Alvin Bragg Is Trump’s Legal Sideshow, The Main Ring Is The Mar-a-Lago Classified Documents Case
IF there is proof Trump instructed his lawyers to lie to the feds, something that remains to be seen but appears to be the claim, then the theory of criminal liability is simple, not likely to allow Trump to portray himself as a victim, and the Special Counsel cannot be played unlike the hapless Alvin Bragg.
Exhausted yet? It is just six days since Donald Trump claimed he would be arrested on Tuesday, March 21. It feels like it’s been six years.
There never was a substantive basis to “Tuesday,” even Trump attributed it to “leaks” and his attorneys quickly walked it back. “Tuesday” never was a thing, though there were many reports that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg was moving towards an indictment.
Yet by pre-announcing that “Tuesday” was the day, Trump achieved what he wanted, media and legal chaos that put Bragg on his heels and — reportedly — has the grand jury put on ice for a few days. I explained Trump’s tactic in my interview on the Tony Katz show, which was quoted by the Washington Examiner:
“This is Trump’s attempt to stay any sort of actual prosecution,” William Jacobson, a Cornell Law professor and founder of Legal Insurrection, told conservative radio host Tony Katz this week.
“This is his attempt to create a media firestorm, which he’s great at doing. … And to put pressure on the DA’s office not to go that last step, whether that will work — but that’s how I read it,” Jacobson added.
On Thursday, reports emerged stating the grand jury overseeing Bragg’s investigation would not hear the Trump case, resulting in a delay of a potential indictment of the former president until at least next week.
Meanwhile, the gap between Trump’s claims of being arrested and the present has left room for House Republicans to demand answers of Bragg, some of which have accused his investigation of being a political vendetta against a former president.
In response to those lawmakers, Bragg was forced to address Trump’s incorrect indictment prediction as a “false expectation” of what was to come.
Unless there is something really substantive that has not been revealed, Bragg’s case against Trump is legally and factually weak.
But Bragg’s case is not the only criminal investigation. There’s the criminal investigation into J6 by Special Prosecutor Jack Smith. Mark Meadows and other Trump aides were just ordered to testify:
A federal judge has rejected former President Donald Trump’s claims of executive privilege and has ordered Mark Meadows and other former top aides to testify before a federal grand jury investigating Trump’s efforts to overturn the election leading up to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, multiple sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News
Meadows, Trump’s former chief of staff, was subpoenaed along with the other former aides by Special counsel Jack Smith for testimony and documents related to the probe.
I don’t consider the J6 investigation a serious criminal threat to Trump unless there is some substantial evidence he knowingly and directly planned what turned into a riot (and also an otherwise peaceful protest). Trump’s public statements were just as constitutionally protected as anyone else’s, and at least publicly there was no clear incitement to violence.
There’s also the Georgia District Attorney looking into post-2020 election conduct by Trump. If based on Trump’s request to “find” more votes, that case would be weak since a reasonable intepretation of the words were Trump pushing state officials to find lawful votes that had not been counted yet, not to manufacture votes. The grand jury there has its own chaos, and the prosecutor is highly political, giving Trump a chance to play victim if and when some charges are brought.
The legal circus that will grow in the next year, however, does have a main ring. And that main ring is no joke. It’s the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case. Not so much that Trump had them, but whether he directed his lawyers to lie to the feds, obstructing justice. Unlike all the other legal drama, if proven, that’s a simple legal theory of criminal liability, unlike all the attenuated and legally-stretched theories in the other cases.
And again, Special Counsel Jack Smith is leading the way, and there are ominous signs based on the feds obtaining a ruling that Trump’s attorney had to testify under the “crime-fraud” exception to attorney-client privilege.
An attorney for former President Donald Trump testified for over three hours before a federal grand jury convened by special counsel Jack Smith, who is investigating the potential mishandling of documents with classified markings, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Evan Corcoran was spotted in the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C., on Friday, ahead of his expected testimony, and made his way to the area of the building where grand juries hear testimony. These proceedings are sealed from public view under federal law.
Prosecutors are interested in knowing more about Trump’s communications with Corcoran — who appeared before a grand jury once before and claimed attorney-client privilege — and planned to question him about notes and voice memos he was compelled to turn over, one of the sources said.
A federal judge ruled Corcoran’s claims of attorney-client privilege over certain topics were invalid and compelled the lawyer to answer questions about aspects of his work with Trump and turn over evidence to investigators based on the “crime-fraud exception.”
On Wednesday, an appeals court rejected the Trump team’s request that Corcoran’s testimony be put on hold to allow for further litigation. The appeal is still ongoing, however, and a briefing schedule stretches into the spring, but in the meantime, the court ruled Trump’s attorney would have to comply with a federal subpoena and sit before the grand jury on Friday.
Keep an eye on the Mar-a-Lago documents case. Bragg’s fiasco will help Trump because he will rightly be able to portray himself as a legal victim. Same in the J6 investigation and Georgia case. Not so Mar-a-Lago.
IF there is proof Trump instructed his lawyers to lie to the feds, something that remains to be seen but appears to be the claim, then the theory of criminal liability is simple, not likely to allow Trump to portray himself as a victim, and the Special Counsel cannot be played unlike the hapless Alvin Bragg.
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Comments
This still smells like go find a crime
These clowns set out to create a crime.
It still seems to me to be a large lift to charge Trump with anything to do with Classified Documents considering Brandon had them stored all over the country including places Hunter had access to.
For the love of God and country, let us pray that Donald Trump was not so stupid as to direct his lawyers to lie to the Feds and therefore obstruct justice.
I am critical of Trump but have to believe he understands the difference between right and wrong and inherent legal liability.
It is not whether Trump instructed the lawyers to lie. It is whether the lawyers say he did before that Grand Jury. Trump’s history is clear. His lawyers and fixers tend to be scoundrels themselves (like Michael Cohen), and they never show personal loyalty to Trump, nor does he ever show personal loyalty to anyone else.
This is ridiculous he doesn’t need to lie about anything
He has the right to take any and all classified documents
Whereas Biden vp didn’t as he pillared and placed the
All
Around America and there is more than talk that Hunter used these classified documents in his dealings with ukraine and China
But that apparently is not interesting
I’m so tired of the. BS would be great if a constitutional lawyer would support the President
Pillared?
Pilloried?
Pilfered?
Whoa there! If President Trump instructed his lawyers to lie as to the facts? Funny things facts. We do know President Trump had full, unilateral authority to declassify anything he wanted to, anyway he wanted to. Even funnier is the law. Like the Presidential Records Act, which up to now respected a president’s determination on what was a personal and what was a presidential record. And which has no criminal enforcement mechanism. This BS special prosecutor investigation may be better funded, but it’s no less a joke and a politically targeted abuse of power.
I’m also confused about this as Trump has already claimed that he declassified them before leaving office. I think that if this Special Hit Job continues we will see a fight over that and Brandon will be in the news since he had Classified material from when he was VP and a Senator.
Oh, it’s better than that. There’s a paper trail, conveniently claimed to be not hte the right paper trail, by people who don’t want it to be.
Specifically, Trump asserts he directed All The Things be declassified, then the DoJ and company slow walked “the process.”
In the end, it’s about who is to be master.
I agree on the slow walk which is what happened to Trump by the deep state his entire Presidency. The “process” has never been brought before a court so it should be interesting to see it play out but the court case is the point, not the law. Charge Trump, get it in the news until election and then it will quietly fade away if Trump loses assuming he wins the Primary
If only they had picked someone that could be trusted, and not someone in the by any means necessary camp, and therefore prone to tilt the field and create something not really there.
The breach of privilege, especially Executive Privilege, is a travesty and will have negative consequences beyond the zeal to get Trump.
If Trump told the lawyers to lie, rather than taking what he said and twisting it into a lie, then let the standard be applied to all.
These bozos have trampled all over Executive Privilege, Lawyer/Client Privilege, the President’s unlimited power to declassify, and a vast number of other traditional protections, just in order to shove as many unsubstantiated allegations into the political prosecution as they can. They’re destroying democratic protections that have stood for centuries because they hate the man.
Because they hate us
Hillary’s emails?
Epstein’s flight logs?
Hunter’s laptop?
Much more interesting stuff out there…
Hillary’s [Water] Closet.
Joe’s Garage.
Barack’s Library.
JournoLists’ “anonymous sources”.
Let us bray (sic).
This is genuinely the first I’ve heard of any allegations of lawyer lying in the Mar a Lago case.
I get the strong suspicion that they had to gen up something to keep the case alive,and this was it — given that the Biden, Pence, and Obama revelations about their own classified whoopsies pretty much let all the air out of the original allegations against Trump.
Funny this suddenly appeared the same week it has come out Brandon’s family was paid millions by a Chinese company run by the Chinese Government according to bank records that Treasury fought tooth and nail to keep hidden.
It’s the logical legal theory with the DOJ going after testimony from Trump’s lawyers and seeking to strike down A-C privilege. They were successful in this.
I guess there could be something else to it, and it could all be legal theater as you suggest. Other than that, why do you think the plaintiffs want them to testify?
I don’t think WAJ said that they had the smoking gun…he just said that this was the big case on the Trump legal front and he’s right. I see that’s already triggered the Trumpets to come out swinging, but he didn’t say anything that isn’t true. This is the legal battle. Although these triggered Trumpets would tell you otherwise, I actually do hope he prevails in court. This kind of selective prosecution and witch-hunting is not good for any semblance of a nation we can hold onto. I hope there are sanctions and possible disbarments in order.
I don’t care if the man “lied” or not. Until the Bidens, the Clintons, the Kenyan, is prosecuted for all the crimes they committed, I don’t want to hear about the equivalent of jaywalking.
Biden is in cahoots, explicit or implicit, with the cartels. That’s about 7 million crimes right there. That have killed Americans. So whatever.
Hear!! Hear!!
Without Trump, it is unlikely that there would be a political will to investigate Biden. The Swamp is not interested in delving into their fellow Swamp rats’ rackets. Before Trump, it was the “there for the grace of God go I”. Since Trump, it has been hoax after hoax to create phony reasons to investigate him. That allowed them to manage to impeach him twice thanks to the corrupt Republicans who facilitated it. But they couldn’t remove him from office so they rigged the 2020 elections (thank you McConnell & Gang).
So Trump decides to fight on because the Swamp is deathly afraid of the danger he represents to their rackets. And he continues to fight back successfully inspiring more and more supporters to his cause. Now they are running out of time and their legal options are running out. Desperation.
The real question will soon become whether these globally-organized criminals will become so desperate as to impose their tyranny violently. They’ve imported foreign fighters, they’ve already organized their BLM and Antifa brown shirts throughout the country. Banks are again on the brink of collapse globally. Supply chains continue to break down. Our farmland is being bought up by China and the Malthusian Masters of the Universe. And all that stands in the way is Trump and our support for him. Trump is the only one engaged in the final battle while everyone stands by and criticizes.
Trump is the ONLY PERSON stopping this from happening. This would have already happened had Hillary won in 2016. Trump didn’t get us into this mess. WE did by refusing to accept what our eyes were seeing and being too timid and easily distracted to address the real crisis. Is NOW finally the right time to do the right thing? Or are we going to go quietly into the night without even a whimper? Hell of a way for the greatest country ever to exist to end. We just voted our freedom away and then fought among ourselves.
Trump and my fellow Trump supporters are the only thing that makes me hold on to my pride in America. The rest of you are embarrassing.
Phil,
Does that mean you won’t accept our votes in the GoP primary? Gonna be somewhat more difficult for Trump to win a primary when many of his staunch supporters, like yourself, have left the party and are no longer registered as voting members of the GoP.
Pissing on those of us who remain in the GoP tent where the primary is conducted seems like a bold strategy to get your guy selected (by us) as the GoP nominee. We find out next spring and summer if your innovative strategy of deriding members of the GoP who are still open to Trump but are not ‘Only Trump or Never Trump’ will pay off.
Phil was never accused of being bright.
He also promised to leave….again.
Notice Brandon’s movement of Classified Docs from UPenn to Boston ahead of a search by The FBI has disappeared from view. With the entire banking disaster caused by the Fed, Brandon ruining the economy, letting 1 Million Illegals invade this year so far, China and Russia getting together in an historic pact, our economy teetering on collapse, energy being strangled, Woke DEI nonsense crammed into every corner of our Government, a racist DEI put in charge then quietly moved over at the Pentagon putting DEI Racist garbage into every military run school, EPA quietly pushing rules to ban gas stoves when Brandon said it was nonsense, our dollar collapsing in value, debt skyrocketing, bank records emerging that every Biden got paid millions by China for something while Brandon was VP and so on and so on.
It’s almost like TRUMP is a shiny object to keep us proles occupied while Brandon and Crew destroy America and keep his grift out of the headlines.
If your Republican party had any balls at all (HAH!) they would be calling on their own DAs to begin issuing indictments against Democrats for political “crimes”. No need for proof or evidence. Just get everyone tangled up in this mess. But no, the only one in the fight is Trump.
https://justthenews.com/government/courts-law/holdlawmakers-legal-experts-warn-legal-tit-tat-ahead-possible-trump
If we go there, this ends quickly and the noose would tighten further on these criminals. This would make them even more desperate but if we don’t have the balls to force the issue for fear of having to fight, why don’t we just quit now and “own nothing and be happy”?
We need to start making life harder for them and stop helping them making it harder for us. DeSantis is making this worse by giving you weanies false hope for 2024. If they can get rid of Trump, DeSantis will get wiped out or morph into something his globalist dirty money handlers will find more acceptable. This game won’t end in a tie and our freedoms are slipping away fast. We are all running out if time. Fight, follow or get out of the way..
MAGA!!!
I’d gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.
I am going to go ahead and choose to disagree with William here.
I agree that Trump can (and would) make NY, Georgia, and Jan 6th into political issues where he plays the victim. They are all really square “actions” trying to be shoved into round “crimes” that none of which have every been brought before.
But I would argue that anything having to do with the Mar-a-Lago classified document situation will be compared to Biden, Pence, and ultimately Clinton. Biden has arguably a bigger problem with his classified documents… and Clinton went miles further in obstruction of that investigation.
Any charges regarding Mar-a-Lago will be seen as politically hypocritical as they should be. Trump would have a field day reminding everyone what Clinton got away with and what Biden “is” getting away with.
The problem is that they don’t have a problem.
“Biden has arguably a bigger problem with his classified documents… “? Arguably? Trump claims that he declassified them while President and had them in a locked room in Mir-A-Lago guarded by private security and Secret Service. Biden had records in his garage, Chinese Funded “Think Tanks”, his house, his lawyers office and who knows where else and that includes records removed as VP and while a Senator neither of which has any power to declassify. I’d say Biden has a far larger problem.
“Obstruction” – Poking back that disrupts the story they’ve already started telling.
Things like having council, making phone calls, developing a legal strategy.
Jordan Peterson and Newt Gingrich explain where society is right now (run by the first mass royalty) and why the elites hate Trump so much.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-Pr72issKs
Where do all the Trump haters here fit in? Self-loathing wannabe elite snobs who can’t stand Trump because he speaks like most of us do? Trump is the real deal and the Ivy League class.
I know, wasting my time trying to teach dogs how to do math.
…and the Ivy League class hate him for it just like they hate us.
Wait, didn’t Trump go to the University of Pennsylvania, a . . . wait for it . . . Ivy League university?
I do believe he went to Wharton! Of course, the “ivy league” is meant as a distinct class of effete snobs who look down on us proles and are just smarter than we are. They also have no problem lecturing us on that point endlessly.
Wharton Business School is part of the University of Penn.
Did you watch the video? I didn’t think so and was sure you wouldn’t. You are hermetically sealed in your echo chamber. Did you notice that Trump had a rousing rally yesterday? If Cruz doesn’t endorse Trump, he will be primaried. If DeSanctus doesn’t endorse Trump, he will be out of politics. No chance of Senate without Trump endorsement.
And while you Trump haters rephrase and recast Trump statements from yesterday to call him a liar, I have seen Trump’s blockbuster follow-up ad to yesterday’s attack. It will destroy DeSantis and I am sure DeS has seen it too. He is going to lose a lot of his dirty money supporters. Prepare for him to make an announcement. Endorsing Trump will not likely save him since Trump does not need it and doesn’t want it.
Phil, I get that you are all enthusiastic about Trump, but I don’t think that calling anyone who isn’t on board names is a winning strategy. It might work for Trump, but it does not work for you. You just sound desperate and afraid. Reread this post of yours with the omission of “And while you Trump haters rephrase and recast Trump statements from yesterday to call him a liar.” What do you think? Doesn’t that make the whole comment sound better? Less belligerent and more rational? Just a thought because your name-calling is getting very very (very) old — and it’s pushing people away.
Even better would be to remove the part about “hermetically sealed in your echo chamber” because it’s you who didn’t know that the NY Grand Jury was announced in January and thought it was a secret of some kind until Trump’s announcement of his imminent arrest last Tuesday, a day he invented (as his own lawyers confirmed) to push his followers’ buttons (which it did).
Fuzzy, you have a habit of avoiding the points that I make and by rebutting by selecting an irrelevant point to skirt the big points that I make. Focusing on Trump being a UPenn grad is irrelevant and had you watched the video attentively you would not have responded with that argument. It’s dishonest and insulting. And you also like to follow that up with a condescending remark which is the very definition of sanctimony.
Now watch the video and give me an honest review of the points being made, starting with why the elites hate Trump so much.
As to calling people names, that only works one way around here doesn’t it? If people would engage in honest conversation and desist on sweeping aside my points without out any consideration, I would not be calling them what they are: ignorant.
No one has a right to ignore and/or restate what other people say (strawman) nor pick out a particular irrelevant point (like you just did) to redirect the discussion into a dead end.
Willful ignorance is not rational. I am belligerent (another term referring to being a warrior) because the current political mess warrants it. “Thoughtful” wait-and=see how things turn out “after we get all of the facts” is about as lame as it can be and unfortunately defines why Republicans never find a hill worth dying on. You are unwilling to see with your own eyes thus justifying your unwillingness to engage in the big existential discussion. Why are you even offering your opinion if you aren’t willing to acknowledge the BIG facts?
I find it amusing that I can live in people’s heads around here and take pleasure in watching their heads explode. I can’t wait for November 2024 when Trump wins. I am absolutely certain everything will go silent around here and I won’t have to post anything.
Meanwhile, how about not being an RNC mouthpiece? Were Trump handling his campaign as badly as DeSantis has been advised to handle his, we Trumpers would have already abandoned him. Trump isn’t scripted and we know that because he doesn’t pretend to be someone or something else. It’s one of the major points being discussed in the big discussions being had in the “big conversation” that you do not want to participate in. So you defend your echo chamber clutching desperately to your false, incomplete and dishonest RNC narrative.
Sorry, Phil, I have no interest in repeating my view regarding Trump. I’ve told you already what I think, and it has not changed. I will not be baited into a flame war with you.
I will say that your continued ad hominem attacks will not be tolerated. I thought I had made that clear, but apparently not as you continue with them here. If you can’t make your case without descending into nasty, personal attacks on our readers who do not support Trump, then you will not be able to make it here. Is that clear to you?
IF DeSantis (DeSanctus, your childish name) doesn’t endorse Trump, he will be out of politics.” What planet are you on? DeSantis was reelected in a landslide, almost 20 points without Trump’s endorsement. He has a bright future in politics that does not include the toxic Trump
I don’t hate Trump but I won’t support his nomination or candidacy. We do not need another 78 year old elected to the Presidency.
Pasadena Blue Pill — Why do you keep posting here on LI when you promised us you would go away? I think this is the 5th time you lied to us. Why can’t you be honest and keep your promises?
Fox is reporting that the Waco crowd went silent in disapproval when Trump began a rant against DeSantis.
One of the reader comments on Fox:
I was in that crowd on Saturday, I flew in, in my own plane, with six others, like I have done at dozens of other President Trump rallies. I fully support all that President Trump did during his four years and agree it didn’t go far enough. I have spent thousands, distributed merch all over the place.
But.
The minute President Trump insults Governor DeSantis, he is about to lose me. All of us talked about just that issue on the way home last night, that President Trump has gone too far. Governor DeSantis is a rock star, he gets the job done and is highly respected. He may be far more Conservative than President Trump, with no baggage. If President Trump continues this path, he is going to lose a lot of faithful supporters.
Thanks for sharing; I found the comments over there very interesting.
There is a reason Ronald Reagan coined his 11th commandment back in 1966, and it still stands today: “Thou Shalt Not Speak Ill of Thy Fellow Republican”
And … Joseph Stalin is so proud of these Demoncrats, that he has asked Beelzebub to sponsor his application for active membership.
Non-lawyer comment here. I was of the understanding that the Trump lawyers’ statements to the FBI went roughly “To my knowledge, there are no classified documents here.” In court, wouldn’t that turn into:
Prosecutor: You claimed there were no classified documents in MAL, and yet here is one from Box 157!
Lawyer: I never examined box 157, so how could I know what was in it?
Prosecutor: Well you looked into Box 17, and here is a classified document! Why was this not given to the National Archives!
Lawyer: The contents of Box 17 were declassified when Trump was President and had them transferred to MAL as personal records, so they were not subject to the National Archives authority over Presidential records.
…and so on.
The first time I heard about the ‘crime-fraud’ exception In concluded that the government had abolished attorney client privilege. If you can indict a clock you can certainly accuse any client of fraud.