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    Manhattan District Attorney Finally Addresses Trump Indictment

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
    -
    12
    Gage Skidmore Flickr

    Manhattan District Attorney has broken his silence on the potential indictment of former President Donald Trump.

    On Thursday, Bragg addressed the claim by former President Trump that he would be arrested in connection to an investigation into a hush money payment made to adult film star Stormy Daniels, calling it the creation of a “false expectation.”

    According to The Hill, Bragg responded to demands by House Republicans pushing to force his testimony and turn over all documents and communication on the case, in a letter to Congress that such a move was an “unprecendent[ed] inquiry into a pending local prosecution.”

    Bragg’s general counsel sent a five-page letter to GOP House committee chairmen Jim Jordan(Ohio), Bryan Steil (Wis.), and James Comer (Ky.) regarding their request for documents and testimony in the Trump investigation.

    “The letter only came after Donald Trump created a false expectation that he would be arrested the next day and his lawyers reportedly urged you to intervene,” Bragg wrote.

    “If charges are brought at the conclusion, it will be because the rule of law and faithful execution of the District Attorney’s duty require it,” he wrote.

    “The Letter’s allegation that the DA’s Office is pursuing a prosecution for political purposes is unfounded, and regardless, the proper forum for such a challenge is the Courts of New York, which are equipped to consider and review such objections.” 

    “Your letter treads into territory very clearly reserved to the states. It suggests that Congress’s investigation is being ‘conducted solely for the personal aggrandizement of the investigators or to “punish” those investigated,’ and is, therefore, ‘indefensible,’” he writes, pointing to a 1957 Supreme Court ruling limiting congressional investigations. 

    Trump wrote in a Truth Social post over the weekend that he expected to be arrested on Tuesday in connection to the probe, but as of Thursday morning, no charges have been announced and the grand jury weighing the case is not expected to meet for the rest of the week.

    “ILLEGAL LEAKS FROM A CORRUPT & HIGHLY POLITICAL MANHATTAN DISTRICT ATTORNEYS OFFICE, WHICH HAS ALLOWED NEW RECORDS TO BE SET IN VIOLENT CRIME & WHOSE LEADER IS FUNDED BY GEORGE SOROS, INDICATE THAT, WITH NO CRIME BEING ABLE TO BE PROVEN, & BASED ON AN OLD & FULLY DEBUNKED (BY NUMEROUS OTHER PROSECUTORS!) FAIRYTALE, THE FAR & AWAY LEADING REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE & FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK,” Trump posted to his social media platform Truth Social. “PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!”

    Trump’s call was shortly followed by a demand from a trio of House Republican chairmen on Monday for testimony from Bragg ahead of his anticipated prosecution of Trump.

    “Here we go again — an outrageous abuse of power by a radical DA who lets violent criminals walk as he pursues political vengeance against President Trump,” McCarthy said on Twitter. “I’m directing relevant committees to immediately investigate if federal funds are being used to subvert our democracy by interfering in elections with politically motivated prosecutions.”

    Prosecutors are expected to charge Trump with a felony by arguing that the alleged crime was committed to hide an illegal campaign contribution. The potential problem for Trump centers around how his company reimbursed former attorney Michael Cohen, who pleaded guilty to related charges and served time in prison.

    The payment to Daniels was listed as a legal expense and Trump’s company cited a retainer agreement with Cohen. The retainer agreement did not exist and the reimbursement was not related to any legal services from Cohen, thus setting up a potential misdemeanor criminal charge of falsifying business records. A report by NBC News said that Trump personally signed several of the checks to Cohen while he was serving as president.

    Prosecutors can elevate the misdemeanor to a felony if they can prove that Trump’s “‘intent to defraud’ included an intent to commit or conceal a second crime.”

    Prosecutors argue that the second crime is that the $130,000 hush payment was an improper donation to the Trump campaign because the money was used to stop a story for the purpose of benefiting his presidential campaign.

    New York Grand Jury Cancels Wednesday Meeting: Report

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
    -
    7
    Donald Trump via Gage Skidmore Flickr

    The New York grand jury considering indicting former President Trump has canceled its Wednesday meeting, delaying the potential indictment.

    Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) reportedly told the panel of jurors they should still be on standby to report on Thursday. The grand jury empaneled for Bragg’s investigation typically meets Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. 

    The cancellation comes after Trump predicted over the weekend that he could be arrested as soon as Tuesday in connection with the probe.

    “ILLEGAL LEAKS FROM A CORRUPT & HIGHLY POLITICAL MANHATTAN DISTRICT ATTORNEYS OFFICE, WHICH HAS ALLOWED NEW RECORDS TO BE SET IN VIOLENT CRIME & WHOSE LEADER IS FUNDED BY GEORGE SOROS, INDICATE THAT, WITH NO CRIME BEING ABLE TO BE PROVEN, & BASED ON AN OLD & FULLY DEBUNKED (BY NUMEROUS OTHER PROSECUTORS!) FAIRYTALE, THE FAR & AWAY LEADING REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE & FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK,” Trump posted to his social media platform Truth Social. “PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!”

    Earlier this week, Fox News reported the grand jury scheduled an additional witness on Wednesday. The report cited a law enforcement official familiar with the case who says he doesn’t expect the indictment to come until next week at the earliest.

    The officer also noted the logistical issues of closing down streets and putting lights up with generators, extra barriers, and extra police as well as public safety concerns as reasons for delaying the indictment.

    “If the former president does come up to Manhattan, there will be a major police presence and the area will get shut down. Trump has called on his supporters to protest ahead of a possible indictment, ” Fox News reports.

    On Monday, authorities were seen erecting barricades outside of the Manhattan Criminal Court.

    The unprecedented indictment hanging over Trump’s head stems from a $130,000 hush money payment he allegedly made to porn actress Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign.

    Prosecutors are expected to charge Trump with a felony by arguing that the alleged crime was committed to hide an illegal campaign contribution. The potential problem for Trump centers around how his company reimbursed former attorney Michael Cohen, who pleaded guilty to related charges and served time in prison.

    The payment to Daniels was listed as a legal expense and Trump’s company cited a retainer agreement with Cohen. The retainer agreement did not exist and the reimbursement was not related to any legal services from Cohen, thus setting up a potential misdemeanor criminal charge of falsifying business records. A report by NBC News said that Trump personally signed several of the checks to Cohen while he was serving as president.

    Prosecutors can elevate the misdemeanor to a felony if they can prove that Trump’s “‘intent to defraud’ included an intent to commit or conceal a second crime.”

    Prosecutors argue that the second crime is that the $130,000 hush payment was an improper donation to the Trump campaign because the money was used to stop a story for the purpose of benefiting his presidential campaign.

    ‘I Love Trump’ Tucker Carlson Addresses Private Text Fiasco

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
    -
    1
    Photo via Gage Skidmore Flickr

    Tucker Carlson is clearing the air after his private text messages revealed his hidden hatred for former President Donald Trump.

    The Fox News star tried to walk back his private remarks about Trump during an appearance on WABC radio.

    “And I think this is in the text, and those were all grabbed completely illegitimately, in my opinion, in this court case, which I guess I’m not allowed to talk about, but I’m enraged that my private texts were pulled,” he said.

    The Fox News host said those texts were pulled at a moment when he was texting with one of his producers because “some idiot on the Trump campaign had sent us the name of these dead voters who had voted,” referring to his false reporting after the 2020 election that echoed the Trump campaign’s unfounded claims of dead people who were fraudulently counted as voting in Georgia. After Carlson’s segment aired, a local Georgia news outlet debunked his claim, finding that two of the allegedly dead voters were alive and legally registered to vote, with CNN reporting days later that a third of the supposedly dead voters was also still living.

    “And we went and I repeated them on air, and it turns out some of them were alive,” Carlson said, referring to the campaign’s accusation. “So I was just — I felt humiliated.”

    Earlier this month, Carlson’s along with other prominent Fox News officials’ private text messages were revealed in court documents as part of a $1.6 billion Dominion Voting Systems defamation suit against the network.

    During a Jan. 4, 2021 text conversation with an unknown producer, Carlson sounded off on the former president.

    The prime-time star wrote, “We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights.”

    The unknown staffer reportedly speculated that they believed the madness would cool down by “mid-February.”

    “I hate him passionately,” Carlson replied. “I blew up at [former Trump official] Peter Navarro today in frustration. I actually like Peter. But I can’t handle much more of this.”

    Potential Trump Arrest a ‘Manufactured Circus’ by ‘Weaponized’ Prosecutor

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    3
    Donald Trump via Gage Skidmore Flickr

    ANALYSIS – Former President Donald Trump announced on his Truth Social media Saturday that he was going to be arrested on Tuesday, March 21. 

    He also urged his supporters to protest.

    So far no other news media has confirmed his claim and Trump remains untouched.

    It appears that this announcement citing illegal leaks in the Manhattan DA’s office was Trump’s successful attempt to get ahead of the story.

    In part, he wanted to mobilize the GOP.

    Still, if or when, this does happen, an arrest of a former president, and current candidate, would be an unprecedented event in U.S. history.

    It would look like third-world criminalization of politics, and can only further alienate many of the 70 million Americans who voted for Trump in 2020.

    Most Republicans will see it as a politicized witch hunt. It would also only deepens the belief that there continues to be a years-long conspiracy to bring down Trump.

    It will seem that the Russia collusion hoax, the ‘resistance’ inside and outside of government, lawsuits, and two highly partisan, manufactured, and failed, impeachments against Trump by then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi didn’t suffice.

    Provoking a reaction from potential GOP primary opponents was also a Trump goal. 

    And Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who has not announced he is running for president, had a few things to say about the issue, even while claiming he wasn’t “going to be involved.”

    DeSantis called the whole prosecution a ‘manufactured circus.’

    The conservative governor focused on how the George Soros-backed New York City prosecutor Alvin L. Bragg, has seen major crime skyrocket in Manhattan while focusing on a relatively petty alleged crime to go after the former president.

    The petty prosecution is over alleged hush money payments to adult performer Stormy Daniels to, as DeSantis said dismissively, “secure silence over some type of alleged affair.”

    But it’s not even about the alleged payments made on his behalf by his then-attorney Michael Cohen (which wouldn’t be too different from the numerous illicit ways Bill Clinton tried to hide his many affairs while in office from the public. 

    This case is expected to actually focus on Trump’s role in recording the reimbursements he made to Cohen in the internal records of his company, the Trump Organization, which were entered as “legal expenses.”

    That’s even pettier. The DA calls it “fraud.” Others might call it “sloppy bookkeeping.”

    According to the Epoch Times (ET), DeSantis said:

    We are not involved in this. We won’t be involved in this. I have no interest in getting involved in some kind of manufactured circus by a Soros-funded DA. He’s trying to do a political spectacle. He’s trying to virtue signal for his base.

    He added: “I can’t spend my time worrying about things of that nature. So, we’re not going to be involved in it in any way.”

    Well, DeSantis is correct, even if he is getting somewhat “involved.”

    And DeSantis does know a thing or two about ideologically motivated, Soros-backed prosecutors.

    As ET reports:

    DeSantis removed Hillsborough County District Attorney Andrew Warren from office last year for stating he wouldn’t prosecute certain crimes. DeSantis’s action has so far survived a review by a federal judge.

    DeSantis added: “He [Bragg] is a Soros-funded prosecutor and, like other Soros-funded prosecutors, they weaponize their office to impose a political agenda on society at the expense of the rule of law and public safety.”

    The governor continued: “He has downgraded over 50 percent of felonies to misdemeanors. He says he doesn’t want to even have jail time for the vast majority of crimes. And what we’ve seen in Manhattan is, we’ve seen the crime rate go up and we’ve seen citizens become less safe,” DeSantis said.

    But it’s not just DeSantis who sees this as a politically motivated vendetta that could cause far more harm to the American system than good. The New York Times reported that some Democrats and legal experts have their own doubts as well:

    Charging former President Donald J. Trump in connection with a hush-money payment to a porn star would catapult Mr. Bragg onto the national stage. Already he faces second-guessing, even from putative allies, about the strength of the case and the wisdom of bringing it. 

    The Times continued:

    …Bragg has been in a difficult situation. Rebecca Roiphe, a professor at New York Law School and a former prosecutor in Manhattan, said that even though investigators do not target individuals for political reasons, politics does come into play in that “there is always a question of whether it is [in] the public interest to bring a certain charge or not.”

    If he does not bring a case even though there is clear evidence to prove it, Ms. Roiphe suggested, he could violate the longstanding principle that no person is above the law. But if he does indict Mr. Trump, who has begun a third presidential campaign, the choice could also be “incredibly destabilizing and harmful,” Ms. Roiphe said.

    Meanwhile, many Republicans will be getting very “involved” in this potential outrage. Speaker of the House, Rep. Kevin McCarthy has already accused Bragg of “abusing his office to target President Trump.”

    He also is threatening to defund Bragg and is investigating whether federal funds were used by Bragg to pursue Trump.

    Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

    Manhattan DA Responds House Republicans’ Letter on Potential trump Indictment

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
    -
    11

    The Manhattan District Attorney’s office issued a response after top House Republicans demanded that Bragg testifies to Congress on a possible indictment of former President Trump.

    “We will not be intimidated by attempts to undermine the justice process, nor will we let baseless accusations deter us from fairly applying the law,” a spokesperson for Bragg’s office told Fox News Digital. 

    “In every prosecution, we follow the law without fear or favor to uncover the truth. Our skilled, honest and dedicated lawyers remain hard at work,” the spokesperson added. 

    Bragg’s statement comes after Republicans on the Administration and Oversight committees sent a letter to Bragg demanding that he turn over documents related to his Trump investigation and testify before Congress after reports said Trump could face an indictment this week.

    Over the weekend, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R- Calif.) responded to former President Donald Trump’s social media post saying that he will be arrested this week by pledging to have congressional committees investigate whether federal funding was involved in the case out of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.

    “Here we go again — an outrageous abuse of power by a radical DA who lets violent criminals walk as he pursues political vengeance against President Trump,” McCarthy said on Twitter. “I’m directing relevant committees to immediately investigate if federal funds are being used to subvert our democracy by interfering in elections with politically motivated prosecutions.”

    Florida Governor Breaks Silence on Potential Trump Arrest

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
    -
    9

    Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) is finally addressing former President Donald Trump’s remarks over the weekend that Manhattan prosecutors plan to arrest him on Tuesday.

    During an event Monday, DeSantis slammed George Soros-backed prosecutor Alvin Bragg’s highly politicized yearslong witchhunt into the former president.

    “I’ve seen rumors swirl. I have not seen any facts yet, and so I don’t know what’s going to happen,” said DeSantis, a likely 2024 Republican presidential hopeful. “But I do know this: The Manhattan district attorney is a Soros-funded prosecutor and so he, like other Soros-funded prosecutors, they weaponize their office to impose a political agenda on society at the expense of the rule of law and public safety.”

    “But what I can speak to is if you have a prosecutor, who is ignoring crimes happening every single day in his jurisdiction, and he chooses to go back many, many years ago to try to use something about porn star hush-money payments, that’s an example of pursuing a political agenda and weaponizing the office,” he said.

    DeSantis also noted that his office would not be involved in the case “in any way,” signaling that he has no plans to help Trump fight extradition to New York should he face charges.

    Prosecutors are expected to charge Trump with a felony by arguing that the alleged crime was committed to hide an illegal campaign contribution. The potential problem for Trump centers around how his company reimbursed former attorney Michael Cohen, who pleaded guilty to related charges and served time in prison.

    The payment to Daniels was listed as a legal expense and Trump’s company cited a retainer agreement with Cohen. The retainer agreement did not exist and the reimbursement was not related to any legal services from Cohen, thus setting up a potential misdemeanor criminal charge of falsifying business records. A report by NBC News said that Trump personally signed several of the checks to Cohen while he was serving as president.

    Prosecutors can elevate the misdemeanor to a felony if they can prove that Trump’s “‘intent to defraud’ included an intent to commit or conceal a second crime.”

    Prosecutors argue that the second crime is that the $130,000 hush payment was an improper donation to the Trump campaign because the money was used to stop a story for the purpose of benefiting his presidential campaign.

    Donald Trump Moves to End Georgia Probe

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
    -
    0
    Donald Trump via Gage Skidmore Flickr

    Former President Donald Trump is moving to put an end to the ongoing Georgia election probe.

    On Monday, Trump’s legal team made a filing seeking to bar the use of any evidence presented to a grand jury reviewing the matter, according to The Hill.

    The Monday filing seeks to block use of a report from a grand jury on the matter, bar Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’s involvement in the case, and attacks a series of interviews given by jury forewoman Emily Kohrs.

    In a 50-page filing in a Fulton County court, Trump’s attorneys labeled the investigation as “confusing, flawed, and, at times, blatantly unconstitutional.”

    “Given the scrutiny and the gravity of the investigation and those individuals involved — namely the movant Donald J. Trump, this process should have been handled correctly, fairly, and with deference to the law and the highest ethical standards,” attorneys Jennifer Little, Drew Findling, and Marissa Goldberg wrote in the filing.

    Last month, Great America News Desk reported that the Georgia grand jury recommended indictments against multiple individuals. So far, no indictments have come from the probe but forewoman Kohrs seemed to indicate Trump, and others could expect to be charged.

    “It is not a short list,” the forewoman Kohrs said in an interview.

    This story is breaking. Click refresh for the latest updates.

    House Speaker Responds to News of Potential Trump Indictment

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
    -
    0
    House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy delivers remarks at the 2021 Capitol Christmas Tree lighting ceremony in Washington DC, December 1, 2021. USDA Forest Service photo by Tanya E. Flores.

    House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R- Calif.) responded to former President Donald Trump’s social media post saying that he will be arrested this week by pledging to have congressional committees investigate whether federal funding was involved in the case out of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.

    “Here we go again — an outrageous abuse of power by a radical DA who lets violent criminals walk as he pursues political vengeance against President Trump,” McCarthy said on Twitter. “I’m directing relevant committees to immediately investigate if federal funds are being used to subvert our democracy by interfering in elections with politically motivated prosecutions.”

    McCarthy’s remarks come after Trump wrote on social media Saturday morning that he would be arrested on Tuesday.

    “ILLEGAL LEAKS FROM A CORRUPT & HIGHLY POLITICAL MANHATTAN DISTRICT ATTORNEYS OFFICE, WHICH HAS ALLOWED NEW RECORDS TO BE SET IN VIOLENT CRIME & WHOSE LEADER IS FUNDED BY GEORGE SOROS, INDICATE THAT, WITH NO CRIME BEING ABLE TO BE PROVEN, & BASED ON AN OLD & FULLY DEBUNKED (BY NUMEROUS OTHER PROSECUTORS!) FAIRYTALE, THE FAR & AWAY LEADING REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE & FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK,” Trump posted to his social media platform. “PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!”

    The remarks from Trump come after a report from NBC News said federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies were planning to prepare for the possibility that Trump could be indicted next week by a Manhattan grand jury in connection with a $130,000 hush money payment he allegedly made to porn actress Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign.

    Prosecutors are expected to charge Trump with a felony by arguing that the alleged crime was committed to hide an illegal campaign contribution.

    Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg reportedly wrote in an email to employees that was obtained by POLITICO: “I’m sure you have seen the ongoing press attention and public comments surrounding an ongoing investigation by this office.”

    “Please know that your safety is our top priority,” Bragg continued. “We have full confidence in our outstanding security staff and investigators, along with our great OCA and NYPD colleagues, and will continue to coordinate with all of them. We do not tolerate attempts to intimidate our office or threaten the rule of law in New York. Our law enforcement partners will ensure that any specific or credible threats against the office will be fully investigated and that the proper safeguards are in so all 1,600 of us have a secure work environment.”

    “This office is full of the finest public servants in the country. I am committed to maintaining a safe work environment where everyone is able to continue to serve the public with the same diligence and professionalism that make this institution so renowned,” Bragg concluded. “In the meantime, as with all of our investigations, we will continue to apply the law evenly and fairly, and speak publicly only when appropriate.”

    The potential problem for Trump centers around how his company reimbursed former attorney Michael Cohen. The payment to Daniels was listed as a legal expense and the company cited a retainer agreement with Cohen. However, according to The Daily Wire, the retainer agreement did not exist and the reimbursement was not related to any legal services from Cohen, thus setting up a potential misdemeanor criminal charge of falsifying business records. The report said that Trump personally signed several of the checks to Cohen while he was serving as president.

    Prosecutors can elevate the misdemeanor to a felony if they can prove that Trump’s “‘intent to defraud’ included an intent to commit or conceal a second crime.”

    Prosecutors argue that the second crime is that the $130,000 hush payment was an improper donation to the Trump campaign because the money was used to stop a story for the purpose of benefiting his presidential campaign.

    Other notable figures have reacted to the news the former president could be charged this week.

    Twitter boss and tech mogul Elon Musk speculated that if Trump in fact charged the move will likely be a major boost to his 2024 campaign.

    Vivek Ramaswamy, who is running for president, decried the prospect of former President Donald Trump being indicted.

    “A Trump indictment would be a national disaster. It is un-American for the ruling party to use police power to arrest its political rivals,” Ramaswamy tweeted on Saturday.

    He made a reference to the 2004 presidential election in which Democrat John Kerry lost to George Bush and his running mate Dick Cheney.

    “If a Republican prosecutor in 2004 had used a campaign finance technicality to arrest then-candidate John Kerry while Bush & Cheney were in power, liberals would have cried foul – and rightly so,” Ramaswamy said. “Principles go beyond partisanship.”

    Georgia Prosecutors Weighing RICO Charges In Trump Probe

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
    -
    0
    Gage Skidmore Flickr

    As criminal charges loom over former President Donald Trump from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, prosecutors under Atlanta DA Fani Willis (D) are weighing racketeering and conspiracy charges against those who conspired to overturn Trump’s 2020 electoral defeat in Georgia.

    A source close to the investigation says prosecutors have compiled substantial evidence related to a conspiracy. They added that the work shows the effort didn’t originate in Georgia.

    CNN further reports:

    Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis could make decisions on charges this spring, the source said. Willis will bring her charging recommendations to the regularly seated grand juries, who each serve two-month terms. Two regular Fulton County grand juries were seated in early March, and the next batch of two are scheduled to be sworn-in early May.

    Investigators have at least three recordings of Trump pressuring Georgia officials, including a phone call that he made to the Georgia House speaker to push for a special session to overturn Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 victory in the state.

    There is also a recording of Trump’s call to a top investigator with the Georgia Secretary of State’s office in December 2020, while they were looking into quashed allegations of irregularities with signature-matching in Cobb County in the Atlanta metropolitan area.

    Prosecutors in multiple criminal investigations in different jurisdictions face difficult and politically consequential choices over what to charge Trump with if they decide to indict him.

    In Atlanta, the Republican-controlled Georgia House of Representatives pushed legislation through this month that would create an oversight mechanism for county prosecutors. The investigatory panels would take disciplinary action against prosecutors who neglect their duties.

    Meanwhile, Trump posted on his social media site early Saturday morning, claiming that the Manhattan DA’s office would arrest him on Tuesday.

    Behind the scenes, local, state and federal law enforcement agencies are preparing for a possible indictment in New York, as American Liberty News reported last week:

    NBC News is reporting that law enforcement agencies are preparing for what was, until recently, largely considered unthinkable.

    The indictment of a former president of the United States.

    According to five senior law enforcement figures speaking on the condition of anonymity, local, state and federal agencies are discussing security plans involving the Manhattan Criminal Court if New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg decides to charge Trump for his alleged connection to hush money payments made to Stormy Daniels.

    Report: Mar-A-Lago Staff, Members Subpoenaed In Classified Docs Probe

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
    -
    0
    Marine One lifts-off after returning President Donald J. Trump to Mar-a-Lago Friday, March 29, 2019, following his visit to the 143-mile Herbert Hoover Dike near Canal Point, Fla., that surrounds Lake Okeechobee. The visit was part of an infrastructure inspection of the dike, which is part of the Kissimmee-Okeechobee Everglades system, and reduces impacts of flooding for areas of south Florida. (Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian) [Photo Credit: The White House from Washington, DC, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons]

    At least a dozen people ranging from members to employees of Donald Trump’s Mar-A-Lago estate have been subpoenaed as part of the Justice Department’s ongoing probe into the former president’s handling of classified materials.

    According to an exclusive report from CNN, multiple sources close to Trump’s inner circle confirmed that multiple individuals have been subpoenaed to testify to a federal grand jury, intentionally casting a “wide net.”

    The report noted that Trump’s communications aide Margo Martin, who worked in the White House and then moved with Trump to Florida, appeared before the grand jury in Washington, DC earlier this week.

    Special counsel Jack Smith has sought testimony from a range of people close to Trump. He’s targeted Trump’s own attorneys who represent him in the matter as well as staffers who work on the grounds of Mar-a-Lago, including a housekeeper and restaurant servers.

    The staffers are of interest to investigators because of what they may have seen or heard while on their daily duties around the estate, including whether they saw boxes or documents in Trump’s office suite or elsewhere.

    “They’re casting an extremely wide net – anyone and everyone who might have seen something,” said one source familiar with the Justice Department’s efforts.

    For instance, federal investigators have talked to a Mar-a-Lago staff member seen on security camera footage moving boxes from a storage room with Trump aide Walt Nauta, who has already spoken with investigators.

    The report noted that many of the Mar-a-Lago staffers are being represented by counsel paid for by Trump entities.

    The Justice Department has been investigating potential mishandling of national security records and possible obstruction. Last August, FBI agents conducted a raid on Mar-A-Lago and recovered more than 100 classified documents during a search.

    Earlier this year, documents marked classified were found in the Penn Biden Center thinktank in Washington, D.C. Shortly after a subsequent search found classified documents in President Biden’s Delaware homes.

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