Wow. Kyle Cheney 𧾠1/âŚ
This #Trump post about Mark #Meadows is like a checklist of things barred by the (now-suspended) #GagOrder:
1) Direct attack on #JackSmith
2) Calling cooperators âweaklingsâ and âcowardsâ
3) Commenting on the substance of Meadows (a known witnessâ) testimony
Worth noting Trump almost surely has seen Mark Meadowsâ grand jury transcript at this point. Itâs part of discovery. #legal #TrumpIndictment
@GottaLaff @tommyyum @lisamelton And (catching up), I'm going to say something we lawyers rarely say:
I don't know.
His conditions of release (which remain in place even if the gag order is stayed) say he "shall not communicate about the facts of the case with any individual known to be a witness, except with counsel or in the presence of counsel."
What I don't know is whether Meadows is formally "known to be a witness" in the court case yet, nor whether the neutral, indirect "meddlesome priest" framing ("it's just a general social media post, not a DM to Meadows") is enough to keep it from being a "communication." So I get to sit back and see what Smith does, just like everyone else in the peanut gallery.
@tommyyum
1/ Smith's defense of the J6 gag order is as solid as one would expect (thanks for sharing it, @tommyyum!).
A few nuggets follow:
@GottaLaff @lisamelton
1/
2/ First, the English major in me loves this reference (which I myself made a few posts back): "[R]epeated attacks on a perceived adversary are often understood as a signal to act against that personâmuch like King Henry IIâs famous remark, in reference to Archbishop Thomas Ă Becket, âWill no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?â which resulted in Becketâs murder. See, e.g., United States v. Smallwood, 365 F. Supp. 2d 689, 696 n.14 (E.D. Va. 2005) (explaining the idiom)."
(And the weird English major in me insists on adding that maybe Godot never showed up because an anachronistic follower of Henry II got his Beckets mixed up.)
3/ (Legal opinions and briefs used to be rife with literary and historical references like this. I remember, as a baby lawyer, being amazed that an older colleague dared to begin a brief about a gold-mining investment fraud case with the words â centered on the first page! in violation of the official formatting rules! zomg! â "Ah, accurs'd craving for gold! -Virgil".
The humanities help us understand our world, profit from the experiences and insights of our forebears, and serve as a shorthand for quickly communicating complex ideas. We should worry less about whether we're teaching enough STEM, and worry more about whether future techbros will have read enough Bronte.)
Anyway, back to the J6 case...
4/ This next part struck me as painfully old-school: in order to protect Trump's First Amendment rights and in recognition of his unusual status as a presidential candidate, the court's gag order expressly allows "statements criticizing the campaign platforms or policies of Defendantâs current political rivals, such as former Vice President Pence.â
Why I call this "painfully old school" is that it assumes a modern Republican presidential campaign has anything at all to do with "campaign platforms and policies." You and I know that a Trump barred from personal, ad hominem attacks, and forced instead to discuss policy, would be as mute as Mitch McConnell having a mini-stroke. (But also, any Trump-loving appellate judge will find it challenging to pretend this part of the gag order is overbroad without admitting that slander and violence are, for Trump, indispensable to speech, so: nice tactic, judge!)
5/ Smith understands that Trump understands how stochastic violence works. And Smith knows that the judge understands it, too, so this clear explanation really is aimed at any appellate court who ends up reviewing these papers:
"[Trump] well knows that, by publicly targeting perceived adversaries with inflammatory language, he can maintain a plausible deniability while ensuring the desired results. The indictment notes, for example, that '[w]hen the Vice President refused to agree to the Defendantâs request that he obstruct the certification, the Defendant grew frustrated and told the Vice President that the Defendant would have to publicly criticize him,' which caused the Vice Presidentâs Chief of Staff sufficient concern that he 'alerted the head of the Vice Presidentâs Secret Service detail.' ... The defendant knows the effect of his targeting and seeks to use it to his strategic advantage while simultaneously disclaiming any responsibility for the very acts he causes."
It's mobster stuff. It's clear what Trump learned from Roy Cohn, and why the wannabe-mobster-cum-Renfield Giuliani sees Trump as his perfect boss.
6/ Ooh! Trump's lawyers misquoted the judge! That ALWAYS ends well! Smith's short "The Court did no such thing" is the lawyer's equivalent of a kid saying, "Hey, that guy called your mother ugly, Rocko! Beat him up while we all watch and cheer!"
7/ Finally: a few days ago (upthread) I said, "I don't know... whether... the neutral, indirect 'meddlesome priest' framing ('it's just a general social media post, not a DM to Meadows') is enough to keep it from being a 'communication'" [with a witness].
Smith caught that, too, and now is asking the court to close that potential loophole: #GreatMinds #GreatBeards
@msbellows @tommyyum @GottaLaff @lisamelton
"O noble judge! O excellent young man!"
- Merchant of Venice
@msbellows @tommyyum @GottaLaff @lisamelton
"For it appears, by manifest proceeding,
That indirectly and directly too
Thou hast contrived against the very life
Of the defendant."
- Merchant of Venice
@msbellows @tommyyum @GottaLaff @lisamelton As a software engineer, I agree that people should be reading more literature. Great point!
However, our country's STEM education is also not great compared to other developed nations, so we can't ignore that either.
@cowvin @tommyyum @GottaLaff @lisamelton I'm an English major/Poli Sci minor with a law degree, who -also- won the citywide Oakland, California elementary science fair for his grade level two consecutive years. And my wife's professional ballet career was made possible in large part by government funding, trying to keep U.S. dancers competitive with the Bolshoi's.
The Cold War sucked, but it was great for encouraging government funding of both science AND the arts.
Laffy
Tom Maxwell
M.S. Bellows, Jr.
Seamus
Hugh Young-Bish
The Febrile Muse
cowvin
CassandraVert
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