Rolf Nesch (Germany 1893-1975 Norway), Swans, from Esslingen

More information on Luft from The Independent: ‘Whistleblower’ who accused Bidens of corruption is charged with arms trafficking and violating Iran sanctions.

A “whistleblower” who has repeatedly accused the Bidens of corruption has been charged by the Justice Department with arms trafficking, acting as a foreign agent for China and violating Iran sanctions.

Gal Luft, who is a citizen of both the United States and Israel, is accused of paying a former adviser to Donald Trump on behalf of principals in China in 2016 without registering as a foreign agent.

Prosecutors say that Mr Luft pushed the former government employee, who is not named, to push policies that were favourable to China.

They also allege that he set up meetings between officials of Iran and a Chinese energy company to discuss oil deals, which would violate US sanctions.

They also alleged that Mr Luft “conspired with others and attempted to broker illicit arms transactions with, among others, certain Chinese individuals and entities” by working as a middleman to find both buyers and sellers for “certain weapons and other materials” in violation of the US Arms Control Act.

Specifically, prosecutors say he attempted to broker a sale of anti-tank weapons, grenade launchers and mortar rounds to Libya by Chinese companies, and also pushed to arrange for the United Arab Emirates to purchase bombs and rockets, and for Kenya to acquire unmanned aerial vehicles capable of striking targets on the ground.

He sounds like a great witness for the Republican “investigations.”

Mr Luft, 57, was arrested in Cyprus in February on US charges but fled after being released on bail while awaiting extradition and is not currently in US custody.

US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams said in a statement that Mr Luft “engaged in multiple, serious criminal schemes”.

“He subverted foreign agent registration laws in the United States to seek to promote Chinese policies by acting through a former high-ranking U.S. Government official; he acted as a broker in deals for dangerous weapons and Iranian oil; and he told multiple lies about his crimes to law enforcement,” Mr Williams said.

“As the charges unsealed today reflect, our Office will continue to work vigorously with our law enforcement partners to detect and hold accountable those who surreptitiously attempt to perpetrate malign foreign influence campaigns here in the United States”.

Comer was still defending this guy as a credible witness last night on NewsMax.

Frits Thaulow, Norwegian, Summer Day in the Garden, 1880

Yesterday Judge Cannon granted a short delay in for Walt Nauta to appear in the Mar-a-Lago stolen documents case.

Raw Story: Judge Aileen Cannon grants ‘unnecessary’ delay in Trump documents case.

Controversial U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon granted a delay for Donald Trump’s aide and co-defendant Walt Nauta in a classified documents case. Prosecutors have called the delay “unnecessary.”

In a filing on Monday, Nauta’s team asked to delay Friday’s hearing, which was set to determine how some materials would be handled in the trial. The attorneys did not propose a date for the new hearing.

“An indefinite continuance is unnecessary, will inject additional delay in this case, and is contrary to the public interest,” special counsel Jack Smith said in a subsequent filing on Monday.

On Tuesday, Cannon granted a 4-day delay, setting the new hearing for July 18 at 2:00 P.M. A court filing said Trump and Smith had agreed to the new date.

This is obviously part of Trump’s usual strategy of delaying court cases as long as possible. Now the Trump lawyers are trying to get Cannon to delay the case until after the 2024 election!

The New York Times: Trump Lawyers Seek Indefinite Postponement of Documents Trial.

Lawyers for former President Donald J. Trump asked a federal judge on Monday night to indefinitely postpone his trial on charges of illegally retaining classified documents after he left office, saying that the proceeding should not begin until all “substantive motions” in the case had been presented and decided.

The written filing — submitted 30 minutes before its deadline of midnight on Tuesday — presents a significant early test for Judge Aileen M. Cannon, the Trump-appointed jurist who is overseeing the case. If granted, it could have the effect of pushing Mr. Trump’s trial into the final stages of the presidential campaign in which he is now the Republican front-runner or even past the 2024 election.

While timing is important in any criminal matter, it could be hugely consequential in Mr. Trump’s case, in which he stands accused of illegally holding on to 31 classified documents after leaving the White House and obstructing the government’s repeated efforts to reclaim them.

There could be complications of a sort never before presented to a court if Mr. Trump is a candidate in the last legs of a presidential campaign and a federal criminal defendant on trial at the same time. If the trial is pushed back until after the election and Mr. Trump wins, he could try to pardon himself after taking office or have his attorney general dismiss the matter entirely….

Judges have wide latitude to set schedules for trials, and scheduling orders are typically not subject to appeal to higher courts. That said, given the extraordinary nature of Mr. Trump’s case and the potential implications of a delay, prosecutors under Mr. Smith could in theory try to come up with a rationale to challenge a scheduling decision made by Judge Cannon to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit.

This really is a test for Cannon. If she grants such a delay, she should be replaced.

Albert Marquet (1875-1947), Baigneurs à Carqueiranne (1938)

Here are some details on the Trump filing, from the TPM Morning Memo, by David Kurtz.

Some of the filing is the usual defense counsel performative moaning and groaning and sighing heavily about all the work involved and the inherent advantages prosecutors have over them because they’ve long had access to the evidence, blah blah blah. To that end, Trump wants U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon to:

• withdraw her order for an August 2023 trial;
• reject DOJ’s proposal for a December 2023 trial; and
• postpone indefinitely even setting a trial date.

But there’s more than the usual slow-rolling going on here. And it matters to the big question of whether Cannon can and will keep the Mar-a-Lago case on track for a trial before the 2024 presidential election.

Trump’s claims in this regard are remarkable:

• He’s too busy running for president to be put on trial.
• He’s too busy with other criminal and civil trials to add this one to the calendar.
• He’s still trying to make the case about the Presidential Records Act (it’s not).
• “There is no ongoing threat to national security interests nor any concern regarding continued criminal activity.”
• You can’t find an impartial jury in the midst of a presidential election.

The overall thrust of the filing by Trump is that a trial before the election is not advisable, though it stops short of saying so explicitly.

One more on the documents case from Jose Pagliery at The Daily Beast: Mar-a-Lago Jury Selection Will Be a MAGA Country Minefield.

The federal judge overseeing Donald Trump’s classified documents trial is taking steps that could stock the jury box with the former president’s supporters.

U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon has set the upcoming trial to open on Aug. 14 at her tiny satellite courthouse in the northern reaches of her district, which stretches from the tropical Florida Keys to the citrus groves halfway up the state.

That decision means Trump’s jurors are set to be drawn from the most brightly red corner of a vast court district, plucked from a community that leans heavily Republican—instead of the highly populous and more Democratic urban areas further south….

Park View, Aksel Jørgensen, Danish, 1909

Several Miami lawyers, some of whom asked to remain anonymous because they have active cases before Cannon, noted that Trump’s chances to win what otherwise appears to be an insurmountable criminal case increase the further north he goes.

“You drive around, and you’ll see ‘Trump’ flags and ‘Make America Great Again’ flying in front of houses,” said Paul Bernard, a criminal defense lawyer in Fort Pierce. “With Trump’s trial down this way, he’s going to have a bunch of supporters—and they’re going to make their way onto the jury panel.”

According to local court rules, federal trials in the Fort Pierce division draw jurors from five counties: Highlands, Indian River, Martin, Okeechobee, and St. Lucie.

It’s solidly MAGA country: all five counties voted heavily in favor of Trump in the 2020 election he ultimately lost, with Okeechobee topping out at 72 percent. Across the board, the former president nabbed 62 percent of the vote on average.

Read the whole thing at The Daily Beast link.

There is also news in the Georgia election interference case.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Grand jurors who will consider Trump charges to be selected Tuesday.

The selection of two Fulton County grand juries will be made Tuesday, with one of the panels expected to decide whether to hand up an indictment for alleged criminal interference in the 2020 presidential election.

One set of jurors is likely to be asked to bring formal charges against former President Donald Trump and other well-known political and legal figures. In a letter to county officials almost two months ago, District Attorney Fani Willis indicated the indictment could be obtained at some point between July 31 and Aug. 18.

Willis began her investigation shortly after hearing the leaked Jan. 2, 2021, phone call in which Trump asked Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” the 11,780 votes he needed to defeat Joe Biden in Georgia. She later convened a special purpose grand jury which examined evidence and heard testimony over an almost eight-month period. Its final report, only part of which has been made public, recommended multiple people be indicted for alleged crimes.

Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who oversaw the special purpose grand jury, will preside over Tuesday’s selection of the two grand juries for this term of court.

Each panel will have 23 grand jurors, plus three alternates. One panel will meet Mondays and Tuesdays, the other Thursdays and Fridays. Both will work in secret and are expected to decide whether to hand up indictments in hundreds of cases. It is unclear which one will consider the much-anticipated election-meddling case.

When a grand jury meets, at least 16 members must be present to conduct business. At least 12 grand jurors must vote to bring an indictment. The burden of proof is much lower for a grand jury to indict someone than it is for a jury to convict or acquit someone and grand jurors typically hear only from the prosecution.

It sounds like indictments could be coming soon.

One more story out of Georgia, from Kaitlyn Polantz at CNN: Rudy Giuliani is negotiating possible resolution to lawsuit brought by 2 Georgia election workers.

Rudy Giuliani is negotiating a possible resolution in his ongoing court dispute with former Georgia election workers Wandrea “Shaye” Moss and Ruby Freeman, after they accused him of defaming them following the 2020 election and already won nearly $90,000 from him for attorneys’ fees.

The lawsuit from Moss and her mother, Freeman, presents a significant risk to Giuliani financially. It also comes at a time when the former New York mayor and Manhattan prosecutor is attempting to fend off two disbarment proceedings, as well as interest from special counsel Jack Smith’s office, which is criminally investigating Donald Trump’s response to the 2020 vote, of which Giuliani was a central player.

In a court filing late Friday, Moss and Freeman’s legal team disclosed that Giuliani’s lawyer approached them on Thursday “to discuss a potential negotiated resolution of issues that would resolve large portions of this litigation and otherwise give rise to Plaintiffs’ anticipated request for sanctions.”

“Counsel for both parties have worked diligently to negotiate a resolution and believe they are close,” Moss and Freeman’s lawyer wrote.

The negotiation is over “certain factual issues regarding Defendant Giuliani’s liability,” the court filing also said.

Another update on the negotiations is expected in court on Tuesday….

Moss and Freeman accuse Giuliani of scapegoating them in a fabricated effort to undermine how votes were counted in Georgia in 2020.

That’s all I have for you today–lots of legal news involving corrupt Republicans. What else is new?