Disregarding the findings of the Durham report which documented the abuse of its investigative powers against a president of the United States, the Department of Justice is reportedly moving toward an unprecedented indictment of Donald Trump as Special Counsel Jack Smith wraps up his investigation into Trump's alleged mishandling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.
The DOJ also has declined to delay charges to give time to investigate allegations of witness tampering submitted by the former president’s legal team, Just the News reported on Wednesday, citing multiple people familiar with the case.
The sources directly familiar with the case told Just the News that the DOJ declined to delay the planned indictment of Trump to investigate allegations that a senior prosecutor working on the case tried to influence a key witness by discussing a federal judgeship with the witness’ lawyer.
That allegation is still pending in a secret case before Chief U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg, the jurist who oversees the federal court in Washington, D.C., and the grand juries that convene in that courthouse, the sources said.
Related — John Durham: ‘Neither U.S. law enforcement nor the Intelligence community’ had ‘actual evidence’, May 15, 2023
Special counsel John Durham closed his four-year investigation of the FBI’s probe of alleged links between Russia and Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign on May 15, 2023. His 320-page report (see here) concluded in part:
Our investigation also revealed that senior FBI personnel displayed a serious lack of analytical rigor towards the information that they received, especially information received from politically affiliated persons and entities. This information in part triggered and sustained Crossfire Hurricane and contributed to the subsequent need for Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation. In particular, there was significant reliance on investigative leads provided or funded (directly or indirectly) by Trump’s political opponents.
Trump in a social media post said:Wow, this is turning out to be the greatest & most vicious instance of ELECTION INTERFERENCE in the history of our Country. Remember, I’m leading DeSanctimonious BIG in the Polls but, more importantly, I’m leading Biden by a lot. Also, & perhaps most importantly, they are launching all of the many Fake Investigations against me RIGHT SMACK IN THE MIDDLE OF MY CAMPAIGN, something which is unheard of & not supposed to happen.
An historic federal indictment crafted by Smith could be handed up by a federal grand jury against Trump as early as this week, the sources said.Attorney General Merrick Garland has the power to reject the charging recommendation. Trump’s lawyers met at the DOJ with Smith and others on Monday, but Garland did not attend the two-hour meeting, despite a request from Trump's attorneys for him to be there.
Earlier on June 7, Trump responded to the flurry of reports on Truth Social:
"No one has told me I’m being indicted, and I shouldn’t be because I’ve done NOTHING wrong, but I have assumed for years that I am a Target of the WEAPONIZED DOJ & FBI, starting with the Russia, Russia, Russia HOAX, the “No Collusion” Mueller Report, Impeachment HOAX #1, Impeachment HOAX #2, the PERFECT Ukraine phone call, and various other SCAMS & WITCH HUNTS. .... REPUBLICANS IN CONGRESS MUST MAKE THIS THEIR # 1 ISSUE!!!"Andy McCarthy, a contributing editor at National Review and a former federal prosecutor, told the Washington Examiner: “The whole thing is a political fiction. Smith reports to Garland and the power he exercises is Biden’s. Because Democrats are smarter than Republicans at sneaky stuff, I’m sure Smith knows exactly what is expected of him and grasps the fact that Garland doesn’t want to discuss it (in order to maintain the fiction that he has nothing to do with it). They picked Smith for the same reason Obama picked Holder — no inconvenient discussions are necessary because you’ve chosen someone who knows going in what you want done.”
Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, slammed the DOJ's “double standard” in its handling of investigations tied to Hunter Biden and also questioned the DOJ’s credibility as it nears a historic indictment of Trump.
“They've been after this guy for eight years. It's ridiculous. Just ridiculous,” Jordan said on Wednesday of the Biden DOJ investigations into Trump. “Read the Durham report [on] what they did in that investigation. They use the dossier two days after they got it they put it in a draft FISA application. Didn't validate one single substantive allegation in the dossier. And yet they used it to go spy on the campaign — and then it just continues.”
In an interview with the Washington Examiner, Jordan cast doubt on the Biden DOJ’s ability to investigate Trump fairly, saying it was a “huge” double standard when looking at how Garland is handling the Hunter Biden investigation, led by Delaware federal prosecutor David Weiss, and at how the DOJ is handling the special counsel investigation into Joe Biden’s own alleged mishandling of classified information when both are compared to Smith’s criminal Mar-a-Lago inquiry.
FBI Director Christopher Wray has confirmed the existence of an FBI form alleging Joe Biden engaged in a “criminal bribery scheme” with a yet-unnamed foreign national as vice president. Jordan sought Wednesday to contrast the FBI’s efforts to conceal the existence of the FD-1023 confidential human source form from GOP congressional investigators with the FBI’s reliance on British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s discredited dossier to pursue Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants involving Trump.
“How much you want to bet the source for the 1023 that the FBI won't make public and Mr. Comer has seen? How much you want to bet that source is a little more credible than Christopher Steele? How much do you want to bet?” Jordan asked. “According to Mr. Comer, they've had that document for years. So to contrast, here they've had that document for years — we don't know what they've done, they're still investigating — but when it came to the Steele dossier, they used that document two days after they got it. I mean, that's the part that just drives Americans crazy because they see this double standard.”
Despite the DOJ's dogged pursuit of Trump, Jordan predicted that Trump would win the GOP nomination and the general election.
“We're gonna have a primary. I think he's gonna win,” Jordan said. “I think he's gonna be our next president. And I think that's good for the country.”
Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene noted: "The FBI and DOJ is solely focused on arresting President Trump for holding documents in a much less amount than Joe Biden and other former Presidents. But they really want to charge him with seditious conspiracy for J6 even though he did nothing wrong. While ignoring all the other riots in America in 2020 and refusing to prosecute Joe Biden and his family for getting paid millions for Biden’s power and influence in pay to play schemes. We have no justice system if this happens.
Greene continued: "We need an Oversight investigation and hearing into how much Federal money has been spent on Trump witch hunts versus Antifa/BLM and Biden crime investigations, actually lack of. From Russia Hoax to J6 Hollywood Committee to Document Hoax. And on and on."
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