Tag: Trump Obstruction

The Criminal Referrals

The Daily Escape:

Gateway Crossing Bridge, Houlton, ME – December 2022 photo by Christopher Mills Photography

The Jan. 6 Select Committee has completed its job. On Monday it approved a criminal referral for Trump, a former President, and a current Presidential candidate, on a series of charges that include insurrection and conspiring to defraud the US. Marcy Wheeler summarizes the findings of the Committee perfectly:

“Trump corruptly tried to prevent Congress to certify the electoral victory of Trump’s opponent. He did so by committing other crimes. He did so by mobilizing a violent mob. He did so using fraudulent documents. And most importantly, he did so for personal benefit.”

The Committee will publish their final report next week. They will turn over the unredacted interview material to the Department of Justice (DOJ) and its Special Counsel, Jack Smith. According to Punchbowl, the Committee has already begun cooperating with Smith, who apparently sent the Committee a letter on Dec. 5 requesting all of the panel’s materials from the 18-month probe.

Sadly, it seems that their report ignores the policing failures that occurred both before and on Jan. 6.  One of the objectives of the Select Committee was to make recommendations about how the US Capitol could avoid a similar attack in the future. But it doesn’t seem that subject has been properly addressed.

While Wrongo believes that the investigation into Jan. 6 was critical and that it may eventually result in the DOJ indicting Trump at some point, conspiracy is a very high bar to prove against a common thief, much less against a former president who is used to communicating like a mob boss.

As Dan Pfeiffer says:

“…we will all wake up and go about our business. Donald Trump will continue to be the frontrunner for the GOP nomination and a legitimate contender to be the next President of the United States. The vast majority of Republicans will continue to stand with Trump — and most will do so enthusiastically.”

Before issuing any indictment, DOJ  prosecutors must decide if there is a case to be made that includes sufficient evidence to convict the former President beyond a reasonable doubt.

And it could take the DOJ a year or more to get a grand jury to indict Trump. While the DOJ has had grand juries up and running and considering evidence about Jan. 6 for a very long time, building such a complex case may take long enough that by the time they’re ready to bring a case, it will be near the time of the GOP primaries.

The Mar-a-Lago secret documents case is an easier one to make. We know that an FBI search of the former President’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida found more than 300 classified documents.

Trump’s removal of official government records from an office of the US is one possible charge. A second separately chargeable offense is theft of government records. Those two crimes carry maximum three-year and 10-year sentences respectively.

Then there’s the Espionage Act, which also carries a sentence of 10 years in prison. We know that before January 20, 2021, the Acting Archivist of the US asked for those records to be returned, and Trump’s White House Counsel Pat Cipollone agreed that Trump needed to return them before his term ended.

After Trump left DC with the documents, a grand jury subpoena demanded that all of them be returned to a courthouse located in Washington, DC.

These three crimes are relatively straightforward to prove. Garland and his team might decide that charging them alone suffices, without adding a fourth offense of obstructing a pending federal criminal investigation, into improperly taking and retaining the stolen documents.

Obstruction carries a 20-year maximum sentence — double the penalty for violating the Espionage Act. That shows how seriously that charge is considered under the law.

We know that Trump and his attorneys stonewalled the government for more than a year, refusing to return the 13 boxes of classified documents that the FBI’s August 8, 2022 search recovered. Most of this year has been an effort by Trump to delay the FBI and the DOJ from inventorying all of the classified documents that Trump took to Florida.

The DOJ has a strong case against Trump on the charges described above. They are easier to prove, and existing laws are very clear what the penalties are when it comes to the theft of classified documents. And there’s plenty of legal precedent for putting people who steal US government secrets in jail for a long time. If we want Trump taken off the battlefield before 2024, the theft of classified documents case is the best shot.

Let’s close with “Christmas Must Be Tonight“, a 1975 tune written by Robbie Robertson. It was released on the Band’s 1977 album “Islands”. This version is from that album. The tune appeared in the movie “Scrooged” in 1988. There is Rick Danko’s singing along with Robbie Robertson’s lyrics. It doesn’t get any better than this:

Chorus:

How a little baby boy bring the people so much joy
Son of a carpenter, Mary carried the light
This must be Christmas, must be tonight

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New DOJ Filing In Trump Case

The Daily Escape:

Joshua Tree NP, CA – August 2022 photo by Bart Aldrich

(The Wrongologist is taking the next few days off to bask in the last days of summer. Unless something major requires his return to the internet, Wrongo will publish again starting on September 6. Enjoy your Labor Day break!)

 

“He that cannot obey cannot command”  ̶  Benjamin Franklin

Perhaps you have been following the Mar-a-Lago (MAL) saga in which the FBI under an approved search warrant, removed government-owned secret and top secret documents from MAL. That search occurred after two prior attempts (Jan. 17 and June 3) by the US government to get Trump to return documents in his possession. Unsurprisingly, Trump was less than fully cooperative, and after the second attempt, said all documents had been turned over when they hadn’t.

The search has led to a war of words by Trump and Republicans against the FBI and the DOJ. It has also led to a legal back and forth between Trump and the DOJ. Most recently US District Judge Aileen M. Cannon has said she may appoint a special master to review the seized documents. That would be a win for Trump. She gave the DOJ until last Tuesday to explain why she shouldn’t do that.

The DOJ replied in a filing that included a photo of secret and top secret SCI documents found in Trump’s office. It shows files labeled “Top Secret” with bright red or yellow cover sheets, spread out over a carpet. The files were found inside a container in Trump’s office, and apparently, the FBI spread them on the floor to capture the extent of the secret material. The DOJ filing calls this a “redacted FBI photograph of certain documents and classified cover sheets recovered from a container in the ’45 office’”:

Close examination of one of the cover sheets in the photo shows a marking for “HCS,” a government acronym for systems used to protect intelligence gathered from secret human sources. Also, imagine thinking that carpet looks appropriate for an office.

Taking a picture that includes the easy to identify carpet lets the FBI show where they found the documents.

Regarding obstruction, the DOJ’s filing also revealed the text of a written assurance given to the DOJ by attorney Christina Bobb, Trump’s “custodian of records” on June 3. It says that Trump’s team had done a thorough search for any classified material in response to a subpoena and had already turned over any relevant documents.

That’s clearly untrue. According to the WaPo, the filing says: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“When agents conducted their court-ordered search on Aug. 8, they found material so sensitive that even the FBI counterintelligence personnel and DOJ attorneys conducting the review required additional clearances before they were permitted to review certain documents…”

The filing also says that the DOJ believes that documents at MAL had been likely moved and hidden. The search there on Aug. 8 found twice as many classified documents as Trump’s lawyers had already turned over voluntarily, despite promising they had returned everything.

One detail in the DOJ filing is that the search team found that some of the secret documents were co-mingled with Trump’s passports. That’s evidence of Trump’s active role in keeping/hiding them.

It gets worse. Scott Stedman explains what we’re looking at.

“The image is actually quite telling. The secret/top secret documents found in Trump’s office have a ‘TK’ classification which stands for TALENT KEYHOLE aka secret intelligence from spy satellites and planes.”

This means that Trump had super-secret spy technology and intelligence from human sources in his office desk at MAL.

As Wrongo has said, the government’s intelligence services have to assume that many of its sources are blown, even if they’re not. That makes Trump’s obstruction of holding on to documents he wasn’t entitled to, a National Security disaster. It isn’t an exaggeration to say that covert intelligence assets of the US won’t trust the CIA for many years.

Trump was the US Commander-in-Chief. He had access to the nuclear football. He took classified materials that were necessary to the job of president from the White House and stored them in his office closet and the desk drawer at his resort.

Wrongo is publishing this prior to learning the outcome of the hearing with Judge Cannon on Thursday. It’s unclear how she will rule on the Trump request for a special master, but the DOJ filing contains sufficient information for them to appeal if they receive a negative decision.

Trump has had more “this-time-he’s-gone-too-far” moments in the last six years than can be counted. So far, he’s escaped. It could well be that his future is as messy as that pile of documents found at MAL by the FBI. His belief that he is above the law is about to be tested.

But don’t get your hopes up, and yes, pass the popcorn.

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Dysfunction in the House?

The Daily Escape:

Doubtful Sound, NZ – photo by patlue1101

Wrongo doubts that the way Congressional Democrats are going about their business will make them completely successful in 2020. The media would have us believe that the House is all about investigations. That is compounded by the way they are spinning their wheels about a decision to impeach Trump.

In reality, House Democrats haven’t been squandering time. In addition to the investigations, they’ve been passing legislation. In all, the House has taken up 51 bills since January, of which, 49 have passed.

Do you remember the House voting to end the longest government shutdown in history? Or, passing a bill to lower prescription drug prices, or to protect preexisting medical conditions? They also passed nine bills on veteran’s issues. You should remember HR-1, aimed at getting money out of politics and increasing transparency around donors, and expanding voting rights.

A complete list of what the House has passed is here. Despite Trump’s complaints about doing nothing on infrastructure, lots of legislation has been passed in the House.

The few things the House has been able to agree with Senate Republicans on include the bill to reopen the federal government, a resolution to end US involvement in Yemen (later vetoed by Trump), and the recent federal disaster aid agreement.

So why does the media make it seem like Congress isn’t getting anything done? The vast majority of their bills hit a dead end in the Republican-controlled Senate, and the media is only interested in the investigations, and the fight with the White House.

Trump’s attempts to thwart these investigations have turned into a mud wrestling contest between the administration and the Democratic committee chairs. Congress is attempting to perform its constitutionally mandated role of overseeing the executive branch, while Trump is attempting to obstruct their oversight.

A few individuals have agreed to testify, others, including AG Bill Barr and former WH counsel Don McGahn, have been held in “civil contempt” of Congress.

In the case of the Census question, the media gets it wrong. The DOJ handed over tens of thousands of pages about the Census question, but the media didn’t mention that those materials were not what was subpoenaed, and in some cases, not even relevant. Thus, Barr’s contempt citation.

Civil contempt has no teeth, unless enforced by the courts. Even then, after a federal court held that Trump cannot block a House subpoena targeting his accounting firm, Trump’s lawyers filed a brief asking a federal appeals court to reverse this decision. That case will languish until it is decided by the Supreme Court, most likely, next year.

We could nap from now until September, and wake up to find zero progress in Congress on their investigations. Nothing will happen until after the August recess, and most likely, we won’t see much until next year.

A decision to open an impeachment inquiry strengthens immeasurably all of Congress’s arguments for information. They would have an unambiguous Constitutional basis for their demands, much stronger than what backs their common legislative oversight demands. It all might still wind up in the courts, but Congress’s chances of prevailing would be enhanced.

Finally, Trump walked into a propeller on Wednesday when he said he would accept opposition research from a foreign government. It is illegal to accept foreign campaign contributions, although an exchange of political information isn’t unambiguously a contribution. Mueller didn’t decide if opposition research provided for free by a foreign government constitutes a “thing of value” and thus is an illegal foreign campaign contribution.

OTOH, you would think that Mr. Art of the Deal must know that if he accepts information that is useful to his campaign from a foreign government, it comes with strings attached. When he then says he’d do it again, he shows that he’s learned nothing from 2016, or from the Mueller Report’s conclusion about foreign government intervention in the 2016 election.

Trump has again invited the Russians and others to intervene in our elections. The question is will he get away with it?

Should Congress continue down the path of waiting on the courts to decide to get them the information they need to make a case? Or, should they launch an impeachment inquiry that limits the legal defenses of the administration?

Time has come for the Congressional Democrats to leave the “do little, say less” portion of their current term behind. We are already six months into the current Pelosi Speakership. That means just 18 months remain until the House is up for re-election.

The war for 2020 has already begun. Democrats shouldn’t worry about the political implications of an impeachment inquiry. It’s time to do what’s right by holding the Trump administration accountable.

It’s time to let America know what Democrats in the House are doing.

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