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‘He’s Gonna Get Charged’: Experts Predict Obstruction and Espionage Act Charges for Trump Based on Bombshell WaPo Report

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Citing a just-published Washington Post report, top legal experts are predicting the U.S. Dept. of Justice will charge Donald Trump, and those charges will include obstruction and violations of the Espionage Act.

The Washington Post Thursday afternoon reported the ex-president had classified documents unprotected in his Mar-a-Lago office, showed classified documents to people visiting his Mar-a-Lago office, and held a “dress rehearsal” for moving documents around even before receiving a DOJ subpoena, and before the FBI executed a search warrant to retrieve classified and top secret documents.

“Two of Donald Trump’s employees moved boxes of papers the day before FBI agents and a prosecutor visited the former president’s Florida home to retrieve classified documents in response to a subpoena — timing that investigators have come to view as suspicious and an indication of possible obstruction, according to people familiar with the matter,” The Washington Post report reads.

“Trump and his aides also allegedly carried out a ‘dress rehearsal’ for moving sensitive papers even before his office received the May 2022 subpoena, according to the people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a sensitive ongoing investigation.”

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“Prosecutors in addition have gathered evidence indicating that Trump at times kept classified documents in his office in a place where they were visible and sometimes showed them to others, these people said.”

Ryan Goodman, an NYU School of Law professor of law, and international and national security law expert, pointed to that last sentence from the Post and wrote, “I expect this will result in Espionage Act charges. Dissemination is key.”

MSNBC anchor and legal contributor Katie Phang, responding to the Washington Post report, tweeted one word in all-caps: “OBSTRUCTION.”

But Goodman goes even further.

“The reported facts are now far beyond just an obstruction case,” he says. “Willfully disseminating to third parties is also easily distinguishable from Pence, Biden, other instances in which DOJ has declined to prosecute.”

Goodman adds: “Trump’s reported conduct of RETAINING classified documents is already more serious than average case in which Justice Department DOES indict. COMMUNICATING or TRANSMITTING classified documents to third parties is considered much more egregious.”

Further dissecting the Washington Post’s report, Goodman finds an “interesting detail.”

“A second employee who help Walt Nauta move boxes into storage room a day before FBI visit on June 3,” he writes. “The next day… ‘the employee helped Nauta pack an SUV ‘when former president Trump left for Bedminster.'”

That, Goodman suggests, points to both obstruction and willful retention.

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Former U.S. Attorney and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Harry Litman, a frequent MSNBC guest, pointed to the portion of the Post’s report that said Trump showed classified documents to others.

“That could be a whole new crime if evidence is solid,” he said on Twitter.

Attorney, author, and former diplomat Norm Eisen, a board chair of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a former White House Special Counsel, and former co-counsel for Trump’s first impeachment, also weighed in.

“I helped draft the classified document handling rules that Trump violated,” Eisen said via Twitter.

“And I know this,” he added. “He’s gonna get charged if he was part of a dress rehearsal for moving the boxes & if he showed classified docs as WaPo reports.”

Meanwhile, Goodman’s earlier remarks also build on his prior claims.

Earlier this week he said that Dept. of Justice Special Counsel Jack Smith had struck “gold” after obtaining the contemporaneous notes of a Trump attorney who counseled the ex-president on his possibly unlawful removal, retention, and refusal to return hundreds of classified documents from the White House.

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“Special Counsel Smith strikes gold,” tweeted Goodman, himself a former Special Counsel at the U.S. Dept. of Defense, and the founding co-editor-in-chief of Just Security, an NYU website on U.S. national security law and policy.

“Moving boxes of documents the *day before* the FBI and DOJ came to visit?” observed former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti. “It’s easy to see why Special Counsel Jack Smith and his team are very suspicious. It sure looks like an indictment in the Mar-a-Lago investigation is likely.”

The government watchdog CREW simply responded to the Post’s report, saying, “This is a big one.”

 

 

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‘To Do God Knows What’: Local Elections Official Reads Lara Trump the Riot Act

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April 25, 2024

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The county clerk for Ingham County, Michigan blasted Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump after the ex-president’s daughter-in-law bragged the RNC will have people to “physically handle” voters’ ballots in polling locations across the country this November.

“We now have the ability at the RNC not just to have poll watchers, people standing in polling locations, but people who can physically handle the ballots,” Trump told Newsmax host Eric Bolling this week, as NCRM reported.

“Will these people, will they be allowed to physically handle the ballots as well, Lara?” Bolling asked.

“Yup,” Trump replied.

Marc Elias, the top Democratic elections attorney who won 63 of the 64 lawsuits filed by the Donald Trump campaign in the 2020 election cycle (the one he did not win was later overturned), corrected Lara Trump.

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“Poll observers are NEVER permitted to touch ballots. She is suggesting the RNC will infiltrate election offices,” Elias warned on Wednesday.

Barb Byrum, a former Michigan Democratic state representative with a law degree and a local hardware store, is the Ingham County Clerk, and thus the chief elections official for her county. She slammed Lara Trump and warned her the RNC had better not try to touch any ballots in her jurisdiction.

“I watched your video, and it’s riveting stuff. But if you think you’ll be touching ballots in my state, you’ve got another thing coming,” Byrum told Trump in response to the Newsmax interview.

“First and foremost, precinct workers, clerks, and voters are the only people authorized to touch ballots. For example, I am the County Clerk, and I interact with exactly one voted ballot: My own,” Byrum wrote, launching a lengthy series of social media posts educating Trump.

“Election inspectors are hired by local clerks in Michigan and we hire Democrats and Republicans to work in our polling places. We’re required by law to do so,” she continued. “In large cities and townships, the local clerks train those workers. In smaller cities and townships, that responsibility falls to County Clerks, like me.”

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She explained, “precinct workers swear an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Michigan.”

“Among the provisions in the Michigan Constitution is the right to a secret ballot for our voters,” she added.

Byrum also educated Trump on her inaccurate representation of the consent decree, which was lifted by a court, not a judge’s death, as Lara Trump had claimed.

“It’s important for folks to understand what you’re talking about: The end of a consent decree that was keeping the RNC from intimidating and suppressing voters (especially in minority-majority areas).”

“With that now gone, you’re hoping for the RNC to step up their game and get people that you train to do god-knows what into the polling places.”

Byrum also warned Trump: “If election inspectors are found to be disrupting the process of an orderly election OR going outside their duties, local clerks are within their rights to dismiss them immediately.”

“So if you intend to train these 100,000 workers to do anything but their sacred constitutional obligation, they’ll find themselves on the curb faster than you can say ‘election interference.'”

READ MORE: ‘Blood on Your Hands’: Tennessee Republicans OK Arming Teachers After Deadly School Shooting

 

 

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Gag Order Breach? Trump Targeted Cohen in Taped Interview Hours Before Contempt Hearing

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April 24, 2024

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Hours before his attorneys would mount a defense on Tuesday claiming he had not violated his gag order Donald Trump might have done just that in a 12-minute taped interview that morning, which did not air until later that day. It will be up to Judge Juan Merchan to make that decision, if prosecutors add it to their contempt request.

Prosecutors in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office told Judge Juan Merchan that the ex-president violated the gag order ten times, via posts on his Truth Social platform, and are asking he be held in contempt. While the judge has yet to rule, he did not appear moved by their arguments. At one point, Judge Merchan told Trump’s lead lawyer Todd Blanche he was “losing all credibility” with the court.

And while Judge Merchan directed defense attorneys to provide a detailed timeline surrounding Trump’s Truth Social posts to prove he had not violated the gag order, Trump in an interview with a local television station appeared to have done so.

READ MORE: ‘They Will Have Thugs?’: Lara Trump’s Claim RNC Will ‘Physically Handle the Ballots’ Stuns

The gag order bars Trump from “commenting or causing others to comment on potential witnesses in the case, prospective jurors, court staff, lawyers in the district attorney’s office and the relatives of any counsel or court staffer, as CBS News reported.

“The threat is very real,” Judge Merchan wrote when he expanded the gag order. “Admonitions are not enough, nor is reliance on self-restraint. The average observer, must now, after hearing Defendant’s recent attacks, draw the conclusion that if they become involved in these proceedings, even tangentially, they should worry not only for themselves, but for their loved ones as well. Such concerns will undoubtedly interfere with the fair administration of justice and constitutes a direct attack on the Rule of Law itself.”

Tuesday morning, Trump told ABC Philadelphia’s Action News reporter Walter Perez, “Michael Cohen is a convicted liar. He’s got no credibility whatsoever.”

He repeated that Cohen is a “convicted liar,” and insisted he “was a lawyer for many people, not just me.”

READ MORE: ‘Old and Tired and Mad’: Trump’s Demeanor in Court Detailed by Rachel Maddow

Since Cohen is a witness in Trump’s New York criminal case, Judge Merchan might decide Trump’s remarks during that interview violated the gag order, if prosecutors bring the video to his attention.

Enter attorney George Conway, who has been attending Trump’s New York trial.

Conway reposted a clip of the video, tagged Manhattan District Attorney Bragg, writing: “cc: @ManhattanDA, for your proposed order to show cause why the defendant in 𝘗𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘷. 𝘛𝘳𝘶𝘮𝘱 should not spend some quiet time in lockup.”

Trump has been criminally indicted in four separate cases and is facing a total of 88 felony charges, including 34 in this New York criminal trial for alleged falsification of business records to hide payments of “hush money” to an adult film actress and one other woman, in an alleged effort to suppress their stories and protect his 2016 presidential campaign, which experts say is election interference.

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Blood on Your Hands’: Tennessee Republicans OK Arming Teachers After Deadly School Shooting

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‘Blood on Your Hands’: Tennessee Republicans OK Arming Teachers After Deadly School Shooting

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2 days ago

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April 23, 2024

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Republicans in the Tennessee House passed legislation Tuesday afternoon allowing teachers to carry concealed weapons in classrooms across the state, thirteen months after a 28-year old shooter slaughtered three children and three adults at a Christian elementary school in Nashville.

The measure is reportedly not popular statewide, with Democrats, teachers, and parents from the school, Covenant Elementary, largely opposed. The Republican Speaker of the House, Cameron Sexton, at one point literally shut down debate on the bill by shutting off a Democratic lawmaker’s microphone and then smiling.

Ultimately, Republican Rep. Ryan Williams’s legislation passed the GOP majority House as protestors in the gallery shouted their objections: “Blood on your hands.”

READ MORE: Trump Complains He’s ‘Not Allowed to Talk’ as He Gripes Live on Camera

The legislation bars parents from being informed if their child’s teacher has a gun in the classroom.

State Troopers were called to “prevent people from getting close to the House chambers,” WSMV’s Marissa Sulek reports.

“You’re going to kill kids,” one woman had yelled at Rep. Williams from the gallery on Monday, The Tennessean reports. “You’re going to be responsible for the death of children. Shame on you.”

READ MORE: Biden Campaign Hammers Trump Over Infamous COVID Comment

Democratic state Rep. Justin Jones said on social media, “This is what fascism looks like.”

“In recent weeks,” the paper also reports, “parents of school shooting survivors, students and gun-reform advocates have heavily lobbied against the bill, with one Covenant School mom delivering a letter to the House on Monday with more than 5,300 signatures asking lawmakers to kill the bill.”

The bill, which already passed the state Senate, now heads to Republican Governor Bill Lee’s desk. He is expected to sign it into law.

Watch the videos above or at this link.

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