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Merrick Garland's Justice Department

Let's get back to normalcy. Does normalcy fit into your schedule?
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Merrick Garland's Justice Department

#251

Post by Ben-Prime »

It's lawyers all the way down.
But the sunshine aye shall light the sky,
As round and round we run;
And the truth shall ever come uppermost,
And justice shall be done.

- Charles Mackay, "Eternal Justice"
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#252

Post by neonzx »

But isn't there an old saying that goes somewhat -- a lawyer who self represents has a fool for a client..
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Merrick Garland's Justice Department

#253

Post by MN-Skeptic »

pipistrelle wrote: Sat Dec 03, 2022 8:53 am It amuses me that lawyers have lawyers have lawyers have lawyers ∞ in Trumpystan.
There are hats out there now embroidered with MAGA - Make Attorneys Get Attorneys.
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Merrick Garland's Justice Department

#254

Post by pipistrelle »

neonzx wrote: Sat Dec 03, 2022 10:27 am But isn't there an old saying that goes somewhat -- a lawyer who self represents has a fool for a client..
But of course, but when your lawyer needs a lawyer needs a lawyer...yeah.
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#255

Post by Tiredretiredlawyer »

MN-Skeptic wrote: Sat Dec 03, 2022 10:28 am
pipistrelle wrote: Sat Dec 03, 2022 8:53 am It amuses me that lawyers have lawyers have lawyers have lawyers ∞ in Trumpystan.
There are hats out there now embroidered with MAGA - Make Attorneys Get Attorneys.
:rotflmao:
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Merrick Garland's Justice Department

#256

Post by RTH10260 »

MN-Skeptic wrote: Sat Dec 03, 2022 10:28 am
pipistrelle wrote: Sat Dec 03, 2022 8:53 am It amuses me that lawyers have lawyers have lawyers have lawyers ∞ in Trumpystan.
There are hats out there now embroidered with MAGA - Make Attorneys Get Attorneys. :point:
:rimshot:
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#257

Post by noblepa »

Duty To Warn 🔉 @duty2warn wrote: Jen Psaki on MSNBC: "I was speaking to a DOJ official recently who described Merrick Garland as a 'quiet storm' that builds. He went on to say that this is exactly what he is doing, that there ARE more seditionists, and that Jack Smith, who prosecutes war criminals, IS badass."

I love Jen Psaki. I still think that she is channelling C. J. Craig, one of my favorite characters on The West Wing.

Or maybe Aaron Sorking had a premonition when he was creating the show, and C. J. Craig is really patterned after Ms. Psaki.
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Merrick Garland's Justice Department

#258

Post by Kendra »


New today: Trump White House adviser STEPHEN MILLER spotted at the federal courthouse where multiple grand juries investigating the former president are operating.

Miller was inside for a little over 3 hours - per
@JohnWoolley00
.
Edit: to add:
Last Tuesday, CNN's
@kpolantz
and
@HBRabinowitz
reported Miller was in the DC federal court last Tuesday for grand jury testimony.

Today's appearance marks the second time in a week.
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Merrick Garland's Justice Department

#259

Post by much ado »

neonzx wrote: Sat Dec 03, 2022 10:27 am But isn't there an old saying that goes somewhat -- a lawyer who self represents has a fool for a client..
There's also a newer saying: "Any attorney who represents Donald J. Trump has a fool for a client."
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#260

Post by Reality Check »

much ado wrote: Tue Dec 06, 2022 1:21 pm
neonzx wrote: Sat Dec 03, 2022 10:27 am But isn't there an old saying that goes somewhat -- a lawyer who self represents has a fool for a client..
There's also a newer saying: "Any attorney who represents Donald J. Trump has a [non-paying] fool for a client."
FIFY
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#261

Post by RTH10260 »

I don't think the T brand name carries much weight for promotional purposes after having worked pro bono. :roll:


... or like Greggs hounds may prefer "pro bone" ;)
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#262

Post by noblepa »

much ado wrote: Tue Dec 06, 2022 1:21 pm
neonzx wrote: Sat Dec 03, 2022 10:27 am But isn't there an old saying that goes somewhat -- a lawyer who self represents has a fool for a client..
There's also a newer saying: "Any attorney who represents Donald J. Trump has a fool for a client."
Any attorney who represents Donald J. Trump **IS** a fool. He probably won't get paid (unless he gets a $3M advance, like Kise did) and it may destroy his/her career. Just ask Rudy and Sydney.
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Merrick Garland's Justice Department

#263

Post by Ben-Prime »

Off Topic
This is primarily because a lawyer for Trump isn't just chasing ambulances, they're basically chasing the arsonist to sue his victims.
But the sunshine aye shall light the sky,
As round and round we run;
And the truth shall ever come uppermost,
And justice shall be done.

- Charles Mackay, "Eternal Justice"
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Merrick Garland's Justice Department

#264

Post by Kendra »

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/12/1 ... y-00074379
Judge unseals new details of contacts among Rep. Perry, Trump-connected attorneys
The document addressed communications among the Pennsylvania Republican, former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, his aide Ken Klukowski and conservative lawyer John Eastman.
:snippity:
Howell also unsealed a second opinion, issued in September, in which she determined that 331 documents from Clark — whom Trump nearly installed as acting attorney general as part of his bid to seize a second term — were similarly not protected by attorney-client privilege.

The documents were largely versions of a potential autobiography Clark had outlined in mid-October 2021, writing that recounted a bizarre effort to have Trump install him as acting attorney general in order to get more traction to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 victory. The outline included a description of a pivotal Jan. 3, 2021, meeting between Trump and senior DOJ officials where almost the entire top echelon of the department threatened to resign if the then-president put Clark in charge.

Clark’s legal team waded into the fight over the apparent book outline. But Howell seemed to disapprove of aspects of the approach Clark’s lawyers took to the document dispute, describing their strategy at one point as “throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks.”
:snippity:
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#265

Post by Kendra »

Moar:

Kyle Cheney is tweeting about this, his feed: https://twitter.com/kyledcheney

Unsealed opinions:

https://www.dcd.uscourts.gov/sites/dcd/ ... 22gj28.pdf
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Merrick Garland's Justice Department

#266

Post by Kendra »


You know what’s weird about the 1/6-related opinions Chief Judge Howell released today? There were 4 email accounts searched—but the names of only *3* account holders (Klukowski, Clark, Eastman) are revealed. The other one remains redacted. 1/
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#267

Post by Foggy »

:confuzzled: What does this mean?
Out from under. :thumbsup:
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Merrick Garland's Justice Department

#268

Post by Kendra »

Lord knows, I'm too slow :oldlady: :batting:

I did see some chatter glancing through the comments at that tweet that the blacked out name might be a cooperator.
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#269

Post by Foggy »

Oh, this guy.

.
bill_the_cat.jpg
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#270

Post by Tiredretiredlawyer »

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/ ... nistration
Criminal Justice Reform Halfway Through the Biden Administration
Despite some progress in 2022, both the president and Congress must keep working to improve the criminal justice system.

Updates to DOJ Charging Policy
Federal prosecutors enjoy broad discretion over what charges to file in a criminal case, a decision that dictates everything from a defendant’s likely sentencing exposure to the course of plea negotiations. Previous attorneys general have used that discretion to shape sentencing policy. In 2013, then-Attorney General Eric Holder directed prosecutors to avoid triggering mandatory minimums in some lower-level drug cases. Four years later, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions reversed him.

In December 2022, Attorney General Merrick Garland issued his own directives, limiting the application of mandatory minimum penalties, especially in drug cases — a welcome step toward reducing excessive sentences in the federal system. Garland’s memorandums stated that in all cases, mandatory minimums should generally be reserved for occasions where conviction on other charges would not, among other factors, “sufficiently reflect the seriousness of the defendant’s criminal conduct.”

Further, in drug cases potentially implicating quantity-based mandatory minimums — for example, the five-year mandatory minimum for trafficking more than 28 grams or more of crack cocaine — prosecutors should avoid “triggering” those penalties if the defendant’s conduct did not involve violence or any of a list of other aggravating factors.

Finally, Garland wrote that prosecutors should use their discretion to “promote the equivalent treatment of crack and powder cocaine offenses,” short-circuiting a statutory system that has for years subjected people convicted of crack cocaine offenses to much harsher penalties. This policy, Garland explained, reflects the Justice Department’s commitment to eliminating the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine. Legislation to end that disparity, the EQUAL Act, stalled in the Senate after passing the House 361–66.

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#271

Post by Kendra »

https://www.businessinsider.com/fbi-cha ... ero-2023-2
Allison Guerriero still remembers the day her ex-boyfriend, Charlie McGonigal, bought a second phone.

The FBI had just ordered its staff to delete WhatsApp from their bureau-issued phones, and McGonigal was panicking. No longer could he, one of the FBI's top New York dons, send encrypted messages to whomever he was texting with. That was a problem. Guerriero didn't know exactly what McGonigal was using WhatsApp for — he never used it to communicate with her — but he was on there a lot.

So McGonigal went out and bought a second iPhone to use on the side. He used it almost exclusively for WhatsApp. He took the two phones with him everywhere.
Lots more at the link.
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#272

Post by RTH10260 »

Exclusive: British intel caught FBI spy chief secretly meeting a Russian in London

Mattathias Schwartz
Thu, February 16, 2023 at 11:00 AM GMT+1
  • An FBI spy chief's secret meeting with a Russian contact was detected by UK officials.
    Charles McGonigal, the ex-FBI official, is charged with taking money from Russian tycoon Oleg Deripaska.
    McGonigal should have realized that the London meeting would be noticed, one source said.
In 2018, Charles McGonigal, the FBI's former New York spy chief, traveled to London where he met with a Russian contact who was under surveillance by British authorities, two US intelligence sources told Insider.

The British were alarmed enough by the meeting to alert the FBI's legal attaché, who was stationed at the US Embassy. The FBI then used the surreptitious meeting as part of their basis to open an investigation into McGonigal, one of the two sources said.

The two sources, both former officials in the US intelligence community, did not specify the identity of the Russian who McGonigal met with.

McGonigal, the former head of the FBI's counterintelligence division in New York, stands accused of taking money from Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch, in violation of US sanctions, in exchange for investigating one of Deripaska's Russian rivals. McGonigal "traveled to meet Deripaska and others at Deripaska's residence in London, and in Vienna," according to one of the federal indictments lodged last month. The indictments do not say precisely when those alleged meetings took place, or how prosecutors came to believe they occurred.

"Your sources sound well-informed," said a third source, who worked for the US intelligence community in 2018 and was aware of communications between British intelligence officials and the US Embassy in London. They declined to confirm or deny that the meeting occurred.




https://www.yahoo.com/news/exclusive-br ... 00177.html
(original: INSIDER)
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#273

Post by Kriselda Gray »

This is one of those stories where I almost can't wait for the book. I love books about true espionage cases, and I expect this one will be just as interesting as the ones I've read on Robert Hanssen and Aldrich Ames.
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#274

Post by Lani »

Oleg Deripaska was very involved in the 2016 election... for Trump. of course.
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Merrick Garland's Justice Department

#275

Post by Dr. Ken »

ImageImagePhilly Boondoggle
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