Jack Smith

On CNN Thursday, former White House ethics czar, ambassador, and House impeachment counsel Norm Eisen tore into former President Donald Trump following new reports that even more classified documents were found in a Florida storage facility belonging to the former president, and expressed confidence Trump will ultimately be prosecuted for his actions.

This comes after an FBI search of Mar-a-Lago that yielded another stash of classified documents, months of litigation, and attestations from the former president's attorneys that all such material had already been handed over.

On Tuesday, House January 6 Committee Chair Bennie Thompson (D-MS) announced that the committee's final work will be to issue criminal referrals to the Justice Department against key figures who helped the attack on the U.S. Capitol happen.

On CNN, reporter Jamie Gangel said that former President Donald Trump, who was already impeached for his role in inciting the insurrection, is almost certainly going to be one of those subject to a referral.

Special counsel Jack Smith has subpoenaed officials from the states of Arizona, Michigan, and Wisconsin, for any communications the officials may have had with Trump or his allies, The Washington Post reports.

The three states were the focus of Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.

On Tuesday, NPR reported that the chief of the U.S. Capitol Police, set to receive the Congressional Gold Medal, is planning remarks on the state of D.C. security, nearly two years after the January 6 attack on the Capitol that threatened the safety of lawmakers, left the complex damaged, and led to deaths, suicides, and injuries among officers. The overall assessment: Security has improved — but domestic extremist groups have gotten smarter as well.

"U.S. Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger will speak on behalf of his department at a ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda on Tuesday," reported Deirdre Walsh. "He told NPR in an interview a day before the ceremony that while there is still more work to do, the force is 'much better prepared' to respond to future threats to the Capitol. Manger said 'the big things, the big failures that occurred on January 6th have largely been fixed.'"

During the 2022 midterms, countless pundits predicted that if Republicans flipped the U.S. House of Representatives, investigating President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, would be high on their list of priorities. Republicans did flip the House, where they will have a small majority of around six seats in 2023. And sure enough, Rep. James Comer of Kentucky (the top Republican on the House Oversight Committee) is promising in-depth investigations of the president’s son.

Veteran columnist/author and Never Trump conservative Mona Charen examines MAGA Republicans’ obsession with Hunter Biden in an article published by The Bulwark on December 6. The 65-year-old Charen, who worked in the Reagan White House during the 1980s and was a speechwriter for First Lady Nancy Reagan, is not a Hunter Biden fan. But she is much more critical of former President Donald Trump and his many allies in the GOP, and she finds MAGA Republicans’ obsession with Hunter Biden laughable in light of the many lines the former president has crossed.

Former President Donald Trump found a sympathetic voice in the Mar-a-Lago/government documents case when federal Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, granted his request for a special master. But many legal experts have been highly critical of Cannon’s ruling. One of them is University of Baltimore law professor Kimberly Wehle.

In an article published by the conservative website The Bulwark on December 5, Never Trumper Wehle applauds a three-judge panel for its rebuke of both Trump and Cannon.

On Thursday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reversed an order issued by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon to appoint a special master to oversee the review of classified documents seized from Donald Trump’s Mar-a-lago resort.

According to The Bulwark's Kimberly Wehle, the most remarkable aspect of the ruling is how the panel of three judges "utterly demolished Trump" and the U.S. District judge who issued the appointment, Aileen Cannon, "in unforgiving language inspired by foundational principles of constitutional restraint."

Appearing on MSNBC early Sunday morning, former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance said that in the past week Donald Trump suffered defeat after defeat in the courts and now the Department of Justice has all it needs to go after the former president on multiple fronts leading to indictments.

Speaking with MSNBC host Katie Phang, Vance called the past seven days "the worst legal week that Trump has ever seen."

On Saturday, writing for MSNBC, former FBI counterintelligence official Frank Figliuzzi connected the dots on how to pin down former President Donald Trump on seditious conspiracy charges in the January 6 attack investigation — following the successful conviction of two leaders of the far-right militia the Oath Keepers on the same charge.

"The government’s successful prosecution sidelines some strong players, but the captains and coaches we have reason to suspect called the shots on Jan. 6, 2021 (former President Donald Trump and his minions) remain on the field," wrote Figliuzzi. "To win the game, special counsel Jack Smith, who’s been appointed to investigate Trump’s role in the violence of Jan. 6, needs to use the same playbook that worked against the Oath Keepers. That is, he should be looking to see if seditious conspiracy and obstruction of Congress charges are warranted for Trump and those in his inner circle."

The Department of Justice issued a subpoena to a documentary filmmaker who recorded much of the events around the Jan. 6 insurrection.

British filmmaker Alex Holder recorded hours of footage, including interviews with Donald Trump and his family, before and after the U.S. Capitol assault, and federal investigators asked him to testify before a grand jury in a subpoena issued the day newly appointed special counsel Jack Smith took over the probe, reported Politico's Ryan Lizza.

The convictions of two Oath Keepers leaders on seditious conspiracy charges puts new pressure on the Department of Justice to indict Donald Trump for his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection, according to veteran journalist Bob Woodward.

Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and his lieutenant Kelly Meggs were found guilty this week for their roles in the U.S. Capitol assault, and other militia members were convicted on other charges, and Woodward told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" those cases would weigh on attorney general Merrick Garland and newly appointed special counsel Jack Smith.

WASHINGTON — Attorney General Merrick Garland spoke to reporters on Wednesday about the cases the Justice Department has focused on that saw results this week. One of them was about the water crisis in Jackson, Mississippi and holding officials accountable for violating the Safe Drinking Water Act and the civil right to safe water. The other involved the sedition conviction for the Oath Keepers by a jury on Tuesday.

"Our work yesterday marks significant successes on each of these fronts," said Garland. Early yesterday evening a jury in the District of Columbia found five defendants associated with the Oath Keepers guilty of serious crimes related to the Jan. 6th 2021, attack on the United States Capitol. Two defendants were convicted of seditious conspiracy against the United States for conspiring to oppose by force the peaceful transfer of presidential power. Those two defendants and the three other defendants were also convicted of obstructing the certification of the electoral college vote. And various defendants were also convicted of different additional felony counts, ranging from conspiring to members of Congress, from discharging their duties, to interfering with law enforcement officers attempting to guard the Capitol during the attack, to tampering with relevant evidence after the fact."

The preliminary phase of the Mar-a-Lago documents investigation is about to reach an important deadline, and prosecution could be next for Donald Trump.

Special master Raymond Dearie faces a Dec. 16 deadline for issuing his report on evidence seized by FBI agents at Trump's home, but the 11th Circuit Court has indicated it may take the case away from him any day, and the Justice Department has a hearing scheduled Thursday with the retired judge appointed to oversee the case, reported The New York Sun.