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Factbox: FACTBOX Georgia on his mind: Donald Trump troubled by more legal woes

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Jan 25 (Reuters) – Donald Trump could learn soon whether he or any associates will be charged or cleared of wrongdoing in a Georgia probe into his efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat, one of a series of legal threats looming over the Republican former U.S. president:

GEORGIA ELECTION TAMPERING PROBE

On Tuesday, the prosecutor in the state of Georgia spoke to a judge on behalf of a special grand jury empanelled in May to investigate Trump’s alleged efforts to influence that state’s 2020 election results.

Fani Willis, the Fulton County district attorney and a Democrat who will ultimately decide whether to pursue charges against Trump or anyone else, said the grand jury had completed its task and decisions were “imminent.”

The investigation focuses in part on a phone call Trump made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, on Jan. 2, 2021. Trump asked Raffensperger to “find” enough votes needed to overturn Trump’s election loss in Georgia.

Legal experts said Trump may have violated at least three Georgia criminal election laws: conspiracy to commit election fraud, criminal solicitation to commit election fraud and intentional interference with performance of election duties.

Trump could argue that his discussions were constitutionally protected free speech.

U.S. CAPITOL ATTACK

The U.S. Justice Department has investigations under way into both Trump’s actions in the 2020 election and his retention of highly classified documents after departing the White House in 2021.

Both investigations involving Trump are being overseen by Jack Smith, a war crimes prosecutor and political independent. Trump has accused the FBI, without evidence, of launching the probes as political retribution.

A special House of Representatives committee investigating the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, assault by Trump supporters on the U.S. Capitol urged the Justice Department to charge Trump with corruption of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to make a false statement and inciting or aiding an insurrection.

The request is non-binding. Only the Justice Department can decide whether to charge Trump, who has called the Democratic-led panel’s investigation a politically motivated sham.

MISSING GOVERNMENT RECORDS

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Smith to investigate whether Trump improperly retained classified records at his Florida estate after he left office in 2021 and then tried to obstruct a federal investigation.

Garland also appointed former U.S. Attorney Robert Hur for Maryland to investigate the removal of classified records in President Joe Biden’s possession dating to his time as vice president.

It is unlawful to willfully remove or retain classified material.

In Trump’s case, the FBI seized 11,000 documents from the former president’s Mar-a-Lago Florida estate in a court-approved Aug. 8 search. About 100 documents were marked classified; some were designated top secret, the highest level of classification.

Trump has accused the Justice Department of engaging in a partisan witch hunt.

NEW YORK ATTORNEY GENERAL CIVIL LAWSUIT

New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a civil lawsuit filed in September that her office uncovered more than 200 examples of misleading asset valuations by Trump and the Trump Organization business between 2011 and 2021.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a rally in Commerce, Georgia, U.S. March 26, 2022. REUTERS/Alyssa Pointer/File Photo

A Democrat, James accused Trump of inflating his net worth by billions of dollars to obtain lower interest rates on loans and get better insurance coverage.

A New York judge ordered that an independent monitor be appointed to oversee the Trump Organization before the case goes to trial in October 2023.

James seeks to permanently bar Trump and his children Donald Jr., Eric and Ivanka Trump from running companies in New York state, and to prevent them and his company from buying new properties and taking out new loans in the state for five years.

James also wants the defendants to hand over about $250 million that she says was obtained through fraud.

Trump has called the attorney general’s lawsuit a witch hunt. A lawyer for Trump has called James’ claims meritless.

James said her probe also uncovered evidence of criminal wrongdoing, which she referred to federal prosecutors and the Internal Revenue Service for investigation.

DEFAMATION CASE

E. Jean Carroll, a former Elle magazine writer, has filed two lawsuits accusing Trump of having defamed her when he denied her allegation that he raped her in New York’s Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in late 1995 or early 1996.

Trump accuses her of lying to drum up sales for a book.

Carroll first sued Trump after he denied the accusation in June 2019 and told a reporter at the White House that he did not know Carroll, that “she’s not my type,” and that she concocted the claim to sell her new memoir.

The second lawsuit arose from an October 2022 social media post where Trump called the rape claim a “hoax,” “lie,” “con job” and “complete scam,” and said “this can only happen to ‘Trump’!”

That lawsuit includes a battery claim under the Adult Survivors Act, which starting last Nov. 24 gave adults a one-year window to sue their alleged attackers even if statutes of limitations have expired.

A U.S. judge on Jan. 13 rejected as “absurd” Trump’s effort to dismiss the second lawsuit.

Trump and Carroll are awaiting a decision from a Washington, D.C., appeals court on whether, under local law, Trump should be immune from Carroll’s first lawsuit over his June 2019 comments.

That lawsuit would likely be dismissed if the court decided that Trump spoke within his role as president, and continue if Trump spoke in his personal capacity as Carroll argues.

Any decision would have no effect on Carroll’s second defamation and battery lawsuit. A trial in the first lawsuit is scheduled for April 10.

NEW YORK CRIMINAL PROBE

Although Trump was not charged with wrongdoing, his real estate company was found guilty on Dec. 6 of tax fraud in New York state. A judge this month sentenced Trump’s namesake real estate company to pay a $1.6 million criminal penalty, the maximum the judge could impose.

Jurors convicted the Trump Organization, which operates hotels, golf courses and other real estate around the world, of paying personal expenses for top executives including former chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg, and issuing bonus checks to them as if they were independent contractors.

Weisselberg, the company’s former chief financial officer, pleaded guilty and was required to testify against the Trump Organization as part of his plea agreement. He is also a defendant in James’ civil lawsuit.

Reporting by Joseph Ax, Luc Cohen, Karen Freifeld, Sarah N. Lynch, Jonathan Stempel and Jacqueline Thomsen; Editing by Howard Goller

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Capitol riot panel’s final report sets out case to try Trump

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WASHINGTON, Dec 22 (Reuters) – The congressional panel probing the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol released its final report late on Thursday, outlining its case that former U.S. President Donald Trump should face criminal charges of inciting the deadly riot.

The House of Representatives Select Committee also made public the transcripts of a number of its interviews and witness testimonies earlier on Thursday and on Wednesday.

The report, which runs to more than 800 pages, is based on nearly 1,200 interviews over 18 months and hundreds of thousands of documents, as well as the rulings of more than 60 federal and state courts.

The report lists 17 specific findings, discusses the legal implications of actions by Trump and some of his associates and includes criminal referrals to the Justice Department of Trump and other individuals, according to an executive summary released earlier this week. It report also lists legislative recommendations to help avert another such attack.

On Monday, the committee asked federal prosecutors to charge the Republican former president with four crimes, including obstruction and insurrection, for what they said were efforts to overturn results of the November 2020 election and sparking the attack on the seat of government.

“Rather than honor his constitutional obligation to ‘take care that the laws be faithfully executed,’ President Trump instead plotted to overturn the election outcome,” the House panel had said earlier in a 160-page summary of its report.

In comments posted on his Truth Social network after the final report’s release, Trump called it “highly partisan” and a “witch hunt”. He said it failed to “study the reason for the (Jan. 6) protest, election fraud.”

The request by the Democratic-led panel to the Justice Department does not compel federal prosecutors to act, but marked the first time in history that Congress had referred a former president for criminal prosecution. Trump announced in November that he would run for president again.

Among the transcripts released on Wednesday and Thursday was one that showed a former lawyer for ex-White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson told her to “downplay” her knowledge of events leading to the Capitol riot, telling her “the less you remember, the better.”

Attorney Stefan Passantino advised Hutchinson in preparing for a February deposition before the panel to say that she could not recall certain events, she told the committee in September, according to the transcript of her testimony.

Trump gave a fiery speech to his supporters near the White House the morning of Jan. 6, and publicly chastised his vice president, Mike Pence, for not going along with his plan to reject ballots cast for Democrat Joe Biden.

The former president then waited hours to make a public statement as thousands of his supporters raged through the Capitol, assaulting police and threatening to hang Pence.

The 2020 election results were being certified by Pence and lawmakers when the Capitol was attacked after weeks of false claims by Trump that he had won that election.

Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Supreme Court leans toward limiting judicial scrutiny of U.S. elections

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  • Justice debate “independent state legislature” doctrine
  • Liberal justices decry threat to “checks and balances”
  • Conservative-dominated court to rule by end of June

WASHINGTON, Dec 7 (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority on Wednesday appeared to ready to limit judicial power to overrule voting policies crafted by state politicians but might not go as far as Republican North Carolina lawmakers want in a case the liberal justices painted as a threat to American democratic norms.

The court heard arguments in a case the state lawmakers have used to try to persuade the justices to endorse a contentious legal theory gaining traction in conservative legal circles that would prevent state courts from reviewing the legality of actions by state legislatures regulating federal elections.

The Republican lawmakers are appealing the top North Carolina court’s decision to throw out the map they devised for the state’s 14 U.S. House of Representatives districts as unlawfully biased against Democratic voters. Another state court then replaced that map with one drawn by a bipartisan group of experts.

The Supreme Court has a 6-3 conservative majority, and its most conservative justices including Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch appeared willing to embrace the “independent state legislature” doctrine presented by the Republican legislators.

While the conservative justices in general asked questions that indicated skepticism toward the state court actions, some signaled that the Republican argument that state constitutions cannot constrain the power of legislatures in setting rules for congressional and presidential elections might go too far.

Under the once-marginal legal theory they are now promoting, the lawmakers argue that the U.S. Constitution gives state legislatures – and not other entities such as state courts – authority over election rules and electoral district maps.

The court’s liberal justices suggested the doctrine could free legislatures to adopt all manner of voting restrictions. Lawyers arguing against it also said it could sow confusion by allowing voting rules that vary between state and federal contests.

“This is a proposal that gets rid of the normal checks and balances on the way big governmental decisions are made in this country,” liberal Justice Elena Kagan said, referring to the interaction between the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government. “And you might think that it gets rid of all those checks and balances at exactly the time when they are needed most.”

America is sharped divided over voting rights. Republican-led state legislatures have pursued new voting restrictions in the aftermath of Republican former President Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him through widespread voting fraud.

The court’s eventual decision, due by the end of June, could apply to 2024 elections including the U.S. presidential race.

During the three-hour argument, the justices touched on the issue of enabling federal courts to review state court actions to ensure that judges do not behave like legislators or unfairly apply vague state constitutional provisions such as those requiring free and fair elections to disempower lawmakers.

Conservative Chief Justice John Roberts wondered whether such broadly worded provisions provide proper “standards and guidelines” for state courts to apply.

[1/2] A general view of the U.S. Supreme Court building in the rain the day before the start of the court’s new term in Washington, U.S. October 2, 2022. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

ALITO WEIGHS IN

Alito dismissed arguments that legislatures would be unchecked if the Republican position carried the day.

“Under any circumstances, no matter what we say the ‘Elections Clause’ means, Congress can always come in and establish the manner of conducting congressional elections,” Alito said, referring to the Constitution’s elections language.

The doctrine is based in part on the Constitution’s statement that the “times, places and manner” of federal elections “shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof.” The Republican lawmakers argued that the state court usurped the North Carolina General Assembly’s authority under that provision to regulate federal elections.

Kagan said the theory would free state legislators to engage in the “most extreme forms of gerrymandering” – drawing electoral districts to unfairly improve a party’s election chances – while enacting “all manner of restrictions on voting,” noting that lawmakers by virtue of coveting re-election may have incentives to suppress, dilute and negate votes.

Kagan said the theory also could let legislatures insert themselves into the process of determining winners in federal elections – a sensitive issue following the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol attack by Trump supporters who sought to block congressional certification of Biden’s 2020 election victory.

‘HISTORICAL PRACTICE’

Some conservative justices appeared to balk at aspects of the Republican arguments.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh emphasized the “historical practice” that “nearly all state constitutions regulate federal elections in some way.” Roberts said another check on a legislature’s power – a state governor’s veto – “significantly undermines the argument that it can do whatever it wants.”

David Thompson, arguing for the North Carolina lawmakers, said the Constitution “requires state legislatures specifically to perform the federal function of prescribing regulations for federal elections. States lack the authority to restrict the legislature’s substantive discretion when performing this federal function.”

Kavanaugh told Thompson that his position on the theory’s breadth “seems to go further” than that conceived by then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist in a concurrence to a 2000 ruling deciding a presidential election’s outcome – an opinion seeing state courts as exceeding their authority on federal elections.

North Carolina’s Department of Justice is defending the state high court’s February ruling alongside the voters and voting rights groups that challenged the map approved by the legislature in November 2021. They are backed by Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration.

Elizabeth Prelogar, arguing for Biden’s administration, said empowering state legislatures the way the Republicans want would “wreak havoc in the administration of elections across the nation” and cause federal courts to become flooded with lawsuits concerning state-administered elections.

Reporting by Andrew Chung in Washington and Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Will Dunham

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Nate Raymond

Thomson Reuters

Nate Raymond reports on the federal judiciary and litigation. He can be reached at nate.raymond@thomsonreuters.com.

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Explainer: What legal problems does U.S. presidential candidate Trump face?

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Nov 15 (Reuters) – Former President Donald Trump, who on Tuesday announced he will run again for the White House in 2024, faces a series of investigations and lawsuits.

MISSING GOVERNMENT RECORDS

The U.S. Department of Justice is conducting a criminal investigation of Trump for retaining government records, including some marked as classified, after leaving office in January 2021.

The FBI seized 11,000 documents from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida in a court-approved Aug. 8 search. About 100 documents were marked as classified, and some were designated top secret, the highest level of classification.

Trump, a Republican, has accused the Justice Department of engaging in a partisan witch hunt.

A special master, Senior U.S. District Judge Raymond Dearie, is reviewing the seized documents to determine whether any are protected by executive privilege, as Trump has claimed.

Executive privilege is a legal doctrine under which a president can keep certain documents or information secret.

The Justice Department has asked a federal appeals court to end that review and restore its access to unclassified materials taken in the search, arguing that both measures are hindering the criminal investigation.

NEW YORK ATTORNEY GENERAL CIVIL LAWSUIT

New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a civil lawsuit filed in September that her office uncovered more than 200 examples of misleading asset valuations by Trump and the Trump Organization between 2011 and 2021.

James, a Democrat, accused Trump of inflating his net worth by billions of dollars to obtain lower interest rates on loans and get better insurance coverage.

A New York judge ordered that an independent monitor be appointed to oversee the Trump Organization before the case goes to trial.

James is seeking to permanently bar Trump and his children Donald Jr., Eric and Ivanka Trump from running companies in New York state, and to prevent them and his company from buying new properties and taking out new loans in the state for five years.

James also wants the defendants to hand over about $250 million that she says was obtained through fraud.

Trump has called the attorney general’s lawsuit a witch hunt. A lawyer for Trump has called James’ claims meritless.

James said her probe also uncovered evidence of criminal wrongdoing, which she referred to federal prosecutors and the tax-collecting Internal Revenue Service for investigation.

NEW YORK CRIMINAL PROBE

The Trump Organization is on trial on New York tax fraud charges, in a criminal case brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

The company, which operates hotels, golf courses and other real estate around the world, has pleaded not guilty to three tax fraud charges and six other counts. It could face up to $1.6 million in fines.

Trump is not charged with wrongdoing.

Allen Weisselberg, the company’s former chief financial officer, has pleaded guilty and is required to testify against the Trump Organization as part of his plea agreement. He is also a defendant in James’ civil lawsuit.

DEFAMATION CASE

E. Jean Carroll, a former Elle magazine writer, sued Trump for defamation in 2019 after he denied her allegation that he raped her in the 1990s in a New York City department store. Trump accused her of lying to drum up sales for a book.

Trump appeared for a deposition in the case on Oct. 19, according to his and Carroll’s lawyers.

Trump has argued that he is shielded from Carroll’s lawsuit by a federal law that immunizes government employees from defamation claims.

The Manhattan-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in September said Trump was a federal employee when he called Carroll a liar, but left open the question of whether he was acting as president when he made the statement.

A Washington, D.C., appeals court will consider that question in oral arguments scheduled for Jan. 10, 2023.

Carroll also plans to sue Trump for battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress under New York state law, even if the defamation lawsuit is dismissed.

U.S. CAPITOL ATTACK

A House of Representatives committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, assault by Trump supporters on the U.S. Capitol is investigating whether he broke the law in actions taken to try to overturn his 2020 election defeat. Rioters sought to block Congress from certifying the election results.

In October, Trump was subpoenaed by the committee to testify under oath and provide documents.

Committee vice chair Liz Cheney, a Republican, has said the committee could make referrals to the Justice Department seeking criminal charges against Trump.

Only the Justice Department can decide whether to charge Trump with federal crimes. The panel is expected to issue written findings in the coming weeks.

Trump has called the panel’s investigation a politically motivated sham.

GEORGIA ELECTION TAMPERING PROBE

A special grand jury was empanelled in May for a Georgia prosecutor’s inquiry into Trump’s alleged efforts to influence that state’s 2020 election results.

The investigation focuses in part on a phone call Trump made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, on Jan. 2, 2021. Trump asked Raffensperger to “find” enough votes needed to overturn Trump’s election loss in Georgia.

Legal experts said Trump may have violated at least three Georgia criminal election laws: conspiracy to commit election fraud, criminal solicitation to commit election fraud and intentional interference with performance of election duties.

Trump could argue that his discussions were constitutionally protected free speech.

In a separate lawsuit, a California federal judge said on Oct. 19 that Trump knowingly made false voter fraud claims in a Georgia election lawsuit, citing emails the judge reviewed.

Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York and Jacqueline Thomsen in Washington; Additional reporting by Jonathan Stempel; Editing by Ross Colvin, Noeleen Walder, Will Dunham and Daniel Wallis

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Luc Cohen

Thomson Reuters

Reports on the New York federal courts. Previously worked as a correspondent in Venezuela and Argentina.

Jacqueline Thomsen

Thomson Reuters

Jacqueline Thomsen, based in Washington, D.C., covers legal news related to policy, the courts and the legal profession. Follow her on Twitter at @jacq_thomsen and email her at jacqueline.thomsen@thomsonreuters.com.

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Conservative activist steers U.S. Supreme Court college race cases

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  • Edward Blum engineered cases against Harvard, UNC
  • Arguments set for Monday; ruling due by end of June

Oct 27 (Reuters) – When the U.S. Supreme Court next week considers ending policies used by many colleges and universities to increase their numbers of Black and Hispanic students, a conservative activist will be on hand to watch this fateful moment in his long quest to erase racial preferences intended to boost diversity in American life.

The challenges to race-conscious admissions policies used by Harvard University and the University of North Carolina were brought by a group called Students for Fair Admissions founded and headed by Edward Blum, a 70-year-old former stockbroker and unsuccessful Republican congressional candidate.

The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments in the two cases on Monday, with rulings due by the end of June. The litigation gives its 6-3 conservative majority another chance to issue blockbuster decisions after rulings four months ago overturning abortion rights and expanding gun rights.

The conservative justices – Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett – are expected to be receptive to arguments Blum has honed against affirmative action policies, crafted as a remedy to discrimination. As such, Blum may be on the verge of a huge legal victory as he fights race-based policies not only in higher education but in areas such as elections and diversity in corporate America.

“I’m a one-trick pony,” Blum said in an interview. “I hope and care about ending these racial classifications and preferences in our public policy.”

Blum, who is white, has cast his mission as one aimed at creating a colorblind society.

“An individual’s race or ethnicity should not be used to help them or harm them in their life’s endeavors,” Blum said.

His critics paint his work as a war on racial equity aimed at undercutting policies designed to help non-white Americans overcome racial obstacles persisting in U.S. life.

“He’s made it harder for corporations, boards and governments to make racial diversity an explicit goal,” said Kristin Penner, a co-founder of a group called the Coalition for a Diverse Harvard that supports affirmative action. “And thus people of color continue to be blocked out of positions of power.”

Blum’s goal is for the Supreme Court to overturn its own precedents allowing race as a factor in admissions.

Blum lost in a previous case challenging race-conscious student admissions when the court ruled 4-3 in 2016 against a white woman he recruited as a plaintiff suing the University of Texas after being denied admission. Conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy provided the crucial vote. The court has moved rightward since then. Kennedy himself retired in 2018.

With Monday’s arguments, the court will have taken up eight race-related cases engineered by Blum. For instance, a Blum-backed challenge led to a 2013 Supreme Court ruling gutting a central part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that had forced nine states, mainly in the South, to obtain federal approval for voting rules changes affecting Black and other minority voters.

In addition, Blum last year launched a group called the Alliance For Fair Board Recruitment and filed lawsuits challenging Nasdaq rules and California laws mandating gender and racial diversity on corporate boards.

A 1978 LANDMARK

From his home in South Thomaston, Maine, Blum has orchestrated a 14-year legal campaign to challenge affirmative action in college and university admissions.

The Supreme Court first upheld such affirmative action in a landmark 1978 ruling in a case called Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, holding that race could be considered as one of several factors, along with academic and extracurricular criteria, but racial quotas were prohibited. The court reaffirmed that stance in 2003.

Blum in 2008 recruited Abigail Fisher, the daughter of an old friend, and through his first group, the Project for Fair Representation, helped fund her University of Texas suit that yielded the 2016 ruling he called a “grave disappointment.”

By then, Blum had shifted gears to the next generation of cases, forming Students for Fair Admissions in 2014 and turning his attention to Harvard and UNC. Those lawsuits accused UNC of discriminating against white and Asian American applicants and Harvard of discriminating against Asian Americans.

Boston University School of Law professor Jonathan Feingold said Blum was “transparent” in saying he needed Asian American plaintiffs this time around to sue the universities, allowing him to “spin a narrative that affirmative action is pitting students of color against one another.”

Blum raised more than $8 million from 2015 to 2020 for Students for Fair Admissions, most going to covering legal fees. Big checks came from conservative supporters including DonorsTrust and Searle Freedom Trust. Blum said 5,000 smaller donors also contributed.

Students for Fair Admissions has said it boasts 20,000 members. Its critics said it is not a true membership association at all. No Students for Fair Admissions members served as plaintiffs or testified in court in the Harvard and UNC cases as the group lost in lower courts. The Supreme Court in January agreed to hear appeals backed by Blum in both cases.

The Harvard lawsuit accused the university of violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bars discrimination based on race, color or national origin under any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.

The UNC lawsuit accused that university of violating the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment guarantee of equal protection under the law. Blum and his supporters argue that the 14th Amendment bars government entities including public universities like UNC from treating people differently due to race.

“His efforts and broader project are paying off because now because you have a court that is very receptive to the specific arguments that are being made here,” Feingold said.

For Blum, potential victories over Harvard and UNC may not be the final word in the fight against racial preferences in student admissions.

“It might be the beginning of the end,” Blum said. “More likely, it’s probably the end of the beginning.”

Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Will Dunham

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Nate Raymond

Thomson Reuters

Nate Raymond reports on the federal judiciary and litigation. He can be reached at nate.raymond@thomsonreuters.com.

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U.S. Supreme Court’s Thomas temporarily blocks Graham election case testimony

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Oct 24 (Reuters) – U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on Monday temporarily blocked a judge’s order requiring Senator Lindsey Graham to testify to a grand jury in Georgia in a criminal investigation into whether then-President Donald Trump and his allies unlawfully tried to overturn 2020 election results in the state.

Thomas put the case on hold pending further action either from the justice or the full Supreme Court on a request by Graham, a Republican from South Carolina and Trump ally, to halt the order for testimony. Graham filed the emergency application to the Supreme Court on Friday after a federal appeals court denied his request to block the questioning.

Thomas acted in the case because he is designated by the court to handle emergency requests from a region that includes Georgia.

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Graham has argued that his position as a senator provides him immunity under the U.S. Constitution’s “speech or debate” clause from having to answer questions related to his actions as part of the legislative process.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has subpoenaed Graham to answer questions about phone calls he made to a senior Georgia election official in the weeks after the November 2020 election.

Atlanta-based U.S. District Judge Leigh Martin May last month narrowed the scope of questions that Graham must answer from the grand jury, ruling that he is protected from having to discuss “investigatory fact-finding” that he was engaged in during his calls to state election officials.

However, May said he may be questioned about alleged efforts to encourage officials to throw out ballots or alleged communication with the Trump campaign. May rejected Graham’s bid to avoid testifying altogether.

The Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday declined to block Graham’s testimony pending an appeal.

Graham is not a target in the investigation but his testimony could shed further light on coordination among Trump allies to reverse the election results.

The senator’s lawyers said in his application that the testimony would “undisputedly center on Senator Graham’s official acts – phone calls he made in the course of his official work, in the leadup to the critical vote under the Electoral Count Act.”

Trump continues to appear at rallies repeating his false claims that the 2020 election won by Democrat Joe Biden was stolen from him through widespread voting fraud.

The investigation was launched after Trump was recorded in a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call pressuring Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to overturn the state’s election results based on unfounded claims of voter fraud. During the phone call, Trump urged Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, to “find” enough votes to overturn his Georgia loss to Biden.

The transcript of the call quotes Trump telling Raffensperger: “I just want to find 11,780 votes,” which is the number Trump needed to win Georgia. Trump has denied wrongdoing in the phone call.

Legal experts have said Trump’s phone calls may have violated at least three state election laws: conspiracy to commit election fraud, criminal solicitation to commit election fraud and intentional interference with performance of election duties.

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Reporting by Andrew Chung in New York; Editing by Will Dunham

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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U.S. House Jan. 6 committee votes to subpoena Trump

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WASHINGTON, Oct 13 (Reuters) – The U.S. House of Representatives committee probing the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by Donald Trump’s supporters voted unanimously on Thursday to subpoena the former president, a move that could lead to criminal charges if he does not comply.

The House select committee’s seven Democratic and two Republican members voted 9-0 in favor of issuing a subpoena for Trump to provide documents and testimony under oath in connection with the storming of the Capitol.

“He must be accountable. He is required to answer for his actions. He is required to answer for those police officers who put their lives and bodies on the line to defend our democracy. He is required to answer to those millions of Americans whose votes he wanted to throw out as part of his scheme to remain in power,” the panel’s Democratic chairman, Representative Bennie Thompson, said.

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The vote came after the committee spent more than two hours making its case – via statements from members, documents, and recorded testimony – that Trump planned to deny his 2020 election defeat in advance, failed to call off the thousands of supporters who stormed the Capitol, and followed through with his false claims that the election was stolen even as close advisers told him he had lost.

Federal law says that failure to comply with a congressional subpoena is a misdemeanor, punishable by one to 12 months imprisonment. If the select committee’s subpoena is ignored, the full House must vote on whether to make a referral to the Department of Justice, which has the authority to decide whether to bring charges.

LOOMING MID-TERMS

The subpoena is expected within days, and would typically give Trump a date by which he should comply. It was not clear when the full House – which is out of Washington until mid-November – could vote on whether to make a criminal referral.

Trump responded to the vote with angry comments on his social media service Truth Social. “Why did they wait until the very end, the final moments of their last meeting? Because the Committee is a total ‘BUST’ that has only served to further divide our Country which, by the way, is doing very badly – A laughing stock all over the World?” he wrote.

One former Trump adviser, Steve Bannon, is due to be sentenced next week after a jury found him guilty of contempt of Congress charges for not complying with a committee subpoena. But the Justice Department declined to charge another, Mark Meadows, who the House had also suggested should be prosecuted.

Federal prosecutors are also investigating the former president’s removal of classified documents from the White House at the end of his term, and have warned that they believe they have not yet recovered all the documents taken.

The House select committee has been investigating the attack on the Capitol, which left more than 140 police officers injured and led to several deaths, for more than a year, interviewing over 1,000 witnesses.

U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol meets for a hearing in the Cannon House Office Building in Washington, U.S., October 13, 2022. Alex Wong/Pool via REUTERS

Thompson said he recognized that subpoenaing a former president was a serious action, but argued that the stakes were high for the future of U.S. democracy.

Thursday’s meeting followed eight hearings earlier this year and one in July 2021. There were no live witnesses on Thursday, but the panel presented videotaped testimony to build a case that Trump’s efforts to overturn his November 2020 presidential election defeat constituted illegal conduct, far beyond normal politics.

FEARS OF VIOLENCE

The committee presented evidence from Secret Service agents and intelligence officials who said before Jan.6 that they expected violence at the pro-Trump rally and believed there were caches of weapons around Washington.

“Their plan is to literally kill people. Please please take this tip seriously and investigate further,” a Dec. 26 Secret Service email said.

Thursday’s vote could be the committee’s last public action before the Nov. 8 midterm elections that will determine whether President Joe Biden’s fellow Democrats or Trump’s Republicans control Congress.

The committee is also due to release a report on its findings within the coming weeks.

Representative Liz Cheney, the panel’s Republican vice chairperson, said the panel might ultimately decide to make a series of criminal referrals to the Department of Justice.

The hearings held this year may have convinced some Republicans that Trump bears some responsibility for the attack. A two-day Reuters/Ipsos poll concluded on Wednesday showed two in five Republicans view Trump as at least partly responsible for the attack.

Previous hearings focused on Trump’s inaction before and during the storming of the Capitol, his pressure on Vice President Mike Pence to deny Biden’s victory, militias whose members participated in the attack, and Trump’s interactions with close advisers questioning his false allegations of massive voter fraud.

The one-time reality television star has denied wrongdoing and hinted he will seek the White House again in 2024. He regularly holds rallies where he continues to claim falsely that he lost the election because of widespread fraud.

More than 880 people have been arrested in connection with the violence, with more than 400 guilty pleas so far.

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Reporting by Patricia Zengerle, Moira Warburton and Doina Chiacu; Additional reporting by Jason Lange; Editing by Scott Malone, Aurora Ellis and Rosalba O’Brien

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Judge rejects Trump lawsuit vs. Clinton, others as ‘hyperbole’

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Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks in support of candidates Doug Mastriano and Mehmet Oz during a rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, U.S., September 3, 2022. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly

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WASHINGTON, Sept 9 (Reuters) – A U.S. judge has dismissed Donald Trump’s lawsuit against his 2016 rival Hillary Clinton, saying the former Republican president’s allegations that Democrats tried to rig that election by linking his campaign to Russia was an attempt to “flaunt” political grievances that did not belong in court.

In throwing out Trump’s lawsuit Thursday night, Judge Donald Middlebrooks of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida said the lawsuit was not seeking “redress for any legal harm” and that the court was “not the appropriate forum” for the former president’s complaints.

“He is seeking to flaunt a two-hundred-page political manifesto outlining his grievances against those that have opposed him,” Middlebrooks said in his ruling.

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What Trump’s lawsuit “lacks in substance and legal support it seeks to substitute with length, hyperbole and the settling of scores,” Middlebrooks wrote, adding that he also reserved jurisdiction “to adjudicate issues pertaining to sanctions,” which affect Trump’s lawyers who filed the case.

Trump in March had sued Clinton, who was the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, and other Democrats alleging “racketeering,” a “conspiracy to commit injurious falsehood” and other claims in a lengthy lawsuit that echoed the long list of grievances he repeatedly aired during his four years in the White House after beating Clinton. read more

He had sought compensatory and punitive damages, saying he had incurred more than $24 million in “defense costs, legal fees, and related expenses.”

In his ruling, Middlebrooks said Trump had waited too long to file his complaint by exceeding the legal statute of limitations for his claims and that he failed to make his case that he was harmed by any falsehoods, noting that many of the statements made by the defendants were “plainly protected by the First Amendment” of the U.S. Constitution.

Trump lawyer Alina Habba, in a statement, said the former president would immediately appeal the decision.

Representatives for Clinton did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday’s ruling. Clinton had earlier petitioned the court to dismiss the case, saying Trump’s lawsuit recounted “A litany of threadbare allegations… unsupported by any facts.”

Other defendants included Democratic Representative Adam Schiff, who led one of the U.S. House of Representatives’ impeachments against Trump, and Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer who wrote a dossier circulated to the FBI and media outlets before the 2016 election.

U.S. intelligence officials and others in the U.S. government have accused Russia of meddling in that election. Moscow has denied that it interfered in the campaign.

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Reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Paul Simao

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FBI found more than 11,000 government records at Trump’s Florida home

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WASHINGTON, Sept 2 (Reuters) – The FBI recovered more than 11,000 government documents and photographs during its Aug. 8 search at former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate, as well as 48 empty folders labeled as “classified,” according to court records that were unsealed on Friday.

The unsealing by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon in West Palm Beach came one day after she heard oral arguments by Trump’s attorneys and the Justice Department’s top two counterintelligence prosecutors over whether she should appoint a special master to conduct a privilege review of the seized materials at Trump’s request.

Cannon deferred ruling immediately on whether to appoint a special master but said she would agree to unseal two records filed by the Justice Department.

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Former U.S. Attorney General William Barr, who was appointed by Trump, questioned the usefulness of such an appointment.

“I think at this stage, since they’ve (FBI) already gone through the documents I think it’s a waste of time” to have a special master, Barr said in an interview on Fox News.

Barr, who left the post in late December 2020, defied Trump by not backing his false claims that the presidential election that year had been stolen from him.

In the interview, Barr added that he saw no “legitimate reason” for Trump having documents at his Florida estate if they were classified.

He added, “I frankly am skeptical of this claim (by Trump) that ‘I declassified everything.’ Because frankly I think it’s highly improbable and second, if he sort of stood over scores of boxes not really knowing what was in them and said ‘I hereby declassify everything in here,’ that would be such an abuse, show such recklessness that it’s almost worse than taking the documents.”

One of the records, released on Friday, provides a little more detail about the 33 boxes and other items the FBI found inside Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, as part of its ongoing criminal investigation into whether he illegally retained national defense information and tried to obstruct the probe.

It shows that documents with classification markings were at times co-mingled with other items such as books, magazines and newspaper clippings.

An aerial view of former U.S. President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home after Trump said that FBI agents searched it, in Palm Beach, Florida, U.S. August 15, 2022. REUTERS/Marco Bello/File Photo

Also found were unspecified gifts and clothing items.

Of the more than 11,000 government records and photos, 18 were labeled as “top secret,” 54 were labeled “secret” and 31 were labeled “confidential,” according to a Reuters tally of the government’s inventory.

“Top secret” is the highest classification level, reserved for the country’s most closely held secrets.

There were also 90 empty folders, 48 of which were marked “classified,” while others indicated that they should be returned to staff secretary/military aide.

It is not clear why the folders were empty, or whether any records could be missing.

The other record that was unsealed is a three-page filing by the Justice Department updating the court about the status of its investigative team’s review of the documents seized.

That filing, dated Aug. 30, said investigators had completed a preliminary review of the materials seized and will investigate further and interview more witnesses.

The Justice Department’s criminal investigation could be potentially put on pause if Cannon agrees to appoint a special master to come in and conduct an independent third-party review of the seized records.

However, Cannon signaled at Thursday’s hearing she might be willing to permit U.S. intelligence officials to continue reviewing the materials as part of their national security damage assessment, even if a special master is appointed.

The Justice Department has previously said in court filings it has evidence that classified documents were deliberately concealed from the FBI when it tried to retrieve them from Trump’s home in June.

The Justice Department also opposes the appointment of a special master, saying the records in question do not belong to Trump and that he cannot claim they are covered by executive privilege, a legal doctrine that can be used to shield some presidential communications.

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Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch and Jason Lange; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Richard Cowan and Lisa Shumaker

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Trump’s home search unearths material possibly covered by attorney-client privilege, prosecutors say

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WASHINGTON, Aug 29 (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department’s search of former President Donald Trump’s home this month turned up a “limited” number of documents potentially subject to attorney-client privilege, federal prosecutors said in a court filing on Monday.

The new disclosure by the Justice Department could bolster a request by Trump’s legal team to appoint a special master to conduct a privilege review of the items the FBI seized from Trump’s Florida estate during its unprecedented Aug. 8 search.

At the same time, however, the department also revealed that its filter team has already completed its review of the materials – a sign that Trump’s request for a special master could be too late.

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A special master is an independent third-party sometimes appointed by a court in sensitive cases to review materials potentially covered by attorney-client privilege to ensure investigators do not improperly view them.

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon of the Southern District of Florida over the weekend issued an order saying she was inclined to appoint a special master.

She ordered the Justice Department to respond to Trump’s request, and also to provide under seal a more detailed list of the items seized from Trump’s home.

On Monday, the Justice Department said it will comply with the request and file the information under seal by Tuesday.

An aerial view of former U.S. President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home after Trump said that FBI agents searched it, in Palm Beach, Florida, U.S. August 15, 2022. REUTERS/Marco Bello/File Photo

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In the department’s filing, prosecutors said the filter team was following procedures it set forth in the warrant for addressing any materials that may be covered by attorney-client privilege, which includes showing them to the court for a determination.

The department along with Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) are currently conducting a classification review of the materials seized, it said, adding that ODNI is separately spearheading an “intelligence community assessment of the potential risk to national security” that could arise if they were ever exposed.

The search at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, which was ordered by Attorney General Merrick Garland, marked a significant escalation of one of several federal and state investigations Trump is facing involving his time in office and in private business.

The department is investigating Trump for the unlawful retention of national defense information, a violation of the Espionage Act, and it is also investigating whether he tried to obstruct the criminal probe.

In an unusual move last week, the Justice Department unsealed a redacted copy of the legal document that outlined the evidence it used to convince Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart to authorize a search warrant. read more

It revealed that Trump had retained records pertaining to the country’s most closely-guarded secrets, including those involving intelligence-gathering and clandestine human sources.

The U.S. National Archives first discovered Trump had retained classified materials in January, after he returned 15 boxes of presidential records he had kept at Mar-a-Lago.

After the FBI searched his home this month, it carted away additional material, including 11 more sets of classified records.

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Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Scott Malone and Bill Berkrot

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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