Aspirational? Or Criminal?

When does Trump make his lawyers file a response that unfettered lying is critical to his campaign efforts?

— Schooley (@Rschooley) August 8, 2023

History rhyming:

The district is concerned that Shakespeare now violates Desantis’s new guidelines: “There’s some raunchiness in Shakespeare. Because that’s what sold tickets in his time.” https://t.co/0Oc471pYWW

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) August 8, 2023

Shakespeare has been banned and bowdlerized throughout history. That doesn’t excuse this, just puts it in context.

This is truly the depths of the other fuckwittedness of the Moms for Liberty Klanned Karenhood plan to reduce teaching in public schools to subliterate grunting.

Idiocracy was a documentary. https://t.co/twMjqyis77

— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) August 8, 2023

That does feel good, though. But this is America: we always teeter between Idiocracy and the “Best and the Brightest.”

Trump's J6 trial is a First Amendment case--at least that's how his lawyers will try it.@thedailybeast story:https://t.co/H5TXYvrcZB

— Jose Pagliery (@Jose_Pagliery) August 7, 2023

Not if the judge doesn’t allow it (and I doubt the judge will, since it isn’t a First Amendment case).

Molly Gaston files a reply to Trump's silly filing on the protection order, hitting him for his 5 appearances on the Sunday shows.https://t.co/mMg0QeFwTX pic.twitter.com/4sz80WwChf

— emptywheel (@emptywheel) August 7, 2023

Tl;dr: the defendant would disseminate information if it is not protected by the court, and that’s shown by the five appearances defense counsel made on Sunday, which are each summarized in the reply brief before getting to the legal arguments. Because, the argument goes, defendant wants to try this case in public. Which is precisely what protection orders (and the local rules) are supposed to prevent. In fact, the backbone of the reply is that what defendant wants violates the local rules. Which is a pretty strong argument against what Trump wants.

“The American people deserve to know that President Trump and his advisers didn’t just ask me to pause. They asked me to reject votes, return votes, essentially to overturn the election.” - Mike Pence on Fox last week https://t.co/uPF99W2FkF

— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) August 8, 2023

The lawyer’s statement also appears in the reply brief. I’m starting to think Trump’s lawyers really aren’t very good.

It was aspirational, not criminal. pic.twitter.com/JbZcAKHm3B

— Lorenzo The Cat (@LorenzoTheCat) August 7, 2023

As a defense, it’s a good one. 😹

I hate our teams is a big new thing on the right https://t.co/ke3h0pi6bg

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) August 8, 2023

Haters gonna hate.