It’s looking rather like the ‘election fraud’ statements his team of crack lawyers were making to the media right after the election vs. the statements they were making in front of a judge, i.e. when lying would have have consequences.
“So are you alleging there was fraud committed in counting these ballots?”
“Not at this time, your honor.”
Haven’t seen this mentioned elsewhere but:
Trump hired one of Maduro’s lawyers. Strange bedfellows indeed.
(I read elsewhere that Kise got $3m up front from Trump, which already makes him smarter than pretty much every other lawyer Trump has hired.)
Thanks for the gift link, @Aspenglow.
Is that unusual?
Which, once again, emphasizes just how insane the ruling from the Trumpist Judge that allowed the special master in the first place was.
I am experiencing much joy and schadenfreude imagining his lawyer’s, adviser’s, family, and associates all trying to keep him from attacking his own Special Master on Twuth Social.
Because you know this is happening. Even as I type this, keeping him from attacking Dearie is top of mind, right this second, to someone close to him. You know it.
I look forward to their failure to control him with great amusement.
But it matters quite a lot at this very moment, specifically, the fact that the DOJ just asked for permission from the appeals court to continue its work using any classified documents. If Trump had responded with a list of which documents he declassified, the DOJ would, presumably, be barred under Judge Cannon’s order to use those documents until the special master was finished reviewing everything. Even if this appeals court grants the DOJ’s request.
This isn’t what happened.
The subpoena and the request for stay pending appeal both concern documents, “bearing classification markings,” as opposed to classified documents. This difference is important because no one is disputing that the docs bear classifications markings and it’s not really disputable.
Trump and his lawyers have been pretending that this is about classification status, but that’s misdirection. Don’t fall for it.
I’m guessing he saw the idea of a “Special Master” as another shiny toy he can use to delay and thwart investigations. Here’s hoping it blows up in his face.
Well, it is unusual that Judge Cannon did not allow any phones or electronic devices in her court. Presumably because, as a judge, she didn’t want her corruption broadcast. Judge Dearie is showing openness and that he won’t put up with stalling bullshit, I hope.
The headline waiting to be written: “Oh, Dearie!” Many legal experts are saying that choosing him was a mistake by Trump. I wonder if he picked Dearie himself or asked someone else to do it so he could blame them later.
Some brilliant 0.5D chess right there.
As a non-legal type, I think this case is the first time (or close to it) that I’ve heard of a ‘special master’. It sounds like something trump would have made up (“I want a master, the best master…maybe even a special master [looks at someone off camera], can we do that, can we get a special master?”).
Trump: “Hold my beer.”
Yeah, I’d only first heard of it in connection to Giuliani, and I suspect the same is true of most laypeople or this situation.
There was a poster (possibly @Procrustus?) who said that in local courts SMs have been a thing in a couple instances. Hopefully the poster could elucidate that.
In some cases they help overworked trial judges deal with cases with a lot of documents and a lot of disputes over discovery. In one case, more similar to what is happening with Trump, a corporation withheld documents under a claim of privilege. Thousands of documents. They produced a “privilege log,” but it didn’t have much information. After we caught the corporation claiming privilege on one document on the log that didn’t clearly deserve protection, she appointed a special master to look at all 10,000 documents and make recommendations as to the legitimacy of the privilege claims. The claims are different than Trump’s, but the idea is the same. Someone has to actually look at the documents and make a determination. Judge Cannon could have done it herself, ordering that everything be delivered to her chambers for an in camera review, but it’s the kind of chore that judges like to offload.
Having now (due to this thread) heard the term. I’ve noticed it in other articles/tweets/references that predate all this.
I first heard of it in the OJ case. For reasons lost in the mists of history, a knife that was potential evidence was turned over to a S.M.