Perspectives; Thoughts; Comments; Opinions; Discussions

Posts tagged ‘jack smith’

Operation Arctic Fraud: Jack Smith’s Cold War Against Trump

By: Kevin Jackson | October 7, 2025

Is anybody surprised to learn that Jack Smith is a criminal?

That’s like being shocked to find out a Kardashian staged a photo op. The only real mystery here is how this guy keeps getting taxpayer-funded badges to break laws he’s supposed to enforce.

According to a Newsbreak report, former Special Counsel Jack Smith allegedly authorized surveillance on nearly a dozen Republican senators during his “investigation” into January 6. The DOJ document—discovered by FBI Director Kash Patel—details a scheme dubbed “Operation Arctic Frost.” Cute name. Sounds like a limited-edition Slurpee flavor, except this one’s spiked with espionage and arrogance.

Smith allegedly tracked private communications and phone calls from Senators Lindsey Graham, Marsha Blackburn, Ron Johnson, Josh Hawley, Cynthia Lummis, Bill Hagerty, Dan Sullivan, Tommy Tuberville, and Congressman Mike Kelly. That’s not an investigation — that’s political reconnaissance. It’s like the DOJ decided to become the Democrat National Committee’s spy agency.

Now, let’s play along with their delusion.

Let’s assume, for argument’s sake, that there was a legitimate reason to track Republicans’ phones. Fine. What did they find? A fantasy football league and a bunch of text messages about border security? Meanwhile, the Democrats’ phones from the J6 Committee days — poof — gone. Wiped cleaner than Hunter Biden’s laptop after a visit from the Secret Service.

And speaking of cover-ups, every key J6 Committee member got their preemptive Biden-issued “autopen pardon.” Nothing screams innocence like a co-conspirator providing “just in case” legal protection before the evidence shows up.

Now let’s zoom out a bit. Jack Smith didn’t stumble into corruption.

He’s not a rogue operator — he’s part of the treasonous cabal that turned the DOJ into the enforcement arm of the Democratic Party. His history with Trump goes back years, and every move he’s made since has had the same goal: destroy the man who refuses to bow to their Deep State altar.

Remember when Democrats called January 6 an “insurrection”? Notice how not one person has been charged with actual insurrection. It’s almost as if the government knows the word doesn’t apply when nobody’s armed, no government was overthrown, and the only thing actually destroyed was Americans’ faith in election integrity.

By now, even the most hopeless Leftist barista in a Che Guevara T-shirt knows J6 was a cover-up.

The Democrats needed a spectacle — a smoke bomb to distract from their 2020 election heist. They had to convince America that the guy who drew 60,000 people to rallies somehow lost to the guy who couldn’t draw 60 to a Zoom call. The math only works if you ignore arithmetic.

President Trump, of course, has been vindicated by time. He knows he was cheated out of a second term, but in true Trumpian fashion, he’s weaponized the waiting game. The delay allowed every corrupt actor to leave a trail of digital breadcrumbs, and now, one by one, those crumbs lead straight to Democrat doorsteps. These aren’t geniuses, folks — these are bureaucrats who think “delete” is the same as “destroy.”

The walls are closing in — but this time, on them.

Take James Comey. His indictment sent shockwaves through D.C., mostly because the Left suddenly realized their “untouchables” aren’t. The Comey domino is the first in a long line. Once he flips — and he will — the floodgates will open. Bureaucrats, aides, media operatives — the entire swamp ecosystem will start squealing like Fauci at a gain-of-function hearing.

And then there’s General Mark Milley — Mr. “I secretly called China to undermine my commander-in-chief.” Recently, even he admitted he could face court-martial for his actions. Translation: “I did it, I know I did it, and I’m praying for a plea deal.” Don’t think Milley suddenly realized this, as he’s known this for years. But like other Leftists who targeted Trump, he never thought he would get found out. After all, they had destroyed Trump, right?

The Left is cracking under its own hypocrisy.

These people spent years calling Trump a dictator while literally using intelligence agencies to spy on elected officials. And all their chest-pounding over “rule of law” and so on provided cover for their treason. Temporarily.

Jack Smith’s “Operation Arctic Frost” wasn’t just about surveillance. It was about control — about keeping tabs on anyone who might expose the truth. When the DOJ spies on sitting senators, it’s not democracy. It’s tyranny with better branding.

Ironically, every Democrat who’s ever screamed about “threats to democracy” is now defending a man who illegally tapped political opponents. These are the same people who fainted over Trump’s tweets but shrug when federal agencies behave like the Stasi. If irony were currency, Democrats would have paid off the national debt by now.

So where does this go?

My bet — the thread unravels fast. Because when corruption this deep is exposed, it never stops at the first name. Jack Smith’s downfall will trigger a cascade — DOJ officials, FBI players, even sitting politicians who thought “Arctic Frost” would stay buried. Spoiler alert: there’s no permafrost thick enough to preserve this kind of rot.

And that brings us to the political weather forecast: a deep freeze for the Left. The Uniparty’s about to get frostbite in some sensitive places. Trump isn’t just exposing the swamp — he’s forcing it to melt itself. Every time Democrats act to “save democracy,” they end up proving why it needs saving from them.

Operation Arctic Frost won’t be remembered as an investigation. It’ll be remembered as the moment the Left’s paranoia became its undoing — the day the hunters realized they’d been wiretapping their own graves.

Because when all’s said and done, you can only keep secrets so long before they start keeping you.

The Left’s biggest lie is that Biden won the 2020 election. And their next biggest lie is how they created the J6 narrative to protect the lie. Now those lies are front and center.

Comey will have lots of company soon, as new indictments come. And the names on the list will be shocking for only one reason: we finally got them.

Category:

Crime, Law, Political

Tagged with:

Jack Smith Resigns as Special Counsel Amid Controversy Over Trump Cases

November 28, 2024 | American Patriot

Jack Smith, the controversial special counsel tasked with investigating former President Donald Trump’s attempts to challenge the 2020 election, has officially stepped down. His resignation comes just weeks before President-elect Trump is set to take office, sparking heated debates over the legitimacy of the cases brought against Trump and their broader implications for justice in America.

Conservative commentator Mark Levin, host of LevinTV, was quick to weigh in, calling Smith’s resignation both predictable and overdue. Levin minced no words in his criticism, declaring that Smith’s departure underscores the collapse of the legal efforts aimed at Trump. “You know why? It’s simple. He’s an unconstitutional prosecutor. Donald Trump’s going to fire his ass,” Levin said.

Levin argued that the cases against Trump were doomed from the start, pointing to internal Department of Justice (DOJ) memos and procedural violations. He highlighted the dismissal of one of Smith’s cases in Florida as a clear sign of their instability.

“These cases collapse,” Levin continued. “They should never have been brought. The case in Florida was rightly thrown out. That’s why they were in such a rush—to get these cases prosecuted and Trump imprisoned before the election.”

Levin accused the DOJ and Smith of pursuing Trump with the sole intent of derailing his political career. He claimed this approach not only violated DOJ policies but also undermined the integrity of the judicial system.

“They did everything possible to affect the election and to destroy Donald Trump’s life,” Levin asserted.

The commentator called on the incoming administration to take decisive action against those responsible for the cases. “It’s my position that the new attorney general needs to dig into this and find out who exactly was responsible for it,” Levin said. “These people need to be held accountable.”

Smith’s cases focused primarily on Trump’s efforts to challenge the 2020 election results, actions Levin described as entirely lawful and historically common.

“A candidate has every right to try and challenge an election, which means to overturn it,” Levin argued. “That’s exactly what’s going on in Pennsylvania today at the behest of Chuck Schumer with their slip-and-fall lawyer, Marc Elias.”

Levin highlighted past instances where election challenges were not only permitted but celebrated by political leaders. He cited Al Gore’s legal battle in Florida during the 2000 presidential race and efforts in Minnesota that ultimately handed Al Franken a Senate seat.

“There’s nothing criminal about challenging an election,” Levin said. “This is the first time it’s been criminalized. Encouraging a state legislature or a board of elections to act has never been treated as a crime before.”

Smith’s resignation has fueled speculation about its timing, particularly given Trump’s imminent return to power. Critics argue that Smith’s exit may be an attempt to avoid the embarrassment of being fired by the incoming administration or to shield himself from further scrutiny. Supporters of Trump see this as vindication of their belief that the legal cases against him were politically motivated and lacked substance. Levin emphasized that the abrupt nature of Smith’s departure only reinforces this narrative.

“This was never about justice,” Levin said. “It was about weaponizing the justice system against a political opponent. And now it’s falling apart.”

Smith’s resignation is part of a larger debate over the role of the justice system in political matters. Critics argue that targeting Trump for challenging the 2020 election has set a dangerous precedent, effectively criminalizing actions that were previously considered routine aspects of political contests. As Smith steps aside, attention shifts to how Trump’s incoming administration will handle the fallout. Levin and others are urging Trump’s attorney general to launch investigations into the motivations and conduct behind Smith’s cases, with some calling for accountability measures to restore public trust in the justice system.

For Trump, Smith’s resignation marks a significant victory, further energizing his supporters and reinforcing his narrative of political persecution. Yet it also raises questions about how his administration will navigate the legal and political challenges that remain.

The stage is set for a dramatic showdown as Trump prepares to re-enter the White House, with Smith’s resignation serving as a powerful symbol of the broader battles yet to come.

Category:

corruption, Law, Political

Tagged with:

Jack Smith’s October Surprise Was Not That Surprising . . . and that is the Problem

By: Jonathan Turley | October 7, 2024

Below is my column in The Hill on the release of the filing by Special Counsel Jack Smith just weeks before the election. Even Judge Tanya Chutkan described the move as “irregular,” but still ordered the release. While the usual voices heralded the move, others, including the CNN senior legal analyst, denounced the release as a raw political act by the court and the Special Counsel. The problem is that it was not in the least bit surprising.

Here is the column:

“The most stupendous and atrocious fraud.” Those words from federal prosecutors could have been ripped from the filing this week of Special Counsel Jack Smith defending his prosecution of former President Donald Trump.

Yet they were actually from a Justice Department filing 184 years ago, just days from the 1840 presidential election. Democratic President Martin Van Buren was struggling for reelection against Whig William Henry Harrison, and his Justice Department waited until just before voters went to the polls to allege that Whig Party officials had paid Pennsylvanians to travel to New York to vote for Whig candidates two years earlier. It was considered by many to be the first “October Surprise,” the last-minute pre-election scandal or major event intended to sway voters.

To avoid such allegations of political manipulation of cases, the Justice Department has long followed a policy against making potentially influential filings within 60 or 90 days of an election. One section of the Justice Department manual states “Federal prosecutors… may never select the timing of any action, including investigative steps, criminal charges, or statements, for the purpose of affecting any election.”

Jack Smith, however, has long dismissed such considerations. For years, Smith has been unrelenting in his demands for a trial before the election. He has even demanded that Donald Trump be barred from standard appellate options in order to expedite his trial. Smith never fully explained the necessity of holding a trial before the election beyond suggesting that voters should see the trial and the results — assaulting the very premise of the Justice Department’s rule against such actions just before elections.

After the Supreme Court rendered parts of his indictment against Trump presumptively unconstitutional, Smith made clear that he was prepared to prosecute Trump up to the very day of his inauguration. True to his reputation and record, Smith refused to drop the main allegations against Trump to avoid official decisions or acts that the court found to be protected in Trump v. United States. Instead, he stripped out some prior evidence linked to Trump’s presidency, including witnesses serving in the White House. Yet the same underlying allegations remain. Smith just repeatedly uses references to Trump as acting as “a private citizen.”

It is like a customer complaining that he did not order a Coke and the waiter pouring it into a Mountain Dew bottle and saying, “Done!”

Smith even refused to drop the obstruction of official proceedings, despite another recent Supreme Court decision (Fischer v. United States) rendering that charge presumptively invalid.

Smith is making his case not to Judge Tanya Chutkan, but to America’s voters. Chutkan has consistently ruled with Smith to help him expedite the case. She permitted his hastened “rocket docket” despite declaring that she would not consider the election schedule as a factor in the pace of filings or even of the trial itself.

For critics, Judge Chutkan has proven far too motivated in the case. Indeed, many thought that she should have recused herself given her statement from a sentencing hearing of a Jan. 6 rioter in 2022. Chutkan said that the rioters “were there in fealty, in loyalty, to one man — not to the Constitution.” She added then “[i]t’s a blind loyalty to one person who, by the way, remains free to this day.” That “one person” was then brought to her courtroom for trial by Smith.

In their latest move, Chutkan and Smith used the Supreme Court decision to file a type of preemptive defense — an excuse to lay out the allegations against Trump in a 165-page filing filled with damaging accounts and testimonials against Trump, just weeks ahead of the election.

Even Chutkin herself acknowledged that Smith’s request was “procedurally irregular,” but she still allowed it. This was a premature exercise that would ordinarily occur months later, after defense filings. She could have scheduled such filings just a few weeks from now. She could have easily kept the filing under seal to avoid the appearance of political machinations. But the political effect appears to be the point. Chutkin again selected the most politically impactful option, at Smith’s urging.

This was so “irregular” that ordinarily anti-Trump legal analysts, such as CNN’s senior legal analyst Elie Honig, denounced Smith’s filing as “an unprincipled, norm-breaking practice.” He added that “Smith has essentially abandoned any pretense; he’ll bend any rule, switch up on any practice — so long as he gets to chip away at Trump’s electoral prospects.”

Others, as expected, applauded the filing as not just well-directed but well-timed. Smith was making his closing election argument to voters because he knows that the 2024 election will be the largest jury verdict in history. If voters reelect Trump, then neither Chutkin nor Smith will likely see a jury in the case. This is why they must convict Trump now in the public eye, or else admit to an effective acquittal by plebiscite.

Their timing could well backfire. The weaponization of the legal system is central to this election, including the role of the Justice Department in pushing the debunked Russia-collusion allegations from the 2016 race. For many, the content of Smith’s filing is not nearly as important as the time stamp over the case caption. Titled a “Motion for Immunity Determination,” it seems more like a “Motion for an Election Determination.”

Smith’s raw political calculation should be troubling for anyone who values the rule of law. None of this excuses anything in these allegations against Trump. But the most disturbing part of Smith’s October Surprise was that it was not in the least bit surprising.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”

Category:

Crime, Law, Political

Tagged with:

Jack Smith’s Anti-Trump Deputy Excoriated for Inappropriate Behavior At DOJ

BY: MOLLIE HEMINGWAY | JULY 26, 2024

Author Mollie Hemingway profile

MOLLIE HEMINGWAY

VISIT ON TWITTER@MZHEMINGWAY

Former Attorney General Bill Barr did not improperly pressure prosecutors to reduce sentencing recommendations for political activist Roger Stone, according to a new government watchdog report. The exoneration of Barr came more than four years after a deluge of media reports alleging wrongdoing.

However, J.P. Cooney, a Justice Department official now serving as Special Counsel Jack Smith’s top deputy, cultivated a politically toxic environment, disseminated baseless conspiracy theories about Trump and his political appointees, and engaged in unprofessional conduct as he oversaw the team making sentencing recommendations, according to the same report.

Cooney is mentioned (as the “Fraud and Public Corruption Section Chief”) a whopping 394 times in the 85-page report released from the Justice Department’s inspector general on July 24. Cooney supervised a team of four attorneys who prosecuted Stone for what the government successfully argued in front of a Washington, D.C., jury were lies and obstruction during Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Trump campaign officials. Mueller’s two-year, $32 million investigation was itself spun up by anti-Trump officials in the Justice Department after the Democrat National Committee and Democrat presidential nominee Hillary Clinton bought and paid for an information operation falsely alleging the Trump campaign was in cahoots with Russia to steal the 2016 election. Two members of Cooney’s team also worked on the Mueller investigation.

The Fraud and Public Corruption (FPC) team sought an unprecedented sentence of seven to nine years in prison for Stone, dramatically beyond what others convicted of similar crimes faced. When developing that sentencing goal, the team by its own admission thought the “closest analogue” to the Stone conviction was that of Scooter Libby, a target of a previous special counsel in a highly controversial prosecution. Libby’s proposed sentencing range was 30-37 months and he was sentenced to 30 months, which was derided as “excessive” by former President George W. Bush.

Yet the Cooney team larded up the Stone sentencing memo with every escalatory adjustment it could find, however disputable, to achieve a much harsher sentence and treat Stone differently than the Justice Department treats other defendants.

As soon as Cooney’s supervisors saw what he and his team had planned, “they all agreed that the sentencing recommendation was too high” and expressed grave concern about the situation. Interim U.S. Attorney Timothy Shea, who had started on the job just that week, said he “had never seen [perjury] cases produce a sentence that high, and that he was aware of many violent crimes that did not result in sentences ‘anywhere near’ the sentence the team was recommending for Stone,” according to the report. He noted that the escalatory adjustments were arguably made in error, in at least one case, and that the guidance was completely “out of whack” relative to other cases. Further, Stone was a “first-time offender, older than most offenders, and convicted of a nonviolent crime,” and “comparable cases” were sentenced around two to three years.

Cooney responded to the criticism of his extreme sentencing proposal by spreading an elaborate conspiracy theory with no supporting evidence that Trump, Barr, and Shea were being improperly political. Cooney admitted to investigators that “he had no information suggesting that anyone from Main Justice (i.e., DOJ leadership offices) was involved in the Stone sentencing at this time and no evidence pointing to improper motivations influencing these discussions” when he spread the conspiracy theory with his underlings.

In phone calls and other conversations with his prosecution team, Cooney spread his evidence-free conspiracy theory that “Shea was acting out of fear of then President Trump and, more particularly, fear of the consequences of not seeking a lower sentence for an influential friend of then President Trump.” He continued his conspiracy theories in other conversations. “Prosecutor 1 said that when he asked [Cooney] what was going on, [Cooney] replied that ‘this is coming from Main Justice. Tim Shea is getting pressure from Main Justice about the Stone sentencing recommendation, and Tim Shea is terrified of the President,’” according to the report. Cooney acknowledged he had no evidence to support these statements.

Another prosecutor said Cooney told him that “Shea did not care about Stone or the Stone case, but that Shea was ‘afraid of the President’ and that this fear was driving Shea’s actions,” according to the report. That same prosecutor said Cooney said multiple times that “Shea was afraid of the President and said it ‘with substantial conviction.’” Cooney later acknowledged he had no evidence to support his false claim.

At the same time, reporters began calling the Department of Justice to ask about the sentencing guideline dispute. That meant that at least one person within the department was getting information to reporters at left-wing media outlets to bully Trump appointees to acquiesce to their demands. Partisan bureaucrats had commonly used that tactic throughout the Trump presidency. While strict guidelines opposed unauthorized disclosures to the press, DOJ and FBI officials rarely bothered to investigate such leaks, much less hold employees accountable for them. In many cases, they were the worst offenders. For example, former FBI Director James Comey leaked to the media by disclosing information to an attorney who then passed the information on to The New York Times. The investigative report on the sentencing memos discusses how various DOJ employees denied leaking to the media while also noting they spoke about the sentencing controversy with other attorneys.

Unsurprisingly, the sentencing dispute became a major news story, with the perspective of Cooney’s team adopted by the recipients of the leaks. After the Justice Department issued a second sentencing guideline memo, the four prosecutors all removed themselves from the case and were lavished with praise by left-wing media outlets. Prosecutor Aaron Zelinsky went on to testify in front of Congress about the situation. His claims that the sentencing dispute was guided by politics were untrue, but investigators blamed Cooney for spreading the falsehoods.

The second sentencing memo did not call for a specific jail time but left it to the judge’s discretion. Judge Amy Berman Jackson agreed with the second sentencing memo and ordered Stone to serve 40 months in prison, many years fewer than Cooney’s team had aimed for. Trump commuted Stone’s sentence before he was taken into custody.

In its report, the Justice Department IG said that Cooney’s “speculative comments in meetings with the trial team about the political motivations” of Trump officials “in connection with their handling of the Stone sentencing contributed to an atmosphere of mistrust” that “unnecessarily further complicated an important decision in the case.” It further determined that his baseless comments to the trial team formed a substantial basis for Zelinsky’s explosive but wrong testimony to the House Judiciary Committee on June 24, 2020.

Cooney’s Checkered DOJ Record

Cooney’s track record at DOJ includes many other controversial political actions.

For example, one of the primary instigators of the Russia-collusion hoax was FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, now a CNN contributor. In April 2018, federal investigators issued a criminal referral for just some of the criminal leaks and lies he had engaged in while at the FBI. After sitting on a criminal referral for nearly two years, Cooney announced on Feb. 14, days after the Stone sentencing memo situation, that he had decided to let McCabe get away with the lies and the leaks.

Those who aren’t political allies of Cooney’s receive different treatment. Cooney prosecuted Steve Bannon in 2022 for a contempt of Congress charge related to him not complying with a subpoena from the controversial Jan. 6 Committee comprised exclusively of members hand-selected by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Bannon, who hosts the popular alternate media program “War Room,” is currently serving his four-month prison sentence. Civil libertarians are concerned about the Biden administration’s imprisonment of powerful media voices during the election season.

Incidentally, Attorney General Merrick Garland was found in contempt of Congress earlier this year for failing to comply with a subpoena from the House Judiciary Committee, which unlike the Jan. 6 Committee is a real committee with members appointed by both Republicans and Democrats, but the Department of Justice has not charged him.

Thwarting Election Integrity

After the extremely controversial 2020 election, Attorney General Barr issued a memorandum allowing the Department of Justice to investigate election irregularities if they were serious and substantiated. “While it is imperative that credible allegations be addressed in a timely and effective manner, it is equally imperative that Department personnel exercise appropriate caution and maintain the Department’s absolute commitment to fairness, neutrality and non-partisanship,” Barr wrote.

While many Americans would hope the Justice Department would investigate election irregularities in a timely fashion, particularly in an election as unprecedented as 2020, Democrat activists were livid. In response, Cooney cooked up a letter of outrage that quickly leaked to the media and helped shut down any meaningful investigations into the election. When The New York Times wrote about the letter, it was clear that Trump officials had already figured out Cooney’s mode of operating.

“On Thursday, [Cooney] said in an email sent to Mr. Barr via Richard P. Donoghue, an official in the deputy attorney general’s office, that the memo should be rescinded because it went against longstanding practices, according to two people with knowledge of the email,” The New York Times wrote. “In response, Mr. Donoghue told Mr. Cooney that he would pass on his complaint but that if it leaked to reporters, he would note that as well. Given that the email was born out of a concern for integrity, Mr. Donoghue said in his reply that he would assure officials ‘that I have a high degree of confidence that it will not be improperly leaked to the media.’”

Somehow the letter simultaneously made it to Cooney’s political allies at left-wing media outlets.

Rabid Pursuit of Trump

Weeks after President Joe Biden was inaugurated, Cooney was still stinging over not being able to put Stone in prison for nearly 10 years. He cooked up a plan, which appeared in The Washington Post and New York Times, to once again go after Roger Stone and other Trump associates in a new Jan. 6-related investigation.

His supervisors noted, “Cooney did not provide evidence that Stone had likely committed a crime — the standard they considered appropriate for looking at a political figure.” Further, his investigative plans were “treading on First Amendment-protected activities.” Nevertheless, he continued pursuing various plans to target Trump affiliates, and the U.S. attorney’s office began pursuing investigations along the lines of what Cooney had proposed, according to reporting.

President Biden and corporate media continued to pressure the Department of Justice and Garland to go after former President Donald Trump, who was widely expected to become Biden’s 2024 opponent. The famously conflict-averse Garland finally relented and put together a special counsel team heavily focused on Cooney and his extreme theories.

Democrat activists have cheered the special counsel for its aggressive actions against Trump, including a shocking raid on his Mar-a-Lago home, exhaustive investigations into communications and finances of Trump and many of his associates, and relentless pushes for courts to rush judgments ahead of the November elections.

Cooney and Smith’s approach has been less successful outside Democrat conversations. “It’s almost hard to believe how comprehensively the hubris and zealotry of anti-Donald Trump lawfare have blown up in their practitioners’ faces,” wrote The Washington Post’s Jason Willick after one major defeat. “Not only did the Supreme Court’s Monday ruling in Trump v. United States create new and enduring presidential immunities against criminal prosecution, but it also eviscerated the fiction of an ‘independent’ Justice Department and even inadvertently threw the validity of Trump’s New York hush money conviction into question.”

Left-wing media outlets such as Talking Points Memo have praised Cooney, noting that he was a partisan activist in college. Cooney, who was president of the College Democrats at Notre Dame University, wrote a column in the school newspaper that regularly praised President Bill Clinton and criticized Independent Counsel Ken Starr and his investigation of Clinton. Cooney once wrote of Starr as a “partisan political hit-man” for investigating Clinton and complained about the $30 million price tag of the investigation. He lamented the country’s “insatiable craving for controversy and scandal” regarding Clinton and worried it would destroy the country.

Mollie Ziegler Hemingway is the Editor-in-Chief of The Federalist. She is Senior Journalism Fellow at Hillsdale College and a Fox News contributor. She is the co-author of Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Supreme Court. She is the author of “Rigged: How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized Our Elections.” Reach her at mzhemingway@thefederalist.com

Category:

Law, Political

Tagged with:

Post: Jack Smith is Willing to Try Trump Up to Inauguration Day

By: Jonathan Turley | July 3, 2024

The Washington Post is reporting that Special Counsel Jack Smith may try to convict former president Donald Trump all the way through the election and up to 11:59 am on January 20th. After the oath, the Justice Department has long maintained that it will not prosecute a sitting president.

There is also a long-standing policy of the Justice Department to abstain from criminal proceedings before an election to avoid the appearance of trying to influence the outcome. Smith has signaled that he will discard that policy and that he is prepared to try Trump not only up to the election but through the election.

He is now reportedly willing to try Trump up to January 20th.

Smith has made trying Trump before the election the overriding priority in his two cases against the former president. He failed repeatedly to force a shorter schedule on appeal before the Supreme Court. His arguments were revealing. He suggested that the public should have a possible conviction before they cast their votes. It flipped the DOJ policy on its head in openly seeking to influence the election.

The Supreme Court was not persuaded, though Smith did succeed in effectively cutting the appellate process a bit shorter. He then lost in spectacular fashion before the Court on presidential immunity.

According to the Post, he is not giving up the ghost and is now committed to a trial running up to Inauguration Day: “Current officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, expressed … that if Trump wins the election, the clock on the two federal cases against him would keep ticking until Jan. 20, when he would be sworn in as the 47th president.”

Even with Smith’s continued push to try Trump at all costs before the Inauguration, it could be a challenge. There is a 30-day period before the Supreme Court case is effectively returned to district court.

Judge Tanya Chutkan has been highly favorable for Smith and highly motivated in seeking a trial before the election. That led to problems highlighted in the recent opinion. Chutkan was so motivated that she failed to create an adequate record on these issues. That record will now have to be established. If Chutkan rules as she did earlier, she is expected to be hostile to Trump’s claims on his conduct falling within official functions. However, she will need to make the record and her decision could again be appealed. The Court left clear guidelines that will make it difficult for Chutkan to, again, dismiss such claims.

Moreover, the pre-trial motions were stopped with the latest appeal. They must now be addressed. Finally, she pledged to give the Trump team over 80 days for preparation after the appeal, which will be added to the 30 days, the period for the remand record, and the pre-trial motions.

There is also the need for the court and Smith to deal with the Fischer decision limiting the use of the obstruction charges — impacting two of the four counts against Trump. As I have previously written, Smith has various options but could trigger a new reversal on appeal if he follows his signature inclination to resist legal limits.

In other words, Smith’s appetite for a trial before the Inauguration may exceed his ability to force that expedited schedule.

Category:

Law, Political

Tagged with:

Joe Biden’s Fingerprints Are All Over the Criminal Prosecutions of Donald Trump

BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | JUNE 03, 2024

Author Margot Cleveland profile

MARGOT CLEVELAND

VISIT ON TWITTER@PROFMJCLEVELAND

In response to Americans’ outcry over the political prosecutions of Donald Trump and a Manhattan jury convicting the former president on 34 felony counts, President Joe Biden declared, “It’s irresponsible for anyone to say this was rigged, just because they don’t like the verdict.” Coming from the Commander-in-Rigging, this proclamation means nothing.

Biden and those seeking to ensure his re-election have their hands all over Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s prosecution of the former president. A lead prosecutor for Bragg during the trial was Matthew Colangelo. In December 2022, Colangelo left the Biden Department of Justice to “jump start” the criminal case against Trump. Biden had previously named Colangelo his acting associate attorney general—the third highest-ranking official in the DOJ.

There’s Plenty More Where That Came From

Colangelo’s role in prosecuting his former boss’s political opponent provides the most obvious evidence of the Biden administration’s involvement in the Manhattan D.A.’s criminal targeting of Trump, but the rigging started much earlier. As I previously reported, the incestuous relationship between the Manhattan D.A.’s office and Team Biden began as early as mid-February 2021. Then, “Bragg’s predecessor, District Attorney Cyrus Vance, arranged for private criminal defense attorney and former federal prosecutor Mark Pomerantz to be a special assistant district attorney for the Manhattan D.A.’s office.”

As The New York Times reported at the time, Pomerantz was to work “solely on the Trump investigation” during a temporary leave of absence from his law firm, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton, and Garrison. “But even before being sworn in as a special assistant to the Manhattan D.A., Pomerantz had reportedly ‘been helping with the case informally for months.’” Even Democrats’ most reliable Old Grey Lady (of the evening) acknowledged, “the hiring of an outsider is a highly unusual move for a prosecutor’s office.”

Soon after the Manhattan D.A. hired Pomerantz, two of his colleagues, Elyssa Abuhoff and Caroline Williamson, also took leaves of absence from Paul, Weiss to serve as special assistant district attorneys on the Trump investigation. “For a law firm to lend not one but three lawyers to the Manhattan D.A.’s office seems rather magnanimous, until you consider Paul, Weiss’s previous generosity to Joe Biden.”

As I previously reported, during Biden’s first run for the White House, “the law firm hosted a $2,800-per-plate fundraiser for about 100 guests.” Brad Karp, the chair of Paul, Weiss, also topped the list of Biden fundraisers, bundling at least $100,000 for the then-candidate. At the time, Karp wrote in an email: “As someone who cares passionately about preserving the rule of law, safeguarding our democracy and protecting fundamental liberties, I’ve been delighted to do everything I possibly can to support the Joe Biden/Kamala Harris ticket.”

Biden’s relationship with Karp continued after his election, with the president including Karp and his wife at a state dinner with the Australian prime minister. Karp and his fellow Paul, Weiss lawyers continue to fund Biden’s re-election campaign. In fact, Biden’s connection to the firm is so strong Bloomberg branded Paul, Weiss the “Biden-Era N.Y. Power Center.”

But for Paul, Weiss lending Pomerantz to the Manhattan D.A.’s office to control the Trump investigation, the former president likely never would have been charged. According to Pomerantz, Bragg had decided “not to go forward with the grand jury presentation and not to seek criminal charges,” indefinitely suspending the investigation.

Pomerantz made those claims in the resignation letter he tendered to Bragg in early 2022, which was deliberately leaked to The New York Times. “Pomerantz’s letter and his claims that Bragg had suspended the Trump probe triggered a political firestorm, which the Manhattan D.A. sought to quell by telling the public the investigation was ongoing.” Soon after, Bragg capitulated, hiring Biden’s high-ranking DOJ lawyer, Colangelo, who proceeded to indict and convict Trump.

In contrast to the Biden-connected attorneys who secured Trump’s indictment and conviction, in late 2021, at least three career prosecutors in the Manhattan D.A.’s office asked to be removed from the investigation of Trump, reportedly “concerned that the investigation was moving too quickly, without clear evidence to support possible charges.”

Not Just Manhattan

The Biden connection to the political targeting of Trump is not limited to the Manhattan D.A.’s office. In August 2023, Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis charged Trump and 18 other Republicans in a sprawling 98-page criminal indictment.

Earlier this year, court filings and testimony in the case related to motions to disqualify Willis and her former lover, Nathan Wade, revealed the Fulton County D.A.’s office had met with White House counsel in May 2022. Then, just three days after Trump announced his 2024 candidacy for president, Wade traveled to D.C. for an interview with the “White House,” according to Fulton County records. The Biden administration’s White House counsel’s office also dispatched two letters to Willis, according to one of her prosecutors.

Biden and his Democrat-run administration also have their fingers all over the remaining two criminal cases targeting Trump, both brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith. President Biden, according to an April 2, 2022, New York Times report, “As recently as late last year… confided to his inner circle that he believed former President Donald J. Trump was a threat to democracy and should be prosecuted.”

The Times claimed Biden had expressed frustration with Garland’s “deliberative approach” and that the president believed Trump should be prosecuted. The president “has said privately that he wanted Mr. Garland to act less like a ponderous judge and more like a prosecutor who is willing to take decisive action over the events of Jan. 6.,” the legacy outlet reported.

Biden’s attorney general would eventually appoint Smith special counsel. Smith would later charge Trump in two separate indictments—one in Florida concerning documents the former president retained, and one in D.C. with various conspiracy to defraud and obstruction charges related to Trump’s challenging the outcome of the 2020 election.

Stretching the Law Past Its Breaking Point

With the D.C. indictment, the special counsel delivered to Biden just what he wanted—a prosecution of Trump “for his role in the events of Jan. 6.” To deliver for Biden, though, required Smith to stretch the federal criminal code to the point of breaking. In the case of two of the crimes charged, in the context of Jan. 6, 2021, defendants, the Supreme Court seems poised to limit the reach of the relevant statutes—a holding that could mean that Smith charged Trump with two non-crimes.

The final criminal case pending against Trump, Smith’s documents case, also connects back to the Biden administration. That case began when the DOJ launched an investigation prompted by a referral from the national archivist related to a dispute over presidential records—even though the same archivist declined to refer Hillary Clinton to the DOJ for mishandling classified documents. Later, a top aide to Smith, Jay Bratt, would meet with “White House officials multiple times, just weeks before Mr. Smith indicted former President Donald Trump.”

That case has been delayed after it was revealed the FBI agents who executed a search warrant obtained by the Biden administration had failed to keep the documents seized from Mar-a-Lago in the same condition they were found, with the order of the materials mixed up. At the same time, it was revealed that the “classified cover sheets” depicted in the photographs of the evidence seized during the August 2022 search of Trump had been placed there by federal agents. The leak of those photographs falsely portrayed the former president as in possession of documents bearing classified cover sheets.

Biden can continue to deny his responsibility for the criminal targeting of his political opponent all he wants, but the facts tell a different story. So did the president’s malevolent smile on Friday when he was asked to respond to Trump calling himself a political prisoner and blaming the president directly.

Margot Cleveland is an investigative journalist and legal analyst and serves as The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. Margot’s work has been published at The Wall Street Journal, The American Spectator, the New Criterion, National Review Online, Townhall.com, the Daily Signal, USA Today, and the Detroit Free Press. She is also a regular guest on nationally syndicated radio programs and on Fox News, Fox Business, and Newsmax. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. Cleveland is also of counsel for the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland where you can read more about her greatest accomplishments—her dear husband and dear son. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

Category:

Law, Political

Tagged with:

This Week In Lawfare Land: Prosecutor Misconduct Jeopardizes Another Case

BY: STEVE ROBERTS AND OLIVER ROBERTS | MAY 10, 2024

STEVE ROBERTS AND OLIVER ROBERTS

As the lawfare crusade continues, former President Donald Trump is racking up significant victories in court. Down in Florida, President Trump secured an indefinite delay in his criminal case involving alleged mishandling of classified documents. This delay was ordered following revelations that Special Counsel Jack Smith and prosecutors mishandled and misrepresented evidence, which is uniquely ironic given the subject matter of the underlying case.

In Georgia, where another criminal case is pending, the Georgia Court of Appeals agreed to hear President Trump’s attempt to remove Democrat District Attorney Fani Willis from the case. The Georgia Court of Appeals is set to consider and decide this issue in the coming weeks.

It is becoming increasingly likely that the ongoing Manhattan criminal case is the only trial that President Trump will face before the November election.

Here’s the latest information you need to know about each case.

Read our previous installments here.

Manhattan, New York: Prosecution by DA Alvin Bragg for NDA Payment

How we got here: In this New York state criminal case, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg — who The New York Times acknowledged had “campaigned as the best candidate to go after the former president” — charged former President Donald Trump in April 2023 with 34 felony charges for alleged falsification of business records.

Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen paid pornographic film actress Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 presidential election as part of a nondisclosure agreement in which she agreed not to publicize her claims that she had an affair with Trump (who denies the allegations). Nondisclosure agreements are not illegal, but Bragg claims Trump concealed the payment to help his 2016 election chances and in doing so was concealing a “crime.”

The trial began on April 15, and jury selection was completed on April 19. Judge Merchan, a donor to Biden’s campaign and an anti-Trump cause in 2020, has issued a gag order on President Trump generally prohibiting him from publicly speaking on possible jurors, witnesses, and other personnel in this case.

Latest developments: This week, the jury heard testimony from porn performer Stormy Daniels, also known as Stephanie Clifford. Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal are central to this case because prosecutors allege that former President Trump paid them off and then falsified business records, to prevent negative media stories during his 2016 presidential campaign. Daniels alleges that she had a sexual encounter with President Trump in 2006, but President Trump denies the affair.

On May 8, President Trump’s attorneys cross-examined and discredited Stormy Daniels, highlighting her history of being a pornographer, her strip club tour, and her history of profiting off allegations against Trump. That same day, Judge Merchan denied a second attempt by President Trump to dismiss this case for a mistrial. President Trump’s attorneys argued that Stormy Daniels’s testimony was unfairly prejudicial against Trump due to its inconsistencies and unnecessary detail, which could improperly influence the jury.

The jury is soon expected to hear from President Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen, who is the prosecutor’s star witness. Another key witness, Karen McDougal, is not expected to testify.

Judge Merchan handed the prosecution another win by ruling that former Federal Election Commission Chairman Bradley Smith, an expert on campaign finance-related issues, is limited as to what he can say in his testimony in the case. One of the defenses raised by the president’s legal team is that even if such payments were made, they were not necessarily to influence an election but rather to protect Donald Trump’s name, his brand, and his family. Chairman Smith was expected to testify in support of this theory, as he has long asserted that “almost anything a candidate does can be interpreted as intended to ‘influence an election’” but “not every expense that might benefit a candidate is an obligation that exists solely because the person is a candidate.” But after Judge Merchan’s ruling, Smith can now only testify as to the “general background as to what the Federal [Election] Commission is, background as to who makes up the FEC, what the FEC’s function is, what laws, if any, the FEC is responsible for enforcing, and general definitions and terms that relate directly to this case, such as for example ‘campaign contribution.’”

Fulton County, Georgia: Prosecution by DA Fani Willis for Questioning Election Results

How we got here: The Georgia state criminal case is helmed by District Attorney Fani Willis and her team of prosecutors — which until recently included Nathan Wade, with whom Willis had an improper romantic relationship. Willis charged Trump in August 2023 with 13 felony counts, including racketeering charges, related to his alleged attempt to challenge the 2020 election results in Georgia. President Trump is joined by 18 co-defendants, including Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows, Sidney Powell, and others. Some of President Trump’s co-defendants have reached plea deals; others have petitioned to have the case removed to federal court, each attempt of which has been denied. A trial date has not yet been set, though prosecutors have asked for a trial to begin on Aug. 5, just a few short weeks after the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

Latest developments: On May 8, the Georgia Court of Appeals agreed to hear former President Trump’s attempt to disqualify Democrat District Attorney Fani Willis from the pending criminal case in Georgia. Trial court judge Scott McAfee previously denied President Trump’s attempt to remove Willis from the case, but the Georgia Court of Appeals will now determine whether that denial was permissible.

Southern District of Florida: Prosecution by Biden DOJ for Handling of Classified Documents

How we got here: In this federal criminal case, special counsel Jack Smith and federal prosecutors with Biden’s Justice Department charged former President Trump in June 2023 with 40 federal charges related to his alleged mishandling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence. The trial was set to begin on May 20, 2024, but this date has now been postponed indefinitely. Additionally, venue matters: The trial is currently set to take place in Fort Pierce, Florida, in a locality that heavily backed President Trump in the 2020 election. If that remains unchanged, the demographics of the jury pool may result in a pro-Trump courtroom.

Latest developments: On May 7, Judge Aileen Cannon postponed the trial date indefinitely in this case. In an order, Judge Cannon stated “that finalization of a trial date at this juncture … would be imprudent and inconsistent with the Court’s duty to fully and fairly consider the various pending pre-trial motions before the Court.” This delay comes after Special Counsel Jack Smith and other prosecutors admitted to tampering with evidence, stating “there are some boxes [of documents seized from Mar-a-Lago] where the order of items within that box is not the same as in the associated scans.” Prosecutors previously represented to the court that the documents were “in their original, intact form as seized.” Judge Cannon also recently unredacted documents showing the Biden administration’s involvement in this case.

As a result of this indefinite delay, it is unlikely that a trial will occur before the November election.

Washington, D.C.: Prosecution by Biden DOJ for Jan. 6 Speech

How we got here: In this federal criminal case, special counsel Jack Smith and federal prosecutors charged former President Trump in August 2023 with four counts of conspiracy and obstruction related to his actions on Jan. 6, 2021. President Trump’s lawyers have argued that immunity extends to actions taken by a president while acting in his official capacity and that, in any event, the First Amendment protects his right to raise legitimate questions about a questionable election process.

Latest developments: This case is currently stalled while awaiting a ruling from the Supreme Court on former President Trump’s immunity claim.

New York: Lawsuit by A.G. Letitia James for Inflating Net Worth

How we got here: In this New York civil fraud case, Democrat Attorney General Letitia James — who campaigned on going after Trump — sued former President Trump in September 2022 under a civil fraud statute alleging that he misled banks, insurers, and others about his net worth to obtain loans, although the loans have been paid back and none of the parties involved claimed to have been injured by the deals.

Following a no-jury trial, Judge Arthur Engoron — whom Trump’s lawyers have accused of “astonishing departures from ordinary standards of impartiality” — issued a decision on Feb. 16, 2024 ordering Trump to pay a $454 million penalty. Trump has appealed this decision and posted a required $175 million appeal bond. The appeals court plans to hold hearings on the merits of the full case in September 2024.

Latest developments: This case mostly remains on hold.

Steve Roberts is a partner and Oliver Roberts is an associate with Holtzman Vogel Baran Torchinksy & Josefiak PLLC. They can be reached at sroberts@holtzmanvogel.com and oroberts@holtzmanvogel.com.

Category:

Law, Political

Tagged with:

Filings: Jack Smith Tampered with Evidence In Get-Trump Classified Documents Case

BY: TRISTAN JUSTICE | MAY 06, 2024

Author Tristan Justice profile

TRISTAN JUSTICE

VISIT ON TWITTER@JUSTICETRISTAN

Special Counsel Jack Smith admitted federal prosecutors tampered with evidence in his criminal case alleging former President Donald Trump mishandled classified documents.

According to a Friday court filin g, prosecutors said documents the FBI seized from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence are no longer in the same order in which they found them, and some are mislabeled and may even be misplaced. A government “filter team” that dealt with the boxes once the FBI took them “was not focused on maintaining the sequence of documents within each box,” the special counsel’s office wrote in the filing.

Later the filing says, of early inventories and scanned records of the seized document boxes, “Because these inventories and scans were created close in time to the seizure of the documents, they are the best evidence available of the order the documents were in when seized. That said, there are some boxes where the order of items within that box is not the same as in the associated scans.” A footnote on this last sentence says: “The Government acknowledges that this is inconsistent with what Government counsel previously understood and represented to the Court.”

The filing also suggests the Department of Justice and FBI may have lost and mislabeled some of the documents. When the agencies first took the documents at Mar-a-Lago, government employees used many blank sheets of paper as substitutes and cover papers for what they decided might be classified documents.

After the FBI brought the document boxes to Washington DC, federal employees and contractors began replacing these “handwritten sheets” with proper classified document covers. At that point, the filing says, “In many but not all instances, the FBI was able to determine which document with classification markings corresponded to a particular placeholder sheet.” This indicates the special counsel’s office disclosed it isn’t sure whether some it lost or mislabeled some of the allegedly classified documents it seized in the Trump raid.

In response, Trump’s defense team filed a motion to dismiss the case over prosecutorial misconduct.

Evidence spoliation https://t.co/CVv3yRMldb
— Harmeet K. Dhillon (@pnjaban) May 5, 2024

This is even more stunning by Smith.

Setting aside the FBI high-tailed it out of southern FLA to conduct the investigation within the confines of the corrupt Washington FBI field office, Smith admits DOJ cannot be sure every place holder corresponds with the correct document. pic.twitter.com/Fxy8MZp2qs
— Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 (@julie_kelly2) May 4, 2024

Smith charged Trump last June with 37 criminal counts related to the former president’s handling of classified documents. In July, Smith added three more counts against Trump as Democrats strategize to retain the presidency by imprisoning their chief political opponent in an unprecedented lawfare campaign. New evidence shows the Democrat White House worked closely with the DOJ and National Archives and Records Administration in crafting the documents case against Trump.

The classified documents case is Trump’s largest election-year court battle, as nearly half of the 88 total charges against him currently are related to the records. Federal prosecutors confiscated 33 boxes of documents from the hostile raid on Trump’s home in August 2022, according to Fox News. The Department of Justice has spent more than $23 million in taxpayer dollars for Smith to investigate Trump.

In April, Federalist Elections Correspondent Brianna Lyman outlined three major revelations to emerge from the classified documents case to date, including deep state pressure to move forward with Trump’s prosecution and White House involvement.

“President Biden also retained classified documents after leaving the vice presidency,” Lyman reported. “Yet he was not charged because prosecutors say they believed he would ‘present himself to the jury, as he did during our interview with him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.’”

The Department of Energy allegedly revoked the former president’s security clearance retroactively once Trump was indicted.

In February, journalists Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi, and Alex Gutentag reported the FBI raid may have been orchestrated to cover up the intelligence state’s role in the Russia hoax. The article posted on Shellenberger’s news website, Public, outlined how intelligence officials fretted over the presence of a classified “binder” in Trump’s possession that former CIA Director Gina Haspel was careful to protect for years.

“Transgressions [the feds might have wanted to cover up] range from Justice Department surveillance of domestic political targets without probable cause to the improper unmasking of a pre-election conversation between a Trump official and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to WMD-style manipulation of intelligence for public reports on alleged Russian ‘influence activities,’” Public reported.

The binder was “Trump’s insurance policy,” according to an unnamed source cited as “knowledgeable about the case.”

Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist and the author of Social Justice Redux, a conservative newsletter on culture, health, and wellness. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com. Sign up for Tristan’s email newsletter here.

Category:

corruption, Political

Tagged with:

Alito: Criminalizing Close Election Contests Would Destabilize Entire Foundation Of American Democracy

BY: BRIANNA LYMAN | APRIL 25, 2024

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito suggested Thursday during oral arguments regarding presidential immunity that criminalizing individuals just because they question government-run elections would destabilize true democracy.

Special counsel Jack Smith indicted former President Donald Trump for questioning the administration of the 2020 election. The high court is now hearing challenges as to whether presidents have immunity from criminal prosecutions for actions taken while in office that fall within the scope of their presidential duties.

“Let me end with just a question about, what is required for the functioning of a stable democratic society, which is something that we all want?” Alito began. “I’m sure you would agree with me that a stable, democratic society requires that a candidate who loses an election, even a close one, even a hotly contested one, leave office peacefully if that candidate is the incumbent?”

“Of course,” attorney Michael Dreeben said.

Justice Alito hypothesizes what could happen if presidents don’t have criminal immunity:

“If an incumbent…knows…that the president may be criminally prosecuted by a bitter political opponent, will that not lead us into a cycle that destabilizes the functioning of our country?” pic.twitter.com/zXSJEGMNOo
— The Recount (@therecount) April 25, 2024

“Now, if an incumbent who loses a very close, hotly contested election knows that a real possibility after leaving office is not that the president is going to be able to go off in a peaceful retirement but that the president may be criminally prosecuted by a bitter political opponent, will that not lead us into a cycle that destabilizes the functioning of our country as a democracy?” Alito asked. “And we can look around the world and find countries where we have seen this process where the loser gets thrown in jail.”

“So, I think it’s exactly the opposite, Justice Alito,” Dreeben said. “There are lawful mechanisms to contest the results in an election and outside the record, but I think of public knowledge, petitioner and his allies filed dozens of electoral challenges and my understanding is lost all but one that was not outcome determinative in any respect. There were judges that said in order to sustain substantial claims of fraud that would overturn an election results that’s certified by a state, you need evidence, you need proof and none of those things were manifested. So there’s an appropriate way to challenge things through the courts with evidence, if you lose, you accept the results, that has been the nation’s experience.”

“Thank you,” Alito interjected.

Alito appears to warn Democrats that should the high court rule that certain presidential acts are not covered by presidential immunity and Smith’s lawfare case against the former president may continue — true democratic norms would be decimated as partisan politicians could weaponize the justice system to target their opponents.

Smith indicted Trump on charges of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and an attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights. In simpler terms, Smith alleges that Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen were false and that Trump knew they were false.

To support his claims, Smith alleges that since federal agencies like the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency — which meddled in the 2020 election — told Trump the election wasn’t stolen, and he should have taken that at face value, as pointed out by Federalist Senior Editor John Daniel Davidson.

But objecting to elections is a tale as old as time. Failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton still claims the 2016 election was stolen while Democratic Reps. Jim McGovern, Pramila Jayapal, Raul Grijalva, Sheila Jackson Lee, Barbara Lee, Maxine Waters — who also called the 2000 election “fraudulent” — and Jamie Raskin all objected to Congress’ certification of electoral votes in 2017 that formally declared Trump the winner, my colleague Tristan Justice details.

The 2004 election was also considered “stolen” by New York Rep. Jerry Nadler who went so far as to declare voting machines need to be investigated.

And even after the Supreme Court ended Al Gore’s attempt to overturn the outcome of the election, there were no steps taken to throw Gore in jail for challenging the contest.

Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist.

Author Brianna Lyman profile

BRIANNA LYMAN

VISIT ON TWITTER@BRIANNALYMAN2

Category:

Law, Political

Tagged with:

Why SCOTUS Will Likely Smack Down Two Of Jack Smith’s Get-Trump Charges As Non-Crimes

BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | JANUARY 02, 2024

Author Margot Cleveland profile

MARGOT CLEVELAND

VISIT ON TWITTER@PROFMJCLEVELAND

Last week, the Supreme Court rejected Special Counsel Jack Smith’s request that the high court fast-track an appeal by former President Donald Trump claiming immunity from the charges related to the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. While the immunity questions will likely return to the Supreme Court after the D.C. Circuit weighs in on the issues, before then the justices will consider the validity of two of the four charges levied against the former president — and it is likely a majority of the Supreme Court will rule that the “crimes” the special counsel charged are not crimes at all. Here’s your laws plainer.

Smith charged Trump in a four-count indictment in a federal court in D.C., seeking to hold the former president and 2024 GOP front-runner criminally responsible for the events of Jan. 6, 2021. Specifically, the indictment charged Trump with conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy against rights, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, and obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding.

While all four theories of criminal liability are weak, the Supreme Court will soon decide whether the events of Jan. 6 qualify as criminal obstruction of an official proceeding under Section 1512 of the federal criminal code in United States v. Fischer.

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court agreed to hear Joseph Fischer’s appeal that presents the question of whether 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c) criminalizes acts unrelated to investigations and evidence that obstructs an “official proceeding.” Fischer, like Trump, was charged with violating § 1512(c) by engaging in conduct on Jan. 6 that obstructed the certification of the electoral vote.

The question for the Supreme Court in the Fischer case is one of statutory interpretation. Thus, to understand the issue requires a detailed study of the specific language of § 1512(c). That section, titled “Witness, Victim, or Informant Tampering,” provides:

(c) Whoever corruptly —

(1) alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record, document, or other object, or attempts to do so, with the intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding; or

(2) otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so,

shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.

Fischer and Trump, as well as scores of other Jan. 6 defendants, were charged with violating subsection 2 of § 1512(c) by “otherwise” obstructing or impeding the certification of the electoral vote. In Fischer’s case, he asked the trial court to dismiss the § 1512(c) charge, arguing the statute only criminalized conduct that rendered evidence unavailable to an “official proceeding.” The district court agreed and dismissed the § 1512(c) count against Fischer. The government appealed to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which in a 2-1 decision reversed the lower court, with the two-judge majority holding that § 1512(c) criminalized any conduct that obstructed or impeded an official proceeding, whether that conduct impaired the availability of evidence or not, leading the Supreme Court to grant certiorari.

While forecasting the outcome of an appeal from the Supreme Court always leaves room for error, for several reasons the high court seems likely to hold that § 1512(c) does not reach the conduct of Fischer, Trump, or other Jan. 6 defendants. Most predictive is the Supreme Court’s earlier decision in the case Begay v. United States, which interpreted another statute that, like § 1512(c), used an “otherwise” catchall clause.

In Begay, the question before the court was the meaning of a section of the Armed Career Criminal Act that imposed a heightened punishment for individuals with three or more prior convictions for violent felonies or serious drug offenses. The act defined a “violent felony” as “any crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year” that “has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another,” or “is burglary, arson, or extortion, involves use of explosives, or otherwise involves conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another” (emphasis added).

The majority in Begay held the defendant’s prior felony DUI conviction did not constitute a “violent felony” under the “otherwise” language of the statute because “the provision’s listed examples — burglary, arson, extortion, or crimes involving the use of explosives — illustrate the kinds of crimes that fall within the statute’s scope,” and “their presence indicates that the statute covers only similar crimes, rather than every crime that ‘presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another.’”

In reaching this conclusion, the Begay court stressed that in interpreting statutes, courts must seek “to give effect … to every clause and word” of the statute. The majority further reasoned that if the “otherwise” language meant to cover all crimes that present a “serious potential risk of physical injury,” there would have been no reason for Congress to have included the examples.

The holding and reasoning underlying the Begay decision should compel a similar conclusion in the Fischer case, namely that subsection 2 of § 1512(c) only criminalizes conduct that “otherwise” obstructs an “official proceeding” if the conduct charged is similar to the conduct covered by subsection 1. After all, if Congress sought to criminalize any conduct impairing an official proceeding, why then would subsection 1 be needed?

The conduct prohibited by subsection 1 of § 1512(c) all concerns the impairment of evidence for an official proceeding, by criminalizing the alteration, destruction, mutilation, or concealment of “a record, document, or other object…” Thus, under Begay’s reasoning, to constitute a crime under subsection 2 of § 1512(c), the indictment must charge that Fischer (or the other defendants) “otherwise” impaired evidence for use in an official proceeding.

Nowhere in the indictment returned against Fischer is there an allegation that he somehow impaired evidence relevant to an official proceeding. So, if the Supreme Court follows the reasoning of Begay, as a matter of law, then Fischer did not violate § 1512(c), and that charge against him should be dismissed. Likewise, the § 1512(c) charge against Trump, which also did not allege an impairment of evidence, would fail, as would the second count alleging Trump conspired to violate that statute.

With the Supreme Court deciding the Fischer appeal this term, the reasonable response would be for Smith to put the brakes on the criminal trial against Trump to await a ruling from the high court. The special counsel and the district court, however, have both proven themselves anything but reasonable and have revealed their real goal is to obtain a conviction against Trump before the 2024 election, which is now less than one year away.

But as the Fischer case may soon prove, the convictions Smith seeks may be for crimes that don’t exist. Sadly, half the country doesn’t seem to care.

Margot Cleveland is an investigative journalist and legal analyst and serves as The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. Margot’s work has been published at The Wall Street Journal, The American Spectator, the New Criterion (forthcoming), National Review Online, Townhall.com, the Daily Signal, USA Today, and the Detroit Free Press. She is also a regular guest on nationally syndicated radio programs and on Fox News, Fox Business, and Newsmax. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prive—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. Cleveland is also of counsel for the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland where you can read more about her greatest accomplishments—her dear husband and dear son. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

Category:

Political

Tagged with:

By Trying To Keep Trump Off The Ballot, Democrats Are Staging A Coup In Broad Daylight

BY: JOHN DANIEL DAVIDSON | DECEMBER 22, 2023

Author John Daniel Davidson profile

JOHN DANIEL DAVIDSON

VISIT ON TWITTER@JOHNDDAVIDSON

If it wasn’t obvious before now that the left will do anything to stop Donald Trump from winning a second term in the White House, the events of the last few days should leave no doubt in any American’s mind. Democrats, including President Biden, are prepared not only to rig the 2024 election in broad daylight but also to twist the U.S. Constitution and undermine the republic so they can hold on to power.

As most everyone knows by now, an infamous 4-3 majority of the Colorado Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that voters in their state will not be allowed to cast a ballot for Trump in next year’s presidential election. The court’s outlandish claim is that Trump is ineligible to appear on the ballot because Section 3 of the 14th Amendment says candidates who have “engaged in insurrection” are prohibited from holding public office.

According to the court, which is dominated by left-wing ideologues appointed by Democrat governors (all the judges on the Colorado Supreme Court are Democrats, some are just more radical than others), Trump meets this definition because he “incited” a riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Never mind that Trump has yet to be convicted of a crime associated with Jan. 6 (or any crime for that matter) or that the 14th Amendment doesn’t include the president or vice president in a list of offices to which its Section 3 provision applies. For the leftists on the Colorado Supreme Court, it’s enough to declare Trump an insurrectionist and viola! He’s off the ballot — all in the name of “defending democracy.”

David French called it a “bold, courageous decision,” but setting aside the constitutional/legal debate, consider what it means practically. About 1.4 million Coloradans voted for Trump in 2020. All those voters, if they want to vote for Trump again this time, have been disenfranchised by the court. That’s bad enough, but the left’s strategy here is larger than just one state. Before the ink was dry on the Colorado ruling, California Democrats leapt into action. The lieutenant governor, Eleni Kounalakis, sent a letter to Secretary of State Shirley Weber asking her to “explore every legal option to remove former President Donald Trump from California’s 2024 presidential primary ballot.”

Meanwhile, Special Counsel Jack Smith, who is prosecuting Trump for his alleged role in the Jan. 6 riot, this week asked the U.S. Supreme Court to step in and rule on the case before the lower court issues a ruling. As Byron York noted, Smith’s frantic brief doesn’t state the obvious: “He’s rushing to try Trump so Trump can be convicted and jailed before the election.”

Plenty of smart people have pointed out the glaring problems with the Colorado Supreme Court’s interpretation of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. Namely, it stipulates Congress must establish a procedure for barring someone from office for engaging in insurrection, which Congress did, twice, first in 1870 and again in 1948. In the latter instance, Congress created a criminal insurrection law, 18 U.S.C. § 2383, which is the enforcement mechanism for Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. The key point here is that Trump has not been charged or convicted under that statute, which means the U.S. Supreme Court will almost certainly overturn the Colorado Supreme Court’s garbage ruling.

But set aside the legal fight because it doesn’t matter to the left. For Biden and the Democrats, this isn’t really a question of what the Constitution does or doesn’t say. This is a question of power and how far they will go to keep it. From the politicized court ruling in Colorado to the four criminal indictments against Trump amounting to 91 felony charges to Biden’s statement last November that he’ll use the Constitution to ensure that Trump “will not take power” and will not “become the next president,” what we have amounts to an open conspiracy to rig the 2024 election by preventing voters from casting a ballot for the likely GOP nominee.

It’s not too much to call this a coup or a color revolution. If Democrats get away with this, we won’t be able to say we have a republic anymore for the simple reason that we won’t have anything like free and fair elections. Democracy in America will be reduced to something like Democracy in Iran or Russia, where only regime-approved candidates are allowed to appear on the ballot.

And don’t think this will end if the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down the Colorado decision. The Democrats will see it as a mere setback, not a defeat — and certainly not a deterrent. When they say, as they have been quite often lately, that Trump will never leave office if he wins next November, or that 2024 will be our last election ever if Trump prevails, they’re really talking about themselves. What they say Trump will do if he becomes president again is what they’re doing right now, before a watching world.

John Daniel Davidson is a senior editor at The Federalist. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Claremont Review of Books, The New York Post, and elsewhere. He is the author of the forthcoming book, Pagan America: the Decline of Christianity and the Dark Age to Come, to be published in March 2024. Follow him on Twitter, @johnddavidson.

Category:

Political

Tagged with:

Today’s Politically INCORRECT Cartoon by A.F. Branco

A.F. Branco Cartoon – You’re a Mean One

A.F. BRANCO | on December 20, 2023 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-youre-a-mean-one/

Jack Smith Grinch — A Political Cartoon by A.F. Branco

Prosecutor Jack Smith is worse than the Grinch as uses lawfare to rid the GOP front runner, Donald Trump from being able to run in the 2024 presidential election.

JUST IN: Jack Smith Ramps Up Effort to Jail Trump, Asks Supreme Court to Weigh Trump’s Immunity Argument – Here’s Why

By Cristina Laila

Special Counsel Jack Smith on Monday asked the US Supreme Court to weigh in on Trump’s immunity claims. In September Trump was hit with 4 counts in Jack Smith’s January 6 case up in DC: Conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights.

Jack Smith is fighting to keep the March 4 trial date (one day before Super Tuesday) in his January 6 case against Trump in DC.

Trump’s lawyers argued that Trump is immune from federal prosecution for alleged ‘crimes’ committed while … READ MORE…

DONATE to A.F. Branco Cartoons – Tips accepted and appreciated – $1.00 – $5.00 – $25.00 – $50.00 – it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. Also Venmo @AFBranco – THANK YOU!

A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country in various news outlets, including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.

Category:

Political

Tagged with:

10 Naughty Bureaucrats, Brands, And Buffoons Who Deserve Coal In Their Stockings This Year

BY: JORDAN BOYD AND SHAWN FLEETWOOD | DECEMBER 14, 2023

JORDAN BOYD AND SHAWN FLEETWOOD

Christmas is supposed to be a season for love, comfort, and joy, but the arrival of the holidays means the grinches, scrooges, and corrupt politicians of the world are lurking. This year, unfortunately, yielded an abundance of bureaucrats, brands, and buffoons who blew their shot to make the nice list when they sacrificed common sense and dignity for partisanship and radicalism.

Merry Christmas to everyone except these naughty no-gooders!

1. Jack Smith

Special Counsel Jack Smith’s association with the corrupt Department of Justice alone was enough to land him in Santa’s bad graces. Smith further solidified his place on the naughty list when he brought two “legally flawed and politically shady” cases against former President Donald Trump over classified documents and the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.

Smith also demanded the court gag Trump from criticizing him, President Joe Biden, and other deep-state bureaucrats for their hyperpartisan prosecution of his First Amendment right to claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, which D.C. District Judge Tanya Chutkan eagerly agreed to do.

2. Letitia James

James is on the naughty list for following through on her campaign promise to sue Trump, his children, and the Trump Organization for allegedly “grossly” inflating their assets in financial statements by billions of dollars.

Despite bringing a case with “no merit” and “no evidence,” James continues to work with Arthur Engoron, a judge of the Supreme Court 1st Judicial District in New York, to silence Trump and keep him from conducting business in the state of New York.

3. David Weiss

Every time a bell rings, a corrupt Department of Justice official like Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss gets named special counsel.

Weiss and the DOJ deliberately choked the IRS’s tax crime investigation and charging recommendations for Hunter Biden because they didn’t want to damage the elder Biden’s presidential chances.

After a federal judge denied Hunter’s initial sweetheart plea deal, the Biden son was eventually charged with several tax-related felonies and misdemeanors, but Weiss failed to indict him for any foreign influence-peddling or registered foreign agent violations.

House investigators warned the tax charges would never have happened without the testimonies of IRS whistleblowers the DOJ tried to silence.

4. Joe Biden

Biden may not technically have a stocking since his family was publicly shamed into ditching the tradition after leaving their seventh grandchild out of last year’s display, but he’s for sure getting coal for Christmas (for the second year in a row!) for repeatedly denying his role in the Biden family influence-peddling scheme.

There’s plenty of evidence that Joe, the Biden family brand, financially benefitted from arrangements his brother and son made with foreign oligarchs. Emails, texts, voicemails, bank records, receipts, White House visitor logs, photos, and sworn witness testimonies from Biden business associates suggest businessmen with ties to some of the nation’s top adversaries eagerly lined the Biden family’s pockets with cash, diamonds, and coveted board positions in exchange for proximity to the then-vice president.

5. Senate Republicans

Senate Republicans certainly don’t deserve presents this year. They may not even deserve your votes.

Their gravest 2023 mistake by far was working to take down one of their own, Sen. Tommy Tuberville, for daring to hold the Department of Defense accountable for its embrace of Biden’s radical abortion agenda. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer later thanked the GOP senators for curbing Tuberville’s protest of the Pentagon’s baby-killing activism.

The upper chamber GOP didn’t stop there. They were also indefensibly silent on Biden family corruption and impeachment, ignored their constituents’ feelings about taxpayer-funded abortion, and spent a majority of the year simping for Ukraine. It was only when it was no longer politically beneficial to put a foreign country over their own — a move many Americans have long opposed — that they started to pivot.

6. Elite Universities

Presidents from three of the nation’s top universities refused to admit that student calls for Jewish genocide following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel violate their schools’ codes of conduct. Backlash ensued, prompting both University of Pennsylvania President M. Elizabeth Magill, who faces a forced resignation, and Harvard President Claudine Gay to issue apologies days after the hearing.

In an interview with the student newspaper The Crimson, Gay blamed her delayed condemnation of antisemitism on a failure to “return to my guiding truth.” As one clever X user noted, Harvard’s slogan is “veritas,” not “veritas mae.”

7. Los Angeles Dodgers

Who doesn’t love a good baseball game? There are rowdy fans, Cracker Jacks, and — drag queens? Well, at least at Los Angeles Dodgers’ games there are.

Instead of focusing solely on the sport — which is what any real fan cares about — the Dodgers decided to honor an anti-Christian drag group during this year’s “pride night” game. Known as the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, this group’s members mock Christians by dressing up as so-called “queer and trans nuns” and performing highly offensive acts on biblical symbols, including the cross.

While initially disinviting the group after public backlash, the Dodgers caved to the leftist mob by apologizing to the Sisters and begging them to attend the “pride” event.

If that’s not worthy of coal this Christmas, I don’t know what is.

8. Bud Light

What better way to make the Yuletide gay than by chugging down a cold can of Bud Light?

After partnering with woman-pretender and TikTok influencer Dylan Mulvaney this year, the Anheuser-Busch brand’s sales tanked, with drinkers abandoning the beer quicker than Hunter Biden left town when he found out the stripper he had sex with was pregnant.

Sales got so bad that retailers could hardly even give Bud Light away for free. But that didn’t stop the beer giant from doubling down on its LGBT obsession by sponsoring various “pride” events throughout the country.

9. Target

Target and the naughty list go way back, but the company’s partnership with a Satan supporter who called for the eradication of critics of transgenderism, and its “pride month” displays featuring “light binding effect” tops and “tuck-friendly” bottoms, angered millions of Americans.

A boycott prompted by Target’s alphabet endorsement sent the once-beloved company’s sales spiraling. Despite the clear connection between its embrace of radical gender ideology and flailing financials, Target ended the year promoting its line of LGBT-themed Christmas products, including gay and trans nutcrackers.

https://twitter.com/JoeyMannarinoUS/status/1720969911760048573?s=20

10. Taylor Swift

Miss Americana Taylor Swift may have won Time’s Person of the Year, but that doesn’t mean she won over everyone’s hearts. The pop star’s presence at boyfriend Mr. Pfizer’s — er, Travis Kelce’s — NFL games stole the TV cameras, sports announcers, and fantasy football apps away from America’s favorite Sunday evening pastime.

Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx. Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood

Category:

Political

Tagged with:

Today’s Politically INCORRECT Cartoon by A.F. Branco

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Tweeters Beware

A.F. BRANCO | on December 1, 2023 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-tweeters-beware/

Jack Smith Goes After Trump Followers — Politically INCORRECT Cartoon by A.F. Branco

Millions of Twitter accounts that interacted with former President Donald Trump’s online profile appear to be under the purview of special counsel Jack Smith’s search warrant from January of this year, according to a government transparency suit.

The court-authorized warrant on Twitter, which the tech company fought and even attempted to warn Trump about, sought “all information from … the [Trump] account, including all lists of Twitter users who have favorited or retweeted tweets posted by the account, as well as all tweets that include the username associated with the account (i.e. ‘mentions’ or ‘replies’).” The highly specific request potentially implicates millions of users on the platform, now known as X, just because they liked or retweeted a Trump post.

Special Counsel Jack Smith Sought Info On Anyone Who ‘Favorited Or Retweeted’ Trump Tweets

BY: SHAWN FLEETWOOD | NOVEMBER 29, 2023

Special Counsel Jack Smith hunted information on X users who liked or retweeted posts published by former President Donald Trump, according to redacted search warrants and other documents released Monday.

According to the heavily redacted document issued to then-Twitter in January, the court ordered the social media giant to forfeit a bevy of information regarding Trump’s account, including “advertising information, including advertising IDs, ad activity, and ad topic preferences,” as well as IP addresses “used to create, login, and use the account” and privacy and account settings.

The warrant also demanded information such as Trump’s search history, direct messages, and “content of all tweets created, drafted, favorited/liked, or retweeted” by his account from October 2020 to January 2021.

Though the warrant was first covered in August, it was again released as part of a court order after numerous media organizations filed to obtain the document to shed light on the Smith-led special counsel’s “investigation into Trump’s actions leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol,” according to the New York Post. Smith previously indicted Trump in August on several bogus charges related to the former president’s challenging of the 2020 election results in the lead-up to Jan. 6, 2021.

But it wasn’t just Trump’s Twitter account that Smith and his cronies were targeting. The special counsel’s warrant also sought data on Twitter users who interacted with the former president’s account. Among the information Smith sought was a list of every user Trump “followed, unfollowed, muted, unmuted, blocked, or unblocked” during the aforementioned timeframe. Smith similarly demanded that Twitter, which has since rebranded as X, fork over a list of users who took any of the same actions with Trump’s account.

Smith and his team went even further, seeking to acquire data on Twitter users who engaged with Trump’s tweets in the months leading up to Jan. 6, 2021. This included “all lists of Twitter users who have favorited or retweeted tweets posted by [Trump], as well as all tweets that include the username associated with [Trump’s account] (i.e. ‘mentions’ or ‘replies’).”

According to the Post, Smith’s warrant was issued to then-Twitter “along with a nondisclosure order, instructing the company not to notify Trump about the search.” Twitter initially bucked Smith’s demand, arguing that to forfeit such information to the government constituted a violation of the First Amendment. The social media giant ultimately complied with the warrant but was fined $350,000 for failing to meet the special counsel’s demands by deadline.

In the heavily redacted court filing opposing Twitter’s legal attempts to notify Trump of the search, Smith baselessly claimed that telling the former president about the unprecedented seizure “would result in a statutorily cognizable harm,” as Trump is “a sophisticated actor with an expansive platform.”

“The [Non-Disclosure Order] was granted based on facts showing that notifying the former president would result in destruction of or tampering with evidence, intimidation of potential witnesses, or other serious jeopardy to an investigation or delaying of trial,” said the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Nearly every other word listed under “The Non-Disclosure Order” section of the filing is redacted.

Smith’s seizure of Trump’s personal social media information and those who engaged with the then-president’s posts isn’t all that surprising given the special counsel’s weaponization of the government against Trump thus far. In addition to indicting Trump, Smith filed a motion in September to institute a gag order on the 45th president, effectively stifling his First Amendment right to criticize the very government attempting to silence him. That gag order was ultimately approved by D.C. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, a left-wing Obama appointee with a track record of highly partisan court rulings.

Trump’s legal team has since appealed the order to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals and has threatened to take the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court given the “unconstitutional” nature of the mandate.

Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood

Author Shawn Fleetwood profile

SHAWN FLEETWOOD

VISIT ON TWITTER@SHAWNFLEETWOOD

Category:

Political

Tagged with:

Joe Biden Claims, ‘Democracy Is at Stake’ as His Party Does Everything to Prevent Democracy from Happening.

BY: EDDIE SCARRY | SEPTEMBER 19, 2023

Now that one of the 2 million Democrat prosecutors chasing Donald Trump has filed a court motion to make it illegal for him to talk about the election, is it okay to laugh anytime Joe Biden frames 2024 as a referendum on “democracy”?

Monday night would have been a good time to exercise that rule. Speaking at a fundraising event on Broadway, the president told “FOLKS!” in attendance that he’s running for reelection because “democracy is at stake” and “on the ballot once again.”

It’s gotten so corny, and yet if there weren’t pollsters, consultants, and all of the media telling every Democrat in the country that it’s a line that works for their voters, he wouldn’t be saying it.

Yet, it’s Democrats who come up with a new way to shut down the few remaining options and avenues the American public has to express their opinions and choices on virtually everything. They do it on the daily. Just last week, Special Counsel Jack Smith requested that a federal judge in Washington, D.C., place a gag order that would prevent Trump from disparaging Smith’s Jan. 6-related case against him, even in political terms.

“[T]he defendant has repeatedly and widely disseminated public statements attacking the citizens of the District of Columbia, the Court, prosecutors, and prospective witnesses,” Smith wrote in the filing. “Through his statements, the defendant threatens to undermine the integrity of these proceedings and prejudice the jury pool…”

He asserted that Trump has a “history of inflammatory and misleading statements” that “would cause others to harass and harm perceived critics or adversaries.” One of those supposedly dangerous statements was a social media post wherein Trump said, “Joe Biden directed his Attorney General to prosecute his rival. This is not an independent Justice Department, this is not an independent special counsel. This is being directed by the Commander-in-Chief.”

Smith said that remark was made “without any basis,” even as none other than the New York Times wrote in April last year for its millions of readers — does Jack Smith have a subscription? — that Biden has told his associates he wants indictments against his predecessor and that he wanted his attorney general “to act less like a ponderous judge and more like a prosecutor who is willing to take decisive action over the events of Jan. 6.”

BOOOM!!! ANDREW TATE KNOWS!!! pic.twitter.com/DWgXqGogm5
— il Donaldo Trumpo (@PapiTrumpo) September 18, 2023

It wouldn’t be until seven months later that Trump would launch his own reelection campaign, but everyone knew he was going to do it, and everyone knew that when he did, he would instantly become the frontrunner for the Republican nomination.

That’s the context dismissed by Jack Smith as “without any basis.”

The motion comes just a month after the judge in the case, Tanya Chutkan, has already sided with Smith on a similar motion regarding “inflammatory statements.” She said there were limits to what Trump could say “whether it will affect a political campaign on either side.” In essence: Even if Trump’s campaign is partly or wholly about the case against him, he can’t talk about it.

When Democrats aren’t limiting what Trump can talk about in a national election, they’re trying to get his name removed from state ballots. When they’re not doing that, they’re suppressing what their dissenters can say on the Internet. When they’re not doing that, they’re trying to shrink the Internet by icing out would-be customers from renting space.

If you don’t agree with Democrats on anything, what are you supposed to do? Where are you supposed to go?

Democracy really is at stake. Biden and his party are working to eliminate it as an option altogether.

Eddie Scarry is the D.C. columnist at The Federalist and author of “Liberal Misery: How the Hateful Left Sucks Joy Out of Everything and Everyone.”

Author Eddie Scarry profile

EDDIE SCARRY

VISIT ON TWITTER@ESCARRY

Category:

Political

Tagged with:

Democrats Aren’t ‘Interfering’ In 2024 Election with Trump Trial, They’re Blatantly Rigging It

BY: JOHN DANIEL DAVIDSON | AUGUST 29, 2023

Author John Daniel Davidson profile

JOHN DANIEL DAVIDSON

VISIT ON TWITTER@JOHNDDAVIDSON

News broke Monday that U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, the judge overseeing the Jan. 6-related case against Donald Trump in Washington, D.C., set a March 4, 2024, trial date for the former president.

It just so happens that March 4 is the day before Super Tuesday, when more than a dozen states, from California to Texas to Virginia, will hold Republican primary elections. What a coincidence! What this means is that Trump, the Republican front-runner by a wide margin, will not be able to campaign ahead of the most important date on the GOP primary calendar. It also means he’ll likely be tied up in court a week later on March 12, when four more states hold primary elections.

But this isn’t merely election “interference,” it’s a naked attempt to rig the 2024 election. The timing here is important, because not only will Trump be pulled off the campaign trail at a crucial time, he will almost certainly be convicted over the summer. After all, the jury in this case will be drawn from a pool that voted 92 percent for Joe Biden. No matter how outlandish and unconstitutional the charges are, no matter how utterly politicized the process is, a D.C. jury is going to convict Trump.

A summer 2024 conviction sets up the real play here, which is for blue states and counties to remove Trump from the ballot, citing a faulty and blatantly lawless reading of the 14th Amendment. Assuming Trump wins the GOP primary, this will leave Republicans with no candidate on the ballot across vast swaths of the country heading into the fall. Even if the Supreme Court steps in, if Democrats time it just right it will be too late to send out corrected, lawful ballots in time for Election Day.

Whatever one thinks of Trump’s post-2020 election challenges — whether they were legitimate, delusional, or downright treasonous — they were nothing compared to what Democrats are trying to pull here. Consider the timeline alone. How on earth could a case involving millions of documents and hundreds of witnesses be ready for trial by March? And how does Trump already have a trial date set in his Jan. 6-related case when dozens of other Jan. 6 defendants have been rotting away in federal prison for years now?

One lawyer for Jan. 6 defendants explained on Twitter that he had a “relatively simple” Jan. 6 case that was indicted in late March in D.C., and at a recent status hearing dates were discussed for a trial in March or April 2024: “So I get a year between indictment and trial in a one-defendant relatively straight-forward J6 case. And Trump gets 8 months in a case with 12 million pages of discovery and well over 100 witnesses.”

The whole thing is a naked abuse of power — a violation of Trump’s Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel, to say nothing of his free speech rights, which DOJ Special Counsel Jack Smith is trying to criminalize.

The Obama-appointed Judge Chutkan, who has a penchant for handing down harsher sentences for Jan. 6 cases than what federal prosecutors recommended, has already betrayed her politically motivated bias in this case. Her claim that Trump would get “no more or less deference than any other defendant” is contradicted by her observation that because Trump has “considerable resources” he is “not entitled to unlimited preparation time.”

In other words, because Trump is wealthy, and because the political calendar dictates that Democrats move their election-rigging scheme along quickly, Trump’s trial is getting fast-tracked. There’s no other explanation for why this trial date is being set so soon after the indictment, and why March 4 was chosen as the specific date.

As John Hasson noted on Twitter, two separate courts have now attempted to set March 4 as Trump’s trial date. In Georgia, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis tried to set Trump’s trial date for March 4, but Republican Gov. Brian Kemp shut it down. Now Judge Chutkan has done the same. There’s a reason it keeps coming up, and it has nothing to do with justice or a fair trial.

Dems tried to set a March 4th date for Trump's GA trial, but Brian Kemp shut that down

So now they're setting a March 4th date for Trump's **DC** case

Blatantly obvious they want Trump in court the day before Super Tuesday pic.twitter.com/PUHvqzKmgQ
— John Hasson (@SonofHas) August 28, 2023

What we’re seeing here is the machinery of the Biden regime’s show trials at work. Remember, the point of a show trial is not to deliver justice, it’s to display power.

Everything about this process — the farcical indictments, the release of the mugshot, the timing of the trial — is designed to convey to ordinary Americans that one side, the left, has consolidated control over the most powerful institutions in our country, and resistance to their rule will be met with overwhelming force.

Democrats are not trying to hide any of this from you. They want you to see this display of power and understand what it means, which is this: You will not under any circumstances be allowed to vote for Donald Trump in 2024. So don’t even think about it — and don’t complain about it either, or you might end up just like him.

John Daniel Davidson is a senior editor at The Federalist. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Claremont Review of Books, The New York Post, and elsewhere. He is the author of the forthcoming book, Pagan America: the Decline of Christianity and the Dark Age to Come, to be published in March 2024. Follow him on Twitter, @johnddavidson.

Category:

Political

Tagged with:

The Purpose of the Trump Indictments is to Demonstrate the Left’s Power

BY: JOHN DANIEL DAVIDSON | AUGUST 16, 2023

Fani Willis talking about Trump indictments

Author John Daniel Davidson profile JOHN DANIEL DAVIDSON

VISIT ON TWITTER@JOHNDDAVIDSON

The latest indictment of former President Donald Trump is even more outlandish than Jack Smith’s blatant attempt to criminalize free speech. The indictment Monday out of Fulton County, Georgia, criminalizes mundane activities like asking for a phone number, texting, encouraging people to watch a televised hearing, and reserving a room at the Georgia capitol.

These activities, according to Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis, run afoul of the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) statute. As far as Willis is concerned, Trump’s legal efforts to challenge the election results in Georgia amounted to a criminal conspiracy, with Trump as the criminal mastermind. What that means, outlandishly, is that every phone call or tweet related to those legal efforts, every step Trump and his team took to press their legal case, counts as “an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy.”

This is of course crazy. As more than a few people have noted since the charges dropped, according to Willis’ standard every major Democrat should be in prison on racketeering charges — including Hillary Clinton but especially Stacey Abrams, who has made a career out of denying that she lost the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election.

Here’s five minutes of Stacey Abrams denying she lost the 2018 election. When will she be arrested? pic.twitter.com/x9WaAdiKhd
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) August 15, 2023

So yes, the hypocrisy is stupendous and blatant. But let me suggest that decrying the hypocrisy here is a loser’s game. What you see in these anti-Trump indictments is not hypocrisy, it’s hierarchy. We all became familiar with this concept during the Covid pandemic. Gathering for church, even outside, was against the law, but mass rioting in the streets was OK — so long as you were rioting for racial justice. Ordinary people had to let their elderly loved ones die alone and were not even allowed to bury them, yet thousands attended the funeral and memorial services for secular saint George Floyd.

Perhaps nothing better captured the hierarchy-not-hypocrisy concept than a photo of Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at the annual Met Gala in September 2021 wearing a white gown with “tax the rich” scrawled on its backside. Set aside the idiocy of the stunt itself. In the photo, AOC isn’t wearing a face mask, but the woman helping her with her gown is. What AOC was displaying for the public was hierarchy.

As my colleague Eddie Scarry wrote at the time, “This is simply another example of those in power, those running our most influential cultural and political institutions, sending a message: There’s a new social hierarchy in America. And this one isn’t about what you can afford to do, it’s about what you’re allowed to do.”

The same analysis applies to the raft of indictments against Trump, whose post-2020 denunciations of the election are no different than those of Clinton in 2016 or most Democrats in 2000 and 2004. Democrats are allowed to question the results of an election, Republicans are not. That’s not hypocrisy, it’s hierarchy.

Once you understand this, you begin to recognize it everywhere. Antifa thugs and BLM rioters were allowed to trash entire city blocks, torch police stations, take over neighborhoods, besiege federal courthouses — and do so with the blessing and encouragement, at times even with the complicity, of elected Democrat Party leaders. But every granny that set foot within a mile of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 had better brace for a federal indictment if they haven’t already been charged.

The same goes for teachers who push transgender ideology and critical race theory on students versus the parents who object to these things being taught behind their backs. The former are courageous leaders, the latter are potential domestic terrorists, at least according to the Biden Justice Department. Ditto for the media’s treatment of the Trump family business versus the Biden family business. None of this is hypocrisy, it’s hierarchy. The left is trying to tell you something, which is that they have all the power and you have none.

The essayist N.S. Lyons (a pseudonym) put it well in a piece last August, describing the futile efforts of Team B to call out the hypocrisy of Team A:

You see, it’s possible you are under the misapprehension that you are not supposed to notice what you described as the “double-standard” in acceptable behavior between Team A and Team B. And that you think if you point out this double-standard, you are foiling the other team’s plot and holding them accountable. This might be because, in your mind, you are still in high school debate club, where if you finger your opponent for having violated the evenly-applied rules a neutral arbiter of acceptable behavior will recognize this unfairness and penalize them with demerits.

Except in reality you are not holding Team A accountable, and in fact are notably never able to hold them accountable for anything at all. Even though Team A gets to hold you accountable for everything and anything whenever they want. This is because unfortunately there is no neutral arbiter listening to your whining. In fact, currently the only arbiter is Team A, because Team A has consolidated all the power to decide the rules, and to enforce or not enforce those rules as they see fit.

With each new Trump indictment, the left’s strategy becomes increasingly clear. It isn’t to bring real criminal charges based on actual violations of the law, or to see justice applied equally and fairly even to a powerful person like Trump. The strategy is to demonstrate power and thereby humiliate and discourage Trump supporters by showing them how powerless they are.

Another aspect of this strategy, as James Lindsay explained in a Twitter thread Tuesday, is to provoke the right into reacting. This is what Lindsay calls “leftist dialectical political warfare,” or, in Trump’s case, “Operation Poke the Bear.” The purpose of such warfare, says Lindsay, is to provoke a reaction that would justify the further consolidation of power on the left.

So expect to see more “hypocrisy” — even lazy and objectively embarrassing hypocrisy of the kind we saw this week in the Georgia indictment. It doesn’t matter how laughable or outlandish the charges against Trump are, because prosecuting actual crimes and upholding the law have nothing to do with any of this.

This is about power — who has it, and who doesn’t. The people at the top are trying to tell you, the masses under them, that they can do whatever they want to you, at any time, and there’s nothing you can do to fight back. Just look what they’re doing to Trump, a former president. If they can do that to him, imagine what they can do to you.

John Daniel Davidson is a senior editor at The Federalist. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Claremont Review of Books, The New York Post, and elsewhere. Follow him on Twitter, @johnddavidson.

Category:

Political

Tagged with:

Today’s Politically INCORRECT Cartoon by A.F. Branco

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Animal House

A.F. BRANCO | on August 15, 2023 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-animal-house-2/

Few expect President Trump to get a fair trial with the Democrats’ Kangaroo-cout syle lawfare scheme against him.

Kangaroo Trump Court Cartoon — Cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2023.

DONATE to A.F.Branco Cartoons – Tips accepted and appreciated – $1.00 – $5.00 – $25.00 – $50.00 – $100 – it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. Also Venmo @AFBranco – THANK YOU!

A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.

Category:

Political

Tagged with:

Today’s Politically INCORRECT Cartoon by A.F. Branco

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Into the Abyss

A.F. BRANCO | on August 14, 2023 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-into-the-abyss/

The Constitutional Republic Government ruled by us the people, is changing into a 3rd world Banana-Republic ruled by one party.

03 Republic CI 1080 — Cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2023.

Category:

Political

Tagged with:

Today’s Politically INCORRECT Cartoon by A.F. Branco

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Head Strong

A.F. BRANCO | on August 8, 2023 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-head-strong/

The More Jack Smith and the corrupt justice system hit Trump, the higher his poll numbers go.

Trump Polls Go Up — Cartoon by A.F. Branco.

Category:

Political

Tagged with:

Ted Cruz: Trump Indictment Is Election Tampering for 2024

By Sandy Fitzgerald | Thursday, 27 July 2023 08:59 AM EDT

Democrats “hate democracy” and are “deathly afraid” that voters will elect former President Donald Trump to return to the White House, so they are pushing for him to be indicted on various charges to keep that from happening, Sen. Ted Cruz tells Newsmax.

“They are trying to use the machinery of law enforcement to prosecute him,” the Texas Republican said on Newsmax’s “Eric Bolling The Balance” on Wednesday night. “I think these indictments are a disgrace.”

Trump last week said he got a letter from special counsel Jack Smith to inform him that he is the target of the federal investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021 events at the Capitol. The letter comes after Trump was charged and pleaded not guilty in June to a 37-count federal indictment in connection with his handling of presidential documents. Trump also pleaded not guilty in April to a 34-count indictment filed in New York through Democrat Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

The former president, now a front-runner in the campaign for the GOP’s 2024 presidential nomination, is also under investigation in Georgia concerning allegations that he tried to overturn the state’s results in the 2020 presidential election.

Cruz told Bolling that he not only believes indicting Trump in connection with the Jan. 6 protests would be an “abuse of power,” but he thinks “each of the Trump indictments we’ve seen so far are abuses of power.”

“They are politicizing the Justice Department,” the senator said. “This Department of Justice, this attorney general, this FBI is the most politicized and weaponized we’ve ever seen.”

Further, Cruz called for Attorney Merrick Garland’s impeachment and removal from office “for allowing the Department of Justice to be turned into a partisan hammer to attack the political enemies of the White House.”

About NEWSMAX TV:

NEWSMAX is the fastest-growing cable news channel in America!

Find NEWSMAX in over 100 million U.S. homes via cable/streaming – More Info Here
Watch NEWSMAX TV online – See It Here
Download the FREE NEWSMAX App on Your Smartphone to Watch Now!

Related Stories:

Category:

Political

Tagged with:

DOJ: Jack Smith Has Spent Over $9M on Trump Probe

By Sandy Fitzgerald | Friday, 07 July 2023 01:58 PM EDT

Special counsel Jack Smith, the prosecutor behind the indictment of former President Donald Trump and the investigation into sensitive national security documents being kept at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida, has spent more than $9 million since taking on the assignment late last year, according to Department of Justice figures released Friday.

Smith has spent about $5.4 million on personnel, rent, and other costs from his own budget and brought about another $3.8 million in spending by other DOJ agencies in the four months after he was picked last November to lead the investigation and other probes involving alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, reports Politico.

The report only accounts for Smith’s spending through March and does not include the period leading up to Trump’s indictment in June or the increased activity in the election investigation, as the special counsel started the process for a second Florida grand jury.

Part of the $3.8 million includes the cost for Smith’s security detail in the high-profile investigations, the report said.

When Smith was brought on, the investigations involving Trump had already been underway. He kept most of the staff that was already involved but added more prosecutors in recent months.

The report doesn’t include how much the DOJ had already spent on the probes before bringing on Smith.

The special counsel, who had headed the DOJ’s Public Integrity Section, left his job in Europe, where he was prosecuting war crimes, and returned to Washington to take over the investigations on Trump.

Meanwhile, special counsel Robert Hur, who was appointed in January to examine President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents spent $615,000 through March, with the DOJ incurring another $572,000 in expenses, according to another report.

John Durham, the special counsel appointed to examine the origins of the Russian conspiracy probe involving Trump’s first election campaign spent $1.11 million in the six months before March 31 while wrapping up his investigation of the FBI, with the DOJ adding in another $59,000.

Related Stories:

Category:

Political

Tagged with:

Rep. Gaetz: Preserve, Produce Jack Smith’s Records

By Solange Reyner | Wednesday, 14 June 2023 03:24 PM EDT

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., in a letter sent Tuesday to Attorney General Merrick Garland, requested the Department of Justice preserve and produce all records pertaining to the office of special counsel Jack Smith, calling Smith’s investigation of former President Donald Trump’s handling of classified information “highly irregular and of extraordinary public concern.”

“This information is not only of public interest in the abstract but is highly critical to the ongoing oversight work of the federal Congress,” Gaetz wrote. “While there are innumerable valid legislative purposes for this request, it should be obvious that doing due diligence in vetting an office that has apparently done no vetting of its own personnel, or worse, might affirmatively be seeking to staff with sanctioned lawyers and partisan hatchet-men (and women), is an entirely appropriate purpose and one small reason I am requesting this information.”

Trump was indicted last week on 37 felony charges of willfully retaining classified documents and obstructing justice. Smith framed the indictment as an important step for protecting democracy.

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

Gaetz in the letter claimed that Karen Gilbert, one of the prosecutors on Smith’s team, resigned in 2009 as head of the narcotics section of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida after misconduct “which DOJ stated it ‘deeply regrets’ and which cost the American taxpayer over $600,000 in a settlement.”

Gaetz added: “This misconduct was both referred to the DOJ Office of Professional Responsibility and the Florida Bar. Furthermore, Federal Election Commission records indicate that Ms. Gilbert has made thousands of dollars in donations to ‘Biden for President,’ ‘Obama for America,’ the ‘DNC Victory Fund,’ ‘Obama Victory Fund 2012,’ and associated partisan organizations.”

Gaetz also said the request should be met considering “at least 27 devices used in the Mueller probe were unlawfully wiped clean of records.”

Gaetz wants the records by July 7.

Related Stories:

Category:

Political

Tagged with:

Trump Pleads ‘Not Guilty’ to 37 Counts in Federal Hearing

By Eric Mack | Tuesday, 13 June 2023 03:51 PM EDT

Former President Donald Trump was arrested, processed, and plead “not guilty” on 37 charges related to retaining national-defense information under the Espionage Act of 1917.

“We most certainly enter a plea of not guilty,” Trump’s attorney Todd Blanche told the U.S. Magistrate Judge Jonathan Goodman in a federal court Tuesday in Miami.

The hearing was closed to cameras and live broadcasts. Trump’s former aide Walt Nauta, also charged in the case, appeared in court but was not arraigned because he does not have local counsel.

“Defiant,” Trump legal spokeswoman Alina Habba told Newsmax outside the courthouse, when asked how Trump was feeling.

“We are at a turning point in our nation’s history,” she said, reading prepared remarks outside the courthouse. “The targeted, political prosecution of a leading political opponent is the type of thing you see in dictatorships like Cuba and Venezuela.

“It is commonplace there for rival candidates to be prosecuted, persecuted, and put into jail. What is being done to President Trump should terrify all citizens of this country. These are not the ideals that our democracy is founded upon.

“This is not our America.”

CNN reported Trump was allowed to leave court without conditions or travel restrictions and no cash bond was required. Goodman ruled Trump was not allowed to communicate with potential witnesses in the case, the network said.

The indictment is the first in U.S. history of a former president and sets up a legal battle likely to play out over coming months as he campaigns to win back the presidency in a November 2024 election. Experts say it could be a year or more before a trial takes place.

Trump was to be digitally fingerprinted and have his birthdate and Social Security number taken as part of the booking process, a spokesman for the U.S. Marshals Service told The Associated Press. Trump is appearing in court to answer special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment, which alleges violation of the Espionage Age and other process crimes.

The spokesman said the former president will forgo a mugshot because enough photos of him already exist in the system — confirming what a person familiar with negotiations around the proceedings said earlier. The spokesman said that booking could take place before Trump appears in court or afterward, depending on when he arrives. He said authorities did not plan to immediately alert the media once Trump had arrived. Trump reportedly did not get a mug shot taken during his processing for his Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s indictment earlier this spring.

Security was tight outside the Wilkie D. Ferguson federal courthouse Tuesday ahead of the former president’s court appearance. Trump supporters were gathering hours before the appearance — far outnumbered by the hundreds of journalists from the U.S. and around the world who have converged on downtown Miami.

The case against him is historic but does not prohibit Trump from continuing his 2024 presidential campaign.

After the court appearance, where he could be arraigned and file his not guilty plea, Trump planned to fly to his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, to give an address and host a Trump campaign fundraiser.

The Trump campaign has set a $2 million goal for the fundraiser, which intends to line up big-dollar bundlers for his presidential run, Axios reported Monday. Trump’s campaign has intensified his fundraising efforts in the meantime, including an email Tuesday morning with the subject line: “My last email before my arraignment.”

Information from the AP was used as background for this report.

Related Stories:

Category:

Political

Tagged with:

Perspectives; Thoughts; Comments; Opinions; Discussions

Posts tagged ‘jack smith’

By: Kevin Jackson | October 7, 2025

Is anybody surprised to learn that Jack Smith is a criminal?

Now, let’s play along with their delusion.

Now let’s zoom out a bit. Jack Smith didn’t stumble into corruption.

By now, even the most hopeless Leftist barista in a Che Guevara T-shirt knows J6 was a cover-up.

The walls are closing in — but this time, on them.

The Left is cracking under its own hypocrisy.

So where does this go?

Share this:

November 28, 2024 | American Patriot

Share this:

By: Jonathan Turley | October 7, 2024

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”

Share this:

BY: MOLLIE HEMINGWAY | JULY 26, 2024

Cooney’s Checkered DOJ Record

Thwarting Election Integrity

Rabid Pursuit of Trump

Share this:

By: Jonathan Turley | July 3, 2024

Share this:

BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | JUNE 03, 2024

There’s Plenty More Where That Came From

Not Just Manhattan

Stretching the Law Past Its Breaking Point

Share this:

BY: STEVE ROBERTS AND OLIVER ROBERTS | MAY 10, 2024

Manhattan, New York: Prosecution by DA Alvin Bragg for NDA Payment

Fulton County, Georgia: Prosecution by DA Fani Willis for Questioning Election Results

Southern District of Florida: Prosecution by Biden DOJ for Handling of Classified Documents

Washington, D.C.: Prosecution by Biden DOJ for Jan. 6 Speech

New York: Lawsuit by A.G. Letitia James for Inflating Net Worth

Steve Roberts is a partner and Oliver Roberts is an associate with Holtzman Vogel Baran Torchinksy & Josefiak PLLC. They can be reached at sroberts@holtzmanvogel.com and oroberts@holtzmanvogel.com.

Share this:

BY: TRISTAN JUSTICE | MAY 06, 2024

Share this:

BY: BRIANNA LYMAN | APRIL 25, 2024

Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist.

Share this:

BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | JANUARY 02, 2024

Share this:

BY: JOHN DANIEL DAVIDSON | DECEMBER 22, 2023

Share this:

A.F. Branco Cartoon – You’re a Mean One

JUST IN: Jack Smith Ramps Up Effort to Jail Trump, Asks Supreme Court to Weigh Trump’s Immunity Argument – Here’s Why

Share this:

BY: JORDAN BOYD AND SHAWN FLEETWOOD | DECEMBER 14, 2023

1. Jack Smith

2. Letitia James

3. David Weiss

4. Joe Biden

5. Senate Republicans

6. Elite Universities

7. Los Angeles Dodgers

8. Bud Light

9. Target

10. Taylor Swift

Share this:

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Tweeters Beware

Share this:

BY: SHAWN FLEETWOOD | NOVEMBER 29, 2023

Share this:

BY: EDDIE SCARRY | SEPTEMBER 19, 2023

Eddie Scarry is the D.C. columnist at The Federalist and author of “Liberal Misery: How the Hateful Left Sucks Joy Out of Everything and Everyone.”

Share this:

BY: JOHN DANIEL DAVIDSON | AUGUST 29, 2023

Share this:

BY: JOHN DANIEL DAVIDSON | AUGUST 16, 2023

John Daniel Davidson is a senior editor at The Federalist. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Claremont Review of Books, The New York Post, and elsewhere. Follow him on Twitter, @johnddavidson.

Share this:

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Animal House

Share this:

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Into the Abyss

Share this:

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Head Strong

Share this:

By Sandy Fitzgerald | Thursday, 27 July 2023 08:59 AM EDT

Share this: