Trump's Present and Future possible indictments

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John Eastman declines to elaborate on Trump world discussions about Grassley presiding on Jan. 6

He asserted attorney-client privilege when asked to discuss evidence that Trump's allies considered the Iowa senator playing a role to keep Trump in power.

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[ Yesterday was quite a day ]


[Part 1]

It was quite a day. We’ve noticed this before, that there are a lot of legal issues and rulings on a lot of different fronts, all coming to a head simultaneously. Many, but not all of them, involve Trump. Tonight, rather than looking at each situation in detail, we’ll try to extract the most important or interesting things we learned from each one.

It’s hard to imagine how Trump continues to function under the pressure of…all the losing. But Trump went on conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt’s show and, full of bluster, insisted he would testify at his trials. "Oh yes, absolutely,” Trump said. “That I look forward to."

Sure. Just like he testified at the first E. Jean Carroll defamation trial. But as we all know, lying to the public, even when you’re running for the presidency, isn’t a crime. That’s good news for Trump, because he’s got plenty on his hands as is, starting tonight with E. Jean Carroll.



Carroll already beat Trump, to the tune of $5 million dollars, in a defamation trial earlier this year. The trial involved the second of the two civil defamation cases she brought against him. The jury found Trump defamed Carroll with comments he made after he left the presidency and also that she was entitled to recover damages from him under a new New York statute for adult survivors of sexual assault.

But after winning that case, the first case Carroll filed was still pending. That lawsuit alleged Trump defamed her during a press gaggle while he was the president by claiming she lied when she said Trump had raped her in a department store dressing room. He also disparaged her looks, saying she wasn’t his type. That case was delayed by Trump’s efforts to have DOJ represent him because, he claimed, he was a federal employee just doing his job when he made his ugly, untrue comments about Carroll.

It took DOJ a while to get that one right, but recently, they decided Trump’s defamation of Carroll was not within the scope of his official duties, clearing the way for the federal district judge assigned to the case to set it for trial. He did, and trial is now scheduled for next January.

Today’s news is that the Judge granted a partial summary judgment, which means that the first jury’s decision that Trump defamed Carroll is binding in the January trial. The only issue left to decide is damages—how much more money Trump will have to pay Carroll. Her lawyer can ask for punitive damages, sufficient to punish Trump and to prevent a repeat of what he did after the last trial—making additional defamatory comments the day after the verdict. That could be a very high number.

Trump wanted the amount of damages he will have to pay to be offset by Carroll’s previous award of damages against him. The Judge told him no dice. You can read the Judge’s full order here.

Trump had also asked the Judge to stay the January trial, pending his appeal on “absolute presidential immunity.” The Judge denied his request as frivolous and told Trump no more delays. The Judge cited Trump's “advanced age” as justification for moving forward, noting the age of both parties and concluding that further delays might prevent Carroll from ever receiving compensation she is entitled to.

Things That Happened Today

It was quite a day. We’ve noticed this before, that there are a lot of legal issues and rulings on a lot of different fronts, all coming to a head simultaneously. Many, but not all of them, involve Trump. Tonight, rather than looking at each situation in detail, we’ll try to extract the most...

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[Part 2]

The best part of today’s action was an early morning filing from Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, opposing Trump’s request to stay the trial. Kaplan doesn’t pull any punches in her sharp but witty pleadings. Like the Judge, she’s out of patience with Trump, but in an entirely professional way, calling out his “commitment to procedural gamesmanship” and noting Trump previously requested an “expedited trial” before losing the first case. Consistency is a virtue in court. Trump lacks it.



Today’s severance hearing in Georgia went about like we expected. Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell will get their speedy trials, but they will get them together, not separately. The other 17 defendants are still waiting on a trial setting, but it sounds like there’s a good chance they will be set for trial together.

Prosecutors explained that each trial will involve proving the overarching RICO conspiracy, not just the limited number of overt acts in furtherance of the conspiracy that the defendants in each trial setting were involved in. That’s how RICO works. Each defendant is charged with the RICO conspiracy, not simply with the overt acts they participated in personally, and the government must prove that charge against each defendant, no matter how the various defendants are grouped for trial. There are no shorter or longer trials depending on which defendants are included. They are all the same.

In other words, unless the Judge just wants to try the case repeatedly, which Fani Willis’ office estimated at four months, not including jury selection or the defendants’ cases, he needs to limit the number of trials. That’s what the law authorizes him to do and what he seemed poised to do today.

The arguments from the defense counsel were not particularly compelling. Surprisingly, they conceded that their defenses weren’t “antagonistic”—that there was no risk they would conflict because Chesebro and Powell didn’t know each other. So, they traded off their one good argument for severance, the possibility of antagonistic defenses, against the loser of an argument that they didn’t know each other. The best they could muster was that the Judge could sever the cases if he chose to. He did not, because the defendants failed to offer any arguments that would have merited it under Georgia law.

The defendants who invoked Georgia’s speedy trial act must be tried in October. But the remaining 17 can all be set for a second trial together at a later date, unless one or more of them come up with a better argument for severance than what we heard today. Prosecutors continued to insist all 19 should be tried together in October, but Judge McAfee told prosecutors that it would be "unrealistic" to have all of the cases ready for trial that quickly. He was correct to do that—forcing defendants to trial so quickly would set up any convictions for reversal on grounds that due process rights were violated. Looks like the former prosecutor, whether experienced or not, is a solid, steady jurist. The case is sure to test him as it would any judge, but he was well prepared and ruled from the bench with a firm hand today. As my former colleague from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Savannah, Georgia, Amy Lee Copeland, said on MSNBC Wednesday night, the Judge has ice water running in his veins.

Early in the hearing, one of Chesebro’s lawyers made a comment that was likely far more telling than he intended. He said something to the effect that before 2020, it was just that people voted and “somehow it all worked out.” He made his comments in the context of arguing that the case against his client wasn’t substantial, that it was just about "intellectuals," and that before this case, no one really thought about the Electoral College Act. What a great way of encapsulating where the country was before Trump—we all just assumed that people voted and it worked out. No more, and that’s thanks in no small part to the role his client and his co-defendants played in the 2020 election.

Things That Happened Today

It was quite a day. We’ve noticed this before, that there are a lot of legal issues and rulings on a lot of different fronts, all coming to a head simultaneously. Many, but not all of them, involve Trump. Tonight, rather than looking at each situation in detail, we’ll try to extract the most...

joycevance.substack.com

 

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[Part 3]

In the Mar-a-Lago case, reporting today confirmed that Jack Smith has a cooperating witness on the inside. It seemed likely from earlier reporting and the contents of the superseding indictment that Yuscil Taveras, the IT guy at Mar-a-Lago, had decided to flip and testify against Trump after receiving advice from a lawyer in the public defender’s office, in place of the lawyer that one of Trump’s PACs was reportedly funding for him. That deal was confirmed today.

That’s one deal done. The interesting question is what Trump co-defendants Waltine Nauta and Carlos de Oliveira do now. Will they really go to prison for Trump? The government has already asked Judge Aileen Cannon to schedule “Garcia” hearings for the two, in which they’d be advised of their lawyer’s conflict of interest in representing them and asked on the record whether they were willing to proceed with the lawyer regardless. But Cannon’s conduct of the case before her has been markedly different than other judges, including the Washington, D.C. judge who determined that Taveras should consult with independent counsel. In fact, it was she who, when the government requested the Garcia hearing suggested that the defendants should object to the government’s use of a grand jury in Washington, D.C. to conduct investigation, a step that was entirely proper despite the Judge’s implication to the contrary.

Also today in the Mar-a-Lago case, news from ABC, which obtained transcripts of Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran’s recordings about his interactions with Trump. Corcoran advised Trump that if he didn’t comply with the government’s subpoena, they could get a search warrant for Mar-a-Lago. ABC reported, “Evan Corcoran, warned the former president in person, at Mar-a-Lago, that not only did Trump have to fully comply with the subpoena, but that the FBI might search the estate if he didn't, according to Corcoran's audio notes following the conversation.”

In other words, Trump knew that a search was likely in the works when he set Nauta and De Oliveira to the task of removing boxes from storage in Mar-a-Lago, and subsequently returning fewer of them than were removed. The inference is that Trump knowingly removed items he did not want prosecutors to find. That’s a stunning development and advance in what we know about Jack Smith’s evidence against Trump on the obstruction charge.

So much for Trump’s outraged protestations the day of the search that it happened without warning. That day, Trump said, “after working and cooperating with the relevant Government agencies, this unannounced raid on my home was not necessary or appropriate.” He claimed that it was an effort to interfere with his bid to return to the White House, saying, “such an assault could only take place in broken, Third-World Countries.” That attempt at outrage looks different now that we know the facts—that the government bent over backwards to give Trump the opportunity to return classified documents he kept; that he didn’t do so, even removing some once he learned a search was possible. Prosecutors can argue to jurors that the evidence shows that Trump deliberately secreted items out of view of his lawyers and also of DOJ, anticipating the search. The evidence against Trump could get even worse for Trump if his remaining co-defendants flip.

The Special Counsel in the Hunter Biden cases says he will seek an indictment from the grand jury on gun-related charges by end of the month. It’s unusual for prosecutors to publicly discuss grand jury proceedings. That is happening here because the Judge asked the government for an update on the status of the case, in view of the upcoming expiration of the time permitted for prosecutors to proceed under the federal Speedy Trial Act.

Prosecutors have limited time after they charged Hunter Biden using an “information” rather than an indictment, even though the guilty plea that was supposed to resolve those charges fell apart. Prosecutors’ time to proceed to trial will expire at the end of the month, but they advised the judge that will not pose a problem because they intend to seek an indictment before they are out of time.

Counting procedures under the Speedy Trial Act are arcane at the best of times, and this case is in a particularly confusing posture. If you want to puzzle out the precise time calculation for yourself, Special Counsel for the Hunter Biden matter David Weiss’s filing is here.

An interesting question—what if the grand jury declines to indict, requesting additional investigative work or witnesses before they are prepared to vote? Prosecutors could likely go to the Judge with a motion to exclude the time it takes to comply with any requests from the time that counts towards the expiration of the Speedy Trial Act clock, but these are the sorts of complicated issues that carry a risk on appeal if there is a conviction. Prosecutors usually like to avoid them. Hunter Biden’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, suggested on MSNBC this evening that it would make sense for prosecutors to restore the deal they originally offered Biden and conclude plea negotiations. The clock is ticking.

Peter Navarro’s trial is all but over. The prosecution has presented all of its evidence and rested. The defense told the court it won’t be calling any witnesses. It seems almost certain Navarro will be convicted, because it’s a simple case. Congress sent Navarro a subpoena for testimony and documents and he refused to comply. The only real question is how quickly the jury will return a guilty verdict after closing arguments tomorrow.

We end tonight on a positive note. Remember the horrible spinning buoys Texas placed in the Rio Grande in an effort to prevent migrants from crossing the river, leading to horrible accidents? DOJ filed a lawsuit, arguing that the placement of the barriers violated federal law that bars obstruction of navigable waterways.

Today, a federal judge enjoined the state and Governor Greg Abbott from constructing new blockades and ordered them to remove existing ones by September 15. The Court expressly noted that despite Governor Abbott’s bravado and his claim that he wasn’t “asking for permission” to block migrants, federal law required him to do so.

DISCUSSION

Governor Abbott announced that he was not "asking for permission" for Operation Lone Star, the anti-immigration program under which Texas
constructed the floating barrier.* Unfortunately for Texas, permission is exactly

4 @GregAbbott_TX, Twitter, (Mar. 21, 2023, 5:29 PM), https://twitter.com/GregAbbott TX/status/1638306917939380224?t=BBOrNKcTg
wyDnOj8gRiQKQ&s=19.

Things That Happened Today

It was quite a day. We’ve noticed this before, that there are a lot of legal issues and rulings on a lot of different fronts, all coming to a head simultaneously. Many, but not all of them, involve Trump. Tonight, rather than looking at each situation in detail, we’ll try to extract the most...

joycevance.substack.com

 

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DocumentCloud

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The 12th Amendment, as Chesebro’s lawyer presumably knows by now, details how electors meet and vote and send in those votes, after which, “[t]he President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted.” Chesebro’s defense has to hinge on an argument that it’s fine to try to get the president of the Senate (also known as the vice president of the United States) to set aside the actual results of a presidential election and count the votes of fake electors representing the losing candidate. Because that’s what he did.

 

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A more detailed account of the case, by constitutional law Professor Douglas O. Linder of the University of Missouri-Kansas City Law School, describes the Scottsboro ordeal as “one of the most shameful examples of injustice in our nation's history.”

“LUDICROUS AND OFFENSIVE” … AND UNSUCCESSFUL—SOUNDS LIKE TRUMP​

That Trump’s lawyers would dare to compare his case to Powell is an utter travesty. A day after Trump’s lawyers filed their motion to delay the trial until 2026, Substacker Jay Kuo commented:

”That Donald Trump, who has raised hundreds of millions of dollars for his legal defense, enjoys a whole party apparatus behind him, pays armies of lawyers to defend him, and committed crimes in real time for all the country to see, should compare himself or his case to the Scottsboro Boys is ludicrous and offensive. And I doubt that the reference will be missed by Judge Chutkan.”

And Chutkan, a former public defender herself, certainly didn’t miss anything. She set a March 4 start date for Trump’s trial.
Chutkan noted details of the Alabama case—in particular that the nine defendants were brought to trial six days after their indictments—and easily concluded that Trump’s case, “for any number of reasons, is profoundly different from Powell.”
MSNBC’s Jordan Rubin wrote:

On the contrary, she observed, the former president “is represented by a team of zealous, experienced attorneys and has the resources necessary to efficiently review the discovery and investigate.”
A March trial timeline in Trump’s case, Chutkan said, “does not move the case forward with the haste of the mob.”
The judge further explained that she has seen “many cases unduly delayed because a defendant lacks adequate representation or cannot properly review discovery because they are detained. That is not the case here.”

And in an interview on CNN, retired California Superior Court Judge LaDoris Hazzard Cordell described the attempt by Trump’s lawyers to link the cases as “stunningly stupid.”

“Because one, the comparison is ridiculous. But second, if you want to alienate a judge in the case, this was exactly what to do. A female judge, a Black judge, and to talk about that case and compare it to Trump’s case was absurd. .. I think she was absolutely offended.”

TRUMP CAN RELATE TO THE SCOTTSBORO 9—JUST NOT HOW HE THINKS​

Trump’s claim of victimization and being denied due process is absurd, especially when considering he’s more like the mob of white Alabamans who couldn’t wait to put innocent Black teenagers to death after they were indicted on rape charges.

In April 1989, five black and Latino teenagers, ultimately known as the Central Park Five, were arrested after a female jogger was raped in Central Park. The teenagers said they were interrogated by police, beaten, and coerced into confessing to the rape. They appeared on video without a lawyer.

Trump took out full-page ads in four New York City newspapers, calling for New York state to reinstate the death penalty.




Trump wrote:

Mayor Koch has stated that hate and rancor should be removed from our hearts. I do not think so. I want to hate these muggers and murderers. They should be forced to suffer and, when they kill, they should be executed for their crimes. They must serve as examples so that others will think long and hard before committing a crime or an act of violence. Yes, Mayor Koch, I want to hate these murderers and I always will. I am not looking to psychoanalyze or understand them. I am looking to punish them. If the punishment is strong, the attacks on innocent people will stop.

It was a harbinger of things to come. Yusef Salaam, who was 15 at the time of his arrest, told The Guardian in 2016 that Trump was the “firestarter.”

“Common citizens were being manipulated and swayed into believing that we were guilty,” Salaam said. He added that when he first saw the ads he had no idea who Trump was.

“We were all afraid. Our families were afraid. Our loved ones were afraid. For us to walk around as if we had a target on our backs, that’s how things were.”

Salaam told The Guardian that he and his family received death threats after Trump’s ads ran. Trump showed his true colors back then.

The five teenagers were convicted, based largely on their coerced confessions. They received prison sentences ranging from five to 15 years.

In 2002, a serial rapist and murderer already serving a life sentence confessed to the Central Park rape. A re-examination of DNA evidence proved only his semen was found on the victim’s body. A court vacated the convictions of the Central Park Five, who then became known as the Exonerated Five.

In 1976, Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace granted a full pardon to Clarence Norris, the sole surviving member of the Scottsboro 9. Norris had been released on parole and left Alabama in 1946. He worked as a warehouseman for the City of New York.

“The lesson to black people, to my children, to everybody, is that you should always fight for your rights, even if it costs you your life. Stand up for your rights, even if it kills you. That's all that life consists of,” Norris said at a news conference after the pardon announcement.

As recently as 2019, Trump insisted he would not apologize for his harsh comments about the Central Park Five, The New York Times reported.

“You have people on both sides of that,” Trump said at the White House. “They admitted their guilt.”

Sound familiar?

After Trump’s first criminal indictment—by New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg in April on charges related to a hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels—Salaam posted an ad of his own.




(full article online)

From the Central Park 5 to the Scottsboro 9, Trump's long history of racism is still being written

Republicans have been working hard to whitewash or outright erase African American history in public schools around the country. Yet since last month, that same Black history has been mangled, flaunted, and manipulated by plenty of Republicans—often in...

www.dailykos.com

 

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