Former Vice President Mike Pence has some sharp words for former President Donald Trump's decision to put attorneys Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani in charge of challenging the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Axios reports that Pence, in a new book titled "So Help Me God" that is due out on November 15th, will criticize Trump for deciding to double down on efforts to overturn the 2020 election results even after his own campaign explained to him that he had little chance of succeeding.
Pence paints the decision to empower Powell and Giuliani as a particularly poisonous one.
"After the campaign lawyers gave a sober and somewhat pessimistic report on the state of election challenges, the outside cast of characters went on the attack," Pence writes. "Giuliani told the president over the speakerphone, 'Your lawyers are not telling you the truth, Mr. President.'"
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Pence describes this moment as "a new low" for Trump's post-election behavior that "went downhill from there."
He then explains how this decision directly led to the deadly January 6th Capitol riots.
"In the end, that day the president made the fateful decision to put Giuliani and Sidney Powell in charge of the legal strategy... the seeds were being sown for a tragic day in January," he writes.
Reacting to a report that former Donald Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran sat down with a grand jury for over three hours last Friday after the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for Washington, D.C. paved the way to pierce the attorney-client protections, an MSNBC legal analysts claimed Donald Trump's use of his lawyers to delay proceedings may come back to haunt him in devastating ways.
In a column for MSNBC, attorney and former FBI agent Asha Rangappa wrote that, among the myriad of lawyers the former president has retained, the strongest evidence that Trump committed criminal acts or knew he was breaking the law could come out if more judges rule the way the Court of Appeals did.
Taking it to the extreme, she wrote one of them could deliver the "fatal blow" that ends in a Trump conviction.
As Rangappa notes, the case Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is pursuing against Trump is based on testimony and evidence provided by former Trump attorney Michael Cohen -- and he might not be the last.
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With regard to the DOJ's investigation into Trump's hoarding of confidential documents at his Mar-a-Lago report that required the FBI showing up with a warrant, Trump lawyer Christina Bobb was put on the spot for her part in obstruction of justice by signing off and saying all documents had been returned when they had not.
According to Rangappa, "A subsequent search warrant executed at Mar-a-Lago, which turned up about 100 additional classified documents, however, revealed that certification to be false. Under questioning by prosecutors, Bobb stated that she had been instructed to sign the certification by Trump’s other attorney, Corcoran. But when Corcoran was brought in to testify in front of the grand jury, he avoided answering the prosecutor’s questions — which presumably concerned how he came to believe from Trump that all of the documents had been returned — citing attorney-client privilege."
With that protection now stripped away, the former president might see his defense fall apart based on Corcoran's testimony.
"While we don’t yet know what transpired during Corcoran’s testimony Friday, we can say that breaking the cone of silence between Trump and his attorney may be the fatal blow for Trump in the Mar-a-Lago investigation. One of the most difficult elements to prove in an obstruction of justice investigation is the defendant’s state of mind," she wrote before adding, "Corcoran is in a position to provide direct evidence that Trump knowingly lied to him that all of the documents had been returned. That can seal the deal for the special counsel — and as icing on the cake, Smith could also charge Trump with making a false statement, since his lies would have induced Corcoran to sign a false certification."
She then added, "But by pulling back the curtain on Trump’s communication with his lawyer, [special counsel Jack] Smith can remove Trump’s Teflon protection and demonstrate why his case is different."
You can read more here.
A church in Ohio that intends to host a drag show brunch and story hour says that it was pelted with Molotov cocktails late last week.
Local news station Fox 8 reports that the Community Church of Chesterland, Ohio, has been apparently targeted with violence over its decision to host the show, as its sign announcing the show was hit with both Molotov cocktails and a sledgehammer.
While the vandals did little damage to the church itself and no one was inside the building at the time of the attack, Pastor Jess Peacock tells Fox 8 that the organization is nonetheless taking extra security precautions going forward.
"That kind of violence is pitiful," she tells Fox 8. "There are people who say, ‘think of the children, think of the children.’ Well, children go here. We have a preschool here."
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The church is still holding the event, which will consist of both a drag-themed brunch that will be open to anyone 18 years or older, and then a drag story hour available to people of all ages.
Drag shows have increasingly come under attack in recent months from both right-wing protesters from organizations such as the Proud Boys and from Republican state legislatures who have placed legal restrictions on venues that host such events.
U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled on Monday that author E. Jean Carroll cannot be forced to testify about a DNA sample that former President Donald Trump refused to provide for an upcoming rape trial.
Kaplan told attorneys for Trump that they would not be allowed to question Carroll about DNA found on her dress that could not be matched to Trump because he refused to provide a sample.
"US District Judge Lewis Kaplan on Monday said Trump's attorneys can't cross-examine Carroll about a public statement she made saying Trump's DNA had been found on the garment," Bloomberg's Erik Larson reported. "The judge said such questions would confuse the jury because Trump can't prove Carroll's claim was false."
Kaplan acknowledged that the DNA might belong to Trump.
"It might be Mr. Trump's DNA; it might be someone else's," the judge noted. "The lab could not reach such a conclusion at least in part because Mr. Trump refused to allow the taking of a sample of his DNA for comparison despite a request that had been outstanding for years."
On Friday, Kaplan said he would allow jurors in the case to remain anonymous.
"Mr. Trump repeatedly has attacked courts, judges, various law enforcement officials and other public officials, and even individual jurors in other matters," Kaplan wrote. "If jurors' identities were disclosed, there would be a strong likelihood of unwanted media attention to the jurors, influence attempts, and/or of harassment or worse of jurors by supporters of Mr. Trump."
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