A story about a pathetic man's downfall [34 Felony Convictions]

[WhatTheBuck 28775]

18 minutes ago, RomaVicta said:

Over and over and over again. 

I didn’t do it.

If I did it, it wouldn’t have been wrong.

Okay, I did it. What are you going to do about it?

[Mdhorn 5947]

Read this comment--lawyers, is this true?  

"The DOJ review is done. Allowing a special master removes a possible reason for appeal later on by trump's team."

 

[tx 3 putt 76871]

1 minute ago, Mdhorn said:

Read this comment--lawyers, is this true?  

"The DOJ review is done. Allowing a special master removes a possible reason for appeal later on by trump's team."

 

established law and rules don’t apply to trump. Never have, never will  

[Mdhorn 5947]

1 minute ago, tx 3 putt said:

established law and rules don’t apply to trump. Never have, never will  

Well they better or we'll have no laws--Trump and the ruling class will continue breaking laws and broadening their enterprises to encompass more evil shit.  It's what racketeers do.  I understand the rule of law only applies to pleebs, but the law either governs or doesn't.  

[chainsaw 9858]

I thought the investigation is based in DC anyway. What right does some corrupt psycho in Florida have to impede the operations of the FBI in DC? If they don't comply, what happens? They arrest themselves?

[RomaVicta 29902]

38 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

I didn’t do it.

If I did it, it wouldn’t have been wrong.

Okay, I did it. What are you going to do about it?

Left out: They do it! Both sides!

 

[Brisketexan 105069]

Trump was always going to be granted a special Master. He’s exploiting the political game in a judicial proceeding. The irony is how much more exposed he becomes when every request is granted.

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.

[Bookman 4638]

48 minutes ago, Mdhorn said:

Read this comment--lawyers, is this true?  

"The DOJ review is done. Allowing a special master removes a possible reason for appeal later on by trump's team."

 

I wouldn't put it beyond Trump's lawyers to appeal claiming the appointment of a special master is reversible error.

[TXSG8R 3362]

1 hour ago, atomheartbevo said:

I can’t speak to the legal side of things (executive privilege bullshit) but a friend who has had a top secret clearance in the past at a defense contractor, mentioned that the classified stuff is governed by specific laws/statutes/national security stuff that this judge, etc. can’t touch. When he took the job and got the clearance/vetted, he had to go through a course about how classified stuff is handled.

He lamented the fact that if he had taken even one secret or TS document home, he’d probably still be in prison.

The president doesn’t apply for a clearance or get vetted. The second he’s seated he becomes the original classification authority.  Everyone else in his cabinet gets classification authority delegated from the president.  I’m sure they gave him a class that discussed his ability to classify/declassify and the grave responsibility he now has, and all he heard was he gets to do what he wants with classified shit. 

He’s absolutely correct about the latter part though. 

[Bookman 4638]

4 minutes ago, TXSG8R said:

The second he’s seated he becomes the original classification authority. 

 

Do we know this for sure?

[atomheartbevo 89628]

8 minutes ago, TXSG8R said:

and all he heard was he gets to do what he wants with classified shit. 

Not when he’s out of office.  
 

Edit: he may think he still gets to play with that stuff, but the reality and how NDI material is supposed to be legally handled says otherwise.  

Edited September 5, 2022 by atomheartbevo

[atomheartbevo 89628]

15 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Of course, in this timeline, naked corruption and calvinball may also be the play.

In this timeline, Brendan Fraser is on track to win an Oscar this year.

And all of this was predicted.

 

[Underdog 28580]

How much trouble can one get in if they were to drop a "fuck you, cunt" email to this judge? Asking for a friend, of course. 

[tx 3 putt 76871]

9 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

Not when he’s out of office.  
 

Edit: he may think he still gets to play with that stuff, but the reality and how NDI material is supposed to be legally handled says otherwise.  

He won the 2020 election !!!!!

[Blotto 23488]

1 hour ago, Mdhorn said:

Well they better or we'll have no laws--Trump and the ruling class will continue breaking laws and broadening their enterprises to encompass more evil shit.  It's what racketeers do.  I understand the rule of law only applies to pleebs, but the law either governs or doesn't.  

I see flickering evidence that the light bulb might be actually be coming on for this one. 

[Ghost of LL 15531]

I'm still trying to get my arms around an assertion of executive privilege against the . . . [checks notes] . . . executive branch.

[TwiceHorn 31438]

46 minutes ago, chainsaw said:

I thought the investigation is based in DC anyway. What right does some corrupt psycho in Florida have to impede the operations of the FBI in DC? If they don't comply, what happens? They arrest themselves?

If you really care about the "rule of law," stfu about FBI/DOJ disobeying a federal judge.  That's Trump shit.

Edited September 5, 2022 by TwiceHorn

[TwiceHorn 31438]

3 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

Oh, and yeah….if the judge was TRULY concerned about appearances, she should have recused. That she didn’t, while simultaneously stating grave concerns about “appearances,” makes her decision suspect. Even if another judge likely would have done the same, she made questions and lack of faith in the process an obvious outcome….when she says that’s what she was trying to avoid.

I suppose that's true, but as Popehat relates, "conflict arising from appointment" has never been the law.  A Trump appointee recusing from Trump cases actually gives some ammo to those who would try to recuse judges because appointed by a "political enemy."

It's a lose-lose situation.

 

[TwiceHorn 31438]

3 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

I don’t think it’s a great order, and I disagree with several parts and some of the underlying reasoning, but from a 30,000 foot perspective, I can understand why a judge would issue it: “this is big, important shit, and it’s really important to ensure that everything isn’t just ACTUALLY above-board, but that it appears that way as well. And appointing a special master is a good way to do that.”

Also, it only delays use by the criminal investigative team while the special master does his review (which usually doesn’t take long). The national security review continues unimpeded.

I’m not shocked.

As I mentioned previously, when the only harm the government can articulate is delay of an investigation, the government had best prepare its anus.

The DC Circuit and the Supreme Court left a tiny bit of wiggle room for a former President to successfully assert executive privilege when the incumbent President has waived it.  She seized on that and seems to have largely ignored the executive-to-executive privilege problem.

However, there are two aspects to the executive privilege:  one is separation of powers, that is, keeping Congress out of the executive's business and that is clearly not implicated here; the second is the "deliberative process" privilege, which applies regardless of who is asking for the documents, and could conceivably be where there be tygers in this one.

In all of this, there are extremely cogent and persuasive arguments that Trump loses the executive privilege battle on every front.  However, none of that is established precedent by any court at any level.  Seems like it's finna be.

[TwiceHorn 31438]

2 hours ago, Pig Bellmont said:

 

Seems an unduly hysterical reaction from Vladeck.

There's room for disagreement with aspects of the decision, but it's not really twisting anything into a pretzel.  She actually made a few valid points that I hadn't considered.

[TwiceHorn 31438]

1 hour ago, Mdhorn said:

Read this comment--lawyers, is this true?  

"The DOJ review is done. Allowing a special master removes a possible reason for appeal later on by trump's team."

 

Apparently so.  But, moreso than appeal of this case, here's what I actually like about this.

Envision a scenario in which Trump is indicted.  Then he can conjure up some BS about the indictment being based on an executive privileged document that slipped through the filter team somehow and the indictment is tainted and should be dismissed.  And a district judge agrees.  Something akin to the Mike Flynn scenario.

Going through this process largely whitewashes any errors the fliter/privilege review team might make and makes any indictment more ironclad than it would otherwise be.

[The Original Greaser Bob 2822]

34 minutes ago, Ghost of LL said:

I'm still trying to get my arms around an assertion of executive privilege against the . . . [checks notes] . . . executive branch.

Could Trump unilaterally waive every privilege that Obama or any other President ever asserted? 

I haven't thought through the implications but doesn't seem right.

[Cacti 191]

37 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

If you really care about the "rule of law," stfu about FBI/DOJ disobeying a federal judge.  That's Trump shit.

Thanks for the comment. Trump and his hardcore followers have forever blasted the judiciary for one ruling or another, sometimes resulting in physical threats to judges, but always with the intention of demeaning the person both professionally and personally.  

With comments like “corrupt psycho…fuck you, cunt…ignore the bitch…this dumb traitor”, it seems like some posters on Surly approve of this tactic.

[TwiceHorn 31438]

28 minutes ago, Ghost of LL said:

I'm still trying to get my arms around an assertion of executive privilege against the . . . [checks notes] . . . executive branch.

Recall that there are two bases for executive privilege and thus two "aspects" of it.  As previously mentioned, one aspect is based on separation of powers:  Congress cannot get into executive deliberation and process materials under the guise of oversight, unless there is a particular need for the materials.

The other is "deliberative process" privilege.  And that is based on the notion that, regardless of who is "asking" for the materials, documents and testimony revealing the deliberative process of the President or executive branch officials may be shielded from disclosure, even when it's not Congress that's asking.  When exactly this might apply against the executive branch itself is quite unclear, but it is a thing, nevertheless.

So all of that leaves the tiniest bit of wiggle room for a "successful" assertion of privilege by Trump.  But even after this foofaraw, I rather highly doubt that he succeeds.

Also, although not mentioned in the opinion, this latest "tranche" of documents has not been the subject of a formal assertion of privilege by Trump and consideration (and hopefully waiver) of that privilege by Biden.  If Biden's White House Counsel does as good a job as it did with the 1/6 documents, the privilege waiver will be upheld.

[The Original Greaser Bob 2822]

3 minutes ago, Cacti said:

Thanks for the comment. Trump and his hardcore followers have forever blasted the judiciary for one ruling or another, sometimes resulting in physical threats to judges, but always with the intention of demeaning the person both professionally and personally.  

With comments like “corrupt psycho…fuck you, cunt…ignore the bitch…this dumb traitor”, it seems like some posters on Surly approve of this tactic.

[TwiceHorn 31438]

7 minutes ago, The Original Greaser Bob said:

Could Trump unilaterally waive every privilege that Obama or any other President ever asserted? 

I haven't thought through the implications but doesn't seem right.

Under the PRA, the incumbent President makes the first call on executive privilege pertaining to Presidential records.  Then, the President under whose administration the records were created has the ability to disagree, either asserting privilege or waiving it.  So only the sitting President has the ability to waive privilege as to presidential records created under another administration.

[TwiceHorn 31438]

Also, I don't really love the appeal idea.  If there's one entity I trust less than Cannon to get this right, it's the 11th Circuit.

It was the dumber part of the 5th Circuit before it split, and now it's running neck and neck with the 5th for dumbest and most fascist.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

Lol corrupt system continues to be irredeemably corrupt.   

[Irwin F Fletcher 3550]

Under the PRA, the incumbent President makes the first call on executive privilege pertaining to Presidential records.  Then, the President under whose administration the records were created has the ability to disagree, either asserting privilege or waiving it.  So only the sitting President has the ability to waive privilege as to presidential records created under another administration.

Just a quick word to say thanks for the insight. When I saw today's news break my first thought was "I'm looking forward to the breakdown by TwiceHorn and the rest of the Surly "legal" team".

We've got some fantastic contributors on this board, it's like having our own "MasterClass.com"

Hook'Em!

[Mdhorn 5947]

5 minutes ago, Irwin F Fletcher said:

Just a quick word to say thanks for the insight. When I saw today's news break my first thought was "I'm looking forward to the breakdown by TwiceHorn and the rest of the Surly "legal" team".

We've got some fantastic contributors on this board, it's like having our own "MasterClass.com"

Hook'Em!

Except I retain very little since I only practice on the couch with the bulldogs.  So far, they've won all their appeals for more food and the couch.  

[Chad Fuck 17659]

I'm still trying to get my arms around an assertion of executive privilege against the . . . [checks notes] . . . executive branch.

This. Still scratching my head on that one.

[Satchel 6932]

10 minutes ago, Irwin F Fletcher said:

Just a quick word to say thanks for the insight. When I saw today's news break my first thought was "I'm looking forward to the breakdown by TwiceHorn and the rest of the Surly "legal" team".

We've got some fantastic contributors on this board, it's like having our own "MasterClass.com"

Hook'Em!

Very much agree.

[Captainant 27637]

2 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

If you really care about the "rule of law," stfu about FBI/DOJ disobeying a federal judge.  That's Trump shit.

 

1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

Also, I don't really love the appeal idea.  If there's one entity I trust less than Cannon to get this right, it's the 11th Circuit.

It was the dumber part of the 5th Circuit before it split, and now it's running neck and neck with the 5th for dumbest and most fascist.

Can you help me square this circle? You're saying on the one hand that we should let the judicial do it's thing, and on the other hand saying that the courts are compromised and will lead to an outcome contrary to actual justice. These two ideas are incongruous. 

[Bullneck 19073]

2 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

Also, I don't really love the appeal idea.  If there's one entity I trust less than Cannon to get this right, it's the 11th Circuit.

It was the dumber part of the 5th Circuit before it split, and now it's running neck and neck with the 5th for dumbest and most fascist.

For the rest of us who don't know what all that ^^^ means  😃 :

Edited September 5, 2022 by Bullneck

[RDCanecutter 26387]

6 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

Naah, just resigned to shittiness. I’ll miss the Bama game; we’ll be in Scotland dropping the boy off at college. Gonna be a fun travel experience, being that a dumbass blew through a light on Saturday, likely totaled my wife’s ride, and fractured her wrist, and no idea when we can get in to see an orthopedist. So, she’ll be traveling with a broken wrist, and probably won’t be much help hauling luggage and whatnot.
Because why the fuck not.

Scotland seems like the perfect place to stagger around with a few broken bones.

[Neonmoon 38129]

What is it about the 11th and 5th district? It’s like there is something they have in common? I wonder 
 

 

[lemonlime 5503]

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.

[lemonlime 5503]

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.

[Bullneck 19073]

5 minutes ago, lemonlime said:

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.

Seems like the DOJ is trying to get into a "It don't make a shit" position where Trump has no way out and no recourse after he gets convicted.

[TwiceHorn 31438]

32 minutes ago, Captainant said:

 

Can you help me square this circle? You're saying on the one hand that we should let the judicial do it's thing, and on the other hand saying that the courts are compromised and will lead to an outcome contrary to actual justice. These two ideas are incongruous. 

Obey it. Don't appeal it.

Also, once the special master identifies the executive privilege documents, then the PRA procedure is invoked, wherein Biden gets to waive and Trump gets to protest.  If Trump wants to seek a court order against disclosure, the exclusive forum for that is D. D.C.

Also, I'm not saying the 11th is corrupt.  I'm saying it's dumb and has GQP tendencies.

[TwiceHorn 31438]

13 minutes ago, lemonlime said:

It's a nonsense ruling against all sorts of established precedent

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.

[lemonlime 5503]

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?  

[TwiceHorn 31438]

Also, as mentioned earlier, there apparently are some attorney-client privileged materials in there, some actual personal stuff, presidential records not subject to a claim of executive privilege, presidential records that are subject to a claim of executive privilege, and classified stuff that is neither presidential records nor subject to a claim of executive privilege.

It is better overall not to have to take DOJ's word for which is which.

Also, I think Trump's team, having little experience with executive privilege (few do) is going to fuck up their claims royally like they did in Trump v. Thompson.

[YGIFS 19449]

2 minutes ago, lemonlime said:

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?  

MAGA, "Because Trump has a flag.  Literally, his own flag.  And he declares these documents secret under executive privilege according to the rules he's just made up."

Biden, "You can't declare that, I'm the Chief Executive of the Federal Government."

MAGA, "No you can't have them back.  Privilege under the Trump Flag. Do you have a flag?"

Biden, "I don't need my own dipshit.  Everywhere I go I'm surrounded by my Seal and the American Flag."

Eddie Izzard, god willing, is cranking up another tour about all this...'cause we need a laugh

Edited September 5, 2022 by YGIFS

[TwiceHorn 31438]

20 minutes ago, lemonlime said:

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?  

Executive privilege applies to documents that reflect the deliberative processes of the President or his advisors.  It doesn't have much to do with ownership.  Even if the government rightfully owns them as presidential records, that doesn't stop the executive privilege application.  The PRA provides a process for resolving those claims.  One that hasn't yet been followed here, yet.

We don't really know what's in there and neither does Trump.  And different shit is going to receive different treatment.

What Trump ostensibly wants is not the executive privilege documents back, but to withhold them from a criminal investigation.   Just like he wanted NARA to withhold 1/6 documents from Congress.  I don't think that's going to get very far in the final analysis, but like all privilege claims, you have to do an "in camera review" by someone on a document-by-document basis.  You don't just take your opponent's word for it that they are or are not privileged.  And, moreover, the specific information in the documents at issue will have a lot to do with whether the privilege should yield to other concerns.

Trump may hope to make an executive privilege claim to the classified stuff, but I think it will fail because it doesn't reflect deliberative process of the executive.

But again, everyone is talking about this in a vacuum, including the litigants.  Even the filter team process planned to submit things back to presumably Reinhart for determination of privilege issues.

Note, also, that the seminal case on executive privilege, U.S. v. Nixon, was over a subpoena from a Special Prosecutor for Nixon's tapes.  It was, then, executive-to-executive much as this is. And, it contemplated an "in camera review" of the tapes.

Quote

However, neither the doctrine of separation of powers nor the need for confidentiality of high-level communications, without more, can sustain an absolute, unqualified Presidential privilege of immunity from judicial process under all circumstances. The President's need for complete candor and objectivity from advisers calls for great deference from the courts. However, when the privilege depends solely on the broad, undifferentiated claim of public interest in the confidentiality of such conversations, a confrontation with other values arises. Absent a claim of need to protect military, diplomatic, or sensitive national security secrets, we find it difficult to accept the argument that even the very important interest in confidentiality of Presidential communications is significantly diminished by production of such material for in camera inspection with all the protection that a district court will be obliged to provide.

 

Edited September 6, 2022 by TwiceHorn

[Fastbreak 3982]

[The Dog 44019]

[TwiceHorn 31438]

6 minutes ago, Fastbreak said:

This really doesn't have much bearing on the outcome.  It's procedural in nature.

[TwiceHorn 31438]

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.

[Fudge Nuggets 19189]

3 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

Going through this process largely whitewashes any errors the fliter/privilege review team might make and makes any indictment more ironclad than it would otherwise be.

That would be cool if this so called Special Master doesn’t take two years to do their thing.  I have no faith in anything right now when it comes to putting the screws to the fat, treasonous cunt.