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One of Trump’s prominent defenses is that his prosecution is really an improper political attack designed to stop him from being elected President. The Motion described extensive “evidence of collusion” between various Biden agencies, and accused the Special Prosecutor of failing to hand over that evidence of collusion. Here’s how Trump’s Motion described it:
Evidence scattered throughout more than 1.2 million pages of discovery reflects close participation in the investigation by NARA and Biden Administration components such as the White House Counsel's Office, as well as senior officials at DOJ and FBI. These revelations are disturbing but not surprising.
To be clear, the record strongly supports the existence of additional evidence of bias and political animus that is central to the defense of this case and must be produced promptly. This includes evidence of collusion between the Office and the White House, DOJ, FBI, and NARA to use the Presidential Records Act (“PRA”) as a law enforcement tool, and to abuse grand jury procedures, in violation of due process, other constitutional rights, and the executive privilege.
As I predicted last week, the new problems in the Fani Willis case in Georgia is already helping Trump’s other cases. Making a prominent appearance in the Motion to Compel was the Fulton County DA’s office and her high-priced “love bunny” Nathan Wade’s amateurish invoices reflecting his startling meetings with White House lawyers:
The Special Counsel’s Office must produce other evidence of bias, including (1) any communications with members, relatives, or associates of the Biden Administration; (2) communications between members of the Biden Administration and the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office during the course of the investigation that led to this case, including but not limited to records relating to meetings involving Nathan Wade that are substantiated by legal invoices appended to congressional filings; and (3) evidence relating to analytic bias harbored by the Intelligence Community.
Evidence of collusion with the Biden White House — if not outright White House coordination — would blow a crater-sized hole in this case, and probably the other cases, too.
It would make Watergate and even Russia Collusion look like rookie efforts.
As you can imagine, with 68 pages of argument, other potential game-changing claims were snuck into the Motion. One stand out was the apparent fact that Trump held a Q-level top security clearance through 2023 — after the FBI’s raid on his Florida home. Around that time, in 2023, Biden’s administration quietly tried to revoke Trump’s clearance:
On August 15, 2023, the Special Counsel’s Office disclosed an exculpatory Department of Energy memorandum relating to President Trump’s security clearance. Weeks after the Office filed the Indictment, the Energy Department sought to "modify" the inconvenient truth that the agency possessed records showing that President Trump maintained a security clearance.
All information concerning President Trump’s security clearances … is discoverable in light of … charges relating to “unauthorized” and “willful” possession. At minimum, a valid security clearance undercuts that allegation.
In other words, how could Trump have illegally possessed classified materials if he held the highest possible security rating at the time? And then the government’s attempt to surreptitiously erase that inconvenient fact suggests consciousness of guilt.
There’s plenty more. For instance, the Motion complains that Prosecutor Smith’s office redacted thousands of the documents it did hand over, and Trump’s lawyers correctly argued redaction is improper under the rules without a prior enabling court order. So Trump wants unredacted copies, which Smith will not want to turn over.
Court watchers are opining that, at minimum, the discovery battles will result in the trial getting pushed back until after the election. That seems like a fair prediction. For Trump to get a fair trial, he needs the evidence to defend his case. So far, out of all the Trump judges, Judge Cannon has issued the decisions most favorable to Trump, even to the point the liberal media thinks she’s deliberately trying to help the President. ...
The nettlesome problem is that the DOJ’s lawyers were possibly too creative, twisting the financial crimes law into a pretzel-like legal weapon against ordinary citizens who entered the Capitol, and also against Trump for allegedly coming up with the riot idea in the first place. Fischer’s lawyers reasonably argued that an earlier part of the very same Sarbanes-Oxley statute specifically defined the word “corruptly,” limiting that word’s statutory definition to actions that result in the “alteration” (as in shredding) of a document, record, or other object.
Whoops. None of the J6 defendants altered any documents, records, or other objects. They just walked around taking selfies.
If the Supreme Court decides that prosecution under this document shredding law requires proof of alteration of a document, record, or other object, hundreds of J6 convictions would get tossed, and it would rip the beating heart out of Special Prosecutor Smith’s J6 case against Trump. Politico neatly summarized the effects like this:
The impact of Fischer on the Jan. 6 trial against Trump might not be known until after the Supreme Court wraps up its term in June, at which point it could knock out half of Smith’s counts against Trump. And it could also disrupt the convictions of many Jan. 6 defendants already serving time for their role in the insurrection.
Attorney General Merrick Garland is in trouble. Not just with Republicans, but with Biden.
While Republicans are unhappy that AG Garland had been going after Trump and other conservatives, Biden and other Democrats are unhappy at his ineffectiveness.
A Politico report from last month cited White House insiders claiming that if Biden wins, Garland won’t get a second term because he didn’t do enough to insulate the Biden family from investigations and that he didn’t move the Trump investigation along fast enough.
Biden’s people wanted a Trump trial before the election and Garland failed to give them one.
In response to the attacks, AG Garland and his allies have begun releasing information about their Trump efforts in a bid to save their jobs. While that isn’t likely to work, it does show that the “independent investigation” was a myth and that getting Trump had been the DOJ’s top job.
Yesterday, amidst all the fireworks from Britain as its government cracks down on insults and mean language, the New York Times ran a troubling domestic story headlined, “U.S. Investigating Americans Who Worked With Russian State Television.” By “investigating,” the Times meant “raided the homes of,” and I’ll give you one guess which three-letter agency pulled off the raids.
This month, F.B.I. agents raided the homes of Scott Ritter, a former United Nations weapons inspector and vocal critic of American foreign policy, especially on Ukraine, and Dimitri K. Simes, one of President Trump’s 2016 campaign advisors.
No charges were announced against either man.
Citing an anonymous DOJ official, the Times promised more raids are expected soon, and criminal charges “are also possible.” According to the source, the government is considering potential violations of Russian sanctions laws and FARA violations. FARA is a law requiring disclosure of any lobbying for foreign governments, which is only ever charged against conservatives and definitely not people whose first name rhymes with ‘Bunter.’
Proof of lobbying requires proving the defendant got paid. Presumably, evidence of payment is what the FBI is looking for to make its FARA claims stick. Mr. Simes said not only was his home raided, but all his bank accounts except where he gets his Social Security have been frozen. He also said the FBI confiscated all his Russian artwork.
Viewed in the best light, the FBI plans to argue Simes got artwork as payment for criticizing the U.S. government, or something.
For his part, Ritter said he’s only ever been paid for articles he wrote for Russia Today, receiving between $150 and $300 apiece, which he said was the going rate for all contributors. That’s probably why they invoked the specter of sanctions violations as a backup theory.
Just like during the pandemic, it’s more censorship. Two weeks ago, the Director of National Intelligence publicly accused some American citizens of purposely helping Russia influence the elections, by “posting content on social media, writing for various websites with overt and covert ties to the Russian government, and conducting other media efforts.”
But don’t worry! They are only after disinformers:
"The government investigation is not targeting ordinary Americans who watch Russian state media or post about it online, but rather is focused on individuals intentionally spreading disinformation from Moscow, some of the officials said."
The only specific disinformation that the Times identified as being allegedly spread by Russian-influenced Americans were posts “depicting the United States and its allies as a hegemonic power bent on world domination.”
That broad disinformation definition puts C&C right in the crosshairs too. But I will stop accusing the government when it stops being a hegemonic power bent on world domination. Please note that nobody’s paying me for posts, I have no Russian artwork, I don't have Putin's cell phone number, and I have never been to Moscow. No need to raid me.
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