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Congress finally gets Trump's financials ...perhaps no Special Master and special mistresses ahead [1]

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Date: 2022-09-01

Previous Guy now racketeering sedition with Lindsey's 'riots in the streets' but in even hotter water. The House Oversight Committee will finally receive Trump’s financial records but not his tax returns (yet), demanded by House Ways & Means. Even Lindsey now has to testify in front of a Georgia grand jury.

Trump now claims that the DoJ ‘raid’ at Mar-a-lago was looking for … wait for it, Hillary’s emails. Who knew?

All that trumpian lawfare couldn’t be construed as obstruction, could it? Distraction, deflection, and the most absurd misdirection comes when the going gets weird for the orange tough guy.

No ruling yet on on Donald Trump's request for a third-party special master to sift through the classified documents seized by the FBI. https://t.co/q8dsJiijqX

She may even allow Trump's team to see the seized records while DOJ can't. Prosecutors tried to maneuver the judge, if she does that, to issue a ruling that DOJ could immediately appeal.

Bratt said that if Cannon opted to deploy a wide-ranging special master and prevent DOJ from accessing the materials during the review, she should issue a formal injunction. The Justice Department would be allowed to appeal such an order.

If Cannon ultimately issues an order that embraces these positions, it could cause significant disruption to DOJ’s investigation. Although DOJ warned that such a disruption would also harm the intelligence community’s review of the seized records for risks to national security, Cannon said she envisioned a potential carveout to allow that review to continue, even while DOJ would lack access.

“It would be unprecedented for the executive to be able to successfully assert privilege against the executive branch,” said Julie Edelstein, Bratt’s deputy.

Cannon, a Trump appointee, said she was concerned about a couple of instances in which the investigative team had flagged potentially privileged material that was not screened out during the initial review of records by the DOJ “filter team” assigned to prevent such occurrences. She also indicated she might support a special master with broad purview to screen documents for any potentially subject to executive privilege claims by Trump — despite DOJ’s argument that no such claim could ever be upheld.

“He is no longer the president and because he is no longer the president he did not have the right to take those documents,” said Jay Bratt, the chief of the Justice Department’s counterintelligence division. “He was unlawfully in possession of them…This plaintiff does not have an interest in the classified and other presidential records.”

Justice Department attorneys repeatedly pleaded with Cannon not to interrupt their ongoing criminal probe, emphasizing that the search warrant executed on Aug. 8 was clearly valid and authorized to obtain “evidence of three significant federal crimes.”

Justice Department attorneys pushed back sharply against that outcome, warning against any disruption to their ongoing criminal investigation of Trump’s handling of classified documents. Cannon, who previously said she’s inclined to appoint an outside review of the materials seized form Trump’s estate, appeared undeterred during a 90-minute hearing that featured arguments from DOJ counterintelligence officials and Trump’s legal team.

U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon suggested that she’s mulling imposing that restriction, while potentially allowing an exception for the intelligence community to continue reviewing national security risks from the potential exposure of the seized documents.

Again, what would happen if a special master found executive privilege in the docs? wd have to return to archives etc. if Cannon 's opinion indicates Trump would have some interest in them, that's a practical and legal disaster and DOJ would have to appeal.

ugh. but hard to see how she could even write this up. and doesn't just slow case down and interfere w/ ODNI process. it provides Trump an overall argument and defense to suggest that executive privilege even could be an issue. https://t.co/i9Ko4YEU6v

x Committee chairwoman Rep Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) statement: pic.twitter.com/NVKIBZOHEM — Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) September 1, 2022

This morning the House Oversight Committee announced that it will finally, finally get its hands on Donald Trump's financial records. And it only took three bloody years!

"After numerous court victories, I am pleased that my Committee has now reached an agreement to obtain key financial documents that former President Trump fought for years to hide from Congress," Chair Carolyn Maloney said this morning.

Trump's decision to finally tap out, a full two years after the Supreme Court rejected his screeching about the president's magic invisibility cloak of total immunity, marks an end to a battle that has raged virtually every second since Democrats took back the House in 2019. In February of that year, Michael Cohen, the president's former attorney and fixer, gave Congress partial financial statements prepared for Trump by the accounting firm Mazars USA, LLP, which appeared to show conflicting representations to lenders about his assets. After an informal request the following month, the House Oversight Committee issued a subpoena in April of 2019 to the company for all the then-president's financial records on the grounds that they were relevant to federal ethics laws, since Uncle Sam was the landlord for Trump's DC hotel.

[...]

And today Trump finally agreed to quit throwing his stupid tantrum so Mazars could hand over the subpoenaed documents.

"Under the agreement reached by the Committee, former President Trump has agreed not to further appeal the D.C. Circuit’s ruling, and Mazars USA has agreed to comply with the court’s order and produce responsive documents to the Committee as expeditiously as possible," the committee said in a statement on its website.

So, after all this time, does it matter? The subpoena was two impeachments, one insurrection, one federal search warrant, and hundreds of pages of purloined classified documents ago — not to mention the Mueller Report. Trump appears to have escaped criminal prosecution by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, and his company is likely to get off with a slap on the wrist for effectively paying executive Alan Weisselberg under the table. So many of those things that we obsessed about for four years (it me, Mueller comin'!) failed to move the needle, much less bring the old crook to justice. Right now, he's closer than he ever has been to facing serious legal consequences for his crimes, thanks to Attorney General Merrick Garland. (Who had that one on their prediction list, right?)

www.wonkette.com/…

x All his life he has been convinced he can commit crimes and count on lawyers to help him obfuscate, delay and otherwise avoid consequences. That string of corruption and criminality—now including taking top-secret & refusing to return them— looks to finally be coming to an end. — Steven Beschloss (@StevenBeschloss) August 31, 2022

The former president then suggested he was working behind the scenes to get McConnell ousted as Senate GOP leader.

"He's not good," Trump said. "And we're going to go through him. And then we'll have to, later on, we’ll have to do something with him."

www.rawstory.com/...

Because disinformation...

x In a new interview, Trump says he believes DOJ was really looking for Russiagate material and Hillary Clinton emails during the search. pic.twitter.com/PtLBIQKjwp — Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) September 1, 2022

x While aggregating threads/articles for a book project, I came across a 9/30/19 thread responding to Trump retweeting "pastor" @robertjeffress stating there would be "civil war like fracture" if Trump was held accountable for high crimes & misdemeanors. 1/https://t.co/2pKLVeyop5 — Nick Carmody JD, MS Psych (@Nick_Carmody) July 5, 2021

x This is sedition. He should be prosecuted for this. https://t.co/O7VQmyw6Mb — Norman Ornstein (@NormOrnstein) September 1, 2022

x Damning op-ed by former Trump booster & judge Andrew Napolitano https://t.co/826rnY1RXw — Miles Taylor (@MilesTaylorUSA) September 1, 2022

The newest aspect of the case against Mr. Trump that we learned from the redacted affidavit is the obstruction allegation. This is not the obstruction that Robert Mueller claimed he found Mr. Trump committed during the Russia investigation. This is a newer obstruction statute, signed by President George W. Bush in 2002, that places far fewer burdens on the feds to prove. The older statute is the one Mr. Mueller alleged. It characterizes any material interference with a judicial function as criminal. Thus, one who lies to a grand jury or prevents a witness from testifying commits this variant of obstruction.

But the Bush-era statute, the one the feds contemplate charging Mr. Trump with having violated, makes it a crime of obstruction by failing to return government property or by sending the FBI on a wild goose chase looking for something that belongs to the government and that you know that you have. This statute does not require the preexistence of a judicial proceeding. It only requires that the defendant has the government’s property, knows that he has it and baselessly resists efforts by the government to get it back.

Where does all this leave Mr. Trump? The short answer is: in hot water. The longer answer is: He is confronting yet again the federal law enforcement and intelligence communities for which he has rightly expressed such public disdain. He had valid points of expression during the Russia investigation. He has little ground upon which to stand today.

m.washingtontimes.com/...

admitting that he had classified material when the FBI showed up at Mar-a-Lago

x On Hannity's show, Trump's lawyers are *not even asked* basic questions like these:



Did Trump direct you to swear on his behalf that all docs had been retrieved when they hadn't?



If Trump declassified the info, why are his lawyers acting otherwise?https://t.co/Lvym4C1t1T pic.twitter.com/pg9C3bpMmm — Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) September 1, 2022

x Trump has a version of "winning" here: Stall endlessly in court and deceive millions into believing he's the victim. Then muddle through to getting away with it all.



I talked to his former lawyer Michael Cohen, who confirmed that's how Trump sees things:https://t.co/Lvym4C1t1T pic.twitter.com/up4KYsMMXF — Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) September 1, 2022

x Lawyers in Trump White House to appear before Jan. 6 grand jury https://t.co/MJeyOUNj7d — The Boston Globe (@BostonGlobe) September 1, 2022

x The #FBI is serving a search warrant of a #Russian oligarch questioned in the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election a week after top secret documents were found at #Trump’s #MarALago residence. Could get interesting https://t.co/MPTWSxvJwO — Geopolitical Hub (@GeopoliticalGu1) September 1, 2022

"As such, Senator Graham may be questioned about any alleged efforts to encourage Secretary Raffensperger or others to throw out ballots or otherwise alter Georgia’s election practices and procedures," May wrote. "Likewise, the grand jury may inquire into Senator Graham’s alleged communications and coordination with the Trump Campaign and its post-election efforts in Georgia, as well as into Senator Graham’s public statements related to Georgia’s 2020 elections."

www.rawstory.com/...

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