trump s lawyer, evan corcoran, can be compelled to answer questions for the grand jury investigating trump s handling of classified government documents after he left office the new york times reports quote, in making her ruling th judge, judge beryl a. howell said that he had met the threshold for fraud exception, to work around client attorney privilege where they hav reason to believe the lega advice or legal services hav been used in furthering crime. judge howls ruling in a sealed proceeding that the crime frau exception applies in thi situation is important because it places the imprimatur of federal judge on mr. smith s contention that mr. corcoran s legal work may have been use in the commission of a crime we ll get our veteran federa prosecutor s opinion about that, in just a moment abc news reported yesterday th jack smith s efforts to compel corcoran to testify reportedly
among other things, mike pence s novel to put it kindly novel notion about why he should not have to testify before a grand jury. novel is one way of putting it, lawrence. i can t wait to see. it thanks, alex. thank you. well the breaking news of the night is that special prosecutor jeff jack smith has invoked the crime fraud exception in a motion to force one of donald trump s lawyers to testify before a grand jury without being able to refuse to answer questions because of the attorney client privilege. the crime fraud exception can overrule the attorney client privilege. the new york times is reporting tonight federal prosecutors overseeing the investigation into former president donald j trump s handling of classified documents are seeking to pierce assertions of client attorney privilege and compel lawyers to answer more questions before a grand jury according to two people familiar with the matter, adding an aggressive new dimension to the inquiry and underscoring the
you won t recall that back in late august, trump s lawyers came to judge cannon insisting that a mixture of existing privilege, client attorney privilege, and a violation of trump s constitutional rights should stop the normal course of business. stop the department of justice reviewing evidence gathered in the search of mar-a-lago. to the shock of just about everyone, cannon granted the trump lawyer s request, appointing a special master to sift through the documents, something the doj had already done. it also effectively halted the investigation. it was roundly criticized by many legal committees, and finally earlier this month it was just overturned, by a panel of two trump appointees and a george w. bush appointee on the 11th circuit court of appeals. the panel ruling in no uncertain terms. quote this appeal requires us to consider whether the district court had jurisdiction to block the united states from using lawfully seized records in a criminal investigation. the answer is no
privilege, client attorney privilege, to bring this issue too ahead. so i don t see any argument that trump can make, more important i don t see any argument that attorneys representing trump are going to be willing to put their name on the line for something that isn t supported by the law, isn t supported by fact, and we have to get them into a lot of trouble ethically and with their bar memberships. i don t expect to see much of anything of substance coming from trump and his attorneys this week. what concerns you the most about the fact that the former president s trip floating this idea that the fbi planted evidence at mar-a-lago? well i think the greatest concern is that it s part of a broader narrative that trump is engaged in, that he is being unlawfully investigated. that all of these investigations whether the city new york, georgia, various investigations or the january six committee are particularly those being done by the department of justice and fbi. whether january
what it showing as this was a coordinated effort by hillary clinton campaign officials by executives that were working with them, lawyers that work for the campaign all attempting to defraud the federal government. and, as you said earlier, defrauding the government is a felony. making false statements to federal investigators as a felony. and the multiple people do it together, that is a conspiracy a think that is what s being revealed and john durham s filings. maria: good the end tire firm go down? i don t know. we ll answer that and also two issues here. intervening in this case say look, we have key documents were not going to bring to trial this is client attorney privilege. also people talk about the statute of limitations that we are running out of time here for accountability, address all that