Federal appeals court denies Trump's emergency bid to stop ex-aides from testifying in Jan. 6 probe
Source: CNN Politics
Washington CNN — Former President Donald Trump’s legal team has lost a bid for emergency help from the federal appeals court in Washington, DC, to block some of his closest advisers from testifying about him to a grand jury, including former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, according to a new court filing.
Trump’s team on Monday night asked for the appeals court to wipe away a lower court’s ruling that would force several of his top advisers to answer questions to a grand jury investigating Trump and his allies’ attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, despite his claims of legal protections around his presidency that would shield some of their testimony. The appeals court denied his request on Tuesday, dealing Trump another legal setback just before he is set to enter a courtroom in Manhattan to face criminal charges in a separate investigation.
The swift decision means advisers to Trump, including Meadows, could be brought into the federal grand jury in Washington by prosecutors in the coming days. Trump would need a court to intervene in his favor in order to block their subpoenas. Overnight, a panel of three judges on the appeals court – Patricia Millett, Robert Wilkins and Greg Katsas – had sought a response from the Justice Department regarding Trump’s request.
The Justice Department responded about two hours later. An appeal on the larger legal questions around executive privilege assertions could still live on before the appeals court, but the activity around Trump’s emergency request for a stay would determine now if witnesses must comply with Justice Department subpoenas and the lower court’s decision against Trump. Trump’s team is unlikely to ask the Supreme Court for help, one source told CNN.
The former president has been arrested
Source: NBC
What to know about Trump's arraignment
Former President Donald Trump has been arrested. He surrendered to authorities at the courthouse in Manhattan at around 1:30 p.m. ET.
Trump is expected to be fingerprinted and then arraigned in court before Judge Juan Merchan at 2:15 p.m. ET.
The charges, about 30 counts related to document fraud, are unknown, because the indictment against him is under seal. They are expected to be unsealed and made public when he is arraigned.
The charges resulted from an investigation by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg into hush money payments to two women who claimed to have had affairs with Trump. The former president has denied wrongdoing.
weatheriscool wrote: ↑Tue Apr 04, 2023 6:45 pm
The former president has been arrested
Source: NBC
What to know about Trump's arraignment
Former President Donald Trump has been arrested. He surrendered to authorities at the courthouse in Manhattan at around 1:30 p.m. ET.
Trump is expected to be fingerprinted and then arraigned in court before Judge Juan Merchan at 2:15 p.m. ET.
The charges, about 30 counts related to document fraud, are unknown, because the indictment against him is under seal. They are expected to be unsealed and made public when he is arraigned.
The charges resulted from an investigation by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg into hush money payments to two women who claimed to have had affairs with Trump. The former president has denied wrongdoing.
READ HERE: Trump Indictment and Statement of Facts
"Former President Trump appeared in a New York courtroom Tuesday afternoon to hear the charges brought against him by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and read in court by Judge Juan Merchan.
"Trump pleaded not guilty to nearly three dozen counts.
"The indictment, which was announced on Thursday and unsealed on Tuesday, includes charges of falsifying business records and other counts in connection with a hush payment that Trump’s former fixer, Michael Cohen, made to adult film star Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 election."
Read the Grand Jury’s indictment and the Statement of Facts here.
NYT Opinion: We Finally Know the Case Against Trump, and It Is Strong
By Karen Friedman Agnifilo and Norman Eisen
..........
The 34 felony books and records counts in the Trump indictment turn on the misstatement of the hush-money payment to Stormy Daniels arranged by Michael Cohen in the waning days of the 2016 election and the repayment of that amount by Mr. Trump to Mr. Cohen, ostensibly as legal expenses. There are 11 counts for false invoices, 11 for false checks and check stubs and 12 for false general ledger entries. This allegedly violated the false records statute when various entries were made in business documents describing those repayments as legal fees.
Moreover, the statement of facts alleges that deals, including one for Ms. Daniels and another for Karen McDougal that involved The National Enquirer, which had longstanding ties to Mr. Trump, were for the purpose of helping him win the presidency. If that is proved, then the deals would be “attempts to violate state and federal election laws,” as Mr. Bragg said in a statement, such as on their amount and disclosure. In this theory,the false records in the indictment covered up the campaign finance violation.
.........
It’s also worth noting that Mr. Trump was a federal candidate, whereas the other New York cases involved state ones. But court after court across the country has recognized that state authorities can enforce state law in cases relating to federal candidates. Those courts have allowed state cases concerning federal campaign contributions under widely varied circumstances, including for fraudulently diverting funds from political action committees founded to support federal presidential campaigns, violating state law limits on corporate contributions to federal campaigns and transgressing state laws concerning donations to PACs that funded federal campaigns. Some of the examples involve criminal enforcement by state authorities, some civil, but the point is the same: They can act.
Liberals will control Wisconsin Supreme Court ahead of abortion case
Source: Washington Post
Updated: MILWAUKEE -- Liberals claimed control of Wisconsin's high court in an election Tuesday, giving them a one-vote majority on a body that in the coming years will likely consider the state's abortion ban, its gerrymandered legislative districts and its voting rules for the 2024 presidential election.
Milwaukee County Judge Janet Protasiewicz's victory over former Justice Daniel Kelly will end 15 years of conservative control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. She could face ethical questions when the court takes up politically charged cases because she campaigned heavily on abortion rights and repeatedly called the state's election maps "rigged."
The candidates, political parties and independent groups spent more than $40 million on the race, making it by far the most expensive judicial contest in U.S. history. It more than quadrupled the amount spent in Wisconsin's 2020 state Supreme Court race.
Judicial candidates in Wisconsin do not run with party labels, but the race was steeped in partisanship. The state Democratic Party gave nearly $9 million to Protasiewicz, while arms of the Republican Party gave more than $500,000 to Kelly and GOP megadonor Richard Uihlein spent nearly $6 million to help him.
Original headline: Democrat-backed candidate sweeps to win on Wisconsin Supreme Court
Original post: Breaking: Democratic-backed judge wins Wisconsin Supreme Court race, giving liberals one-vote advantage as abortion and redistricting decisions loom.
Milwaukee County Judge Janet Protasiewicz is expected to beat former state Supreme Court justice Daniel Kelly, according to the Associated Press. The race for Wisconsin's highest court is technically nonpartisan and was the costliest judicial race in in U.S. history. The candidates, political parties and ideological groups spent more than $40 million on the race. This file will be updated.
Trump charged with 'catch and kill' scheme to cover up child out of wedlock story
Donald Trump sat stone-faced as he declared he was not guilty to 34 charges stemming from hush-money payments made during his 2016 election campaign.
New details emerged about a scheme that prosecutors say involved payoffs to two women, including a porn star, who said they had extramarital sexual encounters with him years earlier, as well as to a Trump Tower doorman who claimed to have a story about a child he alleged the former president had out of wedlock.
“In one instance, American Media Inc, paid $30,000 to a former Trump Tower doorman, who claimed to have a story about a child TRUMP had out of wedlock,” the Manhattan district attorney’s office announced Tuesday, referring to the company that owned The National Inquirer at the time.
Trump, stone-faced and silent as he entered and exited the Manhattan courtroom, said “not guilty” in a firm voice while facing a judge who warned him to refrain from rhetoric that could inflame or cause civil unrest.
National security officials tell special counsel Trump was repeatedly warned
Source: CNN Politics
Washington CNN — Former top national security officials have testified to a federal grand jury that they repeatedly told former President Donald Trump and his allies that the government didn’t have the authority to seize voting machines after the 2020 election, CNN has learned. Chad Wolf, the former acting Homeland Security secretary, and his former deputy Ken Cuccinelli were asked about discussions inside the administration around DHS seizing voting machines when they appeared before the grand jury earlier this year, according to three people familiar with the proceedings.
Cuccinelli testified that he “made clear at all times” that DHS did not have the authority to take such a step, one of the sources said. Trump’s former national security adviser Robert O’Brien, in a closed-door interview with federal prosecutors earlier this year, also recounted conversations about seizing voting machines after the 2020 election, including during a heated Oval Office meeting that Trump participated in, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Details about the secret grand jury testimony and O’Brien’s interview, neither of which have been previously reported, illustrate how special counsel Jack Smith and his prosecutors are looking at the various ways Trump tried to overturn his electoral loss despite some of his top officials advising him against the ideas.
Now some of those same officials, including Wolf, Cuccinelli and O’Brien, as well as others who have so far refused to testify, may have to return to the grand jury in Washington, DC, to provide additional testimony after a series of pivotal court rulings that were revealed in recent weeks rejected Trump’s claims of executive privilege. Cuccinelli was spotted going back into the grand jury on Tuesday, April 4. Without that privilege shield, former officials must answer questions about their interactions and conversations with the former president, including what he was told about the lack of evidence for election fraud and the legal remedies he could pursue.
