Thursday, April 18, 2024

Schadenfreude

That display is not going unnoticed by prospective jurors. Expect it to continue as witnesses in trial do not testify to his sterling qualities, either.

He is his own worst witness.

🍿 


Posted by at No comments:

Those Who Weren’t There Are Always The Most Expert

The "counterculture” was never popular so much as infamous. Most of the radical personalities were either rich kids or made money off their fame (no Springsteen working class characters, IOW), and college graduates who emulated Dustin Hoffman’s “Graduate” quickly turned into Yuppies after Nixon gave us Carter, and Reagan told us greed and racism were “good” again. Which is what really buried the Democrats. I was in college starting three years after Kent State. The biggest national craze associated with college students was streaking.

People forget very quickly. Look how many have to be reminded if just four years ago.

The rubber band of American culture, IOW, snapped back into place.

But civil rights prevailed (despite the death of the ERA), and the draft, bane of Vietnam that it was, is dead as the dodo.🦤 True, Boomers control the Roberts Court; but you expected Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden and Abbie Hoffman? The WWII generation dominated the Warren Court. The backlash to that was inevitable, too. But change still happened. As the Greeks understood, reason must always fight against chaos. It’s a permanent state of affairs. One step forward, one step back.

And Moss is old enough to take responsibility for his generation. Why haven’t they fixed all the Boomers’ mistakes? I mean, the last Boomer was born 56 years ago. Pretty sure a lot of post-Boomers voted for Trump; both times. And it was never because of “economic anxiety,” either.
Posted by at No comments:

These Are Not The Defenses You Are Looking For 👀

The “political attacks” defense doesn’t fly in the context of a criminal case. Try harder.

The “order is ambiguous” is boilerplate. You always throw that in, so you can argue (now or later) that it’s too vague to be enforceable. Throw it against the wall, see what sticks.

“Replication” is too cute by half. Presumably they have something better they are saving for the brief; because otherwise, they got nuthin’.
Posted by at No comments:

LOCK HIM UP!

Lot of loose talk (“The horror! The horror!”) about Trump “getting away with something” because he’s not in jail for life yet.

Again, it’s getting hard to distinguish Trump supporters from Trump detractors.

There is a hearing on Tuesday for Trump’s contempt. If Merchan puts him in jail, and Trump appeals for a mistrial (prejudicing the jury/jury pool), and everything could go to shit. So calm down. Every action has consequences. The contempt finding will not help him, even if the punishment doesn’t satiate tout le internet.

Please note Trump’s lawyer told him to put the phone away. And prospective jurors are watching Trump petulantly refuse to rise when they walk in . I want him to behave that way for six weeks, and play with his phone as often as possible. Blanche understands this, too.

It’s fine with me if Trump doesn’t. The courtroom is a very closed loop. What goes around in there comes right back around, very quickly.

Trump is going to FAFO. Let him.
Posted by at No comments:

ELECTION INTERFERENCE!!!

It’s a representative government (something I remind myself in Texas every day): A reminder: Trump has only 10 peremptory challenges, and he’s used some (I don’t know how many). He can move the judge to dismiss “for cause,” so long as the judge agrees. At some point, probably soon, the jury will be seated. Trump can’t do very much about that.

I still won’t be surprised if they have a jury by Friday.
I’ve been told this is not the same thing as pre-Pearl Harbor isolationism, but I don’t think that leopard has really changed its spots. 

And I’m still wondering if Marge can count. It would only take a few Republicans saying “Fuck this noise,” and a smart Democratic play to get a few concessions, to ruin her bluster.

I also don’t think her sentiments are all that popular:
I’m guessing she also voted against the infrastructure bill: I’m sure we could find the same corruption of officeholders in America. But I’m guessing it will be h, since they don’t tend to announce the bribes at press conferences or in the steps of the Capitol.
Posted by at No comments:

🔔 🔔🔔

The ex-president's campaign circulated talking points ahead of the trial, which started Monday, directing surrogates to describe the case as a "a full-frontal assault on American Democracy and the Constitution" and a "witch hunt," and recommending that supporters do not refer to the case as a "hush money case," but to instead describe it as "entries in the company’s records."
Oops. That’s known by a technical legal term called: “confession.” Part of the crime here is that Trump hid the payments to Stormy Daniels by repaying Michael Cohen for paying her, and booking the payments as “legal fees.” And yet here he is, confessing he made the payments to her personally, so that he can’t be guilty of campaign finance law violations. 34 of them, according to the indictment. But for business fraud, not violating campaign finance laws.

But he did it in the first place to quell the story, after the Access Hollywood tape torpedoed his campaign. Which, the indictment alleges, is the crime that makes the fraud a felony. It was an unreported campaign contribution, which couldn’t be reported because that was the purpose for paying it. And the purpose for hiding it.

Besides: a “mere” bookkeeping error made 34 times? Pull the other one, it’s got bells on it.
Posted by at No comments:

Abort! Abort!!

Abbott and Paxton are acting this way (they don’t even care about abortion). I’m still wondering if they’re rocketing toward a rude awakening. We live in hope. Well, some of us do.
Posted by at No comments:

Wednesday, April 17, 2024

Do They Still Make Bumper Stickers?

A) How many people know who Mayorkas is? Or particularly care?

B) Can you explain the alleged crime? (According to Sen. Kennedy, it was making misrepresentations to Congress. So; about what? In what way?)

C) (and most importantly): Can you put it on a bumper sticker? (“The House impeached Mayorkas (“who?”) for? And the Senate Democrats declined to waste time on this when the House has done… nothing to do with governing for two years, do…the problem is?”)

I mean, do you really want to open that can of worms? I think you’ll be better off selling this one: Don’t see it fitting on a bumper sticker, though.
Posted by at No comments:

Idle Hands and Somebody’s Workshop

And then Trump had a day off; and he got bored.
"It is a very, very clear violation of the gag order," he told CNN's Erin Burnett on her show "Out Front." "The gag order's last provision says that Trump cannot make public statements about any prospective juror or any juror. Full stop."
"I mean, it is just not permissible and I think prosecutors who will have already asked to have him founded contempt for other violations where he's talked about witnesses. This in many respects is much more serious because judges take the jury and the integrity of the jury as almost sacrosanct and the idea that he's intimidating the jury is something that I think Judge Merchan is going to be very concerned about."
I’m old enough to remember yesterday, when Trump grumbled something one account described as barely audible, as a juror was leaving the room to. A dismissed juror. And Merchan told the lawyer (as he should do) to tell his client to watch his ass.

So I expect this gets folded into the show cause hearing and Trump may soon end up finding out it’s perfectly constitutional to introduce him to a jail cell before the trial is concluded. It may be the only way to keep his stubby little fingers off his phone.

Tomorrow, at least, should be interesting.
Posted by at No comments:

In Case You Were Wondering…

...how that came out.
Posted by at No comments:

Asymmetry Is A Feature, Not A Bug

It occurs to me I saw something similar in seminary.

In my second year, a new student arrived among much fanfare. She was reportedly brilliant and a very highly regarded student with impeccable credentials. She was also quite obviously very self-centered and enjoyed all the attention she could get (the term “narcissist” wasn’t widely bandied about in those halcyon days).

I didn’t have many classes with her, but in one I quickly realized she was not only bit “brilliant,” she didn’t know what she was talking about. I mentioned this to someone, and learned most of the faculty had figured that out. I did have one run in with her, while I was still living on campus.

I took a job at the seminary library, basically closing the place at night. She started there shortly after I did, and came into work shortly before closing, announcing to me that she was “here,” as if that was supposed to mean something. When it came time to close, the building was empty. But she came downstairs telling me there were noises in the upstairs bathroom and someone was hiding up there. I had been upstairs earlier and knew it was empty, and I needed to get home (it was nearly midnight). She wanted me to call the police (not campus police, we didn’t have any). I laughed and refused. The other worker (another student) didn’t know whether to go with me or stay with her (I’d have forced her to leave and locked up. So they stayed, and I left them to it.

The head librarian fired me the next day, saying I should have stayed because someone might’ve been upstairs. She had been called in, and found no one. But I was at fault, because the narcissist convinced people she couldn’t be wrong. She wanted to be important; she wanted to be powerful. She wanted to cry “wolf!” and have everyone come running.

That was my only dealing with her, but the system finally worked; sort of. I took a small church as pastor, cutting my time in class and extending my studies an extra year, so we graduated together. She was ordained almost immediately (required a call to a church, in our denomination. My ordination came months later.). It’s supposed to be a solemn and humble affair, where calling church gives gifts in celebration. The story was she reveled in the gifts like it was her birthday,?which left a lot of people wondering who, exactly, they had called to ministry for their church. Shortly after that, word came that she didn’t have the requisite undergraduate degree to get into seminary. How that slipped by was an administrative mystery. But it leant impetus to withdrawing her call. I don’t know how it ended up, but I’m sure it didn’t end well.

She was, I’d say now, a narcissist convinced of her own importance and glory (unless you plan to lead a megachurch, not goo qualities for ministry). The system let her through longer than she deserved, but then, we give people the benefit of the doubt, don’t we? Or the benefit of being persuasive. I remember the whole campus was buzzing with the reputation of her genius that preceded her. We all soon realized that was because she said so, and for no other reason.

I knew a lawyer like that, but for him it was not brag, just fact. He was still an asshole, though. Even his partners said so. But he was a good lawyer, so who cared?

Asymmetry in politics? Eh, seen that all my life. What brought down Sen. McCarthy? Not the courage (hah!) of the press; nor of the Senate. Not even Eisenhower. Nixon did in Nixon, just as Falwell outlasted his welcome. Jim and Tammy Faye got too greedy; Gingrich got too self-important (he always was, he just got worse). People seldom bring down such people; the “system” does because they linger too long, and become old and tiresome. What made them new and bold becomes old and dull. We honor people like that in the beginning; in the end we bury them with the refuse. We honor people like Dr. King in death, having dishonored them in life.

So it goes.
Posted by at No comments:

The New York Trial Is Already Getting Expensive

Posted by at No comments:

No Shit, Sherlock

Trump doesn’t go to the courtroom without his Secret Service team making sure it is secure. Former Presidents don’t go anywhere spontaneously. Not to Chuck-Fil-A, not to a bodega in Harlem.

My wife went to a bookstore when Hillary was First Lady, for a book signing. She was scanned on the way in, stood in line, and allowed to do only what SS would let her do. Lingering in the store was not one of the things. Of course these visits aren’t unplanned, and random people aren’t hugging Trump.

Get real.
Posted by at No comments:

And They Think Court Is Boring!

I’m actually listening to this procedure on MSNBC. Hey, I’m old, I’m a lawyer, I have a very low boredom threshold. I read Kierkegaard for entertainment, for pity’s sake!

Schumer basically has Republicans in a box. They voted not to debate in private (Senate impeachment rules), so Schumer is going through each article raising a point of order on failure to state a crime (i.e., doesn’t meet constitutional requirements). Republicans keep making motions to adjourn or do other things (like go into closed session after all), and on and on it will go. Hell, even I might get bored!🥱 

I am old enough to remember when McConnell was a Senate rules genius, and wondering whatever happened to that (*cough cough bullshit bullshit!*). McConnell tried to get a motion passed;,it failed. I don’t think McConnell was ever a procedural genius; I think Dems were just in disarray. Schumer is running the Senate the way LBJ used to. Gonna have to change some narratives some pundits are far too young to remember.

😉

(MSNBC got bored first. I think it was Kennedy offering the second motion to adjourn, this time on the second article, and for a return date one day later than the earlier (failed) motion. Until May 1, if you’re wondering. Why do anything else for two weeks, right?)
Posted by at No comments:

Restitution For Rich White Men

Agreed, except “fair trial” here means Trump is acquitted, exonerated of all other charges against him from New York courts, given the key to the city and a ticker tape parade, and declared President for Life by acclamation, term starting immediately, no take backs.

Rich white men expect their privileges.
Posted by at No comments:

Right After They Come Up With The Crimes Mayorkas Committed

"Morning Joe” made much of the fact the Senate had articles of impeachment for the Secretary of Homeland Security, despite the fact no high crimes or misdemeanors are alleged against him. I guess Comer figures that’s good enough, so long as the GOP has 50% plus one? My only disappointment is that Moskowitz wasn’t there.
Posted by at No comments:

“Old Man, Look At My Life, I’m A Lot Like You Were”

Wasn’t that the premise of “Friends”? Except I understand the unrealistic part there was getting such an apartment in NYC in the first place. I mean, at all.

The Golden Child rents a house (with her husband) half-again the size of the one she grew up in, and complains about the cost of housing. I’m sitting in the largest house I’ve ever lived in (it’s not THAT large, but bigger than the house I grew up in). It’s easily twice the size of the house where the Golden Child was born (well, first came home to).  It has risen dramatically in value since I bought it, but she and husband want a bigger house, which will be more expensive. And they complain about that.

I just keep my counsel.
Posted by at No comments:

“Whaddya Got?”

The Civil Rights Movement was organized and purposeful, and at least got the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act passed. We are, nearly 69 years later, reaching the nadir of the reactionary forces against those changes, but that just proves you can never declare “Mission Accomplished.”

The anti-war movement was never quite as organized or purposeful, occurring as it did on only a handful of campuses, carried out by college students who were exempt from the draft and war they were protesting. The war finally ended because public opinion turned against it, which may have been because of the protests, but was also because it dragged on so long we all lost the point. Then again, no one dares suggest reviving the draft, that carryover from WWII that we shot full of holes so middle class and above white boys would be safe.

Looking at this video I see more photographers than protesters, and can’t tell what they’re protesting (“Whaddya got?”). Burning the flag doesn’t really bother me, frankly. I’m a child of the Sixties and never much inclined to admire idols and symbols, anyway. You wanna drop a cross in a jar of piss, it’s fine with me. I don’t worship that cross, and I don’t have to put that jar in my house.

But you know, back in my day, protesting used to mean something. 👴🏻
Posted by at No comments:

Professor of Criminal Procedure, Trump University School of Law

"UNCONSTITUTIONAL! RICH WHITE MAN PRIVILEGE CLAUSE! I SHOULD BE ABLE TO STRIKE ALL IF MANHATTAN FROM THE JURY! AND PUT ONLY MY FAMILY MEMBERS AND ALAN WEISSELBERG THERE! UNFAIR!”

(Alina Habba didn’t know anything about this!)
Posted by at No comments:

Tuesday, April 16, 2024

Aging Well

But if he is asleep:
If anything he's probably brutally bored," Habba said. "It's painful. They make him sit there through jury selection, the first day was procedural."
Later that same day:
Habba then appeared on Newsmax hours later to field similar questions and admitted she hadn't been in the courtroom, but found the account — from New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman — a "remarkable story at best." "He reads a lot," Habba said. Habba, who defended Trump in two New York civil cases last year, once again argued that court proceedings are dull. "He's been sitting there as he's forced to, at the threat of going to jail if he's not sitting there, for what I assume would be a very mundane day," Habba said. "They are going through jury selection there were a tremendous amount of motions being heard yesterday."
So how about this account? Or the other accounts today? Just another conspiracy? Or a failure to appreciate how bored Trump is with the rest of us. It’s like he’s an arrogant super-villain, and Habba is his minion.
Posted by at No comments:

Bodega Cats 🐈‍⬛

Two days of jury selection, 7 jurors selected, =“rushing this trial.”

🤣🤣🤣

He has no clue.
Does what you believe matter? See you at the hearing on the show cause order. You can tell the judge what you believe, there. See where it gets you. So that’s why you went there with a Secret Service contingent? You know the cameras never show the crowds. There were at least 5000 people there. But you can’t see them.
Posted by at No comments:

If I’m Ever Caught Or Killed…

...or called for jury duty, I will disavow any knowledge of this blog.

I’ll say the readers did it without my knowledge.
Posted by at No comments:

O, The Humanities!

Earlier today:
Agnifilo then explained a quirk of jury selection rules that allows the defense and prosecutors to request an unlimited number of jurors be excused for a specific reason (for cause) but limits each side to 10 "peremptory " removals, or removals lawyers can request without a reason. 
"You don't want to waste your peremptory," Agnifilo said. Which, she explained is why, "the prosecutor here did something very interesting." 
The Manhattan district attorney's office didn't challenge the first 12 jurors, ultimately landing the defense with 12 difficult decisions, Agnifilo explained. 
"That's a chess move on their part because it forces...the defense," she explained. " They only have ten challenges. If they don't like those jurors, and they don't get any for cause challenges, you could have two jurors right there." 
Agnifilo believes this forcing of the hand will essentially make impossible Trump's primary tactic in each of his four criminal cases: delay. 
"We're going to have a jury this week," she predicted. "It's going much faster than I thought."
And: Which explains the overtime. Merchan wants this case to get underway.
Posted by at No comments:

Sidebars Interrupt Checking His Eyelids For Holes

🥱😂
Posted by at No comments:

Just Ask Yourself What The GOP Had To Do With This

Posted by at No comments:

How To Win Friends And Influence People

Posted by at No comments:

KEEP AWAKE!

Without cameras in the courtroom to confirm, MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell said Trump could be asleep or he could be "resting his eyes."
Judges would also accept “Checking his eyelids for holes.” 🙄 And yes, potential jurors are in the room as Trump naps. 💤💤
Posted by at No comments:

Private Cell. All I’m Sayin’..:

And then: Trump will be outraged this evening that Rich white men can’t do whatever they want to do in America.🇺🇸 
Posted by at No comments:

Making The Sausage

There's a reason they don’t show this shit in the movies. But arguably the most important parts of a trial are voir dire (jury selection), and the jury charge at the other end.  Two things you never see in movies, because it’s not dramatic.

I watched Ridley Scott’s “Napoleon” last night. 3 hours of Jouaqin Phoenix giving the Corsican the emotive range and charisma of a log.🪵 How did Napoleon inspire the troops, rise through the ranks, make people like Beethoven think he was as dynamic as Byron? No idea. And how did he win so many battles? How did he lose at Waterloo? No clue. In Scott’s telling, he just did. Even the romance with Josephine seemed obscure and lifeless. Somehow this dull man inspired France, conquered the armies of Europe, inspired a love story as eponymous as Romeo and Juliet, lost an army of 540,000 in the Russian winter on the way to St. Petersburg (because the Tsar abandoned and burned Moscow? Apparently. That’s all we’re told. The disaster in the Russian winter occurs off screen). Waterloo? We know it’s coming because it’s a place on the map. Napoleon is confident, and his strategy has worked before, but this time it fails. Why? Because it did; and the movie’s entering three hour territory, time to wrap it up! Gotta exile Napoleon again, and watch him keel over (literally!) so the crawl can tell us he died as he lived: a log of a portrayal of a man. And then the crawl tells us how many troops under his command died per battle, and in total because…that’s the important thing?

If a movie can do that, how can it ever make the important nature of voir dire dramatic? It’s not really sausage making. But for all the drama we can’t squeeze out of it, it might as well be.
Posted by at No comments:

“Let’s You And Him Fight!”

It’s the MAGA way.

Also in MAGA news: Welcome to criminal court, Mr. Trump. This ain’t no civil trial.
Yes, this is for your own good. I think the “intelligent” element is the stumbling block here.

Is all of this an assault on the judiciary? Or just rank ignorance in an unholy union with rich white man privilege? What do you think? “You’re nothing but a pack of cards!” Trump, in his own mind.

I’m no expert, but this seems perilously close to waiving the 5th Amendment: On the other hand, let him keep talking to the cameras:
Posted by at No comments:

“Shh! I’m Meditating…”—Frank Zappa

While jurors ran through the long list of questions about their lives and habits, Trump sat in his seat with his eyes closed, head slowly drooping until he snapped his eyes open — at least twice," The Huffington Post reported Tuesday. 
But a juror's mention of "The Art of the Deal" seemed to wake the former president. 
"Trump is leaning back and reading the questionnaire an inch from his face. He looks tired again, sometimes struggling to keep heavy eyelids open, and perked up when the last potential juror mentioned 'The Art of the Deal,'" Molly Crane-Newman wrote for The New York Daily News. 
"Just now Trump smiles and nods as a Jewish prospective juror says he has read two of his books "Art of the Deal" and "How to Get Rich," posted reporter Henry Rosoff of Pix11.
Told ya. Like a dog, he perks up when he hears his name.

$20 says he’s snoring in court before the trial is over. 😴
Posted by at No comments:

Rich White Man Privilege Is A Powerful Force…

...in America.🇺🇸 
Posted by at No comments:

Megalomania Is Not A Presidential Attribute

Gonna be interesting to see what Biden/Harris do with this.
Posted by at No comments:

“I’M A RICH WHITE MAN AND I’M NOT GETTING EVERYTHING I WANT!”

"This conflicted, Trump Hating Judge won’t let me respond to people that are on TV lying and spewing hate all day long," said the former president, who was impeached twice during his lone term in office and has since been indicted on criminal charges in four different jurisdictions. "He is running rough shod over my lawyers and legal team. The New York System of 'Justice' is being decimated by critics from all over the World. I want to speak, or at least be able respond. Election Interference! RIGGED, UNCONSTITUTIONAL TRIAL! Take off the Gag Order!!!"
Welcome to a criminal jury trial, Donnie.

Six weeks of this. I say he snaps like a twig.
Posted by at No comments:

As Long As We’re Weeping Crocodile Tears 🐊

She’s heart-broken about Barron’s graduation. How does she feel about none of Trump’s children, or Barron’s mother, showing up for the trial? A trial about Trump sleeping with two different women while Melania was pregnant with Barron.  🐊
Posted by at 1 comment:

Monday, April 15, 2024

Scrapping Up

Mee-ow! I thought Newt was an historian now. I guess not. Is she a lawyer? There is no due process right for a party to attend a Supreme Court argument.  No wonder Trump likes her. She is as ignorant as he is. And as much a liar. I’m not even touching the issue of what God Jews pray to. I’m sure she and Trump are equally ignorant there, too. He’ll drop it like a bad habit if there aren’t any Orthodox Jews in the jury. Besides: Trump really is his own worst enemy. And a prime example of rich white man privilege. Even as the walls come tumbling down. heh Seems reasonable. I was hoping we’d get at least one bronzer report today. I do wonder what the impact on the jury is going to be.
Posted by at No comments:

All Roads Lead To…

 …Trump’s testimony.

The catch and kill scheme came from Trump; not Stormy Daniels. It came from Trump, and he used Michael Cohen to implement it.
"Then once you have the agreement? What's it for? ...To conceal the agreement to unlawfully influence the 2016 election," Wiley said. "Why would Michael Cohen do that? How does he benefit from that?"
Cui bono, indeed? Unless, of course, you think the whole world conspires against you. But that’s hardly a legal defense.
Wiley then answered herself by arguing Cohen did not benefit. "Donald Trump is the one who benefitted," Wiley said. 
She then detailed the other witnesses who back Cohen's narrative. 
"Witnesses we believe will be lined up are the ones like Hope Hicks, who was on the campaign," Wiley said. "We know that the District Attorney is looking to establish Hope Hicks as a campaign operative actively and consistently in communication with Michael Cohen, including a call that Donald Trump was on." 
In comparison, there's only one witness who can testify to Trump's state of mind and it's a person whose testimony could prove fatal to his defense, Wiley argued. 
"The defense can suggest that this is for, by Michael Cohen and only in his own interest, which is kind of hard to do — unless Donald Trump tries to say, "It was all about Melania, I was just worried about Melania,'" Wiley argued. "But how do you get that evidence in? 
"He'd have to take the stand, and as we know, the minute he would do that, which is very hard to imagine happening, that opens the door for the prosecution to eat his lunch."
There it is. Not inevitable; but very hard to see how they put on a defense otherwise. Which is to say, very hard to see how they put on a defense at all.

There was some notice today that one part of the defense strategy is to preserve every possible error for appeal.  A sort of grab bag strategy; desperation from the start. Error that is merely error is of no account. Hoping the superior court will grab some error as a reason for a new trial (dismissal would take grave error), is like the military aphorism about hope: it is not a plan.

A case where you have to let Trump testify in order to have a defense, is not a hope either.  Of course, they know their case better than I do. But they don’t seem to have enough of a defense to reassure Trump. Or maybe he’s so vain/frightened he can’t be reassured.

At any rate, it does seem their best hope is a hung jury (and another trial). Or some error somewhere the Court of Appeals will use to remand for a new trial.

Time will tell. But it’s hard to imagine Trump not taking the stand; not with the defense he thinks he has.
Posted by at No comments:

What’s Coming

And during the pregnancy, he was having a different affair: Except Trump approached Daniels in the aftermath of the Access Hollywood tape. That tape is going to be presented in evidence (via transcript from the Carroll cases), and Daniels is going to testify.  Funny thing about court: only evidence matters. Nothing Ingraham says here is going to be true. And reports from the court will prove it.  Trump wasn’t trying to put the episode behind him. He was trying to win the election.

That’s what the felony in this case is all about. That, and Trump’s inability to keep it in his pants.

And no, it doesn’t matter that Trump had the affair, with McDougal or Daniels. Like the valuation of MAL, the fact is the only thing he understands. He thinks if he disproves that, or proves Cohen a liar (he is; so is Trump. They each have court judgments to prove it .), then game over. 

Not that simple, of course. Trump can deny the affair all he wants. But unless he takes the stand, there is no evidence of that denial for the jury (and no point to it, anyway). The affairs are not the case; the payments are. How and why he tried to hide them, actually. Trump can deny there was an “affair.” But he’ll have to take the stand to do so.

And after today, who doubts he will? He pressured his lawyer into asking the judge to let him attend all sidebars. He demanded in court that his lawyer “fight harder.” He insists the judge has already denied him the chance Tyree his youngest son graduate. After three weeks (or more) of listening to witnesses for the prosecution (he sporadically attended the civil fraud trial , and still that testimony upset him), he’ll be ready to explode. 

Put money in your purse.

As for the sex (whether they were “affairs” or not is irrelevant. Don’t get distracted.), one hopes it was worth it. One also can’t imagine how it could be.

Also interesting that Trump wants to be in the Supreme Court argument next week, though he serves no role there. But that is the case which can keep him out of jail. He doesn’t seem concerned about the hearing before Engoron which can end his attempt at an appeal bond, and bring his empire crashing to an end. His presence at one is a kind of sympathetic magic, or at least magical thinking. Being there, at least, will be better than not being there. And being at one is more important than being at the other.

Like the impending gallows of the aphorism, impending jail also focuses the mind.
Posted by at No comments:

How To Please Your Client And Piss Off The Judge

IOW: Lose. Gonna be a long six weeks for somebody. Name them. Name your son, for that matter. Tom Fitton. Alina Habba. Jonathan Turley. All the scholars. In matters of conduct of this trial, Merchan is superior. Rich white man privilege. Quick, somebody ask him how many campaign events he’s attended in the past six weeks. 1? 2? He wouldn’t understand three words said at the arguments. He doesn’t need to be there, except maybe to get in his lawyer’s face and tell him to fight harder.

BTW, Trump wanting to attend appellate hearings won’t get him a day pass from prison, either.
Posted by at No comments:

BREAKING!

Also, too, as well.
New York City Judge Juan Merchan set the deadline Monday after Assistant District Attorney Josh Steinglass said Trump's attorneys had failed to turn over any of the exhibits they plan to use in the former president's defense, according to Law 360 reporter Stewart Bishop. 
Trump's legal team was ordered to do so back in February, Bishop notes. 
This demand spurred outrage from Todd Blanche, who complained to Merchan that 24 hours was not enough time to prepare the hand-over amid ongoing jury selection preparation, according to Bishop. 
It was a wry Merchan that reminded Trump of their many filings delivered in the weeks before the trial — which include multiple failed efforts to delay the trial and toss the charges — and one whirlwind 30-minute period that saw Trump's lawyers file three motions. 
“The way you choose to use your time is your business,” Merchan reportedly told Blanche.
Coincidence? I think not! Six more weeks. And some of that time will be jury selection. "STOP HELPING!" Really curious to see how long that lasts. This, too:
Justice [Juan] Merchan tells Trump’s attorneys they have 24 hours to do so, or such evidence will be precluded from use," reported Law360's Stewart Bishop. "Trump counsel Todd Blanche complains, says that’s not enough time, what with jury selection and all." 
That is the situation that appeared to set Trump off. 
"This is where it gets interesting," said MSNBC's Katy Tur reading an update from inside the courtroom. "Donald Trump is now personally getting involved here. He's pushing Todd Blanche — his lawyer — to fight harder about these documents and this compliance saying that they need more time." 
She turned to Catherine A. Christian, a 30-year veteran of the Manhattan D.A.'s office. 
"What do you make of Donald Trump getting into this, Catherine? Getting up and telling his — or getting into his lawyer's face and telling him that he needs to fight — to fight harder?" Tur asked. 
"It's going to be a long trial for Mr. Blanche because he is out of control. He is one of those clients that you hope to not have because if he's acting this way now, he's going to do it throughout the trial," she said.
That was the defense requirement to produce documents, which they should have done in February. 

This is the guy who wants to listen to every sidebar. And I strongly suspect this is why Merchan shortened the time for the contempt hearing. Trump is cutting his own throat.

Somebody give him a supply of knives. We have six weeks left.
Six weeks.
Posted by at No comments:

Playing A Lawyer For Trump

It isn’t just about being a Presidential candidate. It’s more basic. It’s about rich, white man privilege.
Posted by at 1 comment:

Highlights

Ms. Haberman’s description was pretty clear….
The former president asked Judge Juan Merchan to allow him to stand beside the bench to listen in on one-on-one conversations with individuals who might be tasked with deciding on whether to convict Trump of falsifying business records to conceal payments that flowed to adult movie actress Stormy Daniels in an effort to cover up an affair, 
CNN legal analyst Paula Reid said the request put his attorneys in a difficult spot. 
"He's the client from hell, right?" Reid said. "He's a pain in the neck. I'm sure that his lawyers would prefer that he not be there, so that they will be free to make the legal arguments they need to make and not necessarily be performing for an audience of one." 
Judges also hold sidebar conversations at the bench with attorneys so jurors are unable to hear as they work out legal issues related to the case, and Trump wants to be present for those, as well. 
"Usually the sidebar conversations are issues that they want to resolve outside the presence of the jury or, in this case today, potential jurors," Reid said. 
"So these are issues that are sensitive and may have to deal with some evidence that's being brought up, an objection that is made, and I'm told from my sources that we can expect throughout this case, there will likely be a lot of objections, a lot of sidebars, because the defense is, they are completely focused on preserving every possible issue for appeal."
Trump won’t have the foggiest fucking notion what they’re discussing in those sidebars. Like a dog, he’ll only hear his name being mentioned. And he’ll pester his lawyers later with what Tom Fitton says they shoulda done.

😈
Posted by at No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)