Tag: jack smith
Juicy Columns -- Like This Gift From Meadows -- Keep Landing On My Doorstep

Juicy Columns -- Like This Gift From Meadows -- Keep Landing On My Doorstep

Case in point: ABC News is reporting that former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows has been granted immunity by Special Counsel Jack Smith and is ratting out his former boss, Donald J. Trump. After the Georgia plea deals of Sidney Powell, Kenneth Chesebro, and earlier yesterday, Jenna Ellis, is it possible to get any better? What could be next? Testimony about Trump laughing off his loss to Joe Biden and contemplating ways to turn Stop the Steal into a cash cow?

Actually, that testimony might be on the horizon after we learn more about what Meadows has told Special Counsel Smith during three meetings he had with prosecutors earlier this year.

Listen to this from ABC’s breaking news about the Meadows immunity deal: “Sources said Meadows informed Smith’s team that he repeatedly told Trump in the weeks after the 2020 presidential election that the allegations of significant voting fraud coming to them were baseless, a striking break from Trump's prolific rhetoric regarding the election.”

The ABC report continues, “According to the sources, Meadows also told the federal investigators Trump was being ‘dishonest’ with the public when he first claimed to have won the election only hours after polls closed on November 3, 2020, before final results were in. ‘Obviously we didn't win,’ a source quoted Meadows as telling Smith's team in hindsight.”

Wait. There’s more: “Meadows privately told Smith's investigators that -- to this day -- he has yet to see any evidence of fraud that would have kept now-president Joe Biden from the White House, and he told them he agrees with a government assessment at the time that the 2020 presidential election was the most secure election in U.S. history.”

Thunk. That is the sound of my jaw hitting the little piece of my desk in front of my keyboard.

And the thunkscontinue. ABC reports that its reporters have found numerous assertions about the 2020 election in Meadows’ 2021 book, The Chief’s Chief, that “appear to be contradicted by what Meadows allegedly told investigators behind closed doors.”

Meadows, in other words, who in meetings with Smith’s prosecutors detailed the grift behind Trump’s denials that he lost the 2020 election, has been part of the grift himself, profiting off the lies he and Trump told by publishing a book that knowingly repeats some of those lies.

Another thunk: After spending the month of November and part of December in 2020 passing along allegations of fraud in the election Trump lost, “Meadows said that by mid-December, he privately informed Trump that Giuliani hadn't produced any evidence to back up the many allegations he was making, sources said. Then-Attorney General Bill Barr also informed Trump and Meadows in an Oval Office meeting that allegations of election fraud were ‘not panning out,’ as Barr recounted in testimony to Congress last year.”

That little burst of truth telling got Barr fired, but not Mark Meadows, who stuck around for the whole thing, right up until Jan. 6. On that ignominious day, testimony to the January 6 Committee by his assistant, Cassidy Hutchinson, revealed that when White House Counsel Pat Cippolone rushed into Meadows’ office and told him, “The rioters have gotten into the Capitol, Mark. We need to go see the President now,” Meadows responded calmly, while staring at his phone, “He doesn't want to do anything.” Cippollone told Meadows, “Something needs to be done, or somebody is going to die and this is going to be on your effing hands.” By that time, Trump had already sent out a tweet essentially telling his followers that Vice President Mike Pence was a coward.

"They're literally calling for the VP to be effing hung," Cipollone told Meadows. “You heard him, Pat,” Meadows replied, still staring at his phone. “He thinks Mike deserves it.”

ABC News reports that part of what Meadows told prosecutors confirms what others, such as his assistant, Cassidy Hutchinson, have already testified to. Sources told ABC that Meadows confirmed a widely-circulated story that while the assault on the Capitol was ongoing, Trump took a call from Kevin McCarthy, who urged him to do something to calm the situation. Meadows confirmed that Trump told McCarthy, “I guess these people are more upset than you are, Kevin.”

Meadows was in the West Wing during the entire time the assault on the Capitol was underway and can doubtlessly provide more information to prosecutors about what Trump was doing and who he spoke to in his private dining room just off the Oval Office as he watched the Capitol assault on TV. It is obvious from the ABC report that Meadows has more information on Trump’s statements after he lost the election and what meetings he had and with whom about his attempts to overturn the election. The testimony Meadows can give about Giuliani alone would be voluminous, and the same goes for others who met with Trump in Meadows’ presence, such as John Eastman, Jeffrey Clark, Sidney Powell, Michael Flynn, and others.

Meadows is still facing trial on racketeering charges brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. Anything Meadows tells prosecutors in Washington under a grant of federal immunity could be used against him at trial on state charges in Fulton County, so you can definitely expect that Mark Meadows will cop a plea there, too.

Splat. That’s the sound of Mark Meadows’ teardrop falling in Georgia.

Click. That’s the sound of me locking my front door so the pile of gift columns doesn’t break it down.

Lucian K. Truscott IV, a graduate of West Point, has had a 50-year career as a journalist, novelist, and screenwriter. He has covered Watergate, the Stonewall riots, and wars in Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He is also the author of five bestselling novels. You can subscribe to his daily columns at luciantruscott.substack.com and follow him on Twitter @LucianKTruscott and on Facebook at Lucian K. Truscott IV.

Please consider subscribing to Lucian Truscott Newsletter, from which this is reprinted with permission.

Donald Trump

Trump Claims 'Presidential Immunity' Should Void January 6 Coup Charges

Claiming “presidential immunity,” attorneys for Donald Trump in a 52-page motion say he was acting within his official responsibilities as President when he allegedly attempted to overturn results of the 2020 election he lost. Suggesting Trump was just trying to “ensure election integrity,” they are asking a federal judge to dismiss all charges in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution of the ex-president in that case.

The “acts alleged in the indictment lie firmly within the ‘outer perimeter’ of the President’s official responsibility,” Trump’s attorneys’ motion reads. “Therefore, they cannot form the basis of criminal charges against President Trump.”

Trump’s attorneys, continuing to refer to him as “President Trump” in their court filings, are also claiming President Joe Biden’s “administration” is charging the ex-president. They also suggest Trump did not know the lies he told about election fraud and about the election being stolen were false.

“Breaking 234 years of precedent, the incumbent administration has charged President Trump for acts that lie not just within the “outer perimeter,” but at the heart of his official responsibilities as President. In doing so, the prosecution does not, and cannot, argue that President Trump’s efforts to ensure election integrity, and to advocate for the same, were outside the scope of his duties. Instead, the prosecution falsely claims that President Trump’s motives were impure—that he purportedly ‘knew’ that the widespread reports of fraud and election irregularities were untrue but sought to address them anyway.”

“But as the Constitution, the Supreme Court, and hundreds of years of history and tradition all make clear, the President’s motivations are not for the prosecution or this Court to decide. Rather, where, as here, the President’s actions are within the ambit of his office, he is absolutely immune from prosecution.”

Trump is facing four federal felonies in the case. Trial has been set for March 4, 2024.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

A Key Witness From Mar-a-Lago Flips In Florida Documents Case

A Key Witness From Mar-a-Lago Flips In Florida Documents Case

It’s always a good thing when you wake up from a nap and find yourself immediately searching for a metaphor. Today we’re looking for a metaphor to describe the first witness in a case against Defendant Trump to flip: Trump Employee 4 in the classified documents case in Florida has fired the lawyer supplied to him by his boss, one Stanley Woodward, who also represents defendant Walt Nauta, and signed up a public defender. The witness, Mar-a-Lago information technology director Yuscil Taveras, has withdrawn his previous testimony to prosecutors and has decided to tell the truth.

So, how to describe this stunning development? Has the earth begun shaking? Did a dam break? Has a tiny snowball on the side of a mountain begun to roll downhill starting an avalanche?

You will recall the witness we have called “the IT guy” as the Mar-a-Lago employee who expressed doubts to Nauta when he was told that “the boss” wanted the drives wiped that contained security footage at Mar-a-Lago. He wasn’t sure that was the right thing to do, the indictment suggested. But there wasn’t anything solid in the indictment tying Defendant Trump to the attempt to conceal video evidence that showed boxes of documents being moved around Mar-a-Lago by Nauta and the other employee indicted in the case, property manager Carlos De Oliveira.

Now Taveras, who received a target letter from the office of Special Counsel Jack Smith in June, has changed his tune. He was warned by prosecutors that he might be indicted for lying to the grand jury in March when he was represented by the Trump-supplied lawyer, Woodward. Taveras has entered into an agreement with the special counsel that does not require him to plead guilty to any charges. In exchange, Taveras has agreed to provide truthful testimony about the circumstances surrounding the obstruction of justice charges against De Oliveira and Nauta in the superseding indictment.

Taveras had denied that he spoke with anyone at Mar-a-Lago about deleting security camera footage. Taveras also apparently denied that he had been “coached” by anyone about his testimony before the grand jury. However, after firing Woodward and getting a public defender as his new attorney, Taveras remembered that De Oliveira had pressured him to find a way to delete the security footage at the behest of “the boss.” Taveras has apparently now confirmed to investigators that he understood “the boss” to refer to Trump and that it was Trump himself who had requested that the security footage be deleted.

A court filing from the special counsel’s office on Tuesday confirmed that Taveras has flipped and changed his testimony. “Immediately after receiving new counsel, Trump Employee 4 retracted his prior false testimony and provided information that implicated Nauta, De Oliveira, and Trump in efforts to delete security camera footage, as set forth in the superseding indictment,” the special counsel’s filing reported. “The Government anticipates calling Trump Employee 4 as a trial witness and expects that he will testify to conduct alleged in the superseding indictment regarding efforts to delete security footage.”

Taveras is the first witness in any of the cases against Defendant Trump who has flipped, agreed to cooperate with prosecutors and provide testimony that will be used in the classified documents case in court against Defendant Trump and others.

There are 19 co-defendants in the RICO indictment brought against Trump in the state of Georgia by District Attorney Fani Willis. It’s not going to take a seismograph to detect the earthquake in Georgia when some of the defendants start going hat in hand to Willis’ office and offering to testify against each other and Defendant Trump himself.

Lucian K. Truscott IV, a graduate of West Point, has had a 50-year career as a journalist, novelist, and screenwriter. He has covered Watergate, the Stonewall riots, and wars in Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He is also the author of five bestselling novels. You can subscribe to his daily columns at luciantruscott.substack.com and follow him on Twitter @LucianKTruscott and on Facebook at Lucian K. Truscott IV.

Please consider subscribing to Lucian Truscott Newsletter, from which this is reprinted with permission.

Roger Stone

MSNBC Fresh Proof Of Roger Stone Pushing Fake Elector Scheme (VIDEO)

MSNBC host Ari Melber on Wednesday's edition of The Beat released previously unseen footage of Republican operative Roger Stone purportedly dictating a memo that outlined the allegedly criminal scheme to send fraudulent electors to Washington as part of the plot by former President Donald Trump and his associates to steal the 2020 election.

Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis and Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith cited that plot in their respective indictments of Trump and his allies.

"Although state officials in all fifty states must ultimately certify the results of the voting in their state, the final decision as to who the state legislatures authorize be sent to the Electoral College is a decision made solely by the legislature," Stone said in the clip that was recorded by documentarian Christoffer Guldbrandesen. "Any legislative body may decide on the basis of overwhelming evidence of fraud to send electors to the electoral college who accurately reflect the president's legitimate victory in their state, which was illegally denied him through fraud. We must be prepared to lobby our Republican legislatures by personal contact and by demonstrating the overwhelming will of the people in their state in each state that this may need to happen."

Melber noted that Stone's representative "declined to comment."

Watch below or at this link.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.