Posted on 06/07/2023 12:47:39 PM PDT by thegagline
Federal prosecutors have notified Donald Trump that he is a criminal target and likely to be indicted imminently in a probe into alleged classified documents – even as the Justice Department declined to delay charges to give time to investigate allegations of witness tampering submitted by the former president’s legal team, according to multiple people on Wednesday familiar with the case.
The sources directly familiar with the case told Just the News that DOJ declined to delay the planned indictment of Trump to investigate allegations that a senior prosecutor working on the case tried to influence a key witness by discussing a federal judgeship with the witness’ lawyer.
That allegation is still pending in a secret case before Chief U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg, the jurist who oversees the federal court in Washington, D.C., and the grand juries that convene in that courthouse, the sources said.
An historic federal indictment crafted by Special Counsel Jack Smith could be handed up by a federal grand jury against the 45th president as early as this week, the sources said.
Trump has already been indicted in a Manhattan court on charges he falsified business expenses to hide hush money payments to a porn star and has pleaded innocent.
Trump has portrayed both cases as part of a broader “witch hunt” and dual system of justice designed to derail his 2024 presidential candidacy.
This week, Trump argued Smith is a partisan and the federal case against him is being treated differently than one against President Joe Biden, who also was found with classified documents in his possession from his time as vice president.
“HOW CAN DOJ POSSIBLY CHARGE ME, WHO DID NOTHING WRONG, WHEN NO OTHER PRESIDENT’S WERE CHARGED, WHEN JOE BIDEN WON’T BE CHARGED FOR ANYTHING,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform in a post in which he also railed against the failure of DOJ to charge Hillary Clinton in 2016 over classified emails kept on her private email server.
“ONLY TRUMP - THE GREATEST WITCH HUNT OF ALL TIME!” he added.
Federal prosecutors deny politics have been involved in their pursuit of Trump.
Smith’s prosecutorial team informed Trump’s legal team in recent days that the charges against the former president could include a violation of 18 U.S. Code Chapter 37 Section 793 that outlaws the “gathering, transmitting or losing” of national defense information. Other charges being considered involve alleged false statements and obstruction of justice, all claims the president and his team have robustly contested in public and in private.
No prior or sitting American president has ever been indicted in federal court, and if the grand jury accepts the prosecutors’ case it will touch off an unprecedented legal battle certain to work its way to the Supreme Court while lingering over the 2024 election in which Trump handily leads the GOP field by as many as 50 points in some polls.
According to multiple sources familiar with the ongoing probe, all of whom talked to Just the News on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media:
Trump’s lawyers have prepared a robust defense based on months of legal research, anticipating Smith might pursue charges. Trump’s lawyers are prepared to argue that a president had broad powers under the Constitution to keep documents or declassify without any fanfare documents from his presidency and take them with him upon leaving office.
They will rely heavily on a U.S. District Court case in Washington more than a decade ago involving former President Bill Clinton that concluded a president had broad and mostly unchallengeable power to determine which documents from his presidency can be kept personally and that any documents moved to Trump’s homes in Mar-a-Lago, Fla., and Bedminster, N.J., fall under that category.
An American Bar Association report in 2022 seemed to agree with Trump’s assertion that “guidelines support his contention that presidents have broad authority to formally declassify most documents that are not statutorily protected, while they are in office.”
Prosecutors plan to counter that authority does not extend to documents containing National Defense Information whose retention or release could jeopardize national security.
They have purportedly introduced to grand jury witnesses a recording Trump’s office made in 2021 during an interview with former chief of staff Mark Meadows’ biographers in which the former president allegedly talked about a document he described as classified and in his possession allegedly written by former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley that outlined a war plan against Iran.
While prosecutors have not located an exact document matching Trump’s description, they found one with classified markings written by others laying out an Iranian battle plan that Trump returned to the National Archives more than a year ago.
Trump lawyers have developed evidence showing that information from that plan was leaked to a major magazine by a senior military officer and plan to use that as evidence that it no longer can be considered National Defense Information, according to people familiar with both sides of the case.
But one of the first disputes likely to be addressed is evidence the Trump defense team submitted to Boasberg in a secret court proceeding recently and to Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco’s office Monday alleging a senior federal prosecutor working on the case discussed a federal judgeship with a defense lawyer for a key witness.
Monaco’s office informed the Trump team in the last 24 hours that it was rejecting a request to delay the indictment so the allegation could be investigated.
The lawyer was already in line for consideration by the Biden White House for a judgeship when the prosecutor allegedly raised the nomination while trying to get additional testimony from the lawyer’s client, according to sources familiar with the allegation.
The discussion raised concerns among defense lawyers that it was an effort to influence the witness, who has declined to change his testimony because he claims to have no other information about the movement of boxes and artifacts at Mar-a-Lago since he left the White House, the sources said.
If Trump’s defense team primarily relies upon procedural defense of selective prosecution then he has again chosen the wrong lawyers to represent him.
I am not a lawyer so if you can elaborate on what his lawyers are doing wrong vs what they should be doing, that would be appreciated.
DOJ is signing their own death warrant.
Not immediately, but in the not-too-distant future.
Well he’s already been indicted for misposting invoices to the ledger.
Let’s see what Obama’s minions come up with for the next one.
It appears that they are trying to force the question to go the USSC. What do they have to gain from that? Trying to split the court so they can get rid of the 9 judge system?
One of the first thing the deepstate did was spend decades preparing the population to stand by and just watch this happen. J6 was part of that preparation.
Keep in mind, thegagline hates Trump. Evaluate his credibility with that in mind.
Trump has denied ever being told he is going to be indicted but we all know he is going to be indicted..for those who thought they wouldn’t touch Trump because Biden did the same damn thing except worse(You cant have documents when you are VP) thats laughable, Biden and his crime family knows that NO ONE is EVER going to touch him, ever..democrats have always been and always will be above the law..unfortunately thats how it is in this messed up country
Obviously, the several dozens of new POTUS candidates coming out of the woodwork have been tipped off, in the hopes of confusing Trump donors. It won’t work.
Just like South America in the bad old days; you prosecute the “losing” opponent and the one likely to defeat you in the next election. I believe the prosecutor’s wife works for the Dems.
We’ll re-elect him even if they put him in jail.
Hell, the Democrats had James Michael Curley serve as mayor from prison, so there’s precedent.
Does it take a genius to prosecute a legal case outside the law?
Or does it take an idiot?
Proves once again, they will give us THEIR choices and eliminate OURS.
i am inclined to write in donald trump’s name...
Indicting your boss Biden’s number one opponent in an upcoming Presidential race sounds more like Zimbabwe than America.
Do enlighten us as to the appropriate way to defend against phony charges based on political inimidation and inflation of minor procedural errors to the status of federal crimes, especially when it comes to the 45th President of the United States.
Make no mistake. the DOJ is a major player in the Deep State apparatus. They have the power and resources to achieve any result and create any event they want. It’s not about the law, it’s about the desired end result.
Unfortunately, some defendants suffer from a persecution complex. Whether their perception is based upon reality generally doesn't matter. Feeling singled out, defendants will then raise the selective prosecution defense. This defense is based upon the Equal Protection Clause [See 14th Amendments] And therein lies the problem for Trump. He is not being prosecuted because of his race etc(a suspect class) Nor is he suffering some type of impermissible constitutional infringement that rises to the level of being selectively prosecuted.
It may be better to attack the indictment by raising a good offices type claim. Essentially, the Biden Administration is using its position (good offices) to systematically eliminate a political opponent
The indictment will have NOTHING to do with the documents. This is the classic Andrew Weissman Lawfare trick. He is behind this and is going to do to Trump now what he wanted to do with Russian Collusion.
Trump will be charged with obstruction of justice. See, they will say that he obstructed their investigation. That is how it works now. They drum up a bogus charge and then when you protest your innocence or assert your rights, they call that “obstruction.”
“Hey, I hear you trade in chid porn. We are raiding your house and kicking out your lawyer and leaking information to the press and anything else we chose to paint you as guilty:”
“but I am innocent!!! I want a lawyer and I am going to the press!!!’
“Good, forget the porn thing, you have obstructed us.”
There is little doubt that Trump will also be charged with process crimes.
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