Cardi B, Waka, and Trump
If Donald Trump gets indicted in Fulton County, and even if he's just a witness, he's going to need a good criminal defense lawyer. Meet Drew Findling, Georgia's celebrated "billion dollar lawyer" who's defended hip-hop royalty, including Cardi B, Migos, Waka Flocka Flame, DaBaby, and many others. VICE News' Greg Walters spent some quality time with Findling in Atlanta to get his take on the case, the Jan. 2 call, and being progressive while defending Trump. Don't miss it. Also, a lot more to come from here, so stay tuned.
T.W.I.S.™ Notes
Jack Smith is going after Trump's chief of staff, his lawyers, his Veep, even his totally-not-classified annoying light blockers (it's a real thing). This Week in Subpoenas, can the Special Counsel really have it all?
- Zipped up Pence
Mike Pence's grand jury subpoena finally came, and with it speculation that his negotiations with the Special Counsel had created a path for Pence to do his bit for coup accountability. But within two days, Pence made clear he's fighting that subpoena and may try to avoid not just answering specific questions, but appearing altogether.
Pence plans to assert that the Constitution's Speech or Debate clause protects him, as President of the Senate, from being questioned by the executive branch. There's plenty of good analysis of that (in my opinion, spurious) assertion and plenty of garbage, value-free analysis of whether Pence's strategy to avoid telling the truth "can work." Everyone should be a lot more focused not on the legal arguments Pence is asserting, but on the choices he's making.
All of the parsing of legal immunities and reporting on privilege claims obscure the most important fact, which is that Mike Pence could voluntarily tell the grand jury what he knows about the attempted coup on the United States, and he's choosing not to.
Pence is arguably one of the three most vital witnesses to the coup plot. Along with former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, Pence probably has the most first-hand information about Trump's words, actions, and state of mind leading up to, on, and after, Jan. 6. Few people can say more about the evident conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding or to block the peaceful transfer of power than Pence, the guy Trump and his lawyers tried to coerce into executing its ultimate act.
Pence did the right thing on Jan. 6. And his personal safety was clearly on the line. So surely, a self-proclaimed Constitution Lover like him can identify the greater threat to the rule of law: a separation of powers question that's touched literally no other vice president in American history, or a direct assault on Constitutional order, fair elections, and the foundation of democracy… that he witnessed in person.
What's true about Pence was also true for all the Republican lawmakers who witnessed the coup plot, then threw down smoke bombs of misdirection to avoid January 6 committee investigators. It is entirely in his power to talk, and to tell the truth. And he could evidently do so without fear of self-incrimination. No amount of legal wrangling over the "speech and debate" clause will change the fact that if Pence doesn't tell the truth, and help bring coup plotters to justice, it's because he doesn't want to.
- I lie, awake at night
Jack Smith is getting so serious about investigating possible obstruction at Mar-a-Lago that he's going after Trump's lawyers. Smith has been making motions asking a judge to bust through attorney-client privilege on the grounds that some of Trump's lawyers might be parties to—or at least were used to do—crimes in the classified documents case.
Recall that attorney-client privilege doesn't apply if the conversations in question are in furtherance of a crime or fraud. It's the same exception that led Judge David O. Carter to release John Eastman's emails to the January 6 committee, thanks to evidence that Eastman and Trump likely conspired to commit crimes in the coup attempt.
Meanwhile, DOJ subpoenaed Trump yet again, this time in January for a folder investigators found that was marked classified. Trump claimed this week the folder was empty, which ignores the obvious question of where the contents went. The part you can't make up: Trump's lawyer (a different one) brushed it all off, saying Trump displayed classified folders in a bar in Trump Tower, and another on his nightstand to shield his eyes from an annoying light on his bedside phone that was keeping him up at night.
- S'lie, Fox
Dominion Voting Systems is getting ready to go to trial in April in its $1.6 billion lawsuit against Fox News and its parent Fox Corp. As an appetizer, read how Fox News stars and senior executives openly acknowledged Trump lost the election in private—but then went on to relentlessly lie about it on air.
How about Tucker Carlson texting Laura Ingraham on Nov. 18, 2020? "Sidney Powell is lying by the way. I caught her. It's insane." What's likely to come out at trial in Delaware is how Tucker and Ingraham (and many, many others) later turned their top-rated broadcasts into torrents of conspiracy theories about Dominion's machines.
Meanwhile, Fox News failed to get itself off the hook in Smartmatic's $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit this week. Now it's in the same boat with MAGA-pumping Fox personalities Lou Dobbs and Maria Bartiromo, who are also named in the suit. Meanwhile New York's Supreme Appellate court also tossed Rudy Giuliani and Fox's Jeannine Pirro back onto the defendants' pile, after a lower court had shielded them from the case.
- Inside sedition
Proud Boys sedition trial update: The lawyer for Proud Boys defendant Joe Biggs told the court that Donald Trump is a key witness in his client's defense and that he plans to subpoena him.
A D.C. Police lieutenant regularly shared insider details on law enforcement investigations with Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, a defense lawyer told a federal court this week. Now that cop is under investigation for his communications with Tarrio. Defense attorneys are trying to bolster Tarrio's longtime claim that his organization cooperated with police.
Also in the trial this week: A girlfriend of Tarrio pleaded the Fifth when asked about the Proud Boys plan to storm government buildings. And the FBI said it used confidential informants to monitor the Proud Boys prior to Jan. 6.
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