Donald Trump has filed an appeal against a court ruling that would force several of his former aides to testify before a grand jury as part of a criminal investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The appeal was filed with the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and the Justice Department has not commented on the appeal. This is one of several defeats the former president has suffered in his efforts to use executive privilege claims to block the testimony of former aides and allies.
Posts tagged as “Mark Meadows”
A federal judge has rejected former President Donald Trump's claims of executive privilege, ordering several of his former aides to testify before a grand jury as part of a criminal investigation into his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Mark Meadows, Trump's former White House Chief of Staff, is among the aides ordered to testify, and documents are also being requested from other unnamed aides. This ruling is seen as a major setback for Trump and could have implications for the outcome of the investigation.
Mark Meadows, former Chief of Staff to Donald Trump, has been subpoenaed by the special counsel investigating the former president and his role in the January 6, 2021 insurrection. The subpoena was issued in January and seeks documents and testimony related to the attack on the Capitol and Trump's mishandling of classified documents. Pence has spoken out on the matter, saying they will take the case as far as it needs to go. This is a significant step in the investigation and shows the special counsel is taking it seriously.
Donald Trump's 2020 campaign team commissioned the Berkeley Research Group to investigate his claims of electoral fraud, but the research team failed to substantiate the theories. The findings did not match what the team had hoped for, and the research team found no evidence to support the notion that dead people voted in the election. Numerous other investigations also found no evidence of widespread voter fraud.
The House select committee investigating the January 6th Capitol attack released transcripts of interviews with Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, former White House deputy chief of staff Tony Ornato, and Robert Sinners, who worked on the Trump campaign’s Election Day operations in Georgia in 2020. Thomas told the committee that her text message expressing disgust with then-Vice President Mike Pence was not related to his refusal to stop the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s win, but rather to her frustration with him not talking up election fraud claims. Sinners told investigators his “intent was never to be aligned with team crazy” and Ornato said he couldn’t recall details from January 6, citing “the fog of war” during the US Capitol attack. The committee also released emails showing an aide for former President Donald Trump reaching out to Jared Kushner about trademarking phrases related to the 2020 election.
North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein has announced that there is not sufficient evidence to bring charges against former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and his wife, Debra Meadows, for voter fraud in the 2020 election. The investigation concluded that Meadows qualified for a residency exception under state law and cell phone records showed Debra Meadows was in and around Scaly Mountain in October 2020. Stein urged federal prosecutors to “hold accountable” those responsible for conspiring “to put our democracy at risk” and noted that election officials from both parties, as well as judges and Trump’s own attorney general, have concluded that there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election.