Trump's world....

[DBP66]

Looks like REALITY will win the day and justice will be served for lying.....

 

Fox and friends confront billion-dollar US lawsuits over election fraud claims

 

 

Adam Gabbatt in New York

Mon, July 4, 2022 at 3:30 AM

 

 

 

Photograph: Sarah Yenesel/EPA

In the months following the 2020 US presidential election, rightwing TV news in America was a wild west, an apparently lawless free-for-all where conspiracy theories about voting machines, ballot-stuffed suitcases and dead Venezuelan leaders were repeated to viewers around the clock.

There seemed to be little consequence for peddling the most outrageous ideas on primetime.

But now, unfortunately for Fox News, One America News Network (OAN), and Newsmax, it turns out that this brave, new world wasn’t free from legal jurisdiction – with the three networks now facing billion-dollar lawsuits as a result of their baseless accusations.

- ADVERTISEMENT -

In June, Dominion Voting Systems, which provided voting machines to 28 states, was given the go-ahead to sue Fox Corp, the parent company of Fox News, in a case that could draw Rupert Murdoch and his son, Lachlan, into the spotlight.

In the $1.6bn lawsuit, Dominion accuses Fox Corp, and the Murdochs specifically, of allowing Fox News to amplify false claims that the voting company had rigged the election for Joe Biden.

Fox Corp had attempted to have the suit dismissed, but a Delaware judge said Dominion had shown adequate evidence for the suit to proceed. Dominion is already suing Fox News, as well as OAN and Newsmax.

“These allegations support a reasonable inference that Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch either knew Dominion had not manipulated the election or at least recklessly disregarded the truth when they allegedly caused Fox News to propagate its claims about Dominion,” Judge Eric Davis said.

Davis’s ruling is not a guarantee that Fox will be found liable. But the judge made it clear that this isn’t some frivolous attempt by Dominion – and media and legal experts think Fox could be in real trouble.

“Dominion has a very strong case against Fox News – and against OAN for that matter,” said Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, a professor who teaches constitutional law at Stetson University and a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan law and policy institute.

“The reason Dominion is suing is because Fox and other rightwing news outlets repeated vicious lies that Dominion’s voting machines stole the 2020 election from Trump for Biden. But all of these conspiracy theories about Dominion’s machines were just pure bunk, and Fox as a news organization should have known that and not given this aspect of the big lie a megaphone.”

“What’s particularly bad for Fox is [that] Dominion asked them to stop and correct the record in real time, and Fox persisted in spreading misrepresentations about the voting machine company.”

Indeed, in his ruling, Davis noted that “other newspapers under Rupert Murdoch’s control, including the Wall Street Journal and New York Post, condemned President Trump’s claims and urged him to concede defeat”.

In a statement, a Fox News spokesperson said: “Limiting the ability of the press to report freely on the American election process stands in stark contrast to the liberties on which this nation was founded, and we are confident we will prevail in this case, as the first amendment is the foundation of our democracy and freedom of the press must be protected.”

A potential precedent in the Dominion v Fox case could be found in a recent case involving Sarah Palin, who sued the New York Times. Palin claimed the newspaper maliciously damaged her reputation by erroneously linking her campaign rhetoric to a mass shooting. In February a jury sided with the Times, finding that a Times employee had not acted with “actual malice” against a public figure or with “reckless disregard” for the truth – the criteria necessary to prove defamation.

But the Times victory shouldn’t give Fox too much hope, said Torres-Spelliscy.

“In the Palin case, the New York Times quickly corrected the mistake about Palin that had been added while an article was edited,” Torres-Spelliscy said.

“By contrast Fox News kept up the bad behavior and repeatedly told myths about Dominion’s voting machines. This is likely why judges in several of these Dominion defamation cases have not dismissed them.”

Dominion isn’t the only company seeking damages from Fox and its contemporaries.

Smartmatic, an election software company which provided voting software to precisely one county in the 2020 election but found itself subjected to claims that it was founded “for the specific purpose of fixing elections” by associates of Hugo Chavez, the former president of Venezuela who died in 2013, is suing Fox Corp, Fox News and associates for $2.7bn.

Still, Fox News is the most-watched and arguably most influential cable news channel in the US, and is probably too big to fail.

But that isn’t the case for the smaller rightwing networks OAN and Newsmax, which are also both being sued by Dominion and Smartmatic – in June, a Delaware judge refused Newsmax’s motion to have the Dominion case dismissed, but did not weigh on whether Newsmax was innocent or guilty.

“I think OAN is going to be wiped out from the litigation costs. Forget about any judgment,” said Angelo Carusone, president and chief executive of Media Matters for America, which monitors rightwing media.

Carusone pointed out that OAN is already struggling to survive, after it was dropped by the DirecTV cable company – which was reportedly responsible for 90% of OAN’s revenue – in April.

“We’ve started seeing, already, them scaling back programming, they’ve been laying off staff, they’ve been cutting back the number of programs. So it’s pretty clear that they don’t have sufficient resources to weather a protracted litigation.”

Newsmax, which is still carried by DirecTV, is “relatively cash flush” in comparison to OAN, Carusone said – enough to survive a trial, if not to pay the billions of dollars Dominion and Smartmatic are seeking.

 

The Newsmax booth at the NRA convention in Houston in May. Photograph: Patrick T Fallon/AFP/Getty Images

In a statement, Newsmax said it had “reported on allegations made by President Trump and his surrogates and at no time did we report these allegations were true. We also reported on critics of the Trump claims”.

It added: “The Dominion suit is an assault on a free press and endangers all press outlets if it were to prevail.”

OAN did not respond to a request for comment.

As for Fox, the most significant thing could be if the Murdochs are subjected to discovery – where they and Fox could be forced to hand over documents potentially including communications data – as part of the legal process, Carusone said.

Text messages obtained by the January 6 commission have already revealed that there was communication between Fox News hosts and White House officials regarding the insurrection – and it seems unlikely that is the only thing that was discussed.

“I think once you start to pull the discovery material, what you’re going to find is there was a lot of communication between the Trump people both internally and externally about pushing very specific lies and narratives,” Carusone said.

While Fox is more financially comfortable than OAN and NewsMax, it is not invulnerable. Fox News is due to renegotiate its contracts with cable providers at the end of this year, and Carusone said cable companies could use the lawsuit to drive down prices.

The Dominion and Smartmatic cases are likely to drag on for some time, and it remains to be seen how Fox News, OAN and NewsMax will react.

As for the news channels’ conspiratorial claims of election fraud, at least that is one thing that has already been settled.

The courts, the Department of justice, election officials have investigated and dismissed the accusations, as has the US Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

“The November 3 election was the most secure in American history,” the agency said in a statement in 2020.

“While we know there are many unfounded claims and opportunities for misinformation about the process of our elections, we can assure you we have the utmost confidence in the security and integrity of our elections, and you should too.”

William Barr, Trump’s attorney general, put it in rather less sophisticated terms.

The claims of election interference, Barr told the January 6 committee, were “bullshit”.

[DBP66]

The five most damaging allegations against Trump from the Jan. 6 hearings — so far

 

Niall Stanage

Mon, July 4, 2022 at 6:00 AM

 

 

The House Select Committee investigating Jan. 6 has dominated the news agenda during the past month, holding six public hearings.

The panel, comprised of seven Democrats and two Republicans critical of Trump — Reps. Liz Cheney (Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (Ill.) — has laid out a compelling case against the former president.

By the panel’s account, Trump knew his claims of election fraud were bogus, recklessly encouraged the Jan 6. rioters and endangered his own vice president as members of a mob marching on the Capitol called for Mike Pence’s hanging.

Whether the panel will make a criminal referral of Trump to the Department of Justice has not been settled. And there are still more hearings to go.

- ADVERTISEMENT -

Here are five of the most damaging details leveled against Trump during the proceedings so far.

Ivanka Trump accepted there was no widespread election fraud

The first Jan. 6 hearing was carried in primetime on June 9 and drew an audience of around 20 million people.

There was plenty of dramatic testimony from the hearing room but the most telling detail — and the one with the most lasting impact — came from a video interview with Ivanka Trump.

The president’s elder daughter said that she accepted the view of then-Attorney General Bill Barr that there was no evidence that fraud altered the outcome of the 2020 election.

“It affected my perspective,” Ivanka Trump said on the video, referring to Barr’s assessment. “I respect Attorney General Barr so I accepted what he was saying.”

Others in Trump’s circle have derided his spurious claims of election fraud but his own daughter doing so packed a unique emotional force.

The following day, the former president fired back, insisting that “Ivanka Trump was not involved in looking at, or studying, Election results.”

His post, on his Truth Social network, added: “She had long since checked out and was, in my opinion, only trying to be respectful to Bill Barr and his position as Attorney General (he sucked!).”

As is often the case with the former president, the ferocity of the response seemed to betray an awareness that he’d taken a hit.

Trump allegedly knew the Jan. 6 crowd had weapons — and wanted to join them at the Capitol anyways

Cassidy Hutchinson, a 26-year-old former aide to former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, caused a sensation when she testified to a hastily convened meeting of the committee on June 28.

Hutchinson related all kinds of unflattering details regarding Trump’s behavior around Jan. 6.

Controversy raged for days over her testimony.

She said she was told a story of Trump lunging for the steering wheel of his vehicle and tussling with a Secret Service agent after being informed he could not go to the Capitol after his rally at the Ellipse on Jan. 6.

The secret service agent involved and the driver of the vehicle are reported to be willing to testify that Trump did not make such a lunge and that no-one was assaulted.

But on Friday, CNN reported that two Secret Service agents confirmed they had heard accounts similar to Hutchinson’s.

In any event, the more substantively damning part of Hutchinson’s testimony concerned Trump’s knowledge that many of the people in the Jan. 6 crowd were carrying weapons.

Hutchinson, who was backstage at the Ellipse rally, said she heard Trump “say something to the effect of, ‘I don’t f-ing care that they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me…They can march to the Capitol from here.’”

Trump again took to Truth Social to insist that he “didn’t want or request that we make room for people with guns to watch my speech,” adding, “Who would ever want that?”

But if Hutchinson’s testimony is accurate — and she says she heard the remarks first-hand — it suggests the then-president was acutely aware of the possibility for violence at the Capitol just before he told the crowd at the Ellipse that they should “fight like hell.”

That raises the stakes politically and could even elevate the chance of criminal prosecution.

Trump’s own campaign manager balked at fraud claims and was proud to be on ‘Team Normal’

The panel’s second hearing, held on June 13, made the case that Trump must have known his claims of election fraud were bogus, given how many people within his own inner circle were telling him this.

The hearing rendered an unflattering portrait of Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor who served as Trump’s personal lawyer.

Trump campaign general counsel Matt Morgan recalled how “law firms were not comfortable making the arguments that Rudy Giuliani was making publicly” because of the dearth of evidence to back them up.

White House lawyer Eric Herschmann said he thought that the overall thrust of the arguments put forth by Giuliani and other Trump backers such as attorney Sidney Powell was “nuts.”

A memorable phrase from Trump 2020 campaign manager Bill Stepien best summed up the schisms that were developing in the then-president’s orbit.

“I didn’t mind being characterized as being part of ‘Team Normal’, as reporters kinda started to do around that point in time,” Stepien said in a video deposition.

Stepien said he hoped that he had earned “a good reputation for being honest and professional” over many years in Republican political consultancy.

“I didn’t think what was happening was necessarily honest or professional at that point in time,” he added.

The ‘Election Defense Fund’ that didn’t exist

The second hearing also focused on the Trump campaign’s fundraising efforts in the immediate aftermath of the election.

“The ‘Big Lie’ was also a big rip-off,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) contended.

Lofgren cited the barrage of fundraising emails Team Trump sent to supporters between Election Day and Jan. 6. On some days, more than 20 such emails were blasted out.

Many encouraged the recipients to contribute to an “Election Defense Fund,” the suggestion being that the money would be used to push Trump’s claims of fraud in court.

One problem: the Election Defense Fund didn’t exist.

“I don’t believe there is actually a fund called the ‘Election Defense Fund,’” the former digital director for the Trump campaign, Gary Coby, acknowledged.

The non-existent fund was, at best, a marketing ruse.

It was also an effective one. Between the election and early December 2020, the joint fundraising efforts of Trump and the Republican National Committee raised about $207 million.

Much of the money seemed to go to Trump’s main post-election political action committee, Save America PAC.

According to the panel, this PAC in turn “made millions of dollars of contributions to pro-Trump organizations.”

Trump reportedly thought Mike Pence deserved to hang

One of many shocking occurrences on Jan. 6 was the call from some in the crowd to hang Pence, who resisted urgings from Trump and his allies to help overturn the election.

Trump had sought both publicity and privately to ratchet up the pressure on Pence, including in his speech at the Ellipse.

According to Hutchinson’s testimony, the then-president was blithely unconcerned with Pence’s fate even after serious violence broke out.

Hutchinson recounted witnessing a conversation between Meadows and White House counsel Pat Cipollone soon after the two had been in Trump’s presence.

Cipollone, she said, urged more direct action to quell the violence because “they are literally calling for the vice president to be f-ing hung.”

Meadows, according to Hutchinson, said “something to the effect of, ‘You heard him, Pat. He thinks Mike deserves it. He doesn’t think they’re doing anything wrong.”

[DBP66]

Fox News Potentially Facing Major Financial Damage In Dogged Suit Over Election Lies

 

Fox News Potentially Facing Major Financial Damage In Dogged Suit Over Election Lies

 

Mary Papenfuss

Mon, July 4, 2022 at 9:58 PM

 

 

A massive $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit by a voting machine company over Fox News election lies got a whole lot more serious last month when a judge ruled the action can proceed in a scathing ruling against Rupert Murdoch and his son.

Dominion Voting Systems was given the green light in June to proceed in its suit against both Fox News and Fox Corp, its parent company, by Delaware Supreme Court Judge Eric David.

He determined that it was a reasonable inference that Murdoch and son Lachlan either knew outright that Dominion had not manipulated the election or “recklessly disregarded the truth” when Fox disseminated lies initially launched by Donald Trump.

Conservative news outlets OAN and Newsmax have also been sued by Dominion for defamation for $1.6 billion each.

“Dominion has a very strong case against Fox News,” Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, a constitutional law professor at Florida’s Stetson University and fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice, told The Guardian.

All of the “conspiracy theories about Dominion’s machines were just pure bunk,” she added. “Fox as a news organization should have known that and not given this aspect of [Trump’s] ‘big lie’ a megaphone.”

What’s particularly bad for Fox, she noted, is that Dominion asked the network to stop disseminating the lies and correct the record, yet “Fox persisted in spreading misrepresentations about the voting machine company.”

A particularly intriguing development could be the exposure of text and email messages among the Trump White House, Fox News personalities, and even Rupert Murdoch.

“I think once you start to pull the discovery material, what you’re going to find is there was a lot of communication between the Trump people both internally and externally about pushing very specific lies and narratives,” Angelo Carusone, chief executive of Media Matters for America, told The Guardian.

A Fox spokesman told the newspaper: “We are confident we will prevail in this case, as the First Amendment is the foundation of our democracy and freedom of the press must be protected.”

[DBP66]

[concha]

[concha]

[concha]

[concha]

---

POLITICS · JUL 5, 2022 ·  28

Democrats Proudly Introduce The 'Raise Gas Prices Even Higher And Make More Kids Trans' Bill

[Wildcat Will]

4 hours ago, concha said:

You have a problem with people that think..........period!!!

Can't even use your own words.

Find pictures that express your emotions and paste below  :

[concha]

3 hours ago, Wildcat Will said:

You have a problem with people that think..........period!!!

Can't even use your own words.

Find pictures that express your emotions and paste below  :

 

That would imply that I don't have a problem with you. And you are an idiot.

So, Wee Willie wrong yet again.

 

[DBP66]

Georgia subpoenaing Giuliani, Graham in Trump election probe

KATE BRUMBACK and JILL COLVIN

Tue, July 5, 2022 at 2:12 PM

 

 

ATLANTA (AP) — The Georgia prosecutor investigating the conduct of former President Donald Trump and his allies after the 2020 election is subpoenaing U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and other members of Trump's campaign legal team to testify before a special grand jury.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis on Tuesday filed petitions with the judge overseeing the special grand jury as part of her investigation into what she alleges was "a multi-state, coordinated plan by the Trump Campaign to influence the results of the November 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere.”

The move marks a major escalation in a case that could pose a serious legal challenge to the former president as he weighs another White House run. While the special grand jury has already heard from top state officials, Tuesday's filings directly target several of Trump's closest allies and advisers, including Giuliani, who led his campaign's legal efforts to overturn the election results.

“It means the investigation is obviously becoming more intense because those are trusted advisers, those are inner circle people,” said Robert James, former district attorney in DeKalb County, which neighbors Fulton.

The special grand jury has been investigating whether Trump and others illegally tried to meddle in the 2020 presidential election in Georgia as he desperately tried to cling to power after Democrat Joe Biden's victory. Trump continues to insist that the election was stolen, despite the fact that numerous federal and local officials, a long list of courts, top former campaign staff and even Trump's own attorney general have all said there is no evidence of the fraud he alleges.

The investigation is separate from that being conducted by a congressional committee that has been examining the events surrounding the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 as well as the Department of Justice's own sprawling probe. Trump is also facing other legal challenges, including in New York, where he, his namesake son and his daughter Ivanka have agreed to answer questions under oath beginning next week in the New York attorney general’s civil investigation into his business practices.

The escalation comes as Trump has been mulling announcing a third presidential run as soon as this summer as he seeks to deflect attention from the ongoing investigations and lock in support before a long list of other potential candidates, such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, make their own moves.

Willis, who took this unusual step of requesting a special grand jury earlier this year, has confirmed that she and her team are looking into a January 2021 phone call in which Trump pushed Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” the votes needed for him to win the state. She has said the team is also looking at a November 2020 phone call between Graham and Raffensperger, the abrupt resignation of the U.S. attorney in Atlanta on Jan. 4, 2021, and comments made during December 2020 Georgia legislative committee hearings on the election. Raffensperger and other state officials have already testified before the special grand jury.

Willis also filed petitions for five other potential witnesses: lawyers Kenneth Chesebro, Cleta Mitchell, Jenna Ellis, John Eastman and Jacki Pick Deason. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney signed off on the requests, which are similar to subpoenas, deeming them necessary to the investigation.

In the petition submitted to the judge, Willis wrote that Graham, a longtime ally of the former president, actually made at least two telephone calls to Raffensperger and members of his staff in the weeks after the November 2020 election. During those calls, Graham asked about reexamining certain absentee ballots “in order to explore the possibility of a more favorable outcome for former President Donald Trump,” she wrote.

A Graham spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.

In the petition for Giuliani’s testimony, Willis identifies him as both a personal attorney for Trump and “a lead attorney for the Trump Campaign’s legal efforts seeking to influence the results of the November 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere.”

As part of those efforts, she wrote, he and others presented a Georgia state Senate subcommittee with a video recording of election workers that Giuliani alleged showed them producing “suitcases” of unlawful ballots from unknown sources, outside the view of election poll watchers.

Within 24 hours of the hearing on Dec. 3, 2020, Raffensperger’s office had debunked the video and said that it had found that no voter fraud had taken place at the arena. Nevertheless, Giuliani continued to make statements to the public and in subsequent legislative hearings claiming widespread voter fraud using that debunked video, Willis wrote.

“There is evidence that (Giuliani’s) appearance and testimony at the hearing was part of a multi-state, coordinated plan by the Trump Campaign to influence the results of the November 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere,” the petition says.

Giuliani's attorney, Bob Costello, said he had no comment and that his client had not been served with any subpoena.

To compel the testimony of an out-of-state witness, a prosecutor in Georgia has to file a petition and then a judge has to sign a certificate approving the petition, said Danny Porter, a former longtime district attorney in Gwinnett County in Atlanta’s suburbs.

The next step is to deliver the petition to a prosecutor wherever the witness lives, and serve it to the witness, who is entitled to a hearing. If the person objects to going to Georgia to testify, they have to be able to show that either their testimony isn’t needed or that it would be an undue hardship for them, Porter said.

Special grand juries are impaneled in Georgia to investigate complex cases with large numbers of witnesses and potential logistical concerns. They can compel evidence and subpoena witnesses for questioning and, unlike regular grand juries, can also subpoena the target of an investigation to appear before it.

When its investigation is complete, the special grand jury issues a final report and can recommend action. It's then up to the district attorney to decide whether to ask a regular grand jury for an indictment.

It’s not clear exactly what charges Willis could ultimately choose to pursue against Trump or anyone else. In a letter she sent to top-ranking state officials last year, she said she was looking into “potential violations of Georgia law prohibiting the solicitation of election fraud, the making of false statements to state and local government bodies, conspiracy, racketeering, violation of oath of office and any involvement in violence or threats related to the election’s administration.”

Trump has denied that he did anything wrong.

[DBP66]

Jennifer Weisselberg is set to testify in a trial against the Trump Organization and CFO Allen Weisselberg, her lawyer says

Jacob Shamsian

Tue, July 5, 2022 at 6:25 PM

 

 

 

Former President Donald Trump gives the keynote address at the Faith and Freedom Coalition during their annual conference on June 17, 2022, in Nashville, Tennessee.Seth Herald/Getty Images

• Manhattan DA prosecutors are readying for a trial against the Trump Organization, a lawyer connected to the case says.

• Jennifer Weisselberg is scheduled to prepare as a witness, according to her lawyer.

• Prosecutors brought criminal charges against the company and CFO Allen Weisselberg a year ago.

The Manhattan District Attorney's office is gearing up for a trial against the Trump Organization, an attorney for one of the witnesses told Insider.

Duncan Levin, a lawyer for Jennifer Weisselberg, said the district attorney's office asked to schedule a meeting with Jennifer Weisselberg, the former daughter-in-law of Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg, who is also a defendant in the case.

Jennifer Weisselberg was instrumental in the district attorney's office bringing its case. In a May filing, prosecutors disclosed that a media interview with her about untaxed "fringe benefits" at the company, published in November 2020, spurred investigators to bring charges. In July 2021, prosecutors brought a 15-count grand jury indictment accusing her former father-in-law and former President Donald Trump's company of evading millions of dollars in taxes.

"They've indicated to us that she's a key witness for the trial," Levin told Insider. "That she'll be playing a pretty crucial role in breathing life into the documents that they have. And so they're going to start the process of reviewing the documents with her again, and then she's ready to testify."

Jennifer Weisselberg previously told Insider that documents she provided to prosecutors, obtained through her divorce proceedings and from work she personally did for the Trump Organization, described how Allen Weisselberg used company funds to pay for apartments and tuition. According to the indictment, Trump personally signed tuition checks — which prosecutors said amounted to untaxed income.

"She was present during a number of conversations about the payment," Levin said. "A lot of the fringe benefits were directly for her life."

 

The Trump Organization's Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg, center, awaits a car after leaving a courtroom appearance in New York, Monday, Sept. 20, 2021.AP Photo/Craig Ruttle

Levin declined to say whether his client spoke to the Manhattan grand jury the DA's office has empaneled for the case, citing grand jury secrecy rules.

A representative for the Manhattan DA's office didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

Lawyers for the Trump Organization and Allen Weisselberg have denied wrongdoing and have described the indictment as politically motivated.

A date for the trial has not yet been set. Judge Juan Merchan, who is overseeing the case in a New York court, scheduled a hearing date for July 12 where he is expected to finalize a trial date.

The Manhattan DA's indictment against the Trump Organization and its CFO is part of a larger ongoing investigation into whether the former president's company broke tax, bank, and insurance laws by misrepresenting property values.

It runs parallel to a civil investigation into the same issues from the office of New York State Attorney General Letitia James, which has also used documents obtained from Jennifer Weisselberg. That investigation has appeared to move along at a faster pace, with James securing subpoenas for depositions from members of the Trump family.

 

[Slotback Right]

7 hours ago, DBP66 said:

Georgia subpoenaing Giuliani, Graham in Trump election probe

KATE BRUMBACK and JILL COLVIN

Tue, July 5, 2022 at 2:12 PM

 

 

ATLANTA (AP) — The Georgia prosecutor investigating the conduct of former President Donald Trump and his allies after the 2020 election is subpoenaing U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and other members of Trump's campaign legal team to testify before a special grand jury.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis on Tuesday filed petitions with the judge overseeing the special grand jury as part of her investigation into what she alleges was "a multi-state, coordinated plan by the Trump Campaign to influence the results of the November 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere.”

The move marks a major escalation in a case that could pose a serious legal challenge to the former president as he weighs another White House run. While the special grand jury has already heard from top state officials, Tuesday's filings directly target several of Trump's closest allies and advisers, including Giuliani, who led his campaign's legal efforts to overturn the election results.

“It means the investigation is obviously becoming more intense because those are trusted advisers, those are inner circle people,” said Robert James, former district attorney in DeKalb County, which neighbors Fulton.

The special grand jury has been investigating whether Trump and others illegally tried to meddle in the 2020 presidential election in Georgia as he desperately tried to cling to power after Democrat Joe Biden's victory. Trump continues to insist that the election was stolen, despite the fact that numerous federal and local officials, a long list of courts, top former campaign staff and even Trump's own attorney general have all said there is no evidence of the fraud he alleges.

The investigation is separate from that being conducted by a congressional committee that has been examining the events surrounding the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 as well as the Department of Justice's own sprawling probe. Trump is also facing other legal challenges, including in New York, where he, his namesake son and his daughter Ivanka have agreed to answer questions under oath beginning next week in the New York attorney general’s civil investigation into his business practices.

The escalation comes as Trump has been mulling announcing a third presidential run as soon as this summer as he seeks to deflect attention from the ongoing investigations and lock in support before a long list of other potential candidates, such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, make their own moves.

Willis, who took this unusual step of requesting a special grand jury earlier this year, has confirmed that she and her team are looking into a January 2021 phone call in which Trump pushed Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” the votes needed for him to win the state. She has said the team is also looking at a November 2020 phone call between Graham and Raffensperger, the abrupt resignation of the U.S. attorney in Atlanta on Jan. 4, 2021, and comments made during December 2020 Georgia legislative committee hearings on the election. Raffensperger and other state officials have already testified before the special grand jury.

Willis also filed petitions for five other potential witnesses: lawyers Kenneth Chesebro, Cleta Mitchell, Jenna Ellis, John Eastman and Jacki Pick Deason. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney signed off on the requests, which are similar to subpoenas, deeming them necessary to the investigation.

In the petition submitted to the judge, Willis wrote that Graham, a longtime ally of the former president, actually made at least two telephone calls to Raffensperger and members of his staff in the weeks after the November 2020 election. During those calls, Graham asked about reexamining certain absentee ballots “in order to explore the possibility of a more favorable outcome for former President Donald Trump,” she wrote.

A Graham spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.

In the petition for Giuliani’s testimony, Willis identifies him as both a personal attorney for Trump and “a lead attorney for the Trump Campaign’s legal efforts seeking to influence the results of the November 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere.”

As part of those efforts, she wrote, he and others presented a Georgia state Senate subcommittee with a video recording of election workers that Giuliani alleged showed them producing “suitcases” of unlawful ballots from unknown sources, outside the view of election poll watchers.

Within 24 hours of the hearing on Dec. 3, 2020, Raffensperger’s office had debunked the video and said that it had found that no voter fraud had taken place at the arena. Nevertheless, Giuliani continued to make statements to the public and in subsequent legislative hearings claiming widespread voter fraud using that debunked video, Willis wrote.

“There is evidence that (Giuliani’s) appearance and testimony at the hearing was part of a multi-state, coordinated plan by the Trump Campaign to influence the results of the November 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere,” the petition says.

Giuliani's attorney, Bob Costello, said he had no comment and that his client had not been served with any subpoena.

To compel the testimony of an out-of-state witness, a prosecutor in Georgia has to file a petition and then a judge has to sign a certificate approving the petition, said Danny Porter, a former longtime district attorney in Gwinnett County in Atlanta’s suburbs.

The next step is to deliver the petition to a prosecutor wherever the witness lives, and serve it to the witness, who is entitled to a hearing. If the person objects to going to Georgia to testify, they have to be able to show that either their testimony isn’t needed or that it would be an undue hardship for them, Porter said.

Special grand juries are impaneled in Georgia to investigate complex cases with large numbers of witnesses and potential logistical concerns. They can compel evidence and subpoena witnesses for questioning and, unlike regular grand juries, can also subpoena the target of an investigation to appear before it.

When its investigation is complete, the special grand jury issues a final report and can recommend action. It's then up to the district attorney to decide whether to ask a regular grand jury for an indictment.

It’s not clear exactly what charges Willis could ultimately choose to pursue against Trump or anyone else. In a letter she sent to top-ranking state officials last year, she said she was looking into “potential violations of Georgia law prohibiting the solicitation of election fraud, the making of false statements to state and local government bodies, conspiracy, racketeering, violation of oath of office and any involvement in violence or threats related to the election’s administration.”

Trump has denied that he did anything wrong.

To summarize this very long post:

Two people who may, or may not have some information have been asked to tell what they may, or may not know...and Trump denies any wrong doing.

You're welcome.

[DBP66]

3 hours ago, Slotback Right said:

To summarize this very long post:

Two people who may, or may not have some information have been asked to tell what they may, or may not know...and Trump denies any wrong doing.

You're welcome.

2 people contacted the state of Ga. election officials and tried to influence them....that's illegal in America champ!...Rudy and spineless Lindsay will have a chance to say under oath what their intentions were....to influence a Presidential election with made up lies....100% bullshit....😪

"and Trump denies and wrong doing"??????????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!..LOL.. "hey guys...I just need 11,780 votes".....🙄

[DBP66]

Judge holds real estate firm in contempt over documents in Trump probe

 

Johnny Milano

 

Zoë Richards

Tue, July 5, 2022 at 10:18 PM

 

 

A commercial real estate firm that appraised several Trump Organization properties is being held in contempt by a state judge over its failure to hand over documents in a civil probe led by the New York attorney general.

Beginning Thursday, Cushman & Wakefield will be fined $10,000 a day until it produces documents that are already more than a week overdue to New York Attorney General Letitia James' Office, according to a court order filed Tuesday.

James' office subpoenaed the documents as it considers whether to file a civil suit against former President Donald Trump and his company. In a previous filing, James’ office said it has “uncovered substantial evidence establishing numerous misrepresentations in Mr. Trump’s financial statements provided to banks, insurers, and the Internal Revenue Service.”

Trump and his company have denied any wrongdoing, with the former president at one point calling the probe “a continuation of the greatest Witch Hunt of all time.”

- ADVERTISEMENT -

The contempt order is the latest development in a lengthy legal battle that began when James’ office served subpoenas on Cushman & Wakefield in September and again in February.

The real estate firm had “partially responded” to the subpoenas in March before it refused to provide the remaining records, state Judge Arthur Engoron said in Tuesday's contempt order.

While he acknowledged the “enormous number of documents" requested in the probe, Engoron said, “Cushman & Wakefield has only itself to blame if it chose to treat the looming deadlines cavalierly.”

Last week, two days after a deadline to comply with the subpoenas following previous delays, Cushman & Wakefield filed a motion for an extension. Engoron denied the request Tuesday.

“As an initial matter, this Court is incredulous as to why Cushman & Wakefield would wait until two days after the Court-ordered deadline had lapsed to initiate the process of asking for yet another extension,” Engoron wrote.

NBC News has asked Cushman & Wakefield for comment.

In a letter to Engoron on Tuesday, lawyers for the real estate company said that it had “produced more than 850,000 pages of materials” in response to James’ subpoenas and that a multimillion-page "document dump" would end up delaying her investigation.

In a related ruling last week, Engoron said Trump was no longer in contempt of court about two months after he declared Trump in contempt for a sluggish response to a civil subpoena issued by James' office. Trump last month paid $110,000 in fines over the contempt order.

[zulu1128]

DBP's commitment to the bit is pretty admirable. lol.

[DBP66]

1 hour ago, zulu1128 said:

DBP's commitment to the bit is pretty admirable. lol.

come on Dave....it's called "current events"....and it looks like reality is starting to win the battle over the BIG lie....all the lies you've been told are being exposed by the guy you "don't support".....be happy Dave!!...the truth will set you free!...keep paying atention....🤡

[DBP66]

What say you Dave?....

Trump White House counsel Cipollone to testify to 1/6 panel

FARNOUSH AMIRI

Wed, July 6, 2022 at 11:01 AM

 

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — Pat Cipollone, Donald Trump’s former White House counsel, is scheduled to testify Friday before the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, according to a person briefed on the matter.

Cipollone, whose reported resistance to Trump’s schemes to overturn his 2020 election defeat has made him a long-sought and potentially revelatory witness, was subpoenaed by the select committee last week after weeks of public pressure to provide testimony to the panel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Former White House counsel Pat Cipollone called to testify before Jan. 6 committee

The House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol issued a subpoena to former White House counsel Pat Cipollone. Scott MacFarlane explains key issues and possibilities.

The person briefed on the matter, who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to discuss private negotiations, said Cipollone agreed to appear before the committee for a private, transcribed interview.

As Trump’s top White House lawyer, Cipollone was in the West Wing on Jan. 6, 2021, as well as for key meetings in the turbulent weeks after the election when Trump and associates — including Republican lawmakers and lawyer Rudy Giuliani — debated and plotted ways to challenge the election.

The agreement for Cipollone to speak to the panel follows last week's dramatic testimony from former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson. The young aide to former chief of staff Mark Meadows provided the committee with a striking account of what she saw and heard in those weeks and presented lawmakers with arguably their clearest case for how Trump or some of his allies could face criminal liability.

Cipollone is said to have stridently and repeatedly warned Trump and his allies against their efforts to challenge the election, threatening to resign as Trump eyed a dramatic reshuffling atop the Justice Department.

One witness said Cipollone referred to a proposed letter making false claims about voter fraud as a “murder-suicide pact.”

But while his interview with the committee could prove to be a breakthrough, it remained unclear whether Cipollone would try to limit what he is willing to talk about. As the administration’s chief lawyer, he could argue that some or all of his conversations with Trump are privileged.

Nevertheless, the nine-member panel believes he is a crucial witness who can provide them with an even closer, first-hand recollection of the several and varied efforts by Trump allies to subvert the Electoral College, including a strategy to organize so-called alternate electors for Trump in seven swing states that Biden won. Lawmakers also said that Cipollone's name came up in a number of private depositions as a voice of reason against efforts to appoint a loyalist as attorney general who championed false theories of voter fraud and a plan to have Trump march to the Capitol on Jan. 6 alongside his supporters.

Hutchinson testified last week that days before the Capitol attack, Cipollone warned that there were “serious legal concerns” if Trump accompanied the protesters to the Capitol, saying, “We need to make sure that this doesn’t happen.” By the morning of Jan. 6, Cipollone was urging Hutchinson to “keep in touch” about any possible movements by the president and “please make sure we don’t go up to the Capitol, Cassidy.”

If Trump did go to the Capitol, Hutchinson recalled Cipollone saying, “we’re going to get charged with every crime imaginable.” He had previously identified obstruction of justice or defrauding the electoral count as among the possibilities, she said.

While Cipollone sat for an informal interview in April, the committee has reiterated that it required his cooperation on the record after it obtained evidence about which he was “uniquely positioned to testify.”

“Our evidence shows that Pat Cipollone and his office tried to do what was right,” Rep. Liz Cheney, the Republican vice-chair of the committee, said in a hearing last month. “They tried to stop a number of President Trump’s plans for Jan. 6.”

“We think the American people deserve to hear from Mr. Cipollone personally," She added.

[zulu1128]

34 minutes ago, DBP66 said:

come on Dave....it's called "current events"....and it looks like reality is starting to win the battle over the BIG lie....all the lies you've been told are being exposed by the guy you "don't support".....be happy Dave!!...the truth will set you free!...keep paying atention....🤡

Okay gramps. We're all pulling for you. lol.

[DBP66]

1 hour ago, zulu1128 said:

Okay gramps. We're all pulling for you. lol.

we all know who you're pulling for Dave....and it isn't me....🤡

[DBP66]

The man with no backbone is scared...and has good reason to be.

Sen. Lindsey Graham says he'll challenge subpoena in Georgia Trump probe

Dareh Gregorian and Julie Tsirkin and Blayne Alexander

Wed, July 6, 2022 at 12:32 PM

 

 

Lawyers for Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Wednesday they'll challenge a subpoena demanding that he testify before a special grand jury in Georgia hearing evidence in a probe into possible 2020 election interference by former President Donald Trump and others.

In a statement, Graham's attorneys Bart Daniel and Matt Austin said the subpoena for their client's testimony from the grand jury hearing evidence in the Fulton County district attorney's investigation is "all politics."

"Senator Graham plans to go to court, challenge the subpoena, and expects to prevail," the statement said.

Graham was one of a number of Trump allies subpoenaed by the special grand jury on Tuesday. The grand jury was impaneled earlier this year to assist District Attorney Fani Willis’ investigation into whether there were any “coordinated attempts to unlawfully alter the outcome of the 2020 elections” in Georgia.

Willis dismissed Graham lawyers' allegation that her investigation was motivated by politics, telling NBC News on Wednesday that he "doesn’t understand the seriousness of what we’re doing." She also said the public should expect additional subpoenas of Trump associates and indicated she would not rule out subpoenaing the former president himself.

Among the incidents Willis has said she’s investigating is a post-election phone call Graham made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in November of 2020. Raffensperger has said Graham pressed him about whether he had the power to reject certain absentee ballots, which Raffensperger interpreted as a suggestion to toss out legally cast votes.

The subpoena said Graham “made at least two telephone calls” to Raffensperger and his staff. “During the telephone calls, [Graham] questioned Secretary Raffensperger and his staff about reexamining certain absentee ballots cast in Georgia in order to explore the possibility of a more favorable outcome for former President Donald Trump. [Graham] also made reference to allegations of widespread voter fraud in the November 2020 election in Georgia, consistent with public statements made by known affiliates of the Trump Campaign,” the subpoena said.

Graham has denied pressuring Raffensperger — who testified under subpoena before the 23-person grand jury last month — and called the allegation “ridiculous.”

In their statement, Graham's lawyers said investigators from Willis's office told them their client "is neither a subject nor target of the investigation, simply a witness."

They also accused the DA of working hand-in-hand with the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

"Fulton County is engaged in a fishing expedition and working in concert with the January 6 Committee," the statement said. "Any information from an interview or deposition with Senator Graham would immediately be shared with the January 6 Committee."

They also maintained their client didn't do anything wrong in his phone calls.

"As Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Graham was well within his rights to discuss with state officials the processes and procedures around administering elections. Should it stand, the subpoena issued today would erode the constitutional balance of power and the ability of a Member of Congress to do their job," the statement said.

[concha]

[DBP66]

[zulu1128]

14 hours ago, DBP66 said:

we all know who you're pulling for Dave....and it isn't me....🤡

Who's "we?" lol.

[DBP66]

2 hours ago, zulu1128 said:

Who's "we?" lol.

anyone who has read your posts knows what team you're on Dave....the orange side....😉