Trump Indictment ( includes NY AG and Fed documents case ) (1 Viewer)

[SteveSBrickNJ]

Former President D. Trump has been indicted by a New York Grand Jury. There will be much to talk about on this topic because this is just the first step in a lengthy process.
Possibly it is worthy of its own thread here rather than posting about Trump's indictment in already existing threads?
*
This 3/31/23 story might get the ball rolling....
*

Manhattan’s DA wanted a Friday Trump arrest. Trump’s team said no.

Secret Service needed more time to prepare, according to the ex-president’s legal team.

www.yahoo.com

 

[MT15]

Yeah, he lied about that.

I've been in government where there was lots of classified information. In government, people don't write classified documents and forget to mark them classified so they appear non-classified until they are recovered from someone's private server. It doesn't happen. Government is much more classification happy than wanting to leave off markings.

We used to fill out a daily SITREP that was classified only when the form was filled out (early '80s). But it was pre-marked CLASSIFIED, lest it contain classified information without being marked even for a moment.

We had to keep the blank forms in a safe. If I had left a blank form laying on my desk over night, I would have been reprimanded. If I had made a copy of a filled out form, but covered the "CONFIDENTIAL" when I copied it and then taken it to my room, I'd have been put under the jail.

What about the name change idea? I don't want to keep answering questions about snarky vs. not snarky? If you don't disagree, I'll make the change tonight, so as not to confuse people.

That’s not proof - Comey directly contradicts what you have been saying on here for 2 days. Explicitly. And your response is - he is lying? You are truly a lost soul. You have zero debating game.

The 2000 odd emails were NOT considered classified at the time they were out on the server. They were up-classified after the fact by the agency they referenced when the FBI had each agency who was involved in each email review the email.

‘Change your name or not - makes no difference to me.

 

[FullMonte]

Yeah, he lied about that.

I've been in government where there was lots of classified information. In government, people don't write classified documents and forget to mark them classified so they appear non-classified until they are recovered from someone's private server. It doesn't happen. Government is much more classification happy than wanting to leave off markings.

Haven't you repeatedly said that Hillary told her aide to strip the classification markings off of a document and email it to her? Are you now saying that can't be done?

 

[Snarky Sack]

Continuation of Comey‘s statement:

Pay attention Sack, here is where your assertion that Clinton deleted emails falls apart. Her lawyers (officers of the court) sorted her emails, even so, the FBI was able to recover some of the deleted emails.

“It could also be that some of the additional work-related e-mails we recovered were among those deleted as “personal” by Secretary Clinton’s lawyers when they reviewed and sorted her e-mails for production in 2014.

The lawyers doing the sorting for Secretary Clinton in 2014 did not individually read the content of all of her e-mails, as we did for those available to us; instead, they relied on header information and used search terms to try to find all work-related e-mails among the reportedly more than 60,000 total e-mails remaining on Secretary Clinton’s personal system in 2014. It is highly likely their search terms missed some work-related e-mails, and that we later found them, for example, in the mailboxes of other officials or in the slack space of a server.

It is also likely that there are other work-related e-mails that they did not produce to State and that we did not find elsewhere, and that are now gone because they deleted all e-mails they did not return to State, and the lawyers cleaned their devices in such a way as to preclude complete forensic recovery.

We have conducted interviews and done technical examination to attempt to understand how that sorting was done by her attorneys. Although we do not have complete visibility because we are not able to fully reconstruct the electronic record of that sorting, we believe our investigation has been sufficient to give us reasonable confidence there was no intentional misconduct in connection with that sorting effort.”

With that, I am truly done. You don’t know what you are talking about when you start in on Clinton. It’s just that simple. You are trolling or you are not able to read for comprehension. I don’t think you are stupid and your admission that you are enjoying this back and forth - which isn’t a good faith enjoyable discussion - tends to make me think you might be trolling.

Trolling is a horrible accusation to make. Not accepting everything MT15 says as truth is not "trolling."

Even your own quote with a bold phrase that you believe should settle it and make me a troll if I'm not convinced, has a disclaimer, that I highlight in green, a notice that the statement is a belief, not a fact, that I highlight in purple, an adjective that diminishes "confidence" that I highlight in red, and a weasel word that I highlight in orange.

We have conducted interviews and done technical examination to attempt to understand how that sorting was done by her attorneys. Although we do not have complete visibility because we are not able to fully reconstruct the electronic record of that sorting, we believe our investigation has been sufficient to give us reasonable confidence there was no intentional misconduct in connection with that sorting effort.”

"no intentional misconduct?" What other kind is there?

If Comey was sincere in what you think that statement means, he would have said. "There was no misconduct in connection with the selection of documents to be either returned to the government or destroyed." Those long sentences are intended as cover for him to appear to say what he would not say.

 

[Snarky Sack]

The charges don't specify classified documents. Exactly. The law being charged does not deal with classified documents.

Fair point.

Fair point. Quick question, though...When did the Special Counsel or his team ever say that this case was about classified documents?

I don't know that the special counsel did. He's done a good job of not speaking publicly about it. I don't know whether the leaks have come from his office or elsewhere.

But surely you remember this picture that the FBI gleefully gave to the media?

Remember all the talk of how "we finally got him?" Now you say that classified or not has nothing to do with the charges? Technically, you're right. But the jury won't buy that.

It reminds me of the scene in "A Soldier's Story," where the Sergeant tells the hapless defendant, "we're changing the charges on you."'

And, are you suggesting that public statements made by ANYONE prior to the case being brought are somehow supposed to be used by the jurors? I thought the jury was only supposed to make a decision based on the fact presented in the case.

Yes, and the justice system is not supposed to be weaponized against a candidate for president, no matter how hated and feared by the staff that chooses to abuse its power.

It happens though. It happened to Trump. The registered voters of Florida, who will make up the jury pool, will not forget that it happened.

Crossfire-Hurricane will butt area all of the government's efforts against Trump, no matter how well-founded in law they may or may not be.

 

[Snarky Sack]

Haven't you repeatedly said that Hillary told her aide to strip the classification markings off of a document and email it to her? Are you now saying that can't be done?

No. Not unless this is another convoluted interpretation by you. If so explain and I'll try not to roll my eyes.

I said that people in government don't write classified documents without putting classified marking on them.

The documents that Hillary had marking stripped from, were not written by her. She may well have written plenty of documents like emails that had classified in them that she didn't mark. But ordinary people in government - i.e. not named Clinton - don't do that, not without risking consequences, anyway. Comey himself said that about Clinton's actions:

To be clear, this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences. To the contrary, those individuals are often subject to security or administrative sanctions.

Hillary knew a way to strip classified markings off of documents prior to faxing. Her instructions on how to do it are still redacted to keep everyone from knowing how. Taking them off of emails should be easier since they are electronic.

 

[Optimus Prime]

As court officials set up barricades and police tape around the Miami courthouse where Donald Trump is due to be arraigned on Tuesday afternoon, police officials sought to assure local residents they would safely handle any protests.

“Make no mistake about it, we’re taking this event extremely seriously, and there’s a potential for things to take a turn for the worse,” said the city’s police chief, Manuel Morales, adding “but that’s not the Miami way.

“We’re bringing enough resources to handle crowds, anywhere from 5,000 to 50,000,” he added. “We don’t expect any issues. We’re ready. Ready for it to be over and done.”

Miami’s mayor, Francis Suarez, also said he was confident the city’s police will be able to handle the crowds and any protests if they occur as Trump is due to be booked and brought before a judge on federal criminal charges.

“I have full faith and confidence our police will have the right action plan and resources in place,” Suarez said during the news conference. “We are prepared for what will happen tomorrow.”……

‘We’re ready’: Miami police prepared for Trump arraignment

Police chief says department taking Trump court appearance ‘extremely seriously’ and that it can handle crowds of up to 50,000

www.theguardian.com

 

[Snarky Sack]

That’s not proof - Comey directly contradicts what you have been saying on here for 2 days. Explicitly. And your response is - he is lying? You are truly a lost soul. You have zero debating game.

We're giving our opinions here about what happened. Yes, Comey is completely capable of lying and I believe that he did in that case.

The 2000 odd emails were NOT considered classified at the time they were out on the server. They were up-classified after the fact by the agency they referenced when the FBI had each agency who was involved in each email review the email.

No, they were discovered to be classified and to mysteriously lack classification markings. The information did not change while it was in the server, nor was a bunch of previously unclassified material changed to classified.

‘Change your name or not - makes no difference to me.

Ok, I'll do it.

I think it will help.

 

[MT15]

Trolling is a horrible accusation to make. Not accepting everything MT15 says as truth is not "trolling."

Even your own quote with a bold phrase that you believe should settle it and make me a troll if I'm not convinced, has a disclaimer, that I highlight in green, a notice that the statement is a belief, not a fact, that I highlight in purple, an adjective that diminishes "confidence" that I highlight in red, and a weasel word that I highlight in orange.


"no intentional misconduct?" What other kind is there?

If Comey was sincere in what you think that statement means, he would have said. "There was no misconduct in connection with the selection of documents to be either returned to the government or destroyed." Those long sentences are intended as cover for him to appear to say what he would not say.

Yes, trolling is a terrible accusation. It’s not made because you don’t believe me, it’s made because you ignore basic facts and continue to make assertions based on who knows what, because you don’t source much.

No, that’s ridiculous about what Comey said. That’s simply lawyer speak on the investigation. He uses the word intentional because that is the legal standard in the statute at that time. If you had read the statement you would know that. The classified material has to be mishandled intentionally.

Fun fact - Trump was so mad that Clinton‘s mishandling didn’t rise to the level of illegality according to the statutes at the time that he asked Congress to make the penalties more severe early in his term. And those more severe penalties are what he is facing today.

The 2,000 some emails were not classified at the time Clinton was using them - they were up-classified after the investigation began and the FBI was handling them. All of those were up-classified to Confidential. So your statement that she had “thousands” of classified emails on her server is false, unless you are willing to count emails that were changed to “confidential” after the fact during the investigation. Comey explains this in detail in his statement. In fact, this is probably an example of government over-classification like you said - and it’s manifestly unfair to accuse Clinton of mishandling classified material that wasn’t classified when she was handling it.

Since you didn’t read the statement here is another salient excerpt:

“I should add here that we found no evidence that any of the additional work-related e-mails were intentionally deleted in an effort to conceal them. Our assessment is that, like many e-mail users, Secretary Clinton periodically deleted e-mails or e-mails were purged from the system when devices were changed. Because she was not using a government account—or even a commercial account like Gmail—there was no archiving at all of her e-mails, so it is not surprising that we discovered e-mails that were not on Secretary Clinton’s system in 2014, when she produced the 30,000 e-mails to the State Department.”

So facts: Clinton didn’t delete any emails - her lawyers did as they were instructed to do in a customary matter. Just as I said. The decommissioning of equipment was done in a routine manner. Just as I said.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Donald Trump’s supporters and many Republican officials contend that the former president is the target of a politically weaponised justice system that has ignored similar alleged crimes committed by his rivals.

“Lock her up” chants directed at Hillary Clintonstill dominate GOP rallies. House Republicans have launched committees to investigate the sitting president and his family.

But in classified documents cases involving President Joe Biden and former vice president Mike Pence, both men cooperated with federal law enforcement and returned those records. Ms Clinton was not found to have deliberately mishandled classified information or obstruct justice in the recovery of communications.

Mr Trump, according to prosecutors, did exactly that. A federal indictment details the alleged coordination among Mr Trump, his aides and attorneys to bring documents to his Mar-a-Lago property and, later, conceal them from law enforcement when US officials sought their return……

Why Trump’s indictment can’t compare to cases involving Biden, Pence and Clinton

Former president’s alleged attempts to hide documents and lie to law enforcement and a grand jury about them are at the centre of a 37-count indictment against him, writes Alex Woodward

www.independent.co.uk

 

[Optimus Prime]

 

[Snarky Sack]

Well, since the grand jury that issued the indictment and charges was from Florida, I'd say that it's possible to get a conviction.

Prosecutors, are reputed to be able to get grand juries to indict a ham sandwich, due to the one-sided nature of grand juries. Other than that decent evidence that it is "possible."

My training in rhetoric is to state my opinion as if it were fact, not hedge or say "I believe." That was freshman English in the '80s. Allah knows what they are teaching them now.

Also, it's telling that in your hypothetical, you acknowledge a Trump supporter ignoring the evidence and deciding to not convict. Nowhere in your hypothetical did you even imply that the Trump supporter was the only one who saw the evidence and realized that Trump was innocent, and it was the "get trump" folks who were wrongfully trying to convict him.

That was not the point of that particular hypothetical. Although I will say that a Trump supporter would be more likely to fairly consider the evidence that Team Trump will present and come to the conclusion that Trump is indeed innocent.

If your first thought was "what evidence could Team Trump possibly present" you are in for some surprises. We all are in for surprises, but if your attitude is "what evidence," you will be surprised to be surprised.

Your own hypothetical is a hung jury because one Trump supporter wouldn't vote to convict because Hillary wasn't prosecuted.

Yes, that was the point I was making.

Legally it means little to a jury that they did not prosecute Hillary. That would only come up legally if he were convicted and appealed claiming some kind of prosecutorial misconduct. If somehow a Trump Team person mentions Hillary during the trial, I'm guessing the judge will correct him, strongly.

But the jury? They won't be ignorant of the Hillary non-prosecution. You seem to know the law, so what's your opinion on this question: Should the judge admonish the jury that they are not to take the Clinton non-prosecution into account? Or would that just put the idea into some of their heads, some of the independent voters on the jury.

How many Trumpers would you guess would be on the jury? If 70% of Floridian Rep voters support Trump against their own governor, and Reps are at least half of Florida voters, then that is 35% of the jury pool. If the final jury is representative that means right at 4 of the 12 jurors and the same fraction of alternates, however many they need.

Is my math or my logic wrong?

Much like all of the other Trump supporters out there, you will look for any defense of Trump except for "Trump is innocent," "None of this seems like something Trump would do," etc. It's always about political motivation, election interference, etc.

Having been told over and over that this case was about keeping classified documents, I have always thought that he was by strict interpretation of the law likely guilty, with the defense hanging on any claim of having de-classified the documents.

By the same strict standards, Clinton was guilty, Pence was guilty, and Biden was guilty. They have not been prosecuted because the DOJ/FBI doesn't mind if any of them become president. That's not the American Way. Or at least it isn't supposed to be.

As far as these new charges, I don't know enough about the evidence to say that he is guilty.

I'll say this and then I have to stop for the night: some of those four Trumpers on the jury will barely pay attention to the trial. They will be thinking, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah, military documents, whatever. Trump was doing a great job for four years. Slowed down illegal immigration, kept gas prices down, didn't get us in no new wars. COVID sucked but he handled it as well as he could with all the lies Fauci told him. He'd have done even better if the DOJ/FBI/DNC hadn't spent the whole time hounding him. I hope this ends soon, so he can get the job back and clean up Bidumb's mess.'

That's exactly how Clinton supporters talked during his legal troubles. When the blue dress came out and it was obvious that Clinton had lied to them and lied under oath and was indeed having sex with a much younger subordinate, his approval rating among Democrats did not suffer a whit.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Former president Donald Trump spent much of the day before his first appearance as a criminal defendant in federal court in search of experienced legal representation, but without much in the way of results.

Mr Trump, who departed on Monday afternoon from the resort in Bedminster, New Jersey, where he primarily resides during the summer months to travel to Miami aboard his bespoke Boeing 757, has spent much of the last year and a half cycling through a rotating cast of criminal defence attorneys as he has contended with the Department of Justice probe that resulted in his unprecedented indictment under the Espionage Act last week.

Two of the more experienced criminal defence lawyers in his stable, James Trusty and John Rowley, quit the ex-president’s team on Thursday, just hours after a Florida grand jury voted to charge him with 37 separate counts stemming from alleged violations of the Espionage Act and other portions of the US criminal code.

Another lawyer, Timothy Parlatore, left Mr Trump’s employ roughly a month ago, citing conflicts with a longtime aide to the ex-president, Boris Epshteyn.

Yet another of the criminal defence attorneys who once represented Mr Trump in the documents probe, Evan Corcoran, had to step away from that role in the wake of a court ruling ordering him to give evidence against the ex-president before a grand jury and turn over notes and recordings he’d made, citing a rarely-used exception to the attorney-client privilege used in case where an attorney’s advice is found to have been used to commit crimes.……..

Trump struggles to find new defence counsel as Miami arraignment looms

Trump has spent much of the last year and a half cycling through a rotating cast of criminal defence attorneys

www.independent.co.uk

 

[FullMonte]

Fair point.

I don't know that the special counsel did. He's done a good job of not speaking publicly about it. I don't know whether the leaks have come from his office or elsewhere.

But surely you remember this picture that the FBI gleefully gave to the media?

Thst picture was made public after Trump publicly accused the FBI is misconduct and implied they may have planted things.

Yes, and the justice system is not supposed to be weaponized against a candidate for president, no matter how hated and feared by the staff that chooses to abuse its power.

Is it weaponizing the Justice system simply because a democrat is in office and Trump was a republican president? Or do you believe that Biden somehow convinced a man that Trump appointed to lead the FBI, an organization that is overwhelmingly republican, to go after Trump specifically…and somehow not one person in the FBI has spoken out to say “they told me to go after Trump, but I wouldn’t.”

 

[Optimus Prime]

A Trump administration Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official has given a stunning assessment of the toll that Donald Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents has taken on the safety and security of the American people.

Elizabeth Neumann, who served as the DHS’s assistant secretary for counterterrorism from February 2017 to April 2020 and now works as an ABC News contributor, told ABC’s This Week that lives may have been lost as a result of the former president’s actions.

“This causes people to die,” she said.

“This is a very serious top secret [and] special access program.

“When they fall into the wrong hands, people die and the United States’ security is deeply compromised.”

Besides her grave warning, Ms Neumann added that the stunning evidence laid out in the 49-page indictment gives a “vivid picture” of what the national security community was up against during Mr Trump’s time in the White House.

“I found the indictment to be a really vivid picture for the American public of what the national security community dealt with for four years when he was president,” she said.

“He had a blatant disregard, just did not care to follow the rules.

“And not only did he not protect our country’s most sensitive secrets. That’s not protecting American lives because you have military and intelligence community personnel that are now put at risk.”……..

Ex-Trump official says his handling of classified documents could have cost lives

Elizabeth Neumann says the stunning 49-page indictment gives a ‘vivid picture’ of what the national security community was up against during Trump’s time in the White House

www.independent.co.uk

 

[FullMonte]

That was not the point of that particular hypothetical.

I know. That’s the interesting part. When you were focused on making another point, and we’re focusing on your agenda, you immediately jumped to “a Trump supporter will ignore the evidence and rule in Trumps favor.”

Although I will say that a Trump supporter would be more likely to fairly consider the evidence that Team Trump will present and come to the conclusion that Trump is indeed innocent.

If they can somehow provide evidence that shows that Trump didn’t actually have the records that the indictment says he had, then Trump should be acquitted. But if Trump had, for example, a report on the US nuclear capability, and did not return it when NARA demanded it, he is guilty. Period. He was illegally withholding national defense information. There is ZERO possibility that his team can provide evidence that such a document is a personal record.

Should the judge admonish the jury that they are not to take the Clinton non-prosecution into account?

Yes, in the sense that his instructions should make it clear that they are only to take into account the information presented in the case.

How many Trumpers would you guess would be on the jury? If 70% of Floridian Rep voters support Trump against their own governor, and Reps are at least half of Florida voters, then that is 35% of the jury pool. If the final jury is representative that means right at 4 of the 12 jurors and the same fraction of alternates, however many they need.

Why do you keep bringing up Trump supporters? It seems clear that you believe that Trump supporters are going to rule in his favor regardless of the evidence

By the same strict standards, Clinton was guilty, Pence was guilty, and Biden was guilty. They have not been prosecuted because the DOJ/FBI doesn't mind if any of them become president.

Yeah, the republican DOJ, headed by the guy Trump appointed and said would be a great leader of the FBI want to help Biden. It’s not that neither Biden nor Pence refused to hand over records after they became aware of them, and made repeated attempts to hide those documents from the government after the government asked for them back.

Simple question. When NARA asked Trump to return the records in May 2017, do you think the DOJ would have prosecuted him to refusing to return them had he returned them all?

 

[Optimus Prime]

NEW YORK (AP) — Jill Biden in her first solo outing of the 2024 campaign said Monday it was “a little shocking”that a sizeable number of Republicans are still thinking of voting for Donald Trump even after his federal indictment, a subject that her husband has tried to avoid speaking about.

She told Democratic donors that the 2024 election presents a choice between what she described as the “strong, steady leadership” of President Joe Biden and the “chaos and corruption, hatred and division” of “MAGA Republicans.”

The first lady, speaking to a small group of Democrats in an apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, said she was surprised to see a headline before her flight landed that described a majority of Republicans in a poll saying they were still planning to vote for Trump, who is set to appear in a Florida court on Tuesday.

“They don’t care about the indictment. So that’s a little shocking, I think,” she said.……

Jill Biden says 'it's a little shocking' many Republicans support Trump after indictment

Jill Biden warned Democratic donors Monday that the 2024 election presents a choice between what she described as the “strong, steady leadership” of President Joe Biden or “chaos and corruption, hatred and division” of “MAGA Republicans." The first lady was making her first solo outing of the...

apnews.com

 

[Snarky Sack]

I know. That’s the interesting part. When you were focused on making another point, and we’re focusing on your agenda, you immediately jumped to “a Trump supporter will ignore the evidence and rule in Trumps favor.”

Not ignore the evidence. Take into account all the evidence AND all he or she knows about recent history, and then rule in Trump's favor.

If they can somehow provide evidence that shows that Trump didn’t actually have the records that the indictment says he had, then Trump should be acquitted. But if Trump had, for example, a report on the US nuclear capability, and did not return it when NARA demanded it, he is guilty. Period. He was illegally withholding national defense information. There is ZERO possibility that his team can provide evidence that such a document is a personal record.

You seem perturbed at the idea of Trump making any defense at all. He will make a defense, if it even gets to trial. I don't know what it will be, but you are not correct to imply that your version is his only defense.

You're making assumption on top of assummption about what the prosecution has. It is very common for prosecutors to overcharge and at the end of the presentation of evidence drop charges that they had no evidence for. In other words, the indictment is no evidence at all and you cannot claim to have seen evidence of any of the indictments.

Yes, in the sense that his instructions should make it clear that they are only to take into account the information presented in the case.

The Trump supporters will know exactly what the judge means. Especially if it is Cannon and she winks at them when she says it.

Just kidding.

They will have to have it on their minds. They been chanting "Lock her UP!" since 2016. They are not going to think, 'well Trump got indicted. Whadayaknow, he was the crook all along . . .'

Why do you keep bringing up Trump supporters?

Because they will be on the jury.

It seems clear that you believe that Trump supporters are going to rule in his favor regardless of the evidence

Yes, and you keep saying it as if in wonderment. Clinton supporters would have done the same for Bill. In fact they did, other than never having to be on a jury since the DOJ chose not to prosecute him.

Yeah, the republican DOJ, headed by the guy Trump appointed and said would be a great leader of the FBI want to help Biden.

Come on, Man! You're smarter than that. If Trump were in charge of the "his" DOJ, he would just told them to stop the fake investigations, already.

It’s not that neither Biden nor Pence refused to hand over records after they became aware of them, and made repeated attempts to hide those documents from the government after the government asked for them back.

Yes . . . like Clinton.

Simple question. When NARA asked Trump to return the records in May 2017, do you think the DOJ would have prosecuted him to refusing to return them had he returned them all?

Not for that, maybe.

But they would have gone after him for something as long as he was a presidential contender.

Anyway, he was not required to "return" to NARA personal copies that he made for reference after leaving office. That wording is directly from the Presidential Records Act, as near as I recall the exact words.

I notice you did not respond to my statements about Bill Clinton supporters during his legal troubles. Perjury is pretty serious, for a lawyer and a president. An affair with a subordinate used to be one of the cardinal sins in feminism. But his supporters never gave two shirts about it.

I offer you another chance to comment.

 

[Optimus Prime]

To hear MAGA Republicans tell it, the indictment of Donald Trump for mishandling national security secrets is one of the most grotesque injustices in U.S. history.

They have called for mass protests, vowed “war” in retaliation and even hinted that his supporters should rise up in armed rebellion.


So surely the GOP-controlled House will exercise maximal tactics to sabotage Trump’s prosecution as it gains steam in the coming months, right?
We’ll see about that.

Rep. Jim Jordan went on CNN Sunday and offered a tortured defense of Trump that suggests a coming split among Republicans over how aggressively to fight for the former president.

MAGA Republicans will expect the House to do everything within its power, but it’s not clear that the House can do all that much — or that many non-MAGA Republicans will even want to.

“This is as political as it gets!” Jordan raged on CNN about the indictment. The Ohio Republican insisted that the House Judiciary Committee, which he chairs, will “get to the bottom” of what he believes is the fact that “federal agencies have been turned on the American people.”


Jordan’s willingness to defend any and all of Trump’s alleged misconduct appeared absolute. Pressed on extraordinary charges that include willful retention of national defense information and conspiracy to obstruct justice, Jordan kept insisting that Trump had declassified the documents, which allegedly included information related to U.S. nuclear programs and vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies…….

First, he can harass the prosecution by casting a wide net for documents. On Friday, he sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland demanding internal communications about the FBI decision to search Mar-a-Lago, apparently untroubled by the indictment’s striking allegation that Trump hid reams of documents from his own lawyer before the search.


The Justice Department will most likely respond that divulging sensitive information related to ongoing investigations and prosecutions is against department policy, as it did to a similar GOP demand earlier this year. Whereupon Jordan’s committee will probably issue a subpoena, which the department will most likely fight.


Then what? Presumably the House will come under pressure to hold Garland in contempt. But would that pass? Does House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) really want Republicans representing districts that President Biden carried in 2020 to vote for such a naked effort to derail an apparently damning prosecution?

Moderate Senate Republicans have been muted, a possible tell about where their House counterparts will land……

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/06/12/jim-jordan-trump-indictment-house-republicans/