Nothing permitted by the 8th Amendment would satisfy me.
Honestly, my expectation is that he won't serve a single day in prison, and that he will run for President in 2024, and that most Republicans will vote for him when he does.
Honestly, my expectation is that he won't serve a single day in prison, and that he will run for President in 2024, and that most Republicans will vote for him when he does.
He's not going to prison. His supporters are, so let's hope that happens more.
My wildest hope is that he flees to Russia.
IMO all depends on the evidence for his either selling documents or transmitting them after getting orders. Lacking evidence, nothing happens.
5 would be great, though it could mean that Putin sets up a US government-in-exile which could be a bit of an issue in various ways. But I think 2 and 3 are the way to bet.
Agree with 5. Though isn't somewhere in the gulf more likely? Or Azerbaijan? Anyway, I'd happily settle for just him not running for president. Jail time seems completely implausible.
I guess by moving to Florida, he has demonstrated a love of heat and religious extremism.
A few years back, one of the hurricanes headed for Florida had an early track pointed directly at Mar-a-lago. It ended up changing course but fingers still crossed here!
I'd be okay with him being a convicted felon and officially disqualified from the Presidency.
I don't know if everyone saw this paragraph in WaPo:
Boxes of documents even came with Trump on foreign travel, following him to hotel rooms around the world -- including countries considered foreign adversaries of the United States.
11 scrolls from the top in a 13-scroll article.
Occam's Razor seems reasonable here.
12.4: Spell this out for me. What does Occam's Razor leave us with? He's an idiot? He's taking these documents to foreign countries to sell?
Specifically to Saudi Arabia, laundered through an investment with Jared. Probably others too.
He demanded all the secretest most important secrets he could get and what's the point of having secrets unless you tell people and if they should ya know happen to want to take a peak well for the right price
We're talking hotel money. He's not some chump.
12: That's the thing. What the fuck was he actually up to? I'm not sure I can work out any kind of plausible explanation for the available facts.
So I'm trying to game out the implausible possibilities. How about this? He wants dirt on Putin as insurance that Putin won't release what he's got on Trump. That sort of information would tend to expose "sources and methods."
Nah, I don't buy it either. But what, then?
17: I rather liked one speculation a Marshall reader sent in: "I suspect he thought he had a big collection of juicy stuff that he could exchange not directly for cash, but to build relations of reciprocity with powerful people that would lead to him getting what he wanted or needed. He could hurt someone via the top secret information and offer this as a gift to someone else. He could help someone directly with secret information."
17. From the Saudis: We would like these technical documents about nuclear weapons. We'll give any member of your family a blank check.
From Putin. We own you, every detail of your Trump Steak-selling broke ass desperate borrowing will be published. Unless you provide these documents:
Both countries have deep experience manipulating and using selfish corrupt leaders of broken places. DJT was a familiar figure. The only thing new was how very much he had to offer in exchange.
Zero chance of prison. Almost zero chance of a conviction by a jury. Maybe a very slightly higher chance of a plea deal of some sort.
As for motive, I think Josh Marshall has the best take I've seen on that extrapolationg from the Macron thing. (But I think that is only for some of the info.)
...for him it's like another version of all the choice dirt The National Enquirer had stored up in that secret safe: a store of menace and threat, chits to be exchanged, leverage to be exerted, an insurance policy in case things got rough. Owning what's in the safe is power. It can't be stressed enough how much this has been Trump's M.O. for decades -- only now supercharged by the most powerful information-collection engine the world has ever known.
I think additionally, vanity (letters from Kim Jung Un), stuff related to Mueller/Russia/first impeachment, Jan 6 stuff etc. I do suspect some stuff the Saudis would care about as well. His approving John Solomon (utter trash journalist who used to be "respectable") and Devin Nunes for access to his NARA stuff is probably a tell for some of his purposes. Disinfo releases in the pursuit of deflecting investigations and 2024.
I do think the most likely very damning stuff he would have had would have been related to human intelligence gathering--but am not thinking he would have anything detailed on that.
Lawyerinos, is this is crazy as it sounds to me? A law firm submitted a filing to Judge Cannon* saying, "hey, since you are contemplating a Special Master we recommend these (Federalist Society-type hacks).
*Trump appointee from the end of his term either bending over backward to make sure things look fair for Trump but not really doing anything substantive, or lame attempted judicial ratfucker? Finding out which is half the fun!
Am looking forward to the DOJ filing today.
Shockingly, a lot of crap coverage of this. NYTimes has Charlie Savage who is febnerally pretty good, but he is being swamped by their effed up stories from Maggie (and Glenn... back together again!), Mike Schmidt and other national poliical hackoids.
Lying liars on Trump's team (or allies) are telling obvious fucking lies and they all get prominent coverage.
Also some good stuff. We'll see.
Also Lindsay Graham, most pathetic fucking toady in the history of Bufonidae.
Also: ***BREAKING*** we would be going through none of this if Mitt Romney had not been demonized to such an unprecedented extent during the 2012 election. It's true, just ask any Trump-queasy Republican.
And a side observation on the Ukrainian (I think) who posed as a Rothschild and was at Mar-a-Lago on several occasions. Folks in the story talking about giving her free rides on their private plane etc. because of who they thought she was. Being ultra-rich is the way to get the best giveaways (yes, of course driven by aspirational future transactions but still). My wife played tennis with an extremely wealthy woman who would point this out (she had not been born into wealth). Her relative self-awareness did not extend to not supporting Trump.
we would be going through none of this if Mitt Romney had not been demonized to such an unprecedented extent during the 2012 election. It's true, just ask any Trump-queasy Republican.
I don't totally know what this means. Like the Democrats raked him through the mud? Or the far right never coalesced properly behind him? Or is this a new narrative being peddled by anti-Trump Republicans?
28: The last of those. Though I don't know that it's limited to anti-Trump Republicans, most of whom have shifted to anti-anti.
28. IMO Rs disliked the depiction of Romney as a soulless banker via the shorthand desrciption of his dog's travel and the phrase "binders full of women". But explaining what's wrong with putting a soulless banker in charge demands more from both the writer and reader than an anecdote.
Yeah, have seen it burbling up to the surface a bit in the last few weeks (months maybe?) with a recent such take being from Meagan McArdle.
Hello. We've demonstrated a complete inability or unwillingness to control the political party to which we belong because we have a constituency limited to about 50% of our own households. This demonstrates that Democrats should support us as the secure way to defeat Trump.
So, I've gotten two opinion polls for the election today.
Ruing the masturbation opportunities missed?
20: John Solomon has been trash for 20 years, although you're not wrong that for ages he was treated as a non-partisan journalist rather than a propaganda catapult. (He first came to my attention via Talking Points Memo in 2006, writing a bunch of baseless stuff trying to imply that Harry Reid had taken bribes.)
Kissinger has 8 years on Gorbachev and he's still alive.
Oh I'm here once in a while, but thank you for the exclamation point.
Next time, you only get a semicolon.
The Saudis literally paid Jared 2 Billion dollars for something. We don't know what specifically yet, but surely they got something substantial for it.
44: His famously visionary business advice, like "invest all your family money in a Manhattan skyscraper right before the worst downturn in real estate in 70 years"?
22.*: Trump appointee from the end of his term either bending over backward to make sure things look fair for Trump but not really doing anything substantive, or lame attempted judicial ratfucker? Finding out which is half the fun!
And after that filing we are likely to find out which (or if the latter, the lameness of the attempt might prove too daunting for the judge). But the opening of the response will certainly be triggering for a judge who indicated a likeliness to grant the request. Some highlights including digs at her indulgence of the venue-shopping:
Even if the Court had jurisdiction to entertain Plaintiff's claims, appointment of a special master is unnecessary and would significantly harm important governmental interests, including national security interests. Appointment of a special master is disfavored in a case such as this. In any event, the government's filter team has already completed its work of segregating any seized materials that are potentially subject to attorney-client privilege, and the government's investigative team has already reviewed all of the remaining materials, including any that are potentially subject to claims of executive privilege. Appointment of a special master to review materials potentially subject to claims of executive privilege would be particularly inappropriate because binding Supreme Court precedent forecloses Plaintiff's argument that review of these materials by personnel within the Executive Branch raises any such privilege concerns.
...
Mindful that the Court ruling on the present motion is not the same Court that authorized the search warrant from which this civil action results, the government provides below a detailed recitation of the relevant facts, many of which are provided to correct the incomplete and inaccurate narrative set forth in Plaintiff's filings.
I will say that I did not expect a picture.
After reading that I think it's almost a sure thing that Trump gets indicted. Whether that will end up with a conviction and prison term I still doubt it but I would be satisfied with him living in fear of that 24/7 for the foreseeable future. And Christina Bobb better get herself a damned good NS lawyer.
DOJ filing:
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.618763/gov.uscourts.flsd.618763.48.0_2.pdf
And Christina Bobb better get herself a damned good NS lawyer.
She is a lawyer so she can represent herself.
Then she'll have two fools for clients
So when a lawyer signs on behalf of "the Office of Donald J. Trump", can Trump be charged with perjury? If not, why did the DOJ let him have a cutout when they had such abundant evidence he was lying?
54:
18 U.S. Code § 1622 - Subornation of perjury
Whoever procures another to commit any perjury is guilty of subornation of perjury, and shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
I will say that I did not expect a picture.
Can any one tell me whether that picture was posed or not? To me it looks like when cops lay out all the guns & drugs from a raid, but I keep seeing people referring to it as evidence that Top Secret stuff was literally lying around on the floor.
Anyway, I think I agree with 49. All that TS stuff is just prima facie felonious for him to have--there's simply no loopholes or colorable arguments. The whole "it's automatically declassified" thing doesn't work for a bunch of reasons (including, crucially, that they never claimed it before the FBI raid), and regardless, they committed a bunch of crimes between June and the raid (most egregiously swearing that there were no TS docs left in Mar a Lago).
It feels weird to be rooting for the FBI against Trump while rooting for Micky Dolenz against the FBI.
Jail time/black site torture aside, I do see all of this as gradually chipping away at his support. There will be no "fever breaking" moment, because 20 or 50 million people will never abandon him, but I think that a lot of Rs who've held low level gov't jobs and know how seriously TS security is taken are ready to (quietly) drop him, while the Jan 6 hearings probably shaved off another chunk, and at least a few women who voted for him are finding themselves shocked at post-Dobbs developments. If he's indicted and stands trial, he's going to look bad and weak, and that'll be another few million who'll swear they never voted for that guy.
None of which is to suggest we'll get past this fascist moment in that way, but one of the ways the Proud Boys types convince themselves that they are bigger than they are is to act like A. a majority of Americans believe in Trump and B. all of those people support PB types. It's always important to remember that only 28.5% of adult Americans even voted for him in '20 (crazification factor what?). That doesn't mean they're literally the only people who like him or want him to be POTUS, but it's pretty definitionally a ceiling on his MAGA followers.
The really critical step is figuring out how to keep people who abandon Trump in his fall from just picking up again with DeSantis or whoever else. Literally no idea how to achieve that.
I'd be fine with him and everyone in his orbit being tried and executed. I'm against the death penalty but they remain a threat even in prison.
Which is why I love the Trump/DeSantis rivalry. Trump himself will tell his people not to follow DeSantis. I suppose that if Q took an arbitrary dislike to DeSantis, that'd help too.
They both suck. Why wouldn't they dislike each other?
56: pretty sure it's posed, some article I read today said something like "they were found in a container in his office." In a sense that's even worse, he actively hid them away from the storage area he said they were being kept in.
56- I believe it was posed, all the talk about him leaving it spread around his room like a teenage boy aside. The affidavit said they found the material in a container which is presumably the box on the right that has his framed Time magazines. Which is probably just as bad, that he kept it mixed with innocent looking crap that had no security involved.
Well at least I was trying to work in a Man of the Year joke at the end before deleting it.
Yes, posed*. I'm not sure if they are from the Time box or the "leather-bound" box mentioned in prior documents. This WaPo piece analyzes some of the details in the picture notes there is a label 2A in the picture and links it to the receipt which says: Various classified/TS/SCI documents.. Further: That receipt suggests that the displayed documents were found in the container listed as item 2: "Leatherbound box of documents." That box doesn't appear to be included in the photo.**
*The "deliberately strewn to make it look like Trump did it" talking point is out there (and pushed by TFG himself). And noticing more instances of "Why did FBI wait so long if it was dangerous***" complaints from "allies."
**Which makes the 1: "Executive Grant of Clemency re:Roger F. Stone, Jr." 1A "info re: President of France" combo intriguing. (Some have pointed out that Stone appears to have been involved in the pre-election Macron dirt dumps from several years ago.
***Example #[very big number] that bending over backward to accommodate folks like this gets you nada in terms of goodwill.
Actually all manner of conflicting talking points are out there. Fox is all over the place with a fair bit of non-defense of Trump so far. But I suspect it is like other "unexpected" events (Charlottesville, election loss, Jan 6) where it takes a bit to get the talking points coordinated and after Carlson and Hannity have a few nights to test drive, the "straight" news portion of Fox will know where to put the spin (slightly more subtly than the nighttime demagogues).
Reading between the lines a bit, it seems like DOJ had good reason to keep believing over time there were sensitive documents not being returned. One way this could be is if there was an inventory of what had been given to the White House and continued unreturned until the search warrant. (Also Mar-a-Lago insiders, but they may not have had the opportunity to pore through the documents, just to see they were there.)
I imagine there's a lot of rules around photocopying classified documents, but the White House could throw those rules out the window once in possession. I could definitely see Trump being so cavalier as not to take that tiny step, and to take the originals he was given.
the "straight" news portion of Fox will know where to put the spin
Isn't their other tactic just to flog other stories so regular viewers get the impression the damning news is tiny and insignificant?
Real own goal there by Trump asking for a special master (in a court with dubious jurisdiction it seems to me but IANAL) thereby giving DOJ the opportunity to lay it all out publicly like that.
Yeah, wow, that DOJ filing is really something.
I'm starting to get disoriented, yet again, from my failure to understand how Trump walks away from all of this. I mean, I know we all know that he will be let off the hook, but how do we get there?
We do have the Trump judge, and first-instance judges have a lot of power in situations like this. Can the proceedings be delayed until after the 2024 election? What wrenches can the judge throw into the works?
There's a lot of sensible speculation to the effect that Trump took and kept the documents just because he's a narcissist who thinks -- with considerable justification -- that the rules don't apply to him. I think his public is prepared to let him off the hook if all that can be shown is that mishandled top secret documents. And the DOJ necessarily has to take into account the views of prospective jurors (and judges). And Garland is not a guy who sticks his neck out.
But Trump is also a crook. It seems inconceivable that he would take valuable documents without trying to extract that value for his own benefit -- and there's no way to do that without doing something genuinely awful. In that instance, how would it be possible to not prosecute him, even if you anticipate juror nullification?
And then there's Georgia ...
Further to 73, Lithwick is both uncharacteristically optimistic and surprisingly unpersuasive.
Facts still matter ... It's not, then, just that the law seems finally to have caught up with Donald Trump. It's that the facts finally have, too; the same facts Attorney General Merrick Garland had vowed to follow wherever they led. The facts here are indisputably bad for the former president ...
She discusses the DOJ filing and the ironclad argument made therein, but doesn't mention that this argument will be ruled upon by a Trump judge.
Citing the Michael Cohen case when noting how Trump waited two weeks to make his filing was genius.
I mean, there's got to be millions of examples to cite to support the extremely obvious and basic legal point they were making, so using Cohen was clearly a deliberate choice to troll Trump.
There's always difficulty surveying the hardcores, but according to Quinnipiac, 59% think he handled the documents in appropriately, and 50% think he should be prosecuted for it vs. 41% not - GOP 9-83, Dem 86-5, Ind 52-39. (And who knows how many people are quietly relabeling themselves independents.)
||
Peltola won! What a wild election.
|>
Do we know if Palin runs again in November? That seems the biggest determinant whether the same pattern repeats, right?
73, 75: The Trump judge is only involved in the case Trump brought to get a special master appointed, which he filed at the Fort Pierce courthouse, and that case is completely irrelevant to anything. If Trump is indicted, the criminal case will probably go to one of the two judges in the West Palm Bach courthouse of the Southern District of Florida, Robin Rosenberg (Obama) or William Middlebrooks (Clinton).
Nonetheless, the reason he almost certainly doesn't get convicted is the jury pool. Twelve residents of Palm Beach County will include at least one MAGA who will create a hung jury.
Also there will probably be appeals to the 11th Circuit and the Supreme Court before trial, so there may not be a trial at all. If those don't work and he is convicted, there will definitely be an appeal after any conviction.
.
Do we know if Palin runs again in November? That seems the biggest determinant whether the same pattern repeats, right?
The November ballot will be the same three plus the Libertarian candidate who got fourth in the regular primary. (Actually Tara Sweeney got fourth but she dropped out so it goes to the next person.) People may well vote differently now that we know what happened this time.
85: Thanks. I was wondering how venue-shopping worked in this context.
I guess because I never went to law school, except once as a mock-trial juror, the word "venue" always reminds me of "One Night in Bangkok".
I'm starting to get disoriented, yet again, from my failure to understand how Trump walks away from all of this. I mean, I know we all know that he will be let off the hook, but how do we get there?
DoJ doesn't prosecute? Seems pretty straightforward tbh.
That seems insane to me. He'd get indicted and then there'd be no prosecution? This feels like a situation where all the vocabulary words must have different meanings than I'm expecting them to have.
I think the only way he avoids prosecution is dragging things out in hope that a Republican president will pardon him. If you can be pardoned before prosecution.
Frankly, I think DeSantis is a bad choice for president.
Yes. My Gainesville uncle is not happy with him.
The climbdown path seems pretty obvious to me: Garland announces that retrieving the documents and preventing the harm that would come from disclosure was the goal. One the think they really have everything, it's Mission Accomplished.
Per 85, I do not think there is any chance he gets punished for this in any conventional sense. And in general there are potential ratfuckers at every step that would lead to conviction (including jurors). Cannon may be an irrelevant dead end legally but just more water-muddying and with our intrepid political media* and the massive puke funnel on the right ready to pounce on anything** all of that counts against even a remotely just non-legal outcome. I do believe there is a chance this helps derail Trump's personal chances or the presidency so there is that. All the lawyers reveling in the badness of Trump's lawyering are sort of ignoring how personally successful he has been at navigating the legal system to his own ends (his lawyer's ends not so much).
Admittedly I am in a massively gloomy mood this morning on several fronts, but I also think anyone believing this will cost Rs in the midterms is delusional I believe. At this point I think Ds have the best of it on abortion/climate change and gas prices and this just more old people kvetching about an old guy shit. Trump is FPOS but continues as Distractor-in-Chief.
Not that I think Ds were necessarily poised to do extremely well in November, but at least limit losses. However, I think PA is back really in play. There was a potential Oz/Mastriano depressing effect which I think could have made it a really sure lock (and maybe some coattails) but the stroke stuff is fucking that all up. Biggest fear is that it helps bring Mastriano back into contention. Proposing a debate in early September was an actually "smart" ploy by Oz particularly given media proclivities. And even pre-stroke, I think debates were Fetterman's weakest element in his primary campaign. Lamb and Kenyatta both outshone him there (but of course per the results, debates are frequently insignificant but maybe not if there is stroke recovery scrutiny). The other more general thing that I think Rs will do now with their crazed/weak candidates for Senate is nationalize by implicitly acknowledging that individual senators don't matter, getting McConnel instead of Shumer matters even idf it means being represented by someone as manifestly unfit as Herschel Walker. I do realize I am sounding abit NYT Pitchbot-y--"DId Dems Peak Too Soon?"
*And if you want to see our fucking intrepid political media in action today, look at this shit from the New Autocracy Times re:a ballot initiative blcoked by Rs on the board (who also rejected a voting rights referendum; not sure on what grounds).
A state board in Michigan refused on Wednesday to place an abortion rights referendum on the November ballot because of a dispute over word spacing on the petition, an embarrassing blow to abortion rights supporters who had gathered more than 750,000 signatures.
**For instance, seeing some saying that FBI made mistake in posing the picture because of R/Trump attacks. Made it look more careless rather than just classic drugs piled on the table post-search warrant law enforcement picture. Also see "waited too long." There is zero chance of navigating anything as complex as a White collar criminal investigation (or electioral campaign) without having these "vulnerabilities;" a bad faith political/media environment precludes never stepping on a landmine.
And I think 94 is the most likely scenario at this juncture.
Jan 6th coming to naught as well. The correct and only potential effective sanction was impeachment/disqualification back in the event. (Not that i think there was much chance of that happening then.)
If you can be pardoned before prosecution.
Ford's pardon of Nixon, Carter's pardon of Vietnam draft dodgers.
99 Surely Fetterman has the edge among ordinary decent people. It's just a matter of getting them to vote, which we know how to do.
The good news about all the take-a-palooza bullshit is that it takes place in a pretty small and mostly closed universe.
I don't literally think Trump will end up in jail, but I'm also not as pessimistic as this lot that this will all fizzle out. Or at least, I do not think all his legal woes will fizzle out, and if this one does, it will be because one of the others has laid him to waste.
101: Yeah, I am undoubtedly overreacting based on info I am exposed to. However, am wary of insider stuff that I have been aware of but which sometimes suddenly becomes all-consuming (see Swift Boat, But Her Emails, etc.).
Interestingly I certainly see ticket-splitting "both ways" on the R side in November. Relatively well-off fiscal 'conservative" suburban Rs strategically going for Oz but unbale to stomach Mastriano, and rural/non-college Rs definitely there for Mastriano but completely put off by Oz and warm to Fetterman. I think the results across the important Blue Mountain/Kittatinny Ridge political divide in Pa will be fascinating (unless the overall result is too depressing to examine more closely).
The Biden speech tonight, titled "The Continued Battle for the Soul of the Nation," seems like it could be prepping people for an indictment - and/or indirectly pushing Garland on it.
I also expect an an indictment, maybe several, S.D. Fla., Fulton Co., and Manhattan. probably the first n January or so. Since grand juries operate in secret, there's no way for Trump's lawyers to gum them up. No trial for at lest two years, and resolution of at least two petitions to the Supreme Court. If Trump or any Republican wins the election, the federal caser ends then. If not, maybe a trial but probably a hung jury or at best conviction followed by appeals dragging past Trump's expected lifespan.
I also expect an an indictment, maybe several, S.D. Fla., Fulton Co., and Manhattan. probably the first n January or so. Since grand juries operate in secret, there's no way for Trump's lawyers to gum them up. No trial for at lest two years, and resolution of at least two petitions to the Supreme Court. If Trump or any Republican wins the election, the federal caser ends then. If not, maybe a trial but probably a hung jury or at best conviction followed by appeals dragging past Trump's expected lifespan.
104: I think that Garland is sensitive to the genuine rule-of-law implications of indicting a former president, and that Biden tonight was, in part, laying the groundwork for overcoming that issue and undercutting Trump's legitimacy as a political actor.
Joe Biden is seeking to become the greatest president since FDR. I suppose he has to fail in the end, but this is how I want to lose.
https://twitter.com/travis_view/status/1565530835914149889
Judge seems to really, really want to do some Trumpy thing with a Special Master (probably irrelevant legally per un, but more chaff for media and base).
Judicial system has been semi-hacked for years to come.
One box, in the inventory, contained 45 empty folders marked "CLASSIFIED".
108: The way they're now totally leaning in to the Dark Brandon thing is amazing.
I kinda hate that they didn't activate the laser eyes at the end of the speech, but I guess you have to save something for November.
There really isn't any other explanation for the glowing red background, is there? It's weird, but at this point I'm good with whatever works.
Dark Brandon is even better than Onion Joe.
Trumpy judge in with Trump ruling.
Utter corruption. This particular one might not matter in the end, but it is absolutely corrupt given the totality of circumstances (venue shopping, the way she handled the hearing basically prompting Trump's lawyers for better defenses).
It's good to be an ex-President who might run again.
As a function of Plaintiff's former position as President of the United States, the stigma associated with the subject seizure is in a league of its own. A future indictment, based to any degree on property that ought to be returned, would result in reputational harm of a decidedly different order of magnitude.
113: Supposedly the full view if you're not so zoomed in is red and blue for America, and the close-up is red because otherwise he wouldn't look good in a blue suit against a blue background. Not sure if I believe it, but it is an explanation.
Sorry, that was me.
https://twitter.com/asharangappa_/status/1566833396864663562?s=21&t=yrcX5HNITkAKUMufhy_TiA
It may be a legal dead end, but I am finding this order from the judge deeply unsettling and predictive of a battle for the soul of our judicial future. I think in part due to it's release on Labor Day.
It is rife with sparkling little turdules throughout.
Sentence before the one quoted in 115:
As a function of Plaintiff's former position as President of the United States, the stigma associated with the subject seizure is in a league of its own.
Or this laughfest (my annotations below):
Hence, the Court takes into account the undeniably unprecedented nature of the search of a former President's* residence**; Plaintiff's inability to examine the seized materials in formulating his arguments to date***; Plaintiff's stated reliance on the customary cooperation between former and incumbent administrations regarding the ownership and exchange of documents****; the power imbalance between the parties*****; the importance of maintaining institutional trust******; and the interest in ensuring the integrity of an orderly process amidst swirling allegations of bias and media leaks.*******
*Yes. after the unprecedented nature of the behavior of the former President.
**And commercial club.
***Ah, so unlike what is generally accorded to subjects of search warrants... (And see from transcript( DOJ Lawyer: But my understanding the filter team is already in a position to dispose of the materials in accordance with the protocols we laid out in the search warrant, and it would cause delay to both parties if that weren't allowed to proceed.)
****Such a hoot given the outgoing admin's refusal to work with or brief the incoming in admin in almost all areas including freaking national defense. Also see the year+ long attempt at a cooperative exchange marked by lies, delays and obfuscations by the trumpoids.
*****Indeed, always a power imbalance between the state and private citizens. However in this case the power imbalance is less than almost any other case other than those involving large corporations.
******Institutional trust!! Indeed!
*******Yes, those swirling allegations of bias and media leaks instigated by the plaintiff and his allies.
But of course she was compelled to take the case more in sorrow than anger given how her court was clearly required to deal with it.
The saddest thing is watching the institutionalist Sensible Centrist Twitter lawyers (Orin Kerr, Neal Katyal, Ken White) respond to a completely lawless ruling with more "but the rules and citations!" They list off a bunch of cases that say this shouldn't have happened, and say "I can't find any precedent to cite that would justify this!" It's like the face in pro wrestling appealing to the ref that the rules clearly state no chairs are allowed in the ring.
Better reference from the transcript for 119.***:
The privilege review team would have provided Bates stamped copies of the 64 sets of documents to Plaintiff's counsel. We would like to seek permission from Your Honor to be able to provide those now, not at this exact moment but to move forward to providing those so counsel has the opportunity to review them and understand and have the time to review and do their own analysis of those documents to come to their own conclusions. And if the filter process without a special master were allowed to proceed, we would engage with counsel and have conversations, determine if we can reach agreements; to the extent we couldn't reach agreements, we would bring those before the Court, whether Your Honor or Judge Reinhart. But simply now, I'm seeking permission just to provide those documents to Plaintiff's counsel.
121: Yes. They need to think like "criminal" lawyers ala Breaking Bad not like lawyer lawyers.
I can't stop laughing at this.
An upcoming book by New York Times reporter David Enrich includes an amazing story of Trump trying to stiff a lawyer (to whom he owed $2 million) by offering to give him a deed to a stallion that was supposedly worth $5 million instead.
However, the lawyer apparently refused to accept live animals as payment, telling Trump that "this isn't the 1800s" and "you can't pay me with a horse."
The Daily Beast points out that Trump had apparently attempted to get Cannon previously when he filed a sprawling lawsuit concerning "Russiagate."
And yet, when his attorneys formally filed the paperwork, they selected a tiny courthouse in the sprawling federal court district's furthest northeast corner--a satellite location that's 70 miles from Mar-a-Lago. They ignored the West Palm Beach federal courthouse that's a 12-minute drive away.
Trump's legal team, it seemed, was specifically seeking out a particular federal judge: one he appointed as president. The tactic failed, and Trump instead got a Clinton-era judge whom he promptly tried to disqualify for alleged bias. U.S. District Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks called him out in a snarky footnote.
"I note that Plaintiff filed this lawsuit in the Fort Pierce division of this District, where only one federal judge sits: Judge Aileen Cannon, who Plaintiff appointed in 2020. Despite the odds, this case landed with me instead. And when Plaintiff is a litigant before a judge that he himself appointed, he does not tend to advance these same sorts of bias concerns," Middlebrooks wrote in April.
121: Back in college, I used to room with a couple of guys who were into professional wrestling. As a humorless reality-based person, I found this vexing, but they weren't interested in my critique. So whenever the TV was tuned to wrestling, I would pretend to take it seriously and express my dismay at how the participants were breaking the rules. "This is terrible! Why isn't the ref doing something?"
I am still sufficiently humorless and reality-based to appreciate JPS's explanation of the rules, but it's becoming more difficult for me to express horror, except ironically, about the fact that the rules are ignored.