Trump’s team seeks to learn whether special counsel has evidence, witnesses they don’t know
"Experts: Jack Smith’s latest move means Trump can’t use Judge Cannon to prevent pre-election trial"
Related: MAJOR BREAKING: Donald Trump is accused by the Department of Justice of breaking THREE laws relating to their investigation of January 6. Yesterday, Donald Trump revealed on social media that he received a target letter and that he was given four days to report to a Grand Jury. We now know the DOJ will present facts to a grand jury that Donald Trump violated the following statutes: 1) CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT OFFENSE OR TO DEFRAUD THE UNITED STATES. 2) DEPRIVATION OF RIGHTS UNDER COLOR OF LAW. 3) TAMPERING WITH A WITNESS, VICTIM, OR INFORMANT. The statutes listed likely refer to the prosecutor’s interest in charging Trump with obstructing the election certification process, including Trump’s efforts to pressure Mike Pence to stop the certification of President Biden’s 2020 victory. According to a source in his own team, Trump is expected to be charged with crimes including conspiracy, obstruction, and civil rights violations. https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=172382411
By Jeremy Herb and Kristen Holmes, CNN Updated 4:05 PM EDT, Wed July 19, 2023
VIDEO - Hear what ex-prosecutor thinks will happen next to Trump.
CNN — Former President Donald Trump’s lawyers and advisers are trying to figure out if there is evidence and witnesses they are unaware of that are bolstering special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election, according to multiple sources familiar with Trump team’s legal conversation.
The potential charges listed in the target letter suggest the special counsel will prosecute a bigger case against Trump than the former president’s team was expecting, given the evidence they are aware of. That has led to questions if there is evidence or testimony they don’t know about, the sources said.
Trump’s team of lawyers and advisers have tried to keep close tabs on investigation. The former president’s political action committee has underwritten legal costs for multiple witnesses, which has given them some insight into what has been shared with Smith’s team.
Trump said on social media Tuesday that he received a target letter from Smith on Sunday, a signal that charges in the case could be coming soon. His legal team believes they have until Thursday at midnight to respond to special counsel Jack Smith and tell his office whether there are witnesses or evidence they want to offer, sources tell CNN.
A spokesman for the special counsel declined to comment.
How Trump’s legal team has viewed the ongoing investigation has shifted over time. At some points, Trump’s team hoped for a best-case scenario where Trump was an unindicted co-conspirator, two people said. But as witnesses like Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and former White House aide Hope Hicks were called before the grand jury, it became much clearer to members of the legal team and Trump’s inner circle that Smith was zeroing in on Trump’s mindset.
[Insert: We've always read that in criminal trials one of the most, if not the most, difficult legal bar to meet is the proving of intent. Go Jack!]
The target letter cites three statutesthat Trump could be charged with: pertaining to deprivation of rights; conspiracy to commit an offense against or defraud the United States; and tampering with a witness, according to multiple news outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, which cited a person familiar with the matter.
The Justice Department has been known in the investigation to be examining possible violations of the law around conspiracy and obstruction of the congressional proceeding on January 6, which is part of the witness tampering law, CNN previously reported following a Justice Department search of a Trump administration adviser’s home.
If Smith indicts Trump in the January 6 case, it would mark the third time that Trump has been criminally charged this year, and the second time by the special counsel. The Manhattan district attorney indicted Trump in March on charges of falsifying business records, and Smith charged Trump last month over the mishandling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. Trump has pleaded not guilty in both cases.
Trump denounced the special counsel on Tuesday as he revealed the target letter. At a Fox News town hall in Iowa Tuesday evening, Trump claimed that the election probe amounts to “election interference” and called it a “disgrace.”
VIDEO - Trump speaks out for first time since revealing he's a target in the special counsel's probe 00:54 - Source: CNN
Trump’s legal team has not formally responded to the invitation to testify before the grand jury, which the letter provides, but it is largely expected that Trump will decline to do so. The letter caught Trump’s team off guard, according to sources, as Trump’s advisers had not been anticipating Smith could bring charges this month – or against Trump himself.
So far, Trump’s team has not identified anyone else who received a target letter, according to sources.
The special counsel has undertaken a sprawling investigation into the attempts to overturn the 2020 election leading up to the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, including efforts to pressure state election officials, putting forward fake electors in seven states Trump lost, pressure campaigns at the Justice Department and toward his then-Vice President Mike Pence, and fundraising following the election.
The grand jury is continuing to hear from witnesses, and a close Trump adviser, Will Russell, is expected to appear on Thursday. Russell, a White House aide who has continued to work for Trump after he left office, has already testified to the grand jury at least twice before. Russell’s attorney declined to comment.
CNN’s Katelyn Polantz and Kaitlan Collins contributed to this report.
Trump’s outbursts met with silence so far by prosecutor, judge
"Experts: Jack Smith’s latest move means Trump can’t use Judge Cannon to prevent pre-election trial"
Other defendants might get in trouble for publicly calling the prosecutor a deranged drug user. Not Donald Trump.
By Devlin Barrett July 16, 2023 at 8:00 a.m. EDT
Former president Donald Trump speaks during the Independence Day Spectacular on June 30 in Pickens, S.C. (Sam Wolfe for The Washington Post)
Since his indictment last month on charges of withholding classified documents, former president Donald Trump has publicly called special counsel Jack Smith “deranged” and a “psycho” and said he “looks like a crackhead.”
In response, Smith and the federal judge overseeing his pending criminal trial have said … nothing.
Trump’s broadsides on social media against the Justice Department, the FBI, and Smith in particular have not gone unnoticed. The government spent $1.9 million for U.S. Marshals to provide security to Smith and other officials between November 2022 and March, according to officials. Experts and government officials have said individual prosecutors are facing harassment and threats online .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/07/06/trump-documents-case-prosecutor-threats/?itid=lk_inline_manual_7 .. from members of right-wing extremist groups.
“In some ways, these comments are much more serious than if, say, a typical bank fraud defendant made them, because that person may have 500 followers and it won’t have much of an impact. But Jan. 6 shows his followers can see his posts as a call to action,” said Randall Eliason, a former federal prosecutor who now teaches law at George Washington University. “I think it’s complicated for free speech reasons, but this is getting pretty close to the line.”
In the Trump case, White said, there are reasons why Smith and Cannon — who will preside over the first pretrial hearing in the case on Tuesday in Fort Pierce, Fla. — may decide not to raise the issue.
“Trump is likely trying to provoke a legal battle so he can portray himself as a victim of censorship as well as government abuse,” White said. “He wants that to be the narrative, to fundraise and make himself the victim. Smart judges avoid unnecessary fights and don’t want to be trolled.”
Asked to comment on the former president’s remarks about Smith, Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said: "President Trump will absolutely continue to exercise his First Amendment right.”
Bruce Rogow, who represented Stone in the 2019 trial, said gag orders are an “extraordinary” step not merited in Trump’s case, especially as he seeks the GOP nomination to return to the White House in 2024 .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/election-2024/?itid=lk_inline_manual_23 . Rogow noted that the justification for a gag order is often to avoid influencing potential jurors, and said he doubted anything Trump can say at this stage in the process is likely to influence those who may soon sit in judgment against him.
“Trump has bought for himself more latitude than other litigants would have. He’s campaigning for office, and the scope of things that are said in campaigns are often far out and unsupported,” Rogow said. “The judge will just have to suffer Trump’s comments and shrug them off and not get engaged in any kind of tussle which would then lead actually to greater publicity for Trump, and Trump would actually thrive on it. I think Trump would welcome a gag order, but I don’t think Judge Cannon would take the bait.”
This image, contained in the indictment against former president Donald Trump, shows boxes of records on Dec. 7, 2021, in a storage room at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla., that had fallen over with contents spilling onto the floor. (Justice Department via AP)
This image, contained in the indictment against former president Donald Trump, shows boxes of records stored in a bathroom and shower in the Lake Room at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla. (Justice Department via AP)
Even if Smith, who was appointed as special counsel by Attorney General Merrick Garland last November, requested a gag order, there’s no guarantee Cannon would issue one. In 2016, prosecutors in the case of former congressman Aaron Schock (R-Ill.) sought a gag order after he and his lawyers made statements highly critical of the government’s conduct. But the federal judge overseeing that corruption case denied the request .. https://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/aaron-schock-judge-denies-gag-order-232445 , saying prosecutors had failed to show a “serious and imminent threat” to the administration of justice.
U.S. District Judge Sue Myerscough concluded that while some of the Schock comments “may come close to creating the appearance that Defendant is trying to influence the actual outcome of the trial or prejudice the jury venire, those comments have not crossed that line.”
Stephen Gillers, a professor of legal ethics at New York University, said that the calculus for a gag order could change if Trump starts talking about witnesses or evidence — particularly any evidence that has been ruled inadmissible at trial.
“What the courts are mainly concerned about, and the prosecution would be concerned about, is if Trump were to make factual statements, whether or not true, that could influence the jury’s verdict — but that’s not what he’s doing here,” Gillers said. “He’s attacking the prosecutor in rather harsh terms but he’s not revealing information that would be excluded from trial.”
Market Data 
Markets 
AI
