Closer and closer

The Justice Department is asking a federal judge to force the top two lawyers from Donald Trump’s White House counsel’s office to testify about their conversations with the former President

[...]

Trump and his allies have used claims of confidentiality – both executive privilege and attorney-client privilege - with mixed results in multiple legal quagmires that surround the former President. Those include the January 6 federal criminal investigation, the Mar-a-Lago documents federal criminal investigation, Georgia’s Fulton County investigation of election meddling, and the House select committee probe of January 6 as well. Some of the privilege arguments Trump has raised have never been settled in federal court, and some of the fights could lead to the Supreme Court.

[...]

The move to compel additional testimony from former White House counsel Pat Cipollone and deputy White House counsel Patrick Philbin just last week is part of a set of secret court proceedings. Trump has been fighting to keep former advisers from testifying before a criminal grand jury about certain conversations, citing executive and attorney-client privileges to keep information confidential or slow down criminal investigators.

But the Justice Department successfully secured answers from top vice presidential advisers Greg Jacob and Marc Short over the past three weeks in significant court victories that could make it more likely the criminal investigation reaches further into Trump’s inner circle.

[...]

[T]he Justice Department won a trial-level judge’s order at the end of September that said Jacob and Short must testify in response to certain questions over which Trump’s team had tried to claim presidential and attorney-client confidentiality.

[...]

Cipollone’s and Philbin’s roles as White House lawyers raise complicated legal questions about whether Trump can claim confidentiality over the legal advice they gave him, as well as whether a former president can assert executive privilege to hold off criminal investigators.

[...]

All four men have been willing to be as cooperative as the law demands, leaving Trump’s team to handle the fight over certain details in the investigation

[...]

The sealed court case, stemming from the grand jury’s work, had been before the chief judge of the DC District Court, Beryl Howell. Howell refused to put on hold Jacob and Short’s testimony while Trump’s team appealed.

[...]

The DC Circuit Court of Appeals is still considering legal arguments from Trump’s defense lawyers and the Justice Department over his ability to make executive and attorney-client privilege claims.

  CNN

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

3rd Insurrection hearing

Judge J Michael Luttig has the manner of an old judge who is dictating to an old secretary who takes everything down in longhand, with as many pauses as spoken words.  Half the time I forgot how he started a sentence by the time he got to the end of it.

At one point, Congressman Aguilar asked the Judge if he could briefly explain something he had written.  Oh hell no he can't! I thought.  And I'm sure I wasn't the only one.  But then toward the end of the hearing he was asked what he meant by something he said, and he answered, "Just what I said."  That was exactly what I thought and was crying in my head, "Don't make him explain it!"  I guess even he was tired of hearing himself.  LOL.

Thank god he didn't give an opening statement.  But the written statement is here if you'd like to read it.

The other witness was Mike Pence's chief counsel on January 6, Greg Jacob.  Who wouldn't like that he sent an email from inside the capitol while under attack to Trump lackey, attorney John Eastman saying, "Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege."  That can be our marching motto.  Say it to anybody any time you're in trouble.

Attorney Jacob says he got Eastman to agree that Al Gore didn't have (nor should have had) the right to throw out electoral votes or return them to the states in 2000, and that Kamala Harris shouldn't have it in 2024; nevertheless, Mike Pence should "do it today."  And why would Eastman have a problem with that?  That's the way Mitch McConnell has run the GOP for years.

Also:

So much criming going on.

Trump decided otherwise.  Maybe Eastman and Rudy can ask to get on the list to be cellmates.

I would say Eastman will be doing time, but he strikes me as the type who will flip and sing like a canary.  If Trump doesn't put a hit out on him first.  Which makes me wonder who replaced Michael Cohen.

And we can only hope precious Ivanka withstands the fallout from the clip in this hearing where she testified that Trump called Pence to berate him when he wouldn't perform.

The "P" word, is what the deposed woman said.  That pee business never dies.

From another deposition, Trump also called Pence a wimp during that call.

This three hour (thanks, Judge Luttig!) hearing was definitely not prime-time material.  Those it didn't put to sleep probably would have changed the channel 20 minutes in. 

And yet, there was some good stuff that came out.

Over to Aaron Rupar for the highlights.  Begin here:

And beware that the woman sitting behind Greg Jacob is scary.  I saw her smile once, though, so it's probably okay.

Previous hearing.

Your assumptions are bearing out

Hours before the deadly attack on the US Capitol this year, Donald Trump made several calls from the White House to top lieutenants at the Willard hotel in Washington and talked about ways to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election win from taking place on 6 January.

[...]

The former president made several calls to the lieutenants at the Willard the night before 6 January. He phoned the lawyers and the non-lawyers separately, as Giuliani did not want non-lawyers to participate on legal calls and jeopardise attorney-client privilege.

[...]

[A]s Trump relayed to them the situation with Pence, he pressed his lieutenants about how to stop Biden’s certification from taking place on 6 January, and delay the certification process to get alternate slates of electors for Trump sent to Congress.

The former president’s remarks came as part of strategy discussions he had from the White House with the lieutenants at the Willard – a team led by Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Boris Epshteyn and Trump strategist Steve Bannon – about delaying the certification.

[...]

Trump’s remarks reveal a direct line from the White House and the command center at the Willard. The conversations also show Trump’s thoughts appear to be in line with the motivations of the pro-Trump mob that carried out the Capitol attack and halted Biden’s certification, until it was later ratified by Congress.

The former president’s call to the Willard hotel about stopping Biden’s certification is increasingly a central focus of the House select committee’s investigation into the Capitol attack, as it raises the specter of a possible connection between Trump and the insurrection.

[...]

At [a] meeting, which was held in the Oval Office and attended by Trump, Pence, Pence’s chief of staff, Marc Short, and his legal counsel, Greg Jacob, Eastman presented a memo that detailed how Pence could insert himself into the certification and delay the process.

The memo outlined several ways for Pence to commandeer his role at the joint session, including throwing the election to the House, or adjourning the session to give states time to send slates of electors for Trump on the basis of election fraud – Eastman’s preference.

[...]

But Pence resisted Trump’s entreaties, and told him in the Oval Office the next day that Trump should count him out of whatever plans he had to subvert the results of the 2020 election at the joint session, because he did not intend to take part.

[...]

The then acting attorney general, Jeff Rosen, and his predecessor, Bill Barr, who had both been appointed by Trump, had already determined there was no evidence of fraud sufficient to change the outcome of the 2020 election.

[...]

On the calls, the former president first recounted what had transpired in the Oval Office meeting with Pence, informing Bannon and the lawyers at the Willard that his vice-president appeared ready to abandon him at the joint session in several hours’ time.

“He’s arrogant,” Trump, for instance, told Bannon of Pence.

[...]

The fallback that Trump and his lieutenants appeared to settle on was to cajole Republican members of Congress to raise enough objections so that even without Pence adjourning the joint session, the certification process would be delayed for states to send Trump slates.

[...]

The lead Trump lawyer at the Willard, Giuliani, appearing to follow that fallback plan, called at least one Republican senator later that same evening, asking him to help keep Congress adjourned and stall the joint session beyond 6 January.

In a voicemail recorded at about 7pm on 6 January, and reported by the Dispatch, Giuliani implored the Republican senator Tommy Tuberville to object to 10 states Biden won once Congress reconvened at 8pm, a process that would have concluded 15 hours later, close to 7 January.

[...]

The White House residence and its Yellow Oval Room – a Trump favorite – is significant since communications there, including from a desk phone, are not automatically memorialized in records sent to the National Archives after the end of an administration.

But even if Trump called his lieutenants from the West Wing, the select committee may not be able to fully uncover the extent of his involvement in the events of 6 January, unless House investigators secure testimony from individuals with knowledge of the calls.

That difficulty arises since calls from the White House are not necessarily recorded, and call detail records that the select committee is suing to pry free from the National Archives over Trump’s objections about executive privilege, only show the destination of the calls.

[...]

The chairman of the select committee, Bennie Thompson, said in a statement that the panel was pursuing the Trump officials at the Willard to uncover “every detail about their efforts to overturn the election, including who they were talking to in the White House and in Congress”.

  Guardian

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.