served subpoena raid

7 22 sorta belated

see crimes

10/25/2024 RWW

Alex Griffing @ Mediaite: ‘WHEN I WIN’: Trump Vows Crackdown On ‘Unscrupulous Behavior’ With ‘Prison Sentences’ At ‘Levels Never Seen Before’

Former President Donald Trump posted an ominous threat to Truth Social on Friday, promising prosecutions at “levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country.”

David Gardner @ The Daily Beast: Trump Calls America a ‘Garbage Can for the World’ in Dark Illegal Immigration Rant

Donald Trump likened America to a “garbage can for the world” while ranting about illegal immigration in a doom-laden rally speech in Arizona on Thursday.

Devlin Barrett, Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman @ The New York Times: Chinese Hackers Are Said to Have Targeted Phones Used by Trump and Vance

The targeting of the Republican presidential ticket’s phones is part of what appears to be a wide-ranging effort to gather information about American leaders.

Nikki McCann Ramirez and Andrew Perez @ Rolling Stone: Supreme Court Puppetmaster Tries to Buy Protection in Congress

Leonard Leo spends big to help Republicans win the Senate and keep the House, as he defies Dems’ subpoena over gifts to Supreme Court justices.

Angry White Men: Joel Webbon: The Civil Rights Movement ‘Destroyed Our Culture’

On an Oct. 23, 2024 livestream, Christian nationalist pastor Joel Webbon condemned Martin Luther King Jr. and declared that the civil rights movement “destroyed our culture.” Webbon also expressed hope that, one day, the “average normie” American will come to believe that the Civil Rights Act “was a disaster.”

10 22 an badash

former top Trump White House advisor turned far-right wing extremist **Steve Bannon** has been sentenced to four months in prison by a federal judge, for contempt of Congress. The former executive chairman of Breitbart News and former board member of the infamous data-analytics firm Cambridge Analytica refused to comply with a valid and legal subpoena from the **U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack**.

“Others must be deterred from committing similar crimes,” U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee who clerked with Justice Clarence Thomas,said as he passed down the sentence. He also imposed a fine of $6500. The four month sentence is actually two, but to be served concurrently.

The sentence will be delayed to allow Bannon time to appeal, meaning he was not taken into custody and does not have to go to jail immediately. If he chooses to not appeal he is to report to prison on November 15.

Nichols had told the court as he began sentencing, “Mr. Bannon has not provided a single document,” and “has not provided any testimony on any topic.”

“Mr Bannon was a private citizen,” Judge Nichols continued. “Some of the information sought by the subpoena is information under which no conceivable claim of executive privilege could’ve been made.”

“The January 6th committee has every right to investigate what happened that day,” Nichols told Bannon and his attorneys, adding, and “what can be done to prevent similar .. events from happening in the future.”

Prosecutors had asked Judge Nichols to give Bannon the maximum sentence allowed, which would be six months in prison and a fine of $200,000.

Judge Nichols appeared to chastise the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack for not suing Bannon to enforce their subpoena.

CBS News’ Scott Macfarlane was at the D.C. federal courthouse and posted this photo of Bannon.[twt pix]

walking into he courthouse Bannon decreed the Biden administration “illegitimate,” and said it will end on November 8.

“The governemnt further argues that Mr. Bannon has not expressed remorse and has attacked the select committee at every turn. On this point I agree with the government,” Judge Nichols said, according to NBC News’ Daniel Barnes. “He has expressed no remorse for his actions.”

Bannon’s attorney backed up his client’s behavior.

“Quite frankly, Mr. Bannon should make no apology. No American should make an apology for the way Mr. Bannon proceeded in this case,” David Schoen**t**old the court, even after Judge Nichols noted Bannon’s attacks on the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack.

Bannon’s attorneys had asked for probation, which DOJ adamantly, in court documents, contested.

“In my view the statute sets out a mandatory minimum of one month and a mandatory maximum of 12 months,” Judge Nichols said.

J.P. Cooney, a prosecutor from the U.S. Attorney’s office, defended the request for fining Bannon $200,000 because “that is exactly what the defendant has asked for.”

Barnes reports that “Bannon refused to comply with the probation office’s financial investigation, Cooney says.”

Bannon reportedly also told the prosecutor’s office, “I am willing and able to pay any fine levied against me.”

Prosecutors, arguing for the six month sentence, told Judge Nichols, “This man, the defendant, a man of means, a public figure … chose, hiding behind the fabricated claim of executive privilege and advice of counsel, to thumb his nose” at Congress, according to Politico’s Kyle Cheney.

Bannon had claimed he was exempt from honoring the subpoena from the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, citing executive privilege, which, as the country later learned, Donald Trump had not invoked in Bannon’s case – not that he would have been able to, as only the sitting U.S. President has that authority.

“DOJ says that if Bannon were genuinely concerned about executive privilege, then he would’ve complied with the Jan. 6 committee subpoena as soon as Trump purported to ‘waive’ it over the summer,” Cheney reports. “But that’s not what he did, DOJ says.”

Bannon’s attorney David Schoen repeatedly delivered caustic attacks about the House Select Committee.

CBS News’ Scott Macfarlane noted that Schoen “is quoting the Federalist Papers (James Madison) about separation of powers… talking about ‘tyranny,'” but added: “Bannon had a hard copy of the Financial Times under his arm as he walked toward courtroom (let’s see if that’s something he wants to show off to cameras as he departs).”

He also was caught “quoting Montesquieu,” and repeatedly accused the January 6 Committee of having a “partisan political agenda.”

Schoen repeatedly told Judge Nichols that Bannon was merely acting on his conscience and understanding of the Constitution, and “acting on principle.” Legal experts say that is not a legitimate defense.

Donald Trump pardoned Bannon from federal charges involving conspiracy to commit mail fraud and money laundering surrounding his We Build the Wall fundraising campaign, but he is now facing similar state charges.

Denied': Lindsey Graham loses emergency appeal to delay testifying in Georgia election investigation

David Badash The New Civil Rights Movement

October 20, 2022

U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has lost in federal appeals court and will have to given a deposition under oath in Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis’ special grand jury investigation into Donald Trump’

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The New York Times reported Monday afternoon that at least 40 subpoenas have been filed for allies of former President Donald Trump over the attempt to overthrow the 2020 election using the fake electors.

At least two of Trump's top advisers had their phones taken by the FBI, sources told the Times.Boris Epshteyn, a Russian-American Republican political strategist who served as a strategic adviser to Trump's 2020 campaign was one of those who had to surrender his phone. The other was Mike Romanan opposition researcher who worked for Trump from 2017 to 2018. He went on to work on the campaign, and became the person who handed off the envelope of fake electors to be given to Vice President Mike Pence.

The Times described it as an indication that the Justice Department's case is escalating after slow movement for the past several months.

Dan Scavino, Trump’s former social media director is also among those who got a subpoena from the case.

Former New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik was another subpoenaed. He was on the team with Rudy Giuliani and helping with the so-called "war room" on Jan. 6 at the Willard Hotel.

Some of the information, the Times explained, was asking about activities around theSave America PAC,which has been the main source of funding for Trump since leaving office.

Read the full report here.

no lnx

Justice Dept. Issues 40 Subpoenas in a Week, Expanding Its Jan. 6 Inquiry

It also seized the phones of two top Trump advisers, a sign of an escalating investigation two months before the midterm elections.

By Glenn Thrush, Maggie Haberman, Adam Goldman and Alan Feuer

Sept. 12, 2022

WASHINGTON — Justice Department officials have seized the phones of two top advisers to former President Donald J. Trump and blanketed his aides with about 40 subpoenas in a substantial escalation of the investigation into his efforts to subvert the 2020 election, people familiar with the inquiry said on Monday.

The seizure of the phones, coupled with a widening effort to obtain information from those around Mr. Trump after the 2020 election, represent some of the most aggressive steps the department has taken thus far in its criminal investigation into the actions that led to the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob.

The extent of the investigation has come into focus in recent days, even though it has often been overshadowed by the government’s legal clash with Mr. Trump and his lawyers over a separate inquiry into the handling of presidential records, including highly classified materials, the former president kept at his residence in Florida, Mar-a-Lago.

Federal agents with court-authorized search warrants took phones last week from at least two people: Boris Epshteyn, an in-house counsel who helps coordinate Mr. Trump’s legal efforts, and Mike Roman, a campaign strategist who was the director of Election Day operations for the Trump campaign in 2020, people familiar with the investigation said.

Mr. Epshteyn and Mr. Roman have been linked to a critical element of Mr. Trump’s bid to hold onto power: the effort to name slates of electors pledged to Mr. Trump from swing states won by Joseph R. Biden Jr. in 2020 as part of a plan to block or delay congressional certification of Mr. Biden’s Electoral College victory.

[What to Know About the Trump Investigations

Card 1 of 6]

Numerous inquiries. Since former President Donald J. Trump left office, he has been facing several civil and criminal investigations into his business dealings and political activities. Here is a look at some notable cases:

Classified documents inquiry. The F.B.I. searched Mr. Trump’s Florida home as part of the Justice Department’s investigation into his handling of classified materials. The inquiry is focused on documents that Mr. Trump had brought with him to Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence, when he left the White House.

Jan. 6 investigations. In a series of public hearings, the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack laid out a comprehensive narrative of Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. This evidence could allow federal prosecutors, who are conducting a parallel criminal investigation, to indict Mr. Trump.

Georgia election interference case. Fani T. Willis, the Atlanta-area district attorney, has been leading a wide-ranging criminal investigation into the efforts of Mr. Trump and his allies to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia. This case could pose the most immediate legal peril for the former president and his associates.

New York State civil inquiry. Letitia James, the New York attorney general, has been conducting a civil investigation into Mr. Trump and his family business. The case is focused on whether Mr. Trump’s statements about the value of his assets were part of a pattern of fraud or were simply Trumpian showmanship.

Manhattan criminal case. Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, has been investigating whether Mr. Trump or his family business intentionally submitted false property values to potential lenders. But the inquiry faded from view after signs emerged suggesting that Mr. Trump was unlikely to be indicted.

Mr. Epshteyn and Mr. Roman did not respond to requests for comment. A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.

The names of those receiving the latest round of subpoenas in the investigation related to Jan. 6 have dribbled out gradually, with investigators casting a wide net on a range of issues, including Mr. Trump’s postelection fund-raising and the so-called fake electors scheme.

One of the recipients, people familiar with the case said, was Dan Scavino, Mr. Trump’s former social media director who rose from working at a Trump-owned golf course to become one of his most loyal West Wing aides, and has remained an adviser since Mr. Trump left office. Stanley Woodward, one of Mr. Scavino’s lawyers, declined to comment.

Another was Bernard B. Kerik, a former New York City police commissioner. Mr. Kerik, who promoted claims of voter fraud alongside his friend Rudolph W. Giuliani, was issued a subpoena by prosecutors with the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, his lawyer, Timothy Parlatore, said on Monday. Mr. Parlatore said his client had initially offered to grant an interview voluntarily.

The subpoenas seek information in connection with the fake electors plan.

For months, associates of Mr. Trump have received subpoenas related to other aspects of the investigations into his efforts to cling to power. But in a new line of inquiry, some of the latest subpoenas focus on the activities of the Save America political action committee, the main political fund-raising conduit for Mr. Trump since he left office.

[What we consider before using anonymous sources. Do the sources know the information? What’s their motivation for telling us? Have they proved reliable in the past? Can we corroborate the information? Even with these questions satisfied, The Times uses anonymous sources as a last resort. The reporter and at least one editor know the identity of the source.

Learn more about our process.]

The fact that the Justice Department is now seeking information related to fund-raising comes as the House committee examining the Jan. 6 attack has raised questions about money Mr. Trump solicited under the premise of fighting election fraud.

The new subpoenas encompass a wide variety of those in Mr. Trump’s orbit, from low-level aides to his most senior advisers.

The Justice Department has spent more than a year focused on investigating hundreds of rioters who were on the ground at the Capitol on Jan. 6. But this spring, it started issuing grand jury subpoenas to people like Ali Alexander, a prominent organizer with the pro-Trump Stop the Steal group, who helped plan the march to the Capitol after Mr. Trump gave a speech that day at the Ellipse near the White House.

Read More on the Trump Investigations

Key developments in the inquiries into the former president and his allies.

Special Master: A judge granted former President Donald J. Trump’s request for an independent arbiter, known as a special master, to review the documents the F.B.I. seized from Mar-a-Lago. The ruling surprised experts and could slow the investigation.

The ‘60-Day Rule’: As midterms near, the Justice Department is weighing whether to temporarily scale back the criminal investigations involving Mr. Trump because of an unwritten rule forbidding overt actions that could improperly influence the vote.

Election Data: Newly released surveillance video from rural Coffee County, Ga., raised questions about the extent to which election data was improperly shared with pro-Trump figures who were challenging the 2020 election results.]

While it remains unclear how many subpoenas had been issued in that early round, the information they sought was broad.

According to one subpoena obtained by The New York Times, they asked for any records or communications from people who organized, spoke at or provided security for Mr. Trump’s rally at the Ellipse. They also requested information about any members of the executive and legislative branches who may have taken part in planning or executing the rally, or tried to “obstruct, influence, impede or delay” the certification of the presidential election.

By early summer, the grand jury investigation had taken another turn as several subpoenas were issued to state lawmakers and state Republican officials allied with Mr. Trump who took part in a plan to create fake slates of pro-Trump electors in several key swing states actually won by Mr. Biden.

At least 20 of these subpoenas were sent out and sought information about, and communications with, several lawyers who took part in the fake elector scheme, including Mr. Giuliani and John Eastman.

Around the same time, federal investigators seized Mr. Eastman’s cellphone and the phone of another lawyer, Jeffrey Clark, whom Mr. Trump had sought at one point to install as the acting attorney general. Mr. Clark had his own role in the fake elector scheme: In December 2020, he helped draft a letter to Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia, saying that the state’s election results had been marred by fraud and recommending that Mr. Kemp convene a special session of the Georgia Legislature to create a slate of pro-Trump electors.

At least some of the new subpoenas also requested all records that the recipients had turned over to the House Jan. 6 committee, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Michael S. Schmidt and Katie Benner contributed reporting.

https://www.joemygod.com/2022/09/oath-keepers-lawyer-arrested-on-conspiracy-charges/

Washington Post reports:

An attorney for the Oath Keepers who was with the group’s founder, Stewart Rhodes, outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was arrested Thursday in Texas on charges related to the attack on Congress, federal prosecutors announced.

Kellye SoRelle, 43, was arrested in Junction, Tex., and is scheduled to make an initial appearance Thursday afternoon before a federal judge in Austin, according to the U.S. attorney’s office for Washington.

SoRelle was charged in an indictment returned Wednesday on four counts — conspiracy, obstruction of a federal proceeding, tampering with documents and misdemeanor trespassing in a restricted building or grounds — prosecutors said.

Read the full article. SoRelle last appeared on JMG in January 2022 when she declared herself to be the new leader of the Oath Keepers after the arrest of Stewart Rhodes. SoRelle is a failed candidate for the Texas House, finishing third in the 2020 GOP primary.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/07/25/fann-townsend-subpoenas-arizona-trump/

no lnx Democracy Dies in Darkness

Arizona fake-electors subpoenas show breadth of DOJ Jan. 6 probe

Requests for information from two state lawmakers were released under a state public records law

By Devlin Barrett and Yvonne Wingett Sanchez

July 25, 2022

Arizona state Sen. Kelly Townsend, pictured in 2019, and state Senate President Karen Fann received subpoenas seeking communications “relating to any effort, plan, or attempt to serve as an Elector” for Donald Trump after the 2020 election. (Bob Christie/AP)[

Grand jury subpoenas issued last month to two Arizona state lawmakers show the breadth of the criminal investigation by the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington into efforts by supporters of Donald Trump to use “false electors” to try to undo Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.

Copies of two subpoenas issued to Republican state senators from Arizona were released Monday via a public-records request, confirming what has been previously reported about the June demands for records related “to the signing or mailing of any document purporting to be a Certificate certifying Elector votes in favor of Donald J. Trump and/or Michael R. Pence.”

The subpoenas issued to Karen Fann, president of the Arizona Senate, and Sen. Kelly Townsend also seek communications “relating to any effort, plan, or attempt to serve as an Elector” in favor of the then-president and then-vice president.

A subpoena is not an accusation but rather a demand for information that investigators believe may help them solve a crime. The documents released Monday cast a wide net for any communications that Fann and Townsend may have had with any member of the executive or legislative branch of the federal government; any representative or agent of Trump or his campaign; or Trump boosters Jenna Ellis, Bernard Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, Boris Epshteyn, James Troupis, Joe DiGenova, John Eastman, Joshua Findlay,Justin Clark, Kenneth Chesebro, Mike Roman or Victoria Toensing.....

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far-right Republican U.S. Congressman is the latest to receive a subpoena from Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney **Fani Willis**‘ special criminal grand jury investigation into Trump allies’ efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

**Rep. Jody Hice** (R-GA), who was endorsed by Donald Trump in the race for the GOP nomination to become Georgia Secretary of State, received the subpoena which instructs him to appear Tuesday morning, Politico reports.

“The subpoena underscores the rapidly escalating pace of District Attorney Fani Willis’ investigation, which has already issued subpoenas to other figures close to Trump, including Sen. Lindsey Graham, Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman.”

Hice is a former far-right radio show host and pastor. He lost the GOP Secretary of State primary against incumbent Brad Raffensperger. Before getting elected to Congress Hice was probably best-known for his claim that LGBTQ people have a secret plot to seduce and sodomize America’s sons.

“In a 2012 book, that candidate—pastor and talk radio host Jody Hice—alleges the gay community has a secret plot to recruit and sodomize children.” Mother Jones reported in 2014. “In It’s Now or Never: A Call to Reclaim America, Hice also asserts that supporters of abortion rights are worse than Hitler and compares gay relationships to bestiality and incest. He proposes that Muslims be stripped of their First Amendment rights.”

ref july 7 an

Former President Donald Trump published two posts on his Twitter-knockoff app Truth Social on Thursday indicating that he is extremely agitated about the criminal investigation into his infamous post-2020 election scheme to strongarm Georgia's Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to "find" nonexistent votes.

Trump called Raffensperger twice after victory was declared for President Joe Biden and strongly urged Raffensperger to, somehow, scrounge up 11,780 ballots – one more than the margin of Trump's upset loss to Biden – so that he could be awarded the Peach State's 16 Electoral College votes. It was one of, if not the most, glaring example of Trump's efforts to manipulate the results of the presidential contest.

Last month, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis convened a grand jury to determine whether Trump had engaged in "the solicitation of election fraud, making of false statements to state and local governmental bodies, conspiracy, racketeering, and violation of oath of office," all of which are felonies that carry severe penalties.

On Tuesday, subpoenas were served to seven Trump World confederates: Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), who also phoned Raffensperger on behalf of the brooding soon-to-be-ex-commander in chief; Trump's television attorney Rudy Giuliani and his associate Jenna Ellis; coup architect John Eastman (who was behind the coordinated campaign to send fraudulent slates of electors to Washington from multiple swing states that Trump lost); as well as three lesser-known lawyers – Jacki Pick Deason, Kenneth Chesebro, and Cleta Mitchell – the latter of whom was present for Trump's clandestine chat with Raffensperger.

“During the telephone call, the witness and others made allegations of widespread voter fraud in the November 2020 election in Georgia and pressured Secretary Raffensperger to take action in his official capacity to investigate unfounded claims of fraud," Mitchell's subpoena says.

On Wednesday, Willis indicated that subpoenaing Trump himself is a real possibility and that more of his allies are in her sights.

“Anything’s possible,” Willis told NBC News while stressing that nothing is being rushed or overlooked. "We’ll just have to see where the investigation leads us. I think that people thought that we came into this as some kind of game. This is not a game at all. What I am doing is very serious. It’s very important work. And we’re going to do our due diligence and making sure that we look at all aspects of the case."

These developments are having a noticeably negative impact on Trump's psyche.

On Thursday morning, Trump defended his exhortative conversations with Raffensperger and repeated his Big Lie that the election was a hoax.

"BOTH of my phone calls to Georgia were PERFECT. I had an absolute right to make them &, in fact, the story on the one call was given a retraction, or apology, by the Washington Post because they were given terribly false information about it, & when they heard the actual call, they realized that their story was wrong. Thank you to the W.P. I, as does anyone else (just look at the Democrats!), have the absolute right to challenge the results of an Election," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "This one, CORRUPT, RIGGED, & STOLEN!"

The Washington Post article mentioned by Trump was not what he is making it out to be.

On March 16, 2021, the paper corrected a couple of misquotes that it had printed. It did not, as Trump claimed, promulgate "terribly false information" or perpetuate misleading data about the 2020 election.

Correspondent Erik Wemple noted that "in a time of much-overblown chatter about election irregularities, this call between the president of the United States and a state-level investigator was the real irregularity." What mattered, Wemple continued, was that "the call happened; it was an abuse of presidential authority; and it failed to corrupt the investigators working under Raffensperger. But Trump wasn’t quite the plain-spoken rogue depicted in The Post’s story."

Nevertheless, an hour after his first Thursday rant, Trump baselessly accused unspecified "others" of screwing him out of a second term.

"I did NOTHING wrong in Georgia, but others did," Trump seethed. "They CHEATED in the 2020 Presidential Election, and those are the ones that should be investigated (and prosecuted)! Letter to follow."

[Meanwhile, the fallout from Trump going down to Georgia](https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/rudy-giuliani-donald-trump-pardon/ "view post: Rudy Giuliani: 'It would have been perfectly legitimate' to ask Donald Trump for a pardon" is compounded by the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, whose seventh public hearing is scheduled for next Tuesday at 10:00 a.m.

Its theme, according to the bipartisan panel's announcement on Wednesday, will be the suspected coordination between Team Trump and white nationalist groups such as the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers in the leadup to the violent insurrection.

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