Today In Tweets

Today's markets:
Nasdaq -- up 1.25%
Dow -- up .83%
S&P -- up 1.12%

Trump Media & Technology Group -- down 12.05% pic.twitter.com/uxGYQiPKIW

— Bill Grueskin (@BGrueskin) April 5, 2024

░P░U░S░S░Y░ ░I░N░ ░B░I░O░
Literally.

— Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) April 5, 2024

Kind of a Twitter joke, but still. 😹

The most interesting "tell" about this new Trump recusal filing is that it is NOT signed by one of the Trump defense lawyers on the NY criminal case and is only signed by Todd Blanche. That other lawyer, Susan Necheles, has not signed other submissions as well. https://t.co/0TD7xBR5lp

— Andrew Weissmann (weissmann11 on Threads)🌻 (@AWeissmann_) April 5, 2024

🤔  Somebody is saying “Sure, I’ll do anything!”, and somebody else is saying “Nope.” But very few:

Trump lawyer Chris Kise didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Kise told the New York Times that James was making objections to the bond "to stir up some equally baseless public quarrel in a desperate effort to regain relevance." He called her civil fraud case a "baseless and vindictive political crusade."

To call that response gratuitous and unnecessary is to state the obvious. Remember defense lawyers who try their cases in court, not in the news? They know what they’re doing.

Tonight, Trump's team released their 37-page recusal motion. That means that Merchan -- who ordered last month that both sides need his express permission before filing further pre-trial motions -- allowed them to do so. 1/

— Lisa Rubin (@lawofruby) April 5, 2024

And then, at the end of an analysis of the motion and its grounds:

All of this is, of course, besides the point. No lawyer I've consulted believes Merchan will recuse himself or that any conviction will be reversed on grounds that he should have been disqualified. This is about two other objectives, which are transparent, dangerous or both.

— Lisa Rubin (@lawofruby) April 5, 2024

And the other? As Merchan himself said about Trump's presidential immunity motion, a second recusal motion filed 12 days before trial "raises real questions about [its] sincerity and actual purpose," which is likely nothing more than . . . delay. FIN.

— Lisa Rubin (@lawofruby) April 5, 2024

First: besides lawyers, who reads legal pleadings? A handful of internet non-lawyers who don’t understand what they’re reading but think they do? Who else? Emptywheel argues that people who retweet Trump’s stupid claims are “data mules.” Is Trump thinking he’s communicating his manic idiocy behind the judge’s back? To what end? So he won’t be convicted? So he won’t go to jail? That’s literally not how this works. The only person Trump is really airing this to is the judge. The person who is going to decide his sentence if the jury convicts him. It’s a strategy dangerous only to Trump. 

And the strategy of delay? Only if the judge recuses; and he’s not going to.

Believe it when the filings come in https://t.co/AWFbq8jxGw

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) April 5, 2024

Has Trump, or 3 sources associated with him, ever lied to you? And was one of those sources Prof. Otto Yer Ass? The credulity of the media never ceases to amaze.

I AM STILL FINE

— Empire State Building (@EmpireStateBldg) April 5, 2024