All I want for Christmas is my 🎶
I am may start calling this the “coup case”. The more I learn, the more impossible it is to see it as anything but a full-blown coup attempt. This is so much bigger than just January 6.
BREAKING: Jack Smith requests a JANUARY 2, 2024 trial date for the coup trial. https://t.co/Kk54uwx9Om pic.twitter.com/n22yEVmtP1
— Mueller, She Wrote (@MuellerSheWrote) August 10, 2023
You can read the whole PDF at this link.
Open thread.
West of the Rockies
I hope it happens! Wouldn’t that make for a delightful New Year for Demented Donny?
feebog
Tighting the screws, one at a time.
MattF
Now, Trump’s defense will propose Jan. 2, 2025. Or, more likely, never.
WaterGirl
@MattF: What’s the legal thing-y where it can’t be later than 99 years after X person dies?
They will propose a date of 99 years after DJT kicks the bucket.
WaterGirl
The schedule that Jack Smith has proposed:
WaterGirl
I especially like this part:
FastEdD
January the Tooth. Jack might just get close to that with Judge Don’t Take No Shit.
Highway Rob
@WaterGirl: TFG, putting the Perp into the Rule Against Perpetuities.
SiubhanDuinne
“What are you doing New Year’s … New Year’s Eve?”
LAO
I’m going to repeat, from below, my highly unpopular opinion that the government’s proposed trial schedule will not be adopted by Judge Chutkan.
It’s just my opinion, I’d love to be wrong.
WaterGirl
bbleh
@MattF: Yup, and they’ll argue and litigate and yada yada, and if this judge acts according to her popular rep she’ll keep the pressure on, and they’ll end up with a trial sometime in mid-to-late spring, in more than enough time to figure prominently in election coverage.
Gonna be an interesting year. Unless TFG suddenly ruptures an important pipe and goes to that big rally in the sky.
WaterGirl
a. The Constitution and Federal Law Provide that a Speedy Trial is in the Public’s Interest and in the Interests of Justice
At the defendant’s initial appearance, and in several television interviews, defense counsel has suggested that the Speedy Trial Act is intended only to protect the defendant’s rights. See, e.g., 8/3/23 Hr’g Tr. at 17 (“Of course, the Speedy Trial Act protects a defendant’s rights”); 8/3/23 Fox News, Ingraham Angle (“Speedy trials rights are a defendant’s speedy trial rights. A citizen’s speedy trial rights. Not the government.” 2 ).
Not so. Under both the Sixth Amendment’s Speedy Trial Clause and the Speedy Trial Act, the right to a timely trial is vested in the public, not just in the defendant.
WaterGirl
@Highway Rob: Ha!
bbleh
@LAO: does anybody really expect it to be, though? The defense will offer a wildly different one, and I can’t imagine a respectable judge siding entirely with one party rather than compromising somewhere in the middle, if for no other reason then to avoid the appearance of bias.
WaterGirl
@LAO: What’s is your thinking that leads you to that conclusion? or you could point me to where you laid that out downstairs. :-)
WaterGirl
@bbleh: I take your general point, but I think “the middle” is bullshit.
The Defendant can propose something so far out that “the middle” may as well be the end of time.
WaterGirl
I enjoyed this bit of snark from (fake) Jack Smith:
Suzanne
@WaterGirl:
Oooh, that sucks. Going to be many, many hangovers.
bbleh
@WaterGirl: yeah I’d guess it wouldn’t be the exact middle — maybe I shoulda said somewhere “in between” — and I’d also guess that if the defense does propose something ludicrous she’d have no trouble saying so and picking something much closer to the prosecution’s date
I don’t think this is gonna be another case of Republicans putting the goalposts on wheels and pushing them as far and fast as they can.
MattF
@Suzanne: So, there’s actually about ten working days in there for all of jury selection. Seems kinda tight.
Old School
@WaterGirl:
I believe it was “Federal trials are slow.”
LAO
@WaterGirl: We’ll, it’s a really lightening fast schedule. The average complicated case can take 18 months to 24 months to try. I think it’s unrealistic and downplays how much work defense attorneys put in to ethically represent their clients.
again, just my opinion.
Elizabelle
My guess would be that Jack Smith expects to start jury selection in early January — about 3 weeks later than suggested. Could even go for a full month.
One thing about selecting a jury before the December holidays: are the jurors going to keep their mouths shut? I think not. So much for an anonymous jury. Maybe better to just start fresh, in the earliest days of 2024.
Team Trump can ask for 2026 if they like; I think there is a huge interest in getting this trial started, as soon as is reasonably practicable.
gwangung
@MattF: I’m guessing this is a tactical move; I’d bet Smith is not expecting things go that quickly, but is pushing to get this done as expeditiously as possible.
Not that he’d look a gift horse in the mouth…
bbleh
@MattF: I wonder. I was on a panel for a racially charged gang-related capital murder case in CA. They pulled in literally hundreds of panelists, the voir dire could be exhaustive — I was questioned in court by the judge for over 15 minutes after the lawyers had had their shot — and it was done in less than two days.
Elizabelle
@gwangung: Yep.
Scout211
Just now on his TruthSocial:
IANAL, but this seems like a defendant that needs to be gagged.
I imagine there might be many volunteers who would like to be the one who . . . Oh, sorry. Just got lost in my head there for a minute . . . Yeah, the judge should tell him to shut the hell up..
Baud
@WaterGirl:
No date for the hanging?
LAO
@LAO: I agree with you, I believe jury selection will be set for mid to late January. Judge Chutkan wants this case tried and as a former federal defender, she’ll have an accurate sense of the time defense counsel should reasonably require
ETA: I was trying to respond to Elizabelle #27. Not sure how I fucked it up.
Baud
@LAO:
Did you just agree with yourself?
Brachiator
@LAO:
I respect your views on this. What happens next? When might we know what the date will be?
ETA. I see your later response.
LAO
@Baud: see above. Apparently, I’m an idiot.
Baud
@LAO:
At least you didn’t call yourself an ignorant slut.
LAO
@Brachiator: I read that the defense will send their proposed trial schedule on Monday. So, I expect the court will issue its trial schedule shortly thereafter.
Baud
@Scout211:
Trump didn’t write that.
Omnes Omnibus
@LAO: It is an aspirational ask (to use a popular term these days).
LAO
@Baud: Did you just call me Jane?
Scout211
@Baud: No, he didn’t write it. Trump doesn’t have lower case on his phone keyboard.
Roger Moore
@LAO:
I don’t think the prosecution necessarily expects to get exactly what they’re asking for. Maybe the judge will give it and maybe she won’t, but it’s highly unlikely she’ll set on a date any sooner than what the prosecution asks for. It behooves them to ask for the earliest date they can be ready for so she’ll at least be postponing from then rather than from some date that already has delay built in.
Baud
LAO
@Omnes Omnibus: hehehe
Roger Moore
@bbleh:
I think MLB has the right idea in using binding offer arbitration, where the arbitrator has to pick one side’s offer or the other with no ability to compromise. It discourages either side from making completely unreasonable offers, since they know the arbitrator will most likely rule against them if the other side is even a little bit more reasonable.
Elizabelle
@LAO: Fingers crossed. Toes, too.
Baud
@Roger Moore:
Wouldn’t work for a court, which unlike a baseball arbitrator, has its own resources to worry about.
HeleninEire
Cool. I was afraid it was going to be in November (yeah I know; wishful thinking) when I am planning to be in Dublin. I swear I would have postponed my visit!
Ceci n est pas mon nym
I think there was discussion earlier about Boris Epshteyn’s 2021 arrest for groping women in a nightclub, uncovered by an Arizona reported.
Anyone wanna see the bodycam footage of the whole arrest? (Starts at 6:42) I found the moment when the officer starts reading him his rights so he suddenly knows this is real, to be deeply satisfying.
Roger Moore
@Baud:
That’s fair. I still think the basic idea of using a system that encourages the two sides to make reasonable suggestions up front is sound. If the defendant asks for the sun, moon, and stars, the judge shouldn’t see giving them the moon and half the stars as a reasonable answer.
Suzanne
@MattF: It also seems like it will be difficult to get people to appear. Holidays, kids off school…..
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
Perhaps Trump is working to improve the likelihood of his own conviction.
This would be in keeping with his campaign promises, as it would be his first true contribution to American greatness.
That’s my role…
NotMax
WaterGirl, please check your e-mail.
@LAO
In agreement, however my gut says mid-February.
HeleninEire
@LAO: So your timing is just a bit longer than DOJ’s request. I can live with that.
Also, too, my autocorrect just changed DOJ to dog! 🐕😆
ETA. Nice to see you back. We need you here now. Sending good thoughts to your Mom.
dmsilev
Any thoughts on what this will do to Judge “I like Trump” Cannon? Still allow endless delays on that trial? Might end up being moot. If Trump is a convicted felon by next spring, even if he’s still trying to file stupid appeals motions, nobody is really going to care how long it takes to drag out a different felony trial and she’ll have made herself look stupid for no return.
Ruckus
@feebog:
Tighting the screws, one at a time.
With an pneumatic gun. Like the guy putting the wheels back on your car with new tires.
Ruckus
@LAO:
She of course has the say and she may have other cases that will also take her time but I’d bet she wants to get this one out of the way and resolved quickly. I would.
MattF
@dmsilev: It offers some perspective on the two trials. Yeah, Trump should not have been waving around TS documents. But ‘should not be subverting the Constitution’ is a bigger deal.
Cameron
@LAO: Very doubtful – if true, Team Trump would have reached out to you already.
Ruckus
@bbleh:
Don’t tease!
Actually that is my second choice. I’d much rather he pays the price for being such a shit. He’s earned the one room home with bars and a lock from the outside.
Bunter
@Suzanne: The last time I was called for jury duty (NYC) was a few (five-six?) days before Christmas and the jury room was as full as the other two times I was called.
LAO
@NotMax: it wouldn’t surprise me.
@HeleninEire: thank you
HeleninEire
@Roger Moore: Oh I did not know MLB did that. It’s like our Mom’s (well anyway my Mom’s) rule when we had to split, say, a piece of cake. “One cuts, the other one gets to pick first piece.” Brilliant.
LAO
@Ruckus: I think Judge Chutkan will make the J6 case her priority.
Just as an aside, the fact that the Judge was a practicing defense attorney hurts Trump to some degree — no one’s better at spotting our bullshit than a defense attorney turned judge.
Scout211
In other legal news:
Supreme Court blocks $6 billion Purdue Pharma opioid settlement and will hear case this fall
narya
@Ruckus: At the speed of the F1 pitstops.
Baud
@Scout211:
The Sacklers should have invested in some Supreme Court justices.
eclare
@Scout211:
So referring to Marc Short as Marc “Long” is supposed to be some epic shade? Gettin’ sloppy there TIFG.
MattF
@eclare: He’s stuck in third grade, forever.
Scout211
There’s plenty of time until fall and the Sacklers have socked away plenty of billions, so . . .
Jeffro
isn’t Mr. Innocent, well, innocent?
shouldn’t he want a speedy trial and exoneration?
what am I missing here, GOP?
;)
Jeffro
I know, right?
I might have to do “Dry November” instead of “Dry January” and what not. My liver will thank me.
cain
@bbleh: Likely they’ll deploy the “Chewbacca Defense” and say nothing makes sense and they need to move the dates.
Jeffro
@Scout211: “greatness” omg
Is today Opposite Day? Or is trumpov just Opposite Person?
WaterGirl
@LAO: You may be right, but Jack had an answer to that in his filing.
cain
@WaterGirl: When your famous – they let you do it! :D
(a flashback)
cain
@Suzanne: There will be many who will drink while still hung over ;)
UncleEbeneezer
@Elizabelle: Former Federal Prosecutor (SDNY) Karen Friedman Agnifilo said roughly the same. Jury selection in early January, trial in February. To not look too favorable to DOJ but also because this is a good window in the busy calendar of Trump’s multiple trials including one, I believe, in March 2023.
WaterGirl
@Elizabelle: If the trial hasn’t started until Jan 2, the jurors have nothing to say over the holidays other than first impressions. I liked the judge, I didn’t like the judge, I thought the X person was handsome or ugly.
As far as I’m concerned, they can talk all they want about how sexy Jack Smith is.
WaterGirl
@Scout211: Not a gag order, a literal gag. :-)
WaterGirl
@Baud:
That was good for a literal LOL.
JPL
@eclare: My 4 yr old grand imp might laugh at that but that’s all. Not even sure he would find that funny.
WaterGirl
@Baud: I make reference to that in real life if someone is criticizing me or implying that i did something less than ideal, but they are doing it in kind of a back-door way, without owning up to it..
“WaterGirl, you ignorant slut.” They pause for a minute, realize they were being a dick, and we all laugh.
*substitute my real name for WG.
LAO
@WaterGirl: I acknowledge that but nonetheless I wouldn’t necessarily concede that the government has the best interest of the defendant when setting the trial schedule (as a general rule). As Omnes pointed out, it’s an aspirational trial schedule.
WaterGirl
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: That wasn’t at 6:42 for me, not sure where it would be
Miki
@Highway Rob: 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
WaterGirl
@HeleninEire: My autocorrect tries to do that a lot. I mostly catch it!
WaterGirl
@Baud:
Lots of rotating tag potential there.
Baud
Via Mastodon.
M31
“Surely you jest!”
Elizabelle
@WaterGirl: if they are known to be jurors, the media can find them, if they, or any of their family or friends, run their mouths. Trump could find them too. Further, the jurors could become receptacles for all the false information purveyed by their MAGA relatives, over the holidays.
Pick ’em in January. Easier, and safer, for everyone.
UncleEbeneezer
@WaterGirl: Jurors aren’t allowed to talk about the trial anyways. I know because I was just on a jury and had to withstand my wife’s prying questions until last night (after the trial I was on, was dismissed and the judge sent us home in the morning).
Roger Moore
@Jeffro:
I don’t like this kind of thing when conservatives pull it, and we shouldn’t pull it either. It does take time to prepare a good defense, even if the evidence is in the defendant’s favor. The prosecution has an inherent time advantage, since they have already done a big chunk of the effort of preparing their case in the process of bringing it before the grand jury. Meanwhile, the grand jury proceedings are kept secret from the defense, and even to the extent they can glean information about them they don’t know the details of the prosecution’s case until they see it. The prosecution can even stall a little more by keeping the indictment sealed for a while after it’s been delivered. So yeah, the defense is likely to need more time to get ready for court than the prosecution is.
Of course that’s not to say that all delay is equal. The defense may need some extra time to build their case beyond the first day the case can legally be started, but that is different from the indefinite stall tactics Trump seems to prefer. At the very least, he seems to want to stall the trials until after the election, which sounds like he cares more about his ability to pardon himself than anything. But please make that case specifically rather than the generic “shouldn’t an innocent person want to prove their innocence as quickly as possible” BS pulled by people who don’t really believe in innocent until proven guilty.
rikyrah
Another one….about Montgomery
This one to
‘ Oh What A Night’
😂😂😂😂
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8NenefY/
M31
Look, this isn’t a complicated case! There’s just the one charge of “are you a mobbed-up Russian knob-slobbering traitorous piece of fascist shit?”
I mean, come ON
Dan B
@rikyrah: Great one. And Robert is a cutie even with that walrus fake mustache.
LAO
@Roger Moore: Well said.
Roger Moore
@WaterGirl:
When I was on a jury, we were told not to discuss anything about the trial, starting with jury selection. I wasn’t even allowed to tell people if it was a civil or criminal trial. The only thing I could discuss with people was how it would affect my schedule, e.g. that I was on the jury and was expected to be busy on these days.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@M31: “What do you make of this?”
Ruckus
@LAO:
Oh I think she will as well. And you likely have a more nuanced view of the workings of a court, I’ve only been on jury duty 6 times in my life, sat in 4 juries. One the guy copped, two voted in – guilty, one was a alternate in the box, wasn’t needed in the room. I have a clue, but really no more than that. Oh and I get to number 7 the last week of this month. LA Superior Court.
UncleEbeneezer
@Roger Moore: Same instructions we got on Monday for the jury I was just on in LA County (case dismissed yesterday). I imagine Federal jury cases are just as strict on this.
Ruckus
@MattF:
He finished 3rd grade?
Astounded I am.
Jackie
@HeleninEire: I did that with my kiddos, too. A ruler got used. A lot!😂
Odie Hugh Manatee
Need to change the “Jack be nimble…” rotating subheading to:
Jack was nimble,
Jack was quick,
Jack indicted that fucking prick.
eclare
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
Bravo!
NotMax
@HeleninEire
Reminded of a policy i instituted when in charge of a summer camp.
In activities where the campers got to choose up sides for teams, whoever was picked last got to do the choosing the next time.
Baud
Via Reddit
Roger Moore
@UncleEbeneezer:
Not too surprising, since mine was also in LA County earlier this year. Were you lucky enough to serve at your local courthouse, or did you get sent downtown as I was?
Captain C
@Suzanne:
I don’t know if I could face being on that jury without a hangover.
WaterGirl
@HeleninEire: @Jackie:
That was our rule, too, growing up! A really smart one. I still follow it.
NotMax
@WaterGirl
BTW, in the e-mail I sent you today, apparently what were supposed to be bullet points got transmogrified into question marks.
smith
@Baud: But that’s been going on a long time. Maybe the parishioners have been shy about saying aloud that Jesus was nothing but weak, woke lib, but how could the preachers NOT see in their congregations’ actions and their opinions a blunt repudiation of Jesus’ teachings? Are the preachers now trying to cover their asses for ignoring it for so long?
eclare
@smith:
Good questions.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@WaterGirl:
Weird. Just clicked on the link and it definitely starts at 6:42 and runs for pretty much the rest of the video. Here’s the link again, cued to where the bodycam begins.
Are you getting a Ben Meiselas video that is about 16 1/2 minutes long? It’s the entire last 2/3 of the video.
WaterGirl
@NotMax: Not on my end! They are bullseyes.
WaterGirl
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Yes to Ben M and yes to the length. around 6:42 I see a woman being interviewed.
edit: i just fast forwarded, I don’t see him until the 10-minute mark and he is sitting on the curb.
“You’re not allowed to stand up, okay?” Geez, find me one black person who was ever treated like that. Ever.
NotMax
@WaterGirl
All is cool, then. Thanks.
;)
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@WaterGirl: She’s being interviewed by a cop about the sexual assault by Epshteyn, collecting the facts. A few minutes later, the same cop detains Epshteyn and arrests him based on the woman’s complaint.
Boris makes his entrance at about 10:12.
WaterGirl
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Yeah, I see all that, but not until 10+ minutes. Weird. Maybe the 6:42 was how long was left on the video?
Anyway, it’s all good, I saw it. He’s a creep.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@WaterGirl: No, I went to the beginning of the bodycam footage, figured that was part of the context, hearing what he’s being accused of. Sorry, I didn’t realize you’d want to skip right to Act 2 :-)
In Meiselas’ introduction he mentions that this was not Epshteyn’s first brush with the law on the same kinds of charges.
WaterGirl
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Ugh. Water finds its own level. Just like Barack and Michele found each other, these lowlifes found one another.
UncleEbeneezer
@Roger Moore: Alhambra. I live in Altadena. Still better than downtown LA.
Bill Arnold
@Roger Moore:
People slip, particularly when intoxicated, or are sloppy (or unpracticed) about such OPSEC. Also, sometimes some details are released. I ID ed a friend as being a juror on a high profile (Cannibal Cop) case based on a couple of details in some released information.