For all the frenzy over a possible indictment of Donald Trump in a New York hush money case, the ex-president’s gravest legal issues, which are deepening by the day, may lie elsewhere.
Three crushing legal blows against Trump and his lawyers in investigations conducted by special counsel Jack Smith threaten to expose with fresh clarity his conduct in the run up to the US Capitol insurrection and his hoarding of classified documents.
In an extraordinary development revealed on Tuesday, a federal judge opened the way to a former vice president testifying against the president he served. In a ruling still under seal, the judge said Mike Pence must appear before a grand jury over conversations he had with Trump leading up to January 6, 2021. Such an appearance would allow prosecutors to seek potentially damning evidence, under oath, about fierce pressure Trump imposed on Pence to thwart the transfer of power to President Joe Biden.
The ruling came days after another court decision against Trump and for the January 6 investigators, saying he could not block grand jury testimony from some of his administration’s top officials, including then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.
These rulings came amid another win for the special counsel last week when Trump’s lead defense attorney, Evan Corcoran, testified again to the grand jury after he was ordered to reappear by an appeals court. Corcoran could potentially have vital evidence related to whether Trump deliberately hid classified documents or sought to obstruct authorities trying to get them back.
Each development potentially peeled away another layer of protection from the former president, who has not been charged with a crime in any of the cases. Both probes being pursued by Smith are succeeding in overcoming Trump’s time-worn strategy of postponing accountability with spurious litigation and…
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