Wednesday Reads: Judges Push Back

Good Afternoon!!

The Supreme Court at night

Yesterday, the courts pushed back on Trump and Musk. I’m not convinced that it will stop them, but we’ll find out soon enough. Here’s a brief summary of what happened from David Kurtz at Talking Points Memo: The Day The Federal Courts Stood Tall.

The showdown between President Trump and the federal judiciary came to a head Tuesday in a more dramatic and direct way that Morning Memo had anticipated.

With Trump dangerously but also absurdly calling for the impeachment of the federal judge who ruled against him in the Alien Enemies Act case, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts stirred from his torpor long enough to issue a rare rebuke of the president, though not by name (as Trump himself pointed out). Roberts’ decision to come to the defense of district judges who have been on the front lines of this constitutional battle keeps them from being marooned on an island while their decisions wind their way up through the lengthy appeals process.

“The Chief Justice’s statement now renders the Trump confrontation one with the entire federal judiciary, and not just the lower federal courts,” Harvard Law professor Jack Goldsmith observed.

What followed over the course of the day was a series of significant court rulings against the Trump administration. While the compressed timing of the rulings was mostly coincidental, the thrust of the decisions all pointed in the same direction: Two months into his second term, President Trump has wildly exceeded his constitutional authority on numerous fronts.

I wish I could say that the combination of the chief justice’s rebuke and the multiple legal setbacks suggests that the federal judiciary is girding for a fight over the rule of law and its own constitutional powers. I hope that’s the case. I want that to be the case. But we need to see appeals courts and the high court itself weighing in on the substance of these cases in the weeks and months to come before we can assess whether the judicial branch will hold the line. There’s no doubt that Trump is itching to coopt the judiciary.

It bears repeating that the courts alone can’t save us from autocracy. But losing the courts entirely would be a devastating blow that would make additional areas of American public and private life vulnerable to Trump’s rampage and would add immeasurably to the future workload of rebuilding what Trump has broken.

For one day, though, the judicial branch stood tall.

Some specifics:

The New York Times: Musk’s Role in Dismantling Aid Agency Likely Violated Constitution, Judge Finds.

Efforts by Elon Musk and his team to permanently shutter the U.S. Agency for International Development likely violated the Constitution “in multiple ways” and robbed Congress of its authority to oversee the dissolution of an agency it created, a federal judge found on Tuesday.

The ruling, by Judge Theodore D. Chuang of U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, appeared to be the first time a judge has moved to rein in Mr. Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency directly. It was based on the finding that Mr. Musk has acted as a U.S. officer without having been properly appointed to that role by President Trump.

Judge Theodore Chuang

Judge Chuang wrote that a group of unnamed aid workers who had sued to stop the demolition of U.S.A.I.D. and its programs was likely to succeed in the lawsuit. He agreed with the workers’ contention that Mr. Musk’s rapid assertion of power over executive agencies was likely in violation of the Constitution’s appointments clause.

The judge also ordered that agency operations be partially restored, though that reprieve is likely to be temporary. He ordered Mr. Musk’s team to reinstate email access to all U.S.A.I.D. employees, including those on paid leave. He also ordered the team to submit a plan for employees to reoccupy a federal office from which they were evicted last month, and he barred Mr. Musk’s team from engaging in any further work “related to the shutdown of U.S.A.I.D.”

Given that most of the agency’s work force and contracts were already terminated, it was not immediately clear what effect the judge’s ruling would have. Only a skeleton crew of workers is still employed by the agency.

And while the order barred Mr. Musk from dealing with the agency personally, it suggested that he or others could continue to do so after receiving “the express authorization of a U.S.A.I.D. official with legal authority to take or approve the action.”

CNN: Federal judge indefinitely blocks Trump’s ban on transgender service members, saying it’s ‘soaked in animus.’

A federal judge has indefinitely blocked President Donald Trump’s ban on transgender service members, dealing a major defeat to a controversial policy the president resurrected from his first term.

In a scathing ruling, US District Judge Ana Reyes said the administration cannot enforce the ban — which was set to take effect later this month.

Reyes, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, wrote that the ban “is soaked in animus and dripping with pretext. Its language is unabashedly demeaning, its policy stigmatizes transgender persons as inherently unfit, and its conclusions bear no relation to fact.”

Judge Ana Reyes

“Indeed, the cruel irony is that thousands of transgender servicemembers have sacrificed – some risking their lives – to ensure for others the very equal protection rights the Military Ban seeks to deny them,” she wrote.

The judge said she was pausing her preliminary injunction until Friday morning to give the administration time to appeal it to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals.

The ruling came in a case brought by transgender active-duty service members and others hoping to enlist in the military who would be barred from service under the ban. Reyes said they had shown that they would likely succeed on their claim that the ban violated rights afforded to them by the Constitution.

Days after taking office, Trump signed an executive order directing the Pentagon to implement its own policies that say transgender service members are incompatible with military service. The government had argued that continuing to permit trans individuals to serve in the US would negatively affect, among other things, the military’s lethality, readiness and cohesion.

The Washington Post: Judge halts Trump EPA bid to kill $14 billion Biden climate grant fund.

A federal judge on Tuesday temporarily barred President Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency from clawing back at least $14 billion in grants issued by the Biden administration for climate and clean-energy projects, saying the EPA had not put forward “credible evidence” of fraud or abuse.

U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan of Washington, D.C., ruled that the EPA’s sudden mid-February asset freeze and March 11 termination of legally awarded grants came without a legally required explanation to three coalitions of grant recipients. The groups said the sudden cutoff of funds approved by Congress appeared to be arbitrary, capricious or in violation of federal law and regulations.

Judge Tanya Chutkan

Climate United Fund, Coalition for Green Capital and Power Forward Communities, which received $7 billion, $5 billion and $2 billion, respectively, sued over the funding freeze. They are among eight recipients awarded more than$20 billion under the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, a program established in President Joe Biden’s signature 2022 climate law more commonly known as the “green bank.”

In a 23-page opinion, Chutkan said the EPA’s actions raised “serious due process concerns” and issued a temporary restraining order barring the grant cutoffs for now. Chutkan did not release funds to the groups but ordered that the money be held as it was in their accounts at Citibank and not clawed back or reused for any other purpose by the EPA while the case moves ahead.

While the agency voiced concerns regarding “program integrity,” “programmatic fraud, waste, and abuse” and “the absence of adequate oversight,” Chutkan wrote, “vague and unsubstantiated assertions of fraud are insufficient.”

Chutkan said she was neither forcing the EPA to “undo” its termination nor making the funds unrecoverable, but ensuring that the government abides by grant laws and regulations, “which serves the public interest.”

The New York Times: Judge Orders Education Dept. to Restore Some Grants to Schools.

A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the Education Department to restore some federal grants that were terminated as part of the Trump administration’s purge of diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

Judge Julie R. Rubin of the Federal District Court for the District of Maryland said in an opinion that the department had acted arbitrarily and illegally when it slashed $600 million in grants that helped place teachers in underserved schools. The judge also ordered the administration to cease future cuts to those grants.

Judge Julie R. Rubin

The grants fund programs that train and certify teachers to work in struggling districts that otherwise have trouble attracting talent. The programs cited goals that included training a diverse educational work force, and provided training in special education, among other areas.

The department, led by Education Secretary Linda McMahon, argued that the grants trained teachers in “social justice activism” and other “divisive ideologies” and should be eliminated.

A coalition of educator organizations sued to stop the Education Department from terminating the grants. The coalition included groups, such as the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education and the National Center for Teacher Residencies, whose members depend on the grants at issue.

The judge found that the loss of the federal dollars would harm students and schools with the fewest resources.

“The harms plaintiffs identify also implicate grave effect on the public: fewer teachers for students in high-need neighborhoods, early childhood education and special education programs,” she wrote. “Moreover, even to the extent defendants assert such an interest in ending D.E.I.-based programs, they have sought to effect change by means the court finds likely violate the law.”

A federal judge has turned down a request from the Trump administration to dismiss Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil’s challenge to his deportation, and ruled his case should be heard in New Jersey rather than Louisiana, where he is now detained.

Judge Jesse Furman

In his decision, judge Jesse M Furman said that since Khalil’s attorney filed the challenge to his arrest while he was in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detention in New Jersey, the case must be heard there. Government lawyers had asked that his petition be considered in Louisiana, where Khalil had been flown to after being arrested by Ice in New York City and then briefly held in New Jersey.

“Given that the District of New Jersey is the one and only district in which Khalil could have filed his Petition when he did, the statutes that govern transfer of civil cases from one federal district court to another dictate that the case be sent there, not to the Western District of Louisiana,” Furman wrote.

He added that “the Court’s March 10, 2025 Order barring the Government from removing him (to which the Government has never raised an objection and which the Government has not asked the Court to lift in the event of transfer) shall similarly remain in effect unless and until the transferee court orders otherwise.”

On the “Alien Enemies” case before Judge James Boesberg, NBC News reports: Trump administration pushes back on judge’s request for answers about deportation flights.

The Justice Department is pushing back against a federal judge’s request for more information about the deportation flights that took off over the weekend after President Donald Trump invoked the rarely used Alien Enemies Act.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg had ordered the Trump administration to submit answers to his questions about the timing of the deportation flights and custody handover of deportees, giving the government until noon Wednesday to respond.

Judge James Boasberg

The government submitted a filing Wednesday morning asking for a pause of Boasberg’s order to answer his questions.

“Continuing to beat a dead horse solely for the sake of prying from the Government legally immaterial facts and wholly within a sphere of core functions of the Executive Branch is both purposeless and frustrating to the consideration of the actual legal issues at stake in this case,” the DOJ wrote in the filing.

The judge had initially ordered the government to answer his questions surrounding the flights by noon Tuesday. The Justice Department declined to answer some of his questions, saying, “If, however, the Court nevertheless orders the Government to provide additional details, the Court should do so through an in camera and ex parte declaration, in order to protect sensitive information bearing on foreign relations.”

Boasberg agreed and directed DOJ attorneys to submit under seal the answers to his questions about the deportations that were carried out under the terms of a rarely used wartime act by noon Wednesday.

In its response Wednesday, the government blasted the judge for accepting its proposal and suggested he not take any action until an appeals court rules on its request for a stay.

“The Court has now spent more time trying to ferret out information about the Government’s flight schedules and relations with foreign countries than it did in investigating the facts before certifying the class action in this case. That observation reflects how upside-down this case has become, as digressive micromanagement has outweighed consideration of the case’s legal issues,” the DOJ filing said. “The distraction of the specific facts surrounding the movements of an airplane has derailed this case long enough and should end until the Circuit Court has had a chance to weigh in,” it added.

These Trump people are truly evil.

An interesting sidebar to the “Alien Enemies” law dispute from Forbes: Trump’s Sister Declared The Immigration Law He Used Unconstitutional.

In a historical twist, Donald Trump’s sister was the federal judge who ruled unconstitutional the immigration law the Trump administration is using to deport a pro-Palestinian protester. In 1996, U.S. District Judge Maryanne Trump Barry wrote an opinion that declared unconstitutional the part of U.S. immigration law that Donald Trump has promised to continue employing to deport protesters. The current case has captured headlines and will test the Trump administration’s immigration authority….

On March 8, 2025, Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a lawful permanent resident and pro-Palestinian protester who graduated in December from Columbia University. Controversy over the arrest surrounded the Trump administration using a provision in immigration law that allows for deportation if the Secretary of State believes an alien’s presence or activities “would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.”

In 1995, Secretary of State Warren Christopher used the same authority when attempting to deport Ruiz Massieu to Mexico. As presented by the court documents, the circumstances in that case were quite different from the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil.

In September 1994, Ruiz Massieu’s brother, a prominent member of PRI, Mexico’s ruling party, was assassinated. As Deputy Attorney General, Ruiz Massieu investigated and identified a PRI official, Manuel Munoz Rocha, as the lead conspirator in his brother’s killing. Rocha was protected, first by official immunity and later by disappearing before an interview could be conducted. In late November 1994, Massieu resigned in a public speech and later published a book criticizing the PRI.

After Mexican officials sought his arrest, he entered the United States legally as a visitor (he owned property in Texas) and flew to Spain with a stopover at Newark Airport. In Newark, he was arrested for declaring only $18,000 of the $44,322 in cash with him. While the declaration infraction was later dropped, the Mexican government charged him with crimes “against the administration of justice” and sought his extradition.

“It was then, however, that this case took a turn toward the truly Kafkaesque,” writes U.S. District Judge Maryanne Trump Barry, Donald Trump’s sister. She notes that the Immigration and Naturalization Service took Massieu into custody. “He was ordered to show cause as to why he should not be deported because, the Secretary of State has made a determination that . . . there is reasonable ground to believe your presence or activities in the United States would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.” (Emphasis added.) In 1996, the provision was Section 241(a)(4)(C)(i) of the Immigration and Nationality Act but it was later redesignated Section 237(a)(4)(C)(i) due to other changes in the INA. The language in both designations is identical.

Lazy Caturday Reads

Posted: August 10, 2024 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: "presidential immunity", 2024 presidential Campaign, cat art, caturday, Donald Trump, Kamala Harris 2024 | Tags: childless cat ladies, Culinary union Nevada, Jack Smith, Judge Tanya Chutkan, McDonalds, Nate Holden, Project 2025 training videos, swing state polls, Tim Walz, Trump lies, Trump press conference, UAW, Willie Brown | 5 Comments

Happy Caturday!!

Last night, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz held their biggest rally yet in Glendale, Arizona, a Phoenix suburb. The crowd numbered around 15,000 people. Once again, the atmosphere was joyful and enthusiastic, with the crowd cheering lustily. Later last night, Trump spoke to a much smaller crowd, in a large venue with hundreds of empty seats. There was no joy at his sad rally.

The Guardian: Harris and Walz whip up crowd at packed Phoenix rally – but ‘we are the underdog.’

Kamala Harris and Tim Walz rallied a packed arena outside Phoenix, Arizona, on Friday – drawing perhaps the largest Democratic crowd of the election cycle this year.

The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, her running mate and the local leaders who joined them on stage whipped up the crowd, discussing immigration, abortion rights and Indigenous sovereignty.

Noting the Indigenous leaders in the room, Harris also said: “I will always honor tribal sovereignty and respect tribal self-determination.” Indigenous voters are credited with helping deliver Arizona to Joe Biden in 2020; the state is home to 22 federally recognized tribes.

At one point during her speech, Harris was interrupted by protesters chanting “free, free Palestine” and other messages in support of Gaza. She stopped her speech to address the protesters.

“We’re here to fight for our democracy, which includes respecting the voices that I think we are hearing from. Let me just speak to that for a moment and then I’ll get back to the business at hand,” she said. “I have been clear: now is the time to get a ceasefire deal and get the hostage deal done. Now is the time. And the president and I are working around the clock every day to get that ceasefire deal done and bring the hostages home.” Her statement represented a noticeable change in tone from her approach to Gaza protesters in Detroit on Thursday.

Harris and Walz took the stage at the Desert Diamond Arena, a venue that can hold 20,000 people. Although official estimates are not yet available, the Harris campaign confirmed that more than 15,000 people attended the Phoenix rally. On stage, in front of attendees waving signs that read “Coach!”, Walz said the rally “might be the largest political gathering in the history of Arizona”.

“It’s not as if anybody cares about crowd sizes or anything,” he added.

Other Harris campaign events this week that have drawn crowds of up to 15,000, invoking the ire of Donald Trump, who claims to have “spoken to the biggest crowds”.

The Harris-Walz rally represents a renewed push to put the Sun belt back on the map for Harris’s still young campaign. Before Friday night, the state appeared to be leaning red, with Trump leading Harris by single digits in recent polls. But by the evening of the rally, Harris and Trump appeared neck and neck in the state, with polling from FiveThirtyEight showing Harris’ 44.4% closely following Trump’s 44.8%.

Polls on Friday morning showed Harris narrowly leading Trump nationwide.

ec55aaaa5503146416a7e04a42a5e63b Harris also addressed immigration in her Arizona speech. AP: Kamala Harris makes an immigration pitch in Arizona as she fights to gain ground in the Sun Belt.

Vice President Kamala Harris drew on her prosecutorial background to make her first expansive pitch on immigration to border-state voters as she and her new running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, attracted thousands to a campaign rally in Arizona during their tour of battleground states.

Harris, the former attorney general of California, reminded the crowd that she, as a law enforcement official, targeted transnational gangs, drug cartels and smugglers.

Trump won’t be happy with the latest polls of swing states. Also from The Guardian: New poll shows Harris four points ahead of Trump in three key swing states.

“I prosecuted them in case after case, and I won,” Harris said in front of a crowd of more than 15,000 in Glendale, a suburb of Phoenix. “So I know what I’m talking about.”

Harris promoted a border security bill that a bipartisan group of senators negotiated earlier this year, which Republican lawmakers ultimately opposed en masse at Republican nominee Donald Trump’s behest.

“Donald Trump does not want to fix this problem,” Harris said. “Be clear about that: He has no interest or desire to actually fix the problem. He talks a big game about border security, but he does not walk the walk.”

Trump won’t be happy with the latest swing state polls.

The Guardian: New poll shows Harris four points ahead of Trump in three key swing states.

A major new poll puts Kamala Harris ahead of Donald Trump in three key swing states, signaling a dramatic reversal in momentum for the Democratic party with three months to go until the election.

The vice-president leads the ex-president by four percentage points in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, 50% to 46%, among almost 2,000 likely voters in each state, according to new surveys by the New York Times and Siena College.

The polls were conducted between 5 and 9 August, in the week that Harris named midwesterner Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota and a former high school teacher, as her running mate for November’s Democratic ticket.

It provides the clearest indication from crucial battleground states since Joe Biden pulled out of the race and endorsed Harris amid mounting concerns about the 82-year-old’s cognitive wellbeing and fitness to govern for a second term. The results come after months of polling that showed Biden either tied with or slightly behind Trump.

Harris is viewed as more intelligent, more honest and more temperamentally fit to run the country than Trump, according to the registered voters polled.

The findings, published on Saturday by the Times, will boost the Democrats, as Harris and Walz continue crisscrossing the country on their first week on the campaign trail together, holding a slew of events in swing states that are likely to decide the outcome of the election….

While only a snapshot, Democrats will probably be heartened to see that 60% of the surveyed independent voters, who always play a major role in deciding the outcome of the race, said they are satisfied with the choice of presidential candidates, compared with 45% in May.

The swing appears to be largely driven by evolving voter perceptions of Harris, who has been praised for her positivity and future-focused stump speeches on the campaign trail. In Pennsylvania, where Biden beat Trump by just more than 80,000 votes four years ago, her favorability rating has surged by 10 points since last month among registered voters, according to Times/Siena polling.

Harris will need to win Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan – crucial battleground states that Biden clinched in 2020 – if the Democrats are to regain the White House.

There’s also good news out of Nevada. The Nevada Independent: New Nevada poll sees Harris with biggest lead over Trump yet.

A new poll of likely Nevada voters found Vice President Kamala Harris with a nearly 6 percentage point lead over former President Donald Trump — the largest lead for a Democrat in any presidential poll of Nevadans this cycle.

While Nevada polls have been relatively scarce since Harris replaced President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee, the vice president appears to have closed the gap that existed between Trump and Biden, who had not led Trump in a single public poll taken in the state since October 2023.

A Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll of Nevada in late July found Harris with a 2 percentage point lead in the head-to-head matchup — Democrats’ first leading poll of the cycle — and the Cook Political Report moved Nevada back into the “toss-up” category Thursday after previously categorizing it as “lean Republican.”

This latest poll, conducted by Decipher Ai’s David Wolfson, a pollster and Columbia University lecturer, sampled 991 likely voters across Nevada from Aug. 3-5 in a SMS/text-to-web poll on the presidential and House races. The statewide margin of error is 3 percentage points and between 6 percentage points and 7 percentage points for House races….

On the presidential ballot, Harris garnered 49.2 percent support while Trump received 43.6 percent. Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. received only 3.9 percent of the vote. Kennedy’s vote share is lower than the 8 percentage points to 10 percentage points he had been receiving, on average, when Biden was on the ballot. In an interview, Johnston said Kennedy’s polling fade reflects what typically happens to third-party candidates as the election nears.

Harris’ lead in this poll may be an outlier, but it mimics Biden’s position at this point in the cycle in 2020 when FiveThirtyEight polling averages showed he led in Nevada by about 6 percentage points. Biden ultimately won the state by about 2.4 percentage points.

Harris has received some major endorsements. From CNN:

Harris gains major endorsements: The nation’s oldest and largest Latino civil rights organization, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), has endorsed the Harris-Walz ticket. It is the first time LULAC has endorsed a presidential. candidate in its almost 100-year history. Culinary and bartenders unions in Las Vegas also endorsed the Harris-Walz ticket Friday.

The United Auto Workers (UAW) also endorsed Harris this week.

In her speech last night, Harris told the crowd that she worked at McDonalds one summer. The Independent: Kamala Harris could make history as the first president to work at McDonald’s.

More than 13 percent of Americans, or roughly 41 million people, have worked at a McDonald’s restaurant at some point in their lives. That includes Kamala Harris, who worked at a restaurant for a summer while she was in college.

Harris mentioned her brief stint on the fryer when she joined the picket line with fast food workers in Las Vegas in 2019 and during an appearance on The Drew Barrymore Show in April. (Her order? “Quarter pounder with cheese and fries,” and barbecue sauce for dipping if she gets McNuggets).

Now, the Democratic presidential candidate’s campaign is nodding to her summer job to highlight her upbringing and a platform to boost American workers that stands in stark contrast to her Republican rival Donald Trump, who “has no plan to help the middle class — just more tax cuts for billionaires,” according to a recent ad.

McDonald’s is all over influential Americans’ resumes (former House Speaker Paul Ryan and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos have also worked in McDonald’s restaurants), but service worker labor unions and fast food employees have been leading nationwide efforts to improve working conditions for lower-wage workers, including calls to boost the federal hourly minimum wage to at least $15.

They could soon have a powerful advocate in one of their former coworkers.

Harris — who has earned endorsements from several influential unions, including Service Employees International Union, which supported the nationwide Fight for $15 campaign — stood with striking McDonald’s workers and protesters as she was launching her first presidential campaign.

“If we want to talk about these golden arches being a symbol of the best of America, well, the arches are falling short,” she said from Las Vegas in June 2019. “We have got to recognize that working people deserve livable wages.”

“I did the french fries and I did the ice cream,” she told workers.

“There was not a family relying on me to pay the rent, put food on the table and keep the bills paid by the end of the month,” she added. “But the reality of McDonald’s is that a majority of the folk who are working there today are relying on that income to sustain a household and a family.”

Harris also made a point of stopping “lock him up” chants from the crowd. Ryan J. Reilly at NBC News: Harris shutting down ‘lock him up’ chants shields Trump’s federal Jan. 6 case from even more delays.

Vice President Kamala Harris’ efforts to shut down “lock him up” chants targeting Donald Trump at Harris-Walz rallies this week may be an effort to avoid engaging in the type of rhetoric seen at Trump rallies in 2016.

But there’s also a very practical reason for Harris to avoid showing any support for that type of language: Any comments or signs of approval she makes could further delay or complicate the pending federal criminal charges Trump is facing. That includes the Jan. 6 and 2020 election interference case brought by special counsel Jack Smith.

If Harris wins the election in November, Trump’s Jan. 6 case — though weakened by the Supreme Court — will continue to move toward trial. As sitting vice president in the administration that appointed the attorney general with oversight of the case, any comments Harris makes related to the trial could be fodder for the former president’s lawyers to argue in court that her comments interfered with Trump’s due process rights. That includes any suggestion that locking up Trump would be an explicit goal (as Trump repeatedly said about Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign).

When a “lock him up” chant broke out at a Harris rally in Wisconsin this week, she said to supporters, “We’re gonna let the courts handle that,” and used a similar line when the same chant broke out at another rally. “Our job is to beat him in November,” she said.

Harris, a former prosecutor herself, has been cautious in her references to the array of civil and criminal cases that Trump has faced in recent years. Harris is aware of the impact she could have on Trump’s pending federal cases and has surrounded herself with Justice Department veterans — including her brother-in-law, Tony West, a former top DOJ official, and former Attorney General Eric Holder, who vetted her vice presidential candidates.

This is important, because Trump’s DC case on January 6 and election subversion is active again and back in the capable hands of Judge Tanya Chutkan.

Joyce Vance wrote yesterday at Civil Discourse: Jack Smith Asks for More Time.

Late today, lawyers in the Special Counsel’s office and lawyers for Donald Trump filed the joint status report that wasn’t due until tomorrow in the Trump election interference case in the District of Columbia. The Special Counsel advised the court that it “continues to assess the new precedent” laid down by the Supreme Court creating the doctrine of presidential immunity and went on to ask the court for an additional three weeks to file “an informed proposal regarding the schedule for pretrial proceedings moving forward.” Trump’s lawyers didn’t oppose Jack Smith’s request. Now the timeline is up to Judge Chutkan.

What does that mean, and why is the government asking for more delay in the case? Those are legitimate questions, but I would not be quick to criticize the Justice Department here.

Part of the answer comes in the pleading itself, where Smith relates that under the relevant portion of the special counsel regulations, he is required to consult with other components in DOJ before moving forward: “A Special Counsel shall comply with the rules, regulations, procedures, practices and policies of the Department of Justice. He or she shall consult with appropriate offices within the Department for guidance with respect to established practices, policies and procedures of the Department, including ethics and security regulations and procedures. Should the Special Counsel conclude that the extraordinary circumstances of any particular decision would render compliance with required review and approval procedures by the designated Departmental component inappropriate, he or she may consult directly with the Attorney General.”

Here, the parties’ task is to provide the court with a schedule for moving forward, but it’s deciding what events belong on that schedule that is problematic. Smith has an indictment that consists of four counts, 45 pages of allegations, and a mountain of evidence.

Click the link to read the rest.

In Trump news, people are still talking about the former “president’s” so called “press conference.”

Tom Nichols at The Atlantic: The Truth About Trump’s Press Conference. His obvious emotional instability is frightening, not funny.

Donald Trump’s public events are a challenge for anyone who writes about him. His rallies and press conferences are rich sources of material, fountains of molten weirdness that blurp up stuff that would sink the career of any other politician. By the time they’re over, all of the attendees are covered in gloppy nonsense.

And then, once everyone cleans up and shakes the debris off their phones and laptops, so much of what Trump said seems too bonkers to have come from a former president and the nominee of a major party that journalists are left trying to piece together a story as if Trump were a normal person. This is what The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, has described as the “bias toward coherence,” and it leads to careful circumlocutions instead of stunned headlines.

Consider Trump’s press conference yesterday in Florida. Trump has been lying low since President Joe Biden withdrew from the presidential race, at least in terms of public appearances. But Vice President Kamala Harris, the new Democratic nominee, and her running mate, Governor Tim Walz, are gaining a lot of great press, and so Trump decided it was time to emerge from his sanctuary.

Trump, predictably, did an afternoon concert of his greatest hits, including “Doctors and Mothers Are Murdering Babies After They’re Born,” “Putin and Xi Love Me and I Love Them,” and “Gas Used to Be a Buck-Eighty-Something a Gallon.” But the new material was pretty shocking.

Trump not only declared that mothers are killing babies in the delivery room—he’s been saying that for years—but added the incomprehensible claim that liberals, conservatives, and independents alike are very happy that abortion has been returned to the states. (When asked how he would vote in Florida’s abortion referendum, he dodged the question, which suggests that maybe not everyone is happy.)

He said (again) that the convicted January 6 insurrectionists have been treated horribly, but this time he added that no one died during the assault on the Capitol. (In fact, four people died that day.) He made his usual assertion that Russia would never have invaded Ukraine if he’d been in office, but this time he added how much he looked forward to getting along with the Iranians, despite also bragging about how he tanked the nuclear deal with them.

He claimed that Harris was sliding in the polls, a standard Trump trope in talking about his opponents, but he added that he was getting crowd sizes up to 30 times hers at his rallies. Harris recently spoke to approximately 15,000 people in Detroit; 30 times that would be nearly half a million people, so Trump is now saying that he’s having rallies that are five times bigger than the average crowd at a Super Bowl—bigger, even, than Woodstock—and somehow fitting them all into arenas with seats to spare….

“Nobody has spoken to crowds bigger than me,” Trump said. And then, referring to the crowd that gathered at his behest on January 6, he compared it to the 1963 March on Washington: “If you look at Martin Luther King, when he did his speech, his great speech, and you look at ours: same real estate, same everything, same number of people.”

The March on Washington drew a quarter million people, almost six times the number that showed up during the attack on the Capitol. Trump agreed that official estimates said his crowd was smaller than King’s. He pressed on anyway: “But when you look at the exact same picture and everything is the same—because it was the fountains, the whole thing all the way back to go from Lincoln to Washington—and you look at it, and you look at the picture of my crowd … we actually had more people.”

Nichols goes on to recount Trump’s story about going down in a helicopter with San Francisco’s Willie Brown (Brown says this never happened.) and also the media’s attempts to make sense of Trump’s rambling rants. He concludes:

The Republican nominee, the man who could return to office and regain the sole authority to use American nuclear weapons, is a serial liar and can’t tell the difference between reality and fantasy.

Donald Trump is not well. He is not stable. There’s something deeply wrong with him.

Any of those would have been important—and accurate—headlines.

Politico has finally located the man who actually was in that helicopter with Trump years ago: The other Black politician who says he was with Trump in that near-fatal chopper crash.

The man who almost crashed in a helicopter with Donald Trump told POLITICO Trump confused him with former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown — despite the former president’s repeated insistence it was Brown.

It was Nate Holden, a former city councilmember and state senator from Los Angeles, who said in an exclusive interview late Friday that he remembers the near-death experience well. He and others believe it happened sometime in 1990.

“Willie is the short Black guy living in San Francisco,” Holden said. “I’m a tall Black guy living in Los Angeles.”

“I guess we all look alike,” Holden told POLITICO, letting out a loud laugh.

Holden, who is 95 years old, was in touch with Trump and his team during the 1990s when the flamboyant Manhattan developer was trying to build on the site of the historic Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Holden represented the district at the time and supported the project.\

In the interview, Holden said he was watching Trump’s press conference on Thursday when the former president claimed that Brown was aboard during the white-knuckle helicopter ride.

In fact, Holden says he met Trump at Trump Tower, en route to Atlantic City, New Jersey, where they were going to tour the developer’s brand new Taj Mahal casino. In the lobby at Trump Tower, Holden says he was greeted by several people as “senator,” salutations that miffed the host.

“He said, ‘You know I own this building but nobody seems to know who I am,’” Holden remembered the mogul saying.

Cats against Trump Finally, I want to highlight this piece in Propublica by Andy Kroll and Nick Surgey: Inside Project 2025’s Secret Training Videos.

Project 2025, the controversial playbook and policy agenda for a right-wing presidential administration, has lost its director and faced scathing criticism from both Democratic groups and former President Donald Trump. But Project 2025’s plan to train an army of political appointees who could battle against the so-called deep state government bureaucracy on behalf of a future Trump administration remains on track.

One centerpiece of that program is dozens of never-before-published videos created for Project 2025’s Presidential Administration Academy. The vast majority of these videos — 23 in all, totaling more than 14 hours of content — were provided to ProPublica and Documented by a person who had access to them.

The Project 2025 videos coach future appointees on everything from the nuts and bolts of governing to how to outwit bureaucrats. There are strategies for avoiding embarrassing Freedom of Information Act disclosures and ensuring that conservative policies aren’t struck down by “left-wing judges.” Some of the content is routine advice that any incoming political appointee might be told. Other segments of the training offer guidance on radically changing how the federal government works and what it does.

In one video, Bethany Kozma, a conservative activist and former deputy chief of staff at the U.S. Agency for International Development in the Trump administration, downplays the seriousness of climate change and says the movement to combat it is really part of a ploy to “control people.”

“If the American people elect a conservative president, his administration will have to eradicate climate change references from absolutely everywhere,” Kozma says.

In the same video, Kozma calls the idea of gender fluidity “evil.” Another speaker, Katie Sullivan, who was an acting assistant attorney general at the Department of Justice under Trump, takes aim at executive actions by the administration of President Joe Biden that created gender adviser positions throughout the federal government. The goal, Biden wrote in one order, was to “advance equal rights and opportunities, regardless of gender or gender identity.”

Sullivan says, “That position has to be eradicated, as well as all the task forces, the removal of all the equity plans from all the websites, and a complete rework of the language in internal and external policy documents and grant applications.”

Head over to ProPublica to read the whole thing.

That’s it for me. What’s on your mind today?

Lazy Caturday Reads

Posted: August 3, 2024 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: 2024 presidential Campaign, cat art, caturday, Donald Trump, Kamala Harris 2024 | Tags: 2026 presidential campaign, ABC, Department of Homeland Security, election interference, Eqypt, Fox News, Inspector General, January 6 election interference case, January 6 pipe bombs, Josph cuffari, Judge Tanya Chutkan, Presidential Debates 2024, Secret Service mistakes, Trump crimes | 13 Comments

Happy Caturday!!

Woodcut by Gustav Vigeland

The presidential campaign is taking off in earnest now that Kamala Harris has been acknowledged by the DNC as the official Democratic nominee. AP: Harris has secured enough Democratic delegate votes to become their party’s nominee, chair says.

Vice President Kamala Harris has secured enough votes from delegates to become her party’s nominee for president, Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison said Friday.

The announcement was made before the online voting process ends on Monday, reflecting the breakneck speed of a campaign that is eager to maintain momentum after President Joe Biden ended his reelection bid and endorsed Harris as his successor less than two weeks ago.

Harris is poised to be the first woman of color at the top of a major party’s ticket, and she joined a call with supporters to say she is “honored to be the presumptive Democratic nominee.”

“It’s not going to be easy. But we’re going to get this done,” she added. “As your future president, I know we are up to this fight.”

Harrison pledged that Democrats “will rally around Vice President Kamala Harris and demonstrate the strength of our party” during their convention in Chicago later this month.

The Democratic National Committee did not provide details of the delegate vote count, including a number or state-by-state breakdowns, during a virtual event that had the flavor of a telethon, with campaign officials keeping tabs on a delegate-counting process whose result is a foregone conclusion.

No other candidate challenged Harris for the nomination, and she swiftly solidified Democratic support in the days after Biden endorsed her.

Democrats still plan a state-by-state roll call during the party’s convention, the traditional way that a nominee is chosen. However, that will be purely ceremonial because of the online voting.

Harris has been increasing the size of her campaign staff and has hired a number of former staffers. The Hill: Harris beefs up campaign staff with Obama veterans.

Multiple former senior campaign staffers for former President Obama are joining Vice President Harris’s campaign as she reshapes the organization following President Biden’s decision to end his candidacy.

The Harris campaign said it is retaining the leadership that ran Biden’s campaign until he dropped out roughly two weeks ago, with Jen O’Malley Dillon continuing to serve as the campaign chair and reporting directly to Harris. But there are several new hires and others who are getting expanded portfolios that reflect how Harris is making her election bid her own as she becomes the party’s nominee.

David Plouffe, who worked as a strategist on Obama’s 2008 and 2012 bids, will join the Harris campaign as a senior adviser. A source familiar with the matter said Plouffe would end his consulting work with TikTok and his podcast he’d started with former Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway as he joins the Harris campaign.

Stephanie Cutter, who served as Obama’s deputy campaign manager in 2012, will join the Harris campaign as a strategic adviser.

Others joining or taking on expanded roles in the Harris campaign include Mitch Stewart, who led Obama’s grassroots efforts, and David Binder, who oversaw Obama’s public research operation.

Jennifer Palmieri, who did a stint as communications director in the Obama White House and worked on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, will join the Harris campaign as a senior adviser to second gentleman Doug Emhoff.

The campaign said Julie Chavez Rodriguez will continue in her role as campaign manager, and she will focus more on the sun belt states of Arizona and Nevada, as well as Latino voters. Polling has shown Harris is more competitive in those states than Biden was against Trump.

Woodcut by Kyoshi Saito

Harris has been challenging Trump to show up for the scheduled debate on ABC on September 10. Now Trump is pretending that the plans have changed and the debate will be on September 4 on Fox News, with Fox moderators, no fact-checking, and a large audience. But of course, didn’t bother asking Harris what she thinks. Here’s the latest:

From The Hill on Friday: Harris campaign calls Trump ‘too scared’ to debate, says he ‘needs to man up.’

Vice President Harris’s campaign painted former President Trump as too scared to debate her after his latest remarks questioning why he should participate in a debate.

Trump told Fox Business Network host Maria Bartiromo this week that he wants to debate his likely Democratic opponent, but added, “I mean right now I say, why should I do a debate? I’m leading in the polls. And, everybody knows her, everybody knows me.”

Harris for President co-Chair Cedric Richmond responded to the comments, saying Trump “needs to man up.”

“He’s got no problem spreading lies and hateful garbage at his rallies or in interviews with right-wing commentators. But he’s apparently too scared to do it standing across the stage from the Vice President of the United States,” Richmond said. “Since he talks the talk, he should walk the walk and – as Vice President Harris said earlier this week – say it to her face on September 10. She’ll be there waiting to see if he’ll show up.”

Harris remarked that Trump should “say it to my face” during a rally in Atlanta on Tuesday. She has been ramping up the pressure for Trump to debate, exchanging barbs with him over the past week about the prospects of a general election debate.

The Democratic National Committee announced it is launching a digital homepage takeover starting Saturday to slam Trump for being “afraid to debate.” The takeover will start in Atlanta and continue with newspapers across battleground states.

So now Trump is trying to change the ground rules without discussing them with Harris. He posted on Truth Social that he has “agreed to” a completely different debate. The New York Times reported this in their headline as if it were a fait accompli. I’m so glad I cancelled my subscription. Here’s a better headline and story from HuffPost: Trump Says He’s Agreed To Fox News Debate, In Apparent Attempt To Avoid Harris On ABC.

Former President Donald Trump said on social media late Friday that he’s agreed with Fox News to take part in a Sept. 4 presidential debate against Democrat Kamala Harris, before suggesting that the vice president hasn’t OK’d such a faceoff.

“If for any reason Kamala is unwilling or unable to debate on that date, I have agreed with Fox to do a major Town Hall on the same September 4th evening,” the Republican presidential nominee wrote in a since-deleted post on his Truth Social platform.

Trump — who has pushed for the next debate to take place on Fox News after Harris took President Joe Biden’s spot at the top of the Democratic ticket — later reposted his debate message on Truth Social, but without the talk of a town hall-style event….

Harris, who secured enough support from Democratic convention delegates to become her party’s presumptive nominee Friday, has said that she’d take Biden’s place in the Sept. 10 event and has emphasized that she’s “ready” to debate Trump.

The Republican nominee wrote on Friday that the ABC News debate has been “terminated in that Biden will no longer be a participant.” He also cited an ongoing lawsuit against the network as a reason for the change, despite the fact that Trump was already engaged in litigation with ABC News in May when he agreed to the faceoff.

Sitting Cat (1918) by Julie de Graag (1877-1924).

Here’s the Harris campaign’s response as of this morning, according to Deadline: Kamala Harris’ Campaign Says Donald Trump “Needs To Stop Playing Games” As He Floats Fox News Debate Rather Than ABC News Event — Update.

UPDATE, with Harris campaign comment: Donald Trump says he will do a Sept. 4 debate on Fox News, albeit at a different date than the network publicly proposed, while he’s declared ABC News’ plans for a Sept. 10 face off with Kamala Harris “terminated.” [….]

Fox News and ABC News have yet to comment on Trump’s post. The Fox News debate, Trump wrote, would be an arena event and held in Pennsylvania, a key swing state….

Harris has confirmed that she would participate in a Sept. 10 debate on ABC News, plans that Trump originally agreed to when Joe Biden was the nominee. But Trump has yet to recommit to that date, and Harris has hammered him on it.

“If you’ve got something to say, say it to my face,” Harris said this week, shortly after Trump had questioned whether she was really Black.

This morning, Harris’ campaign said in a statement that Trump was “running scared and trying to back out of the debate he already agreed to and running straight to Fox News to bail him out.” The campaign said that Harris “will be there one way or the other to take the opportunity to speak to a prime time national audience.”

In April, Trump called for Biden to debate “anytime, anyplace.” “We’ll do it anywhere you want, Joe,’ he said.

That’s where it stands for now.

Yesterday, The Washington Post reported on a story that has been around for years–that Donald Trump may have received $10 million from Egypt to help his 2016 campaign. According to the WaPo, there was a secret DOJ/FBI investigation and it was shut down by Bill Barr.

I cancelled my WaPo subscription too, but This is a report on the story from Martin Pengelly at The Guardian: Report reveals secret US inquiry into alleged 2016 Egyptian $10m gift to Trump.

According to the Post, five days before Trump’s inauguration in January 2017, an organisation linked to Egyptian intelligence services withdrew $10m from a Cairo bank.

“Inside the state-run National Bank of Egypt,” the Post said, “employees were soon busy placing bundles of $100 bills into two large bags.”

Four men “carried away the bags, which US officials later described in sealed court filings as weighing a combined 200 pounds and containing what was then a sizable share of Egypt’s reserve of US currency”.

According to the Post, US federal investigators learned of the withdrawal in 2019, by which time they had spent two years investigating CIA intelligence that indicated Sisi sought to give Trump $10m.

Such a contribution would potentially have violated federal law regarding foreign donations….

Woodcut by Fumi Yanagimoto

According to the Post, US investigators who discovered the $10m Cairo withdrawal “also sought to learn if money from Sisi might have factored into Trump’s decision in the final days of his run for the White House toinject his campaign with $10m of his own money”….

While in office, Trump repeatedly praised Sisi, over objections from US politicians concerned about the Egyptian’s authoritarian rule.

As described by the Post, the US investigation which uncovered the Cairo withdrawal was questioned by William Barr, Trump’s second attorney general. Ultimately, a prosecutor appointed by Barr closed the inquiry without criminal charges being filed.

Later, as the 2020 election approached, CNN reported that a mysterious DC courthouse hearing in 2018 – involving prosecutors working for Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election – concerned an Egyptian bank….

An anonymous government source told the Post: “Every American should be concerned about how this case ended. The justice department is supposed to follow evidence wherever it leads – it does so all the time to determine if a crime occurred or not.”

If it involved any other politician, this story would be a bombshell. For Trump, it’s just another scandal to add to the hundreds of others.

A new report on mistakes by the Secret Service related to January 6, 2001, has become available and some powerful folks are not happy.

Politico: DHS leaders clashed with watchdog ahead of report on Secret Service’s handling of Jan. 6.

An internal watchdog for the Department of Homeland Security accused department leadership of attempting to suppress a highly anticipated report focused on the Secret Service’s response during the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.

Inspector General Joseph Cuffari’s accusation drew a sharp response from DHS’ top lawyer, Jonathan Meyer, who aggressively rejected the allegation, according to a previously unreported June 25 letter reviewed by POLITICO.

In the letter to Cuffari, Meyer wrote that the DHS watchdog “misread” their intentions. The department does not want to withhold the entire report from Congress but does intend to redact “security sensitive” information that might reveal aspects of the Secret Service’s operations, Meyer wrote.

Meyer also rejected the suggestion that there has been an internal clash between the Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security’s leadership.

It’s the latest twist in the long-running effort by the inspector general’s office to release a comprehensive report on efforts by the department — and specifically the Secret Service — to prevent violence on Jan. 6 and respond during the attack. The department played a role in intelligence gathering, security and overseeing the movements of then-President Donald Trump and his vice president, Mike Pence, on the day of the riot.

Other investigations, including by Congress’ Jan. 6 select committee, have raised significant questions about whether the Secret Service had adequately disseminated evidence of threats in Trump’s Jan. 6 rally crowd.

The dispute over the release of the report to lawmakers is another example of friction between Cuffari and DHS leadership amid intense scrutiny of the Secret Service’s handling of the Jan. 6 attack and other sensitive matters. That tension reemerged just as the Secret Service has faced a new and far more intense round of public examination following failures that led to the near-assassination of Donald Trump. Cuffari has also faced allegations of ethical lapses that he has strenuously denied.

Finally Friday Reads: A Tale of Two Judges and an “Excitable Boy”

Posted: November 3, 2023 | Author: dakinikat | Filed under: Trump Trials and Tribulations, U.S. Politics | Tags: #CW Trump and Trumperz violent, and his little weener, head just like a pumpkin, Judge Aileen Cannon, Judge Arthur F. Engoron, Judge Tanya Chutkan, justice, Little Donald Dumpkins, misogynistic actions and words, neener, racist, Special Counsel Jack Smith | 9 Comments

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

There is a distinct difference between what’s been happening in two Trump Cases. The one about mishandling and stealing National Security Documents is being handled in Florida by Judge Ailen Cannon. The case in DC is being handled by Judge Tanya Chutkan. This is the case where Trump is indicted for illegally conspiring to overturn his loss to President Biden in the election. Both are the result of work done by Special Counsel Jack Smith. Both cases have also had ongoing issues with Trump harassing court officials and possibly committing witness tampering. The Prosecution has been arguing that Trump has been undermining confidence in the Judicial System and scaring off potential jurors.

The contrast between the demeanor, decisions, knowledge, and temperament of the two Judges is obvious. Judge Cannon is slowing things down in her court in keeping with Trump’s desire to not do any of these trials before the next Presidential election in the hopes of being able to control the destiny of all federal cases and the DOJ. As reported in The New Republic, “Judge Chutkan: Full Steam Ahead With Speedy Trump Trial. Judge Tanya Chutkan has set a date for jury selection in Donald Trump’s D.C. trial.”

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan is chugging along with jury selection in Donald Trump’s federal election subversion case, despite attempts to delay the proceedings by the former president’s legal team.

On Thursday, Chutkan endorsed a set of jury procedures that note prospective jurors will fill out a preliminary questionnaire on February 9, just over three months away. (As a reminder, Trump’s trial is scheduled to begin on March 4, 2024, one day before Super Tuesday.)

Certain language in the court order also hints that Chutkan is getting wise to Trump’s antics.

After slapping Trump with a gag order in the D.C. trial for leveraging his platform on social media and at speaking arrangements to lambaste prosecutors and office clerks associated with the case, Chutkan’s legal outline reads more like a warning to his defense to keep the former president from trash-talking his own jury.

“The parties must ensure that anyone permitted access to sensitive juror information understands that he cannot publicly disclose the information, and no party may provide jurors’ identifying information to any other entity (e.g., the defendant’s campaign) that is not part of the defense team or Government team assisting with jury selection,” Chutkan wrote.

The date, just three months from now, breezes past concerns over other possible Trump-induced delays in the trial. In October, Trump’s legal team claimed presidential immunity in the D.C. case charging him with plotting to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, in an attempt to argue that Trump’s actions fell within his White House responsibilities.

Trump is indeed introducing similar cases that caused Judge Aileen Cannon to slow the process way down. Former Federal Prosecutor and Law Professor Joyce Vance has this analysis of the recent decisions.

Three developments from today that are important:

First, on Thursday, Judge Chutkan gave us some idea of what the schedule in D.C., where Trump is scheduled to go to trial in March, looks like. She has ordered the lawyers to confer in advance of January 9 and submit proposed jury questions to her by that date. She will resolve any conflicts (there are bound to be quite a few) between the parties about what questions should be asked, and on February 9, she will begin the process of selecting a jury.

Hundreds of District of Columbia residents will be summoned to the E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse on February 9 to fill out the jury questionnaire the judge finalizes. That leaves plenty of time to select a jury in advance of the March 4 start date for Trump’s trial. In D.C., Trump will stand trial alone, although the indictment includes mention of conduct by unnamed and unindicted co-conspirators. We still don’t know if any of them will be testifying as cooperating witnesses for the government, including those like Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro who previously pled guilty in Fulton County, Georgia.

Second: late Thursday evening, Trump appealed the gag order—readers of Civil Discourse know that it’s actually a (very) limited restraining order—to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. And, he asked that court to suspend the gag order for as long as the appeal takes, something Judge Chutkan had previously declined to do.

Trump is actually asking the court to take several steps. He wants the court to enter a stay, which would mean the gag order won’t be in place during the the appeal. That could be take a while since Trump indicates his intent to appeal to the Supreme Court if he loses in the court of appeals. He asks the court to rule on his request by November 10, just over a week away. Finally, while the court decides whether to enter that stay, Trump wants them to enter a brief administrative stay immediately, so that he can get out from under the gag order pronto.

Of course, they hate the gag order. Trump cannot control his flagrant, abusive outbursts on all things related to every case. The restrictions imposed by Chutkan and Judge Engoran in the New York Trump Fraud Case have been nearly tailored to ensure Trump does not harass potential jurors, witnesses, or court employees. Trump harassment usually leads to the need for protection and arrests of crazed Trump fans. You may read about the specifics of the gag orders and Trump’s legal team’s argument at Vance’s Substance. Let’s return to the third reason, which dovetails into the decisions made by Judge Cannon in the other case.

The real question is, how long it will take the appellate courts to sort this out? The clock is ticking, and Trump is increasingly transparent about his desperation to delay his criminal trials until after the election. While the appeal of the gag order shouldn’t slow things down, what’s coming behind it are the four motions to dismiss Trump has filed (presidential immunity plus three others, which we will take up next week), some of which he can appeal before trial if he loses. With the gag order, Trump has asked the court to decide a motion in a week. It’s certain that if he returns to the appellate court seeking rulings on some of those motions, he’ll be content to see the courts take up as much time as possible, and preferably until after election day in 2024, to render their decision and return the case for trial. Delay when it helps him, speed when it harms him. Certainly the courts can see through that?

That’s the question raised by tonight’s third development. In the Mar-a-Lago case, the Special Counsel’s office filed a pleading entitled “Notice of Defendant’s Motion To Stay Proceedings In The District Of Columbia.” Interesting that they felt they needed to give Judge Aileen Cannon in Florida insight into what Trump was doing in the D.C. case.

The pleading referenced a hearing Judge Cannon held the previous day. In that hearing, Trump’s lawyers argued that the May trial date for the Mar-a-Lago case was too soon. Part of their argument was that because of the March 4, 2024, date in D.C., if the Mar-a-Lago case went to trial as scheduled on May 20, 2024, Trump would be required to be in two places at once.

Leave aside for the moment the Special Counsel’s estimate the trial in the District of Columbia will take four to six weeks, which would give Trump and his lawyers at least a five-week grace period in between the two trials. Here’s what the Special Counsel’s office wanted to make sure Judge Cannon was aware of: Trump’s lawyers failed to disclose to her that shortly after her hearing concluded, Trump asked Judge Chutkan in D.C. to delay his trial there for as long as it took the courts to decide his motion to dismiss that indictment on presidential immunity grounds. (If you need a refresher on Trump’s presidential immunity motion, here.)

The timing of Trump’s motion to delay the D.C. trial meant it had been in the planning stages for at least several days—lawyers don’t produce legal briefs like that in the space of an hour without advance planning. Most lawyers, consistent with the obligation to be candid to the court, would have alerted Judge Cannon that they were about to file a motion to delay the D.C. case. That didn’t happen here.

That raised eyebrows in the Special Counsel’s office, so lead Mar-a-Lago prosecutor Jay Bratt filed the notice to ensure that the record in the Mar-a-Lago case includes what many judges would view as a disingenuous, if not deceitful, strategy by the Trump camp. Bratt took it straight to the Judge in no uncertain terms, urging her not “to be manipulated in this fashion.” We’ll see if Cannon, who has spent the lion’s share of her orders lately criticizing the Special Counsel’s office, has any criticism to spare for Trump’s lawyers. Read the Special Counsel’s pleading here.

Vance’s explanations and rationale are always helpful on all things related to Trump and his Federal Court cases. Maggie Haberman and Alan Feuer–writing for the New York Times–elucidate the difference in the way Trump addresses the two Judges. “Two Judges, Two Approaches. He avoids criticizing one. Another draws attacks.”

As the two federal criminal cases against Donald Trump make their way toward trial, they are bringing into focus a tale of two judges.

In the case taking place in Washington, D.C., where Trump is accused of plotting to overturn the 2020 election, Judge Tanya Chutkan, a former public defender appointed by Barack Obama, is taking a tough line with the former president and his legal team.

Trump, in turn, is assailing her.

In another courtroom in Fort Pierce, Fla., where Trump is under indictment for mishandling classified documents after leaving office and obstructing efforts to retrieve them, Judge Aileen Cannon, a former federal prosecutor named by Trump, has been more of a cipher but has been sympathetic at times to arguments from the former president’s lawyers.

Trump has pointedly avoided aiming any of his fire at her.

The contrast has been especially apparent in recent days.

The examples provided are startling but not unexpected.

When Judge Cannon asked Bratt if he was aware of any other situation in which a criminal defendant was confronting trials in multiple jurisdictions and could encounter the “unavoidable reality that the schedules might collide,” he sidestepped the question.

“I’m having a hard time seeing, realistically, how this work can be accomplished in this compressed period of time,” she told Bratt.

Twisting the knife a little further, she went on: “I’m not quite seeing in your position a level of understanding of our realities.”

On his social media site, Trump has been silent about Judge Cannon, sparing her from the vitriol he directs constantly at other judges, prosecutors and potential witnesses in the cases against him.

By contrast, after Judge Chutkan reimposed the gag order on him on Sunday night, Trump went after her once again, calling her a “very biased, Trump hating judge” and questioning the constitutionality of her decision.

The news is that Trump is trying to stall both prosecutions. Judge Cannon complied. This is from Marcie at her blog emptywheel. “HOURS AFTER AILEEN CANNON SUGGESTS SHE’LL STALL FLORIDA PROSECUTION, TRUMP MOVES TO STALL DC ONE.” This establishes the possibility of conflicting decisions by the two Courts of Appeals.

Judge Aileen Cannon has not yet released a ruling describing how much she’ll bow to Trump’s manufactured claims of classified discovery delays in the stolen documents case, but she made clear that she will delay the trial somewhat. As reported, at least, that delay will come because of the competing schedule in DC.

Trump’s lawyers argued that they need a delay in the documents case because preparations for it will clash with the federal election case, which is slated to go to trial on March 4 and could last several months.

Trump’s indictment in the election case — which came days after Cannon set her initial timeline for the document case — “completely disrupted everything about the schedule your honor set,” Trump lawyer Todd Blanche told Cannon.

Another Trump lawyer, Chris Kise, personified the crunch the former president’s attorneys are facing, phoning into the hearing from a New York courthouse where Trump is undergoing a civil trial targeting his business empire.

“It’s very difficult to be trying to work with a client in one trial and simultaneously try to prepare that client for another trial,” Kise said. “This has been a struggle and a challenge.”

Note: as DOJ pointed out, Kise’s NY trial schedule was already baked into Cannon’s schedule.

Having secured that delay, Trump turned to delaying his DC trial, with a motion to stay all other DC proceedings until his absolute immunity claim is decided, a 3-page motion Trump could have but did not submit when he was asking for a delay before submitting his other motions. Everything he points to in that 3-page motion, the completed briefing on the absolute immunity bid, was already in place on October 26. But he waited until he first got Cannon to move her trial schedule.

As I laid out the other day, Trump is not making legal arguments sufficient to win this case — certainly not yet. He is making a tactical argument, attempting to run out the clock so he can pardon himself.

Update: LOL. Trump filed the DC motion too soon, giving DOJ a chance to notice the cynical ploy in DC before Aileen Cannon issues her order.

“Cynical ploy’ is an excellent description of this checkers-level move. But again, it’s just another delay tactic so Trump can argue his case in the Public Arena and dance around gag orders.

Glenn Kirschner also brings the skills and analysis of a career spent prosecuting cases in varying courts. He suggests that a motion to recuse Judge Cannon may be in order. What will Jack Smith decide?

Judge Aileen Cannon's pro-Trump bias shines though in latest ruling; discusses postponing classified documents trial. Time to revisit a motion to recuse. Because #JusticeMatters https://t.co/FfA8A5Dotp

— Glenn Kirschner (@glennkirschner2) November 3, 2023

Trump is totally Looney Tunes in his responses to the decisions of all the relevant Judges but Cannon. You would think she would be embarrassed.

Honestly, this looks just like obstruction of justice… seriously… obstruction of justice, from the court… at what point does the Circuit Court take note of what's in public view… justice is justice… obstruction is obstruction… needs to be addressed… also this… pic.twitter.com/W9hM8PDvvn

— Dave Kelley (@DaveKelley6) November 3, 2023

This article in Newsweek is about the analysis of Former FBI General Counsel Andrew Weissmann gave on the Cannon decision on who could access the documents. “Aileen Cannon’s ‘Snarky’ Trump Ruling Called Out by Former Prosecutor.”

The judge overseeing Donald Trump‘s classified documents case has been criticized by a former prosecutor after she ruled in favor of the former president’s co-defendants in the case.

Former FBI general counsel Andrew Weissmann was reacting to the ruling from Judge Aileen Cannon that two people charged alongside Trump in the federal investigation—aide and valet driver Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago maintenance worker Carlos De Oliveira—should be allowed to review some of the classified evidence provided to the defense under discovery, which forms the center of the case.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to 40 charges over allegations he illegally retained top secret and sensitive materials after he left the White House in January 2021, and then obstructed the federal attempt to retrieve them. Nauta and de Oliveira have also denied allegations they sought to conspire with the former president to obstruct the investigation into Trump’s possession of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort.

While sharing Wednesday’s ruling which criticized arguments from Special Counsel Jack’s Smith’s team on X, formerly Twitter, Weissmann said the decision “goes straight for the capillaries” while condemning the language used by the judge.

“Almost pointless discussion, when so many real issue are left undecided,” Weissmann wrote. “And her language is far too snarky for a federal judge.”

The ruling from Cannon hit out at the federal prosecutor’s attempts to restrict Nauta and de Oliveira from reviewing the classified discovery while citing section 3 of the Classified Information Procedures Act [CIPA]. The section requires Cannon court to issue an order to protect against the disclosure of any classified information disclosed by the government “to any defendant in any criminal case.”

The ruling from Cannon hit out at the federal prosecutor’s attempts to restrict Nauta and de Oliveira from reviewing the classified discovery while citing section 3 of the Classified Information Procedures Act [CIPA]. The section requires Cannon court to issue an order to protect against the disclosure of any classified information disclosed by the government “to any defendant in any criminal case.”

“So again, we are left with the [special counsel’s] broad and unconvincing theory, which is that the Court must change the meaning of the word ‘defendant’ to mean, essentially, ‘defense attorney to the exclusion of defendant.’ The Court declines to do so,” Cannon wrote.

“‘Defendant’ means what it says—defendant—and although providing discovery to a defendant reasonably contemplates the defendant’s retained or appointed agent reviewing the information too, it does not support the very different proposition that ‘defendant’ means ‘not defendant.’

Cannon also said in her ruling that Smith’s office “[lacks] merit,” and reaffirmed the protective orders regarding classified information that were previously issued in the case.

Meanwhile, Trump continues to blurt out things on his Truth Social page that really should disturb all the Judges in all the Court Cases that involve him. This is from Liz Dye at Public Notice. “Trump’s Truth Social page is a riot of witness intimidation. Even his lawyers can’t really defend it.” Trigger Warning Obscene, Racist, and Violent Language.

On August 6, Alabama man Arthur Ray Hanson, II, left a voicemail threatening Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis with violence if she charged Donald Trump with interference in the 2020 election.

“I would be very afraid if I were you because you can’t be around people all the time that are going to protect you,” he said on the recorded call. “When you charge Trump on that fourth indictment, anytime you’re alone, be looking over your shoulder … What you put out there, bitch, comes back at you ten times harder, and don’t ever forget it.”

That same day, Hanson left a similar message for Fulton County Sheriff Patrick Labat:

If you think you gonna take a mugshot of my President Donald Trump and it’s gonna be ok, you gonna find out that after you take that mugshot, some bad shit’s probably gonna happen to you … I’m warning you right now before you fuck up your life and get hurt real bad … whether you got a fucking badge or not ain’t gonna help you none … you gonna get fucked up you keep fucking with my president.

The threats didn’t work, and on August 24, Trump surrendered at the Fulton County Jail. Trump raised $7.1 million off his mugshot, but Hanson fared much worse. This week he was indicted for using interstate communications to threaten to kidnap or injure a person.

The day before Hanson’s calls to officials in Georgia, a Texas woman named Abigail Jo Shry left a voicemail for federal judge Tanya Chutkan, who is presiding over Trump’s election interference case in DC.

“Hey you stupid slave n—– …. You are in our sights, we want to kill you,” she said. “If Trump doesn’t get elected in 2024, we are coming to kill you. So tread lightly, bitch … You will be targeted personally, publicly, your family, all of it.”

Shry was indicted in September and, like Hanson, was charged with making threats via interstate communication. But while Hanson and Shry were exceptionally careless about covering their tracks, they certainly weren’t alone in menacing the targets of Trump’s ire. Judges and prosecutors in every one of Trump’s cases have been subjected to threats and harassment for simply doing their jobs.

Dye follows with rationale, showing how Trump lawyers cannot possibly explain away the impact his posts have on his crazy followers. Judge Chutkan has been assigned extra security. The barrage at his former attorney, Michael Cohen, is incredible, too. He refers to himself in the third person, which is always weird to read, and calls Cohen a “sleazebag.” This was during Cohen’s testimony last month in the Trump Family Fraud Trial in New York City. You may recall BB provided an article that showed how Trump’s rhetoric is getting more violent and fascist. You can see it in these examples.

Trump’s escalation of hate is only going to get worse. What is also evident is the misogyny and racism in the taunts. This only further encourages his crazies. These trials need to start now and roll over him before we get any nearer to Election Day. The only Judge who doesn’t get this is Judge Cannon. Someone needs to do a deep dive into what is driving her evident special treatment of this particular alleged criminal.

I guess he’s just an ‘excitable boy’.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

Tuesday Reads: The Latest Trumpy Legal News

Posted: August 22, 2023 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: Crime, Criminal Justice System, Donald Trump, just because | Tags: Georgia election interference case, Jack Smith, January 6 case, Jeff Clark, John Eastman, Judge Tanya Chutkan, Mark Meadows | 9 Comments

Good Afternoon!!

BG230323c-small Now that Trump has been indicted and arrested 3 times, the 4th arrest on Thursday seems sort of old hat. Ho hum . . . Trump will surrender at Fulton County Jail in Georgia on Thursday; his bail has been set at $200,000.

Associated Press: Trump says he will surrender Thursday on Georgia charges tied to efforts to overturn 2020 election.

Former President Donald Trump says he will surrender to authorities in Georgia on Thursday to face charges in the case accusing him of illegally scheming to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state.

“Can you believe it? I’ll be going to Atlanta, Georgia, on Thursday to be ARRESTED,” Trump wrote on his social media network Monday night, hours after his bond was set at $200,000.

It will be Trump’s fourth arrest since April, when he became the first former president in U.S. history to face indictment. Since then, Trump, who remains the leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, has had what has seemed like an endless procession of bookings and arraignments in jurisdictions across the country. His appearances in New York, Florida and Washington, D.C., have drawn enormous media attention, with news helicopters tracking his every move.

Trump’s announcement came hours after his attorneys met with prosecutors in Atlanta to discuss the details of his release on bond. The former president is barred from intimidating co-defendants, witnesses or victims in the case — including on social media — according to the bond agreement signed by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, Trump’s defense attorneys and the judge. It explicitly includes “posts on social media or reposts of posts” made by others.

This morning, two of Trump’s co-defendants surrendered in the Georgia election interference case.

Atlantic News First, via NBC29 VA:

ATLANTA (Atlanta News First/Gray News): First co-defendants in Trump indictment surrender at Fulton County jail.

The first co-defendants in a sweeping indictment out of Fulton County, Georgia, has surrendered to the jail.

Shortly before 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, former President Donald Trump’s attorney John Eastman turned himself in. A bond agreement for $100,000 was reached Monday in his case.

Eastman, prosecutors say, was deeply involved in some of his efforts to remain in power after the 2020 election. He wrote a memo arguing that Trump could remain in power if then-Vice President Mike Pence overturned the results of the election during a joint session of Congress where electoral votes would be counted. That plan included putting in place a slate of “alternate” electors in seven battleground states, including Georgia, who would falsely certify that Trump had won their states.

In a social media statement, Eastman said he was surrendering “to an indictment that should never have been brought.”

“It represents a crossing of the Rubicon for our country, implicating the fundamental First Amendment right to petition the government for redress of grievances,” Eastman said. “As troubling, it targets attorneys for their zealous advocacy on behalf of their clients, something attorneys are ethically bound to provide and which was attempting here by ‘formally challeng[ing] the results of the election through lawful and appropriate means.’ An opportunity never afforded them in the Fulton County Superior Court.”

A $10,000 bond agreement was reached Monday for Scott Hall, the Atlanta-area bail bondsman who was allegedly involved in commandeering voting information that was the property of Dominion Voting Systems from Coffee County in south Georgia.

On Tuesday, just before 9 a.m., Hall surrendered to authorities, and was booked and processed on charges that include conspiracy to commit a felony, conspiracy to commit election fraud, conspiracy to defraud the state of political subdivision, and violation of the Georgia Racketeer Influenced And Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO).

Jeff Clark, the DOJ official who wanted to send letters to the swing states saying that the DOJ believed there was significant voter fraud in their states, is trying to avoid going to Atlanta to be booked.

https://twitter.com/petestrzok/status/1694008924863602918?s=20

Jeff Clark on the morning his house was searched by the FBI:

Who do you think will be putting their fancy pajamas on after tonight’s J6 hearing? Don’t want to get Jeff Clark’ed 💙💙💙 pic.twitter.com/nZglWlC7ki
— Romy (@emb2emj) July 21, 2022

This is going to enrage Trump. The New York Times just posted an article on Mark Meadows, another of Trump’s co-defendants in Georgia: How Mark Meadows Pursued a High-Wire Legal Strategy in Trump Inquiries.

This winter, after receiving a subpoena from a grand jury investigating former President Donald J. Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election, Mark Meadows commenced a delicate dance with federal prosecutors.

He had no choice but to show up and, eventually, to testify. Yet Mr. Meadows — Mr. Trump’s final White House chief of staff — initially declined to answer certain questions, sticking to his former boss’s position that they were shielded by executive privilege.

But when prosecutors working for the special counsel, Jack Smith, challenged Mr. Trump’s executive privilege claims before a judge, Mr. Meadows pivoted. Even though he risked enraging Mr. Trump, he decided to trust Mr. Smith’s team, according to a person familiar with the matter. Mr. Meadows quietly arranged to talk with them not only about the steps the former president took to stay in office, but also about his handling of classified documents after he left.

The episode illustrated the wary steps Mr. Meadows took to navigate legal and political peril as prosecutors in Washington and Georgia closed in on Mr. Trump, seeking to avoid being charged himself while also sidestepping the career risks of being seen as cooperating with what his Republican allies had cast as partisan persecution of the former president.

His high-wire legal act hit a new challenge this month. While Mr. Meadows’s strategy of targeted assistance to federal prosecutors and sphinxlike public silence largely kept him out of the 45-page election interference indictment that Mr. Smith filed against Mr. Trump in Washington, it did not help him avoid similar charges in Fulton County, Ga. Mr. Meadows was named last week as one of Mr. Trump’s co-conspirators in a sprawling racketeering indictment filed by the local district attorney in Georgia.

Interviews and a review of the cases show how Mr. Meadows’s tactics reflected to some degree his tendency to avoid conflict and leave different people believing that he agreed with them. They were also dictated by his unique position in Mr. Trump’s world and the legal jeopardy this presented.

Read all the juicy, gossipy details at the NYT link.

Mark Meadows 'decided to trust' Jack Smith and cooperate against Trump: NYT https://t.co/V8uYh7GYJ4
— Wat ChingU (@etor2756) August 22, 2023

There’s also news about the January 6 case against Trump in DC.

The Washington Post: Justice Dept. pushes back against Trump’s bid for a 2026 trial in D.C.

The Justice Department pushed back Monday on former president Donald Trump’s claims that he cannot be ready to go to trial in January on charges that he illegally sought to subvert the results of the 2020 election.

A trial in D.C. federal court in April 2026, which Trump’s attorneys requested, “would deny the public its right to a speedy trial,” attorneys working for special counsel Jack Smith wrote in Monday’s filing. In arguing for its preferred Jan. 2, 2024, date, the office said they do not intend to use classified information against Trump in this case….

In arguing for more time, Trump also made misleading comparisons to trials that were delayed by the coronavirus pandemic, superseding indictments adding defendants, and disputes over incarceration, the government said.

Trump’s legal team argued in a court filing last week that it needs years to prepare for the “unprecedented case” and that the January date proposed by the government would create conflicts with the five other criminal and civil trials Trump faces in the next nine months. They told the court that the 11.5 million pages of material already handed over by the special counsel took over two days to download and if printed out would be eight times taller than the Washington Monument. To read it all before the government’s proposed jury selection date of Dec. 11 would be like reading “Tolstoy’s War and Peace, cover to cover, 78 times a day, every day,” they said.

Smith’s office called those comparisons “neither helpful nor insightful,” because attorneys don’t read evidence cover to cover — they review it online using electronic keyword searches. Much of what was shared with Trump is already in the public domain, the special counsel said, including social media posts, transcripts of interviews with the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack, and court records from legal challenges to the election results. Other documents came from the National Archives, meaning they were already known to Trump. There are also duplicates of documents within the production, the Justice Department said, and likely irrelevant papers handed over “in an abundance of caution and transparency.”

Read the rest at the WaPo.

This is interesting from attorneys Frederick Baron and Dennis Aftergut at The Bulwark: Trump Shoots Himself in the Foot with Demand for Trial Date in 2026.

ON THURSDAY, DONALD TRUMP FIRED his first shot in Judge Tanya Chutkan’s courtroom—straight into his own foot. His lawyers proposed to the district court judge that his federal trial on conspiracy and obstruction charges related to the aftermath of the 2020 election and the events of January 6th should not occur until April 2026.

“I’ll eat my hat if Judge Chutkan agrees with Trump to start this trial in 2026,” tweeted Neal Katyal, the former acting solicitor general of the United States. “He’s just afraid to stand trial. Nothing more.”

Judge Tanya Chutkan

Katyal’s hat is safe. Trump’s proposal on the all-important trial date sends an unintended message: that Trump is pressing his lawyers to take legal positions so extreme that they will be entirely disregarded.

Credibility with judges is the coin of the realm for trial lawyers. Squander it early and it’s hard to retrieve.

Trump’s past pattern is that his lawyers lose credibility by kowtowing to his absurd, uninformed demands. Then he tosses them like bad pennies. Sooner or later, it’s tough attracting the gold standard in the legal profession.

The Trump team’s tissue-thin pretext for their ludicrous trial date request was the volume of discovery materials they need to read.

They wrote that reviewing millions of documents and electronic communications that the government already gave them would be like reading “the entirety of Tolstoy’s War and Peace, cover to cover, 78 times a day” in order to finish by the January trial date proposed by Special Counsel Jack Smith.

The authors explain why that is bullshit:

Sounds daunting. But in the modern litigation world, a high-tech industry has grown up specializing in managing big-document cases. Entire firms exist to tackle discovery jobs like this.

Huge volumes of documents can be scanned rapidly, and put in a single database alongside digital communications and other information. The database is then “deduped” (that is, duplication is reduced) and organized to allow instant retrieval of any important piece of evidence. A lawyer need only search for specified keywords, dates, subjects, titles, witnesses, senders, receivers, contact information, and so on. For example, a search for documents or data related to “January 6/electors/certification” will quickly bring up the relevant items for review, highlighting, organizing, and sharing with team members.

Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance, speaking on MSNBC on Friday, mocked the misleading analogy to Tolstoy’s 1,200-page epic. “You don’t need to read War and Peace 78 times a day. You simply search for ‘Natasha,’” Vance said, referring to the novel’s lead female character.

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