The "Great Unraveling" continues.

Special counsel seeks testimony from Trump lawyer as prosecutors allege evidence of crime

The special counsel investigating Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents is seeking to compel a lawyer for the former president to testify before a grand jury, a source familiar with the matter said. Prosecutors allege in a sealed filing that they have evidence that some of Trump’s conversations with the attorney were in furtherance of a crime, the source said.


In a sign of an aggressive new legal strategy, first reported by The New York Times, the source said special counsel Jack Smith has asked a judge to allow prosecutors to invoke what’s known as the crime-fraud exception, which would let them sidestep protections afforded to Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran through attorney-client privilege. The source did not say what questions the government is trying to force Corcoran to answer.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/ju...mp-lawyer-prosecutors-allege-eviden-rcna70711

For those unfamiliar with the term "crime fraud exception" it's exactly what the name implies. Attorney client privilege is waved if the advice the client is getting is in service of a crime. It doesn't take much to connect the dots here. Corcoran is the lawyer who wrote the letter claiming there were no more classified docs in Trump's possession. Ooops.

 

Appeals court upholds $110,000 contempt fine for Trump in New York attorney general case

A New York appeals court panel on Tuesday upheld a $110,000 fine on former President Donald Trump that a judge imposed last spring after he was found in contempt for failing to turn over documents to the state attorney general’s office as part of an investigation of his company.

The panel of five justices ruled that Trump’s contempt fine for not complying with a subpoena for the records was a “proper exercise” of the discretionary power of Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron.

The panel also said the fine of $10,000 per day “was not excessive or otherwise improper, under the particular circumstances.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/14/tru...k-appeals-court-in-attorney-general-case.html

The appeal probably cost more in legal fees than the fine...........but Don can't stop himself, he's a habitual litigant.

 

Georgia grand jury recommends perjury indictments in Trump election meddling probe

A Georgia grand jury looking into possible election meddling by former President Donald Trump said “one or more witnesses” may have lied under oath and urged prosecutors to pursue criminal indictments in those cases.

The special grand jury also found no significant fraud in Georgia’s 2020 presidential election won by President Joe Biden, according to portions of the final report on its monthslong investigation unsealed Thursday.

The grand jury was impaneled in May to investigate whether Trump, his lawyers and political allies committed any crimes in pressuring state officials to overturn the election in his favor, but Fulton County Judge Robert McBurney withheld those conclusions until prosecutors are ready to release the full report at a later time.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/16/tru...-finds-no-fraud-in-georgia-2020-election.html

Criminal behavior follows Trump where ever he goes.

 

Why Is DOJ Only Now Getting Around To Subpoenaing Mark Meadows?

This Took Way Too Long
More than two years after the Jan. 6 attack, the Justice Department is finally getting around to subpoenaing Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.

The existence of a Meadows subpoena was first reported by CNN Wednesday evening. It was also reported by the WSJ. Both reports indicated that the subpoena concerns the Jan. 6 investigation by Special Counsel Jack Smith, not his separate probe of Trump’s mishandling of classified documents. Meadows was subpoenaed in late January before former Vice President Mike Pence was subpoenaed, according to the WSJ.

You don’t need a reminder on why Meadows is central to the 2020 election subversion effort. TPM’s series on The Meadows Texts made that abundantly clear. But the subpoena does raise some interesting questions about what DOJ may be focusing on.

I remain baffled by how long it’s taken the Justice Department to pull the trigger on this subpoena (assuming it’s the first and only subpoena of Meadows in its Jan. 6 probe, and there’s no sign of any others).
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo/why-is-doj-only-now-subpoenaing-mark-meadows

Thank goodness Garland, a true wet noodle, hired Jack Smith.

 

Trump seeks to bar evidence of 2 other alleged sexual assaults at rape defamation trial

Former President Donald Trump’s lawyers asked a judge to bar jurors at his upcoming civil trial from hearing testimony that he sexually assaulted two other women besides E. Jean Carroll, the writer suing him for defaming her after she alleged in 2019 that he raped her in the 1990s.

His lawyers also want Manhattan federal court Judge Lewis Kaplan to prohibit evidence of Trump’s infamous “Access Hollywood” tape, where he boasted about kissing and groping women without their consent, new legal filings reveal.

That tape, recorded in 2005, was made public shortly before the 2016 election. At the time, it was seen as potentially fatal to Trump’s first White House bid.

“I’m automatically attracted to beautiful women — I just start kissing them, it’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait,” Trump said on that tape. “And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. “Grab ’em by the p----.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/17/trump-seeks-to-bar-sexual-assault-evidence-at-trial.html

 

Timothy J. Heaphy Led the House Jan. 6 Investigation. Here’s What He Learned.

WASHINGTON — Timothy J. Heaphy, the former U.S. attorney who served as the top staff investigator for the special House committee that scrutinized the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack, knew going in that the inquiry would be important.

But it was not until he and his team, including about a dozen former federal prosecutors, began digging into the evidence that he realized the panel would break new ground, as it became clear to him that former President Donald J. Trump had directed a “multipart plan to prevent the transfer of power.”

During the panel’s 18-month investigation, Mr. Heaphy, 59, declined interview requests, but he is now ready to speak out about the panel’s work and its findings.

In a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times, Mr. Heaphy made the case for why the Justice Department should charge Mr. Trump and his allies with crimes and discussed intelligence failures in the lead-up to Jan. 6. He also said that leaks had hindered the panel’s investigation and spoke of how the committee explored measures to compel testimony from recalcitrant witnesses that might have included locking them up.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/19/us/politics/timothy-heaphy-jan-6-committee.html

The top investigator for the House Jan. 6 committee said the Justice Department could charge these 4 Trump allies
https://news.yahoo.com/top-investigator-house-jan-6-172914963.html

 

Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump Subpoenaed in Jan. 6 Investigation

Former President Donald J. Trump’s daughter Ivanka and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, have been subpoenaed by the special counsel to testify before a federal grand jury about Mr. Trump’s efforts to stay in power after he lost the 2020 election and his role in a pro-Trump mob’s attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, according to two people briefed on the matter.

The decision by the special counsel, Jack Smith, to subpoena Ms. Trump and Mr. Kushner underscores how deeply into Mr. Trump’s inner circle Mr. Smith is reaching, and is the latest sign that no potential high-level witness is off limits.

The disclosure about the subpoena comes two weeks after it was revealed that Mr. Smith had subpoenaed former Vice President Mike Pence to testify before the grand jury. Mr. Pence plans to fight the subpoena, invoking his role as the president of the Senate to argue that it violates the “speech or debate” clause of the Constitution.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/22/us/politics/jared-kushner-ivanka-trump-jan-6.html

One could say this is what a coup investigation should look like.

 

Smith is wisely getting out in front of Pence's appeal.

Special counsel investigating Trump asks federal judge to compel Mike Pence to give Jan. 6 testimony

WASHINGTON — Special counsel Jack Smith has asked a federal judge to compel former Vice President Mike Pence to testify before a federal grand jury about the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, a senior law enforcement official confirmed to NBC News on Friday.

The motion was filed before U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell in Washington and remains sealed. It was first reported by CBS News. The judge will likely set dates for motions to be filed and possibly to hear oral arguments.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/ju...-asks-federal-judge-compel-pence-te-rcna72252

In Luttig"s legal opinion Pence's ploy to stay in the good graces of Trumpworld is rubbish.

Mike Pence’s Dangerous Ploy

Former Vice President Mike Pence recently announced he would challenge Special Counsel Jack Smith’s subpoena for him to appear before a grand jury in Washington as part of the investigation into former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and the related Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Mr. Pence claimed that “the Biden D.O.J. subpoena” was “unconstitutional” and “unprecedented.” He added, “For me, this is a moment where you have to decide where you stand, and I stand on the Constitution of the United States.” Mr. Pence vowed to take his fight all the way to the Supreme Court.

A politician should be careful what he wishes for — no more so than when he’s a possible presidential candidate who would have the Supreme Court decide a constitutional case that could undermine his viability in an upcoming campaign.

The former vice president should not want the embarrassing spectacle of the Supreme Court compelling him to appear before a grand jury in Washington just when he’s starting his campaign for the presidency; recall the unanimous Supreme Court ruling that ordered Richard Nixon to turn over the fatally damning Oval Office tapes.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/24/opinion/mike-pence-grand-jury.html

 

Arizona governor seeks ethics review of former attorney general

PHOENIX — Arizona’s Democratic governor, Katie Hobbs, is seeking a review of what her office alleges was “likely unethical conduct” by the state’s former attorney general, Mark Brnovich.

A letter sent Friday from the governor’s office to the State Bar of Arizona follows the disclosure on Wednesday of records showing that Brnovich, a Republican, withheld findings by his own investigators refuting claims of fraud in the 2020 election and mischaracterized his office’s probe of voting in the state’s largest county.

The letter, signed by Hobbs’s general counsel, Bo Dul, calls the conduct “harmful to our democracy, our State, and the legal profession itself.”

Brnovich dismissed the allegations. “Katie Hobbs is wrong,” he said in a statement. “This is another misguided attempt by her to defame and cancel a political opponent instead of addressing the serious issues facing our state.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/02/25/brnovich-state-bar-arizona-election/

Hacks like Brnovich helped breathe life in to the Big Lie.

 

More classified documents showed up at Mar-a-Lago. To Trump, this has to be a nightmare. A nightmare that he caused.

CNN reports, "The Justice Department wants to know how a box containing a handful of classified records scattered among copies of presidential schedules turned up at Mar-a-Lago late last year, well after several rounds of searches of the property by federal agents and aides to former President Donald Trump, according to people familiar with the matter.

"Investigators working for special counsel Jack Smith in recent weeks have interviewed a Trump aide who copied classified materials found in the box using her phone to put them onto a laptop. After a voluntary interview with the aide, prosecutors subpoenaed the password to the laptop, which she provided, according to one of the sources.

"The classified documents contained in the box were discovered in December, after the Justice Department told Trump’s legal team to conduct yet another search for documents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.

"Trump’s legal team has acknowledged in recent weeks they turned over to the special counsel the box and a laptop containing its scanned contents. But prosecutors have continued asking why it wasn’t given to the Justice Department earlier, and what if any role or knowledge Trump may have had about its movements, sources said.

"People familiar with the Trump legal team’s efforts to locate documents describe a confusing chain of events that delayed discovery of the box, which finally ended up in the Mar-a-Lago bridal suite that is now Trump’s office – the very place that the FBI had searched just weeks earlier."

 

Trump Loses It Over Murdoch’s Admission About Fox Hosts Endorsing Big Lie

Donald Trump is furious with his former ally Rupert Murdoch after the media mogul made astonishing admissions that some of his Fox News hosts “endorsed” lies that the 2020 election had been “stolen.” Murdoch, 91, also said in a deposition unsealed on Monday that he wished his organization had been “stronger in denouncing” the false narrative that the election was rigged by corrupt voting machines. Dominion Voting Systems is suing Fox News for $1.6 billion over the issue—but the network denies defamation. “Why is Rupert Murdoch throwing his anchors under the table, which also happens to be killing his case and infuriating his viewers, who will again be leaving in droves—they already are,” Trump fumed on his Truth Social platform on Tuesday. “There is MASSIVE evidence of voter fraud & irregularities in the 2020 Presidential Election,” Trump continued, pointing to Dinesh D’Souza’s conspiracy film 2000 Mules as evidence.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump...murdoch-admission-about-fox-hosts-and-big-lie

Murdoch is as unfamiliar with telling the truth as Don is with hearing it.

 

House Chief Counsel Douglas Letter On The Biggest Battles Of The Trump Administration


You led the court fight for release of President Trump’s tax returns and served as counsel on the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential election. Which of the many cases you handled do you consider the most legally significant?
You’re asking me to choose among my children? One is the census case. The Trump administration illegally attempted to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. And during litigation, lots of evidence was put in the record that they were doing so for a very bad purpose, which was to keep down the count of Hispanic Americans and Asian Americans. So we joined a batch of states and others who were challenging the validity of that. I argued before the Supreme Court, and it’s an interesting opinion. The Supreme Court ruled in our favor, upholding the lower courts, and wrote a fairly narrow opinion but one that is quite meaningful. This was the first time that the Supreme Court had ruled that it did not trust the explanation given by the executive branch. The lower courts had held that the executive branch had acted in bad faith in making it seem like there was a valid justification for doing this. And the evidence showed that that was not true — that the Commerce Department folks who are in charge had asked the Justice Department to basically cook up a rationale. The Supreme Court affirmed and said that the citizenship question had to be stricken. I was very proud of that.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/...e-biggest-battles-of-the-trump-administration

It was a largely forgotten attempt to effect elections in favor of Repubs.

 

House Democrat nods to Kellyanne Conway in push to make Hatch Act violations a crime

A House Democrat is seeking to add criminal provisions to a federal law that bars federal employees from electioneering, naming his amendment after former Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway. Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.), who played a central role in impeachment of then-President Trump, is seeking to update the Hatch Act through an amendment to a GOP-led bill dealing with free speech.

The so-called Kellyanne Conway Amendment from Goldman would create a felony provision for a law that ethics watchdogs often describe as relatively toothless, particularly for those serving at high levels of government. The Hatch Act bars promotion of a president’s political interests during the course of administration officials performing official duties, but its consequences are largely limited to disciplinary action and leaves no method for addressing conduct of those who have left government employment.

Under Goldman’s amendment, “willful” violators could face up to two years of jail time as well as facing a fine of up to $1,000 if they use their office for “the purpose of interfering with or affecting the result of an election.” Conway dismissed Goldman as a “crappy lawyer [and] creepy stalker” after he mentioned her eight times in a release about the amendment.
https://thehill.com/homenews/387794...in-push-to-make-hatch-act-violations-a-crime/

Kellyanne says, "ethics......you gotta be kidding me. I worked for Trump"

 

Trump can be sued by police over Jan. 6, Justice Department says

WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice said Thursday that former President Donald Trump can be sued by police officers over the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Attorneys for the Justice Department's civil division said in a court filing in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia that Trump does not have absolute immunity from multiple civil lawsuits, filed by police officers and members of Congress, which seek to hold him liable for damages stemming from the Jan. 6 riot.

"Speaking to the public on matters of public concern is a traditional function of the presidency, and the outer perimeter of the president’s office includes a vast realm of such speech," the brief said. "But that traditional function is one of public communication. It does not include incitement of imminent private violence of the sort the district court found that plaintiffs’ complaints have plausibly alleged here."
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/doj-says-trump-can-sued-police-jan-6-rcna73127

Good thing for Don there are so many rubes willing to pay his legal bills.

 

As 2024 race begins, special counsel advances with focus on Trump lawyers

Federal prosecutors investigating efforts to overturn the 2020 election have asked witnesses extensive questions about the actions of Rudy Giuliani, a lawyer for former president Donald Trump — including where he got his information about alleged fraud, what he did in the days around Jan. 6, 2021, and what he knew about the actions coming that day, people who have appeared in front of the grand jury say.

Investigators looking into classified documents taken to Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida home and private club, have sought to force testimony from another Trump lawyer, Evan Corcoran, by saying there is evidence that the former president used the attorney’s legal services in furtherance of a crime.

And prosecutors have repeatedly sought information on the actions of yet another Trump lawyer, Boris Epshteyn, in connection with both classified documents and Trump’s false electors scheme, three people said. They have quizzed multiple Trump attorneys involved with the documents case, including Christina Bobb, Alina Habba and Jesse Binnall, according to the people familiar with the investigation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss it.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...3/trump-documents-jan6-investigation-lawyers/

One interpretation of the focus on Don's attorneys is it suggests Smith is taking a hard look at how they may have contributed to obstruction of justice in the matter of the classified docs found at MAL.

 

I'm not an attorney but I feel safe in saying that Trump has never been the subject of an investigation he didn't try to obstruct.

 

Trump seeks to block Pence’s grand jury testimony in 2020 election interference probe

Former President Donald Trump has asked a federal court to block former Vice President Mike Pence from speaking to a grand jury about certain matters covered by executive privilege as part of the criminal investigation into efforts to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss, sources familiar with the move told CNN.

The request, in a new filing submitted secretly in a sealed proceeding on Friday, comes after the Trump team had already indicated to special counsel Jack Smith, who is overseeing the Justice Department’s criminal investigations into Trump, that the former president intended to assert privilege over Pence’s testimony.

The DOJ had previously asked a judge to compel Pence’s appearance before the grand jury, CNN reported last week.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/04/politics/2020-election-investigation-trump-pence-testimony/index.html

What's he hiding?

 

Trump pledges to stay in 2024 presidential race even if he is criminally charged

Former president Donald Trump said on Saturday he will remain in the 2024 presidential race even if he faces criminal charges in the ongoing investigations into his handling of White House documents and alleged 2020 election tampering.

Trump made the pledge in response to Newsmax’s James Rosen, a former Fox News reporter, at a press conference at the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, Rosen tweeted on Saturday.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/04/tru...al-race-even-if-he-is-criminally-charged.html

Because, of course he will.

 

Group Seeks Disbarment of a Trump-Aligned Lawyer for a Key Jan. 6 Witness

WASHINGTON — In appearing before the Jan. 6 committee last year, Cassidy Hutchinson, the former White House aide who recounted President Donald J. Trump’s conduct in the lead-up to the attacks on the Capitol, shared how her original lawyer had tried to influence her testimony.

While represented by that lawyer, Stefan Passantino, Ms. Cassidy was less forthcoming to the committee. But after hiring a different lawyer, she provided more damaging details about Mr. Trump and said that Mr. Passantino had pressured her to remain loyal and protect the former president.

Now, several dozen prominent legal figures, including past presidents of the American Bar Association and the District of Columbia Bar, are seeking to revoke Mr. Passantino’s license to practice law. The move reflects intensifying scrutiny over whether Mr. Passantino, a former Trump White House ethics lawyer whose legal fees were covered by Mr. Trump’s political action committee, violated his own professional duty, along with a host of other ethical requirements, by putting the interests of a third party over that of his client.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/06/us/politics/trump-lawyer-ethics-jan-6.html

Another Trump attorney is in the cross hairs of the legal system because of something he did to help Don. This time by putting the interests of a third party (Trump) over that of his client (Hutchinson).

It was recently reported that Jack Smith has turned his attention to Trump lawyers involved in the classified docs case for potentially aiding Don's obstruction of the investigation. One of them having lied to federal officials about whether classified docs remained at MAL. Slimy Rudy faces all manner of consequences for his association with the Orange Menace including disbarment. Team Kraken has been sanctioned for their participation in the worst fraud ever perpetrated on the American people, the Big Lie. John Eastman is in legal jeopardy for supplying Capt. COVID with a pretense to steal the election. We all know what happened to M. Cohen. And there's this guy.......

Lawyers Group Asks Court to Punish an Author of Trump Electors Scheme
An ethics complaint in New York against Kenneth Chesebro is the latest example of legal troubles for lawyers who helped Donald J. Trump try to overturn the 2020 election.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/12/us/politics/kenneth-chesebro-trump-fake-electors.html

Individual 1, having shown his disregard for the rule of law, should be a pariah among the legal community. Yet lawyers keep putting their livelihood on the line to help him. It's astounding.

 

Trump Tees Up A Cycle Of Revenge With ‘I Am Your Retribution’ Speech

What more warning do we need? He’s the only president twice impeached, to attempt a coup, and to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power. Despite the blizzard of lies, half-truths, and deceptions, he usually conveys exactly what he means to do. Like an aging rock star hitting the road for one last hurrah, Trump’s 2024 campaign is the “Retribution” tour.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo/trump-cpac-i-am-your-retribution-speech

Most pols run for the presidency because they have a vision for America. Trump is running to launch his personal revenge tour.

 

Michael Beschloss: “’I am your retribution’ was said today on anniversary of Lincoln’s second inaugural in which he said he had ‘malice toward none.’”

 

Media Matters filed a complaint with the FEC over Rupert Murdoch sharing confidential information with Jared Kushner

Media Matters has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission regarding Fox Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch providing confidential material to the Trump campaign in 2020. The revelation was included in recently released court filings regarding Dominion Voting Systems' lawsuit against Fox Corp. and Fox News.

The complaint alleges that Fox Corp. made an illegal corporate contribution to the committee when Fox Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch provided confidential information about then-candidate Joe Biden’s advertisements to Trump’s campaign.
https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-ne...pert-murdoch-sharing-confidential-information

We've known Faux is the propaganda arm of the POT for some time now.

 

What We Know About the Potential Indictment of Donald Trump

The revelation that the Manhattan district attorney’s office has indicated to Donald J. Trump’s lawyers that he could soon face criminal charges marked a major development in an inquiry that has loomed over the former president for nearly five years.

It also raised a number of questions about the contours of the potential case against Mr. Trump, who could become the first former American president to be indicted.

Alvin L. Bragg, the district attorney, is focused on Mr. Trump’s involvement in the payment of hush money to a porn star who said she had an affair with him. Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s fixer at the time, made the payment during the final days of the 2016 presidential campaign.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/10/nyregion/trump-potential-indictment-criminal-charges.html

The reaction to this news by one pundit was.......it would be unfortunate if this was the first criminal charge Individual 1 faced. Because it is minor relative to the more serious matter of subverting the 2020 election by way of a coup.

I'm less interested in the timing of these cases than I am that justice be served.

 

The Trumpworld attorneys facing professional sanctions over spurious lawsuits and election lies

Several members of the legal team that advanced Donald Trump’s bogus claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him are facing professional sanctions and ethics violations for their spurious attempts to overturn the results.

Attorneys for the now-former president repeatedly and falsely asserted that the election was fraudulent while pushing lawsuits to subvert the outcome in states that he lost.

Jenna Ellis, a member of what she once described an “elite strike force” to overturn election results, “repeatedly made misrepresentations on national television and on Twitter, undermining the American public’s confidence in the 2020 presidential election,” according to a six-page ruling on 8 March from a judge in Colorado, where she practises law.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...na-ellis-sidney-powell-giuliani-b2297688.html

Like all people who get involved with Trump, their lives have turned to shyte.

 

House Republicans Quietly Halt Inquiry Into Trump’s Finances

WASHINGTON — House Republicans have quietly halted a congressional investigation into whether Donald J. Trump profited improperly from the presidency, declining to enforce a court-supervised settlement agreement that demanded that Mazars USA, his former accounting firm, produce his financial records to Congress.

Representative James R. Comer, Republican of Kentucky and the chairman of the Oversight and Accountability Committee, made clear he had abandoned any investigation into the former president’s financial dealings — professing ignorance about the inquiry Democrats opened when they controlled the House — and was instead focusing on whether President Biden and members of his family were involved in an influence-peddling scheme.

“I honestly didn’t even know who or what Mazars was,” said Mr. Comer, who was the senior Republican on the oversight panel during the last Congress, while Democrats waged a lengthy legal fight over obtaining documents from the firm.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/13/us/politics/house-trump-finances-investigation.html

In this instance the Great Unraveling has been blocked by duplicitous Repub protectors of Don.