Mar-a-Lago special prosecutor takes the fifth at ‘weaponized' House committee
The former special counsel prosecutor Jay Bratt asserted his fifth amendment right not to answer questions during a Wednesday deposition before a Republican-led House committee looking for evidence of politicization in the prosecutions of Donald Trump, a spokesman said.
Bratt, who led the federal criminal case over the US president's alleged mishandling of classified documents as a top deputy to the former special counsel Jack Smith, was invited to testify by the House judiciary committee, which is chaired by the Ohio Republican Jim Jordan, a prominent defender of the president.
'This administration and its proxies have made no effort to hide their willingness to weaponize the machinery of government against those they perceive as political enemies. That should alarm every American who believes in the rule of law,' said Peter Carr, a spokesman for Justice Connection, a network of former justice department staff working to protect our former colleagues and the rule of law.
'In light of these undeniable and deeply troubling circumstances, Mr Bratt had no choice but to invoke his fifth amendment rights.'
The appearance by Bratt, who declined to comment, was the first known instance of a special counsel prosecutor being hauled before the judiciary committee since Trump took office vowing revenge and personally directing the firings of more than a dozen prosecutors who worked for Smith within days of his inauguration.
Related: Democrats react to dismissal of Trump classified documents case: 'breathtakingly misguided'
Republicans on the judiciary committee have long believed that the special counsel cases stemmed from political animus against Trump at the justice department. Jordan declined to comment, as did a spokesman for the committee.
Smith charged Trump in two cases: in Florida, for mishandling classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago club and defying a subpoena commanding their return; and in Washington, for attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Justice department policy does not allow the prosecution of sitting presidents, and Smith dropped both indictments after Trump won re-election last November.
The federal judge Aileen Cannon had in July of last year dismissed the classified documents case, after ruling that Smith had been unlawfully appointed because he was acting at the justice department with the powers of a 'principal officer', which requires confirmation by the Senate. Smith filed an appeal of the decision, which was unresolved at the time of Trump's election victory in November.
Top justice department officials have made clear that they plan to investigate prosecutors who brought charges against Trump during his four years out of office. Two years ago, after Trump was indicted in Georgia on charges related to tampering with its 2020 election result, the now-attorney general, Pam Bondi, said that justice department prosecutors 'will be prosecuted, the bad ones. The investigators will be investigated.'
Trump recently appointed Ed Martin, who temporarily served as the top federal prosecutor in Washington DC, to lead the department's weaponization working group, which has been tasked with investigating Smith as well as the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, and the Atlanta-area prosecutor Fani Willis, both of whom indicted Trump on state charges.
'There are some really bad actors, some people that did some really bad things to the American people. And if they can be charged, we'll charge them. But if they can't be charged, we will name them … And in a culture that respects shame, they should be people … that are shamed,' Martin said at a Tuesday press conference.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Atlantic
11 minutes ago
- Atlantic
Trump Means to Provoke, Not Pacify
President Donald Trump is about to launch yet another assault on democracy, the Constitution, and American traditions of civil-military relations, this time in Los Angeles. Under a dubious legal rationale, he is activating 2,000 members of the National Guard to confront protests against actions by ICE, the immigration police who have used thuggish tactics against citizens and foreigners alike in the United States. By militarizing the situation in L.A., Trump is goading Americans more generally to take him on in the streets of their own cities, thus enabling his attacks on their constitutional freedoms. As I've listened to him and his advisers over the past several days, they seem almost eager for public violence that would justify the use of armed force against Americans. The president and the men and women around him are acting with great ambition in this moment, and they are likely hoping to achieve three goals in one dramatic action. First, they will turn America's attention away from Trump's many failures and inane feuds, and reestablish his campaign persona as a strongman who will brush aside the law if that's what it takes to keep order in the streets. Perhaps nothing would please Trump more than to replace weird stories about Elon Musk with video of masked protesters burning cars as lines of helmeted police and soldiers march over them and impose draconian silence in one of the nation's largest and most diverse cities. Second, as my colleague David Frum warned this morning, Trump is establishing that he is willing to use the military any way he pleases, perhaps as a proof of concept for suppressing free elections in 2026 or 2028. Trump sees the U.S. military as his personal honor guard and his private muscle. Those are his toy soldiers, and he's going to get a show from his honor guard in a birthday parade next weekend. In the meantime, he's going to flex that muscle, and prove that the officers and service members who will do whatever he orders are the real military. The rest are suckers and losers. During the George Floyd protests in 2020, Trump was furious at what he saw as the fecklessness of military leaders determined to thwart his attempts to use deadly force against protesters. He's learned his lesson: This time, he has installed a hapless sycophant at the Pentagon who is itching to execute the boss's orders. Third, he may be hoping to radicalize the citizen-soldiers drawn from the community who serve in the National Guard. (Seizing the California Guard is also a convenient way to humiliate California Governor Gavin Newsom and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, with Trump's often-used narrative that liberals can't control their own cities.) The president has the right to 'federalize' Guard forces, which is how they were deployed overseas in America's various conflicts. Trump has never respected the traditions of American civil-military relations, which regard the domestic deployment of the military as an extreme measure to be avoided whenever possible. Using the Guard could be a devious tactic: He may be hoping to set neighbor against neighbor, so that the people called to duty return to their home and workplace with stories of violence and injuries. In the longer run, Trump may be trying to create a national emergency that will enable him to exercise authoritarian control. (Such an emergency was a rationalization, for example, for the tariffs that he has mostly had to abandon.) He has for years been trying to desensitize the citizens of the United States to un-American ideas and unconstitutional actions. The American system of government was never meant to cope with a rogue president. Yet Trump is not unstoppable. Thwarting his authoritarianism will require restraint on the part of the public, some steely nerves on the part of state and local authorities, and vigilant action from national elected representatives, who should be stepping in to raise the alarm and to demand explanations about the president's misuse of the military. As unsatisfying as it may be for some citizens to hear, the last thing anyone should do is take to the streets of Los Angeles and try to confront the military or any of California's law-enforcement authorities. ICE is on a rampage, but physically assaulting or obstructing its agents—and thus causing a confrontation with the cops who have to protect them, whether those police officers like it or not—will provide precisely the pretext that some of the people in Trump's White House are trying to create. The president and his coterie want people walking around taking selfies in gas clouds, waving Mexican flags, holding up traffic, and burning cars. Judging by reactions on social media and interviews on television, a lot of people seem to think such performances are heroic—which means they're poised to give Trump's enforcers what they're hoping for. Be warned: Trump is expecting resistance. You will not be heroes. You will be the pretext. Conor Friedersdorf: Averting the worst-case scenario in Los Angeles Instead, the most dramatic public action the citizens of Southern California could take right now would be to ensure that Trump's forces arrive on calm streets. Imagine the reactions of the Guard members as they look around and wonder what, exactly, the commander in chief was thinking. Why are they carrying their rifles in the streets of downtown America? What does anyone expect them to do? Put another way: What if the president throws a crackdown and nobody comes? This kind of restraint will deny Trump the political oxygen he's trying to generate. He is resorting to the grand theater of militarism because he is losing on multiple fronts in the courts—and he knows it. The law, for most people, is dreary to hear about, but one of the most important stories of Trump's second term is that lawyers and judges are so far holding a vital line against the administration, sometimes at great personal risk. Trump is also losing public support, which is another reason he's zeroing in on California. He is resolutely ignorant in many ways, but he has an excellent instinct for picking the right fights. The fact of the matter is that tens of millions of Americans believe that almost everything about immigration in the United States has long been deeply dysfunctional. (I'm one of them.) If he sends the military into L.A. and Guard members end up clashing in high-definition video with wannabe resistance gladiators in balaclavas, many people who have not been paying attention to his other ghastly antics will support him. (For the record, I am not one of them.) So far, even the Los Angeles Police Department—not exactly a bastion of squishy suburban book-club liberals—has emphasized that the protests have been mostly peaceful. Trump is apparently trying to change that. Sending in the National Guard is meant to provoke, not pacify, and his power will only grow if he succeeds in tempting Americans to intemperate reactions that give him the authoritarian opening he's seeking.
Forbes
13 minutes ago
- Forbes
Los Angeles Protests: National Guard Troops Arrive In Los Angeles (Photos)
Hundreds of National Guard members have been stationed across Los Angeles after President Donald Trump pledged to send 2,000 troops, despite objections from city and state officials, to quell protests across the city that broke out in response to Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids. June 8, 1:30 p.m. EDTAbout 300 members of the National Guard have been stationed across Los Angeles so far, The New York Times reported, the first soldiers as part of the 2,000 Trump has promised to station across the city as more protests are expected to take place this afternoon. 1 p.m. EDTLos Angeles Mayor Karen Bass told the Los Angeles Times said she tried to talk to the Trump administration to 'tell them that there was absolutely no need to have troops on the ground here in Los Angeles,' stating the protests on Saturday were 'relatively minor' and 'peaceful,' with about 100 protesters. 3:22 a.m. EDTBass appeared to rebuff Trump's claim the National Guard did a 'great job' in the city, stating in a post on X that the National Guard had not yet been deployed at that time in Los Angeles, while praising Newsom and local law enforcement. 2:41 said in a late-night Truth Social post the National Guard did a 'great job' in Los Angeles, while slamming Newsom and Bass and the 'Radical Left' protesters and stating protesters will no longer be allowed to wear masks: 'What do these people have to hide, and why???' 12:14 slammed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for 'threatening to deploy active-duty Marines on American soil against its own citizens' as 'deranged behavior.' June 7The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said it had arrested two people Saturday evening for alleged assault on a police officer, stating multiple officers had been injured by a Molotov cocktail, the Los Angeles Times reported. 10:34 exhibited 'violent behavior' toward federal agents and local law enforcement, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said in a statement, while clarifying it is not involved in federal law enforcement response and is instead focused on crowd and traffic control. 10:22 a post on X, Newsom said the federal government is taking over the California National Guard and deploying soldiers in Los Angeles solely to create a 'spectacle.' 10:06 announced in a post on X the Department of Defense is 'mobilizing the National Guard IMMEDIATELY to support federal law enforcement in Los Angeles,' stating Marines are standing by for deployment in case of violence. 9:17 House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced Trump would deploy 2,000 National Guard troops to Los Angeles to address 'lawlessness,' citing protests targeting immigration officers. More protests are expected to take place Sunday, in what will be the third straight day of demonstrations against immigration raids in Los Angeles. Protests broke out Friday and Saturday in Paramount and Compton, cities adjacent to Los Angeles, over immigration raids conducted by ICE, during which the agency detained 44 immigrants Friday and 118 immigrants Saturday, the Associated Press reported. Police and protesters clashed over the weekend, according to local reports and videos on social media, with law enforcement using tear gas and flash grenades to break up the crowds while some protesters threw rocks and lit vehicles on fire. Trump reportedly said in a memo he is invoking Title 10 of the U.S. Code on Armed Services, which allows the federal government to deploy the National Guard if the United States is 'invaded or is in danger of invasion by a foreign nation,' or if there is a 'rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.' Vice President JD Vance said in a post on X on Saturday night the influx of immigrants, which he called 'Biden's border crisis,' amounts to an 'invasion,' rebuffing critics who have questioned whether Trump had the authority to deploy troops. Trump's move has faced some pushback from constitutional scholars. 'For the federal government to take over the California National Guard, without the request of the governor, to put down protests is truly chilling,' Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California Berkeley School of Law, told the Los Angeles Times. The legal issues raised by Trump sending the National Guard to L.A. (Los Angeles Times)
Axios
13 minutes ago
- Axios
Gina Ortiz Jones says there's no time to waste as San Antonio mayor
San Antonio mayor-elect Gina Ortiz Jones tells Axios she's not waiting to be sworn in to start tackling issues like a potential new Spurs arena, an expected budget deficit and the impact of Trump administration policies. Why it matters: The nonpartisan mayor's race became distinctly about politics as it drew money and influence from across Texas and the country. Now that it's over, Ortiz Jones must tackle the reality of everyday issues facing a city on the cusp of pivotal changes. Catch up quick: Ortiz Jones, who had national Democratic backing, beat out Republican Rolando Pablos 54% to 46%, cementing San Antonio as a reliably blue city. The big picture: Ortiz Jones will lead San Antonio at a critical time, as officials seek to gain public support for a new downtown Spurs arena that could be surrounded by a sports and entertainment district. Voters could be asked to weigh in on the project as soon as November. She will also lead the city through the remaining years of the Trump administration, under which San Antonio has lost millions of dollars in federal funding. The city is also expecting a budget deficit. What they're saying: "There's no time to waste, and I'm not going to wait until I am actually in the seat, because I think there's a lot of work and conversations we can have now that will be helpful to ensure (it's) as smooth a transition as possible," Ortiz Jones told Axios on Saturday. When asked about how she can get things done on a City Council poised to have a starker political divide, she said "I think there's going to be a lot that we can agree on ... I'm quite confident that we'll get to six (votes)." State of play: Ortiz Jones, who is the first openly gay woman elected San Antonio mayor, served as the Air Force undersecretary in the Biden administration and was twice the Democratic nominee for the 23rd Congressional District. She grew up on San Antonio's Far West Side. Between the lines: Pablos and his supporters appeared to both outraise and outspend Ortiz Jones in the runoff election, campaign finance reports show. Pablos got a big boost from the Texas Economic Fund, a political action committee run by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott's former political director. Ortiz Jones had help from Fields of Change, a national Democratic PAC, and Emily's List. The bottom line: Ortiz Jones, who takes office June 18, says it was her personal background that helped her break through a crowded mayoral field.
