I'm reading "Federal Prosecutors Object to Trump Request for Broadcast of Election Trial/The office of the special counsel said that televising the proceeding would create a 'carnival atmosphere' and allow the former president to divert attention from the charges he faces" in the NYT.
It's written by Alan Feuer, who, we're told, "covers extremism and political violence for The Times." Trump's wanting a televised trial falls into the "extremism and political violence" category for the NYT? That tells you something.
Look, Trump is the leading candidate for President of the United States. Everyone in the country has a vital interest in keeping an eye on him and seeing him as he really is. The judge has tools enough to control her courtroom. Let us see the proceedings! There's an overwhelming public interest in access to this event. Of course, Trump will use the opportunity to reach out beyond the courtroom and appeal to the general public, but we, the people — some of us anyway — suspect that the prosecution is using the court to reach out to the general public and affect the 2024 election. Let us watch and decide for ourselves what we think of these prodigious power seekers.
The NYT writer briefly notes that "federal rules of criminal procedure forbid televising trials" and asserts that "Mr. Trump’s filing was short on legal arguments," but Trump's filing follows a motion by NBCUniversal, which extensively discusses the rule in question and provides the argument around it. I deal with all that in this post from 3 days ago.
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61 comments:
They don't want transparency, they want to be able to lie to us unconditionally with the help of the leftist court system. What are they so afraid of?? The truth.
Well said.
extremism and political violence
Nothing else to cover in that space these days. /sarc
Let's be honest. The NYT just wants Trump to plead guilty and start serving his life sentences.
All of the cases are purely political and never should have been filed; including that crazy NY civil case.
Trump's retribution is just turnabout. If the Left is going to try to jail political opponents, the Right might as well. Otherwise, it never stops.
They don’t want you to see they are ignoring the law to prosecute a political opponent. They only want you to see the guiltys they will use to keep him off the ballot.
It’s their only play. Even black people are fed up. Jews are a toss up. Only college ‘educated’ white women are a hard yes…
Democracy dies in darkness and at the Washington post and the NYTimes.
The right compromise is drop all the charges and forget this particular campaign ploy.
They CAN'T broadcast the trial. Especially the GA trial.
The voter fraud was real. We're living under an installed regime. They behave like an installed regime unaccountable to the American public / "voters".
It is all controlled by propaganda. Our liberal establishment has spent decades dumbing down Americans through our public education system. And Universities actually make kids dumber upon exiting, than they were when they entered.
The Kavannah hearings were televised, were they not?
Perhaps that is what they fear - showing the 'Emperor with no clothes' is actually their case and not the defendant.
Look, Trump is the leading candidate for President of the United States. Everyone in the country has a vital interest in keeping and eye on him and seeing him as he really is.
Trump the winner of the 2016 AND 2020 Presidential election, and now, again, leading in 2024. The only way to take him out is lawfare, and swing state absentee voter fraud.
When do we stop soft shoeing around the truth? This is what this entire mess is about. Another candidate, like milquetoast candidate like Romney, may have just capitulated. Not Trump. And not the MAGA base that knows the Truth.
Liberals know 2020 was fraudulent. They just support the fraud. They really don't believe in "democracy". It's just a bullshit platitude for them.
Where are all the sunshine loving liberals?
When 98.9% of TV newtorks and major "news"papers say the exact same thing its called propoganda.
The office of the special counsel said that televising the proceeding would create a "carnival atmosphere" ...
The carnival atmosphere has already been created. Televising it will allow the world to see and, to some extent, experience it.
Let the show go on and may the best cast of characters win.
Is this another case of Trump in a win-win argument?
The Court grants the relief from Rule 53 and allows filming, Trump gets free media and a jury of millions (not just 12 DC jurors). If he gets elected, it's essentially a jury nullification by the electorate as a whole.
If the Court denies relief from Rule 53, Trump uses it to delay the trial by appealing. It certainly is a unique case and may get past the grant of cert hurdle. Or Trump uses it as a furtherance of the political witch hunt narrative, complete with speeches every day from the courthouse steps begging for a gag order infraction that he can then take up to the appellate court.
I saw a Peanuts strip recently with Linus shouting "If it can be destroyed by the Truth, it deserves to be destroyed by the Truth". Fits in this case I think.
Wouldn't want the circus to look like a carnival now, would we?
The people prosecuting Trump --and the people to whom they report-- have created a real problem for themselves. I don't know how they can solve it. Either they bury the trial(s) or they allow full coverage.
Burial means no video, maybe no artists, minimal reporting, lots of gag orders (and chasing of leaks: which will feed rumors and paranoia). If they bury it, the fact of burial will support every negative inference about Stalinist kangaroo courts. The public will know that it's been denied information essential to its ability to hold the government accountable, as well as information essential to its election decisions.
If instead they allow full coverage, they have to hope Trump's shtick becomes so tedious or deranged that voters turn away of their own volition.
The dog caught the bus. Now what?
Pass the popcorn.
Rigging the election right in front of our eyes with a lawfare campaign in four venues, and Trump is the villain for complaining. This is a reprise of the Russia collusion hoax, where Trump was the villain for complaining about being set up by the DNC and FBI.
Where is the authority within the government to shut down these proceedings?
Why, Althouse, are you refusing to condemn these proceedings? There’s nothing to discuss here.
The NYT just wants Trump to plead guilty and start serving his life sentences.
I've said it before on this blog in comments, but let me also point out this is another case of the "How Dare He!" from the media.
How dare he beat Hillary!
How dare he feed the koi pond fish incorrectly!
How dare he tell people to drink bleach!
How dare he call Racists fine people!
How dare he say that the virus comes from China!
How dare he question the election!
How dare he fight back against his indictments!
Every Trump story is a "How dare he!" narrative. You should add a tag Ann.
Idiocracy Loves Them Some Show Trials.
Mickey Kaus thinks the non-televised trials are helping Trump in an interesting way. Dan Pfeiffer tweets, "Wanna beat Trump in 2024? Start by reminding voters that he is an unhinged, delusional clown with a fleeting gasp on reality. The polls show too many voters have forgotten."
And Kaus replies, "Most obvious way: Don't indict him multiple times on iffy charges. Make him campaign full time, constantly reaching for something new, so he reminds voters how crazy he is."
More fully set out in https://kaus.substack.com/p/the-nostalgia-theory-why-trump-persists
Its insane that a President and his DOJ can charge an ex-POTUS with a crime in middle of campaign. Its something that we used to laugh at Bannana Republics for.
Its an outrage. If Trump had committed a crime on J6, he would've been impeached and convicted and it wouldn't have taken Biden's Stalinist DOJ 2 1/2 years to charge him.
And instead of being ashamed at it, the Democrats and the MSM (one and the same thing) complain that Trump is making a farce of their kangaroo court. Notice that The reporter NEVER reports on how many Well-know Federal defendents are subject to these gag orders. I don't think any of them were/are.
Trump should have the right to attack the DOJ and Smith - OUTSIDE THE COURTROOM. Why shouldn't he? I'd like to think the SCOTUS will strike any gag order down, but don't count on it. Roberts hates Trump and doesn't care about free speech. And Kavenaugh isn't much better.
If they televise it no judge nor jury would find for the prosecution.
How is stealing our county’s secrets, sharing them with others, hiding them and covering it up "political prosecution”?
Although some of the charges are from The Espionage Act, he was not charged with espionage. Here’s the indictment for your education:
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.648653/gov.uscourts.flsd.648653.3.0.pdf
@Althouse, thank you for your neutrality.
You have to laugh at the insistence that Trump is a unique danger because he flouts the rules and norms...at the same time the GA prosecutor's office is leaking evidence they can't introduce at his trial (hearsay, etc) in order to make him look bad.
It's the end of the world when Trump breaks the rules but it's business as usual when the State breaks the rules to "get" Trump.
It's hilarious that the corrupt bureaucracy and/or "Deep State" keeps validating Trump's complaints--the guy is borderline incoherent in much of his ranting but the central theme, that agents of the State (unelected, unaccountable) use their power and positions to target and attack people on the Right in a partisan manner, keeps proving true.
Look, Trump is the leading candidate for President of the United States. Everyone in the country has a vital interest in keeping and eye on him and seeing him as he really is.
Because there's a guy in Topeka who just came out of a 30 year coma and he doesn't know who Trump is.
There is no one who hasn't already made up his/her/their mind about Trump. I don't see the benefit to watching Donald Trump perform his rally shtick in a courtroom. Anyone who wants that can just go to one of his "campaign" events.
The leftmediaswine are in high gear to obscure the fact that the prosecutor's conduct and the legitimacy of the proceedings are the issues. Keep the bubble people stupid is the plan.
And maybe one of the lefties here will refer us to the statement where Trump "promised" to use the criminal legal system against "his enemies."
Demos-cracy is aborted at the twilight fringe.
The audacity of auditing Democracy... where Americans have standing in this People... Person's dictatorship. He... We are not pleased. Off with their rights, Forward! and backward. #HateLovesAbortion
Gag orders disgust me. They are an affront to one of, if not the most, fundamental rights secured by the Constitution.
A respected progressive jurist once observed that "light is a great disinfectant."
So what are the progressive prosecutors afraid of? The question answers itself...
No matter what Ann or the propaganda rags want you to focus on, the lack of a crime or legal basis for prosecution is what the left wants you to ignore…
"I don't see the benefit to watching Donald Trump perform his rally shtick in a courtroom."
Who would be making you watch? Certainly, you're not arguing that people who are interested in seeing what's going on shouldn't be allowed to watch because *you* don't see the point in it, are you?
Remember all the denunciations and grief Trump received for calling the media the “enemy of the people”?
Well, guess what. If you can’t recognize and call out the forces that use people as human shields for doing that very thing - which Hamas has been doing from its inception - you ARE the enemy of the people.
Motherf*****g Idiocrats and their operatives.
"In all four of the criminal trials Mr. Trump is facing, the Deep State has opted to pursue a strategy of creating noisy conflict to obscure the political issues at play in the election..."
Fixed it for the NYT.
Seems our hostess is in fear she might be "triggered"?
WAIT A MINUTE!
you're saying, that the defendant is TRYING to Not be convicted? THAT, in and of itself; is a CRIME!
Gusty Winds said...
Trump the winner of the 2016 AND 2020 Presidential election, and now, again, leading in 2024. The only way to take him out is lawfare
There's a ploy that could work for the dems!
WHEN Trump wins the 2024 election, the dems can point out that the 22nd amendment CLEARLY states:
No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice
so, Trump's 2024 term will be ruled ineligible;
and Biden will be President FOR EVER (since he was NEVER elected)
It's written by Alan Feuer, who, we're told, "covers extremism and political violence for The Times."
"cover" is now a synonym for "foment".
If these cases were really all that strong, the prosecutors would want it all televised.
I would say that he has created noisy conflict in order to call attention to the legal issue at play. "At play", indeed. As in, "Your tax dollars at play". The blatant political corruption of the American criminal justice system is arguably the greatest of the crimes of the Democrat Party. And that is saying a lot.
"Rich" is sure there has to be a pony under all that bullshit they are calling "indictments"
"...he will use the criminal justice system as a weapon of retribution against his enemies..."
In other words, they are afraid he will do to them what they have been doing to him for almost ten years. Typical Progressive projection.
Sally327 @ 9:51: "...There is no one who hasn't already made up his/her/their mind about Trump. I don't see the benefit to watching Donald Trump perform his rally shtick in a courtroom. Anyone who wants that can just go to one of his 'campaign' events."
You have canvassed the entire population and can confidently report all that is known by every last one of us --except that guy in Topeka-- and what every last one of us has decided in our inmost hearts. And so you can safely advise us all that nothing new or important will be revealed by these momentous, complicated, bitterly contested events --that have yet to happen.
Impressive powers of cognition!
Everyone minus all Ds and MSM?! and certain pundits
The Democrats are handing Trump $Billions in campaign advertising by the petty pursuit of persecuting prosecutions.
“If instead they allow full coverage, they have to hope Trump's shtick becomes so tedious or deranged that voters turn away of their own volition.”
I don’t think that is going to happen. The Dem party is essentially run by risk adverse Democrats and bureaucrats. They figured that they could use the bureaucracy to keep Trump from getting back into the WH, through use of LawFare prosecutions. Not a one of them will survive appeal, for, if no other reason, LawFare prosecutions violate Due Process. They invariably involve novel interpretations of criminal laws, which means that the target of the prosecutions were not put on reasonable notice that what they had done was criminal. Note that the Crossfire Hurricane, then Mueller investigation, prosecutions, rarely, if ever went to trial. Instead, they would just stack charges and threaten to indict family members, etc in order to get stipulated convictions (not new with the DOJ - that’s how they convicted Michael Milkin). Low risk here meant the LawFare prosecutions, and when they go to trial, trying to shut Trump up.
Alan Feuer, who "covers extremism and political violence for The Times."
if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
If there was any provable facts in the ham sandwich-indictments Rich keeps posting over and over without proof, then they would have already leaked. But all Jack Smith has been able to leak are the carefully staged photos the FBI thugs produced during their unnecessary Mar-a-Lago panty raid. If Rich actually cared about NatSec or keeping TSC documents "safe" the way he pretends to care about Trump allegedly mishandling them, then he would be howling about the ones Joe illegally possessed and allowed Hunter to sell as "research" to his Ukrainian and Bulgarian and Chinese clients.
You creeps are so transparent.
No matter what ... the propaganda rags want you to focus on, the lack of a crime or legal basis for prosecution is what the left wants you to ignore
When pared down like this I agree 100%.
I oppose the televising of any trial. Televising a trial changes the way in which the trial is conducted in ways that make it less reliable. This is true whether it's a trial of Donald Trump or your average, garden variety serial killer. Televising a trial can sometimes work in the defendant's favor and sometimes in the prosecution's -- to me, it doesn't matter. It shouldn't be allowed ever.
How is stealing our county’s secrets, sharing them with others, hiding them and covering it up "political prosecution”?
I shouldn't feed the troll, but I can't help myself:
1) He didnt "steal", they were his records under the Presidential Records Act.
2) He didn't share them with others. (read the indictment, they do a lot of wishcasting on what occurred during recorded conversations)
3) He didn't hide that he had the records. They knew they were there.
“How is stealing our county’s secrets, sharing them with others, hiding them and covering it up "political prosecution”?”
“Although some of the charges are from The Espionage Act, he was not charged with espionage. Here’s the indictment for your education:”
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.648653/gov.uscourts.flsd.648653.3.0.
Total BS. Indictments, and the like are merely the prosecution’s story about the case. In high profile indictments, like these, they leave out anything inconvenient.
So, let’s fill in some of the missing pieces.
Trump’s last full day in office, he ordered declassified a binder of Crossfire Hurricane and Mueller investigations illustrating the perfidy and malfeasance of the DOJ’s Counterintelligence and Export Branch and its sister organization, the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division. These documents were effectively declassified, since Trump at the time had plenary declassification authority, even though the declassifying bureaucrats failed to remove the classified markings.
The branch chief of the DOJ’s Counterintelligence and Export branch is Jay Bratt. The FJB WH ordered the National Archives to work with the FBI, which meant doing whatever Bratt wanted them to do. Instead of issuing subpoenas for the documents that they wanted, DOJ through the FBI would request them from the Archives, which legally (maybe) could request them from Trump.
Meanwhile Archives had refused to provide secure storage for all of his unsorted documents, from 4 years in office. Something that they had done for predecessor Administrations for decades. So, Trump did the only thing that he could - he ordered GSA to ship the boxes of documents to MAL, where they were protected by the Secret Service. And yes, some of the boxes held documents marked as classified. Not very many, given the number of boxes, and invariably they were mixed in with other documents from when his desk had been cleared after a meeting or phone conversation.
So, when Trump failed to dig through hundreds of boxes, for the requested needles in haystacks quickly enough, Bratt issued a subpoena for them. Trump’s attorneys requested an extension of time. Bratt refused. They requested rolling production. Ditto. Their failure to comply with Bratt’s unrealistic demands were the justification for the FBI raid on MAL (run, of course, by the FBI’s CI Div). Trump’s attorneys were not allowed to oversee the raid, and there is plenty of evidence that photos from the raid were staged. Of course, after the FBI CI Div had sorted through all those boxes, they found documents marked as classified - it’s likely the boxes hadn’t been opened since they had been filled when Trump’s desk had been cleared off into the, sometime during his 4 years in office.
And, as a result of finding those documents, Trump was indicted by Bratt. Oh, and it turned out that something had fallen through the cracks - the FJB Administration apparently didn’t yank Trump’s security clearance until after Bratt’s indictment. By then, Bratt had a second hat, as deputy special counsel.
What Jupiter said ^^^^^^^^
Rich: "How is stealing our county’s secrets, sharing them with others, hiding them and covering it up 'political prosecution'?
"Stealing?" "Sharing?" "Hiding?" "Covering?" Somebody forgot to tell you that indictments, however hyperbolic, are allegations, not evidence. Leaks to the leftmedia do not even rise to that level despite providing the bulk of your knowledge on most subjects.
Selective prosecution in this context can only be considered by thoughtful people as political prosecution. No elaboration will be forthcoming as you are neither a serious or thoughtful person.
"The blatant political corruption of the American criminal justice system is arguably the greatest of the crimes of the Democrat Party."
As a former prosecutor I am inclined to agree. However, it is difficult to get past the open border and election rigging. There are so many choices.
In a democracy you have a crime and you search for the person.
In a police state you have the person and you search for the crime.
Douglas B. Levene:
I oppose the televising of any trial. Televising a trial changes the way in which the trial is conducted in ways that make it less reliable. This is true whether it's a trial of Donald Trump or your average, garden variety serial killer.
Having actually known a serial killer (Bob Berdella), I can assure you, those people have nothing "average" about them. If you think so, you've simply been tricked.
Besides that, I haven't seen a court room that didn't have a gallery where you could (except for unusual circumstances) just walk in and observe. Other than numbers, how's this different?
The old line is that "Politics ain't beanbag". And a fight for a candidate's political life in a courtroom isn't beanbag either. Get over your ownself and stop clutching at your pearls if you think that the Bad Orange Man shouldn't fight.
There's a lot of stench in all of these matters and we may as well haul it all out in the light--let that miasma (akin to that which drifts off a pork factory sewage lagoon) dissipate a bit in the open air.
Things the Dumbocrats may have overlooked:
(1). Donald Trump certainly can run for President and be elected while incarcerated.
(2) Keeping him away from DC won’t be enough to stop him from inaugurated. He can take the oath of office anywhere (Calvin Coolidge, for instance, took his in the front parlor of his father’s house, Lyndon Johnson was on board Air Force One. Teddy Roosevelt was in Buffalo, NY). Nothing in the Constitution says he needs to be in front of the Capitol.
(3) He does not even have to swear his oath on a Bible. Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, and Teddy Roosevelt didn’t. LBJ may have thought he had his hand on a Bible, but it was just a Catholic Missal.
(4) Nor does the oath have to be administered by the Chief Justice. A prison chaplain with a tattered Missal would be good enough. Coolidge’s osth was administered by his father, a justice of the peace.
Douglas B. Levene: "I oppose the televising of any trial. Televising a trial changes the way in which the trial is conducted in ways that make it less reliable. This is true whether it's a trial of Donald Trump or your average, garden variety serial killer."
Oligonicella: "Having actually known a serial killer (Bob Berdella), I can assure you, those people have nothing "average" about them. If you think so, you've simply been tricked.
Besides that, I haven't seen a court room that didn't have a gallery where you could (except for unusual circumstances) just walk in and observe. Other than numbers, how's this different?"
You have to recall that Doug Levene is already on record explicitly advocating for republican fatcat insiders selecting the republican presidential nominee in secret, smoke-filled back room gatherings.
Literally.
Therefore it comes as no surprise that Levene would also advocate for these New Soviet Democratical kafkaesque political show trials also be conducted in secret.
At least Levene is consistent in his establishment/dem suck-uppery.
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