Prosecutors eyed obstruction charges months before Jack Smith took over Trump case

Months before special counsel Jack Smith took over the case, federal prosecutors in Washington, D.C. were considering obstruction charges in connection with Donald Trump’s bid to subvert the 2020 election.

A newly unsealed court filing related to the Trump grand jury investigation shows that prosecutors were eyeing the charge — which had already been deployed against dozens of Jan. 6 riot defendants — at least by September 2022 and perhaps as early as the spring.

It’s not clear whether the prosecutors at the time were considering bringing the charge against Trump himself or only against people in his orbit. Eventually, Smith did charge Trump with obstruction in the summer of 2023. The unsealed document underscores the Justice Department’s long and laborious pursuit of evidence to support the obstruction allegations now lodged against Trump — even as the statute itself could be upended by the Supreme Court.

The filing relates to search warrants obtained by prosecutors in June and July 2022 to scour the personal email accounts of former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, his deputy Kenneth Klukowski and the Chapman University account of attorney John Eastman. Those warrants had previously been disclosed by U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell, who unsealed documents connected to the search a full year ago.

However, the versions of the documents released last year were redacted to conceal the precise charges being considered by prosecutors as they obtained those warrants. On Tuesday, the newly unsealed document revealed that the potential charges included “obstruction of an official proceeding” and “false statements.”

Smith took over the investigation two months after federal prosecutors obtained access to Clark’s emails — including hundreds of drafts of an autobiography that included his thoughts related to the 2020 election. And in August 2023, Smith obtained a grand jury indictment charging Trump himself with the same obstruction charge that prosecutors were investigating before he took over the case. Clark was identified as “co-conspirator 4,” one of six alleged co-conspirators who all remain uncharged.

The filing indicates federal prosecutors began weighing obstruction charges in connection with the Trump probe well before the House’s Jan. 6 select committee formally recommended that the former president be indicted on the charge. The “obstruction of an official proceeding” law — which has now been leveled against more than 300 Jan. 6 defendants — is itself under scrutiny by the Supreme Court, which agreed last week to consider a challenge to the way prosecutors have used it against the pro-Trump rioters.

The new filing underscores the protracted and elaborate process that prosecutors undertook before bringing charges against Trump. Despite Trump’s repeated claims that prosecutors timed the criminal charges against him to coincide with his bid to retake the White House, the underlying documents show that the Justice Department fought extensive battles throughout 2022 to access crucial information to support a criminal case.

Those battles appeared to begin around the same time that California-based U.S. District Court Judge David Carter concluded that Trump and Eastman “likely” conspired to disrupt the transfer of power, including by their attempts to obstruct Congress’ Jan. 6 proceedings. Carter’s March 28, 2022 opinion — which came after the Jan. 6 committee similarly suggested Trump may have committed obstruction — was the first judicial determination that Trump may have violated the law, and it facilitated the House panel’s access to Eastman’s emails.

But it would be another six months before the Justice Department would win closed-door court battles to access Clark’s emails. The battles included three springtime hearings to develop a “filter protocol” meant to shield privileged materials from investigators, the approval of an initial search warrant to seize Eastman and Clark’s devices in June 2022, additional search warrants to govern the review of those devices, disclosing the files to Clark and his attorney, and a final determination by Howell in September 2022 that permitted investigators to access a subset of the seized files.

The end of this process coincided with a series of secret legal battles by Trump seeking to block investigators’ access to key witnesses like his White House counsel Pat Cipollone and former chief of staff Mark Meadows. Those battles began in October 2022, when prosecutors sought to interview top aides to former Vice President Mike Pence, and ended in April, when Trump’s objections were defeated and top aides, as well as Pence himself, testified before the grand jury.

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Google to pay $700 million to US states, consumers in app store settlement

Google has agreed to pay $700 million and make several other concessions to settle allegations that it had been stifling competition against its Android app store — the same issue that went to trial in another case that could result in even bigger changes.

Although Google struck the deal with state attorneys general in September, the settlement’s terms weren’t revealed until late Monday in documents filed in San Francisco federal court. The disclosure came a week after a federal court jury rebuked Google for deploying anticompetitive tactics in its Play Store for Android apps.

The settlement with the states includes $630 million to compensate U.S. consumers funneled into a payment processing system that state attorneys general alleged drove up the prices for digital transactions within apps downloaded from the Play Store. That store caters to the Android software that powers most of the world’s smartphones.

Like Apple does in its iPhone app store, Google collects commissions ranging from 15 percent to 30 percent on in-app purchases — fees that state attorneys general contended drove prices higher than they would have been had there been an open market for payment processing. Those commissions generated billions of dollars in profit annually for Google, according to evidence presented in the recent trial focused on its Play Store.

Eligible consumers will receive at least $2, according to the settlement, and may get additional payments based on their spending on the Play store between Aug. 16, 2016 and Sept. 30, 2023. Consumers are supposed to be automatically notified about various options for how they can receive their cut of the money.

Another $70 million of the pre-trial settlement will cover the penalties and other costs that Google is being forced to pay to the states.

Google also agreed to make other changes designed to make it even easier for consumers to download and install Android apps from other outlets besides its Play Store for the next five years. It will refrain from issuing as many security warnings, or “scare screens,” when alternative choices are being used.

The makers of Android apps will also gain more flexibility to offer alternative payment choices to consumers instead of having transactions automatically processed through the Play Store and its commission system. Apps will also be able to promote lower prices available to consumers who choose an alternate to the Play Store’s payment processing.

Wilson White, Google’s vice president of government affairs and public policy, framed the deal as a positive for the company, despite the money and concessions it entails. The settlement “builds on Android’s choice and flexibility, maintains strong security protections, and retains Google’s ability to compete with other (software) makers, and invest in the Android ecosystem for users and developers,” White wrote in a blog post.

Although the state attorneys general hailed the settlement as a huge win for consumers, it didn’t go far enough for Epic Games, which spearheaded the attack on Google’s app store practices with an antitrust lawsuit filed in August 2020.

Epic, the maker of the popular Fortnite video game, rebuffed the settlement in September and instead chose to take its case to trial, even though it had already lost on most of its key claims in a similar trial targeting Apple and its iPhone app store in 2021.

The Apple trial, though, was decided by a federal judge instead of the jury that vindicated Epic with a unanimous verdict that Google had built anticompetitive barriers around the Play Store. Google has vowed to appeal the verdict.

But the trial’s outcome nevertheless raises the specter of Google potentially being ordered to pay even more money as punishment for its past practices and making even more dramatic changes to its lucrative Android app ecosystem.

Those changes will be determined next year by U.S. District Judge James Donato, who presided over the Epic Games trial. Donato also still must approve Google’s Play Store settlement with the states.

Google faces an even bigger legal threat in another antitrust case targeting its dominant search engine that serves as the centerpiece of a digital ad empire that generates more than $200 billion in sales annually. Closing arguments in a trial pitting Google against the Justice Department are scheduled for early May before a federal judge in Washington D.C.

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Appeals court shoots down Mark Meadows’ bid to derail Georgia racketeering case

A federal appeals court has denied Mark Meadows’ bid to move his Georgia-based criminal charges into federal court, rejecting a procedural gambit that could have derailed the state’s election-related charges against not only Meadows but also Donald Trump.

In an unsparing opinion written by a stalwart conservative judge, the court ruled that Meadows, who served as Trump’s White House chief of staff, must fight the charges against him in state court in Atlanta. Meadows had aimed to transfer the charges before a federal judge in hopes of having them quickly tossed out.

Meadows could appeal Monday’s ruling to the Supreme Court. But for now, the ruling from a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals keeps on track Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ racketeering prosecution of Trump, Meadows and a dozen other allies for efforts connected to Trump’s bid to subvert the 2020 election. Former Justice Department official Jeff Clark and three GOP activists who falsely signed Electoral College paperwork are also seeking to transfer their cases to federal court, though Monday’s ruling is likely a harbinger of doom for those efforts.

The 3-0 decision was authored by the court’s conservative chief judge, William Pryor. Had they agreed with Meadows and transferred the charges to federal court, it could have upended the case against Trump and all of the defendants, causing significant delays and even a potential ruling that the matter could be dismissed altogether because of its relationship to Trump’s authority as president.

Instead, the panel ruled that a law permitting federal officials to transfer state-level charges into federal court applies only to current government officials, not former ones like Meadows. And the panel of the Atlanta-based 11th Circuit concluded that, even if Meadows were still in office, his argument would still fail because the state’s charges against Meadows are about an alleged criminal agreement to join a conspiracy, not about any actions Meadows took as Trump’s chief of staff.

Throughout his 36-page opinion, Pryor expressed bewilderment at Meadows’ unlimited conception of his duties as Trump’s chief of staff. Meadows' lawyers argued that nearly every action he took was part of his official White House responsibilities — even when they involved making campaign decisions to aid Trump’s reelection.

"We cannot rubberstamp Meadows' legal opinion that the president's chief of staff has unfettered authority,” Pryor wrote.

The panel found that Meadows’ efforts to contact Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger about possibly altering the outcome of the 2020 election fell squarely outside his official duties. His decision to join a call with Trump and Raffensperger on Jan. 2, 2021 — a now-infamous call that is at the heart of the state prosecution — “reflected a clear attempt to further Trump’s ‘private litigation interests,’” rather than any government function.

The panel characterized Meadows’ December 2020 visit to Georgia as an attempt to “infiltrate” an ongoing recount — an act, Pryor said, that was far outside his official duties.

“Meadows cannot point to any authority for influencing state officials with allegations of election fraud,” Pryor wrote. “At bottom, whatever the chief of staff’s role with respect to state election administration, that role does not include altering valid election results in favor of a particular candidate.”

Pryor, an appointee of President George W. Bush, dismissed much of Meadows’ legal position. The judge said Meadows was trying to simultaneously argue that his official duties encompassed some partisan political matters while also acknowledging he was not permitted while acting in his official job to get involved in election-related advocacy for any candidate.

“Meadows cannot have it both ways,” Pryor wrote. “He cannot shelter behind testimony about the breadth of his official responsibilities, while disclaiming his admissions that he understood electioneering activity to be out of bounds. That he repeatedly denied having any role in, or speaking on behalf of, the Trump campaign, reflects his recognition that such activities were forbidden to him as chief of staff.”

Though the ruling was unanimous, the two other judges — Obama appointee Robin Rosenbaum and Biden appointee Nancy Abudu — issued a stark warning that the court’s interpretation could produce a “nightmare scenario” and “cripple the federal government” by allowing state prosecutors to intimidate and interfere with federal officials by subjecting them to the threat of criminal action in state court.

The Democrat-appointed judges explicitly urged Congress to change the law, known as a “removal” statute, to make clear that former officials prosecuted over their official duties can move their cases to federal court even after those officials have left their posts.

“These types of actions can cripple government operations, discourage federal officers from faithfully performing their duties and dissuade talented people from entering public service,” Rosenbaum wrote, in a concurring opinion Abudu joined.

An attorney for Meadows, George Terwilliger III, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the decision and to indicate whether Meadows plans to appeal to the full bench of the 11th Circuit or to the Supreme Court.

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Police: Driver accidentally struck parked SUV in Biden's motorcade near campaign headquarters

WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — Wilmington police say a 46-year-old driver believed to be drunk accidentally plowed into a parked SUV that was guarding President Joe Biden’s motorcade Sunday night while the president was leaving a visit to his campaign headquarters. The president and first lady Jill Biden were unharmed.

While Biden was walking from the campaign office to his waiting armored SUV, the sedan struck a U.S. Secret Service vehicle that was being used to seal off the area surrounding the headquarters for the president’s visit. The driver then tried to continue forward into the closed-off intersection, before Secret Service agents surrounded the vehicle with weapons drawn and instructed the driver to put his hands up.

Wilmington police said Monday their investigation determined the driver, a 46-year-old Wilmington man, accidentally struck the SUV and he was charged with drunk driving and inattentive driving.

A loud bang and sound of crunching metal echoed on the quiet street as Biden paused and looked over toward the sound, surprised, before he was ushered into the vehicle. Jill Biden was already seated inside, and the two were driven swiftly back to their home. His schedule was otherwise unaffected by the incident.

Steve Kopek, a U.S. Secret Service spokesman, said the president’s motorcade departed without incident and the driver was not considered a serious threat to the president.

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Catholic Church will now bless same-sex couples

Catholic priests will now bless same-sex couples for the first time after Pope Francis formally approved the practice in a declaration released Monday.

While the blessings are a sharp change in Catholic practice, the declaration emphasizes that the church “remains firm on the traditional doctrine of the Church about marriage.”

“It is precisely in this context that one can understand the possibility of blessing couples in irregular situations and same-sex couples without officially validating their status or changing in any way the Church’s perennial teaching on marriage,” the declaration states.

While the church remained steadfast in its stance on marriage being between heterosexual couples, the declaration makes clear that it should not take "an exhaustive moral analysis” for same-sex couples to receive blessings.

The declaration goes on to say that "a blessing offers people a means to increase their trust in God."

"The request for a blessing, thus, expresses and nurtures openness to the transcendence, mercy, and closeness to God in a thousand concrete circumstances of life, which is no small thing in the world in which we live," it states.

Francis had previously expressed openness to blessing same-sex couples in an October letter to conservative Cardinals.

The Rev. James Martin, who has advocated for the church to become more welcoming for LGBTQ people, said on X, formerly Twitter, that the decision was a “major step forward” that “recognizes the deep desire in many Catholic same-sex couples for God's presence in their loving relationships.”

“Along with many priests, I will now be delighted to bless my friends in same-sex unions,” Martin wrote. He added in a subsequent post: "Be wary of the 'Nothing has changed' response to today's news. It's a significant change. In short, yesterday, as a priest, I was forbidden to bless same-sex couples at all. Today, with some limitations, I can."

Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), who is Catholic, thanked the Pope in a post on X "for recognizing that we are all God’s children."

"Being LGBTQ always has been a beautiful part of the magnificent creation that we call humanity," he wrote.

Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson said on X that “Millions of lives will be released from judgement (sic) by this, many families reconciled, many hearts given comfort that were tormented before.”

According to Pew, there are 148 Catholics in the 118th Congress.

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President tightens grip in Serbian election marred by fraud claims

The government claims it has won sweeping victory, and slams accusations of electoral irregularities as lies.

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Israel finds large tunnel adjacent to Gaza, raising new questions about prewar intelligence

BEIT HANOUN, Gaza Strip — The Israeli military said Sunday it has discovered a large tunnel shaft in Gaza close to what was once a busy crossing into Israel, raising new questions about how Israeli surveillance missed such conspicuous preparations by Hamas for the militants’ deadly Oct. 7 assault.

The entryway to the tunnel is just a few hundred yards from the heavily fortified Erez crossing and a nearby Israeli military base.

The military said it stretches for over 2.5 miles, links up with a sprawling tunnel network across Gaza and is wide enough for cars to pass through. The army said Sunday that the tunnel facilitated the transit of vehicles, militants, and supplies in preparation for the Oct. 7 attack.

That day, militants used a rocket-propelled grenade to break past the portion of wall close to the Erez crossing and stormed the base, killing at least three soldiers and kidnapping some back to Gaza, the army said. It was one of several places along the border wall where militants easily blew past Israel’s security defenses, entered Israeli territory and killed some 1,200 people and took about 240 others hostage.

The unprecedented attack triggered a devastating war that has raged for over 10 weeks and claimed over 18,000 lives in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, according to Palestinian health officials. Israel says destruction of Hamas’ tunnel network is a major objective and that much of the underground network runs beneath schools, hospitals and residential areas.

Israel’s military, intelligence and political officials have come under heavy criticism for failing to detect the attack ahead of time.

Maj. Nir Dinar, a military spokesperson, said that Israeli security services did not know about the tunnel before Oct. 7 because Israel’s border defenses only detected tunnels meant to enter Israel.

“As far as I know, this tunnel doesn’t cross from Gaza into Israel and stops within 400 meters from the border, which means the indicators won’t indicate that a tunnel is being built,” Dinar said. He added that the entrance, a circular cement opening leading to a cavernous passageway, was located under a garage, hiding it from Israeli drones and satellite images.

While the military was aware that Hamas had an extensive tunnel network, Dinar said they did not think the militants would be able to carry out their plans for a large-scale attack.

“It’s no surprise that this was the Hamas strategy all along,” Dinar said. “The surprise is that they have succeeded and the size of this tunnel … was really shocking.”

The Erez crossing, a fortress-like facility that processed the movement of Palestinians into Israel for work, medical care and transit to neighboring Jordan, held great symbolic value for Hamas. The massive crossing was protected by security cameras and military patrols and the adjacent military base. The crossing suffered heavy damage on Oct. 7 and has not reopened.

The army said its special “Yahalom” unit, which specializes in tunnel warfare, has worked to excavate the tunnel since it was first detected. They say they’ve found weapons inside.

“At this point, this is the biggest tunnel in Gaza,” Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the chief military spokesman, told reporters in a tour of the tunnel’s entrance on Friday.

It is unclear if the tunnel was used on Oct. 7.

The army also showed reporters soldiers’ barracks at the nearby base that it said were set ablaze by the militants. They looked like the ashes of a furnace, with blackened walls and smelted bunks. The military announced Friday that it had recovered in Gaza the bodies of two soldiers who were working at the base on Oct. 7.

Dinar, who visited the tunnel Friday, said it was twice the height and three times the width of other tunnels found in Gaza. He said it is equipped with ventilation and electricity and dives 55 yards underground in some points. He said it was clear that millions of dollars as well as a great deal of fuel and workforce had been needed to build and sustain the tunnel.

Hagari said the military planned to destroy the tunnel and continue to “hunt” militants hiding in others.

“We will hunt them even if we need to go down to the tunnels,” Hagari said. “We also need to do it with attention to the rescue of our hostages and the understanding that maybe some of them are in the tunnels.”

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