FBI search warrant executed at Mar-a-Lago (Update: Trump Indicted!)

[Torie]

So it appears that Trump is going back on Hannity's show again tonight.  What crimes will he confess to this time?

Trump shared his ax fetish on Hannity.

“That’s where Letitia James, she should focus on murder and crime in New York where they walk into stores with axes and they start swinging the axes at people,” Trump said. “That’s where she ought to be focused, not on how much is Mar-a-Lago worth.”

[Torie]

How many banker's boxes does it take to fit 200,000 pages into? Did Trump leave any documents behind at all? Why would the DOJ say 11,000 when it was really 200,000? So many questions, so few answers.

[Torie]

How many banker's boxes does it take to fit 200,000 pages into? Did Trump leave any documents behind at all? Why would the DOJ say 11,000 when it was really 200,000? So many questions, so few answers.

It's 11,000 documents that contain an estimate (per Trump's filing) of about 200,000 pages.  A banker's box holds about 4 or 5 reams of paper (2,000-2,500 pages) so it would take about 80-100 boxes.

Thanks for the clarification and knowledge of the capacity of banker's boxes.

One would think that whomever the judge designates to review the documents would be the one to ascertain and inform the judge on how realistic the time table is, rather than Trump's lawyers. Or is the idea that both the special master designee and the Trump lawyers look at everything? I am unclear on that point as well.

I would think an understanding on the number of days it would take depends on what the documents are. Documents clearly personal to Trump like his porn collection don't need much time to examine, documents that are the government's property that may be subject to executive privilege if not waived by Biden not involving a non executive third party should also  not take that long to put in the executive privilege maybe pile to be litigated (not sure why the DOJ should not have access to executive privilege documents but whatever), and then the attorney client privilege documents have already been separated, so unless an attorney's name pops up, that should not take that long either.

Give the job to me, and I will beat the deadline, I promise. 

[Torie]

Experiments in coherency can be a risky scheme.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/hawaii-avoids-direct-hit-douglas-closer-hawaii-hurricanes/story?id=72011257

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_places_on_land_with_elevations_below_sea_level#North_America

[Torie]

Yes, the DOJ still thinks Trump has sensitive documents, and one option is to demand that Trump sign a declaration under oath that he has returned everything, which would put him in a corner of course. If he refuses, that creates other interesting possibilities.

One thing that I am confused about is whether the missing documents not in their proper folders might be lying around elsewhere but inasmuch as the DOJ cannot examine everything at the moment, they cannot verify that one way of the other. If that is the case, that might be one reason why the DOJ is annoyed with Judge Cannon.

I wonder how much the DOJ knows about Trump moving boxes around as seen in those photos, and what he was doing, and what was in those boxes.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/06/us/politics/trump-white-house-documents-lawyers.html

[Torie]

https://twitter.com/maggieNYT/status/1578696918255177729

The art of the deal! 

[Torie]

I get it that the above poster dislikes the NYT. The poster says that a lot.

So far as we know, Bobb is in no legal trouble, and did not lie. She was a good enough lawyer to insert in the document that she signed that her attestation was based on the information provided to her. That information was provided by another Trump attorney, Corcoran, per a leak from the paper that the poster disdains. Corcoran did not sign anything under oath, and I am not sure he is in legal trouble either. It depends on the basis of his statement to Bobb, and whether he knew it was a lie. If Trump was the one that told Corcoran that, that does seem to be a crime committed by Trump, and that statement by Trump to Corcoran would not be privileged under the crime-fraud exception.  It is possible that Corcoran's conduct may be unethical, in which event his legal license may be at risk. We shall see.

[Torie]

A nice summary of the state of prosecution play at the DOJ, including the matter of whether or not to have install a special prosecutor if Trump announces for POTUS shortly after the election, and the issue of beating Trump to the punch as it were by indicting him before he declares. Myself, if Trump declares this November, it is more about his viewing that as a shield from the DOJ than anything else, at least as to the timing of his announcement.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/03/politics/doj-trump-investigation-expansion-special-counsel/index.html

[Torie]

Andy McCarthy thinks the DOJ indicting Trump is now a done deal. Why? It's a game of 3-D chess in his Byzantine mind. You see, the Trump lifeline was that Biden-Dem world wants to keep Trump alive and politically viable so he gets the Pub nomination again. Prosecuting him is inimical to that. But then Trump went after DeSantis and Youngkin, and that ended his viability to securing the nomination. The damage he did to the Pubs in the midterms is just frosting on the cake. His deranged attack on the twin new Pub stars is not.

So now Biden world can't have Trump to kick around no matter how much they might want it. He's politically dead now. So there is no reason now to hold back. And yes, it will be papergate. The other paths are too legally problematical. But then I already told you all that.

Warning: the article is long and convoluted.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/11/trump-makes-his-indictment-a-certainty/

[Torie]

I think this is a good decision, and I'm surprised it hasn't happened before now.  It will remove any accusations against Garland for the decision to indict (or not) being politically motivated, and a special counsel investigation is more transparent than an ordinary DOJ one.  For one thing, the special counsel is required to submit a report to Congress explaining their findings and decisions.

Garland had to do it, inasmuch as his boss says he intends to run for re-election and Trump is running. I do think Trump announced to force this. I don't think it will be mitigate his exposure however. In fact, it may enhance it.

[Torie]

Good thread here from Renato Mariotti, a former federal prosecutor:  https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1593708363828940807.html

You just like it because he agrees with you.  

Moving right along, I also largely agree with it, except for the bit about it being a mistake to appoint a special prosecutor earlier. That gives Trump a gravitas that I don't think there was a compelling reason to give him. Plus, when he's running triggered the move, it actually gives an appearance of even more fairness. This assumes of course that Smith is an excellent choice, and I think he is.

I very much admire Garland. He is smart, careful, analytical, understated, disciplined, and fair. My kind of guy. Garland for POTUS!

[Torie]

https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1593732858966904833

This speech was probably written by someone for him to read with his voluminous off the cuff insertions at the same time as his announcement speech.

Mr. Trump, meet Mr. Smith. The latter's surname is prosaic, even duller than my boring surname, but his image is not. If I were you (God loves me just enough perhaps even if I don't love him, so I not you, praise the Lord), I would be sweating like a pig now next to a live lava flow in the tropics.

[Torie]

Andy McCarthy has a byzantine mind, but one in touch with reality I think rather than fantasy or paranoia.

1. As long as Trump is a viable candidate to get the Pub nomination, it is in the political interests of Biden not to indict, the better to have the loser candidate to kick around some more.

2. So in that sense there is no conflict of interest, or the conflict is to just string things out until Trump is no longer viable or gets the nomination.

3. Special Prosecutors look independent but they are still answerable to the DOJ and POTUS so the shield is more for appearances sake rather than reality.

4. However the appointment of the Special Prosecutor is really not in Biden's interest because it puts more pressure to appoint a Special Prosecutor  for the Joe and Hunter Biden investigation, where Garland so far has refused to appoint a Special Prosecutor, and where there is a real and profound conflict of interest, since the charge is that both Bidens financially profited by selling political influence, contacts and information.

It's wheels within wheels within wheels. The House of course will investigate the Bidens now, no doubt ineffectually, but the idea I guess might to ratchet up the pressure some more for a Special Prosecutor assuming nothing further is coming from Garland as to where the investigation is going and why.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/11/an-ironic-special-counsel-for-trump/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=hero&utm_content=related&utm_term=first

And then there is this incredible piece that Andy put out today. After observing that Trump's brain is going downhill ala Biden which together with having no one around to curb his reckless and self destructive impulses (while the superego is the first to go, the id is the last to go), Andy lists a host of other crimes that Trump may well have committed in addition to the host of ones we already know about. It is enough to make one's head spin.

The crimes involve 1) siccing the IRS on his enemies that he fired, the FBI director Comey and his deputy McCabe, allegedly utterly random audits, but both happened in the years that they were fired, 2017 (a one out of 30,600 chance to get randomly audited) and 2019 (a 19,250 chance) respectively (if uncorrelated events as they should be if truly random, about a one out of 589 million chance), 2) multiple securities fraud raps connected with trying to access public money for Truth Social and further enrich Trump, and 3)  strong arming private investors to turn over some of their stakes to Trump's wife and sons. The securities fraud discussion and all of the unseemly Wall Street games that are played to screw the public legally while enriching insiders, is a fascinating read, at least for a brain as twisted as mine.

Enjoy.

Oh yes, Andy does not think Trump has been good for the Pub party. Who knew?

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/11/the-trump-investigations-mount/

[Torie]

No reason to bring up a poster's name here. Give the poster a chance to hear the argument oral among other things. That said, what Trump wants simply has no nexus to legal procedure in the regular order. It is tempting for some to get away from the foreplay of procedure to skip to the substance of what is the purpose of the foreplay. That impulse in the is very often the equivalent of legal malpractice, and that is being diplomatic about it. The lack of jurisdiction (how boring is that?), is the silver bullet for the DOJ. And it's fatal.

The oral argument:

https://www.ca11.uscourts.gov/oral-argument-recordings

The question for the DOJ guy is an exercise of the exploration of the lacunae of procedure. I leave it to others to characterize what happened to the Trump lawyer.  However, the lawyer saying that while there is no case supporting Trump's position  .... and so it goes.

[Torie]

https://twitter.com/SpiroAgnewGhost/status/1600555919477133312
A storage unit???

More classified stuff? Buh her e-mails!

That is on the mainland, and I don't think a storage unit was ever mentioned before. I wonder why Trump was not subpoenaed on this to get him to lie under oath, or take the 5th. Mr. president, in what locations did you store documents that were taken from the White House?

Trump would not be caught dead himself in a place as downmarket as W Palm Beach.

[Torie]

https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/08/politics/doj-trump-contempt-classified-documents/index.html

The Justice Department is asking a federal judge to hold Donald Trump in contempt of court for failing to comply with a subpoena issued this summer ordering the former president to turn over records marked classified, two sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

The development comes after Trump’s legal team said it conducted searches at four locations just before Thanksgiving, finding two documents with classified markings at a storage facility in Florida. The Trump team turned over those two documents to the FBI and announced to a federal judge in Washington, DC, that they believed Trump was now in compliance with a 6-month-old subpoena.

But the Justice Department disagreed. And in an escalation last week, department prosecutors told DC District Chief Judge Beryl Howell, who oversees federal grand jury proceedings there, that the searches weren’t satisfactory. The contempt proceedings before Howell are under seal.

Good. Hopefully he goes to jail for this too, as a little appetizer.

But that excerpt is interesting - does it mean the DoJ thinks that there are yet more documents out there?

It probably means that there are classified documents that were in Trump's custody in the White House per inventory lists or logs or whatever, which are still missing. This could all be resolved if Trump would just fess up that he destroyed those documents, or handed them over to Putin, or whatever.

[Torie]

https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/08/politics/doj-trump-contempt-classified-documents/index.html

The Justice Department is asking a federal judge to hold Donald Trump in contempt of court for failing to comply with a subpoena issued this summer ordering the former president to turn over records marked classified, two sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

The development comes after Trump’s legal team said it conducted searches at four locations just before Thanksgiving, finding two documents with classified markings at a storage facility in Florida. The Trump team turned over those two documents to the FBI and announced to a federal judge in Washington, DC, that they believed Trump was now in compliance with a 6-month-old subpoena.

But the Justice Department disagreed. And in an escalation last week, department prosecutors told DC District Chief Judge Beryl Howell, who oversees federal grand jury proceedings there, that the searches weren’t satisfactory. The contempt proceedings before Howell are under seal.

Good. Hopefully he goes to jail for this too, as a little appetizer.

But that excerpt is interesting - does it mean the DoJ thinks that there are yet more documents out there?

It probably means that there are classified documents that were in Trump's custody in the White House per inventory lists or logs or whatever, which are still missing. This could all be resolved if Trump would just fess up that he destroyed those documents, or handed them over to Putin, or whatever.

The wording in this other CNN article is very specific:

Trump attorneys had received word in early November from Justice officials who said they believed the former president still had documents in his possession and asking his legal team to ensure that was not the case.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/09/politics/justice-department-trump-classified-documents/index.html

That indicates they believe the documents aren't just missing, but that Trump actually has them (or had them in early November).

It depends on what is the basis of the belief. Whatever the basis, it's under seal, and thus we can both speculate. Who do you think fingered Trump on this?

[Torie]

Former US Attorney on MTP
Trump to be charged within a month
https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/3770793-former-us-attorney-predicts-doj-on-a-path-to-charge-trump/

I would be kind of surprised if it happens that quickly considering the special counsel only recently came on board, but given that the investigation was already well advanced I guess it's possible.

A Trump indictment would see Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on a glide path to the GOP 2024 Presidential Nomination as he would instantly inherit almost all of the Trump Base Voters so I hope this happens.

Why do you believe that a Trump indictment would hurt him in the primary? Who would have an indictment as their final straw?

A tangible number of people I think, even among GOP primary voters.

Counselor, and former prosecutor, assuming Trump is indicted in the next couple of months over papergate (Jan 6 I don't think is in play, or trying to turn Georgia electors, etc), how long would one expect until a trial? It seems to me Trump will either be convicted or not prior to the 2024 primary season. Criminal cases don't consume Dickensonian amounts of time to resolve do they? And papergate, famous last words, I don't think is that convoluted a case.

Absent your comments to the contrary, I would thin the odds are low that papergate will still be twisting slowly, slowly in the wind, when it comes time for the voters to point their thumbs up or down.

If convicted on papergate, do you have an opinion as to the odds that Trump will spend some time in Club Fed, or will he just be fined, put on parole, with a lecture from the judge that he was a naughty boy, and should sin no more?

[Torie]

This article explains most trenchantly just why and how Trump, who was previously close to a dead man walking legally, over the classified documents affair, now due to Biden's antics, and possible attempted cover-up, is now very likely to skate, and thus get a new lease on life as to his ambitions to retake the throne. Sad!

https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2023/02/20/bidens-classified-documents-scandal-will-save-trump-from-his/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=top-of-nav&utm_content=hero-module

Oh yes, Biden's stonewalling on all of this, and refusing to answer any questions, is itself very troubling. Maybe he can get away with it, but I hope not.

[Torie]

When will we know if Corcoran threw Trump under the bus today?

https://www.mediaite.com/tv/thats-gonna-be-devastating-former-u-s-attorney-reacts-to-trump-lawyer-testifying-before-grand-jury/

This guy Litman actually thinks that Corcoran's conversations with Trump were recorded. That seems implausible to me. In any event, Litman is certainly very excited by it all - downright giddy.

It does seem like the period of the deposition of  over 3 hours would be excessively long if Corcoran took the 5th the whole time or refused to answer.

[Torie]

This guy Litman actually thinks that Corcoran's conversations with Trump were recorded. That seems implausible to me. In any event, Litman is certainly very excited by it all - downright giddy.

ABC reported there were recordings. He didn't make it up.

Sources added that Howell also ordered Corcoran to hand over a number of records tied to what Howell described as Trump's alleged "criminal scheme," echoing prosecutors. Those records include handwritten notes, invoices, and transcriptions of personal audio recordings.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/sources-special-counsel-claims-trump-deliberately-misled-attorneys/story?id=98024191

OK. Why on earth would Trump allow his lawyer to record him? I wonder if Trump knew if it was by phone.

[Torie]

https://twitter.com/BretBaier/status/1642858674652696576

What would they know? They overheard Trump mouthing off in anger incriminating himself? They're mine, their mine, they have no right to know that I have them, and they are not taking them from me except from my cold dead hands!

[Torie]

https://twitter.com/BretBaier/status/1642858674652696576

What would they know? They overheard Trump mouthing off in anger incriminating himself? They're mine, their mine, they have no right to know that I have them, and they are not taking them from me except from my cold dead hands!

Speculation: it might be related to the report upthread that Smith has evidence that Trump went through the boxes after receiving the grand jury subpoena.  (And did what? That's a very key question.)

Yes, although would the agents really be in the room to watch Trump separate the docs into two piles, the OK to turn them over pile, and the hide them pile because he really wanted to keep them, he loved them so much. Trump culling the docs himself to decide which to purloin and lie about is not a very good luck to a jury.

https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/3930885-doj-has-more-evidence-of-possible-trump-obstruction-in-classified-documents-case-washington-post/

[Torie]

Looking at that video, Trump really has lost it. It was painful to watch. I had a right to take those documents. They're mine, they're mine, all mine! Trump freaked when Hannity said of course you didn't look at the documents in the boxes, when of course he had. That is why they were strewn all over the floor, among other things.

[Torie]

Looking at that video, Trump really has lost it. It was painful to watch. I had a right to take those documents. They're mine, they're mine, all mine! Trump freaked when Hannity said of course you didn't look at the documents in the boxes, when of course he had. That is why they were strewn all over the floor, among other things.

It is just another case where Trump is (potentially) blatantly incriminating himself. He has done this many times, so far he has somehow managed to avoid being bitten. Maybe it will eventually actually catch up to him.

Trump knows it is not a crime to spin out crazy legal theories (like he has a right to the documents) or to lie like a rug, if not under oath, and does so with regularity because he is a sociopath. Someone ratted on him about culling the documents to decide which ones he would decide to secret.

If you have the stomach for it, you can read the transcript of Trump's call to Raffensperger, where he goes utterly nutter spinning out every conspiracy theory known to man, and making sh*t up, until finally Meadows cuts him off after he sounds like Captain Queeg talking about the stolen strawberry conspiracy for too long a time on the stand. He really is a sociopath. That is not hyperbole, much less "extreme hyperbole."  It's a calm and considered statement of fact.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/03/politics/trump-brad-raffensperger-phone-call-transcript/index.html