documents found by the fbi at trump s private residence and golf club. they dismissed the criminal investigation as a document storage dispute that has sfie ruld out of control. most notable aspect of their filing, trump s lawyers tip-toeing around trump s claim that he declassified any or all of the documents. it s a claim for which they can t and don t provide a single shred of evidence. instead, saying this. quote, the government has not proven these records remain classified. that issue is to be determined later. the washington post notes, a section of their 21 page filing does not say that trump declassified the material before he left office. while trump s lawyers would like us to think this is what they say, document storage dispute, it s worth remembering in the court filing last week doj made clear that the country s national security may very well be in jeopardy if the government loses access and time, even temporarily, to the documents that were seized. from the
you re supposed to tell the truth to congress. he was afraid to do so and the bannon argument is i have a lawyers note from time that said i didn t have to go and testify and tell the truth. and that is what he told the judge for why he shouldn t be prosecuted and the judge today resoundedly rejeked that saying, like, ever since 1961 and the sinclair case, this is never been a valid excuse when information is sought by congress. and then i think most important piece of the decision that it was written by carl nichols, a well respected trump appointee judge in washington, d.c. so, you know, it is interesting it is happened right before congress is voting on the novarro and scavino contempt proceeding which is for the exact same set of things, it is obviously different information here. scavino evidently allowed trump to use his cell phone during the seven-hour gap with the white house phone logs and the like.
from donald trump. as trump s social media guy dan scavino posted the tweets that spread conspiracies to millions of americans, lies many of them still believe and peter navarro wrote a book by concocting a scheme to overturn the will of the american voters and along with steve bannon that includes 100 members of congress who are now voting on whether to hold him in contempt of the body in which they serve. sounds twisted, right. this is the third time the select committee has asked the house to vote on contempt charges and if it passes, as is expected, the house makes a criminal referral to doj which is also prosecuting steve bannon for being in contempt of congress. but not yet decided what to do about mark meadows. vote will only add to the pressure bearing down on doj to hold accountable not just the former trump officials who are stonewalling the probe, but also
committed. you know have the federal judge in the eastman case that likely felonies were committed donald trump and now you have doj saying that it s criminal investigation will now if not target, scrutinize the legislative branch. how might that influence a decision as to whether or not to subpoena members? yeah, nicolle, i think that could potentially influence the committee. although they have done a good job at this point in time of sort of abiding by the fire wall between the committee and the doj. we have just reported earlier as one example of the fire wall that the justice department actually stonewalled committee staffers who sought to learn more information about prosecutors s views on the impending referrals from mark meadows ab likely to pass through the house tonight for dan scavino and peter navarro and for people familiar with the matter. the department has not acted on
and scavino is probably not just refusing to turn over that information because he s afraid to reveal to congress his phone s browsing history. there is probably a deeper reason that. and what has happened today is basically the judge knocking out one further defense that navarro and scatino might use later on which is my lawyer told me it was cool. not cool. you know, luke, i don t now they face this criminal context referral vote tonight knowing that executive privilege as a defense isn t a think. if they don t they did anything wrong, why are they wracking up more criminal defense attorney charges. what what stories are they telling themselves about why they won t sit down like jared and ivanka and mark short and kellogg and all of these other people, kayleigh mcenany, who are dead enders and family