Election Interference: Aileen Cannon Denies Republicans Speedy Trial in Stolen Document Case
In comments to my thread describing how Aileen Cannon had deferred decision on the Trump stolen documents case, I admitted a lot of smart people were warning that her order was a non-appealable death knell for the May trial.
Those smart people were right. Judge Cannon has all but ensured that Republican voters will not have a chance to learn whether Trump really did store nuclear documents in his bathroom before picking him as their candidate.
Yesterday, Jay Bratt asked her to set an earlier deadline for CIPA 5 — the part of the process where Trump describes what he wants to use at trial.
In the Court’s Order Granting in Part Government’s Motion to Continue Trial and Resetting Deadlines (ECF No. 83), it set November 17, 2023, as the deadline for the defense to file their CIPA Section 5 notice. In ECF No. 205, the Court stayed the November 17 deadline, among others, and in its Order Granting in Part Defendants’ Motion to Continue Pretrial Deadlines and Denying without Prejudice Motion to Adjourn Trial, the Court superseded all deadlines except those identified in the Order. ECF No. 215 at 8. The Court’s new set of CIPA deadlines did not include a date for the defense to file a CIPA Section 5 notice.
[snip]
Defense counsel now have full access to approximately 5,500 pages of classified discovery (see ECF No. 215 at 4) – the vast majority of the classified discovery in this case – and the laptops necessary to create pleadings referencing those materials. They therefore are in a position to provide notice under CIPA Section 5 as to which documents or pieces of information from these 5,500 pages, or from any other source, they reasonably expect to disclose at trial. Providing such notice by a set, near-term date will facilitate the completion of CIPA litigation before the May 20, 2024 trial date.
[snip]
The Government acknowledges that (a) rulings on its CIPA Section 4 motion will likely result in the production of a limited amount of additional classified discovery;2 and (b) the defense could be successful in compelling the production of other classified materials. However, rather than delaying setting any CIPA Section 5 deadline until the CIPA Section 4 and discovery litigation is complete, the Court should reset the initial CIPA Section 5 deadline for December 18, 2023, with the understanding that it may be necessary to permit a supplemental CIPA Section 5 notice after all classified discovery issues have been resolved.
Judge Cannon responded within short order.
No.
PAPERLESS ORDER denying without prejudice 219 Motion for CIPA Section 5 Notification. As stated in the Court’s November 10, 2023, Order 215, “[a]ll previously remaining deadlines in the Court’s July 21, 2023, Order are superseded except calendar call and trial.” The Court “reset[] the first set of pre-trial deadlines” as indicated on pages 8 and 9 of that Order 215 and scheduled a conference on March 1, 2024, “to address remaining deadlines.” To the extent the Special Counsel’s motion seeks reconsideration in part of the Court’s November 10, 2023, Order 215, that request is denied. CIPA Section 5 deadlines, and all other pre-trial deadlines not included in the first batch of pre-trial deadlines contained in the Court’s revised schedule 215, will be set following the March 1, 2024, scheduling conference.
At the very least, this ensures that Republicans will not know whether a jury finds that Trump harm the United States before they make him the party nominee. It may mean no voter gets to know that.
I’ve finally found Trump’s election interference!
Discovery of a live boy or a dead girl wouldn’t affect Trump’s chance of nomination. In isolation, it might affect Trump’s chance of election, but the DC trial will already persuade anybody who cares about a criminal conviction.
However, it’s still very important to hold the trial, even though the timing isn’t particularly significant. Everybody knows the truth already; it just has to become a public fact. The analogy in my mind is the Nuremberg trials. It was important to develop a formal public record to suppress a Nazi apologist cult. But everybody knew already.
If (G-d forbid) Trump gets reelected, there will be no trial. He will shut it down.
Or he till put on a show trial where he “proves” his innocence with Cannon and the newly appointed DOJ prosecutors playing supporting roles.
Sorry for sarcasm but if he wins, Cannon will be the new US-AG.
Lol, bullshit.
I am sorry to have to disagree with you, E. S., but “everybody” does not know the truth; possibly 25-30% of the population genuinely believe the deep state is railroading Trump. I know one of these people… “You just don’t get it, Ithaqua” and “the MSM is in the deep state’s pockets” are the sorts of (para)phrases I heard a lot before reducing contact to a bare minimum.
The famous exposition of John Stuart Mill is highly relevant: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1486818-conservatives-are-not-necessarily-stupid-but-most-stupid-people-are. If you’ve not read it in full, you really should. IMO it explains pretty much all of American politics today.
70% of Republican voters believe it, and Republican voters are only 30% of registered voters so more like 20% of voters believe the bullshit. The GOP strategy is thus to keep the 35% not voting to continue not voting and to make it hard as hell for blacks to vote. (I think that’s not going to happen.)
If 40% of Americans are yearning for a fuehrer (my estimate but backed up by some social science survets0, then you need only one-sixth of the remainder to get to 51%.
Once people have selected their fuehrer, evidence stops meaning anything.
I’m suspecting that when polls show that 80% of republicans believe Trump was robbed, half of them are lying. Ask them if they believe the election was stolen, they’ll reply ‘damned right!’ even when they know the truth. Why? They don’t care that Trump lost, they wanted him in the WH regardless and denying it pisses off the libs, among other reasons.
This is why unchecked economic inequality is so pernicious: it eventually leads to a breakdown of civil society. Every. single. time. It is almost a law of nature. That is, such a social order is inherently unstable. At some point, there is widespread destruction of life and/or property, and et voila! Much more equality–because everyone is poor now.
You are absolutely right. A person who doesn’t care that Trump lies about everything will quickly reach the point of not caring about lying themselves. He may lie about everything else, but they know that he is not lying about sticking it to every minority if he is re-elected, and that is all they really want.
The GOP is a coalition, just like the Democrats, and there is a variety of reasons that they support Trump and/or the GOP. I am from the Deep South and know more than my share of red hats, and they have a laundry list of concerns. You have the conspiracy nuts who think the “Deep State / Elites” are behind everything they don’t like from Trump’s indictment, to Covid, to climate change science, to Russia invading Ukraine. You have the religious extremists who see everything through an apocalyptic end-times lens. You have the straight up racists who will never forgive or forget the election of Obama. You have all the people that work in the fossil fuel industries that despise environmental regulation. You have all the libertarians that want the government stripped to a bare minimum.
Many know Trump is both an atheist and a criminal, but say thing like “God uses imperfect people because there are only imperfect people.” In other words, many do not actually like Trump or the GOP, but despise most everything that the Democrats stand for.
There’s a lot of truth to that, but Trump is not a coalition builder–quite the opposite. He is an autocrat without any principles other than self-service. That is plain as day.
Now, I am not saying your account is incorrect. Rather, I question the premise that any of the examples you gave adequately account for the embrace of his brand of right-wing populism (which was really aped by Steve Bannon from EU right-populist political strategy). Populism flourishes when political elites fail, and ours have been failing us. Yes, the Democrats not as badly, but they are hardly blameless. Our political elites seem to be unable to come to grips with why he is so popular–or else they have joined him. His coalition is arguably, at least in part, a result of the suppression of left-populism. Right-wing populism doesn’t entail egalitarianism or any change to the hierarchy of power or distribution of wealth. The GOP embraced Trump, whereas the Democrats neither embrace their own populists (namely Sanders), nor have had the political will and/or willingness to lose donors. The flourishing of populism requires failure of political elites. The Democrats overall seem constitutionally incapable (or at least staunchly unwilling) to come to grips as to WHY Trump is popular. No, it isn’t primarily racism nor religion. It is economic hardship. Biden has been pathetically weak on marshalling support for the policies which he ostensibly supports. Joe Manchin? His wife is a Biden administration appointee! Wow, way to fight for your constituents! I’ve known my senator (Menendez) was corrupt for years. It was obvious when he refused to vote for Biden’s “one big bill” unless it was nearly completely stripped of any provisions to allow Medicare to negotiate prices for drugs. Whoever heard of a market economy in which there is no price negotiation? Was there ever a peep about that when Democrats had a supermajority in the Senate and the house and the presidency?
So yeah, sure, coalitions. But coalitions representing whom? The Democrats have been largely MIA when it came to deindustrialization and pleas of voters in red states.
Trump told a story that made sense to them. Sure, it was largely BS, but Democrats didn’t feel compelled to actually answer. Sure, Biden promised all sorts of stuff on the campaign trail. I am so tired of cheerleaders calling the inflation reduction act “transformative”. That is a laugher.
First of all, I dispute the idea that Trump is popular. In the Republican party, yes. In the country-at-large, no. Even polls that show him performing well (a full year away) don’t show him with high favorability.
More significantly….I disagree that economic hardship “primarily” explains the Trump phenomenon. Every person is different, and racism or religion aren’t motivating every Trump voter. But the “economic hardship” explanation has become less and less convincing. For one thing, Trump’s most devoted supporters have, if anything, become even more irrationally attached to him, despite his record in office of doing nothing to help them economically. But the most telling thing is to examine Trump’s own rants and the rightwing propaganda generated in his support. Very little of it expresses economic anxiety or class resentment. It is almost entirely cultural grievance mixed with warmed-over Bircherism. Fear of and resentment at cultural and demographic change permeates Fox and other rightwing programming.
One more relevant thing to note is that Republicans began making gains with blue-collar whites BEFORE the Third Way/New Democrats era. It really began with Nixon. Hubert Humphrey and George McGovern weren’t sellouts to the rich. The white voters who chose Nixon over them did so for reasons having nothing to do with “economic hardship.”
I should’ve put my last point this way: “economic hardship” isn’t a convincing explanation for white voters who had formerly been Democrats switching to support Nixon. It certainly isn’t the grounds on which Nixon appealed to them.
I would trust an accurate and credible survey of voter attitudes.
That noted, don’t longtime red states tend to be less well off; less educated; and more likely to have more government monies come their way than monies sent out as taxes?
“…less well off; less educated; and more likely to have more government monies come their way” is generally the background of the racist, jingoist, and culturaly resentful.
It is not “economic hardship” that they are fighting. It is us.
It depends on what you mean by “longtime,” but in general, yes. Setting the 2000 presidential election as a slightly arbitrary starting point, with presidential preference trickling down to lower-level races over time, then definitely. Of course, this poses questions about correlation alone versus causation, as well as a complicated chicken-and-egg problem. Plus, there are questions about the economic position of actual voters as opposed to the total population within a state, differing voter turnout by race, etc.
But going back into political history to observe the starting point of longterm trends suggests that racial and cultural grievances were the original drivers of white non-college educated voters to the GOP. The exodus began before deindustrialization and Clintonian economics. Economic hardship would probably make an individual more susceptible to racial and cultural fear-mongering. But plenty of economically struggling voters have *not* embraced the cult of Trump. And plenty of blue-collar Trump supporters are comfortably off or even wealthy.
My point was simply that the glue holding the GOP coalition together seems to me to be a disgust of what they believe Democrats stand for, not that they are a real coalition in any sense of the word. And that it is not so different glue that holds together the Democratic coalition. For example, many African-Americans are hold traditional social values, and have big problems with the choose-your-gender crowd. I, for one, generally vote Democratic although I am not impressed at all, but more out of disgust of my alternative.
I also think “economic hardship” needs to be better understood. The core demographic for GOP support on economic terms appears to be the relatively well off in relatively depressed places. They seem to want to preserve their relative status, even if that means the overall pie shrinks.
And it’s a peculiar sort of libertarianism that doesn’t actually offer more liberty to ordinary people. I used to identify as a libertarian, but that was before I took an economics class on inequality. Mainline American CATO institute libertarianism as well as the more ancap strains of it simply say “how does some people being really wealthy bring down other people?” It is superficially a reasonable objection, especially in light of the fact that, for instance, people in Africa have cellphones now while in the 1980s, there was famine. It is indeed true that poverty as defined by the OECD has gone way down over the past few decades. But their definition of poverty is $1.40 a DAY or something like that.
But I used to be hardcore into that because there are a lot of pretty good arguments–or at least good enough such that some of them were even fairly mainstream among economists not too long ago.
The loss of Democratic support among Hispanics and blue collar workers happened for reasons. The Democratic establishment reacted with mostly incomprehension.
And given the failure of our elites’ indifference of the plight of huge swaths of the population.
They generally explained it as people somehow voting for Republicans DESPITE their platform. But people don’t actually vote for a party DESPITE its platform.
“But people don’t actually vote for a party DESPITE its platform.”
That is why the Republican Party eliminated its platform.
Republican voters are against Democrats, so they vote Republican.
Republican voters are against migrants,…”
Republican voters are against muticulturalism,,,”
Republican voters are against elites…”
Republican voters are against….”
You got anything else, or can we be good for a while?
And you have the group that is somehow entertained by the cacaphony of the right-wing media ecosystem, immerse themselves in it, and have sunk into the muck.
I believe that they are exactly in tune with those media outlets, not just influenced by them.
But I do have a darker view than most here allow themselves.
OT: regarding the leaked proffer videos in the Georgia case, BNN Bloomberg has a story that Jonathan Miller, attorney for Misty Hampton, admitted in a court hearing that he leaked the videos.
And prosecutors got their protective order.
I realize this decision is not appealable.
What impact, if any, does this have on any consideration DOJ may have to appeal a Cannon ruling and/or a push for her removal.
All that said in the context of appropriateness – which I realize it may not be or ever be appropriate to do this – especially the push for removal.
Pete
Why can’t it be appealed?
Should it be appealed? Not clear. But I’m glad SC and Bratt are keeping the pressure on Cannon — 3.5 month delay? Given how chaotic the defense is, maybe it makes sense.
What voters will learn is that Trump, if elected, would never leave office. Even the nonvoting voters won’t abide that.
The defense’s unwillingness or inability to get its act together is not a sufficient reason to delay a trial, or all the necessary pretrial processes that must precede jury selection. Certainly, not when pulling out all the stops to delay is the defense’s principal trial strategy. Cannon appears not to give a shit. At least she’s being more subtle the second Trump case around.
Well, it seems a goofy position on her part. First, she can impede the inevitable but can’t stop it. Secondly, she’s only hurting herself in the long run. But let her drown herself in the Kool-Aid if that’s her plan. She won’t be able to scurry for the cover of darkness in 2025.
Accountability is somewhat hampered by the job-for-life aspect of being an Article III judge. People like Trump and Len Leo only hire and promote those who ignore the social and professional guardrails that keep the democratic bus on the road.
Well, she’s not going to be promoted up the ladder at this rate. Unless Trump wins, but then she’d not be in the top concerns we’d have then.
Speculation: Cannon fully believes the DOJ has been weaponized against Trump. Then her decisions make more sense, even if they’re not rational.
As to your last ¶, this has been my feeling all along, from the first Trump court outing with her – that she’s a believer, that she thinks the whole process is somehow illegitimate, that her job is to prevent the government from (in the MAGA view) railroading Trump.
I don’t think she thinks she is hurting herself. I believe she is, like many other judges, averse to criticism. Since she received it in spades over the previous matter before her, I think she’s trying to thread the needle as to avoid being the Lance Ito of this matter. She could have 40 years more on the bench if she persists, I think she may believe that she can assure her longevity, and avoid the inevitable tsunami of criticism if she just artfully pushes it off to a less fraught time. Maybe not the best choice for America, but in my opinion demonstrably better for her
From a career perspective, there may be something to be said for letting the more experienced jurist Chutkan “go first” and take the brunt of the heat these trials will generate. On the other hand, if she brands herself as making subjective rulings, whether it is true or not, it could work against her.
That kind of “pecking order” does not really exist in the federal judiciary except for in the fever minds of the internet.
Interesting discussion here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9k1vkcYaXM between Watergate prosecutors Jill Wine-Banks and Jon Sale (Trump tried to hire the latter). Without being a Trump fan, Mr. Sale cuts judge Cannon some slack (in specific areas). Interesting perspectives from experienced lawyers.
Would Republicans care if they did know?
Do any of the smart people here have a prediction over whether the general American voting public will know whether Trump put our national security at risk before the general election in November 2024? Is this just the first brick in the road to delaying the trial to after early November 2024?
It’s not the first brick; just the latest. If he can get elected in November and the federal trials delayed past Jan 20, 2025, he could/would then order the DOJ to cease the prosecution.
(He can’t do that with the NY state case, but he could with the federal cases.)
Thanks Peterr. Appreciate the reminder that this isn’t the first brick, but the latest.
I’d prefer every trial being delayed til after the election because the harm from an acquittal isn’t worth an early trial.
Too, better to keep on trying fPOTUS in the media til the election instead of — again — having any verdict and *final* resolution of any of the cases.
Besides, that sword of Damocles is stressing him out; he’s also losing more hair as a result.
Should also add that I’m waiting for espionage charges in the MAL case because it’s a certainty he sold state secrets for money or other personal benefit. When KSA has nukes, you’ll know who to thank.
Your accusation is grave, but far from certain.
KSA could get nukes from several sources, all of whom are more reliable than the former guy and his family.
“I’m personally certain.” Not much of a prosecutorial standard, evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, or due process. It’s the kind of dangerous precedent Trump promotes.
The rough details of how nuclear weapons work have been widely available for decades, and is pure physics. Actually making them is something completely different though. Both procuring and refining the materials are hard, and assembly is something of an art if you’re going for something other than a crude device.
I’ve read elsewhere that when the US re-started production (in the 90s?) the recipes for the explosive lenses that initiate the process didn’t work as advertised. The issue proved to be that modern manufacturing produced too-pure explosives, and the recipe relied on undocumented impurities to properly function.
The longwinded point being that KSA likely needs more than just documents to make this work, they also need equipment and expertise.
My duty assignment in the army dealt with disarming nuclear explosives among other things. It’s just not the actual explosives, but most of the electronic components we used in the 50’s will not be available in the 90’s going forward.
I doubt even the initiators are available since industry improvements would happen and older types would be no longer produced.
However given the initial designs and a moderate supercomputer for design changes and computer runs for initial credibility trials, and new design wouldn’t take long. You do need the various engineering expertise to understand the initial design, and what changes to follow for the modern components; explosive, electrical etc.
After obtaining the initial designs, the expertise is the most important part of the equation, besides the on hand enriched uranium and or plutonium
“Trying him in the media” is exactly what Trump wants. It’s what’s fueled his rise in the poll numbers against Biden. What he does not want is a real trial–hence all these attempts to delay the most important ones.
Repubs don’t want to know and even if they did know they wouldn’t care. He is their savior and that’s all there is to it.
It seems every week another MAGA puts out a book about their “faith journey”. Kayleigh McEnany, Harris Faulkner, Mike Pence, Lauren Boebert, MTG, list goes on. Faith is like a drug to these people. That reminds me, how is Mike Lindell’s reinstatement of Trump coming along?
That should get the point across better than an Ayn Rand quote.
Apologies to Neil Young:
They were conspiring behind hay bales
Plotting in the back rooms
They had given all they had for something wrong
But the light of day was on them
They could see the thrashers coming
And their leader, Donald Trump, caught by the schlong
Jack Smith was just getting up, hit them hard before it’s light
Trying to catch a scofflaw and a dunce
When he saw those thrashers rollin’ towards MAL
Looking more than two lanes wide
He was feelin’ like his day had just begun
Where the eagle glides, descending
There’s an ancient river bending
Through the timeless gorge of changes
Where conspiracies go to die
Trump searched out his companions
But they were lost in courtroom canyons
Where the well-aimed blade of justice
Had slashed their paltry plan
It was then the hired help knew they’d had enough
Burned their old green cards for fuel
Headed out to where the pavement turns to sand
With a one-way ticket to a sweet plea deal
And Trump’s fate in their hands
Where the documents went, we still don’t understand
Trump had the Best Election
He was poisoned with protection
But there was too much that he’d hoarded
Too many boxes to hide
In the ballroom, they’d been stationed
Before their bathroom migration
In the hallway near Reservations
They were waiting, waiting
So Trump got scared and left them there
They were an Albatross to him
Better down the road without that load
Brings back the time when he was eight or nine
He was watchin’ his Daddy’s TV
It was that Nixon Watergate scandal episode
Where the vulture glides, descending
On an asphalt highway bending
Through statehouses and courtrooms, galaxies and stars
Down the windy halls of Justice
Flees TFG before the bullwhip
The motel of lost elections
Waits with heated cell and bars
But Jack Smith won’t be stopping there
Got his own row left to hoe
Just another line in the field of time
When the thrasher comes, we’ll be watching the fun
As they’re mown down one by one
And even though their time has come,
Trump’s next in line
Whoa
As I see it, ultimately all of this is a result of the unwillingness of our elected officials to deal with the supreme court’s prolonged dismantling of campaign finance regulations beginning with Buckley v Valeo in 1976. After Carter’s landslide defeat, it’s as if the Democrats just decided that, “Oh well, I suppose we’ll just have to take the cash! Oww, stop, you’re hurting me! I said we’d take the cash! Oh, if only there were something we could have done when we had a supermajority in Congress and the presidency? Oh, the humanity!”
A summary of Buckley vs Valeo for the youngsters: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckley_v._Valeo
“Don’t vote for anyone who isn’t a Christian.”
–Kandiss Taylor, Republican Chair of GA’s 1st District showing us her “interpretation” of Article VI.
“No religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”
The Constitution prohibits the enactment of laws that would create a religious requirement for office.
The Constitution does *not* prohibit individuals for making their own electoral choices based on their religious views.
(It’s like the First amendment, which constrains the government from restricting speech and not individuals who wish to restrict speech in their own homes, businesses, blogs, etc.)
Yes but we are seeing what happens when these MAGA Christians get elected. They push for laws giving Christianity favorable treatment. “We’re a Christian nation”, “we are founded on Christian principles”, etc. MAGA Christians all about their religious freedom at the expense of everyone else’s. To them religious equality is oppressive to Christianity.
I agree with your take on the Christian nationalism coming to the fore, and I wasn’t arguing either for or against electing Christians. I simply get as tired of folks misunderstanding the freedom of religion clause as I do the misguided freedom of speech arguments.
Also, please note that deciding to vote *against* someone on the basis of the candidate’s religion is also something that is not prohibited by the freedom of religion clause of constitution.
Yes. Religionists often succumb to the desire to impose their religious tenets on the broader society, but only to improve it of course! OK, I think my rules, too, would better society. Everyone is free to try mold society to a preferred standard and in that, free to consider religion, philosophy, logic or, say, Ayn Rand’s fiction (sacred texts to some!).
Luckily, we all have the right and ability (and responsibility!) to advocate for our positions and try to elect those who agree with us. People we elect to craft legislation or manage its implementation may properly be influenced by religion, and voters can make their decisions based on an individual judgment of what degree of this influence is proper. I certainly wouldn’t want to take that choice from anyone—theists or non-theists.
In their application to different individuals, however, some specific constitutional rights often conflict. When that inevitably happens, we work it out in court through the rule of law, and we both agree to abide by the results, while keeping the right to change the applicable set of laws through the democratic process.
At least that’s what’s happened in the past—but it’s what Trump-flavored religious nationalism most specifically threatens.
Off Topic – The fake electors in Nevada are under investigation
https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/reports-nevada-gop-fake-electors-under-state-investigation
I’ll be doing some research on the truism that you’re innocent until proven guilty.
Can a candidate for public office who pays for all the process the system allows to delay a final judgment insist he is innocent because there is no final judgment? Can he evade addressing the evidence because there is some proceeding going on? (e.g., my taxes are being audited). How should his opposing candidate/s address this question, specifically should they emphasize the evidence against him or stay away?
Nevada AG never said ‘never.’ Those self-serving, self-selected ‘electors’ deserve to keep squirming. If Trump gets found guilty of defrauding voters of their vote, those willing dupes can’t be far behind.
Hmm. Don’t these rulings essentially block the late spring and early summer from Fani Willis by nominally holding the May 5 trial date that she has no intention of holding to?
Interesting point.
You have no idea what Cannon’s “intention” is. You are just making things up out of whole cloth. Let’s take a step back and see what happens. Fani Willis is of no concern whatsoever to the federal judges.
Willis is now pointing to 2025 as the likely trial date.
Huh. Maybe Willis should not have rendered the most ridiculous larded up local case in national history.
Could there be a superceding indictment in a different jurisdiction that could proceed, like at Bedminster?
[Welcome back to emptywheel. Please use the same username and email address each time you comment so that community members get to know you. This is your second username; you have 16 previously published comments under username “EchoDelta.” Please revert to your original username. /~Rayne]
A quick OT to note a technical improvement. I do not know if it was something done here at Emptywheel or in my Chrome cellphone browser, but the appearance of the website has remarkably improved. The main text was always fine, but the comment section quickly degraded into an unreadable mess due to the tabbed replies displaying in single words per line or even a couple of letters per line. I could switch to landscape mode and usually get through a comment section, however, and had resigned myself to it.
Yesterday that changed. Suddenly the comment section had a smaller font, I guess, and the tabs were much better placed, meaning that the cell phone screen could quite easily and pleasingly fit the comments into portrait mode. If it was here that the changes were made (whether site code or the software behind the comment section), I thank you! If it was my Chrome cell phone browser (on a Pixel 6 running the latest Android operating system), then I wanted you to know about the issue (if you didn’t) and that it’s no longer an issue.
Ditto. I’m not a techie but I have wondered why the comments are spaced so far apart. It creates more scrolling.
Great improvement. Will not need to be rotating my iPhone to landscape all the time. Thank you. But, still, on my iPhone, seems to me the first indentation is much larger than it needs to be for clarity. Text is still being cut-off on the right margin when there are multiple replies, sur-replies, sur-sur replies etc.
The line for snowflakes starts right behind the line for sparkle ponies.
TFG is a National Security threat. Full Stop! This fact seems to be minimized in her procedural rulings. Time delay is never prudent in any case concerning National Security breaches and in this case to delay is particularly egregious. He is quite frankly able to betray America at anytime. Couching this case as a documents case is a disservice to the public. This case is the most egregious breach of Nation Security and will set the standard on how to treat people of with flawed moral character that ascend to the presidency with the help of foreign nations hostile to American interest. Basically he walked out the door unimpeded with dozen of boxes and hundreds of highly classified documents and to date suffers no repercussions for his actions. Given the chance Cannon will, if not already having done so, guarantee that the election will decide the out come of his actions and not a court of law. So much for the publics right to a speedy trail. It is clear that TFG is using every law trick in the system to delay not only this case but all his criminal and civil prosecutions.
Your post sounds familiar? Oh right, you posted a similar paragraph about two weeks ago.
Like I wrote in my reply to your earlier comment, even if Trump presents a risk to National Security, I just don’t think that has any effect on how the legal processes should play out or how Judge Cannon or others should act. Trump is charged with specific alleged crimes and these court cases are only about those charges.
If you believe in rule of law, you should want and expect the government to try these cases, and the judges to handle all the procedural stuff, the same as they would for any other criminal case. Either Trump will be found guilty, or he’ll be found innocent, or there will be a mistrial, or a hung jury, or perhaps he’ll succeed in delaying the trial long enough to become President and then direct the DOJ to make the case go away. (It would be especially interesting if they refused to comply…)
Some of those outcomes would clearly be a bad thing for US national security interests, but thats a really problem for the US government to worry about, not the courts.
[Edit: but it is true that Trump’s alleged conduct in this case was especially egregious.. I hope he does get jail time for it.]
Perhaps the Special Counsel’s decision to bring this case in Florida should be second-guessed.
Whether Judge Cannon is in the tank for Trump or just inexperienced, the probability that the case would be assigned to her was high.
If national security was truly at risk, that ship has sailed because of the deferential treatment by the National Archives and DOJ. Trump was given the benefit of the doubt when he didn’t deserve it. In fact, throughout his tenure Trump has benefitted from the institutionalists’ reticence to believe that Trump would transgress at will.
I wonder if the only way out of this thicket would be a superseding indictment in DC to add in the allegation that he improperly shared the information.
ritarita
“Perhaps the Special Counsel’s decision to bring this case in Florida should be second-guessed.”
hasn’t this has been bmaz’ criticism of sc smith all along?
Yes.
Sounds like Fani Willis should act “as if” she will be able to schedule the sprawling Georgia trial for May. It is astonishing that Trump and his attorneys are allowed to pore through and likely refresh Trump’s memory of the contents of the hundreds of national security documents the former, disgraced president illegally “stored” at his private clubs and properties.
Long time and very appreciative lurker. Was recently sent an article by Sarah Kendzior and would be interested in the thoughts of those who have significantly more knowledge of these things about the article titled: “Servants of the Mafia State” focusing on Garland and Gorelick.
Thank you. https://sarahkendzior.substack.com/p/servants-of-the-mafia-state
Her post reads like she has been mainlining Michael Shellenberger and Matt Taiibi without any critical thinking filter. Hard pass.
You don’t need to check with “those who have significantly more knowledge.” Your common sense and BS detector will do just fine, once you switch them on.
For example, she begins by talking about the “The DOJ Industrial Propaganda Complex,” and appears to think we all of us already know what that is. That alone should tell you she’s deep into her own mythology, because the “DOJIPC” isn’t really a thing. And that also tells you that she is most likely a somewhat dubious source for, well, just about anything.
Her real beef seems to be that she is impatient with due process, and would prefer that somebody (who?) simply toss Trump in jail for his alleged crimes. If you’ve been reading here for even a month or so, you already know – that’s not how it works.
Kendzior has become a one-trick conspiracy pony, more angry and less nuanced than Chris Hedges, and the political opposite of what’s his name… Glenn Greenwald.
Slightly OT but Judge Chutkan has denied Trump’s request to excise “inflammatory” statements from the indictment.
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.258149/gov.uscourts.dcd.258149.158.0_3.pdf
My favourite bit: “But Defendant fails to cite even one example of that evidence. In any event, the voir dire process will allow the court to examine and address the effects that pretrial publicity, including any generated by Defendant, has had on the impartiality of potential jurors. When trial begins, the court will also take steps to screen from the jury any irrelevant and prejudicial material that either party seeks to introduce.”
Yeah, a Defendant’s Counsel is bound to get lazy if he’s used to Judge Cannon carrying water for the client. Chutkan is a different kind of Federal judge…thankfully. But now there’s the appeals court to worry about too with the lifting of the gag order… Ugh.
EW is reading the tea leaves right. Cannon is going to kick this case down the road at the beginning of March.
I wonder what it would take to turn her around. If Smith developed evidence that Trump sold classified information for money (rumour has it they’re pursuing this angle right now), would she finally decide it’s a bridge too far and stop protecting him?
I’m wondering the same. Will she see the light when she sees all the top secret documents, especially if she sees clear evidence of using those documents for espionage? I’m also curious what Marcy thinks about this.
Neither you, nor Old Redneck know anything. You are just blithely shit posting because you can. Try to get a grip.
supposing a federal judge was actively obstructing a case’s prosecution or “taking dictation” from a defendant or his attorneys:
is impeachment the only remedy? does the Judiciary, as a separate branch of government, have its own Inspectors General? who would be empowered to make an investigation of the charges?
as a known Cassandra, i can foresee the whole effort with respect to the matter of Trump and usurpation of power going down the drain
Yes, impeachment.