Just finished reading through transcripts of Greg Craig jury selection from yesterday. We're starting the process over tomorrow because of concerns about much of it being done behind closed doors politico.com/story/2019/08/… But what happened behind those doors is worth a THREAD (1/x)
Bruce Reed wasn't the only person in the jury pool with high-level government ties politico.com/story/2019/08/… One potential juror is wife of Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) She's a schoolteacher and went online to try to figure out whether the case might last into the school year (2/x)
Another prospective juror also went online to try to figure out what the case might be. His mom also Googled a bit and saw that the judge threw out a charge last week politico.com/story/2019/08/… Man told mom she shouldn't be telling him that (3/x)
Fact that potential jurors used the date they were called and the notice of the length of the trial to figure out this was Craig case is one of the things Craig's defense objected to this morning. Said it appeared to violate a federal law calling for a random jury pool (4/x)
Judge Jackson sent out similar notices already in Roger Stone case. This afternoon, she asked both sides to weigh in on whether that's OK or not.....But back to the Craig voir dire (5/x)
Many of those questioned had Hill ties. One said she'd worked for offices of Sen. Hillary Clinton and Dianne Feinstein and now works for a Hill committee (6/x)
Many said they regularly read the news and/or followed the Mueller probe closely. One said he'd read NYT & WaPo stories about the Craig case and, due to evident good taste, even read yday's POLITICO story before coming to court. (Be like that guy: politico.com/story/2019/08/… ) (7/x)
That fellow said the release of the Craig/Skadden report at issue in the trial struck him as an act of 'great backroom spin.' Another man said he'd read 'everything about the special counsel's investigation' and that his parents went to law school with Mueller (8/x)
Another woman called seemed like a real free spirit. She said she's a painter who 'paints about the news.' 'Did you paint about Paul Manafort?' the judge asked. 'Specifically, no [but] I've painted a lot about collusion and foreign agents and whatnot,' the woman replied. (9/x)
Another juror said it was his impression that Manafort is a 'shady, sleazy guy.' Yet another is a managing director at FTI consulting, which flacked the Craig/Skadden report out of London. 'We're going to call FTI a liar,' Craig lawyer Bill Taylor said (10/x)
Most of the answers people gave seemed like things they'd be content to discuss publicly, even crime stuff like victims of thefts, car break-ins, etc. But a couple things were fairly sensitive (11/x)
One woman said her dad was convicted of statutory rape. Another said her mom was raped. These, and medical issues, were the kinds of things the judge said made her want to hear these answers privately (12/x)
But the law seems to be--and the way most judges do it--that the non-sensitive answers should be taken in public with matters people are uncomfortable discussing publicly taken at the bench with fewer ears listening (13/x)
So, an all-new jury pool has been called for tomorrow. About 120 people. Judge will try again, but this time anyone who wants should be able to hear most of the process in real-time. And we may get on with opening arguments Friday (14/x) ENDS
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THREAD: Just finished listening to back-to-back oral arguments at 9thCircuit on sanctions for lawyers involved in GOP Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake’s failed suit seeking to prohibit use of electronic voting machines in 2022 election. (1/X)
Bottom line: sounded like panel is inclined to uphold the $110,000 penalty on Andrew Parker and Kurt Olsen, but may lift the $12,000 imposed on famed Harvard law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz. (2/X)
Judge Patrick Bumatay sounded sympathetic to all three sanctioned lawyers. Judge Kim Wardlaw (Clinton) seemed generally unsympathetic. Judge Ronald Gould (Clinton) was somewhere in middle, seeming inclined to uphold sanctions against Parker & Olsen, while sparing Dershowitz. 3/X
HAPPENING NOW: 1st hearing in 10 months in Trump DC election case. Judge Chutkan says she won't set a schedule for the case during this session but hopes to do so later today.
Trump has entered not guilty pleas through his defense attorneys to the new indictment in the case (which contains the same basic charges). Trump is not here today. He was excused.
Chutkan is now noting how many deadlines were days or a few weeks away when the appeal was taken by Trump and froze the case by appealing. But sounds like she isn't inclined to give Trump a ton of time beyond what was left then. That's her baseline.
JUST IN: Epic benchslapping of TX Atty General's office by USDJ David Ezra at hearing he called to chastise them for an unusual letter they sent to 5th Cir. Tuesday suggesting he was insubordinate. Starts p. 44 of PDF storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
For 2nd day in a row, GOP lawmakers hit Garland for proposing only 4 new DEA agents as Fentanyl deaths surge. But AG says real no. is 131, counting agents OK'd this year but not yet hired. Garland: 'The budget math and the actual math doesn’t always add up.'
Democrats are pointing out that across-the-board cuts GOP would impose government-wide as part of debt limit extension would actually slash spending by about 22%. Garland says: 'It would be devastating for our efforts to combat drug trafficking. Totally devastating.'
Garland says that would lead to 11,000 jobs at FBI being eliminated.
ON STAND NOW at Proud Boys trial as defense witness: S. Fla. rabbi Former Proud Boy George Meza. Meza on his exit: 'We in some way turned on each other and I was voted out of the club.' But generally presenting a flattering view of Proud Boys & their ideology
Meza says Proud Boys rules barred those 'currently identified' as white nationalists. They're kicked out 'or they're supposed to be,' he says
More Meza: 'The average minority, the average foreigner felt very comfortable around the proud boys because we put our lives in danger to protect them.'