Trump ‘throws sand’ at inquiry gears on Capitol attack amid legal setbacks | Donald Trump

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Donald Trump has undergone a series of legal setbacks and more lawsuits, as he fights in court to block the House committee from obtaining White House records for its questioning of the attack on Capitol on Jan. 6 and a new grand jury began hearing evidence about possible crimes through his real estate firm.

Former justice officials and legal scholars have said Trump’s long -standing tendency to use lawsuits to dismiss investigations and opponents seems weaker now that he is no longer in the White House and facing legal challenges. threats in many fields.

The list of significant legal setbacks is long for the former president and real estate mogul who has long had a reputation for threatening to sue his opponents.

Earlier this year, for example, Manhattan district attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. won a lengthy legal battle to get Trump’s tax returns, and in July was charged by two Trump companies and the chief Trump Organization finance officials of a 15 -year tax fraud scheme, in which the companies and the CFO refused pleas.

On Nov. 4, a second grand jury convened Vance to hear more evidence about the Trump Organization’s financial practices and possibly bring more charges, according to the Washington Post.

Trump suffered another legal setback when a New York court ordered him to file a deposition in October that lasted more than four hours in an old lawsuit by men who say they were attacked in 2015 by security forces. Trump guard at a demonstration outside the Trump Tower in Manhattan.

Meanwhile, in his latest court battle on high stakes, Trump’s lawyers launched a legal blitz requesting executive privilege to block the House select committee from retrieving hundreds of pages of documents from National Archives that the committee is looking for as it investigates the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and what. Trump’s role here.

A federal judge at a hearing on Trump’s legal challenges on Nov. 4 expressed intense skepticism about the executive privilege of his lawyers claiming to prevent the committee from obtaining most of the records it wanted. , citing that President Joe Biden approved to return them.

Trump’s numerous court reversals and his efforts to prevent questioning by the bipartisan House committee, underscore the growing legal threat Trump faces that poses new financial and political risks, the statement said. former justice department lawyers and legal scholars.

Historically, Trump has relied on lawsuits as a delaying tactic to benefit his business interests, or to claim executive privilege or immunity to prevent congressional, state and other investigations when he is president, according to legal analysts.

Also, after his loss to Joe Biden last year, Trump’s campaign and allies have filed more than 60 lawsuits claiming widespread fraud that have been denied by various courts.

To support his fights, Trump boasts a legal arsenal with an ever -changing cast of lawyers, in part because Trump was rejected by several high -profile lawyers this year, according to a CNN report and legal resources.

“Trump is going deep into court to find lawyers,” said a former DOJ prosecutor and white -collar GOP lawyer. “I think a lot of established lawyers will have trouble getting approval from their firms because of the political blowback and risk of non-payment.”

DoJ lawyers and experts say Trump’s legal fortunes look more bleak now, and that his current battle royale to block the House’s inquiry into the chaos in the Capitol by his allies seems relatively weak, though possible it delayed the inquiry for months.

“Trump’s current statements of a privilege against disclosures are almost identical to the baseless claim of an absolute immunity that he repeatedly promoted-and denied by the supreme court-when he was president , ”Donald Ayer, a former representative attorney general in the George HW Bush administration, said in a Guardian interview.

Ayer added that “Trump is just blowing smoke and trying to throw sand at the select committee’s investigation gear. Congress, the administration, and the courts need to quickly and emphatically say no and continue the investigation.”

Other DoJ veterans agree that Trump’s legal case looks vague, but say it could stop the House questioning it.

“The claim of executive privilege against the National Archives is extremely weak,” said former federal prosecutor Paul Rosenzweig. “The question is whether he can game the system to run out of clock and dispute requests.”

That may be the point. Trump’s regular use of litigation to delay federal and state inquiries echoes his modus operandi when he was president and in the business world, experts say.

“The likelihood of success in Trump’s legal claims is not always or often the primary goal,” said Stephen Gillers, a law professor at New York University. “The main goal, at least for the distant claim, is delay. If there is also a partial victory, so much the better.”

More legal battles are pending for Trump, including the claims of two women, former Apprentice candidate Summer Zervos and writer E Jean Carroll, who, respectively, said they were sexually harassed or raped by Trump, the charges he denies.

Zervos sued Trump for defamation and Trump, who has threatened to oppose the case, faces a court order to sit for a Christmas deposit. Similarly, a New York judge in September denied a Trump attorney’s request to pause a Carroll defamation lawsuit against Trump.

But Trump’s legal fleet now seems focused on blocking White House records from the House committee investigating the deadly Jan. 6 attack on Congress, following a Trump rally in which it was told he had a large crowd of loyalists “fight like hell”, while Congress was ready. prove Biden’s victory.

Trump’s legal tactics fit into his old playbook. “He’s acting now as he acts as a real estate investor and builder in the high -stakes and often violent world of commercial real estate in New York,” Gillers said. “When the same tactics are used in national politics, the victims are democracy and the country.”

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