1/ Our favorite underrated moments of 🔥🔥🔥 on the stand from national treasure @StormyDaniels

🧵 2/ Q: When you put him on speakerphone would you tell him that he was on speaker?

A: No.

🧵TRUMP-CARROLL 🧵

If you're wondering, "how pissed is Judge Lewis Kaplan at Trump in the E. Jean Carroll litigation," the answer is "pissed enough to write a 17-page reasoned decision that your appeal is frivolous as a matter of law."

Let's dig in! /1

https://t.co/fzAkpqxJYtstorage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
For clarity: this case is Carroll I - the initial defamation lawsuit filed by E. Jean Carroll back in 2019 when Trump was President. Carroll II went to trial & the jury awarded her $5 million. We explain why Carroll II got decided first in episode 750. /2

openargs.com/oa750-carroll-…

The more I read Judge Aileen Cannon, FSW's order from this morning, the more absolutely crazy it seems, particularly paragraph 4. I've never seen a judge literally direct a defendant what to write in their briefs BEFORE their first opposition was due. /1

https://t.co/9vkBGq0ic8storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
Let's be clear: courts can (and do) request supplemental briefing all the time - e.g., when both sides miss the point. And yes, those orders tell you a lot about what a judge is thinking. But without fail, that comes either AFTER the issues have been fully briefed or... /2

Remember Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, the 2 GA pollworkers whom Co-Conspirator 1 a/k/a/ Rudy Giuliani defamed the hell out of in the wake of the 2020 election & then refused to turn over discovery when they sued him? Well... /1 ...we've covered that lawsuit a LOT, including most recently in Ep. 783. Rudy filed a stipulation conceding to liability to try and finally evade discovery once and for all. We also told you that stip had some problems & might not work. /2

openargs.com/oa783-hunter-b…

🚨BREAKING - JACK SMITH MOVES TO DISQUALIFY STAN WOODWARD IN TRUMP DOCUMENTS CASE

Woodward is Walt Nauta's lawyer (paid by Trump) & we've been shouting from the rooftops that he has MASSIVE conflicts of interest. Looks like Jack Smith agrees. /1

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco… We last discussed this in Episode 774.

Short, short version: it's bad. Woodward is clearly not acting in Nauta's interest; he represents material witnesses & does not seem to care. /2

openargs.com/oa774-trump-pr…

🧵OPENING ARGUMENTS TRIES NOT TO GET KICKED OFF TWITTER

There's a recently-filed lawsuit by one X Corp., a Nevada-based social media platform that allows its users to “tweet” at one another. X Corp. announced a “general amnesty” for previously-banned users in November 2022. /1 As we all know, that amnesty welcomed back tens of thousands of neo-Nazis, white supremacists, misogynists, racists, antisemites, conspiracy theorists, and other dangerous loons. Within weeks of their reinstatement, hate speech exploded. /2

https://t.co/a2E98YkuQ3nytimes.com/2022/12/02/tec…

🧵TRUMP DOCUMENTS CASE - A THREAD

Today, Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhardt unsealed a bunch of pleadings and orders in connection with the Mar-a-Lago search warrant docket.

Let's dive in, shall we? /1

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco… Media have been reporting the big news is that Special Counsel Jack Smith secured 7 additional search warrants in connection with Trump’s willful retention of national security information. However… /2

Yesterday, Trump moved for an an indefinite continuance in the SDFL willful retention of documents case. TODAY, the DOJ filed its opposition. It's more proof that Jack Smith intends to telegraph & fight back against Trump's efforts to delay his trial. /1

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco… We told you in today's show that although this looks like boring procedural stuff, it's actually a pretty important window into Trump's litigation strategy & just how much Judge Aileen Cannon, FSW is in the tank for Trump. /2

openargs.com/oa775-is-this-…

🚨BREAKING - BONKERS TRUMP JUDGE ISSUES CRAZED ANTI-VAX INJUNCTION

Happy Fourth of July! It is impossible to overstate how completely ridiculous this ruling Judge Doughty barfed out today is: /1

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco… It prevents the Biden administration from flagging false posts on Twitter & doing essentially anything to combat anti-vax & other nonsense because... reasons? BTW, this goes on for two pages in the order (linked below). /2

https://t.co/OQbU0b1FrGstorage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…

🚨 BREAKING - SANCTIONS ORDER IN MATA V. AVIANCA CHATGPT CASE

Case dismissed and lawyers fined; I've seen that. But this order also contains something I've never seen before: the lawyers have to write each of the judges in their fake opinions & apologize. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco… First, note this is a *THIRTY-FOUR* page opinion. It's not just a sanctions order; it's extensive documentary evidence of the fraud perpetrated on the court by the Levidow, Levidow & Oberman lawyers, LoDoca and Schwartz. /2

🚨TRUMP INDICTMENT ASSIGNED TO JUDGE AILEEN CANNON (?) - A THREAD 🧵

Now is a perfectly good time to panic. Or is it? Right now, there’s so much we don’t know, but there seem to be two things that are squarely in tension. /1 The first is that everything we’ve seen about Special Counsel Jack Smith to date indicates someone who is laser-focused on prosecuting high-level crimes of political corruption. Everything we learned yesterday was completely in line with that view. /2

🚨BREAKING - TRUMP INDICTMENT THREAD 🧵
We're not going to release an emergency episode until we get the actual Trump indictment which may not be until Tuesday. What we know now is tentative and from secondary sources, but here’s our best assessment of what to look for. /1 Media sources are reporting the grand jury issued a 7-count indictment against Trump in connection with his illegal retention of Presidential Records. (Quick Andrew & Liz were wrong: Trump is being indicted in Miami - the Southern District of Florida & not Washington DC.) /2

Parsing today's surprising (and encouraging!) SCOTUS result in Allen v. Michigan & I wonder if the explanation isn't simply that Clarence Thomas's unhinged, pro-insurrection, anti-democratic views drove Kavanaugh into the arms of John Roberts on the VRA. supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf… I have so many thoughts about this opinion. 1) It begins with an honest-to-god discussion of the legislative history of the VRA, as if the opinion fell to us through a welcome wormhole from 1994. /2

🧵ChatGPT LAWYERS THREAD 🧵

We told you the Mata v. Avianca lawyers had until yesterday to file responses in connection with their show cause sanctions hearing. That response QUADRUPLES down on the core lie that they're just incompetent, not frauds. /1
storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco… In Episode 751, we showed the real issue was that the **lawyers** deliberately used ChatGPT to generate FAKE OPINIONS they previously cited in their opposition brief, not that they used ChatGPT to write the brief itself (which they probably didn't). /2
openargs.com/oa751-chatgpt-…

Court grants motion to unseal ID of parties who posted $500,000 bond for Astronaut Volleyball Star George Santos, but gives him until Fri to appeal.

Will it be one of Guo Wengui's many aliases, per @BusinessInsider? (No, if anything, it will be a cutout.) courtlistener.com/docket/6735844… Santos's response to the media motions to unseal was hilariously overheated
storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…

🚨BREAKING: TRUMP DOCUMENT INDICTMENT IMPENDING?
We’re reading the tea leaves, but bear with us.
Trump’s lawyers have sent a letter to Congress in a transparent effort to prophylactically enlist allies among the dumbest Republican members of the House. /1
s3.documentcloud.org/documents/2378… This dumb letter telegraphs the dumb arguments Trump’s lawyers will use to try and argue in public that this is another WITCH HUNT. These are mostly not real legal arguments & will not be used at trial; it’s the muddy-the-waters playbook Trump has run since the Mueller days. /2

🚨BREAKING: Disney Strikes Back!
You mess with the Mouse, you get the ears. (Thanks @5DollarFeminist!)

Ron DeSantis “Central Florida Tourism Oversight District” (CFTOD) met this morning to go after Disney for being "too woke," just as Tiny D promised. /1
rcid.org/wp-content/upl… DeSantis’s CFTOD was assembled to rubber-stamp Tiny D’s efforts to strip the Reedy Creek Improvement District (RCID) of its powers & to overturn the contracts Disney executed with it while DeSantis was still goofing around on the Internet. So they did. /2

🧵DEEP DIVE 🧵
So Tucker Carlson is out at Fox News & everyone is looking for the connection to the Dominion settlement. But we think that's overlooking the *other* cases still pending against FNC by former Maria Bartiromo & Tucker Carlson producer Abby Grossberg. Strap in! /1 We of course covered Grossberg's lawsuits when she filed back in Episode 715. But it turns out some developments in those suits have flown beneath the radar (probably due to how hard it is to get documents in Delaware Superior court). So let's look: /2
openargs.com/oa715-fox-blun…

BREAKING: Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg moves to dismiss case against Jim Jordan to block subpoena of former prosecutor Mark Pomerantz.
storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco… Bragg sued to block Pomerantz's testimony about the Trump investigation. Judge Mary Vyskocil, a Trump appointee, ordered Pomerantz to testify.

The order was ... Trumpy.
storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…

We'll break down last night’s atrocious 5th Circuit mifepristone ruling in Alliance v. FDA on tomorrow’s show. For now, let's look at just one misleading claim: that the FDA took “fourteen years” (in scary italics!) to rule on Plaintiffs’ petition. /1 storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco… Kacsmaryk sarcastically used this fact to handwave away Plaintiffs' failure to comply with the most fundamental principle of administrative law: that you must exhaust your admin remedies before filing suit. /2

🚨BREAKING - TRUMP SUES MICHAEL COHEN

Breakdown coming; here are some of our initial thoughts.

First, this suit is filed in the Southern District of Florida, Miami Division, so Trump CANNOT draw Judge Aileen Cannon, FSW (yay!) or Middlebrooks (boo) /1 storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco… This is, at core, a BREACH OF CONTRACT (& related torts) lawsuit against Cohen for Cohen saying bad stuff about Trump. That's BONKERS. /2