Donald Trump has said he will ask the judge in his election fraud case to step aside on what he called “very powerful grounds”. He claimed that “there is no way I can get a fair trial” unless she does.
His call came after the prosecution requested a court order that would limit what he can publicly say about the case.
He give no details of his grounds for asking her to step down.
Judge Chutkan previously ruled against Mr Trump’s efforts to shield evidence from the House January 6 Committee and has faced frequent attacks from Trump allies in recent days. Mr Trump had described her and the Department of Justice (DOJ) as “highly partisan and very corrupt”.
Prosecutors said they feared Mr Trump might disclose confidential evidence and asked for a protective order to prevent “the improper dissemination or use of discovery materials, including to the public”.
Judge Tanya Chutkan gave Mr Trump’s legal team until 17:00 local time on Monday to respond to the submission. Mr Trump’s lawyers asked for three more days, but the judge denied their request.
Presumably, Trump wants a judge that he can influence or intimidate so that he can, as usual, do as he pleases … and, although Trump, in “better” times, expected to get what he wanted, that may prove impossible for someone who is now merely a “citizen” …
Pence told CBS’ “Face the Nation” in an interview that aired Sunday he currently has no plans to testify against Trump but said “we’ll respond to the call of the law.”
“I have no plans to testify, but people can be confident we’ll obey the law. We’ll respond to the call of the law, if it comes and we’ll just tell the truth,” Pence said.
Pence could be a key figure in Trump’s case as it moves through the legal process. The indictment mentions contemporaneous notes Pence took during key meetings and phone calls as Trump and his allies pressured him to reject electoral votes following the 2020 presidential election.
“There was from time to time, particularly at important moments, I had a practice of scribbling a note or two on my calendar just to memorialize it and remember it and I did that in this case,” Pence said, confirming he took notes in the lead up to Jan. 6, 2021.
This court case seems like it will lead to Trump being convicted. He must suspect that as well - why else is he making those pre-emptive accusations on the judge? But this is Trump and his teflon coating may well work again. It will be a sad day if he shrugs this off, stands for president again - and wins. A real threat to pretty much everything.
At Donald Trump’s arraignment last Thursday for trying to overturn the result of the 2020 election, magistrate judge Moxila A Upadhyaya warned him that he could be taken into custody if he violated the conditions of his release, including attempting to influence jurors or intimidate future witnesses.
She said:
“I want to remind you that it is a crime to try to influence a juror or to threaten or attempt to bribe a witness or any other person who may have information about your case, or to retaliate against anyone for providing information about your case to the prosecution, or to otherwise obstruct the administration of justice. You have heard your conditions of release. It is important you comply. You may be held pending trial in this case if you violate the conditions of release. Do you understand these warnings and consequence, sir? Are you prepared to comply?”
Trump responded: “Yes.” But not 24 hours later, Trump posted on social media a message that could be understood as an attempt to influence potential jurors or retaliate against any witness prepared to testify against him: He wrote: “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!”
All through the weekend, Trump continued to threaten potential witnesses. “WOW, it’s finally happened! Liddle’ Mike Pence, a man who was about to be ousted as Governor Indiana until I came along and made him VP, has gone to the Dark Side,” he posted Saturday.
And Trump hasn’t stopped attempting to obstruct justice. On Sunday he called Jack Smith “deranged”, and in another all-caps message he accused Smith of waiting to bring the case until “right in the middle” of his election campaign. In another post he asserted that he would never get a “fair trial” with Chutkan and jurors from Washington DC.
These statements directly violate the conditions of Trump’s release pending trial. Chutkan should now order Trump’s lawyers to show cause why his release pending trial should not be revoked, in light of his repeated violation of the conditions of his release.
This would at least put Trump on notice that he will be treated like any other criminal defendant who violates conditions of release pending trial. At this moment, about 400,000 criminal defendants are in jail in the United States awaiting trial because they didn’t meet a condition of their release.
If Trump won’t shut up then he’ll have to be shut up …
Until the Republican party feel able or feel they must distance themselves from Trump we will continue to have this farce of a clearly guilty charlatan trying to duck justice. He is enabled by a weak and desperate ‘gods own party’ who know that their aging voter base means they can only win by fixing voting, appealing to the lowest common base and stirring hatred wherever it can. And Trump has been an arch leader in these efforts.
If he did become President it would be interesting to see how easy it would be to find a willing VP.The first thing that goes wrong,they’ll be under that bus.
After initially resisting the warrant, Twitter eventually complied, but missed a court-ordered deadline by three days. The delay resulted in the company being handed a $350,000 (£275,000) fine for contempt of court.
The existence of the search warrant and the legal fight over it was revealed in court documents unsealed on Wednesday. According to the unsealed ruling, which still includes some redactions, Twitter’s lawyers did not object to the warrant itself, but disputed the nondisclosure order which kept it secret.
There is little indication in the documents about what exactly Mr Smith was seeking, with the court filing noting that only that the warrant directed the company “to produce data and records” related to Mr Trump’s account.
The US congressional panel investigating the 6 January 2021 Capitol riot found that Mr Trump had drafted - but never sent - a tweet urging his supporters to come to Washington.
It said: “I will be making a Big Speech at 10 a.m. on January 6th at the Ellipse (South of the White House). Please arrive early, massive crowds expected. March to the Capitol after. Stop the steal!”
The @realdonaldtrump account, which has 86.5m followers, was suspended after the riot.
A previously unseen internal memo from the 2020 Trump campaign describes in detail the plot by Donald Trump and his lawyers to subvert election results in six states, according to a copy obtained by The New York Times.
The memo describes a three-pronged plan to prevent Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s victory on 6 January 2020, that involved coordinating with Republican electors and campaign attorneys in six states, as well as Mike Pence.
It also emphasized the importance of the participation by “all six states” and “messaging about this being a routine measure” as well as “logistics” regarding what is now known as the fake electors scheme.
The letter was written by Kenneth Chesebro, an attorney associated with Trump who is believed to be one of six unnamed co-conspirators in the indictment against Trump over his attempt to subvert the results of the 2020 election. Much of Chesebro’s actions have been revealed through previous memos and through the January 6 investigation last year, but this memo brings further details to light about the fake electors scheme that he concocted.
It was addressed to a Wisconsin lawyer, James R Troupis, the lead attorney for the Trump campaign in Wisconsin, who oversaw the fake electors scheme in his state. Troupis filed a lawsuit in December 2020 asking the Wisconsin supreme court to throw out hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots, saying they violated voting requirements. The court ultimately rejected the lawsuit.
Chesebro wrote to Troupis that “it seems feasible” the Trump campaign could subvert Biden’s victory. His plan would “force the Members of Congress, the media, and the American people to focus on the substantive evidence of illegal election and counting activities in the six contested States, provided three things happen”.
He then lays out those three steps, describing a plan in detail.
IMO, damning for all concerned but Trump will, no doubt, describe the revelation as something else entirely …
“Even arguably ambiguous statements by the parties or their counsel- if they can be reasonably be interpreted to intimidate witnesses or to prejudice potential jurors - can threaten the process," U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan said on Friday. “I caution you and your client to take special care in your public statements about this case. I will take whatever measures are necessary to safeguard the integrity of these proceedings.”
Chutkan’s warning came at a federal court hearing on Friday where prosecutors and Trump’s lawyers hashed out disagreements over how much evidence in the case Trump can share with the public.
Chutkan’s decision to permit Trump to share some non-sensitive material went against the objections of prosecutors, who pointed to threatening messages Trump posted last week on social media as evidence that he might try to use details of the confidential evidence to intimidate witnesses.
The judge ruled that the government had not met its burden to show why all of the evidence should be subject to a “protective order,” which safeguards evidence from being shared with the public in order to prevent witness intimidation or tainting a jury pool.
However, she warned that Trump is nevertheless subject to release conditions which ban him from intimidating witnesses and said she will be watching his statements and “scrutinizing them very carefully.”
The government will still be allowed to petition the court for certain pieces of evidence to be covered by the order, and Chutkan also on Friday agreed with prosecutors and rejected an argument by Trump’s lawyers that the hundreds of transcripts of witness interviews, recordings and related exhibits are sensitive and cannot be publicly shared.
“He is a criminal defendant. He is going to have restrictions like every single other defendant. This case is proceeding in the normal order,” Chutkan said. “The fact the defendant is engaged in a political campaign is not going to allow him any greater or lesser latitude than any defendant in a criminal case."
No doubt he’ll step over the line again and get away with it …
Abigail Jo Shry, 43, allegedly phoned the court in Washington DC on 5 August and used a racial slur in her message for US District Judge Tanya Chutkan. > Ms Shry also allegedly threatened to kill a Democratic member of Congress. She admitted making the call after investigators traced her phone number, according to a court document.
In the call, Ms Shry allegedly told the judge, who is overseeing an election conspiracy case against Mr Trump: “You are in our sights, we want to kill you.”
Prosecutors say Ms Shry added: “If Trump doesn’t get elected in 2024, we are coming to kill you.”
The caller also threatened all Democrats in Washington DC and the LGBT community, according to the court filing.
Shry was probably not serious but others might be …
The trial of Donald Trump on charges of plotting to overturn the 2020 presidential election result has been set for 4 March 2024.
The date means Trump’s trial could start almost eight months before the 2024 US presidential election.
The former president is currently hot favourite to win the Republican nomination to take on President Joe Biden.
The decision from US district judge Tanya Chutkan denied a defence request to postpone the trial until April 2026, around a year and a half after the 2024 election, but also sets it later than the January date proposed by special counsel Jack Smith’s team.
Judge Chutkan said: “The public has a right to a prompt and efficient resolution of this matter.”
A reminder of this case against Trump:
Donald Trump has pleaded not guilty to trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election result, culminating in the January 6 riot at the US Capitol building. Prosecutors said the attack on Congress by Trump supporters in early 2021 was “an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy” that was “fuelled by lies” from the former US president.
A 45-page indictment has alleged Trump and his Republican allies pushed false claims that the November 2020 election was rigged, in the two months after he lost to Democrat rival Joe Biden. It is also alleged that the 77-year-old pressured his vice president Mike Pence and state election officials to take action to help him cling to power.
The four counts against Trump include conspiracy to defraud the US, to deprive citizens of their right to have their votes counted, and to obstruct an official proceeding - interrupting Congress as it was certifying Mr Biden as president.
The most serious charges, obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to obstruct, both carry a maximum prison sentence of 20 years.
Democratic senator Tim Kaine of Virginia said that he believes there is a “powerful argument” to be made that Donald Trump can be disqualified from running in the 2024 presidential elections under the 14th amendment.
“In my view, the attack on the Capitol that day was designed for a particular purpose at a particular moment and that was to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power as is laid out in the constitution,” he said in an interview with ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos on Sunday. “So I think there is a powerful argument to be made.”
Kaine said that the “language is specific”, referring to the third section of the 14th amendment. “If you give aid and comfort to those who engage in an insurrection against the constitution of the United States, it doesn’t say against the United States, it says against the constitution.”
Kaine joins a growing number of legal experts looking to prevent Trump from running for office again under the 14th amendment. An article by two conservative law professors that is set to be published in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review examines the clause in light of Trump’s involvement in the 2020 election subversion efforts.
Meanwhile, a similar article published last month in the Atlantic by retired conservative federal judge J Michael Luttig and Harvard law professor emeritus Laurence Tribe echoed similar sentiments.
The 14th amendment was also brought up during the Republican primary presidential debate last month by former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson.
The judge in Donald Trump’s federal election meddling case has said she will not recuse herself, despite the ex-president’s requests she step aside.
His legal team argued some of her past comments create a perception of bias against the former president. Judge Tanya Chutkan has now ruled his lawyers failed to present evidence of those claims.
Last month’s filing by Mr Trump’s lawyers did not expressly call the judge prejudiced against him, but says certain statements she has made in her court “create a perception of pre-judgement incompatible with our justice system”.
In her ruling on Wednesday, Judge Chutkan said the comments cited by his legal team “certainly do not manifest a deep-seated prejudice that would make fair judgement impossible”.
“It bears noting that the court has never taken the position the defence ascribes to it: that former ‘President Trump should be prosecuted and imprisoned,’” Judge Chutkan wrote. “And the defence does not cite any instance of the court ever uttering those words or anything similar.”
Trump and his legal teams seemingly never have evidence for any of their claims …
Trump doesn’t care about legal costs. He just puts out a plea for donations for his fighting fund and Trump supporters send in money. Or he offers rubbish cartoons of himself and gets millions. So as money is not an option then paying lawyers to delay, postpone, confuse and deflect is a good way to avoid any sort of conclusion. His supporters keep on supporting him regardless so he simply needs to delay things until he is re-elected.
Trump took in over $53 million since the start of 2023, records show, a period in which his two criminal indictments in Florida and New York were turned into a rallying cry that sent his fundraising soaring. Yet the Republican presidential front-runner burned through at least $42.8 million this year, much of it used to cover costs related to the mounting legal peril faced by Trump, his aides and other allies, leaving him with $31.8 million cash on hand. And that was after receiving a lifeline from a pro-Trump super PAC that agreed to refund millions of dollars in contributions that Trump’s operation had previously donated to it.
New campaign finance disclosures made public ahead of Monday night’s filing deadline showed Trump’s network of political committees spent roughly $25 million on legal fees. But according to a person familiar with the situation who insisted on anonymity to discuss the matter, the number is considerably higher: $40 million this year alone.
An analysis of campaign finance reports shows Trump’s political committees have paid out at least $59.2 million to more than 100 lawyers and law firms since January 2021, when a mob of his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol and many of his current legal woes began in earnest.
To help offset his growing legal bills, Trump’s allies are launching a new fundraising effort. The Patriot Legal Defense Fund, as it is called, is intended to defray costs for those “defending against legal actions arising from an individual or group’s participation in the political process,” according to a filing made last month with the IRS. The group will be run by Trump campaign senior advisers Susie Wiles and Michael Glassner.
One of the primary committees used to pay Trump’s legal bills, Save America, has also requested that his super PAC, MAGA Inc., return some of the money that it transferred to seed the group to help cover costs. Filings show Save America received $12.2 million in refunds from the group in May and June. A spokesman for the super PAC did not respond to a request for comment.
Trump launched Save America in the days after the 2020 election loss to Biden. For weeks, the group bombarded supporters with a nonstop stream of text messages and emails that purported to raise money for an “election defense fund” that would be used to contest the election’s outcome. But the $170 million that the effort raised in less than a month was not used to contest the election, records show. Instead, it was used to pay down campaign debt and replenish the coffers of the Republican National Committee, with Trump also stockpiling another large chunk for his future political endeavors. Last year, the Justice Department issued a round of grand jury subpoenas that sought information about the political action committee’s fundraising practices.
Trump has been profligate with other people’s money yet the major felony cases are still to come … will the Trump mugs keep paying for Trump’s multi-million dollar lawyers in the months to come?
These are staggering sums. Especially as his lawyers do not always seem to be that effective. However his support base remains strong. I saw an interesting discussion taken from MSNBC news channel recently. The commentator put forward the idea that Trump supporters do not need or want political debate from Trump. Hence his lack of appearance at the debates the other replublican candidates are having. The Trump supporters want to move beyond political dialogue and simply get a “strong leader”. This suits Trump and aligns with his approach of no real political views, keeping to pro-America rhetoric and consistently knocking all others. This is dismal as he might still be re-elected.
If only it was just the rednecks.
But you got to love the dirt poor rednecks who would only ever vote republican. As Trump once said “a lot of my supporters are under-educated, I love the under-educated”.
