This week, former President Donald Trump is facing increasing legal jeopardy. On Thursday night, federal prosecutors unsealed a superseding criminal indictment in the willful retention of national security secrets case – containing additional charges, including even more obstruction counts, against Trump and a new defendant: Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos de Oliveira. Also yesterday, Trump attorneys met with Special Counsel Jack Smith and other Justice Department officials reportedly to discuss the 2020 election investigation — a sign that many legal experts believe indicates that criminal indictments in the probe are imminent. This is on the heels of news reports that Special Counsel investigators have continued to gather evidence for their probe into efforts to overthrow the 2020 presidential election results that culminated in the January 6 attack. This includes Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office interviewing a number of former officials who reports say have provided details about how much information Donald Trump had about the integrity of the elections while he peddled false voter fraud claims and conspiracy theories. In Georgia, the waiting continues for an indictment, expected in August, by the Fulton County District Attorney as Trump’s legal team continues last ditch efforts to attempt to have her disqualified, despite already facing a unanimous rejection by the state’s Supreme Court. And Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani has admitted that his statements against Georgia election workers meant to undermine confidence in the results were false and defamatory.
Here’s what you need to know for the weekend:
Main Points for the Weekend:
1. Special Counsel meets with Trump attorneys, ahead of unsealing of Mar-a-Lago superseding indictment and following news reports that prosecutors have continued to gather evidence and interview witnesses in 2020 election probe:
On Thursday morning, Trump attorneys met with Special Counsel officials, including Jack Smith, reportedly to discuss the federal 2020 election investigation – a sign that many legal experts have stated indicates that expected criminal indictments could be announced any day now. Later that night, federal prosecutors unsealed a superseding indictment in the Mar-a-Lago criminal case – containing three new “serious charges” against Trump, including obstruction counts such as “attempting to ‘alter, destroy, mutilate, or conceal evidence’”. A new, third defendant also was charged: Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira, who reportedly tried to delete subpoenaed security footage because “‘the boss’ wanted the server deleted”. This is on the heels of reporting that Special Counsel Jack Smith continues to gather evidence and interviews with key witnesses in the 2020 election probe. Chris Krebs, a top election security official, confirmed he has spoken with the special counsel, as other reports have surfaced that Trump was well briefed on the strength of election security and integrity before attacking it months later. Other Trump appointees and allies, including former DOJ official Richard Donoghue and ally Bernard Kerik, have also cooperated or met with the Special Counsel’s office. Georgia Governor Brian Kemp has also been contacted by the special counsel’s office. Meanwhile Trump has lashed out at Smith as “deranged.”
- Top point to make: As we await imminent federal criminal indictments for efforts to overthrow the 2020 election results, the Mar-a-Lago superseding indictment and recent reporting that Jack Smith has been gathering evidence from a number of sources with direct knowledge of just how informed Trump had been of election security is even more proof of the thoroughness of the Special Counsel investigations. As Trump alarmingly continues to lash out at law enforcement on social media, it’s imperative that all accountability proceedings be allowed to continue fairly and peacefully.
- New York Times, 7/25/23, Prosecutors Follow Multiple Strands as Jan. 6 Indictment Decision Looms: Even as the special counsel, Jack Smith, appears to be edging closer toward bringing charges against former President Donald J. Trump in connection with his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, prosecutors have been continuing to investigate multiple strands of the case. In recent weeks, Mr. Smith’s team has pushed forward in collecting new evidence and in arranging new interviews with witnesses who could shed light on Mr. Trump’s mind-set in the chaotic postelection period or on other subjects important to the inquiry. At the same time, word has emerged of previously undisclosed investigative efforts, hinting at the breadth and scope of the issues prosecutors are examining. In the past few days, a lawyer for Bernard B. Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner who worked closely after the election with Mr. Trump’s lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, gave hundreds of pages of documents to prosecutors working with Mr. Smith.
2. Georgia Indictment Decisions Loom
A decision on Trump’s likely indictment in Fulton County, Georgia looms as District Attorney Fani T. Willis has indicated she would seek charges by the middle of August. Trump’s attorneys have once again tried to block the investigation by attempting to disqualify Willis and her office even after the Georgia Supreme Court’s denial of an earlier such attempt. Reporting also indicates that prosecutors in the case are preparing charges including racketeering as part of the attempts to overturn Georgia’s election results in 2020.
- Top point to make: The latest attempts to disqualify Willis by Trump’s legal team are essentially a rehashing of their attempts that the state’s Supreme Court unanimously rejected. Once again, in this instance, the law has prevented subversion of the legal process. While watching the justice system play out so far has been reassuring, we must remain vigilant that no one, even former presidents, is treated as above the law.
- If you read one thing: New York Times: 7/22/23, For Trump and Allies, a Waiting Game as Georgia Indictment Decisions Loom: Two indictments of Donald J. Trump are already in the books, but the outcome of a Georgia investigation into the former president and a number of his allies promises to be strikingly different. While the cases filed by the Manhattan district attorney and the Department of Justice have focused mostly on Mr. Trump himself, a long-running investigation into election interference by prosecutors in Atlanta has cast a far broader net, with nearly 20 people already warned that they could face charges. Fani T. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, Ga., is leading the investigation and has indicated she will seek charges by mid-August. A special grand jury that heard evidence for roughly seven months recommended more than a dozen people for indictments, and its forewoman strongly hinted in an interview in February that Mr. Trump was among them.
3. Giuliani concedes he made ‘false’ statements about Georgia election workers
Trump lawyer and former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani has conceded in court filing that he made false statements about Georgia election workers, defamatory statements that attempted to subvert the public’s trust in the election results and these election workers, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss. But he also wants to retain the ability to argue his false statements were protected speech, denying his statements cause damages to the two.
- Top point to make: Giuliani’s admission that his statements were false and defamatory in nature speak for themselves. And it is yet another example of the Trump team’s blatant and intentional attempts to mislead the public and spread false information about election results as a means to overturning the legitimate 2020 results to hold on to power unlawfully. The brave litigation from Freeman and Moss as well as a DC disciplinary panel recently concluding that Giuliani should be disbarred are encouraging accountability accomplishments, yet we still have a long road to go to ensure that what happened around the 2020 election never happens again.
- If you read one thing: NBC News,7/26/23, Rudy Giuliani concedes he made ‘false’ statements about Georgia election workers: Rudy Giuliani conceded in a court filing Tuesday that he made “false” statements about two Georgia 2020 election workers who are suing him over baseless claims of fraud that he made against them. “Defendant Giuliani, for the purposes of litigation only, does not contest that, to the extent the statements were statements of fact and other wise actionable, such actionable factual statements were false,” Giuliani wrote in a signed stipulation that he said was intended to “avoid unnecessary expenses in litigating what he believes to be unnecessary disputes.”
Expert Voices
Joyce Vance, former US attorney, re: Mar-a-Lago superseding indictment: “The obstruction counts are the real eye-popper in the new version of the indictment. They are new counts 40 and 41, and they put Donald Trump squarely in the middle of efforts, laughably unsuccessful if the matter was any less serious, to destroy security video footage he wanted to keep out of the hands of the grand jury…Next time someone suggests to you that Joe Biden did the same thing Donald Trump did and isn’t being prosecuted, remind them that Joe Biden not only voluntarily returned classified material in his possession, he never orchestrated a conspiracy with his employees to destroy security footage of his efforts to keep that material out of the government’s hands.” Civil Discourse
Harry Litman, former US attorney: “OK, here is the big news. Trump lawyers arrive at DOJ for a final meeting. An indictment will follow in short order” Tweet
Michael Waldman, president and CEO of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law: “Insurrections aren’t built in a day. January 6 was the result of months of planning by a band of election saboteurs, with Trump at its center.” Brennan Center for Justice
Norm Eisen, special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee for the first impeachment of President Donald Trump: “Bernie Kerik’s trove of docs & his upcoming testimony will not alter Jack Smith’s charging timeline[.] But that doesn’t mean Smith won’t use them post-charging against Trump & others” Tweet
Dennis Aftergut, a former assistant U.S. attorney: “[W]e see our court system functioning, as designed, to do justice: It brought Giuliani to the point of admitting the truth. That system will continue functioning so long as lawyers and citizens defend it. Chapter Five of ‘On Tyranny,’ Yale history professor Timothy Snyder’s pithy 2019 handbook for resisting autocracy, urges all of us to speak up for the institutions that protect our freedom.” The Messenger
