Jesus. Fucking Christ
The Post knew about the Alito flag before Biden’s inauguration and just decided it was not a story. Not even once it became clear the court was taking on Jan6th related cases.
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Even if it was…
Even if it was…
Of course it fucking was!
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The Supreme Court is a partizan nonsense. It works when you have gravitas, but alas we do not.
I don’t know what the answer is, but it clearly can’t be right to have your wife plotting January 6th and accepting expensive gifts from billionaires who are trying to influence policy (Clarence Thomas) and then being so brazen about supporting an insurrection (Alito).
It’s a shitshow.
The Dems should blow it up and expand the court so this sort of fringe lunacy can get back to being that, rather than mainstream.
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They should outsource the Supreme Court to Asian parents. They don’t take any shit and will just cane the shit out of you if you try something funny.
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I think I’m seeing that there could be another lawsuit from E Jean Carroll coming Trumps way after yet another rant from him.
I say I think because unless i bury myself in the weeds on this loony (which is just unpleasant) its tough keeping up.
Regardless of how bad a witness he could have perceived to have been, if there was exonerating evidence he would have surely had some given how much of the documentary evidence touches him and so a jury is left to wonder why he was not called. If your conclusion is because he is a criminal doing time for having lied as part of other Trump org schemes then his absence speaks even more strongly to the current charges.
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I have to admit I’ve gone from thinking this was a slam dunk to having serious doubts as to whether the prosecution have proved whatever it is that upgrades the charge from a misdemeanour to a felony. Anyway we’ll know soon enough , closing arguments are about to begin.
Anyone of a similar disposition probably shouldn’t read this ; https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/27/trump-hush-money-trial-00160021
That piece is more a journalism piece reporting on what “people are saying” than an independent legal analysis, so some of the problems with the case should be taken with a pinch of salt. However, no matter how good the case they have presented is, everyone should keep separate the evaluation of that vs the likelihood of a guilty verdict. It is not just that there is an unusually high possibility (high compared to other trials) of a jurist making it through who is ideologically committed to a not guilty decision, but I think we have to take on board that jurists will likely understand the magnitude of convicting a former and potentially future president and find themselves in a position where the bar for proof is impossibly high to meet. Failure to get a guilty verdict was always going to be a real possibility, but by most accounts the prosecution has presented a very strong case.
Harry Litman is floating the idea that in closing the Trump team are going to present Weisselberg’s absence as a failure of the prosecution arguing that if the charges were legit his CFO would know about it and be able to testify about it and so the jury should ask themselves why they didnt call him. Of course the prosecution didn’t because he’s already perjured himself to protect trump and gone to jail for it, and has an NDA that precludes him cooperating with the authorities (I dont get how that is legal), and the judge denied their request to explain this to the jury. There is some debate about whether this would be allowed by the judge, and whether it would result in him then allowing the prosecution to rebut with their previously denied explanation for why he was not called as a witness, but if they are indeed going for this defense in closing it would explain why they didnt call him to support their case.
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I think the NDA states ‘willingly’ cooperate , meaning of course he would have to be subpoenaed and therefore be a reluctant witness , who (in the prosecution’s view) could not be relied on not to lie again.
Yes, and they tried to present this to the jury and Merchan denied them. You would have to think that the degree to which the judge allows this argument into the defenses closing would be matched by his willingness to allow a rebuttal into the prosecutions defense (defense goes last here), but there is maybe a narrow path with good lawyering that they come out ahead with.
If you think about this in terms of politics, where the impact of failing to get a guilty verdict is likely much bigger than the negative hit to Trump if he is found guilty, they may be willing to take a flier in the hope it is a KO blow.
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So, both closing arguments were made yesterday. The Jury returned today to receive jury instructions from the judge and have now been sent away.
I’d imagine there will be a lot of bad analysis filling the gap between now and whenever the verdict comes in (I’ve already seen several body language analyses of the jurors), but short of finding sources that summarize the totality of the cases and the defense there is not much for us to do but wait.
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Its an old tactic in the law, in a fraught case, to not let your main witness (the accused) take the stand. its usually on the basis this can only get worse so to restrict what can be done under cross examination. Its then his lawyers job to unpack the charges to lower than the standard of proof by undermining and obfuscation of the prosecution case and witnesses.
How long is a reasonable estimate for when they will come back with a verdict?
A couple of days? More?
And if he is found guilty, what happens then? Sentencing? (And then the sentence can be adjusted on appeal?)
I’m not quite sure as the likely sequence, and potential/realistic punishment.
Obviously if he is found not guilty he will make as much political capital as possible, and it will strengthen the viewpoint among his base, and possibly with the few that are undecided, that it has been a bit of a witch hunt.
Time - no one can say. It wouldn’t be that unusual for them to come back with a decision as early as end of day tomorrow or friday, but we should be prepared to wait a fair bit longer. I remember the Casey Anthony trial for as complex and fucked up as that was returned a decision in 2 days.
After that, who the fuck knows. I think everyone who knows what they are talking about thinks jail is not on the table, but outside of that, with this wretched cunt, anything is possible. The one thing I would be confident on is the political impact of there not being any guilty verdict. If we see that I’d go and stick your 401k on Trump winning in nov.
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It depends on what direction the judge gave to the jury in terms of what proportion of verdict he will accept. They usually ask for unanimous, but if the jury cannot meet that, in some cases the judge will lower it and take 10-2, say. I dont think this is a case where any lower than that will work. A good judge usually calls a jury in every morning and PM to see where they are. Some juries have been out for 4 weeks and had to be discharged because they could not decide. This won’t apply here, they will be pressured to give a verdict. At least a week is my feeling, maybe 2, for something as high profile as this.
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It has to be unanimous.
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I see it does, changed in 2020, applies to the felony. Is it a grand or petit jury?
If there are lesser included charges, misdemeanors, by analogy in the UK it can be relaxed to convict on those counts in the alternative, without unanimity.
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The jury has asked to hear Pecker’s testimony again about the TT meeting. That’s probably bad news for Trump
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Little meaningfully changed in 2020. The difference wasnt felony vs misdemeanor, but Federal (required unanimity) vs State charges (could decide for themselves on whether it was required). The 2020 decision required all states to adopt the Federal standards, but by then there were only 2 hold outs and even then it didn’t apply in all cases in those states. There were a couple of interesting pieces written about the pros vs cons of this recently with the interest in the US on the UK baby killer nurse case.
Regardless, this is a felony state case, and so requires unanimity on all charges…with 2 caveats
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There are 34 (I think) separate charges in this trial and the jury doesn’t need to come to the same decision on all of them. It is also possible the judge may accept them being hung on a couple if they have already come to a decision of guilty on a few. That allows meaningfully sentencing to go ahead and gives the prosecution the option of retrying the hung charges (they likely wouldn’t).
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The case has 2 parts - the business crimes and concealment of a second crime. They have to be unanimous on each charge on whether a business crime was committed. They have to be unanimous on whether a second crime was being covered up with that fraud. However, the prosecution presented 3 different arguments for what that second crime was and each juror only needs to think one of the 3 occurred and they dont need to agree on which one.
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That is this evidence
https://x.com/rgoodlaw/status/1795567122669564209
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