Trump Charged With 37 counts of Espionage, Obstruction and related crimes

[Voronwë the Faithful]

They also said that if they were determined not to be personal records they should be covered by executive privilege, even though by definition anything designated as personal records Canberra covered by executive privilege

[Voronwë the Faithful]

In addition to pointing out the contradiction between Trump's arguments that the documents were personal records but that they can nonetheless be covered by executive privilege if the judge disagrees, the DOJ also points out that even if were true that the documents were personal records that would still be irrelevant because there is nothing that says that a private citizen's personal property cannot be seized as part of a lawful search pursuant to a lawfully obtained warrant if that property provides evidence of criminal conduct, which these documents do since they were intermingled with the national defense information that Trump illegally possessed and can help prove that he (or someone else) accessed that national defense information after he was president.

[RoseMorninStar]

I tend toward cynicism in this matter, but having witnessed time & again how small, petty, and vindictive Trump is, not to mention how he profited off of the office of presidency, I find it really difficult to believe that all of those files were not kept for either profit, blackmail, or other personal gain.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

The Washington Post has a story today saying that "investigators see ego, not money, as Trump's motive" for taking government documents to Mar-a-Lago.

I assume that you noticed who wrote that story? Our friend has things to say about it.

DEVLIN BARRETT’S “PEOPLE FAMILIAR WITH THE MATTER”

[Voronwë the Faithful]

This surprised me; I didn't expect the date of the oral argument to be announced until after the DOJ filed its reply brief, which is due on Thursday. Apparently, the judges on the panel will not be publicly revealed until the day of the argument (which is a week from today). Not sure how quickly they will rule, particularly with the Thanksgiving holiday just two days after the argument. But the fact that they already scheduled the argument is a sign that they won't take long.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Here's some light reading.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

ETA:

[Dave_LF]

What's the significance of appointing a special counsel vs just doing it himself? Because it feels like a punt.

[River]

What do we know about Jack Smith?

I'm not sure why a special counsel is even necessary, given that Trump's just a candidate in a primary. No such courtesies were extended to Hillary Clinton when she was running. Why's this guy getting the kid glove treatment?

ETA: It finally occurred to me that this is probably happening because the Oversight and Judiciary committees in the House are likely to be led by conspiratorial loons and Garland is preparing for the incoming shitshow.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

And here, I thought the big news was the reply brief that the DOJ filed yesterday that utterly eviscerated the arguments made by Trump's team. Legal twitter is very split as to whether this is a good thing, but I have concluded that it is. It might slow things down a little bit as Jack Smith gets up to speed and the prosecutors that have been working on both cases transfer into the special counsel's office (probably supplemented by others) but things continue to move. My understanding is that new grand jury subpoenas in both cases have recently been sent out, and of course while the special master process and injunction are still in place (until the 11th Circuit ends it and the Supreme Court fails to reverse them) that significantly limits what the DoJ can do in that case.

One question that I have is whether this means that they might consider charging Trump in both investigations together in one prosecution. I don't think so, but since Special Counsel Smith will be overseeing both investigations at the same time, I suppose it is possible.

Responding to Dave, there are a couple of benefits, primarily that the actions of the special counsel are more transparent and prosecution decisions must be reported to Congress. Plus it focuses the investigations into one dedicated office. And it is not really a "punt" because the final decision as to whether to prosecute is still Garland's (just as it was Bill Barr's at the end of the Mueller investigation.

Responding to River, Jack Smith is a well known name, but he has done a lot. In addition to being an Assistant U.S. Attorney, hee was a prosecutor at The Hague prosecuting war crimes, DoJ's Public Integrity Chief. Among his most relevant experience once secured the conviction of a CIA official charged with "illegally disclosing national defense information and obstructing justice." He seems like a very good choice, and will be a much less political choice than a former FBI director as Mueller was. And he is a lot younger than Mueller (he is 51).

ETA: This is not kid glove treatment. This is a firm indication that they have every intention of pursuing charges in both cases.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

This is an excellent blog post written by a professor at my alma mater (no, not Jonathan Turley) calling for the appointment of a special counsel.

https://www.sidebarsblog.com/p/mr-attor ... to-appoint

[N.E. Brigand]

In some comments about Jack Smith's appointment, Marcy Wheeler writes in passing that Dept. of Justice regulations may have required Merrick Garland to appoint a special counsel, but she doesn't elaborate on that claim. But something else Wheeler says bears repeating. While she doesn't feel that this move will seriously delay any possible prosecution of Donald Trump, she says that even if these matters had been left in the hands of the prosecutors currently overseeing them, any trial wouldn't start for years anyway.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

The panel for the 11th Circuit hearing on the DOJ's appeal of the special master and injunction order has been announced and it contains two of the three judges that were on the previous panel that granted the stay with regard to the classified documents and eviscerated Cannon's reasoning. The third judge is Chief Judge WIlliam Pryor, is a highly conservative appointee of GWB, but even if he were inclined to side with Trump I doubt the other two are going to reverse course from where they were before.



If anyone is interested, you can listen to the hearing (which is at 2:00 p.m. EST today) at: https://www.ca11.uscourts.gov/oral-argument-calendars

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Meanwhile, Trump's lawyers have made a totally bonkers request to Judge Cannon to be given an unredacted copy of the affidavit used to justify the search warrant. There is no universe in which she -- rather than the magistrate judge that issued the search warrant -- would have jurisdiction to do that. And there is no universe in which there is any justification to release the unredacted affidavit to a potential criminal defendant (let alone one that has a history of witness intimidation) at this stage of the investigation.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap ... .189.0.pdf

[Voronwë the Faithful]

This is not going well for Trump's lawyer, Jim Trusty.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

The very first question asked at the oral argument hearing on Tuesday was whether there had ever been a case when a court had enjoined the government from using materials seized pursuant to a lawful search warrant. Chief Judge Pryor first asked this of Sopan Joshi, the attorney arguing for the government, and he said that he was not aware of any such case. Later he asked the same question (scornfully) of Jim Trusty, arguing for Trump. Trusty admitted that he also was not aware of any. Well, last night Trusty filed a letter with the court claiming to have found one, asserting that In the Matter of Search Warrants Executed on April 28, 2021, No. 21-MC-425-JPO (S.D.N.Y.) (involving property seized from Hon. Rudolph W. Giuliani) was case where "a court has previously asserted equitable jurisdiction to enjoin the government from using seized materials in an investigation pending review by a special master" (which wasn't even the question that Judge Pryor asked). Today, on behalf of Special Council Smith, U.S. Attorney Gonzalez wrote a very brief letter to the court:

Plaintiff asserts that In re Search Warrants Executed on April 28, 2021, No. 21-mc-425 (S.D.N.Y.), is an example of a case in which “a court has previously asserted equitable jurisdiction to enjoin the government from using seized materials in an investigation pending review by a special master.” 11/23/22 Trusty 28( j) Letter, at 1. That is incorrect. As plaintiff recognizes, the court did not “enjoin the government,” id.; instead, the government itself volunteered that approach. Moreover, the records there were seized from an attorney’s office, the review was conducted on a rolling basis, and the case did not involve a separate civil proceeding invoking a district court’s anomalous jurisdiction. Cf. In the Matter of Search Warrants Executed on April 9, 2018, No. 18-mj-3161 (S.D.N.Y.) (involving similar circumstances). None of those is true here.

I suspect that Trusty's letter was sent at Trump's direct insistence. Otherwise, I can't imagine how even a bad lawyer can assert such false proposition.

[RoseMorninStar]

The entitlement is through the roof, but not surprising.

[N.E. Brigand]

"Openly and transparently."

That's how Donald Trump today characterizes his decision to take documents from the White House to Mar-a-Lago at the conclusion of his presidency.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

[River]

Welp, that's over. What do you think his next delay tactic is going to be?