Kyle Cheney Profile picture
Senior legal affairs reporter for @POLITICO with a focus on 1/6 aftermath. Tips: kcheney@politico.com NY ➡️ BOS ➡️ DC
🇺🇦🇺🇲☕️Coffee&Robots🤖🌊🇺🇦🇺🇲 Profile picture Elizabeth/Runs with Knitting Needles & Pliers Profile picture Antone Johnson • @antonej or @antone everywhere 👋 Profile picture Ken Tancrous Ⓥ 🌱 eDo Profile picture 120 subscribed
Apr 15 7 tweets 6 min read
NEW: How do you seat a jury capable of judging Donald Trump, one of the most famous and polarizing people alive?

Here’s what the former president’s prosecutors and defense lawyers think they need to ask to root out secret biases among jurors.

politico.com/news/2024/04/1…
Image 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.

politico.com/news/2024/04/1…


Image
Image
Image
Apr 12 5 tweets 4 min read
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.

They repeatedly emphasized that he had apparently misled Trump to meet w the FBI. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…

Image
Image
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…
Image
Apr 8 5 tweets 3 min read
JUST IN: Jack Smith files his opening brief at the Supreme Court re: presidential immunity. The crux: Criminal law includes a million safeguards and due process protections that render Trump's claims about politically motivated prosecutions meritless. supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/2…
Image 👀 Smith argues that even if the Supreme Court sharply narrows the obstruction statute in Fischer, Trump's two obstruction counts are still valid because it would apply to the "creation" of false documents (a.k.a. elector certificates. supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/2…
Image
Apr 5 4 tweets 3 min read
NEW: The rising tension between Jack Smith’s team and Judge Cannon over her recent series of bizarre decisions — and non-decisions — has overshadowed one of the most important cases in American history.

w/ @joshgerstein

politico.com/news/2024/04/0…
Image Trump has been eager to exploit the clear frustrations between Cannon and Smith, taking to Truth Social to praise his judicial appointee and accuse Smith of seeking to “play the ref” — which of course Trump was doing with that very comment. politico.com/news/2024/04/0…
Apr 4 11 tweets 5 min read
NEWS: Bar discipline authorities say Jeff Clark violated his professional duties in his bid to help Trump derail the transfer of power in 2020.

Bar investigators say they intend to seek his disbarment. politico.com/news/2024/04/0…
Image Bar investigators in D.C. say Clark attempted to coerce his superiors at DOJ to send a false letter claiming they had unearthed significant problems with the 2020 election results — a letter that if sent would have created chaos across the country. politico.com/news/2024/04/0…
Image
Apr 4 4 tweets 3 min read
JUST IN: John EASTMAN is asking the judge who ordered his disbarment to stay her order so that he can continue to work as a lawyer and fund his criminal defense.

He has affidavits from clients — including MTG and Matt Gaetz — supporting his request.

documentcloud.org/documents/2453…

Image
Image
Eastman says he has already spent more than $1 million in legal fees related to his representation of Trump in 2020 and expects to face $3 million total before it's over.

documentcloud.org/documents/2453…
Image
Apr 3 4 tweets 2 min read
JUST IN: An extraordinary filing from Jack Smith tonight that is almost incredulous at how legally incorrect Judge Cannon's jury instruction scenarios are re: Trump's claim that he designted reams of classified info as "personal" on the way out of the WH.

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
Image Prosecutors are emphatic: Trump's treatment of presidential/personal records is both a "fiction" he invented belatedly (at urging of Tom Fitton) to justify keeping records he was plainly not authorized to have.

And whether he designated them 'personal' is irrelevant. Image
Mar 29 5 tweets 4 min read
NEW: Jeff Clark’s lawyer said yesterday that Donald Trump *did* appoint Clark acting attorney general on Jan. 3, 2021, only to rescind the appointment later that day.

It is the latest wrinkle in a lingering mystery from that chaotic week.

politico.com/news/2024/03/2…
Image Clark has never publicly addressed this, relying on privileges to shield his conversations with Trump. But his lawyer’s assertion — made during Clark’s DC bar discipline trial yesterday — seems to add weight to the claim. politico.com/news/2024/03/2…
Image
Mar 27 18 tweets 9 min read
BREAKING: John Eastman should be disbarred, a California judge ruled Wednesday, issuing her final report after months of hearings and testimony about his fringe legal effort to keep Donald Trump in power.

Eastman will lose his ability to practice law in three days.

Details TK Image NEWS: John Eastman's wrongdoing in 2020 was so extensive — his refusal to accept responsibility so pervasive — that the only remedy for is disbarment, a California judge ruled today.

The 128-page opinion was a thorough rebuke of the Trump ally.

politico.com/news/2024/03/2…
Image
Mar 27 11 tweets 2 min read
HAPPENING NOW: Former acting Attorney General Jeff ROSEN is testifying at Jeff Clark's bar discipline trial.

Yesterday: politico.com/news/2024/03/2… ROSEN says in hindsight Jeff Clark was not forthcoming when they first discussed his letter recommending that Georgia legislators revisit the results of the 2020 election. "He indicated to us these were his ideas," Rosen recalled.
Mar 26 5 tweets 3 min read
NEW: Pat PHILBIN broke three years of public silence today, describing the chaotic final days of the Trump White House and his last-ditch effort to convince Jeff Clark to back down.

Details: politico.com/news/2024/03/2…
Image PHILBIN described a phone call with Clark on Jan. 3 — hours before a fateful confrontation in the Oval Office — in which he warned Clark that his preferred outcome would wreak havoc across the country. politico.com/news/2024/03/2…
Image
Mar 26 7 tweets 3 min read
NEW: Jeff Clark's bar discipline proceedings are underway as he fights to save his law license amid charges that he worked with Trump to coerce DOJ — on false pretenses — to sow chaos in the 2020 election.

Richard Donoghue is currently on the stand.

politico.com/news/2024/03/2…
Image Clark contends he's being unfairly targeted for losing an internal policy debate. DOJ ultimately never sent the letter he was proposing to Georgia or other states that would have encouraged legislators to revisit the results of the election.

politico.com/news/2024/03/2…
Image
Mar 21 6 tweets 3 min read
The heavily redacted transcript of a WH valet that was not released by the Jan. 6 committee due to prenegotiated deals with the WH (which are noted in the interview) is now out.

There are a few points worth noting: cha.house.gov/_cache/files/6… 1) Trump told aides on Jan. 6 he wanted to talk to Milley and Pelosi about the National Guard. House Rs say this is important because it shows Trump "made efforts" to do so. But in fact, he didn't talk to them, or to Pence either so ... Image
Mar 19 7 tweets 2 min read
HAPPENING NOW: Peter Navarro is giving a press conference in a parking lot in Miami near the jail he'll be reporting to within the next couple of hours.

"Navarro's going to prison," he said to the cameras. Image NAVARRO misrepresenting the evidence he presented that Trump invoked executive privilege. He claim she presented a "mountain" of direct evidence. He actually presented virtually no direct evidence.

"Fact check me," he keeps saying.
Mar 14 5 tweets 2 min read
BREAKING: THe D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has *denied* Peter Navarro's bid to remain out of jail while he appeals his conviction for defying the Jan. 6 select committee.
Image
Image
This raises the likelihood that Navarro will begin his four-mont prison sentence next week — unless the Supreme Court steps in first.

Earlier:

politico.com/news/2024/03/1…
Mar 12 4 tweets 2 min read
NEW: Donald Trump's lead Secret Service agent informed him — while riding in the SUV — that large swaths of his Jan. 6 rally couldn't pass through security checkpoints because they carried prohibited items, Trump's driver told congressional investigation.
politico.com/news/2024/03/1…
Image -MORE: The driver also:
-Was among the USSS officials whose phones were wiped soon after Jan. 6
-Got a waiver of exec privilege from Biden
-Had testified by Nov. 2022 with another investigating agency (unclear which)

politico.com/news/2024/03/1…
Mar 7 8 tweets 5 min read
JUST IN: Jack Smith has filed a response to Trump's claim that he was entitled to declare the classified docs he took home with him as "personal" records. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
Image The docs Trump stashed at Mar-a-Lago are nothing like Reagan's diaries, Smith argues. He didn't create them and they aren't a reflection of his personal thoughts. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
Image
Mar 5 8 tweets 4 min read
It's remarkable what a fantasy-world these lawyers running Donald Trump's last-ditch effort to overturn the election were living in, even days before Jan. 6. Image CHESEBRO also blamed Pence, just hours after the certification was complete, for giving Trump "false hope" and not squashing the theories about the VP's Jan. 6 power until the last minute. Image
Mar 1 6 tweets 3 min read
JUST IN: The D.C. Circuit has ruled that some Jan. 6 defendants had their sentences improperly lengthened by district judges' decisions to label their crimes "interference with the administration of justice."

documentcloud.org/documents/2445…
Image It's not immediately clear how many cases this will affect. About 330 Jan. 6 defendants have been charged with obstruction. Those who had the 'administration of justice enhancement' and are still serving sentences may now have to be resentenced. Details TK
Feb 29 5 tweets 2 min read
BREAKING: Jack Smith proposes a new Florida trial date of *July 8* Image TRUMP reiterates call to postpone Florida trial until after the 2024 election ... but offers Aug. 12 as an alternative. Image
Feb 28 5 tweets 2 min read
JUST IN: Judge Chutkan sentences Jan. 6 defendant Michael Foy —who assaulted officers with a hockey stick — to 40 months in jail. Prosecutors asked for 97 months but Chutkan scolded them for the “unreasonable” recommendation, which she said ignored Foy’s remorse, honorable service in the marines and lack of criminal history — not to mention lighter sentences for defendants with even worse conduct.