Legal troubles in New York and Georgia mount for the former president with his second impeachment trial having gone dark.
With former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial in the country’s rearview mirror, several criminal and civil investigations into his conduct are coming into focus.
The Senate on Saturday acquitted Trump of inciting the deadly, insurrectionist attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. But the former president has reportedly expressed concerns about the potential of facing charges related to the riot.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), one of the 43 GOP senators to vote to acquit Trump, in a floor speech after the trial ended said Trump was responsible for inciting the violence and could face criminal prosecution. (McConnell said he voted to acquit because he didn’t believe the Senate had the power to convict a former president, even though the upper chamber voted days earlier that it does.) Continue reading.
Justice Department political leaders repeatedly stymied efforts by federal prosecutors in Manhattan to obtain a search warrant last year for the digital records of Rudolph W. Giuliani, former president Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, frustrating career government attorneys and effectively leaving the decision to the incoming Biden administration, people familiar with the matter said.
The move, first reported Wednesday by CNN, ultimately may have a limited impact on the ongoing federal investigation of Giuliani, as officials said prosecutors simply could renew their request. Like others, they spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a case that remains politically sensitive.
Still, the passage of time is unhelpful to any investigation, as documents could be destroyed and witnesses’ memories may fade. And the matter will present a critical first test for President Biden’s Justice Department, where officials are trying to separate the institution from political matters and restore public faith that it will enforce the law impartially. Continue reading.
KYIV — There was a consistent message from Ukraine’s leadership over everything from the Trump campaign’s dirt digging to the country’s central role in the first impeachment proceedings: No comment.
But now, as the Biden administration settles in, some close allies of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky are opening up about one of the longest-running dramas from the Trump era — the blitz of meetings, messages and public statements in Ukraine by former president Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani.
Among the accounts emerging from Ukrainian officials is a July 2019 phone call between Giuliani and Andriy Yermak, formerly one of Zelensky’s top aides and now his chief of staff. Yermak said the conversation was the first direct contact between Giuliani and the Zelensky administration and, until now, was only discussed in general terms. Continue reading.
On the morning of January 6th, news networks confirmed that the Democrats had captured Georgia’s Senate seats, insuring that the Party will hold a majority in both houses of Congress once Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are inaugurated, next week, and giving the new Administration greater ability to carry out its agenda. That afternoon, a mob incited by President Trump ransacked the Capitol; in response, House leaders prepared to impeach the President for a second time, adopting a single article of incitement of insurrection. Ten Republicans joined the Democrats in voting for impeachment, among them Liz Cheney, the third-ranking House Republican and the daughter of former Vice-President Dick Cheney. Some Republican senators, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, have indicated that they would consider voting for removal. However, McConnell, who will remain Majority Leader until the Georgia Democrats are seated, likely next week, has said that he will not begin the Senate impeachment trial until January 19th, the day before the Inauguration. Meanwhile, law-enforcement agencies have warned about the threat of further terrorist violence in Washington, D.C. before and on Inauguration Day.
The chaos and criminality of January 6th thus threaten to cast a shadow over Biden’s agenda, as well as to take up precious time on the congressional calendar. The last President to confront such problems concerning the culpability of a predecessor was Gerald Ford, who, shortly after taking office, in 1974, pardoned Richard Nixon for any and all crimes committed during Nixon’s Presidency. To talk about the wide-ranging effects of the pardon, I spoke by phone with the historian Rick Perlstein, who is the author of a series of books that chart the rise of modern conservatism. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we also discussed Ford’s motives for pardoning Nixon, whether liberals should care about the health of the G.O.P., and why the Trump siege may have been the culmination of the Goldwater revolution.
Your work presents Ford taking office as this incredible unifying moment, or what people believed to be a unifying moment, which was then quickly shattered by the pardon. What lessons does it hold for today?Continue reading.
It comes right after Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election with his colleagues in Congress.
Donald Trump announced Monday that he will award the highest civilian honor to Rep. Jim Jordan. Just days earlier, the Ohio Republican helped incite a terrorist attack on the Capitol as he tried to overturn the 2020 election.
In a press statement, the White House noted that the Presidential Medal of Freedom goes to those who have made “especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.”
Claiming that Jordan had used his perch on the House Oversight Committee to “uncover” Democratic failures and to defend Trump against “the Russia hoax and take on Deep State corruption,” the release praises him as “an inspiration to freedom-loving Americans everywhere and has distinguished himself as one of the most consequential members of Congress of his generation.” Continue reading.
Several major companies on Monday said they planned to cut off political donations to the 147 members of Congress who last week voted against certifying the results of the presidential election, while other major corporations said they are suspending all contributions from their political action committees — a sign of corporate America’s growing unease with the election doubts and violent attacks encouraged by President Trump.
Companies that collectively pour millions of dollars each year into campaigns through employee-funded PACs are registering their worry and anger about last week’s chaos with a reexamination of their role in powering the nation’s fractious politics.
AT&T’s PAC decided Monday to suspend donations to the eight Republican senators and 139 Republican House members who voted against certifying President-elect Joe Biden’s win, according to a company spokesman. Continue reading.
Former acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney has just resigned his post as United States Special Envoy for Northern Ireland. Mulvaney, who also once served as Trump’s Director of the Office of Management and Budget, says he expects others administration officials to quit over Wednesday’s Trump-supported insurrection.
“I called [Secretary of State] Mike Pompeo last night to let him know I was resigning from that. I can’t do it. I can’t stay,” Mulvaney told CNBC.
“You can’t look at that yesterday and think ‘I want to be a part of that,'” he said referring to the attempted coup by Trump insurrectionists who took over the U.S. Capitol. Continue reading.
In audio from a Saturday phone call, the president is heard urging the officials to reverse his loss.
President Donald Trump’s effort to pressure Georgia officials to “find” enough votes to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s victory could run afoul of federal and state criminal statutes, according to legal experts and lawmakers, who expressed alarm at Trump’s effort to subvert democracy with less than three weeks left in his term.
“We have won the election in Georgia based on all of this. And there’s nothing wrong with saying that, Brad,” Trump told Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on an hourlong Saturday phone call, according to a recording of the conversation, which also included Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and legal advisers to the president. “And the people of Georgia are angry. The people in the country are angry. And there’s nothing wrong with saying that, you know, um, that you’ve recalculated.”
POLITICO has confirmed the recording, which was first obtained by The Washington Post and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The leaked audio comes as Congress is set to certify the Electoral College votes on Wednesday. At least 12 incoming and current Republican senators, along with well over 100 Republican representatives, have said they are going to challenge the results based on unsupported allegations of voter fraud. Continue reading.
President Trump urged fellow Republican Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, to “find” enough votes to overturn his defeat in an extraordinary one-hour phone call Saturday that election experts said raised legal questions.
The Washington Post obtained a recording of the conversation in which Trump alternately berated Raffensperger, tried to flatter him, begged him to act and threatened him with vague criminal consequences if the secretary of state refused to pursue his false claims, at one point warning that Raffensperger was taking “a big risk.”
Throughout the call, Raffensperger and his office’s general counsel rejected Trump’s assertions, explaining that the president is relying on debunked conspiracy theories and that President-elect Joe Biden’s 11,779-vote victory in Georgia was fair and accurate. Continue reading.
The vote counts in key states are increasingly turning against President Trump’s reelection, which leaves his team to fight it out in the courts — both legal and public opinion — alleging that something nefarious has happened.
The problem is they haven’t enunciated what specifically was nefarious, and their arguments about which votes should still be counted don’t follow a coherent, logical path.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany’s Fox News interview Wednesday night epitomized that. Continue reading.
