This story is moving faster than a hummingbird’s wings, assuming the hummingbird just drank from a feeder laced with methamphetamine. Lordy. People used to diss Merrick Garland for not moving fast enough, but now the DOJ train is going so fast that its wheels are a blur, and guess which orange entity is not able to avoid the inevitable? No wonder he’s burning things up over at Truth Social, trying to create any distraction he can. Nobody can run from history, Donald, as you’re about to find out.

The photo at the top of this piece is the one that our own Murfster35 saw on the TV set and spoke about in his last piece. That picture is worth more than a thousand words, it’s shouting volumes right now. Simply, the DOJ is arguing that they were able to recover more documents in a few hours than Team Trump had been able/willing to provide them in weeks, raising the specter of obstruction of justice, specifically defiance of a grand jury subpoena for said records. DOJ also argued that Trump’s belated request for a so-called “special master” was merely a bid to disrupt the investigation. Any privileged information was already separated out and returned to Trump. Politico:

The 36-page filing was the department’s most detailed account yet of its evidence of obstruction of justice, raising concerns that Trump and his attorneys sought to mislead investigators about the sincerity and thoroughness of their effort to identify and return highly sensitive records to the government.

“The government also developed evidence that government records were likely concealed and removed from the Storage Room and that efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government’s investigation,” Justice Department counterintelligence chief Jay Bratt wrote.

“That the FBI, in a matter of hours, recovered twice as many documents with classification markings as the ‘diligent search’ that the former President’s counsel and other representatives had weeks to perform calls into serious question the representations made in the June 3 certification and casts doubt on the extent of cooperation in this matter,” he added.

Trump has to respond to the government’s filing by Wednesday evening. This is real lawyer time, not television bimbo soundbite lawyer time. Additionally, Judge Aileen Cannon has called for a hearing on the matter Thursday afternoon in West Palm Beach. Trump’s out of time.

The DOJ lawyer, Bratt, urged Judge Cannon to reject Trump’s claim that any of the documents seized were subject to a claim of executive privilege by him — and therefore unrecoverable by the current administration. That’s Trump’s fantasy and it just went up in smoke.

“The former President cites no case—and the government is aware of none—in which executive privilege has been successfully invoked to prohibit the sharing of documents within the Executive Branch,” Bratt wrote.

Let’s see what Trump’s legal team comes up with. There’s going to be a lot of red eyes tomorrow morning, I think that much is safe to say: the lawyers from working all night and Trumpty Dumpty from crying.

Mar-a-Lago better start stocking ketchup in plastic bottles from here on out, doncha think? Or, start painting the walls and floors red, so it won’t show so much?

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17 COMMENTS

  1. “Strong men came up to mje with tears in their eyes saying, ‘Sir, it doesn’t matter if you can’t get a special master. We have a line-up of special moistresses for you”

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  2. You go Merrick! If this ends with the boar hog in a orange prison jumpsuit, I’d like to order my crow well done, and I’m going to enjoy it immensely.

        • Points to you for admitting such, Spike. The truth is WAY too many people bought into the doomsday narrative because they made the classic mistake of thinking the past would be just like the future just because. That never lined up with any objective facts, including the personalities involved. THAT’S what I was running off of. If I ever got one benefit out of living through W and now Trump, it was learning how to put the pieces together.

  3. While this may seem like it happened all at once, a friendly reminder: it didn’t. Trump’s post-presidential career was always a house infested with termites. One day, everything looks solid and fine. The next, the whole thing collapses like the House of Usher.

    But given the severity of Trump’s crimes and that we do (in theory) run our government on laws (as opposed to the lynch mob “justice” I’ve seen advocated too many times), you want to be DAMN sure he didn’t have the smallest crack to wriggle out of. So you make your case airtight, game out all possible scenarios and THEN move. That’s how all good RL courtroom proceedings work, prosecutors or defense attorneys. And Garland, as he’s proving here, is one of the best.

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  4. The recent developments are heartening but to imply the justice department is a sure thing at this point is premature. No one I saw has advocated for lynch mob justice, which usually means an innocent person is being railroaded by the mob. This is far far far from that. This man has broken so many laws that average citizens would have been locked up for years LONG AGO. It’s been clear the rule of law is not applied equally across the board as there are over two million citizens locked up for far far less. The FACT he has gotten away with a mountain of crimes without serious criminal prosecution is what people I’ve read are complaining about. The fact he has walked to this point & was allowed to sit on top secret documents for over a year IS an indictment of the system to date & will remain so. I’ve dealt with the system on many levels including the FBI, & if you or I had been suspected of possessing ONE top secret document, there would be an immediate no knock, kick the door in & take you into custody action. Fact. To think otherwise is naive. There are people sitting in federal prison for long sentences for messing around with national security information. Maybe Garland will succeed. Hope so. We will see. If Trump doesn’t wind up in prison then the system will remain one for privileged white men. Fact. Call it what you will. It certainly has never been a lynch mob. Ask the black folks before you confuse what that really means. It means being dragged out of your house, guilty of NOTHING, and killed by criminals for not belonging to their group. Oh, and nobody goes to jail. No one.

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    • The fact that he made it to nomination for the position he had no business being remotely in the vicinity of is evidence of what you just spoke of. White male privilege runs this country to this day.I’ve lived in Baltimore city for 33 years,my eyes are wide open. Before that i grew up in a white picket fence suburb in CT, New York adjacent watching their news stations and we of course got the NYTimes and I knew trump was a scumbag by the time I was 10! What more would anyone (MSM<hello!) need to know after aforementioned scumbag took out a full page ad in (SAD NYT) calling for the deaths/executions/lynchings of the Central Park 5 AFTER they were exonerated?!!!

    • Not a bit different from mob “justice” at all. The common refrain over and over again was “He’s obviously guilty! Lock him up! Hang him for treason! Shoot him! Electrocute him!” and so on. That’s MAGA level thinking, based on emotional needs being fulfilled over how ACTUAL due process works. You know those banana republics those Banana Republicans keep bringing up? That’s how THEY do it to people they don’t like.

      That is why I am uninterested in any of the short term fixes of such impatient foolishness. I’d personally like to have a functional system of government after it’s all over. And that would have been impossible if it were rushed. If you say you care about the rule of law, then you’ve lost all whining rights when it takes longer than a Law and Order episode. Otherwise, you’re just agreeing with the right-wing thugs’ animating philosophy of “Might makes right.”

      • Whining? Bullshit sonny. So you think trump has had no ‘due process’? That’s a laugh. He is obviously guilty of many crimes wayyy before this last incident. Ask michael cohen who went to prison while individual #1(trump), was left in the most powerful legal position in the land, and then has done God knows what since. Evidently you’ve never been the victim of legal injustice, and now you say it takes a mountain of crime, well documented, including planning a violent insurrection, and stealing secrets to applaud the justice system? He should have been legally charged YEARS AGO, and to argue that looking the other way is justice is pure crap. Apologist is the word that comes to mind. He’s got enough excuse makers as it is. Sure I want a long term fix, but let’s not pretend average citizens could get away with these crimes for all this time. That’s just pure horseshit. Therefore the system is NOT equal justice under the law. Another lie. Oh & don’t use ‘lynch mob’ justice around my black family. You will just look like another white boy from the south throwing around clueless comparisons. In the worse case you may need security. No fucking joke. No, DUE JUSTICE would be he was held legally responsible years ago for all of his crimes. We are here because IT DID NOT HAPPEN. That’s a fact.

        • Well, no one is looking the other way now, are they? Haven’t been for a while either, going as far back as when you were screaming “Garland does nothing!” at the top of your digital lungs. But with everything Trump has done, it has to be accounted for the RIGHT way, if only this once. Or the next time WILL be worse…and that’s no good for anybody. However much the current system sucks (and it does in a lot of respects), the breakdown of it only benefits the people you’re both hating and imitating.

          If you’re trying to save face, skip it. Just admit you know a lot less than you thought you did and OWN the mistake. I never like saying this to someone older than me but gods, does it need to be said here: GROW UP.

          • Saving face is what internet warriors worry about. Try this list & see how much you are ‘grown’. Grew up with a violent drunk my mom had to shoot when I was 30. I took the blows & had guns in my face since I was little. Worked from 13 to the present age of 69. Was in the top 15 students out of 500 in my graduating class despite the kind of homelife i was dealing with EVERYDAY. Got a scholarship to a prestigious university & paid my way entirely. Stayed on the Dean’s List despite spending a semester+ taking LSD multiple times. Lived with radical Quakers after college who met at Wounded Knee when the government & native Americans were shooting at each other. Went into the service after a member of our house killed herself while her professor father was in China advising them on economics. Went to graduate school & without the long version, prison at the same time for cannabis first offense. Threatened EVERYDAY for four months, & never backed down & avoided being assaulted. Paroled immediately & told by the head of the parole board I shouldn’t have been arrested, implying the prosecutor & judge were both corrupt. He later sent me a letter admitting such, & supporting me for a pardon from being an official outlaw, a political prisoner in Amerikka. I’ve carried a felony for 40 years. That state now allows everyone free access to cannabis, including growing it yourself. Have been through three divorces, the first my fault, the other two betrayed. Went through infertility for 3 1/2 years & adoption 2 years to get my children. Wife cheats on me in a no fault state & I lose my children, my 2800 Sq foot house I paid on for 10 years, all my retirement money, & put under 1200.mo. child support after taxes by a lesbian judge, friends with my ex’s lesbian attorney. Thrown into county jail multiple times when I lost my job & couldn’t pay. My grown children are closer to me than my Maga fake Christian wife as I type. Have been part of a lower class struggling black family for the past 16years, with my lady having 3 brothers as gang members. All dead now. That’s just a small sample sonny. Since you hide behind a moniker & I use my real name…who needs to grow up sonny? By the way where’s your list? I have more but I don’t want to bore you since your life is so chocked full of ‘maturity’. Brave enough to expose your life as I just have? Waiting Mr maturity.

    • Who’s to say they’re not just waiting on the warrant? I realize that “rule of law” is something some people only believe in when they’re being kicked around. But isn’t telling when said people advocate the same treatment for their enemies when the shoe is on the other foot?

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