Donald Trump in Hot Water

[Lefty Specialist]

This should be a story

It should be but BIDEN SHUFFLES HIS FEET AND CLEARS HIS THROAT TOO MUCH.

I'm sure the teenagers he abused are far too scared to come out in the open. They know what happens.

[Edgy MD]

The winning streak continues for the ex-president, as Federal Judge Aileen Cannon dismisses the classified documents case, ruling, amazingly, that the special counsel Jack Smith was improperly appointed.

I need to change my tack. My resistance to this movement has only fueled it.

[Lefty Specialist]

Well this case wasn't going to trial before the election anyway. They've already had a case where they tried to say Jack Smith wasn't properly appointed (the DC J6 case), and the Supremes declined to hear the appeal. Smith should just re-file the charges in DC at this point, because Cannon will never allow Trump to be prosecuted.

She could have made this ruling as soon as there was an indictment, but chose to wait and wait and wait. The Mar-A-Lago Employee of the Month strikes again.

[metsmarathon]

Jesus.

[Bob Alpacadaca]

The whole point of these cases was to fuel the narrative that Trump is reckless and lawless. With the raid, the staged evidence photos, the Dems got what they wanted out of this. It backfired a bit with Biden's garage and the Robert Hur report. They're better off having this one just go away.

[nymr83]

This dismissal is on a technicality, and one I happen to completely agree with, nothing to do with Trump really.

[TransMonk]

We'll see what the 11th Circuit says on appeal. This case wasn't going to trial anytime soon anyway and ultimately November 5 will decide whether it continues at all.

Looks to me like a judge using media cover to submit her application to the Supreme Court.

If America was a movie, I'd be walking out of the theater due to the nauseating silliness of it all.

[batmagadanleadoff]

We'll see what the 11th Circuit says on appeal. This case wasn't going to trial anytime soon anyway and ultimately November 5 will decide whether it continues at all.

Looks to me like a judge using media cover to submit her application to the Supreme Court.

Or if not SCOTUS, at least to the Circuit Court of Appeals. What a disgraceful embarrassment.

[Edgy MD]

The whole point of these cases was to fuel the narrative that Trump is reckless and lawless. With the raid, the staged evidence photos, the Dems got what they wanted out of this. It backfired a bit with Biden's garage and the Robert Hur report. They're better off having this one just go away.

The raid was not the product of the "Dems." It was the work of the FBI.

Evidence is supposed to be photographed. When you suggest the photographs were "staged," are you really suggesting that the boxes were not stored on the ballroom stage and in an active bathroom at Mar-a-Lago?

And what other cases are you suggesting that the "whole point" of was merely to fuel a political narrative? That's an amazing contention.

I'm not a Dem. Speaking for myself, what I "want" is justice, and I imagine (and very much hope) that most fairminded Democrats feel the same.

Whether or not it was intended, it's amazing how the handing down of the decision was given the perfect cover by the assassination attempt.

[batmagadanleadoff]

The whole point of these cases was to fuel the narrative that Trump is reckless and lawless. With the raid, the staged evidence photos, the Dems got what they wanted out of this. It backfired a bit with Biden's garage and the Robert Hur report. They're better off having this one just go away.

No. The whole point of these cases was to convict the scumbag of crimes he committed. I guess they'll all go away now anyway, no matter what, either because the electorate, collectively, is fucking stupid. It voted him into office once already so there's your proof of its stupidity. Also, QAnon. And if by some fucking miracle, the Dems win the next presidency, then our crooked SCOTUS will step in to make the cases go away.

How many red MAGA hats do you own?

[metsmarathon]

boy we're really poised to get the government we deserve, collectively, as opposed to the government we need, aren't we.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Excerpted below are the two closing paragraphs to good ol' Charlie Pierce's latest piece on the disgraceful Judge Cannon and her corrupt handling of the classified documents case (by the by, when is this thread going to be aptly re-named "The Donald Trump is not in Hot Water" thread"?):

However, in a fascinating footnote, Judge Cannon seemed to be working hard at the CYA element of jurisprudence. She claims that Smith didn't give her enough legal arguments against the Appointments Clause argument that she ultimately utilized to punt the case. This could be interpreted as a preemptive strike in what is most likely an appeal by Smith to the 11th Circuit, a court that already has batted Judge Cannon upside the head a number of times for her handling of the case. Even if that appeal is heard, and if the Appeals court takes the case away from Cannon, its ultimate resolution seems to be located on a timeline between the next Ice Age and the Twelfth of Never.

It's time we all face a grim truth. There is no bulwark within our present constitutional structure to resist the kind of politics that will be celebrated at this convention. In just the last two weeks, the federal courts have proven to be hopeless against, if not actively supportive of, those politics. The Democratic Party insists on devouring its own entrails, and the political press seems to be perfectly happy with its role in creating a martyrdom cult within which the Republicans can create a winning alternate reality. All around sunny Milwaukee, happy people in red hats are celebrating. Unity, they cry. Unity! Join us.

Or else.

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/p ... rump-case/

[batmagadanleadoff]

It's time we all face a grim truth. There is no bulwark within our present constitutional structure to resist the kind of politics that will be celebrated at this convention.



https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/p ... rump-case/

Of course not. The GOP's crooked takeover of the judiciary is complete and when you have the courts, you have everything you need to run a corrupt nation. But hey! Hillary's emails! They couldn't be bothered to fucking vote when everything was on the line but they got to make their stupid meaningless fashion statements with their stupid fucking pussy hats at the pussy hat demonstration. "Let's all go to the pussy-hat demonstration. It's gonna be so cool. Madonna's gonna be there. Cher, too!"

[Lefty Specialist]

If you want a villian for the state of the judiciary, look at Dick Durbin. He won't bring up federal judge nominees for confirmation from red states unless both senators sign off (the 'blue slips'). Biden could have dozens more federal judges, but because Durbin wants to play by made-up rules that only Democrats abide by, we don't have them. This was done under Obama as well.

Democrats are often their own worst enemy. The result is lots of Aileen Cannons and Matthew Kacsmaryks. It also allows Republicans to 'judge-shop' as they did in the Mifepristone case, because Kacsmaryk was the ONLY federal judge in that district because of unfilled vacancies.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Durbin's adherence to the blue slip is just mind-boggling given how he's holding back Dem nominees and given how the GOP has been historically abusing the blue slip process for partisan gains for decades.

The blue slip gained a lot of steam right after the Brown v Board decision and throughout the civil rights era as racist segregationist Senators exploited the blue slip to block liberal and especially African-American judicial nominees. When Sen. Ted Kennedy became the chairman of the Senate Judiciary committee right after Jimmy Carter's mid-term elections, Kennedy modified the blue slip rule to essentially treat it as a suggestion rather than an obligation. Under Kennedy's chairmanship, the Senate confirmed a judicial nominee that did not receive two in-state blue slip approvals for the first time since Brown v. Board.

Uber-racist Senator Strom Thurmond restored the blue slip as soon as he replaced Kennedy as chairman of the Senate Judiciary committee. Yet when Dem Californian Senator Alan Cranston used the blue slip process to reject President Reagan's nominee, Thurmond ignored the blue slip rejection process which he himself restored and manipulated the process to confirm Reagan's nominee.

The blue slip process has been a holy hell of hypocrisy ever since the GOP regained control of the Senate during the mid-terms of Obama's second stint. That was the Mitch McConnell era. Durbin's actions are simply head-scratching given the current political climate and that the Dems control both the White House and the Senate. The party keeps on shooting itself in the foot. Durbin. Sinema. Manchin. With a little more unity and teamwork, this SCOTUS would have been dismantled already and there'd be two more Dem Senators (from DC).

[batmagadanleadoff]

This dismissal is on a technicality, and one I happen to completely agree with, nothing to do with Trump really.

You and Clarence Thomas are about the only ones who believe this nonsense. And crooked MAGA judge Eileen Cannon, of course. Nobody else on SCOTUS joined in Thomas's batshit crazy concurring opinion. Still, if this ever gets to SCOTUS, I wouldn't put it past them to fashion a gaslighting remedy that favors Trump. At this point, nothing is beyond this SCOTUS.

[batmagadanleadoff]

This dismissal is on a technicality, and one I happen to completely agree with, nothing to do with Trump really.

You and Clarence Thomas are about the only ones who believe this nonsense. And crooked MAGA judge Eileen Cannon, of course. Nobody else on SCOTUS joined in Thomas's batshit crazy concurring opinion. Still, if this ever gets to SCOTUS, I wouldn't put it past them to fashion a gaslighting remedy that favors Trump. At this point, nothing is beyond this SCOTUS.

I'm not surprised by Cannon's dismissal, but by the timing of it. She left the door open for an appeal with a corollary motion to have her removed from the case. I figured that a dismissal would come after a jury was empaneled, thus preventing the Government from ever appealing the decision. Maybe she changed her mind after the insane Trump immunity decision, now counting on -- no, expecting -- SCOTUS to have the final word here and ultimately back her up.