Race To The Bottom

UPDATE: Trump lawyers made two midnight filings to stave off effort by DOJ effort to piece Trump’s attorney-client privilege in Mar-a-Lago documents cast.

At 5:36AM, DOJ filed a 6,400-word response, meeting the appeals court’s 6AM deadline. https://t.co/xKcvdjhxaM pic.twitter.com/RKGTlcRW5X

— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) March 22, 2023

36 minutes late, 773 words: “May it please the Court: Don’t make Evan Corcoran testify. Yeah, that’s all we got.”

DOJ: “Permission to go long, your Honor.” 138 word motion filed 28 minutes before deadline. 6455 word response filed 24 minutes before deadline. 

I’m thinking the 773 word brief is stuffed inside a footnote somewhere in the response.

I also don’t think the Court anticipates granting oral arguments.

Here's the court order that sounded the starting gun:

NEWS: An appeals court panel has temporarily blocked Judge Howell’s “crime-fraud” order against Trump attorney Evan Corcoran but set a series of rapid deadlines — including at midnight tonight and 6am tomorrow — to resolve the matter.

w @joshgerstein https://t.co/xKcvdjhxaM pic.twitter.com/KKmvtLfuMK

— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) March 22, 2023

As to what's going on:

3/ The Court, on its own, decided to consolidate the two cases, and has issued a temporary stay for as long as it takes to decide whether to grant a stay pending appeal -- and has decided to act very quickly, pic.twitter.com/7b5cahOuoZ

— Elon Musk Should Pay Taxes (@PaulLukasiak) March 22, 2023

A stay is basically an injunction, so the moving parties have to show they’ll prevail on appeal. Without the stay, Corcoran testifies, so without the stay the appeal is moot.