A judge may be about to open up new information that could reveal former President
Donald Trump took actions in his "private" capacity on January 6, rather than as a public official — with huge implications for his criminal trials. According to Law & Crime, "This is a key distinction for a group of former and current U.S. lawmakers and
police suing Trump for violations of the Ku Klux Klan Act, as Law&Crime previously reported. Just this week, the former president filed a motion to stay that civil litigation indefinitely , invoking his brewing immunity question before the
Supreme Court ." U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta is handling the matter. "Trump argues the overlap between the civil claim and his criminal indictment prosecuted by special counsel Jack Smith is too great and that going to trial, or even beginning pretrial proceedings like discovery, would threaten his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination," the report noted. ALSO READ: 11 ways Trump doesn’t become president This comes after the lawsuit, which has been underway for years , was allowed to move forward after Trump's claim to being immune from the civil action was rejected. The separate matter of whether Trump is immune from criminal prosecution is currently set to be decided by the Supreme Court . The attorney representing the plaintiffs, Joseph Sellers, told Law & Crime that the impact on the criminal case could be huge: “The criminal case that’s before the Supreme Court on the question of immunity is framed entirely differently in this respect and it’s quite important. In our civil case, the question is whether his conduct was primarily of an official or private nature. That’s pivotal.” A big part of the case turns on the things Trump said at his "Stop the Steal" rally at the Ellipse on January 6 as the riot on the other side of the complex was beginning to take shape, said Sellers. “It’s clear the content of what he said was about seeking and securing his reelection. The courts have repeatedly confirmed that seeking your reelection is a necessarily private act. There is no ‘official’ role that can be performed for people who are campaigning for their
election whether you’re incumbent or not. Either way, the campaign activity is necessarily private in nature.” The billionaire white knight who swooped in to cover the $175 million surety civil fraud bond to assist Donald Trump is feeling a little buyer's remorse for assessing such bargain basement fees. "We thought it would be an easy procedure that wouldn't involve other legal problems and it's not turning out that way," Hankey told Reuters , voicing his strain over the speed bumps his offering has encountered not disclosing the amount of fees charged. "We probably didn't charge enough." On April 1, former President Donald Trump via billionaire Don Hankey, who owns the Knight Speciality Insurance Company (KSIC), reportedly met the obligation to secure the $175 million bond before the deadline while he fights the $464 million disgorgement ruling made by Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron . ALSO READ: 11 ways Trump doesn’t become president It has since been “returned for correction." Holding up the bond is the fact that Hankey's surety company, which isn't based in New York, has to show its financials have "sufficiently collateralized by identifiable assets." Trump resubmitted the documents on Thursday with the proper information in hopes his bond would be accepted. And Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron, who presided over the months-long fraud trial and ruled against the former president — has called for an April 22 hearing to deal with the bond snags. The judge found the president's eponymous company The Trump Organization, along with his grown sons, Eric and Don Jr., along with former CFO Allen Weisselberg, committed fraud for years to hype up the value of real-estate portfolio assets to secure advantageous loan and deal terms. Hankey didn't disclose the fee, but suggested KSIC chose a lower amount because initially the risk was low. "We have been getting a lot of emails, a lot of phone calls," he said, adding he didn't regret jumping into the fray. "Maybe that's part of the reason he had trouble with other insurance companies." Hankey told Reuters that he was taken aback by James scrutiny of the bond, saying he was "surprised they're coming down harder on our bond or looking for reasons to cause issues with our instrument." CONTINUE READING Show less Former President Donald Trump has incredibly long odds in his bid to force Judge Juan Merchan to recuse himself from the Manhattan hush money case, argued former prosecutor Renato Mariotti on MSNBC's "The Beat" Friday evening. And Trump knows this, he argued — it's yet another 11th-hour bid to put up a delay on the trial, as the date looms later this month. "I want to go to you about this last-minute filing on a Friday afternoon from Donald Trump," said anchor Katie Phang, herself an attorney. "It is not like he's got a lot of time, but this motion to recuse alleges that the judge's daughter's company, because it does work for
Democrats, that that in and of itself is grounds to be able to get him off the case ... but then at the end of the filing, Donald Trump says, but you know what? Even if it's not a requirement to recuse yourself, judge, then you should do it because of an appearance of impropriety. We all have a lot of déjà vu, we heard that during the Fulton County case when it concerned D.A. Fani Willis. But a judge is different from a prosecutor. Your thoughts on this motion to recuse?" ALSO READ: 11 ways Trump doesn’t become president "You know, just like it's difficult to recuse Judge Cannon , it's also going to be very, very difficult here for Trump to win on this," said Mariotti. "I think trump knows that ... and I think he filed it when he did in order to have a full weekend of people talking about this, because merely talking about the motion repeats his talking points." "This is about delay," Mariotti continued. "This is about him trying to, you know, dirty up the judge, throw mud at the judge, like he did in the civil fraud trial. Just like he's done elsewhere. He's trying to essentially, you know, put what he can and paint with a broad brush, because ultimately, the judge's daughter doesn't have an interest in this particular case. You know, in the reality, the work she's done for separate candidates and separate causes really have nothing to do with this particular criminal matter. So I don't think that this is going to be granted. I don't think it's going anywhere." "But of course, it's going create a lot of fodder for social media," he added. Watch the video below or at the link here. Renato Mariotti says Trump's push to remove Judge Merchan is doomed www.youtube.com CONTINUE READING Show less Former President Donald Trump's blockbuster filing to try to push Judge Juan Merchan out of the Manhattan hush money case has one interesting aspect many people have overlooked, according to former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann in a post on social media. In the filing, Trump specifically went after Merchan's daughter — whom he has already attacked in a series of posts on
Social Media — claiming that she has compromised Merchan because she works for a campaign vendor that works with
Democratic campaigns, some of which mentioned the former president's indictment in fundraising pitches. The specifics of the charges are less interesting, however, than another detail of the filing, Weissmann argued. ALSO READ: 11 ways Trump doesn’t become president "The most interesting 'tell' about this new Trump recusal filing is that it is NOT signed by one of the Trump defense lawyers on the NY criminal case and is only signed by Todd Blanche," wrote Weissmann. "That other lawyer, Susan Necheles, has not signed other submissions as well." Trump has infamously cycled through a number of different attorneys throughout his legal battles, many of whom ultimately bailed on representing him . Blanche, the attorney who did sign the letter, was the subject of a recent deep profile by The
New York Times , which revealed that he bailed from a high-powered law firm in order to represent Trump in the hush money case, and he has steeped himself in MAGA rhetoric to a degree many other lawyers have not. This comes as Trump has become a lighting rod for controversy over his involvement of Judge Merchan's family in his attacks on the court. As Trump continued these attacks, Judge Merchan added new restrictions to a gag order imposed on the case, which extended it to public attacks on family members of court officers. All of this follows unsuccessful efforts by Trump and his co-defendants in Georgia to get Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis removed based on her personal relationship with one of the special prosecutors. Weissmann previously commented on Necheles and pointed out how her "path" varies from that of Blanche. CONTINUE READING Show less