Trump's world....

[DBP66]

Donald Trump seeks to withhold two folders seized at Mar-a-Lago

 

 

Hugo Lowell in Washington

Fri, October 7, 2022 at 2:57 PM

 

 

 

Photograph: Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images

Donald Trump is seeking to withhold from the justice department two folders marked as containing correspondence with the National Archives and signing sheets that the FBI seized from his Mar-a-Lago resort, according to court filings in the special master review of the confiscated documents.

The former US president’s privilege assertions over the folders, which appear to have direct relevance to the criminal investigation into whether he retained national defense information and obstructed justice, are significant as they represent an effort to exclude the items from the inquiry and keep them confidential.

Most notably, Trump asserted privilege over the contents of one red folder marked as containing “NARA letters and other copies” and a second, manilla folder marked as containing “NARA letters one top sheet + 3 signing sheets”, a review of the court filings indicated.

The former president also asserted privilege over 35 pages of documents titled “The President’s Calls” that included the presidential seal in the upper left corner and contained handwritten names, numbers, notes about messages and four blank pages of miscellaneous notes, the filings showed.

Trump additionally also did the same over an unsigned 2017 letter concerning former special counsel Robert Mueller, pages of an email about election fraud lawsuits in Fulton County, Georgia, and deliberations about clemency to a certain “MB”, Ted Suhl and former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich.

A spokesperson for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The documents the former president is attempting to withhold from the criminal investigation by asserting some sort of privilege – it was not clear whether he asserted executive or attorney-client privilege over the two folders, for instance – became clear after a Friday ruling by the special master.

In the three-page order, US district court judge Raymond Dearie – appointed as the special master with a mandate to screen the seized materials for potential privilege issues – made public the unique identifier numbers for documents for which Trump is not claiming privilege.

Ordinarily, the exact nature of the documents being claimed as protected would remain private. But an apparent docketing error by the court earlier in the week revealed the seized materials that the justice department’s “filter team” identified as potentially privileged.

By comparing the unique identifier numbers for which Trump was not claiming privilege with the inadvertently unsealed list of potentially privileged documents, the Guardian was able to identify which documents the former president was seeking to withhold from the department.

The special master directed that the “filter team” should transfer the documents not deemed to be privileged by Trump to the “case team” conducting the criminal investigation before 10 October, the ruling showed.

Once the documents are transferred, the special master wrote, Trump’s lawyers and the department should confer and attempt to resolve any disputes about executive privilege over the remaining records before 20 October – and then submit any outstanding issues to him to decide.

[I AM IRONMAN]

Oh great…another page long cut and paste!

[concha]

 

[DBP66]

1 hour ago, I AM IRONMAN said:

Oh great…another page long cut and paste!

reading is fundamental....😉

[I AM IRONMAN]

20 minutes ago, DBP66 said:

reading is fundamental....😉

Especially when you 🫵read past the headline 😂

[DBP66]

Justice Department Asking if Trump Stashed Documents in Trump Tower

 

 

Asawin Suebsaeng and Adam Rawnsley

Fri, October 7, 2022 at 5:45 PM

 

 

 

The FBI Executes A Search Warrant At Former President Trump's Mar-A-Lago Estate - Credit: David Dee Delgado/Getty Images

Federal investigators have asked multiple witnesses if they knew whether Donald Trump had stashed any highly sensitive government documents at Trump Tower in Manhattan or at his private club in Bedminster, New Jersey, a person familiar with the matter and another source briefed on the situation tell Rolling Stone.

The FBI, according to these sources, had also asked in recent months whether the ex-president had a habit of transporting classified documents from his Florida estate Mar-a-Lago to the other Trump properties. The feds specifically discussed both the New York City and Bedminster locations with certain witnesses.

“It was obvious they wanted to know if this went beyond just Mar-a-Lago,” the first source says.

The Justice Department declined a request for comment from Rolling Stone. Trump attorneys and a spokesperson for the former president did not respond to requests.

The interviews suggest that the Justice Department may believe that Trump’s retention of documents extended beyond Mar-a-Lago, though it’s unclear if there’s any evidence Trump is storing documents outside his Florida property.

On Thursday, The New York Times reported that the Justice Department informed Trump’s legal team it believes the former president may have taken more documents than the ones the FBI returned to the National Archives after its August Mar-a-Lago search. Trump attorney Christopher Kise reportedly suggested that the former president voluntarily conduct a search for any further missing documents at another unnamed Trump property, according to the Times.

The FBI has been quietly interviewing a number of former Trump associates as part of its inquiry into his retention of classified documents. In August, Rolling Stone reported that FBI agents had interviewed former Trump National Security Council staff and asked them whether they were aware of the so-called standing declassification order that Trump’s office has claimed the former president put in place for classified materials taken from the West Wing.

[I AM IRONMAN]

OMG….again?  YAWN 🥱 

[DBP66]

 

The brain-washed clowns still at it........funny-sad and SCARY!

Pro-Trump Rally-Goers Blame Mysterious Bogeymen for Latest Event Flop

 

 

Zachary Petrizzo

Fri, October 7, 2022 at 7:53 PM

 

 

 

Zachary Petrizzo/The Daily Beast

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Right-wing activists assembled on Capitol grounds Friday afternoon for yet another pro-Trump rally after a similar event proved an epic failure less than two weeks ago—but again found themselves struggling to explain a pathetically low turnout.

Fervent supporters of Jan. 6 defendants, a MAGA-loving fashion designer, and a rough-and-tumble gentleman dressed in early colonial garb were just a few of the characters back outside the Capitol, equally upset at President Joe Biden and over Capitol rioters remaining behind bars.

Despite their attempts to draw in the MAGA faithful by playing Donald Trump speeches ahead of their first speaker, the “Stop the Tyrants & Unite for Freedom” gathering flopped. Even with frequent Steve Bannon podcast guest Matt Braynard in attendance, a mere 27 individuals—including two hired private security guards—showed up.

 

Braynard, a leading Jan. 6 advocate and director of the right-wing organization “Look Ahead America,” took to the miniature stage and almost immediately cried foul over five liberal activists who had shown up to protest the event.

 

Zachary Petrizzo/The Daily Beast

But these weren’t any activists. Instead, these activists, who event organizer John Paul Moran referred to as “paid agitators” and members of Antifa, brought particularly upsetting and bothersome trinkets to derail the pro-Trump rally: whistles.

“I want you to recognize something,” Braynard said. “They are trying to interrupt. That’s why they’re blowing the whistle. To make it hard to hear us!”

Further, the irony of defending Capitol police officers was apparently lost on him.

“You have some purple-haired freak, three inches from your face, blowing a whistle, causing you [police officers] hearing damage,” Braynard continued, attempting to be a white knight on behalf of the same Capitol police force that Jan. 6 defendants allegedly assaulted.

Elsewhere at the event, theories flowed about why the event didn’t pan out and draw in the masses.

 

Zachary Petrizzo/The Daily Beast

Right-wing speaker and lawyer Deborah Weiss blamed the organizers for scheduling the event on a sunny Friday afternoon.

“First of all, it’s a weekday during the day, [and] a lot of people work,” she told The Daily Beast. “Second of all, it’s very, very hard for conservative groups to get their message out right before the election,” she said before claiming email invitations for the event were censored by suspicious left-wing forces.

She then fine-tuned that theory to claim email invitations wound up in spam folders—directed there somehow by unspecified sinister figures.

“They didn’t go into my inbox. They disappeared entirely,” she said. “Hard to get the message out!”

Similarly, self-proclaimed “Capitan” Matthew Woods, dressed in colonial attire (except for his run-of-the-mill “khakis”), echoed the claim of would-be right-wing attendees being “fear[ful]” of being back in Washington, D.C. Woods also expressed frustration over the lack of notice to potential event attendees.

 

Zachary Petrizzo/The Daily Beast

MAGA fashion designer Andre Soriano spoke too, flanked by a female model wearing a Trump-inspired dark red dress reading, “Keep America Great.” Wearing a black top hat, along with a long pea-coat (a look he called “Abraham Lincoln-ish”), Soriano railed against Biden while taking issue with stimulus checks. By the end of his short speech, he was in tears. Literally. He fell into the hands of a nearby organizer’s arms after walking off stage.

As for the lackluster crowd, he said, “it doesn’t matter the size of a crowd.”

Joseph McBride, a prominent Jan. 6 attorney, made a cameo at the event. “You have members of Antifa over there,” he declared to The Daily Beast before being called up on stage by failed Virginia Republican Senate candidate Ivan Raiklin to address the crowd.

One of the only Washington, D.C. residents, speaker and “patriot activist” Suzanne Monk, claimed the rioting on Jan. 6 was to blame for subsequent events in D.C. failing miserably.

“Or even the government itself,” she said. “Obviously, people are a little nervous that this could happen again.”

Nevertheless, John Paul Moran, founder of the organizing group “GOUSA,” said, “We put the word out, literally, about a week ago. We would have liked to have more people, but I would consider it a success.”

Moran concluded by asking attendees to join him at Harry’s Bar, a far-right Proud Boy hotspot in the city, for happy hour.

[DBP66]

Putin still has his dumb bitch....

Trump blames US for 'almost forcing' Putin to invade Ukraine, says 'dumb' rhetoric taunted Russia

Joshua Zitser

Sun, October 9, 2022 at 5:50 AM

 

 

 

Former President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Minden-Tahoe Airport on October 08, 2022 in Minden, Nevada.Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

• Donald Trump blamed the US and its leadership for "almost forcing" Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine.

• Appearing on Real America's Voice, Trump accused the US of taunting Putin with "dumb" rhetoric.

• Trump repeated a baseless claim that the Ukraine-Russia war would not have happened if he was still president.

Former President Donald Trump blamed the US for "almost forcing" Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine, Newsweek was the first to report.

During an interview on Saturday morning on Real America's Voice, a right-wing network, the former president accused the US and its leadership of goading Putin into waging a botched invasion of Ukraine on February 24.

"They actually taunted him, if you really look at it, our country and our so-called leadership taunted Putin," Trump said. "I would listen, I would say, you know, they're almost forcing him to go in with what they're saying. The rhetoric was so dumb."

Trump did not provide any examples of how the US or President Joe Biden "taunted" Putin or what was the supposedly "dumb" rhetoric.

 

Earlier in the interview, the former president claimed that the war between Russia and Ukraine would never have happened if he had won the election and served a second term.

"Ukraine and Russia would not be fighting," Trump claimed. "It doesn't mean they'd love each other, but there's no way they'd be fighting, and there's no way Putin would have actually gone in."

In the build-up to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Trump made the same baseless claim that Putin would not have invaded if he was still in power. He cited his positive relationship with the Russian leader.

"I knew Putin very well. I got along with him great. He liked me. I liked him," Trump said during a "Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show" appearance on February 22. "I mean, you know, he's a tough cookie, got a lot of the great charm and a lot of pride, and he loves his country."

Trump also controversially described Putin's justification for invading as "savvy" and "genius."

 

[DBP66]

‘Trump is the man’: trial paints a White House plagued by foreign influence

 

 

J Oliver Conroy

Mon, October 10, 2022 at 2:00 AM

 

 

 

Photograph: Brendan McDermid/Reuters

“Trump is the man,” Thomas “Tom” Barrack, a wealthy investor friend of Donald Trump’s, wrote to someone in a foreign government, in 2016, as Trump’s likelihood of being named the Republican nominee for president began to become a certainty. Barrack added, cryptically, that someone called “HH” should be ready to travel.

The meaning of those words, and the intent behind them, are at the center of the latest court case to roil Trump’s circle. Prosecutors have said that the “HH” in Barrack’s email referred to His Highness Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the current leader of the United Arab Emirates, and that Barrack was trying to secretly and illegally trade his access to Trump’s ear for the graces of the Emirati government and its vast pool of investment money.

The US government has charged Barrack, whose trial began last month in New York, with acting as an unregistered foreign agent – lobbying Trump on the Emirates’ behalf, over several years, and feeding confidential information back to the small but powerful Middle Eastern petro-state.

 

Barrack denies the charges against him, which his attorneys have called “nothing short of ridiculous”. They argue that he was trying to be useful as an intermediary, and was engaged in wholly legal wheeling and dealing. “He did things because he wanted to,” Michael Schachter, a defense lawyer for Barrack, said last month. “The idea that Tom Barrack was controlled by anybody is nonsense.”

Although there is no evidence that Trump was aware of Barrack’s alleged wrongdoing, the case adds to the mounting pile of legal woes afflicting the Trump camp. They now include Congress’s hearings on the US Capitol attack, a federal investigation into whether Trump illegally kept classified White House documents, a New York state lawsuit accusing him of fraudulent business practices, and a New York state prosecution of Steve Bannon, the former Trump adviser, for allegedly defrauding people who donated to a campaign to build a wall on the Mexican border.

The prosecution of Barrack as an alleged semi-spy for the Emiratis is yet another scandal involving foreign influence on the Trump campaign and administration, which were dogged by impeachment proceedings and special investigations over alleged collusion with Russia and inappropriate pressure on Ukraine.

Barrack co-founded a pro-Trump fundraising group, Rebuilding America Now, with the lobbyist Paul Manafort, who later pleaded guilty to bank fraud, witness tampering, and conspiracy to defraud the United States in charges stemming from the Robert Mueller investigation. The US senate intelligence committee has said that Manafort’s interactions with Russian nationals constituted a “a grave counterintelligence threat” and created openings for “Russian intelligence services to exert influence over, and acquire confidential information on, the Trump campaign.”

Mike Flynn, Trump’s national security adviser during his campaign and his first White House national security adviser once in office, was forced to retroactively register as a foreign agent after admitting that he had done lobbying work for the government of Turkey. He resigned less than a month into his tenure, after serious questions were raised about his close relationship with the Russian ambassador.

Barrack has been a business associate and confidant of Trump’s for decades. They met through their mutual work in real estate, and in the 1980s and 1990s, Barrack, Trump, and the socialite and sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein formed a trio of “nightlife musketeers”, the journalist Michael Wolff wrote in his book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House. When Trump ran for president, Barrack, working with Manafort, raised millions of dollars for his campaign.

Barrack began colluding with the Emirati government before Trump had even taken office, according to prosecutors. In May 2016, Manafort gave Barrack a draft speech of Trump’s and, according to the New York Times, asked, “Are you running this by our friends?”

Barrack shared it with Saudi and Emirati officials. “They loved it so much! This is great,” Barrack’s Emirati contact, Rashid al-Malik, told him. As the speech was revised, Barrack worked to make sure it remained favorable to the Emirates’ geopolitical interests.

Barrack, who is of Lebanese descent and speaks Arabic, liked to think of himself as someone who understood the Middle East better than most American officials and could act as a broker between the Gulf states and the US.

This became particularly salient when Trump, shortly after entering office, angered the Middle Eastern world by banning people from numerous Arab and Muslim-majority countries from entering the US. Saudi Arabia and the Emirates were also keen to influence Trump against their rival, Qatar.

Less than two weeks after Trump entered the White House, Barrack tried to persuade Steve Bannon to support a plan that would supply high-level American nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia. Barrack argued that this would help “balance the current noise” caused by Trump’s travel ban.

At the same time, according to the New York Times, Barrack was trying to get Saudi officials to pressure the US to appoint Barrack as a Middle East envoy. The nuclear plan never happened, and Barrack was not made an envoy.

From 2016 to 2019, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates disbursed about $1.5bn to Barrack’s real estate company, Colony Capital, which is now called the DigitalBridge Group. In 2017, for example, Emirati sovereign wealth funds put $374m into two deals arranged by Colony Capital.

In February 2019, while at a conference in Abu Dhabi, Barrack appeared to excuse Saudi Arabia’s murder of the Saudi-American journalist Jamal Khashoggi. “Whatever happened in Saudi Arabia, the atrocities in America are equal, or worse,” he said, though he later apologized for the remark.

Barrack’s ties to the Gulf states were reported by the US House Committee on Oversight and Reform in 2019. “With regard to Saudi Arabia,” the committee’s chair, Elijah Cummings, said, “the Trump administration has virtually obliterated the lines normally separating government policymaking from corporate and foreign interests”.

As foreign influence on Trump’s court became the subject of increasing scrutiny, Barrack came under investigation. Prosecutors have accused him of deceiving federal agents who interviewed him in 2019.

The messy case has sucked in other people. Barrack’s Emirati contact, al-Malik, was charged as an accomplice, but has avoided trial because he is not in the US. Barrack’s assistant at Colony Capital, Matthew Grimes, has been charged with a lesser crime related to lobbying.

Barrack “illegally provided a foreign nation with access and influence at the highest levels of the United States government,” a prosecutor, Hiral Mehta, declared during the government’s opening statement last month. “The actions they took were not business; they were crimes.”

Witness testimony recently began, with Rex Tillerson, Trump’s former secretary of state, called to testify. Tillerson said that he did not know Barrack well, that he did not know of his connection to the Emiratis, and that his influence on the US state department was minimal.

Regardless of the outcome of Barrack’s corruption trial, it seems unlikely that it will do anything to improve the already murky legacy of the Trump White House.

“I believe it unprecedented in any US administration for so many of the closest circle of persons around the president to have been shown to be conmen, grifters and base criminals,” Patrick Cotter, a former federal mob prosecutor, told the Guardian in 2020

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[DBP66]

Another red-neck Trumper.....

GOP Sen. Tommy Tuberville faces backlash for comments on Democrats and crime

Melissa Quinn

Mon, October 10, 2022 at 3:08 PM

 

 

Washington — Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama is coming under criticism for racially-charged comments he made this weekend claiming Democrats are "pro-crime" and favor reparations for the descendants of people who were enslaved in the U.S. because they believe "the people that do the crime are owed that."

Tuberville, a first-term senator, made the controversial remarks during a rally held by former President Donald Trump in Minden, Nevada, on Saturday in support of the state's Republican candidates on the ballot in November.

"They're not soft on crime. They're pro-crime. They want crime," Tuberville said of Democrats. "They want crime because they want to take over what you got. They want to control what you have. They want reparations because they think the people that do the crime are owed that. Bulls**t. They are not owed that."

Republicans are jockeying to regain control of the House and Senate from Democrats in the November midterm elections and have been attempting to paint Democrats as soft-on-crime in their pitch to voters.

 

U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., is introduced at a rally for former President Donald Trump at the Minden Tahoe Airport in Minden, Nev., Saturday, Oct. 8, 2022. Tuberville says that Democrats support reparations for the descendants of enslaved people because

The FBI said last week that violent crime decreased by 1% in the U.S. in 2021, and the robbery rate fell 8.9% from 2020 to 2021. The murder rate in the U.S. rose by 4.3%, according to the FBI data, though that is significantly lower than the 29.4% increase in the murder rate from 2019 to 2020. The bureau warned nearly half of law enforcement agencies did not submit data in 2021, resulting in an incomplete picture and gaps in coverage.

FBI data released in December, meanwhile, found that more than half of known offenders, 50.8% were White, and 29.6% were Black or African-American.

Tuberville's comments were swiftly met with criticism.

NAACP President Derrick Johnson called Tuberville's claims "flat out racist, ignorant and utterly sickening."

"His words promote a centuries-old lie about Black people that throughout history have resulted in the most dangerous policies and violent attacks on our community," Johnson said in a statement. "We've seen this before from the far-right, and we've seen what they can do when they take power. Next time the senator wants to talk about crime, he should talk about Donald Trump's hate-fueled rally on January 6, 2021, and the attacks that followed. Perhaps the real criminals are in his orbit."

Rep. Mondaire Jones, a Democrat from New York, referenced Tuberville in a tweet about Kanye West, whose Twitter and Instagram accounts were restricted after he made antisemitic posts.

"This defense of Kanye's blatant anti-Semitism from the Indiana Attorney General, which follows deeply white supremacist comments from other high-ranking Republican officials like Senator Tommy Tuberville in recent days, tells you everything you need to know about the GOP in 2022," Jones tweeted Sunday.

The Rev. Al Sharpton told MSNBC on Monday that Tuberville's comments are "factually off" and people in Alabama "ought to be offended."

Asked to respond to Tuberville's comments, Rep. Don Bacon, a Republican from Nebraska, said on NBC's "Meet the Press" that he would "be more polite" and it's "not the way I present things."

"I wouldn't say it the same way," he said, adding there is a "problem in our country with crime."

The Democratic Party does not support reparations for African-Americans whose ancestors were enslaved, but the topic arose during the 2020 presidential campaign. Nearly all Democrats running for the party's presidential nomination, including President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, supported studying the issue.

A bill introduced in the House by Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas to create a commission to study and develop reparations proposals has broad support from her fellow Democrats in the lower chamber and was approved by the House Judiciary Committee in April 2021 with backing from its 25 Democratic members. The committee's Republican members opposed the legislation.

[DBP66]

Trump's fall-girl....

Trump lawyer told to certify Mar-a-Lago document search she did not conduct

 

 

Hugo Lowell in Washington

Mon, October 10, 2022 at 2:07 PM

 

 

 

Photograph: Jim Bourg/Reuters

Donald Trump’s lawyer Christina Bobb was instructed to certify to the justice department that all sensitive government documents stored at his Mar-a-Lago resort subpoenaed by a grand jury had been returned, though she had not herself conducted the search for the records.

The certification of subpoena compliance appears to be at the center of a criminal investigation into obstruction of justice surrounding the former US president after the assurance was proved to be untrue when the FBI’s search of the property turned up more than 100 more documents marked classified.

Related: Donald Trump seeks to withhold two folders seized at Mar-a-Lago

 

The saga around the Mar-a-Lago documents has become increasingly fraught in the courts as Trump has repeatedly claimed the FBI search and resultant investigation is politically motivated. Meanwhile, the justice department and Democrats have portrayed the taking of the documents as a potentially serious national security breach.

Bobb signed the certification as the “custodian of records” at the direction of another Trump lawyer, Evan Corcoran, and only later added caveats to make the declaration less ironclad since she had not conducted the search herself, according to three sources familiar with the matter.

The certification was drafted by Corcoran, who also searched Mar-a-Lago for documents demanded by the subpoena, and sent it to Bobb before the justice department’s counterintelligence chief, Jay Bratt, arrived on 3 June to collect a folder of responsive records, the sources said.

But unsure as to whether the subpoena had been fully complied with, Bobb told Corcoran to amend the certification to say that “based upon the information that has been provided to me” all documents responsive to the subpoena were being returned after a “diligent” search, the sources said.

It was not clear why Bobb was willing to sign the declaration – as required by the subpoena in lieu of testimony – as the “custodian of records” when she never fulfilled such a role, the sources said, and appeared to know there was risk in attesting to a search she had not completed.

And it was also not clear why Corcoran, who had been liaising with the justice department for weeks over government records at Mar-a-Lago, according to court filings, did not himself sign the certification – as well as whether he had asked for Bobb’s signature.

Bobb testified to the justice department about the 3 June episode on Friday, detailing Corcoran’s role and additional contacts with Trump’s in-house counsel Boris Epshteyn, one of the sources said. NBC News earlier reported Bobb’s testimony.

The circumstance surrounding the subpoena certification has become of special interest to the justice department as it conducts a criminal investigation into possible violations of the Espionage Act, obstruction of justice and the retention of government records.

At issue for the obstruction line of inquiry, according to the partially redacted search warrant affidavit and recent court filings, is whether the letter signed by Bobb was wilful misrepresentation so Trump could hide other documents marked classified at Mar-a-Lago.

“Efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government’s investigation,” federal prosecutors alleged in an August court filing.

But the previously unreported details behind the certification – and accepted as sufficient by the justice department on 3 June – could change the dynamics of the obstruction investigation and minimise Bobb’s potential legal exposure if she was misinformed, former justice department officials said.

The justice department appears to view Bobb and Corcoran as witnesses instead of potential defendants, even if that can change without warning: in a motion to the US appeals court for the 11th circuit, prosecutors wrote that Trump’s lawyers might be “witnesses to relevant events”.

Corcoran did not respond to requests for comment. Bobb and her criminal defense attorney also did not respond to requests for comment, though Bobb has told associates since the FBI’s search of the property on 8 August that the certification she signed was truthful, the sources said.

Bobb is considered as in-house counsel on Trump’s legal team, but was not involved in the Mar-a-Lago documents case in the run-up to the FBI search of the property in Florida and signed the certification as the “custodian of records” in name only, the sources said.

The distinction is important: in signing the statement as a custodian rather than as a lawyer, Bobb might not be subject to attorney-client privilege protections and thus could be able to speak more freely.

[DBP66]

Flynn, Gingrich testimony sought in Georgia election probe

KATE BRUMBACK

Fri, October 7, 2022 at 5:51 PM

 

 

ATLANTA (AP) — The Georgia prosecutor investigating whether then-President Donald Trump and others illegally tried to interfere in the 2020 election filed paperwork Friday seeking to compel testimony from a new batch of Trump allies, including former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis filed petitions in court seeking to have Gingrich and Flynn, as well as former White House lawyer Eric Herschmann and others, testify next month before a special grand jury that's been seated to aid her investigation.

They join a string of other high-profile Trump allies and advisers who have been called to testify in the probe. Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor and Trump attorney who's been told he could face criminal charges in the probe, testified in August. Attorneys John Eastman and Kenneth Chesebro have also appeared before the panel. U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham's attempt to fight his subpoena is pending in a federal appeals court. And paperwork has been filed seeking testimony from others, including former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.

Flynn didn't immediately respond to email and phone messages seeking comment, and his lawyer also didn't immediately return an email seeking comment. Gingrich referred questions to his attorney, who declined to comment. Herschmann could not immediately be reached.

Willis has said she plans to take a monthlong break from public activity in the case leading up to the November midterm election, which is one month from Saturday.

Each of the petitions filed Friday seeks to have the potential witnesses appear in November after the election. But the process for securing testimony from out-of-state witnesses sometimes takes a while, so it appears Willis is putting the wheels in motion for activity to resume after her self-imposed pause.

Compelling testimony from witnesses who don't live in Georgia requires Willis to use a process that involves getting judges in the states where they live to order them to appear. The petitions she filed Friday are essentially precursors to subpoenas.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who’s overseeing the special grand jury, signed off on the petitions, certifying that each person whose testimony is sought is a “necessary and material” witness for the investigation.

The petition for Gingrich’s testimony relies on “information made publicly available” by the U.S. House committee that’s investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

It says he was involved along with others associated with the Trump campaign in a plan to run television ads that “repeated and relied upon false claims about fraud in the 2020 election” and encouraged members of the public to contact state officials to push them to challenge and overturn the election results based on those claims.

Gingrich was also involved in a plan to have Republican fake electors sign certificates falsely stating that Trump had won the state and that they were the state’s official electors even though Democrat Joe Biden had won, the petition says.

The petition seeking Flynn's testimony says he appeared in an interview on conservative cable news channel Newsmax and said Trump “could take military capabilities” and place them in swing states and “basically re-run an election in each of those states."

He also met with Trump, attorney Sidney Powell and others at the White House on Dec. 18, 2020, for a meeting that, according to news reports, “focused on topics including invoking martial law, seizing voting machines, and appointing Powell as special counsel to investigate the 2020 election,” Willis wrote.

Willis in August filed a petition seeking testimony from Powell.

Herschmann, who featured prominently in the House committee hearings on the Capitol attack, was a senior adviser to Trump from August 2020 through the end of his term and “was present for multiple meetings between former President Trump and others related to the 2020 election,” Willis wrote in the petition seeking his testimony.

She wrote that the House committee also revealed that Herschmann had “multiple conversations” with Eastman, Giuliani, Powell “and others known to be associated with the Trump Campaign, related to their efforts to influence the results of the November 2020 elections in Georgia and elsewhere.” Specifically, he had a “heated conversation” with Eastman “concerning efforts in Georgia,” she added.

Willis also filed petitions Friday to compel testimony from Jim Penrose and Stephen Cliffgard Lee.

She identified Penrose as “a cyber investigations, operations and forensics consultant” who worked with Powell and others known to be associated with the Trump campaign in late 2020 and early 2021.

He also communicated with Powell and others regarding an agreement to hire data solutions firm SullivanStrickler to copy data and software from voting system equipment in Coffee County, about 200 miles southeast of Atlanta, as well as in Michigan and Nevada, Willis wrote. Penrose did not immediately respond to an email and phone message seeking comment.

Willis wrote in a petition seeking Lee's testimony that he was part of an effort to pressure elections worker Ruby Freeman, who was the subject of false claims about election fraud in Fulton County. He could not immediately be reached for comment.

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.

[DBP66]

Trump lawyer Christina Bobb speaks to federal investigators in Mar-a-Lago case

Marc Caputo - Yesterday 12:37 PM

Christina Bobb, the attorney who signed a letter certifying that all sensitive records in former President Donald Trump's possession had been returned to the government, spoke to federal investigators Friday and named two other Trump attorneys involved with the case, according to three sources familiar with the matter.

Trump lawyer Christina Bobb speaks to federal investigators in Mar-a-Lago case© Provided by NBC News

 

The certification statement, signed June 3 by Bobb, indicated that Trump was in compliance with a May grand jury subpoena and no longer had possession of a host of documents with classification markings at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, according to the three sources who do not want to comment publicly because of the sensitive nature of the sprawling federal investigation.

Their accounts correspond with federal court records, though the Justice Department did not name her as the attorney who signed the statement, or identify any others involved, in its filings.

After Justice Department officials were given the statement, the FBI subsequently determined the substance of the certification was untrue and, on Aug. 8, agents executed a search warrant and seized more 103 more records with classification markings, court documents show.

Bobb, who was Trump’s custodian of record at the time, did not draft the statement, according to the three sources who do not want to comment publicly because of the sensitive nature of the sprawling federal investigation.

Instead, Trump’s lead lawyer in the case at the time, Evan Corcoran, drafted it and told her to sign it, Bobb told investigators according to the sources. Bobb also spoke to investigators about Trump legal adviser Boris Epshteyn, who she said did not help draft the statement but was minimally involved in discussions about the records, according to the sources.

Epshteyn’s cellphone was seized last month by the FBI, according to a New York Times report, citing sources familiar with the matter. Two sources confirmed to NBC News that his phone was seized.

Bobb did not return messages seeking comment, nor did Corcoran. The Justice Department did not comment.

 

 

[DBP66]

This crazy bitch should make anyone with a brain scared.....she's part of the 70% of crazy Republicans who bought the BIG lie and now is running on the "lie"....scary times in America...

Republican Kari Lake uses false claims about 2020 as basis for Arizona Governor's Office bid

 

 

Stacey Barchenger, Arizona Republic

Mon, October 10, 2022 at 9:13 PM

 

 

 

Kari Lake answers questions after a debate with Republican candidates ahead of the Aug. 2 primary election for the Arizona governor's office on Wednesday, June 29, 2022, in Phoenix.

Inside the cavernous sanctuary of a West Valley megachurch, one year to the day after the November 2020 election, Kari Lake preached to her congregation.

The gospel was election reform — and a false claim that Donald Trump defeated Joe Biden in the presidential contest two years ago. It was followed by a recorded message from Trump himself, endorsing Lake in her bid to become Arizona's next Republican governor.

In just about 18 months, Lake has gone from fixture inside many Phoenicians' homes as an anchor on Fox 10 to a leading figure in Trump's Make America Great Again faction of the Republican Party.

 

She's running an outsider's bid for the state's top office, asking voters to choose her over Democratic rival Katie Hobbs, Arizona's secretary of state, to replace Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, who has hit a term limit and cannot run again. Early voting begins Oct. 12, with the election set for Nov. 8.

Lake, 53, has pledged to clean voter registration rolls, stop ballot harvesting and has gone to court to end the use of electronic voting machines and limit voting to in-person on Election Day, instead of using mail-in ballots. She wants to flood the southern border with law enforcement to keep an "invasion" of migrants at bay and pledges to work to combat homelessness, offering a plan that provides more resources but also threatens criminal penalties.

Since clinching the Republican nomination in August, Lake's campaign has shifted to focus less on election falsehoods that can turn off crucial swing voters. She now casts her repeated claims that 2020 was stolen from Trump as merely questioning the election process.

She's spent more time on policy and softening her own image, adding personal details to an unconventional campaign that previously thrived on attacking the media and praising the former president.

A charismatic candidate who is seemingly always camera ready, Lake often takes on the mainstream media from which she earned a paycheck. Her campaign said she was too busy to do an interview for this profile, and she has refused to do interviews on policy, but she responded to questions via email.

"Arizona is in desperate need of visionary leadership to address the serious problems facing us, including water, education, elections security, crime, inflation and more," Lake wrote to explain why she is running. "The status quo isn’t working. I’m focused on delivering the transformative leadership we need to tackle those challenges head on."

 

Gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake listens as Tyler Bowyer, chief operating officer of Turning Point Action, introduces her at South Mountain Pavilion at Tumbleweed Park in Chandler on Aug. 27, 2022.

Lake's media career ends roughly

Lake is a native of Iowa, youngest of nine siblings. She came to Arizona after college, first working at 12 News as a weekend anchor in her late 20s, where she met her husband who is now her campaign videographer, Jeff Halperin. They have two children.

In the late '90s, she left Phoenix for a stint working in upstate New York before returning for a job at Fox 10, where she stayed for more than two decades.

Lake became a beloved fixture on the nightly newscast alongside John Hook. She interviewed presidents Barack Obama and Trump twice, pinnacle interviews for any journalist. But there were other stories Lake preferred.

"But the best part of that job was the stories of everyday Arizonans who did amazing things, and being able to be a part of that and connect other people with what they were doing," she wrote to The Arizona Republic.

Her family lives in the Biltmore neighborhood, and one day several years ago Lake called the city to report a water leak and sinkhole, which is how she first talked to Sam Stone, according to Stone's recollection. Now her policy director, Stone was chief of staff to Phoenix City Councilmember Sal DiCiccio at the time and he took Lake's calls. Lake passion for improving the neighborhood around her is what Stone admires in Lake's campaign.

"She's the type of person who when she sees a problem, she doesn't want to let it fester, she wants to go right after it," Stone said. Lake's problem-solving spirit and "go for it" attitude, over an incremental approach, convinced him to help her campaign, even as he's running his own for the Phoenix City Council, Stone said.

Lake has no prior elected experience and has not held a management position in her career in television. She said leadership is really about "having the courage and fortitude to do the right things even when they’re not easy."

Toward the close of her TV career, controversy began brewing. Lake was off the air for about a week after using an expletive while broadcasting and in 2018 falsely alleged that the “Red for Ed” movement advocating for better education funding was actually a push to legalize marijuana.

After taking leave in early 2021, Lake's next on-camera appearance was resigning her job, saying she didn't believe what she was reading on the teleprompter was the truth or told the full story.

Lake said the network restricted her from telling the public about COVID-19 treatments, but her campaign did not respond to follow-up questions about which treatments or name individuals at Fox who Lake said wouldn't let her change the news scripts. "It went beyond spin, it became about pushing an agenda, and I refused to be part of that," she wrote. She said people died as a result of the false narrative and "suffered through unmitigated fear, and didn’t need to."

One person who worked with Lake, however, rejected those claims, noting it was Lake and other anchors' jobs to ensure fairness and accuracy in their broadcasts.

Diana Pike, the human resources director at Fox 10 for 20 years before she retired in 2019, said she never heard a single complaint, from Lake nor anyone else, that they were made to say things that weren't true. Pike said she believed Lake couldn't take criticism and never accepted responsibility for her gaffes, after which she would disappear from work for days or weeks and force others to fill in for her.

"I think to govern, you have concern and stewardship for your constituents, for your resources," Pike said. "She doesn't have that consideration. She doesn't. She is charismatic, she's a good public speaker, but it's a façade."

In June 2021, Lake announced her run for governor. Today, Lake is a protégé of Trump and a darling of his Arizona loyalists. She is endorsed by the farthest right of the Republican Party, including state Sen. Wendy Rogers, U.S. Congressman Paul Gosar, and Rudy Giuliani, the former president’s right hand in furthering claims the 2020 election was stolen.

Questions about authenticity

Lake's primary bid, in which she ultimately defeated well-funded establishment Republican Karrin Taylor Robson and two other challengers, offered a series of seeming contradictions between Lake the candidate for governor, and Lake the broadcaster.

Lake attacked U.S. Sen. John McCain's legacy, calling the state’s longtime Republican leader a "loser" in one of her frequent attacks on Republicans In Name Only, or RINOs. One of McCain's sons, Jimmy McCain, who considered Lake a friend, said he and family members felt betrayed by Lake's flip, and more recently, Jimmy McCain has crossed party lines to support Hobbs in her campaign.

Lake veered toward gay bashing, prompting one of Phoenix's best known drag queens, Richard Stevens, who performs as Barbra Seville, to publicly accuse Lake of hypocrisy.

Before she began a legal attack on early voting and mail-in ballots — the way most Arizonans have voted for over 30 years — Lake for decades faithfully mailed in her ballot. Lake said she "wasn't previously aware of the potential for fraud." Ahead of the primary election, Lake claimed "stealing going on" in the race, a claim that she has abandoned after her win.

Election guide: November 2022

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She has received criticism for once saying deportation of millions of immigrants wasn't possible, but espousing a hardline policy to use state resources to deport migrants.

She claimed she was a life member of the National Rifle Association, though she refused to provide proof of her membership prior to 2021.

And in what was the biggest flip-turned-fodder for her Republican opponent in the primary, Lake previously voted as a Democrat, from 2008 to 2012, according to voter registration records.

Lake said in her written responses she voted for Obama because of his promise to end wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but she felt he lied and "deliberately tore this country apart with identity politics" in his reelection campaign. She returned to the GOP in 2012.

Lake objected to characterizing any of her changes as contradictions.

"Are they contradictions? Or is that just what you want to call them to help ensure Katie Hobbs becomes our next governor?" she wrote in July.

"I stand behind what I’ve said on this campaign 100%, and — let’s be honest — that’s what the left is truly afraid of: a conservative problem solver who isn’t afraid to stand up and fight."

Praised as an outsider by voters

But she's embraced her return to the Republican Party along the campaign trail and sought to turn it into a strength.

At a campaign event in Mesa in mid-June, when Lake asked former Democrats in the room to raise their hands, Robert Lapinski of Scottsdale lifted his. Afterward, he said he loves Lake's outsider take.

“She’s generating the enthusiasm, and I agree with what she’s saying,” he said. Lapinski met Lake once before at an event in Sun City West, where Lake directly confronted a heckler, inviting the person onstage.

When he later told friends about the heckler, Lapinski offered two scenarios of what might actually have happened. The first was that Lake's answer was delivered on the fly.

The other scenario was that the encounter was a setup.

“Or if she put the heckler up to it, so she could give a strong response, then it’s even more brilliant, because it shows political savvy, and I admire that," he said.

 

Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake speaks at Legacy Sports Park on Oct. 9, 2022, before former President Donald Trump takes the stage to support local candidates.

General election campaign yet another flip

Lake has taken on a different tone in the past two months — the run up to the general election — tiptoeing away from claims of election fraud while still balancing an affinity for Trump that guarantees her hold on the base of Republican support.

The day after the primary election, before the contest was officially called, Lake declared victory with a message of unity that welcomed in Republicans she'd ruthlessly criticized for several months, independent voters and even willing Democrats.

That appeal to unity hasn't gone smoothly, with Lake at times pivoting back to divisive language that was more typical of her primary campaign. Those moments included a speech at a conservative conference in Texas, just days after the primary, in which Lake bragged her victory showed she "drove a stake through the heart of the McCain machine.”

In September, speaking about drug trafficking cartels at a campaign event, she quoted Trump's words years ago that were seen as casting all immigrants in a bad light.

"They are bringing drugs," Lake said in September. "They are bringing crime, and they are rapists, and that's who's coming across our border. That's a fact."

At a campaign event with Trump in Mesa, just days before early voting began, Lake walked a political tightrope: She didn't mention the 2020 election a single time, an obvious appeal to swing voters. But she also declared her commitment to Trump, invoking Biden's son, Hunter Biden, a favorite foil of some conservatives.

"Now I've got to tell you, I have some of these know-nothing consultants who tell me, 'You know, you really need to back away from President Trump right now,'" Lake said to a crowd of thousands. "And I say to them, 'Put down Hunter's crack pipe, right now.'

"What would it say about my character if I stepped away from my friends? And if I step away from my friends, that means I would step away from you, and I will never step away from the people of Arizona."

[concha]

The last sane Dem pol has left the building...

I can no longer remain in today’s Democratic Party that is now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness, who divide us by racializing every issue & stoke anti-white racism, actively work to undermine our God-given freedoms, are hostile to people of faith & spirituality, demonize the police & protect criminals at the expense of law-abiding Americans, believe in open borders, weaponize the national security state to go after political opponents, and above all, dragging us ever closer to nuclear war.

I believe in a government that is of, by, and for the people. Unfortunately, today’s Democratic Party does not.

Instead, it stands for a government of, by, and for the powerful elite. I’m calling on my fellow common sense independent-minded Democrats to join me in leaving the Democratic Party. If you can no longer stomach the direction that so-called woke Democratic Party ideologues are taking our country, I invite you to join me.

 

[DBP66]

6 minutes ago, concha said:

The last sane Dem pol has left the building...

I can no longer remain in today’s Democratic Party that is now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness, who divide us by racializing every issue & stoke anti-white racism, actively work to undermine our God-given freedoms, are hostile to people of faith & spirituality, demonize the police & protect criminals at the expense of law-abiding Americans, believe in open borders, weaponize the national security state to go after political opponents, and above all, dragging us ever closer to nuclear war.

I believe in a government that is of, by, and for the people. Unfortunately, today’s Democratic Party does not.

Instead, it stands for a government of, by, and for the powerful elite. I’m calling on my fellow common sense independent-minded Democrats to join me in leaving the Democratic Party. If you can no longer stomach the direction that so-called woke Democratic Party ideologues are taking our country, I invite you to join me.

 

^ this lady has been confused for some time now...you can have her!....she can't seem to make up her mind....🤡

[DBP66]

6 hours ago, concha said:

The last sane Dem pol has left the building...

I can no longer remain in today’s Democratic Party that is now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness, who divide us by racializing every issue & stoke anti-white racism, actively work to undermine our God-given freedoms, are hostile to people of faith & spirituality, demonize the police & protect criminals at the expense of law-abiding Americans, believe in open borders, weaponize the national security state to go after political opponents, and above all, dragging us ever closer to nuclear war.

I believe in a government that is of, by, and for the people. Unfortunately, today’s Democratic Party does not.

Instead, it stands for a government of, by, and for the powerful elite. I’m calling on my fellow common sense independent-minded Democrats to join me in leaving the Democratic Party. If you can no longer stomach the direction that so-called woke Democratic Party ideologues are taking our country, I invite you to join me.

 

[DBP66]

Fox News Pundit Announces She’s Not a Democrat

 

 

Ryan Bort

Tue, October 11, 2022 at 9:06 AM

 

 

 

Tulsi-Gabbard - Credit: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Tulsi Gabbard, the former 2020 presidential candidate and current Fox News talking head, announced on Tuesday that she is leaving the party she sought to represent in the White House.

“I can no longer remain in today’s Democratic Party that is now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness, who divide us by racializing every issue & stoke anti-white racism, actively work to undermine our God-given freedoms, are hostile to people of faith & spirituality, demonize the police & protect criminals at the expense of law-abiding Americans, believe in open borders, weaponize the national security state to go after political opponents, and above all, dragging us ever closer to nuclear war,” she said in a video address that filled up a bingo card’s worth of right-wing talking points.

Gabbard’s bonafides as a Democrat were suspect even as she was running for president. She has a history as an anti-LGBTQ+ activist, with the organization she worked for, Alliance for a Traditional Marriage, describing homosexuality as “unhealthy, abnormal behavior that should not be promoted or accepted in society.” She tried to claim ahead of her presidential campaign that she was committed to working for equal rights for all, but her bigoted past and anti-woke present indicate any overtures to equality were simply part of a ploy for power.

 

Gabbard didn’t come close to winning the nomination and has since carved out a role as a right-wing pundit masquerading as a token Democrat on Fox News. She even guest-hosted Tucker Carlson Tonight following the FBI’s raid of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in August. “Now, whatever your views are on Donald Trump, there’s no denying that the unprecedented raid on his Palm Beach home earlier this week has set our country on a dangerous new course, and there’s no turning back,” she said.

Gabbard has returned to her roots as an opponent of LGBTQ+ Americans, as well. She’s railed against trans rights, and not only did she support Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ “Don’t Say Gay” bill, she said wasn’t extreme enough. “But as I read the legislation, I gotta tell you, I was shocked to learn that it only protects kids from kindergarten till third grade,” she said of the bill to suppress discussion of sexuality in schools. “Third grade? What about 12th grade or not at all?”

It may have been her message at the Conservative Political Action Conference earlier this year, however, that best illustrates how Gabbard was, is, and always will be full of shit. “I’m going to talk about the need for us to actually treat each other with respect and end this tribalism and divisiveness that’s tearing us apart,” she said in explaining her appearance at the right-wing conference to Politico.

It’s unclear where calling Democrats an “elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness” fits into her push for unity.

[DBP66]

[concha]

[concha]

A woman in a hot air balloon realizes she is lost. She lowers her altitude and spots a man fishing from a boat below. She shouts to him, "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."

The man consults his portable GPS and replies, "You're in a hot air balloon, approximately 30 feet above a ground elevation of 2,346 feet above sea level. You are at 31 degrees, 14.97 minutes north latitude and 100 degrees, 49.09 minutes west longitude.

She rolls her eyes and says, "You must be a Republican!"

"I am," replies the man. "How did you know?"

"Well," answers the balloonist, "everything you tell me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to do with your information, and I'm still lost. Frankly, you're not much help to me."

The man smiles and responds, "You must be a Democrat."

"I am, replies the balloonist. "How did you know?"

"Well," says the man, "You don't know where you are or where you're going. You've risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise that you have no idea how to keep, and now you expect me to solve your problem. You're in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but, somehow, now it's my fault."

[concha]

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas KNEW border agents did not whip Haitian migrants - two hours before he said the images were 'horrifying' and pushed the narrative, bombshell new emails show

[DBP66]

The rapist to stand trial....

Judge: Trump must sit for deposition in defamation lawsuit

LARRY NEUMEISTER

Wed, October 12, 2022 at 12:33 PM

 

 

NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump will have to answer questions under oath next week in a defamation lawsuit lodged by a writer who says he raped her in the mid-1990s, a judge ruled Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan rejected a request by Trump's lawyers that the planned testimony be delayed. The deposition is now scheduled for Oct. 19.

The decision came in a lawsuit brought by E. Jean Carroll, a longtime advice columnist for Elle magazine, who says Trump raped her in an upscale Manhattan department store’s dressing room. Trump has denied it. Carroll is scheduled to be deposed Friday.

Trump's lawyer, Alina Habba, said in a statement: “We look forward to establishing on the record that this case is, and always has been, entirely without merit.”

Roberta Kaplan, Carroll’s attorney, said she was pleased with the ruling and looked forward to filing the new claims next month “and moving forward to trial with all dispatch.”

Trump's legal team has tried various legal tactics to delay the lawsuit and prevent him from being questioned by Carroll's attorneys, but Judge Kaplan wrote that it was time to move forward, especially given the “advanced age” of Carroll, 78, and Trump, 76, and perhaps other witnesses.

“The defendant should not be permitted to run the clock out on plaintiff’s attempt to gain a remedy for what allegedly was a serious wrong,” he wrote.

Carroll's lawsuit claims that Trump damaged her reputation in 2019 when he denied raping her. Trump's legal team has been trying to squash the suit by arguing that the Republican was just doing his job as president when he denied the allegations, including when he dismissed his accuser as “not my type.”

That's a key question because if Trump was acting within the scope of his duties as a federal employee, the U.S. government would become the defendant in the case.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in a split decision last month that Trump was a federal employee when he commented on Carroll's claims. But it asked another court in Washington to decide whether Trump's public statements occurred during the scope of his employment.

Kaplan, the judge, said Trump has repeatedly tried to delay the collection of evidence in the lawsuit.

“Given his conduct so far in this case, Mr. Trump's position regarding the burdens of discovery is inexcusable,” he wrote. “As this Court previously has observed, Mr. Trump has litigated this case since it began in 2019 with the effect and probably the purpose of delaying it.”

The judge noted that the collection of evidence for the lawsuit to go to trial was virtually concluded, except for the depositions of Trump and Carroll.

“Mr. Trump has conducted extensive discovery of the plaintiff, yet produced virtually none himself,” Kaplan said. “Completing these depositions — which already have been delayed for years — would impose no undue burden on Mr. Trump, let alone any irreparable injury.”

The judge also said the deposition could be useful when Carroll's lawyer next month files a new lawsuit under New York's revival law, the Adult Survivors Act, allowing her to sue for damages for the alleged rape without the statute of limitations blocking it.

Whether the rape occurred is central to the defamation claims, as well as the anticipated new lawsuit, the judge said.