#Brett Tolman

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Steve Contorno at CNN:

Donald Trump has lately made clear he wants little to do with Project 2025, the conservative blueprint for the next Republican president that has attracted considerable blowback in his race for the White House. “I have no idea who is behind it,” the former president recently claimed on social media. Many people Trump knows quite well are behind it. Six of his former Cabinet secretaries helped write or collaborated on the 900-page playbook for a second Trump term published by the Heritage Foundation. Four individuals Trump nominated as ambassadors were also involved, along with several enforcers of his controversial immigration crackdown. And about 20 pages are credited to his first deputy chief of staff. In fact, at least 140 people who worked in the Trump administration had a hand in Project 2025, a CNN review found, including more than half of the people listed as authors, editors and contributors to “Mandate for Leadership,” the project’s extensive manifesto for overhauling the executive branch.

Dozens more who staffed Trump’s government hold positions with conservative groups advising Project 2025, including his former chief of staff Mark Meadows and longtime adviser Stephen Miller. These groups also include several lawyers deeply involved in Trump’s attempts to remain in power, such as his impeachment attorney Jay Sekulow and two of the legal architects of his failed bid to overturn the 2020 presidential election, Cleta Mitchell and John Eastman. To quantify the scope of the involvement from Trump’s orbit, CNN reviewed online biographies, LinkedIn profiles and news clippings for more than 1,000 people listed on published directories for the 110 organizations on Project 2025’s advisory board, as well as the 200-plus names credited with working on “Mandate for Leadership.”

Overall, CNN found nearly 240 people with ties to both Project 2025 and to Trump, covering nearly every aspect of his time in politics and the White House – from day-to-day foot soldiers in Washington to the highest levels of his government. The number is likely higher because many individuals’ online résumés were not available. In addition to people who worked directly for Trump, others who participated in Project 2025 were appointed by the former president to independent positions. For instance, Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr authored an entire chapter of proposed changes to his agency, and Lisa Correnti, an anti-abortion advocate Trump appointed as a delegate to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, is among the contributors. Several people involved in Project 2025 didn’t serve in the Trump administration but were influential in shaping his first term. One example is former US Attorney Brett Tolman, a leading force behind the former president’s criminal justice reform law who later helped arrange a pardon for Charles Kushner, the father of Trump’s son-in-law. Tolman is listed as a contributor to “Mandate for Leadership.”

The extensive overlap between Project 2025 and Trump’s universe of allies, advisers and former staff complicates his efforts to distance himself from the work. Trump’s campaign has sought for months to make clear that Project 2025 doesn’t speak for them amid an intensifying push by President Joe Biden and Democrats to tie the Republican standard bearer to the playbook’s more controversial policies.

[...]

Heritage plan becomes a political headache

Behind Project 2025 is the Heritage Foundation, a 51-year-old conservative organization that aligned itself with Trump not long after his 2016 victory. Heritage is led by Kevin Roberts, a Trump ally whom the former president praised as “doing an unbelievable job” on a February night when they shared the same stage. Heritage conceived Project 2025 to begin planning so a Republican president could hit the ground running after the election. One of its priorities is creating a roadmap for the first 180 days of the new administration to quickly reorient every federal agency around its conservative vision. Described on its website as “a movement-wide effort guided by the conservative cause to address and reform the failings of big government and an undemocratic administrative state,” Project 2025 also aims to recruit and train thousands of people loyal to the conservative movement to fill federal government positions.

[...]

Vast network of Trump allies

However, Trump’s attempts to distance himself from Project 2025 have already encountered credibility challenges. The person overseeing Project 2025, Paul Dans, was a top official in Trump’s White House who has previously said he hopes to work for his former boss again. Shortly after Trump’s Truth Social post last week, Democrats noted a recruitment video for Project 2025 features a Trump campaign spokeswoman. On Tuesday, the Biden campaign posted dozens of examples of connections between Trump and Project 2025. CNN’s review of Project 2025’s contributors also demonstrated the breadth of Trump’s reach through the upper ranks of the vast network of organizations working to move the country in a conservative direction – from women’s groups and Christian colleges to conservative think tanks in Texas, Alabama and Mississippi. New organizations centered around Trump’s political movement, his conspiracy theories around his electoral defeats and his first-term policies are deeply involved in Project 2025 as well. One of the advisory groups, America First Legal, was started by Miller, a key player in forming Trump’s immigration agenda. Another is the Center for Renewing America, founded by Russ Vought, former acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, who wrote for Project 2025 a detailed blueprint for consolidating executive power. Vought recently oversaw the Republican Party committee that drafted the new platform heavily influenced by Trump.

In addition to Vought, two other former Trump Cabinet secretaries wrote chapters for “Mandate for Leadership”: Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson and acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller. Three more former department heads – National Intelligence Director John Ratcliffe, acting Transportation Secretary Steven Bradbury and acting Labor Secretary Patrick Pizzella – are listed as contributors.

CNN reports that at least 140 people who worked for Donald Trump’s administration are involved in The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. This should put an end to the nonsensical lie that Trump “know[s] nothing about Project 2025.”

See Also:

MMFA: Trump and his allies are denying any association to Project 2025 and its architects. History speaks for itself.

[youthkenworld]

In Trump-Russia scandal, all roads lead to Hillary...AND OBAMA

Yesterday, we brought you the story of former U.S. Attorney Brett Tolman saying that Obama, Biden, Hillary Clinton, Brennan, Comey, Clapper and friends had collaborated to frame Donald Trump “right in front of us.”  Today, breaking news shockingly builds on this.

Thanks to Dan Bongino for, if not connecting a couple of new dots --- we’d already connected them --- at least taking a bold felt-tip pen and drawing a thick black line unmistakably linking them.

[grits-galraisedinthesouth]

Hunter Biden broke multiple laws.

‘2 TIERS OF JUSTICE’: Rapper’s Lawyer Slams Hunter Biden’s Plea Deal After His Client Served Time For Same Charge

By Cullen McCueJune 20, 2023Updated:June 20, 2023

A lawyer who represented Florida-based rapper Kodak Black slammed Hunter Biden’s generous plea deal as an example of a two-tiered justice system in an Instagram post Tuesday.

Kodak Black was sentenced to three years in prison after accepting a guilty plea to weapons charges in 2020. He was later pardoned by former President Trump during his final days in office, as were several additional rappers, including Lil Wayne. Like Kodak Black, Lil Wayne served several years in prison after pleading guilty to weapons charges.

“2 tiers of justice?” wrote attorney Bradford Cohen in a caption on a side-by-side photo of his client’s prison sentence compared with Hunter Biden’s deal. The president’s son is not expected to serve any jail time under terms of the deal.

“Kodak was charged for the same crime. Got over 3 years. Mr. Biden will not serve a day. Feels right?” Cohen wrote. “Do FBI agents and federal authorities take cases personally?”

Hunter Biden is expected to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax violations, as well as a felony weapons charge. He is not expected to serve any prison time under the terms of the deal and will accept a pretrial diversion program for the weapons charge.

“DOJ is violating its own internal policies on this case,” said former U.S. Attorney for the District of Utah Brett Tolman.  “The Ashcroft Memo requires they charge the ‘highest provable offense’ and seek consistent sentences with other cases brought by DOJ. This prosecution is an absolute laughable joke. Thousands have been sent to prison for long terms for the same charges.”

In response to the deal, House Republicans have vowed to continue their rapidly intensifying investigation into an alleged criminal bribery scheme involving the Biden family. Both Joe Biden and his son have been credibly accused of accepting a $5 million bribe in a quid-pro-quo agreement to get Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin fired.

Shokin was investigating the Ukrainian energy firm Burisma, where Hunter Biden sat on the board.

The foreign national referenced in an FD-1023 form compiled by a “highly credible” source — who has since been named as a former Burisma executive — allegedly kept recordings of conversations between himself and the Biden family.

CALLED IT: Trump Predicted DOJ Would Charge Hunter With ‘Something Small’ To ‘Make Their Strike On Me Seem Fair’

‘2 TIERS OF JUSTICE’: Rapper’s Lawyer Slams Hunter Biden’s Plea Deal After His Client Served Time For Same Charge

Biggs Sounds Off On Biden DOJ, Says Hunter’s Deal Is A Deflection From House GOP Bribery Probe

[sutrala]

Harold Hutchison Daily Caller News Foundation Former deputy independent counsel Sol Wisenberg and former United States Attorney Brett Tolman predicted Friday that Democratic Secretary of State Shenna Bellows of Maine will lose a court battle to throw former President Donald...

[rebeleden]

NewsMax Interview: Brett Tolman Discussing Epstein Confidante will use Sex tapes to Avoid Jail — Tolman Group

[alaturkanews]

Trump indictment is in the eye of the prosecutor: Brett Tolman

Article III Project President Mike Davis and former U.S. attorney Brett Tolman give their take on the charges against former President Trump on 'Jesse Watters Primetime.' Subscribe to Fox News! https://bit.ly/2vBUvAS Watch more Fox News Video: http://video.foxnews.com Watch Fox News Channel Live: http://www.foxnewsgo.com/ FOX News Channel (FNC) is a 24-hour all-encompassing news service…

[roma-sera-giornale]

L'FBI e le elezioni americane

Brett Tolman, che ha giustamente detto degli sforzi dell'amministrazione Obama per il Crossfire Hurricane, "Questa è stata un'operazione, non un'indagine", è stato intervistato questa mattina su Fox News. Ha ricordato il suo primo giorno al Dipartimento d

Giovanni De Ficchy Dunque dopo aver ascoltato l’incredibile notizia riguardante l’incriminazione ad aver preso conoscenza dei capo di imputazione mi sorgono spontanee queste domande; Tenendo conto del ruolo svolto dall’FBI nelle elezioni del 2016 e del 2020: L’FBI è diventato un organo del Partito Democratico?  Le elezioni negli Stati Uniti possono essere oneste ed eque?  Può una polizia…

[justiceheartwatcher]

Biden, Obama, FBI, DOJ, CIA conspiring “right in front of us” - Read Mike's News Analysis - Mike Huckabee

[rjhamster]

Former US attorney claims Trump indictment is for same thing for which Hillary Clinton was merely fined | The Daily Conservative

Former United States Attorney Brett Tolman said Saturday that the legal argument being used by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to allegedly indict former President Donald Trump was the same argument that was used against Hillary Clinton, and which resulted in only a fine. Just like Trump allegedly tried to hide a campaign payment to — Read on…

[realtalkingpoints]

Seems all but certain, not only did Hillary store classified documents on a private server, but they were secretly forwarded to another email account.

Immunity was handed out like free candy, and no one has gone to jail...

[beardedmrbean]

The federal investigation into Hunter Biden has reached a critical stage, where the current grand jury has been disbanded with no charges yet brought, despite allegations the 52-year-old lied on a firearm purchase form among other claims, an ex-prosecutor told Fox News on Thursday.

Biden, the younger son of President Biden, has been subject to a federal investigation in Delaware for several years – and the White House elected to keep U.S. Attorney for Delaware David Weiss in office past the end of the Trump administration purportedly to avoid claims of conflict-of-interest.

With the grand jury reportedly disbanding, the case may now be in the hands of government prosecutors to make the next move, which former U.S. Attorney for Utah Brett Tolman told "The Story" leaves a very strange dynamic:

"None of this adds up. None of it makes sense. Indictments should have been brought when you first started calling witnesses and close thereto, that's standard," he said.

"The fact that a grand jury is now terminating here fairly soon or has terminated, in essence, you have to start all over. If the new grand jury gets empaneled, you have to re-present all the evidence that you may have presented."

Tolman said that normally charges or the threat thereof would be brought before the termination of the first grand jury.

Prosecutors could've hung the younger Biden's well documented crack cocaine use and claims he lied on a federal gun purchase form over his head, he said, adding attorneys and officials involved in the Delaware case aren't proceeding as he would have.

"[I]t's not adding up. It's certainly not what I would have done. And it's not what the majority of my colleagues who served as U.S. attorneys and assistant U.S. attorneys would have done in this case," he said.

Hunter had reportedly responded in the negative to a form question about being an "unlawful user of or addicted to" various controlled substances, when purchasing a gun his late brother Joseph III's widow Hallie – with whom he was in a relationship – had discarded in a public trash can near a school.

Biden's father, the president, has long been a proponent of prosecuting similar infractions and enacting farther-reaching gun control legislation.

The probe is still investigating potential tax violations, foreign lobbying violations, false statements and gun infractions, a source told Fox News.

"Anybody who wanted to seek justice in this case would have charged Hunter Biden very quickly," Tolman said. 

"You would have threatened distribution of narcotics and possession of firearms – which carry lengthy prison sentences," he said, adding prosecutors could have also elected to press him as a "source" if they wanted to investigate allegations Joe Biden was aware of or involved in his son's foreign business dealings – which the White House denies.

"I mean, this is so simple and so basic that the only conclusion I can make is political games are being played and have from the very beginning," Tolman said.

When asked about parallels between Hunter's case and that of Clinton-linked attorney Michael Sussmann, Tolman said Biden has much more "visual evidence" from his laptop and purported text messages that would play differently in court than the evidence presented against Sussmann, who was not convicted of any crime.

"There's just so much that this is the equivalent of a softball being floated and you have an extremely large bat."

[scottbcrowley2]

Ed Chung and Brett L. Tolman: Inslee’s targeted prison releases will make Washington safer for everyone - Sat, 18 Apr 2020 PST

In prisons and jails throughout the country, incarcerated people are sitting ducks when it comes to the dangers of COVID-19. Ed Chung and Brett L. Tolman: Inslee’s targeted prison releases will make Washington safer for everyone - Sat, 18 Apr 2020 PST