;)
September 20, 2022
Late Morning/Afternoon Update:
Charlie Savage & Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "On Monday evening, lawyers for ... Donald J. Trump insisted that he should not have to formally declare in court whether, as he has claimed publicly, he had used his power before leaving office to declassify sensitive documents seized from his Florida home last month. But on Tuesday, in a separate court filing, Mr. Trump's lawyers argued that the Justice Department has not proved that those same documents ... continue to be classified, coyly hinting Mr. Trump might have declassified them. Mr. Trump, in other words, wants it both ways: He is arguing that he and his legal team should not have to state in a legal proceeding, where they could become subject to perjury charges or other penalties, that he declassified the documents, while also telling the courts that they should not accept the Justice Department's word that they remain classified." ~~~
~~~ Marie: The WashPo story, linked below, indicates that the Trump lawyers argued that Trump should not have to reveal his fake declassification excuse because they might want to use that fiction in his defense if he's indicted. In today's filing, according to the NYT story linked above, "The president has broad authority governing classification of, and access to, classified documents." So I'll just point out that Trump is not the president. Maybe his attorneys are planning an insanity defense: he thinks he's president so he thinks he can access and/or declassify whatever he wants. Trump's incarcerations could end up being nothing more onerous than a short stay in an upscale mental-health facility. ~~~
The government gives me prima facie evidence that these are classified documents.... As far as I'm concerned, that's the end of it. -- Judge Raymond Dearie, Tuesday hearing ~~~
~~~ Update: According to Tom Winter of NBC News, (speaking on-air on MSNBC), Judge Dearie told the parties in a hearing Tuesday that he had no ability or authority to question the government's classification of documents. Barbara McQuade, also speaking on MSNBC, said Dearie also accused the Trump lawyers of "gamesmanship" for refusing to say whether or not Trump was claiming he declassified some classified documents. So win-win for the DOJ. ~~~
~~~ Update. Josh Gerstein & Kyle Cheney of Politico: "The senior federal judge tasked with reviewing the materials seized by the FBI from Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate sharply questioned the former president's attorneys Tuesday during their first hearing before his courtroom. Judge Raymond Dearie pushed Trump's lawyers repeatedly for refusing to back up the former president's claim that he declassified the highly sensitive national security-related records discovered in his residence. 'You can't have your cake and eat it,' said Dearie.... Dearie bristled at the effort by Trump's lawyers to resist his request for proof that Trump actually attempted to declassify any of the 100 documents that the Justice Department recovered from his estate. Without evidence from Trump, Dearie said his only basis to judge the classification level of the records was the fact that they all bear markings designating them as highly sensitive national security secrets.... Dearie ... noted that ... the burden of proof is on Trump to back up any assertion of privilege or other protected interest in the documents."
~~~ As Greg Sargent of the Washington Post wrote before the hearing: "This episode reveals the perils of lawyering by Fox News: If you tailor arguments to a forum where damning facts are never admitted as evidence and Trump's defenses never face real scrutiny, eventually you'll hit a wall of legal reality.... Dearie essentially asked Trump&'s lawyers to put up or shut up. And they chose Door No. 2.... What's darkly amusing here is that Trump's own claims that he declassified the documents are what led the special master to demand that Trump's lawyers put up or shut up."
David Fahrenthold of the New York Times: "The Justice Department said on Tuesday that a federal grand jury had indicted 44 people on charges that they ran a brazen fraud against anti-hunger programs during the coronavirus pandemic, stealing $240 million by billing the government for meals they did not serve to children who did not exist. The case, in Minnesota, is the largest fraud uncovered in any pandemic-relief program, prosecutors said, standing out even in a period when heavy federal spending and lax oversight allowed a spree of scams with few recent parallels. The Minnesota operation, prosecutors said, involved faked receipts for 125 million meals. At times, it was especially bold: One accused conspirator told the government he had fed 5,000 children a day in a second-story apartment." ~~~
~~~ The Washington Post story, by Tony Romm, has the grand jury indicting 47 people who defrauded the government of more than $250 million.
~~~ Say, ya wanna know another flagrant Covid scam? Cruel hoaxer Ron DeSantis used Covid money to pick up 48 asylum-seekers from Texas and dump them, under false pretenses, on Martha's Vineyard.
Notes from the Cloakroom. Watch to the end; it's short:
Robyn Dixon of the Washington Post: "Russia on Tuesday was pushing ahead with plans to annex occupied regions of Ukraine, as Moscow's puppet authorities set dates to stage referendums on joining Russia -- moves that could dramatically escalate the war. Officials in the self-declared statelets of Luhansk and Donetsk and in the occupied region of Kherson in south Ukraine announced 'referendums' to be held from Friday to Tuesday. Such votes, which are illegal under Ukrainian and international law, have been widely derided in advance by Western officials as a sham, and merely a precursor to the violation of Ukraine's territorial sovereignty. After annexing the territories, Moscow would likely declare Ukrainian attacks on those areas to be assaults on Russia itself, analysts warned, a potential trigger for a general military mobilization or a dangerous escalation such as the use of a nuclear weapon against Ukraine."
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Trump Lawyers Say He Could Be Indicted. Perry Stein & Devlin Barrett of the Washington Post: "The Justice Department and lawyers for Donald Trump filed separate proposals Monday for conducting an outside review of documents seized at the former president's Mar-a-Lago home, with key disagreements over how the process should work and Trump's team acknowledging that the criminal probe could lead to an indictment. Both sides referenced a 'draft plan' given to them by Judge Raymond J. Dearie, the newly appointed special master. Trump's lawyers expressed concern that Dearie posed questions about the documents that the judge who appointed Dearie has left unasked, arguing that Trump might be left at a legal disadvantage if he answered them at this stage of the process. Specifically, the legal team objected to what it said was Dearie's request that it 'disclose specific information regarding declassification to the Court and to the Government.'... Trump's lawyers wrote that they don't want Dearie to force Trump to 'fully and specifically disclose a defense to the merits of any subsequent indictment without such a requirement being evident in the District Court's order' -- a remarkable statement that acknowledges at least the possibility that the former president or his aides could be criminally charged."~~~
~~~ Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Trump's team also raised concerns about Dearie's request for information about whether any subsequent Fourth Amendment litigation filed by Trump to reclaim the documents should be filed with the magistrate judge who authorized the search in the first place: Bruce Reinhart, who Trump has assailed without basis as biased against him."
Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "A onetime White House lawyer under ... Donald J. Trump warned him late last year that Mr. Trump could face legal liability if he did not return government materials he had taken with him when he left office, three people familiar with the matter said. The lawyer, Eric Herschmann, sought to impress upon Mr. Trump the seriousness of the issue and the potential for investigations and legal exposure if he did not return the documents, particularly any classified material, the people said.... In January, not long after the discussion with Mr. Herschmann, Mr. Trump turned over to the National Archives 15 boxes of material he had taken with him from the White House.... But Mr. Trump continued to hold onto a considerable cache of other documents, including some with the highest security classification...."
Danny Hakim, et al., of the New York Times: "Newly released videos show allies of ... Donald J. Trump and contractors who were working on his behalf handling sensitive voting equipment in a rural Georgia county weeks after the 2020 election. The footage, which was made public as part of long-running litigation over Georgia's voting system, raises new questions about efforts by Trump affiliates in a number of swing states to gain access to and copy sensitive election software, with the help of friendly local election administrators. One such incident took place on Jan. 7 of last year, the day after supporters of Mr. Trump stormed the Capitol, when a small team traveled to rural Coffee County, Ga. The group included members of an Atlanta-based firm called SullivanStrickler, which had been hired by Sidney Powell, a lawyer advising Mr. Trump who is also a conspiracy theorist.... Investigators from [Georgia Secretary of State Brad] Raffensperger's office also appear in the new videos, raising questions about what they knew." ~~~
~~~ Uh, I Forgot. Jon Swaine & Emma Brown of the Washington Post: "Under questioning last month for a civil lawsuit, a former Georgia Republican Party official named Cathy Latham said in sworn testimony..., 'I didn't go into the office.'... She said she had seen in passing a pro-Trump businessman who was working with the experts. She said they chatted for 'five minutes at most' -- she could not remember the topic -- and she left soon after for an early dinner with her husband. Surveillance video footage ... shows that Latham visited the elections office twice that day, staying for more than four hours in total. She greeted the businessman, Scott Hall, when he arrived and led him into a back area to meet the experts and local officials, the video shows. Over the course of the day, it shows, she moved in and out of an area where the experts from the data forensics firm, SullivanStrickler, were working.... She took a selfie with one of the forensics experts.... In response to questions from The Post, Latham's lawyers said, 'Failing to accurately remember the details of events from almost two years ago is not lying.'" Latham was a local GOP official. ~~~
~~~ Marie: Blacking out four hours of a big day in which everything you did broke the law, and "remembering" a fictional dinner, is lying.
Kelly Hooper of Politico: "A Minnesota District Court judge on Monday denied MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell's motion to throw out a lawsuit brought by a voting technology company that claims he defamed it by pushing the false narrative that the 2020 election was stolen. Smartmatic, a company that provided election technology and services to Los Angeles in the 2020 election, alleges in the complaint that both Lindell and MyPillow defamed the voting tech company by falsely promoting the theory that its machines had been hacked or rigged in favor of President Joe Biden."
Edith Lederer of the AP: "Warning that the world is in 'great peril,' the head of the United Nations says leaders meeting in person for the first time in three years must tackle conflicts and climate catastrophes, increasing poverty and inequality -- and address divisions among major powers that have gotten worse since Russia invaded Ukraine. In speeches and remarks leading up to the start of the leaders' meeting Tuesday, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres cited the 'immense' task not only of saving the planet, 'which is literally on fire,' but of dealing with the persisting COVID-19 pandemic. He also pointed to 'a lack of access to finance for developing countries to recover -- a crisis not seen in a generation' that has seen ground lost for education, health and women's rights."
Haq Khan, et al., of the Washington Post: "American Mark Frerichs, a civilian contractor who was abducted in Kabul over two years ago, was freed in exchange for an Afghan detainee held in U.S. federal prison, U.S. and Afghan officials said Monday.... President Biden applauded the freeing of Frerichs, who U.S. officials said was now in U.S. care in Doha, Qatar.... U.S. officials said Frerichs's release capped months of negotiations between senior U.S. officials and the Taliban.... To obtain his freedom, the official said, the U.S. government released detainee Bashir Noorzai (also known as Haji Bashir Noorzai) -- a warlord and drug trafficker with ties to the Taliban -- who was convicted of drug trafficking and sentenced to life in federal prison after being lured to the United States and arrested in 2005." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
AP: "A U.S. law banning those under felony indictments from buying guns is unconstitutional, a federal judge in West Texas ruled Monday. U.S. District Judge David Counts, whom ... Donald Trump appointed to the federal bench, dismissed a federal indictment against Jose Gomez Quiroz that had charged him under the federal ban."
Beyond the Beltway
Edgar Sandoval & Eliza Fawcett of the New York Times: "A county sheriff in Texas announced on Monday that he had opened a criminal investigation into flights that took 48 migrants from a shelter in San Antonio to the island resort of Martha's Vineyard last week. Sheriff Javier Salazar of Bexar County, which includes San Antonio, said that he had enlisted agents from his office's organized crime task force.... He said it was clear that many of the migrants had been misled and lured away from Texas to score political points.... 'They had a right to walk around the streets just like you and me, and they had a right not to be preyed on and played for a fool and transported halfway across the country, just for the sake of a media event or a video opportunity,' Sheriff Salazar, a Democrat, said. 'That's a tragedy.'" A CBS News story is here. ~~~
~~~ Gary Fineout of Politico: "Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has defended flying nearly 50 mostly Venezuelan migrants to Martha's Vineyard in part by saying that Florida lawmakers gave him $12 million for such transports. Yet the transports ... sparked ongoing questions about whether DeSantis had carried out the program as the Republican-controlled Legislature intended. Specifically, state Democrats and others are questioning whether the flights were legal since they originated in Texas and not Florida. According to the budget language, the $12 million DeSantis is using was specifically earmarked to 'facilitate the transport of unauthorized aliens from this state consistent with federal law.' The law also specified that the flights should be used to transport 'unauthorized aliens' -- but lawyers speaking on behalf of the migrants say many who were flown to Martha's Vineyard are seeking asylum, which puts them in a different category legally."
Maryland. Michael Levenson of the New York Times: "In a remarkable reversal, Adnan Syed walked out of prison on Monday for the first time since he was a teenager, having spent 23 years fighting his conviction on charges that he murdered his former high school girlfriend, a case that was chronicled in the first season of the hit podcast 'Serial.' Judge Melissa M. Phinn of Baltimore City Circuit Court vacated the conviction "'in the interests of justice and fairness,' finding that prosecutors had failed to turn over evidence that could have helped Mr. Syed at trial and discovered new evidence that could have affected the outcome of his case. Prosecutors have 30 days to decide if they will proceed with a new trial or drop the charges against Mr. Syed, who was ordered to serve home detention until then." An NBC News story is here.
Puerto Rico. Laura Sánchez & Patricia Mazzei of the New York Times: "Hurricane Fiona deluged Puerto Rico with unrelenting rain and terrifying flash floods on Monday, forcing harrowing home rescues and making it difficult for power crews to reach many parts of the island. Now the island is once again in darkness, five years after Hurricane Maria inflicted more damage on Puerto Rico than any other disaster in recent history. While Fiona will be the direct culprit, Puerto Ricans will also blame years of power disruptions, the result of an agonizingly slow effort to finally give the island a stable grid."
Way Beyond
Ukraine, et al. The New York Times' live updates of developments Tuesday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here. The Guardian's live updates for Tuesday are here. The Guardian's summary report is here.
Marc Santora of the New York Times: "A powerful Russian missile exploded less than 900 feet from the reactors of a Ukrainian nuclear power plant early Monday, according to Ukrainian officials, a reminder that, despite battlefield setbacks, Russia can still threaten disaster at any of Ukraine's four active nuclear plants. The strike on Monday landed near the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant, some 160 miles west of another nuclear complex that has been a focus of global concern, the Zaporizhzhia plant, where the United Nations sent a team of experts to stabilize the situation this month. Unlike the Zaporizhzhia plant, which sits in an active battlefield, the South Ukraine site is far from the frontline fighting, and the strike on Monday appeared to illustrate Russia's long reach, and the catastrophic potential of an attack on such a plant."
United Kingdom. Mark Landler of the New York Times: "Queen Elizabeth II was laid to rest on Monday after a majestic state funeral that drew tens of millions of Britons together in a vast expression of grief and gratitude, as they bade farewell to a sovereign whose seven-decade reign had spanned their lives and defined their times. It was the culmination of 10 days of mourning since the queen died on Sept. 8 in Scotland -- a highly choreographed series of rituals that fell amid a deepening economic crisis and a fraught political transition in Britain.... Tens of thousands of people lined the route of the cortege past the landmarks of London.... Thousands ... cheered, many strewing flowers in the path of her glass-topped hearse, as the queen's coffin was driven to Windsor Castle, where she was buried next to her husband, Prince Philip.... On Tuesday, Britain will return to wrestling with the gravest economic crisis in a generation." ~~~
News Lede
AP: "A strengthening Hurricane Fiona barreled toward the Turks and Caicos Islands on Tuesday as it threatened to strengthen into a Category 3 storm, prompting the government to impose a curfew. Forecasters said Fiona could become a major hurricane late Monday or on Tuesday, when it was expected to pass near the British territory."
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Reader Comments (11)
Early departure today, leaving the country for a couple of weeks (again, Canada bound) in your good hands.
That is, in the hands of people who can still tell the difference between truth and lies (yes, Marie, that was a lie)--and who care enough about what's right to make the distinction.
Guess that's what characterizes a Reality Checker.
The Coffee County GOP election volk use not only the Steve Martin "I forgot" defense, but also the Costanza "It's not a lie if I believe it" defense.
Neither is funny. Wrong context.
Taking a break from "all the news that's fit to print" I was reading a NYT's piece on Spielberg's new film, "The Fabelmans" about growing up in his family of origin that disintegrated after his mother fell in love with another man and how many of his films integrated this experience one way or another. Since both his parents have died he felt he could finally tell the truth about his family. The following is the ending of this essay that I found sound and significant:
"
A late subplot, in which Sammy[ Spielberg] inadvertently mortifies one of his tormentors after filming him playing beach volleyball, reveals a more complicated relationship to the camera than Spielberg has previously let on: it’s a cocoon for Sammy to hide in, but it’s also a weapon. (Spielberg once said, “I wanted to do ‘Jaws’ for hostile reasons. . . . It terrified me, and I wanted to strike back.”) At the Toronto press conference, Spielberg ruminated, “I’ve always been able to put a camera between myself and reality, just to protect myself,” a defense mechanism that he was forced to set aside to make “The Fabelmans.” Kushner, playing therapist again, pushed back: “I don’t think that he actually does keep the camera between himself and real life in any of his movies. I think the thing that makes him who he is and makes those movies as great as they are is that there’s an emotional depth and power in everything he does.” The camera may have made the young Spielberg feel safe, Kushner went on, but the thing that makes you feel safe tends to “lead you back to the truth, which is: the world is not safe.” There are always sharks in the water."
I don't see how Republican Party official, Cathy Latham could not
remember half a day of illegal activity. Obviously she's a lying
trumpturd.
I can remember where I was and what I was doing when Kennedy
was shot, and that was quite a while ago, if I remember right, and I
wasn't even involved in that.
I can remember the meeting with our corporate president and the
local union president. That was in 1965. Could reenact it word for word.
So two years ago is nothing, in my book.
@Forrest Morris: Six years ago, I put three giant PODs in storage. Two had combination locks on them. One had a key lock. (Admittedly, somewhat to my amazement,) I not only remembered the combinations to the two locks, this morning I got the last POD delivered and I remembered where I had put the key for it.
Now, those PODs were/are full of my own stuff. Had I stolen the contents of the PODs -- thus breaking the law the way that county elections official did -- I'm SURE I'd remember how to get into those PODs after six years. Getting away with something illegal (at least when it's not what you do all the time) has a way of sticking in your mind.
Evolution is too a thing…
Convenient and/or protective lying has long been a political tool for pols of all stripes, but the kind of aggressive, hate backed lies employed by the right have grown in both number and size over the last 12 years. The election of Barack Obama made such mendacity a requirement for right wing pols. When Joe Wilson spit out “You lie”, it was one of the most public examples of confederate projection. (At a town hall meeting in SC some years later, this same Joe Wilson, peddling the GOP marching orders to attack and kill Obamacare, was met by a torrent of dissident voices in the crowd shouting “YOU lie!” Karma’s a bitch.)
But the slithering of Trump onto the national political scene has been like an injection of Inhuman Growth Hormone to right-wing lying. Trump has moved lying from its place as tool for attacking opponents to a sort of blood sport. The goal is not to hurt, now it’s to kill. And this new blood sport has been eagerly adopted by pretty much every member of the GOP, with several notable exceptions.
Years ago on his (still amazing) TV documentary series “Connections”, science historian James Burke, talking about the transition of the technology used for casting church bells into constructing cannons (that’s just too good, in’it?) pointed out the glee with which this new adaptation was met by European rulers. “Everyone wanted to get in on the fun of this fabulous new way of killing people!”
The same is true of the evolution of confederate mendacity, from a political tool, to a kind of Swiss Army Knife that enables your wildest, most extreme lies and warped fantasies to leap from your blackened brain to enormous audiences, and, through social media and a stenographic press, to be repeated as if they had the tiniest sliver of truthful connective tissue.
Trump can’t be blamed for all the ills of the nation, but his special way with lies has been a game changer for the right. Even the Supreme Court is in on the fun.
Case in point, Ak, last night Tucker did a segment that he called "Kink for Kids" where he lied about the LGBTQ community, teachers, and medical professionals sexuallizing and grooming children. He also repeatedly incited violence towards these perceived threats. "No parent should put up with this for one second, no matter what the law says. Your duty — your moral duty — is to defend your children. This is an attack on your children and you should fight back." We have already seen plenty of threats of violence from the people listening to these lies, including bomb threats to children's hospitals full of sick kids and their parents.
A top secret document, say, about our nuclear capabilities or some
such thing can be declassified so anyone can read it?
I must have missed something when I signed those forms promising
to never discuss anything I saw or heard or read. The forms didn't
say "we'll let you know when everything is declassified so you can
blab about it to China or Russia."
"Put up or shut up!" does it look like the snake in the grass is finally getting his ass smashed?
It ain’t that tough…
Fatty and his hack lawyers are trying to tell Judge Dearie not to believe his lying eyes when he sees “Top Secret” stamped on all those documents he stole.
It’s like trying to argue with a cop who pulled you over for running a stop sign by claiming first, that you MAY have changed it to a GO sign and he was just too stupid to know any better, and second, that the local transportation board had not confirmed that it actually is a stop sign.
The cop, a reasonable chap, tells you to look at the sign. “It says ‘Stop’, mac. Here’s your ticket.” It ain’t that tough.
The fact that Trump has been able to get away with crap like this is the biggest reason he has salted the justice system with ignorant hacks like Cannon, so he can argue that “stop” means “go” when he sez so.
There are plenty of other Trumpy judges who will find that an entirely valid legal argument. Luckily for us, Dearie does not appear to be such a partisan hack. Or an idiot.
My other favorite thing about Trump’s lawyers involves their soooo sly legal-like thinking. They tell the judge they don’t want to talk about declassification because if Fatty gets indicted, they’re gonna use the declassification thing as a defense and talking about it would give away their whole plan.
Um, don’t look now guys, but you just DID give it away.
Jesus, what morons. No wonder they don’t get paid.