Will Aileen Cannon Succeed at Suppressing Hunter Biden Dick Pic Sniffing?
I had a dream last night that the documents side of the Jack Smith report, which is the subject of a heated legal battle right now, revealed that Smith developed evidence that Trump had given documents he took to the Saudis in the context of several major business deals. To be clear: It was a dream! I don’t think that’s the most likely content of the report.
But the report is sure to be pretty damning. I’m virtually certain the report shows that aspiring FBI Director Kash Patel lied to help Trump retain classified documents. Senior White House counselor designee Stan Woodward played a role in giving Patel and Walt Nauta legal protection to, themselves, run legal interference for Trump (though there’s absolutely no reason to believe the report will say Woodward’s actions were unethical). Questions remain about whether Trump succeeded in retaining and disposing of still-unidentified documents. And the report may explain the sensitivities of the documents and the mitigation the Intelligence Community had to do as a result.
That said, my dream convinced me — against my better judgment — to explain what I think DOJ is trying to do with this legal fight, because it conveys the outer limits of potential scandal that could be buried in that document. Just the stuff implicating Kash alone is damning, but it could be far worse.
I want to talk about the government response — in the person of the SDFL US Attorney’s Office and DOJ’s Appellate team, because Jack Smith has already withdrawn from the 11th Circuit — to Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira’s bid to enjoin the release of the stolen documents half of the Jack Smith report.
Procedurally, here is what happened in the 11th Circuit (I may or may not go back to fill in Aileen Cannon’s side, but as you can see, she tried to bigfoot into an ongoing matter before the 11th Circuit, which may have pissed off the 11th).
January 7, 9:02 AM, 11th Circuit: Emergency motion to bar release. “Garland is certain to release the report and it will impugn on our right to a free trial and the report cannot be released lawfully, because Jack Smith was unconstitutionally appointed and Trump is President-elect.”
January 7, 1:13PM, 11th Circuit: Notice. DOJ shall submit a response by 10AM on January 8.
January 7, 1:23PM, 11th Circuit: USDC Order. Aileen Cannon’s order enjoining the release of everything docketed at 11th Circuit.
January 7, 1:28PM, 11th Circuit: Notice of appearance. DOJ Appellate lawyer Mark Freeman files an appearance.
January 7, 3:18PM, 11th Circuit: Supplemental. “Here’s the order that already got filed in this docket. We’re, uh, filing it so it has a procedural purpose on the docket.”
January 8, 9:49AM, 11th Circuit: Response. “The part of the report pertaining to Nauta and De Oliveira won’t be released so they have no standing.”
January 8, 11:28AM, 11th Circuit: Notice of intention to reply. “We’re going to reply by 10AM on Thursday.”
January 8, 12:22PM, 11th Circuit: Notice. “No, you’ve got until 5PM today to respond.”
January 8, 5:06PM, 11th Circuit: Reply. “What if it leaks?”
January 8, 10:52PM, 11th Circuit: Trump Amicus. “Block both volumes!!”
The government response effectively argues the following: There are two volumes to the report, Volume One, which covers Trump’s attempted coup, and Volume Two, which covers the documents case. Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira are not mentioned in Volume One, and so they have no interest in it and so no legal standing to try to block it.
Because of the ongoing case against Nauta and De Oliveira (the Response explains), Merrick Garland has decided that no part of Volume Two will be released. It will, instead, only be made available for in camera review to the House and Senate Judiciary Chairs and Ranking Members at their request, with their agreement that no information from it will be publicly released.
Nauta and De Oliveira have no authority to affect the release of Volume One. Not only did Judge Cannon’s original order deeming the Jack Smith appointment unconstitutional limit itself to the case before her (that is, not even the one in DC), but she cannot have the authority to deem all Special Counsels unlawful.
Please specify that this is the last word, unless the 11th Circuit en banc or the Supreme Court tries to get involved.
Narrow the legal dispute
I don’t pretend any of this is satisfying to people who want both reports. But here’s the legal logic to it.
First, because of the the posture of this appeal, the entire documents side of the case is in uncertain status. When Judge Cannon ruled Jack Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional, she said that everything Smith had done since his appointment had to be unwound. So unless the report only covered stuff before that point — that is, through the document seizure, but during which Cannon’s injunction on the investigation largely prevented any interviews of people like Nauta — then it remains in limbo awaiting the 11th Circuit decision on Cannon’s ruling. So it’s not just that there’s a pending case against Nauta and De Oliveira, it’s also that the entire legal status of the work done after November 18, 2022, which makes up the bulk of the obstruction investigation.
So whatever Garland (or Brad Weinsheimer, the top nonpartisan lawyer at DOJ, whom I’m certain is involved) thinks about the merit of releasing the report, for the purposes of this dispute, he is trying to eliminate any standing anyone has to interfere with the release of the January 6 volume. (Side note: it was short-sighted for Jack Smith to release these as volumes to the same report, rather than separate free-standing reports.) Nothing Garland has authorized with the volume pertaining to Nauta and DeOliveira can affect their hypothetical right to a fair trial they’ll never face, because nothing from the report will become public in such a way that potential jurors would see it. That is, sacrifice immediate publication of the documents volume in an attempt to release the January 6 one.
Create a dead man’s switch
Garland has agreed with Jack Smith that Volume Two should not be released so long as the Nauta and De Oliveira cases are pending, but that suggests once they no longer are pending, the information could be released.
Attorney General Garland is committed to ensuring the integrity of the Department’s criminal prosecutions. Considering the risk of prejudice to defendants Nauta’s and De Oliveira’s criminal case, the Attorney General has agreed with the Special Counsel’s recommendation that Volume Two of the Final Report should not be publicly released while those cases remain pending. See 28 C.F.R. § 600.9(c). There is therefore no risk of prejudice to defendants and no basis for an injunction against the Attorney General.
[snip]
The Attorney General’s determination not to authorize the public release of Volume Two fully addresses the harms that defendants seek to avoid in their emergency motion. As noted, consistent with 28 C.F.R. 600.9(a), the Attorney General intends to make Volume Two of the Final Report available for in camera review by the Chairmen and Ranking Members of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, pursuant to restrictions to protect confidentiality. Even then, however, consistent with legal requirements, the Department will redact grand jury information protected by Rule 6(e) as well as information sealed by court order from the version made available in camera for congressional review. Defendants have no colorable claim to prejudice from these carefully circumscribed in camera disclosures.
The filing leaves unsaid what happens when the cases against them go away, which will happen either because the 11th Circuit affirms Cannon’s ruling that Jack Smith was unlawfully appointed, Trump’s DOJ withdraws from the appeal, or Trump simply pardons his co-conspirators. Everyone knows they will go away, but once they do, then in theory Volume Two could come out.
Everyone has made sure the report could come out in current form; because of the redactions they’ve done, no grand jury material would be implicated, nor any information sealed by Cannon.
This creates an effective dead man’s switch tied to the Nauta and De Oliveira prosecution. Once that case goes away, Jamie Raskin and Dick Durbin would be free to talk about it. And, it’s possible, there’s a standing order at DOJ that it will be released publicly.
Of course, either the landing team at DOJ or Pam Bondi, once she’s confirmed, can and undoubtedly would override any such order. Assuming they can find every report at DOJ or they disseminate an order forbidding its release sufficiently broadly to cover all potential distributions within DOJ, they can and likely will succeed in preventing the release.
I’m not saying we’ll get the report, which is one reason I hesitated to even post this.
At that point, though, whoever orders the report’s suppression would, in effect, be suppressing damning information about — at least — Kash Patel. And Trump. And (with my clear caveat that there’s no reason to believe Woodward did anything unethical), Woodward, who one of these days should expect nomination as a judge.
And, if Jamie Raskin and Dick Durbin get to review it, they would know that.
In other words, if, by taking any legal dispute off the table, Garland succeeds in letting Raskin and Durbin read the report, it’ll create a headache.
Not to mention, the existence of the report will likely form a key part of Jim Jordan and Kash Patel’s efforts to retaliate against Jay Bratt and Jack Smith. And it may create ethical obligations to recuse from such matters for everyone but Bondi.
Again, I’m not saying this will work. I’m saying it may cause headaches.
Implicate the Hunter Biden report
That brings us to the second thing that Garland/Weinsheimer have done to muddle these legal issues.
As I’ve said repeatedly, David Weiss was appointed under the same legal authority as Jack Smith. If Jack Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional, then Weiss’ was, too, especially with respect to Hunter Biden’s Los Angeles prosecution and even more with respect to Alexander Smirnov’s prosecution. Yet several DC judges have rejected that claim.
And we’re about to get a report from Weiss, too, one that remains unmentioned, at least specifically, in this legal dispute.
After Joe pardoned Hunter, Weiss got Smirnov to agree to a baffling above-guidelines sentence plea deal, with the caveat that he be sentenced almost immediately; yesterday, Judge Otis Wright sentenced him to six years. I expect that Weiss has already completed his report, with the expectation it’ll be released along with Trump ones on Friday. (I’ve been guessing this would all go down on January 10 for some time; looks like a pretty prescient guess.)
So when DOJ repeatedly mentions the impossibility that Cannon’s order could enjoin all Special Counsels nationwide, they are implicitly including David Weiss, even if only Jack Smith’s DC report gets mentioned.
Defendants also reiterate their claim that the Special Counsel was unlawfully appointed. The United States has thoroughly rebutted that contention in its merits briefs in this appeal. But in any event, the argument is irrelevant to the only action here at issue—the handling of the Final Report by the Attorney General. The district court, in dismissing the indictments against defendants, did not purport to enjoin the operations of the Special Counsel nationwide, nor could it have properly done so in this criminal case. Accordingly, as required by Department of Justice regulations, the Special Counsel duly prepared and transmitted his confidential Final Report to the Attorney General yesterday (as permitted by the district court’s recent order). 28 C.F.R. § 600.8(c) (“Closing documentation.”). What defendants now ask this Court to enjoin is not any action by the Special Counsel, but the Attorney General’s authority to decide whether to make such a report public. See id. § 600.9(c); 28 U.S.C. § 509. As noted above and discussed in more detail below, the Attorney General determined that he will not make a public release of Volume Two while defendants’ cases remain pending. That should be the end of the matter.
[snip]
Although the district court in this case concluded that the Special Counsel was not properly appointed and ordered that the indictment be dismissed as a remedy, the district court did not purport to enjoin the ongoing operations of the Special Counsel’s Office nationwide. This is a criminal case, and the district court limited its remedy to dismissal of the indictment. See Dkt. 672 at 93. The court did not purport to issue—and it could not properly have issued—a nationwide injunction barring the Special Counsel from discharging the functions of his office in Washington, D.C. or elsewhere.
Indeed, while defendants argue that the order appointing the Special Counsel became “void” upon issuance of the district court’s judgment in this case, Mot. 14, the district court was clear that its order was “confined to this proceeding,” see Dkt. 672 at 93. —i.e., to this criminal prosecution. The district court never barred the Special Counsel from performing other duties, including the preparation of the Final Report. Had it purported to do so, the district court would have had to grapple with the fact that the D.C. Circuit—whose law governs Department headquarters and the Special Counsel’s offices where the Final Report was prepared—has rejected the same Appointments Clause theory that the district court accepted. See, e.g., In re Grand Jury Investigation, 916 F.3d 1047, 1053 (D.C. Cir. 2019). The district court with responsibility for the Election Case did so as well.
On paper, at least, Nauta and De Oliveira have no legal dispute, and Trump’s amicus demanding that the DC volume be suppressed, too, has even less.
But who knows? Trump’s dealing with a set of judges and justices who could care less about legal standing if it means protecting him.
And that’s why the Hunter Biden report matters.
If the 11th Circuit issues an order enjoining all currently pending Special Counsel reports, it would have the effect of enjoining the Hunter Biden one, as well. And then, when Pam Bondi comes in and tries to suppress the Trump one, any release of the Hunter Biden one (which I expect to assign a specific time and cost value of the pardon to Hunter), will amount to an ethical problem, a double standard serving to protect Trump.
Again, I’m not saying that any of this will work. I’m saying that if and when it doesn’t, it has the ability create a big ethical and potentially legal headache for Trump’s wildly conflicted DOJ just at the start of their tenure.
Update (h/t Lemon Slayer): Garland wrote the Chairs and Ranking Members about the completion of the report and the delay caused by Cannon. This language sure sounds like Garland has intended his order will release the report when the investigation into Nauta and De Oliveira is killed.
Consistent with local court rules and Department policy, and to avoid any risk of prejudice to defendants Waltine Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, whose criminal cases remain pending, I have determined, at the recommendation of the Special Counsel, that Volume Two should not be made public so long as those defendants’ criminal proceedings are ongoing. Therefore, when permitted to do so by the court, I intend to make available to you for in can1era review Volume Two of the Report upon your request and agreement not to release any information from Volume Two publicly. I have determined that once those criminal proceedings have concluded, releasing Volume Two of the Report to you and to the public would also be in the public interest, consistent with law and Department policy.
Can the 11th carve out the Jack Smith SC appointment and consider all others as legitimate?
No.
Ryan Reilly:
https://bsky.app/profile/ryanjreilly.com/post/3lfbpje2fds27
January 8, 2025 at 10:14 PM
From the letter:
I wonder if Garland would say something different about Weiss.
As President with immunity for any official act he performs couldn’t Biden just order the reports to be released?
As far as any conundrums DoJ or the court system would face, it is clear to me that engaging in double standards has proven to be no problem for our GOP friends. And, unfortunately, that double standard proved to be no problem for a little over 49 percent of the voting public.
That sounds like the best approach to me. The public interest in the right to know overwhelms the effect on any ongoing prosecutions (which Trump will kill anyway).
Biden orders release relying on immunity for himself, necessarily implies that it would be an order by him to others to act in defiance of a court order enjoining them.
Note he is not enjoined by any order at present. An order by Biden to AG, SC and DOJ to ignore a court order would not protect them from the consequences, they do not have vicarious immunity. He would have an immunity defense to eg solicitation to commit contempt of court, conspiracy to commit contempt or whatever. They would have no such protection.
I think you both need to re-think your ideas.
So Biden requests a copy of each report, all volumes, and releases them himself, if necessary handing them to reporters in person.
Handing the report to Biden would breach the TRO as currently framed
Wait, doesn’t Smirnov walk if SCs are not constitutional? Will they risk that? Probably.
I suspect Smirnov is playing for a Trump pardon at this point.
Expecting a Trump pardon makes sense. lest Smirnov sit in prison for 5 more years and decide to rat out the whole operation.
But why were Smirnov’s lawyers so adamant to reduce the guidelines? It came across as performing for the sake of performing.
The tactic is delay, clearly. Once Bondi is sworn in, all copies will be destroyed. And all cases against any Trump enablers will cease to exist. They just to have to drag it out about 14 more days and it all goes away. And as much as I hate to say it, if there is ONE thing Trump’s team has proven good at , it is delay, delay, delay. Of course, a lot of that rests on the heads of the courts that have allowed it/encouraged it.
Which triggers the political problem, that the AG has covered up evidence that the FBI Director helped Trump commit a crime.
Potential FBI Director?
TBH, I am struggling to see any possible good outcome from this at this point. By good, I mean a fair and unbiased examination of the alleged criminal acts of Trump. I am afraid they may just be disappeared into the ether.
The trouble, as I see it, is that conflicts, double standards, and ethical breaches are no longer relevant to those who will be running the Justice Department on January 20. They simply shrug and say, “Cry, libs,” and a bare majority of the electorate cheers.
Didn’t Bill Barr already do that when he lied in his “summary” of the Mueller Report?
It wouldn’t be the first time an R USAG covers for Trump.
Unfortunately, I’m going to guess that the public no longer cares about the docs case. Yes, it was a clear-cut case of mishandling classified information with serious national security implications. But the election has changed the way it’s going to be viewed. Before the election, Trump was clearly in the wrong, and there was no real legal defense against what he did. Now, these are all documents that he was cleared to have before, and he’ll be cleared to have them again in less than two weeks. Mar-a-Lago had a SCIF before, and it’ll have a SCIF again. The talking point will be that there’s no reason to care about the years in between the his two terms.
I don’t believe this viewpoint, but I think that’s how it’s going to go. If Trump even gets past simply screaming FAKE NEWS!!!, this will be the talking point. So for me, the J6 volume is more important to have released, especially in light of the whitewashing that has gone on in the last 4 years. Getting it out now will remind people what truly happened on J6, including the assault of scores of police officers, and it’ll force Trump to burn a lot of political capital if he pardons everyone on Day One.
Again, 1/3rd voted for TCF, 1/3rd didn’t and 1/3rd didn’t vote at all. My guess is there is plenty of support for seeing Volume 2.
Although legally a completely different animal, the fate of the full 6,900 page Senate torture report is instructive on the ways of Washington. And if anything, D.C. has changed for the worse since then.
Worst comes to it, can’t Raskin read the reports into the Congressional Record? Durbin could as well, but he’s a “The Senate is special” type.
They better have a photographic memories then as I assume they don’t get personal copies but only get to review on site at DOJ or in some SCIF. I’m assuming the Federalist society thought of that already.
Now I’ve gone from willing to sound stupid to willing to scream stupid. Why, if Cannon found SC Smith’s appointment invalid, have the cases against Nauta and DeOliviera continued at all? Shouldn’t she have dismissed *them* at the same time she dropkicked the one(s) against Trump into the galactic void?
What am I missing here?
She did.
SC appealed the dismissal by Cannon of the cases against all 3. The SC then dimissed the case against Trump, on the basis he is now temporarily immune. The posture of the case is that 11 Cir is lined up to hear appeal against the dismissal by Cannon of the cases against the Co-defendants. The DoJ has an interest in overturning Cannon’s ruling that appointment of SC was unlawful. That’s why we are where we are.
Thank you, SteveBev. I enormously appreciate you taking the time to explain this legal conundrum; I should have grokked it myself but it got lost in a year of family tragedy plus the move (after 18+ years in one apartment) that threw me off this trail.
So it would seem that the most direct route to releasing the MAL/stolen documents volume of the report would lie in Smith dismissing the remaining two cases, right? Or would that abrogate the ongoing attempt to overturn Cannon’s ruling on SC appointment? If so, that truly does pose a conundrum for DOJ. I hope they can resolve it such that we get to see the report; if anything, I’m more interested in this volume than the J6 one, which we seem likely to get.
Don’t worry re “what you should have grokked”. It’s very difficult to keep track of stuff, particularly with all the various post election consequences to grapple with. That’s why we are a community, relying on each other.
In the last resort, current DoJ can drop the case. TBH I don’t know when the oral argument is scheduled.
I can’t find the docket. But I think it’s very fully briefed.
Case is US v Nauta and De Oliviera 11 Circuit Court of Appeal 24-12311
Found the shadow docket maintained by Lawfare
Here’s the application to dismiss Trump from appeal
https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/25402464/govt-mtd-mal.pdf
I skimmed your reply earlier, but on re-reading I absorbed the detail about your family tragedy.
I am so sorry for your loss. I do hope you are receiving all the love and support you need.
You should know, but I will remind you, that you are a very much appreciated member of this little community, and I am confident that is even more true in your real world. I hope you have peace in your life.
As
^^^^^^^^^^^^
This post notes, there is another additional problem. Cannon said that everything that happened after November 18, 2022 was unconstitutional — so pretty much the entire obstruction investigation. That would put the report in an awkward legal state regardless of the ongoing case against Nauta and De Oliveira.
@emptywheel
Of course . I too must apologise for not keeping the implications straight in my head.
I feel particularly silly on two counts
1 you made the point very clearly in the post
2 I made a similar point in a comment yesterday to the effect that under Cannons analysis all the evidence was unlawfully obtained and not only could not be used to prosecute but by necessary implication should not be used for any purpose if there is any chance that such use has any possible detrimental effect on an erstwhile defendant.
And thinking that through, this of course that means the DOJ, in dismissal of their appeal against Trump, because the somewhat elliptical reference to his temporary immunity, had obviously preserved his position should the continued Appeal against the Co-defendants be resolved in a way which upholds her ruling
I obviously didn’t properly absorb and think through what I had flittered across my brain, not even when it had been laid out with much greater clarity by you.
Thank you for putting me straight.
The expected/anticipated pardons of J6 convicts as they relate to the Pro Publica report on militias over the weekend should raise our concerns, if they were not already on alarm. https://www.propublica.org/article/ap3-oath-keepers-militia-mole
In Palm Beach serves a judge named Aileen
Whose judgments are flagrantly flailing
She lacks jurisdiction
Her opinions are fiction
Aileen’s winning, despite clearly failing
Very interesting. As I read, a thought came up that is likely unrealistic in multiple ways: Were the DoJ to drop the pending cases against Nauta and de Oliveira, would that remove the stated reason not to release volume 2 forthwith?
A reading of the DoJ’s filing would tell you that the DoJ committed not to release the second volume, only while Nauta and De Oliveira’s cases are pending.
That leaves the DoJ free, for example, to drop the cases itself, with prejudice, if necessary, which would allow it to release that volume. Even that assumes Cannon had the jurisdiction and authority to issue her order, which she doesn’t.
No one believes Pam Bondi’s DoJ would ever release this report.
I don’t see how this isn’t check mate for ever seeing a report if, as Marcy makes clear, Cannon’s ruling was everything post 11.18.22 is unconstitutional – ergo any report is unconstitutional – unless Garland just releases now. Let him be held in contempt of her ruling for now, but let it all play out with appeals and once it’s gets untangled she either has jurisdiction or doesn’t to block it. Letting the process play out is what they want! And if it creates a problem for Hunter, after 1.20 why would Bondi care? All the more reason to go after Garland.
Can’t Joe preemptively pardon Gar’s contempt for that ? Not that Gar would actually do it.
The incoming administration is unconcerned with consistency, conundrums, or ethics.
Nauta and De Oliveira are going to walk one way or the other, as will all the others Trump is willing to pardon. Raskin et al will never leak a copy. The Biden report will be released after Jan 20.
Garland (or Biden) should just release both volumes. The public right to know is paramount. If the report doesn’t come out before the 20th, it is never coming out.
yep
Marcy, you’ve done a great job of distinguishing between legal problems for Trump and his supporters on the one hand and ethical problems for them on the other. I would take this one step farther.
Trump et al. have demonstrated repeatedly that they are not at all bothered by ethical problems. (waving to Stormy Daniels and the folks from Access Hollywood, as well as the versions of Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell who spoke on the floor about the Jan 6 attack inspired by Trump only to wave them away mere weeks later) What *does* bother TrumpCo is when ethical problems become political problems.
From the post:
Trump may not give a damn about ethical problems, but the folks on Capitol Hill sure do when it implicates their personal political futures. With the very narrow House majority for the GOP, and the only-slightly-better Senate Majority, doing anything that will turn off GOP members of either legislative body will endanger whatever Trump wants to get done. See “Gaetz, Matt, nomination to be Attorney General”. A majority of the House Ethics Committee was unwilling to get run over by the political implications of ignoring or covering for Gaetz’s ethical/legal problems, and the same goes for more than a few GOP senators.
The fate of Matt Gaetz ought to be a warning to TrumpCo about trying to discount the power of ethical problems to derail political goals. It also ought to be a roadmap to the Democrats on how to stand up to Trump. Yes, there is a place for the lawyers, the briefs, and the courts. But the Dems in the House and Senate are politicians, and forcing TrumpCo to fight on political grounds lets the Dems dictate the terms of the fight.
I’ve noted before that Trump and therefore true Trumpists (like Kash Patel) tend to perceive only direct 1st-order, not 2nd- & 3rd-order, effects.
Consider Trump-World 2016/2020 attacks on mail-in voting/ballot assistance. This advances the 1st-order goal of vote suppression—while ignoring the predictable 2nd-order impact on the decades-long Republican practice of at-home voting & ballot assistance/collection in the heavily Republican senior communities of Arizona and Florida. The inevitable 3rd-order impact was his 2020 10k-vote loss of Arizona. As you observe, only its eventual political effect made it a new 1st-order impact in 2024, when the practice was reversed.
I don’t think Trump has changed at all. He still cares overwhelmingly about winning the moment, reacting to any perceived attack with Pravda Social bleat or whine/bark at a reporter or off-script reaction to rally crowd feedback. Then (and at the expense of coverage about more meaningful issues), the press swarms to that whim of a 1st-order issue, with analysis and reporting on its far more consequential 2nd-order implications at best delayed and often ignored.
So, I agree with you that “…the Dems in the House and Senate are politicians, and forcing TrumpCo to fight on political grounds lets the Dems dictate the terms of the fight.” Perhaps what they need to learn is a first response, not to Trump/Trumpists 1st-order bleats and own-the-libs-own-other-countries insults, but to a disciplined immediate pivot to those bleats’ 2nd/3rd-order impact, linking each to a Trump-World personality, and answering press questions only with vivid descriptions of the inevitable, far more important risk & damage to America.
Thank you for the progress report. Rationalizing, or I should say explaining legal decisions that are clearly corrupt (Aileen Cannon) is very confusing.
If the report isn’t released prior to JAN 20th at noon it will never see the light of day.
Any other person in posession of those docs who shared them as he did and stored them as he did and lied about it as he did and refused a subpoena as he did would already be buried beneath the jail. Forever.
Good article that describes a can of worms!
Since Weiss has made it obvious he plays on Team Leo, Calabresi and Trump, I don’t expect him to give Garland his report; instead, he’ll wait to give it to Trump’s new AG.
As far as I know, there is no time requirement for Weiss to give it to Garland before Biden leaves office.
Trump’s AG will use it to bash the Bidens and Garland over the head with it.
Only two pieces of information have ever been relevant politically. What documents did Trump steal, and what previously unknown actions did Trump personally take toward election subversion. That everyday Americans don’t have that info, after all this time, makes them distrust government, broadly, much more than it makes them wonder what Trump is hiding. I understand most of the reasons that we don’t, due almost exclusively to reading this amazing blog, but It’s at odds with the common sense notion that if it was important we’d know about it on a timely basis.