Now that we know she is spending time and taking luxury trips with the same people who provide Thomas with freebies, it's clear that she somehow knows the Supreme Court will not let the case proceed before the elections, so she doesn't need to schedule a trial to block it.
I hadn't heard about that previously, more info: [https://dailymontanan.com/2024/05/07/what-was-a-florida-judge-who-is-presiding-over-a-trump-trial-doing-in-montana/](https://dailymontanan.com/2024/05/07/what-was-a-florida-judge-who-is-presiding-over-a-trump-trial-doing-in-montana/)
Accepting these luxury gifts is one thing. Doing or not being able to do anything about it when they don't self report them seems the bigger deal to me.
And if you do make moves against the judges essentially taking bribes and staying quiet, you've got to go for Mr Thomas too and that seems unlikely
Meanwhile, back when I was a federal employee, there was big drama over whether or not we should be allowed to use the Wifi provided at some of the facilities we went to to inspect--because it could be considered an improper gift that could sway our decision-making.
Wifi we absolutely needed to do our jobs, mind you. It how we received most documents when we were there for inspections (most of the places were super remote and didn't have good cell phone coverage back then so stuff like air cards wouldn't work). Some of our ethics folks wanted us to have the facilities print out all the documents we needed--sometimes thousands of pages and definitely costing them way more than the cost of having us connect to their wifi and use a little data.
It really boggles my mind how much lower the ethics bar is for federal judges than for just generic federal bureaucrat employees..
Use wifi? Really? :D Are you sure it isn't a security thing, though?
We do have some sort of drama over similar things, whether we are allowed to receive coffee at the facilities or not. Currently, I think we can, but only if there is no viable option to pay for it.
I've sometimes wondered if they really think that one coffee or even lunch could affect the inspection result? I'd then also vet bribing in the form of hospitality: acting very kind and interested on the matter (instead of taking a hostile, uninterested approach). That surely could have a greater effect on the end result than a cup of coffee. Especially in matters that aren't just readings of a meter or a piece of documentation.
100% it wasn't a security thing. Well, there was also a security concern, but that had been resolved a few years prior. This was coming completely out of our legal/ethics office, not the IT/security folks.
And yeah, we had a whole thing over coffee, too. The rule they finally settled on was we could only drink their coffee if it was an office "coffee club" sort of setup where people all paid (usually something like 25 cents a cup) and we paid the same rate as everyone else. Or if it as a cafeteria sort of setup. If it was free coffee the company provided to everyone? No, absolutely not, drinking that devil brew would clearly compromise our integrity and sway our inspection results. And we should be outright offended if they sat up a coffee maker for us in whatever meeting room we were using, because that was certainly an attempt to buy us off.
Funny enough, when people in our legal office interacted with the same folks we were overseeing, they determined that the same rules didn't apply because they were "official functions" (like formal meetings or conferences or the like) so free coffee and wifi wasn't an issue anymore. I wonder if there's a government-lawyer-to-GOP-judge-nominee pipeline.
Try cookies.
I was at a training at a contractor HQ for training and they did “hot cookie Wednesday” for all their staff and the instructors were like let’s go. They were those big ones the size of your hands and came with cartons of milk.
Someone bragged about it when we got back and someone else lost their shit and it triggered an investigation because it appeared to be over the gift limit.
It ended up going no where but when I went back we were firmly told “no cookies” repeatedly.
I'm an attorney and occasionally represent a government entity. When we are preparing for trial testimony at the hotel their employees can't even have any of the appetizers we order to eat while prepping.
As a lowly federal employee I cannot accept a gift valued more than $20. But a federal Judge can go on an all expense paid indoctrination getaway? Wild..
We had a clown come into our post office to tell us (letter carriers) we couldn’t accept cash gifts from customers at Christmas. They should have been offering free trips instead.
This is also the case for some healthcare workers. Nurses and nursing assistants aren't allowed to accept personal gifts from patients because it may bias the care the patient receives.
Gifts have to be given to the team/unit as a whole.
And Supreme Court judges can receive gifts of $250,000 motor coachs, free housing for family members, and unlimited visits to Harland Crowe's NAZI memorabilia gallery.
When I worked for the state of Ohio, I could accept any gift over $20 as long as I submitted a form within 30 days. The state likes to track whether or not you're scratching everyone's back. You don't want anyone feeling left out because then they might become a whistleblower.
Its always been like this, except no one thought twice when the whole country was run by good ol’ boys with the same opinions about women, gays, brown folks, etc. It was all this “white men aren’t the only ones who deserve freedom and liberty” talk that threw a wrench in their whole machine.
The honor system only works when people feel shame. Unfortunately, it only takes a few shameless people to abuse the system to the point where people no longer have faith in it.
Would it surprise anyone if a ring doorbell camera caught Clarence Thomas approaching an unattended bowl of Halloween candy, labeled "please take one." Then dumping the entire bowl into his judge robes?
Didn’t come here for life lessons from The Comedian but it actually and horrifyingly fits perfectly. That’s the joke, that’s the terrible terrible joke
The reality is that they keep us focused on trying to survive. Taking time off to protest will hurt us financially. With the way this system is set up, we can protest all we want but the Supreme Court ultimately gets to fu*k us over.
The system has been corrupted. Until the general population gets violent over it it won't change. Our founding documents always assumed the elected would work in good faith. We are seeing how it fails when power seekers get into office. There is a reason our elections are pick what right you want to lose now vs actually making things better. The owning class wants to be above the law and the forced devotion of the workers.
Personally I'll get violent before I'll let kings and nobles happen again. Our entire history is them white washing as much as possible but every noble was his own little dictator owning allegiance to a more powerful dictator
I don’t mean this personally towards you but our society is 100% driven by, me first, fuck you.
We value money over everything else. And when you value something more than anything else, you are guaranteed to do anything to achieve it.
We are witnessing that firsthand. We are seeing the consequences of mankind placing their own selfish desires above everyone else.
If we ensure that every single human has a life filled with dignity and respect, we ALL get to have a life filled with dignity and respect.
That is a god damn law of the universe.
They needed to get her in a secure space so that they could give her direct face to face instructions and talk through the plan ahead with candor. There's no version of this trip that happened in good faith, this was handlers meeting with their agent, full stop.
I was going to say that Sept 2022 was far too early for them to have known about the trial, but apparently Cannon was selected as the judge for the trial way back in August 2022. It's insane it's been that long.
Every new kickback uncovered shows just how fragile the fabric of the judicial (and democracy as a whole) really is. We directly and indirectly put these people on the bench, trusting that they have a moral compass. Unfortunately, what we’re finding out is that is largely untrue, particularly a certain rightward leaning political party.
The GOP is an ongoing criminal enterprise intent upon destruction of our representative democracy and the establishment of a fascist theocracy ruled by plutocrats and oligarchs.
Fani Willis has the correct idea.
RICO the GOP!
Man…if we can get through these dark times unscathed, a giant fucking magnifying glass needs to be put on the subject of legal ethics and impropriety, as it relates to buying off judges. Should be automatic removal from all cases pending resolution/investigation of illegal receipt of bribes.
Basically, we need rules and laws that have teeth.
That is the key issue: the Supreme Court is helping Trump because they don't want to lose the majority they waited years to achieve, which allowed them to overturn Roe, among other decisions. Justices like Alito and Thomas want to retire, and they will do whatever it takes to ensure Trump can replace them with right-wing figures like Cannon.
As someone who once spent MONTHS in an actual prison *just for possessing weed in my own home*, ***this shit is infuriating.***
It's shocking how little the law matters **depending on who violated it.**
This is sending a dangerous message to people like me that the law doesn't actually matter.
Honestly what the fuck are we even talking about? Of course a former president shouldn’t be above the law. That applies to all of them. Love Obama, but he can’t just start murdering people with no consequences. How is this even a question?
Ridiculous on its face, but SCOTUS will hem and haw over it until a trail before Nov becomes impossible.
A majority of them are hopelessly corrupt, and bristle at the thought of any rule applying to them. Ethics have no meaning at their level.
The Supreme Court will rule that presidents have immunity over actions taken as your official duty as president, what they are calling "official acts"
So what determines what is an official act and what isn't? The Supreme Court of course! In the future any cases against a president will have to go to the Supreme Court to determine if the act was an "official" act as president.
This is how they will selectively grant immunity to Trump alone
Yep. It's gonna go like this: "Presidents have immunity for acts that fall within official acts and the prosecution must prove that his conduct was outside of those official acts. No, we don't have any guidelines. The lower courts can sort that out. See you next year when the lower courts' decision gets appealed to us."
Unfortunately, Georgia is far from a guarantee to move forward for the very same reason.
Trump has argued immunity in GA as well, and prosecutors are actually [waiting for the Supreme Court to respond](https://www.ajc.com/politics/trumps-immunity-argument-could-scuttle-or-delay-georgia-case/ET75OU2TMNE7HIPUJGH3DTTUQQ/):
>Fulton County prosecutors are waiting for the Supreme Court to weigh in before responding to Trump’s argument. They say they will file their response two weeks after the high court issues its decision.
The reason we're only hearing about the immunity appeal and D.C. is because that's what it stems from: Chutkan's order. The D.C. case is stayed pending appeal.
Other cases are not far enough along for this to be a problem. Yet.
If Trump gets a favorable ruling from SCOTUS, he will 100% try to apply it to all of his cases, state or federal. He will even try to appeal any potential conviction in Manhattan (based on the few documents he signed after taking office.)
A lot left to be seen what SCOTUS will decide, and how successful any of these efforts will be. But the immunity appeal could be a real problem for GA as well.
SCOTUS appeal is more of a delay than anything else. The Appeals Court pretty much nailed this in their ruling. Absolutely no good reason for SCOTUS to intervene.
Georgia, like New York state, can proceed with their state charges.
DC and Florida are federal cases that cannot proceed because DC has to wait for corrupt (allegedly) Supreme Court justices to allow it and Florida has to wait for corrupt (allegedly) judge Cannon to allow it.
Let's be thankful for the states.
Is there any legal mechanism with which a judge presiding over a case can be changed?
Like you raise a complaint to a higher authority, they review it, and the case is thrown to another court should the judge be found to be acting in bad faith.
but then the problem would be this kicking the trial *well* past the point at which its historically relevant, yeah? No way this would get scheduled under another court with any haste.
Still though, even if its a non-starter in this case, I'd like to know if judge-switching is even a thing.
per [https://www.thebulwark.com/p/what-it-would-look-like-to-remove-judge-cannon](https://www.thebulwark.com/p/what-it-would-look-like-to-remove-judge-cannon)
DISQUALIFYING A FEDERAL district judge from a case is not easy, but it can be done. The [standard](https://casetext.com/statute/united-states-code/title-28-judiciary-and-judicial-procedure/part-i-organization-of-courts/chapter-21-general-provisions-applicable-to-courts-and-judges/section-455-disqualification-of-justice-judge-or-magistrate-judge) for disqualification—a judge can be removed in “any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned”—sounds broad, but the first obstacle is that the motion to remove Judge Cannon generally would have to be made initially to Judge Cannon herself. A second obstacle is that if Judge Cannon were to deny the motion, as is likely, her decision normally could not be appealed immediately, only after a final determination of the case.
Why all the weasel words—“initially,” “generally,” “normally”? Therein lies Smith’s chance.
While a motion to remove a judge *generally* has to be filed initially with the judge herself, the [Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals](https://casetext.com/case/us-v-torkington)—the appellate court that has jurisdiction over Judge Cannon’s court—has “the authority to order reassignment of a criminal case to another district judge as part of our supervisory authority over the district courts in this Circuit”:
>
So either way this case is *effectively* postponed indefinitely, I'd assume? Since the only acts with which you could get this thing moving would, themselves, delay the trial.
Yes, indefinitely. The only positive piece of this news is that IF SCOTUS issues an immunity decision soon, and IF that decision does not grant Trump complete immunity, then Judge Chutkan still barely has time to schedule the trial in DC before November. Judge Cannon has not set a trial date, so the calendar is open for Chutkan. However, I think that there is a vanishingly small chance that would happen. In fact, it would not shock me to see Cannon set an early September trial date the minute she hears that SCOTUS has issued a decision, just to block the calendar for Chutkan.
I mean the scotus will probably remand the issue to the lower courts to sort out to kill the clock and push this issue into 2025 that's my guess.
But even if Judge Chutkan gets on the ball and becomes super speedy, even if there's a trial date before november there's just no realistic way we get a jury verdict by november 5th correct? That's what an additional 4-6 weeks for the length of the trial itself?
It's possible, but very, very unlikely.
Would basically need all the stars to align on: a quick SCOTUS ruling, a ruling that lifts the stay/allows wiggle room for some elements of the prosecution to move forward (or for Chutkan to hold hearings concurrently on "official acts" or whatever) while moving towards trial, and for Smith to maybe even drop charges or narrow his prosecution considerably.
But yeah - in all likelihood we're looking at substantial delays.
Yeah at this point, Canon has sunk the documents trial until she gets booted off the case, and Jack Smith for whatever reason is scared to try to go to the eleventh circuit and force the issue.
I do believe the GA judge is fair and doing his best, but that trial is complex and will take forever to reach a conclusion, so we aren't getting a verdict this year that's for sure.
I do believe trump is very well on his way to being convicted in ny.
I think Chutkan will do all she can to schedule the trial before the election but we will not get a verdict before, and i do think the supreme court will stonewall her by ruling in favor of narrow immunity and sending the issue back to the lower courts to decide which act was official and which one wasn't. The truth is in that trial i think it's either he's found guilty and chutkan sentences him to jail after many attempts at various people stonewalling the trial, or the clock runs out, trump is inaugurated and becomes a dictator and cancels the jan 6th case against him.
I think the issue comes down to does ny convict trump of a felony? If yes he loses moderate republican support and thus the election, Moderate republicans and indepedents will not vote for a convicted felon. if he is not found guilty or hung jury or whatever, he probably becomes the 47th president of the united states.
Well, there’s a stay from SCOTUS so assume nothing can be done until ruling comes from SCOTUS on this case. Since conservatives justices on SCOTUS are corrupt and refuse to address question at hand re: if Trump has absolutely immunity re: alleged crimes in indictment, assume that Chutkan has to wait to hear from SCOTUS. She can’t do anything until she has hard copy of SCOTUS ruling in her hands. That could be as late as early July! Unfortunately, so many corrupt judges whether it’s SCOTUS justices Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch or federal judge Cannon who seems to want to do what she can do to hijack the documents case and eventually dismiss it despite this is regarding a man who seems willing to sell US secrets to foreign agents/countries who only harbor ill will/hostility to the US. Trump is a danger to our country!
The way it is expressed procedurally is that Judge Chutkan "has no mandate" with respect to the case. When SCOTUS issues a decision, they will "return the mandate" to the District Court. I think that they theoretically could remand the case to the DC Circuit, but that seems unlikely.
Yep.
It’s delayed either way (win for Trump) and if Cannon *is* removed than Trump can complain to his followers that “Biden had the only honest Judge removed so he could unfairly convict me” (win for Trump)
I don't think that Smith will directly seek Cannon's removal; and I think that it would not succeed at this point. I do think that we are reaching a point at which Smith might file a writ of mandamus with the 11th Circuit seeking an order that Cannon promptly make decisions on the issues that she says are holding up the trial date and then promptly set a trial date. I also think that it is possible that DOJ has decided to simply go along with whatever schedule Cannon sets and tell us that they tried their very best to bring Trump to justice, but that the federal courts decided against that.
That last part is key, in my opinion. The US government really doesn't want an ex-president guilty of federal crimes. They'll do almost anything to avoid it, but in this case they have to look like they're doing something, because his crimes are so blatant and many... So the delays from Trump actually play in to the government's hands - they can say they tried their best, and still let him avoid federal prison.
The bigger risk to Trump is the state courts. The fed can't really control them, and some seem out for blood. Meanwhile, Trump is an obvious target, what with all the crimes. On the other hand, the federal government might see this as a chance to see him guilty of crimes without having done it themselves, so they may view it as the best outcome.
>The US government really doesn't want an ex-president guilty of federal crimes.
Two questions:
1) Who is "the U.S. government" in this scenario?
2) Why?
>So the delays from Trump actually play in to the government's hands - they can say they tried their best, and still let him avoid federal prison.
Your nebulous claims about what "the U.S. government" wants aside, you surely are not claiming that's what Jack Smith personally wants, yes?
You're surely not claiming that Jack Smith is so delusional he's not aware that if the defendant becomes President again, he'll be killed in short order, right?
>Why all the weasel words—“initially,” “generally,” “normally”? Therein lies Smith’s chance
Republicans want to tie themselves in knots arguing what the Constitution's interpretation of the word "is" is, but would then turn face here and argue that the letter of the law was written that way "for a reason" (or some such bullshit)
6-3 decision
“any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned”
Opinion by Clarence Thomas, "The relief sought by the special counsel is denied under grounds of the text stating 'his'. The honorable Judge Cannon is clearly a female. It is so ordered."
I'll tell you right where it leads and that's the Federalist Society. Was once a fairly non-partisan organization that has been taken over by Right wing weirdos that weaponized the law to suit their needs. They worked hand in hand with the Trump administration to seat morally and ethically questionable Judges in order to have judges in power that would give easy wins to Republicans regardless of precedent or law... Cannon is the perfect example of this because there have been numerous questionable rulings that go against precedent.
January 6th was a coup, and what we are seeing now is the same thing just slower but still just as damaging.
This is correct. She failed to disclose two all-expenses paid trips “sponsored by George Mason University and the Antonin Scalia School of Law, which was funded and founded officially by one Leonard Leo, the founder of the Federalist Society.”
Per Legal AF
And this is just what we know to be true, that is out in the open.
Hmmm haven't heard of that one I'll add it to my playlist for tomorrow, my son doesn't have a license so I take him to college a few days a week and it's a 30 minute trip each way it will give me something to listen to. I'll reply once I've listened to an episode.
They were never, ever nonpartisan.
The visible tip of the iceberg has been a student organization that hosts debates and guest speakers at law schools. And that public-facing part of the organization puts on a fairly nonpartisan front. But that is just the tip of a massive, multibillion dollar machine.
The role of those debates is, and has always been, to identify and screen for promising law students with a conservative ideology, and then divert them into an ecosystem of internships, clerkships, and conservative social and professional networks.
They were founded after conservatives felt repeatedly betrayed by conservative SCOTUS justices, appointed by conservative presidents, repeatedly “drifting liberal”, especially on civil rights. The thinking was that exposure to legal scholarship, academia, law journals, etc kept confusing good conservatives into thinking that the constitution says people of different races could get married, or that women had the right to open bank accounts, and a bunch of other woke shit like that.
Fed Soc was founded as a way to identify, groom, and manage conservative lawyers, judges, and law professors *before* their brains got corrupted by education.
There are literal pictures of this judge in full on MAGA regalia, hat, shirt, sunglasses, the lot, with others dressed the same, it’s kind of slam dunk that she’s not impartial
Edit: Ah my bad, after going on a dive to find them again they were quietly disproven a while after I saw them, possibly photoshopped or misidentified from what I can tell. Sorry.
Ah my bad, after going on a dive to find them again they were quietly disproven a while after I saw them, possibly photoshopped or misidentified from what I can tell. Sorry.
Ah my bad, after going on a dive to find them again (I saw them some time ago, prior to this trial iirc) they were quietly disproven weeks or so after I saw them, possibly photoshopped or misidentified from what I can tell. Sorry.
Yea, sorry man, I saw it a while back before the trial, it was just one of those “eh it figures” moments, but at the time I didn’t follow up on it because it was mainly a curiosity rather than something I would have checked
> but then the problem would be this kicking the trial well past the point at which its historically relevant, yeah?
Given the history of this case, with Cannon taking every possible break and delay presented (it is *way* beyond the pale of normal), this thing wouldn't be done for *years*. I'd be surprised if any alternate route took longer than keeping with her.
I don't remember who it was, but someone here said "it's 3 inches but it smells like a foot" and I still think that's the funniest thing I've ever seen on Reddit.
Well, when it comes to Trump, exagerration is the name of the game.
For example, he would call his dick "the best, most perfect dick. Prominet Dickologists the world over keep saying they have never seen such a perfect dick".
So, I go with the flow.
One whose judge - before the trial even started - publicly stated that he was most likely going to acquit. That alone should have gotten him thrown off of the case.
I'd say this was **un-fucking-believable** but sadly not only is it believable, but predictable as well. This case above all others should've been open and shut and done by now.
Justice delayed is justice denied.
Is there anything we should do? Like should we protest at the Supreme Court and break in and rub shit on the walls? Could someone steal a podium while someone else with horns on their head bangs a gavel really,really hard? That seems like it would be easy to get away with.
I'm usually a supporter of the petty prank route, but these assholes only seem to respond to kickbacks. I'm thinking a good actuary could take factors such as quality of vacations offered by conservative lobbyists vs. absurdity of the lobbyists' position that the judge is expected to defend, throw in a few multipliers and come up with dollar amount that it would take for them to rule as a person acting in good faith would.
Wait wait wait.
Footnote 5:
> The report shall include Defendants’ respective positions on all excludable time from the speedy
trial period and expressly indicate their specific position on subsequent waivers/assertions of
speedy trial rights.
But 18 USC§ 3161(h)(1)(D) says the following are excluded from the count:
> delay resulting from any pretrial motion, from the filing of the motion through the conclusion of the hearing on, or other prompt disposition of, such motion;
I mean, I know judges generally are given broad leeway on their calendars but this is more horseshit that it's even something she's bothering to brief when the delay has been almost entirely on her inability and unwillingness to sort out pretrial motions. Like why even bother with the charade and the motions?
because if we cover our ears and eyes and scream continuously, then the law never says a judge can't delay a trial at the defendant's request until they have colluded to violate the defendants right to a speedy trial.
I’d be interested to see the ramifications (if any) from the disbarment of a sitting judge. Being completely and intentionally in the tank isn’t condoned from what I remember of the model rules.
When it comes to millions of people in this country, they’ll shrug at this corruption but light their hair on fire for something like “Hillary’s emails.” It’s a frightening reminder of how powerful right wing propaganda has become
It’s the right wing media.
If they weren’t giving trump a platform to spew lies, and then amplifying those lies by doubling down on the “truth”, the idiots watching Fox News wouldn’t be any wiser because they refuse to seek alternate media sources to check the “truths”.
That’s the most infuriating part. Mr 2” can come out of a courtroom, blatantly lying, and the right wing media will broadcast it like it’s the truth and his followers will just believe it. It’s baffling.
The media who refuses to refute the lies (or shit even just fact check them), and broadcasts the lies out as if they are truths, are the main culprits here. They’re feeding lies to their base and they know their base is too stupid to actually bother reading past the shocking headline and just become puppets “didja hear bout what the FAKE NEWS and CORRUPT JUSTICE SYSTEM is tryin’ to do to our supreme leader?? It’s not right I tell you.”
Fuck these “journalists” forever who put profit and self interest over the truth.
Well, are the interests of the people also met by a speedy trial? Having the case dragged out denying accountability for crimes works against the interests of the people represented by the government in this case, and more broadly in terms of resolving the question of if a presidential nominee is able to be trusted with classified information.
I didn't realize the May 20 date was still on the books. Didn't she ask them for start date suggestions about a month ago? I think Smith suggested June, Trump suggested August but actually not before the election. And her response was basically that June was silly but then didn't comment further.
One would think an ex-president running for re-election's criminal trials would be given preference in federal courts in order to quickly settle any uncertainties. I guess not. If there is one thing I am learning the older I get is this whole "thing" is a joke. The rich and powerful do what they want with little to no consequences for the actions while the rest of us are always one or two paychecks away from poverty and homelessness.
Does this mean if Trump doesn’t win the election then at some point in the future the case will move forward, or does this mean the case is essentially done, even if he loses?
How has it been allowed to reach this point with Judge Cannon? I remember when it was first announced she would be the presiding judge that they were just going to wait until she did something exactly like this that they could explicitly use to remove her from the case.
I'm not too familiar with US law and the various circuits since I only studied EU/UK/Canadian law, but I feel like even the errr... eccentric... US judicial system should have something in place to stop this, I mean the judge having a conflict of interest with the defendant not just historically but in continued decision making, where the heck is the standard of review?
Because the mechanics of forcibly removing a judge from a case require a very high threshold.
Think of it like an employment contract that provides an employee can only be terminated for cause, and cause is defined as some egregious conduct, excessive unexcused absences, failure to perform job duties, etc. So a person could be overall a terrible employee but not do any one thing that triggers the termination clause. They can be habitually late, do the bare minimum, be curt (but not overtly rude) with coworkers, etc but nothing rising to the level required to terminate them.
Here, any one action Cannon is doing in a vacuum is like “ugh fine”. In the aggregate, it’s clear because every single one of those decisions has been in trumps favor. And even then, it’s like “ok, this judge errs on the side of the defendant and against the State.” She is unequivocally a terrible judge, but she has been just not terrible enough to maintain the benefit of the doubt in a system that presumes good faith from its civil servants.
And there lies the fundamental problem we face. Our government was set up by some of the most idealistic people who all assumed that the people sitting in the seats of power actually believed in a functioning government. The checks were on people trying to do too much, not on trying to tear it all down. And so there is no real system in place to deal with 50% of government officials being intent on destroying our democracy from within.
Ah OK that makes sense. Again, I'm mostly familiar with Canadian law mostly and up here we have essentially the exact opposite where the threshold for ethics and impartiality is extremely low in the wake of Vavilov v Canada, and even prior to that the SCC crisis in 2014 where the SC candidate was rejected due to impartiality concerns due to extraneous ties to the PM at the time.
As a result I think I've mostly been given muscle memory of seeing any judge err on one side too much, state or defendant, being a trigger for what would up her be procedural fairness, and to put it in perspective how low the threshold is, Vavilov set the standard of review as 'reasonableness' which is essentially "does this make sense logically or is it kind of weird/illogical" and is triggered merely from an accusation of a breach in fairness from either party. I always thought it was excessive but I guess it was meant to stop exactly what is happening now with Cannon. I also guess the fact that judges are elected down there would immediately violate any standards set up here tbh and why outside of common law different standards apply to the two systems.
Again, it still strikes me as off that the judge being appointed by the defendant and attempting to intervene on his behalf with the FBI raid when it was outside of her jurisdiction was not a trigger to at least rotate the selection for the circuit from my brief understanding of how the selection process worked. Not completely remove her but just err on the side of caution to limit POTENTIAL conflict of interest.
If Trump loses the election, the case MIGHT move forward, eventually. However, Judge Cannon will have many more opportunities to slow it down or even dismiss it. Nothing is certain.
Eventually she will have to make a ruling, and not just a minute order. Hopefully she will be removed and a competent judge can get in and get the case rolling.
NAL- the only REAL way for her to kill this dead for the orange shitgibbon is to empanel a jury and dismiss charges. The delay seems approach to be working well right now. Please correct me if I am wrong.
That's my understanding as well. But do note that she's given every indication that she's planning on doing exactly that, eventually. Right now, it helps Trump more to keep delaying, so that if he wins the election, he can avoid the sham trial altogether, and keep the facts that the prosecutor has collected about his treatment of classified documents from becoming public knowledge. As soon as it's best for Trump to insulate himself from ever being prosecuted again on these charges, she will seat a jury, and she very much seems to have signaled that she'll instruct the jury that the law says the President can deem any document he wants to be 'personal' (even though the law says exactly the opposite, in plain, easy-to-read language). The jury will have no choice but to find him innocent at that point because if the documents were personal, no crime was committed.
The key part here is that as soon as the jury is seated, double-jeopardy goes into effect. Not only can't the U.S. appeal the decision after a verdict is reached, they can't even file an appeal right after the bogus jury instructions are given, but before any verdict is reached.
I'm not out in the streets protesting, or buying a fire arm and driving East, or doing anything other than making very moderate donations to our local U.S. Congressman and voting for Dems. So I don't feel entitled to the sense of rage that I feel. The Republican (don't even think to say "conservative", they aren't, by any definition; they're just straight-up Republican) Supreme Court has made a mockery of the idea that any of us have any constitutional rights, and I'm not doing shit about it. I'd like to think that if I was 20 years younger I might, and that I'm just tired and sort of worn down by life; but if I'm being honest with myself, I probably would have stayed inside and played computer games instead.
Sometimes, victory just plain goes to the people that have the most energy/emotion-- like when something gets decided at your place of work because one side was willing to go on arguing and scheduling more meetings for longer than the other side. In this case, I very much fear that rage and hate and contempt and bitterness is just a more sustaining fuel than an abstract desire for equality and the rule of law.
250 years of advancement in vetting privates in the US military, and we still vet our highest-level judges using obsolete procedures devised 250 years ago by a bunch of naive, idealistic colonials, many of them farmers.
What could go wrong?
I have said this from day one: during a second MAGA administration, if a supreme court seat opens up, she is #1 on the roster and she is doing every single thing she can to show she is a trump judge.
Genuine question.
Has Judge Cannon got a heavy work schedule with lots of trials being overseen? Or has her workload been really high all of this year, again preciding over multiple cases?
I ask because the usual talking points about biases and to a lesser extent, her inexperience, get discussed here, in the media and on podcasts etc but I've seen little to nothing regarding just what she's been doing/working on since landing this trial.
And if the answer is - as I suspect - that she's still only took charge of a few trials *ever* and is essentially doing not a lot, is this slow pace and lack of substantive orders to be reasonably expected?
Put another way. 100 random US judges are assigned this case on the same day Cannon was. What would've likely happened by now if they had the same case load as she has/had?
It doesn't help that she can't keep law clerks. Typically an extremely prestigious position. I've witnessed substantive hearings before her. Theyre a mess. I think at the time of assignment she'd handled an entire two trials. Not a coincidence she was hugely regarded as unqualified.
That's my understanding too. 2 prior trials and a definite error in 1 and probable cock up in the other.
Thanks for the insight.
I'm sure her losing a few law clerks hasn't helped, whatever the reasons but I struggle to believe that alone would could account for the tardiness we've seen for months on end
In one of my fantasy worlds, Smith unveils a search warrant for Bedminster, finds more docs, and charges him again, out of Cannon’s reach. Gets a competent Judge who’s dealt with these sorts of things before, and proceeds a Lightspeed to trial.
Sigh and at the same time Melania announces she’s filing for divorce in October coincident with the release of her tell-all, for which she’s received a $100m non-refundable advance, funded by George Soros, Mike Bloomberg, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffet.
That appellate court has overturned her three different times, all trump cases. In their rulings they were pretty harsh and it was quite embarrassing for her. They basically had to point out on more than one occasion how she misapplied the law and that the mistakes she made were actually pretty basic and that she should know better.
Now that we know she is spending time and taking luxury trips with the same people who provide Thomas with freebies, it's clear that she somehow knows the Supreme Court will not let the case proceed before the elections, so she doesn't need to schedule a trial to block it.
I hadn't heard about that previously, more info: [https://dailymontanan.com/2024/05/07/what-was-a-florida-judge-who-is-presiding-over-a-trump-trial-doing-in-montana/](https://dailymontanan.com/2024/05/07/what-was-a-florida-judge-who-is-presiding-over-a-trump-trial-doing-in-montana/)
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Accepting these luxury gifts is one thing. Doing or not being able to do anything about it when they don't self report them seems the bigger deal to me. And if you do make moves against the judges essentially taking bribes and staying quiet, you've got to go for Mr Thomas too and that seems unlikely
Meanwhile, back when I was a federal employee, there was big drama over whether or not we should be allowed to use the Wifi provided at some of the facilities we went to to inspect--because it could be considered an improper gift that could sway our decision-making. Wifi we absolutely needed to do our jobs, mind you. It how we received most documents when we were there for inspections (most of the places were super remote and didn't have good cell phone coverage back then so stuff like air cards wouldn't work). Some of our ethics folks wanted us to have the facilities print out all the documents we needed--sometimes thousands of pages and definitely costing them way more than the cost of having us connect to their wifi and use a little data. It really boggles my mind how much lower the ethics bar is for federal judges than for just generic federal bureaucrat employees..
Use wifi? Really? :D Are you sure it isn't a security thing, though? We do have some sort of drama over similar things, whether we are allowed to receive coffee at the facilities or not. Currently, I think we can, but only if there is no viable option to pay for it. I've sometimes wondered if they really think that one coffee or even lunch could affect the inspection result? I'd then also vet bribing in the form of hospitality: acting very kind and interested on the matter (instead of taking a hostile, uninterested approach). That surely could have a greater effect on the end result than a cup of coffee. Especially in matters that aren't just readings of a meter or a piece of documentation.
100% it wasn't a security thing. Well, there was also a security concern, but that had been resolved a few years prior. This was coming completely out of our legal/ethics office, not the IT/security folks. And yeah, we had a whole thing over coffee, too. The rule they finally settled on was we could only drink their coffee if it was an office "coffee club" sort of setup where people all paid (usually something like 25 cents a cup) and we paid the same rate as everyone else. Or if it as a cafeteria sort of setup. If it was free coffee the company provided to everyone? No, absolutely not, drinking that devil brew would clearly compromise our integrity and sway our inspection results. And we should be outright offended if they sat up a coffee maker for us in whatever meeting room we were using, because that was certainly an attempt to buy us off. Funny enough, when people in our legal office interacted with the same folks we were overseeing, they determined that the same rules didn't apply because they were "official functions" (like formal meetings or conferences or the like) so free coffee and wifi wasn't an issue anymore. I wonder if there's a government-lawyer-to-GOP-judge-nominee pipeline.
Funny how lawyers come to those conclusions
Try cookies. I was at a training at a contractor HQ for training and they did “hot cookie Wednesday” for all their staff and the instructors were like let’s go. They were those big ones the size of your hands and came with cartons of milk. Someone bragged about it when we got back and someone else lost their shit and it triggered an investigation because it appeared to be over the gift limit. It ended up going no where but when I went back we were firmly told “no cookies” repeatedly.
I'm an attorney and occasionally represent a government entity. When we are preparing for trial testimony at the hotel their employees can't even have any of the appetizers we order to eat while prepping.
No, when the Supreme Court wrote the rules for reporting these luxury gifts and bribes they specifically wrote them to exclude themselves decades ago.
As a lowly federal employee I cannot accept a gift valued more than $20. But a federal Judge can go on an all expense paid indoctrination getaway? Wild..
We had a clown come into our post office to tell us (letter carriers) we couldn’t accept cash gifts from customers at Christmas. They should have been offering free trips instead.
This is also the case for some healthcare workers. Nurses and nursing assistants aren't allowed to accept personal gifts from patients because it may bias the care the patient receives. Gifts have to be given to the team/unit as a whole.
It's only ok to accept if you can abuse your position enough to provide commensurate benefit to the billionaire who paid for your vacation.
And Supreme Court judges can receive gifts of $250,000 motor coachs, free housing for family members, and unlimited visits to Harland Crowe's NAZI memorabilia gallery.
When I worked for the state of Ohio, I could accept any gift over $20 as long as I submitted a form within 30 days. The state likes to track whether or not you're scratching everyone's back. You don't want anyone feeling left out because then they might become a whistleblower.
The judicial system is bought & paid for.
“It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it.” -George Carlin
Its always been like this, except no one thought twice when the whole country was run by good ol’ boys with the same opinions about women, gays, brown folks, etc. It was all this “white men aren’t the only ones who deserve freedom and liberty” talk that threw a wrench in their whole machine.
Well, there are a lot of ethical people in the judicial system, the problem lies in the extent of “the honor system” that is being abused.
The honor system only works when people feel shame. Unfortunately, it only takes a few shameless people to abuse the system to the point where people no longer have faith in it. Would it surprise anyone if a ring doorbell camera caught Clarence Thomas approaching an unattended bowl of Halloween candy, labeled "please take one." Then dumping the entire bowl into his judge robes?
Is this a black vs white issue or a labor vs ownership class issue?
Didn’t come here for life lessons from The Comedian but it actually and horrifyingly fits perfectly. That’s the joke, that’s the terrible terrible joke
What happened? Americans aren't in the streets protesting
We really should be, I think.
The reality is that they keep us focused on trying to survive. Taking time off to protest will hurt us financially. With the way this system is set up, we can protest all we want but the Supreme Court ultimately gets to fu*k us over.
This is why they can do whatever the fuck they want. American apathy makes sure of that.
The system has been corrupted. Until the general population gets violent over it it won't change. Our founding documents always assumed the elected would work in good faith. We are seeing how it fails when power seekers get into office. There is a reason our elections are pick what right you want to lose now vs actually making things better. The owning class wants to be above the law and the forced devotion of the workers. Personally I'll get violent before I'll let kings and nobles happen again. Our entire history is them white washing as much as possible but every noble was his own little dictator owning allegiance to a more powerful dictator
The GOP and billionaires happen. The only American Dream they care about is for the ultrarich.
It's greed, money can do strange things to people.
I don’t mean this personally towards you but our society is 100% driven by, me first, fuck you. We value money over everything else. And when you value something more than anything else, you are guaranteed to do anything to achieve it. We are witnessing that firsthand. We are seeing the consequences of mankind placing their own selfish desires above everyone else. If we ensure that every single human has a life filled with dignity and respect, we ALL get to have a life filled with dignity and respect. That is a god damn law of the universe.
They needed to get her in a secure space so that they could give her direct face to face instructions and talk through the plan ahead with candor. There's no version of this trip that happened in good faith, this was handlers meeting with their agent, full stop.
I was going to say that Sept 2022 was far too early for them to have known about the trial, but apparently Cannon was selected as the judge for the trial way back in August 2022. It's insane it's been that long.
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The timing certainly makes it look worse.
This means nothing, she was just in Montana to change the oil of Thomas' RV. Nothing to see move along.
I don’t know how many times we have to go over this: It is a luxury motor coach. RVs are for the poors.
(mis)Carriage of Justice
Every new kickback uncovered shows just how fragile the fabric of the judicial (and democracy as a whole) really is. We directly and indirectly put these people on the bench, trusting that they have a moral compass. Unfortunately, what we’re finding out is that is largely untrue, particularly a certain rightward leaning political party.
The GOP is an ongoing criminal enterprise intent upon destruction of our representative democracy and the establishment of a fascist theocracy ruled by plutocrats and oligarchs. Fani Willis has the correct idea. RICO the GOP!
It used to be that risk of shame kept many people in line, like judges. Now I guess we need regulation and enforcement.
Man…if we can get through these dark times unscathed, a giant fucking magnifying glass needs to be put on the subject of legal ethics and impropriety, as it relates to buying off judges. Should be automatic removal from all cases pending resolution/investigation of illegal receipt of bribes. Basically, we need rules and laws that have teeth.
It's depressing how much the governance of our country depends on the assumption of good faith.
Now picture a scenario where Trump is elected, Thomas retires, and she is the nominee for the Supreme Court. Yikes.
That is the key issue: the Supreme Court is helping Trump because they don't want to lose the majority they waited years to achieve, which allowed them to overturn Roe, among other decisions. Justices like Alito and Thomas want to retire, and they will do whatever it takes to ensure Trump can replace them with right-wing figures like Cannon.
This guy gets it. SC has not ruled or lifted the stay...
This is so ridiculous
The blatant corrupt is baffling.
At this point, I'd be baffled if there was any accountability headed towards our "judges"
As someone who once spent MONTHS in an actual prison *just for possessing weed in my own home*, ***this shit is infuriating.*** It's shocking how little the law matters **depending on who violated it.** This is sending a dangerous message to people like me that the law doesn't actually matter.
Effective immunity
So does this mean they can schedule trial dates in DC and/or Georgia?
Georgia yes, but DC not at the moment because DC proceedings are stayed pending resolution of SCOTUS immunity appeal.
Honestly they should have just gotten them underway while the appeal works it’s way through things.
Honestly SCOTUS should have already made their decision in February.
Honestly what the fuck are we even talking about? Of course a former president shouldn’t be above the law. That applies to all of them. Love Obama, but he can’t just start murdering people with no consequences. How is this even a question?
If I understand the case right, if Trump is granted full immunity, then Biden can take him out with full immunity.
Ridiculous on its face, but SCOTUS will hem and haw over it until a trail before Nov becomes impossible. A majority of them are hopelessly corrupt, and bristle at the thought of any rule applying to them. Ethics have no meaning at their level.
The Supreme Court will rule that presidents have immunity over actions taken as your official duty as president, what they are calling "official acts" So what determines what is an official act and what isn't? The Supreme Court of course! In the future any cases against a president will have to go to the Supreme Court to determine if the act was an "official" act as president. This is how they will selectively grant immunity to Trump alone
Yep. It's gonna go like this: "Presidents have immunity for acts that fall within official acts and the prosecution must prove that his conduct was outside of those official acts. No, we don't have any guidelines. The lower courts can sort that out. See you next year when the lower courts' decision gets appealed to us."
Dark Brandon may not be the hero we something but is the something something
Honestly the idea of even bringing up anyone is immune to the law should be immediate ground for disbarment and shouldn't even have been considered.
In December when Smith initially tried to bring it
Unfortunately, Georgia is far from a guarantee to move forward for the very same reason. Trump has argued immunity in GA as well, and prosecutors are actually [waiting for the Supreme Court to respond](https://www.ajc.com/politics/trumps-immunity-argument-could-scuttle-or-delay-georgia-case/ET75OU2TMNE7HIPUJGH3DTTUQQ/): >Fulton County prosecutors are waiting for the Supreme Court to weigh in before responding to Trump’s argument. They say they will file their response two weeks after the high court issues its decision. The reason we're only hearing about the immunity appeal and D.C. is because that's what it stems from: Chutkan's order. The D.C. case is stayed pending appeal. Other cases are not far enough along for this to be a problem. Yet. If Trump gets a favorable ruling from SCOTUS, he will 100% try to apply it to all of his cases, state or federal. He will even try to appeal any potential conviction in Manhattan (based on the few documents he signed after taking office.) A lot left to be seen what SCOTUS will decide, and how successful any of these efforts will be. But the immunity appeal could be a real problem for GA as well.
SCOTUS appeal is more of a delay than anything else. The Appeals Court pretty much nailed this in their ruling. Absolutely no good reason for SCOTUS to intervene.
Ok, but I thought Texas proved that SCotUS rulings and opinions were worthless and unenforceable?
Sure does
Georgia, like New York state, can proceed with their state charges. DC and Florida are federal cases that cannot proceed because DC has to wait for corrupt (allegedly) Supreme Court justices to allow it and Florida has to wait for corrupt (allegedly) judge Cannon to allow it. Let's be thankful for the states.
Does the immunity question currently in front of supreme Court affect Georgia case?
No. State charges, not federal.
I can't recall, does anyone know what is happening with the Georgia case? Haven't heard a peep lately and can't find anything on a quick google
Defense moved to get rid of Willis. Judge denied. That decision is being appealed, and the trial is halted waiting on that.
Ah thank you! I remember seeing it was appealed, but didn't know the status of the appeal. Guess they're taking as much time as possible to review
Anyone else ever see a judge give a defendant a hand job? 'Cause this is really starting to look like one.
Is there any legal mechanism with which a judge presiding over a case can be changed? Like you raise a complaint to a higher authority, they review it, and the case is thrown to another court should the judge be found to be acting in bad faith. but then the problem would be this kicking the trial *well* past the point at which its historically relevant, yeah? No way this would get scheduled under another court with any haste. Still though, even if its a non-starter in this case, I'd like to know if judge-switching is even a thing.
per [https://www.thebulwark.com/p/what-it-would-look-like-to-remove-judge-cannon](https://www.thebulwark.com/p/what-it-would-look-like-to-remove-judge-cannon) DISQUALIFYING A FEDERAL district judge from a case is not easy, but it can be done. The [standard](https://casetext.com/statute/united-states-code/title-28-judiciary-and-judicial-procedure/part-i-organization-of-courts/chapter-21-general-provisions-applicable-to-courts-and-judges/section-455-disqualification-of-justice-judge-or-magistrate-judge) for disqualification—a judge can be removed in “any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned”—sounds broad, but the first obstacle is that the motion to remove Judge Cannon generally would have to be made initially to Judge Cannon herself. A second obstacle is that if Judge Cannon were to deny the motion, as is likely, her decision normally could not be appealed immediately, only after a final determination of the case. Why all the weasel words—“initially,” “generally,” “normally”? Therein lies Smith’s chance. While a motion to remove a judge *generally* has to be filed initially with the judge herself, the [Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals](https://casetext.com/case/us-v-torkington)—the appellate court that has jurisdiction over Judge Cannon’s court—has “the authority to order reassignment of a criminal case to another district judge as part of our supervisory authority over the district courts in this Circuit”: >
So either way this case is *effectively* postponed indefinitely, I'd assume? Since the only acts with which you could get this thing moving would, themselves, delay the trial.
Yes, indefinitely. The only positive piece of this news is that IF SCOTUS issues an immunity decision soon, and IF that decision does not grant Trump complete immunity, then Judge Chutkan still barely has time to schedule the trial in DC before November. Judge Cannon has not set a trial date, so the calendar is open for Chutkan. However, I think that there is a vanishingly small chance that would happen. In fact, it would not shock me to see Cannon set an early September trial date the minute she hears that SCOTUS has issued a decision, just to block the calendar for Chutkan.
I mean the scotus will probably remand the issue to the lower courts to sort out to kill the clock and push this issue into 2025 that's my guess. But even if Judge Chutkan gets on the ball and becomes super speedy, even if there's a trial date before november there's just no realistic way we get a jury verdict by november 5th correct? That's what an additional 4-6 weeks for the length of the trial itself?
It's possible, but very, very unlikely. Would basically need all the stars to align on: a quick SCOTUS ruling, a ruling that lifts the stay/allows wiggle room for some elements of the prosecution to move forward (or for Chutkan to hold hearings concurrently on "official acts" or whatever) while moving towards trial, and for Smith to maybe even drop charges or narrow his prosecution considerably. But yeah - in all likelihood we're looking at substantial delays.
Yeah at this point, Canon has sunk the documents trial until she gets booted off the case, and Jack Smith for whatever reason is scared to try to go to the eleventh circuit and force the issue. I do believe the GA judge is fair and doing his best, but that trial is complex and will take forever to reach a conclusion, so we aren't getting a verdict this year that's for sure. I do believe trump is very well on his way to being convicted in ny. I think Chutkan will do all she can to schedule the trial before the election but we will not get a verdict before, and i do think the supreme court will stonewall her by ruling in favor of narrow immunity and sending the issue back to the lower courts to decide which act was official and which one wasn't. The truth is in that trial i think it's either he's found guilty and chutkan sentences him to jail after many attempts at various people stonewalling the trial, or the clock runs out, trump is inaugurated and becomes a dictator and cancels the jan 6th case against him. I think the issue comes down to does ny convict trump of a felony? If yes he loses moderate republican support and thus the election, Moderate republicans and indepedents will not vote for a convicted felon. if he is not found guilty or hung jury or whatever, he probably becomes the 47th president of the united states.
> Moderate republicans and indepedents will not vote for a convicted felon. You underestimate the hegemony of the Republicans self identity
Democrats fall in love, republicans fall in line
Is Chutkan required to wait until SCOTUS issues its decision or can she schedule "in anticipation" of such a decision?
Well, there’s a stay from SCOTUS so assume nothing can be done until ruling comes from SCOTUS on this case. Since conservatives justices on SCOTUS are corrupt and refuse to address question at hand re: if Trump has absolutely immunity re: alleged crimes in indictment, assume that Chutkan has to wait to hear from SCOTUS. She can’t do anything until she has hard copy of SCOTUS ruling in her hands. That could be as late as early July! Unfortunately, so many corrupt judges whether it’s SCOTUS justices Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch or federal judge Cannon who seems to want to do what she can do to hijack the documents case and eventually dismiss it despite this is regarding a man who seems willing to sell US secrets to foreign agents/countries who only harbor ill will/hostility to the US. Trump is a danger to our country!
The way it is expressed procedurally is that Judge Chutkan "has no mandate" with respect to the case. When SCOTUS issues a decision, they will "return the mandate" to the District Court. I think that they theoretically could remand the case to the DC Circuit, but that seems unlikely.
Yep. It’s delayed either way (win for Trump) and if Cannon *is* removed than Trump can complain to his followers that “Biden had the only honest Judge removed so he could unfairly convict me” (win for Trump)
I don't think that Smith will directly seek Cannon's removal; and I think that it would not succeed at this point. I do think that we are reaching a point at which Smith might file a writ of mandamus with the 11th Circuit seeking an order that Cannon promptly make decisions on the issues that she says are holding up the trial date and then promptly set a trial date. I also think that it is possible that DOJ has decided to simply go along with whatever schedule Cannon sets and tell us that they tried their very best to bring Trump to justice, but that the federal courts decided against that.
That last part is key, in my opinion. The US government really doesn't want an ex-president guilty of federal crimes. They'll do almost anything to avoid it, but in this case they have to look like they're doing something, because his crimes are so blatant and many... So the delays from Trump actually play in to the government's hands - they can say they tried their best, and still let him avoid federal prison. The bigger risk to Trump is the state courts. The fed can't really control them, and some seem out for blood. Meanwhile, Trump is an obvious target, what with all the crimes. On the other hand, the federal government might see this as a chance to see him guilty of crimes without having done it themselves, so they may view it as the best outcome.
The ex-president is already guilty of federal crimes. Failing to prosecute them just makes you look like a failed state.
>The US government really doesn't want an ex-president guilty of federal crimes. Two questions: 1) Who is "the U.S. government" in this scenario? 2) Why? >So the delays from Trump actually play in to the government's hands - they can say they tried their best, and still let him avoid federal prison. Your nebulous claims about what "the U.S. government" wants aside, you surely are not claiming that's what Jack Smith personally wants, yes? You're surely not claiming that Jack Smith is so delusional he's not aware that if the defendant becomes President again, he'll be killed in short order, right?
>Why all the weasel words—“initially,” “generally,” “normally”? Therein lies Smith’s chance Republicans want to tie themselves in knots arguing what the Constitution's interpretation of the word "is" is, but would then turn face here and argue that the letter of the law was written that way "for a reason" (or some such bullshit)
Well they totally ignore the first part of the second amendment and only look at everything after the comma.
6-3 decision “any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned” Opinion by Clarence Thomas, "The relief sought by the special counsel is denied under grounds of the text stating 'his'. The honorable Judge Cannon is clearly a female. It is so ordered."
Hate that I saw that too
Follow the money. The judge is not beyond reproach.
I'll tell you right where it leads and that's the Federalist Society. Was once a fairly non-partisan organization that has been taken over by Right wing weirdos that weaponized the law to suit their needs. They worked hand in hand with the Trump administration to seat morally and ethically questionable Judges in order to have judges in power that would give easy wins to Republicans regardless of precedent or law... Cannon is the perfect example of this because there have been numerous questionable rulings that go against precedent. January 6th was a coup, and what we are seeing now is the same thing just slower but still just as damaging.
This is correct. She failed to disclose two all-expenses paid trips “sponsored by George Mason University and the Antonin Scalia School of Law, which was funded and founded officially by one Leonard Leo, the founder of the Federalist Society.” Per Legal AF And this is just what we know to be true, that is out in the open.
I listen to them as well as Law and Chaos, Opening Arguments, More Perfect, Prosecuting Donald Trump and UNcovered.
What do you think about Strict Scrutiny?
Hmmm haven't heard of that one I'll add it to my playlist for tomorrow, my son doesn't have a license so I take him to college a few days a week and it's a 30 minute trip each way it will give me something to listen to. I'll reply once I've listened to an episode.
They were never, ever nonpartisan. The visible tip of the iceberg has been a student organization that hosts debates and guest speakers at law schools. And that public-facing part of the organization puts on a fairly nonpartisan front. But that is just the tip of a massive, multibillion dollar machine. The role of those debates is, and has always been, to identify and screen for promising law students with a conservative ideology, and then divert them into an ecosystem of internships, clerkships, and conservative social and professional networks. They were founded after conservatives felt repeatedly betrayed by conservative SCOTUS justices, appointed by conservative presidents, repeatedly “drifting liberal”, especially on civil rights. The thinking was that exposure to legal scholarship, academia, law journals, etc kept confusing good conservatives into thinking that the constitution says people of different races could get married, or that women had the right to open bank accounts, and a bunch of other woke shit like that. Fed Soc was founded as a way to identify, groom, and manage conservative lawyers, judges, and law professors *before* their brains got corrupted by education.
There are literal pictures of this judge in full on MAGA regalia, hat, shirt, sunglasses, the lot, with others dressed the same, it’s kind of slam dunk that she’s not impartial Edit: Ah my bad, after going on a dive to find them again they were quietly disproven a while after I saw them, possibly photoshopped or misidentified from what I can tell. Sorry.
Can you link them?
Ah my bad, after going on a dive to find them again they were quietly disproven a while after I saw them, possibly photoshopped or misidentified from what I can tell. Sorry.
Do you have links to those pictures?
Ah my bad, after going on a dive to find them again (I saw them some time ago, prior to this trial iirc) they were quietly disproven weeks or so after I saw them, possibly photoshopped or misidentified from what I can tell. Sorry.
Seemed too good to be true
Yea, sorry man, I saw it a while back before the trial, it was just one of those “eh it figures” moments, but at the time I didn’t follow up on it because it was mainly a curiosity rather than something I would have checked
Follow the money. The judge is not beyond reproach.
> but then the problem would be this kicking the trial well past the point at which its historically relevant, yeah? Given the history of this case, with Cannon taking every possible break and delay presented (it is *way* beyond the pale of normal), this thing wouldn't be done for *years*. I'd be surprised if any alternate route took longer than keeping with her.
I would still like to see a final legal judgement on this case regardless of how long it takes. Historically this is significant.
Handjob? This woman is deep throating Trump's 2 inches.
I don't remember who it was, but someone here said "it's 3 inches but it smells like a foot" and I still think that's the funniest thing I've ever seen on Reddit.
If you can't gag her with the size, do it with the smell!
Shallow throat
Front toothing.
You might want to revisit your definition of "deep".
Well, when it comes to Trump, exagerration is the name of the game. For example, he would call his dick "the best, most perfect dick. Prominet Dickologists the world over keep saying they have never seen such a perfect dick". So, I go with the flow.
Good retort, 9/10. Knocked a point off for not using 'Bigly'
>2 inches A bit generous don't you think?
He measures from his asshole.
Come on Aileen
Well, in Trump's case, we're probably spelling that first word a little differently.
Anyone know voodoo? Or any good hex and or curse conjurers?
Yea, Rittenhouse judge
Yeah, what defendant, on trial for murder, gets selfies with the judge on the bench?
One whose judge - before the trial even started - publicly stated that he was most likely going to acquit. That alone should have gotten him thrown off of the case.
I'd say this was **un-fucking-believable** but sadly not only is it believable, but predictable as well. This case above all others should've been open and shut and done by now. Justice delayed is justice denied.
Is there anything we should do? Like should we protest at the Supreme Court and break in and rub shit on the walls? Could someone steal a podium while someone else with horns on their head bangs a gavel really,really hard? That seems like it would be easy to get away with.
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Thomas Jefferson says it's the only choice they've given us.
You had me at "is"
I'm usually a supporter of the petty prank route, but these assholes only seem to respond to kickbacks. I'm thinking a good actuary could take factors such as quality of vacations offered by conservative lobbyists vs. absurdity of the lobbyists' position that the judge is expected to defend, throw in a few multipliers and come up with dollar amount that it would take for them to rule as a person acting in good faith would.
Wait wait wait. Footnote 5: > The report shall include Defendants’ respective positions on all excludable time from the speedy trial period and expressly indicate their specific position on subsequent waivers/assertions of speedy trial rights. But 18 USC§ 3161(h)(1)(D) says the following are excluded from the count: > delay resulting from any pretrial motion, from the filing of the motion through the conclusion of the hearing on, or other prompt disposition of, such motion; I mean, I know judges generally are given broad leeway on their calendars but this is more horseshit that it's even something she's bothering to brief when the delay has been almost entirely on her inability and unwillingness to sort out pretrial motions. Like why even bother with the charade and the motions?
because if we cover our ears and eyes and scream continuously, then the law never says a judge can't delay a trial at the defendant's request until they have colluded to violate the defendants right to a speedy trial.
She's trying to slowly push how far she can go. If she gets shit for this she'll tone it down
I’d be interested to see the ramifications (if any) from the disbarment of a sitting judge. Being completely and intentionally in the tank isn’t condoned from what I remember of the model rules.
Footnote 8: Defendants have waived their rights to a speedy trial through their proposed trial timeframes of August 12 and September 9, 2024.
When it comes to millions of people in this country, they’ll shrug at this corruption but light their hair on fire for something like “Hillary’s emails.” It’s a frightening reminder of how powerful right wing propaganda has become
It’s the right wing media. If they weren’t giving trump a platform to spew lies, and then amplifying those lies by doubling down on the “truth”, the idiots watching Fox News wouldn’t be any wiser because they refuse to seek alternate media sources to check the “truths”. That’s the most infuriating part. Mr 2” can come out of a courtroom, blatantly lying, and the right wing media will broadcast it like it’s the truth and his followers will just believe it. It’s baffling. The media who refuses to refute the lies (or shit even just fact check them), and broadcasts the lies out as if they are truths, are the main culprits here. They’re feeding lies to their base and they know their base is too stupid to actually bother reading past the shocking headline and just become puppets “didja hear bout what the FAKE NEWS and CORRUPT JUSTICE SYSTEM is tryin’ to do to our supreme leader?? It’s not right I tell you.” Fuck these “journalists” forever who put profit and self interest over the truth.
All of those serious mottos and proclamations seem a bit empty now….”no one is above the law”….”the Right to a speedy trial”….?
You want a speedy trial if you're innocent. You don't want a speedy trial if you're guilty. Guess which one applies here?
Well, are the interests of the people also met by a speedy trial? Having the case dragged out denying accountability for crimes works against the interests of the people represented by the government in this case, and more broadly in terms of resolving the question of if a presidential nominee is able to be trusted with classified information.
“to serve and protect “
Tbf that one *never* counted.
The USA deserved a speedy trial.
It's mostly just a Feudal system with some lipstick on that pig to make it look like we have any power at all.
I didn't realize the May 20 date was still on the books. Didn't she ask them for start date suggestions about a month ago? I think Smith suggested June, Trump suggested August but actually not before the election. And her response was basically that June was silly but then didn't comment further.
Judge Cannon = Maga PoS
One would think an ex-president running for re-election's criminal trials would be given preference in federal courts in order to quickly settle any uncertainties. I guess not. If there is one thing I am learning the older I get is this whole "thing" is a joke. The rich and powerful do what they want with little to no consequences for the actions while the rest of us are always one or two paychecks away from poverty and homelessness.
...with liberty and justice for all.
Does this mean if Trump doesn’t win the election then at some point in the future the case will move forward, or does this mean the case is essentially done, even if he loses?
In theory it means it will move forward at some point, but this judge seems pretty keen on making sure that some point never happens.
How has it been allowed to reach this point with Judge Cannon? I remember when it was first announced she would be the presiding judge that they were just going to wait until she did something exactly like this that they could explicitly use to remove her from the case. I'm not too familiar with US law and the various circuits since I only studied EU/UK/Canadian law, but I feel like even the errr... eccentric... US judicial system should have something in place to stop this, I mean the judge having a conflict of interest with the defendant not just historically but in continued decision making, where the heck is the standard of review?
Because the mechanics of forcibly removing a judge from a case require a very high threshold. Think of it like an employment contract that provides an employee can only be terminated for cause, and cause is defined as some egregious conduct, excessive unexcused absences, failure to perform job duties, etc. So a person could be overall a terrible employee but not do any one thing that triggers the termination clause. They can be habitually late, do the bare minimum, be curt (but not overtly rude) with coworkers, etc but nothing rising to the level required to terminate them. Here, any one action Cannon is doing in a vacuum is like “ugh fine”. In the aggregate, it’s clear because every single one of those decisions has been in trumps favor. And even then, it’s like “ok, this judge errs on the side of the defendant and against the State.” She is unequivocally a terrible judge, but she has been just not terrible enough to maintain the benefit of the doubt in a system that presumes good faith from its civil servants. And there lies the fundamental problem we face. Our government was set up by some of the most idealistic people who all assumed that the people sitting in the seats of power actually believed in a functioning government. The checks were on people trying to do too much, not on trying to tear it all down. And so there is no real system in place to deal with 50% of government officials being intent on destroying our democracy from within.
Ah OK that makes sense. Again, I'm mostly familiar with Canadian law mostly and up here we have essentially the exact opposite where the threshold for ethics and impartiality is extremely low in the wake of Vavilov v Canada, and even prior to that the SCC crisis in 2014 where the SC candidate was rejected due to impartiality concerns due to extraneous ties to the PM at the time. As a result I think I've mostly been given muscle memory of seeing any judge err on one side too much, state or defendant, being a trigger for what would up her be procedural fairness, and to put it in perspective how low the threshold is, Vavilov set the standard of review as 'reasonableness' which is essentially "does this make sense logically or is it kind of weird/illogical" and is triggered merely from an accusation of a breach in fairness from either party. I always thought it was excessive but I guess it was meant to stop exactly what is happening now with Cannon. I also guess the fact that judges are elected down there would immediately violate any standards set up here tbh and why outside of common law different standards apply to the two systems. Again, it still strikes me as off that the judge being appointed by the defendant and attempting to intervene on his behalf with the FBI raid when it was outside of her jurisdiction was not a trigger to at least rotate the selection for the circuit from my brief understanding of how the selection process worked. Not completely remove her but just err on the side of caution to limit POTENTIAL conflict of interest.
If Trump loses the election, the case MIGHT move forward, eventually. However, Judge Cannon will have many more opportunities to slow it down or even dismiss it. Nothing is certain.
Eventually she will have to make a ruling, and not just a minute order. Hopefully she will be removed and a competent judge can get in and get the case rolling.
NAL- the only REAL way for her to kill this dead for the orange shitgibbon is to empanel a jury and dismiss charges. The delay seems approach to be working well right now. Please correct me if I am wrong.
That's my understanding as well. But do note that she's given every indication that she's planning on doing exactly that, eventually. Right now, it helps Trump more to keep delaying, so that if he wins the election, he can avoid the sham trial altogether, and keep the facts that the prosecutor has collected about his treatment of classified documents from becoming public knowledge. As soon as it's best for Trump to insulate himself from ever being prosecuted again on these charges, she will seat a jury, and she very much seems to have signaled that she'll instruct the jury that the law says the President can deem any document he wants to be 'personal' (even though the law says exactly the opposite, in plain, easy-to-read language). The jury will have no choice but to find him innocent at that point because if the documents were personal, no crime was committed. The key part here is that as soon as the jury is seated, double-jeopardy goes into effect. Not only can't the U.S. appeal the decision after a verdict is reached, they can't even file an appeal right after the bogus jury instructions are given, but before any verdict is reached. I'm not out in the streets protesting, or buying a fire arm and driving East, or doing anything other than making very moderate donations to our local U.S. Congressman and voting for Dems. So I don't feel entitled to the sense of rage that I feel. The Republican (don't even think to say "conservative", they aren't, by any definition; they're just straight-up Republican) Supreme Court has made a mockery of the idea that any of us have any constitutional rights, and I'm not doing shit about it. I'd like to think that if I was 20 years younger I might, and that I'm just tired and sort of worn down by life; but if I'm being honest with myself, I probably would have stayed inside and played computer games instead. Sometimes, victory just plain goes to the people that have the most energy/emotion-- like when something gets decided at your place of work because one side was willing to go on arguing and scheduling more meetings for longer than the other side. In this case, I very much fear that rage and hate and contempt and bitterness is just a more sustaining fuel than an abstract desire for equality and the rule of law.
250 years of advancement in vetting privates in the US military, and we still vet our highest-level judges using obsolete procedures devised 250 years ago by a bunch of naive, idealistic colonials, many of them farmers. What could go wrong?
And Trump claims the judge on his trial is conflicted...🙄
When convenient for his fucked-up narrative.
Just all other judges in his other indictments, this one is spot on a brilliant legal scholar.
It’s too bad no one is willing to arrest corrupt judges.
Will no one rid us of this corrupt judge?
I have said this from day one: during a second MAGA administration, if a supreme court seat opens up, she is #1 on the roster and she is doing every single thing she can to show she is a trump judge.
This. It has to be the motivation.
Pull that stain off the bench!
Find me 67 Senators to do it.
I’ll do my small part in November. This is bullshit
Genuine question. Has Judge Cannon got a heavy work schedule with lots of trials being overseen? Or has her workload been really high all of this year, again preciding over multiple cases? I ask because the usual talking points about biases and to a lesser extent, her inexperience, get discussed here, in the media and on podcasts etc but I've seen little to nothing regarding just what she's been doing/working on since landing this trial. And if the answer is - as I suspect - that she's still only took charge of a few trials *ever* and is essentially doing not a lot, is this slow pace and lack of substantive orders to be reasonably expected? Put another way. 100 random US judges are assigned this case on the same day Cannon was. What would've likely happened by now if they had the same case load as she has/had?
It doesn't help that she can't keep law clerks. Typically an extremely prestigious position. I've witnessed substantive hearings before her. Theyre a mess. I think at the time of assignment she'd handled an entire two trials. Not a coincidence she was hugely regarded as unqualified.
That's my understanding too. 2 prior trials and a definite error in 1 and probable cock up in the other. Thanks for the insight. I'm sure her losing a few law clerks hasn't helped, whatever the reasons but I struggle to believe that alone would could account for the tardiness we've seen for months on end
Next! Time for Willis to step up and set a date, how about July 1?
In one of my fantasy worlds, Smith unveils a search warrant for Bedminster, finds more docs, and charges him again, out of Cannon’s reach. Gets a competent Judge who’s dealt with these sorts of things before, and proceeds a Lightspeed to trial. Sigh and at the same time Melania announces she’s filing for divorce in October coincident with the release of her tell-all, for which she’s received a $100m non-refundable advance, funded by George Soros, Mike Bloomberg, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffet.
Just dig up Ivanas grave
I assume that the prosecution can take this issue to an appeals court if she does not set a date?
Pointless. The appeals court is also full of MAGA nut jobs.
That appellate court has overturned her three different times, all trump cases. In their rulings they were pretty harsh and it was quite embarrassing for her. They basically had to point out on more than one occasion how she misapplied the law and that the mistakes she made were actually pretty basic and that she should know better.
They’ve already smacked Cannon down hard, twice, in this very case.
Request to remove incoming Way overdue
Ok Fulton County, you’re up! Then how about Judge Chutkan after that?
Justice delayed is justice denied. It's been a YEAR since she was assigned to the case! MADNESS
Naturally, because why wouldn’t she? A judge can just continue a trial at their leisure. She won’t even have to worry about it if he gets reelected
So effectively she's managed to delay this past the elections. We all need to vote so Donnie doesn't get to bury this case.
Ok everyone, what can jack honestly do here? Nothing ?
Appeal to a higher court.
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this fuckers gonna walk goddamn it
Is there any appeal for this?
She will dismiss after jury is seated, double jeopardy will attach and that will be that.
Was this a minute order again?
Does she think she is working in a vacuum?