We begin today’s roundup with former US attorney Barbara McQuade, writing at USA Today, who lays out five ways Trump may still be in legal peril:
A fourth legal challenge looms regarding the Trump Foundation, a nonprofit organization that Trump voluntarily dissolved last year after the New York attorney general filed a civil lawsuit. The lawsuit alleged that the foundation was serving as a “checkbook” for Trump’s business and political interests, engaging in “a shocking pattern of illegality.” The allegations in the civil suit could very easily become the basis for federal charges of mail fraud, wire fraud or tax offenses for the foundation and its officers and directors, including Trump and his children, if it can be shown that they acted with criminal intent.
A fifth legal threat exists in the form of lawsuits alleging that Trump has violated the emoluments clauses of the Constitution. Presidents are prohibited from accepting things of value from foreign governments or from profiting from their presidency. Pending lawsuits say Trump is doing just that. Attorneys general in Maryland and the District of Columbia have filed lawsuits arguing that Trump is using his Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., to profit illegally off of his presidency. The government of Saudi Arabia and government lobbyists have rented rooms from the Trump hotel, creating an apparent conflict of interest for the president.
Here is Natasha Bertand at The Atlantic on the battle to release the report:
A Justice Department official who requested anonymity to discuss the internal deliberations said earlier this week that “we are hoping to have a public version of the report to Congress and to the public in weeks not months.” But a Democratic staffer who spoke to reporters on Thursday on condition of anonymity said that lawmakers still aren’t sure whether they will see the report itself or a summary of it, and what is in the “public version” of the report is still unclear.
Right now, the main barrier standing in the way of Barr releasing Mueller’s report to Congress is the grand-jury material included in it, according to several Democratic staffers who spoke with reporters on Thursday on the condition of anonymity. Mueller empaneled a grand jury shortly after being appointed in May 2017. A grand jury hears testimony from witnesses, reviews evidence provided by the prosecutor, hears jury instructions that define the law, and then votes on whether a target should be indicted—as such, the grand-jury materials are key to understanding the full scope of the investigation. Federal rules of criminal procedure obligate Barr to redact the grand-jury material, although there have been instances where such material was released to Congress. The Watergate “Road Map,” for example, which was unsealed by the Washington, D.C., District Court in October, was written by the grand-jury foreman at the time specifically for Congress. It outlined the evidence the jury received over the course of the Watergate probe, but made no recommendation about the best course of action—only that it should “presently defer to the House of Representatives and allow the House to determine what action may be warranted at this time by this evidence.”