice - with a reminder of how both Nixon and trump played loose with the facts, fought against any form of accountability, and destroyed records that for all we know hid deeper scandals.

Nixon paid the price for his obstruction with resignation and shame.

trump is incapable of shame and will never yield or resign from the destructive course he's set himself upon. In his case, criminal charges are the only way to hold him accountable for the lives he's ruined and the laws he's broken.

DAMMIT, GARLAND, DO SOMETHING.