But He's Not Gone Yet

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Attorneys

Questions:

• 128-page opinion? Is that a lot? Seems like a lot
• Is a disbarred attorney allowed to do any lawyer stuff, other than actually practicing law?

John Eastman, architect of Trump’s 2020 election plot, should be disbarred, judge rules

“The most severe available professional sanction is warranted to protect the public,” Judge Yvette Roland wrote.

A California judge on Wednesday recommended the disbarment of John Eastman, calling to revoke the law license of one of former President Donald Trump’s top allies in his failed last-ditch gambit to subvert the 2020 election.

Judge Yvette Roland, who presided over months of testimony and argument about the basis of Eastman’s fringe legal theories, ruled that the veteran conservative attorney violated ethics rules — and even potentially criminal law — when he advanced Trump’s efforts to overturn the election results based on weak or discredited claims of fraud.

Eastman plans to appeal Roland’s decision to a panel of judges, an interim step before the matter reaches the state Supreme Court. But while his appeal is pending, the ruling forces his law license into “inactive” status, meaning he can no longer practice law in California.

“Given the serious and extensive nature of Eastman’s unethical actions, the most severe available professional sanction is warranted to protect the public and preserve the public confidence in the legal system,” Roland ruled.

Roland’s 128-page opinion was a lacerating rebuke of Eastman’s conduct and his subsequent lack of remorse. She concluded that he made knowingly flimsy claims of fraud and irregularities in legal filings on Trump’s behalf, including his brief for Trump in a Supreme Court fight.

The judge walked through Eastman’s extensive involvement in Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, from his early lawsuits that failed to gain traction to his bid to solicit GOP state legislatures to send “alternate” electors to Congress, a last-gasp bid to keep Trump in power. At every turn, Roland said, Eastman ignored evidence that was unfavorable to his case and accepted at face value claims of fraud or misconduct aimed at sowing doubt about the election results.

“He turned a blind eye to any information that would not support his position of election fraud,” Roland wrote.

In all, Roland found Eastman culpable for 10 of 11 charges that state bar investigators brought against him, including misleading courts, lack of candor and, most notably, plotting with Trump to derail the transfer of power.

“Eastman conspired with President Trump to obstruct a lawful function of the government of the United States; specifically, by conspiring to disrupt the electoral count on January 6, 2021,” Roland ruled.

Eastman’s attorney, Randall Miller, said Eastman still believes his work on Trump’s behalf in 2020 “was based on reliable legal precedent, prior presidential elections, research of constitutional text, and extensive scholarly material.” He also noted that Eastman is facing criminal charges in Georgia and has now lost the ability to finance his defense with his work as an attorney.

“Any reasonable person can see the inherent unfairness of prohibiting a presumed-innocent defendant from being able to earn the funds needed to pay for the enormous expenses required to defend himself, in the profession in which he has long been licensed,” Miller said. “That is not justice and serves no legitimate purpose to protect the public.”

Roland found, in contrast, that the state bar investigators had failed to convincingly show that Eastman’s remarks to a Jan. 6 rally — which preceded the violent assault on the Capitol — played a role in ginning up the subsequent attack.

Roland said her disbarment recommendation was in part based on Eastman’s refusal to express regret and his attacks on the proceedings against him as politically motivated.

“Eastman has exhibited an unwillingness to acknowledge any ethical lapses regarding his actions, demonstrating an apparent inability to accept responsibility,” she wrote. “This lack of remorse and accountability presents a significant risk that Eastman may engage in further unethical conduct, compounding the threat to the public.”

Eastman testified for hours during his disbarment trial, claiming that he relied on a cadre of statisticians and data analysts to conclude that the 2020 election was rife with misconduct and that state legislatures in a handful of swing states should step in to replace Joe Biden’s electors with Trump’s. But Roland said those analysts’ claims were easily refuted by expert testimony, and Eastman should have known better than to rely on them.

In addition, Roland concluded that Eastman stretched and contorted even his own outlier theories to pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence to single-handedly block Joe Biden’s victory, even when no state legislatures had signed onto the effort.

Eastman’s pending disbarment compounds the legal trouble he’s facing in other states. He’s been charged alongside Trump and other allies in Fulton County, Georgia, as a member of an alleged racketeering conspiracy aimed at corrupting the results of the 2020 election in the state. He was also identified, but not named, in Trump’s federal indictment in Washington, D.C., as one of six unindicted co-conspirators assisting Trump’s bid to seize a second term.

Eastman’s trial, which spanned portions of six months last year, was the most exacting test of the legal theories he employed that nearly upended the transfer of presidential power for the first time in American history. Witnesses for the state bar discipline authorities included top election officials in several states challenged by Trump, constitutional law expert Matthew Seligman and even Eastman himself.

Eastman first came into Trump’s orbit in September 2020, when Trump tasked another lawyer, Cleta Mitchell, to put together a team of election lawyers to prepare for post-election challenges. In early November 2020, Mitchell encouraged Eastman to craft a legal argument in favor of state legislatures overturning election results.

By early December, Eastman had been engaged by the Trump campaign to represent Trump in ongoing legal challenges to the election results in Georgia and at the Supreme Court.

As Trump’s legal challenges faltered, Eastman turned his focus to the Jan. 6, 2021, session of Congress, when the House and Senate were required to meet — in a session overseen by Pence. Eastman drafted memos describing “scenarios” in which Pence asserted the unilateral authority to refuse to count some of Biden’s presidential electors, forcing a delay in the election and giving more time for state legislatures to consider reversing Trump’s defeat.

Pence, however, refused to adopt Eastman’s theory, saying it would be illegal and unconstitutional, and ultimately upheld the certified election results in all 50 states, ensuring Biden’s victory. Eastman famously argued with Pence’s legal counsel, Greg Jacob, by email, encouraging Pence to reconsider his position, even as rioters attacked the Capitol and forced Pence and Congress into hiding.

Next Up

Judge Merchan will have no truck with Trump's shenanigans.

Hush money judge warns Trump’s lawyers to abide by rulings

Judge Juan Merchan on Tuesday warned former President Trump’s lawyers in his hush money case to abide by the court’s rulings.

“The Court advises counsel that it expects and welcome zealous advocacy and creative lawyering,” Merchan wrote.

“However, the Court also expects those advocates to demonstrate the proper respect and decorum that is owed to the courts and its judicial officers and to never forget that they are officers of the court. As such, counsel is expected to follow this Court’s orders,” he continued, also referencing his power to issue criminal contempt punishments.

The stern warning came at the end of the judge’s four-page ruling denying Trump’s request to lift a requirement that the parties seek permission before filing any new motions prior to trial.

Merchan had implemented the requirement on March 8, portraying it as a move to manage the case more efficiently as Trump mounts various attempts to delay his trial at the last-minute.

On Tuesday, the judge accused Trump’s lawyers of attempting to “circumvent” the new requirement by filing one of their proposed motions as an exhibit to their letter seeking permission before Merchan signed off.

“This Court emphasizes that it hopes for and fully expects zealous advocacy from counsel as well as spirited contribution from witnesses and parties alike,” Merchan wrote. “Nonetheless, the Court expects that the line between zealous advocacy and willful disregard of its orders will not be crossed.”

Merchan’s ruling came one day after he refused to delay Trump’s trial further, setting jury selection to begin on April 15. It is set to mark the first criminal trial of a former president.

Trump is charged in the case with 34 counts of falsifying business records over reimbursements to his then-fixer, Michael Cohen, who paid porn actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 just before the 2016 election to stay quiet about an alleged affair with Trump.

Trump, who acknowledges the reimbursements but denies the affair, pleaded not guilty.

The ruling was one of two Merchan issued on Tuesday. He also rejected Trump’s motion to post any communications between the judge and the parties not already made public.

“To be clear, all motions, decisions, orders, and pleadings, normally maintained in the court’s public file are in the public file,” Merchan wrote.

SCOTUS

Kinda lost in the hubbub swirling around the court's fucked up decision to overturn the Colorado Supremes' ruling that Trump is disqualified from holding office, is the fairly simple fact that both the Colorado Supreme Court and now SCOTUS have let Judge Wallace's finding of fact stand.

ie: Donald J Trump engaged in insurrection against the United States of America.

Retribution

What happened to Navalny is indicative of what happens in a country where the leader is not subject to the rule of law.

And why is Putin so sure he'll never be held to account for his murders?

Because he has absolute immunity

That Sound You Heard

Donald Trump is a loser.

Bedfellows

There was a time I would've been on the same side with this lady - with a few exceptions. Of course, that was a jillion years ago when it was still OK to be a Pro-Choice Progressive Republican.

Before the GOP lost its fucking mind. Glad I'm out, and I fully expect I'll never be able to return.

The 91-year-old Republican suing to kick Donald Trump off the ballot

Norma Anderson, a trailblazing former GOP legislator, is among the Colorado voters who have challenged the Republican front-runner’s candidacy in a case that will be heard by the Supreme Court

LAKEWOOD, Colo. — Norma Anderson left the Colorado legislature nearly two decades ago but she still keeps a copy of the state’s statutes in her home office. She carries a pocket Constitution in her purse. She has another copy, slightly larger with images of the Founding Fathers on the cover, that she leaves on a table in her sitting room so she can consult it when she watches TV.

She’s turned down a page corner in that copy to mark the spot where the 14th Amendment appears. She has reread it several times since joining a lawsuit last year that cites the amendment in seeking to stop Donald Trump from running for president.

Anderson, 91, is the unlikely face of a challenge to Trump’s campaign that will be heard by the Supreme Court on Thursday. She was a force in Colorado politics for decades, serving as the first female majority leader in both chambers of the legislature. She is a Republican but has long been skeptical of Trump and believes he is an insurrectionist who crossed a verboten line on Jan. 6, 2021, that should bar him from holding office again.

“He tried to overturn an election,” she said. “The very first time I ever ran, I didn’t win. I didn’t go out and try to change the election. I said, ‘Whoops, work harder next time, lady.’”

The 2024 election could turn on whether the Supreme Court agrees with Anderson and five other Republican and independent voters who persuaded Colorado’s top court to rule that Trump is ineligible to run again. The justices — three of whom were nominated by Trump — are expected to quickly decide the historic Trump v. Anderson case, with their ruling likely to apply across all 50 states.

Although considered a legal long shot, a decision in Anderson’s favor would jolt American politics by preventing the GOP front-runner from continuing his campaign. However the justices rule, they are likely to displease a large chunk of an intensely polarized electorate.

The case is built on the 14th Amendment, which was adopted three years after the end of the Civil War to guarantee rights for the formerly enslaved and to prevent former Confederates from returning to power. That latter provision, known as Section 3, is written broadly to say those who engage in insurrection after taking an oath to support the Constitution cannot hold office.

Anderson’s lawsuit, brought with the help of the group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), argues Trump can’t appear on Colorado’s March 5 primary ballot because he engaged in insurrection before and during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Colorado’s high court agreed in a 4-3 ruling in December, and Trump appealed the case to the Supreme Court.

Section 3 was dormant for more than a century but received new attention after Jan. 6. CREW spearheaded a lawsuit in 2022 that bounced a county commissioner in New Mexico out of office because of his role in the attack on the Capitol.

Eric Olson, an attorney for the group of Colorado voters, argues the case before the state Supreme Court in December. (David Zalubowski/AP/Pool)
The debates over whether Section 3 can block Trump from office have not always followed clean ideological lines. Some prominent conservative scholars have contended Trump should be deemed ineligible for office, even as some liberals have argued the best way to shore up democracy is to defeat Trump at the ballot box.

Polls show the country is split on whether Trump should be disqualified. The former president has called the attempts in Colorado and other states to remove him from the ballot an anti-democratic attempt to interfere with the election.

Before attorney Mario Nicolais approached Norma Anderson to be part of the lawsuit seeking to bar Trump from the ballot, he asked Pam Anderson, the 2022 Republican nominee for Colorado secretary of state. She decided not to do it but suggested Nicolais try her mother-in-law. Nicolais, a research analyst for Rudy Giuliani’s 2008 presidential campaign who is now working with CREW, was thrilled to learn a Republican luminary might consider signing on and called Norma Anderson. She agreed on the spot.

“The short answer was ‘Yes,’” Nicolais said. “And the long answer was ‘Hell yes.’”

Also signing on to the suit were a former Republican member of Congress from Rhode Island who now lives in Colorado; a teacher; a former deputy chief of staff to a Republican governor; a former executive director of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Larimer County; and a conservative columnist for the Denver Post.

Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung called CREW a “front group” for Democrats that is using plaintiffs who are RINOs — Republicans in name only — to give themselves political cover. In a written statement, he noted legal efforts to kick Trump off the primary ballot in other states have failed. “We believe a fair ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States will keep President Trump on the ballot and allow the American people to re-elect him to the White House,” Cheung said.

Raised a Republican, Anderson said she was attracted to the party’s belief in fiscal restraint, personal responsibility and a strong national defense. She hosted a reception for Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona years before he became the 1964 Republican nominee for president. She oversaw Republican caucuses as a party committeewoman. And she knocked on doors to help GOP candidates long before mounting campaigns of her own.

She won a seat in the Colorado House in 1986, four years after losing her first bid. Her status as the first female majority leader means less to her, she said in an interview in her suburban Denver home, than what she considers her legislative accomplishments — creating the Colorado Transportation Department, rewriting the state’s school funding system and establishing a visiting nurse program.

During her tenure in the legislature, Anderson was considered a conservative who could work with others but knew how to get her way, said Dick Wadhams, a political consultant and former chairman of the Colorado Republican Party.

“Once she decided where she was on an issue, she stuck to that,” he said. “She didn’t waver. And I think that’s one of the reasons why she was so popular at the time with Republicans, because she was strong. Nobody pushed Norma around.”

Mike Beasley, who worked with Anderson when he was the chief lobbyist for Gov. Bill Owens (R), said he had “watched her bring in the biggest bullies in politics and lock that door in her office and say, ‘Here’s how it’s going to be, boys. We’re going to work this out. We’re going to figure it out.’ And 9 out of 10 times she got her way 100 percent.”

Anderson surprised her colleagues when she abruptly quit the state Senate in 2006, a year before her term was up. She stayed active in politics but began to have reservations about a party that she believed was focusing too much on people’s personal lives.

When Trump was the party’s presidential nominee in 2016 and 2020, she voted for third-party candidates. She quit the Republican Party in 2018 because of Trump but rejoined it in 2021. “I thought, you know, I’m the Republican. They aren’t,” she said.

She said her Republican friends have supported her decision to join the lawsuit. “There’s other Republicans that think I’m a RINO,” Anderson said. “It doesn’t bother me.”

The justices on Colorado’s top court faced a wave of threats after they issued their ruling, as did Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows (D) after she decided Trump should be kept off the ballot in her state. (Bellows’s decision was put on hold by a state court until the Supreme Court decides the Colorado case.)

Anderson said she knew she could face harassment when she signed up for the lawsuit but would not be deterred. “I don’t frighten very easily,” she said.

Krista Kafer, a Denver Post columnist who is another plaintiff, studied up on the case, prayed about it and consulted with her mother before deciding to join the lawsuit. She said she did so in part because she would want Democrats to do the same if a leader of their party did what Trump did after losing an election. And if Trump isn’t barred from running, she said, future presidents may incite violence if they lose their reelection bids.

“Only this time it’s not going to be, you know, a guy with Viking horns and a bunch of people with poles and makeshift weapons,” she said. “If this becomes the new normal, what does the next one look like? Bigger crowd, better weapons.”

Friends have been supportive, but some acquaintances have cut ties with her because of the lawsuit, she said. A neighbor told her she was worried she would go to hell. Others have taken to social media to label her, variously, a Nazi, a communist, a Satanist and a RINO.

Kafer left the Republican Party when Trump became the nominee in 2016 and voted for a third-party candidate that year. In 2020, she said, she reluctantly voted for Trump, figuring he was better than Joe Biden. She said she was horrified when Trump refused to concede and relentlessly repeated lies about the election that fueled the attack on the Capitol.

Part of what brought her back to the Republican Party during Trump’s time in office was his appointment of conservatives to the bench. She said she thought Democrats treated Brett M. Kavanaugh unfairly when they considered his nomination to the Supreme Court by focusing on allegations, which he strenuously denied, that he sexually assaulted Christine Blasey Ford when both were teenagers.

Now, Kavanaugh will be among the justices hearing the case about Trump’s future, as will the other two Trump nominees, Neil M. Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett. Kafer is not worried they’ll be swayed by who nominated them, saying she views the justices as fair brokers.

“They love the Constitution and they love the country, and they also know they’re under a microscope,” she said. “Anything that’s human is flawed, but the Supreme Court seems to me to be the most functional part of our system right now in that you don’t see them bad-mouth each other. They don’t tweet.”

Another justice, Clarence Thomas, has faced calls to recuse himself from cases involving Trump because his wife, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, urged the Trump White House and lawmakers to overturn the election.

Anderson said she understood she might lose the case, but believed that bringing the lawsuit was worth it regardless.

Either way, she said, the challenge will help more people “realize how serious January 6th was and the fact that dear Donald was part of it.”

Facts Are Stubborn Things

And rape is rape is rape.

Fingers, dicks, bratwurst, baseball bats, a fire hose, or a hopped-up gerbil - it doesn't fucking matter. You put something in a woman's vagina without her consent, you've raped her, you smarmy little nit-picking reality-dodging bags of 3rd-rate weasel shit.

Judge clarifies: Yes, Trump was found to have raped E. Jean Carroll

After Donald Trump was found liable for sexually abusing and defaming E. Jean Carroll, his legal team and his defenders lodged a frequent talking point.

Despite Carroll’s claims that Trump had raped her, they noted, the jury stopped short of saying he committed that particular offense. Instead, jurors opted for a second option: sexual abuse.

“This was a rape claim, this was a rape case all along, and the jury rejected that — made other findings,” his lawyer, Joe Tacopina, said outside the courthouse.

A judge has now clarified that this is basically a legal distinction without a real-world difference. He says that what the jury found Trump did was in fact rape, as commonly understood.

The filing from Judge Lewis A. Kaplan came as Trump’s attorneys have sought a new trial and have argued that the jury’s $5 million verdict against Trump in the civil suit was excessive. The reason, they argue, is that sexual abuse could be as limited as the “groping” of a victim’s breasts.

Kaplan roundly rejected Trump’s motion Tuesday, calling that argument “entirely unpersuasive.”

“The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was ‘raped’ within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape,’ ” Kaplan wrote.

He added: “Indeed, as the evidence at trial recounted below makes clear, the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.”

Kaplan said New York’s legal definition of “rape” is “far narrower” than the word is understood in “common modern parlance.”

The former requires forcible, unconsented-to penetration with one’s penis. But he said that the conduct the jury effectively found Trump liable for — forced digital penetration — meets a more common definition of rape. He cited definitions offered by the American Psychological Association and the Justice Department, which in 2012 expanded its definition of rape to include penetration “with any body part or object.”

Kaplan also flatly rejected the Trump team’s suggestion that the conduct Trump was found liable for might have been as limited as groping of the breasts.

The reason? Trump was not accused of that, so the only alleged offense that would have qualified as “sexual abuse” was forced digital penetration. Beyond that, Trump was accused of putting his mouth on Carroll’s mouth and pulling down her tights, which Kaplan noted were not treated as alleged sexual abuse at trial.

“The jury’s finding of sexual abuse therefore necessarily implies that it found that Mr. Trump forcibly penetrated her vagina,” Kaplan wrote, calling it the “only remaining conclusion.”

Kaplan also noted that the verdict form did not ask the jury to decide exactly what conduct Trump had committed, and that neither prosecutors nor Trump’s lawyers had requested it to do so.

“Mr. Trump’s attempt to minimize the sexual abuse finding as perhaps resting on nothing more than groping of Ms. Carroll’s breasts through her clothing is frivolous,” Kaplan wrote.

He added that the jury clearly found that Trump had “ ‘raped’ her in the sense of that term broader than the New York Penal Law definition.”

The motion was a part of Trump’s efforts to appeal the verdict against him. That’s an effort that will apparently continue as he faces a separate defamation lawsuit from Carroll, dealing with claims Trump made about her allegations while he was still president.

But for now, Trump’s effort to push back has led to a rather remarkable clarification that severely undercuts his main talking point.

Going Toe To Toe

Maddow makes some great points. The interview isn't the best thing I've ever seen, but there's something about the fact that E Jean Carroll is not a particularly good interviewee that brings home the concept of real equality under the law. ie: Normies can win.

Carroll's had a little public heft to her, so she's not just some 'regular Joe'. But she was living a pretty quiet, regular life when she decided to step up and put it all on the line by fighting back.

She's weathered a pretty heavy storm. And while that makes her a bone fide total shero for women, she's won this fight for all of us.

So I say again:

Women will save us.

All we have to do is stay the fuck out of their way and let 'em do it.

BTW, when the question is whether you want 4 years of a Biden presidency or 4 years of a Trump dictatorship, the glaring absence of the followup is maddening.

Given what Trump tried to do on Jan6, what makes you think he'd stop at the end of four years and hand over power to whoever wins the 2028 election?

It has to be obvious that if there's an election (and it'd be stoopid to assume he wouldn't suspend democracy altogether for whatever bullshit reason Mike Flynn and Stephen Miller handed him), it would be a standard Daddy State affair that goes in Trump's favor by 50 or 60 or 70 points. Who the fuck do the rubes think they're foolin'?

If He Can Do It

... and get away with it, why shouldn't I?

Chickens And Roosts

It was pretty for Trump last week. Judge Engeron could make it worse any day now.

Last Week Was Bad for Trump. This Week Could Be Four, Five Times Worse.

The former president’s trials are starting to take a toll—and Judge Engoron could be poised to deal another savage blow possibly by Wednesday.

Think $83.3 million is a lot of money? Well, hold onto your hat, buster, because this week, New York Judge Arthur Engoron is supposed to announce the penalty he’s slapping on Donald J. Trump in the Trump Organization fraud case.

The case, brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James in 2022, accuses Trump of lying to bankers and insurers about the value of his properties. Last September, Engoron declared in a summary judgment that the evidence clearly said Trump had done so. He wrote in his ruling: “In defendants’ world: Rent regulated apartments are worth the same as unregulated apartments; restricted land is worth the same as unrestricted land; restrictions can evaporate into thin air; a disclaimer by one party casting responsibility on another party exonerates the other party’s lies. That is a fantasy world, not the real world.”

Last month, Engoron said he was aiming to announce the fine amount by January 31. That’s Wednesday. James is seeking $370 million.

Last week’s damage award in the E. Jean Carroll case was staggering. We had a little office pool going (well, just three of us, and we didn’t actually bet money). I came in highest at $40 million, so under traditional Price Is Right rules, I was the closest, but nevertheless light-years off. That rigged, deep-state jury took all of three hours to award Carroll more than three times what lawyer Roberta Kaplan was asking.

Is there a precedent there for a larger reward than was even being sought? Signs are promising. Engoron, you’ll recall, showed little patience for Trump’s courtroom antics. Earlier this month, he nixed Trump’s attempt to make a closing argument. “Not having heard from you by the third extended deadline (noon today), I assume that Mr. Trump will not agree to the reasonable, lawful limits I have imposed as a precondition to giving a closing statement above and beyond those given by his attorneys, and that, therefore, he will not be speaking in court tomorrow,” the judge wrote. Trump nevertheless managed to blurt out a few sentences of petulant nonsense. “Please control your client,” Engoron advised his counsel.

Bad? Yep. But the knife took another twist into Trump’s flesh last Friday, the same day the Carroll jury threw all that buckshot in Trump’s face. Barbara Jones was appointed last fall by Engoron to monitor some of the Trump Organization’s transactions. On Friday, Jones wrote Engoron a 12-page letter saying, in part: “I have identified certain deficiencies in the financial information that I have reviewed, including disclosures that are either incomplete, present results inconsistently, and/or contain errors.” So—what’s your bet? Maybe $400 million? What about $500? Who knows?

(See previous post)

The money isn’t even the main factor in play, especially considering that Trump probably doesn’t have it and wouldn’t pay it even if he did. No—the nuclear bomb here, the real psychological waterboarding of Donald John Trump, will come if Engoron strips him and his company of the ability to do business in New York state. This option is on the table because Trump was prosecuted under a 1956 law that allows courts the ability to issue a “permanent and plenary ban” on a company if the behavior is egregious enough to warrant it.

Sounds heavy, right? No question it would be a crushing blow to Trump’s ego. But guess what? Trump is such an accomplished con man that this isn’t even the first time the law has been used to prosecute him. Trump University set that precedent. One of Trump’s lawyers whined last week that the law was overbroad and unfair: “This is not just about President Trump. Every major bank CEO and every Wall Street participant should speak out now before the Attorney General’s shocking and tyrannical interference in the capital markets places all New York business transactions at risk.”

Quick … does that statement remind you of anything? It should. To me it sounds an awful lot like Trump’s own blubbering about presidential immunity—that all presidents need blanket immunity because someone is bound to sue them after they leave office over something they did.

Well—no: Somehow or another, we’ve had 46 presidents, and only one of them has faced this kind of legal scrutiny after he left office. That’s because only one president, so far as we know, spent his entire adult life in and out of office flagrantly ignoring the law (one other kind of did, but he resigned and retreated to a mostly quiet life of writing books, and society decided to leave him more or less alone).

So no, presidents don’t need blanket immunity. Trump keeps inventing examples—maybe an ex-president will be sued for having bombed some country. I guess any jerk can file any kind of nuisance lawsuit, but all Congress has to do is pass a law (if indeed one is not already on the books) protecting ex-presidents from legal action arising from policymaking decisions. Ex-presidents—and major bank CEOs and Wall Street “participants”—who obey the law don’t need blanket immunity!

And speaking of immunity: Where’s the ruling on that? The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit heard arguments on January 9, and a lot of people are wondering what’s taking so long. This was the hearing where one of the judges, Florence Pan, noted that under Trump’s theory, a president could order Seal Team 6 to kill a political opponent and face no consequences. It’s widely expected that the court will rule against Trump, and he will appeal.

What a way to start a year! Maybe about a half-a-billion dollars in fines, and a court ruling that is expected to torch his ridiculous immunity theory and allow other prosecutions to proceed. Speaking of which, Jack Smith is looming right around the corner. All while Trump is going to be crowned the Republican nominee. You have to believe that at least some normie Americans are going to see that something’s wrong with this picture.

More Trump Fuckery

I don't even know what to call this or how to characterize it. Is it Kiting Checks On Yourself? Is it a kind of Circular Churn?

Whatever it turns out to be called by the lawyers, it's gotta be some kind of fraud.

When do we come to our senses and put this prick behind bars?

Three From Politico

‘Preposterous’: Federal judge decries efforts to downplay Jan. 6 violence, label perpetrators ‘hostages’

Judge Royce Lamberth, who has handled dozens of Jan. 6 cases, lamented the false rhetoric spread by Donald Trump and his allies.

The longest-serving district judge on the federal bench in Washington, D.C., warned Thursday that false rhetoric about the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol — including the sorts of lies hurled by former President Donald Trump and some of his congressional allies — poses an ongoing danger to the nation.

Judge Royce Lamberth, a Reagan appointee to the bench, said the “destructive” misinformation, spread by political leaders who have downplayed and misrepresented the attack, had become pervasive.

“In my thirty-seven years on the bench, I cannot recall a time when such meritless justifications of criminal activity have gone mainstream,” Lamberth lamented in a seven-page public court filing.

- more -

The Trump defense industrial complex goes a bit quiet after Carroll verdict

‘Trump chaos is baked in the cake at this point,’ one Republican strategist said.

The most notable thing about the Republican call-and-response following the E. Jean Carroll verdict was that there was barely any response at all.

On Friday night and into the weekend, the story of former President Donald Trump being ordered to pay the writer $83.3 million in damages stemming from her defamation case against him didn’t lead Fox News, which was consumed instead with the immigration crisis on the Southern border. The Daily Caller was busy flogging Hunter Biden. And on the right-wing network Newsmax’s pages, the verdict ran beneath reporting on a bathroom bill in Utah, Israel and Vince McMahon.

“Everyone is just trying to pretend it didn’t happen,” said Jason Roe, the former executive director of the state Republican Party in Michigan.

In the past, when prosecutors or the courts have smacked Trump, the former president fumed and the GOP rage machine spun itself into overdrive, framing the court developments as acts of political persecution. In the Carroll case, the first part happened, but not the second.

That most Republicans were not talking about $83 million in damages reflects both a discomfort with, and an uncertainty about, the political implications of the verdict. It also hints at a latent fear: that the ruling may prove to be a turnoff for some independent or conservative-leaning women in the suburbs.

- more -

Judge orders release of DOJ memo justifying not prosecuting Trump

Amy Berman Jackson blasts former Attorney General William Barr’s spin on the Mueller report as “disingenuous.”

A federal judge has ordered the release of a key Justice Department memo supporting former Attorney William Barr’s conclusion that former President Donald Trump should not be prosecuted for obstruction of justice over episodes investigated by special counsel Robert Mueller.

U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson issued that ruling in a withering opinion that accused Barr of being “disingenuous” when describing Mueller’s findings and found that the Justice Department was not candid with the court about the purpose and role of the 2019 memo prepared by Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel.

In response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, Justice Department attorneys argued that the memo was part of the process of advising Barr on whether Trump should be prosecuted, but Jackson said the analysis consisted of a post hoc rationalization of a decision already made.

“The review of the document reveals that the Attorney General was not then engaged in making a decision about whether the President should be charged with obstruction of justice; the fact that he would not be prosecuted was a given,” wrote Jackson, an appointee of former President Barack Obama.

Jackson linked Justice Department’s effort to keep the memo secret to Barr’s initial descriptions of Mueller’s conclusions, declaring both efforts misleading.

“Not only was the Attorney General being disingenuous then, but DOJ has been disingenuous to this Court with respect to the existence of a decision-making process that should be shielded by the deliberative process privilege,” she wrote. “The agency’s redactions and incomplete explanations obfuscate the true purpose of the memorandum, and the excised portions belie the notion that it fell to the Attorney General to make a prosecution decision or that any such decision was on the table at any time.”

- more -

10 Counts - Obstruction Of Justice

On That $83.3 Million

Today I Learned:

• Trump has to pay some or all of the $83M into a kind of escrow thingie even as he goes for the appeal
• The appellate court can alter the lower court's decision - including the amount of the award 
• One of the points in all this is: Your shit will catch up with you eventually

That last point stands out like pink shoes at a stag party. This is a really important test to see if the whole Rule Of law thing holds up.

Today's Jennifer

Closing arguments today, followed by jury instructions from the judge, and then twelve jurors commence to deliberatin' on how much Trump will be hit up for.

So far, he seems to be trying to run his usual game, where he tells the guy he's trying to get money out of that he's rollin' in dough, and then turns around and tells the tax guy he's not really all that rich.

He's been bragging this whole time about Mar-A-Lago (eg) being worth a billion-five, maybe more, and that he's got an easy $400K in his petty cash fund and blah blah blah.

The jury in Georgia stung Rudy for $148 million, so we'll see. This could get even crazier.

hoist on one's own petard

Per Ayn Rand: Contradictions exist, but they cannot prevail.

Jennifer Rubin's Green Room

26,000 rape-related pregnancies in Texas since Roe v. Wade was overturned

A Recap

It's hard to keep track of it all. Here's a short, partial recap of the last coupla weeks.

Yasmin Khan

• Where's Melania?
• No Ted Cruz endorsement
• He got mixed up on his dates again
• New-ish audio on his efforts to fuck with voting in Detroit 
• Trump has already been found liable/guilty in the NYC Fraud case
• Trump has already been found liable/guilty in the E Jean Carroll case
• The only decisions pending are about how much he'll have to pay

Jennifer Rubin

1. Conspiracy to defraud
2. Conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding
3. Obstruction of an official proceeding
4. Conspiracy to deprive people of the right to vote and to have one’s vote counted.

Opinion

Jack Smith’s case got stronger over the past month

When a federal grand jury in D.C. indicted former president Donald Trump in August, the four charges stemming from his attempted coup were tightly drawn, based on easily provable facts many Americans witnessed with their own eyes. Though most of the attention since then has focused on his legal appeals, the factual case appears to be much stronger than originally recognized.

The first hint came in early December when special counsel Jack Smith filed a document laying out some of his evidence. “Smith alleges that a Trump ‘Campaign Employee’ — also identified as Trump’s ‘agent’ — sought to cause a riot to disrupt the centralized vote counting in Detroit on Nov. 4, 2020,” Tom Joscelyn, Norman L. Eisen and Fred Wertheimer observed in Just Security. “That goes beyond allegations of merely exploiting violence by third-parties to raise a new level of alleged wrongdoing.” Smith also cited some of Trump’s post-indictment statements sympathetic to the convicted rioters as evidence of Trump’s corrupt intent. Even Trump’s statement on Tuesday promising “bedlam” if he loses smacks of the same threats of violence that brought us Jan. 6, 2021.

Joscelyn, Eisen and Wertheimer laid out some of the stunning evidence:

The Justice Department alleges that a “Campaign Employee” — a person who is also described both as an “unindicted conspirator” and Trump’s “agent” — attempted to cause violence to “obstruct the vote count” at the TCF Center in Detroit, Michigan. In the weeks following the presidential election, Trump repeatedly and falsely claimed that there had been election fraud at the TCF Center — the central location where Detroit’s votes were tallied. But the special counsel turns Trump’s lies back against him, writing that “in truth [Trump’s] agent was seeking to cause a riot to disrupt the count.” It is worth repeating: Smith alleges that a Trump Campaign Employee sought to cause a riot — not just use violence by third-parties.
As the Just Security authors pointed out, Trump continued to lie about the Detroit vote counting even after his own attorney general, William P. Barr, told him the allegations were nonsense. “Evidence of the defendant’s post-conspiracy embrace of particularly violent and notorious rioters is admissible to establish the defendant’s motive and intent on January 6 — that he sent supporters, including groups like the Proud Boys, whom he knew were angry, and whom he now calls ‘patriots,’ to the Capitol to achieve the criminal objective of obstructing the congressional certification,” Smith wrote.

Smith also revealed in the December filing key evidence regarding Trump’s phone. As CBS News reported, an expert “specifically identified the periods of time during which the defendant’s phone was unlocked and the Twitter application was open on January 6.” First, this evidence might suggest Trump purposely used his own phone to make calls, perhaps to avoid detection. (That indicates awareness he was engaged in wrongful conduct.) Second, such evidence might help corroborate what we learned just a few days ago from ABC News.

The newest revelation, perhaps the most significant, also related to Trump’s actions on Jan. 6, 2021. “Many of the exclusive details come from the questioning of Trump’s former deputy chief of staff, Dan Scavino, who first started working for Trump as a teenager three decades ago and is now a paid senior adviser to Trump’s reelection campaign,” ABC News reported. “Scavino wouldn’t speak with the House select committee that conducted its own probe related to Jan. 6, but — after a judge overruled claims of executive privilege last year — he did speak with Smith’s team.”

These events preceded Trump’s furious tweet at 2:24 p.m., essentially egging on the crowd to go after Pence. The new evidence bolsters other testimony that family members, lawmakers and aides failed to get him to call off the mob. The obvious conclusion: Trump intended to stop the vote count and was not about to halt the violence.

Moreover, Luna allegedly will provide evidence about a draft tweet Trump showed him that read: “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously and viciously stripped away from great patriots. … Remember this day for forever!” Even a nonlawyer like Luna knew this could be an admission he was “culpable” or even directing the violent mob.

Not too long ago, skeptical commentators opined that Smith would have a hard time tying Trump to the violence or proving the element of intent needed for the four counts: conspiracy to defraud, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to deprive people of the right to vote and to have one’s vote counted. Not only have we learned Trump was repeatedly told there had been no fraud, but now we have potent eyewitnesses and forensic evidence of Trump’s alleged willingness to stop the electoral vote count at any cost.

Just Security’s model prosecution memo explained the required element of intent. “Regardless of their beliefs about the election outcome, [Trump and his associates] also knew that the means by which they pursued their objective were deceptive and inconsistent with established law. And there is no end-justifies-the-means safe harbor under § 371 for conspirators who deceitfully obstruct a lawful government function, even if they subjectively believe that their cause is justified.” That he not once but twice (in Michigan and D.C.) was eager to reap the benefits of violence certainly should constitute proof of his “deceitful” obstruction of the proceedings.

These revelations remind us why Trump’s lawyers are throwing up every legal excuse (including the preposterous and unsustainable position that the president has absolute immunity from prosecution) and using every stalling technique they can dream up to avoid going to trial. Smith has clear statutory grounds for the indictment. And he has evidence — more than we previously knew — from witnesses close to Trump that will help him prove the most difficult element in any crime: intent. If Smith gets to trial, he should have more than enough evidence to clear the bar of beyond a reasonable doubt.

Briefing

It gets harder and harder to keep it all straight.

Trump's legal difficulties (ie: his hopefully-imminent downfall) on so many fronts and in so many venues, together with his wranglings and dodges and delaying tactics, are coming as fast and furious as his 35,000 lies in 4 years as POTUS.

And while it's a nice turnaround to see him back on his heels playing defense every day, it's still a major distraction, making it harder to deal with the other big fuckin' problems we've got both here in USAmerica Inc, and every other goddamned place in the world.

So here's a short recap on a few things from Gina Bonanno-Lemos.

Today's Daddy State

Daddy State Awareness

THE BASICS:

• The Daddy State lies as a means of demonstrating power.
• The lies have practically nothing to do with the subject of the lies.
• Lying about everything is a way to condition us - to make us accept the premise that they can do anything they want.

The goal is to dictate reality to us.

7a. The law is my sword, but not your shield.
7b. The law is my shield, but not your sword.

Today's Brian

Trump's lawyers took a beating today. And you can hear it pretty plainly when Judge Pan tries to cut thru the total Gish Gallop of this Sauer guy by reminding him - a coupla times - that she asked him a Yes-or-No question.

Nobody rides for free.

    

Brian Tyler Cohen

Absolute My Dyin' Ass

Trump's horseshit argument that POTUS enjoys total immunity from all criminal action against him for anything he did while in office is Peak Daddy State.

...The goal is to dictate reality to us.

THE RULES:

1. Every accusation is a confession.

2. Every boast is an admission of inadequacy, or an attempt to claim credit for something they had practically nothing to do with.

2a. What sounds like boasting ("I could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and not lose any votes") is intended to soft-peddle some horrific thing they've done - or intend to do, in which case, the "boast" is instructive as to what the devotees will be expected to embrace.

These MAGA idiots are fully conditioned, and they're telling us straight out, "The king can do no wrong".

But things continue to shift against Trump and his MAGA loons.

The action against him in Colorado was led by Republicans. And now, this newer thing is being led by some pretty bright lights in the GOP.