Jack Smith particularly interested in Dec. 2020 Trump meeting

On Thursday night, Donald Trump continued what became a long series of rants against Special Counsel Jack Smith, tagging the veteran prosecutor with the word “deranged” and again trying to completely reverse the meaning of the law on the presidential archives. Such frothy statements are typical of Trump, but they have become more frequent and frantic in recent weeks as it becomes clear that the other The case against Trump, the one over his involvement in the attempted cancellation of the 2020 election, could be far more serious than the classified documents case Trump has already been indicted over.

Trump now faces 37 felony charges in the classified documents case, including multiple violations of the Espionage Act, conspiracy to obstruct justice, and intrigues to conceal documents from a federal investigation. Moreover, he faces 34 additional counts in New York for falsifying business records in an attempt to conceal his payments to two women with whom he allegedly had adulterous sex.

However, there is a growing sense that all of this may just be the tip of a very large legal iceberg that still awaits us. Because while Smith’s investigation of the classified documents case found that Trump and aide Walt Nauta moved boxes of top-secret documents into bathrooms at Mar-a-Lago, the fraud investigation election seems likely to ensnare Trump, his advisers, his legal team, and the Republicans at the state and federal levels who have all conspired to overthrow the United States government.

Since beginning his investigation, which began when he was named special counsel in November, Smith has followed numerous leads related to Trump’s attempts to reverse the 2020 election result. This has included examining:

• how Trump’s actions contributed to the violent January 6 insurgency, including possible incitement and failure to act to protect Congress.

• the multiple instances in which Trump’s legal team made false claims regarding voter fraud in an effort to block or void the certification of election results.

• Trump’s phone calls to everyone from governors and state officials to members of county and district election boards in an effort to interfere with the vote count.

• Trump’s misrepresentations regarding rigged voting machines, which included many of the lies that recently led Fox News to strike a $787 million deal with Dominion Voting Systems.

• Trump’s efforts to replace acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen with Jeffrey Clark, who would then act to prevent Congress from certifying election results and issuing false claims about voter fraud.

• the grand scheme created by Trump and Ted Cruz associate, attorney John Eastman, in which Trump pressured state officials to select lists of bogus voters, intending to do recognize those voters by former Vice President Mike Pence during the final vote count on Jan. 6.

• the draft executive orders that would have seized the voting machines and placed them under military control.

• Trump is pressuring Pence to accept this scheme, including threats of political ostracism and physical violence.

That’s a lot of material for investigators. But then what happened on January 6 was not Trump’s first effort, or even his fifth. There were dozens of lawsuits dismissed and multiple “perfect calls” to officials before Trump and Eastman set about devising a way to simply dismiss the results. And all the while, Trump’s legal team, including Sidney Powell and Rudy Guiliani, were dripping hair dye and spouting increasingly savage claims in courtrooms and in front of cameras across the country. .

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As CNN reports, many of these threads came together on a very special occasion: an Oval Office meeting held on Dec. idea of ​​how democracy could be broken. In addition to the crowded room, even more people were connected to the meeting by phone. In a free-wheeling session that reportedly included “screaming matches” between the factions pushing one plan or another, figures such as Powell, disgraced former national security adviser Michael Flynn and even the former CEO Overstock.com’s Patrick Byrne pitched ideas so outlandish that even members of Trump’s inner circle are whitewashing.

This meeting was not just to present, but to flesh out the idea that Trump would use the military to seize voting machines in states won by President Joe Biden. It also included proposals for a redone election with polling stations under military control. Like former White House attorney Eric Herschmann said of the meeting questioned by the House committee on January 6, “I thought that was crazy.” He also said he told the band of Flynn, Powell and Byrne to “shut up the ‘F’.”

During this meeting, the multi-part agenda to subvert the January 6 ceremonial activities and turn them into an excuse to claim Trump won through the use of fake voters and dismiss the results in states won by Biden seemed to become the preferred means of getting around. Before. This program was already well underway at this stage. Four days before the Dec. 18 meeting, slates of fake voters in seven states won by Biden signed certificates falsely claiming that Trump had won their states.

At the end of the night, Trump posted what might be his most infamous tweet: “Big protest in DC Jan 6,” Trump wrote. “Be there, will be wild!”

While the attendees and topics of this meeting may be a good sample of Trump’s multiple plots to nullify the election, they are certainly not all that is under the special prosecutor’s control. Still, the December 18 meeting showed the desperation of Trump’s efforts, and the list of those present at the meeting but not subpoenaed may be key to the direction of Smith’s investigation.

In addition, the grand jury heard from state and county officials from seven states, as well as several members of the fake voter rolls. At least “five or six” members of the Secret Service testified. The same goes for state-level and national-level officials in the Republican Party. Many others were interviewed by investigators who did not appear before the jury.

Others present at the Dec. 18 meeting, such as little-known former Homeland Security official Emily Newman, who at the time was playing a dual role as a member of Powell’s legal team, were there. to support the Powell-Flynn scheme to call into the military. Trump adviser Eric Herschmann appears to have exposed the conspirators. It is not known whether either appeared before the grand jury, although Herschmann testified before the committee on January 6.

It is unclear whether Eastman, Flynn, Powell, or Clark provided testimony. It is very common for those most likely to face charges of not testify before the grand jury. This could indicate that Trump, Powell, Flynn, Eastman and Clark are all central to Smith’s investigation.

This group would appear to be among the most likely to face charges. It has been reported that others, including former White House chief of staff Meadows, may have struck a deal with Smith to provide testimony in exchange for reduced charges or suggestions for improved sadness. All of these claims remain unconfirmed at this point.

As Trump continues to rail against Smith, it’s clear the special counsel is far from done. The classified documents case has always been the smaller of the two main charges brought against Smith when he was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland. Smith recently requested that the start of this case be delayed until October.

That may be just enough time to hand Trump a much thicker set of accusations on an even bigger topic.