Trump's Present and Future possible indictments

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

Trump, accused of inflating the value of his assets by billions of dollars a year to dupe banks and insurers, decided to fly back to Florida after attending the first 2 1/2 days of the trial, according to a person familiar with his plans.


Unexpectedly attending the start of the trial, Trump treated it like a campaign event and used breaks to denounce New York Attorney General Letitia James, who filed the suit a year ago. But his mood appeared to sour somewhat Wednesday after he was hit with a gag order by the judge for attacking his law clerk on social media.

“They’ve weaponized justice in this country,” Trump told a crowd of reporters outside the courtroom during a short break. “This trial is a disgrace. A thing like this has never happened before.”

‘I Will Not Be Bullied’

Trump, who is expected to testify later, faces five other trials as he campaigns to return to the White House, including four criminal prosecutions. He has made similar attacks on James since before she filed the suit and has repeatedly and baselessly called the attorney general, who is Black, a “racist.”

James, a Democrat, spoke briefly outside the courtroom after the lunch break, as if Trump wouldn’t be returning, and criticized his recent remarks as “offensive” and “race baiting.”

“I will not be bullied,” she said, calling Trump’s attendance a “fundraising stop.” She added: “Mr. Trump is no longer here. The Donald Trump show is over.

Trump, 77, wasn’t required to attend the start of the New York state trial. But he told a judge in an unrelated Florida case, in which he sued his former lawyer Michael Cohen for $500 million, that he had to attend the first week of the Manhattan trial. The judge delayed by a week his deposition in that case so he could show up.

Grilling Trump’s Ex-Accountant

Trump spoke out in apparent irritation after his lawyer complained he couldn’t hear the testimony of the state’s first witness, former Mazars USA LLP accountant Donald Bender, who sometimes lowered his voice and mumbled answers. Trump asked that he speak into the microphone.

“I can’t hear,” he complained to the judge, raising his palms upward and then pointing to his right ear. He also shook his head repeatedly as Bender testified.

Trump’s lawyer Jesus M. Suarez grilled Bender about the years of accounting work he did for Trump’s company, eliciting testimony suggesting he never saw any red flags.

Under that cross-examination, Bender testified that he signed off on years of Trump Organization financial statements because nothing obviously erroneous jumped out at him. The defense was seeking to undercut the state’s claims that the assets were wildly overvalued for more than a decade.

“Did any assets strike you as being presented at an obviously inappropriate value?” Suarez repeatedly asked Bender for each of the statements he signed from 2011 to 2021.

“No, sir,” Bender said.

James had called Bender as the first witness to illustrate that Trump’s longtime accountant was allegedly misled about the appraisals of his properties. Bender testified Tuesday that he became aware in 2021, during an interview with the Manhattan district attorney, that Trump had withheld internal appraisals of his properties that conflicted with what he reported to Mazars.

The accountant said he wouldn’t have signed off on the financial statements if he had known.

Losing Patience

Justice Arthur Engoron, who is overseeing the non-jury trial, grew irritated with the lawyer and repeatedly warned Suarez to refrain from painstakingly questioning Bender over each property listed on Trump’s financial statements.

“Mr. Bender’s not on trial here,” the judge said.

“I would very much disagree with that,” Trump’s lawyer Chris Kise said.

At one point the judge ran out of patience.

“I’m pounding the bench again!” he said. “This is ridiculous!”

Also on Wednesday, Trump filed a notice informing the court that he is appealing a pre-trial ruling in which Engoron found him liable for fraud. In that order, the judge canceled certificates for many of Trump’s companies holding the assets at issue. That left the trial to focus on on the state’s six remaining claims, including issuing false financial statements and conspiring to falsify business records. James is also seeking $250 million in penalties.

(full article online)

‘Trump Show Is Over’ as He Leaves NY Fraud Trial for Florida

(Bloomberg) -- When Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial broke for lunch in Manhattan on Wednesday, the former president didn’t come back.Most Read from BloombergKey Taiwan Tech Firms Helping Huawei With China Chip PlantsTech Giants Fuel End of Day Climb as Yields Slide: Markets WrapKevin McCarthy...

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[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

It’s very hard to believe, but apparently there are still a lot of people out there who think that 1) Donald is enormously wealthy and, 2) he created that wealth himself. In 2018, however, thanks to Sue Craig and Russ Buettner, investigative reporters for The New York Times, it was revealed that during my grandfather’s lifetime, Donald received $413 million in trust funds, gifts and unpaid loans. After my grandfather died, Donald inherited a couple of hundred million dollars more. It bears pointing out that the empire Donald has manage to squander over the last thirty years—the one he is in danger of losing thanks to his having committed massive fraud (allegedly)—belonged to his father. It was never his.

My grandfather, Fred, had long harbored aspirations to expand his real estate business across the river into Manhattan, the Holy Grail of New York City real estate, but he didn’t have the right skill-set. Donald, on the other hand, did possess the kind of brazenness and total lack of self-awareness that allowed him to bulldoze the rest of the world into believing he was some kind of entrepreneurial phenom.

He wasn’t—even Fred knew he wasn’t. Still, Donald dedicated a significant amount of time crafting an image for himself among the Manhattan elite whose circles he was desperate to join. Fred understood Donald’s limitations and knew he was promoting a fiction, but he didn’t care. He wanted the fame—and he was perfectly happy to live vicariously through Donald’s. Fred was paying for it, after all.

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Donald, on the other hand, always believed the fiction to be the truth. He believed it with such force that tens of millions of other people now believe it, too. We see how that’s played out—is, in fact, still playing out.

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Most people in my family also suffer from the obnoxious belief that they’re better than everybody simply by virtue of the fact that they have a lot of money, despite not having earned it. With the exception my dad, none Fred’s children was self-made, either. Even Maryanne got her federal judgeship through Roy Cohn who agreed to do Donald a favor. Unfortunately, our society’s obsession with fame, wealth, and power help people like Donald, his siblings, and his children get away failing up, which seems to be their only legitimate skill.

I’ve often said that narcissism and arrogance make people stupid (just look at Jared’s portfolio when he worked in the White House as a senior advisor). It can also make them behave with an extraordinary sense of entitlement. Eric’s wife, Lara—who only a couple of years ago, toyed with idea of a senate run in North Carolina, the point having been proven by her father-in-law that qualifications are irrelevant—apparently feels she’s within her rights to steal Tom Petty’s “Won’t Back Down.” Donald already received a cease-and-desist letter from Tom Petty’s estate for playing it at one of his rallies. Now, Lara refers to it as “my song” simply because she recorded some auto-tuned version. It’s disappeared from the Apple playlists, she claims, not because she stole it but because it’s being “shadow-banned.”

It's a minor point but, as we keep learning, small transgressions add up. Unaccomplished grifter sons become media celebrities who somehow end up sharing nuclear secrets with wealthy foreign nationals who paid for the privilege in the form of a country club fee. We may never find out what those secrets were. We may never know how much or what kind of damage was done by revealing them. What we do know is that Donald justifies his treason by claiming he had every right to the documents and, therefore, had every right to do whatever he wanted with them.

He's been indicted for the crime of stealing highly classified government documents, yes, but he’s suffered no real consequences. His rubes continue to throw money at him which he uses to pay his legal bills, and he’s still running for president.

When it comes to his impunity, so far no one has proven he does not possess it.

But the charges, the scrutiny, the testimony in six different jurisdictions are starting to take a toll. Donald can lie and spin as much as he wants in the hallways and on the steps of the court house. None of that will fly, however, in the courtroom in front of a judge who has all of the power and is more than happy to remind Donald that he has none.

He showed up in New York voluntarily because he knew how important this fraud trial is not only to his reputation but to the core of his own beliefs about who he is. He left because he knew nothing he did—the pouting, the angry stares, the media hits—was working. That plus the humiliation of falling off the Forbes 400 were too much for him to take. With any luck, it’s going to keep getting worse for him.

Failing Up

Watch now (27 secs) | My family's secret to success

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[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

[ The Grifter at work ]

Today, Monday, Judge Chutkan entered a limited restraining order that will apply to all parties in the special counsel’s election interference case, but mostly, to Donald Trump. There is no written order yet, but she ruled from the bench, so we know the broad contours of her order. Judge Chutkan adopted the government’s view that the First Amendment can, in appropriate cases, yield to the administration of justice and the need to protect witnesses.

In a narrowly tailored order, the Judge prohibited any party, but of course, mostly Trump, from posting or reposting attacks against anyone on the special counsel’s team, as well as court personnel. While it permits Trump, who has attacked the criminal justice process, the people involved in it, and witnesses, to make statements about President Biden, his administration, DOJ, the government and so on, he cannot vilify or incite violence against public officials. Calling prosecutors “deranged” or “thugs” is now off the table.

Trump is also prohibited from making statements about witnesses or the substance of their testimony. This may prove to be the hardest part for him. Comments like the ones he’s made recently about General Milley and many others in the past would ring this bell.

But the “biased, Trump-hating Judge,” (his past words) gave Trump broad latitude to continue to engage in political speech. And he’s been doing that ever since the hearing ended, using the gag order to fundraise. He blames the “BIDEN ADMINISTRATION” for gagging “ME,” but says they will never be able to gag the American people in one appeal to send him money.

Trump conflates the order put in place by an independent federal judge—that’s the whole point of life tenure—with action taken by the Biden administration. As former head of government, he knows full well that the president doesn’t direct judge’s rulings in cases. It’s a deliberate move on his part to misinform people. But Judge Chutkan’s order permits him to, and she’s correct to do that. Candidate Trump has First Amendment rights to engage in political speech, and slicing the divide between that and impermissible criticism related to the prosecution too finely would be asking for trouble.

Even though Judge Chutkan’s restraint is legally laudable, Trump’s constant onslaught of lies about how government works is a fraud being committed on the public. His false claims that the Judge is a tool of the Biden Administration are made to warp public opinion and, of course, to raise money for Trump.

Trump lies to the public. Everyone knows he’s lying. But no one on the Republican side of the aisle will stand up and say so. There is no one actively trying to bring the truth to people who have fallen under Trump’s spell. If you know any of them, you know how insistent they are that he’s right, that everyone is out to get him. He’s their protector. He will make sure that the Biden Administration never gags them—whatever that means. Every new instance where authorities disclose Trump’s bad conduct or criminal conduct is labeled a “witch hunt.” Oh—and please make a contribution to prove your loyalty.

Trump proves anew, every day, that he is unfit for public office. But because he is so audacious, at least until now, he has gotten away with it. The question is, when does it end? Not just an indictment here or a gag order there, although those are important milestones—when will Trump finally be held accountable?

That’s still unclear, which is something that I know weighs heavily on each and every one of us. The question of whether Trump could return to office—with dire consequences for the future of the country and for our rights and liberty—hangs over us in this moment. Could accountability start with this gag order? The consequences of violating it aren’t yet clear. But Judge Chutkan says that if Trump does, she will entertain motions from the parties about the consequences. She doesn’t, however, limit herself to what the parties ask her to do. She told them from the bench today that she may consider, “sua sponte”—on her own accord—the appropriate sanctions to impose. That could be the find out part here.

How long do you think Trump can go without violating the order, and how do you think he’ll do it if he does? I don’t mean to be cavalier about such a serious matter, but it seems unlikely to me that he can stay the course.

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Judge Chutkan ended the hearing by saying of Trump’s ongoing falsehoods and threats, “no other criminal defendant would be allowed to do so and I’m not going to allow it in this case.” That’s her line in the sand. Trump has said he will appeal the order. He called it “so unconstitutional.” But as of tonight, it applies to him and a violation will have consequences, according to the Judge who has the ability to impose them.

Twice Gagged

Today, Monday, Judge Chutkan entered a limited restraining order that will apply to all parties in the special counsel’s election interference case, but mostly, to Donald Trump. There is no written order yet, but she ruled from the bench, so we know the broad contours of her order. Judge Chutkan...

joycevance.substack.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

Sidney Powell pled guilty in the Fulton County, Georgia case today. That’s very bad news for Donald Trump.

Powell became known as the Kraken following a November 2020 appearanceon Fox Business Network appearance where she claimed there was voluminous evidence that “President Trump won this election in a landslide.” She said he won by hundreds of thousands of votes and claimed big tech and social media companies were behind the fraud, before saying, “I’m going to release the Kraken.”

Powell is the first person in Trump’s inner circle who is known to be cooperating against him. As the walls were closing in on Trump following repeated losses in court and Mike Pence’s rejection of the suggestion he should interfere with the certification of the election on January 6, Trump strongly considered naming her as the special counsel to investigate voter fraud in connection with a cockamamie plan to have the military seize voting machines. She is the closest publicly known member of his inner circle to cooperate.

Wednesday night, before Powell’s decision was made public, I wrote a piece for MSNBC that began, “One of the questions that should be keeping former President Donald Trump up at night is who among his co-defendants in Georgia will flip and testify against him.” I speculated that a plea from Powell might be imminent, because an earlier defendant who pled guilty, Scott Hall, could likely testify against her on the plot to illegally access Georgia voting machines in Coffee County. It seems that Powell, in fact, did not want to risk a sentence of five to 20 years in a Georgia state prison. The terms of her deal require her to testify truthfully in the case in order to avoid custody. She decided it was time to cut her losses and flip on her co-defendants, and likely, Trump.

That, of course, would be the endgame for prosecutors. But it’s worth adding a caveat. Not all cooperators are what they appear to be. Recall that Paul Manafort said he was cooperating before it suddenly became apparent he was not. Mark Meadows turned out thousands of text messages to January 6 investigators in the House before he decided to stop cooperating. If Powell fulfills her obligation to testify fully and truthfully, well, safe to say there are a lot of people, but most definitely Trump, sweating it out tonight. Her cooperation certainly puts pressure on other co-defendants who don’t want to be the last person standing when the music goes off.

While today’s developments are limited to the Fulton County case, it’s likely they have implications for the special counsel’s election interference case in Washington, D.C. as well. Once Powell testifies—and she appears to have given a taped interview to prosecutors in advance of her plea—that testimony can be used against her in other cases, and if she deviates from it, can be used to impeach her on cross examination. Nothing in her agreement with Fulton county obligates Powell to testify in the federal case. But having decided she doesn’t want to go to prison for Trump in Georgia, there’s no reason to believe she’d want to in Washington. Powell’s plea agreement obligates her to testify truthfully in any co-defendant’s case and to stay out of the media spotlight, which is a sign prosecutors want to avoid creating new material defendants could use to cross examine her. Powell also agreed to refrain from any communications with co-defendants. If she fails to uphold her end of the bargain, she loses her deal. Having put a toe in the water and admitted guilt, her only real option is to jump in all the way and cut a deal with Jack Smith, if he’ll have her. Otherwise, she exposes herself to the risk of prosecution or perjury charges from the special counsel, which would undercut the value of her plea in Georgia.

Powell pled to to six misdemeanors where she acknowledged conspiring to intentionally interfere with the performance of election duties. Prosecutors will recommend a sentence of six years of probation—no custody. As with Hall, who also received a misdemeanor deal and a dismissal of felony charges, this signals the value prosecutors place on the testimony they expect to receive. Powell could be an important witness because of her personal involvement with and access to Trump, who notoriously doesn’t text or email. Those in-person contacts could turn out to be some of the best evidence prosecutors will get of Trump’s state of mind. She was charged in the original indictment with racketeering and six other counts regarding the scheme to keep Trump in power after losing. Powell was also in Georgia the day after January 6, as a participant in the unauthorized breach of elections equipment in Coffee County. Prosecutors will have to prove those charges against all defendants who go to trial. Powell’s deal suggests they believe she has valuable testimony to offer on those charges.

Powell’s first grab at public attention came in a late November 2020 press conference with Rudy Giuliani, where she made claims that the New York Times wrote, “strained credulity, even for a presidential campaign that has repeatedly lowered the bar.” Powell claimed Cuba, Venezuela, the Clinton Foundation, George Soros and Antifa were responsible for making votes for Trump disappear. The following week, she claimed Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Governor Brian Kemp were part of the plot. “Georgia is probably going to be the first state I’m going to blow up,” she said on Newsmax TV. After those comments, the Trump campaign disavowed her. Imagine, a lawyer who was too crusty for even the folks pushing out the Big Lie. Powell’s current co-defendants, Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis, issued a statement that said, “Sidney Powell is practicing law on her own. She is not a member of the Trump legal team. She is also not a lawyer for the president in his personal capacity.”

But of course, that didn’t last for long. By December, Powell was back, pitching a new plan to Trump on overturning the results of the election. She participated in the notorious December 18 Oval Office meeting where she, her client disgraced former General Michael Flynn, former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne, and former Trump administration official Emily Newman made their way in, despite not being on the president’s schedule. Powell peddled her lies about rigged Dominion voting Machines to Trump. White House Counsel Pat Cippollone and assistant Counsel Eric Herschmann got wind of the meeting, and as they began to challenge the four’s claims about international involvement in election fraud (this is the bit about dead Hugo Chavez influencing the election), the meeting devolved into a screaming match. Powell proposed declaring a national security emergency and using it to seize voting machines. The notion of Powell becoming a special counsel was discussed, as Trump brought Giuliani and Meadows into the conversation.

The Axios report of the meeting said that Trump, although he didn’t entirely buy Powell’s wild theories, told his White House Counsel team, “You guys are offering me nothing. These guys are at least offering me a chance. They’re saying they have the evidence. Why not try this?”

Is that how it really happened? Powell, who was there, knows for certain. If her testimony is credible, she can fill in gaps and corroborate other witness testimony. And as a participant in Trump’s inner circle, she may prove to be the witness who can truly narrate the details of the conspiracy. So, yes. A bad day indeed for Trump.

The Special Counsel’s indictment of Trump, in which Powell is widely believed to be one of the unnamed, unindicted coconspirators, alleges that Trump privately acknowledged to others that Powell’s unfounded claims of election fraud were “crazy,” but that he promoted them and signed onto her Georgia lawsuit nonetheless. Prosecutors called her Georgia case “far-fetched” and her assertions of fraud “baseless.” Powell could possibly shed light on whether Trump acknowledged that they were selling falsehoods about election fraud to the American people.

During the January 6 House committee hearings, Maryland Democrat Jamie Raskin said the Oval Office meeting was “critically important because President Trump got to watch up close for several hours as his White House counsel and other White House lawyers destroyed the baseless factual claims and ridiculous legal arguments offered by Sidney Powell, Mike Flynn and others.” Powell may be able to testify to their personal interactions at the meeting and comments Trump made to her.

So, there are numerous possibilities for why prosecutors believe Powell’s testimony is valuable. At the same time, plenty of questions remain, including who might be next to cooperate.

Powell is a big fish for prosecutors to bring on board, and not only because of Trump. Her interactions with numerous other codefendants—Rudy Giuliani for one—make her valuable too. Will Kenneth Chesebro, also on the eve of trial, plead guilty? He reportedly rejected an offer from Fani Willis last month, but his position has changed—Judge McAfee denied his motions to dismiss earlier this week. The Judge ruled that Chesebro’s strategy memo on how to prevent certification of the election on January 6 and other key memos are admissible at trial under the crime fraud exception to the attorney client privilege.

While Chesebro may feel better about going to trial without Powell and her Kraken baggage sitting next to him, it’s still a risk. The evidence against him is strong and has gotten better with the Judge’s recent rulings. There are good odds that the Harvard educated lawyer may prefer an outcome that doesn’t involve the risk of spending years behind bars in Georgia. Powell’s plea, on its own, is highly significant. But Trump has to be worried that she won’t be the only domino to go down.

Today was quite a fall from grace for Powell, who flew high while she was in Trump’s orbit. The lawyer who aspired to become an emergency special counsel in the final weeks of Trump’s presidency and the hero of the Big Lie ended up pleading guilty. Like Icarus, the Kraken flew too close to the sun.

A Bad Day for Trump

and more coming

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Former Trump Legal Advisor Kenneth Chesebro Pleads Guilty In Georgia Case — PocketCast News

Former Trump Campaign legal advisor Kenneth Chesebro, a lawyer who authored memos detailing how Republicans could send false slates of presidential electors to Congress, has pleaded guilty in the Georgia election interference case that charged him and 18 others.

www.pocketcastnews.com

 

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[Flash]

 

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After learning that a post attacking a court clerk in the disgraced ex-president’s New York fraud case remained on the Trump campaign website despite an order to remove it, Judge Arthur Engoron berated Trump’s lawyers for the blatant violation of his gag order. He then asked them to "explain why this should not end up with serious sanctions, or I could possibly imprison him." Judge, this man is a habitual offender and is a threat to everyone around him as long as he has access to a computer. You know what to do!

 

[The Duke]