Source: https://thegreggjarrett.com/ny-ag-lawsuit-against-trump-should-be-dismissed-as-politically-punitive-and-an-unethical-abuse-of-power/
September 22, 2022
Once again, the invectives hurled by the attorney general against Trump constitutes strong evidence that she specifically targeted him in an unequal way
The splashy lawsuit filed Wednesday by New York Attorney General Letitia James against Donald Trump and his children is not just frivolous, it is politically punitive and grossly unethical.
What the case lacks in merit it tries to compensate with sheer volume. But the 220-page civil complaint is, from beginning to end, not worth the ink and paper on which it is printed. Naturally, that did not stop two inveterate Trump-haters from prophesizing the demise of the former President.
New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman called it a “sweeping condemnation” and predicted it is “going to sting” more than any other Trump investigations. Not to be outdone, CNN host John King accepted without question James’ accusations by declaring that “the Trump Organization is a sham built on lies.” Yet, neither journalist is a lawyer. They are incompetent to assess whether the lawsuit is sturdy as steel or weak as a dry sandcastle. It is the latter.
The attorney general alleges that Trump committed fraud by inflating or overstating the value of his real estate holdings, businesses, and personal assets to secure loans from banks. But such valuations are notoriously subjective. In appraising his holdings, seeking loans, and filing tax statements, Trump has always relied scrupulously on the judgment and advice of real estate experts, lawyers, and tax accountants. Banks conducted their own due diligence by using separate appraisers and lawyers before approving the loans. Thus, proving that he somehow defrauded lenders by following the counsel of experienced professionals is a high burden that James will struggle to meet.
Try as she may, the attorney general could never find any evidence of criminal wrongdoing. Instead, she resorted to a civil action claiming financial fraud. But in such cases the plaintiff must necessarily prove that a victim was harmed in some economic or non-economic manner. Here, there are no known victims who were injured. Indeed, just the opposite occurred. The banks who loaned Trump money profited handsomely from the transactions when they were repaid with substantial interest. They never sued because they were never harmed. Civil fraud is not a victimless offense.
As I wrote in a column more than a year ago, the behavior of attorney general James is an affront to justice. Before she was even elected, she vowed to exploit the immense powers of that high office to investigate and prosecute then-President Trump. Never mind that she was not privy to any evidence or documents showing that he had violated a single state law. Bereft of facts did not deter her from accusing Trump of “defrauding Americans.” She publicly denounced him as an ‘illegitimate president” and constantly repeated her campaign pledge to take him down.
James’ bitter crusade has always been an investigation in search of a crime or some civil wrong. She prejudged the merits of a case she had yet to bring and promised an outcome that was preordained. The attorney general is under the mistaken impression that her prosecutorial power is an omnipotent weapon that can be used selectively to punish a political nemesis and to advance her own partisan aspirations. Her malign behavior is profoundly unethical.
Under the code of conduct that governs prosecutors in New York, James is duty-bound to be fair and impartial. She must refrain from methods that are calculated to produce prejudice. Her decisions cannot be driven by political bias. Her neutrality must be beyond question such that even the appearance of a conflict of interest is grounds for disqualification.
Throughout her campaign speeches and post-election remarks, James committed herself to a legal course of action against Trump regardless of whether it was warranted and well before she gained access to any relevant evidence or facts. She suffused her campaign rhetoric with strident anti-Trump diatribes. She accused him of conspiring with foreign governments, obstruction of justice, and a “pattern and practice of money laundering.”
James vowed to relentlessly pursue Trump, his organization, his family, and anyone in his orbit. “Taking on President Trump and looking at all the violations of law I think is no match to what I have seen in my lifetime,” she proclaimed. This was before she was even sworn into office.
Compare her remarks to the American Bar Association’s ethical standard 2.1 which reads: “When deciding whether to initiate or continue an investigation, the prosecutor should not be influenced by partisan or other improper political considerations…or hostility or personal animus toward a potential suspect.”
No reasonable person can believe sincerely that James has not breached her ethical duty under this strict professional standard. To the contrary, she obliterated any semblance of fairness and impartiality with a pernicious investigation driven by prejudice. Her hatred of Trump is palpable and laid bare for all to see in her many condemnations of him before she ever opened her investigation.
In response to the lawsuit, Trump’s legal team should move to dismiss the case due to overwhelming evidence of bias. James has flagrantly violated the former president’s due process rights which are designed to protect citizens from abusive legal proceedings. Her own incriminating words can be used against her.
If a motion to dismiss is not granted, Trump could argue what’s known as “selective prosecution” as a procedural defense. That is, he was singled out by James for political and personal reasons, thus violating the guarantee of equal protection under the law.
Once again, the invectives hurled by the attorney general against Trump constitutes strong evidence that she specifically targeted him in an unequal way compared to countless other developers who have utilized the identical methods of calculating real estate values, loans, and tax breaks. In several cases, the U.S. Supreme Court has reminded government lawyers that they are constitutionally forbidden to bring actions “that are motivated by a discriminatory purpose.”
For four years, Attorney General James has been waging an implacable political and personal vendetta against Trump. In so doing, she has sullied her high office and debased the rule of law that was founded on the principle of fundamental fairness.
The FBI Put A $1 Million Bounty On Trump As The Bureau Sought To Frame Him By Gregg Jarrett
Source: https://thegreggjarrett.com/the-fbi-put-a-1-million-bounty-on-trump-as-the-bureau-sought-to-frame-him/
October 12, 2022
James Comey and his crooked cronies at the bureau were so desperate to topple Trump that they put the equivalent of a a taxpayer-funded bounty on the president’s head to frame him.
An FBI analyst dropped a bombshell in a Virginia federal courtroom Tuesday: the FBI secretly offered Christopher Steele $1 million if the ex-British spy could only corroborate his phony dossier that accused Trump of colluding with Russia.
Think about that. James Comey and his crooked cronies at the bureau were so desperate to topple Trump that they put the equivalent of a a taxpayer-funded bounty on the president’s head to frame him. Bring us the evidence, and we’ll make you rich!
The stunning revelation came on the first day of the criminal trial of Igor Danchenko who is charged by special counsel John Durham of lying to the FBI about the dossier.
Of course, Steele could not possibly prove any of his dossier because it was pure fiction —totally made up. And the FBI knew it almost from the outset because Steele’s primary source told them so. Early on, Danchenko confessed to the FBI that the document was utterly bogus. He admitted to agents that it was nothing more than a devious composition of rumors, innuendo, multiple hearsay, and outright lies.
Declassified documents show that the entire collusion smear was invented by Hillary Clinton herself in the summer of 2016 and funded by her campaign. Independently, the agency had already debunked it but told no one.
The falsity of the dossier didn’t stop the FBI from exploiting it to go after Trump with a vengeance. The fraudulent document fueled the FBI’s dishonest investigation against the president. The bureau also used the dossier to lie to FISA court judges to gain intrusive and lawless warrants to spy on Trump associate, Carter Page.
Comey, Andrew McCabe and others assured the court under oath that the dossier was credible and that Steele was reliable when they knew that both were untrue. Indeed, Steele had been fired from the FBI payroll for lying, but that vital fact was carefully concealed from the court.
Steele wasn’t the only one the FBI was funneling money to. Danchenko was also a paid informant for the bureau to drum up evidence against Trump, even though the Russian national was considered to be a counter-intelligence threat. Again, Comey’s machinations demonstrates just how frantic top officials at the FBI were to bring down Trump —doling out large sums of taxpayer money to nefarious people to support their spurious case against him.
The mainstream media that convicted Trump in the court of public opinion for more than two years are still serving up a goulash of lies. On NBC News Tuesday, a reporter told viewers that the FBI never used the dossier in the Trump probe. That is utterly untrue, as demonstrated by the FBI’s own records that have been made public. So, don’t expect truth, accuracy, and fairness from the Trump-hating media in its coverage of the Danchenko trial.
As the testimony unfolds we can expect to learn even more about the malevolence, depravity, and corruption that has infected the FBI. Stay tuned.
TRUMP IS RIGHT: THE DOUBLE STANDARD IN CLASSIFIED DOCUMENT TREATMENT BETWEEN PRESIDENTS IS GLARING By Summer Lane
Source: https://www.rsbnetwork.com/news/trump-is-right-the-double-standard-in-classified-document-treatment-between-presidents-is-glaring/
October 13, 2022
President Trump smacked down the shameless double standard of treatment between former presidents like George W. Bush and himself during an electric Save America rally in Mesa, Arizona, last week. “Just look at how every other president has been treated when they left office – they’ve been treated beautifully,” he said.
Trump’s comments came on the heels of an intense battle over allegedly classified documents that the FBI seized during an August raid on his private Florida home, Mar-a-Lago.
Since the seizure, the debate over how former presidents have handled possession of supposedly classified documents and records has intensified, drawing attention to the double standard.
“There is no ‘crime’ having to do with the storage of documents at Mar-a- Lago, only in the minds of the Radical Left Lunatics who are destroying our Country, and were just forced by the Courts to give me back much of what they took (STOLE?) during their unprecedented and unnecessary break in of my home,” Trump wrote in a post shared to Truth Social this week, eviscerating the narrative that he had done anything out of the ordinary.
Trump’s claim of innocence has plenty of facts to back it up.
Bill Clinton and His Socks
President Trump has referenced Bill Clinton several times to illustrate the justice system’s hypocrisy in classified document treatment, alluding to the Judicial Watch v. National Archives and Records Administration case that arose several years ago.
According to a report from John Solomon for Just the News, the case revolved around audio tapes that were kept in Clinton’s sock drawer while he was in the White House. Per the memorandum opinion, U.S. District Judge Jackson ruled that the decision to “segregate personal materials from Presidential records is made by the President, during the President’s term and in his sole discretion.”
President Trump took to Truth Social to comment on the 2012 ruling. He wrote, “The Clinton ‘Socks Case,’ which is law, says it all belongs to ‘the President,’ NO CRIME, and the Presidential Record Act is simple, ‘negotiate,’ and NO CRIME. These people are CRAZY!!!”
According to the search warrant used to raid Trump’s home, the FBI was primarily looking for classified documents and information, as previously reported by RSBN. However, the judge in the Clinton “Socks Case” established that documents could be declassified by the President of the United States when he deemed it necessary to do so.
This begs the question: why did the FBI raid Trump’s home for documents that were, as Trump has previously stated, already “declassified”? Trump has also said that the documents were well-secured and kept under lock and key, at the request of the DOJ.
Millions of Missing Bush Emails
In Arizona, Trump told a crowd of eager rallygoers that former President George W. Bush had stored 68 million pages of documents in a Texas warehouse and that he had also “lost” 22 million “White House emails.”
A 2016 article from Newsweek referenced by Trump on Truth Social alleged that during Bush’s administration, the White House reportedly lost 22 million emails written during the chaos of the Iraq War.
Further, the outlet reported that the Bush White House supposedly used a private email server that the Republican National Committee owned, claiming that not only were millions of emails lost but that there were “email system blackouts” as well as periods when then-Vice President Dick Cheney had no record of archived emails at all.
“When will they investigate and prosecute Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, George Bush, and look into what took place with George Bush’s father and the warehouse of documents had by Barack Hussein Obama?” Trump remarked last week.
Nobody can seem to answer that question.
Obama Lost a Few Things, Too
Former President Barack Obama’s administration reportedly fumbled the ball a few times when it came to properly transferring records to the National Archives. A 2018 report from Real Clear Politics (RCP) revealed that when David Ferreiro, the then-archivist of the U.S., was moving the Obama administration’s records into the archives, he realized that an enormous number of records were missing.
The RCP report alleged that Obama’s administration destroyed government records, despite Obama’s move in 2014 to sign the 1950 Presidential and Federal Records Act Amendments that would supposedly safeguard digital classified records from being removed without authorization.
The report stated:
“And yet the accumulation of recent congressional testimony has made it clear that the Obama administration itself engaged in the wholesale destruction and ‘loss’ of tens of thousands of government records covered under the act as well as the intentional evasion of the government records recording system by engaging in private email exchanges.”
Trump has also claimed that “Barack Hussein Obama moved more than 20 truckloads of over 33 million pages of documents – both classified and unclassified to a poorly built, totally unsafe…a furniture store located in a rather bad neighborhood in Chicago.”
Regarding government records and emails, the bottom line is obvious: former presidents are generally free to do as they wish.
That is, until Trump, of course.
Trump and the Presidential Records Act
In 1978, the Presidential Records Act was established, which, per the National Archives, “changed the legal ownership of the official records of the President from private to public, and established a new statutory structure under which Presidents, and subsequently NARA, must manage the records of their Administrations.”
Via Newsweek, the PRA essentially required all presidential and vice-presidential records starting in 1981 (during the Reagan administration) to be preserved. However, former presidential administrations reportedly did not always comply with the PRA in terms of preserving their emails, as demonstrated in the case of the Bush White House.
If Trump’s claims, for example, that Obama did indeed remove documents to a private location in Chicago that was “poorly built” and “totally unsafe,” are true, then why hasn’t Obama been scrutinized as heavily as Trump has for “removing” classified documents?
Why has Bush escaped criticism? Why hasn’t Bill Clinton garnered national media attention for the same thing?
“They could have had it [documents] anytime they wanted – and that includes LONG ago,” Trump stated in August. “ALL THEY HAD TO DO WAS ASK.”
So, why didn’t the Justice Department “ask”? Why did they find it necessary to raid the home of a former president who, broadly speaking, should enjoy the same treatment of privilege and power to declassify documents as any other president that came before him?
Clinton, Bush, and Obama were never substantially criticized, severely legally attacked, or questioned for taking documents with them when they left the White House. This duplicitous treatment from the Justice Department sadly demonstrates a chilling double standard of political deference that has left Americans’ trust in the U.S. justice system in tatters.
In Danchenko Trial, Durham Exposes How Corrupt FBI Framed Trump: If nothing else, the Danchenko trial has solidified proof that the FBI is the personification of corruption in government. By Gregg Jarrett
Source: https://thegreggjarrett.com/in-danchenko-trial-durham-exposes-how-corrupt-fbi-framed-trump/
October 17, 2022
The FBI was so desperate to topple Donald Trump that it secretly dangled an exorbitant reward of $1 million to disgraced ex-British spy Christopher Steele if he would corroborate his dossier that the bureau already knew was phony. It was the equivalent of a bounty on the head of Trump —an outrageous financial incentive to a notorious fabulist to spin even more lies.
That is just one of shocking revelations in the federal trial of Igor Danchenko —Steele’s primary source— who is charged with lying to the FBI about the dossier. In the grand scheme of the elaborate and despicable Russia Hoax, it matters little whether the defendant is convicted by special counsel John Durham. Danchenko is merely the facade. Behind it, the FBI is on trial for its corruption, malfeasance, and malevolence.
Steele, who was already on the FBI payroll to target Trump, was double-dipping. He was also being paid by the Hillary Clinton Campaign to create the dossier, which was nothing more than a collection of rumors, innuendo, multiple hearsay, and outright lies. The FBI knew this. By early October of 2016 it had largely debunked the specious document. But then-FBI Director James Comey and his cronies were frantic to falsely incriminate Trump as a supposed Russian asset or, at the very least, convict him in the court of public opinion. They exploited the fictive dossier in an attempt to frame the Republican candidate and eventual president for unidentified crimes he did not commit.
Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Of course, Steele never collected his $1 million bonus because he could not possibly prove the truth of his smears. But that did not stop the FBI from using the dossier as the basis for an intrusive and lawless warrant to spy on Trump campaign associate, Carter Page. In his supporting affidavit to the FISA court, Comey vowed under oath that the contents of the dossier were “credible” and that Steele was “reliable”, omitting the crucial (and inconvenient) fact that the former spook had been fired by the FBI for lying. Indeed, Steele was not reliable at all, nor was his work remotely credible. Compounding the government’s duplicity, an FBI lawyer doctored evidence submitted to the court. In a total of four successive warrants, the FISA judges were deceived and defrauded by both the FBI and the Department of Justice, which also had ample reason to suspect the dossier was demonstrably false.
In January of 2017 —a mere four days after Trump was inaugurated— the FBI further confirmed what it already knew when it interviewed Danchenko who served as Steele’s primary source. The Russian national living in Virginia, who had worked for the liberal think tank Brookings Institution in Washington DC, confessed that the dossier was pure fabrication. It was totally made up, he said. But he also allegedly lied by denying that his disinformation came from a Clinton crony, Charles Dolan, Jr., who has close ties to the Russian government. At trial on Thursday, Dolan admitted he gave phony info to the defendant, but he described it as merely an “embellishment.” Right. Danchenko also blamed businessman Sergei Millian for conveying the salacious claim about Trump and prostitutes in a Moscow hotel. Durham intends to prove there was never any contact between the two men.
As the Trump-hating media ran wild with the published dossier by assuring their audiences that it was all true, Comey and others at the bureau remained conspicuously silent. They did not disclose that Danchenko had exposed the document as political chicanery devoid of any truth. Instead, behind the scenes the FBI spread its own disinformation that the dossier was completely credible while concealing exculpatory evidence that Trump was innocent. Meanwhile, special counsel Robert Mueller worked sedulously to hide the Clinton-Steele-Danchenko-FBI delusion. You won’t find a word of it in his report, even though Mueller was privy to all of it. During Danchenko’s trial, an FBI agent revealed that Mueller refused to even interview Dolan, much less investigate him, for furnishing some of the damning lies. It seems that Democrats receive special dispensation.
The current Virginia trial has also exposed sleazy FBI payola beyond the $1 million bounty offered to Steele. It turns out that Danchenko was also on the financial take. In addition to Clinton cash funneled through Steele, he pocketed more than $200,000 in U.S. taxpayer money over the course of three years as an FBI “confidential informant.” He was tasked with digging up dirt on Trump. In other words, the FBI paid the guy who exposed the lies in the dossier —and allegedly lied in the process— to conjure up more of the same. But there appears to have been a secondary benefit to paying off Danchenko. He kept mum to the public and press that the dossier was bogus. It’s hard to believe that the FBI would hire a man they previously investigated as a national security and counterintelligence threat, but that’s how it goes at the Hoover Building these days.
If nothing else, the Danchenko trial has solidified proof that the FBI is the personification of corruption in government. Current Director Christopher Wray is preoccupied with covering up misconduct and has done nothing to cleanup his cesspool of an agency. It needs to be torn apart —deconstructed from top to bottom— and reconstituted into a new agency that adheres to its original principles of a neutral and apolitical law enforcement agency dedicated to upholding the law.
As I wrote in my book, Witch Hunt, when the law enforcers become the law breakers it breeds contempt for the law. Democracy is threatened. Reverence to the rule of law is lost.
