Rangappa and Shimer link to this important piece by @jayrosen_nyu calling on newsrooms to set up teams to anticipate these kinds of threat scenarios (and more) for 2020 election season.
3/ Link to the court filing (remarkably a joint filing by Donald Trump and Michael Cohen): admitting to the facts of Trump's reimbursement of Cohen for hush money to Stormy Daniels:
I discussed why two documents shown by prosecutors on Monday in the Trump trial are "close to being smoking guns."
On @OutFrontCNN.
The Trump CFO Allen Weisselberg document is truly mind blowing.
2/ Get this 🤯:
Trump CFO's contemporaneous handwritten notes recording the underlying scheme - the true reason for payments to Michael Cohen - are written on a copy of the bank account showing the $130,000 hush money wired on Oct. 27 to Stormy Daniels' lawyer!
3/ What else do you notice about the bank statement?
It indicates the bank account was set up for this sole purpose.
- Shows total funds of $130,000 for the hush money plus $1K to cover wire transfer fee etc.
- Appears to have opened account a day before the wire transfer.
A former president of the United States was held to be in Criminal Contempt for "willful disobedience of a court's lawful mandate" by attacking witnesses and jurors in a criminal proceeding.
Court's finding based on beyond a reasonable doubt.
1/
2/ Justice Merchan's well-reasoned, balanced opinion has two additional important notes.
First, he not only warns the Defendant, Mr. Trump, about jail time for future violations. He explains this may be required because fines ($1k per violation) won't be effective in this case.
3/ As part of his balanced opinion, Justice Merchan appears to call out Michael Cohen (and perhaps Stormy Daniels).
The judge explains their use of the gag order to publicly go after Trump while he cannot respond may result in judge excluding them from the order's protections⬇️
Due to Trump attorney's concessions in Supreme Court oral argument, there's now a very clear path for DOJ's case to go forward.
It'd be a travesty for Justices to delay matters further.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett got Trump attorney to concede core allegations are private acts.⬇️
2/ Justice Barrett rounds this out with her final question:
She gets USG attorney to say there's enough of these private acts to move forward, and Trump's conduct involving pressuring DOJ, Pence etc would be used just for evidentiary value not criminally liable for those acts.⬇️
3/ Here are the three bullets in USG brief that Justice Barrett gets Trump attorney to concede are private acts that enjoy no immunity whatsoever.⤵️
And note text before the bullets, which Justice Barrett goes over with USG attorney solidifying DOJ can prosecute on this basis.
2/ As this Timeline shows, Pecker's testimony should be strong proof of core allegation that the hush money scheme was geared toward influencing the outcome of the presidential election.