Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty

[Brisketexan 105569]

1 hour ago, Dahobbs said:

I prep all my witnesses on this tactic, particularly lay witnesses. Shut up and wait for a question. Let the attorney waste his time doing nothing if he wants. 

Yep.  And sometimes, it really is because the attorney is wasting time.  Or he got his brain wrapped around the axle of his own questions, and he's trying to figure out what to ask next.  Or he's trying to decide if he really wants to ask about that one exhibit after all.

Not that I'm speaking from experience or anything.

[TwiceHorn 31678]

32 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

I suspect that is wrong, in that I suspect he didn't even try to get a bond because he didn't have to.

The ELI5 version:

1 -- in order to appeal a money judgment against a defendant, the defendant often has to post a "supersedeas bond," which is a bond that supersedes the judgment while the appeal is pending.  That means that the judgment sits out there, and the plaintiff can't execute on that judgment and seize your stuff.

2 -- BUT, to make sure that while the appeal is pending, you don't burn through all of your assets, so that when the appeal is concluded (presuming the plaintiff prevails), the plaintiff can get satisfaction on his judgment, the bond is posted.  So, the plaintiff can just execute on the bond once he wins on appeal.

3 -- bonds cost money.  If I have to post a $5 million bond, I have to pay a bond premium to the bond company.  Say it's 10%.  AND, that bond is secured by my other assets anyway.  So, now, EVEN IF I the DEFENDANT WIN ON APPEAL, I'm out $500,000 that I paid to the bond company.

4 -- thus, the alternative: I just put up my own cash, if I have it.  I deposit (in this case) the required amount of $5.55 million in the court.  And if I win on appeal, I get the whole $5.55 million back, meaning I'm not out anything (other than the lost time value of that money).

TLDR; posting cash bonds is not unusual, and doesn't mean that you couldn't get a bond.  In fact, it usually means that you have enough cash to handle the whole thing without resorting to a bond.

Yeah, you pretty much have to put up the cash, either to the court or to a surety/bonding company, plus the fee.

The really good news is that Carroll is most likely gonna collect, at least on the $5M.

The 64k question if Trump, or any appealing defendant, doesn't post a bond, should you try to execute the judgment pending the appeal.  The "protect your client" answer seems to be yes, but last time I looked at it, if the judgment is reversed, you could actually possibly be liable for wrongful execution, which doesn't seem right, but was the way it is under Texas law, at least.  Plus, even if you aren't liable for wrongful execution, execution tends to cost not insignificant money that's sunk if the judgment is reversed on appeal.

[Lazarus Bocanegra 306]

45 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

I suspect that is wrong, in that I suspect he didn't even try to get a bond because he didn't have to.

I have it on good authority that he tried and we said no.  Assuming other sureties did as well

[TwiceHorn 31678]

Also, kind of funny thing.  It seems that Trump intentionally complicates his affairs in such a way that executing a judgment against him to collect it would probably be tough and a giant pain in the ass.

But, if he did that, ala Alex Jones, it would definitely go against his "I'm a billionaire" schtick and the plaintiff's lawyers could probably shame him into paying up just by going to the press on it.

[Pato del Muerto 52858]

49 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

fact, it usually means that you have enough cash to handle the whole thing without resorting to a bond.

History tells me that trump doesn’t use his own money when someone else’s is available. 

[wildcat09 29453]

7 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Also, kind of funny thing.  It seems that Trump intentionally complicates his affairs in such a way that executing a judgment against him to collect it would probably be tough and a giant pain in the ass.

But, if he did that, ala Alex Jones, it would definitely go against his "I'm a billionaire" schtick and the plaintiff's lawyers could probably shame him into paying up just by going to the press on it.

Hello TwiceHorn, you've just awoken from a very long coma. I have some troubling news for you about some things you've missed.

[TwiceHorn 31678]

Another war story.  As a favor to a sort of "political friend," one of my bosses offered up my services to help a lady defend a plumber's JP suit over a $1000 bill or so.  There were definitely some questions about the adequacy of the repair, but the JP didn't like the fact that she had stopped payment on her check, very likely before she really found anything wrong.

Anyway, she lost.  And wanted to appeal it to County Court at Law. And that REQUIRES that you post a bond in the amount of the JP/Small claims judgment, in 10 days.  So, I called around, but not exhaustively, and determined that she couldn't get a bond, and would need to post cash and told her how to do it.  She didn't, claimed she couldn't afford it.

So, the plaintiff garnished her bank account and took an amount roughly equivalent to the bond amount (showing she could in fact afford it).  And when your bank account gets garnished, it's frozen until the bank pays out to the plaintiff/garnsishor, so she had checks bouncing all over town.

Bitch filed a grievance on me.  Scared the living shit out of me, because I felt like maybe I could have found a bonding outfit, even though I did talk to a couple.  When I got to the grievance committee hearing, one of the lay people asked me, "So, if I am reading her complaint right, she's mad because you didn't do what you told her you couldn't do, is that about right"?  Grievance dismissed.  I don't think I have ever pitted so bad in a suit in my life.

5 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

Hello TwiceHorn, you've just awoken from a very long coma. I have some troubling news for you about some things you've missed.

Pretty clearly you can shame the motherfucker by implying that he's not rich as Croesus.  And, again, this demonstrates how Trump is in uncharted territory for him.  Very few, if any, have ever taken a judgment against him.  He always delays, delays, delays, and then settles, usually confidentially so his skinflint nature never becomes clear.

Not posting a cash bond would have been a sign of "poverty."  Avoiding collection could have been characterized the same way.

Edited June 23, 2023 by TwiceHorn

[Hookah Horns 3083]

Trump hasn't been shamed into ending his practice of stiffing people for services even though that's widely known and also makes him look unrich. 

[Bozo_Casanova 26672]

58 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Pretty clearly you can shame the motherfucker by implying that he's not rich as Croesus.  And, again, this demonstrates how Trump is in uncharted territory for him.  Very few, if any, have ever taken a judgment against him.  He always delays, delays, delays, and then settles, usually confidentially so his skinflint nature never becomes clear.

Not posting a cash bond would have been a sign of "poverty."  Avoiding collection could have been characterized the same way.

Thus mingled still with wealth and state,
Croesus himself can never know;
His true dimensions and his weight
Are far inferior to their show.

- Isaac Watt, 1698

[Brisketexan 105569]

5 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Thus mingled still with wealth and state,
Croesus himself can never know;
His true dimensions and his weight
Are far inferior to their show.

- Isaac Watt, 1698

[WhatTheBuck 28825]

5 hours ago, texasdago said:

A user said the accordion hands are a tell for when he is lying...

The same if his lips are moving. 

[TwiceHorn 31678]

5 hours ago, texasdago said:

A user said the accordion hands are a tell for when he is lying...

 

 

Donny's got a squeeze box he wears on his chest and when Vanky comes home, she never gets no rest  . . . .

[Sawbonz 27777]

4 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

A long time ago, I had a third party witness (truly didn't favor either side, just had some evidence) on a video deposition.  He would take long pauses after questions, apparently considering carefully both the question and his answer thereto.  It was a little bit irritating and at first I thought it adversely affected his crediblity.  But, by the end, after he had sought clarification of some bad questions without prompting/objection by his attorney, I thought it was pretty effective, even from a credibility standpoint.  He really looked like he was sincerely trying to answer the question put, while also making damn sure he didn't say anything extra.  Probably the most disciplined witness I've ever seen.

ETA:  this made me go look the dude up.  At the time, almost 30 years ago, it was a very small company, now it seems to be pretty big and worldwide.  Not surprising, the guy was sharp.

 

I do some expert witness work, usually for patients of my own who have been injured. I get pretty argumentative with the opposing attorneys in Depos. I have been to trial more than a handful of times, and I will answer yes/no to opposing attorney questions if it helps my patient, but if not i have found that a very effective technique as an expert witness is to repeatedly ask the attorney to clarify or restate their question. The judge always gives a tremendous amount of leeway with this and I can usually get the question changed into something more open ended where I can say what I want, or if not, get them to completely give up that line of questioning. 

[Rimbo 26424]

6 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

Back to the topic at hand - any attorney who lets Trump testify at his criminal trial is committing malpractice per se.  I say with some hypberbole, but also all seriousness.

[Rimbo 26424]

4 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

I took that to heart, but it's difficult when you think it's a BS lawsuit (which it was).

glares at blacklab

[Sawbonz 27777]

7 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

any attorney who lets Trump testify at his criminal trial is committing malpractice per se.

[Gatorubet 30391]

7 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

While the obvious answer is "yes," that's actually a hard one to answer in the moment, and it's best to mentally pre-prepare for the possible scenarios.  The lawyer mind CAN default to "but, that's against the rules!" (I recall well having that dilemma when dealing with a young and earnest DOJ lawyer years ago -- she objected to EVERY opposing exhibit, "but they don't comply with the rules!")  A good trial lawyer tempers that by remembering two things: 1) the "rules," esp. of evidence, are exactly what the judge in THAT courtroom, at THAT moment, says they are.  If the judge says it's admissible, then it is.  Cases very, very, very rarely get flipped on the basis of an evidentiary ruling....and 2) use the rules, or decline to use them, strategically.  Sure, what he's saying is non-responsive and is cluttering the record.  But it's also making clear to the jury that he's a deranged pathological liar, so even anything GOOD he testifies to should be disregarded (for example).  Let him ramble.  It helps your case, and because it's him testifying, it can't create reversible error.

Bingo.  One of the things I teach young attorneys, and witnesses, right out of the gate.  One of my favorite "questions" is a long pause and a barely perceptible head-nod, indicating "go on."  And for so many people, human nature is to do exactly that...."well actually, blah blah blah."  People naturally want to fill uncomfortable silences.  So, give them ample opportunity to do so, and they will.

 

Back to the topic at hand - any attorney who lets Trump testify at his criminal trial is committing malpractice per se.  I say with some hypberbole, but also all seriousness.  As a witness, he is so awful, so much of a fountain of self-incrimination, that to put him on the stand is a strategic decision that ZERO reasonable attorneys would take.  And if he is insisting on doing so, you fucking withdraw if at all possible.  In any case, you provide him, in writing, your strong recommendation that he NOT do so, and that if he chooses to testify, it is against he clear advice of counsel.  He will then try to fire you, which the court may or may not allow if it's late in the game.

Which I think is exactly what's going to happen.  He'll either have lawyers dumb enough to let him testify, or his lawyers will tell him not to, and he'll do it anyway in spite of their advice.

if his lawyers have a brain, this is exactly what they will do close to trial, necessitating the motion to continue trial so that new counsel can get up to speed.  

He needs to have only one or two lawyers enrolled so the court does not say that the other eight lawyers on the dream team can go ahead and try it.   Best to have the local counsel be this guy or gal withdrawing - to fuck up the trial proceeding in light of the local pro hoc rule. 

I assumed this would be one way to delay delay delay. 

[tx ind 7014]

6 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

They advanced that argument in connection with non-classified documents as a justification for the special master: i.e. there is significant personal material here that must be sorted from Presidential Records.  They did not seriously argue that that justified the retention of classified materials.

And if they make that argument in a criminal court, they'll be laughed out.  Probably even by Cannon.  We really are not talking about the Presidential Records Act anymore.

The only personal material that Dotard would have stuffed away were kid menus from Applebees and Chilis marked up with crayons and a few tic-tac-toe victories when Baron let him win.

[Bullneck 19315]

6 hours ago, Dahobbs said:

I prep all my witnesses on this tactic, particularly lay witnesses. Shut up and wait for a question. Let the attorney waste his time doing nothing if he wants. 

 

5 hours ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

yeah, the best advice ever from a lawyer is just shut the fuck up. don't talk to cops. don't talk to anyone without a lawyer present. goddamn lawyers baking-in their necessity. 🤣

 

6 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

A long time ago, I had a third party witness (truly didn't favor either side, just had some evidence) on a video deposition.  He would take long pauses after questions, apparently considering carefully both the question and his answer thereto.  It was a little bit irritating and at first I thought it adversely affected his crediblity.  But, by the end, after he had sought clarification of some bad questions without prompting/objection by his attorney, I thought it was pretty effective, even from a credibility standpoint.  He really looked like he was sincerely trying to answer the question put, while also making damn sure he didn't say anything extra.  Probably the most disciplined witness I've ever seen.

ETA:  this made me go look the dude up.  At the time, almost 30 years ago, it was a very small company, now it seems to be pretty big and worldwide.  Not surprising, the guy was sharp.

 

 

[Francisco 2.0 32432]

 

 

 

[cactusflinthead 27615]

 

[Gatorubet 30391]

18 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

 

 

 

“84 people….why that’s almost everybody who knows anything about this case.”

< Jack Smith nods head>

” How the hell can Trump mount a defense if his lawyers can’t talk to anybody who knows anything about what happened?”

< Jack Smith smiles>

 

[High Plains Drifter 11055]

On 6/23/2023 at 1:50 PM, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

yeah, the best advice ever from a lawyer is just shut the fuck up. don't talk to cops. don't talk to anyone without a lawyer present. goddamn lawyers baking-in their necessity. 🤣

 

Couple of years ago, I had some business cards made for my attorney wife. All they have printed on them are two words: "Stop Talking"

 

[Hornius Emeritus 12496]

1 hour ago, High Plains Drifter said:

 

Couple of years ago, I had some business cards made for my attorney wife. All they have printed on them are two words: "Stop Talking"

 

One of the funniest lawyer-ish things I've seen in forever. 
 

 

[Serak The Preparer 3436]

On 6/23/2023 at 8:07 PM, Dahobbs said:

I prep all my witnesses on this tactic, particularly lay witnesses. Shut up and wait for a question. Let the attorney waste his time doing nothing if he wants. 

[TwiceHorn 31678]

I think it was discussed a little bit earlier, but Smithco checked the box on the cover sheet for a 21 day trial.  That seems pretty lengthy for a case of this nature, even accounting for the classified document handling.

And, if 84+ witnesses are potential trial witnesses, that seems to be saying something.  And not that this is going to be a super complex case with chains of custody and forensic accounting testimony, etc.  It sounds like Smith is prepared to nail Trump's ass to the wall.

Also, asking early for a December trial date is probably a smart move rather than letting the August pro forma date approach and then come up with something.  That puts the burden on Trump and Cannon to justify something later and sniffs out whether Cannon intends to indulge Trump's dilatory tactics.

[Francisco 2.0 32432]

Who would have ever guessed that Trump, this man of honor, would quietly steer PAC funds towards his legal defense?  I was told he was a billionaire several times over, and there's simply no way he would take the meager donations of his faithful flock to spend on himself and his legal issues:

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/25/us/politics/trump-donations-legal-fees.html

 

Quote

Facing multiple intensifying investigations, former President Donald J. Trump has quietly begun diverting more of the money he is raising away from his 2024 presidential campaign and into a political action committee that he has used to pay his personal legal fees.

The change, which went unannounced except in the fine print of his online disclosures, raises fresh questions about how Mr. Trump is paying for his mounting legal bills — which could run into millions of dollars — as he prepares for at least two criminal trials, and whether his PAC, Save America, is facing a financial crunch.

 

Quote

When Mr. Trump kicked off his 2024 campaign in November, for every dollar raised online, 99 cents went to his campaign, and a penny went to Save America.

But internet archival records show that sometime in February or March, he adjusted that split. Now his campaign’s share has been reduced to 90 percent of donations, and 10 percent goes to Save America.

The effect of that change is potentially substantial: Based on fund-raising figures announced by his campaign, the fine-print maneuver may already have diverted at least $1.5 million to Save America.

 

Quote

And the existence of the group has allowed Mr. Trump to have his small donors pay for his legal expenses, rather than paying for them himself.

Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Mr. Trump, did not answer detailed questions about why the Trump operation has changed how the funds he is raising are being split. Save America technically owns the list of email addresses and phone numbers of his supporters — one of the former president’s most valuable assets — and the campaign is effectively paying the PAC for access to that list, he explained.

 

 

Spoiler

“Because the campaign wants to ensure every dollar donated to President Trump is spent in the most cost-effective manner, a fair-market analysis was conducted to determine email list rentals would be more efficient by amending the fund-raising split between the two entities,” Mr. Cheung said in a written statement.

The different rules governing what political action committees and candidate campaign committees can pay for are both dizzying and somewhat in dispute. But generally, a PAC cannot spend money directly on the candidate’s campaign, and a campaign committee cannot directly pay for things that benefit the candidate personally.

For more than a year, before Mr. Trump was a 2024 candidate, Save America has been paying for bills related to various investigations into the former president and his allies. In February 2022, the PAC announced that it had $122 million in its coffers.

By the beginning of 2023, the PAC’s cash on hand was down to $18 million, filings show. The rest had been spent on staff salaries, on the costs of Mr. Trump’s political activities last year — including some spending on other candidates and groups — and in other ways. That included the $60 million that was transferred to MAGA Inc., a super PAC that is supporting Mr. Trump. And more than $16 million went to pay legal bills.

Mr. Trump’s rivals are not similarly splitting their online proceeds with an affiliated PAC. The websites of former Vice President Mike Pence, former Ambassador Nikki Haley and Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina direct all the proceeds to their campaign committees. The same goes for Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey and Vivek Ramaswamy.

“I think in this particular situation, specifically because of the use of the leadership PAC to pay legal expenses and potentially other expenses that would be illegal personal use of campaign money, there’s an unusual incentive for the leadership PAC to take in more than it normally would,” said Adav Noti, senior vice president and legal director of Campaign Legal Center.

In the run-up to Mr. Trump’s latest campaign, his legal bills exploded in size. Save America spent $1.9 million in what it identified as legal expenses in the first half of 2022. That figure ballooned to nearly $14.6 million in the second half of last year, federal records show.

In late 2022, a Trump adviser said that about $20 million had been set aside by Save America PAC to cover legal expenses.

Since then, Mr. Trump has been indicted twice, once by a Manhattan grand jury on charges stemming from a hush-money payment to a porn star, and once by a federal grand jury in Florida on charges including violations of the Espionage Act arising from Mr. Trump’s possession of classified material and government records long after he left office.

A prominent attorney, Todd Blanche, left his white-collar law firm in April to join the former president’s legal team and is now representing him in both cases, and Mr. Trump recently met with about a half-dozen lawyers in Florida.

Mr. Trump’s legal troubles are deeply intertwined with his political campaign and fund-raising efforts. His campaign store is selling an “I Stand With Trump” T-shirt showing the date of his indictment in Manhattan (“03.30.2023”) for $36; it recently added a second shirt with his Florida indictment date (“06.08.2023”) for $38. Half the featured items on the store’s landing page show a fake mug shot and the words “not guilty.”

And Mr. Trump’s usual legal strategy — delay, delay, delay — could prove costly as overlapping teams of white-collar lawyers defend him in the federal case and the Manhattan criminal case, as well as in the investigation in Georgia, where Mr. Trump could face yet another indictment this summer for his role in trying to overturn the 2020 election. He is also facing an intensifying investigation by the special counsel Jack Smith into his efforts to cling to power after losing the election.

It remains unclear whether Mr. Trump will try to use his campaign funds to pay for lawyers, should he run into difficulties with the political action committee — and whether such a move would run afoul of spending rules.

“He can use the campaign to pay for legal bills that arise out of candidate or officeholder activity — and of course, some of the current legal matters fall into that category, and some do not, and some are in a gray area,” Mr. Noti said. “It really depends on what matter we’re talking about.”

Jason Torchinsky, a Republican election lawyer, said he believed Mr. Trump was barred from using Save America donations to pay his personal legal expenses now that he’s a candidate, arguing that doing so would be “an excessive contribution” under Federal Election Commission precedent. And he said Mr. Trump could not use campaign money at all, because it would qualify as personal use.

There have been signs that Mr. Trump’s campaign has been carefully monitoring its expenses.

He has mainly attended events organized by other groups, as opposed to staging his own large-scale political rallies, which were the lifeblood of his two past runs for president and are one of his favorite parts of campaigning. Those rallies are expensive, costing at least $150,000 and usually more than $400,000.

Mr. Trump has held only one full-scale rally in the seven months he has been running, with a second scheduled on July 1 in South Carolina, his first in an early-nominating state. (A rally in Iowa on May 13 was canceled after a tornado warning, though the weather cleared and Mr. DeSantis pointedly held an impromptu event nearby.)

People familiar with the Trump campaign’s plans have said that the dearth of rallies was as much about husbanding resources as it was about getting Mr. Trump to engage with voters in a more traditional way. The people also suggested that more large-scale events might come in the fall, as the primary race heats up.

But the fund-raising surges that Mr. Trump experienced after his first indictment at the end of March and again in June are expected to obscure a broader fund-raising slowdown. His campaign announced that he had raised $12 million in the first week after his first indictment and $7 million in the week after his second one. He will next disclose the state of his PAC and campaign’s finances in federal filings in July.

Mr. Trump is unusually dependent on online fund-raising. He has held only one major campaign fund-raiser that was billed as such by his team: the event at Bedminster on the evening of his indictment. It raised $2 million.

 

[Sawbonz 27777]

8 hours ago, High Plains Drifter said:

 

Couple of years ago, I had some business cards made for my attorney wife. All they have printed on them are two words: "Stop Talking"

 

How often do you have to hand her one?

[Longhorn_Fan68 33917]

6 hours ago, Serak The Preparer said:

[tx 3 putt 77921]

Hahaha he’s soooo screwed 

 

[Biff Tannen 45763]

1 minute ago, tx 3 putt said:

Hahaha he’s soooo screwed 

 

The great thing is you know he thinks “his” agents are loyal to him and him alone (like the mafia) so he probably spilled the beans on EVERYTHING. Fucking moron. 

[tx 3 putt 77921]

2 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

The great thing is you know he thinks “his” agents are loyal to him and him alone (like the mafia) so he probably spilled the beans on EVERYTHING. Fucking moron. 

having just watched all of nypd blue, the smartest agent is the first one to take the deal to cover his ass 

[Longhorn_Fan68 33917]

9 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

The great thing is you know he thinks “his” agents are loyal to him and him alone (like the mafia) so he probably spilled the beans on EVERYTHING. Fucking moron. 

yeah, they are, or at least should be, loyal to the constitution first, the office second - he's way down the list now that he's a private citizen. the fact this jerkoff still has SS detail pisses me off.

[TwiceHorn 31678]

Well, it seemed that with respect to 1/6, Smith had "scaled the mountain," going all the way up to Pence.  And that's a time honored way to investigate and prosecute.

But now he seems to be noodling among the minions, again.

One thing we've seen from the MAL case is that Smith seems to have the desire and the tenacity and talent or skill to find that evidence of intent.  And you kinda have to guess that's what he's angling for here.

 

[Gatorubet 30391]

On 6/23/2023 at 1:07 PM, Dahobbs said:

I prep all my witnesses on this tactic, particularly lay witnesses. Shut up and wait for a question. Let the attorney waste his time doing nothing if he wants. 

So do I. And yet it’s like trying to teach a cat Russian.  They seem earnest enough when you’re explaining, but just can’t seem to achieve it.

[Biff Tannen 45763]

3 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

One thing we've seen from the MAL case is that Smith seems to have the desire and the tenacity and talent or skill to find that evidence of intent.  And you kinda have to guess that's what he's angling for here.

I can find the intent with the video evidence we have from the speech that very day. 
 

but yes, I know that’s not how the law works. Because reasons. 

[Willfully Horn 8087]

The WSJ reported that DOJ fucked around for an entire year, refusing to investigate 1/6, because the DOJ was cowed by Republican rhetoric. (Crow, anyone)?

Here is a link to an interview NPR conducted with the WSJ reporter. The setup is wuoted.

Quote

As former President Donald Trump faces historic charges brought by the Justice Department related to his handling of classified documents, we are learning that he could have been subject to another DOJ probe much sooner. According to a new investigation by The Washington Post, the FBI held off on looking into what Trump did in the lead-up to the January 6 attack on the Capitol. What was behind that delay? And what might it signal, bigger picture? Let's talk it through it with The Washington Post's Carol Leonnig, one of the journalists who broke the story. Hey there.

https://www.npr.org/2023/06/19/1183098037/washington-post-journalist-on-fbis-delayed-investigation-of-trumps-role-in-jan-6

[Biff Tannen 45763]

8 minutes ago, Willfully Horn said:

The WSJ reported that DOJ fucked around for an entire year, refusing to investigate 1/6, because the DOJ was cowed by Republican rhetoric. (Crow, anyone)?

Here is a link to an interview NPR conducted with the WSJ reporter. The setup is wuoted.

https://www.npr.org/2023/06/19/1183098037/washington-post-journalist-on-fbis-delayed-investigation-of-trumps-role-in-jan-6

Did they cut the interview off or something?  Seemed fairly devoid of useful info. 

[Gil Bang 26099]

 

 

Edited June 26, 2023 by Gil Bang

[Captainant 27970]

Wow judge cannon continuing to play fuck fuck games to throw sand in the gears and delay in favor of the fascists, and DOJ being confirmed to have pussyfooted around the fascists for fear of the oPtIcS?? What a goddamn shocker!

Edited June 26, 2023 by Captainant

[Willfully Horn 8087]

22 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

Did they cut the interview off or something?  Seemed fairly devoid of useful info. 

Might have edited it, but the salutations were included. Here’s what NPR describes as the transcript of the interview.

Quote

CAROL LEONNIG: Hi, Mary Louise. Great to be with you.

KELLY: Great to have you with us. How long did the Justice Department wait to investigate Donald Trump and his allies in this case - the January 6 case?

LEONNIG: If you're thinking of the way in which Donald Trump led an effort to steal the 2020 election, the Department of Justice and the FBI together waited 15 months to launch a formal investigation into that matter.

KELLY: Fifteen months, one five. OK.

LEONNIG: That's right.

KELLY: And why?

LEONNIG: You know, what we learned was that inside the senior leadership of the Department of Justice, there was a lot of angst about restoring trust and faith in the Department of Justice - wanting so desperately for the public to view this entity as apolitical. And this department really - under Merrick Garland, really wanted to send a message, hey, politics is not what we're doing. The problems, however, was there was a lot of evidence that Donald Trump and at least many of his allies were possibly engaged in a crime - that efforts to pressure the vice president and efforts to basically pressure state officials to declare fraud in their state when there was none. All of those things had a potential criminal statute that could be charged, and the department just simply did not want to look in that direction, according to multiple sources that we spoke with.

KELLY: Is there any sign that the 15-month delay damaged the case they have subsequently built?

LEONNIG: I mean, we know from trials of the militia members that there were instructions from leadership there to delete your encrypted messages, delete your communications with people before January 6 and on that day. And we know that people's memories fade. And we also know that, you know, Mary Louise, the January 6 committee, they were the first footprints in the snow. That congressional investigation interviewed a lot of senior White House aides to Donald Trump, DOJ officials. They were interviewing these people before the Department of Justice ever considered talking to them. And that potentially stymies a Justice Department investigation because if those accounts of those different witnesses are different, that can challenge any prosecution.

KELLY: Harder to make it stick in court. Yeah.

LEONNIG: Exactly.

KELLY: Let me invite you to step back, and I'll just put the question that to me feels at the center of this, why does it matter? You're reporting you found a 15-month delay. OK, but they did eventually investigate. Why does this matter?

LEONNIG: You know what we learned, to our shock, was that several critical, front-seat witnesses were not interviewed until the independent counsel, Jack Smith, was named. In addition to memories fading, the Department of Justice is an iconic institution, something that is supposed to shore up our democracy. What we heard over and over again was this institution did not meet the test. It shrunk away from shoring up democracy out of fear of being accused of being partisan. Sometimes, as many sources told us, trying to avoid being partisan means you're not doing the job of investigating crime and holding people accountable. And national security experts, generals will tell you that not holding people accountable means we have to get ready for the possibility of another insurrection in the 2024 election.

KELLY: So I will note, as your article notes, that Trump has maintained no wrongdoing, and we'll wait to see where these investigations ultimately land. I suppose the other factor here is timing and the politics and the fact that the former president is running to be president once again. To what extent does that seem to have factored into decision-making or not, that a 15-month delay means we're 15 months closer to the '24 election?

LEONNIG: A 15-month delay into investigating the attempted theft of a democratic election is an extremely complicated, novel case. And Jack Smith, the current special counsel, is racing against this political clock to get all the answers. And it's not a case you rush. And to bring a case of, say, mail fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy against a former president and current nominee is fraught with peril.

KELLY: Carol Leonnig of The Washington Post, thanks very much.

LEONNIG: Thank you, Mary Louise.

 

[Red Five 41066]

2 minutes ago, Willfully Horn said:

LEONNIG: If you're thinking of the way in which Donald Trump led an effort to steal the 2020 election, the Department of Justice and the FBI together waited 15 months to launch a formal investigation into that matter.

rage.

[The Original Greaser Bob 2853]

That's concerning.  We should look more closely into that delay in between 12 and 18 months from now.

[Gil Bang 26099]

 

[TwiceHorn 31678]

4 minutes ago, Gil Bang said:

 

Yeah, that's not that big a deal.  Between the time the sealed list was "agreed to" and the time it was filed, press entities opposed the sealed list.

The government made no attempt to show why it needed to be sealed because Trump didn't object, but because the press did, it needs to.  The government will dust off it's "41 reasons this should be sealed," paste it into the motion and file this afternoon or tomorrow.

Edited June 26, 2023 by TwiceHorn

[Gil Bang 26099]

 

[Gatorubet 30391]

52 minutes ago, Gil Bang said:

 

[Biff Tannen 45763]

1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

Yeah, that's not that big a deal.  Between the time the sealed list was "agreed to" and the time it was filed, press entities opposed the sealed list.

The government made no attempt to show why it needed to be sealed because Trump didn't object, but because the press did, it needs to.  The government will dust off it's "41 reasons this should be sealed," paste it into the motion and file this afternoon or tomorrow.

So day 1 of delay then.  Someone should keep count.

[Neonmoon 38130]

What happens at a pre-trial hearing? Give me the short version 

[NameAlreadyInUse 5138]

15 minutes ago, Neonmoon said:

What happens at a pre-trial hearing? Give me the short version