The Stable Genius's Very Large Uh-Brain Rejected Lawyer's Efforts To Settle Classified Documents Case And Avoid Indictment
Public Notice, on Trump's inability to stop confessing to crimes: "Trump is a doddering fool, who virtually authored the criminal case against himself."
Christopher Kise, one of Donald Trump’s lawyers, suggested contacting the Justice Department last fall and asking whether Attorney General Merrick Garland was open to negotiating a settlement of Trump’s classified documents case. Kise’s suggestion made a lot of sense. It’s clear, from the glacial pace of Garland’s investigation (to say nothing of waiting over a year to start investigating), that he would rather not prosecute a former president. Kise hoped that if Trump returned all the stolen documents that a settlement might be reached and Trump could avoid criminal charges. (Note that Trump has not been charged regarding any documents he returned voluntarily.)
Trump’s reply? No fucking way. Kise never talked to DOJ and Dolt 45 has been indicted twice — with two additional indictments coming soon — and arrested twice, all within 10 weeks. Trump is now in “the most legally perilous moment of his life” — currently charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records, 31 counts of violating the Espionage Act, and several other charges, including obstruction of justice — and could spend the rest of his life (he’s 77) in prison.
The Washington Post reports that Trump ignored repeated chances to avoid being arrested (my emphasis in all quoted articles):
Since the National Archives first asked for the return of presidential documents in Trump’s possession in February 2021 . . . Trump was repeatedly stubborn and eschewed opportunities to avoid criminal charges . . .
Interviews with seven Trump advisers with knowledge of the probe indicate he misled his own advisers, telling them the boxes contained only newspaper clippings and clothes. He repeatedly refused to give the documents back, even when some of his longest-serving advisers warned of peril and some flew to Mar-a-Lago to beg him to return them. . . .
Trump time and again rejected the advice from lawyers and advisers who urged him to cooperate . . .
Trump’s unwillingness to give the documents back did not surprise those who knew him well. Former White House chief of staff John F. Kelly said that he was particularly unlikely to heed requests from people or agencies he disliked.
“He’s incapable of admitting wrongdoing. . . .”, Kelly said Tuesday.
Other advisers said the FBI and National Archives wanting the documents so badly made Trump less likely to give them back.
When Trump returned 15 boxes to the National Archives earlier this year, we know now he still had at least 64 boxes of stolen documents in his Florida home. According to the Post, Trump “never believed that his home would be searched”.
Trump refused to take the advice of everyone, including his lawyers and some of his longest-serving advisers, who “warned of peril”. Some people even travelled to Florida “to beg him to return” the documents.
Trump — who can afford the most expensive lawyers in the world — does not currently have a lawyer with the expertise to properly defend him against the Espionage Act charges. LOL. Former federal prosecutor Adam Kamenstein told Salon: “The issue isn’t navigating the Espionage Act charges themselves, which are relatively straightforward; the issue is navigating the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA) and knowing how to exploit all its procedural mechanisms to the client’s benefit.”
Journalist Brian Karem noted that after Trump’s arraignment in Miami, he immediately started “sending emails to his faithful followers urging them once again to fill the coffers of a supposed billionaire fighting for his imaginary noble cause”.
Nothing is more Trump than this indictment and his reaction. . . . [T]he final act of Donald Trump’s political life is unfolding in state and federal criminal court, even as he traverses the country speaking at rallies and effectively digging his own grave. . . .
The details about the records Trump kept at Mar-a-Lago are chilling, and the actions he took with them are both darkly comic and terrifyingly dangerous. A former president of the United States stored secret government documents . . . in a bathroom with a now-infamous chandelier. They were also stored on a ballroom stage in his resort that was easily accessible to anyone. There was no guard or lock on the doors. . . .
This is real Three Stooges stuff. The indictment exposes Trump as a clown and fool desperate for attention. . . .
Trump claims he will fight to the bitter end and afterward, but he doesn’t have a lot of options no matter what he says. His lawyers know this too. How do you defend a case where your client’s recorded words taken in context will be used against him? . . .
Surrounding himself with sycophants at the highest levels, and gullible kids who just need a job at the lowest levels, Trump has nothing but fumes left in his tank . . .
[Trump] protests that he’s only being prosecuted because he's running for office. Actually, it’s the other way around: He’s running for office to try and save himself from being prosecuted. . . .
Trump is about to find out that the nonsense he spouts outside the courtroom could have calamitous results for him inside the courtroom . . . He will be exposed as the traitorous, incompetent, callous buffoon and charlatan that he really is.
Trump has been making nonsensical statements about the Presidential Records Act to his gullible cult members, but the Presidential Records Act has nothing to do with this case.
“Trump isn’t charged with any violations of the Presidential Records Act,” former Assistant U.S. Attorney William “Widge” Devaney told Salon. “Trump is charged with having secret and top secret information, refusing to turn it over, obstructing the government’s attempts to turn it over and causing people to lie about those records.”
Trump claims Bill Clinton has illegally kept tapes from his time as president. That is a lie. As Barb McQuade, a former U.S. Attorney and University of Michigan law professor explains:
Clinton’s recordings were from his own interviews, qualifying as diaries, which the Presidential Records Act says are not presidential records. No law precludes Clinton from keeping them. . . . Trump is charged with violating the Espionage Act, not the Presidential Records Act. The records Trump is alleged to have illegally retained are agency records, such as records of the CIA, NSA, and Department of Defense, not presidential records.
Salon columnist Amanda Marcotte writes:
The only thing Donald Trump loves more than committing crimes is bragging about all the crimes he commits. . . .
As with Trump's false claims to be the “real” winner of the 2020 election, his narcissism leads him to believe he can simply assert his desires as facts and that will somehow make it so. . . .
There is a reason why, as the indictment clearly lays out, Trump went to great lengths to hide documents and lie to federal authorities about where he hid them. He knew he didn’t have “an absolute right” to the stolen goods, and like any common criminal who knows he’s guilty, he went to great lengths to lie and obstruct in order to avoid being caught committing the crime he knew full well was a crime when he was committing it. . . .
The whole “absolute right” rant calls to mind what may still be Trump’s most famous bout of boasting about his criminal activity: The infamous “Access Hollywood” tape.
“When you’re a star, they let you do it,” Trump was recorded saying as he described, in great detail, how he likes to sexually assault women . . . Note that he framed the “right” to sexual assault as a perk of his privileged status, like getting valet parking or a good seat at a fancy restaurant. . . .
Trump’s “defense” of himself can be summed up as “I did it and I should be allowed to do it.”
Most of his Republican defenders . . . “have burst forth with an embarrassing slurry of misdirection, illogic and non sequiturs”.
These GOP gambits assume Trump is a total moron, or that his followers are. In most cases, it’s a little bit of both.
David R. Lurie, writing at Public Notice:
[T]he Donald Trump depicted (frequently through his own words) in the indictment is the furthest thing from a savvy warrior against determined “deep state” forces. Instead, he’s a fool, seemingly choosing to take every possible step to invite prosecution. . . .
The failed effort to turn [lawyer Evan] Corcoran into a co-conspirator was, per the indictment, followed by the shambolic shuffling and reshuffling of boxes by Trump’s now indicted [Diet Coke] valet — recorded on camera — in an attempt to shield some of Trump’s classified document trophies from the lawyer, and the inducement (by Corcoran) of yet another lawyer [Christina Bobb] to sign a false affirmation for submission to the government.
In sum, the Trump of Mar-a-Lago is far from a hero slaying dragons on behalf of his followers. . . . Trump is a doddering fool, who virtually authored the criminal case against himself.
And yet Trump, a weak bully with only one or two shop-worn moves, can disarm and insult Ron DeSantis in his sleep. Which tells you all you need to know about Meatball Ron. In fact, all of the Republican 2024 contenders have been handed a huge gift. Their chief opponent will soon have been indicted and arrested four times in a single year. But they are all terrified to take advantage. They fear saying even one negative word about Trump. It’s a stunning show of cowardice. Truly amazing.
Lurie mentioned how Robot Ron is bigly screwed:
DeSantis’s campaign has recently been pitching a strategy of setting out to beat Trump by moving “to the right” of him, and asserting, for example, that DeSantis is a more committed anti-vax conspiracist and more devoted to ending reproductive rights, advancing homophobia, and implementing censorship. . . .
[T]he extremists DeSantis needs to “peel away” from Trump are “invested” in their charismatic leader, who has — through a carefully cultivated cult of personality — effectively portrayed himself as a singular, and heroic, leader, and the only figure who can prevail against the supposed internal enemies that MAGA followers have come to fear.
U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon has been assigned to oversee Trump’s classified documents trial. Despite never serving as a judge, Cannon was given a lifetime appointment to the bench by Trump in 2020. She became infamous when she invented some dumbass legal reasoning to give Trump special treatment regarding a special master reviewing documents for attorney-client privilege. Her embarrassing decision — which was denounced by law experts everywhere — was overturned in about three seconds by the (conservative) 11th Circuit Court of Appeals; the ruling also served as a scathing condemnation of her garbage decision.
The New York Times reports (in something close to a “hit piece”, according to journalist Marcy Wheeler) that only four of the 224 criminal cases assigned to Cannon have gone to trial. Those four cases — possession of a gun by a felon, tax fraud, smuggling undocumented migrants, and assaulting a prosecutor — involved common charges and the trial lasting two-to-five days. Cannon’s career trial experience is 14 days of overseeing “run-of-the-mill” charges.
Georgetown University criminal law professor and former federal prosecutor Julie O’Sullivan: “She’s both an inexperienced judge and a judge who has previously indicated that she thinks the former president is subject to special rules so who knows what she will do?” Samuel Buell, a former federal prosecutor and Duke University law professor agreed. “[S]he is a very inexperienced judge, so even if she weren’t favorable to Trump, she might hear a lot of stuff and think she is hearing stuff that is unusual even though it’s made all the time.”
After his arraignment on Tuesday, Trump visited Versailles, a well-known Cuban restaurant in Miami’s Little Havana. He told a crowd of his supporters, who he called “great group of people”, that he would provide “food for everyone”. But according to the Miami New Times, “no one got anything” as trump left shortly after making that promise. The Daily Beast said it was “a development that should surprise exactly no one”.
Nicole Narea of Vox calls Trump’s post-indictment speech at his New Jersey cemetery-golf course “was a master class in alternative facts and false victim narratives”.