Judge Chutkan Ready To Read Jack Smith's 180 Pages Of Evidence Against Trump, Might Even Let Us See It
We could get a fun October surprise out of this case yet!
Breaking news on the Special Counsel Jack Smith front, and it’s that DC District Judge Tanya Chutkan still doesn’t think criminal defendant Donald Trump deserves special treatment in the scheduling of his election-overturning federal trial. She just doesn’t give one solitary shit that he’s busy trying to slime himself back into the presidency, and it’s not going to affect the timeline of what happens in her courtroom.
In other words, nothing has changed since that first scheduling conference a few weeks ago, after she got the case back from Trump’s knob-slobbers on the Supreme Court, who ruled Trump is allowed to shoot America in the middle of Fifth Avenue as long as he says it was an official presidential act.
With just under six weeks until the election, Chutkan has denied the Trump legal team’s desperate begging to not let Smith file a 180-page brief on Thursday, detailing all Smith’s evidence for why Trump is not immune from prosecution for leading an insurrection to overthrow the United States government to overturn the results of the 2020 election he lost like a pathetic dog, to borrow language he likes to use.
Chutkan granted Smith’s request to file an “oversized brief on the pending immunity issues.” Usually these sorts of briefs are limited to 45 pages, but Chutkan agreed that it will be very helpful to her for Smith to file this great big huge 180-page brief, chock-full of evidence, in order to comply with SCOTUS’s dumbass instruction that she waste her and America’s time parsing what is and is not an “official act” before the trial can proceed under Smith’s new superseding indictment.
“The length and breadth of the Government’s proposed brief reflects the uniquely ‘challenging’ and factbound nature of those determinations,” wrote Chutkan, very side-eyed-ly.
She also responded yet again to Trump’s whining about the schedule of the trial happening right here before the election, noting that “For the second time in a week, Defendant urges reconsideration of the current pretrial schedule in a brief intended to respond to a separate issue, and without actually filing a motion to that effect.” She continued, “The court has already addressed the scheduling objections Defendant raised when he was given an opportunity to do so.”
In other words, Trump’s brief was supposed to be about “why should Jack Smith not be allowed to file this huge 180-page brief?” Instead, they wrote one sentence about how 180-page briefs are too big, and spent the other nine pages bitching about how the trial schedule was improper, AKA nine pages screaming ELECTION INTERFERENCE! (They also called Smith’s forthcoming filing a “180-page false hit piece.” Sure, bud.)
Trump doesn’t want Jack Smith to file this brief on Thursday. He wants Jack Smith to file it after the election, once he has a chance to file a motion to dismiss, or maybe never. Chutkan says fuck off.
You can read Chutkan’s full order if you want, but the overarching gist is one she has stated before and states here thus: “Defendant’s concern with the political consequences of these proceedings does not bear on the pretrial schedule.” The Supreme Court directed that Chutkan’s court resolve questions about how its ruling on Trump’s immunity applies to this case “at the earliest possible stages” of this trial.
Know what time it is, says Chutkan? It’s earliest-possible-stages-thirty!
What this means in layman’s terms is that a great big-ass filing is coming from Jack Smith this week, and it’s going to be full of evidence, some of which has already been made public, much of which likely hasn’t. And yes, we will likely get to see it, though not on Thursday. Or at least a large part of it. CNN explains:
The large court filing from prosecutors is set to come on Thursday. At first, it will be filed under seal. But Chutkan will have the ability to release a version of it to the public as part of the court file. The Justice Department plans to provide a redacted version that could be quickly released by the judge, likely before the November presidential election.
That nice Jack Smith boy is always so helpful. Preparing 180-page briefs that help the judge figure out exactly how the idiot ruling from Trump’s illegitimate partisan hack Supreme Court applies, preparing a redacted version for public consumption, so the court doesn’t have to do it. He’s just a really considerate young man.
So we’re not getting all the goods right this second.
But very soon it will be Cocktober, and that is the month of Cocktober surprises, and we will get to see it then, maybe pretty please?
If it’s what Jack Smith says we love it, especially later in the summer Cocktober!
Good legal article, Wonkette.
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OT: Senator Wyden thinks it is a bit hinky that Jared Kushner's private equity fund has been paid over $100 million in fees, mostly from foreign governments, and not generated any profits. He thinks maybe "Affinity’s investors may not be motivated by commercial considerations but rather the opportunity to funnel foreign government money to members of President Trump’s family, namely Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump" (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/25/us/politics/kushner-private-equity-saudi-arabia.html?unlocked_article_code=1.NU4.4PzD.5NI5LLiU60bL&smid=url-share).
OT, but I figured there could be an uplifting news break: https://apnews.com/article/thailand-marriage-equality-law-e0df9fa2d38afc81c53dda81ce489be5
Thailand has legalized marriage equality. All gendered language in Thai laws has been removed to say "romantic partner" rather than "husband" or "wife," adoption is legal now, and Thailand fully expects to become a Mecca for gay rights in SE Asia. <3 Love does win sometimes.