Posts posted by HenryJames
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Emerging Portrait of Judge in Trump Documents Case: Prepared, Prickly and Slow
SpoilerJudge Aileen Cannon’s handling of court hearings offers insights into how the case accusing Donald Trump of illegally retaining classified material has become bogged down in unresolved issues.
May 29, 2024, 5:03 a.m. ET
Judge Aileen M. Cannon rarely issues rulings that explain her thinking in a way that might reveal her legal influences or any guiding philosophy.Southern District of Florida
By Alan Feuer
Alan Feuer has regularly attended the proceedings in Judge Aileen M. Cannon’s courtroom in Fort Pierce, Fla.
A few months ago, a top prosecutor on former President Donald J. Trump’s classified documents case stood up in court and told Judge Aileen M. Cannon that he was concerned about the pace of the proceeding, gingerly expressing his desire to keep the matter “moving along.”
Almost instantly, Judge Cannon got defensive.
“I can assure you that in the background there is a great deal of judicial work going on,” she snapped. “So while it may not appear on the surface that anything is happening, there is a ton of work being done.”
In some sense, Judge Cannon had a point. Much of what judges do unfolds out of sight in the sanctity of their chambers.
But at seven public hearings over more than 10 months, Judge Cannon has left an increasingly detailed record of her decision-making skills and judicial temperament.
The portrait that has emerged so far is that of an industrious but inexperienced and often insecure judge whose reluctance to rule decisively even on minor matters has permitted one of the country’s most important criminal cases to become bogged down in a logjam of unresolved issues.
She rarely issues rulings that explain her thinking in a way that might reveal her legal influences or any guiding philosophy. And that has made the hearings, which have taken place in Federal District Court in Fort Pierce, Fla., all the more important in assessing her management of the case.
Regardless of her motives, Judge Cannon has effectively imperiled the future of a criminal prosecution that once seemed the most straightforward of the four Mr. Trump is facing.
She has largely accomplished this by granting a serious hearing to almost every issue — no matter how far-fetched — that Mr. Trump’s lawyers have raised, playing directly into the former president’s strategy of delaying the case from reaching trial.
It appears increasingly likely that the documents case will not go to a jury before Election Day, and that the only trial that Mr. Trump will face this year will be the one now ending in Manhattan, where jurors are expected to begin deliberating on Wednesday over whether he falsified business records in connection with hush money payments to a porn star.
Still, the next few weeks will bring Judge Cannon’s handling of the case in Florida into even sharper focus.
She may soon rule on a request by Jack Smith, the special counsel overseeing the two federal prosecutions of the former president, to bar Mr. Trump from making public statements that could endanger federal agents working on the documents case. That move, which the judge denied this week on procedural grounds, came in response to the former president’s baseless assertion that the F.B.I. was authorized to use deadly force against him during the search two years ago of Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence in Florida.
After a hearing in June, Judge Cannon will also have to make a significant decision on whether to give Mr. Trump’s lawyers access to communications between Mr. Smith’s team and top national security officials. The lawyers made that request hoping to bolster their contention that the so-called deep state colluded with the Biden administration to bring the charges.
A former federal prosecutor, Judge Cannon graduated from Duke University and the University of Michigan’s law school, where she joined the conservative Federalist Society. She was nominated to the federal bench by Mr. Trump during his final months in office and was confirmed by the Senate just days after he was declared the loser of the 2020 election.
She was already under scrutiny when she got the classified documents case last June because of a decision she made well before the indictment was filed. That ruling, which shut down the investigation into Mr. Trump until an independent arbiter sorted through reams of materials seized from Mar-a-Lago, was so legally dubious that the appeals court sitting over her reversed it in unusually scathing terms.
Since then, Judge Cannon has shown little of her human side in court, taking a businesslike approach to the proceedings, which always begin the same way.
Invariably entering her courtroom on time, she first admonishes those in the gallery not to use electronic devices and reminds them of her rule forbidding getting up while a hearing is in progress. She then lays out the issues at hand and recounts the documents she has received that will inform the conversation.
Even though she has been on the bench for only four years and has limited experience handling criminal cases, it is often clear that Judge Cannon has done her homework.
In mid-March, for instance, she was discussing the key elements of the Espionage Act with Emil Bove, one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers and an expert on classified information cases. At one point, she pushed back at Mr. Bove’s contention that a section of the act requiring “national defense information” to be present in any documents charged in an indictment was so vaguely written that it was essentially unenforceable.
“There has been a fair amount of litigation, I think, on the defense information prong,” Judge Cannon said. “So it would be hard to say, based on the current state of decisional authority, that that prong, in and of itself, is unconstitutionally vague.”
Even though it meant that he had lost the point, Mr. Bove had to agree.
“I can’t fight with the way that Your Honor phrased that,” he said.
That exchange, however, was a far cry from one that occurred last week when Judge Cannon was debating with Jay Bratt, one of the prosecutors, about a common theory of legal liability called the Pinkerton rule. The rule holds that all members of a conspiracy can be held accountable for any crimes committed by their co-conspirators.
Mr. Bratt said the rule would likely apply to Mr. Trump’s dealings with his two co-defendants, Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, employees of Mar-a-Lago who have been accused of conspiring with the former president to obstruct the government’s repeated efforts to retrieve the classified materials.
Judge Cannon seemed a bit perplexed and asked Mr. Bratt what authority he intended to rely on in applying the Pinkerton rule. Mr. Bratt seemed almost sheepish in having to lay things out for her so simply.
“So the authority is Pinkerton,” he said, and launched into a quick explanation.
One of Judge Cannon’s most enduring habits is her tendency to ask the same question several times. It is never quite clear if she does not understand the answers she is receiving or is trying to push back against them.
At last week’s hearing, she did this to Stanley Woodward Jr., Mr. Nauta’s lawyer, as she considered his request to order prosecutors to provide him with internal communications that could help support his claims that the case against his client had been brought vindictively.
The communications Mr. Woodward was looking for concerned a meeting he attended at the Justice Department nearly two years ago where, he claims, Mr. Bratt threatened to derail a judgeship he had applied for if he did not prevail on Mr. Nauta to cooperate against Mr. Trump.
When Judge Cannon asked Mr. Woodward what he actually wanted from the government, his answer seemed simple enough: any messages exchanged by prosecutors that mentioned his name. The judge then asked a second time, telling Mr. Woodward to give it to her “slowly.”
But even after that, it seemed that she was still a bit confused.
“All right,” she said, this time referring to notes she had taken. “So I understand your request. It’s, quote, ‘All documents, communications concerning Mr. Woodward.’”
Something similar happened moments later when Judge Cannon turned to David Harbach, one of the prosecutors, to discuss Mr. Woodward’s request.
Mr. Harbach had just spent the better part of five minutes telling the judge that Mr. Woodward’s claims of misconduct were a “fantasy” and that, under the law, he was not entitled to rummage around in the government’s private messages.
But Judge Cannon seemed to miss his point, asking Mr. Harbach if he was suggesting that prosecutors did not have any of the messages that Mr. Woodward wanted. No, he told her, explaining again that Mr. Woodward had failed to present any evidence that would even merit turning over what he wanted.
“So I guess what you are saying is you’re not sure?” she asked.
No, Mr. Harbach said for a third time, once more trying to explain that Mr. Woodward’s description of the meeting in August 2022 was entirely false and that the normal legal threshold for handing over private communications had simply not been reached.
“I know you disagree with the factual recitation of the August meeting,” Judge Cannon said. “But would that provide a basis for the discovery request?”
Now clearly frustrated, Mr. Harbach said as plainly as he could that Mr. Woodward’s request had no basis in either fact or law.
“This is what I’m trying to tell you,” he all but shouted at the judge.
That discussion ultimately ended with Judge Cannon telling Mr. Harbach he needed to “calm down.” It was emblematic of the dwindling reserves of patience between Judge Canon and the prosecutors.
In October, for example, Judge Cannon lashed out at Mr. Harbach at a different hearing about whether Mr. Woodward had a conflict of interest in the case. The question revolved around the fact that Mr. Woodward was representing Mr. Nauta, one of the defendants, and had formerly represented a man likely to testify for the government at trial.
When Mr. Harbach expressed concern that Mr. Woodward might have to cross-examine a former client — a situation that could easily lead to a conflict — Judge Cannon chided him for having failed to mention that possibility in his written filings submitted before the hearing.
Citing Mr. Harbach’s “last-minute introduction of an issue that was not briefed,” she abruptly ended the hearing and assailed the prosecution for “wasting the court’s time.”
But she acted very differently at the hearing last week when Mr. Woodward made several arguments about his claims of vindictive prosecution that had never appeared in any of his filings. Judge Cannon hardly seemed to notice that he had wandered from his script, let alone rebuke him.
There is one subject the defense loves to talk about that always seems to set Judge Cannon on edge: Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign. While she has allowed his lawyers leeway in using their briefings to make political arguments, she has repeatedly shut them down when they have tried to raise the subject of politics in court.
In early March, Mr. Bove began an argument on a highly technical legal issue by complaining that Mr. Trump should not have been in court at all that day, but instead should have been out campaigning.
Apparently annoyed, Judge Cannon cut him off.
“OK, OK,” she said. “Can we talk about the actual legal issues?”
Alan Feuer covers extremism and political violence for The Times, focusing on the criminal cases involving the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and against former President Donald J. Trump. More about Alan Feuer
See more on: Donald Trump9 hours ago, Willfully Horn said:Honestly think I am caught up, but the following recount of the neighborhood tensions was news to me. A “liberal young couple” in the Alito’s neighborhood had politically liberal signs in their yard. Alito’s wife would react at the sight of the couple’s car, once being near enough to supposedly spit at their car. This “liberal young couple,” while taking out their trash intersected the Alito’s, who were out for a walk. Words were exchanged. The young wife admits she used an expletive in response, and claims to have said: “How dare you behave this way. You’ve been harassing us, over signs. You represent the highest court in the land. Shame on you.”
Apparently, the young husband sought the help of the police to deal with what he labeled “harassment.”
There’s other details, such as the Alito’s knowing the young couple by name, and Mrs Alito interpreting their yard signs as fascism.
https://www.rawstory.com/alito-stop-the-steal-2668393895/2,1
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- Popular Post
3 hours ago, MissingInAction said:There's some nasty blobs moving northeast from the Mexican border.
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55 minutes ago, Mr. Drummond said:
So when the same 3/4 teams were winning it every year because of bags, the sport was just fine, but now that its a different 3/4 schools, its a problem that must be fixed for the love of the game.
Everybody's got a special kind of story. Everybody finds a way to shine.
It don't matter that you got not a lot.
So what? They'll have theirs, and you'll have yours, and I'll have mine. And together we'll be fine because it takes different strokes to move the world. -
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10 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:
Ashli Babbitt’s mother tried taking a memorial rock into Arlington National Cemetery for Memorial Day.
Today isn’t about domestic terrorists, it’s about those who gave their lives for our country.
I’m glad they turned her away, they probably would have tried dumping the rock off somewhere on the property.
It’s sad she lost her daughter, but it’s more sad that she can’t accept accountability on her daughter’s behalf.
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Israel
in Cloak Room
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Israel
in Cloak Room
Edited by HenryJames
QuoteRadical Israeli settlers have expanded their attacks on aid trucks passing through the West Bank this month, blocking food from reaching Gaza as humanitarian groups warn that the enclave is sinking deeper into famine.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/05/26/west-bank-aid-trucks-gaza-settlers/SpoilerFar-right Israeli settlers step up attacks on aid trucks bound for Gaza
The settler groups use a web of publicly accessible WhatsApp groups to track the trucks and coordinate attacks, providing a window into their activities.
TARQUMIYAH, West Bank — Radical Israeli settlers have expanded their attacks on aid trucks passing through the West Bank this month, blocking food from reaching Gaza as humanitarian groups warn that the enclave is sinking deeper into famine.
Groups of settler youth are tailing relief convoys, setting up checkpoints and interrogating drivers. In some cases, far-right attackers have ransacked and burned trucks and beaten Palestinian drivers, leaving at least two hospitalized.
The assailants use a web of publicly accessible WhatsApp groups to track the trucks and coordinate attacks, providing a window into their activities. Working off what they say are tips from Israeli soldiers and police, in addition to the public, members pore over photos to work out which vehicles might be carrying aid to Gaza and mobilize local supporters to block them.
An attack on Thursday showed the system in action: Users in one WhatsApp group with more than 800 members began posting about a flatbed truck loaded with sugar, sharing photos from the road as they followed it.
“The truck supplying Hamas stopped in front of Evyatar!” said 23-year-old Yosef de Bresser, referring to an Israeli outpost south of the Palestinian city of Nablus.
De Bresser is a leader in the “We Won’t Forget” movement, which set up protest camps at the Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and Gaza earlier this year and runs several of the WhatsApp groups targeting aid trucks.
“Come join the blockade!” he wrote. Others answered the call.
The flatbed was ransacked, its load strewn across the road, according to images posted later in the group — one of two sugar trucks vandalized by settlers that day. De Bresser said the waybills — which did not show a destination — proved that the truck was headed to Gaza.
Fahed Arar, who owned the cargo, said the 30-ton load of sugar was actually destined for Salfit, a Palestinian town in the West Bank. The driver escaped unharmed, he said, but the Israeli military wouldn’t let him reload the goods.
Instead, soldiers removed the sacks with a bulldozer and destroyed them, Arar said, putting his losses at $30,000.
The Israel Defense Forces said that troops arrived on the scene after the attack took place, dispersed civilians and “prevented further destruction.” It denied that soldiers stopped the driver from reloading. A message in the settler WhatsApp group said it was the police that removed the cargo.
The Israel Police, largely responsible for enforcing the law when crimes are committed by Israeli citizens, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
The violence and vandalism, committed with near-total impunity, raises questions about the willingness of Israel’s security forces to restrain extremist settlers and protect Palestinians. It also challenges the Israeli government’s claim that it is doing all it can to ensure that aid flows to Gaza, where the humanitarian situation has deteriorated rapidly since IDF forces moved into the southern city of Rafah.
As bands of teenagers become the arbiters of who can and cannot pass along main roads in the West Bank, any trucks carrying food have become vulnerable to attack.
“The environment around us is fed by hate and revenge,” said Abdo Idrees, chairman of the Federation of Palestinian Chambers of Commerce.
Under pressure from the United States, Israel opened the Tarqumiyah crossing in the West Bank earlier this month for aid trucks traveling to Gaza from Jordan and for Palestinian businesses exporting food. The routes to the crossing take them by Israeli hilltop outposts where settler violence against Palestinians has spikeddramatically in recent months.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan has called the targeting of aid trucks “a total outrage,” and the Biden administration is considering imposing sanctions on people involved in the attacks, according to a senior U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
Humanitarian groups say Gaza is in its darkest hour after nearly eight months of war. More than a million Palestinians have been displaced this month, the United Nations says, after Israel began its assault on Rafah and sealed the enclave’s most vital land crossing for aid. The northern part of the territory is already in a “full-blown famine,” the World Food Program said recently, and aid officials warn it is spreading south.
The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor said last week that he was seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, including using “starvation of civilians as a method of warfare.” Both men have said the charges are outrageous and politically motivated.
The opening of the Tarqumiyah crossing on May 13 was part of an effort by the IDF to increase the flow of aid to Gaza. But one of the first convoys from Jordan was immediately set upon by Israeli protesters, who tossed boxes of food on the ground and stomped on them. Several trucks were torched.
We “never called on people to take the law into their own hands,” said Rachel Touitou, spokeswoman for Tzav 9, which boasts hundreds of members, including settlers and demobilized reservists, and has been active in blocking aid trucks since January.
The group put its activities on hold after the May 13 incident, but Touitou said the effort would continue because it is in “Tzav 9’s DNA.”
De Bresser denied that his group was responsible for burning trucks but said he could not condemn the violence.
“I’m happy for every truck that doesn’t enter Gaza, and I’m also happy to see it catch fire,” he said.
The We Won’t Forget movement supports “dismantling” trucks and sometimes takes action based on “inside” information, he said, including from transport workers, police officers and soldiers he says are against sending “supplies to Hamas.”
A recent incident illustrated the Israeli authorities’ hands-off approach to enforcement. In the early hours of May 17, about two dozen far-right youths set up a makeshift blockade at Tarqumiyah; soldiers and police officers drove past the group multiple times without stopping them.
At dawn, as the first truck approached, a 12-year-old boy with blond side curls picked up a brick and brandished it above his head, threatening to throw it at the vehicle if it moved any closer. The truck reversed. Other vehicles turned around at the sight of the group.
Police asked the demonstrators to take down the barricade after about an hour, but the demonstrators continued to mill around. A police officer joined them as they prayed in the road.
“It’s not our job to stop them, it’s our job to protect them,” said a female soldier of the young settlers. She declined to give her name.
In recent days, there have been more efforts to protect the trucks. Left-wing counterdemonstrators have created a “humanitarian guard” at the crossing, which has put pressure on the police to ensure it is functioning, said Alon-Lee Green, head of Standing Together, the group behind the campaign.
Some aid convoys from Jordan are now traveling under police escort. But other commercial trucks are afforded no security at all.
Ibrahim al-Razem, 35, was driving a load of Coca-Cola to Kafr Aqab on the outskirts of Jerusalem when he ran into a roadblock on the night of May 16.
“They asked me if I was going to Gaza,” Razem, a Palestinian resident of Jerusalem, said of the crowd of settlers that stopped him. He provided the group documentation showing the goods were headed somewhere else, he said.
But they weren’t satisfied. “Are you a Jew or Arab?” Razem recalled them asking right before they attacked.
“They really wanted to kill me,” he said, adding that military officers at the scene did little to control the crowd. Razem said he hid under an IDF vehicle to shield himself from the blows.
The IDF said two officers and a soldier were “slightly injured” when they tried to separate the attackers from the driver. “Dozens of Israeli citizens reacted violently towards the force,” the military said in a statement.
“If the army really wanted them to leave, they could have shot in the air,” said Razem, who suffered three fractured vertebrae, broken ribs and a broken nose.
The truck, which he had decorated with keepsakes from his sons, was set on fire after he was taken to the hospital.
“This was my source of income,” he said, estimating his losses at around $200,000. “I was broken.”
John Hudson in Washington and Alon Rom in Tel Aviv contributed to this report.
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Fuck the Police!!!!!!!!!!!
in Daily Texan
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/29/us/mississippi-sheriffs-goon-squad-whatsapp.html