RSN: FOCUS: James Risen | FBI Raid on Trump Justice Department Official Signals a Criminal Investigation May Be Starting

 

28 June 22

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FOCUS: James Risen | FBI Raid on Trump Justice Department Official Signals a Criminal Investigation May Be Starting
James Risen, The Intercept
Risen writes: "Attorney General Merrick Garland has been criticized for not going after the powerful people responsible for inciting the January 6 insurrection."

Attorney General Merrick Garland has been criticized for not going after the powerful people responsible for inciting the January 6 insurrection.

Just before the House January 6 committee’s dramatic hearing on Thursday on former President Donald Trump’s efforts to use the Justice Department to overturn the 2020 election, the FBI raided the Virginia home of Jeffrey Clark, the former Justice Department official who worked most closely with Trump to try to keep him in power.

The FBI raid was overshadowed by the subsequent hearing, during which Clark’s efforts to conspire with Trump were laid bare. But the raid is significant because it provides a tentative sign that the Justice Department may finally be conducting a criminal investigation of Trump and his allies for their attempt to stage a coup.

Until recently, the Justice Department’s investigation of the January 6 insurrection seemed to be focused on the individuals who were part of the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol to try to stop Congress from certifying the 2020 presidential election. Federal prosecutors handed out modest charges to many of those low-level rioters, leading to criticism that Attorney General Merrick Garland was not going after the powerful people responsible for actually inciting the insurrection.

But in early June, prosecutors charged the leader of the Proud Boys and other members of the white nationalist extremist group with seditious conspiracy — the first sign that Garland and the Justice Department were beginning to move against the leadership of the insurrection. Now, the raid on Clark’s house suggests that the Justice Department has expanded its investigation beyond January 6, in order to investigate the repeated attempts by Trump and his allies throughout the transition period between November 2020 and January 2021 to try to illegally overturn the election.

The evidence of a broader Justice Department investigation comes as the House January 6 committee has far exceeded expectations for its public hearings, uncovering damning evidence of the lengths that Trump was willing to go to stay in power. The hearings have turned into something like a nationally televised criminal referral to the Justice Department. It would be difficult for Garland not to take action in the face of the facts disclosed in the House hearings.

If a criminal conspiracy case is to be developed against Trump, gathering evidence from and about Clark would be a good place to start.

Clark is a conservative Washington, D.C. lawyer who has bounced between law firms, government jobs, and right-wing activism. After representing BP in connection with the Deepwater Horizon disaster, he joined the Trump Justice Department as assistant attorney general for the environmental and natural resources division, where he sought to delay bringing charges against a pipeline operator in North Dakota for a wastewater spill.

Clark was a total Trump loyalist, willing to do anything to help the president stay in power. In the midst of Trump’s frantic efforts to overturn the election, Clark was eager for Trump to fire acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and then take over himself at the Justice Department. Once he was in charge, he planned to issue a letter to state officials in Georgia claiming, falsely, that the Justice Department had found evidence of election fraud and recommending that the Georgia state legislature should be called into special session to reopen the whole debate about who won the presidential election there. The unsent letter was filled with lies; the Justice Department had no evidence of election fraud. Trump had repeatedly been told by senior Justice officials that they had no such evidence, and Clark certainly had to know that as well.

Trump nearly fired Rosen and named Clark to run the Justice Department, and testimony from former Justice Department officials at Thursday’s hearing revealed that Trump was talked out of it only after a marathon meeting at the White House in which Rosen and other senior Justice Department officials told Trump that there was no evidence of fraud and warned Trump that there would be mass resignations at the Justice Department if he installed Clark.

Eric Herschmann, a lawyer who worked for Trump, told the House committee that he had warned Clark that if he took over at the Justice Department and sent the letter to Georgia officials, he would be guilty of a crime. That may explain the FBI raid on Clark’s home, where the Justice Department’s case against Trump may begin. Are Trump and Clark guilty of a “seditious conspiracy” a couple levels up from the Proud Boys?

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RSN: FOCUS: Bess Levin | January 6 Hearing: Trump an Even More Brazen Criminal Than Previously Thought

 

 

26 June 22

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FOCUS: Bess Levin | January 6 Hearing: Trump an Even More Brazen Criminal Than Previously Thought
Bess Levin, Vanity Fair
Levin writes: "At this point in history, some 19 months after the 2020 election and 17 months after the January 6 attack on the Capitol, it’s difficult to imagine yet further evidence coming out incriminating Donald Trump in his plot to steal a second term."

The former president apparently insisted that a DOJ official “Just say [the election] was corrupt, and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen.”

At this point in history, some 19 months after the 2020 election and 17 months after the January 6 attack on the Capitol, it’s difficult to imagine yet further evidence coming out incriminating Donald Trump in his plot to steal a second term. And yet, somehow, it does! That’s largely thanks the work of the House’s January 6 committee, whose public hearings may not change the minds of die-hard Trump supporters—who would believe Trump if he said Joe Biden stole a pair of triplets from a Scranton-area hospital in 1977 who were later seen changing Trump ballots to Biden ones—but it may help the work of the Justice Department. Which many are hoping will prosecute the ex-president over his attempt to burn democracy to the ground because he’s incapable of uttering the words “I lost.”

On Thursday, during the committee’s fifth public hearing, that evidence came from former DOJ officials who relayed first-person accounts of Trump‘s relentless attempt to use them to overturn the results of the election. For instance, former acting deputy attorney general Richard Donoghue told the panel that Trump begged him to investigate numerous baseless voter-fraud claims. Informed by acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen that the “DOJ can’t and won’t snap its fingers and change the outcome of the election,” Trump, according to Donoghue, responded: “Just say it was corrupt, and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen.”

Kinzinger: Were any of the allegations Trump brought up credible?

Donoghue: No pic.twitter.com/MvOc98Mycy

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 23, 2022

Just say it, and I’ll take care of the rest, wink, wink! It would be funny that the president of the United States was doing such a spot-on parody of a mafia boss if not for the whole “democracy at stake” bit.

Also on Thursday, Rosen testified that not only was Trump completely transparent about his illegal plot, he wouldn‘t shut up about it for one single, solitary day, except for a couple exceptions, including on Christmas, when he was presumably annoying other people with it.

Jeffrey Rosen, acting attorney general on January 6th, says Donald Trump contacted him "virtually every day" between December 23rd and January 3rd to discuss his baseless concerns about election fraud. pic.twitter.com/hPwur3mPNv

— The Recount (@therecount) June 23, 2022

Thanks to Donoghue’s contemporaneous notes, we also know that even after Trump was informed that the most batshit crazy conspiracy theory he dug up on the internet and wanted to use to overturn the election—the one about Italian satellites changing Trump votes to Biden ones—was patently false, he still wouldn’t let it go.

This was Donald Trump’s response when the Department of Justice refused to investigate the conspiracy theory that Italian satellites were stealing votes for Joe Biden:

“You guys may not be following the internet the way I do.” pic.twitter.com/tbptPa2gTH

— The Recount (@therecount) June 23, 2022

In other January 6 committee revelations, it turns out some of Trump’s most ardent supporters in his plot to stay in power seemingly had a small inkling that what they were up to may not have been entirely legal in, like, the criminal definition of the word.

Testimony about pardon requests from Gaetz, Biggs, Brooks, Gohmert, Perry, and Greene pic.twitter.com/LdBdJWyxvu

— Acyn (@Acyn) June 23, 2022

All in all it sounds pretty bad, but don’t take our word for it!

Have heard from several former Trump advisers acknowledging this testimony is quite grim.

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) June 23, 2022

The Supreme Court’s conservative death squad hands down horrifying gun ruling

The Supreme Court’s current slate of conservative justices talk a big game about protecting the sanctity of human life when it comes to banning the national right to an abortion, which they’re expected to do within in the week. But like most people who want the medical procedure outlawed, or at a minimum banned at the federal level, they‘re quite obviously full of shit. How do we know this? Because of the insane gun ruling the court just issued which will almost certainly lead to more dead Americans.

As was expected, in a 6–3 decision, the court on Thursday struck down a New York state law stating that anyone who wants to carry a concealed gun in public must have a permit to do so, and that to obtain a permit, they must prove “proper cause.” The ruling will have a ripple effect on at least six other states where people don’t want to worry if the guy behind them at Starbucks or sitting across from them on mass transit is carrying a deadly weapon, including Washington, D.C. While the opinion, authored by archconservative Clarence Thomas, so generously offers that state officials can prohibit weapons in “sensitive places,” in his dissent Justice Stephen Breyer pointed out that Thomas’s entire ridiculous basis for striking down the New York law was that it doesn’t have any precedent prior to the early 19th century, so what’s to stop him from blocking, say, New York governor Kathy Hochul from banning guns on the R train, because it didn’t exist hundreds of year ago? “I fear that the court’s interpretation ignores these significant dangers and leaves states without the ability to address them,” Breyer wrote.

Meanwhile, Thomas’s insistence on looking to [checks notes] 17th-century history to dictate laws today means future gun regulations—the kind that seem very much necessary in a country where mass shootings occur on a near daily basis—are on the line.

Per Slate:

It is difficult to overstate the consequences of Thomas’ decision. In a single opinion, the justice has abolished the ability of courts to consider the real-world impact of firearms when evaluating limitations on their sale and use. No longer may cities and states enact new restrictions motivated by, for example, a surge in mass shootings, and cite the need to protect their residents as justification. All these facts are now immaterial. Any government attempting to impose gun control must scour the history books for some historical analogue. Of course, that analogue might not exist, because modern technology has made guns vastly more powerful and deadly, and the exponential growth in population creates new challenges that were not present hundreds of years ago. And even if the government can find an analogue, it must pass Thomas’ Calvinball test, which dismisses all historical evidence in support of gun restrictions.

Thomas’s ruling will undoubtedly make life more dangerous for millions of people, which he apparently has no problem with, though strangely, we didn’t hear any complaints from him when Congress passed a bill earlier this month providing more security for the court’s justices after a man brought a gun to Brett Kavanaugh’s house. Curious!

And speaking of hypocrisy so thick you could choke on it:

Gonna be very weird if Supreme Court ends a constitutional right to obtain an abortion next week, saying it should be left to the States to decide, right after it just imposed a constitutional right to concealed carry of firearms, saying it cannot be left to the States to decide

— Neal Katyal (@neal_katyal) June 23, 2022

Surprise: The antiabortion, antigay, pro-asshole guy likes that more people can carry guns in public now

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) on the Supreme Court striking down New York’s concealed carry law:

“I think it was a great decision by Justice Thomas. Very rarely does he do anything that is not correct.” pic.twitter.com/2Vm7KZc4V4

— The Recount (@therecount) June 23, 2022

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RSN: Barbara Koeppel | 725,000 Petition President, DOJ to Stop the Killings

 

 

11 January 21

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RSN: Barbara Koeppel | 725,000 Petition President, DOJ to Stop the Killings

Barbara Koeppel, Reader Supported News
Koeppel writes: "President Trump and his Department of Justice will take their final bows in a blaze of bloodletting. This week, the last three of 13 death row prisoners will be executed. The other ten were executed from July through early December."

The administration’s timing is unabashedly political, since Trump et al. want a done deal before Biden (known to oppose the death penalty) takes the helm. They also want to give a parting gift to the Republican base and champion their law and order credentials. In fact, since all 13 prisoners had been on death row for over two decades, it is crucial to question the timing.

The only good news is that although 61 percent of White Americans still support the death penalty, the number of those opposing it is mushrooming: Over 500,000 Americans signed a Death Penalty Action (an anti-death penalty group) petition to stop the three executions scheduled for this week.

Protesters at the MLK memorial in Washington DC last Saturday hoping to stop the DOJ's three executions set for this week. (photo: Scott Langley)

According to Abe Bonowitz, the group’s director, the reason so many signed the petition is that they were repulsed by the administration’s goal to kill as many as possible before January 20. The half-million names are even more remarkable since they were collected in less than a month – starting the day after the tenth execution was carried out on December 11.

Bonowitz says, “We delivered the petitions to the Department of Justice and the President. As of today, neither has responded.”

Equally remarkable, another group, “Save Dustin Higgs,” collected about 275,300 petitions in only four weeks. Higgs, a Black man, is slated to die this Friday, January 15, which happens to be Martin Luther King’s birthday. The symbolism is striking – since King preached nonviolence until the day he was assassinated.

Higgs (who has written a children’s book and essays while on death row) was convicted of shooting three women in 1993. At his trial, the prosecution argued that although Higgs was driving the car when the women were shot, it was Higgs who ordered his friend, Willis Haynes, to kill them. Like the details in a John Grisham novel, Haynes swore this wasn’t true – that Higgs didn’t order him to do it. Also, all the witnesses claimed that Higgs didn’t pull the trigger. But neither the jury nor judge listened. Haynes was convicted of the murders and sentenced to life in prison. Higgs was convicted and sentenced to die.

Why the discrepancy? Shawn Nolan, Higgs’s lawyer, says “Haynes’s case came first, and the jury didn’t recommend the death penalty. Higgs’s case followed, and the court was determined to get a death sentence.” (Still more Grisham-like details.)

Nolan is asking Judge Tanya Chutkan in the D.C. Federal District Court for a preliminary injunction to stop the execution. “My client has Covid-19 and an X-ray shows the virus has severely damaged his lungs. If he gets injected with pentobarbital, the drug used in the executions, it will be like water-boarding him, torturing him to death.” Nolan says that if Judge Chutkan denies the request, he’ll appeal to the Circuit Court of D.C. If that fails, he’ll appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. He has no idea what they’ll decide.

This past Saturday, on a bitterly cold afternoon, Higgs’s family and friends, along with the families of other men on death row, gathered at the Martin Luther King memorial (in Washington, D.C.) to console each other and protest the killings.

The sun shining on the larger-than-life King statue was stark, as was the irony that Higgs will be executed on King’s birthday: either the Department of Justice knows this and chose the date as the administration’s last hurrah, or possibly in Barr and Rosen’s DOJ no one even noticed the symbolism.

In fact, the rash of executions had such high priority that the top two men at DOJ – former attorney general William Barr and his deputy, Jeffrey Rosen, who now heads the department – personally took on the task of choosing who would die. Early in 2020, they made a list to pick the 12 men and one woman out of the 62 on death row to execute. Their rationale was these 13 were the “worst of the worst.”

Who are the remaining two (besides Higgs)? There’s Lisa Montgomery, who will be executed Tuesday afternoon. Montgomery suffers from such severe mental illness that she isn’t aware of her surroundings. Also, she suffers a past crippled by constant sexual abuse from age seven onwards; her mother and step-father prostituted her in a special room they built alongside their house for the clients.

The other is Cory Johnson, who will die on January 14. In 1992, when he was 23, he was convicted of killing rival gang members. Johnson’s IQ is somewhere between 70 and 75, which means he’s intellectually disabled. Although a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court decision barred the death penalty for those with such low IQs, neither the jury nor the judge heard this evidence.

As the clock ticks down to Tuesday afternoon, various groups are making last-ditch efforts to block the bloodlust. Charlie Sullivan, president of International CURE (a prison reform group) and a former priest, has asked people to contact Everett Kelley, president of AFGE, the umbrella national union for the correctional officers’ union, to urge his members to refuse to take part in the executions. Sullivan says they have a right to decline.

He adds that “during the Vietnam War, we used to say that you couldn’t have a war if no one showed up. And it’s the same now. You can’t have an execution if no one is there to carry it out.” Kelley has yet to respond.

John Clark, a former officer in the AFGE Bureau of Prisons Union in Michigan and former warden at two federal prisons, petitioned Kelley to “publicly encourage members at Terre Haute to decline to participate in the killing of three prisoners this week. Executions go against the best human values.… And I know from staff and administrators that they put an unfair and permanent emotional burden on those who are involved.”

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Barbara Koeppel is a Washington DC-based investigative reporter who covers social, economic, military, political, foreign policy and whistleblower issues.

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.

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