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Tag: trial

  • Trump tries to intervene as Navarro faces trial for defying Jan. 6 committee

    Trump tries to intervene as Navarro faces trial for defying Jan. 6 committee

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    capitol riot contempt 60017

    “This confirms President Trump’s position that, as one of his senior advisors, you had an obligation to assert executive privilege on his behalf and fully comply with the principles of confidentiality stated above when you responded to the Committee’s subpoena,” the attorney, Evan Corcoran, wrote on Trump’s behalf.

    The letter appears calculated to undercut the ruling of U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta rejecting Navarro’s effort to dismiss the cases against him. Mehta noted in a 39-page opinion last week that Navarro had presented no evidence that Trump actually asserted executive privilege on his behalf — even though he made explicit assertions to block the testimony of other former aides.

    “Defendant has failed to come forward with any evidence to support the claimed assertion of privilege,” Mehta wrote. “And, because the claimed assertion of executive privilege is unproven, Defendant cannot avoid prosecution for contempt.”

    Mehta is unlikely to consider Corcoran’s letter sufficient to derail Navarro’s trial. Navarro had initially claimed in court arguments that Trump told him, during a private conversation, to assert executive privilege before the Jan. 6 committee. But Corcoran’s letter makes no reference to such an assertion.

    It’s the second time Trump has made a last-second bid to disrupt the pending contempt trials for aides who defied the select committee. Days before longtime ally Steve Bannon faced a criminal trial for contempt, Trump took the opposite tack — writing a letter to Bannon waiving any potential executive privilege and clearing the way for Bannon to testify to the committee. Prosecutors dismissed the gambit as a stunt to disrupt the trial, and Bannon ultimately took no steps to actually comply with the select committee’s subpoena, even after Trump’s explicit permission.

    Navarro, like Bannon, both claimed that they were categorically “immune” from appearing before the Jan. 6 committee to discuss their involvement in efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. They said their sensitive conversations with Trump were protected by executive privilege and therefore they could not be compelled by Congress to discuss them. But U.S. District Court Judge Carl Nichols rejected Bannon’s contention, noting that longstanding legal precedents don’t permit witnesses to defy congressional subpoenas even over assertions of executive privilege.

    And in both cases, prosecutors noted that there was no evidence Trump had asserted privilege on Bannon or Navarro’s behalf.

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    #Trump #intervene #Navarro #faces #trial #defying #Jan #committee
    ( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

  • Musk tells Tesla trial: ‘Just because I tweet doesn’t mean people believe it’

    Musk tells Tesla trial: ‘Just because I tweet doesn’t mean people believe it’

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    Elon Musk testified on Friday as part of a trial over a 2018 tweet in which he claimed to have “funding secured” to take Tesla private, a tweet that shareholders allege cost them millions in trading losses.

    The Tesla CEO appeared in a San Francisco federal courtroom and defended himself by saying that “just because I tweet something does not mean people believe it or will act accordingly”.

    Musk’s testimony began with questions about his use of Twitter, the social media platform he bought in October. He called it the most democratic way to communicate but said his tweets did not always affect Tesla stock the way he expected.

    The class-action trial in San Francisco federal court centers on allegations that the Tesla CEO lied when he sent the tweet, costing investors. Earlier on Friday morning, investor Timothy Fries told the jury how he lost $5,000 buying Tesla stock after Musk sent the tweet at the center of the lawsuit.

    The case is a rare securities class-action trial and the plaintiffs have already cleared high legal hurdles, with the US judge Edward Chen ruling last year that Musk’s post was untruthful and reckless.

    Fries told the jury that funding secured meant to him that “there had been some vetting, some critical review of those funding sources”.

    Musk, wearing a dark suit over a white button-down shirt, testified for less than 30 minutes before court adjourned until Monday. He spoke softly and in a sometimes bemused manner, a contrast to his occasional combative testimony in past trials.

    Musk described the difficulties the company went through around the time he sent the “funding secured” tweet, including bets by short-sellers that the stock would fall.

    “A bunch of sharks on Wall Street wanted Tesla to die, very badly,” he said, describing short-sellers, who profit when a stock falls in price.

    Musk’s attorney, Alex Spiro, told the jury in his opening statement on Wednesday that Musk believed he had financing from Saudi backers and was taking steps to make the deal happen. Fearing leaks to the media, Musk tried to protect the “everyday shareholder” by sending the tweet, which contained “technical inaccuracies”, Spiro said.

    Guhan Subramanian, a Harvard Law School professor, told the jury that Musk’s behavior in 2018 lacked the hallmarks of traditional corporate dealmaking by tweeting his interest in Tesla without proper financial or legal analysis.

    “Compared to the standard template it’s an extreme outlier,” said Subramanian, who called Musk’s approach “unprecedented” and “incoherent”.

    A jury of nine will decide whether the tweet artificially inflated Tesla’s share price by playing up the status of funding for the deal, and if so, by how much.

    The defendants include current and former Tesla directors, whom Spiro said had “pure” motives in their response to Musk’s plan.

    Reuters contributed to this report

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    #Musk #tells #Tesla #trial #tweet #doesnt #people
    ( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )