Is that RICO?

In this case, the ACLU’s attorneys argue that federal officers worked closely with the county sheriff and city police officers to terrorize families at the racetrack raid, and were therefore part of a conspiracy.

The conspiracy argument has succeeded before—most prominently, after federal officers conspired with state officers to murder Black Panther Party leader Fred Hampton in Chicago in 1969. It also was used to sue over an immigration raid in Tennessee during Trump’s first term. But ACLU attorney Jenn Rolnick Borchetta, who is working on the Idaho case, told me she hasn’t seen it tried during Trump’s second term, and that the outcome of the case could have implications far beyond this small Idaho town: All across the country, the Trump administration is collaborating closely with state and local police to carry out its mass-deportation agenda.

  Mother Jones

This looks like a lawsuit to watch closely.

Delay after delay after delay

His lawyers said they have too much on their plate with all the other court dates in his election subversion case and can't meet the original September 25 deadline.  

Reminder: there are two amicus briefs asking for Cannon to be removed from the case if the court reinstates it.  Jack Smith has not asked for that himself.

UPDATE 11:11 am:

Mar-A-Lago documents case on appeal

Did Lindsey Graham EVER have any credibility?

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

Cross your fingers

https://x.com/NormEisen/status/1812855922957422821/history

Don't hold your breath that Trump will ever be held accountable.

I think she may be right.  I thought she'd stall a little longer before dismissing.

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

UPDATE 12:44 pm:

Here's the more harrowing thought, as mentioned in the piece by Elie Mystal below:  They could put her on the 11th Circuit, thereby diluting the bench that has stood now as a check on her Trump favoritism.

UPDATE 04:42 pm:

Two weeks ago, the Supreme Court proved that it valued Trump over the rule of law when it granted him absolute immunity. Today, Aileen Cannon proved that she values Trump over the rule of law when she dismissed the charges against him. The rule of law is not failing, it has failed.

[...]

The authority of special counsels has been challenged by countless defendants across multiple presidential administrations from the case before—from Ronald Reagan’s to Bill Clinton’s. But courts have roundly rejected these challenges on the basis that the power to appoint special counsels is widely recognized by statutes and precedent. Until now, that is.

[...]

Federalist Society judges generally and Trump appointed judges specifically are not serious people. They don’t give a damn about what the rules have been or should be. The only laws, precedents, and norms they believe in are the ones that help them achieve their current political goals. [...] Trump judges understand that judges make the rules, and they consistently act like it.

[...]

Trump was going to escape these charges the moment Cannon was appointed as his judge, and everybody who has an honest understanding of what Trump judges do for a living knew it.

[...]

Her job is secure unless someone can find a majority of votes in the House and 67 votes in the Senate to impeach and convict her. So long as the Republicans she aides hold any shred of power, getting fired from her job is not something that Cannon ever has to worry about.

[...]

Jack Smith, of course, has no choice but to play the losing hand he’s been dealt to the bitter end. As to how he does that, he has two options. First and most likely, he can appeal Cannon’s dismissal to the 11th Circuit. The circuit court will likely stay the dismissal pending a full hearing on the merits, at which point Trump’s lawyers will appeal the 11th Circuit ruling to the Supreme Court. There, six judges who have already declared Trump immune from accountability for official acts while president will have to determine if their fear of Trump being held accountable for crimes he committed after he was president is so great that they need to functionally destroy the special counsel rule in order to get him off once again. Of course, all of those determinations will happen after the election, and if Trump wins that election, the whole issue becomes moot anyway.

[...]

If you take Garland at his word and believe that he appointed Smith to avoid the political optics of a presidential cabinet member prosecuting a case against their administration’s defeated rival, those optics are probably even worse now, as Trump is about to be nominated by his party, and the case has no chance of being resolved before the next election. All of which means that Garland is unlikely to take the case under his own authority, even though that is the most expedient and effective legal move.

[...]

It is worth noting that the desire to appear apolitical is what pushed Garland to appoint a special counsel, which then opened the legal door for a partisan hack judge to make a political ruling focused on that appointment, instead of the underlying case. Maybe the next time Democrats hold power (if there is a next time) they could, I don’t know, do what is right instead of worrying about the political optics of it all?

  Elie Mystal @ The Nation

That would take some other party.  The Democrats are constitutionally incapable.

[T]he real failure of Democratic Party leadership, and most left-of-center folks, in the Trump era has been the unsupported belief that the institutions and especially the courts can and would hold.

That was simply never going to be the case. Institutions cannot work if only one side agrees to be bound by them.

[...]

Once again, Trump has won his battle against accountability, and the people telling you otherwise are selling you something (and probably asking for you to donate money to their campaigns).

Going to the 11th. This will at least be interesting.

UPDATE 08:28 pm:

Sadly, it won't matter.  These guys don't mind being hypocritical.

The never-ending case

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

Good grief

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

So tiresome

I have to say, though, Judge Cannon is so inept and out of her depth that if she DOESN'T hold all these bullshit hearings, she will go unnoticed in history.  This way, she'll at least have fame.

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

Cannon walking the edge

She doesn't want to get slapped down by the 11th Circuit again.

[Trump's lawyers] contended the [Mar-A-Lago search] warrant was unconstitutionally vague and the FBI affidavit, used to convince the magistrate judge to find there was probable cause for a crime at the club, contained contextual omissions.

[...]

[In a hearing today,] Aileen Cannon suggested she considered the warrant was sufficiently specific about what items FBI agents could seize at Mar-a-Lago, and told Trump’s lawyers the omissions would have made no difference on whether there was probable cause.

[...]

The attempt by Trump to suppress the Mar-a-Lago evidence came through a request for a Franks hearing, where a judge applies a four-part test to decide whether false or misleading statements in the affidavit meant the evidence obtained through that search needed to be suppressed.

[...]

The evidence Trump’s lawyers presented was limited to complaints that the FBI agent omitted the fact that some top FBI officials preferred a consensual search of Mar-a-Lago, the FBI tying the need for a warrant to the National Archives, and Trump did not need a security clearance as president.

[...]

Trump’s request was ambitious because the legal threshold to get a Franks hearing is onerous. Trump needed to make a “substantial preliminary showing” that the affidavit had parts that were recklessly false.

  The Guardian

But he got his hearing, didn't he?

Cannon's ruling doesn't mean a lot. Other than that she can stay on the case and help Trump in all her other many ways. Like granting a Franks hearing on bullshit claims.*

And...

[On Tuesday morning, at a sealed hearing, Trump asked Cannon] to revoke prosecutors’ access to memos made by his ex-lawyer [Evan Corcoran] that became key evidence of his efforts to obstruct the investigation.

[...]

The sweeping request could have far-reaching consequences since the memos – with, for example, Trump asking whether they could ignore the subpoena, or a later suggestion to “pluck” out some classified documents instead of returning them to the FBI – are the strongest evidence of Trump’s obstructive intent.

Even if the judge excludes only some of the passages, it could dramatically undercut the strength of the obstruction case.

In the worst case for prosecutors, their evidence of Trump’s obstructive intent could be reduced to CCTV footage of boxes being moved at Mar-a-Lago by his co-defendants Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, logs of Trump’s calls with Nauta, and testimony about Nauta’s movements.

Trump faces a struggle to get Cannon to overturn the initial ruling by the then chief US district judge Beryl Howell in Washington DC. But Cannon has previously ruled for Trump on evidentiary disputes, most recently removing a paragraph in the indictment about Trump waving around a classified map.

  The Guardian

I doubt it's much of a struggle.

The original thinking on Trump’s legal team was to concede that some of the memos could conceivably be subject to the crime-fraud exception, such as when Corcoran told Trump he would be searching the storage room, and Corcoran’s confirmation about when he intended to return to Mar-a-Lago.

Trump’s lawyers have since rejected that approach, reasoning that any concession could give the judge an off-ramp to wholly deny their request, whereas asking for all the memos to be struck would be a stronger argument and lead the judge to strike even some of the memos.

She'll do her best to help them out.

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

*UPDATE 06/27/2024:  It seems Trump DIDN'T get the Franks hearing.  I misunderstood.

Meanwhile, in more Cannonigans*...

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

*Coined by Andy McCabe.

UPDATE 06/12/2024:

She's been watching Trump/MAGA reaction to Trump's Manhattan trial and verdict in which they cry about the fact that the jury was allowed to individually choose among three means of committing the crime to come to their unanimous guilty verdict.  

She won't be allowed to let this "requirement" stand.

Cannon makes a decision!

In the end, it won't matter if he's elected. And she's doing her best to get him there.

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

UPDATE 06/11/2024:

Special counsel files a new motion

Following Trump's incredible and outrageous claim that the FBI (at Biden's behest) tried to assassinate him.

Jack Smith opens with The Government moves to modify defendant Donald J. Trump’s conditions of release, to make clear that he may not make statements that pose a significant, imminent, and foreseeable danger to law enforcement agents participating in the investigation and prosecution of this case.

He then informs the court that he met and conferred with Trump’s lawyers, who oppose his motion, and also said they object to the timing - seeing as it’s a holiday weekend.

[...]

Jack Smith goes on to say Those statements create a grossly misleading impression about the intentions and conduct of federal law enforcement agents—falsely suggesting that they were complicit in a plot to assassinate him—and expose those agents, some of whom will be witnesses at trial, to the risk of threats, violence, and harassment. The Court has an “independent obligation to protect the integrity of this judicial proceeding,” ECF No. 101, and should take steps immediately to halt this dangerous campaign to smear law enforcement.

[...]

As Trump is well aware, the FBI took extraordinary care to execute the search warrant unobtrusively and without needless confrontation: they scheduled the search of Mar-a-Lago for a time when he and his family would be away; they planned to coordinate with Trump’s attorney, Secret Service agents, and Mar-a-Lago staff before and during the execution of the warrant; and they planned for contingencies—which, in fact, never came to pass—about with whom to communicate if Trump were to arrive on the scene.

As part of this planning, the FBI used a form that contains standard and unobjectionable language setting out the Department of Justice’s use-of-force policy, which prohibits the use of deadly force except “when the officer has a reasonable belief that the subject of such force poses an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury to the officer or to another person.” The inclusion of that policy is routine practice to restrict the use of force, and it is attached to countless warrants across the country.

Trump, however, has distorted the standard inclusion of the policy limiting the use of deadly force by mischaracterizing it as a claim that the FBI “WAS AUTHORIZED TO SHOOT ME,” was “just itching to do the unthinkable,” and was “locked & loaded ready to take me out & put my family in danger.”

[...]

A condition of release that prohibits the defendant from making statements posing a significant, imminent, and foreseeable danger to law enforcement agents participating in the investigation and prosecution of this case is warranted and necessary here. Such a prohibition will also minimize further prejudice caused by the defendant directing false and inflammatory messages regarding the facts of this case to potential jurors who may be summoned by the Court for jury service in this matter.

[...]

On February 22, 2024, Trump filed under seal a motion to suppress evidence obtained through the search of Mar-a-Lago. In setting forth what he described as the relevant facts, Trump stated that the Operations Form “contained a ‘Policy Statement’ regarding ‘Use Of Deadly Force,’ which stated, for example, ‘Law enforcement officers of the Department of Justice may use deadly force when necessary [sic] . . . .’” Although Trump included the warrant and Operations Form as exhibits to his motion, the motion misquoted the Operations Form by omitting the crucial word “only” before “when necessary,” without any ellipsis reflecting the omission.

  Mueller, She Wrote

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

And there it is

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

UPDATE 05/08/2024:

And it says "partial".

UPDATE 05/13/2024:

Meanwhile in Florida

Just as well simply dismiss the case.  Which she may do in the end.

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

Smith team misstep

Special counsel Jack Smith’s team acknowledged Friday that some evidence in the prosecution of former President Donald Trump for hoarding classified documents at his Florida home may not be in the same sequence FBI agents found it when they swept into the Mar-a-Lago compound with a search warrant in August 2022.

The concession from prosecutors in a court filing Friday afternoon came after attorneys for one of Trump’s co-defendants asked for a delay in the case because the defense lawyers were having trouble determining precisely where particular documents had come from in the 33 boxes the FBI seized almost two years ago.

In their filing, prosecutors acknowledged the government had previously — and incorrectly — told U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon that the boxes remained “in their original, intact form as seized,” other than a decision to replace classified documents with placeholder sheets.

[...]

“There are some boxes where the order of items within that box is not the same as in the associated scans,” prosecutors wrote.

[...]

Prosecutors claim the discrepancies in the sequence of the records is of no significance to the criminal case filed in June 2023. Smith’s lawyers say the apparent jumble took place despite various precautions, including having an FBI agent present while an outside vendor scanned the documents so that Trump’s attorneys could see what was seized.

[...]

[Also], the boxes contain items smaller than standard paper such as index cards, books, and stationary [sic], which shift easily when the boxes are carried, especially because many of the boxes are not full,” prosecutors Jay Bratt, Julie Edelstein and David Harbach wrote.

[...]

Prosecutors say despite the reordering, each box still contains precisely the same material it had in it when it was seized.

  

Doesn't matter. This will be seized upon by Trump and Cannon both to further denigrate the case against Trump.

“The investigative team used classified cover sheets for that purpose, until the FBI ran out because there were so many classified documents, at which point the team began using blank sheets with handwritten notes indicating the classification level of the document(s) seized,” the prosecutors wrote.

Later, they said, the handwritten notes were replaced with more formal placeholder sheets, but some of the handwritten ones may have been left in the boxes as well, complicating efforts to link a placeholder to a specific classified document.

[...]

In a post on his Trump Social site Friday, Trump painted the disclosures at catastrophic for the government’s case.

Of course he did.

Smith “and his team committed blatant Evidence Tampering by mishandling the very Boxes they used as a pretext to bring this Fake Case,” Trump said, accusing prosecutors of “deeply illegal” actions that should trigger dismissal of all charges.

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

UPDATE 05/07/2024:

Let's talk about the laptop

No, not THAT laptop.

Former President Donald Trump's legal team turned over a folder with classification markings found [...] at his Mar-a-Lago resort to federal agents, multiple sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.

[...]

Trump attorney James Trusty turned over the folder with classification markings to federal investigators, and also informed agents that it had been electronically copied to a laptop of a current Trump aide, the sources said.

[...]

The laptop was not retrieved on the Mar-a-Lago grounds, the sources said.

  ABC

This got by me back in the early days of the Mar-A-Lago documents case.

 [...] 

Judge Cannon will make sure this case never gets to trial.  Or, at the very least, not before the election in November.

And a reminder - DeOliveira is cooperating.

UPDATE 07:48 pm:

Wheels of justice grinding slowly but surely

An Arizona grand jury has indicted 18 allies of Donald Trump for their efforts to subvert the 2020 election — including former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, attorney Rudy Giuliani and former Trump campaign operative Mike Roman.

The indictment, which includes felony counts of conspiracy, fraud and forgery, also describes Trump as an unindicted co-conspirator.

  Politico

So, indict the mfer.

“Defendants and unindicted coconspirators schemed to prevent the lawful transfer of the presidency to keep Unindicted Coconspirator 1 in office against the will of Arizona’s voters,” the 58-page indictment reads.

The names of seven of the defendants, including Meadows, Giuliani and Roman, are redacted, but the document makes clear who they are by describing their roles. Ken Chesebro, an attorney who helped devise Trump’s post-election strategy, is described as “unindicted coconspirator 4.

[...]

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, a Democrat, has been helming the aggressive investigation. Though she initially appeared to be focused primarily on the false electors, in recent months she issued a wave of subpoenas to figures in Trump’s national orbit.

Mayes is the fifth prosecutor to bring criminal charges over the sprawling, multi-state bid by Trump and his allies to upend the 2020 results. Special counsel Jack Smith has charged Trump with federal crimes for those efforts. Prosecutors in Georgia have charged Trump and many of his allies for their bid to overturn the results in that state, including the fake electors plot. Prosecutors in Michigan and Nevada have also charged Republicans who posed as fake electors in those states.

UPDATE 04/25/2024: