Special Counsel Weiss Demanding that Hunter Biden Show Up for Initial Appearance
David Weiss and Abbe Lowell are already having fights that suggest Weiss wants to give the GOP a bread and circus proxy fight with Trump’s perceived enemies.
Weiss is demanding that Hunter Biden appear in person for his initial appearance; Hunter believes that’s unnecessary, in significant part because he already did the things — like getting a mug shot and getting processed through probation — in this docket, before Judge Marylin Noreika, that he would otherwise do at an initial appearance for the gun charge.
Republicans will complain that one reason he cited — the Secret Service expenses — weren’t a consideration for Trump’s two federal arraignments.
Mr. Biden also seeks this procedure to minimize an unnecessary burden on government resources and the disruption to the courthouse and downtown areas when a person protected by the Secret Service flies across the country and then must be transported to and from a downtown location. Without getting into specifics, numerous agents and vehicles are required for what would have to be a two-day event (for a proceeding that may be very short in duration). This includes agents and vehicles in California and in Delaware, as well as agents who must travel with him on the plane. In addition, as the Court is aware of from the last appearance, security also requires shutting down local roadways in downtown Wilmington, advance coordination with local law enforcement and the U.S. Marshals Service, and several other logistical challenges.
As Hunter’s filing notes, though, the DE Court has already waived personal appearances this year.
arraignments by video when it is more efficient to do so.2 In this regard, the request by Mr. Biden is not out of the ordinary arraignments by video when it is more efficient to do so.2 In this regard, the request by Mr. Biden is not out of the ordinary.
[snip]
The government’s opposition to this common-sense request is puzzling because Mr. Biden is not asking for special treatment with this request, as individuals without the additional considerations described herein regularly make such appearances by video.
Note, these appearances would have taken place before Hunter’s father ended the federal COVID emergency — but it is true that people are still permitted to make initial appearances remotely.
It sounds like Weiss (and Leo Wise, who has insisted on public humiliation as part of this procedure), wants to argue for a change in release conditions, and do so while Hunter is there in public.
Since that proceeding, Mr. Biden has scrupulously complied with his conditions since returning home to California (D.E. 15), and it is his expectation that those conditions will remain in place until the Court orders otherwise. Moreover, should there be any discussion of revising Mr. Biden’s existing conditions of release, there is no reason why these discussions cannot take place with the Court and the government present by video conference.
That will be an interesting discussion, given that these charges were charged 59 months after the alleged crime, for something that Weiss already agreed merited a diversion. Perhaps Weiss will use his larded on charges and the felony punishment to make an argument that Hunter would be more likely to flee — but again, Weiss already agreed this merited diversion.
This may also be a tactical fight, in advance of the challenge Lowell has already promised about whether Weiss can indict Hunter for charges he already agreed to divert. As Hunter noted, it got put in the same docket, with the prior initial appearance noted, affirming that it is the same proceeding.
Things are going to get testy. They’re going to get testy in a way that will provide yet more evidence that Republicans are demanding — and Weiss is acceding — to treat this as a proxy prosecution for Trump’s opponent, even though it is, instead, the prosecution of a private citizen. They’re going to get testy in a way that will justify a stunt that was premature when Hunter’s attorneys threatened it last year — to put the President on the stand to lay out how this is a proxy fight designed to get to him.
Judge Noreika ordered Weiss to respond by tomorrow.
We’ve got Weiss, Wise and the two Zieglers. Do pay attention.
You say “Mac Isaac”, I say “McKissack”, let’s *please* call the whole thing off.
Q: Does paying attention include noting that there are no ‘y’s in ‘Wise’ or ‘Weiss’?
(I’ll show myself out.)
This is peripheral to the topic, but it bothers me enough to risk a smack down:
Am I just paranoid, or could the reason Trump’s attorneys in the GA case are asking to interview the grand jury panelists be that they are trolling for that one who voted against any charges for every count (assuming it’s the same person)? That they are trying to identify if there is one very pro-Trump juror that they can work on to see if they can coach them in to calling into question the methods of Willis’ team so that they can claim prosecutorial misconduct? It seems if there is this very biased juror, they would be the one eager to be questioned by Trump’s attorneys, so it’s a good bet.
Even if Judge McAfee doesn’t buy the misconduct claims, it would still provide right wing media fodder and thus influence the jury pool and public perception of the case in a positive way for Trump during the general election.
So, I guess I was hoping someone would point out the legal ways in which the above scenario couldn’t occur?
Yes. I was wondering the same thing. Is this a common or normal practice (to interview grand jury panelists after the fact)?
No, it is very much not normal. I have worked on thousands of felony cases and have never interviewed a grand juror. Never. If you want to attack a GJ finding, you do it off of a cold transcript.
Of course, where I come from, grand juror names are not publicly released like the crazy system in Fulton County, and Georgia. Everything about their GJ system is bizarre and seriously screwed up. Instead of slurping Fulton County’s garbage, people ought be asking what the hell is going on down there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBjPAqmnvGA
The Devil went down to Georgia, he was looking for a vote to steal. He was in a bind, cause he was way behind, and he was willing to make a deal.
I don’t understand the decision to allow defense counsel to question grand jurors, even if limited to those who volunteer to answer and where the questions are vetted first in writing by the court. It adds distraction and delay, and will inevitably be used to muddy both the legal case and the public’s understanding of what’s going on.
It inserts malware into the body of grand jury secrecy, and exposes all grand jurors to further mistreatment to an increasingly unrestrained by law or propriety Republican Party.
Agreed, and it is not like the votes were close either. When there were more than a couple, DA Willis didn’t file the charge.
That leaves the insider information idea noted above which would track with what the general campaign has been by Defendant-1’s minions. They’re trying to figure out what the four prosecutors have without having to do discovery, perhaps to support a claim of incomplete records (Bates violation?) provided to the defense.
Another alternative is a doxxing exercise intended to frighten prospective jurors into voting the ‘right’ way. That also would fit in with how Defendant-1 operates.
Doesn’t explain McAffee’s decision to allow counsel to question grand jurors. Bending over backwards to appear fair is not the same thing as being fair.
FWIW, we’re talking about the special grand jury from last year. Even less justified.
McAffee’s ruling allowed defense counsel for Chesebro and Powell to potentially interview members of the grand jury that indicted them, not members of the special grand jury that recommended charges to Willis.
Multiple sources confirm that. Here’s one:
https://www.ajc.com/politics/judge-allows-lawyers-to-interview-grand-jurors-who-indicted-trump-18-others/7JWRUAEQ4RH5FKTGLSVXQWQWNA/
It’s hard to see what questions McAffee would allow. Almost everything relevant to the defense would relate to jury deliberations, which are out of bounds. The forum for asking and answering these questions must still need to be worked out, too. It needs to be a controlled and safe environment for jurors, and one in which any attempts by defense counsel to exceed the court’s boundaries can be reined in in real time.
In other words, it ought to be more trouble than it is worth especially relative to an unchanging cold transcript per bmaz, but McAfee is letting it go anyhow. I don’t see how McAfee can rein this in short of having a limited script of allowed questions and maximum immediate sanctions if any deviation occurs from that script. It’s much more trouble to manage for McAfee, and what is the benefit for that cost?
Everything in Fulton County is fucked up and bullshit (to quote an early Occupy meme). This apparently includes the Lance Ito wannabe McAfee.
Thanks for the correction. Perhaps they want to ask if the grand jurors took a break outside and saw protesters.
Suspicion and effect are not the same thing. Protesters are out there all the time for a variety of cases and reasons.
Asking whether any grand juror who agreed to be interviewed saw one or more protesters – what did they really see, because eyewitness testimony is not as reliable as claimed – would be irrelevant if they were not also asked how it affected their deliberation.
Defense counsel, by design, are trying to grasp any can of worms within reach.
Occams razor probably applies here – They’re trying to create a circus to change the subject. Trump has done this before – Trumps pursuing a PR strategy rather than a legal strategy.
Trump can’t respond to the facts of the case, so he’s gonna go after the process.
I don’t follow Trump 24x7x365, but I do find myself wondering when the last time Trump pursued a legal strategy without a PR strategy might have been.
If your PR strategy tail wags your legal strategy dog for long enough, it seems your legal strategy dog can disappear completely without you noticing.
All we are watching is an unattached tail wagging in midair.
I suspect PR strategies linked to court cases became much more important after he started running for elected office. I doubt, for example, that he needed a PR strategy every time a contractor he stiffed took him to court.
More likely . . . Team Trump wants to use this as yet another tool to slow down the proceedings. “Your Honor, before we can process the discovery materials, before we can adequately prepare our trial strategy, before we can do the 1001 things necessary to defend out client at trial, we have to explore whether these charges were even appropriately brought before the court.”
Delay, delay, delay . . . preferably with lots of quiet stuff happening behind the scenes and off camera. “Nothing to see here, move along, move along . . .”
Which brings us back to Hunter Biden, where the GOP wants as much visibility as possible.
At least Hunter Biden has a supportive father, who helped his son get out of addiction. Hunter will need that continuing support: Weiss’ grandstanding shenanigans could nudge even the hitherto well-balanced to drink/drugs. Then there’s the father’s pain, well aware that his son is being skewered as a proxy.
But the cruelty is the whole point, isn’t it?
I remember seeing a statement here that part of the abandoned agreement required (something to the effect that) H.Biden remain drug-free in order to stay out of prison, and someone noted that this is extremely difficult for recovering addicts to do.
BTW, both my long-ago class on addiction and the people I know who are in recovery taught me that it’s more accurate to refer to recovery as an ongoing process, and to avoid phraseology that suggests anyone can get out of addiction after they’re addicted.
Please be clear on this: There was no plea “abandoned”. Only one disingenuously revoked by the craven prosecutor.
While I share your experience and thoughts, I also want to comment that in my experience there are also many former addicts who have very successfully gotten past their addictions. Where did you take your addiction class and who taught it? It sounds like it was the same people who own/run methadone clinics – addicts NEVER recover so they must stay on methadone forever! BS! Each person is unique.
As an ex smoker, who hasn’t touched a cigarette (or anything else that gets smoked) in 14 years I feel like there is a little nuance here. Speaking for myself I don’t feel the urges to smoke or any withdrawal symptoms. However I know that I can’t give in even once, or I’ll end up right back where I started. It’s the one area in my life where I can’t see nuance. So that’s how I understood the comment above about never being out of addiction. Maybe it’s better phrased as never being free of the risk of addiction, vs maybe someone who was never addicted who could partake casually without risk of being addicted.
Maybe it’s different for the kind of addiction Hunter Biden deals with, I have no idea how portable my experience with nicotine is to other addictions.
oops, didn’t see yours as i posted mine. yes, the concept is (in my experience) totally portable.
fwiw a lot of it comes down to phrasing — as a recovering alcoholic who has explored several recovery programs and encountered a wide spectrum of addicts/addiction i can say for most folks recovery seems to be a continuous state. i haven’t had a drink in over five years but i’ll probably be a recovering alcoholic for the rest of my life. i no longer go to recovery meetings, i don’t have to avoid places where there might be alcohol, i don’t combat active cravings, most days the concepts of alcoholism or recovery aren’t in my thoughts at all. but i also can’t go out for drinks; there’s a part of me that’s now wired for the addiction, and a ‘slip’ quickly becomes a ‘relapse’ quickly becomes ‘right back where i started, getting worse’.
so in one sense i’ve ‘gotten past’ my addiction in that aside from simply avoiding alcohol for myself it’s not something that affects my life, but in another, i never can — the physical and mental addiction is still there, just below the surface. for physical chemical addictions, there are reasons to use e.g. methadone as a part of treatment, but the goal should always be weaning off that as well. as you say, each person is unique and i can only share my experience and that of those i’ve encountered. among those, this idea that addiction is a permanent condition that can be mitigated with varying degrees of success seems to be the most common understanding.
sorry for the ot rant, but figured this is a topic folks don’t talk about often and thought the perspective might be useful.
You did a much better job articulating this than I was able to manage; thank you.
What I remember most vividly is a simple statement from a coworker, who was in recovery due to a narcotics addiction, that not even the birth of their child could compete with the euphoria they had felt when using, though they badly wanted the birth of their child to be the most important thing they’d experienced. They hadn’t used in years by then, and told me they would always be in recovery.
To answer a previous question, my training was back in the 80s, as part of my master’s degree program, but it’s that conversation with my coworker that really stayed with me.
Lastly, bmaz, thanks for a better way of saying that; I was struggling to get words out this morning, and that was the best I could do.
As your friendly neighborhood psychologist, perhaps I can lend some clarity in way mental health professionals help people think about their problems with substances and recovery. The distinctions between substance use (having a glass of wine at a party), substance abuse (drinking a bottle of Jack Daniel’s at the party), and substance dependency (addiction) are clear, and founded in biology. Dependency is different from use or abuse, because we rewire our brains to expect a certain substance if we put that substance into our brains constantly. The neurons add synaptic receptors for that substance to absorb more, and we develop tolerance and withdrawal symptoms when we don’t continually put a high level of it into our brains. Recovery is partly the biological process of reabsorbing those receptors, so that we un-rewire our brains, slowly over time.
But, the biopsychosocial model of optimal, whole person treatment suggests that how we think and feel about the recovery, and the tangible and intangible social support we get during recovery, are as crucial to us never using the substance again, as the un-rewiring is. I tell people in recovery that the hardest part is psychological, not the temporary biological withdrawal. We realize that people get pleasure from all sorts of fun, exciting things we can do. But, no pleasure will ever compare to the quick, easy and powerful high they get from their substances. So, the hardest part of recovery is truly getting adjusted to the fact that going for walks in the woods, or having dinner with your wife and some close friends, or seeing your child born! are the typical, healthy, available “highs” or pleasures that most people feel when having a good time. Recovery can’t be sustained until people in recovery accept, and are ok with the fact that nothing they have fun doing, even sex, will ever feel as good as how they still remember, that drink, that pill or that line, sometimes felt. It can be quite a challenge.
Alright: Two things. Learn the value of paragraph breaks. And do not diagnose on a website.
I was sharing my understanding of the experiences people expressed in the comments above, not diagnosing anyone.
And yes, I will remember to use paragraphs.
Thank you for the time you took to share your knowledge, it’s much appreciated.
A lawyer mentor of mine, who quit the booze before I ever met him, told me many times, “If you ever see me with a drink in my hand, you’ll know I’m terminal.” What he meant was that his desire to drink, even then, was second only to his desire to live.
Thanks for this.
Thanks for an excellent explanation!
I haven’t seen other narcotics addicts weigh in here. My experience, and that of my friends who are also recovering addicts, decidedly weighs on the side of recovery being a lifetime process. We would never call ourselves former or recovered addicts. We know all too well how an instant can change that, with potentially deadly consequences in these fentanyl days.
My own dominant thoughts about the Hunter Biden story involve the exquisite and surely intentional cruelty of submitting an admitted and recovering addict to relentless scrutiny and legal harassment. He has resources others don’t, yes, but those resources also likely make it easier for an instant’s impulse to find him whatever drug he wants. Most of what I think about him is that if I were in his place, I would be tempted to use constantly.
The GOP today no longer gestures in the “compassionate” direction. Among the many hideous ways they make this obvious, their bloodlust for Hunter Biden–based solely on the political wish to get at his father–is just the most personal.
This makes me so sad. Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton each had siblings with addiction. This country is so sick with power and control.
Hunter Biden has a major mental illness because he lost every damn member of his family. As a counselor and someone married to an addict with 16 years of sobriety I can tell you Hunter Biden may not survive the disease as he is used as a pawn here.
The anxiety, this creates. Over a non violent crime. In the mean time trump was allowed out on bond in the role of osama bin Ladin home grown terrorist. Trump is a real danger to this country. Hunter Biden truly harmed no one.
I wish pundits would quit getting in line with the narrative that Hunter Biden is an awful person. I’ve never ever met an addict that was not severely traumatized by power and control. We don’t have to play to the base violent instincts of society. This is accepted in the field of psychology today. These are not bad people. It’s that our way of life in America literally causes trauma. In hunters case he experienced incredibly bad luck.
The lack of compassion in this country is stunning. I am crying right now. We need a true Jesus figure. (Not white nationalist fake Christian) We need a Martin Luther king Jr. We need some major institution to literally make love and compassion a value. Right now it’s literally seen as weakness. And even the left is playing to the power and control narrative. Abandon that!! Just do love loudly!! Loudly and proudly!! We can’t change them. Be the truth.
Humans are hard wired to love and love is quickly losing favor. Maybe the human race is doomed. But damn we need to make love and peace a value that replaces power and control. You can’t use power and control without it destroying trust and the human bond. We are pathologically eating our own.
Why is this any different than the auditorium and watching a lion devour a peasant?
Hunter Biden’s example is pretty damn easy to see the truth. Maybe harder but same story for addicted kid in the inner city. Why can’t we take these well established facts and act like they are facts. Cruelty causes mental illness in society. Period.
I’ve spent my life working with families to turn to the power of love instead of power and control. And it works. It fckn works!!! I feel so alone. Notice if you say anything compassionate the trumpers literally attack with power and control. True bullies. On threads every where. They attack using power and control.
Love threatens power and control. It shames them by its very nature turns them into the outcast by the power of truth not power and control and yet we as a nation who know better are failing to make this clear.
Our desire to “get trump” is because he is a valid threat to all of us. Not revenge. Not punishment. Because he is a clear danger. The only reason logical people get behind him is because they choose power over love. And this behavior is destroying humanity.
Rant done. Be love as loud as you can.
Thank you, peacerme. I wrote a comment on a post last week about the current fashion, among left-leaning and progressive pundits and some pols, to talk about what “bad judgment” Hunter Biden has shown–and to make it seem as if his entire life is unredeemable.
I couldn’t agree with you more about this. It may seem convenient to “dump Hunter” and walk away, but do we then do this with trans folks? Migrants? Whose scalp will the other side demand next?
I thought we had values. You expressed them perfectly. I’m with you.
Thank you so much for this “rant”!
It adds a precious piece of mosaic to my longrunning attempt at self-repair.
I paused my addiction problem ~20 years ago, but am still struggling with the root causes, and those were probably exactly power and control issues.
And looking back I see my addiction as a failed attempt at self-medication.
Love is indeed a very important part of the cure, but I found yet another source of healing, especially for my low self-esteem and depressions.
Twice in my life, I found friends who gave me incontrovertible proof of deep trust in me, and the effect was close to magic.
Since Weiss is a special counsel now, I assume the same thing will likely happen to him that happened to Durham, namely that he will quietly be asked to step down as USAO for DE? I cannot imagine the admin tolerating these shenanigans with regards to HB, and allowing Weiss to stay in a position of power that may circumvent the administration’s policy objectives?
Is the Federal district of DE a pretty sleepy one, or are there significant corporate cases that get litigated there given SO many major corporations are registered in DE? My sense has always been it’s the state courts, especially the chancery court, that seems to deal with most of the corporate stuff, but I’m not sure.
The chancery court is the reason many corporations are chartered in DE, mostly because they usually render decisions quickly in corporate litigation.
Staying in legal limbo paying retainers is something companies try to avoid.
While cruelty may be “a” point, I don’t think it’s the whole point. I think the whole point is worse. The point is to gain power for their nefarious ends and if in doing so they engage in cruelty or if cruelty (this episode must be tortuous for Joe Biden as a parent) advances their cause, that’s fine. (Perhaps even a source of sadistic pleasure.)
“Until this moment, Senator, I think I have never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness. Fred Fisher is a young man who went to the Harvard Law School and came into my firm and is starting what looks to be a brilliant career with us. … Little did I dream you could be so reckless and so cruel as to do an injury to that lad. It is true he is still with Hale and Dorr. It is true that he will continue to be with Hale and Dorr. It is, I regret to say, equally true that I fear he shall always bear a scar needlessly inflicted by you. If it were in my power to forgive you for your reckless cruelty I would do so. I like to think I am a gentleman, but your forgiveness will have to come from someone other than me.
When McCarthy tried to renew his attack, Welch interrupted him:
Senator, may we not drop this? We know he belonged to the Lawyers Guild … Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”
Let us not quibble over the semantics of what constitutes “cruelty”.
Agreed. “I know it when I see it.”
Yes.
Earworm alert!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y05eFDQnSfE
And of course there’s the link between Joe McCarthy and iDJT, even though that Senator died when Trump was 10 years old: Roy Cohn.
Thanks for this and the companion piece yesterday about Mr. Biden suing the IRS for leaking tax info.
Are we in one of those litigation situations where the parties are just punching each other in the nose at every procedural opportunity? Exactly how this “show up in person” move is going to help the SC win its case is obscure, and so, (maybe “exactly” is doing some work here) is how Mr. Biden’s new lawsuit is going to help him with his SC troubles.
After the plea deal collapse, which if I read the emptywheel and popehat commentary right, involved some less-than-sterling behavior from the Weiss side, one could imagine some bad blood.
Well, Judge Noreika hasn’t given Weiss what he wants, yet. I also do not think that Lowell would ask if it were all that unusual especially considering all of the intake items (fingerprints, mug shot, etc.) are already in possession of the government.
Is Weiss trying to assert that Hunter Biden has altered his appearance or his fingerprints? We’ll have to see what he says in his opposition brief.
It’s not about winning the case in court. For one thing, there isn’t much of a case, and it’s not the sort that would normally be brought anyway, even ignoring that about 95% of cases end in a plea deal, as this one originally did. It’s about its value in manipulating public opinion in the run-up to the 2024 election.
Agree as to the SC filing, that will provide happy headlines/photos if Def. appears in court, happy cries of bias!!! if he need not. But it is a weaker theory of Mr. Biden’s suit against the IRS, not likely a positive politically for Biden senior.
Biden Sr. is not Lowell’s client.
Agree, obs. But earlofhuntingdon’s useful comment pointed to a political, not legal, explanation of the disputes. Seems unpromising as an explanation of Mr. Biden (jr)’s lawsuit.
Possibly because it’s not a “theory” about HB’s civil suit against the IRS. It was a comment about the importance to Weiss’s patrons about his using the criminal prosecution of HB for political effect, the very weaponization of the DoJ that Republicans claim to abhor.
JB has long made clear that while he loves his son unconditionally – something every child deserves – he wants SFA to do with his business or his legal troubles. Must be what infuriates Trump and the GOP riding shotgun for him, because his is not behavior that’s in their playbook.
Not lost on me, is how this is opposite end of the by-the-book spectrum compared to how Smith is conducting his business. Smith shoots straight and always on purpose. Weiss conducts sideshows. This seems real Ken Star’ish to me, eg. just inflict pain and beat his authoritarian chest.
Uh-huh.
OT: can sports books legally take bets on outcome of a trial? I think British bookies call this (betting on…) “anything that moves.”
Might be a good idea.
First ¶ of the second blockquote appears to have gotten gibbled. The letter reads –
“While in-person initial appearances have resumed now that the pandemic has waned and it is safer to do so, courts in this Circuit have not hesitated to conduct initial appearances or arraignments by video when it is more efficient to do so. In this regard, the request by Mr. Biden is not out of the ordinary.”
If Weiss is carrying water for the trumpeters, he isn’t getting much love back from the ones on the Judiciary Committee
Yes. Sounds like maybe you watched Judiciary’s hearing w/Garland today. I thought it was embarrassing at minimum.
Marcy writes: “… it got put in the same docket, with the prior initial appearance noted, affirming that it is the same proceeding.”
Yes. This is truly asinine by Weiss. Hunter already processed. Come on.
In a related matter, the three indicted fake electors from Georgia, among the nineteen people indicted by Fani Willis, claim that they were “federal officials”, not fake electors. LOL.
“A key element of their defense Wednesday was that federal law — as well as the Constitution — expressly allows states to send more than one slate of electors in the event of a contested election. When they convened, voted and signed electoral certificates that were then sent to Washington, they were acting within the law to preserve Trump’s legal remedies while a lawsuit contesting the Georgia election made its way through court, their lawyers said.” More LOL.
That frivolous argument avoids an insurmountable problem. These electors were not proposed by the state of Georgia as a valid alternative slate of electors. They were advised by Trump campaign lawyers, not state officials and lawyers, they met on their own and self-appointed themselves to a non-existent role.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/09/20/georgia-trump-electors-federal-court/
What a waste of time and money.
Weiss might want to understand no one is really going ot care about any of this in 5 years. He can be the “star” of his own production, but he isn’t going to get anywhere.
The money wasted in Weiss’s efforts could be put to better use.
One could say this is his 15 seconds of fame within his tribe
I’m relieved to see that Abbe Lowell is assertively representing Hunter Biden. In my own experience, it was shocking to see the transgressions government officials willfully committed. It went on and on until certain people were eventually relieved of their duties (so to speak.)
One particularly striking infringement was when my Thanksgiving holiday was taken away and I was given unauthorized leave instead. So, all other employees were paid for the holiday, but not me. And I couldn’t even have gone to work anyway because everything was shut down. I’ve come to think of it as my own special Scapegoat’s Holiday, with invisible karmic tentacles that stretched to far reaches to balance out some wrongdoing by others.
Abbe Lowell is not Alina Haba and Weiss is not Jack Smith. My prediction: a jury will not convict Hunter on this gun charge or the looming tax charges. This looks like John Durham 2.0 own goal time.
That seems to be the sense of this board, even before Lowell gets the chance to exclude evidence out of the laptop(s), the plea deal, the diversion deal, etc. which may not have anything left for Wiess to try the case once Abbe gets through with the pretrial motions.