Out-Takes, April 5, 2024
...Cannon in the tank; conservative judges condemn Trump's judicial harassment; Truth Social Tanks
Aileen Cannon: a Judge in the Tank for Trump. Perhaps Hoping to be Rewarded with a Seat on SCOTUS?
I am not capable of listing and analyzing all of the puzzling judgements and lengthy delays this Trump appointee has gifted defendant Trump with since she was assigned this case. Early on one of her bizarre rulings was quickly and almost condescendingly overturned by an appeals court after Special Counsel Jack Smith filed an appeal.
Most recently (Tuesday night)…
“…In an open display of frustration, federal prosecutors…told the judge…that a ‘fundamentally flawed’ order she had issued was causing delays and asked her to quickly resolve a critical dispute about one of Mr. Trump’s defenses…In their filing, prosecutors…[urged] Judge Cannon to move the case along and make a binding decision about one of Mr. Trump’s most brazen claims: that he cannot be prosecuted for having taken home a trove of national security documents after leaving office because he transformed them into his own personal property under a law known as the Presidential Records Act…The prosecutors derided that assertion as one ‘not based on any facts,’ adding that it was a ‘justification that was concocted more than a year after’ Mr. Trump left the White House.”
You will recall that Trump claimed he did this “in his mind, just by thinking it.”
This is happening in a case that virtually all legal experts claim is an open and shut case. Trump stole these national security documents, lied about it, and attempted to obstruct the investigation. Many of those experts have questioned why the Special Counsel has not moved to have Cannon removed from the case.
He’s probably wishing he had done so long ago.
Ty Cobb – formerly a White House Counsel under Trump who shielded him in those days – spoke with CNN’s Erin Burnett and was startlingly blunt in saying that he does not believe that Cannon’s missteps are due to “incompetence or inexperience,” but that she is “putting her thumb on the scale” to protect Trump. You can listen to that interview here https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2024/04/03/judge-cannon-classified-documents-trump-ty-cobb-ebof-vpx.cnn and you can read more here and here.
Can’t help but think her protection of DJT is motivated by a hope it will be a ticket to a SCOTUS seat if — God forbid — the American people make a huge mistake and elect him again.
Meanwhile, Trump continues to malign and insult judges and prosecutors in his other cases.
Trump says Judge Cannon is “highly respected, very smart, very strong, and [that] she loves our country,” even as he maligns and insults the judges in his other cases. For some reason, he’s getting away with behavior that would have gotten you or me locked up a long time ago. And of course, that teaches him he can go farther and farther, just like his GOP enablers taught him as they ignored and defended his behavior in office.
But this week a couple of conservative Republican-appointed judges spoke out.
Judge Reggie Walton, who was appointed to judgeships by both Presidents Bush, and who himself has experienced threats, as has his daughter, felt compelled to say in an on-air interview:
“It’s very disconcerting to have someone making comments about a judge, and it’s particularly problematic when those comments are in the form of a threat, especially if they’re directed at one’s family. We do these jobs because we’re committed to the rule of law and we believe in the rule of law, and the rule of law can only function effectively when we have judges who are prepared to carry out their duties without the threat of potential physical harm.”
“I think it’s important in order to preserve our democracy that we maintain the rule of law. And the rule of law can only be maintained if we have independent judicial officers who are able to do their job and ensure that the laws are, in fact, enforced and that the laws are applied equally to everybody who appears in our courthouse.”
“I think it’s important that, as judges, we speak out and say things in reference to things that conceivably are going to impact on the process, because if we don’t have a viable court system that’s able to function efficiently, then we have tyranny. And I don’t think that would be good for the future of our country, and the future of democracy in our country.”
And retired judge Michael Luttig – who clerked for Antonin Scalia and also worked in the Reagan White House before he served on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit from 1991 to 20061 – summarized the attack that the judiciary and the rule of law are under:
“In the months ahead, the former president can only be expected to ramp up his unprecedented efforts to delegitimize the courts of the United States, the nation’s state courts, and America’s system of justice, through his vicious, disgraceful, and unforgivable attacks and threats on the Federal and State Judiciaries and the individual Judges of these courts.”
“Never in American history has any person, let alone a President of the United States, leveled such threatening attacks against the federal and state courts and federal and state judicial officers of the kind the former president has leveled continually now for years.”
And he also called out the complicit parties that are letting Trump get away with it:
“It is the responsibility of the Supreme Court of the United States…to protect the federal courts, the federal judges, and all participants in the justice system from the reprehensible spectacle of the former president’s inexcusable, threatening attacks, just as it is the responsibility of the respective State Supreme Courts…to protect their courts and their state judges from the same. Ultimately, however, it is the responsibility of the entire nation2 to protect its courts and judges, its Constitution, its Rule of Law, and America’s Democracy from vicious attack, threat, undermine, and deliberate delegitimization at the hands of anyone so determined.”
And meanwhile, “luminaries” like Lindsey Graham, the former chair of the Senate judiciary committee and current ranking member, who acted so outraged at the treatment that Bret Kavanaugh received during his nomination hearing, is not just silent, but complicit, as he repeats and amplifies Trump’s attacks on judges and prosecutors.
The “great business man” on the way to another bankruptcy?
Trump rode to the WH largely on the myth that he was a great businessman. I heard this in 2016 from a number of voters in our neighborhood, and in media accounts. They were apparently ignorant of Trump’s multiple bankruptcies and reputation for stiffing lenders and vendors.
Now it comes to light that “Truth Social,” the platform he and collaborators formed when mainstream social media platforms banned his content after he incited a violent riot, is in financial jeopardy. Its decision to go public with a stock offering means Truth Social had to file documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission. That filing shows Truth Social to be…in trouble.
According to its CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS filed with the SEC, Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. lost $58 million on revenues of just $4 million in 2023. The Report of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm wrote in its Opinion on the Financial Statements:
Substantial Doubt about the Company’s Ability to Continue as a Going Concern
The accompanying financial statements have been prepared assuming that the Company will continue as a going concern. As discussed in Note 2 to the financial statements, the Company’s operating losses raise substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern. The financial statements do not include any adjustments that might result from the outcome of this uncertainty.
If you are so inclined you can examine those financial statements for yourself, right here.
I’ll be writing again soon, as there are a couple of interesting and important topics that I can’t get to in this post.
He was appointed by George H.W. Bush.
That’s you and me.