DOJ is working as hard as the Jan. 6 committee, maybe harder, and could use more help from them

[bigtree]

Last edited Fri Jun 10, 2022, 08:29 PM - Edit history (1)

...new court filings in John Eastman vs. Benny Thompson (Jan. 6 committee chairman) seek to obtain republican Sen. Mike Lee's texts between Mark Meadows and others plotting to keep Biden's victory from being certified in Congress which he's argued are privileged. Some of the communications have been denied House investigators by the court; others have not.

DOJ is seeking the same documents and others through their own subpoenas issued by grand juries set up in their ongoing investigations into the Jan. 6 insurrection, even as they prosecute the more than 840 arrests in nearly all 50 states and the District of Columbia they've made so far.

Approximately 185 federal defendants have had their cases adjudicated and received sentences for their criminal activity on Jan. 6. Approximately 80 have been sentenced to periods of incarceration. Approximately 57 other defendants have been sentenced to a period of home detention..
https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/17-months-jan-6-attack-capitol

Some key points surrounding the John Eastman emails:


Kyle Griffin @kylegriffin1 15m
New court filings raise questions about Republican Mike Lee's involvement in election subversion efforts:

Leaked texts suggest Lee was a participant in the plot to keep Trump in office — and court documents could now prove problematic for Lee's defense.

Leaked text messages between Utah Sen. Mike Lee and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows suggest Lee was a participant in the plot to keep Donald Trump in office... Recently released court documents could prove problematic for Lee’s defense.

Recently filed court papers from the Jan. 6 select committee contain an email from John Eastman, who was guiding Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, that cast some doubt on Lee’s explanation. Eastman was trying to shield 159 emails from the committee but was ordered by a federal judge to turn over those documents on Tuesday.

On December 8, Lee texted Meadows, “If a very small handful of states were to have their legislatures appoint alternative slates of delegates, there could be a path.”

If states had sent competing slates of electors to Congress, Eastman’s scheme alleged that then-Vice President Mike Pence had the authority to determine which slates would count. Or, as Eastman claimed, Pence could throw out all electoral votes from that state, which could throw the election to the House of Representatives or delay the certification to give state legislators more time to act.

On Jan. 3, 2021, Lee texted Meadows several times, stressing the need for action by state legislators...

https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2022/06/09/new-court-filings-raise/

DOJ wrote to the Jan. 6 committee in April requesting their witness transcripts and depositions:

Legal experts believe the US Justice Department has made headway with an important criminal inquiry and could be homing in on top Trump lawyers who plotted to overturn Joe Biden’s election, after the department wrote to the House panel investigating the January 6 Capitol attack seeking transcripts of witness depositions and interviews.

While it’s unclear exactly what information the DoJ asked for, former prosecutors note that the 20 April request occurred at about the same time a Washington DC grand jury issued subpoenas seeking information about several Trump lawyers including Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman, plus other Trump advisers, who reportedly played roles in a fake electors scheme.

In replying to the justice department’s letter, the January 6 panel chair Bennie Thompson stressed that the committee’s inquiry is continuing and that “we told them that as a committee, the product was ours, and we’re not giving anyone access to the work product … we can’t give them unilateral access” and called the DoJ request “premature.”

But Thompson also told reporters last month the committee may allow some materials requested to be reviewed in the panel’s offices.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/03/us-justice-department-trump-lawyers-criminal-inquiry

...another report of the DOJ's requests of the House:

May 17 - Federal prosecutors have asked the House of Representatives committee investigating the 6 January 2021 attack on the Capitol to provide transcripts of witness interviews and depositions taken by committee members and staff, according to a New York Times report.

A “person with knowledge of the matter” told the Times committee chairman Bennie Thompson has not reached any agreement with Attorney General Merrick Garland or other Justice Department officials regarding what, if any, documents will be provided.

But the department has been in communication with the panel since 20 April.

Because the select committee — which has interviewed over 1,000 witnesses — has spoken to many of the planners involved in Mr Trump’s efforts and involved in planning the rally which proceeded the riot, obtaining transcripts of the depositions and interviews would allow prosecutors to skip conducting interviews of their own and present the documents as evidence to a grand jury.

https://currently.att.yahoo.com/att/justice-department-asked-jan-6-211055700.html

Judge David O. Carter has further ordered that the House get more John Eastman emails, including electors discussions and other planning:

Jun. 8 - A federal judge has decided the House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection should get access this month to 159 emails of right-wing attorney John Eastman that largely relate to his efforts on behalf of Donald Trump to try to block the 2020 election result.

The judge — as he did previously related to another set of Eastman emails — decided one of the emails could be evidence of the planning of a crime, specifically Eastman and Trump’s efforts to thwart Congress certifying the election result on January 6, 2021.

“Dr. Eastman’s actions in these few weeks indicate that his and President Trump’s pressure campaign to stop the electoral count did not end with Vice President Pence — it targeted every tier of federal and state elected officials. Convincing state legislatures to certify competing electors was essential to stop the count and ensure President Trump’s reelection,” Carter, of the Central District of California federal court, wrote on Tuesday night.

Carter separately says some emails illuminate how Eastman and others discussed avoiding a post-election court decision that would hurt their plan to convince Vice President Mike Pence to block Biden’s electoral college win.

“Dr. Eastman and President Trump’s plan to stop the count was not only established by early December, it was the ultimate goal that the legal team was working to protect from that point forward,” Carter wrote.

https://krdo.com/politics/cnn-us-politics/2022/06/08/house-to-get-more-eastman-emails-on-eve-of-first-january-6-hearing-including-electors-discussions-and-other-planning/

DOJ's has set up grand juries which have made identical subpoenas for many of the same documents as the House panel, for Eastman and others:

The Justice Department has stepped up its criminal investigation into the creation of alternate slates of pro-Trump electors seeking to overturn Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory in the 2020 election, with a particular focus on a team of lawyers that worked on behalf of President Donald J. Trump, according to people familiar with the matter.

A federal grand jury in Washington has started issuing subpoenas in recent weeks to people linked to the alternate elector plan, requesting information about several lawyers including Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani and one of his chief legal advisers, John Eastman, one of the people said.

The subpoenas also seek information on other pro-Trump lawyers like Jenna Ellis, who worked with Mr. Giuliani, and Kenneth Chesebro, who wrote memos supporting the elector scheme in the weeks after the election.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/25/us/politics/pro-trump-lawyers-elector-scheme.html

DOJ has been unraveling the claims of privilege and seeking documents and other communications in court since at least January:

Jan. 25 — The Justice Department is investigating the fake slates of electors that falsely declared Donald J. Trump the victor of the 2020 election in seven swing states that Joseph R. Biden Jr. had in fact won, a top agency official said on Tuesday.

“Our prosecutors are looking at those, and I can’t say anything more on ongoing investigations,” Lisa O. Monaco, the deputy attorney general, said in an interview with CNN.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/25/us/politics/justice-department-trump.html

The House Jan. 6 committee is still resisting sending witness transcripts and depositions to DOJ, as requested several times by Justice Dept. lawyers working simultaneously on obtaining Trump's cohort's communications:

DOJ says it still hasn't received any of the Jan. 6 committee's transcripts despite ongoing talks

Kyle Cheney @kyledcheney (Politico senior legal affairs reporter) 14m
HAPPENING NOW: DOJ says in court (during a fortitously timed Proud Boys hearing) that it anticipates the Jan. 6 select committee releasing all 1,000 witness transcripts in September, along with its final report.

Kyle Cheney @kyledcheney
That could occur during or right around the timing if the Proud Boys trial, which is slated to begin in August, and both sides in the case are concerned about what affect this could have on their timing.

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

"...obtaining transcripts of the depositions and interviews would allow (DOJ) prosecutors to skip conducting interviews of their own and present the documents as evidence to a grand jury."
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/att/justice-department-asked-jan-6-211055700.html

[bigtree]

3. they're not waiting

...they are moving actual cases through courts, and have already amassed evidence outside of these select communications which have surfaced in the press.

That should be obvious, but isn't evident because of DOJ rules governing disclosures of ongoing investigations and prosecutions, something which actually protects those efforts from being overturned, and protects witnesses from recriminations and threats to their safety.

Just because you haven't heard of everything they're engaged in, doesn't mean what you see is the totality of their efforts. These reports show that the DOJ is well ahead in their efforts, and is seeking additional witness testimony, depositions and communications which will speed up their process.

Trying to fathom the disconnect between expecting them to be further along, and seeing actual evidence they can use in the grand juries they've already set up and are issuing subpoenas out of, and challenging defendants in actual courts, being withheld from them.

One body of government is charged with informing, the other is engaged in actual prosecutions, inarguably a much harder task which is going to take much longer to move cases through courts with all of the challenges, and with the DOJ in the position of watching the committee present evidence they may be seeing for the first time.

[Voltaire2]

2. They've had 18 months.

Zero indictments of anyone in the Trump administration or any of Trumps inner circle.

Merrick Garland is the wrong person for the job.

[bigtree]

4. they can't hurry grand juries, and they don't control the time it takes to fight challenges

...to their inquiries in court.

It makes no sense to view the House committee's problems and delays with challenges of privilege in courts, as any different from what the DOJ is dealing with in their own efforts to move the privilege arguments out of the way.

Moreover, DOJ is juggling more than the few perps mentioned in the news. It's easy to run them down over what is leaked out or revealed in actual courtrooms, like the Mike Lee claims of privilege, but there are countless other witnesses, depositions, and testimony that we haven't seen yet which DOJ has been collating since they began their investigation.

Many of the prosecutions DOJ is actively pursuing with grand juries, subpoenas and with actual arrests are still producing evidence which I guess some think should be left on the table in a rush to prosecute perps for misdemeanors, contempt charges for documents they don't need.

Hard to argue the the DOJ doesn't need or deserve what the House has to offer, especially if it will hasten their efforts to move these cases through the grand juries and, ultimately, the courts.

[Fiendish Thingy]

9. They haven't had 18 months, they've had barely six months

SCOTUS ruled on Trump’s privilege claims in mid January, and only since then has the bulk of the incriminating physical evidence, including Eastman’s memos, been released from the archives.

DOJ convened a Grand Jury in February, and has been calling witness connected to the fraudulent electors scheme, the STS rally VIP section, and others in Trump’s inner circle since then.

Pence and Meadows top aides have only testified to the committee in the past few months.

As the OP stated, DOJ doesn’t have access yet to the hundreds of interview transcripts obtained by the committee.

[MarineCombatEngineer]

14. Wow!!!!

So because the DoJ hasn't kept Voltaire2 up to speed, they're not doing anything?

[Scrivener7]

5. .

[bigtree]

6. the total number of potential witnesses sought after by the grand jury could reach into the hundreds

Apr. 5 - Jan. 6 Investigation Confronts Sprawling Cast of Characters

Among the challenges facing the federal grand jury recently empaneled to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol is the sheer number of people who might have information relevant to its inquiry.

According to a subpoena issued by the grand jury, prosecutors are asking for records about people who organized or spoke at several pro-Trump rallies after the election. They presumably include two events in Washington in November and December 2020 that preceded the gathering on the Ellipse near the White House on Jan. 6, 2021, where President Donald J. Trump told the crowd to descend on the Capitol.

Moreover, it requests information about any members of the executive and legislative branches who may have taken part in planning or executing the rallies, or tried to “obstruct, influence, impede or delay” the certification of the presidential election.

Each of these broad categories could involve dozens of individuals. Taken together, the total number of potential witnesses — or at some point, targets — sought after by the grand jury could easily reach into the hundreds.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/05/us/politics/trump-allies-january-6.html

[Scrivener7]

7. Stir, stir, stir.

[bigtree]

11. I have more than cynicism, snark, and emojis

...noticing that.

May 9 - Prosecutors have said they expect to bring more charges against people affiliated with extremist groups. Grand jury activity continues apace. And investigators are talking to a wide range of people, including organizers of pro-Trump rallies that preceded the US Capitol attack, while seeking information about attempts to impede the certification of President Joe Biden's electoral win.

All are signs that the biggest investigation in Justice Department history is expanding beyond the hundreds of alleged rioters and exploring connections with more politically connected players.

"I think it's self-evident that they are continuing to work their way up the food chain to get to who their grand prize is," Lee Bright, a defense lawyer for Rhodes, said in an interview, referring to speculation that the Justice Department will eventually target Trump.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/09/politics/oath-keepers-january-6-election-fraud-trump/index.html

...serve, serve, serve.

[Fiendish Thingy]

8. Thank You for the valuable summary on the important issue of cooperation between DOJ & J6 committee

Your important information and context will be lost on Those who are only interested in perp walks and mug shots, but it valuable information nevertheless.

[bigtree]

15. I'm like gathering swirling leaves into a pile that's getting jumped in and kicked about

...me and my little rake.

[Novara]

10. Looks like the DOJ is champing at the bit in order to get these materials

And they are limited until they do get their hands on them. It makes no sense to duplicate the committee's efforts.

Soon. It will happen soon. The committee might even begin releasing specific sets of documents after they present their case to us in the hearings.

Remember the committee is still investigating, they are still interviewing people. Then they will write their report. They are still getting rulings involving the release of documents. Wasn't it just yesterday that Eastman was ordered to hand over a ton of emails?

[bigtree]

12. they are managing a swirl of witnesses and defendants

...as well as navigating though all of the appeals, objections, and challenges to the grand jury demands for documents, communications, and other evidence, just like the committee.

It should be understandable that they haven't wrapped it all up with a neat bow yet.

Eastman was indeed ordered to hand over MORE documents and emails to the House by the judge. As far as I've read, they're still awaiting them.

[Novara]

13. +1

[H2O Man]

16. Recommended.

[bigtree]

17. kick

[crickets]

18. For what it's worth:

Link to tweet

Kyle Cheney @kyledcheney
And now DOJ gives a clue about why the committee might not want to hand over transcripts: When it gets them, DOJ says it will provide those transcripts to defense attorneys as part of its discovery obligations.
3:21 PM · Jun 9, 2022

Link to tweet

Mueller, She Wrote @MuellerSheWrote
Replying to @kyledcheney
Why would providing transcripts to defense attorneys make the committee not want to hand them over?
4:21 PM · Jun 9, 2022

Link to tweet

Kyle Cheney @kyledcheney
Replying to @seditiontrack and @MuellerSheWrote
Because once the universe of people with access to the transcripts gets larger, the ability of the committee to control that information and assure it doesn't leak is diminished. Right now, they have a monopoly over it, once it's in DOJ's hands, they lose that contorl.
4:28 PM · Jun 9, 2022

I can see both sides of the argument here, leaning slightly to the committee. Leaks could destroy what they're attempting to do in persuading the American public that tfg and great gobs of the GOP tried to coup. The committee will hand over everything. Just not yet.

But Thompson also told reporters last month the committee may allow some materials requested to be reviewed in the panel’s offices.

This sounds like a reasonable potential workaround. A limited number of eyes would be allowed, and any leaks could immediately be traced to the perpetrator/s.

[bigtree]

21. the only ones they didn't enforce were Meadows and Scavino

Last edited Fri Jun 10, 2022, 07:13 PM - Edit history (1)

...who were senior aides to Trump, at least in the wording of the law granting Trump Executive Privilege over the conversations and communications between each other.

The primary reason for charging Meadows and Scavino with Contempt would be to obtain those privileged documents and communications which Congress was unable to.

Justice Dept. apparently concluded that chasing those challenges to pretty solidly established law governing what presidents share with their closest advisors, ultimately ending up at a Supreme Court Stacked 6-3 with far right conservatives would take too long without helping much. Or they feel confident in what evidence they have and can obtain.

It's not the end of the prosecution of Meadows, Trump, and others. It just means that those communications Congress and DOJ both want will not become available to them in these prosecutions. No chance in hell.

But if you think that's the totality of the case the DOJ is building against the WH, right in front of us, take a look at who they are prosecuting right now, and why.

We're learning a lot more about the DOJ's January 6 investigations

There’s always been a bit of a disconnect between the public perception of this investigation and the actual steps being taken in it. There’s ample criticism of Garland being slow and not aggressive, but the Justice Department has charged more than 800 defendants and secured guilty pleas from more than a third of those. That is a massive undertaking for the adjudication of justice. It is the largest federal investigation in history.

The crime of the breach of Congress occurred on January 6, 2021, and it was shortly after the one-year anniversary that we saw the DOJ’s first seditious conspiracy charge land. That was also when we picked up indications that the investigation had expanded outside of just those on the grounds that day and into political circles.

As any prosecutor will tell you, investigations take time. The DOJ has five years, under the law, to investigate and prosecute as they see fit. We just reached the end of the first quarter.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/were-learning-a-lot-more-about-the-dojs-january-6-investigations/ar-AAYcc4j