Trump Lawyers Flip The F*ck Out On Special Counsel For Crime Of Turning Homework In Early, Saying Mean Bad Words About Trump
'President Trump patiently explained this to the prosecutors.'
Donald Trump! He’s this career criminal with a sideline in civil fraud who’s managed to get himself indicted in three states and the District of Columbia. So far! But somehow he keeps managing to skate away. Which is weird because his lawyers SUCK!
When last we left Commander Crimetime, the Supreme Court had just declined to conduct an expedited review of his claim of absolute magic presidential immunity for any and all crimes committed while in office. Trump was in the odd position of claiming both that his immunity argument was a slam dunk, and that it was a complicated issue of first impression which could not be rushed. But once you’ve practiced telling a federal judge that actually it’s the president’s job to obstruct Congress, you’re able to say absolutely any insane shit with a straight face. And boy howdy do Trump’s lawyers do that!
Just this week, they’ve submitted two absolutely batshit documents in this election interference case — one to District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan, and one to the DC Circuit.
On December 7, after Judge Chutkan denied his motion to dismiss the case on grounds of presidential immunity, Trump appealed to the DC Circuit and requested to stay the trial pending appeal. While the Special Counsel’s Office did not object to the stay, it promised to continue meeting its own obligations “in light of the public’s strong interest in a prompt trial.”
“Accordingly, the Government will provide the defendant and the Court with any notice required by the pretrial schedule, and more—including, depending on the length of the appellate process, the Government’s exhibit list, motions in limine, and other pleadings pertaining to the Government’s trial presentation,” prosecutors wrote.
On December 13, Judge Chutkan stayed all deadlines in the case. But since then Trump and his goons have told a bunch of whoppers about that order, so let’s quote it directly:
“Accordingly, and for clarity, the court hereby STAYS the deadlines and proceedings scheduled by its Pretrial Order, as amended.”
Judge Chutkan did not say “Special Counsel Jack Smith, I forbid you from filing any more stuff.” All she said was that Trump was free from the “burdens of litigation” pending his appeal, although he still has to follow the gag order and not slag witnesses or court staff.
Unsurprisingly, Jack Smith did exactly what he promised. He continued to serve discovery, and even docketed a notice of service on December 18 telling the court that he’d forwarded his draft list of trial exhibits to Trump’s lawyers. Hours later, Trump’s lawyer John Lauro filed a pissy response accusing the prosecutors of trying the defendant “in absentia” by “unlawfully and illegally” serving discovery while the appeal is pending. Which was nonsense, if a nice change from Lauro’s usual howling that Smith’s team is hiding exculpatory evidence.
The court ignored all this noise, and so on December 27, the prosecution filed a motion in limine, as per the original pretrial schedule, seeking to block Trump from blaming antifa, undercover agents, Chinese hackers, or Hizbullah for the events of January 6, 2021. It also asked the court to bar him from using partisan rhetoric at trial, such as referring to “the Biden DOJ” and asserting that President Biden controls the special counsel. To be clear, this motion posed no obligation at all upon Trump and his lawyers — they were of course free to ignore it.
But they did not ignore it. Instead they filed a wildly inappropriate request for sanctions on Smith and his deputies Molly Gaston and Thomas Windom for violating the stay by turning in their homework early and saying mean things about Trump.
“In this manner, the prosecutors seek to weaponize the Stay to spread political propaganda, knowing that President Trump would not fully respond because the Court relieved him of the burdens of litigation during the Stay,” Lauro whined. “Worse, the prosecutors have announced their intention to continue this partisan-driven misconduct indefinitely, effectively converting this Court’s docket into an arm of the Biden Campaign.”
Judges don’t just impose sanctions willy-nilly. There has to be severe misconduct, or multiple instances of defiance. That’s clearly not the case here, where Judge Chutkan never said, “Hey, Jack, knock it off.” So instead, Lauro pretends that his own yelling is a substitute for instruction from the court.
“Through counsel, President Trump advised that he rejected the prosecutors’ unlawful productions, that their actions violated the Stay Order, and that he would seek relief if their malicious conduct continued,” he fulminated, adding later that “President Trump patiently explained this to the prosecutors.”
Trump wants to have the document stricken from the record, as well as an award of attorneys fees to compensate his lawyers for the time spent dealing with the motion they had exactly zero obligation to deal with.
It’s offensively stupid, but if you’re looking for sanctionable conduct, might we direct your attention to Trump’s reply brief to the DC Circuit in preparation for oral argument on the immunity issue Tuesday morning. (Listen live here.)
Trump’s lawyers make a whole bunch of crazy arguments in this document, but perhaps wildest of all is their link to a Trump social media post and a so-called “report” in support of the claim that there were “vigorous disputes and questions about the actual outcome of the 2020 Presidential election—disputes that date back to November 2020, continue to this day in our nation’s political discourse, and are based on extensive information about widespread fraud and irregularities in the 2020 election.”
The “fully verified” report is an unattributed PDF regurgitating debunked claims, such as the false allegation that there were more votes than voters in Pennsylvania. Some of the sources appear to be non-existent — WTF is an unlinked “Spreadsheet, ‘Fulton County Missing Ballot Images Recount’”? — while others include The Gateway Pundit, random Rumble videos, and Dinesh D’Souza’s pals at True the Vote.
“The election integrity group True the Vote identified 107 ballot traffickers in Milwaukee County between Oct. 20 and Nov. 3, 2020, who each made 20 or more visits to drop boxes. Each trafficker made an average 26 visits, and as many as 15 in one day, and made multiple visits to non-governmental organizations.
In short, these are not the kind of sources lawyers should be citing in a pleading to a federal court, even with the weasel caveat of calling it “published analysis reporting that ‘investigations across the country have uncovered an avalanche of irregularities, unlawful activity, manipulation of election records, destruction of evidence, and fraud’ in the 2020 election.”
The Bulwark’s Kim Wehle called this “sanctionable misconduct,” and she’s not wrong.
Kinda ironic coming from Trump’s lawyers demanding the trial court come down like a ton of bricks on the special counsel for docketing discovery at the very moment they’re lobbing this bullshit at the appeals court, huh?
[US v. Trump, District Docket via Court Listener / US v. Trump Circuit Docket via Court Listener]
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The ol’ “dazzle ‘em with bullshit, piled high” doesn’t seem to work outside of the magaverse, but that’s all that matters to those idiots.
The idea that Trump could explain anything, let alone do so patiently is so ludicrous that it makes my hair ache.