... but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh grand jury indicts on 7 charges, 37 counts, including espionage, obstruction, and making false statements
Trump arraigned in a Miami courtroom
_ _ _
point of clarification
Although, some Republicans, cry foul, and suggest that Trump is being treated differently in this case, than the other high-profile investigations into retained government documents by former elected officials, such as Biden and Pence, however, the indictment explains clearly the difference between this case and the others, to wit:
The Trump case is not about what government documents were taken per se, it concerns what Trump did with the documents he retained after the government sought to have him return the documents, he retained.
In fact and in law, had Trump returned all the documents he retained to the archives, when requested to do so, it is highly unlikely that he would have been charged with any crimes, whatsoever.
He did not, and has been charged, accordingly.
Nothing more, and nothing, less.
_ _ _ _
... fake Rothchild banking heiress, Trump and Lindsey Graham, at Mar-a-Lago ... fear is that Trump, shared his trophies, classified documents, to impress her, and many others
Trump has a $739 million dollar quagmire brewing in Florida
New York Attorney General Letitia James, in September of 2022, filed a civil lawsuit against Donald Trump and the Trump Organization, alleging 'years of financial fraud' and the inflated valuations of 20 properties in his holdings, including Mar-a-Lago.
According to the indictment, Trump valued the Mar-a-lago estate at some $739 million, based on unrestricted residential development rights, despite the fact that Trump had signed those rights away. According to the filing, the property should have been valued at no more than $75 million, a documented inflation of the value of the Palm Beach property by some $664 million dollars.
New York State Attorney General, filed the civil lawsuit in New York state court in Manhattan against Trump and his three adult children, which includes multiple accounts of fraud, accusing them of misstating the value of real estate properties to obtain favorable loans and tax benefits.
Each of the banks and other lending institutions had a fiduciary responsibility to ascertain the accuracy of the valuations on which they made lending decisions, as well as, the existence and truthfulness of any claims, such development rights, which Trump repeatedly stated and claimed falsely that he had for the Palm Beach property, to increase its worth on paper.
Trump indicted, 30 March 2023
... arraigned and arrested, Tuesday, 4 April, in New York City
... daughter Ivanka, who billed the federal government nearly 10 million dollars, for consultancy services, while she was a federal employee working in the White House, which is illegal, said that she was in pain, after she learned that her father had been indicted, while her own indictment, looms
... comments by senator Lindsey Graham, and former vp Mike Pence are simply non-sensical, and are analogous to Bill Barr's interpretation of the Mueller report, before what it actually contained was known
... the evidence presented in his case is against Donald Trump, not Michael Cohen.
Cohen has already been indicted, arraigned, arrested, tried, convicted and jailed, for actions he undertook in coordination with and at the direction of Individual-1, Donald J Trump
Business bookkeeping fraud can also be a misdemeanor, it can also be elevated to a felony, if the false bookkeeping was part of an attempt to cover up another crime.
In the Trump case, Bragg alleges that Trump used his business records to conceal hush-money payments, which amounts to a conspiracy, tax fraud and violations of state campaign finance laws. 'Under New York State law, it is a felony to falsify business records with intent to defraud and an intent to conceal another crime,' Bragg stated at a press conference after the arraignment of Trump.
And that, in essence, is precisely what the case against Trump, is all about.
_ _ _
There are four other criminal referrals against Trump that have been sent to DOJ:
Obstruction of an official proceeding:
The committee found the "whole purpose and obvious effect of Trump's scheme were to obstruct, influence and impede" the joint session of congress on January 6, 2021, to certify Joe Biden's victory
Conspiracy to defraud the US government: Trump "entered into agreements, formal and informal, with several other individuals who assisted him with his criminal objectives" to obstruct a lawful certification of the election
Making false statements to the US government:
The committee believes Mr Trump 'conspired with others to submit slates of fake electors to Congress and the National Archives'
Insurrection:
The committee had developed 'significant evidence' that Mr Trump intended to disrupt the peaceful transition of power as set out under the US constitution
Romney, CNN and Fox, refer to a statement by Trump that the Constitution should be suspended, a milder version of the truth, when, in fact, Trump called for the, and I quote, ' ... termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution '
Trump will be indicted, and threatens violence, again
association between Trump & Elon Musk surfaces, as Musk threatens to pull the plug on Ukraine internet service, as Putin wants the service shut down, and Trump is ever pro-Putin.
Don't be fooled by the very public spat between Musk & Trump, witness Fox, CNN and MSNBC all telling exactly the same story, exactly
putting an end to Twitter, as this gives both Trump & Putin a platform for anti-American activities, and consider the morality of the owners of Twitter, who sold the company to Musk
... it is worth considering that the first thing that happens, when the battle ensues, is that there are casualties, on both sides former Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff E LaMont Gregory MSc Oxon
a federal crime scene
... criminal search warrant executed
If, one wants to filter the news as to what happened on the 8th of August 2022, at a property of a former occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, one ought to pay particular attention to the words and phrases used to describe the events in Palm Beach on that day.
For the most part, the Conservative press and media, Republican conspiratorial politicians and pundits, as well as, the ubiquitous maga crowd, have simplistically parroted the contemporaneous comments by Trump that the Palm Beach property was '... under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents.'
And, of course, the Conservative press and media and their acolytes, refer to the country club and commercial event staging business property in Palm Beach, as a home, just one of the be it ever so humble residences of the Trump family criminal enterprise.
The defining words and phrases for identifying the illiberal media's telling of the story of the events of the 8th of August 2022 in Palm Beach, are reference to the execution of the search warrant as a raid, and the description of the crime scene commercial property as a family residence, a home.
In reality, through the careful process of dotting all and crossing all, which is part and parcel of a federal criminal investigation, it was established that the Palm Beach property was, in fact and in law, a crime scene. And, with proper authorization, the FBI executed a criminal search warrant on that property.
The property had become a crime scene, because Trump had, contrary to law, custom and administrative procedures, taken sensitive material from the White House, which includes documents from the CIA, the National Security Agency and the FBI, which are deemed critical to the national security of the United States, which he had neither the legal right to possess, nor to share with others, who had no legal right to see them.
Trump has a history of treating the top secret documents of the US as trophies
'Oh, by the way, I have a top secret document on my desk that reveals a human resource we have inside ISIS, come on over, and have a look at it, better still your photographer can takes pictures and you can review it later'
Donald Trump revealed highly classified information to Russian foreign minister and ambassador
John King, CNN
Within a few minutes of one another, John King of CNN covered two big news items, i.e., a plot by a foreign government to assassinate John Bolton, and the execution of a criminal search warrant on Trump's Palm Beach property, respectively.
In the first story there was, for John King, a rather thoughtful exploration of the course of the federal investigation into the Bolton assassination plot. Including the fact that the discovery of intercepted signals chatter concerning the plot was not by itself sufficient evidence for the investigators to seek an arrest warrant for the assassination plot chatters.
What the courts did was to authorize the establishment, opening, of a JSOC file, which permits federal investigators to seek more information to ascertain the actual intent behind the signals chatter intercept. Naturally, the first order of business was to secure the safety of the intended target. But what is critical is to understand that the courts wanted a lot more information, which would take time to gather before there were sufficient grounds for filing charges and the issuance of an arrest warrant.
And yet, a few minutes later in the discussion of the criminal search warrant on the Trump property, King, brought on Elie Honig (the subject of a future article), who stated that he just could not understand, if the FBI knew there were sensitive documents at that location, why they did not just go in and get them? Why did they wait?
What can be gleaned from the affidavit for the criminal search warrant, especially from the details of the Justice Department's objections to its complete unsealing, suggests that the courts, as in the Bolton assassination plot, wanted to know a lot more about Trump's intentions vis á vis the hundreds of classified documents, many of them top secret and SCI, including access highly restricted, Special Access Program material.
The court wanted information as to Trump's intent concerning the highly classified documents, and not just conjecture as to what he might do with them, and it took time to develop the kinds of human and technological surveillance wherewithal to answer that question.
It would appear that the investigators developed a list of those individuals, who were either subjects, or in some cases had an adversarial relation to the subjects of the files and documents in Trump's possession that would be most interested in knowing the contents of the various CIA, NSA and FBI intelligence and investigatory files, such as, the files on Lindsey Graham, made public, about his being a conduit of Russian disinformation into the US Senate, among many many others.
For the sake of argument, let us say that the FBI developed for the courts, a list of some 67 different individuals, governments and other non-state entities that investigators surmised would want to know what was in those files, once they knew Trump had them. The number 67, coincidentally is the number of documents marked - Confidential - found in the treasure-trove of classified documents removed from the crime scene, that is, the Palm Beach property in January 2022.
Beginning nearly a year and a half ago, FBI investigators observed that a few of the subjects, and adversaries of the subjects of the documents, visited the crime scene, but given their relatively small numbers initially, those visits could be considered random occurrences or merely coincidental.
It speaks to Trump's consciousness of guilt that he began liaising with those who were the subjects of documents marked 'confidential' in the first instance, since these documents, to his thinking, albeit erroneous, would arouse the least blowback from federal agencies and authorities, who wanted the material returned, with whom he was in discussions. Discussions, which again, Trump mistakenly interpreted as transactional, that is, in the end he would be able to return some of the documents, and keep others.
However, as the number of those, identified for the courts, in advance, that would have particular interests in the files and documents increased over time, during which time investigators not only increased their number of human intel assets, especially those whose rapport with Trump was such that they were free to return to the scene of the crime, but also began to intercept and surveil the couriers, that is, the men and women who passed information from Trump on to the subjects, and adversaries of the subjects of the files he had.
Eventually, or perhaps inevitably, the numbers grew to include a significant number of those whom the FBI had identified, in advance, as most likely to be interested in gaining access to what information about them and their foes were in those files, for which by this juncture, coincidence and random occurrence could no longer prove an acceptable explanation. Some of whom, when confronted by the FBI with the evidence that they had seen classified documents and in doing so had committed espionage against the United States, by unlawfully gaining access to that classified materials. Some of those individuals became material witnesses, whose identity will not be revealed in the redacted unsealed affidavit to be released in a few days from now (this writing 25 August 2022).
No matter how much the Conservative press and media would like to assist Trump in identifying the human intelligence sources.
The null hypothesis, the scientific basis on which the presumption of innocence rests under American jurisprudence, which would have been constructed as a guide to proof in the Palm Beach case, served its exacting purpose, yet again.
Elie Honig was not brought into the discussion, because he could add an independent or even an inquisitive contribution, but merely to offer supportive comment to the scenario that King had decided to push. And, as will be shown in a separate article, Honig is all too often, all too willing and eager to oblige the provision of supportive commentary, whenever he is called upon to do so, and will offer the point of view requested of him, even opposing ones, and do so rather enthusiastically.
There are a number of individuals, who went to Palm Beach to see documents that they were not entitled to know that they even existed, shown to them by a life-long grifter, who would trade the national security interests of the United States, for considerations, which is by definition, espionage.
Trump's passport must never be returned to him, and all the travel documents of his 40ish adult children, and son-in-law must be revoked, forthwith.
How did his son, Eric, know that the safe was empty, and what did he know about its contents when it was not empty, and when did he know it?
completely eviscerated
Trump's assertions, claims and statements that he cooperated with federal officials over the return of government-owned documents, documents which fingerprint evidence shows he personally reviewed, were completely eviscerated by the facts concerning the interactions between Trump and federal authorities, revealed in a court filing by the Department of Justice.
It should not escape notice, how careful federal authorities have been, to date, not to reveal any information that would tie Trump to passing classified information on to Russia, but it would not be the first time. Remembering, Trump shared classified material, including material that revealed human intelligence assets, directly to Russia officials, during a White House visit.
Nuclear secrets were found among the documents that Trump had on several occasions been asked to return to their rightful owners, that is, the government of the United States. Not only had Trump been given multiple opportunities to simply return the government documents, but he had lied in response to a subpoena, to which he replied that all of the documents had been returned, when the government was given a small pile of documents in June. The written statement composed by one of Trump's lawyers and signed by another one, was a lie. Lies to government officials and agencies constitute obstruction.
And, Trump and his people, know all about obstruction, as it is the charge of obstructing an official proceeding that will ultimately bring most of the insurrectionists into the courts to stand charges.
... fake Rothchild banking heiress, Trump & Lindsey Graham. ... fear is that Trump, shared his trophies, classified documents, to impress her, and many others
Trump lied about having nuclear secrets, and that lie constitutes obstruction of justice
In the subpoena issued to Trump, as a final effort, before requesting a search warrant from the courts, the DOJ specifically made reference to the existence of documents with a S/FRD classification that were being kept illegally at the Palm Beach property.
Trump denied having any documents with a S/FRD classification at the Palm Beach property.
The S/FRD classification designates a category of highly secret information concerning nuclear weapons and nuclear defensive and offensive capabilities.
In perspective, S/FRD documents involve highly guarded secrets, which even very few senior national security officials can see, or even know that they exist.
When specifically asked, Trump denied, and in writing that he had any such material at the Palm Beach property.
It should also be noted that Trump, when no news of the DOJ having found nuclear, S/FRD classification documents, emerged immediately after the search warrant was executed, Trump boasted publicly that the DOJ had not found any nuclear files and therefore, the whole search warrant was a bogus witch hunt, being propagated by the evil liberal news media, and Democrats who had weaponized the criminal justice system. On reflection, perhaps Trump was actually comparing these events to the affairs in which Trump and Barr involved themselves. The Michael Cohen re-incarceration incident, severs as a splendid example.
An entourage of maga-Republicans parroted Trump's assertions, claims, and lies. Some of whom are material witnesses to the crimes committed at espionage-a-lago.
In addition, there is genuine fact-based concern that Trump, in order to impress the fake Rothchild banking heiress, showed her some of his trophies, that is, secret documents belonging to the United States government. And, as we are learning Trump also did so with some of his more important patrons, as well as, with the friends of his children.
This is in addition to the parties from which he sought considerations in exchange for access to the highly secret documents and files.
But as we become aware increasingly about the sordid affairs that went on at espionage-a-lago, it is noteworthy that Trump, Lindsey Graham and the horde of Trump acolytes involved were actually responsible for running the Government of the United States.
In fact and in law, Trump lied about having nuclear secrets, and that lie constitutes obstruction of justice.
Trump threatens violence, when he is indicted, and he will be indicted
... it is worth considering that the first thing that happens, when the battle ensues, is that there are casualties, on both sides former Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff
For those who have been led to consider an alternative reality to what happened at Appomattox Court House on the 9th of April 1865, those individuals will not consider that Lee surrendered, and asked all those who wore the grey uniform to destroy them, and that no one should visit his grave wearing one of those uniforms.
Lee, like Trump, did not win, he was defeated, he lost.
Trump will not demonstrate the dignity and grace that the insurrectionist Lee did, to the contrary, he and his fellow fanatics and racist insurrectionists have threatened violence, when the now inevitable happens, as Trump will be indicted, multiple times.
There is a broadcast currently airing entitled - While the Rest of Us Die - which those who would benefit the most by watching it, never will.
Because, if the maga mob did watch it, some of them just might come to realize that they have been useful idiots, a fanatical racist mob, all to allow the grifter Trump's, Murdoch's and Koch's', to enrich themselves, by peddling influence and lies for money.
And the losers and suckers have poured money into the grifters' coffers. Some of those coffers were never actually anything other than a get-rich-quick scheme for the organizers, like the Bannon fake wall building enterprise. Not to forget that Trump himself changed one time donations to his, whatever, into multiple recurring donations, without the consent of the losers and suckers who donated to the grifter-in-chief.
The money Republicans donate to the party, somehow is diverted to pay Trump's legal bills, which are only growing and increasingly used to file frivolous delay-tactic lawsuits, which serve the purpose of only delaying the inevitable, and those delays are now at an end. It is put up, or shut up time, and the fraud, liar and cheat that Trump is, will now grow silent.
And now the loser, liar-in-chief, is suing the other media network that helped him perpetuate his psychosis, Fox News. Remember it was NBC that launched Trump into reality-cruelty tv.
The loser has now filed a defamation law suit against none other than Fox News, which is owned, parents pay attention, by Disney, that is, the source of fantasy for children, and fantasy for adults. Although some of the corporation assets are still in Murdoch's hands. I wonder how Hannity will crawl back into Trump's good graces, and do not lose sight of the fact that Scarborough fully intended to be part of the espionage-a-lago crowd, with his partner, who is the daughter of a executive branch adviser who thought the US was too democratic.
Although their numbers are dwindling, yes, there are still more losers and suckers, as Trump called those who gave the last full measure of devotion to preserve the tenets of the American Republic, who having gone this far and having very little left to lose by marching onto the front lines against law enforcement and wind up in jail, or worse. And, be fined into bankruptcy, which seems fitting that their moral bankruptcy should be matched by financial ruin.
Don't worry, the money Trump has stashed away, that is, your generous donations to whatever, will not be used to attempt to save you and your family, and history will brand your prosperity as the descendant's of traitors, and purveyors of racist mob violence.
But don't worry, even the Republican Nicole Wallace of MSNBC, now uses the Republican chant that whatever Biden says, he touts or is touting. And, Hannity, the racist cheer leader cannot but sit and look stupid while Trump, who is increasingly psychotic spins another fantastic yarn, about how he is the victim of racism. Perhaps, he has forgotten the saga of the Central Park Five, but Hannity has not.
In another defamation law suit against Fox News, including specifically, Hannity, Ingram and Carlson, the Fox News lawyers defending Tucker Carlson, stated in court, that Tucker Carlson lied so much that no one took him seriously, and therefore his, obviously tongue-in-cheek approach to news storytelling, was not taken seriously by anyone, whatsoever. And therefore, his albeit odd brand of humor, was just that humor, which no one takes seriously. Well, lying all the time about everything, could make him a disgraced, one time president.
Just consider the mental stability of the leaders of Hungary and Russia, who welcomed Carlson's lie-ridden brand of odd humor onto their airways.
And how interesting it is to hear rural farming Americans chastise Biden on the student debt forgiveness initiative, while they are still living on the money Trump poured into their private accounts when he lost the trade war with China, and China stopped buying their farm goods. Was that money a loan, or welfare?
It was that money that has bought the kind of mindless mob behavior, and the oft repeated chant about how much they like Trump's policies. Free money is not a policy. This is a story Alex Witt and her 'southern heroes' comment about what happen in Charlottesville will not cover. After all Trump told us how easy it would be to win a trade war with China. Trump lost the trade war, and then gave farmers more money than they made selling to China, for doing nothing, but praising Trump, and giving him back part of the money, which they did, and are still doing. A Ponzi scheme to funnel taxpayer money back to Trump.
The disgraced, and yet to be disbarred, Barr, asks why are they going after Trump's children. Ivanka Trump received millions of dollars in consultancy fees, while on the federal payroll, which is illegal. Mitch McConnell's wife was a cabinet member, while he was in the senate that legislates that department's affairs, and one of them is going to have return the sum total of their salary to the US Treasury. Of course, the brave and gallant senator, will say, ladies first.
And, one of the 40ish adult children's spouse, Jared Kushner, was just fined 3.25 million dollars by the State of Maryland, for extorting money from tenants that they did not owe, and maintaining horrific slum conditions, including mold and rodent infestation, in his Maryland properties, conditions rarely seen in any rental housing properties in the modern era, in all of the US.
Imagine, if you will, just how cruel and debasing the conversations were, between Kushner, his father-in-law, and Stephen Miller.
It is worth noting that not long ago presenter Chris Hayes of MSNBC had a female reporter on his show who had done extensive investigative journalism work on Jared Kushner's New York rental properties, and stated on air that Kushner had used threatening letters from lawyers to extort money from his tenants that they did not owe. Hayes cut her off and made a joke about New York realtors. It would appear that what the Maryland authorities found is a well worn pattern of the Kushner practice of extortion.
This is the same Chris Hayes who said that the richest African American was worst off than the poorest white in America, go figure. If, it was not senseless diatribe, Hayes's book about a colony within a nation, that is, to paraphrase, 'how I, Chris Hayes, was shocked to discover people of colour in the Bronx,' might be worth reading.
No wonder the disgraced former attorney general, Barr, is so concerned about the New York authorities going after, think about it, the former attorney general of the US, uses language about the government going after people. I guess the ghosts of his going after Cohen, are ever on his mind. Well, Barr was on Fox fanatic news, which now serves as a sort of confessional for fallen maga Republicans, including their own presenters.
So, the maga fanatics, demagogue and mob, are threatening violence, which is itself a crime.
A former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a great one, reminded a group of military academy graduates about to be sworn into their duties in the Department of Defense, that while he acknowledged that they were well steeped in the art of war, and capable of leading troops into battle, it should be remembered that the first thing that happens, when the battle ensues, is that there are casualties, on both sides.
Threats of violence will not deter the fair and equal enforcement of the laws of the United States of America, will they Attorney General Garland?
... It's the documents that Trump still has that are the most revealing & damning
To introduce this section, kindly consider that Spicer was a serving Naval Officer, when he stood before the American people, as press spokesperson for the administration and consistently lied.
The investigation into the illegal removal of government documents by Spicer's boss, has involved contact with the attaches and other intelligence couriers, who conveyed the documents from their respective agencies to the White House or to the Executive Office Building. The mention that classified documents were shared with members of the administration in the Executive Office Building, just sent shivers up and down the spines of those who saw them there, since no previous mention of that fact has been reported.
Some of those who were due to return documents they signed out, or in some cases spirited away from their agencies simply because they had discovered information damaging to Trump and removed the documents to share them with him, have been as truthful with DOJ investigators as Spicer was with the American people.
Wearing the uniform does not equate to adherence to the high standards and principles that the oath the uniform wearer's took would outwardly seem to make automatic, especially the ones who see themselves as white first and above all else, and adherence to the tenets of the American Republic, come as a distant second, if at all. Flynn comes to mind, and consider that Kelley within weeks of leaving the White House was part of a group in Florida that billed the government $357 a day for keeping children in cages. The 'never again club' of military leaders is slowly but surely making its way to breaking news status.
With that in mind, brace yourself as the content of the documents that Trump is still trying to keep are revealed. Naturally, as can be expected, Trump does not want the intelligence concerning his relations with certain foreign governments, both pre-presidency and during, splattered on the front page of the New York Times, but try as he may to prevent it, that day is coming.
The Qatar boycott and blockade Trump helped orchestrate when certain Qatari's failed to help his son-in-law with nearly 700 million due on his Fifth Avenue property came due, is future headline material. Just how did Kushner, who could not obtain a security clearance thru the regular process of checks and double checks, come up with the money?
But, even his most diehard supporters, and this is a day no one saw coming this soon, will feel a sense of shame, when the depth of the access to America's secrets and with whom they were shared and traded becomes public knowledge.
And Cannon, the judge who traded integrity for a show of loyalty to the illiberal Trump, her days of continued tenure on the bench are, and rightfully so, numbered.
Six months before November 2020 election, Roger Stone bragged that no matter what happened the plan was to deny the outcome of every state election Trump lost
A few days after the election Trump is recorded on tape, saying, 'I can't believe that I lost to that effing guy, and that he did not want his people to know that he lost the election
And, believe it or not, there are still candidates claiming the election was rigged against Trump, they just can't come to grips with the fact that they are just useful idiots