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Writer's pictureHowie Klein

Will Rapidly Mounting Legal Setbacks Land Trump In Prison?


"Damage Control" by Nancy Ohanian

Trump may have stocked the courts with scores of unqualified right-wing hacks, but he's still getting the shit kicked out of him by the judicial branch. This week New York judge Arthur Engoron ruled that Trump, Trump Jr and Ivanka must comply with subpoenas and testify under oath in AG Leittia James' fraud investigation. The family's stonewalling-- resisting turning over documents and refusing to testify-- may well be coming to an end, although, obviously, Trump will appeal the decision. The judge told Trump he has 2 weeks to hand over the subpoenaed documents and 3 weeks to testify. Completely deranged, Trump responded to the ruling by whining that it was just "a continuation of the greatest witch-hunt in history and remember, I can’t get a fair hearing in New York because of the hatred of me by judges and the judiciary. It is not possible." He will certainly plead the 5th Amendment.


This all happened right after his accounting firm dumped him as a client and announced all the documents they've filed on his behalf over the years should not be relied on because they were based on Trump's serial lies.


Then today, in a separate matter, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta issued a 112-page opinion rejecting his bullshit about "absolute immunity." The judge ruled that he will have to face multiple civil lawsuits from Capitol Police officers and members of Congress under the 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act, prohibiting conspiracies against the federal government, seeking to hold him liable for the 1/6 insurrection. Mehta wrote that Trump's actions in regard to the attempted coup and violent insurrection "do not relate to his duties of faithfully executing the laws, conducting foreign affairs, commanding the armed forces, or managing the Executive Branch. They entirely concern his efforts to remain in office for a second term. These are unofficial acts, so the separation-of-powers concerns that justify the President’s broad immunity are not present here... President Trump’s January 6 Rally Speech was akin to telling an excited mob that corn-dealers starve the poor in front of the corn-dealer’s home. He invited his supporters to Washington, D.C., after telling them for months that corrupt and spineless politicians were to blame for stealing an election from them; retold that narrative when thousands of them assembled on the Ellipse; and directed them to march on the Capitol building-- the metaphorical corn-dealer’s house-- where those very politicians were at work to certify an election that he had lost."


That all sounds pretty painful for Trump. But there's more. Today, NY Times reporters Luke Broadwater and Mike Schmidt wrote that "The National Archives confirmed on Friday that it had found classified information among documents that Trump had taken with him to his home in Florida from the White House and that it had consulted with the Justice Department about the matter. The agency 'has identified items marked as classified national security information within the boxes,' according to a letter posted on the National Archives and Record Administration website that was sent to Representative Carolyn Maloney, Democrat of New York and the chairwoman of the House Oversight Committee, who has been scrutinizing how Trump handled presidential records."


Many people on Capitol Hill wonder, pretty quietly, which of America's adversaries Trump was trying to sell the top secret documents to and what documents were not turned over. Unfortunately, the Democrats are going after him for something no one cares about. Broadwater and Schmidt reported that "The disclosure that Trump had classified information among the documents he took with him from the White House has prompted assertions from Democrats of hypocrisy. Trump made attacking Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of national security materials a centerpiece of his 2016 presidential campaign. In January, after lengthy negotiations between his lawyers and the National Archives, 15 boxes of materials that Trump had taken from the White House were sent back to the National Archives. The boxes included items like official letters, White House documents and gifts that are considered presidential records, are government property and were supposed to be housed at the National Archives."


Trump has also ripped up documents, flushed some down the toilet and even eaten some! The Washington Post reported that "Trump had been destroying documents and removed boxes to his property in Florida instead of turning them over to the National Archives and Records Administration."

1 Comment


dcrapguy
dcrapguy
Feb 19, 2022

Prison? I predict nope. maybe a small fine. democraps need him to run against until the end of time. everyone knows this.

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