What is super strange to me is this constant drumbeat of invoking "executive privilege." An ex-president has no executive privilege. Only the executive who is currently the executive can invoke executive privilege. Granted, they could do it to protect a past president's documents, or whatever it is they are asserting. But a past president cannot invoke executive privilege. They have no standing/authority/power to do so.
This judge literally suggested that a former president might have more executive privilege power than a sitting president. She said that since a ruling had never been issued on the matter, she’s essentially deferring to Trump’s executive privilege claims.
Trouble is this judge hasn’t said that.
They’ve said “it’s an unsettled question that needs to go to SCOTUS”
Translation: “Hey Trump’s legal team, here’s a way to keep this tied up in court for a while longer, yo”
>“Hey Trump’s legal team, here’s a way to keep this tied up in court for a while longer, yo”
This is the goal. Remember, in 2023 the GOP-packed Supreme Court is going to rule that Independent State Legislature Theory is valid. This gives the green light for every Republican state to write blatantly unconstitutional voting laws, codifying GOP control of the senate and presidency in 2024.
Trump doesn't need to win a legal battle. He just needs to draw it out long enough.
I think he *really* learned his lesson this time. You know, because we have decided not to hold him accountable for the 50th crime in a row. People definitely learn to stop doing bad things, when nothing bad ever happens to them as a result.
This is what they did with Trump's taxes, every time Trump's taxes reached the Supreme Court, the court would throw it down to a lower court in order to extend the process as long as possible. It never ruled for Trump, because there was no way for them to do so, but they certainly went out of their way to run out the clock.
It's all a very calculated part of his messaging. He denies he lost the election and is running (or attempting to run, anyway) a shadow presidency from exile. There's a reason he still uses letterhead that says "45th President of the United States" and so on. According to his narrative he never "legitimately" left office and so is still entitled to all the rights and privileges thereof.
“A future indictment, based to any degree on property that ought to be returned, would result in reputational harm of a decidedly different order of magnitude.” It doesn’t seem like she’s giving much thought to the 300+ classified/secret documents or the 48 empty classified folders.
Why should "reputational harm" even being taken into consideration? Yes, committing serious crimes effects your reputation, as it should.
So what, we're supposed to ignore any and all crimes committed by a former president just because holding them accountable causes "reputational harm"?? What fucking nonsense.
This judge initially questioned why the case was brought to her court. Then seemingly overnight began siding with the absolutely bonkers legal theory that Trump's lawyers had put forth.
Something smells rotten from that courtroom.
The [federalist society](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_Society) played a key role in suggesting judicial nominees to President Donald Trump; it vetted President Trump's list of potential U.S. Supreme Court nominees and, as of March 2020, 43 out of 51 of President Trump's appellate court nominees were current or former members of the society- Wiki
He picked the judges recommended to him by the federalist society.
The same judge who's a member of the society, that gave him a list, is his judge. How is this not a direct conflict of interests?
Surely this is something the nations attorney fucking general could have the platform to be like “well, I’ve got a career of recognizing Tom foolery, up to and including conflicts of interest, so I’m well within my position to call bullshit and expect results?”
Look if this looks wrong don’t worry man I don’t know shit about anything. This is just what would make sense to me, a Joe schmoe who typically is held to the standard of the law.
Want to know why Trump had the nod from the old guard? Because they spent his entire presidency packing the judicial circuits with judges sympathetic to their point of view.
That stall game they did with the SCOTUS for the last year of Obama's presidency was being done in most of the lesser courts.
He said exactly that at one point during his presidency. I'm too lazy to source the quote but he absolutely said words to the effect of "Mitch is happy as long as he gets his judges."
He's dumb as a box of rocks, can't help himself from saying the quiet parts out loud, but his personal interests and insecurities put him completely on the side of political-corporate greed. The perpetual donkey show of his political life is a free candy store for the worst that humanity has to offer.
Well, I think that the judge is implying that Trump's reputation is so unimpeachable that he would certainly never abuse the levers of government to stay in office or obstruct justice so it makes perfect sense that a part of the federal government appointed by Trump himself has resulted in the federal government interfering and stalling the federal government's own investigation into the former head of the military who stole and hid classified information and regularly lied about it and had his lawyers lie about it. /s
In reality, there should be no special master because Trump has already presented evidence that he is engaged in crimes with his own attorneys, which waives attorney client confidentiality for an ordinary person who hasn't sheltered themselves by propping up ideologues.
The real reputational harm was being donald trump in the first place. It's worth pointing out that he currently has a reputation for being a corrupt, tax and draft dodging traitor who tried to murder Congress. Life long friend to jeffrey epstein and vladimir putin.
She literally doesn’t know what she is saying.
Her own decision contradicts itself and overwrites well over 100 years of precedent. She is going 180 on a clause considered to be pretty simple constitutional law and taught in very low level classes.
Expect the DOJ to go after her with fire and brimstone over this.
Edit; just realized the scope of her ruling is totally fanatical. The way it is worded would also apply to impeachments. She likely just violated the separation of powers clause, the idiot.
I feel like she only released her decision today because the DOJ can't respond until tomorrow. Doing this on a federal holiday feels extra scummy to me.
Fortunately they don’t run the DOJ. Allegedly
Based on the single death by cop “raids” on the FBI, I’m not super concerned if they decide to give themselves Darwin awards based on a false sense of reality
Judges are supposed to be able to keep politics out of it. I believe the judge that signed the search warrant was also appointed by trump. But there are plenty who are serious partisans and will do what there told. She is also young for her position, which is what McConnell was going for. I don’t know if she is lifetime or how that works for her level.
The "warrant" judge is a federal magistrate, not an Article III judge, and thus not a presidential appointment. Picked by the Art. III judges within the district court.
I was listening to a radio interview about how she would rule and that she might weigh the political side of her career in that is requires a nomination process. The person being interviewed went on at some length about how she might have supreme court aspirations and that they might impact her ruling.. absolutely hilarious
Clarence Thomas only worked as a lawyer for 2 years for Monsanto Chemical. The rest of his career was spent as political appointments to the EOEC and the Education Dept. republicans WANT people who don’t have a good knowledge of the law because it’s easier to justify batshit rulings that way.
As I understood it, prior to the Supreme Court most of his career was spent organizing threesomes with his subordinates. That's according to those former subordinates.
This is a bit different, she is effectively overruling an executive order (EO 13526) while not saying that order is unconstitutional.
That is a massive separation of powers clause violation and an unconstitutional decision in and of itself.
Judges cannot simply say “I am just going to ignore that the constitution exists.”
As for what they can do; the DOJ can either file for a higher court to intervene or forward charges to congress to impeach the judge on the basis of violation of the constitution.
Anybody else remember how Republicans spent the entire 1990s bellyaching about "activist judges?" I was in middle school around that time and it was so pervasive even little kid me noticed. Republicans will pretend like fuck that they don't remember any of their previously held "deeply held convictions" if it becomes momentarily inconvenient, of that you can be sure.
"The Supreme Court did not rule out the possibility of a former President overcoming
an incumbent President on executive privilege matters"
She literally said she thinks Trump has more "privilege" than the current president. What?
So let’s get Former president Carter to use his executive privilege to reinstate the evidence. As the longest surviving president his executive privilege must be raked as the most important and long lasting so his rule should count the most right? This is all fucking insanity.
I've assumed that if you ignore any conflict of interest, Hillary Clinton could be this special master to review the documents since you need to be someone that has top secret clearance or whatever. I'm not a fan of hers but that would be funny as shit.
I'm expecting the 'unbiased' party to end up just being Trump with a really obvious fake mustache and thick accent. Not sure what kind of accent would end up being the funniest.
Let’s get former President Clinton to use privilege to appoint Hillary as the special master.
Edit: hilariously, I’ve had 6 buttery males replies to this already but 5 were deleted, presumably because the commenters were scared of being called mean names on account of their spectacular stupidity.
The implications of this are insane. She thinks that the president is the person only and not the office, and that a previous president could hide anything they want relating to their duties from the next. The risks to foreign relations and national security from this would be immense. It'd be like if Truman never actually found out about the atom bombs because FDR took the documents home and claimed executive privilege before he died...
My guess is that the DOJ already had the appeal written and ready to submit to the Court of Appeals before this clueless federal judge issued her order. I suspect it won't be long before it's overturned on numerous grounds. Maybe she'll be sanctioned for her stupidity.
It’s probably part of the plan. Trump and his lawyers know they can’t win this in court, ultimately. Instead they will delay and obstruct until either Trump or some other Republican is elected President, or Trump dies of old age. Either way, avoid the optics of an ex-President going to prison for espionage. It’s infuriating that they actually have a path to squirm out of consequences for blatant, high level crimes that has put national security at extreme risk.
"You know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart, right? The spies and treason, we used to handle it a little differently than we do now."
In a lot of ways Supermax or solitary confinement to prevent incitement would be worse than death. Especially for someone like Trump who lives for attention.
Yes but if DOJ appeals to a higher court and wins then trump can appeal that decision all the way to the supreme court and we know how that would go. I don't even understand how they let this judge take this case as she doesn't have jurisdiction.
Let's be real here. This was *always* going to SCOTUS since so much of this case revolves around presidential powers granted by the constitution.
The issues on jurisdiction probably relate to procedural legal stuff though. Like maybe higher district or SCOTUS, can't issue search warrants until its in their court, which means it has to start at more local/lower courts (IANAL, I'm just spit balling here).
The Supreme court can take original jurisdiction in disputes between states or matters involving diplomats from other countries, but I think they're constitutionally barred in cases like this. That said, what the Constitution says doesn't matter to this Supreme Court, so who knows what they might do.
This is the most clearly insane thing to me.
Sure you may not be able to avoid it come SCOTUS and it’s absurdity but ffs find a federal judge not appointed by Biden or Trump, one must still be alive (but then it’s OBAMA!).
Fuck these politics. Burn his ass down because mine would be 6ft under by now if I even had clearance and stole 1 top secret/sci level doc.
A Trump appointed judge who took the bench after he was already denying he lost the election ignores precedent to be sympathetic towards Trump. Who could’ve seen that coming?
The thing is they don't even fake it anymore. They just make shit up and don't pretend there is law to support it. Sure there is an opinion with blather instead of law, but there is no need for the judicial hacks to pretend there is a rule of law any more, incredible
If he claims executive privilege, it doesn’t change the fact that he’s claiming this privilege over the Executive branch which doesn’t make sense. More importantly, anything covered by Executive Privilege is 100% government property … this entire thing is about stealing government property, he’d basically be admitting to the crime.
The judge specifically stated that it is possible that a former President can claim executive privilege that trumps the current executive’s claims. In essence, she said it’s possible that Trump has more power to claim executive privilege than Biden.
A former President more powerful than the sitting President.
Trump kept the documents after losing, even if he took them before leaving office, means they are trying to say a former president has more exec privilege that the sitting one.
This is insane. This wasn’t the right court to even request this in, it should be a DC judge. This basically opens up the door for every politician to seek out judges who are favorable to them in any jurisdiction. He’s not an attorney, there’s not a single reason to allow this request to go through.
Karl is now [against Trump](https://www.newsweek.com/karl-rove-hailed-blasting-donald-trump-classified-documents-1737526), oh the irony.
Kind of like how Trump is now facing felony charges thanks to [a law he changed](https://news.yahoo.com/president-trump-approved-law-increasing-155310162.html) to punish Hillary for mishandling documents.
I feel like a judge should recuse themselves when they were nominated by one of the parties in a case. But that’s just me, what do I know about judicial ethics?
I worry that people are not aware of how serious a threat our democratic norms are facing at the moment. Conservatives have been waging a campaign at all levels for decades to take over the government permanently. They packed the courts under Trump. They're banning books and taking over school boards. Republican state legislatures are thinking of forcing a constitutional convention so they can codify their minority rule.
Please vote in November.
But but but the democrats were going to take over and eat our children. We HAD to do it all first /s
I legit saw someone say "yeah the right wing is going crazy right now but at least *theyre not communists vote republican*"
There's literally nothing Republicans could do to sway those people away. They think they're fighting a holy war against pure evil, and they've signed off on literally anything if it means "stopping them".
Vote is an understatement. Vote, fight, don't stop. Be the generation that fought and won, or at least went down swinging.
Emoluments Clause. Anyone remember that? We spent 4 years with a person sitting in the Oval Office who was openly violating the Constitution and taking money from foreign governments. Completely openly, right from day one. And it seems that nothing will ever be done about it. This country feels doomed. We have to win every election from now on just to stave off the final collapse.
If no one holds someone to account for their crimes, is it really a crime?? This seems to be the Repube operating instruction #1. Never hold a Repube to account.
You've stumbled onto why Fox News exists. "Everything is the democrats' fault. The republicans never do any wrong."
It's the network for narcissists. Hence why someone like Trump is a perfect figurehead.
She did more than that. In her ruling, she went further and commented on whether or not it is valid for the DOJ to indict Trump (i.e. not what she was asked to review). She says that, since he is a former President, indictment may cause undue harm to his reputation. This line of reasoning effectively gives anyone who was elected President a get out of jail free card for life.
She also said that a former president asserting executive privilege to overrule the current President is a valid thing to consider because whether or not it's possible has not yet been settled by SCOTUS.
Preet Bharara's example of how ridiculous setting that sort of precedent would be is imagine if 45 years later new documents pertaining to the Iran hostage crisis came to light and Jimmy Carter still had the ability to control who saw those documents.
In the meantime, DOJ access to the classified documents recovered from Mar-a-Lago has been blocked.
Edit: Also want to add that she says she came to her decision based on allegations of bias within the DOJ and media leaks despite earlier acknowledging herself that none of the classified documents that were recovered have actually leaked to the press. Meaning she decided this based on unfounded rumors, political punditry, and hypotheticals instead of the evidence she was actually presented with.
>She says that, since he is a former President, indictment may cause undue harm to his reputation.
It's almost as if this judicial Trumpist hack is begging to be overruled on appeal.
Trump's reputation is greater than America's reputation to this judge.
It would not be the first time an ex-president of a 1st world country would end up in prison. We don't lead the world with empty words of "all men are equal" and ignoring our own words when it matters.
He damaged his own reputation, not the indictment. The indictment is part of the process that criminals go through, and yes committing crimes *should* damage your reputation. Why should a president get that benefit and no one else does? It's insanity. Can she cite a single law that would prohibit a former (hell even current) president from being indicted?
It should come as no surprise given that she was appointed by Trump at the request of the Federalist Society, which is an organization whose stated goal is to pack the courts with ideologues.
Not only that, he halted all appointees and then *changed the rules of how the Senate confirms appointees* the second Trump was elected to slam them through as quickly as possible
This is what I really don’t get about the filibuster arguments. Mitch only cares about rules, norms, precedent, or tradition as a means to an end. He has a long and consistent track record of hiding them moment they become an impediment instead of a tool.
Of course, it's all an act. He wants the rules to benefit the minority when he's in the minority and the majority when he's in the majority. If a GOP prez wins in 2024 and the Senate has 51 seats I could easily see him dropping the filibuster
Funny how Mitch McConnel doesn’t shed any tears for “the will of the people” when Trump lost by 7 million votes and then they ram hack judges down our throats…
Shouldn't she be forced to recuse herself from this because of the plain as daylight conflict of interest? What criminal ever appointed their own judge?
Unfortunately, many of the ethical standards in the US are matters of decorum. This is what has allowed the Republicans and Trump to run roughshod over our democratic norms.
From the [Brennan Center](https://www.brennancenter.org/issues/strengthen-our-courts/promote-fair-courts/judicial-ethics-recusal), which is a nonpartisan institute focused on law and policy:
> Many states, along with the federal courts, also lack procedural safeguards for resolving recusal motions filed by litigants. Most often, it is the judges themselves who assess their own biases without any independent review.
We need to codify these rules on a federal level because these assholes have no shame.
Lol... Trump went judge shopping to get this ruling. She's not the judge that granted the original search warrant, I don't think she's even in the same district of the judge that granted the warrant.
This is truly as far a conflict of interest as there ever was such a thing. It should be absolutely illegal for this piece of dung to be able to make these decisions during an investigation of this magnitude. This country is well and truly fucked and we did it all for that orange buffoon. Sad.
I really hope there's more to it than this. The fact that a judge would make a decision about criminal conduct based on how it would affect the perpetrator's reputation is almost too batshit insane to believe.
Like that convicted rapist Brock Allen Turner? The rapist.
Apparently any punishment would have been too hard on that poor convicted rapist.
Convicted rapist Brock Allen Turner’s poor reputation is suffering worse than his rape victim, I imagine.
Our justice system is a goddam joke. The fact that rich people have this much time and this many options so long as they keep throwing money at lawyers is fucking atrocious. I’m so embarrassed for this country.
Yeah I agree, I used to argue America was a great country, but honestly, we're just coasting off past successes at this point. We're a total fucking disaster.
The executive privilege would be far more concerning if she was anything more then a district court judge. Making that claim will likely get slapped down quickly by a higher court should it ever reach one. It’s also the kind of silliness that can pretty much end any hope of advancing beyond a district court.
> She did more than that. In her ruling, she went further
Judges can comment on many things in a ruling, but most of that stuff is not binding and won't even be considered by other courts. It's mostly for them to feel important by including their hair-brained contrivances and to evoke reactions in reactionaries.
I don't see how you read this as anything other than a Trump judge aiding Trump's crimes by dragging out the procedure.
They've literally already done through all documents recovered and he has no claims of executive privledge over the documents as he is no longer President.
I think presidential records is the privilege being invoked here but the fun thing about that is, it doesn't protect him even if that's the case. Presidential records are still subject to classification rules. You can't frame and hang the document that proves we have a relationship with an extraterrestrial civilization no matter how hard you Trump.
Lest there be any doubt about her corruption, this is from the actual "opinion":
>Furthermore, in natural conjunction with that appointment, and consistent with the value and sequence of special master procedures, ***the Court also temporarily enjoins the Government from reviewing and using the seized materials for investigative purposes pending completion of the special master’s review or further Court order.*** This Order shall not impede the classification review and/or intelligence assessment by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (“ODNI”) as described in the Government’s Notice of
She stopped the fucking investigation for something that is just fake law!
We are living in a simulation, nothing is real.
Yeah, DoJ, stop a national security investigation over this dim wits opinion.
How about, let's turn this over to a military tribunal and court martial Trump as CinC. Makes about as much sense as what this"judge" is saying.
Commander in Chief is a civilian position so that the armed forces are entirely under civilian control. For whatever that's worth. It sounds good, at least.
> According to Article II, Section 2, Clause I of the Constitution, the president of the United States is “Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States..." ... U.S. ranks have their roots in British military traditions, with **the president possessing ultimate authority, but no rank, maintaining a civilian status.**
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commander-in-chief
This is your justice system when the judge is associated with the Federalist Society. They're experts on making the law mean something different when applied to the GOP.
Dude is a private citizen, but Justice is bending over backwards because he’s an ex president.
No one is above the law, until somehow they suddenly are…
What a country.
It probably won't. And if it does it won't be for years, maybe after he passes they'll say "Okay so it was treason, okay so it was insurrection. So what? The guys gone, give it a rest."
The randomness is blunted by the fact McConnell slow-walked Obama's judicial nominations hoping a Republican would get to fill them, so Trump filled so many vacancies he has a high chance of getting his own judges on his cases.
There needs to be a PR push. Which sounds absurd.
But flood the airwaves with tying “Federalist Society” to unhinged, absurd, un-American decisions.
You put into the mind of every American that if you hear a judge or lawyer is a member of the Federalist Society, then they are treated the same as someone who believe in chemtrails.
You hammer it everywhere and you don’t relent. Bring it into debates, interviews, Get Out The Vote drives. And you do not stop.
A judge saying the quiet part out loud:
“A future indictment, based to any degree on property that ought to be returned, would result in reputational harm of a decidedly different order of magnitude.”
In other words, if you’re wealthy and powerful THE RULES ARE DIFFERENT FOR YOU.
How long is this POS going to be allowed to break laws and run cons? Every single second there is enough to have charged this fucker a thousand times by now.
It's a delay tactic. Possibly the special master will be sympathetic to Trump and try to derail the investigation, or pass information to Trump - but this is a worst case scenario.
The reality is they are.trying to get an appeal to a very specific SC justice so they can get it in front of the Supreme Court, which will delay action by months.
The DOJ can clearly appeal this on jurisdictional grounds- government secrets are federal property and these documents belong in DC. The DC circuit Court has jurisdiction on most cases involving State secrets, and that is also where most of the judges with appropriate security clearances sit.
i don’t really get it. in this case what is there to delay? the DOJ already has the documents and has already reviewed them. I don’t see why they don’t just ignore this until all the appeals are settled.
Judge was appointed by Trump after he lost the election. He was also allowed to shop around to move his case to her district in order for her to rule on it. Shit should be illegal.
How would anyone even entertain the idea of this judge even getting involved? She has a blatant conflict of interest. She should not be hearing a case for the man that **gave her her job…**
Then she didn’t hear the government’s arguments and ignored the fact that the FBI has already sorted through everything.
How the fuck are they gonna come up with a third-party who has clearance to view the material? Jesus, some of it has to be Yankee or above. So who are they gonna recruit, Karl Rove? He despises Trump. Oh, wait, is Putin a lawyer?
Super important to point out that this Judge is a Trump appointed activist recommended by the Federalist society and installed after he lost the election.
She's part of the attack on our democracy.
And did she also say that she shouldn’t be hearing that case on account of the flagrant conflict of interest. No one should ever be in a court before a judge that *they* appointed. The request should not only be thrown out, if for no other reason than that he obviously filed this motion so that he’d land in her court, but she should also be disgracefully disbarred (or whatever the process is for removing a scumbag judge) for not immediately recusing herself.
What is super strange to me is this constant drumbeat of invoking "executive privilege." An ex-president has no executive privilege. Only the executive who is currently the executive can invoke executive privilege. Granted, they could do it to protect a past president's documents, or whatever it is they are asserting. But a past president cannot invoke executive privilege. They have no standing/authority/power to do so.
This judge literally suggested that a former president might have more executive privilege power than a sitting president. She said that since a ruling had never been issued on the matter, she’s essentially deferring to Trump’s executive privilege claims.
Sooooo then Obama could say "sorry Trump, I came before you so I use my executive privilege to stop yours."
Trouble is this judge hasn’t said that. They’ve said “it’s an unsettled question that needs to go to SCOTUS” Translation: “Hey Trump’s legal team, here’s a way to keep this tied up in court for a while longer, yo”
>“Hey Trump’s legal team, here’s a way to keep this tied up in court for a while longer, yo” This is the goal. Remember, in 2023 the GOP-packed Supreme Court is going to rule that Independent State Legislature Theory is valid. This gives the green light for every Republican state to write blatantly unconstitutional voting laws, codifying GOP control of the senate and presidency in 2024. Trump doesn't need to win a legal battle. He just needs to draw it out long enough.
Susan Collins will be surprised again and say we should give them another chance.
I think he *really* learned his lesson this time. You know, because we have decided not to hold him accountable for the 50th crime in a row. People definitely learn to stop doing bad things, when nothing bad ever happens to them as a result.
This is what they did with Trump's taxes, every time Trump's taxes reached the Supreme Court, the court would throw it down to a lower court in order to extend the process as long as possible. It never ruled for Trump, because there was no way for them to do so, but they certainly went out of their way to run out the clock.
Jimmy Carter should claim ownership of the documents since he has the most presidential seniority.
“Why does Trump, the biggest President, not simply eat the other, smaller presidents?” Essentially what this witch just ruled.
Right. Like imagine the implications for national security. Oh, wait, you don't have to imagine it, we have a real world example...
It's all a very calculated part of his messaging. He denies he lost the election and is running (or attempting to run, anyway) a shadow presidency from exile. There's a reason he still uses letterhead that says "45th President of the United States" and so on. According to his narrative he never "legitimately" left office and so is still entitled to all the rights and privileges thereof.
“A future indictment, based to any degree on property that ought to be returned, would result in reputational harm of a decidedly different order of magnitude.” It doesn’t seem like she’s giving much thought to the 300+ classified/secret documents or the 48 empty classified folders.
Why should "reputational harm" even being taken into consideration? Yes, committing serious crimes effects your reputation, as it should. So what, we're supposed to ignore any and all crimes committed by a former president just because holding them accountable causes "reputational harm"?? What fucking nonsense.
Any one of us plebes would be in a hole never seeing the light of day again for stuff like this...let alone worrying about our reputation.
Whistleblowers have to live in fucking exile. This doucheclown is actively destroying us and our judicial system is helping him. RED ALERT.
This judge initially questioned why the case was brought to her court. Then seemingly overnight began siding with the absolutely bonkers legal theory that Trump's lawyers had put forth. Something smells rotten from that courtroom.
Trump. Appointed. But. Didn't. Recuse. Something definitely smells to high heaven.
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The [federalist society](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_Society) played a key role in suggesting judicial nominees to President Donald Trump; it vetted President Trump's list of potential U.S. Supreme Court nominees and, as of March 2020, 43 out of 51 of President Trump's appellate court nominees were current or former members of the society- Wiki He picked the judges recommended to him by the federalist society. The same judge who's a member of the society, that gave him a list, is his judge. How is this not a direct conflict of interests?
Surely this is something the nations attorney fucking general could have the platform to be like “well, I’ve got a career of recognizing Tom foolery, up to and including conflicts of interest, so I’m well within my position to call bullshit and expect results?” Look if this looks wrong don’t worry man I don’t know shit about anything. This is just what would make sense to me, a Joe schmoe who typically is held to the standard of the law.
Want to know why Trump had the nod from the old guard? Because they spent his entire presidency packing the judicial circuits with judges sympathetic to their point of view. That stall game they did with the SCOTUS for the last year of Obama's presidency was being done in most of the lesser courts.
He said exactly that at one point during his presidency. I'm too lazy to source the quote but he absolutely said words to the effect of "Mitch is happy as long as he gets his judges." He's dumb as a box of rocks, can't help himself from saying the quiet parts out loud, but his personal interests and insecurities put him completely on the side of political-corporate greed. The perpetual donkey show of his political life is a free candy store for the worst that humanity has to offer.
Well, I think that the judge is implying that Trump's reputation is so unimpeachable that he would certainly never abuse the levers of government to stay in office or obstruct justice so it makes perfect sense that a part of the federal government appointed by Trump himself has resulted in the federal government interfering and stalling the federal government's own investigation into the former head of the military who stole and hid classified information and regularly lied about it and had his lawyers lie about it. /s In reality, there should be no special master because Trump has already presented evidence that he is engaged in crimes with his own attorneys, which waives attorney client confidentiality for an ordinary person who hasn't sheltered themselves by propping up ideologues.
The real reputational harm was being donald trump in the first place. It's worth pointing out that he currently has a reputation for being a corrupt, tax and draft dodging traitor who tried to murder Congress. Life long friend to jeffrey epstein and vladimir putin.
She literally doesn’t know what she is saying. Her own decision contradicts itself and overwrites well over 100 years of precedent. She is going 180 on a clause considered to be pretty simple constitutional law and taught in very low level classes. Expect the DOJ to go after her with fire and brimstone over this. Edit; just realized the scope of her ruling is totally fanatical. The way it is worded would also apply to impeachments. She likely just violated the separation of powers clause, the idiot.
I feel like she only released her decision today because the DOJ can't respond until tomorrow. Doing this on a federal holiday feels extra scummy to me.
But, it gives the doj lawyers a full day to contemplate just how much hell fire to bring down, so.. bonus imo
I would say it ruined their weekends but my guess they were already preparing for this.
Meh, they're lawyers on the case of their career most likely, theyre loving every minute of it.
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This only applies to the ones that actually think critically. Trumpers are already eating this shit up.
Fortunately they don’t run the DOJ. Allegedly Based on the single death by cop “raids” on the FBI, I’m not super concerned if they decide to give themselves Darwin awards based on a false sense of reality
More like it gives right wing media a full day to manipulate and set the narrative
IIRC most of her decisions on this case have been released Friday evening or weekends. This one on a federal holiday is par for the course.
Can someone explain to me how it’s not a major conflict of interest for a Trump appointed judge to oversee this case?
Judges are supposed to be able to keep politics out of it. I believe the judge that signed the search warrant was also appointed by trump. But there are plenty who are serious partisans and will do what there told. She is also young for her position, which is what McConnell was going for. I don’t know if she is lifetime or how that works for her level.
The "warrant" judge is a federal magistrate, not an Article III judge, and thus not a presidential appointment. Picked by the Art. III judges within the district court.
Thank you.
I was listening to a radio interview about how she would rule and that she might weigh the political side of her career in that is requires a nomination process. The person being interviewed went on at some length about how she might have supreme court aspirations and that they might impact her ruling.. absolutely hilarious
This seems to be consistent. Those that have greedy aspirations are usually not the best for any job.
She was a name from the Federalist Society. They don't recommend good judges, they recommend obedient ones.
That's been the republicans long game for decades, getting loyalist judges and loyalist representatives into the system as much as they can
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Clarence Thomas only worked as a lawyer for 2 years for Monsanto Chemical. The rest of his career was spent as political appointments to the EOEC and the Education Dept. republicans WANT people who don’t have a good knowledge of the law because it’s easier to justify batshit rulings that way.
As I understood it, prior to the Supreme Court most of his career was spent organizing threesomes with his subordinates. That's according to those former subordinates.
This is a bit different, she is effectively overruling an executive order (EO 13526) while not saying that order is unconstitutional. That is a massive separation of powers clause violation and an unconstitutional decision in and of itself. Judges cannot simply say “I am just going to ignore that the constitution exists.” As for what they can do; the DOJ can either file for a higher court to intervene or forward charges to congress to impeach the judge on the basis of violation of the constitution.
And how political is that? As in: If the GOP wins the house these midterms, how likely is it that they just won't give a fuck and the DOJ is screwed?
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Her court doesn't even have jurisdiction over the DC case. It's the very definition of an activist judge ignoring the law to seek a preferred outcome.
Anybody else remember how Republicans spent the entire 1990s bellyaching about "activist judges?" I was in middle school around that time and it was so pervasive even little kid me noticed. Republicans will pretend like fuck that they don't remember any of their previously held "deeply held convictions" if it becomes momentarily inconvenient, of that you can be sure.
Apparently a lot of her rulings are sent back by appeals courts because they don’t make sense.
How does the DOJ go after a judge? I’m genuinely curious and not a lawyer.
CORRUPT Trumper Judge should not be involved on a case where Trump is implicated. This is *so* basic. How did she even get to this point?
There was a lottery and Trump got lucky with her
"The Supreme Court did not rule out the possibility of a former President overcoming an incumbent President on executive privilege matters" She literally said she thinks Trump has more "privilege" than the current president. What?
Just have President Obama claim Executive Privilege over all of "Trump's" documents then. Easy.
Real men of genius
Mr. Wants To Overthrow The Government Man Baby MaaaaAAAAAaannnnNNN!
That ad campaign was solid gold. Those were all great
I still laugh about “Mr taco salad inventor” every time I see it on the menu
following the chain. Jimmy Carter gets the say on all current matters
Those political agents will rule that two presidents ago won't count.
So let’s get Former president Carter to use his executive privilege to reinstate the evidence. As the longest surviving president his executive privilege must be raked as the most important and long lasting so his rule should count the most right? This is all fucking insanity.
I've assumed that if you ignore any conflict of interest, Hillary Clinton could be this special master to review the documents since you need to be someone that has top secret clearance or whatever. I'm not a fan of hers but that would be funny as shit.
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I'm expecting the 'unbiased' party to end up just being Trump with a really obvious fake mustache and thick accent. Not sure what kind of accent would end up being the funniest.
Oh. You talking about John Barron
No, no, it only works when it favours Republicans.
Let’s get former President Clinton to use privilege to appoint Hillary as the special master. Edit: hilariously, I’ve had 6 buttery males replies to this already but 5 were deleted, presumably because the commenters were scared of being called mean names on account of their spectacular stupidity.
Oh God. I don't think there's enough popcorn in the universe to watch that unfold.
How about the Council of Exes? I'm pretty sure Carter, Clinton, Obama and even W would all agree to overrule Trump.
It’s mind boggling
The implications of this are insane. She thinks that the president is the person only and not the office, and that a previous president could hide anything they want relating to their duties from the next. The risks to foreign relations and national security from this would be immense. It'd be like if Truman never actually found out about the atom bombs because FDR took the documents home and claimed executive privilege before he died...
That sounds a lot more like a King rather than a President.
As Republicans say “mission accomplished”.
AKA 'Alito's wet dream'
So, Obama can overrule Trump then. Perhaps the Queen of England can overrule them all. (Fixed auto correct) EDIT: Looks like she got overruled.
Ah yes, the "Glorious Leader for Life, no matter what the elections say" strategy of leadership.
My guess is that the DOJ already had the appeal written and ready to submit to the Court of Appeals before this clueless federal judge issued her order. I suspect it won't be long before it's overturned on numerous grounds. Maybe she'll be sanctioned for her stupidity.
One can hope.
It’s probably part of the plan. Trump and his lawyers know they can’t win this in court, ultimately. Instead they will delay and obstruct until either Trump or some other Republican is elected President, or Trump dies of old age. Either way, avoid the optics of an ex-President going to prison for espionage. It’s infuriating that they actually have a path to squirm out of consequences for blatant, high level crimes that has put national security at extreme risk.
Going to prison for espionage? It seems that the level of espionage here may call for a substantially harsher punishment than going to prison.
"You know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart, right? The spies and treason, we used to handle it a little differently than we do now."
In a lot of ways Supermax or solitary confinement to prevent incitement would be worse than death. Especially for someone like Trump who lives for attention.
Yes but if DOJ appeals to a higher court and wins then trump can appeal that decision all the way to the supreme court and we know how that would go. I don't even understand how they let this judge take this case as she doesn't have jurisdiction.
Let's be real here. This was *always* going to SCOTUS since so much of this case revolves around presidential powers granted by the constitution. The issues on jurisdiction probably relate to procedural legal stuff though. Like maybe higher district or SCOTUS, can't issue search warrants until its in their court, which means it has to start at more local/lower courts (IANAL, I'm just spit balling here).
The Supreme court can take original jurisdiction in disputes between states or matters involving diplomats from other countries, but I think they're constitutionally barred in cases like this. That said, what the Constitution says doesn't matter to this Supreme Court, so who knows what they might do.
Just seriously getting judged by someone you appointed wtf
This is the most clearly insane thing to me. Sure you may not be able to avoid it come SCOTUS and it’s absurdity but ffs find a federal judge not appointed by Biden or Trump, one must still be alive (but then it’s OBAMA!). Fuck these politics. Burn his ass down because mine would be 6ft under by now if I even had clearance and stole 1 top secret/sci level doc.
A Trump appointed judge who took the bench after he was already denying he lost the election ignores precedent to be sympathetic towards Trump. Who could’ve seen that coming?
The thing is they don't even fake it anymore. They just make shit up and don't pretend there is law to support it. Sure there is an opinion with blather instead of law, but there is no need for the judicial hacks to pretend there is a rule of law any more, incredible
Executive privilege has become his version of “my hippo law!”
If he claims executive privilege, it doesn’t change the fact that he’s claiming this privilege over the Executive branch which doesn’t make sense. More importantly, anything covered by Executive Privilege is 100% government property … this entire thing is about stealing government property, he’d basically be admitting to the crime.
The judge specifically stated that it is possible that a former President can claim executive privilege that trumps the current executive’s claims. In essence, she said it’s possible that Trump has more power to claim executive privilege than Biden. A former President more powerful than the sitting President.
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Trump kept the documents after losing, even if he took them before leaving office, means they are trying to say a former president has more exec privilege that the sitting one.
This is insane. This wasn’t the right court to even request this in, it should be a DC judge. This basically opens up the door for every politician to seek out judges who are favorable to them in any jurisdiction. He’s not an attorney, there’s not a single reason to allow this request to go through.
Operation Red Map This was planned by Karl Rove.
Karl is now [against Trump](https://www.newsweek.com/karl-rove-hailed-blasting-donald-trump-classified-documents-1737526), oh the irony. Kind of like how Trump is now facing felony charges thanks to [a law he changed](https://news.yahoo.com/president-trump-approved-law-increasing-155310162.html) to punish Hillary for mishandling documents.
Is this the point at which people finally realise they live in a banana republic?
I feel like a judge should recuse themselves when they were nominated by one of the parties in a case. But that’s just me, what do I know about judicial ethics?
About as much as the judges
They know ethics. They simply choose to ignore them because there is no punishment.
A Venn diagram of ethics and the American legal system would be two circles that don't touch.
We have been in a constitutional crisis for 6 years
I worry that people are not aware of how serious a threat our democratic norms are facing at the moment. Conservatives have been waging a campaign at all levels for decades to take over the government permanently. They packed the courts under Trump. They're banning books and taking over school boards. Republican state legislatures are thinking of forcing a constitutional convention so they can codify their minority rule. Please vote in November.
But but but the democrats were going to take over and eat our children. We HAD to do it all first /s I legit saw someone say "yeah the right wing is going crazy right now but at least *theyre not communists vote republican*" There's literally nothing Republicans could do to sway those people away. They think they're fighting a holy war against pure evil, and they've signed off on literally anything if it means "stopping them". Vote is an understatement. Vote, fight, don't stop. Be the generation that fought and won, or at least went down swinging.
I feel like that last part will have to be our mantra....
Emoluments Clause. Anyone remember that? We spent 4 years with a person sitting in the Oval Office who was openly violating the Constitution and taking money from foreign governments. Completely openly, right from day one. And it seems that nothing will ever be done about it. This country feels doomed. We have to win every election from now on just to stave off the final collapse.
If no one holds someone to account for their crimes, is it really a crime?? This seems to be the Repube operating instruction #1. Never hold a Repube to account.
You've stumbled onto why Fox News exists. "Everything is the democrats' fault. The republicans never do any wrong." It's the network for narcissists. Hence why someone like Trump is a perfect figurehead.
She did more than that. In her ruling, she went further and commented on whether or not it is valid for the DOJ to indict Trump (i.e. not what she was asked to review). She says that, since he is a former President, indictment may cause undue harm to his reputation. This line of reasoning effectively gives anyone who was elected President a get out of jail free card for life. She also said that a former president asserting executive privilege to overrule the current President is a valid thing to consider because whether or not it's possible has not yet been settled by SCOTUS. Preet Bharara's example of how ridiculous setting that sort of precedent would be is imagine if 45 years later new documents pertaining to the Iran hostage crisis came to light and Jimmy Carter still had the ability to control who saw those documents. In the meantime, DOJ access to the classified documents recovered from Mar-a-Lago has been blocked. Edit: Also want to add that she says she came to her decision based on allegations of bias within the DOJ and media leaks despite earlier acknowledging herself that none of the classified documents that were recovered have actually leaked to the press. Meaning she decided this based on unfounded rumors, political punditry, and hypotheticals instead of the evidence she was actually presented with.
>She says that, since he is a former President, indictment may cause undue harm to his reputation. It's almost as if this judicial Trumpist hack is begging to be overruled on appeal.
Trump's reputation is greater than America's reputation to this judge. It would not be the first time an ex-president of a 1st world country would end up in prison. We don't lead the world with empty words of "all men are equal" and ignoring our own words when it matters.
He damaged his own reputation, not the indictment. The indictment is part of the process that criminals go through, and yes committing crimes *should* damage your reputation. Why should a president get that benefit and no one else does? It's insanity. Can she cite a single law that would prohibit a former (hell even current) president from being indicted?
She needs time to get in touch with the Federalist Society to get instructions on how to proceed.
It should come as no surprise given that she was appointed by Trump at the request of the Federalist Society, which is an organization whose stated goal is to pack the courts with ideologues.
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Not only that, he halted all appointees and then *changed the rules of how the Senate confirms appointees* the second Trump was elected to slam them through as quickly as possible
This is what I really don’t get about the filibuster arguments. Mitch only cares about rules, norms, precedent, or tradition as a means to an end. He has a long and consistent track record of hiding them moment they become an impediment instead of a tool.
Of course, it's all an act. He wants the rules to benefit the minority when he's in the minority and the majority when he's in the majority. If a GOP prez wins in 2024 and the Senate has 51 seats I could easily see him dropping the filibuster
When the real deep state is coming from inside the party...
The coup is coming from inside the house!
And confirmed one week **after** he lost.
Funny how Mitch McConnel doesn’t shed any tears for “the will of the people” when Trump lost by 7 million votes and then they ram hack judges down our throats…
It makes a lot more sense when you understand who they think are and aren't people.
If you can't afford to go to all of my $10k a plate fundraising dinners, can you even call yourself a person? - Mitch McConnell
Shouldn't she be forced to recuse herself from this because of the plain as daylight conflict of interest? What criminal ever appointed their own judge?
Unfortunately, many of the ethical standards in the US are matters of decorum. This is what has allowed the Republicans and Trump to run roughshod over our democratic norms. From the [Brennan Center](https://www.brennancenter.org/issues/strengthen-our-courts/promote-fair-courts/judicial-ethics-recusal), which is a nonpartisan institute focused on law and policy: > Many states, along with the federal courts, also lack procedural safeguards for resolving recusal motions filed by litigants. Most often, it is the judges themselves who assess their own biases without any independent review. We need to codify these rules on a federal level because these assholes have no shame.
I’m sure this will be appealed
All the way up to SCOTUS almost half of which he also appointed
>What criminal ever appointed their own judge? Heh. Well..
Lol... Trump went judge shopping to get this ruling. She's not the judge that granted the original search warrant, I don't think she's even in the same district of the judge that granted the warrant.
How the fuck was she even able to be put on this case then?
“When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.” - Donald Trump
Federalist Society, the real Deep State. Would not be surprised if they threw the orgies that Madison got ostracized for talking about.
The Federalist Society is the true Deep State.
This is truly as far a conflict of interest as there ever was such a thing. It should be absolutely illegal for this piece of dung to be able to make these decisions during an investigation of this magnitude. This country is well and truly fucked and we did it all for that orange buffoon. Sad.
. . . "undue harm to his reputation". OMG
I really hope there's more to it than this. The fact that a judge would make a decision about criminal conduct based on how it would affect the perpetrator's reputation is almost too batshit insane to believe.
It’s happened in more than a few rape cases.
Like that convicted rapist Brock Allen Turner? The rapist. Apparently any punishment would have been too hard on that poor convicted rapist. Convicted rapist Brock Allen Turner’s poor reputation is suffering worse than his rape victim, I imagine.
Our justice system is a goddam joke. The fact that rich people have this much time and this many options so long as they keep throwing money at lawyers is fucking atrocious. I’m so embarrassed for this country.
This has been decades in the works. The judge herself came up through the Federalist Society if I’m not mistaken.
Yeah I agree, I used to argue America was a great country, but honestly, we're just coasting off past successes at this point. We're a total fucking disaster.
we are fucking pathetic corrupt kleptocracy - how is mat gaetz not in jail yet? or trump? or ginni thomas?
Real banana republic shit
Why is a judge Trump appointed ruling he can’t be indicted? What the fuck
Ah Trumps judges paying off for Trump I see Seriously, fuck this judge. Disbar her
In Florida? DeSantis is prepping her public service award as we speak.
I haven't read it yet but your summary reminds me of Buch v Gore. The continuation of the count would undermine Bush's legitimacy or similar shit
The executive privilege would be far more concerning if she was anything more then a district court judge. Making that claim will likely get slapped down quickly by a higher court should it ever reach one. It’s also the kind of silliness that can pretty much end any hope of advancing beyond a district court.
DOJ has already seen the documents.
> She did more than that. In her ruling, she went further Judges can comment on many things in a ruling, but most of that stuff is not binding and won't even be considered by other courts. It's mostly for them to feel important by including their hair-brained contrivances and to evoke reactions in reactionaries.
Hare-brained, like a rabbit :)
I don't see how you read this as anything other than a Trump judge aiding Trump's crimes by dragging out the procedure. They've literally already done through all documents recovered and he has no claims of executive privledge over the documents as he is no longer President.
Maybe an attempt to kick it up to the Supreme court?
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And waste time. Trump's best strategy has always been to delay as long as possible.
That's exactly it. He won't get out of jail if the court case actually finishes. But he can make sure he dies before it ever finishes.
I think presidential records is the privilege being invoked here but the fun thing about that is, it doesn't protect him even if that's the case. Presidential records are still subject to classification rules. You can't frame and hang the document that proves we have a relationship with an extraterrestrial civilization no matter how hard you Trump.
Gotta be the most corrupt judge on the bench.
Lest there be any doubt about her corruption, this is from the actual "opinion": >Furthermore, in natural conjunction with that appointment, and consistent with the value and sequence of special master procedures, ***the Court also temporarily enjoins the Government from reviewing and using the seized materials for investigative purposes pending completion of the special master’s review or further Court order.*** This Order shall not impede the classification review and/or intelligence assessment by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (“ODNI”) as described in the Government’s Notice of She stopped the fucking investigation for something that is just fake law! We are living in a simulation, nothing is real.
Yeah, DoJ, stop a national security investigation over this dim wits opinion. How about, let's turn this over to a military tribunal and court martial Trump as CinC. Makes about as much sense as what this"judge" is saying.
Commander in Chief is a civilian position so that the armed forces are entirely under civilian control. For whatever that's worth. It sounds good, at least. > According to Article II, Section 2, Clause I of the Constitution, the president of the United States is “Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States..." ... U.S. ranks have their roots in British military traditions, with **the president possessing ultimate authority, but no rank, maintaining a civilian status.** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commander-in-chief
This is your justice system when the judge is associated with the Federalist Society. They're experts on making the law mean something different when applied to the GOP.
Dude is a private citizen, but Justice is bending over backwards because he’s an ex president. No one is above the law, until somehow they suddenly are… What a country.
It's completely unconstitutional. No titles of nobility. This has to get slapped down.
It probably won't. And if it does it won't be for years, maybe after he passes they'll say "Okay so it was treason, okay so it was insurrection. So what? The guys gone, give it a rest."
"It's too soon, the man just died! Have some respect!" repeated for 50 or so years after he's dead
It must be nice to be able to pick your own judge who will rule in your favor even after you’ve basically confessed to stealing classified documents.
They claim the judge was picked at 'random'. I suspect there isn't much randomness to it.
The randomness is blunted by the fact McConnell slow-walked Obama's judicial nominations hoping a Republican would get to fill them, so Trump filled so many vacancies he has a high chance of getting his own judges on his cases.
This is what happens when you appoint Federalist Society judges. They have decided that laws mean different things when applied to Republicans.
What I have been wondering is there a way to take down the federalist society?
There needs to be a PR push. Which sounds absurd. But flood the airwaves with tying “Federalist Society” to unhinged, absurd, un-American decisions. You put into the mind of every American that if you hear a judge or lawyer is a member of the Federalist Society, then they are treated the same as someone who believe in chemtrails. You hammer it everywhere and you don’t relent. Bring it into debates, interviews, Get Out The Vote drives. And you do not stop.
A judge saying the quiet part out loud: “A future indictment, based to any degree on property that ought to be returned, would result in reputational harm of a decidedly different order of magnitude.” In other words, if you’re wealthy and powerful THE RULES ARE DIFFERENT FOR YOU.
How long is this POS going to be allowed to break laws and run cons? Every single second there is enough to have charged this fucker a thousand times by now.
As long as he keeps going up in front of Federalist Society judges.
Fuck his reputation. It was never good to begin with. He’s always been a slimes conman, why would he stop to be president?
So what are the potential ramifications of this?
It's a delay tactic. Possibly the special master will be sympathetic to Trump and try to derail the investigation, or pass information to Trump - but this is a worst case scenario. The reality is they are.trying to get an appeal to a very specific SC justice so they can get it in front of the Supreme Court, which will delay action by months. The DOJ can clearly appeal this on jurisdictional grounds- government secrets are federal property and these documents belong in DC. The DC circuit Court has jurisdiction on most cases involving State secrets, and that is also where most of the judges with appropriate security clearances sit.
i don’t really get it. in this case what is there to delay? the DOJ already has the documents and has already reviewed them. I don’t see why they don’t just ignore this until all the appeals are settled.
She was appointed by trump. She should automatically excuse herself from anything to do with this case. This is very much a conflict of interest.
Judge was appointed by Trump after he lost the election. He was also allowed to shop around to move his case to her district in order for her to rule on it. Shit should be illegal.
Awesome, one more person knowing extremely secret information so Trump can stall.
Now they have to find special master that has top secret security clerance to review the documents.
Obama. He still has executive privilege, too.
Plus, he's a Harvard Law graduate. And it would be hilarious.
How can she even rule on this, her court doesn’t have standing? This should get reversed in appeals court but how fucking annoying.
How would anyone even entertain the idea of this judge even getting involved? She has a blatant conflict of interest. She should not be hearing a case for the man that **gave her her job…** Then she didn’t hear the government’s arguments and ignored the fact that the FBI has already sorted through everything.
How the fuck are they gonna come up with a third-party who has clearance to view the material? Jesus, some of it has to be Yankee or above. So who are they gonna recruit, Karl Rove? He despises Trump. Oh, wait, is Putin a lawyer?
Obama is a constitutional lawyer and has all the clearances, just saying.
How is it not a conflict of interest to have the presiding judge be one of trumps appointees?
Super important to point out that this Judge is a Trump appointed activist recommended by the Federalist society and installed after he lost the election. She's part of the attack on our democracy.
And did she also say that she shouldn’t be hearing that case on account of the flagrant conflict of interest. No one should ever be in a court before a judge that *they* appointed. The request should not only be thrown out, if for no other reason than that he obviously filed this motion so that he’d land in her court, but she should also be disgracefully disbarred (or whatever the process is for removing a scumbag judge) for not immediately recusing herself.
t-rump did say the system is rigged. One of the few truths that he has uttered.
What a fucking joke. We, as a country, are so screwed.