To try to get the case into federal court, Trump is expected to argue that much of the conduct he’s been charged with was undertaken in his capacity as an officer of the federal government, because he was still president during the critical period when he and his allies attempted to subvert the 2020 election results. A federal law, known as a “removal statute,” generally allows any “officer of the United States” who is prosecuted or sued in state court to transfer the case to federal court if the case stems from the officer’s governmental duties.
Tuesday Reads: Trump Indictment #4
Posted: August 15, 2023 Filed under: 2020 Elections, 2024 presidential Campaign, Crime, Criminal Justice System, Donald Trump | Tags: conspiracy, Fani Willis, Georgia grand jury, Mark Meadows, racketeering, RICO laws, Trump 4th indictment 7 CommentsGood Afternoon!!
As you know, the Georgia grand jury handed down multiple indictments of Trump and many of his cronies for a conspiracy to overturn the state’s 2020 presidential election. He has now been indicted 4 times for a total of 91 criminal charges. I tried to stay up until the bitter end last night, but I fell asleep before Fani Willis finally made her announcement.
David Kurtz at Talking Points Memo: Fani Willis Lowers The Boom On Donald Trump In Massive Indictment.
After a marathon session Monday, a Georgia grand jury returned a monster 41-felony-count, 97-page indictment against a total of 19 defendants, including former President Donald Trump; Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows; Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, John Eastman, Kenneth Chesebro, and Jenna Ellis; and Trump DOJ official Jeff Clark.
It was a strange day of uncertainty and expectation, with moment-by-moment reporting from the Fulton County courthouse. The duty judge would poke his head into the courtroom of waiting reporters to do check-ins. Grand jury witnesses scheduled to testify today made public that they had been called in a day early and offered regular updates as to where they stood in the line of witnesses paraded before the grand jury. The presentation of the indictment to the duty judge was televised live. Reporters were taking photographs from the inside of the clerk of court’s office as they waited an agonizing couple of hours for the paperwork to be processed and the indictment made public.
The day was punctuated by what appeared to be the accidental posting then quick takedown from the clerk’s website of a document seemingly related to the case that listed Trump as a defendant. That sparked an initial round of excitement and panic, then confusion. The clerk’s office later issued a statement calling the document “fictitious.” But it remained unclear exactly what had happened and why.
As the drama stretched deep into the evening, it became increasingly clear that District Attorney Fani Will was pushing to finish the indictment the same day. The duty judge kept the courtroom open late to accept the indictment, should it come. It finally did, just before 9 p.m. ET. The indictment became public just before 11 p.m. ET.
Read more of the basic facts at the TPM link.
From Aaron Rupar’s Public Notice, Lisa Needham breaks down the charges: Trump’s Fulton County indictment, unpacked.
The latest Trump indictment is out, and it’s a blockbuster. Let’s start with the numbers, shall we? A grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia, returned an indictment that has:
- 19 defendants, including the former president of the United States and 6 lawyers in his orbit
- 41 criminal counts across all defendants
- 13 criminal counts against the former president himself
- 8 types of manners and methods used to further a criminal enterprise
- 161 overt acts of racketeering activity
Many of the defendants are already familiar. Rudy Guiliani, John Eastman, Jeffrey Clark, and Sidney Powell are all attorneys who are likely some of the unindicted co-conspirators in the federal January 6 case. Others are people whose names have surfaced repeatedly during the various 2020 election investigations, such as Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows, former Trump attorney Jenna Ellis, and attorney Ken Chesebro, who wrote the first memo suggesting the fake elector scheme. Others, like fake electors Shawn Still and David Shafer, aren’t household names….
If you’ve ever watched a mob movie set after 1970, when the law was first passed, you’ve probably heard of the federal RICO Act. It was designed to charge people for acting in concert with one another in furtherance of a criminal act. This was a big breakthrough because in sprawling criminal enterprises, people at the top — gang leaders, mob capos, etc. — could insulate themselves from criminal liability by having other people do their dirty work. But the advent of RICO meant that if you helped mastermind the heist but didn’t do the burglary, for example, you could still be held liable. The law isn’t just used against the Mafia but has also formed the basis for prosecuting people who run Ponzi schemes and gangs, among other things….
According to the indictment, Trump and his co-defendants used at least eight methods to try to undermine the election: (1) Making false statements to members of state legislatures, including Florida, Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Georgia; (2) Making false statements to high-ranking state officials in Georgia, such as the secretary of state and the governor; (3) creating a slate of fake electoral voters; (4) harassing and intimidating a Fulton County election worker; (5) soliciting high-ranking members of the United States Department of Justice to make false statements to government officials in Georgia; (6) soliciting Mike Pence to reject electoral college votes properly cast by Georgia’s electors; (7) unlawfully accessing voter equipment and voter data; and (8) making false statements and committing perjury to cover up the conspiracy.
The first public act in furtherance of the conspiracy started the day after the election when Trump gave a speech falsely declaring victory. Trump had discussed a draft speech to that effect three days before the election, in which he planned to declare victory and claim voter fraud. In other words, Trump was already prepared to attempt to overturn the election before election night even happened.
Read the rest at Public Notice. It’s a very good summary of the case.
For a quick summary of the various kinds of charges in the indictment, check out this uncharacteristically short post by Marcy Wheeler at Emptywheel: The Various Kinds of Georgia Crimes in the RICO indictment.
I was very happy to see that Mark Meadows was among the Trump allies who were indicted. Insider: Mark Meadows, Trump’s former White House chief of staff, will face his first post-2020 election-related indictment in Georgia.
Mark Meadows, a Freedom Caucus conservative who rose to become Donald Trump’s final chief of staff, will face a criminal indictment in Georgia alongside former president.
Fulton County District Attorney Fanni Willis unveiled her sprawling indictment late Monday evening, ending Meadows’ run thus far of successfully ducking some of the legal serious legal liability that others in Trump’s orbit have faced stemming from their actions that took place during the waning weeks of his presidency.
It means Meadows may soon join HR Haldeman, Nixon’s self-dubbed “son of a bitch,” in infamy among those who held one of the most powerful posts in the federal government, Chief of Staff. Haldeman, of course, faced prison time over his role in trying to cover up the Watergate break-in.
According to the indictment, Meadows, like each one of his fellow co-defendants, is facing a violation of Georgia’s RICO law. He is also facing an additional count related to his participation in Trump’s January 2, 2021 call with George Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger during which Trump pressured Raffensperger to “find” enough votes so he could win.
Meadows’ other conduct is mentioned throughout the indictment. In particular, Willis zeroed in on Meadows’ efforts to reach state lawmakers in Pennsylvania. Willis later told reporters that the grand jury believed conduct outside of her jurisdiction helped furthered the conspiracy she alleged.
Meadows was not one of the unindicted co-conspirators in special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment related to conduct after the election, leading to speculation that the former chief of staff could be assisting the federal investigation.
Of course, Trump can’t keep his big mouth shut. He announced on Truth Social that he has proof of election fraud in Georgia which he will announce next Monday.
It’s not clear why he didn’t reveal this information before he was indicted.
One more article on Trump’s obvious first delay tactic in the Georgia case:
Kyle Cheney at Politico: An early test for Georgia prosecutors: Trump’s likely bid to take the case to federal court.
One of the first big battles in the new racketeering case against Donald Trump is likely imminent: Should the former president face a jury in state or federal court?
Although the charges were filed in state court in Fulton County, Ga., Trump is sure to attempt to “remove” the case to federal court, where he would potentially have a friendlier jury pool and the chance of drawing a judge whom he appointed to the bench.
Trump has already attempted to make this move in New York, where he’s facing state charges for falsifying business records to cover up an affair with a porn star. A federal judge there rejected the effort and directed the case back to state court, noting that the charges there didn’t really implicate Trump’s powers as president.
“There is an ‘outer perimeter’ to a President’s authority and responsibilities beyond which he engages in private conduct,” U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein ruled, sending the case back to New York state court. Trump is appealing the ruling.
But Georgia could be different: Most of the charges Trump is facing — sweeping allegations of using his office to corrupt the 2020 election — involve his presidential authorities and his efforts to manipulate the federal processes he was charged with overseeing. That makes removal a more viable option in Georgia than New York.
The judge in the case has even less experience than Aileen Cannon.
Those are the basics on the Georgia indictments. We will learn much more in the days ahead.
Lazy Caturday Reads: The Heat Is On
Posted: August 12, 2023 Filed under: Cats, caturday, Crime, Donald Trump, just because | Tags: extreme heat, first amendment, freedom of the press, Hawaii wildfires, January 6 case, Judge Tanya Chutkan, limits on free speech, Maui 10 Comments
Happy Caturday!!
Sadly, I’m unable to post cat art today because WordPress has made it very difficult to resize images to manageable dimensions. Dakinikat seems to have figured out how to do it, but I’m still confused. I’m hoping I’ll be able to master the technique or learn to use one of WordPress’s other god-awful methods of posting. Today I’m reposting Tweets from Lorenzo the Cat.
(Dakinikat note: testing the images thing, so there are a few popping up here now.)
We haven’t talked much about the awful wildfires in Hawaii. Here’s the latest news.
Washington Post Live Updates: Maui death toll reaches 80 amid questions over emergency response.
The death toll from the Hawaii wildfires has risen to 80, Maui county officials said in an update late Friday, as firefighters continued work to contain fires on the island. Government officials are launching a review of the state’s emergency response, as residents criticized relief efforts as insufficient and records indicated that emergency sirens weren’t activated at the state or county level during the wildfires, though alerts were sent to cellphones and broadcast networks.
Here’s what to know
Read more recent updates at the WaPo.
Pre-Raphaelite Cats, Susan Herbert
From The New York Times, an opinion piece by writer and editor Lawrence Downes, who grew up in Hawaii: After the Shock and Grief, Hawaii Will Reinvent Itself Again.
The disaster that erased the beloved West Maui town of Lahaina this week comes with the bitter taste of bewilderment. Brush fires met high winds whipped by a far-off hurricane, and overnight a historic town was gone, a pile of smoke and ashes. A lush watercolor landscape is redrawn in gray and black. At least 55 people are dead, and many more are missing.
A hurricane just burned down a town. It’s all so weird and horrifying.
Living in Hawaii long enough gives you a familiarity with sudden catastrophes, the kind that can obliterate a community in a week, a day or an instant. To live in my home state or to love it from a distance is to know the continual threat of hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanoes.
But a lethal wildfire? That was new for Hawaii. And everything is changed.
We may not get a definitive verdict on whether Lahaina died for humanity’s environmental sins, but we know that climate change is making Hawaii hotter and drier and that invasive grasses have been allowed to run rampant. Drought on Maui turned the grass into ready fuel and heightened the risk of wildfires, and then a hurricane brushed by.
The planetary crisis is hardly Hawaii’s fault, but like other island areas in our rising oceans, it is unusually imperiled, and it has to do something. And when wildfires swept over Maui and the Big Island, it was a brutal reminder that Hawaii needs to be a serious climate leader, to nurture and spread the environmental consciousness that too many other states lack.
Hawaii will surely find ways to lower the risk of wildfires and get better at fighting them. Lahaina will rebuild, and residents will return. But climate resiliency is a far bigger challenge than adding fire trucks and subduing invasive grasses. It’s an expensive mess of problems across the state.
Will the communities on Oahu’s North Shore be able to retreat from the rising ocean before they are washed away? How will flower and fruit growers on Maui and the Big Island cope with extended drought? What happens if or when the coral reefs die, the native trees and forest birds are gone, weather patterns shift and the cooling trade winds disappear?
All good questions, and we all must “do something.” Climate change is happening. We can see it all around us.
JJ passed along this article about the extreme heat affecting so many people this year.
TechTimes: How Much Heat Can Your Body Take? Scientists Reveal the Maximum Limit.
According to AFP, new research shows the limit, known as the “wet bulb temperature,” representing the maximum combination of heat and humidity before sweat no longer evaporates from the skin, leading to heatstroke, organ failure, and death.
While this threshold occurs at around 35 degrees Celsius (95 Fahrenheit), recent research suggests it could be even lower.
Colin Raymond from NASA‘s Jet Propulsion Laboratory said the wet bulb limit of human survival has been breached only around a dozen times, primarily in South Asia and the Persian Gulf.
Although none of these occurrences extended beyond two hours, they effectively averted widespread mortality events associated with this critical threshold.
Nonetheless, specialists stress that fatalities resulting from intense heat are feasible even at less severe levels. Factors such as age, health, and socio-economic circumstances play a role in determining an individual’s susceptibility.
In Europe last summer, for instance, more than 61,000 fatalities were linked to heat, even in regions where the perilous wet bulb temperature range is seldom attained.
Scientists warn that dangerous wet bulb events will become more frequent as global temperatures continue to rise. The frequency of such events has doubled over the last four decades, driven by human-caused climate change.
According to Raymond’s research, wet bulb temperatures exceeding 35 degrees Celsius could become common worldwide if global temperatures rise by 2.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
To test the wet bulb limit, researchers at Pennsylvania State University evaluated young, healthy participants in a heat chamber. They found that the “critical environmental limit,” where the body can’t prevent further core temperature increase, was reached at 30.6 degrees Celsius wet bulb temperature, lower than previously theorized.
Read the rest at TechTimes.
In other news, here’s a shocking small-town example of the assault on the First Amendment that is happening in red states.
Kansas Reflector: Police stage ‘chilling’ raid on Marion County newspaper, seizing computers, records and cellphones.
MARION — In an unprecedented raid Friday, local law enforcement seized computers, cellphones and reporting materials from the Marion County Record office, the newspaper’s reporters, and the publisher’s home.
Eric Meyer, owner and publisher of the newspaper, said police were motivated by a confidential source who leaked sensitive documents to the newspaper, and the message was clear: “Mind your own business or we’re going to step on you.”
The city’s entire five-officer police force and two sheriff’s deputies took “everything we have,” Meyer said, and it wasn’t clear how the newspaper staff would take the weekly publication to press Tuesday night.
The raid followed news stories about a restaurant owner who kicked reporters out of a meeting last week with U.S. Rep. Jake LaTurner, and revelations about the restaurant owner’s lack of a driver’s license and conviction for drunken driving.
Meyer said he had never heard of police raiding a newspaper office during his 20 years at the Milwaukee Journal or 26 years teaching journalism at the University of Illinois.
“It’s going to have a chilling effect on us even tackling issues,” Meyer said, as well as “a chilling effect on people giving us information.”
The search warrant, signed by Marion County District Court Magistrate Judge Laura Viar, appears to violate federal law that provides protections against searching and seizing materials from journalists. The law requires law enforcement to subpoena materials instead. Viar didn’t respond to a request to comment for this story or explain why she would authorize a potentially illegal raid.
A bit more:
Emily Bradbury, executive director of the Kansas Press Association, said the police raid is unprecedented in Kansas.
“An attack on a newspaper office through an illegal search is not just an infringement on the rights of journalists but an assault on the very foundation of democracy and the public’s right to know,” Bradbury said. “This cannot be allowed to stand.”
Meyer reported last week that Marion restaurant owner Kari Newell had kicked newspaper staff out of a public forum with LaTurner, whose staff was apologetic. Newell responded to Meyer’s reporting with hostile comments on her personal Facebook page.
A confidential source contacted the newspaper, Meyer said, and provided evidence that Newell had been convicted of drunken driving and continued to use her vehicle without a driver’s license. The criminal record could jeopardize her efforts to obtain a liquor license for her catering business.
A reporter with the Marion Record used a state website to verify the information provided by the source. But Meyer suspected the source was relaying information from Newell’s husband, who had filed for divorce. Meyer decided not to publish a story about the information, and he alerted police to the situation.
“We thought we were being set up,” Meyer said.
Police notified Newell, who then complained at a city council meeting that the newspaper had illegally obtained and disseminated sensitive documents, which isn’t true. Her public comments prompted the newspaper to set the record straight in a story published Thursday.
Sometime before 11 a.m. Friday, officers showed up simultaneously at Meyer’s home and the newspaper office. They presented a search warrant that alleges identity theft and unlawful use of a computer.
The paper didn’t even publish the information, but a magistrate judge approved a search warrant! This is the kind of behavior by law enforcement that Trump would promote if he gets back into a position of power.
Speaking of Trump, here are some reports on the hearing yesterday in the January 6 case.
CNN: Judge Chutkan says Trump’s right to free speech in January 6 case is ‘not absolute.’
US District Judge Tanya Chutkan set the tone for how she would preside over the election subversion against Donald Trump in a hearing Friday focused on what limits would be placed on how the former president can handle the evidence prosecutors will be turning over to him.
Chutkan kicked off the hearing – the first in the case before her and one that took place in her courtroom at DC federal court house – noting that while Trump’s rights as a criminal defendant would be protected, his First Amendment right to free speech was “not absolute.”
“In a criminal case such as this one, the defendant’s free speech is subject to the rules,” she said.
The judge closed the hearing with a promise that the case would advance like any normal proceeding in the criminal justice system, but warned that the more “inflammatory” statements were made by a party, the quicker she would need to move toward a trial to preserve a fair jury.
“It is a bedrock principle of the judicial process in this country,” she said, while quoting precedent, “that legal trials are not like elections, to be won through the use of the meeting hall, the radio and the newspaper.”
“This case is no exception,” she said.
Kyle Cheney at Politico: Judge warns Trump: ‘Inflammatory’ statements about election case could speed trial.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan warned Donald Trump and his attorney Friday that repeated “inflammatory” statements about his latest criminal prosecution would force her to speed his trial on charges related to his bid to subvert the 2020 election.
“I caution you and your client to take special care in your public statements about this case,” Chutkan told Trump lawyer John Lauro during a hearing. “I will take whatever measures are necessary to safeguard the integrity of these proceedings.”
Chutkan’s stark admonition came at the conclusion of her first courtroom session in the newest criminal case against the former president. The aim of the hearing was for special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecutors and Trump’s attorneys to hash out disputes about the handling of evidence in the case. Once Chutkan enters a so-called “protective order” governing evidence, prosecutors say they’re prepared to share millions of pages of documents with Trump’s team, jumpstarting the case and setting it on a path to trial.
But Chutkan, aware of the national spotlight on her oversight of the explosive case, repeatedly emphasized that she intended to keep politics out of the courtroom and treat Trump like any other criminal defendant. That included potential consequences if he makes statements that could be construed as harassing or threatening witnesses.
“The fact that he’s running a political campaign has to yield to the orderly administration of justice,” Chutkan said. “If that means he can’t say exactly what he wants to say about witnesses in this case, that’s how it has to be.”
“Even arguably ambiguous statements from parties or their counsel, if they can be reasonably interpreted to intimidate witnesses or to prejudice potential jurors, can threaten the process,” Chutkan added later. “The more a party makes inflammatory statements about this case which could taint the jury pool … the greater the urgency will be that we proceed to trial quickly.”
Judge Chutkan has obviously grokked that a speedy trial would be Trump’s worst nightmare.
Glenn Thrush and Alan Feuer at The New York Times: Judge Limits Trump’s Ability to Share Jan. 6 Evidence.
The federal judge overseeing former President Donald J. Trump’s prosecution on charges of seeking to overturn the 2020 election rejected his request on Friday to be able to speak broadly about evidence and witnesses — and warned Mr. Trump she would take necessary “measures” to keep him from intimidating witnesses or tainting potential jurors.
The caution from the judge, Tanya S. Chutkan, came during a 90-minute hearing in Federal District Court in Washington to discuss the scope of a protective order over the discovery evidence in Mr. Trump’s case, a typically routine step in criminal matters. Later Friday, Judge Chutkan imposed the order but agreed to a modification requested by the Trump legal team that it apply only to “sensitive” materials and not all evidence turned over to the defense.
She concluded the hearing with a blunt warning to Mr. Trump, and an unmistakable reference to a recent social media post in which he warned, “If you go after me, I’m coming after you!” — a statement his spokesman later said was aimed at political opponents and not at people involved in the case.
“I do want to issue a general word of caution — I intend to ensure the orderly administration of justice in this case as I would in any other case, and even arguably ambiguous statements by the parties or their counsel,” she said, could be considered an attempt to “intimidate witnesses or prejudice potential jurors,” triggering the court to take action.
“I caution you and your client to take special care in your public statements in this case,” she added. “I will take whatever measures are necessary to protect the integrity of these proceedings.”
Have a great weekend, everyone!!
Friday Reads: Breaking News!
Posted: August 11, 2023 Filed under: 2024 presidential Campaign, Afternoon Reads, Criminal Justice System, Donald Trump, just because | Tags: David Weiss, Fani Willis, Hunter Biden, Jack Smith, John Lauro, Judge Tanya Chutkan, Merrick Garland, racketeering case, Special Counsel 5 CommentsGood Afternoon!!
Breaking News: Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed a special counsel to oversee the Hunter Biden investigation.
Associated Press: Attorney General Garland appoints a special counsel in the Hunter Biden probe.
Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Friday he is appointing a special counsel in the Hunter Biden probe, deepening the investigation of the president’s son ahead of the 2024 election.
Garland said he is naming David Weiss, the U.S. attorney in Delaware who has been probing the financial and business dealings of the president’s son, as the special counsel.
Garland said on Tuesday that Weiss told him that “in his judgment, his investigation has reached a stage at which he should continue his work as a Special Counsel, and he asked to be appointed.”
“Upon considering his request, as well as the extraordinary circumstances relating to this matter, I have concluded it is in the public interest to appoint him as special counsel,” Garland said.
The move is a momentous development from the typically cautious Garland and comes amid a pair of sweeping Justice Department probes into Donald Trump, the former president, and President Joe Biden’s chief rival in next year’s election. It comes as House Republicans are mounting their own investigation into Hunter Biden’s business dealings.
Jim Jordan must be celebrating.
Also Breaking News: The hearing with Judge Tanya Chutkan on the prosecution’s request for a protective order in January 6 case has just wrapped up. Chutkan made it pretty clear that Trump had better not intimidate witnesses or pollute the jury pool, or he will be in big trouble. She alsBo told the defense to stop talking about politics. This is a criminal case, and she will not allow the politics to interfere with her decisions. Trump must follow the conditions he was given at his arraignment. If that causes him to have to keep his big fat mouth shut in some instances, that’s just too bad (my words). If you want a good, detailed thread on the hearing, I recommend this one by Brandi Buchman:
Read it on Twitter. And here is Buchman’s story at Law and Crime: Trump lawyers, special counsel square off in court on limits for pretrial evidence in Jan. 6 indictment.
A report from CNN: Judge Chutkan says Trump’s right to free speech in January 6 case is ‘not absolute.’
US District Judge Tanya Chutkan said that she plans to put serious limits over how sensitive evidence is handled in the Donald Trump 2020 election interference case, in a dramatic hearing Friday in Washington, DC, that could set the tone for the upcoming trial.
The former president has a right to free speech, but that right is “not absolute,” Chutkan said. “Mr. Trump, like every American, has a First Amendment right to free speech, but that right is not absolute. In a criminal case such as this one, the defendant’s free speech is subject to the rules.” [….]
Whether or not Trump’s public statements are covered by the protective order that’s issued, she said, if they result in the intimidation of a witness or the obstruction of justice, “I will be scrutinizing them very carefully.”
Trump’s lawyer John Lauro said: “President Trump will scrupulously abide by his conditions of release.”
Chutkan adopted restrictions proposed by prosecutors that would bar Trump from publicly disclosing information from interview transcripts and recordings from the investigation, including from witness interviews with investigators that took place outside of the grand jury….
Chutkan and Lauro had several pointed exchanges about what the 2024 presidential contender should be allowed to say about the evidence that is turned over to him in the case.
“No one disagrees that any speech that intimidates a witness would be prohibited, what we are talking about is fair use of information,” Lauro said at one point, putting forward a hypothetical that Trump is publicly remarking on something from his personal memory that is also evidence in the case.
“The fact that he is running a political campaign currently has to yield to the administration of justice,” the judge said. “And if that means he can’t say exactly what he wants to say in a political speech, that is just how it’s going to have to be.”
Lauro put forward a hypothetical of Trump making a statement while debating his former Vice President Mike Pence – who is also running for the White House now and is a key witness in the criminal case – that overlapped with what’s in discovery.
The judge wasn’t sold.
“He is a criminal defendant. He is going to have constraints the same as any defendant. This case is going to proceed in a normal order,” Chutkan said.
From The Daily Beast: Jack Smith Wants Trump Convicted by Super Tuesday.
Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office wants to put former President Donald Trump on trial for his attempted coup in January next year—a move that, if approved by a judge, could brand him a felon before the biggest GOP presidential primaries.
In a filing on Thursday, the special counsel’s office proposed a trial date of January 2, 2024, which they say would take “no longer than four to six weeks.”
Should U.S. Magistrate Judge Moxila A. Upadhyaya approve that date, Trump’s trial could be done and dusted before the GOP’s primaries in South Carolina and Michigan, with plenty of time before the delegate-rich slate of Super Tuesday states in March.
Trump already faces two other separate criminal trials in March and May in New York and Florida, respectively. However, those trials have been delayed enough that Trump still managed to snag key elections before risking the embarrassing reality of being convicted of felonies while asking voters to make him the Republican nominee.
Prosecutors working on these different cases all wanted earlier dates, but judges gave into Trump’s demands for more time. While his lawyers cited the sheer amount of overwhelming work required to sort through millions of pages of evidence, the former president has used political rallies and online posts to accuse prosecutors of trying to derail his re-election campaign. In the end, judges gave Trump a little extra time.
Also at The Daily Beast, Jose Pagliery has a story on Judge “loose” Cannon and another big mistake: Inside One ‘Egregious’ Mistake From Trump’s Florida Judge Aileen Cannon.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, whose pro-Trump bias and head-turning errors have raised questions about whether she should be overseeing former President Donald Trump’s criminal trial in Florida, made what appears to be another surprising mistake last year.
Now, a defense lawyer is seizing on her misstep to try freeing his client from prison—even though he was caught on tape violently throwing a courtroom chair at a prosecutor and threatening to kill him.
The blunder was simple and entirely avoidable. The federal judge told jurors they could find the man, Christopher Wilkins, “guilty or not guilty.” But then she handed jurors a verdict form that didn’t even have those options.
“How far does somebody have to go to school to say that a verdict form is supposed to say guilty and not guilty?” asked defense lawyer Jeffrey Garland. “That would be one of the more egregious versions of jury instruction error… it’s such a rare error.”
Garland formally filed an appeal on Thursday and hopes to overturn a case that’s as black-and-white as they come—on a technicality.
“This is the judge’s deal. This is nobody else’s deal. I’m gonna tell ya, I’ve done a lot of appeals, and I’ve got a pretty good winning record. This is a great issue,” he said. “For a guy who’s on tape throwing a chair in court, it’s pretty ‘not good’ behavior. It would have been simple. You have a trial, properly instruct a jury, give them a form, and the jury’s gonna do what the jury’s gonna do.”
Cannon’s short and controversial history on the bench is under a microscope, given that she is presiding over such an historic criminal trial: that of a former president facing prison time for mishandling classified records at Mar-a-Lago and lying to the feds in a coverup. Trump himself appointed her in his final months in office, yet she has not recused herself from the case.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell on the expected Georgia indictments:
Trump allies face potential charges in Georgia over voting machine breaches.
The Fulton county district attorney investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia has evidence to charge multiple allies of the former president involved in breaching voting machines in the state, according to two people briefed on the matter.
The potential charges at issue are computer trespass felonies, the people said, though the final list of defendants and whether they will be brought as part of a racketeering case when prosecutors are expected to present evidence to the grand jury next week remain unclear.
To bring a racketeering case under Georgia state law, prosecutors need to show the existence of an “enterprise” predicated on at least two “qualifying” crimes, of which computer trespass is one. The Guardian has reported that prosecutors believe they have sufficient evidence for a racketeering case.
The statute itself prohibits the intentional use of a computer or computer network without authorization in order to remove data, either temporarily or permanently. It also prohibits interrupting or interfering with the use of a computer, as well as altering or damaging a computer.
Prosecutors have taken a special interest in the breach of voting machines in Coffee county, Georgia, by Trump allies because of the brazen nature of the operation and the possibility that Trump was aware that his allies intended to covertly gain access to the machines.
In a series of particularly notable incidents, forensics experts hired by Trump allies copied data from virtually every part of the voting system, which is used statewide in Georgia, before uploading them to a password-protected website that could be accessed by 2020 election deniers.
Read the rest at the link above.
I’m going to end there. This post is mostly breaking news. I’ll update in the comments if I hear more about these stories.
Tuesday Reads: A Tale of Two Judges
Posted: August 8, 2023 Filed under: Afternoon Reads, Crime, Donald Trump, just because | Tags: Garcia hearing, grand jury, January 6 case, Judge Aileen Cannon, Judge Tanya Chutkan, protective order, Stanley Woodward, stolen documents case, Walt Nauta 16 Comments
Good Afternoon!!
As usual, I’m riveted to the coverage of Trump’s criminal cases. It’s not particularly surprising that he plans to follow his usual method of defense: delay, delay, delay. He hopes to delay the trials until after the 2024 election so that if he’s elected, he can dismiss the cases against him or pardon himself.
In Florida, Judge Aileen Cannon seems willing to help Trump slow down the stolen documents case as long as possible.
In DC, Judge Tanya Chutkan is less likely to accept his delay tactics in the January 6 case, but, at the moment, he has succeeded in slowing down the discovery process–probably for a couple of weeks.
Here’s the latest on the two cases.
On August 2, Special Counsel Jack Smith asked Judge Cannon for a Garcia hearing to evaluate a possible conflict of interest involving Walt Nauta’s defense attorney Stanley Woodward. Nauta is a co-defendant with Trump in the stolen documents case. NBC News: Special counsel cites potential conflicts for Mar-a-Lago defense attorney.
The special counsel prosecuting former President Trump for his alleged mishandling of government secrets has asked for a hearing to discuss whether the defense attorney for a co-defendant has a conflict of interest stemming from his multiple clients.
According to a court filing on Wednesday, attorney Stanley Woodward’s current and past clients include three people who could be called to testify against Walt Nauta, Trump’s aide who is charged with conspiring to obstruct the government’s efforts to reclaim classified documents.
Woodward’s clients include two aides who worked for Trump at the White House and into his post-presidency, and a Mar-a-Lago IT director identified as “Trump Employee 4” in the updated indictment. The Washington, D.C.-based lawyer also represents at least seven other people who have been questioned by prosecutors in the case. He declined to comment when reached by NBC News.
Trump’s Save America PAC has spent $20 million on legal fees in the first half of this year, according to FEC filings. Woodward’s firm was paid more than $200,000 in the first six months of the year.
In defending Nauta, Woodward may need to cross-examine a witness with whom he has had privileged discussions, which raises the risk of an “attorney’s improper use or disclosure of the client’s confidences during the cross-examination,” or “may cause the attorney to pull his punches during cross-examination, perhaps to protect the client’s confidences or ‘to advance the attorney’s own personal interest,’” the motion filed by special counsel Jack Smith’s office argues.
Woodward was previously defending Yuscil Taveras, who has now hired a new attorney and appears to be cooperating with the government.
“Employee 4, who is unnamed in the indictment but was identified by NBC News as Yuscil Taveras, secured a new lawyer in July, and did not waive the conflict, according to the motion. Roughly three weeks later, a grand jury charged Trump, Nauta, and Carlos De Oliveira, a Mar-a-Lago property manager, over their efforts to have Taveras delete Mar-a-Lago surveillance footage.
Prosecutors told Woodward earlier this year that they believed Taveras had information that would incriminate Nauta, and that representing both clients at the same time raised a potential conflict of interest. Woodward said he advised both clients of the government’s position, but that he was unaware of anything the employee could say to incriminate Nauta and did not see a conflict, according to the filing.
Judge Cannon was unconvinced, and instead has revealed the existence of secret grand jury still investigating this case in DC., thus delaying the case for who knows how long.
Perry Stein at The Washington Post: Judge asks prosecutors to justify use of 2 grand juries in Trump documents case.
Judge Aileen M. Cannon on Monday asked federal prosecutors to explain the use of grand juries in Florida and Washington in the classified documents case against Donald Trump even though charges were filed in South Florida.
Cannon, the federal judge in South Florida assigned to the case, posed the question in a court filing Monday and told federal prosecutors to respond by Aug. 22.
“The response shall address the legal propriety of using an out-of-district grand jury proceeding to continue to investigate and/or to seek post-indictment hearings on matters pertinent to the instant indicted matter in this district,” Cannon wrote.
Trump and two aides — Waltine “Walt” Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira — were charged this summer in a 42-count indictment that accuses the former president of improperly retaining 32 classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida residence and private club, and seeking to thwart government attempts to retrieve them….
For many months, Justice Department prosecutors had questioned witnesses in the Florida case before a federal grand jury in Washington. The secret proceedings yielded much of the evidence at the crux of the case. But in May, the grand jury activity appeared to continue at a federal courthouse in Miami. Ultimately, prosecutors filed charges in a West Palm Beach courthouse — a courthouse in the same district as Miami and the area where Mar-a-Lago is located.
Prosecutors said in a court filing last week that they continued to use the grand jury in Washington after they initially charged Trump in June to investigate alleged instances of obstructing the investigation. The focus of the July superseding indictment was on obstruction, alleging that all defendants tried to delete security footage that the government wanted as evidence in the case.
“The grand jury in this district and a grand jury in the District of Columbia continued to investigate further obstructive activity, and a superseding indictment was returned on July 27, 2023,” prosecutors wrote in the filing.
Judge Cannon apparently disapproves, and decided to reveal the information the Special Counsel had given her under seal.
Prosecutors included that revelation in a motion asking the judge to consider holding a hearing to determine whether Nauta’s attorney has too many conflicts of interest to provide his client with adequate legal advice.
The government lawyers said Stanley Woodward — the Nauta attorney — has represented at least seven other clients whom prosecutors have interviewed about Trump’s alleged efforts to keep classified documents in defiance of the government’s demand they be returned. Two of Woodward’s clients could be called as government witnesses in the trial, the filing by the government said.
If that happens, Woodward may need to cross-examine his other clients as part of defending Nauta, said the prosecutors leading the Justice Department investigation.
The requested hearing — known as a Garcia hearing — is fairly common in legal proceedings. At the hearing, prosecutors said Cannon should inform Nauta and the two witnesses, whose names have not been made public, of their legal rights and the potential conflicts their attorney poses. Lawyers are generally required to flag to a judge any potential conflicts of interest they encounter.
Cannon said Nauta’s lawyers are expected to respond to the judge’s question about the two grand jury locations and the prosecutors’ request for the Garcia hearing.
So it’s a normal request, but Cannon is going to drag the process out as long as she can, and, instead of keeping the existence of the secret grand jury under seal, she decided to announce it to the world.
Here’s a longer discussion of Cannon’s behavior by Adam Unikowsky’s Substack legal newsletter: It begins. Today’s order in United States v. Trump does not bode well.
Today [August 7] in the Southern District of Florida’s version of United States v. Trump, Judge Aileen Cannon issued an order denying the Justice Department’s motion to seal and requesting supplemental briefing. While seemingly insignificant, today’s order raises troubling concerns regarding her administration of the case….
Judge Cannon became nationally known in August and September 2022, when, in a civil case brought by Donald Trump, she issued a series of unusual orders blocking the Justice Department from reviewing documents seized at Mar-a-Lago and appointing a special master to oversee the Justice Department’s work. The Eleventh Circuit reversed Judge Cannon’s ruling, holding that the court lacked jurisdiction to interfere with the Justice Department’s review of lawfully-seized documents.
Unikowsky argues that it is important in dealing with Trump’s cases to be scrupulous in following norms. He doesn’t yet see any basis for asking for Judge Cannon to be removed from the case. It isn’t unusual for Judges to have rulings reversed and still continue to preside in the cases. I hope you’ll read the whole post if you’re interested in Unikowsky’s views on the case, but for this post, I’ll just cut to the chase.
The Justice Department’s motion notes: “The Government has advised Mr. Woodward of its intent to file this motion requesting a Garcia hearing and its reasons for doing so. Mr. Woodward has indicated that as a general matter he does not oppose the Court informing his client of the client’s rights or inquiring into potential waivers, but that he will not consent to this motion without seeing it in advance, and he requests the opportunity to respond.” This is a reasonable position for Woodward to take—he can’t possibly object to a hearing intended to safeguard his own client’s constitutional rights, but he wants to see the motion before taking a position.
So, this motion is a hanging curveball for Judge Cannon. It’s obvious how Judge Cannon should respond to this motion. She should wait to hear Woodward’s position on it!
If Woodward agrees a Garcia hearing is warranted, Judge Cannon should hold the hearing to ensure that Nauta’s rights are protected. Maybe there’s some discretionary reason to deny the hearing even if everyone agrees it’s warranted? I can’t think of one, but maybe. But clearly, Judge Cannon should wait until she hears from Woodward before deciding what to do….
Instead, Judge Cannon does something intensely weird. Two things, actually.
First, she denies the Justice Department’s motion to seal.
Second, she requests that Nauta file a response brief to the Justice Department’s motion addressing, among other things, “the legal propriety of using an out-of-district grand jury proceeding to continue to investigate and/or to seek post-indictment hearings on matters pertinent to the instant indicted matter in this district.” She also says Trump and De Oliveira “may, but are not required to” file a brief addressing this issue.
First, the court denies the Justice Department’s motion to seal, and strikes the motion for leave to file under seal, as well as the secret information itself, from the docket.
Here’s the court’s rationale: “The Special Counsel states in conclusory terms that the supplement should be sealed from public view ‘to comport with grand jury secrecy,’ but the motion for leave and the supplement plainly fail to satisfy the burden of establishing a sufficient legal or factual basis to warrant sealing the motion and supplement.”
Seriously?
Grand jury proceedings are supposed to be secret, and the Justice Department is disclosing the identity of grand jury witnesses and the substance of their testimony, so it wants to keep that information secret. That’s not a “legal or factual basis to warrant sealing the motion and supplement”?
There’s a lot more, and it’s pretty useful if you are interested in this case.
The January 6 Case – Judge Tanya Chutkan
I’m sure you’re familiar with what has happened so far. Trump has been threatening Jack Smith, President Biden, the DOJ, and Judge Chutkan on social media and in speeches, even after he was warned not to commit crimes or tamper with witnesses or the jury pool. Smith requested a protective order before turning over discovery to the Trump team. He is concerned–with good reason–that Trump will release secret grand jury material and other evidence to the public so he can try the case in the media.
Here’s the latest.
Kyle Cheney at Politico: Trump objects to strict limits on sharing evidence in election interference case.
Former President Donald Trump argued Monday that he should be allowed to share evidence in his latest criminal case with “volunteer attorneys” and other unpaid advisers as he prepares to defend himself against charges related to his effort to subvert the 2020 election.
“The government cannot preclude the assistance of those individuals, nor should President Trump be required to seek permission from the Court before any such individual assists the defense,” Trump’s attorney John Lauro wrote in a filing that seeks to govern the handling of the mountains of evidence prosecutors have gathered and are preparing to share with Trump’s team.
“Such a limitation or requirement would unduly burden President Trump and impede the efficient preparation of his defense,” Lauro continued.
In a Sunday email between Trump’s lawyers and prosecutors, appended to Trump’s filing, assistant special counsel Thomas Windom raised concerns about Trump’s plan to broaden the group of legal advisers who might be permitted to review evidence in the case, worrying that the language Lauro proposed was “boundless.”
The dispute is one of several between Trump’s legal team and the special counsel over the handling of evidence in the case and how significantly to restrict Trump’s ability to publicly disclose any of the evidence he receives. Prosecutors have proposed a so-called “protective order” that would prohibit Trump or his legal team from publicly sharing any evidence produced by prosecutors. They say that they can’t begin sharing evidence with Trump and his team until a protective order is in place.
The matter now falls to U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan, who ordered Lauro to respond to prosecutors’ proposed protective order by Monday at 5 p.m. She may either rule on the matter or seek additional argument at a hearing in the case. Prosecutors are due to propose a trial date by Thursday.
Lauro said the blanket restriction on disclosing any evidence prosecutors provide is draconian and should be narrowed to limit the treatment only of materials deemed “sensitive” — such as those containing personally identifying information, grand jury subpoena returns, sealed search warrant returns and recordings or transcripts of witness interviews.
The government asked the judge to simply grant the protective order, which is usually a routine decision. But instead, she ordered the parties to hash it out in a hearing this week–probably on Friday. Again the upshot is more delay, which is just what Trump wants.
Former President Donald Trump’s legal team says that a protective order proposed by special counsel Jack Smith would infringe on Trump’s right to free speech.
Trump’s attorneys made the argument in their response Monday to the special counsel’s motion for a protective order over the discovery evidence in the case against Trump for allegedly seeking to overturn the 2020 election.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to charges of undertaking a “criminal scheme” to overturn the results of the 2020 election by enlisting a slate of so-called “fake electors” targeting several states; using the Justice Department to conduct “sham election crime investigations”; and trying to enlist the vice president to “alter the election results” — all in an effort to subvert democracy and remain in power.
The former president has denied all wrongdoing and has dismissed the probe as politically motivated.
Monday’s filing argues for narrower limits on the protective order, which Trump’s attorneys say would protect sensitive materials while ensuring Trump’s right to free speech.
“In a trial about First Amendment rights, the government seeks to restrict First Amendment rights,” Trump’s attorneys wrote in their filing. “Worse, it does so against its administration’s primary political opponent, during an election season in which the administration, prominent party members, and media allies have campaigned on the indictment and proliferated its false allegations.”
Of course, the trial is not about First Amendment rights. Trump is charged with three criminal conspiracy counts.
Smith asked the judge for the protective order on Friday, referencing a social media post Trump made Friday afternoon in which he said, “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!”
The proposed protective order submitted by Smith does not seek to bar Trump from commenting on the case in its entirety, but would restrict Trump and his attorneys from disclosing evidence such as materials returned from grand jury subpoenas and testimony from witnesses and other exhibits shown to the grand jury. It does not limit Trump from discussing materials that were already available to the public separate from the government’s investigation.
Smith’s attorneys have said the proposed order is largely modeled after similar protective orders issued in other cases.
But in their filing on Monday, Trump’s attorneys accuse Smith’s team of asking Judge Tanya Chutkan to “assume the role of censor and impose content-based regulations on President Trump’s political speech that would forbid him from publicly discussing or disclosing all non-public documents produced by the government, including both purportedly sensitive materials, and non-sensitive, potentially exculpatory documents.”
This is the crap we are going to have to deal with, folks. None of these trials is going to be quick or easy.
Meanwhile, because of Trump’s threats, Judge Chutkan needs more protection. CNN: Security increases for the judge assigned to Donald Trump’s January 6 criminal case.
Security for the federal judge assigned to oversee the criminal case against former President Donald Trump over his attempts to overturn the 2020 election has been increased in the federal courthouse in Washington, DC.
CNN has observed more security detailed to Judge Tanya Chutkan, and deputy US Marshals discussed security plans for the judge on Monday. The US Marshals Service handles security at the DC District Court and a spokesman for the service said it “take(s) that responsibility very seriously.”
“Ensuring that judges can rule independently and free from harm or intimidation is paramount to the rule of law, and a fundamental mission of the USMS,” spokesperson Drew J. Wade told CNN. “While we do not discuss our specific security measures, we continuously review the measures in place and take appropriate steps to ensure the integrity of the federal judicial process.”
The uptick in security inside the courthouse comes after security measures, including fencing and yellow tape, were taken down following Trump’s arraignment last week. That hearing, where Trump pleaded not guilty, was presided over by a magistrate judge. Chutkan takes the case from there.
Trump has already said he will be asking for Chutkan to recuse herself from the case, writing on social media in all caps: “There is no way I can get a fair trial with the judge ‘assigned’ to the ridiculous freedom of speech/fair elections case.”
So that’s what’s happening in the two federal cases against Trump. It’s going to be a long road, and there will be a lot of stupidity to deal with, but we can get through it together!
Lazy Caturday Reads
Posted: August 5, 2023 Filed under: cat art, Cats, caturday, Criminal Justice System, democracy is threatened, Donald Trump, just because | Tags: cult psychology, Department of Justice, Judge Tanya Chutken, Special Counsel Jack Smith, Trump threats 7 Comments
Bazon, the artist’s cat, by Odilon Redon
Happy Caturday!!
Donald Trump has now been indicted three times, and there could be a fourth indictment coming soon in Georgia. Trump was arraigned for his conspiracies to overturn the 2020 election on Thursday.
At the end of that hearing, U.S. Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadhyaya warned him not to commit further crimes by attempting to influence witnesses with threats or bribes.
Trump swore he would follow instructions, but a little later he reneged.
One day later, Trump issued a threat on Truth Social, writing in all-caps ““IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!”
From Joyce Vance at Civil Discourse: “If you go after me…”
Today, Donald Trump issued what can only be construed as a shot across the bow, after the Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadhyaya admonished him during arraignment yesterday that he must not commit any new crimes while on a pre-trial bond—the thing that’s keeping him out of jail before trial—and that efforts to influence or intimidate witnesses, jurors or others involved in the case were illegal….
It couldn’t be more clear that this is a threat to Jack Smith and the prosecutors and investigators involved in the case against him. It’s readily construed as a threat against state court prosecutors like Alvin Bragg in New York and Fani Willis in Georgia and could even be seen as a threat to people like E. Jean Carroll who have the temerity to hold him accountable for civil misconduct.
That’s a threat, made by a defendant in a criminal case, after being warned by a judge that there were consequences for violating conditions of release. Trump may think he can be cute and deny it if confronted. Maybe he’ll use his usual line: it’s just a joke. But we can all see it for what it is.
Girl with Cat, by Berthe Morisot, 1892
The special counsel’s office alerted the Judge to the post tonight, as part of its motion seeking a protective order for the discovery materials it will be releasing to Trump in the case.The government wants assurances, in the form of a protective order, that Trump won’t make the discovery materials public.
There is good reason for this. Some of the discovery contains personal identifying information for witnesses. If publicly disclosed, that could put them at risk of doxxing, identity theft or other harm. There is also grand jury testimony from witnesses, who might be put at risk if they find themselves suddenly in the public spotlight. As the government explains in its motion, “If the defendant were to begin issuing public posts using details—or, for example, grand jury transcripts—obtained in discovery here, it could have a harmful chilling effect on witnesses or adversely affect the fair administration of justice in this case.”
Prosecutors haven’t asked the court, at least not yet, to revoke Trump’s bond. That, of course, would be a step that would trigger prolonged litigation and possibly delay the trial. That seems to be the one thing Jack Smith is trying to avoid at all costs. He has made strategic decisions, for instance, only indicting Trump and leaving the co-conspirators unindicted, that streamline the process. He clearly wants his trial before the election.
Trump continued his threatening behavior during a speech in Alabama last night.
Alander Rocha at the Alabama Reflector (via MSN.com): Trump lashes out at prosecutors, Biden and DeSantis in Alabama speech.
Former President Donald Trump said in a speech in Montgomery Friday night that he wears his recent indictment on charges of attempting to subvert the 2020 presidential election as “a badge of honor.”
In a nearly-hourlong speech at a fundraising dinner for the Alabama Republican Party, Trump attacked Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, his rival for the Republican nomination for president and President Joe Biden, who he accused of using the Department of Justice as a political weapon.
“They want to take away my freedom because I will never let them take away your freedoms. They want to silence me because I will never let them silence you,” Trump said.
Raminou, 1922, by Suzanne Valadon
The speech was the former president’s first extended public remarks since a federal grand jury Tuesday indicted the former president on four counts, including conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of, and attempt to obstruct, an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights….
In his speech Friday, Trump called U.S. Department of Justice Special Counsel Jack Smith, who brought the indictment, “deranged.” At times he called prosecutors “communists” and “corrupt Marxist prosecutors.” He called the indictment “fake charges” that are an “outrageous criminalization of political speech,” even as he suggested it would help his presidential campaign.
“This is a ridiculous indictment against us — it’s not a legal case. It’s an act of desperation by a failed and disgraced crooked Joe Biden and his radical left thugs,” Trump said.
Trump also repeated election lies and claimed that Biden rigged the election in 2020 and suggested that the current president will interfere with the next election.
Also last night, federal prosecutors in the case called the judge’s attention to Trump’s threatening social media post and requested a protective order. Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein at Politico: Feds alert judge to Trump’s ‘If you go after me, I’m coming after you!’ post.
Prosecutors on Friday night called a judge’s attention to a social media post from Donald Trump — issued hours earlier — in which they say the former president appeared to declare that he’s “coming after” those he sees as responsible for the series of formidable legal challenges he is facing.
Attorneys from special counsel Jack Smith’s team said the post from Trump “specifically or by implication” referenced those involved in his criminal case for seeking to subvert the 2020 election.
In a court filing just before 10 p.m. Friday, Senior Assistant Special Counsels Molly Gaston and Thomas Windom alerted the judge in Trump’s latest criminal case — U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan — to a combative post Trump sent earlier in the day.
“If you go after me, I’m coming after you!” Trump wrote in all caps Friday afternoon on Truth Social, which is run by a media company he co-owns.
Cat with her Kittens (1913) by Julius Adam
The prosecutors said Trump’s post raised concerns that he might improperly share evidence in the case on his social media account and they urged that he be ordered to keep any evidence prosecutors turn over to his defense team from public view.
“All the proposed order seeks to prevent is the improper dissemination or use of discovery materials, including to the public,” Gaston and Windom wrote. “Such a restriction is particularly important in this case because the defendant has previously issued public statements on social media regarding witnesses, judges, attorneys, and others associated with legal matters pending against him. … And in recent days, regarding this case, the defendant has issued multiple posts—either specifically or by implication—including the following, which the defendant posted just hours ago.”
Smith’s office has not sought a gag order in either of the criminal cases it is pursuing against Trump: one in Florida focused on his retention of classified documents and the other in Washington over his efforts to interfere with the certification of the 2020 presidential election. The filing Friday night does not make any request to bar Trump or his attorneys from discussing the D.C. case publicly or with the media.
However, prosecutors in that case have indicated they’re prepared to share a “substantial“ volume of evidence with Trump as soon as Chutkan approves an order governing the handling of evidence. Chutkan is slated to bring attorneys for both sides to court on Aug. 28 to discuss setting a trial date. It’s unclear if Trump’s post will prompt her to seek more immediate efforts to implement a protective order or to impose a gag order, which can be issued under D.C. federal court rules.
Trump then got an anonymous “spokesperson” to put up a mealy-mouthed excuse for the threatening post.
https://twitter.com/BrianKarem/status/1687685417154342912?s=20
The Judge in the January 6 case, Tanya Chutken has ordered Trump to respond to the prosecutors’ request for a protective order:
Of the historic day when a former president was charged with serious crimes against the United States, CNN’s Stephen Collinson wrote this analysis: Trump’s surreal arraignment day in Washington augurs ominous days ahead.
As former President Donald Trump left Washington after answering charges of trying to subvert democracy, it felt like all the previous trauma and divisions of his eight-year journey into the nation’s psyche were just the start.
America now faces the prospect of an ex-president repeatedly going on trial in an election year in which he’s the Republican front-runner and is promising a new White House term of retribution. He is responding with the same kind of extreme rhetoric that injected fury into his political base and erupted into violence after the last election. Ominous and tense days may be ahead….
The entire day was surreal, but given its historic implications – after Trump became the first ex-president formally charged in relation to alleged crimes committed in office – also sad.
Thursday was a day when the country crossed a point of no return. For the first time, the United States formally charged one of its past leaders with trying to subvert its core political system and values.
It was Trump who forced the country over this dangerous threshold. A man whose life’s creed is to never be seen as a loser refused to accept defeat in a democratic election in 2020, then set off on a disastrous course because, as Smith’s indictment put it, “he was determined to stay in power.”
Trump is steering a stormy course to an unknown destination. If he wins back the White House, the already twice-impeached new president could trigger a new constitutional crisis by sweeping away the federal cases against him or even by pardoning himself. Any alternative Republican president could find themselves besieged by demands from Trump supporters for a pardon that, if granted, could overshadow their entire presidency. And if Trump is convicted, and loses a 2024 general election, he risks a long jail term, which would likely become fuel for him to incite his supporters to fresh protest.
Conservative legal scholar J. Michael Luttig tweeted after Trump’s latest indictment on Tuesday that it was a day made “all the more tragic and regrettable because the former president has cynically chosen to inflict this embarrassing spectacle on the Nation – and spectacle it will be.” Luttig warned that the world would no longer consider American democracy to be the same inspiration as it has been for almost 250 years.
Read the rest at CNN.
At The New York Times, Charlie Savage writes: How Jack Smith Structured the Trump Election Indictment to Reduce Risks.
In accusing former President Donald J. Trump of conspiring to subvert American democracy, the special counsel, Jack Smith, charged the same story three different ways. The charges are novel applications of criminal laws to unprecedented circumstances, heightening legal risks, but Mr. Smith’s tactic gives him multiple paths in obtaining and upholding a guilty verdict.
“Especially in a case like this, you want to have multiple charges that are applicable or provable with the same evidence, so that if on appeal you lose one, you still have the conviction,” said Julie O’Sullivan, a Georgetown University law professor and former federal prosecutor.
Study of Cats Flowers and Woman-1910-14, by Odilon-Redon
That structure in the indictment is only one of several strategic choices by Mr. Smith — including what facts and potential charges he chose to include or omit — that may foreshadow and shape how an eventual trial of Mr. Trump will play out.
The four charges rely on three criminal statutes: a count of conspiring to defraud the government, another of conspiring to disenfranchise voters, and two counts related to corruptly obstructing a congressional proceeding. Applying each to Mr. Trump’s actions raises various complexities, according to a range of criminal law experts.
At the same time, the indictment hints at how Mr. Smith is trying to sidestep legal pitfalls and potential defenses. He began with an unusual preamble that reads like an opening statement at trial, acknowledging that Mr. Trump had a right to challenge the election results in court and even to lie about them, but drawing a distinction with the defendant’s pursuit of “unlawful means of discounting legitimate votes and subverting the election results.”
While the indictment is sprawling in laying out a case against Mr. Trump, it brings a selective lens on the multifaceted efforts by the former president and his associates to overturn the 2020 election.
“The strength of the indictment is that it is very narrowly written,” said Ronald S. Sullivan Jr., a Harvard Law School professor and former public defender. “The government is not attempting to prove too much, but rather it went for low-hanging fruit.”
For one, Mr. Smith said little about the violent events of Jan. 6, leaving out vast amounts of evidence in the report by a House committee that separately investigated the matter. He focused more on a brazen plan to recruit false slates of electors from swing states and a pressure campaign on Vice President Mike Pence to block the congressional certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory.
Read the rest at the NYT. It’s interesting, and Savage is a serious writer–not a both-sideser.
One more by neuroscientist Seth Norrholm at Raw Story:
I was dying…It was just a matter of time. Lying behind the wheel of the airplane, bleeding out of the right side of my devastated body, I waited for the rapid shooting to stop.
—Former Representative Jackie Speier in her memoir Undaunted: Surviving Jonestown, Summoning Courage, and Fighting Back recounting her experience after being shot five times during an ambush during her fact-finding visit to Jonestown, Guyana where Jim Jones and his cult, Peoples Temple, had built a compound.
It, combined with everything else that was going on, made it difficult to breathe…Being crushed by the shield and the people behind it … leaving me defenseless, injured.
—Metropolitan police officer, Daniel Hodges, describing being crushed in a doorway during the January 6, 2021, attack by Trump supporters on the U.S. Capitol.
Horatio Henry Couldery, Curiosity
In both of the examples above, the individual speaking was the victim of extreme violence perpetrated by followers of a single person whose influence had spread to hundreds of people (in the January 6th case, thousands of people). In fact, Speier’s experience with the Jim Jones followers was part of the single greatest loss of American life (918 people) prior to 9/11/2001. These followings have been given an umbrella name, cult, and have involved what has been traditionally called “brainwashing.” The cult leader receives seemingly undying support as the Dear Leader or Savior. However, the term brainwashing suggests that indoctrinated members are robots without free will – behavioral scientists argue that this is not the case. It’s an oversimplification.
Rather than being seen as passive victims to an irresistible force, psychiatrist Robert Lifton argues that there is “voluntary self-surrender” in one’s entrance into a cult. Further, the decision to give up control as part of the cult process may actually be part of the reason why people join. Research and experience tell us that those who are “cult vulnerable” may have a sense of confusion or separation from society or seek the same sort of highly controlled environment that was part of their childhood. It has also been suggested that those who are at risk for cult membership feel an enormous lack of control in the face of uncertainty (i.e., economic, occupational, academic, social, familial) and will gravitate more towards a cult as their distress increases. I would argue that many of these factors are at play when we see the ongoing support of Trumpism and MAGA “theology.”
Psychologist Leon Festinger described the phenomenon of cognitive dissonance in which there is a disconnect between one’s feelings, beliefs, and convictions and their observable actions. This dissonance is distressing and, in order to relieve the anxiety, people may become more invested in the cult or belief system that goes against who they are individually. As such, cult members become more “dug-in” and will cling to thoughts and beliefs that contradict available evidence. In other words, they are no longer able to find a middle ground or compromise.
Norrholm argues that the Trump cult has changed our politics drastically–that there is no longer a “middle ground” between Republicans and Democrats/Independents.
Although members of the GOP still refer to themselves as a political party with principled stances, the reality is they have now morphed into a domestic terror organization and to use the umbrella term, a cult – the largest and most dangerous cult in American history.
Cult thinking includes ardent adherence to group thinking such as – clinically speaking, in the face of distorted thinking we ask about one’s strength of conviction by querying, ”Can you think of other ways of seeing this?” Sadly, what we are seeing publicly is ‘No’ from those who still subscribe to Trumpism/MAGA.
Read the rest at Raw Story. Norrholm really knows what he’s talking about.
What is happening in this country is really frightening, but I continue to believe that we will get through this somehow.
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