As expected, Judge Tanya Chutkan took Trump's lawyers to task in today's hearing regarding Trump's lawsuit trying to stop the release of documents that will very likely incriminate him. As I suspected (and included as the opening of yesterday's #JusticeMatters video) . . .
Judge Chutkan asked Justin Clark (Trump's lawyer) his authority for putting in his brief the "startling claim" that the FBI had cleared Trump of wrongdoing in connection with the Jan. 6 attack. Clark admitted that he took that from a Reuter's news article. I didn't need to see...
all of Judge Chutkan's face (we were all masked in the courtroom) to gage her reaction, because I heard her scoff at the idea that they would make such a bold assertion based on anonymous source reporting in a Reuter's article. Now, on the the substance of the hearing . . .
Clark tried to argue that this case somehow involved a dispute between the branches of government. Judge Chutkan countered with the fact that both the executive brand AND the legislative branch want the documents disclosed - only Trump is trying to stop it. Clark argued that...
releasing the documents would hurt the office of the presidency. Judge Chutkan observed that the person who is in the best position to assess that is the CURRENT president AND that under the Presidential Records Act, the current president is the one empowered to make that call...
Clark tried to rely on a case, GSA v. Nixon, in support of his arguments, but when Judge Chutkan asked him to direct her to the precise language in that case that supported his position, Clark produced exactly . . . bupkis. The judge punctuated the exchange by saying,
"I find NO support for your position" in GSA v. Nixon. When Clark argued about how he was buried under a "huge document dump" Judge Chutkan said, "Im going to ask you to dial down the rhetoric." When Clark argued that the judge should look at each disputed document herself
and assess whether it should be turned over, she shot back, "other than slowing down the process" what would that accomplish? But she did ask him if he had any legal authority saying she must spend months looking at every requested document. Clark had no such authority.
Judge Chutkan observed that such a document-by-document review would not only "slow things down to a snail's pace" but would actually "represent an intrusion by this branch (the judiciary) into a decision by the other two branches of government" because ...
with both the executive branch AND the legislative branch wanting the documents released, "this is perhaps a rare instance of harmony between the branches." And on it went. If it was a game of cat and mouse, Judge Chutkan was a lioness manhandling (professionally) ...
the weakest of mice in Trump's lawyer, Justin Clark. Judge Chutkan acknowledged that there is a deadline of Nov. 12 for the first batch of documents to be released to the House select committee and she said she will issue her ruling "expeditiously." It was a good day for justice.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
