I’ve only been half following this saga, but do we know where this meeting took place? The judge is demanding the lawyer tells him how he found out about it, almost in a ‘who squealed’ way. That, at least to me, suggests they did this in some ‘secret’ location where they didn’t expect to be found out. But isn’t it possible that they did it somewhere public and someone saw them?
Actually, I see one article that quotes the judge as saying “How did you get that information supposedly from my chambers? Did somebody tell you?”, so I guess there’s that. The next question is, are the judge’s chambers so private that no one would have seen who was coming and going? Is it possible it was another lawyer who happened to see them meeting and reported back to Steel?
I feel like were going to find out this is a terrible judge and this isn’t the first time he’s done something stupid/illegal and punished the people that caught him, but it’s the first time one of the involved parties was in the public eye.
And do they even need to reveal their source given the judge has admitted it happened? If he asked for proof of the meeting, that would be one thing, but he’s demanding to know how Steel found out about the meeting.
Haha… That was maybe my favorite Saul Goodman moment from Breaking Bad (though I think it was only a dollar) but apparently it doesn’t really work that way. If you think about it, a pro bono case involves not paying the lawyer anything yet clearly privilege would exist then too.
I also love the cojones of the judge who is threatening to throw someone in contempt for squealing on the judge for violating someone’s constitutional rights.
“You don’t get to extort the court. It doesn’t work that way,” he said.
This has got to end up in a mistrial I’m thinking.
And hopefully somebody digging deeply into this judges conduct in his case record? If I were anywhere around that judge, I would be terrified right now. Or am I overthinking this?
Apprently, the procecutor took the reluctant witness into the judge’s chamber to threaten him for not being as cooperative as they wanted him to be.
One repost said the judge assisted the prosecution in the argument against the witness.
There apparently was a court reporter making a record of the meeting. I can’t see how this is going to end well for either the judge or a prosecution.
I haven’t followed the case at all up into this blew up, but it looks like it took more than 10 months to seat a jury! That’s insane. There are complaints that he can’t control the lawyers.
The only saving grace is that this all has been done outside the presence of the jury.
I bet that Trump wishes he had this lawyer instead of Merchan in New York.
Thank you for that. When I initially was reading the story I was thinking about every single other person in that room that may not necessarily have anything to do with the case. Court staff, journalists possibly in the room, just random employees who work in the same building, etc…
If I was a random janitor working in the building around this judge I would be taking great pains to document where and when I am at all times. That feels slightly paranoid to me but it’s honestly how I would feel.
