Trump Indicted for Conspiring to Overturn the 2020 Election

[Voronwë the Faithful]

And ... now the DoJ has responded. They are not fooling around.

The Government wants to provide discovery to the defendant. By his motion, the
defendant seeks to delay that process. The defendant’s motion should be denied.
Three days ago, on August 2, the Government proposed to defense counsel a protective
order that largely tracked one entered in the defendant’s other pending federal criminal case in the
Southern District of Florida. See Defense Motion for Extension of Time, ECF No. 11, Ex. A at 1.
In emails not appended to the defendant’s extension motion, the Government followed up on the
evening of August 3 and early afternoon of August 4. Thereafter, defense counsel finally
responded by sending an entirely different protective order. Since the defendant’s proposal was
inadequate, the Government proposed another alternative—this one modeled after a protective
order entered in a case before Judge Carl J. Nichols recently tried by one of the defendant’s
attorneys present at his arraignment. Defense counsel declined to substantively confer on that
proposal on a Friday evening, see id., after which the Government moved separately for entry of
the order. The Court ordered the defendant to respond by Monday with a redline of the
Government’s proposal. See Minute Order, Aug. 5, 2023. Rather than spend time complying with
the Court’s order, the defendant drafted a filing as to why he did not have time to review and
consider the 5-page proposed protective order.

The defendant’s extension motion proposes unnecessary delay to normal order. The
defendant suggests that the delay “will enable Defendant to fully assess the Proposed Order and
advise the Court of applicable law.” ECF No. 11 at 1. Nothing prevents defense counsel from
doing just that on the schedule already ordered by the Court. To the extent defense counsel wants
to confer further, Government counsel is available at any time—evenings, weekends, or holidays.
And if the Court enters the proposed protective order and the defendant later is dissatisfied, the
defendant can seek to modify the order at any time.
The Government stands ready to press send on a discovery production. The defendant is
standing in the way. The Court should deny the motion.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

James Fallows catches New York Times headline writers being biased in Trump's favor (the blue box is Fallows's callout):



Using quotes around a word makes it seem less objective.

If "lies" is in quotes, "free speech" also should be in quotes: the government is arguing the former; Trump's allies are arguing the latter.

Fallows adds: "99% of the time, the issue with the Times framing is headlines, subheds, and 'social sells'—presentation on Xitter, et al. Rather than the stories themselves. Alas, 99 times more people just see the headlines."

Why does the Times do this? Fallows says it "comes from years of [Republicans] working the refs."

(Someone else wrote yesterday about how the media is framing the good July jobs report When the economy is strong under a Republican president, Democrats say the economy is strong and Republicans says the economy is unbelievably strong. When the economy is strong under a Democratic president, Democrats say the economy is strong and Republicans say the economy is weak. The media is lazy and will just split the difference.)

As Marcy Wheeler points out,

Also, it's not legally accurate.

Hundreds of these cases have debunked the NYT, and the NYT knows that.

[N.E. Brigand]

Here's something tricky: Rolling Stone has a new article about how Donald Trump plans, should he win the presidency, to punish anyone invovled in his prosecutions.

Is this Rolling Stone article itself part of his effort to intimidate law enforcement?

Here's a question I just sent to one of the reporters:

"If Donald Trump wanted to threaten prosecutors but knew that doing so openly would get him in trouble with a judge, I think he might instead leak his plans about threatening prosecutors to reporters. The net result is the same: the prosecutors may be chilled by fear of future reprisals against being too tough on Trump. How should those reporters guard against that possibility?"

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Judge Chutkan has in fact denied Trump's request.

Meanwhile, Trump has directly addressed a witness.



What will Jack Smith's team do with this?

[Sunsilver]

Some are saying he is daring the judge to jail him, as it will help rally his followers.
They are probably right. But if the judge does nothing, it makes it look like Trump is above the law.

[N.E. Brigand]

Demographic results from the 2020 U.S. census:

West Virginia
89.1% -- White
3.6% -- African-American
1.9% -- Hispanic/Latino
0.8% -- Asian
0.2% -- Native American
0.1% -- Pacific Islander
4.3% -- Other or Multiracial

Washington, D.C.
38.0% -- White
40.9% -- African-American
11.3% -- Hispanic/Latino
4.8% -- Asian
0.2% -- Native American
0.1% -- Pacific Islander
5.7% -- Other or Multiracial

This morning, Donald Trump's lawyer John Lauro argued on television that this case should be moved from D.C. to West Virginia in part because West Virginia is "diverse."

- - - - - - - - - -
This is very grouchy, as is often the case for its author, but it does do a helpful job explaining -- by reference to a March 2022 decision in which a judge ruled the January 6th Committee could access some of Trump attorney John Eastman's emails -- why it took more than two-and-a-half years to bring charges against Trump for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, why the Department of Justice couldn't move as swiftly as the Committee, and how DOJ actually did a lot of work on this case before Special Counsel Jack Smith was appointed last fall.1.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

It is 'amusing' that Lauro spent hours on TV today after he filed a motion to extend the deadline for them to respond to the motion for the protective order, claiming that they didn't have enough time to properly respond.

Meanwhile, Trump has a Truth Social trifecta; after he went after the lead witness yesterday, he made two posts today, one targeting the lead prosecutor, Jack Smith, and the other targeting Judge Chutkan herself.

[Sunsilver]

Wow, never would have guessed the African-American population of D.C. was that high!

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I thought it was much higher than that -- and I lived there for almost a decade.

ETA: It is somewhat higher. According to the U.S. Census Bureau it is 45.0%

https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/ ... /PST045222

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Random thoughts. It is an interesting coincidence that both federal cases landed with district court judges who previously ruled in the respective cases. In the case of the Judge Cannon, she made utterly unsupportable rulings in Trump's favor which were reversed in strong terms by a mostly conservative 11th Circuit Court of Appeals panel, and that decision was left in place by the SCOTUS. In the case of Judge Chutkan, she ruled against Trump and was unanimously upheld by a mixed panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, and that decision was upheld by the SCOTUS with only one justice dissenting. Yet the DoJ has not suggested that it wants to get Cannon of the Florida case, but Trump and his attorneys are demanding Chutkan's recusal.

Also, as Marcy Wheeler pointed out today, the biggest reason why the January 6 investigation took so long as that Trump kept delaying things by making unsupportable executive privilege claims for well over a year after the Supreme Court upheld Judge Chutkan's ruling that Trump could not claim executive privilege. Which of course doesn't stop Trump from complaining about the delay.

[N.E. Brigand]

I like this line: "Donald Trump was the Tom Sawyer of criming. He convinced thousands of people to throw their lives away for his lies."

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I'm not going to comment on just how nutsy-cuckoo some of Trump's lawyers assertions are in his filing today.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Lisa Rubin has a good rundown of some of the problems with Trump's filing.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

And of course, we can always trust Marcy Wheeler to get down into the weeds.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

The DoJ filed a caustic response quoting numerous statements that Lauro made in his multiple TV appearances and quoting Trump's Truth Social post about Pence, and making it clear that their proposed protective order was standard procedure for the District and that Trump and his attorneys wanted to use discovery to litigate the case in the media.

Judge Chutkan then made an order for a hearing some time by Friday, and ordered the parties to agree on two times that they are both available by then. It will be interesting to see if they can even agree about that.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

And, they couldn't. The absolute arrogance of these people is astounding. This is what was just filed:

By Minute Order on August 7, 2023, the Court directed the parties to meet and confer and
inform the Court, by joint notice, “of two dates and times on or before August 11, 2023 when both
parties are available for a hearing.” The parties have conferred and hereby provide notice.
The Government is available at any time on August 9, 10, or 11. The defense represents
the following:
President Trump will not appear. However, he would like to have both his counsel
John Lauro and Todd Blanche at the hearing. Todd Blanche is not available on
Thursday, since he must appear for a court proceeding in the prosecution brought
against the same defendant, President Trump, by the Special Counsel in SD Florida.
Mr. Lauro is available on Thursday, with a preference for an afternoon setting.
However, since we lost Friday as an option, we would respectfully request a setting
on Monday (after 12:00 p.m.) or Tuesday (all day) to allow for both Mr. Blanche
and Mr. Lauro to be present

I don't know what the hell they mean by "we lost Friday as an option." August 11 is Friday and the DoJ says they are available that day, which was one of the options that the judge gave. So how did they "lose Friday?"

SMH

Now off to twitter to watch my legal brethren shake their heads.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Judge Chutkan set the hearing for Friday at 10:00 a.m. Yes, the Friday that was lost as an option.

It should be interesting.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Keith Cheney points out that this hearing was set minutes after Trump falsely attached Judge Chutkan on Truth Social again.



Let's see, do these crazy things show up here?

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrum ... 5597576833

ETA: Nope, but you can click on the link to see it, if you dare.

[RoseMorninStar]

Keith Cheney points out that this hearing was set minutes after Trump falsely attached Judge Chutkan on Truth Social again.

(...)

Let's see, do these crazy things show up here?

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrum ... 5597576833

ETA: Nope, but you can click on the link to see it, if you dare.

Heh. Dared. What a whiny loser. He's so used to 'when you're a celebrity they let you do it' and bullying others but is the first to cry 'victim' when he has to answer for his behavior. Good for Judge Chutkan.

[River]

I'm sure Judge Chutkan has better things to do than watch Trump's social media accounts, but that's a hilarious coincidence.