Brief update on SCOTUS hearing re: obstruction statute and January 6 conduct.

Thomas, Sotomayor, Kagan, Barrett, Jackson skeptical that “otherwise impedes an official proceeding” doesn’t cover January 6 .

Alito is literally trying to help the attorney remember his arguments. The attorney is arguing the statute is limited to things like document destruction and witness tampering.

Some highlights:

Sotomayor made an interesting point that the “otherwise impede” provision it isn’t about *how* you obstructed, but *that* you obstructed.

Re: Maine & Colorado:

1. The constitution is the law. Gov’t must follow it.

2. Republicans decried Trump for inciting insurrection but declined to impeach/convict—disqualifying Trump from office—saying courts should handle it. Now courts are handling it. This is by GOP design. All this would have been avoided if Republicans held a man who incited insurrection to account. It wasn’t hard. Painful? Sure, but pain is momentary in politics. If Trump had been impeached/convicted after 1/6, he would be disqualified and courts wouldn’t have to parse it out.

The Republican candidate for PA Supreme Court just questioned whether Joe Biden won the election in 2020, then walked it back after seeing reactions.

These candidates are immeasurably dangerous (also, it’s a terrible quality for a judge to be so easily influenced by reactions).

In 2020, State supreme courts in PA, GA, MI, WI, AZ, and NV held the law against a barrage of pressure. With candidates like this, who say they “don’t know” if Biden won, Trump or someone like him inches just a little bit closer to overthrowing an election loss and seizing power.

As the Trumps go around saying Mar-a-Lago is worth $1 billion, reminder that the Trump holding company that owns Mar-a-Lago filed 2020 tax returns saying it had real estate assets of $28 million and a yearly net income *loss* of $3 million.

A $1 billion business, it isn’t. Here’s the 2020 return for DJT Holdings Managing Member LLC.
citizensforethics.org/wp-content/upl…

Gist of Fulton County’s answer to Judge’s question: a finding that some overt acts were under color of federal office does not require removal of entire Meadows indictment because the crime here is his willful agreement to enter a RICO conspiracy, not the overt acts themselves.

https://twitter.com/annabower/status/1697350672428003721

Basically, Meadows admits his conduct but says it was all within federal job. But Georgia alleges it was part of RICO conspiracy, which cannot be his duties. And because the “gravamen” of the charge is the conspiring, not the overt acts, doesn’t matter if some acts were his job.

Hot take: the potential Georgia prosecution of Donald Trump is a far greater risk to him than any federal indictment on January 6 or the documents case.

1/ Any federal conviction can be erased by a pardon and the next Republican President would almost certainly grant one. 2/ Constitution grants States authority to run elections. States should prosecute crimes related to an effort to steal the vote. Similarly, feds have a prerogative to prosecute what happened on 1/6. Courts may be more deferential to State prosecutions related to election crimes.

We’ve recently seen a deluge of stories about evidence against Trump in the documents case, divided into 3 buckets:

1) stealing docs
2) sharing/showing docs
3) hiding docs

Grand jury reconvenes this week. Might explain why a camp of sources suddenly all just spoke to press… The evidence is damning:
- declassification info given to Trump during his presidency, showing he knew the rules
- recordings of Trump post-presidency, showing he took gov’t docs and knew he shouldn’t share them
- evidence of movement of boxes just before DOJ arrived

Trump’s statements last night about the documents case are just mind-blowingly stupid:

“Just so everyone knows, I come under the Presidential Records Act.”

“We were negotiating to return some or all the documents I openly and in very plain sight brought with me to Mar-a-Lago.” “When FBI and DOJ officials with NARA were here, I told my lawyers to show them the very secure storage room in which they were locked.”

Evidence he knew exactly where they were prior to anyone moving them.

Bragg: “34 false statements made to cover up other crimes. These are felony crimes in NY State, no matter who you are. We cannot, and will not, normalize serious criminal conduct.” “The defendant repeatedly made false statements on business records, instructed others to make false statements.”

Everyone is underestimating the immense pressure that three separate potential indictments in three separate jurisdictions for three separate instances of alleged criminal misconduct would have on any human being—let alone one running for POTUS. while many complained these probes took a long time, that duration gave the public an ability to better distinguish the different misconduct. People knew about NY business fraud issues, that Trump is at risk of charges in GA for 2020, and that classified documents is a big issue.

The NRA and CPAC ban guns from their conferences but oppose banning them in school zones. Think about that. CPAC 2016 banned guns.

As Trump leans into violent rhetoric against DA’s and judges, remember the son of Judge Esther Salas. Her only child was shot and killed by a MAGA-crazed sexist, who hated Judge Salas for dismissing his wild lawsuits.

Her only child—gone. Crazy rhetoric has real consequences. This event does not get mentioned nearly enough. A sexist attorney, juiced up on conspiracy theories, incel beliefs and MAGA rhetoric, stalked a federal judge and murdered her 20 year old son. Don’t think Trump ever said a word about it.

Manhattan DA arresting Trump would be historic. The invaluable “never before” status of a president’s indictment would evaporate, GA and DC probes will escalate in perilousness for Trump, and a shield for future presidents will be weakened—in a good way.
nytimes.com/2023/03/18/us/… Something that has never been done before seems impossible — until it’s done.

There’s no telling how much Trump and other presidents have benefitted from the “we’ve never indicted a president before” argument, but they certainly have. Once it’s gone, it’s gone forever.

Every Republican saying that depositors shouldn’t lose a dime in the Silicon Valley Bank collapse should be asked whether they support reinstating the bank risk oversight rules that their party uniformly voted to repeal in 2018 specifically for banks like Silicon Valley Bank.

https://twitter.com/MittRomney/status/1634669060402081792

Many Dems voted for it, too.

Warren, Sanders, Katie Porter and others were opposed—said it would lead to more bank failures and taxpayer bailouts.

Any Republicans, tech CEOs, bankers, etc. who pushed for the rollback going to admit that the “far left” was right on this one?

The Trump docs case is turning into a law school exam question about everything a person can do wrong to further justify prosecution for mishandling classified material.

https://twitter.com/katiephang/status/1624204432220078080

First, what the scenario isn’t:

Did you take them accidentally? ❌
Were you unaware they existed? ❌
Did you not know they contained classified material? ❌
Did you turn them over as soon as they were discovered? ❌
Did you keep them safely stored while you had them? ❌

A private company dropping its business with another private company warrants government intervention; government censors books and teachers; government regulates activity inside bars; government prohibits health choices for women … Florida Republicanism is VERY Big Government.

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1620450568492978178

https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1620455643399307265

Reminder: you don’t need to focus on Skip (paid to be a bad take extraordinaire) or Charlie Kirk (desperate to be paid to be a bad take extraordinaire).

It doesn’t support Damar Hamlin. It is bad for our mental health. It is needless upset. Focus on prayer, positivity, support. Look at this incredible video. Be filled with joy and hope and real care and concern! Not anger and rage. Those emotions don’t help.

https://twitter.com/CTabatabaie/status/1610113589737848832

Fulton County DA has to be feeling energized today. Another local DA just proved Donald Trump is not untouchable, and she is far along into an expansive grand jury investigation into Trump’s 2020 conduct. Probably further than anyone else. Fulton County probe has heard grand jury testimony on:

- fake electors
- pressuring phone calls
- false testimony to legislature
- pressure on election workers
- testimony of a sitting Governor, Senator, Attorney General, Lieutenant Governor

Pretty remarkable.

Today Joel Greenberg was sentenced for a prolific political crime spree. Over 2 years, I got to know one of his victims, @BeuteBrian, who has become a friend.

Today Brian hammered Florida prosecutors and Gov DeSantis for doing *nothing* about Greenberg’s crimes. As Brian said this morning, witnesses went to Florida police, Florida Dep. of Law Enforcement, Florida prosecutors with firsthand accounts of Greenberg’s crimes. Nothing was done. One witness found *himself* under investigation. Greenberg kept going until the feds got involved.

Two big takeaways from Joel Greenberg's pre-sentencing hearing:

1. Judge sees how big a case this is and may ignore sentencing agreement.
2. Greenberg provided gov't info on 27 people (8 on sex crimes, 7 on corruption, 3 on SBA loan fraud, 10 on election fraud).

https://twitter.com/DeForestNews6/status/1597989164955246598

It's important to note the two biggest fish the Greenberg web has already pulled in so far:

- Ben Paris, Seminole County GOP Chair, charged for third party candidate scheme
- Michael Shirley, former GOP campaign consultant, charged for bribery and fraud

Anybody arguing the appointment of a Special Counsel slows down investigations is making an unsupported assumption. Every investigation is different. This is not Mueller; here, there is already grand jury testimony being heard. Also, Mueller actually moved quite fast. 1/ When Mueller was appointed, it was because Comey was fired and Trump was directly pressuring law enforcement to stop probing Michael Flynn. To my recollection, there was no grand jury impaneled for Flynn or others yet. 2/