You may remember from yesterday that Justice Arthur Engoron sent out a memorandum via email to Donald Trump’s lawyers with respect to a news story about Donald Trump’s former CFO, Allen Weisselberg, pleading guilty to perjury. Justice Engoron gave Trump’s lawyers until the end of business Wednesday to respond to his query, in their capacity as officers of the court.
Alina Habba went on record as having consulted with her “ethics counsel” and declared that she had no input. That is wise. Habba is on a probationary level right now, unless I miss my guess about how Trump operates, and consistency is his one virtue. He’s very predictable, mainly because he’s very stupid. All you have to do is look at his past behavior and extrapolate what that kind of a mind would do, and voila. You know what Trump will do next. I say Trump’s planning to throw Habba under the bus in the not-too-distant future. We hear rumors all the time that Habba is Mrs. Trump number four, but I don’t see that happening.
Back to Engoron’s memo, another Trump lawyer, Clifford Robert, did respond to the judge and his reaction was faux outrage, naturally, and a complete mischaracterization of what the judge asked for.
Thinking about this, I'm not sure how it works in the U.S., but here in Canada, if a lawyer becomes aware of something like this, there is a positive obligation to advise the Court..
— Elizabeth A 🍁🇨🇦 (@ElizabethArno20) February 7, 2024
Here’s a link to Robert’s letter. He goes on at great length about being asked to “reopen the case” and nobody is talking about reopening a case. Justice Engoron asked for information about the New York Times article and Weisselberg’s pleading guilty to perjury — if they had any. Here’s the article in question:
Allen H. Weisselberg, a longtime lieutenant to Donald J. Trump, is negotiating a deal with Manhattan prosecutors that would require him to plead guilty to perjury, people with knowledge of the matter said.
As part of the potential agreement with the Manhattan district attorney’s office, Mr. Weisselberg would have to admit that he lied on the witness stand in Mr. Trump’s recent civil fraud trial, the people said.
Mr. Weisselberg, the former chief financial officer at Mr. Trump’s family business, also would have to say that he lied under oath during an interview with the New York attorney general’s office, which brought the civil fraud case.
The situation springs from a web of criminal and civil cases brought by the two agencies and would culminate a lengthy pressure campaign by the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, whose prosecutors had sought Mr. Weisselberg’s cooperation as they investigated whether Mr. Trump committed electoral and financial crimes. Even without Mr. Weisselberg’s cooperation, they indicted Mr. Trump last year in the election-related case, which is scheduled for trial in late March. […]
Although the potential agreement is unlikely to immediately affect Mr. Trump, it could strengthen Mr. Bragg’s hand before the former president’s trial. It could deter other witnesses in Mr. Trump’s circle from lying on the stand. And perjury charges could discredit Mr. Weisselberg, who has disputed details of the prosecution’s evidence in the case involving the 2016 election.
Here’s where everybody else is speculating so we might as well jump in with both feet and do so, too. What kind of information was Judge Engoron expecting? Or, did he simply raise the issue out of an abundance of caution and in order to be exacting and thorough — and he knew he would get one of these stonewalled, non-responsive kinds of replies?
I have no idea. On its face, it makes complete sense that Engoron: 1. Would be reading the Times and reacting to stories which interfaced with a trial that he, himself, was presiding over, which contained many of the same parties; and 2. That he would ask the lawyers involved in the case what, if anything, they knew about the matter. That all makes sense.
What is interesting is rather than just issue a statement acknowledging the validity of the judge’s concerns and informing him that there was no information, Clifford Robert decided to go on the attack and mischaracterize the judge asking such a thing to begin with.
The Article speculates about purported plea negotiations involving Mr. Weisselberg and
the New York County District Attorney’s Office regarding unspecified allegations of perjury. The Article simply does not provide any principled basis for the Court to reopen the record or question the veracity of Mr. Weisselberg’s testimony in this case. Indeed, we respectfully submit that the Court’s request for comment on this speculative media account is unprecedented, inappropriate and troubling. […]Second, the Court lacks the legal authority under New York law to take judicial notice of
news stories:“A court may only apply judicial notice to matters of common and
general knowledge, well established and authoritatively settled, not
doubtful or uncertain. The test is whether sufficient notoriety
attaches to the fact to make it proper to assume its existence without
proof” (Carter v. Metro N. Assocs., 255 AD2d 251, 251, 680 NYS2d
239 [1998] etc., et al.
Moral of the story: Trump lawyers never miss an opportunity to propagandize when they could simply respond in a straightforward manner and say, “I don’t know.”
And maybe they have nothing to add on the subject of Weisselberg. Or, maybe Justice Engoron knows something we don’t and he’s seeing what Trump’s lawyers are going to say. That’s another possibility.
Again, as stated, just playing the speculation game along with everybody else. I just hope that whatever Justice Engoron is deliberating that he will rule soon. I can’t wait to see Trump’s reaction to what I am sure will be a massive — and massively deserved — fine.
I wonder what law school teaches lawyers to attack and piss off the judge who will make the decision on a case where their defendant/client has been found GUILTY??? Not many is my guess.
i wonder if Engoron just laid a sanctions trap for the lawyers. they do have a positive duty to inform the court if they become aware that one of their witnesses has perjured himself.
Suborning perjury is a felony that can end a lawyer’s career and even send them to prison. Does Habba have sufficient grasp of the law to understand that it may not be trump throwing her under the bus, but Weisselberg? Making lawyers get lawyers, yet again.
She didn’t respond. Someone else did. So they are both begging to be disbarred.
Habba’s not a lawyer. She’s a campaign operative pretending to know the law. After all, she was the valedictorian of her home school, Obviously academic standards were in the basement.