Writes NYU lawprof emeritus Burt Neuborne in "There’s a Good Chance Trump Will Be Found ‘Willfully Blind’" (NYT).
Neuborne offers the 2011 Supreme Court case, Global-Tech Appliances v. SEB as the solution:
Justice Samuel Alito, writing for all but one justice, ruled that proof of willful blindness is the legal equivalent of proving guilty knowledge. As Justice Alito explained it, “Many criminal statutes require proof that a defendant acted knowingly or willfully, and courts applying the doctrine of willful blindness hold that defendants cannot escape the reach of these statutes by deliberately shielding themselves from clear evidence of critical facts that are strongly suggested by the circumstances.”
In other words, when a defendant, like Mr. Trump, is on notice of the potential likelihood of an inconvenient fact (Mr. Biden’s legitimate victory) and closes his eyes to overwhelming evidence of that fact, the willfully blind defendant is just as guilty as if he actually knew the fact.
Neuborne concedes that this argument is "not a slam dunk."
Posts
127 comments:
It's illegal to say or think what we all know is probably true. 2020 was given to crook Biden. The same people who brought us the Russian collusion lie... the same people who insist Joe Biden and his son and brother are all perfectly innocent with their "business deals" ... say, nervously... "you have NO proof!"
re: "willful blindness" as a fulcrum for a Trump conviction.
This has a feeling of inevitability as the most likely conclusion for this circus.
Then what? Business as usual? Revolution?
Stay tuned for the next episode of Life in These United States. Good thing there isn't anything else important going on in the world these days. This could end well, but that's not showing positive odds at the moment.
Government lies? BAU (Business as usual).
The Pentagon Papers, published 30 years ago this month, proved that the government had long lied to the country. Indeed, the papers revealed a policy of concealment and quite deliberate deception from the Truman administration onward.
Lying About Vietnam NYT
Willful blindness creeps in everywhere.
The NYT willfully participates in the destruction of the first amendment. Lying is a civil issue. Denial of human rights is criminal.
In this case the “overwhelming evidence” will consist of a bunch of people telling him that something happened. And because they say it happened, then —amirite, ladies and gentlemen (and other genders) of the jury?— it must have happened. A fact is a fact: and a fact like this —a conclusion (“losing”) based on a report of an aggregate set of numbers produced from reports of other counts made by hundreds or thousands of strangers (election workers) scattered all over this great land and hastily adjudicating the meaning of tens of millions of ambiguous blobs on paper or numbers on machines or text messages on phones— such a fact is inarguably evident to all sentient beings and incapable of being misconstrued. From which it follows that we can read Donald Trump’s mind. We can penetrate his inmost heart and discern —with the confidence needed to convict him of a serious crime and send him to prison— that he is guilty of deliberately false belief.
Yeah, I’m convinced. But…maybe I’m only saying that. How are you going to know what I “really” think?
“Reputable,” “credible,” well, this opens the door to looking at the evidence, now, doesn’t it? How is the judge going to prevent looking at the evidence? Lack of standing? Moot? That’s not going to fly. Of course she will still get her conviction, a kind of reverse jury nullification, but the evidence will penetrate, even as NPR won’t report it, and so liberals will continue to claim no such evidence exists.
“Fervent,” “narcissist,” this is the kind of dispassionate analysis that helps us to understand the great issues of the day. Of course this kind of rhetoric assumes what it is trying to prove, but I don’t expect liberals to understand that point.
The split in the Republican Party right now is between those who wish to surrender our republic with a whimper, and those who want to fight for it still. You can count me on the side that thinks that our republic is still worth fighting for.
My question is where is the crime? It is not a crime to believe that fraud was so great in 2020 that Biden won. So many things happened that night that lends a lot of credibility of fraud in the specific states that made the difference.
His argument is simple, "Trump is a Republican and this is DC." No further proof needed.
Like Hillary, who didn't have to go through an arrest and trial, but was determined to have not done anything intentionally wrong despite having had yearly training that told her the server set-up she had was illegal, her use of her personal cellphone for work (especially in foreign countries) put the data at risk, and saving files on a sex predator's laptop was not permitted.
Maybe it's easier to play dumb when you're already pretty close. She's wily, but I'm not sure she's that smart. I think Trump is smart. He's got bad judgement regarding people, though. In business, if you are good to an employee, they'll usually be good to the business. I don't think he was prepared for the amount of backstabbing that comes with politics.
I have to admit I am mystified as to why the question of what Trump did or did not actually believe about the election matters. Isn't the question what he DID about his beliefs, not what they were? Did he commit crimes or not. If so, what crimes? What proof? If he committed a crime believing the election was stolen or lying about believing it was stolen, the crime remains the same. So, what crimes? Please explain.
In any case, more broadly speaking, the only thing that matters in these Trump indictments politically, is the colossal double standard they reveal to be operating in DOJ, the presidency and the media. An unprecedented effort to convict a former president alongside a near total indifference to even more obviously likely criminal activity by the current president (after all, "bribery" is one of only two crimes specifically listed in the Constitution as meriting impeachment). It is this double standard that will shape the deepest and longest-lasting impact of all this criminalizing of political differences.
Not only is the argument not a slam dunk, there is plenty of evidence of “willful blindness” on the part of those advising Trump that the election results were legitimate. But that won’t matter to a DC jury.
A blue city or blue state jury would find Trump guilty of single-handedly causing global warming and fathering Adolph Hitler. They'd also swear that he kills baby seals and cuts down the Amazon rain forest to make 100 new golf courses every week. Blue support doesn't make an allegation rational or possible.
Trump came on the political scene as an Obama "birther" and wanting to build a wall as his primary immigration policy. Neither of these were persuasive to myself and many others. BUT, Trump believed and showed huge commitment to his beliefs. In the eyes of many, he had reasons to seriously doubt the 2020 election (using Al Gore 2020, Hillary 2016, and Stacey Abrams standards)...so this is a logical and evidentiary nothing. That won't stop blue zealots. Only death can stop a zealot.
I never understood those who take this argument. It will never not be a catch 22 with this guy. That’s his game and it’s not a new one. So be it. But this isn’t over a parking ticket and he does everything he can to show us how much contempt he has for the laws he routinely breaks. Shrugging our shoulders is not an option. Political inconvenience can never be a reason for a politician to be deemed above the law.
No. No it is not. Bcause the other side also gets admit evidence. We'll see how unbiased the judge is.
Is this the GA case? (If I recall correctly, the DC case is about the “classified” documents, but it’s so hard to keep track of all the spaghetti strands they’re hoping stick to the wall.) Their biggest hurdle will not be showing Trump knew he was lying; their biggest hurdle will be showing he broke the law at all. Did the NYU emeritus weigh in on that?
I think it was stolen. Maybe Trump does as well.
The narcissism defense to the fraud charge doesn’t help on the obstruction of an official proceeding charges.
The bind here is that in politics it is better to be the person who lied than the person who was successfully lied to. The Trump base has decided to adopt the lie, so they will be accepting of a story that Trump was a true believer who was lied to by his fervent supporters. But the Trump base has to believe Trump was lying, or they would have to face the alternative reality that a sitting President who gets an election stolen from him is a pretty poor President.
What a loaded pull quote: reams of testimony showing that he was repeatedly told by every reputable adviser and administration official that no credible evidence of widespread electoral fraud existed…
This artful twisting of the language would not be necessary were the “reams” of evidence so clear and one-sided. The fact that GA indicted so many advisors who are on the record sharing Trump’s concerns negates this lawprof’s purple prose without even touching on the dishonest “widespread” weasel word. We all know the fraud and cheating is concentrated very deliberately in specific voting districts controlled by Democrats. It doesn’t need to be widespread when there are enough votes generated in, say, Milwaukee or Fulton County or Las Vegas. Population density is the key twin to the DNC fraud machine and we all know it. The same exact locations have serious problems every damn election season. We already know Philadelphia will have a judge extend voting hours for an “emergency” yet to be determined, that those who do the counting in the above named locales will suddenly “find” batches of ballots, as will the ones in any D-controlled districts as needed.
I have no doubt the opening statements in DC and GA will read very much like the quote Althouse pulled from today’s weasel. But the cases are weak and built on novel if not vaporous theories and even if the judges are biased, as is demonstrably true in DC, the defendant gets a voice. The process is the punishment, which is Smith’s specialty. He’s a hitman who is employed to take down Republicans as his history shows, and who cares if the SCOTUS overturns? By then the damage is done. And there is no venue one can go to and get one’s reputation back. Although if there is one man who can make it so, he is the one being targeted now.
Highly-partisan-not-a-law-prof Burt chooses to ignore the context of an unprecedented mail in election with all of the accompanying irregularities combined with willful ignoring of expelling bipartisan observers in key highly partisan locations. That should be enough…
…but go ahead and pile on group think from ‘reputable’ advisors. I’m also repeatedly lectured how anyone working with Trump has never been ‘reputable’…
Mystery Swirls Over Batch of Thousands of 2020 Voter Registration Forms in Michigan
"Two weeks before the 2020 election, a woman dropped off more than 10,000 voter registration forms with a city clerk in Muskegon, Michigan.
The number of forms was a red flag for the city clerk, Ann Meisch. Less than 4,000 of the city’s voting-age residents weren’t registered to vote.
Ms. Meisch called the police, triggering an investigation by the Michigan State Police. An Oct. 26, 2020, police report from that probe recently surfaced after Michigan state lawmakers obtained it through a Freedom of Information request.
At the time, Brianna Hawkins, the woman who delivered the forms, was employed by GBI Strategies, an out-of-state firm working to boost Democrat voter turnout in urban centers in key swing states to help then-candidate Joe Biden defeat President Donald Trump. According to the police report, when questioned by Muskegon Police Department investigators, Ms. Hawkins said her job was to register voters and help them obtain absentee ballots.
State Republican Party officials Phil O’Halloran and Lori Skibo obtained the police report. Mr. O’Halloran provided it to The Epoch Times.
An article by a nationally known fact-checking service disputed recent conservative media accounts of the Muskegon episode.
“While the total number of voter registration forms submitted by that person may add up to as much as 12,500, very few of them were deemed to be fraudulent,” the fact checker said.
“Page 3 of the MSP [Michigan State Police] report says Meisch ‘turned over 42 suspected fraudulent applications to Officer Foster [of the Muskegon Police Deptartment] for examination.’”
The fact checker didn’t state that the 42 applications were a sampling.
However, the numbers tell a different story and raise a question: If there were only 42 suspected fraudulent voter registration applications submitted to the city clerk, why didn’t she register the rest of the batch?
In 2020, the population of the City of Muskegon was 38,309, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Of these, 29,800 people were of voting age.
Ms. Meisch told The Epoch Times in an August 10 email that in 2019, there were 25,957 registered voters in the city. In 2020, the number of people registered to vote increased by 2,077 to 28,034.
That means the pool of voting-age people not registered to vote that Ms. Hawkins had to work with was only 3,843.
Ms. Hawkins dropped off more than 10,000 voter registration forms in incremental batches, suggesting that thousands of the forms never made it onto the city’s registered voter roll.
“Even a casual observer can readily see that something is wrong. The numbers do not add up. The number of registration forms turned in by one person represents a third of the population of the city,” Mr. O’Halloran told The Epoch Times."
A year or two from now, I wonder what this Supreme Court will have to say about the matter.
Only fools think the purpose of the charges is to get a guilty verdict.
Is that why the prosecution asked for a March 4 trial date?
NYT had to go all the way to 82 year-old-not-a-law-prof Burt for that one. Not on the faculty and does he possess all his faculties?
...repeatedly told by every reputable adviser and administration official that no credible evidence of widespread electoral fraud existed...
Who argued the fraud was "widespread"?
Wasn't the allegation that the fraud was highly targeted in 5-6 blue counties in swing states?
"...defendants cannot escape the reach of these statutes by deliberately shielding themselves from clear evidence of critical facts that are strongly suggested by the circumstances."
When have these "statutes" every been applied criminally to acts that involve political speech and petitioning government for redress of grievances?
I mean, the defense can also present evidence that people have tried to game the electoral college vote in absolutely every election, up to and including Trump's election in 2016.
doesn't Mr Smith JUST have to persuade the 12 jurors, that Trump wasn't a democrat?
Isn't THAT his crime?
"deliberately shielding themselves from clear evidence of critical facts that are strongly suggested by the circumstances"
The problem with this argument is that, despite lots of people being very certain, there really is insufficient information to justify being certain that Biden won legitimately.
We could get a good idea by performing audits of mail-in ballots: This would involve taking a sample of them and reaching out to the voter, in person, to ask if they voted and compare the signature on the ballot to a witnessed signature done by voter.
So the case depends on Mr. Trump proving that there is cause for him to legitimately doubt that the 2020 election was conducted cleanly? If he is allowed a fair defense, this will go down as one of the great political "own goals" of history.
but was determined to have not done anything intentionally wrong despite having had yearly training that told her the server set-up she had was illegal, her use of her personal cellphone for work (especially in foreign countries) put the data at risk, and saving files on a sex predator's laptop was not permitted.
That's the thing: she didn't have yearly training. IIRC she refused to take any of the mandatory training that goes along with a clearance. This wasn't simply a case of her doing the wrong thing, but of everyone around her, above and below, ignoring it. The cover-up was as much about their failures as hers.
Is this the GA case? (If I recall correctly, the DC case is about the “classified” documents, but it’s so hard to keep track of all the spaghetti strands they’re hoping stick to the wall.)
No, this is the indictment in DC over Jan 6 crap. The GA case is separate, and the classified documents case is being handled in FL.
The fraud wasn’t “widespread.” It was narrowly targeted at a specific vote-counting center in each of five states.
"Willful blindness"? The court system and the DOJ used willful blindness to suppress the evaluation of testimony about ballot box stuffing. Suits were either too soon, too late, or plaintiffs lacked standing. Discovery efforts were suppressed. The DOJ responded with a "Look! There's Halley's comet!" diversion and after 5-minute investigation, said that there's no evidence.
The Democrats shutdown counting in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan when DJT was head by 50,000 to 150,000 ballots. They kept observers 25-50-ft away from counters in the name of COVID. In Detroit, they boarded up the observation windows. Then while they were not counting, they dropped their machine-marked ballots for Joe "most extensive election fraud organization" Biden, and then Joe won those states by 10,000-ish votes! What a miracle!
Left Bank of the Charles said...The Trump base has decided to adopt the lie, so they will be accepting of a story that Trump was a true believer who was lied to by his fervent supporters.
As usual, you are dealing in false choices, excluded middles. In that clusterfuck of an election, a person can sincerely believe damn near anything. Nobody on any side of this issue need be lying.
The important question, the one that will head this chapter in the history books, is why the Democrats fight so hard against cleaning up our elections so that the losers can say with confidence that they lost. Not only are they not interested in cleaning them up, the Democrats want to make them messier and less reliable.
Do you ever ask yourself why?
“The Epoch Times” LOL …..
"How can Mr. Smith persuade 12 jurors that no reasonable doubt exists that Mr. Trump knew he was lying?"
From the point of pure logic, it can't be done unless Smith can find a short of a video, written statement by Trump, or eyewitness testimony to Trump verbally admitting that he was lying. I already know this evidence doesn't exist. This is why the prosecution is so egregiously stupid and dishonest. All of the evidence we have shows pretty clearly that Trump did believe it and does believe it still. It obviously wasn't the case of him lying.
I wrote my congresscritter via e-mail urging him to challenge the electoral slates of Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania- I think I even threaten to vote for a primary opponent if he did not do it, so I was "coercing him". I even wrote comments on various forums supporting efforts to pressure the legislatures of those states to send alternate slates of electors. In essence, I am guilty of trying to overturn the 2020 election, too, aren't I? So, where is my mugshot?
that Mr. Trump knew he was lying?
Can it be proven the election wasn’t stolen?
Wouldn’t that be the first step before you could prove Trump “lied”?
There is purposeful conflation of "no credible evidence" with "no evidence that a judge will accept".
There is plenty of credible evidence of voting fraud in the 2020 election, but judges historically do not interfere.
With that out of the way, let's address the essay itself.
Neuborne's argument is one Smith should dare not make in court in front of an honest judge because it does open up to Trump's defense the bringing in the voluminous evidence of both electoral fraud and willful disregard of it by the courts everywhere. If Smith is going to argue that Trump is willfully blind to "overwhelming evidence of that fact", that Biden's win was legitimate, Smith will have to produce that "overwhelming evidence" himself and the court will have to allow Trump to discover and present the evidence countering Smith's.
If I were Trump's attorney, I would ask for discovery for all of the envelopes containing the signatures of the voters who voted by mail in the contested states and the signatures of the voters' registration file so that I could do signature authentication and compare it to what was actually done in 2020 in regards to authentication of said voters. That is where the fraud most likely occurred and will tell a story that a jury might be persuaded to understand.
Now, of course, this isn't going to have an honest judge- we already know that she is a extrememely anti-Trump, so Smith will get to make his argument as Neuborne suggests and Trump's legal team will not be granted the discovery to disprove it. It will be a rigged trial. We all know this, even if not all of us have the integrity to admit it.
Willful blindness...Isn't that what Jesus was crucified for?
How many people still believe that Trump-Russian collusion resulted in Trump being elected?
How many know that the Trump-Russian collusion narrative was paid for by the Clinton campaign?
Why hasn’t Hillary been charged with a felony for every time she has said or implied that the Russians stole the election?
There is no doubt she knows that she is lying; one of the consequences is that her election denying supporters tried to stage a coup by flipping electors; by creating “the resistance;” by waging lawfare on his supporters like Page and Flynn.
Jon Burack said...
I have to admit I am mystified as to why the question of what Trump did or did not actually believe about the election matters. Isn't the question what he DID..
Jon? I'm Not Sure you Understand the concept of Thought Crime, maybe you need to re-read the instruction manual?
Rich said...
That’s his game and it’s not a new one. So be it. But this isn’t over a parking ticket and he does everything he can to show us how much contempt he has for the laws he routinely breaks. Shrugging our shoulders is not an option. Political inconvenience can never be a reason for a politician to be deemed above the law.
i Assume from the Pronouns that Rich is talking about Joe Biden? Or maybe he IS talking about Hillary?
"an inconvenient fact (Mr. Biden’s legitimate victory) and closes his eyes to overwhelming evidence of that fact"
"Legitimacy" is a judgment, not a fact. Of course, the point of prog propaganda is to turn the assertion into a "fact." May work in court.
MadTownGuy... Now do Antrim County MI then Detroit MI.
Re-elect Soros 2024.
There's plenty to chew on but Soros A.G.s squash.
The entire "vote by mail" was massive vote fraud. It is long established that voting by mail is a red flag, such there was bipartisan and non-controversial agreement that any election that had widespread vote by mail was likely rigged. It is just too easy to cheat with basically no way of proving it. Then there's the matter that many of these voting schemes were established by the executive or the bureaucracy without legislative approval in blatant violation of the United States Constitution.
As for Mr. Smith, Mr. Smith is pre-established as a corrupt hack who would be an awful choice for this sort of prosecution by anyone with any concern of impropriety, so of course he was chosen because he is a corrupt hack. We keep playing this game where I am supposed to respect people because they have a title and I am supposed to assume that they take their job seriously. Sorry, game is over. He's corrupt, the person who appointed him is corrupt, and the person who appointed the person who appointed him is corrupt.
If our country was healthy, we would not be having this discussion.
Rich said...
“The Epoch Times” LOL …..
8/29/23, 8:13 AM
What a coincidence. Every time I see a comment by you, I think, "Rich, LOL" (but without the ellipses because the unnecessary use of them seems to be an old man quirk.)
The only reason Trump doesn't push things as far at Putin or Hitler is because he doesn't have the personal courage to take the required risks. Rank incompetence also plays an important role.
Jurors will be asked to be skeptical beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump was skeptical beyond a reasonable doubt.
Is that happening?
“If you take out a loan, you pay it back. If you commit a violent crime, you go to jail.” ~ Tim Scott
I see why Scott added the “violent” qualifier. The Republican voters still love their previous champion who was famous for not paying back his loans and also committed crimes in office.
Those voters might be offended by a reminder that non-violent crimes like a conspiracy to interfere with an election can be cause for jail.
I'm sorry, but for it to be fraud for Trump to have proselytized for his being the victor, he had to have had a subjective belief that he had, in fact, lost. Willful blindness does not get you there.
Is this the GA case?
No this is the DC case. Basically a conspiracy to try and overturn the election by persuading Mike Pence (and other things) to not certify the election. In doing so he deprived each and every American of their god-given right to vote for Joe Biden.
The GA case is a conspiracy also (but state not federal) where the corrupt political campaign is a criminal organization who tried to pressure righteous elected leaders (by setting up phone calls with them) to find the fraud in their elections.
The documents case is in Florida, but they keep trying to move it to DC and have impaneled a DC grand jury to look at obstruction counts because they know they can't get a conviction in Florida.
There's a state case in NY about financial fraud for hush money to Stormy, but that isn't going to go anywhere despite what Chuck may say.
Of the cases the documents case is strongest to argue (because you know, documents), but they can't actually argue you that case because the documents are so central to the case and they don't want those documents getting out or being discussed. It's why they reference the documents being so secret and tease nuclear bomb secrets and things like that. So they are using the documents case to get ancillary crimes (pressuring witnesses, destruction of evidence, etc). That way they don't have to prove the documents case ever.
The other cases are sexy "overthrow the government cases" to liberals, but hard to overcome valid rights of citizens (even Presidents) to redress grievances with government actions.
Everything but the documents case stems to "How dare he not just lose gracefully!" (See, Romney, McCain, Dole, et. al).
But the Trump base has to believe Trump was lying, or they would have to face the alternative reality that a sitting President who gets an election stolen from him is a pretty poor President.
He was indicted in GA for trying for fighting fraud. Is he a poor president for allowing himself to be indicted to?
Smith's first step will be to point out to the DC jury that Trump is the devil personified. The Obot judge will likely allow him to do so during his opening statement.
Afterwards, it makes no difference that there is ample evidence of election rigging.* The point of the DC indictment was to try the case before a biased judge and jury. Everybody knows that. He will be convicted.
* Polls indicate that most voters believe the 2020 election was flawed at best. It is simply an article of faith among both elite and stupid Democrats - the only kinds of Democrats - that it was "free and fair".
And there is the fact that it WAS stolen, you know...that one.
You know who lies?? Joe Biden
Greg Price
@greg_price11
·
Biden says he "literally, not figuratively, talked Strom Thurmond into voting for the Civil Rights Act before he died."
TheRightWingM 🇺🇸🇺🇦
@TheRightWingM
·
Replying to @greg_price11
- The Civil Rights Act was in 1964.
- Joe Biden was a college student in 1964.
- Strom Thurmond was a Democrat Senator in 1964 & would have no need to seek advice from a college kid.
- Strom Thurmond voted against the Civil Rights Act.
- Joe Biden is literally a serial liar.
10:49 PM · Aug 28, 2023
Willfully blind is an apt description for MAGA’s relationship with reality and truth in general.
Careful selection of venue and jurors solves many problems.
"Blogger tim in vermont said...
The split in the Republican Party right now is between those who wish to surrender our republic with a whimper, and those who want to fight for it still. You can count me on the side that thinks that our republic is still worth fighting for."
Ditto
So was Trump's "crime" simply trying to get Pence to reject certain slates of electors? If so, do people not realize that the VP is a separate constitutional entity from the president, and doesn't report to the president? It seems obvious that Trump, or any other citizen for that matter, had the right to petition Pence to reject slates of electors, or to refuse to certify the electoral results, or to boycott the vote-counting proceeding completely. This is just free speech, and there's no applicable exception to enable Congress to criminalize it.
But this is just one of many problems with this bogus prosecution.
Tim Maguire said:
The important question, the one that will head this chapter in the history books, is why the Democrats fight so hard against cleaning up our elections so that the losers can say with confidence that they lost. Not only are they not interested in cleaning them up, the Democrats want to make them messier and less reliable.
Do you ever ask yourself why?
I have said from the beginning of the 202 drama that if the Dems were so sure of legitimacy they would authorize audits of the voting precincts in question. It would have been greatly in their interest to rub everyone's noses in the fact that they were wrong about fraud. But they don't. The logical conclusion is that they are better off with the "doubt" than the truth, even though the doubt causes them some credibility problems. It is clear that the ambiguity is preferable to the truth, which means the truth is that there is fraud.
If we want elections to be without drama, the best option is to have a random selection of accounting firms do a random selection of precinct audits after every election. A 1% or even 0.1% random sampling would be sufficient to keep things clean. It is how things are done in many industries.
Why not in elections? (You don't need to answer that, we know why.)
Smith's case hinges on whether a D.C. kangaroo court will be concerned with the legality of anything, or will convict on party affiliation. Just how Stalinesque our country has become is in the balance. Althouse seems to think Cruel Neutrality means accepting immorality if it's boring enough.
“The documents case is in Florida, but they keep trying to move it to DC and have impaneled a DC grand jury to look at obstruction counts because they know they can't get a conviction in Florida.”
I think that that is over now. Judge Cannon last week asked the prosecutors WTF they were running a grand jury in DC, that violated DOJ regulations. And they apparently shut it down. They have an additional problem there - the actions they deemed illegal occurred in FL, and must be tried there. The actions by Trump in DC were when he was POTUS, with full power to legally commit them.
"Rich"/Chuck;
Political inconvenience can never be a reason for a politician to be deemed above the law.
Now do Hillary and her 33,000 emails and the cellphones smashed with hammers.
You lefty bots are so stupid you ignore everything else in your zeal to "get" Trump.
I assume these corrupt courts and judges will force Trump to go to the Supreme Court to get a fair hearing. Unless the Court rules 9-0, as they did in Smith's other political case, this will set off more agitation to pack the court.
My favorite bizzare tale is the infamous water leak/send Republicans home, continue counting votes.
Rich said...
"“The Epoch Times..."
Your ad hominem attack is illogical. How about addressing the facts?
Rich said...
“The Epoch Times” LOL
One thing i've learned here, is:
If someone says something inconvenient, Demand that they attribute it.
If they DO attribute it, RIDICULE their source (not their facts, but JUST where they heard it)
IF that is not enough to shut them up.. Declare that the poster is (and, i'm Quoting..) "Stupid"
oh!
if THAT is not enough; complain that they are using "double quotation marks"!!
If THAT is STILL not enough.. Accuse them of using ALL CAPS
Then they will HAVE TO shut up.. unless they don't
Rich said...
“The Epoch Times” LOL …..
8/29/23, 8:13 AM
--
"Rich(!)" LOL...
I don't see how such an argument can succeed. Isn't there evidence that it was objectively debateable whether or not there was fraud during the election. There were audits in various states, recounts, small cases of voter fraud.
I don't personally believe Trump won the election, but there was at least enough stuff happening that I think it's reasonable that Trump honestly didn't believe it. Of course he had a vested interest in not believing it and is egotistical besides, so he would be even less inclined than a normal person to accept contrary evidence. He was biased, but not "willfully blind".
At least according to my laymans view, which I admit may differ somewhat different than the strict legal definition.
We all know the fraud and cheating is concentrated very deliberately in specific voting districts controlled by Democrats.
You are just a liar. "We" all don't "know" this. The gap between "believe" and know is vast. Where is the least shred of evidence that this statement is true?
So I guess that Prof. Neuborne is recommending a combination Sgt Schultz (I Know Nothing!) and George Costanza (it's not a lie if you believe it) defense. Of course, any lawyer that is the least bit competent will never let Trump take the stand. He will lie and he will get caught (like the scorpion, it is just his nature). It might even be so blatant that his lawyers will stand the risk of being disciplined or disbarred for suborning perjury.
It didn't work for Bernie Ebbers, Elizabeth Holmes, or Sunny Balwani. Does Trump's legal team really believe it will work for him?
Rich said...
"
The only reason Trump doesn't push things as far at Putin or Hitler is because he doesn't have the personal courage to take the required risks. Rank incompetence also plays an important role."
Quit trolling. trump does alpha male stuff. You wouldn't understand.
How many people still believe that Trump-Russian collusion resulted in Trump being elected?
How many know that the Trump-Russian collusion narrative was paid for by the Clinton campaign?
If you read the fucking Mueller report, you will discover that both these statements are flat out lies. The Russians did indeed, coordinate and cooperate, with the Trump Campaign (e.g., the meeting with that batshit crazy Russian spy and Manafort and Trump, Jr., in the Trump Tower btw, and Manafort giving internal polling data to the Russians). Mueller noted that, in his opinion, the cooperation did not rise to the level of "conspiracy".
See y'all in court. It's gonna be fun.
I just want to share with all of the fine Althouse blog readers a great quote from Adam Kinzinger from an an essay last week in The Atlantic: "[Republicans] want a post-Trump future, but have no courage to make it happen. And everyone is just hoping the other guy is riding in on a white horse and to save the party. But they've shot all the horses."
Does Trump’s defense team get to present the video of the election workers pulling out the boxes of ballots and repeatedly running them through the counter in ATL, after the poll watchers were sent away because of the “water leak”?
Because when I see that, I find it very hard to believe anyone who tells me that it didn’t happen. At the very least I have some reasonable doubt that what I saw happening didn’t actually happen.
Also-shouldn’t Trump and his lawyers simply argue that Trump felt a moral obligation to his supporters-the 75 million people who voted for him—to expose the extent and nature of the serious problems with the way ballots were counted, to explore every avenue to redress the wrongs, and to test the procedures which were constitutionally available?
Here is my take on the cases:
FL Documents case - Only viable charge is Obstruction. Defense is entrapment, plus lack of intent and materiality. Nothing else is really a crime. If it gets to trial it will be after a huge amount of discovery but good chance that it will be delayed until after election. Won’t get convicted in any case.
DC case - likely conviction on BS charges. Successfully appeals, dragging sentencing beyond election. Judge commits plain error, by, among other things, limiting discovery and evidence by defendant. Trump sweeps Super Tuesday. Conviction gives Trump enough votes to overcome margin of fraud. Pardons himself the first day in office.
GA case - case gets removed to federal district court, and then dismissed. Alternatively, not enough votes for conviction.
“If you read the fucking Mueller report, you will discover that both these statements are flat out lies. The Russians did indeed, coordinate and cooperate, with the Trump Campaign (e.g., the meeting with that batshit crazy Russian spy and Manafort and Trump, Jr., in the Trump Tower btw, and Manafort giving internal polling data to the Russians). Mueller noted that, in his opinion, the cooperation did not rise to the level of "conspiracy".”
The meeting was a set up. Don, Jr walked out after determining that. Everything else was unsubstantiated blather, by rabid partisan Weissman and his cronies, butt hurt after having been called out for running a perjury trap, after no evidence had been found of collusion between Trump and the Russians.
Rich said...
The only reason Trump doesn't push things as far at Putin or Hitler is because he doesn't have the personal courage to take the required risks. Rank incompetence also plays an important role.
8/29/23, 9:17 AM
The hatred runs deep in this one.
Oh and LOL and
“ Willful blindness “ simply layers the argument into a second tier of mind-reading in hopes of bootstrapping an actual crime. Political speech is not a crime, regardless of what he did or did not believe.
'Willful Blindness'
Sounds like a thought crime to me.
What's next on the chopping block?
The courage of one's convictions?
The meeting was a set up. Don, Jr walked out after determining that. Everything else was unsubstantiated blather, by rabid partisan Weissman and his cronies, butt hurt after having been called out for running a perjury trap, after no evidence had been found of collusion between Trump and the Russians.
As a lawyer you should know better. Collusion and cooperation (as you all reminded of us continually) is not a crime, conspiracy is. Mueller indicated that there was cooperation and collusion but he could not prove a conspiracy.
I also noticed that you completely ignored my point about giving internal polling data to the Russians.
Does Trump’s defense team get to present the video of the election workers pulling out the boxes of ballots and repeatedly running them through the counter in ATL, after the poll watchers were sent away because of the “water leak”?
Umm, no, because this narrative has been completely debunked.
Chuck again;
a great quote from Adam Kinzinger<
Was he sobbing when he wrote it ? You crazies are pretty funny.
If you read the fucking Mueller report, you will discover that both these statements are flat out lies. The Russians did indeed, coordinate and cooperate, with the Trump Campaign
Here is the insanity that is the Democrat now. Field Marshal Freder still believes that crap. Hugh Hewitt used to have a screening question for reporters he had never talked to before. "Was Alger Hiss a Soviet agent ?" I remember one reporter hanging up when he asked her.
I suspect Freder would hang up, too.
The meeting was a set up.
Even if this were true, why does Manafort get a pass for not saying "thanks but no thanks". I will give Trump, Jr. a pass since he apparently couldn't pour sand out of a boot if the instructions were written on the heel.
Blogger TeaBagHag said...
Willfully blind is an apt description for MAGA’s relationship with reality and truth in general.
Projection is not just in movies.
I have no idea what crime Trump is supposed to have committed on J6. Or how his "attempt to defraud" is different than what any number of pols have done when they lost an election.
And I've read all the legal filings by the prosecution.
Why don't the lawyers just admit they hate Trump and want to destroy him? At least that would be honest. Perhaps the most DISHONEST are shits like NJ fats -chris Christie - who talk about how "Trump has been indicted 4 times, we can't tolerate that behavior". Christie was a US District Attorney.
If he was an honest man, NJ fats would look at the Biden's DOJ indictments, and give a fair legal opinion. And call bullshit. He refuses to do so. And the same is true of Barr, Hutchinson, Romney, etc. who are ALL Lawyers. The only reasons these shits aren't SUPPORTING Merrick Garland in destroying TRump is their fear of the Republican base. So, they just remain silent or attack TRump for "bad character".
That's why the USA is turning into a Bannana Republic ruled by the D Party. Its not the just the D's, its DC GOP which is the controlled, fake opposition. The House should be starting impeachment proceedings against Garland, and passing resolutions supporting Trump. All the R's in the Senate should be slowing down work in protest. But they do and say nothing. Because they want Trump destroyed. They would rather eat crumbs off the D's table, then Fight.
Some phonies and liars in this comment section are the same. They claim to dislike Biden, but attack Trump 10x as much. And refuse to defend him. They are Biden republicans.
Freder-
You called both of the following statements “flat out lies.”
“How many people still believe that Trump-Russian collusion resulted in Trump being elected?”
“How many know that the Trump-Russian collusion narrative was paid for by the Clinton campaign?”
You believe, then, that the Trump Russia collusion resulted in Trump’s election. That makes you an election denier.
The Clinton campaign funded the Steele dossier, which drove the Trump -Russia collusion narrative.
I agree with others that the Rich character is a joke best to be ignored. Stuff like this erk’s me:
The only reason Trump doesn't push things as far at Putin or Hitler is because he doesn't have the personal courage to take the required risks. Rank incompetence also plays an important role.
This is the nonsense the fed’s point to as a suggestion to violence. None of us sympathetic to Trump is calling for violence. It is the troll suggesting violence and then attempting to provoke others by suggesting it isn’t be done because of incompetence. They seed the stuff they then attempt to use against us. This is why people in crowds will identify such trolls and yell “fed, fed, fed”. The tactics are too obvious. It is sad such clowns exist.
It's important to keep up with what Kinzinger thinks.
Really important.
He's the future!
Perhaps Billy Barr should be asked to explain his stated concern over mail-in ballots and Klobuchar and Warren can explain their concern over machines.
They undermine "democracy"!!
Regarding hack D prosecutors shotgunning BS lawfare in kangaroo court districts on blatantly political timelines.
LLR Chuck!: "Fraudulent or not, if Trump loses, it's a win for me."
The meeting was a set up. Don, Jr walked out after determining that. Everything else was unsubstantiated blather, by rabid partisan Weissman and his cronies, butt hurt after having been called out for running a perjury trap, after no evidence had been found of collusion between Trump and the Russians.
Yes they used every trick in the book to entrap him and still could not remove Trump via impeachment. Mueller and Durham both agreed Trump committed no crimes but the FBI actors should have been prosecuted. Keep spinning Freder. No one is buying it. And yes, everyone knows there is vote fraud, but few are willing to do anything about it. The people like you who assert it is all free and clean and above board are a statistical zero, a rounding error in this big country, although many will mouth the catechism along with you because they benefit.
God bless you Marty. You're looking for intellectual consistancy where there is none. I adsmire your patience. Mine ran out long ago.
The Clinton campaign funded the Steele dossier, which drove the Trump -Russia collusion narrative.
Where did I mention the Steele Dossier?
no credible evidence of widespread electoral fraud
This is a straw man argument. Everyone knows widespread electoral fraud would be a waste of resources and make the effort easier to detect.
What you really need is a small number of votes in a small number of districts in just a few states, and no one wants to discuss whether that happened.
Seriously - who goes to ALL this trouble unless he actually and truly believes - not is willfully blind, but sincerely believes, however utterly irrational - that a duplicate key to the wardroom icebox with the strawberries did exist?
Bruce:
And they apparently shut it down
This was news to me so I did some Googling. It appears neither the special counsel nor Judge Cannon ended the Grand Jury rather their term ended as a matter of course on August 17th. No mention of if an additional Grand Jury is now meeting.
They allege in their reply brief that Yuscil Taveras lied to the DC Grand Jury. He promptly recanted his story and is now a government witness in the case in Florida.
This still echo's my point however. They don't want to argue this documents case on the documents, they didn't even want the special master to look at these documents.
They are looking for ancillary crimes. They convened a Grand Jury in DC to specifically look for those ancillary crimes. Now that they have a witness they need to get rid of Trump Attorney Woodward so that they can actually use that witness.
Why did they subpoena Taveras in DC? Apparently they cite case law that any ol' Grand Jury will do, but this seems awfully fishy.
I haven't seen that there has been a ruling to date from Cannon on the Garcia hearing or Woodward removal so time will tell.
I still don't see any attempt to talk about the details of the documents.
Pardons himself the first day in office.
Agree with your conclusions. One interesting thing to think about though is, does Trump pardon himself that early? Why not take the free roll and go to trial? He can issue the pardon at any time. Even on his way to jail. Why give the prosecutors an easy out?
Let the spectacle continue. There is some political risk, but he never has to run for office again. He can waive his right to be present at trial. There is a risk the jury will see it as wasting their time and take it out on Trump with guilty verdicts.
Conventional wisdom would say it's impossible, but the same could be said for his Presidency. The man is a showman.
The conventional wisdom on juries is always suspect. Trial watching is the new thing. After Rittenhouse and Depp and Zimmerman, who were all guilty before the trial all have been vindicated.
The documents case would be especially enlightening. He can declassify the documents in question specifically for the trial. He avoids political fallout for declassifying because he needed it to defend himself.
Manafort giving internal polling data to the Russians
Is that illegal? Manafort could have published the internal polling data on a website if he wanted.
Collusion requires some sort of directed action. Nobody has provided evidence of what this sort of data would lead the Russians to actually do with the data.
"although many will mouth the catechism along with you because they benefit."
Also because they don't want to be thrown out of the "Cool Kids" club and cast down with the deplorables and bitter clingers.
"Whatever it takes."
"The ends justify the means."
That's a Democrat for you. When you need to justify doing shitty things, who ya gonna call?
Freder-
Now do Hillary's discredited Steele Dossier. Created by an ENGLISHMAN who source the tall tales from a RUSSIAN.
Obama knew it was false. So did Brennan, Clapper, Comey and Joe "China owns me!" Biden. None said anything to the press about these false claims. Comey continued to press the illegal FISA warrants to spy on the Trump campaign. None of those have faced any consequences for their illegal actions.
Pardons himself the first day in office.
Agree with your conclusions. One interesting thing to think about though is, does Trump pardon himself that early?
Ten minutes after any president were to pardon himself, the House would vote to impeach and before the end of the day, the Senate would convict and he would be removed from office. With large support from both parties.
"Where did I mention the Steele Dossier?"
Yes Freder, you meticulously avoided mentioning the Steele Dossier when you declared the statement "How many know that the Trump-Russian collusion narrative was paid for by the Clinton campaign?” a flat out lie. Everybody noticed.
Manafort giving internal polling data to the Russians
Brain asked: "Is that illegal?"
That's always puzzled me too. Assuming it's true, so what?
The Hillary campaign paid Perkins Coie who paid Fusion GPS who paid Christopher Steele to produce a dossier of fake charges against Trump which the FBI then used to wire-tap (couldn't resist) Trump. These facts are well established. But something I don't remember: did the Mueller Report lay out these facts? I'm kinda remembering that it did not, but I truly don't remember.
the Senate would convict and he would be removed from office. With large support from both parties.
Right after he was just elected? Your going to get 37 senators to go along with political suicide?
I bow my head to Field Marshal Freder. He can "debunk" video evidence.
Blogger Freder Frederson said...
Does Trump’s defense team get to present the video of the election workers pulling out the boxes of ballots and repeatedly running them through the counter in ATL, after the poll watchers were sent away because of the “water leak”?
Umm, no, because this narrative has been completely debunked.
Amazing power. Maybe his mother is a witch.
"Ten minutes after any president were to pardon himself, the House would vote to impeach..."
On what basis? The Constitution is specific on the matter.
Sounds like the "knew or should have known" language.
monday it was sag
today a new tit’s in town
teh hag what tea bags
Rich: fyi - it is very lazy to argue that an American politician is Hitler or Putin. And incredibly insulting to their victim.
Please up your game from abysmally stupid to sub-moronic.
Mark humously said...
Senate would convict and he would be removed from office. With large support from both parties.
Mark? I'm NOT trying to imply that You are the dullest Ho in the shed..
BUT,
since you'd need 67 Senators to convict, it would Kinda Go WITH OUT Saying that'd need "large support"
Please do us a favor, and list the 67 it would take.. At a MINIMUM
Seriously, Mark thinks, that If (and when) Trump gets a majority in enough states to reach 270..
That the Senators from THOSE states would vote to remove the man the voters JUST Installed..
As a former Insurance Company worker.. I doubt that our company would want to insure Those Senators
Here's the thing about Antrim County, MI: the irregularities were attributed to "human error" but there were several errors made, as outlined in the forensic report - so it's more like a 'comedy of human errors.'
Here's a link to the report, which is quite lengthy and has a lot of detail about the nature of the anomalies. I'll quote the conclusion, in two parts since it's also pretty long.
"Conclusion
My investigation shows that the Antrim County incident was initiated by unusual
circumstances that are unlikely to have widely affected other jurisdictions. After
making last-minute revisions to certain ballot designs, workers made two key
human errors that directly led to inaccurate results:
- County staff failed to ensure that all ballot scanners used the revised election
de finition. This caused the EMS to misinterpret results from the scanners,
leading to major election-night reporting errors (that are now fully corrected).
- Township staff failed to ensure that all ballots used the revised ballot designs.
Ballots that did not match the scanner confi gurations were misread, leading
to smaller errors in specifi c down-ballot contests (that remain uncorrected).
Antrim could have discovered these problems before incorrect results were published or deemed official, but several opportunities to do so were missed:
- Townships failed to notice poll tape errors during pre-election testing.
- Poll workers erased memory cards, making the reporting errors harder to spot.
- County staff did not adequately investigate EMS errors on election night.
- County staff failed to \sanity-check" the initial results before posting them.
To their credit, the county and state quickly understood the technical cause of the
major anomalies. However, during the process of correcting the original problems,
further human errors occurred that led to additional inaccurate results:
- County staff neglected to remove bad data before publishing updated results
on November 5, again causing widespread reporting errors (later corrected).
- County staff made data entry errors when manually inputting results, affecting
more than 2% of reported votes across the county (now fully corrected).
- County canvassers failed to ensure that all results matched the poll tapes, al-
lowing data entry errors to affect some of the certi fied results (now corrected).
- Three ballots may have been omitted when Central Lake re-scanned on November 6, due to a separate human error. This possibly changed the outcome of the
Central Lake Village Marihuana Retailer Initiative (and remains uncorrected).
Continued...
All the Trump lawywers have to do is provide evidence that somebody somewhere stuffed ballot boxes. A lot of 2:00 AM ballot dumps went around. I bet those people would like to speak in front of a jury. Under oath.
You see, usual suspects, Both sides get to introduce evidence and question witnesses. Both sides get discovery. I hope you're absolutely certain he's guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Are you absolutely certain?
Continued from previous comment...
"Some of these human errors would have been harmless individually, but their
combined effects undermined safeguards that should have ensured accuracy. Their
number speaks to the extreme pressures that election workers faced last year,
in the midst of a global pandemic and a bitterly contested presidential contest.
There is no credible evidence that the Dominion system was deliberately
designed to induce errors, but there were missed opportunities for the software
to do more to election staff avoid making mistakes:
- When modifying the ballot designs, the software stated that old ballots and
election de finitions would be \unusable". However, it failed to clearly warn
that using them anyway could result in erroneous results.
- The EMS and scanners could have prevented or detected the use of incompatible ballots and election defi nitions. They did not and gave no indication
when incompatible ballots or election defi nitions were used.
Several of the election procedures that broke down due to human error are
important security protections. Furthermore, the EMS lacks important security
updates, has weak authentication and access control mechanisms, and is vulnerable to compromise if an attacker has physical access to the computer. These are
serious vulnerabilities that should be mitigated on a priority basis, but there is
no evidence that any of these problems was ever exploited in Antrim County. My
analysis has precisely accounted for all known anomalies in Antrim's November
2020 election results, and none was the product of a security breach."
Maybe not a security breach, but many errors that should have been caught, and weaknesses in the systems' security are concerning. The corrections were made only after the initial (wrong) results were published.
"Please up your game from abysmally stupid to sub-moronic."
Not possible for Rich- the abysmally stupid are too stupid to improve to sub-moronic. It is like trying to teach a cockroach to play checkers.
Rusty said...
All the Trump lawywers have to do is provide evidence that somebody somewhere stuffed ballot boxes. A lot of 2:00 AM ballot dumps went around. I bet those people would like to speak in front of a jury. Under oath.
--
Start with those who filed affidavits....
Serious legal question:
Can’t the prosecution just stipulate that fraud occurred, and that it swung the election?
They could still proceed under the theory that self-help is not the way we get redress in our system (see, e.g., OJ liberating his stolen memorabilia).
This way there’s no discovery on the issue, and Trump doesn’t get to talk about it in court.
Even if the stipulation becomes res judicata (does it? IANAL), no one will get to use it because of standing/laches/mootness.
Am I missing something?
Maybe the prosecution likes having a huge discovery hornet nest, so that the can gets kicked past the election….
Can someone skilled in trial tactics educate me?
JSM
By "debunked," Freder means "denied."
The cameras were turned off (true) and Republican poll watchers were ordered out of the building after somebody clogged a toilet (true) lots of shenanigans were noted by the Georgia Dome cameras, which the vote counters, who claimed to have quit and had turned off the official cameras, didn't know about. But when asked what they were doing, they said that they had done nothing wrong, and no serious investigation was ever undertaken. Some debunking.
This is not how a clean election is run.
Yancey Ward said...
"Please up your game from abysmally stupid to sub-moronic."
"Not possible for Rich- the abysmally stupid are too stupid to improve to sub-moronic. It is like trying to teach a cockroach to play checkers."
Dunning-Kruger doesn't allow for that.
I thought the burden of evidence was to 'prove' byond a reasonable doubt. Not 'convince'. Two seperate things.
It seems to me that there is precedent for Trump's attempts. If not, Hayes would have lost to Tilden? That election went to the House because the electors were not certified. That is the reason for the Constitutional rule to begin with. Asking Congress to not certify the electors and throw the election to the House seems to be a legitimate request, and it is up to Congress to make the determination. But I fail to see how making the request for Congress (or a State) to perform an action specifically called out in the Constitution can be a crime?
On what basis? The Constitution is specific on the matter
The misdemeanor of pardoning oneself.
I personally don't think it rises to that level, especially in this case, and especially if the "jury" of the electorate ends up electing the man. But Congress decides what's impeachable, not anyone else.
They are supposed to be our most democratic branch. Answerable directly to the people. If they want to take the political impact of such a move they can.
But they won't.
"Serious legal question:
Can’t the prosecution just stipulate that fraud occurred, and that it swung the election?"
Sure, that is one way to avoid having to deny the discovery by hook and crook, but I don't see how this helps the prosecution's case since it already relies the election being legitimate and has, in fact, claimed that Trump was lying about the fraud. Such stipulation would already make Trump's main defense for him. Of course, it won't matter in the jurisdictions- the jury will convict anyway.
This is not how a clean election is run.
A widely applicable indisputably true statement.
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