Some highlights once I give the story an update. In the meanwhile, give the order inside the story a read.
Earlier this morning, Trump's lawyers argued that the civil probe was essentially a way to extract information without having to offer immunity that a grand jury would afford in a criminal investigation.
Engoron: "This argument completely misses the mark."
Engoron:
Trump and his children have the "absolute right" to assert Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
Eric Trump did it more than 500 times, he notes.
Justice Engoron:
Trump was "hardly a stranger" to the NYAG's office when Tish James took over.
Her predecessors reached significant settlements with Trump's "University" and "Foundation," the judge says—his scare quotes.
Engoron:
The thousands of documents responsive to the subpoenas that I've viewed privately show "significant basis" for continuing the investigation, undercutting notion that it's based on animus rather than facts and law.
Engoron:
"As has often been said, that a prosecutor dislikes someone does not prevent a prosecution."
Engoron:
It would have been "blatant dereliction of duty" not to investigate and issue subpoenas.
Engoron:
Trump's spin on Mazars ditching him is Orwellian, "audacious" and "preposterous."
Engoron:
NYAG found "copious evidence of possible financial fraud."
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New York AG @TishJames faces off this morning against Trump's lawyers on a motion to compel the Trump family, in the first hearing since the big Mazars news.
Alina Habba and Ronald Fischetti are arguing for Donald Trump.
Hon. Engoran presides.
Alan Futerfas is up for Eric Trump.
He says the motion to compel is "really unprecedented in the research that we could find given the facts of this case," calling it a "case of first impression."
He claims it raises "strong issues" about the attorney general.
During pre-trial arguments, the NYT's lawyer argues that someone known for saying "Don’t retreat, reload" will have a hard time arguing that she sustained emotional damage in the face of criticism about her gun rhetoric.
The NYT wants to grill Palin on rhetoric like that to establish that Palin "plays in the public field" and "uses hyperbole" to make her points.
Q: When you used the word “incite,” were you intending to convey only that “incite” meant direct orders?
A: No, no. You can incite hate. You can incite anger. You can incite passion. You can even incite doubt. [...] Incite requires an object as a verb.
Bennet:
"We were focused on [...] rhetoric on the left, which had become much hotter in the period. Things were worse. Things are worse today than they were then in 2017. [...]
We were focused on rhetoric on the left—and the right, but particularly on the left that day."
Out the gate, Palin's attorney Shane Vogt asks Bennet if it would surprise him for readers to interpret the word "incitement" to mean its dictionary definition.
"It wouldn't surprise me," he replies.
Vogt presses Bennet of any evidence of rhetoric on the left that could be tied to the 2017 congressional baseball shooting by James Hodgkinson.
After a back and forth, Bennet ultimately agrees they didn't find any.