Justice Department Makes Trump White House Lawyers An Offer They Can't Refuse

One for the MERRICK GARLAND DO SOMETHING crowd.

Good afternoon to the Justice Department, which is inviting Donald Trump's White House lawyers in for a little chat. And the invitation is non-optional. 

 CNN was first to report that the DOJ has turned to Chief Judge Beryl Howell at the US District Court in DC to overrule the claims of executive privilege invoked by Trump administration officials, most particularly the lawyers in his White House Counsel's Office, to force them to testify to the grand jury investigating Trump's role in the events on and leading up to January 6, 2021. It appears that Judge Howell has not yet ruled on privilege claims by Trump's White House Counsel Pat Cipollone and his deputy Patrick Philbin — those two WHCO lawyers who somehow both manage to look like Milhouse van Houten — but she already made Greg Jacob and Marc Short, Mike Pence's top guys, spill it for the jurors.

 Newsweek previously tagged attorneys Evan Corcoran, John Rowley, and Timothy Parlatore as Trump's legal dream team for the purposes of the DOJ's January 6 investigation, and now the New York Times reports that after Trump's attorneys whiffed the motion re: Jacob and Short, DOJ prosecutors filed a motion to compel complete testimony from The Milhouse Twins, who testified before the grand jury last month but declined to answer some questions citing privilege. Last week prosecutors argued that the government's need to know about Trump's conversations leading up to the insurrection should override the former president's claims of attorney-client and executive privilege. The Times adds that the grand jury issued about 40 subpoenas, including to former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows and that rancid little weenus Stephen Miller, and that Hope Hicks testified virtually Tuesday for about four hours.

Interestingly, while Cipollone and Philbin were willing to cry privilege on command, former White House attorney Eric "Get a Good Fuckin' Criminal Lawyer" Herschmann said he wasn't sticking his neck out based on advice from Corcoran et al. — “I certainly am not relying on any legal analysis from either of you or Boris [Epshteyn] who — to be clear — I think is an idiot" — and forced the lawyers to pony up and file a motion to invoke privilege over portions of Herschmann's testimony.

Also interesting, although not regarding the January 6 investigation, Trump's lackey Kash Patel, the lawyer who cut his teeth trying to ratfuck the Russia investigation for Devin Nunes, and whom Trump aspired to put in charge of the CIA to EXPOSE the RUSSIA WITCH HUNT, also appeared before a grand jury in DC this month. Patel has said publicly that he personally witnessed Trump declassify the documents at Mar-a-Lago via astral projection and/or laying on of hands. But when asked about it this month by a grand jury in DC investigating Trump's purloining of presidential records, Our Kash was significantly less chatty. The  Times  reports that he repeatedly took the Fifth, prompting Justice Department lawyers to ask the court to compel his testimony, a move his attorneys are fighting claiming that prosecutors are illegally forcing Patel to incriminate himself.

Note that all of this is taking place behind closed doors, just weeks before the midterm. Safe bet that we're going to be hearing a whole lot more about this after November 8, when the DOJ's prohibition against law enforcement action which might affect the political process is in the rearview.

[ CNN / NYT / NYT ]

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