Three key Trump figures intersect two Justice Department probes

Published

3 years ago

February 21, 2023

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Three key figures connected to Donald Trump are at the intersection of two accelerating Justice Department probes seen as the most viable pathways for a prosecution of the former president.

Special counsel Jack Smith is overseeing what began as two entirely separate cases: the mishandling of classified records at Mar-a-Lago and the effort to influence the 2020 election that culminated in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Several Trump World figures straddle both events, providing prosecutors with what experts say is a potent opportunity to advance both investigations.

Alex Cannon, Christina Bobb and Kash Patel played different roles in the two sagas, but each has been sought by the Justice Department in the documents dispute and has also been called in by the special House committee, now disbanded, that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, riot.

Cannon, a longtime Trump Organization employee, was pulled into campaign efforts to assess voter fraud and then served as a liaison for Trump with the National Archives as officials there pushed for the recovery of presidential records.

Bobb, a lawyer for Trump’s 2024 campaign, aided in the Trump 2020 campaign’s post-election lawsuits. She later shifted to doing legal work for Trump that culminated in her signing a statement asserting classified records stored at Mar-a-Lago had been returned.

Patel was chief of staff to the secretary of Defense as the Pentagon was grappling with Jan. 6. Trump also named Patel as one of his representatives to the National Archives upon leaving office, and he was later one of Trump’s chief surrogates in pushing claims that the former president declassified the records in his Florida home.

It’s unclear whether any of the trio faces significant legal exposure, but their unique positions could be valuable for Smith, who is racing forward with both cases. In recent weeks, Smith has subpoenaed former Vice President Mike Pence and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, while securing another batch of materials from Mar-a-Lago.

“Typically, you don’t have two separate investigations and two separate sets of possible crimes to work with as you’re negotiating. Smith does have that here,” said Norm Eisen, a counsel for Democrats during Trump’s first impeachment who has penned analyses of both cases.

“For him, it’s like a two-for-one sale. If he cuts a cooperation deal with some of these individuals, he can advance multiple cases at the same time.”

Patel was granted immunity by a judge and compelled to answer questions in the Mar-a-Lago case after being previously subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury and repeatedly pleading the Fifth. Bobb has also spoken with prosecutors in relation to the case and testified before a grand jury. And the Justice Department is seeking to speak to Cannon about his dealings with the National Archives, The New York Times reported.

“I think that is a potential fruitful avenue for the Justice Department in these cases,” said Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney under President Obama. “Their overlap in the two cases is very interesting, because you could use criminal exposure in one case to flip them in the other case.”

Attorneys for Cannon and Bobb did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story, while a spokesperson for Patel declined to comment. The Trump campaign also did not respond to request for comment.

To be clear, other figures also may have insight into the two probes, including Meadows and former deputy White House counsel Pat Philbin. Former White House attorney Eric Herschmann is also reported to have warned Trump about holding onto records at Mar-a-Lago.

Still, the trove of transcripts released by the House Jan. 6 committee offers a window into three figures who, despite diverging paths, became central in the Mar-a-Lago probe.

Bobb and Patel, who now serves on the board of Trump’s social media enterprise, remain deeply enmeshed with the former president.

Cannon was most recently employed by Michael Best, a law firm that in December severed its ties with several Trump-connected attorneys, including Stefan Passantino, who represented former aides before the Jan. 6 panel. The firm also allowed contracts with Cannon and former Trump deputy campaign manager Justin Clark to lapse, Bloomberg News reported.

The firm did not respond to a request for comment.

Cannon, who was initially hired to work on contracts for the Trump Organization, expressed hesitation during interviews with the Jan. 6 panel about being pulled into working on fraud issues for the campaign as the pandemic brought hotel operations to a trickle.

“I believe that the only reason I was asked to do this is because others didn’t want to. I have no particular experience with election law or anything. I do vendor contracts,” he told the committee.

When asked if he found that work undesirable he responded, “I’m sitting here right now. Yes, it’s undesirable.”

The conversations show Cannon was tasked with evaluating a number of claims from “crazy people,” as he once described it, as well as other claims that dead people may have voted — something he was unable to verify given limitations in voter databases.

He ultimately relayed those concerns to Pence, recounting to the committee in what would become a brief appearance in a hearing that, “I was not personally finding anything sufficient to alter the results of the election.”

It was a stance that caught the eye of former Trump adviser Peter Navarro.

“Mr. Navarro accused me of being an agent of the deep state working … against the president. And I never took another phone call from Mr. Navarro,” Cannon said.

Bobb, in contrast, made clear in her interview that she believed there was suspicious activity on Election Day that merited review.

Once a reporter for the far-right One America News, Bobb had come to the network after working as an attorney, including during stints with the Marine Corps. She would later get a master of laws degree from Georgetown, joining the Trump administration at the Department of Homeland Security after graduation.

While an OAN employee, she volunteered her time to the Trump campaign immediately after the election. The arrangement was approved by the network, though the campaign required her to sign a nondisclosure agreement.

“There was plenty of evidence to be concerned about fraud,” she said, even if the legal team wasn’t prepared to launch a case on Day 1 following the election.

“I volunteered and I wanted to look into it because I was concerned about the integrity of my vote, of the country. I think that’s why we all got involved. So I don’t want you to take my statement and say, Christina Bobb said that in the beginning the legal team knew there was no fraud. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying there was plenty of reason to believe there could be fraud.”

Bobb was present in the “war room” at the Willard Hotel on Jan. 6 and was listening in to Trump’s call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger — a discussion she told the panel was “unremarkable.”

The Jan. 6 committee transcripts indicate Cannon and Bobb had no interaction throughout the litigation process, with Bobb saying they did not connect until after President Biden was sworn in. Bobb told investigators she didn’t speak with Cannon until later, adding nothing more when investigators asked if it was on an unrelated matter.

Bobb’s role with Trump on the Mar-a-Lago documents picks up where Cannon left off.

Cannon in February of last year declined Trump’s request to sign a statement indicating all classified material at Mar-a-Lago had been returned because he wasn’t sure the statement was true, according to reporting from The Washington Post.

Bobb would join the team later, agreeing to sign a declaration given to the Justice Department in June attesting that all sensitive government documents had been returned — with the stipulation that her attestation was “based upon the information that has been provided to me.”

“The contrast between the two as lawyers speaks volumes,” said Josh Stanton, an attorney with Perry Guha who contributed to a model prosecution memo for the Mar-a-Lago case.

“Alex Cannon refus[es] to sign a certification that everything had been turned over where he wasn’t able to do himself the diligent work to actually independently verify that, whereas Christina Bobb is in a position where she’s told to sign the certification, and is told that that’s correct, then just goes ahead and signs it anyway,” he said.

“Whether or not you could actually make out, say, criminal charges against Christina Bobb for signing that certification … it certainly puts her ethically as a lawyer in really hot water,” he added.

Patel, who spoke to the Jan. 6 committee after being subpoenaed, began his deposition with an opening statement expressing frustration the panel did not think he would be cooperative with its investigation.

Patel later answered questions during a lengthy interview after noting privilege concerns, but investigators at times seemed baffled by details the former high-ranking Defense Department official could not remember. Patel struggled to recall specifics about some conversations with Trump and demurred when asked about reported plans near the end of the Trump presidency to install him as head of the CIA.

“I know you guys try to think this is improbable, but I was in one of those positions for a 2-year period of time, approximately, where I had many conversations with the president impacting things that I would only read about or watch in movies,” he said.

“So, after a certain period of time, they tend to stack up and you just do the mission.”

Patel largely sidestepped questions on whether Trump should have done more to stop the chaos on Jan. 6, but spoke at length about the process for securing assistance from the National Guard and Trump’s approval for the use of as many as 20,000 troops that day.

The committee panned Trump’s inaction as dereliction of duty, and Stanton said Patel’s comments could forecast a response should Trump or others face culpability for Jan. 6.

“Some of the most powerful testimony in the hearings themselves was the sort of hours Trump seemed not to act. And so I think he’s previewing what they’re going to say, which is, ‘Oh, no, I actually did authorize 10,000 or 20,000 National Guard members to be able to respond,’” he said.

In the Mar-a-Lago probe, Patel repeatedly asserted his Fifth Amendment right during a first appearance before a grand jury.

“Trump declassified whole sets of materials in anticipation of leaving government that he thought the American public should have the right to read themselves,” Patel told Breitbart News in May.

“The White House counsel failed to generate the paperwork to change the classification markings, but that doesn’t mean the information wasn’t declassified,” Patel said. “I was there with President Trump when he said ‘We are declassifying this information.’”

Trump’s attorneys have not directly backed that claim, though it would not be a bulletproof defense should he face Espionage Act charges, as the law deals with those who mishandle “national defense information.” Biden meets with Polish president in Warsaw 2,100 rail workers to get paid leave in new deal with Union Pacific

The special counsel appears to be ratcheting up the probes in recent weeks, even seeking to pierce the attorney-client privilege of Evan Corcoran, one of Trump’s attorneys in the document dispute, arguing his legal advice may have been given in furtherance of a crime.

It’s a move observers say should give warning to other attorneys involved in the probe.

“Any lawyer associated with Donald Trump is at great risk,” Eisen said. “I mean, he’s like a neutron bomb for the legal profession.”

Politics

Watchdog criticises ‘unprecedented’ government offer to delay local elections – as five councils confirm requests for postponement

Published

3 hours ago

December 19, 2025

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Watchdog criticises 'unprecedented' government offer to delay local elections – as five councils confirm requests for postponement

The elections watchdog has criticised the government for offering to consider delaying 63 local council elections next year – as five authorities confirmed to Sky News that they would ask for a postponement.

On Thursday, hours before parliament began its Christmas recess, the government revealed that councils were being sent a letter asking if they thought elections should be delayed in their areas due to challenges around delivering local government reorganisation plans.

The chief executive of the Electoral Commission, Vijay Rangarajan, hit out at the announcement on Friday, saying he was “concerned” that some elections could be postponed, with some having already been deferred from 2025.

“We are disappointed by both the timing and substance of the statement. Scheduled elections should, as a rule, go ahead as planned, and only be postponed in exceptional circumstances,” he said in a statement.

“Decisions on any postponements will not be taken until mid-January, less than three months before the scheduled May 2026 elections are due to begin.

“This uncertainty is unprecedented and will not help campaigners and administrators who need time to prepare for their important roles.”

Mr Rangarajan added: “We very much recognise the pressures on local government, but these late changes do not help administrators. Parties and candidates have already been preparing for some time, and will be understandably concerned.”

He said “capacity constraints” were not a “legitimate reason for delaying long planned elections”, which risked “affecting the legitimacy of local decision-making and damaging public confidence”.

The watchdog chief also said there was “a clear conflict of interest in asking existing councils to decide how long it will be before they are answerable to voters”.

Sky News contacted the 63 councils that have been sent the letter about potentially delaying their elections.

At the time of publication, 17 authorities had replied with their decisions, while 33 said they would make up their minds before the government’s deadline of 15 January.

Many councils told Sky News they were surprised at yesterday’s announcement, saying that they had been fully intending to hold their polls as scheduled.

They said they were now working to understand the appropriate democratic mechanism for deciding whether to request a postponement of elections. Some local authorities believe it should be a decision made by their full council, while others will leave it up to council leaders or cabinet members to decide.

Multiple councils also emphasised in statements to Sky News that the ultimate decision to delay elections lay with the government.

Reform UK has threatened legal action against ministers, accusing Labour and the Tories of “colluding” to postpone elections in order to lock other parties out of power – a sentiment echoed by Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey.

But shadow local government secretary Sir James Cleverly told Sky News this morning that the Conservative Party “wants these elections to go ahead”. Sky News understands that the national party is making that position clear to local leaders.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing, Communities, and Local Government, said it was taking a “locally-led approach”, and emphasised that “councils are in the best position to judge the impact of postponements on their area”.

They added: “These are exceptional circumstances where councils have told us they’re struggling to prepare for resource-intensive elections to councils that will shortly be abolished, while also reorganising into more efficient authorities that can better serve local residents.

“There is a clear precedent for postponing local elections where local government reorganisation is in progress, as happened in 2019 and 2022.”

The five councils that confirmed they would be seeking postponements were:

Blackburn with Darwen Council (Labour);
Chorley Borough Council (Labour);
East Sussex County Council (Conservative minority);
Hastings Borough Council (Green minority);
West Sussex County Council (Conservative).

The councils in Chorley, and East and West Sussex, had decided prior to Thursday’s government announcement that they would request a delay.

An East Sussex County Council spokesperson told Sky News: “It is welcome that the government is listening to local leaders and has heard the case for focussing our resources on delivery in East Sussex, particularly with devolution and reorganisation of local government, as well as delivering services to residents, such high priorities.”

They also pointed to the cost of electing councillors for a term of just one year, and argued that it would be “more prudent for just one set of elections to be held in 2027”.

West Sussex County Council echoed those reasons and said it would cost taxpayers across the county £9m to hold elections in 2026, 2027, and 2028, as currently planned.

Chorley and Blackburn councils also cited the cost of delivering elections, and said they would prefer that money be spent on delivering the local government reorganisation and delivering services to local residents.

Meanwhile, 12 councils confirmed to Sky News that they would not be requesting delays:

Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council (Liberal Democrat-Independents);
Broxbourne Borough Council (Conservative);
Colchester City Council (Labour-Liberal Democrat);
Eastleigh Borough Council (Liberal Democrat);
Essex County Council (Conservative);
Hart District Council (Liberal Democrat-Community Campaign);
Hastings Borough Council (Green minority);
Isle of Wight Council (no overall control);
Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council (Conservative);
Portsmouth City Council (Liberal Democrat minority);
Rushmoor Borough Council (Labour minority);
Southampton City Council (Labour).

Environment

Toyota propagandizes its employees with video games to lobby for more pollution

Published

3 hours ago

December 19, 2025

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Toyota propagandizes its employees with video games to lobby for more pollution

Toyota’s latest move in its work to harm the environment involves an internal platform where it uses video games to spread propaganda among its North American employees, enticing them with prizes to join lobbying efforts to loosen environmental rules around the automotive industry.

We’ve covered Toyota’s anti-environment lobbying efforts many times before.

For an inexhaustive list of how Toyota lobbies to harm the environment, the company:

Now, an excellent report by the Guardian details how Toyota uses internal communications to encourage its employees to join its propaganda efforts, with anti-EV and anti-environment propaganda in the form of video games where employees can earn points and prizes.

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Toyota calls the platform “Toyota Policy Drivers,” and it’s available to some 10,000 employees across North America. The games were created by LGND, a software firm that has also made projects for defense contractors Aurex and Bechtel.

A video showing the website participation process and the biased language used. Source: LGND

It consists of several videos telling Toyota’s side of the story – like Toyota’s insistence that hybrids pollute less than EVs, which is incorrect – and links to participate by reaching out to public representatives.

But that’s just normal corporate propaganda stuff. What’s different about Toyota’s platform is the gamification of the process, encouraging employees to earn points and play video games while digesting this propaganda.

Video games used as anti-environment propaganda

Games include Monster Mansion, Adventure Quest, Star Quest, and Dragon Quest (no, not the long-running and popular RPG – we wonder if trademark authorities might be interested in that one).

Screenshots from “Star Quest” and “Dragon Quest.” Source: Toyota Policy Drivers, via The Guardian

Toyota cycles games in and out each year, but each has a similar goal of showing propaganda videos in exchange for points. The videos were publicly visible until this morning. After the Guardian published its article, Toyota password protected them.

Playing the “games” can earn you points, which can be redeemed for stickers and t-shirts, or even trips. One employee says he earned cupcakes and a trip to Washington, DC.

Adam Zuckerman of Public Citizen had harsh words for the program, which he called “dystopian” and said “treats employees like children.” Specifically referring to Stephen Ciccone, Toyota’s VP of public affairs for North America, Zuckerman said:

It’s fitting that Ciccone calls himself a wartime consigliere because he has gone to war against the standards that protect our communities and the air that we breathe. Like the mafiosos that he fashions himself after, he is pressuring his own workers into doing his bidding against the common good. Ciccone should quit cosplaying mafia, end his dystopian game of poisoning our air, and stop blocking the green vehicles of the future.

Toyota’s actions and its public image diverge

Toyota’s propaganda contradicts its long-held public image. For decades now, Toyota has been considered by the public as one of the more environmentally-friendly automakers, first starting with its small cars in the 70s and later due to the Prius, the vehicle that is known for popularizing the conventional gas hybrid powertrain. In the early 2000s, the Prius was among the most efficient vehicles available.

However, the Prius is no longer particularly efficient comparatively. Just about any electric car is significantly more efficient than a Prius – even the ridiculous Hummer EV roughly matches the Prius in energy efficiency at 53mpge vs. 57mpg. Also, conventional hybrids get 100% of their energy from fossil fuels, and are thus inherently incompatible with climate solutions.

Despite Toyota’s false claims that gas-powered hybrids are the answer to reducing emissions, its own numbers show that its emissions have steadily increased over the years. And its average US fleet mpg is consistently middling-to-poor, according to the EPA’s automotive trends report.

When Toyota owners are educated about Toyota’s opposition to environmental policy, it results in a 32% reduction in favorability for the brand. A large majority of Toyota owners want the company to support stronger environmental policy.

Similarly, a recent appearance of Toyota’s chairman, Akio Toyoda, decked out in US campaign gear supporting Donald Trump helped many in the public to recognize Toyota’s friendliness with anti-environment actors. As former CEO, Toyoda was largely responsible for the company’s current failure to adopt electric vehicles.

But Toyota has dug in its feet in defending hybrid vehicles, which it considers its own territory, whereas electric vehicles are the territory of other brands. So it twists itself into knots trying to defend more-polluting vehicles, despite the harm that they cause to everyone who lives on Earth – yes, including Toyota employees, who breathe the same air and live in the same disrupted climate as the rest of us.

Toyota laughably claims this corporate-led effort is “grassroots”

While Toyota says that employees don’t have to participate, the combination of incentives and implicit pressure from higher-ups means that employees who would not have otherwise lobbied against the public interest would then be encouraged to do so.

It calls the effort “grassroots advocacy,” even though it is being coordinated and pushed upon employees of a one of the largest corporate entities on the planet (that’s not what “grassroots” means…). It also allows employees to participate during working hours, indicating that it sees these videogames as a work activity, rather than natural grassroots advocacy.

Indeed, the company brags about what it sees as the success of the program, taking credit for various harmful policy changes, like republicans’ illegal attempt to force dirty air on 12 US states. Toyota also used the platform to oppose EPA exhaust rules that would save Americans $100 billion in fuel costs, wrongly calling it an “EV mandate,” despite that the Biden rule is actually technology neutral (which Toyota claims to support, even though it opposed a technology neutral measure in practice).

Perhaps now, with the knowledge of yet another way that Toyota spreads anti-environment propaganda, some of the environmental sheen of this company can start to tarnish in the public eye.

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Environment

Podcast: We bought 2 new EVs, Tesla Robotaxi, Ford’s $19B EV charge, and more

Published

3 hours ago

December 19, 2025

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Podcast: We bought 2 new EVs, Tesla Robotaxi, Ford's B EV charge, and more

In the Electrek Podcast, we discuss the most popular news in the world of sustainable transport and energy. In this week’s episode, we discuss Seth and me (Fred) each buying a new EV, Tesla Robotaxi progress, Ford’s $19 billion charge on EVs, and much more.

The show is live every Friday at 4 p.m. ET on Electrek’s YouTube channel.

As a reminder, we’ll have an accompanying post, like this one, on the site with an embedded link to the live stream. Head to the YouTube channel to get your questions and comments in.

After the show ends at around 5 p.m. ET, the video will be archived on YouTube and the audio on all your favorite podcast apps:

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We now have a Patreon if you want to help us avoid more ads and invest more in our content. We have some awesome gifts for our Patreons and more coming.

Here are a few of the articles that we will discuss during the podcast:

Here’s the live stream for today’s episode starting at 4:00 p.m. ET (or the video after 5 p.m. ET:

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