Fire Hydrant of Freedom
Politics, Religion, Science, Culture and Humanities => Politics & Religion => Topic started by: Crafty_Dog on December 28, 2018, 09:59:38 PM
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Coming real soon!
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/kimberley-strassel-the-trump-ethics-resistance
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https://www.lawfareblog.com/
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That is a really good find BD!
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https://www.lawfareblog.com/urban-warfare-obligations-defenders
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BD:
I had envisioned this thread to cover waging politics by grinding the other side with litigation, but the Law of War is a worthy study of its own so for now let's use this thread for either and I have changed the thread's name in an effort to reflect this.
It may be though that it will be better the Legal Issues Raised by the War with Islamic Fascism thread , , , if I rename it :-D
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/02/neomi-rao-nomination-democrats-try-to-damage-rising-legal-star/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NR%20Daily%20Monday%20through%20Friday%202019-02-06&utm_term=NRDaily-Smart
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https://patriotpost.us/articles/61010-lower-courts-obstruct-trump-at-unprecedented-rate?mailing_id=4066&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4066&utm_campaign=digest&utm_content=body
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I would have liked to have seen proper mention of how arch progressive trial court judges are the true problem , , , but an informative read nonetheless:
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/429164-supreme-courts-10th-justice-favors-unusual-tactic-for-trump-cases?userid=188403
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https://www.lawfareblog.com/lawfare-podcast-war-powers-history-you-never-knew-matt-waxman
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Judicial Watch's Weekly Update: Mueller Report Exonerates President Trump
Mueller Never Had a Good-Faith Basis to Pursue President Trump
The fizzling out of the corrupt Mueller investigation is great victory for the rule of law and our constitutional republic. Here is the statement I issued in response Attorney General Barr’s initial summary of the special counsel’s report.
The long, national nightmare is over and President Trump has been vindicated. The corruptly-created and constitutionally abusive Mueller investigation failed to find any evidence to support the big lie that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government.
We’re pleased that AG Barr rejected Mueller’s attempt to smear President Trump with obstruction of justice innuendo by concluding that no such charges could be credibly sustained. Frankly, Mueller never had a valid basis upon which to investigate President Trump for obstruction of justice.
Let’s be clear, neither Mueller, the Obama FBI, DOJ, CIA, State Department, nor the Deep State ever had a good-faith basis to pursue President Trump on Russia collusion. Russia collusion wasn’t just a hoax, it was criminal abuse, which is why Judicial Watch has fought and will continue to fight for Russiagate documents in federal court.
The targeting of President Trump served to protect Hillary Clinton and her enablers/co-conspirators in Obama administration from prosecution. Attorney General Barr can begin restoring the credibility of the Justice Department by finally initiating a thorough investigation of the Clinton emails and related pay-to-play scandals and the abuses behind the targeting of President Trump.
Judicial Watch has long called for the shutdown of the Mueller special counsel operation and has pursued dozens of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits in connection with the illicit targeting and other abuses of President Trump. Judicial Watch FOIA litigation exposed, for example:
• The dossier-based Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant applications targeting President Trump
• FBI payments to Christopher Steele
• FBI firing of Steele
• Extensive DOJ (Ohr) collusion w/Steele, Simpson, Fusion GPS
• No court hearings by defrauded FISA courts before warrants were issued
• Anti-Trump bias by Mueller deputy Andrew Weissmann
As you would expect, the Democrats are refusing to back down from their collusion lies. As I told the media this week, we must demand accountability for this attack on the Republic. Judicial Watch, not Congress nor the corrupt media, remains the best path forward for getting the full truth about the effort to overthrow President Trump, which is the worst corruption scandal in American history.
Did Deep State Cover Up Chinese Hack of Clinton Email System? Judicial Watch Sues to Find Out
Back in 2015, the Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG), an office under the Director of National Intelligence, discovered that Hillary Clinton’s emails were being sent to a state-owned Chinese company.
Bells went off, and the ICIG sent an emissary to the FBI to meet with Peter Strzok, who was later removed from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation and fired from the FBI after his bias against President Trump was revealed. The FBI was being run at time by James Comey.
As you might imagine, nothing happened.
We want to know what was discussed at this meeting, and we are suing the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) for details.
We sued after the ODNI failed to respond adequately to a July 13, 2018, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request (Judicial Watch Inc. vs Office of the Director of National Intelligence (No. 1:19-cv-00807)). We are seeking:
Any and all records regarding, concerning, or related to the meeting between Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) official Frank Rucker, ICIG attorney Jeanette Macmillian, former Federal Bureau of Investigation Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok, and other regarding security threats associated with the private e-mail server utilized by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
This request includes, but is not limited to, the following:
• Any and all reports, notes, briefing materials, presentations, or similar records created in preparation for, during, and/or pursuant to the meeting.
• Any and all related records of communication between any official, employee, or representative of the ICIG and any other individual or entity.
For purposes of clarification, the meeting in question was referenced by Rep. Louis Gohmert during the testimony of Mr. Strzok at a House of Representatives hearing on July 12, 2018.
Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) said during a hearing with FBI official Peter Strzok that the ICIG reportedly found an “anomaly on Hillary Clinton’s emails going through their private server, and when they had done the forensic analysis, they found that her emails, every single one except four, over 30,000, were going to an address that was not on the distribution list. It was a compartmentalized bit of information that was sending it to an unauthorized source.”
Gohmert said the ICIG presented the findings to Strzok, but that the FBI official did not do anything with the information.
Gohmert: Let me refresh your memory. The Intelligence Community Inspector General Chuck McCullough sent his investigator Frank Rucker along with an IGIC attorney Janette McMillan to brief you and Dean Chapelle and two other FBI personnel who I won’t name at this time, about an anomaly they had found on Hillary Clinton’s emails that were going to the private unauthorized server that you were supposed to be investigating?
Our lawsuit could further expose how anti-Trump activists like disgraced FBI official Peter Strzok bent over backwards to protect Hillary Clinton from having to answer for her national security crimes. The scandal of the illicit Trump spying is directly tied to the Deep State protection of Hillary Clinton.
We had a separate lawsuit against the ODNI that would have required it to conduct, as required by law, an assessment and prepare a report on how and whether Hillary Rodham Clinton’s email practices as U.S. Secretary of State damaged national security.
Hillary Clinton was given full cover by the Deep State. Don’t think the Deep State has has given up.
What Were Obama’s Spy Chiefs Telling the Media about Trump?
President Obama’s top spy chiefs appear to have been ringleaders in the illicit effort to overthrow President Trump. They enlisted the FBI, foreign spies, and the media in their efforts. I’m not at all surprised that they found a warm welcome at CNN.
Now we want to know the details of their connections to the network. We have filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) seeking records of communications between former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former CIA Director John Brennan and CNN around the time the Clinton-Democrat National Committee anti-Trump dossier was being pitched to key media outlets.
A House report detailed that Clapper leaked information regarding the dossier to CNN in January 2017. The former ODNI chief signed on as an analyst for CNN in August 2017.
We are also seeking records of communications between Clapper and Obama CIA Director John Brennan regarding the dossier, which was authored by former British spy and FBI payee Christopher Steele.
We sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (Judicial Watch v. Office of the Director of National Intelligence and Central Intelligence Agency (No. 1:19-cv-00776)) after the agencies failed to respond to our April 23, 2018, FOIA request seeking:
All records of communication, including emails (whether on .gov or non-.gov email accounts), text messages and instant chats, between officials in the office of the Director of National Intelligence, including but not limited to James Clapper, and employees, representatives and contractors of CNN.
The time frame for the records request is May 2016 through May 2017.
All records of communications between the office of the Director of Central Intelligence and representatives of CNN; DCI John Brennan and DNI James Clapper regarding the collection of memos known as the “Steele Dossier:” and between DCI John Brennan and DNI James Clapper regarding CNN.
All records of communication, including emails (whether on .gov or non-.gov email accounts), text messages and instant chats, between officials in the office of the Director of Central Intelligence, including but not limited to DCI John Brennan, and employees, representatives and contractors of CNN. The time frame for the requested records is May 2016 through May 2017.
All records of communication, including emails (whether on .gov or non-.gov email accounts), text messages and instant chats, between DCI John Brennan and DNI James Clapper regarding the collection of memos known as the “Steele Dossier”. The time frame for records requested in this bullet item is May 2016 through January 2017.
All records of communication, including emails (whether on .gov or non-.gov email accounts), text messages and instant chats, between DCI John Brennan and DNI James Clapper regarding the news network CNN. The time frame for records requested in this bullet item is May 2016 through January 2017.
In a March 2018, report, Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee exposed that:
“Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, now a CNN national security analyst, provided inconsistent testimony to the Committee about his contacts with the media, including CNN.” And, “when questioned by the Committee … Clapper admitted that he confirmed the existence of the dossier to the media.”
Clapper later admitted he had discussed the Steele dossier with CNN’s Jake Tapper and other journalists in early 2017, shortly before President Donald Trump’s inauguration.
In a January 10, 2017 report with bylines from Tapper, Evan Perez, Jim Sciutto and Carl Bernstein, CNN first revealed that then-FBI Director James Comey had briefed then-President-elect Trump on the dossier’s allegations.
The Intelligence Committee’s report detailed that “Clapper subsequently acknowledged discussing the ‘dossier with CNN journalist Jake Tapper,’ and admitted that he might have spoken with other journalists about the same topic. Clapper’s discussion with Tapper took place in ‘early January 2017,’ around the time [intelligence officials] briefed President Obama and President-elect Trump, on ‘the Christopher Steele information.’”
Shortly after CNN’s January 10, 2017, report, BuzzFeed News published the dossier in full.
The four CNN reporters were awarded the White House Correspondents’ Association’s Merriman Smith Award for their coverage of the dossier story.
Brennan, in an interview with NBC News on February 4, 2018, insisted that the Steele dossier “did not play any role whatsoever” in early intelligence assessments on alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Several subsequent reports strongly contradict Brennan’s claim.
We are again in court trying to get the truth about the Obama gang’s illegal leaks and conspiracy targeting President Trump. Clapper and Brennan were key proponents of the big lie, exposed by the Mueller report. President Trump did not collude with the Russians. Once again, our FOIA litigation is the best hope for getting full accountability on this attack on our constitutional republic.
Until next week …
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton
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https://www.dailywire.com/news/45734/it-finally-time-trump-inches-closer-openly-defying-josh-hammer?utm_medium=email&utm_content=040919-news&utm_campaign=position3
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https://www.dailywire.com/news/45734/it-finally-time-trump-inches-closer-openly-defying-josh-hammer?utm_medium=email&utm_content=040919-news&utm_campaign=position3
YES!
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https://www.dailywire.com/news/45734/it-finally-time-trump-inches-closer-openly-defying-josh-hammer?utm_medium=email&utm_content=040919-news&utm_campaign=position3
It is certainly time for the Senate to vote on his 9th Circuit nominees, and all the rest of them.
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https://www.defenseone.com/politics/2019/04/win-bolton-international-criminal-court-will-not-prosecute-us-soldiers/156288/?oref=defenseone_today_nl
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/apr/24/nra-legal-troubles-trump-support-drain-finances/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=manual&utm_campaign=evening&utm_term=evening&utm_content=evening&bt_ee=hLMHvzQQ3vv3y1d2Vf9dmFwqgXWDoVJqR0ohEWJeE7Mm%2BBWeuQBWjTPqcY1dqeh5&bt_ts=1556159992356
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https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6019034/20-19-Opinion-House-v-Trump.pdf?fbclid=IwAR17Os-a3sU1HMdwe_ctSzwn-5Nxe-U7lgI2oyDyb0oFhiUncOR79A6GUwg
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I tried to find a tally of all cases brought by Trump et al
that came up in front of Federal Judges to see if we could get a score
Obama Clinton Judges vs W or Trump judges but I could not find anything in that regard
If we have enough examples to suggest bias then we could demonstrate to Justice Roberts what we already know to be true.
I just . emailed to Conservative Review this question
If I get some response will let the board know
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https://www.westernjournal.com/bill-barr-used-one-figure-prove-nationwide-injunctions-problem/
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https://www.amazon.com/Power-Constraint-Accountable-Presidency-After/dp/0393081338?fbclid=IwAR1MUOnfZ5o_R6y7E2bzgpcB0ZDRkdtuAacVPmyjddNG5zerV-GIVNVfxe4
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https://www.lawfareblog.com/war-crimes-pardons-and-attorney-general?fbclid=IwAR2zJepEN9_Qv--pku3FpBVj-0SNlQEyQ5o60W9FTzNz4s9MwjNobh8D3_E
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second post
These Marines were falsely accused of war crimes. Twelve years later, they have vindication.
Retired Maj. Fred Galvin, pictured at his home in Honolulu, fought unproven allegations that members of the elite commando force he led in Afghanistan gunned down unarmed bystanders after an ambush. (Marie Eriel S. Hobro/For The Washington Post)
By Andrew deGrandpre
January 31
A Marine veteran who fought the Pentagon for 12 years over a war-crimes case brought against him and six others will have his permanent record wiped clean, an extraordinary affirmation of his claim that their reputations were destroyed by the military’s effort to imprison the men.
The Marines were members of an elite commando force expelled from Afghanistan in 2007 amid unproven allegations that they massacred innocent bystanders in the frantic minutes following an ambush. They were cleared of wrongdoing more than a year later, after the case was heard by a military court, but have maintained that senior leaders did little to set the record straight and, consequently, fostered the stigma that has dogged them ever since.
A report approved in January by the Navy Department is a major victory for retired Maj. Fred Galvin, the Marines’ commanding officer. Its conclusions, he says, are a rebuke of those who condemned his men before the facts were clear, the investigator whose work was shown in court to be sloppy and the generals who refused Galvin’s pleas for public absolution.
In its ruling, the Board for Correction of Naval Records said Galvin, 49, should be considered for a retroactive promotion. If granted, he would be entitled to hundreds of thousands of dollars in back salary and future government pension benefits, as he was forced to retire in 2014 after his superiors relied on “inequitable and unjust” performance appraisals, the report states, to prevent him from advancing in rank. Of the seven swept up in the case, Galvin is the only one to pursue such vindication.
More broadly, the board’s determination closes one of the Afghanistan war’s darkest chapters, an episode that unleashed international outrage only to be proved a fabrication engineered by the Taliban to fuel distrust of the U.S. military. Those involved fought for their lives that day only to be denounced by senior officers who had an obligation to protect their presumption of innocence.
“This was a big betrayal,” said Steve Morgan, a retired Marine officer and decorated combat veteran who in 2008 was part of the court panel that found Galvin’s Marines acted honorably on the battlefield. The panel also memorialized the failures committed by the Marines’ superiors during and after the investigation.
ADVERTISING
“Fred has finally come out on the right side of things, but it has come at a very steep price,” Morgan added. “The lies. The deceit. That makes me so mad. That kind of behavior doesn’t inspire confidence in the ethics of our military’s leaders. It corrodes public trust in the institution.”
[69 Afghans’ families get a U.S. apology]
Galvin was the commanding officer of Marine Special Operations Company Fox. On March 4, 2007, as he and 29 others traveled in a six-vehicle convoy through the village of Bati Kot, a suicide bomber driving a van packed with explosives attacked the American vehicles and then fighters on both sides of the road opened fire. The Marines fought back and escaped with only one minor casualty.
But in the fight’s immediate aftermath, images of bullet-riddled vehicles and ambulances loading bloodied Afghan men were transmitted worldwide. Accounts gathered at the scene portrayed the Marines as murderers, and allegations of wrongdoing were fueled by erroneous media coverage and a bogus narrative fostered by American military officials who fed false information to news outlets, the court’s conclusions would later make clear.
From left, Lt. Col. Scott Jack, military counsel; Galvin, commander of Fox Company; and Mark Waple, civilian counsel, arrive for a court appearance at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina in January 2008. (Chuck Beckley/Associated Press)
Galvin harbors resentment for many, peers and superiors alike. “That 12-page report is an indictment,” he said. “It shows the decay of ethical and moral leadership in our military. And the people who did this to us got a free pass.”
Chief among his adversaries is John W. Nicholson Jr., who retired from the Army last year after ascending to the rank of four-star general and serving for 2 1 / 2 years as the head of all NATO forces in Afghanistan. When the incident occurred, Nicholson was a colonel and brigade commander overseeing operations in the area, along the mountainous span of Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan that was thought to be harboring al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
Francis H. Kearney III, then a two-star Army general with purview of covert Special Operations activity in Afghanistan and throughout the Middle East, dispatched his chief of staff, Patrick Pihana, to investigate.
Independent assessments of the casualty count varied widely. Amid widespread protests in Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, the country’s president at the time, condemned the Marines. Hoping to contain the backlash, Nicholson broadcast an apologetic statement declaring the incident a “stain” on the U.S. military’s honor.
Privately, officials were suspicious of the unit because of a separate incident involving Galvin’s men in which, days after the ambush, they deceived him and other leaders to undertake a mission in an area declared off limits. Commanders in Afghanistan, still riled by the allegations of indiscriminate killing, pointed to the Marines’ duplicity as evidence that Galvin had lost control of his unit. He was relieved of command and Fox Company was sent home.
The Navy review board sided with Galvin here, too, concluding that his superiors “grossly overreacted” and did not differentiate between the two incidents when ordering the Marines to leave.
Nicholson and Kearney, who retired as a three-star general in 2012, are not named in the new report. However, it makes clear that senior U.S. officials made “gross errors in judgment” leading up to Kearney’s decision to eject the Marines from Afghanistan, and that along with the Taliban’s deception, Army leaders were the “proximate causes” for inciting the chain of events that led to that decision.
The report’s harshest language is directed at Pihana, whose investigation, it notes, was discredited in court years ago, in part because he was found to have suppressed evidence that supported the Marines’ version of events — and was suspected by the court of having been influenced by Kearney, his direct superior.
“The magnitude of his errors,” the report says, “cannot be overstated.” Pihana’s conclusion — that Galvin and the others should be charged with negligent homicide or dereliction of duty — is “explicable only as gross negligence or a mission with a predetermined outcome,” the report says.
Neither Nicholson, Kearney nor Pihana responded to requests for comment.
Galvin, who earned a Kuwaiti Liberation Medal, pictured above, deployed in support of numerous military operations over the course of his military career. (Marie Eriel S. Hobro/For The Washington Post)
Morgan has urged members of Congress to push the Pentagon to reexamine whether Nicholson, Kearney or Pihana violated military regulations or laws in their pursuit of a criminal case and, if so, to hold them accountable.
“Nicholson and Kearney perpetuated the myth these Marines did bad things, and they’ve done nothing to set the record straight,” Morgan told The Washington Post. “I’ve got no time for those guys.”
In 2015, when Military Times reexamined this case in a multipart series, Kearney said he ordered the investigation at the Marine Corps’ request because, he recalled, there was pressure on the military to demonstrate accountability in light of two unrelated war-crimes cases involving U.S. personnel in Iraq. “If these Marines have heartburn,” he said, “it should be with the Marine Corps.”
It was Jim Mattis, a revered Marine general and recently departed defense secretary, who convened the tribunal that ultimately determined that none of the Marines should be charged. The hearings spanned three weeks in January 2008. Four months later, at the outset of Memorial Day weekend, Mattis’s successor, having assessed the court’s findings, issued a brief statement affirming that Galvin’s men had “acted appropriately.”
[No charges for two Marines in deaths of Afghans]
That phrase still bothers the Marines, who say it was not a firm enough declaration of their innocence, and that it has been misinterpreted inside and outside the military to mean “we got away with murder,” Galvin said. He also questions the announcement’s timing, calling it a deliberate move to bury the story. As a consequence, those assigned to the unit were ostracized.
“Sometimes now, when I reflect on it, I think that if this didn’t happen, I’d be four years from retirement. I could have stayed in and made that my career,” said one of the Marines who was falsely accused and left the military voluntarily in 2008, when his contract expired. He spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing lingering concerns about retaliation.
“This devastated my life — my family, my legal expenses, being separated from the Marine Corps, not knowing if one day someone was going to knock on my door and take me to Fort Leavenworth,” he added, referring to the Army post in northeast Kansas that is home to the military’s only supermax prison.
A scrapbook made by Galvinʻs late sister includes images from his military career along with encouraging messages. (Marie Eriel S. Hobro/For The Washington Post)
The stress — and the shame — has been a burden on all of them, leading to substance abuse, divorce and thoughts of suicide in some cases, Galvin said.
As their former commanding officer, Galvin has continued to press Marine Corps headquarters to do more to set the record straight. Beginning in 2015, with support from five members of Congress, multiple entreaties have been made to the service’s most senior officer: first, to Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., who became chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff later that year, and then to Dunford’s successor, Gen. Robert B. Neller.
When approached by lawmakers, Dunford and Neller each declined to revisit the matter or make any public statements of support for the Fox Company Marines. In his correspondence to members of Congress, Dunford restated the court’s findings from years prior, saying that neither Galvin nor his men faced any punitive measures. “Nor is there any adverse information in their military records associated with this incident,” the general noted then, incorrectly.
[Pentagon exonerates Marines blackballed by war-crimes case. They doubt the gesture is sincere.]
Galvin grew hopeful when Neller announced in 2016 that he was making suicide prevention a signature focus of his term as the Marine Corps commandant. “We can’t afford to lose a single Marine to anything, whether it be accident, injury or suicide,” Neller told Marine Corps Times then. “I can tell you — giving my solemn word — that the Marine Corps will try to help anyone who comes forward.”
Galvin received this letter from Rep. Walter B. Jones (R-N.C.), who has advocated for Fox Company since 2007. (Marie Eriel S. Hobro/For The Washington Post)
Last February, under pressure from Rep. Walter B. Jones (R-N.C.), Neller’s staff director at the time, Maj. Gen. Frederick M. Padilla, pledged that the service would provide counseling and other assistance to Galvin and his men. “We are concerned to hear of the challenges many members of Fox Company are facing — which are, unfortunately, all too common among our combat veterans,” Padilla wrote to Jones. “I have asked the Commanding Officer of our Wounded Warrior Regiment to follow-up with these Marines to ensure they are receiving appropriate and all necessary care and support.”
No one from the Marine Corps contacted them, Galvin said, until reading about Padilla’s directive in The Post several weeks later.
At the Pentagon, Dunford and Neller have acknowledged the review board’s determination. “General Dunford was pleased to learn about Maj. Galvin’s exoneration and also appreciates his efforts to take care of the Marines from Fox Company,” said Col. Patrick Ryder, a spokesman for the chairman.
Neller said: “We have a system through which Marines can try to remediate actions believed to have been unfair or incorrect. In this case, it seems the system worked as designed, and Maj. Galvin had his record cleared. We all wish him well.”
The Marines hope the military will do more to demonstrate that they are not outcasts but victims. “Military justice requires that those who . . . have conducted wrongdoing be held accountable,” Galvin said, “not just that those offended be patted on the back.”
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right Justice Roberts , no politics in the Courts:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/federal-judge-blocks-trumps-border-wall-plans-11558747967
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haywood_Gilliam
Wrote :
" “Congress’s ‘absolute’ control over federal expenditures—even when that control may frustrate the desires of the Executive Branch regarding initiatives it views as important—is not a bug in our constitutional system,” Judge Gilliam, an Obama appointee, wrote in a 56-page decision. “It is a feature of that system, and an essential one.”
But President is to protect are borders and maintain the nation' security
It is not his fault Congress has and is negligent for political purposes over the past 40 yrs
while we are at it , here is another :
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/05/24/judge-blocks-mississippi-heartbeat-abortion-law/
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With regard to the Heartbeat Law, as best as I can tell, the law is in direct contravention to Roe on purpose so as to set up a challenge to Roe that can only be resolved by the SCOTUS.
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With regard to the Heartbeat Law, as best as I can tell, the law is in direct contravention to Roe on purpose so as to set up a challenge to Roe that can only be resolved by the SCOTUS.
Agree. It is in contradiction to Roe but aligned with common sense, science and morals.
The Alabama law, ban all abortions, is a step backward - politically - for the movement.
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https://www.lawfareblog.com/iran-shoots-down-us-drone-domestic-and-international-legal-implications?fbclid=IwAR0p-bXak9wZd5uwB7bknfzpep7zaWEEJkP6wGl0fW9jwCvntye5Tjij6W4
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https://video.foxnews.com/v/6051440412001/
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https://www.newsmax.com/politics/census-maryland/2019/07/10/id/923995/
why can't the DOJ use any lawyers it wants?
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new scandal de jour as per Left wing media propaganda machine
so abusing whistleblower laws is the new method of the day for the democrats to attack political enemies:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/another-whistleblower-apparently-come-forward-053527744.html
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=BDWr3oRaDIA
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https://www.nationalreview.com/news/judge-rules-trump-must-hand-over-tax-returns-to-manhattan-da/
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investigating anything they can think of on a sitting President
Is this with precedent?
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investigating anything they can think of on a sitting President
Is this with precedent?
I do not believe so.
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Don't give us and f'ing lectures on the rule of law and constitution etc and democracy in peril
https://apnews.com/14b14afc5d8647858489a2cf5385c28d
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https://pjmedia.com/jchristianadams/democrats-launch-effort-to-win-2020-election-in-court/
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Why and about what did Steve Bannon testify against Roger Stone?
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Hat tip Doug
21 Reasons Not To Believe Christine Blasey Ford’s Claims About Justice Kavanaugh
https://thefederalist.com/2019/12/02/21-reasons-not-to-believe-christine-blasey-fords-claims-about-justice-kavanaugh/
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Southern California recently presented Christine Blasey Ford with its Roger Baldwin Courage Award. Blasey Ford accused Brett Kavanaugh of attempted rape, nearly derailing his Supreme Court nomination.
Many Democratic politicians and members of corporate media proudly announce that they “believe” Ford and believe that Kavanaugh should be impeached.
Dr. Christine Blasey Ford is a profile in courage. One year later, I still believe her. pic.twitter.com/ufqGKm7QKr
— Pete Buttigieg (@PeteButtigieg) September 27, 2019
It’s been one year since Dr. Christine Blasey Ford came before the Senate Judiciary Committee. I believed her then and I believe it now: she is a true profile in courage. pic.twitter.com/bG36lOA7AD
— Kamala Harris (@SenKamalaHarris) September 27, 2019
I still believe Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. And like the man who appointed him, Brett Kavanaugh should be impeached.
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) September 28, 2019
I believed Christine Blasey Ford a year ago. I believe Christine Blasey Ford today. The default position should be to believe the women especially when they take on powerful men with nothing to gain.
— Matthew Dowd (@matthewjdowd) September 27, 2019
It is unclear why these politicians and pundits claim to believe Ford, given the lack of evidence in support of her serious accusations. Here are 21 reasons reasonable people may doubt Ford’s claims about Kavanaugh.
1. There Is No Evidence that Ford and Kavanaugh Ever Met
Apart from Ford’s claim, no evidence was ever provided that Ford and Kavanaugh had ever met, much less that the party she described had occurred, much less that the assault she described occurred.
2. Leland Keyser Said She Did Not Have ‘Any Confidence’ in Her Friend’s Story
Ford said a close childhood friend named Leland Keyser was a witness to the event where the alleged assault occurred, and later told people that she was sure Keyser had driven her home. While Keyser initially felt horrible that the assault had occurred unbeknownst to her, upon a rigorous examination of her memory of the summer in question, she came to lack confidence in the tale her friend told.
Keyser was a lifelong liberal who did not want Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court. This was first reported in our book “Justice on Trial,” and added to in “The Education of Brett Kavanaugh.”
3. Friends Pressured Keyser to Change Her Story
When Keyser publicly said she had no recollection of the event in question, mutual friends of hers and Ford’s pressured her to change her story. She issued another statement, still noting she had no memory of the event while adding that she believed her friend. Later, the pressure campaign to get her to change her story rubbed her the wrong way.
A recent book revealed that these friends considered releasing disparaging information about Keyser because her public statements about her lifelong friend were such a “problem.”
4. All Alleged Witnesses Strongly Dispute the Claim
In addition to Keyser, the other alleged witnesses also said they had no memory of the event in question.
It wasn’t just that they said they had no recollection of the incident, but that the allegations were difficult to believe. For instance, P.J. Smyth said, “I have no knowledge of the party in question; nor do I have any knowledge of the allegations of improper conduct she has leveled against Brett Kavanaugh. Personally speaking, I have known Brett Kavanaugh since high school and I know him to be a person of great integrity, a great friend, and I have never witnessed any improper conduct by Brett Kavanaugh towards women.”
5. Ford’s Father Supported Kavanaugh’s Confirmation
The Blasey family stayed conspicuously silent about the veracity of her allegations. A public letter of support for Ford that began “As members of Christine Blasey Ford’s family . . .” wasn’t signed by a single blood relative. Reached for comment by the Washington Post, her father simply said, “I think all of the Blasey family would support her. I think her record stands for itself. Her schooling, her jobs and so on,” before hanging up.
Privately, however, it appears the Blasey family had significant doubts about what Ford was trying to accomplish by making unsubstantiated allegations against Kavanaugh. Within days of Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court, a fascinating encounter took place. Kavanaugh’s father was approached by Ford’s father at the golf club where they are both members.
Ralph Blasey, Ford’s father, went out of his way to offer to Ed Kavanaugh his support of Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court, according to multiple people familiar with the conversation that took place at Burning Tree Club in Bethesda, Maryland. “I’m glad Brett was confirmed,” Ralph Blasey told Ed Kavanaugh, shaking his hand. Blasey added that the ordeal had been tough for both families.
The encounter immediately caused a stir at the close-knit private golf club as staff and members shared the news. The conversation between the two men echoed a letter Blasey had previously sent to the elder Kavanaugh. Neither man returned requests for comment about the exchanges.
Blasey never explicitly addressed the credibility of his daughter’s allegations, but he presumably wouldn’t have supported the nomination of a man he believed tried to rape his daughter.
It wasn’t just Ford’s father. The national drama played out on a decidedly local scale as the D.C.-based family and friends of Ford’s quietly apologized to friends and family of Kavanaugh, even as the toxic political environment made it punitive for them to speak up publicly.
6. Ford Doesn’t Know the Location
Ford was unable to identify the location of the alleged assault.
After being asked under oath whether she remembered any more details about the event, she said she did not. However, in later interviews with friendly journalists (for “The Education of Brett Kavanaugh”), she elaborated on her earlier description of the house where the event allegedly occurred, speculating that it was a bachelor pad and noting that it lacked a lived-in feel. She also has changed her description of the location of the event from within a 1-mile radius of the country club to between her house and the club.
7. Ford Doesn’t Know How She Arrived
Ford was unable to say how she arrived at the location of the party where she claimed the assault occurred. Her recent retelling of the story include new speculation that she arrived with Keyser and that Keyser was her entree to the party because Keyser knew Mark Judge, details she was unable to provide when asked at the hearing.
8. Ford Does Not Know How She Got Home
Ford was unable to say how she got home, although in later versions of the story she said Keyser drove her home. Ford was frequently driven around by Keyser and by one of Ford’s brothers, making their inability to support her story a particular problem.
9. Ford Does Not Know the Date or Even What Time of Week
Ford’s lack of memory about the event included no memory of whether the event took place on a weekday or weekend.
10. Ford Somehow Remembers She Had Only One Beer, But Not Other Details
While Ford didn’t remember the location of the alleged event, when it happened, how she got there, or how she got home, she claims to remember she had precisely one beer. Ford’s high school friends reported that she was a heavy drinker at the time. It was unclear why she remembered the one beer detail and almost no other details.
11. Kavanaugh’s Contemporaneous Calendars Support His Claim
While the lack of specificity about Ford’s claims made them difficult to dispute, Kavanaugh had surprising contemporaneous evidence. He kept calendars of his daily schedule, including specifics about who attended which gatherings noted after the events. He did not have a free weekend during the summer of 1982, limiting the possible dates for the gathering that was claimed. Nor were there any events recorded similar to the one Ford described.
12. Ford Changed the Date of the Incident by Years from Her Initial Stories
Ford’s story changed many details over the years, including the year in which the assault was alleged to have occurred. She initially stated that the event occurred in the “mid-1980s” when texting the Washington Post hotline, told Sen. Dianne Feinstein that it occurred in the “early 80s,” and then finally settled on the specific summer of 1982 in the article published by the Post. She was unable to explain why her assessment of the date changed or how she ultimately determined 1982 was the correct year.
13. Character Witnesses from the Time Support Kavanaugh
When the allegations of sexual misconduct broke in the Washington Post, Kavanaugh’s female friends from high school quickly attested to his character. Some 65 women he knew in high school signed a letter about his conduct that they released in his defense. Additional groups of women signed letters after additional allegations — such as that he was a serial gang rapist who roamed the streets of suburban Maryland — were made by a client of Michael Avenatti’s.
While many Holton Arms alumnae signed a letter in support of Ford, an alumna, few attended the school at the same time as Ford or even claimed to know her.
14. Ford’s First Mention of Kavanaugh’s Name is 2012, After He Became a National Figure
Kavanaugh had been a public figure since working on Kenneth Starr’s independent counsel in the mid-1990s. From there he worked in the George W. Bush White House and went through two contentious confirmation battles to be a federal judge.
By 2012, he was identified in The New Yorker as the next likely nominee to the Supreme Court under a Republican presidency. There is no record of Ford naming Kavanaugh until that year, at best. In recent accounts, she acknowledges this year was the one in which she realized Kavanaugh had a national profile.
15. False Claims Were Made about Ford’s Inability to Fly
When the allegations were published in the Washington Post, the Senate Judiciary Committee wanted to hear from Ford immediately. After her lawyers stated publicly that she was willing to testify, the Judiciary Committee offered to fly to her and hear her testimony in an open or closed setting. While the offers to fly to her were not responded to, her lawyers told the committee she could not make an early hearing date in DC due to her fear of flying.
Under questioning from Rachel Mitchell, a sex crimes prosecutor, it was revealed that Ford did in fact fly to DC and flies regularly for pleasure, including to support her habit of global surf travel to remote islands. It was unclear why the false claims about fear of flying were made, although recent reporting suggests it may have been part of an attempt by her lawyers to delay the hearing date because, contrary to their statements, they knew their client did not want to testify and needed more time to convince her to change her mind.
16. Ford Scrubbed Her Social Media
When Ford’s claim went public, there was no social media footprint for her, while she was repeatedly presented as not particularly political. Her high school friends found that curious since she had been an active Facebook user, described as being “crazy” liberal.
17. Ford Said She Wanted to Stay Confidential, But First Call Was to Washington Post
The claim was made that Ford desired to keep her claims private. However, the first call she made about the matter was to the Washington Post tip line. And when she didn’t receive a response quickly enough, she said she would go to The New York Times if they didn’t respond soon.
Her other contact was with her members of Congress, although she claimed that she wasn’t quite sure how to contact her senator yet was able to reach her House member. Ford is a university professor with a Ph.D.
18. Ford’s Attorney Admitted a Motive of Desiring an Asterisk by Kavanaugh’s Name
Ford’s attorney admitted that she and her client were motivated by their support for abortion. The admission, first reported in Ryan Lovelace’s new book “Search and Destroy: Inside the Campaign Against Brett Kavanaugh,” was confirmed with video footage. The forthcoming pro-Ford book “Supreme Ambition” attempts to excuse Katz by claiming Lovelace misheard garbled audio of the event, but her words are in fact quite clear on the recording.
Tarnishing the reputation of a justice who would have the power to overturn abortion precedent Roe v. Wade “was part of what motivated Christine,” her attorney Debra Katz said. “Elections have consequences, but he will always have an asterisk next to his name,” she said of Kavanaugh.
19. Ford Has Benefited Politically, Financially, and Socially
The ACLU’s “Courage” award was not the first award bestowed on Ford. She has received several awards and accolades from liberal organizations, ranging from Sports Illustrated and Time Magazine to the YWCA, and near universal acclaim from the politicians whose views she shares. Nearly $1 million was raised for her in GoFundMe accounts. Ford has also been able to recast her troubled adolescence as a result of trauma at Kavanaugh’s hands.
20. Nothing in Kavanaugh’s Past Remotely Similar to the Claim for 37 Years
While sexual assailants usually don’t stop at one violent sexual assault, nothing in Kavanaugh’s past even remotely matches Ford’s claims. His dozens, if not hundreds, of female friends — including several ex-girlfriends — vouch for his character and have done so against unbelievable pressure campaigns. Even the anti-Kavanaugh authors of “The Education of Brett Kavanaugh” acknowledge that they were unable to find any evidence of sexual misconduct in the past 30 years despite extensive digging.
21. Memory Manipulation?
Believing, in keeping with the evidence, that Ford’s story is not accurate does not require a conclusion that she is lying. Scientific research shows that memories of traumatic events are malleable and that some types of therapy are particularly likely to introduce false elements into memory.
Ford has attempted to use discussions with her marriage therapist as evidence for her recalling this event as early as 2012, but has refused to release those notes to confirm that claim or to allow an assessment of whether therapeutic techniques known to introduce false memories were employed in those sessions. Without external corroboration of her story — and there is none — it is impossible to conclude that her allegations are true even if one believes she is completely sincere in making them.
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https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/federal-judges-association-barr-trump-meeting-010916447.html
2000. DOJ alumni have signed on that Barr should resign.
I read there are 117,000 DOJ employees at present and over 8,000 prosecutors or attornies on staff
I can't imagine it being too hard to find 2,000 Trump haters such as the above Bush appointee and Democrat s among the alumni.
No peep amongst them about the totally political way in which the law has been applied to Trump people vs crats
Or no fed employee citizens vs fed employees who seem immune to justice with some few exceptions.
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https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/federal-judges-association-barr-trump-meeting-010916447.html
2000. DOJ alumni have signed on that Barr should resign.
I read there are 117,000 DOJ employees at present and over 8,000 prosecutors or attornies on staff
I can't imagine it being too hard to find 2,000 Trump haters such as the above Bush appointee and Democrat s among the alumni.
No peep amongst them about the totally political way in which the law has been applied to Trump people vs crats
Or no fed employee citizens vs fed employees who seem immune to justice with some few exceptions.
It's nice to have the enemy from within identify itself.
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The Chief Justice Quashes a Political Stunt
Roberts says there’s no basis for a liberal smear against a retiring judge.
By The Editorial Board
May 10, 2020 6:04 pm ET
The Democratic campaign to delegitimize conservative judges goes beyond Senate threats to restructure the Supreme Court. Consider the progressive stunt that Chief Justice John Roberts put to bed Friday.
Judge Tom Griffith, a 65-year-old George W. Bush appointee on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, announced in March he is retiring. A progressive group called Demand Justice, run by two Obama Administration alumni, began promoting a conspiracy theory that Judge Griffith had taken a bribe to step down. The real goal was to prevent President Trump from filling the seat, to which he has since nominated Justin Walker.
The group submitted a letter to Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan of the D.C. Circuit asking for “an inquiry into the circumstances surrounding Judge Thomas Griffith’s intended retirement” including whether he “accepted anything of value in exchange for his retirement.” The letter cited no evidence. It pointed to a New York Times article that claimed Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had urged some conservative judges to step down while the Republican Senate could confirm replacements.
If that’s improper, then the chorus of liberals who called for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to retire in President Obama’s second term had better watch out. Federal judges are entitled to weigh the political environment in deciding when to retire, and Senators have no leverage over judges with lifetime appointments. In any case the smears prompted Mr. Griffith, who is known for his integrity, to give a statement to NPR last week that “the sole reason” for his decision is his wife’s “debilitating chronic illness,” and that he had told his family and clerks last year.
The Demand Justice letter ought to have been ignored. Instead Judge Srinivasan on May 1 kicked it up to Chief Justice John Roberts. Judge Srinivasan, a Barack Obama nominee, is young enough to be considered for the Supreme Court in a Joe Biden administration (but insufficiently left-wing to make Demand Justice’s Supreme Court shortlist). Perhaps fearing progressive wrath, he asked that the complaint be reviewed by a different circuit.
The request was tossed by the Chief Justice. Judge Srinivasan’s order “does not meet the prerequisites” for a judicial conduct complaint, so “the Chief Justice has determined that a transfer of the matter is not appropriate at this juncture,” said a terse note Friday to the D.C. Circuit from the Supreme Court. Put differently, there is no evidence of wrongdoing and judges shouldn’t entertain the wild conspiracies manufactured by Demand Justice.
Good for the Chief. Obama alumni laundered through the D.C. Circuit a corruption smear against a judge ending a distinguished career to care for his wife. This is the latest gambit in a comprehensive progressive campaign to intimidate and control the judiciary. The Chief can continue to protect judicial independence by putting the kibosh on the Judicial Conference’s Code of Conduct Committee’s attempt to bar judges from the Federalist Society.
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/05/the-politicized-order-inviting-amicus-briefs-against-the-flynn-cases-dismissal/158615/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NR%20Daily%20Monday%20through%20Friday%202020-05-13&utm_term=NRDaily-Smart
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/05/the-politicized-order-inviting-amicus-briefs-against-the-flynn-cases-dismissal/158615/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NR%20Daily%20Monday%20through%20Friday%202020-05-13&utm_term=NRDaily-Smart
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/387244.php
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Judge Sullivan vs. Justice Ginsburg
By inviting outside help, the Flynn jurist is acting ‘beyond the pale.’
By WSJ The Editorial Board
May 14, 2020 7:29 pm ET
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is displayed on a laptop computer during oral arguments before the Supreme Court on May 6.
PHOTO: ANDREW HARRER/BLOOMBERG NEWS
In his zeal to convict Michael Flynn of something, federal Judge Emmet Sullivan is harming his own reputation. He’s also violating the law, as he’d know if he had read Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s opinion last week overturning the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
On Wednesday Judge Sullivan appointed an ex-judge to explore whether former Mr. Flynn should be held in criminal contempt for perjury even though prosecutors have sought to drop the charges against the former national security adviser. The relevant case is U.S. v. Sineneng-Smith, in which the Supreme Court reversed a Ninth Circuit ruling striking down a criminal statute involving immigration as unconstitutionally overbroad. The case was overturned because instead of adjudicating the issues raised by the parties, the Ninth Circuit panel invited outside groups to brief them about a defense the defendant never raised.
This is akin to what Judge Sullivan is trying to do with Mr. Flynn by asking outside parties to make new arguments for prosecution—and even appointing former judge John Gleeson, who has shown clear public bias (in an op-ed) against Mr. Flynn, to make the case. Judge Sullivan’s abuse is more egregious given that the real prosecutors now say they don’t believe they can honestly prosecute Mr. Flynn.
Justice Ginsburg’s argument is that the job of judges is to judge, not to substitute for prosecutors. As she wrote in a 2008 case, in our system of justice “courts follow the principle of party presentation, i.e., the parties frame the issues for decision and the courts generally serve as neutral arbiters of matters the parties present.” Last week in Sineneng-Smith, she wrote that “the appeals panel departed so drastically from the principle of party presentation as to constitute an abuse of discretion.”
The 9-0 ruling doesn’t bode well for Judge Sullivan on appeal, and it makes us wonder if in his rage at the prosecution he has lost his legal, and maybe emotional, bearings. Judge Sullivan is acting like Justice Ginsburg said the Ninth Circuit judges did: “beyond the pale.”
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second post
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16025/judge-emmet-sullivan
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Emmet Sullivan vs. the D.C. Circuit
Another precedent that rebuts the judge’s ruling in the Flynn case.
By The Editorial Board
May 15, 2020 6:52 pm ET
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Sri Srinivasan in 2013.
PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES
Federal Judge Emmet Sullivan has refused to accept the prosecution and defense agreement to drop the charges against Michael Flynn for lying to the FBI, despite a mountain of law saying he doesn’t have the authority. We wrote Friday about Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s recent ruling that cuts against his decision to solicit outside briefs. And now we’re reminded of another precedent that is even more on point about the judge’s wayward logic.
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The 2016 ruling in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals concerned another judge’s challenge to a prosecution and defense agreement. In U.S. v. Fokker Services, Judge Richard Leon refused to accept a deferred prosecution agreement between the Obama Justice Department and a Dutch aerospace services company. He thought it was too lenient.
Unable to persuade the judge to budge, the parties filed a writ of mandamus for relief with the D.C. Circuit. The ruling by a three-judge panel wasn’t gentle in rebuking Judge Leon’s decision as contrary to law and constitutional understanding—and for reasons that bear directly on Judge Sullivan’s misguided attempt to supplant the executive power of prosecution with his own judicial authority.
“[D]ecisions to dismiss pending criminal charges—no less than decisions to initiate charges and to identify which charges to bring—lie squarely within the ken of prosecutorial discretion,” said the court. It quoted the court’s 1967 precedent, Newman v. U.S.: “[f]ew subjects are less adapted to judicial review than the exercise by the Executive of his discretion in deciding when and whether to institute criminal proceedings, or what precise charge shall be made, or whether to dismiss a proceeding once brought.”
Who wrote that opinion? None other than Sri Srinivasan, a Barack Obama appointee and now chief judge of the D.C. Circuit. He was joined by conservative giants Laurence Silberman and David Sentelle. The court didn’t dismiss Judge Leon from the case, but it did overrule his objections to the deal and remanded the case back to him with those instructions.
Here’s the kicker: If the Justice Department files a writ of mandamus to remove Judge Sullivan from the case, it would go to the D.C. Circuit. A different panel might get the case but the judges would have to consider Judge Srinivasan’s precedent. It’s true the Flynn case is politically charged, but on the legal merits Judge Sullivan would be wise to stand down before he does further harm to his reputation.
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https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1261447227127599106.html
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third post
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/democrats-have-abandoned-civil-liberties?r=2mlho&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&utm_source=twitter
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https://www.lawfareblog.com/constitutional-response-trumps-firings-inspectors-general
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https://www.lawfareblog.com/constitutional-response-trumps-firings-inspectors-general
Murky waters, I'm not sure what to make of this. Is an IG a "principle Officer" of the United States, like a Treasury Secretary or any cabinet official is? It's not an official named in the constitution or running a federal agency.
Who does the IG report to? If it is the executive branch, doesn't Congress have the power to order its own investigations?
The Inspector General Act of 1978, as amended:
https://www.ignet.gov/sites/default/files/files/igactasof1010(1).pdf
What about Mueller investigatiing the agencies and the administration? He wasn't appointed by the President or confirmed by the Senate, but had massive powers and budget. My understanding is that the President could have fired him at any time constitutionally, but didn't because of political constraints. Different statute: https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/28/part-600
Any law that redefines the constitutional separation of the defined branches is not a constitutional law, IMHO. If these are constitutional officers, why not define them in a constitutional amendment which is much harder by design than passing a law with simple majorities signed by one President.
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/06/the-emperors-new-law/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NR%20Daily%20Monday%20through%20Friday%202020-06-16&utm_term=NRDaily-Smart
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The Berman Resistance
The grandstanding former U.S. Attorney is no political martyr.
By The Editorial Board
June 21, 2020 12:46 pm ET
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U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Geoffrey Berman in New York, Oct. 10, 2019
PHOTO: JUSTIN LANE/SHUTTERSTOCK
So here’s the plan. We need to remove a U.S. Attorney because he’s investigating associates of the President. Let’s wait until four months before the election, and let’s do it on a Friday night so it looks suspicious and the guy can refuse to step down and make himself a martyr to the Resistance. Yeah, that’ll fool everybody.
That’s what the media and Democrats want everyone to believe about President Trump’s weekend dismissal of U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman. It’s more accurate to say this looks like a fiasco of bungled execution by the Administration and self-indulgence by Mr. Berman that is being overplayed as an abuse of power. In other words, it’s your average Trump melodrama.
Trump, Dreamers And The Supreme Court
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Mr. Berman has been U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York for more than two years under a judicial appointment but was never nominated or confirmed by the Senate. Mr. Trump has every right to fire Mr. Berman as an inferior officer in the executive branch. Attorney General Bill Barr was negotiating with Mr. Berman over a transfer to another senior job on Friday when the Justice Department issued a statement that Mr. Berman is “stepping down,” which is standard Justice Department language in these cases.
The White House said at about the same time that the President would nominate SEC Chairman Jay Clayton to replace Mr. Berman. The highly competent Mr. Clayton, a New Yorker, had planned to leave the Administration but said he’d stay for the U.S. Attorney job.
Mr. Berman then issued a grandstanding press release late Friday saying he wouldn’t go until a successor was nominated and confirmed by the Senate. Mr. Trump finally fired him on Saturday at Mr. Barr’s recommendation, and Mr. Barr said in a letter to Mr. Berman that his deputy, Audrey Strauss, will replace him until a successor is confirmed.
That should end this as a legal matter. Mr. Berman doesn’t have squatter’s rights to the job, and there is no violation of law or abuse of power here.
The political cost is a different story. The Washington Resistance to Mr. Trump is portraying this as an attempt to protect his political allies. Mr. Berman has prosecuted Mr. Trump’s former associates, including attorney Michael Cohen, and the hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels. He’s also said to be investigating Deutsche Bank’s business dealings with the Trump Organization before Mr. Trump was President.
But our Justice sources say Mr. Berman’s active investigations don’t involve Mr. Trump’s allies, except a minor one related to Trump adviser Rudy Giuliani. Replacing Mr. Berman with Mr. Clayton or anyone else won’t make investigations go away. The minute anyone moved to shut one of them down, the news would leak and career prosecutors would resign. Mr. Barr’s Saturday letter to Mr. Berman said he tasked Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz with examining any “improper interference” with current investigations. If this is a coverup, it’s the most inept in history.
The shame is that all of this wastes more of Mr. Barr’s political capital. The AG is trying to clean up the Justice Department after its 2016 campaign abuses, and U.S. Attorney John Durham is investigating what happened and why. But the media and the FBI and Justice officials who spied on Trump campaign officials, promoted the false Steele dossier, and lied to the FISA court are desperate to tarnish Mr. Barr before Mr. Durham reports. That’s what’s really behind all the outrage over what should be a routine replacement of a U.S. Attorney.
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https://www.nationalreview.com/news/appeals-court-orders-judge-to-allow-doj-to-drop-michael-flynn-case/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=breaking&utm_campaign=newstrack&utm_term=20714154
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https://spectator.org/in-re-michael-t-flynn-petitioner/
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https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2020/07/02/judicial-watch-sues-dc-for-equal-access-to-paint-city-streets-n599715
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Voting along party lines except for one Democratic dissent, the House last week approved a bill to grant statehood to almost all of the District of Columbia—and create two safe Democratic Senate seats in a city that typically votes 90% Democratic in presidential elections. But while Congress has the power to admit new states, changing the district’s status would require a constitutional amendment.
The Framers had good reason to put the capital outside the borders or control of any state. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, writing in opposition to a 1964 statehood bill, summed up their view: “It was indispensably necessary to the independence and the very existence of the new Federal Government to have a seat of government which was not subject to the jurisdiction or control of any State.”
In 1783, a mutinous band of Continental soldiers drove Congress out of Philadelphia after Pennsylvania’s government refused assistance. The recent protests and riots in Washington’s streets make it easy to imagine a similar clash if the federal government lacked sovereignty over the city. To prevent such a situation, the Constitution’s Framers wrote a provision giving Congress the power “to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such district (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of government of the United States.” Congress took over 100 square miles of Maryland and Virginia with the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1801.
In 1846, Congress retroceded Virginia’s portion, now Arlington County and a portion of the city of Alexandria. Was that constitutional? We think not. While the retrocession didn’t alter the configuration of the district in as fundamental a way as the House is now trying to do, the most logical reading of the Constitution is that no change in the district’s boundaries is permissible and that the original cession is irrevocable.
The Supreme Court has never ruled on the question. When it reached the justices, in Phillips v. Payne (1875), they dismissed the case, holding that the plaintiffs—taxpayers seeking reunion with the District of Columbia, which had lower taxes than Virginia—lacked standing. But if Congress approves statehood, other states would clearly have standing to challenge the dilution of their voting rights by the addition of two senators from an area ineligible for admission as a state.
The House bill attempts to hew to the Constitution’s design by excluding a small area of the district—including the White House, other federal buildings and the National Mall—and leaving it as a federal district. RFK rejected a similar proposal in 1964: “A small Federal enclave comprised primarily of parks and Federal buildings . . . clearly does not meet the concept of the ‘permanent seat of government’ which the framers held.”
There’s an additional problem: The bill violates the 23rd Amendment, ratified in 1961, which enfranchised the district’s residents in presidential elections. The amendment allocates three electoral votes to “the district constituting the seat of government of the United States.” Under the House bill, that would be not the new state (which would get three electors of its own), but the rump federal district, with lots of structures but few or no inhabitants.
The bill provides for “expedited procedures” in both congressional chambers to propose an amendment repealing the 23rd. But doing so would require two-thirds majorities, and ratification needs approval from 38 state legislatures. That would require broad bipartisan cooperation—a tall order in today’s political climate, especially if one party sees an advantage in leaving the problem unsolved.
There are strong arguments for granting Washington residents representation in Congress. The Framers understood and were troubled by the undemocratic contradiction of denying capital residents the vote. Alexander Hamilton believed the federal district should have representation in the House but not the Senate (whose members were chosen by state legislatures until 1913). James Madison countered that the new capital’s residents would have an elected local government and “find sufficient inducement of interest to become willing parties to the cession” to justify their lack of congressional representation.
The District of Columbia has always been an imperfect solution to a constitutional problem. The debate over its role and status will and should continue. But abolishing the permanent seat of the federal government would be a profound change—the sort that can be accomplished only with a national consensus implemented through a constitutional amendment, not by a law pushed through for partisan advantage.
Messrs. Rivkin and Casey practice appellate and constitutional law in Washington. They served in the White House Counsel’s Office and Justice Department under Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
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Matthew Fontaine Maury isn’t a household name, but an active naval vessel and a building at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., are named for him. That should change.
Maury (1806-73) was 19 when he joined the Navy. For years he navigated the globe, studying the ocean and learning about wind patterns. He became one of the founders of oceanography.
He made his mark on the country in another way. At the outset of the Civil War, Maury returned home to Virginia. He resigned his commission, choosing treason, secession and slavery over his oath to the Constitution. While fighting for the Confederacy, Maury designed naval mines that sank Union ships. Nothing in the U.S. military should honor his name.
I’m a proud graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy. As an F-18 fighter pilot, I flew more than 30 combat missions in Operation Iraqi Freedom. I know from experience how the military can transform lives and teach leadership.
That’s why it’s time for the military to rename bases, buildings, vessels and anything else that honors those who fought for the Confederacy. Their support for slavery was wrong—and calamitous for the country. Some 618,000 Americans died in the Civil War, nearly as many as have perished in the nation’s other wars combined.
Some claim that stripping the rebels’ honors is erasing history. I respectfully disagree. I believe Americans must study history and learn from it; service members are encouraged to read history on their own time, and veterans like me maintain the habit. But studying history doesn’t require honoring Confederate figures.
Likewise, you can celebrate towering leaders from the past for their contributions to America—such as George Washington and Abraham Lincoln—while drawing a firm line against honoring those who fought to destroy America.
The work of reckoning with the Confederate past is too important to be left to the mob. Vandalism is an affront to the rule of law. Renaming buildings and removing statues must be done in an orderly fashion through legitimate channels. American society is built on laws. Adherence to the law is the only thing that separates any society from barbarism.
This is also why the calls to defund or abolish police departments are outrageous. My stepfather, a member of the Los Angeles Police Department, put his life on the line for every family in our community. The sacrifices of law enforcement officers and their families too often go unnoticed.
An overwhelming majority of Americans agree that law enforcement needs reform and that abusive officers should be held accountable. But slashing the police budget defies logic and invites disaster.
America’s true heroes are those who fight to preserve order, deliver us from evil and ensure all Americans are treated equally. Pro-slavery secessionists who split the nation in two and killed so many of their countrymen don’t deserve such honors.
Let’s agree on new American heroes to honor. This nation knows no shortage of valor.
Mr. Garcia, a Republican, represents California’s 25th Congressional District.
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https://www.nationalreview.com/news/flynn-judge-refuses-to-dismiss-case-petitions-for-additional-hearing/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=breaking&utm_campaign=newstrack&utm_term=20862155
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I don't really understand how the legal profession simply allows endless repeat going over the same ground over and over again
why can this not be ended for this rogue judge
why can he keep doing this?
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I don't really understand how the legal profession simply allows endless repeat going over the same ground over and over again
why can this not be ended for this rogue judge
why does can he keep doing this?
Running out the clock. Hoping for a Biden (Deep State Puppet) Presidency.
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Of Pardons and Presidents
Trump’s clemency for Stone has nothing on Clinton and McDougal.
By The Editorial Board
July 12, 2020 4:00 pm ET
Say this for President Trump’s commutation of Roger Stone’s 40-month prison sentence late Friday: At least he did it during an election campaign so voters can add this to the ledger of character issues they take into the voting booth. Like everything else about this Presidency, its scandals, real and imagined, are public.
On the merits, the judgment of Attorney General William Barr sounds right. Mr. Barr recently called Mr. Stone’s prosecution “righteous” and “appropriate.” He had his department review the excessive recommendation of up to nine years in prison by special counsel Robert Mueller’s prosecutors, and Justice revised its recommendation in line with what the judge ordered.
Mr. Stone is no martyr. He is by his own description a political performance artist, and he finally ran into prosecutors who weren’t amused. There are legitimate questions about the anti-Trump bias of the jury forewoman, but the full jury found Mr. Stone lied to investigators and tried to bully witnesses. He was probably trying to protect the lies he had previously told to make himself seem more influential than he was. The proper avenue for addressing trial bias is on appeal.
The commutation spared Mr. Stone from having to report to prison on Tuesday, where the 67-year-old would have been vulnerable to Covid-19. But Mr. Trump didn’t issue a full pardon, which means Mr. Stone’s felony conviction stands and so does his appeal. It’s too bad Mr. Trump let Mr. Barr spend political capital to recommend a lighter prison sentence only to commute that sentence later. Mr. Trump tends to do that to people who work for him.
Mr. Trump is right that there’s no evidence that Mr. Stone knows some deep, dark secrets about his ties to Russia. The Mueller investigators spent two years digging into that and came up with little beyond Mr. Stone’s lies about his contacts with WikiLeaks and the 2016 Trump campaign.
As for the cries of “corruption” and “cronyism,” join the presidential club. Mr. Trump views the world in terms of political friends and enemies, and the commutation rewarded a friend. That is an abuse of the pardon power in our view, but we recall Bill Clinton’s last-minute January 2001 pardon of Susan McDougal, who went to jail for contempt rather than tell prosecutors what she knew about Mr. Clinton’s Whitewater transactions. Worse, Mr. Clinton made public comments in the autumn of 1996 that suggested Ms. McDougal could expect the pardon she received. That history is now whitewashed away by a press corps that talks as if the pardon power was a sacred trust before Mr. Trump took office.
Mr. Trump is also scored for not following Justice Department protocol on pardons, but that’s precisely what Mr. Clinton did in pardoning Marc Rich in 2001. Does anyone recall that Barack Obama commuted the sentence of an unrepentant Puerto Rican terrorist who had become a cause celebre on the political left, and of Chelsea Manning, whose leaks jeopardized American troops and Afghan translators fighting the Taliban?
Nancy Pelosi claims to be so upset by the Stone commutation that she’s considering legislation to restrict the President’s pardon power. She surely knows that no Speaker of the House is above the law, which means Article II of the U.S. Constitution that makes the pardon power as close to categorical as anything in the great document. For some reason, she never introduced such a bill when Democratic Presidents were pardoning their friends.
Our hope is that the Stone commutation doesn’t interfere with what would be a deserved pardon for Michael Flynn. The former national security adviser was railroaded by James Comey’s FBI, then denied exculpatory evidence by Mr. Mueller’s prosecutors. That would be a proper use of the pardon power, which is to correct an injustice. The voters can judge it all in November.
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second
Pardon Michael Flynn
Time for the President to end this highly politicized prosecution.
By The WSJ Editorial Board
July 10, 2020 7:05 pm ET
The prosecution of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn has already exposed the bad faith of the FBI and Justice Department in pursuing him even when they knew there was no basis for an investigation. Now federal Judge Emmet Sullivan is continuing the legal torture by appealing an order from a panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to drop the charges. President Trump should step in now and end this farce by pardoning Mr. Flynn.
In an honest process, Judge Sullivan would have signed off on dropping charges once prosecutors and the defense agreed there is no case to adjudicate. He refused. Mr. Flynn then sought a writ of mandamus from the D.C. Circuit, and he prevailed in a 2-1 opinion that ordered Judge Sullivan to dismiss the case.
Judge Sullivan is now refusing again by requesting this week an en banc review of the writ by the full D.C. Circuit. Though we don’t know whether the full court will take the appeal, remember that Senate Democrats and Barack Obama packed the D.C. Circuit with liberal judges after ending the judicial filibuster on a partisan Senate vote in 2013.
Judge Sullivan knows that once the court takes the case en banc, the panel opinion is immediately vacated under D.C. Circuit rules. That means the writ ordering him to dismiss vanishes, and the eventual en banc ruling would control. Mr. Flynn’s legal agony would continue for months and perhaps until a Biden Administration takes office.
This is outrageous and continues the politicized nature of this sorry prosecution. The review of the Flynn case ordered by Attorney General Bill Barr found the FBI and Justice Department withheld exculpatory evidence, revised the bureau’s 302 interview forms, and did an end run around normal White House procedures to sandbag Mr. Flynn. All of this has tarnished two powerful executive branch institutions, and Judge Sullivan’s behavior threatens to do the same for the judicial branch.
Start with the court appearance when Judge Sullivan from out of left field accused Mr. Flynn of “treason.” This is a man who served in the 82nd Airborne and had top intelligence jobs in Iraq and Afghanistan. Judge Sullivan has suggested he might call career officials to explain how Justice decided to drop the charges against Mr. Flynn, an intrusion into executive authority.
He also appointed a former judge, who had already made his bias clear in a Washington Post op-ed, to present arguments against the government’s motion to dismiss. Judge Sullivan has even suggested he might charge Mr. Flynn with perjury for changing his plea after the discovery of new evidence.
***
Cases like this are precisely when a President’s pardon power is most appropriate. Mr. Flynn’s defenders have let the legal process play out in hopes he might be fully vindicated with the case’s dismissal. But because of Judge Sullivan’s gamesmanship, which seriously impinges on powers the Constitution reserves for the executive branch, the process no longer serves justice.
Mr. Flynn has been vindicated twice—first by a Justice Department motion to dismiss, and then the writ of mandamus by the D.C. Circuit panel. Mr. Trump should act while the panel decision by Judge Neomi Rao joined by Judge Karen Henderson still controls and offers a solid legal rationale.
By ordering Judge Sullivan to drop the charges but stopping short of removing him from the case, the panel treated the judge with far more respect than he is treating the panel’s opinion. If the Flynn case weren’t so political, there is no chance that the full court would hear an en banc appeal of a panel’s writ of mandamus ruling.
Mr. Trump’s pardon statement would be most persuasive if it sticks to the facts and the law rather than assailing his own political enemies. He could rightly emphasize the general’s innocence, the dishonesty of the prosecution, and the transparent bias of a partisan judge.
By pardoning Mr. Flynn now, President Trump would spare a man who served his country for decades from further tribulation. He would also rescue the courts from discrediting themselves as much as the FBI and Justice have already done.
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16239/district-attorneys-investigate-presidents
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".The argument against allowing state prosecutors to rummage through a sitting president's papers and documents is that there is no limiting principle..."
doesn't there have to be probable cause
is the DA going after a suspected crime or simply searching to hope to find a crime?
is this case the latter?
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".The argument against allowing state prosecutors to rummage through a sitting president's papers and documents is that there is no limiting principle..."
doesn't there have to probably cause
is the DA going after a suspected crime or simply searching to hope to find a crime?
is this case the latter?
https://www.cato.org/policy-report/januaryfebruary-2010/criminalization-almost-everything
Dershowitz points out that this was a technique developed by Beria, the infamous sidekick of Stalin, who said, “Show me the man and I’ll find you the crime.” That really is something that has survived the Soviet Union and has arrived in the good old USA. “Show me the man,” says any federal prosecutor, “and I can show you the crime.” This is not an exaggeration.
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Beria would fit right into the modern Democratic Party
like a key in a lock
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https://www.lawfareblog.com/what-heck-are-federal-law-enforcement-officers-doing-portland
=================================
NYT
Were the Actions of Federal Agents in Portland Legal?
The Department of Homeland Security can point to federal statutes protecting property to justify the arrests of protesters in Portland, Ore., but whether they stretched the law would be up to a judge.
Published July 17, 2020
Updated July 18, 2020, 1:04 p.m. ET
The Department of Homeland Security’s deployment of federal agents to Portland, Ore., has shown the broad legal authority an agency created to protect the United States from national security threats has to crack down on American citizens.
After President Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to send personnel to protect monuments, statues and federal property during continuing protests against racism and police brutality, the Department of Homeland Security formed “rapid deployment teams.” Those are made up of officers from Customs and Border Protection, the Transportation Security Administration, the Coast Guard and Immigration and Customs Enforcement who back up the Federal Protective Service, which is already responsible for protecting federal property.
Videos showing federal agents using tear gas on protesters and complaints that federal agents lacking insignia are pulling people from the streets have raised questions over the legal authority that homeland security officials have to crack down on citizens. In Portland, federal agents have acted against the expressed opposition of the local authorities.
But officials in Washington said they had clear authority. Customs and Border Protection, which sent tactical border agents to Portland, cited 40 U.S. Code 1315, which under the Homeland Security Act of 2002 gives the department’s secretary the power to deputize other federal agents to assist the Federal Protective Service in protecting federal property, such as the courthouse in Portland.
Those agents can carry firearms, arrest those accused of committing a crime without a warrant and conduct investigations “on and off the property in question.”
“An interpretation of that authority so broadly seems to undermine all the other careful checks and balances on D.H.S.’s power because the officers’ power is effectively limitless and all encompassing,” said Garrett Graff, a historian who studies the Department of Homeland Security’s history and development.
The department has justified the tactics of the federal agents in Portland by pointing to dozens of episodes, including the defacement of federal property with graffiti, the damaging of buildings with fireworks and the throwing of rocks and bottles at officers.
Detaining demonstrators away from federal properties has also raised questions. Former officials at the Department of Homeland Security said it would normally only dispatch agents to assist with local incidents if the state or municipal governments asked for help and deputized that responsibility. In Portland, local leaders have done the opposite.
But the lack of any consent from local officials just means federal agents cannot rely on state and local laws to justify the arrests. Federal agents can still detain the demonstrators away from federal property if they can assert probable cause that a federal crime was violated, according to Peter Vincent, a former top lawyer with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which has also sent agents to cities across the United States.
“Homeland security’s authorities are so extraordinarily broad that they can find federal laws that they are authorized to enforce across the spectrum, so long as it has some national security, public safety, human trafficking, criminal street gang conspiracy,” Mr. Vincent said.
But civil rights lawyers and demonstrators have questioned whether the department has used that authority to violate protesters’ right to free speech.
“What is happening now in Portland should concern everyone in the United States,” said Jann Carson, the interim executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon. “Usually when we see people in unmarked cars forcibly grab someone off the street, we call it kidnapping. The actions of the militarized federal officers are flat-out unconstitutional and will not go unanswered.”
The American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Oregon on Friday also sued the Department of Homeland Security and the Marshal’s Service for “indiscriminately using tear gas, rubber bullets and acoustic weapons.”
One demonstrator, Mark Pettibone, 29, said agents who were in camouflage but lacked any insignia forced him into an unmarked van and did not tell him why he was being arrested. Deploying agents without any identification violates the protocols of police departments across the United States.
Mark Morgan, the acting secretary of Customs and Border Protection, said the agents did display signs that they were federal agents but withheld their names for their own safety.
Zolan Kanno-Youngs is the homeland security correspondent, based in Washington. He covers the Department of Homeland Security, immigration, border issues, transnational crime and the federal government's response to national emergencies and security threats. @KannoYoungs
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Its D1, so the tone is what it is, but some interesting info in here:
https://www.defenseone.com/politics/2020/07/top-intel-dem-demands-information-dhs-surveillance-protesters/167112/?oref=defense_one_breaking_nl
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https://www.city-journal.org/inherent-dangers-in-prosecutorial-power
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more Dem lawyer political warfare
are the lawyers the largest group of funding for Democrat Party?
https://www.syracuse.com/state/2020/08/ny-ag-letitia-james-to-make-major-announcement-after-deutsche-bank-turns-over-trump-finances.html
:roll: :x
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https://www.lawenforcementtoday.com/soros-funded-california-da-determine-offenders-needs-before-charging-them-with-looting/
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https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/dershowitz-hatch-act-congress-justice/2020/09/05/id/985555/
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Foreign Tyranny by U.S. Lawsuit
Dictators from Napoleon III to Fidel Castro have taken advantage of the American legal system.
By Diego A. Zambrano
Sept. 2, 2020 6:52 pm ET
If you have a grievance against a foreign government, it’s almost impossible to find redress in U.S. courts. The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 bars most such claims. But there’s no bar to foreign governments bringing cases as plaintiffs—and dictators have increasingly taken advantage of the U.S. legal system to pursue political ends and strengthen their rule.
As the Journal reported recently, the Chinese Communist Party has systematically used U.S. civil lawsuits as part of a “multidimensional legal war” to harass dissidents and force them to return to China. In 2016 Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan used proxy plaintiffs to file a claim in the U.S. against his main opponent, Muhammed Fethullah Gülen, a cleric who lives in Pennsylvania. Venezuela’s socialist regime has litigated cases against its democratic opponent, Juan Guaidó, over Venezuelan property and business interests in this country. A top-ranking Venezuelan official sued the Journal for libel in 2016 over an article reporting he was under investigation for his possible involvement in drug trafficking; a federal judge dismissed the case in 2017.
I have found in my research that over the years foreign dictators—including Mao Zedong and Fidel Castro—have litigated a wide variety of civil claims in U.S. courts, using the American legal system as a tool to promote their policies or harass opponents.
Why does the U.S. give foreign authoritarians expansive access to its courts? The answer lies in old legal precedent involving Napoleon III, who reigned as emperor of France from 1852-70. In 1867, an American ship, the Sapphire, collided with a French transport vessel near San Francisco. The French government, in the name of the emperor, filed suit in a federal court to recover damages for the crash. The Sapphire’s owner challenged the “right of the Emperor of France to have brought suit in our courts.” In The Sapphire (1870), the Supreme Court rejected that argument, holding that to deny a foreign emperor access to American courts “would manifest a want of comity and friendly feeling.”
As a general matter, opening courts to foreigners makes sense. Foreign litigants often have legitimate claims against U.S. citizens or corporations, and U.S. courts have an interest in holding domestic parties accountable. Moreover, opening courts to foreign litigants promotes reciprocity. If foreign countries can sue in U.S. courts, they are more likely to give the U.S. government permission to sue in their own courts.
The problem is that U.S. courts have given unfettered access to almost any foreign regime imaginable. In 1960 Castro nationalized and expropriated any property in Cuba “in which American nationals had an interest.” This prompted disputes between American property owners and Cuba’s Communist regime. Castro’s government filed a case in New York against an American company, asking a federal court to enforce its expropriation order. The defendants argued that U.S. courts shouldn’t aid a foreign totalitarian government, especially because Cuba didn’t grant Americans reciprocal access to Cuban courts. Less than two years after the Cuban Missile Crisis, in Banco Nacional de Cuba v. Sabbatino (1964), the Supreme Court rejected the defendant’s arguments, allowed Cuba to expropriate property from U.S. nationals, and even recognized Cuba’s expropriation order as an “act of state” that U.S. courts couldn’t re-examine.
The power of these precedents largely laid dormant until recently. But legal cases filed by China, Russia, Turkey and Venezuela make it imperative to rethink foreign regimes’ access to the American legal system. Vladimir Putin’s Russia has been one of the most prolific authoritarian governments to take advantage of U.S. courts. Since 2011, “Kremlin proxies have exploited U.S. courts by pursuing superficially legitimate lawsuits” as part of “global harassment campaigns against the Kremlin’s enemies,” according to a 2018 Atlantic Council report.
Only Congress can prevent America’s democratic institutions from lending a hand to illiberal regimes around the world. And there is a straightforward fix. State governments have adopted laws to address similar claims in the free-speech context: anti-Slapp statutes, an acronym for Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation. These laws allow defendants to demonstrate that they are being sued for exercising their constitutional right to freedom of speech or association. If defendants can make that showing, the statutes make it much harder for plaintiffs to pursue their claims and even penalize plaintiffs who engage in political harassment through lawsuits.
Congress could easily enact a Foreign Sovereign anti-Slapp statute. Like state anti-Slapp laws, it would allow defendants to demonstrate that a foreign government or its proxy has sued them for political purposes, or for exercising rights protected by the Constitution. The burden would then shift to the plaintiffs to demonstrate that they will prevail on the merits, that they aren’t attempting to abuse legal process, and, in the case of individuals or companies, that they are not a proxy for a foreign dictatorship. The statute could also provide for successful defendants to collect attorney’s fees and petition for further penalties.
The U.S. needs new weapons to address this abuse of the legal system. By erecting barriers to political litigation, a federal statute would discourage authoritarian regimes from filing these cases in U.S. courts.
Mr. Zambrano is an assistant professor of law at Stanford.
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/09/why-government-lawyers-are-defending-trump/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NR%20Daily%20Saturday%202020-09-12&utm_term=NRDaily-Smart
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https://thefederalist.com/2020/09/19/why-arent-we-allowed-to-talk-about-george-soross-plan-to-remake-america/
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/10/court-packing-would-be-the-biggest-scandal-in-decades/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NR%20Daily%20Monday%20through%20Friday%202020-10-06&utm_term=NRDaily-Smart
https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/10/the-democrats-are-flirting-with-the-destruction-of-the-judiciary/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NR%20Daily%20Monday%20through%20Friday%202020-10-06&utm_term=NRDaily-Smart
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https://www.judicialwatch.org/corruption-chronicles/soros-funds-campaign-of-l-a-prosecutor-candidate-who-vows-lock-up-fewer-criminals/?utm_source=deployer&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=corruption+chronicles&utm_term=members&utm_content=20201007171254
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https://www.yahoo.com/news/republican-attorney-trump-call-georgia-225456704.html
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Headed by guess who ,
Larry the Liberal
https://www.yahoo.com/news/thousands-yale-harvard-law-school-170240369.html
the elites
who know what is best for us
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https://www.lawfareblog.com/should-house-impeach-if-senate-wont-convict
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https://pjmedia.com/spengler/2021/01/11/heres-how-we-flatten-the-democratic-party-during-the-next-four-years-n1332570
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https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/voting-company-sues-fox-giuliani-180000020.html
don't worry dominion
Democrat DC lawyers to your rescue
Thanks to the FB of Impedence we can never know if the machines are /were rigged
I wonder if lawsuit opens up the defenses ability to evaluate the machines
though Dem operatives likely have had chance to get to them first
so doubtful we can ever know for sure
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https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/voting-company-sues-fox-giuliani-180000020.html
don't worry dominion
Democrat DC lawyers to your rescue
Thanks to the FB of Impedence we can never know if the machines are /were rigged
I wonder if lawsuit opens up the defenses ability to evaluate the machines
though Dem operatives likely have had chance to get to them first
so doubtful we can ever know for sure
That they sue makes Dominion look innocent, but what everyone out here would like is some fact finding discovery and closure, especially if the vote fraud charges are proven false.
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https://www.newsmax.com/us/federal-judges-appointments-senior/2021/02/08/id/1009168/
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https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2021/03/whos-funding-lawsuit-lawfare-implications/172489/
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https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ArmyOfLawyers
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retiring on Dec 31
after he oversees Trump vandetta
and the political hit job
Jimmy Earl. is so proud
Cy Sr passed in 2002
waiting for grinning CCN types announcing arrest of DJT.
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https://www.lawfareblog.com/can-litigation-help-deradicalize-right-wing-media?fbclid=IwAR2S6Ib_THEBdiyPqfyh1OK3OH9aGs-uzuZzKqHtwPC17MHc_aML9oVBYzQ
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https://www.lawfareblog.com/can-litigation-help-deradicalize-right-wing-media?fbclid=IwAR2S6Ib_THEBdiyPqfyh1OK3OH9aGs-uzuZzKqHtwPC17MHc_aML9oVBYzQ
This fucktard should be doing time in Leavenworth.
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The Supreme Thuggery of Democrats’ Court-Packing Scheme
By ANDREW C. MCCARTHY
April 17, 2021 6:30 AM
From left: Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA), Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA), and Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) introduce the Judiciary Act of 2021 aimed at expanding the Supreme Court from nine to thirteen justices outside the court in Washington, D.C., April 15, 2021. (James Lawler Duggan/Reuters)
The sponsors of this plan are gaslighting the nation with nonsensical explanations.
That settles it. Henceforth, for baseball, we need 13 on the field. You know, for “balance.” After all, when the big leagues started playing the World Series in 1903, there were only 16 teams. Now there are 30. If you’re going to have 30 teams, there should be at least 13 players on each side, right? Maybe even 30!
Okay, okay, it’s a stupid idea. But you’ll have to forgive me: I watched Thursday’s Rockin’ Jerry & the Wokes show on the steps of the Supreme Court, and ever since, I’ve felt much stupider.
According to Congressman Nadler (D., N.Y.) and his progressive posse, the high court must be expanded, from the nine-member body it has been for over 150 years to the 13-member tribunal they say we urgently need it to be, because there are now 13 federal circuit courts of appeal. There were only nine circuits when the Supreme Court was set at nine justices in 1869.
This is nonsense, but that is par for the course, because it is not meant to be taken seriously as an argument.
The Dems’ Court-expansion-and-packing project is not a public-policy proposal. It’s thuggery. That explains the zany rationales Nadler et al. offered for it at their presser. Maybe the number should be 13 because that’s how many times they said “racism” (though I could be low-balling here). Or maybe expanding the Court is infrastructure, or part of the existential climate crisis. Makes total sense. See, the less this has to do with logic, the more the justices will have it in the front of their minds that the Left is crazy enough to do anything at this point, so they’d better be careful how they decide these cases — and even about what cases they decide to decide.
The size of the Supreme Court has nothing to do with the number of circuits — no more than the size of the Ninth Circuit bench (29 judges) has to do with that of the First Circuit’s (nine judges), or than the geographic jurisdiction of the Eighth Circuit (seven states) has to do with that of the Federal Circuit (nationwide for limited categories of cases), or of the District of Columbia Circuit (just the city of Washington).
When constitutional governance began, the Supreme Court had six members, covering three circuits. The lower federal courts — today’s 13 circuit courts of appeal and 94 district courts, in their majestic courthouses — did not exist as we know them today. Supreme Court justices used to “ride circuit” on horseback or in carriages over the rough terrain of our growing country. In the circuits, they’d hear cases with a local district judge. It was a time-consuming, physically demanding, mentally exhausting job.
Congress did not create circuit judgeships — not courts, judgeships — until 1869. That’s the same year it set the high court’s size at nine justices. No less a liberal icon than Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg — who just might have known a tad more than Jerry Nadler about how the Court works — believed nine was just the right number.
Prior to 1869, the size of the Supreme Court bench had varied, from as many as ten justices to as few as five. The numbers were driven by politics, not a perceived need to correlate to the number of circuits.
Yes, when Congress set the number at nine, there were also nine circuits. But that was because Supreme Court justices were still riding circuit. That practice was largely phased out with the Evarts Act of 1891, which established the U.S. circuit courts of appeal. It was completely ended in 1911, when Congress abolished the circuits, transferring their jurisdiction to the district courts.
That is to say, the circuit system that Democrats claim calls for an overdue expansion of the Supreme Court has not existed for more than a century. And when Congress created the system we’ve now had for a very long time, lawmakers concluded, much as Justice Ginsburg concluded, that nine was just the right number of Supreme Court justices.
The woke Left’s circuit-court argument is no more sincere than its laugh-out-loud “balance” argument. If the complaint is that the Court now has a 6–3 conservative majority, why would “balance” require adding four progressives?
But Jerry & Co. were on a roll. The unbalanced conservative majority has ushered in the era of dark, icky corporate campaign money! Yes, that would be the era whose most recent campaign has given Democrats control of the White House and both houses of Congress. The conservative majority is the grossly illegitimate handiwork of, yes, Donald Trump, who also “packed” the lower federal courts. Right. The Court “packing” (a.k.a. filling vacancies) worked so well for Trump that these cat’s-paw jurists rejected each and every one of his challenges to the 2020 election — ensuring Democratic control of Washington, including two years of conveyor-belt judicial confirmations of young progressive firebrands.
The only authentic part of Thursday’s performance came when a reporter asked Nadler why Speaker Nancy Pelosi had not committed to taking up the progs’ Court-expansion proposal. The Judiciary Committee chairman replied that the speaker is wisely monitoring how things develop over the coming months. Right . . . just like Biden’s similar theater, the “Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court.” Just like Obama’s 2012 warning that the justices had better not invalidate Obamacare. (Mission accomplished!) And just like the “amici curiae” brief that Democratic senators filed with the high court in a 2019 gun case — the kind of “friends of the court” whose advice is, “Nice place you have here, it’d sure be a shame if anything happened to it . . .”
Democrats are not really going to expand the Supreme Court. They are going to extort the Supreme Court.
What’s today’s favorite conservative talking point in Washington? “Court-packing is so beyond the pale that even FDR couldn’t get it done at the height of his power, with far bigger congressional majorities than Joe Biden will ever have.” Well, as Paul Harvey used to say, there’s a “rest of the story” that we prefer to forget: Court-packing was actually a smashing success as a threat. The Supreme Court felt FDR’s heat and changed its jurisprudence. As progressives browbeat conservative justices and gradually filled vacancies with liberals, the Court abandoned its defense of the Constitution’s limits on federal government power, laying the groundwork for the imperial presidency, a Congress that concedes no boundaries, and the administrative state.
Do the Democrats really have their eyes on four Supreme Court seats? Yeah, I suppose they do. You can call those seats Roberts, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett.
ANDREW C. MCCARTHY is a senior fellow at National Review Institute, an NR contributing editor, and author of BALL OF COLLUSION: THE PLOT TO RIG AN ELECTION AND DESTROY A PRESIDENCY. @andrewcmccarthy
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In the end, for the Dems, it is about intimidation.
For the Republicans, the only thing that seems to advance their cause is Democrat over-reach and this takes the cake.. Packing the Court rings well only for the most militant far Left, not the center.
Dems think seats were stolen.
Merrick Garland owns a seat, they say. He was appointed but failed to get the "advice and consent of the Senate". How does that make it his rightful seat?
Seats on the Court were filled without the use of the filibuster. Who ended the use of the filibuster for Judicial appointments? That would be Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid. Republicans extended it to Supreme Court appointees. If that was wrong, did Democrats restore the old rules with their return to power? No, just the opposite. They propose eliminating the filibuster for all legislation and confirmations. So how does that make it seats were stolen? For another thing, Trump appointed and Republicans confirmed 3 Justices in that term, and Democrats want to add 4 new seats. Coincidentally, that is the number they calculate they need to make a new Left majority.
The greatest irony would be if Dems vote to pack the Court, then don't get the seats filled before losing power again, and the new Court count becomes 10-3 of lifetime appointments. Then what? Expand it to 21 Justices on their next return to power? Then what?
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"The greatest irony would be if Dems vote to pack the Court, then don't get the seats filled before losing power again, and the new Court count becomes 10-3 of lifetime appointments. Then what? Expand it to 21 Justices on their next return to power? Then what?"
Is there anything in the Constitution that prevents reducing the number of seats?
next time (if there is one) we can reduce the number of seats corresponding to the number of liberals
or why not make it one seat doing away with all but one then re expand it with the president nominating 8 new conservative justices .
where does this end?
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https://dailycaller.com/2021/05/19/trump-israel-biden-abraham-accord-new-york/?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=recaps&tpcc%3D=recaps&pnespid=jvg2sPhTAwGNjGoLnvXUcHQkIs5FgHyohbmvM4hQ
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Merrick Garland Defends Bill Barr
Both oppose a judge’s order to make public an internal DOJ memo.
By The Editorial Board
May 25, 2021 6:15 pm ET
Who knew Attorney General Merrick Garland would ride to predecessor Bill Barr’s rescue?
On Monday the Justice Department announced it will appeal federal Judge Amy Berman Jackson’s order to release an internal Justice Department memo from the Trump years dealing with the Robert Mueller report. Justice is appealing despite a May 14 plea not to do so from nine of the 11 Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
At issue is a March 2019 Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) memo advising then Attorney General Barr on how to handle the Mueller findings. Mr. Barr’s department took the view that the memo should not be made public because it is part of protected internal deliberations. Under both Mr. Barr and predecessor Jeff Sessions, Justice also opposed a Judicial Watch suit to depose Hillary Clinton and top aide Cheryl Mills about talking points generated after the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. It did so on similar institutional grounds of protecting senior executive branch officials from invasive discovery.
In her May 3 order, Judge Jackson accused Mr. Barr of being “disingenuous” and claimed the OLC memo isn’t protected because the AG had already made up his mind. In response, Justice on Monday released the first page and a half of the memo—but has sensibly taken Mr. Barr’s side and kept the rest shielded. No doubt the new AG appreciates the implications for his own internal deliberations.
In the process the Justice Department has exposed Judge Jackson’s order for the partisan mischief and judicial overreach it represents. As the appeals court considers what to do, the Biden and Trump administrations are now on the same page. This is what a nonpartisan and even-handed Justice Department policy should look like.
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Watching both wings of the deep state work together to hide things from the American public makes me cry tears of joy!
Merrick Garland Defends Bill Barr
Both oppose a judge’s order to make public an internal DOJ memo.
By The Editorial Board
May 25, 2021 6:15 pm ET
Who knew Attorney General Merrick Garland would ride to predecessor Bill Barr’s rescue?
On Monday the Justice Department announced it will appeal federal Judge Amy Berman Jackson’s order to release an internal Justice Department memo from the Trump years dealing with the Robert Mueller report. Justice is appealing despite a May 14 plea not to do so from nine of the 11 Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
At issue is a March 2019 Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) memo advising then Attorney General Barr on how to handle the Mueller findings. Mr. Barr’s department took the view that the memo should not be made public because it is part of protected internal deliberations. Under both Mr. Barr and predecessor Jeff Sessions, Justice also opposed a Judicial Watch suit to depose Hillary Clinton and top aide Cheryl Mills about talking points generated after the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. It did so on similar institutional grounds of protecting senior executive branch officials from invasive discovery.
In her May 3 order, Judge Jackson accused Mr. Barr of being “disingenuous” and claimed the OLC memo isn’t protected because the AG had already made up his mind. In response, Justice on Monday released the first page and a half of the memo—but has sensibly taken Mr. Barr’s side and kept the rest shielded. No doubt the new AG appreciates the implications for his own internal deliberations.
In the process the Justice Department has exposed Judge Jackson’s order for the partisan mischief and judicial overreach it represents. As the appeals court considers what to do, the Biden and Trump administrations are now on the same page. This is what a nonpartisan and even-handed Justice Department policy should look like.
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IMHO Barr, and by extension, Garland, are correct.
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IMHO Barr, and by extension, Garland, are correct.
DC Uniparty swamp creatures.
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Nonetheless on the legal issue in question IMHO they are correct.
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Nonetheless on the legal issue in question IMHO they are correct.
Oh, the rule of law!
:roll:
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Something we are for, yes?
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Something we are for, yes?
Being for something doesn't mean pretending it exists when it doesn't.
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Here Barr's action was consistent with rule of law and so was Garland's. This is a good thing.
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Here Barr's action was consistent with rule of law and so was Garland's. This is a good thing.
Meaningless in the pit of corruption that is the feral government.
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That may well be, but at least you have travelled a bit since "Watching both wings of the deep state work together to hide things from the American public makes me cry tears of joy!"
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That may well be, but at least you have travelled a bit since "Watching both wings of the deep state work together to hide things from the American public makes me cry tears of joy!"
It's all meaningless distraction from the truth of our collective situation.
Rule of law=Dead
American Republic=Dead
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17432/china-coronavirus
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/jun/24/rudy-giuliani-suspended-practicing-law-new-york-ba/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=subscriber&utm_campaign=newsalert&utm_content=newsalert&utm_term=newsalert&bt_ee=kSw2ZqUnGsXERPiX9SAcWYFyS42ck4oVFDTxzs0PE5PuxDJpmJCWOEJw6HfeugX0&bt_ts=1624550271956
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https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2021/06/27/dershowitz-on-giuliani-law-license-suspension-equal-justice-for-all-mortally-wounded/
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/dershowitz-predicts-charges-against-trump-organizations-cfo-will-be-tossed_3887093.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2021-07-06&mktids=cd644d30b6135c9752e476e6e7343623&est=Dm44PRO5Y5VwnXkWdNiJ6UwnaoW%2BqCBV2zPajZ2DL%2BdNq652tKe5FSCbzTGeNEn3CKsd
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How Lawsuits against the Trump Organization Have Weakened the Presidency
By JOHN YOO
July 8, 2021 6:30 AM
Trump’s critics chopped down another tree in the forest of laws and legal norms to pursue their devil, but to the harm of future presidents and the country.
Was charging a Trump business aide for tax evasion worth the permanent damage to the presidency? After reading the indictments handed down last week, the former president’s supporters and critics should agree that the answer is no. President Biden may well suffer the harm, too.
After three years of criminal investigations into the businesses of the former president, Manhattan district attorney Cy Vance persuaded a grand jury last week to indict Allen Weisselberg, the chief financial officer of the Trump Organization. Prosecutors claim that Weisselberg, and the company as a whole, engaged in a scheme for the past 15 years to hide fringe benefits — an apartment, car, school tuition — from tax authorities.
Recall that ever since the criminal probe began, legions of commentators predicted that Vance would undoubtedly uncover fraud and wrongdoing by the president himself. Democrats in Congress buttressed Vance’s attack by demanding that Trump hand over his tax returns and other financial records. When Vance finally convened a special grand jury, the gleeful speculation that the former president might even end up in jail reached a fever pitch.
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Last week’s indictments, however, should leave Trump’s critics with a sour taste in their mouths. Prosecutors found nothing with which to charge Trump, and instead they are filing the type of tax charges that authorities who aren’t as politically motivated as New York’s handle by requiring back taxes and financial penalties. Weisselberg has pleaded not guilty, and it is not unheard of for companies to provide such fringe benefits to their top executives. Weisselberg’s attorneys say he made an honest mistake — he kept a tally of the payments in the company’s financial records, after all. After all of the litigation, millions spent on the investigations, and attacks from within Congress and the media, we are left only with charges about the proper reporting of income over a 15-year period. It’s as if Vance had gone off on an errand into the wilderness with a hunting party and come back with a few prairie dogs.
What went unmentioned in most of the reports on the indictments is the harm to the presidency from this hunt. Soon forgotten was the fact that Vance had taken his quest for the Trump Organization’s financial records to the Supreme Court. Trump had gone to federal court to stop his accounting firm, Mazars USA, from cooperating with the Manhattan DA’s investigation. Unfortunately, Trump made the broad claim that the president enjoyed absolute immunity from state criminal investigation and so courts had to squash Vance’s subpoenas to his company and its accounting firm. This was an uphill climb, due to the Supreme Court’s 1997 Clinton v. Jones decision, which held that President Bill Clinton could not claim immunity from Paula Jones’s lawsuit alleging sexual harassment under federal civil-rights laws. But opponents of President Trump used litigation to an unprecedented degree to attack him and to delay the advancement of his agenda.
In July 2020, the Court dismissed Trump’s defense of the presidency. “The President is neither absolutely immune from state criminal subpoenas seeking his private papers nor entitled to a heightened standard of need,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for a 7–2 majority in Trump v. Vance. The Court cautioned only that, in order to preserve “both the independence of the Executive and the integrity of the criminal justice system,” the trial judge should manage compliance with the subpoena according to traditional legal and constitutional principles. Small solace that, as Mazars and the Trump Organization soon produced the documents that led to last week’s indictments.
The Supreme Court’s blessing of this attack on Trump undercuts the “energy in the executive” so sought by the Founders. Vance’s criminal investigation into a sitting president by a state prosecutor was unprecedented. It creates the obvious risk, as here, that an official elected by the opposition party might use his or her prosecutorial powers to harass and embarrass the president. As Justice Samuel Alito observed in dissent in Trump v. Vance, our nation has more than 2,300 local prosecutors, many of them elected. The Supreme Court’s opinion now allows any of them to bring a criminal investigation into a sitting president. In their obsession to bring down Trump by any means necessary, his critics have made the presidency vulnerable to state criminal prosecutions brought for partisan purposes.
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And think of the future possibilities for political theater. If a state DA can subpoena presidents, he theoretically can arrest and fingerprint them, bring them before a court for arraignment, detain them until posting bail, and even place travel restrictions on them. He could even conduct a trial where the president would have to appear for all proceedings for weeks. A Republican DA not only could charge Hunter Biden for his sleazy business dealings, he could investigate President Biden himself as a co-conspirator.
It is not just the president who would suffer, but the American people. As Justice Thomas wrote in his dissent in Trump v. Vance: “The President has vast responsibilities both abroad and at home,” such as protecting the national security, conducting foreign policy, and executing federal law. In order to give the nation the benefit of “energy in the executive,” the Founders made the conscious choice to vest these many responsibilities in a single individual who could act with “decision, activity, secrecy, and dispatch,” as Alexander Hamilton argued in Federalist No. 70. The investigation will consume the time, energies, and resources that the president should devote to carrying out his constitutional and political duties and advancing the agenda upon which the American people elected him. As Thomas Jefferson had argued when served with a subpoena in the Aaron Burr treason trial, the president’s “duties as chief magistrate demand his whole time for national objects,” rather than racing from one end of the nation to the other to defend himself in court. Even if the president were not immune from state criminal investigation, the Supreme Court should have required — as Justices Thomas and Alito urged — that state proceedings wait on hold until Trump had finished his term in office.
But in the chaotic summer of 2020, the Supreme Court would not take the constitutionally courageous step of suspending an investigation into Donald Trump’s financial shenanigans. Instead, it made the president vulnerable to partisan investigations that not only can damage the incumbent politically, but also interfere with the execution of his high office on behalf of the American people. In exchange, all that the critics of Donald Trump won is the indictment of Allen Weisselberg for 15 years of tax cheating — not the vast criminal conspiracy promised by Vance and other New York officials. In this case, as in others, Trump’s critics chopped down another tree in the forest of laws and legal norms to pursue their devil, but to the harm of future presidents and the American people.
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what a joke:
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/florida-workers-plan-to-sue-for-ending-unemployment-early-201619597.html
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/dangerous-precedent-grassley-on-justice-department-ordering-release-of-trump-tax-returns_3927207.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2021-08-01&mktids=c55c03d083b5f19ff706249766cfa7f9&est=vdyVspoAzJgEUGZnHr1o7mAPmpwKzQNFURkGQSaedsh%2BUsEendmbvcWZItJLvr7sDSqX
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but only those who are Republican or question suspicious events around obviously manipulated elections results -
https://www.newsweek.com/holding-lawyers-account-part-2-opinion-1625956
what a joke
one can only imagine the monstrously Democrat partisans reading this and nodding yes in agreement .
the left is so crazy
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In fairness it must be asked whether Lin Wood and Sidney Powell brought bullsh*t suits, perhaps as part of a grifting fund raising operation.
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Good morning CD,
"In fairness it must be asked whether Lin Wood and Sidney Powell brought bullsh*t suits, perhaps as part of a grifting fund raising operation."
well it does look that way now
but it did not seem like BS at the time
how would we know if they did not bring suit
we all did question , and I still do , the veracity of the election
I am still convinced cheating went on in enough of a scale to swing the election in the battleground states for Biden and I think you do too (?)
The main point of my post is what about all the sleazy Democrat lawyers
like the big DC firms that behave like mafia for the Left - to my knowledge none of them are ever held to account. no mention of their lack of integrity in Newsweek
they only choose Republican lawyers to impugn
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https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/04/project-veritas-lawsuit-democrats-324976
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https://michaelyon.locals.com/upost/1268769/law-analysis-by-the-excellent-robert-barnes
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https://michaelyon.locals.com/upost/1268769/law-analysis-by-the-excellent-robert-barnes
Wait, Michael Yon doesn’t seem to think we are voting our way out of this.
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/nov/24/biden-unites-media-establishment-and-project-verit/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=subscriber&utm_campaign=newsalert&utm_content=newsalert&utm_term=newsalert&bt_ee=CfbskXaxdlBk2ckKv1dzXNuTELragXZ6ZV8V3w%2BwYzo3%2BA1jsr0moYyahhhtX9fg&bt_ts=1637761592227
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_breakingnews/california-sued-over-law-forcing-appointment-of-minorities-and-lgbt-to-corporate-boards_4121767.html?utm_source=newsnoe&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2021-11-25-3&mktids=67dc0078d29656f7bb8bcc06904fc4e2&est=qdVqqZ1%2FVjyHJuCvegFonye48245Jvbj13ExEWAYRI7jiJYnrY%2FjBG%2BISuVKUaAVth21
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https://dailycaller.com/2021/12/07/judicial-watch-daily-caller-news-foundation-joe-biden-university-of-delaware-lawsuit-tara-reade/?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2360&tpcc%3D=newsletter&pnespid=77A2BXgeK.MLwqjapW6vDpCVpgCpCYIsKeWwxLBr8kZmTxqMVh2VvgLNobgalura74cYOYv_
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/dec/9/appeals-court-rules-against-trump-jan-6-records-ca/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=subscriber&utm_campaign=newsalert&utm_content=newsalert&utm_term=newsalert&bt_ee=imMfNPSBQWMKqnPx%2FsYjqfq6g8SolUMg1iejj6rjZDchuAJhNep%2BZXslYxKbSlf2&bt_ts=1639086709217
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/12/with-build-back-better-the-shady-trial-lawyer-pipeline-comes-to-capitol-hill/
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The trial lawyer-Dem connection is HUGE, as is the pipeline to funding left wing activism.
If ever we get back in power dissemebling this pipeline should be a major front and center mission.
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18033/president-privilege
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https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/alandershowitz-letitiajames-newyork-democrat/2021/12/21/id/1049561/
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https://www.newsmax.com/us/biden-federal-judges/2021/12/23/id/1049799/
I can only imagine what Democrat partisans they are
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Fk.
Sen. Lindsay Graham had a hand in this, , ,
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https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/587236-the-dangerous-trend-behind-officer-kim-potters-conviction
First odd I am citing Alan so much here these days :-o. I remember in the 90s or early 2000's I could not change the channel fast enough when he would be on ! :-D
Minnesota Statutes on :
manslaughter 2nd degree :
https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/609.205
manslaughter in 1st degree:
https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/609.20
I know Alan is a defense lawyer and maybe slants that way
but on reading the wording of the laws this amateur lawyer (me). would agree with him
when reading the wording of the law
That said , we have another political scapegoat police officer.
Just my take.
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https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/587236-the-dangerous-trend-behind-officer-kim-potters-conviction
First odd I am citing Alan so much here these days :-o. I remember in the 90s or early 2000's I could not change the channel fast enough when he would be on ! :-D
Minnesota Statutes on :
manslaughter 2nd degree :
https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/609.205
manslaughter in 1st degree:
https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/609.20
I know Alan is a defense lawyer and maybe slants that way
but on reading the wording of the laws this amateur lawyer (me). would agree with him
when reading the wording of the law
That said , we have another political scapegoat police officer.
Just my take.
Thanks for the links. She certainly didn't do 'manslaughter 1', any of the five defined types of it. She didn't intentionally do anything beyond taser him which most find reasonably justified.
On manslaughter second degree, the only question is whether she committed this:
(1) by the person's culpable negligence whereby the person creates an unreasonable risk, and consciously takes chances of causing death or great bodily harm to another;
Was her accident culpable negligence? Arguably yes.
"and"
Did she "consciously take the chance of causing death or great bodily harm to another"? Arguably no. She was tasing him, consciously deciding not to shoot her available, loaded gun, when she thought she was shooting a taser while shooting him. She knew her body cam was on and was doing she thought what was right and appropriate for the situation.
Should he be allowed to leave while being arrested by three officers on an open warrant for armed robbery? No. The action she thought she was taking was a reasonable one. Doing her job.
The biggest factor in my judgment of this whole tragedy is that the deceased's actions created the situation where that this mistake could so easily take place and his death was the result. He had the expired tabs. He had the open warrant for his arrest related to an aggravated armed robbery attempt. He resisted and tried to flee. Right? He knew she and all of them were armed. He risked all that by choosing to resist and flee over comply with three presumably armed officers. He defied them and dared them to stop him. Because of all of this, she decided to discharge the taser and by clear accident discharged the gun.
She did something VERY wrong by accident. As a trained police officer, she should be held to a very high standard of training and competence for the responsibility of carrying a badge and a loaded weapon. Her admitted and videotaped mistake resulted in his death. There should be some consequence, but these specific charges have specific definitions.
I don't see how this action meets that criminal definition.
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https://www.npr.org/2022/01/20/1073061575/experts-see-red-flags-at-nonprofit-raising-big-money-for-capitol-riot-defendants?fbclid=IwAR3870XNsK6mSrSVbxIqIECEfJIgWAqe1sdyzvtgyfuf4GdqJOmcVZcVKyk
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"according to public records, the three named trustees are Hughes herself, Hughes' sister-in-law, and Hughes' 24-year-old son, who shares an address with his mother."
"Cynthia, you're a true patriot," former Trump adviser Steve Bannon told Hughes on his "War Room" podcast, where he included her in a roundup of "People of the Year."
"Hughes stated in court documents that she had struggled with late payments, poor credit scores, and the ripple effects of filing for bankruptcy in the 2000s."
connect the dots
I never listen to Steve Bannon - I do hold the position he is honorable.
Ben Shapiro was totally right about him.
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What is your take on the grifting charge while on a Chinese billionaire's yacht (or something like that)?
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Crafty asked,
"What is your take on the grifting charge while on a Chinese billionaire's yacht (or something like that)?"
I am sorry . I don't follow you .
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https://nypost.com/2020/08/20/steve-bannon-was-arrested-on-chinese-billionaires-28m-yacht/
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What is your take on the grifting charge while on a Chinese billionaire's yacht (or something like that)?
Guo Wengui doesn’t seem to be beloved by Beijing.
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https://www.npr.org/2020/08/20/904245273/steve-bannon-arrested-in-scheme-to-raise-money-for-trumps-border-wall
truthfully ,
does this not sound like something Bannon would do :
Bannon — who publicly referred to We Build the Wall as a "volunteer organization" — is alleged to have received more than $1 million from the organization via a nonprofit he controls, and "at least some of it was used to cover hundreds of thousands of dollars in [his] personal expenses," according to the indictment.
The four men are each charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, each of which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.
https://www.npr.org/2020/08/20/904245273/steve-bannon-arrested-in-scheme-to-raise-money-for-trumps-border-wall
here is NPR interview with Ben on Bannon
with caveat that it is the Democrat partisan NPR :
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/interview/ben-shapiro/
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https://www.newsmax.com/us/mail-in-voting-law-pennsylvania/2022/01/28/id/1054469/
to fix the PA election
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https://www.conservativereview.com/marc-elias-makes-millions-off-democratic-gerrymandering-efforts-2656541379.html
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https://www.conservativereview.com/marc-elias-makes-millions-off-democratic-gerrymandering-efforts-2656541379.html
At the caucus Tues night, I met neighbor Kim Crockett formerly Center for the American Experiment who is running against George Soros funded incumbent MN Sec. of State Steve Simon.
She mentioned Marc Elias by name, with ties to the false Steele Dossier, as to who hand picked this guy to run this divided state's elections for the Left.
If you want to defeat George Soros and Marc Elias, defeat his puppets:
https://electionintegritywatch.org/after-a-first-of-its-kind-election-some-reforms-are-needed
https://www.kimsos.com/
https://secure.winred.com/kim-crockett-for-secretary-of-state/donate
In May there will be a Republican nomination for MN Attorney General to oppose Keith Ellison. Once that is determined, same goes there.
Figure out how to make a difference. This is not "voat harder". This is act smarter.
FYI, crooked ballots in Minneapolis under the 'watch' of the Minnesota State Secretary of State brought you the 60th Dem Senator in 2009 and Obamacare.
Butterfly effect. Elections in MN don't affect you? Did you keep your Doctor? Did you keep your plan? Mine went up 12-fold after that.
and now I'm a ward of the state.
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Intolerant Lawyers Shouldn’t Be Judges
Law school deans, faculty and students who stifle opposing views are unfit ever to sit on the bench.
By Philip Hamburger
Feb. 9, 2022 12:22 pm ET
What should be done about law-school deans and others in legal institutions who censor, cancel, blacklist, refuse to hire, fire, “investigate” and otherwise threaten others for their opinions? A partial answer lies in reminding them that their misconduct may disqualify them from ever sitting on the bench. At one point or another, most lawyers dream about being a judge. Lawyers and aspiring lawyers should remember that their conduct today may be the measure of their disqualification tomorrow.
The question came up last week at Georgetown Law School, when the dean, William Treanor, put a newly hired administrator and senior lecturer, Ilya Shapiro, on leave pending an investigation—merely because of a tweet about the pending Supreme Court nomination. Leaving aside that nonacademic opinion is no reason for punishing an academic, Mr. Treanor’s reaction is one more case of harassing dissenters.
The problem is now pervasive in law schools. On account of mere dissent, deans investigate faculty for their views, give them meager salary increases, bar them from teaching some subjects, and even threaten to fire them—as at Georgetown. It’s not only deans. Faculties or their appointment committees regularly refuse to hire people with the wrong views. Just as bad, student law-review editors exclude dissenting students from their boards and even threaten to fire editors whom they discover to have the wrong views, whether on pronouns or matters of law. Student editors also refuse to publish perspectives they dislike—at some journals, they have blocked conservative perspectives, originalist arguments, and “anti-administrative” (aka constitutional) positions. Many students and faculty therefore shy away from exploring such viewpoints. Quietly in the background, members of faculty oversight boards encourage or permit this narrow-mindedness. Cases therefore increasingly come before the courts, even the Supreme Court, with much academic literature on one side and little on the other. The intolerance thus becomes a due-process problem.
Elsewhere in the legal world, law firms discourage associates, even partners, from taking pro bono cases for dissenting individuals. At many large firms, representing terrorists after 9/11 was fine, even admirable. Now, representing conservatives can be a risky move for a young lawyer. Whether in bar associations or law firms, there are serious consequences for due process.
The situation has become so serious that it’s increasingly difficult to find academics and others to write or sign friend-of-the-court briefs on key issues—including freedom of speech. Many lawyers, even if apparently secure in tenure or partnership, are, if not afraid, uncomfortable being associated with what seem hazardous points of view.
What’s to be done? In the legal world, the first step is to remember that people who are intolerant aren’t fit to serve as judges or in other positions of legal authority.
If a dean, committee member, law-review editor, bar-association leader, or other person in authority cancels, blacklists, excludes, threatens or otherwise disadvantages scholars, students, lawyers or their work on the basis of their opinions, can he be trusted as a judge to listen with an open mind to conflicting legal positions? If someone can’t tolerate both sides, how can he be trusted to do justice impartially?
Otherwise-decent faculty, students and partners often go along with intolerance because they lack the stomach to protest it. They may tell themselves they’d do better on the bench. But academics have tenure, and partners have much financial security. So there’s little reason to think they’ll do better as judges.
The position of a judge is unlike any other job. Judges enjoy vast authority over their fellow Americans, and the primary defense against abuse of this authority is their internal commitment to impartiality—their dedication to hearing both sides with an open mind and deciding without prejudice. This is a constitutional requirement of judicial office and due process.
So it’s not too much to consider intolerance or cowardice disqualifying. Those who have shown themselves to be intolerant of difference or too fearful to stand up for what is right have no business sitting on the bench.
Mr. Hamburger is a professor at Columbia Law School and president of the New Civil Liberties Alliance.
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"Elsewhere in the legal world, law firms discourage associates, even partners, from taking pro bono cases for dissenting individuals. At many large firms, representing terrorists after 9/11 was fine, even admirable. Now, representing conservatives can be a risky move for a young lawyer. Whether in bar associations or law firms, there are serious consequences for due process."
yes we are worse then Nazis
just ask any lib
I don't know how we beat this.
legislation that needs to protect the Right......
when we get control of both Houses and the Pres (if possible)
pass laws that "amend" the constitutional to explicitly stop bulling of those on the Right solely for their ideas
like Dershowitz points out this is McCarthyism from the LEFT
same thing but much worse in my view.
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:roll:
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/02/15/sussmann-lawyers-furious-at-durham-for-exposing-spying-complain-about-breitbart-coverage/
Only corroborates my theory that the
shyster lawyer hack jornolisters
strategized to come out with lead story about Trump taxes
to give msm excuse to continue to black out Durham findings
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without her written authorization
to release her medical records
then what they did is a crime
(or Court order to release)
just mentioned a doctor to someone is not authorization to release records
hope she wins this one BIG
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NR PLUS WHITE HOUSE
Biden Rejects Trump Privilege Claim on White House Visitor Logs
By ANDREW C. MCCARTHY
February 16, 2022 1:59 PM
President Joe Biden speaks before signing executive orders at the White House, January 28, 2021. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
The former president had sought to deny the House January 6 Committee access to the logs.
President Biden has directed the National Archives to make Trump White House visitor-log information available to the House January 6 Committee. The directive, which was expected and is consistent with a similar determination Biden previously made, contravenes former President Trump’s attempt to assert executive privilege in order to block disclosure of the logs to the Committee.
The New York Times reports that the White House issued Biden’s directive in a letter to national archivist David Ferriero yesterday, and planned to alert Trump’s lawyers today (though, not before the Times was given a look at the letter, as it acknowledges).
The Committee is focusing on the former president’s activities in the White House during the hours when the Capitol riot took place on January 6, 2021. More broadly, it is also examining other Trump team gambits to overturn the results of the 2020 election — the litigation challenging Biden’s victory in several states; the efforts to persuade Republican legislators and election officials in these disputed states to entertain unproven claims of fraud and adjust vote tabulations; the unsuccessful efforts to persuade Justice Department officials to induce disputed states to investigate these fraud claims; discussions about the possibility of causing federal officials to seize state voting machines so they could be examined for evidence of tampering; the scheme to have Republican officials in disputed states gin to up slates of Trump electors that could be offered as alternatives to state-certified slates of Biden electors; the efforts to persuade and browbeat then-vice president Mike Pence into refusing to count certified electoral votes from the disputed states at the January 6 joint session of Congress; and so on.
The Committee understandably believes that the visitor logs, in conjunction with other evidence it has gathered from interviewing well over 500 witnesses and perusing a wide array of audio/video exhibits and thousands of relevant documents, will shed light on these matters. The Times reports that Biden regards the congressional investigation as “urgent” and the Committee’s need for the logs as “compelling.” He has thus directed the National Archives to provide the logs to the Committee within the next 15 days. In rejecting Trump’s privilege claims, White House Counsel Dana Remus explained, Biden concluded that “constitutional protections of executive privilege should not be used to shield, from Congress or the public, information that reflects a clear and apparent effort to subvert the Constitution itself.”
Since only the sitting president wields the Constitution’s executive power, one would think that only the sitting president could assert executive privilege. Yet a Supreme Court decision involving the disposition of President Nixon’s White House records in the wake of the Watergate scandal — Nixon v. Administrator (1977) — opined that former presidents maintain some undetermined quantum of executive privilege covering materials from their own administrations, which may theoretically be asserted over the sitting president’s objection. This dubious suggestion no doubt owes to tradition: Historically, presidential materials were presumed to be the property of the president whose administration generated them. Following Watergate, Congress enacted the Presidential Records Act to clarify that the records belong to the public.
While the courts have not formally abandoned Nixon v. Administrator in this regard, they have circumvented it by giving broad deference to the sitting president’s decisions about whether or not to assert privilege. As I have previously detailed, a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a lengthy, unanimous decision in December, upholding a federal district judge’s rejection of Trump’s privilege claims. Last month, the Supreme Court affirmed that decision in an 8–1 ruling.
Trump could sue to try to get the courts to countermand Biden. Based on the rulings already made (which clearly anticipated that this situation could recur), he would be sure to lose, so the point of such a lawsuit would be to delay the Committee’s work, in hopes that it could not release its report before the midterm elections — when he hopes that Republicans will win back the House and disband the Committee. (This possibility is one of the reasons I have urged that the Committee be restructured).
Yet, this strategy has no realistic prospect of success. Having already decided the privilege issue in principle, the courts are very likely to reject any new Trump lawsuit rapidly. The Committee, moreover, has done enough work already that, even if access to some materials were blocked, it would still be poised to produce at least a preliminary report in advance of the midterms.
Biden has not given the Committee blanket access to his predecessor’s records. In late December, he asserted executive privilege to shield from disclosure hundreds of pages of Trump-era documents, citing national-security concerns, among other reasons. And the Democrat-controlled Committee acceded to Biden’s privilege assertion rather than taking the White House to court, which could be read as further evidence that it believes it will have enough information to produce a final report in the coming months regardless.
In short, Trump has few good options left for impeding the Committee’s work.
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that must be taught in law school
besides CRT :
suing Trump !:
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/the-great-trump-goose-chase
I wonder how much these lawyers get paid for this?
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/03/merrick-garland-has-turned-the-department-of-justice-into-a-left-wing-blog/
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/the-lefts-attack-on-attorney-client-confidentiality-the-case-of-trump-adviser-john-eastman_4346758.html?utm_source=Opinion&utm_campaign=opinion-2022-03-20&utm_medium=email&est=KxtWY%2Byq%2BK4diEYqaLx%2BbVZSgLVE0K0I2dYsddcbMpzb8oRwJL%2FGHY6ro9%2FZnz9fJyhh
VIEWPOINTS
The Left’s Attack on Attorney-Client Confidentiality: The Case of Trump Adviser John Eastman
Rob Natelson
Rob Natelson
March 19, 2022 Updated: March 20, 2022biggersmaller Print
Commentary
Americans are witnessing attacks by the “progressive” left on some of our oldest and most treasured rights. These include not only constitutional rights such as free speech and freedom of religion, but some even older than the Constitution itself.
Until recently, a consensus spanning the political spectrum protected these guarantees. But to the authoritarians of the new American left, nothing is sacred.
Attacks on Rights Older Than the Constitution
Last year, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chairman of the powerful House Homeland Security Committee, made a stunning suggestion. It pertained to members of Congress who, during the Jan. 6, 2021 electoral vote count, favored investigating the election results. Thompson suggested they should be placed on the national terrorist “no-fly” list.
Thompson either didn’t know or didn’t care about the Constitution’s Speech and Debate Clause (Article I, Section 6, Clause 1). Based on a provision in the 1689 English Bill of Rights, the Speech and Debate Clause protects lawmakers from persecution or retaliation from other branches of government because of what they say or how they vote (pdf).
Other “progressives” demanded that Congressmen who voted the “wrong way” during the electoral vote count be formally disqualified from office under the Constitution’s 14th Amendment.
Another guarantee older than the Constitution is the right of those accused of crime to a speedy trial. Codified by the Sixth Amendment, it’s traceable to Magna Carta (1215). Yet the right to a speedy trial apparently has been denied to some of the defendants detained in last year’s Capitol incursion.
The attorney-client privilege also antedates the Constitution. It was firmly established in England no later than the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). The privilege guarantees that if you confide in your lawyer, he or she cannot be compelled to disclose what you said in confidence. It also protects papers generated while your lawyer is working for you.
Like other treasured “privileges”—such as habeas corpus and trial by jury—attorney-client confidentiality is central to our legal system. It helps assure citizens effective legal representation. If it were lost, many accused people would feel they couldn’t tell their lawyers the whole truth. This would undermine the quality of their legal representation. Moreover, if lawyers are compelled to reveal information about their own clients, many of those accused would stand defenseless against government prosecutors.
Rep. Thompson appears to have no more regard for the attorney-client privilege than for the Constitution’s Speech and Debate Clause. The “Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol,” which he chairs, is trying to deny the attorney-client privilege to former President Donald Trump and to his lawyer, professor John Eastman.
John Eastman
Eastman advised Trump during the latter part of 2020 and early 2021. He also helped develop strategy for addressing contested election results.
The mainstream media have gone to unconscionable lengths to abuse Eastman. One of their gentler tactics is to label him with epithets such as “right wing lawyer” (pdf). Calling Eastman a “right wing lawyer” is like calling Winston Churchill “an English cigar-smoker”: It omits everything you really need to know about the man.
Eastman is one of the nation’s most respected constitutional scholars. After a stellar student record at a top law school, he clerked for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Eastman practiced law for several years, then became a law professor. He served on the faculty of Chapman University law school for 20 years, and served as dean for four. He has an extraordinary record of scholarly research and public service. Several versions of his résumé are freely available online (pdf; see also here), which the mainstream media have chosen to ignore.
Eastman inspired some of my own scholarly work. In the early 2000s, I attended a national law professors’ convention at which he was a panelist. His presentation discussed the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Constitution’s General Welfare Clause (Article I, Section 8, Clause 1). I was sufficiently intrigued to research the subject myself. The results included two major scholarly articles (pdf) (pdf).
I’ve met Eastman personally perhaps three or four times. In 2016, for example, we both attended a simulated convention of states. He served as a commissioner (delegate) and I as a constitutional adviser. His fellow commissioners—mostly legislators from all 50 states—elected him vice president of that convention. However, we had no contact during the election controversy and none pertaining to this essay.
Eastman and I have had our disagreements as well. Among them: I disagreed with his opinion that Vice President Mike Pence could have unilaterally delayed the electoral vote count. But since when do law professors always agree?
In view of Eastman’s reputation and expertise, Trump was fortunate to get him as legal counsel. And, of course, most Americans would concur that there are few gigs more honorable than advising a President of the United States—whether they like the particular president or not.
Enter Thompson’s Jan. 6 Committee
Thompson’s committee is a congressional fishing expedition. Key to a congressional fishing expedition is this: Instead of doing the investigative work yourself, get someone else to do it, so you can take the credit and still have plenty of time left to raise campaign money.
Thompson and his committee want Eastman to do their work for them. So they have demanded that he produce tens of thousands of emails and other documents stemming from his legal representation of Trump.
The committee offers several excuses for this extraordinary demand. First, it claims that Eastman may not have had a professional relationship with Trump. This is nonsense. Late in 2020, Eastman wrote and filed a Supreme Court brief on Trump’s behalf.
The committee also claims an exception to the attorney-client privilege for planning future criminal or fraudulent acts. But there’s no evidence that Eastman did anything more serious than plead the case to Vice President Pence for postponing the electoral count. If trying to persuade a politician were a crime, then every lobbyist in the country would be in jail.
In fact, despite all the anti-Trump prosecutors out there—including those in Eastman’s home state of California—not one has charged him with a crime. His law-abiding record contrasts sharply with the criminal street violence so common among the political allies of the Democrats who accuse him.
During the time leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, electoral vote count, Eastman tried to buy enough time so that claims of election irregularities (some of which since have been proven or partially substantiated) could be investigated. His obvious goals were, first, to ensure that the president sworn in on Inauguration Day was the person who actually won the election and, second, if nothing came of the investigation, to assure that Trump supporters accepted the results.
We can see this in a Jan. 6, 2021, email that Eastman wrote to Vice President Pence’s lawyer. In the email, Eastman first referred to how Congress had violated the Electoral Count Act, a statute not binding on Congress because it’s constitutionally defective. Then he added:
I implore you to consider one more relatively minor violation and adjourn for 10 days to allow the [state] legislatures to finish their investigations, as well as to allow a full forensic audit of the massive amount of illegal activity that has occurred here. If none of that moves the needle, at least a good portion of the 75 million people who supported President Trump will have seen a process that allowed the illegality to be aired.
This is what the committee and the mainstream media persist in labeling as an effort to “overturn the election,” “subvert the election,” and “justify a coup.” Whether or not Eastman’s request to Pence’s lawyer was legally sound, it clearly was patriotic rather than insurrectionary.
The Cost
Possibly because committee members fear a Republican sweep in the November congressional elections, they have ramped up the pressure to get Eastman to prove their case for them. A Democratically appointed federal district judge has sided in large part with the committee. The judge ordered Eastman to review 1,500 pages of legal documents a day—later reduced to 500—and, as to each document provide explanations as to why it should or should not be subject to attorney-client privilege. That prevents Eastman (who no longer has an academic salary) from working for other clients during this high-pressure schedule.
The persecution of Eastman is probably intended as warning to anyone who challenges “progressive” domination of America. It shows that even the oldest and most firmly established personal guarantees are no longer safe from zealots on the political left. It’s an additional reason for both (1) cleaning house this November and (2) curbing federal power so as to reduce the ability of people like Thompson and his committee to abuse it.
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Rob Natelson
Rob Natelson
Following
Robert G. Natelson, a former constitutional law professor, is senior fellow in constitutional jurisprudence at the Independence Institute in Denver.
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The Hypocritical Attack on Justice Clarence Thomas
The left smears him for the opinions of his wife, Ginni, a standard never applied to other judges.
By Jason L. Riley
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March 29, 2022 6:10 pm ET
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Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas listens as President Trump speaks on the South Lawn of the White House, Oct. 26, 2020.
PHOTO: PATRICK SEMANSKY/ASSOCIATED PRESS
“We are long past the day when a wife’s opinions are assumed to be the same as her husband’s.”
So argued Stephen Gillers, a law professor at New York University, in 2013. If the professor’s name sounds familiar, it’s because he’s been cited by seemingly every major media outlet since news broke last week that Virginia Thomas, wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, sent text messages to Donald Trump’s White House chief of staff Mark Meadows urging him to fight the 2020 election results.
The Los Angeles Times described Mr. Gillers as a “judicial ethics scholar,” and the New York Times dubbed him “one of the nation’s foremost legal-ethics experts.” But it turns out that the professor’s ethics, like those of a lot of liberal Democrats these days, are situational. In 2013 he was defending a decision by late-Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals not to recuse himself from a case involving the American Civil Liberties Union, even though Reinhart’s wife, Ramona Ripston, had served as executive director of the ACLU for Southern California.
“Ms. Ripston’s opinions, views and public pronouncements of support for the district court opinion . . . do not trigger any reasonable basis to question Judge Reinhardt’s ability to honor his oath of office,” asserted a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of Mr. Gillers and four others. “A contrary outcome would deem a judge’s spouse unable to hold any position of advocacy, creating what amounts to a marriage penalty.”
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Reinhardt had a well-earned reputation as one of the most liberal judges on one of the nation’s most liberal appellate courts. Which might explain why Mr. Gillers and his partisan allies have changed their tune. “ ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ is not an acceptable strategy for the Thomases’ marriage,” he’s now telling reporters. “Both have crossed a line and deserve no benefit of the doubt.”
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To anyone not wearing ideological blinders, Justice Thomas and his wife are just as deserving of the benefit of the doubt as Reinhardt and his wife were. And there are other examples. Judge Cornelia Pillard of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia is married to David Cole, national legal director of the ACLU. The husband of Alice Batchelder, a judge on the Sixth Circuit, served as speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives. Marjorie Rendell was an appellate judge when her husband, Ed, served as governor of Pennsylvania and chairman of the Democratic National Committee. When these judges had to recuse themselves from a case due to a conflict of interest, they were trusted to do so.
Justice Thomas’s critics don’t want to hold him to a higher standard so much as a different standard. Major cases involving abortion, gun control, affirmative action and religious liberty are on the high court’s docket this year. The left’s goal is to diminish his influence—and by extension the influence of the court’s conservative wing. And since the target is Justice Thomas, who has been driving his ideological opponents batty for the past 30 years, the thinking is that anything goes.
“The facts are clear here,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar told ABC News on Sunday. “You have the wife of a sitting Supreme Court justice advocating for an insurrection.” No, those aren’t the facts, unless the senator knows something that the rest of us don’t. There has been no evidence made public that Mrs. Thomas called for violence or had anything to do with the ransacking of the Capitol by Trump supporters. Lumping her in with those who did is a smear. All we know is that she urged Mr. Meadows to “stand firm” against what she believed was an election “heist.” If a case comes before the court that involves Mrs. Thomas or her activities, Justice Thomas can make a decision about recusal at that time.
Perhaps more disturbingly, Ms. Klobuchar, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, sounded like she was threatening Chief Justice John Roberts to do the bidding of her fellow Democrats in Congress. “All I hear is silence from the Supreme Court right now, and that better change in the coming week,” she said. “Not only should [Justice Thomas] recuse himself, but this Supreme Court badly needs ethics rules.” The chief justice has made no secret that he cares deeply about the reputation of the court. One way to damage that reputation would be to bend to the politics and passions of the day in the way that people like Ms. Klobuchar are suggesting.
Clarence Thomas is the longest-serving member of the court and has been consistent in his jurisprudence over the decades. We trust judges to behave professionally and with integrity when it comes to recusal decisions, and Justice Thomas has earned our trust.
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/03/the-smearing-of-clarence-thomas/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NR%20Daily%20Monday%20through%20Friday%202022-03-30&utm_term=NRDaily-Smart
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second
Biden’s transformation of federal judiciary in full swing P
resident Biden took office in January 2021 with clear instructions about undoing his predecessor’s impact on the federal judiciary. Weeks earlier, more than 70 liberal groups issued a statement urging Mr. Biden to appoint judges who would advance “the administration’s priorities” on a range of issues. Their demand became Mr. Biden’s plan and, while a lot of attention is focused on his first Supreme Court nominee, he already has made significant progress in pushing the judiciary in that more liberal, politicized direction.
The Constitution requires the Senate’s “Advice and Consent” before a president can appoint those he has nominated. This role was supposed to identify “unfit characters” who, for “special and strong reasons,” should not be appointed. Both political parties embraced this design and, between 1789 and 2000, the Senate confirmed 97% of judicial nominees with no opposition and 96% without a recorded vote.
In addition, during the 20th century, senators of one party opposed an average of just 1% of judicial candidates nominated by a president of the other party. The Senate took an extra vote to invoke cloture, or end debate, on an even smaller percentage of nominees. Since the turn of the 21st century, however, each of these confirmation process norms has radically changed. Today, resistance and opposition have become the rule rather than the exception.
This transformation was especially dramatic during the Trump administration. Only 22% of former President Donald Trump’s judicial nominees were confirmed without opposition or a recorded vote, the average Democrat voted against a majority of Trump nominees, and Democrats forced the Senate to take a cloture vote on 80% of them.
A report from the Heritage Foundation documents how this trend has continued since Mr. Biden took office. In his first year, not a single judicial nominee was confirmed without opposition or without a cloture vote, and the average Republican voted against 74% of Mr.
Biden’s nominees.
Despite this volatility, the president appointed 67% more judges in his first year than the average of his six predecessors. Put differently, Mr. Biden appointed nearly 5% of the federal judiciary in 2021, compared to an average of 3% during those previous presidents’ first year. This is especially significant since there were 65% fewer vacancies when he took office than the historical average. He was able to appoint so many judges because a record number of judges decided to leave active service during Mr. Biden’s first year.
Mr. Biden and his liberal allies like to highlight the personal and professional “diversity” of his judicial nominees, but this emphasis is not what it seems. If it were, more than 40 Democrats would not have voted to filibuster, and then to oppose, Mr. Trump’s appointment of the first Asian Americans appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals in two circuits. When he was a senator, Mr. Biden himself voted six times to filibuster the nomination of Miguel Estrada and twice the nomination of Judge Janice Rogers Brown to the same court on which his Supreme Court nominee sits today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
No, diversity is actually a means to an end. Research by Harvard professor Maya Sen shows that judges with certain personal characteristics and professional experience are more likely to rule a certain way in particular kinds of cases. Those results, after all, are what really matter to Mr. Biden and his liberal allies. The judicial ends justify the political means.
The Senate will narrowly approve Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, Mr. Biden’s Supreme Court nominee, within a week or so and will then return to the task of transforming the rest of the federal judiciary. If Mr. Biden’s first year is any indication, the machinery within the administration for identifying nominees and the Senate’s process for approving them is greased and ready to go.
• Thomas Jipping is a senior legal fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies
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https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2022/04/01/more-than-60-of-yale-law-students-hate-free-speech-police/
send these over to ukraine to yell and scream at Russians and see how far we get
the Dems to give the lawyers lots of business
so most are Democrats
it ain't about justice despite their screams
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/apr/4/california-judge-strikes-down-law-requiring-racial/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=manual&utm_campaign=newsalert&utm_content=newsalert&utm_term=newsalert&bt_ee=mYul9Rt4ZEIlLfzPxLKG2fEMxIi1PqeYfCKM96LmID8W4Zr9o2Nli7RBUFyAqHaA&bt_ts=1649093015028
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https://populistpress.com/finally-someone-who-dares-to-sue-public-universities/
Represented by two of the biggest, most powerful law firms in the state, Perkins Coie [AGAIN! - remember Sussman]. and Snell & Wilmer:
filed a 200+ page bar complaint against him [Brnovch]. Since the left dominates many state bars, it is now weaponizing them to take down conservative lawyers. This way, they don’t even have to bother presenting their case to a jury and proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt; just immediately threaten the person’s livelihood under whatever amorphous system they have handy, tarnishing their honorable reputation and obstructing their accomplishment of anything else
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/04/how-the-whitmer-kidnapping-case-fell-to-the-yuck-defense/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NR%20Daily%20Saturday%20New%202022-04-16&utm_term=NRDaily-Smart
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/04/how-the-whitmer-kidnapping-case-fell-to-the-yuck-defense/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NR%20Daily%20Saturday%20New%202022-04-16&utm_term=NRDaily-Smart
Paywalled.
Can’t wait to read Deep State Andy’s minimization and excuse making for the corrupt FBI/DOJ.
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That "Deep State Andy" thing , , , :roll:
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How the Whitmer-Kidnapping Case Fell to the Yuck! Defense
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer speaks during a news conference after thirteen people, including seven men associated with the Wolverine Watchmen militia group, were arrested for alleged plots to take Whitmer hostage and attack the state capitol building, in Lansing, Mich., October 8, 2020.(Michigan Governor's office/Handout via Reuters)
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By ANDREW C. MCCARTHY
April 16, 2022 6:30 AM
Juries just don’t like over-aggressive police enticing defendants into committing a crime.
Maybe we should just call it the yuck! defense.
In fact, it is called entrapment. And it comes in a couple of importantly different varieties: There is the legal defense of entrapment, which defendants hate because it is so hard to prove. And then there is what a smart defense-lawyer friend of mine calls the “entrapment adjacent” defense, and what I’ve sometimes referred to as “equitable entrapment.” Prosecutors hate that one because it effectively puts the government investigators on trial, which can make for an ugly case if they’ve been too heavy-handed — more interested in incriminating people who are presumed innocent than investigating suspects who are actually guilty.
The entrapment-adjacent defense is used when an accused can’t prove he was entrapped as a matter of law, but hopes the jury will say, “Yuck!” That is, he hopes the jurors will be so offended by the aggressiveness of the police in enticing the defendant into committing the crime that they will vote not-guilty even if the evidence technically supports conviction.
As Rich Lowry and I discussed in The McCarthy Report podcast this week, the yuck! defense was on full display in the prosecution of four men for allegedly plotting to kidnap Michigan’s Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer. Last week, a federal jury in Grand Rapids acquitted two of the men outright, and hung on the other two (whom the feds insist they will try again).
The prosecution shows the dangers of the Democrats’ strategy to put criminal prosecutions in the service of their political narrative that “our democracy” is under a domestic-terrorist siege fueled by white-supremacism. In that sense, it mirrors the failed prosecution we spotlighted last weekend: the acquittal of Matthew Martin, whom the Justice Department irrationally over-investigated and over-charged for doing nothing more than being present on the scene of the Capitol riot.
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Prosecutions can be theatrical, but they are not theater. They can feature prima-donna performances, but they are not congressional hearings. There are rules of evidence and procedure that get enforced. There is a judge there to correct participants who get out of line — and a court of appeals ready to correct a judge who fails to ensure that the rules are followed. A trial is not a passion play; it is an adversarial search for truth, in which the accused is presumed innocent and the government is expected to do justice — which does not necessarily mean its prosecutors should win (though that’s what it usually means if the prosecutors exercise sober discretion in their charging decisions).
Consequently, criminal prosecutions can predicate a viable political narrative only when the narrative follows from, and accurately reflects, the prosecution of criminal conduct that really does portend an ongoing threat to society. By contrast, when the prosecutions follow from the narrative — i.e., when political operatives hyperbolically maintain that there is an ongoing threat, and then expect that narrative to be borne out by a series of prosecutions undertaken in that politically manufactured atmosphere — then those prosecutions are apt to be overbearing. Jurors may well see such prosecutions as prioritizing political messaging over evidence. They may well conclude that the application of awesome, intrusive investigative authorities to behavior of dubious criminality, the peril of which has been exaggerated, is an abuse of power.
More on
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What the Whitmer Case Acquittal Means
Prosecutors Fail to Secure a Single Guilty Verdict in Alleged Whitmer Kidnapping Plot
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They may say, “Yuck!”
As a prosecutor for nearly 20 years, I dealt with many entrapment defenses. That’s not because I wasn’t busy enough with real crime and thus had to generate criminal cases to prosecute. To the contrary, I worked mostly against organized-crime groups, international criminal enterprises, and terrorist networks.
The activities of these confederations portend a continuing danger to the public. They thus get lots of government resources, enough to support the assignment of undercover agents and the recruitment of informants. Those government operatives are often tasked to infiltrate ongoing conspiracies. If they do that effectively, particularly by making covert video and audio recordings of criminal meetings (and sometimes of the crimes themselves), entrapment is the only game in town for defense lawyers. When the client is on tape, a “mistaken identity” defense is not going to get you very far.
So here is what I’ve learned about entrapment.
As a matter of law, entrapment is very hard for a defendant to prove. No matter how hard the police push, if the crime at issue is proposed by the suspect, not the undercover agent or informant, there is no entrapment defense. And that’s not the only legal problem for the defense. Even if the government operative proposes the crime, the entrapment defense fails if the prosecutor can prove the suspect was predisposed to commit it.
This second situation is very common. Let’s say an undercover agent infiltrates a Mafia family that is running a gambling ring in Queens, and then proposes that they open a second such ring in Brooklyn — at a site the FBI can covertly wire for video and sound. Or let’s say the DEA learns that a street gang is using an apartment in the Bronx as a drug den, so agents send an informant there, having him pretend to be a dealer who proposes to buy a kilogram of cocaine. No sensible person has a problem with such cases. No one thinks the FBI concocted the Gambino family or MS-13. The threat of ongoing, potentially violent crime from real criminal organizations, even loosely organized ones, is obvious. So is the fact that the most culpable, highest-ranking conspirators tend to be insulated and thus cannot be exposed absent undercover infiltration.
Basically, if prosecutors can establish that there truly is a threat to life and to the broader society, juries give investigators a wide berth. They will reject the inevitable “entrapment adjacent” defense because they will expect the police to be aggressive given the nature of the peril. They will expect the undercover agents and informants to push the conspirators hard, in order to identify other members of their criminal organizations, and to commit on tape the crimes they discuss in strategy sessions.
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The yuck! factor comes into play when the claimed threat to life and society is questionable, when the crimes at issue are not terribly serious, and/or when the suspects appear to be sad sacks who are probably incapable of the grand schemes alleged. The yuck! factor is acute when, even if the suspects have arguably proposed the crime, the zest to execute the crime is overwhelmingly exhibited by the government operatives, not the suspects — when the evidence indicates that the suspects may just be big talkers while the undercover agents are the only real doers.
In my 1990s prosecution of jihadists, the overarching terrorist enterprise — which we charged as seditious conspiracy and conspiracy to conduct bombings — was premised on two schemes: the successfully executed plot to bomb the World Trade Center in February 1993, and an unsuccessful plot to bomb New York City landmarks a few months later.
The second plot heavily featured an FBI informant who was very aggressive. He did not propose the landmarks plot; that was done by a suspect who had been in the orbit of the WTC bombing plot but not operationally involved — and that suspect was motivated to propose the landmarks plot as vengeance against the U.S. government for imprisoning his friends and fellow jihadists, the WTC bombers. But even though the informant did not propose the landmarks plot, he did take on the guise of an explosives expert, arrange for a bomb-building safehouse, influence the plotters to use the safehouse to build the bombs they’d been talking about, and help them obtain explosive compounds and find sources for detonators.
Tellingly, the informant had infiltrated the jihadist organization before the WTC bombing, but the FBI prematurely ejected him from the investigation over a dispute about whether he’d be willing to testify. That removed the government’s window into the conspiracy; otherwise, we might have been able to prevent the WTC attack. In fact, it was the relationship that the informant had developed with the Blind Sheikh and his subordinates before the WTC bombing that enabled him to re-infiltrate the group afterward, thus thwarting the planned landmarks attack.
The second plot featured some sad-sack suspects and some shocking discussions about political kidnappings, jailbreaks, massive bombings, and overthrowing the United States government. In the abstract, no one would have believed these suspects capable of the atrocities they were discussing. Between that and the zealous exertions of the informant, I don’t know if we could have convinced a jury to convict them of the second plot standing alone. But of course, the second plot did not stand alone. The World Trade Center had already been bombed. There were sad sacks in that plot, too, and if you had seen them the day before they struck, no one would have thought them capable of what they pulled off.
The jury in our case did not look at the investigative aggressiveness and say, “Yuck!” They looked at a group of unabashed, anti-American jihadists who had carried out a heinous attack, in which their ambitions had been to kill tens of thousands of people. Though the terrorists succeeded in killing only a fraction of that number (and causing what would today be billions of dollars in property destruction), the jury understood that the bombing succeeded precisely because the FBI had failed to be aggressive enough while it had the good fortune of having infiltrated an informant into the jihadist conspiracy. In that context, the jury expected the investigators to be aggressive in the second plot — expected them to do what was necessary to prevent it from happening and nail all the plotters who could be identified.
By contrast, in the Whitmer case, the FBI and Justice Department (and their partners in state law enforcement) have tried to build a kidnapping prosecution on no foundation — no prior kidnappings or related violence, and no reason to believe the suspects would have tried to carry out so fantastic a scheme on their own, without being egged on by the government. The FBI involved so many undercover agents and informants that it must have seemed to the jury that they outnumbered the suspects said to be implicated in the plot. A bureau case agent appears to have leaked investigative information about the case; and the bureau’s main undercover was fired for allegedly beating his wife after they argued over a bizarre “swingers” escapade.
Yuck!
Many institutions in America appear to be crumbling before our eyes. One that is holding its own, though, is the jury trial. There are things about it that we should bear in mind when we address other challenges.
In the jury system, we do not leave important decisions to panels of experts. A defendant is entitled to a jury of his peers — a representative sampling of men and women from the community — to pass judgment: to convict the guilty but to protect the accused, and by extension the community itself, from abusive government. We let jurors hear expert testimony when it is needed to edify them about technical aspects of the case; but the experts do not instruct the jury — the jurors decide how much, if any, of the expert testimony is relevant, and they determine whom to believe when the experts offer conflicting testimony. There is no Dr. Fauci. There is no “scientific consensus” or blue-ribbon panel of technocrats. The community decides — ordinary people bringing all manner of life experience to jury service. No human system is perfect, but our jury system has the best chance of applying our collective wisdom to matters of great significance.
A signal aspect of our justice system is jury nullification. Ordinarily, trial judges do not tell jurors that they have the power to ignore the law and acquit the defendant, even if he may be guilty. The court does not spell out to jurors that they can send a strong message of disapproval about the government’s tactics, and about the blatant politicization of law enforcement. In fact, judges customarily advise juries that the defendant, not the government, is on trial, and that they should faithfully apply the law, as explained by the judge, to the facts of the case.
All that said, though, the jury does get to decide what the facts show, and what facts are dispositive. Jurors know they have the power to reject an unworthy case even if no one tells them that. And in our system, an acquittal is final — the government does not get to appeal a jury finding of not-guilty, even if the verdict does not technically square with the law and the evidence. Like it or not, the community gets the last word on whether the prosecution is a worthy one.
That’s why, in point of fact, the government is on trial in every criminal case. And in the entrapment scenario, the yuck! defense always has a chance if the government is playing politics rather than doing justice.
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https://www.npr.org/2022/04/19/1093566982/florida-mask-mandate-judge-kathryn-mizelle?fbclid=IwAR0Tq3fHry5dsR7knyidaU4ri-BdzVN32iSy7eH5tMkuVbQk60Bqd6JdTmY
Sounds like her creds are at least as good if not better than Justice Jackson's , , ,
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/05/an-egregious-leak/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NR%20Daily%20Monday%20through%20Friday%202022-05-03&utm_term=NRDaily-Smart
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https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1521685968939630592
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https://www.nationalreview.com/news/hawley-proposes-bill-to-strip-disney-of-copyright-protections/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=breaking&utm_campaign=newstrack&utm_term=27661711
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I don't support this at all
it smacks of government picking on companies it does not like
and copyrights should last a life time
though for my experience they get stolen in and outside the CR office anyway
though I heard Disney stole the Lion King from the real creator
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https://variety.com/2022/politics/news/hawley-copyright-disney-1235263563/?fbclid=IwAR1L1VXklkwKtlcGXzY-RDJrmruajqJCjmTCOBNp1QIIHnm_2xIRrcPCsBM
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Burn Pedo-Disney to the ground. They wanted to get political, this is what happens.
I don't support this at all
it smacks of government picking on companies it does not like
and copyrights should last a life time
though for my experience they get stolen in and outside the CR office anyway
though I heard Disney stole the Lion King from the real creator
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https://news.yahoo.com/roberts-may-face-roadblocks-in-probe-of-roe-leak-reporter-who-published-it-says-192321882.html
you have got to be kidding
lawyer listers to the rescue of the leaker
Garland does nada .......
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https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/05/12/laurence-tribe-trump-could-face-criminal-prosecution-for-espionage/
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https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/05/12/laurence-tribe-trump-could-face-criminal-prosecution-for-espionage/
:roll:
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https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2021/2/24/matz-raskin-tribe-reflect-impeachment/
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"THE DEPP-HEARD VERDICT’S MESSAGE TO VICTIMS: DON’T SPEAK UP"
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/amber-heard-johnny-depp-case-will-silence-survivors_n_6298e9eee4b016c4eef6f68d
so now when we get a unwoke me too jury verdict
it is injustice.
So while Jeanine sees that justice served and legal system works
the metoo warriors see injustice and system does not work
the same people who will look the other way if asked about the Sussman acquittal
frankly, nothing is working
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https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/alan-dershowitz-peter-navarro-jan-6/2022/06/04/id/1072966/
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/fbi-has-workspace-in-law-firm-that-represents-democrats-document_4512165.html?utm_source=partner&utm_campaign=BonginoReport
what is this about?
https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C5GCEM_enUS1001US1001&q=Scary+swamp+pictures&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&vet=1&biw=1440&bih=789&dpr=2
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https://today.law.harvard.edu/can-donald-trump-still-assert-executive-privilege/
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Harvard Law
I think I remember Larry the Lib already
saying he could not assert executive privilege now out of office
and probably CNN
so this partisan lawyer
concludes pretty much the same though in round about way
or with some hurdles
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Eggleston
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Certainly, he is a Democrat partisan lawyer, but off the top of my head his analysis is reasonable as a matter of law.
Have not read the following yet, but it seems on point.
https://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2021/images/11/09/ruling.pdf
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that little runt Larry Tribe is subverting the Constitution for partisan purposes
watch at about the 6 minute mark:
https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/alan-dershowitz-jan-6-hearings-bias/2022/06/13/id/1074253/
this has been my suspicion that little shit has been a chief advisor behind the scenes
I would not call him a Nazi like he would call me but he is political *enemy*
dishonest , slime ball and the rest
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https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/elon-musk-sued-258-billion-over-alleged-dogecoin-pyramid-scheme-2022-06-16/
the lawyer hit mob is working overtime
maybe suit has merit
don't know
but certainly I wonder if Musk was Joe Biden fan would this be the same?
coming from NYC I have to wonder
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on Erin Burnett
a DNC multimillionaire jurnolister. She introduces him as Constitutional lawyer from Harvard
while of course does not mention he operates as chief go to lawyer for Democrat party
as even confirmed but Professor Alan Dersh.:
https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2022/06/16/laurence-tribe-donald-trump-attempted-to-murder-vice-president-pence/
funny he compares 2020 election to 1960 when reportedly Kennedy had mobsters get out the union vote ( was in in WV or MI ?) to that got JFK elected.
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https://populistpress.com/scotus-justice-announces-new-job/
Do they ever hire Jewish conservatives ?
I wonder if Justice Thomas will be offered a job if he retires from SCOTUS
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A top level course on how to misread the constitution.
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https://www.zerohedge.com/political/fauci-other-us-officials-served-lawsuit-over-alleged-collusion-suppress-free-speech?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=801
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https://thefederalist.com/2022/07/22/more-than-100-trump-affiliated-lawyers-targeted-by-dark-money-group/
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https://thefederalist.com/2022/07/22/more-than-100-trump-affiliated-lawyers-targeted-by-dark-money-group/
https://twitter.com/Yoder_Esq/status/1550892081295626247
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https://thefederalist.com/2022/07/22/more-than-100-trump-affiliated-lawyers-targeted-by-dark-money-group/
well they are all lawyers
can they not file class action suit for slander
the malicious intent is obvious
MY QUOTE AGAIN :
WE ARE NOT A NATION OF LAWS , WE ARE A NATION OF LAW*YERS*
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https://www.nationalreview.com/news/biden-administration-declares-open-season-on-religious-hospitals-that-object-to-gender-transitions/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=breaking&utm_campaign=newstrack&utm_term=28573414
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By ANDREW C. MCCARTHY
August 3, 2022 1:06 PM
The news that federal prosecutors are seeking the testimony of Trump’s former White House counsel suggests their investigation is ramping up.
The Justice Department’s issuance of a grand-jury subpoena to former White House counsel Pat Cipollone signals that the criminal investigation of former President Trump is ramping up.
Last month, we’ll recall, Cipollone agreed to sit for an interview with the House January 6 committee. It is important to understand: That was a heavily negotiated appearance in which conditions laid out by Cipollone had to be accommodated. Under Justice Department guidance that has long been followed by administrations of both parties, the president’s top advisers claim absolute immunity from compliance with congressional subpoenas. Moreover, as the lawyer for the president, the White House counsel is obliged by attorney–client privilege (ACP) to maintain the confidentiality of communications with the president and White House staff. (The White House counsel represents the president in his official capacity as president, so the scope of the ACP that applies to their communications is not the same as the scope of the ACP that applies to the president’s communications with his private lawyer.)
The theory of executive immunity from congressional information demands is rooted in the Constitution’s separation-of-powers principles. Ordinarily, the immunity is aggressively defended by the Justice Department, an important executive-branch component. So it is notable that DOJ has substantially refrained from defending executive privilege in connection with the House January 6 committee’s investigation. (This is because President Biden, the incumbent, has not supported his predecessor’s attempts to invoke executive privilege in the committee’s investigation.)
Obviously, though, a current or former executive-branch official’s constitutionally based immunity from congressional inquiries does not extend to inquiries undertaken by the executive branch itself.
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The Justice Department is conducting a criminal investigation with an eye toward prosecuting penal offenses, not a legislative inquiry with an eye toward potentially enacting curative laws. Going back to the Watergate era, the Supreme Court and the lower courts have reasoned that there is a higher public interest at stake in criminal investigations of public officials than in congressional inquiries. While the mere existence of a criminal investigation does not eviscerate executive privilege, the privilege must yield if prosecutors demonstrate that they have a specific need for important evidence, and that that evidence is not reasonably available from other sources. Ergo, unless prosecutors had concluded Cipollone possessed information vital to possible criminal charges, they would not have subpoenaed him to appear before the grand jury.
Here, significantly, the Justice Department itself has issued the subpoena to the former White House counsel. Virtually all criminal investigations in which executive-privilege claims have arisen have been conducted by specially appointed prosecutors: Watergate-era “special prosecutors,” the “independent counsels” appointed under a now-defunct statute, or “special counsels” named under currently applicable federal regulations.
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These prosecutors are lawyers brought in from outside the government when the Justice Department is laboring under a conflict of interest — most often because DOJ, which is part of the incumbent administration, is in the position of investigating members of that administration, perhaps including the president himself. Although special prosecutors are technically part of the Justice Department, they operate with a wide berth of independence. Typically, they are not indulgent of privileges that empower the administration to conceal information. For example, in the Whitewater investigation, independent counsel Ken Starr subpoenaed Clinton deputy White House counsel Bruce Lindsay and Clinton adviser Sidney Blumenthal, and prevailed in court over the administration’s objections to those subpoenas.
By contrast, the Justice Department has a high interest in maintaining the full scope and potency of executive privileges, and thus ordinarily fights hard to defend and preserve them. So it is telling that the Justice Department itself has issued the subpoena to Cipollone in a situation that clearly triggers both executive privilege and a former president’s ACP.
If the Justice Department is fighting to pierce, rather than preserve, the privileges Cipollone might otherwise claim here, Cipollone and his private lawyers won’t have much luck asserting those privileges. They might try to assert executive privilege to avoid answering some questions, as they did when he was interviewed by the January 6 committee. But because President Biden has mostly waived executive privilege in this matter, such assertions would be likely to fail. (The D.C. Circuit, upheld by the Supreme Court, has already rejected Trump’s effort to claim privilege over Trump administration materials held by the National Archives and subpoenaed by the January 6 committee.)
As for asserting ACP, Cipollone would probably not get far with that either. To repeat, he was not the president’s private lawyer; he represented Trump in the conduct of lawful presidential duties, and only in the conduct of those duties. Moreover, when ostensibly privileged attorney–client communications are sought by prosecutors, it is usually in a context where either (a) the communications were arguably not privileged (because they were not confidential or didn’t specifically involve legal advice); or (b) the “crime-fraud exception” to the privilege applies (i.e., the law does not grant confidentiality, because the communications in question furthered a fraud or criminal-law violation).
Based on recent reporting, we can conclude that, this past spring, the focus of the Justice Department’s investigation shifted from the violence of the riot (in connection with which well over 800 people have been charged) to the activities of then-president Trump and the circle of advisers (mainly private lawyers) with whom he schemed to remain in power.
In particular, the DOJ appears to be homing in on whether the former president and his confederates conspired (a) to obstruct the constitutionally mandated January 6 joint session of Congress from counting state-certified electoral votes (corruptly obstructing Congress is a crime under Section 1512(c)(2) of the federal code); and/or (b) to defraud the United States government, specifically, by deceptively undermining its lawful functions, including the orderly transition of presidential administrations (a crime under Section 371, which I previously discussed in the context of the Durham probe).
The emerging theory appears to be as follows:
Trump and his advisers initially hoped to reverse the outcome of the election by a flurry of lawsuits charging fraud and other election irregularities, which they implausibly hoped would inspire Republican-controlled legislatures in key states won by Biden to invalidate the popular vote and substitute their own conclusion that Trump had won. The Trump team assembled alternative slates of Trump electors, who would be responsible for casting these states’ electoral votes for Trump if their legislatures could be convinced to overturn Biden’s popular-vote wins. In talking among themselves, even the Trump insiders referred to these purported slates as “fake” electors. Still, it appears that many of the Trump supporters who agreed to be electors saw themselves as not fake but contingent — i.e., they would be called into service only if the state election outcome were reversed by a court ruling or some other lawful action.
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Lawyers: Giuliani target of investigation
Criminal probe looking into actions during 2020 presidential vote
BY KATE BRUMBACK AND JILL COLVIN ASSOCIATED PRESS ATLANTA | Prosecutors in Atlanta on Monday told lawyers for Rudolph W. Giuliani that he’s a target of their criminal investigation into attempts by then-President Trump and others to undo the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.
Special prosecutor Nathan Wade alerted Mr. Giuliani’s local attorney in Atlanta that the former New York City mayor could face criminal charges, said another Giuliani attorney, Robert Costello. News of the disclosure was first reported by The New York Times.
The revelation that Mr. Giuliani, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, is a target of the investigation by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis edges the probe closer to the former president. Ms. Willis has said she is considering calling Mr. Trump himself to testify before the special grand jury, and the former president has hired a criminal defense attorney in Atlanta.
Law enforcement scrutiny of Mr. Trump’s actions is escalating.
Last week, the FBI searched his Florida home as part of an investigation into whether he took classified records from the White House to Mar-a-Lago. He is also facing a civil investigation in New York over accusations that the Trump Organization misled banks and tax authorities about the value of his assets. The Justice Department also is investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters and efforts to overturn the election he claimed was stolen.
Mr. Giuliani, who spread claims of election fraud in Atlanta’s Fulton County as he led efforts to overturn the state’s election results, is to testify Wednesday before a special grand jury impaneled at Ms. Willis’ request.
Also Monday, a federal judge said Sen. Lindsey Graham must testify before the special grand jury. Prosecutors have said they want to ask Mr. Graham about phone calls they say he made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and his staff in the weeks following the election.
Ms. Willis’ investigation was spurred by a phone call between Mr. Trump and Mr. Raffensperger. During that January 2021 conversation, Mr. Trump suggested that Mr. Raffensperger “find” the votes needed to reverse his narrow loss in the state.
In seeking Mr. Giuliani’s testimony, Ms. Willis identifi ed him as both a personal attorney for Mr. Trump and a lead attorney for his campaign. She wrote that he and others appeared at a state Senate committee meeting and presented a video that Mr. Giuliani said showed election workers producing “suitcases” of unlawful ballots from unknown sources, outside the view of election poll watchers.
Within 24 hours of that Dec. 3, 2020, hearing, Mr. Raffensperger’s office had debunked the video. But Mr. Giuliani continued to make statements to the public and in subsequent legislative hearings claiming widespread voter fraud using the debunked video, Ms. Willis wrote.
Evidence shows that Mr. Giuliani’s hearing appearance and testimony were “part of a multi-state, coordinated plan by the Trump Campaign to influence the results of the November 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere,” her petition says.
Two of the election workers seen in the video, Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, said they faced relentless harassment online and in person after it was shown at a Dec. 3 Georgia legislative hearing where Mr. Giuliani appeared. At another hearing a week later, Mr. Giuliani said the footage showed the women “surreptitiously passing around USB ports as if they are vials of heroin or cocaine.” They actually were passing a piece of candy.
Ms. Willis also wrote in a petition seeking the testimony of attorney Kenneth Chesebro that he worked with Mr. Giuliani to coordinate and carry out a plan to have 16 Georgia Republicans present themselves as the state’s “duly elected and qualified” members of the Electoral College. All 16 have received letters saying they are targets of the investigation, Ms. Willis said in a court filing last month.
Attorneys for Mr. Graham, South Carolina Republican, have argued that his position as a U.S. senator provides him immunity from having to appear before the investigative panel. But U.S. District Judge Leigh Martin May wrote in an order Monday that immunities related to his role as a senator do not protect him from having to testify. Mr. Graham’s subpoena instructs him to appear before the special grand jury on Aug. 23, but his office said Monday he plans to appeal.
Mr. Graham had argued that a provision of the Constitution provides absolute protection against a senator being questioned about legislative acts. But the judge found there are “considerable areas of potential grand jury inquiry” that fall outside that provision’s scope. The judge also rejected Mr. Graham’s argument that the principle of “sovereign immunity” protects a senator from being summoned by a state prosecutor.
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https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/dershowitz-trump-2024/2022/08/16/id/1083312/
:-D 8-)
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https://nypost.com/2022/08/15/merrick-garland-looks-set-to-indict-trump-despite-his-conflict-of-interest/?fbclid=IwAR0UX2HS2rVFK-p1kboV9AFtFtCEozqXIzuUAv_lypHrjPtWiMVTT4MkzpM
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https://www.nationalreview.com/news/two-men-convicted-of-conspiring-to-kidnap-democratic-michigan-governor-gretchen-whitmer/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=breaking&utm_campaign=newstrack&utm_term=28821737
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https://www.nationalreview.com/news/two-men-convicted-of-conspiring-to-kidnap-democratic-michigan-governor-gretchen-whitmer/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=breaking&utm_campaign=newstrack&utm_term=28821737
The FBI slides it's frame up through.
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https://www.yahoo.com/gma/doj-releases-memo-behind-barrs-200500468.html
DEMOCRACY MUST BE PRESERVED !
can hardly wait to see the talking CNN MSNBC WP and NYT go off on this for the next week
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The Plot Thickens in the Case of Ashley Biden’s Diary
James O'Keefe at the CPAC annual meeting at National Harbor Md., in 2019.(Yuri Gripas/Reuters)
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By ANDREW C. MCCARTHY
August 27, 2022 6:30 AM
The DOJ does not agree to guilty pleas and cooperation arrangements with clearly culpable offenders unless it believes more attractive targets can be pursued.
The Justice Department on Thursday announced the guilty pleas of a woman and man in the FBI’s investigation into the theft of a highly personal diary and other items from Ashley Biden, the president’s daughter. The defendants have agreed to cooperate in the continuing probe, in which the major target is clearly Project Veritas (PV), the organization run by James O’Keefe, which does undercover investigative reporting that targets the media-Democrat complex.
The criminal information to which the defendants pled guilty alleges that people connected to Project Veritas (labeled “the Organization” in the charging document) knowingly abetted the theft of Ms. Biden’s property.
The federal investigation appears to have begun in November 2020. A year later, the FBI executed a search warrant at O’Keefe’s home, as well as other sites connected to Project Veritas. As I detailed at the time, the government was investigating the theft from Ms. Biden as an interstate movement of stolen goods (burglary itself is not a federal crime, but transporting theft proceeds across state lines is). PV was publicly known to be implicated in that it had somehow come into possession of the diary. O’Keefe claimed that his organization had learned about it through “tipsters” but opted not to publish it, and ultimately “gave the diary to law enforcement to ensure it could be returned to its rightful owner.”
I observed that, while O’Keefe’s version of events might be accurate, we’d be prudent to suppose he was not telling the whole story. Still, it did not appear that O’Keefe and Project Veritas were suspected of participating in the robbery. The search warrant indicated that they were seen as potentially guilty of accessory after the fact and misprision, meaning they’d learned about the theft and, alternatively, helped the thieves evade apprehension or failed to notify police.
The ramifications of the Justice Department’s pursuing a journalistic enterprise on such theories of criminal liability should have set off alarm bells throughout the press. But in its sting operations, right-leaning Project Veritas frequently targets the left-leaning media. These days partisan tribalism is a higher value than institutional solidarity. The press is thus quite content to see PV in the DOJ’s wringer. Though the basis for investigating PV seemed narrow, the FBI took advantage of it to do a wholesale rummaging through PV’s records, juicy portions of which were then leaked to the New York Times — which, when not publishing tax information purloined from Donald Trump and classified information lawlessly leaked by government officials, is a staunch critic of PV’s methods and is currently defending against an acrimonious defamation lawsuit filed by O’Keefe’s outfit.
The two Floridians who pled guilty on Thursday are 40-year-old Aimee Harris of Palm Beach and 58-year-old Robert Kurlander of Jupiter. Like her half-brother Hunter, Ashley Biden has had a troubled past, dotted with various addictions and run-ins with the law. Not surprisingly, she mostly stayed out of sight while her father was running for president (as, come to think of it, did he). After a 2019 rehab stint in Florida, she moved into a friend’s home in Delray Beach.
She relocated on June 17, 2020, apparently intending to return in the fall, so the friend allowed her to store her property in the home. Days later, the friend allowed Harris, an old acquaintance, to move in temporarily with her two children. The Times reports that Harris was in a bitter custody dispute and dire financial straits. While residing in the Delray Beach home, Harris learned that Biden fille had stayed there and found her property, seizing in particular on the diary.
Harris confided in her friend, Kurlander, about her find and asked for his help in cashing in. They first calculated that the best way to do that was to try to sell the diary to the Trump campaign. The pair thus attended a political fundraiser in Florida on September 6. But they were rebuffed. A Trump campaign representative (not identified in the charging documents) told the conspirators that the campaign had no interest in making a purchase and advised them to turn the diary in to the FBI.
The pair next turned to Project Veritas.
Kurlander made the initial contact on September 10, and a PV employee (not identified, but referred to as “he”) soon advised him and Harris to use an encrypted app for communications purposes. Kurlander did this, sending along photographs of Ashley Biden’s property that Harris had removed from the residence. At Project Veritas’s expense, Harris and Kurlander traveled from Florida to New York (“across state lines” in penal parlance), toting Biden’s diary, along with her digital camera and a storage card containing Biden family photographs.
On September 12, they met at an unidentified Manhattan hotel with the PV employee and someone the charging documents describe as PV “Executive-1.” Importantly, there is also a PV “Executive-2.” Though not present at the September 12 meetings (which included additional discussion over dinner), “Executive-2” is highlighted in the charging documents, and the implication is that Executive-2 is the higher-ranking PV official. Is Executive-2 O’Keefe, Project Veritas’s founder and still its most recognizable official? We don’t know. We do know that the PV employee is alleged to have “repeatedly informed Harris and Kurlander that he was working in consultation with and at the direction of . . . ‘Executive-2’[.]”
At the September 12 meetings, Harris provided the stolen property to PV and described for the PV executive and employee how she had obtained the property, adding that she still had access to the Delray Beach home where more of Biden’s property remained stored. The Justice Department adds that it was at this meeting that it was first “confirmed” in Kurlander’s mind that Harris had stolen these items.
Really? Perhaps. But I surmise that prosecutors insert this implausible detail because they anticipate eventually alleging that PV figures knew the items were stolen. That is, if Harris’s narration was enough to inform Kurlander that the Biden property was stolen, then it must also have been sufficient to inform the PV employee and executive. Ergo, when PV officials subsequently encouraged Harris to obtain more of Biden’s belongings, and then a PV official went to Florida to collect them and ship them to New York, they would have been committing federal felonies.
Beginning September 12, and in the days that followed, the PV employee urged Harris and Kurlander to steal more of Biden’s property. PV paid $10,000 for the diary and other items initially delivered, but the employee indicated that the value of these items to PV would increase if additional Biden belongings were obtained — primarily because that would help bolster the authentication of the diary.
This spawned negotiations between Kurlander and PV because of the “risks” he said Harris and he were taking. They wanted more money. Back in Florida on September 17, Harris and Kurlander proceeded to steal more of Biden’s property: tax documents, clothing, and luggage. The PV employee, meantime, flew to Florida. On September 18, Harris and Kurlander physically delivered Biden’s items to the PV employee in two installments, and the employee shipped them to New York the following day. Between September 18 and October 24, PV paid Harris and Kurlander an additional $40,000.
Again, O’Keefe stresses that PV opted not to publish the diary. Though he insisted that PV made sure that law-enforcement officials got the diary (which was certainly big of PV after apparently paying $50,000 for it), excerpts of the diary were published by a website called Conservative File on October 24 — coincidentally, the same day as the final PV payment to Harris and Kurlander. Conservative File claimed to have gotten the diary from a disgruntled PV whistleblower.
O’Keefe has said that PV tried to return the diary to a lawyer for Ashley Biden but that the attorney would not authenticate it as Biden’s property. At that point, O’Keefe says, PV gave the diary to a law-enforcement agency. He didn’t say which one, but the Times report cited above recounts that in early November 2020, after Election Day, PV arranged to have Ashley Biden’s property taken to the Delray Beach Police Department. A lawyer apparently involved in that delivery is said to have been “captured on video saying the belongings might have been stolen.” The feds got involved when the Delray police contacted the FBI.
The Justice Department does not agree to give guilty pleas with cooperation arrangements to clearly culpable offenders, such as Harris and Kurlander, unless prosecutors believe there are more attractive targets worth making a case against. O’Keefe and Project Veritas have made themselves some powerful enemies over the years. The problem with living dangerously is . . . you make yourself an attractive target.
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how juicy for the Dem deep state
they have excuse for their shysters to go after PV
as well
and go through all of PVs documents.
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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11152055/Ex-Bush-Chief-Staff-says-Secret-Service-mole-Mar-Lago-reported-Trump.html
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https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-ruling-lifts-profile-judge-114821582.html
not used to not getting their own way
in the swamp
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https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-adviser-steve-bannon-surrenders-authorities-charges-border/story?id=89481014
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https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-secret-documents-judge-briefly-205946464.html
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/09/steve-bannons-gravy-train-gets-derailed/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=WIR%20-%20Sunday%202022-09-11&utm_term=WIR-Smart
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/09/steve-bannons-gravy-train-gets-derailed/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=WIR%20-%20Sunday%202022-09-11&utm_term=WIR-Smart
The National Review is corrupt.
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/09/steve-bannons-gravy-train-gets-derailed/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=WIR%20-%20Sunday%202022-09-11&utm_term=WIR-Smart
The National Review is corrupt.
Kevin Williamson isn't just a piece of shiite, he's a puddle of HIV + SF Junkie spray with a Hep C infected syringe floating in the center.
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without subscription
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The way I remember SB is that he got dumped by Trump by gossiping with the media that he was the brains behind Trump's victory or something like that and that when he was busted on the fraud charge concerning raising money for The Wall he was on a Chinese billionaire's yacht living large.
Also not seeing much confirmation of his recent accusation of FBI arresting 35 Trump people or something like that.
In short, as far as I know it is entirely possible that there is something to the charge.
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Steve Bannon’s Gravy Train Gets Derailed
Former Trump White House chief strategist Steve Bannon exits the New York Criminal Court after surrendering and attending an arraignment in New York, N.Y., September 8, 2022. (Caitlin Ochs/Reuters)
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By KEVIN D. WILLIAMSON
September 11, 2022 6:30 AM
All kinds of people have flocked to Donald Trump for all kinds of reasons. Bannon did so for the money — and it may be about to cost him, bigly.
The prophetic Idiocracy is a film with many true lines, but the truest of them is: “I like money.”
I like money. You probably like money, too. Most people do. It can’t buy happiness, but it does give you some options. One of my favorite stories involves the secretary to a billionaire businessman in Texas, a job that often required her to accompany the boss on his business travels. It was a family-oriented company, so she often brought her little daughter with her on these overnight trips, meaning that the little girl had, in the first years of her life, flown exclusively on private jets. When it came time to take a regular vacation with the family and fly coach, the girl took in the economy-class scene and asked: “Mommy, is this . . . last class?” Yes, yes it is — but that doesn’t mean you have to like it.
Steve Bannon likes money.
Bannon is facing charges in New York involving fraud at one of the nonprofits he operated, one that supposedly was raising money to help fund a border wall. The case is pretty straightforward: Prosecutors maintain that Bannon and his allies conspired to shift money from one entity to another in order to channel the nonprofit’s funds to a partner, Brian Kolfage, while maintaining the pretense that Kolfage was not being paid for his work. Kolfage and another partner, Andrew Badolato, already have pleaded guilty to fraud charges.
According to the New York Times:
In a December 2018 text message to Mr. Bannon, Mr. Badolato wrote that the claim Mr. Kolfage, who had lost both legs and part of his right arm while serving in Iraq, “will not be paid a dime” would be “the most talked about media narrative ever.”
“But,” he added, “we gotta find an end around to get him stuff.”
Who doesn’t like getting stuff?
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There are many animating spirits in the movement that brought Donald Trump to power in 2016: legitimate frustration at the lack of national action on or responsible Republican attention to immigration and border security; anxiety and disappointment related to what we call, for lack of a better word, “globalization”; nihilism; racism; Jew-hatred; envy; primitivistic wealth-worship; stupidity; ignorance; boredom. But another factor that should not be underestimated — because it remains such a lively influence — is the desire to simply get paid.
In that, Trumpism and anti-Trumpism often are mirror images: For Bannon and his ilk, it’s a payday here and there, a steady stream of surprisingly lucrative grifts of diverse and sundry kinds; for the Lincoln Project, it’s that infamous “generational wealth.” Smaller institutions that are dependent upon a small number of donors — or one big sugar-daddy — are particularly vulnerable to changes in their benefactors’ whims, and if you have paid much attention to the conservative movement and conservative media, you’ve seen a few formerly sober-minded men take off the bow tie, put on the red cap, and bark at the moon. That isn’t the only reason people change their stripes: Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson doesn’t need the money. Accounting for the opportunity cost, former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson’s 14 months as secretary of state probably cost him more money than most of us will earn in a lifetime. Not everybody does it for the money.
More on
STEVE BANNON
Steve Bannon Charged with Money Laundering, Conspiracy in Border-Wall Scam
New York’s Bannon Indictment: Is Politicized Prosecution the Tonic for Pardon Abuse?
Trump Grants Clemency to Bannon, 142 Others on Eve of Inauguration
Steve Bannon, though? That guy does it for the money.
I don’t mind people getting paid. But I mind the fraud. I mind the lies. I detest the sanctimony.
And I’m also not a very big fan of the incompetence, either.
If you’ll forgive me for noticing, these guys aren’t actually very good at this stuff. I follow this world pretty closely, and, best I can tell, far from becoming “the most talked about media narrative ever,” the false claims that Brian Kolfage wasn’t being paid for his work on behalf of Bannon’s nonprofit escaped public notice almost entirely. The only reason most people will ever remember Kolfage now is that he was a central player in this fraud case. These so-called masterminds and media manipulators talk about themselves as though they are a little platoon of Machiavellis, but they kind of suck at politics. They won a surprise victory in 2016, and then lost . . . everything: the House, the Senate, the presidency. Joe Biden is Hillary Rodham Clinton minus about 45 IQ points, and he unseated Donald Trump — an incumbent president — while campaigning mostly from home.
Trump’s denials of the legitimacy of the 2020 election are the usual weak man’s vain need to fortify his ego against the reality of failure, but the Bannons of the world live only to keep the gravy train going: If they admit that the 2020 coalition and effort were a losing coalition and a losing effort, then Republicans are going look for something else next time around. The fiction of the stolen 2020 election is basically marketing copy for the campaign to keep getting Steve Bannon paid.
Brian Kolfage could go to prison for as long as 20 years — over $350,000. Spread the payday over the possible sentence and that’s only $17,500 a year — less than you’d make working a full-time minimum-wage job in Ohio. I get that these guys like money. But aren’t they a little embarrassed at selling themselves so cheap?
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Bannon is absolutely a grifter
should never be near a white house again
or should have been the first time............
I forgot about the Michelle Fields incident
FWIW I also remember Marc Levin was outraged the way Miss Fields was handled .
OTOH she herself tried to exploit the whole thing and wrote a book that failed miserably
We do not need stupid palace gossip
we do not need Bannon
he is trouble ...... screw him as far as I am concerned .... no apologies from me
https://www.businessinsider.com/breitbart-editor-ben-shapirostephen-bannon-2016-8
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without subscription
You aren't missing anything.
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without subscription
You aren't missing anything.
Victor Davis Hanson, why I left National Review after more than 20 years
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2021/10/05/victor_davis_hanson_why_i_left_national_review.amp.html
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as for NR
I agree
they were never trumpers
to the extent they would spend more time criticizing him then they would the LEFT,
the real enemy.
but back to bannon
he is NOT a hill I am going to die for .
who the heck is he anyway
never elected
I never read any evidence he helped Trump get elected.
as for VDH , I love the guy .
except I am not sure I would compare trump to Gary Cooper in High noon
or the seven samuri ( magnificant 7) characters
(never sat thru 'Shane')
:-o
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Lots of grifters on the right. Is Bannon one? I don't know, but after years of "Russia, Russia, Russia" and the polticization/weaponization of the criminal justice system, I trust nothing they claim about anyone.
as for NR
I agree
they were never trumpers
to the extent they would spend more time criticizing him then they would the LEFT,
the real enemy.
but back to bannon
he is NOT a hill I am going to die for .
who the heck is he anyway
never elected
I never read any evidence he helped Trump get elected.
as for VDH , I love the guy .
except I am not sure I would compare trump to Gary Cooper in High noon
or the seven samuri ( magnificant 7) characters
(never sat thru 'Shane')
:-o
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Ian Miles Cheong:
"While you’re talking about voting Democrats out of office, they’re talking about putting you in jail."
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https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/09/rogue-fbi-uses-identity-theft-conspiracy-commit-identity-theft-justify-mike-lindell-search-warrant/
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https://www.axios.com/2022/09/14/biden-judicial-confirmations-trump
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Biden puts pressure on FBI to tag ‘extremists’
Event to highlight domestic threats
BY KERRY PICKET AND JOSEPH CLARK THE WASHINGTON TIMES
President Biden will convene a forum Thursday at the White House aimed at confronting what civil rights groups, local officials and academics say is an explosive rise in extremism and White supremacy that threatens the core of America’s democracy.
The “United We Stand” summit builds on the administration’s push to root out racially motivated domestic violent extremists. The threat sparked a sweeping strategy that included the creation of a specialized Justice Department unit to combat domestic terrorism. Mr. Biden is scheduled to deliver the keynote address to highlight the administration’s response to hate and “put forward a shared vision for a more united America,” officials said.
Current and former FBI agents tell The Washington Times that the perceived threat has become overblown under the Biden administration. They say bureau analysts and top officials are pressuring FBI agents to create domestic terrorist cases and tag people as White supremacists to meet internal metrics.
“The demand for White supremacy” coming from FBI headquarters “vastly outstrips the supply of White supremacy,” said one agent, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “We have more people assigned to investigate White supremacists than we can actually find.”
The agent said those driving bureau policies “have already determined that White supremacy is a problem” and set
agencywide policy to elevate racially motivated domestic extremism cases as priorities.
“We are sort of the lapdogs as the actual agents doing these sorts of investigations, trying to find a crime to fit otherwise First Amendment-protected activities,” he said. “If they have a Gadsden flag and they own guns and they are mean at school board meetings, that’s probably a domestic terrorist.”
The Gadsden flag is a historical American flag with a yellow field showing a timber rattlesnake and the words: “Don’t Tread on Me.” It is often used as a symbol of liberty.
The FBI denies targeting groups or people based on their espoused political views and says the bureau focuses only on those “who commit or intend to commit violence and criminal activity that constitutes a federal crime or poses a threat to national security.”
“The FBI aggressively investigates threats posed by domestic violent extremists,” an FBI spokesperson said. “We do not investigate ideology, and we do not investigate particular cases based on the political views of the individuals involved. The FBI will continue to pursue threats or acts of violence, regardless of the underlying motivation or sociopolitical goal.”
Others say the concern about the rise of extremism and White supremacist ideology is far from unfounded.
Nationwide hate crime data points to a concerning rise in racially motivated attacks in recent years, said Brian Levin, who founded the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, and has been appointed to California’s recently formed Commission on the State of Hate.
According to Mr. Levin’s preliminary analysis of hate crime statistics pulled from 52 U.S. cities, hate crimes rose 20% in 2021, with nine states breaking annual records. Last year marked an especially concerning rise in hate crime against Blacks, according to his analysis, though anti-Asian, anti-Jewish and anti-Hispanic hate crimes added to the spike.
Mr. Levin, an independent, said White supremacist ideology consistently motivates the most deadly hate-fueled attacks. He noted a concerning rise in online extremism among White supremacist groups. “We have these ticking time bombs walking around like Buffalo or Mother Emanuel church,” he said, referring to mass shootings where Blacks were targeted. “That’s something that we really have to have to address. White supremacy is absolutely something that we have to look at as not only a hate crime issue but a national security issue.”
Furthermore, Mr. Levin said that not all of those who perpetrate hate crimes motivated by racial animus are “dyed in the wool” extremists or that “the klan is operationally directing” all Whitesupremacy- inspired attacks.
Still, he said, it is important to consider the sometimes subtle biases that motivate the crimes.
The FBI agent’s claims of a crusade against an inflated White supremacist and domestic extremism threat echo complaints by conservative lawmakers who accuse the Biden administration of ignoring left-wing violence and leveraging fears of right-wing terrorism to target political opponents and stifle legitimate debate.
Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, said several whistleblowers have come forward with similar accusations that the FBI has pressured agents to open cases to fulfill the Biden administration’s crusade against homegrown terrorism.
“I think [it is] what’s ultimately driving his politics,” Mr. Jordan said. “If you own a gun, display the flag and voted for Trump, the president’s going to call you an extremist, and it appears the FBI is going to use the numbers to satisfy that narrative that the president laid out.”
White House officials have billed Thursday’s summit as a stand against “the corrosive effects of hate-fueled violence on our democracy and public safety.”
The lineup for the summit includes federal, state and local officials along with civil rights groups, business leaders, law enforcement officials and former members of violent hate groups who now work to prevent violence.
Those backing the White House summit cite a series of recent mass shootings motived by racial animus, including the targeted killing in May of Black shoppers at a Buffalo, New York, grocery store allegedly by a self-described White supremacist.
Mr. Biden, who has often said the violence surrounding the 2017 White nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, spurred his run for president in 2020, has made fighting extremism a priority for his administration.
The president signed into law measures to combat anti-Asian hate crimes and the nation’s first gun control bill in decades after back-to-back mass shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde, Texas.
As part of his efforts to stamp out hate crimes, Mr. Biden announced a sweeping strategy to deal with the threat of domestic terrorism. The Department of Homeland Security declared extremism a “national threat priority.” In January, the Justice Department established a specialized unit to combat domestic terrorism.
Critics say Mr. Biden’s efforts have done little to unite the country, and many Republicans warn that the country is becoming further divided under his administration.
Attorney General Merrick Garland piqued fears among conservatives of a burgeoning police state last year when he issued a memorandum directing federal law enforcement officials to strategize against the terrorist threat from parents protesting at local school board meetings.
The memo was a response to a National School Boards Association letter to Mr. Biden requesting federal assistance to stop threats from parents against public school officials. Conservatives said the move weaponized the Justice Department to target average Americans for activities protected under the First Amendment.
Republican distrust of federal law enforcement has grown further after the FBI raid of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, last month and the crackdown of Trump insiders accused of involvement in a plot to overturn the 2020 election.
Mr. Biden also has stoked conservatives’ fears with campaign rhetoric casting Republicans as anti-democratic extremists and labeling Mr. Trump’s “Make America Great Again” political agenda as “semi-fascism.”
In a nationwide survey by the Trafalgar Group and Convention of States Action in the days after Mr. Biden’s speech in which he framed the midterm elections as a battle for the “soul of our nation,” 56.8% of respondents said the speech was a “dangerous escalation in rhetoric designed to incite conflict among Americans.”
Just 35% of those polled viewed the rhetoric as “acceptable campaign messaging” in an election year.
Among third-party and independent voters, 62.4% viewed the speech as dangerous, compared with 31.2% who said it was acceptable campaign rhetoric.
Nonetheless, the White House has stood by the escalation in rhetoric, which has been echoed by groups on the left pushing for the president to take action in the face of what a consortium of civil rights leaders has deemed to be “America’s most precarious moment since the Jim Crow era.”
Civil rights leaders also cite a spike in racially motivated vandalism at places of worship, the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol, and the ongoing push to overturn the 2020 election as evidence of a concerning rise in domestic extremism in addition to the nationwide spike in hate crimes.
“White supremacy is the greatest threat to the wellbeing of our nation,” said Damon Hewitt, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “In order to dismantle it, we need a bold, coordinated response.”
“President Biden’s ‘United We Stand’ summit is a critical first step towards a Marshall Plan-style approach to galvanize the type of federal resources and civil society initiatives for which I and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law have been advocating,” he said.
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https://www.foxnews.com/media/new-york-ag-trump-lawsuit-political-hit-job-lefts-desire-punish-him-bill-barr?fbclid=IwAR0yvVv-UtOhRIyi9RypkOfsnL-aq2t9Bo1-iT4LVloIqsQ4NADKFhRQewA
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https://www.nationalreview.com/news/charges-unlikely-in-matt-gaetz-sex-trafficking-probe/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=breaking&utm_campaign=newstrack&utm_term=29152347
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but lawyers still being paid for their lawfare efforts
lawfare great business model
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/10/exclusive-another-federal-judge-joins-boycott-of-yale-law/?bypass_key=dGx0bW53REtLeHhWK3orbWtsQS9Ydz09OjpaWFUxTlVobVNVVkRZa3BSYVcxRmFWRkVkR3h6ZHowOQ%3D%3D?utm_source%3Demail&utm_medium=breaking&utm_campaign=newstrack&utm_term=29303626&utm_source=Sailthru
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/j6-committee-dojs-targeting-of-trump-attorneys-aimed-at-destroying-maga-threatens-democracy-lawyers_4824603.html?utm_source=China&src_src=China&utm_campaign=uschina-2022-10-31&src_cmp=uschina-2022-10-31&utm_medium=email&est=TUCo0zP7xHGJYTcz%2Ba3dw7pjeNEqLFXM%2BjUCG39JaD3YmlSRBG1iJLsbD9Uu5zo46oBo
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/jury-finds-trump-friend-and-fundraiser-tom-barrack-not-guilty_4842554.html?utm_source=Goodevening&src_src=Goodevening&utm_campaign=gv-2022-11-04&src_cmp=gv-2022-11-04&utm_medium=email&est=jAdwQpEvFtTtycQJdg52UYEO%2B8CIe22vCfOonhr0q9UvclU9XxxkZDlRVvCuKOcOp1jd
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https://thehill.com/homenews/house/3712764-mccarthy-says-hes-better-prepared-for-speakers-gavel-than-in-past/
if we can get to 54 we may also stymie Romney and few others
who may be willing to vote FOR Biden ACLU type judges
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"(W)e may also stymie Romney, Lindsay Graham, and a few others
who may be willing to vote FOR Biden ACLU type judges"
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/court-orders-true-the-vote-leaders-released-from-jail_4846717.html?utm_source=News&src_src=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-11-07-2&src_cmp=breaking-2022-11-07-2&utm_medium=email&est=WrJSxg4hy0JyX5eZNvz2OlQwH8YV1ZoiX1rDaoNZ7fLEg%2B09pjKf3Jxx3VW%2BqjAqhjE1
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Newt on TV repeatedly forecasting a 40 + congressional seat gain:
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/judge-orders-newt-gingrich-to-testify-in-georgia-2020-election-probe
me too as bitcoin crashing .....
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https://amgreatness.com/2022/09/06/former-feds-give-justice-department-a-bad-name/
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Appointment of Special Counsel Amounts to Election Interference and Sets Dangerous Precedent
Benjamin Weingarten
Benjamin Weingarten
November 25, 2022
While Republicans kicked off the 2024 presidential race with the announcement that Donald Trump was running for president, in perhaps the ultimate sign of our ignominious times, Democrats, in effect, kicked off their half of the contest three days later by appointing a special counsel to escalate their political prosecution of him.
This is where “our democracy” stands today: with its purported defenders engaging in the singularly anti-democratic act of siccing a hyper-politicized law enforcement apparatus on a candidate for the highest elected office, on dubious grounds, thereby subverting the political process by which we decide who represents us.
At a minimum, no doubt to an approving President Joe Biden, his law enforcement arm is now engaged in what amounts to election interference against arguably the president’s top challenger—ironically probing in part then-President Trump’s alleged interference with the transfer of power in 2020, when Trump could make the case the Deep State did the same to him from the inception of Russiagate in 2016 onward.
Worse, with Attorney General Merrick Garland’s appointment of Jack Smith as special counsel, the prospect of the former president being charged and convicted of something, anything, is more real than at any time during the perpetual campaign to purge Trump from the body politic.
Our Ruling Class really does wish to “lock him up,” or at least hold that threat over the former president’s head for maximum political gain.
There are many layers to the surreal lawfare assault on Trump worth peeling back—all of which point to the fact that our core institutions are willing to burn themselves down in service of their own power and privilege.
For starters, we have the inherent Third World nature of the current president, by way of his attorney general, pursuing criminal charges against his predecessor and present challenger. This is an extension of the Third World, Soviet show-trial-style Jan. 6 committee preceding it. The law enforcement apparatus carrying out the investigations has time and again acted, Third World-like, as the Ruling Class’s sword and shield. Such Third Worldism in our politics—weaponizing the national security and law enforcement apparatus against Ruling Class foes—has now been normalized, and institutionalized.
Next, there are the beyond dubious grounds on which the DOJ’s legal pursuit is putatively based. No Justice Department has ever pursued such probes, on such grounds, concerning such debatable charges, under such circumstances as this one. The 2024 presidential election may hinge in large part on what case(s) the DOJ can make over a document dispute—as even federal law enforcement has acknowledged is at issue with the Mar-a-Lago materials—and the manner in which a president contested an election.
Setting aside for a minute the contempt with which the DOJ/FBI has treated Trump time and again, looked at on the merits, the agencies have punted far more clear-cut cases concerning the handling of documents by officials with far less authority than the commander-in-chief. To my knowledge, there is little if any guidance on what constitutes “unlawful interference” with the transfer of power, or election certification—meaning, at very best, the Justice Department is dealing in hypotheticals and unique matters of interpretation. In other words, the grounds for legal pursuit of Trump by his successor’s administration are shaky, and the cases to be made are novel, to put it mildly.
If federal prosecutors—starting with the attorney general—acted with even a modicum of discretion, they would have immediately dismissed even the thought of pursuing anything but open-and-shut cases, overwhelmingly supported by law and precedent, when it comes to prosecuting a former president and current candidate. Instead, by characteristically holding Trump to a different standard than any president to come before him, our preeminent law enforcement agencies are undermining the rule of law.
Another aspect of the story is Garland’s artful attempt to insulate himself from an inherently hyper-political prosecution that his DOJ initiated in the first place, and that he ultimately calls the final shots on anyway—and all while the president’s son, not to mention other family members, who monetized patriarch Joe’s office through dealings with our worst adversaries, face no special counsel. Talk about a double standard.
Then there’s Special Counsel Smith’s checkered record in spearheading past baseless pursuits of Republicans during his time as the head of the Obama Justice Department’s public integrity section. His office’s reckless prosecution of former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell on bribery charges led to an embarrassing rebuke at the Supreme Court, which overturned the Republican’s conviction by a nine-to-nothing vote. The special counsel has also been implicated in the IRS’s targeting of conservative nonprofits during the Obama years.
And then, of course, there’s the myriad ways the prosecution can and will be exploited to hobble candidate Trump, cast a cloud over the GOP primary process, stymie Congressional Republicans likely to probe aspects of Jan. 6 and perhaps the DOJ and FBI themselves, and sideline those members involved in contesting the 2020 presidential election—all while distracting from the Biden administration’s misdeeds.
Lastly, there’s the precedent this all sets.
The legal persecution of Trump—an insurance policy of sorts should the political persecution of him and his supporters fail—is beyond chilling.
Those who loathe Trump, his policy, and his people, have proven they are willing to eviscerate the American system in the name of defending it from traitors, authoritarians, and insurrectionists.
Their projection is reaching its apex.
Should it persist, we will be an unrecognizable country.
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
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I thought the appointment of a special counsel. needed approval from the Senate
AG can appoint (of course with President approval alone?)
that has to change
can SCOTUS weigh in on this? are there grounds to do so?
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Not to my knowledge:
=====================
The Supreme Court Gets a Fraud Test
The Justices hear two major cases on prosecutorial overreach.
By The Editorial BoardFollow
Nov. 25, 2022 6:36 pm ET
George Washington Plunkitt’s quip about the difference between honest and dishonest graft comes to mind in two important public corruption cases the Supreme Court will hear on Monday. Defendants are asking the Court to throw out their convictions for sleazy conduct that they argue isn’t illegal under U.S. fraud laws.
The first case (Percoco v. U.S.) involves the ill-defined honest-services fraud statute. Joseph Percoco, a former state official who was at the time serving as campaign manager for former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, was paid $35,000 by a real-estate developer, allegedly to help obtain government approval for a project that didn’t have a labor peace agreement with local unions.
Prosecutors say Mr. Percoco was “functionally a public official” because he commanded clout with state agencies and therefore committed honest-services fraud by allegedly accepting a bribe. Congress defined a “scheme or artifice to defraud” to include “a scheme or artifice to deprive another of the intangible right of honest services.”
But as Justice Antonin Scalia noted, the law’s ambiguity has given rise to “chaos” in lower courts since nowhere is the “right of honest services” defined. The Court’s Skilling (2010) precedent limited criminal liability under the statute to kickback and bribery schemes, but three Justices also believed the law’s vagueness made it unconstitutional.
Lower courts have held that public officials owe a “right of honest services” to their constituents, but the High Court has never ruled that private individuals owe a fiduciary duty to the public. Prosecutors say Mr. Percoco owed the public such a duty because his “grip on [state] power never changed, diminished, or dissipated as he managed the campaign.”
Was Mr. Percoco paid to leverage his political clout? Of course. His simultaneous employment as Mr. Cuomo’s campaign manager and a business consultant is certainly sketchy. But the government’s theory in this case could be used to prosecute any powerful lobbyist, including former lawmakers who don’t act in the putative public interest.
This would present First Amendment concerns since citizens have the right to petition their government. It would also impair due process for private citizens who have no way of knowing if they are covered by the honest-services law. The Court tried to cabin criminal liability under the law in Skilling, but now prosecutors want to expand it again.
Monday’s second case (Ciminelli v. U.S.) also involves prosecutorial overreach against a Cuomo crony. The government charged contractor Louis Ciminelli, a Cuomo campaign contributor, with conspiracy to commit fraud by allegedly helping rig the procurement for a state-subsidized solar panel plant in Buffalo.
A member of a nonprofit overseeing the project drafted “requests for proposals” (RFP) to favor Mr. Ciminelli’s construction firm. There was no evidence Mr. Ciminelli directed the RFP’s terms, nor that the state or nonprofit suffered economic harm or loss of property as a result of Mr. Ciminelli’s firm being chosen.
Yet according to the government, Mr. Ciminelli defrauded the nonprofit of its “right to control its assets” by exposing it to the risk of economic harm through false representations about the fairness and competitiveness of the bidding process. If you’re struggling to understand the government’s convoluted theory, you’re not alone.
Prosecutors in recent years have increasingly resorted to this vague “right to control” theory to charge individuals they can’t prove defrauded anyone of actual property. This theory allows prosecutors to sidestep the traditional requirements of fraud, which are evidence of guilty intent, economic harm and deprivation of property.
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals in this case and others has ruled defendants can be prosecuted for fraud under this “right to control” theory if they withhold or misrepresent information that could affect an economic decision even if no one was harmed as a result. This transforms ordinary contract disputes and civil torts into federal crimes.
Businesses could be prosecuted if the government decides they withheld economically valuable information in transactions regardless of whether their lapse was intentional or harmed another party. Workers could be charged with fraud for not telling a prospective employer the reason they were laid off from their last job.
***
There’s no limiting principle on the government’s prosecutorial power under its theories of fraud in Monday’s two cases. The Court has repeatedly ruled that mere deception and unethical behavior don’t constitute fraud under existing U.S. law. Congress and states can pass laws to prevent political conflicts of interest from affecting government decisions. But prosecutors can’t rewrite the law on their own to charge individuals merely for profiting from their political connections.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/19/us/politics/trump-clinton-lawsuit-fine.html?unlocked_article_code=rLiZKxShTRvLteZqOCXZ4DAvvOTnQgqbeP-Mi6HyDrhKvoe3JHvpYF8r4h1MR2073sqfP5oqlL2EDvP6J751FH_JelQJUf6hzfdqcGTyPc8zHh-Txw8nB0mqFv_OAhlcCmw7N4xWNCmFYk_bzDw1Jsj50ELrVVKWJFm8-e76nvSBjDqCZY2B5Rohs3QzLmTBnbpgTSVJeydDOr13RRp6uCaBnitHg1DbaR8H-vyWv7RU6o0UGAr5edh_1Ybq1T_wkIU3K22mS7nbPY9PI-nBXVAx8POq5JR7WFFVp1kTzLg0tKNo4ODAqK-h1Lj12YCFsOmMG6RzqKYAofLi30FpGQ0_M33Ywfkk&smid=em-share
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https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/01/30/exclusive-naag-invests-taxpayer-money-in-esg/
where does it mention taxpayer money?
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/mar/2/trump-can-be-sued-police-over-jan-6-riot-justice-d/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=subscriber&utm_campaign=newsalert&utm_content=newsalert&utm_term=newsalert&bt_ee=%2BBLOIhAYskx%2B8CnX2iEMmMRuyWf9%2BYfu%2BTOPu84A4EeUNvObNrlBldUxVlYTUj6N&bt_ts=1677786969682
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/mar/2/trump-can-be-sued-police-over-jan-6-riot-justice-d/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=subscriber&utm_campaign=newsalert&utm_content=newsalert&utm_term=newsalert&bt_ee=%2BBLOIhAYskx%2B8CnX2iEMmMRuyWf9%2BYfu%2BTOPu84A4EeUNvObNrlBldUxVlYTUj6N&bt_ts=1677786969682
Discovery would be very useful, if Trump had the inclination to take this seriously.
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That is a very interesting point!
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https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/03/fox-news-looks-likely-to-lose-dominion-voting-systems-case.html
"Altogether, Dominion has singled out 20 episodes of alleged defamation, but with one exception, they all occurred during a roughly month-long period from mid-November to mid-December 2021, mostly on shows hosted by Lou Dobbs, Maria Bartiromo, and Jeanine Pirro. The temporal outlier is an interview that Carlson conducted with MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell in late January 2021 (after Trump supporters stormed the Capitol)"
what a second . The democrat media machine carried on a conspiracy theory that Trump won because of election interference for yrs
so for *one month* after the election that had many many "irregularities"
Fox people allowed guests that were suspicious of Dominion voice their opinions
and that is slander
Does anyone think that CNN believes everyone they have vomit their opinions on their show?
My hunch , the legal expert I am ( :wink: ) is this will all depend on the jury
If liberals Fox will lose
If objective and right leaning they will win.
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Where is the trial being held?
Jury trial or bench trial?
Who is the judge?
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https://www.wlrn.org/national-politics/national-politics/2023-02-15/meet-the-judge-deciding-the-1-6-billion-defamation-case-against-fox-news
Eric P Davis nominated by Dem governor
the legislative body that confirmed seems mixed as per party
hard to find much about him
as for jury nothing I find in search
the emails revealing all or most of the News hosts thought the allegations were untrue
of that those making the allegations were all lying is damaging
but how could they know it was false anymore then they could prove true?
especially pre '21.
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and almost ready to go is so Dems can use that to drown out this:
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/03/16/james-comer-whistleblowers-reveal-joe-biden-financially-benefited-family-business/
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On CNN: How is the $3M to the Biden Crime family different from/worse than the $1+B to Jared from the Saudis?
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/top-republican-orders-probe-into-whether-federal-funds-were-used-in-potential-trump-indictment_5132801.html?utm_source=Goodevening&src_src=Goodevening&utm_campaign=gv-2023-03-18&src_cmp=gv-2023-03-18&utm_medium=email&est=1%2BWGQWai9MpBOw8OoS1wWdCTRmtjFBtfAoVuPDM1o3mfVXaq5HcNhSlOG0QLiKzQflVH
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well what about John Edwards !!! headlines from leftist Blodgett rag insider:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/former-presidential-candidate-john-edwards-053138652.html
but did Trump use campaign funds to pay off the stripper as did Edwards?
since we are all shyster lawyers now.
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https://www.foxnews.com/media/ny-prosecutor-outside-lane-potential-trump-indictment-jonathan-turley
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/jonathan-turley-manhattan-das-potential-case-against-trump-legally-pathetic_5133735.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&src_src=Morningbrief&utm_campaign=mb-2023-03-20&src_cmp=mb-2023-03-20&utm_medium=email&est=VD7Xd0hQq0ZHtAZIfln7KHwywV5iMXOzX6QuM9vefVjoq5buserlRGx2OptPuUwK7FlE
BTW, I saw a catchy meme about Trump's call to action if he is arrested that pointed out he did jack shit to help out the J6 folks who answered his previous call to action and were imprisoned for it.
A powerful point methinks.
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/jonathan-turley-manhattan-das-potential-case-against-trump-legally-pathetic_5133735.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&src_src=Morningbrief&utm_campaign=mb-2023-03-20&src_cmp=mb-2023-03-20&utm_medium=email&est=VD7Xd0hQq0ZHtAZIfln7KHwywV5iMXOzX6QuM9vefVjoq5buserlRGx2OptPuUwK7FlE
BTW, I saw a catchy meme about Trump's call to action if he is arrested that pointed out he did jack shit to help out the J6 folks who answered his previous call to action and were imprisoned for it.
A powerful point methinks.
https://summit.news/2023/03/20/85-per-cent-of-trump-supporters-think-protesting-against-arrest-is-a-january-6-style-trap/
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"85 Per Cent of Trump Supporters Think Protesting Against Arrest is a January 6-Style Trap"
so 85% of his supporters tells the self described "“THE FAR & AWAY LEADING REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE"
he is being duped and he is trying to drag others into the trap thus duping them - again.
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Alvin Bragg’s Political Charge Against Donald Trump
An indictment of a former President must be for serious offenses with indisputable evidence.
By The Editorial BoardFollow
March 19, 2023 5:14 pm ET
Alvin Bragg may actually do it. The Manhattan district attorney is by all media accounts preparing to indict Donald Trump for failing to account properly for hush money paid to his alleged mistress, unleashing who knows what political furies. Mr. Trump said Saturday he expects to be arrested on Tuesday and urged his supporters to “protest, protest, protest.” Cry, the beloved country.
It’s impossible to overstate Mr. Bragg’s bad judgment here. Perhaps the local Democratic DA has discovered some new proof of criminal behavior. But based on the public evidence so far, he would be resurrecting a seven-year-old case that even federal prosecutors refused to bring to court.
As we wrote last week, the charge would appear to be falsifying business records to pay the mistress, Stormy Daniels. That is typically a misdemeanor in New York state, though Mr. Bragg might bump it up to a felony by claiming the falsification was to cover up an illegal campaign-finance donation to Mr. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
A key prosecution witness would be Michael Cohen, Mr. Trump’s former lawyer who is an admitted felon. Mr. Trump might claim in his defense that his payments were made to shield the affair from his wife. He has publicly denied an affair with Ms. Daniels. Proving intent to break the law will not be easy.
So Mr. Bragg may indict a former President for the first time in American history based on the weakest of charges. He would subject the country to a trial that would be a media circus for the ages. And he would do so running the risk that a single juror could block a guilty verdict and validate Mr. Trump’s claim that this is a political prosecution.
Yes, we know, in America no one is above the law. But prosecutors use their discretion every day not to bring charges for any number of reasons. Mr. Bragg came into office vowing not to charge numerous non-violent crimes against public order.
The prosecution of a former President who is again a candidate for the White House is inherently fraught with political ramifications. A wise prosecutor must consider the potential harm to confidence in the rule of law in bringing a prosecution that at least half the country will deem political. A charge against a former President or current candidate must be for serious offenses with indisputable evidence.
All the more so given that Mr. Bragg is acting here after being criticized for not bringing a case against Mr. Trump on charges related to the finances of the Trump Organization. Two prosecutors quit his office after Mr. Bragg made that decision. One of the prosecutors, Mark Pomerantz, wrote a highly critical book that the media has celebrated. Is Mr. Bragg now wilting under that media and political pressure?
We also know that Democrats want to run against Mr. Trump in 2024. They think he is the easiest candidate to defeat, and so they want to keep Mr. Trump in the political spotlight. An indictment of Mr. Trump now would come as the 2024 presidential race begins in earnest and would put other Republican candidates on the spot. Trump supporters are already demanding that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a likely opponent, refuse to extradite Mr. Trump to New York in defiance of the law.
Mr. Trump’s calls for protests are irresponsible, as well as against his self-interest. The smart play would be to follow the law while claiming his innocence. If there is violence amid protests, Mr. Trump will get much of the blame. But Mr. Bragg and his partisan cheerleaders will have touched off the whirlwind.
We don’t know the political impact of indicting Mr. Trump, but it’s possible it would help his candidacy. Republicans might rally to his defense even after millions had concluded after the GOP’s midterm disappointment that it is time for a new nominee. Democrats have used legal investigations and impeachment against Mr. Trump for six years, and each time it failed to knock him out. As we have argued all along, the proper way to defeat Mr. Trump is through the ballot box.
As a provincial progressive from New York City, Mr. Bragg may not understand the political forces he is unleashing. He might want to consult the satirical wisdom of the Babylon Bee headline on Twitter: “Manhattan DA Announces Plan to Get Trump Elected in 2024.”
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https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1050,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/132/634/548/original/7d77146b0458ab0d.jpeg
(https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1050,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/132/634/548/original/7d77146b0458ab0d.jpeg)
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Weaponization of legal system reaches new level
Democrats more focused on targeting political opponents than protecting citizens
By Mike Davis
If we are to believe the news, the district attorneys in Fulton County, Georgia, and Manhattan will soon announce indictments of Donald Trump.
The New York indictment looks especially imminent. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is hellbent on charging Mr. Trump. In fact, the New York County District Attorney’s Office has been searching for any way to charge the former president since 2017. The investigation has poured over former President Trump’s personal and business life. They’ve reportedly settled on charging Mr. Trump with the noncrime of his attorney Michael Cohen paying Stormy Daniels settlement money.
Even The New York Times admits the case is a stretch: “The case against the former president hinges on an untested and therefore risky legal theory involving a complex interplay of laws.”
It doesn’t matter. Mr. Trump is uniquely evil to the liberal prosecutors in New York. Mark Pomerantz, who investigated Mr. Trump for the Manhattan district attorney’s office, reveals in his book that he was asked in 2017 to join the DA’s office for the sole purpose of going after Mr. Trump. Mr. Pomerantz wrote that, unlike prosecuting “killers,” the prospect of prosecuting Mr. Trump made him emotional, as Mr. Trump “disgusted” him.
The now-former prosecutor wrote that he “would have paid the District Attorney’s Office for the opportunity to prosecute President Trump.”
This zeal to go after the political opponents of the Democrat party while ignoring real criminals starts with the leadership in the Manhattan DA’s office. The New York Post found that “softon- crime Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has downgraded more than half his felony cases to misdemeanors — while also managing to lose half of the felony cases that do reach court.”
Mr. Bragg can’t find the time to prosecute felonies in his district and protect the citizens that pay his salary, but he has all the time in the world to pursue a partisan agenda against Mr. Trump. This is an attempt to undermine a presidential candidate in order to curry favor with Democratic officials while ignoring New Yorkers’ concern with rising crime in New York City.
The partisan legal antics don’t stop in New York. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis convened a special grand jury in Atlanta to try to secure charges against Mr. Trump. The foreperson of the special grand jury went on a national media tour, where she gleefully fantasized about taking down Mr. Trump.
Ms. Willis appears to be targeting Mr. Trump for actions that are protected by the First Amendment. It’s only illegal to challenge election results in Third World Marxist hellholes. It’s not a crime to lobby other politicians. If political arm-twisting were illegal, then every politician in America would be in prison. These two prosecutions are intended to kneecap Mr. Trump with the 2024 presidential election on the horizon. Mr. Trump remains the Republican front-runner, and he is ahead of President Biden in recent polls. These district attorneys are attempting to force Mr. Trump out of the race with bogus legal theories — Mr. Bragg has been essentially dismissed by even the liberal New York Times — because they are terrified of a fair election. Why wouldn’t they be afraid? Amid record inflation and a looming financial crisis, most Americans are dissatisfied with the direction of the country. Mr. Trump brought us peace and prosperity; Mr. Biden brought us war and despair. Fortunately, these politicized legal shenanigans tend to blow up in Democrats’ faces. Just look at how Mr. Trump’s poll numbers improved after the FBI’s baseless and illegal raid on Mar-a-Lago. The one thing that has united conservatives in the Trump era is disdain for the Democrats’ weaponization of the legal system. But while the use of our courts to score political points might not succeed as planned for Democrats, it will succeed in causing permanent damage to our nation. For all the Democrats’ talk of “protecting democracy,” weaponized prosecution is a blatant attempt to steal control from voters. Every time a prosecutor’s office becomes more focused on targeting political opponents than protecting its citizens, we become more like the countries we used to liberate. Mike Davis is the founder and president of the Article III Project, which defends constitutionalist judges. As the former chief counsel for nominations to Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, Iowa Republican, he served as staff leader for Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation. Mr. Davis also served as a law clerk to Justice Neil Gorsuch, both on the 10th Circuit and Supreme Court.
challenges. Further, I’m concerned that they don’t have a real grip on what’s happening in the present. Remember: More than one year ago, our top military official, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley, publicly said that Russia would take Kyiv in three days. This is the same general who said the Afghan military could potentially withstand the Taliban’s takeover of the country after the U.S. surrender. (Set aside the moronically disastrous decision to give up Bagram Airfield as our primary eyes on Chinese activity.)
After these two decisive failures, I am amazed Gen. Milley has not been retired. What must our adversaries think about the quality of U.S. intelligence? How does this repeated, demonstrable incompetence affect Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping’s plans for Taiwan? What if we are as wrong about the Chinese threat to Taiwan as we were about the Taliban’s threat to Afghanistan or the Russian threat to Ukraine?
I am picking on Gen. Milley, but in some ways, he’s a symptom of a much bigger problem. We have 18 intelligence agencies. Apparently, they were all wrong. My suspicion is they were wrong not because they have bad personnel but because they are part of a large bureaucratic system that rejects new ideas, punishes dissent, and is primarily concerned with protecting itself rather than American interests.
The impact is that these highly educated professionals bury their heads in the sand. They favor what they learned in graduate school — and what their peers say at cocktail parties — over what is really happening in the world. Our political leaders then get briefed on ideological rather than pragmatic intelligence. Consider that less than five years ago, many people in the Washington establishment did not think China posed a significant threat. In 2019, then-candidate Joe Biden brushed off concerns over competition with China, saying, “China is going to eat our lunch? Come on, man!”
About two years later, he said exactly the opposite.
Bureaucratic incompetence is the biggest risk to America’s safety.
Congress needs to get serious about modernizing our defense systems. One could likely reorganize our 18 intelligence agencies into about six. I often tell audiences that the Pentagon could be turned into a triangle and become much more efficient and effective at defending American interests.
With regard to the war in Ukraine and the long conflict with Russia, we need to learn from the failures in Afghanistan. Democracies don’t fight long wars well. We need to develop and successfully implement a strategy that results in the fastest, most decisive Ukrainian victory possible.
From China to Iran to North Korea, our adversaries are watching. America must not continue to fail
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Weaponization of legal system reaches new level
Democrats more focused on targeting political opponents than protecting citizens
By Mike Davis
If we are to believe the news, the district attorneys in Fulton County, Georgia, and Manhattan will soon announce indictments of Donald Trump.
The New York indictment looks especially imminent. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is hellbent on charging Mr. Trump. In fact, the New York County District Attorney’s Office has been searching for any way to charge the former president since 2017. The investigation has poured over former President Trump’s personal and business life. They’ve reportedly settled on charging Mr. Trump with the noncrime of his attorney Michael Cohen paying Stormy Daniels settlement money.
Even The New York Times admits the case is a stretch: “The case against the former president hinges on an untested and therefore risky legal theory involving a complex interplay of laws.”
It doesn’t matter. Mr. Trump is uniquely evil to the liberal prosecutors in New York. Mark Pomerantz, who investigated Mr. Trump for the Manhattan district attorney’s office, reveals in his book that he was asked in 2017 to join the DA’s office for the sole purpose of going after Mr. Trump. Mr. Pomerantz wrote that, unlike prosecuting “killers,” the prospect of prosecuting Mr. Trump made him emotional, as Mr. Trump “disgusted” him.
The now-former prosecutor wrote that he “would have paid the District Attorney’s Office for the opportunity to prosecute President Trump.”
This zeal to go after the political opponents of the Democrat party while ignoring real criminals starts with the leadership in the Manhattan DA’s office. The New York Post found that “softon- crime Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has downgraded more than half his felony cases to misdemeanors — while also managing to lose half of the felony cases that do reach court.”
Mr. Bragg can’t find the time to prosecute felonies in his district and protect the citizens that pay his salary, but he has all the time in the world to pursue a partisan agenda against Mr. Trump. This is an attempt to undermine a presidential candidate in order to curry favor with Democratic officials while ignoring New Yorkers’ concern with rising crime in New York City.
The partisan legal antics don’t stop in New York. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis convened a special grand jury in Atlanta to try to secure charges against Mr. Trump. The foreperson of the special grand jury went on a national media tour, where she gleefully fantasized about taking down Mr. Trump.
Ms. Willis appears to be targeting Mr. Trump for actions that are protected by the First Amendment. It’s only illegal to challenge election results in Third World Marxist hellholes. It’s not a crime to lobby other politicians. If political arm-twisting were illegal, then every politician in America would be in prison. These two prosecutions are intended to kneecap Mr. Trump with the 2024 presidential election on the horizon. Mr. Trump remains the Republican front-runner, and he is ahead of President Biden in recent polls. These district attorneys are attempting to force Mr. Trump out of the race with bogus legal theories — Mr. Bragg has been essentially dismissed by even the liberal New York Times — because they are terrified of a fair election. Why wouldn’t they be afraid? Amid record inflation and a looming financial crisis, most Americans are dissatisfied with the direction of the country. Mr. Trump brought us peace and prosperity; Mr. Biden brought us war and despair. Fortunately, these politicized legal shenanigans tend to blow up in Democrats’ faces. Just look at how Mr. Trump’s poll numbers improved after the FBI’s baseless and illegal raid on Mar-a-Lago. The one thing that has united conservatives in the Trump era is disdain for the Democrats’ weaponization of the legal system. But while the use of our courts to score political points might not succeed as planned for Democrats, it will succeed in causing permanent damage to our nation. For all the Democrats’ talk of “protecting democracy,” weaponized prosecution is a blatant attempt to steal control from voters. Every time a prosecutor’s office becomes more focused on targeting political opponents than protecting its citizens, we become more like the countries we used to liberate. Mike Davis is the founder and president of the Article III Project, which defends constitutionalist judges. As the former chief counsel for nominations to Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, Iowa Republican, he served as staff leader for Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation. Mr. Davis also served as a law clerk to Justice Neil Gorsuch, both on the 10th Circuit and Supreme Court.
challenges. Further, I’m concerned that they don’t have a real grip on what’s happening in the present. Remember: More than one year ago, our top military official, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley, publicly said that Russia would take Kyiv in three days. This is the same general who said the Afghan military could potentially withstand the Taliban’s takeover of the country after the U.S. surrender. (Set aside the moronically disastrous decision to give up Bagram Airfield as our primary eyes on Chinese activity.)
After these two decisive failures, I am amazed Gen. Milley has not been retired. What must our adversaries think about the quality of U.S. intelligence? How does this repeated, demonstrable incompetence affect Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping’s plans for Taiwan? What if we are as wrong about the Chinese threat to Taiwan as we were about the Taliban’s threat to Afghanistan or the Russian threat to Ukraine?
I am picking on Gen. Milley, but in some ways, he’s a symptom of a much bigger problem. We have 18 intelligence agencies. Apparently, they were all wrong. My suspicion is they were wrong not because they have bad personnel but because they are part of a large bureaucratic system that rejects new ideas, punishes dissent, and is primarily concerned with protecting itself rather than American interests.
The impact is that these highly educated professionals bury their heads in the sand. They favor what they learned in graduate school — and what their peers say at cocktail parties — over what is really happening in the world. Our political leaders then get briefed on ideological rather than pragmatic intelligence. Consider that less than five years ago, many people in the Washington establishment did not think China posed a significant threat. In 2019, then-candidate Joe Biden brushed off concerns over competition with China, saying, “China is going to eat our lunch? Come on, man!”
About two years later, he said exactly the opposite.
Bureaucratic incompetence is the biggest risk to America’s safety.
Congress needs to get serious about modernizing our defense systems. One could likely reorganize our 18 intelligence agencies into about six. I often tell audiences that the Pentagon could be turned into a triangle and become much more efficient and effective at defending American interests.
With regard to the war in Ukraine and the long conflict with Russia, we need to learn from the failures in Afghanistan. Democracies don’t fight long wars well. We need to develop and successfully implement a strategy that results in the fastest, most decisive Ukrainian victory possible.
From China to Iran to North Korea, our adversaries are watching. America must not continue to fail
The American experiment is over and it's a giant failure.
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Regarding Tara Reade:
In addition to the obvious about double standards, there is also the matter that Stormy had monster tits and as such was much better click bait.
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"The American experiment is over and it's a giant failure."
Is that what Herb Brooks told Team USA between periods in "Miracle", it's over, they're better than us, we lost?
Is that what Patton told me troops in WWII, These are the f*****g Nazis, we have ne chance?
John Bullshit in Animal House had more fighting spirit than some here.
Newt:. "More than one year ago, our top military official, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley, publicly said that Russia would take Kyiv in three days."
I recall someone here said something like that as well.
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"The American experiment is over and it's a giant failure."
Is that what Herb Brooks told Team USA between periods in "Miracle", it's over, they're better than us, we lost?
Is that what Patton told me troops in WWII, These are the f*****g Nazis, we have ne chance?
Newt:. "More than one year ago, our top military official, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley, publicly said that Russia would take Kyiv in three days."
I recall someone here said something like that as well.
It's not a hockey game. If the American troops of WWII saw America now, they wouldn't have bothered.
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Let's circle back to the topic of this thread please :-)
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https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/michael-horowitz-doj-inspector-general/2023/03/23/id/1113593/
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https://ace.mu.nu/archives/403823.php
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https://www.cbsnews.com/news/homeland-security-mayorkas-border-immigration-transcript-60-minutes-2023-04-02/
interviewing him is a waste of time
typical Biden administration person
deny what is obvious and clearly going on
obama was less blatant
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https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2023/04/06/the-only-way-to-restore-the-norms-is-to-finish-them-off-n2621618
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Defamation Lawsuit Against Southern Poverty Law Center Moves Forward
The Southern Poverty Law Center headquarters in Montgomery, Ala., in June 2019. (Google Maps/Screenshot via The Epoch Times)
The Southern Poverty Law Center headquarters in Montgomery, Ala., in June 2019. (Google Maps/Screenshot via The Epoch Times)
Ryan Morgan
By Ryan Morgan
April 5, 2023Updated: April 7, 2023
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A federal judge is allowing a defamation lawsuit against the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) to move forward after the SPLC labeled an immigration reform advocacy group as an “anti-immigrant hate group.”
Judge William Keith Watkins of Alabama’s Middle District Federal Court denied the SPLC’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the Dustin Inman Society (DIS) on March 31.
The Dustin Inman Society, which describes itself as an organization with a mission of “promoting the enforcement of immigration laws in the United States,” has argued that the SPLC’s description of their organization as a “hate group” is defamatory and exposes them to an increased risk of violent retribution.
The Dustin Inman Society is named after Dustin Inman, a 16-year-old Georgia boy killed in a car crash in 2000 that involved an illegal immigrant.
The SPLC is a nonprofit civil rights litigation and advocacy organization that also runs a website purporting to track extremist activity within the United States. The SPLC documents these extremist group labels on its “Hate Map” web portal.
The “Hate Map” web portal includes labels for anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ, anti-Muslim, antisemitism, Christian identity, general hate, hate music, KKK, male supremacy, Neo-Confederacy, Neo-Nazi, Neo-Völkisch, racist skinhead, radical traditional Catholicism, and white nationalism.
A complaint (pdf) by the DIS argues the SPLC’s abruptly reversed a prior decision not to add the Dustin Inman Society to its “Hate Map”. In 2011, the SPLC allegedly told the Associated Press that the DIS did not belong on the group’s “Hate Map” because DIS was pursuing its immigration policy objectives through the legal process rather than threats of violence or intimidation of immigrants.
“Because [DIS Founder and President D.A. King] is fighting, working on his legislation through the political process, that is not something we can quibble with, whether we like the law or not” the SPLC allegedly announced in 2011.
Despite this prior decision not to list DIS as a hate group, the SPLC reversed course in February 2018, adding the “anti-immigrant hate group” label. The DIS complaint alleges the SPLC made no change to its criteria for labeling organizations as hate groups and that the DIS had not changed its behavior to warrant such labeling. Instead, the complaint indicates that a motivating factor for the “hate group” label was that the SPLC registered lobbyists in Georgia opposed a “pro-enforcement” immigration bill working through the state legislature.
King told the Daily Signal that the SPLC’s goal with the revised hate group label “was clearly to paint us as the extremists and to marginalize us in the eyes of state lawmakers and the media. That effort was largely successful.”
Violent Threats
The lawsuit argues that other individuals and organizations, like the Family Resource Council and Dr. Charles Murray, have faced violent threats after becoming the subjects of the SPLC’s hate group labels.
By denying the SPLC’s motion to dismiss the case, DIS’s defamation lawsuit against the organization can proceed.
NTD News reached out to the SPLC for comment, but the organization did not respond before this article was published.
The DIS lawsuit alleges the SPLC’s “hate group” labeling is a particularly concerning decision because the group has a reputation as a reputable source of information on extremist activity. Indeed, mainstream media outlets routinely cite the SPLC in their reporting on hate groups and extremism in the United States.
“SPLC is not taking the posture of an opinion columnist or political pundit, but instead claims it has specialized knowledge of the groups it monitors, holding itself out as having the ability to conduct in depth investigations and offering expertise on the groups it monitors and to make factual determinations regarding the organizations it includes in the ‘hate map’, not mere opinion,” the DIS lawsuit alleges.
In recent years, Republican and conservative commentators have increasingly pushed back on the SPLC, arguing the organization holds a bias that disfavors conservatives. In August of 2020, during the Republican National Convention for the 2020 election, the Republican Party adopted a resolution declaring “The SPLC is a radical organization, and that the federal government should not view this organization as a legitimate foundation equipped to provide actionable information to DHS or any other government agency.”
The SPLC said the RNC’s resolution gave “comfort to hate groups.” SPLC president and chief executive Margaret Huang said the resolution was designed to “excuse the Trump administration’s history of working with individuals and organizations that malign entire groups of people—including Black Lives Matter advocates, immigrants, Muslims and the L.G.B.T.Q. community—with dehumanizing rhetoric.”
In October 2020, the SPLC announced it was revising its Hate Map to no longer include labels for “black separatist” groups.
SPLC Lawyer
Last month, a lawyer for the SPLC was charged with domestic terrorism after he was arrested alongside anti-police activists at a demonstration opposing the construction of a new police training facility in Atlanta, Georgia.
Videos from the incident showed demonstrators throwing rocks and fireworks at police officers, and several pieces of construction equipment were set on fire.
The SPLC said the lawyer arrested during that protest event was working as a legal observer who was working on behalf of the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) at the time.
The SPLC also said their employee’s arrest at the destructive demonstration “is not evidence of any crime, but of heavy-handed law enforcement intervention against protesters.”
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/apr/7/justice-clarence-thomas-says-vacations-gop-megadon/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=subscriber&utm_campaign=newsalert&utm_content=newsalert&utm_term=newsalert&bt_ee=5RANj1WCQtGH7uwGcVH6zeK0k5oR3DBzCy9Igc7jjUP%2FQz%2BYesmE74kiinq1hb3I&bt_ts=1680885851854
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I am thinking that behind DJT
the Justice Thomas is the second most targeted Conservative/Republican in the world
:x
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The Smearing of Clarence Thomas
The left gins up another phony ethics assault to tarnish the Supreme Court.
By The Editorial BoardFollow
April 7, 2023 6:45 pm ET
The left’s assault on the Supreme Court is continuing, and the latest front is the news that Justice Clarence Thomas has a rich friend who has hosted the Justice on his private plane, his yacht, and his vacation resort. That’s it. That’s the story. Yet this non-bombshell has triggered breathless claims that the Court must be investigated, and that Justice Thomas must resign or be impeached. Those demands give away the real political game here.
***
ProPublica, a left-leaning website, kicked off the fun with a report Thursday that Justice Thomas has a longtime friendship with Harlan Crow, a wealthy Texas real-estate developer. The intrepid reporters roamed far and wide to discover that the Justice has sometimes traveled on Mr. Crow’s “Bombardier Global 5000 jet” and that each summer the Justice and his wife spend a vacation week at Mr. Crow’s place in the Adirondacks.
The piece is loaded with words and phrases intended to convey that this is all somehow disreputable: “superyacht”; “luxury trips”; “exclusive California all-male retreat”; “sprawling ranch”; “private chefs”; “elegant accommodation”; “opulent lodge”; “lavishing the justice with gifts.” And more.
Adjectival overkill is the method of bad polemicists who don’t have much to report. The ProPublica writers suggest that Justice Thomas may have violated ethics rules, and they quote a couple of cherry-picked ethicists to express their dismay.
But it seems clear that the Court’s rules at the time all of this happened did not require that gifts of personal hospitality be disclosed. This includes the private plane trips. ProPublica fails to make clear to readers that the U.S. Judicial Conference recently changed its rules to require more disclosure. The new rules took effect last month.
Justice Thomas would have been obliged to disclose gifts that posed a conflict of interest involving cases that would be heard by the High Court. But there is no evidence that Mr. Crow has had any such business before the Court, and Mr. Crow says he has “never asked about a pending or lower court case.”
The most ProPublica can come up with is that “Crow has deep connections in conservative politics.” Oh dear. One hilarious section reports that a painting at Mr. Crow’s New York resort includes Mr. Crow, Justice Thomas and three friends smoking cigars. One of the friends is Leonard Leo, “the Federalist Society leader regarded as an architect of the Supreme Court’s recent turn to the right,” ProPublica says.
This conspiracy is so secret that it’s hiding in plain sight. Can anyone imagine such a story ever being written about a liberal Justice on the Court?
Justice Thomas said in a Friday statement that “early in my tenure at the court, I sought guidance from my colleagues and others in the judiciary, and was advised that this sort of personal hospitality from close personal friends, who did not have business before the Court, was not reportable.” He added that “these guidelines are now being changed,” as the Judicial Conference announced new guidance. “And, it is, of course, my intent to follow this guidance in the future,” the statement said.
***
None of this will stop the political stampede to portray the Crow-Thomas friendship as a scandal to tarnish the Justice and the current Court. This campaign has been underway with particular ferocity since the Court’s majority shifted during the Trump years toward Justices who have an originalist view of interpreting the law and Constitution.
Justice Thomas is the leading target because his long-held views on the law have found new adherents. As the longest-tenured Justice now on the Court, he has the power to assign writing duties for opinions when he is in the majority but Chief Justice Roberts isn’t.
“Is Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas corrupt? I don’t know,” tweeted Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu. “But his secretive actions absolutely have the appearance of corruption. And he apparently violated the law. For the good of the country, he should resign.” You gotta love the “I don’t know” but he should resign anyway formulation.
The liberal press—pardon the redundancy—has climbed onto its ethical high horse and is demanding “reform” at the Court. “All of this needs robust investigation,” demanded Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse. Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin dutifully saluted upon Mr. Whitehouse’s order and said his committee “will act” to impose a new “enforceable code of conduct” for the Court.
This ethics talk is really about setting up an apparatus that politicians can then use against the Justices if there is any transgression, however minor or inadvertent. The claims of corruption are intended to smear the conservative Justices and tarnish the Court to tee up case recusals, impeachment or a Court-packing scheme if Democrats get enough Senate votes to break the filibuster.
It’s all ugly politics, but the left is furious it lost control of the Court, and it wants it back by whatever means possible.
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ProPublica, a left-leaning website, kicked off the
fun [smear]
yes saw Josh Kaplan on CNN few nights ago
he is the righteous virtue signaler who was behind the story
and of course surrounded by the usual panel of leftist smear experts doing their assigned roles .
no mention if any other justices get gifts speaking fees or other - only Just. Thomas
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https://rollcall.com/2020/03/24/supreme-court-justices-perks-revealed-in-new-report/
https://www.businessinsider.com/heres-how-supreme-court-justices-really-make-money-2015-7
https://time.com/6186294/supreme-court-salary-book-deals/
https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2019/06/scotus-justices-rack-up-trips/
https://www.npr.org/2020/03/30/823324538/a-supreme-court-justice-visits-a-look-behind-the-scenes
Here is government site on outside income but apparently does not affect the Supremes:
https://www.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/vol02c-ch10.pdf
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/appeals-court-upholds-dojs-novel-use-of-obstruction-law-against-jan-6-defendants_5179650.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&src_src=Morningbrief&utm_campaign=mb-2023-04-08&src_cmp=mb-2023-04-08&utm_medium=email&est=ig2oytgyg6fdRxLRfEzD8X%2B2jv3YJRVm1qzHdaOyqFqdbs45Pja0fW5Zdie%2ByMobiHB3
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/republican-rep-fry-introduces-no-more-political-prosecutions-legislation_5191843.html?utm_source=China&src_src=China&utm_campaign=uschina-2023-04-14&src_cmp=uschina-2023-04-14&utm_medium=email&est=83zYMlOQhQO3qGWbbqFblgW37hGlBURevd3Z%2B8VdGb3NNnfnUdvr0fWJ5IdWpgU01OdU
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What Is Jim Jordan’s Evidence That the FBI Is Using Undercover Agents to Infiltrate Catholic Congregations?
By ANDREW C. MCCARTHY
April 15, 2023 6:30 AM
This is an explosive allegation. It needs to be backed with strong proof.
Obviously, it is outrageous that intelligence analysts at an FBI field office in Richmond, Va., proposed investigating Catholics, under the demeaning label of “Radical-Traditionalist Catholic Ideology.” It would be all the more egregious if it turned out that the FBI had used one or more undercover operatives to infiltrate Catholic congregations in the Richmond area, as House Judiciary Committee chairman Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) alleges in a letter to FBI director Chris Wray.
That said, I am having trouble following Jordan’s letter, which is embedded in a report by our Ari Blaff, and is accompanied by a subpoena demanding that Wray testify before the committee. Specifically, what is Jordan’s evidence, which he says comes from the FBI itself, that the bureau has infiltrated at least one Catholic community with an undercover agent?
This is an explosive allegation. And, always ready with a gasoline can whenever a fire breaks out, Senator Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) has quickly upped the ante. Taking Jordan’s accusation as a given, Hawley has sent a letter accusing Attorney General Merrick Garland of committing perjury in Senate testimony last month when he denied that the Justice Department has been developing sources inside churches. Fox News reports on Hawley’s letter, in which he accused the AG of “turn[ing] Catholic congregations into front organizations for the FBI” and demanded that Garland tell him exactly how many “undercover informants or other agents” had infiltrated houses of worship.
If the FBI and the Justice Department are conducting undercover investigations of Catholic congregations, on suspicion of terrorism no less, then Jordan and Hawley are right to be hounding them for an explanation. But what makes Jordan say, and Hawley thus assume, that they are doing this?
The intelligence analysis from the FBI’s Richmond office is an objectionable eight-page screed, preciously labeled a “Domain Perspective.” It maintains that suspected white-supremacist terrorists (labeled “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists,” or “RMVEs”) are drawn to an “ideology” they describe as “radical-traditionalist Catholic.” The authors distinguish “RTCs” from “‘traditionalist Catholics”: Though the latter, too, “prefer the Traditional Latin Mass and pre-Vatican II teachings and traditions,” you see, they resist RTCs’ “violent rhetoric” and “more extremist ideological beliefs,” such as disdain for post-Vatican II popes (especially Francis and John Paul II) and “frequent adherence to anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ, and white-supremacist ideology.”
As I read this claptrap, it reflects stupidity rather than action. That is, the FBI intelligence analysts who wrote it recommend that the bureau develop sources who might be in a position to report on efforts by the RMVEs — i.e., the suspected terrorists, or at least larval “violent extremists” — to exploit RTC social-media sites and churches in order to promote violence. The analysis does not indicate that the FBI has approved this recommendation, let alone acted on it. To the contrary, moreover, FBI headquarters has blasted the analysis and ordered its retraction.
Yet, Jordan writes:
Based on the limited information produced by the FBI to the Committee, we now know that the FBI relied on at least one undercover agent to produce its analysis, and that the FBI proposed that its agents engage in outreach to Catholic parishes to develop sources among the clergy and church leadership to inform on Americans practicing their faith.
The “limited information” to which Jordan refers is set forth in a March 23 letter to his committee, signed by the bureau’s acting assistant director, Christopher Dunham. Understandably, the chairman complains that the letter withholds much of the information the committee seeks, which leaves him the burden of deciphering what the bureau has grudgingly revealed based, in part, on what it is unwilling to say. Still, while Jordan claims that “the FBI relied on at least one undercover agent to produce its analysis,” he does not say this unidentified undercover agent infiltrated a Catholic community. That’s a strange thing for Jordan to leave out if he’s been told that’s what the agent did.
In any event, the Dunham letter is not public, so we don’t know what exactly the FBI said that leads Jordan to describe it as an acknowledgment that “the FBI relied on at least one undercover agent” in producing the Richmond analysis that FBI headquarters has condemned.
Jordan says that, based on Dunham’s letter, the committee knows that “the FBI, relying on information derived from at least one undercover employee, sought to use local religious organizations as ‘new avenues for tripwire and source development.’” He says an “example” of this is found in a section of the Richmond analysis entitled “Opportunities” (a section that is apparently redacted from the portions of the memo that were published on UndercoverDC.com). Jordan proceeds to describe this “example,” drawing on this recommendation in the analysis:
In addition to [redaction], engage in outreach to the leadership of other [Society of Saint Pius X] chapels in the FBI Richmond [area of responsibility] to sensitize these congregations to the warning signs of radicalization and to enlist their assistance to serve as suspicious activity tripwires. [Bolding and brackets in original; footnotes, which cite the Dunham letter, omitted.]
I don’t see any allusion to undercover activity in this passage. To be sure, we don’t know what “[redaction]” refers to. Perhaps I shouldn’t presume that Jordan doesn’t know what it means, either, but if he does know, and it has something to do with an undercover agent, he should explain that.
Although offered as an “example” of the FBI’s using an undercover agent, the passage Jordan excerpts suggests that the bureau’s office in Richmond should reach out to the leadership of specified Catholic groups — congregations of the Society of St. Pius X — to provide them with instruction on the “warning signs of radicalization” and “enlist their assistance to serve as suspicious activity tripwires.”
Now, however sinister that may sound, it is the opposite of undercover activity. Contrary to Jordan’s description, it is also not necessarily an FBI suggestion that the community leaders “inform on Americans practicing their faith.” If the wayward Richmond analysts believed that the practice of these Catholics’ faith was the equivalent of promoting terrorism, the last people to whom they’d suggest reaching out would be the faith leaders. Instead, their suggestion is to seek the help of the leaders in discerning “suspicious activity” — not the practice of religion but the kinds of activities commonly engaged in by religiously motivated terrorists (e.g., urging of violence, recruitment to paramilitary training, etc.).
Furthermore, for all its many flaws, the focus of the Richmond analysis is not members of the Catholic congregations, at least not directly. The target is the so-called RMVEs — the suspected terrorists. In particular, the analysis highlights the RMVEs’ use of “RTC social media sites or places of worship as facilitation platforms to promote violence.” The idea is that the RMVEs are drawn to RTC facilities and may try to use them for terrorist purposes, and that members of the RTC congregations may notice this and be disturbed enough to report it.
This is reminiscent of the community outreach the FBI did with Muslim groups in the post-9/11 era. Top FBI officials — not undercover agents — would contact leaders of the Islamic community centers that often develop around local mosques. Whatever you thought about these efforts (I was not a fan), their objective was to avoid the need to have undercover operatives infiltrate Muslim communities.
To that end, the FBI would try to open lines of communication with the Islamic elders and explain the kinds of behaviors the bureau typically detected in young Muslims who might be falling under the spell of jihadist groups. The jihadists were known to recruit in Islamic community centers — that was not speculation, it was an indisputable fact that had been proven in court. The idea was to have community leaders either use their (hopefully moderating) influence to counter the jihadist exhortations or, if the “radicalization” had advanced to a dangerous point, report the situation to the FBI.
I am sensitive to this for two reasons. First, Jordan has a history of getting out over his skis on this sort of thing. I’ve recounted how, from the premise that the FBI had used “threat tags” to categorize investigations instigated by Attorney General Merrick Garland’s noxious directive to probe parents who were protesting woke indoctrination in the schools, Jordan leapt to the conclusion that the bureau was using Patriot Act counterterrorism authorities to conduct those investigations. In reality, there is to date sparse evidence that the FBI did much investigating at all, and no evidence (to my knowledge) that Patriot Act authorities were employed. And for his part, Wray took pains to distance the FBI from Garland’s directive and to emphasize that the bureau regards political dissent (First Amendment–protected expression) as, by itself, an unconstitutional basis for an investigation.
Second, I have helped the FBI run the kinds of undercover investigations that Jordan suggests would be objectionable. Indeed, I wrote a book about one of them, Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad. In 1990, after a jihadist named Sayyid Nosair murdered Rabbi Meir Kahane (founder of the Jewish Defense League) in midtown Manhattan, the FBI exploited the occasion of Nosair’s trial — a cause célèbre for metropolitan-area Muslim radicals — to place an informant in Nosair’s circle, which turned out to be led by Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, a renowned jihadist who had issued the fatwa approving the murder of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in 1981. In short order, the investigation yielded evidence that the group was plotting bombings and political assassinations, and was using area mosques for proselytism, recruitment, fundraising, conspiratorial planning, and the storage of firearms.
The FBI was naturally uneasy about using an informant to infiltrate an enterprise that was tied together by its fundamentalist interpretation of religious doctrine, and about the fact that the investigation involved not only surveilling mosques but also recording incriminating conversations inside them. But here’s the thing: After the bureau shut down the undercover operation in September 1992 over a dispute with the informant, it did not try to replace him with another undercover agent, and as a result it was left with no window into the conspiracy; five months later, on February 26, 1993, the same jihadists bombed the World Trade Center.
Now, there are night-and-day differences here. The FBI investigations of jihadists beginning in the late 1980s were triggered by some surveillance of paramilitary exercises and firearms training, and by the fact that Nosair and others implicated in the training were complicit in the Kahane murder. In stark contrast, the FBI’s Richmond memo was triggered by a political smear promoted by the hard Left — namely, that America is under siege by white-supremacist domestic terrorists — which the bureau’s Richmond intelligence analysts exacerbated by their hunch (fueled by the Leftist propagandists at the Southern Poverty Law Center) that these supposed terrorists see traditionalist Catholics, or at least the “radicals” among them, as potential confederates.
Consequently, Jordan and his committee are right to be hounding the FBI to produce its evidence that there is a terrorist enterprise, analogous to the jihadist onslaught, in which white racists and traditionalist Catholics are conspiring. Like many of us, I suspect such evidence is scant, at best. Instead, I believe that the FBI, or at least parts of it, has been put in the service of a progressive political narrative. This has been happening since the Obama years. Eventually, it is going to lead to a dramatic overhaul of the bureau.
Still, Jordan needs to be careful here. The Judiciary Committee investigation of the FBI is extremely important. We need an effective top federal law-enforcement agency. We also need a Congress that can probe abuses of investigative authorities without demagoguing those authorities, which are vital to protecting Americans from real threats.
Jordan’s investigation must not devolve into a red-meat exercise for a Trump base bent on settling scores with feds cast by their man as his chief tormentors. If Jordan’s got proof that the FBI is using undercover agents to infiltrate Catholic groups, he should tell us what it is — his letter, for all the hoopla about it, does no such thing.
In sum, Chairman Jordan’s current letter suggests that at least part of the FBI (in Richmond) has considered doing with Catholic congregations what the FBI has done with Muslim congregations in the past. I am open to the argument that the two situations are not comparable, and that there is thus no reason, beyond political correctness and woke hostility to Catholicism, to subject Catholic congregations to such treatment.
Nevertheless, such treatment is not the same as undercover infiltration. Moreover, undercover infiltration should not be condemned as if it were an inconceivable investigative measure for dealing with violence motivated by religious beliefs. It is not that long ago, after all, that our concern was whether the FBI was being aggressive enough in infiltrating hubs of fundamentalist Islam.
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/u-s-appeals-court-judge-dismisses-propublica-story-on-justice-thomas/ar-AA19PVgp?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=7d5d8da450574d159e22a29bb0736aa7&ei=19
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https://twitchy.com/aaronw-313234/2023/04/20/texas-delivers-consequences-to-disruptive-law-school-protesters/?bcid=a1714aba6c197395707aecde9ada65a65090b7be5f45291f6611e9cf3bd6bace&utm_campaign=nl&utm_medium=email&utm_source=twtydaily
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like the California gold rush
a few early on got rich and then the others seeking riches never do
this is total hoarse poop. Leftist Shysters and money grubbers:
https://news.yahoo.com/settlement-challenge-fox-news-disinformation-014117047.html
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https://www.nationalreview.com/news/georgia-school-district-reinstates-pays-six-figures-to-teacher-fired-for-objecting-to-gay-parents-in-childrens-book/?bypass_key=UjI3VnNlck1aWDVjOUYwY2ozLzBQQT09OjpaMlkyYkRabmJuaFBXVkp3Vkd4NFVIbGtSVkpMZHowOQ%3D%3D?utm_source%3Demail&utm_medium=breaking&utm_campaign=newstrack&utm_term=31279646&utm_source=Sailthru
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https://pjmedia.com/columns/hans-a-von-spakovsky/2023/04/26/columbia-law-school-exposed-n1690343
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:cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry:
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Why Harlan Crow Purchased Clarence Thomas’s Mother’s Home
By MARK PAOLETTA
May 1, 2023 6:30 AM
The transaction was conducted ethically — but the Left's attacks on Justice Thomas have nothing to do with ethics.
The attacks on Justice Thomas never stop. Shortly after falsely accusing him of breaking the law by failing to disclose trips he took with his close friend Harlan Crow, the Democrats and their media allies are now smearing the justice by claiming that Crow’s purchase of Justice Thomas’s mother’s home was some scheme to enrich the justice.
This couldn’t be farther from the truth. Justice Thomas and Harlan Crow both acted honorably and ethically in this transaction, and it’s important to understand what led Crow to want to purchase this home. (Full disclosure: I worked on Justice Thomas’s confirmation as a lawyer in the White House in 1991, and I remain close friends with him. I have also co-edited the book Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words and have gone on trips with him and Harlan Crow, with whom I’m also friends. I have also represented Ginni Thomas in the House Select January 6 Committee inquiry.)
Crow, the son of a nationally renowned real-estate developer, was born into a wealthy family. Thomas was born into abject poverty, to uneducated parents, and had a father who abandoned the family when he was two years old. He grew up under segregation in the Deep South. Despite their different backgrounds, Crow’s and Thomas’s shared interests and values led them to cross paths. The two developed a close friendship after first meeting in 1996.
As has been well reported, Crow is a serious collector of American historical artifacts. He strives to preserve, learn from, and celebrate the history of our nation’s journey. As a friend of Justice Thomas, Harlan also recognized that the justice’s life story is one of the great American stories that highlights the best of America.
In 2001, Crow and Thomas visited the justice’s hometown of Savannah, Ga. During the visit, Crow visited the Carnegie Library, which was segregated when Thomas was growing up. It was here that Thomas fell in love with reading and widened his worldview to look beyond the racist laws and practices that were then in place. The library was in disrepair, and Crow wanted to help. He decided to provide funding in 2001 to restore this building where his friend, who was now the second black Supreme Court justice in our history, had first learned to dream. To honor this incredible success story, the gift came with a request to name a wing of the library after Justice Thomas.
On another visit to the area, Crow saw the run-down seafood cannery on the edge of the water in Pin Point, Ga. Pin Point was founded by freed blacks after the Civil War and had its own distinctive culture and dialect, Gullah-Geechee. In fact, Justice Thomas’s first language was Geechee, and he writes beautifully in his memoir about growing up in this community. Justice Thomas was born in a shanty fewer than 50 yards away with no running water and only one light bulb. The oyster and crab cannery buildings, owned by the Varn family, where Thomas’s mother and sister worked, were the center of the community. To preserve this important piece of American history, Crow bought the factory in 2008 and helped create a museum dedicated to celebrating the Gullah-Geechee culture. Because Varn and his wife still lived on the property, Crow included as part of the contract a lifetime-occupancy provision, meaning that the Varns could continue to live there for the rest of their lives without having to pay rent, while Crow took control of the property to preserve it and make it available to the community.
Crow also wanted to help renovate the convent of the nuns that Thomas had attended beginning in 1955: Saint Benedict the Moor Catholic School, the then-segregated, all-black elementary school. His grandfather had enrolled Clarence and his brother Myers in this school, which was run by the Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, who were mostly from Ireland. They transformed Thomas’s life. Justice Thomas has always honored them, and he delivered a beautiful tribute to them in 1984:
There was no way I could have survived if it had not been for the nuns — our nuns, who made me pray when I didn’t want to and didn’t know why I should — who made me work when I saw no reason to — who made me believe in the equality of races when our country paid lip service to equality and our church tolerated inequality — who made me accept responsibilities for my own life when I looked for excuses. No, my friends, without our nuns, I would not have made it to square one.
The former convent was owned by the Savannah College of Art and Design and was part of its college campus. Crow agreed to upgrade the building and honor Justice Thomas by naming it the “Clarence Thomas Center for Historic Preservation.”
These were all nice gestures by Crow, consistent with his passion to preserve American history. In the process, he honored a local son who has gone on to be one of the most influential justices in American history. None of these projects provided any financial benefit to Justice Thomas.
In 2014, Crow visited Thomas’s boyhood home, where the justice’s mother, Leola Williams, was living. The neighborhood was unsafe, with crack houses nearby, and drug dealers and derelicts roaming the street. Crow asked Thomas what would happen to this home when his mother passed, and Justice Thomas replied that he would bulldoze it. Crow thought this was a horrible idea — this was the home where Thomas came to live with his grandparents in 1955, when he was seven. His life was forever changed by his being raised by his grandparents, and Crow did not want this home lost to history.
When Crow first expressed interest in buying the home, he did not know that Justice Thomas had an ownership interest in it — he thought it was just his mother’s home. Crow’s team did their due diligence and came up with a market price of $133,000 for the home and two vacant lots on the same street. The vacant lots were previously owned by Thomas’s grandfather and later inherited by Thomas, his mother, and the estate of his deceased brother. (This sale did not include the farmhouse in Liberty County, Ga., in which Justice Thomas still has a one-third interest.)
As part of the contract, Crow granted a lifetime-occupancy agreement to Thomas’ mother, then 85, just as he had done with the Varns several years earlier. This was no gift, as the lifetime-occupancy agreement was part of the market-price calculation. This arrangement allowed Crow to begin the work to preserve the property immediately while allowing Mrs. Williams, now 94, to continue to live there. Crow also bought several other homes and lots on this street, and this small area has since been transformed into a beautiful, vibrant, and safe street.
In the years preceding this transaction, Justice Thomas and his wife put significant sums of money into making improvements to his mother’s house. Given these costs, their one-third share of its sale price amounted to a capital loss on the property. Because of that, Justice Thomas did not believe that the sale of his mother’s home was a reportable transaction. He never considered this inherited home as an “investment or trust,” which is the language that appears on the financial-disclosure form where a filer must report any transaction over $1,000. Now that this has been brought to his attention, Justice Thomas is expected to amend his previous financial-disclosure form to reflect this sale. Amendments are not uncommon.
Over the years, several justices have amended their filings. For example, in 2021, Justice Sotomayor amended her 2016 financial-disclosure form to add six trips that had been paid for by a third party. She had forgotten about them, and when she realized the omission, she amended her forms. Nobody questioned her integrity. Justice Jackson hadn’t disclosed her husband’s medical-malpractice-consulting fees for years, nor the income she received from teaching. She noted this oversight on the disclosure form she filled out for her Supreme Court nomination. Again, nobody questioned her integrity. Why is Justice Thomas being held to a different standard?
The latest attacks on Justice Thomas have nothing to do with ethics. Instead, the attacks are about undermining the Supreme Court now that it no longer acts as a super-legislature for implementing the Left’s progressive policies. Other justices have also suffered baseless attacks on their ethics and character. The Left is weaponizing financial disclosures to smear conservative justices. It’s important for defenders of the Court to call this out for what it is. Meanwhile, Justice Thomas and his colleagues can hopefully continue to focus on their work: issuing legal opinions that are faithful to the Constitution.
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/shut-down-the-administrative-state-2024-presidential-candidate-vows-to-cure-americas-cultural-cancer_5231134.html?utm_source=Goodevening&src_src=Goodevening&utm_campaign=gv-2023-05-01&src_cmp=gv-2023-05-01&utm_medium=email&est=nlxIGnoffNeFztmLk3ZU9FaernS8tudxz90qjFl2ISDkzXW%2BPAj0UN%2BNuNwxBf2gZQdm
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Crisp, quality analysis by the WSJ here:
===================================
ProPublica is out with another deceptive hit piece on a Supreme Court justice, and the Daily Wire also gets into the act.
By James TarantoFollow
May 4, 2023 5:48 pm ET
Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Clarence Thomas PHOTO: SHAWN THEW/SHUTTERSTOCK
“Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” That’s the 13th rule in Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals,” and reporters at ProPublica have followed it to a T with their recent attacks on Justice Clarence Thomas. They may soon need to invoke the seventh rule: “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.”
On Thursday the ProPublica troika—Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott and Alex Mierjeski—published the third in a series of hit pieces about Justice Thomas and his wealthy friend Harlan Crow. Whatever else one may say about the first installment, it was lurid rather than boring. In the first paragraph alone, “Thomas boarded a large private jet” for “nine days of island-hopping . . . on a superyacht staffed by a coterie.”
The second installment was a head-scratcher: Mr. Crow purchased some modest real estate from Justice Thomas and his relatives, who turn out to have taken a loss on the deal. The third is the oddest yet. This week the troika try to spin a scandal out of an act of personal philanthropy.
Mark Paoletta, a friend of Clarence and Ginni Thomas, provides the basic facts in a statement: Justice Thomas has a great-nephew whose parents were unable to raise him. In 1997, when the boy was 6, the Thomases took him in and became his legal guardians. By the time he reached high-school age, he was struggling.
NEWSLETTER SIGN-UP
The Thomases confided in their friends Harlan and Kathy, and Mr. Crow suggested “sending their great nephew to Randolph Macon Academy” in Virginia. “Harlan had attended Randolph Macon, and he thought the school would be a good fit,” Mr. Paoletta writes. “Harlan offered to pay the first year of Justice Thomas’s great nephew’s tuition in 2006, and that payment went directly to the school.”
The young man enrolled at Randolph Macon for the school years beginning in 2006 and 2007, transferred to a boarding school in Georgia in 2008, and returned to Randolph Macon in 2009. Mr. Crow’s office confirms that he paid the tuition for 2006 and 2008 and not for 2007 or 2009. In a Thursday phone interview, Mr. Crow told me that he believes Mr. Paoletta’s account is accurate.
So what’s the scandal here? It isn’t clear, and the lack of clarity is part of ProPublica’s technique, which is to imply a violation while evading the question of what standard is supposed to have been violated.
“Thomas did not report the tuition payments from Crow on his annual financial disclosures,” the troika report. That’s true, but the question is whether he was required to do so. The answer is unambiguously no: The relevant statute requires reporting gifts to a “dependent child,” a term whose definition is limited to “any individual who is a son, daughter, stepson, or stepdaughter.” The statute would have kicked in if the Thomases had adopted the boy, but they didn’t.
Even ProPublica co-founder Richard Tofel was able to figure this out. On Thursday morning he tweeted that “it’s all okay because while Thomas said he was raising the kid ‘as a son,’ and had himself appointed legal guardian, the young man is officially just a great-nephew.” Disregard Mr. Tofel’s smarmy, partisan tone, and he has provided what is missing from the troika’s report—a clear explanation of why no disclosure was required.
The troika instead quote Kathleen Clark, an “ethics law expert” at Washington University in St. Louis: “The most reasonable interpretation of the statute is that this was a gift to Thomas and thus had to be reported. It’s common sense.” That’s preposterous. What Ms. Clark calls “the most reasonable interpretation of the statute” is at odds with its plain language.
This is similar to what the troika did in the real-estate story. In that case Justice Thomas actually did err in failing to disclose the sale, yet the story didn’t say so outright. Instead the troika made a series of errors in interpreting his other disclosures and effectively imputed their own sloppiness to Justice Thomas. I detailed these errors in a lengthy article, and 2½ weeks later ProPublica has neither acknowledged its mistakes nor defended the accuracy of its work.
Instead, it simply moved on to the next hit. That’s propaganda, not journalism. The objective isn’t to further public understanding but, in Alinskyite fashion, to incite animus against a political target. The clearest proof of this is the absence of investigations from ProPublica and other so-called mainstream news outlets into the “ethics” of liberal justices.
A journalist of the right, Luke Rosiak of the Daily Wire, illustrates that point with a Wednesday piece about Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who has developed a lucrative side gig as an author: “In all, she received $3.6 million from Penguin Random House or its subsidiaries, according to a Daily Wire tally of financial disclosures.”
This income was perfectly legitimate, and there’s no claim that Justice Sotomayor failed to make the required disclosures. So what’s the story? Twice—in 2013 and 2019—litigants who had sued the publisher alleging copyright violations lost in the lower courts and petitioned the justices to hear an appeal. The court denied both petitions. In both cases, Justice Stephen Breyer, another Random House author, recused himself from considering the petition. Justice Sotomayor didn’t.
Mr. Rosiak argues that the petitioner in the 2019 case, children’s-book author Jeannie Nicassio, “made a compelling argument that her case was worthy of being taken up by the Supreme Court.” The implication is that Justice Sotomayor showed favoritism toward her publisher by not recusing herself. But that’s nonsense. The decision to hear an appeal requires the agreement of four justices, irrespective of how many disagree. A recusal has the same effect as a vote not to hear the appeal.
If Justice Thomas had been in the same situation, would the mainstream press have gone after him? Certainly—Bloomberg did so last week. Mr. Rosiak is playing the same game and, in doing so, evidently attempting to follow Alinsky’s fourth rule: “Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules.”
But it’s a stupid and destructive game, and Justice Sotomayor isn’t the enemy. She is a peer of Justice Thomas, a part of the institution that has been targeted for attack.
Mr. Taranto is the Journal’s editorial features editor.
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Pasting CCP's post here as well:
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this was almost certainly passed to get Trump
https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-hochul-signs-adult-survivors-act
lets also no forget Conway became anti Trump after he was not offered administrative job :
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/carroll-v-trump-the-rape-case-that-started-at-a-resistance-party
RULE OF LAW now the rule
RULE OF LAWYERS
the shysters of the profession
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDBiLT3LASk
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/05/why-daniel-penny-was-charged/?bypass_key=c3RqMWlxRzY4NVVIVHhodzEvRHJ6UT09OjpTMWcxTTNOT2JGQk1XWFJoTkZONFMwUjNUR050WnowOQ%3D%3D&lctg=547fd5293b35d0210c8df7b9&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NR%20Daily%20Saturday%202023-05-13&utm_term=NRDaily-Smart
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/05/why-daniel-penny-was-charged/?bypass_key=c3RqMWlxRzY4NVVIVHhodzEvRHJ6UT09OjpTMWcxTTNOT2JGQk1XWFJoTkZONFMwUjNUR050WnowOQ%3D%3D&lctg=547fd5293b35d0210c8df7b9&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NR%20Daily%20Saturday%202023-05-13&utm_term=NRDaily-Smart
"There are many things wrong with the federal government. One right thing about it is that prosecutors — all of them, from the attorney general and other top lawyers in Main Justice to the U.S. attorneys in all 94 federal districts throughout the country — are appointed, not elected. Only the president to whom they answer is elected and politically accountable. The federal system is designed to insulate the dispassionate rule of law from the heat of politics."
Like Hunter MANY obvious violations of state and federal law? Tell me how the system worked...
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Actually that response is , , , non-responsive.
Read again and you will see he is making the binary choice assertion that what we have (appointment) is better than what many/most States have (democracy)
Do you agree or disagree?
For the record, I agree.
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The feds are far worse of a threat to the American people than the Soros DA in Manhattan.
I can avoid the Blue Zoos, I can’t escape the DemStasi’s jurisdiction.
Actually that response is , , , non-responsive.
Read again and you will see he is making the binary choice assertion that what we have (appointment) is better than what many/most States have (democracy)
Do you agree or disagree?
For the record, I agree.
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A rational point, but still not quite responsive.
Would you rather the Feds be appointed or elected?
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A rational point, but still not quite responsive.
Would you rather the Feds be appointed or elected?
No feds at all is probably the best option. "Appointed professionals" is a lie.
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That strikes me as evasive, but let's play:
What structural protections when a State violates the C'l rights of citizens?
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not sure what to make of Penny
respect he tried to be good samaritan
but also have real problem with someone applying a potentially deadly choke hold
for 15 minutes
he may have been trained on how to apply it but is he trained to let up before he kills someone?
is manslaughter 2 justified - maybe . I certainly think "negligence" can be applied
really tough situation / decision
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IMO the McCarthy piece on this is dead on.
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just read AM
seems like a thorough summary
next concern is would a NYC jury convict for 2nd degree manslaughter ?
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/what-is-manslaughter-ex-marine-daniel-penny-to-face-charge-in-jordan-neely-subway-chokehold-death/4327893/#:~:text=New%20York's%20penal%20code%20says,the%20death%20of%20another%20person.%22
no doubt about it though : the Sharpton/ Crump shake downs work
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That strikes me as evasive, but let's play:
What structural protections when a State violates the C'l rights of citizens?
Like the Army Sgt. wrongfully convicted for murder by a Soros prosecutor?
What did the DOJ do? Too busy hunting J6 protesters...
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IMO the McCarthy piece on this is dead on.
https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=852,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/137/701/789/original/1f3fe600f21c6637.jpeg
(https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=852,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/137/701/789/original/1f3fe600f21c6637.jpeg)
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/may/24/irs-worked-overtime-probe-twitter-files-journalist/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=subscriber&utm_campaign=newsalert&utm_content=newsalert&utm_term=newsalert&bt_ee=V3mhWZOso6iZO7Vpm7CUokwvwm7p3MKmr%2Fwjc79ipKfudB1ssLUANMZtc%2BPs%2FngR&bt_ts=1684951712733
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/may/24/irs-worked-overtime-probe-twitter-files-journalist/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=subscriber&utm_campaign=newsalert&utm_content=newsalert&utm_term=newsalert&bt_ee=V3mhWZOso6iZO7Vpm7CUokwvwm7p3MKmr%2Fwjc79ipKfudB1ssLUANMZtc%2BPs%2FngR&bt_ts=1684951712733
There are a handful of people on the left that have shown themselves to be honorable. He is one.
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Agree.
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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12113393/IRS-whistleblower-files-formal-complaint-alleging-removed-Hunter-Biden-tax-probe.html
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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12112657/FBI-refuses-hand-document-Republicans-say-proves-Biden-involved-bribery-scheme.html
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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12112657/FBI-refuses-hand-document-Republicans-say-proves-Biden-involved-bribery-scheme.html
Someone remind me which branch of government the FBI is?
Oh! the one true branch!
As the founders intended!
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Obstruction Indictment May Be Imminent in Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Case
By ANDREW C. MCCARTHY
May 24, 2023 12:12 PM
How a case that was originally about the mishandling of classified information became about misleading a federal grand jury.
How could Trump do it?
How could someone who sat in the Oval Office, responsible for national security, be so recklessly irresponsible with the nation’s defense secrets?
This was the sort of hair-on-fire stuff we heard from the media–Democratic complex for five months, beginning with last summer’s shocking FBI search of the former president’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Did Trump sell classified information to China? Or did he just hand it off to his old pal Vlad Putin . . . or maybe even Nick Fuentes! It continued, day after day, court proceeding after court proceeding, Washington Post after New York Times after CNN. Right up until the calendar turned to 2023.
That’s when we suddenly learned . . . drumroll . . . that Joe Biden had been illegally hoarding classified information for decades, from his time in the Senate through his time as Obama administration vice president. He’d stored such information at location after location, from his private office to his private den to his private garage.
Only then did we hear that, well, whaddya know, it turns out to be very, very difficult to keep track of all these top-secret papers in a busy pol’s chaotic exit from high public office to the complex “private” world of leveraging political influence for Chinese cash. It’s not easy being “the big guy.”
Biden’s little problem prompted a major overhaul at the Justice Department, which had been cruising toward a Trump Espionage Act indictment (the lead crime — mishandling national-defense information — in its Mar-a-Lago search warrant).
Suddenly, there was no more chatter about how condemnable Trump was for keeping over 300 classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, some of them at the highest levels of secrecy that could do grave damage to national security if mishandled — just like Biden’s haul. Suddenly, the Trump documents-retention case was no longer a documents-retention case.
There are now signs that an indictment could be imminent. The Wall Street Journal reports that Special Counsel Jack Smith has completed the investigative phase of his Mar-a-Lago inquiry, and is at the point of deciding whether (more like when) to indict Trump. The former president’s lawyers have dashed off a letter to Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland, demanding a meeting, which suggests they believe Smith is poised to file charges.
Smith may already have proposed a charging decision to Garland. That is worth pausing over. There was no reason for Garland to appoint a special counsel for Trump because there is no conflict of interest in the Biden Justice Department’s investigating Trump. The conflict lies in the Biden Justice Department’s investigating Hunter Biden and the Biden family for suspected crimes. But Garland steadfastly refuses to appoint a scrupulous, nonpartisan prosecutor for those escapades because doing so could torpedo the unpopular president as he gears up for his reelection bid.
Garland thus appointed Smith out of political calculation, not to ward off a conflict of interest. He knew Trump, in seeking the presidency, would claim that Biden was weaponizing the Justice Department against the opposition. So to manufacture the illusion that Biden and his Justice Department are walled off from the Trump investigations, Garland appointed Smith and proclaimed him independent. But he’s not independent; he reports to Garland and the power he exercises belongs to Biden.
As often happens to those who engage in such subterfuge, Garland was too clever by half: When it turned out that Biden was a serial classified-information pilferer, the appointment of Smith left Garland no choice but to appoint a special counsel, Robert Hur, to probe Biden’s illegal document retention. But unlike Smith, who was given sweeping authority to investigate Trump over Mar-a-Lago and potential January 6 offenses, Hur has a narrow remit, relating only to mishandling classified documents. He is not authorized to open the Pandora’s box of the Biden family business of peddling Joe’s political influence for big bucks from corrupt, anti-American regimes.
Of course, Biden will never be charged with crimes related to classified documents. Justice Department guidance does not permit the indictment of a sitting president, but Garland will ultimately decide that no charges should be brought anyway. On that, he has gotten an assist from Mike Pence, who, right after ripping Biden for retaining classified documents from his time as Obama’s vice president, inconveniently discovered that he, too, had retained classified documents from his time as Trump’s vice president.
At first, it seemed that Biden’s misadventures with classified intelligence might make it politically impossible to charge Trump with any crimes arising out of his document retention at Mar-a-Lago. But the Democrats’ progressive base zealously wants Trump to be charged, and Biden is not in the habit of denying the base. Smith has thus homed in on a narrow path for distinguishing the Biden and Pence situations from Trump’s: While they cooperated with the government’s efforts to locate and return the secret intelligence to its proper files, Trump fought the government all the way. Obstruction.
Consequently, the most important document in the Mar-a-Lago case does not bear classified markings; it bears the raised seal of a federal grand-jury subpoena. The Trump case is no longer about classified documents. It is about how Trump caused false information to be communicated to investigators and the grand jury — specifically, through the sworn claim provided by his lawyers on June 3, 2022, that, after a diligent search, the approximately 38 documents they surrendered to the FBI that day were the only ones bearing classified markings left at Mar-a-Lago. Since Biden’s little problem arose, Smith has spent his time amassing evidence that Trump knew this was untrue and spent the ensuing weeks overseeing the handling and hiding of documents he knew he should have turned over to the FBI pursuant to the subpoena — many of which were found in his personal office when the FBI executed the search warrant at Mar-a-Lago in early August.
That’s what the Mar-a-Lago case is now about: lying about the documents and hiding the documents, not the content of the documents — which would hit too close to home for Biden.
The signs indicate that Smith thinks he has made that case. If so, Trump will say he is being persecuted by his political adversaries. The Biden administration will say that anyone in America would be prosecuted for willfully misleading a grand jury. And as ever, other Republican presidential candidates will have to spend their time talking about Trump rather than their own campaigns — a perfect execution of the Democrats’ 2024 plan.
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/05/the-supreme-courts-clipping-of-dojs-wings-should-spare-trump-a-january-6-indictment/?bypass_key=M1FFT3hkYWZ3T2pldUE2YmgwQllDdz09OjplWEJHZDJaM1JIVTRSV0kwUXpWUVYxVllSelJCVVQwOQ%3D%3D&lctg=547fd5293b35d0210c8df7b9&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NR%20Daily%20Saturday%202023-05-27&utm_term=NRDaily-Smart
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https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2023/05/27/new-york-city-bans-discrimination-based-on-weight-and-height-n1698517
endless cycle - > more regs -> more lawyers -> more lawyers -> more regs - more lawsuits -> more money -> more control
no end in sight.
the rest of us have no say
in a Dem dominated word ......
where have all the good lawyers with integrity gone?
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This needs and seems worthy of a deep read. Heading out now for two week road trip so have only skimmed this. I will have internet and phone while on the road.
https://yournews.com/2023/05/27/2578720/cognitive-infrastructure-missouri-v-biden-lawsuit-biden-administration-designates-your/#close_banner
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https://dailycaller.com/2023/05/31/project-veritas-sues-james-okeefe/?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking&pnespid=6OM5BCsaJL0XweCcrD6vEIqBvBevCcV_Peygxew19xdm2ao6w1CrqVjoeRZHBTb1NDr76mBi
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***Project Veritas Sues James O’Keefe***
all the darn squabbling on our own side ... :x
mean to girls :roll:
wasting funds :roll:
it is so hard to keep it together when we see this stuff coming out from our side.
of course this is from the daily beast (wait I thought they were going out of business.. but they got bought out and saved or something by some rich lib)
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how many times now?
https://www.axios.com/2023/06/01/scoop-hunter-biden-lawyer-deposes-laptop-shop-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbe_Lowell
who is paying this guy ?
how can this be ok to keep finding ways to harass someone who never committed a crime &
followed contract law &
and turned over data to the FBI?
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https://www.frontpagemag.com/one-nation-two-sets-of-laws/
A good analytical framework here for efficiently and pithily making our points.
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By Newt Gingrich
June 11, 2023Updated: June 12, 2023
biggersmaller Print
0:00
6:35
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Commentary
The planned indictment of former President Donald Trump for “mishandling national secrets” is the natural next phase of the leftwing establishment’s arrogance and corruption.
The left has been desperately trying to stop Trump since he announced his candidacy in 2015 (recall the made-up Trump Tower–Moscow scandal, the phony Russia–Trump collusion scandal, the made-for-TV impeachment effort, etc.).
The constant attacks have only eroded Americans’ trust in government institutions—which is a far bigger problem than the left’s hatred of Trump. There are several other indictments that should have been announced to reestablish the integrity of the rule of law.
First, corrupt FBI agents such as those identified in the Durham Report should have already been indicted for extraordinary violations of their oaths of office. They lied to FISA court judges. They deliberately pursued a case they knew was based on a lie. They leaked knowingly phony information to the left-wing media to further undermine Trump—first as a candidate and then as the President of the United States. They should all face legal consequences.
Other FBI officials should be indicted for colluding to protect Hillary Clinton when she clearly broke the law repeatedly. How many classified documents were saved on then-Secretary of State Clinton’s illegal home server? How did her emails end up on Anthony Weiner’s laptop? How does someone erase more than 32,000 potentially evidentiary emails and get off scot-free? How does a government official order her staff to destroy evidentiary hard drives with a hammer and face no consequences? Further, why did the then-director of the FBI arrogate to himself a decision that belongs to prosecutors and hold a press conference exonerating Clinton during a presidential campaign?
The Durham Report makes crystal clear the FBI’s double standard of aggressive hostility toward Trump and defensive deference toward Clinton. That there have not been any indictments of Clinton (or the Bidens for that matter) demonstrates that the current corrupt senior leadership of the FBI is protecting itself and its allies—and attacking its perceived enemies.
Second, there should be a wave of indictments against the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Delaware, and other universities that have been illegally accepting secret foreign money and refusing to report it to federal authorities.
As the U.S. Department of Education website notes: “Section 117 of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (HEA) requires institutions of higher education that receive federal financial assistance to disclose semiannually to the U.S. Department of Education any gifts received from and contracts with a foreign source that, alone or combined, are valued at $250,000 or more in a calendar year. The statute also requires institutions to report information when owned or controlled by a foreign source.”
We have no idea how many millions of dollars communist China gave to the universities of Pennsylvania and Delaware (where President Joe Biden has education centers). According to estimates (which are likely low), the University of Delaware (which houses about 1,850 boxes of Biden’s vice presidential and senatorial documents) received $6.7 million in anonymous donations from the Chinese government. The University of Pennsylvania received nearly $40 million ($60 million, including contracts). Both universities—and many more—are still breaking the law and not reporting foreign money they receive.
At the same time, former University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutmann (who also helped create the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington) became Biden’s ambassador to Germany. Former university Board of Trustees’ Chairman David L. Cohen is Biden’s ambassador to Canada.
These two became ambassadors after members of the Biden team received huge salaries from the University of Pennsylvania. At least 10 other people on the Penn Biden Center payroll ended up with senior positions in the Biden administration. This includes Secretary of State Antony Blinken. We have no idea the source of the money paid to Blinken when he managed the Penn Biden Center. Now, he’s America’s chief diplomat.
It is amazing the arrogance with which elite universities take millions from foreign sources and simply ignore the law and reject the federal government’s demands for information. The leadership of these institutions should be indicted for illegally accepting foreign money and hiding it from the public. Instead, they are more likely to become U.S. ambassadors.
Third, President Biden, Hunter Biden, and other members of the Biden family should be under indictment for influence peddling and accepting bribes.
Does anyone seriously believe the widow of the mayor of Moscow sent Hunter Biden $3.5 million out of the goodness of her heart? Did the Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma pay Hunter Biden millions because of his expertise? Does anyone really think a Chinese billionaire sent Hunter Biden an exquisite diamond just because they are just good friends?
Chairman James Comer and the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability have produced evidence that the depth of deliberate corruption in the Biden family operation is worthy of a Hollywood blockbuster. The Bidens have created layers of phony companies as pass-throughs to hide a trail of foreign money they’ve been getting.
President Biden claims to know nothing of his son’s business dealings, but the records show then-Vice President Biden was routinely meeting with Hunter Biden’s business associates. The evidence is clear that Biden’s brother was also deeply involved in the influence-peddling scheme.
Much of this was initially reported as Hunter Biden’s laptop began to be investigated. Biden government officials immediately falsely claimed the story was Russian disinformation. Whistleblowers and potential eyewitnesses have been surfacing. Yet, after three years, there has been no action. In fact, FBI leadership insisted that the IRS disband a team that was looking into Hunter Biden and corruption.
These are the indictments that should have been announced this week. Instead, the FBI has protected the Bidens just as it protected the Clintons.
The contrast with the ruthless, dishonest, and illegal efforts to ruin President Trump is stunning.
This is the scale of corruption, bias, and lawlessness with which the American people should weigh the Trump indictments.
From Gingrich360.com
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/06/justice-alito-has-done-nothing-wrong/?bypass_key=SzFOTDNrWVhyYWFYQk9idFJDL0hiUT09OjpZbU14UW01a09YZFRPU3N5ZEVadVRrbFBkWFZ3WnowOQ%3D%3D
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/jun/25/whistleblower-fbi-threatened-fire-agents-who-criti/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=subscriber&utm_campaign=newsalert&utm_content=newsalert&utm_term=newsalert&bt_ee=CIk2L04L2UL83YTuy7h1IQe5UzgTD4ePrDhEZ7kxoVgNTmHaAm7frqCHdDu7CbPz&bt_ts=1687711070013
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/jun/25/whistleblower-fbi-threatened-fire-agents-who-criti/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=subscriber&utm_campaign=newsalert&utm_content=newsalert&utm_term=newsalert&bt_ee=CIk2L04L2UL83YTuy7h1IQe5UzgTD4ePrDhEZ7kxoVgNTmHaAm7frqCHdDu7CbPz&bt_ts=1687711070013
The soviets and CCP have political officers to monitor for wrongthink, now we do too.
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/ivanka-trump-dropped-as-co-defendant-in-250-million-lawsuit_5365265.html?utm_source=News&src_src=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2023-06-30-2&src_cmp=breaking-2023-06-30-2&utm_medium=email
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or shysters
no end -
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/07/18/trump-says-special-counsel-told-him-hes-a-target-in-jan-6-probe.html
:roll:
Why do you call someone a weasel?
Definitions of the word 'weasel' that imply deception and irresponsibility include: the noun form, referring to a sneaky, untrustworthy, or insincere person; the verb form, meaning to manipulate shiftily; and the phrase "to weasel out", meaning "to squeeze one's way out of something" or "to evade responsibility".
Why do you call someone a shyster ?
A shyster is someone who might rip you off or do something unethical in order to get his way.
A used car salesman might tell you a car is a thousand dollars, but when you read the fine print, it turns out you’ll pay a lot more. That salesman is a shyster — someone who lies and deceives for his own benefit. The word comes from the German Scheisser, which is a vulgar term for “worthless person.” Although it contains the word shy, it actually sounds more like heist, which makes sense, since shysters are basically trying to rob you.
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https://www.judicialwatch.org/fetal-body-parts/?utm_source=deployer&utm_medium=email&utm_content=&utm_campaign=tipsheet&utm_term=members
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https://dailycaller.com/2023/08/30/proud-boys-sentencing-hearings-postponed-emergency-doj-says/?pnespid=urBtBi4dLKgI2frMtj3pEJ2C5BS3T4Z2d.i5x_o3901mUgNbXryqLmyVaJtUUTJtvGkbHJz5https://dailycaller.com/2023/08/30/proud-boys-sentencing-hearings-postponed-emergency-doj-says/?pnespid=urBtBi4dLKgI2frMtj3pEJ2C5BS3T4Z2d.i5x_o3901mUgNbXryqLmyVaJtUUTJtvGkbHJz5
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" In the most expensive state judicial race in U.S. history, Janet C. Protasiewicz, a liberal, defeated conservative attorney Dan Kelly in April for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
The record $23 million raised by or on behalf of the Janet for Justice campaign prompted a group of citizen investigators in Wisconsin to look into where all of the money had come from."
https://www.theepochtimes.com/article/the-most-expensive-judicial-race-in-us-history-is-raising-questions-5499794?utm_source=Morningbrief&src_src=Morningbrief&utm_campaign=mb-2023-10-23&src_cmp=mb-2023-10-23&utm_medium=email&cta_utm_source=Morningbrief&est=K4dFvJO7wA66asK0YpcHBcUUmXWDCBYirQ38XZPZNQXkmUNpJMbGU7gIzzY%3D
Me :
ironic that a judge who is suposed to be adminstrator of justice was elected at least partly due to election fraud.
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https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/11/02/trying-to-bar-trump-from-2024-ballot-is-unconstitutional-and-lawfare-at-its-worst/
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/irs-accused-of-revenge-targeting-conservative-group-that-exposed-biden-admin-nominees-5524250?utm_source=News&src_src=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2023-11-07-1&src_cmp=breaking-2023-11-07-1&utm_medium=email&est=%2FFYuZdrdiylw9P2Gw1zoF8TCF4MoNuNokbFCucYOiCYU%2FQ7eQujR4xUFspz66W0f2cNo
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Title IX and the Assault on Hillsdale College
The school gets no federal money, but a lawsuit seeks to rope it in because it’s a tax-exempt nonprofit.
By Tunku Varadarajan
Dec. 1, 2023 5:51 pm ET
Embedded in a civil lawsuit against Hillsdale College is an assault on the fabric of this small, private Christian school founded in 1844. The lawsuit, brought by two undergraduate women who allege that they were raped two years ago by male Hillsdale students of their acquaintance, alleges not only that the college was negligent in handling their complaints, but also that it failed to afford them the protection to which they were entitled under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.
In 2011 the Obama administration turned Title IX into a sword in the armory of federal civil-rights law. On pain of losing federal money, including student financial aid, the Education Department compelled schools to adopt rules that deprived those accused of sexual misconduct of basic due-process protections. The Trump administration undid those rules, and the Biden administration is working to reinstate them. The problem with invoking Title IX against Hillsdale, however, is that the college takes no money from the government. “Not a cent,” says its president, Larry P. Arnn, which means that Hillsdale isn’t bound by Title IX.
In their lawsuit, filed on Sept. 25 in federal court, the plaintiffs assert that Hillsdale “does not accept government funding in a misguided and ineffective attempt to avoid its obligations under Title IX.” Mr. Arnn calls that claim “insidious and baseless.” Robert Norton, Hillsdale’s general counsel, says the college’s process for investigating and resolving allegations of sexual assault are “stronger, quicker, and more confidential” than the Education Department’s Title IX standards. He also says the college found the two male students had engaged in “conduct unbecoming,” even though no criminal charges were brought after the accusers filed complaints with the local police.
The lawsuit seeks to impose Title IX’s strictures on Hillsdale, arguing that the college’s tax-exempt status under Section 501(c)(3) of the Tax Code “operates as a subsidy, which is a form of federal financial assistance.”
Mr. Arnn sees a darker ideological intent in this claim. “This is about the kind of society some people want us to have,” he says. “The principle that because you have a tax deduction you’re spending government money can’t mean anything other than that all money, in principle, belongs to the government.” This “tax-deduction thing,” as he calls the argument, “would be a massive expansion of government authority in one go. And of course, there are many people who seek that in America.”
Such a ruling would “sweep into the government’s net hundreds of thousands of American institutions that have sought to stay out of it,” Mr. Arnn says. The argument has won favor recently in two district courts, in California and Maryland. The latter case, Buettner-Hartsoe v. Baltimore Lutheran High School Association, has been accepted for interlocutory appeal by the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. A friend-of-the-court brief filed there by the Napa Institute, a Catholic nonprofit, argues that the ordinary meaning of “federal financial assistance” in Title IX refers to “funding or active support affirmatively provided by the federal government—not to an entity’s tax-exempt status.” Congress couldn’t have intended to alter the fundamental details of a regulatory scheme in vague terms, to “hide elephants in molehills,” the brief says, invoking a metaphor Justice Antonin Scalia favored.
Mr. Norton, the general counsel, tells me that Hillsdale will “fight the point vigorously,” but prefers not to expose his argument, at this stage, to the other side. Walter Olson, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute, says: “The proposition that nonprofit tax status should subject private institutions to the regulations applied to government grantees would be a radical departure from longstanding tax and legal principles and would put at risk the fundamental independence of America’s private charitable and educational sectors, to say nothing of its religious institutions.”
Treating a private institution as “philanthropic, charitable or not intended for profit can amount to a simple recognition of its structure and purpose,” Mr. Olson continues, “not some sort of seal of approval, let alone subsidy.” Neither Mr. Olson nor Mr. Norton—and certainly not Mr. Arnn—believes the Supreme Court would go along with this evisceration of America’s nonprofits. But until the argument is put to rest, Hillsdale will have to fight this assault on its character.
Mr. Varadarajan, a Journal contributor, is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and at New York University Law School’s Classical Liberal Institute.
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" Mr. Arnn sees a darker ideological intent in this claim. “This is about the kind of society some people want us to have,” he says. “The principle that because you have a tax deduction you’re spending government money can’t mean anything other than that all money, in principle, belongs to the government.” This “tax-deduction thing,” as he calls the argument, “would be a massive expansion of government authority in one go. And of course, there are many people who seek that in America.”
Royal oh my God! :x
has this challenge been made for other institutions because if not then it is clearly political
and assuming that what about that.
left wing shysters - again
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https://links.a.keepthehouse2024.com/servlet/MailView?ms=MzgwMzk2NgS2&r=OTI0ODcyMzkyNzUS1&j=MTQwMDEwMDQ3OQS2&mt=1&rt=0
Dear MARC,
My legal team has filed our closing argument brief in the California State Bar trial seeking to have me disbarred as a lawyer. This has been a surreal, exhausting battle to defend my integrity and legal actions from an onslaught of false charges leveled by radical leftwing lawyers working with lawfare groups. Tragically, many of these false charges were repeated nearly word-for-word by State Bar prosecutors and form the basis of the Bar’s prosecution against me.
It took months of preparation by me and my legal team to be ready for this trial, which took up an incredible ten weeks of testimony. My legal team has demolished the State Bar’s claim that there was no evidence of fraud or illegality in the 2020 elections. Our team put on a wide array of credible witnesses that, for the first time, laid bare in a courtroom many of the illegal and fraudulent activities that occurred in critical states such as Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona and Pennsylvania.
It was a constant battle even to present our witnesses as State Bar prosecutors repeatedly objected to evidence we sought to present. Nonetheless, our team did a magnificent job and made a clear and compelling case that my representation of President Trump had a strong factual basis as well as a compelling legal basis under the law and constitution.
The State Bar Court judge has ninety days to publish her decision and put forth any recommendation on discipline she might seek the Bar to impose. But that ruling won’t be the end of the case. The decision can be appealed through the State Bar judicial process, and then it can go to the California Supreme Court and also possibly to the US Supreme Court for final determination.
Support The John Eastman Legal Defense Fund
The Federalist online news outlet recently published an article noting that I will need to raise $3-3.5 million to contend with the lawfare assault being waged against me. Though I have been blessed with over half a million in donations to my legal defense fund, I have already incurred legal costs of three times that amount. I urgently need your help to move forward with my defense.
⋙ DONATE $50
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As excruciating as the State Bar trial has been, this assault on my good name is just one of several high-profile lawfare attacks I am dealing with. In Georgia, prosecutor Fani Willis has asked the criminal court to begin the trial against me, President Trump and others in early August 2024. She estimates that the trial will last 4-5 months. Note the timing of her prosecution seeking as it does to keep President Trump tied up in a courtroom through the November presidential election and forcing defendants like me to raise unfathomable resources to defend myself for the next year +.
The Federalist article made the disturbing but entirely factual observation that “John Eastman has been harassed unceasingly since assisting Trump in 2020 constitutional litigation.” That is the very purpose of lawfare. The radicals desire to make the process so painful and expensive, and the punishment they seek to exact so steep, that no conservative lawyer will ever again challenge the radical left.
The Federalist reported my reaction to this lawfare assault: “The whole premise here is: ‘The government has spoken and you continue to say otherwise. Therefore you must be lying.'”
Support The John Eastman Legal Defense Fund
As difficult as these past months have been, it’s clear to me that what my family and I have endured thus far because I had the courage to assist President Trump bring lawful, substantive allegations of election illegality before courts and appropriate elections officials pales in comparison to what we still face.
If the State Bar judge rules against me and recommends that I be disbarred, I have the right to appeal but my law license will be suspended in the process. This will cripple my ability to earn a living doing what I have loved and excelled at for decades.
Meanwhile, I face a highly-partisan prosecutor in Georgia who is determined to put me in prison for years to come. That’s on top of being named an unindicted co-conspirator in federal prosecutor Jack Smith’s case in Washington against President Trump. And all the while the US Supreme Court is being asked to disbar me from practicing law in federal courts.
They are trying to completely destroy me.
I am categorically innocent of all the charges against me and I am doing everything in my power to defend myself and expose the truth. But an unfortunate component of exposing the truth against a government that has spoken, is that individual power is limited by the sheer size and overwhelming cost of the attacks that have been mobilized against me.
I’m $1 million in the hole already on top of what my legal defense fund has covered, and I need to raise an additional $1 million by February to defend myself in the Georgia prosecution.
My wife and I have worked hard all our lives to earn a middle-class living for our family. We have no way to handle the $3 million+ in legal expenses that this lawfare assault will cost. We’re completely dependent on the generosity of people of good will like you to help.
During this pivotal month of December, I ask you to please make a generous donation to my legal defense fund so that I might erase the deficit that now exists and be in a position to continue my aggressive legal defense as we move into 2024.
If at all possible, please consider making a pledge to contribute an amount of your choosing on a monthly basis. With the Georgia prosecution likely taking up much if not all of 2024, knowing that I can count on your support each month would be a real blessing and source of comfort.
Make A One Time Donation
Become A Monthly Donor
In closing, I ask that you continue to keep me and my family in your prayers. In many ways, what the country is experiencing is a spiritual battle with the forces of evil on the march.
Sincerely,
John Eastman
Constitutional Scholar
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https://dnyuz.com/2023/12/11/ex-fox-news-star-andrea-tantaros-is-back-to-haunt-the-network/
this sounds like trumped up BS just on the face of it.
wonder if she has help from DNC lawyers or some other DNC who is funding this or is based on contingency.
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J6 case and its likely impact on Trump's upcoming trial.
https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2023/11/01/untested_legal_imagination_is_the_mother_of_prosecution_vs_trump_and_the_january_sixers_989276.html?fbclid=IwAR1gJOomTiixLlywuypYuSVtt6GApv-6jqkgwt04PGvXPgov56e4iWZSFnY
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·
Shipwreckedcrew
@shipwreckedcrew
Some very seasoned and smart attorneys on the liberal side of the spectrum allowed their personal and partisan desires to cloud objective judgments on "nuts and bolts" issues of federal criminal procedure.
They were Captain Ahab and having a trial in the spring of 2024 was their "White Whale."
There were always many opportunities for Trump to derail the trial schedule, and he has now done so. I think the Trump defense played this exactly correctly -- they complained about the trial schedule so they had a record of having done so. They then went about trying to comply with the deadlines with some unstated confidence that the schedule would eventually crash upon the rocks of pretrial issues that would cause delays.
The decision by SCOTUS this morning to take up the challenge to Sec. 1512 -- with 2 of the 4 counts charged against Trump being connected to that charge -- was the final straw. There is no reason now for SCOTUS to expedite the appeal of the immunity issue. While the cases are different, both will have a huge impact on what happens with the DC case if/when it ever gets to trial. So SCOTUS can deal with both on parallel tracks with similar schedules.
Oral arguments at the end of April and decisions at the end of June is the most likely result.
THEN an entirely new scheduling order will be necessary in the case -- if there still is a case.
That new schedule will bump up against the FL case which I expect will be reset for mid-to-late summer.
The issue will be whether the DC case will be set in the fall of 2024 during the middle of the general election campaign.
My guess would be -- "No."
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" A jury of one's peers " :roll:
who could have thought this would happen:
https://nypost.com/2023/12/15/news/giuliani-ordered-to-pay-more-than-148m-to-georgia-poll-workers-he-defamed/
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Hope Rudy is right , , ,
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Hope Rudy is right , , ,
A little more on this here:
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2023/12/the-giuliani-verdict.php
"The verdict seems a tad excessive."
(Doug) I see the Left got a good headline out of it. CNN should have put it under "entertainment" for their audience. Rudy doesn't have $148 million.
The right better find an answer to the DC jury situation. I say move the capitol out and deed the land to Maryland. They think big, we need to think big.
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If the Supreme Court strikes down any overreach the Left has done, and especially if it is decided 6-3 or 5-4, the narrative becomes how undemocratic the Court is and how corrupt the Trump appointees are, not how outrageous the Left has been behaving.
I get that there are far Left zealots and operatives in positions of power who will do anything and there is far Left media powers who will help and provide cover for them, but what I don't get is how rank and file Democrats and left leaning people including friends and family go along with all this.
It's tearing our country apart.
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Obama appointed
judge
Jewish and Columbia law school grad
and Bryn Mar college a historically women's college
who I remarked 40 yrs ago to a friend who graduated from there "separate but equal"
so we know where her political position is
is gung ho on the ridiculous amount DC jury awarded a couple of poll workers who if they do get real money will have won the lottery .
I can't believe the amount at least would stand.
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https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/12/20/jack-smiths-special-counsel-appointment-is-unconstitutional-former-attorney-general-tells-supreme-court/
me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLNALmt6KFs
once again I have no idea how freakin' Taylor Swift is mentioned .......
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https://amgreatness.com/2023/12/21/will-partisan-lawfare-destroy-trump/
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https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/12/22/report-confirms-a-few-lawyers-make-millions-suing-over-california-voting-laws/
https://www.latimes.com/local/abcarian/la-me-abcarian-shenkman-voting-20170514-story.html
"Legal" extortion or racketeering?
in name of civil rights/ DEI?
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Well said!
======================
Sandbagging the Supreme Court
The left’s legal assault on Trump is a threat to the institution—and that’s by design.
Kimberley A. Strassel
By
Kimberley A. Strassel
Follow
Dec. 21, 2023 6:08 pm ET
Meet the biggest and baddest new power broker in the 2024 presidential contest: an unelected and unenthusiastic U.S. Supreme Court. If this thought sits a bit uneasily, blame the lawfaring leftists who engineered the sandbagging of the nation’s top jurists.
Less than a month from the Iowa caucuses, the high court faces the prospect of deciding whether Colorado—and other states—can scrub Donald Trump from the ballot on grounds that the leading candidate for the Republican nomination engaged in “insurrection.” It’s also being asked to rule on whether special counsel Jack Smith can prosecute Joe Biden’s top rival for acts related to the riots of Jan. 6, 2021.
That isn’t all. The justices may be asked to settle further unprecedented questions flowing from an array of legal campaigns against Mr. Trump, including a court-imposed gag order in the Jan. 6 case; Mr. Smith’s separate prosecution involving alleged mishandling of classified documents; immunity in a New York defamation suit; and the Georgia state election-interference case. The black robes are already on the hook to pronounce on the Justice Department’s fanciful use of a financial statute that bars “corruptly” obstructing an official proceeding to convict Jan. 6 rioters.
The Supreme Court has had to issue consequential election decisions, most famously in Bush v. Gore (2000). That decision was a consequence of a tight election, the unexpected mess that was Florida’s hanging-chad ballot system, and partisan state judges attempting to rig the counting in Al Gore’s favor.
No one before Election Day planned for the 2000 outcome to land with the U.S. Supreme Court. Today’s pileup of election-related suits, by contrast, was always destined to end up there. Embittered by electoral losses, unwilling to trust the will of voters, the left now routinely turns to extraordinary legal action in hopes of pressing the courts to impose its political objectives by judicial fiat. Every party to these high-stakes, highly speculative cases knew exactly where this would end. And not one cares a whit for the consequences for the high court.
Take the Colorado Supreme Court majority, and its laughable claim in its decision this week that it didn’t “lightly” reach its finding of Trump-as-insurrectionist and was “mindful of the magnitude and weight of the questions” and “solemn” about it. The opinion was in fact so wild—glossing over basic questions of due process, federalism and the Constitution—that three liberal justices strongly rejected it. The majority knew it would be left to the U.S. Supreme Court to clean up their mess.
Mr. Smith likewise knew the minute he filed his indictments against Mr. Trump—the first criminal charges ever against a former president, filed on untested and uncharted claims in the runup to an election—that it would be the Supreme Court ultimately holding the bag. Win or lose, his name will be in the history books. The Justice Department surely considered that dusting off the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 to seek 20-year sentences for rioters would provoke a legal challenge. But worth a shot, right? Remember this strategy the next time the left screeches about the court’s “shadow docket.”
There was a day when the professional class—in particular prosecutors and lower-court judges—cared about institutions at least as much as about winning. Not this crew. What makes their actions more deplorable is the cynical view that harming the high court is an added benefit, not a cost. They come amid a vicious campaign to vilify the court as partisan and corrupt. If the justices rule against Mr. Trump in these suits, the left accomplishes an immediate political goal. If they rule in Mr. Trump’s favor, the left smears the justices and ramps up its campaign to pack the court.
The Supreme Court may have no choice but to hear and decide these cases. But there are better and worse outcomes. The biggest question now is whether the three liberal justices understand the grave risks of this lawfaring agenda—not just to the immediate moment, but to the future health of the nation. Do they sign up for the campaign with opinions that justify novel legal theories and the judicial usurpation of elections—in the process inviting more special counsels, more rogue court decisions, more litigation? Or do they recognize this game for what it is, acknowledge the sound legal reasons for why no one has attempted such reckless prosecutions and lawsuits before, and send a message it needs to stop?
The best outcome would be a string of 9-0 Supreme Court decisions that put a decisive end to the current upheaval and discourage a repeat. There’s a much easier way—for all involved—to settle the nation’s political disputes. It’s called an election. Let’s have one, and live with the results.
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I didn't understand this thinking at first,
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2023/12/24/flight_93_election_anti-trumpers_imperil_the_rule_of_law_150244.html
They have repeated this Trump dictatorship line so many times they believe it, and if true that requires all actions possible to stop including crashing the plane with all of us on it. Remove opposition from ballots without it before due process is clearly Soviet, the totalitarian way and they will be that to prevent it. Dishonest projection in the extreme to me but makes perfect sense to (some of) them.
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From Turley's website:
https://jonathanturley.org/2023/12/30/ai-did-it-disbarred-michael-cohen-admits-to-filing-fake-case-citations-to-get-early-release-from-supervision/#more-213598
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https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1740415278625034519
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Interesting piece exploring whether what Smith is attempting is kosher to any degree at all:
https://dailycaller.com/2024/01/02/appeals-court-jack-smith-trump/?fbclid=IwAR2W-m1xFVw46dHmBvFGgR2jbC5PeBnlnSgUpk7TJeorXxBdrc_IgRqqqs8
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Interesting piece exploring whether what Smith is attempting is kosher to any degree at all:
https://dailycaller.com/2024/01/02/appeals-court-jack-smith-trump/?fbclid=IwAR2W-m1xFVw46dHmBvFGgR2jbC5PeBnlnSgUpk7TJeorXxBdrc_IgRqqqs8
From the Meese brief:
“Illegally appointed, he has no more authority to represent the United States in this Court, or in the underlying prosecution, than Tom Brady, Warren Buffett, or Beyoncé.”
No mention of Taylor Swift but funny to see the standing argument that started this mess turned back on them.
It would look political for Joe Biden's Attorney General to prosecute his opponent so he hand picks someone else to do it and calls him "independent". Meanwhile 3 year old cases from different jurisdictions "acting independently" are brought to trial during primary season like choreography.
Strangest part is that even with the media all on board the public isn't buying it.
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" No mention of Taylor Swift " :-D
[but didn't it originally say Taylor Swift?]
:wink:
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This could be placed in more than one place but, given the prediction that the Progressive left will up the amplitude of its already hypocritical and false attacks on conservative SCOTUS justices I figure it belongs here:
The Left's Love-Hate Relationship With ‘Judicial Review’
Nicholas Waddy
Jan 04, 2024
For decades, the legal and constitutional landscape of America, not to mention its social fabric, was transformed by an activist Supreme Court determined to press progressive change on a largely unwilling public, and despite a skeptical Congress, which ordinarily (lest we forget) has responsibility for passing laws – or so the Framers innocently believed, when they created our constitutional republic.
Starting in the 1930s, as the Supremes buckled under to FDR's “New Deal” and its massive expansion of federal government authority and spending; moving into the early post-war period, with the judicial mandate to end school segregation; into the 1960s and '70s, when laws against contraception and abortion were struck down, and even the death penalty was temporarily laid low; and, in some ways, extending even into the 21st century, as an ostensibly “conservative” SCOTUS discovered that gay marriage was a constitutional right, and the 1964 Civil Rights Act's prohibition on sex discrimination provides blanket protection to members of the LGBT community, too, the Supreme Court of the United States has, time and again, rendered decisions that 1) expanded federal power, 2) advanced the political and social agenda of leftists, and 3) won praise and support from elected and unelected Democrats and progressives. There is, in short, ample historical precedent for a fruitful partnership, and much mutual admiration, between the Left and the judicial branch.
Recent events in Israel reinforce the notion that there is something like a natural alliance between progressive ideologues, entrenched bureaucracies, mainstream journalists, educated elites, and professional jurists. All of the above have conspired to undermine the fruits of Israeli democracy, which in 2022 yielded the election of a conservative government led by Benjamin Netanyahu. That government, with its majority in the Israeli parliament, known as the Knesset, early on expressed its determination to reverse the Supreme Court of Israel's absurd domination of that country's government. Based on nothing other than its own juridical fantasies, high court judges in Israel had long since invented a proprietary right to strike down any law, or nullify any decision, made by the Knesset or the executive branch that struck them – the judges of said court – as “unreasonable.” Not only could legislation duly passed by the country's elected representatives be nullified, but even cabinet appointments made by the prime minister could be (and have been) overturned. What's more, the Knesset could not even hope to alter the composition of the Supreme Court over time, since appointments to it were controlled by a “judicial selection committee,” and thus the Israeli electorate has no say. In essence, the deck is stacked in the Jewish State to ensure that progressives will enjoy permanent and total control of Israeli politics. Yes, the people might occasionally choose to elect odious leaders (from the progressive perspective), like Netanyahu, but those leaders would be penned in by heavy-handed judicial oversight. Checkmate!
In July, after much gnashing of teeth among leftists, and not a little street violence actively encouraged by progressive forces, inside and outside of the country, the Netanyahu government succeeded in gaining passage of a relatively mild law that would have amended Israel's “Basic Laws,” specifically by preventing high court judges from overturning laws and government actions merely because they considered them “unreasonable.” Unsurprisingly, last week, the Supreme Court struck down this law, since it claimed it would have done “severe and unprecedented damage to the basic characteristics of the State of Israel as a democratic state.”
Pretty rich, no? The laws passed by the people's elected representatives, by this logic, are invalid because...democracy! In fact, the negation of the people's will, and the enthronement of robed autocrats, is itself the antithesis of democracy, but then again there is little evidence that anyone on the Left has bothered to contemplate the literal meaning of the term, as opposed to its political uses.
Be this as it may, the global Left feted the decision of Israel's Supreme Court, and the humiliation, as they saw it, of Netanyahu. Moreover, it looks unlikely that Netanyahu and his allies, who are currently busy fighting a war against Hamas, will have the courage or the presence of mind to defy the Court's verdict. Once again, the domestic and international Left has closed ranks successfully to protect “democratic” norms – which may or may not be genuinely democratic, but have the practical effect of hobbling populists and empowering professional leftist know-it-alls. For progressives, this is a victory much to be savored.
As judicial activism thus runs amok, with the Left's blessing, in Israel, the irony is that “judicial review”, and therefore the authority and legitimacy of the United States Supreme Court, is about to be tested as never before.
For years now, as conservatives shepherded and then expanded their majority on the Supreme Court, leftists grew wary, and they even began a concerted, sophisticated campaign to vilify and intimidate conservatives Justices. Huge numbers of elected Democrats supported a campaign to pack the Supreme Court with pliant Biden appointees, in order to reverse a series of SCOTUS decisions, like the overturning of Roe v. Wade, with which they disagreed.
Importantly, however, the U.S. Supreme Court, irksome as it has been to progressives, did not have the temerity to intervene, in any meaningful sense, in the conduct of American elections, including the 2020 election that removed Donald Trump – the man who had appointed a third of the Court – from the presidency. Now, though, with several cases looming that may well determine whether or not Trump is jailed before the 2024 election can take place, and whether or not he appears on the ballot in enough jurisdictions and states to have a realistic chance of victory over the incumbent Joe Biden, it is inevitable that the Supremes will be targeted by the Left in unprecedented ways and to a degree never before seen in this country.
The Justices will be excoriated by leftists if their decisions in these cases go against progressive orthodoxy, which posits that Trump is always in the wrong, and that any maneuver, no matter how contrived, deceptive, or mean-spirited, that undercuts or harms him must, by definition, be legal, constitutional, just, ethical, and, above all, necessary to preserve “democracy,” whatever the warped progressive mind may mean by that term. For now, the American Left has but one aim: the destruction of Trump and Trumpism, and any institution that fails to assist in achieving this sacred task must and will be burned to the ground – certainly figuratively, and possibly literally, if need be.
In other words, the Supreme Court is about to find out just how opportunistic and fleeting is the American and global Left's respect for, and advocacy of, the empowerment of professional judges to oversee and control lawmaking, human and civil rights, elections, and every other facet of modern government. The form of that government, and the norms by which it is controlled, in short, do not interest them, but the decisions it renders, and the ideology to which it conforms, most certainly do.
That is why today's leftist can cry “God bless the Supreme Court of Israel!” and “Down with the Supreme Court of the United States!” in the very same breath. The only consistency that can be observed here is a determination amongst progressives to use any institution on offer to advance their narrow agenda, and to destroy anyone and anything that gets in their way.
Dr. Nicholas L. Waddy is an Associate Professor of History at SUNY Alfred and blogs at: www.waddyisright.com. He appears on the Newsmaker Show on WLEA 1480/106.9.
https://townhall.com/columnists/nicholaswaddy/2024/01/04/the-lefts-love-hate-relationship-with-judicial-review-n2633126?fbclid=IwAR1IjIoJ-g9xcSdY-R8E1b4-kvvajnjHxZGhor7JCdPARUMjbzloco59RvI
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https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/01/first_thing_we_do_lets_kill_all_the_lawyers.html
BTW, I don't advocate "kill all the lawyers "
There are good and uncorrupted attorneys of course:
Levin, Turley, Dershowitz, Jarrett, Lieu, Wisenberg, Denny.
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:-D
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Looks like some GA lawfare is beginning to unravel:
https://hotair.com/ed-morrissey/2024/01/20/follow-the-money-fulton-county-auditors-demand-answers-from-willis-n606251?fbclid=IwAR0D25FqFDh1rCR96Cwz-XVPUeunrcHAQRdhuumF6lNtraf9hukchS8YPKs
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https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1748470407672291383
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Martin Armstrong shows Trump winning in 4/6 models. he has been for long saying civil war is coming along with an actual war.
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/politics/the-fix-is-in-trump-goes-to-prison/
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Martin Armstrong shows Trump winning in 4/6 models. he has been for long saying civil war is coming along with an actual war.
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/politics/the-fix-is-in-trump-goes-to-prison/
. Ye gods, what a cheery piece!
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Martin Armstrong shows Trump winning in 4/6 models. he has been for long saying civil war is coming along with an actual war.
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/politics/the-fix-is-in-trump-goes-to-prison/
Misfiled, but speaking to Ya’s post:
https://reason.com/volokh/2024/01/19/ideologically-mixed-amicus-brief-stresses-need-for-s-ct-to-resolve-merits-of-the-trump-disqualification-case/
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This piece accompanies one made in Pathological Science re Michale Mann's (of Hockey Stick infamy) attempt to bankrupt those who point out his hamfisted willingness to seek the destruction of all who point out his abject unscientific embrace of supposed "science." I'm surprised to learn here that one such defendant--Mark Sty]eyn--is representing himself in, as seen during current J6 prosecutions, a notoriously biased DC court. It's well worth noting the various pathological techniques embraced by Mann as they are something of a roadmap where "Progressive" tactics meant to stifle free speech among other rights are concerned:
Mann Overboard (WSJ opinion piece)
Anthony Fauci isn’t the only oracle of science who regards dissent from his findings as heresy.
Meet Michael Mann. He is the climate scientist who gave us the iconic “hockey stick” graph showing a sharp rise in the global temperature in the 20th century. He has been pursuing two of the stick’s critics—conservative author Mark Steyn and policy analyst Rand Simberg—through the courts for 12 years, saying they defamed him by attacking his personal and professional integrity. Their fate will be decided any day now by a District of Columbia Superior Court jury.
This isn’t Mr. Mann’s first legal rodeo. In 2011 he sued geographer Tim Ball in Canadian court for saying in an interview that “Michael Mann at Penn State should be in the state pen, not Penn State.” In 2019 a Canadian judge dismissed the charges because of the “inexcusable” delay in the trial and ordered Mr. Mann to pay Ball’s legal costs. But news reports say Mr. Mann never paid, and Ball died in 2022.
But back to the science. Mr. Mann’s hockey stick charts the Earth’s temperatures since the year 1000, showing a slow decline that turned sharply upward in the 20th century. Critics have questioned Mr. Mann’s statistical methods and the proxies he used. These proxies include the data from tree rings with which he estimated surface temperatures in medieval times.
In a 2012 post on the Competitive Enterprise Institute blog, Mr. Simberg let it rip. He likened Mr. Mann to a Penn State football coach just found guilty of having sexually abused boys: “Mann could be said to be the Jerry Sandusky of climate science, except that instead of molesting children, he has molested and tortured data in the service of politicized science that could have dire economic consequences for the nation and planet.”
Mr. Steyn then quoted Mr. Simberg in his own post for National Review Online. “Not sure I’d have extended that metaphor all the way into the locker-room showers with quite the zeal Mr. Simberg does, but he has a point.”
Mr. Steyn was referring to leaked emails from climate scientists at the University of East Anglia in the U.K. These showed there was far from a scientific consensus about the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change decision to feature the hockey stick in its 2001 report. Both Mr. Steyn and Mr. Simberg suggested that Penn State had covered for Mr. Mann just as it had for Mr. Sandusky.
So Mr. Mann sued. He pointed to independent investigations by the National Science Foundation and Penn State that had cleared him of any research misconduct.
Three years ago, a judge dropped National Review and CEI from the suit, ruling they weren’t liable because Messrs. Steyn and Simberg weren’t their employees. But the judge’s decision can be appealed once the lawsuit itself is resolved—so CEI and National Review could still find themselves on the hook.
Meanwhile in Washington, Mr. Steyn is acting as his own counsel, which may not be wise but is entertaining. He obviously feels passionately about free speech and equally passionately that he can defend it. At the end of each day of the trial, his website features re-enactments of some of the more spirited encounters.
During the trial, Mr. Steyn characterized Mr. Mann as a “guy who can dish it out but can’t take it.” In an April 2023 tweet touting his own book on the climate wars, Mr. Mann said one criticism of the hockey stick had “a disturbing connection w/ the bad stats used to support early theories of white supremacy.” In addition, one of Mr. Mann’s witnesses in the trial, Raymond Bradley of the University of Massachusetts, had admonished Mr. Mann more than two decades ago that his “scorched earth” approach to criticism—even criticism that is unreasonable—wasn’t doing his reputation any good.
On the stand last week, Mr. Mann also admitted that 12 years of litigation had cost him nothing, though he declined to name who was funding it. In sharp contrast, National Review’s legal defense has gone through millions in insurance claims and significant out-of-pocket expenses.
That seems to be the goal, judging by one of Mr. Mann’s emails explaining his rationale: “Going to talk w/ some big time libel lawyers to see if there is the potential to bring down this filthy organization [National Review] for good.”
The beauty of “bringing down” National Review or any of the other defendants is that Mr. Mann doesn’t have to prevail to do it; he just has to keep the suit going in hopes the legal fees bury them. This is lawfare. The message is: If you don’t like a critic’s tweet or blog posts, just drag him through the courts. It’s especially sweet if someone else foots your bill.
That isn’t the way science ought to be practiced. We know now, for example, that Dr. Fauci tried to quash those who questioned lockdowns. With both Dr. Fauci and Mr. Mann, the real issue is not so much that they got things wrong but that they tried to suppress the robust debate that is necessary for scientific truth.
Three years ago, a judge dropped National Review and CEI from the suit, ruling they weren’t liable because Messrs. Steyn and Simberg weren’t their employees. But the judge’s decision can be appealed once the lawsuit itself is resolved—so CEI and National Review could still find themselves on the hook.
Meanwhile in Washington, Mr. Steyn is acting as his own counsel, which may not be wise but is entertaining. He obviously feels passionately about free speech and equally passionately that he can defend it. At the end of each day of the trial, his website features re-enactments of some of the more spirited encounters.
During the trial, Mr. Steyn characterized Mr. Mann as a “guy who can dish it out but can’t take it.” In an April 2023 tweet touting his own book on the climate wars, Mr. Mann said one criticism of the hockey stick had “a disturbing connection w/ the bad stats used to support early theories of white supremacy.” In addition, one of Mr. Mann’s witnesses in the trial, Raymond Bradley of the University of Massachusetts, had admonished Mr. Mann more than two decades ago that his “scorched earth” approach to criticism—even criticism that is unreasonable—wasn’t doing his reputation any good.
On the stand last week, Mr. Mann also admitted that 12 years of litigation had cost him nothing, though he declined to name who was funding it. In sharp contrast, National Review’s legal defense has gone through millions in insurance claims and significant out-of-pocket expenses.
That seems to be the goal, judging by one of Mr. Mann’s emails explaining his rationale: “Going to talk w/ some big time libel lawyers to see if there is the potential to bring down this filthy organization [National Review] for good.”
The beauty of “bringing down” National Review or any of the other defendants is that Mr. Mann doesn’t have to prevail to do it; he just has to keep the suit going in hopes the legal fees bury them. This is lawfare. The message is: If you don’t like a critic’s tweet or blog posts, just drag him through the courts. It’s especially sweet if someone else foots your bill.
That isn’t the way science ought to be practiced. We know now, for example, that Dr. Fauci tried to quash those who questioned lockdowns. With both Dr. Fauci and Mr. Mann, the real issue is not so much that they got things wrong but that they tried to suppress the robust debate that is necessary for scientific truth.
https://apple.news/A4_h4ZXamS4qtJjgmSw2U3Q
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Thanks for bringing this trial to the forefront.
The process has been a crime and the outcome will be important.
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https://washingtontimes-dc.newsmemory.com/?token=56988ef2a35f158944f618fd528ebd1e_65ba60ea_6d25b5f&selDate=20240131
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Engoron
"In one court ruling, Engoron revealed he had taken part in "huge, sometimes boisterous, Vietnam War protests"
"Engoron is a fan of pop culture references, frequently using them in his rulings"
Both Columbia undergrad and NYU law grad
already ruled fraud committed
I would hazard a guess he will fine Trump of north of $300 million, and of course bar him and his sons from NY state business.
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More here: https://www.steynonline.com/
And here: https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2024-1-31-further-notes-on-mann-v-steyn-the-plaintiff-rests
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https://www.axios.com/2024/02/02/trump-conviction-trial-jan-6-court
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And yet we have the MSM laughing and scoffing at the concept that there is a deep state when of course it exists and is in plain sight demonstrated by the shyster brigades colluding (RICO case?) like mobsters to twist bend break all the rules to keep one person (or any Republican ) from the WH.
If this was 30 or more yrs ago I would never have thought this would happen in the US.
Trump has too much baggage, but he is our nominee at this point and Nikki should drop out after she gets crushed in her own state if not sooner.
Time to rally around our guy at this point in IMVHO
I hope they are polling to determine who the best VP pick would be to perhaps woo independents.
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/incorrect-watergate-lawyer-corrects-record-on-extremely-strong-stormy-daniels-case/ar-BB1hHVeR?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=a8fa2ba2770d407ea5d7be706b9c4f42&ei=23
I am not sure what crime was committed.
Wealthy pay off people to keep quiet ALL the time.
if a purported victim wants to agree to keeping silent for riches let them so what.
if they don't that is their choice.
how many women made it big simply claiming harassment etc ?
look at the Fox news girls . yes the abuse they experienced was disgusting but so many got rich over it.
wrote books etc.
Sadly no one ever harassed me so I could sue for millions.
I guess I don't fit the gigolo type :-P
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/incorrect-watergate-lawyer-corrects-record-on-extremely-strong-stormy-daniels-case/ar-BB1hHVeR?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=a8fa2ba2770d407ea5d7be706b9c4f42&ei=23
I am not sure what crime was committed.
Wealthy pay off people to keep quiet ALL the time.
if a purported victim wants to agree to keeping silent for riches let them so what.
if they don't that is their choice.
how many women made it big simply claiming harassment etc ?
look at the Fox news girls . yes the abuse they experienced was disgusting but so many got rich over it.
wrote books etc.
Sadly no one ever harassed me so I could sue for millions.
I guess I don't fit the gigolo type :-P
Yes all they call it by initials NDA it happens so commonly.
Wouldn't the 'non-disclosure' also keep the signatory from saying something false happened behind closed doors since they've agreed to say nothing at all and have money on the line? A reasonable protection if legal.
The crime was he took it as a business expense instead of a campaign expense, or something like that.
https://www.newsnationnow.com/crime/will-trump-face-charges-for-stormy-daniels-hush-payments/ (Story from March 18, 2023) They went felony because time ran out on the misdemeanor?
The Stormy thing came out of the media's Michael Avanati moment, remember he was going to be the next President, or Prophet, then left the scene in disgrace, caught fleecing clients and advancing false claims. Then Michael Cohen went to jail for lying. But Dems and their prosecutors breathed life into a dead case as 2024 was approaching.
If Trump's such a crooked businessman, why don't they come up with one real example of him breaking a law we've heard of?
Anything to keep America talking about anything but Biden's policies and Presidency.
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I got harassed at the dermatologist office this week by a pretty young nurse and a fairly young woman doctor. They were giggling quite a bit when I took my shirt off. + :-D :-D :-D
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Denying Trump’s Immunity Is Bigger Than Him
Is the Presidency at risk of being harried by partisan prosecutors?
By The Editorial Board
Feb. 6, 2024 6:38 pm ET
The first criminal trial of Donald Trump might soon be back on the calendar, after the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals said Tuesday that the former President isn’t immune from prosecution. Yet the sweeping nature of the ruling means that it also risks weakening the office of the Presidency, so perhaps at least four Supreme Court Justices will be interested in having the last word.
This is the federal case against Mr. Trump’s efforts to undo the 2020 election, which Judge Tanya Chutkan originally scheduled for a March 4 trial. In an unsigned opinion, the D.C. Circuit’s three-judge panel makes short work of bad immunity arguments, such as the claim that Mr. Trump can’t be criminally indicted because he was already impeached by the House and acquitted by the Senate. This isn’t double jeopardy. It’s legal sophistry.
Yet the court also makes too-short work of better arguments. In Nixon v. Fitzgerald (1982), the Supreme Court said the President has “absolute immunity” from civil liability for “official acts.” That case involved a federal worker who argued his layoff was political retaliation. “Because of the singular importance of the President’s duties,” the High Court said, “diversion of his energies by concern with private lawsuits would raise unique risks to the effective functioning of government.”
One question posed by Mr. Trump’s case is whether his actions in the run-up to Jan. 6, 2021, were within the “outer perimeter” of his official duties, as Fitzgerald put it. Mr. Trump betrayed Mike Pence on Jan. 6, but if a President asks a Vice President to perform a legislative maneuver in the Senate, that looks like official conduct. What about the other allegations in the indictment, though, such as that Mr. Trump and his aides convened “sham proceedings” to cast phony electoral votes?
The D.C. Circuit blows past the question, because it categorically refuses to extend the logic of Fitzgerald. “We cannot accept that the office of the Presidency places its former occupants above the law for all time thereafter,” the panel says. The judges are justifiably outraged at Mr. Trump’s conduct after the 2020 election, which they call “an unprecedented assault on the structure of our government.”
But if the President could be hobbled by civil suits over official actions, where is the concern that he might be paralyzed by the thought of partisan indictments the moment he leaves office? The panel says the criminal process has safeguards in grand juries and the ethical obligations of prosecutors. Grand juries? Really?
“This is the first time since the Founding that a former President has been federally indicted,” the judges write, with confidence that may not age well. “The risk that former Presidents will be unduly harassed by meritless federal criminal prosecutions appears slight.”
Mr. Trump is all but promising that if he wins in November, he will ask his Justice Department to charge President Biden. “Joe would be ripe for Indictment,” he fumed last month. For what crime? Who knows, but the federal statute books are voluminous. The Supreme Court last year upheld a law that gives prison time to a person who “encourages or induces an alien to come to, enter, or reside in the United States.”
Mr. Trump’s claims of total immunity for anything a President does are obviously wrong. But the D.C. Circuit has gone overboard in the other direction by declaring a President has no immunity. By the D.C. Circuit’s logic, a former President could be charged with a crime for violating any Congressional statute. Harry Truman might have been prosecuted for seizing steel mills. (He was blocked by the Supreme Court.)
Mr. Trump will appeal, and the Supreme Court may understandably want to avoid getting pulled deeper into the legal-political maelstrom of the 2024 election. Had the D.C. Circuit ruled against Mr. Trump on narrower grounds—e.g., that his post-election actions were electioneering, and not part of his official duties—the Supreme Court would have found it easier to turn down a Trump appeal.
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No one above the law.
https://nypost.com/2024/02/08/news/special-counsel-robert-hur-issues-report-on-bidens-mishandling-of-classified-documents/
we all knew this was a farce.
Funny how DOJ let Biden lawyers go through everything prior to being turned over.
No swat raid.
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Stay tuned. What he put there is devastating for Biden. True 25th Amendment material!
Too non compus mentis to prosecute, but fit to be the leader of the free world? This could be the straw that breaks the camel's back.
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Stay tuned. What he put there is devastating for Biden. True 25th Amendment material!
Too non compus mentis to prosecute, but fit to be the leader of the free world? This could be the straw that breaks the camel's back.
Right. "Too non compus mentis to prosecute, but fit to be the leader of the free world?"
Unbelievable.
The second aspect of course is the parallel to the Trump charges for the same crime.
How do they escape either one of these points. The man is not competent to stand trial or even remember what he did but we are going ahead with the prosecution of his opponent - right in the middle of an election year.
It's too far fetched to sell if it was fiction.
5 takeaways:
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/2846710/five-takeaways-from-the-biden-classified-document-report/
Fudged timeframe. They only discovered it in 2022 but knew about it in 2017.
Destruction of evidence. Part of the tape missing. Wasn't Biden there for Watergate?
Drip, drip, drip. They came forward ever so slowly with the evidence, except the destroyed evidence.
"Hamptons Hijinks" Biden lost or mishandled classified docs going back 30 years and in particular in the Hamptons in 2010.
Intent Inquiries and Memory Problems.
“Mr. Biden’s memory was significantly limited, both during his recorded interviews with the ghostwriter in 2017, and in his interview with our office in 2023,” Hur wrote in the report.
Intent continued: “[Biden] always believed history would prove him right,” Hur wrote of Biden’s views about the issue. “He retained materials documenting his opposition to the troop surge, including a classified handwritten memo he sent President Obama over the 2009 Thanksgiving holiday, and related marked classified documents.”
Biden’s desire to write a memoir also fueled his decision to hold onto sensitive notes, Hur said.
“According to a staffer involved in the project, Mr. Biden wanted to take copies of the notecards ‘so that he didn’t have to go to [the National Archives] every day to help write this book,’” the report said.
[Doug] Isn't that a perfect parallel with Trump? Both go to jail or both don't. How is it justice any other way?
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One shyster after another Tobin, Weissman, Raskin et al
doing a bent over backwards limbo dance to swindle us into thinking what Trump did was "far worse"
then Biden
the latter cooperated while the former obstructed justice by not returning docs to the NA.
blah blah blah
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From the report: [This is not a gaffe on stage. This is an interview with a special prosecutor where he is the target.]
“He did not remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended (‘if it was 2013 — when did I stop being Vice President?’), and forgetting on the second day of the interview when his term began (‘in 2009, am I still Vice President?’).”
And: “He did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died.”
He presents as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
https://nypost.com/2024/02/08/opinion/special-prosecutors-report-proves-joe-biden-is-unfit-to-remain-president/
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[Doug] What other cognitive functions of his are "poor"?
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Could it be as simple as Biden/Hur laid it on heavy to justify failure to indict even though all the elements of the crime are present in abundance and weren't bright enough to forsee the cognitive dissonance that doing so would trigger?
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_K._Hur
perhaps he was being political (Republican)
OTOH I suspect he was simply telling the truth.
Biden would look sympathetic and relatable.
What he was supposed to ignore the obvious and be complicit in deceiving us like the rest of the Democrats ?
Aren't Biden's answers ("I can't remember") supposed to be part of the report.
Finally another Harvard grad who is on our side like DeSantis, Cruz, Dershowitz (lately) :-D
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Prosecutor Jack Smith is in a great big hurry and can't say why.
Biden Department of Justice
9-85.500 Actions that May Have an Impact on an Election
Federal prosecutors and agents may never select the timing of any action, including investigative steps, criminal charges, or statements, for the purpose of affecting any election, or for the purpose of giving an advantage or disadvantage to any candidate or political party. Such a purpose is inconsistent with the Department’s mission and with the Principles of Federal Prosecution. See § 9-27.260. Any action likely to raise an issue or the perception of an issue under this provision requires consultation with the Public Integrity Section, and such action shall not be taken if the Public Integrity Section advises that further consultation is required with the Deputy Attorney General or Attorney General.
https://www.justice.gov/jm/jm-9-85000-protection-government-integrity#9-85.500
Weird, there must be some other reason he's in a hurry, he's late for a ballgame or something? Maybe he's got a case bigger than taking down the top candidate for President of the United States coming that up he needs to clear the schedule for.
He wasn't in a hurry the first three years since the so-called felonies.
The wheels of justice turn ever so slowly. Except when it might "[affect an election] or [give] advantage or disadvantage to [a] candidate or political party."
Oops, the law says he can't hurry for that reason.
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Venial sin = forgivable, pardonable - Merriam Webster
https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/4473974-obscene-award-against-trump-is-testing-the-new-york-legal-systems-integrity/
Jonathon Turley:
In laying the foundation for his sweeping decision against former President Donald Trump, Judge Arthur Engoron observed that “this is a venial sin, not a mortal sin.” Yet, at $355 million, one would think that Engoron had found Trump to be the source of Original Sin.
That makes the damages against Trump greater than the gross national product of some countries, including Micronesia. Yet the court admitted that not a single dollar was lost by the banks from these dealings. Indeed, witnesses testified that they wanted to do more business with Trump. ...
... you do not have to feel sorry or even sympathetic for Trump to see this award as obscene.
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Trump’s $355 Million Civil Fraud Verdict
The judge found he inflated his assets, but this penalty is unreal.
By The Editorial Board
Feb. 16, 2024 6:51 pm ET
Donald Trump and his business were found liable Friday of inflating asset values in paperwork to lenders, but given that nobody lost money, this punishment smacks of political overkill. In a 92-page ruling, New York Judge Arthur Engoron ordered him to pay $355 million, while also banning him from being an officer for any New York corporation for three years.
The judge had previously found that Mr. Trump fudged numbers submitted on Statements of Financial Condition (SFCs), most egregiously by claiming that his 11,000-square-foot triplex in Trump Tower was actually 30,000 square feet. Friday’s ruling, putting a price tag on that conduct, includes pages of summarized testimony from business partners.
Donald Bender, an accountant at Mazars who helped draw up the documents, said he discovered later, after being interviewed by investigators, “that the Trump Organization had withheld records, such as appraisals, that Mazars had requested,” in the judge’s telling. “Bender made clear that Mazars would not have issued the SFCs if it had known.”
Nicholas Haigh, formerly a managing director of Deutsche Bank’s Private Wealth Management Division, signed off on loans to the Trump Organization. “Haigh relied on Donald Trump’s 2011 SFC and assumed that the representations of value of the assets and liabilities were ‘broadly accurate,’” the judge says.
Mr. Haigh affirmed that Mr. Trump’s “personal guarantee” was “the reason for favorable pricing on the loan.” Deutsche loans included covenants requiring Mr. Trump “to maintain a minimum net worth of $2.5 billion, excluding any value related to his brand.”
Perhaps this explains some of the obsession by the mogul-turned-President with puffing up his valuations over the decades. It’s true that Mr. Trump was interacting with sophisticated financial counterparties. But not for the first time, Mr. Trump’s casual relationship to the truth has come back to bite him.
Yet this remedy is like using a Hellfire missile to annihilate a shoplifter. Deutsche Bank made money on the loans, and its valuation teams gave a “haircut” to the numbers provided by Mr. Trump. There was no real financial victim.
More troubling is that this case was brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat who campaigned for office promising to find Mr. Trump guilty of something. This is choosing a target and then hunting for something to charge him with, which is an abuse of the law. Mr. Trump isn’t guaranteed a jury trial here, the judge says, because of the kind of case it is. But that’s another reason voters are unlikely to hold this judgment against Mr. Trump as he campaigns for the White House.
Mr. Trump denounced the verdict and says he’ll appeal. Meantime, this example of targeted civil prosecution ought to worry fair-minded people regardless of political bent. CEOs might wonder about doing business in a jurisdiction where elected politicians use the law to smash companies this way.
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second post
Fani Willis Knows When a Trial Is a ‘Show Trial’
Credit Trump’s Georgia prosecutor with realizing no one will be hanging on fine points of the law.
By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.
Feb. 16, 2024 4:35 pm ET
If the worst allegations are true, credit Fani Willis at least with understanding in her own mind what her case, and all the cases against Donald Trump, are really about.
In the worst interpretation, the Fulton Country, Ga., district attorney hired her boyfriend, a municipal court judge, as co-prosecutor against Mr. Trump despite his lack of relevant expertise in Georgia election or RICO law because she was cutting an ally in on a big-time case, a lucrative hustle, a chance for national fame. If so, it’s a useful light on the Trump prosecutions generally.
They aren’t about the facts and law, at least until they reach the appellate level, and maybe not then. They are battles of jury nullification (if I can stretch a point to include 150 million voters in the jury): “It doesn’t matter what the law says, Trump is bad” vs. “It doesn’t matter what the law says, Trump’s enemies are bad.”
Trump opponents cloak themselves in sanctimony, whereas Mr. Trump portrays himself as a gamester outsmarting less competent, more self-deluding gamesters. That’s why he keeps coming out ahead in such fights. Careful onlookers will often find little to choose ethically between him and his enemies.
To me, the most interesting case is the most legally sound, the documents-related case, though that’s not why it’s interesting. It gets to the unspoken issue.
Remember the lead balloon in a CNN story in December, soon followed by stories in the New York Times and elsewhere? An “intelligence binder” had gone missing in the last hours of the Trump administration. Except it wasn’t information Mr. Trump had squirreled away for private use, it was info he had declassified to distribute to the press. His staff ran off multiple copies of the binder while waiting for last-minute redactions from the intelligence agencies that never came before his term expired.
This week, in overly breathless reporting, independent journalists Michael Shellenberger, Alex Gutentag and Matt Taibbi suggest that the binder, among other things, showed that the intelligence agencies never really believed the Putin government craved a Trump victory but the opposite, preferring the known quantity of Hillary Clinton. Duh. In desultory fashion, the spooks went prospecting anyway for untoward ties between Trumpies and Moscow, and elicited overseas intelligence agencies to do so, which also strikes me as old news and not automatically nefarious.
The interesting and untold story begins when the FBI stopped caring about the truth and began relying on fabricated evidence, from a motive only acquired on Election Day, when Hillary Clinton lost most probably because of a ham-handed and improper intervention by the FBI that supplied Mr. Trump his minuscule win in the Electoral College.
Now the FBI and its intelligence confreres needed to change the subject quickly. If the judge in the documents case will allow it, Mr. Trump intends to make part of his defense the actions of our intelligence agencies to portray him as a Russian catspaw. In effect, he will invite a jury and the larger public to nullify the law on intelligence handling because he was fighting for his political life against a government “conspiracy”—I use quotes only because conspiracy means illegal cooperation and it isn’t clear much or anything was illegal about the collusion hoax.
Hoax it was, though, even if the fact goes politely ignored or played down because of the news media’s complicity. The FBI knowingly presented fabricated evidence to a surveillance court. An FBI official deliberately falsified details of Carter Page’s relationship with the CIA. The FBI put the chief Steele dossier fabricator on its own payroll for almost four years, becoming his family’s major source of income, which he would jeopardize if he breathed the truth about his Steele fabrications to the press.
Mr. Trump, as any American, is free to believe anything he wants without evidence, including about the 2020 election, the focus in Ms. Willis’s case as well as one of the federal cases. The great four-ring circus of jury nullification, including the Georgia case, the Manhattan case and two federal cases, won’t change that.
Where all the convoluted Trump matters will likely be settled is in an election, by voters deciding whether Mr. Trump is more sinning than his enemies, or vice versa.
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" Mr. Trump, as any American, is free to believe anything he wants without evidence, including about the 2020 election, the focus in Ms. Willis’s case as well as one of the federal cases. The great four-ring circus of jury nullification, including the Georgia case, the Manhattan case and two federal cases, won’t change that."
Meanwhile CCP is working 24/7 to attack the US in every imaginal way.
Circus - not a funny or pleasurable one but a of the nature of a frightening black comedy.
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For the record, it was Attorney General Merrick Garland who appointed Special Counsel Hur and it was Garland who made the Special Counsel's report public. Hur recommended not prosecuting Biden for arguably the same crime Trump is being prosecuted for. But his inclusion of the elderly man with the poor memory has done the most damage yet to his reelection chances.
Along the line that nothing happens by accident, the powers behind the curtain have been pressing Biden to step down from the 2024 race for quite some time, starting with an Axelrod comment and an Obama comment. And now this.
https://amac.us/newsline/society/the-weaponization-of-special-counsels-boomerangs-on-democrats/
All but Jill have more loyalty to the machine than to the current occupant of the Oval Office.
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The process is (part of) the punishment:
The Volokh Conspiracy
Mostly law professors | Sometimes contrarian | Often libertarian | Always independent
About The Volokh Conspiracy
President Trump's Kafkaesque Civil Trial in New York State
A Stalinist nightmare in New York State
STEVEN CALABRESI | 2.18.2024 3:10 PM
Donald Trump has been ordered to pay a $355 million fine and has been barred from doing business in New York State for three years. Judge Arthur Engoron ordered Trump to pay essentially all of his cash reserves of $400 million, which fine if upheld would force Trump to sell some of his real estate holdings to raise cash to live on. Once interest is added on the total fine will rise to $450 million. This is all on top of an $83.3 million fine Trump must pay for allegedly defaming the writer E. Jean Carroll. The fines in total could deprive Trump of between 11% and 13% of his wealth. Trump's adult sons Donald Jr. and Eric have also been fined, and they are barred from doing business in New York State for two years. Ivanka or Melania Trump could legally run the Trump businesses for the next two years, but Judge Engoron appointed retired U.S. District Judge Barbara Jones to continue in her role as an "independent monitor" of the Trump business empire but expanded her authority to review financial disclosures before they are submitted to third parties. Judge Jones can hire an independent director of compliance, and she has the authority to compel Trump to sell some or even all of his businesses down the road. This is all punishment for Trump allegedly committing fraud by falsely in inflating and deflating the value of his real estate assets to pay lower state taxes and to receive more favorable loans from banks.
The New York State laws used to go after Trump have NEVER been used in this way, historically, and while Trump may owe some back state taxes, if Judge Engoron is right, not a single bank claimed that it had been defrauded by Trump in the loans it had made to him. This is truly a victimless crime.
Bankers took the stand at Trump's civil trial testifying that they would have gladly made loans to Donald Trump given his extraordinary success as a businessman. It must also be noted that the banks that made loans to Trump did not take his assessment of the net worth of his assets at face value but made their own independent assessments of the value of Trump's assets. This is apparently standard practice in the New York State real estate market where borrowers often overstate the value of their assets.
The bottom line is that a never before used New York State penalty has been twisted into a tool for a grossly excessive fine and more seriously the completely inappropriate appointment of Judge Jones as an "independent monitor" who can micromanage the Trump business, which she is not competent to do, and to even order the dissolution of the Trump Business in New York State. This outcome was pursued by Letitia James, a politically ambition Democrat, who is the Attorney General of New York State, and who hopes to win a future Democratic primary for Governor of or Senator from New York State.
Ms. James and Judge Engeron have essentially turned a vaguely worded New York State law into a modern day Bill of Attainder targeted at Donald Trump both for political gain and because they despise his political views and desperately want to call his truthfulness into question as he runs for President of the United States inn 2024. In doing this, the have violated Trump's First Amendment right to freedom of speech and of the press; his Fifth Amendment right not to be deprived of liberty or property without due process of law; his Fifth Amendment right not to have property taken away from him except for a pubic use with just compensation being paid; his Eighth Amendment right not to be made to pay an excessive fine; his Article IV, Section 2 right as a citizen of Florida to do make and enforce contracts in New York on the same terms as are other New Yorkers; and his Fourteenth Amendment right to be free to pursue an occupation without unnecessary and burdensome regulation.
The civil fraud judgment against Donald Trump is a travesty and an unjust political act rivaled only in American politics by the killing of former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton by Vice President Aaron Burr. If the New York State appellate courts do not reverse this judgment, the U.S. Supreme Court MUST grant cert on this case and reverse Judge Engeron's outrageous decisions. National, presidential politics will be permanently altered if a local State's legal system can be used in this way against candidates for President of the United States. This case raises a national issue of profound importance and if the New York State appellate courts do not address it, the U.S. Supreme Court MUST!
https://reason.com/volokh/2024/02/18/president-trumps-kafkaesque-civil-trial-in-new-york-state/?fbclid=IwAR3NfJl_v0u_277FaOC5vO9u9s16jYGdUqqC9iNCSkHW0eYzZlObsyZv9gE
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Yup.
BTW today VDH (IIRC) made the point that the law Jean Carrol used was a bill of attainder i.e. it lifted the statute of limitations for one year so that she could sue.
Trump was very strong last night on Ingraham and made telling use of the Eighth Amendment- a point which this article misses.
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The temporary law passed in NY for the sole purpose of allowing Carroll to bring civil charges against Trump:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adult_Survivors_Act
So the state's Democrat Party passed a law for the sole purpose to get their political opponent.
On the day the law took effect, writer E. Jean Carroll filed a suit against businessman and politician Donald Trump, the U.S. president, for defamation and battery.[12] On May 9, 2023, a jury in Manhattan federal court found that Trump defamed and sexually abused Carroll, ordering Trump to pay her $5 million in damages.[13]
Others also used the temporary one yr window to sue for alleged assaults but clearly this was designed for Trump.
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https://www.the-sun.com/news/10531948/illinois-judge-rules-donald-trump-removal-primary-ballot/
:roll:
OTOH -
Ah the grim faces last night on CNN and MSNBC when realized the trial will NOT be before election.....
I saw at least one left wing guy on MSNBC calling to pack the Court.
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Why the Supreme Court Had to Hear Trump’s Case
The D.C. Circuit’s ruling was so sweeping that it posed a danger to our constitutional democracy.
By David B. Rivkin Jr. and Elizabeth Price Foley
Feb. 29, 2024 4:43 pm ET
A court room sketch of Donald Trump’s lawyer speaking at an appeals hearing on Mr. Trump’s immunity claim in the D.C. Circuit court in Washington, Jan. 9. PHOTO: BILL HENNESSY/REUTERS
Many observers thought the Supreme Court would decline to consider Donald Trump’s claim that presidential immunity shields him from prosecution for his conduct on Jan. 6, 2021. But on Wednesday the justices announced that they will hear the former president’s case in April. Mr. Trump could eventually face a trial on those charges, but the justices had little choice but to take up this question because the lower court’s ruling was so sweeping and dangerous.
Mr. Trump claims that his allegedly criminal actions were “official acts” taken as president. The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia held that it didn’t matter if they were—that no president is entitled to immunity from “generally applicable criminal laws.” That decision violates the separation of powers, threatens the independence and vigor of the presidency, and is inconsistent with Supreme Court precedent.
The justices are unlikely to decide whether Mr. Trump’s actions were in fact “official acts.” Instead, they will consider the key legal question, “whether and if so to what extent does a former president enjoy presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office.”
That’s a novel question, but in Nixon v. Fitzgerald (1982), the high court held that a president enjoys absolute immunity from civil suits predicated on his “official acts,” even if they fall foul of “federal laws of general applicability.” Justice Lewis Powell wrote that such immunity is a “functionally mandated incident of the President’s unique office, rooted in the constitutional tradition of the separation of powers and supported by our history.” Such lawsuits “could distract a President from his public duties, to the detriment of not only the President and his office but also the Nation that the Presidency was designed to serve.”
Mr. Trump maintains that he believed the 2020 presidential election was riddled with fraud and that his conduct on Jan. 6 was fully consistent with his constitutional obligations to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” Whatever the merits of that claim, it raises weighty questions of law and fact that the D.C. Circuit was wrong to brush aside—most centrally, that the president’s power is granted by the Constitution, which, as the supreme law of the land, overrides ordinary, “generally applicable” statutes.
The D.C. Circuit decision opened the door to all manner of constitutional crises. A former president could be prosecuted for ordering a military attack on an American affiliated with a foreign terrorist organization, even though such an order is clearly within his authority as commander in chief. Aggressive prosecutors motivated by ideology or partisanship could use capaciously worded criminal statutes—including those regarding mail or wire fraud, racketeering, false statements and misrepresentations—to challenge almost any presidential action, including those related to national security activities.
As with civil suits, it isn’t enough to say that the former president would have the opportunity to mount a defense in court. The mere possibility of personal prosecution for official actions would chill future presidential decisions. The D.C. Circuit casually disregards this danger, asserting simply that the “public interest” in prosecuting crimes is weightier than the risk of chilling impartial and fearless presidential action. It asserts that a president wouldn’t be “unduly cowed” by the prospect of criminal liability, “any more than a juror” or “executive aide” would be. That analogy is inapt because the president’s responsibilities are much weightier than those of jurors or aides. He alone is the singular head of a constitutional branch of government. As the justices recognized in Nixon v. Fitzgerald, the “greatest public interest” isn’t in enforcing ordinary statutes against the president. Immunity is necessary to ensure he has “the maximum ability to deal fearlessly and impartially with the duties of his office.”
The D.C. Circuit dismissed as “slight” the risk that former presidents will be politically targeted because prosecutors “have ethical obligations not to initiate unfounded prosecutions” and there are “additional safeguards in place,” including the requirement of seeking an indictment from a grand jury. These arguments border on frivolous. Not all prosecutors are ethical, and even those who are may be overzealous. Many cases have featured prosecutorial misconduct or abuse. And the justices have surely heard the saying that a prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich. Lawyers in civil cases are also bound by ethical obligations, but that didn’t vitiate the case for presidential immunity in 1982.
Jack Smith, the special counsel in the Trump cases, has asserted that federal prosecutors make decisions without regard to politics—but his conduct in this case belies that claim. His chief argument against Mr. Trump’s petition for a stay of the D.C. Circuit’s decision denying his immunity was that such a delay would cause “serious harm to the government—and to the public” because the case “presents a fundamental question at the heart of our democracy.” Many Supreme Court cases raise such questions, and Mr. Smith avoids saying what distinguishes this one. The obvious answer is the election timetable.
Mr. Smith’s demand for fast-tracking the Supreme Court’s consideration thus contradicts the D.C. Circuit’s suppositions about prosecutorial ethical probity. Trying Mr. Trump, the all-but-certain Republican nominee for president, before the election is inconsistent with Section 9-27.260 of the Justice Department’s Justice Manual, which makes clear that prosecutors “may never make a decision regarding . . . prosecution or select the timing [thereof] . . . for the purpose or affecting any election, or for the purpose of giving an advantage or disadvantage to any candidate or political party.”
The question of presidential immunity is an important one for our constitutional democracy of separated government powers, and the D.C. Circuit made a grievous error in disposing of it so casually. The justices were right to halt the proceedings until they can give the issue the careful consideration it deserves.
Mr. Rivkin served at the Justice Department and the White House Counsel’s Office during the Reagan and George H.W. Bush Administrations. Ms. Foley is a professor of constitutional law at Florida International University College of Law. Both practice appellate and constitutional law in Washington.
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Lawfare practiced in DC just took a hit:
The D.C. Bar’s case against Jeff Clark is part of a widespread and well-funded effort by Democrats to make it illegal to be a Republican lawyer.
JORDAN BOYD
@JORDANBOYDTX
Trump-era Department of Justice official Jeffrey Clark won a big victory against Democrat lawfare on Monday when the D.C. Court of Appeals ruled he did not have to comply with a subpoena issued by the D.C. Bar’s Office of Disciplinary Counsel.
The appeals court denied the D.C. Bar’s attempt to enforce its subpoena against Clark because it “infringes on Mr. Clark’s Fifth Amendment right not to be compelled to be a witness against himself.” The court did not release a full opinion but promised to do so in the future.
The victory for Clark serves as a shocking blow to Democrats, who have tried to disbar more than 100 attorneys who agreed to work on election integrity cases following the 2020 presidential election. They’ve expanded that lawfare to attorneys across the nation who defend conservatives, including half of Republican attorneys general.
The D.C. Bar’s Disciplinary Counsel Hamilton P. Fox III initially charged the former head of the Department of Justice’s environment division in July 2022 with “attempted dishonesty” and “attempted serious interference with the administration of justice.”
Fox tried to subpoena Clark in 2021, shortly after the sham January 6 Committee failed to, but that demand was rendered effectively moot once he filed charges. Shortly after he announced the charges against Clark, Fox issued another subpoena in October 2022 demanding access to the former Trump official’s documents.
Among the requested materials was information about his draft letter to Georgia officials noting the DOJ “identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the [2020] election in multiple States, including the State of Georgia.” Clark is one of the 19 “co-conspirator” targets in Democrats’ wide-ranging election indictment in Fulton County.
Clark once again resisted the Fox subpoena because it would violate his executive, law enforcement, deliberative process, and attorney-client privileges, as well as deprive him of his Fifth Amendment rights.
In mid-2023, the D.C. Bar began pushing for court-ordered enforcement of the subpoena, but it wasn’t until December that the D.C. Court of Appeals demanded Clark’s compliance. Clark quickly filed a motion to reconsider and requested a hearing. During oral arguments to the three-judge panel on Friday, Clark’s legal team argued the D.C. Bar’s demands would violate Clark’s Fifth Amendment rights. The court agreed.
Clark’s legal team previously established that the D.C. Bar “has attempted to exercise disciplinary authority over a high-ranking, Senate-confirmed federal government official for actions taken in the course of his duty.”
The D.C. Bar’s case against Clark is part of a widespread and well-funded effort by Democrats to make it illegal to be a Republican lawyer. Several Trump-affiliated lawyers, including John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani, have faced punishment for their roles in election cases. That is why Clark’s victory is so significant.
Clark will head to trial on March 26.
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.
https://thefederalist.com/2024/02/26/in-big-victory-against-lawfare-dc-court-of-appeals-smacks-down-jeff-clark-subpoena/?fbclid=IwAR3J8pF1lK7s3TCs7Z9cwq28oJR6tKrlqb1--V7T0s4YIcS4RXA7fBsGWTQ
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2nd post. Good overview and excoriation of NYC’s efforts to bankrupt Trump. Makes great use of a Thomas Moore metaphor:
https://johnalucas6.substack.com/p/cutting-down-the-law-to-get-at-the
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/new-crimes-experts-say-massive-fraud-for-trump-could-be-on-the-horizon/ar-BB1jex2A?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=931e0e1599644d6ab3901136fe44e8a5&ei=15
freaken dirty shysters ...... raj[ir3ir]rwqqwnhru8u9u :x
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Clarice Feldman presents a fine overview of cascades that will ensue should the SCOTUS and other courts find for Trump, suggesting perhaps Dems should nominate someone able to chew gum and walk:
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/03/checkmating_doj_and_jack_smith.html
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/georgia-judge-needs-more-time-to-decide-fate-of-trump-prosecutor-fani-willis/ar-BB1jc39f
:roll:
some pundits think she is out and evidence of lying to the Court is obvious and she will be ousted.
some pundits think she is in and there the case against her has not been made
American Spectator author concludes she is home free as the Judge has an election coming up in Democrat stronghold Fulton County in ~ 60 days :
https://spectator.org/why-ga-judge-wont-disqualify-fani-willis/
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/top-democrat-working-on-bill-responding-to-supreme-court-s-trump-ballot-ruling/ar-BB1jjVf9?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=b1dfb2aa9f3e487ca0dd7fe58be78483&ei=12
Larry Tribe's in and out box must be packed.
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https://patriotpost.us/opinion/104968-the-lefts-beef-with-beef-2024-03-06
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Outlines NY's law fare-based overreach here:
https://www.hoover.org/research/trump-fraud-verdict-shows-political-overreach
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https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/fani-willis-donald-trump-election/2024/03/06/id/1156188/
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https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/03/fani-busted-witness-testimony-fani-willis-visited-biden/
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in his libel suit against Christopher Steele's company for the dossier
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/donald-trump-forced-to-pay-legal-fees-for-company-he-sued-over-russia-sex-party-allegations/ar-BB1junSi?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=2d032fa9634440dbafb8572b05306e1a&ei=12
In a ruling last month, Mrs Justice Steyn threw out Mr Trump’s case, finding his compensation claim was “bound to fail”.
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So, the theory here is if Trump wins, the House and the Senate will pass a bill that Biden will pass? How will that work out?
========================
(1) DEMOCRAT LAWMAKERS MOVE ON TRUMP DISQUALIFICATION: Reps. Debbie Wasserman-Schulz (D-FL) and Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said they are working on a bill to identify and disqualify federal officials for “insurrection” after the Supreme Court decided states could not disqualify federal elected officials under the 14th Amendment “Insurrection Clause.”
Wasserman-Schulz added that the lawmakers will revise H.R. 7906, which would establish a civil court process to disqualify candidates for “insurrection,” introduced by Wasserman-Schulz in 2022.
Why It Matters: House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is very unlikely to bring this bill to the floor. However, Wasserman-Schulz and Raskin are setting the stage for a Democrat-controlled House on 3 January 2025 to pass a bill disqualifying Trump from the presidency, setting up a Constitutional crisis on 20 January. - R.C.
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second
(2) SCOTUS CONFIRMS TRUMP IMMUNITY HEARING FOR 25 APRIL: The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) said it will hear oral arguments on 25 April for former President Trump’s immunity appeal in the Washington D.C. election interference prosecution.
SCOTUS ordered Special Counsel Jack Smith to place the election interference case on hold until SCOTUS resolves Trump’s immunity claim.
Why It Matters: Even if the SCOTUS releases a decision on Trump’s immunity claim by this summer, the Washington D.C. election interference trial against Trump will very likely run through the November election. Any decision by the SCOTUS will fuel the legitimacy crisis the court is facing from both pro and anti-Trump lawmakers and voters. The SCOTUS deciding in Trump’s favor will renew calls from Democrats to pack the court. While unlikely to happen in an election year, a Democrat-controlled White House and Senate could move to pack the court in 2025. - R.C.
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third
https://dailycaller.com/2024/03/06/jonathan-turley-democrat-disqualify-dozens-republicans-14th-amendment/?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=29912&pnespid=vON4DHVFK7gewvLK.DSwFJCe406tWMt9PLfgmvQ49QBmNqxa.8tnaxvjrG1yRGm6tKtt9qtf
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third
https://dailycaller.com/2024/03/06/jonathan-turley-democrat-disqualify-dozens-republicans-14th-amendment/?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=29912&pnespid=vON4DHVFK7gewvLK.DSwFJCe406tWMt9PLfgmvQ49QBmNqxa.8tnaxvjrG1yRGm6tKtt9qtf
Grr. My guess is an underlying hope is to force Repubs to commit time/resources to fending off this effort ala Lawfare. Think if they were smart (fat chance) they should create a list of those Dems that gave succor to Antifa/BLM/et al "mostly peaceful" riots and say "we think this is an unconstitutional effort crafted to interfere with the election of Republicans and Republicans only, but if you insist on proceeding please add these names to your list," and then stand back and see what happens.
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Claims of blind justice increasingly look like the blind pursuit of a specific person.
- Jonathon Turley
https://jonathanturley.org/2024/03/11/the-nightmare-scenario-how-a-trump-trial-could-now-run-up-to-or-through-the-2024-election/#more-216667
The backlog of federal criminal cases is 770,000, up 25% under Biden, but they are 'moving other cases and canceling trips to shoehorn Trump's cases' into the election campaign season.
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https://www.yahoo.com/news/t-experts-transcript-shows-special-172637182.html
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The Case Robert Hur Could Have Made Against Joe Biden
The special counsel described holes in the Biden story and a clear motive for breaking the law.
James Freeman
WSJ
March 13, 2024 4:52 pm ET
Democrats should be careful about insisting that President Joe Biden is mentally fit to stand trial or people might just decide to hold him accountable. Special counsel Robert Hur’s Tuesday appearance before the House Judiciary Committee highlighted not just the holes in the Biden story but also Mr. Biden’s possible motives for violating the law on the handling of classified information.
Taken together, the special counsel’s report and Tuesday’s hearing should make a reasonable person wonder whether Mr. Hur really needed to extract informative testimony from the forgetful Mr. Biden in order for a jury to find him guilty. And as a political matter, even if one believes Mr. Biden is mentally unfit today, what’s the excuse for his actions in the years before his presidency?
Mr. Hur’s report noted voluminous evidence—as if any were needed given Mr. Biden’s decades of experience—that Joe Biden understood very well the rules on classified documents and knew he was violating them. And even after the violations were exposed, the special counsel received in writing from Mr. Biden a defense that few jurors would likely find believable. The special counsel’s report stated:
As with the classified Afghanistan documents, there is evidence that Mr. Biden kept his notebooks after his vice presidency knowing they were classified and he was not allowed to have them.
The evidence shows convincingly that Mr. Biden knew the notebooks, as a whole, contained classified information. For eight years, he wrote in his notebooks about classified information during classified meetings in the White House Situation Room and elsewhere. He was familiar with the notebooks’ contents, which included obviously classified information. When reviewing the notebooks with [Biden ghostwriter Mark] Zwonitzer, Mr. Biden sometimes read aloud classified notes verbatim, but he also sometimes appeared to skip over classified information, and he warned Zwonitzer that the material in the notebooks could be classified. Mr. Biden also stored the notebooks in a classified safe in the White House for a time as vice president because the notebooks were classified.
In Mr. Biden’s written answers to questions from our office, he called into question whether he knew the information in his notebooks was classified. In those answers, Mr. Biden explained that when he described material in his notebooks to Zwonitzer as “classified’’ he did not actually mean “classified.” According to Mr. Biden, “I may have used the word ‘classified’ with Mr. Zwonitzer in a generic sense, to refer not to the formal classification of national security information, but to sensitive or private topics to ensure that Mr. Zwonitzer would not write about them.” Mr. Biden qualified this answer by explaining, “I do not recall the specific conversations you reference with Mr. Zwonitzer, which took place more than six years ago.”
This explanation-that “classified” does not mean “classified”-is not credible. At the time Mr. Biden met with Zwonitzer, Mr. Biden had nearly fifty years of experience dealing with classified information, including as a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, a member and Chairman of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, a member and Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, and Vice President of the United States. It is not plausible that a person of his knowledge and experience used the term “classified” in this context as a euphemism for “private.”
Are media folk still claiming that Mr. Biden cooperated with this inquiry? Interviewed in person last October, Mr. Biden largely presented himself as unaware of—or unable to recall—key details, which depending on one’s point of view may be a sign of impairment or evasion. Mr. Hur has much more, including this nugget in his report:
When Mr. Biden left office, he knew his staff decided to keep his classified notecards in a SCIF at the National Archives, and he knew his notebooks contained the same type of classified information. As he told his ghostwriter during a recorded interview in October 2016, the same staff who eventually arranged for careful storage of his classified notecards in an Archives SCIF “didn’t even know” he also had possession of his notebooks, which he simply took home without informing his staff.
There goes the staff excuse—not that Justice has been inclined to charge Biden staff any more than it wants to charge their boss. And according to the special counsel’s report there was actually a strong motive in this case, based on Mr. Biden’s work with the aforementioned Mr. Zwonitzer:
... Mr. Biden had strong motivations to ignore the proper procedures for safeguarding the classified information in his notebooks. He decided months before leaving office to write a book and began meeting with his ghostwriter while still vice president. After his vice presidency, the notebooks continued to be an invaluable resource that he consulted liberally. During hours of recorded interviews in which he read aloud from his notebooks in his private home, Mr. Biden provided raw material to his ghostwriter detailing meetings and events that would be of interest to prospective readers and buyers of his book. He also likely viewed the notebooks, like the marked classified documents related to Afghanistan recovered from his garage, as an irreplaceable contemporaneous record of some of the most important moments of his vice presidency. This record was valuable to him for many reasons, including to help defend his record and buttress his legacy as a world leader.
As for the financial opportunity to tell a compelling story, Susan Ferrechio reports for the Washington Times on Tuesday’s hearing:
President Biden’s $8 million book deal was a likely motive behind his decision to take notebooks containing classified information when he left the White House in 2017, special counsel Robert K. Hur said...
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Piece speculates Judge Cannon is about to toss Trump’s FL charges due to unequal prosecution. Taken with the piece Crafty posted above, it makes for damning indictment of Smith’s lawfare:
https://thepoliticsbrief.com/judge-cannon-takes-wrecking-ball-to-trump-classified-docs-case-citing-robert-hurs-report/?fbclid=IwAR0GlCnbqjf_35aZHOpvb9bPmh3NR15oC_BV4MXN6i6fp7oXJ6CSEYKzNY4
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Dems are explaining why Trump indicted but not Biden.
The latter because he obstructed justice by not turning over the documents, while Joe Biden turned them over immediately ( :roll:).
This argument falls flat on its face when comparing Trump not to Biden but to Hillary who clearly obstructed justice but destroying evidence.
No matter how the Dems try to spin it that Trump's situation is "different" - it ain't.
two tiers of justice for sure
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/judge-says-either-willis-or-prosecutor-wade-must-step-aside-in-georgia-election-case/ar-BB1jWm4h?ocid=msedgntphdr&cvid=a0f91deffe81433e88436e2501595023&ei=18
like article said.
he has election coming up in Fulton County
of course Wade will sign off then Willis can carry on her crusade.
On the face of it to a non lawyer this decision does not even make sense.
It will interesting to hear the Turley's and Dershowitz's on our side make sense of this but it sounds likie a corrupt cop out to me.
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PS
I guess lying to the Court and others earlier on by from my understanding not making full disclosure does not warrant a removal......
so does this mean Wade can resign from case and trial can still be prior to election?
:roll:
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"like article said. he has election coming up in Fulton County"
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A friend on the other side said to me regarding Trump's legal battles, "I trust the system. "
I don't. The location and jurisdiction of the prosecutor and jury pool have benn the determinants of outcomes more so than the facts of the cases.
We should have 99+% confidence in our justice system, not 50.
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A friend on the other side said to me regarding Trump's legal battles, "I trust the system. "
No doubt a Democrat.
Does he/or she trust SCOTUS?
just wondering.
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/jonathan-turley-judge-s-disjointed-ruling-in-willis-case-raises-more-questions/vi-BB1jXmZY
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https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/alan-dershowitz-fani-willis-donald-trump/2024/03/15/id/1157412/
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I agree with Dershowitz.
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/an-irish-society-an-unpaid-loan-and-the-hypocrisy-of-letitia-james/ar-BB1k37DX?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=d1a06cffa9bd4fb1925df04b9b08c10f&ei=13
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Well argued piece stating it's time for Fani to be indicted for perjury:
It’s Time For Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp And His AG To Indict Fani Willis For Perjury
BY: WILL CHAMBERLAIN
MARCH 19, 2024
How can Fani Willis credibly prosecute Trump when there are reasonable questions about whether she lied in a Georgia court three weeks ago?
Author Will Chamberlain profile
Last week, Judge Scott McAfee issued his opinion on the potential disqualification of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and her subordinate-slash-romantic partner Nathan Wade from Fulton County’s prosecution of Donald Trump and some 18 other Republicans relating to the 2020 election. McAfee found that there was no actual conflict of interest but did find that there was an appearance of impropriety, and held that Wade, but not Willis, had to resign from the prosecution.
The opinion was wrong on the facts and the law. But Trump and his co-defendants have strong grounds for appeal, and Fani Willis isn’t out of the woods yet. Moreover, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Attorney General Chris Carr need to do their job, get over whatever animus they have toward Trump, and indict Willis and Wade on perjury charges.
Factual Errors
There were two core factual issues Judge McAfee was charged with resolving. The first was whether Willis and Wade’s romantic relationship began before November 2021, when Willis hired Wade as a special prosecutor. The second was whether Willis had a conflict of interest resulting from Wade paying for vacations for the two of them while he was contracting with Willis’ office.
The first question should have been straightforwardly resolved against Willis and Wade. Willis’ former best friend and landlord, Robin Yeartie, reluctantly testified that the relationship did in fact begin back in 2019.
Judge McAfee dismissed Yeartie’s testimony as “lack[ing] context and detail.” Perhaps Judge McAfee didn’t bother to reread the transcript of the proceedings that happened in his own courtroom. Yeartie didn’t merely testify to the fact that Willis and Wade’s relationship began in 2019; she testified that she had multiple conversations with Willis about the relationship prior to 2022, and that she observed Willis and Wade hugging and kissing prior to 2022. It’s hard to understand what further detail McAfee expected Yeartie to provide.
Judge McAfee also completely brushed aside cell phone data showing that Wade often spent the night at Willis’ residence prior to November 2021, and that they exchanged thousands of phone calls and more than 10,000 text messages prior to when they claim their relationship began. It’s clear he had no desire to affirmatively find that Willis perjured herself.
Legal Errors
Judge McAfee’s factual findings, though bizarre and untethered to the evidence, are unlikely to be disturbed on appeal, as appellate courts must give a lot of deference to the factfinder. But there were also several suspect legal holdings in Judge McAfee’s opinion that are ripe for appeal.
Judge McAfee said that “the evidence did not establish the District Attorney’s receipt of a material financial benefit as a result of her decision to hire and engage in a romantic relationship with Wade” and that “the Defendants [did] not present[] sufficient evidence indicating that the expenses were not ‘roughly divided evenly.”
As Professor Alan Dershowitz pointed out, McAfee misapplied the law on this question. Defendants presented straightforward evidence that Willis benefited from hiring Wade: Wade’s credit card receipts showing that he paid for their joint vacations. Given the existence of these receipts, the burden should have been on Willis and Wade to prove that these expenses were reimbursed.
They could not do this, of course. Willis and Wade testified that the expenses were reimbursed in cash and provided no ATM receipts or bank deposit receipts to corroborate their clearly improvised story.
McAfee held that the burden was on the defense to prove that the expenses were not reimbursed. That’s improper as a matter of law, and as Dershowitz explained, it’s also grounds for reversal on appeal.
Further, Judge McAfee found that “neither side was able to conclusively establish by a preponderance of the evidence when the [Willis/Wade] relationship evolved into a romantic one.” This sentence is legally incoherent. If a prosecutor — or the defense — can “conclusively” prove a fact, that is equivalent to saying that they have proved that fact beyond a reasonable doubt. The point of a “preponderance of the evidence” standard is that the fact does not have to be “conclusively” proved by the evidence; rather, there just needs to be more evidence supporting one side than the other.
If Judge McAfee had applied the preponderance of the evidence standard properly, there is no way he could have found it for Willis. On the side of finding that the relationship began in 2019, we have the disinterested testimony of Robin Yeartie, the text messages of Terrence Bradley, and the cell phone tower evidence showing that Wade was regularly in the vicinity of Willis’ residence in the early morning hours. On the other side of the ledger, he has the self-serving testimony of Willis and Wade denying the existence of the relationship. This shouldn’t have been a close question, but by subtly shifting the burden of proof and requiring the defendants to “conclusively” prove the existence of the relationship, McAfee avoided disqualifying Willis.
McAfee also held that an appearance of impropriety can warrant disqualification of individual prosecutors but not the whole prosecutor’s office, and further held that removing Wade would “cure” the appearance of impropriety.
This last legal holding is unlikely to survive appellate scrutiny. The appearance of impropriety implicates both Willis and Wade. As Jonathan Turley put it, it’s as though the police discovered two thieves in a bank vault and arrested only one. There are reasonable questions about whether Willis testified truthfully and about whether she financially gained from the prosecution. Those questions don’t just go away because Wade withdrew.
Willis Isn’t Out of the Woods
Even though Judge McAfee bent over backward to avoid disqualifying Willis and her office, the opinion created a ton of problems for Willis going forward. Judge McAfee described how an “odor of mendacity” permeates the case and acknowledged that “reasonable questions about whether [Willis and Wade] testified untruthfully … further underpin the finding of an appearance of impropriety.”
These factual findings provide fertile ground for a successful appeal by the defendants. Ashleigh Merchant, Steve Sadow, and the rest of the lawyers working for the defense are certainly going to ask Judge McAfee for a certificate of immediate appeal, so they can go straight to the court of appeals without waiting for the trial to conclude. That said, no one can force Judge McAfee to certify the issue for appeal, or the court of appeals to subsequently take the case. One hopes that both will exercise their discretion to remedy this injustice.
Moreover, Judge McAfee also found that Willis’ speech to a local Atlanta church, where she accused defendant Mike Roman and his lawyer Ashleigh Merchant of “playing the race card,” was, in McAfee’s words, “legally improper.” He’s right about that.
Georgia Rule of Professional Conduct 3.8(g) mandates that prosecutors “refrain from making extrajudicial comments that have a substantial likelihood of heightening public condemnation of the accused.” McAfee declined to dismiss the indictment because of these comments, but Willis is still going to have issues with the Georgia Bar over what is a very straightforward violation of ethics rules.
Remember: Fani Willis is trying to put Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, and others in jail for allegedly attempting to deceive Georgia courts three years ago. She can’t credibly continue to prosecute this case when there are “reasonable questions” about whether she attempted to deceive a Georgia court three weeks ago.
The “reasonable questions” about DA Willis’ truthfulness are already the subject of complaints to the Georgia Bar about Willis and Wade’s conduct. They should also serve as the predicate for an investigation by Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr into potential perjury charges against Willis and Wade. Carr, and his boss Brian Kemp, need to get off the sidelines. A partisan Democrat prosecutor has just lied under oath so that she can continue prosecuting Republicans for objecting to election results.
That cannot stand.
Will Chamberlain is currently Senior Counsel at the Article III Project and the Internet Accountability Project. Follow him on X at @willchamberlain.
https://thefederalist.com/2024/03/19/fani-willis-is-still-on-the-trump-case-but-not-free-of-her-legal-troubles/
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https://dailycaller.com/2024/03/18/former-trump-official-forced-appear-jail-john-roberts-sentence/?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=rundown&pnespid=6eF6VH9VJKwFiv3KrC69TpPVrkisC5oqdbaky_F3qhBmk4KGcWyAyYy00wGSGR8cBngjfRTv
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... Trump is held to a different standard (assuming he in fact DID lie about "hush money" payments):
Lies About Sex: Bill Clinton, John Edwards, and NY States' Prosecution of Donald Trump
The Volokh Conspiracy by Steven Calabresi / Mar 30, 2024 at 10:44 PM//keep unread//hide
[Donald Trump should get the same pass for lying about sex that former president Bill Clinton got and that former 2004 Democratic Party Vice Presidential nominee John Edwards got]
The NY State criminal trial that is about to begin on April 15th is all about whether former President Donald Trump lied in his expense reports to cover up his payment of hush money to pornographic film star Stormy Daniels prior to the 2016 presidential election. NY argues that in doing this Trump violated NY State laws, almost all of which involve misdemeanor offenses. The prosecution implies that Trump's alleged lies and coverup are a violation of federal campaign finance laws, which makes the misdemeanors more serious and justifies the prosecution.
First, it is settled U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) policy not to prosecute such cases, which is one of many possible reasons why the federal government has not brought any charges against Trump about the Stormy Daniels hush money matter. Another reason is that the DOJ may think Donald Trump's expense reports were truthful as Trump claims them to be. Second, when former President Bill Clinton perjured himself and engaged in obstruction of justice by denying under oath that he had had sexual relations with then-White House intern Monica Lewinsky, both in a deposition and before a federal grand jury, the judgment of the U.S. Senate was that Bill Clinton's "lies about sex under oath" did not disqualify him from holding the presidency.
430 law professors signed a letter to the Senate on November 6, 1998 writing that "making false statements about sexual improprieties" under oath before a federal grand jury "is not a sufficient constitutional basis to justify the trial and removal of the President of the United States." Harvard Law Professor Cass Sunstein wrote on October 4, 1998 in The Washington Post that mere lies about sex under oath were not in his view disqualifying behavior in a president of the United States.
Both the law professors' letter and Professor Cass Sunstein's op-ed tried to argue that perjury about a person' private sex life fell in a different category from perjury about the execution of a President's political duties, which would be a disqualifying offense for a President to engage in. It was noted that people often lie about adulterous sex to protect their spouses and to preserve their marriages, and not to retain or to win the presidency.
Of course, this is exactly why Donald Trump allegedly paid Stormy Daniels what is alleged to be hush money because Trump's alleged affaire with Daniels coincided with his wife Melania giving birth to Trump's son Barron. Former President Bill Clinton's perjury under oath before a federal grand jury led to his acquittal by the Senate in his impeachment trial, and, after Clinton left office, the only penalty he paid for his lies under oath about sex to a federal grand jury was disbarment and the entry of a plea bargain. Donald Trump's alleged lies about sex in filing his expense accounts are minor compared to Bill Clinton's lies about sex under oath before a federal grand jury at a time when he had sworn that he would take care that the laws be faithfully executed. As many remember, Clinton's DNA was found on a white stain on Monika Lewinsky's blue dress proving that he had in fact had sexual relations with Lewinsky.
In 2004, the Democratic Party's nominee to be Vice President, John Edwards, paid a woman $1 million in hush money to cover up an alleged adulterous affair leading to the birth of an illegitimate child. The U.S. Justice Department prosecuted John Edwards who defended himself arguing that he was trying to protect his wife from learning about his adultery and that lies about sex and hush money to cover them up were not an illegal, unreported campaign donation. The trial resulted in a hung jury, and the U.S. Justice Department declined to re-prosecute John Edwards. The Department adopted a formal position that DOJ would not going forward prosecute as campaign finance violations the payment of hush money. Lies about sex were not fit to prosecute as campaign finance violations. Again, this explains why the federal government has declined to prosecute Donald Trump over his payments of hush money to Stormy Daniels and others.
Edwards' behavior involved much more hush money than Trump had paid, as well as the birth of an illegitimate child. If what John Edwards did was not a felony warranting jail time then what Donald Trump did in allegedly paying hush money to Stormy Daniels does not disqualify him for running for President either.
The disparate treatment of John Edwards, and Donald Trump for paying hush money and lying about having done so suggests NY State prosecutorial misconduct. Even if Trump were to be convicted in the sham proceeding set to begin on April 15th, voters should give him the same pass for lying in order to cover up adultery that was given to Bill Clinton and John Edwards.
The post Lies About Sex: Bill Clinton, John Edwards, and NY States' Prosecution of Donald Trump appeared first on Reason.com.
https://reason.com/volokh/2024/03/30/lies-about-sex-bill-clinton-john-edwards-and-ny-states-prosecution-of-donald-trump/
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https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/texas/2024/04/02/482287/a-federal-judge-says-migrants-can-sue-the-company-that-flew-them-to-marthas-vineyard/
there NOT migrants - they are illegal aliens
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allison_D._Burroughs
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https://www.rawstory.com/john-eastman-law-license/
but it would help him if he makes a deal to testify against Trump !!!!
:x
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https://nypost.com/2024/04/07/opinion/judge-calls-out-blatant-double-standard-when-it-comes-to-bidens-justice-department-and-hunter/
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https://thefederalist.com/2024/04/15/trumps-strongest-new-york-defense-has-nothing-to-do-with-alvin-bragg-or-judge-merchan/
Like buying a suit or whitening your teeth, you're doing it to get ready for the campaign but it is a personal expense.
If he had done it the other way around, taken a personal expense as a campaign expense, they would have scrutinized that as well.
Show me the man, I'll show you the crime.
The charge was elevated from misdemeanor to felony because it was committed to cover up a crime, that wasn't a crime.
The only real question for the court is can they find one honest juror.
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in unison:
"Historic"
me:
the rule of law[yers]!
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AP-NORC Poll: 7 in 10 Side With Trump in New York Criminal Case
[not stated is probably 7 of 10 Manhattan New Yorkers side AGAINST Trump]
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/trump-trial-indictment/2024/04/16/id/1161140/
" Yet, a cloud of doubt hangs over all the proceedings. Only about 3 in 10 Americans feel that any of the prosecutors who have brought charges against Trump are treating the former president fairly. And only about 2 in 10 Americans are extremely or very confident that the judges and jurors in the cases against him can be fair and impartial. "
YET :
" Still, half of Americans would consider Trump unfit to serve as president if he is convicted of falsifying business documents to cover up payments to a woman who said he had an affair with."
Of course, it is the second part the Dems are so giddy about. I don't get the numbers - makes no sense.
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Normalcy bias.
Acceptance that the integrity of the American legal system is a farce in many jurisdictions comes hard , , ,
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Trump accused of tearing the Do Not Remove tag off his mattress, first time this has ever been elevated to a felony.
https://nypost.com/2024/04/14/opinion/a-serial-perjurer-will-try-to-prove-an-old-misdemeanor-against-trump-in-an-embarrassment-for-the-new-york-legal-system/
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The Jan. 6 Riot Reaches the Supreme Court
Did the feds go too far in charging rioters with obstructing Congress under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act?
By The Editorial Board
Follow
April 15, 2024 5:30 pm ET
The people who breached the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, are being held accountable, and attempts to rebrand them as patriotic choirboys are a sign of the bizarre political times. Yet is it unduly stretching the law to prosecute Jan. 6 rioters using the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002?
The Supreme Court will consider this Tuesday in Fischer v. U.S., and rooting for the government to lose requires no sympathy for the MAGA mob. Joseph Fischer says in his brief that he arrived late to the Capitol, spent four minutes inside, then “exited,” after “the weight of the crowd” pushed him toward a police line, where he was pepper sprayed. The feds tell an uglier tale.
Mr. Fischer was a local cop in Pennsylvania. “Take democratic congress to the gallows,” he wrote in a text message. “Can’t vote if they can’t breathe..lol.” The government says he “crashed into the police line” after charging it. Mr. Fischer was indicted for several crimes, including assaulting a federal officer. If true, perhaps he could benefit from quiet time in a prison library reading the 2020 court rulings dismantling the stolen election fantasy.
Sarbanes-Oxley, though? Congress enacted Sarbox, as it’s often called, in the wake of Enron and other corporate scandals. One section makes it a crime to shred or hide documents “corruptly” with an intent to impair their use in a federal court case or a Congressional investigation. That provision is followed by catchall language punishing anybody who “otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes” such a proceeding. Now watch, as jurists with Ivy degrees argue about the meaning of the word “otherwise.”
In Mr. Fischer’s view, the point of this law is to prohibit “evidence spoliation,” so the “otherwise” prong merely covers unmentioned examples. The government’s position is that the catchall can catch almost anything, “to ensure complete coverage of all forms of corrupt obstruction.” The feds won 2-1 at the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Yet two judges were worried how far this reading would permit prosecutors to go. Judge Justin Walker, who joined the majority, said his vote depended on a tight rule for proving defendants acted “corruptly.”
Judge Gregory Katsas filed the vigorous dissent. The government “dubiously reads otherwise to mean ‘in a manner different from,’ rather than ‘in a manner similar to,’” he argued. The obstruction statute “has been on the books for two decades and charged in thousands of cases—yet until the prosecutions arising from the January 6 riot, it was uniformly treated as an evidence-impairment crime.”
A win for the feds, Judge Katsas warned, could “supercharge comparatively minor advocacy, lobbying, and protest offenses into 20-year felonies.” For example: “A protestor who demonstrates outside a courthouse, hoping to affect jury deliberations, has influenced an official proceeding (or attempted to do so, which carries the same penalty).” Or how about a Congressman (Rep. Jamaal Bowman) who pulls a fire alarm that impedes a House vote?
Special counsel Jack Smith has charged Donald Trump with obstructing a Congressional proceeding, and he says Mr. Trump’s “fraudulent electoral certifications” in 2020 are covered by Sarbox, regardless of what the Supreme Court does in Fischer. The other piece of context is that prosecutors going after Jan. 6 rioters have charged obstruction in hundreds of cases. But if those counts are in jeopardy, don’t blame the Supreme Court.
Presumably many of those defendants could be on the hook for disorderly conduct or other crimes, and the feds can throw the book at them. What prosecutors can’t do is rewrite the law to create crimes Congress didn’t.
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https://babylonbee.com/news/trump-team-skeptical-about-impartiality-of-juror-number-six
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A jury of his political enemies peers
Like in the old South, a black man facing an all white jury.
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A jury of his political enemies peers
Like in the old South, a black man facing an all white jury.
So true. The zip code of the trial should not determine guilt or innocence.
He has no chance at unanimous acquittal, so will be stained with hung jury or felon no matter what happens.
I'm not against charging a former office holder with a crime, but it should be rock solid, crystal clear case to take any American from private life to incarceration, and this is not. It must be a crime that ANYONE who committed that act would be charged with. Clearly this is not.
Judge could have ruled the state had plenty of time to try this case not during the campaign. He did not.
A state conviction cannot be pardoned by a President....
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Here I am, posting analysis from Slate:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/what-the-trump-jurors-think-of-the-former-president/ar-AA1nkQmt
https://slate.com/tag/bragg-trial
Jurors chosen are the ones who best hide their views and most persuasively say they will keep an open mind to the facts and the law.
They all seem to get their news from the New York Times. Does anyone inside of NY know that is the radical left wing publication that led the phony Russian collusion story for 2 years and never recanted it - among all their other left wing activisms.
Every juror is either from NY or moved to this most urban, most liberal jurisdiction by choice.
There were limits on how many objections the defense team could make. Every time they block one, one more comes up from the same pool.
My take is that there may be one, two at most who stand strong against a wrongful guilty verdict. A not guilty verdict is not possible.
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There are at least two attorneys on the jury. Perhaps one or both with have the mental coherence to grasp the incoherent inanity of the charges.
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(4) PUNISHMENT OF TRUMP OFFICIALS, SUPPORTERS CONTINUES: A three judge panel from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Texas State Bar can continue its administrative actions against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, alleging that Paxton made false representations to the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn 2020 election results.
Former Trump attorney John Eastman said he has been “debanked” by Bank of America and USAA while facing possible disbarment in California.
Why It Matters: National and state level Democrats punishing former Trump officials through disbarment, cutting off post-government job tracks in media, and now “debanking” increase the chance of a counter elite developing in the United States. These actions also very likely increase the chances of future Trump administration officials taking more radical policy positions. Prospective officials concerned about post-administration employment or being punished legally or extra-legally would likely be deterred from serving. – R.C.
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There are at least two attorneys on the jury. Perhaps one or both with have the mental coherence to grasp the incoherent inanity of the charges.
Yes, very possible. OTOH, lawyers are 93% Democrat [or something like that] and perhaps able to find reasons to support their desired outcome.
What I would look for are the 'double haters', or people who despise Trump but don't appreciate this tactic against him. The lawyers might fit that. People who never liked Trump, detest him personally, but start to realize the other side is f'd up too. Like you say, maybe they can look past a political and personal bias and rule on the merits of the case and the meaning of the law. Depending on what they see in the case, an 'honest' Democrat could vote to acquit on these charges and still want him to lose in the election.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/18/nyregion/trump-trial-jury-hush-money.html
https://www.newsweek.com/did-donald-trump-just-get-lucky-his-nyc-criminal-trial-juror-pool-1892347
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NYT Today!
Boston University Law Professor Jed Handelsman Shugerman:
About a year ago, when Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, indicted former President Donald Trump, I was critical of the case and called it an embarrassment. I thought an array of legal problems would and should lead to long delays in federal courts.
After listening to Monday’s opening statement by prosecutors, I still think the Manhattan D.A. has made a historic mistake. Their vague allegation about “a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 presidential election” has me more concerned than ever about their unprecedented use of state law and their persistent avoidance of specifying an election crime or a valid theory of fraud. (Source: nytimes.com)
Exactly what WE said.
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/top-adviser-to-los-angeles-da-gascon-hit-with-felony-charges-5637037?utm_source=News&src_src=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2024-04-25-2&src_cmp=breaking-2024-04-25-2&utm_medium=email&est=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYvAqcwcVzc7PzLYPrHFRB710wA0AIj31kx5JTWZu9FddhEg4S8RP
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TV lawyers favorite word lately,
I've heard it used more in the past month then my entire life.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/former-tabloid-publisher-to-face-more-questions-in-trump-hush-money-trial/ar-AA1nIjKN?ocid=msedgntphdr&cvid=04a36b6ef50c4ef4d1bfbc4778937724&ei=18
Democrat lawyers taking over the Nat Enquirer and publishing their unpublished stories.
Great fodder for network TV, but totally ridiculous as a legal matter. Corporate profits galore.
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HT Doug:
https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2016/01/12/reflecting-on-obamas-presidency/obamas-embrace-of-drone-strikes-will-be-a-lasting-legacy
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Another thought about this:
We will not hear any "historians" other then VDH who will ever mention this when speaking of Obama.
Where are all the conservative historians??? Other then VDH I don't recall seeing any.
Doris Kearns Goodwin - no (long time liberal)
Jon Meacham - no (speechwriter for Biden and fires from even MSNBC reportedly for not disclosing that but probably some other reason)
Michael Beschloss - no
Sean Wilentz - no (although in wikipedia he did once criticize O for Ayers and Wrightbut also calls DJT the worst president in history)
Allida Black - no (author of Modern American Queer History and of course a Clinton advocate)
Anne Applebaum - no ( in Wiki - she is on the board of Renew Democracy Initiative Look at the members of the Board - a who's who of Trump haters and TDS types: Senator Bob Kerrey, Annie Duke, Igor Kirman, Linda Chavez, Michael Steele, Congressman Mickey Edwards and Retired Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman. RDI's advisory board includes Anne Applebaum, Bill Kristol, Bret Stephens, Dan Benton, Daniel Hurwitz, Eric Wolf, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, Lisa Berg, Lucy Caldwell, Max Boot, Mark Lasswell, Rachel Vindman, Rina Shah, General Stanley McChrystal, and Whitney Haring-Smith.[7])
If interested, you can read more about these "authorities" here:
https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/historians-saving-democracy/
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If this pans out it will explain a lot, like why Jack Smith is resisting the release of these sorts of discovery timelines. Nut graf: post 2020 election Trump told by General Services Administration to deal with 6 pallets of documents, Trump has docs shipped to his digs in Florida, and soon thereafter is charged with housing classified docs, with many of the apparently found in the boxes marked classified that the GSA told Trump they had to ship to him:
https://twitter.com/julie_kelly2/status/1784226958127014361?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1784226958127014361%7Ctwgr%5E336b541f0314111ab46352ceff6bafa420cef1c6%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpjmedia.com%2Fmatt-margolis%2F2024%2F04%2F28%2Fnew-bombshell-evidence-emerges-was-trump-set-up-in-classified-docs-saga-n4928572
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2nd post. Hmm, so it appears there is a weekly Friday meeting of various anti-Trump zealots to hash out the various lawfare strategies in play at any given moment:
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/04/23/anti-trump-legal-pundits-calls-00153300
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https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/daily-memo/2993414/when-the-judge-gags-a-key-witness-for-trumps-defense/
Key witness is not allowed to testify on the key issue of the case.
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:-o :-o :-o
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let's see:
one Fordham Law school
one Yale Law school
and four Harvard Law school (including Bragg)
graduates
https://abcnews.go.com/US/members-manhattan-das-team-prosecuting-trump/story?id=98434088
did 4 have classes with Larry Tribe? and none with Dershowitz?
so all these supposed IVy lawyers think this is a good case. :roll:
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The real reason for the Trump trial is to put the salacious alleged details of Trump's infidelity in front of the public eye again. Slate headline says as much.
Meanwhile Democrats put forward purists like John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Bill Clinton, John Edwards, and Joe Biden.
When will we see the personnel record of Tara Reide? (never)
By the way Slate, Stormy Daniels is not her name.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/05/stormy-daniels-testimony-awful-meaning.html
"Stormy Daniels’ Turn as a Witness Brings Home What This Trial Is About"
No, at least legally, that is not what this trial is about.
https://nypost.com/2024/05/07/opinion/judge-allows-stormy-daniels-to-give-irrelevant-salacious-testimony-just-to-humiliate-trump/
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re reading my post 2 posts ago I forgot to add 2 prosecutors from Columbia Law
so basically an IVY league team sent to assassinate Trump.....
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A fine survery of the sundry lawfare tendrils Trump is enduring:
America is On Trial, and Amerika is Too
A guilty verdict for one, is a guilt verdict for the other
JUPPLANDIA
MAY 08, 2024
It’s easy to get bored of talking (or even reading) about the Trump trials.
And it’s easy to get lost in how much there is to say. The sheer weight of the thing. The size of it. The number of charges. The number of crimes (by which I mean both the number of ‘crimes’ which don’t apply but which Trump is charged with, and the number of actual crimes committed by those bringing these cases against him).
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But I think its important to still give a summary of what those cases are. I’ll explain why after the summary.
First there were the E. Jean Carroll civil cases, in which an eccentric Democrat columnist fantasized about an imaginary sexual assault for which she could provide no evidence and which was supposed to have occurred decades earlier, and was then funded by a major Democrat donor to bring cases in a Democrat city before Democrat judges and juries to decide whether a Republican was guilty of this crime for which no evidence existed. This was the one that decided that the statute of limitations no longer applies when Democrats decide it doesn’t apply, and that crimes can be proven without the existence of any proof.
Both of these were important principles to establish for the other cases to be able to proceed.
In a surprising twist, Democrat Judge Kaplan allowed a Manhattan Democrat jury to find Trump liable for both sexual assault and defamation. In a following ruling he decided that Trump had defamed E. Jean Carroll by pointing out that she is a liar, and in a further surprise a Democrat jury then decided that Trump should pay a total of 83.3 million dollars to the woman who lied about him for the crime of calling her a liar.
Now apparently settled with another enormous fine (Trump has agreed to pay 175 million dollars, reduced from the original theft of 350 million) was the New York civil case (the Real Estate Fraud Case) prosecuted by Letitia James and presided over by Judge Engoron. This was the one that saw a Judge with an established hatred of Trump rule that expert testimony regarding real estate valuation could be dismissed with a judicial slander of the witness, that normal business practice in real estate is fraud when conducted by Donald Trump, and that fraud can still be present when the supposedly defrauded ‘victims’ all state that no fraud occurred.
Following that there’s the Documents Case, that Jack Smith is prosecuting and that Judge Cannon is presiding over. (“On June 8, 2023, former President Donald Trump and his aide Waltine Nauta were indicted by a federal grand jury in the Southern District of Florida on charges related to the alleged mishandling of classified documents at Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago. A superseding indictment was unsealed on July 27, 2023, which charged an additional defendant, Carlos De Oliveira, and included three additional charges against Trump of evidence tampering, willfully retaining national defense information, and lying to investigators”).
Judge Cannon stands out as pretty much the only judge overseeing these cases who wasn’t a Democrat pick (McAfee was appointed by Kemp, but doesn’t seem to be a declared Republican. If he is, its from the same RINO wing that went along with Trump’s impeachments), and entirely coincidentally of course this is the case where it has already been established in court that the FBI investigators tampered with the key evidence and that the Democrat prosecutors lied to the judge. During the unprecedented FBI raid that acquired the ‘evidence’ for this case, the FBI took it upon themselves to spread documents around on the floor before taking ‘incriminating’ pictures of them (On June 9th, 2023 Trump posted on Truth Social that the scattered files had been “staged” by the FBI. As usual, he was right). Those pictures were publicly released (who does that with real evidence in a real case?) to justify the raid.
To make those pictures just how they wanted them, they attached confidential, top secret sheets to the documents, which they had created. They have now had to admit that they did this, and that when the prosecution told Judge Cannon that the documents being used as evidence were in the condition they were found in, this was a lie. Scans of the contents and the current contents do not match. There is in fact therefore no way to prove that the documents haven’t been more thoroughly tampered with, just as if seized drugs used as evidence had been handled and moved around by unrecorded agents instead of stored, unchanged, in an evidence locker where every interaction with them is recorded. On top of that, the documents may come from a batch of documents (SIX pallet loads) that Trump and his assistants were forced to take by repeated demands to do so (from General Services Administration).
There’s also the Hush Money Case relating to Stormy Daniels, prosecuted by Alvin Bragg which Judge Merchan is presiding over. (“The indictment includes 34 counts of felony falsification of business records primarily related to the alleged hush money payments”). Judge Merchan is, and hold your surprise on this one, a Democrat judge with an established hatred of Trump.
Next there’s the Jan 6th Conspiracy Case, which includes 2 counts of obstruction and 2 of criminal conspiracy based on the idea that Trump encouraged Jan 6th and plotted to overturn a legitimate result. That one is the one where the Supreme Court is now pondering the issue of Presidential immunity, but the original case was again prosecuted by special counsel Jack Smith and is presided over by Judge Chutkan.
Finally, of the major cases still active there is the Fulton County, Georgia case (the RICO Conspiracy Case) which is prosecuted by Democrat District Attorney Fani Willis and presided over by Judge McAfee. This is the one that casts all of the efforts to acknowledge massive electoral fraud as a series of criminal racketeering acts under legislation designed for the prosecution of organised crime syndicates. The counts include things like deciding that a President or members of his administration questioning fraud is guilty of the crime of impersonating a public official. This was also the case in which we found out that the prosecutor hired her boyfriend on a very generous publicly funded salary to work on the case and also enjoyed romantic trips with him before lying about the nature of their relationship.
If you want excellent commentary on these cases individually or collectively, Julie Kelly has been providing this, in detail, on her Substack. If you want a summary of them all with links to mainstream media articles (for what that is worth, if anything…it at least shows us what insane justifications they are constructing) then the Lawfare website (at lawfaremedia.org>current-projects>the-trump-trials) provides an incredibly helpful listing of all of them.
So why should we still be talking about these cases, why should we still be interested? Half of them are mired in legal back and forth and are subject to long delays. One is awaiting a Supreme Court ruling on Presidential immunity.
One of the things I’ve noticed when discussing any of the real crimes occurring at present is how the sheer magnitude of what is being done sometimes makes addressing it difficult. Let’s say our subject is the dishonesty of the mainsteam media in relation to Trump. Where do we start? Do we talk about the way they pressed Russian collusion for years? Do we talk about that? But then that leads us into related facts, like John Brennan presenting Obama in a meeting with the knowledge that this collusion narrative was a fiction invented by a probable Russian agent working for Hilary Clinton. That then evokes the memory of over 50 intelligence agents lying about Russian collusion as well in a public statement.
Or do we talk about how ‘drink bleach’ and ‘there are good Nazis’ were both lies presented as confirmed truths by the mainstream media?
Or are we then led into a wider discussion of ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation’ and how none of the people deploying these terms are themselves truthful? Do we mention the suppression of Lab Leak during Covid, or science advisors distorting the evidence being presented to Trump and then boasting about it in their books?
With the ‘lawfare’ being conducted at present, which one of the 91 charges do we talk about first? If we want to show prosecutorial and judicial malpractice, we are overly spoilt for choice. No one article is going to be able to cover how much of a crook Jack Smith is, let alone Smith, Willis and Bragg together with Engoron, Chutkan and Merchan as a group. Every one of these people are people who should be recused from involvement in cases regarding a political opponent they personally detest. In each and every case there is boundless evidence of conflicts of interest from those bringing and hearing the cases, ones which make the very idea that the process we are witnessing is ‘justice’ obscenely laughable.
How can a judge fairly preside over the case of a person they hate with every fiber of their being, a person they hate more personally and deeply than they ever hate drug dealers, rapists or child abusers appearing in court before them?
How can a prosecutor be allowed to bring cases against political opponents when they have campaigned on the basis of getting that person, by ANY means, when they have publicly made that declaration as part of their own political promise?
How on Earth is anyone supposed to pretend that such a political promise, when it manifests as a legal reality, is a legitimate response to a real crime,rather than a purely political witch hunt? Of course it is a purely political witch hunt….it was a campaign pledge!
How is any of this allowed to go this far, when at every stage the basic legal requirements of any approach towards actual justice are being deliberately and continuously set aside?
Freedom from unjust, politically motivated fines and punishments, and from cruel and unusual treatment? Set aside.
The requirement that there be some actual, untampered with, legitimate evidence on which a case comes to trial? Set aside.
The statute of limitations and its role protecting people from baseless accusations brought forward years after all evidence has vanished? Set aside.
The right to an unbiased jury, selected without political intent, in a place where justice is at least a possibility? Set aside.
Client attorney privilege? Set aside.
Freedom of speech and the right to defend oneself against accusers, including the right to point out their connections and conflicts of interest? Set aside by gagging orders.
The Presidential Records Act and all prior precedent on the treatment of former Presidents relating to documents? Set aside.
The actual purpose of the legislation you are using, like the RICO Act? Set aside.
The right to expect that the statutes used against you are being used as they have always been used, rather than that they are twisted into entirely novel interpretations with no basis in law? Set aside.
The expectation of equality before the law, and that the same actions require the same responses and the same justice? Set aside.
The difference between a misdemeanor and a felony? Set aside.
The need to prove an underlying crime and announce what crime is actually being responded to in order to change an accounting error into a felony ? Set aside.
How do you take the documents case seriously, for example, when Joe Biden can take documents as Vice President he had no right to take, leave them in his car or scattered around multiple locations,unprotected and unsecured, for years, and at the same time that Jack Smith is prosecuting Trump, Joe Biden gets a free pass on that? And Mike Pence does too? And Bill Clinton did? No amount of mainstream media MSNBC articles beginning ‘No, These Cases Aren’t the Same’ excuses that double standard away.
How do you take fraud cases based on two words in a private ledger seriously, when the prosecution won’t tell you or the judge what the actual crime is?
So where do you start with all this, where do you end?
Well, in a way, it is better to talk about the generality than the specifics, not because the details favor the other side, but because there are a million details that do not. There is too much criminality, selectivity, hypocrisy and outright tyranny in the process to ever be able to mention it all.
And the generality is that all of this only occurs in a system that is already utterly corrupt. It’s tempting to say broken, but that’s not accurate. It’s doing what it now exists to do, which is enforce a regime and crush all opposition to the regime. Those holding the levers of power are directing it this way, on this path. This is where they want to go.
The form of a US justice system still exists. It’s simply that all the justice has been removed from it.
Yes, Donald Trump is on trial. But that’s not really the big picture, as unjust and as disgusting as this treatment of Trump undoubtedly is.
America itself is on trial. The old America is on trial. The America of equal justice, and the America of decent values, and the America of any hope at all that any part of this nation remains a shining dream instead of a soiled nightmare.
And Amerika is on trial too. The Amerika of the regime, the Amerika of the nightmare. The Amerika that acts like a banana republic, the Amerika of One Party Rule, the Amerika where one side of politics and its supporters stole an election, imprisoned protesters and dissidents without trial and finally made questioning electoral theft a new crime with which to imprison the old President it removed.
There are two nations on the same soil, and neither can abide the other.
The verdict against Trump will be the verdict on both of them. Is it a place of equal justice where people have the right to vote for the candidate and policies they want? Or is it going to be, for a long time to come, a tyranny where all the Third World rules apply? That’s already not being decided by an election, even a rigged one. It’s being decided in court.
If Trump wins, America wins. If Amerika wins, Trump has lost.
But so has America. At that point, it will have lost just about everything that made it America in the first place.
https://jupplandia.substack.com/p/america-is-on-trial-and-amerika-is?r=2k0c5&triedRedirect=true
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/taxes/irs-audit-could-cost-trump-more-than-100-million-in-taxes-on-chicago-tower/ar-BB1meAWX?ocid=msedgntphdr&cvid=4b9b415564cf4936bdcdf0db6b02248f&ei=22
He may be the first R the Biden IRS has on its list.
Certainly, Musk must be punished for defying the deep state machine.
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/article/suspended-de-banked-but-not-sorry-john-eastman-tenfold-more-convinced-of-illegalities-in-2020-post-5632320
Suspended, De-Banked, But Not Sorry: John Eastman ‘Tenfold’ More Convinced of Illegalities in 2020
By Brad Jones
|April 24, 2024
Updated:
May 03, 2024
LOS ANGELES—As the sunlight creeps in the windows of a downtown hotel lobby just blocks away from a courtroom in California, constitutional scholar John Eastman is unfazed, even jovial, in spite of having just spent 10 weeks on trial defending his license to practice law—and in spite of a ruling from a State Bar of California judge recommending that his law license be revoked.
Last summer, the State Bar charged Mr. Eastman, the former dean of Chapman University Law School, with 11 counts of misconduct related to his role in representing former President Donald Trump after the 2020 presidential election.
But Mr. Eastman told The Epoch Times in an exclusive interview on April 5 that he has no regrets about representing President Trump or alleging fraud and questioning the election results.
“What I saw at the time raised real serious questions in my mind about the validity of the election,” he said.
Since then, Mr. Eastman said, his investigation has confirmed his suspicions “tenfold.”
Mr. Eastman, who was accused of not having the evidence to back up those allegations, said he will appeal Judge Yvette Roland’s March 27 ruling recommending disbarment, but in the meantime, his law license has been suspended on “involuntary inactive enrollment,” which means he can’t practice law in California.
He’s still an active member of the District of Columbia Bar, where he is currently representing U.S. Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) in a federal case against the California cities of Anaheim and Riverside for allegedly conspiring to suppress and shut down their political rallies, infringing on their constitutional rights to free speech.
“Some federal courts, as long as you’re licensed someplace, you’re allowed to continue. If you’re suspended in any place, even if you have active licenses elsewhere, there is a process to go through on whether they’re going to suspend you as well,” Mr. Eastman said.
In 2020, Mr. Eastman was invited to join an election integrity working group, formed in anticipation of post-election litigation in connection with the presidential election, organized at President Trump’s request, and on Dec. 6, 2020, Mr. Eastman received a formal engagement letter for legal services defining the scope of the agreement.
Democrat-appointed Judge Roland ruled that Mr. Eastman broke ethics rules by advancing President Trump’s challenges to the integrity of the 2020 election.
The judge stated in her ruling that “despite compelling evidence against him, ... Eastman remains defiant, refusing to acknowledge any impropriety whatsoever in his actions surrounding his efforts to dispute the 2020 presidential election results.”
“His lack of insight into the wrongfulness of his misconduct is deeply troubling,” she wrote.
“Eastman continues to hold the view that his statements were factually and legally justified. He demonstrated disdain for these proceedings by characterizing them as a political persecution, claiming that the disciplinary charges against him contained false and misleading statements, and that those who brought them should themselves be disbarred.
“[His] complete denial of wrongdoing, coupled with his attempts to discredit legitimate disciplinary proceedings are concerning.”
Mr. Eastman stopped short of criticizing the judge, but he noted that Rachel Alexander, a reporter at the Arizona Sun who covered the trial extensively, pointed out several examples of bias in the case and questioned the rationale behind the ruling, which dismissed the evidence Mr. Eastman brought forth.
“You would think that the ruling would at least confront the evidence and explain why it wasn’t sufficient,” he said. “What was the point? Not even mentioned!”
Mr. Eastman said he has solid grounds for appeal because Judge Roland dispensed with the First Amendment arguments “without really grappling with binding U.S. Supreme Court precedent.”
“This is an unprecedented move. It was initiated by hyper-partisan leftists that are trying to attack President Trump and anybody that supported him. This is a weaponization of our judicial system and our bar disciplinary processes that has never occurred in our history before,” he said.
“We even had former California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown designated as a witness to talk about that, and she was prohibited from testifying as a witness.”
Mr. Eastman drew from evidence provided by Garland Favorito, a retired information technology professional and founder of VoterGA, a nonpartisan, nonprofit election integrity group.
Mr. Favorito is the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit filed on Dec. 23, 2020, that challenged the authenticity of 147,000 absentee ballots cast in Georgia’s Fulton County.
He discovered “thousands of ballots that were duplicated and counted multiple times” in deep blue areas of Atlanta in violation of state law, Mr. Eastman said.
“We also had Michael Gableman, former Supreme Court justice of Wisconsin ... who was retained by the Legislature to conduct an investigation, and they discovered hundreds of thousands of illegal ballots,” he said.
Mr. Gableman uncovered alleged nursing home fraud, which Mr. Eastman said accounts for much more than the 20,000-vote margin of victory for President Joe Biden, and voter turnout rates in nursing homes went from 20 percent to 30 percent historically to nearly 100 percent, including from within memory care wings.
“Many of the ballots are in the same handwriting, so the illegality opened the door for fraud, which Gableman proved ... and it affected way more than 20,000 ballots,” he said.
“There’s no question Wisconsin was stolen. To this day, there are 120,000 more ballots than voters in Pennsylvania, a state where the margin was 80,000.”
Americans used to go to a local polling place such as a neighborhood community room at the library or the local church to vote, but in 2020, mail-in ballots were counted in much larger facilities in big cities such as Atlanta, Detroit, and Philadelphia where it would be “much easier to sneak in a pallet of ballots,” he said.
Although ballot harvesting is legal in California, it was illegal in many states during the 2020 election.
image-5636449
A worker oversees pallets of mail-in ballots being unloaded at a U.S. Postal Service processing and distribution center in Portland, Ore., on Oct. 14, 2020. Mr. Eastman said that in 2020, mail-in ballots were counted in much larger facilities in big cities where it would be “much easier to sneak in a pallet of ballots.” (Nathan Howard/Getty Images)
‘Jiu-Jitsu Move’
Mr. Eastman, who has held his California law license for more than 26 years, seems undaunted and unapologetic, holding steadfast to his belief he had every right to do what he did.
His children are proud of him for taking a stand and for his courage and intellectual fortitude, he said, and although he is up to the challenge, he said he would “much rather be doing other things.”
“I’ve been involved in Supreme Court cases for over 20 years, designed a litigation strategy for the Claremont Institute to bring back a lot of original meaning of the Constitution, and a lot of my work is coming to fruition, and now I’m on defense instead of helping on the offensive,” he said.
The use of the disciplinary system to go after political opponents for doing nothing other than what lawyers are obligated ethically to do on behalf of their clients is lawfare, Mr. Eastman said.
“It’s an abuse of the legal system ... and a complete violation of separation of powers,” he said. “This is the kind of thing that banana republics do, or Stalinist Russia did. It’s not the kind of thing that America has ever done.”
He also criticized the corporate media for having entrenched narratives.
“They’ve got a narrative, and anything that doesn’t fit that narrative, they either distort or don’t cover it at all,” he said.
He said he thinks one of the reasons he has come under such a “vicious attack” is that he has “the credibility” to call out the media.
“I like the phrase that Rush Limbaugh came up with for the media,“ he said. ”He called them the drive-by media. [They] drive by and take potshots without ever having to defend the position [they’re] taking.”
The left, he said, is trying to tear him down to avoid examining the evidence.
“It’s the combination of the credibility: my credentials, my constitutional expertise, my tenacity, and the fact that I’m telling the truth,” he said. “That’s why when I put on true evidence in my bar trial, they’ve got to completely destroy it because what it means, if I’m right about this, is that they stole the election.”
So far, Democrats have successfully made it appear as though President Trump was trying to steal the election, Mr. Eastman said.
“You’ve gotta hand it to ’em. That’s quite a jiu-jitsu move,” he said.
De-Banked, Death Threats
Since he decided to represent President Trump, Mr. Eastman and his family have also been harassed and threatened by leftist activists in his hometown of Sante Fe, New Mexico.
Vandals buried four-inch steel spikes into his dirt driveway, which blew two sets of tires on his vehicle, he said.
“We had people piling dog crap at the foot of our mailbox,” he said. “We had people spray painting on the road leading to our house with a big arrow, our address, my name, and basically doxing me, encouraging people to commit acts of vandalism against us.”
Three to eight protesters gathered every day at the end of the block for a year, Mr. Eastman said.
“We get death threats,” he said.
Mr. Eastman has referred some of these threats to the FBI, and the state police have stepped up patrols near his residence, he said.
“We live down the road a little bit from the governor’s mansion, so they’re regularly running patrols for the New Mexico governor, and so they ... put us on the patrol route,” he said.
Mr. Eastman has not only been threatened with disbarment but he has also been allegedly de-banked by Bank of America and USAA.
“We’ve been 40-year customers of Bank of America, and last September, they sent us a letter saying that they’d made the decision not to continue to do business with us and were closing our accounts,” Mr. Eastman said.
The bank provided a number to call for an explanation, but when Mr. Eastman called, no such explanation was given.
“It’s just a recording that says: ‘If you’ve gotten a letter saying we’re canceling your accounts, our explanation is we don’t give any explanations. Thank you very much, goodbye,’” he said.
Two months later, he received a similar letter from USAA, which had become the Eastmans’ primary bank, saying it was closing their accounts, with a similar recorded message saying its policy is not to give any further information.
“They closed the account,” he said. “USAA was really surprising because their clientele is all military or children of military. My wife’s father was in the Navy in World War II, and in the Marines in the Korean War, and that’s why we were eligible to have accounts there, and they just canceled them without any explanation whatsoever.”
ept. 15, 2008. Mr. Eastman has been allegedly de-banked by Bank of America. (Davis Turner/Getty Images)
His Early Life
Growing up, Mr. Eastman, who was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, moved from state to state as his father was transferred with every promotion at his job with Eastman-Kodak (no relation).
“They had a policy: You never supervised your immediate past colleagues, so every little rung up meant a transfer. So we were like army brats. We’d do two years here and three years there,” he said.
He lived in Washington state, Kentucky, New Jersey, upstate New York, and Texas before moving to Orange County, California, to attend grad school.
By the 1980 election, Republican presidential nominee Ronald Reagan was “making sense” to Mr. Eastman, who said he remains a “Reagan conservative.”
Mr. Eastman graduated from high school in Texas and ended up at the University of Dallas.
Near the end of the campaign, Mr. Reagan made a whistle-stop tour to Dallas for rallies and fundraisers, where Mr. Eastman was the Dallas County Republican Party volunteer chairman. But as a 20-year-old student, that meant “you’re the guy that has the Secret Service clearance badge to load the luggage onto the plane,” he said.
The Monday night after the weekend event, future President Reagan and future First Lady Nancy Reagan were preparing to fly on the campaign jet to Century City, California, for the election night watch party the next day, but their flight clearance had been delayed by 45 minutes.
Mr. Eastman recalled that when Mr. Reagan noticed him waiting on the tarmac, he said to him: “So, young fellow, every time I turn around the last couple of days, you’re there working the line or working the luggage. Why don’t you come up and have a cup of coffee and doughnuts with me and Nancy?”
Mr. Eastman worked for the Reagan administration near the end of the last term but always regretted never getting a photograph with President Reagan, so in 1992, he wrote the former president and asked him if he’d mind posing for a picture with him and his wife in Century City.
In the letter, Mr. Eastman recounted his memory of meeting the Reagans in Dallas.
“He remembered the event on the tarmac. He was very gracious,” Mr. Eastman said.
But on the drive from Diamond Bar to meet President Reagan in Century City, an oil tanker crashed on the CA-60 highway delaying traffic for an hour and a half, and he couldn’t call the former president until he finally reached a gas station that had a payphone. When he did call, “very apologetically,” President Reagan was kind enough to wait with the photographer.
“The first thing he does is apologize because he’s not in his formal suit-and-tie,” even though he was still “dressed to the nines” in a more casual sport coat because he was heading to an event at a country club, Mr. Eastman recalled.
“My wife was pregnant with our first child, so we’ve got the two of us and the baby bump and Reagan in the picture,” he said.
Double Standards
The double standards in today’s political power structure are blatant and have reached the point at which most conservatives won’t question the state, he said.
“You’re not allowed to ask, unless you’re a Democrat,” he said. “Hillary Clinton is still out on the stump saying that the 2016 election was stolen from her and they perpetrated the biggest political fraud in American history with illegal money laundering through their law firm to pay for the Fusion GPS, false story on the Russian dossier. And then they used that false story, which everybody knew was false, including the higher-ups at the FBI and the Department of Justice. They used that and doctored the evidence ... to get FISA warrants to spy on the opposing political campaign.”
Yet those who perpetrated this plot against President Trump haven’t been charged with any crimes or threatened with disbarment and lawsuits, he said.
“They spied on him during the campaign. They continued to spy on him after he won, and they continued to spy on him after he was inaugurated. This is the biggest political scandal in our nation’s history,” Mr. Eastman said. “That was an attempted coup, and they’re all off the hook because the power structure supports them.”
Deborah Pauly, whose Conservative Patriots of Orange County group hosted a rally for Mr. Eastman in August 2023, told The Epoch Times that what the media, left-wing activists, and even some Republicans have done to Mr. Eastman and his family is “flat out evil.”
Her group supports Mr. Eastman’s efforts to protect the United States’ constitutional form of government, she said.
“What is happening here—not just with Dr. John Eastman, but in other cases, too—is a direct threat to our form of government,” she said. “Anyone who cares about our Constitution should be very concerned.”
Cancel culture has gone from censorship on social media to silencing doctors who dared express “divergent thought” during the COVID-19 pandemic, and “attacking the nation’s top constitutional law attorney,” she said.
Ms. Pauly said that although Mr. Eastman is “standing strong,” the threats to his means of livelihood and the safety of his family have prevented others from speaking out about election integrity.
“All he did was put forth an untested theory,” she said. “The fact that someone who is so highly regarded as a constitutional law authority is being silenced and subjected to great humiliation and great pain and suffering quite frankly—not just in his professional life, but in the personal toll that it takes on someone to be under attack like this—is significant.”
The United States’ success as a nation hinges on the balance of power among the three equal branches of government and a balance between the states and the federal government, but it is up to the people and the media to keep that balance, Ms. Pauly said.
“That’s not happening for many reasons, and that’s a real problem. Everything is out of whack,” she said.
It’s infuriating to watch other attorneys and conservative leaders who once cozied up to Mr. Eastman when he transformed Chapman University Law School into a nationally recognized program turn their backs on him now, Ms. Pauly said.
“That, to me, is the most repugnant part of it,” she said. “They’re part of the swamp.”
Mr. Eastman said the federal government has become more authoritarian under the Biden administration.
“We’ve gotten to the point where when the government speaks, you better bend your knee and repeat what they say or they’ll try to destroy you. It doesn’t matter whether it’s the election or CRT [critical race theory] or DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion] or vaccines or masks or whatever the hot issue is; the government has spoken, and we’re all supposed to just act like little sheep and obey,” he said.
The government’s actions have violated the First Amendment, he said.
Mr. Eastman said he believes his legal challenge is a calling to push back against this oppression and threat to self-governance and freedom, which he said is part of a spiritual and cultural war happening in the United States.
“This country is on the precipice of losing what we’ve had,” he said. “I’m on the ramparts. I’ve been cast at the forefront of this battle. ... It’s one of the greatest honors of my life.”
All of his life choices and experiences have equipped him to confront this battle.
“Anybody of faith would be remiss in not recognizing the hand of providence in that. I do think it’s a spiritual battle,” he said.
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Yes, strong piece. Persecuting good people. Murderers get representation but Republicans don't.
"Americans used to go to a local polling place such as a neighborhood community room at the library or the local church to vote, ...."
- There were problems then but far fewer.
One idea to end mail voting, defund the usps.
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Will Judge Cannon hold Jack Smith to the sorts of standards Smith is seeking to hold Trump to?
Judge Cannon Puts Jack Smith on Trial
While vacating Donald Trump's trial date, Cannon set an aggressive hearing schedule over the next several weeks that will turn the tables on Smith and the Department of Justice.
JULIE KELLY
MAY 10, 2024
U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon may have just indefinitely postponed Donald Trump’s espionage and obstruction trial but that doesn’t mean her federal courtroom in Fort Pierce, Florida will lie dormant over the next few months.
Declassified with Julie Kelly is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
In officially vacating the existing May 20 trial date—an impossibility considering the defendant will be in a Manhattan courtroom for the foreseeable future—Cannon declined to set another date, calling it “imprudent” at this stage of the process. She noted a “myriad” of unresolved matters in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s 42-count indictment against the former president and his two co-defendants, Mar-a-Lago employees Waltine Nauta and Carlos De Olivera, for willfully retaining national defense information and attempting to impede the government’s investigation.
Cannon, however, did schedule a number of proceedings that could be considered a way to put the Department of Justice on trial. In a stunning turn of events, Cannon, appointed by Donald Trump in 2020, is poised to make Smith a defendant of sorts.
Over the next several weeks, prosecutors will be forced to publicly counter defense motions that accuse the DOJ of selective and vindictive prosecution; insist the appointment of Smith is illegal; and claim that several parties, including Joe Biden’s White House, colluded behind the scenes as early as May 2021 to concoct the unprecedented case.
Her hearing schedule represents a broader spilling of bad blood between Cannon and the DOJ dating back to September 2022, when Cannon took the courageous step of appointing a special master, or third party, to vet the all of the evidence seized by the FBI during the armed raid of Mar-a-Lago the month before.
Noting at the time the prosecution’s suspected leaks to the news media and the mishandling of evidence in the early stages of the investigation—in addition to what she called the need for “public trust” in the case—Cannon granted Trump’s request for the special master.
Although the 11th Circuit Court overturned her order a few months later on grounds she did not have proper jurisdiction, Cannon now is exonerated amid disclosures by Smith in a May 3 brief that evidence has been mishandled and key documents possibly misplaced. “[There] are some boxes where the order of items within that box is not the same as in the associated scans (taken right after the raid),” Smith’s team revealed, referring to 34 boxes taken from Mar-a-Lago.
Smith also revealed that in some instances, sheets of paper that FBI investigators used to replace classified records within a box do not match. “In many but not all instances, the FBI was able to determine which document with classification markings corresponded to a particular placeholder sheet,” Smith wrote.
In other words, the government officials prosecuting Trump with mishandling top-secret files--mishandled top-secret files.
Trump Off the Hook for Now, Smith Goes on Defense
Even more problematic is Smith’s confession that his lead prosecutor, Jay Bratt, misrepresented to Cannon the existing condition of the boxes. During an April hearing, Cannon directly asked Bratt, “are the boxes in their original, intact form as seized?” Bratt replied that they were with “the exception that the classified documents have been removed and placeholders have been put in the documents.”
Smith admitted in a footnote that Bratt’s statement was “inconsistent” with the facts, which could prompt Trump’s counsel to seek a contempt of court charge.
But that might be the least of Smith’s concerns right now. Cannon’s aggressive hearing schedule will put Smith and the entire Justice Department on the hot seat—and the timing could not be worse; with the other criminal trials against Trump in Washington and Fulton County imploding, all eyes are focused on southern Florida.
A bit of background before turning to the pending schedule. After months of what can only be described as harassment by the National Archives, including Obama-appointed archivist David Ferriero, throughout 2021 to demand the return of alleged government records, Trump gave 15 boxes of papers to the archives in January 2022.
Archive officials immediately claimed they found material with “classified markings” among the boxes’ contents. That prompted for the first time ever the archives sending a criminal referral to the DOJ in February 2022. Smith indicted Trump and Nauta in June 2023; the following month, Smith added De Olivera and additional charges in a superseding indictment.
But defense attorneys now have evidence that disputes Smith’s course of events and the number of officials involved in the case. In January, the defense filed a motion asking Cannon to consider numerous agencies including the archives, the Biden White House, top DOJ officials, and the FBI as part of the prosecution team.
“New evidence, obtained via requests pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act reveals that politically motivated operatives in the Biden Administration and the National Archives and Records Administration (“NARA”) began this crusade against President Trump in 2021,” Trump’s lawyers wrote. “The FOIA releases, coupled with other evidence…reflect close participation in the investigation by NARA and Biden Administration components such as the White House Counsel’s Office, as well as senior officials at DOJ and FBI. These revelations are disturbing but not surprising.”
Hundreds of pages of exhibits show emails and meetings between archive officials and Biden’s general counsel’s office throughout the second half of 2021. Gary Stern, the archives general counsel, further disclosed in an August 2021 email that he had had “informal” talks with unidentified DOJ officials to seek advice on how to prepare a criminal referral against Trump for refusing to turn over government records.
Smith, naturally, denies the allegations, claiming defense attorneys were advancing “speculative, unsupported, and false theories of political bias and animus.”
Both sides will have the chance to duke it out next month.
Over the course of three days during the last week of June, per Cannon’s new schedule, Smith and the defense will participate in an extended hearing to debate evidence of collusion. Not only do the proceedings pose a risk to Smith’s case based on prior pleadings to the court but proof of correspondence and meetings contradicts public claims by Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland that the investigation was independent of the White House.
First Public Vetting of Smith’s Potentially Illegal Appointment
Smith also will have to defend himself before the court during a June 21 hearing related to the potential unlawfulness of his appointment as special counsel. Citing an amicus brief filed by former Attorney General Edwin Meese before the Supreme Court earlier this year—Meese said that “Jack Smith does not have authority to conduct the underlying prosecution [because] those actions can be taken only by persons properly appointed as federal officers to properly created federal offices”—Trump also argues that “Jack Smith lacks the authority to prosecute this action.”
The controversy represents dicey territory for Smith; in fact, during oral arguments at SCOTUS last month on the question of presidential immunity, Justice Clarence Thomas asked Trump’s attorney whether they “challenge[d] the appointment of special counsel” in the matter, signaling the court may consider the amici brief in its final decision.
Smith has not yet responded to the hearing timetable; his media allies, however, continue to demand Cannon’s recusal.
But both Smith and his allies know Cannon has the upper hand. And it appears, at least for the time being, she plans to use it as a hammer against the DOJ.
https://www.declassified.live/p/judge-cannon-puts-jack-smith-on-trial?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
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Some interesting conjecture re Cohen’s guilty pleas re campaign finance charges. Testimony in the Trump trial reveals those charges are silly, so why did Cohen plea to them, and why was his sentence so much less than others charged with similar crimes? Could a deal have been struck to play along, accept the charges so they appear to be carved in stone in advance of Trump being charged with the same?
Conspiracy theory stuff, and I find PJ Media frequently seems to post knee-jerk stuff making points opposite of what if floating around the “Progressive” blogosphere, though author Victoria Taft often breaks that mold and connects interesting dots:
https://pjmedia.com/victoria-taft/2024/05/14/guess-who-met-with-the-russia-russia-russia-special-counsel-lawyers-n4929029
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That is the way I remember it!
IIRC Cohen's lawyer was Hillary crony Lanie Davis.
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https://www.thefp.com/p/the-trial-against-trump-will-throw
The Trial Against Trump Will Throw the Election into Chaos
The former president has been dragged into court on a flimsy charge that rests on the testimony of a convicted liar.
By Eli Lake
May 15, 2024
When Donald Trump was indicted last year by Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg, I was skeptical. The indictment alleged that the 45th president had falsified payments to his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, by classifying them as legal fees when in fact it was reimbursement for hush money to the porn star known as Stormy Daniels.
As the trial has unfolded over the past two months, Daniels has testified that Trump had sex with her at Lake Tahoe in 2006 and didn’t wear a condom or display much sexual endurance. Cohen testified that he dutifully made the payments to Daniels on Trump’s behalf because he was “knee-deep in the cult of Trump.” Former senior Trump aide Hope Hicks has testified to the lengths the 2016 campaign and Trump White House went to suppress stories of the former president’s past sexual scandals.
The resistance commentariat insists that Trump is going down. Republican Never Trump lawyer George Conway writes in The Atlantic that Bragg’s case is “kind of perfect.” MSNBC host and former Republican operative Nicole Wallace assures viewers that Trump’s lawyers “bombed” their cross-examination of Cohen. Former Justice Department official Andrew Weissman praises Bragg’s “crackerjack team of experienced attorneys” for building an airtight case.
But missing from this wall-to-wall coverage is any mention of the underlying crime that Trump falsified business records to advance his campaign. And that is a fatal flaw in the case, because New York law stipulates that falsifying business records can only be charged as felonies (as Bragg has done) if it’s done to further another crime. Trump has not been charged with another crime, though Bragg has floated the theory that the business records were falsified to deprive 2016 voters of information about his tryst with Daniels.
There are other flaws as well. Robert Costello, one of the lawyers who worked closely with Cohen at the U.S. Attorney’s Office at the Southern District of New York, testified before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday that his old office declined to prosecute the hush money case against Trump because Cohen was “totally unworthy of belief.”
Cohen is Bragg’s star witness. And according to Costello, Cohen told the U.S. attorney’s office in 2018 that the “payment to Daniels was his own idea, designed to try and get him back into the inner circle of Trump people in Washington.”
That is damning testimony from a far more credible source than Cohen, who pleaded guilty in 2018 to lying to Congress and served two and a half years in prison.
It’s still quite possible that the Manhattan jury will convict Trump on the 34 felony charges Bragg has brought. But there is no chance the conviction will withstand appeal, particularly given that it relies so heavily on Cohen’s testimony.
At best the anti-Trump “resistance” will win a Pyrrhic victory. They may get their headline: “Trump Convicted in Hush Money Trial.” But the charge will not stick.
In the meantime, Alvin Bragg has thrown the 2024 election into chaos by dragging the presumptive Republican presidential nominee into court to defend himself against an untested legal theory premised on the testimony of a convicted liar.
Trump already has proven that he will not recognize the results of elections that he doesn’t win. Bragg’s prosecution gives Trump and his supporters a ready-made excuse not to accept the results of the 2024 election should President Joe Biden prevail.
The hush money trial also gives permission and incentive to ambitious Republican prosecutors to repay Democrats in kind. Our legal system will soon be dominated by the whims of those in power as opposed to the rule of law.
Costello on Wednesday summed up the dangers of Bragg’s folly. “In the Trump case, they are seeking a conviction by any means necessary,” he said. “They do not care if it is overturned on appeal because that will likely not happen until after the election. In the meantime, they will have effectively interfered with the 2024 presidential election and perhaps influenced some voters because of an ill-gotten conviction.”
In other words, Alvin Bragg is destroying our democratic system in order to save it.
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the only "system" he is trying to save is the power of the Democrat Party.
https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=k1Sr2pIm&id=8A21ECFFECF8AE24B62EDE1E4F0C4DA5B8EA8196&thid=OIP.k1Sr2pImh5GammAmc2IFYQHaEw&mediaurl=https%3a%2f%2fth.bing.com%2fth%2fid%2fR.9354abda922687919a9a602673620561%3frik%3dloHquKVNDE8e3g%26riu%3dhttp%253a%252f%252fstatic.demilked.com%252fwp-content%252fuploads%252f2018%252f04%252f5ae6e464ca166-mud-balls-hikaru-dorodango-japan-coverimage.jpg%26ehk%3dKGtKFKf7NGT1fCc8tNSQPR7QBQug14vYoe%252fZwsWFeTQ%253d%26risl%3d%26pid%3dImgRaw%26r%3d0&exph=411&expw=640&q=image+of+a+dirtball&simid=608005432429642921&FORM=IRPRST&ck=861B81B0A06CF1AF2B012FEBD2FA9C73&selectedIndex=0&itb=0&ajaxhist=0&ajaxserp=0
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https://www.wsj.com/articles/joe-biden-executive-privilege-recordings-robert-hur-interview-edward-siskel-265ab86b?mod=opinion_lead_pos2
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Isn't this admission that his I-don't-recall testimony won't hold up to public scrutiny?
We have the transcript but can't listen for credibility in his voice? (Yes we can.) He waived Exe. Priv. when they released the transcript.
Among the things he couldn't remember was when he was Vice President. A tape of that is more damaging than written words.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/joe-biden/full-text-robert-hur-biden-classified-documents-interview-pdf-rcna142956
(Did Trump have privilege when the perfect Ukraine call was released? WHen the Georgia find-the-votes call? He was POTUS then.)
Testimony that led the prosecutor Hur to conclude Biden was too old and senile to be held accountable, was for the same crime his opponent is charged with multiple felonies and real prison time for. And we can't hear it?
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WSJ:
"The privilege claim is bogus on two grounds. First, once a President waives a privilege right, it can’t be reclaimed. Mr. Biden conceded that the interview wasn’t privileged, and there’s no legal basis to say that a recording is different from a transcript.
Even if Mr. Biden had first claimed privilege over the interview, that wouldn’t pass legal muster because the interview subject didn’t concern his presidential duties or White House deliberations. It concerned his handling of documents while in the Senate, as Vice President, or as a private citizen.
Mr. Siskel’s claim that the goal is to protect the Justice Department’s “law enforcement investigations” also doesn’t work. Such a claim of law-enforcement privilege typically attends to a continuing investigation, but Mr. Hur’s work is complete. He has filed his report and closed up shop.
Mr. Siskel complains in his letter that the transcript should be sufficient and the “absence of a legitimate need for the audio recordings lays bare your likely goal—to chop them up, distort them, and use them for partisan political purposes.” No doubt partisanship is at play, as it was for Democrats on Capitol Hill against Mr. Trump.
But Republicans want the audio to judge the tenor and credibility of Mr. Biden’s responses and Mr. Hur’s conclusion that the President’s faulty memory was cause not to bring an indictment in the case. The White House claim of privilege over the recordings isn’t intended to protect executive power. It’s intended to avoid presidential embarrassment.
That’s a political goal, not a legitimate legal justification."
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I was aware this is occurring here or there, but had no idea it was so systematized an effort. Nut graph: Soros DAs and fellow traverlers are IDing effective Republican lawyers and embroiling them in sundry accusations and resultant legal drama. Not only does this limit the amount of Republican legal octane avaialbe in the 2024 election, but allows the MSM to ballyhoo "Republican lawyer xyz was accused today of abc" stories for the minimally informed to lap up:
https://x.com/amuse/status/1792209533227381054
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Twitter is not posting for me, but I think myself sufficiently informed as to the point to heartily agree. Witness e.g. what they have done to John Eastman.
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Twitter is not posting for me, but I think myself sufficiently informed as to the point to heartily agree. Witness e.g. what they have done to John Eastman.
Here's a quick, greasy cut and paste:
LAWFARE: Will there be any Republican Lawyers Left to Ensure Election Integrity in November?
Democrats have aggressively targeted over 400 Republican lawyers and politicians with criminal charges, civil lawsuits, and disbarment proceedings ahead of the upcoming presidential election. They have successfully jailed Peter Navarro, with Steve Bannon expected to join him shortly. In multiple states, Democrats have pursued criminal charges against dozens of Republican lawyers and politicians, including:
Georgia: 19 Republicans arrested and charged
Arizona: 18 Republicans arrested and charged
Michigan: 16 Republicans arrested and charged
Nevada: 6 Republicans arrested and charged
Pennsylvania & Wisconsin: Are still conducting criminal investigations into as many as 30 Republicans who have yet to be charged
In addition to these criminal trials, Democrats are pursuing numerous efforts to have Republican lawyers disbarred. The Soros-backed 65 Project has filed disbarment proceedings against more than 100 Republican lawyers, which prevent many of these lawyers from working until the proceedings are concluded. In almost every case, the charges lack merit, but they have three primary impacts: a chilling effect that discourages other Republican lawyers and politicians from helping Trump, a financial drain on the resources of Republicans who might otherwise use their funds to help elect Trump, and a time drain that physically keeps them busy during the campaign.
This weekend, Arizona Democrats even crashed Rudy Giuliani's 80th birthday party to serve him with a criminal indictment. One day earlier, the same Democrats arrested John Eastman, President Trump's former attorney. His indictment and arrest are shocking because he was never involved with any litigation or hearings in Arizona and never talked to anyone there during or after the election. Additionally, he's facing disbarment in California after a judge recommended his removal as a lawyer.
Make no mistake, the Democrats are conducting a well-funded, well-organized effort to remove as many Republicans as possible from the November election process. Their goal is to prevent Republicans from ensuring the integrity of the election and protecting the sanctity of your vote. This is a war on the 6th Amendment—everyone, including President Trump and Republican candidates, deserves the right to legal representation. Democrats are working overtime to ensure that doesn’t happen in November.
UPDATE: Some people have asked for some details about the people who have been targeted. Here is a partial list:
Georgia:
Donald Trump - Former President
Rudy Giuliani - Former New York Mayor and Trump attorney
Mark Meadows - Former White House Chief of Staff
John Eastman - Conservative lawyer, former dean of Chapman University Law School
Kenneth Chesebro - Lawyer involved in election manipulation plans
Sidney Powell - Attorney involved in hiring forensic experts for voting system breaches
Jeffrey Clark - Former DOJ official
Jenna Ellis - Trump lawyer
David Shafer - Former chairman of the Georgia Republican Party
Shawn Still - Georgia state senator
Harrison Floyd - Leader of "Black Voices for Trump"
Trevian Kutti - Publicist, former associate of Kanye West
Robert Cheeley - Georgia trial lawyer
Mike Roman - Trump campaign official
Stephen Lee - Lutheran pastor
Ray Smith - Lawyer who represented the Trump campaign in Georgia
Scott Hall - Bail bondsman involved in the Coffee County voting system breach
Cathy Latham - Former Coffee County GOP chair and fake elector
Misty Hampton - Former Coffee County elections supervisor involved in the voting system breach
Arizona:
Rudy Giuliani - Former Trump attorney, involved in promoting false claims of election fraud.
Mark Meadows - Former White House Chief of Staff.
John Eastman - Lawyer who devised legal strategies to overturn the election.
Christina Bobb - Attorney associated with Rudy Giuliani and a Republican National Committee official.
Jenna Ellis - Lawyer who worked with Giuliani.
Boris Epshteyn - 2020 Trump campaign aide.
Mike Roman - Director of Election Day operations for the Trump campaign.
Tyler Bowyer - Republican National Committee member and COO of Turning Point Action.
Nancy Cottle - Chair of the Arizona Republican Presidential Electors.
Jake Hoffman - Arizona state senator.
Anthony Kern - Arizona state senator.
James Lamon - 2022 U.S. Senate candidate and chair of Depcom Power.
Robert Montgomery - Former Cochise County Republican Committee chair.
Samuel Moorhead - Former Gila County Republican Party head.
Loraine Pellegrino - Secretary of the Arizona Republican fake presidential electors.
Gregory Safsten - Former Executive Director of the Arizona Republican Party.
Kelli Ward - Former Arizona Republican Party chair and former state senator.
Michael Ward - Republican activist and husband of Kelli Ward.
Michigan:
Kathy Berden - Michigan Republican National Committee member.
William (Hank) Choate - Former chair of the Jackson County Republican Party.
Amy Facchinello - Trustee on the Grand Blanc Board of Education.
Clifford Frost - GOP activist from Warren.
Meshawn Maddock - Former co-chair of the Michigan Republican Party.
Marian Sheridan - Grassroots vice chairwoman of the Michigan Republican Party.
Kent Vanderwood - Mayor of Wyoming, Michigan.
Stanley Grot - Shelby Township clerk.
Rose Rook - GOP activist from Paw Paw.
John Haggard - Former GOP candidate for state representative.
Mari-Ann Henry - GOP activist from Brighton.
Timothy King - GOP activist from Ypsilanti.
James Renner - GOP activist from Lansing.
Mayra Rodriguez - GOP activist from Grosse Pointe Farms.
Ken Thompson - GOP activist from Orleans.
Michele Lundgren - GOP activist from Detroit.
Nevada:
Michael McDonald - Chair of the Nevada Republican Party.
Jim DeGraffenreid - Nevada GOP national committeeman.
Jesse Law - Chair of the Clark County Republican Party.
Eileen Rice - GOP activist.
Durward James Hindle III - GOP activist.
Shawn Meehan - GOP activist.
Disbarment (65 Project):
John Eastman
Rudy Giuliani
Sidney Powell
Jenna Ellis
Cleta Mitchell
Stefan Passantino
Michael McDonald
Jim DeGraffenreid
Jesse Law
Emily Newman
Kurt Olsen
William Olson
Lynn Fitch (Mississippi Attorney General)
Steven Marshall (Alabama Attorney General)
Patrick Morrisey (West Virginia Attorney General)
Leslie Rutledge (Arkansas Attorney General)
Derek Schmidt (Kansas Attorney General)
Eric Schmitt (Missouri Attorney General)
Tim Fox (Former Montana Attorney General)
Sean Reyes (Utah Attorney General)
Herbert Slatery (Former Tennessee Attorney General)
Jeff Landry (Louisiana Attorney General)
Curtis Hill (Former Indiana Attorney General)
Mike Hunter (Oklahoma Attorney General)
Douglas Peterson (Nebraska Attorney General)
Ashley Moody (Florida Attorney General)
Alan Wilson (South Carolina Attorney General)
Kevin Koons
William Bock
Jeffrey Gallant
Daniel Eastman
Michael Dean
Robert Citak
James Knauer
Richard Coleson
Courtney Milbank
Howard Kleinhendler
Brandon Johnson
Melana Siebert
Julia Haller
James Bopp
Kenneth Klukowski
Kenneth Chesebro
Stefanie Lynn Junttila Esq. (MI) - Disbarment Letter12
Gregory Rohl Esq. (MI) - Disbarment Letter13
Scott Hagerstrom Esq. (MI) - Disbarment Letter14
Julia Z. Haller Esq. (DC)
Brandon Johnson Esq. (DC)
Lin Wood Esq. (GA)
Howard Kleinhendler Esq. (NY)
Emily Newman Esq. (VA)
Sidney Powell Esq. (TX)
Kurt Olsen Esq. (MD) - Disbarment Letter16
William Olson Esq. (VA) - Disbarment Letter17
John Eastman Esq. (DC) - Disbarment Letter18
Kenneth Klukowski Esq. (DC) - Disbarment Letter19
Kenneth Chesebro Esq. (NY) - Disbarment Letter20
Jenna Ellis Esq. (PA & CO) - Disbarment Letter21
Linda Kerns Esq. (PA) - Disbarment Letter22
Bruce Marks Esq. (PA) - Disbarment Letter23
James Bopp Esq. (PA) - Disbarment Letter24
Ronald Hicks Esq. (PA) - Disbarment Letter25
Carolyn B. McGee Esq. (PA) - Disbarment Letter26
Anita Milanovich Esq. (PA) - Disbarment Letter27
Marc Scaringi Esq. (PA)- Disbarment Letter28
Brian Caffrey Esq. (PA) - Disbarment Letter29
Walter Zimolong Esq. (PA) - Disbarment Letter30
Senator Ted Cruz Esq. (TX) - Disbarment Letter31
Cleta Mitchell Esq. (DC) - Disbarment Letter32
Joseph diGenova Esq. (DC) - Disbarment Letter33
Boris Epshteyn Esq. (NY) - Disbarment Letter34
Paul Davis Esq. (TX) - Disbarment Letter35
William Calhoun Esq. (GA) - Disbarment Letter36
James Troupis Esq. (WI) - Disbarment Letter37
There are many more... I've written about the effort in multiple places:
https://politiquerepublic.substack.com/p/the-lefts-war-on-the-6th-amendment?utm_source=publication-search
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Unless he already discussed this , this topic would make for an informative show for Mark Levin.
Did anyone copy him ?
He could have Dershowitz on and they take a look at this through a legal political and Constitutional lens.
I find both teach me things few others do.
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Thank you.
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He’s not impressed:
https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2024/05/21/dershowitz-destroys-judge-merchan-after-attending-trump-trial-n4929198
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Closing arguments today and maybe into tomorrow. Instructions to the jury, and then jury deliberation. What will happen next?
Jury was not sequestered during the trial. Jury was not allowed to hear in court a legal expert tell how ridiculous this theory is. Did they find that viewpoint on their own elsewhere, when they weren't supposed to be looking? Two lawyers on the jury. Will they or someone else have sway on the rest? In which direction? Will TDS prevail or will this come down to very specific legal requirements of the alleged series of crimes, knowledge and intent? Will we the country get to hear the defense closing argument? Presumably yes on that, through the lawyers, won't everyone be free to talk once the verdict is in?
What will the verdict be? What will happen next if it is a hung jury? What happens next if found guilty? Incarceration while awaiting appeal?? They want the handcuff photo, but what point is overreach at this point? Seems impossible he will be found not guilty, but that would be monumental in the fight against deep state and lawfare persecution.
Apparently there is a fast path to appeal. This could go all the way to the US Supreme Court - before the election. What do they think of all this? Defective instructions to jurors and defective rulings all the way through is grounds for that. It takes just a certain number to want to hear the case.
But being overruled by a so-called Trump Supreme Court is not full political vindication of a jury verdict, certainly not to Democrats. Just as a Manhattan jury verdict is not conclusive proof of a crime to Republicans.
What a strange political year. Speaking of politics, how long does the judge have to wait to make this year's contribution to Biden and the Democrat Party?
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Did the jury read this? Did ONE of them read this or anything not in line with the prosecution and judge?
https://nypost.com/2024/05/27/opinion/heres-why-the-case-against-trump-should-end-in-not-guilty/
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"Two lawyers on the jury. Will they or someone else have sway on the rest?"
In an honest justice system one would think they would exonerate DJT.
The fact they are lawyers (most are crats) AND NY lawyers (most NY residents are crats)
makes me think they will vote against Trump.
Megan Kelly's opinion , FWIW is that the fix is surely in and she predicts the jury will GET Trump.
I don't know.
We only need one juror to vote for DJT
Can anyone imagine the pressure on that one juror.
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They face pressure in deliberations from each other, but jurors also have to live with their verdict. Which result is easiest to say forever, 'hey that was the right decision'?
Speaking of living with the decision, the politics of the spouse (of the juror and of politicians in general) is underestimated in these things. "YOU VOTED TO ACQUIT HIM??!!"
You can hate Trump, want him to lose and never be President and still vote not to convict if that's what you see. There are liberal commentators who have doubts about this feeble case. Democrats can see that the persecution strategy is not been working to put him down. In fact it has helped him.
For both sides of it, can you (each juror) explain in a sentence or two why he is guilty or why the prosecution didn't fully make the case? It looks like he maybe had sex with a porn star lady doesn't do that. Proving crime tied to an underlying, proven beyond a reasonable doubt crime, did credible testimony do that? Pretty easy to say no. It hinged on the word of a convicted liar and no underlying crime was really pinpointed.
Can and will 1, 2 or 3 of them who don't fully buy it hold out and stand their ground to the end? You would think yes but other political jury verdicts in NY and DC indicate no. The (hate) politics of it will prevail is the betting line, I believe.
And then we have a "convicted felon" at the top of the ticket, even if overturned, like they wanted all along, and everyone will have their own opinion, like the OJ verdict - in reverse.
'Republicans don't accept election results. They don't even accept jury verdicts.'
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The jurors have not been sequestered.
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https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/12/joe-biden-debate-nonviolent-crime-1493732
09/12/2019 09:27 PM EDT
Former Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday declared that he believes “nobody should be in jail for a nonviolent crime.”
- [Doug] Does a New York Courtroom count as a jail? He was not free to leave during the trial.
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Two trial lawyers that founded Powerlineblog opine on the trial. Worth the read.
Speculation of what the jury will do will be over soon. And then the next inning begins.
I can't imagine that it's an outright acquittal, but that's what the fax and the law would indicate. What are the odds that 12 jurors from New York City look to the facts and the law over politics and emotion. In Washington DC during the Trump Administration we learned that they don't.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2024/05/as-we-await-the-verdict.php
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2024/05/choose-one-from-column-a.php
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https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2024/05/guilty.php
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On the right I hear legal analysts say 100% chance these verdicts will be overturned on appeal. I translate that in our world to mean 50% this is overturned.
My layman view: It would be easy for an appellate court to reduce these 34 felony convictions to misdemeanors because that's what they are, and for a misdemeanor charge the statute of limitations had expired, so the verdict is stricken.
Grounds for appeal: Judge should have been recused. Second charge was not specified or prosecuted. Without the underlying crime, the bookkeeping errors could not have been charged. Defense could not defend that which was not specified or charged. Defense legal expert not allowed to testify. Jury could only hear another view or legal theory through defense lawyer. Jury was not allowed to hear that federal prosecutor investigated but found no underlying campaign finance crime.
Mark Levin says take it straight to the Supreme Court. Others say climb the entire appeals ladder. Let the New York Court fix the obvious errors. That would be a MUCH bigger win. If the Supreme Court declines to hear the state case, Trump is screwed.
(https://mcusercontent.com/dc8d30edd7976d2ddf9c2bf96/images/b568a129-5d90-ee26-d1bc-fc73c80d845c.png)
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Very interesting discussion.
Recommend listen from 30 minute mark to 1:02 time
more objective legal analysis
prior and post part of podcast also ok but a bit not anything we haven/t already heard on the cable pundits:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/trump-convicted-now-what-expert-legal-analysis-with/id1532976305?i=1000657450717
My favorite part is Meghan telling Dersh to "be quiet"
Meghan in my opinion is correct and Dersh wrong about how we proceed from here.
I agree with her we need to take the battle right to the Leftists and not let them get away with this.
Do to them as they do to us!
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I don't agree with most of the lawyers
I predict Trump will either get jail time OR minimally house arrest.
The LEFT has gone this far to distort the rules to "get him"
so why would they not finish the job and sentence him to prison or at the very least house arrest.
We need to stop assuming they will be reasonable when by now it is obvious they will stop at nothing to keep him out of November.
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on thinking about it more
the DNC will let Merchan know what sentence to give DJT (in some private or covert way)
based on what polling or other data shows would help them in the polls and election most
If jail time serves to decrease his numbers he will get jail .
if jail time boosts his support he will get something else
anyone who thinks, and any lawyers, who come out and tell us that Merchan is not influenced by what the DNC wants
should re enroll in kindergarten as far as I am concerned.
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"Convicted felon" is a pretty strong message to the low information voter, apparently their target market.
To the more sophisticated voter they might notice with the Democrats that their inner-Putin is showing.
Assuming this partisan judge won't order prison time for bookkeeping errors, Trump will be put under house arrest in Mar-A-Lago, unable to campaign and do rallies in the month of the first debate, exactly as planned and timed. If that is the case, he would not even be able to attend the first debate. Or do they give him a work release to go out and visit the voters across the country, making the sentence meaningless and the charges a joke.
In any event, all the attention goes to the judge. This is what he wanted. But HE (the judge) happens to be reason number one for overturn on appeal.
Of course the media is seeking out potential, violent reactions of a rogue Trump supporter or two to capture the moment and prove the extremism, when the extremism just happened under our new nose in a New York courtroom.
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"Of course the media is seeking out potential, violent reactions of a rogue Trump supporter or two to capture the moment and prove the extremism, when the extremism just happened under our new nose in a New York courtroom."
They try to distort Democracy in their favor for power.
They push us to extremes with their deceit, manipulation of laws, fake news, rigging elections, disparaging anyone who disagrees with them including Supreme Court Justices, and training our young with unwanted Woke
AND
then when finally push comes to shove a Republican reacts in a more "extreme" defensive way since that is the last recourse left, the MSM does as you say:
claim MAGA is a threat to Democracy!
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Genius Dersh
60 yrs experience
whom Geragos calls the premier appellate lawyer extraordinaire gives class on his analysis of the trial.
He believes that Trump lawyers made multiple mistakes making an appeal more difficult :-o:
https://pjmedia.com/victoria-taft/2024/06/01/dershowitz-trumps-even-more-screwed-than-he-thinks-n4929526
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Trump is a "threat to democracy", they say,. Since we don't have a "democracy", it means they heard and repeated a prepared talking point: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aBo3xnMecoU
We have a constitutional republic, a representative from of government But if you give them the benefit of the doubt, "democracy" symbolizes having consensual government with free and fair elections, not authoritarianism.
Threats to 'democracy' include things like removing opponents from the ballot, 'ballot harvesting', mail in voting replacing in person voting with absentee vote exceptions. Threat to democracy is letting illegals in and letting them vote. Threat to democracy is when you block your opponents from the right to choose their own candidate, remove from ballot without due process, prosecute opponents for manufactured crimes.
Which side is the threat??
While we're at it, which side is authoritarian? Which side wants government control of something as personal as healthcare? Democrats. Control of education, anti-choice? Democrats. They took control of the energy sector and not just about pollution. Democrats. Pipelines don't pollute; they are ten time safer and cleaner than the alternatives, trucks and trains.
They took control of the transportation sector, Democrats, announced to us the end of gasoline powered cars, making laws and decisions for us that are permanent, not voted on, just handed down to us, and not just for their term in office. They make edicts irreversible, Democrats.
And they took control of housing in America, government power instituted by Democrats, with freedom and free markets disappearing, Democrats. Don't get me started on that.
Reasible regulation is one thing but government control of industry is fascism.
So speaking of projection, what do Democrats do, they call us the fascists. And a threat to democracy. Go figure.
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or all we conservatives think alike. I posted yesterday:
*The LEFT has gone this far to distort the rules to "get him"
so why would they not finish the job and sentence him to prison or at the very least house arrest.*
From PJ media today:
" Why wouldn't Judge Juan Merchan finish the job and add to the left's glee....."
https://pjmedia.com/victoria-taft/2024/06/02/of-course-theyll-try-to-put-trump-in-jail-n4929543
If we do get power it would not be revenge or simple retribution to go after the judges, the prosecutors and the others who did this to Trump (and us).
It would be JUSTICE.
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HT CCP:
https://dnyuz.com/2024/06/05/the-g-o-p-push-for-post-verdict-payback-fight-fire-with-fire/
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second
https://dennisprager.com/column/america-has-its-first-show-trial?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR0Ocpq0wKE2GFJPmp27vX7HL03CxtxznEfDEG3xxRqrGhGLcU2QUIQNoNE_aem_AUZ_KBoH5C2BJyzzFaoTiJRZAqW5OL1JMizJw4nPnUzV74OVsxVNJ8bnVdrYk24ZkZbYIW42VcSx-_N8zaI12RPO
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I wonder what the inside polling shows
if trump is sent to jail vs house arrest
or less likely a fine etc.
how will that affect the race.
I am near certain that is the LEFT thinking behind the scenes and Merchan's communications with Dem operative lawyers
and ? communicado with Larry Lib - the other man in black at all times.
except this asshole can't sing.
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I claim no legal expertise, but this has the ring of an apt way forward for the Trump team:
Yale Law Professor Has Brilliant Plan for Trump Legal Team to Overturn 'Guilty' Verdict Before the Election
"Could Trump actually be put in jail? You bet he could."
"Each count of this 34 count indictment has a maximum penalty attached to it of four years. Well, that's four times 34. That's a maximum sentence, prison sentence of 136 years."
"Will he do that? Of course not. He won't. But could he sentence him to some incarceration? Yes, he could. Will he? Nobody knows."
Yale Law Professor Jeb Rubenfield, who teaches Advanced Constitutional Law, counseled the Trump legal team on a course of action that could potentially see his 'guilty' verdict overturned before the 2024 election.
"Now, when is sentencing scheduled for? Well, Judge Merchan has set it for July 11th."
"Will something happen between then and now? Yes. Trump's team will ask for a judgment notwithstanding the verdict."
"They'll ask for Judge Merchan to throw out the jury's verdict and find Trump innocent despite the verdict, and Judge Merchan will turn that down."
"Then there will be arguments about what the sentence should be briefing on both sides, possibly even a hearing. Then on July 11th, sentencing will be announced. And at that point, that triggers the Trump team's right to appeal."
"To what court would they appeal? Well, they would appeal to New York's appellate level court... And after the appellate court rules, then the case could go up to New York's highest court, which is actually called the Court of Appeals... And after that, the case could go up to the Supreme Court."
"And ultimately it might well go to the Supreme Court where finally we will have a definitive, conclusive ruling on whether the conviction was constitutional or not."
Professor Rubenfield identified a massive, glaring problem with this legal appeals process.
"Of course that would take years, and that's a problem here. Why is it a problem? It's a problem because the election will have taken place and if this conviction is unlawful and unconstitutional, it could have an effect on that election."
"There are surveys, many polls in which a substantial number of American voters say they will not vote for Trump if he is convicted of a felony. Many independents say that, many Republicans even say that. If that's true, an unlawful conviction in this case could interfere with and in fact decide the outcome of the next election of the next President of the United States"
"Even if the conviction were reversed on appeal years later, that effect could not be undone in legal terms. That's called IRREPARABLE HARM. The irreparable harm, once again, is that a 'convicted felon' could affect the election, could decide the election."
"And if so, then District Attorney Bragg and Judge Merchan will have UNLAWFULLY INTERFERED with the election and decided the outcome of the next election through unconstitutional means. And no years long appeal could have any effect on that."
This is the critical point that Professor Rubenfield makes: There is another way.
"Well, is that where we are? So are we stuck with that possibility? Well, believe it or not, there is one other avenue that the Trump lawyers could pursue. They could sue in federal court and ask for an emergency temporary restraining order."
"Restraining order of what? Well, let me tell you something that you might not know. You've probably been reading in the press if you've been reading about this case. The Trump is already a "convicted felon." The jury has convicted him. He's a "convicted felon."
"Well, guess what? THAT'S NOT TRUE."
"You're not a convicted felon because of a jury verdict. You're not convicted unless the judge enters a judgment of guilt against you. The judge still has the power, as I told you before, to throw out that verdict and enter a judgment of acquittal. You are not convicted until the judge enters that judgment of guilt."
"Now in New York, it's very likely that Judge Merchan will enter that judgment of guilt against Trump on the same day that he issued sentencing. That'd be July 11th."
"So what would this federal case be about in this federal action? Trump would sue District Attorney Bragg and other state actors and ask the judge, the federal judge, for an emergency temporary restraining order halting Judge Merchan from entering that judgment of guilt until the federal courts have had an opportunity to review and rule on the serious constitutional arguments that exist here."
"Let me tell you why I think that might be a very important thing to happen. Because going after, criminally, a former president of the United States and somebody who is running for president now, that's a VERY BAD LOOK for this country."
"It's an especially bad look when the folks bring in the case and the judge deciding it are members of the opposing political party. And it's an even worse look when the crime is so unclear that the state is hiding the ball about what the actual charges are right up through the trial and indeed into the trial."
"And even now, we don't know exactly what the jury found Trump guilty of. If you're going to go after a former president and somebody who's running for president now the poll leading candidate, if you're a member of the other party and you're going to do that, YOU BETTER HAVE THE GOODS. You better not be pursuing some novel legal theory where you have to hide the ball. It's not even clear what the charges are."
"That could be a very dangerous precedent for this country. A very bad and dangerous precedent."
"That's why it's so important for a federal court to review the constitutionality of this prosecution and decide, was it constitutional, was it not?"
"The only way to achieve that before the election takes place is for the Trump team to file an action in federal court and ask the federal court to temporarily hold off the entry of the judgment of guilt until the federal courts and maybe the Supreme Court itself can on an emergency basis adjudicate the likelihood of success of these constitutional arguments."
"If that doesn't happen, then that IRREPARABLE HARM danger that I mentioned before, well that's where we are."
"But if it does happen, the nation could get a ruling from the federal courts, even the Supreme Court of the United States, before the election takes place."
"Maybe that's what the nation needs and maybe that's what the law requires here. So if I were Trump's lawyer, that's probably what I would do."
https://x.com/kylenabecker/status/1798859839395013095?s=12
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Intriguing.
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Not a lawyer & don’t play one on TV, but this would seem to intimate the fix was in. Mistrial declared? In the immortal words paraphrased from the final line of Chinatown, “Forge it Jake, it’s New York City.”
https://x.com/bennyjohnson/status/1799178304282378471?s=61
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https://reason.com/volokh/2024/04/21/special-counsel-jack-smith-lacks-standing-to-defend-the-d-c-circuits-ruling-on-presidential-immunity-in-the-supreme-court/?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=rundown&pnespid=rqA_VnhMbLpExaTN_CnvSZGAog2rBZ4vfeGike4yrRxmBIb6nfINdmmpk6wDEI68CS4_BXpk
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https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-prosecutor-alvin-bragg-attended-fundraiser-for-group-that-fought-to-keep-trump-off-ballot?topStoryPosition=5
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The confusingly named Court of Appeals, is actually NY's highest court.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-gag-order-appeal-new-york-court-of-appeals/
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/court-that-can-remove-aileen-cannon-wants-her-out-legal-analyst/ar-BB1oFiFg?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=3cbe38a20a964e5abdeff298408494f7&ei=15
little littman is mad :roll:
scumbucket
I don't get it
I thought only a judge can recuse self .
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Ty Cobb
who worked with Trump team in past
now comes out and bashed Judge for favorable rulings for Trump and team:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ex-trump-lawyer-raises-red-flag-on-aileen-cannon-partisan-prima-donna/ar-BB1oCtm2?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=aebbdcd140244b96b0ef130556c9daea&ei=13
I don't know is this un ethical?
prick goes on CNN with his idiotic santa claus look to bash a former client.
he must be needing to enhance his cocktail party invites.
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"I thought only a judge can recuse self "
- I think that rule is for the US Supreme Court - because no one is above them. For just a regular federal judge, I don't know. If an appeals court thinks the judge should have recused or made mistakes in the case, I suppose they can overrule or declare a mis-trial.
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How to remove a federal judge:
https://www.yalelawjournal.org/pdf/438_q54sjnwz.pdf
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/after-i-lost-the-election-legal-expert-says-new-trump-recording-could-be-admissible-evidence/ar-BB1oEEZb?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=20a55908a610439e958c77083081d478&ei=15
""This statement made on tape and on the record by Mr. Trump would be admissible in evidence against him on the issue of his corrupt intent in the four Smith indictments in DC that SCOTUS is inexcusably keeping on hold in United States v. Trump," Laurence Tribe, a law professor at Harvard University, posted on X."
Any argument this little shit can dream up works just fine for him
Like Dershowitz said who has known him for nearly 5 decades:
he always interprets the Constitution in ways that is good for the Dem party [no matter what]
Oh the hysterical democrat lawyers to flood the airways this weekend ......
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Taking Down Judge Aileen Cannon
Imagine the praise if she deferred to Jack Smith’s bid for a pre-election conviction in the Trump classified-documents trial.
William McGurn
June 24, 2024 5:15 pm ET
Ever notice how weaselly the smart set can be when targeting someone for public shame? On Thursday the New York Times served up a fresh example with an article headlined “Judge in Trump Documents Case Rejected Suggestions to Step Aside.”
The judge is Aileen Cannon, a Donald Trump appointee now hearing the former president’s classified-documents case in the Southern District of Florida. Ostensibly the article is about two colleagues on the federal bench who advised her to decline the case in favor of someone with more experience.
Judge Aileen Cannon, July 21, 2023. PHOTO: HANDOUT/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
But here’s the key sentence: “As Judge Cannon’s handling of the case has come under intensifying scrutiny, her critics have suggested that she could be in over her head, in the tank for Mr. Trump—or both.”
Nowhere in the piece is anyone quoted, even anonymously, that she is in the tank for Mr. Trump.
Mr. Trump may be crude but at least when he goes after a judge there’s no hiding behind anonymity. During his trial in New York, he appeared on camera each day denouncing Judge Juan Merchan variously as “corrupt,” “highly conflicted” and “the worst judge in history.”
The vilification of Judge Cannon is polite society’s version. It’s similar to the statement by 51 former intelligence operatives two weeks before the 2020 election that Hunter Biden’s laptop “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” Their statement was sprinkled with caveats that didn’t matter because its only job was to give Joe Biden something to get him through the last crucial days of the election.
The Times piece is littered with allusions to Judge Cannon’s alleged unfitness: her “scant trial experience,” the “unusual favor” she’s shown Mr. Trump, the “increasing criticism of how she has gone on to handle the case,” her “hostility to prosectors,” and the way one of her rulings was “shocking legal experts along ideological lines.” You’d hardly know that the judge has also ruled against Mr. Trump, notably in his bid to have the case dismissed.
The Times story comes in the wake of an order by Chief Judge William Pryor of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta that cited an “orchestrated campaign” of more than 1,000 complaints to the court to have Judge Cannon forced from the case. Many of the complaints say she had an “improper motive” for delaying the trial. But Judge Pryor said “the allegations are speculative and unsupported by any evidence.”
The Times article also appeared on the eve of oral arguments about the constitutionality of Jack Smith’s appointment as special counsel. Mr. Trump’s defense contends that his appointment was unconstitutional because Attorney General Merrick Garland has no statutory authority to bestow on a private citizen these extraordinary prosecutorial powers.
READ MORE MAIN STREET
No More Special CounselsJune 17, 2024
The Sliming of Byron DonaldsJune 10, 2024
That argument may be a long shot, but it has been raised by serious figures: former Attorneys General Ed Meese and Mike Mukasey to name two. Judge Cannon’s critics don’t like it, not only because they worry how she might rule, but because even hearing the argument is another delay that threatens to put Mr. Trump’s trial off until after the election.
As much as it might upset the Times, Judge Cannon is right to resolve these issues before the trial begins. The only reason to rush is that Mr. Smith wants his case tried before the election. Given that Mr. Smith was once rebuked 8-0 by the Supreme Court for his “boundless interpretation” of the federal bribery statutes he used to go after former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, you might think a little prudence is in order.
Former Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew McCarthy further points out that Mr. Smith has only himself to blame for any delay. Had he simply charged Mr. Trump with obstruction, many of the issues now slowing down his case wouldn’t be a problem. But because Mr. Smith added 32 classified-information counts under the Espionage Act, he triggered the Classified Information Procedures Act—and its time-consuming process for deciding what and how classified information will be used in court.
Still the Times hit its mark. The article provides plenty of talking points for those seeking to take down Judge Cannon. Needless to say, no one in the article questions whether the two federal judges who encouraged her to recuse have agendas of their own.
It isn’t hard to imagine the praise Judge Cannon would be getting had she cleared the way for Mr. Smith to convict Mr. Trump before the election. News stories would be highlighting her family’s roots as Cuban exiles, explaining that in Mr. Trump she saw echoes of Fidel Castro’s autocracy. She would be lauded as a strong woman who refused to bend to political pressure.
But because Judge Cannon believes the Constitution and law must not yield to Mr. Smith’s political timetable, she has joined the list of judges—Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas—whose reputations must be destroyed.
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save Biden
all I hear is this is coming up that is coming up.
I am thinking the chance that Merchan sentences Trump to prison time has gone way up post debate.
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https://naomiwolf.substack.com/p/what-time-it-is?publication_id=676930&post_id=146257062&isFreemail=false&r=1ggdo&triedRedirect=true
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4X4mE9Ta9k
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/we-are-not-an-autocracy-supreme-court-ruling-allows-sham-prosecutions-weissmann-says/vi-BB1pfepb?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=0c19ebe4662c4c07b68d83c192a18cc3&ei=18
For God sakes Weissman - would you just get the darn sinus surgery already!
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Damning report submitted by a House committee regarding Trump’s NY trial:
https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/2024-07-09%20Lawfare%20-%20How%20the%20Manhattan%20District%20Attorneys%20Office%20and%20a%20New%20York%20State%20Judge%20Violated%20the%20Constitutional%20and%20Lega.pdf
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https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-documents-case-dismissed-by-federal-judge/
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/justice/3082471/judge-dismisses-trump-classified-documents-case/
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is already on the airways spewing his warped partisan legal opinions:
https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2024/07/15/weissmann-this-is-an-opportunity-for-the-11th-circuit-to-remove-judge-cannon/
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/court-going-to-remove-aileen-cannon-from-trump-case-anti-maga-lawyer/ar-BB1q8H1C?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=e075199924864c89be844f585d5cf150&ei=14
About Justice Thomas thoughts on the appointment of hitman Jack Smith as special counsel:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/clarence-thomas-opinion-jack-smith-appointed-special-counsel-rcna161975
And of course, Judge Merchan and NYAG James acted in total good faith in upholding the rule of law which Dems lauded :roll: :wink:
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Reposted here per our esteemed Global Moderator:
This kind of officious abuse of office deserves a strong rebuke. Hopefully there’s also renumeration involved so these clowns get hit in the wallet good and hard, too:
No Qualified Immunity when "Public Officials … Baselessly Threaten[] a Citizen-Journalist With Legal Action"
The Volokh Conspiracy / by Eugene Volokh / Jul 16, 2024 at 12:37 PM
["if he did not remove a video on a matter of public concern that he made and posted on Facebook without breaking any law."]
From Berge v. School Committee, decided yesterday by the First Circuit, in an opinion by Judge O. Rogeriee Thompson, joined by Judges David Barron and Lara Montecalvo (though there's a lot more going on in the opinion as well):
On a motion to dismiss a case, does qualified immunity protect public officials who baselessly threatened a citizen-journalist with legal action if he did not remove a video on a matter of public concern that he made and posted on Facebook without breaking any law? We answer no …. {[A]s a heads-up for the legal neophytes out there, qualified immunity gives officials cover when they decide close questions in reasonable (even if ultimately wrong) ways—sparing them from money-damages liability unless they violated a statutory or constitutional right that was clearly established at the time (much more on all that soon).} …
Inge Berge is a citizen-journalist living in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Back in early March 2022, he went to the city's school superintendent's office—which is open to the public (during specified hours, we presume). He wanted to buy tickets to his daughter's sold-out school play. And he wanted to hear from officials why the school's COVID-19 rules still capped the number of play-goers when the state had already lifted its COVID-19 mandates by then.
Visibly filming as he went along (he kept his camera out for all to see), Berge made sure to also tell everyone he met that he was recording. And no sign banned or restricted filming in the building's publicly accessible areas either.
Talking to executive secretary Stephanie Delisi, Berge said, "I'm filming this. I'm doing a story on it. If that's okay with you." "No, no I don't want to be filmed," Delisi answered back. Berge kept openly filming. Delisi then walked into superintendent Ben Lummis's office.
Standing at the door of his office, Lummis asked Berge to stop recording. "You do not have permission to film in this area." Berge kept openly filming. "I'm happy to speak with you," Lummis added, "if you turn that off." "You do not have my permission to film here right now," Lummis said as well. Berge kept openly filming. And Lummis closed his office door.
Assistant superintendent Gregg Bach then walked over to Berge. And with Berge still openly filming, Bach took notes about Berge's bid to see his daughter's play. Unlike the others, Bach voiced no objection to Berge's filming.
Hoping to "expose" the "unreasonableness" of the district's "policy," Berge uploaded the video (along with his commentary) to Facebook that very day. And he made the material publicly viewable as well.
None too pleased, district-human-resources director Roberta Eason fired off a letter to Berge within hours. Citing Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 272, § 99(C), she accused him of violating Massachusetts's wiretap act by not getting "the consent" of all participating officials before recording and posting the film. And she "demand[ed]" that he "immediately" remove the video or face "legal action" (his supposed wiretap act violation was the one and only reason she gave for the removal demand).
Turns out she was way off base in relying on the wiretap act. And that is because this law pertinently bans "secret" recordings, which Berge's most certainly was not….
Berge did not do as directed, however. He instead sued …. According to that count, defendants threatened "bogus legal" action under the state wiretap act to "frighten him into suppressing his own First Amendment rights." …
[W]e—after taking Berge's allegations as true (though knowing that discovery or trial evidence may cast the case in a different light)—have a hard time picturing a more textbook First Amendment violation.
Berge very publicly recorded public officials performing public duties in the publicly accessible part of a public building—all to get information about the district's COVID-19 policies, in a form he could then share, with the goal (to quote again from the complaint) of "expos[ing] and comment[ing] on the unreasonableness" of those "polic[ies]." And his speech (front and center in the complaint) about COVID-19 protocols—the kind that has sparked much political and social debate (and litigation too)—strikes us as sufficiently "a subject of legitimate news interest" to come within the sphere of public concern.
If the First Amendment means anything in a situation like this, it is that public officials cannot—as they did here—threaten a person with legal action under an obviously inapt statute simply because he published speech they did not like. "[T]o prevent the pursuit of legal action in this matter," the Eason-signed letter "demand[ed]" that Berge "immediately remove the
from [his] Facebook account and/or any other communications." Which shows the complaint plausibly alleges that the individual defendants knew the legal-action threat centered on Berge's right to publish. What is more—and as already explained—the letter cited the state wiretap act as the only basis for the removal demand (no one defends the threat on any other ground). But—as also earlier noted—the wiretap act only bans "secret" recordings (in which the persons recorded did not know they were being recorded) and thus does not apply here. Which shows the complaint plausibly alleges that the individual defendants knew such action was baseless….
Shifting then from qualified immunity's step one (constitutional rights violation) to step two (clearly established law), we also think it follows naturally from the above cases that Berge has plausibly pled a violation of a clearly established right to publish on a topic of public interest when the violators acted (as a reminder, but using a different case quote, a right is "clearly established" when it is no longer among the "hazy" area of constitutional issues that might be "reasonably misapprehend[ed]"). And by "acted" we mean (as the complaint alleges) threatening Berge with an obviously groundless legal action: Surely no sensible official reading these long-on-the-books opinions could believe that that act—assuming it represents an adverse action—was not a burden on Berge's First Amendment right to publish on a matter of public concern. So given all this, Berge's complaint plausibly alleges that the threat constituted First Amendment retaliation in violation of his clearly established right….
Marc J. Randazza, Jay M. Wolman, and Robert J. Morris II (Randazza Legal Group, PLLC) represent Berge.
The post No Qualified Immunity when "Public Officials … Baselessly Threaten[] a Citizen-Journalist With Legal Action" appeared first on Reason.com.
https://reason.com/volokh/2024/07/16/no-qualified-immunity-when-public-officials-baselessly-threaten-a-citizen-journalist-with-legal-action/
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Thank you.
So, how would each of us here apply qualified immunity to this threat?
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Trump wins round in libel suit against Pulitzer Prize Board over Russia stories
A Florida judge rejected bids to end case linked to journalism awards to Washington Post and New York Times.
Signage for The Pulitzer Prizes appear at Columbia University on May 28, 2019, in New York.
Signage for The Pulitzer Prizes appear at Columbia University on May 28, 2019, in New York. | Bebeto Matthews/AP
By JOSH GERSTEIN
07/21/2024 11:00 AM EDT
Donald Trump scored a significant court win Saturday as a state judge in Florida turned down attempts by the Pulitzer Prize Board to toss out a libel lawsuit Trump filed in 2022 relating to a series of reports in the New York Times and Washington Post on the 2016 Trump campaign’s ties to Russia.
In a 14-page ruling issued Saturday, Senior Judge Robert Pegg turned down arguments from the prominent journalism awards panel that their decision to bestow the national reporting prize on the staffs of the two newspapers in 2018 amounted to a statement of “pure opinion” rather than fact.
The libel suit does not hinge directly on the articles the Times and Post published about the Trump campaign’s links to Russia or on the decision to award the Pulitzer to the newspapers.
Instead, the case focuses on the board’s decision in 2022 to publicly reaffirm those awards despite repeated complaints by Trump that the the stories contained numerous falsehoods and were undermined by the findings of special counsel Robert Mueller’s two-year investigation into those issues.
Trump appears to have zeroed in on the board’s 2022 statement about the reviews it ordered of the earlier prizes because Florida law has a two-year statute of limitations for defamation cases.
In a post on his Trump Social platform on Saturday, Trump’s touted Pegg’s ruling, saying the judge “issued a Powerful Decision totally and completely DENYING the Pulitzer Prize Board’s desperate attempt to dismiss my ironclad Defamation Lawsuit against them for awarding the once respected Pulitzer Prizes to Fake News Stories about the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax by The Failing New York Times and The Washington Compost.”
Trump said Pegg stated that Mueller’s report on his probe “debunked” the Times and Post reports, but the judge’s decision actually says that Trump claimed in the suit that the special prosecutor’s work demonstrated that the newspapers’ reporting was incorrect.
However, Pegg’s ruling does suggest he believes the Pulitzer Board’s review of Trump’s complaint was shoddy. He noted that the group’s statement reaffirming the awards failed to “address if or how the ‘independent reviewers’ were able to verify the anonymous sources that appear throughout the Awarded Articles and were critical to advancing the larger Russia Collusion Hoax narrative.”
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“Instead, the reader is left to wonder if that was even attempted,” wrote Pegg, who retired in 2018, but was later named as a senior judge to help courts cope with crowded dockets.
Mueller’s report, released in March 2019, indicated that the investigation he conducted “did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”
In another decision Saturday, Pegg dismissed a bid by most of the defendants in the case to be dismissed from the case on grounds that they lack sufficient ties to Florida for the courts there to have jurisdiction over them.
The rulings mean Trump’s suit will likely continue into a discovery phase, where the former president’s lawyers will be able to question Pulitzer board members about discussions related to the awards to the Times and Post. Trump’s attorneys are also expected to seek to expose who conducted the two reviews the board said it commissioned that reaffirmed the accuracy of the newspapers’ work.
Pulitzer officials and their attorneys did not immediately respond to requests late Saturday for comment on the decisions. The Philadelphia-based law firm representing the awards panel members, Ballard Spahr, also represents POLITICO and other news outlets in various matters.
Trump’s suit names as defendants the board members and administrative staff of the Pulitzers at the time the 2018 prizes were awarded. He filed the case in December 2022 in Okeechobee County, which is in the central portion of the state, about 60 miles northwest of Trump’s home in Palm Beach.
In Trump’s social media post about the case, he echoed his previous calls for changes to the nation’s libel laws, calling the landmark New York Times v. Sullivan precedent “deeply outdated” and “from a bygone Era, before the Media went Radical and Woke, as they suffer from a terminal case of Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
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MO Attorney General sues NY for it’s lawfare pursuit of Trump.
https://share.icloud.com/photos/06eEKJ3S1tbqdJ96-9M36MskQ
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This piece seems like something Captain Obvious should opine. Alas, lawfare has so twisted so many things this needs to be said:
[Josh Blackman] New in the American Spectator: The 11th Circuit Should Reject Jack Smith's Past Political Justifications to Expedite His Latest Appeal
The Volokh Conspiracy by Josh Blackman / Jul 24, 2024 at 8:52 AM//keep unread//hide
Is this article about Legal Tech?
YES
NO
["The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit has no reason to accommodate politically motivated efforts to convict Trump before the election or inauguration."]
Seth Barrett Tillman and I published a new essay in the American Spectator concerning Special Counsel Jack Smith's pending appeal to the Eleventh Circuit. We write that Smith's only justification to expedite the appeal is to obtain a conviction before the election, or even before the inauguration. The courts are under no obligation to accommodate Smith's politically motivated efforts.
Here is the introduction:
Special Counsel Jack Smith is on a mission to convict Donald Trump before the election, and if needed, before the inauguration. At every level of the judiciary, Smith has urged federal judges to move at breakneck speed so he can get his man. Now that Judge Aileen Cannon has determined that Smith was unlawfully appointed, Smith is once again racing for another appeal. But there is no good reason for the courts to move more quickly than they usually would. Indeed, moving any faster or slower than normal would suggest that the judges are favoring one side or the other.
Despite all the faux outrage over Judge Cannon's decision, she disqualified only one person from pursuing this case: Jack Smith. Cannon did not grant Trump any immunity for his actions during or after he left office. The United States attorney for the southern district of Florida is fully capable of prosecuting Trump. To be sure, Attorney General Merrick Garland does not want his Justice Department to take the heat for prosecuting his boss's political rival, but that is a political problem for Garland and the administration and not a legal problem for the judiciary. The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit has no reason to accommodate politically motivated efforts to convict Trump before the election or inauguration. Trump should be treated like any other defendant.
And from the conclusion:
Smith seems to have determined that it is in the best interest of our democracy for voters to know whether Trump is convicted of a federal felony before voting. This is an extremely difficult political judgment that turns on disputed conceptions of what the public ought to know for the sake of democracy. Moreover, seeking to time a trial and conviction in this manner would mark a public and complete break with DOJ principles and policies of prosecutorial neutrality. It is imperative that the case against Trump be tried in the ordinary course of law, in the ordinary way, under an ordinary schedule. This case cannot be tried using newly invented legal rules, by a faux prosecutor, under an expedited schedule serving nakedly political (if not partisan) ends. Then-Attorney General Robert H. Jackson wisely observed that "the most dangerous power of the prosecutor" is "that he will pick people that he thinks he should get, rather than cases that need to be prosecuted." Only by adhering to this course of conduct does the judiciary uphold the rule of law.
I will report back when Smith files a motion to expedite the appeal to the Eleventh Circuit, or whether he seeks certiorari before judgment.
The post New in the American Spectator: The 11th Circuit Should Reject Jack Smith's Past Political Justifications to Expedite His Latest Appeal appeared first on Reason.com.
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Watchdog: No evidence Trump influenced Stone’s sentencing
Correction was under discretion of attorney general
BY JEFF MORDOCK THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The Justice Department’s internal watchdog said Wednesday there is no evidence that then-President Donald Trump pushed Attorney General William Barr in 2020 to reverse prosecutors’ stiff sentencing recommendation for Roger Stone, a longtime Trump friend and adviser.
In an 85-page report, Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz concluded there is an “absence of evidence” that Mr. Barr’s decision was influenced by Mr. Trump’s criticism of the sentencing recommendation.
“No law, rule, regulation or DOJ policy, including those related to conflicts or ethics prohibited Barr’s participation in the Stone sentencing and, therefore, the decision whether to participate was ultimately a discretionary one left to the judgment of the Attorney General,” Mr. Horowitz wrote in the report.
“We found that it was within the Attorney General’s discretion to correct what he viewed as an unjust submission,” he wrote later.
Still, Mr. Horowitz said Mr. Barr’s decision to change the sentencing recommendation was “an extraordinary step” that raised “questions and his perceptions” because of Mr. Stone’s friendship with the president.
In November 2019, a federal jury in Washington convicted Mr. Stone on seven criminal counts, including lying to Congress and obstructing the House investigation into whether Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign coordinated with Russia in the 2016 election.
The four federal prosecutors who worked the case recommended that Mr. Stone receive a prison sentence of between seven and nine years. Prosecutors said the proposal adhered to federal sentencing guidelines and was calculated based on a formula that takes into account the severity of the crime, the type of conduct involved and the defendant’s criminal history.
Hours later, Justice Department officials said they would take the unusual step of revising the sentencing recommendation. Timothy Shea, the then-U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, issued a new legal filing saying Mr. Stone deserved “far less” time in prison than the seven- to nine-year span recommended by prosecutors.
The filing, which did not offer a new sentencing recommendation, came hours after Mr. Trump had criticized the Justice Department’s proposal for Mr. Stone’s punishment as unduly harsh.
In his filing, Mr. Shea said the prison recommendation “does not accurately reflect the Department of Justice’s position on what would be a reasonable sentence” and that the original proposal by prosecutors was “excessive and unwarranted.”
The reversal prompted the four prosecutors in the case to resign from the Justice Department.
Ultimately, Mr. Stone was sentenced to three years in prison, but Mr. Trump commuted his sentence in 2020 before he was to report to prison. Mr. Trump pardoned Mr. Stone in December 2020.
Mr. Horowitz said the investigation found no evidence that Justice Department leadership exerted pressure on Mr. Shea to change the prosecutors’ sentencing recommendation. However, he concluded that Mr. Shea’s “ineffectual leadership” led to Justice Department officials, including Mr. Barr, stepping in to reverse the prosecutors.
The report blasts Mr. Shea as indecisive and “a poor communicator.” He had raised concerns about prosecutors’ sentencing recommendations but didn’t know what to do about it. After struggling with what to do for days, Mr. Shea went to Mr. Barr just hours before the filing deadline, according to the report.
Before Mr. Shea reached out to Mr. Barr, the attorney general had no involvement in the Stone case. During their conversation, Mr. Shea left Mr. Barr with the impression that prosecutors would defer to the court on sentencing, the report said. Thus, Mr. Barr had learned from media reports that prosecutors had recommended a sentence inconsistent with what Mr. Shea told him earlier that day.
“We found that Shea’s ineffectual leadership set in motion a sequence of events that contributed to the trial team viewing his actions with suspicion and resulted in DOJ leadership taking the extraordinary step of changing a filed sentencing recommendation,” Mr. Horowitz wrote.
After discussing it with his staff, Mr. Barr drafted a second memorandum reversing the prosecutors’ initial recommendation. The report concluded that Mr. Barr sought to change the recommendation hours before Mr. Trump began criticizing prosecutors in a series of tweets shortly before midnight.
“The available evidence is that all the discussions between Shea and Barr, and between Barr and his staff concerned whether the advisory sentencing guidelines range was just and whether the Department should support a variance from it,” Mr. Horowitz wrote. “We noted that even career lawyers at the DC [U.S. Attorney’s Office] believed at the time that reasonable minds could differ about the sentencing recommendation.”
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/judge-refuses-to-dismiss-trump-s-defamation-suit-against-abc-news-and-george-stephanopoulos-over-rape-claim/ar-BB1qzlf7?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=fe5d5ba8c78c4dbabf8a8a54cf6ea8f1&ei=28
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I continue to hear some on news saying he was convicted of "rape"
of course by partisan prosecutor, judge, and jury in a highly partisan location.
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In general, the word "rape" has come to lose precision in meaning.
I remember some years ago that some study on rape said that some women did not know that they had been raped until they were told if they wanted to say "No" but did not, also was rape or something like that.
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HT BBG
Doubling this one up here as well:
https://tennesseestar.com/politics/kamalawfare-politicized-fbi-executes-search-warrant-on-gop-rep-andy-ogles-who-leads-impeachment-of-vp-harris/tpappert/2024/08/06/
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Well this is charming. Imagine the hue and cry were a similar Republican effort discovered:
‘Public enemy’ with a ‘violence fetish’: Tucker Carlson and Dr Waller talk about who’s plotting a coup
J. Michael Waller July 31, 2024
Recent news of a new political warfare exercise to block a constitutional transition of presidential power has thrown more light on well-connected radical lawyers and their powerful network inside the Justice Department and Pentagon. The war game is part of the 2024 Democracy Futures Project, a revival of a 2020 exercise called the Transition Integrity Project. The 2020 exercise called for a military coup against Trump if his election was certified. A revived exercise, involving many of the same people, is calling for a coup again, while fanning public fears that it is Trump who would stage the coup.
Earlier this year, the Center for Security Policy’s Senior Analyst for Strategy, Dr. J. Michael Waller, spent an afternoon with Tucker Carlson to discuss the 2020 project and efforts this year to disrupt the American presidential election. The 2020 and 2024 exercises to abort a constitutional transfer of power are not to be confused with an identically named exercise sponsored earlier this year by the Heritage Foundation. Waller represented the FBI, Department of Justice, and intelligence community in that exercise.
Back to the Tucker Carlson interview, aired in May:
“Four years ago, a professor at Georgetown University called Rosa Brooks headed up a group that she called the Transition Integrity Project,” Carlson said in his opening monologue. Brooks is a Georgetown University Law professor and an adjunct scholar at West Point. She was a legal counsel during the Obama administration for Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy – the policymaking leader of the Pentagon who politicized the uniformed armed forces. She has worked for George Soros.
“So the goal of the Transition Integrity Project, this was before the last presidential election, of course, was to play out different outcomes from that election and see how the country would handle each one. Kind of a war game, a political war game,” said Carlson.
“The project was made up from representatives from a bunch of different groups but similar groups law professors, political strategists, retired military officers, all from the left. Now, their stated goal was to focus on four possible outcomes of the 2020 election a narrow Biden win, a big Biden win, a Trump win, and a scenario with no immediate winner,” he said.
In the four-day TIP exercise of 2020, Bill Kristol played President Donald Trump, former Democrat White House chief of staff John Podesta played Joe Biden, and so forth.
TIP was “calling for a military coup” against Donald Trump, Carlson said.
“The head of the project, the co-founder of the project, Rosa Brooks, had actually called for reconsidering and getting rid of civilian control of the military back in 2016,” Waller added.
The 2020 scenarios, Carlson summarized, were “Elect our guy, or America falls apart and people die. … the assessment was clear. You could not allow Donald Trump to win or else America would end.”
Will TIP or anything like it influence the elections this year? “Well, J. Michael Waller has thought a lot about this,” Carlson said. “He once worked for the CIA. He knows a lot about the intel world having been part of it. He’s a senior analyst for strategy at the Center for Security Policy, the author of a new book called Big Intel.
“For these guys, it was to determine in 2020 that the transition from a Trump administration would be nice and orderly,” Waller said. “And if it wasn’t orderly, the military should intervene to remove Donald Trump.”
Public enemy: The progressives’ dark road toward a one-party state
“Okay, so it was calling for a military coup” in 2016, Carlson said. “So this is maybe a side road, but I think it’s important if the military is not controlled by elected officials, as it would be in a democracy: Who would make decisions about military force?
Waller: “They’re not clear about that.”
Carlson: “Oh, they’re not clear about that.”
Waller: “This is Banana Republic stuff.”
Carlson: “Well, of course, by definition.”
Waller: “Yeah. In the name of protecting our constitution.”
Carlson: “Yeah, military junta to save democracy. So Rosa Brooks is called for that.”
Waller: “So even when Trump was … inaugurated two weeks later [in 2017], she wrote that we have to find a way to remove him from power.”
This is un-American thinking, both agreed. Typical of a red-diaper baby like Brooks, who was raised in a Democratic Socialists of America household to transform the United States into a Marxist one-party state.
Carlson: “So would you say, just as just so we can define terms at the outset, that anyone who calls for a military coup against an elected official is, by definition, an enemy of democracy.”
Waller: “Public enemy.”
Carlson: “So what would be the point of this?”
Waller: “To make sure that their transition has integrity, meaning that even according to their latest war games, if Donald Trump wins a free and fair election, he still has to be removed.”
Carlson: “So if you have people again, just a definition of terms. If you have people who are calling for the removal by force of an elected official, that is I mean, that is insurrection, right?”
Waller: “It’s yes, it’s legal insurrection because they’re doing this now through lawfare. They’re doing it through Georgetown University Law Center. That’s the premier law school in Washington, DC. It’s a feeder school to the Justice Department. It’s a feeder school to Supreme Court clerks. Right into the whole intelligence community. And this stuff is being planned there.”
Carlson: “So a country that cared about its own preservation, cared to, you know, set its own systems, continue for the benefit of its grandchildren, would immediately shut down Georgetown University Law Center, obviously, because it’s a, it’s an insurrectionist.”
Even The Atlantic was appalled
Carlson continued, “there is a group of people who meet at Georgetown University Law School to think through how to seize power from Trump if he were elected in 2024. Is that what you’re saying?”
Waller: “That’s what we know now from when they themselves talked about it to NBC. And then they invited a reporter from The Atlantic to actually attend the event. And he was so disturbed by it, he said, this is a real problematic issue for people who believe in the Constitution. So even The Atlantic is thinking this is dangerous.”
“You have these red diaper babies like Rosa Brooks, who, you know, comes from a household that was really on the Soviet side during the Cold War. For sure. Who was then a senior Pentagon official selecting who the Obama generals would be writing about how we have to end civilian control or reconsider or do away with civilian control of the military.
“Wargaming out military coups against a sitting president. First after a after a disputed election and now being the host of an entire project to unseat a president who they agree would have been legally and clearly elected by a majority of the public and electoral votes. This is done now in the name of protecting the Constitution. So you have the Transition Integrity Project of 2020 and whatever its name is right now, being run under Rosa Brooks at Georgetown University.”
‘I think Rosa Brooks is a violence fetishist’
Carlson: “I think I’ll just say this is my opinion. I think Rosa Brooks is a violence fetishist who loves violence, obviously fantasizes about violence. So this should be I mean, obviously it’s a threat. Any anybody with power who fetishizes violence domestically is scary, but there’s sort of no one to call about this, right?”
Waller: “No, because what they’re doing is they’re manipulating the legal system. So she, the somebody under [Brooks], Mary McCord, is sort of the Zelig of all of this. She’s been characterized as this in the American Spectator. She’s … everywhere you look. She is a counsel on the Trump impeachment committee, one impeachment committee to the January 6th committee…. she is involved in all of these and more, and she’s running a program to plan over 100 pieces of litigation. They don’t even know who the defendants will be because they’re not even in office. … To sue to prevent the government from functioning if the election doesn’t go the way they want it to.
“And her husband, whose last name is Snook, he was one of these career anonymous bureaucrats working inside the Supreme Court. He’s outside now, but his job, as she puts together the litigation with her team, is to make sure it’s not shopped to other jurisdictions where they won’t win. So they want to keep it in the Washington, DC circuit where they’re guaranteed a win.”
Carlson: “Right. So I would assume, that the intel agencies are involved in this.”
Waller: “We know retired [intelligence officials are involved]. And of course, you’re not always retired when you retire. And then you have former officials who still have security clearances. So even if they retired, they still have access to classified information and a window inside the machine.”
Why do these people still have security clearances?
Carlson: “Can I ask you, I mean, one of the great frustrations – there were so many frustrations in the Trump administration, you know, like refusing to act in America’s interest or even your own interest. But one of them was: Why would you let [former CIA Director John] Brennan, someone like Brennan, who’s a liar and a force for violence and anti-Americanism. Why would you allow that guy to continue to hold a security clearance? Why do any of these people still have their clearances? Why can’t anyone do anything about that?”
Waller: “Well, they can. A president can revoke somebody’s clearance or somebody acting in the president’s authority. It’s just part of the Big Intel industry in Washington where you leave government service. So you built your whole career at taxpayer expense, right? You have your security clearance. You go out then into the intelligence-industrial complex to make a fortune as a contractor. And then you land university gigs and media gigs.
Carlson: “And but you retain your clearance as you do this. Yeah. So that’s a massive advantage, correct?”
Waller: “It’s huge because now you’re already cleared, you’re already in the system. You’re already accepted. You’re already one of them.”
Carlson: “Right.”
Waller: “And so you’re part of a fraternity.”
Carlson: “So even though you’re not working for the government and therefore we’re not bound by it in the civil service rules, you can do whatever you want. You’re just a private contractor. There are very few limits on your behavior, but you still benefit from the knowledge of what the government is doing. You know a lot more about what the government is doing than the average taxpayer or voter. Correct. Right.”
Waller: “And that’s the reason some should keep their clearances, because we need that kind of institutional knowledge once people leave. But we don’t need it on this massive industrial scale like they have in Washington, D.C.”
Carlson: “So again, why wouldn’t if you were the incoming Republican president, you just cancel the security clearances of people who are political actors? I mean, that’s not hard, is it?”
Waller: “No, because you’re abusing – it’s a privilege to have a clearance.”
Carlson: “I don’t have a clearance.”
Waller: “No, I don’t have a clearance.”
Carlson: “Yeah.”
Waller: “So, it’s a privilege to have it. And you’re doing it at the expense of the taxpayer. So you’re still, in effect, a public servant, even if you’re in the private sector. But this has just become one big club, one huge business, one big grift in many ways, but one big political war now, where you have a merger between hardcore political activists, violence fetishists and public enemy types and the people who are supposed to be inside our system to serve our country and protect our Constitution.”
Where are we headed as a country?
Carlson: “So, how do you think this plays out? Let’s say Trump gets elected. What happens?”
Waller: “They’ll have 100 pieces of litigation ready to go out the door during the presidential transition. To hamstring him. To hamstring all his appointees. They have their allies inside the government to slow walk security clearances to make sure that his appointees who don’t have clearances cannot get clearances. He’ll be a one-term president. So the bureaucracy knows. Just ride it out. Just drag things as slowly as you can and make things as hard as you can. And then and then shop for the right judicial venues to make sure that you get a court circuit that will rule favorably in your case. So just think, when you’re a Washington insider at Georgetown Law School and your husband was on the Supreme Court staff, you’re networked across the Justice Department, your network, among the judges, you know everyone. They’re your friends. They’re your social circles. Of course they’re going to help you.
Carlson: “It sounds like the swamp wasn’t drained. Not at all. Not at all. Has it gotten stronger?”
Waller: “Yeah, because President Trump came in saying he would drain it. He didn’t have any idea what he was up against. He didn’t have a team. He didn’t have a strategy. He didn’t have blueprints. He just went ahead and thought he could do it. And then look what happened. So the swamp is stronger than ever.”
Waller: “We have a good opportunity right now because we have a lot better lay of the land than back in 2020. Not much attention was paid to the Transition Integrity Project. It operated semi-secretly. Now it’s come out of the closet and we know who more of the characters are. We’ve had four years to look at who these actors are and how they operate. We know a lot more about their game plan. They’ve gotten careless in a lot of areas.
So if you do have an organized team and President Trump, now that he knows what he’s up against, he can focus on it more. And then others support him. Some of them have been victims of this personally. They can focus on it more. So I think between now and transition time we’re going to be a lot wiser. Last time they were just blindsided.
“That’s one part. The second part is there are teams out there who have already writing action plans. And two of the last chapters in Big Intel show action plans. What do you do with the FBI? What do you do with the CIA? What can a president do with executive orders? And then what executive orders can be made into law so they can’t easily be reversed? Trump didn’t have that the first time around.”
Carlson: “And do you think he’s got a shot of making meaningful reform?”
Waller: “That remains to be seen in terms of exposing things. Yes, in terms of making any meaningful reform. You need a president to do it. Armed with executive orders, like when Obama came in, he had an army of executive people writing his executive orders during his transition, so that his first days and weeks as president, he was fundamentally transforming the government by fiat.”
Carlson: “Yeah.”
Waller: “Trump didn’t do that. Biden has done it. And then it withdrew Trump’s executive orders and then imposed more of its own, even on the first day. A lot of the censorship, of course, and weaponization of intelligence was first order of business stuff in Biden’s first hours in office. And it came. As a straight continuum from the Obama team beforehand. So, you know, it’s all the same people.”
Carlson: “So, I mean, maybe everyone should stop pretending it’s a democracy. Maybe everyone you know who uses that term unironically should have it burned on his lips like this. That’s not a democracy.
Waller: “Or even a constitutional republic, right? You can’t have it this way. Congress is funding things that they know are unconstitutional. The Justice Department is enforcing things that its lawyers know are unconstitutional. And now you have Mary McCord in her group at Georgetown Law, writing the whole orchestra for the transition after November of this year. To rip the constitution to shreds.”
J. Michael Waller
Senior Analyst for Strategy
Please Share:
https://centerforsecuritypolicy.org/public-enemy-with-a-violence-fetish-tucker-carlson-and-dr-waller-talk-about-whos-plotting-a-coup/
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Hooray for superior courts and the constitution:
Lawfare Collapsing Amidst Harris’ Vow To Prosecute Trump
By Kenin SpivakSeptember 13, 2024
Lawfare Collapsing Amidst Harris’ Vow To Prosecute Trump AP
Largely shedding Joe Biden’s canard that Trump must be defeated to save democracy, Kamala Harris’ conceit is that she prosecutes criminals and Donald Trump is one. “I know Donald Trump’s type,” she sneers.
As San Francisco district attorney and then California attorney general, Harris supported jailing parents of truants, suppressed evidence, keeping an innocent man on death row, repeatedly covered up misconduct, leading to the dismissal of more than 600 cases, incarcerated prisoners beyond their sentences, violated Federal laws that protect donor privacy, and failed to disclose conflicts of interest arising from her personal relationships. Her record of abusing prosecutorial power fits perfectly with Democrat lawfare against Trump and his advisers.
Now, following setbacks for prosecutors, Trump will have a reprieve in further substantive proceedings until after the election.
Colorado, Maine, and Illinois declared Trump an “insurrectionist,” ineligible for the presidency under the 14th Up to 32 other states were considering doing the same. In Trump v. Anderson, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously rejected this travesty. Among other failings, the states violated a requirement that Congress determine the process, and Trump has never been indicted for, let alone convicted of, insurrection.
The left’s least favorite judge, U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon, dismissed the Mar-a-Lago classified records case, holding that Jack Smith’s appointment as special prosecutor violated the Appointments Clause of the Constitution (Article II, § 2) and his use of a permanent indefinite appropriation violated the Appropriations Clause (Article I, § 9). The government refused a compromise that might have saved the case, and is appealing.
In Trump v. United States, a 6-3 court held that a president is immune from prosecution for official acts, his motives cannot be questioned, and his official acts may not be used as evidence in a prosecution of his private acts. Smith has filed a superseding indictment that suffers many of the same defects as the initial indictment, including as to immunity, novel legal theories, and the First Amendment rights of free speech and petition. Despite U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkin’s best efforts to move the case forward, she has bowed to reality and delayed the next hearing until after the election.
In Fischer v. United States, the Supreme Court threw out federal prosecutors’ use of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2) to prosecute Jan. 6 defendants for interfering in congressional proceedings, holding that the statute is limited to tampering with, or destroying, official records. That ruling also will narrow Trump’s election fraud case.
A Georgia appeals court agreed to hear a challenge to Fani Willis’ right to remain as prosecutor, scheduling arguments too late for a trial this year. Even if Willis prevails, the immunity decision, First Amendment, and misapplication of the Georgia RICO statute likely will doom her case.
A Nevada court dismissed an indictment against six Republicans accused of submitting certificates to Congress falsely declaring Trump the winner of the state’s 2020 presidential election.
The New York cases are more problematic abuses by prosecutors who ran on platforms of “getting” Trump:
There are at least a dozen reasons Trump’s conviction in New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s business records case should be reversed. Trial Judge Juan Merchan has delayed sentencing until Nov. 26, but he first must rule on whether to vacate the verdict because he allowed testimony by federal officials (Hopes Hicks and Trump’s assistant) about Trump’s official acts as president, now prohibited by the Supreme Court’s immunity decision. More damaging, in Erlinger v. United States, the Supreme Court held that a unanimous jury verdict is required for any factual finding that increases a potential sentence. Merchan did not require unanimity to identify the so-called “other crime” used to convert an expired business records misdemeanor into 34 felonies.
Judge Arthur Engoron found Trump liable in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ so-called civil fraud case for misstating asset values in loan applications, though the banks testified they did not rely on the statements, lost no money, and would continue to do business with Trump. Engoron ordered Trump to pay $455 million and forfeit his New York businesses. The New York appeals court stayed most of Engoron’s ruling and allowed Trump to post a reduced bond of $175 million for his appeal. The finding of liability may survive, but the penalties should be vacated as excessive under the 8th Amendment and Article I §5 of the New York Constitution, among other flaws.
If Trump is elected, he can order that the federal prosecutions against him end, or pardon himself, and the state cases likely will be delayed until he leaves office. If Harris wins, the Democrats can be expected to press forward. Though Trump’s legal team has carved back most of the cases and will continue to do so, a conviction still could mean jail time.
Democrats are doing better in their lawfare against Trump’s advisers, who have limited immunity defenses. Several are defendants in Georgia, Arizona, and Michigan. Rudy Guliani and John Eastman are being disbarred, and at least eight other Trump lawyers face disciplinary proceedings. Peter Navarro and Steve Bannon were jailed for refusing to testify to the Jan. 6 Committee. The last time a recalcitrant congressional witness was jailed appears to be 1948.
But for Trump’s wealth and perseverance, he might now be in jail. Democrats financially destroyed or jailed his closest political advisers and are broadly threatening Republican party lawyers. Usually, Harris talks about the criminal justice system from the far left. But, like other progressives, when she is in pursuit mode, the Constitution, equal justice, and fundamental principles are mere affect.
Kenin M. Spivak is founder and chairman of SMI Group LLC, an international consulting firm and investment bank. He is the author of fiction and non-fiction books and a frequent speaker and contributor to media, including The American Mind, National Review, the National Association of Scholars, television, radio, and podcasts.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2024/09/13/lawfare_collapsing_amidst_harris_vow_to_prosecute_trump_151609.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawFRJ8pleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHXjgyCJE2I2y8To2pMA0iv2I6vKp-iWTaBsXC4q45VqmVfo9ZG-S3oVhzg_aem_W-qcvcH1LRCKnjmjcUf2Xg
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/top-democrats-call-for-resignation-of-homeland-security-internal-watchdog/ar-AA1rFdf8?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=f35e67357878479b991a1f3bcfc95122&ei=17
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[Doug] Justices who unanimously overturned the Jack Smith prosecution of Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell include Elena Kagan, Sonja Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_v._United_States#Further_reading
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http://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/jack-smith-october-surprise-donald-trump.html?utm_source=msn&utm_medium=f1&utm_campaign=feed-part
Oct. 3, 2024
Jack Smith’s October Cheap Shot
By Elie Honig, a former federal and state prosecutor and a contributor to CAFE
Jack Smith has failed in his quest to try Donald Trump before the 2024 election. So instead, the special counsel has bent ordinary procedure to get in one last shot, just weeks before voters go to the polls.
Smith has now dropped a 165-page doorstop of a filing in federal court, on the issue of Trump’s immunity from prosecution. Judge Tanya Chutkan — who suddenly claims not to care about the impending election despite her earlier efforts to expedite the case to get it in before the very same election, which got her reversed and chastised by the Supreme Court — duly complied with Smith’s wishes, redacted out a few obvious names (who ever might “Arizona Governor [Redacted P-16]” be?), and made the rest public.
There are two headlines here. The immediate takeaway lies in the revelations contained in Smith’s oversize brief. (He asked the judge for, and received, permission to file a brief that was 180 pages long, four times the normal maximum.) We now have damning new details on Trump’s effort to pressure Vice-President Mike Pence to throw the election his way, Trump’s phone use and use of Twitter as the riot unfolded, and his conversations with family members about efforts to contest his electoral loss. The story’s structure is the same as we’ve long known, but the new details lend depth and dimension.
The larger, if less obvious, headline is that Smith has essentially abandoned any pretense; he’ll bend any rule, switch up on any practice — so long as he gets to chip away at Trump’s electoral prospects. At this point, there’s simply no defending Smith’s conduct on any sort of principled or institutional basis. “But we need to know this stuff before we vote!” is a nice bumper sticker, but it’s neither a response to nor an excuse for Smith’s unprincipled, norm-breaking practice. (It also overlooks the fact that the Justice Department bears responsibility for taking over two and a half years to indict in the first place.)
Let’s go through the problems with what Smith has done here.
First, this is backward. The way motions work — under the federal rules, and consistent with common sense — is that the prosecutor files an indictment; the defense makes motions (to dismiss charges, to suppress evidence, or what have you); and then the prosecution responds to those motions. Makes sense, right? It’s worked for hundreds of years in our courts.
Not here. Not when there’s an election right around the corner and dwindling opportunity to make a dent. So Smith turned the well-established, thoroughly uncontroversial rules of criminal procedure on their head and asked Judge Chutkan for permission to file first — even with no actual defense motion pending. Trump’s team objected, and the judge acknowledged that Smith’s request to file first was “procedurally irregular” — moments before she ruled in Smith’s favor, as she’s done at virtually every consequential turn.
Which brings us to the second point: Smith’s proactive filing is prejudicial to Trump, legally and politically. It’s ironic. Smith has complained throughout the case that Trump’s words might taint the jury pool. Accordingly, the special counsel requested a gag order that was so preposterously broad that even Judge Chutkan slimmed it down considerably (and the Court of Appeals narrowed it further after that).
Yet Smith now uses grand-jury testimony (which ordinarily remains secret at this stage) and drafts up a tidy 165-page document that contains all manner of damaging statements about a criminal defendant, made outside of a trial setting and without being subjected to the rules of evidence or cross-examination, and files it publicly, generating national headlines. You know who’ll see those allegations? The voters, sure — and also members of the jury pool.
And that brings us to our final point: Smith’s conduct here violates core DOJ principle and policy. The Justice Manual — DOJ’s internal bible, essentially — contains a section titled “Actions That May Have an Impact on the Election.” Now: Does Smith’s filing qualify? May it have an impact on the election? Of course. So what does the rule tell us?“Federal prosecutors … may never select the timing of any action, including investigative steps, criminal charges, or statements, for the purpose of affecting any election.”
Remember, Smith begged the judge to flip the rules on their head so he could file this document first, and quickly — “any action,” by any reasonable definition — with the election right around the corner. Anyone who objected to James Comey’s outrageous announcements about the Hillary Clinton email investigation on the eve of the 2016 election should feel the same about Smith’s conduct now. What’s the distinction? Both violated ordinary procedure to take public steps, shortly before an election, that plainly would have an impact on that election.
I’m going to hand this one over to one of DOJ’s most esteemed alums, who explained it this way to the Justice Department’s internal watchdog: “To me if it [an election] were 90 days off, and you think it has a significant chance of impacting an election, unless there’s a reason you need to take that action now, you don’t do it.”
Those words were spoken by Sally Yates — former deputy attorney general, venerated career prosecutor, no fan of Trump (who unceremoniously fired her in 2017), and liberal folk hero. As usual, Yates is spot on. And her explanation conveys this indelible truth: If prosecutors bend their principles depending on the identity of their prey, then they’ve got no principles at all.
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More at WSJ from Kim Strassel
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/jack-smiths-october-surprise-court-legal-politics-election-50c5f620?st=KEQd1s
Jack Smith’s October Surprise
It’s impossible not to suspect the special counsel’s filing is politically motivated.
By Kimberley A. Strassel
Oct. 3, 2024
Politics hath no fury like a prosecutor scorned, and it appears the American electorate won’t be allowed to forget it. That’s the best read of special counsel Jack Smith’s newly unsealed filing in his criminal case against Donald Trump. Congratulations, Attorney General Merrick Garland: You’ve got your own 2024 “election interference” story line.
Mr. Smith filed the 165-page brief last week, his latest response to an embarrassing defeat at the Supreme Court in July. The justices rapped him for ignoring a weighty question in his Jan. 6 indictment, ruling that a president is entitled to immunity for exercising “core constitutional powers.” That decision requires a pretrial proceeding in which the trial judge sifts which of the allegedly criminal acts count as official, and ultimately ended any prospect of a trial before the election. A sober litigator would have stepped back, allowed the voters to render their judgment on Mr. Trump and his bad behavior, and regroup in November.
Here’s what Mr. Smith did instead. He rushed to file a superseding indictment in August that alleged the same four crimes, taking a minuscule view of core constitutional powers. He then requested the trial judge allow him to file an “oversized” brief—up to 180 pages—laying out the government’s arguments against immunity, and asking her to unseal it. Judge Tanya Chutkan granted the requests, ignoring the Trump legal team’s opposition to a brief that was “quadruple the standard page limits” and that allowed the prosecution “to proffer their untested and biased views to the Court and the public as if they are conclusive.” That brief was made public on Wednesday, 34 days before the election.
Which is the point. You don’t have to be a cynic to suspect Mr. Smith of brass-knuckle politicking. He knows that if Mr. Trump wins in November, both his cases (this one, involving Jan. 6, and the other, involving classified documents) are dead. Ergo Mr. Smith is actively working to undermine a Trump re-election by presenting to the public a bevy of new claims painting the nominee as criminal. Even if that assessment of his motives is unfair—even if he’s the upright legal hero of the left’s description—the timing and nature of his actions provides an inescapable appearance of election interference. That’s why Justice Department policy warns prosecutors to err on the side of restraint when voting draws near.
It’s hard to look at the brief as a considered legal argument. Mr. Smith’s zero-humility prosecutorial approach hasn’t always fared well in court—see the 8-0 Supreme Court reversal of his conviction of former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell in 2016. The justices in July tried to spare him further legal loss by spelling out a few things. They explained that while certain presidential acts have absolute immunity, many others (including conversations with a vice president about his duty to oversee the counting of electoral votes) have “presumptive” immunity, and the burden is on the government to rebut that premise. It further warned that prosecutors aren’t allowed to second-guess a president’s motives in official decision making.
Mr. Smith shrugs all this off in his new brief, for instance declaring that the Constitution’s directive that the vice president “shall” “open all the [electoral] certificates” on Jan. 6 is no official duty at all. It’s just a “discrete” thing veeps do. (See, that wasn’t hard. Presumption kaput.) He recategorizes moments in the Oval Office as campaign meetings, declares statements Mr. Trump made as clearly those of a “candidate,” and disregards the possibility that a president might have an interest in the integrity of federal elections at the state level. The message to the Supreme Court: Thanks for that ruling, but whatever.
Mr. Smith has to know that even if Judge Chutkan winks this through, he will have a far harder run before the justices, and even perhaps with the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. So why do it? Again, the assumption must be politics. The brief is a nifty vehicle for new claims of insidious Trump behavior, which the press corps jumped on with dutiful alacrity, ignoring any legal questions: “11 damning details in Jack Smith’s new brief in the Trump election case,” or “Trump ‘resorted to crimes’ to try to keep power in 2020, Jack Smith alleges.” Remember: 30-odd days to an election.
This is manna to Democrats, who are desperate for their Jan. 6 lawfare campaign to dominate the final sprint, to divert voters (finally!) from their (tedious) obsessions with inflation, border chaos or crime. Will Mr. Smith’s assist help? Who knows. Mr. Trump’s indefensible behavior is already well-known.
But that’s beside the point. The damage is done. The brief is out. And if Kamala Harris does win, half the country will point to this filing as a reason—the latest Justice Department “interference” in an election. Mr. Garland must be proud.
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An involved piece with far more formatting than I can contend with so go to the link. The nut graph? Smith's latest DC filing is kabuki theater that will never get anywhere in court, but rather is timed to allow him to release sundry salacious filings under aegis of a normal filing involving an abnormal case, with the judge tacitly supporting this de facto October surprise effort:
https://shipwreckedcrew.substack.com/p/what-did-the-supreme-court-instruct?r=1qo1e&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&triedRedirect=true
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Exactly so.
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I confess I don't much follow the MSM these days. With that said, I'm surprised I haven't heard more about the NY Appellate hearing re the Trump "fraud" case that resulted in close to a half billion dollar fine against Trump. Apparently it did not go well for the NY AG that filed the case and, if I'm reading it right, embarrisingly so. I've no doubt if it went the other way the MSM would be shouting from the rooftops:
Massive civil fraud verdict against Trump gets frosty reception at New York appeals court
A panel of judges voiced skepticism about the size and validity of the nearly half-billion-dollar judgment.
By ERICA ORDEN
09/26/2024 06:42 PM EDT
NEW YORK — Appeals court judges appeared to question the legitimacy of the civil fraud case against Donald Trump as the former president urged the court Thursday to overturn a judgment against him that has ballooned, with interest, to more than $478 million.
In February, a Manhattan trial judge found that Trump and other defendants — including his adult sons, Don Jr. and Eric, along with several business associates — fraudulently inflated his net worth and the value of his real estate properties to obtain favorable rates from banks and insurers.
The nearly half-billion-dollar penalty ordered by the trial judge initially threatened to trigger a financial crisis for Trump. But a New York appeals court sharply reduced the amount of the bond he had to post to avoid immediate enforcement of the verdict. Trump is now asking that same court to toss out the verdict entirely.
During oral arguments on Thursday, some members of the five-judge appeals court panel suggested that New York Attorney General Tish James had overstepped by using the particular New York fraud statute she used to bring the case against Trump. As soon as Deputy Solicitor General Judith Vale, arguing for James, began her opening remarks, she was cut off by Associate Justice David Friedman, who questioned whether her office had ever before used the statute “to upset a private business transaction that was between equally sophisticated partners.”
Trump calls his civil fraud verdict ‘a form of Navalny’
SharePlay Video
Associate Justice Llinet Rosado chimed in once Friedman finished to add, “and little to no impact on the public marketplace.”
The justices’ questions echoed one of Trump’s central lines of defense: He has argued that no one was harmed by the inflated valuations.
Vale disputed that suggestion, saying “there was absolutely a public impact and a public interest here,” but she continued to field similar questions from other judges.
“I think you hear underneath all these questions, the question of mission creep,” Associate Justice Peter Moulton said. “Has 6312” — the statute in question — “morphed into something that it was not meant to do?”
“I will stress, your honor, that this does have harm to the public and to the markets,” Vale said in response.
Trump’s lawyer, D. John Sauer, also fielded questions about his arguments as the former president seeks to eliminate one of his most serious financial burdens as he heads into the final stretch of the presidential race.
Sauer argued that in the deals in question, there were “no victims, no complaints.” But Moulton wondered, “What about deterrence?”
Even if the transactions at issue in the Trump case “went down fine,” Moulton said, similar fraudulent conduct in the future “might not go down well, and someone would be harmed by that.”
The panel didn’t rule Thursday.
The former president hasn’t had to turn over the full amount of the judgment because a panel of state appeals judges allowed him to put up only a $175 million bond while he appeals the verdict.
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/09/26/trump-civil-fraud-appeal-oral-arguments-00181339
And an analysis here:
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1844426831564505456
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Something to keep track of with the NY court system, is that the names of courts are infuriatingly misnamed.
Normally we have a trial court, appeals courts, and a supreme court.
But that would be too coherent for NY.
The TRIAL courts are called SUPREME COURTS
and the SUPREME COURT is called "The COURT OF APPEALS".
It can be maddening to keep track of this, and even sincere reporters can get befuddled and/or write without the necessary precision for the reader to be sure of the actual meaning of what he is reading.
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https://jameshowardkunstler.substack.com/p/lawfare-is-jihad-against-our-country
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lets see
Yale graduate
Democrat - Jewish
recommended to Trump to appoint by Schumer and Gillibrand
Then Trump appointed him.
In the slander case on the hook
for a ridiculous $146 million.
Let's see if judge is reasonable.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/travesty-federal-judge-to-rule-on-rudy-giuliani-s-assets-amid-146-million-judgment/ss-AA1soBEK?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=40bbd5f5af20469fb0557f57b7b43d5f&ei=32#image=1
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Thanks for noting this. I have been getting "I'm getting fuct" emails from Rudy. Donald seems to have left him hanging? Or did Rudy get himself where he finds himself?
Dunno.
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Have not had a chance to give this a close read yet:
https://thenationalpulse.com/2024/10/18/exclusive-bannon-jail-statement-biden-harris-are-illegally-holding-me-past-my-release-date/
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/democrats-forecast-plan-to-go-after-high-profile-trump-supporters-starting-with-elon-musk/ar-AA1sVFVz?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=aa4aa3b2e4a44c4b9b476b0efe74cb57&ei=12
same as they are doing to Trump.
Funny they don't figure out same for Soros or Clinton org. or Zuckerberg, or even how about some of the DC law firms.
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/democrats-forecast-plan-to-go-after-high-profile-trump-supporters-starting-with-elon-musk/ar-AA1sVFVz?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=aa4aa3b2e4a44c4b9b476b0efe74cb57&ei=12
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-lvRjCAog0
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Yes.
How can we stop the lawfare or control it?
VDH says we can retaliate in kind or lose nobly.
Agree, there is only one way and we have no choice.
Just like the Israelis - > fight back with vigor and furor or get killed.
I listen to most of his podcasts.
His family disowns Victor because they are Leftists and think he has hurt the family name. I think he even stated his own twin as well.
He lost a daughter to leukemia, I think.
Very nice, classy man.
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That has to be tough.
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https://x.com/adambeis/status/1851856421660278903
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here they come. I could just picture Elias Tribe and Obama addressing their army and saying :
It all is all up to you now!
https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=W4sHAQJu&id=61497A94EDE5E061E494A837D9F7A697CB5FFBEB&thid=OIP.W4sHAQJu_EEnt9IbuYMTOwAAAA&mediaurl=https%3A%2F%2Fstatic.miraheze.org%2Fallthetropeswiki%2F0%2F08%2FMarching_lawyers_3144.jpg&cdnurl=https%3A%2F%2Fth.bing.com%2Fth%2Fid%2FR.5b8b0701026efc4127b7d21bb983133b%3Frik%3D6%252ftfy5em99k3qA%26pid%3DImgRaw%26r%3D0&exph=262&expw=350&q=army+of+lawyers&simid=608017720493029633&FORM=IRPRST&ck=5BCE1D5EC5DBE235826B4F2CEB474DE2&selectedIndex=1&itb=0&cw=967&ch=537&ajaxhist=0&ajaxserp=0
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https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=1r4Cy2Zw&id=F780BAF74209B85BA0BD278AD310D0715CE3942D&thid=OIP.1r4Cy2ZwDs-KaAEPT-E9MAAAAA&mediaurl=https%3A%2F%2Fth.bing.com%2Fth%2Fid%2FR.d6be02cb66700ecf8a68010f4fe13d30%3Frik%3DLZTjXHHQENOKJw%26riu%3Dhttp%253a%252f%252f3.bp.blogspot.com%252f-nl_bEbFt_K4%252fUXk4pFcHzCI%252fAAAAAAAAH6E%252fTtT3V0e4Hxs%252fs1600%252farmy%252bof%252blawyers.JPG%26ehk%3DrNHcklm7KBMuFr7KY5OwSbrcdPZucpLrZac8wYwE7TA%253d%26risl%3D%26pid%3DImgRaw%26r%3D0%26sres%3D1%26sresct%3D1%26srh%3D799%26srw%3D1160&exph=253&expw=367&q=army+of+lawyers&simid=608032456499947580&FORM=IRPRST&ck=C5A46A575768F7D8F0ED75D76B9995A9&selectedIndex=3&itb=0&cw=967&ch=537&ajaxhist=0&ajaxserp=0
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https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=Z5a3bfFk&id=CF34B0DAF2E694511788CAFA1A1CAD85D08D244F&thid=OIP.Z5a3bfFkadDAsYcOE5Bu6gHaEK&mediaurl=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2Fpi0dayYjB1M%2Fmaxresdefault.jpg&cdnurl=https%3A%2F%2Fth.bing.com%2Fth%2Fid%2FR.6796b76df16469d0c0b1870e13906eea%3Frik%3DTySN0IWtHBr6yg%26pid%3DImgRaw%26r%3D0&exph=720&expw=1280&q=army+of+lawyers&simid=607998423189166715&FORM=IRPRST&ck=8FB5643BE054D30285DB9070BEEB72D3&selectedIndex=2&itb=0&cw=967&ch=537&ajaxhist=0&ajaxserp=0
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https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2024/11/06/mark_penn_democrats_must_understand_trump_won_and_stand_down_their_lawfare.html
[Doug] Stand down isn't in their DNA.
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" Stand down isn't in their DNA "
And not all ideological either - think of the ocean liners full of money they make from the DC etc gigs.
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https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/rcna178930
wow
this is a shock.
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https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2024/11/06/mark_penn_democrats_must_understand_trump_won_and_stand_down_their_lawfare.html
[Doug] Stand down isn't in their DNA.
Standing down would require them to look at how their tactics lead to the outcomes they see as horrifying. An honest review of their tactics would require that they acknowledge the hypocrisy, falsehoods, hubris, illegality, and politics of personal destruction they tightly embraced. and gazing into that mirror would reveal a root ugliness they can’t bear to behold. Thus the worst of ‘em will stay the course, double down where they can, and hopefully serve to shine a light on the ugliness embrace of “Progressive” Puritanism leads to, while the ones lead astray by egalitarian pie in the sky and related sophistries sold to ‘em will find a mental fetal position from which to fend off the cognitive dissonance coming their way. Hopefully they will eventually note the prevarications, lawfare, unlawful, and unconstitutional tenets and actions they’ve been fed for what they are and eventually and likely partially come around.
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As this piece argues here:
https://legalinsurrection.com/2024/11/resistance-lawfare-abusers-must-be-held-accountable/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=resistance-lawfare-abusers-must-be-held-accountable
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I am torn on this-- certainly these folks deserve the Rule of Law be applied to them, but OTOH I wonder about the political capital that this will cost.
Perhaps this should be left to a well chosen Attorney General?
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I am torn on this-- certainly these folks deserve the Rule of Law be applied to them, but OTOH I wonder about the political capital that this will cost.
Perhaps this should be left to a well chosen Attorney General?
I could live with that, or some sort of truth seeking commission that would waive any sort of prosecution/penalty if full and unambiguous testimony is provided. I don't want to be draconian, but unvarnished accountability should be the bare minimum expected or accepted.
But those that thumb their nose at whatever is created should be landed on. Hard. A smart AG would figure out who was the weakest, most arrogant, polemic link out there and make an example of 'em, then wait for the rest to trample each other as they try to get in line to cop to their acts and avoid a similar fate.
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Well said.
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Trump will have to be careful here—the left will twist his every action—but the scope of the effort to sideline him by any means they could get away with needs to be known:
Hit the Road, Jack. But Don't Go Too Far
After spending at least $50 million in tax dollars to bring two unprecedented indictments against Donald Trump, Special Counsel Jack Smith should get his turn under prying eyes.
JULIE KELLY
NOV 07, 2024
Jack Smith lurched into a Washington courtroom in September, fully aware all eyes had turned to him.
Declassified with Julie Kelly is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Surrounded by a team of federal prosecutors and guarded by a government-paid security detail, Smith, a lanky man with a scruffy beard and ill-fitting suit, stood behind the government’s table with arms folded. He slowly turned around with a partial scowl to appraise the audience—mostly reporters and D.C. residents eager to watch the restart of his January 6-related case against Donald Trump—to make sure he was noticed. He did not speak during the proceedings.
That appearance, perhaps unbeknownst to him at the time, looks like Smith’s last time in a federal courtroom as the special counsel prosecuting Trump. Citing Department of Justice rules that prohibit the prosecution of a sitting president, Smith reportedly is working with his bosses at the DOJ to figure out how to drop both the D.C. case and the classified documents in case in Florida; Smith has appealed Judge Aileen Cannon’s order dismissing the indictment based on the special counsel’s unconstitutional appointment.
The move represents another political fatality tied to Trump’s resounding victory on Tuesday. It also represents another humiliating defeat for the man the media portrayed as a steely war-crimes prosecutor plucked off a high profile international trial at the Hague by Attorney General Merrick Garland in November 2022 to finally realize a longtime DOJ dream: put Donald Trump behind bars.
Stone Cold Loser Loses Again
But the hagiography about Smith—reporters swooned over the silent-type injured triathlete, even covering his stop at a DC sandwich shop in 2023 as “breaking news”—never matched his record. The Supreme Court in 2016 unanimously vacated the bribery conviction of former Virginia Governor Robert McDonnell, a case brought by Smith when he led the DOJ’s public corruption office during the Obama administration. Following Smith’s appointment, McDonnell told Mark Levin that Smith would “rather win than get it right.”
Smith, however, usually does neither. In fact, his prosecutorial resume is a long list of courtroom losses, which makes one wonder why Garland chose him for the job. (More here).
Smith failed to win a single conviction in his prosecution of former Senator John Edwards on campaign finance charges in 2012. One DOJ watchdog group slammed Smith for using an “overly aggressive approach” in pursuing Obama’s 2008 Democratic primary rival and for relying on a “novel interpretation of campaign finance laws” to put Edwards behind bars.
It is an approach he repeated in his two unprecedented criminal indictments of Trump. The four counts in his J6-related case rely on vague conspiracy and obstruction statutes; two of the charges involve 18 USC 1512(c)(2), the post-Enron tampering with documents statute. In June, the Supreme Court reversed how the DOJ had applied that law in hundreds of January 6 cases and the court would have reached the same conclusion about Smith’s interpretation of the law if the case ever made it there.
In fact, the court this year rebuked Smith twice—by denying his highly unusual request to bypass the D.C. appellate court to immediately consider the presidential immunity question and by rendering its landmark decision in Trump v US, which largely gutted the J6 indictment.
Evidence of Misconduct in Classified Docs Case Demands Investigation
Smith’s classified documents case consisted of a hodgepodge of allegations about Trump’s possession of alleged national defense papers after he left office and accusations that he and two aides attempted to obstruct the investigation, which began in February 2022. But the DOJ’s handling of the case represents the best opportunity for a Trump DOJ to turn the tables and investigate main Justice and Special Counsel’s office for numerous offenses.
The case was tainted from the start. Although the alleged crimes occurred in Palm Beach, the DOJ conducted the entire investigation in the Trump-hating courthouse in Washington. This permitted unabashed Trump hater Chief Judge Beryl Howell to act as a rubber stamp for the DOJ’s requests including authorizing grand jury subpoenas and piercing attorney-client privilege claims between Trump and his lawyer, Evan Corcoran, under the rarely-used crime fraud exception.
Smith transferred the case to the proper jurisdiction in southern Florida at the last minute to get an indictment and then ran into a buzzsaw named Judge Aileen Cannon.
Thanks to Cannon’s fierceness—her concerns over the dirty nature of the case dates back to September 2022 when she appointed a third party to vet the items collected during the FBI’s armed raid of Mar-a-Lago the month before—the special counsel’s office was forced to disclose instances of tampering with and perhaps destroying evidence, intimidating witnesses, withholding discovery, and misleading the court.
Court proceedings also revealed egregious misconduct related to the unprecedented armed raid of Mar-a-Lago; agents working out of the Washington and Miami FBI field offices breached the broad terms of the search warrant by ransacking the bedrooms of Melania and Barron Trump. The FBI’s plan included the bureau’s use of lethal force policy, underscoring the excessiveness of the raid, which was altogether unnecessary considering Trump and his lawyers had been cooperating with authorities for months.
Prosecutors later admitted in court that some of the records seized during the raid were not properly handled by investigators; defense attorneys claimed documents were missing.
Defense attorneys also obtained communications between the DOJ, the National Archives, and the Biden White House that demonstrated a behind-the-scenes effort to concoct a documents case as early as May 2021. A Trump DOJ should haul before a grand jury everyone from Biden’s general counsel Jonathan Su to deputy attorney general Lisa Monaco and top NARA officials involved in the scheme.
Conspiracy to defraud, anyone?
Show Us the Money
A full-blown audit into the special counsel’s expenditures should be conducted by either a Trump DOJ or a Republican Congress. Smith’s prosecutors often bragged about “the permanent, indefinite appropriation for independent counsels” allowed under 28 U.S.C. § 591 note, a claim Judge Cannon also doubted.
According to required financial reports, Smith’s team spent at least $35 million in the first 14 months of his investigation, a figure that includes additional support from main Justice. But those costs only cover the period from November 2022 through March 2024; it’s likely Smith blew through another $15 million or so over the last several months, bringing the total to over $50 million.
Expenses include a protective detail for Smith; travel expenses; and millions in unspecified “contractual services.”
Time to see who and what companies profited off the special counsel grift.
Weak Republicans in Congress undoubtedly will resist efforts to investigate and audit Smith but Trump should ignore them.
The American people—as well as Trump himself and his co-defendants—deserve a full accounting of this dirty, rogue, secretive process. And Smith and his accomplices need to be held accountable.
https://www.declassified.live/p/hit-the-road-jack-but-dont-go-too
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https://thefederalist.com/2024/11/12/jack-smith-ditching-his-case-against-trump-is-not-a-concession-its-a-coverup/
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Trump, the Senior Exectutive Service, & (hopefully) rippiing the Deep State out by its roots:
Never Underestimate the Power of Unfinished Business
Take Schedule F, for example
ROBERT W MALONE MD, MS
NOV 12, 2024
The fathomless bottom of the deep state.
The Senior Executive Service (SES) class of federal employees was created under President Carter through the passage of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978. The SES was established to “...ensure that the executive management of the Government of the United States is responsive to the needs, policies, and goals of the Nation and otherwise is of the highest quality.” Another Carter-created component of the State, as is the Department of Education. The SES employees were supposed to ensure top performances in all the various agencies. That was the theory, but the reality is something entirely different, as is so often the case with these initiatives such as the “Department of Homeland Security”.
Members of the SES serve in the key positions just below the top Presidential appointees. SES employees are the major link between these appointees and the rest of the Federal workforce. They operate and oversee nearly every government activity in approximately 75 Federal agencies. They are referred to as members by the Office of Personnel Management and are considered above “employee” designation. They are members of the SES, and don’t you forget that! Today’s SES runs the country.
The SES even has its own flag (which has been largely removed from the government webpages since I last wrote about the SES in June of 2022). and their own non-profit agency called the Senior Executive Association (SEA), whose stated goal is to protect the rights of SES members - which lists both lobbying Congress and instituting legal action to protect SES member status. This non-profit acts like a union.
SES members operate and oversee nearly every government activity in approximately 75 Federal agencies and serve in key positions just below the top Presidential appointees. Thus positioned, the SES bosses enforce political orthodoxy and fidelity to the deep state. They can act in this manner because their employment is virtually guaranteed. An SES employee’s job is so secure that an Agency Head cannot terminate an SES employee unless the Commissioner issues a certificate stating that the termination is in the public interest. Even then, the termination is subject to litigation.
Barack Obama believed that the SES program should be expanded and, through a 2015 executive order, “Strengthening the Senior Executive Service,” sought to expand and “facilitate career executive continuity between administrations.” But more than that, his executive order implemented:
“a comprehensive, integrated, and strategic focus on diversity and inclusion as a key component of the recruitment, hiring, retention, and development of their SES cadre.”
Yep - the federal government has been using DEI-based hiring and promotions for the SES instead of merit, well… ever since Obama’s presidency.
By May 31, 2016, agencies with 20 or more SES positions were tasked with developing a plan “to increase the number of SES members who are rotating to improve talent development, mission delivery, and collaboration.”
Obama’s other objective, other than securing more DEI employees, was to secure more loyal troops for the administration of his chosen successor, Hillary Clinton. Luckily, she then lost to Donald Trump. However, the increased number of SES employees, strengthening their stranglehold on government power and over the presidency, remained.
As it turns out, the Justice Department includes those elite, highly paid bosses from the Senior Executive Service. So does the Department of Homeland Security, from which the SES also deploys personnel into the Secret Service. As does just about every agency in the US government. As of 2018, there were almost 8,000 SES employees.
The other important point about the SES is that the president has no role in choosing them; he can’t re-assign them or fire them. The SES comprises the non-transparent group of managers and elites who run the country from within. They are the employees who quietly block, slow-walk, and defer presidential orders. What President Trump and Kash Patel might call the “deep state.” In effect, our democracy has been turned upside down while being captured by bureaucratic and corporate interests that endorse authoritarian policies - hence, we are now living under a system of “inverted totalitarianism.” The United States has been co-opted into a managed democracy, thanks to Carter and Obama.
President Trump was stymied in his efforts to reform the government due to the SES cadre, and then he finally hit upon a solution. That is an executive order known as “Schedule F,” which he signed in October 2020, just prior to leaving office. Biden canceled the Schedule F executive order on the first day of his presidency.
This new employee classification system would have included federal workers in "confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating character," which are "not normally subject to change as the result of a presidential transition."
The “Schedule F” executive order would have allowed agencies to reclassify policy jobs under a new employment schedule and had proposed to give senior managers greater flexibility in hiring candidates and firing employees. Hence, the SES employees would have functionally become “at will” employees. At-will employment means that an employer can dismiss an employee for any reason, without having to establish "just cause" for termination, as long as the reason is not illegal. At-will employment is the law of the land in all states except Montana.
President Trump stated that this executive order would be reinstated on day one.
But not so fast!
On January 22, 2021, shortly after taking office, President Biden repealed the Schedule F executive order. This action prevented Schedule F from being implemented, as it had not yet taken effect when Trump left office.
In September 2023, the Biden administration, through the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), began working on new regulations to make it difficult to reintroduce Schedule F policies.
On April 4, 2024, OPM issued a final rule aimed at stopping potential future attempts to implement Schedule F or something similar. This rule ensured that the new civil service job protections couldn't be removed by reimplementing schedule F.
However, all of these political machinations may come to naught.
Remember the Chevron deference?
The Chevron deference was a key principle in U.S. administrative law for nearly 40 years, established by the Supreme Court in 1984 in Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. It directed courts to defer to a federal agency's reasonable interpretation of an ambiguous statute that the agency administers.
This doctrine significantly empowered federal agencies by giving them considerable leeway in interpreting and implementing ambiguous statutory provisions. It essentially allowed the administrative state to create laws without congressional oversight.
However, in June 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Chevron doctrine in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo. The Court ruled that the Administrative Procedure Act requires courts to exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority, and courts may not defer to an agency's interpretation of the law simply because a statute is ambiguous.
The end of Chevron Deference represents a major shift in administrative law, reducing the power of federal agencies and increasing judicial scrutiny of agency actions. One of the the implications of the Chevron deference is the reduced power for federal agencies in interpreting laws.
How does this affect schedule F?
The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) may need to provide more robust justifications for its new policies regarding Schedule F, as they can no longer rely on the Chevron deference to support their interpretations of federal employment laws.
The truth is that as soon as President Trump implements Schedule F, the Senior Executives Association may challenge it in court, and the OPM will use their new rules to fight it tooth and nail.
Due to the Chevron deference, this legal fight may be aborted or short-circuited. Time will tell.
On the Legislative side
In 2023, the House adopted an amendment to the annual defense authorization bill for 2023 that would prevent future administrations from reviving Schedule F or similar measures. However, during the reconciliation process between the House and Senate versions of the bill, the Schedule F ban was omitted from the final compromise version. The final version of the 2023 NDAA that was signed into law did not include the language banning future attempts at creating Schedule F, but congress may pull those clauses out of the Democrat party bag of tricks at any time.
The easiest way out of this quandary in the long term is for Congress to amend the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 to clarify the role of the SES employee and other employees within the federal government. This would be a permanent solution instead of a temporary bandaid.
https://www.malone.news/p/never-underestimate-the-power-of
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Goodjob by Malone of going into the weeds on this vital issue.
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Looks like the FEMA directive to not aid hurricane victims with Trump yard signs came from higher up:
https://legalinsurrection.com/2024/11/rep-steube-alleged-text-messages-from-dc-to-fema-directing-them-to-skip-trump-supporters/
ETA: more here: https://hotair.com/david-strom/2024/11/12/fired-fema-official-not-helping-trump-voters-was-fema-policy-in-north-carolina-too-n3796922
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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14069059/fema-worker-marni-washington-fired-breaks-silence-trump-voting-hurricane-victims.html
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So what says the hive mind? Will Smith go out with a whimper or instead try to further impugn Trump by indicting “co-conspirators?
https://www.newsweek.com/jack-smith-resign-before-trump-office-1984953?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1731496854
At the end of the day it’s clear to me his specific goal was to keep Trump from being reelected. He not only failed that task, but arguably enhanced Trump’s chances by so clearly seeking to drop his thumb on justice’s scale. Perhaps that is so obvious he is unable to escape it, but my guess is he’s an ideologue attack dog and will go out with his teeth gnashing.
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Florida's Lawsuit Against FEMA Over Discrimination Against Trump Supporters
The Volokh Conspiracy / by Eugene Volokh / Nov 14, 2024 at 3:16 PM
You can read the Complaint (filed yesterday) in Moody v. Criswell (S.D. Fla.); there are all sorts of interesting federal civil rights litigation and federal courts issues, such as parens patriae, the scope of § 1985(3) liability, the intracorporate conspiracy doctrine, and more. And of course the case raises the factual question of whether the discrimination was the work of a rogue employee (as FEMA seems to argue) or was endorsed by higher ups (as the employee has claimed, and as Florida is asserting). An excerpt from the Complaint:
"[A]void homes advertising Trump." This was the directive that Defendant Marn'i Washington gave to federal relief workers responding to Hurricanes Helene and Milton in Lake Placid, Florida.
While the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has fired Defendant Washington and called her behavior "reprehensible," Defendant Washington insists that she is a "patsy" and that FEMA made her a "scapegoat." Defendant Washington says that similar conduct occurred in North Carolina and throughout areas affected by Hurricanes Helene and Milton. And she represents that senior FEMA officials claiming not to know that the agency was discriminating against Trump supporters are promoting a "lie."
While the facts will continue to come out over the weeks and months, it is already clear that Defendant Washington conspired with senior FEMA officials, as well as those carrying out her orders, to violate the civil rights of Florida citizens. This conspiracy is actionable under 42 U.S.C. § 1985, which creates a cause of action for "[c]onspiracy to interfere with civil rights." See Smith v. Meese, 821 F.2d 1484, 1492 n.5 (11th Cir. 1987) (suggesting that "selectively enforc[ing] a law" by "prosecuting only Republicans" would violate § 1985 (quotations omitted)); accord Lyes v. City of Riviera Beach, 166 F.3d 1332, 1338 (11th Cir. 1999) (en banc) (discussing legislative history suggesting that "actionable conspiracies" under § 1985 "would include those against a person because he was a Democrat" (quotations omitted)); United Bhd. of Carpenters & Joiners of Am., Loc. 610, AFL-CIO v. Scott, 463 U.S. 825, 836 (1983) (suggesting that § 1985(3) "was intended to" protect "Republicans" because Republicans "championed the[] cause" of Black Americans after the Civil War).
Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody sues Defendants under § 1985(3). See Alfred L. Snapp & Son, Inc. v. Puerto Rico, 458 U.S. 592, 607 (1982) (recognizing a State's ability to sue in a parens patriae capacity based on discrimination against its residents); Abrams v. 11 Cornwell Co., 695 F.2d 34, 38–40 (2d Cir. 1982) (applying Alfred L. Snapp to a claim under § 1985(3)), vacated in part on other grounds, 718 F.2d 22, 25 (2d Cir. 1983).
General Moody seeks nominal damages, punitive damages, and a declaration that Defendants conspired to interfere with the civil rights of Florida citizens.
I'm not an expert on the federal statutory questions here (or on the parens patriae doctrine), and I'm too slammed right now to research further, so I thought I'd just pass along the Complaint, which sets forth the state's argument; I'll also pass along any motion to dismiss when and if that's filed.
The one thing I can say substantively is that, even if FEMA employees had faced hostility from some conservative or pro-Trump householders, that can't justify an "avoid homes advertising Trump" directive—just as the misconduct of some Jews or Catholics couldn't justify an "avoid homes displaying mezuzahs or crucifixes" directive, or the hostility of some Black Lives Matter supporters to the police couldn't justify the police denying services to homes displaying Black Lives Matter flags.
The post Florida's Lawsuit Against FEMA Over Discrimination Against Trump Supporters appeared first on Reason.com.
https://reason.com/volokh/2024/11/14/floridas-lawsuit-against-fema-over-discrimination-against-trump-supporters/
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From here in the bleachers, I can't say I am confident he is innocent.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/i-am-going-to-prison-steve-bannon-faces-more-criminal-charges/ss-AA1u7bOC?ocid=msedgntp&pc=HCTS&cvid=8937f0ef1f8140029e62c2e00e14eb73&ei=18
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https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/donald-trump-jr-new-york-da/2024/11/22/id/1189089/
I can't believe we are even talking about this nonsense anymore?
No case, never was, twisting of a Fed law in a state jurisdiction, by a Dem prosecutor who was out to get Trump, in front of a Dem majority jury, in front of a Dem judge in a Dem city.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5TeFSqj21Y
on Schiff who took his courses from LLL little Larry lib:
https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/alan-dershowtiz-adam-schiff-donald-trump/2024/11/26/id/1189489/
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https://dailycaller.com/2024/12/03/chris-cuomo-stephen-a-smith-biden-pardon-trump/
https://dailycaller.com/2024/12/02/no-moral-choice-dershowitz-says-biden-must-pardon-jan-6-protesters-after-granting-son-hunter-clemency/
https://dailycaller.com/2024/12/02/what-does-that-feel-like-cnn-host-makes-dem-rep-watch-video-of-himself-saying-biden-would-never-pardon-hunter/
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A National Treasury Employees Union spokesman said the Department of Justice (DOJ) Civil Rights Division and Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD) will begin votes to unionize on 12 December. (The unionization votes are scheduled to end on 8 and 9 January. However, disputes over the votes could push certification months past Trump’s 20 January inauguration, giving Trump time to reimplement “Schedule F” allowing the Trump administration to fire the DOJ employees. – R.C.)
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(2) CURRENT AND FORMER DOJ OFFICIALS PREPARE LEGAL DEFENSE: Defense attorneys said they have fielded calls from current and former Department of Justice (DOJ) officials, career federal prosecutors, and FBI agents over concerns that the incoming Trump administration will target them with investigations. Sara Kropf, a partner at law firm Kropf Moseley, said criminal prosecutions are unlikely due to a higher burden of proof but the incoming Trump administration could use “the low hanging fruit” of DOJ Inspector General investigations against current and former DOJ officials to “destroy their career prospects.” (The high cost of legal defense was weaponized against Trump administration officials during Trump’s first term. Current and former Biden DOJ officials are concerned they will face high legal defense costs, and are in talks with defense lawyers over free and discounted legal representation. – R.C.)
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https://dailycaller.com/2024/12/19/fani-willis-disqualified-prosecuting-trump-case/
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https://dailycaller.com/2024/12/19/fani-willis-disqualified-prosecuting-trump-case/
More on this, with a lot of quotes from the decision, here:
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/miacathell/2024/12/19/fani-willis-disqualified-n2649305
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Former DOJ officials violating rules, regs, & ethics, with the walls (hopefully) closing in:
https://nypost.com/2024/12/30/us-news/three-senior-doj-officials-leaked-non-public-investigative-information-days-before-an-election-inspector-general-finds/?utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=nypost&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR1Tb_P1hQBFs-tHMw0OKUNeK5el_WPKsGrnL32zv8D9PdenBMDFvCt2384_aem_a3tMV6-RPizMsnYkSPNGCQ
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Pundits and historians will be a long time sorting out the magnitude of Donald Trump’s electoral victory but one thing already is clear: Trump not only triumphed in the presidential contest, he also won the lawfare war. The latter—a victory for the constitutional foundation of the country —may prove as consequential as the former.
“Lawfare” is political war fought by other means: partisan warfare conducted in the courts and the media. Trump spent the entire Biden presidency battling lawfare cases brought by Democrat-allied prosecutors and judges—by Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis, New York State Attorney General Letitia James, New York judges Juan Merchan and Arthur Engoron, and others.
Trump fought back in the courts and in the court of public opinion. His election win not only deals death blows to the Democrat-aligned lawfare cases, but possibly to the practice of lawfare itself. Let’s take a moment to survey the legal landscape:
Jack Smith Goes Down
In November 2022, President Joe Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland, appointed prosecutor Jack Smith as special counsel for two Justice Department investigations: the January 6, 2021, events at the U.S. Capitol, and separately, alleged Trump mishandling of classified documents. It was a particularly brazen lawfare move because by that time, the outline of the 2024 presidential contest was clear: Donald Trump was the frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination and Joe Biden was signaling that he would run for re-election. The Biden Justice Department investigating the GOP presidential candidate seemed an outlandish and illegal proposition, but Garland and Smith pressed on. In July, Judge Aileen Cannon had seen enough and dismissed the classified documents case on the grounds that the special counsel was unlawfully appointed. In November, after the election, the Justice Department threw in the towel, moving to drop all January 6 charges against Trump on the grounds that a sitting president cannot be charged with a crime. Trump rightfully claimed victory. “I persevered, against all odds, and WON,” he wrote on Truth Social. He added, “These cases, like all of the other cases I have been forced to go through, are empty and lawless, and should never have been brought,”
Bragg’s New York Criminal Case in Death Spiral
Deep blue New York produced a cadre of lawfare warriors in pursuit of the once and future Republican president. One of its chief combatants was Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, who campaigned for office on an anti-Trump platform, reminding voters that he had “sued Trump more than a hundred times.” Before charging Trump in April 2023 with thirty-four felony counts of falsifying business records—generally a low-level misdemeanor—Bragg had led a civil lawsuit against the Trump Foundation and criminal cases against the Trump Organization and its chief financial officer. Trump was convicted in May on the business records charges, but his lawyers are asking that the case be thrown out on numerous grounds, including that any sentencing would unconstitutionally interfere with Trump’s conduct of a second term in the presidency. Bragg recently petitioned the court to put the case on ice for the entirety of Trump’s second president term—a move the Trump team ridiculed as “a total failure of the prosecution” signaling that the case is “effectively over.”
Lawfare Judges Under Pressure
Presiding over the flurry of appeals in the business-records case is Justice Juan Merchan, another New Yorker with a lawfare pedigree. Earlier this month, Merchan threw out Trump’s appeal to dismiss the case on the basis of presidential immunity. Like most New York judges, Merchan rose through the ranks of the Democratic Party’s political machine, which plays a significant role in state judicial appointments. Before becoming a judge, Merchan served as a prosecutor in the Manhattan DA’s office and worked for the New York attorney general. In 2006, Mayor Michael Bloomberg appointed him to a family court judgeship, and he was elevated to criminal court in 2009. In July, Merchan received a “caution letter” from the New York Commission of Judicial Conduct warning him about donations to Joe Biden and other Democratic causes. Merchan’s daughter, Loren, is president of the left-wing digital advertising firm, Authentic Campaigns. Juan Merchan will have plenty of power over the Trump appeals in the coming months, but he will not have the final word. Trump can appeal to higher New York courts and, ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court.
Trump also faced a high-stakes legal assault from New York State Attorney General Letitia James in a civil fraud case presided over by Justice Arthur Engoron. James and Engoron both came up through the progressive ranks of the New York Democratic Party. Like Alvin Bragg, James used Trump as a punching bag in her campaign for political office. She denounced Trump as an “illegitimate president” and vowed to “shine a bright light into every corner of his real estate dealings.” Engoron, a longtime Democrat, protested the Vietnam War at Columbia University and has been a member of the ACLU for three decades. Engoron presided over a non-jury civil fraud trial related to real-estate valuations by the Trump Organization and stunned legal observers on both sides of the political aisle in February with a guilty verdict ordering Trump to pay a staggering $335 million penalty—plus rapidly growing interest and additional fines. Trump immediately vowed an appeal and at a September hearing, New York appellate judges signaled skepticism about the Engoron ruling.
The Georgia Case Collapses
Meanwhile, in Georgia, Fulton County DA Fani Willis’s case against Trump for allegedly conspiring to change the outcome of the 2020 election has collapsed. A state appeals court removed Willis and her entire office from the Trump prosecution over a conflict of interest involving a romantic relationship between Willis and another member of her team. The Georgia Court of Appeals panel said the “appearance of impropriety” was so powerful that “this is the rare case in which disqualification is mandated and no other remedy will suffice to restore public confidence in the integrity of these proceedings.” Willis, a longtime Democrat, can appeal to the Georgia Supreme Court, but the legal tides are running against her. Trump’s Georgia lawyer issued a statement saying that the decision “puts an end to a politically motivated persecution of the next President of the United States.”
Judicial Watch has been investigating the lawfare against Trump for years. Our own Tom Fitton was dragged into a Jack Smith grand jury for, as he noted on X, “four hours of harassing questions about First Amendment-protected activity and debates about electors, tweets, what I ate for lunch at the White House, and whether I watched Trump’s election night speech. It was all about politics.”
At Judicial Watch, we continue to closely track lawfare developments, push for more accountability, and report to the public. Among our recent moves, we’re seeking a special master in our lawsuit for Fani Willis’s communication with lawfare warriors Jack Smith and the House January 6 Committee; earlier this month, Willis admitted communicating with the January 6 Committee, but released only a one already public letter. In February, we protested a Biden Administration move to keep secret the names of top Jack Smith staff. In 2023, we sued the Justice Department for records of funding and assistance between Smith’s office and Willis’s office, and we obtained information showing Manhattan DA Bragg hiring high-priced lawyers to beat back Congressional inquiries into his Trump prosecutions.
There’s more to come. Stay tuned.
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to run around our nation's laws:
https://www.breitbart.com/immigration/2024/12/30/mexico-sending-hundreds-lawyers-aid-illegal-migrants-u-s-a/
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Vid displays the relationships between a "Progressive" legal NGO, its funding sources, and those who they fund. Interestingly, they give funds to the people that fund them, which doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense unless you are seeking to hopelessly tangle the money in the hope of making your finances difficult to unravel:
https://rumble.com/v64v8q1-who-funds-the-national-womens-law-center.html
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Interesting thread letting us peak behind the curtain where Soros, sundry prosecutors, and NGOs and their various funding & policy circle jerks:
@PeterBernegger
George Soros in Oshkosh Wisconsin. Surprise ending -
This is a doozy of a story, national in scope; might take 30 tweets.
George Soros is controlling Winnebago County, WI District Attorney Eric D. Sparr through the Fair and Just Prosecution non-profit ("FJP").
I call for the resignation of Eric Sparr, and you will see why from the 471 emails I obtained from his office.
This is national in scope; upwards of 70 local district attorneys are being controlled by FJP.
Media Research Center ("MCR") did a great job of exposing this, where they found: “[FJP] directed Soros prosecutors to manipulate the rule of law concerning illegal immigration, drugs, abortion, election integrity, capital punishment and laws against childhood sex changes.”
@theMRC
Breaking: FJP is funded in part by George Soros....but the big funding is coming from YOU the taxpayer, via the US Treasury!
FJP had these Soros-backed attorneys sign 33 pledges to not enforce certain laws — including election integrity measures and immigration laws.
“directed Soros prosecutors to manipulate the rule of law concerning illegal immigration, drugs, abortion, election integrity, capital punishment and laws against childhood sex changes.”
MRC’s yearlong investigation suggests that Soros maintained influence over his chosen candidates after their elections were over. FJP had the Soros-backed attorneys sign 33 pledges to not enforce certain laws — including election integrity measures and immigration laws — and attend more than 50 meetings or “convenings,” some of which were “mandatory.”
FJP pressed prosecutors to let criminals off the hook if they are black, having them pledge to “reduc[e] racial disparities in case outcomes by at least 20%.”
Let's start with the money: see the third image here? It is from the Tides Center's website. FJP admits they get their funding from the Tides Center. The image here shows in fact FJP is a partner of the Tides Center.
The Tides Network contains five separate legal entities: Tides Center, Tides Advocacy, Tides Foundation, Tides Two Rivers Fund, and Tides Inc., per the NGO Monitor.
Funding
In 2022, the Tides Network’s total revenue was $674.1 million; total expenses (primarily grants and awards) were $1 billion.
In 2021, Tides received $25.8 million from the Open Society Foundation.
In 2019-2021, the Tides Network received $44,980 from the New Israel Fund.
In 2023-2026, the Tides Center received $540,000 from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, of which American NGO Palestine Legal received $240,000 and the Adalah Justice Project received $300,000.
Miriam Krinsky is the Executive Director of Fair and Just Prosecution, beginning in 2023. But before that she was the Executive Director of the Tides Center. Back in 2008 she worked for UCLA - as a lecturer yet she was/is not a professor.
She makes $745,962 per year, you're paying for most of that.
I know that because FJP gets their funding from the Tides Center as mentioned. The Tides Center got much of their funding from the federal government. $31.2 million in federal government grants in 2022.
FJP even controls what Eric Sparr posts on the Winnebago County government website, have a look at one of the 471 emails:
"Good morning, Eric- hope you had a nice weekend! Circling back to confirm we can definitely make that adjustment to the quote and will hold on to that language from your social media post for future use (we often need good thoughts like that!).
Thank you again for bringing your voice to this effort, and I hope you have a swell week,
Calvin
On Fri, Feb 23, 2024 at 10:48 AM Sparr, Eric <Eric.Sparr@da.wi.gov> wrote:
Hello, thank you! I hope things are well with you too.
I would be comfortable with the draft statement, other than I would want the word “inhumane” removed.
Also, below is what we put out on social media when we did the tours, so feel free to use any of this:
“As prosecutors, we hear about bad things every day. There are not a lot of police reports about people doing great, responsible, pro-social activities. We regularly see people placed in jail or prison, and make recommendations for those things as well. We do this from the relative safety and sterility of an office or a courtroom. There is always a risk that prosecutors, like some other players in the criminal justice system, could become desensitized to the magnitude, the emotions, and the reality of some of the decisions that we have to make. Seeing the impact of our decisions firsthand helps to make sure that we do not lose this perspective. That is why I have pushed an expectation that prosecutors in the Winnebago County District Attorney’s Office, on an annual basis, will be visiting institutions where the people we prosecute are sent, or doing police ride-alongs to see with our own eyes what we often merely read about in police reports.”
Thanks,
Eric
From: Calvin Jordan <cjordan@fairandjustprosecution.org>
Sent: Friday, February 23, 2024 9:44 AM
To: Sparr, Eric <Eric.Sparr@da.wi.gov>
Cc: Miriam Krinsky <krinskym@krinsky.la>; Amy Fettig <afettig@fairandjustprosecution.org>; Alyssa Kress <akress@fairandjustprosecution.org>
Subject: Quote for FJP Prison Visit Pledge Press Release
You don't often get email from cjordan@fairandjustprosecution.org. Learn why this is important
Good morning, DA Sparr- happy Friday, and I hope all is well!
Within the next week or so, we'll reissue the prison visit pledge you've signed onto and we'd love to bring your voice to a quote for FJP's press release, if you're interested. We've drafted the quote below but welcome any edits you may have:
“Prosecutors have an obligation to acknowledge the often deeply disturbing realities of incarceration if they are truly committed to the pursuit of justice. Seeing firsthand some of the inhumane conditions we subject people to in these facilities emphasizes why we must urgently end our overreliance on incarceration and embrace new visions for public safety, accountability and rehabilitation."
A full draft of the release is attached; please let us know whether you're on board with the quote or if you have any questions.
Thanks in advance for your consideration of this request, as well as for signing on the pledge again!
Cheers,
Calvin
--
Calvin Jordan (he/him)
Communications Manager
Fair and Just Prosecution
cjordan@fairandjustprosecution.org | (954) 682-3998"
Based on documents I have Winnebago County District Attorney Eric D. Sparr has withheld numerous public records I requested from him.
If an official intentionally destroys, conceals, or alters records to avoid disclosure, they may face criminal charges under Wis. Stat. § 946.72, which prohibits tampering with public records.
Eric Sparr was appointed Winnebago County District Attorney in 2022 by liberal governor Tony Evers.
Wait till you see all the district attorneys across the nation who signed pledges to FJP. Working for Soros, not us the people.
Much more coming on all this....
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Here’s what happens when you are charged with securing a conviction at any (constitutional) cost, regardless of whether it will survive scrutiny by a higher court:
How Jack Smith destroyed his own case against Trump
BY JONATHAN TURLEY, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 01/11/25 10:30 AM ET
The expected release of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report will occur as early as this weekend, albeit without those sections dealing with the Florida documents case. (Other defendants are still facing prosecution in that case.) However, the most glaring omission will be arguably an explanation of how Smith lost this war without firing a single shot in a trial.
After more than two years, two separate cases and countless appeals (not to mention more than $50 million spent), Smith left without presenting a single witness, let alone charge, at trial. It is an example of how a general can have the largest army and unlimited resources and yet defeat himself with a series of miscalculations.
History probably won’t be kind to Smith, whose record bespeaks a “parade general” — a prosecutor who offered more pretense than progress in the prosecution of an American president.
Indeed, this report will be one of Smith’s last chances to display a case that notably never got close to an actual trial. One-sided and unfiltered, it will have all of the thrill of a Sousa march of a regiment in full dress. We know because we have seen much of this before. At every juncture, Smith has taken his case out on parade in the court of public opinion.
The Smith report will reportedly concern only the Washington case alleging crimes related to Jan. 6 and the 2020 election — a case that was always a bridge too far for Smith.
When first appointed, Smith had a straightforward and relatively easy case to make against Trump over his removal and retention of presidential materials. The case was not without controversy. Some of us questioned the selective nature of the prosecution given past violations by other presidents, particularly as shown by the violations of President Biden going back decades found by another special counsel.
However, the case originally focused on the conspiracy and false statements during the federal investigation into the documents at Mar-a-Lago. Those are well-established crimes that Smith could have brought to trial quickly with a solid shot for conviction.
But Smith’s undoing has always been his appetite. That was evident when he was unanimously reversed by the Supreme Court in his case against former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R).
In Florida, Smith was in signature form. He took a simple case and loaded it up with press-grabbing charges regarding the retention of classified material. In so doing, he slowed the case to a crawl. As a defense lawyer who has handled classified documents cases, I said at the outset that I did not believe he could get this case to a jury before the 2024 election, and that after that election, Smith might not have a case to present. Smith had outmaneuvered himself.
Then came the Washington filing, the subject of this forthcoming report. It was another vintage Smith moment. Smith played to the public in a case that pushed both the Constitution and statutory provisions beyond the breaking point. He simply could not resist, and he was only encouraged after the assignment of Judge Tanya Chutkan, a judge viewed by many as predisposed against Trump.
In a sentencing hearing of a Jan. 6 rioter in 2022, Chutkan had said that the rioters “were there in fealty, in loyalty, to one man — not to the Constitution.” She added then, “t’s a blind loyalty to one person who, by the way, remains free to this day.” That “one person” was then brought to her for trial by Smith.
The D.C. case was doomed from the outset by both a prosecutor and judge who, in their zeal to bag Trump, yielded to every temptation. As time ticked away, Smith became almost apoplectic in demanding an expedited path to trial, including cutting short appeals. After refusing to recuse herself, Chutkan seemed to indulge Smith at every turn. But the Supreme Court failed to agree that speed should trump substance in such reviews.
With both cases slipping out of his grasp, Smith then threw a final Hail Mary. He asked Chutkan to let him file what was basically a 165-page summary of this report against Trump before the election. There was no apparent reason for the public release of the filing, except to influence the election — a motivation long barred by Justice Department rules.
Chutkan, of course, allowed it anyway, despite admitting that the request was “procedurally irregular.”
It did not work. Although the press and pundits eagerly repeated the allegations in the filing, the public had long ago reached its own conclusion and rendered its own verdict in November.
In my view, Smith’s D.C. case would never have been upheld, even if he had made it to a favorable jury in front of a motivated judge. As established by the court in Trump v. United States, Smith could not rely on much of his complaint due to violating constitutionally protected areas.
Smith responded to the immunity decision again in typical Smith fashion, largely keeping the same claims with minimal changes. His new indictment was to indictments what shrinkflation is to consumer products — the same package with less content. As in the McDonnell case, Smith was going for conviction at all costs, despite a high likelihood of the case eventually being overturned.
Then the public effectively put an end to both cases by electing Trump.
The Smith investigation should be a case study for future prosecutors in what not to do. An abundance of appetite and arrogance can prove as deadly as a paucity of evidence and authority.
Ironically, Smith will not be the only special counsel offering such a cautionary tale. The report of Special Counsel David Weiss into the Hunter Biden controversy will also be released soon. Weiss was widely denounced for allowing major crimes to lapse against Hunter Biden and offering an embarrassing sweetheart plea deal that collapsed in open court. Ironically, Weiss succeeded by minimizing his charges (for the wrong reason). In that way, Weiss has one claim that Smith does not: He made it to court and secured a conviction. Indeed, he was about to prosecute a second case when President Biden pardoned his son.
Weiss’s report will likely only increase questions over his failure to pursue Hunter more aggressively. For Smith, the question is whether he was too aggressive, to the detriment of his own prosecution.
Prosecutions are not the sole measure of success for a special prosecutor. At times, the report itself can be of equal, if not greater, importance to the public.
This is not one of those cases.
The public will be given Smith’s detailed account of a case that was never brought and would likely never have held up. At more than $50 million, it is arguably the biggest flop since “The Adventures of Pluto Nash.“ The difference is that it did not take more than two years to watch Eddie Murphy’s film disaster, and the actor did not then write up a report on how good the movie really was.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
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https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/trump-felony-prosecutorial-liberalism/
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https://www.declassified.live/p/jack-smiths-final-stunt
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https://www.roberthjackson.org/speech-and-writing/the-federal-prosecutor/ The Federal Prosecutor
THE FEDERAL PROSECUTOR
BY ROBERT H JACKSON
“The qualities of a good prosecutor are as elusive and as impossible to define as those which mark a gentleman. And those who need to be told would not understand it anyway.”
It would probably be within the range of that exaggeration permitted in Washington to say that assembled in this room is one of the most powerful peace-time forces known to our country. The prosecutor has more control over life, liberty, and reputation than any other person in America. His discretion is tremendous. He can have citizens investigated and, if he is that kind of person, he can have this done to the tune of public statements and veiled or unveiled intimations. Or the prosecutor may choose a more subtle course and simply have a citizen's friends interviewed. The prosecutor can order arrests, present cases to the grand jury in secret session, and on the basis of his one-sided presentation of the facts, can cause the citizen to be indicted and held for trial. He may dismiss the case before trial, in which case the defense never has a chance to be heard. Or he may go on with a public trial. If he obtains a conviction, the prosecutor can still make recommendations as to sentence, as to whether the prisoner should get probation or a suspended sentence, and after he is put away, as to whether he is a fit subject for parole. While the prosecutor at his best is one of the most beneficent forces in our society, when he acts from malice or other base motives, he is one of the worst.
These powers have been granted to our law-enforcement agencies because it seems necessary that such a power to prosecute be lodged somewhere. This authority has been granted by people who really wanted the right thing done- wanted crime eliminated-but also wanted the best in our American traditions preserved.
Because of this immense power to strike at citizens, not with mere individual strength, but with all the force of government itself, the post of federal district attorney from the very beginning has been safeguarded by presidential appointment, requiring confirmation of the senate of the United States. You are thus required to win an expression of confidence in your character by both the legislative and the executive branches of the government before assuming the responsibilities of a federal prosecutor.
Your responsibility in your several districts for law enforcement and for its methods cannot be wholly surrendered to Washington, and ought not to be assumed by a centralized department of justice. It is an unusual and rare instance in which the local district attorney should be superseded in the handling of litigation, except where be requests help of Washington. It is also clear that with his knowledge of local sentiment and opinion, his contact with and intimate knowledge of the views of the court, and his acquaintance with the feelings of the group from which jurors are drawn, it is an unusual case in which his judgment should be overruled.
Experience, however, has demonstrated that some measure of centralized control is necessary. In the absence of it different district attorneys were striving for different interpretations or applications of an act, or were pursuing different conceptions of policy. Also, to put it mildly, there were differences in the degree of diligence and zeal in different districts. To promote uniformity of policy and action, to establish some standards of performance, and to make available specialized help, some degree of centralized administration was found necessary.
Our problem, of course, is to balance these opposing considerations. I desire to avoid any lessening of the prestige and influence of the district attorneys in their districts. At the same time we must proceed in all districts with that uniformity of policy which is necessary to the prestige of federal law.
Nothing better can come out of this meeting of law enforcement officers than a rededication to the spirit of fair play and decency that should animate the federal prosecutor. Your positions are of such independence and importance that while you are being diligent, strict, and vigorous in law enforcement you can also afford to be just. Although the government technically loses its case, it has really won if justice has been done. The lawyer in public office is justified in seeking to leave behind him a good record. But he must remember that his most alert and severe, but just, judges will be the members of his own profession, and that lawyers rest their good opinion of each other not merely on results accomplished but on the quality of the performance. Reputation has been called "the shadow cast by one's daily life." Any prosecutor who risks his day-to-day professional name for fair dealing to build up statistics of success has a perverted sense of practical values, as well as defects of character. Whether one seeks promotion to a. judgeship, as many prosecutors rightly do, or whether he returns to private practice, he can have no better asset than to have his profession recognize that his attitude toward those who feel his power has been dispassionate, reasonable and just.
The federal prosecutor has now been prohibited from engaging in political activities. I am convinced that a good-faith acceptance of the spirit and letter of that doctrine will relieve many district attorneys from the embarrassment of what have heretofore been regarded as legitimate expectations of political service. There can also be no doubt that to be closely identified with the intrigue, the money raising, and the machinery of a particular party or faction may present a prosecuting officer with embarrassing alignments and associations. I think the Hatch Act should be utilized by federal prosecutors as a protection against demands on their time and their prestige to participate in the operation of the machinery of practical politics.
There is a most important reason why the prosecutor should have, as nearly as possible, a detached and impartial view of all groups in his community. Law enforcement is not automatic. It isn't blind. One of the greatest difficulties of the position of prosecutor is that he must pick his cases, because no prosecutor can even investigate all of the eases in which he receives complaints. If the department of justice were to make even a pretense of reaching every probable violation of federal law, ten times its present staff would be inadequate. We know that no local police force can strictly enforce the traffic laws, or it would arrest half the driving population on any given morning, What every prosecutor is practically required to do is to select the cases for prosecution and to select those in which the offense is the most flagrant, the public harm the greatest, and the proof the most certain.
If the prosecutor is obliged to choose his cases, it follows that he can choose his defendants. Therein is the most dangerous power of the prosecutor: that he will pick people that he thinks he should get, rather than pick cases that need to be prosecuted. With the law books filled with a great assortment of crimes, a prosecutor stands a fair chance of finding at least a technical violation of some act on the part of almost anyone. In such a case, it is not a question of discovering the commission of a crime and then looking for the man who has committed it, it is a question of picking the man and then searching the law books, or putting investigators to work, to pin some offense on him. It is in this realm-in which the prosecutor picks some person whom he dislikes or desires to embarrass, or selects some group of unpopular persons and then looks for an offense, that the greatest danger of abuse of prosecuting power lies. It is here that law enforcement becomes personal, and the real crime becomes that of being unpopular with the predominant or governing group, being attached to the wrong political views, or being personally obnoxious to or in the way of the prosecutor himself.
In times of fear or hysteria· political, racial, religious, social, and economic groups, often from the best of motives, cry for the scalps of individuals or groups because they do not like their views. Particularly do we need to be dispassionate and courageous in those cases which deal with so called "subversive activities." They are dangerous to civil liberty because the prosecutor has no definite standards to determine what constitutes a "subversive activity," such as we have for murder or larceny. Activities which seem benevolent and helpful to wage earners, persons on relief, or those who are disadvantaged in the struggle for existence may be regarded as "subversive" by those whose property interests might be burdened or affected thereby. Those who are in office are apt to regard as "subversive" the activities of any of those who would bring about a change of administration. Some of our soundest constitutional doctrines were once punished as subversive. We must not forget that it was not so long ago that both the term "Republican" and the term "Democrat" were epithets with sinister meaning to denote persons of radical tendencies that were "subversive" of the order of things then dominant.
In the enforcement of laws that protect our national integrity and existence, we should prosecute any and every act of violation, but only overt acts, not the expression of opinion, or activities such as the holding of meetings, petitioning of congress, or dissemination of news or opinions. Only by extreme care can we protect the spirit as well as the letter of our civil liberties, and to do so is a responsibility of the federal prosecutor.
Another delicate task is to distinguish between the federal and the local in law-enforcement activities. We must bear in mind that we are concerned only with the prosecution of acts which the congress has made federal offenses. Those acts we should prosecute regardless of local sentiment, regardless of whether it exposes lax local enforcement, regardless of whether it makes or breaks local politicians.
But outside of federal law each locality has the right under our system of government to fix its own standards of law enforcement and of morals. And the moral climate of the United States is as varied as its physical climate. For example, some states legalize and permit gambling, some states prohibit it legislatively and protect it administratively, and some try to prohibit it entirely. The same variation of attitudes towards other law-enforcement problems exists. The federal government could not enforce one kind of law in one place and another kind elsewhere. It could hardly adopt strict standards for loose states or loose standards for strict states without doing violence to local sentiment. In spite of the temptation to divert our power to local conditions where they have become offensive to our sense of decency, the only long-term policy that will save federal justice from being discredited by entanglements with local politics is that it confine itself to strict and impartial enforcement of federal law, letting the chips fall in the community where they may. Just as there should be no permitting of local considerations to stop federal enforcement, so there should be no striving to enlarge our power over local affairs and no use of federal prosecutions to exert an indirect influence that would be unlawful if exerted directly.
The qualities of a good prosecutor are as elusive and as impossible to define as those which mark a gentleman. And those who need to be told would not understand it anyway. A sensitiveness to fair play and sportsmanship is perhaps the best protection against the abuse of power, and the citizen's safety lies in the prosecutor who tempers zeal with human kindness, who seeks truth and not victims, who serves the law and not factional purposes, and who approaches his task with humility.
View Full Transcript
Publication Date
December 1, 1940
Citation
24 J. Am. Jud. Soc’y 18 (1940), 31 J. Crim. L. 3 (1940) (address at Conference of United States Attorneys, Washington, D.C., April 1, 1940).
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Warren gets outed on X:
Sam Altman Chats Back to Sen. Warren
He doesn’t sound intimidated, after giving to Trump’s inaugural.
By
The Editorial Board
Jan. 20, 2025 at 5:44 pm ET
Democrats are used to bullying corporations, but maybe the tactic is losing potency. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Michael Bennet sent a letter last week to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to bludgeon him for contributing to President Trump’s inauguration fund. Mr. Altman responded by posting it online for all to see.
OPINION: POTOMAC WATCH
WSJ Opinion Potomac Watch
Donald Trump Promises a ‘Golden Age’ in His Inaugural Address
“Big Tech companies have come under increased scrutiny from federal regulators,” the Senators wrote. “We are concerned that your company and other Big Tech donors are using your massive contributions to the inaugural fund to cozy up to the incoming Trump administration.” Mr. Altman was intending “to personally donate $1 million,” according to the letter.
“Funny, they never sent me one of these for contributing to democrats,” Mr. Altman commented on X. The donation described by Ms. Warren and Mr. Bennet “was a personal contribution as you state,” he added, so he was “confused about the questions given that my company did not make a decision.” Both points hit home, and they show what the Senators are really doing here.
Kamala Harris’s political team raised more than $1 billion. President Biden’s inaugural in 2020 got about $62 million, and that donor club included companies such as Pfizer, Boeing and Uber, as well as the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, according to Reuters. We can’t recall Democrats taking umbrage.
The letter from Ms. Warren and Mr. Bennet says Mr. Altman has “a clear and direct interest in obtaining favors from the incoming administration,” since his company is “the subject of ongoing federal investigations and regulatory actions.” Have they considered that a punitive regulatory environment might be what’s driving tech CEOs to Mr. Trump?
Companies that reply to browbeating letters by apologetically pledging to do more on progressive priorities encourage the coercive tactic. Kudos to Mr. Altman for calling it out.
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/sam-altman-elizabeth-warren-michael-bennet-openai-donald-trump-inauguration-fund-72c2970f?st=UgqRn1
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Clinton's "tool" a Harvard law grad probably was contacted by Harvard's Larry Lib to block the buy out plan:
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/02/06/trump-federal-employee-buyout-court-challenge-.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_A._O%27Toole_Jr.
deep state pinstripes and alligator shoes .......
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https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/08/judge-blocks-doge-team-treasury-department-elon-musk-00203248
Isn't it interesting that these judges all seem to be from Harvard? Or occas. from another LEFT wing Ivy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_A._Engelmayer
Their little cabal of DNC ops and many of who probably know Larry Lib.
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-fires-nation-s-archivist/ar-AA1yFm4g?ocid=msedgntp&pc=HCTS&cvid=7bb256370af943eaa580dab0a715d202&ei=16
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I am not sure of this.
Don't know the inside scoop
But National Archives is supposed to retreive the records are they not.
And Trump seemed to be the only ex President that did not comply when asked.
The NA did not set up the MAL raid.
Firing people for doing what they were supposed to do is not necessarily a conspiracy.
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https://pjmedia.com/rick-moran/2025/02/09/new-york-state-democrats-want-to-delay-special-election-to-replace-stefanik-until-november-n4936829
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The way that I have it filed in my thinking is that they asked for papers/records to which he had legitimate legal claim under the Presidential Records Act and that the NA played games on behalf of enabling some of the Jack Smith persecution of lawfare against Trump.
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/news/content/ar-AA1yMs1z?ocid=sapphireappshare&fbclid=IwY2xjawIXsIJleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHa8w-uY5SWoaBovxLtKnVyjQIgb1xttBEtGmxRCtsT9_j4I9twXa5v0fSA_aem_PvcPbGcS5rSvSgv4vQUUcA
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For those playing at home, links to the current suits against Trump and the changes he’s authored:
https://x.com/ProfMJCleveland/status/1889336000754655492
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Site tracking the progress, for lack of a better term, of the injunction against Trump taking executive action. Note the attached .pdfs and such:
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69628289/hampton-dellinger-v-scott-bessent/
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https://x.com/KurtSchlichter/status/1889129565319987628?fbclid=IwY2xjawIZle9leHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHZWLfCzbSwJhVKL-hJniq9cPJHeD9xbAtTiLo5R75JFofB_0UADTQLymCA_aem_nUVpwcD2AnaixKXa4IQK8g
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(2) TRUMP COURT FIGHTS GET MIXED RESULTS SO FAR: U.S. District Judge Jeanette Vargas amended a temporary restraining order to clarify that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Senate-confirmed senior Treasury officers are not barred from accessing Bureau of Fiscal Services payment data.
The First Circuit Court of Appeals denied an emergency appeal by the Trump administration to overturn federal Judge John McConnell’s order to unfreeze all federal loans and grants. McConnell said on Monday that the Trump administration was still not complying with his order to unfreeze spending.
Why It Matters: So far the courts have only imposed temporary restraining orders on the Trump administration, and more hearings over injunctions are scheduled for Friday, 14 February. The Trump administration seems headed toward a confrontation with the federal courts over executive authority, and the extent of lower court authority over the Executive Branch. As the left exhausts legitimate political options, they are more likely to look outside of legitimate politics to respond to the Trump administration. - R.C.
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(5) DOJ TO ALLOW PRESIDENT TO FIRE INDEPENDENT AGENCY CHIEFS: Acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris said the Department of Justice (DOJ) has determined that legal protections that block the President from firing members of independent regulatory agencies is unconstitutional, and the DOJ will no longer defend those protections in court. Harris said the DOJ will push the Supreme Court to overturn a 1935 decision that blocks the President from removing officials from independent agencies.
(6) FIRED INSPECTORS GENERAL SUE TRUMP ADMIN: Recently-fired inspectors general at eight federal agencies are suing the Trump administration, alleging their terminations violated the Inspector General Act which requires the President to notify Congress 30 days before removing inspectors general.
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There’s a link to an eight page letter you can find if you click the link below that is as thorough a bitchslapping as I’ve seen in a while. Indeed, a couple positions ago I was my civil service unit’s hatchetman and the place where the unit’s problem children would find themselves if they were in need of “performance management.” I’ve written my share of letters like these and confess I found this one to be one of the best daggers to the vocational heart of the matter I’ve seen:
The Hammer Drops at Justice
New leadership and new rules are too much for sanctimonious DOJ employees, who resign rather than follow orders to depoliticize the department.
JULIE KELLY
FEB 15, 2025
Emil Bove, in his typical fashion, was having none of it.
In a scathing nine-page letter, the acting deputy attorney general detailed a long list of insubordination and politicking by Danielle Sassoon, the temporary U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, related to her refusal to drop the federal case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams as instructed. Last September, the then-U.S. Attorney for SDNY handed down a five-count indictment against the Democratic mayor, a move some considered political retribution for Adams’ intraparty squabbles with the Biden administration.
Declassified with Julie Kelly is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
A review by the Trump Department of Justice, consistent with the president’s executive order to halt the weaponization of the DOJ, determined the investigation into Adams had “accelerated after Mayor Adams publicly criticized President Biden's failed immigration policies,” Bove wrote. Bove, who once worked as a prosecutor in the SDNY office, further explained the case represented “election interference”—Adams is up for re-election this year—and “imposed on Mayor Adams' ability to govern and cooperate with federal law enforcement to keep New York City safe.” (Bove also noted the apparent political aspirations of Damian Williams, her predecessor responsible for the Adams case. Williams landed on Kamala Harris’ short list for attorney general right after announcing the charges; after Trump won, he launched a campaign-style website touting, among other prosecutions, the Adams indictment.)
But Sassoon, also in typical fashion for federal prosecutors, sanctimoniously touted her alleged “principles” and loyalty to the rule of law as reasons to defy Bove’s order. “Because the law does not support a dismissal, and because I am confident that Adams has committed the crimes with which he is charged, I cannot agree to seek a dismissal driven by improper considerations,” Sassoon, who had been in the post a mere three weeks, wrote. “I understand my duty as a prosecutor to mean enforcing the law impartially, and that includes prosecuting a validly returned indictment regardless whether its dismissal would be politically advantageous, to the defendant or to those who appointed me.”
Sassoon offered her resignation if Bove did not reverse course. He not only accepted her resignation but announced she would be the subject of investigations by both Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Office of Professional Responsibility.
Who Are the Fools and Cowards?
Others quickly joined Sassoon at the unemployment line—or the line to become the newest MSNBC legal analyst. Six more DOJ officials resigned; Hagan Scotten, one of two prosecutors on the Adams case, tendered his resignation on February 14. “I expect you will find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion [to dismiss]” Scotten, whom Bove had placed on paid leave pending an investigation into his insubordination, wrote.
But if their collective intention was to demonstrate independence and integrity, it achieved the opposite—with the exception of DOJ bootlickers at National Review and the Wall Street Journal. Recent polls indicate historically low levels of support for the DOJ among Republicans, something apparently lost on so-called “conservative” publications.
Americans voted for Donald Trump in a partial repudiation of overzealous government lawyers, the sort perfectly embodied by Sassoon and company, using their unchecked power to imprison those they consider to be on the wrong side of the political aisle.
The exodus represented another in a series of purges, forced and otherwise, at the DOJ since Trump took office. On January 21, at least 15 senior DOJ officials were removed or reassigned. A few days later, several members of former Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team also were fired. (Smith resigned on January 10.) Dozens of prosecutors who had been hired on a temporary basis to handle January 6 cases were dismissed as the DOJ shuttered the so-called “Capitol Siege” investigation.
At the same time, house cleaning at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which is under the purview of the DOJ, immediately got underway. Several top FBI officials were warned to clean out their desks or get the ax. Chiefs at the Miami and Washington field offices, responsible for the reckless armed raid of Mar-a-Lago, were sent packing.
Bove also called out the insubordination of acting FBI director Brian Driscoll, who, like Sassoon, refused to follow orders and produce the names of thousands of FBI employees involved in the unprecedented J6 investigation. (Driscoll reportedly compiled after Bove noted his defiance but sent the names over a classified server. He will be replaced, and possibly fired, next week after Kash Patel takes over.)
Dropping the Adams case not only comports with the president’s depoliticization directive but appears to meet new standards set forth in a February 5 memo by Bondi. She cautioned against bringing reckless cases and warned, “there is no place in the decision-making process for animosity or careerism.” DOJ employees, she reminded her department, are bound by the Justice Manual, which prohibits political or personal concerns related to charging decisions. “These types of considerations, which previously led to the improper weaponization of the criminal justice system at the federal and state levels, as President Trump observed in Executive Order 14147, 90 FR 8235, have no place in the Department,” she wrote.
Which is why the departure of folks like Sassoon and Scotten are welcome news. Their self-serving, media-whoring exit letters have nothing to do with upholding the law and everything to do with advancing their personal and perhaps political interests.
https://www.declassified.live/p/the-hammer-drops-at-justice
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https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/this-is-not-restoring-the-way-the-justice-department-is-supposed-to-work/
I have mixed feelings on this but generally side AGAINST McCarthy on this one.
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I suspect I agree-- but I am paywall blocked.
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An apt analysis of the SDNY resignations:
"Fools" Rush In the Department of Justice
Another day, another resignation letter.
JOSH BLACKMAN | 2.14.2025 6:34 PM
The fallout continues from the Eric Adams case. Yesterday, I wrote about Danielle Sassoon's resignation, and Emil Bove's response. Today, Hagan Scotten, another Assistant United States Attorney resigned with a formal letter.
Again, there is much to discuss about the Sassoon-Bove exchange, which I will do in the future after I've had some more time to reflect. Here, I will reflect on one passage in Scotten's letter:
I can even understand how a Chief Executive whose background is in business and politics might see the contemplated dismissal-with-leverage as a good, if distasteful, deal. But any assistant U.S. attorney would know that our laws and traditions do not allow using the prosecutorial power to influence other citizens, much less elected officials, in this way. If no lawyer within earshot of the President is willing to give him that advice, then I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion. But it was never going to be me.
In recent years, the Department of Justice has prosecuted public officials in high profile cases. In several of those cases, the Supreme Court unanimously reversed the convictions.
In McDonnell v. United States (2016), the Court held that an "official act" must involve a formal exercise of governmental power on something specific pending before a public official. DOJ thought it knew what was a proper exercise of government power. The Supreme Court disagreed. Could it be said that the scores of DOJ employees who brought this ill-fated prosecution were "fools"? Do you know who was the Chief of the DOJ Public Integrity Section at the time? Jack Smith. Was it foolish for a prosecutor to indict a former Governor in a case that garnered zero votes at the Supreme Court?
Jack Smith also led the prosecution of John Edwards, the former Senator and Vice Presidential Candidate. Smith relied on a dubious theory of campaign finance law, and the case yielded a deadlocked jury and a mistrial. (When Smith reported that he had enough evidence to convict Trump, I thought back to the Edwards case.) DOJ did not try that theory again. Was it foolish to bring this prosecution of a former public official when the jury wouldn't even convict?
Fast forward to Kelly v. United States (2020). This prosecution arose from the so-called Bridgegate scandal. The United States indicted members of Governor Chis Christie's administration. The Supreme Court unanimously reversed the conviction. Justice Kagan ruled that the scheme, which did not aim to obtain money or property, could not violate the federal fraud law. Was it foolish to indict a public official in a case that garnered zero votes at the Supreme Court?
In 2023, the Supreme Court decided Ciminelli v. United States and Percoco v. United States. These cases arose over scandal involving funding for a Buffalo Bills stadium project. In both cases, the Supreme Court unanimously reversed the convictions. Was it foolish to bring these cases that garnered zero votes at the Supreme Court?
Sensing a pattern? Another public corruption case pending this term, Kousisis v. United States, will likely yield a reversal. And I think the prosecution against Senator Menendez will meet a similar fate, if he is not pardoned. That doesn't even factor in Alvin Bragg's conviction of Trump, which will almost certainly not stand up on appeal. Lawfare all the way down. Maybe, just maybe, federal prosecutors are not in the best position to determine whether public officials abused their power.
I appreciate that Scotten thinks that the Trump DOJ's approach to criminal prosecution is "foolish." I think much the same can be said for how federal prosecutors have approached public corruption cases for some time. And you don't have to take my word for it. Add up all of the unanimous Supreme Court rulings.
What we have here are two very different conceptions of the federal criminal justice system. On the one hand, Sassoon and her colleagues defend the traditional notion that "independent" prosecutors have the power to define what is in the public good. They can define when public officials abuse their power, and can punish those actions with criminal sanctions. (We saw similar arguments during the first Trump impeachment.) Those defending Sassoon are invested in the DOJ club, and the continuation of its longstanding practices.
President Trump, through Bove, articulate a different perspective. The President, as head of the executive branch, can make his own determination of what is in the public good, and determine when public officials are abusing their power. Trump, perhaps more than any living person, is uniquely situated to make this sort of judgment. From the moment he was sworn in, he faced nonstop litigation (remember the Emoluments Clauses?) and two impeachment trials. After he left office, he was indicted in several courts based on novel and dubious theories of criminal liability. Who can forget the efforts to disqualify him under Section 3--which also led to a unanimous Supreme Court reversals? And despite all that happened, Trump still won re-election. Distinguished prosecutors thought they knew what was in the public good. The voters disagreed.
There will likely be more resignations. But I think little more is left to be said here. There are two diametrically-opposed views on display. And only one such view can prevail.
https://reason.com/volokh/2025/02/14/fools-rush-in-the-department-of-justice/
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Trump's tit for tat DOJ:
By Andrew C. McCarthy
February 15, 2025 6:30 AM
The Adams case is not the only one that will bring the foolishness of this directive into sharp relief.
In recording our podcast last week, I opined to Rich Lowry that Pam Bondi’s first day on the job as attorney general was Trump II in small compass: a flurry of directives that critics will have a tough time keeping up with, and that combine a lot of good with some bad ideas that could undermine the administration’s capacity to accomplish the good.
This is the first in a series of posts that will address the main bad idea arising from Bondi’s first-day directives: the Justice Department’s new “Weaponization Working Group” (which itself follows on President Trump’s executive order on “Ending Weaponization of the Federal Government”). The “Weaponization” memo is a patently partisan and ethically careless political document masquerading as legal guidance. As such, it lends itself to exploitation by Democrats implicated in Trump DOJ enforcement actions, as well as by the 570 judges appointed by Presidents Obama and Biden to the federal courts over twelve of the past 16 years (about two-thirds of the total of non-senior federal judicial seats in the United States).
And there is already abundant reason to conclude that the last thing the Trump administration intends to do is remove politics from law enforcement decisions.
Rather than simply announce an urgently needed policy to investigate and prosecute civil rights violations (which necessarily include “lawfare,” the punitive, selective deployment of law enforcement powers against political adversaries), Bondi targets a number of Trump prosecutorial nemeses by name. The AG’s directive is an obvious attempt to cement a revisionist history of the Trump prosecutions as nothing more than the partisan harassment of an innocent man — with this revisionism to be authored by newly minted Trump prosecutors who, as defense lawyers, represented Trump and other defendants implicated in the “weaponization” cases.
My thoughts, since you asked ( :wink:) is that I don't know I would call this weaponization though as much as the persuit of those accountable for previous abuse of the law. They cannot get away with this and we cannot spend yrs wrangling about who actually did abuse the DOJ vs those simply doing their jobs as instructed. The latter option is more likely to result in NO ONE being held accountable.
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Agree.
Regarding the Blackman analysis:
In States such as CA and NY, the democratic control of Attorney General is done directly by the vote of the people.
OTOH the Federal Govt is UNITARY-- the only democratic control on the DOJ is via the election of the President. THEREFORE the President does have ultimate control, but if he is wise he will do so
a) rarely, and
b) transparently.
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So the Left wants to play state AG trumping Fed Laws. Two can play this game:
https://pjmedia.com/benbartee/2025/02/18/19-state-attorneys-general-signal-intent-to-prosecute-fauci-n4937109
He needs to be prosecuted for the cover up both with lying about Corona being a lab leak from also using US funds to fund what turned into over a million US deaths.
Just to cover his own derriere! :x
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(1) TRUMP ASKS SCOTUS TO INTERVENE IN SPECIAL COUNSEL FIRING: President Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court of the U.S. (SCOTUS) to lift a federal court’s restraining order blocking Trump from firing U.S. Office of Special Counsel chief Hampton Dellinger.
Federal Trade Commission chair Andrew Ferguson called for the Supreme Court to overturn legal precedent shielding independent agency officials from being unilaterally fired by the White House.
Why It Matters: The second Trump administration is enacting revolutionary change with the federal bureaucracy, and attempting to get control of the Treasury in order to control the flow of money from federal agencies to Democrat, progressive, and far left non government groups. Clearing out the federal bureaucracy and the independent agencies would eliminate a major source of political and legal power, used by Democrats to target conservatives with lawfare and debanking during the Biden administration. - R.C.
(2) TRUMP RESISTANCE PREPARES TO EXPAND LAWFARE: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said the courts will be an important venue for “holding Donald Trump accountable when he breaks the law,” and Schumer plans to issue demand letters, hold public hearings, and pursue legal action where necessary.
House Democrats formed a litigation working group co-chaired by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD). Raskin said Democrats will write amicus briefs for ongoing lawsuits, but could also join lawsuits if House Democrats have “distinctive interests” that are not already represented.
Why It Matters: Congressional Democrats are effectively locked out from interfering with the Trump administration’s executive actions, and Democrats’ only remaining political recourse is the Senate legislative filibuster. The Trump administration seems to be edging closer to defying the lower federal courts. If Trump openly defies the lower courts or the Supreme Court sides with the Trump administration, this would remove the only effective legal avenue for Trump Resistance 2.0 until the 2026 midterm elections. House Democrats are also planning “nine days of visibility” protests in their districts while the House is in recess. - R.C.
(3) TRUMP ADMIN FIRES DOJ IMMIGRATION JUDGES: The Department of Justice (DOJ) terminated 20 newly hired immigration judges, and five assistant chief immigration judges.
According to one of the fired judges, the DOJ sent a letter saying retaining the newly hired immigration judges was “not in the best interest” of the DOJ.
Why It Matters: The Trump administration is expanding and ramping up expedited removals, allowing the administration to bypass the immigration courts in most cases. However, the Trump administration is also likely clearing out judges the administration expects would decide against removals and hinder Trump’s immigration agenda. - R.C.
=======================
Edited to add:
(1) TRUMP ISSUES EO ASSERTING AUTHORITY OVER EXECUTIVE BRANCH: President Donald Trump issued an executive order yesterday, asserting Presidential control over all executive branch agencies.
According to the order:
All independent federal agencies will be required to submit all proposed and final regulatory actions to the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA)
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) will have authority over all independent agency spending, and OMB can prohibit independent agencies from certain spending activities
The President and Attorney General will provide authoritative interpretations of the law for the entire executive branch, and executive branch employees cannot interpret the law in an official capacity in a way that contravenes the President’s or Attorney General’s legal opinions
The Federal Reserve’s monetary policy work is exempt from the order, but the Board of Governors will have to comply with the executive order on issues related to supervision or regulation of financial institutions
Why It Matters: This order will likely be targeted by additional lawsuits from Democrats and federal workers. The Trump administration is in a fight with the courts and Congress over Presidential Article II powers and effective control of the executive branch. Previous administrations allowed the power of the White House to be limited in a way that was advantageous to Democrats’ political agenda. Many executive agencies, especially independent regulators, effectively became a fourth branch of the federal government, with more authority vested in Congress through the Impoundment Control Act than the White House. The Trump administration has been asserting authority through a blitz of executive actions since Trump’s inauguration, but this is the first open declaration from the Trump administration that it is taking control of the executive branch. - R.C.
(2) FIRST CRACKS APPEAR IN LAWFARE AGAINST TRUMP ADMIN: Washington D.C. Federal Judge Christopher Cooper questioned the authority of courts to force the Trump administration to pause mass firings at federal agencies, during a hearing yesterday in a lawsuit brought by federal employee unions.
The federal employee unions said they turned to the court due to the Merit Systems Protection Board’s and Federal Labor Relations Authority’s lack of power to quickly stop government-wide firings.
Federal Judge Tanya Chutkan denied a request from 14 Democrat state Attorneys General to block the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from accessing government systems and firing employees.
Why It Matters: These two cases appear to be the first cracks in the lawfare campaign against the Trump administration’s executive actions. Democrats and the federal bureaucracy have relied on lower federal courts to stymie Trump, however lower federal court authority over the White House now seems to be an open political question. Trump said he will not defy the courts, but eventually the Trump administration could come to a tipping point where Trump will have to decide to openly defy the lower federal courts or comply with national level injunction that will bring Trump’s agenda to a halt. - R.C.
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Princeton NYU judge, probably Jewish, Biden appointee blocks Trump's DEI
:roll:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/arbitrary-discriminatory-judge-blocks-trump-003835865.html
The Jewish lawyer lister crew
within the DEM lawyer lister crew
associated with the Dem jurno lister crew
This is interesting.
The word *cabal* is derived from Kabalah, the Jewish mystical interpretation of the bible:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabal
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https://m3.gab.com/media_attachments/cd/33/f3/cd33f385bd6ccb38591278bf2a348d78.jpg?width=568
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An exploration of how to limit judge shopping and the issuance of nation-wide injunctions:
Congress should restrict use of nationwide injunctions and make it more difficult to rig results by judge shopping in such cases.
The radical Democrats have chosen their strategy to fight the reforms that voters demanded last November: the continued use of the judiciary to wage political lawfare against President Donald Trump and his administration. They often do so by carefully vetting and selecting a single federal court or judge that they think is aligned with their political views and will give them favorable treatment, even in highly charged political disputes. They then seek to have their favored judge issue a universal or nationwide injunction against the president or other government officers or agencies. This creates a system ripe for abuse that ultimately undermines the citizenry’s respect for the courts.
Abusive Nationwide Political Injunctions
Nationwide injunctions seek to block federal policies from being enforced anywhere in the country, not just in the district where the issuing judge sits. They are often used in an unprecedented manner to block federal policies disfavored by Democrats from being implemented or enforced.
One example of the abuse of such political nationwide injunctions occurred in 2017. President Trump had temporarily restricted noncitizens’ entry into the United States from eight specified countries that he determined had insufficient controls to prevent terrorism. A single district judge in Hawaii entered a nationwide injunction overturning that policy decision. That injunction did not just prohibit the enforcement of the restrictions in Hawaii, but extended to all 50 states. The following year, in Trump v. Hawaii, the Supreme Court reversed the injunction as an “abuse of discretion.”
Nationwide injunctions may sometimes be appropriate, but they also can be petri dishes that breed dangerous problems. They run afoul of the general principle that federal district courts are courts of limited jurisdiction whose role is to decide the dispute between the parties before them. They can interfere with the constitutional allocation of power between Congress and the president.
When courts become involved in such political disputes it can increase the perception that they are in the pocket of a particular political party. Such politicization undermines public confidence in an apolitical judiciary.
Whether to continue or modify the role of nationwide injunctions is a complex topic. This article will not attempt to wade into the dispute over whether they should be permitted at all or limited in scope. But whether they stay or go, there is a way to limit their abuse: Congress should act swiftly.
Judge Shopping and How to Limit It
Many of these political suits have been filed by Democrat state attorneys general, unions, left-leaning nongovernmental organizations, and others who are implementing the Democrats’ lawfare. The administration is defending several cases vigorously, with a number of successes so far. But some judges have granted injunctions, and even a successful defense can take an inordinate length of time.
This delay is these plaintiffs’ friend. It typically would be a year or more before a case presenting this issue could be decided by the Supreme Court. When such an injunction is granted, even one day’s delay can prevent the president from exercising his constitutional duty as the chief executive officer of the United States. That is unacceptable.
Congress should prevent this abuse. It can take a first step now by making it more difficult for plaintiffs to rig the results by judge shopping for nationwide political injunctions.
As the Trump v. Hawaii case exemplifies, these national injunction cases often raise constitutional issues with novel and unprecedented arguments that would be rejected by most judges. But when they have a weak and unprecedented case, the radical Democrats often seek to tilt the scales. They do this by shopping for judges whom they know will favor them — and who often have conflicts of interest — and then persuading those judges (who don’t need much arm-twisting) to make rulings that will advance Democrats’ political agenda.
Currently, any one of the hundreds of federal district judges in the country can attempt to thwart the agenda of the president — the single person in whom the Constitution has vested the executive power of the United States. It is akin to allowing any of the corporals in an Army division to overrule the commanding general’s orders.
In establishing the separation-of-powers doctrine in our Constitution, the Founders did not foresee or intend such a bizarre result. The current Congress therefore should limit the potential for abuse by eliminating forum shopping in such cases with this simple solution: Congress should amend the federal jurisdictional statutes to divest any single district court or judge of the ability to issue nationwide political injunctions that prohibit or limit the implementation of a president’s or other government officer’s national or international policies.
Congress should legislate that any request for such injunctive relief may be heard only by a panel of three judges, rather than by a single judge. To further reduce judge shopping and to ensure geographic diversity of the judges in cases with nationwide implications, the members of the panel should be drawn from districts in three different circuits, with both the circuits and all three judges selected at random.
So, for example, if the plaintiffs filed their suit in New York or Washington, D.C., knowing that their chances of drawing a left-leaning, “progressive” judge are high, none of the judges from that district could rule on a request for injunctive relief. The three judges on the panel might be from California, Montana, and Mississippi.
Such reforms would thwart most judge shopping, thereby reducing the risk of improper national injunctions, lessening the danger of further politicization of our courts, and improving public confidence in the integrity of the judiciary.
This should be a relatively swift and simple solution. Congress could then consider the more complex issue of whether courts can enter national injunctions at all, especially in political cases. As Justice Clarence Thomas noted in his concurring opinion in Trump v. Hawaii, such “universal injunctions are legally and historically dubious. If federal courts continue to issue them, this Court is duty bound to adjudicate their authority to do so.”
* * * * *
After reading this, if you want to read the discussion of the other two points in The Massive Resistance and Ideas About How to Fight It, i.e., recall elections and possible grounds for suits against the state AGs and others waging the lawfare, please feel free to purchase a paid subscription.
https://johnalucas6.substack.com/p/restricting-judge-shopping-in-cases?r=2k0c5&triedRedirect=true
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(1) TRUMP RESISTANCE TO COORDINATE LAWFARE EFFORTS: Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said Democrats have hired lawyers leaving the Department of Justice (DOJ), and brought back lawyers from the January 6 Committee to coordinate legal efforts nationwide opposing the Trump administration.
Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT) said House Judiciary Committee Democrats are preparing “shadow hearings,” and are meeting with Democratic legal experts including elections attorney Marc Elias.
Why It Matters: There are currently about 90 lawsuits filed against Trump’s executive actions, and so far most of the federal district courts have issued temporary restraining orders that the Trump administration has minimal avenues to appeal.
However, now at least two federal judges have issued injunctions, which can be appealed by the Trump administration including emergency appeals to the Supreme Court. The lawfare campaign against the Trump administration now appears to be moving more quickly toward a tipping point where Trump will have to decide to defy the courts, or comply and halt his own agenda. A more coordinated lawfare effort from the Trump Resistance could also accelerate the timeline for this tipping point, with the expectation that Trump will back down or cause a constitutional crisis by openly defying the courts. - R.C.
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second
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/this-court-disagrees-judge-strongly-rejects-absurd-effort-by-fani-willis-to-avoid-subpoenas-for-documents-and-testimony-about-trump-rico-prosecution/ar-AA1zRKL2?ocid=msedgntp&pc=HCTS&cvid=8cd40de07b0049f7c8dc89b8db7b6ba7&ei=7
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I have Raskin derangement syndroms along with Schiff Jayapal derangement syndromes:
"Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said Democrats have hired lawyers leaving the Department of Justice (DOJ), and brought back lawyers from the January 6 Committee to coordinate legal efforts nationwide opposing the Trump administration."
Hired them. With taxpayer money?
Who is paying for this the "SS": Soros & Sons?
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Perhaps misfiled as this is anti-lawfare if anything, but amusing to see nonetheless:
'Deranged Jack Smith' Takes Down His Friends
An order signed by President Trump on Tuesday signals a new front in fighting lawfare operatives in the private sector.
JULIE KELLY
FEB 27, 2025
As an aide started to explain the latest order about to be signed during a press conference in the White House on Tuesday afternoon, President Trump interrupted his spiel.
Declassified with Julie Kelly is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
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“Hold it, this is a good one,” the president, holding up his hand, said to several reporters assembled in the Oval Office. “Is everybody listening? We’re going to call it the ‘Deranged Jack Smith’...bill.”
The order, in the form of a memo to several agency heads, suspended the security clearance of employees at Covington & Burling, a Democratic-connected white-shoe law firm headquartered in Washington. According to a January 27 Wall Street Journal article--and followed up by Politico--the firm provided at least $140,000 in pro bono services to disgraced former special counsel Jack Smith.
Although both cases ended after Trump’s election, Smith’s problems were just beginning. Trump had promised on the campaign trail that his administration would investigate evidence of abuse and misconduct by the special counsel and his team. He fulfilled that promise by signing an executive order on January 20 to end the “weaponization” of the federal government, particularly the DOJ and intelligence community: “The prior administration and allies throughout the country engaged in an unprecedented, third-world weaponization of prosecutorial power to upend the democratic process. These actions appear oriented more toward inflicting political pain than toward pursuing actual justice or legitimate governmental objectives.”
In a follow-up move, Attorney General Pam Bondi formed a “Weaponization Working Group” on Feb. 5 and specifically cited Smith, “who spent more than $50 million targeting President Trump.”
Smith officially left the Biden DOJ on January 10 but not before succeeding in releasing one volume of his two-volume report into the investigations of the president. And in the “quit digging a hole” category, Smith recently signed an open letter to current prosecutors expressing “alarm…by recent actions of the Department’s leadership.”
With Free Friends Like This…
Trump, along with his DOJ, likely will have the last laugh. And it’s doubtful Smith’s free lawyers at Covington & Burling, with offices around the world, are amused. While it’s unclear how many security clearances have been suspended, it appears two lawyers—Peter Koski and Clinton pal Lanny Breuer—were directly involved in providing free counsel to Smith. Koski worked at the DOJ’s public integrity unit during the same time Smith headed the unit during the Obama administration. Other notable Democrats at the firm include former Attorney General Eric Holder, Biden’s longtime foreign affairs advisor and Ukraine war architect Victoria Nuland, and Biden’s former White House counsel Dana Remus.
The presidential directive may have an immediate impact on Smith’s ability to build a defense, particularly for Koski. “Revoking [Koski’s] clearance could limit his access to sensitive government records, given that both of Mr. Smith’s criminal investigations against Mr. Trump involved classified documents. Doing so could sharply limit what representation Mr. Koski might be able to offer,” the New York Times reported on Feb 25.
But Trump’s “Deranged Jack Smith” order goes beyond suspending access to privileged material. The president further ordered federal agencies to look for any government contracts with Covington & Burling. “I also direct the Attorney General and heads of agencies to take such actions as are necessary to terminate any engagement of Covington & Burling LLP by any agency to the maximum extent permitted by law,” the president wrote.
It’s unknown how many, if any, government contracts exist with the firm. Possibly none. But the missive is yet another welcome sign of the so-called “Trump 2.0” administration, where heads will roll inside and outside government not just for viciously targeting the president and his supporters but for misleading the American people and wasting time and money in the process. To wit, the president indicated this is just the start.
After signing the order, the president turned to his aide and asked, “we’ll be doing this for other firms as time goes by?” The aide answered in the affirmative. After adding his signature, Trump threw his Sharpie to someone in the office. “Why don’t you send it to Jack Smith,” he joked.
Prestigious law firms act as both the hidden hammer and revolving door in the lawfare against Republicans. This is playing out in at least a dozen lawsuits filed against the Trump administration over the past 30 days. Until there is pain felt by both public and private lawyers responsible for this unprecedented attack against the will of the people, it will continue.
https://www.declassified.live/p/deranged-jack-smith-takes-down-his
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https://www.steynonline.com/15085/mann-ordered-to-pay-more-than-those-he-sought-to
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(2) REPUBLICANS TAKE AIM AT STATE LEVEL LAWFARE: Rep. Russell Fry (R-SC) introduced the Promptly Ending Political Prosecutions and Executive Retaliation (PEPPER) Act of 2025, which would allow sitting and former Presidents and Vice Presidents to transfer state court cases to the federal courts.
The PEPPER Act would also codify federal immunity for official acts of federal officers, and bar politically motivated state prosecutions of federal officials.
Why It Matters: The GOP are moving to shield the Trump administration from current or future state level prosecutions and lawsuits. This bill could pass the Senate if Republicans can convince seven Senate Democrats that the bill would ensure bipartisan protection. Republicans could also use the “nuclear option” to remove the Senate legislative filibuster and pass the bill with a simple majority. - R.C.
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ended:
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2025/03/06/exclusive-trump-to-suspend-security-clearances-employees-law-firm-center-russia-hoax/
8-)
I don't know if they ever represent Repubs but over years and years this lawfirm keeps coming up in the news as a legal "military branch" of the Democrat Party. They seem to be deep state DNC hacks.
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https://archive.is/L0q81
Actually this lawfare is not just enemy of Trump
they are enemies of all of us. they twist and distort the law.
hope they actually do experience problems from this as the firm more than deserves.
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/fani-willis-loses-bid-in-trump-case/ar-AA1Azu2r?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=944d15792e2b49048edbee9b002d437d&ei=7
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-s-potential-resource-deal-with-canada-is-huge-kevin-o-leary/vi-AA1ALXqP?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=d61a4e66b6f74df4a0f1a73063f1c322&ei=19
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I will give you 2 guess as to appointed this judge
and one guess as to where the judge got his law degree:
https://www.breitbart.com/news/us-federal-judge-orders-agencies-to-rehire-fired-workers/
Same old stinking Dem lib lawyer network. :x