Now That Trump's President... (not any more!)

[zlemflolia]

So we can kill this guy once he's out of office, right?

 

first off thats retarded to make a joke about, second off no I hope nobody ever does that because it's harmful to democracy itself no matter what side the victim is on

[goDel]

Maybe he might be joining Manafort behind bars.

 

 

 

A federal judge has denied the justice department’s efforts to halt legal proceedings in a case in which Donald Trump is accused of violating the US constitution, opening the door for the president’s critics to gain access to financial records related to his Washington DC hotel.

 

Such records could include income tax returns which Trump has refused to release to public scrutiny.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/03/trump-emoluments-case-ruling-financial-records-tax-returns

Edited November 3, 2018 by goDel

[ambermonk]

Seems likely if Democrats gain majority control of both the House and Senate, in which case Trump may well be in deep shit. However my understanding is that the House is more likely to flip than the Senate.

(I've probably said this like three times already in this thread. Oh well.)

[ignatius]

[auxien]

lmao, that Charles Seife guy's book Zero is really good btw

[ambermonk]

Speaking of Wohl, is that little fucker in prison yet?

[goDel]

He will be!

 

What a fucking dolt.

 

Tangent: it looks like Papdapoulos will be doing an online interview with the one who i cant name. Might be amusing. It's like watching two stars collide. A black hole might be the result.

[may be rude]

Has Mueller Subpoenaed the President?

 

 

These months before the midterm elections are tough ones for all of us Mueller-watchers. As we expected, he has gone quiet in deference to longstanding Justice Department policy that prosecutors should not take actions that might affect pending elections. Whatever he is doing, he is doing quietly and even further from the public eye than usual.

 

But thanks to some careful reporting by Politico, which I have analyzed from my perspective as a former prosecutor, we might have stumbled upon How Robert Mueller Is Spending His Midterms: secretly litigating against President Donald Trump for the right to throw him in the grand jury.

 

As a former prosecutor and Senate and White House aide, I predicted here last May that Mueller would promptly subpoena Trump and, like independent counsel Kenneth Starr back in 1998, bring a sitting president before his grand jury to round out and conclude his investigation. What Trump knew and when he knew it, and what exactly motivated his statements and actions, are central to Mueller’s inquiry on both Russian interference and obstruction of justice.

 

As the summer proceeded, we certainly heard a great deal from Rudy Giuliani, the president’s lawyer, about purported negotiations with Mueller’s office regarding the propriety and scope of Trump’s potential testimony. On August 15, Giuliani said Trump would move to quash a subpoena and went so far as to say, “[W]e’re pretty much finished with our memorandum opposing a subpoena.”

 

And then—nothing. Labor Day came and went without a visible move by Mueller to subpoena the president, and we entered the quiet period before the midterms. Even the voluble Giuliani went quiet, more or less. Mindful of the time it would take to fight out the legal issues surrounding a presidential subpoena, and mindful of the ticking clock on Mueller’s now 18-month-old investigation, many of us began to wonder whether Mueller had decided to forgo the compelling and possibly conclusive nature of presidential testimony in favor of findings built on inference and circumstantial evidence. A move that would leave a huge hole in his final report and findings.

 

But now, thanks to Politico’s reporting (backed up by the simple gumshoe move of sitting in the clerk’s office waiting to see who walks in and requests what file), we might know what Mueller has been up to: Since mid-August, he may have been locked in proceedings with Trump and his lawyers over a grand jury subpoena—in secret litigation that could tell us by December whether the president will testify before Mueller’s grand jury.

 

The evidence lies in obscure docket entries at the clerk’s office for the D.C. Circuit. Thanks to Politico’s Josh Gerstein and Darren Samuelsohn, we know that on August 16 (the day after Giuliani said he was almost finished with his memorandum, remember), a sealed grand jury case was initiated in the D.C. federal district court before Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell. We know that on September 19, Howell issued a ruling and five days later one of the parties appealed to the D.C. Circuit. And, thanks to Politico’s reporting, we know that the special counsel’s office is involved (because the reporter overheard a conversation in the clerk’s office). We can further deduce that the special counsel prevailed in the district court and that the presumptive grand jury witness has frantically appealed that order and sought special treatment from the judges of the D.C. Circuit—often referred to as the “second-most important court in the land.”

 

Nothing about the docket sheets, however, discloses the identity of the witness. Politico asked many of the known attorneys for Mueller witnesses—including Jay Sekulow, another Trump lawyer—and each one denied knowledge of the identity of the witness. (What, of course, would we expect a lawyer to say when asked about a proceeding the court has ordered sealed?)

 

But for those of us who have been appellate lawyers, the brief docket entries tell a story. Here’s what we can glean:

• The parties and the judges have moved with unusual alacrity. Parties normally have 30 days to appeal a lower court action. The witness here appealed just five days after losing in the district court—and three days later filed a motion before the appellate court to stay the district court’s order. That’s fast.
• The appeals court itself responded with remarkable speed, too. One day after getting the witness’ motion, the court gave the special counsel just three days to respond—blindingly short as appellate proceedings go. The special counsel’s papers were filed October 1.
• At this point an unspecified procedural flaw seems to have emerged, and on October 3, the appeals court dismissed the appeal. Just two days later, the lower court judge cured the flaw, the witness re-appealed, and by October 10 the witness was once again before appellate court. Thanks to very quick action of all the judges, less than one week was lost due to a flaw that, in other cases, could have taken weeks or months to resolve.
• Back before the D.C. Circuit, this case’s very special handling continued. On October 10, the day the case returned to the court, the parties filed a motion for expedited handling, and within two days, the judges had granted their motion and set an accelerated briefing schedule. The witness was given just 11 days to file briefs; the special counsel (presumably) just two weeks to respond; and reply papers one week later, on November 14 (for those paying attention, that’s eight days after the midterm elections). Oral arguments are set for December 14.

 

At every level, this matter has commanded the immediate and close attention of the judges involved—suggesting that no ordinary witness and no ordinary issue is involved. But is it the president? The docket sheets give one final—but compelling—clue. When the witness lost the first time in the circuit court (before the quick round trip to the district court), he petitioned, unusually, for rehearing en banc—meaning the witness thought the case was so important that it merited the very unusual action of convening all 10 of the D.C. Circuit judges to review the order. That is itself telling (this witness believes the case demands very special handling), but the order disposing of the petition is even more telling: Trump’s sole appointee to that court, Gregory Katsas, recused himself.

 

Why did he recuse himself? We don’t know; by custom, judges typically don’t disclose their reasons for sitting out a matter. But Katsas previously served in the Trump White House, as one of four deputy White House counsels. He testified in his confirmation hearings that in that position he handled executive branch legal issues, but made clear that apart from some discrete legal issues, he had not been involved in the special counsel’s investigation. If the witness here were unrelated to the White House, unless the matter raised one of the discrete legal issues on which Katsas had previously given advice, there would be no reason for the judge to recuse himself.

 

But if the witness were the president himself—if the matter involved an appeal from a secret order requiring the president to testify before the grand jury—then Katsas would certainly feel obliged to recuse himself from any official role. Not only was the president his former client (he was deputy counsel to the president, remember) but he owes his judicial position to the president’s nomination. History provides a useful parallel: In 1974, in the unanimous Supreme Court decision United States v. Nixon, which required another witness-president to comply with a subpoena, Justice William Rehnquist recused himself for essentially the same reasons.

 

We cannot know, from the brief docket entries that are available to us in this sealed case, that the matter involves Trump. But we do know from Politico’s reporting that it involves the special counsel and that the action here was filed the day after Giuliani noted publicly, “[W]e’re pretty much finished with our memorandum opposing a subpoena.” We know that the district court had ruled in favor of the special counsel and against the witness; that the losing witness moved with alacrity and with authority; and that the judges have responded with accelerated rulings and briefing schedules. We know that Judge Katsas, Trump’s former counsel and nominee, has recused himself. And we know that this sealed legal matter will come to a head in the weeks just after the midterm elections.

 

If Mueller were going to subpoena the president—and there’s every reason why a careful and thorough prosecutor would want the central figure on the record on critical questions regarding his knowledge and intent—this is just the way we would expect him to do so. Quietly, expeditiously, and refusing to waste the lull in public action demanded by the midterm elections. It all fits.

 

[goDel]

I'm not so sure. I'd expect Roger Stone to be first in line. Then Prince, Don Jr and Kushner and the likes. Manafort is also still a thing. 

 

A lot of pawns before the focus will move to the top of the chain, imo.

 

We'll see though. Next week will be an important week...

[Rubin Farr]

Brian Kemp now making an insane accusation that the Democratic Party has "hacked the election" in Georgia, and it isn't legit. Gimme a fucking break.

[joshuatxuk]

^ full-fledged banana republic mode 

 

 

But the latest appalling move by Kemp to publicly accuse the Democrats of hacking without evidence is even worse than that: Kemp has been one of the few state election officials to refuse help from the federal Department of Homeland Security to deter foreign and domestic hacking of voter registration databases. After computer scientists demonstrated the insecurity of the state’s voting system, he was sued for having perhaps the most vulnerable election system in the country. His office has been plausibly accused of destroying evidence, which would have helped to prove the vulnerabilities of the state election system.

[joshuatxuk]

[ignatius]

“Nothing to see here” Trump Lawyer Rudy Giuliani Takes Mystery Trips to Russia, Armenia and Ukraine: Report   

 

(good comments in the reddit thread)

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/9ue2nf/trump_lawyer_rudy_giuliani_takes_mystery_trips_to/

 

 

https://www.newsweek.com/trump-lawyer-rudy-giuliani-takes-mystery-trips-russia-armenia-and-ukraine-1199259

[joshuatxuk]

“Nothing to see here” Trump Lawyer Rudy Giuliani Takes Mystery Trips to Russia, Armenia and Ukraine: Report   

 

(good comments in the reddit thread)

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/9ue2nf/trump_lawyer_rudy_giuliani_takes_mystery_trips_to/

 

 

https://www.newsweek.com/trump-lawyer-rudy-giuliani-takes-mystery-trips-russia-armenia-and-ukraine-1199259

 

I can only read so much of this stuff each day without it tormenting me as I work, go home, and do the evening routine with my kids of dinner, bath, and reading a book. All because some bitter white retirees couldn't get over a black Democrat winning the popular vote twice.

[ignatius]

https://www.theroot.com/an-armed-extremist-group-in-georgia-is-threatening-viol-1830240135

 

Ahead of Tuesday’s midterm election in Georgia, an armed militia has threatened violence if Stacey Abrams wins the governor’s race. In a since edited Facebook post, the far-right group III% Security Force Intel referred to the Democratic candidate as a “flag burning, gun grabbing, socialist bitch.” The group mentioned their love for Donald Trump and wrote, “Guns Up!”

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[joshuatxuk]

I miss the days when armed militias were hermits against all forms of government and not a bunch of brown shirt authoritarian thugs.

 

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

[BobDobalina]

[may be rude]

vote.org you dirty bitches

[ambermonk]

https://www.theroot.com/an-armed-extremist-group-in-georgia-is-threatening-viol-1830240135

 

Ahead of Tuesday’s midterm election in Georgia, an armed militia has threatened violence if Stacey Abrams wins the governor’s race. In a since edited Facebook post, the far-right group III% Security Force Intel referred to the Democratic candidate as a “flag burning, gun grabbing, socialist bitch.” The group mentioned their love for Donald Trump and wrote, “Guns Up!”

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Kinda figured something like this was coming. And Trump is still encouraging aggression. But I'll be damned if we let these bastards intimidate us out of voting.

 

I miss the days when armed militias were hermits against all forms of government and not a bunch of brown shirt authoritarian thugs.

Yeah and it's likely only gonna get worse. I think the right-wing domestic terrorism we've had in the last two weeks was just the warm-up round.

[joshuatxuk]

[tec]

His last comeback to Cruz was fucking outstanding.

Edited November 6, 2018 by tec

[ignatius]

His last comeback to Cruz was fucking outstanding.

 

 

fucking savage. loved it. 

[ignatius]

still early but not looking like a big night for dems. over confidence again. also voter suppression seems to worked. though still long lines of people voting. still lots of votes to count

[Nebraska]

vote.org you dirty bitches

 

[dr lopez]

el oh el and indiana blowing for the country again. love my state.