Georgia Criminal Investigation Of Trump For Interference In State’s 2020 Presidential Election
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis‘ office is presenting evidence and testimony to a special grand jury in Atlanta impaneled to investigate Trump and a number of his allies in connection with their attempts to get officials in Georgia to undo President Joe Biden’s election win there.
Before Monday’s Mar-a-Lago raid by the FBI, some legal observers considered the Fulton County probe to be the most pressing threat of criminal prosecution to Trump. It still may be.
Willis, a Democrat, in particular is eyeing a Jan. 2, 2021, call Trump placed to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. During that conversation, the then-president asked Raffensperger to “find” Trump more than 11,700 votes to reverse his margin of defeat by Biden.
The DA also is investigating contacts Trump allies had with the state’s attorney general, and the top federal prosecutor for the Northern District of Georgia.
Those electors were assembled with the goal of setting up a legal dispute in which Trump’s slate would challenge the legitimacy of the Electoral College delegates awarded Biden for his popular vote win in Georgia.
Nyt Politics Reporter’s New Book Highlights Trump’s Move From Accepting To Rejecting Election Loss
WASHINGTON, DC – AUGUST 28: U.S. President Donald Trump awaits the arrival of Finnish President … Sauli Niinisto to the White House August 28, 2017 in Washington, DC. The two leaders are expected to discuss security in the Baltic Sea region, Russia and NATO during the meeting, the first between Niinisto and Trump and the first one-on-one White House meeting between a Finnish and an American president in 15 years.
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Former President Donald Trump told aides he was not intending to leave the White House after his defeat to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election, CNN reported Monday, after obtaining a new book by New York Times NYT reporter Maggie Haberman.
According to Habermans book, Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America, Trump appeared at first to accept that hed lost the election, asking advisers to tell him what had gone wrong. Haberman says at one point Trump seemed to try and comfort one adviser, saying we did our best and telling another I thought we had it.
WASHINGTON, DC – SEPTEMBER 29: U.S. President Donald Trump gestures as White House interns cheer him … on as he leaves the White House residence for Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House on September 29, 2020 in Washington, DC. President Trump will square off with Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in tonight’s debate in Cleveland, Ohio.
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What’s About To Happen
It remains to be seen what documents or other items might have been removed from the property or how those items might relate to an investigation.
Trump, along with many of his key allies, is under investigation for a range of issues, from the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol to Trump family business dealings. There was no word on how Monday’s action by law enforcement could affect any of those inquiries.
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New York State Attorney General Investigation
New York State Attorney General Letitia James is investigating whether to bring a civil lawsuit against Trump and his business for potential financial fraud. James launched her probe after Michael Cohen, Trump’s longtime former personal attorney , testified before Congress that Trump inflated and deflated his assets when it was financially beneficial for him.
Trump filed a lawsuit against James, a Democrat, claiming she was targeting him out of political animus. But a judge struck down his argument in May, allowing James’ investigation to continue.
Trump, his daughter Ivanka and his son Donald Jr. have all been deposed in the probe. During Trump’s questioning under oath earlier this month, he cited his Fifth Amendment protection against being made to testify against himself.
Trump has called James “racist” and said her work was part of a “Banana Republic.”
New York Criminal Inquiry
Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, has been investigating whether Trumps family real estate company misrepresented the values of its properties to get favorable bank loans and lower tax bills.
Two top lawyers who had been leading the investigation resigned in February, throwing the investigations future into question, but Braggs office has said it is ongoing.
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Will Donald Trump Run For President Again In 2024
Trump has dropped hints about running for President again in 2024.
After the news broke that for at least two years, he released a statement implying his return to the presidency.
He said: Next time Im in the White House there will be no more dinners, at his request, with Mark Zuckerberg and his wife. It will be all business!
Without giving too much away, Trump has named a number of strong Republican contenders for the 2024 bid, excluding his former presidential right-hand Mike Pence.
Constitutionally, Trump can launch a second White House bid after losing in 2020 – his team has previously hinted that he could seek another term in 2024.
The 22nd Amendment states: “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of President more than once.”
Trump Organization: Ny Da Criminal Investigation
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg inherited that offices probe into Trumps businesses, but it has slowed significantly.
Prosecutors were focusing on the accuracy of the Trump Organizations financial statements when seeking financing, people familiar with the matter have told CNN.
Earlier this year, Carey Dunne and Mark Pomerantz, two senior prosecutors on the team, resigned after Bragg informed them that he wasnt prepared to move forward with criminal charges, CNNs Kara Scannell reported.
A special grand jury hearing evidence in the case expired in April, but a new one could be seated in the future.
Bragg has maintained the investigation is ongoing and prosecutors are reviewing new evidence. He said he will issue a public statement or an indictment when its completed.
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What Did Trump Say About The Covid Vaccines
After President Joe Biden announced his administration would order another 100 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, Trump responded seeking credit for the swift rollout.
The ex-president said in a statement released by his office on March 10: “I hope everyone remembers when theyre getting the COVID-19 Vaccine, that if I wasnt President, you wouldnt be getting that beautiful shot for 5 years, at best.
“And probably wouldnt be getting it at all.
I hope everyone remembers!”
Both Pfizer and Modernas two-dose coronavirus vaccines were developed and authorized for emergency use while Trump was in office.
Moderna received funding for design and testing under Trumps Operation Warp Speed, while Pfizer had an advance-purchase agreement.
J& J, which was authorized for use after Biden took office, also had a pre-existing federal production deal made under the Trump administration.
Cory Booker Mary Trump Anthony Scaramucci And Others Weigh In On The Worst
The most pressing and basic political question confronting our country right now is probably this simple one: What if Donald Trump wins the election in 2024? Either by fair means or foul, what if he ends up again in the White House? What will happen in this country? We asked a number of people from both parties and across different disciplines to tell us what we might expect.
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The Justice Departments Criminal Investigation Of January 6 And The Plot To Overturn The Election
With all the hubbub surrounding the raid on Trumps home and the revelation that he refused to return top secret documents related to grave matters of national security, its easy to forget that Trump tried extremely hard to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and, when that didnt go his way, incited a violent insurrection that left multiple people dead. But he did! In July, we learned that, according to TheWashington Post, the Justice Department was investigating Trumps actions as part of its criminal probe and that prosecutors interviewing witnesses before a grand jury had asked hours of detailed questions about meetings Trump led in December 2020 and January 2021 his pressure campaign on Pence to overturn the election and what instructions Trump gave his lawyers and advisers about fake electors and sending electors back to the states.
Crucial witnesses whom we know about have thus far included Pences former chief of staff and his former chief legal counsel Greg Jacob, both of whom have significant insight into Trumps plot to overturn the election.
Trump Organization: Ny Ag Criminal And Civil Investigation
Trump this week took the Fifth at his deposition in New York Attorney General Letitia James investigation of his namesake business in response to hundreds of questions.
The investigation is nearing the end and James office said it needed to question the Trump family to determine who had responsibility for the financial statements at the center of the investigation. Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump also recently were deposed and did answer questions. Eric Trump was questioned in 2020 and declined to answer more than 500 questions.
James, a Democrat, has previously said her office uncovered significant evidence indicating that the Trump Organization used fraudulent or misleading asset valuations to obtain a host of economic benefits, including loans, insurance coverage and tax deductions.
The investigation also includes the role of the companys long-time appraiser Cushman & Wakefield.
Trump has decried the investigation as politically motivated.
When your family, your company, and all the people in your orbit have become the targets of an unfounded, politically motivated Witch Hunt supported by lawyers, prosecutors, and the Fake News Media, you have no choice but to invoke the Fifth Amendment, Trump said Wednesday.
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Federal Criminal Investigation Into White House Records Removal
The Justice Department on Thursday filed a motion to unseal the search warrant that the FBI used to raid Trump’s home.
To obtain such a warrant, the FBI has to show a judge that there is probable cause that a crime has been committed and that the evidence they are searching for relates to that potential crime.
“Monday’s unprecedented and absolutely unnecessary raid of President Trump’s home was only the latest and most egregious action of hostility by the Biden Administration, whose Justice Department has been weaponized to harass President Trump, his supporters, and staff,” Trump’s spokesperson told NBC News on Thursday.
E Jean Carroll Defamation Lawsuit
E. Jean Carroll, a former Elle columnist, sued Trump in 2019 for defamation after he denied her rape allegation. The former president asserts he has never met her and claimed Carroll made up her account to sell a book.
The trial is set to begin in February, Judge Lewis Kaplan recently wrote in a scheduling order. Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan has told ABC News the parties are “actively engaged in document discovery, with depositions to follow, and Judge Kaplan has ordered that discovery must be completed by the middle of November 2022.”
Trump attempted to countersue Carroll on the grounds that her defamation suit was baseless, but his effort was rejected by Kaplan in March.
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What Is Donald Trump Doing Now
The former president is readjusting to his life as a normal citizen since his presidency ended in January, 2021.
Since then, Trump has made several statements through his office in Florida, The Office of Donald J. Trump.
Trump slammed the “radical left CRAZIES” in an Easter 2021 message as he was spotted getting a standing ovation alongside Melania and Barron.
The full damning statement reads: “Statement by Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States of America.
“Happy Easter to ALL, including the Radical Left CRAZIES who rigged our Presidential Election, and want to destroy our Country!”
It comes after the former President was spotted at Mar-a-Lago in the family’s first appearance together since he left office.
Trump and former First Lady Melania were given a warm welcome as they attended an Easter Sunday church service before heading to Mar-a-Lago for an egg roll.
The couple were issued a rousing round of applause as they stood in the front row of the Christ Fellowship Church in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, on Easter morning.
Onlookers appeared stunned to learn of the Trumps’ presence at the religious event.
In photographs from the service at Christ Fellowship Church, which has seating for about 1,500 people, none of the attendees appear to be wearing masks.
The Trumps also appeared to be freely mingling with other guests and not practising social distancing.
Trump Shares Barrage Of Qanon Content And Other Conspiracy Theories On His Social Media Platform
Former President Donald Trump spent Tuesday morning posting inflammatory messages on social media, including many explicitly promoting the QAnon conspiracy theory.
While Trump has in the past promoted QAnon-inspired accounts and theories, the posts on his Truth Social account were his most explicit, unobscured, QAnon-promoting and QAnon-baiting posts to date.
In one, he reposted the QAnon slogan Where We Go One We Go All. In another, he re-posted a 2017 message from Q thats critical of the intelligence community. The QAnon conspiracy theory was built around Q, an anonymous account that posts periodically on 8kun, often with vague or symbolic language that is then interpreted by followers. The account claims to document a secret battle being waged by Trump against the Democratic Party, which followers of the theory contend is run by satanic, child-eating cannibals who run a pedophile ring filled with celebrities and political elites who have been covertly running the United States government for decades. None of the posts concrete predictions have come to fruition.
In addition to the QAnon-adjacent posts, Trump shared several conspiracy theories Tuesday on his Truth Social site and he re-posted a picture of Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, with the words Your enemy is not in Russia written in black bars over their eyes.
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Election: Efforts To Overturn Georgia Results
Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis is overseeing a special grand jury investigating what Trump or his allies may have done in their efforts to overturn President Joe Bidens victory in Georgia.
Willis, a Democrat, has informed all 16 of the individuals who signed an unofficial electoral certificate, which was ultimately sent to the National Archives in late 2020, that they may be indicted in the probe.
The investigation may be drawing closer to Trump as well. Former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani is scheduled to appear before the grand jury on August 17.
The probe was launched last year following Trumps call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in which he pushed the Republican to find votes to overturn the election results.
Willis has also been digging into Trumps calls with Raffensperger and another official in the Secretary of States office presentations Giuliani made before state lawmakers that were riddled with election falsehoods a phone call between South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham and Raffensperger and the sudden resignation of Byung BJay Pak, the US attorney for the Northern District of Georgia.
The Justice Department, meanwhile, is looking at an aspect of a plot to put forward fake GOP electors from seven states.
Donald Trump Faces Several Investigations Heres Where They Stand
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By Ed Shanahan
Former President Donald J. Trumps legal jeopardy appeared to intensify significantly on Monday with the stunning revelation that federal agents armed with a warrant had searched his Mar-a-Lago club and home in Palm Beach, Fla.
It was not immediately clear what investigators might have seized, but the search took place after federal agents visited the Palm Beach estate in the spring to discuss materials Mr. Trump took with him improperly when he left the White House, including numerous pages of classified documents.
The mere fact that the federal authorities had taken the remarkable step of searching the private residence of a former U.S. president was a reminder of just how much legal scrutiny Mr. Trump is under as he considers running for president again in 2024.
He and his family have criticized the various investigations swirling around him as partisan or vindictive, and they have denied wrongdoing.
Federal prosecutors investigating attempts to reverse Mr. Trumps loss in the 2020 election have asked witnesses directly about his involvement in those efforts. In Georgia, a criminal inquiry is focused on his push to have the election results altered there.
Here is where the notable inquiries involving Mr. Trump stand.
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The Justice Department Investigation Into January 6
Last January, Garland announced that the Justice Department has no higher priority than its investigation into the January 6 attack on the Capitol, and that his department remains committed to holding all Jan. 6 perpetrators, at any level, accountable under law.
According to the Justice Department, more than 830 individuals have been charged for alleged criminal activity relating to the January 6 attack on the Capitol. And, if anything, DOJ appears to be stepping up these prosecutions. Last May, as part of its annual budget proposal, the Justice Department sought to hire 131 more lawyers to prosecute cases related to this attack.
It remains unclear whether this investigation is actively investigating Trumps own role, however and, if so, how close it is to an indictment against the former president. And the Justice Department is likely to keep an even tighter hold on any information regarding such an investigation into Trump than it has on the Mar-a-Lago investigation. Bear in mind that virtually no one outside of the Justice Department, including purportedly the White House, knew about the FBIs impending search of Mar-a-Lago until after it had begun.
There is, however, at least one outward sign that Trump is under investigation. Last May, prosecutors subpoenaed the National Archives for the same Trump administration documents that the Archives already turned over to the US House committee investigating the January 6 attack.
