Jump to content

45 indicated


Cairn Horn88

Recommended Posts

Blanche is trying to get his client out of hot water by seeking to reframe Trump’s statements about Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels as responses to “a barrage of political attacks.”


Merchan says that he doesn’t want to get into “interpreting and reading between the lines” of Trump’s posts as Blanche continues to push the point that Trump’s attacks are political, and not specifically related to the case, despite being about likely witnesses.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

29 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

Eh, we all know what each of us is doing. I guess the only real mystery is if we are doing it in our underwear or not.

I actually have to leave the office for an hour or so around 9:15, and I'm not sure my AI bot is capable of scraping this off of the NYTimes and re-posting here for the viewing pleasure of everyone, but I'll see what I can do.

 

And with that:

 

Conroy says that Trump “violates the order when he posts about known witnesses or reasonably forseeable witnesses,” and “violates the order when he posts about a juror or prospective juror.”

 

And finally, Conroy says Trump violated the gag order when on Truth Social, he quoted the Fox News commentator Jesse Watters denigrating prospective jurors as "undercover liberal activists.” Prosecutors have flagged this as the most serious of the violations and Conroy does so again, calling it “very troubling.”


Conroy points to the timing of the post, last Wednesday evening. The next morning, Juror #2 came into court and asked to be excused. This upset Justice Merchan. He complimented the juror after excusing her, saying she would have done a good job.

I didn't realize Juror #2 had been dismissed. That was the Truth Social/X user. 

  • Hook 'Em 3
  • Drool 1
  • Prepare your anus 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Judge Merchan is getting tired of Blanche's (Trump's attorney) bullshit - 

"What I do see is, I keep asking you over and over again for a specific answer, and I’m not getting an answer," Merchan said to Blanche.

Because there is no good answer, your honor.

  • Haha 1
  • Fuck Around and Find Out 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ugh, this doesn't feel like it's going to go in prosecution's favor now - assuming DJT complies, why else make the request if not to provide DJT an out?

Judge Juan Merchan said he wants to hear an assertion under oath that Donald Trump believed he wasn't violating the gag order when he made the posts in question.

Edited by dieucla98
  • Rage+1 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

27 minutes ago, dieucla98 said:

Ugh, this doesn't feel like it's going to go in prosecution's favor now - assuming DJT complies, why else make the request if not to provide DJT an out?

Judge Juan Merchan said he wants to hear an assertion under oath that Donald Trump believed he wasn't violating the gag order when he made the posts in question.

Uh, I read that the opposite way. A judge asking for testimony under oath in connection with a sanction hearing is rarely a good sign for the person being sanctioned. It isn't a free out. It is an opportunity for Trump to dig himself a deeper hole. And, at least in my experience, when the judge asks for this, the judge is going to be asking some questions as well. This isn't a one shot free of cross examination. No way in hell I'd like Trump on the stand if I were his attorney. 

  • Hook 'Em 7
  • Drool 1
  • Fuck Around and Find Out 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Justice Merchan has repeatedly pushed Todd Blanche to clarify his arguments, only to have Blanche deny that he is saying what he seems to be saying. Trump is very lucky that the jurors are not here for this. Merchan is really dressing down Blanche right now.


“You’ve presented nothing,” Merchan just said to Blanche, who has been presenting his argument for some 20 minutes. It's devastating for Blanche.


Trump is growing more animated as Justice Merchan pushes back on Blanche. On several occasions while the judge was speaking, the former president sharply turned to his other lawyers at the defense table and whispered to them.

 

Justice Merchan is now pushing Todd Blanche to do a forensic accounting of how reposts happen in Trump’s world. “It’s not passive,” the judge finally says.


What’s interesting here is the throughline between Blanche’s argument that there is distance between Trump and his own reposts and the prosecution's argument against Trump, which is that he repeatedly used others — Michael Cohen, The National Enquirer — to do his dirty work.


This line of questioning is highlighting a longtime Twitter catchphrase -- that "retweets do not equal endorsements." When you are a former president sitting on trial, it would seem your reposts do carry more weight, particularly in light of this court’s gag order.

 

Todd Blanche says Trump is entitled to complain about “two systems of justice.” “There’s two systems of justice in this courtroom? That’s what you’re saying?” Justice Merchan says.

 

There’s a real similarity between the opening statements we saw yesterday and the arguments about the alleged gag order violations today: Again, prosecutors have an overarching narrative, saying that Trump willfully violated their order. Blanche is responding to the allegations one by one, and the judge, for now, isn’t having it.

 

Justice Merchan is basically taking on, one by one, Trump's favored social media strategies. One is constantly claiming something was “just found.” In this particular case, the subject was Stormy Daniels’ early 2018 statement denying having had a sexual encounter with Trump, which she has since disavowed. “LOOK WHAT WAS JUST FOUND!” Trump said in an April 10 Truth Social post. “I need to know what is true,” Justice Merchan says.

 

The judge loses patience with Todd Blanche, Trump's lawyer. “I’m asking the questions, OK,” he says. “Im going to decide whether your client is in contempt or not, so please don’t turn it around.” Blanche says in a higher-pitched voice that the prosecutors got as much time as they want. Justice Merchan makes a distinction, saying the prosecutors were answering his questions.


During the scold, Trump turned to another one of his lawyers, Emil Bove, and whispered a comment.

 

We’ll try to decode Todd Blanche’s attacks further, though they are confusing even in the room. He says that a post from Michael Avenatti, which caused Trump to launch into an attack on Stormy Daniels and Michael Cohen, was a political argument, about speech not in the case but on social media and in interviews. Thus, Blanche is saying, Trump’s response is not in fact an attack on witnesses but a continuation of that political discussion. This is a hard pill for Justice Merchan to swallow, clearly.


The legal and political strategies by the Trump team have been intertwined since the first indictment. And Blanche’s argument brings that into stark relief.


It’s fascinating to see a lawyer for Trump try to separate out politics from legal proceedings. The Trump era, of course, has been marked by the opposite sort of context collapse: With Trump, everything is politics. That’s why this argument may not work.

  • Hook 'Em 6
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, Trump isn't going to say he felt he wasn't violating the gag order while under oath and then claim otherwise.

But, maybe the judge is laying the groundwork for a subsequent violation?  "We already discussed how you were violating the order, but I let you off the hook because you felt you weren't violating it.  You just did it again."

  • Hook 'Em 2
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

It does not appear as if we will get a ruling from the judge right now on whether or not Trump will be held in contempt and fined. David Pecker has entered the courtroom in a dark grey suit and made his way to the witness stand. Trumps shifted in his chair as Pecker passed.

  • Hook 'Em 1
  • Like 1
  • Prepare your anus 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, BehoId, The Underminer! said:

is this true?  no more truth social dude on jury?  if so, that's the best news on this affair yet.

I don’t think it’s true. The juror that was dismissed after the Fox News report was originally going to be Juror #2 before the full jury was seated. She asked to be withdrawn due to the personal information shared and the Truth Social user was seated with the full jury as Juror #2.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 hours ago, RDCanecutter said:

I like to think that there is a semi-liquid poop pool down at the asshole, so that farts percolate up through it like pot smoke through bong water, except maybe with different effects.

aka “The Alabama Splash”…

  • Hook 'Em 1
  • Haha 1
  • Drool 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Uh, I read that the opposite way. A judge asking for testimony under oath in connection with a sanction hearing is rarely a good sign for the person being sanctioned. It isn't a free out. It is an opportunity for Trump to dig himself a deeper hole. And, at least in my experience, when the judge asks for this, the judge is going to be asking some questions as well. This isn't a one shot free of cross examination. No way in hell I'd like Trump on the stand if I were his attorney. 

 

5 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

Well, Trump isn't going to say he felt he wasn't violating the gag order while under oath and then claim otherwise.

But, maybe the judge is laying the groundwork for a subsequent violation?  "We already discussed how you were violating the order, but I let you off the hook because you felt you weren't violating it.  You just did it again."

Sounds to me like he'll ask Trump if he truly believed he was not violating the gag order. Trump will say yes, he truly believes it was fair game. Judge will say, well it's not, I'm telling you right now, on the record, that if you repeat that conduct you'll be sanctioned not only for it, but for every violation that is currently alleged." Of course, he'll do it again, so the real meat will be to see what happens then. 

  • Hook 'Em 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Steinglass is now asking about “The Apprentice,” which Pecker calls “an instant success.”

 

Pecker says that he’s had “a great relationship with Mr. Trump over the years,” and that he launched a magazine with him called Trump Style. When he proposed the magazine, Pecker says, Trump’s biggest question was, “Who’s going to pay for it?”

Pecker never did say who paid for it.

 

Pecker is being asked to point to and identify Trump, who he says he’s known since the late 1980s. They met at Mar-a-Lago, he says.


Pecker specifically says he was introduced to him through Nick Ribis, then a casinos executive for Trump and, until the early 2000s, one of his long-serving lawyers.


As Pecker identified the former president, Trump lifted his head and smiled tightly.

Edited by Francisco 2.0
  • Hook 'Em 2
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, hornmpa96 said:

I don’t think it’s true. The juror that was dismissed after the Fox News report was originally going to be Juror #2 before the full jury was seated. She asked to be withdrawn due to the personal information shared and the Truth Social user was seated with the full jury as Juror #2.

That makes some sense. I was just going off of what was said in the prior post. That said, the reporting on this has been fairly confusing. There was a juror that asked to speak with the court after the jury had been selected. My understanding at the time was that juror was not dismissed. However, subsequent reporting seems to suggest the juror was in fact dismissed. Typically, once a jury is selected, you wouldn't renumber them if one leaves. The alternate just takes their place. However, maybe the reporting on juror dismissal had to do with a different event, which is why all of this is confused. I'll have to try and track down the actual timeline to get clarity here. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Pecker is describing a symbiotic relationship between Trump and The National Enquirer centered in part around “The Apprentice.” Pecker says that Trump would tip him off first as to who was going to be fired — “or eliminated,” as Pecker puts it — from the show, and The Enquirer would write about it.


Trump’s history of tipping off the New York City tabloids about his own life was legendary well before The Apprentice.

 

Prosecutors are working to situate Pecker in Trump’s orbit before the jury. He’s not coming across as a combative witness, but, on the contrary, as a longtime fan, friend and ally of Trump. If he testifies, as we expect, about a series of hush money deals they arranged together, this gentle impression will help make him all the more credible.


If anything, Pecker is appearing like the kind of person who the Trump campaign, in another context, would ask to serve a validator for Trump’s past successes.

Edited by Francisco 2.0
  • Hook 'Em 6
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Pecker is asked about the nature of Cohen’s relationship to the Trump campaign. Pecker says Cohen always said he didn’t work for the campaign, and that he was instead “Mr. Trump’s personal attorney.” But jurors just heard that Cohen was central to feeding the tabloid negative information about campaign opponents.


“Michael was physically in every aspect of whatever the campaign was working on,” Pecker says. He adds that because Cohen wasn’t officially employed by the campaign, he may have heard things “informally” or “injected himself into it.”


Pecker finally says something mildly helpful to the defense. He says he doesn’t know who Cohen spoke to, and adds that Cohen may have essentially been freelancing, acting of his own volition as he tried to get more involved with the campaign.

 

Now, we are discussing negative headlines attacking three of Trump's Republican opponents in 2016, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, which prosecutors argue illustrate the outcome of the agreement reached during the Trump Tower meeting. Pecker says that Cohen would feed him negative information and that The National Enquirer would “embellish” and add onto it.


Trump jumped on the negative coverage of Ted Cruz, especially about his father, in 2016. The campaign promoted it like it had come about organically and Trump was simply responding to it.

 

Trump just leaned in toward the monitor in front of him and squinted to look closer at a collection of headlines from The National Enquirer that praised him. They included: “Donald Trump — Cruzin to victory! Ted endorses Donald” and “Obama’s Half Brother — Cheering on Donald at Debate.”

 

 

Edited by Francisco 2.0
  • Hook 'Em 4
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Trump’s lawyers have objected all along to prosecutors couching Trump’s relationship with Pecker and Michael Cohen as a conspiracy — after all, Trump is not facing a conspiracy charge. But Joshua Steinglass, one of the prosecutors, just noted for the first time in court that one of the election statutes the case is based on does in fact have a conspiracy provision. That could prove important later when the jury is instructed on the laws they must consider in reaching a verdict.

  • Hook 'Em 4
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

Trump’s lawyers have objected all along to prosecutors couching Trump’s relationship with Pecker and Michael Cohen as a conspiracy — after all, Trump is not facing a conspiracy charge. But Joshua Steinglass, one of the prosecutors, just noted for the first time in court that one of the election statutes the case is based on does in fact have a conspiracy provision. That could prove important later when the jury is instructed on the laws they must consider in reaching a verdict.

that's an odd caveat.  both sides just realized what the statute says?

  • Hook 'Em 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Trump pulls down the lapels of his jacket sharply and walks out, again looking frustrated. To me, he’s looked far angrier yesterday and today than he did during all of last week, during jury selection.

He is angry because he is losing control of the narrative. Defending himself has nothing to do with presenting facts that support his arguments.
  • Hook 'Em 8
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

So, it was kicked around on this thread -- or maybe another -- what happens with SS detail if the orange dipshit goes to jail, soon for breaking gag order or later if he's convicted. Well, the SS goes to jail too!

https://dnyuz.com/2024/04/23/could-trump-go-to-prison-if-he-does-the-secret-service-goes-too/

Quote

The U.S. Secret Service is in the business of protecting the president, whether he’s inside the Oval Office or visiting a foreign war zone.

But protecting a former president in prison? The prospect is unprecedented. That would be the challenge if Donald J. Trump — whom the agency is required by law to protect around the clock — is convicted at his criminal trial in Manhattan and sentenced to serve time.

Even before the trial’s opening statements, the Secret Service was in some measure planning for the extraordinary possibility of a former president behind bars. Prosecutors had asked the judge in the case to remind Mr. Trump that attacks on witnesses and jurors could land him in jail even before a verdict is rendered.

(The judge, who is holding a hearing Tuesday to discuss whether Mr. Trump should be held in contempt for violating a gag order, is far more likely to issue a warning or impose a fine before taking the extreme step of jailing the 77-year-old former president.)

Last week, as a result of the prosecution’s request, officials with federal, state and city agencies had an impromptu meeting about how to handle the situation, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.

That behind-the-scenes conversation — involving officials from the Secret Service and other relevant law enforcement agencies — focused only on how to move and protect Mr. Trump if the judge were to order him briefly jailed for contempt in a courthouse holding cell, the people said.

The far more substantial challenge — how to safely incarcerate a former president if the jury convicts him and the judge sentences him to prison rather than home confinement or probation — has yet to be addressed directly, according to some of a dozen current and former city, state and federal officials interviewed for this article.

That’s at least in part because if Mr. Trump is ultimately convicted, a drawn-out and hard-fought series of appeals, possibly all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, is almost a certainty. That would most likely delay any sentence for months if not longer, said several of the people, who noted that a prison sentence was unlikely.

But the daunting challenge remains. And not just for Secret Service and prison officials, who would face the logistical nightmare of safely incarcerating Mr. Trump, who is also the presumptive Republican nominee for President.

“Obviously, it’s uncharted territory,” said Martin D. Horn, who has worked at the highest levels of New York’s and Pennsylvania’s state prison agencies and served as commissioner of New York City’s correction and probation departments. “Certainly no state prison system has had to deal with this before, and no federal prison has had to either.”

Steven Cheung, the communications director for Mr. Trump’s campaign, said the case against the former president was “so spurious and so weak” that other prosecutors had refused to bring it, and called it “an unprecedented partisan witch hunt.”

“That the Democrat fever dream of incarcerating the nominee of the Republican Party has reached this level exposes their Stalinist roots and displays their utter contempt for American democracy,” he said.

Protecting Mr. Trump in a prison environment would involve keeping him separate from other inmates, as well as screening his food and other personal items, officials said. If he were to be imprisoned, a detail of agents would work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, rotating in and out of the facility, several officials said. While firearms are obviously strictly prohibited in prisons, the agents would nonetheless be armed.

Former corrections officials said there were several New York state prisons and city jails that have been closed or partly closed, leaving wings or large sections of their facilities empty and available. One of those buildings could serve to incarcerate the former president and accommodate his Secret Service protective detail.

Anthony Guglielmi, the spokesman for the Secret Service in Washington, declined in a statement to discuss specific “protective operations.” But he said that federal law requires Secret Service agents to protect former presidents, adding that they use state-of-the-art technology, intelligence and tactics to do so.

Thomas J. Mailey, a spokesman for New York State’s prison agency, said his department couldn’t speculate about how it would treat someone who has not yet been sentenced, but that it has a system “to assess and provide for individuals’ medical, mental health and security needs.” Frank Dwyer, a spokesman for the New York City jails agency, said only that “the department would find appropriate housing” for the former president.

The trial in Manhattan, one of four criminal cases pending against Mr. Trump and possibly the only one that will go to a jury before the election, centers on accusations he falsified records to cover up a sex scandal involving a porn star. The former president is charged with 34 counts of felony falsifying business records. If convicted, the judge in the case, Juan M. Merchan, could sentence him to punishments ranging from probation to four years in state prison, though for a first-time offender of Mr. Trump’s age, such a term would be extreme.

If Mr. Trump is convicted, but elected president again, he could not pardon himself because the prosecution was brought by New York State.

Under normal circumstances, any sentence of one year or less, colloquially known as “city time,” would generally be served on New York City’s notorious Rikers Island, home to the Department of Correction’s seven jails. (That’s where Mr. Trump’s former chief financial officer, Allen H. Weisselberg, 76, is currently serving his second five-month sentence for crimes related to his work for his former boss.)

Any sentence of more than a year, known as state time, would generally be served in one of the 44 prisons run by New York State’s Department of Corrections and Community Supervision.

The former president could also be sentenced to a term of probation, raising the bizarre possibility of the former commander in chief reporting regularly to a civil servant at the city’s Probation Department.

He would have to follow the probation officer’s instructions and answer questions about his work and personal life until the term of probation ended. He would also be barred from associating with disreputable people, and if he committed any additional crimes, he could be jailed immediately.

 

  • Hook 'Em 3
  • Like 2
  • Haha 1
  • Drool 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Woland said:


He is angry because he is losing control of the narrative. Defending himself has nothing to do with presenting facts that support his arguments.

Attacks are the only defense he understands, in keeping with his narcissism.

  • Hook 'Em 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

So, we are 2 hours or so into some testimony, from one witness.  And it's not going well for Trump.   Cross will be interesting, of course, but really, I don't think they will be able to refute much, if anything that Pecker has testifed to already.

Is there any wonder why his counsel kept stalling and delaying as much as possible?  Imagine, if we ever get a chance, what a federal trial will be like for Trump.

 

 

  • Hook 'Em 2
  • Drool 3
  • Fuck Around and Find Out 1
  • Prepare your anus 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

So, we are 2 hours or so into some testimony, from one witness.  And it's not going well for Trump.   Cross will be interesting, of course, but really, I don't think they will be able to refute much, if anything that Pecker has testifed to already.

Is there any wonder why his counsel kept stalling and delaying as much as possible?  Imagine, if we ever get a chance, what a federal trial will be like for Trump.

eLEctIon INterFeREnCE!

  • Haha 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 minutes ago, C-Man said:

The trial in Manhattan, one of four criminal cases pending against Mr. Trump and possibly the only one that will go to a jury before the election

This statement is why folks are questioning the justice system’s ability to defend our Republic from a known and, perhaps existential, threat.

  • Hook 'Em 3
  • Like 1
  • Rage+1 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

23 minutes ago, C-Man said:

Steven Cheung, the communications director for Mr. Trump’s campaign, said the case against the former president was “so spurious and so weak” that other prosecutors had refused to bring it, and called it “an unprecedented partisan witch hunt.”

“That the Democrat fever dream of incarcerating the nominee of the Republican Party has reached this level exposes their Stalinist roots and displays their utter contempt for American democracy,” he said.

 

This fat fuck (Cheung, not the orange one) has never made a comment that wasn't some bullshit like this. If this is all he can say, the "journalists" need to stop quoting him. 

 

 

  • Hook 'Em 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

45 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

It should be pointed out that Pecker’s testimony isn’t just damaging to Trump. He is, in effect, laying waste to his own professional career by going through headline after headline and suggesting he attacked Trump’s rivals to aid Trump.

 

Pffft ... Tabloid exec?  

I have more respect for McDonald's Fry cooks.

  • Hook 'Em 3
  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites



×
×
  • Create New...