Dropping the case in Florida

No surprise here.

By hook or by crook

Trump 2.0 is essentially all crook.

Everyone knows that with Trump now in office the Department will move to dismiss the [stolen documents] case against Trump’s two co-defendants (as it has precipitously done with respect to all pending J6 defendants in Washington D.C.). Trump is hardly going to prosecute his two co-defendants, particularly since any trial will put front and center his own actions and result in his being a central witness in the case.

Yet, the Department has not moved to dismiss its appeal of the Cannon decision [to block release of the Smith report] — the only live activity left in that case. At least, not yet. And there’s the rub.

[...]

Indeed, the only legal issue preventing the release of the Jack Smith Mar-a-Lago report is the pendency of that appeal— that is the reason given by former Attorney General Garland for not making it public, and it is the reason given by Judge Cannon for not even permitting then-Attorney General Garland to share the report with certain select members of Congress. Indeed, this evanescent stumbling block (ie the inevitability of Trump’s DOJ dropping the criminal case) led many (including this author) to wonder why former Attorney General Garland did not move to dismiss the Cannon appeal, so that he would be able to further the settled public interest in the release of as much of Special Counsel reports as possible.

[...]

It is hard to come up with a more plausible reason for the Department’s odd sloth – made all the more striking by the new administration’s lightning speed in dismissing the J6 cases – than to thwart any efforts by Democrats, reporters and others from gaining access to the Smith report.

[...]

This inaction of course protects Trump. But it also serves another function. By not moving to dismiss the appeal now, the Department does not risk the report being unveiled – a report that is likely to cast substantial doubt on factual assertions made by Kash Patel. It had been widely reported that Patel claimed to have witnessed Trump declassifying the documents wholesale. Presumably to learn about this claim, Patel was reportedly called to the grand jury by Smith and asserted his fifth amendment rights (as is well within his rights). But Smith is reported to have obtained an immunity order which would require Patel to then testify under oath in the grand jury. Whether he did so, and what he then said (to the grand jury and/or to investigators) is unknown. And what remains under seal as well is Smith’s presumably detailed factual refutation of Patel’s public claim.

  Just Security

UPDATE 01/29/2025:  They're dropping the case now.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Rely on Garland?

This makes sense.  That report will never see the light of day if Garland doesn't release it now.  It will most likely "disappear".  And, Trump is either going to drop the case against these two himself, or pardon them, so what's the point in keeping it open?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Aileen stands aside - sort of

Federal Judge Aileen Cannon on Monday denied a request to extend an injunction banning the Justice Department from releasing a volume of a report former special counsel Jack Smith issued on President-elect Donald Trump's efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss.

  MSN

I'm still not convinced we'll see any of it.

Clarence Thomas sits over the 11th Circuit.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 04:50 pm:

UPDATE 01/14/2025:  

Didn't happen.  Perhaps Thomas - or Alito - alerted Trump that they wouldn't stand in the way.  Smith's January 6 report is released.

Cannon balls

Why?  She doesn't have anything to do with the January  6 case.

Both sad and disgusting.  This was Smith's case to try.

Nor will a lot of Americans.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 01/12/2025:

"Totally exonerated"

I think it would be more accurate to say he was already formally convicted, and he has now been sentenced.  Whatever.  There's no practical difference.

"An injustice of justice."

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 11:00 am:

In some distant future, Mark.  In some distant future.

Donald Trump decried that his hush money trial was a “witch hunt” during his sentencing hearing Friday, but he saved his biggest fireworks for a post-hearing rant on Truth Social.

“After spending tens of millions of dollars, wasting over 6 years of obsessive work that should have been spent on protecting New Yorkers from violent, rampant crime that is destroying the City and State, coordinating with the Biden/Harris Department of Injustice in lawless Weaponization, and bringing completely baseless, illegal, and fake charges against your 45th and 47th President, ME, I was given an UNCONDITIONAL DISCHARGE,” he wrote in part.

Trump’s sentence of unconditional discharge means he will face no prison time, fines, or probation. However, he will carry the distinction of being the first president in U.S. history to be a felon when he’s sworn in on Jan. 20.

  Daily Beast

Big deal. He's also the first president to incite an insurrection in order to try to stay in office. He's the first president to refuse to divest in, and instead use for profit owing to his position, his money-making properties. He's the first to graft and grift his way through his term. He's the first in a lot of things, and he'll be the first in a lot more and more horrible things in the next term.

[H]e was not a silent participant like he was when he attend hearings in New York.

He said “this has been a very terrible experience” and that his conviction was a “tremendous setback” for the New York court system.

He added that the trial was a “political witch hunt,” brought forward to damage his reputation and electoral chances ahead of the 2024 election. He added that he was “totally innocent.”

“I was treated very, very unfairly, and I thank you very much,” Trump said, closing his comments.

"I thank you very much." ??

Trump was less rational in a Truth Social post shortly after the hearing.

“The real Jury, the American People, have spoken, by Re-Electing me with an overwhelming MANDATE in one of the most consequential Elections in History,” he wrote. “As the American People have seen, this ‘case’ had no crime, no damages, no proof, no facts, no Law, only a highly conflicted Judge, a star witness who is a disbarred, disgraced, serial perjurer, and criminal Election Interference. Today’s event was a despicable charade.”

No crime? No proof? No facts? No law?

Friday’s sentence is likely not the end to this years-long saga. Trump and his attorneys have indicated they will appeal the conviction.

“Now that it is over, we will appeal this Hoax, which has no merit, and restore the trust of Americans in our once great System of Justice,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

UPDATE 01/11/2025:

Joyce Vance is a law professor and former federal prosecutor.  If she did explain it this way, I assume it was still speculation, and not because she knows it for a certainty.  Sounds very plausible, though.  Such a corrupt court.

Judge Juan Merchan's ruling spares Trump any jail time, fines or probation supervision for his conviction, though the sentence cements his status as the first convicted felon to hold the White House.

[...]

The president-elect was convicted in May on charges he falsified business records to cover up a sex scandal threatening to break during his first presidential campaign in 2016.

A jury found him guilty on all 34 counts.

[...]

The incoming president appeared remotely during the hearing with his lawyer on TV screens in the courtroom. Taking his opportunity to address the court, Trump maintained his innocence and said the case was a "tremendous setback" for the justice system.

"I'm totally innocent, I did nothing wrong," said Trump.

[...]

Under New York law, a judge can choose an unconditional discharge if they don't see prison time or probation as being in the public's best interest.

"An unconditional discharge is virtually nothing in terms of punishment," David Dorfman, a law professor at Pace University in New York, told CBC News in an interview Friday.

"You are now known forever as a felon, but basically there's no direct consequence to the 34 convictions. The former and soon-to-be-president owes nothing to the courts."

  CBC Canada

Or the American people.

With sentencing over, Trump is now free to formally appeal the jury's verdict. He cannot pardon himself because those presidential powers only apply to federal crimes, not those brought at the state level.

It will never end.

Canada is among dozens of countries in the world to refuse entry to felons. It will likely fall upon Canada's immigration minister to grant Trump special status to make him legally admissible for entry into the country moving forward.

Trump's remedy is to threaten to take over Canada.

Inch by inch

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 10:55 am:

Amen.

Sentencing will commence

UPDATE 01/10/2025:

Next up: SCOTUS

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 06:29 pm:  He did, and he voted to block sentencing.  Surprise.

Yeah, a convicted felon who got off scot free.

Only because he doesn't have to appear in person.

I hope Judge Merchan has extra protection tonight.  

And, of course Trump is grifting off the decision.

This was the email he sent out: “Today is your last day to activate this special deal. Sign my petition to DROP ALL CHARGES, and donate any amount before my sentencing day TOMORROW! Once you do this, I’ll throw your name in the hat for the drawing!”

  Meidas Touch

Pretty sure you can't petition the court for that.  Not that his willing dupes will know.

UPDATE 01/10/2025:

The clock is ticking

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 01:51 pm:

Denied - Part 2

Last Friday, Justice Juan Merchan rejected Trump’s bid to dismiss his criminal case. Barring intervention from a higher court, the president-elect will be sentenced on January 10 for 34 felony counts of creating a false business record.

[...]

Trump’s [ensuing] Truth Social meltdown continued through last weekend. But in fact Justice Merchan’s opinion is just as great a rebuke to Chief Justice John Roberts and his conservative brethren as it is to Trump himself.

[...]

In December, Justice Merchan rejected Trump’s immunity claims, finding that, if the underlying hush money scheme was personal conduct, then discussing it with his presidential aides was also unofficial. That leaves only the sentencing, which Trump is desperate to avoid. He successfully postponed it three times, including in September because it would appear “political” to pronounce judgment on the eve of the election. Then in November, Trump demanded that the verdict be vacated and sentencing canceled entirely, thanks to his status as president-elect.

[...]

Justice Merchan had little patience for these histrionics.

“Indeed, one of Defendant's most frequent arguments is that this Court should defer to the will of the citizenry who recently re-elected him to the Office of the Executive, notwithstanding an actual guilty verdict in this case,” he wrote. “Thus, whatever stigma that might have existed, will most certainly not interfere with Defendant's ability to carry out his duties — both as President-elect and as the sitting President.”

[...]

“[Trump's] Counsel has resorted to language, indeed rhetoric, that has no place in legal pleadings” he scolded. “For example, countless times in their Motion to Dismiss, counsel accuses the prosecution and this Court of engaging in ‘unlawful’ and ‘unconstitutional’ conduct.”

[...]

These ad hominem attacks are a blatant attempt to intimidate the court, backed up by Trump’s constant raving on social media, and the judge was right to call them out: “Dangerous rhetoric is not a welcome form of argument and will have no impact on how the Court renders this or any other Decision.”

In one sense, Justice Merchan was playing it straight when he quoted Chief Justice John Roberts’s end of year report decrying “intimidation” of the judiciary.

“Disappointed litigants rage at judicial decisions on the Internet, urging readers to send a message to the judge. They falsely claim that the judge had it in for them because of the judge’s race, gender, or ethnicity — or the political party of the President who appointed the judge,” Roberts lectured, adding that “public officials, too, regrettably have engaged in recent attempts to intimidate judges — for example, suggesting political bias in the judge’s adverse rulings without a credible basis for such allegations.”

But Roberts’s report is a shockingly craven document, likening legitimate criticism of the Court to intimidation. [...] Meanwhile, the chief justice blithely ignores the once and future president, who levels shocking abuse at judges, doxxes their family members, and ensures a torrent of death threats for judges, court staff, and prosecutors.

[...]

Indeed, the only jurist Roberts could muster explicit sympathy for was Trump sycophant Judge Aileen Cannon, “whose decisions in a high-profile case” — dismissing the entirety of the stolen documents case on the novel and ahistorical theory that special counsels are un-legal — “prompted an elected official to call for her impeachment.”

[...]

And so it’s impossible to read Justice Merchan’s “complete agreement with Chief Justice Roberts's views on this subject” as anything other than a subtweet of the person who has done the most to empower Trump, the greatest intimidator of the American judiciary in history.

[...]

Merchan worked hard to Trump-proof his ruling. He telegraphed in advance that the sentence will be functionally nothing, with no jail time to impair the presidency or the presidential transition.

[...]

Trump is also allowed appear remotely for Friday’s hearing, so any disruption or inconvenience will be minimal.

[...]

Justice Merchan denied the stay, after which they filed a marginally less incendiary petition with the New York’s Appellate Division. During a hearing Tuesday afternoon, Associate Justice Ellen Gesmer tossed the bid for emergency relief, observing to Blanche and Bove that the timing here is entirely a result of “a series of motions made by your client.”

  Public Notice

Trump's bleats are embedded in the article if you feel like punishing yourself.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Denied

Next stop NY Supreme Court.  Place your bets on whether SCOTUS will take on the case.  They only have two days to do it, and one of those is going to be used up by the NY Supreme Court.  Shadow docket? 

UPDATE 01/08/2025:  Or...straight to SCOTUS...

Disposing of the carcass

Where it will either gather dust or continue with whatever defendant is chosen as the scapegoat.

No surprise

I would be surprised if she keeps her job .  She earned it.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

That didn't work, try this

Going through the alphabet of possibilities...

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Judge Merchan ruling

A judge on Monday rejected Donald J. Trump’s argument that a recent Supreme Court ruling had nullified his criminal case in New York, upholding the former and future president’s felony conviction for falsifying records to cover up a sex scandal.

The judge’s ruling preserves, at least for now, the stain of Mr. Trump’s criminal conviction. And if the decision withstands an appeal, Mr. Trump could become the first felon to serve as president.

[...]

Trump’s lawyers seized on a particularly contentious portion of the high court’s ruling, which prohibited prosecutors from introducing evidence involving a president’s official acts even in a case about private misconduct. They argued that testimony from former White House employees had contaminated the verdict.

  NYT

He will remain the first felon to serve as president. A jury found him guilty. Nullifying it because of some misguided Supreme Court chicanery doesn't change that any more than a Catholic priest nullifying your marriage means you weren't married.

“The People’s use of these acts as evidence of the decidedly personal acts of falsifying business records poses no danger of intrusion on the authority and function of the executive branch,” the judge, Juan M. Merchan, wrote in a 41-page decision.

And even if the evidence was “admitted in error, such error was harmless,” he added, noting the “overwhelming evidence of guilt” introduced at trial.

Nice to see a judge refusing to buckle - like seemingly everyone around us - even while under death threats from Trump's lickspittle supporters.

Now, Trump will appeal to New York's supreme court, and, if they don't buckle, from there to the US Supreme Court. Those slimebuckets will probably let him have his way.

[P]rosecutors have signaled a willingness to freeze the case for four years while Mr. Trump holds office, a move that would indefinitely postpone his sentencing.

“This type of time-limited accommodation is far more appropriate than the sweeping relief that defendant requests here, which would render the indictment and jury verdict in this case a nullity and eliminate his accountability for the crimes that a jury of his peers found he committed by proof beyond a reasonable doubt,” the prosecutors wrote in a recent court filing.

Justice Merchan [...] has already paused the sentencing several times. Mr. Trump faces up to four years in prison, but he is unlikely to receive more than a few weeks or months behind bars in New York, according to legal experts.

Likely not even that.

Mr. Trump cannot be sent to jail while he is president, and the judge can choose to hold off on sentencing him until after his term ends. If Justice Merchan decides instead to address the matter now, he could choose to uphold the conviction but impose no jail time or any other punishment.

If Mr. Trump manages to avoid all punishment whatsoever in his only criminal case to make it to trial, it would complete a stunning turnabout from earlier this year, when he faced four indictments in four different jurisdictions.

The federal special counsel who brought two of those cases, one in Washington, D.C., and the other in Florida, recently shut down both of them, bowing to the Justice Department’s policy against prosecuting sitting presidents federally.

In Georgia, where a local prosecutor accused Mr. Trump of trying to subvert the state’s 2020 election results, Mr. Trump has already managed to delay the case indefinitely.

A mockery of justice.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 12/18/2024:  Someone is not happy.

There is no justice

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Trump will not be held accountable for any of his crimes

Aside from the money he's already had to pay E Jean Carroll.  And he'll be wanting that back.

He IS above the law, and we ARE going back.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 04:26 pm:

document here

Neither fear nor favor.