Here’s some speculation that the documents case will be next up for indictments (which is pretty obvious to anyone following all the cases), with a guess that it could happen by the end of the month.
Robert Katzberg, a former federal prosecutor who now focuses on white-collar criminal cases for Holland & Knight, expects we’ll see movement in the Mar-a-Lago case next. “I wake up every morning expecting to see the filing of that indictment,” he told me in an interview. “I’ll be shocked if nothing happens by the end of this month.”
I’d feel more confident an indictment is imminent if Jack Smith had the authority to file indictments. AIUI, he doesn’t have that authority. He’s only going to make a report and recommendations to Garland, who will then make the decision.
So expect a report by the end of the month, but who knows how long Garland will ruminate on it.
“…so long as [Smith’s] actions are consistent with the norms and practices of the Department.”
Maybe that’s just saying that he won’t automatically rubber stamp everything, he needs to have some control, but that might also mean it could run afoul of the “can’t do anything to influence an election” nonsense.
I mean, FFS, it’s one thing to say prosecution shouldn’t derail a campaign. But what if a campaign is being run specifically to derail prosecution?! How is that right?
The existence of an insider witness, whose identity has not been disclosed, could be a significant step in the investigation, which is being overseen by Jack Smith, the special counsel appointed by Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. The witness is said to have provided investigators with a picture of the storage room where the material had been held. Little else is known about what prosecutors might have learned from the witness or when the witness first began to provide information to the prosecutors.
But prosecutors appear to be trying to fill in some gaps in their knowledge about the movement of the boxes, created in part by their handling of another potentially key witness, Mr. Trump’s valet, Walt Nauta. Prosecutors believe Mr. Nauta has failed to provide them with a full and accurate account of his role in any movement of boxes containing the classified documents.
I was just coming in here to post that article. Another bit I found interesting:
The Justice Department investigation has returned repeatedly in recent weeks to a crucial question: Did Mr. Trump instruct Mr. Nauta, or anyone else, to move boxes out of the storage room before the lawyers conducted the “diligent search” of Mar-a-Lago and said no classified records remained at the property?
In interviews recently, the Justice Department has been focused on Mr. Nauta and the help he received from a Mar-a-Lago maintenance worker in moving boxes. They have asked multiple people questions about it, as well as questions about the security cameras and what they did and did not capture. They have asked questions specifically about whether Mr. Nauta was walking to or from the president’s residence on the property, according to a person briefed on the matter.
I agree. It was hard to narrow down the most important points in the article. If Smith’s team is able to establish that records were moved at Trump’s specific behest, then they’ve got him dead to rights on intent.
This is what I was wondering about while reading about all the Mar-a-Lago employees who have been subpoenaed:
Another line of inquiry that prosecutors have been pursuing relates to how Mr. Trump’s aides have helped hire and pay for lawyers representing some of the witnesses in investigations related to the former president. They have been trying to assess whether the witnesses were sized up for how much loyalty they might have to Mr. Trump as a condition of providing assistance, according to people briefed on the matter.
They all need lawyers, even the low-level people, and who’s paying for them?
An interview with former Trump lawyer Parlatore. Apparently Epshteyn caused all kinds of aggravation with the searches. And there are lots of careful words about “document management.”
I’ve long thought that Boris Epshteyn was one of the most dangerous and damaging of Trump’s loyalists. He’s managed to fly substantially under the radar of late.
I recall he was the henchman who was put in charge of trumpeting Trump propaganda aired on Sinclair “News” networks when Sinclair was cleared to take over many of the local news affiliates around the country. Maybe he still does the propaganda pieces, I don’t know. I rarely watch local news, and never a Sinclair affiliate.
In the end, I believe Epshteyn will be a Jack Smith target and hopefully he will go down hard.
Yeah, if Parlatore was the one saying “hey, we should check over at Bedminster to make sure nothing “accidentally” ended up there” and Epshteyn is the one saying NO WE WILL NOT, I’d say Epshteyn is causing more problems than he could possibly be solving.
The subpoena — drafted by the office of the special counsel, Jack Smith — sought details on the Trump Organization’s real estate licensing and development dealings in seven countries: China, France, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Oman, according to the people familiar with the matter. The subpoena sought the records for deals reached since 2017, when Mr. Trump was sworn in as president.
And:
Collectively, the subpoena’s demand for records related to the golf venture and other foreign ventures since 2017 suggests that Mr. Smith is exploring whether there is any connection between Mr. Trump’s deal-making abroad and the classified documents he took with him when he left office.
So it would appear that Smith has probable cause to believe Trump was possibly using the documents as a way to further monetize his business dealings with the named countries.
There has never been anyone ever in the history of this country more evil to occupy the highest office of the land.
This is awesome news, as it answers a long standing question:
“Is no one looking into the obvious with this guy???”
So it’s great news that someone has finally done it, and I hope it ties in nicely to Trump’s obviously nefarious intent with classified information.
Meanwhile, just about half of the people who vote in this country want him to be president again. I will drink more now.
I honestly think the man is so emotionally warped and cognitively stunted that he is unable to grasp the meaning or significance of “state secrets.” There is only that which is useful and valuable to him personally, and everything else which is irrelevant and worthless, and it would be nonsensical for him not to use every opportunity to leverage control of the first category of things to maximize his profit while ignoring every single thing in the second category, because, duh. I genuinely believe that’s the limit of his capacity for understanding.
Yes, but … tick tock Mr. Smith! If you don’t bring serious charges in the next few months, Trump might be president again before he faces justice. And then, of course, there will be no justice.
I doubt there is anyone on the planet more mindful of the “tick tock” than Jack Smith.
In any case, you (and many others) will be pleased to learn that the Wall Street Journal has a new piece out today indicating that Smith is wrapping up the documents probe, just tying up loose ends at this point.
The article – which I have not read because I’m not a WSJ subscriber – purportedly states that the Trump team is now bracing for the indictments, which could come at any time.