PBP: P01135809 Trump Espionage, Coup, Conspiracy, Racketeering, Fraud & Obstruction Trial Thread

You saw NUTINK!

 

The NYC judges have not been ********ing around. I don't expect a long sentence, but something like 15 days or 30 days would not surprise me. I can't really see it being any longer than 30 days.

And for all those thinking the left side does nothing, Merchan has accepted in his notes to the jury that this will be an election interference trial, not a just hush money/bribery trial.

 

btw, Monday will be the most covered jury selection ever.

 

That's a fair assessment, and perhaps I'm being a bit jaded in my thoughts. It would be interesting for somebody to talk about the sentencing recommendation protocol.

 

Lawfare

NY Fraud

A reminder, Merchan handed the Trump Org case in which Trump was found to be at fault.

On Monday, Lawfare will go over the specifics of jury selection process for all interested.

As for the general, Merchan is doing a group session since there will lots of potential jurors, lots of lawyers, lots of media, and the Secret Service. Which means Trump will be present.
Parloff mentioned that since Merchan has already had one Trump trial, he knows the shenanigans and the lawyers know he knows, so we should not expect too much crazy from the lawyers.
Bower thinks the jury selection will be a max of 3 weeks.
Parloff compared this to the Proud Boys jury selection, which took 2 weeks.
(Note, Bower is all hot and bothered by the jury selection, while the Quinta and Parloff are "meh.")
Parloff thinks there will be more motions to move trial out of Manhattan.
No names, not sketches, and not cameras will in court (at least for jury selection).

Florida

Parloff described Cannon's decision on reconsideration of witness identification very personally (probably surprising few).
Parloff criticized Team Smith for how they argued their position. Why? Because they assumed that Cannon understood the severity of protecting witnesses, but clearly does not. (And considering that Cannon was in the US Atty South District Florida for 7 years, Parloff is basically calling her incompetent.)
Parloff also criticized Team Smith for not pushing back against the motion to release names, etc. put forth by the media. I agree, that seems strange. And the result is that Cannon adopted was the media argued.
Quinta to Parloff: "Is your read here just that she genuinely didn't understand what the government was assuming she would understand about the sensitivity of that material [about protecting the witnesses]?"
Parloff responding: "She goes into these arguments believing everything Trump argues is probably right..." In an effort to expedite the trial, Team Smith turned over all the necessary witness information (Jencks Act - see page 1, post 11 for more detail) with a protective order. Since then, Team Trump has been trying to get that protective order removed. Will Smith mandamus? Probably not.

Cannon also has a lot of motions which needs to be decided. Previous motions.

Georgia

McAfee denied motion by Latham to strike Act 160 (accusation that she committed perjury in another trial, but not perjury for this trial. The other trial was about the Coffee County election system breech).
Response by Willis on Trump's appeal of McAfee's ruling not to dismiss Willis (from the Wade relationship). Nothing new said here.
And now for the way back machine...back in the summer of 2022, Willis was disqualified from investigating current (not then) LT governor Burt Jones (his attempt to overturn the 2020 election as a fake elector) because of a fundraiser she held for his electoral opponent. Statue of limitations is coming up. As an update, Jones has been linked to the mess that is the Coffee County elections system breech.

Washington DC

Arguments to be held at SCOTUS on April 25.
Getting a bit wonkey - Trump has argued that indictments should be thrown out on the Clear Statement Rule. That Rule basically says that the President is not specifically named by office as having some acts the Presidents performs (an example being bribery) performs. Team Smith calls out Trump's brief as being misleading, and even false, and definitely having bad citations. Smith said that what SCOTUS should do is kick all of this back to the district court and let them rule during the trial as needed so there is not a back and forth with appeals (IOW, to speed up the DC trial). Personally, Lawfare needs to subscribe to Jitty's newsletter on The Corruption of SCOTUS.

Fischer v. US (to be argued April 16). Deals with a corrupt obstruction of an official proceeding. I went into detail on this many pages ago, but basically the questions are "What does it mean to be corrupt?" and "What does it mean to obstruct an official proceeding?" This will affect several hundred J6 defendants, and 2 of the 4 counts against Trump in DC. These charges are based on the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

@diablodelsol The sentencing question was asked in the audience questions. Per Parloff, each count is 1 1/3 to 4 years. But this is a Class E felony, and since Trump is a first time, non-violent (to which everybody laughed) offender, the guidelines say probation. But he does have 34 counts and Merchan is tough on white collar crimes, so...Parloff also mentioned the Wieselberg got 5 months on a plea, and 5 more on perjury. It seems that Parloff is suggesting that Trump will get some jail time.

 

First order - motion to remove Merchan rejected.

 

From WaPo live feed:

New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan rejected Donald Trump’s claims that the written jury questionnaire was unfair to the defendant.

Trump’s lawyers had argued that certain questions, particularly when it came to prospective jurors’ political activity or beliefs, were too broadly framed and “asymmetrical.”

Lawyers for the former president had argued against asking jurors whether they had ever worked or volunteered for Trump’s campaign or affiliated groups.​

 

Mention of Melania being pregnant out (too prejudicial)

Meeting with National Inquirer editor about helping Trump is in.

 

We are lost as a society. Mom has MSNBC on in the other room and I had to walk away. "Can Trump get a fair trial?" New York is liberal, people tend to be honest, etc, etc. No mention of the E Jean Carroll jury case.

Also, Trump violated gag order over the weekend thrice. Bragg is asking for $1,000 for each violation. Ooooooh, that'll stop him.

 

And, apparently, Trump made a post WHILE IN THE COURTROOM that also violated the gag order.

 

He's not going to make a decision until next week. Unbelievable.

 

Jury is being brought in.

For the past hour or so, Trump has been having an animated conversation with Blanche. No idea as to why, but my guess is that every attempt Blanche is making to delay the trial even further (original trial date was March 25) has failed.