On One Side, Pence v Trump is Official. In Other Hand, Mark Meadows removed classified documents from the White House on 19 January 2021, Trump's Last Day in White House

(LONGFORM; LEGAL RESEARCH AND WRITING ABOUT COMPLICATED TRUMP. LIVE UPDATE SINCE PENCE'S TOWNHALL---PLEASE REFRESH THIS PAGE FOR UPDATING/ FOR THE FULLEST VERSION.)

(UPDATED:

1) Trump court hearing IS OVER (around 3.51pm Miami - local time), "Trump has been allowed to leave court without conditions or travel restrictions and no cash bond was required."

2) Judge Aileen Mercedes Cannon signs court order listing August 14th, 2023 trial date in USA v. Donald Trump. Expect one or both parties to be filing emergency appeals to the 11th Circuit based on pre-trial rulings, which should delay things.

3) While Trump did not have his mug shot taken, his co-defendant, Walt Nauta, did as part of his booking process. Just one example of how different this process could play out for each of them moving forward.

4) Trump (also) will not be surrendering his passport, and there will be no limitations placed on Trump’s domestic or international. When you're a star, they let you do it. Two tiered system of justice - one rule for Trump, one rule for all other EspAct defendants/Espionage Act defendants.

5) Trump sat stoically in federal court today, arms crossed, between his lawyers Todd Blanche and Chris Kise. He didn’t address the magistrate during the proceedings. Next to them were Walt Nauta and his attorney Stan Woodward.

6) Trump and Nauta have terms of release requiring no contact. The judge said they can’t discuss the case but not that they have to avoid contact.

stories continued)

Pence super PAC goes big (and vulgar attacking Trump) on J6 as an issue in first ad (political ad launched - aired around 1.5 - 2 hours ago). Interesting particularly with backdrop of Trump being told he’s a target in federal investigation. Trump knew & sometimes followed the declassification rules.

The indictment of former President Donald Trump is forcing his 2024 primary rivals into an awkward position: defending the man they’re trying to defeat. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R), a GOP presidential candidate for 2024, said the details of the federal indictment against former President Trump are “devastating.” Trump received 2nd indictments in Bedminster New Jersey (Thursday, June 8th, 2023, 7.21pm New Jersey local time). Former UN Ambassador and Trump appointee Nikki Haley criticizes Trump over indictment. ”If … true President Trump was incredibly reckless with our national security.“ - ”puts all of our military …in danger“ on FoxNews. Haley‘s chances of GOP nomination would rise if Trump out.

Interviews with seven Trump advisers indicate he misled his own advisers, telling them the boxes contained only newspaper clippings and clothes. He repeatedly refused to give the documents back, even when some flew to Mar-a-Lago to beg him to return them.

Trump schedule of legal proceedings, as of now (plus GOP 2024 schedule):

-July-August: Likely Fulton indictment

-Oct: NY State civil trial against Trump Org.

-January 15th 2024: E. Jean Carroll trial

-around February 2024: Iowa Caucus; NH Primary

-March 2024: Manhattan criminal trial; also Super Tuesday; also Stormy Daniels hush money

-TBD: the federal January 6 indictment possibility

-TBD: Documents criminal trial, likely Fulton County criminal proceedings.

-September 2024: Wisconsin fake electors trial

GOP voters, leaders, campaigners, influencers need to come out and admonish Trump, not defend him. On the day the GOP frontrunner for the presidency is booked at a Florida courthouse for Espionage Act charges, the party's biggest influencers are talking about if ketchup has gone woke.

Donald Trump has been arrested more times than he’s been elected, but now in Cuban “anti-Castro” restaurant name VERSAILLES in Miami. Contrary: Needs to be noted that Reality Winner printed and mailed one classified document and didn't spend a day out of custody for 4 years from her arrest in early June 2017. She doesn't even own a private plane and has never fomented the bloody sacking of a US govt building.

Americans (both GOP and Dems voters) should not lose sight of the astonishing charges read to Trump today in Florida.

Yea: 56 vs Nay: 21, Nomination of Aileen Mercedes Cannon (from words Arabic “QANUN”, means LAW), of Florida, to be U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of Florida. 12 Dems voted to confirm the judge overseeing Trump’s case, including both of Biden’s home state Senators (Thomas Richard Carper and Christopher Andrew Coons).

“They risk imprisonment or death stealing the secrets of their own governments. Their identities are among the most closely protected information”. Today in Brussels HQ of NATO, alongside Secretary Defense Lloyd Austin III, General Milley was just asked at a press conference on Ukraine aid how concerned he is about (former presidents) Trump discussing classified military plans and using them to settle personal scores. His answer: "Thank you for the opportunity to make no comment"

An employee at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence drained the resort’s swimming pool last October and ended up FLOODING a room where computer servers containing surveillance video logs were kept.

18 Hours ago, in CNN Town Hall, Dana Bash asked Pence:

“Sir, I just want to clarify what you're saying is if they believe he committed a crime, they should not go forward with an indictment? You just talked before about committing to the rule of law.”

And Pence really struggles with it.

Pence broke with Trump over the legal fates of those who rioted at the US Capitol on January 6 – and have since faced criminal charges and convictions. Trump said he would consider pardoning many of those rioters, who he said were being treated “very unfairly.” Pence, though, said the United States “cannot ever allow what happened on January 6 to happen again in the heart of our democracy.” “I have no interest or no intention of pardoning those that assaulted police officers or vandalized our Capitol. They need to answer to the law,” he said.

49-page federal indictment of former president Donald Trump and his aide Walt Nauta, more to come: click here

Though the special counsel, Jack Smith, begins the proceedings with some significant pluses, he faces a much tougher road than prosecutors typically do. The evidence that Jack Smith detailed is remarkably strong. But that may well not be enough,

Out of all the politicians who have paid pornstars hush money, brazenly mishandled classified documents, attempted a coup, repeated foreign propaganda, and openly admired authoritarian dictators of hostile countries ... the Deep State sure has it out for Donald Trump.

(Your former boss is a threat to the U.S. national security)

Call it the Grand Old Potty. Some Republicans went so far as to defend the bathroom itself as a perfectly suitable storage facility for the nation’s most sensitive secrets.

Donald Trump puts a premium on loyalty, and has had harsh words for disloyal members of his administration like Bill Barr – but he does not expect blind loyalty, and wants people to have “their own ideas,” according to his latest interview with former advisor Roger Stone.

“…I don’t want loyalty like, you know, ‘Gee, I’m with Trump no matter what’ – I want [people] to have their own ideas, their own freedom,” Trump stressed, appearing to clarify the claims from his primary opponents that Trump expects them to agree with him, or side with him, at every turn.

“I want them to make a decision and make it right, and do the right thing for the country… but some of these people are stone-cold terrible,” he said.

Trump emphasized that there are “many great people” he feels he can count on, singling out Senator J. D. Vance, for example, and explaining that “when I talk about a slob like Bill Barr, a stupid person in a lot of ways, this is really not the standard.”

“We’ve had tremendously successful people, but some we haven’t, and we cannot afford to have cowards, we need strong people,” he concluded.

The chief clerk of the federal court system South Florida, Angela E. Noble, confirmed that Judge Aileen M. Cannon would continue to oversee the case unless she recused herself. Certain factors increased the odds she'd get it. Cannon has the case for the duration absent any recusal.

Under the district court’s procedures, new cases are randomly delegated to a judge who sits in the division where the matter arose or a neighboring one, even if it relates to a previous case. That Judge Cannon is handling Mr. Trump’s criminal indictment elicited the question of how that had come to be.

Asked over email whether normal procedures were followed and Judge Cannon’s assignment was random, Ms. Noble wrote: “Normal procedures were followed.”

Mar-a-Lago is in the West Palm Beach division, between the Fort Lauderdale division and the Fort Pierce division, where Judge Cannon sits. The district court’s website shows that seven active judges have chambers in those three divisions, as do three judges on senior status who still hear cases‌.

Ms. Angela E. Noble wrote that certain factors increased the chances that the case would land before Judge Cannon.

For one, she said, senior judges are removed from the case assignment system, or wheel, once they fulfill their target caseload for the year. At least one of the senior judges is done, she wrote, adding that she was highly confident that the other two “are very likely at their target,” too.

In addition, she wrote, one of the seven active judges with chambers in Fort Lauderdale is now a Miami judge for the purpose of assignments. Another is not currently receiving cases.

Trump legal woes by the numbers:

17 (felonies for which his business was convicted)

5 million (dollars ordered to pay for sexually abusing Jean Carroll)

34 (New York felony counts)

37 (federal felony counts)

2 (potential future indictments)

Countless (former Trump lawyers)

(Around 7.21pm Mar-a-Lago “Sea of Lake”, June 8th, 2023)

"Anyone who puts themselves over the Constitution should never be president of the United States, and anyone who asks someone else to put them over the Constitution should never be president again." Pence added.

Pence advisor Marc Short says that he can win conservatives over once they hear his side of Jan. 6. "They've heard it from mainstream media, but they haven't heard from a conservative perspective.”

Former president Donald Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, removed more than a thousand pages of classified documents from the White House late at night on the final evening of Trump’s presidency, January 19th, 2021, or 13 days after Jan 6 riot. according to government records and interviews with several individuals, with first-hand knowledge of the matter.

The recusal law requires Judge Aileen Mercedes Cannon to turn the Trump trial over to a judge whose “impartiality” cannot “reasonably be questioned” the way hers clearly will be — regardless of how she conducts the trial. Nothing good can come of this. I kind of hope Trump’s team tries to make this legal argument in response to the indictment. It would be humorous. The assignment of Judge Cannon to this case makes it even more imperative that there be cameras in court for everything proceeding. Anything less will make it impossible for the public to have confidence in the courts & outcome of the case--on both sides. Barring the unforeseen Trump’s trial will be assigned to the same crazed MAGA judge - Aileen Cannon - who tried to stop the DoJ examining the documents Trump stole. Judge Aileen Cannon should recuse herself "even if she is personally convinced that she could preside impartially and without any bias or appearance of bias." In fact, for her not to do so, given the history of this case would violate a federal law regarding a judge's impartiality.

"Judge Cannon's rulings in favor of Donald Trump's motion to suspend the criminal investigation...including her appointment of a special master to undertake a review that had no basis in law, certainly fits that test by establishing a strong basis for questioning her impartiality, entirely apart from the aggravating factor that she was appointed to her lifetime position on the federal bench by defendant Donald Trump."

Exclusive by CNN (Friday, June 9th, 2023, 7.54am NYC, around 12 hours after Trump received second indictment {Thursday night, June 8th, 2023, 7.21pm New Jersey} in less three months when Trump in Bedminster New Jersey), Donald Trump admits on tape he didn’t declassify ‘secret information.’ Trump acknowledged on tape in a 2021 meeting that he had retained “secret” military information that he had not declassified, according to a transcript of the audio recording obtained by CNN.

“As president, I could have declassified, but now I can’t,” Trump says, according to the transcript.

Judge Aileen Mercedes Cannon signs court order listing August 14 trial date in USA v. Donald Trump. Expect one or both parties to be filing emergency appeals to the 11th Circuit based on pre-trial rulings, which should delay things.

It's too bad for Mr. Trump that he is so toxic in the legal community no lawyers with existing security clearances and experience in some or all aspects of his Espionage Act case want to represent him. I feel a little bad for his lawyers. I sure hope those retainers cleared.

DOJ under Biden inherited investigations into Hunter Biden and Matt Gaetz. Being overly partisan as they are and determined to destroy political opponents, DOJ ... ended the investigation into Gaetz and got Hunter Biden to plead guilty to two crimes and enter a diversion program to avoid pleading guilty to the third.

Up next for the Weaponization Committee: why won’t DOJ prosecute our political enemies the way we want?

Again, if Hunter committed crimes, by all means, pursue prosecution. I've long said that is appropriate. But this seems like a desperate attempt to again throw stuff at the wall and hope people are too dumb to read between the lines.

CNN obtained the transcript of a portion of the meeting where Trump is discussing a classified Pentagon document about attacking Iran. In the audio recording, which CNN previously reported was obtained by prosecutors, Trump says that he did not declassify the document he’s referencing, according to the transcript. The transcript of the audio recording suggests that Trump is showing the document he’s discussing to those in the room. Several sources have told CNN the recording captures the sound of paper rustling, as if Trump was waving the document around, though is not clear if it was the actual Iran document.

“Secret. This is secret information. Look, look at this,” Trump says at one point, according to the transcript. “This was done by the military and given to me.”

Back to Pence. Sketching out his own vision for the country — from entitlement reform to protecting “the God-given right to life” — Pence promised to “restore a threshold of civility to our politics” while pursuing a conservative agenda.

“We need leaders who can distinguish between starting fights and finishing them,” Pence said.

A longtime culture warrior in his own right, he also made clear he wouldn’t cede the debate to Ron DeSantis on social issues.

Pence is offering what many frustrated conservatives say they’ve long craved — the policies of the Trump years, with no place for Trump himself.

He spent a surprising amount of time condemning Trump’s behavior on Jan. 6, far more aggressively in many ways than his public remarks in the aftermath of the riot itself. He made clear he would embrace the administration’s record, while treating Trump’s efforts to overturn the election as a red line — a stance that could put pressure on other candidates to take a clearer position themselves.

But Pence also made the pitch that he was a more reliable Reagan-style conservative than Trump, saying that the former president was “retreating from the cause of the unborn” and accusing him of echoing Joe Biden by refusing to tackle entitlement reform.

“Mike’s proud of the record of the administration,” Marc Short, one of Pence’s senior advisors, told. “When Trump literally says, [abortion is] now on the negotiating table because of me — what’s on the negotiating table? Which children live and which ones don’t? I think that’s going to be an important separation.”

On both issues, Trump’s taken the position that polls best — letting states write their own abortion laws, and refusing to ever cut Medicare or Social Security. On the latter, Pence sounded more like former House Speaker Paul Ryan, whose politics have been abandoned by MAGA Republicans, than most Republicans running for president. And Trump abandoned those politics because Ryan, as the party’s 2012 nominee for vice president, got clobbered.

Pence starts this race in a weaker position than most former vice presidents who’ve sought the presidency, few of whom ever challenged their running mates. (The last one to do it was John Nance Garner, who ran against FDR when the president sought a then-unprecedented third term in 1940.)

Contrary with Pence, Ron DeSantis condemned the violence on January 6 at the time, but has said little about the topic overall and recently told an interviewer he’d consider pardons for people convicted in connection with the riot.

Trump has overhauled his legal team and revealed that an aide also has been indicted on federal charges over the former president’s refusal to return top-secret government documents found at his Florida home.

He hired Todd Blanche in April after being indicted in Manhattan. Todd Blanche represented Manafort in New York, also represented Giuliani cigar pal Igor Fruman. He has only one client, Trump. He left a major NYC law firm to (ONLY) represent Trump. Todd Blanche and Chris Kise are expected to appear Tuesday with him in federal court in Miami along with a third lawyer who has yet to be named. Blanche has a good reputation, so it will be exciting to see how Trump fucking ruins it.

Trump also announced that Jim Trusty and John Rowley are OFF of his legal team. Todd Blanche will be taking over. Trusty was all over the news last night and even this morning defending Trump, for example Trusty in CNN with Kaitlan Collins.

Trump's new attorney (after overhaul) Todd Blanche has extensive experience with criminals guilty of tax fraud, money laundering, Medicaid and federal programs frauds, bank and wire frauds, racketeering, homicides, armed robberies, firearms and narcotics offenses Seems like a perfect fit for Trump. Todd Blanche has a good reputation and has the experience needed to defend a case like this one. He was hired earlier this year to handle the Manhattan case.

That does not mean that he and his team are fully up to speed on the Mar-a-Lago matter. That could take time.

Trump’s decision to run deprives Pence of the biggest advantage that former vice presidents like Joe Biden or George H.W. Bush typically enjoy: A built-in base of support inherited from the president they served. And his break with Trump over his false election claims puts him on the other side of most Republican voters.

“Of all the things that Trump's done—eight decades of lying, cheating, and stealing...For this man to go to jail for potentially a long time for something so pointless and silly and useless as keeping these documents, it's actually kind of fitting,” lawyer George Conway explained.

“The sanctity of life has been our party's calling card for half a century — long before Donald Trump was ever a part of it," Pence planned to say. "Now he treats it as an inconvenience, even blaming election losses on overturning Roe vs. Wade."

Pence suggested that Donald Trump effectively disqualified himself on Jan. 6. He then indicated that he doesn’t actually believe his own standard. Trump wants you to believe the charges that are likely to be brought against him are about politics. They are about protecting the United States from a grave national security threat--Trump himself. They should be framed that way.

Short argued that Republican primarygoers could be swayed away from Trump on this topic. He told that a recent focus group shared with Pence’s team, but not commissioned by them, found that participants understood and agreed with Pence’s actions regarding the 2020 election — but only after hearing Pence, in past speeches, lay out his side of the story.

"People have been told one thing, but they haven't heard the other side,” Short said. “They've heard it from mainstream media, but they haven't heard from a conservative perspective.”

With the hammer of the U.S. justice system seemingly poised to come down at any moment on our already disgraced, twice impeached, Trump, it is vital we frame the case or cases filed against the president the right way.

Failure to do so misrepresents the crimes that he is alleged to have committed and understates the threat Trump continues to represent.

This means that my brothers and sisters in the media and the D.C. commentariat need to stop referring to the former president’s theft of classified documents vital to our national security as merely “the documents case.”

Trump tells Maggie Haberman (senior NYT) minutes ago he has NOT been told he’s getting indicted, when contacted. “It’s not true,” he said, adding again he hasn’t done anything wrong. Trump statement came amid a report from one of his allies that he has been told this. NYT, CNN, WaPo and other outlets have all reported federal officials have been building toward a likely indictment, including with witnesses in Miami before a grand jury. When Maggie asked if he had been told he’s a target, he demurred, saying he doesn’t talk directly to prosecutors.

A core principle of the Presidential Records Act is that the United States, not a former president, has “complete ownership, possession, and control of Presidential records. After dragging this country into dangerous and uncharted waters, Trump might find himself unable to escape the shoals of justice.

By their very nature, classified materials are "Presidential records," not the former president's "personal records." Declassified materials would also still be presidential records--materials created or received by president in course of his official duties.

An interesting aspect of the indictment is that it gives no hint as to why these particular 31 documents were chosen. This is in stark comparison to the obstruction case, which is laid out in great detail. The question is what the actual story is, & why DOJ isn't telling us yet.

Whatabout a law Trump’s not charged with breaking? Whatabout that, huh? That move might work in punditry, but it won’t work in court. Saying that the defendant isn’t charged with breaking Law X does nothing to counter the evidence that he egregiously broke Laws Y and Z.

We know the serious crimes laid out in the indictment. We still don't have the motive. Was he gonna sell the shit to Vlad? Use it to impress Nancy O'Dell? He saw $ (or gigantic riyal from Saudi, same as PGA - LIV trash deal which hurt 911 victims) in keeping them, selling them, ransoming them. The Iran document he was waving around on the Bedminster tape is missing. Just take it out as a conversation piece? How explicitly Trump asked Corcoran to hide or destroy documents instead of turning them over as required.

Even before the indictment came out, the idea that what Trump allegedly did was comparable to Joe Biden or Hunter Biden or Hillary Clinton was silly.

Criminal charges against an ex-president are unprecedented, yes. An ex-president committing felonies that put US National Security at risk is too. But the norm is what it's always been: Ex-presidents deserve deference (and Trump repeatedly got it), but ultimately no one is above the law.

In exclusive interviews by POLITICO (Alex Isenstadt, posted Saturday, June 10th, 2023, 7.12pm DC time —- around 48 hours after 2nd indictments for Trump between DoJ and Trump’s attorney), Trump vowed to continue running for President (2024 election) even if he were to be convicted. Indicting an ex-president and leading candidate requires more than this.

Trump could run for president from prison. There are no legal obstacles to running for president as a convicted felon or from behind bars. It puts the nation in an extraordinary position, given Mr. Trump’s status as the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination to face President Biden, whose administration will now be seeking to convict his potential rival. Remember a Trump indictment would not only be federal first for an ex-president, would also be first time a sitting president's administration indicts a leading opposition candidate in run-up to presidential election. Trump now faces 71 felony charges across two criminal indictments so far. If ultimately tried and convicted, he could face a potentially lengthy prison term.

If Trump finds himself in that predicament, he’ll be following in the footsteps of another rabble-rousing populist and frequent presidential candidate: the avowed socialist Eugene V. Debs, who received nearly a million votes while in prison a century ago.

Saturday, June 10th, 2023, around 6.30pm - 6.35pm North Carolina local time

To avoid any appearance that he traded America’s secrets for money, Jared Kushner should return the $2 billion he received from the Saudi Government. 9/11 Families United National Chair Terry Strada has sent a letter to the Justice Department requesting an investigation into Saudi Arabian foreign agents for alleged violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act given work for golf league LIV.

Debs is far from the only person who has sought the highest office in the land while in prison, but he was the most successful. In 1920, he became the Socialist Party nominee while serving a 10-year federal sentence for urging people to resist the World War I draft.

He received 3 percent of the popular vote, a respectable tally for an incarcerated socialist, but nowhere near enough to force the nation to seriously grapple with an improbable constitutional question: What happens if an imprisoned candidate actually wins?

The comparison to Debs might not appeal to Trump, who is fond of railing against socialists (or people he labels socialists). Some might also view the comparison as unfair to Debs, who is seen by many in the labor and anti-war movements as a hero. Still, the two firebrands have a surprising amount in common.

Just as Trump portrays the array of legal challenges he faces as political persecution, Debs and his allies tried to use his legal woes as a rallying cry that would propel his presidential candidacy.

“They basically used his imprisonment to say he was a victim of the Red Scare and viewed it as a kind of badge of honor,” said Peter Dreier, a politics professor at Occidental College. “They held rallies all over the country with a prison picture of Debs on the picket signs. … He might have gotten more publicity running from prison. … You can imagine Trump doing the same thing.”

Indeed, some of the memes of Trump circulating on social media — including a mock-up of a Trump booking mugshot that was never taken — look much like lapel buttons that circulated during Debs’ 1920 campaign showing photos of him along with his federal prisoner number. “For President: Convict No. 9653,” the buttons said.

Trump — who famously said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose a single vote — is already trying to convince his supporters that they’re the ones under attack. “In reality, they’re not after me, they’re after you. And I just happen to be the person that’s in the way,” he said at a recent rally in Texas.

Debs, too, argued that he was taking the fall because his political movement threatened the entrenched political elites.

“It’s an interesting parallel,” said David Stebenne, a professor of history and law at Ohio State University. Debs “was viewed by his supporters as a martyr, and the Socialist Party did not trust the mainstream media of 1920,” the professor added.

Debs’ case raised a question many are asking now: Can a person run for president, or be elected president, after being convicted of a crime or even while in jail? The answer, then and now, appears to be yes.

“There’s nothing barring Trump from running. Even a federal conviction doesn’t prevent that. … Even if he were mentally insane,” Mazo said. “The Supreme Court has said what’s in the Constitution are the only requirements you need to run for federal office.”

Trump's indictment has unleashed a wave of calls by his supporters, a MAGA world, for violence and an uprising to defend him, disturbing observers and raising concerns of a warlike atmosphere ahead of Tuesday's court appearance. Last time, in first ever reportage about Mar-a-Lago raid in August 2022, jewish Judge Bruce Reinhart receive death threat, and his synagogue get vandalized by MAGA-mobmocracy.

Hopefully better protection now (for Cecilia Maria Altonaga).

Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida is Cecilia Maria Altonaga a George W. Bush appointee. It is she who designates the judge to preside over the Trump criminal case. She has chosen the same judge who was roundly reversed and repudiated by a three-judge circuit court during the proceeding’s investigative process. Yet Judge Altonaga apparenty believes that Judge Aileen Cannon, thoroughly in the tank for Trump in the previous go-around, should have another shot at making sure Trump avoids jail or any other unfortunate outcome.

In recent months, Trump has asked close advisers, including at least one of his personal attorneys, if “we know” all the names of senior FBI agents and Justice Department personnel who have worked on the federal probes into him.

Trump has then privately discussed that should he return to the White House, it is imperative his new DOJ “quickly” and “immediately” purge the FBI and DOJ’s ranks of these officials and agents who’ve led the Trump-related criminal investigations.

(MAGA world) They’re ready to try and kill again. Don’t think they won’t try it.

Pence is no doubt aware of the fact that much of the GOP’s radicalized base not only continues to believe the “Big Lie” about the 2020 election, it also blames him personally for not going along with Donald Trump’s scheme to seize illegitimate power.

But the former vice president went all in anyway. “Jan. 6 was a tragic day in the life of our nation,” Pence said. “But thanks to the courage of law enforcement, the violence was quelled, we reconvened the Congress. The very same day, President Trump’s reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol. ... [T]he American people deserve to know on that fateful day, President Trump also demanded I choose between him and our Constitution. Now voters will be faced with the same choice. I chose the Constitution, and I always will.”

Just as interesting, if not more so, was the standard the new Republican contender was willing to set.

A former top aide to Meadows has told investigators that they witnesed Meadows removing the records, according to previously unreported information in government records.

Meadows removed the records from the White House on the orders of Donald Trump, and occurred despite advice from White House attorneys that making public the records would circumvent the long established and official procedures in place for declassifying them.    

According to a previously unreported email from a top official of the National Archives to an aide to Trump, the Archives had concluded that many of the records removed from the White House to Meadows remained classified, despite efforts by Trump to declassify them at the time. Experts on government secrecy and declassification issues say tha and other information first reported in this article raises serious questions as to whether Meadows’ removal of the records violated federal law.

Among the people with first-hand knowledge that Meadows removed the records from the White House is Cassidy Hutchinson, the former aide to Meadows who gave riveting and meticulously detailed testimony to the House Jan. 6^th committee about her knowledge of events of that day, based on her extraordinary access and proximity to Trump and Meadows.

Hutchinson personally witnessed Meadows remove the papers from the White House and place them in the trunk of her car to take home.

Hutchinson’s description of Meadows removal of the classified records is included in previously undisclosed details from an executive session interview she provided the House Jan. 6^th committee—and reported here for the first time.

The removal by Meadows of classified records from the White House appears to be separate from Trump’s removal from the White House of other classified documents to Mar-a-Largo, a matter long under investigation by special counsel Jack Smith and a federal grand jury.

The special counsel in recent days has reportedly informed Trump’s legal team that he and his prosecutors are close to completing their investigation, that Trump is a target of that inquiry, and a final charging decision in the case will be made soon.

Meadows has previously testified before the federal grand jury hearing evidence in the case and has been questioned by prosecutors working for the special counsel.  It is unclear whether he was asked about this previously unreported removal of classified records from the White House. His attorney did not answer calls or return for this story.

Three of them say that they have knowledge that then-President Trump directed Meadows to remove the papers from the White House and separately provide copies of some of them to two pro-Trump journalists.  Hutchinson also made corroborative claims that this was the case in her previously unreported comments to congressional investigators.

The records that Trump directed Meadows to remove from the White House were known by some Trump aides as the “Russia papers”,

Both Trump and Meadows had hoped that the documents would corroborate their thus-far baseless claims and conspiracy theories that the FBI and U.S. intelligence agencies had spied on his 2016 presidential campaign with the intent to thwart his election, and failing that, conspired to drive him from office on false evidence.

People close to Meadows assert that he acted properly and legally while removing the records from the White House because they had been declassified by Trump the day before he left office, and once declassified, he could take a set for himself to do with whatever he pleased with them.

Although Trump did sign a memo ordering that the records be declassified, attorneys with the White House counsel’s office still concluded that they should not be released unless they went through the formal procedures and protocols that govern such declassifications, which was not done in this case.  Despite this, Meadows still removed the records from the White House.

A small minority said that a president’s authority to declassify government records is so unfettered that Trump and Meadows could compellingly argue that they had a right to release the papers.

But most of the former officials and attorneys possessing expertise and vast experience with these matters, with whom I spoke, told me that they believed the records remained classified, and that Meadows acted improperly in removing them from the White House.

Richard Immerman, served as an Assistant Deputy Director of National Intelligence, during the George W. Bush administration, and was the chairman of the State Department’s Historic Advisory Committee for more than a decade.  He told me that he believes that Meadows’ removal of the records to his home violated federal law. He further opined that the documents remain classified because of the slip-shod and incomplete effort to make them public.

“It is clear that both Trump and Meadows unequivocally violated both the spirit and the letter of the Presidential Records Act”—Trump by directing Meadows to remove the documents to his home in the first place, and Meadows by doing so, Immerman told me.

“The law is explicit,” Immerman added, “The documents can only be removed by a representative of the National Archives and Records Administration who takes custody of them. Meadows was not their designated representative.  Thus, he did not have any authority to remove them and his actions appear to be in direct violation of the law.”

And Meadow’s may face even more serious legal jeopardy if the documents remained classified, Immerman and others say that because the documents did not go through the proscribed and proper declassification process, they have remained classified, according to Immerman and other experts.

Even as short-hand it makes it sound as though Trump were being charged with a bureaucratic slip-up, a mistake in shifting a few pieces of paper he moved from the White House to his southern temple of excess in West Palm Beach. It is a framing that serves the former president’s defenders, and allows them to equate it to other instances in which government documents ended up in the homes of former officials—but were quickly returned as soon as the mistake was discovered.

Shorthand descriptions of events we refer to repeatedly may seem useful, but they are deeply misleading if what they leave out are the essential elements of what we are describing. Based on evidence that has already been made public we know that Trump did not mistakenly shift a classified document or two from the White House to Mar-a-Lago. He was briefed repeatedly on the proper handling of classified materials. He has even acknowledged, on tape, that he understood how such sensitive, easily weaponizable documents should be treated.

For records to have been properly declassified, redactions must have first been made to them by the Justice Department, the FBI, and other agencies to protect classified information and to comply with the Privacy Act.  This was not done with the records that Meadows removed from the White House.

Immerman explains: “Their rationale and explanations as to why the documents are no longer classified is fatally flawed. A document is declassified at the time any material withheld from declassification is redacted—not pending decisions on those redactions. Further, DOJ reviews documents prior to presidential decisions on declassification, not after. DOJ had not yet allowed for such reviews.”

Brad Moss, an attorney specializing in national security law, adds: “An actual proper declassification involves a formal process that requires their ‘De-marking,’ the reversing of the markings on the records indicating they were classified. The proper De-marking of these documents would reflect the date of the declassification, the person who declassified them, and the authority on which they acted. That’s what the process requires.” Yet, that too was not done in this instance, and Moss says, another reason that they remained classified. Brad also explained, to be unequivocally clear, those documents never should have been in unauthorized locations. Period. It is a serious breach of security protocol and a threat to national security any time any properly classified document is removed from authorized locations.

Trump ignored the law. He ignored the advice he was repeatedly given. And, based on reporting to date, he stole scores of items that were not his, to which he had no right, which could put the lives of Americans and our national interests and those of our allies at risk.

When news of his theft was discovered and the U.S. Department of Justice sought the return of those documents, Trump did not cooperate. He lied about them. He concealed documents from the government. He obstructed justice. In fact, if recent reporting is true, he did not just obstruct justice, he went to great lengths to do so. Indeed, the lengths he went to force us to ask another question that is relevant in this case: “Why?”

Why did he go to such great lengths to violate the law and put his future freedom at risk not to mention exposing U.S. intelligence assets to great jeopardy? Was it just to satisfy his admittedly gargantuan ego? To be able to say, “Lookee here, I was president once and I can prove it?” Even for Trump, that would be reckless.

The National Archives and Records Association appears to agree that many of the records removed by Meadows were classified at the time: A July 14, 2022 email from Gary Stern, the general counsel of the Archives, to Kash Patel, Trump’s designated representative to the archives, noted that Trump had signed a declassification order for the papers on Jan. 19, 2021, on the same day that Meadows removed them from the White House. But in that same order, Stern pointed out, Trump agreed to wait until the FBI made final recommendations for redactions to the documents before they were declassified. Stern noted that until such time, “President Trump did not declassify the documents… in full”

Hutchinson told congressional investigators that not only did she see Meadows take the classified papers to his car, but she herself physically carried out some of them:

:”I remember he brought several [boxes of the documents] home on the night of the [January19^th, [2021, the last night of the Trump presidency,” Hutchinson told investigators, ‘1 even believe I put one or two of. them in his motorcade for him. I went down, and then| I started carrying two boxes out. And I think he put two in a box, and I was carrying the box because the box didn't have a lid on it, and he brought them home.”  

Hutchinson knew that the records were classified because of the markings on them, and also because she had also become familiar with the Russia papers while they had been circulating within the West Wing of the White House over the course of the previous two weeks.

Hutchinson further told investigators that that Meadows had intended to share a portion or all of the papers with two conservative journalists, Molly Hemingway of the Federalist, and ultraconservative commentator John Solomon:

‘I know that he was with going to give them to—he had the intention to give [them] to Mollie Hemingway and John Solomon that night, but I don’t know if they ever made the trip or if they ended up in their hands,” Meadows testified.

Indeed, earlier that same day, Solomon had gone to the White House, and met with then-president Trump at least twice.  While there, he was able to read through the Russia papers.

Later that same night, Solomon had in fact published a story based on one of the Russia papers, and posted a copy of the document online

Solomon insists that the document did not come from Meadows.

Rather Solomon claims, a Justice Department attorney, whom he neither ever met nor saw, and whose name he no longer recalls, delivered two documents from the Russia papers to the concierge’s desk in his office building.

In a “plain manila envelope,” he said, he found “about thirty to fifty pages of records” — many of these were about the infamous Christopher Steele, the former British spy who wrote the so-called “Steele dossier;” while others concerned Stefan Halper, an FBI informant who assisted in the FBI’s investigation of Russia’s covert interference in the 2016 presidential election.

it is unlikely he would have committed these alleged crimes unless he had a purpose in mind, an audience for what he had taken in mind, an anticipated return envisioned for the investment of time he had made and for the risk he had undertaken.

We do not know to whom the documents may have been shown. Perhaps we will learn that in due course. We do not know (and perhaps may never know) to whom he may have contemplated showing them. But it seems safe to assume he did not hang onto them because he possessed some Harlan Crow-like impulse to create a personal museum that paid tribute to historical misdeeds.

We know this, in part, because he had shown a complete contempt for our national security, for the products produced by our intelligence community, for the entire concept of protecting vital national secrets throughout his presidency.

He appointed a national security advisor, Michael Flynn, who lied to the FBI about inappropriate exchanges he had with foreign enemies. He sought to defend that national security advisor after his crimes were clear (and has said he would reappoint him should he be elected again.) In one of his first meetings in the Oval Office with Russia’s foreign minister, he revealed to him and the Russian ambassador, sensitive classified information that put allied intelligence assets at risk.

He ignored the advice of national security professionals and granted his son-in-law and daughter classified clearances they should not have had. He repeatedly attacked and denigrated the intelligence community including one time, while standing alongside Vladimir Putin in Helsinki Finland in 2018. Days ago Finland officially join NATO.

Accompanying the documents, Solomon told me, was a one-page note or letter from the unnamed Justice Department official, who Solomon says had sent over the documents.

Solomon insisted to me that he was certain that the documents were provided to him by the Justice Department official because a note written to him by the official, as well as the envelope that contained both the documents and the note within it, all bore the Justice Department insignia

Solomon said he could no longer recall the name of the Justice Department official. He said he no longer had a copy of the letter.  And he said he had not retained the envelope either.

He put stooges in high places in the intelligence community to ensure that he would be able to control any revelations they might produce that he saw as threatening, and perhaps to enable him to come up with dirt on his enemies. He has said he would fire the professionals in the U.S. government in a clear effort to be able to replace them with those who placed loyalty to him above loyalty to the country or our Constitution.

This is all known. All on the public record. He was a threat to national security long before he stole these classified materials and went to great lengths to illegally retain them.

Indeed, there are not only these facts to provide context but the other major cases against Trump that are looming. What could better illustrate that Trump was something more than a souvenir hunter? He was, after all, impeached for seeking to blackmail Ukraine’s President Zelensky into performing a political hit job on Joe Biden prior to the 2020 campaign. He was again impeached for leading an insurrection against the U.S. government, actions which themselves may lead to a set of indictments from special prosecutor Jack Smith. Part of what Smith may be investigating are the efforts at defrauding the U.S. electorate, and perhaps Trump’s own donors in an effort to illegally maintain the presidency. Fulton County (Georgia) District Attorney Fani Willis may also prosecute him for those crimes.

The reported case of a recording of Trump suggesting he was in possession of a classified war plans memo concerning possible moves we might make against Iran.

It’s not just egregious behavior, whatever the reason for his mentioning it, it also requires we consider what might happen if he shared that with his friends and business partners in Saudi Arabia or how, should the document become more widely available to our enemies, it could in a future conflict put U.S. soldiers lives at risk.

The real winner about saga-merger LIV / PGA: Trump.

Everything about LIV associated with Trump. And even, amid facing a lot of lawsuit, The Saudis dont care about bad reputation of LIV, Saudis still success to merger-ing LIV with PGA Tour.

Gigantic desire by PIF (Saudi’s SWF Public Investment Fund) shake the golf business. The PGA's Revolutionary Defense of Saudi Arabia. Merger LIV / PGA, awkwardly, same minutes when Secretary of State Blinken meeting (2 hours 30 minutes) with Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) in Jeddah.

Whether it's NFL players kneeling to protest racial inequality, or the PGA selling itself to a murderous Saudi despot, both sports leagues have made some controversial political statements. All respect to the vast majority of golfers on the tour for opposing LIV all along. And really all respect to athletes on both the PGA and NFL for being much more aware and thoughtful than athletes are portrayed as being. How many of the liberals complaining about the golf merger even know what the L in LIV stands for?

The case against Trump for leading a coup attempt is not about something that happened almost three years ago. He is running for president again. He has repeatedly shown his disregard for the Constitution and his willingness to place his own personal interests above those of the country.

It is not about punishing him for violating the public trust. It is about preventing him from doing it again. (And let’s be clear, Trump acting on his own behalf or on behalf of a mob of right-wing extremists is absolutely no different from acting on behalf of a foreign enemy. Those posing a conscious threat to American national security and interests are our enemies, whatever their origins or stated rationales.)

This model prosecution memorandum assesses potential charges federal prosecutors may bring against former President Donald Trump. It focuses on those emanating from his handling of classified documents and other government records since leaving office on January 20, 2021. It includes crimes related to the removal and retention of national security information and obstruction of the investigation into his handling of these documents. The authors have decades of experience as federal prosecutors and defense lawyers, as well as other legal expertise. Based upon this experience and the analysis that follows, we conclude that Trump should–and likely will–be charged.

Before indicting a case, prosecutors prepare a prosecution memo (or “pros memo”) that lays out admissible evidence, possible charges, and legal issues. This document provides a basis for prosecutors and their supervisors to assess whether the case meets the standard set forth in the Federal Principles of Prosecution, which permit prosecution only when there is sufficient evidence to obtain and sustain a conviction. Before a decision is made about bringing charges against Trump (and co-conspirators, if any), prosecutors will prepare such a memo.

There is sufficient evidence to obtain and sustain a conviction here, if the information gleaned from government filings and statements and voluminous public reporting is accurate. Indeed, the DOJ is likely now, or shortly will be, internally circulating a pros memo of its own saying so. That DOJ memo will, however, be highly confidential, in part because it will contain information derived through the grand jury and attorney work product. Since it will not be publicly available, we offer this analysis. Ours is likely more detailed than what DOJ will prepare internally for explanatory purposes. But, given the gravity of the issues here, our memo provides a sense of how prosecutors will assemble and evaluate the considerations that they must assess before making a prosecution decision.

Memo analyzes six federal crimes in depth:

Mishandling of Government Documents
1. Retention of National Defense Information (18 U.S.C. § 793(e))
2. Concealing Government Records (18 U.S.C. § 2071)
3. Conversion of Government Property (18 U.S.C. § 641)

Obstruction, Contempt, False Information

1. Obstruction of Justice (18 U.S.C. § 1519)
2. Criminal Contempt (18 U.S.C. § 402)
3. False Statements to Federal Investigators (18 U.S.C. § 1001)

In the course of discussing these statutes, we also touch upon others that may have been violated but where the factual predicate for applicability is less clear. For instance, additional charges could be appropriate–under 18 U.S.C. §§ 798 and 793(e) (dissemination)–if the public reporting regarding Trump’s having intentionally disseminated classified material to aides and others is accurate. Additional charges could also potentially be brought under 18 U.S.C. § 1924 if there is sufficient evidence that Trump unlawfully removed classified documents from the White House (see our discussion of DOJ precedents for past prosecutions under § 1924 in Part IV and in the Appendix). Based on the publicly available information to date, a powerful case exists for charging Trump under several federal criminal statutes, which we discuss in detail.

In considering prosecution of a former president, we begin with the standard articulated by Attorney General Merrick Garland: “upholding the rule of law means applying the law evenly, without fear or favor.”^[1] In other words, this case must be evaluated for prosecution like any other case with similar evidence would be, without regard to the fact that the case is focused on the conduct of a former president of the United States. This memo accordingly includes a balanced assessment of this particular case, and a thorough review of past DOJ precedents for charging similar cases. Those past cases show that to decline to bring charges against Trump would be treating him far more favorably than other defendants, including those who were charged for less egregious conduct than his. “All Americans are entitled to the evenhanded application of the law,”^[2] Garland has stated, and we are guided by the values underlying those words as well.

This model prosecution memo is, however, limited in an important sense. Throughout the memo, we draw as much as possible on the unusual amount of factual information provided by the Government in its court filings. We do not, however, have visibility into the full volume of information the Justice Department has assembled. That means we could be missing important facts, including exculpatory evidence, that may inform the DOJ’s decision-making process. We may be unaware of admissibility issues with some of the evidence. And equally true, the evidence could be better or more extensive than what is available in the public record.

What’s more, by necessity, we at times rely on news reports from investigative journalists whereas the actual prosecution memo would instead rely on direct evidence the federal investigators have collected. For that reason, we do not reach an unqualified charging decision. Instead, we conclude that there is sufficient evidence to obtain a conviction here, if the Government filings and statements and voluminous public reporting we detail below are accurate. We also note that, based on the reported facts, charges would be strongly warranted based on Department precedent in similar cases.^[3]

The model prosecution memorandum is available below as a SCRIBD file and also as a separate PDF.

Also, to hear more about the memo from some of its co-authors check out the Just Security podcast. A conversation with Andrew Weissmann, Joyce Vance, and Ryan Goodman.

Model Prosecution Memo – Trump Classified Documents Second Edition June 2023 by Just Security on Scribd

– – – – – – –

^[1] Department of Justice, Attorney General Merrick Garland Delivers Remarks (Aug. 11, 2022), https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-merrick-garland-delivers-remarks.

^[2] Id.

^[3] Two of the authors of this model prosecution memo, Norman Eisen and Fred Wertheimer, were among the counsel for amici supporting DOJ’s position in litigation before the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, related to the criminal investigation mentioned in this report. For more information, see https://democracy21.org/category/news-press/press-releases.

Trump is not simply a clown, a fraud, an incompetent, a former game show host, or a sloppy, vulgar, golf-and-fast-food-loving doofus. Yes, he is all those things. But they are not the aspects of his character—or his behavior—which are important here.

He is, above all, a threat. He is a danger. He is tied to our worst international enemies and a threat the FBI director calls the greatest we face (domestic terror).

His trials should not be seen as political spectacles or some new twisted Trumpian reality show. They should be seen as an effort by our system to protect us, to take a dangerous man off the streets, to reduce the threat to our nation, our children, our allies, our values, and our institutions that this one, malevolent, profoundly corrupt man poses.

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-prada- (Adi Mulia Pradana) is a Helper. Former adviser (President Indonesia) Jokowi for mapping 2-times election. I used to get paid to catch all these blunders—now I do it for free. Trying to work out what's going on, what happens next. Arch enemies of the tobacco industry, (still) survive after getting doxed.

(Very rare compliment and initiative pledge. Thank you. Yes, even a lot of people associated me PRAVDA, not part of MIUCCIA PRADA. I’m literally asshole on debate, since in college)

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