Trump faces five separate lawsuits by Capitol and D.C. police for Jan. 6 riot

Investigations

House Select Committee completes investigation of Jan. 6 riot, forwards criminal referrals to DOJ, plus, 68 Days That Will Live in Infamy - Oct. 31, 2020 thru Jan. 6, 2021

On July 1, 2021 the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), appointed members to the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack to examine and report on the facts and causes relating to "the terrorist mob attack on the United States Capitol."

Pelosi appointed seven Democrats, including Rep. Adam Schiff of California, who was the lead manager in Trump's first impeachment trial and Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, who served as lead manager for Trump's second impeachment. Also serving on the committee were Trump-critics Rep. Liz Cheney (R- Wyoming) and Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Illinois). The chair was Mississippi Democrat Rep. Bennie Thompson. Rep. Cheney was vice-chair.

Speaker Pelosi blocked GOP House leader Kevin McCarthy's nominees, Reps. Jim Jordan and Jim Banks, because they both actively spread misinformation about the 2020 election. But she accepted GOP Reps. Troy Nehls, Rodney Davis, and Kelly Armstrong. McCarthy, however, rescinded their nominations to protest the Speaker's decision to bar Jordan and Banks.  (Fast forward: On June 19, 2022, following several nationally-televised committee hearings, former President Trump criticized McCarthy's decision. "Unfortunately, a bad decision was made. This Committee - it was a bad decision not to have representation on this Committee. That was a very, very foolish decision.")

The committee held its first hearing July 27, 2021. Fox News reported the four witnesses at the hearing were Private First Class Harry Dunn and Sergeant Aquilino Gonell of the U.S. Capitol Police, and Officers Michael Fanone and Daniel Hodges of the Metropolitan Police Department. They provided detailed and emotional testimony about the attack.

"To be honest, I did not recognize my fellow citizens who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 or the United States they claimed to represent," Gonell, an immigrant and Army veteran, said. "The rioters called me traitor, a disgrace, and shouted that I, I, an Army veteran and police officer, should be executed. I heard specific threats to the lives of Speaker Nancy Pelosi and also Vice President Mike Pence," Gonell added, saying that the officers "fought hand to hand, inch by inch, to prevent an invasion of the Capitol by a mob intent on subverting our democratic process." Gonell said that the attackers were shouting, "Trump sent us. Pick the right side."

On Jan. 19, 2022 the Supreme Court rejected Trump's effort to stop the National Archives from giving the House Jan. 6 committee hundreds of pages of documents from his time in the White House.  

On June 13, Chair Rep. Thompson (D-MS) opened the second public hearing: "This morning we will tell the story of how Donald Trump lost an election. And knew he lost an election. And as the result of his loss, decided to wage an attack on our democracy." As Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) stated, "The election fraud claims were false. Mr. Trump's closest advisors knew it. Mr. Trump knew it."

In riveting and damning testimony, former Attorney General Barr told committee investigators it was "demoralizing" that Trump wasn't listening: "If he really believes this stuff, he's become detached from reality, if he really believes this stuff. There was never any interest in what the actual facts were."

According to witness testimony at the committee's June 16 hearing, Vice President Pence himself and the lawyer who concocted the scheme to have Pence overturn the 2020 presidential election, John Eastman, both advised President Trump that the scheme was unconstitutional and violated federal law.  Eastman later plead the Fifth more than 100 times in his deposition before the Jan. 6 Committee.

Judge Michael Luttig, a nationally prominent conservative justice, told the committee that Trump, as well as his allies and supporters, "are a clear and present danger to American democracy."

"That's not because of what happened on January 6 -- it's because to this very day, the former president, his allies and supporters pledge that in the presidential election of 2024, if the former president or his anointed successor as the Republican Party presidential candidate were to lose that election, that they would attempt to overturn that 2024 election in the same way that they attempted to overturn the 2020 election."

Rusty Bowers, the Republican leader of the Arizona state legislature, told the committee at its June 21 hearing that President Trump and his attorney, Rudy Giuliani, called him shortly after the election and claimed that hundreds of thousands of illegals voted in Arizona as well as thousands of dead people. Bowers asked for the evidence. Trump told Giuliani to give Bowers the evidence. Giuliani promised to deliver it. 

Bowers told President Trump, "I voted for you. I worked for you. I campaigned for you. I just won't do anything illegal for you." And, according to Bowers, Giuliani never did provide any evidence and at a subsequent meeting in Phoenix, Giuliani admitted to Bowers that "We've got a lot of theories, we just don't have the evidence."

Shaye Moss, a Georgia election worker, was a target of a conspiracy theory spread by former President Trump and his allies, including Giuliani. She told the committee the lies by Trump of harvesting fraudulent votes "turned my life upside down."

Moss fought back tears as she told how the harassment campaign against her upended her life in the weeks after the 2020 election.

"I no longer give out my business card. I don't transfer calls. I don't want anyone knowing my name," Moss testified. "I don't go anywhere with my mom. I don't go to the grocery store at all. I haven't been anywhere at all. I've gained about 60 pounds."

(On Jan. 6, 2023, the 2nd anniversary of the Capitol riot, President Biden gave Moss and her mother, Ruby Freeman, another Georgia election worker, the Presidential Citizens Medal for their contributions toward preserving democracy in America.)

At the committee's hearing on June 23, 2022 it was announced that at least six Republican members of Congress sought pardons in the final days of Trump's presidency. They included Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Mo Brooks (R-AL), Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Louis Gohmert (R-TX) and Scott Perry (R-PA). Committee member Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) summarized: "The only reason I know to ask for a pardon is because you think you have committed a crime."

On June 28, the Select Committee heard from Cassidy Hutchinson, a top aide to Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. She testified that when she asked Meadows about plans for Jan. 6, "He didn't look up from his phone and said something to the effect of, 'There's a lot going on Cass, but I don't know, things might get real, real bad on Jan. 6.'"

Hutchinson also testified that former President Trump knew many of his supporters in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6 were armed and demanded that they be let into a secure area at his rally. "He thought the mags (metal detectors) were at fault for not letting everybody in. But another leading reason, likely the primary reason, is because he wanted it full and he was angry that we weren't letting people through the mags with weapons -- what the Secret Service deems as weapons." Hutchinson said, "I overheard the President say something to the effect of 'I don't F-ing care that they have weapons. They're not here to hurt me. Take the f-ing mags away. Let my people in, they can march to the Capitol from here. Let the people in, take the f-ing mags away." 

She also testified Trump left after his rally speech on Jan. 6 expecting he would be taken to the Capitol. According to Hutchinson, former Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations Tony Ornato recounted Trump screaming, "I'm the f---ing President. Take me up to the Capitol now." Trump then "reached up toward the front of the vehicle to grab at the steering wheel." She added that, according to Ornato, Trump used his other hand to "lunge" at Secret Service Agent Robert Engel.  (Ornato was interviewed virtually Nov. 29 for roughly five to six hours. He told lawmakers and committee staff that he did not recall that conversation with Hutchinson.)

Hutchinson also testified that Meadows and Rudy Giuliani each sought pardons related to their actions on Jan. 6. And attorney John Eastman asked Giuliani about a potential pardon in an email. "I've decided that I should be on the pardon list if that is still in the works."  

The Select Committee on July 12 presented evidence that former President Trump knew that he legitimately lost the 2020 election to Biden, Raw Story reported.

Testimony from former Trump administration officials revealed that White House lawyers, known as "team normal," worked for hours on Dec. 18, 2020 to systematically debunk conspiracy theories about the election in an hours-long meeting with the president and his outside advisors, including Giuliani and Sidney Powell.

On July 21, the committee held a hearing focusing on "then-President Trump's refusal for more than three hours to call off the mob attacking the Capitol on Jan. 6," the Los Angeles Times reported. The committee attempted to show that Trump's inaction constituted a dereliction of duty.

"The mob was accomplishing President Trump's purpose, so of course he didn't intervene," Rep. Kinzinger stated.  "President Trump did not fail to act during the 187 minutes between leaving the Ellipse and telling the mob to go home. He chose not to act."

Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, told the committee on Sept. 29 the election was stolen from former President Trump. However, Thomas, a lawyer, provided no evidence to support her claim.

The committee voted Oct. 13 to subpoena Trump. The subpoena required him to turn over documents by Nov. 4 and to appear for a deposition Nov. 14.  Trump ignored the committee's subpoena.

The House select committee released its highly anticipated final report Dec. 22, 2022 presenting a full account of its findings on former President Trump's efforts to maintain power, USA Today reported. The committee's report concluded:

• Trump was the "central cause" of the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol. "None of the events of January 6th would have happened without him."
• The committee recommended that the Department of Justice investigate the ex-president for inciting an insurrection, conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to make a false statement and obstruction of an official proceeding. 
• The committee said it was "particularly troubling" that certain witnesses took the Fifth, including Gen. Michael Flynn, who refused to comment on such basic questions as whether he believed the violence on Jan. 6 was justified and whether he believed "in the peaceful transition of power" in the U.S. 
  

• GOP Rep. Cheney, vice chair of the committee, described "the most shameful findings" from the hearings: "President Trump sat in the dining room off the Oval Office watching the violent riot at the Capitol on television."

• The committee concluded Trump was also "directly and personally involved" in the effort to delay the counting of Electoral College votes during the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress, and acted with a "corrupt" purpose.

• The committee also recommended the House Ethics Committee investigate four Republican lawmakers - including Kevin McCarthy, the future House speaker - for defying the committee's subpoenas.

• The panel concluded there could be enough evidence to bring criminal charges against other Trump allies, like attorneys John Eastman, Rudy Giuliani, Jeffrey Clark and Kenneth Chesebro.

68 Days That Will Live in Infamy - Oct. 31, 2020 through Jan. 6, 2021

Timeline of first-ever presidential coup attempt in U.S. history

• President Trump to the nation: "We want all voting to stop."
• President Trump to the Acting Attorney General: "One thing we know is you, Rosen, aren't going to do anything to overturn the election."  
• Former President Trump on Mike Pence: "He could have overturned the Election!"

Oct. 31, 2020

Three days before the election, President Trump discusses with Tom Fitton, the president of Judicial Watch, a draft speech that declares victory and claims voter fraud. 

Nov. 3 

Election day.

Nov. 4

The day after the election, with Democrat Joe Biden leading the vote count, President Trump in the White House press room declared, "This is a fraud on the American public. This is an embarrassment to our country. We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election.

"So, we'll be going to the U.S. Supreme Court. We want all voting to stop."

Nevada GOP chairman Michael McDonald joined a conference call with Trump, his son Eric, White House Chief-of-staff Mark Meadows and longtime Trump ally/attorney Rudy Giuliani. "They want full attack mode," McDonald later wrote of the call in a text message. "We're gonna have a war room meeting in about an hour." (On Dec. 14 McDonald would join other Trump supporters in Nevada and sign a fake elector document.)

Nov. 5

Virginia Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, texts White House Chief of Staff Meadows, "Biden crime family & ballot fraud co-conspirators (elected officials, bureaucrats, social media censorship mongers, fake stream media reporters, etc) are being arrested & detained for ballot fraud right now & over coming days, & will be living in barges off GITMO to face military tribunals for sedition."  

Donald Trump Jr., the oldest son of the president, texts Meadows outlining a strategy that is nearly identical to what allies of the President will attempt to carry out in the months ahead.  In his texts, Trump Jr. makes specific reference to filing lawsuits and advocating recounts to prevent certain swing states from certifying their results, as well as having a handful of Republican state houses put forward slates of fake "Trump electors." 

(Fast-forward: In late November, 2023, Liz Cheney reveals in her book that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy told her two days after Election Day that he had talked to Trump and that Trump acknowledged he had lost the 2020 election. "He knows it's over," McCarthy said. "He needs to go through all the stages of grief.")

Nov. 6

With Biden still ahead in the vote count, President Trump begins to realize he is on the brink of losing reelection. His lawyers explain to him that being angry about the results is not a reason to file lawsuits.

"Well, why don't we just get up to the Supreme Court directly?" he asks. "Like, why can't we just go there right away?"

Nov. 7

Former Vice President Biden is declared the winner of the 2020 presidential election by various media outlets. 

White House Chief of Staff Meadows sends email discussing the appointment of alternate slates of electors. Utah Senator Mike Lee texts Meadows: "Sydney (sic) Powell is saying that she needs to get in to see the president, but she's being kept away from him. Apparently she has a strategy to keep things alive and put several states back in play. Can you help her get in?" (On Nov. 9, Sen. Lee texts Meadows that he found Powell to be a "straight shooter.")

Trump campaign attorney Giuliani holds a press conference at Four Seasons Total Landscaping in Northeast Philadelphia.  (President Trump had earlier announced the press conference would occur at the famous Four Seasons Hotel in Philadelphia.) Giuliani, standing outside the landscaping business, a couple buildings down from the Fantasy Island Book Store, makes unsubstantiated claims about voter fraud. The black dye in his hair famously starts to drip down the side of his face, a photograph of which goes around the world. The adult bookstore owner complains to the media they are taking up all his customer parking.

Nov. 9

Virginia Thomas - again, the wife of a member of the U.S. Supreme Court - sends an email to 29 Arizona state legislators. "Article II of the United States Constitution gives you an awesome responsibility: to choose our state's Electors... [P]lease take action to ensure that a clean slate of Electors is chosen."  (Thomas's name also appears on an email to a group of Arizona representatives on Dec. 13, the day before members of the electoral college met to cast their votes and seal Biden's Arizona victory. She writes, "Before you choose your state's Electors ... consider what will happen to the nation we all love if you don't stand up and lead.") 

Thomas also sends similar emails to legislators in a second battleground state that Biden won, Wisconsin. "Please reflect on the awesome authority granted to you by our Constitution. And then please take action to ensure that a clean slate of Electors is chosen for our state."

Nov. 10

Thomas texts Mark Meadows, "Help This Great President stand firm, Mark!!!...You are the leader, with him, who is standing for America's constitutional governance at the precipice. The majority knows Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History." (Thomas would admit later to the Jan. 6 House Select Committee that she had no evidence to support her repeated claims of voter fraud.)

Nov. 14

In a tweet, Trump hailed Sidney Powell as part of his "truly great team" of lawyers.

Nov. 17

President Trump fires Chris Krebs, the director of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), via Twitter after Krebs refutes claims - including those by President Trump - that the 2020 election was subject to widespread voter fraud and hacking. Krebs earlier in the day had tweeted, "59 election security experts all agree, 'in every case of which we are aware, these claims (of fraud) either have been unsubstantiated or are technically incoherent.'"

Trump, with Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel present, calls two Republican members of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers and tells them not to sign the certification of the 2020 presidential election, telling them they'd look "terrible" if they signed the documents. Said Trump, "We've got to fight for our country. We can't let these people take our country away from us." McDaniel and Trump offered to help get the two GOP officials' legal representation.

Sometime in November

President Trump, campaign lawyers and outside attorneys - including Giuliani and Sidney Powell - hold a meeting to discuss legal issues associated with challenging the election.

(Fast-forward: Vice President Mike Pence reported in October, 2022, that while the campaign lawyers reportedly gave President Trump a negative report concerning election challenges, Giuliani contested their claims. "Your lawyers are not telling you the truth, Mr. President," Giuliani said to Trump over a speaker phone.

("In the end, that (was the) day the president made the fateful decision to put Giuliani and Sidney Powell in charge of the legal strategy," Vice President Pence reported. "The seeds were being sown for a tragic day in January," referring to Jan. 6, 2021.)

Nov. 18

Attorney Kenneth Chesebro, a legal advisor to the Trump campaign, begins drafting memos on the fake elector scheme.  (Other Chesebro memos and emails on the illegal scheme are dated Dec. 6 and 31 below.) 

Chesebro was advising Wisconsin-based Trump attorney Jim Troupis about a legal strategy for challenging the results in court. He stressed that in order to sustain legal challenges to Wisconsin's results, a slate of pro-Trump electors must convene on Dec. 14, 2020 and cast ballots as though they were legitimately elected.

Chesebro noted that if courts ruled in Trump's favor, Congress may only be able to count electoral votes cast by the legally prescribed deadline of Dec. 14. 

Nov. 19

Trump attorneys Giuliani and Powell - described as "Trump's elite strike force" - hold a press conference at Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C. laying out unproven charges of election fraud, including allegations that Dominion Voting Systems had worked with George Soros and Venezuela, the Clinton Foundation and Antifa to steal the election from Trump. Powell claimed there was a "massive influence of communist money through Venezuela, Cuba, and likely China in the interference with our elections here in the United States." 

By this same day, however, other Trump campaign lawyers had already prepared an internal memo debunking many of the claims made by Giuliani and Powell about Dominion Voting Systems and another voting machine company, Smartmatic.  But the campaign sits on its findings as Trump supporters attack the companies in the conservative media and file unsuccessful lawsuits.  

(Fast-forward: In 2023, Fox News will pay Dominion $787.5 million for pushing Giuliani and Powell's false allegations about the company.)

Mid to late November

Trump suggests, in an Oval Office meeting with Attorney General Bill Barr, that the Justice Department seize voting machines in certain states won by Biden. Barr rejects the idea, telling the president there is no basis for seizing the machines because there is no probable cause to believe a crime has been committed.

Around the same time, Trump also tries to persuade state lawmakers in contested states like Michigan and Pennsylvania to use local law enforcement agencies to take control of voting machines. State lawmakers refuse to go along with the plan.

Nov. 23

Attorney General Barr grows so frustrated with Trump's election conspiracy theories that he confronts the president and tells him his claims are "bullshit." Burr tells Trump: "I understand you're upset with me. And I'm perfectly happy to tender my resignation." Trump slaps his desk and says: "Accepted. Accepted. Go home. Don't go back to your office. Go home. You're done."

Dec. 1

Barr, who is still Attorney General, goes public and tells the Associated Press that, despite the numerous lawsuits Trump supporters had filed contesting the election results, "To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election."

Barr also calls Trump's legal team "clownish."  "I'm a pretty informed legal observer and I can't fucking figure out what the theory is here. It's just scattershot. It's all over the hill and gone."

President Trump goes down to the White House dining room and throws a plate of food against the wall.  Staff later testified they were forced to clean ketchup off the walls.

Early December

At a White House meeting, White House counsel Pat Cipollone and other White House attorneys tell Chief of Staff Meadows, Giuliani and a group of Republican House members that the scheme to have states send Trump slates of electors to Congress in states that Trump lost "was not legally sound" and "did not comply with the law."

Dec. 4

Attorney and U.S. Constitution "expert" John Eastman urges Republican legislators in Pennsylvania to retabulate the state's popular vote - and throw out tens of thousands of absentee ballots - in order to show Trump - not Biden - with a lead.

Dec. 5

After President Trump's aides fail to get Georgia officials to overturn their election, Trump calls Republican governor Brian Kemp.  Trump told a rally in September, 2021, "I said, 'Let me handle it. This is easy.' I got this guy elected.... I was going to show [his aides] how good I am. 'Let me handle it. I'll call them up.' I said, 'Brian, listen, you know you have a big election integrity problem in Georgia. I hope you can help us out and call a special election.'"  

Trump also urged Kemp to use his "emergency powers" to block the certification of the results and name a slate of Republican electors to award him the state's 16 electoral votes. Kemp, a former election official, tells Trump he didn't have such powers.

Meanwhile, a steadily changing cast of Trump campaign lawyers file 66 federal and state lawsuits challenging the election results. All but one are rejected. (The one that succeeded, in Pennsylvania, involved a small number of ballots with technical errors.)

Dec. 6

Kenneth Chesebro drafts a memo describing a plot to use false slates of electors to subvert the election. Chesebro acknowledges that he was proposing "a bold, controversial strategy" that the Supreme Court "likely" would reject in the end.

But even if the plan did not ultimately pass legal muster at the highest level, Chesebro argued, it would achieve two goals. It would focus attention on claims of voter fraud and "buy the Trump campaign more time to win litigation that would deprive Biden of electoral votes and/or add to Trump's column."

Dec. 8

Trump calls Georgia's Republican attorney general, Chris Carr, warning him not to interfere with a Texas lawsuit that seeks to overturn election results in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, all states won by Biden. The Texas lawsuit argues that Biden's victories in the four states should be thrown out over Republican allegations of widespread voter fraud. The suit argues Republican-led legislatures in all four states should be allowed to select a pro-Trump slate of electors and hand Trump the 2020 election.

Utah Republican Senator Lee, who on Nov. 7 urged President Trump to "exhaust every legal and constitutional remedy at your disposal to restore Americans faith in our elections," sends a text to Meadows suggesting a strategy for reversing Trump's defeat. "If a very small handful of states were to have their legislatures appoint alternative slates of delegates, there could be a path." Meadows replies, "I am working on that as of yesterday."

Dec. 9

Trump hypes the Texas case in the run-up to the Supreme Court's ruling. "We will be INTERVENING in the Texas (plus many other states) case. This is the big one. Our Country needs a victory!" he tweets.

Dec. 10

Georgia Attorney General Carr files a response to the Texas lawsuit with the Supreme Court, urging the justices to reject the Trump-backed lawsuit. 

Louisiana Congressman Mike Johnson - a relatively unknown GOP House member at the time - sends an email to his GOP colleagues asking support for the Texas lawsuit. The email's subject line read: "Time-sensitive request from President Trump."

"President Trump called me this morning to express his great appreciation for our effort to file an amicus brief in the Texas case on behalf of concerned Members of Congress. He specifically asked me to contact all Republican Members of the House and Senate today and request that all join on to our brief. He said he will be anxiously awaiting the final list to review."

The amicus brief, which garnered 126 signatures, including that of GOP leader Kevin McCarthy, was the first signal that more than half of the Republican conference was prepared to toss out the votes of millions of Americans. (Johnson would replace McCarthy as Speaker of the House in October, 2023.)

Chesebro emails David Shafer, chairman of the Georgia Republican Party, saying the Trump campaign asked him to "help coordinate" logistics of a scheme to send a slate of fake Electoral College electors to Washington, D.C.  Chesebro attaches documents for casting electoral votes.

Dec. 11

All nine justices of the Supreme Court - including the three Trump-appointed justices - reject hearing the Texas lawsuit on the grounds the state lacks the standing to overthrow elections in other states. "Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another state conducts its elections." 

(Fast-forward: Former White House chief of staff Meadows wrote in his November, 2021 memoir, "The Chief's Chief," that he had never seen Trump look as "despondent" as he did when the Supreme Court rejected Texas' bid to overturn the 2020 election result.

(White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified in 2022 that she witnessed a conversation soon after the Supreme Court decision in which Trump told Meadows something to the effect of: "I don't want people to know we lost, Mark. This is embarrassing. Figure it out. We need to figure it out.")

Dec. 12

Attorney Chesebro meets with Brian Schimming, chair of the Wisconsin GOP, about the upcoming Dec. 14 meeting of fake electors.

A few days before Dec. 14

President Trump works with allies to prepare a series of false Trump electoral slates from states Biden won. President Trump personally conducts a teleconference with attorney John Eastman and Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel and solicits the RNC's assistance with the scheme, specifically directing her to arrange for the fake electors to meet and rehearse the process of casting their fake votes.  McDaniel agrees to provide that assistance and calls back later to tell the president RNC staff are working on it.  (Trump subsequently has several phone calls with McDaniel on the topic.)

Dec. 13

In an email to Giuliani, Chesebro outlines multiple strategies for disrupting and delaying the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021. Chesebro says the strategies were "preferable to allowing the Electoral Count Act to operate by its own terms."

Chesebro also sends an email to Mike Roman, a Trump campaign aide, with attached documents for Trump electors to use in Georgia and other states. And in another email, Chesebro tells Roman that Giuliani "wants to keep this quiet until after all the voting is done." 

Dec. 14

The Electoral College - electors from all 50 states and the District of Columbia - cast their ballots and forward their "Certificates of Ascertainment" to the vice president and the National Archives, officially declaring Biden the 46th president of the United States. 

President Trump announces Attorney General Barr's resignation.

Trump campaign officials, led by Giuliani, the Republican National Committee and Republican state parties organize meetings of Trump supporters in seven states Trump lost to draft language for fake Electoral College certificates. The gatherings take place in Arizona, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin.

The unauthorized electors declare themselves "duly elected and qualified" and send the phony documents to Washington in hopes that on Jan. 6 when Congress convenes to certify the election the fake certificates will be recognized as official by Vice President Pence, who will chair the proceedings.

In Arizona, for example, they called it "The Signing." Eleven fake electors for President Trump convened at the state Republican Party headquarters in Phoenix to sign the documents, allegedly provided by a Trump campaign attorney, claiming that they were the legitimate representatives of the state's electoral votes.

Dec. 15

President Trump summons acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen to the Oval Office and demands the DOJ file legal briefs supporting lawsuits challenging election results in key battleground states and that Rosen appoint special counsels to investigate Dominion Voting Systems, who Trump's lawyers claim - without evidence - switched Trump votes to Biden. Rosen declines, citing former Attorney General Barr's announcement on Dec. 1 that there was no wide-spread election fraud.

Trump personally calls election officials in Wayne County, Michigan in a last-ditch effort to overturn the election in that state.

Dec. 16

An executive order is drafted by outside legal advisor Powell and Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn empowering the defense secretary to "seize, collect, retain and analyze all machines, equipment, electronically stored information, and material records required for retention under" a U.S. law that relates to preservation of election records. Without evidence, the draft cites conspiracy theories about election fraud in Georgia and Michigan, as well as debunked notions about Dominion and Smartmatic voting machines switching Trump votes to Biden.

The draft order would give the defense secretary 60 days to write an assessment of the 2020 election, suggesting it was a gambit to keep Trump in power until at least mid-February, 2021.

Dec. 18

Former U.S. Army General Fynn, who lasted less than a month as President Trump's first national security advisor, and Powell, who had, by this time, filed unsuccessful lawsuits claiming China, Venezuela, Iran and George Soros worked to turn a Trump victory into defeat, attend an Oval Office meeting with President Trump. 

The day before Flynn had told Newsmax the president could deploy military troops and declare martial law in order to rerun the election in certain states.  ''He could immediately on his order seize every single one of these machines around the country. He could also order, within the swing states, if he wanted to, he could take military capabilities and he could place them in those states and basically rerun an election in each of those states. It's not unprecedented.'' 

Flynn and Powell present the President with a draft executive order authorizing the military to seize voting machines throughout the country and appoint Powell as "a special counsel overseeing election integrity."  The President reads the draft and verbally agrees to appoint Powell special counsel.  

At one point in the meeting, it is also suggested that the president appoint Flynn as "field marshal" to coordinate Powell's efforts.

White House lawyers Pat Cipollone and Eric Herschmann learn of the meeting, enter the Oval Office and begin working to systematically debunk Trump, Powell and Flynn's conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.

Cipollone tells the group there was no evidence of widespread election fraud, asking "one simple questions, as a general matter 'Where is the evidence?'" Cipollone also tells Trump he opposes giving Powell any authority to investigate alleged election fraud. 

The hours-long meeting - which some describe as a "screaming match" - ends near midnight with Trump's allies insulting and verbally attacking the White House counsel. 

(Trump ultimately rejects the draft executive order and the proposal that Trump declare martial law. The White House never follows through with the appointment of Powell as special counsel.)

Dec. 19

At about 1:45 a.m., President Trump tweets, "Statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 Election. Big protest in DC on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!"

At the White House Christmas Party, Trump administration official Dan Scavino tells attorney Jenna Ellis, who was working with Giuliani to overturn the election, that "the boss" will refuse to leave the White House despite losing the election and that Trump didn't care that all legal challenges advanced by Giuliani, Ellis, Powell and others had failed. Scavino tells Ellis, "The boss is not going to leave under any circumstances. We are just going to stay in power." Ellis replied, "Well, it doesn't quite work that way, you realize" and Scavino said, "We don't care."

Dec. 21

Seven days after the Electoral College named Joe Biden president-elect, President Donald Trump meets with Ohio Representative Jim Jordan, Pennsylvania Representative Scott Perry, and eight other House Freedom Caucus members to strategize about Jan. 6. (On Jan. 6, Perry will lead the House GOP effort to not certify Biden's election.)  Giuliani and some associates advocate a plan for Pence to unilaterally refuse to count Biden's electors and instead send the election back to various GOP-controlled state legislatures to replace Biden's electors with Trump's.

The D.C. Fusion Center (The D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, U.S. Capitol Police and the National Capital Region Threat Intelligence Consortium) share open source data regarding groups strategizing to avoid arrest in D.C. and discussions about bringing guns into D.C. on Jan. 6. An FBI report states "threat actors" may plan to commit acts of violence in D.C. during demonstrations related to the inauguration.

Dec. 23

President Trump calls Georgia election investigator Frances Watson, who is leading a probe into allegations of ballot fraud in Cobb County. "The people of Georgia are so angry at what happened to me," he tells her. "They know I won, won by hundreds of thousands of votes. It wasn't close."

President Trump pressures Watson to find "dishonesty" and "When the right answer comes out, you'll be praised."

Dec. 23 thru Jan. 3

According to congressional testimony by Acting Attorney General Rosen, President Trump speaks at least five times to acting Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark, "engaging in unauthorized conversations" about how the department might "publicly cast doubt on President Biden's victory."

Dec. 24

Attorneys Chesebro and Eastman, the legal "brains" behind the idea of getting Pence to subvert the Electoral College vote when Congress convenes on Jan. 6, discuss via email how to get a case before the Supreme Court – this one in Wisconsin seeking to overturn the election results. Chesebro writes, the "odds of action before Jan. 6 will become more favorable if the justices start to fear that there will be 'wild' chaos on Jan. 6 unless they rule by then, either way."

"Though that factor could go against us on the merits," he added. "Easiest way to quell chaos would be to rule against us — our side would accept that result as legitimate."

(By this time, a Trump-appointed federal judge had already, on Dec. 12, shot down the Trump campaign's last-ditch attempt to overturn Wisconsin's certification of the 2020 election for Biden, dismissing the case - Trump vs. Wisconsin Elections Commission - with prejudice. The Trump campaign appealed, but a three-judge panel of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal.)

Dec. 27

Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Scott Perry, at the behest of President Trump, calls Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue to tell him he didn't think the Justice Department had done its job on the election. During the call, Rep. Perry focuses on alleged fraud in his home state of Pennsylvania and follows up the conversation with an email to Donoghue forwarding additional debunked claims of election fraud from GOP state lawmakers in Pennsylvania. The claims are similar to those Trump is making, including a claim that Pennsylvania had 205,000 more votes than voters.

Rep. Perry, who originally introduced Trump to Clark in October, tells Donoghue, "I think Jeff Clark is great. I like that guy a lot. He's the kind of guy who could really get in there and do something about this. " 

President Trump telephones Acting Attorney General Rosen and Donoghue and urges them to publicly declare the results of the 2020 election "corrupt." According to notes Donoghue took, Rosen tells Trump that he needs to "understand that the DOJ can't + won't snap its fingers + change the outcome of the election, doesn't work that way."

"[I] don't expect you to do that," Trump reportedly answers, "just say that the election was corrupt + leave the rest to me and the R. Congressmen."

Donoghue tells Trump, "Sir, we've done dozens of investigations, hundreds of interviews. The major allegations are not supported by the evidence developed."

Trump ends the conversation by telling Rosen, "People tell me Jeff Clark is great, I should put him in. People want me to replace DOJ leadership."

Dec. 28

At President Trump's urging, Clark circulates a draft letter -- which Clark wanted his bosses Rosen and Donoghue to approve -- urging Georgia's governor to convene the state legislature into special session. Clark's draft letter falsely claims the Justice Department was "investigating various irregularities"and had "identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election."

Clark wants the DOJ to send the letters to Georgia and other swing states that Trump lost, informing them that fraud had rendered their elections questionable, while advising state legislatures to convene and appoint pro-Trump electors. (Clark and Eastman, both pushing the fake electors scheme, spoke over the phone at least five times between Jan. 1 and Jan. 8.)

(Fast-forward: Secret Service agents are alerted to potential violence at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, according to emails and other messages made public in October, 2022. The threats included "calls to occupy federal buildings," "intimidating Congress and invading [the] Capitol Building," and people claiming they want to "arm themselves and to engage in political violence at the event.")

Late 2020

President Trump phones Republican Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona pressuring him to overturn the state's presidential election results, saying that if enough fraudulent votes could be found it would overcome his narrow loss in Arizona to Biden.

Ducey later told a major Republican donor that he felt "pressure" to do the former president's bidding. A spokesperson for Ducey noted that no officials have ever found any evidence to support Trump's claims of massive voter fraud. He lost Arizona by more than 10,000 votes.

Dec. 29

Trump and his allies urge the Department of Justice to take Trump's false claims of a stolen election directly to the Supreme Court. 

Dec. 31

White House Chief of Staff Meadows emails Vice President Pence's top aide a detailed plan for undoing Biden's election victory. The memo, written by campaign lawyer Jenna Ellis, outlines a multi-step strategy: 

   On Jan. 6, the day Congress certifies the 2020 election results, Pence is to send back the electoral votes from six battleground states that Biden won but Trump claims were stolen from him through election fraud. Pence would then give the states a deadline of "7pm eastern standard time on January 15th" to send back a new set of votes. Then, if any state legislature missed that deadline, "no electoral votes can be opened and counted from that state." In that case, neither Biden nor Trump would have a majority of votes, which would mean "Congress shall vote by state delegation" -- which would lead to Trump being declared the winner due to Republicans controlling the majority of state delegations in the U.S Congress.

In a meeting with top Justice Department officials in the Oval Office, President Trump again demands the department seize voting machines across the country.  When told that voting machine performance was within the Department of Homeland Security's purview, the president calls Ken Cuccinelli, the acting deputy secretary of Homeland Security, and tells him "the acting Attorney General...just told me it's your job to seize machine, and you're not doing your job."

Trump attorney Chesebro emails Trump's legal team claiming Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas may be their best hope of derailing Joe Biden's win. "We want to frame things so that Thomas could be the one to issue some sort of stay or other circuit justice opinion saying Georgia is in legitimate doubt. Realistically, our only chance to get a favorable judicial opinion by Jan. 6, which might hold up the Georgia count in Congress, is from Thomas."

"I think I agree with this," Trump attorney Eastman replied later that morning, suggesting that a favorable move by Thomas or other justices would "kick the Georgia legislature into gear" to help overturn the election results.

(Blog editor's note: See Nov. 5, 9 and 10 above for a possible reason behind their belief that Justice Thomas would be sympathetic to their legal plea.)

In late December

Vice President Pence reaches out to former Vice President Dan Quayle to ask what he should do on Jan. 6. Quayle quickly puts the kibosh on any effort to overturn the election, telling Pence: "Mike, you have no flexibility on this. None. Zero. Forget it. Put it away."

When Pence "pressed again," explaining that he was under pressure from Trump to reject Biden's electoral college votes on Jan. 6, Quayle responded: "I do know the position you're in. I also know what the law is. You listen to the parliamentarian [who issues rulings about congressional authority]. That's all you do. You have no power.'"

Jan. 1, 2021

Trump and his cohorts continue to pressure Pence to refuse to certify the vote tally on Jan. 6, a purely ceremonial task a vice president has presided over since the country's founding.

Pence says his legal team told him there was no constitutional basis for the vice president to be able to overturn an election at the last minute. On a phone call, Trump allegedly berated Pence and told him, "You're too honest."

Jan. 2

President Trump, Giuliani and Eastman speak to 300 state legislators via a conference call to arm them with purported evidence of fraud and urge them to take action to "decertify" their election results. "You are the real power," Trump tells the state lawmakers. "You're the ones that are going to make the decision." Eastman said the legislators had the authority to appoint their own set of pro-Trump electors, regardless of who won the election in their states.

President Trump phones Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and asks him to "find" enough votes to overturn the state's election. "All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes," the exact number Trump needs to overturn Biden's win in Georgia. Trump argues Raffensperger can change the certified results of the presidential election, an assertion Raffensperger rejects.  (In the room with the president are Mark Meadows and three campaign lawyers. No Department of Justice or White House attorneys participated.)

Eastman, who founded the ironically named law firm Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, tells a radio interviewer that Vice President Pence has the power to throw the election to the House of Representatives, saying it depended on whether Pence had "courage and the spine." Says Eastman, "I think if the vice president, as presiding over the joint session, would at least agree that because those ongoing contests have not been resolved, we can't count those electors. That, that, that means that nobody has a majority of the electors. And either they delay things -- so those constitutional challenges are resolved -- or they say, 'OK, well, we don't have electors from those states, that nobody has a majority. This is going to the House.'"

Justice Department official Clark both threatens and attempts to coerce acting Attorney General Rosen into sending his letter to Georgia contesting the election results. (Clark also wants the letter sent to other states where Trump supporters are contesting Biden's vote totals.) Clark raises the prospect that Trump could fire Rosen but then says he would decline any offer to replace Rosen as acting attorney general if Rosen sends the letter. (Evidence subsequently comes to light in November, 2021 indicating that Clark's proposed letter to Georgia may have first been reviewed by the White House.)

Jan. 2 or 3

A senior Secret Service official, Anthony Ornato, tells Meadows there are intelligence reports saying there could potentially be violence on Jan. 6. Meadows responds, "All right. Let's talk about it."

Days before Jan. 6

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy tells White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson President Trump privately acknowledged losing the 2020 election.

McCarthy also tells her that he feared that Meadows was not preparing Trump to accept the election results.

Jan. 3

President Trump tries to call fellow Republican Clint Hickman, chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors in Arizona. Hickman dodges the call but listens to the audio of Trump's call and is "horrified." Hickman says he didn't call the president back because he suspected Trump would do what he did to Georgia's Secretary of State Raffensperger on Jan. 2 (i.e. ask him to "find" votes.) "I didn't want to walk into that space."

At an extraordinary Oval Office showdown, President Trump meets with the top leaders of the Justice Department.  Jeffrey Clark, an environmental lawyer who had never conducted a criminal investigation in the career, repeatedly tells the president that if named attorney general, he would conduct investigations that would uncover widespread fraud, he would send out the Georgia letter he had drafted and that he had the intelligence, the will and the desire to pursue these matters in the way that the President thought most appropriate.

Clark suggests that Justice issue a legal opinion to Vice President Pence advising him as to what actions he could take during the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress. "That's an absurd idea," Stephen Engel, assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel, interjected. "It is not the role of the Department of Justice to provide legislative officials with legal advice on the scope of their duties."

Trump tells acting Attorney General Rosen, "One thing we know is you, Rosen, aren't going to do anything to overturn the election." Department of Justice officials then warn Trump that they and other senior officials would resign en masse if Trump fires Rosen and appoints Clark. They receive immediate support from another key participant: Pat A. Cipollone, the White House counsel. Cipollone indicates that he and his top deputy, Patrick F. Philbin, will also step down if Trump acts on his plan. Only near the end of the nearly three-hour meeting does the president relent and agree to drop his threat to appoint Clark attorney general.

(Fast-forward: On July 1, 2024 the U.S. Supreme Court rules that former President Trump had absolute immunity from prosecution for his effort to use the Justice Department "to try to get officials on board with his efforts to overturn the election," CNN reported.)

The head of intelligence for the U.S. Capitol Police, after reviewing social media posts, learns that Trump supporters are desperate to overturn the election and that "Congress itself" will be the target.

(Fast-forward: On Aug. 1, 2023, Special Counsel Jack Smith indicts Trump for working to overthrow the U.S. government of President-Elect Biden. According to the indictment, in the evening of Jan. 3, 2021, President Trump met for a briefing on an overseas national security issue with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other senior national security advisors. When the chairman and another advisor recommended that the President take no action because Inauguration Day was only seventeen days away and any course of action could trigger something unhelpful, President Trump calmly agreed, stating, "Yeah, you're right, it's too late for us. We're going to give that to the next guy." Smith argues this is more evidence Trump knew he had actually lost the election.)

Jan. 4

President Trump meets with Vice President Pence, his chief of staff Marc Short, legal counsel Greg Jacob and Eastman and attempts to convince Pence that Eastman is correct when he states Pence has the authority to stop the certification of the election. The president tells his vice president, "You really need to listen to John. He's a respected constitutional scholar. Hear him out."

Eastman proposes Pence overturn the election results by throwing out electors from seven states Biden won when Congress meets to count Electoral College votes on Jan. 6. Eastman emphasizes that Pence should take the action without asking permission -- either from a vote of the joint session or from a court. "The fact is that the Constitution assigns this power to the Vice President as the ultimate arbiter." (Blog editor's note: Why didn't Richard Nixon in 1960 or All Gore in 2000 think of that !?!)

Pence tells Trump that a vice president is not invested by the framers of the Constitution with the power to dictate presidential elections. Under the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution and the Electoral Count Act, the vice president, as president of the Senate, is responsible only for opening the certificates and counting the votes on the sixth day of January following a presidential election.

"I don't want to be your friend anymore if you don't do this," Trump replied, later telling his vice president, "You've betrayed us. I made you. You were nothing." 

During the meeting, however, Eastman acknowledged to Trump, Pence, Jacob and others in the Oval Office that his strategy violated the Electoral Count Act and was illegal.

At a rally that evening in Georgia, Trump told his followers Pence was the last backstop against the election being "stolen." "I hope Mike Pence comes through for us, I have to tell you. I hope that our great vice president comes through for us. He's a great guy. Of course, if he doesn't come through, I won't like him quite as much." 

Jan. 5

On the eve of Jan. 6, President Trump makes several calls to the Willard Hotel "war room" across the street from the White House and confers with advisers and lawyers, including Giuliani, "Stop the Steal" rally organizers, constitutional "expert" Eastman and GOP officials on how to stop or at least delay the certification of Biden's electoral victory. Trump tells them that Pence is not inclined to insert himself into the certification process.

Trump allies call members of Republican-dominated legislatures in states that Biden won encouraging them to convene special sessions to investigate fraud and to reassign electoral college votes to Trump.

At a staff meeting in the Oval Office Trump repeatedly asks, "What are your ideas for getting the RINOs to do the right thing tomorrow? How do we convince Congress?"

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, texts Meadows that Pence "should call out all electoral votes that he believes are unconstitutional as no electoral votes at all -- in accordance with guidance from founding father Alexander Hamilton and judicial precedence." (Meadows responded on Jan. 6: "I have pushed for this. Not sure it is going to happen.")

Pence's top lawyer, Greg Jacob, drafts a three-page memo concluding that if Pence were to embrace Trump's demand that he single-handedly block or delay the counting of electoral votes on Jan. 6, he would be breaking multiple provisions of the Electoral Count Act, the law that has governed the transfer of power since 1887.

Pence endures another berating by Trump after telling the president that experts flatly rejected the president's plan. Trump shouted, "No, no, no!" Furious, Trump says: "You've betrayed us. I made you. You were nothing. Your career is over if you do this."

According to reports, Pence tells Trump, "You're not going to be sworn in on the 20th. There is no scenario in which you can be sworn in on the 20th."

Meadows sends an email indicating the National Guard would be at the Capitol the next day to "protect pro Trump people." 

Trump confidant Steve Bannon, who is also at the Willard Hotel "war room" as it's senior political adviser, predicts on his podcast, "All hell is going to break loose tomorrow. Just understand this. All hell is going to break loose tomorrow. It's gonna be moving. It's gonna be quick." 

Vice President Pence's chief of staff, Marc Short, calls Tim Giebels, Pence's lead Secret Service agent, to his West Wing office and tells him the president is going to turn publicly against the vice president, and, as a result, there could be a security risk to Pence.

Meanwhile, the far-right militant group Oath Keepers drops off luggage carts at a Washington D.C. hotel filled with gun boxes, rifle cases, suitcases full of ammunition and enough supplies to last 30 days. It's leader, Stewart Rhodes, a Yale law graduate and disbarred attorney, had earlier told fellow Oath Keepers, "I think Congress will screw (President Trump) over. The only chance we/he has is if we scare the shit out of them." (Fast-forward: On Nov. 29, 2022 a jury found Rhodes guilty of seditious conspiracy over his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Prosecutors on May 5, 2023 asked court to sentence Rhodes to 25 years in prison. He was sentenced to 18 years.)

Jan. 6

The people who erected the infamous gallows and noose on the west front of the Capitol begin their work in the predawn hours. And at around 6 a.m., several people wheel large wooden beams across Union Square near Independence Avenue to the Ellipse where they set up a gallows and noose in preparation of President Trump's rally.

Later in the morning, President Trump tweets, "States want to correct their votes, which they now know were based on irregularities and fraud, plus corrupt process never received legislative approval. All Mike Pence has to do is send them back to the States, AND WE WIN. Do it Mike, this is a time for extreme courage!"

At 11:20 a.m., during Trump's final call with Pence before heading to the rally, the president pressures the vice president once more to overturn the election. "You can either go down in history as a patriot or you can go down in history as a pussy." 

But Pence sends a letter to Congress stating, "It is my considered judgment that my oath to support and defend the Constitution constrains me from claiming unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not."

As the joint session of Congress convenes to confirm the Biden victory, thousands of Trump supporters gather on the Ellipse near the White House for the "Stop the Steal" rally. 

Deputy Chief of Staff Tony Ornato tells President Trump some of his supporters are bringing weapons to the rally. Trump demands all his supporters be let into the secure area for his rally. "I don't fucking care that they have weapons. They're not here to hurt me. Take the fucking mags (metal detectors) away. Let my people in. They can march to the Capitol from here." 

Secret Service agents confiscate a haul of weapons from the 28,000 spectators who did pass through the magnetometers: 242 canisters of pepper spray, 269 knives or blades, 18 brass knuckles, 18 tasers, 6 pieces of body armor, 3 gas masks, 30 batons or blunt instruments, and 17 miscellaneous items like scissors, needles or screwdrivers.

Future Speaker of the House, Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA), tweets: "We MUST fight for election integrity, the Constitution, and the preservation of our republic! It will be my honor to help lead that fight in Congress today."

President Trump begins speaking at noon, and tells the crowd, "If Mike Pence does the right thing we win the election. All Vice President Pence has to do is send it back to the states to recertify and we become president and you are the happiest people." In fact, more than a half-dozen times during his 70-minute speech, the 45th president turns his attention to his vice president, assuring the crowd, without reservation, that the vice president possesses the constitutional authority to deliver his administration a second term. "Mike Pence, I hope you're going to stand up for the good of our Constitution and the good of our country and if you're not, I'm going to be very disappointed in you."

President Trump then urges his supporters to march to the Capitol, saying he would march with them. "You'll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong. We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore."

Just after 1 p.m., Trump leaves the rally expecting to be taken to the Capitol. When his Secret Service detail refuses for security reasons, Trump yells, "I'm the fucking President. Take me up to the Capitol now." 

According to reports, Trump is so angry, he lunges for the steering wheel of the car and then for the throat of the Secret Service agent sitting in the front passenger seat. (Fast-forward: On March 11, 2024 the media reports the GOP released a report indicating that an unnamed Secret Service agent denied the president ever made a lunge for the steering wheel of his driver.) 

Within 15 minutes of finishing his speech, an aide tells the president the Capitol is under attack.

At 1:49 p.m., Trump, back in the White House watching the riot on Fox News, retweets a video of himself rallying the crowd: "We will not take it anymore and that's what this is all about...You'll never get back your country with weakness. You have to show strength."

Beginning shortly before 2 p.m., hundreds of Trump supporters begin a battle with police, crying out, "Hang Mike Pence!" 

At 2:05, Chief of Staff Meadows tells aide Cassidy Hutchinson he hasn't spoken with Trump. "He wants to be alone now."

By 2:20 p.m., after protesters break windows and climb into the Capitol, the building goes into lockdown. The Oath Keepers breach the Capitol in military formation.

White House Counsel Cipollone demands to see Trump but Meadows says Trump "doesn't want to do anything." Cipollone tells Meadows, "Mark, something needs to be done, or people are going to die and the blood's going to be on your fucking hands."

 When Cipollone and Meadows finally do talk to Trump in the White House dining room about rioters' chanting "hang Mike Pence," Trump says the vice president "deserved" it.

At 2:24 p.m., President Trump tweets, "Mike Pence didn't have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!"

At 2:26 p.m. the Secret Service and Capitol Police escort Vice President Pence, his wife and daughter to a "secure area" - the underground Senate loading dock - within the Capitol complex.  Secret Service agent Tim Giebels asks Pence to get into one of the vehicles. Pence replies, "I'm not getting in the car, Tim. I trust you, Tim, but you're not driving the car. If I get in that vehicle, you guys are taking off. I'm not getting in the car." They remain at the loading dock for the next three hours.

Secret Service agents with the vice president are so concerned about their personal safety some make calls to their families to say good-bye.

In one phone call, Sen. Tommy Tuberville tells Trump, "They've taken the Vice President out. They want me to get off the phone. I gotta go." Aide Nick Luna said that when Trump was informed that Pence had to be rushed to a secure location, Trump responded, "So what?"

President Trump never calls Pence or asks about his welfare.

Pence calls Christopher Miller, the acting secretary of defense, to demand he deploy the National Guard.

While also sheltering in the loading dock, Pence's attorney Greg Jacob asks Eastman in an email, "Did you advise the President that in your professional judgment the Vice President DOES NOT have the power to decide things unilaterally?" Eastman states that the President had "been so advised," but then adds: "But you know him - once he gets something in his head, it is hard to get him to change course."

At 2:38 p.m., minutes after Ivanka Trump speaks with her father about the riot, President Trump tweets support for the Capitol Police, urging people to "stay peaceful," while scenes of violence and mayhem are splashed across American TV. "I am asking for everyone at the U.S. Capitol to remain peaceful. No violence! Remember, WE are the Party of Law & Order - respect the Law and our great men and women in Blue. Thank you!" Trump doesn't tell them to go home.

President Trump watches the riot on Fox News in the dining room next to the Oval Office, "pleased, not disturbed, that his supporters had disrupted the election count," according to witnesses. In fact, Trump's attention is so rapt that he hits rewind and re-watches parts of the riot. He says his supporters looked "very trashy" but appreciated their fight.  Trump places no calls to any agency of the U.S. government instructing them to take action to halt the riot.

Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) says Trump was "walking around the White House confused about why other people on his team weren't as excited as he was."

As the president sat watching TV inside the White House, Trump "was just not interested" in doing more to stop it, according to aide Dan Scavino.

At 2:53 p.m. Donald Trump Jr. texts Meadows, "He's got to condemn this shit. Asap. The captiol police tweet is not enough." Donald Jr. also texts Meadows: "They will try to fuck his entire legacy on this if it gets worse." 

Trump is informed of the fatal shooting of rioter Ashli Babbitt after 3:05 pm with a note, written by White House aide William "Beau" Harrison, that read: "1x CIVILIAN GUNSHOT WOUND TO CHEST @ DOOR OF HOUSE CHABER." There is no indication that this affected the President's state of mind or that the President expressed any remorse.

Eastman emails Greg Jacob insisting that Pence could still reject electors from Arizona and other states. Jacob replies by email: "I have run down every legal trail placed before me to its conclusion, and I respectfully conclude that as a legal framework, it is a results-oriented position that you would never support if attempted by the opposition, and essentially entirely made up. And thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege."

Ivanka Trump, senior advisor to the president, asks her father again to "please stop this violence."

GOP House leader Kevin McCarthy, protected by Capital police, phones President Trump to give him a first-hand report of the violence in the Capitol building. McCarthy tells Trump, "I just got evacuated from the Capitol! There were shots fired right off the House floor. You need to make this stop." Trump initially claims the protesters are linked to Antifa, referring to a network of "leftist" protesters and criminals. When McCarthy pushes back, saying, no, the protesters are Trump supporters, the president responds, "Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are." McCarthy yells back, "Who the fuck do you think you are talking to?"

(The Republican House leader asked multiple members of Trump's family for help, including Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. Kushner later characterized Leader McCarthy's demeanor on the call as "scared.")

At 3:17 p.m., Fox News reports gunshots are heard on Capitol Hill. 

President Trump continues to watch events unfold on Fox News in the executive dining room. "He was hard to reach, and you know why? Because it was live TV," says one close adviser.

At 4:15 p.m., Joe Biden holds a press conference and urges the mob to "pull back," calling on Trump "to go on national television...and demand an end to this siege."

At 4:17 p.m., 187 minutes after President Trump began his speech at the rally, Trump finally asks his followers to go home. "I know your pain. I know your hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us. We have to have peace. So go home. We love you, you're very special."  

The insurgency finally ends.

At 6:01 p.m., Trump tweets that "these are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots."

And at 9:02 p.m. Congress certifies the Electoral College vote - with Vice President Pence performing his ceremonial role of presiding over the process - naming Joe Biden president-elect.  However, 147 Republican senators and representatives - more than half of the Republicans in Congress, including future Speakers of the House Kevin McCarthy and Mike Johnson - join in objecting to the final certification of the Arizona and Pennsylvania electoral slates that voted for Biden. 

Postscript:  At 11:44 p.m. on Jan. 6, 2021, John Eastman writes an email imploring Greg Jacob, Vice President Pence's counsel, to urge his boss to suspend the session certifying the election. Eastman argued that because the House and Senate had violated the Electoral Count Act by debating the objection for more than two hours, Pence could violate it further by adjourning for 10 days. "So now that the precedent has been set that the Electoral Count Act is not quite so sacrosanct as was previously claimed, I implore you to consider one more relatively minor violation and adjourn for 10 days to allow the legislatures to finish their investigations," Eastman wrote. After reviewing the email, Pence called it "rubber room stuff."

*

Justice Department, states investigate and file charges against GOP plot to submit fake Electoral College votes, Trump named as unindicted co-conspirator

Trump appeals

New York AG sues Trump for $250 million, judge rules he owes $454 million, Trump pays $175 million to appeal, plus daily trial notes

The Latest:  Former President Trump is appealing the civil fraud ruling that demands he pay over $450 million, Fox News reported.

The former president's legal team filed paperwork with a mid-level appeals court in New York on July 22, calling Judge Arthur Engoron's in February "draconian, unlawful, and unconstitutional."

"Such an outrageous miscarriage of justice is profoundly un-American, and a complete reversal is the only means available to restore public confidence in the integrity of the New York judicial system," Christopher Kise, a lawyer for Trump, said.

"We won this case based on the facts and the law, and we are confident we will prevail on appeal," the attorney general's office said in a statement.

Engoron ruled in February that Trump and other defendants were liable for persistent and repeated fraud, falsifying business records, issuing false financial statements, conspiracy to falsify false financial statements, insurance fraud and conspiracy to commit insurance fraud.

In September 2023, before the non-jury trial, Engoron ruled that Trump and the Trump Organization had committed fraud while building his real estate empire by deceiving banks, insurers and others by overvaluing his assets and exaggerating his net worth on paperwork used in making deals and securing financing.

Trump was hit with an initial penalty of $355 million. That sum is quickly increasing via interest accruals of approximately $112,000 a day until paid in full, now sitting around $470 million.

Background:  The genesis of the New York Attorney General Letitia James' $250 million lawsuit against Donald Trump et. al. announced in September, 2022 began in 2006 when Trump had a one-night affair with porn star Stormy Daniels. Ten years later and one month before the 2016 presidential election, GOP candidate Trump's personal attorney, Michael Cohen, paid Daniels $130,000 to keep her mouth shut about the affair. 

The attorney general's initial investigation began in March 2019 after Cohen testified before Congress detailing Trump's alleged fraud in New York State, claiming the Trump Organization had lied about the value of its assets in order to secure loans and insurance and to reduce its tax liability. (Note: When James announced her office's $250 million lawsuit against Trump et al for fraud on Sept. 21, 2022, she credited Cohen's testimony for triggering the investigation.)

The attorney general's office subsequently deposed Eric Trump, executive vice president of the Trump Organization, in October, 2020. The New York Times reported that during his deposition, Eric Trump invoked his Fifth Amendment right against incriminating himself in response to more than 500 questions. Allen Weisselberg, CFO of the Trump Organization, also pleaded the Fifth repeatedly during his Feb. 24, 2020 deposition.

On Jan. 18, 2022 James alleged in a court filing that Trump's business inflated the value of its properties and misstated his personal worth in representations to lenders, insurance brokers and other players in his real estate empire, the Washington Post reported.

Two examples: According to Insider, an apartment leased by Ivanka Trump from the Trump Organization was given a sky-high public valuation of $25 million but offered to her for purchase for $8.5 million.

And, second, Trump claimed in a recorded interview his personal triplex apartment spanned 30,000 square feet, giving it an eye-popping value of $327 million. "This is the entire floor of Trump Tower, just so you understand," Trump said in the interview. "This isn't like, I'll show you. Now, this wraps all around the building. All around the elevators. And I have three times three. So there's like 11,000 feet on a floor. So I have three. So 33,000—and I have the roof." In truth, Forbes reported in 2017, the apartment is "only" 10,996 square feet.  "Mr. Trump's long-serving chief financial officer, Allen H. Weisselberg, later acknowledged to investigators that the company had overvalued the apartment by 'give or take' $200 million."

And then on Feb. 14 Trump's long-time accounting firm announced it had ended its relationship with the Trump Organization. USA Today reported the firm, Mazars, said that a decade of Trump Organization financial statements "should no longer be relied upon."

On April 25, the district attorney's office told a court that evidence uncovered in the investigation into the Seven Springs Estate in Westchester County, New York, and the Trump National Golf Club in L.A., "indicates that the Trump Organization submitted fraudulent or misleading valuations of conservation easements to the Internal Revenue Service."

Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump sat for questioning in the investigation - Ivanka on Aug. 3 and Don Jr. on July 28. Trump Jr. did not assert his Fifth Amendment rights. He denied any role in preparing the company's financial statements.

Former President Trump completed his court-ordered testimony on Aug. 10 - raising his right hand, swearing to tell the truth and then declining to answer most of the questions. Like his son, Eric, he invoked the Fifth protecting himself from self-incrimination 440 times during the four-hour interview.

And then on Sept. 21, James filed the $250 million lawsuit against Trump, the Trump Organization, his three oldest children, and two top executives, Allan Weisselberg and Jeff McConney.   James' statement reads, in part, "The lawsuit alleges that Donald Trump, with the help of his children Donald Trump, Jr., Ivanka Trump, and Eric Trump, and senior executives at the Trump Organization, falsely inflated his net worth by billions of dollars to induce banks to lend money to the Trump Organization on more favorable terms than would otherwise have been available to the company, to satisfy continuing loan covenants, to induce insurers to provide insurance coverage for higher limits and at lower premiums, and to gain tax benefits, among other things. From 2011-2021, Mr. Trump and the Trump Organization knowingly and intentionally created more than 200 false and misleading valuations of assets on his annual Statements of Financial Condition to defraud financial institutions."

The potential civil penalties would destroy Trump's New York business. The lawsuit seeks to:

• Permanently bar Trump, Donald Trump, Jr., Ivanka Trump, and Eric Trump from serving as an officer or director in any corporation or similar business entity registered and/or licensed in New York state;
• Bar Trump and the Trump Organization from entering into any New York state commercial real estate acquisitions for a period of five years;
• Bar Trump and the Trump Organization from applying for loans from any financial institution registered with the New York Department of Financial Services for a period of five years.

James' office also asked a judge to bar former President Trump from moving his businesses to a new holding company, CNBC reported Oct. 13. (On Sept. 21, the same day that Attorney General James sued Trump and the other defendants, her office saw that the Trump Organization had registered with New York's secretary of state a new company, called "Trump Organization II LLC." That new firm is incorporated in Delaware.) 

New York state Judge Arthur Engoron on Nov. 3 ordered an independent monitor be appointed to oversee the Trump Organization before the case goes to trial, Reuters reported. In October, James had asked the Manhattan-based judge to appoint a watchdog to halt "staggering" fraud at the company and keep the Trumps from transferring assets out of state.

Barbara Jones, a retired federal judge, was subsequently appointed to keep an eye on the company's future financial filings.

Trump returned to New York City April 13, 2023 to sit for a second deposition, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News. One of his lawyers said the former president had spent nearly seven hours "describing in detail his extraordinary business success and how the transactions at the center of this case were wildly profitable for the banks and for the Trump entities."

Ivanka Trump has hired her own counsel to represent her, Forbes reported April 26. And on June 27, an appeals court dropped her from the lawsuit, ruling she was not involved in the management of the company during the time of the alleged crimes.

Attorney General James asked a judge Aug. 30 for a partial summary judgment against Trump, citing what she called a "mountain of undisputed evidence" of false and misleading financial statements. "Based on the undisputed evidence, no trial is required for the Court to determine that Defendants presented grossly and materially inflated asset values in the SFCs [financial statements] and then used those SFCs repeatedly in business transactions to defraud banks and insurers."

On Sept. 8, Bloomberg reported that Attorney General James accused Trump of exaggerating his net worth by as much as $3.6 billion a year by inflating the value of his biggest assets. The new calculation is part of James's request that a New York state judge hold Trump liable for fraud even before her $250 million suit against him, his two eldest sons and his company goes to trial on Oct. 2.

And then Judge Arthur Engoron found Trump and his adult sons liable for fraud, saying the Trumps provided false financial statements for roughly a decade, CNN reported Sept. 27. Judge Engoron ruled they were liable for "persistent and repeated" fraud.

The judge ordered the cancellation of the business certificates for firms in the state owned by former President Trump and others associated with the Trump Organization, casting into doubt the future of the empire on which Trump has built his reputation for business acumen, ABC News reported Sept. 28. (A New York appeals court later paused the cancellation of the business licenses until after it hears Trump's case. The business licenses were ultimately not cancelled when the final judgment was issued in 2024.)

The trial began Oct. 2, with Trump in the courtroom. The attorney general's office is looking to prove six claims: falsifying business records, conspiracy to falsify business records, issuing false financial statements, conspiracy to falsify false financial statements, insurance fraud, and conspiracy to commit insurance fraud.

The gag order barring former President Trump and his counsel from speaking about the staff of the New York judge overseeing his ongoing business fraud trial was reinstated by an appeals court, The Hill reported Nov. 30.

New York Attorney General James called for a $370 million fine against Trump and his companies and a lifetime ban on him and two of his former company executives from the real estate industry in the state, NBC News reported Jan. 5, 2024. Attorneys from James' office said that Trump owes $168 million of interest allegedly saved through fraud; $152 million from the sale of the Old Post Office building in Washington, D.C., the site of one of Trump's hotels; $60 million through the transfer of the Ferry Point Golf Course contract; and $2.5 million from severance agreements for former Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg and ex-Trump Organization controller Jeff McConney.

On Feb. 16, 2024 New York Judge Engoron handed Trump a crushing defeat, finding the former president liable for conspiring to manipulate his net worth and ordering him to pay a penalty of $354 million that could wipe out his entire stockpile of cash, the New York Times reported.

"Not only did Justice Engoron impose a three-year ban preventing Mr. Trump from serving in top roles at any New York company, including his own, but the judge also applied that punishment to the former president's adult sons for two years."

Trump called it a "Complete and Total SHAM."

Judge Engoron concluded that Trump and his co-defendants "failed to accept responsibility" for their actions and that expert witnesses who testified for the defense "simply denied reality."  The judge called the civil fraud at the heart of the trial a "venial sin, not a mortal sin." Engoron said the refusal by Trump and his associates to admit wrongdoing suggested they would continue if not constrained. Donald Jr. and Eric were both fined $4 million. Former CFO Allen Weisselberg was fined $1 million.

Newsweek reported Feb. 27 Donald Trump was hit with a pre-interest fine of $355 million but actually owes more than $464 million. 

Trump on Feb. 26 asked an intermediate-level state appellate court to overturn Justice Arthur Engoron's Feb. 16 ruling. 

And then the former chief financial officer of the Trump Organization pleaded guilty to perjury charges stemming from his testimony in former President Trump's civil fraud trial, The Hill reported March 4. Allen Weisselberg was charged with five felony counts of perjury. He pleaded guilty to two counts for lying during a 2020 deposition as the New York attorney general's office built its civil fraud case against the Trump Organization.  As part of the plea deal, he also admitted he lied in his trial testimony and during another deposition last year, without pleading guilty to those charges. He is expected to be sentenced to five months in jail, the amount of time prosecutors requested.

Trump's lawyers told a New York appellate court that it's impossible for him to post a bond covering the full amount of his $455 million civil fraud judgment while he appeals, the Associated Press reported March 18. The former president's lawyers wrote in a court filing that "obtaining an appeal bond in the full amount" of the judgment "is not possible under the circumstances presented."

According to the AP, Trump owes $456.8 million in the New York case. In all, he and co-defendants including his company and top executives owe $467.3 million. To obtain a bond, they would be required to post collateral worth $557 million, Trump's lawyers said.

Barbara S. Jones, who has been babysitting the real estate company for more than a year, was granted enhanced powers to oversee the Trump Organization by New York Supreme Court Justice Engoron, the Daily Beast reported March 21. As part of the arrangement, the organization must open its books to Jones, who has also been given the ability to suggest court-ordered changes in how the Trump Organization operates. She must also be notified about any large cash transfers, the creation or dissolution of assets, the restructuring of debt and "any efforts to secure surety bonds," according to Engoron's order issued March 21.

Trump's attorneys admitted March 21 the former president/alleged billionaire doesn't have the cash or stocks necessary, citing the inability of Trump's advisors to convince 30 bond companies to do business. He even sought the court's permission to secure a $100 million bond.

But the next day, March 22, Trump himself claimed on Truth Social that he had "almost" $500 million in cash. "I currently have almost five hundred million dollars in cash, a substantial amount of which I intended to use in my campaign for president." (Blog editor's note: Trump has never used his own money to run political campaigns.)

A five-member appeals court slashed former President Trump's bond payment, saying Trump must pay $175 million within the next 10 days, Fox News reported March 25.

And in related news, the State of New York's Appellate Division, First Judicial Department ruled that Judge Engoron's decision "permanently barring defendants Weisselberg and McConney from serving in the financial control function of any New York corporation or similar business entity; barring defendants Donald J. Trump, Weisselberg and McConney from serving as an officer or director of any New York corporation for three years; barring defendant Donald J. Trump and the corporate defendants from applying for loans from New York financial institutions for three years; and barring defendants Donald Trump, Jr. and Eric Trump from serving as an officer or director of any New York corporation in New York for two years" is stayed when Trump files the appeal bond.

However, the court kept in place the overseer - Judge Jones - for the Trump Organization.

Trump posted a $175 million bond, halting collection of the more than $454 million he owes and preventing the state from seizing his assets to satisfy the debt while he appeals, according to a court filing, the Associated Press reported April 1.

Forbes reported April 3, "It's unclear how long the appeal will take to play out, though interest will continue to accrue on the full $464.6 million at a rate of nine percent per year until it's fully paid off—which amounts to more than $111,000 per day for the $454.2 million that Trump personally owes alone."

Daily trial notes

On Oct. 2, 2023 the first day of trial, the prosecution showed clips from the depositions of Donald Trump and Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization's former CFO. Weisselberg admitted he doesn't know much about GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) and Trump says Weisselberg was responsible for submitting company financials based on GAAP. Donald Trump Jr. also admitted he wasn't familiar with GAAP.

With Trump attending the trial Oct. 3, James' attorney questioned a Mazars USA accountant who did work for the Trump Organization in an effort to build the state's case that Trump and others at his company had full control over the preparation of misleading and downright false financial statements at the heart of the lawsuit.

Trump stayed for half the day on Oct. 4. During the trial, Cameron Harris, an accountant from the firm Whitley Penn, who also did work for the Trump Organization, also testified that the Trumps had the ultimate responsibility for their financial statements. The judge then issued an order barring Trump or any other defendants from transferring any assets or creating a new entity to acquire them without disclosure first and said that a monitor — former Judge Barbara Jones — must be informed if the defendants intend to move their assets or create a new entity. 

On Oct. 5, Jeff McConney, the former controller of the Trump Organization and a co-defendant of former President Trump, testified that Eric Trump directed him to factor certain things into the calculations that ultimately led to what the New York attorney general says are inflated valuations of properties, including Seven Springs and the Trump National Golf Club Westchester.

McConney testified that although some of the inflated or deflated valuations in Trump's properties were errors, others were intentional—such as unbuilt mansions on his Seven Springs estate in Westchester County, New York, were valued at $161 million, adding to Trump's stated net worth. McConney also said he didn't act alone and discussed the valuations with Weisselberg, who told McConney that if he refused to cooperate, he could lose his job. Weisselberg, who separately pleaded guilty to criminal tax crimes, testified that Trump reviewed the financial statements before they were final.

On Oct. 10, Weisselberg acknowledged the Trump Organization failed to fulfill some of the basic promises detailed in letters between the firm and its external accountant, Mazars USA. Weisselberg also replied to questions with variations of 'I don't recall.' He didn't recall speaking with Trump, Donald Trump Jr., or Eric Trump about financial documents, which were crucial to the company's efforts to make deals with banks and insurers. He didn't recall the phrase "estimated current value," which both sides agree is crucial to understanding their agreements. And he didn't recall details of "generally accepted accounting principles," noting he's not a certified public accountant.

On Oct. 12, Trump Organization assistant vice president Patrick Birney testified that former chief financial officer Weisselberg told him that Trump wanted to puff up his net worth on his statements of financial condition.

ABC News on Oct. 17 reported Doug Larson, who works for the real estate firm Newmark, was listed in a series of Trump Organization documents as having appraised properties like 40 Wall Street, Trump Tower, and the retail space adjoining Trump Tower known as "Niketown." But under questioning, Larson denied having done the appraisal work. "Is it fair to say that Mr. Trump valued Trump Tower at $526 million in conjunction with you?" said Ladov. "No, that is incorrect," Larson replied.

Former Trump "fixer" and attorney Michael Cohen on Oct. 24 described for the court his role in the scheme. "I was tasked by Mr. Trump to increase the total assets based upon a number that he arbitrarily elected, and my responsibility along with Allen Weisselberg, primarily, was to reverse engineer" the value of Trump Organization assets, "in order to achieve the number that Mr. Trump tasked us." Asked what he meant by "whatever number," Cohen did not miss a beat in answering. "Whatever number Mr. Trump told us to," he said. Trump attended the court session.

Cohen acknowledged under questioning Oct. 25 by an attorney for the former U.S. president that he has a financial incentive to criticize his ex-boss but defended his credibility. And on the same day, Trump was fined $10,000 for violating a gag order that prevented him from speaking about those overseeing his civil fraud trial in New York, The Hill reported.

Michiel McCarty, a banking expert, testified that Trump and his company benefited more than $168 million by obtaining favorable loan terms on transactions where the former president personally guaranteed the loans. 

On Nov. 2, Donald Trump Jr. testified that his accountants, and not him, prepared the financial statements for the Trump Organization, which are at the heart of the $250 million lawsuit. Eric Trump, after claiming that he had "never worked" on the Trump Organization's statement of financial condition and wasn't aware of it until the bank fraud trial "came to fruition," admitted he was, in fact, aware of it as far back as 2013.

Judge Engoron issued a new gag order Nov. 3 barring attorneys in the case from publicly discussing the judge's communications with members of his staff. In court, Christopher Kise, one of Trump's defense attorneys, had taken issue with Engoron's close consultations with his law clerk, alleging the clerk could be politically biased against Trump and raised concerns about the number of notes she has passed to the judge during the trial.

Eric Trump wrapped up his testimony Nov. 3, reiterating that he relied on others to ensure the financial statements were accurate. However, documents shown by the attorney general's legal team also showed Eric Trump had to sign off on the statements estimating the values of some of Trump Organization properties. Eric Trump also described how the Trump Organization's severance agreement promised $2 million to its former chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg if he refrained from denigrating the company, The Messenger reported.

Politico reported Nov. 6 that when Donald Trump took the stand, his primary defense was that his financial statements contained 'very, very powerful' disclaimers and therefore weren't intended for use by banks or insurers. (In his original ruling, Engoron rejected the defense's argument about the disclaimer clause by noting another part of the passage that reads, "Donald J. Trump is responsible for the preparation and fair presentation of the financial statement." The judge ruled, "The Mazars disclaimers put the onus for accuracy squarely on defendants' shoulders.")

Asked to name properties he believed were over- or under-valued, Trump responded by saying his Trump Tower triplex apartment had likely been overvalued, then launched into a soliloquy about brand value. 

BBC reported: Like his two sons in their testimony last week, the former president said it was the Trump Organization accountants who bore responsibility for the financial reports. "All I did was authorise and give people whatever was necessary for the accountants to do the statement."

But Trump also testified that "everyone" in the company was responsible, presumably including top executives such as his sons and himself.

CNN reported: "The AG's office attorney Kevin Wallace also pressed Trump on why valuations of properties were changed, such as his Trump Tower triplex, which was devalued on his financial statement in 2017 after a Forbes article found he had dramatically exaggerated the size of the apartment. Trump acknowledged there had on occasion been mistakes, such as the Trump Tower apartment valuation."

Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling at The New Republic reported:

Trump minced words during a pivotal moment of his New York bank fraud trial, claiming that the language used in Mar-a-Lago's deed from 2002 wasn't binding.

The "deed of development rights" for the property outlines that "the Club and Trump intend to forever extinguish their right to develop or use the Property for any purpose other than club use"—but according to Trump, that doesn't mean the language is legally binding.

"'Intend' doesn't mean we will do it," he specified.

According to AG James, Trump's valuation of the Florida property, which was at times as high as $739 million, was made based on violating deed restrictions by selling it as a private residence.

On Nov. 8, like her brothers and her father, Ivanka Trump distanced herself on the stand from the former president's statements of financial condition — documents at the heart of the New York attorney general's case.

"Did you have any role in preparing Donald J. Trump's statements of financial condition?" state lawyer Louis Solomon asked. "Not that I'm aware of," Ivanka Trump replied. "To your knowledge, did you ever provide valuations for any assets reflected on Donald J. Trump's statements of financial condition?" Solomon asked. "Not that I can recall," Ivanka Trump said.

Ivanka Trump did testify about the positive relationship she cultivated with the private wealth management group at Deutsche Bank, and how the bank expressed its desire to do more business with the Trump Organization.

ABC News reported: In 2011, as the Trump Organization sought financing for its purchase and renovation of the Doral golf club in Miami, Deutsche Bank agreed to loan Trump the necessary funds, with one critical catch -- the deal would be secured by Donald Trump's net worth.

"Is DJT willing to do that? Also, the net worth covenants and DJT indebtedness limitations would seem to me to be a problem?" Trump Organization executive Jason Greenblatt wrote in an email to Ivanka Trump and CFO Allen Weisselberg. The arrangement required Trump to maintain a net worth of $3 billion.

Ivanka Trump asked Deutsche Bank to lower the amount of wealth her father would have to maintain, according to an email exchange entered into evidence.

"As I said before, I don't recall the net worth covenant," Ivanka Trump testified.

She proposed $2 billion, emails show. Deutsche Bank ultimately settled for $2.5 billion.

The loan negotiation for her father suggested his true net worth was much lower than what he claimed on his financial statements at the time, Politico reported.

On Nov. 14, longtime friend and heavy-hitter donor to the former president, real estate executive Steven Witkoff, became the first expert witness for Donald Trump in a lower Manhattan courtroom, The Messenger reported.

According to ProPublica, Witkoff had donated more than $2 million to the former president, and he became one of Trump's informal advisers on tax cuts during his administration.

Judge Engoron limited Witkoff's opinions on specific Trump properties to only one at issue in the case: 40 Wall Street. The judge previously found that Trump inflated the value of his downtown skyscraper by hundreds of millions of dollars every year for five years. But Witkoff said that the building could have been justified by its value, if it were converted into condominiums.

During cross-examination, the state's counsel Andrew Amer confronted the witness with records showing that option wasn't available to the Trump Organization, which adjusted the ground lease agreement to state that it "eliminates" the property's "condominium conversion rights."

Former Trump Organization controller Jeff McConney testified on Nov. 21 that he overvalued Donald Trump's penthouse apartment by over $100 million because he relied on a Trump Organization broker who falsely represented the apartment as 30,000 square feet. McConney drew a blank – "I don't remember" - when asked why Trump's Mar-a-Lago property was valued as a private residence rather than a social club. The property was valued in excess of $500 million on the basis that it could be sold as a private residence -- despite Trump signing a deed in 2002 with the National Trust for Historic Preservation that limited the property to being used as a club. And McConney acknowledged that "Just because an appraisal was done, does not mean it reflects the value of that property." McConney appeared to acknowledge that the Trump Organization choose to ignore a 2015 appraisal that valued its 40 Wall Street property at $540 million, while Trump valued the property in his financial statement at $735 million.

McConney was asked if Trump would get final review of every net-worth statement until leaving for the White House in 2017. "That was my understanding, yes."

On Nov. 27, a Trump Organization executive testified that the company no longer produces financial statements that are at the heart of the case. The company continues to prepare various audits and other financial reports specific to some of its components, but "there is no roll-up financial statement of the company," said Mark Hawthorn, the chief operating officer of the Trump Organization's hotel arm.

On Nov. 28, a Deutsche Bank executive testified that when the bank loaned Trump's company hundreds of millions of dollars, the bank always followed its own guidelines that included checking out information that would-be borrowers provide, the Associated Press reported.

Deutsche Bank reviewed the financial statements before making the loans through its department that works with rich individuals — a pathway that allowed for more favorable interest rates than likely available from the commercial real estate division, according to the lawsuit.

But, testifying for the defense, managing director David Williams said the bankers viewed clients' reports of their net worth as "subjective or subject to estimates" and took its own view of such financial statements.

Following the adjournment of court on Nov. 30, Trump attorney Chris Kise criticized the attorney general's case on the basis of testimony from the Deutsche Bank executives who said they were eager to do business with Trump regardless of the contents of his financial statements. Kise described the case as a "fraud with no victims" in comments to ABC News.

On Dec. 7, ABC News reported, "If Donald Trump was a student in Eli Bartov's class, his statements of financial condition would earn him an 'A,' the New York University professor said on the stand. 'I've never seen a statement that provides so much detail and is so transparent as these statements,' Bartov insisted, praising the awesome amount of information' in the financial documents that are at the center of the New York attorney general's case against Trump. 'There is no fraud here,'" Bartov said flatly.

Despite his effusive praise for the statements, the professor attempted to underplay the significance of the documents, emphasizing that lenders would be expected to do their own valuations to decide about lending to Trump. Deutsche Bank's credit memos -- which regularly marked down Trump's asset values by as much as 50% -- proved that the banks used additional information to independently scrutinize Trump's financial statements, according to Bartov.

According to ABC News by Dec. 11, Trump had spent at least $2.5 million on expert witnesses who testified over the last month. The defense's accounting expert, Eli Bartov, was paid approximately $877,500 for his expert analysis.

E. Jean Carroll sues, wins $5 million, sues for $10 million, awarded $83.3 million, Trump pays that much to appeal, plus notes from both trials

Explanation of two lawsuits:

Lawsuit #1 - This lawsuit was filed in 2019 after President Trump allegedly defamed Carroll for accusations Carroll made about him in a memoir published earlier that year. The case had been held up for four years by a dispute on the question of whether Trump was acting as president or an individual when he allegedly defamed Carroll. On May 22, 2023 Carroll amended the lawsuit - she was now seeking $10 million in compensatory damages and "substantially more" in defamation damages - after Trump again allegedly defamed her, this time days after a jury, in lawsuit #2, awarded her $5 million. In September, 2023, Judge Kaplan ruled Trump had defamed Carroll with his 2019 comments. The judge set a Jan. 16 trial date and ruled that only damages must be decided in the trial. On Jan. 26, 2024 the jury awarded Carroll $83.3 million.

Lawsuit #2 - A year-and-a-half after leaving the White House, Trump attacked Carroll on Truth Social, calling her allegations of rape "a hoax and a lie," triggering the defamation and sexual battery charges in Carroll's second lawsuit. A trial on the case concluded May 9, 2023 with a Manhattan federal court jury finding she had been sexually abused by Trump in spring, 1996 in the dressing room of a Bergdorf Goodman store and awarding Carroll $5 million. See "Day-by-day trial notes" below.

Background: Former President Trump was sued in federal court for defamation by writer/columnist E. Jean Carroll, who wrote in a 2019 magazine article that Trump raped her in the mid-1990s in the dressing room of Bergdorf Goodman, a luxury New York department store.

Carroll filed her first lawsuit against Trump in November 2019 claiming President Trump defamed her when he told a reporter "she's not my type" and accused Carroll of lying "in order to increase book sales, carry out a political agenda, advance a conspiracy with the Democratic Party, and make money." President Trump also claimed he never had met Carroll. (As to his claims "she's not my type" and that he had never met Carroll, during his Oct. 19, 2022 deposition for the lawsuit, Trump was shown a photo of the two of them at a party years ago. Trump mistook Carroll for his second wife, Marla Maples.)

On Jan. 9, 2020, a New York State Supreme Court judge denied President Trump's request to dismiss the defamation lawsuit. In a highly controversial move, the DOJ then stepped in to defend then-President Trump, claiming his denunciation of Carroll was part of his official duties and, therefore, the United States, and not President Trump, was the defendant in the case. But Carroll's attorneys argued that "only in a world gone mad could it somehow be presidential, not personal, for Trump to slander a woman who he sexually assaulted."

On Oct. 27 Judge Lewis A. Kaplan of Federal District Court in Manhattan turned down the government's bid to make the United States the defendant. Trump's comments concerned events that had occurred "several decades before he took office," Judge Kaplan ruled, and had "no relationship to the official business of the United States."

But in the final days of Trump's presidency in January 2021, the Justice Department appealed that decision in the 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, claiming the president of the United States "acts within the scope of his office when he responds to public critics."

And then in a move that frustrated many Democrats, the Biden Justice Department argued in a brief filed June 7, 2021 that it should be permitted to substitute itself for former President Trump as the defendant in the lawsuit. Justice Department lawyers wrote in a brief to the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals, "This case does not concern whether Mr. Trump's response was appropriate. Nor does it turn on the truthfulness of Ms. Carroll's allegations." Rather, the lawyers wrote, because they believe Trump was an employee of the government and that he acted "within the scope of employment," the department, rather than Trump personally, should serve as defendant in the case.

CNN reported the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit on Sept. 27 opened the door to allowing the Justice Department to shield former President Trump for his conduct while president when they sent the case to the D.C. Court of Appeals to resolve the question: Was Trump a federal employee when he rebutted Carroll's story or was he acting purely on his own as a private citizen?

And on Oct. 12, 2022 the now former president lashed out again at Carroll, this time on Truth Social. "E. Jean Carroll is not telling the truth, is a woman who I had nothing to do with, didn't know, and would have no interest in knowing her if I ever had the chance."

"She completely made up a story that I met her at the doors of this crowded New York City Department Store and, within minutes, 'swooned' her," Trump wrote, in an off-the-cuff euphemism for Carroll's accusations of rape. "It is a Hoax and a lie, just like all the other Hoaxes that have been played on me for the past seven years. And, while I am not supposed to say it, I will. This woman is not my type!"

On Nov. 9, Bloomberg reported that Trump urged the District of Columbia's highest local court to adopt his argument that he was acting in the interests of the American people and within the boundaries of his official duties as president when he made allegedly defamatory remarks while denying a rape claim by Carroll.

President Biden's Justice Department sided with Trump, citing similar cases and the claim that his comments about Carroll were, in fact, made in his duties as president.

And then Trump was sued again - this time in state court - by Carroll on Thanksgiving Day, 2022, Reuters reported.

In a complaint filed in Manhattan, the former Elle magazine columnist also accused Trump of battery in the alleged encounter at the Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan.

Carroll, 78, brought the battery claim in her second lawsuit under New York's Adult Survivors Act, a new law giving sexual assault victims a one-year window to sue their alleged abusers, even if the abuse occurred long ago and statutes of limitations have expired. (The statute of limitations for most criminal offenses is decided by individual states. In New York, a law passed in May 2022 extended the five-year statute of limitations on civil rape cases under the reasoning that victims of sexual assault often needed more time to come forward.)

An earlier version of the second complaint, filed on Nov. 17, states the following:

"Trump's actions constitute sexual offenses as defined in Article 130 of the New York Penal Law, including but not limited to rape in the first degree (§ 130.35), rape in the third degree (§ 130.25), sexual abuse in the first degree (§ 130.65), sexual abuse in the third degree (§ 130.55), sexual misconduct (§ 130.20), and forcible touching (§ 130.52)."

On Dec. 1, Carroll's lawyers urged the District of Columbia's highest local court to reject the "troubling" position by Trump and the Biden Justice Department that elected officials are immune against defamation claims whenever they speak about matters of public concern, Bloomberg reported.

"Presidents are free to deny allegations of misconduct," Carroll's lawyers wrote in a brief. "But a White House job is not a promise of unlimited authority to brutalize victims of prior wrongdoing through vicious, personal, defamatory attacks."

On Dec. 21, Trump asked a federal court to dismiss Carroll's second lawsuit, arguing that a New York law allowing the writer to sue the former U.S. president over claims that he raped her decades ago is unconstitutional.

Trump alleged in the filing that the law, the Adult Survivors Act, runs afoul of the New York state constitution's due process protections. He also called the additional defamation claim Carroll claims in the lawsuit "baseless and legally defective."

On Jan. 10, 2023 judges from the D.C. Court of Appeals expressed reluctance to find that Trump acted within the scope of his employment in 2019 when he, in the course of denying a rape claim, allegedly defamed her by calling her a liar and saying she was "not my type," ABC News reported.

On April 13, Reuters reported a Washington, D.C., appeals court refused to decide whether Donald Trump can be shielded from the first defamation lawsuit by Carroll. It sent the case back to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan saying the 2nd Circuit or a federal district judge in Manhattan should assess Trump's role.

The US Justice Department then reversed a crucial opinion that sought to protect the former president from the case, all but assuring the matter will go to trial in January, Bloomberg reported July 11.

The new opinion by the Biden administration, outlined in a letter filed in federal court in Manhattan, determined that Trump no longer qualifies for government-employee immunity and can be sued for remarks he made about Carroll while he was president in 2019.

The move is a reversal of a previous department opinion that concluded Trump was protected by the Westfall Act, which bars civil suits against employees of the federal government over claims that relate to their official duties. The DOJ revisited the issue after an appeals court clarified that workers are only protected by the law if their actions were intended to help the US government.

According to the DOJ, Trump's argument that his comments about Carroll were intended only to serve the U.S. was undermined when a Manhattan jury on May 9 found in Carroll's second lawsuit that he had abused Carroll "long before he became President." (See "Day-by-day trial notes for lawsuit #2 and appeals" immediately below.)

On May 22, Carroll asked a judge to update her still pending original defamation lawsuit to add a new claim after he trashed her as a "whack job" during his CNN town hall earlier in the month. The Associated Press reported Carroll is now seeking $10 million.

A federal judge then dismissed a defamation counterclaim by Trump against Carroll, CNBC reported Aug. 7. Trump's counterclaim focused on what he argued were her false statements, which he alleged harmed his reputation, made a day after the jury verdict in May when Carroll during a CNN interview said, "Oh, yes, he did — oh, yes, he did" — after jurors in that case did not find that Trump had raped her.

Judge Kaplan, in dismissing the counterclaim, wrote that Carroll's statements repeating a claim that Trump had raped her were "substantially true" because the jury had found he digitally penetrated her, even if it did not find that he had penetrated her with his penis, as is required for a rape charge under New York law.

On Aug. 10, Trump appealed the dismissed lawsuit. And on Sept. 6, Judge Kaplan rejected Trump's appeal and said the Jan. 16, 2024 trial for Carroll's original lawsuit against Trump will only deal with the question of how much the former president should pay her in monetary damages for defaming her.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan will consider former President Trump's claim that presidential immunity protects him from being held liable for statements he made in 2019 when he denied that he sexually attacked a New York writer in the 1990s, the Associated Press reported Sept. 13.

And then on Dec. 13, the court ruled Trump cannot assert presidential immunity. The Associated Press reported that the court ruled Trump gave up his right to argue that presidential immunity protects him from being held liable for statements he made in 2019 because he effectively waived the immunity defense by not raising it when Carroll first filed a defamation lawsuit against him four years ago.

On Dec. 21, Trump asked a federal appeals court to delay his defamation trial so he can consider other legal moves, including potentially taking the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, Kara Scannell at CNN reports.

On Dec. 28, the appeals court rejected Trump's request to delay the trial.

Day-by-day trial notes for lawsuit #2 and appeals:

On the first day of testimony, April 26, 2023 Carroll took the stand and told jurors that the future president raped her after she accompanied him into a department store fitting room in 1996, the Associated Press reported.

"I'm here because Donald Trump raped me, and when I wrote about it, he said it didn't happen. He lied and shattered my reputation, and I'm here to try and get my life back," she testified.

Carroll, 79, has said she crossed paths with Trump at the revolving door to Bergdorf Goodman on an unspecified Thursday evening in spring 1996. (Or maybe 1995. She's not sure.) At the time, she was writing a long-running advice column in Elle magazine. Trump was a real estate magnate and social figure in New York.

She alleges Trump slammed her against a wall, yanked down her tights and raped her while she struggled against him. She has said she finally kneed him off her and fled. She described calling two friends soon after. She said one advised her to go to the police, while the other said not to. She said she didn't out of shame, and fear of retaliation.

On the second day of trial, Carroll was cross-examined by Trump's attorney, Joe Tacopino.

Tacopina questioned the validity of her bombshell claims while suggesting she only came forward with them decades later, in 2019, because of her disdain for Trump's politics and because she wanted to sell copies of her book.

Carroll admitted she has had a hard time identifying the date the alleged rape happened. When he asked why she hadn't screamed if she was being raped, Carroll responded, "Here's the thing: I was too much in a panic to scream. I'm telling you: He raped me whether I screamed or not."

On the third day of the trial, May 1, Carroll concluded her testimony. Trump attorney Tacopina highlighted what he suggested were discrepancies between her testimony and her statements in interviews, her book, depositions and social media posts.

Carroll denied making up her claims to drive publicity for her memoir, Reuters reported. Carroll said she wasn't seeking attention through appearances on TV and podcasts, while acknowledging they were an important driver of book sales.

Asked why she encouraged women who were victims of sexual assault to report such incidents to authorities in her Elle magazine advice column years before the alleged assault while she herself did not do so, she said she was shaped by her upbringing in a different era. "I was born in 1943," Carroll said. "Women like us were taught to keep our chins up and never complain. I would rather do anything than to call the police."

On the fourth day of the trial, a friend of Carroll's testified that Carroll called her and described the alleged attack minutes after alleged assault took place, ABC News reports. Lisa Birnbach, a writer, was the first person Carroll told about the alleged attack, "five to seven minutes" after the alleged assault occurred, Birnbach said.

"She told me that Donald Trump recognized her outside or right in the doorway of Bergdorf Goodman, he asked her to help him shop, and assaulted her upstairs in a dressing room," Birnbach testified. "And E. Jean said to me many times, 'He pulled down my tights, he pulled down my tights.' Almost like she couldn't believe it had just happened to her."

Another witness for Carroll, Jessica Leeds, who was on a business trip in 1979 and says she was groped by Trump during a flight to New York, also testified as Carroll's attorneys attempted to show the jury a pattern of behavior, UPI News reported.

She admitted to Trump attorney Joe Tacopina that she couldn't produce any witnesses to the incident or provide much information about the flight, where it originated or the date of the incident.

On the fifth day, a clinical psychologist who examined Carroll said she endured the effects of trauma from an alleged attack by Trump. CBS News reported that Leslie Lebowitz, a trauma specialist hired by Carroll's attorneys to examine her, said she found during 20 hours of interviews that Carroll "manifests very notable avoidance symptoms, which have curtailed her romantic and intimate life and caused profound loss."

Carroll's attorneys played the infamous "Access Hollywood" audio tape of Trump telling Billy Bush, "I'm automatically attracted to beautiful women — I just start kissing them, it's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything," he said, including "grab 'em by the p----," referring to women's genitals. The tape surfaced during the 2016 campaign and was made just before Trump filmed a segment on the program "Access Hollywood." Trump told Bush: "When you're a star, they let you do it."

Trump doubled-down on those lines during his October, 2022 deposition on Carroll's rape and defamation allegations. "Historically, that's true, with stars," Trump testified on videotape as reported by Law & Crime. "Well what's what if you look over the last million years, I guess that's been largely true not always but largely true, unfortunately or fortunately."

Asked if he considered himself a star, Trump responded, "I think you can say that, yeah."

On the videotape, Trump also denied Carroll's claims, calling them the most "ridiculous, disgusting story" and "made up." During the videotaped, Trump, who said Carroll wasn't "his type," confused Carroll for his ex-wife Marla Maples, his second wife.

On the final day of testimony, the Carroll legal team told the court they will be asking the jury to award their client $2.7 million in reputational damages caused by the former president, Law & Crime reported. This does not include possible damages to be sought as a result of the alleged rape or damages from lost wages.

Trump never attended the trial, even though while in Ireland he told reporters he needed to cut his European trip short to respond in court to Carroll's allegations.

In her closing argument, Carroll's attorney, Roberta Kaplan, said, "In a real sense, Donald Trump is a witness against himself." Referring to the Access Hollywood tape, she said, "He's telling you in his very own works how he treats women."

"In this country, even the most powerful person can be held accountable in court," said attorney Kaplan. "No one, not even a former president, is above the law."

Trump attorney Joe Tacopina said in his closing argument he knows Trump is a divisive figure, but that shouldn't matter to jurors when reaching a verdict. "People have very strong feelings about Donald Trump. That's obvious. There's a time and a secret place to do that: it's called a ballot box during an election."

Tacopina accused Carroll of fabricating her rape allegations to sell her book and make money.

On May 9, the Manhattan jury, after three hours of deliberations, awarded almost $5 million in damages to Carroll. Trump will have to pay $3 million in the defamation claim and $2 million for the battery claim.

Trump appealed that decision, which cost him $5.5 million in cash that currently is in a court-managed account. According to CNN, that money will not be released until all appeals, including potentially to the Supreme Court, are exhausted.

Trump asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit to overturn the verdict. Separately, he asked District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan to order a retrial solely on the questions of monetary damages. Judge Kaplan rejected his appeal on July 19.

Judge Kaplan also rejected Trump's claim that he didn't rape Carroll since the jury "only" found him guilty of sexual battery: "The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was 'raped' within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump 'raped' her as many people commonly understand the word 'rape.'"

A federal appeals court denied former President Trump's request to halt proceedings in the upcoming trial, NBC News reported Dec. 28.

Day-by-day trial notes for lawsuit #1 and appeals:

Trump's defamation damages trial resumed Jan. 25, 2024 after a three-day postponement stemming from a courtroom COVID-19 scare. At issue is whether the former president has to pay writer E. Jean Carroll additional damages for defaming her in 2019 when he denied her allegations of sexual abuse, ABC News reported.

"I don't know who the woman is," Trump said out of turn, as Judge Lewis Kaplan was speaking to a lawyer. "I wasn't at the trial," he added, referring to an earlier civil trial that Trump chose not to attend, in which a jury found him liable for sexually abusing Carroll. He denied ever meeting Carroll.

Reported the Associated Press: Trump was on and off the witness stand in less than 3 minutes but not before breaking a judge's rules on what he could say by claiming that a writer's sexual assault allegations were a "false accusation" and he wanted to defend himself and the presidency.

On Jan. 26, 2024, Trump was ordered by a federal jury to pay $83.3 million in damages to E. Jean Carroll, who accused the former U.S. president of destroying her reputation as a trustworthy journalist by denying he raped her nearly three decades ago, Newsmax reported. The damages include $11 million for reputational repair, $7.3 million for emotional harm and $65 million in punitive damages.

Trump, in a post on his social media platform Truth Social, claimed he had never heard of Carroll and pledged to appeal the verdicts in the Carroll case. "THIS IS NOT AMERICA!" 

Federal Judge Lewis Kaplan denied Trump's motion for a mistrial, NBC News reported Feb. 8. Trump, meanwhile, claims he is seeking new counsel to file an appeal.

Judge Kaplan also rejected the former president's request to delay paying Carroll more than $80 million in damages, Forbes reported Feb. 25.

Media outlets indicate Trump has until March 9 to file appeal and deposit the $83.3 million plus another $9 million in interest.

And then Judge Kaplan denied former President Trump's request to delay enforcement and ordered him to pay E. Jean Carroll $83.3 million, according to a filing on March 7, Fox News, ABC News and Reuter reported. The judge had made the official decision on Feb. 8 and gave Trump 30 days to file a bond appeal, March 11.

MSNBC and other media are reported March 8 former President Trump paid a $91.6 million bond to the federal court in New York to appeal the case. Trump's bond was issued by Federal Insurance Co. He signed the document on March 5.

Former President Trump's appeal request for E. Jean Carroll's $83 million defamation suit verdict was denied on April 25. The judge again denied both the amount and the demand for a new trial.

*

Disposition of six Trump-related cases

Colorado, Illinois bar Trump from 2024 ballot but most states and Supreme Court reject 14th Amendment argument

A write-in Republican candidate in the 2024 presidential election on Aug. 31, 2023 sued to keep former President Donald Trump off of 2024's ballot for the sympathies he has shown to those convicted of crimes in connection with the deadly Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol, Courthouse News Service reported.

"John Anthony Castro, a candidate out of Mansfield, Texas, claimed in a pro se complaint filed in Dane County Circuit Court that Trump violated the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution by providing 'aid or comfort' to an insurrection and those who participated in it, making him 'constitutionally ineligible to pursue or hold any public office in the United States.'

"Castro's status as a write-in candidate in the race for the presidency creates a cause of action allowing him to challenge whether Trump is allowed to run for public office because of potential injuries Castro could face 'in the form of a diminution of votes and/or fundraising.'"

"Castro goes on to note that the section of the 14th Amendment cited was enacted in the post-Civil War Reconstruction-era 'to ensure that non-insurrectionists did not have to politically compete with the more popular pro-insurrectionist politicians in the south,' making Castro the exact type of person the amendment was designed to protect.

"The Wisconsin Elections Commission is listed as the lead defendant in the lawsuit, which seeks an injunction blocking Trump's ballot access documentation, including nomination papers."

The former president responded Sept. 4 on Truth Social:

"Almost all legal scholars have voiced opinions that the 14th Amendment has no legal basis or standing relative to the upcoming 2024 Presidential Election. Like Election Interference, it is just another 'trick' being used by the Radical Left Communists, Marxists, and Fascists, to again steal an Election that their candidate, the WORST, MOST INCOMPETENT, & MOST CORRUPT President in U.S. history, is incapable of winning in a Free and Fair Election. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!"

And then on Sept. 6 the Associated Press reported a liberal group filed a lawsuit to bar former President Trump from the primary ballot in Colorado, arguing he is ineligible to run for the White House again under a rarely used clause in the U.S. Constitution aimed at candidates who have supported an "insurrection."

The lawsuit, citing the 14th Amendment, was filed on behalf of six Republican and unaffiliated Colorado voters by the group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

The Associated Press then reported that attorneys for former President Trump on Sept. 7 moved to have the lawsuit moved to federal court in the first step of what promises to be a tangled legal battle that seems destined for the U.S. Supreme Court.

"Plaintiffs' challenge to Colorado's ability to place Donald Trump on the presidential ballot depends solely on the Fourteenth Amendment," Trump's lawyers wrote. "Trump's basis for removal of the state court action is federal question jurisdiction under Section 3 of Fourteenth Amendment."

And on Sept. 12, Free Speech for People, a liberal group, filed a lawsuit to block former President Trump from the 2024 presidential ballot in Minnesota, CNN reported.

According to reporting by the Associated Press on Sept. 22, dozens of lawsuits have been filed around the country seeking to disqualify Trump from the 2024 ballot based on the 14th Amendment clause barring anyone who swore an oath to the Constitution and then "engaged in insurrection" against it from running for office.

A liberal group filed a lawsuit in Michigan contending that former president Trump is disqualified from regaining his old job based on a rarely used, post-Civil War provision in the U.S. Constitution, the Associated Press reported Sept. 29.

Castro's effort to keep former President Trump off the West Virginia ballot in 2024 was dealt a setback Sept. 28, Steven Allen Adams of The Intelligencer reported.

In proposed findings and recommendations, U.S. Magistrate Judge Omar J. Aboulhosn denied an emergency application for a restraining order and a request for an expedited preliminary injunction and preliminary bench trial filed by Castro, a write-in candidate for the Republican nomination for president.

In Florida a federal judge dismissed Castrol's case for lack of standing. The judge ruled Castro had no legal basis to complain about another person's running for office. A "generalized interest" in the election outcome is not enough of an injury to invoke the power of the courts.

And then on Oct. 2, the U.S. Supreme Court said it will not take up Castro's longshot challenge, CNN reported.

Also in October, a federal judge dismissed Castro's efforts to remove Trump from the New Hampshire's primary ballot, writing that the challenger made "no attempt to demonstrate that he is actually competing with Trump for votes and contributions."

And Arizona's Secretary of State said he has no choice but to qualify Donald Trump for the state's election ballot, despite challenges that claim he should be disqualified under a law that bans insurrectionists from standing, AZCentral reported Oct. 6 the argument that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment prohibits anyone who has previously taken the oath of public office and engaged in 'insurrection or rebellion' against the government from qualifying for the ballot was an "unanswered question." The Secretary of State said, "That is up to the courts, not to me."

On Oct. 16, lawyers for former President Trump asked a Michigan Court of Claims judge to dismiss a demand that he be kept off the presidential ballot, the Detroit Free Press reported. 

On Oct. 20, Colorado District Judge Sarah Wallace rejected three more attempts by former President Trump and the Colorado GOP to shut down a lawsuit seeking to block him from the 2024 presidential ballot in the state based on the 14th Amendment's "insurrectionist ban," CNN reported.

He still has a pending motion to throw out the Colorado lawsuit, but the case now appears on track for an unprecedented trial Oct. 30.

Wallace also cited a 2012 opinion from Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, when he was a Denver-based appeals judge, which said states have the power to "exclude from the ballot candidates who are constitutionally prohibited from assuming office." She cited this while rejecting Trump's claim that Colorado's ballot access laws don't give state officials any authority to disqualify him based on federal constitutional considerations.

Trump on Oct. 30 sued Michigan's top election official – Jocelyn Benson - to block an effort to disqualify him from appearing on state ballots in the 2024 presidential race.

According to the lawsuit filed with Michigan Chief Appeals Court Judge Elizabeth Gleicher, Trump's lawyers wrote, "The events of January 6, 2021, were a riot. They were not an 'insurrection' for purposes of Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment. They did not amount to levying war against the United States."

And back in Colorado where a trial on the matter began Oct. 30, the Associated Press reported, "The videos playing in a Colorado courtroom were both chilling and, by now, familiar — a violent mob, with some wearing tactical gear, smashing through the U.S. Capitol, attacking police officers and chanting 'Hang Mike Pence!'" Lawyers on day two of the weeklong hearing argued whether the infamous events of Jan. 6, 2021 constituted an insurrection under section three of the 14th Amendment.

The Minnesota Supreme Court dismissed an effort to keep former President Trump off of the state's primary ballot in 2024, NBC News reported Nov. 8.

The court wrote that "there is no state statute that prohibits a major political party from placing on the presidential nomination primary ballot, or sending delegates to the national convention supporting, a candidate who is ineligible to hold office."

And in Michigan, former President Trump's lawyers pushed back in court Nov. 9 against efforts to remove him from the state's 2024 ballot, CNN reported. Trump lawyer Michael Columbo argued in the Michigan Court of Claims that judges don't have a role enforcing Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. "Judicial review, if any, should occur only after the Electoral (College) and congressional processes have run their course," Columbo said, arguing that the challengers want to transform an after-the-fact "Section 3 disqualification into a ballot access qualification."

And on Nov. 14, CNN reported a Michigan judge dismissed the lawsuit. Michigan Court of Claims Judge James Redford said in his decision that questions about Trump's role in the January 6, 2021, insurrection – and whether it constitutionally bars him from returning to the White House – should be addressed by elected representatives in Congress. He ruled that the matter was a "political question" that shouldn't be decided by the judicial branch. (The Michigan Court of Appeals on Dec. 14 ruled it won't stop Trump from appearing on the state's 2024 Republican primary ballot, turning aside challenges from critics who argue that his role in the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol disqualifies him.)

On Nov. 17, Colorado Judge Sarah Wallace turned away a challenge looking to disqualify Trump from running for president, Politico reported. Judge Wallace found that Trump did engage in an insurrection on January 6, 2021 "through incitement, and that the First Amendment does not protect Trump's speech." But she also found that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment doesn't apply to Trump. "The Court holds there is scant direct evidence regarding whether the Presidency is one of the positions subject to disqualification," she wrote, ruling that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment "did not intend to include the President as 'an officer of the United States'."

On Dec. 6, U.S. District Judge Douglas L. Rayes of Arizona dismissed a lawsuit by Castro, claiming he lacked standing to bring the claim.

Also on Dec. 6, the Colorado Supreme Court appeared wary of disqualifying former President Trump from the 2024 ballot under the 14th Amendment, with several justices expressing concerns about their authority to intervene, The Hill reported.

Trump and the plaintiffs are both appealing portions of Judge Sarah Wallace's Judge Sarah Wallace's ruling that found Trump engaged in insurrection by inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, but that the 14th Amendment doesn't apply to the presidency.

The Austin, Texas-based nonprofit Free Speech for People filed a lawsuit in the Oregon Supreme Court seeking to block former President Trump from Oregon's 2024 ballot, the Willamette Week reported Dec. 7. Secretary of State Lavonne Griffin-Valade had earlier considered the matter and, after consultation with lawyers at the Oregon Department of Justice, rejected it.

And in a historic ruling, on Dec. 19, the Colorado Supreme Court voted 4-3 to bar Trump from the 2024 ballot. Trump's lawyers promised to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court after Christmas. The disqualification, which was made under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, is related to the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. It marks the first time a court has embraced the theory that the former president disqualified himself from a second term by attempting to overturn the 2020 election.

"We do not reach these conclusions lightly," the Colorado court's 4-3 majority wrote. "We are mindful of the magnitude and weight of the questions now before us. We are likewise mindful of our solemn duty to apply the law, without fear or favor, and without being swayed by public reaction to the decisions that the law mandates we reach."

The top Colorado court upheld Judge Wallace's conclusions that the January 6 assault on the US Capitol was an insurrection and that Trump "engaged in" that insurrection. The justices also affirmed the decision that Trump's January 6 speech at the Ellipse was not protected by the First Amendment. The justices broke from Judge Wallace on one key issue, reversing her controversial decision that the "insurrectionist ban" applies to every office except the presidency.

North Carolina's election board dismissed a voter's challenge to Trump's candidacy on the primary ballot, citing a lack of authority to consider the challenge, The Hill reported Dec. 20. The State Board of Elections voted 4-1 to dismiss the candidacy challenge. Elections Board Chair Alan Hirsch made clear that the approved motion did not make any determination on the substance of the argument; rather, it simply claimed the board did not have authority to hear the case.

A federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit that aimed to keep Donald Trump off ballots in West Virginia, the West Virginia Metro News reported Dec. 22. The case was dismissed because the judge found the plaintiff couldn't demonstrate standing.

The Colorado Republican Party on Dec. 27 appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court the Colorado Supreme Court's earlier decision to ban Trump from the 2024 ballot. With the appeal filed, Trump will be included as a candidate on Colorado's 2024 Presidential Primary Ballot when certification occurs on January 5, 2024, unless the U.S. Supreme Court declines to take the case or otherwise affirms the Colorado Supreme Court ruling.

The Michigan's Supreme Court is keeping former President Trump on the state's primary election ballot, the Associated Press reported. The court said Dec. 27 it will not hear an appeal of a lower court's ruling from groups seeking to keep Trump from appearing on the ballot.

On Dec. 28 California's secretary of state certified Trump for the state's presidential primary ballot, despite calls from the lieutenant governor and top Democrats to remove him because of his involvement with the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. 

On Jan. 3, 2024 a federal judge in Virginia dismissed a 14th Amendment lawsuit by two residents explaining that the two had no standing in the case. 

A Wyoming district court judge rejected a motion calling for Trump to be removed from the state's 2024 presidential ballot, on the basis that he is ineligible to serve a second White House term due to the Constitution's 14th Amendment, Newsweek reported Jan. 5.

The New York Daily News in an editorial entitled, "No immunity from justice: Trump doesn't get a pass from federal felonies," commented, "What Trump's lawyers fail to explain, and what we assume the appeals panel — and, soon enough — the Supreme Court justices, will rule is that Trump is being prosecuted for non-official acts. Calling up Georgia's secretary of state to have him find 11,780 more votes and pressuring Michigan election officials to not certify results and summoning a mob are not in any way official acts. Those are crimes, for which Trump must pay."

And on Jan. 5, 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to consider the Colorado Supreme Court's decision to ban Trump from the 2024 ballot.

The Hill reported that Texan John Anthony Castro was arrested Jan. 9 and indicted on federal charges related to an online tax business in which he helped people increase their refunds by allegedly lying to the IRS. Castro is accused of filing 17 sets of false tax documents between 2018 and 2020, resulting in 33 counts of aiding the preparation of false tax returns. In court documents, prosecutors laid out how Castro allegedly used his business to defraud the government.

Maine's highest court refused on Jan. 24 to weigh in on whether Trump should stay on the ballot in the state before the U.S. Supreme Court decides on a similar case in Colorado. Maine's top election official on Dec. 28 had ruled Trump was constitutionally ineligible to appear on ballot. 

The Illinois State Board of Elections voted unanimously Jan.30 to dismiss a challenge to former President Trump's candidacy, but the decision is not expected to be the final word in the matter, with an appeal all but assured, CNN reported.

The U.S. Supreme Court seems poised to reject attempts to kick former President Trump off the 2024 ballot, the Associated Press reported Feb. 8 just after the court's hearing on the matter.

Conservative and liberal justices alike questioned during arguments whether Trump can be disqualified from being president again because of his efforts to undo his loss in the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden, ending with the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Their main concern was whether Congress must act before states can invoke a constitutional provision that was adopted after the Civil War to prevent former officeholders who "engaged in insurrection" from holding office again. There also were questions about whether the president is covered by the provision.

Former President Trump filed an appeal to overturn a Democrat judge's decision to remove him from the presidential ballot in Illinois, the Daily Wire reported March 1. The appeal was filed after Judge Tracie R. Porter of the State Circuit Court in Cook County ruled Feb. 28 that the State Board of Elections should remove Trump from the ballot, claiming that he engaged in insurrection on January 6. Trump's appeal asked the appeals court to "reverse and vacate the judgement," according to Axios.

And on March 4, Forbes reported former President Trump will not be disqualified from Colorado's presidential ballot under the 14th Amendment, the Supreme Court ruled, killing critics' legal efforts to disqualify Trump for being an "insurrectionist," and prompting Trump to proclaim it a "great day for liberty."

Trump "Big Lie" fallout:  Dominion sues Fox News for $1.6 billion, settles for $787.5 million and Tucker Carlson's hide

The Latest: Dominion Voting Systems also filed a $1.3 billion lawsuit against MyPillow and their CEO Mike Lindell. The stalwart Donald Trump ally repeatedly and baselessly accused two voting machine companies of rigging the 2020 presidential election against the 45th president. The case is still unsettled.

Background:  On March 26, 2021 Dominion Voting Systems filed a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News, "arguing the cable news giant falsely claimed in an effort to boost faltering ratings that the voting company had rigged the 2020 election," the Associated Press reported. The lawsuit reads, in part, "Fox sold a false story of election fraud in order to serve its own commercial purposes, severely injuring Dominion in the process. If this case does not rise to the level of defamation by a broadcaster, then nothing does."

Dominion alleged Fox News was eager to court conservative viewers who were outraged by the network's call on Election Night that candidate Joe Biden would be victorious in Arizona, an early prediction that, while correct, was not initially matched by other news outlets and came under criticism from President Trump. Reports that blamed Dominion and others for influencing the election results, the company argues, served as a potential means of winning back those viewers' favor.

Fox segments included some that alleged fraud by Dominion and others that reported the Dominion voting machines did not, in fact, switch Trump votes to Biden. But Dominion, in its suit, claimed the contradictory segments didn't mitigate the network's culpability. Erik Wemple of the Washington Post explained, "This maddening duality - in which popular opinion hosts promote misinformation while other programs present something closer to reality - is a core feature of the Fox News experience...Dominion's suit, accordingly, focuses instead on establishing that Fox News personalities knew that on-air claims about the company were false." The suit reads, that despite knowing the truth, "Fox continued to promote the known lies on its most prominent and widely viewed broadcasts and on Fox's websites, social media accounts, and subscription service platforms."

On Nov. 10, Bloomberg reported Dominion filed a second lawsuit against Fox Corp. in an effort to gain access to Chairman Rupert Murdoch's documents about its coverage of the contest. Dominion was trying to find out how much Murdoch and his eldest son, Fox Corp. Chief Executive Officer Lachlan Murdoch, were involved in the decision by Fox News to report that Dominion conspired with foreign hackers to flip millions of votes away from then-President Trump. 

Tucker Carlson, Jeanine Pirro, Lou Dobbs and Shepard Smith were among the current and former Fox figures questioned under oath in the case as well as show producers and programming executives, court records show.

Dominion CEO John Poulos said Fox News knew allegations against the company being made by former President Trump and his associates following the 2020 election were untrue but decided to air them anyway, The Hill reported Oct. 23, 2022. "We told them. We told them in real time. Others told them. Government officials told them. Partisan government officials told 'em. People inside the Trump administration told them. Um, local election officials on both sides of the aisle told 'em. This is not a matter of not knowing the truth. They knew the truth." 

According to CNN, at the core of Dominion's case against Fox are 20 broadcasts and tweets between Election Day, 2020 and Jan. 6, 2021, including this exchange on Nov. 8, 2020 between Maria Bartiromo and Sidney Powell.

Bartiromo: "Sidney, we talked about the Dominion software. I know that there were voting irregularities. Tell me about that." Powell: "That's to put it mildly. The computer glitches could not and should not have happened at all. That is where the fraud took place where they were flipping votes in the computer system or adding votes that did not exist."

And a month later, on Dec. 12 on "Fox & Friends," Giuliani told the Fox audience, "We have a machine, the Dominion machine, that's as filled with holes as Swiss cheese and was developed to steal elections, and being used in the states that are involved."

The New York Times reported Dec. 21, 2022 that "Fox employees knew what they were broadcasting was false." Sean Hannity was asked under oath during his disposition if he believed the allegations from Trump's lawyers on his show that Dominion machines switched votes from Trump to Biden. "I did not believe it for one second."

Soon after the 2020 election, Tucker Carlson texted his producer in reaction to Fox losing some of its viewers to competing right-wing cable stations after declaring Biden the winner, "Do the executives understand how much credibility and trust we've lost with our audience? We're playing with fire, for real….an alternative like Newsmax could be devastating to us." 

On Nov. 18, Carlson told Laura Ingraham, "Sidney Powell is lying by the way. I caught her. It's insane." Ingraham replied, "Sidney is a complete nut. No one will work with her. Ditto with Rudy."

Rupert Murdoch, chairman of the conservative media empire that owns Fox News, acknowledged in a sworn deposition that several hosts for his networks promoted the false narrative that the election in 2020 was stolen from Trump, the New York Times reported Feb. 27, 2023. Said Murdoch: "I would have liked us to be stronger in denouncing it in hindsight."

NBC News reported March 31 that Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis handed Dominion a major win when he agreed that the statements made on Fox News about election fraud in 2020 are false.

The ruling spared the voting machine company from having to litigate baseless conspiracy theories about its role in the 2020 election during the upcoming trial against Fox News and its parent company, Fox Corp.

Judge Davis knocked Fox's "neutral reporting" claim, finding "the evidence does not support that FNN conducted good-faith, disinterested reporting."

The Washington Post reported, "Davis's ruling asserts that the false statements — such as the claim that Dominion was created in Venezuela to rig elections for socialist leader Hugo Chávez — harmed the company's reputation, meaning that the impact on Dominion will not have to be debated at trial."

And then on April 18 Fox agreed to pay Dominion $787.5 million.

(The settlement was the largest media payout in U.S. history, four times the amount ABC paid to Beef Products, Inc. several years ago.)

On MSNBC's "The Last World with Lawrence O'Connell" Sept. 21, Michael Wolff, the author of the new book, The Fall - The End of Fox News and the Murdoch Dynasty, reported that hours before the Dominion trial was to begin, a written agreement was reached that Fox would pay Dominion $787.5 million and a verbal agreement was reached that Fox would also fire its #1 rated host, Tucker Carlson. Fox earlier tried to settle with Dominion paying only $500 million and firing Sean Hannity but that was not a steep enough price in Dominion's eyes.

Trump Organization found guilty on 17 counts of tax fraud, other crimes, plus trial notes

On June 30, 2022 the Manhattan District Attorney's office charged the Trump Organization with a 15-year "scheme to defraud" and charged its CFO Allen Weisselberg with grand larceny and tax fraud, the Washington Post reported. 

Prosecutors also charged a subsidiary called Trump Payroll Corp., which handles the company's benefits and payments to employees.

In all, 15 criminal charges were filed against Weisselberg, according to a copy of the indictment obtained by the Washington Post. They included counts of conspiracy, criminal tax fraud and falsifying business records. In many of the counts, the two Trump entities were charged along with Weisselberg.

Carey Dunne, a prosecutor with the District Attorney's Office, said the charges were related to an "off-the-books tax fraud scheme." He said the scheme allowed Trump Organization executives to get "secret pay raises" while not paying proper taxes. "Beginning from at least 2005 to on or about June 30, 2021, [Weisselberg, the Trump Corporation, Trump Payroll Corp.] and others devised and operated a scheme to defraud federal, New York State, and New York City tax authorities," prosecutors wrote. "One of the largest individual beneficiaries of the defendants' scheme was Allen Weisselberg. During the operation of the scheme, the defendants arranged for Weisselberg to receive in direct employee compensation from the Trump Organization in the approximate amount of $1.76 million."

The ex-CFO ducked taxes on about $359,058 in tuition expenses for multiple family members, $196,245 for leases on his Mercedes Benz automobiles, $29,400 in unreported cash, and an unspecified amount in ad hoc personal expenses like new beds, flat-screen televisions, the installation of carpeting, and furniture for his home in Florida, according to the indictment.

And then the New York Times reported Aug. 18, "One of Donald Trump's most trusted executives stood before a judge and pleaded guilty to 15 felonies, admitting that he conspired with Mr. Trump's company to carry out a scheme to avoid paying taxes on lavish perks - even while refusing to implicate the former president himself."

"Under the terms of the plea deal, Mr. Weisselberg is expected to receive a five-month jail term, and with time credited for good behavior, he is likely to serve about 100 days. Mr. Weisselberg, who was facing up to 15 years in prison, must also pay nearly $2 million in taxes."

Weisselberg was sentenced again to five months in jail for lying under oath during the civil business fraud trial of Donald Trump, CNBC reported April 10, 2024.

Trial Notes:

On Oct. 31, 2022 the first day of the trial, Susan Hoffinger, the chief of investigations for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, told the jury that Weisselberg will give the "inside story" of how the company allegedly used the years-long tax fraud scheme to boost executive pay.

"This case is about greed and cheating, cheating on taxes," she said. "The scheme was conducted, directed and authorized at the highest level of the accounting department."

In the opening statements, prosecutors also said that "when most of the criminal conduct occurred," between 2005 to 2017, the companies were "owned by Donald Trump."

The Trump Organization's attorney told the jury that the tax shenanigans "started with Allen Weisselberg and it ended with Allen Weisselberg."

On the second day of the trial, Nov. 1, Bloomberg reported that prosecutors showed the jury the lease Trump signed for of an Upper West Side apartment used by Weisselberg. The lease represented part of the prosecution's efforts to show that the Trump Organization and its executives engaged in a years-long scheme to avoid taxes - one that was sanctioned by the highest echelons of the company.

Trump Organization senior vice president and controller Jeffrey McConney told jurors Trump was the Trump Organization's ultimate decision-maker prior to his election. According to McConney, Trump signed off on Weisselberg's salary and bonuses.

McConney also told jurors he fudged company pay records to reduce Weisselberg's income tax bill.

McConney said Weisselberg told him he and Trump had discussed reducing Weisselberg's salary to offset rent payments that the Trump Organization made on the CFO's Manhattan apartment. Asked whether Trump, who was running the business at the time, was aware of the scheme, McConney said Weisselberg told him that Trump knew about it.

The Trump Organization denied wrongdoing. Its lawyers allege that Weisselberg concocted the scheme on his own, without Trump or the Trump family's knowledge, and that the company didn't benefit from his actions.

According to CBS News, "Weisselberg said Donald Trump, or at times Eric Trump or Donald Trump Jr., signed checks to pay up to $100,000 for private school tuition for Weisselberg's grandchildren. Weisselberg said he then instructed the company's controller to deduct the $100,000 from his salary, allowing him to report a smaller income."

And then Politico reported, "The Trump Organization engaged in an effort to clean up its act and stop fraudulent tax practices to avoid scrutiny when Donald Trump became president, the company's former chief financial officer told the jury.

"He said that he and other executives knew their practices were illegal - and brought them to an end after Trump took office."

On Nov. 18, the New York Post reported that Donald Trump's kids gave Allen Weisselberg a whopping $200,000 raise - instead of punishing him - after discovering his shady tax practices, according to testimony by Weisselberg.

On Dec. 6, the Trump Organization and separate entity the Trump Payroll Corp were found guilty on all 17 counts. The Wall Street Journal reported, "The jury found two Trump Organization corporate entities guilty of all criminal counts they faced, including conspiracy, criminal tax fraud and falsifying business records. The two entities could face a total of more than $1.6 million in fines."

Weisselberg, who pleaded guilty last year to dodging taxes on $1.7 million in job perks, was sentenced to five months in prison and five years of probation, Fox News reported Jan 10, 2023.

He will also be required to pay $2 million in back taxes, interest and penalties.

Trump's company was fined $1.6 million for a scheme in which the former president's top executives dodged personal income taxes on lavish job perks - a symbolic but hardly crippling blow for an enterprise boasting billions of dollars in assets, the Associated Press reported Jan. 13.  

DC Attorney General, Trump Organization settle case over misuse of Inaugural funds

The Trump family business and President Trump's 2017 inauguration committee have jointly agreed to pay $750,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by the attorney general for the District of Columbia, who claimed Trump International Hotel in Washington illegally received excessive payments from the Trump inauguration committee, the New York Times reported May 3, 2022.

"The settlement in the civil suit came with no admission of wrongdoing by the Trump Organization, the former president or the inaugural committee."

The Trump Organization will pay $400,000 and the inauguration committee $350,000. All funds will go to two District of Columbia non-profits.

Washington D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine said, "After he was elected, one of the first action Donald Trump took was illegally using his own inauguration to enrich his family. We refused to let that corruption stand."

In January, 2020, Racine filed a lawsuit against the 58th Presidential Inaugural Committee, the Trump Organization and Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. for allegedly abusing nonprofit funds to enrich the Trump family.  In its lawsuit, the Attorney General alleged the Inaugural Committee, a nonprofit corporation, coordinated with the Trump family to grossly overpay for event space in the Trump International Hotel.  Although the Inaugural Committee was aware that it was paying far above market rates, it never considered less expensive alternatives, and even paid for space on days when it did not hold events.

The lawsuit also alleged the 2017 inaugural committee improperly used nonprofit funds to host a private party at the hotel for the Trump family.

Judge dismisses Trump lawsuit against Hillary Clinton, James Comey and others, imposes $1 million fine on Trump, lawyer 

A federal judge has dismissed former President Trump's lawsuit against Hillary Clinton, the Democratic National Committee, several ex-FBI officials and more than two dozen other people, CNN reported.

U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks dismissed the lawsuit Sept. 8, 2022 saying "most of Plaintiff's claims are not only unsupported by any legal authority but plainly foreclosed by binding precedent."

"What (Trump's lawsuit) lacks in substance and legal support it seeks to substitute with length, hyperbole, and the settling of scores and grievances," Middlebrooks wrote.

Trump filed the sprawling $24 million civil lawsuit alleging a vast conspiracy to undermine his 2016 presidential campaign and administration with accusations of Russian collusion, The Hill reported March 24, 2022.

Trump's lawsuit alleged RICO violations, injurious falsehood, theft of trade secrets, violations of the Stored Communications Act, and other actions - 16 in total.

"In the run-up to the 2016 Presidential Election, Hillary Clinton and her cohorts orchestrated an unthinkable plot - one that shocks the conscience and is an affront to this nation's democracy," the lawsuit began. It added that the alleged plot was "so outrageous, subversive and incendiary that even the events of Watergate pale in comparison."

A federal judge on Nov. 11, 2022 ordered sanctions against former President Trump's attorneys over their handling of a since-dismissed lawsuit, The Hill reported.

Trump and attorney Alina Habba have appealed the ruling.

On Jan. 20, 2023, Judge Middlebrooks imposed $1 million in sanctions on Trump and his attorneys.

Trump pays nearly $400,000 to New York Times for failed lawsuit, then sues ABC News

Background: Donald Trump has paid $392,000 to The New York Times to cover the legal costs from his failed lawsuit against the newspaper and its journalists over a 2018 investigation into his finances that included confidential tax records, a spokesman for the Times told CNN on Feb. 26, 2024.

Trump was ordered to pay the money in January, more than eight months after Judge Robert R. Reed granted the Times' motion to dismiss the case against it and its journalists, concluding the journalists' conduct was protected by the state's Constitution.

Among the claims that Trump brought against the Times was the accusation that the journalists were liable for "tortious interference" in how they allegedly sought out his niece and caused her to allegedly breach a 2001 settlement contract with the Trump family.

The series, authored by David Barstow, Susanne Craig and Russ Buettner, went on to win the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Reporting.

Last year, the judge said he was dismissing the claim against the Times "because The Times' purpose in reporting on a story of a high public interest constitutes justification as a matter of law."

Presumptive GOP nominee Trump sued ABC News and host George Stephanopoulos for defamation after the ABC News host said several times on air that the former president was "found liable for rape" during a heated March 10 interview with Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C.

Fox News reported March 19 that Mace, a rape survivor, says she felt personally attacked when Stephanopoulos, a former top aide to President Bill Clinton, asked how she could support Trump's White House bid. Stephanopoulos said Trump was found "liable for rape" 10 times during the exchange. The judge set April 7, 2025 for a trial. 

A federal jury in New York decided that Trump was not liable for rape but was liable for sexual abuse and defamation in the 2023 civil trial of advice columnist E. Jean Carroll vs. Trump. The former president has called the verdict a "disgrace," and denied all wrongdoing.

*

Calendar: Trials, sentencings, hearings, appeals and presidential politics

The Manhattan district attorney's reply to Trump's filing seeking dismissal of the 34 guilty judgments against him is due on July 24. (See "Manhattan grand jury indicts Trump on criminal charges, jury finds him guilty, sentencing next.")

The Supreme Court hasn't formally returned Trump's election-interference case to Judge Chutkan, under what is called a "mandate," which might not happen until Aug. 2. (See "Federal grand jury indicts Trump for Jan. 6 coup attempt, trial on hold after Supreme Court immunity ruling.")

Aug. 7 - Democratic party will hold a virtual presidential candidate nomination convention

By August 10, attorneys for the prosecutor and defense are expected to have submitted a notice of appeal with the First Judicial Department of the Appellate Division. (See "Manhattan grand jury indicts Trump on criminal charges, jury finds him guilty, sentencing next.")

Aug. 19 - 22 - Democratic National Convention - Chicago, Il

Smartmatic is suing Newsmax for defamation. The case is scheduled to go to trial in September. (See "More Trump 'Big Lie' fallout: Smartmatic sues Fox News for $2.7 billion, Newsmax and settles with OAN.")

Steve Bannon, a close confident of former President Trump, is scheduled to go on trial in New York City in September for defrauding Trump supporters.  (See "Trump's A-Team: The aides, staff and supporters who have been investigated, indicted, sued, jailed, disbarred, sanctioned, gone bankrupt, promoted and praised.")

Trump must file appeal after the Sept. 2 start of the court term. (See "New York AG sues Trump for $250 million, judge rules he owes $454 million, Trump pays $175 million to appeal.")

Sept. 5 - Date the Department of Justice' "60-Day Rule" takes effect, which traditionally means the department won't take any prosecutorial steps that could influence an upcoming election.

Judge Merchan plans to decide Sept. 6 whether Trump is immune from the charges, even though his case involves state charges and the Supreme Court was reviewing federal charges. (See "Manhattan grand jury indicts Trump on criminal charges, jury finds him guilty, sentencing next.")

Sept. 10 - Presidential debate at ABC studio (Trump, on the day Biden dropped out of race, suggested the debate should be held on Fox instead.)

Trump is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 18 on 34 criminal charges if a court does not intervene. (See "Manhattan grand jury indicts Trump on criminal charges, jury finds him guilty, sentencing next.")

In late September, Dominion Voting Systems' $1.6 billion lawsuit against Newsmax will go on trial. In 2020-21, the pro-Trump network broadcast interviews with Trump allies in which they alleged Dominion "has a long history of rigging elections," its software "altered and flipped" votes in the 2020 election, and that the "entire election was hacked"cnn in Biden's favor. Newsmax in 2024 is broadcasting rebuttals to Trump's continuing claims of 2020 election fraud.

On approximately Sept. 26, Trump can sell his shares in Truth Social for billions of dollars. (See "Truth Social, Trump's go-to platform, completes successful merger, lawsuits fly.")

Fanis Willis is expected to run for re-election as the Fulton County district attorney on Nov 5. Former President Trump is expected to run for re-election nationally on the same day.

November 5 - Election Day

The Georgia Court of Appeals has set arguments for Dec. 5 in the bid by former President Trump and his allies to remove Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from his case. (See "Georgia county grand jury indicts Trump and allies for effort to overturn state election, four plead guilty.")

Smartmatic in its suit against Fox News for $2.7 billion in damages is expected to go to trial in early 2025. (See "More Trump 'Big Lie' fallout: Smartmatic sues Fox News for $2.7 billion, Newsmax and settles with OAN.")

The judge has set April 7, 2025 as the start of the Trump v. ABC News defamation trial. (See "Trump pays nearly $400,000 to Times for failed lawsuit, sues ABC News.")

*

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AlterNet       American Media Inc.    Arizona Mirror     Arizona Republic       

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BBC     Benzinga       Blast, The     Bloomberg News       

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Check Your Fact     Chicago Tribune    Colorado Public Radio       CNBC        CNN       

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Financial Times      Forbes      Fox 10 (Phoenix)    Fox Business        Fox News      

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GolfWeek        Government Executive       GPB News     Guardian, The     

Hill, The       Hollywood Reporter       Hot Air       Huffington Post

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* The blog thanks the reporters and publishers of the media listed above for their professionalism and dedication to a free press in America.