US v. Trump - Espionage Act - (9:23-cr-80101) District Court, S.D. Florida

[Frater I*I]

May be a bit of a stretch, but re Section 3 of the 14th Amendment:

Next to the VP, all other potential successors to the US presidency are members of Congress. These persons are required to be pure of legal evil as per section 3. One could argue that POTUS and VP ought to follow the same standards.

Only the Speaker of the House and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate, after them it's Cabinet members...

[Ben-Prime]

And any federal conviction would be subject to the pardon power whenever there's a Republican in office.

Accepting your caveat that this is not a useful discussion … but also not creating about utility:

A pardon does not remove the fact of the earlier conviction, it might reset the record for many purposes as if the conviction had not occurred … but it did.

So the argument about the power of the pardon could be amusing

But that would be many links down a long chain of impossibilities, improbabilities and implausibilities.

Indeed, one might argue that 14A only requires in its verbiage that the barred person have engaged in the proscribed conduct; it does not absolutely require that legal guilt be established and maintained. But I'll leave that to the lawyers.

[RTH10260]

May be a bit of a stretch, but re Section 3 of the 14th Amendment:

Next to the VP, all other potential successors to the US presidency are members of Congress. These persons are required to be pure of legal evil as per section 3. One could argue that POTUS and VP ought to follow the same standards.

Only the Speaker of the House and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate, after them it's Cabinet members...

I will try and go down a rabbit hole. Cabinet members require the approval of the Senate. They technically could hold the cabinet members to the same qualifications they are required to have.

[keith]

May be a bit of a stretch, but re Section 3 of the 14th Amendment:

Next to the VP, all other potential successors to the US presidency are members of Congress. These persons are required to be pure of legal evil as per section 3. One could argue that POTUS and VP ought to follow the same standards.

Only the Speaker of the House and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate, after them it's Cabinet members...

I will try and go down a rabbit hole. Cabinet members require the approval of the Senate. They technically could hold the cabinet members to the same qualifications they are required to have.

Are not Cabinet members 'Officers of the United States'?

[RTH10260]

Only the Speaker of the House and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate, after them it's Cabinet members...

I will try and go down a rabbit hole. Cabinet members require the approval of the Senate. They technically could hold the cabinet members to the same qualifications they are required to have.

Are not Cabinet members 'Officers of the United States'?

I understand that they are appointees by POTUS, not hired by the government, therefor not 'officers'.

Scary thing from the discussion in the Wikipedia link below: it seems that a cabinet member not (yet) confirmed by the Senate, therefore still in Acting capacity, still is part of the presidential succession line and could become POTUS in an extreme emergency situation. (The Presidential Succession Act may have been changed since that discussion). Also too, think of the 'Sole Survivor' rule where a candidate for succession is sent out of Washington D.C. to take over ought the rest be anihilated while attending official duties at D.C.. Who does the POTUS delegate, the most unliked, the most inexpierenced, the most unqualified to take over the nation?

ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_St ... succession

[Kendra]

Judge's order: "Discovery materials, along with any information
derived therefrom, shall not be disclosed to the public or the news media, or disseminated on any
news or social media platform, without prior notice to and consent of the United States or approval
of the Court"

[Dave from down under]

As if that will stop Donnie

[tek]

ITS ABOUT ME, I HAVE EVERY RIGHT TO IT!!1!

[RTH10260]

As if that will stop Donnie

After the first 90 days in jail for contempt of court

[Luke]

Cross posting:

Meanwhile... Rolling Stone:

Trump All But Confesses to Mishandling Classified Docs on Fox News
Story by Miles Klee • 3h ago

A week after his second post-presidential arrest, this one for his alleged mishandling of classified documents after leaving the White House, Donald Trump turned to Fox News host Bret Baier on Monday to make the case for why he should lead the country again. But he ended up essentially confessing to the crime of which he’s accused: stealing and sharing top-secret government information. Before that, however, Baier pressed Trump to explain why he kept the boxes of classified materials at Mar-a-Lago and refused to comply with government requests to return them, as described in his new felony indictment. In between dismissing the case as “the document hoax” or accusing other presidents of illegally hoarding their own sensitive documents, Trump offered the bizarre explanation that he couldn’t give up the boxes to authorities because they also contained… his clothes.

“Like every other president I take things out,” Trump said. “In my case, I took it out pretty much in a hurry. People packed it up and left. I had clothing in there, I had all sorts of personal items in there. Much, much stuff.” After a brief digression to call his former attorney general Bill Barr a “coward,” Trump reiterated, “I have got a lot of things in there. I will go through those boxes. I have to go through those boxes. I take out personal things.” Finally, he clarified what those items were: “These boxes were interspersed with all sorts of things: golf shirts, clothing, pants, shoes, there were many things,” he said.

While not wanting Dark Brandon to seize your golf shirts may prove a compelling argument in court, another of Trump’s evasions seems less likely to hold water. Baier also brought up one of the most damning parts of the federal indictment, a recording from July 2021 in which Trump is heard showing off a document detailing an attack plan against Iran, revealing that it’s still officially secret and he no longer has the power to declassify it. Trump blustered for a moment about what he actually said, then pivoted to the claim that he wasn’t even holding a particular document — despite corroborating testimony from others in the room when it happened. No wonder this guy’s lawyers keep quitting on him.

“Bret, there was no document,” Trump insisted. “That was a massive amount of papers and everything else, talking about Iran and other things. And it may have been held up or may not. That was not a document. I didn’t have any document per se. There was nothing to declassify, these were newspaper stories, magazine stories, and articles.” When Baier referred again to the facts of the recording laid out in the indictment, Trump said, presumably of the prosecutors: “These people are very dishonest people, they are thugs.” He also suggested they could be “stuffing” the boxes with incriminating material.

Trump’s answer immediately made waves, with even some of his frequent defenders suggesting the former president may have just undermined himself. On Twitter, Pro-Trump legal scholar Jonathan Turley praised Baier’s interview — and included an ominous warning for Trump: “Bret Baier conducted an extraordinary interview with Donald Trump who discussed the criminal allegations in detail. Statements of this kind are generally admissible at trial…” Later on in the interview, Trump and Baier got into a debate on the results of the 2020 election, with the Fox anchor trying in vain to remind the former president that he lost while Trump rambled on about fake ballots. The rest of the conversation involved Trump bashing Biden’s international diplomacy, from Ukraine to the Middle East to China, and musing about how much better things were with him in office.

Afterward, Fox News chief political analyst Brit Hume said that Trump’s answers regarding matters of the law were “on the verge on incoherent,” and specifically mentioned the bizarre detail of not returning the boxes of classified documents because they hadn’t been “separated from his golf shirts or whatever he was saying.” Overall, Hume said, it sounded as if Trump was making the argument that the papers were his to do with as he liked, “which I don’t think is going to hold up in court.” Special Report with Bret Baier will air the second half of this interview on Tuesday evening. Will we learn more about the precious polos that Trump was shielding from government overreach? One can only hope.

Et tu, Turley??

Hope he reads this. "A week after his second post-presidential arrest" made me LOL.

We are going to need to double our efforts to keep MAGA in lockstep with T****. I tweet approval as often as I can when they say, "He just gets stronger with every Indictment".

[Chilidog]

Let's not forget that most of those clothes were gifts to him as president and not his to begin with.

[Ben-Prime]

Let's not forget that most of those clothes were gifts to him as president and not his to begin with.

I always wondered if there was an undergarments exception to that.

[Slim Cognito]

Wait! WTF would trump have classified documents in close proximity to his golf clothes that would cause staffers to easily dump them in boxes together?

Are his remaining lawyers having a come to Jesus moment yet? "Oh, THAT'S why the others quit."

[Greatgrey]

We have a trial date!

[Foggy]

Pedal to the metal, babydoll.

[Suranis]

No Golf tournaments on that date, so He wont be "Campaigning."

https://www.bbc.com/sport/golf/calendar/2023-08

[Ben-Prime]

Any obvious agenda or is this all boilerplate?

[Dave from down under]

Any obvious agenda or is this all boilerplate?

Cannon is probably hoping to have it done and mostly forgotten by 2024 serious campaigning.

[Foggy]

Any obvious agenda or is this all boilerplate?

I'ma let the lawyers answer that, so I haven't even read every word of it.

But my general feeling is, the more complex the rules, the more it favors the gubbermint, because they have a lot of lawyers who are just gonna be working on compliance with the orders, and they won't mess up. Whereas, Trump will try to sabotage his own lawyers at every turn.

So, umm ... yeah. It's not the date of a golf tournament, but Trump gives the other side a handicap anyway.

[Foggy]

Local Rule 7.1(a)(2) requires that certain motions be accompanied by proposed orders; such proposed orders must be filed as attachments to the motions. Furthermore, pursuant to the CM/ECF Administrative Procedures, proposed orders shall be submitted to the Court by e-mail in Word format at cannon@flsd.uscourts.gov.

Oh man, thanks for that, yer honor. I have a few proposed orders I think you're gonna love, babydoll. I would have spent some wasted time, looking up your email address.

Like, you'll have a better chance of getting Trump hisself to participate if you get him a special gold chair to sit in.

Just you wait and see!

[Chilidog]

Let's not forget that most of those clothes were gifts to him as president and not his to begin with.

I always wondered if there was an undergarments exception to that.

Only if Mitt Romney got elected.

[Slim Cognito]

Sooooooo.... she's not recusing?

[Foggy]

Nope.

"So you think I don't have trial experience? I'ma gonna get some trial experience now!"

[Maybenaut]

Any obvious agenda or is this all boilerplate?

Boilerplate. The only thing slightly surprising to me is the requirement that 404(b) evidence (other crimes, wrongs, or acts) be presented as a motion and not merely as notice.

Ordinarily, the government has to provide notice to the defense that it intends to offer 404(b) evidence to show absence of mistake, knowledge, intent, or whatever. An example for this trial would be evidence that Trump had other classified documents that are not on included in the indictment.

Then, ordinarily, if the defense wanted to keep that stuff out they’d file a motion in limine. If they failed to file the motion, it comes in so long as it’s relevant.

What the judge appears to have done here is to say we’re going to streamline the process, the government*** files the 404(b) evidence as a motion, to which Trump and Nauta have 7 days to respond. It avoids the whole question of adequacy of the notice, and speeds things up a little bit by reducing the potential for protracted or mid-trial litigation of 404(b) issues.

This might be a regular thing in federal court, but I’ve never seen it at a court-martial and our rules are nearly identical.

*** Both sides can offer evidence under 404(b), but it’s almost always the government.

[Foggy]

Thanks, Maybenaut, that's great information.

I posit (oh, man, look out when Foggy posits stuff), I say, I posit that in their extensive and intense conversations about the case, the judge and the defendant may have agreed to try to finish the trial and move on, before the primary season has begun.

'Course, this being Fogbow, it would be irresponsible not to speculate.

And there may even be a secret agreement that the case will be dismissed upon completion of the prosecution's case, on a motion that will be granted. And therefore, no cameras in the courtroom, and no audio recording for the public. The AUSAs put on their case; the judge dismisses the charges; and everybody goes home happy except for the sane people of the United States of America.

Oh man, I better get started writing proposed orders for the judge. I only have today and mañana!