The president's demands notwithstanding, the federal courts have mostly upheld restrictions on religious gatherings as a legitimate government power during the pandemic.
Kentucky judges have sided with church plaintiffs.
There's an ongoing case in New Mexico.
A Mississippi church sued the city of Greenville then w/drew its claim when the city changed its policy.
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Interesting: Judge Cannon has told the defense and govt to file proposed jury instructions defining the terms of the Espionage Act disputed at last week's motions hearing and narrowing the Presidential Records Act claim by April 2.
That suggests...
at least in theory that she is intending to take Trump's classified documents case to trial.
It would seem (?) like a waste of time to ask the parties to define for the jury the disputed elements of the Espionage Act--i.e. the law's requirement that the govt prove Trump had "unauthorized possession" of docs related to "national defense"--if she wasn't picturing a trial.
JUST IN: Alexander Smirnov told the feds during an interview after is arrest that "officials associated with Russian intelligence" were involved in passing a story about Hunter Biden.
Smirnov also reported to the feds having contacts w/some pretty shady Russians including one connected to what seems like an assassination crew and an intel guy.
Now: The first Trump documents hearing in front of Judge Cannon in Florida has ended w/o a decision on the trial schedule. Cannon seemed skeptical of the govt’s request to go to trial in December but also seemed disinclined to let the trial stray until after the 2024 election.
Cannon pressed Trump’s lawyer if they wanted to delay the trial after voting and they affirmed they did. They said if a trial date must be set it should be for mid-Nov 2024.
Cannon said she would file a written order promptly.
Beneath the scheduling issues was a fascinating philosophical discussion of the nature of Trump as defendant. It revolved around the question of should Trump be treated like any other defendant or did his role as candidate need to be taken into account .
Now: DOJ responds, glancingly, to the uproar over the Jacob Chansley footage, clarifying that the images of him w/the police took place *after* he illegally entered the Senate gallery--the behavior that triggered his obstruction of Congress charge.
By glancingly, I mean prosecutors responded to the complaints of another defendant, Dominic Pezzola of the Proud Boys, about the footage, and clarified their position on the new video.
"In sum," prosecutors wrote, "Chansley was not some passive, chaperoned observer of events for the roughly hour that he was unlawfully inside the Capitol."
We've just received more information about the tantalizing FBI data snafu that temporarily paused the Proud Boys sedition trial late week for an evidentiary
A quick thread.
Background: The dispute concerns a log of internal FBI chats from one of the case agents, Nicole Miller. The log was given to the defense for impeachment of her testimony. Miller minimized or hid responses from other agents since, govt says, they were outside scope of cross-ex.
But the defense found the minimizations & opened them up. The newly opened messages had some tantalizing things from another agent who was writing to Miller. There were also some places where Miller's responses to that agent appeared to be missing.
Update: Prosecutors have told the judge in the Proud Boys sedition case that the Jencks issue may have been a result of a "spill" of classified information.
No one seems to know exactly what that means at this point.
Jocelyn Ballentine, the prosecutor who oversees the J6 conspiracy cases, tells Judge Kelly that the spreadsheet of internal FBI comms at issue here contained classified messages from "one other agent who does clandestine work" but who did not take part in the Proud Boys case.
The Proud Boys trial data issue is threatening to spin off into true chaos.
Norm Pattis, lawyer for Joe Biggs, is calling for the appointment of a special master to examine the spreadsheet of internal FBI comms to check for any classified messages.
(Gonna say that's unlikely...)