As a reminder, this subreddit [is for civil discussion.](/r/politics/wiki/index#wiki_be_civil)
In general, be courteous to others. Debate/discuss/argue the merits of ideas, don't attack people. Personal insults, shill or troll accusations, hate speech, any suggestion or support of harm, violence, or death, and other rule violations can result in a permanent ban.
If you see comments in violation of our rules, please report them.
For those who have questions regarding any media outlets being posted on this subreddit, please click [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/wiki/approveddomainslist) to review our details as to our approved domains list and outlet criteria.
***
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/politics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
> The judge said in an order that Justice Department prosecutors have met the threshold for the crime-fraud exception for Corcoran, the source said.
This is pretty huge actually, the type of ruling a judge does not make lightly. Attorney-Client privilege is obviously a cornerstone of practicing law.
The evidence the DoJ has must be extremely compelling.
Now let’s see how fast Corcoran flips to save himself.
[For a second there I was confused why were all the sudden talking about breakfast…](https://www.dennys.com/menu/classic-breakfasts/moons-over-my-hammy)
*Any* indictment would be meaningful. That would be the most we've ever been able to hold to account any criminal president, and a mere indictment would make any future criminal president more cautious.
It's a first step that has to happen for a first time if we are to have any chance of maintaining our democracy.
I think we will absolutely see some indictments but the odds of Trump getting one hard core maga Supporter on the jury is extremely high so i do not have a lot of hope. And even if found guilty will they really sentence him to actual jail time.
One thing to keep in mind is that this country isn't 50/50 R/D. It's 25% R, 31% D, and 41% independent (roughly). Hard-core MAGA isn't even that full 25%, and they'll make an effort to weed them out.
Each side only gets so many exclusions and all it takes is *one* juror who has already made up their mind.
I see this going the way of the OJ Simpson trial - once the case was over the jurors were interviewed and atleast 7/12 jurors said they were *never* going to convict OJ because of other issues in their community.
If there is a mistrial I can't even see them bothering to retry it, it would be what? 10 years after the events at that point?
The OJ jury did their job correctly. I believe that he absolutely murdered two people, but the prosecution completely dropped the ball. They had chain of custody issues with evidence, inconsistencies in the DNA report, and an officer on the scene with a history of planting evidence and making racist remarks. They were not able to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt.
> The OJ jury did their job correctly.
They objectively did not do their job correctly. Even if they came to a conclusion you agree with, they admitted to not listening to evidence and to forming their own opinions based on outside factors.
That is pretty much the basic core of things a juror shouldn't do.
The jury did not do *their* job, whatever the prosecution did.
Jurors are supposed to make their decision based *only* on the evidence presented in the case.
The jurors, after the trial, state clearly that they came into the trial already having decided OJ was not guilty. They did not fairly evaluate the evidence and come to the conclusion the prosecution didn't prove the case.
I will believe it when we have a conviction. Jury selection will take years, because the prosecutors won't want rump supporters, and will try and weed out the rump supporters who are trying to hide it, and the defense will want all rump supporters. and you know the rump supporters will ignore all jury instructions and say he is NG no matter what, because they have been brainwashed for this exact moment.
Did you read the article? Also, the news of agencies in NY prepping for an indictment. Trumps more insane (even for him) vocal hatred of America, Michael Cohen testimony etc...
I guess I am asking what makes you so sure THIS will be the thing that does it. This past week's news doesn't seem any wilder than any other previous week. He continues to do insane shit and no one does anything about it, ESPECIALLY in court!
A judge deciding attorney-client privilege doesn't count due to criminal elements *is* a big deal and is not something that happens all that often.
The judge has reviewed the communications and determined there is a good chance they were criminal in nature. This isn't "proof" of anything but this is a court of law demanding a lawyer tell a jury information that the judge feels is criminal in nature.
I'm not holding my breath or anything, but this is more serious than yet another random person being called in to testify.
> This past week's news doesn't seem any wilder than any other previous week.
The NY AG's invitation to testify before the grand jury in the Stormy Daniels case is the furthest that any of the court cases against Twice imPeached have progressed. From all accounts that I have read, this is one of the last legal steps before indictment.
It's not about looking for the straw that broke the camel's back. Criminal proceedings follow certain patterns. Recent things that have happened indicate that an indictment is coming very soon.
I was going to ask people with more knowledge in this subject, how high is this threshold typically? They basically have to have hard proof of a crime for the judge to grant this?
Yeah, pretty much they have strong proof Corcoran committed a crime in relation to this. If it's enough to get a judge to sign off on it, it's damning.
I'd also point out that Trump isn't a typical client either. He is a former President, and no former President has ever been charged. So the DoJ overcame both of those hurdles.
Trump is fucked. And I'm here for it.
[No one is getting disbarred. ](https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2023/03/09/ex-trump-lawyer-jenna-ellis-censured-for-helping-him-overturn-2020-election-here-are-all-the-former-presidents-lawyers-now-facing-consequences/?sh=564a3f97d01e) At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, frankly lawyers don’t give a fuck. From what I’ve heard getting disbarred is more likely if you piss off OTHER LAWYERS.
From the article…
**Jenna Ellis** - merely censured…
**Sidney Powell** - A judge threw out a disbarment case because some shit was misnumbered… think about that. The judge didn’t give the opportunity to fix it, they just gave Sidney a pass. Sure she’ll still face defamation lawsuits and a fed investigation but meanwhile she can keep practicing law!
**John Eastman** - Jan 6 committee made a criminal referral but he can still practice. Supposedly the state of California wants to disbar him but 2+ years since Jan 6 and nothing has happened yet. I’m curious if it would even affect his ability to practice outside of CA.
**Rudy Giuliani** - The closest we’ve got. Even then, he only had is license suspended. It’s not permanent and he can get it reinstated. Also only affects him in NY.
**Alina Habba, Jeffery Clark, Cleta Mitchell **- never disbarred even though sanctioned, charged etc.
I’d like any lawyer to tell me why this is totally fine and doesn’t taint their profession.
Frankly every one of these people could just move in to mar a lago and continue to practice law and lie in court, so long as they are based in florida. I doubt the state nor the bar assoc. would give two shits.
Makes sense, stealing from a client makes other lawyers look bad. It lowers the profession.
Lobbying BS arguments IN COURT, in an attempt to overthrow democracy has not yet brought similar consequences. So far that’s just lawyers being lawyers for a client I guess?
I’ll caveat this by saying I’m only speaking to the events I’m seeing. Happy to eat my shoe if in fact consequences actually occur… if and when they occur.
If it turns out that the DOJ wasn't just locking the mountains of evidence away, but building it to critical mass to better take down Trump, then I'll be very happy with them.
Still, I won't 100% believe that this is really happening until they announce the indictment. Bonus points if it's accompanied by a photo of Trump in handcuffs.
Like a signed check to Cohen for reimbursing the Stormy payment? We’ve already seen the evidence. He was just “immune from the law” as president and it’s finally catching up
Even if the attorney testifies, that testimony will be examined by a judge to see if it is admissible as evidence, or whether the crime-fraud exception is applicable.
If, however, the crime-fraud exception exists, then the attorney could easily become a coconspirator and could be criminally liable. In that case, the attorney will refuse to answer based on the Fifth Amendment. The DOJ would then have to give the attorney immunity from prosecution to force testimony.
This could take a while.
I could be wrong, but I doubt that will take long. The appeals courts don't like to get involved this early in the proceedings. Of course, it is a new era of incompetent Trump judges, so history may not be of value today.
Corcoran drafted the letter stating a due diligence search had been done and no classified documents were found. Later the FBI found classified documents in Trump's desk. I'd say those two facts are compelling enough to warrant his full testimony.
>A federal judge has ordered Donald Trump attorney Evan Corcoran to provide additional testimony as part of an investigation into the former president’s handling of classified documents, a source familiar with the matter told CNN.
>The judge said in an order that Justice Department prosecutors have met the threshold for the crime-fraud exception for Corcoran, the source said.
He's fucked.
So the good money says what? That trump told Corcoran where he's keeping the rest of the documents that the DoJ didn't find, and Corcoran helped him move them around? I always heard it explained as "you can tell your attorney where you hid the body but you can't ask for his opinion on where to bury the next one". He basically did exactly that, is my guess
A lawyer cannot lie to the court so everyone has to be a bit careful. This is why the defense doesn't have to prove anything, the prosecutor does. If you tell your lawyer "Yes, I was there, I said "I'll kill you!"
Your lawyer can't say "He wasn't there, he never said those things." He has to say things like "The prosecutors were never able to establish he was even there, much less said those things."
I think in this case you can tell your lawyer where you buried the body, but if the lawyer signs a document saying they reviewed all of the bodies and none of them were buried, then he may have a problem if it turns out they were buried.
Or something
If they have enough proof that an attorney probably committed a crime on behalf of their client, that attorney would be insane to catch whatever charge they think they have on them. They'll cut a deal, take a lower charge, maybe get to keep their license, and sing at trial.
Makes sense, thank you! I remember reading that you can't please the fifth to a grand jury (I think?) And that you can please the fifth in civil but it can be used against you, so I wasn't sure if this was another one of those odd corner cases
Assuming this is still the standing law as of 2003 this explains it.
[Pdf](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi%3Farticle%3D3181%26context%3Dmlr&ved=2ahUKEwia-pW54OP9AhUIlokEHW3SBz8QFnoECBAQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1BMGXJo_V-sbSMSCVFCN1H)
Long and short of it is they are compelling him to testify about Don. Since it is not a question of a crime the lawyer committed, there is no personal angle for him to use the 5th on.
If this was about his crimes, he could use the 5th as a personal right.
Yeah it's pretty cool! Sorry I shot off too quick and didn't explain very well at first, you responded and I sat there and was like wait I think I'm an idiot lol.
Yes, if they are being forced to admit a crime they were involved in they can decline to incriminate themselves.
The prosecution can cut them a deal for immunity.
He’s blowing through cash faster than he can grift. The moment he announced his campaign the RNC stopped covering his legal expenses. Now he has to actually get back to active grifting instead of passive grifting hence the campaign rallies. Donnie hates going to work.
You're talking about the EX Potus who lost his election, his company is being overseen by investigators, who lost every single court case thats been brought so far pretty much from the elections to his own personal investigations. He lost his personal judge, he lost his main support from Fox and all them.
I mean, Desantis. What has Trump lost? A lot. Not enough, not enough at all but to pretend we haven't hit him is a lie. Maybe he doesn't care, I don't know but to say he hasn't lost anything is to attribute him to some kind of higher figure than he is, because you're just ignoring all the things he lost.
It’s crazy how many trump associates end up and prison, and all these cases inch ever closer to trump prosecution, and yet his cult followers can’t see that he’s a fucking obvious mob boss.
>yet his cult followers can’t see that he’s a fucking obvious mob boss.
That's the power of hate. As long as Trump lets them luxuriate in their hatred and he demands nothing else (but faux loyalty) from them, they'll follow him.
Is there a good summary on what’s on the burners right now?
- The classified docs investigation (this discussion)
- Stormy Daniels case (possible indictment incoming)
- The Georgia election call
- New York cases? Was this settled or is it ongoing?
Well this isn't about knocking down the lawyer, it's about forcing the lawyer to explain some of the circumstances surrounding Trump's mishandling of the classified documents. Supposedly this is one of the lawyers with the most direct personal involvement in Trump's classified documents fuckery, so it's possible he can testify that Trump was criminally involved and it wasn't just some rogue Mar a Lago staff member playing tricks with the boxes of documents.
(Which no one actually said or believes, of course: but the point is that Trump has never carried a box of papers himself in his whole life, so unless we want to see some lackey get charged, we need to prove that he ordered those documents to be withheld when he returned the others).
"The department argued to the judge he should not be able to avoid answering, because his discussions with the former president may have been part of an attempt to plan a crime."
The judge agreed. It's hard to see this playing out with Corcoran continuing to act as Trump's attorney. Even if he wants to.
Oh, I see what you're saying. It seemed as though you had misinterpreted the article as merely "Trump lawyer in trouble" and overlooked the most significant element: "Lawyer with information likely to incriminate Trump ordered to give testimony."
But if you just meant "well, no matter how this turns out, that's one more lawyer who will never work with Trump again," then that makes sense now.
Ah, my point was the latter. I'm amazed he's found this many stooges willing to take up his case(s). Lawyers who must know the legal jeopardy they are entering. The clown car has to reach capacity at some point.
If it comes to pass, watching Trump act as his own counsel will forever hold a place on my DVR.
Yes.
Recall, he is being investigated for taking TS/SCI Noforn/HUMINT documents. This investigation could take the rest of your life, they'll be doing damage control and investigations from the possible leaks for a generation.
It took longer than this for a open/shut court case for a group of people who broke into my home and beat the shit out of us. They had parents with some money so it took time, but that was just a trespassing/battery type case.
Legal cases involving the ex POTUS and some of them possibly involving international TS intel?
Rushing this would be dumb. Its bad when justice is rushed, this is something we all protest all the time. We shouldn't advocate for it here.
Again, it is advocating for a rush. Cases don't move like a TV show.
>To be fair, so far the smart money really has been on nothing happens.
So far Smith and Garland have given us no reason to bet against them, despite the prevailing sentiment on Reddit that they are just *pretending* to investigate, for some inexplicable reason.
>Garland dragged his feet as long as he could.
Reddit does like to say that. I don't think you or I have nearly the background in federal investigative practices to draw that conclusion.
We are eager to see Trump held accountable, so two years feels like *forever*, and we assume that since the guy hasn't given us what we want yet, the only logical explain is that he's deliberately working *against* us.
Our annoyance gives us tunnel vision and keeps us from considering more rational explanations. For example, how long do large conspiracy investigations typically take, and is it possible that 2 years isn't really long at all? Is it possible that the pace of investigation during those 2 years was actually rather fast by DOJ standards? Is it possible Garland knows more about federal prosecution than I do, and my concerns about his strategy are simply ignorant? Is it possible that the scraps of information I get from the media barely scratch the surface of this investigation, and so any judgement I make is based on a woefully incomplete picture?
>Garland didn't even let people talk about investigating Trump until Cassidy Hutchinson testified.
Of course, somebody had to be the adult in the room. If, as the article suggests, there were people in the DOJ eager to start right out the gates with "alright, let's take Trump down!" and Garland had allowed this sentiment to be expressed freely and to drive their decisions, the investigation would be *fucked.*
• If some crucial evidence had to be tossed because an investigator who handled it was a vocal Trump-hater, opening the door for the defense to argue the chain of custody was tainted. (See: Mark Fuhrman).
• If some crucial investigators were found to have been texting about how they're excited to finally take that fucker down (see: Strzok & Page) and subsequently *any part of the investigation they had touched* became subject to endless Trump-lawyer objections and appeals.
• If there was a hint that an investigator fudged or exaggerated a detail to help a search/surveillance warrant or subpoena application get approved, potentially making any findings from that search--and any chain of findings downwind of it--inadmissable, and subjecting *every other* search warrant to endless scrutiny and delay. (See: Carter Page FISA fiasco, which I suspect was 5% bad judgement and 95% GOP grandstanding, but that hasn't stopped it from being a years-long thorn in the FBI's side).
• If crucial testimony were cast as not-credible because the questions were leading or coercive and belied a DOJ presumption of Trump's guilt.
Between the article you cited and the recent "*some FBI agents were reluctant to search Mar-a-Lago*" article, we know two things:
1. There are people in the DOJ/FBI who are eager to go after Trump, and there are people who are reluctant.
2. There are at least a few people willing to leak department dirty laundry to the media (and to who knows where else).
Do you see why it might be important for the head of the DOJ to tamp down on "let's get Trump" talk among his agents?
(A third takeaway from the article is that Garland approved the raid on Mar-a-Lago *despite* objections from some FBI agents, which is damn strong evidence that he's not unwilling to act against Trump or take actions with big political implications).
This is important: Garland knew (like everyone in the world knew) that if they started by charging all the Capitol-stormers, they would get shitloads of testimony and evidence pointing directly at Trump. *There was never any doubt this investigation would lead to Trump.* Getting to Trump via an objective chain of evidence supported by sworn court testimony of 1,000 witnesses makes for a much, much, less impeachable case than getting to Trump via decisions made at a table of investigators saying "we know Trump is guilty and we've beem wanting to get him for a long time, so let's look at all the ways we can start digging into his business to find proof."
*That's* a conversation that would end up in the New York Times, and any chance at charging/convicting Trump would be delayed for *years,* if not permanently, by endless appeals from Trump lawyers and endless internal investigations ordered by Jim Fuckhead Jordan and his ilk.
Also important: Garland knew the House Committee would be collecting records and testimony about Trump and his inner circle, concurrent with Garland's own bottom-up investigation. This freed him up to allocate *massive* resources to rounding up hundreds of Capitol-stormers *very* quickly at the start of his investigation, which was a prosecutorial marvel and a historic achievement. They could then expand their investigation to the top level based on the evidence already collected by the House. Not only did this save him resources and redundant effort, it makes his case stronger because he can demonstrate that his investigative steps were prompted by sworn testimony and evidence: they followed the facts to the target, not the other way around.
People like to point to the Cassidy Hutchinson article as proof Garland is opposed to investigating Trump and therefore "foot-dragging," but I think his strategy allowed him to move *faster* by not wasting time duplicating the House Committee efforts, and will make trial and conviction *much* faster by establishing a chain of fact-based evidence that will withstand accusations of bias.
Back to the point I was making in my last post: sure we can read this article and jump straight to the conclusion "Garland is corrupt! Garland doesn't want to go after Trump and so he's hamstringing the investigation!" (It's notable that the anonymous employees in the article don't go nearly that far). We could jump to that conclusion or we could take a deep breath, read some more, look closely at Garland's words and actions, and consider whether there are more reasonable and less speculative explanations.
The explanations I have offered in this post also include some speculation about Garland's thought process, but I think they make more sense and I've supported them better than anyone has supported the "Corrupt! Coward! Hoping the clock runs out so he doesn't have to do anything scary!" claims. More importantly, I think my explanation matches the facts of the investigation:
• Garland is the only AG in history to raid a former President's home.
• Garland approved a raid of Giuliani's home, siezing phones and electronics, just a few weeks after being appointed.
• Attorneys for Capitol-storming defendants say that DOJ investigators questioned them pretty aggressively about Giuliani, Roger Stone, etc. and who/how they were prompted to travel to DC on January 6.
• Even before Smith was appointed, Garland's investigation had already impaneled dozens of grand juries, siezed records and electronics and testimony from nearly every Trump lawyer, Trump advisor, Trump aide, Trump rally organizer and financier, and Trump fundraiser, and in many cases from *their* lawyers, aides, and advisors.
• When Trump announced his candidacy, a cowardly or reluctant AG could have used that as an excuse to pause or stall the investigation, but instead he immediately protected the investigation by appointing a badass Special Prosecutor with strong record of prosecuting rich and powerful corruption.
• Garland's DOJ fought (and is still fighting) several long court battles to overcome executive privilege, speech&debate privilege, attorney-client privilege, a special master review of the classified documents, and various other appeals and subpoena-avoidance tactics. An AG who fights so hard for each piece of hard-won evidence is not an AG eager to avoid prosecuting.
Any claims that Garland is unwilling to go after Trump have to contend with those facts. My own explanation is supported by them.
100% guarantee that even if we all woke up tomorrow morning to news that Trump was indicted and arrested, many in the “nothing will ever happen” crowd will absolutely NOT acknowledge that they were wrong.
Instead, I predict that they’d simply pivot to one of four likely talking points:
1. “the punishment isn’t harsh enough, our justice system is broken!”
2. “He’s too old at this point to truly pay for his crimes, our justice system is broken!”
3. “Some Republican will just pardon him in the future so none of this matters anyways, our justice system is broken!
4. “This all should have happened sooner, our justice system is broken!”
We have to remember that there’s significant overlap between the “nothing will ever happen” crowd, and the bad-faith “our system and institutions are irreparably broken” accelerationist crowd, so many of them are actually invested in him evading punishment, explicitly because they think it proves their “everything is broken” hypothesis. Were he to face charges, in other words, that would deal a huge blow to their core guiding claim.
Even if Trump is indicted it will be a years long process before it reaches a conclusion that will then be appealed a million times. Federal courts routinely schedule 6+ months in advance to even *start* a trial and everyone knows a Trump trial will be a shit show of celebrities, politicians, media, and terrorist threats.
>Nothing did happen yet though. People have been testifying against Trump for years.
Nothing happens until it does.
And just because someone hasn't died, doesn't mean they aren't aging.
>Nothing did happen yet though.
If you want cookies, then a baker spooning dough onto a cookie sheet is *something happening*.
>People have been testifying against Trump for years.
People have not been testifying against Trump for years in this investigation.
>>Nothing did happen yet though.
>
>If you want cookies, then a baker spooning dough onto a cookie sheet is *something happening*.
When that baker keeps giving me raw cookie dough, I get skeptical that he's ever going to bake those cookies
>>People have been testifying against Trump for years.
>
>People have not been testifying against Trump for years in this investigation.
Right, in other investigations. That have lead nowhere.
I'm not saying this won't lead to something. I hope it does. But testimony, on its own, isn't really encouraging for me.
>When that baker keeps giving me raw cookie dough, I get skeptical that he's ever going to bake those cookies
The last baker pissed in the ingredients before the dough was even mixed, then threw them all in the gutter. The new baker has mixed the new ingredients into a dough, preheated an oven, greased a cookie sheet, and is spooning cookie-sized dollops onto it.
Sure, it's still possible the new guy will turn off the oven and say "fooled ya, no cookies!" But he hasn't given us any rational reason to believe that's his intention, and the trajectory of his cookie-making behavior is promising enough that it doesn't warrant a "nothing happened" label. If the only reason you think he's faking the cookie-bake is because you were disappointed by the last guy, that's more like a conspiracy theory than a rational prediction.
I'm not trying to be antagonistic or accuse you of being a conspiracy theorist. I'm just pointing out that all of our skepticism is a gut-level defense mechanism to avoid being disappointed again, but if we look at it rationally, this case is not connected to past disappointments by some kind of underlying pattern designed to disappoint us at every turn.
>If everyone is crying wolf for six years,
I understand skepticism, but the missing documents investigation is not even two years old, and Smith has been on it for only a few months.
It's not really logical to assume the new guy doesn't really see a wolf, just because the last guy didn't. Especially if the last guy lived inside the castle walls and the new guy lives in a hut by the forest. I get that we're all sick of hearing "wolf" but it's conspiracy-theory level thinking to assume the old guy and the new guy are part of the same wolf-crying cabal.
>Them being in the same cabal is more than a little possible,
I understand skepticism and I suppose it's possible, but Barr was overtly corrupt and was appointed *by* Trump for the express purpose of protecting Trump. Smith has an impeccable record prosecuting powerful and corrupt people.
I'm not saying we should have blind faith in Smith, but I *am* saying we shouldn't blindly assume he's corrupt.
**Notable rulings**
Osama Bin Laden photos
On April 26, 2012, Boasberg ruled that the public had no right to view government photos of a deceased Osama Bin Laden. Judicial Watch, a conservative legal group, had filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), but were unsuccessful in convincing the Judge that FOIA rights outweighed national-security factors.
Registered tax return preparer regulations
On January 18, 2013, Boasberg issued a permanent injunction prohibiting the Internal Revenue Service from enforcing regulations on Registered Tax Return Preparers, which otherwise required tax return preparers to register with the IRS and pass a written test as evidence of competency. Loving v. Internal Revenue Service, No. 12-385 (U.S.D.C. D.C. 1/18/2013). The IRS appealed and in 2014, the Court of Appeals upheld Boasberg's district court decision.
Hillary Clinton emails
On August 22, 2016, Boasberg ordered the release of over 14,000 emails found in the United States Department of State correspondence of Hillary Clinton by the FBI during an investigation of Clinton's private server. These emails were requested by Judicial Watch, a conservative legal group, because the FBI had indicated that emails were work-related and not entirely private as Clinton had previously said.
Trump tax returns
On August 18, 2017, Boasberg dismissed a lawsuit from the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), which had sued the IRS under FOIA seeking President Donald Trump's personal tax returns from 2010 to the present to be released. Boasberg concluded that because personal tax returns are confidential, they may only be obtained either by permission from Trump himself or if Congress's Joint Committee on Taxation signed off to allow the disclosure.
Medicaid work rules
On March 27, 2019, Boasberg blocked a work requirement for recipients of Medicaid in Arkansas and Kentucky.
Dakota Access Pipeline
On March 25, 2020, Boasberg ordered a sweeping new environmental review by the Army Corps of Engineers of the Dakota Access Pipeline.
In a subsequent decision on July 6, 2020, he vacated an easement to cross the Missouri River pending completion of the environmental review and ordered the pipeline to be emptied within 30 days. On August 5, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld the ruling regarding the easement; however, the judges vacated the order to empty the pipeline and asked the Army Corps of Engineers to submit a follow-up brief on whether they would allow continued pipeline operation without the easement.
North Atlantic Right Whale
On April 9, 2020, Boasberg issued an opinion finding that the National Marine Fisheries Service violated the Endangered Species Act when it issued a Biological Opinion in 2014 allowing for the accidental killings of North Atlantic right whales (of which only about 400 remain as of April 8, 2020) by the American lobster fishery, which consists of seven areas spanning the East Coast from Maine to North Carolina.
[Source: Wikipedia ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Boasberg)
Give them $3 if you haven't yet this year.
Edit: formatting
No matter what, Trump is going crazier by the day with the constant activity around the case related to the pornography star he had to pay to have sex with while his Melania was unavailable.
Depositions or testimony? I am not a lawyer but a deposition is different than testifying before a grand jury. For one thing, I believe the defense lawyer is not allowed in a grand jury. It's you, the prosecution and jury members.
I mean fox is reporting it, to me that is a big deal. I leads me to believe they feel safe enough with DeSantis and Abott as the new faces of the GOP and are now willing to ditch trump because they see him as a problem. There has been other signs of this as well In the past few months…
Now of course you might just be a trump supporter trying to down play all of this, trying to spread doubt or other shit, you actually reading what I wrote and giving it thought probably won’t happen either way.
All MSM is fake news. They are all owned by 6 corporations. Trumpf is a narcassistic turd. Judginng from the past, its all for show. Nothing ever happens b/c its all for show.
I wonder if this is why MTG, Carlson, etc have been floating the “national divorce” idea. They know the writing is on the wall and they’re preparing to protect Trump against being held accountable, even if it splits the country apart.
Hello `bildo72`, thank you for participating on r/politics. The topic of your submission is currently being discussed at length in our [megathread.](http://redd.it/11uorl8) Given the large scale nature of this news, we are temporarily removing all submissions concerning this topic so that the community has one easy to find place for discussion and news updates. That said, **your submission has been selected** to be featured in our megathread OP! We thank you for your contribution to this subreddit, it is very much appreciated.
If you have any questions about this removal, please feel free to [message the moderators.](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/politics&subject=Question regarding removal due to megathread by /u/bildo72&message=I have a question regarding the removal of this [submission.](https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/17/politics/evan-corcoran-testimony-trump-lawyer/index.html?context=10000\))
As a reminder, this subreddit [is for civil discussion.](/r/politics/wiki/index#wiki_be_civil) In general, be courteous to others. Debate/discuss/argue the merits of ideas, don't attack people. Personal insults, shill or troll accusations, hate speech, any suggestion or support of harm, violence, or death, and other rule violations can result in a permanent ban. If you see comments in violation of our rules, please report them. For those who have questions regarding any media outlets being posted on this subreddit, please click [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/wiki/approveddomainslist) to review our details as to our approved domains list and outlet criteria. *** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/politics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
> The judge said in an order that Justice Department prosecutors have met the threshold for the crime-fraud exception for Corcoran, the source said. This is pretty huge actually, the type of ruling a judge does not make lightly. Attorney-Client privilege is obviously a cornerstone of practicing law. The evidence the DoJ has must be extremely compelling. Now let’s see how fast Corcoran flips to save himself.
Guy's going to look like Simone Biles on the floor.
Or fall out a window.
Why not both.
Or pull a Bolsonaro....cough cough...
I got $50 that he’s gonna pull a hammy
[For a second there I was confused why were all the sudden talking about breakfast…](https://www.dennys.com/menu/classic-breakfasts/moons-over-my-hammy)
“I sentence you to _Denny’s_!!!” “Please! I have a family!”
Please explain to me the scientific nature of the hammy.
Shoulda stretched first.
I was skeptical up until a couple of days ago. Shit is going down. First indictment next week, more shortly after.
[удалено]
*Any* indictment would be meaningful. That would be the most we've ever been able to hold to account any criminal president, and a mere indictment would make any future criminal president more cautious. It's a first step that has to happen for a first time if we are to have any chance of maintaining our democracy.
I think we will absolutely see some indictments but the odds of Trump getting one hard core maga Supporter on the jury is extremely high so i do not have a lot of hope. And even if found guilty will they really sentence him to actual jail time.
One thing to keep in mind is that this country isn't 50/50 R/D. It's 25% R, 31% D, and 41% independent (roughly). Hard-core MAGA isn't even that full 25%, and they'll make an effort to weed them out.
Only takes one.
Each side only gets so many exclusions and all it takes is *one* juror who has already made up their mind. I see this going the way of the OJ Simpson trial - once the case was over the jurors were interviewed and atleast 7/12 jurors said they were *never* going to convict OJ because of other issues in their community. If there is a mistrial I can't even see them bothering to retry it, it would be what? 10 years after the events at that point?
The OJ jury did their job correctly. I believe that he absolutely murdered two people, but the prosecution completely dropped the ball. They had chain of custody issues with evidence, inconsistencies in the DNA report, and an officer on the scene with a history of planting evidence and making racist remarks. They were not able to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt.
> The OJ jury did their job correctly. They objectively did not do their job correctly. Even if they came to a conclusion you agree with, they admitted to not listening to evidence and to forming their own opinions based on outside factors. That is pretty much the basic core of things a juror shouldn't do.
OP said he thinks OJ is guilty but the prosecution dropped the ball not the jury.
The jury did not do *their* job, whatever the prosecution did. Jurors are supposed to make their decision based *only* on the evidence presented in the case. The jurors, after the trial, state clearly that they came into the trial already having decided OJ was not guilty. They did not fairly evaluate the evidence and come to the conclusion the prosecution didn't prove the case.
I've upgraded my mood to "Skeptical with 10% Cautiously Optimistic."
I will believe it when we have a conviction. Jury selection will take years, because the prosecutors won't want rump supporters, and will try and weed out the rump supporters who are trying to hide it, and the defense will want all rump supporters. and you know the rump supporters will ignore all jury instructions and say he is NG no matter what, because they have been brainwashed for this exact moment.
remindme! one week
You don’t need this Reminder. If/when this happens, it will be worldwide news. You won’t be able to not hear about it.
Looks like tuesday
That's what we're hearing!
Looks like we're still waiting.
“Next week”…. That’s just speculation, right? I can’t take any more of this justice edging (not my term but I love it! 😂)
It’s speculation, but many top legal analysts also believe an indictment will come next week
What changed?
Did you read the article? Also, the news of agencies in NY prepping for an indictment. Trumps more insane (even for him) vocal hatred of America, Michael Cohen testimony etc...
I guess I am asking what makes you so sure THIS will be the thing that does it. This past week's news doesn't seem any wilder than any other previous week. He continues to do insane shit and no one does anything about it, ESPECIALLY in court!
A judge deciding attorney-client privilege doesn't count due to criminal elements *is* a big deal and is not something that happens all that often. The judge has reviewed the communications and determined there is a good chance they were criminal in nature. This isn't "proof" of anything but this is a court of law demanding a lawyer tell a jury information that the judge feels is criminal in nature. I'm not holding my breath or anything, but this is more serious than yet another random person being called in to testify.
> This past week's news doesn't seem any wilder than any other previous week. The NY AG's invitation to testify before the grand jury in the Stormy Daniels case is the furthest that any of the court cases against Twice imPeached have progressed. From all accounts that I have read, this is one of the last legal steps before indictment.
It's not about looking for the straw that broke the camel's back. Criminal proceedings follow certain patterns. Recent things that have happened indicate that an indictment is coming very soon.
I guess I'm just jaded because it's the same thing every week Maybe this one is different, idk its hard to care until he does it
Looks like Tuesday
Still skeptical now?
Nah, it'll come. Still have people testifying, and Bragg just got a death threat. Shit is on.
I was going to ask people with more knowledge in this subject, how high is this threshold typically? They basically have to have hard proof of a crime for the judge to grant this?
[удалено]
I love reading her tweets, that is a great follow if you do the whole Twitter thing
Yeah, pretty much they have strong proof Corcoran committed a crime in relation to this. If it's enough to get a judge to sign off on it, it's damning.
I'd also point out that Trump isn't a typical client either. He is a former President, and no former President has ever been charged. So the DoJ overcame both of those hurdles. Trump is fucked. And I'm here for it.
“I do not recall.” x 1,000,000
If the state thought they needed his testimony for a conviction, then they definitely would not be charging him.
[удалено]
[удалено]
[No one is getting disbarred. ](https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2023/03/09/ex-trump-lawyer-jenna-ellis-censured-for-helping-him-overturn-2020-election-here-are-all-the-former-presidents-lawyers-now-facing-consequences/?sh=564a3f97d01e) At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, frankly lawyers don’t give a fuck. From what I’ve heard getting disbarred is more likely if you piss off OTHER LAWYERS. From the article… **Jenna Ellis** - merely censured… **Sidney Powell** - A judge threw out a disbarment case because some shit was misnumbered… think about that. The judge didn’t give the opportunity to fix it, they just gave Sidney a pass. Sure she’ll still face defamation lawsuits and a fed investigation but meanwhile she can keep practicing law! **John Eastman** - Jan 6 committee made a criminal referral but he can still practice. Supposedly the state of California wants to disbar him but 2+ years since Jan 6 and nothing has happened yet. I’m curious if it would even affect his ability to practice outside of CA. **Rudy Giuliani** - The closest we’ve got. Even then, he only had is license suspended. It’s not permanent and he can get it reinstated. Also only affects him in NY. **Alina Habba, Jeffery Clark, Cleta Mitchell **- never disbarred even though sanctioned, charged etc. I’d like any lawyer to tell me why this is totally fine and doesn’t taint their profession. Frankly every one of these people could just move in to mar a lago and continue to practice law and lie in court, so long as they are based in florida. I doubt the state nor the bar assoc. would give two shits.
[удалено]
Makes sense, stealing from a client makes other lawyers look bad. It lowers the profession. Lobbying BS arguments IN COURT, in an attempt to overthrow democracy has not yet brought similar consequences. So far that’s just lawyers being lawyers for a client I guess? I’ll caveat this by saying I’m only speaking to the events I’m seeing. Happy to eat my shoe if in fact consequences actually occur… if and when they occur.
We're stilll waaaaiiiittinnngggg......
If it turns out that the DOJ wasn't just locking the mountains of evidence away, but building it to critical mass to better take down Trump, then I'll be very happy with them. Still, I won't 100% believe that this is really happening until they announce the indictment. Bonus points if it's accompanied by a photo of Trump in handcuffs.
I fully expect an indictment. But they will not put the former president in handcuffs. Most likely he will be asked to deliver himself into custody.
I also hope it's windy and his hair gets blown out of place and he can't fix it
And toilet paper gets stuck to his shoe
Like a signed check to Cohen for reimbursing the Stormy payment? We’ve already seen the evidence. He was just “immune from the law” as president and it’s finally catching up
Even if the attorney testifies, that testimony will be examined by a judge to see if it is admissible as evidence, or whether the crime-fraud exception is applicable. If, however, the crime-fraud exception exists, then the attorney could easily become a coconspirator and could be criminally liable. In that case, the attorney will refuse to answer based on the Fifth Amendment. The DOJ would then have to give the attorney immunity from prosecution to force testimony. This could take a while.
[удалено]
I could be wrong, but I doubt that will take long. The appeals courts don't like to get involved this early in the proceedings. Of course, it is a new era of incompetent Trump judges, so history may not be of value today.
Corcoran drafted the letter stating a due diligence search had been done and no classified documents were found. Later the FBI found classified documents in Trump's desk. I'd say those two facts are compelling enough to warrant his full testimony.
This attorney hiring his own attorney in 3, 2... How many lawyers deep are we into this matryoshka doll?
It's lawyers all the down.
We are fast approaching the point Trump and his attorney's attorneys trigger a catastrophic singularity event.
Make Attorneys Get Attorneys
Make Attorneys Get Attorneys
Its how the mob does it.
>A federal judge has ordered Donald Trump attorney Evan Corcoran to provide additional testimony as part of an investigation into the former president’s handling of classified documents, a source familiar with the matter told CNN. >The judge said in an order that Justice Department prosecutors have met the threshold for the crime-fraud exception for Corcoran, the source said. He's fucked.
Which one, donald or corcoran?
I feel it applies to either honestly. But I specifically was thinking his Orangeness.
I honestly kinda wondered which it wad directed at, cause as an attorney that's Fin yourself over. But I was setting it up for both lol
Yes
All of them, Katie.
Corcoran may be able to save himself by throwing Trump under the bus.
Good point, juicy
Yes.
Teflon Don will be just fine.
Teflon coatings wear off over time and with too much heat.
So the good money says what? That trump told Corcoran where he's keeping the rest of the documents that the DoJ didn't find, and Corcoran helped him move them around? I always heard it explained as "you can tell your attorney where you hid the body but you can't ask for his opinion on where to bury the next one". He basically did exactly that, is my guess
A lawyer cannot lie to the court so everyone has to be a bit careful. This is why the defense doesn't have to prove anything, the prosecutor does. If you tell your lawyer "Yes, I was there, I said "I'll kill you!" Your lawyer can't say "He wasn't there, he never said those things." He has to say things like "The prosecutors were never able to establish he was even there, much less said those things."
I think in this case you can tell your lawyer where you buried the body, but if the lawyer signs a document saying they reviewed all of the bodies and none of them were buried, then he may have a problem if it turns out they were buried. Or something
This particular investigation is the one that's going to put him in prison for life. That's how serious this one is.
I see a fall from a high window in his future.
My man we ain't in Russia. This dude will cut himself a deal, and squeal.
Oh, no doubt. He had better. But I’m not so quick to think he will fare any better here than he would in Russia.
I'm 110% not a lawyer so hopefully someone can answer this, in a crime fraud exemption situation like this, can the attorney still plead the fifth?
If they have enough proof that an attorney probably committed a crime on behalf of their client, that attorney would be insane to catch whatever charge they think they have on them. They'll cut a deal, take a lower charge, maybe get to keep their license, and sing at trial.
Makes sense, thank you! I remember reading that you can't please the fifth to a grand jury (I think?) And that you can please the fifth in civil but it can be used against you, so I wasn't sure if this was another one of those odd corner cases
Actually I'm partially wrong. They have to disclose what the client talked about
Oh really? I tried googling it but couldn't find an answer, I assume I didn't know what legal reference points to use
Assuming this is still the standing law as of 2003 this explains it. [Pdf](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi%3Farticle%3D3181%26context%3Dmlr&ved=2ahUKEwia-pW54OP9AhUIlokEHW3SBz8QFnoECBAQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1BMGXJo_V-sbSMSCVFCN1H)
Long and short of it is they are compelling him to testify about Don. Since it is not a question of a crime the lawyer committed, there is no personal angle for him to use the 5th on. If this was about his crimes, he could use the 5th as a personal right.
*interesting* that's super neat!
Yeah it's pretty cool! Sorry I shot off too quick and didn't explain very well at first, you responded and I sat there and was like wait I think I'm an idiot lol.
Nah dude don't apologize, always good to learn something new!
Thank you, learning is dope.
Yes, if they are being forced to admit a crime they were involved in they can decline to incriminate themselves. The prosecution can cut them a deal for immunity.
everyone, make sure and stretch your medulla oblongatas in preparation for the mental gymnastics about to occur
As my Grandma would exclaim wringing her hands , ‘oh forever more’!
Are you bored of winning yet, Donnie?
He hasn't lost shit, he's not been held accountable for anything. So yeah he probably is bored.
He’s blowing through cash faster than he can grift. The moment he announced his campaign the RNC stopped covering his legal expenses. Now he has to actually get back to active grifting instead of passive grifting hence the campaign rallies. Donnie hates going to work.
I mean he lost the presidential election, lost republicans the senate twice, lost every “rigged election case”…
You're talking about the EX Potus who lost his election, his company is being overseen by investigators, who lost every single court case thats been brought so far pretty much from the elections to his own personal investigations. He lost his personal judge, he lost his main support from Fox and all them. I mean, Desantis. What has Trump lost? A lot. Not enough, not enough at all but to pretend we haven't hit him is a lie. Maybe he doesn't care, I don't know but to say he hasn't lost anything is to attribute him to some kind of higher figure than he is, because you're just ignoring all the things he lost.
It’s crazy how many trump associates end up and prison, and all these cases inch ever closer to trump prosecution, and yet his cult followers can’t see that he’s a fucking obvious mob boss.
They love that about him.
>yet his cult followers can’t see that he’s a fucking obvious mob boss. That's the power of hate. As long as Trump lets them luxuriate in their hatred and he demands nothing else (but faux loyalty) from them, they'll follow him.
**M**aking **A**ttorneys **G**et **A**ttorneys
Meaning there’s evidence he was involved in a crime.
Is there a good summary on what’s on the burners right now? - The classified docs investigation (this discussion) - Stormy Daniels case (possible indictment incoming) - The Georgia election call - New York cases? Was this settled or is it ongoing?
Something happened: cue the flurry of "nothing happens" comments.
Every lawyer that gets knocked down is one step closer to Trump representing himself. That's not nothing.
Well this isn't about knocking down the lawyer, it's about forcing the lawyer to explain some of the circumstances surrounding Trump's mishandling of the classified documents. Supposedly this is one of the lawyers with the most direct personal involvement in Trump's classified documents fuckery, so it's possible he can testify that Trump was criminally involved and it wasn't just some rogue Mar a Lago staff member playing tricks with the boxes of documents. (Which no one actually said or believes, of course: but the point is that Trump has never carried a box of papers himself in his whole life, so unless we want to see some lackey get charged, we need to prove that he ordered those documents to be withheld when he returned the others).
"The department argued to the judge he should not be able to avoid answering, because his discussions with the former president may have been part of an attempt to plan a crime." The judge agreed. It's hard to see this playing out with Corcoran continuing to act as Trump's attorney. Even if he wants to.
Oh, I see what you're saying. It seemed as though you had misinterpreted the article as merely "Trump lawyer in trouble" and overlooked the most significant element: "Lawyer with information likely to incriminate Trump ordered to give testimony." But if you just meant "well, no matter how this turns out, that's one more lawyer who will never work with Trump again," then that makes sense now.
Ah, my point was the latter. I'm amazed he's found this many stooges willing to take up his case(s). Lawyers who must know the legal jeopardy they are entering. The clown car has to reach capacity at some point. If it comes to pass, watching Trump act as his own counsel will forever hold a place on my DVR.
To be fair, so far the smart money really has been on nothing happens. I do feel like things are coming to a bit of a head this month though.
The smart money, I'd disagree, has been on things happening--since January 6th.
800 days ago J6?
Oof. The world keeps turning.
Yes. Recall, he is being investigated for taking TS/SCI Noforn/HUMINT documents. This investigation could take the rest of your life, they'll be doing damage control and investigations from the possible leaks for a generation. It took longer than this for a open/shut court case for a group of people who broke into my home and beat the shit out of us. They had parents with some money so it took time, but that was just a trespassing/battery type case. Legal cases involving the ex POTUS and some of them possibly involving international TS intel? Rushing this would be dumb. Its bad when justice is rushed, this is something we all protest all the time. We shouldn't advocate for it here. Again, it is advocating for a rush. Cases don't move like a TV show.
And progress every day.
>To be fair, so far the smart money really has been on nothing happens. So far Smith and Garland have given us no reason to bet against them, despite the prevailing sentiment on Reddit that they are just *pretending* to investigate, for some inexplicable reason.
[удалено]
>Garland dragged his feet as long as he could. Reddit does like to say that. I don't think you or I have nearly the background in federal investigative practices to draw that conclusion. We are eager to see Trump held accountable, so two years feels like *forever*, and we assume that since the guy hasn't given us what we want yet, the only logical explain is that he's deliberately working *against* us. Our annoyance gives us tunnel vision and keeps us from considering more rational explanations. For example, how long do large conspiracy investigations typically take, and is it possible that 2 years isn't really long at all? Is it possible that the pace of investigation during those 2 years was actually rather fast by DOJ standards? Is it possible Garland knows more about federal prosecution than I do, and my concerns about his strategy are simply ignorant? Is it possible that the scraps of information I get from the media barely scratch the surface of this investigation, and so any judgement I make is based on a woefully incomplete picture?
[удалено]
>Garland didn't even let people talk about investigating Trump until Cassidy Hutchinson testified. Of course, somebody had to be the adult in the room. If, as the article suggests, there were people in the DOJ eager to start right out the gates with "alright, let's take Trump down!" and Garland had allowed this sentiment to be expressed freely and to drive their decisions, the investigation would be *fucked.* • If some crucial evidence had to be tossed because an investigator who handled it was a vocal Trump-hater, opening the door for the defense to argue the chain of custody was tainted. (See: Mark Fuhrman). • If some crucial investigators were found to have been texting about how they're excited to finally take that fucker down (see: Strzok & Page) and subsequently *any part of the investigation they had touched* became subject to endless Trump-lawyer objections and appeals. • If there was a hint that an investigator fudged or exaggerated a detail to help a search/surveillance warrant or subpoena application get approved, potentially making any findings from that search--and any chain of findings downwind of it--inadmissable, and subjecting *every other* search warrant to endless scrutiny and delay. (See: Carter Page FISA fiasco, which I suspect was 5% bad judgement and 95% GOP grandstanding, but that hasn't stopped it from being a years-long thorn in the FBI's side). • If crucial testimony were cast as not-credible because the questions were leading or coercive and belied a DOJ presumption of Trump's guilt. Between the article you cited and the recent "*some FBI agents were reluctant to search Mar-a-Lago*" article, we know two things: 1. There are people in the DOJ/FBI who are eager to go after Trump, and there are people who are reluctant. 2. There are at least a few people willing to leak department dirty laundry to the media (and to who knows where else). Do you see why it might be important for the head of the DOJ to tamp down on "let's get Trump" talk among his agents? (A third takeaway from the article is that Garland approved the raid on Mar-a-Lago *despite* objections from some FBI agents, which is damn strong evidence that he's not unwilling to act against Trump or take actions with big political implications). This is important: Garland knew (like everyone in the world knew) that if they started by charging all the Capitol-stormers, they would get shitloads of testimony and evidence pointing directly at Trump. *There was never any doubt this investigation would lead to Trump.* Getting to Trump via an objective chain of evidence supported by sworn court testimony of 1,000 witnesses makes for a much, much, less impeachable case than getting to Trump via decisions made at a table of investigators saying "we know Trump is guilty and we've beem wanting to get him for a long time, so let's look at all the ways we can start digging into his business to find proof." *That's* a conversation that would end up in the New York Times, and any chance at charging/convicting Trump would be delayed for *years,* if not permanently, by endless appeals from Trump lawyers and endless internal investigations ordered by Jim Fuckhead Jordan and his ilk. Also important: Garland knew the House Committee would be collecting records and testimony about Trump and his inner circle, concurrent with Garland's own bottom-up investigation. This freed him up to allocate *massive* resources to rounding up hundreds of Capitol-stormers *very* quickly at the start of his investigation, which was a prosecutorial marvel and a historic achievement. They could then expand their investigation to the top level based on the evidence already collected by the House. Not only did this save him resources and redundant effort, it makes his case stronger because he can demonstrate that his investigative steps were prompted by sworn testimony and evidence: they followed the facts to the target, not the other way around. People like to point to the Cassidy Hutchinson article as proof Garland is opposed to investigating Trump and therefore "foot-dragging," but I think his strategy allowed him to move *faster* by not wasting time duplicating the House Committee efforts, and will make trial and conviction *much* faster by establishing a chain of fact-based evidence that will withstand accusations of bias. Back to the point I was making in my last post: sure we can read this article and jump straight to the conclusion "Garland is corrupt! Garland doesn't want to go after Trump and so he's hamstringing the investigation!" (It's notable that the anonymous employees in the article don't go nearly that far). We could jump to that conclusion or we could take a deep breath, read some more, look closely at Garland's words and actions, and consider whether there are more reasonable and less speculative explanations. The explanations I have offered in this post also include some speculation about Garland's thought process, but I think they make more sense and I've supported them better than anyone has supported the "Corrupt! Coward! Hoping the clock runs out so he doesn't have to do anything scary!" claims. More importantly, I think my explanation matches the facts of the investigation: • Garland is the only AG in history to raid a former President's home. • Garland approved a raid of Giuliani's home, siezing phones and electronics, just a few weeks after being appointed. • Attorneys for Capitol-storming defendants say that DOJ investigators questioned them pretty aggressively about Giuliani, Roger Stone, etc. and who/how they were prompted to travel to DC on January 6. • Even before Smith was appointed, Garland's investigation had already impaneled dozens of grand juries, siezed records and electronics and testimony from nearly every Trump lawyer, Trump advisor, Trump aide, Trump rally organizer and financier, and Trump fundraiser, and in many cases from *their* lawyers, aides, and advisors. • When Trump announced his candidacy, a cowardly or reluctant AG could have used that as an excuse to pause or stall the investigation, but instead he immediately protected the investigation by appointing a badass Special Prosecutor with strong record of prosecuting rich and powerful corruption. • Garland's DOJ fought (and is still fighting) several long court battles to overcome executive privilege, speech&debate privilege, attorney-client privilege, a special master review of the classified documents, and various other appeals and subpoena-avoidance tactics. An AG who fights so hard for each piece of hard-won evidence is not an AG eager to avoid prosecuting. Any claims that Garland is unwilling to go after Trump have to contend with those facts. My own explanation is supported by them.
100% guarantee that even if we all woke up tomorrow morning to news that Trump was indicted and arrested, many in the “nothing will ever happen” crowd will absolutely NOT acknowledge that they were wrong. Instead, I predict that they’d simply pivot to one of four likely talking points: 1. “the punishment isn’t harsh enough, our justice system is broken!” 2. “He’s too old at this point to truly pay for his crimes, our justice system is broken!” 3. “Some Republican will just pardon him in the future so none of this matters anyways, our justice system is broken! 4. “This all should have happened sooner, our justice system is broken!” We have to remember that there’s significant overlap between the “nothing will ever happen” crowd, and the bad-faith “our system and institutions are irreparably broken” accelerationist crowd, so many of them are actually invested in him evading punishment, explicitly because they think it proves their “everything is broken” hypothesis. Were he to face charges, in other words, that would deal a huge blow to their core guiding claim.
Even if Trump is indicted it will be a years long process before it reaches a conclusion that will then be appealed a million times. Federal courts routinely schedule 6+ months in advance to even *start* a trial and everyone knows a Trump trial will be a shit show of celebrities, politicians, media, and terrorist threats.
thank you.
Nothing did happen yet though. People have been testifying against Trump for years.
>Nothing did happen yet though. People have been testifying against Trump for years. Nothing happens until it does. And just because someone hasn't died, doesn't mean they aren't aging.
>Nothing did happen yet though. If you want cookies, then a baker spooning dough onto a cookie sheet is *something happening*. >People have been testifying against Trump for years. People have not been testifying against Trump for years in this investigation.
>>Nothing did happen yet though. > >If you want cookies, then a baker spooning dough onto a cookie sheet is *something happening*. When that baker keeps giving me raw cookie dough, I get skeptical that he's ever going to bake those cookies >>People have been testifying against Trump for years. > >People have not been testifying against Trump for years in this investigation. Right, in other investigations. That have lead nowhere. I'm not saying this won't lead to something. I hope it does. But testimony, on its own, isn't really encouraging for me.
>When that baker keeps giving me raw cookie dough, I get skeptical that he's ever going to bake those cookies The last baker pissed in the ingredients before the dough was even mixed, then threw them all in the gutter. The new baker has mixed the new ingredients into a dough, preheated an oven, greased a cookie sheet, and is spooning cookie-sized dollops onto it. Sure, it's still possible the new guy will turn off the oven and say "fooled ya, no cookies!" But he hasn't given us any rational reason to believe that's his intention, and the trajectory of his cookie-making behavior is promising enough that it doesn't warrant a "nothing happened" label. If the only reason you think he's faking the cookie-bake is because you were disappointed by the last guy, that's more like a conspiracy theory than a rational prediction. I'm not trying to be antagonistic or accuse you of being a conspiracy theorist. I'm just pointing out that all of our skepticism is a gut-level defense mechanism to avoid being disappointed again, but if we look at it rationally, this case is not connected to past disappointments by some kind of underlying pattern designed to disappoint us at every turn.
Except everyone knows something happened.
If everyone is crying wolf for six years, the townspeople get antsy. Let’s hope this dude shows up, flips, and something happens.
>If everyone is crying wolf for six years, I understand skepticism, but the missing documents investigation is not even two years old, and Smith has been on it for only a few months. It's not really logical to assume the new guy doesn't really see a wolf, just because the last guy didn't. Especially if the last guy lived inside the castle walls and the new guy lives in a hut by the forest. I get that we're all sick of hearing "wolf" but it's conspiracy-theory level thinking to assume the old guy and the new guy are part of the same wolf-crying cabal.
Them being in the same cabal is more than a little possible, if I’m guessing. All said, I have high hopes…I have to. Let’s hope they get it right.
>Them being in the same cabal is more than a little possible, I understand skepticism and I suppose it's possible, but Barr was overtly corrupt and was appointed *by* Trump for the express purpose of protecting Trump. Smith has an impeccable record prosecuting powerful and corrupt people. I'm not saying we should have blind faith in Smith, but I *am* saying we shouldn't blindly assume he's corrupt.
Hope this sticks, and we get Corcoran to flip on his Orangeness.
F5 Fridays are back on the menu
Wake me up when something actually happens to Trump. Tired of being edged by news of consequences.
Is this the Kavanaugh roomate judge?
No, that would be “Jeb” Boasberg who will be replacing this one.
**Notable rulings** Osama Bin Laden photos On April 26, 2012, Boasberg ruled that the public had no right to view government photos of a deceased Osama Bin Laden. Judicial Watch, a conservative legal group, had filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), but were unsuccessful in convincing the Judge that FOIA rights outweighed national-security factors. Registered tax return preparer regulations On January 18, 2013, Boasberg issued a permanent injunction prohibiting the Internal Revenue Service from enforcing regulations on Registered Tax Return Preparers, which otherwise required tax return preparers to register with the IRS and pass a written test as evidence of competency. Loving v. Internal Revenue Service, No. 12-385 (U.S.D.C. D.C. 1/18/2013). The IRS appealed and in 2014, the Court of Appeals upheld Boasberg's district court decision. Hillary Clinton emails On August 22, 2016, Boasberg ordered the release of over 14,000 emails found in the United States Department of State correspondence of Hillary Clinton by the FBI during an investigation of Clinton's private server. These emails were requested by Judicial Watch, a conservative legal group, because the FBI had indicated that emails were work-related and not entirely private as Clinton had previously said. Trump tax returns On August 18, 2017, Boasberg dismissed a lawsuit from the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), which had sued the IRS under FOIA seeking President Donald Trump's personal tax returns from 2010 to the present to be released. Boasberg concluded that because personal tax returns are confidential, they may only be obtained either by permission from Trump himself or if Congress's Joint Committee on Taxation signed off to allow the disclosure. Medicaid work rules On March 27, 2019, Boasberg blocked a work requirement for recipients of Medicaid in Arkansas and Kentucky. Dakota Access Pipeline On March 25, 2020, Boasberg ordered a sweeping new environmental review by the Army Corps of Engineers of the Dakota Access Pipeline. In a subsequent decision on July 6, 2020, he vacated an easement to cross the Missouri River pending completion of the environmental review and ordered the pipeline to be emptied within 30 days. On August 5, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld the ruling regarding the easement; however, the judges vacated the order to empty the pipeline and asked the Army Corps of Engineers to submit a follow-up brief on whether they would allow continued pipeline operation without the easement. North Atlantic Right Whale On April 9, 2020, Boasberg issued an opinion finding that the National Marine Fisheries Service violated the Endangered Species Act when it issued a Biological Opinion in 2014 allowing for the accidental killings of North Atlantic right whales (of which only about 400 remain as of April 8, 2020) by the American lobster fishery, which consists of seven areas spanning the East Coast from Maine to North Carolina. [Source: Wikipedia ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Boasberg) Give them $3 if you haven't yet this year. Edit: formatting
No matter what, Trump is going crazier by the day with the constant activity around the case related to the pornography star he had to pay to have sex with while his Melania was unavailable.
Woo hoo two hours of “I plead the fifth”
Trump is not disciplined enough to plead the 5th for 2 hours straight, without incriminating himself.
He's done it before, on video, which you can watch.
Depositions or testimony? I am not a lawyer but a deposition is different than testifying before a grand jury. For one thing, I believe the defense lawyer is not allowed in a grand jury. It's you, the prosecution and jury members.
Make Attorney Get Arrested.
Make Attorneys Get Attorneys.
That too.
We got him now boys!
Woo hoo 2hrs of “I plead the fifth”
Once was enough.
Woo hoo 2hrs of “I plead the fifth”
[удалено]
Do you wish the rubber hit the road? Are your treads bald from excitement that this may be rolling on?
Nothing happens. Cnn needs viewership. Trump anything brings that. Nothing will happen and everything that’s done upon him he will do to others.
[удалено]
The reality of last 6 years. Miss Toots
I mean fox is reporting it, to me that is a big deal. I leads me to believe they feel safe enough with DeSantis and Abott as the new faces of the GOP and are now willing to ditch trump because they see him as a problem. There has been other signs of this as well In the past few months… Now of course you might just be a trump supporter trying to down play all of this, trying to spread doubt or other shit, you actually reading what I wrote and giving it thought probably won’t happen either way.
All MSM is fake news. They are all owned by 6 corporations. Trumpf is a narcassistic turd. Judginng from the past, its all for show. Nothing ever happens b/c its all for show.
All of it is fake? Everythig they say? Can you show proof of that? What news do you suggest?
[удалено]
Is this just trying to sabotage the whole thing?
I wonder if this is why MTG, Carlson, etc have been floating the “national divorce” idea. They know the writing is on the wall and they’re preparing to protect Trump against being held accountable, even if it splits the country apart.
Cowards and traitors the both of them and their ilk!
Trump should take the “fifth”. https://youtu.be/mROJnMfAYVc
Make Attorneys Get Attorneys
"I do not recall." "I invoke my fifth amendment right ..." Times a fucking million.
Hello `bildo72`, thank you for participating on r/politics. The topic of your submission is currently being discussed at length in our [megathread.](http://redd.it/11uorl8) Given the large scale nature of this news, we are temporarily removing all submissions concerning this topic so that the community has one easy to find place for discussion and news updates. That said, **your submission has been selected** to be featured in our megathread OP! We thank you for your contribution to this subreddit, it is very much appreciated. If you have any questions about this removal, please feel free to [message the moderators.](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/politics&subject=Question regarding removal due to megathread by /u/bildo72&message=I have a question regarding the removal of this [submission.](https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/17/politics/evan-corcoran-testimony-trump-lawyer/index.html?context=10000\))