Thread: Donald Trump : Former POTUS

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88 million, and counting. She could potentially continue to sue him for the barrage of insults, that are surely going to come, in the future. The Orange Turd cannot help himself. He will continue to defame her.

Originally Posted by beachbound

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88 million, and counting. She could potentially continue to sue him for the barrage of insults, that are surely going to come, in the future. The Orange Turd cannot help himself. He will continue to defame her.

And his idiot supporters will continue to pick up the bill.

READ: Jury’s $83.3 million verdict against Trump in E. Jean Carroll defamation case

Rapist verdict

• Trump ordered to pay $83.3M for defaming E. Jean Carroll

A jury ordered Donald Trump on Friday to pay $83.3 million to the writer E. Jean Carroll over defamatory remarks he made about her while he was president in response to her rape accusation.

The bulk of the damages award is meant to punish Trump for repeatedly using his public platform to denigrate Carroll in defiance of prior court rulings that his verbal attacks are false and defamatory.

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled last fall that Trump defamed Carroll by saying in 2019 that he had never met her and that her book, in which she accused him of having raped her in the dressing room of a luxury department store in the mid-1990s, “should be sold in the fiction section.”

The only question for the nine-person jury to decide was how much in damages Trump should pay. After deliberating for three hours, the jury ordered Trump to pay $18.3 million in compensatory damages and $65 million in punitive damages.

Compensatory damages compensate a plaintiff for harm or other losses they have suffered. Punitive damages are awards intended to punish the defendant for their conduct.

During their closing arguments Friday, Carroll’s lawyers encouraged the jury to order an “unusually high” punitive damages award, both because of Trump’s wealth and because he has continued to disparage Carroll, including during the trial. Even as the jury was deliberating on Friday afternoon, Trump kept up his attacks on Carroll in a stream of social media posts in which he again claimed he never met her, called her case a “hoax” and lobbed other insults against her and the legal system.

In a statement released Friday evening, Carroll said the verdict is “a great victory for every woman who stands up when she’s been knocked down, and a huge defeat for every bully who has tried to keep a woman down.”

Trump, who left the courthouse shortly before the jury reached a verdict, called it “absolutely ridiculous” on social media and vowed to appeal.

Trump’s lawyer, Alina Habba, complained to reporters as she exited the courthouse that the judge had unfairly limited the legal arguments Trump was allowed to make. “We were stripped of every defense — every single defense — before we walked in there,” she said.

The nine members of the Manhattan jury were anonymous, meaning that Trump, Carroll and their lawyers did not know their names. Kaplan ordered the unusual anonymity provision because of the risk that people involved in the high-profile case would be subject to threats or harassment. After the verdict on Friday, Kaplan told the jurors, “My advice to you is that you never disclose that you were on this jury.”

Friday’s award comes on top of a $5 million penalty a separate jury ordered Trump to pay Carroll in a trial last year in which Trump was found liable for sexual abuse regarding Carroll’s rape claims and for defamation for other comments he made about her in 2022.

Though Trump didn’t attend a single day of last year’s trial against Carroll, he not only sat in the Manhattan federal courtroom for most of the second trial, but he also testified in his own defense.

Asked by Habba whether he stood by the testimony he gave in a videotaped deposition that had been shown to the jury, he said, “100 percent, yes.” In part because Kaplan severely curtailed the scope of the former president’s testimony, Trump spent a total of just three minutes on the witness stand on Thursday.

Earlier in the trial, Kaplan threatened to kick Trump out of the courtroom after the former president made comments within earshot of the jury.

“You just can’t control yourself in this circumstance, apparently,” the judge said. Trump retorted: “You can’t either.”

As she had in the earlier trial, Carroll also testified, telling the jury that Trump’s comments about her — and the barrage of menacing and demeaning messages she said she received as a result of them — caused her emotional distress and damaged her reputation.

“Well, to have the president of the United States, one of the most powerful persons on earth, calling me a liar for three days and saying I’m a liar 26 times — I counted them — it ended the world that I had been living in,” she said. “And I entered a new world.”

Though she was once known as a writer, she testified, “now I’m known as a liar and a fraud and a whack job.”

Though the lawsuit concerned only two sets of remarks Trump made as president, Carroll’s lawyers presented evidence demonstrating that Trump has continued to make similar comments about Carroll through the present day, despite having been found liable for defamation in both the earlier case and by the judge in this one.

They showed the jury social media messages Trump posted about Carroll during the trial as well as clips from a press conference he held midway through the proceedings in which he referred to Carroll’s “made-up story.”

Friday’s award comes as Trump also awaits a verdict in a civil fraud trial in New York state court in which Attorney General Tish James’ office has accused him of massive business fraud. In that case, James has asked the judge to impose a financial penalty of $370 million.

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“This is a great victory for every woman who stands up when she’s been knocked down, and a huge defeat for every bully who has tried to keep a woman down.”

• Carroll declares Trump verdict in defamation case a ‘great victory’

She also offered thanks to her attorney, Roberta Kaplan, for “this win.”

Kaplan echoed Carroll’s sentiments, saying the verdict proves that no one is above the law — “even the rich, even the famous, even former presidents.”

“There is a way to stand up to someone like Donald Trump who cares more about wealth, fame, and power than respecting the law,” Kaplan said. “Standing up to a bully takes courage and bravery; it takes someone like E. Jean Carroll. We thank the jury for standing up for E. Jean and the rule of law.”

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• Georgia Senate passes a panel with subpoena power to investigate District Attorney Fani Willis

Georgia’s state Senate joined attempts to investigate Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis on Friday, voting 30-19 to create a special committee that Republican senators say is needed to determine whether the Democratic district attorney misspent state tax money in her prosecution of former President Donald Trump and others.

“This has to do with following state funds,” said Republican Sen Matt Brass of Newnan. “We want to know where is our money going.”

The committee, which doesn’t require approval by the state House or Gov. Brian Kemp, is tasked with making recommendations on state laws and spending based on its findings. But the committee can’t directly sanction Willis, and Democrats denounced it as a partisan attempt to try to play to Trump and his supporters.

YES!!! So happy for her that it went her way!!

I think $83.3 million is a ridiculous sum. I'm guessing it will be slashed on appeal. It's so large that it makes Trump look like the victim.

I'm not even a Trumpster. I think he's a turd.

Originally Posted by 39TG

I think $83.3 million is a ridiculous sum. I'm guessing it will be slashed on appeal. It's so large that it makes Trump look like the victim.

I'm not even a Trumpster. I think he's a turd.

I think the jury could see how much it was going to take to get him to stop defaming. Now he has 83 million reasons to keep his ugly pie hole shut.

• The Trump defense industrial complex goes a bit quiet after Carroll verdict

The most notable thing about the Republican call-and-response following the E. Jean Carroll verdict was that there was barely any response at all.

On Friday night and into the weekend, the story of former President Donald Trump being ordered to pay the writer $83.3 million in damages stemming from her defamation case against him didn’t lead Fox News, which was consumed instead with the immigration crisis on the Southern border. The Daily Caller was busy flogging Hunter Biden. And on the right-wing network Newsmax’s pages, the verdict ran beneath reporting on a bathroom bill in Utah, Israel and Vince McMahon.

“Everyone is just trying to pretend it didn’t happen,” said Jason Roe, the former executive director of the state Republican Party in Michigan.

In the past, when prosecutors or the courts have smacked Trump, the former president fumed and the GOP rage machine spun itself into overdrive, framing the court developments as acts of political persecution. In the Carroll case, the first part happened, but not the second.

That most Republicans were not talking about $83 million in damages reflects both a discomfort with, and an uncertainty about, the political implications of the verdict. It also hints at a latent fear: that the ruling may prove to be a turnoff for some independent or conservative-leaning women in the suburbs.

“It will hurt with independent voters in November,” said Alice Stewart, a Republican strategist and veteran of past presidential campaigns.

• Trump attempts to take credit for stock market record highs under Biden

Former President Donald Trump on Monday admitted that the stock market is on the rise under his successor, President Joe Biden — but Trump still tried to take credit for it.

“THIS IS THE TRUMP STOCK MARKET,” Trump claimed in an all-caps Truth social post, “BECAUSE MY POLLS AGAINST BIDEN ARE SO GOOD THAT INVESTORS ARE PROJECTING THAT I WILL WIN, AND THAT WILL DRIVE THE MARKET UP.”

Trump cited no evidence to back up the claim that investors are buying into the stock market now in anticipation that the Republican ex-president will beat the Democratic incumbent in an election nearly 10 months away.

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• E Jean Carroll aims to give defamation money ‘to something Trump hates’

E Jean Carroll intends to spend the $83m awarded to her in her defamation trial against Donald Trump on something the former president “hates”, she revealed just days after the judgment.

Alongside her lawyer Roberta Kaplan, Carroll told host George Stephanopoulos that Friday’s win had left her overcome with “elation”.

“It filled me up … It was almost painful,” she said, adding: “Today, I’m very happy.

Stephanopoulos asked her to give the public an idea as to how she planned to spend the millions of dollars she’s won, and Carroll provided a clear outline.

“I’d like to give the money to something Donald Trump hates,” Carroll said. “If it’ll cause him pain for me to give money to certain things, that’s my intent.”

Carroll also said that she would perhaps explore giving to “a fund for the women who have been sexually assaulted by Donald Trump”.

Alina Habba Appears to Have Been Replaced

When Judge Kaplan files his written judgment, the trial will officially be over and Trump will be able to appeal the verdict, which his lawyers have promised to do.

Writing on his social media platform Truth Social Wednesday, the former president said he was interviewing different law firms to represent him in the appeal.

This does not mean Habba has definitely been replaced. Trump has, in the past, moved his lawyers to different cases. However, her trial conduct was criticized by commentators.

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• “He’s nothing”: E. Jean Carroll surprised diminished Trump was like a “walrus snorting” in court

Writer E. Jean Carroll during a Monday sit-down with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow compared Donald Trump to "a walrus snorting" and "a rhino flopping his hands" after the former president was ordered to pay her $83.3 million in damages — $18.3 million in compensatory damages and $65 million in punitive damages — for repeatedly defaming her.

Carroll told Maddow she felt the verdict "bodes well for the future."

"I think we planted our flag," the longtime columnist said. "I think we’ve made a statement that things are gonna be different, that there is gonna be a new way of doing things in this country because of this indestructible team of lawyers, Rachel."

"I am sometimes 50 years older than some of the associates on our team," Carroll continued. "I’m 40 years older than Shawn [Crowley], I’m 30 years older than Robbie [Kaplan], and together, this team of brilliant young people have, as you said, stood up to the man, who, by the way, Rachel, is not even there. He’s nothing. He is like a walrus snorting and like a rhino flopping his hands. It was– he is not there. That was the surprising thing to me.”

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• UAW president fires back after Trump calls him a ‘dope’

United Auto Workers (UAW) President Shawn Fain on Tuesday fired back at former President Trump after he called the union leader a “dope” for endorsing President Biden.

Fain doubled down on his support for Biden and drew a stark contrast between Biden’s and Trump’s track records on supporting unions and the working class when asked on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” about Trump’s latest comments.

“It’s a perfect contrast between the two candidates,” Fain said. “I mean, you have, for the first time in history, a sitting U.S. president joining working-class people, joining the workers on the picket line, standing up with them. And you had Donald Trump, who claims he supports the workers, who calls one of his business owner buddies in a non-union factory, and he goes to this non-union factory and has a rally claiming that he’s there for the union workers and the striking workers.”

“It’s what Trump does best. It’s a rope-a-dope,” Fain continued. “He wants you to look over here while over here, he’s taking everything away. I mean, it’s the divide-and-conquer tactic, and that’s what’s worked for the billionaire class and the corporate class forever.”

Fain endorsed Biden’s reelection campaign last week in a boost for his White House bid. While the UAW endorsed Biden in 2020, the group held back on initially backing his reelection bid, citing concerns over the administration’s electric vehicle push.

Trump, meanwhile, has sought to garner support among blue-collar workers as he turns attention toward a likely rematch with Biden in the fall. In September, Trump skipped a GOP primary debate to address auto workers in Michigan, a key battleground state.

After Fain endorsed Biden and rebuked Trump last week, the former president attacked the union chief on social media, issuing a call to “Get rid of this dope.”

Fain in his MSNBC appearance Tuesday ratcheted up his criticism of Trump as someone who represents the “billionaire class,” laying into tax reform passed under Trump in 2017 and arguing it included “minuscule benefits” for “working class people.” He also accused Trump of pushing cuts to social welfare programs.

“Labor is going to lead this fight, and we’re in it,” Fain said. “Our members have to look at the reality. We have to look at facts. That’s why our contract campaign was so successful because we put the facts out there of the gross inequality between the companies and the workers, and it’s the same situation in our politics.

“There is gross inequality with the few at the top, and everyone else at the bottom. We have to look at facts, not fiction, not alternative facts or lies, as Trump likes to talk about, real facts. And the facts are very clear.”

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• Trump Reportedly Spent Whopping $50 Million in Donor Money on Legal Bills

Former President Donald Trump reportedly spent a whopping $50 million worth of donors’ money on his mounting legal bills in 2023.

According to the New York Times, Trump spent $50 million from several super PACs “paying the bills stemming from his various legal defenses, including lawyers for witnesses.”

The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman and Shane Goldmacher reported that Trump “has been directing 10 percent of donations raised online to Save America, meaning 10 cents of every dollar he has received from supporters is going to a PAC that chiefly funds his lawyers.”

They continued:

Mr. Trump has paid legal expenses through both Save America and a second account, called the Make America Great Again PAC, which is an outgrowth of his 2020 re-election committee. In the first half of 2023, Save America transferred $5.85 million to the Make America Great Again PAC, which spent almost all of that sum on legal and investigation-related costs. The roughly $50 million figure is a combination of such costs through both groups.

The exact number that Trump has spent on legal bills will reportedly be made public in Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings on Wednesday.

Trump has been fighting four major legal battles: charges in New York for falsifying business documents in connection to payments he made to the pornographic actress Stormy Daniels, federal charges over his retention and handling of government documents, and two separate indictments – one federal and one state – related to his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Trump has also been fighting several cases related to E. Jean Carroll, who accused Trump of sexually assaulting her in the 1990s. Last year, Trump was found liable for sexual assault and ordered to pay $5 million. On Friday, Trump was also found liable for defamation against Carroll and ordered to pay a whopping $83.3 million in damages and reputational repair.

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Biden campaign releases new ad on Truth Social #shorts - YouTube

• Aileen Cannon Meets With Jack Smith Behind Closed Doors

Special Counsel Jack Smith is due to meet with Judge Aileen Cannon in a meeting behind closed doors.

Smith, who has brought two indictments against Donald Trump, will meet with Judge Aileen Cannon on January 31 without the former president or his lawyers present.

In Florida, Trump faces 32 counts of unlawful retention of national defense information and eight other charges that include making false statements and a conspiracy to conceal them.

He denies all of the charges against him and says they are politically motivated.

The 'ex parte' hearing on January 31 pertains to objections filed by Trump lawyers in which they have asked for access to documents that are off-limits because of sensitive information.

In a motion filed in December last year, Trump's lawyers said they "seek attorneys'-eyes-only access to these filings so that we can challenge [Smith's] assertions in adversarial proceedings."

An ex parte meeting is conducted without parties affected by the proceeding and without a transcript, meaning details of Cannon and special counsel's conversations will not be made public.

The hearing could have significant consequences for the trial given that, should Cannon rule fully or partially in Trump's favor, it is likely to be appealed by the Justice Department (DOJ).

The appeal would be interlocutory, meaning further action or decision would need to be taken before the trial begins. This could delay the trial date, currently scheduled for May 20 this year.

Former U.S. attorney Joyce Vance said that any appeal from Smith's office would be conducted "fairly quickly" if Cannon rejects the prosecution's argument.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

He will be convicted well before the election.

Trump keeps getting visibly confused on stage #shorts - YouTube

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• Donald Trump’s ‘sex and bribes’ data protection case rejected by UK court

Donald Trump’s data protection claim for damages over allegations in the “Steele dossier” that he took part in “perverted” sex acts and gave bribes to Russian officials has been dismissed by a high court judge in London.

Judge Steyn agreed with Orbis Business Intelligence, the company founded by the former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, who compiled the contentious material, that the case should not go to trial.

The ruling issued on Thursday said the court did not “consider or determine the accuracy or inaccuracy of the memoranda” but found that Trump’s claim for damages had been made outside the six-year period of “limitations”.

The court ruled that Trump “has no reasonable grounds for bringing a claim for compensation or damages, and no real prospect of successfully obtaining such a remedy”.

It added that the “only other remedy claimed was for a compliance order erasing or restricting processing of the memoranda” but that this would be “pointless, and unnecessary, in circumstances where the dossier was freely available on the internet, and the defendant had in any event undertaken to delete the copies it held”.

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• Trump meets with Teamsters as he targets Biden support

Former President Donald Trump met with the Teamsters Union on Wednesday in an attempt to slice into one of President Joe Biden’s prior lines of support.

Trump attended a meeting with Teamsters President Sean O’Brien and Secretary-Treasurer Fred Zuckerman, the union's executive board, as well as other members for a roundtable at the group’s headquarters in Washington, D.C.

"We had a very strong meeting with the Teamsters," Trump told reporters, and said he thinks there is a "good shot" that he gets their endorsement.

"Usually a Republican wouldn't get that endorsement," Trump said, while arguing that he was in a stronger position than other Republicans and that the union "never had...a better four years than they had during the Trump administration."

Biden, who was also invited to participate in a Teamsters rank-and-file roundtable Wednesday, was endorsed by the union in the 2020 election.

Biden “looks forward to meeting with the Teamsters and earning their endorsement” in this year's election, a Biden campaign official told NBC News. It was not clear if the president would meet with the group Wednesday.

The Teamsters said the roundtable would be an opportunity for candidates to discuss how the next president and the group "can work together to empower and protect workers, promote high labor standards and strengthen the American economy while expanding the middle class.”

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• Fulton DA Fani Willis, Nathan Wade subpoenaed to testify in Trump case

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and special prosecutor Nathan Wade have been subpoenaed to testify on Feb. 15, 2024, in a hearing to determine if they will be disqualified in their continuing indictment of former President Donald Trump.

The subpoena was made by Michael Roman and his attorney, Ashleigh Merchant, who are also suing Willis’ office for allegedly withholding information that, it claims, could prove allegations of an improper romantic relationship between Willis and Wade.

That lawsuit, which is a civil case, accuses Willis of violating Georgia’s Open Records Act, which allows the public to access certain government documents.

https://www.scribd.com/document/7027...nal#from_embed

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• Trump’s election-subversion trial will likely be delayed for months

Whether Donald Trump faces a potential prison sentence in 2024 is at the mercy of a federal appeals court that’s operating on its own schedule — at a time when every day matters.

More than 50 days have elapsed since Trump’s criminal proceedings in a Washington, D.C., trial court — on charges for attempting to subvert the 2020 election — were paused indefinitely. They won’t resume until the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals and, most likely, the Supreme Court resolve the question hanging over the entire case: whether Trump, as a former president, is immune from criminal prosecution.

Even if those courts ultimately reject Trump’s immunity arguments — an outcome that most legal experts expect — the protracted delays help the former president, whose strategy across his various trials has been to drag them out for as long as possible. Lengthy delays in his federal criminal cases create the possibility that, if he wins the presidency this November, Trump could avoid the charges altogether by having the Justice Department end the prosecutions or perhaps even by pardoning himself.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing Trump’s federal election case, has tried to keep it on an expeditious track, and the trial is officially slated to begin on March 4. Chutkan, though, has strongly suggested she’ll push back that start date to account for each day of delay caused by Trump’s immunity appeal.

• Special counsel questioned witnesses about 2 rooms FBI didn't search inside Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence

Special counsel Jack Smith's team has questioned several witnesses about a closet and a so-called "hidden room" inside former President Donald Trump's residence at Mar-a-Lago that the FBI didn't check while searching the estate in August 2022, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.

As described to ABC News, the line of questioning in several interviews ahead of Trump's indictment last year on classified document charges suggests that -- long after the FBI seized dozens of boxes and more than 100 documents marked classified from Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate -- Smith's team was trying to determine if there might still be more classified documents there.

According to sources, some investigators involved in the case came to later believe that the closet, which was locked on the day of the search, should have been opened and checked.

As investigators would later learn, Trump allegedly had the closet's lock changed while his attorney was in Mar-a-Lago's basement, searching for classified documents in a storage room that he was told would have all such documents. Trump's alleged efforts to conceal classified documents from both the FBI and his own attorney are a key part of Smith's indictment against Trump in Florida.

Jordan Strauss, a former federal prosecutor and former national security official in the Justice Department, called the FBI's alleged failure to search the closet "a bit astonishing."

"You're searching a former president's house. You [should] get it right the first time," Strauss told ABC News.

In addition to the closet, the FBI also didn't search what authorities have called a "hidden room" connected to Trump's bedroom, sources said.

Smith's investigators were later told that, in the days right after the search, some of Trump's employees heard that the FBI had missed at least one room at Mar-a-Lago, the sources said.

According to a senior FBI official, agents focused on areas they believed might have government documents.

"Based on information gathered throughout the course of the investigation, areas were identified and searched pursuant to the search warrant," the official told ABC News.

Much more in the link

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

He will be convicted well before the election.

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• Verdict in Trump’s New York fraud trial delayed until early to mid-February

The verdict in Donald Trump’s $370m fraud trial will be coming later than expected, with a decision expected in early to mid-February, a New York court spokesperson said on Thursday.

The New York judge Arthur Engoron had initially said he would aim to deliver a verdict on the potential $370m fine by 31 January. “I will do my best” to meet the deadline, he said on 11 January after the trial’s closing arguments.

Engoron had found Trump guilty of fraud – inflating the value of his assets on financial documents – in a pre-trial ruling in late September. The trial was over whether Trump and his company had committed fraud with intent, which is punishable with a hefty fine. The New York attorney general’s office, which brought the suit against Trump, is asking for $370m in disgorgement and to ban Trump from doing business in New York.

The court spokesperson said the new timeline was a “rough estimate” and the decision will be a written filing.

Though the court did not specify why Engoron is taking extra time on his verdict, reports have suggested a letter from the former federal judge Barbara Jones, sent on 26 January, is likely a factor in the delay.

Jones has been serving as the court-appointed monitor overseeing the Trump Organization’s financial reports since November 2022.

In her letter, Jones told Engoron that she identified “certain deficiencies in the financial information that I have reviewed, including disclosures that are either incomplete, present results inconsistently, and/or contain errors”.

Included in Jones’s letter were her concerns about a $48m loan Trump received in 2012 by an entity affiliated with his building in Chicago. Trump reported the loan, which has no formal loan agreement, on his financial statement as a liability for multiple years. But in conversations with the Trump Organization, the company determined that “this loan never existed”.

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• Stormy Daniels Says She’s Testifying in Trump Hush Money Case

Adult film star Stormy Daniels said on Sunday that she expects to testify in Donald Trump’s upcoming trial on state criminal charges over the former president’s role in a scheme to pay off Daniels during the 2016 presidential race.

“Obviously, things have been next-level crazy, since I am set to testify in, at this point in time, March—obviously, that can change any moment—in the hush money case,” Daniels declared on her podcast this weekend.

The trial is currently scheduled to begin on March 25, close to a year after Trump was first indicted on allegations he fraudulently reimbursed his attorney for paying Daniels $130,000 to stay quiet about an extramarital affair with Trump.

The ex-president was indicted on 34 felony falsification of business records charges by a New York grand jury and has since seen an additional 57 counts filed against him in three more criminal cases. Trump has pleaded not guilty and denied all allegations in the four cases.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/stormy...ush-money-case

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Trump doles out millions to lawyers: Here’s who’s getting the most

Chris Kise: $8.97 million

Clifford Robert: $5.29 million

Harmeet Dhillon: $4.61 million

Alina Habba: $4.03 million

John Lauro: $2.65 million

Evan Corcoran: $2.63 million

Todd Blanche: $2.33 million

Joe Tacopina: $1.77 million

Steve Sadow: $1.52 million

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• UAW President Tells CNN He Can’t See ‘Any Way in Hell a Union Would Endorse’ Trump: ‘Stands Against Everything Working Class People Stand For’

United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain told CNN host Kaitlan Collins he couldn’t see “any way in hell a union would endorse” former President Donald Trump on Thursday as Trump “stands against everything working class people stand for.”

After Collins asked Fain “what it would say for the labor movement overall” if International Brotherhood of Teamsters President Sean O’Brien opted to endorse Trump, Fain said, “I’m not gonna try to answer for Sean O’Brien, but I would 100% bet that I can’t see any way in hell a union would endorse Donald Trump for president.”

• Fani Willis confirms relationship with fellow Trump prosecutor but denies impropriety

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis acknowledged entering a personal relationship with a prosecutor who is helping lead her case against Donald Trump but said it has no bearing on her handling of the probe.

Rather, she said, efforts by Trump and his co-defendants to disqualify her from the case due to the relationship were a “public relations strategy” meant to hamstring the prosecution.

In a 176-page filing on Friday, Willis disputed claims that her relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade posed a conflict of interest, and she denied she was improperly enriched by the Trump case. Last month, one of Trump’s co-defendants alleged in court documents that Wade has used income he earned from the case to pay for lavish trips with Willis.

Willis’ filing — her first formal response to the allegations of misconduct — said she and Wade were not romantically involved when she hired him as a contract attorney in November 2021 to help run her probe of efforts to subvert the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia.

In 2022, the two prosecutors “developed a personal relationship in addition to our professional association and friendship,” according to a sworn statement by Wade that was included in the filing.

Willis, however, argued the relationship did not violate any ethics rules and that there is no reason it should derail the case. She also defended Wade’s credentials and billing practices.

Willis called the effort to disqualify her office “malicious” and urged Judge Scott McAfee to cancel a hearing, scheduled for Feb. 15, on the allegations of misconduct.

“This is not an example of zealous advocacy, nor is it a good faith effort to develop a record on a disputed legal issue — it is a ticket to the circus,” the filing said.

In August 2023, Willis obtained an indictment of Trump and 18 others under the state’s organized crime statute. The case — one of four criminal cases Trump is facing — does not yet have a trial date.

Wade has little experience prosecuting complex, high-profile cases. But in pretrial proceedings in the Trump case, he has been one of the lead prosecutors, frequently arguing in court on behalf of the district attorney’s office.

On Jan. 8, one of the defendants in the case — a former Trump campaign official named Mike Roman — alleged in a court filing that Willis and Wade were engaged in “an improper, clandestine personal relationship during the pendency of this case” and had been “profiting significantly” from the money Wade earned from his contract to work on the case.

Wade was paid nearly $700,000 over two years by the DA’s office, according to court documents filed in Wade’s divorce case.

Roman also argued that Willis did not have the legal power to make Wade a special prosecutor, and that his role in the indictment should invalidate the charges altogether.

Willis disputed that claim in her Friday filing, saying that prosecutors commonly hire outside counsel and she had the authority to hire Wade.

In addition to Wade, Willis has contracted with two other outside lawyers who are working on the case as special prosecutors.

“Spurious allegations of publicity-seeking aside, it must be made clear that District Attorney Willis did not go looking for this case,” reads Willis’ filing. “These Defendants centered their racketeering conspiracy to disrupt and overturn the 2020 Georgia election in Fulton County, committing crimes that provided a venue in this jurisdiction. The motions are based on guesswork and public relations strategy, not legal argument.”

Willis seeded the filing with swipes at other attorneys in the case, writing that two of the defense lawyers are also known to be romantically involved and that another pair of attorneys were married. Neither of those relationships, she added, are grounds for controversy.

“Until Roman’s motion was filed, the private lives of the attorney participants in this trial was not a topic of discussion,” she argued.

DocumentCloud

• Fani Willis just killed any chance Trump had to kick her off his case: legal expert

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis finally admitted on Friday that she was romantically involved with one of her special prosecutors, Nathan Wade — but the details she and Wade have now revealed destroy any real chance former President Donald Trump can use it to get her thrown off the election racketeering case against him, argued Georgia State law professor Anthony Michael Kreis.

Wade, a defense lawyer and former municipal judge who was hired by Willis despite having little background as a prosecutor, was revealed to be having an affair with her after allegations made by an attorney for Trump co-defendant Mike Roman. Financial documents released as a result of Wade's divorce proceedings reveal he spent money on trips for the both of them.

This has led Trump and his allies to claim that Willis and Wade orchestrated the whole prosecution as a smokescreen to take public funds to support their relationship. But, wrote Kreis on X, Wade's disclosures in a new sworn affidavit contradict this.

"The chances of a successful disqualification went from 5% to .05%," wrote Kreis, noting that according to Wade's affidavit, "The relationship with Fani Willis started after his appointment as special prosecutor, the two have never cohabitated, and travel expenses have been split between them."

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• Ryan Goodman - This should end the matter.

On efforts to remove Fulton County DA Fani Willis and Nathan Wade from prosecution of FPOTUS Trump.

(Note: I have been critical of Willis and Wade.)

Signed affidavit by Wade:

- No relationship before or when hired by DA.
- Shared costs equally. https://twitter.com/rgoodlaw/status/1753494294982214011

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• E Jean Carroll lawyer says Trump used coded version of C-word against her

E Jean Carroll’s attorney says Donald Trump used a coded expression to call her the C-word during a deposition before she helped the magazine columnist win an $83.3m verdict in her defamation case against the former president.

Roberta Kaplan shared the anecdote during an appearance Friday on the George Conway Explains It All podcast, saying it happened while Trump was deposed at his Mar-a-Lago resort as part of an unrelated, since-dismissed case in which he faced accusations of collaborating with a fraudulent marketing company.

As Kaplan told it, at the end of the questioning, Trump’s attorneys ensured the two sides were no longer on the record before he looked at her and remarked: “See you next Tuesday.”

The phrase is well-known, thinly veiled code for perhaps the most offensive misogynistic insult that can be directed at a woman, combining words that sound like the first two letters of the word – “C” and “U” – along with words that start with the letters “N” and “T”.

Kaplan told Conway that she initially didn’t understand the meaning of what Trump said because the opposing sides weren’t scheduled to meet that upcoming Tuesday. “I, thank God, had no idea what that meant, so I said to him, ‘What are you talking about? I’m coming back on Wednesday,’” Kaplan remarked. “Literally, it was an honest answer. I had no idea what he’s talking about.”

Colleagues of Kaplan informed her what Trump had meant by saying “see you next Tuesday” once they were all in their car driving away from Trump’s property, she said.

“That is a teenage boy-level joke,” the podcast co-host Sarah Longwell said.

________

• Roberta Kaplan Claims Trump Once Threw Papers Across Table at Deposition

Attorney Says Trump Once Threw Papers and 'Stormed Out' of Deposition Because His Team Agreed to Feed Her Lunch

Roberta Kaplan, an attorney who has taken on multiple cases against Donald Trump, said the former president once threw a fit during a deposition at Mar-a-Lago after his legal team offered to cater her lunch.

During an appearance on the George Conway Explains it All (to Sarah Longwell) podcast, Kaplan detailed the alleged incident, saying that it happened while Kaplan was gathering testimony for a lawsuit in which the former president was accused of working with a fraudulent marketing company. She said, per CNN, that Trump had wanted to work through the lunch break, but she had turned down his offer.

"And then you could kind of see the wheel spinning in his brain. You could really almost see it,” Kaplan said, per the outlet. “And he said, ‘Well, you’re here in Mar-a-Lago. What do you think you’re going to do for lunch? Where are you going to get lunch?’”

The attorney, who also recently represented E. Jean Carroll in her sexual abuse and defamation cases against Trump, said she then informed the former president that his legal team had “graciously offered to provide” her and her colleagues with lunch, prompting him to snap.

“There was a huge pile of documents, exhibits, sitting in front of him, and he took the pile and he just threw it across the table. And stormed out of the room,” Kaplan claimed on the podcast.

• George Conway on Trump’s fiery rhetoric to E. Jean Carroll lawyer: ‘Just appalling’

Conservative pundit George Conway went after former President Trump for his alleged conduct towards E. Jean Carroll’s lawyer during his recent defamation trial, calling him a “pig” and his conduct “appalling.”

“I mean, it’s just appalling,” Conway told CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins on her show “The Source.” “I mean, he’s a pig and the fact that he was president of the United States makes it all the more distressing.”

Kaplan claimed on a podcast hosted by Conway and released this week that Trump had a moment of notable emotion due to his legal team offering Carroll’s attorney, Roberta “Robbie” Kaplan, lunch amid deposition at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.

“He said, ‘Well, you’re here in Mar-a-Lago. What do you think you’re going to do for lunch? Where are you going to get lunch?’” she said during the podcast.

Kaplan said that the former president’s legal team had “graciously” offered lunch to her team at the resort.

“At which point there was a huge pile of documents, exhibits, sitting in front of him, and he took the pile and he just threw it across the table, and stormed out of the room,” the attorney added.

• Trump praises Xi, while raising prospect of higher tariffs on Chinese imports

Donald Trump once again heaped praise on Chinese President Xi Jinping on Sunday but threatened to escalate economic tensions with China by hiking tariffs on Chinese imports by more than 60 percent if elected president.

Asked by Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo on “Sunday Morning Futures” if he plans to ramp up a trade war with China — as some of his critics have suggested — and whether or not a 60 percent hike in tariffs would be in the cards during a second Trump term, the former president replied, “No.”

But while Trump maintained he is not looking to start a trade war and did “great” with China, he said he would consider tariffs even “more than” the 60 percent recently reported by the Washington Post.

“Look, I want China to do great, I do. And I like President Xi a lot, he was a very good friend of mine during my term,” Trump told Bartiromo.

Bartiromo cut Trump off. “Well, look, Covid, Covid cover up, intellectual property theft, the list is long from our number one adversary. So I don’t know if he is a friend.”

“I got along with him great, I’m not sure he loved what I was doing,” Trump added, before saying he doesn’t think Xi wants him to return to the White House.

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• Far-right Israel minister suggests Trump would be better for Israel than Biden

A far-right minister in Israel’s government has criticized President Joe Biden and said that having Donald Trump in power would allow more freedom to fight Hamas. The comments sparked outrage among other Israeli officials on Sunday and highlighted the sensitivity of relations as Secretary of State Antony Blinken visits the region again this week.

The Biden administration has skirted Congress to rush weapons to Israel and shielded it from international calls for a cease-fire in the four months since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack. But the White House has urged Israel to take greater measures to avoid harming civilians and allow more aid to besieged Gaza.

Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s national security minister, said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal that Biden was hindering Israel’s war effort.

“Instead of giving us his full backing, Biden is busy with giving humanitarian aid and fuel (to Gaza), which goes to Hamas,” Ben-Gvir said. “If Trump was in power, the U.S. conduct would be completely different.”

• CNN Poll: Most Americans want verdict on Trump election subversion charges before 2024 vote

Most Americans want to see a verdict on the federal charges former President Donald Trump faces related to election subversion in 2020 before this year’s presidential election, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS. And looking ahead, most expect Trump to pardon himself of any federal crimes he’s convicted of if he wins the presidency – or to refuse to concede if he loses in November.

About half of Americans, 48%, say it’s essential that a verdict is reached before the 2024 presidential election, and another 16% that they’d prefer to see one. Just 11% say that a trial on the charges should be postponed until following the election, with another quarter saying the trial’s timing doesn’t matter to them. A 72% majority of Democrats and 52% of independents say it’s essential that a verdict is reached pre-election. Republicans are more split. While 38% say that a verdict should be reached before the presidential election, including 20% who call that essential, another 39% say it doesn’t matter when the trial is held, and 23% that they think the trial should be held after this election.

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• Chutkan contemplates Trump trial extending deep into 2024, as case remains in limbo

The judge presiding over Donald Trump’s Washington, D.C., criminal case acknowledged Monday that the former president’s trial could extend deep into 2024 — though significant uncertainty continues to cloud the timeline.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan told attorneys in another criminal case that she intended to be out of the country in early August — unless Trump’s trial is underway.

“I hope not to be in the country on August 5,” Chutkan said in a sparsely attended conference for the other criminal case, one of more than 1,200 stemming from the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. If she is stateside, Chutkan added, that will be because “I’m in trial in another matter that has not yet returned to my calendar.”

Chutkan’s comment was a clear reference to Trump’s case, which has been on hold since December as a federal appeals court considers whether Trump should be deemed “immune” from charges related to his conduct as president.

It was Chutkan’s first public acknowledgment that Trump’s trial — on charges related to his effort to subvert the 2020 election — could extend past the GOP nominating contest and the Republican National Convention, which is scheduled to be held July 15 to 18. However, for the second time in a week, the Obama-appointed judge emphasized that the schedule is largely out of her control.

On Friday, Chutkan formally called off Trump’s original March 4 trial date and indicated she would reset it “if and when” higher courts resolve the immunity issue and allow her to proceed with a trial. She said at the time that her schedule in mid-April and beyond remained in flux because of uncertainty surrounding the case.

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• Legal scholar: New Jack Smith filing exposes Trump's "frivolous" defense

Prosecutors from special counsel Jack Smith’s office told a judge last week that defense lawyers representing former President Donald Trump in the classified documents case had painted an “inaccurate and distorted picture of events” and accused the defense of unfairly attempting to "cast a cloud of suspicion" over government officials carrying out their duties.

Their comments came in a court filing that addressed a request from the Trump team last month aiming to compel prosecutors to hand over certain documents that they claim will serve as evidence of bias and misconduct related to records that were retrieved from the ex-president’s Mar-a-Lago residence, The Associated Press reported.

The prosecutors in the filing said that discovery requests should be grounded in specific demands directly relevant to the case, necessary for preparing the defense. They criticized Trump's team for seeking records “based on speculative, unsupported, and false theories of political bias and animus.”

“The defendants rely on a pervasively false narrative of the investigation’s origins,” the prosecutors wrote. “Their apparent aim is to cast a cloud of suspicion over responsible actions by government officials diligently doing their jobs. The defendants’ insinuations have scant factual or legal relevance to their discovery requests, but they should not stand uncorrected.”

They contended that the government faced an “extraordinary situation” with a former president engaging in “calculated and persistent obstruction of the collection of Presidential records,” which belonged to the United States. The records included a “trove of highly classified documents containing some of the nation’s most sensitive information,” which the law required to be collected.

The former president is facing dozens of felony charges in a federal court in Florida, alleging the unlawful handling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate and impeding government attempts to recover them.

It is “commonplace” in criminal litigation that when the defense has a “weak case,” they attack the prosecutor, Bennett Gershman, a former New York prosecutor and law professor at Pace University, told Salon. Here, the defense is claiming that the prosecution had failed to disclose evidence that Trump had a security clearance to retain documents at Mar-a-Lago and that the White House and other federal agencies possessed critical but undisclosed information relevant to the defense case.

With a "friendly" judge, they believe their attack might work and impact their ability to delay the proceedings, Gershman explained. For this reason, the prosecution provided such a “lengthy and scrupulously” detailed response.

“The response was intended to show that the defense’s arguments are frivolous and an attempt to obfuscate, distort, and confuse the facts about Trump’s unlawful conduct,” Gershman said. “The prosecutor’s response detailed the extraordinary volume of materials already given to the defense.”

Snip

But Gershman thinks that the delay would serve as an advantage for the former president.

“He wants to run out the clock before the election, and then if elected, scheme to have the charges dismissed,” Gershman said. “Delays in discovery, and claims of prosecution overreach, which is what Trump’s defense is orchestrating, seek to accomplish his objective.”

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

He will be convicted well before the election.

• Trump is not immune from prosecution for bid to subvert the 2020 election, appeals court rules

Former President Donald Trump — and indeed any other former president — may be prosecuted for alleged crimes they committed while in office, a federal appeals court panel ruled Tuesday.

The unanimous 57-page decision from a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals is a major win for special counsel Jack Smith, who is seeking to put Trump on trial this year on federal felony charges stemming from his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Trump quickly vowed an appeal, which could be at the Supreme Court by Monday.

“For the purpose of this criminal case, former President Trump has become citizen Trump, with all of the defenses of any other criminal defendant,” the D.C. Circuit judges wrote. “But any executive immunity that may have protected him while he served as President no longer protects him against this prosecution.”

The ruling affirms U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan’s historic conclusion that former presidents may be prosecuted for crimes they committed in office, even if those alleged crimes arguably related to their official duties. Trump had argued that former presidents could not be prosecuted for such actions without first being impeached and convicted by Congress.

The pace of the appeals court’s action has been closely scrutinized and, in some ways, could be as significant as the substance of the ruling. The decision Tuesday came 28 days after oral arguments, slowing Smith’s case and forcing a delay in Trump’s scheduled March 4 trial, but leaving open the possibility that a jury could be convened to hear the case against him in Washington sometime this spring.

The judges put their decision on hold only until Monday to allow Trump to ask the Supreme Court to take up the immunity fight on an emergency basis. If he does so, the decision won’t take effect until the high court acts on his request, the appeals panel decreed.

Trump could also ask the D.C. Circuit to rehear the case. But the panel said doing that won’t delay the return of the case to Chutkan, the trial judge, unless the full bench of the D.C. Circuit agrees to a rehearing, which requires a majority of the 11 active appellate judges.

The force of Tuesday’s unanimous ruling Tuesday, backed by two liberal judges and one staunch conservative, may have been worth the wait for Smith. Rather than a splintered decision that could be picked apart more easily, the ruling lays out a groundbreaking legal and political framework for bringing a former president to trial.

“We conclude that the interest in criminal accountability, held by both the public and the Executive Branch, outweighs the potential risks of chilling Presidential action and permitting vexatious litigation,” the panel concluded.

The panel consisted of two judges appointed by President Joe Biden, Florence Pan and Michelle Childs, and one appointed by President George H.W. Bush, Karen Henderson. No specific judge was identified as the author of the decision.

The judges concluded that longstanding doctrines of “immunity” for presidents from civil lawsuits related to their official duties did not extend to alleged criminal acts — and certainly not for a former president. Similarly, they concluded that the gravity of the specific charges against Trump weighed heavily against declaring him immune, even when balanced against concerns about the chilling effect it could have on future presidents.

The panel emphasized that its conclusion did not weigh “policy considerations implicated in the prosecution of a sitting President or in a state prosecution of a President, sitting or former.”

The panel also rejected Trump’s claim of “categorical” immunity from prosecution, noting that after President Richard Nixon resigned he accepted a presidential pardon to ward off potential criminal charges stemming from the Watergate affair.

“Instead of inhibiting the President’s lawful discretionary action, the prospect of federal criminal liability might serve as a structural benefit to deter possible abuses of power and criminal behavior,” the judges wrote.

The judges also sharply rejected the notion that former presidents may only be criminally prosecuted after first being impeached and convicted by Congress. They noted that 30 Republican senators refused to convict Trump during his impeachment trial related to the violent attack on the Capitol by contending that Congress lacks the power to put former presidents on trial. Those statements helped lead the judges to conclude the impeachment could not be a necessary predicate to criminal prosecution.

Following the appeals court ruling, Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung repeated Trump’s frequent claim that permitting his indictment would lead all future presidents to face vengeful indictments from their political adversaries after leaving office.

“Prosecuting a President for official acts violates the Constitution and threatens the bedrock of our Republic,” Cheung said in a statement announcing that Trump would appeal the decision.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/re...08593677.0.pdf

Originally Posted by S Landreth

Former President Donald Trump — and indeed any other former president — may be prosecuted for alleged crimes they committed while in office, a federal appeals court panel ruled Tuesday.

Predictable given the absurb claim by Trump. Court should impose a large fine for a frivolous Trumps claim.

• Trump’s fraud trial rattled by witness’s possible perjury deal

A potential perjury deal with a key witness could shake up the verdict in Donald Trump’s $370m New York fraud trial, a new court document reveals.

Arthur Engoron, the judge presiding over the case, sent an email to the trial’s lawyers on Monday asking them to give him more information about a supposed perjury deal that Allen Weisselberg, a former Trump Organization executive, is making with the office of the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg.

While Bragg’s office is not involved with the fraud trial – which is being prosecuted by the state attorney general’s office – the district attorney’s office is overseeing a separate hush-money case against Trump. The New York Times reported on 1 February that Bragg’s office was in the early stages of negotiating a deal with Weisselberg.

Should he take the deal, Weisselberg would admit to committing perjury during his October testimony in the fraud trial. In exchange, he would not have to be a witness against Trump in the hush-money trial, which is scheduled for March.

In his fraud trial, Trump is accused of inflating the value of his assets on government financial statements. In the hush-money case, Trump is accused of falsifying business records, reporting hush-money payments to the former adult film star Stormy Daniels as legal fees. Trump’s fraud trial is a bench trial, meaning there is no jury, and Engoron is the sole decider of the case.

Weisselberg, who served as chief financial officer for the Trump Organization, is a key figure in both cases, having been intimately involved with Trump’s finances for decades.

On the witness stand in October, Weisselberg abruptly ended his testimony when Forbes published a story saying he lied on the stand. He had been mostly evasive in his testimony, saying he had not been involved in evaluating Trump’s triplex apartment in Trump Tower. On financial statements, Trump said the apartment was 30,000 sq ft when it is, in fact, closer to 11,000 sq ft.

Though Weisselberg testified that the triplex apartment had not concerned him, Forbes reported it had records from when the magazine worked with Weisselberg to calculate Trump’s net worth. Weisselberg had repeatedly tried to convince the magazine that the triplex was 30,000 sq ft, despite the magazine having evidence that it was 11,000 sq ft.

In his email, Engoron said he wanted to know whether Weisselberg “is admitting he lied under oath in my courtroom at this trial”. “Although the Times article focuses on the size of the Trump Tower Penthouse, his testimony on other topics could be called into question.”

Engoron said he might use such a perjury admittance to “invoke falsus in uno”, meaning he would judge Weisselberg’s entire testimony as not credible. Engoron asked lawyers from the attorney general’s office and from Trump’s team to detail “anything you know about this that would not violate any of your professional ethics or obligations” along with how the lawyers think Engoron should “address this matter, if at all, including the timing of the final decision”. He gave them a 7 February deadline.

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Originally Posted by Norton

Court should impose a large fine for a frivolous Trumps claim.

First thing trump did after learning about the appellate court decision…….

Trump begs fans for cash after court rules he can be prosecuted

“Before the day is over, I’m calling on EVERY SINGLE ONE of my supporters to chip in and say:

END THE WITCH HUNT AGAINST PRESIDENT TRUMP!”

• Trump Fraud Trial: a Little Perjury Is "Hardly Surprising," NY Says

Trump fraud-trial witness's possible perjury is 'hardly surprising,' NY argues in fighting a possible verdict delay

With a potentially corporation-crippling verdict still looming in Donald Trump's civil fraud trial, New York officials are now asking the judge to please not let an inconsequential and "hardly surprising" potential perjury slow things down.

It's no big deal that Trump co-defendant and former CFO Allen Weisselberg may have lied on the witness stand, a lawyer for the New York Attorney General's Office wrote Wednesday in arguing against any delay in a verdict.

"The fact that a defendant who lacks credibility and has already been to prison for falsifying business documents may have also perjured himself in this proceeding or the preceding investigation is hardly surprising," wrote Kevin Wallace, a senior enforcement counsel for the AG's office.

"If true, he should be held to account fully for his actions," Wallace wrote of Weisselberg. "But it should not delay a final decision and judgment," he added.

State Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron has been working on a verdict since closing arguments in the fraud trial nearly a month ago.

The AG's office has accused Trump of fraudulently inflating his net worth by as much as $3.6 billion a year in annual financial statements used to secure great interest rates on bank loans.

He faces a menu of possible civil punishments that include $370 million in cash penalties, being banned from running a business in New York, and even the outright forced sale of his properties in the state and beyond.

But as Engoron drafts his verdict, a potential monkey wrench has been thrown into the works: news, first reported last week in the New York Times, that Weisselberg is in negotiations with the Manhattan District Attorney's Office for a possible plea deal on a charge of perjury.

The charge may stem from Weisselberg's October 10 testimony at the Manhattan civil fraud trial, during which he called the tripling of Trump's penthouse square footage a "de minimus" mistake that he had very little involvement in.

Engoron was not amused. In an email to the parties made public Tuesday, the judge demanded the parties tell him if the Times report was true.

"I of course want to know whether Mr. Weisselberg is now changing his tune, and whether he is admitting he lied under oath in my courtroom at this trial," the judge wrote.

Wallace's response Wednesday, on behalf of state AG Letitia James, came in response to that angry judicial query.

"At this time," Wallace wrote, "we are not involved in any negotiations and are unaware of what specific trial testimony may be the subject of the plea negotiations or whether Mr. Weisselberg has conceded that he testified falsely," Wallace wrote.

But James "does not, however, believe that this development should result in any delay of a final decision," Wallace continued.

It's already pretty clear, just from the trial record, that Weisselberg lacked credibility, particularly in his denial of involvement in the triplex valuation, the AG lawyer wrote.

Besides, he added, there's no way to know when, or even if, a perjury plea might happen. If, some time down the road, there is a perjury admission, the judge can just wait until then to decide if any additional sanctions are necessary, Wallace offered.

"Delaying the final determination in this action to await the outcome of plea negotiations would have the perverse effect of rewarding Defendants if Mr. Weisselberg is indeed guilty of perjury," he wrote.

The AG lawyer ended his letter to the judge by citing the statutory obligation that Trump's defense lawyers have to come forward if they find the judge was misled by any of their clients.

"The alternative — for the lawyer to become a willing participant in 'deceiving the court [and] thereby subverting the truth-finding process,' is untenable," the letter states.

The Trump defense team's response to the Weisselberg perjury matter was filed just in time for the judge's 5 p.m. Wednesday deadline.

In it, defense lawyer Alina Habba, who reps Weisselberg, said she has not spoken to the Manhattan District Attorney's Office.

"Further, in an abundance of caution, I have conferred with my ethics counsel and have been advised that I am constrained by my professional ethical obligations from providing further detail," she wrote.

In a rare moment of agreement, Habba, like the AG's lawyer, said that in drafting his verdict, the judge should just stick to the trial record and pay the unverified perjury-plea rumor no mind.

It would be "inappropriate," she wrote, for the judge to base his verdict on "matters outside the record such as outside media sources," she wrote.

"We urge you to render your decision based solely on the evidence now before you," she wrote.

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• Fani Willis seeks to block subpoenas in Trump case

DA Fani Willis wants subpoenas blocked as fight over alleged misconduct in Trump case continues

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis seeks to block subpoenas that would require her and members of her staff to testify at a hearing next week to determine if she should be removed from the 2020 election interference case over alleged misconduct.

Willis seeks to quash subpoenas filed by Trump codefendant Mike Roman, a GOP operative from Philadelphia, ahead of a Feb. 15 hearing over motions to disqualify Willis.

Roman alleges Wade and Willis are engaged in an improper personal relationship that has financially benefited the prosecutors. Roman alleges Wade used portions of the money he made from the election case to pay for him and Willis to travel to Napa Valley and the Caribbean.

Willis and Wade admitted having a "personal relationship" that started in 2022 but rejected claims of improper financial benefits. The Fulton DA's office wants the disqualification motions dismissed without a hearing.

In Wednesday's filing, Willis argued that Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee should reject subpoenas for her and eight members of her staff. They are:

• Executive District Attorney Daysha Young
• Deputy District Attorney Sonya Allen
• Deputy District Attorney Dexter Bond
• Special Prosecutor Nathan Wade
• Assistant Chief Investigator Michael Hill
• Deputy Executive Assistant Tia Green
• Chief of Investigations Capers Green
• Assistant Chief Investigator Thomas Ricks

Willis called the subpoenas a form of "harassment" and "disruption."

"Each of these subpoenas appear transparently to be an attempt to conduct discovery in a (rather belated) effort to support reckless accusations made in prior court filings," the DA office said in its motion. "The subpoenas should be quashed."


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• The Memo: Former Trump White House lawyer predicts crushing defeat at Supreme Court

A former attorney for the Trump White House predicts that the Supreme Court will rule unanimously against the 45th president on his claims to be immune from criminal prosecution.

Ty Cobb, who was special counsel to the White House as Trump sought to fend off the investigation headed by Robert Mueller, was speaking after an appeals court ruled against Trump on Tuesday.

“The immunity case should be a 9-0 case on the Supreme Court,” Cobb told this column. “It is very clear that the president doesn’t have immunity from criminal prosecution. You are weighing an argument that there is no precedent for, and is found nowhere in the Constitution.”

Cobb further contended that an emphatic throwing out of Trump’s claims “will be their decision, whether now or after he is convicted — if he is convicted.”

• New York judge blasts Trump’s lawyers for suggesting bias in civil fraud case

A New York judge on Thursday sent a scathing email to one of Donald Trump’s lawyers, chiding him for questioning the court’s objectivity in the former president’s civil fraud suit.

“You and your co-counsel have been questioning my impartiality since the early days of this case, presumably because I sometimes rule against your clients,” Judge Arthur Engoron wrote to Trump lawyer Clifford Robert. “The whole approach is getting old.”

The exchange stemmed from a Monday email from Engoron, in which the judge demanded answers from counsel amid rumors that Allen Weisselberg — one of Trump’s co-defendants in the case — was negotiating a plea deal for lying in his courtroom.

In his Wednesday response to the court, Robert berated the judge for his “unprecedented, inappropriate and troubling” request that “calls into question the impartiality of the court.”

Robert’s combative reply was more than Engoron had wanted.

“When I sent my straightforward, narrow request for information about possible perjury by Allen Weisselberg in the subject case, I was not seeking to initiate a wide-ranging debate with counsel,” Engoron wrote Thursday. “However, your misleading response grossly mischaracterizes the letter that I wrote, and I feel compelled to respond.”

In his original email, Engoron cited a story from The New York Times, which broke the news that Weisselberg was potentially negotiating a plea deal with Manhattan prosecutors for perjuring himself during his October testimony in the civil fraud trial.

Weisselberg claimed on the stand that he “never focused” on the size of Trump’s Manhattan penthouse — which Trump had reported on financial paperwork to be about three times as big as it actually was. In reality, Weisselberg was reportedly instrumental in pushing its phony size to reporters.

Should Weisselberg admit to perjury, the judge said he might be forced to toss the entire testimony. Robert criticized the court for entertaining the “unsubstantiated news reports in rendering its decision.” Engoron refuted that premise.

“I have not taken, do not plan to take, and did not suggest or hint that I would take judicial notice of the subject New York Times article or the contents thereof,” Engoron wrote. “Similarly, I have not taken, do not plan to take, and did not suggest or hint that I would take the Times article into consideration in my findings of fact.”

Engoron added that he was merely asking for any relevant information regarding Weisselberg’s perjury rumors, as he expected to issue a decision on the fraud case as early as this week.

“If, tomorrow, Mr. Weisselberg publicly confesses to having committed perjury about a significant matter in the case before me, or if he pleads guilty to such perjury at any time before I issue my final decision, I will research and consider what the law allows,” Engoron said.

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• Judge denies Navarro bid to remain out of prison while appealing case

A federal judge on Thursday denied Trump White House official Peter Navarro's bid to remain out of prison while he appeals his contempt of Congress conviction for refusing to cooperate with an investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Navarro was sentenced last month to four months behind bars after being found guilty of defying a subpoena for documents and a deposition from the House Jan. 6 Committee. The former White House trade adviser under President Donald Trump had asked to be free while he fights that conviction and sentence in higher courts.

But U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta said that Navarro must report to serve his sentence when ordered by the Bureau of Prisons, unless Washington's federal appeals court steps in to block Mehta's order. The judge said Navarro hasn't shown that any of the issues he will raise on appeal are “substantial" questions of law.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/re...01.169.0_1.pdf

• Judge rejects Trump’s mistrial motions in E Jean Carroll defamation case

Donald Trump’s motions for a mistrial in the defamation case brought against him by the writer E Jean Carroll have been rejected by a federal judge, who added that the former president’s issues with the verdict had no “merit”.

E. Jean Carroll Departs the Second Defamation Trial Against Former US President Donald Trump, New York, USA - 17 Jan 2024<br>Mandatory Credit: Photo by REX/Shutterstock (14304801a) E. Jean Carroll's lawyer Roberta Kaplan exits the federal amid her clients defamation of character trial against the former President Donald Trump on January 17, 2024. The case is the second in less that a year brought by Carroll against Trump: this seeks damages for comments made by the former President during in and after he was in office. E. Jean Carroll Departs the Second Defamation Trial Against Former US President Donald Trump, New York, USA - 17 Jan 2024

In an order filed on Wednesday, Judge Lewis Kaplan said the motion for a mistrial “made no sense” and that approving it “would have been entirely pointless”. Trump’s lawyers had previously called for a mistrial in the middle of their cross-examination of Carroll, which the judge denied at the time, instructing the jury to disregard the counsel’s remarks. He reiterated his decision and sharply criticized the efforts of Trump’s attorney in the written order this week.

Last month, Trump was ordered to pay Carroll an additional $83.3m after Kaplan found that he had defamed her in 2019. A jury previously had found that Trump had sexually abused her, awarding her $5m. Shortly after the judge’s decision, Trump decried it on Truth Social as “absolutely ridiculous” and said he would be filing an appeal.

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• Judge affirms $83.3 million verdict against Donald Trump in E. Jean Carroll defamation case

A federal judge formally ordered Donald Trump to pay $83.3 million to E. Jean Carroll, endorsing the jury’s verdict from the defamation trial last month.

The judgment was made in a one-page order on Thursday.

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extra

'That starts the clock'

"Specifically, federal rules governing civil cases stay a plaintiff's execution on a judgment for 30 days after the entry of judgment, which effectively means he has 30 days to provide a bond or other security to lengthen that stay pending an appeal."

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• Authorities investigating online threats made to potential witness related to Trump classified docs case

Federal authorities are currently investigating a series of threats made online to a potential witness related to special counsel Jack Smith's classified documents case against former President Donald Trump, according to a new court filing from Smith's team.

In the filing late Wednesday in federal court in Florida, Smith's team asked U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, the judge overseeing the case, to let them file an exhibit under seal because, they wrote, "The exhibit describes in some detail threats that have been made over social media to a prospective Government witness and the surrounding circumstances, and the fact that those threats are the subject of an ongoing federal investigation being handled by a United States Attorney's Office."

"Disclosure of the details and circumstances of the threats risks disrupting the investigation," the filing said.

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• Special counsel warns of ‘immediate’ threat to Trump Mar-a-Lago case witnesses

The special counsel prosecuting Donald Trump has asked the judge in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case to reconsider an order the government argues could identify more than two dozen witnesses and threaten their safety and testimony.

Trump's lawyers have asked for unredacted documents to be turned over, which lawyers for special counsel Jack Smith want to block.

In a 24-page filing in federal court in Florida, prosecutors for Smith said the court applied the wrong legal standard when U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who is overseeing the case, ordered the unsealing of materials. Cannon issued an order in response on Friday that delayed her initial decision.

The filing notes an exhibit that includes “information about uncharged potentially obstructive conduct by a defendant, and speculation about witness tampering by an uncharged individual.” According to the prosecutors, this witness declined to have his interview recorded.

Trump was charged last year along with Walt Nauta, a personal aide to the former president, and Carlos De Oliveira, who worked at Mar-a-Lago. All three pleaded not guilty.

Smith argued that making the filings public would disclose the identities of witnesses prepared to testify against Trump, including career civil servants and former Trump advisers, and what they said to federal investigators and the grand jury.

The decision risks exposing them to “significant and immediate” intimidation after the government fought to keep their information private, according to the filing.

“Revelation of these witnesses’ identities, or the substance of their interviews with the FBI, dangerously risks exposing them,” said the special counsel, pointing to a “well-documented pattern” of “threats, harassment, and intimidation” against those involved in cases against Trump.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/re...53.294.0_2.pdf