By now we're well acquainted with this story:
An appeals court on Wednesday rejected an effort by former President Donald Trump's attorneys to block Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran from having to testify and hand over records to special counsel Jack Smith's team investigating Trump's handling of classified records after leaving the White House, according to court records.
The three-judge panel on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled extraordinarily swiftly against the request for a stay by Trump's attorneys, who sought to block an order last Friday by the chief judge for the D.C. District Court, who determined the government had made a prima facie case that Corcoran's legal services were likely used by Trump in the furtherance of a crime.
Corcoran was expected to testify as soon as Friday, sources said.
And were you to click that last link ("in the furtherance of a crime") you'd read this:
Prosecutors in the special counsel's office have presented compelling preliminary evidence that former President Donald Trump knowingly and deliberately misled his own attorneys about his retention of classified materials after leaving office, a top federal judge wrote Friday in a sealed filing, according to sources who described its contents to ABC News.
U.S. Judge Beryl Howell, who on Friday stepped down as the D.C. district court's chief judge, wrote last week that prosecutors in special counsel Jack Smith's office had made a "prima facie showing that the former president had committed criminal violations," according to the sources, and that attorney-client privileges invoked by two of his lawyers could therefore be pierced.
And so on. We've all been following this story, amirite?
Well, ABCNews last night posted a story about another Trump attorney testifying before the grand Jury about the Mar-a-Lago documents:
A top attorney for former President Donald Trump gave previously undisclosed testimony before a grand jury late last year regarding efforts by Trump's team to locate any classified documents that remained in Trump's possession after the FBI's unprecedented August search of his Mar-a-Lago estate, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
The Dec. 22 testimony from attorney Timothy Parlatore was ordered after months of wrangling between Trump's attorneys and officials in the Justice Department, who had grown increasingly concerned that Trump still continued to hold onto classified documents after more than 100 were discovered in the August 8 search, sources said.
In fact, just days before his testimony, Parlatore revealed to the DOJ and D.C. district court Judge Beryl Howell that a search of Mar-a-Lago conducted by Trump's legal team on Dec. 15 and 16 had discovered four additional documents with classification markings, according to sources.
For the record, Parlatore was not subpoenaed. He's quoted by ABCNews saying that he voluntarily chose to go to the grand jury. Happily, in fact.
Why do I bring this up?
In the likely event that his name didn't trigger any recognition, let me show you this from Dec 30 of last year (that's only 8 days after he happily and voluntarily testified before the grand jury!). It's about St Sen Doug Mastriano's "testimony" before the January 6 committee:
The bulk of the testimony, such as it is, is Doug's attorney Timothy Parlatore getting all feisty and nitpicky over whether a committee's subpoena was signed with an autopen or whether the committee has designated two individuals to conduct the investigation.
When Parlatore doesn't get the answers he wants, he and Doug walk.
Timothy Parlatore is (or at the very least once was) Doug Mastriano's attorney.
In fact, Parlatore responded to my blog post the very next day.
And not only is (or, at least was) Parlatore Mastriano's attorney, Pennlive reported:
Parlatore has represented at least two other witnesses interviewed by the Jan. 6th Committee, including Bernard Kerik, the former New York City Police Commissioner and longtime associate of Trump’s attorney, Rudolph Giuliani. His representation of Mastriano, according to state campaign finance reports, is being covered at least in part by Mastriano’s gubernatorial campaign. [Emphasis added.]
I'm not saying that Doug Mastriano is in anyway involved with the Mar-a-Lago documents.
All I am saying is that his attorney when he sat but not testified before the January 6 committee and who's legal fees was paid for (at least in part) by his gubernatorial campaign testified before a grand jury investigating Trump's Mar-a-Lago documents. That attorney also represented Rudy Giuliani and Bernard Kerik before the January 6 committee.
So how tightly is that group intertwined?
