Tag: testify

Trump rejects last chance to testify at New York civil trial

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The jury has also watched lengthy excerpts from an October videotaped deposition in which Trump vehemently denied raping Carroll or ever really knowing her.
Without Trump’s testimony, lawyers were scheduled to make closing arguments Monday, with deliberations likely to begin on Tuesday.
After prosecutors rested their case Thursday, Trump attorney Joe Tacopina immediately rested the defense case as well without calling any witnesses. He did not request additional time for Trump to decide to testify. Tacopina declined in an email to comment after the deadline passed Sunday.
On Thursday, Kaplan had given Trump extra time to change his mind and request to testify, though the judge did not promise he would grant such a request to reopen the defense case so Trump could take the stand.
At the time, Kaplan noted that he’d heard about news reports Thursday in which Trump told reporters while visiting his golf course in Doonbeg, Ireland, that he would “probably attend” the trial. Trump also criticized Kaplan, a Bill Clinton appointee, as an “extremely hostile” and “rough judge” who “doesn’t like me very much.”
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#Trump #rejects #chance #testify #York #civil #trial
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

May 8, 2023
Durbin asks Roberts to testify on Supreme Court ethics flaps

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“The time has come for a new public conversation on ways to restore confidence in the Court’s
ethical standards. I invite you to join it,” Durbin added.
A Supreme Court spokesperson did not immediately respond to an inquiry about whether Roberts plans to accept Durbin’s invitation.
Asked by reporters Thursday if he planned a subpoena for the chief justice if he does not agree to appear voluntarily, Durbin appeared to allude to Democrats’ ongoing difficulties related to the absence of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), a longtime Judiciary committee member who has been absent from the Senate for months for medical reasons.
“It takes a majority. I don’t have a majority,” Durbin said bluntly, adding that he was hopeful Roberts would agree. “There’s been no discussion of subpoenas for anyone at this point.”
One Republican on the panel, Sen. Thom Tillis of South Carolina, expressed concern that a hearing with Roberts could wind up in a slugfest over issues unrelated to ethics practices at the court.
“You could quickly see it become a political show from either end of the spectrum,” Tillis said. “We could see it devolve into something that had nothing to do with the subject matter.”
Tillis also said the justices should be the ones deciding how to address ethics complaints and he questioned whether the high court’s standing with the public has, in fact, eroded.
“They themselves need to decide what, if anything, they need to do to restore any confidence that they think that they’ve lost, if in fact they think they’ve lost it,” Tillis said.

Durbin’s letter said Roberts “would not be expected to answer questions from Senators” about matters other than ethics, but it seems unlikely Durbin could prevent his colleagues from using a hearing to air such questions.
The Judiciary chair also offered an alternative, if Roberts doesn’t want to attend himself: He could send another justice in his place.
The Supreme Court is not bound by the code of ethics that applies to other federal judges and has no formal process to review ethics complaints. Roberts has said that the justices consult the ethics code for judges and also rely on various other authorities in deciding how to address ethics issues.
Democratic lawmakers have proposed imposing an ethics code and process on the Supreme Court by legislation, if the court does not craft such reforms itself.
The last appearance before a congressional committee by members of the Supreme Court came in 2019, when Justices Samuel Alito and Elena Kagan attended a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing on the high court’s budget.
Kagan said at that hearing that the justices were discussing an ethics code, but in the four years since no such regime has been adopted by the high court.
Durbin noted in his letter, and to reporters, that a pair of justices – Antonin Scalia and Stephen Breyer – testified to the Judiciary panel in 2011. “There’s precedent for this,” the senator said.
The call for Roberts to testify comes in the wake of reports by ProPublica about Thomas’ frequent vacationing, sometimes on private jets, with wealthy Texas real estate developer Harlan Crow, and about Crow’s purchase of Thomas’ childhood home and neighboring properties.
Thomas has said in a statement that he has attempted to abide by financial disclosure requirements that apply to all federal judges and that he was advised “personal hospitality” from Crow did not have to be disclosed. Thomas, the court’s oldest and longest-serving justice, has not commented on the sale of his mother’s home to Crow or why it was not reported.
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#Durbin #asks #Roberts #testify #Supreme #Court #ethics #flaps
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 20, 2023
Trump appeals order for Pence to testify in Jan. 6 probe

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Under the Constitution, Pence as vice president also served as president of the Senate, entitling him to some measure of congressional immunity, Boasberg found. Although Pence and his allies felt that the ruling didn’t extend far enough, Pence opted not to appeal the decision.
Trump’s executive privilege challenges to Justice Department subpoenas have not fared well in a series of secret court proceedings that have played out in recent months. He lost bids before Boasberg’s predecessor as chief, Beryl Howell, to prevent Pence’s aides from testifying in the inquiry, and he recently lost a similar bid to prevent his own top White House advisers from appearing for compelled testimony.
A Trump spokesman confirmed the appeal in a statement blasting the Justice Department’s handling of the special counsel investigations.
“The DOJ is continuously stepping far outside the standard norms in attempting to destroy the long accepted, long held, Constitutionally based standards of attorney-client privilege and executive privilege,” said Trump spokesman Steven Cheung. “The Special Counsel is conducting a witch-hunt where the government has sought to violate every Constitutional norm, including the safeguards that protect a President’s ability to confer with his Vice President on matters of the security of the United States.”
The appeal is one of more than 10 secret proceedings that have governed Smith’s expansive inquiries into Trump’s bid to subvert the election, as well as his handling of highly sensitive national security secrets found at his Mar-a-Lago estate after he left office. Grand jury proceedings typically play out in secret, a requirement of law and precedent, but the breadth and magnitude of these probes have led to extraordinary rulings that are reshaping the boundaries of the separation of powers, all outside of public view.
The appeals court’s secret docket reflects that Trump’s appeal was lodged Monday morning after a March 27 ruling by Boasberg in a grand jury matter — a date that coincides with Boasberg’s order for Pence to testify. Trump has not yet filed for an emergency expedited effort to block Boasberg’s ruling, but he has taken that step in several other cases to no avail.
It’s unclear when Pence is expected to testify, but typically judges set precise deadlines for compliance that may drive the timing of various filings and challenges.
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#Trump #appeals #order #Pence #testify #Jan #probe
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 10, 2023
Pence will not appeal ruling requiring him to testify to Jan. 6 grand jury

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Trump and Pence had both challenged the subpoena — but on entirely distinct grounds. Trump contended that his conversations with Pence in the weeks preceding the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol should be shielded by investigators because of executive privilege, which is intended to preserve the confidentiality of some presidential communications. Trump has lost a series of sealed executive privilege fights in recent months, failing to convince federal district and appellate judges to support his privilege assertions.
Pence, however, had argued that the subpoena for his testimony was problematic for a different reason: his role as president of the Senate. The Constitution, he argued, makes the vice president a hybrid creature of the executive and legislative branch. Pence’s role on Jan. 6 — to preside over Congress’ counting of electoral votes — fell squarely within his congressional duties, entitling him to the protection of the Constitution’s “speech or debate” clause, which protects lawmakers from criminal inquiries that pertain to their official responsibilities.
As a result, Pence’s attorney contended that Pence should be shielded from the special counsel’s subpoena for any testimony related to his Jan. 6 role. Though the precise contours of Boasberg’s ruling remain unknown, a person familiar with the decision indicated that it agreed with aspects of Pence’s argument.
Boasberg found — for the first time in American history — that vice presidents do enjoy some congressional immunity for their role as president of the Senate. Pence allies say Baosberg’s decision was narrower than they preferred — opening Pence up to questions about his legislative duties they had hoped would be shielded — but they have largely treated it as a victory on the principle Pence set out to defend.
“In the Court’s decision, that principle prevailed,” O’Malley said. “The Court’s landmark and historic ruling affirmed for the first time in history that the Speech or Debate Clause extends to the Vice President of the United States.”
Though Pence’s decision means he’s likely to testify, Trump may still opt to appeal Boasberg’s ruling that executive privilege does not block Pence’s testimony.
Pence has long signaled he was willing to testify to the grand jury about topics that weren’t shielded by privilege. Smith is likely to press Pence about Trump’s weeks-long bid to convince him to single-handedly derail the transfer of power by refusing to count Joe Biden’s electoral votes on Jan. 6. Pence’s refusal to do so drew Trump’s fury and caused a mob that had gathered outside the Capitol that day to hunt for the vice president.
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#Pence #appeal #ruling #requiring #testify #Jan #grand #jury
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 6, 2023
Judge says Pence must testify to Jan. 6 grand jury

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Pence has indicated he’s open to answering certain categories of questions related to Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election despite losing the race to Joe Biden. But he has argued that the vice president’s unusual role — both a top member of the executive branch and president of the Senate — entitles him to immunity typically afforded to members of Congress. He has indicated he’s willing to take the fight to the Supreme Court if he doesn’t like the outcome.
CNN and ABC first reported on Boasberg’s decision to require Pence to testify on some aspects of the Jan. 6 probe.
It’s a complex argument with extraordinary ramifications, both for the investigation into potential crimes by Trump in his bid to seize a second term, and for the separation of powers that define the federal government. Pence’s argument has been largely untested in courts, but the Justice Department has, on at least three occasions, argued that vice presidents should enjoy so-called “speech or debate” immunity that largely protects members of Congress from answering in court for their legislative acts.
Pence did not adopt Trump’s separate argument — that his assertion of executive privilege bars Pence’s potential testimony. Multiple courts have rejected claims of executive privilege and attorney-client privilege amid his efforts to prevent witnesses from testifying before Smith’s grand juries. One of those grand juries is probing Trump’s handling of classified records he retained at his Mar-a-Lago estate after leaving office.
Legal scholars generally agree that Pence has a legitimate case that his role as president of the Senate may warrant immunity from testimony sought by the executive branch. The federal appeals court in Washington is expected to rule imminently on a separate effort by Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) to cite the Constitution’s “speech or debate” clause to prevent Smith from accessing his cell phone data. U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell — who handed the chief’s gavel to Boasberg earlier this month — rejected most of Perry’s claims in a December ruling she recently unsealed.
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#Judge #Pence #testify #Jan #grand #jury
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 28, 2023
Uyughur woman, teacher testify of torture, brainwashing in Chinese camps to US Congress

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Washington: Two women who say they experienced and escaped Chinese “re-education camps” have provided first-hand testimony to members of the US Congress, giving harrowing detail while imploring Americans not to look away from what Washington has declared a continuing genocide of Muslim ethnic minorities.
Testifying before a special House committee on Thursday, Gulbahar Haitiwaji, an Uyghur woman, said that during her nearly three years in internment camps and police stations, prisoners were subjected to 11 hours of “brainwashing education” each day, the Guardian reported.
It included singing patriotic songs and praising the Chinese government before and after meals.
Haitiwaji said detainees were punished for speaking in Uyghur and endured routine interrogations during which they were hooded and shackled to their chairs.
On one occasion, she said, she was chained to her bed for 20 days.
Female prisoners were told they would be vaccinated, when they were being sterilised, the Guardian reported.
“There are cameras all over the camp,” Haitiwaji said. “Our every move was monitored.”
She said in written testimony that after her head was shaved, she had a feeling of “losing my sense of self, losing my ability to even remember the faces of my family members”, the Guardian reported.

Qelbinur Sidik, a member of China’s ethnic Uzbek minority who is now a human rights activist living in the Netherlands, told of being coerced by Chinese authorities into teaching classes at one of China’s internment camps.
Through a translator, she described the detention facilities as “like a war zone” with razor wire fencing and armed guards.
Sidik recalled hearing the “horrible screaming sounds” of Uyghur prisoners as they were tortured, the Guardian reported.
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#Uyughur #woman #teacher #testify #torture #brainwashing #Chinese #camps #Congress
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 24, 2023
Trump denounces ‘crime-fraud’ ruling forcing attorney to testify in documents probe

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The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals stayed Howell’s order temporarily on Tuesday night, ordering an extraordinarily rapid series of filings in a matter of hours — including one from Trump’s team by midnight Tuesday.
The appeals court’s order — from Judges Cornelia Pillard, J. Michelle Childs and Florence Pan, all Democratic appointees — doesn’t identify Corcoran or the case at issue but makes clear that the government was on the winning side of the case in Howell’s court.
The three-judge panel is asking Trump’s attorneys to specify the precise set of documents at issue by midnight and for Smith’s team to respond by 6 a.m. Wednesday to the Trump team’s demand for a longer stay of Howell’s ruling.
A spokesperson for Smith declined to comment Tuesday on the closed-door fight.
The appeals court order followed the filing by Trump-linked attorneys of a pair of appeals and stay requests tied to Howell’s decision, which came on the final day of her seven-year tenure as chief judge of the federal District Court in Washington.
The parallel submissions asked the appeals court to block Howell’s decision while the appeals go forward, docket entries show. The appeals were first reported by CNN. The short-term “administrative” stay granted Tuesday night does not appear to signal whether the appeals court will decide to keep Howell’s order on ice as full legal briefing proceeds in the dispute.
The Trump campaign statement issued Tuesday evening also dismissed Howell, a former Democratic Senate aide appointed by former President Barack Obama, as a “Never Trump” judge.
Howell’s secret order on Friday required Corcoran to testify about matters he and Trump had claimed were subject to attorney-client privilege. Her order relied on the “crime-fraud exception,” which permits investigators to pursue evidence that would ordinarily be privileged but contains evidence of likely criminal conduct.

As chief judge, Howell supervised all disputes arising from grand jury proceedings happening in Washington. That responsibility passed Friday to U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg, who succeeded Howell as chief, but only after Howell issued the potentially momentous privilege ruling in the Trump-related legal fight.
The Trump camp’s public attack on Howell appears to be its first aimed at the veteran jurist, with Trump notably avoiding attacks against her while she single-handedly presided over the numerous grand jury disputes arising from investigations into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and into the classified documents.
Even after handing off the chief’s position, however, Howell continues to hold significant sway over matters connected to Trump’s inner circle. On Tuesday, she held a hearing in a lawsuit brought by two Georgia election workers against Rudy Giuliani, chiding the longtime Trump ally and his lawyer for what she described as an inadequate approach to required exchanges of evidence in the matter.
Proceedings related to the classified-documents grand jury, including efforts by prosecutors to compel Corcoran’s testimony, are occurring under seal — typical for nearly all grand jury proceedings.
However, the appeals court’s docket shows that the rulings being appealed were issued on Friday and correspond to a dispute that was filed with the District Court on Feb. 7. That’s just days before media reports emerged of an effort by Smith to force Corcoran to appear before a grand jury investigating the handling of classified records by Trump and his aides.
Just before noon Tuesday, the appeals court consolidated the two appeals without further public explanation. Of the three judges assigned to the dispute, Pillard is an Obama appointee, while Childs and Pan are appointees of President Joe Biden.
The grand jury probe of Trump, helmed by Smith, is an outgrowth of a monthslong battle between the National Archives and Trump to obtain hundreds of government records stashed at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida after leaving office. Trump’s aides returned 15 boxes of records in January 2022, including some that bore classification markings. As a result, the Archives brought in the Justice Department to pursue whether Trump had retained additional classified material.
In May 2022, the Justice Department subpoenaed Trump’s office, demanding the production of any other classified materials he might possess at Mar-a-Lago. Justice Department officials traveled in early June to Mar-a-Lago, where they briefly interacted with Trump and picked up a folder of records deemed classified. Trump’s team then certified that they had thoroughly searched the premises and turned over remaining classified documents.
But the department developed evidence suggesting that this wasn’t the case, leading to an Aug. 8, 2022, search of the property, where dozens of additional documents with classification markings were discovered.
Corcoran, who was Trump’s primary point of contact with the Archives and the Justice Department, has faced scrutiny for his involvement in efforts to certify that Trump had returned all potentially classified materials.
The legal maneuvering comes as Trump’s lawyers are also awaiting a potential indictment of their client in an unrelated case in New York, an investigation by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg into details of a hush money payment made in 2016 to the porn actress Stormy Daniels.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 22, 2023
Trump invited to testify before NY grand jury, lawyer says

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“It’s just another example of them weaponizing the justice system against him. And it’s sort of unfair,” he said.
The office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, declined to comment. Such an invitation to testify before a grand jury often indicates a decision on indictments is near.
The invitation to testify was first reported by The New York Times.
Any indictment would come as Trump is ramping up a run to regain the White House in 2024 while simultaneously battling legal problems on multiple fronts.
Trump, in a lengthy statement posted on his social media network, blasted the investigation as a “political Witch-Hunt trying to take down the leading candidate, by far, in the Republican Party” and what he called a “corrupt, depraved, and weaponized justice system.”
“I did absolutely nothing wrong,” he said.
Meanwhile, the district attorney in Atlanta, Ga., has said decisions are “imminent” in a two-year investigation into possible illegal meddling in the 2020 election by Trump and his allies. A U.S. Justice Department special counsel is also investigating efforts by Trump and his allies to undo the election as well as the handling of classified documents at his Florida estate.
The New York grand jury has been probing Trump’s involvement in a $130,000 payment made in 2016 to the porn star Stormy Daniels to keep her from going public about a sexual encounter she said she had with the Republican years earlier.

The money was paid out of the personal funds of Trump’s now-estranged lawyer, Michael Cohen, who then said he was reimbursed by the Trump Organization and also paid extra bonuses for a total that eventually rose to $420,000.
Cohen pleaded guilty to federal charges in 2018 that the payment, and another he helped arrange to the model Karen McDougal through the parent company of the National Enquirer tabloid, amounted to an illegal campaign contribution.
Federal prosecutors at the time decided not to bring charges against Trump, who by then was president. The Manhattan district attorneys office then launched its own investigation, which lingered for several years but has been gathering momentum in recent weeks.
Several figures close to Trump have been spotted in recent days entering Bragg’s office for meetings with prosecutors, including his former political adviser Kellyanne Conway and former spokesperson Hope Hicks.
Cohen has also met several times with prosecutors, saying after a recent visit that he thought the investigation was nearing a conclusion.
Under New York law, people who appear before a grand jury are given immunity from prosecution for things they say during their testimony, so potential targets of criminal investigations are generally invited to testify only if they waive that immunity. Lawyers generally advise clients not to do so if there is a potential for a criminal case.
It isn’t clear what charges prosecutors might be exploring.
Legal experts have said one potential crime could be the way the payments to Cohen were structured and falsely classified internally as being for a legal retainer. New York has a law against falsifying business records, but it is a misdemeanor unless the records fudging is done in conjunction with a more serious felony crime.
Tacopina said there was no crime.
“There’s no precedent for this. There’s no established case law on this campaign finance stuff. It’s ridiculous. And there’s no underlying crime,” he said.
Separately, the district attorney’s office has also spent years investigating whether Trump and his company inflated the value of some its assets in dealings with lenders and potential business partners. Those allegations are the subject of a civil lawsuit, filed by the state’s attorney general.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 10, 2023
Bernie Sanders got his wish: Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz will testify before the Vermonter’s panel in the Senate.

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Sanders was preparing a subpoena vote this week.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 7, 2023
‘Amazing coincidence’ Moderna offered free vaccines when asked to testify, Bernie Sanders says

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Moderna on Wednesday said people in the U.S. will be able to access vaccines “regardless of ability to pay.” | Jon Cherry/Getty Images
It “maybe was just a wild and crazy coincidence” drug company Moderna announced a plan to give free Covid vaccines to uninsured Americans right as a Senate committee asked them to testify — but it was “a step in the right direction,” Sen. Bernie Sanders said Sunday.
“Amazing coincidence, that happened the same exact day we announced that we were inviting them to testify,” Sanders (I-Vt.), chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
The committee last week asked Moderna’s CEO, Stéphane Bancel, to appear in a panel next month examining proposed plans to raise the Covid vaccine’s list price to $110 to $130 per dose.
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#Amazing #coincidence #Moderna #offered #free #vaccines #asked #testify #Bernie #Sanders
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 19, 2023