Category Archives: Donald Trump

Opinion: Trump attacks Mark Brnovich in his endorsement of Blake Masters. And Brnovich responds by reciting what he's doing to investigate Trump's claims?

Im not sure that Donald Trumps endorsement of Blake Masters in the Arizona GOP primary for U.S. Senate will have as much of an influence as commonly thought.

Jim Lamon has plenty of money to stay in the race and make his case. And hes more of the prototypical Trumpian than Masters. He was one of the Trump Electoral College voterswho made the phony claim to be the true, official slate for Arizona.

Politically, Masters is a bit of an odd duck. Hes part of a new right with sentiments that havent yet gelled into a discernible political philosophy. Hes certainly not a standard-issue small government conservative.

The Trump endorsement will shine a much brighter spotlight on him, since it will cause him to be regarded as the frontrunner. Not sure how well his political persona and new right attitude will hold up.

Trumps endorsement of Masters included a scathing dismissal of Mark Brnovich for not taking aggressive enough action as attorney general against the voting irregularities that Trump fantasizes cost him the 2020 election.

Brnovich, as usual, badly misplayed his response to the Masters endorsement and the Trump attack on him.

Brnovichs campaign manager issued a response basically sucking up to Trump.

Brnovich intends to fight and win this Primary Election, it said, and we look forward to working with President Trump to defeat Mark Kelly this fall.

Another view: Trump's endorsement didn't doom Brnovich. He did that himself

It then recited some things Brnovich is doing to investigate the minor voting irregularities that have been unearthed. In other words, what he has done to at least partially advance Trumps fantasy.

Dude, the guy just ripped you a new one. Have at least a modicum of self-respect.

Brnovich was never going to placate Trump or the Trump cult voters on the issue of election integrity. Making the attempt a central part of his campaign was a strategic mistake that probably doomed whatever chance he might have had.

Reach Robb at robert.robb@arizonarepublic.com.

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Why is Mark Brnovich still sucking up to Trump after this? - The Arizona Republic

Former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner assessed Friday that former President Donald Trump is the "ultimate target" of the Justice Department's probe of the January 6, 2021, attack against the U.S. Capitol, saying that investigators are currently working their way up the "criminal food chain."

Hundreds of Trump's supporters stormed Capitol nearly 17 month ago in an apparent effort to disrupt the formal certification of President Joe Biden's electoral college victory. The violent riot occurred after Trump urged his followers to walk to the federal legislative building and "fight like hell." Many, who proceeded to follow those directions, believed the then-president's debunked claims that the 2020 election was "rigged" in Biden's favor.

Kirschner, a lecturer at Georgetown University and a legal analyst for MSNBC and NBC News, has repeatedly accused Trump of "treason" while also calling for the former president's indictment. The legal expert told The Dean Obeidallah Show on Friday that he believes the Justice Department is inevitably working its way toward a prosecution of Trump.

"So clearly I think Donald Trump is the ultimate target. And it seems to me that there are a couple of things going on. It seems to me that what DOJ is now doing is working its way up the criminal food chain," Kirschner said. "They continue to go after, prosecute and convict Donald Trump's footsoldiers of the insurrection that he told to go attack the Capitol and stop the steal. And they obeyed those commands from their commander in chief."

The Justice Department has arrested and charged hundreds of the Trump supporters who participated in the riot. A number of these individuals have argued in their defense that they believed they were acting on the orders of the former president.

The legal analyst assessed that recent efforts by the Justice Department represent a "full sprint" as public hearings of the findings of the House select committee investigating January 6 are set to begin on June 9. The hearings will be televised and will "present previously unseen material documenting January 6th, receive witness testimony, preview additional hearings, and provide the American people a summary of its findings about the coordinated, multi-step effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and prevent the transfer of power."

In March, Attorney General Merrick Garland gave Trump critics hope by saying in an interview with NPR that "everyone" who committed crimes related to January 6 would be held "accountable."

"We begin with the cases that are right in front of us with the overt actions and then we build from there," he said. "And that is a process that we will continue to build until we hold everyone accountable who committed criminal acts with respect to January 6."

A number of other prominent legal experts have called for Trump's indictment as well. Former Attorney General Eric Holder, who led the Justice Department under former President Barack Obama, has publicly backed federal charges against Trump.

"Because of what we know from what great journalists have done, the leaks that have come from the January 6th committee, if you show me that Donald Trump was involved in the efforts to, in essence, to foment a coup, and you can show the requisite intent, he has to be indicted," Holder told HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher on Friday.

Newsweek reached out to a Trump spokesperson for comment.

The former president continues to deny any wrongdoing related to the riot and efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. He insists that Biden's win was fraudulent, despite no evidence corroborating the allegation. To the contrary, dozens of legal challenges to the election have failed in state and federal courts. Even judges appointed by Trump have ruled against the lawsuits.

Trump's former Attorney General William Barr, who was widely viewed as a loyal Cabinet member, has said repeatedly that there is "no evidence" to support the former president's claims. He wrote in his memoir that he told Trump directly that the allegations were "bullish*t" and that his legal team after the 2020 election was a "clown show."

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Trump 'Ultimate Target' as DOJ Goes Up 'Criminal Food Chain': Kirschner

FILE - Former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Greensburg, Pa., on May 6, 2022. A federal judge on Friday, May 27, 2022 dismissed Trump's lawsuit against New York Attorney General Letitia James, allowing her civil investigation into his business practices to continue. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)

MADISON Wealthy construction executive Tim Michels on Thursday landed the endorsement of former President Donald Trump, giving the newest candidate in the Republican primary for governor an edge he needs to compete in a four-way primary that includes the state's well-known former lieutenant governor.

With his endorsement of Michels, Trump inserts himself into the competitive primary with two months to go before Republican voters head to the polls and just after his preferred candidate lost in another battleground state, Georgia.

"Wisconsin needs a Governor who will Stop Inflation, Uphold the Rule of Law, strengthen our Borders (we had the strongest borders in history just two years ago, now we have the weakest!) and End the well-documented Fraud in our Elections," Trump said in a statement late Thursday.

"Tim Michels is the best candidate to deliver meaningful solutions to these problems, and he will produce jobs like no one else can even imagine."

Just hours after Trump issued his endorsement, Michels modified a television ad to showcase the former president's backing. In the ad, Michels promotes his family's construction company Michels Corp.'s effort in 2017to secure a bid to build part of wall on the U.S. border with Mexico, and pledges to block bills that would allow non-U.S. citizensto obtain drivers licenses or tuition subsidies.

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Trump's decision to back Michelsis a blow to former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, who is polling ahead of her primary rivals but failed to secure enough support at the state Republican convention last month to win the party's endorsement.

Michels, co-owner of the Brownsville-based Michels Corporation and U.S. Army veteran, enteredthe GOP primary for governor in late April and nearly 20 years after his last statewide campaign a 2004 loss to then-U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold.

Tim Michels speaks to a large crowd during the launching of his gubernatorial campaign Monday, April 25, 2022, in Brownsville, Wis.

Trump's endorsement will effectively introduce Michels to the Republican faithful. Earlier this month, less than 4% of delegates at the state GOP convention said they backed him for governor while nearly 60% said they preferred Kleefisch.

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"If I know one thing about President Trump, it's that he likes winners, and I'm the only person in this race who has won statewide not once, but four times," Kleefisch said in a statement about the endorsement.

Candidate Kevin Nicholson said while Trump has the pulse of the GOP base, "the race to replace Tony Evers as governor isn't going to be won by endorsements."

"Since the day we launched our campaign, Ive been the conservative outsider in this race. That was true then, and thats true today," he said.

The backing of Michels from Trump comes a week after Michels adopted a more aggressive stance toward the 2020 election, reversing himself and calling for the abolition of the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

Like other Republican candidates for governor, Michels now wants to dissolve the elections agency that has become a symbol for Trump's baseless claims of widespread voter fraud.

His about-face on the commission came days after he and other candidates for governor addressed delegates at astate Republican conventionwho clamored for discarding the agency.

Ben Wikler, the chairman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, said in a statement the endorsement by Trump "only deepens the alarming division and extremism of the Wisconsin Republican Party."

"Tim Michels has been now given the green light to hit the accelerator on the campaign he was already running one that embraces election conspiracy theories and divisive policies like banning abortions without exceptions, instituting a ban on same-sex marriage, and defunding public education."

Trump endorses Michels after publicly praising state Rep. Tim Ramthun in 2021, a few months before Ramthun launched a campaign for governor. Trump commended Ramthun for attempting to put forward a resolution to decertify the 2020 election, which is impossible.

Ramthun did not return phone calls Thursday.

Michels,Kleefisch and Ramthuntraveled to Trump's Florida resort Mar-A-Lago earlier this year to visit or be interviewed for a potential endorsement that has become coveted currency in GOP primaries across the country in 2022 for candidates seeking to secure support among the party's grassroots.

In Wisconsin, Trump is popular among the GOP base but not broadly, according to recent Marquette University Law School polling.

Among Republicans surveyed in May, 49% said they were more likely to support a candidate whom Trump has endorsed. Forty percent saidhis endorsement would make no difference to them.Another 11% said they would be less likely to vote for a canddiate backed by Trump.

Overall, 61% of those polled had an unfavorable opinion of Trump while 35% approved of the former president.

The winner of the Aug. 9 primary will run against Democratic incumbent Gov. Tony Evers in the general election.

With massive personal wealth, Michels has the ability to pour millions into a short primary campaign which he began with little name recognition in Wisconsin. He owns homesin Waukesha County, Connecticut and New York City but spends the majority of each year in Wisconsin, according to state tax records.

In 2020, he owed $3.7 million in state income taxes an amount that suggests he reported income of tens of millions of dollars that year.

Since 2010, he's owed more than $1 million in state income taxes five other times, records show.

Recent years have been particularly good for Michels' bottom line. He owed $1.7 million in 2018 and $1.9 million in 2019, according to records from the state Department of Revenue.

Contact Molly Beckat molly.beck@jrn.com. Follow her on Twitter at @MollyBeck.

Our subscribers make this reporting possible. Please consider supporting local journalism by subscribing to the Journal Sentinel at jsonline.com/deal.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Donald Trump endorses Tim Michels for Wisconsin governor

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Donald Trump endorses Tim Michels for Wisconsin governor, inserting ...

Donald Trump has until Friday to explain why he hasn't been able to locate 12 former executive assistants that the Attorney General in New York is hoping to hear from as she winds down her 3-year probe of the former president's business.

Failing to provide a judge with a good explanation could trigger a retroactive, $10,000-a-day contempt-of-court fine, costing the former president more than a quarter-million dollars in additional fines.

The court-ordered fine, for failing to fully comply with the AG's subpoena for his personal business documents, had been capped at $110,000 and the contempt order lifted but only conditionally.

There are three agreed-upon hoops that the Trump legal team must yet jump through by Friday to keep the costly fine from being reinstated backdated to May 7 . One is the requirement that former executive assistant Molly Michael sign an affidavit explaining how she kept Trump's documents.

Another hoop: finding those 12 executive assistants, or explaining why they can't be found.

"Counsel for Respondent Donald J. Trump will provide a supplemental affidavit or affirmation as to their efforts to contact the former executive assistants of Mr. Trump by June 3," according to a stipulation agreed to by both sides this week.

Andrew S. Amer, Special Counsel to AG Letitia James, wondered in another recent filing why they wouldn't have left forwarding addresses.

"Presumably, the Trump Organization has a last known address and contact number for each of these individuals," Amer wrote.

It's "insufficient" for Trump to merely claim that "attempts ... to contact them to obtain an affidavit were unsuccessful" without further explanation, Amer wrote. "

What specific steps were taken and when to reach each former executive assistant? Did any of them respond, and if so, what did they say?" he said he wants to know.

Trump's most longstanding executive assistant, Rhona Graff, was to be deposed by James' office on Tuesday as the final condition of the contempt order being lifted permanently and the fine capped at the current $110,000.

A lawyer handling the Trump document subpoena matter, Alina Habba, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Donald Trump Can't Say Where 12 of His Former Executive Assistants Are

If Donald Trump laid his right hand upon a Bible and swore, The sky is blue, the sun rises in the East and sets in the West, and the New York Yankees have the most World Series titles, with 27, many in the media and on the left still might call him a liar.

Trump has been out of the Oval Office for more than 16 months, and yet, he seems to be living rent-free in the minds of many Americans and international elites who have come to loathe him.

But, facts are facts. Just because many people hate Trump does not mean that he cant be correct sometimes or even, often.

Tens of millions of Americans believe in his policies. Hillary Clinton may think of Trumps supporters as Deplorables, but most of these people consider themselves to be pragmatic, commonsense, rule-of-law Americans who are trying to survive difficult times.

When Trump offers an opinion or makes a pronouncement, hes generally directing his remarks to that demographic. But those statements can be factual. Consider two recent broadsides from him.

First, Trump reached out to the Pulitzer Prize administrator to rescind the 2018 prizes for national reporting awarded to The New York Times and The Washington Post for their investigative reporting of the then-alleged Trump-Russia interference into the 2016 presidential campaign.

Said the former president to the Pulitzer office: There is no dispute that the Pulitzer boards award to those media outlets was based on false and fabricated information that they published. The continuing publication and recognition of the prizes on the boards website is a distortion of fact and a personal defamation that will result in the filing of litigation if the board cannot be persuaded to do the right thing on its own.

Now, all but the most partisan Democrats realize that the rumors, charges and investigations of Trumps alleged coercion with Russia during the campaign were suspect from the start. These allegations were tainted by troubling partisan connections to the Clinton campaign and Obama administration officials including, sadly, some in the FBI and the Department of Justice.

The Times and the Post should have uncovered that the shameful smears against him were political and partisan in their investigations, Trump pointed out.

That raises an important question: Did those news organizations do honest investigations, or were they simply hoping the charges were true because of some journalists inherent biases against Trump, which were exhibited in hundreds of negative stories they printed about him?

With regard to the Pulitzer Prize or the Nobel Prize, for that matter, awarded to President Obama in 2009 for nothing more than inspiring Hope its becoming clear that the award is generally given to those on the left, by the left.

Maybe the Times and the Post would be better served investigating the Pulitzer and Nobel committees for ignoring conservative voices. In the meantime, they should display the ethical good grace to return awards given under false premises.

Then there is Trumps professed outrage following the news that a jury acquitted Michael Sussmann, an attorney who once represented the Clinton campaign and the Democratic Party, of a charge of lying to the FBI.

Our Legal System is CORRUPT, our Judges (and Justices!) are highly partisan, compromised or just plain scared, our Borders are OPEN, our Elections are Rigged, Inflation is RAMPANT, gas prices and food costs are through the roof, our Military Leadership is Woke, our Country is going to HELL, and Michael Sussmann is not guilty, Trump wrote on his Truth Social site.

Now, its logical to assume that Trumps opinion is biased, considering that the case revolved around alleged political dirty tricks against him. But even Georgetown University law professor Jonathan Turley said on Fox News, I dont believe the jury got it right. No one could seriously not argue that it was a very favorable jury for the defense.

Unfortunately, this case like so many things that impact our daily lives is now increasingly viewed through the prism of partisanship. Its a trend that bodes ill for us all.

Partisan award committees rewarding partisan media for political hit jobs, and potentially biased jurors exonerating the enemy of my enemy, might seem like a good idea to like-minded ideologues, but it is ultimately a recipe for disaster.

No one has to agree with Trump all the time or ever. But sometimes he raises the alarm on fairness issues that are worth debating for the sake of our nation.

Douglas MacKinnon, a political and communications consultant, was a writer in the White House for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, and former special assistant for policy and communications at the Pentagon during the last three years of the Bush administration. His latest book is The 56: Liberty Lessons From Those Who Risked All to Sign the Declaration of Independence.

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When Trump is right, hes right but many refuse to admit it - The Hill

Former President Trump and three of his children will participate in up to seven hours of questioning in a lawsuit started in 2018 over multilevel marketing company ACN Opportunity, lawyers for the defendants and plaintiffs said in a signed letter to a judge dated Friday, a court filing shows.

The former president and his children Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and Ivanka Trumpwill be deposed for a maximum of seven hours amid a lawsuit looking into the promotion of ACN Opportunity, through which some investors claim to have lost thousands of dollars, Courthouse News Service noted.

The investors argued that it was not clear that the Trumps, who promoted the company, had profited significantly off of it.

The former president and his children had already agreed in March to sit for depositions after previously seeking to have the case dropped in 2018, according to Bloomberg, but the length of the deposition was not previously known.

The parties have discussed the scheduling of these depositions and expect to take a significant number of them in June and July. The parties also have discussed a rough sequence, and have identified certain witnesses who can be deposed now and others whose depositions should be taken later, following production and receipt of certain additional documents and information, the lawyers said.

Defendants previously provided deposition dates for the witnesses, which dates have now lapsed, and expect to provide additional dates soon. The parties are optimistic that we will have a number of agreed-upon dates by the time of the conference scheduled for next week, they added.

The Hill has reached out to a lawyer for the former president for comment.

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Trump, children to sit for up to 7 hours of questioning in lawsuit over marketing company - The Hill

New York Attorney General Letitia James and Donald TrumpAssociated Press

A lawyer for Donald Trump revealed why he could not find 12 former executive assistants.

Most would not return phone calls, the lawyer swore in an affidavit to the NY AG on Friday.

AG Letitia James wants to know how the former assistants organized and preserved Trump's documents.

A defense lawyer has explained why so many of Donald Trump's former executive assistants can't be located: they won't return his phone calls.

New York Attorney General Letitia James demanded that Trump make his former secretaries available as she winds up her 3-year investigation of the former president's real estate and golf resort empire.

She wants them to swear out affidavits explaining the process they used to organize and preserve Trump's personal business records, scant few of which have been produced for the AG's probe.

"It is striking that counsel could not locate any of Mr. Trump's 12 former executive assistants," AG Special Counsel Andrew Amer had said in court papers on May 23.

But most of the 12 missing former executive assistants had not responded to voicemails or failed to call back as promised, explained the latest filing in Trump's battle against James' document subpoeana.

The filing gave this accounting for the 12 AWOL assistants:

Three couldn't be located because they had not left forwarding numbers, the filing said, and a fourth had apparently changed their phone number.

Six more had left forwarding numbers, but didn't return the lawyers' phone calls to those numbers, the filing said.

Another former executive assistant's phone was out of service, and yet another was reached, promised to call back, but did not.

That accounts for 11 of the dozen; the 12th was found in the week since the AG's office complained, and swore an affidavit stating "I have no formal document retention policy" that is now appended to the court record.

One additional executive assistant swore out affidavits earlier this month longtime staffer Rhona Graff, who worked at the the Trump Organization headquarters at Trump Tower in Manhattan, the filing said.

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The Manhattan judge presiding over the James-versus-Trump subpoeana battles, New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron, has warned that failing to complycould triggera retroactive, $10,000-a-day contempt-of-court fine, costing the former president more than a quarter-million dollars in additional fines.

The court-ordered fine, for failing to fully comply with the AG's subpoena for his personal business documents, had been capped at $110,000 and the contempt order lifted but only conditionally.

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Donald Trump explains why he can't find so many of the former secretaries NY AG Letitia James wants to hear from - Yahoo News

Donald Trump has a long, robust history of getting away with every shady, underhanded, wildly unethical, likely criminal thing hes ever done in his life. Whether its stiffing contractors he owes money to, paying a porn star to keep quiet about their alleged affair, or inciting a violent riot in a botched attempt to overturn the results of an election he lost, the comeuppance that would befall other people never seems to come for the ex-president. But according to a former federal prosecutor, the guys luck may be running out thanks to the state of Georgia.

Over the weekend, Joyce Vance, a former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, told MSNBC that Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis, who impaneled a special grand jury earlier this year, has wildly damning evidence on her hands re: Trumps attempt to steal the 2020 Georgia vote. In order to indict the former president, Vance told Katie Phang, Willis needs proof of the former presidents state of mind, and, according to the ex-prosecutor, Willis may have it thanks to the recording of the phone call that took place on January 2, 2021, ahead of the official vote certification, in which Trump ordered Georgia secretary of stateBrad Raffensperger to find him the exact number of votes necessary to win the state, despite the fact that he had actually lost. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state, Trump told Raffensperger, before threatening to prosecute the local official for failing to follow through. That the then president was not asking not for an investigation into potential voting fraud, not for a look to see whether something went wrong, but hes asking Raffensperger to find him the specific number of votes that he needs, Vance told Phang is pretty good evidence of criminal intent walking into it.

As HuffPost notes, while Williss probe was initially launched in response to that very damning call, the investigation has now been expanded into includepossible racketeering and fraudlinked to a number of efforts by Republicans to upend the election. Raffensperger, who won his primary last week, is scheduled to testify before the grand jury on Thursday.

An analysis by the Brookings Institution released last yearwhich the Fulton County D.A.s office has studied concludedthat Trumps actions in Georgia put him at substantial risk of possible state charges predicated on multiple crimes, including criminal solicitation to commit election fraud; intentional interference with performance of election duties; conspiracy to commit election fraud; criminal solicitation; and state RICO violations. In aninterviewwith TheNew York Times, Willis said, Anything that is relevant to attempts to interfere with the Georgia election will be subject to review. An investigation is like an onion. You never know. You pull something back, and then you find something else.

Is Trump actually in legal peril? If his history is anything to go by, its hard to say yes, overwhelming evidence not withstanding. But he sure seems upset about Williss work, having bleated on Truth Social over the weekend: The young, ambitious, Radical Left Democrat Prosecutor from Georgia, who is presiding over one of the most Crime Ridden and Corrupt places in the USA, Fulton County, has put together a Grand Jury to investigate an absolutely PERFECT phone call to the Secretary of State. Many lawyers, from both sides, were knowingly on the call. I also assumed it was taped. I called to fight a Rigged & Stolen Election, and they go after me instead of the people that Rigged and Stole it. God Bless America!

At a rally in Texas in January, Trump similarly attacked Willis, along with two other Black prosecutors without mentioning any of the investigators by name, telling his supporters the Fulton County D.A., New York attorney general Letitia James, and Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg are vicious, horrible people and claiming theyre racists and theyre very sick, theyre mentally sick.Then he encouraged his followers to launch the biggest protest we have ever had in Washington, D.C., in New York, in Atlanta, and elsewhere, if these radical racist vicious prosecutors do anything wrong or illegal, a demand former prosecutors believe could backfire legally on him given it sounds a lot like an attempt to obstruct justice.

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In other Trump legal news

New York A.G. Letitia Jameswho last week scored a victory when an appeals court ruled Trump, Ivanka, and Don Jr. must sit for under-oath depositionsis reportedly looking to expunge the Trump Organization from the face of the Earth. Per Insider:

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Donald Trump Seems Pretty Panicky About That Criminal Investigation in Georgia! - Vanity Fair

Legal experts believe the US Justice Department has made headway with an important criminal inquiry and could be homing in on top Trump lawyers who plotted to overturn Joe Bidens election, after the department wrote to the House panel investigating the January 6 Capitol attack seeking transcripts of witness depositions and interviews.

While its unclear exactly what information the DoJ asked for, former prosecutors note that the 20 April request occurred at about the same time a Washington DC grand jury issued subpoenas seeking information about several Trump lawyers including Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman, plus other Trump advisers, who reportedly played roles in a fake electors scheme.

Giuliani, Trumps former personal lawyer, worked with other lawyers and some campaign officials to spearhead a scheme to replace Biden electors with alternative Trump ones in seven states that Biden won, with an eye to blocking Congress certification of Biden on January 6 when a mob of Trump loyalists attacked the Capitol.

Deputy attorney general Lisa Monaco announced early this year that the justice department had begun investigating fake elector certificates at the behest of some state attorneys general including Michigans.

The House committees sprawling investigation, which has interviewed more than 1,000 people, has focused on top Trump loyalists including Eastman and Giuliani. Last month, Giuliani testified virtually for more than seven hours but reportedly asserted privilege and dodged many questions about his contacts with Trump House allies.

Ex-prosecutors also caution that while the justice department may want to obtain more evidence from the House select committee about the fake electors scheme and lawyers including Giuliani, there are other top Trump allies who sought to overturn Bidens win, plus central figures in the Capitol attack who have drawn scrutiny from both the panel and justice, whom prosecutors may now have in their sights.

A grand jury in Washington DC, for instance, also began issuing subpoenas a few months ago seeking information about Trump allies involved in the planning and financing of the large Trump rally that preceded the Capitol attack, as the Washington Post first reported.

Further, other recent grand jury activity in Washington indicates a widening justice inquiry into top Trump allies including a subpoena last month to Peter Navarro, Trumps former top trade adviser, for testimony and some of his written communications with Trump. Navarro has responded with a lawsuit to block the subpoena.

In addition, several months ago the House sent the justice department a criminal contempt of Congress referral about Mark Meadows, Trumps former chief of staff, who played central roles in efforts to overturn Bidens win, and was not fully cooperative with the panels requests for documents and testimony.

In replying to the justice departments letter, the January 6 panel chair Bennie Thompson stressed that the committees inquiry is continuing and that we told them that as a committee, the product was ours, and were not giving anyone access to the work product we cant give them unilateral access and called the DoJ request premature.

But Thompson also told reporters last month the committee may allow some materials requested to be reviewed in the panels offices.

Former prosecutors say Thompsons response, albeit mixed, seems to augur well for more cooperation in the future and pointed to several ways that the overture to the House panel could substantially benefit current inquiries.

The DoJ request for the fruits of the House committee investigation was inevitable but is still very important, former justice inspector general Michael Bromwich said.

It will substantially advance the DoJ investigation into the role played by higher-level architects of the insurrection, Bromwich added. It will save DoJ time and resources in pushing the investigation forward. Its very much like having a large second investigative staff that has been working in parallel rather than at cross-purposes with the criminal investigators. Because the House committee has not immunized any witnesses, the legal obstacles for using that testimony dont exist.

Despite Thompsons initial guarded response, Bromwich said he expects they will comply promptly, adding that the panel is probably irritated that the request didnt come earlier, rather than at a time its members are swamped with prep for public hearings and is well into drafting its report.

Likewise, Barbara McQuade, a former US attorney for the eastern district of Michigan, told the Guardian that outreach to obtain transcripts from the House panel could prove a boon to prosecutors.

Obtaining the transcripts directly from the committee is a way to maximize efficiency, said McQuade, now a professor of practice at the University of Michigan Law School. Investigators can see what witnesses have said before and decide whether they need to be interviewed again. They can use the transcripts to eliminate witnesses who dont have much light to shed on the matters under investigation.

McQuade noted that months ago, Monaco confirmed that DoJ had received evidence from state AGs about alternate slates of electors and was investigating. It appears that DoJ is now issuing subpoenas regarding this episode. They will likely ask questions about why and how this plan was carried out and who was involved. The answers to those questions will guide the investigation. One could imagine each link leading to the next and possibly all the way to Donald Trump.

As of late May, the justice department had charged over 830 people for crimes related to their roles in the January 6 Capitol attack which followed a Trump rally where he urged a large crowd to fight like hell. The federal charges range from illegal entry to seditious conspiracy involving Proud Boys and Oath Keepers members, some of whom have pleaded guilty.

On another front, a CNN report in late May revealed that FBI agents had recently conducted interviews in Georgia and Michigan with individuals who initially signed up to be Trump electors but then bowed out, asking specific questions about their contacts with Trump campaign officials and others.

As DoJ has ramped up its inquiry into Trumps fake electors, ex-prosecutors see more benefits that DoJs request to the House committee could produce.

One expects that the main purpose is to check the consistency of critical accounts which is valuable and does signal that DoJ is moving forward amid signs that it is increasingly examining the conduct of Giuliani and Eastman, ex-prosecutor Paul Rosenzweig said.

In another investigative twist, Paul Pelletier, the former acting chief of the fraud section at DoJ said: DoJs public acknowledgment of their interest in the January 6 transcripts may well be only the tip of the iceberg.

While Chairman Thompson has deferred a formal response to the governments inquiry, they likely have been informally sharing evidence for some time as is common in these investigations.

Looking forward, other former prosecutors sound bullish the House panel will extend cooperation to DoJ.

The panel is sure to cooperate because they are patriots, former federal prosecutor Dennis Aftergut told me. They know the importance of January 6 criminal accountability. That is the DoJs department, not theirs, but predicted that the committee will cooperate on their schedule.

Aftergut stressed that the committee has done a bang-up job with its wide ranging investigation, but probably wants to keep the publics attention focused on their upcoming hearings which Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin has predicted will blow the roof off the House.

Still, he added, Chairman Thompson calling cooperation now premature signals that its coming.

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US Justice Department could be zeroing in on Trump lawyers, experts say - The Guardian US

Former President Donald Trump is leaving Florida to avoid the swampy summer months.

Trump left his beachside Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach and as of Friday is at his golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey, according to a Republican source close to the former president who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Before leaving, Trump did a TV interview from Mar-a-Lago on Thursday evening with the Miami Spanish-language station MegaTV. He's leaving South Florida just as the area is facing a tropical storm warning throughout the weekend.

Trump's move north means much of the Republican political braintrust will follow. GOP political hopefuls have flocked to Mar-a-Lago, holding fundraisers and other events there as they hope to get some face time with Trump and perhaps even land a coveted endorsement.

Now, Bedminster will become the new go-to spot for the GOP.

Trump's post-presidential office didn't reply to questions about the change in scenery or confirm that he had arrived in Bedminster. Last year, Trump left Mar-a-Lago for the summer on Mother's Day.

But political meetings are already set. Several US House members from the conservative Freedom Caucus will meet with Trump in Bedminster on Tuesday, Politico first reported.

Melissa Braid, spokeswoman for the House Freedom Caucus, told Insider that the group would be meeting to "discuss its continued efforts to defeat the Democrats' radical socialist agenda, and advance conservative America First policies."

The meeting will also happen two days before the House's January 6 Select Committee will begin holding public hearings about the 2021 attack at the US Capitol that attempted to thwart the certification of President Joe Biden's election victory.

Trump, 75, a perennial snowbird, has for two decades escaped to Florida during the north's frigid winter months and then returned north as the summer season kicks off. He's expected to remain in Bedminster until the early fall.

Mar-a-Lago's main Club closed for the season after its annual Mother's Day brunch, but its Beach Club was open until Memorial Day, as is customary before the season's long humid wave and ahead of hurricane season.

Mar-a-Lago is expected to reopen for a big party on Halloween weekend, said a second Republican source who frequently attended events at the club and spoke on condition of anonymity after speaking with a current club member. Tiffany Trump, the former president's younger daughter, is planning to have her wedding at Mar-a-Lago on November 12.

Florida is Trump's permanent post-presidential home and where he votes, and Trump often called it the "Winter White House" when he was still in office. His Bedminster club will put him just 45 miles west of New York City, another major donor power center and where he used to live before running for office.

Political events are lucrative for the Trump organization, which has received millions of dollars over the years for hosting fundraisers. Insider also reported that the Secret Service has spent about $2 million to stay and dine at Trump properties since he became the 2016 GOP nominee.

Trump has often made appearances at various Mar-a-Lago events, sometimes even to delight his guests by acting as DJ for the evening. One of his favorite songs to play a regular at his campaign rallies is "YMCA," he said on the "Full Send Podcast."

The former president often hints that he'll seek the White House again in 2024 and has raised significant cash for his two political action committees, Save America and the Make America Great Again PAC.

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Trump is moving from Florida to New Jersey and Republicans will follow - Business Insider