NEWS: The career official who reviewed John BOLTON's book for classified mateiral described heavy pressure from the White House to claim there as classified material in it.
For example, she describes a four-hour session with White House counsel in which lawyer Patrick Philbin (one of Trump's impeachment trial lawyers) and others tried tried to coax her to admit mistakes.
She claims her faithful handling of Bolton's book led WH officials to cancel plans to bring her on staff. politico.com/f/?id=00000174…
The filing is most unsparing toward Michael Ellis (one of the officials Dems tried to interview during impeachment but who didn't appear). Knight says he fundamentally twisted the process to claim certain passages were classified that were not. politico.com/f/?id=00000174…
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1) Donald Trump could win by losing because in this case losing his most extreme argument means further delay of trial — and for Trump, delay is almost as good as an outright win
2) The conservatives on the court contorted themselves to avoid discussing the specific case in front of them — Donald Trump’s attempt to subvert the 2020 election. They talked about FDR, Nixon and future presidents. But they rarely engaged w the present.
BREAKING: Arizona prosecutors have charged 11 fake electors for their roles in efforts to subvert the 2020 election. mcusercontent.com/cc1fad182b6d6f…
There are *seven* additional people charged in this indictment who have not yet been served. So their names remain redacted. mcusercontent.com/cc1fad182b6d6f…
There's some wild stuff in this newly unsealed (but heavily redacted) FBI interview from a high-level Trump-world person related to the classified docs investigation.
And while the interview is primarily about the docs investigation, this person apparently witnessed Jeff Clark hand Trump the letter about Georgia electors: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
This person has a very low opinion of "person 24," who apparently tried to overplay a relationship with Trump and pushed the post-hoc claims that Trump had "declassified everything." storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
JUST IN: The DC Circuit has upheld the conviction of former Ron/Rand Paul aide Jesse BENTON for orchestrating an illegal payment from a Russian national to the Trump campaign and RNC. documentcloud.org/documents/2455…
Trump had previously pardoned Benton for *other* campaign finance crimes. The story of this particular contribution is really incredible. the Russian, Roman Vasilenko, really wanted to meet Oprah, Stephen Seagal or Jimmy Carter. documentcloud.org/documents/2455…
Forget the experts: Prosecutors and Trump defense lawyers have already told us what they think is necessary in four different Trump cases. And the questions they want(ed) to ask range from pointed and political to philosophical and a bit odd.
At bottom there are five clear categories aimed at delving into jurors’ minds:
-Opinions about Trump, the man and his presidency
-Views about Trump’s criminal cases
-Political views/activity
-News consumption
-Wildcards aimed at unearthing hidden biases
Some interesting tidbits in Walt Nauta’s May 2022 interview with the FBI. They clearly had some doubts about his veracity and whether he had been coached in his answers.
At one point, the agents appealed to him to make sure he’d be “on the Govrnment’s side with this” because people risk/lose their lives to collect classified intel storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
This is where the FBI agents seem to indicate Nauta’s story doesn’t check out, and it’s where the interview gets a little tenser.