It's Official: trump is a Jinx

Here at You Might Notice A Trend, one of the themes this blog goes by is "oh yeah, notice how these things trend towards an obvious conclusion."

So when the same bad thing happens over and over involving the WORST HUMAN BEING CURRENTLY ALIVE donald trump, I have to sit up and take notice. Especially when it's something we can't avoid like sports.

I mean, I've made it clear since the beginning how I hate trump for ruining the up-and-coming USFL sports league back in the 1980s, and how he took away a good franchise in the Tampa Bay Bandits (rage rage rage). There are reasons why the established team sports leagues never allowed a "billionaire" like trump to buy any of the franchises up for sale (or for expansion), and one of them is trump is a goddamn walking disaster area capable of wrecking leagues for his own twisted needs.

It's been documented that for all of trump's desire to be associated with A-List celebrities among the actors and athletes, trump himself is a bane to most sports fans and they will boo him at every opportunity he shows up to try and get the glory rubbing onto him.

This problem came to a head this year when the New York Knicks - playing for a city trump repeatedly insulted as a hellhole and fled for Florida years ago - broke through a decades-long drought to play for the NBA Finals, raising the hopes of the Big Apple's sports fans for a title win at home.

And then the Knicks' owner - someone almost as reviled as trump, who just happens to be on good terms with trump as well - invited trump to Game Three of the best-of-four series where the Knicks were already up 2-0 (and angling for the coveted sweep) over the San Antonio Spurs.

It wasn't so much how everyone knew the fans - hardcore New Yawkers who learned long ago how racist and evil trump is - were going to boo him. It quickly became a concern that trump was going to jinx the home team for Game Three.

And yes, it turned out he did (via Will Weissert at AP News):

If President Donald Trump is coming to the game, bet on the visiting team.

You’ll usually be in the money — at least if recent history holds.

The New York Knicks, after two straight wins in the finals against the San Antonio Spurs, lost at home 115-111 on Monday night with Trump, a longtime fan of the Big Apple’s NBA team (personal note: I doubt it. Real fans show up when the team loses during the season, and trump noticeably rarely did), in a luxury suite at Madison Square Garden.

He similarly may have had a jinxing role for MLB’s Washington Nationals during his first term, when the home team lost Game 5 of the World Series to the Houston Astros 7-1.

In November, the president was on hand when the NFL’s Washington Commanders hosted the Detroit Lions, and the visitors romped 44-22. And he was front and center at Bethpage Black when Europe topped the U.S. golf team in last fall’s Ryder Cup.

It’s a glaring irony for a president fanatical about sports but also especially obsessed with winning...

Again, trump wants to bask in other people's success and claim it for his own. Thing is, in person he turns into the worst kind of motivation or spiritual support for the teams - or stars - he claims to love.

It could be that he doesn't really love them: trump only loves himself.

So here we are in the final rounds of the international team sport event bigger than anything else, the 2026 World Cup getting hosted by Canada, Mexico and the United States (because this year FIFA enlarged the competing teams from 32 to 48, and in many ways that move proved a huge success). As an automatic invite, the US men's team were actually considered a serious challenger to reach the final four with a deep roster and solid talent against the likes of France, Spain, and/or Argentina (the ones the experts predicted to play for the title). The team did pretty well against Bosnia & Herzegovina, winning 2-0... but top player Folarin Balogun got hit with a Red Card penalty for causing injury to one of the Bosnian players.

To most observers, Balogun's action may have been worth a Yellow Card (a lesser penalty) but not the Red. The Red Card meant he had to sit out the next game, which was a quarterfinal match against a pretty solid Belgium team. It could have meant disaster for the US squad.

And then trump intervened.

he bragged later how he was able to get on the phone to the FIFA president Infantino to "appeal" the decision and let Balogun play (via Becky Sullivan and Kristin Wright at NPR):

President Trump spoke to Gianni Infantino, the president of FIFA, about a red card and one-game suspension given to the star striker of the U.S. men's national soccer team. 

Then, on Sunday, in an extremely unusual move, FIFA's Disciplinary Committee announced that it would delay Folarin Balogun's one-game red card ban for a probationary period of one year. 

The change allows him to play in any remaining games in the World Cup — including Monday's crucial Round of 16 match against Belgium. 

In a brief statement, the FIFA committee did not give a reason for hitting pause on the suspension. Balogun's probationary period will be revoked and the one-game suspension enforced if he commits "another infringement of a similar nature and gravity," FIFA said.

Thing is, there wasn't any appeal system in place to override the ruling in the first place. FIFA seemed to be making things up as they went along the more other people openly confronted them about this. 

It didn't end the controversy: It made things worse. And it highlighted the overall corruption of FIFA - especially Infantino - when it comes to pandering to world leaders over questionable (if not criminal) actions. The outrage spread everywhere (via Kyle Bonn with Sporting News, but accessed via Yahoo!):

The U.S. striker was, by most accounts, wrongly sent off for serious foul play on the hour mark of their 2-0 victory over Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Round of 32. It's not the first time a referee has made a poor decision, and it certainly won't be the last.

It would have left Balogun suspended for the following game: their upcoming Round of 16 match against Belgium, one in which the two teams are believed to be evenly matched. Balogun's absence would surely be felt.

FIFA could have left it there. An injustice, sure, but one that is somewhat commonplace in sport. It would have been a subplot to the game, but not the overarching narrative. A potential excuse after a possible defeat, maybe, but the U.S. has the players to make up for it.

Then, the snowball began rolling down the hill.

Without an appeal process — as most competitions feature — written into the World Cup regulations, FIFA had to get creative. Well... it didn't have to, but it decided to, after a phone call from U.S. president and Gianni Infantino's buddy Donald Trump that has muddied the whole situation even further.

FIFA's supposedly independent disciplinary committee decided to suspend Balogun's one-game ban, essentially giving him probation. Instead of publishing the justification for this decision, no matter how farcical, FIFA simply cited Article 27 of its disciplinary regulations. In simple terms, this rule states that FIFA's judicial body can fully or partially suspended a disciplinary punishment, without necessarily needing to say why...

Beyond just the sporting consequences of this mockery is emotional harm. What has been a magical run from the 2026 World Cup host nation has been sapped almost entirely of its charm, replaced by questions of unprecedented favoritism and icky vibes of backroom deals. A potential Round of 16 victory that had promised to lift the sport of soccer to unparalleled heights in this country now threatens to be dismissed as a joke regardless of the result.

The whole thing has become one massive distraction from a game that should have been the scene of immeasurable fanfare. At this point, no plausible outcome will benefit anyone involved...

This is, sadly, one of trump's things, baby: Turn every happy event into something about him, and watch it turn into hate and sorrow.

This World Cup had a lot of bad vibes going in, considering how trump's thuggish Homeland Security was threatening to go after tourists and players alike. Instead, for weeks that early rounds had been going, this Cup has been an almost magical affair with fans enjoying the experience, the gameplay enticing, and certain teams - Cabo Verde in particular - rising to the moment to become legends of the sport.

And trump - aided by his buddy Infantino - ruined all of that.

Of course the second that news reported trump intervened with overturning Balogun's penalty, nearly every observer on social media noted trump had now 'jinxed' the men's team going into Monday's match. 

It turned out getting Balogun back on the field didn't help them at all, as the US team collapsed 4-1 against a very motivated, very angry Belgian squad. trump's big "win" to get FIFA to bend the knee was for naught, the rest of the world gets to mock him (and us) for his folly, and the entire American side of the sport now has to sit there in the misery of losing out.

trump is not really a winner. he cheats where he can, lies about when he loses, bullies everyone into complying, and makes everyone else around him miserable to make himself happy.

It's no wonder he's a jinx to everyone else out there.

Refreshing the Charges Against trump

Oh, and in case you missed it - and you likely did because the New York Times didn't even put it on the front page like they did with Hillary's emails in 2016 /rage - Special Prosecutor Jack Smith re-indicted donald trump for his role in the January 6th insurrection.

David A Graham at the Atlantic has some of the details (paywalled):

When the Supreme Court ruled last month that presidents are immune from prosecution for anything done as an official act, many observers reacted with immediate horror. They warned that the ruling would allow future presidents to act as despots, doing whatever they like without fear of accountability. And in the immediate term, they predicted doom for the federal case against former President Donald Trump for attempting to subvert the 2020 election.

The effect of the ruling on future presidents will not be clear for some time. But Special Counsel Jack Smith, who is prosecuting Trump for the Justice Department, isn’t acting too rattled by the Supreme Court’s decision.

Smith obtained a superseding indictment today in the case against Trump, whom he had previously charged with four felonies. The new document is a little more concise and changes some language, but it keeps the same four felony charges and most of the same evidence. After taking a few weeks to review the Supreme Court ruling, Smith has apparently concluded that it doesn’t change much about his case at all.

Roberts and his conservative buddies on SCOTUS can try to warp reality all they want, but what trump did was criminal and by GOD he needs to answer for it.

In addition to some slight rephrasing here and there, Smith makes two notable changes. First, he takes out all references to Trump’s attempt to involve the Justice Department in his subversion. Trump, who has spent much of his current presidential campaign warning about the “weaponization” of the federal government, attempted just that as he sought to stay in office. The then-president asked the department to issue a letter saying the election was corrupt and then “leave the rest to me and the R[epublican] Congressmen,” according to meeting notes taken by a DOJ official. One of Trump’s confederates was Jeffrey Clark, a Justice Department official whom Trump tried to install as acting attorney general to further the scheme, before fierce resistance from DOJ and White House lawyers stayed his hand.

But the Supreme Court ruled that “because the President cannot be prosecuted for conduct within his exclusive constitutional authority, Trump is absolutely immune from prosecution for the alleged conduct involving his discussions with Justice Department officials.” The superseding indictment thus takes out references to Trump’s conversations with these officials. It removes Clark from a list of co-conspirators. And it deletes a section of the initial indictment that explained how Trump tried to enlist the department to help solicit slates of false electors from states.

The fact that Smith and his team were able to re-indict trump to basically the same four charges underscores just how much dirt they still have on trump that the Supreme Court can't wash away (for now).

If I can refer to Marcy Wheeler at Emptywheel to get her take on this:

Altogether, the changes incorporate not just SCOTUS’ immunity decision, but also the DC Circuit’s Blassingame decision deeming actions taken as a candidate for office are private acts, and SCOTUS’ Fischer decision limiting the use of 18 USC 1512(c)(2) to evidentiary issues.

The logic of Blassingame is why Jack Smith included these paragraphs describing that Trump and Pence were acting as candidates.

1. The Defendant, DONALD J. TRUMP, was a candidate for President of the United States in 2020. He lost the 2020 presidential election.

[snip]

5. In furtherance of these conspiracies, the Defendant tried–but failed–to enlist the Vice President, who was also the Defendant’s running mate and, by virtue of the Constitution, the President of the Senate, who plays a ceremonial role in the January 6 certification proceeding.

As I’ve said repeatedly, it’s not clear that adopting the Blassingame rubric will work for SCOTUS, even though they did nothing to contest this rubric...

The decision to supersede this indictment may have turned what could have been an immediate dispute about the viability of the indictment at all into an evidentiary dispute to be managed later...

At the very least, Jack Smith suggests he has something viable on which to arraign Trump (and Trump’s Xitter wails treating this as a real indictment suggest he may believe that)...

This should serve - again - as a reminder to the general American voting public that trump is dangerous, that he's not pursuing the presidency for some lofty purpose: trump is running for President to keep his orange ass out of jail. It's not only the criminal charges trump is still facing - not only in DC but also in South Florida as Smith appeals to the appellate level to reinstate the classified documents case Cannon dismissed, and in Georgia with the state fake electors case - but also the criminal matter in Manhattan where he sits with 34 jury-confirmed felonies (with the presiding judge ruling mid-September on what happens next).

And those are the criminal charges and convictions. trump's civil trials found him liable for business fraud, defamation, and sexual assault (that the judge rose to the level of rape).

We've never had a major national party stoop so low as to have a convicted felon and confirmed sex offender like trump running for the highest office in the land (remember, Debs was a minor party candidate who never had a chance).

Every registered voter in America needs to understand how horrifying and criminal that is, and make certain that trump never gets within 100 miles of the White House again.

For the LOVE OF GOD AND JUSTICE, America, STOP VOTING trump.

The Tick Tock of a Justice Clock

So with donald trump now convicted on 34 felonies, what happens next?

The simplest answer is that the legal system in New York moves forward on the punishment phase (via Michael R. Sisak, Jill Colvin, Michelle L. Price, and Alanna Durkin Richer at AP News):

The big question now is whether Trump could go to prison. The answer is uncertain. Judge Juan M. Merchan set sentencing for July 11, just days before Republicans are formally set to nominate Trump for president.

The charge of falsifying business records is a Class E felony in New York, the lowest tier of felony charges in the state. It is punishable by up to four years in prison, though the punishment would ultimately be up to the judge, and there’s no guarantee he would give Trump time behind bars. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg declined to say whether prosecutors would seek prison time.

It’s unclear to what extent the judge may factor in the political and logistical complexities of jailing a former president who is running to reclaim the White House. Other punishments could include a fine or probation. And it’s possible the judge would allow Trump to avoid serving any punishment until after he exhausts his appeals...

If there's any factor that should determine if trump faces time in jail is his own behavior before, during, and after the trial. The level of contempt trump displayed throughout led to Judge Merchan leveling fines and threatening him with sitting in a jail cell. Considering how trump continues to attack the entire proceeding as a rigged witch hunt, letting trump off with simple fines or probation would be a joke. While maxxing out the jail time to four years (48 months) would seem excessive for - believe it or not - a first-time felon like trump, settling on a set of months to make it hurt for him - say, 34 months one for each Guilty count - would be IMHO a fair punishment.

trump - and his MAGA voting base - of course would freak out. But we kinda knew that going in.

The ramifications of the guilty verdict are still roiling the political arena:

The conviction doesn’t bar Trump from continuing his campaign or becoming president. And he can still vote for himself in his home state of Florida as long as he stays out of prison in New York state.

Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump, who serves as co-chair of the Republican National Committee, said in a Fox News Channel interview on Thursday that Trump would do virtual rallies and campaign events if he’s convicted and sentenced to home confinement.

In a deeply divided America, it’s unclear whether Trump’s once-unimaginable criminal conviction will have any impact at all on the election...

In the short term, at least, there were immediate signs that the guilty verdict was helping to unify the Republican Party’s disparate factions as GOP officials across the political spectrum rallied behind their embattled presumptive presidential nominee and his campaign reported a flood of fundraising dollars within hours of the verdict.

There has been some polling conducted on the prospect of a guilty verdict, although such hypothetical scenarios are notoriously difficult to predict. A recent ABC News/Ipsos poll found that only 4% of Trump’s supporters said they would withdraw their backing if he’s convicted of a felony, though another 16% said they would reconsider it...

What would help, if pollsters interviewed Democratic-leaning voters to see how many will vote for Biden to ensure a convicted felon never gets (back) into the White House. /headdesk

We are entering uncharted waters in our nation's history. While we've had convicted felons run for the presidency - Eugene Debs the most well-known - we've never had one at the head of a major party with a guaranteed voter turnout in the millions. When the Founders created the Constitution, they never dreamed that the political elites of that era would allow such a person to run: Their own virtues of personal honor and good faith towards the system blinded them to the possibility a demagogue like trump would ever rise up to break all social norms and civility.

When the political parties formed (and reformed) in the years following, those parties were expected to use a vetting system of nominating only the best - or least corrupt - among them. But trump has subverted all that, bullying and dominating the Republican ranks to where he literally owns the national organization overseeing the party. Whatever is left of the GOP leadership is stuck with kissing trump's ring orange ass to stay in his good graces, turning a blind eye to trump's criminality and going along with trump's twisted accusations of a "rigged" trial.

Whatever issues are still up for debate - protecting abortion rights, stopping the bloodshed in Gaza, supporting Ukraine against Russia, defending our educational system, resolving the immigration crisis - this is a serious matter to consider: We now have a convicted felon as the presidential nominee for the Republican Party, with no sign trump will step aside or get pushed aside for a more honorable candidate. There is no "both sides are bad" argument here. For all of the Republican Party's efforts to paint President Biden as a corrupt figure, they've never found any evidence of that: The best they've done is bring charges to his son Hunter, but never found any financial ties between them.

This is now down to two Presidential candidates. trump is a convicted felon with an established history of criminal behavior - trump's company criminally guilty, trump found liable for sexual assault, trump found liable for tax evasion and fraud to the tune of $364 million, trump's non-profit forced to shut down for fraud - proven in court. Biden is not a felon.

This ought to be an easy choice, America. Don't fucking vote for the felon.

Nobody's Fault But trump's

Update: Thank ye again to Batocchio for including this blog in the Crooks & Liars' Mike's Blog Round-Up! Please stick around and view the other articles I've got, and good luck this summer!

When you consider today's criminal conviction of donald trump, a lot of this is his own damn fault.

He didn't have to run for President in the first place. trump could have literally stayed in his lane as a corrupt businessman, living off of the inflated values of his properties, feeding off celebrity tributes, plastering his name on questionable products, buying up more resorts to mismanage, and none of this would have happened. It's rare anymore for the legal system to chase after white collar crime like fraud, especially on so brazen a scale that trump was doing. he'd been doing this - remember "trump University"? - for so long over the decades it's likely the state attorneys would have never gone after him, and trump would have gone to his grave convinced he was a genius business negotiator feared by his enemies, worshipped by women, and envied by all.

trump's corporation would never have gone under the financial scrutiny that the State Attorney Letitia James eventually deployed, leading to massive liabilities and fines that can well doom trump's entire financial empire (whatever's left of it).

trump didn't have to go out of his way to accuse Barack Obama over Obama's birth certificate. trump could have tamped down his racism and not gotten involved in any of that false conspiracy drivel. But he did, and received the public putdown at that Correspondents' Dinner that apparently triggered trump's urge for political revenge. Now trump's the one facing imprisonment while Obama enjoys a post-presidency as a beloved figure.

If trump hadn't run for President, he'd have never panicked over the possibility of the women he'd had affairs with going public with their stories. he'd have never arranged for the "capture and kill" scheme with the publisher of the National Enquirer to silence those reports, which were part of the charges he'd just gotten convicted. trump would have never paid hush money to Stormy Daniels through his bagman lawyer Michael Cohen, who both testified to what happened during this trial and whose credibility were confirmed by this jury.

If trump hadn't been President, making himself a public nuisance shooting down other allegations of sexual misconduct, it would have been likely one of his victims - E. Jean Carroll - would have remained silent. Instead she spoke up, leading to his defaming her, and leading to civil trials where trump was officially held liable for sexual assault. It is a matter of record that trump is a sex offender.

Even the legal defenses in each of the trials trump faced are his fault. If it were any other defendant with political ambitions, that person and their lawyers would have worked out plea deals. Instead of felonies, there'd be misdemeanors paid off by fines and probation, and the media furor would die down to where a political career was still within reach.

If things had gone to trial, that defendant would have behaved in court, worked to impress and win over the jury. There would have been contrition, admission of lesser unethical behavior, means of convincing the courtroom that mistakes were made but didn't rise to the level of a guilty verdict.

But trump can never do that, can he. In trump's mind, admitting to anything would be admitting he was wrong even in the slightest thing, and he can never admit to that. In his mind, there are Winners and Suckers and himself - a Winner - can never do any wrong. This is why he claims the acts he's done - the bullying phone calls, the attacks on those he views as his inferiors - are "perfect" and shouldn't even be investigated. This is why he cannot act contrite to a judge or jury. This is why he'd rather attack the trials as "witch hunts" and undermine the entire legal system: his narcissistic self-worth can't accept any other option.

This is why his lawyers in every trial kept employing odd legal tactics that outside observers noted couldn't work... and those tactics didn't work. Half the time, trump's lawyers were too busy pandering to their client instead of winning over juries. It was an oddity that in the middle of attacking Stormy Daniels' credibility that trump's lawyer tried to get her to admit under oath that "trump was a good golfer" as though that had any relevance to the trial.

trump's defiance in the face of legal facts made it next to impossible to adequately give trump effective legal counsel. It exposed him time and again as a bullying egotist, making it difficult for any jury to accept him and for any judge to tolerate him.

And so here we are, still in the Darkest Timeline, coping with the reality that the Republican Party - that proudly declares itself "The Party of Law And Order" - has as their standard bearer a convicted felon, a certified sex offender, a known liar and bully. This is who the GOP voters accept as their leader. There is no sign they will be pushing him aside as their Presidential nominee for the 2024 elections.

Gods help us.

Elections matter, America. For all the yelling and screaming by Republicans about how corrupt Democrats are, the fact is clear that the Republicans - led by donald trump - are the truly corrupt party. For the LOVE of God and the Rule of Law and everything America SHOULD stand for, do not vote for trump or for any Republican lackey still kissing trump's convicted orange ass.

As of May 30 2024 at 5:15 PM EDT

It is official now. donald trump is a convicted felon. The jury returned the verdict with all 34 counts as Guilty.

THAT'S GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY!

I'm at work at the moment so I'll add some comments later.

Getting To The Week Where It Could Finally Happen

I haven't written much more about the Manhattan criminal trial facing donald trump since late April, as much of it had been the day-to-day witness testimony and presentation of evidence... alongside trump's efforts to skirt around the judge's contempt warnings about trump's social media attacks.

If you want some details, Josh Kovensky over at Talking Points Memo (TPM) provided decent coverage.

Thing is, last week both sides wrapped up their cases before the jury, so Judge Merchan set this coming Tuesday May 28th - he did not want to ruin Memorial Day weekend for the jurors - for closing arguments and to give instructions to the jury for deliberation. This - as they say - is it.

Whether trump wins acquittal or DA Bragg wins at least one "guilty" conviction remains with how Merchan instructs the jury, what limits he imposes, and what decisions - if any - that jury returns.

I don't want to get my hopes up (again). There could be straight acquittal across all 34 charges, or at least one juror holding out to where it ends up a mistrial. The jury could vote guilty on just a handful of counts and not others if they have reasonable doubts, or convict on every one.

This is, in my opinion, the closest we as a nation have ever gotten to holding trump accountable for all the unethical and brazen acts he's committed over the decades he's been in the spotlight. While trump has been held liable in civil court for his sexual assault and for his tax/financial frauds, this is criminal court now; and the potential to hold him in jail - where his gaslighting and denials will not save him - can happen.

Some of this depends on how quickly the jury goes through each indictment before them: There are 34 felony charges, and they could well deliberate on each one at a time. They could also finish this as quickly as the civil jury decided on Carroll's sexual assault charges, which took one afternoon.

A lot of this will boil down to which side presented the stronger case, and by most accounts trump's defense was shoddy and questionable at best. The highlights were the testimonies by the prosecutors' star witnesses Stormy Daniels and Michael Cohen, where trump's lawyers did their best to discredit both. Court observers don't think that happened, especially against Cohen (via Kovensky at TPM):

Michael Cohen, the arch-nemesis of Donald Trump, would finally face withering cross-examination on the stand. He would come face to face with attorneys for the former and potentially future President.

The entire case would hinge on this. Cohen alone, the thinking went, could confirm a central element of the business records falsification case: that Trump approved the fraudulent reimbursement scheme for Cohen making the hush money payment to Stormy Daniels. And Cohen did confirm it.

But on Tuesday, in the first hours of cross-examination, something else happened. What was anticipated to be fireworks instead turned to a fizzle in a stuffy Manhattan courtroom on a warm May afternoon.

Trump defense attorney Todd Blanche spent much of his initial day of cross-examination meandering in questioning with Cohen. He landed a few blows on Cohen, assailing his credibility in various ways...

Blanche then followed up with the obvious and effective hit: how could Cohen claim to remember phone calls with Trump from 2016 in detail when he said he did not recall interactions with prosecutors on the case in which he was testifying from 2023?

That line of questioning had additional impact: it portrayed Cohen as uncontrollable by prosecutors. It came after Cohen and the DA spent more than a day on direct examination establishing that all of his lies and bullying during his time with Trump occurred at Trump’s direction, his behest, to please him. Instead, if further pursued, Cohen ignoring requests from the DA’s office to stop speaking to the press could develop into an argument that he was going rogue from Trump when he paid the hush money to Stormy Daniels in 2016.

But on Tuesday, Blanche did not pursue that.

Instead, he wound up mired in often confusing details about the various Trump investigations in which Cohen had testified. At one point, Blanche asked Cohen about his first interview with prosecutors in the Mueller investigation — an instance in which he has admitted to have lied...

That arguably wasn't a good avenue to go down, because Cohen can counter that he lied back then on trump's behest (even on his orders).

The relative softballs came as a surprise in part because of Cohen’s performance under cross-examination during New York Attorney General Letitia James (D)’s civil trial of the former president. Then, he erupted with his own objections, telling defense attorneys in that case that some questions had been “asked and answered.”

That set a low bar for Cohen’s testimony in this case. But he managed to parry some of Blanche’s questions in part by embracing the negative implications that the Trump attorney seemed to be trying to elicit by trickery or force...

It didn't help trump's defense that they presented too few of their own witnesses to rebut the DA's case. Their big witness turned in a performance more detrimental than Cohen's hostile testimony (going this time to Charles R. Davis over at Salon):

One reason Donald Trump’s lawyers probably are telling him not to testify in his own defense is because they — and everyone else in a certain Manhattan courtroom on Monday — have now seen what happens when a defiant witness takes the stand and has a tantrum in front of the jury.

Robert Costello, an attorney who briefly advised Michael Cohen after the FBI raided his home in 2018, is the first person the defense team has called to provide substantive testimony. Firmly on Team MAGA, Costello was asked to counter the former president’s ex-fixer, who had told the court that Trump called him after the raid and told him to “stay tough.”

According to Costello, Cohen was distraught after the raid — but adamant, at the time, that he had no dirt on his boss that he could share with law enforcement in hopes of softer treatment. “He said, ‘I swear to God, Bob, I don’t have anything on Donald Trump,’” Costello said, purportedly quoting his former client.

But that was far from the highlight. What drew the most attention from Costello’s brief time on the stand was the way he acted toward Judge Juan Merchan, who had sustained multiple prosecutions objections to the apparent annoyance of the defense witness. “Jeez,” Costello muttered in response to one such ruling, whose sarcasm extended to his body language – and prompted the judge to clear out the jury to remind the witness how to behave in a courtroom.

“I want to discuss proper decorum in my courtroom,” Merchan said. “You don’t give me a side eye and you don’t roll your eyes,” he continued. “If you don’t like my ruling, you don’t say, ‘jeez.’”

Costello responded with what CNN described as a “long glare,” further setting off the judge.

“Are you staring me down?” a visibly upset Merchan asked Costello. The scene ended with the judge threatening to strike Costello’s testimony altogether if he didn’t learn how to control himself. “Your conduct is contemptuous right now,” he said. “If you stare me down one more time, I will remove you from the stand.”

As Davis noted, if you want an idea how trump would have behaved on the stand - and he didn't, because even his lawyers were terrified how trump wouldn't keep track of which gaslighting lie to stick with - Costello was the proxy. For a lawyer himself, Costello forgot one of the biggest rules taught in school: NEVER antagonize a judge. While the jury was dismissed for the part where Merchan read Costello the riot act, court attendees noted several jurors seemed stunned by Costello's behavior, arguably didn't impress them, and they had to know what was going on while they were out:

As attorney and Brookings Institution senior fellow Norm Eisen commented, Costello’s performance was what might call an “own goal”: he added nothing that jurors would not have already gathered from Cohen himself — the former president’s ex-fixer told jurors he repeatedly lied to protect his boss — while needlessly antagonizing the judge. Even if the jury had left the room for the talking down, jurors could likely figure out the reason they had to get up and go: “ill manners of a kind we have not seen from any witness yet across the 19 days of trial, even on the most contentious cross-examinations...”

From where I'm sitting, trump didn't put up a convincing defense. Every prosecuting witness didn't flinch on the stand, and corroborated both the paper trail and what it was all for.

This should be the week justice finally comes for donald trump.

We'll see how it goes from there for the rule of law and the fate of the nation.

trump's Contempt Should Be Punished More Than That

Just a quick note regarding the ongoing trump criminal trial in Manhattan: the judge held trump in contempt for his social media outbursts and threats (via Ximena Bustillo at NPR): 

Former President Donald Trump has been held in contempt of the court and fined $9,000 for violating a gag order aimed at protecting witnesses and jurors in his Manhattan criminal trial.

Prosecutors in Trump's criminal trial last month asked Judge Juan Merchan to fine him $10,000 — $1,000 each for 10 posts — for violating a gag order and rule Trump in contempt of court. Merchan on Tuesday fined Trump for nine of those posts.

Trump was ordered to pay the money by Friday, May 3, and remove seven offending posts from his Truth Social account, and two posts from his campaign website by 2:15 p.m. on Tuesday.

From what I've seen reported on Twitter (up yours, Elon) trump's handlers have indeed removed the offending posts. Now it's just a question if trump keeps pushing the limit and posts more offending/dangerous outbursts in the near future. Considering how laughably small the fines are - only $1,000 per offense? - even for a near-bankrupt con artist like trump that won't be a deterrent. 

Even Judge Merchan knows these fines are weak sauce compared to the level of punishment trump deserves (this from Jordan Rubin over at MSNBC):

Merchan noted that he was limited by the $1,000 maximum for each violation, which may not do much to deter a wealthy defendant. Given the lack of discretion to impose a more serious fine for Trump, the judge wrote that he “must therefore consider whether in some instances, jail may be a necessary punishment.” He explicitly warned the defendant in his ruling Tuesday that he won’t tolerate continued willful violations and that he will jail him if necessary and appropriate under the circumstances.

Merchan didn't go straight to the jail holding because it would seem too strict a move so early in the proceedings, and trump will gleefully use that moment to make himself a martyr on the campaign trail. But the judge did put that out there as a genuine threat, and one trump (at least his lawyers) should view as a serious concern because it will tell all the non-MAGA voters out there that trump is that disrespectful of American justice.

Merchan has laid down exactly where the line is that trump shouldn't cross.

Don't be surprised if trump crosses it entirely out of panic (and not even out of spite).

And it is entirely deserved. trump and his cohort have been mocking the legal system for years, getting away with stuff that most Americans wouldn't even dare attempt.

It's not vengeance we're hoping for, trump. Not the thing that always drives you to ruin the world for everyone else.

It's for all the sins you've committed, all the damage you've done. It's punishment.

I'm Just Waiting On a Monday (Suck It, trump)

You might notice that despite all on the harrumphing from me about how Elon Musk destroyed Twitter that I'm still on there. Like spotting a car wreck on I-4, I can't look away and need to fulfill my Reply Guy urges. (Also, I want to be there when Musk implodes Twitter: Screw you, Elon, I'm deadnaming it 'cause calling it X is stupid) 

Having mentioned how donald trump (lowercase-naming him) spent the past week filing last-minute legal appeals against the pending April 15th Manhattan criminal trial over his hush money payments, I had a Reply Guy moment on Twitter that I'd like to share on this blog:

Top 10 trump excuses to delay trial
10) Dog ate paperwork
9) Eric ate paperwork
8) Blinded by staring at eclipse AGAIN
7) Accidentally mailed himself to Guam
6) Taking over OJ's hunt for real killer
5) Claims he already won
4) (redacted)
3) Cofveve
2) The Boogie
1) BUT HER EMAILS

— Witty Librarian 2024 (@PaulWartenberg) April 13, 2024

I had to take the "thes" out of the sentences to fit Twitter character count, by the by.

Ron Filipkowski is someone I follow and reply/requote often, also by the by.

It's a little bit of levity - and a shit-ton of schadenfreude - waiting for Monday to roll up tomorrow, with trump forced to sit in the courtroom during jury selection knowing that this is no longer something he can control.

Justice is coming, trump. No more delays. Cower like the coward you are.

P.S.: Tank the stock. SELL MORTIMER, SELL!

Seriously Can We Hurry This Up

Some quick updates about the situation donald trump and his alleged RICO buddies are facing in Fulton County Georgia.

If there's good news for trump and his cronies, it's that the judge overseeing matters reduced the overall number of counts they're facing regarding their election interference and fake electors schemes (via Sam Gringlas for NPR):

The judge overseeing the Georgia election interference case against former President Donald Trump and his allies has thrown out six criminal counts from the indictment.

Trump now faces 10 felony charges in Georgia, instead of 13.

Fulton County Superior Judge Scott McAfee agreed to grant motions from defendants in the case to quash six counts in the indictment, writing in an order Wednesday that: "The Court's concern is less that the State has failed to allege sufficient conduct of the Defendants – in fact it has alleged an abundance. However, the lack of detail concerning an essential legal element is, in the undersigned's opinion, fatal..."

McAfee wrote that when prosecutors alleged that the defendants violated their oaths to the Georgia Constitution and the U.S. Constitution, that charge was so broad that it would be impossible for defendants to prepare a defense.

"On its own, the United States Constitution contains hundreds of clauses, any one of which can be the subject of a lifetime's study," McAfee wrote.

McAfee wrote that prosecutors could appeal the ruling or ask a grand jury to produce a more specific indictment on those six counts...

The good news for the rest of us is that the remaining defendants - not the ones who plead already - are still seeing at least one felony charge - such as Mark Meadows, down to a single count of Conspiracy - in a courtroom. Better news is that the infamous audio of trump himself pressuring Georgia's Secretary of State to overturn the vote count is still admissible as evidence in some of the charges trump and others are facing, although McAfee will likely limit its use.

There is a door left open for DA Fani Willis to bring back the grand jury to refile charges on more specific claims, but given the number of counts still on the table she may decide to proceed with what she has (refiling runs the risk of getting overturned again over those specifics and delaying the trial further).

Speaking of Willis, she had been facing a disqualification hearing by the defendants over an "inappropriate relationship" with a special prosecutor hired to work on the DA's team. Judge McAfee issued his ruling today on that, essentially clearing Willis but requiring the man to quit the team to "avoid any impropriety" (also Gringlas for NPR):

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis accepted the resignation of Nathan Wade, her top special prosecutor in former President Donald Trump's election interference case, after a Georgia judge made Wade's stepping aside a condition of allowing Willis to remain on the case.

The decision bolsters chances that 15 defendants including former President Donald Trump will face trial in Georgia for attempting to overturn the 2020 election result.

In a 23-page ruling that followed hours of dramatic courtroom testimony last month, Fulton Superior Judge Scott McAfee ruled that Willis' romantic relationship with Wade, the top special prosecutor she hired, created the appearance of a conflict of interest, but did not require her disqualification.

McAfee wrote that, "an outsider could reasonably think that the District Attorney is not exercising her independent professional judgment totally free of any compromising influences. As long as Wade remains on the case, this unnecessary perception will persist."

McAfee gave prosecutors a choice: If Wade does not resign from the case, Willis must step aside and "refer the prosecution to the Prosecuting Attorneys' Council for reassignment."

Willis, in a letter accepting Wade's resignation, said she complimented him for "his professionalism and dignity..."

During a multi-day evidentiary hearing last month, lawyers sparred over when Willis and Wade's relationship began – and over the veracity of their claims that Willis reimbursed Wade in cash.

As prosecutors fought a subpoena for Willis to take the stand, the district attorney appeared in the courtroom and declared that she wanted to testify. Willis and defense attorneys sparred over intimate personal details, the testimony became so tense that McAfee had to call for a five-minute recess.

In the end, McAfee found that, "the evidence demonstrated that the financial gain flowing from her relationship with Wade was not a motivating factor on the part of the District Attorney to indict and prosecute." And he wrote that the defendants failed to show how Willis' conduct influenced the case.

So Willis stays on as lead prosecutor in the Fulton County matter. And those defendants have to be fully aware that she is going to be pissed at them for dragging her personal life - the primary tactic of conservative wingnuts when deploying the Politics of Personal Destruction - into their political bullshit. Any of them considering getting a plea deal now better do before she gets them on the stand.

With all this sturm und drang going on there's still a question of when the actual trial in Georgia is going to take place, considering how packed trump's calendar is facing 91 88 felony charges across four courtrooms. But things are on hold with the federal cases while the Supreme Court considers trump's claims of Absolute Immunity - not until late April, and then further delay until late summer issuing a ruling - and now with the New York "hush money" trial on a 30-day delay due to a questionably late delivery of thousands of federal documents trump claims is needed for his defense.

I may have jinxed things last month when I blogged that trump's judgment was coming, in spite of how trump repeatedly finds ways to delay every court challenge he faces.

Goddammit, American legal system. You're playing into trump's only legal tactic - Delay, Delay, DELAY - he's got. Stop playing by his rules and get his ass in court.

Judgment Cometh and That Right Soon: trump is Toast (and Now Broke) (w/ Update)

Update 5/8/24: I think I wrote this thing too fucking soon. When I insisted towards the end that trump was facing four criminal trials in short order, I jinxed it or something. Three of those trials are now suffering delays due to trump-appointed judges or his spamming of the appeals system, and the likelihood is trump won't see those three trials until 2025 after the November election. If that Shitgibbon pulls off a goddamn steal of the election - either through a broken Electoral College or getting a Republican-controlled Congress to gift it to him - he will shut those trials down and never answer for his sins. He's currently facing trial in Manhattan for his hush money schemes to silence stories about his sex scandals during the 2016 election, but he HAS to answer for the serious acts of insurrection and document theft he caused. 

For the LOVE OF GOD, America, do NOT vote for trump or the Republicans this November...

We were waiting for this. trump's civil case over tax evasion and acts of fraud came due today (via Ximena Bustillo at NPR): 

The Friday decision from Judge Arthur Engoron orders Trump and his flagship organization to pay the bulk of that amount: nearly $355 million. Trump's two sons and co-defendants, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., are each liable for $4 million. Allen Weisselberg, a former Trump Organization executive, is liable for $1 million. The total is even higher with interest — more than $450 million overall, according to the attorney general's office.

"Their complete lack of contrition and remorse borders on pathological. They are accused only of inflating asset values to make more money. The documents prove this over and over again. This is a venial sin, not a mortal sin," Engoron wrote in the court filing. "Yet, defendants are incapable of admitting the error of their ways..."

trump is of course not admitting to his errors and is screaming on his social media bubble about how unfair this is, A TOTAL WITCH HUNT, it's a travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham. etc.

If you want to view the full travesty of a mockery of a sham, the court filing should be here.

If you want popcorn, that should be in Aisle 9 at your local Publix. If you don't have a local Publix I assure you there will soon be one. (evil laughter from Publix HQ in Lakeland FL)

The judge also decided to limit Trump and his co-defendants' ability to do business in the Empire State. Trump and his companies are prohibited from serving as an officer or director of any New York business or applying for loans for three years. His sons are limited from similar leadership roles for two years.

Jeffrey McConney, ex-controller of the Trump Organization and also a defendant, was not ordered to pay any amount, but he and Weisselberg are permanently barred from serving in the financial control function of any New York corporation or similar business entity registered or licensed in New York state.

One of the thing trump - and his sons - can't do is get any loans from banks that do business in New York, which was one of the ways he'd been inflating his personal wealth and perpetuating his ongoing grifts over the decades. Considering New York City is the financial capital of the world - well, it's one of the major centers along with London, Tokyo, Hong Kong and (checks notes) that one nation-state that allows shell companies to money-launder off-shore accounts - this is tossing a wooden shoe into trump's gears real quick. If trump is trying scheme up anything else to make money down the road... he might not be able to. At least not for the next three years.

This is also going to put a crimp on trump's ability to pay not only the penalties in this case but also the fines and penalties in the Carroll defamation and sexual assault decisions (add in another $88 million to trump's bill).

I mentioned earlier that trump - like most rich folk - doesn't have a lot of real cash on hand to be able to pay these kinds of fines. Most of the wealth is on paper, on the estimated values on properties and businesses owned, and on the amounts floating around in investment portfolios and the stock markets. Either trump is going to be forced to sell a number of properties - at fair market value, NOT the inflated prices trump claimed - or use other people's money. There's a reason why a lot of people - myself included - viewed trump's effort to claim control of the RNC this week was to claim the revenues flowing in to the party organization's campaign coffers.

It's going to be a question of how trump can get to any of that RNC money, if the court-appointed oversight by judge Barbara Jones is expanding over the next 14 months to ensure this order gets enforced (even during the appeal process, by the looks of it).

And he doesn't have that time afforded to him. trump is facing more court trials, specifically the criminal cases. A quick update on those:

The ruling comes at a crucial time for Trump, the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination. Engoron's decision comes a day after another judge set the date for what could be Trump's first criminal trial, related to hush money payments issued during the 2016 election.

He is facing a combined 91 state and federal charges, including several related to his role to stay in office after he lost the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden...

Just this week, the judge overseeing that Hush Money trial - the DA is trying to claim it's an "election interference" trial because trump evaded campaign finance rules and lied to voters about the matter, but seriously it's the Hush Money To Stormy Daniels case - ruled against trump's bid to have the case dismissed and set the jury selection to start March 25, 2024 (it's also Bustillo but it's a different NPR article, well that IS her beat):

New York Judge Juan Merchan has rejected an attempt to dismiss the charges in the hush money case against former President Donald Trump, and a jury trial will begin as originally scheduled on March 25.

The case was brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who charged Trump with 34 felony counts last year, alleging he falsified New York business records in order to conceal damaging information before the 2016 presidential election. That included hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels, who was threatening to go public with charges that she had had an affair with Trump not long after he married Melania Trump. Trump, who was present for Thursday's court hearing before Merchan, has denied the affair.

You should remember, this is the matter that brought "bagman" lawyer Michael Cohen to the national stage ("I have a hard drive just labeled 'YIKES'!"), and there was enough proof back then - with trump as un-indicted co-conspirator Individual-One - to get Cohen to plead out. It took awhile - and Bragg overcoming his initial reluctance when he took office - for these charges to come out, but it's here now, it's starting in March and should be finished in four weeks, meaning in late April we'll see if trump gets convicted on even one count or survives his first criminal trial.

The next trial was technically the matter in DC federal court regarding trump's involvement in the January 6th insurrection, with four felony counts there. However, Judge Chutkan postponed that trial awaiting the ruling on trump's claim of Absolute Immunity, which an appellate court rebuked and which the Supreme Court received this week to determine if they need to hear the matter.

A number of legal experts are arguing SCOTUS doesn't even need to hear the appeal, and that is a choice the justices can make. They could still take it, and deliberate the matter in order to give trump what he REALLY wants - more delay - but they'd still have to make a ruling on it this term year (by late summer if they pad it out). If they dismiss trump's appeal, this trial could start as early as mid-May (depending on another trial): If SCOTUS takes it, they still have to rule on it by August (and like the 11th District of Appeals, they dare not approve in favor of absolute presidential immunity, it would literally kill the Constitution) and the trial could start by September (cutting it close to Election Day).

That other trial that could skew the DC trial schedule is the one in South Florida regarding trump's mishandling of federal classified documents at Mar-A-Lago. Ostensibly it's set for late May, but Judge Cannon overseeing that matter has been causing havoc with the pre-trial elements - such as wanting to expose the Justice Department's witness list to trump's lawyers earlier than usual, and against Special Counsel Jack Smith's wishes - that a potential delay could be happening in that trial as the appeals courts straighten the mess. Outside legal experts -some of them former federal prosecutors - argue Cannon should be removed from this case considering how she's risking witness safety, but that could delay the start of trial as well.

If by some miracle the Mar-A-Lago trial does start by May, it's still expected to take two or three months to complete considering the sheer amount of classified documents - and their mishandling - to go through. It would affect whenever the DC trial starts, which I would argue deserves to go first because of its immediacy and its importance in confirming trump's culpability over the nightmare of January 6th. Hopefully this will get straightened out soon.

Thrown into this mix is the fourth criminal matter trump faces in Fulton County, Georgia... which hit a huge delay when one of the co-defendants filed a complaint against DA Fani Willis over possible misconduct with an affair with one of the special investigators hired by the DA's office. The judge overseeing that trial held a hearing the last two days, during which the worst part of trumpian (damn you Roy Cohn) legal tactics - public smearing of opponents - was on full display.

Igor Derysh at Salon has more details:

Thursday’s evidentiary hearing on the misconduct claim against Fulton County, Ga., District Attorney Fani Willis yielded a lot of drama but little evidence of wrongdoing, legal experts say.

Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee held a hearing after Ashleigh Merchant, an attorney for Trump co-defendant Mike Roman, alleged an improper relationship between Willis and top prosecutor Nathan Wade and claimed that Wade used his earnings from the case to fund trips for the pair...

“I simply don’t see any new evidence that requires disqualification. It’s a credibility pissing match so far. Ugly. Dramatic. But the needle hasn’t moved,” tweeted Georgia State University Law Prof. Anthony Michael Kreis.

“As an excavation of a now-defunct relationship, it was Bravo-worthy (and frankly, sad). But as an evidentiary hearing, it wasn’t the win the defense promised, especially under the governing legal standard,” agreed MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin...

Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance told MSNBC that the hearing featured “a lot of spectacle but not very much substance.”

"Ultimately, at the end of the day yesterday, it was just a big nothingburger," she said. "There was nothing to show that Fani Willis and Nathan Wade had the financial conflict of interest that Georgia law recognizes, something akin to a prosecutor who only gets paid if they win a case. That's the classic case in Georgia law where there is a conflict that results in disqualification. That wasn't there yesterday in the courtroom..."

If trump and his co-defendants were hoping to throw the whole prosecution out, that wasn't going to happen. At the least, the judge could have removed Willis from overseeing the matter and handing it off to another prosecutor in the DA's office. Whether it delays this trial any further - which legal experts considered an open-shut case because of so much direct evidence against trump including that audio tape - is unlikely, because it's all the other trials' schedules that's interfering when this one starts.

Again, to all the Republican voters out there, to all the Republican Party leaders out there: You could have avoided all this. trump was dirty and corrupt and vulgar in the years before 2016. You had all the warning signs when he first campaigned - the failed casinos, the civil trial involving trump's university scam, the reports of sexual assault, the open racism and sexism - that trump was going to be a disaster of a human being. AND YOU STILL VOTED FOR THAT.

We've had other corrupt men in high office before, just that none of them reached the criminal lows that trump has. trump's not facing criminal trials because he's a "great conservative American," he's facing criminal trials now because 40 years of bills over his bullshit are finally coming due.

The civil trials are mostly done, and trump has to pay those dues soon. The criminal trials start March, and the countdown to just even ONE felony conviction begins.

Tick fucking tock, trump.

Update: This got to be a very popular tweet.

at this rate, trump should raise the $355 million in 30,527 days.
That's almost 83 years.
It could work.

— Witty Librarian 2024 (@PaulWartenberg) February 17, 2024

With All of the Defenses of Any Other Criminal Defendant: AKA Trump Is Toast

After a month of waiting, the U.S. Court of Appeals hearing donald trump's claim of "absolute immunity" reached a verdict and dropped it this morning... right on top of trump's head like a 16-ton weight. Via Carrie Johnson at NPR:

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has ruled that Donald Trump does not enjoy broad immunity from federal prosecution, a major legal setback for the former president, who said he will appeal.

They wrote that for the purposes of this criminal case, "former President Trump has become citizen Trump, with all of the defenses of any other criminal defendant."

The ruling comes a month after lawyers for Trump made sweeping claims that he enjoyed immunity from federal prosecution, claims that lawyers for the special counsel said would "undermine democracy" and give presidents license to commit crimes while in the White House, such as accepting bribes for directing government contracts or selling nuclear secrets to a foreign adversary.

It would be "a striking paradox," the judges wrote, if the president, who alone has the constitutional duty to ensure that laws be faithfully executed, "were the sole officer capable of defying those laws with impunity."

Excuse me for a moment. (Runs around the room squeeing like it's another Fitzmas morning) Okay.

"We cannot accept that the office of the Presidency places its former occupants above the law for all time thereafter," the judges wrote. Doing so, they said, "would collapse our system of separated powers by placing the President beyond the reach of all three branches..."

As part of their ruling, the judges granted trump's team to file appeal up to the Supreme Court, but gave him a strict deadline of NEXT MONDAY, implying that they want this legal matter resolved quickly. Experts are pointing to the quick turnaround if SCOTUS hears the appeal that the highest court in the land would have to issue a ruling this summer at the latest, hopefully with trump facing his DC trial involving his efforts to undermine the 2020 election results well before 2024 Election Day.

If you want to read the ruling, the link to it is here.

Referring to Marcy Wheeler over at her Emptywheel blog, this is some of her takeaway from this ruling:

Let’s start with the last one, what I called posture. Judge Henderson had originally not favored an expedited review. This order forces Trump into an expedited appeals process.

The Clerk is directed to withhold issuance of the mandate through February 12, 2024. If, within that period, Appellant notifies the Clerk in writing that he has filed an application with the Supreme Court for a stay of the mandate pending the filing of a petition for a writ of certiorari, the Clerk is directed to withhold issuance of the mandate pending the Supreme Court’s final disposition of the application. The filing of a petition for rehearing or rehearing en banc will not result in any withholding of the mandate, although the grant of rehearing or rehearing en banc would result in a recall of the mandate if the mandate has already issued.

The only way he can stop Judge Chutkan from issuing opinions on the remaining motions to dismiss filed last fall is if he immediately appeals to SCOTUS for a stay pending appeal, which he has already said he’d done. The only way he can get that stay is if five Justices say they think Trump will succeed on the merits and vote to grant the stay.

Steve Vladeck says that SCOTUS has a lot of options, but the two most likely are to deny the stay or to grant an appeal in this term, committing to an opinion by June...

Finally, I noted that Judge Henderson seemed to have concerns about the scope of their decision — what she described “floodgates” of follow-on charges. She at least considered the wisdom of limiting this opinion to a former President’s unofficial acts — in this case, defined as those of an office-seeker under Blassingame.

Rather than going Blassingame, though, the panel’s top line holding went Big.

The operative language in this opinion rejects the notion of Presidential immunity categorically as a violation of separation of powers.

At bottom, former President Trump’s stance would collapse our system of separated powers by placing the President beyond the reach of all three Branches. Presidential immunity against federal indictment would mean that, as to the President, the Congress could not legislate, the Executive could not prosecute and the Judiciary could not review. We cannot accept that the office of the Presidency places its former occupants above the law for all time thereafter. Careful evaluation of these concerns leads us to conclude that there is no functional justification for immunizing former Presidents from federal prosecution in general or for immunizing former President Trump from the specific charges in the Indictment. In so holding, we act, “not in derogation of the separation of powers, but to maintain their proper balance.” See Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. at 754...

Without any specific exemptions to relate, Wheeler is pointing out the appellate judges are leaving little wiggle room for the Supreme Court justices to give trump an escape route:

But they say if they did have to review whether the indictment charged Trump for official acts, the fact that so many of the alleged acts in the indictment pertain to Trump’s role as an office-seeker, and because Presidents have no role in election certifications, the indictment would survive that more particular review anyway.

This is the kind of out that Justice Kavanaugh took on a related issue, whether the interests of Congress in reviewing an attack on the election certification preempted any Executive Privilege claims.

That is, both the District and Circuit have already said that, if they were asked to consider whether this indictment withstands an immunity claim, it substantially would.

I have no idea what SCOTUS will do. But by producing a unanimous opinion with little surface area for Justices to grab hold, Judges Henderson, Pan, and Childs may have ended up producing the most expeditious result...

For myself, this is the key paragraph in the ruling (pg. 3) that underscores just how deep in trouble trump is:

Since then, hundreds of people who breached the Capitol on January 6, 2021, have been prosecuted and imprisoned. And on August 1, 2023, in Washington, D.C., former President Trump was charged in a four-count Indictment as a result of his actions challenging the election results and interfering with the sequence set forth in the Constitution for the transfer of power from one President to the next. Former President Trump moved to dismiss the Indictment and the district court denied his motion. Today, we affirm the denial. For the purpose of this criminal case, former President Trump has become citizen Trump, with all of the defenses of any other criminal defendant. But any executive immunity that may have protected him while he served as President no longer protects him against this prosecution.

You can spot where the three judges are spelling out trump's culpability in the January 6th riots, by highlighting how the hundreds who rioted on his behalf have already faced justice themselves, and that trump is now due to face justice as well.

Best possible situation now is that the Supreme Court - lacking any legal loophole they can bring up in trump's defense - denies the appeal and lets the lower court ruling stand. They are well within their power to do so. They could still pick up this hot potato if they wanted to have the Highest Court In the Land put their imprint on the legal matter, but they would risk undermining the entire Constitution - destroying the checks and balances between the three branches - as the appellate court points out. And no matter what, they can't delay their ruling to save trump, as they're bound by the rules to get their decisions finalized by summer. Either they let trump run free - and destroy the rule of law altogether - or they let him face trial before the November elections.

Let justice be done. Let SCOTUS stand with the lower court ruling. Let trump face his day in federal court as soon as possible.

Preferably with a jury ruling on July 3rd so we can celebrate the next day with additional fervor.

Day One of 2024: the Prepping

 Just a reminder this first day of the new year, that this is the calendar keeping track of trump's various dooms.

from the Washington Post, obvs.

Not appearing on this calendar: the pending appeals court hearing this week on trump's Absolute Immunity claim that could overturn Special Counsel Jack Smith's March trial, and indeed any other criminal trial trump faces. In case trump's appeal fails - and it ought to, considering what trump suggests is a presidency that can abuse every right and ignore every law - then March 4th should see the start date on that.

The New York state civil trial wraps up next week, after which the judge's ruling is expected by early February. It won't end well for trump, but it will be a question how immediate some of the penalties will get imposed on trump and his sons for the things the court already deemed liable (the trial was to determine the extent of fines and damages).

While this calendar shows that the Classified Documents trial in South Florida is set for May, the experts fear Judge Cannon - already shown favor towards the guy who appointed her to the bench -  overseeing the trial will try to delay it into 2025. In which case, the Georgia RICO trial could move up from August to late May. Hmmmm. Or should I say Mmmmm.

The reason for Georgia's potential trial date for August is that the other trials could take weeks for testimony and jury deliberations to happen. The DC trial could go quickly as there's only four charges and the likelihood trump won't waste time testifying on his own behalf. I'm not sure how the New York City falsified records case would go, but given how it's pretty much the same thing repeated over and over, the prosecutors should wrap up their arguments quickly and again, trump won't put up much of a defense if he's not allowed to delay it.

It's the Classified Documents case that could take weeks even months, as there's a literal ballroom's worth of boxed top secret docs to go through.

So this is how we should be planning out the year 2024, alongside getting the campaign efforts out for Democrats to ensure trump won't fcking win this November.

Long year ahead.

What If: The Colorado Ruling Applies to ALL of 2024 Primaries?

So, let's just say the Colorado Supreme Court ruling that said trump should be barred from the presidential ballot because he engaged in insurrection regarding the January 6th riots goes to the US Supreme Court, and even the majority conservative bench of six Republican jurists rule against trump in some fashion.

It's not a given that the six will rule for trump outright. Doing so would go against their own Originalist opinions the Far Right justices had been arguing over the years. They would have to flush down the toilet the Colorado court's detailed opinions, some of which used a SCOTUS Justice's - Gorsuch - own arguments to make the decision that the states are obligated to defend the electoral process. In some respects, trump is asking the Supreme Court to ignore a constitutional amendment - or interpret it into utter uselessness - which bodes ill for any future rulings that could ignore other amendments to the Far Right's detriment. The justices may feel territorial about holding onto their powers of judicial review, after all.

There could still be some kind of ruling where Chief Justice Roberts can retain some integrity for the high court all the while giving trump what he wants - to stay on the ballot to avoid his criminal fate as much as possible - but that would be threading the smallest eye of a needle in legal history. 

This is as much a YES or NO legal decision as we will see: Either trump committed acts in violation of the 14th Amendment and should be barred from future elected office, or the 14th Amendment section insisting on blocking insurrectionists is unenforceable and trump stays on ballot (they shouldn't be able to argue if trump engaged in seditious/insurrectionist acts to begin with, because the lower court and state supreme court both found trump did, and that it violated the 14th's requirements. The lower court ruled that it didn't find trump was an "officer" as defined by the amendment, which the state court overruled).

So, let's say the Supreme Court rules 5-4 at the least that trump did violate the 14th Amendment, and that Colorado and other states could remove trump's name from the ballots for the 2024 Republican primaries.

Okay, after all the MAGA rioting settles down, what would actually happen?

The most likely thing is that the heavily Democratic-controlled (Blue) states will take trump's name off the ballots. The Republican Party and the media may scream that it denies the voters a choice; but this isn't about the voters this is about the constitution, and the constitution restricts choices all the time (after all, the Natural Born requirement for Presidents is why we don't have a President Schwarzenegger - who was popular nationally - after his stint as California's governor in the 2000s).

It's likely the heavily Republican-controlled (Red) states will ignore the legal efforts to block trump's name, even if the state courts follow through on any lawsuits filed over the matter (it would then be a matter if the state courts will hold Republican elections officials in contempt over this). The question mark will then be the battleground states where governments split between parties for legislatures, courts, and executive branches decide to bar trump as an insurrectionist from the ballots.

How would any of this affect the 2024 elections cycle.

If we look at the primaries themselves, trump can't afford to be blocked from too many state ballots. Based on the information at the Green Papers website tracking the primaries, the Republican nominating process requires a winning candidate lock up 1215 delegates.

Why is New Jersey, a state in the top 20 for population,
stuck with so few delegates?

So let's say the states that we know are solidly Democratic - California, New York, Illinois, about 16 others - and several battleground states that may agree that trump can be barred - New Hampshire, maybe Virginia, maybe Georgia considering all the local opposition from the governor and other state officials going on - take trump out of the primaries? How many delegates will that be? 

Given that the delegate total of blocked states is around 1093 (out of 2429), it looks like trump could still eke out a delegate victory with the remaining Red/pro-trump states and get his name on the Republican general ballot.

This all depends on which states actually follow through on removing trump from the ballot. Some of these states I added may not, and who knows one or three of the Red states may see it happen if their courts rule on it and can enforce those rulings. If enough states bar trump to where he can't reach 1215, he's screwed.

This also depends on if the US Supreme Court rules against trump outright, finding his actions on January 6th are punishable by disqualifying him from every state (or at least encourage all 50 states to do so).

This also depends on if the Republican national leadership doesn't change their own primary rules in case trump does get thrown off ALL the ballots. They could try pulling a last-minute rule change to negate primaries and just go with a convention floor vote in spite of the 14th Amendment's enforcement.

While the state primary ballots are at play now, if trump survives that he still has to deal with a general election where the states that barred him on the primaries can do so again with the November ballot. The Electoral College math is slightly different from the delegate math, and if enough battleground states deny him a spot on the ballot - and refuse all write-ins - he could once again lose enough Electors to face defeat (that he could be barred in nearly half the states will definitely lower his popular vote total across the nation).

This is all speculation, of course. We still have to see how the Supreme Court rules: If they abide by the judicial review process, if they agree with Colorado's ruling, if they find trump accountable under constitutional law. If Roberts' Court gives trump carte blanche, then partisanship wins out and the legal system is truly dead under trump's inevitable misrule.

The one thing we know for certain is that elections matter, that voter turnout matters, and the majority of the nation that dares not let trump back in the White House better fucking show up in 2024 to stop him. Get the damn vote out, Americans. Stop trump, save the world.

Update 12/28/23: I may have misspoke too soon, in that Colorado has not fully removed trump's name from the ballot, as they're awaiting the Supreme Court decision and the Secretary of State won't be doing it for the primary vote.

Michigan's Supreme Court agreed with a lower court to allow trump to remain on their ballot, although I've read elsewhere - need to find that link - that the state would revisit the matter if trump is convicted in the federal case regarding his involvement in the January 6th riots.

In the meantime, Maine's Secretary of State held her own hearing on the matter and determined trump violated the 14th Amendment, so she IS removing his name from the ballot. This will clearly go to the courts as well.

Just a reminder kids that this isn't about the voters' choice, this is about the rules etched into the Constitution itself.

Insurrections Have Consequences. Colorado Can Block trump From the 2024 Ballot

This is breaking news:

 

BREAKING NEW: WE WON! The Colorado Supreme Court just ruled Donald Trump is disqualified from the ballot and from holding office under the 14th Amendment!

Much more coming soon.

— Citizens for Ethics (@CREWcrew) December 19, 2023

Let me find a more detailed news report. Ah here, NPR has it... no wait it's the Colorado regional version of NPR, Bente Birkeland reporting in:

In a landmark decision, the Colorado Supreme Court has ruled that former president Donald Trump is disqualified from appearing on the state’s primary ballot next year.

The Justices’ 4-3 ruling concludes that Trump engaged in an insurrection with his words and actions around the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol and therefore cannot hold the nation’s highest office again. 

“We are also cognizant that we travel in uncharted territory,” wrote Colorado’s Supreme Court in its unsigned 213-page decision.

This is the first time a state’s high court has concluded the 14th Amendment’s Civil War-era Disqualification Clause applies to both the office of the presidency and the actions of the former president. Supreme Courts in Minnesota and Michigan dismissed similar complaints.

“We do not reach these conclusions lightly,” wrote the Justices. “We are mindful of the magnitude and weight of the questions now before us. We are likewise mindful of our solemn duty to apply the law, without fear or favor, and without being swayed by public reaction to the decisions that the law mandates we reach...”

The ruling overturns the finding of a district court judge that the Disqualification Clause does not cover the office of the presidency. It also reaffirms that, under Colorado law, the court has jurisdiction to bar disqualified candidates from the Republican Party’s primary ballot. They also concluded that the judicial branch is empowered to apply the clause...

Earlier this year - as the January 6th rioters found themselves charged and convicted for their role in disrupting Congress' duty to confirm the 2020 Electoral votes - there were calls from various Constitutional legal experts that trump - now facing his own federal charges for his role in that insurrection - could and should be blocked from having his name on the primary (and general) election ballot. As I quoted experts like J. Michael Luttig and Laurence H. Tribe earlier:

Having thought long and deeply about the text, history, and purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment’s disqualification clause for much of our professional careers, both of us concluded some years ago that, in fact, a conviction would be beside the point. The disqualification clause operates independently of any such criminal proceedings and, indeed, also independently of impeachment proceedings and of congressional legislation. The clause was designed to operate directly and immediately upon those who betray their oaths to the Constitution, whether by taking up arms to overturn our government or by waging war on our government by attempting to overturn a presidential election through a bloodless coup.

The former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, and the resulting attack on the U.S. Capitol, place him squarely within the ambit of the disqualification clause, and he is therefore ineligible to serve as president ever again. The most pressing constitutional question facing our country at this moment, then, is whether we will abide by this clear command of the Fourteenth Amendment’s disqualification clause...

What happened in the Colorado matter was that the lower court judge ruled that trump did engage in an act of insurrection, but failed to accept that the Amendment's definition of "officer" did not apply to Presidents. The state's Supreme Court overruled that view, determining trump was an officer under the Constitution and thus can be barred. 

Either way, the courts are finding that trump's behavior that January 6th - and the months leading up to it - fit the definition of insurrection. This is something every state dealing with these filings - I need to find out how many more states have ballot challenges - because if enough of them do block trump from even the GOP primaries, we're talking massive chaos in the 2024 election cycle.

Consider the situation if trump's name stays on in various Red states, but those tend to be the smaller states with fewer primary delegates at play. Considering the nature of the courts in Texas and Florida I doubt they will kick trump off the ballots, but big states like California, Illinois, and New York could. We could be talking about a delegate split between trump and whomever is left standing next year - it's looking like Nikki Haley, with half everybody else dropped out save for Christie, Ramsaway, and DeSantis (although he's so doomed he might not even stay in before New Hampshire) - to where neither have enough to outright win the first ballot. Chaos would be an understatement.

Consider also the wrath trump and his handlers will invoke if he's officially blocked off enough primary ballots to doom his re-election efforts to avoid criminal trials starting next year. The MAGA crowd are already primed for violence. If trump is convinced he can't regain the safety of high office through election, don't be surprised if he tries to avoid his legal woes by inciting secession or getting his congressional allies to stage some coup (even more than the failing impeachment scheme they're trying to inflict on Biden).

These are unprecedented days. All of it due to a rabid Far Right voting base that chose a crooked con artist to lead them, while the rest of the nation tries to get the legal system to establish some form of sanity and accountability to the Constitution our elected officials and officers of the law are sworn to uphold.

Hold onto your hats. The crazy train is speeding up as we head into 2024.