Tuesday Reads: Indictment Watch

Good Afternoon!!

The grand jury investigating Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election is meeting today, and the press is waiting with bated breath for the next indictment. From Politico reporter Kyle Cheney:

CNBC: Trump grand jury in 2020 election probe arrives at court, fueling speculation an indictment is imminent.

Members of the grand jury hearing evidence in the special counsel probe of possible 2020 election interference by former President Donald Trump and others arrived at a federal courthouse Tuesday morning, fueling speculation that an indictment against the former president could come later in the day.

It has been two weeks since Trump announced he was a target in the federal investigation into the efforts to overturn President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory. The probe, lead by special counsel Jack Smith, is also focused on the events surrounding the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

Trump’s receipt of a target letter gave the strongest indication yet that the former president would likely be charged in the election probe.

The grand jurors met last Thursday, but left for the day without any hint that they had voted to return indictments.

On Tuesday morning, they headed up to their area on the third floor of the E. Barrett Prettyman courthouse in Washington, D.C., according to NBC News reporters in the building.

The grand jury typically works until 5PM.

NBC News is providing live updates on the grand jury and other Trump legal news: Trump live updates: Grand jury in election probe meets to consider indictment.

Grand jury appears to break for lunch

The grand jury hearing evidence in the special counsel’s probe of Trump’s attempts to overturn the election appears to be breaking for lunch. NBC News has spotted members of the jury walking down the courthouse stairs and towards the cafeteria.

Grand jurors typically receive a one-hour lunch break, and their days usually begin at 9:00 a.m. and end at 5:00 p.m., according to the D.C. court website.

Another update from Kyle Cheney:

If anything exciting happens, I’ll update.

In other Trump legal news:

The New York Times: After Paying Lawyers, Trump’s PAC Is Nearly Broke.

Former President Donald J. Trump’s political action committee, which began last year with $105 million, now has less than $4 million left in its account after paying tens of millions of dollars in legal fees for Mr. Trump and his associates.

The dwindling cash reserves in Mr. Trump’s PAC, called Save America, have fallen to such levels that the group has made the highly unusual request of a $60 million refund of a donation it had previously sent to a pro-Trump super PAC. This money had been intended for television commercials to help Mr. Trump’s candidacy, but as he is the dominant front-runner for the Republican nomination in 2024, his most immediate problems appear to be legal, not political.

The super PAC, which is called Make America Great Again Inc., has already sent back $12.25 million to the group paying Mr. Trump’s legal bills, according to federal records — a sum nearly as large as the $13.1 million the super PAC raised from donors in the first half of 2023. Those donations included $1 million from the father of his son-in-law, Charles Kushner, whom Mr. Trump pardoned for federal crimes in his final days as president, and $100,000 from a candidate seeking Mr. Trump’s endorsement.

The extraordinary shift of money from the super PAC to Mr. Trump’s political committee, described in federal campaign filings as a refund, is believed to be larger than any other refund on record in the history of federal campaigns.

It comes as Mr. Trump’s political and legal fate appear increasingly intertwined. The return of money from the super PAC, which Mr. Trump does not control, to his political action committee, which he does, demonstrates how his operation is balancing dueling priorities: paying lawyers and supporting his political candidacy through television ads.

Save America, Mr. Trump’s political action committee, is prohibited by law from directly spending money on his candidacy. When Save America donated $60 million last year to Mr. Trump’s super PAC — which is permitted to spend on his campaign — it effectively evaded that prohibition.

As with everything he does, Trump’s questionable actions are bigger than ever before.

Trump has been grifting off of his indictments, sending out whiny demands for money from his cult, but he may be wearing out his welcome with his small donors.

Jessica Piper at Politico: Trump’s indictments are having diminishing returns for his political fundraising.

Donald Trump’s legal troubles have created windfalls for his political fundraising in the past. And his team has not been shy about using various investigations, indictments and court appearances to turbocharge his donor base.

But new data filed with the Federal Election Commission by WinRed, the premiere GOP donation processor used by Trump and most other Republican candidates, shows that trend may be ebbing.

The former president’s fundraising did not spike as high after his second indictment in June compared to his first one in the spring.

All told, Trump raised nearly $4 million via WinRed from nearly 80,000 distinct donors April 4, the day he pleaded not guilty in a Manhattan court on charges of falsification of business records related to payouts to porn star Stormy Daniels. It was his best online fundraising day of the year.

By contrast, when Trump appeared in Miami court June 13 to plead not guilty to his second indictment on charges related to classified documents found at his Mar-a-Lago, he raised only $1.3 million from just over 35,0000 donors, according to WinRed data.

Trump’s joint fundraising committee is outperforming his rivals among small-dollar donors. But the new data is a warning sign that further legal jeopardy for Trump may not be the fundraising savior it once was as his committees burn through cash.

Overall, roughly one-quarter of Trump’s total WinRed fundraising this calendar year — $11.3 million — came in between March 30 and April 5, according to a POLITICO analysis of the group’s FEC filing.

When allies of former President Donald Trump launched his new legal defense fund, they created a group with few restrictions on how much it can raise, even fewer on how much it can spend, and the ability for deep-pocketed donors to remain anonymous.

In essence, Trump’s legal costs have gotten so high that he’s been forced to find a new way around campaign finance laws—a route that will allow him to draw massive donations from megadonors who could not otherwise write checks large enough to replenish his attorney costs.

While the plans for launching the group, called the “Patriot Legal Defense Fund,” were first reported on Sunday by The New York Times, it turns out the entity was created on July 19. That filing, however, won’t be found in the campaign finance database maintained by the Federal Election Commission, where political campaigns typically register.

Instead, the PLDF was registered with the IRS as a special type of political nonprofit under section 527 of the tax code—as what’s loosely known as a “527” or “shadow” group.

Trump has reportedly asserted for years that only guilty people open legal funds. And while that describes a number of convicted former political advisers—George Papadopoulos, Roger Stone, and Mike Flynn, for instance—others haven’t been found guilty of crimes, like Rudy Giuliani, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), or even Trumphimself.

The new fund reportedly won’t pay Trump’s own lawyer costs. But it will float allies, including possible witnesses in any number of legal threats facing the former president.

And yet experts said the shadiest, most notable part of the legal defense fund was not that it would pay for lawyers for potential witnesses against Trump. That part isn’t all that new. The Trump team reportedly worked hand-in-hand with CPAC chair Matt Schlapp’s “First Amendment Fund” earlier this year to provide legal help to Jan. 6 committee subpoena targets, and Trump’s “Save America” leadership PAC also bankrolled handpicked attorneys for Jan. 6 witnesses.

Instead, experts pointed to the group’s unique tax status opening an array of new fundraising opportunities for Trump as the most unsettling element—including for unlimited donations from individuals and corporations.

One more Trump legal story: The Manhattan DA may used Trump’s videotaped deposition in from the E. Jean Carroll case for evidence in the Stormy Daniels prosecution.

Jose Pagliery at The Daily Beast: Trump’s Rape Trial Testimony Is Already Coming Back to Haunt Him.

The Manhattan district attorney seeking to jail Donald Trump over his hush money payment to a porn star is seeking to potentially weaponize the same piece of damning evidence that nailed the former president at his rape trial: the deposition where he said stars like him get away with sexual harassment “unfortunately—or fortunately.”

It’s now up to a federal judge to decide whether those prosecutors can get a video that shows Trump at his worst: unapologetic about sexual assault, uttering misogynistic comments, and willing to lie to the American public to save his own skin.

It’s a testament to the breadth of Trump’s legal problems that we’re witnessing the collision of two totally separate cases: a civil defamation case about rape and a criminal case about a cover-up. And it all comes down to a closed-door question-and-answer session Trump had on Oct. 19, 2022.

That shocking testimony first came out in a federal courtroom in May in New York City, where jurors ultimately decided that Trump did indeed sexually abuse the journalist E. Jean Carroll decades ago. In the video, the former president talked about his previous gloating that he could grab women “by the pussy”—and answered whether he felt that the rich and famous could get away with it.

“Historically that’s true with stars. If you look over the last million years, that’s largely true, unfortunately—or fortunately,” he said, later adding that he considers himself a star.

At the time, the video stunned those in the federal courtroom, going a long way to show how Trump remained defiant about his predatory sexual behavior. He called Carroll a liar and viciously attacked her female lawyer. At one point, he told the attorney, “You wouldn’t be a choice of mine either.”

Now, the Manhattan DA wants that video for his own criminal investigation.

According to court records, Manhattan prosecutors plan to use it to show the way Trump “dealt with allegations of a sexual nature,” which could get them closer to proving that he was desperate to keep the lid on bad news that could have sunk his 2016 campaign.

Here’s hoping we’ll get another indictment announcement tonight or tomorrow. Take care everyone!!