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

[emailking]

Unfortunately, sounds like this is just Trump's lawyers' opinions of the evidence against Corcoran. Since the Feds are looking for a crime-fraud exception with this guy, hopefully this means they believe Trump instructed him to do whatever he did that was illegal. (which I guess probably is telling Bobb that there were no other class docs at MAL)

[emailking]

How a box with classified documents ended up in Trump’s office months after FBI searched Mar-a-Lago

The Justice Department wants to know how a box containing a handful of classified records scattered among copies of presidential schedules turned up at Mar-a-Lago late last year, well after several rounds of searches of the property by federal agents and aides to former President Donald Trump, according to people familiar with the matter.

Investigators working for special counsel Jack Smith in recent weeks have interviewed a Trump aide who copied classified materials found in the box using her phone to put them onto a laptop. After a voluntary interview with the aide, prosecutors subpoenaed the password to the laptop, which she provided, according to one of the sources.

The classified documents contained in the box were discovered in December, after the Justice Department told Trump’s legal team to conduct yet another search for documents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/24/politics/trump-classified-documents-maralago-eluded-fbi/index.html

[Meclazine for Israel]

How things can change.

2022 vs 2023

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CnU6y7YIGc1/

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Lesson for RS they are doing the same thing as they did under Boehher while he sat on Minimum wage increase when there was no Benghazi that RS are not dealing with inflation at the same time they are investigating Hunter Laptop Biden only leads Trump and DeSantis 52/48 in the PVI and by 30pts in CA

The public doesn't care that much about Docugate Trump has three pending indictments


Biden isn't gonna blow out Trump and DeSantis until Eday like Obama did because income inequality Trumps corruptiom and RS have always been more corrupt than Ds Reagan Iran Contra and Nixon Watergate and Trump Russia collusion with Eday 2016

He is level pegging Obama 52/48 in You Gov and PPP

The RS only got us on Lewinsky that's it and Foley, Craig, Vitter and Ensign cost RS the 2008/12 Edays because they did the samething and Coleman Lost in MN where R conversation was with corrupt Palin and site of Craig

[emailking]

Showdown before the raid: FBI agents and prosecutors argued over Trump

Months of disputes between Justice Department prosecutors and FBI agents over how best to try to recover classified documents from Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club and residence led to a tense showdown near the end of July last year, according to four people familiar with the discussions.

Prosecutors argued that new evidence suggested Trump was knowingly concealing secret documents at his Palm Beach, Fla., home and urged the FBI to conduct a surprise raid at the property. But two senior FBI officials who would be in charge of leading the search resisted the plan as too combative and proposed instead to seek Trump’s permission to search his property, according to the four people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a sensitive investigation.

Prosecutors ultimately prevailed in that dispute, one of several previously unreported clashes in a tense tug of war between two arms of the Justice Department over how aggressively to pursue a criminal investigation of a former president. The FBI conducted an unprecedented raid on Aug. 8, recovering more than 100 classified items, among them a document describing a foreign government’s military defenses, including its nuclear capabilities.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/03/01/fbi-dispute-trump-mar-a-lago-raid/

[brucejoel99]

Showdown before the raid: FBI agents and prosecutors argued over Trump

Months of disputes between Justice Department prosecutors and FBI agents over how best to try to recover classified documents from Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club and residence led to a tense showdown near the end of July last year, according to four people familiar with the discussions.

Prosecutors argued that new evidence suggested Trump was knowingly concealing secret documents at his Palm Beach, Fla., home and urged the FBI to conduct a surprise raid at the property. But two senior FBI officials who would be in charge of leading the search resisted the plan as too combative and proposed instead to seek Trump’s permission to search his property, according to the four people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a sensitive investigation.

Prosecutors ultimately prevailed in that dispute, one of several previously unreported clashes in a tense tug of war between two arms of the Justice Department over how aggressively to pursue a criminal investigation of a former president. The FBI conducted an unprecedented raid on Aug. 8, recovering more than 100 classified items, among them a document describing a foreign government’s military defenses, including its nuclear capabilities.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/03/01/fbi-dispute-trump-mar-a-lago-raid/

https://twitter.com/petestrzok/status/1630919361564164096

[emailking]

As 2024 race begins, special counsel advances with focus on Trump lawyers
Prosecutors have sought information from multiple attorneys and senior aides to the former president, triggering new legal battles

Federal prosecutors investigating efforts to overturn the 2020 election have asked witnesses extensive questions about the actions of Rudy Giuliani, a lawyer for former president Donald Trump — including where he got his information about alleged fraud, what he did in the days around Jan. 6, 2021, and what he knew about the actions coming that day, people who have appeared in front of the grand jury say.

Investigators looking into classified documents taken to Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida home and private club, have sought to force testimony from another Trump lawyer, Evan Corcoran, by saying there is evidence that the former president used the attorney’s legal services in furtherance of a crime.

And prosecutors have repeatedly sought information on the actions of yet another Trump lawyer, Boris Epshteyn, in connection with both classified documents and Trump’s false electors scheme, three people said. They have quizzed multiple Trump attorneys involved with the documents case, including Christina Bobb, Alina Habba and Jesse Binnall, according to the people familiar with the investigation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/03/03/trump-documents-jan6-investigation-lawyers/

[emailking]

Dozens of Mar-a-Lago staff, from servers to aides, are subpoenaed in classified documents probe

At least two dozen people – from Mar-a-Lago resort staff to members of Donald Trump’s inner circle at the Florida estate – have been subpoenaed to testify to a federal grand jury that’s investigating the former president’s handling of classified documents, multiple sources familiar with the investigation told CNN.

On Thursday, Trump’s communications aide Margo Martin, who worked in the White House and then moved with Trump to Florida, appeared before the grand jury in Washington, DC. One of special counsel Jack Smith’s senior-most prosecutors was involved in the interview.

Martin, who is among a small group of former White House advisers who have remained employed by Trump after he left office, declined to answer any questions when approached by a CNN reporter.

Smith has sought testimony from a range of people close to Trump – from his own attorneys who represent him in the matter to staffers who work on the grounds of Mar-a-Lago, including a housekeeper and restaurant servers, sources said.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/16/politics/mar-a-lago-trump-subpoenas/index.html

[emailking]

Investigators seek to question attorney about phone call with Trump in classified docs probe: Sources
Special counsel Jack Smith wants to force Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran to testify.

Special counsel Jack Smith is pushing to question an attorney for former President Donald Trump about an alleged phone call the two held as investigators were building evidence about Trump's potential obstruction of the government's efforts to retrieve classified materials that he had retained after leaving the White House, sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.

Smith in recent weeks has pressed for a federal judge in Washington, D.C., to pierce attorney-client privilege and force Trump attorney Evan Corcoran to testify, according to those sources, about a June 24, 2022, phone call that investigators believe Corcoran held with Trump.

The alleged call would have been on the same day that investigators subpoenaed the Trump Organization for surveillance footage from Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort as the government grew suspicious that Trump continued to hold onto classified materials even after one of his attorneys asserted in a sworn statement that he had complied with a subpoena requesting any remaining documents in his possession.

It's not immediately clear how Smith's investigators learned of the call, or why they have zeroed in on it as part of their investigation into potential obstruction by Trump and his legal team.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/investigators-seek-question-attorney-phone-call-trump-classified/story?id=97909853

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/rgoodlaw/status/1636809937580900353

[emailking]

That means the judge found it was more likely than not that Trump and his lawyer conspired to commit a crime. Wow.

[emailking]

https://twitter.com/Jose_Pagliery/status/1636942725378453506

[All Along The Watchtower]

https://twitter.com/oy_mongoose/status/1636980246376337409?s=20

[I Will Not Be Wrong]

Federal Judge is now convinced that ..."Trump used his attorney in furtherance of a crime..."

https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/21/politics/corcoran-trump-testimony/index.html

I am not sure if this article is about the same subject, but apparently a special counsel claims that Trump lied to his own attorneys!

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

[emailking]

Yes ABC reported it first and CNN confirmed it.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

The news hasn't spent much time on how we're now on Trump's fourth "criminal lawyer", with Trump's self-generated claim that he's about to be indicted/arrested taking up most of the oxygen in recent days. However, there is still some coverage, including the revelation that Corcoran was taping his conversations with Trump.


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

Prosecutors in the special counsel's office have presented compelling preliminary evidence that former President Donald Trump knowingly and deliberately misled his own attorneys about his retention of classified materials after leaving office, a former top federal judge wrote Friday in a sealed filing, according to sources who described its contents to ABC News.

In her sealed filing, Howell ordered that Evan Corcoran, an attorney for Trump, should comply with a grand jury subpoena for testimony on six separate lines of inquiry over which he had previously asserted attorney-client privilege.

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.

It seems like lying to your lawyers so they'll conceal a crime you committed ought to run afoul of the law at some point.

[emailking]

Trump lawyer must turn over evidence on classified documents, court rules
Federal appeals court weighed in on battle over whether Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran must provide notes, transcripts and other documents

A federal appeals court has ruled that a lawyer for Donald Trump must provide notes, transcripts and other evidence to prosecutors investigating how classified documents remained at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago home months after a subpoena to return all sensitive files, according to court records and people familiar with the matter.

The panel of three judges issued a brief order Wednesday afternoon directing the parties “to comply with the district court’s March 17, 2023, order to produce documents” and ending an emergency hold on a ruling last week by a lower-court judge.

Trump’s legal team had appealed that ruling, which said the lawyer, Evan Corcoran, must provide evidence to prosecutors because his legal services may have been used to facilitate a possible crime — obstruction of government attempts to recover highly sensitive documents — according to people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sealed court proceedings.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/03/22/trump-appeal-lawyer-classified-documents/



Appeals court moved at light speed here.

[emailking]

Trump attorney to testify Friday in Mar-a-Lago classified documents investigation after losing appeal

Former President Donald Trump’s defense attorney Evan Corcoran is scheduled to testify Friday before the grand jury investigating classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago after a new order from a federal appeals court, a source familiar with the matter told CNN.

The US DC Court of Appeals said that Corcoran must provide additional testimony and turn over documents about the former president as part of the criminal investigation into possible mishandling of classified documents.

The source said Trump’s side is unlikely to appeal to the Supreme Court.

The announcement from a panel of three judges in the appeals court – less than a day after Trump sought to put Corcoran’s testimony on hold – adds momentum to the special counsel investigation as it seeks to secure evidence that could make or break a federal criminal case against Trump.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/22/politics/evan-corcoran-trump-lawyer-appeals-court/index.html

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

The appeal on Corcoran's evidence and testimony appears to have gone at the court equivalent of transluminal speed. Do we know why?

It seems possible it could be related to national security concerns, or perhaps there's some timing issue I'm unaware of, or maybe the courts are just tired of Trump's bad faith delays.

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/JRubinBlogger/status/1638673289135415299

[emailking]

The appeal on Corcoran's evidence and testimony appears to have gone at the court equivalent of transluminal speed. Do we know why?

It seems possible it could be related to national security concerns, or perhaps there's some timing issue I'm unaware of, or maybe the courts are just tired of Trump's bad faith delays.

I found this opinion on that from yesterday.

https://twitter.com/harrylitman/status/1638380847580741641

[emailking]

NY Times is reporting Corcoran won't take the 5th.

Mr. Corcoran, who testified before the grand jury earlier this year, is set to appear before the grand jury again on Friday in compliance with rulings from both Judge Howell and the appeals court. According to two people familiar with the events, he is not intending to invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination when he testifies, underscoring that he is not the target of the special counsel’s scrutiny.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/23/us/politics/trump-documents-special-counsel-grand-jury.html

So that means he will testify substantively and moreover doesn't think he has criminal exposure. So that's very bad for Trump. Because his testimony must be that Trump told him there were no more documents.

[Crumpets]

So, I haven't been following all the ins and outs of this story, but I feel like I should ask this question sooner rather than later: Who is Corcoran? Was he the lawyer who affirmed that all the classified docs had been turned over and none were left at Mar-a-Lago?

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

So, I haven't been following all the ins and outs of this story, but I feel like I should ask this question sooner rather than later: Who is Corcoran? Was he the lawyer who affirmed that all the classified docs had been turned over and none were left at Mar-a-Lago?

Corcoran was a college buddy of Trumpist DoJ hack Tim Shea. That led to him unsuccessfully defending Steve Bannon from contempt of Congress and being one of many lawyers for Jan 6th defendants. When Trump started running low on lawyers willing to work for his preferred compensation - a wrecked reputation and possible criminal charges - early last year, Corcoran joined his defense team.

From there, he represented Trump to the DoJ in their efforts to recover the documents Trump stole, loyally presenting a series of legally questionable arguments to defend Trump. After the subpoena was delivered, Corcoran drafted the false declaration that Trump had returned all classified material.

For some reason, he did not sign the document he'd drafted himself, instead recruiting MAGAT lawyer Christina Bobb to step in as Trump's "custodian of records" and put her head on the block by officially lying to the DoJ. Once the declaration was determined to be false, the FBI executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago.

As Jack Smith's special prosecutor investigation got going, Corcoran invoked attorney-client privilege for questions relating to his communications with Trump. After reviewing the communications in question, federal judge Beryl Howard determined last week that Corcoran's communications with Trump were likely to have been conducted to commit or further a crime, and revoked attorney-client protections.

Corcoran and Trump immediately appealed, and the DC Court of Appeals held an incredibly swift hearing earlier this week before rejecting the appeal 3-0. Corcoran will be forced to testify, under oath, to Smith's grand jury later today.

Corcoran's testimony (and other evidence) will be key in determining if:

1) Trump lied to him about hiding stolen classified documents from the DoJ, or,

2) He conspired with Trump to hide stolen classified documents from the DoJ.

In theory, he could try to throw himself on his sword, and go with,

3) Hiding stolen classified documents from the DoJ and then lying to the DoJ about it was all his idea and Trump is innocent.

However, if Smith has evidence that proves 1 or 2, and Corcoran tries 3, then perjury will be a slam dunk.  In theory, he and Trump could try to argue they're innocent and did not deliberately conceal stolen classified documents from a subpoena, but the feds already have a fairly solid case to the contrary.

tldr; in the next 18 hours, Corcoran has to decide whether or not to throw Trump under the bus, hard, or go under it himself.

It's quite likely that this is what Trump has spent the last week trying to distract from, and not genuine concern about the the NY "lying about bribing the sex worker he cheated on Melania with" case.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

MAGA (Making Attorneys Get Attorneys) -  an up-to-date list (courtesy of journalist Marcy Wheeler):

Happy Crime-Fraud Exception Day, for Those Who Celebrate

The following lawyers have all — at a minimum — appeared in subpoenas pertinent to one or another of the investigations into Donald Trump, and a surprising number have testified before grand juries, including at least three with (Executive Privilege) waivers. To be clear: Many have no legal exposure themselves, but are instead simply witnesses to the efforts made to keep Trump in line before they were replaced with lawyers who were willing to let Trump do whatever he wanted, legal or no. But some of these lawyers have had legal process served against them, and so may themselves be subjects of one or multiple investigations.

    1. Michael Cohen (hush payment): convicted felon whose phones were seized April 9, 2018
    2. Rudolph Giuliani (Ukraine, hush payment, Georgia, coup attempt): phones seized in Ukraine investigation April 28, 2021, received subpoena for billing records in fundraising investigation around December 2022
    3. John Eastman (Georgia, coup attempt): communications deemed crime-fraud excepted March 28, 2022; phone seized June 22, 2022
    4. Boris Epshteyn (stolen documents, coup attempt, Georgia): testified in Georgia grand jury; phone seized in September after which he retroactively claimed to have been doing lawyer stuff
    5. Sidney Powell (fraud, coup attempt, Georgia): Subpoenas sent in fraud investigation starting in September 2021; testified before Georgia grand jury; appeared in November subpoena
    6. Jeffrey Clark (coup attempt): May 26 warrant for cloud accounts and phone seized June 22, 2022
    7. Ken Klukowski (coup attempt): May 26 warrant for cloud accounts
    8. Victoria Toensing (Ukraine, coup attempt): Phone seized in Ukraine investigation April 28, 2021, on June and November subpoenas
    9. Brad Carver (Georgia and fake elector): phone contents seized June 22
    10. Jenna Ellis (coup attempt and Georgia): Rudy’s sidekick, censured by CO Bar for lying serial misrepresentations, on June and November subpoenas
    11. Kenneth Cheesbro (fake elector, Georgia): included in June and November subpoenas
    12. Evan Corcoran (stolen documents): testified before grand jury in January, testifies under crime-fraud exception on March 24
    13. Christina Bobb (coup attempt, Georgia, stolen documents): interviewed in October 2022 and appeared before grand jury in January, belatedly asked for testimony in Georgia
    14. Stefan Passantino (coup attempt obstruction and financial): included in November subpoenas, alleged to have discouraged full testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson
    15. Tim Parlatore (stolen documents): appeared before grand jury in December 2022
    16. Jennifer Little (Georgia and stolen documents): ordered to testify under crime-fraud exception
    17. Alina Habba (stolen documents, NYS tax fraud): testified before grand jury in January
    18. Bruce Marks (coup attempt): included in November subpoena
    19. Cleta Mitchell (coup attempt and Georgia): included in November subpoenas
    20. Joshua Findlay (coup attempt): included in June subpoenas
    21. Kurt Olsen (coup attempt): included in November subpoenas
    22. William Olson (coup attempt): included in November subpoenas
    23. Lin Wood (coup attempt): included in November subpoenas
    24. Alex Cannon (coup attempt, financial, stolen documents)
    25. Eric Herschmann (coup attempt, Georgia, financial, stolen documents)
    26. Justin Clark (coup attempt and financial): included June and November subpoenas
    27. Joe DiGenova (coup attempt): included in June and November subpoenas
    28. Greg Jacob (coup attempt): grand jury appearances, including with Executive Privilege waiver
    29. Pat Cipollone (coup attempt): grand jury appearances in summer and — with Executive Privilege waiver — December 2
    30. Pat Philbin (coup attempt and stolen documents): grand jury appearances in summer and — with Executive Privilege waiver — December 2
    31. Matthew Morgan (coup attempt): included in November subpoenas