- E. Jean Carroll’s civil defamation lawsuit against Trump began Tuesday.
- Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg sought to limit Trump’s social media posts in hush-money case.
- Former Vice President Mike Pence testifies in Justice Department investigation of Jan. 6 attack.
WASHINGTON – Former Vice President Mike Pence’s testimony before a federal grand jury is only one of the high-profile developments in the investigations of former President Donald Trump this week.
Pence, as president of the Senate, was key to Trump’s strategy to overturn the results of the 2020 election. He testified Thursday before the grand jury in Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation of Trump’s role in the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021.
Trump’s other legal challenges include:
Here’s what we know about the legal cases:
Pence testifies in DOJ investigation of Capitol attack Jan. 6
Pence testified for hours on Thursday, spending at least seven hours at the courthouse.
He is a key figure in any Jan. 6 because Trump and his allies pressured him to single-handedly reject electors from seven states President Joe Biden won, to flip the election to Trump. Pence refused to participate.
Trump tried to block Pence’s testimony by appealing to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. But a three-judge panel denied his appeal Wednesday.
In previous testimony before the House committee that investigated the attack, Pence aides described how Trump pressured and scolded his vice president.
Greg Jacob, Pence’s general counsel, testified that Trump called Pence the morning of Jan. 6 in a “heated” exchange. Jacob said Pence took the call privately but returned looking “steely, determined, grim.”
Smith hasn’t announced any schedule for completing his inquiry, but legal experts say the high-status level of witnesses being subpoenaed suggests charging decisions could be coming soon.
DOJ investigates classified documents seized at Mar-a-Lago
Smith is also investigating classified documents found in a search of Mar-a-Lago, 18 months after Trump left the White House. A conviction for retaining sensitive records could disqualify Trump, who is campaigning for the White House in 2024, from holding federal office again.
At stake in the case are documents that contained some of the country’s most important secrets, including the names of undercover agents overseas, according to national security experts.
Again, subpoenas to high-level witnesses such as Trump’s lawyers suggest the investigation may be nearing a decision on charges. Attorney-client privilege doesn’t cover the discussion of potentially illegal acts.
Legal experts say it might be the most open-and-shut case against Trump. But trying a case over national secrets risks more exposure of what was in the sensitive documents. But public opinion on the case was perhaps challenged after authorities retrieved classified records from the locations associated with President Joe Biden and Pence, as well.
E. Jean Carroll’s defamation lawsuit over rape allegation begins
Carroll’s civil lawsuit was the first of Trump’s current legal troubles to make it to trial, with opening arguments Tuesday.
Carroll alleges Trump raped her in the changing room of a Manhattan clothing store in 1996, which she didn’t report at the time. After she described the incident in a 2019 memoir, while Trump was president, he “used the most powerful platform on earth to lie about what he had done, attack Ms. Carroll’s integrity and insult her appearance,” attorney Shawn Crowley told the newly selected jury.
“I’m here because Donald Trump raped me, and when I wrote about it, he said it didn’t happen,” Carroll told jurors. “He lied and shattered my reputation, and I’m here to try and get my life back.”
Trump earlier said Carroll was “totally lying,” and he called the case a “hoax,” a “lie” and a “complete con job.”
Trump hasn’t attended the trial yet, but U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan admonished his legal team and suggested that the defendant is risking a contempt of court citation.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg seeks to limit Trump’s social media posts about hush-money case
In Manhattan, District Attorney Bragg urged a judge to limit Trump’s access to sensitive documents in a felony case alleging the former president falsified business records.
Bragg also asked the judge prohibit Trump from posting the contents of the documents on social media. At stake are documents dealing with material such as grand jury testimony and victim name and contact information.
Bragg said he wasn’t seeking a gag order. But he proposed that Trump only be allowed to review sensitive materials while accompanied by his lawyers and not be allowed to copy or transcribe the information.
Bragg argued his precautions were based on Trump attacking witnesses, jurors and investigators in the past, including in DOJ special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and two House impeachments.
Trump is charged with falsifying business records to hide payments to silence two women who claimed to have had sex with him before the 2016 election. He has pleaded not guilty and called the prosecution politically motivated.
The trial is scheduled in January 2024.
Georgia prosecution sets July-August time frame for decision on criminal charges
Fulton County D.A. Willis warned local law enforcement officials in Georgia about the potential for “significant public reaction” when grand jury results are announced in July or August, setting a summer timeframe for a long-awaited decision in her inquiry.
Willis has been investigating two potential ways Trump might have committed election fraud.
- One is that in the weeks after the 2020 election, Trump’s campaign recruited Republican electors as alternates to the official electors in Georgia and other states Democrat Joe Biden won. No states agreed to those fake electors.
- The second vein Willis is exploring deals with Trump personally calling Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Jan. 2, 2021, to plead with him to “find” the votes he needed to win the state. By that point, Trump had tried to call him 18 times and Raffensperger had avoided taking the calls, according to an investigation by the House of Representatives.
“I just want to find 11,780 votes,” Trump said. “Give me a break. You know, we have that in spades already.”
Trump has denied wrongdoing and declared the call “perfect.”
Contributing: The Associated Press
