Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Second rate reporter says what?

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Let there be snark.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Fani Willis claps back at Trump chihuahua, Jim Jordan.

Cole is on a roll !

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

The willow is too close to the house.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

“That’s what the insurrection act is for!”

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / DOJ and Jack Smith (LIVE) Now

Reader Interactions

154Comments

  1. 1.

    Old School

    He says Trump is innocent!

    (Well, “presumed innocent”, but that’s a little wordy.)

  2. 2.

    Baud

    I’m glad he has the beard. Definitely better than unbearded Jack Smith. Like Riker on Star Trek.

  3. 3.

    Ruckus

    That was short and sweet.

    He does seem to be one of the better people for the job.

  5. 5.

    WaterGirl

    After I watched Jack Smith speak, i watched again to try to grab screen shots for a new Jack Smith image.  Here are the 4 I grabbed, trying to decide between them.  I think I prefer 1 and 2.

    DOJ and Jack Smith (LIVE) Now 3 DOJ and Jack Smith (LIVE) Now 2 DOJ and Jack Smith (LIVE) Now 1 DOJ and Jack Smith (LIVE) Now

  8. 8.

    cmorenc

    Smith’s press appearance was more like a terse cover letter for the case, with no substantive supplement to the contents of the indictment, other than to draw attention to the grave national security risks Trump’s actions caused.  As one of the commenters on CNN noted, Smith wants to keep the focus of the press and public tightly on the contents of the indictment and national security implications, and not give any inadvertent assist to Trump and his GOP enablers to spin up a squid-ink distracting sideshow out of.

  10. 10.

    Keith P.

    The government has tons of those suits.  They’re split along the sides and hang split in halves so that when an agent needs one, he/she just walk into the front half of the suit, and the back half closes from behind.  Real high-tech stuff, but they fit like crap.

  14. 14.

    H.E.Wolf

    I liked the technician at approx. 0:24–0:28 who matter-of-factly cracked his neck in both directions. That man’s ready for anything. :)

  16. 16.

    Beth H

    Jack Smith is correct to  encourage everyone to read the indictment. I just read it. A compelling narrative with tight, well-defined boundaries. A must-read, would flow better if they would just say “Evan Corcoran” instead of ” Trump Attorney 1″ every single mention.

    Also want to say thank God, the FSM, Allah, John Cole, etc. for this excellent blog and community. Long-time reader, seldom posts. Love you all!

  18. 18.

    JPL

    OT  The imps were over last night, so I didn’t have the opportunity to watch a lot of the news.  They left at 1 and I have been glued to the TV ever since.   I’m going to drink a glass or two of wine at 4 and climb in bed at 5.

    I hope they don’t issue arrest warrants for the maam, that helped Waltine load the boxes.   What’s the best guess, Melania or Ivanka?

  19. 19.

    scav

    Nice to have a dull, flat-footed and measured yet blisteringly fast recitation of the key points.  Sharp man.

    That is the eye of a hurricane.

  20. 20.

    Suzanne

    He looks like a younger version of the old man from Home Alone.

    ETA: Maybe he can hit Trump with a shovel.

  21. 21.

    WaterGirl

    @Beth H: I was rushing to get this post up because I realized he was going to speak about 2 minutes before he started to speak.

    So I raced to find the video and hit Publish.

    If you have a link to the indictment that would save me from looking for it, that would be great.

    I don’t like the annotated one from the NYT.  Too distracting.

  24. 24.

    moonbat

    @scav: Well spoken and accurate.

    I about kissed the ground when he said “We have one set of laws in this country and they apply to everyone.”

  27. 27.

    JPL

    Parlatore is trying to tell Jake that thousands were recovered and only 31 are serious.

  28. 28.

    WaterGirl

    @Suzanne: In a week or two, when it won’t seem so shallow, I will say that he has a presence that is very compelling.  I might have to fight Betty Cracker for him.

    But I won’t say that now because it will make me look shallow.

    I’m with scav at #19.  (except for the dull part, I thought it was riveting.)

    Measured, yet blisteringly fast recitation of the key points.  Sharp man.  The eye of a hurricane.

  31. 31.

    raven

    Waiting for the electrician

     

    All for one!
    – and all for one!
    All for one!
    Let me hear it for me!
    You’re under arrest!

    String him up!

    Anyone got any string?
    [Later] Lynch him!
    Anybody got any lynch?

  34. 34.

    RandomMonster

    I love the fact that he dropped “conspiracy” a few times. Trump valet Walt Nauta, come on down!

  40. 40.

    cmorenc

    @WaterGirl:

    @cmorenc: He didn’t tell us what’s in the indictment, he’s telling us that it’s important, and that we should read the indictment.

    Yes, exactly.  Force people to read the indictment and focus on its actual contents, rather than Smith using his press appearance to give a truncated cliff notes version.

  43. 43.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    So not only is the US’s The Former Guy eyeball-deep in trouble, it appears the UK’s TFG (I mean Boris Johnson; I realized that the UK’s got enough TFG’s at the moment to populate a basketball court) has also resigned from Parliament in disgrace (as opposed to resigning as PM).

    Is there anyone who can do a wellness check on Tony Jay, make sure he hasn’t overdosed on schadenfreude or something?

    :)

  44. 44.

    citizen dave

    My thought today isn’t that this is our rule of law working for all citizens like evermore.  Of course that is ridiculous. It’s that the system is finally charging a president, after Harding (well he died first), Nixon’s secret dealings fucking up vietnam before he took office; Nixon’s secret bombing; Nixon Watergate; Reagan’s secret Iran hostage dealings; Reagan Iran-Contra; W Bush weapons mass destruction/warring with wrong nation/ torture.  Finally something is happening to one of these guys.

  46. 46.

    scav

    @WaterGirl: Aahh, not the uninteresting dull, correct.  The unflashy, matte dull.  Unornamented.  Workmanlike. Perfect contrast to the gaudy chandeliers in bathrooms random-cap hyperbole aesthetic.

     

    And we thought Thursday was amusing.

  48. 48.

    Eunicecycle

    @Bruce K in ATH-GR: He was in the comments earlier, with a description of Pence that made me laugh so hard I almost peed my pants. I tried to read it to my husband and couldn’t.

    By “he” I meant Tony Jay, not Boris!

  50. 50.

    Josie

    Definitely #2​
     ETA: I’m developing a crush on this man, even though he’s a bit young for me. Intelligence and integrity are a dynamite combination.

  51. 51.

    O. Felix Culpa

    On another note, has anyone seen JRinWV lately? He was posting about his chemo a while back, and I hope he’s doing ok.

  58. 58.

    WaterGirl

    @RaflW: I have renamed the file in the Media Library, adding THIS ONE, so any front-pager who wants to find it can search for THIS ONE and it comes right up.

  66. 66.

    different-church-lady

    “We tried four pictures of Jack Smith, and there was one clear winner.”

  67. 67.

    Tony Jay

    @WaterGirl:

    1) “That’s a dick question and you oughta be ashamed of your mouth for letting your brain embarrass it like that.”

    2) THIS LOOK MELTS TUNGSTEN

    3) “Would I call ex-President Trump a treasonous coward who shames our country by his very existence? Mmmmm. Tough one.”

    4) “Bedminster. No further questions.”

  69. 69.

    WaterGirl

    @Eunicecycle: I went looking for that comment because I hadn’t seen it.  Maybe this one?

    I dunno. I’ve noted before that Pence always looks like he’s just woken from a coma to find a stranger cupping his balls, but in that picture he just looks like he’s an hour into his eighth Meet And Greet of the Iowa State Fair and his aides have told him he’s agreed to present an award to the Tri-State Junior Jive Dancing champions for Heartland News Monthly.

    RoDS, as ever, looks like he’s just shat himself and is desperately hoping he can make it off the stage before it slips down the leg of his PVC undershorts.

  71. 71.

    Carlo Graziani

    2, no question. But the Hague mugshot cannot be topped. He looks like the Righteous Wrath of God in that one.

    I hope that he gets appointed to a Federal Court someday, and makes lawyers shit themselves by just looking at them.

  72. 72.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @MomSense:  Thanks. I’ve been keeping up fairly regularly since returning home from travels, but it’s always possible I missed something.

    @WaterGirl:

    I hope you’re right. He usually comments quite a bit, but chemo can really sap strength. Sending best wishes out to valued commenter JRinWV!

  78. 78.

    Carlo Graziani

    So, BJ Legal, is Nauta being punished for not rolling on his boss? And what is his lawyer likely advising him to do right now?

  79. 79.

    Tony Jay

    @rikyrah:

    In disgrace. In dat grace. Fatboy got more grace than a fucking ballerina.

    And he’ll really want to take Sunak with him.

  80. 80.

    Leto

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: not an expensive plant. How much was membership? And like half the documents were just stored on the stage in the “ballroom”? Ok not half, but from the pictures all the documents were non-secure so basically a free for all. There boxes in the “ballroom” were there for 18 months? Like… it’s still insane to me this entire thing.

  82. 82.

    RaflW

    Sadly, I have to agree with this.

    @MrJonCryer
    It will be astonishing if other countries ever share intelligence with us again.

  83. 83.

    Ramalama

    (from page 16 of the indictment):

    TRUMP: “See as President, I could have declassified it.”

    STAFFER: “Yeah.” [Laughter]

    TRUMP: “Now I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret.”

    STAFFER: “Yeah [Laughter]. Now we have a problem.”

  84. 84.

    M31

    look at that tacky-as-shit chandelier in the tacky-as-shit bathroom

    what a tacky-as-shit piece of shit

  85. 85.

    WaterGirl

    @O. Felix Culpa: I was not right.  Comcast finally fixed my slow internet issue, so I was able to search the nearly 7 million comments for his email address.

    Unless he switched to a different email address for BJ, it looks like his last comment was 5/24, so at least 2 weeks ago.

    Good thoughts for you JR!

  86. 86.

    mvr

    @Carlo Graziani: I’m sure charging him makes sense to give him an incentive to roll on his boss. But the single count makes me think they’re not stretching to find a charge. If anything it seems measured.

    I say this as someone who worked for a criminal defense lawyer and who has a pretty jaundiced view of prosecutors in general.

  90. 90.

    snoey

    @Leto: Paragraph 77 lists the docs in question. Several of them have their classification level partially redacted.

    Does this mean that they are so secret that the kind of secret they are is secret?

  95. 95.

    Scout211

    On TFG’s TruthSocial account:  Who is this person he is so eloquently describing?  I will give you one guess.  😉

    This is the man who caused the Lois Lerner catastrophe with the IRS. He went after Evangelicals and Great Americans of Faith. The United States had to apologize, and pay major damages for what this deranged lunatic did. He had a unanimous loss in the Supreme Court. His wife is a Trump Hater, just as he is a Trump Hater—a deranged “psycho” that shouldn’t be involved in any case having to do with “Justice,” other than to look at Biden as a criminal, which he is!

  99. 99.

    jonas

    @Carlo Graziani: If he has additional information that could add to the charges against Trump, I presume it’s possible he could ask for a deal, but from the looks of it, they have everything they need on Trump and him dead to rights on conspiracy and lying to federal agents.

    Once again, ETTD

  102. 102.

    mainsailset

    I noticed he’s got a limp which I expect is from the bike accident that held up his arrival stateside. I like how he laid out the speaking indictment and encouraged people to read it for themselves to understand the gravity of the situation. His presentation – short and laser focused – was refreshing after listening to Barr pat the public on the back with his never mind memo of the Mueller investigation.

  103. 103.

    MomSense

    The crimes are worse than I thought.  That he was so Unbefuckinglievably careless makes it all the worse.  The staggering lack of care for anything or anyone else is mind blowing.

  106. 106.

    Scout211

    Also on Trump’s TruthSocial, several angry, whiny complaints about the photos of the boxes of document. They are a mess!

    Strange! Everything about the boxes was so neat, orderly, and clean. Did the FBI tip over the one box the way they “staged” the papers on the floor during the raid of Mar-a-Lago, only to apologize after getting caught?

    The Box on the floor which was opened (who opened it?) clearly shows there was no “documents,” but rather newspapers, personal pictures, etc. WITCH HUNT!

  107. 107.

    JPL

    Secret Service will not seek special accommodations.   I did not see that coming.

  108. 108.

    M31

    @Omnes Omnibus: I saw a house, built in 1910 or so, in New Orleans, that had a tiny chandelier (about a foot across) in a tiny bathroom, it was very cool and classy.

    that room was about the only thing they were able to save after Katrina

    but yeah, New Money, ew

  112. 112.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @Carlo Graziani:

    Nauta being punished for not rolling on his boss? And what is his lawyer likely advising him to do right now?

    Flip more than a charity pancake breakfast.

    Though as noted above, he may not have anything that the Special Counsel is interested in at this point.

  115. 115.

    Geminid

    @H.E.Wolf: I missed it at the time, but the Senate Agriculture Committee voted 23-0 to advance Xochitl Torres Small’s nomination as Deputy Secretary of Agriculture. I expect the full Senate will confirm her once those slow pokes can schedule a vote.

  116. 116.

    JPL

    @WaterGirl: CNN breaking news.   If the secret service was accommodated, we are talking about a home arrest if he was found guilty.  The FBI will be taking over, but I can’t imagine that’s on the campaign trail.

  119. 119.

    Tony Jay

    @JPL:

    Part of me is celebrating, another part is just sneering at the pitiful little whiner, but the largest part is still furious that such a manifestly unfit creep with HUGE amounts of disqualifying baggage was nurtured and protected and promoted and eventually elevated to the position from which he did so much irreparable damage by a Media Establishment that won’t allow a single peep to be uttered about its own responsibility for inflicting him on us.

    They’re loving the drama, but they’d have the bastard back in a moment.

  120. 120.

    p.a.

    @JPL:

    Guess there’s no provisions in US criminal codes for exile?  St. Helena isn’t US territory, but we could pay to rent it…

  121. 121.

    M31

    @Tony Jay: such a manifestly unfit creep with HUGE amounts of disqualifying baggage was nurtured and protected and promoted and eventually elevated to the position from which he did so much irreparable damage

    you’re going to have to narrow that down, sir

    both the US and the UK have a bunch of these

  122. 122.

    Tony Jay

    @M31:

    That did occur to me.

    The ugly, stupidly-haired one with an arse the size of Ayers Rock?

    The corrupt one with all the Russian links and the cadre of delusional defenders?

    Christ, this is hard.

  124. 124.

    WaterGirl

    @JPL: I would like to read about that, so if you happen to come across a link (not asking you to go look for it) please post the ink in a comment.

  125. 125.

    Carlo Graziani

    @p.a.: I seem to recall a certain Cuban beach “resort” being in active use for this exact purpose…

  126. 126.

    cain

    Last thread I wanted folks to wish my wife luck on her final job interview – she was given an offer and she accepted! She’s now assistant principal! She’s had a lot of challenges these past year, so moving on to something new and challenging is going to be great.

    Even better, the superintendent spent her first 15 years in Pakistan and speaks fluent Urdu – (she’s a white woman) – how sublime is it that you go home and get to talk in fluent Hindi at work? :D

  132. 132.

    kalakal

    @Tony Jay:

    It’s obvious. It’s the sexual predator who used the office to enrich himself.

    Damn. You’re right. It is hard.

  133. 133.

    cain

    @Baud: haha – never. I think in our family chat I congratulated myself for making myself a cup of tea :D

  135. 135.

    hilts

    Looking forward to Ben Affleck’s portrayal of Jack Smith in the film version.

  139. 139.

    H.E.Wolf

    @Geminid:”the Senate Agriculture Committee voted 23-0 to advance Xochitl Torres Small’s nomination as Deputy Secretary of Agriculture. I expect the full Senate will confirm her once those slow pokes can schedule a vote.”

     Fantastic! Thank you for the news.

  146. 146.

    Burnspbesq

    @Carlo Graziani:

    is Nauta being punished for not rolling on his boss?

    I don’t think so. He’s guilty as sin, and as I read the indictment DOJ can prove their case against Trump without his testimony. So let the chips fall where they may. If there’s a message here, the intended audience is more likely Meadows and Terwilliger.

  147. 147.

    H.E.Wolf

    @cain:”@H.E.Wolf: It’s nothing but winning right now – what a great week!”

     It is! And may it be so for many weeks to come.
    Also, congrats to your wife on the new job.

  148. 148.

    WaterGirl

    @H.E.Wolf: I finally had a chance to go back to the time stamp you mentioned.  I imagine that was a tension-relieving move.

    Handling tech for a high-profile event like this can be stressful, and this is definitely not the one where you want anything to go wrong.

    Good job, tech guy

    edit: Jack Smith walks very smoothly for someone who had a broken leg recently.  Nice smooth gait, I bet he KILLED physical therapy.

  149. 149.

    Tony Jay

    @geg6:

    You guys had the same thing, more or less, with Bush and Trump. I know you get it.

    Villago Delenda Est had it right way back when.

  150. 150.

    lowtechcyclist

    @raven: ​
     

    Waiting for the electrician

    Or someone like him.

    There have been more than a few times during the past three years when I’ve had to restrain myself from saying, “according to my careful prosthesis, you’ve got The Plague.”

Comments are closed.