As Trump’s classified docs prosecution goes forward, now w no pretense of trial before the election, Judge #Cannon appears poised to permit him to use pub hearings in the case to sound his campaign themes. 1/… #legal
Here, as he did so successfully in Fulton Co., Trump will try to turn the tables, putting prosecutors on trial. Almost all of Trump’s motions (& defenses) reduce to campaign themes: Prosecutorial misconduct & selective & vindictive prosecution orchestrated by Biden.
At first, before Trump sewed up the nomination, he wanted four days of hearings on these themes between July 1 and July 8—the run-up to the July 15 Republican convention
Now those hearings, whose dates Cannon hasn’t reset yet, will come closer to the election, which should be even better for Trump. He may also have more spaghetti to throw at the wall then, because it appears that Cannon plans to give him more, & unprecedented, discovery. That’s the import of the extraordinary 3-day hearing she’s set in June on Trump’s motion to redefine the “prosecution team” to include members of Biden White House, NARA, intelligence community, DOD, etc. ...
The vanishingly thin claims of WH involvement in prosecution come down to 2 pieces of non-evidence. 1 is a malevolent, speculative reading of a NYT article about a diff probe that says the opposite of what Trump contends. Specifically on 4/2/22, NYT said Biden was frustrated with the pace of the AG Garland’s J6 probe but hadn’t spoken to the AG about it. Trump hypothesizes that Biden ordered aides to leak this story to NYT to light a fire under AG’s feet https://bit.ly/4dryjdv
Trump’s other smokeless gun is White House dep counsel Jonathan Su’s involvement in Aug-Sept 2021 in NARA’s negotiations with Trump reps over return of presidential docs, like the Kim Jong Un letter, Obama letter, & Hurricane Dorian Sharpie chart.. Su got involved because a career official in the White House Office of Records Management (“person 40”) had witnessed Trump’s hoarding of presidential documents while Trump was still in the WH & had become concerned even then.
WH ORM official (person 40) had learned then from Trump’s staff secretary (person 14) that Trump had ~24 bankers boxes of docs that needed to get to NARA. Staff secy joked to person 40: “NARA and what army?” would ever pry those boxes away from Trump.
In August 2021 a Trump rep (Person 27, who seems to be Mark Meadows) suggested a call with the WH ORM official, who was still at WH. WH ORM official wanted WH counsel involved. Su obliged. Both sides saw this as routine & anodyne.
Trump’s selective prosecution claims hinge on childishly strained comparisons between Trump’s conduct & that of other officials: Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton—even Deborah Birx! (When Birx politely returned docs to NARA in 2021, one was assessed as classified.)
Despite lack of evidence, Judge Cannon has shown herself to be highly receptive to themes of both selective prosecution and prosecutorial misconduct. At a March hearing, for instance ...
...she pressed lawyers on why Trump alone has been charged when other officials have also taken classified docs when their terms ended—unfazed by singularity in Trump’s having allegedly defied a subpoena & obstructed justice in mult, elab ways.
It was after that hearing that Cannon ordered parties to draft 2 poss jury instructions, both of which govt described as “fundamentally flawed” & “clearly erroneous” & 1 of which, it said, wd “result in directing a verdict against the govt”
As to prosecutorial misconduct, Cannon has twice, on her own ordered attys to explore or report to her on poss govt wrongdoing. E.g., 2 mos after Trump 1st leveled accusations relating to govt’s alleged intimidation of atty Woodward, Judge Cannon asked the attys, on her own, to brief her on the issue under seal. She said she’d read about the claims in “news reports” and had an “independent obligation to protect the integrity of this judicial proceeding.”
At about the same time, Cannon, again acting on her own, ordered attorneys to report to her on whether the govt was making abusive use of the DC grand jury to undermine Cannon’s authority in South Florida.
In contrast to Cannon’s solicitousness about possible govt wrongdoing that no party had asked her to look into, she has repeatedly stonewalled allegations of defendants’ sharp practices when they were brought to her attention.
E.g., Woodward’s 1st unsolicited reference to his disputed 2022 exchange w a DOJ atty actually came in a reply brief filed in support of motion to dismiss he had filed for Nauta that had not originally mentioned the incident at all.
No litigant is supposed to introduce new claims in a reply brief, because it forces the opponent to move the judge to either strike the new material or permit the filing of a surreply—with the latter approach greatly drawing out the briefing process
The special counsel has twice complained to Judge Cannon that the defense has raised new issues in reply briefs as an abusive stalling tactic.
On each occasion Cannon winkingly acquiesced in the apparent abuse. Don’t be confused by the words “granting in part”... She’s granting the govt’s fallback remedy—filing a surrebuttal—but refusing to chide the defense for abusive conduct.
13/ [Parloff had citations throughout that I’m not including]:
We had a starker example back in Nov 2023. Trump asked Cannon to put off the SDFla trial because of the DC trial date, while failing to tell her that, later that same evening, he was filing a motion in DC to stay the DC case entirely. Govt brought it to her attn.
In response, Cannon not only ignored defense's sharp practice, but warned govt that she wd strike its future notices if it failed to comply w a purported 200-word limit imposed by Local Rules. The govt’s notice had used 217 words.
@GottaLaff reading this makes me feel hopeless. Trump has us teetering on the edge of facism. A majority of SCOTUS is corrupt. This judge should have been removed months ago. Even the antics of the defendents attorneys in the #hushmoneytrial would never be tolerated as they have. Trump should be in jail for continuing to violate the gag order...😭
As you read Parloff's compelling argument Cannon is going to do campaign work for Donald Trump, compare how 2 other Trump appointed judges rejected Hunter Biden's claim that Trump politicized that investigation.
Bill Barr set up a side channel that ended up framing Joe Biden, and that fabricated claim about Joe Biden is almost certainly what David Weiss reneged on the plea deal to chase.
Hunter Biden ALSO challenged appointment of SCO -- not just for reasons Trump is raising, but bc Weiss broke DOJ rules (Weiss ALSO has claimed to be US Attorney not SCO when convenient).
Neither Trump appointed judge gave that a hearing, nor did 3rd C.
@ClassyT This is a pointless, useless exercise designed to do nothing more than collect user data. If you want your political situation to improve, work on GOTV. Doorknock, send postcard, work in running elections. Do useful stuff. Don't promote utter crap like this.
@anathema_device HMM…OR YOU CAN JUST SCROLL ON BY. I’M NOT HERE TO TELL OTHER PEOPLE HOW TO SPEAK THEIR TRUTH, NOR AM I HEAR TO HAVE OTHERS TELL ME HOW TO SPEAK MINE. P.S. THE GOVERNMENT AND MOST OTHER ORGANIZATIONS ALREADY HAVE ALL OF OUR DATA. I SHOULD KNOW, WAS MARRIED TO A SPY!
Yes, other former presidents were found with documents "in their possession" after leaving office, but those items were taken by accident, packed by others along with personal belongings.
#DarthTraitor stole HUNDREDS of documents…many of them #SCIF level classified, which he refused to return when asked REPEATEDLY by the FBI, contending "THEY'RE MINE!" 🍼
@GottaLaff
"Lock Her Up" was regarding Hillary installing a private email server in her home (upon which not a single classified doc was found), and a SINGLE DECLASSIFIED doc on her phone.
@GottaLaff
Fortunately selective & vindictive prosecution claims have a very high bar to prove. Very unlikely to be reached here by Trump or any in this particular circle.
It’s a real sh*tshow. If other readers are interested and don’t already know of her, I’d suggest Marcy Wheeler at @emptywheel to follow these cases.
If he wins but is then convicted, he must be #impeached.
If he loses, we can't simply drop the case just because HE personally is no longer a threat (he'll ALWAYS be a threat.) Too big an issue and a threat to national security.
If he wins there will not be either of those things. He will shut down the whole thing, defund the whole department, write executive orders prohibiting prosecution of a current or former president for anything at all, and order prison and executions of anyone who objects too loudly.
Do you not understand that? If he wins the constitution is over and his right wing backers will install an authoritarian theocracy.
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