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Earlier this week, we learned that special counsel Jack Smithwho is investigating Donald Trumps attempt to overturn the 2020 election and the insurrection that followedhad reportedly taken an extra special interest in Mike Pences grand jury testimony on the matter. Thats a turn of events that is unlikely to go over great with the ex-president, but what of Smiths other criminal investigation into Trump, the one involving his handling of highly classified documents (and possible obstruction)? It appears theres equally not-great news for the former guy on that front too.

CNN reports that prosecutors working for Smith have been asking questions in recent weeks about the handling of surveillance footage at Mar-a-Lago, after the Trump Organization received a federal subpoena for the information last summer. That handlingor likely mishandlingof the footage in question has prompted a new round of grand jury subpoenas to top Trump employees in the last few weeks, according to sources familiar with the matter who spoke to CNN. Those employees are said to include Matthew Calamari Sr., the chief operating officer of the Trumps family business, and his son, Matthew Calamari Jr., the director of security for the company. (If Calamari Senior sounds familiar, its because he has worked for the Trump Organization for decades, after being hired by Trump in the 1980s because the real estate developer was impressed by how Calamari tackled a heckler at the US Open.) Both Calamaris are expected to testify before a grand jury on Thursday, where they will likely be asked about the handling of the surveillance footage and Trump employees conversations following the subpoena, sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

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An attorney for Calamari Sr. did not respond to CNNs request for comment; an attorney for Calamari Jr. declined to comment.

Last year, prosecutors obtained footage showing Walt Nauta, a longtime valet of Trumps, moving boxes at Mar-a-Lago after the government had issued a May subpoena demanding the return of all classified documents. (All the documents were not returned, hence the raid on Mar-a-Lago in August.) When initially questions by the FBI, Nauta denied having any knowledge of any classified documents at the Palm Beach resort; later he told investigators, per The Washington Post, that he had moved boxes at Trumps direction after prosecutors sent a subpoena seeking the return of all documents marked classified and kept at Mar-a-Lago.)

Last month, shortly before he was charged with 34 class E felonies by the Manhattan district attorneys office, the Post reported that the Justice Department and FBI had amassed fresh evidence pointing to possible obstruction by former president Donald Trump in the investigation into top secret documents found at his Mar-a-Lago home. According to the outlet, investigators had gathered new and significant evidence that after the subpoena was delivered, Trump looked through the contents of some of the boxes of documents in his home, apparently out of a desire to keep certain things in his possession. In addition, people working on the probe were said to have found evidence suggesting that Trump told people to mislead government officials in early 2022, when the National Archives was working with the DOJ to recover the documents Trump had taken with him when he left the White House, whichand were no lawyersseems like a big no-no. Also, prosecutors reportedly learned that the former guy ignored requests from multiple advisers to return the documents to the archivesthat he asked advisers and lawyers to release false statements claiming he had returned all documents, and that he grew angry after being subpoenaed for the documents.

And somehow, that was not all! According to the Post, investigators also found evidence that Trump sought advice from other lawyers and advisers on how he could keep documents after being told by some on his team that he could not, and that multiple advisers warned Trump that trying to keep the documents could be legally perilous. Again, doesnt seem great!

Earlier this year, a judgeorderedTrump attorneyEvan Corcoranto appear before the grand jury investigating the documents case, which Corcoran had previously tried to get out of by invoking attorney-client privilege. AsThe New York Timesreportedin October, it was Corcoran who asked fellow Trump lawyerChristina Bobbafter Trump received the subpoena for the documentsto sign a statement saying that the Trump legal team had conducted a diligent search of Mar-a-Lago and found only a few files that had not been returned to the government. That statement, as the August raid showed, obviously turned out not to be true. (Trump has denied any wrongdoing in the documents case.)

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Report: Donald Trumps Legal Outlook Does Not Appear to Be Improving - Vanity Fair

Donald Trump

Lawsuit alleged newspaper sought out niece Mary Trump and persuaded her to join insidious plot to obtain Trumps tax records

Guardian staff

A judge in New York has thrown out Donald Trumps 2021 lawsuit accusing New York Times reporters of an insidious plot to obtain his tax records.

The former president has also been ordered to pay all attorneys fees and legal expenses the Times and its reporters had incurred. The lawsuit alleged that the newspaper sought out Trumps niece Mary Trump and persuaded her to smuggle the records out of her attorneys office.

The Daily Beast first reported the news. Donald Trump had also made claims against his niece, which have yet to be ruled on.

The Timess 2018 Pulitzer-winning stories relied on information from Mary Trump to cast doubt on the ex-presidents claims that he was a self-made millionaire, showing that he inherited hundreds of millions through dubious tax schemes. The series also revealed a history of tax avoidance.

Robert Reed, a New York supreme court justice, said that Trumps claims fail as a matter of constitutional law, which allows for reporters to engage in legal, ordinary newsgathering. These actions are at the very core of protected first amendment activity, Reed wrote.

Charlie Stadtlander, a spokesperson for the Times, told the Guardian: The New York Times is pleased with the judges decision today. It is an important precedent reaffirming that the press is protected when it engages in routine newsgathering to obtain information of vital importance to the public.

We will weigh our clients options and continue to vigorously fight on his behalf, Trumps lawyer Alina Habba said in a statement.

Last year, the former president also sued CNN, claiming defamation and seeking $475m in damages. In 2020, his re-election campaign also sued the New York Times and the Washington Post over opinion pieces linking him to Russian interference in the election. The cases against each newspaper were dismissed.

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US judge throws out Donald Trumps lawsuit against New York Times - The Guardian US

NEW YORK A Manhattan jury is slated to start deliberating E. Jean Carrolls civil rape and defamation case against Donald Trump this week more than five years after she accused him of a violent sexual assault in a Midtown dressing room.

The six men and three women who will determine whether Trump raped Carroll inside Bergdorf Goodman in the mid-1990s and defamed her when she came forward decades later have much to consider when they get to the jury room.

They heard a detailed account accusing Trump of brutally assaulting women in random attacks over 26 years and denigrating their looks and sanity when they came forward.

Carrolls team presented 11 witnesses over two weeks and played footage of a riled-up Trump disparaging his accusers at campaign rallies, bragging about sexual assault on a hot mic in the Access Hollywood tape, and defending his notorious comments in previously-unseen deposition testimony.

Carroll spent almost three days on the stand, where she emotionally described Trump leading her to an unoccupied floor of the department store, pinning her against a wall, and molesting her with his hand before raping her.

The former president, who forcefully contests Carrolls allegations, saying she isnt his type, was seen confusing her for his ex-wife Marla Maples in a photo of them together presented at trial.

Natasha Stoynoff and Jessica Leeds accused Trump of assaulting them in accounts mirroring details of the encounter Carroll alleges.

Stoynoff said Trump led her to an empty room at Mar-a-Lago in December 2005 and forcibly kissed her when she was profiling his and a heavily pregnant Melanias one-year wedding anniversary for People magazine.

Leeds said Trump assaulted her on a flight in 1979 in first class. She said it felt like he had 40 zillion hands as he grabbed her breasts and put his hand up her skirt.

Carrolls friends, Lisa Birnbach and Carol Martin, corroborated that she confided in them in the assaults aftermath. Birbach affirmed that she told Carroll to report it, while Martin said she believed Carroll should stay silent..

Jurors heard from an expert in trauma, Leslie Lebowitz, who said Carrolls symptoms resulting from the alleged attack were so severe that it demolished her self-esteem and ability to be intimate.

Lebowitz said that Carroll didnt scream or call the police details Trumps lawyer tried to nail her on was typical of many victims of sexual assault. She said the fact Carroll wasnt certain it happened in 1996 was also a classic result of trauma.

Robert Salerno, a longtime VP at Bergdorf, testified about seeing Trump in the womens section at the store a block from his namesake tower on Fifth Ave. A former employee, Cheryl Beall, supported details in Carrolls account, testifying that the lingerie department had little foot traffic and was frequently unstaffed.

The former editor-in-chief of Elle, Roberta Myers, shed light on what Carroll was famous for before she became known as the presidents rape accuser and lost her job. She described Carroll as a real truth teller, a journalist, who gave trusted advice on dating and living in the city, and said readers adored her.

An expert in reputation harm, Ashley Humphrees, did the math on how much Trump accusing Carroll of a hoax cost her. If Carroll wins, Trump could owe $2.7 million in damages.

His lawyers focused their defense on alleging Carroll and her friends concocted a scheme to destroy him politically and sell a book. Joe Tacopina subjected Carroll to an aggressive cross-examination and dissected her friends texts and emails when they reacted with grief to his election as president.

Trump didnt present a defense case. He put himself and a psychiatrist on his list of witnesses but informed the court this week that neither could make it.

When Judge Lewis Kaplan learned of Trumps comments in Ireland he said he was cutting his trip short to confront Carroll he gave him a chance to change his mind.

If Trump chooses not to make a cameo, the jury will next hear closing arguments and get the case. He has until 5 p.m. Sunday to decide.

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Highlights of Donald Trump's civil rape trial brought by E. Jean ... - Brunswick News

As youve probably heard by now, Donald Trump is in a whole lot of legal peril. For starters, hes currently on trial for rape, having been accused by writer E. Jean Carroll of attacking her in a New York department store in the mid-90s. Then there are the 34 class E felonies he was charged with by the Manhattan district attorneys office last month, stemming from various hush money payments he allegedly made in the lead up to the 2016 election. But of course, thats not all. The ex-president is also under investigation by the Fulton County district attorneys office for trying to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia; hes been sued by the New York attorney generals office on allegations of massive fraud; and a special counsel appointed by the Justice Department is running a pair of criminal probes into both his handling of classified documents (and possible obstruction) and plot to stay in power following his loss to Joe Biden (plus the insurrection that followed). And the former guy is unlikely to be thrilled about the latest development in the DOJs election investigation.

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CNN reports that special counsel Jack Smith sat in on the federal grand jury proceeding while former vice president Mike Pencetestified for more than five hours last week, according to a trio of people familiar with the matter. As the outlet notes, the former VPs testimony is likely to elicit a strong negative reaction from Trumpand not just because Trump is prone to massive outbursts over the smallest of perceived slights.

As a reminder, the ex-president has expended significant time and energy trying to block Pence from testifying about January 6 and the weeks leading up to the attack on the US Capitol; last month, his attorneys reportedly tried (and failed) toreverse a judgesorderforPence to appear before a federal grand jury. (For his part, Pence spent the two-plus years since January 6, 2021,refusingto tell investigatorswhat he knew about the insurrection and the days that preceded it, and then, in April,his adviser announcedthat he would not appeal the latest ruling ordering him to comply with the special counselsubpoena for testimony.) Trumps desire to block Pence from speaking likely has something to do with the former VPs unique insights into his attempt to stay in power and the lengths he went to steal a second term. Those insights include but are not limited to: the fact that Trump reportedly spent weeks pressuring Pence to overturn the 2020 election,even after being told it was illegal; told Pence, You can be a patriot or you can be a pussy; told Pence, in the days before January 6, that hundreds of thousands of people were going to hate him for being too honest to overturn the results of the election; and inspired his supporters to go after Pence by telling them at the Stop the Steal rally that the then VP had the power to blockJoe Bidens win, which resulted in chants of Hang Mike Pence and a situation wherein the Secret Service had tomove Penceand his family to a secure location, lest the rioters make good on their threats.

After Pence said in March that his old boss was wrong to demand he overturn the results of the election andin his most strongly worded remarks to do datedeclared that history will holdDonald Trumpaccountable, Trump flew off the handle and blamed Pence for January 6,saying: Had [Pence] sent the votes back to the legislatures, they wouldnt have had a problem with Jan. 6, so in many ways, you can blame him for Jan. 6. Had he sent them back to Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, the states, I believe, number one, you would have had a different outcome. But I also believe you wouldnt have had Jan. 6 as we call it.

It was a claim so divorced from reality that even the gang at Fox News couldnt believe it.

So, yeah, Pence (and Smith) can probably expect that a strong negative reaction is forthcoming.

Every single point here is true (and yet)

Well, this seems suboptimal for democracy

Nothing to see here, just a former Tucker Carlson producer claiming that the erstwhile Fox News host thought he could play a role in deciding whom our Speaker of the House would be

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That Sound You Hear Is Donald Trump Popping a Blood Vessel Over Mike Pences Jan. 6 Grand Jury Testimony - Vanity Fair

Take the example of Mr. DeSantis. He became a star on the right as an aggressive culture warrior fighting liberals on race and gender issues. He has no deep foreign policy experience, and if anyone from the blob is advising him on foreign policy, he certainly isnt advertising it. He mostly stayed mum on the Ukraine issue until this year, when he responded to a candidate questionnaire from Tucker Carlsons now-canceled show, which had become a major way to shape what the Republican base thinks about policy. Mr. DeSantis minimized the war as a territorial dispute, aligning himself with the isolationist argument that the United States has little interest in the conflict and should limit its involvement. Its probably relevant that support for U.S. aid to Ukraine, while high among the general public, has steadily decreased among Republican voters in opinion polls. Pew polling showed that in March of last year, only 9 percent of Republican respondents thought the United States was too involved; this year, that number had grown to 40 percent.

What caused the shift in opinion among Republican voters, apart from simple impatience with the war and dissatisfaction with the Biden administration? Those factors certainly play a role. But alongside this is a structural shift: The influence cycle now runs in a never-ending loop between politicians and their voter base a loop that now excludes the NATO-loving wonks of the former establishment and instead flows through powerful nodes in the conservative media ecosystem, like the former Fox News star Mr. Carlson and the current one Laura Ingraham.

Mr. Trump has a talent for the populist art of reflecting supporters instincts, feeding off them and intensifying them. Its not as though he invented the isolationist strain in Republican foreign policy thinking; Mr. Trumps views echo the old-school pre-World War II anti-internationalism kept alive by more marginal figures like Patrick Buchanan and Ron Paul. But he did intuit its potentially broad appeal to voters who distrust elite decision making. Mr. DeSantis, instead of intuiting this potential, merely mirrored a position to an audience already primed to accept it.

Mr. Trump, with his bloodhounds nose for potential weakness in his competition, dismissed Mr. DeSantis as a copycat who is merely following him. Whatever I want, he wants, Mr. Trump said in March after Mr. DeSantiss initial statement on Ukraine. Ms. Haley, Mr. Trumps former ambassador to the United Nations, who is running for president this cycle, also accused Mr. DeSantis of copying Mr. Trump. Voters deserve a choice, not an echo, she said. Other former establishment hawks were predictably upset, including Senators Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham. The blob has its own allies like Ms. Haley and Mike Pompeo, a former secretary of state who traveled to Ukraine recently to meet President Volodymyr Zelensky and argued that arming the country saves the United States money in the long run.

Amid the backlash, Mr. DeSantis retreated somewhat. In an appearance on Piers Morgans show in March, he said that his territorial dispute remark had been mischaracterized and he was simply referring to contested areas in eastern Ukraine and that he believed Vladimir Putin is a war criminal.

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Opinion | How Donald Trump and Tucker Carlson Upended the ... - The New York Times