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You are here: Home / Politics / Trump Indictments / Predictions Are Hard!

Predictions Are Hard!

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Predictions are hard.  (Silently adding especially about the future.)

But I’m gonna make one anyway.  Think of it as a gift to all of you when you can point and laugh if it turns out to be totally wrong!

I think Jack Smith is going to split the baby, in the best possible way.  I don’t think there will be one huge case about the MAL documents + Jan 6 + the grifting off the big lie.  I think the various cases will be brought separately, and I think some will be in DC and some will be in FL.  There may even be parts of one of those that are in FL and other parts that are in DC.

As for the documents, I believe that these 3 pieces are considered separate crimes:  taking the documents, retaining the documents, and showing the documents.  I am most certainly not a lawyer, but it seems like they could charge the retaining of documents in FL, for instance, and the taking if documents in DC.

Jack Smith is not stupid, and I don’t think for a minute that he will be putting all his eggs in one basket.  And if he did, that basket would certainly not be in FL where the crazy judges and plenty of MAGAs live.  Like me, Jack Smith is a belts and suspenders person.

Somewhat related, regarding the discrepancies in reporting about Meadows, I think we may be seeing some very careful parsing of words.  Could the initial reporting of Meadows pleading guilty to some smaller offenses and getting PARTIAL immunity be true, and have it be true at the same time that “he didn’t take a deal”?

It seems to me that the key players are playing it very close to the vest, and they should be.  Jack Smith and company, for sure.  Ditto for Meadows and his attorney, the one attorney who appears to have been involved this high-profile case without losing his credibility and standing in the legal community.

Oh, and totally unrelated, this cartoon from Anne Laurie’s thread is exceptionally good, so I will repost it here.

Thursday Morning Open Thread 7

I wonder if the Squeaker is as happy in the position as he thought he would be.  I hope that he is totally miserable every single day, and that he is a living example of be careful what you wish for.

Open thread.

 

Reader Interactions

130Comments

  5. 5.

    Maxim

    Your predictiguess makes sense to me, WG. Or should that be predictiwag? Either way, I am all for the maximum number of charges in the best-suited venues being brought.

  7. 7.

    narya

    I think you’re right. By all accounts, he is super careful and thorough, and I suspect he also doesn’t want to be sidetracked by motions to change the venue–they’ll be made anyway, but making the logic as airtight as possible will help mitigate that. I’ve never thought that the grift and J6 would be in the same pile as the documents–and I am not convinced that the documents will be all one case, either; I could argue it either way, and I have about 3 of the 4,000,000 facts of the matter. As an aside, Pierce has been referring to the documents case as the “pool shed papers”; who knew that an actual pool was going to come into play?! As for the grift and J6, they could be two separate cases, too.

  9. 9.

    Jeffro

    MAL documents + Jan 6 + the grifting off the big lie

    And best of all, they only have to get him on one to send him to prison!

    Plus there’s the NY fraud indictments!

    Plus there’s the GA fraudulent electors scheme!

  11. 11.

    narya

    @WaterGirl: And you notice it did NOT stop me from having an opinion! :-)

    combined, that is potentially a rotating tag: I have 3 of the approximately 4,000,000 facts of the matter, which did not stop me from having an opinion about it.

  12. 12.

    Scout211

    Maybe the Mueller Report may actually have consequences for Trump, even after Barr dismissed it.

    Details in Mueller Report Draw Interest of Special Counsel in Trump Classified Documents Case

    A lengthy section of the Mueller Report, which examined ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, has been instructive to the current inquiry’s prosecutors, who are viewing Trump’s actions around federal requests to return the classified documents as part of a broader pattern, the person said.

    . . .

    Prosecutors have looked closely at Section II of the Mueller report, titled “Factual Results of the Obstruction Investigation.” That 142-page section goes into vivid detail, with extensive footnotes and copies of emails and text messages, about Trump taking steps to thwart the work of federal prosecutors investigating Russia’s effort to influence the 2016 election.

     

    That part of the report details how Trump tried to get the FBI to drop its investigation of Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national security advisor, for lying to FBI agents about meetings he had with Russia’s Ambassador to the U.S. weeks before Trump took office. Flynn eventually pled guilty to lying to the bureau and was later pardoned by Trump.

    . . .

    And it illustrated how Trump responded in June 2017 when he learned about an email from his 2016 campaign setting up a meeting for Trump’s son Don Jr. with Russians. Those Russian nationals were claiming to offer negative details about Hillary Clinton as “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump,” according to an email to Don Jr. As he flew aboard Air Force One back to Washington from a summit in Germany, Trump dictated a statement to his aide Hope Hicks to be attributed to Don Jr. saying that the meeting was about Russia’s policy toward Americans adopting Russian children.

    . . .

    Mueller’s report concluded that then-President Trump “launched public attacks on the investigation and individuals involved in it who could possess evidence adverse to the President, while in private, the President engaged in a series of targeted efforts to control the investigation.” Mueller also said his investigation “found multiple acts by the President that were capable of exerting undue influence over law enforcement investigations, including the Russian-interference and obstruction investigations.”

  13. 13.

    Burnspbesq

    All this speculation is fun, but remember: the people who really know aren’t talking, and the people who are talking don’t really know.

  14. 14.

    ...now I try to be amused

    Trump has to win every case against him and Smith only has to win one, so it makes sense to bring as many cases as possible.

    Dare I hope that the defense of one case will harm the defense of another? Make Trump’s various lies work against him, in other words.

  15. 15.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Nukular Biskits: ​ “How can you trust a man who wears both a belt and suspenders? The man can’t even trust his own pants.”

    Peter Fonda as Frank in Once Upon a Time in the West

  18. 18.

    Anonymous At Work

    Quick Correction:  Retaining is in DC, where the National Archives are.  Showing them would be in Florida, where witnesses are.

    You’d also want to give Meadows limited immunity after he plead to crimes AND sufficient facts to nail his ass if he backed out.  You’d also give him the first crack at setting any narratives in cases where he AND TFG would be targets, as an extra carrot.  Fraud and fraud-like crimes are considered automatic strikes against credibility in all subsequent criminal situations; once a liar, etc.  So, Meadows helping to convict TFG of fraud-like crimes would help Meadows in Jan6 situations because his former boss is a fraudster.

    The evidence for the grift/wire fraud from the Jan6 stuff seems simple (haven’t done my due diligence, (IAALAA) but if you could get that, you could help slow or shut down the money paying for the “defense” (witness tampering/coordination) for various MAGAts in Trump’s outer circles, get them to accept plea bargains, etc.

    It’s amazing how anti-Mafia strategies work so well against TFG…

  19. 19.

    narya

    @Scout211: I’ve occasionally wondered if anyone would ever pick up the Mueller stuff. I mean, there is SO MUCH from which to choose! I also think that the Mueller stuff is still relevant, not least because TFG and his various side-piece-grifters keep trying to foist the “Russia hoax” on us. They have NOT let it go, so that tells me there is quite a bit hiding under that particular blanket.

    ETA typos

  21. 21.

    Jeffro

    More of this please Dems:

    Gavin Newsom: I’m proposing the 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution to help end our nation’s gun violence crisis. The American people are sick of Congress’ inaction. The 28th will enshrine 4 widely supported gun safety freedoms — while leaving the 2nd Amendment intact: 1) Raising the minimum age to purchase a gun to 21 2) Universal background checks 3) A reasonable waiting period for gun purchases 4) Banning the civilian purchase of assault weapons.

    THANK YOU GOV!

    We won’t ever get there if we don’t raise the issue and go big & bold.  (And it’s not even all that bold – majorities of Republicans support these 4 planks!)

  24. 24.

    cmorenc

    For any cases brought in S. Florida,  is there any chance that Federal District Judge Aileen Cannon will be assigned them?  (Recall that she’s the Trump-appointed political hack who deliberately tried to hamstring the investigation of the classified documents at Mar-a-Lago).

  25. 25.

    Tony Jay

     

    OT – Brief interlude to indulge in a spot of (well-deserved) FTF Guardian slapping.

    Interesting article in today’s paper by columnist Aditya Chakrabortty slamming Sir Keir Starmer’s authoritarian spite festival of a (formerly Labour) Party for blocking a popular North-East England Mayor from even getting on the long-list to be a Labour candidate for the new Regional Mayoralty that will encompass his current patch plus a lot more.

    He goes into the actual reasons for his blocking (too left-wing for centre-Right Nu-Lab, believes and promotes all the things Starmer promised to do in his leadership campaign then did a 180 on as soon as he got the job, would almost certainly win if he were allowed to stand) as well as rubbishing the stated reasons (he sat on a stage interviewing acclaimed director Ken Loach about his multi-award winning movie exposing the awfulness of bigotry and racism when he should have been screaming “You’re a fucking Jew-hater!!!” into Loach’s face at the top of his lungs like any normal Nu-Lab synthazoid with an ounce of ambition would), but then does what not a single mainstream journalist in this country has bothered/wanted to do at any point in the last three years, and goes past the bland, sneering boilerplate copy provided by Nu-Lab Central (“nothing to see here/we just want the best candidates/all he has to do is acknowledge his sins”) to actually look at how they run their candidate selections and concluded that Nu-Lab is being run by and for the factional interests of a bunch of lying, hateful, snobbish careerists who are busy purging the Party of anyone who isn’t one of them using any underhanded bureaucratic cheat and/or discredited smear they feel like, blithely confident that the same pseudo-journalists who spent years promoting and front-paging completely false accusations of top-down bullying when Corbyn was Labour leader will deliberately look the other way now that there’s actually something real to report on.

    Which is nice, and all that, but just a few points.

    1) You’re saying this now? In 2023? When Nu-Lab have been systematically blocking, suspending and purging popular, left-wing candidates and sitting officials on spurious grounds for years? This is the one example you’re going to mention? There are literally hundreds of horror stories out there about what Nu-Lab’s cadres are doing to the Party, but it’s taken you until now to raise an objection? It’s too fucking late, mate. Job’s done.

    2) Every single objection he raises to the spiteful blocking of Jamie Driscoll is applicable to the disgusting way Starmer has hounded Corbyn, and he doesn’t even have the guts to mention him. He writes for a newspaper that spent years lying about problems in the Labour Party and is still lying about it today. Too little, too late, chum.

    3) I saw first hand the contempt Nu-Lab’s handpicked selection fixers have for Labour Party democracy when they tried and (narrowly) failed to rig the reselection contest for my MP. Online-only votes where they controlled who got invited and whose votes were counted, Labour Party funds used to back their chosen candidate while the sitting MP was locked out of the Party’s membership database, thugs used to stalk and threaten campaigners and officials and then their complaints tossed in the bin rather than investigated, the postal vote system manipulated to harvest scores of ineligible votes for their candidate, votes that would have been counted and given him the win if the MP’s disabled assistant hadn’t spent three hours systematically challenging every single one of them (she was rewarded by being blocked herself for standing for the local council seat she’s held for years, by a centrally appointed selection official who herself only just returned to the Party – against the expressed wishes of her Constituency Party – after leaving to campaign for the Liberal Democrats in the last election). The only reason we won that vote was because the actual selection vote had, according to the rules, to be in person, and lo and behold, when actual members were asked their opinion in a venue where their votes couldn’t be conveniently disappeared, 95% of them chose to tell Starmer’s drone to go fuck himself.

    4) Literally yesterday the Nu-Lab machine showed what they’d taken from the failed attempt to purge my MP when they managed to get rid of an excellent left-wing Welsh Labour MP by changing the rules so that the actual selection vote didn’t have to be in person any more. Astonishingly enough, when the vote was restricted to online only and Nu-Lab’s kommissars got to do the vote counting, they managed to eke out a narrow win for their Starmerite drone. Yet, not a mention of this in the article. Not a single word.

    5) Oh, and though I’m sure that the FTF Guardian will point to them running this article as ‘proof’ that they’re ever so even-handed where Labour factionalism is concerned, they didn’t open the article for comments, and whenever it was so much as mentioned in the Live Politics comment section, the comment was immediately deleted by moderators.

    6) So, yeah, Fuck the Fucking Guardian.

     

    Ahhhh. That’s better. Please return to your scheduled programming.

  27. 27.

    tobie

    I gather from the Guardian  that Trump has been informed that he is the target of an investigation. I’m not sure how I missed this story.

    Apologies to Tony Jay for quoting FTF Guardian.

    Federal prosecutors formally informed Donald Trump’s lawyers last week that the former president is a target of the criminal investigation examining his retention of national security materials at his Mar-a-Lago resort and obstruction of justice, according to two people briefed on the matter.

  29. 29.

    oldgold

    I have and do think the proper venue for the documents case is South Florida. To bring it in DC is asking for unnecessary delay. And, we do not have the luxury of time in this matter.  This case has to be tried no later than the summer of 2024.

    I am not particularly worried about the jury pool in South Florida.  It is not bright red political area. With proper voir dire I think a fair jury can be picked.

    What I am worried about in connection with South Florida is that “Judge” Aileen Cannon will be assigned the case. That would be an unmitigated disaster.

  31. 31.

    Omnes Omnibus

    Remember also that there are some people whose Trump related criming occurred solely in FL. The FL GJ is likely to be targeting them as well as any purely FL-based federal criming by Trump.*

    *Suck it, grammarians.

  34. 34.

    Geminid

    @cmorenc: Judge Cannon might have failed to derail the documents inquiry, but she succeeded in blowing this site up. I remember the thread after Cannon ordered a special master. It was like she’d smacked a wasp nest with a 2×4.

  35. 35.

    MattF

    @tobie: I’m vehemently in favor of TFG being indicted for something. That said, third-hand rumors (or rumours, if you prefer) about whatever don’t really climb that hill of credibility. We shall see.

  37. 37.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @cmorenc: It is a possibility.  She would be an even more of an idiot than I believe she is if she doesn’t recuse if she pulls this case.  Also, there are 16 judges in that district plus ten or so on senior status.

  38. 38.

    SoupCatcher

    When I see Kevin smiling in pics, I hear, “I’m getting paid to not be in Bakersfield!”

  39. 39.

    Anonymous At Work

    @cmorenc: I’m not sure where you’d file the case to get her in the pool but yes, it could happen.  On the other hand, Broward and Miami-Dade has a lot of Obama/Clinton appointees, including the judge that nailed Roger Stone hard.  There are a lot of rules about where you can file cases, both criminal and civil.

    Jack Smith is smart enough and experienced enough to chose the venue properly to avoid making improper forum a source of delay (could cost him a year’s time on those appeals).

  40. 40.

    tobie

    @MattF: Agree that all we have are rumors at the moment…and they’re likely be fed by Trump’s camp so caution is in order.

    @Tony Jay: Hell, yeah, I’ve earned my goat cred! In the future, tho’, I’ll just say “Hugo Lowell is reporting,” and leave the newspaper out of it.

  41. 41.

    jonas

    @zhena gogolia: Shorter Mueller Report: “While we can’t prove collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia rose to the level of an outright criminal conspiracy, it was kind of hard for us to tell because of ALL THE OBSTRUCTION THEY WERE DOING TO KEEP US FROM KNOWING THE EXTENT OF IT.”

    Bill Barr: “Nothing to see here!”

  43. 43.

    dww44

    Did anyone see the LOD interview last night with Parlatore, the former Trump attorney in the documents case?  It was  quite long and Parlatore  pushed back with claims of prosecutorial overreach among others.  Thoughts about the merits of his arguments?

  44. 44.

    gene108

    @Scout211:

    Pity the article didn’t mention Trump dangling pardons in front of Flynn and Stone to stop them from cooperating with investigators, even after, in Flynn’s case, he already pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.

  45. 45.

    Geminid

    @oldgold: Huh. I remember wondering why the special master case was being heard in Tallahassee, but I guess I misremembered.

  46. 46.

    Mike E

    I guess Pat Robertson is getting to smuggle that suitcase nuke into hell, finally.

  47. 47.

    Tony Jay

    @tobie:

    Let’s compromise. “Those beast-molesters over at Goatfucker News have reported…” is still available. And accurate.

    “Meanwhile, events on Indictment Island have reached boiling point, in this week’s episode of Trumpy Boo-Hoo”

  50. 50.

    ...now I try to be amused

    @oldgold:

    I am not particularly worried about the jury pool in South Florida.  It is not bright red political area. With proper voir dire I think a fair jury can be picked.

    It would take only one crypto-Trumper to make a hung jury. Hope the prosecution has enough strikes to get them all.

  51. 51.

    narya

    @dww44: I didn’t see that one, but I saw him on Chris Hayes the night before, and he pushed the same bullshit. It seems to me that he (a) tried to cover his own ass with regard to the documents, (b) quit the team, and (c) is now free-lancing in support of TFG, likely to bolster his claims in (a). I think he’s completely full of shit–it’s like TFG continuing to claim that russia-russia-russia-is-a-hoax-and-the-dems-did-it. Flood the zone with bullshit.

  52. 52.

    Redshift

    I would like to think there will be multiple cases, but I have no special knowledge.

    Apparently there are rules for trial venues, and Jack Smith doesn’t get to just pick which court would be best.

  54. 54.

    tobie

    @Tony Jay: You and Betty Cracker have mastered the art of invective. Hats off to both of you. I love every colorful, sharp turn of phrase the two of you offer. (I mean this.)

  57. 57.

    SiubhanDuinne

    I’ve gotta say, between Chris Licht getting canned at CNN, Fox going after Tuckums for violating his separation contract, the looming TFG indictments, and Pat Robertson’s death — well, on balance, it’s a pretty satisfying week.

  58. 58.

    Anonymous At Work

    @Baud: Potentially.  The two politicians of the Republican justices decided to forestall a new VRA being passed as best they could.  Telling states that they could go back to Jim Crow dressed in legal theory (Doonesbury calls it “James Crow, Esq.”) could create a similar backlash to overturning Roe.  A 10% boost in statewide minority voting rates could result in Georgia looking bluer, North Carolina flipping, require GOP to poll South Carolina carefully, etc.

    That said, Democrats with the trifecta (without Manchin or Sinema being required) should pass the new John Lewis VRA that outlaws a lot of Jim Crow 2.0 crap.

  59. 59.

    Tony Jay

    @tobie:

    You’re a kind soul.

    I like to think that the only reason terrible people exist is to give better people someone to be inventively horrible about.

  61. 61.

    Mousebumples

    @Omnes Omnibus & @tobie:

    Same here! I was shocked to see that. Maybe Gallagher will run for Senate against Baldwin in 2024 now, if his gerrymandered district may be in jeopardy…

    (I think he’d rather go for Johnson’s seat – eg open seat vs taking on a strong incumbent, but we’ll see…)

  63. 63.

    Redshift

    @Burnspbesq:

    All this speculation is fun, but remember: the people who really know aren’t talking, and the people who are talking don’t really know.

    And the people who are talking who know the most (witnesses and TFG lawyers) are spinning to make themselves look good.

    Interesting point I read about that this morning – you or I might naturally think that “make themselves look good” would mean “make it look like they weren’t involved in crimes,” but most of them are instead painting themselves as being the most pro-TFG (even if they provided evidence against him), because they are basically mob lawyers.

  69. 69.

    Tony Jay

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Occasionally, but not very much at all. There was the bruhaha over his wife’s non-dom status and how much UK tax that let her avoid a while ago, and I recall the edges of an interest in who her parents were creeping around the edge of the story, but other than that, no. The Infotainment industry is noticeably loath to mention who they are and how incredibly rich and connected they are.

    I presume they have excellent libel lawyers on tap and have made it very, very clear to the people who make editorial decisions that they would like to maintain their ‘right to privacy’

    ETA – I’ll bet that Private Eye has run more ink on them than the rest of the UK Media combined, but I don’t subscribe so I can’t say for sure.

  72. 72.

    schrodingers_cat

    I don’t make predictions on complex stuff that I have little understanding about.  Law is definitely one of those subjects. But I have some sparkling wine ready for the big occasion, its a rose’ and its an orangish pink!

  73. 73.

    Jackie

    @Omnes Omnibus: That’s WONDERFUL! And amazingly shocking!

    edited to add:

    “The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down Republican-drawn congressional districts in Alabama that civil rights activists say discriminated against Black voters in a surprise reaffirmation of the landmark Voting Rights Act,” NBC News reports.”

    “The court in a 5-4 vote ruled against Alabama, meaning the map of the seven congressional districts, which heavily favors Republicans, will now be redrawn. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, both conservatives, joined the court’s three liberals in the majority.”

  74. 74.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    My prediction is simply awful.  As things are developing at SCOTUS, Kavanaugh is turning out to be the leftmost swing vote, with Roberts to his right.

    As Roy Kent (of “Ted Lasso” fame) would growl, “FUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!”

  75. 75.

    Anonymous At Work

    @Omnes Omnibus: Definitely.  Roberts is a jurist working on behalf of Chamber of Commerce and Republican Party and Bretty-boy Kavanaugh is a Republican political operative pretending to be a jurist.  The other 4 Republicans are fanatics to their causes.  So, there are only 4 true-believer votes and 2 votes that consider political fallout.  After Hobbs, Roberts and Bretty-boy will be extra careful about “consequences”.

  77. 77.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Tony Jay: Thanks.

    They affect poverty and simplicity while funding BJP’s factories of hate like OpIndia. Their business model depended on exploitation of labor. They remind me (especially Mrs. Murthy) of the Dickensian character Uriah Heep. She is ‘umble

    ETA: Who or what is the Private Eye?

  78. 78.

    UncleEbeneezer

    My only prediction is that it will be a cold day in Hell before Will Stancil, Nathan Robinson, Michael Tracey, Nicole Wallace, Mehdi Hassan, Brian Beutler, Paul Campos, Erik Loomis, Ellie Mystal and sadly even Imani Gandy will ever admit how completely fucking wrong they all were about Garland and the DOJ.  Hopefully people are wise enough to recognize that those are the absolute last people anyone should listen to on matters involving the DOJ and high profile, confidential investigations.

  79. 79.

    Jackie

    @Omnes Omnibus: Maybe. Doesn’t Garland have final say? I know it’s ultimately up to him to indict or not – regardless of Smith’s recommendation(s) 🤷🏼‍♀️

  80. 80.

    rikyrah

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    I’ve gotta say, between Chris Licht getting canned at CNN, Fox going after Tuckums for violating his separation contract, the looming TFG indictments, and Pat Robertson’s death — well, on balance, it’s a pretty satisfying week.

     

    Yeah…tis true.

  85. 85.

    mvr

    @…now I try to be amused: I’m not at all sure it makes sense to bring as many cases (if that means different trials rather than just multiple related charges tried together). Courts don’t like it since it wastes judicial resources and my guess is that prosecutors don’t either for the same reason. But furthermore it allows different and even inconsistent defenses to related charges.  Often multiple defendant cases will be tried separately.  And different defendants can then give defenses that can’t all be true and if they are lucky all get out of the charges.

    But in any case, judges would likely consolidate the cases if they relate to the same series of actions.  Trump’s lawyers will no doubt ask to have the case tried in Florida for reasons mentioned above.

    None of this is to say that the documents cases will be filed with various other cases that may be brought against Trump not related to the documents.  Just that, unless there is a jurisdiction issue which forces filing against him both in FL and in DC, the documents cases will be filed together.  And there will likely be moves to consolidate them if they get filed in two jurisdictions.

    BTW, I admire your moniker.

  89. 89.

    Tony Jay

    @schrodingers_cat:

    I work on the general assumption that anyone whose fortune needs that many zeroes to write it down is damned near certainly an absolute monster with the blood of thousands under their well-manicured nails. It’s just the price of admission to the 0.1% Club.

    Private Eye is a long running British satirical magazine that lambasts the great and the bad mercilessly. They tend to run bits on political and financial scandals way in advance of the mainstream media, and have a commensurately large legal bill for defending libel actions as a result. You ever see the BBC panel show Have I Got News For You? Private Eye’s editor, Ian Hislop, has been on that longer than most of the population have been alive.

  94. 94.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Baud: Garland does have the right to veto but he has already said he will defer to Smith.  And if Garland does say no to charges, for whatever reason, I believe he has to report to Congress why.  That’s one of the benefits of having a Special Counsel.

  99. 99.

    Tony Jay

    @rikyrah:

    Sunak? It depends. There legally has to be an Election by January 2025 at the very, very latest, and the Tories have so comprehensively beshitted the bed that I can’t see even Sir Plastic’s Toxic Nu-Lab Hivemind failing to at the very least get a hung Parliament and a Nu-Lab/Lib-Dem Coalition out of it. That’ll be little Rishi Richboi out on his arse.

    Though he could be out sooner if the Government WhattsApp communications during Covid become public due to ‘someone’ (Flobalob) leaking them. Sunak was Chancellor then, and his Eat Out 2 Help Out scheme was directly responsible for a huge surge in infections that killed tens of thousands of people. If he was stupid enough to put down in writing his knowledge of what his scheme was likely/definitely going to lead to…

  102. 102.

    p.a.

    @Anonymous At Work

    @Omnes Omnibus: Definitely.  Roberts is a jurist working on behalf of Chamber of Commerce and Republican Party and Bretty-boy Kavanaugh is a Republican political operative pretending to be a jurist.  The other 4 Republicans are fanatics to their causes.  So, there are only 4 true-believer votes and 2 votes that consider political fallout.  After Hobbs, Roberts and Bretty-boy will be extra careful about “consequences”.

     

     

    Some of them can apparently understand election returns.  They’ll just wait for more subtle cases to reach the SC.  The problem with that is the Robert’s wing of the party lacks control of the pig-people state legislators.

  103. 103.

    Jackie

    @tobie: I don’t know.

    I do think that by the time all of this is FINALLY DONE, we’ll be educated enough to apply for a lawyer’s degree! 😂

  104. 104.

    opiejeanne

    @dww44: I got tired of his Gish Gallop arguments, talking over Lawrence to change the subject to be about things that were not the subject of O’Donnell’s questions. Lawrence pushed back hard at the beginning, but had trouble getting a word in edgewise and got this incredulous look on his face. I turned it off about halfway through because Parlatore was just lying, and lying, and lying and twisting the story and lying some more for good measure.

  105. 105.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @tobie: ​
      The whole point of appointing a special counsel is to insulate the AG from all but the final decisions.

  106. 106.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @JML:

    Pat Robertson has caused so much damage to this country. May he rot.

    Well, unless he was cremated, he definitely will rot (more).

  107. 107.

    rikyrah

    @Tony Jay:

    If he was stupid enough to put down in writing his knowledge of what his scheme was likely/definitely going to lead to…

    Crossing fingers that he was.

  108. 108.

    kalakal

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Can’t resist, must unleash my inner pedant

    Peter Fonda as Frank in Once Upon a Time in the West 

    ‘Twas Henry.

    It is indeed a fantastic film

  110. 110.

    Tony Jay

    @rikyrah:

    Well, this is the guy who thought that the Tory Party membership would support a brown puppet over a white lettuce, and then thought that taking over after said lettuce and her flobalobbing predecessor had blown country size holes in the budget, the economy and the Tory Party’s popularity would be a great idea, so yeah, he’s got form for initiating intimate encounters with canine partners on the ideas front.

  111. 111.

    C Stars

    Didn’t have time to read all the comments. But thank you, WG, for what I believe might have been a ginger attempt to lower expectations. Seeing the same kind of giddy excitement now that happened during the Mueller investigation makes me very wary. TFG is not going to get what he deserves–there isn’t going to be some blockbuster perp walk for us to salivate over and an indictment for every single one of his crimes. It just doesn’t work that way, especially with that fucking guy. Of course I hope the next few weeks/months will prove me wrong. Fate, do you hear me? This is a dare.

  112. 112.

    Brachiator

    @Tony Jay:

    Though he could be out sooner if the Government WhattsApp communications during Covid become public due to ‘someone’ (Flobalob) leaking them. Sunak was Chancellor then, and his Eat Out 2 Help Out scheme was directly responsible for a huge surge in infections that killed tens of thousands of people. If he was stupid enough to put down in writing his knowledge of what his scheme was likely/definitely going to lead to…

    Partygate, which helped doom Johnson, was easy to understand. Boris Johnson clearly broke the law that ordinary people obeyed and were punished for when they broke the law. Sunak may have ignored the recommendations of SAGE, the government science advisors, in not pushing for a hard lockdown during the pandemic. So, this may not hurt Sunak.

    Besides, who is left to replace Sunak? I read about Tory in-fighting, and attempts by Boris Johnson to mount a comeback. I also read about a yearning to see matronly but comely Page 3 Girl and sword wielding Lady of the Lake Penny Mordaunt become prime minister. But I also get a sense that the financial markets are happy to have Sunak in charge. He has all kinds of faults, but he does not appear to be as strong a believer in economic fairy tales as the typical Tory. He at best may be a harmless placeholder until a general election.

  113. 113.

    C Stars

    @Anonymous At Work:

    Definitely.  Roberts is a jurist working on behalf of Chamber of Commerce and Republican Party and Bretty-boy Kavanaugh is a Republican political operative pretending to be a jurist.  The other 4 Republicans are fanatics to their causes.  So, there are only 4 true-believer votes and 2 votes that consider political fallout.  After Hobbs, Roberts and Bretty-boy will be extra careful about “consequences”

    Excellent summation.

  117. 117.

    Burnspbesq

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Check out Steve Vladeck’s Twitter feed. He makes the point that the Supreme Court’s unexplained decision to stay the very District Court injunction it now upholds, allowing several states to use maps that now look like unlawful racial gerrymandering, may have given control of the House to the Republicans.

  119. 119.

    Captain C

    @tobie: Someone pointed out somewhere that Roberts is smart enough to realize that his legacy is well on the way to being the chief justice who gleefully presided over a whole slew of badly opined Dred Scott-level bad decisions, and may want to at least slow this trend down a little.

  120. 120.

    Tony Jay

    @Brachiator:

    No such thing as a harmless Tory, but I get your drift.

    Sunak is probably safe, almost certainly, for the very reason that he’s weak and soft and malleable. But the danger for him rests in the probability that his aura of uselessness and irrelevance fails to shift the Tories out of their electoral hole, he has to make so many sensible accommodations with the EU that the Rabid Right demand his head, and enough Tory MPs start to think that if they’re going to go down anyway they might as well save as many seats as possible by going with a Hard Right lunatic like Braverman or Badenoch, some because they think that’s where the available votes are, some because they’d rather the bastard Far Right carry the can for the defeat than a scion of the Corporate Right.

    They’d just need a plausible reason, and the contents of the Covid messages could give it to them.

    Then again, this is all just gassing. He’ll probably be fine.

  121. 121.

    James E Powell

    @Burnspbesq:

    He makes the point that the Supreme Court’s unexplained decision to stay the very District Court injunction it now upholds, allowing several states to use maps that now look like unlawful racial gerrymandering, may have given control of the House to the Republicans.

    I’m sure that’s just a coincidence.

  123. 123.

    brantl

    Truth-in-advertising? That should say “25% evil, at best”, because some of that stuff was actually pretty shitty.

  124. 124.

    smith

    @Captain C: You keep hearing about how concerned Roberts is with his Court’s legacy, but it seems like it’s destined t be remembered as the most corrupt and highly politicized SC in memory. There’s a good chance the Roberts court will be remembered as the Dirty Court.

  125. 125.

    Captain C

    @Ken: That would, of course, be the best option.  Along with Beer and the Fanatical Four also resigning.

  126. 126.

    Captain C

    @smith: I think Roberts wants to thread the needle between his legacy and skewing things way in favor of his masters/clients in the CoC wing of the Republican Party.  He may be coming to the realization that this is an impossible task, especially if he wants to be remembered as anything but a corrupt hack who happily enabled some of the worst people in the world.  I’m not sure if he’s figured out that, barring reversal of at least a dozen of his court’s worst decisions, his legacy as “corrupt, enabling hack” is already pretty much set in stone.

  127. 127.

    Scout211

    Another CNN  EXCLUSIVE!!11!  report from an anonymous former White House official who testified to the grand jury on classified documents.

     

    While prosecutors in the Trump case aggressively focused on any first-hand interactions with the former president, including conversations about how to properly declassify documents, prosecutors in the Biden case were more concerned with the mechanics of packing and moving boxes into Biden’s home in Delaware as his time as vice president came to an end.

    “You wouldn’t expect it to match the intensity, and it didn’t,” the former official said comparing the interview with Biden investigators to discussions with prosecutors in the Trump probe.

    Speaking to CNN on condition of anonymity, the former official said he told federal prosecutors that Trump knew the proper process for declassifying documents and followed it correctly at times while in office.

    The interview with the former official, which has not been previously reported, is the latest indication that prosecutors are seeking evidence suggesting Trump understood the process for declassifying documents. That could undercut Trump’s claims that he automatically declassified everything he took with him to Mar-a-Lago.

  129. 129.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    OMG we could be facing a Schadenfreude overload.

    Not only was Tucker’s Twitter launch a technical disaster for him and Musk, but Fox is suing him for it, saying it’s a breach of his still-in-force employment contract.

    Please drink MAGA tears responsibly, people.

    Can’t find a print link other than the Daily Mail. My source was this Meidas Touch video.

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