[Master Thread] Federal & State Charges Against Pres. Trump [merged]

[TBoneTX 45,591]

Justice Thomas, and the others who concurred in the relevant recent opinion, gave Judge Cannon the blueprint and the basis for this decision.

 

Frankly, the dismissal couldn't have come at a better time, given the sympathy surrounding the assassination attempt.  The leftists and media (redundant) will have a hard time fighting this one.

 

That creep Merchan will find it massively daunting to impose even house arrest, I'm confident.

[Pooky 3,816]

32 minutes ago, TBoneTX said:

That creep Merchan will find it massively daunting to impose even house arrest, I'm confident.

He will have a hard time not vacating the case entirely. The number of holes in the case make Swiss cheese look solid, he knows the likelihood of it getting overturned on appeal is high and this gives him the opportunity to back out of his miss without looking like too much of a prat.

[TBoneTX 45,591]

18 minutes ago, Pooky said:

He will have a hard time not vacating the case entirely. The number of holes in the case make Swiss cheese look solid, he knows the likelihood of it getting overturned on appeal is high and this gives him the opportunity to back out of his miss without looking like too much of a prat.

Eminently reasonable-sounding, but I never underestimate the vitriol of radical leftists who are in power.

[TBoneTX 45,591]

Jonathan Turley explains the reasoning behind the now-hosed Jack Smith case in Florida.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Trump wins again in court:  Judge squashes DOJ overreach with special counsel Jack Smith

 

In "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," the Mad Hatter asks Alice, "Why is a raven like a writing desk?"  It turned out that the Mad Hatter had no better idea than Alice.

In her 93-page order, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon seemed to face the same dilemma when she asked special counsel Jack Smith why a private citizen is like a confirmed U.S. attorney.  On Monday, she dismissed the criminal case against former President Donald Trump over his handling of classified documents, ruling that Smith's appointment as special counsel was unlawful.

 

Cannon has struggled with the assertion of Attorney General Merrick Garland that he may pick private citizens to serve as special counsels and exercise greater authority than a federal prosecutor without any appointment under the Constitution or clear statutory authority.  [...]

 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2024/07/16/trump-classified-documents-case-judge-immunity-trial/74412068007/

[TBoneTX 45,591]

That Settles That:  Georgia Court of Appeals Formally Sets Oral Argument on Fani Willis DQ for December

 

We knew it wasn't likely that the Georgia election interference case filed by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis against former President Donald Trump and others would be tried before the November election.  [...]

 

https://redstate.com/smoosieq/2024/07/16/that-settles-that-georgia-court-of-appeals-formally-sets-oral-argument-on-fani-willis-dq-for-december-n2176967

 

[Dashinka 24,635]

8 hours ago, TBoneTX said:

Jonathan Turley explains the reasoning behind the now-hosed Jack Smith case in Florida.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Trump wins again in court:  Judge squashes DOJ overreach with special counsel Jack Smith

 

In "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," the Mad Hatter asks Alice, "Why is a raven like a writing desk?"  It turned out that the Mad Hatter had no better idea than Alice.

In her 93-page order, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon seemed to face the same dilemma when she asked special counsel Jack Smith why a private citizen is like a confirmed U.S. attorney.  On Monday, she dismissed the criminal case against former President Donald Trump over his handling of classified documents, ruling that Smith's appointment as special counsel was unlawful.

 

Cannon has struggled with the assertion of Attorney General Merrick Garland that he may pick private citizens to serve as special counsels and exercise greater authority than a federal prosecutor without any appointment under the Constitution or clear statutory authority.  [...]

 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2024/07/16/trump-classified-documents-case-judge-immunity-trial/74412068007/

I thought Jack Smith was a superman?

[Crazy Cat 41,983]

41 minutes ago, Dashinka said:

I thought Jack Smith was a superman?

But that has not been "confirmed"......😄

[Crazy Cat 41,983]

48 minutes ago, Dashinka said:

I thought Jack Smith was a superman?

It looks pretty clear, to me, that the Biden administration acted again without proper Congressional authority.  

[Dashinka 24,635]

2 hours ago, Crazy Cat said:

It looks pretty clear, to me, that the Biden administration acted again without proper Congressional authority.  

Sounds very anti-Democratic to me.

[Ban Hammer 13,429]

5 hours ago, Crazy Cat said:

It looks pretty clear, to me, that the Biden administration acted again without proper Congressional authority.  

reminds me of the pogo cartoon:
they have met the threat to democracy, and it is them.

[TBoneTX 45,591]

Entertaining reading.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hit the road, Jack

 

If you squint, I reckon you could see two bloody corpses that the Secret Service turned over on that roof in Butler, Pennsylvania.  It was not only twenty-year-old loser Thomas Matthew Crooks; hovering right next door is the mangled corpse of the bureaucratic monstrosity that the Biden administration has been wielding against Donald Trump.  There it lies, broken and inert.  [...]

 

https://thespectator.com/topic/hit-road-jack-smith-special-counsel/

[Family 4,065]

What the judge was thinking and what’s next in Trump documents case

On Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the classified documents case against former President Donald Trump, ruling that Special Counsel Jack Smith was improperly appointed.

 

Cannon ruled that the special counsel was appointed improperly. What was her legal reasoning?

It’s a mashup of statutory analysis and two constitutional principles — the Appointments Clause and the Appropriations Clause. She looks at the provisions in the order appointing Smith that set forth the statutory basis for that appointment. She also looks at the statutes and concludes that the statutes do not authorize the attorney general to appoint a special counsel. She focuses on the fact that Smith was not a Department of Justice employee or officer at the time of the appointment — he was working at The Hague. It’s not clear to me why that matters, because today he’s a Department of Justice official. She infuses the analysis with lengthy discussions of the Appointments Clause and the Appropriations Clause.

 

Two other district courts and the D.C. Circuit have considered this issue — the legality of the special counsel — and they have all rejected it. Cannon is the only judge to find the appointment invalid. The D.C. Circuit has twice rejected a challenge to the use of special counsels — during the Iran-Contra investigation and during Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Trump. Judge Dabney Friedrich of the District Court in D.C., who is a Trump appointee, tossed aside a similar challenge without a lot of effort in a fairly short opinion in a case involving Mueller, who oversaw the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Judge T.S. Ellis of the Eastern District of Virginia similarly tossed this issue aside in a case that also involved Mueller. So, the other courts that have looked at this issue have had no trouble with it and have ruled contrary to Cannon

 

What are the regulations under which special counsels are appointed?

Special counsels have been around for decades. From the 1970s until the late ’90s there was the independent counsel statute, which provided for a much more independent special prosecutor than what Attorney General [Merrick] Garland authorized in this matter. The Supreme Court upheld the statute in Morrison v. Olson, but it expired in 1999. After its expiration, DOJ implemented its own regulations providing for the appointment of special counsels who possess functions similar to U.S. attorneys. In 2020, in an Appointments Clause case involving the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Supreme Court essentially reaffirmed Morrison v. Olson as a valid exception to a general rule about appointments.

 

One very surprising thing is how Cannon deals with the Supreme Court precedent in United States v. Nixon. There’s a sentence in that 9-0 opinion which resolves this issue entirely. The sentence says that Archibald Cox, who was one of the prosecutors of Nixon, was appropriately appointed pursuant to the statute. And you would have thought that would have ended this inquiry. Cannon does something I think I’ve never seen a district judge do before, which is that she looks into the history of the Nixon case, decides the issue wasn’t particularly briefed, and as a result determines that a sentence in a Supreme Court opinion that was decided 9-0 was, in fact, “dicta,” which means that it is not binding in subsequent cases as legal precedent. And as a result, she as a district judge was entitled to disregard it. I’ve never seen a district court conclude that a portion of a Supreme Court opinion is not binding; that was a first for me.

 

In my seminar at Harvard Law School, I teach that portion of the Nixon opinion, and the beginning of it is essentially whether the matter is justiciable and whether the case is properly in the court, partially because it’s an intra-branch fight — it’s two parts of the executive branch that are litigating against each other. It was important to the court to point out that the special counsel was validly appointed and validly in the court, because if they thought he had not been, then the matter would not have been justiciable. The entire first part of the Nixon opinion is really about justiciability.

Smith has said that he’s going to appeal. Can you talk about his likely strategy and whether the case might end up before the Supreme Court?

Smith’s appeal is going to be based on the issues we’re talking about. He’ll say that the judge’s reading of the authorizing statutes is wrong, and that in fact, the attorney general is entitled to appoint non-DOJ personnel to be special counsel. That’ll be the principal argument. Smith will also argue that the infused atmosphere of the Appointments Clause and the Appropriations Clause really has no place in the discussion. It’s a question of whether the statute permits it or doesn’t permit it. He’ll also raise the notion that essentially Nixon has already decided this case.

 

An appeal in the 11th Circuit would take roughly a year to decide. If Trump is elected president, after his inauguration he will certainly order the Department of Justice to dismiss the federal cases against him. The Department of Justice would then dismiss those cases and there would not be an appeal.

If Trump is not elected, there’s a strong chance that the 11th Circuit will reverse Cannon’s decision. Whichever way the 11th Circuit ruled, I suspect the issues would then be decided in the Supreme Court. I’m not going to predict what the Supreme Court would do.

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2024/07/what-the-judge-was-thinking-and-whats-next-in-trump-documents-case/

[Crazy Cat 41,983]

6 minutes ago, Family said:

If Trump is elected president, after his inauguration he will certainly order the Department of Justice to dismiss the federal cases against him. The Department of Justice would then dismiss those cases and there would not be an appeal.

I would change the first word to "When".....

[Family 4,065]

7 minutes ago, Crazy Cat said:

I would change the first word to "When".

If grandma had wheels…she’d be a wagon 😂

[Dashinka 24,635]

4 hours ago, Family said:

 

What the judge was thinking and what’s next in Trump documents case

On Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the classified documents case against former President Donald Trump, ruling that Special Counsel Jack Smith was improperly appointed.

 

 

Cannon ruled that the special counsel was appointed improperly. What was her legal reasoning?

It’s a mashup of statutory analysis and two constitutional principles — the Appointments Clause and the Appropriations Clause. She looks at the provisions in the order appointing Smith that set forth the statutory basis for that appointment. She also looks at the statutes and concludes that the statutes do not authorize the attorney general to appoint a special counsel. She focuses on the fact that Smith was not a Department of Justice employee or officer at the time of the appointment — he was working at The Hague. It’s not clear to me why that matters, because today he’s a Department of Justice official. She infuses the analysis with lengthy discussions of the Appointments Clause and the Appropriations Clause.

 

Two other district courts and the D.C. Circuit have considered this issue — the legality of the special counsel — and they have all rejected it. Cannon is the only judge to find the appointment invalid. The D.C. Circuit has twice rejected a challenge to the use of special counsels — during the Iran-Contra investigation and during Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Trump. Judge Dabney Friedrich of the District Court in D.C., who is a Trump appointee, tossed aside a similar challenge without a lot of effort in a fairly short opinion in a case involving Mueller, who oversaw the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Judge T.S. Ellis of the Eastern District of Virginia similarly tossed this issue aside in a case that also involved Mueller. So, the other courts that have looked at this issue have had no trouble with it and have ruled contrary to Cannon

 

 

What are the regulations under which special counsels are appointed?

Special counsels have been around for decades. From the 1970s until the late ’90s there was the independent counsel statute, which provided for a much more independent special prosecutor than what Attorney General [Merrick] Garland authorized in this matter. The Supreme Court upheld the statute in Morrison v. Olson, but it expired in 1999. After its expiration, DOJ implemented its own regulations providing for the appointment of special counsels who possess functions similar to U.S. attorneys. In 2020, in an Appointments Clause case involving the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Supreme Court essentially reaffirmed Morrison v. Olson as a valid exception to a general rule about appointments.

 

 

One very surprising thing is how Cannon deals with the Supreme Court precedent in United States v. Nixon. There’s a sentence in that 9-0 opinion which resolves this issue entirely. The sentence says that Archibald Cox, who was one of the prosecutors of Nixon, was appropriately appointed pursuant to the statute. And you would have thought that would have ended this inquiry. Cannon does something I think I’ve never seen a district judge do before, which is that she looks into the history of the Nixon case, decides the issue wasn’t particularly briefed, and as a result determines that a sentence in a Supreme Court opinion that was decided 9-0 was, in fact, “dicta,” which means that it is not binding in subsequent cases as legal precedent. And as a result, she as a district judge was entitled to disregard it. I’ve never seen a district court conclude that a portion of a Supreme Court opinion is not binding; that was a first for me.

 

In my seminar at Harvard Law School, I teach that portion of the Nixon opinion, and the beginning of it is essentially whether the matter is justiciable and whether the case is properly in the court, partially because it’s an intra-branch fight — it’s two parts of the executive branch that are litigating against each other. It was important to the court to point out that the special counsel was validly appointed and validly in the court, because if they thought he had not been, then the matter would not have been justiciable. The entire first part of the Nixon opinion is really about justiciability.

 

 

Smith has said that he’s going to appeal. Can you talk about his likely strategy and whether the case might end up before the Supreme Court?

Smith’s appeal is going to be based on the issues we’re talking about. He’ll say that the judge’s reading of the authorizing statutes is wrong, and that in fact, the attorney general is entitled to appoint non-DOJ personnel to be special counsel. That’ll be the principal argument. Smith will also argue that the infused atmosphere of the Appointments Clause and the Appropriations Clause really has no place in the discussion. It’s a question of whether the statute permits it or doesn’t permit it. He’ll also raise the notion that essentially Nixon has already decided this case.

 

An appeal in the 11th Circuit would take roughly a year to decide. If Trump is elected president, after his inauguration he will certainly order the Department of Justice to dismiss the federal cases against him. The Department of Justice would then dismiss those cases and there would not be an appeal.

If Trump is not elected, there’s a strong chance that the 11th Circuit will reverse Cannon’s decision. Whichever way the 11th Circuit ruled, I suspect the issues would then be decided in the Supreme Court. I’m not going to predict what the Supreme Court would do.

 

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2024/07/what-the-judge-was-thinking-and-whats-next-in-trump-documents-case/

There have been some pretty important decisions that happened in the recent past.  Seems the other courts were not considering those.  Regardless, this is pretty common for Jack Smith, he is often slapped down due to his ineptness.