The Trump team has filed to stay proceedings to "forestall, once again, an unprecedented and unacceptable departure from ordinary appellate procedures." Frankly, the Court should grant the stay in my view... s3.documentcloud.org/documents/2442…
...I previously said that the panel wrongly sought to curtail Trump's right to seek an en banc review. The motion first goes to Chief Justice John Roberts who will likely submit it to the full court for consideration.
...The Supreme Court previously declined to cut short Trump's appellate options. The difficulty is separating the stay from the merits. It is difficult to argue that Trump is likely to prevail on the merits of his immunity claim, which is quite sweeping. Yet, the effective negation of Trump's en banc option is troubling and, in my view, wrong.
...The panel only said that cutting short the appeal was based on “the imperative public importance of a prompt resolution of this case.” However, it is equally important to get a resolution right, not just fast. Possible en banc review is an important part of that process.
...Notably, the filing confirmed that Trump wants to file a petition for en banc review with the D.C. Circuit if the Court grants the stay to prevent the return of the mandate to district court to resume pre-trial proceedings.
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As predicted, Judge Merchan has rejected the challenge to the Bragg charges under the recent immunity decision of the Supreme Court. He tossed the challenge entirely but also found that any possible violations would be harmless error. Here is the opinion: nycourts.gov/LegacyPDFs/pre…
...Merchan created layers of findings to ironplate the case for appeal. He ruled that (1) this was entirely unofficial conduct, (2) if it was official conduct, and (3) if it was official and within the protections of the Constitution, it was harmless error ...
...He still has to rule on the general challenge over errors committed at trial. Some of us view the case as replete with layers of reversible error. However, Merchan was never viewed as likely to second guess his prior rulings...jonathanturley.org/2024/06/03/buz…
The new IG report on January 6th may raise more questions than answers. It confirms that confidential sources did indeed enter the Capitol and restricted areas. The question is whether the presence of these sources were revealed to the defense in the hundreds of prosecutions...
...Moreover, there is a question of why the three sources who entered the Capitol were not charged as part of an operation that the Justice Department described as an effort to "shock and awe" targeting everyone involved on that day...
...The IG found that most of these individuals were there without any instructions or requests from the government. However, as paid sources for the FBI, the question is what they did on that day...
So now the judge has dismissed the first count on second-degree manslaughter and is allowing the jury to consider the second count after the weekend. This is precisely what Bragg was hoping for in setting up a possible compromise verdict...
...With the Allen charge, the prosecutors hoped to pressure the jury into voting on the low standard of criminal negligence. Outside of New York or a few other cities, this case would likely either have not been brought or would have collapsed quickly before the jury...
...I am still hopeful that there will be holdouts on the lesser offense. That would leave this as a hung jury, though the treatment of Penny will leave chilling message for New York thinking of protecting others in New York...
The jury just sent a note to the court that it is deadlocked on the first count, the second-degree manslaughter charge. The court will likely now issue an Allen charge to get them to resume deliberations...
...The question is whether the court will instruct the jury to consider the second charge of the criminal negligence charge. The judge expressed doubt over whether, in the absence of a unanimous verdict on the first charge, he could tell them to move on to the second charge...
...Many of us cannot see how this case could have produced a conviction with the layers of reasonable doubt in the evidence. The absence of clear causation makes a conviction difficult to justify in such a case. Indeed, it makes it difficult to see why the case was brought.
The Sisyphean effort to spin the President's unethical act into moral triumph continues in Washington. Rep. James Clyburn defended the Biden pardon, insisting that Hunter wouldn’t have been convicted but for the fact that Joe Biden was "the object of a lot of unfair untruths."...
...It is not clear what those "unfair untruths" were given the fact that the President repeatedly lied to the public about his never meeting his son's clients, knowing of the business deals, or any intention to pardon him. Those just seem garden-variety Biden untruths...
...It also ignores that Hunter was convicted in arguably the most favorable district for a Biden in Delaware by a jury that heard all of the evidence, including a rigorous defense from his own team.
The Hill posted my column on the implications of the Biden pardon and how it might not achieve as complete immunity from prosecution as President Joe Biden may have hoped for. What it does achieve is the final and total corruption of the Biden presidency. thehill.com/opinion/white-…
...It is also the final corruption of the media with many responding with the usual uncomfortable shrug despite the litany of lies. It is a measure of what you can call “Biden ethics.” In the curious world of Joe Biden, a lie that no one believes is treated the same as the truth.
...President Biden has become the very embodiment of our post-truth politics where identity rather than veracity drives meaning. Many accept that he may be a liar on a presidential scale, but he is our liar. That is enough...