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

[lemonlime 5503]

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.

 

[Francisco 2.0 32430]

I can't help to think that there might have been another factor in her rendering the decision that she did: fear.  Fear of a bunch of full-throated MAGA types doxxing the shit out of her, death threats to her and her family, etc.  Because that's become the modus operandi now.

 

 

[TwiceHorn 31538]

18 minutes ago, lemonlime said:

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.

 

I think Neal is technically off base there.

The May letter applied to documents produced from the first 15 boxes and couldn't have applied to the documents seized in August.

See also his item 7.  I would much rather have a special master now than a dismissed indictment later.

The Biden administration should weigh in on these and not delegate to the Archivist, at this point.

Edited September 6, 2022 by TwiceHorn

[miguelito 11312]

It's a delay tactic and it's working.

[TwiceHorn 31538]

For comparison, the Special Master in Cohen's case reviewed as many as 1,000,000 documents, and found 7000 to be privileged, over a period of four months.

The executive privilege inquiry is a bit more nuanced, but we're looking at 1/100th of the documents.

I would expect this to take much less time.

[Captainant 27790]

1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

It's just going to be a procedural hoop that the Justice Department will have to work through.

Delay and obstruction is defeating justice. Who gives a shit if some dumb procedural rule is followed to the letter if trump and co are just going to flip the table over when they don't like the outcome? It's like you're happy playing tiddlywinks while they're gearing up for a thundedome. 

Your blind trust in the system that everyone is operating in good faith is why we're in this mess. It's how grifters and shiesters like trump are able to operate. You're more worried about decorum and huphuphupmuhlegalese than actually dealing with the fucking fascists. Read what happened to Germany in the 1930s. The fascists bent the legal system to their will, and the legal system followed because thems the rulezzzzzzz

 

[tx 3 putt 77448]

1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

For comparison, the Special Master in Cohen's case reviewed as many as 1,000,000 documents, and found 7000 to be privileged, over a period of four months.

The executive privilege inquiry is a bit more nuanced, but we're looking at 1/100th of the documents.

I would expect this to take much less time.

you’re assuming a professional and competent person will be chosen 

[Longhorn94 2458]

So Tribe, Vladek, Litman, Asha, and Katayal are all wrong? Is that really what you are saying, TwiceHorn?

[Pig Bellmont 8739]

NSIAP - great thread for the legal explanation 

[CTC2 2801]

1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

For comparison, the Special Master in Cohen's case reviewed as many as 1,000,000 documents, and found 7000 to be privileged, over a period of four months.

The executive privilege inquiry is a bit more nuanced, but we're looking at 1/100th of the documents.

I would expect this to take much less time.

But those are apples and oranges. There is no executive privilege under these facts unless the conservative judges are once again going to rewrite the law to create one. 
This judge wanted to slow this thing down and try to suffocate it in the crib. 

[Gengs1 2583]

The turtle worked very hard to get the judicial branch in their pocket for future events to go their way and it’s working better then expected 

[TwiceHorn 31538]

1 hour ago, CTC2 said:

But those are apples and oranges. There is no executive privilege under these facts unless the conservative judges are once again going to rewrite the law to create one. 
This judge wanted to slow this thing down and try to suffocate it in the crib. 

For these documents, executive privilege exists, at least for some of them.  I am reasonably sure Biden will waive privilege once they are identified and the claims made.  You don't waive a privilege that doesn't exist.

And, if Trump wants to contest that waiver, he's free to file suit in D. D.C. without anyone having to resort to expedients like "executive privilege doesn't exist when it's an executive-to-executive" thing.  That will be part of Biden's reason for waiving.

That's the most persuasive thing really going on here.  The PRA governs the privilege claims here.  And, contrary to Katyal's assertion, the Archivist's May letter does NOT deal with these documents.  Once the documents and privilege claims are identified and asserted, the PRA comes into play.

Edited September 6, 2022 by TwiceHorn

[TwiceHorn 31538]

1 hour ago, Longhorn94 said:

So Tribe, Vladek, Litman, Asha, and Katayal are all wrong? Is that really what you are saying, TwiceHorn?

Tribe is wrong on about half the shit he tweets.  I don't know what's up Vladeck's ass, I like him, but that tweet above is nonsense.

Haven't read Asha.

Katyal is talking out both sides of his mouth (before it happened it was a nothingburger, now he has his panties in a twist).

[Captainant 27790]

I wish I had 1/1000th of the faith that twicehorn has in our judiciary

[TwiceHorn 31538]

2 hours ago, Pig Bellmont said:

NSIAP - great thread for the legal explanation 

That particular thing is nonsense.  The Archivist didn't even know these documents existed when that letter was written.  Other than that letter from 4-5 months ago, neither the Archivist nor the Biden Administration has said boo about these privilege claims.

I'm sure they're bullshit and theyll ultimately fail, but the process must be observed.

Let me be very clear here.  I think the Archivist, backed up by White House counsel, is absolutely legally right and presents a persuasive and ultimately winning argument that the privilege claims here will be waived an otherwise fail in the face of a criminal investigation.

But the letter has zero precedential value.  It is confined by its terms to the first 15 boxes, not the subpoena response, and not the documents seized in the search.  Can its reasoning be extended to the seized documents?  Fuck yes, it can.  But the Biden/White House waiver/delegation of waiver it describes, which is a critical part of the PRA process, DID NOT APPLY TO THE SEIZED DOCUMENTS.

To treat it like a Supreme Court opinion on the subject, that should have bound Cannon, is fucking dumb.  The letter itself states there is no precedent for Trump's position.  True enough.  That also means there's no precedent for the Archivist's position.

Edited September 6, 2022 by TwiceHorn

[TwiceHorn 31538]

1 minute ago, Captainant said:

I wish I had 1/1000th of the faith that twicehorn has in our judiciary

I mean, you are aware that the Supreme Court, the exact same one that reversed Roe, poured out Trump in Trump v. Thompson?  And that was a Congressional inquiry, where executive privilege is at its highest.

[TwiceHorn 31538]

1 hour ago, Captainant said:

Delay and obstruction is defeating justice. Who gives a shit if some dumb procedural rule is followed to the letter if trump and co are just going to flip the table over when they don't like the outcome? It's like you're happy playing tiddlywinks while they're gearing up for a thundedome. 

Your blind trust in the system that everyone is operating in good faith is why we're in this mess. It's how grifters and shiesters like trump are able to operate. You're more worried about decorum and huphuphupmuhlegalese than actually dealing with the fucking fascists. Read what happened to Germany in the 1930s. The fascists bent the legal system to their will, and the legal system followed because thems the rulezzzzzzz

 

I don't have blind trust in the system.

But this is not nearly as outrageous as some are making it out to be.

And, to use your favorite, fuck outta here with "some dumb procedural rule."  Due process is all about procedure.

The PRA was enacted to impose order on this type of situation.  Let it work.

Edited September 6, 2022 by TwiceHorn

[Captainant 27790]

4 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

I mean, you are aware that the Supreme Court, the exact same one that reversed Roe, poured out Trump in Trump v. Thompson?  And that was a Congressional inquiry, where executive privilege is at its highest.

Great! It's only half calvinball and horseshit!

[atomheartbevo 89808]

2 hours ago, tx 3 putt said:

you’re assuming a professional and competent person will be chosen 

They have to have the proper security clearances to start with, which will weed out a lot of people.    Trump’s buddies and family members who had access lost it when Biden took over.   

[atomheartbevo 89808]

 

[Fastbreak 3994]

Delay, obfuscate, confuse is the tactic. If they delay long enough then people just forget. Just look at Jan 6 and Matt Gaetz as examples. Not one big fish has gone down.

If this goes past the midterms, I doubt there is ever any resolution.

[Fudge Nuggets 19225]

6 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

That particular thing is nonsense.  The Archivist didn't even know these documents existed when that letter was written.  Other than that letter from 4-5 months ago, neither the Archivist nor the Biden Administration has said boo about these privilege claims.

I'm sure they're bullshit and theyll ultimately fail, but the process must be observed.

Let me be very clear here.  I think the Archivist, backed up by White House counsel, is absolutely legally right and presents a persuasive and ultimately winning argument that the privilege claims here will be waived an otherwise fail in the face of a criminal investigation.

But the letter has zero precedential value.  It is confined by its terms to the first 15 boxes, not the subpoena response, and not the documents seized in the search.  Can its reasoning be extended to the seized documents?  Fuck yes, it can.  But the Biden/White House waiver/delegation of waiver it describes, which is a critical part of the PRA process, DID NOT APPLY TO THE SEIZED DOCUMENTS.

To treat it like a Supreme Court opinion on the subject, that should have bound Cannon, is fucking dumb.  The letter itself states there is no precedent for Trump's position.  True enough.  That also means there's no precedent for the Archivist's position.

You and your ilk need to stfu so we can get started on the hangings. 

[Fudge Nuggets 19225]

5 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

  Trump’s buddies and family members who had access lost it when Biden took over.   

Until some dipshit judge says they didn’t lose it. Then twice will show up and explain to us unwashed masses how based on a 1845 ruling by the VT state court that one point raised in the 500 page ruling has about 1% merit in today’s case. Then we should sit back and let justice run its course because it’s never let us down and reasons and shit. 
 

FUCK THIS SHIT

[DigglerontheHoof 21252]

It's all Calvinball and fascism for here on out.  This orange piece of shit will never, ever be held accountable for anything b/c....justice. 

[Gil Bang 26032]

[DigglerontheHoof 21252]

Like it fucking matters. 

[Neonmoon 38130]

Tumps campaign manager knowingly gave sensitive polling data to known Russian spies - no consequences 

Trumps son and son in law knowingly met with Russian agents at Trump tower - no consequences 

There is a taped phone call of a sitting President extorting another country for political dirt - no consequences

There is a taped phone call of a sitting President committing election fraud - no consequences 

There is video of a sitting President directing a coup - no consequences 

There were boxes of stolen top secret documents found in Trumps office after he lied they existed multiple times - no consequences 

I’m starting to sense a pattern 

Edited September 6, 2022 by Neonmoon

[DDD Dad 14351]

20 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.

How can you not get in to see someone to set a wrist?  PM Sawbonz.

[WhatTheBuck 28800]

12 minutes ago, Neonmoon said:

Tumps chief of staff knowingly gave sensitive polling data to known Russian spies - no consequences 

Correction: it was campaign manager Paul Manafort, who was working for free, and who owed millions to a Russian oligarch. He had formerly worked for Putin’s puppet in Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych. 

[DDD Dad 14351]

16 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

It was the dumber part of the 5th Circuit before it split.

Agree to disagree.  Fifth retained Louisana and Mississippi.  I mean, come on.

[Brisketexan 105371]

34 minutes ago, DDD Dad said:

How can you not get in to see someone to set a wrist?  PM Sawbonz.

There's nothing to set (and, it turns out, the fracture is right at the radial head, at the elbow -- it's hairline (almost impossible to see, which is good), and most likely nothing that needs to be set or get further treatment other than a sling and not using that arm for much for some weeks).  Lovely bruising, though.  And wearing a sling makes her feel like some car wreck scam artist, so that's fun.

[DDD Dad 14351]

16 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

There's nothing to set (and, it turns out, the fracture is right at the radial head, at the elbow.

Her wrist connects to her elbow?

[wildcat09 29407]

What Twice doesn't see is that Cannon is knowingly and happily playing the role of John Eastman here: providing a pretense of a valid legal basis for Trump's continued obfuscations and barely-veiled exhortations for his supporters to commit violence in his name.

She's not acting to protect the legitimacy of the judiciary. She's shitting all over that. Twice can't seriously think she'd rule this way for any other criminal defendant in the country. What she's doing is giving his supporters the intellectual justification they need (tiny as it is) to continue believing that Trump is being unfairly persecuted. She's buying him time to whip his supporters up into another frenzy in an attempt to make the DOJ decide it's not worth prosecuting him.

[Goredho 17421]

All this hand wringing over things that are completely out of our control.  Wake me up when we get to civil war.  I've got some living to do between now and then.

[Pato del Muerto 52608]

What’s so civil about war anyway?

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Goredho said:

All this hand wringing over things that are completely out of our control. 

That's about where I'm at. Don't get me wrong, I follow all the stuff closely. But I also realize I can't do jack about it, except keep voting for those who I think can do something about it. 

[Chad Fuck 17786]

This is a fun take:

 

[Beau Vine 54434]

10 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

You don't waive a privilege that doesn't exist.

Quitclaim deed?

[Brisketexan 105371]

41 minutes ago, DDD Dad said:

Her wrist connects to her elbow?

Meh.  Heavy bruising at both joints.  I read the initial radiology report wrong -- thought the break was at the wrist, but turns out it was higher up.  Jammed her arm into the wheel pretty hard.

Not that this has anything to do with the impending fall of the Republic, other than it's exhibit 50,000,000 in "everyone is completely fucking selfish in everything they do."

[TwiceHorn 31538]

2 hours ago, DDD Dad said:

Agree to disagree.  Fifth retained Louisana and Mississippi.  I mean, come on.

Somehow, though, in the past, those two states produced pretty good jurists.

[TwiceHorn 31538]

1 hour ago, wildcat09 said:

What Twice doesn't see is that Cannon is knowingly and happily playing the role of John Eastman here: providing a pretense of a valid legal basis for Trump's continued obfuscations and barely-veiled exhortations for his supporters to commit violence in his name.

She's not acting to protect the legitimacy of the judiciary. She's shitting all over that. Twice can't seriously think she'd rule this way for any other criminal defendant in the country. What she's doing is giving his supporters the intellectual justification they need (tiny as it is) to continue believing that Trump is being unfairly persecuted. She's buying him time to whip his supporters up into another frenzy in an attempt to make the DOJ decide it's not worth prosecuting him.

Actually, I can.  Extract Trump from the equation and I think this is a right thing to do, maybe THE right thing to do.

Without this, the defendant is almost completely at the mercy of DOJ/FBI's complete good faith in ex parte evaluating the privilege and other aspects of it.  And, although I am rooting for them in this case, I don't trust them that far.  They are, after all, cops, and they might fuck it up to our detriment.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

11 hours ago, Captainant said:

I wish I had 1/1000th of the faith that twicehorn has in our judiciary

I feel bad for all our lawyers that are obligated to buy into this corrupted system of justice. 

[Bullneck 19211]

11 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

 

Wondering who was playing "Hold on, I'm coming" in the video.  The Russians or Trump?

[Underdog 28775]

2 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

 And wearing a sling makes her feel like some car wreck scam artist, so that's fun.

 

[Brisketexan 105371]

6 minutes ago, Underdog said:

 

[YGIFS 19452]

Uh, uh...yeah

['stache 21878]

I'm still lost on how a federal court in Florida has jurisdiction. If there truly is a novel question about executive privilege shouldn't it be decided by the DC District Court? I would think the government's main argument would be for a change in venue.

[Pato del Muerto 52608]

9 minutes ago, 'stache said:

I'm still lost on how a federal court in Florida has jurisdiction. If there truly is a novel question about executive privilege shouldn't it be decided by the DC District Court? I would think the government's main argument would be for a change in venue.

Because the documents in question were taken using a warrant obtained in Florida?

[Blotto 23579]

Noticed an article earlier indicating that the funding mechanism behind Trumps TMTG company is in real jeopardy. TMTG (Trump Media and Technology Group) is the business behind Truth Social, and last October it announced it would merge with the Digital World Acquisition Corp (Symbol DWAC) to take the company public. Once the merger was complete, TMTG would receive the approx. $290M DWAC had raised for its SPAC in addition to another $1B in PIPE funds from investors. However, due to a variety of legal concerns/hurdles around TMTG, they haven't been able to complete the merger. 

DWAC's corporate charter mandated that a merger with another company must be completed within 1 year (9/8/22), or funds will be returned to the investors of the SPAC at the original offer price. Knowing there is no way the merger can close this week, DWAC management called a special shareholders vote to extend the timeline another year, but it requires 65% of investors to vote yes. apparently they are nowhere close, probably because a lot of the retail investors dont even follow what the fuck is going on. 

Its an interesting scenario, because if the money is returned to shareholders, it will be at a price of $10.20 a share. DWAC closed Friday at a price of ~$24/share. Due to the uncertainty, this morning it is trading around $20 per share. It seems to me that you have two choices as an investor:

1.) Vote yes and hope the deadline is extended. Its a risk, but you believe the long time value is greater than $10.
2.) If you dont want to vote yes, sell your shares today at $20+ which is double the price you will get if the money is returned. Today's fall in price is evidence some people are taking that approach

But in reality, many retail investors are just not voting, probably because they just arent aware of the vote, how to vote, etc.., and the CEO has been sending out emails begging people to check their spam folders for instructions. But their target audience is likely too busy ranting on Facebook and Twitter about social media censorship, fake news, and Hunter Biden to take the time to fucking vote. 

Until the completion of the merger, to fund the launch of truth social and whatever other stupid fucking ideas they come up with, TMTG has been getting buy on loans and other financing to make due until it got its hands on the motherload $1B plus. I would imagine some vendors are getting a bit nervous: 
https://mashable.com/article/truth-social-unpaid-bills

TLDR - Trump Media and Technology Group is likely gonna lose their SPAC deal, so fat Donnie might have to invest some of his own "billions" (lulz), or raise money from other donors. Probably cant rely on the my pillow guy, because he's still funding frankspeech.com (double lulz). Like usual in Trump world, incompetence rules the day and the funding behind Truth Social is a complete clusterfuck. 

[Aqua Buddha 14618]

Trump Big Baller Billionaire.  Why not just self finance?

Edited September 6, 2022 by Aqua Buddha