The pattern of legal life in Trump world becomes ever increasingly evident as the weeks go by. It goes something like this: 1. Trump decides he’s been ill used and abused. That’s a daily occurrence. 2. He wears out his thumbs and the eardrums of anybody around him as he kvetches on social media and at large. 3. He calls in his lawyers. 4. In an effort to placate him, at least momentarily, they come up with some cockamamie rationale by which they can appeal something. 5. They appeal, grounds or no. 6. Nothing changes. 7. Rinse and repeat.
This past few weeks, the target has been the Washington, D.C. January 6 case, presided over by Judge Tanya Chutkan. The judge has made it very clear that Donald Trump cannot make a claim for presidential immunity. She joins a majority of legal scholars in that regard. But Trump and his lawyers don’t want to hear it. They’re framing the issue differently. They’re saying that the judge no longer has any authority over the case and the appellate court is now hearing the case. Or something. Again, with Trump and his lawyers, you hear legal notions expounded upon that are simply fantastic. That’s the feature of all this, not the bug. Politico:
Donald Trump is demanding that a judge halt all proceedings in the federal criminal case charging him with trying to subvert the 2020 presidential election.
Trump contends that U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan no longer has power over the case while he appeals her ruling that Trump is not immune from the charges he’s facing — a process that could take weeks or months. In the meantime, he says, Chutkan must postpone all deadlines and cede her authority over the matter.
Citing “political costs to President Trump and this country” if the case were to move forward, Trump’s lawyers argued Thursday that he’s entitled to an “automatic stay” while he appeals Chutkan’s ruling last week.
What’s that you say? Are Trump’s lawyers going to rewrite their own version of the Federal Rules Of Civil Procedure? Hey, your guess is as good as mine. It’s days like this I think about taking my Doctor of Jurisprudence out of the glass and setting fire to it.
“The filing of President Trump’s notice of appeal has deprived this Court of jurisdiction over this case in its entirety pending resolution of the appeal,” Trump attorneys Todd Blanche and John Lauro wrote. “Therefore, a stay of all further proceedings is mandatory and automatic.”
Trump’s attorneys indicated that even if Chutkan doesn’t grant the stay, they plan to ask the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to do so and intend to operate as if there is one in place. That could be consequential in a case that is expected to be just three months away from trial. Prospective jurors have already begun receiving initial notices from the courthouse.
Trumpty is quite the jailhouse lawyer and he hasn’t even gotten to the jailhouse yet. Well, I guess he had to demonstrate precocious behavior in some regard, since he’s been so backwards in all other endeavors in his life — other than grifting. He has shown a decided gift for that. Listen to this in its entirety, but at 1:39 Trump goes on about how “we already won this case at the appellate level,” referring to the Trump Organization fraud trial.
[Back to the D.C. case] The lawyers said that unless Chutkan rules otherwise, they plan to ignore upcoming deadlines in the case regarding pretrial motions, exchanges of information with prosecutors and designation of expert witnesses.
Do so at your own peril. I do not pretend to know a thing about the docket at the appellate court or how soon they would resolve this matter. My certainty that Trump is looking to get shot down yet once again on this immunity issue comes from the fact that he’s done nothing but get shut down on it so far. But then again, this is the man who lost over sixty trials which he claimed were going to prove that the 2020 election had been stolen, so naturally he’s not going to let any matter be litigated only once. It simply isn’t in him.
I do not anticipate Judge Chutkan being rendered powerless for long or this latest bash at the immunity issue to take that much more time to resolve.
Maybe we should get rid of all the florescent street lights we’ve grown up with and just go back to the days of the gaslighted streets. It’s so much more appropriate for this era.
Other than the fact that it just doesn’t work that way, sure, go ahead and give it a try, donnyboy.
They have claimed to want to file an appeal of Judge Chutkan’s ruling. Have they? If not, they are just doing their same old same old delay dance. There is a time limit on how long they can file their interlocutory appeal. IIRC, it’s 4 days and he ruling came down on maybe the 5th.
What they say is not what it is.
Sound familiar?
Oops, should be 14 days, sorry.
This is.Kabuki Performance Art.i It has nothing to do with the actual, just with making the judicial system look.biased against Donnie Donuts, so his cultists will keep donating.
It’s always a great strategy to piss off the judge in your legal case. The county jails are full of people there for one reason only…contempt of court. This particular judge doesn’t seem to take kindly to these courtroom mob tactics. By the way lawyers can get held in contempt also.
It’s a variation on declassifying documents with his mind. To Trump saying “you are hereby declassified” (including retroactively) makes it so. Now he seems to have in his mind created a new section of law and criminal trial procedure and his declaration that “this is now the law” makes it so. My questions is given the way the Court of Appeals dicked around with the gag order will they THIS time get down out of their fucking ivory tower and deal with this in a matter of a few days like the CAN and SHOULD? (Same with SCOTUS because you know he’ll appeal to them when the DC Court of Appeals gets around to dealing with this b.s.
If the past holds true,SCOTUS wil.refuse to hear it and let the appeals Court’s’s ruling stand. They don’t want to set a truly awful precedent which could be used by a future liberal.president.
Thomas and probably Alito too will throw tantrums in the daily conference trying to get the Court to grant Cert. For those who don’t know it takes FOUR Justices voting aye to grant Cert to any case and the three Democratic appointees will vote no. I could be wrong but I don’t think Roberts wants any part of this so he’s an almost certain no vote. That leaves the three Trump appointees (Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett) for Clarence and Sammy to win over. Again, I could be wrong but all three have long tenures ahead of them. And like the power they hold. They already got what they wanted from Trump with their lifetime appointments. Also, since at times each of them has “betrayed” Trump (including on election 2020 stuff) he’ll got after them like a wolf chasing down a wounded prey and they know it. It’s hard to see Thomas and Alito getting even one of them to go along, much less two of them.
That means whatever the DC appeals court rules will be the final word on the matter. Probably. But again I could be wrong.
“She joins a majority of legal scholars in that regard.” I understand you want to leave a little space just in case, but really, can you tell us even done legal scholar who signs on to Trump’s theory? If there are any, that would be a “man bites dog,” deserving a story of its own.
Sorry, I meant “even ONE legal scholar”.