A federal judge who was appointed by Barack Obama denied a request from corrupt DOJ boss Merrick garland and he has refused to hold President Trump in contempt over the documents found at Trump’s residence at Mar-A-Lago. In May the DOJ issued a subpoena to Trump to turn over documents he was holding at Mar-A-Lago and for which they claimed wasn’t complied with. Garland’s department asked US District Judge Beryl Howell, an Obama appointee, to hold Trump’s office in contempt.
They should have charged me because I hold both the DOJ and the FBI in contempt. That would have been a slam dunk for them.
ABC News reported:
A federal judge in Washington declined to hold former President Donald Trump or his legal team in contempt of court following a court hearing Friday as the Justice Department had requested, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
The judge instead urged the Justice Department and Trump’s legal team to resolve the dispute themselves, the sources said.
The DOJ had urged the judge to hold Trump’s team in contempt over failure to fully comply with a May subpoena for documents with classified markings that was directed to Trump’s custodian of records — a person the Trump legal team has not identified.
VISIT OUR YOUTUBE CHANNELThe proceedings were under seal and not public.
“The President and his counsel will continue to be transparent and cooperative, even in the face of the highly weaponized and corrupt witch-hunt from the Department of ‘Justice,’” Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement.
“If the Department of ‘Justice’ can go after President Trump, they will surely come after any American who they disagree with,” Cheung added. “President Trump is the only one who stands in the way of the un-American weaponization of law enforcement.”
Trump’s lawyers had been forced to search Trump’s golf course in Bedminister, NJ, and Trump Tower in New York City to look for more documents. Those searches came up empty. That search was ordered by the judge to prove that they had fully complied with the subpoena. The judge was satisfied that they had fully complied with the ethically challenged DOJ.
A federal judge on Friday did not grant a Justice Department request to hold former President Donald Trump’s office in contempt of court for allegedly failing to comply with a grand jury subpoena, NBC News reported.
The department wanted Judge Beryl Howell to find Trump’s office in contempt for not fully complying with the subpoena issued in May, which demanded he return classified documents still in his possession, according to a person familiar with the issue who spoke to NBC News.
The Justice Department had no comment on Howell’s rejection of the request, which came after a closed hearing was scheduled for the matter in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.
The hearing was sealed because it relates to grand jury proceedings. NBC News was part of a media coalition seeking access to the hearing.
Trump’s lawyers Evan Corcoran, Jim Trusty and Timothy Parlatore were seen entering Howell’s chambers around the time of the scheduled hearing at 2 p.m. ET, NBC reported.
The trio then was leaving the courthouse at just before 3:30 p.m.
