Tag: Trump obstruction of justice

Don McGahn’s unflattering portrayal of Trump

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We had to wait a long time to see testimony from former White House counsel Donald McGahn. And in the end, it was anticlimactic — at least as far as the known facts went.

McGahn fought a congressional subpoena for two years, ultimately reaching a deal under which he would testify behind closed doors — but only about specific events detailed in the Mueller report. McGahn was a key witness in that investigation, having said that President Donald Trump asked him to get special counsel Robert S. Mueller III removed. (McGahn refused both Trump’s request and a later request for McGahn to falsely deny the president made the request.) But the agreement and McGahn’s apparent desire not to make too much news with his testimony conspired to make his testimony far from earth-shattering.

If you read between the lines, though, McGahn’s elaboration on previously known facts doesn’t exactly paint a glowing picture of his former boss. Continue reading.

McGahn Affirmed That Trump Tried to Oust Mueller, Transcript Shows

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The former White House counsel testified behind closed doors last week about the former president’s attempts to interfere with the Russia investigation.

WASHINGTON — Donald F. McGahn II, who served as White House counsel to former President Donald J. Trump, has told lawmakers that episodes involving him in the Russia report by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, were accurate — including one Mr. Trump has denied in which the president pressed him to get the Justice Department to remove Mr. Mueller.

A 241-page transcript of Mr. McGahn’s closed-door testimony from last week, released on Wednesday by the House Judiciary Committee, contained no major revelations. But it opened a window on Mr. McGahn’s struggles to serve as the top lawyer in a chaotic White House, under a president who often pushed the limits of appropriate behavior.

“They don’t teach you this in law school,” Mr. McGahn said of one episode he witnessed in which Mr. Trump was trying to get his attorney general at the time, Jeff Sessions, to resign because he had recused himself from the Russia investigation. Continue reading.

House Judiciary releases McGahn testimony on Trump

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Former White House counsel Don McGahn confirmed to congressional investigators a key account in ex-special counsel Robert Mueller’s report that former President Trump directed him to try to get Mueller removed, according to a transcript of his closed-door testimony released Wednesday. 

The 241-page transcript follows a long fought-for interview the House Judiciary Committee finally secured with McGahn on Friday after the Trump White House challenged a subpoena seeking his testimony during Trump’s first impeachment investigation. The transcript shows that the interview yielded little new information but confirmed some of the details of Mueller’s lengthy report on his 22-month investigation that concluded in March 2018 and with which McGahn cooperated.

Trump has persistently denied any effort to fire Mueller amid the long inquiry, which probed allegations that members of Trump’s team had colluded with Russian figures during his 2016 presidential campaign. Yet in Friday’s interview, McGahn directly disputed Trump’s claims, repeatedly laying out Trump’s consideration of firing Mueller.  Continue reading.

Don McGahn tells House panel about Trump’s bid to undermine Mueller probe

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Former White House counsel Donald McGahn detailed for the House Judiciary Committee on Friday how former president Donald Trump attempted to stymie a federal probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election — bombshell revelations that might once have fueled additional impeachment charges, were they not already public and had it not taken more than two years for Democrats to secure his testimony.

Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), who led the Democrats’ exhaustive campaign to compel McGahn’s testimony, emerged from the meeting after nearly six hours but refused to discuss the closed-door interview. He said only that the terms of McGahn’s appearance limited its focus to the findings of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, whose two-year Russia investigation overshadowed much of Trump’s presidency.

In a written statement Friday evening, Nadler offered that McGahn “testified at length to an extremely dangerous period in our nation’s history — in which President Trump, increasingly unhinged and fearful of his own liability, attempted to obstruct the Mueller investigation at every turn.” McGahn, Nadler asserted, was “clearly distressed” by Trump’s repeated refusal to heed his legal advice and “shed new light on several troubling events.” Continue reading.

Congress wins battle for Trump aide’s testimony, but a broader war over subpoena power goes on

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Former White House counsel Donald McGahn’s interview with congressional investigators Friday will close one lingering chapter of House Democrats’crusade to hold the Trump administration to account — but is likely to leave uncertainty in its wake about what will happen in lawmakers’ next test of wills with the White House.

McGahn, considered a star witness in former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 election, flouted a congressional subpoena for two years and is not expected to offer any bombshell revelations about former president Donald Trump — beyond those he already provided to Mueller — when he meets with the House Judiciary Committee behind closed doors.

Instead, the appearance is Democrats’ way of demonstrating that congressionalsubpoenas must be obeyed — an argument they offered throughout a lengthy legal battle that seemed destined to reach the Supreme Court before a deal with the Biden administration ended the fight in what may prove to be a political win, but at best is a constitutional draw. Continue reading.

Barr Increasingly Appears Focused on Undermining Mueller Inquiry

New York Times logoA judge’s criticism cast light on the first in a series of steps by the attorney general to take aim at the Russia investigation.

WASHINGTON — Attorney General William P. Barr testified before Congress last spring that “it’s time for everybody to move on” from the special counsel investigation into whether Trump associates conspired with Russia’s 2016 election interference.

Nearly a year later, however, it is clear that Mr. Barr has not moved on from the investigation at all. Rather, he increasingly appears to be chiseling away at it.

The attorney general’s handling of the results of the Russia inquiry came under fire when a federal judge questioned this week whether Mr. Barr had sought to create a “one-sided narrative”clearing Mr. Trump of misconduct. The judge said Mr. Barr displayed a “lack of candor” in remarks that helped shape the public view of the special counsel’s report before it was released in April.

Prominent Republicans mock Trump’s legal claims in Supreme Court brief — and blow up president’s ‘absolute immunity’

AlterNet logoA Supreme Court filing lays bare the deep chasm between prominent Republicans who believe in the rule of law and wannabe president for life Donald Trump, whose says he enjoys absolute immunity from any inquiry into his conduct.

Trump audaciously claims that any crimes he may have committed crimes before assuming office cannot even be investigated, not even if he committed murder, in effect trying to extend the protections of bankruptcy law with which he is so familiar to criminal law. No statute, court decision or our Constitution supports this claim of being above the law.

In a friend of the court brief filed Monday the prominent Republicans argue that Trump cannot block the Manhattan district attorney’s garden variety criminal tax fraud investigation. They note that the issue before the high court is a subpoena for business records held by Trump’s accounting firm, Mazars USA. The firm says it will comply with the subpoena, but Trump’s lawsuit blocked that.  Continue reading.

House Dems ask federal judge to proceed with Trump tax returns lawsuit — based on arguments made by president’s impeachment legal team

AlterNet logoDemocrats have been seeking President Donald Trump’s tax returns at both the federal and state levels; one of the federal efforts has been a lawsuit by the House Ways and Means Committee, which is chaired by Rep. Richard Neal of Massachusetts. And on February 15, House Democrats asked U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden to lift a stay on that lawsuit — using, reporter Jerry Lambe notes in Law & Crime, “arguments put forth by Trump’s impeachment legal team.”

House Democrats made their argument to McFadden, a Trump appointee, in an 11-page motion. And House General Counsel Douglas Letter, according to Lambe, specifically used “statements made by the president’s impeachment attorneys, Jay Sekulow and Alan Dershowitz.”

“Defendants appear to be arguing that what President Trump’s impeachment counsel meant to say was that, before impeaching the president, the House was required to file futile subpoena enforcement suits so that DOJ could then successfully obtain dismissal on justiciability grounds, without any ruling on the merits,” Douglas asserted in the motion. “The court should not assume that the president’s accomplished lawyers meant to advance such a cynical argument — that congressional committees are constitutionally obliged to waste their own time and resources, and those of the judiciary, on futile gestures.” Continue reading.

Crimes required? Trump’s impeachment defense could set new standard

Trump defense team seizes on the lack of an article charging the president with a crime

President Donald Trump’s defense team is arguing that a president should not be convicted by the Senate on articles of impeachment that do not include a criminal violation, putting the very definition of an impeachable offense at the center of the Senate trial set to begin Tuesday.

And some legal experts said the outcome of that debate could set a new, higher standard for removing a president from office in future impeachments.

Trump’s memorandum released Monday, much of which reads more like a political argument than a legal or constitutional one, stresses that the two articles of impeachment “allege no crime or violation of law whatsoever — much less ‘high Crimes and Misdemeanors,’ as required by the Constitution.” Continue reading.

Trump faces dueling crises upon return to DC

The Hill logoPresident Trump returned to Washington on Sunday facing dueling crises that could define his presidency and shape the course of his reelection bid.

The president spent more than two weeks at his Mar-a-Lago property in Florida, where he visited his nearby golf club on a near daily basis, met with top advisers and allies, and on Thursday night — in one of the most consequential decisions of his time in office — approved a military operation that resulted in the death of a top Iranian official.

But impeachment was never far from Trump’s mind. Continue reading.

NOTE:  Our question is if President Trump has repeated his behavior when faced with a crises by created an even bigger crises to change the focus of the media.