That was what Manafort did but, notably, Manafort had a reasonable expectation of a pardon. As it ended up, he tried lying to the court and he got himself into what would traditionally be considered a worse position (i.e. if he didn’t have a pardon hanging in the background).
I would expect that the DOJ offered immunity because:
They have enough information to plausibly prosecute him (but maybe not a slam dunk).
They also have enough information (or a source) to catch him in a lie.
Patel is unlikely to know what they can and can’t catch him on.
Which would lead me to think that they have a source who they think a judge would believe but a jury would not - or a source who might refuse to testify in court. Maybe that person knows what Patel was doing but not Trump, so they can convert the source into a witness more close to the center.
And I would expect that Patel’s lawyer will understand that he doesn’t have a pardon waiting in the rafters and that the DOJ is extending the offer because they can effectively double-check his statements. So it’s down to Patel to listen to his lawyer…or not.
If he’s also a lawyer, he’s probably had it hammered into his head often enough that he should listen to another lawyer, when you’re the one on trial.
One more thing, I’m pretty sure ‘offered’ is the wrong word. I think ‘granted’ is more accurate. This probably isn’t a deal they worked out with Patel.
The court’s decision is under seal, coming after a confidential proceeding where the Justice Department subpoenaed Patel to the grand jury in October. At that time, he declined to answer questions by asserting his Fifth Amendment protection from self-incrimination.
So basically, they tried to get information prior, and Patel went all 5th, and now they’re removing that card. Which also (IMHO, and IANAL) would make claiming “I don’t recall.” a harder sell. After all, if in the prior proceeding you remembered enough to take the 5th, saying you don’t recall now will seem less credible. Not an impossible row to hoe, but will put some large rocks in the way. Especially, if as suggested, there are other, lower level witnesses who have confirmed dirt on Patel, but nothing easily actionable.
I think he’ll do both, whatever serves him best at the time. If the government doesn’t have enough other evidence to prosecute him with, I don’t think a perjury charge is going to dissuade him from lying. He seems to be a serious Trump guy, not just some flunky Trump tossed under the bus.
Going from “We won’t do it” to “We didn’t do it” to “They do it too!” and finally to “We did it because it works, and we are proud of it!”-20 years sounds about right.
Trump lawyers filed a brief to the 11th Circuit in the appeal filed by the Justice Department against Judge Cannon’s jurisdictional authority. It’s more of the same old, same old song and dance. 82 pages of the same tired arguments. Such as:
During his term in office, President Trump exercised his discretion under the Presidential Records Act (“PRA”), 44 U.S.C. § 2201, et seq., to categorize certain records as “Presidential” and others as “personal.” Under the PRA, at the completion of his term, the National Archives and Records Administration (“NARA”) was to assume responsibility for any Presidential records but had no role with respect to records the President categorized as personal.
Those classified documents were personal, dammit! Trump said so! What’s that you say? NARA has rules and regulations and a process for claiming certain records are personal and not subject to the Presidential Records Act? Poppycock! The president has an article 2, he can do anything he wants, and he wants them to be personal. /s
[quote]
People familiar with the deliberations of Attorney General Merrick Garland and his top aides say the AG does not believe it’s his job to consider the political or social ramifications of indicting a former president, including the potential for violent backlash. The main factors in his decision, these people say, are whether the facts and the law support a successful prosecution — and whether anyone else who had done what Trump is accused of doing would have been prosecuted. The sources say Justice Department officials are looking carefully at a cross section of past cases involving the mishandling of classified material.
[/quote[
There’s a lot of Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, in this filing.
Background: Back in 2009 the book The Clinton Tapes by Taylor Branch was released which was based on several taped interviews of Clinton from when Clinton was POTUS.
Around 2010 Judicial Watch sued to get those tapes released by arguing that these tapes were presidential records. The judge dismissed this lawsuit in 2012 stating that the PRA did not apply to personal records (this is explicitly spelled out in the PRA). Somehow in Tom Fitton’s mind this meant that presidents could declare any record personal and take them when they left office.
Not long after the National Archives acknowledged in February that it had retrieved 15 boxes of presidential records from former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, Trump began fielding calls from Tom Fitton, a prominent conservative activist.
Those records belonged to Trump, Fitton argued, citing a 2012 court case involving his organization that he said gave the former President authority to do what he wanted with records from his own term in office.
And…
“The moment Tom got in the boss’ ear, it was downhill from there,” said a person close to the former President, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters.
And if you read that Trump filing you’ll see that the bizarre magic personal declaration theory is at its core and it even cites the Judicial Watch case, several times.
It seems that Trump has been getting bad legal advice from Tom Fitton for almost a year and now he’s making his legal team advance Tom Fitton’s ridiculous argument.
Why, you might ask, isn’t Tom Fitton a member of Trump’s legal team? That’s because Tom Fitton is not a lawyer.
Here’s a good Legal Eagle video detailing some of the difference between Trump and Hillary “but her emails” Clinton.
If you don’t want to watch it, the underlying theme is that Trump intentionally walked off with top secret documents that he knew he shouldn’t have. Hillary’s private server did also contain a few TS (or maybe just confidential) documents but she can very plausibly claim that she didn’t realize it due to the way they were marked (and the nature of email), it’s entirely possible she wasn’t even aware of it.
Also, something else to keep in mind, when this happened to Hillary, she not only cooperated with the DOJ, but she was a government employee holding (at the time) the proper clearances. Trump is none of those things.
Not to mention that he took some of those classified documents and read them to, of all people, Bob Freakin’ Woodward. Then he told Woodward not to tell anyone. . Woodard taped him and released the tapes to the public.
This development didn’t get the attention it deserved, I think it changes the equation. I guess his lawyers could argue that the stuff he read to Woodward wasn’t truly sensitive……but that’s a long way from the previous “well, he just waved the files around and used them as props” excuse that’s been floated.
If I’m not mistaken, a mere postprandial belch by TFG would simultaneously both declassify any and all documents and convey a TS/SCI clearance to Bob Woodward, much as Sidney Powell was accorded hers.
I would totally buy that if all the documents were similar to the letter from Kim Jong-un. Thinking that secrets about other countries nuclear weapons belonged to him seems like a stretch, even for Trump. I think he either had a different reason for keeping those or, since we are talking Trump here, really had no idea what he had taken. He probably just shoveled everything laying around into boxes when he was forced to leave.
Absolutely granted. But while that works (to a degree) on the exhausted mother/father at the end of a long day, let’s hope the DOJ takes a less tolerant view of the subject.
But it does really push home that this would have been at most a misstep that Donnie could have dodged if he hadn’t just kept doubling down on the refusal to cooperate and out-and-out lies about possession.
And while some of the crimes he’s accused of do NOT depend on motive, all the more interesting ones (well for us at least) do… dammit.
