#US #DOJ released a new #indictment of #Maduro & wife

Maduro & other #Venezuela ofcls were indicted in 2020 on “narco-terrorism” conspiracy charges. The DOJ released a new indictment Saturday of Maduro & his wife for alleged role in #narcoterrorism #conspiracy.

#PamBondi said Maduro & his wife, Cilia Flores, would “soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts.”

#law #Congress #WarPowers #Trump #abduction #oil #LandGrab #InternationalLaw

Just a reminder, #House #Republicans dumped this 8hr deposition & 255p transcript on NYE because they were trying to bury it. It didn’t do any of the things they wanted. It didn’t exonerate #Trump. It didn’t prove the cases were political witch hunts. It didn’t prove #JackSmith was a political operative or radical. If anything it proved the cases were justified & proper, that Trump was culpable & the #conspiracy was premeditated, & that Jack Smith is a paragon of integrity.

#law #Jan6

Just a reminder, #House #Republicans dumped this 8hr deposition & 255p transcript on NYE because they were trying to bury it. It didn’t do any of the things they wanted. It didn’t exonerate #Trump. It didn’t prove the cases were political witch hunts. It didn’t prove #JackSmith was a political operative or radical. If anything it proved the cases were justified & proper, that Trump was culpable & the #conspiracy was premeditated, & that Jack Smith is a paragon of integrity.

#law #Jan6

“The evidence here made clear that President Trump was by a large measure the most culpable & most responsible person in this #conspiracy. These #crimes were committed for his benefit. The attack that happened at the Capitol, part of this case, does not happen without him. The other co-conspirators were doing this for his benefit,” #JackSmith said, in reply to a question about whether his investigations were meant to prevent #Trump from reclaiming the presidency in 2024.
#law #Jan6 #insurrection

#JackSmith repeatedly made clear his belief that the evidence gathered against #Trump was strong enough to sustain a #conviction. Part of the strength of the #Jan6 case, Smith said, was the extent to which it relied on the testimony of Trump allies & supporters who cooperated with the investigation.

#law #unfit #Congress #insurrection #criminal #conspiracy

8 hour deposition video→ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lR-bhPzQYUE

Capitol “riot” 'does not happen' without #Trump, #JackSmith told #Congress

The #Jan6, 2021, #insurrection at the US Capitol “does not happen” without Donald Trump, former special counsel Jack Smith told lawmakers earlier this month in characterizing the Republican president as the “most culpable & most responsible person” in the #criminal #conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

#law #unfit
https://apnews.com/article/trump-jack-smith-jan-6-congress-537fcb8673e385202c354a3e83897194

Smith told lawmakers that investigators interviewed the officer who was in the car, “who said that President Trump was very angry & wanted to go to the Capitol,” but the officer’s version of events “was not the same as what Cassidy Hutchinson said she heard from somebody secondhand.”

#law #JackSmith #Trump #unfit #Congress #Jan6 #insurrection #criminal #conspiracy

Smith was also asked whether his team evaluated former White House aide #CassidyHutchinson’s explosive claim that #Trump that grabbed at the steering wheel of the presidential SUV when the Secret Service refused to let him go to the Capitol after a rally at the Ellipse on #Jan6, 2021.

#law #JackSmith #Congress #insurrection #criminal #conspiracy

Some of the deposition focused on #Republican anger at revelations that the Smith team had obtained, & analyzed, phone records of #GOP lawmakers who were in contact with #Trump on #Jan6. Smith defended the maneuver as lawful & by-the-book, & suggested that outrage over the tactic should be directed at Trump & not his team of prosecutors. [IOW don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time]

#law #JackSmith #Congress #insurrection #criminal #conspiracy

The communications between #Trump & #Republican supporters in #Congress were an important component of the case, Smith said. He cited an interview his office did with #MarkMeadows in which Trump’s former chief of staff referenced that Rep. #JimJordan, an Ohio Republican & current chairman of the #House #Judiciary Committee, had been in touch with the White House on the afternoon of the “riot”.

#law #JackSmith #Jan6 #insurrection #criminal #conspiracy

“And what I recall was Meadows stating that ‘I’ve never seen Jim Jordan scared of anything,’ & the fact that we were in this different situation now where people were scared really made it clear that what was going on at the Capitol could not be mistaken for anything other than what it was,” Smith said.

#law #JackSmith #Trump #unfit #Congress #Jan6 #insurrection #criminal #conspiracy

The communications between #Trump & #Republican supporters in #Congress were an important component of the case, Smith said. He cited an interview his office did with #MarkMeadows in which Trump’s former chief of staff referenced that Rep. #JimJordan, an Ohio Republican & current chairman of the #House #Judiciary Committee, had been in touch with the White House on the afternoon of the “riot”.

#law #JackSmith #Jan6 #insurrection #criminal #conspiracy

“Well, I think who should be accountable for this is Donald Trump. These records are people, in the case of the senators, Donald Trump directed his co-conspirators to call these people to further delay the proceedings. He chose to do that,” Smith said. “If Donald Trump had chosen to call a number of Democratic senators, we would have gotten toll records for Democratic senators.”

#law #JackSmith #Trump #unfit #Congress #Jan6 #insurrection #criminal #conspiracy

Some of the deposition focused on #Republican anger at revelations that the Smith team had obtained, & analyzed, phone records of #GOP lawmakers who were in contact with #Trump on #Jan6. Smith defended the maneuver as lawful & by-the-book, & suggested that outrage over the tactic should be directed at Trump & not his team of prosecutors. [IOW don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time]

#law #JackSmith #Congress #insurrection #criminal #conspiracy

“Now, once they were at the Capitol & once the attack on the Capitol happened, he refused to stop it. He instead issued a tweet that without question in my mind endangered the life of his own vice president,” he added. “And when the violence was going on, he had to be pushed repeatedly by his staff members to do anything to quell it.”

#law #JackSmith #Trump #unfit #Congress #Jan6 #insurrection #criminal #conspiracy

Asked whether there was evidence that #Trump had instructed supporters to riot at the Capitol, #JackSmith said that Trump in the weeks leading to the #insurrection got “people to believe fraud claims that weren’t true.”

“He made false statements to state legislatures, to his supporters in all sorts of contexts & was aware in the days leading up to Jan 6th that his supporters were angry when he invited them & then he directed them to the Capitol,” Smith said.

#law #Jan6 #criminal #conspiracy

Accounts from #Republicans willing to stand up against the falsehood that the election had been stolen “even though it could mean trouble for them” created what #JackSmith described as the “most powerful” evidence against #Trump.

When it came to the Capitol “riot” itself, Smith said, the evidence showed that Trump “caused it & that he exploited it & that it was foreseeable to him.”

#law #unfit #Congress #Jan6 #insurrection #criminal #conspiracy

“We had an elector in Pennsylvania who is a former congressman, who was going to be an elector for President Trump, who said that what they were trying to do was an attempt to overthrow the government & illegal,” Smith said. “Our case was built on, frankly, #Republicans who put their allegiance to the country before the party.”

#law #JackSmith #Trump #unfit #Congress #Jan6 #insurrection #criminal #conspiracy

#JackSmith repeatedly made clear his belief that the evidence gathered against #Trump was strong enough to sustain a #conviction. Part of the strength of the #Jan6 case, Smith said, was the extent to which it relied on the testimony of Trump allies & supporters who cooperated with the investigation.

#law #unfit #Congress #insurrection #criminal #conspiracy

8 hour deposition video→ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lR-bhPzQYUE