President Trump

Cooperation from Ken Klukowski could spur charges against Clark, who schemed with Trump to overturn election results in Georgia.

Rachel Semmel, a spokesman for Center for Renewing America, where Jeff Clark is the director of litigation, blasted the DoJ inquiries involving Clark and others. Donoghue recalled that Clark responded, “I think a lot of people meddled in this election.” “In the case of the Georgia false electors scheme, the two people who jump out as logical witnesses are Ken Klukowski and Jeffrey Clark. Clark would be the most significant wrongdoer here, and so it seems likely that efforts to flip other witnesses would focus on him.” Reports indicate that he met alone with Trump to discuss efforts to undermine election results. “When pursuing conspiracy cases, prosecutors look for ‘weak links’ among the co-conspirators, to wit, people willing to cooperate.

The latest in the Justice Department's investigation into Donald Trump. And the students who survived the mass shooting in Uvalde, Tex., return to school ...

Today, Arelis Hernández [brings us the story of families ](https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/09/03/uvalde-schools-start-after-shooting/) [struggling](https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/09/03/uvalde-schools-start-after-shooting/) with these difficult back-to-school decisions as they try to recover from the unimaginable. Rosalind Helderman, a political enterprise reporter for The Post, walks us through what this news means for the Justice Department and [what we can expect next in this investigation](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/30/mar-a-lago-timeline-trump-documents/). Questions over safety, security and adequate student support have divided this small community and broken trust with the school district. The latest in the Justice Department’s investigation into Donald Trump. In May, The judge granted

The US Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into classified documents kept at former president Donald Trump's Florida home – a judge's ...

And Mr Trump's former attorney-general Bill Barr, on the unprecedented raid of Mr Trump's resort, said: "It’s also unprecedented for a president to take all this classified information and put them in a country club." And Hillary Clinton, while Mr Obama's secretary of state, was scrutinised by the FBI – and excoriated by Mr Trump – for using a private email service when she was secretary of state in 2016 ( Mr Trump has previously called the investigation a witch-hunt and James Trusty, a lawyer for Mr Trump, compared the former president keeping classified documents to hanging on to an "overdue library book". A special master is an outside legal expert. A lawyer for Mr Trump has yet to respond to a request for comment on the latest development. In her ruling, US District Judge Aileen Cannon – an appointee of Mr Trump's – said the "unprecedented circumstances call for a brief pause to allow a neutral third party to ensure a just process".

Trump Judge Aileen Cannon's order is egregiously wrong and could be overturned on appeal. But it helps Trump run out the clock.

But even though the Court eventually rejected this Trump judge’s order, it [left that order in place for 10 months](https://www.vox.com/2022/4/26/23042653/supreme-court-remain-in-mexico-trump-biden-texas-immigration-border-asylum), effectively allowing the dead hand of the Trump administration to set border policy long after Trump was voted out of office. When Trump was in office, the Court often moved so quickly when Trump’s lawyers asked it to block a lower court order that Justice Sonia Sotomayor accused her colleagues of But the Court shows no inclination to move quickly when a lower court judge errs in a way that benefits Republicans. Now suppose that one of the documents seized by the FBI turns out to be a memo laying out how the price of gasoline in Michigan fluctuated between 2016 and 2019. Texas](https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/biden-v-texas-2/), holding that a Trump judge in Texas egregiously misread federal immigration law when he ordered the Biden administration to reinstate a Trump-era border policy. [In re: Sealed Case](https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-dc-circuit/1433973.html) is probably the most robust attempt by a federal court to define the scope of this privilege. But that order would appeal to the 11th Circuit, a GOP-dominated court where six of the 11 active judges were appointed by Donald Trump. Mazars](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/19-715_febh.pdf) (2020), Congress and the White House have historically maintained a “tradition of negotiation and compromise” when the former seeks the latter’s documents. And even if we assume that the DC Circuit’s definition applies, how is a special master to determine that a particular document fits within this definition? And there are no separation of powers concerns raised by one part of the executive branch obtaining documents that allegedly belong to another part of the executive branch. An even more basic reason why executive privilege should not apply to this investigation is that Trump is trying to assert executive privilege against, well, the executive. Additionally, if Trump is eventually indicted, and he believes that the Justice Department used any of these seized documents improperly, he could raise that point at his criminal trial and seek to have that evidence dismissed.

Trump may be the only person in America who got to appoint the federal judge overseeing the criminal investigation looking into him.

Joseph McCarthy during the communist witch hunting days of the 1950s, used to say, “Don’t tell me what the law is, tell me who the judge is.” Donald Trump is getting something no one else ever gets in federal court, he’s getting it for no good reason, and it will not in the slightest reduce getting it for no good reason, and it will not in the slightest reduce the ongoing howls that he is being persecuted, when he is being privileged.” Now, we have further proof of just how above the law Trump is by way of Judge Aileen M. But as a number of commentators have pointed out in recent days, Roy Cohn, the sleazy, pitbull investigator for Sen. That court has 11 active judges. And when afforded the opportunity to stonewall a criminal investigation into you-know-who, she did it. And she owes her lifetime job to Trump. Buell, a Duke University law professor, told the Times, “To any lawyer with serious federal criminal court experience who is being honest, this ruling is laughably bad, and the written justification is even flimsier. [member of the right-wing Federalist Society](https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/trump-appointed-judge-courts-controversy-with-mar-a-lago-order). [all picked by the Federalist Society](https://ballotpedia.org/Trump_administration_judicial_nominees_and_the_administrative_state).” [if there is a possibility the judge’s decision will be biased](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/455). [court is giving special considerations to the former president](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/05/us/trump-special-master-aileen-cannon.html) that ordinary, everyday citizens do not receive.”

The Justice Department must decide by Friday whether to appeal this week's ruling by U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon, a Trump appointee.

Cannon said in her ruling Monday that the justices have not ruled out the possibility of the interests of a former president prevailing over a sitting president when it comes to executive privilege. Judges from all five divisions can be assigned to cases in any of the courthouses. [vote of 56-21 ](https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1162/vote_116_2_00228.htm#position)in November 2020 with the support of a dozen Democrats. She is a graduate of Duke University and University of Michigan law school. Kavanaugh, one of Trump’s nominees to the Supreme Court, who wrote separately in the Jan. But unlike those cases, the Justice Department told Cannon that it has already sorted through the documents from Mar-a-Lago using a “filter team” to separate potentially privileged records. In Trump’s case, the former president has not been charged and the investigation is ongoing. It happened in recent years after FBI searches of the homes and offices of Trump’s personal attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Michael Cohen. If Cannon’s decision stands, legal experts said, it would allow the targets of investigations to disrupt law enforcement operations before a case is charged or goes to trial. In her ruling Monday, Cannon said a special master would review the seized documents to identify any records protected by attorney-client or executive privilege. “Maybe this will be the case that determines and helps settle that open question.” “The Supreme Court has said it’s an open question the extent to which a former president can assert claims of executive privilege against a sitting president,” said former federal judge Paul G.

A document describing a foreign government's military defenses, including its nuclear capabilities, was found in the FBI's search last month of former ...

operations that require special clearances, not just top-secret clearance. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com

Former President Trump and his allies embraced the appointment of a special master to review materials taken from Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate last month ...

“And that is a threat to this country.” “They are being pushed to do the wrong things by many sinister and evil outside sources. “Trump will also see this as a win, because the judge appeared to stop the DOJ from continuing the investigation, which will slow it for some time,” Tobias added. “Remember, it takes courage and ‘guts’ to fight a totally corrupt Department of ‘Justice’ and the FBI,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform. Trump remains unpopular with many independent voters, who will be critical in Senate races in swing states like Pennsylvania, Arizona and Wisconsin. The FBI search conducted Aug. In each of those cases, he repeatedly decried them as politically motivated “witch hunts.” Cannon asked the parties to submit names to potentially serve as the special master by Friday. The decision will also likely slow down any investigation into Trump’s handling of classified materials after leaving office, which could allow Trump to further cast the search as a partisan exercise ahead of the midterm elections. Why was the DOJ trying so hard to stop this? In Cannon’s ruling, she wrote that the eventual appointee would determine what is covered by both attorney-client privilege as well as executive privilege. “The DOJ FAILED in stopping an independent special master from reviewing the documents from illegal raid on President Trump’s home.

Materials relating to a foreign nation's nuclear capabilities were among the nearly 300 classified documents found by federal agents during numerous ...

(Trump responded to the filing by suggesting federal agents placed the recovered documents “ [haphazardly all over the floor](https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-upset-feds-pics-top-secret-pics-mar-a-lago-carpet-1234584951/)” of his office in an attempt to make him look disorganized — because nothing, not even absconding from the White House with classified documents, is worse than a former president with a messy house.) [specifically instructed to look for nuclear-related materials](https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/mar-a-lago-trump-fbi-search-nuclear-weapons-documents-1396092/) during the [Mar-a-Lago raid](https://www.rollingstone.com/t/mar-a-lago-raid/). [released a damning court filing](https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/donald-trump-hid-classified-documents-mar-a-lago-raid-1234584879/) stating federal authorities believed Trump’s staff deliberately concealed additional classified or top secret documents from investigators — even after counsel for the former president signed an affidavit in June stating all relevant materials had been returned to the government — prompting officials to take steps authorizing the Aug. Trump responded to the article [in a characteristically rambling post on his Truth Social platform](https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-responds-nuclear-documents-mar-a-lago-1396192/), writing off the claim as yet another partisan-driven attack on his character. Many of the recovered materials were mixed in with various bits of Trump-related ephemera, while approximately 90 folders designated to contained restrictive documents [According to The Washington Post](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/09/06/trump-nuclear-documents/), several anonymous sources familiar with the ongoing investigation into Trump’s illegal stash of government property at Mar-a-Lago told the publication that the document detailing an unidentified “foreign government’s nuclear-defense readiness” was located amongst the materials recovered by authorities between January and August of this year.

Recovered records include material even senior Biden officials were not authorized to view, Washington Post reports.

[granted Trump’s request](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/05/donald-trump-special-master-fbi-mar-a-lago) for the appointment of a special master to review the documents seized from Mar-a-Lago on 8 August. Many others, including Trump’s [former attorney general, William Barr](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/03/william-barr-trump-mar-a-lago-fbi-justice-department), have defended the investigation into his retention of government records, saying that it posed a major national security risk. [FBI](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/fbi) were documents detailing top-secret US operations that require special clearances “on a need-to-know basis”, beyond a top-secret clearance, according to the Post report. Trump has attacked the department, including [at a weekend rally](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/04/trump-rally-fbi-doj-vicious-monsters-mar-a-lago-search) where he called the FBI and DOJ “vicious monsters”. [Mar-a-Lago](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/mar-a-lago).