Trump Spent $50 Million Paying Lawyers But Taxpayers Are Providing Loaner Laptops

As multiple outlets reported this week, Trump spent over $50 million of the money raised from his supporters to pay for legal representation last year, both for himself and for those whose loyalty and silence he needs to ensure.

That includes upwards of $250,000 to a solicitor in London who filed a lawsuit against Christopher Steele that got dismissed this week.

Meanwhile, the response to Trump’s motion to compel in his stolen documents case reveals that, in October, Jack Smith provided two of the most important lawyers being paid by Trump funds, Carlos De Oliveira attorney, John Irving, and Walt Nauta attorney, Stan Woodward, loaner laptops.

Here’s how the response filing describes the loaners and the attorneys’ delay (and subsequent difficulties) accessing the surveillance footage in the proprietary media player Trump Organization uses.

In an email on October 24, 2023, months after the materials were made available to the defense, counsel for De Oliveira for the first time mentioned problems that he had encountered when attempting to access specific CCTV files that the Government had obtained from the Trump Organization and produced in discovery. The Government immediately arranged a call with counsel and technical personnel from the FBI to help resolve the reported issues. Exhibit E at 2- 3. During the call, counsel for De Oliveira explained that he did not own or have access to a laptop or desktop computer and was instead attempting to review the entirety of the Government’s discovery on a handheld tablet. Id. The Government then offered to lend him a laptop computer to facilitate his review. Id. Counsel for De Oliveira accepted the offer, and on November 1, 2023, the Government hand-delivered a computer to him. Since then, whenever De Oliveira’s counsel has raised technical issues with viewing specific Trump Organization CCTV files, the Government has promptly assisted with resolving these inquiries, providing tips and examples, and offering to set up calls as needed. See ECF No. 252 at 2 n.1.

Counsel for Nauta was copied on the October 24, 2023 email and reported “having the same issues” as counsel for De Oliveira. Exhibit E at 3. The Government extended the same laptop offer to Nauta’s counsel, who accepted the offer but noted that he planned to “return it promptly assuming I have the same issues.” Id. at 2. The Government also emailed defense counsel with additional suggestions to facilitate expedited review of CCTV footage, and counsel for Nauta responded within minutes, explaining that he planned to “run a test to extract data” to a separate drive, “and report back” about how it went. Id. at 1. The computer was delivered to Nauta’s counsel on November 1, and has not been returned. The Government heard nothing from Nauta’s counsel about CCTV for more than two months and thus reasonably believed that defense counsel had watched and was continuing to review the footage.

Then, on January 11, 2024, Nauta’s counsel confirmed that he was able to extract all of the files but had encountered difficulty attempting “to launch the [M]ilestone video application.” Exhibit F. Counsel’s reference to “Milestone” was to a proprietary media player and camera system vendor platform used by the Trump Organization to record, archive, and play video footage. In response, the Government worked with counsel to identify his misstep in attempting to launch the player and provided detailed instructions and screenshots about how to do so. Exhibit G. This most recent problem—the apparent basis for the statement in defendants’ brief that “[d]efense counsel for Mr. Nauta was not able to launch the proprietary video player at all” (ECF No. 262 at 61)—omits that for over two months he did not even attempt to launch the player the Government provided (on the laptop that the Government also provided), and did not do so until days before the motion to compel was due. In any event, once notified of the problem, the Government provided prompt assistance in diagnosing the simple and easily correctable user error that has now been resolved. [my emphasis]

The filing is worth reading for more than the revelation that John Irving doesn’t own a laptop.

It starts with a 15-page section describing the course of the investigation.

As Politico first reported, it describes how upwards of 45,000 people entered Mar-a-Lago during the period when Trump was hoarding the nation’s nuclear secrets without getting their names checked by Secret Service.

of the approximately 48,000 guests who visited Mar-a-Lago between January 2021 and May 2022, while classified documents were at the property, only 2,200 had their names checked and only 2,900 passed through magnetometers;

And it provides details of Trump’s lack of security clearance and his loss of Q Clearance after he got fired by voters.

The defendants next request evidence related to the “attempt to retroactively terminate President Trump’s security clearance and related disclosures.” ECF No. 262 at 38-42. This request includes any information concerning “President Trump’s security clearances, read-ins, and related training,” as well as, “where applicable, the failure to maintain formal documentation and training that is typically required.” ECF No. 262 at 40-41. The defendants specifically assert (ECF No. 262 at 41) that the Government must search the Scattered Castles database (a database of security clearances maintained by the Intelligence Community) and a similar database maintained by the Department of Defense (the Defense Information System for Security, which replaced the Joint Personnel Adjudication System). The Government has produced the results of a search in Scattered Castles, which yielded no past or present security clearances for Trump.

[snip]

First, the Government has already produced all non-privileged, responsive materials. The Government produced to the defendants through discovery a memorandum authored by an assistant general counsel in DOE, dated June 28, 2023. Exhibit 59. The memorandum stated that DOE had granted a Q clearance to Trump on February 9, 2017, “in connection with his current duties” as President, see id., pursuant to a statutory provision that permits DOE to grant clearances without a background check if doing so is in the national interest, see 42 U.S.C. § 2165(b).25 The memorandum further stated that when DOE officials learned that Trump remained listed in DOE databases (its Central Personnel Clearance Index and Clearance Action Tracking System) as possessing a Q clearance after his term ended, they determined that Trump’s clearance had terminated upon the end of his presidency and that the DOE databases should be updated to reflect that termination. Exhibit 59. In response to the defendants’ motion, the Government made a second request for documents to DOE on January 24, 2024, and included the categories of information in Trump’s request described above. The Government is now producing approximately 30 pages of responsive materials, while withholding eight emails under the deliberative-process privilege.

24 The document charged in Count 19 may be viewed by someone holding an active and valid Q clearance. Trump’s Q clearance ended when his term in office ended, even though the database was only belatedly updated to reflect that reality. But even if Trump’s Q clearance had remained active, that fact would not give him the right to take any documents containing information subject to the clearance to his home and store it in his basement or anywhere else at Mar-a-Lago. No Q clearance holder has authorization to remove documents from a proper place of storage and keep them for himself. And a Q clearance would not even permit access to, much less offsite possession of, the documents charged in Counts 1-18 and 20-32.

25 The authority to classify and control access to national defense information rests with the President, see Dep’t of Navy v. Egan, 484 U.S. 518, 527 (1988), and accordingly, during their terms in office, Presidents are not required to obtain security clearances before accessing classified information, see 50 U.S.C. § 3163 (“Except as otherwise specifically provided, the provisions of this subchapter [dealing with access to classified information] shall not apply to the President and Vice President, Members of the Congress, Justices of the Supreme Court, and Federal judges appointed by the President.”). Those exceptions for the President and other high-ranking officials apply only during their terms of office. See, e.g., Executive Order 13526, § 4.4(a) (authorizing access to classified information by former officials, including former Presidents, only under limited and enumerated circumstances). [my emphasis]

These details should, but won’t, resolve all sorts of confusion about under what authority Presidents and Vice Presidents access classified information.

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72 replies
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  2. Peterr says:

    No Q clearance holder has authorization to remove documents from a proper place of storage and keep them for himself.

    This is part of every damn onboarding training where the position requires a security clearance. You could be the CEO of a major defense contractor or the newest rookie engineer – that doesn’t matter.

    That Trump proclaims otherwise is proof that he either never got briefed on how clearances work or (more likely, IMHO) he blew off what he was told after someone said “Of course, as President, you can see anything.”

    The key words, of course, being “as President.” As the filing above notes, you lose your clearance when your term ends, absent some determination being made by the new administration to extend it.

    • Ginevra diBenci says:

      Trump believes his Q clearance is like his absolute immunity. Because he was once president he has always been president and will always be president; same applies to clearance. At some point in his early life he heard a thing about “the divine right of…” but tuned out the rest. Now magical legal arguments serve to arrogate all rights to himself.

      • P J Evans says:

        So did my father. Not only are they as-needed, but you can’t talk about what you do. (I grew up in an area with a gummint lab. We didn’t ask “what does your father do?” because we only had job titles. The former guy obviously did not.)

        • Eschscholzia says:

          To me Bobby & Cheryl Gladd sound a lot like my parents, and almost nothing like the Thomases. Civilian Navy research on undersea sounds; mom started there first, got dad a job there. But when she left to have my sister, they only talked about marine mammals & a few non-sensitive side projects. After he retired, he wasn’t told when the big outlines of some projects were declassified, so he still didn’t tell mom. Mom (& I) only learned about 2 big projects when his former branch chief asked to speak at my dad’s memorial service. I didn’t learn about his coolest project until it was declassified after that, and then only because my brother in law was on that project so knew when it was declassified.

          In my work I claim a “family history of acoustic detection”, but I learned absolutely none of it from dad or mom or BIL or their co-workers on the bowling team or who came over to play bridge every week. Dad had absolutely no books on acoustical physics or oceanography at home, so not reading his books. [I have my mom’s gorgeous 4 octave slide rule and her Leroy set, but they don’t retain anything from their previous use on classified work.] That’s simply how that kind of research work is done. I can’t imagine intelligence is any less rigorous.

          I tip my hat to Bobby & Cheryl.

  3. lastoneawake says:

    “I don’t have a computer—I was too busy to learn how to use your computer—uhh, one of the keys sticks, why did you give me such a crummy computer?”

    These are delay tactics familiar to anyone who’s had a relationship with a passive-agressive.

    After watching Alina Habba, I wouldn’t put anything past Trump’s lawyers.

    • Peterr says:

      Alternatively, I wouldn’t put anything past Trump either.

      I could absolutely see Trump telling the lawyers “You want me to pay for a fancy laptop? Get real. You’ve got a tablet, and why the hell would you need a laptop? You want one? Buy it yourself. I’m paying for your legal services, not to furnish your office.”

      • Troutwaxer says:

        I was going to ask why Trump hired a lawyer who didn’t own a good-enough computer system to view security camera video, but then I realized that those lawyers already know better than to work for Trump.

        • earlofhuntingdon says:

          Those lawyers already have laptops. You can’t practice law without it. It’s almost impossible to file a physical document by hand in state or federal courts nowadays. Almost everything is done electronically, firm websites, research, and client communications (which are often confirmed or elaborated on in hard copy).

          But, no, Trump would never knowingly pay for, enable, or speed up the prosecution’s process. This is a guy who fired James Comey as FBI director, when he was in California on govt business, then wanted him to walk home, rather than allow him to fly on a govt plane.

        • pdaly says:

          I kind of hope those government property laptops have surveillance software on them to log any unsantioned sharing of files.

          But perhaps these lawyers expect that and only asked for the laptops as a delay tactic as others and you suggested?

      • harpie says:

        It is mindboggling to me that Irving and Woodward think they can adequately defend anyone, much less TRUMP, using ONLY a tablet…how serious can they be about the project? I’m just ME, here, and I always use a laptop.

        • Scott_in_MI says:

          My personal computing device has been an iPad since the first one launched, but then I also have an employer-provided laptop on which I do stuff related to my job. I am similarly puzzled how any professional at this point doesn’t have access to a decently-powered laptop.

        • earlofhuntingdon says:

          There is no doubt that this is intentional conduct, meant to delay proceedings, and NOT an accurate description of the resources or skills available to defense counsel.

          It’s a common tactic: incompetence and negligence carry lesser penalties than intentional conduct. It also seems intended to make Judge Cannon view the defense more sympathetically, as if that were possible.

        • ShallMustMay08 says:

          Stonewalling until they can’t. Understanding the abusive toxic behavior has helped me not get as upset.

          Marcy (with Nicole) yesterday reminding the DC immunity wait might also be about the jurisdiction piece helped because I was getting ticked. First hand experience judicicial delays can result in needless suffering and death. So it was getting to me.

          Both Woodward and Cannon – whenever I see either name I can not help but think of Tom and Daisy – (not implying a relationship) – just selfish folks leaving a mess for others to clean up. IMO they do not care.

        • EuroTark says:

          Like others say, they most likely have laptops (or even desktops). In a case like this you’d also have a dedicated data management team, working against dedicated servers to catalogue discovery. Anything else would be malpractice.

        • jecojeco says:

          Any defense atty defending a complicated case involving many documents, databases, special nat security requirements needs the support of a fully equipped firm with experts yaddyadda, not a politically connected hack hunched over a Samsung Tab 8 squinting at hundreds of hours of security video and thousands of pages of docs.

          In their own quiet ways these lawyers are probably as inept in their efforts as Habba. If not for Cannon’s assistance we could stick a fork in this case. In the end trump’s only hope is jury nullification. Just imagine Cannon’s jury instructions – and she might not accept a jury guilty verdict anyway.

      • trnc2023 says:

        I don’t care who the client is. There’s no excuse in at least the last 15 years for any working attorney to not have a computer. None.

    • FL Resister says:

      The appearance of intentional stupidity to derail a process tactic favored by Trump and his merry band of FAFOs never fails to remind me of the unruly middle schooler forcing others’ dislike, testing their patience.

    • Operandi says:

      If I actually believed that large swathes of the US Government had abandoned all prosecutorial ethics to form a conspiracy against my clients, as Trump lawyers love to allege, I would spend a couple grand of the retainer instead of taking the CORRUPT! government’s offer to plant what could easily be a massive bug in my law office.

      Always funny to catch when the table pounders drop the act.

    • RipNoLonger says:

      The reliance on “reading” gadgets like smart-phones and slablets has decreased the level of conversation to grunts and emojis. I can’t imagine any professional in a reasonably clerical position (and I include lawyers in there) not needing a keyboard to convey their fine thoughts.

      Of course the old-school legal types had their assistants/stenographers to move the utterances to paper/electrons.

      I’ve noticed that many of my outbound emails are no longer replied to – many purposefully. But when questioned the recipients will say “Oh, I saw it on my phone and planned to reply later.” But their inbox is overflowing and mine is 10 pages below the fold.

      • theartistvvv says:

        FWIW, I’m a solo, and I own 4 Win 11 laptops (bought 3 in the last two weeks for home office 1, home office 2, and a mobile, plus have a spare mobile) replacing 3 Win 10 laptops.

        That doesn’t count my music-related stuff.

        IMO, those lawyers are either in vio of the canons requiring keeping up with current tech, or they are liars; I’d vote the latter.

  4. Peterr says:

    Jack Smith’s team wastes no time saying what they think. The first sentence of the “background” section is this: “The defendants rely on a pervasively false narrative of the investigation’s origins. ”

    I love those two adjectives: pervasively false.

    But the rest of the paragraph is equally delicious (emphasis added):

    Their apparent aim is to cast a cloud of suspicion over responsible actions by government officials diligently doing their jobs. The defendants’ insinuations have scant factual or legal relevance to their discovery requests, but they should not stand uncorrected. Put simply, the Government here confronted an extraordinary situation: a former President engaging in calculated and persistent obstruction of the collection of Presidential records, which, as a matter of law, belong to the United States for the benefit of history and posterity, and, as a matter of fact, here included a trove of highly classified documents containing some of the nation’s most sensitive information. The law required that those documents be collected. And the record establishes that the relevant government officials performed their tasks with professionalism and patience in the face of unprecedented defiance.

    Again, notice the adjectives:
    an “extraordinary” situation . . .
    engaging in “calculated and persistent” obstruction . . .

    The thing that makes the adjectives so powerful is that Smith doesn’t go overboard with them. He follows that long bolded sentence above with a very short and sweet sentence, with a powerful verb and not a single adjective at all: “The law required that those documents be collected.”

    And that bolded statement sums up the case neatly.

    It states why I’ve said from day one that the *content* of the classified documents should not even be a consideration at trial. IANAL, nor trained in the minutia of CIPA, but from what I can see, CIPA provides procedures where the content of classified documents can be withheld if not needed for the defense. In this case, a simple statement from the court saying “the documents in question are classified at the following security clearance levels (insert list)” would satisfy both the need to retain the secrecy of the material while allowing the defense the details they need to prepare their case. They can run their “the President can do what he wants with these docs” defense, or their “the President has an eternal security clearance” defense, without needed to go into the weeds with the *content* of any of the documents themselves.

    From CIPA under 18a U.S. Code § 6(c), Alternative Procedure for Disclosure of Classified Information. Note item (B) below:

    (1) Upon any determination by the court authorizing the disclosure of specific classified information under the procedures established by this section, the United States may move that, in lieu of the disclosure of such specific classified information, the court order—
    (A) the substitution for such classified information of a statement admitting relevant facts that the specific classified information would tend to prove; or
    (B) the substitution for such classified information of a summary of the specific classified information.

    The court shall grant such a motion of the United States if it finds that the statement or summary will provide the defendant with substantially the same ability to make his defense as would disclosure of the specific classified information. The court shall hold a hearing on any motion under this section. Any such hearing shall be held in camera at the request of the Attorney General.

    Back to reading . . .

    • Ginevra diBenci says:

      Peterr, your comment piqued my interest sufficiently to send me to the Special Counsel’s response brief. I just spent the past three hours (needled with distractions) reading it, for which I want to thank you (since I doubt anyone from SCO is noting my own comment).

      Where I would have been throwing Jameson’s bottles at windows, its author(s) instead distill their frustrated condescension into legal pith and elegantly modeled prose–as you point out.

      The defendants’ brief was an obvious demand for the government not only to do the defendants’ research but to cull the best parts and supply an argument from it…for Trump et. al. to employ in the quest for jury nullification! Had it gone before any other judge than Cannon, the SC might have blown it off. But no; her misbegotten authority here demanded a meticulous response.

      And they gave her one. As they point out, all the issues raised by the defendants must be resolved by the appeals court. Remember the 11th Circuit, Ms. Cannon?

  5. harpie says:

    About all those visitors at MAL [this is former CIA attorney, Brian Greer]:

    https://nitter.cz/secretsandlaws/status/1753635146866049444
    Feb 3, 2024 · 4:22 AM UTC

    If I were Judge Cannon, I might want to know why Trump’s attorneys repeatedly assured me that Mar-a-Lago was super-secure — so secure in fact that it was totally fine to resume classified discussions there in a new SCIF (which she rejected thankfully). [screenshots from TRUMP’s motion:]

    • earlofhuntingdon says:

      As a former CIA lawyer, Brian Greer must already know that Ailene Cannon doesn’t believe the assurances Trump made about the security of MAL. The club is virtually in her backyard. The place has long been regarded as an intelligence sieve. As Marcy notes, 45,000 people could have left with govt secrets that Trump illegally kept there, in ballrooms, bathrooms and unsecured closets.

      of the approximately 48,000 guests who visited Mar-a-Lago between January 2021 and May 2022, while classified documents were at the property, only 2,200 had their names ch>ecked and only 2,900 passed through magnetometers;

      The security wasn’t a whole lot better during Trump’s presidency. Trump didn’t want paying guests to hesitate, because they had to pass through detectors. Trump’s lawyers know the same thing.

  6. Savage Librarian says:

    Ratholes of Lost Time

    Unsound
    Like a brute who went viral
    Like a squeal within a squeal
    On a bender, never winning
    On an ever skimming deal

    Like a downfall always counting
    on someone to impugn
    Like a mobster still returning
    to a nominal tycoon

    Like some schlock that keeps creeping
    past the limits of the base
    And the world just can’t grapple
    with a brute so out of place

    Like the brutes that you find
    in the ratholes of lost time

    Like a pummel that you cop to
    that begets a pummel of it’s own
    Then you have to case for a tavern
    where you’ll be left alone

    Like a plan that keeps evolving
    through a half cockeyed scheme
    by the principals and rogues
    and mob bosses in the team

    Malaise now mingles in the docket
    Records rankle in your head
    A newcomer quite so glibly
    did a doozy on your spread

    Covers gone from in a drawer
    can leave their imprints on the stand
    Your assistant’s constant humming
    says you’re not in such demand

    Files hanging in their folders
    Your stagnant speeches are all wrong
    Half-remembered words and places
    But just where do you belong?

    Now you know it’s close to over
    as you are forced to be aware
    that the people now are yearning
    for a leader from elsewhere

    Like a brute who went viral
    Like a squeal within a squeal
    On a bender, never winning
    On an ever skimming deal

    All your images maligned
    Like the brutes that you find
    in the ratholes of lost time

    https://youtu.be/ibe6qiRIl0w

    “Windmills Of Your Mind (M.Legrand) piano JMAGP”

    • Ginevra diBenci says:

      SL, whenever you write lyrics I try to hear (that is, guess) what song you will reference after your composition ends. Never has the revelation struck a more discordant note than this time! That, of course, is testament to your genius.

      I will never hear that song uncorrupted* again. Thank you.

      *The song. I was already corrupted.

  7. Bay State Librul says:

    Sign of the future….
    If Trump’s get elected, Cannon could end up on the Supreme Court, replacing Justice Taney

  8. John Paul Jones says:

    The whole Q clearance discussion sounds like a tryout for a defense along the lines of – “I was still listed as having a clearance on the official DOD database. How was I supposed to know that was a clerical error? It was a good faith oopsie on my part.”

    If this was the aim, it means Trump and his lawyers likely never did seriously intend to claim that he express de-classified everything on 19 January 2021 by waving his hands.

    Note also the absence of any direct reference to documents which may still be missing, even while hinting that may be the case.

  9. Badger Robert says:

    As more detail is revealed about Trump’s legal expenses, its also becoming clear that he treated attorney Habba poorly. That’s in addition to the sanctions imposed in so. Florida. The cost to Trump to hire a firm to write a losing appeal on the defamation case will probably be extreme. Considering that some type of supervision is likely in the NY civil fraud case his financial problems are just beginning. We don’t know if the federal court made a report to the IRS about unreported income of $48M, but it is a possibility.

  10. bgThenNow says:

    Slightly OT, but reading Willis’ response to Roman (et al), it seems one of the complaints (someone besides Roman I believe) has to do with the purchase of laptops through a government grant (for a youth program) the complaint calls an illegal use of the funding. Laptops, as we all know, are basically essential any more, for a myriad of reasons. But shocking the lawyers could not come up with one in their own offices. Isn’t part of this actually related to security and secure access? I mean, put Roman in the next room, and everyone can see top secrets.

    • Ginevra diBenci says:

      It seems those government-loaned laptops were/are intended just for defense attorneys to view the many hours of CCTV footage from Trump’s property. If so, (I’m speculating), strict security protocols may be less important than storage capacity for both the footage and the programs used to access the footage.

      Does all this mean that Stan Woodward finally resolved his clearance issues? Have all the defense lawyers, or was that part of the delay in accessing the footage?

    • Narpington says:

      Well the excuse wasn’t said to be about any lack of permissions (you’d hope the feds would have forestalled any problems there).

      “counsel for De Oliveira explained that he did not own or have access to a laptop or desktop computer and was instead attempting to review the entirety of the Government’s discovery on a handheld tablet”

      I’d conclude the first half of this is a straight lie unless counsel went to the extent of hiding or destroying all his company’s computers and would want more details if I were the judge.

  11. harpie says:

    LOL…Prosecution quotes TRUMP himself on the importance of enforcing laws guarding classified information:

    [pdf13/67] Referral to DOJ. On February 9, 2022, NARA made its formal referral to DOJ. That referral was entirely consistent with the Government’s longstanding interest in enforcing laws safeguarding national defense information. As Trump has stated, “[s]ervice members . . . have risked their lives to acquire classified intelligence to protect our country,” and “[i]n my administration I’m going to enforce all laws concerning the protection of classified information. No one will be above the law.” [citation]

    • Ginevra diBenci says:

      Not the first time Smith and his team have done this, but I’m sure the irony will sink in eventually with Judge Cannon!

  12. Ewan Woodsend says:

    Sorry, O/T but can’t resist sharing this news from meduza (quoting a Telegram channel, MASH) American political commentator Tucker Carlson spotted attending ballet in Moscow (with pictures).

    What else, as Nespresso said.

  13. Greg Hunter says:

    The opening paragraph of the Background has been rightfully praised.

    I have some thoughts about the constant refutation of refusing discovery from alleged members of the the SCO investigation until we arrive at the DOE. I will put that analysis in another location.

    With that said, I have been reading it and I liked this summation from Jack.

    The investigation, once completed, uncovered evidence substantiating that Trump

    (1) admitted in July 2021 at his home in New Jersey that he had secret military invasion plans and showed them to others;

    (2) was well aware of what was in his boxes;

    (3) had directed the movement of boxes to conceal them from his lawyer’s review on June 2, 2022;

    (4) had suggested to his lawyer after the review that the lawyer remove damaging documents and not turn them over to investigators; and

    (5) had sought to have surveillance camera footage of the box movement deleted before it could be turned over.

    The investigation also revealed the involvement of defendants Nauta and De Oliveira in the scheme to conceal the boxes and delete the footage, as well as their lies to investigators.

    On the basis of these facts, a grand jury returned a 38-count indictment against Trump and Nauta on June 8, 2023.

  14. LordAvebury says:

    Admin heads-up: I only just saw this post, because it looks like a recent change to the website broke the RSS feed. I resubscribed through Feedly, and four or five posts appeared. I’m not sure how you can alert others who subscribe via RSS, but….

    • FL Resister says:

      In his 60-something page rebuttal of Trump’s discovery demands, Jack Smith dissects Trump lawyers’ flimsy arguments (with a bit of snark thrown in-well deserved for the shoddy work).
      At the end of the evisceration and autopsy that was without detectable grammatical lapses, he writes this final dramatic line:
      “For all of these reasons, the Court should defendants’ motions to compel in their entirety.”

      • David Brooks says:

        “Defendant’s motions to compel/In their entirety” would be great scene ender in a Jacobean drama.

        • FL Resister says:

          Of course the completed sentence is ‘the Court should deny defendants’ motions to compel…’
          Perhaps in deference to Cannon’s judgement, this is so obvious that he needs not state it here.

  15. Tech Support says:

    It horrifies me to imagine the thought of having to be on the DOJ’s internal support team and being asked to provide unlimited hand-holding to these clowns. I doubt that the attorneys would have used direct access even if they had it, so probably every person who assisted them got pulled out of their normal work assignments by mgmt to go babysit these people who likely didn’t want the help in the first place.

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