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It's been a long time since we've discussed Trump, and there have been a number of developments in the court cases against him, and so I'm here to say that our long mottizan nightmare of peace and tranquility is finally over.
Florida
CNN: Federal judge indefinitely postpones Trump classified documents trial
Trump's trial in Florida over classified documents has been indefinitely postponed. (Jack Smith had requested it start the day after Trump's New York trial ended.) It turns out that new revelations made in documents Trump's lawyers requested have upended the case. CNN doesn't elaborate on what happened, for which I'll turn to this story:
Prosecutors admit key evidence in document case has been tampered with
It turns out that when the government alleged that Trump had classified documents he was not supposed to have, the government itself did not accurately know which documents Trump had, or which documents Trump was even supposed to have. Actually, worse than that, it turns out they fabricated some or all of the accusations. For instance, that famous picture of classified documents with cover sheets raided from Mar-a-Lago? It turns out those documents didn't have cover sheets, the FBI staged them before photographing, and they didn't even correctly label all of the documents they supposedly took:
The DOJ's Doctored Crime Scene Photo of Mar-a-Lago Raid
In order to prove Donald Trump had documents he wasn't supposed to have, the goverment took documents Trump had (that the NARA gave him in mislabeled boxes) and added cover sheets for photographs to them.
Whoops!
Judge Cannon has indefinitely postponed trial while Jack Smith's prosecutors work out answers to the questions posed by all these new revelations.
Georgia
CBS: Georgia appeals court will review decision that allowed Fani Willis to stay on Trump's Fulton County case
News-watchers will remember that, several months ago, it turned out that Fulton Prosecutor Fani Willis was hiring her secret lover to work on the Trump election fraud case. He was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars while they dated and went on vacations together, for which she insisted (without evidence) that she always paid him back. This posed a serious concern of misconduct and the risk that Fani Willis would be forced off the case entirely. After weeks of wrangling, Judge McAfee ruled that Willis could stay on the case, as long as Nathan Wade did not. Trump's team appealed the ruling, and now, the Georgia Appeals Court will hear the decision:
Re-hearing the Fani Willis conflict of interest decision might lead to a repeat of the earlier hearing, where Fani repeatedly shouted over the courtroom and judge:
Fiery DA Fani Willis loses it on lawyer during misconduct hearing: ‘Don’t be cute with me!’
[...[
So the question of prosecuting Trump over the 2020 election in Georgia will have to wait until it's determined how much of a liar the prosecuting DA might or might not have been.
New York
This trial is the juiciest of all, as it is currently in session in New York, with the judge threatening to have Trump locked up:
CBS: Trump held in contempt again for violating gag order as judge threatens jail time
Trump has promised, in interview and social media post, that he's willing to go to jail for exercising his First Amendment rights to criticize Judge Merchan, having said in April that it would be his "great honor" to go to jail for violating Merchan's gag order.
The issue really stems from Trump's accusations of political bias in the New York courtroom. The gag order was imposed after Trump attacked Merchan's daughter for working for Democratic fundraisers:
Dem clients of daughter of NY judge in Trump hush-money trial raised $93M off the case
Another such example is that one of Bragg's prosecutors working the case is Matthew Colangelo, who left the #3 position at DOJ under Merrick Garland to work the Trump case:
Daily Mail: REVEALED: New PROOF the anti-Trump prosecutor in hush money trial is a 'true believer' in Leftist 'lawfare'... as Matthew Colangelo is exposed for taking thousands of dollars from Democratic party
Judge Merchan himself, it turned out, donated (a small amount) to the Biden campaign:
Judge Juan Merchan, who is overseeing Trump case, donated to Biden campaign in 2020
The state is arguing, in effect, that Trump, by paying Stormy Daniels in 2017, falsified business records that should have rightfully been marked as a campaign contribution, and thus constituted a conspiracy to undermine the 2016 election. The count of falsifying business records is a misdemeanor under New York State Law, but can be elevated into a felony charge if the business records were falsified with the intent to commit another crime. Curiously, Alvin Bragg has alleged that Trump falsified business records to commit another crime, but has not charged him with committing any other crimes:
The New York Case Against Trump Relies on a 'Twisty' Legal Theory That Reeks of Desperation
Section 17-152 has never actually been prosecuted to this effect, so the case is entirely novel. New York is arguing, in effect, that Donald Trump engaged in a conspiracy to undermine the 2016 election by falsifying business records in 2017.
This case is a hot one as it is currently in trial, and will likely be resolved with a few weeks. The question of whether the jury can be unbiased in such conditions is ongoing.
I will omit Trump's last criminal court case, the January 6th case run out of DC, as it is currently pending on a Supreme Court decision as to whether Presidents can even be tried for official acts in the first place, which would throw the whole case back down to the lower courts to disentangle which of Trump's actions on January 6th constituted private action. It goes almost without saying that, if Trump were elected in 2024, he could have the authority to fire Jack Smith and derail both this case and the documents case in Florida.
This is a tendentious presentation imo. Politico presents this as:
I think it's reasonable to put cover sheets on the classified documents, given they are classified. The documents would have already had classification markings, so I don't see how this is "willfully misleading" the public "into believing the former president is a criminal and threat to national security".
"Some or all", here, seems unjustified - I don't think anyone (other than perhaps Trump on Twitter) is claiming the accusations are all fake - that's a much stronger claim than "the documents aren't in the same order that they were when we scanned them". Your sources imply this is like "tampering" with evidence, and it may (not sure) be a procedural issue, but things like "adding cover sheets" and "reordering documents" don't undermine the claim that Trump committed a crime.
the government didn't have to stage a photo to release to the public or put the photo in the public charging document
in a world where the prosecution is attempting to redact and black out anything and everything they don't carefully curate for an agenda and engage in repeated fights for failure to turn over discovery requiring attorneys to file FOIA requests to gov agencies, it is honestly laughable to try to imply that the government was just being reasonable when they put cover sheets on classified documents reading CLASSIFIED PAY ATTENTION TO ME CLASSIFIED HUMAN INTEL CLASSIFIED so they could take a picture and have it published to influence the media and public
yes, they do because a defense to at least some of the more serious charges is that Trump didn't know the specific documents were there and didn't handle or interact with the documents and therefore was not engaged in willful conduct with respect to the those documents which would be supported by the documents still being in the exact order at time of seizure which they were when NARA created the boxes and told Trump to come get them and when they returned the boxes they demanded Trump turn over
I agree that this would be really, really bad.
But I dont see any reason to believe its true beyond wanting to believe its true.
Julie Kelly does not justify her assertion.
are you referring to use the cover sheets for the photo?
sure she does, she uses the changing statements of Jay Bratt, knowledge of what cover sheets they brought with them, the uniform nature of their appearance in the photo attached with a paperclip, the rolling trickle truth of prosecutors being forced to admit at the very least they made misleading statements about various pieces of critical evidence in the case, and the fact that no classified cover sheets were logged as "recovered" in the container
you can claim the DOJ team has not explicitly written "yes, we placed these cover sheets saying 'up to human intel' on the documents and took a picture of them," but you cannot claim she doesn't justify her assertion
No one else in the media se3ms to think she has justified herself. Foxnews and OAN haven't jumped on this. It's wishcasting.
okay, so you knew she had justified her speculation, having read the linked article, and you still wrote a comment claiming she didn't
and now you're dropping that having not addressed any part of that support and are claiming because you haven't seen "others in the media" or foxnews/oan talk about it, it's without support? what? why would I or anyone care what foxnews or oan think or do about anything
this is just dishonest
No more so than Otis Eugene Ray. Rank speculation is not justification. Your definition may differ.
If you believe that this story is more than wishcasting you should ask yourself why real conservative media outlets aren't repeating it.
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