Trump's Troubles

Heard him speak on a couple of interview shows and thought he was reasonable (sorta) and effective. The thing about it being election season though was self inflicted by trump when he announced his candidacy in 2022 - way before anyone else and wanted to announce even earlier but was constrained by RNC. And that’s why so many of us believe a lot of his reason for running is to stay out of jail. Got to draw the line somewhere

 

Marcy has some excellent context both on the date of filing due to Trump's delay and "delay" and prior rulings by Judge

On January 19, 2022, SCOTUS Upheld Judge Tanya Chutkan's Decision Rejecting Trump's Executive Privilege Claims - emptywheel

 

Maybe she will toss the case and force the government to indict In DC? I am sure the defendants wound rather have a DC jury than a Fort Pierce jury. Btw: on the merits, this is a multi district case that could have been brought in DC, SD Florida or New Jersey, because acts were committed in each District.

 

Marcy thinks she is trying to protect Walt Nauta’s attorneys that DT controls from being conflicted because they still represent witnesses there. Possibly, but I think she is also trying to delay and hopes to give the Special Counsel a black eye.

 

Interesting point from Josh Marshall about Eastman admitting they were trying to overthrow the government, because the prospect of a Biden Presidency justifies violent revolution.

He invokes the Declaration of Independence and says quite clearly that yes, we were trying to overthrow the government and argues that they were justified because of the sheer existential threat America was under because of the election of Joe Biden.

Eastman cuts through all of this and makes clear they were trying to overthrow (“abolish”) the government; they were justified in doing so; and the warrant for their actions is none other than the Declaration of Independence itself.

“Our Founders lay this case out,” says Eastman. “There’s actually a provision in the Declaration of Independence that a people will suffer abuses while they remain sufferable, tolerable while they remain tolerable. At some point abuses become so intolerable that it becomes not only their right but their duty to alter or abolish the existing government.”

I actually find this point more relevant to Second Amendment jurisprudence. At least one fairly erudite SA poster here says that it definitely includes the right to forcibly overthrow the government if you are not content.

Whatever one thinks of that argument legally, the question always becomes about how great a purported governmental overreach, enacted legally, justifies killing your fellow citizens. Josh, who has some Colonial American historical training, addresses this.

But this is a highly protean idea. Who gets to decide? Indeed this question came up again and again over the next century each time the young republic faced a major political crisis, whether it was in the late 1790s, toward the end of the War of 1812, in 1832–33 or finally during the American Civil War. If one side didn’t get its way and wanted out what better authority to cite than the Declaration of Independence? There is an obvious difference, but American political leaders needed a language to describe it. What they came up with is straightforward. It’s the difference between a constitutional or legal right and a revolutionary one. Abraham Lincoln was doing no more than stating a commonplace when he said this on the eve of the Civil War in his first inaugural address (emphasis added): “This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing Government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it.”


Obviously a government like the totalitarian regimes elsewhere morally justifies armed resistance. But this type of argument what’s been invoked over mask wearing, vaccinations, school curricula, whatever the flavor of the day. And it is continually legitimized by passing dicta comments from SC justices, and is regularly fomented in right wing media.

That line of thought is dangerous, crazy and indefensible. Feels like it will blow up all too soon

 

I’m not a criminal law lawyer, so I wonder if someone that is can answer whether a judge can mandate the government disclose the intricacies of its grand jury investigations, typically very confidential? And, for that matter, whether a judge can mandate disclosure of a grand jury investigation in a district outside that judge’s jurisdiction?

 

What's great too about Eastman is that he has talked about the attempted election theft in great detail under oath in his disbarment hearings so he has no value as a flip candidate.

 

I saw that. For a guy who supposedly a law professor, he did not think that one through in advance. I actually think it's not so much a failure to think about it, but a feeling of complete invulnerability, the certainty that you are backed by power and righteousness. And he may prove to be correct. I'm still not sure what's going to happen in terms of legal accountability for plainly illegal and injurious and dangerous acts but which are nonetheless supported by millions and millions of Americans

 

The investigation was multi jurisdictional. The original retention was in DC. The obstruction was of a DC grand jury. Acts occurred in Florida, DC and Bedminster. Also, none of this bears on the conflict and the need for a Garcia hearing.

 

I defer to you. Not my area of expertise. Marcy thought the requirement of briefing instead of a Garcia hearing was a delay tactic by Cannon. And I thought I originally read that while venue might be permissible in other locations, the original filing was in South Florida due to the hope of avoiding motion practice over venue and the resultant delay. Also that the DC venue was based upon the fact that various grand jury witnesses would have perjured themselves there, and that is subsequent charges are brought on those acts, then you would need to be there. Just passing on what I have read. I don't have expertise in this area.

 

Trump may enter 2024 broke.

If he loses the NY State business fraud case in October, creditors will call in their loans. Jack Smith may seize his campaign coffers stocked with fraudulent Stop the Steal begging.

 

I don’t have a great expertise in this. A conspiracy can be charged anywhere acts if the conspiracy are committed or targeted. This is an odd issue

 

He keeps fundraising, and his cult keeps giving.

I’m sure he’ll find a way to stiff just enough people to stay afloat. It’s basically his way of life at this point.

 

Victimless crime.

 

So this is interesting (could also go in the Elon Cleaning House thread.). Agent Smith got a court order for all of Trumps posts on Twitter/x. Musk refused to comply and the judge was so incensed she imposed a 50K fine that doubled every day. After 3 days Musk belatedly recognized he is cash flow negative and decided to pay up ($350K). What’s more curious is that Musk wanted to let Trump know that DOJ was rooting around for his criming and the judge specifically forbade them. What are the odds Musk called Trump anyway and what will those posts reveal and is Musk a coconspirator?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/08/09/twitter-fine-jan-6-trump/

She found that there were “reasonable grounds to believe” that disclosing the warrant to Trump “would seriously jeopardize the ongoing investigation” by giving him “an opportunity to destroy evidence, change patterns of behavior, [or] notify confederates,” according to the appellate ruling.

 

Solid basic legal analysis of some potential defense and why the Free Speech defense is a total nonstarter

It is long established and ordinarily uncontroversial that speech can lose the protection of the First Amendment if, for example, it seeks to intimidate a public official into shirking a legal duty, or if it consists of the submission of forged documents to a government agency, or if it solicits or facilitates crime generally

You have a constitutional right to petition the government for redress of grievances, yet you may not file a bogus claim for veteran’s benefits. In the “stolen valor” case of United States v. Alvarez, the Supreme Court controversially took the view that you might even have a constitutional right to lie about your war record to gain undeserved social status. Yet lying about that same war record to obtain government benefits can be made a crime without controversy.

No, it isn’t. As I suggested in a recent post at Cato at Liberty, Trump is likely to have at his disposal nonfrivolous arguments that if successful might narrow if not quash the charges. For example, he could contest whether the electoral vote count before Congress is a “proceeding” covered by section 1512, or challenge whether the prosecutors have sufficiently proved the elements of coordination toward a common purpose needed to prove each alleged conspiracy, or obtain favorable rulings on whether and how the actions of the pretend electors were illegal. This is not a slam‐dunk case.

https://open.substack.com/pub/theun...umps?r=2cipm&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post