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Tag: Jack Smith
Rep. Boyle calls Merrick Garland “weak” after Trump indictment
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Trump lawyers argue for narrower protective order in Jan. 6 case
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Trump lawyers argue for narrower protective order in Jan. 6 case
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Ex-NYPD commissioner Bernard Kerik meets with special counsel investigators in 2020 election probe
Washington — Former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik met with special counsel Jack Smith’s team for about five hours on Monday as part of its investigation into efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, his lawyer Tim Parlatore confirmed.
The interview focused on efforts by Rudy Giuliani, who was previously an attorney for former President Donald Trump, to prove allegations of election fraud in seven states, Parlatore said.
CNN was first to report Kerik’s meeting with special counsel investigators.
Kerik, a Trump ally, was police commissioner under Giuliani when he was mayor of New York City and the two worked together on an effort to identify widespread fraud in the 2020 election.
Despite the allegations pushed by Trump and his allies, state and federal judges dismissed dozens of lawsuits challenging the election outcome, and every state certified its election results.
Kerik turned over thousands of pages of records to the special counsel before Trump was indicted last week for his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
The indictment also described the actions of six unnamed co-conspirators who allegedly schemed with Trump to block the transfer of power to President Biden.
Giuliani’s attorney, Robert Costello, said it “appears” co-conspirator 1 in the indictment is Giuliani. The indictment describes the person as “an attorney who was willing to spread knowingly false claims and pursue strategies that the Defendant’s 2020 re-election campaign attorneys would not” and is someone Trump appointed to “spearhead his efforts going forward to challenge the election results.”
None of the co-conspirators have been charged with any crimes.
During Monday’s interview with investigators, Kerik discussed the scope of Giuliani’s investigation into alleged election fraud and how Giuliani’s team was composed, according to Parlatore. Investigators’ questions had a significant emphasis on the role of Trump’s political action committee and the apparent lack of funding it provided for Giuliani’s efforts, Parlatore said. Kerik told investigators that more funding might have allowed them to run the fraud allegations to ground to determine credibility, the lawyer said.
Parlatore described the interview as friendly and productive.
Catherine Herridge
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What voters think about Trump’s indictment in Jan. 6 case
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Trump’s attorneys argue for narrower protective order in 2020 election case
Washington — Former President Donald Trump’s legal team said only “genuinely sensitive materials” should be shielded from public view in response to a request from special counsel Jack Smith, who asked a judge to limit what evidence could be publicly shared in the case involving Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
In a 29-page court filing on Monday, Trump attorney Todd Blanche and John Lauro argued for a much narrower protective order than Smith had proposed, saying “a less restrictive alternative that would satisfy any government interest in confidentiality while preserving the First Amendment rights of President Trump and the public.”
“In a trial about First Amendment rights, the government seeks to restrict First Amendment rights,” Trump’s attorneys wrote. “Worse, it does so against its administration’s primary political opponent, during an election season in which the administration, prominent party members, and media allies have campaigned on the indictment and proliferated its false allegations.”
The defense team said only material deemed “sensitive” — including grand jury information, material derived from sealed search warrants and personal details — should be blocked from public disclosure as the case progresses.
“President Trump does not contest the government’s claimed interest in restricting some of the documents it must produce, such as those containing Rule 49.1 information and Rule 6 grand jury materials,” the attorneys said, referring to personally identifiable information and grand jury material, respectively. “However, the need to protect that information does not require a blanket gag order over all documents produced by the government. Rather, the Court can, and should, limit its protective order to genuinely sensitive materials.”
Trump is charged with four criminal counts accusing him of trying to thwart the 2020 election results through several schemes that sought to block the transfer of power to President Biden. Trump has pleaded not guilty.
In a court filing last Friday, Smith said he was ready to hand over a “substantial” amount of evidence to Trump’s defense team, but asked U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan to issue a protective order that would bar Trump and his attorneys from improperly disclosing evidence. The government’s proposed order would apply to “[a]ll materials provided by the United States in preparation for, or in connection with, any stage of this case” and would bar their disclosure beyond the defense team, potential witnesses and their attorneys and others authorized by the court.
Smith said restrictions on what evidence could be made public are “particularly important in this case” because Trump has posted on social media about “witnesses, judges, attorneys, and others associated with legal matters pending against him.”
He pointed to a Truth Social post from Trump earlier Friday that said, “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!”
“If the defendant were to begin issuing public posts using details — or, for example, grand jury transcripts — obtained in discovery here, it could have a harmful chilling effect on witnesses or adversely affect the fair administration of justice in this case,” the court filing said.
Trump’s campaign said in a statement Saturday that the Truth Social post was in response to “dishonest special interest groups” and political committees that have attacked him.
Trump’s lawyers also addressed that post in Monday’s filing, saying it “does nothing to support the [government’s] Proposed Order.”
“The government argues that, based on this post, there is a danger that President Trump might publish grand jury transcripts or other sensitive information,” they said. “A provocative claim when searching for
headlines, perhaps, but one that falters under minimal scrutiny.”
The filing argued that the government “does not explain how a post on a different topic, which does not include or describe sensitive information, suggests President Trump might disseminate such information in the future.”
The former president’s legal team had sought more time to respond to the government’s request for a protective order, but Chutkan denied the request, keeping in place a Monday afternoon deadline.
In the hours leading up to the deadline, Trump lashed out at Smith and Chutkan in a series of Truth Social posts.
“I shouldn’t have a protective order placed on me because it would impinge upon my right to FREE SPEECH,” Trump said in one.
How Trump’s legal cases, trial dates will overlap key primary events
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CBS News poll finds after latest Trump indictment, many Americans see implications for democracy. For some, it’s personal
America’s response to this week’s indictment of Donald Trump is providing a window into more than just how Americans view his alleged actions per se — but also into what they think it means for democracy itself.
- Half the nation believes Trump tried to stay in office beyond his term through illegal and unconstitutional means.
- To most Americans, such an effort would mean undermining democracy.
- For them and for a majority of Americans overall, the series of indictments and ongoing investigations against Trump are seen as “defending democracy” and “upholding the rule of law.”
- Just under a third of the country thinks Trump was trying to stay in office through legal, constitutional means — legal, in part because most of them (and including most Republicans) believe Trump’s claim that the election was illegitimate in the first place.
- For most Republicans, the series of indictments are also personal, seeing them as “an attack” on people like them — echoing some of Trump’s rhetoric on the campaign trail.
- And big majorities of Republicans think the indictments are an attempt to stop Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign.
Most Americans generally describe the multiple indictments Trump is now facing as “upholding the rule of law” and “defending democracy.”
Most also think they are an effort to stop Trump’s 2024 campaign, boosted by Republicans who are very likely to think so (but this group actually includes some Democrats, too, perhaps seeing that campaign as a threat to democracy in the same way they see Trump’s actions.)
A closer look at partisan differences
There are more strong party splits over what all these indictments mean. Democrats see it as upholding the law. Republicans see it as a political move, and most Republicans see it personally as an attack on people like them, channeling some of Trump’s campaign points.
There are some differences within the GOP, though: it’s MAGA-identifiers who see the indictments as an attack on people like them. But nearly all Republicans feel the indictments are an attempt to stop the Trump campaign.
Most independents, along with large numbers of Democrats, say that if in fact Trump was trying to overturn an election, that would be undermining democracy.
Opinion here seems related to what people believe about the 2020 election. Those who think Joe Biden was not legitimately elected — mostly Republicans — tend to think Trump planned to stay in office through legal processes, and some of them think he was upholding democracy.
As has been the case since he took office, most Republicans have said they don’t think Mr. Biden was legitimately elected.
Where might this go next?
Concern about an attempted overturn, and concern about political motivations, aren’t mutually exclusive. Many Americans are concerned about both when asked to weigh them.
But for Republicans, we see overwhelming concern more about the perceived politics, just as we did when we asked about the charges and politics after the classified documents indictment.
There’s a group, about a fifth of the country, who aren’t entirely taking party lines in either direction, who do think Mr. Biden won legitimately, and also that Trump didn’t act illegally. Some voice concern the charges are political, but four in 10 of them say that if Trump did try to overturn the election, it would be undermining democracy. So, this would be the group to watch if, in fact, a trial gets underway, but right now, they aren’t paying as much attention to the events.
This CBS News/YouGov survey was conducted with a nationally representative sample of 2,145 U.S. adult residents interviewed between August 2-4, 2023. The sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, and education based on the U.S. Census American Community Survey and Current Population Survey, as well as past vote. The margin of error is ±2.9 points.
Toplines
Anthony Salvanto
Barr says Trump prosecution is “legitimate case” and doesn’t “run afoul of the First Amendment”
Washington — Former Attorney General WIlliam Barr dismissed the argument that the election interference case against former President Donald Trump is not valid because his statements were protected by the First Amendment.
“It’s certainly a challenging case, but I don’t think it runs afoul of the First Amendment,” Barr told “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “From a prosecutor’s standpoint, I think it’s a legitimate case.”
Trump’s legal team argues he was indicted for political speech that was protected by the First Amendment. The indictment itself acknowledges that Trump “had a right, like every American, to speak publicly about the election and even to claim, falsely, that there had been outcome-determinative fraud during the election and that he had won.”
“If that was all it was about, I would be concerned on a First Amendment front,” Barr said.
But Trump’s alleged actions went beyond political speech, he said.
“This involved a situation where the states had already made the official and authoritative determination as to who won in those states and they sent the votes and certified them to Congress,” Barr said. “The allegation, essentially, by the government is that at that point, the president conspired, entered into a plan, a scheme, that involved a lot of deceit, the object of which was to erase those votes, to nullify those lawful votes.”
“The other elements were the substitution of bogus panels — that were not authorized panels — to claim that they had alternative votes,” he said. “And that was clearly wrong and the certifications they signed were false. But then pressuring the vice president to use that as a pretext to adopt the Trump votes and reject the Biden votes or even to delay it — it really doesn’t matter whether it’s to delay it or to adopt it or to send it to the House of Representatives. You have to remember a conspiracy crime is completed at the time it’s agreed to and the first steps are taken. That’s when the crime is complete.”
Special counsel Jack Smith brought four felony charges against Trump last week in the 2020 election interference case, including conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights. Trump has pleaded not guilty.
Barr declined to say whether he was interviewed by the special counsel during the investigation, but said he would “of course” appear as a witness if called.
The former attorney general, who resigned from the Trump administration in December 2020, said he told Trump on at least three occasions that “in no uncertain terms that there was no evidence of fraud that would have changed the outcome.”