FEDS, GEORGIA TIGHTEN THE SCREWS ON TRUMP
Special counsel pressing Pence & Ivanka to spill on Jan. 6, while Peach State elex interference charges may be near
Former President Donald Trump has never been in more serious — and fast-approaching — legal jeopardy.
A Georgia grand jury has apparently already recommended Trump’s indictment in a 2020 election interference case. The Atlanta prosecutor handling that case told a judge that decisions on charging him and others are “imminent.”
Special counsel Jack Smith, meanwhile, is showing none of the kid-glove deference to Trump that marked Attorney General Merrick Garland’s handling of the explosive cases.
Moving at the legal equivalent of lightning speed, Smith is gathering evidence against the former president on two fronts: his taking a cache of classified documents to his Mar-a-Lago resort and Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
In the past two weeks alone, the hardnosed one-time Brooklyn federal prosecutor has subpoenaed former Vice President Mike Pence, who knows firsthand how ugly Trump’s effort to overturn their loss was.
And last week he reportedly slapped first daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, former top advisers, with subpoenas for what they know about his scheme.
“Jack Smith is not messing around,” former federal prosecutor Harry Litman said Thursday. “This goes to the heart . ... It’s an endgame move.”
Georgia on his mind
The first shoe to drop for Trump is likely to be the Georgia state probe into alleged election interference in the Peach State.
The probe started with Trump’s taped call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in the days before the Jan. 6 riot, demanding that he “find” just enough votes to allow him to overtake Joe Biden.
From there, the panel delved into Trump’s entire sprawling plot to overturn his humiliating loss in Georgia, including bogus claims of widespread voter fraud and recruiting fake electors to cast doubt on Biden’s certified win.
The probe has been done and dusted for a few weeks now, and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has told a judge she is nearly ready to announce who will be indicted and for what.
In a hint of what may be coming, the grand jury forewoman recently made little effort to hide the panel’s belief that Trump should face charges.
A no-nonsense special counsel
Ivanka Trump may have once thought her blood ties to her father might protect her from the harshest scrutiny of the probes into alleged wrongdoing.
But Smith has pulled no punches, slapping her and her husband with subpoenas to tell the grand jury under oath what they know about Trump’s plot to overturn the election and his alleged incitement of the violence on Jan. 6.
Ivanka witnessed her father’s final phone call to Vice President Mike Pence on the morning of Jan. 6 in which he sought to bully him into blocking Congress from certifying Biden’s win.
She also joined a broad and frantic effort to get the former president to call on his supporters to end the violent insurrection.
Kushner, by happenstance, played more of a bit role on Jan. 6 because he was flying back from the Middle East and only arrived at the White House in the late afternoon.
The power couple both testified to the congressional committee investigating Jan. 6. But an appearance before Smith’s
grand jury would carry much more weight.
Can Pence keep his lips sealed?
Pence has spent more than two years trying to avoid telling anyone what he knows about the darkest side of his former boss.
Smith is on a mission to get him to talk despite Pence’s vow to fight Smith’s subpoena using the novel constitutional technicality that he was acting as a member of Congress on Jan. 6.
Pence could be asked to corroborate some aspects of Trump’s weekslong effort to harness the government to help him overturn their loss at the ballot box.
The ex-veep also has crucial information that no one else has — like what Trump told him face-to-face as he desperately sought to bully him into joining his unconstitutional Stop the Steal campaign.
What about Mar-a-Lago documents?
Smith is also investigating Trump’s improper taking of hundreds of classified documents to his Florida home when he left the White House.
By all accounts that is a much simpler case than the one involving Jan. 6.
On the face of it, Trump certainly violated the letter of the laws regarding handling of classified documents.
He also brazenly defied a subpoena for their return to the government and allegedly took steps to impede the probe, like having the documents moved.
In recent weeks, Smith has moved to put Trump attorney Evan Corcoran on the hot seat for drawing up a document falsely claiming to have made a “diligent search” for more classified documents.
That move suggests Smith already has a strong case against Trump, but is seeking to flip Corcoran against his former client using an exception to attorney-client privilege when their discussions involve committing a crime or fraud.
Stormy Daniels is back, too
Donald Trump thought he’d heard the last of Stormy Daniels. But he recently found out otherwise.
In a surprising move, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has reopened an aggressive grand jury probe into Trump’s alleged payment of hush money to keep the porn star quiet about a supposed tryst in the days before he won the 2016 presidential election.
It’s not known what sparked the newfound flurry of investigative activity, although the most obvious explanation would be new evidence or witnesses surfacing recently.
Michael Cohen, the one-time Trump fixer-turned-nemesis, has returned to answer more questions about the sordid affair that sent him, and so far only him, to federal prison.
And with Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg behind bars at Rikers Island on a separate fraud conviction, it may be a good time to persuade him to be more forthcoming about his role in authorizing the illicit payments themselves or reimbursements to Cohen.