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lemonlime

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Posts posted by lemonlime

  1. How could trump
    Possibly possess anything subject to executive privilege? He’s no longer the executive. The documents the
    FBI seized are either government documents that trump stole or they’re personal documents that wouldn’t be executive privileged. That’s an insane result that he could steal documents from the government and then claim the government can’t get them back because they’re trumps own super secret documents

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  2. Let me take a slightly contrary position.
    I was talking about this with Mrs.LL over the weekend, as she was looking gleefully as Trump's recent picture in which he looks unhealthy.  She was speculating about his possibly imminent death, and I told her to tap the brakes.  I think we might have crossed the tipping point at which he is now doing so much harm to the GQP that he's actually now a net-benefit to the country.
    Think about his impact on the midterms.  It has only been negative for the GQP, primarily in two ways:
    1) Candidates can only get the GQP nomination if they have Trump's endorsement, and Trump is a shitty evaluator/recruiter of candidates.  Trump is the entire reason we have Blake Masters and Mehmet Oz running in Arizona and Pennsylvania, respectively.  Those should be very winnable seats for Republicans.  Now, they're almost certainly going to be Democratic wins.  Trump is the reason Alaska now has a Democratic representative.  He's the reason that Georgia seat is competitive.  He has singlehandedly absolutely fucked the GQP out of the Senate based on candidate recruitment alone.
    2) And now, as their shitty candidates get into the stretch run for the midterms, they'd love to be talking about all the ways in which Biden supposedly sucks.  They'd love to be talking about inflation, or something something taxes.  Or I'm sure there's some caravan coming.  Or whatever they tell their band of idiots that motivates them to show up.  But they can't do that right now, and it's entirely because of Trump. 
    Anytime any GQP candidate is interviewed right now, the first question s/he gets is "was it ok for Donald Trump to take classified documents."  And . . . and I have to tell you right here, if I had a heart at all, I might have some sympathy for the poor fuckers . . . they have no choice but to defend Trump.  Because Trump's band of idiot followers demand it.  But right there, the campaign message is derailed.  The appeal to Independents is right out the window.  Suddenly, there was no fucking point to granting the interview to begin with--which is why you see so few Republicans granting interviews (though going radio-silent is a shitty way to make your case to undecided voters).
    That's all fucking Trump.
    And it's not going to end.  Because after Congress comes back into session, the January 6 Committee is going to fire back up.  And so Republican candidates are going to have to defend Trump on that front, as well.  And so they're forced to talk about Trump constantly.
    And Trump is the last fucking thing they want to talk about, because . . . and here's the real dirty secret . . . his fucking low-information voters only show up when Donald Trump is on the fucking ballot.  So they have to defend him because they will vote against them if they betray Trump.  But they're still not going to show up to support a Republican candidate not named "Donald Trump" no matter how obsequious they are to him.
    It's fucking great, and we might ought to hope it never ends.

    God, I hope you’re right. But I can’t shake the feeling that we’re letting a mass murder go around committing more murders while the investigators get tied up investigating an ever increasing number of murders and perfecting those cases. Meanwhile, scores more are murdered and hopefully the investigators, judges and juries don’t get whacked while all the investigating is going on.
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  3. If this proceeding, any of it, results in Cannon making the substantive determination about executive privilege and whether Biden (when he does it) properly waived it, I will be pissed.  That belongs in the DC district court, and I believe the DC district court and court of appeals are the best forum for this, not only because of their politics, they just have a boatload more experience with this kind of thing.
    As it stands, I don't see that being an issue, yet, because Biden hasn't yet weighed in on it.  His determination should be near-conclusive and any contest of it belongs in the DC federal courts.
     

    Why would Biden have weighed in on executive privilege? Trump never actually asserted it. He never identified any documents or even topics that are privileged. Why would Biden have to affirmatively waive a privilege that has never been properly invoked? Trump only filed a nonsense shit flinging motion in a different court than the one overseeing the investigation in which his lawyers argued for a special master over stolen records under dubious grounds of executive privilege, again without identifying any items that are actually subject to the privilege. It’s not some magic phrase that you can wave around to stop investigations. The next time I’m stopped for speeding I’m gonna argue that attorney client privilege applies. Which makes exactly as much sense as what trumps legal team is arguing here
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  4. Still, Trump is a slippery motherfucker and I want the DOJ to dot every I and cross every T before indicting the sonofabitch.
    come-at-the-king-you-best-not-miss-omar-the-wire-episode-WWF9nl-quote.jpg

    Except they’ve now given him too much rope. Nothing they do will matter. It doesn’t matter how airtight the case is. The cult along with the GQP in government including congress critters and scotus will side with trump. It’s too late for consequences after giving trump years to obstruct and rally the troops.
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  5. You more than quibbled lol, you spent quite a few words talking about how it could jeopardize the trial because of how UNPRECEDENTED it was. Same shit here. Unprecedented craziness occurring, so therefore we should default to the most conservative and minimal position, and ignore the material facts of what's happening. 
    In this case, the judge was appointed by trump after he lost the election, he shopped the case to get it in her court, and then she gave him more relief than he petitioned for and made arguments he didn't make. AND she's obstructing DOJ from their criminal investigation and attempting to delay things until after the midterms when the republicans could take the house and further delay shit.  That is fucking insane and corrupt on it's face. That's some shit we'd see in a 3rd world country and correctly condemn. 
    Open your fucking eyes and use your brain instead of pounding precedent and concern for decorum and procedure. Our enemies use decorum and procedure like a jingling set of keys to disarm smart folks like you

    Trump should have been arrested along time ago. Murderers aren’t allowed to roam the street for years while an investigation is ongoing. Yet trump tried to overthrow the government, and not only is he free of consequences, he’s had 2 years to rally his people. Meanwhile despite committing criminal acts on tape and camera,he installed many of the people deciding his cases.

    You can’t have a functioning democracy where the person who tried to overthrow it is put free continuing his efforts.

    I get that doj typically takes a long time to investigate white collar crimes. But these aren’t white collar crimes and they’re hugely different in scale from any crime the FBI has investigated in the past. They given the GQP many months to normalize treason so that when charges finally come if they do, everyone will just stay in their default tribal positions
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  6. 16 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

    Neal Katyal.

    GONYEA: One more thing I'd like your thoughts on - last night, a federal judge in Florida, after getting a request from Trump's lawyers, said she intended to appoint an independent arbiter, known as a special master, to review the documents seized by the FBI. Briefly, can you tell us what a special master is and what this says about the direction of the investigation?

    KATYAL: This is not a particularly big deal. A special master is used in criminal investigations sometimes, typically when there's attorney-client information that's been seized by the authorities and the target of the search is saying, hey, I want this material returned to me. It's mine. The government can't look at it. Here, Donald Trump didn't actually seek a special master for attorney-client information. He said that there was information protected by executive privilege because he was president, and the FBI couldn't review it. And what the judge did is say, well, you know, I'm inclined to appoint a special master to look at it. At most, even if the special master did search through the documents, it might mean that some got returned to Trump. But those are all documents, at this point, that the FBI and the Justice Department have already seen and can assess whether they are classified or not.

    And as for the merits of the claim, you know, there's no notion, really, that President Trump has executive privilege documents now. It's the current president, Joe Biden, who decides executive privilege under Supreme Court precedent, with very, very limited exceptions. And none of those really seem to actually work out here. And of course, it's a little weird to think that there's executive privilege being asserted against the executive branch itself because the FBI and Justice Department are part of the executive branch. So all in all, I think this is a large nothingburger. It's just going to be a procedural hoop that the Justice Department will have to work through.

    You may be right about the impact to the case, but here's a twitter thread Neal Katyal posted in which he says a first year law student should write a better opinion than this judge.

     

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  7. 2 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

    But it's not established precedent.  That's the thing.  This situation is highly interstitial.  I think the issues have one outcome, unfavorable to Trump, based on the precedents there are and the statutory scheme.  But it's not like she misread a case.  Or ignored it entirely.

    I see this as a procedural ruling to air out or at least narrow down the executive privilege documents and arguments.

    This way the executive privilege issues get hashed out early and pretty conclusively, so they can't rise up and create problems down the road.

    How could he have executive privilege over documents the executive wants back?  I usually like your posts, but I'm really not sure what you're saying here.  He took national security government documents and is now claiming they're privileged from the government.  He's essentially conceding the documents lying around his home office are government documents, and then arguing he wants to keep the government documents from the government. How is this any different than if I stole files from my former law firm employer and then said that a special master had to look over the documents to make sure I wasn't giving the law firm their own attorney client documents?  

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  8. 3 hours ago, Brisketexan said:


    There’s also some of this. Most trial lawyers know to be wary when they start winning every nitpicky pretrial ruling/evidentiary issue. That often happens when the court sees what’s coming, and wants to make sure you don’t have any chickenshit grounds for appeal. It’s not always the case, but it’s common enough that we all know to watch out for it.
    Of course, in this timeline, naked corruption and calvinball may also be the play.

    Or the corollary that if you lose a ruling in which you're this obviously in the right, the judge is either incredibly dumb (and I've been before some of them) or the judge has a finger on the scale.  Or both.

    Not to try and talk you onto the ledge, but this is really bad, IMO.  It's a nonsense ruling against all sorts of established precedent, covering up corruption, which if appealed will be going to even more corrupt institutions.  

    It's not that I think this particular ruling is really bad.  It is, but given the FBI already reviewed the documents I'm not sure ultimately how much it matters, by itself.  But this is a nice give away of what the judiciary is going to do once trump is indicted.

  9. 20 minutes ago, Chad Fuck said:


    This. Still scratching my head on that one.

    Yeah.  It makes no sense.  He's claiming executive privilege over documents he stole.

    And to the extent there could possibly be other executive documents that are rightly his and somehow mixed in (which makes no sense given the executive is the one who has the documents and the current executive has waived executive privilege) he hasn't set forth anything to suggest there are privileged documents mixed in with the stolen documents.

  10. 21 minutes ago, PenelopeWitherspoon said:

    Can the DOJ appeal?  This judge seems like she sucks.

    Yup, they can appeal.  And if law wasn't calvin ball, they should appeal.  This should have been a no brainer decision for the government.  But what happens if they take it to the Eleventh Circuit, and then Thomas gets involved (he oversees emergent applications for the 11th), and what Alito, Gorsuch, Kav, Thomas, and Barrett do with this, wouldn't make me hold my breath on a rational, correct outcome.

  11. 15 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

    I have no idea why you're still giving this judge the benefit of the doubt.

    Yeah.  The no wifi in the courthouse was a tell. The judge is going to do something indefensible and doesn't want scrutiny.  Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised as trump's arguments are so bananas, no one who's not a full on Kool Aid drinker would buy them.  But I'm not holding my breath.

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  12. 23 minutes ago, Horndog said:

    The question was about her public statements. Those would not be privileged because by definition they are not communications between lawyer and client.

    I'm not sure what you're saying.  Attorney client privilege belongs to the client, not the attorney.  Only trump can waive the privilege.  The privilege also only applies to communications regarding legal advice.  Her spouting off on tv about the criminal case would never be subject to attorney client privilege.  Nor would her witnessing crimes her client was committing.  She presumably is providing (bad) legal advice in the NY AG case, and her conversations with trump about that case are privileged unless trump talks about them, which maybe he's stupid enough to do.

  13. 32 minutes ago, Sawbonz said:

    She needs a lawyer now right? Anything she says publicly is no longer protected by atty client privilege correct?

    There's still attorney client privilege.  She may be disqualified from representing him, however, as she's now almost certainly a witness in the criminal case against him.  There's nothing privileged about who she saw entering his office at mar a lago, where he kept classified documents lying about.  If the FBI hasn't talked to her yet, I'm sure they will be now.

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  14. 12 minutes ago, Storm the Field said:

    It's been a long time since I've written a brief, but typically, the whole point of what you're trying to establish is (i) this is what I want the court to do, because (II) this is what the statutes require/previous courts have held.

    Trump's reply brief is basically what you'd expect from an incarcerated pro se defendant that spent his time locked up reading law school textbooks. It "cites" precedent merely by referencing cases in italics without any explanation of how the case is relevant or applies to the situation at hand. And the cases "cited" are mostly concerned with suppression of evidence obtained in violation of the 4th amendment, which is not the matter before the court. It attempts to dispense with multiple pages of the DOJ's comprehensive brief via perfunctory footnotes that boil down to "as we'll establish eventually, those guys are wrong!"

    More than anything, it's entirely unclear what this was intended to accomplish. They're basically treating this motion to appoint a special master as an overarching motion to dismiss/motion to suppress in a future criminal trial. They seem to be operating under the belief that a special master will somehow be able comprehensively rule that DOJ obtained the warrant under false pretenses, the warrant was facially invalid, Trump is immune from prosecution under PRA, Trump had authority to declassify, and DOJ are just a bunch of Democrat meanies out to get him....etc. It's a grab bag of nonsense.

    If the facts are against you, argue the law. If the law is against you, argue the facts. If the law and the facts are against you, pound the table and yell like hell.

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  15. I doubt he was trying to sell them. He knows that's a big boy crime with big boy real prison punishments. He's was too big of a pussy for that.
    I lean towards it being an ego thing / potential blackmail or get out of a jam card.

    Really. The only things he understands are greed and his own ego. And he’s spent an entire lifetime committing crimes and getting away with them. And I doubt he knows how to read a coloring book, never mind State secrets. He took the papers with intent to sell them. I’m just not certain if it’s been proven that he did in fact sell them.
  16. 3 minutes ago, Horndog said:

    Quite likely.  But my point is that the DOJ could have pushed back and required a stronger certification based on actual knowledge and without the qualifiers.  Especially since this involved highly sensitive document. 

    Or they could have searched for the documents themselves, once it was clear that trump along with his legal team was obstructed.   If trump didn't want to submit a real certification, I'm not sure why it's on the FBI to ask trump's attorneys to do their job.

  17. 9 minutes ago, Horndog said:

    I'm surprised that DOJ accepted this Certification as an indication of compliance with the Subpoena.  It has all sorts of indicators of unreliability.

    • "I have been designated to serve as Custodian of Records" rather then "I am Custodian of Records".  (Who made the designation?  When?)
    • "Based upon information that has been provided to me . . . "  (What information?  Who provided it?  When?)
    • The information is true "to the best of my knowledge."  (What is the knowledge and how was it acquired?)

    This is hardly a document that can be used as a basis for perjury.  It would not be considered as competent evidence in a civil case. 

    Agreed on perjury.  But she signed a certification to mislead the FBI about national security crimes her client committed.  She either helped him commit those crimes and/or helped him cover them up with this certification. Someone, either Bobb, or Trump, or both, attempted to mislead the FBI about national security information.  Either way she should be fucked from a legal standpoint.  Whether she actually is with a trump appointed judiciary, who the fuck knows.

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  18. 2 minutes ago, Tuco said:

    Do you think she would be disbarred over it?  Do you think she would be jailed over it? 

    Who the fuck knows in this instance, it's so far outside the realm of normal lawyer.  Hell, I wouldn't be shocked if the trump appointed judge appointed rudy giuliani to be the special master, and the Supreme Court threw out the entire case on some made up grounds.  

    Without knowing the specifics of this case, it's hard to know the consequences.  But at best for Bobb, she is disqualified from representing trump because she's now a witness to his lies in the ongoing case.  She may also be charged as a coconspirator if she signed that certification knowing that trump was hiding sensitive national security documents.  I imagine if she engaged in espionage she would be disbarred; I mean she did take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution.

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  19. 3 minutes ago, Tuco said:

     

     

    1. It seems like she has a pretty massive disclaimer there: "Based upon the information that has been provided to me, I am authorized to certify, on behalf of the Office of Donald J. Trump.."

    She's not saying she conducted a search.  She is not even saying you reviewed the document search methodology and found it reasonable.  Technically, with the tortured sentence structure, she isn't even saying that she received information regarding the search, only that she received information that she is authorized to make an affirmation that a search was done per the bullet points.  I can see where it would be considered non-responsive by the government and possibly piss of a judge.  But, I don't think it is something that would end her up in jail or even end her career.  She signed a meaningless statement.  

    2. Your second point, about correcting the record, is interesting to me.  If she later found out that not all the records were returned, I imagine she would have an obligation to inform the government.  Making her an informant.  Sure, she could inform the government through formal filings, still advocating for her client and obscuring the details.  But, it's not just the affidavit, it's an on-going crime.   And it's unlikely Trump would agree with the more official ways of correcting the record.  Continuing to do Trump's bidding could cost her career and possibly her freedom.  

     

     

     

    And no reasonable lawyer would sign that certification.  As to the second point, if something is missing from the production, the lawyer is probably disqualified from representing her client.  It's not in the client's best interest to have a lawyer sign the certification unless the client wants to risk having to find a new lawyer.  The lawyer is now a witness as to possible tampering with or hiding of evidence.  Even in a totally normal scenario, with good faith actors, there are sometimes documents that are inadvertently not produced, say the client diligently searched for documents but forgot that a small subset of documents relating to x are kept at an offsite facility.  If the lawyer signs that certification, the lawyer is now a witness against her client as to why a false certification was submitted.  Did someone do a bad job searching?  Was something destroyed?  Did someone lie to the lawyer?   And that's with good faith actors.  I can't imagine the idiocy of Bobb signing this certification.

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  20. 27 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

    QFT.

    I literally just filed a pleading that had a declaration making the "after diligent search, no such records were found" affirmation.  My client made that affirmation.  Because the records are my CLIENT'S records.  I didn't do the search.  My client did.  I informed the client of what that needed to entail, in case they ever get cross-examined on the point.  That is, it actually does have to be a diligent search, something like "there are only three places this sort of record could reasonably be.  I searched all three places -- in each room, I searched all the file drawers, even the ones that weren't likely to contain the records.  None were found."

    I can't recall ever signing a "diligent search" declaration myself, except maybe in reference to discovery materials I received from the other side -- something like "I have conducted a diligent search of the records provided by Plaintiff in discovery, and my search found no memorandum referencing safe storage procedures for treatment chemicals," or what have you.  And even then, I'm ready to back it up by describing what I did to search, down to my visual review of actual documents to what search terms I used for an OCR search.

    For an attorney to sign an affidavit representing a diligent search when she didn't actually undertake the search.....well, that's what criminals do.

    I haven't kept the saga of the trump lawyers straight.  But is Christina Bobb still representing him?  Because she's clearly disqualified now as she's either a coconspirator to obstruction of justice or at best (for her) a witness against her client for obstruction of justice and espionage.

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  21. 2 minutes ago, Sawbonz said:

    Is it common for lawyers to sign off on things as being true that they haven’t personally verified? Especially when their client is a known pathological liar?

    No.  I've never seen a lawyer sign a document as the "custodian of records" in the first instance.  That's just odd.  And I have never signed off on whether complete documents have been produced--my client does that.  And that's for legitimate organizations who aren't criming all over the place headed by pathological liars.  First, I would never certify to anything I don't have personal knowledge of.  I have no way of knowing whether a complete response has been produced.  Someone who works with those records specifically and has actual knowledge that complete records were produced has to sign off.  Second, if there was something not produced, and in my case it would almost certainly be an inadvertent error and not something like trump is doing, it would turn me into a witness against my own client.  I would have to testify as to why I signed off on completeness when it wasn't complete, whether I lied, who misled me, etc.

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