Trump's Classified Docs Theft: Mar-A-Lago, FBI Subpoenas, Searches & Seizures - DOJ, Garland, GOP Madness - Spy Hard

[much ado]

Yeah, except he's not going to win the election.

So sad!

[RVInit]

She's up to her games again

[raison de arizona]

JUST IN: Cannon has *denied* Trump's effort to dismiss many counts against him based on purported deficiencies.

But she did agree to strike this paragraph from the indictment as "prejudicial" bc it's not linked to a specific charge. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap ... .608.0.pdf

[RTH10260]

Trump will not be charged for waving around classified papers, judge says
Aileen Cannon ruled ex-president would not be charged for waving classified papers as that conduct was not on trial

Hugo Lowell in Washington
Tue 11 Jun 2024 02.46 CEST

The federal judge overseeing Donald Trump’s prosecution on charges of retaining classified documents agreed on Monday to expunge from the indictment a paragraph about an episode where the former president waved around a classified document at his Bedminster club in New Jersey.

The US district judge Aileen Cannon ruled she would strike the paragraph because Trump was not charged with a crime for the conduct it described and would be unfairly prejudicial if a jury later saw it at trial.

Cannon’s ruling is notable because it could indicate how she will rule on future motions by Trump to suppress evidence as he attempts to limit the scope of the evidence prosecutors can introduce against him – and thereby dramatically undercut the case.

The move to strike the paragraph was unusual, legal experts said.

Cannon ruled that the passage should be expunged relying in part on a federal rule that says evidence of “other crimes” cannot be used against a defendant to suggest bad character, without addressing the second part of that rule that allows it in the case that it shows proof of motive.

The prosecutors in the office of the special counsel, Jack Smith, had argued that they included the passage precisely because it was allowed under the second part of the rule but Cannon took issue with the fact that Trump had not been charged for the conduct it described.

The passage in question – paragraph 36 – uses vague terms but describes Trump in 2021 waving around a classified map of Afghanistan while criticizing the US withdrawal to his now 2024 presidential campaign chief Susie Wiles, according to sources familiar with the matter.



https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/art ... nt-expunge

[raison de arizona]

PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP’S MOTION TO DISMISS BASED ON
SPOLIATION OF EVIDENCE IN VIOLATION OF DUE PROCESS

[RVInit]

Senior judges apparently asked Cannon to recuse herself from the Trump case. The first few minutes say it all.

[chancery]

In case you want to go to the source:

Judge in Trump Documents Case Rejected Suggestions to Step Aside
Two federal judges in South Florida privately urged Aileen M. Cannon to decline the case when it was assigned to her last year, according to two people briefed on the matter. She chose to keep it.

By Charlie Savage and Alan Feuer
The New York Times June 20, 2024

Gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/20/us/p ... =url-share

Heading out, haven't read the article yet.

[RTH10260]

Trump’s classified documents case just cleared a major hurdle moving it closer to trial
Trump’s classified documents case just cleared a major hurdle moving it closer to trial

Carl Gibson
June 18, 2024

Lawyers representing former President Donald Trump in his classified documents trial just met a key deadline imposed by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon.

On Tuesday, legal news website Law & Crime reported that attorneys Todd Blanche, Emil Bove and Christopher Kise filed a notice that they planned to use classified documents as part of their defense strategy. The filing is in response to a June 14 order by Judge Cannon to comply with § 5(a) of the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA). That particular section of the law governs how classified information is to be used in criminal court proceedings.

"The linchpin of CIPA is section 5(a), which requires a defendant who reasonably intends to disclose (or cause the disclosure of) classified information to provide timely pretrial written notice of his intention to the Court and the Government,” the Department of Justice says. “Section 5(a) expressly requires that such notice include a brief description of the classified information,’ and the leading case under section 5(a) holds that such notice must be particularized, setting forth specifically the classified information which the defendant reasonably believes to be necessary to his defense."

Because the information itself is still classified, public-facing documents don't detail exactly what documents Trump plans to use in his own defense. However, the filing marks significant progress in the Mar-a-Lago case, as the CIPA § 5(a) deadline was one of the key pre-trial hurdles to be cleared before the scheduling of a trial date.



https://www.alternet.org/trump-docs/

[Slim Cognito]

Soooooo, possibly sometime in the next millennium?

[RTH10260]

Soooooo, possibly sometime in the next millennium?

Not unlikely The T team ought to have submitted a certain long overdue list on Monday, but rather asked for a further continuance, cause "the dog munched our homework "

no link, cause i gleaned it in passing from some MTN content.

[chancery]

Judge in Trump Documents Case Rejected Suggestions to Step Aside
Two federal judges in South Florida privately urged Aileen M. Cannon to decline the case when it was assigned to her last year, according to two people briefed on the matter. She chose to keep it.

From the article:

The chief judge — an appointee of former President George W. Bush — is said to have made a more pointed argument: It would be bad optics for Judge Cannon to oversee the trial because of what had happened during the criminal investigation that led to Mr. Trump’s indictment on charges of illegally retaining national security documents after leaving office and obstructing government efforts to retrieve them.

Shocking legal experts across ideological lines, she barred investigators from gaining access to the evidence and appointed a special master, although she said that person would only make recommendations to her and she would make the final decisions.

Prosecutors appealed to the Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta. In a repudiation, a three-judge panel that included two Trump appointees reversed her order and ruled that she never had legal authority to intervene in the first place.

Limits on when courts can interfere with a criminal investigation “apply no matter who the government is investigating,” it added. “To create a special exception here would defy our nation’s foundational principle that our law applies ‘to all, without regard to numbers, wealth or rank.’”

Earlier in the article the reporters had written:

As Judge Cannon’s handling of the case has come under intensifying scrutiny, her critics have suggested that she could be in over her head, in the tank for Mr. Trump — or both.

This is notable for two reasons. First, I don't recall a MSM article so bluntly acknowledging the possibility that Judge Cannon is corrupt.

Second, it suggests that the chief judge was concerned about more than "bad optics." Putting the dots together, it seems that the chief judge's concern could have been based on both "over her head" and "in the tank."

[RTH10260]

Trump to ask judge to toss out lawyer notes in Mar-a-Lago documents case
Exclusive: if ex-president succeeds, prosecutors could be left with only a sliver of evidence for obstruction charge

Hugo Lowell in Fort Pierce, Florida
Fri 21 Jun 2024 11.00 CEST

Donald Trump is expected next week to ask the federal judge presiding in the criminal case over his retention of classified documents to revoke prosecutors’ access to memos made by his ex-lawyer that became key evidence of his efforts to obstruct the investigation, according to sources familiar with the plans.

The request will be made before US district judge Aileen Cannon at a sealed hearing Tuesday. The former president last month challenged prosecutors’ access to transcripts of voice memos made by ex-lawyer Evan Corcoran, but what Trump will seek behind closed doors has not been reported.

Trump’s lawyers are expected to argue that none of the memos should have been given to prosecutors on the crime-fraud exception, which allows prosecutors to see privileged communications between a defendant and a lawyer, if their legal advice was used in furtherance of a crime.

The sweeping request could have far-reaching consequences since the memos – with, for example, Trump asking whether they could ignore the subpoena, or a later suggestion to “pluck” out some classified documents instead of returning them to the FBI – are the strongest evidence of Trump’s obstructive intent.

Even if the judge excludes only some of the passages, it could dramatically undercut the strength of the obstruction case.

In the worst case for prosecutors, their evidence of Trump’s obstructive intent could be reduced to CCTV footage of boxes being moved at Mar-a-Lago by his co-defendants Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, logs of Trump’s calls with Nauta, and testimony about Nauta’s movements.

Trump faces a struggle to get Cannon to overturn the initial ruling by the then chief US district judge Beryl Howell in Washington DC. But Cannon has previously ruled for Trump on evidentiary disputes, most recently removing a paragraph in the indictment about Trump waving around a classified map.



https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/art ... ments-case

[raison de arizona]

https://x.com/tribelaw/status/1804185266854432919

One terrible possibility is that, while Judge Cannon is hearing arguments today that the whole system of Special Counsels (like Smith for J6 and Weiss for Hunter Biden) is illegal, so SCOTUS is putting the finishing touches on a decision ripping up Smith’s entire mandate (and possibly undermining all the indictments he has obtained against Trump) while it considers ending the so-called Chevron doctrine making the administrative state possible.

That would make the Federalist Society’s “unitary executive” theory a Bannon-like wrecking ball of gigantic proportions that would explain but not justify the delay in handing down these rulings.

[raison de arizona]

NEW: Just as I had suspected, Jack Smith has added the June 11 threat against an FBI agent by a trump supporter to his motion to modify trump’s bail conditions in the Mar a Lago case. This is in response to Trump asserting falsely that Biden and the FBI were trying to assassinate him during the search of Mar a Lago. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap ... 38.0_4.pdf

[p0rtia]

Scrivener.jpg (45.3 KiB) Viewed 1340 times

[RTH10260]

Judge Aileen Cannon pushes Trump’s lawyer to defend claim that special counsel is part of a ‘shadow government’

By Holmes Lybrand and Evan Perez, CNN
Updated 4:48 PM EDT, Fri June 21, 2024

Cannon, prepared with question after question for both the defense attorney and prosecutors, on Friday pushed Trump’s lawyer to defend his claim that Smith’s position amounted to a “shadow government.”

“That sounds very ominous,” Cannon said to Trump attorney Emil Bove. “But what do you really mean?”

Bove did not directly answer the question, but he repeated the argument that Smith was inappropriately appointed. He also said that there should be an additional hearing over the issue, which could include testimony about the relationship between Garland and Smith, arguing that the two have said Smith is acting independently and not under the direction of Garland.

Cannon noted there is a regulatory system that Smith must still adhere to – to which Bove retorted that Smith still wasn’t reporting to anyone.



https://edition.cnn.com/2024/06/21/poli ... index.html

[RTH10260]

Isn't it a bit late in the proceedings to suddenly claim that Jack Smith was appointed without proper legal backing? Why not have that argument in one of the first hearings. How about special prosecutors during the reign of #45?

[RTH10260]

Note: Cannon invited amici submitters to participate in this hearing.,I understand that this is

Trump SHOCKED by OUTCOME of Judge Cannon HEARING

MeidasTouch
22 Jun 2024

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas and Talking Feds host Harry Litman discuss the hearing today before Judge Aileen Cannon in the Mar-A-Lago document criminal case.

► Show Spoiler

[bob]

Isn't it a bit late in the proceedings to suddenly claim that Jack Smith was appointed without proper legal backing? Why not have that argument in one of the first hearings.

If this was a regular case, the defendant would have an incentive to raise this earlier. But the goal here is just serial litigation, for delay's sake.

How about special prosecutors during the reign of #45?

"THaT wAS dIFfeReNT!!1", as some split hair is offered up.

[RTH10260]

This coming week will be a hearing on a motion to suppress evidence, eg Cochrans lawyer notes given to Jack Smith.

Michael Popok comments

[chancery]

From what I've heard, Trump's lawyers are going to file their motion to strike papers next week, which means that the hearing will take place weeks (or months) in the future.

There's an ambiguity about the verb "to move" in court procedure. Historically motions were made and immediately heard in open court. Later the practice arose of submitting supporting papers, sometimes voluminous, in advance of a motion. As a result, "to move" sometimes refers to the submission of papers, and sometimes refers to the hearing at which the motion is argued.

Some courts preserve the flavor of the older practice. In the Southern District of New York, you don't file a paper captioned "motion." Instead, you file a "notice of motion," which states that on such and such a date you will move the court for an order affording some kind of relief, and that you will rely on the accompanying papers.

In other courts you do file a document captioned "motion" when you file your supporting papers. And of course there are types of motions which are decided without a hearing, and even in SDNY you file them captioned "motion."

Also, too, even in SDNY, people will say "we have moved" or "we filed a motion," although in some technical sense the motion won't occur until the hearing date.

[Dr. Ken]

Isn't it a bit late in the proceedings to suddenly claim that Jack Smith was appointed without proper legal backing? Why not have that argument in one of the first hearings.

If this was a regular case, the defendant would have an incentive to raise this earlier. But the goal here is just serial litigation, for delay's sake.

How about special prosecutors during the reign of #45?

"THaT wAS dIFfeReNT!!1", as some split hair is offered up.

I nailed a Trumper to the wall on this last night when they had no idea what they were talking about. I'm like most of the special counsels over the last few decades have been appointed by the AG or acting ag independent of congress. For instance: Durham all 3 times he was appointed.. Janet reno appointment on whitey bulger. Mukasey appointment on the torture tapes and barr appointment on the russia thing. Also fiskes appointment by Janet reno as well as Danforth's appointment by reno. Then there's the Fitzgerald appointment and Mueller

[MN-Skeptic]

Four tweet thread -

Adam Klasfeld
@KlasfeldReports

Just in

On Friday, Trump's lawyer argued that ex-AG Bill Barr only appointed Senate-confirmed US Attorneys as special counsel.

Jack Smith just contradicted that in a supplemental briefing showing three of Barr's special counsel picks from 1991 and 1992.

In the same briefing, Smith provided a list of statutes that appear to use "officials" to include inferior officers who don't require the advice and consent of the Senate.

It's quite long, and it rebuts Team Trump's claim that "officials" means something else.

Judge Cannon invited prosecutors to file this brief backing up their arguments defending the special counsel's constitutional authority at the end of Friday's proceedings.

You can read it in full here. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents ... ntal-62324

Quick note on the list at the top of the thread:

When Barr appointed John Durham as a special counsel, he had been serving as a U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut.

Two of the former federal judges that Barr appointed in the 1990s weren't in government at the time.

[raison de arizona]

Not that Winner should have walked, but come on, Reality!

Also, see Teixeira, Jack.

[Dr. Ken]

Four tweet thread -

Adam Klasfeld
@KlasfeldReports

Just in

On Friday, Trump's lawyer argued that ex-AG Bill Barr only appointed Senate-confirmed US Attorneys as special counsel.

Jack Smith just contradicted that in a supplemental briefing showing three of Barr's special counsel picks from 1991 and 1992.

In the same briefing, Smith provided a list of statutes that appear to use "officials" to include inferior officers who don't require the advice and consent of the Senate.

It's quite long, and it rebuts Team Trump's claim that "officials" means something else.

Judge Cannon invited prosecutors to file this brief backing up their arguments defending the special counsel's constitutional authority at the end of Friday's proceedings.

You can read it in full here. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents ... ntal-62324

Quick note on the list at the top of the thread:

When Barr appointed John Durham as a special counsel, he had been serving as a U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut.

Two of the former federal judges that Barr appointed in the 1990s weren't in government at the time.

Durham's previous two appointments he also wasn't US attorney at the time during the White Bulger appointment and the torture tapes appointment.

Robert Fiske wasn't US attorney when Reno appointed him.
John Danforth wasn't a US attorney when he was made special counsel over Waco. It's such a losing argument.