and now it really begins ...

[drjohncarpenter]

Also yesterday, EX president.











Even Fox "News" knows where this is heading.

Truth matters. Elections matter. Democracy matters.

Hold on tight, America, more justice is a-comin'.

[drjohncarpenter]

About last night.







Steve Schmidt reacts to CNN’s “embarrassing” town hall with Donald Trump | The Warning





Appalling broadcast from the "new" CNN.

Former GOP strategist zeros in on the failure from a once-respected news network.

[BrianTCB]

FBI agents raid condo unit owned by Russians at Trump Towers in Sunny Isles


https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article275358451.html

The trio of Trump Towers on Sunny Isles Beach draws its share of gawkers, thanks to Donald Trump’s licensing deal that plastered his name on the oceanfront development. But on Thursday, the luxury high-rise complex drew the attention of law enforcement, namely the Federal Bureau of Investigation. A squad of FBI special agents, assisted by local police, descended on Trump Tower III at 15811 Collins Ave. to carry out a search of unit 4102. It’s owned by a shell company, MIC-USA LLC, that is controlled by two Russian businessmen, Oleg Sergeyevich Patsulya and Agunda Konstantinovna Makeeva, according to state corporation records. On Friday, a spokesman for the FBI’s Miami field office said it “was conducting court-ordered law enforcement activity in the vicinity of that location,” but provided no other information.

Patsulya and Makeeva could not be reached for comment. Patsulya’s wife, Roza Pereira, who state records show is also listed on the corporate paperwork for MIC-USA, said she was aware of the FBI’s raid.

“I can’t talk about it,” Pereira told the Miami Herald. “The lawyer [for my husband] said not to talk to anyone. ... I have no idea what it’s about.” Sunny Isles Beach has been dubbed “LIttle Moscow” by locals because it’s home to many Russian expatriates. Some expressed concerns about a backlash against their affluent beachfront community after the Russian military invaded Ukraine last year and the U.S. government started pursuing sanctions against oligarchs who hide their wealth in real estate in South Florida and other parts of the country.

Before becoming president in 2016, Trump signed a deal with the developers of the 45-story condo buildings to name the property after him to help promote sales. Foreign buyers, especially from Latin America and Russia, flocked to Trump Towers, as they did with other Trump-branded properties in Sunny Isles Beach.

Among the buyers: MIC-USA, which acquired the three-bedroom, three-bath condo residence at Trump Tower III for $1.65 million a decade ago, according to Miami-Dade property records.

In 2020, BAC Florida Bank, which provided financing for the purchase, sued Patsulya and Makeeva, claiming they defaulted on their $975,000 mortgage. The dispute was resolved later that year, though it’s not clear how from the court records. MIC-USA, controlled by the two Russians, continued to own the 41st-floor unit at Trump Tower III.

Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article275358451.html#storylink=cpy

[BrianTCB]

Two down, one to go...

[Bubba Hotep]

The latest video on the great RENEGADE CUT channel: "Donald Trump is a R*pist".

[drjohncarpenter]

Despite 700M lawsuit loss, Fox "News" lies and lies.



















Stay vigilant.

[BrianTCB]

Deplorables. All of them.

[drjohncarpenter]

This weekend, EX president.



















Hold on tight, America.

Justice is a-comin'..

[elvisfan51]

This weekend, EX president.



















Hold on tight, America.

Justice is a-comin'..

Justice is a-comin' when Hillary, Obama, Biden, Hunter Biden, Pelosi, and the rest of the leaders of the Democratic party are imprisoned for treason to their country. And whoever voted for these jokers are to blame!

[drjohncarpenter]

Justice is a-comin' when Hillary, Obama, Biden, Hunter Biden, Pelosi, and the rest of the leaders of the Democratic party are imprisoned for treason to their country. And whoever voted for these jokers are to blame!

Interesting.

Of your list of folks there, you seem unaware that one does not hold political office (Hunter Biden) and two are retired.

As far as criming is concerned, none of these folks are under legitimate investigations of any kind, and certainly not for "treason."


On the other hand, earlier this month ex-president Trump was found liable in a civil case for sexual abuse and defamation, and must pay $5M in damages. The jury had to return a unanimous verdict in order for this to happen, and they did.

Did you miss that?


In December, the criminal tax-fraud trial of the Trump Organization found two of the companies guilty on 17 counts, including criminal tax fraud, conspiracy and falsifying business records. A few weeks later the business was ordered to pay a $1.6M criminal penalty for its conviction on felony tax fraud.

Did you miss that as well?


So justice has been a-comin' for this person since at least last December. With several other active investigations ongoing, it's a safe bet there's more to come for this fellow.

Hope you'll be able to handle it.

[BrianTCB]

Justice is a-comin' when Hillary, Obama, Biden, Hunter Biden, Pelosi, and the rest of the leaders of the Democratic party are imprisoned for treason to their country. And whoever voted for these jokers are to blame!

Interesting.

Of your list of folks there, you seem unaware that one does not hold political office (Hunter Biden) and two are retired.

As far as criming is concerned, none of these folks are under legitimate investigations of any kind, and certainly not for "treason."


On the other hand, earlier this month ex-president Trump was found liable in a civil case for sexual abuse and defamation, and must pay $5M in damages. The jury had to return a unanimous verdict in order for this to happen, and they did.

Did you miss that?


In December, the criminal tax-fraud trial of the Trump Organization found two of the companies guilty on 17 counts, including criminal tax fraud, conspiracy and falsifying business records. A few weeks later the business was ordered to pay a $1.6M criminal penalty for its conviction on felony tax fraud.

Did you miss that as well?


So justice has been a-comin' for this person since at least last December. With several other active investigations ongoing, it's a safe bet there's more to come for this fellow.

Hope you'll be able to handle it.

@elvisfan51 - you have zero facts on your side, buddy. Deal with it.

[Bubba Hotep]

Justice is a-comin' when Hillary, Obama, Biden, Hunter Biden, Pelosi, and the rest of the leaders of the Democratic party are imprisoned for treason to their country. And whoever voted for these jokers are to blame!

"elvisfan51", Donald Trump loves you!

And you actually deserve respect for including your IQ in your login-name!

[drjohncarpenter]

Breaking news, EX president.















Sure looks like obstruction of justice.

Why would anyone do this with stolen top secret documents?

I think we know the answer . . . or shall soon have one.

[drjohncarpenter]

The report by the Washington Post today.

WP EXCLUSIVE

Trump workers moved Mar-a-Lago boxes a day before Justice Dept. came for documents

New details, including alleged ‘dress rehearsal’ for moving sensitive papers, show a focus on Donald Trump’s instructions and intent

By Devlin Barrett, Josh Dawsey, Spencer S. Hsu and Perry Stein
Thursday, May 25, 2023 at 2:05 p.m. EDT

230525_01.jpg

Former president Donald Trump announces his 2024 presidential bid at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., on Nov. 15.
(Thomas Simonetti for The Washington Post)



Two of Donald Trump’s employees moved boxes of papers the day before FBI agents and a prosecutor visited the former president’s Florida home to retrieve classified documents in response to a subpoena — timing that investigators have come to view as suspicious and an indication of possible obstruction, according to people familiar with the matter.

Trump and his aides also allegedly carried out a “dress rehearsal” for moving sensitive papers even before his office received the May 2022 subpoena, according to the people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a sensitive ongoing investigation.

Prosecutors in addition have gathered evidence indicating that Trump at times kept classified documents in his office in a place where they were visible and sometimes showed them to others, these people said.

Taken together, the new details of the classified-documents investigation suggest a greater breadth and specificity to the instances of possible obstruction found by the FBI and Justice Department than has been previously reported. It also broadens the timeline of possible obstruction episodes that investigators are examining — a period stretching from events at Mar-a-Lago before the subpoena to the period after the FBI raid there on Aug. 8.

That timeline may prove crucial as prosecutors seek to determine Trump’s intent in keeping hundreds of classified documents after he left the White House, a key factor in deciding whether to file charges of obstruction of justice or of mishandling national security secrets. The Washington Post has previously reported that the boxes were moved out of the storage area after Trump’s office received a subpoena. But the precise timing of that activity is a significant element in the investigation, the people familiar with the matter said.

Grand jury activity in the case has slowed in recent weeks, and Trump’s attorneys have taken steps — including outlining his potential defense to members of Congress and seeking a meeting with the attorney general — that suggest they believe a charging decision is getting closer. The grand jury working on the investigation apparently has not met since May 5, after months of frenetic activity at the federal courthouse in Washington. That is the panel’s longest hiatus since December, shortly after Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Jack Smith as special counsel to lead the probe and coinciding with the year-end holidays.

Smith also is investigating Trump’s efforts to block the results of the 2020 election. And the former president — who is again a candidate for the White House — has been indicted in New York on charges of falsifying business records and is under investigation for election-related matters in Fulton County, Ga.

Trump has denied wrongdoing in each case. “This is nothing more than a targeted, politically motivated witch hunt against President Trump that is concocted to meddle in an election and prevent the American people from returning him to the White House,” Steven Cheung, a Trump spokesman, wrote in a statement. “Just like all the other fake hoaxes thrown at President Trump, this corrupt effort will also fail.”

Cheung accused prosecutors of showing “no regard for common decency or key rules that govern the legal system,” and he claimed that investigators have “harassed anyone and everyone who works [for], has worked [for], or supports Donald Trump.”

“In the course of negotiations over the return of documents, President Trump told the lead DOJ official, ‘anything you need from us, just let us know,’” he continued. “That DOJ rejected this offer of cooperation and conducted a raid on Mar-a-Lago proves that the Biden regime has weaponized the DOJ and FBI.”

A spokesman for Smith declined to comment. Justice Department officials have previously said they conducted the search only after months of efforts to retrieve all classified documents at Mar-a-Lago were unsuccessful.

Of particular importance to investigators in the classified-documents case, according to people familiar with the probe, is evidence showing that boxes of documents were moved into a storage area on June 2, just before senior Justice Department lawyer Jay Bratt arrived at Mar-a-Lago with agents. The June 3 visit by law enforcement officials was to collect material in response to the May 2022 grand jury subpoena demanding the return of all documents with classified markings.

John Irving, a lawyer representing one of the two employees who moved the boxes, said the worker did not know what was in them and was only trying to help Trump valet Walt Nauta, who was using a dolly or hand truck to move a number of boxes.

“He was seen on Mar-a-Lago security video helping Walt Nauta move boxes into a storage area on June 2, 2022. My client saw Mr. Nauta moving the boxes and volunteered to help him,” Irving said. The next day, he added, the employee helped Nauta pack an SUV “when former president Trump left for Bedminster for the summer.”

The lawyer said his client, a longtime Mar-a-Lago employee whom he declined to identify, has cooperated with the government and did not have “any reason to think that helping to move boxes was at all significant.” Other people familiar with the investigation confirmed the employee’s role and said he has been questioned multiple times by authorities.

Irving represents several witnesses in the investigation, and his law firm is being paid by Trump’s Save America PAC, disclosure reports show. A lawyer for Nauta, Stanley Brand, declined to comment.

Investigators have sought to gather any evidence indicating Trump or people close to him deliberately withheld any classified papers from the government.

On the evening of June 2, the same day the two employees moved the boxes, a lawyer for Trump contacted the Justice Department and said officials there were welcome to visit Mar-a-Lago and pick up classified documents related to the subpoena. Bratt and the FBI agents arrived the following day.

Trump’s lawyers gave the officials a sealed envelope containing 38 classified documents and a signed attestation that a “diligent search” had been conducted for the documents sought by the subpoena and that all relevant documents had been turned over.

As part of that visit, Bratt and the agents were invited to visit the storage room where Trump aides said boxes of documents from his time as president were kept. Court papers filed by the Justice Department say the visitors were told by Trump’s lawyers that they could not open any of the boxes in the storage room or look at their contents.

When FBI agents secured a court order to search Mar-a-Lago two months later, they found more than 100 additional classified documents, some in Trump’s office and some in the storage area.

In a court filing in August explaining the search, prosecutors wrote that they had developed evidence that “obstructive conduct” took place in connection with the response to the subpoena, including that documents “were likely concealed and removed from the Storage Room.”

230525_02.jpg

This image contained in a court filing by the Department of Justice on Aug. 30, 2022, and partially redacted by the source, shows a photo of documents seized during the Aug. 8 FBI search of former president Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate. (Department of Justice/AP)



Prosecutors also have gathered evidence that even before Trump’s office received the subpoena in May, he had what some officials have dubbed a “dress rehearsal” for moving government documents that he did not want to relinquish, people familiar with the investigation said.

The term “dress rehearsal” was used in a sealed judicial opinion issued earlier this year in one of several legal battles over the government’s access to particular witnesses and evidence, some of the people said. It was used to describe an episode when Trump allegedly reviewed the contents of some, but not all, of the boxes containing classified material, these people said.

At the time, Trump and his legal team were engaged in a back-and-forth with the National Archives and Records Administration over whether he had taken from the White House records and property that were supposed to stay with the government. That dispute over presidential records is what ultimately led to the discovery of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago — some of them highly sensitive, including information about a foreign country’s nuclear capabilities; Iran’s missile system; and intelligence gathering aimed at China.

The former president, the people familiar with the situation said, told aides he wanted to make sure he could keep papers that he considered his property.

That dress rehearsal episode is one of several instances in which investigators see possible ulterior motives in the actions of Trump and those around him. Lawyers for Trump and some of those witnesses, however, have argued in recent months that prosecutors are viewing the sequence of events in too suspicious a light. They say Smith’s team has unfairly dismissed claims that people were not trying to hide anything from the government but simply were carrying out what they considered to be routine and innocent tasks of serving their boss.

Prosecutors separately have been told by more than one witness that Trump at times kept classified documents out in the open in his Florida office, where others could see them, people familiar with the matter said, and sometimes showed them to people, including aides and visitors.

Depending on the strength of that evidence, such accounts could severely undercut claims by Trump or his lawyers that he did not know he possessed classified material.

The people familiar with the situation said Smith’s team has concluded the bulk of its investigative work in the documents case and believes it has uncovered a handful of distinct episodes of obstructionist conduct.

One of those suspected instances of obstruction, the people said, occurred after the FBI search on Aug. 8. They did not provide further details, but the Guardian has previously reported that in December, Trump’s lawyers found a box of White House schedules, including some that were marked classified, at Mar-a-Lago. In that instance, a junior aide apparently moved the box from a government-leased office in nearby West Palm Beach.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/05/25/trump-classified-documents-mar-a-lago

BONUS CRIMING SUMMARY

Ongoing investigations involving Donald Trump

Donald Trump is facing historic legal scrutiny for a former president, under investigation by the Justice Department, district attorneys in Manhattan and Fulton County, Ga., and a state attorney general. He denies wrongdoing. Here is a list of the key investigations and where they stand.

Justice Department criminal probe of Jan. 6
The Justice Department is investigating the Jan. 6 riot and whether Trump or his aides may have conspired to obstruct the formal certification in Congress of the election result or committed fraud to block the peaceful transfer of power. Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed veteran prosecutor Jack Smith to oversee both this and the Mar-a-Lago investigation.

Mar-a-Lago documents investigation
FBI agents found more than 100 classified documents during a search of Trump’s residence at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla., on Aug. 8 as part of a criminal probe into possible mishandling of classified information. A grand jury is hearing witness testimony as prosecutors weigh their next steps.

Georgia election results investigation
Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D) is investigating whether Trump and his allies illegally meddled in the 2020 election in Georgia. A Georgia judge on Feb. 15 released parts of a report produced by a special-purpose grand jury, and authorities who are privy to the report will decide whether to ask a new grand jury to vote on criminal charges.

Manhattan district attorney’s investigation
District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) convened a grand jury to evaluate business-related matters involving Trump, including his alleged role in hush-money payments to the adult-film actress Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign. On March 30, the grand jury voted to indict Trump, making him the first ex-president to be charged with a crime.

Lawsuit over Trump business practices in New York
Attorney General Letitia James (D) filed a lawsuit Sept. 21 against Trump, three of his children and the Trump Organization, accusing them of flagrantly manipulating the valuations of their properties to get better terms on loans and insurance policies, and to get tax breaks. The litigation is pending.[/size]

And this man is currently the GOP front-runner for president in 2024.

Mind-numbing.

[drjohncarpenter]

Today, EX president.

















Hold on tight, America.

Justice is a-comin'.

[drjohncarpenter]

Today's GOP.











Holding every good American hostage for possible political gain.

The Republican party is irretrievably broken.

[drjohncarpenter]

Today's GOP.











Values?

Vision?

Nope.

The Republican party is irretrievably broken.

[BrianTCB]

[drjohncarpenter]

This weekend, CURRENT president.



















God bless President Joseph R. Biden.

Once again he foiled an attempt by the GOP to hurt good Americans.

The ex-president? Just spent his 18th consecutive day on the golf course.

Biden: the right man at the right time for this country.

[drjohncarpenter]

Today, CURRENT president.











Looks like even Fox "News" knows the ex-president is going to jail.

God bless President Joseph R. Biden.

Guiding America through a very difficult time.

With ease.

[drjohncarpenter]

Memorial Day, 2023.














Thank you, President Joseph R. Biden.

Your leadership today is appreciated, with the previous guy it was very different.

Veterans are part of my family history, if some on our forum also have family veterans, I honor them as well.

[BrianTCB]

[BrianTCB]

House passes debt ceiling bill in push to avoid economic catastrophe

https://www.msnbc.com/alex-wagner-tonight/watch/house-passes-debt-ceiling-bill-in-push-to-avoid-economic-catastrophe-178788933841

Jen Psaki, former White House press secretary, and Peter Baker, chief White House correspondent for The New York Times, talk with Alex Wagner about what was accomplished by both parties as the House passes the debt ceiling bill, sending it to the Senate, and what President Biden might do to avoid having to deal with a Republican debt ceiling stunt in a potential second term.

[Rob]

I like Kevin McCarthy a little more than I used to.

That's not saying much.

[drjohncarpenter]

GOP outsmarted. Again.















President Joseph R. Biden.

He delivers on his promises.

He represents EVERY American.