Reed Mideke… is ANYONE buying that?
https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/mark-meadows-takes-the-stand
1) Judge Jones is pretty clear removal of a RICO conspiracy is relatively uncharted territory
2) Meadows "CoS job includes organizing meetings and calls, so the meetings and calls were official federal duties" sounds reasonable on the surface, but as Jones points out, Meadows wasn't just managing the call, he was actively arguing election stuff https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67694389/the-state-of-georgia-v-meadows/#entry-69
NYT confirms Sidney Powell's plea surprised team Trump. Also notes that Powell could be a problematic witness (a strong contender for second least reliable in this case after Jones, IMO) and raises but doesn't really answer what the plea means for her status as an unindicted conspirator in Jack Smith's federal 1/6 case
As Klasfeld also notes, there will no longer be a separate early trial:
https://twitter.com/KlasfeldReports/status/1715407442924671388
https://lawandcrime.com/trump/trump-slapped-with-fine-for-violating-gag-order-in-civil-fraud-trial-warned-about-imprisonment/
So, we have Trump's first reaction to Powell flipping, which is apparently… he wants the world to know attorney client privilege and advice of counsel don't apply to anything involving Powell?
(he's presumably free to argue in court that his current public statements are lies) https://themessenger.com/politics/trump-sidney-powell-attorney-plea-deal-georgia-jack-smith
Hugo Lowell takes a look at possible implications of Chesebro's plea in Georgia on the federal case. Still no indication what Smith's team plans to do, but seems very unlikely to be "nothing"
@pbump points out that Chesebro's lawyer claims he *never* believed the election was stolen, which would seem to make his attempts to flip it for Trump even more blatantly criminal than someone like Powell, who perhaps genuinely (if delusionally) believed zombie Hugo Chavez used Italian spy satellites to flip votes https://wapo.st/473v7AS
Jenna Ellis pleads guilty in Georgia Trump election case
Donald Trump’s lead attorney in the 2020 Georgia election case against him is using another attorney’s guilty plea to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the racketeering charges brought against all 19 defendants. Trump attorney Steve Sadow says it's the fourth time Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has dismissed the racketeering charge “in return for a plea to probation." Attorney Jenna Ellis pleaded guilty Tuesday to a felony over efforts to overturn Trump’s election loss in Georgia. The Florida resident is the fourth defendant in the case to enter into a plea deal with prosecutors. Prosecutors say Ellis helped other lawyers as they lied to Georgia lawmakers.
Opening Arguments on X
PLEASE be careful as you're reading this story; we're going to discuss on the show tomorrow, of course. But the "immunity" referred to here is immunity for *testifying* before the DC Grand Jury, which occurred back in June. There's no evidence Meadows has gone Michael Cohen.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/oct/24/trump-chief-of-staff-mark-meadows-2020-election-case-immunity
https://www.publicnotice.co/p/jenna-ellis-guilty-plea-statement-biography
Chutkan reinstates the Trump Jan 6 gag order, though the actual order appears to be in PACER limbo
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/10/29/trump-gag-order-resumes-jan-6-judge/
(I don't actually think he's likely to go to jail, but I do think if he pushes his luck too far he's gonna find out fines aren't the only tool in the box)
More Chutkan: It's a feature, not a bug "If the specter of subsequent prosecution encourages a sitting President to reconsider before deciding to act with criminal intent, that is a benefit, not a defect."
"Every President will face difficult decisions; whether to intentionally commit a federal crime should not be one of them."
Rudy's lawyer: the millions of dollars Freeman and Moss are seeking would be the “civil equivalent of the death penalty … It would be the end of Mr. Giuliani”
Filed under "don't threaten me with a good time"
(also IIRC Howell already ruled he fucked around so badly in discovery he can't argue he's too poor, because he didn't produce financial information)
"Special counsel Jack Smith has extracted data from the cell phone Donald Trump used while in the White House" - Presumably a government provided phone, since we would have heard if personal devices had been seized. IIRC he was supposed to have a dedicated twitter phone.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/11/special-counsel-trump-phone-data-trial-00131196
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67656595/united-states-v-trump/?page=2#entry-183
Rudy #Giuliani, having already been found liable for defaming Freeman and Moss and admitting in court filings the things he said about them were untrue, says outside the courthouse "Everything I said about them is true … They were engaging in changing votes."
"Judge Howell told Mr. Giuliani’s lawyer, Joseph Sibley IV, that comments like those could be considered another defamation claim"
Today's #SchadenfreudeFriday brought to you by America's Mayor, Rudy #Giuliani
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2023/12/21/donald-trump-recorded-pressuring-wayne-canvassers-not-to-certify-2020-vote-michigan/72004514007/
Trump campaign hand-flying the fake elector certificates really goes to show how invested they were in that part of the plot. Also: “Freaking trump idiots want someone to fly original elector papers to the senate President,” a Wisconsin GOP official wrote
https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/28/politics/recordings-trump-team-fake-elector-ballots/index.html
"if they are elected, they would pardon the former president should he be convicted of any of the 91 felony charges he’s currently facing" unclear if it's just Wapo's phrasing, or Haley and DeSantis claim they're gonna pardon state felonies. Anyway, that's all of the "serious" GOP candidates all-in on the idea their presidents are, in fact, above the law ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Seems like one obvious question to ask Trump's lawyers is, if their immunity argument stands and Biden determines it's his presidential duty to uphold section 3 of the 14th amendment by personally shooting Trump on the courthouse steps, would he also be immune from prosecution?
Politico used a public records request to get local police bodycam footage of the response to Harrison Floyd's altercation with the FBI agents trying to serve him a Jan 6 subpoena, revealing previously unknown contents of the subpoena
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/01/04/harrison-floyd-trump-bodycam-footage-jack-smith-00133933
"Aside from Trump, Scavino was the only other person with access to Trump's Twitter account" - Suggests that whatever they got out of the twitter warrant (https://mastodon.social/@reedmideke/110896688292382007) will be pretty definitively attributable to a specific person
Update: Judge Pan asked the obvious question (https://mastodon.social/@reedmideke/111693576014497281) and Trump's lawyers answered in the affirmative, as long as POTUS isn't convicted on impeachment. One might also note other Trump lawyers have argued that presidents cannot be impeached after their term is over, so inauguration day could get spicy…
Man how ridiculous if Willis blows up the entire case for this (yep, cops everywhere believe rules are for other people)
This is wild: Stefanie Lambert, attorney for overstock dot com CEO/election crank Patrick Byrne, represents him a hearing related to their apparent flagrant violation of a protective order in a suit Dominion filed against Byrne. After the hearing, she's arrested by U.S. Marshals on a Michigan bench warrant for failing to appear in state case where she's charged with illegally accessing voting machines
From Dominion's motion: "Lambert has a well-documented history of violating court orders and improperly accessing voting information, activities that have resulted in disciplinary referrals, an indictment, and an open bench warrant"
Byrne probably has trouble finding quality representation who will do anything other than tell him to settle, but having an open bench warrant in a related matter seems like it a red flag
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/60120428/us-dominion-inc-v-byrne/#entry-75
Still not completely convinced the lawyers representing the chief rival of the current POTUS have fully thought through their argument that a sitting POTUS could be immune from prosecution for assassinating their rivals
#Giuliani, trying to use bankruptcy to escape various verdicts against him "would stick to a $43,000-a-month budget, he said in court filings, roughly in line with the income he drew from his retirement accounts and Social Security… It did not take him long to blow his budget. In another bankruptcy filing, he said he actually spent nearly $120,000 in January"
Totally normal thing written about totally normal candidate "Trump was determined to hire Manafort, planning to hand him a substantial role at the convention because he appreciated the loyalty he had shown him even while in prison"
"The defense attorney insisted that Trump was not aware of the payment to Daniels by Michael Cohen, his onetime lawyer and fixer, and that Trump’s subsequent payments to Cohen were legitimate compensation for legal work"
Man, I can see path to convincing at least one juror he didn't commit the charged felony, but that seems like an extremely tough sell to anyone who isn't already all-in on Trump, and liable to backfire with anyone else
What to Expect in the Closings at the Trump Trial
Last week, both the prosecution and the defense rested their cases in former President Donald Trump’s New York trial for allegedly falsifying business records (FBR) in his effort “to unlawfully influence the 2016 presidential election,” in the words of Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan’s case summary. At closing arguments starting Tuesday morning, Trump’s defense […]
Ben Brockert