Liz Cheney warns that SCOTUS delays on Trump immunity case heading into 2024 election could lead to "suppression of evidence" from American voters

 

Former Congresswoman Liz Cheney is warning the U.S. Supreme Court that it could engage in "suppression of evidence" if it continues to create delays in Donald Trump's presidential-immunity case, according to a report at Raw Story. Writes Sky Palma:

Former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney took aim at the U.S. Supreme Court and warned the justices to move quickly in their consideration of Donald Trump's claims of presidential immunity in regards to criminal charges that he interfered in the 2020 election.

Trump's legal team will go before the Supreme Court on April 25 to argue that he's immune from the Jan. 6 charges, which were leveled against the former president last year in special counsel Jack Smith's case in Washington D.C.

Speaking this past week at Drake University's Annual Bucksbaum Distinguished Lectureship, Cheney warned that if the court delays making a decision, it would basically amount to withholding evidence from the public .Palma writes:

When [Trump] now is pushing this idea that a president should have complete immunity against any criminal prosecution for anything he does in office and he's pushed this appeal to the Supreme Court, I think it's very important that the Supreme Court recognizes what he's doing is a delaying tactic," Cheney said.

"It cannot be the case that a president of the United States can attempt to overturn an election and seize power and that our justice system is incapable of holding a trial and holding him to account before the next election," she continued.  

Cheney went on to say that she trusts the court will "deal in a responsible and expeditious fashion with this appeal," but if it delays making a decision, it would amount to "suppression of the evidence."

"The American people have a right to see that evidence, and the court ought to recognize that," she said.

Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, is one of the few Republicans who has shown the courage to stand up to Trump. From the Raw Story article: 

As Newsweek points out, Cheney was one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump for his alleged role in sparking the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. She lost the GOP primary election in 2022 to Trump-endorsed Representative Harriet Hageman.

Abortion rights, IVF, and contraception prove to be a winning ticket as Marilyn Lands rolls to a victory that could prove to be a political "earthquake" in Alabama

Marilyn Lands (Alabama Reflector)

A woman from Madison County, AL, won a special election Tuesday night for a seat in the Alabama House of Representatives, and she did it in a way that stunned the nation and many in her state. Marilyn Lands, a Democrat, defeated a Republican incumbent in a bright-red district -- and she did it in overwhelming fashion, garnering 63 percent of the vote for a 25-point margin. Perhaps of most importance nationwide, Lands based her campaign on three primary issues -- abortion rights, access to in vitro fertilization (IVF), and access to contraception, all issues that are deeply personal her.

Having lived as a liberal in Alabama for more than 35 years (arriving as an outsider from Missouri in 1978) -- and having married a native Alabamian, also a liberal, in 1989, women's health-care issues in the state, and around the country, have come to mean an awful lot to me. Unfortunately, I had a front-row seat to watch Alabama shift heavily to the right on politics -- including the "pleasure" of reading seemingly daily stories about politicos, who got their starts as Democrats, but high-tailed it to the Republican Party,   apparently convinced Democrats could no longer win in the state, probably for race-based reasons. (Yes, I'm thinking of you Richard Shelby.)

Democrats have not had many victories to celebrate over the past four decades or so, but Lands provided a shocking win Tuesday, and Democrats were plenty happy to say the result ushered in a new day for Alabama.

How did it happen? The New Republic tells the story under the headline "This Alabama Democrat Won a GOP Seat in Stunning Election. Here’s How; Marilyn Lands defeated a Republican in a deep-red Alabama district. Her victory deserves more attention," Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling writes:

A special election in Alabama on Tuesday proved one thing for Democrats: Abortion is a winning issue.

Democratic candidate Marilyn Lands defeated her Republican opponent, Madison City Council member Teddy Powell, for a state House seat in a deep-red district after she made abortion and in vitro fertilization cornerstones  of her campaign.

“Today, Alabama women and families sent a clear message that will be heard in Montgomery and across the nation. Our legislature must repeal Alabama’s no-exceptions abortion ban, fully restore access to IVF, and protect the right to contraception,” Lands said in a statement after her victory.

Lands secured a whopping 63 percent of the vote—a 25-point lead—by aggressively going against the grain, telling voters she supports a repeal of Alabama’s abortion bans while sharing her own experience with abortion two decades ago, when she received a devastating diagnosis: a genetic defect called trisomy.

“Twenty years ago I was able to get the care I needed. My three doctors told me this is the procedure I needed, that my life was at risk. I was able to go to my own hospital with my own doctor there, I didn’t have to leave my community,” Lands told The New Republic’s Greg Sargent. “And to think we’ve gone 20 years backwards. I can’t believe that. I’ve seen, in my lifetime, women make great strides in many areas. And, I’m just, I’m outraged that 20 years later women do not have the same freedoms and protections that I had.”

The special election also sees Lands take the seat back from a Republican she lost to in 2022—former state Representative David Cole, who resigned from the elected position after pleading guilty to voting fraud charges.

It could be the beginning of a turning tide for a state that witnessed an immense backlash after the Alabama Supreme Court voted 7–2 to ascribe rights to embryos, effectively restricting IVF access across the state. Still, Democrats have a long way to go before they have a stronghold in the state legislature. Republicans currently hold a 75–27 advantage over Democrats in the state.

A report at AL.com (The Birmingham News) provides more details about the race: Howard Koplowitz writes

Democrat Marilyn Lands defeated Republican Teddy Powell in a special election Tuesday night for a state House seat in north Alabama that drew national attention.

Lands, a licensed professional counselor, flipped the seat from red to blue by besting Powell, a Madison city councilman, 62 percent to 38 percent with 100 percent of the precincts in District 10 reporting, according to unofficial results posted on the Alabama Secretary of State’s Office website.

The race drew national interest against the backdrop of the controversial Alabama State Supreme Court ruling that frozen embryos are considered children under state law.

The seat became vacant when ex-Rep. David Cole resigned after pleading guilty to illegal voting.

Lands, who lost to Cole in 2022, made the ruling a focus of her campaign for the district covering parts of Madison County.

“We need to continue to protect at this point where we are at with the right to contraception,” she told the Huntsville Times Lede.

Of her victory Tuesday, Lands said, “Today, Alabama women and families sent a clear message that will be heard in Montgomery and across the nation. Our legislature must repeal Alabama’s no-exceptions abortion ban, fully restore access to IVF, and protect the right to contraception.”

Lands, who lost to Cole in 2022, made the embryo ruling a focus of her campaign for the district covering parts of Madison County.

“We need to continue to protect at this point where we are at with the right to contraception,” she told the Huntsville Times Lede.

Of her victory Tuesday, Lands said, “Today, Alabama women and families sent a clear message that will be heard in Montgomery and across the nation. Our legislature must repeal Alabama’s no-exceptions abortion ban, fully restore access to IVF, and protect the right to contraception.”

The special election also sees Lands take the seat back from a Republican she lost to in 2022—former state Representative David Cole, who resigned from the elected position after pleading guilty to voting fraud charges. It could be the beginning of a turning tide for a state that witnessed an immense backlash after the Alabama Supreme Court voted 7–2 to ascribe rights to embryos, effectively restricting IVF access across the state. Still, Democrats have a long way to go before they have a stronghold in the state legislature. Republicans currently hold a 75–27 advantage over Democrats in the state.

Alabama Democratic Party officials were exultant over the kind of big victory they have not experienced much in recent years:

Heather Williams, president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, the Democratic Party organization that focuses on state legislative races, called Lands’ victory a “political earthquake.”

“Tonight’s victory is a political earthquake in Alabama – the heart of Republican territory and ground zero for the most egregious attacks on our fundamental freedoms,” she said. “In the first real test of backlash from voters on attacks on reproductive care and IVF, Alabama voters showed up in force to support Democrat Marilyn Lands, who ran courageously and unabashedly as a defender of reproductive freedoms.”

Powell thanked his supporters and campaign volunteers in a statement conceding the race.

“We are proud of the campaign we ran,” he said. “We ran a tough and respectful race and that is something we are incredibly proud of. Our state has so much to offer and I believe if we can come together, we can accomplish great things.”

Conflicts with Matrix LLC and Joe Perkins prompted Alexia Borden, a promising CEO candidate, ,to leave Alabama Power as DOJ and SEC investigations gear up

Alexia Borden (Alabama News Center)

A top woman executive has left Alabama Power, reportedly over a dispute involving the Matrix LLC consulting firm of Montgomery and its founder/CEO Joe Perkins. Alexia Borden a senior vice president, was considered a possibility to eventually become CEO. But Alabama Power let her walk out the door. Did Borden essentially lose a power struggle? It's hard to answer that question for certain, but her distaste for Perkins and Matrix appears to have led her to look for opportunities elsewhere. The whole scenario indicates Perkins and Matrix remain powerful players in the Alabama Power/Southern Company ecosystem, according to a post at banbalch.com 

K.B. Forbes, publisher of the Ban Balch blog and CEO of its parent organization, the CDLU public charity and advocacy group, examines the Borden exit and other developments at scandal-plagued Alabama Power and its parent firm, Atlanta-based Southern Company. Under the headline "A Matrix Win? Alexia Borden Out at Alabama Power; Federal Probes Deepen," Forbes writes:

Did Alabama Power show unwavering loyalty to the diminutive political consultant “Sloppy Joe” Perkins?

With the looming mandatory retirement of Alabama Power Chairman and CEO Jeff Peoples, Alexia Borden, Senior Vice President, has left the embattled utility to become Executive Vice President at Brasfield & Gorrie, one of the largest construction firms in the United States.

Borden joined the construction company in January, but no official announcement has been made. Anonymous sources contacted us [yesterday[ to give us a heads up of the latest developments.

We always thought Alexia was an honorable person and that, as a successful and intelligent woman, she would eventually be promoted to Chairman and CEO of Alabama Power.

Not to be.

What IS to be? That's hard to say when you are talking about a company that seems enmeshed in perpetual turmoil. Sources tell Forbes Borden became fed up with what seemed to be an increasingly hostile work environment. Forbes writes:

Insiders claim she allegedly was overlooked, isolated, and sidelined by Peoples. Supposedly, she'd  had enough.

“Sloppy” Joe Perkins, the founder of the obscure political consulting firm Matrix, allegedly still has enormous influence inside the utility and is still pulling in millions in consulting fees. 

Demoted from General Counsel to “Customer Engagement” a year ago, Alexia had allegedly sought Matrix and Perkins’ ouster, an end to the decades-long relationship, according to insiders.

The third-party risk of Matrix and Perkins appears to be a huge liability and has cost, and will cost,  more Alabama Power careers to come to a crashing end, as happened with Mark A. Crosswhite, the former Alabama Power CEO who resigned in disgrace in November of 2022.

Ignored, Alexia Borden finally left.

That's not all that's shaking at Alabama Power, where the intrigue never seems to stop. Forbes reports:

Others tell us several federal probes are ongoing, looking at the Southern Company Criminal Enterprise. Sources claim to know of a U.S. Department of Justice probe and a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigation.

The investigations are centered around the millions wasted carte blanche on covert political, surveillance, and investigative operations against perceived enemies that had no corporate purpose whatsoever.

The avalanche of requests for documents, invoices, financial records, emails, and obscure work orders surrounding her time as General Counsel created a no-win situation for Borden. She simply was  overwhelmed with thankless tasks, sources say.

Even King & Spalding couldn’t keep her around the toxic environment of Alabama Power.

With a fresh start, a more relaxing environment, we wish Alexia all the best!

On Trump's watch, the White House became a virtual drug bazaar, with stimulants and sedatives taken without prescriptions or in dangerous combinations

The White House became a drug den on Trump's watch

Part Two

Stimulant drugs, which helped make the Donald Trump White House awash in Speed and Xanax, often were not taken as prescribed, and that could have left staffers facing serious (even  deadly) health consequences, such as addiction, heart attack, and stroke. Part One of this series showed the White House Medical Unit routinely handed out the stimulant modafinil to staffers during the Trump administration.

That's from a report at Rolling Stone (RS), and RS now provides history on Modafinil, a drug that fueled the Trump White House, but likely is not well-known to the American public. Write reporters Noah Shachtman and Asawin Suebsaeng:

MODAFINIL WAS DISCOVERED in the 1970s by French scientists and was first handed out to pilots to help keep them awake and on task in the 1991 Gulf War. The U.S. military started to use modafinil in earnest around the 2003 invasion of Iraq. At the time, it was heralded as a massive improvement over previous stimulants: stronger and more effective than caffeine, less physically addictive than amphetamines. “These medications aren’t stimulants like the old military ‘go pills,’ there are few if any side effects when taken as prescribed. They simply stave off drowsiness until the medication wears off, then you naturally fall asleep,” one knowledgeable source writes. 

But that “taken as prescribed” caveat is crucial. When handed out willy-nilly, outside a doctor’s supervision, modafinil can pose serious risks, notes Dr. Rachel Teodorini, a researcher at London South Bank University’s division of psychology who has examined the drug and its effects. “If people have cardiovascular problems, heart problems, or blood pressure issues, it could cause things like strokes or heart attacks,” she tells us. And while modafinil doesn’t appear to physically hook patients, “there’s an element of at least psychological dependence. Tolerance builds up, and you need more and more.” 

As a recent study at the journal Military Medicine notes, “Although modafinil was initially said to comprise no risk for abuse, there are now indications that modafinil works on the same neurobiological mechanisms as other addictive stimulants.” 

And just like with other stimulants, the overuse of modafinil can lead to the perceived need for anti-anxiety medications like Xanax. “Effectively, you’re using one drug to get you up and another to get you down,” Teodorini said.

Some former Trump staffers tell Rolling Stone they didn’t get these drugs directly from the White House Medical Unit. One former Trump White House aide concedes they “borrowed” some modafinil from “a friend,” who said they’d gotten it from the unit. “I had a lot going on in my life and I wanted some,” they say. 

In other administrations, modafinil was used “99 percent of the time” for jet lag, one source notes. The Trump White House was a free-for-all. Two other sources each independently compared the White House during those years to college campuses where students cramming for finals or pulling all-nighters would pass around Adderall and other drugs, prescriptions be damned. But it wasn’t just the administration’s junior staffers — the recent college grads — who partook. The sources add that mid-level and certain senior officials — including those who reported to then-President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump — came to rely on modafinil, as well. The sources and former senior Trump officials, who all requested anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, recall instances of staff casually slipping the medical unit-provided stimulant to one another, in efforts to stay focused and help navigate the exhausting chaos of the Trump presidency.

One source told Rolling Stone that "The War on Drugs" was being fought outside the White House, but not on the inside:

It is “ironic” that Trump’s White House was “one place the war on drugs wasn’t being fought,” one of the former officials sardonically notes, given Trump and many of his lieutenants’ zeal for waging the international war on drugs. 

NEARLY EVERY SOURCE INTERVIEWED for this story traced the problems with the White House Medical Unit back to Dr. Ronny Jackson. Jackson, who joined the team during the George W. Bush administration and became physician to President Barack Obama in 2013. Before then, he was known as an eccentric. Afterward, he became a menace, as several Defense Department investigations detail. 

On a trip to Argentina in March 2016, one of those reports notes, Jackson’s “intoxicated behavior in the middle of the night, pounding on [a female subordinate’s] hotel room door, screaming, yelling, and overall loud behavior in his hotel room exhibited less than exemplary workplace conduct while on official travel to provide medical care for the President.” The Pentagon interviewed 60 of Jackson’s former subordinates; 56 “experienced, saw, or heard about [him] yelling, screaming, cursing, or belittling subordinates.” During a six-week stretch in 2018, a Defense Department hotline received 12 complaints” about Jackson. (Jackson’s office did not respond to a request to comment on this article.)

His nomination to become Secretary of Veterans Affairs that same year was derailed over accusations he handed out pills to White House staffers like a “candyman.” (In one case, a Senate report noted, medical staffers fell “into a panic” because he had given such “a large supply” of Percocet pain pills to a member of the White House Military Office.)

Jackson briefly returned to the White House as Trump’s “chief medical adviser” in 2019 before running for Congress. But no matter what position he held, several sources tell us, his influence dominated medical care at the Trump White House, and Jackson’s “minions” and “loyalists” ran the White House Medical Unit in his stead. “Any practices existing at that time were all set up by Jackson, who’d been there for a dozen years. Though the med unit was led by an administrator, little happened without his say-so,” one of those sources say.

The source adds, “Unit leadership did slowly start making appropriate changes, but due to [the] complicated nature of missions, individual expectations within the organization, a self-imposed cone of silence, and fear of being held liable for "sins of the father," it took a long time to find the right way forward.”

Rolling Stone's interest in the Trump-administration drug story started with a document that makes the White House sound like a broken-down drug house -- an illicit den for the addicted. From the RS report:

OUR INTEREST IN THIS STORY was sparked, in part, by a handwritten ledger reprinted on page 14 of the January inspector general’s report: a tracking form for the controlled substances ordered by the White House Medical Unit. In addition to the thousands of pills of Ambien and Provigil listed are even more potent sedatives and pain pills: morphine, hydrocodone, diazepam and lorazepam (better known by their brand names, Valium and Ativan), fentanyl, and even ketamine. 

We invite you to reread the above paragraph, highlighted in blue. Among the drugs making their way around the White House staff were Ambien, Provigil, Morphine, Hydrocodone, Valium, Ativan, Fentanyl, Ketamine . . . Good grief, it's a miracle someone didn't die. And it makes you wonder about the "leadership abilities" of the man in charge of this dangerous sideshow. Here is more from RS:

Jackson, now a Republican congressman from Texas, told the Washington Post that his team prescribed narcotics “less than five times” across his tenure. And according to the paper’s sources, drugs like fentanyl were “kept on hand for extreme emergencies — such as a White House fence jumper impaling themselves on a spike.” 

That’s a ridiculous example, a well-placed source tells us. “Someone just made up something. If there was a jumper, someone would call 911,” the source says. The jumper would then be transferred to a nearby civilian hospital.

It sounds as if Jackson, like his boss in those days, had a tortured relationship with the truth -- at least some of the time. From RS:

There was a grain of truth to the idea that the medical unit retained fentanyl and the like for extreme events. In the wake of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there was a desire to bring the advances in battlefield medicine to the White House. If the president or vice president were to get shot in a remote location, far from any hospital, the unit’s physicians wanted to be able to insert a breathing tube into the VIP almost instantaneously, a process known as “rapid sequence induction and intubation.” Doing that requires sedating the patient in a hurry with powerful drugs.

“The unit employed the world’s standards in pre-hospital trauma care, as directed by the DoD’s Joint Trauma System & Committee on tactical-combat casualty-care guidelines. That includes the use of ketamine, fentanyl, etc. for pain management,” a second knowledgeable source writes. “The whole mission is contingency planning for providing most/best possible care for the worst/craziest scenarios.”

Needless to say, they never encountered a scenario that nuts. And we didn’t uncover any evidence that ketamine or fentanyl were handed out to White House staff the way Xanax and Provigil were.

New York's Judge Mercan hits Donald Trump with the most severe gag order he has faced, and it's one that could land the GOP presidential nominee behind bars

(Image courtesy of Mary L. Trump)

 

The New York judge in Donald Trump's election-interference/hush-money case -- the one involving porn star Stormy Daniels -- has zapped Trump with the most severe gag order he has faced. The move comes after Trump made derogatory remarks about Judge Juan Mercan and his family, according to a social-media post at Substack by Mary L. Trump -- psychologist, author, Donald's niece, and one of his most outspoken critics.  The latest gag order could place Donald Trump on the precipice of landing in jail. Under the headline "BREAKING: Donald is Gagged; Here’s why this time is different," Mary Trump writes:

Donald is slapped with a gag order in his election-interference case after attacking the judge and his daughter in Truth Social posts. The judge promises to curtail any of Donald’s attempts to “interfere” with the case. Here is what the media is missing. Read on.

Just when you thought the criminal case against Donald couldn’t get any worse for him, he has just received news that his vile and potentially dangerous social-media posts about the judge and his family must stop, or there will be a price to pay.

Per NBC News:

“The ruling from Judge Juan Merchan orders [Donald] to ‘refrain’ from ‘making or directing others to make public statements about known or reasonably foreseeable witnesses concerning their potential participation’ in the falsifying- business records case, as well as about individual prosecutors, court staff, jurors  and potential jurors.”

Further, “the judge said the move was necessary because ‘the Defendant’s prior extrajudicial statements establishes a sufficient risk to the administration of justice’ and ‘there exists no less restrictive means to prevent such risk.”

The order does not apply to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, because he is an elected official.

Mary Trump says the judge had little choice but to take action:

After Donald’s attempts to delay his New York criminal trial failed, and an April 15 start date was set, prosecutors argued that gagging Donald was necessary because of his “longstanding history of attacking witnesses, investigators, prosecutors, judges, and others involved in legal proceedings against him.”

True to form, Donald responded with the restraint of a toddler by attacking not only Judge Merchan (declaring “he hates me!” and suggesting he suffered from "Trump Derangement Syndrome") but also the judge’s daughter. 

Donald wrote: “His daughter is a senior executive at a Super Liberal Democrat firm that works for Adam “Shifty” Schiff, the Democrat National Committee, (Dem) Senate Majority PAC, and even Crooked Joe Biden,"

The Stormy Daniels matter could turn dark and stormy very soon for Donald Trump. Writes Mary:

The election-interference case against Donald is shaping up to be a worst-case scenario for him: it forces him to be in a courtroom during the height of the campaign and his historically rude and entitled in-court behavior will be on full display before the media, and the rest of the country.

It’s worth taking a minute to reflect on the stunning level of self-defeating foolishness required to attack the judge and his family a mere three weeks before jury selection is slated to begin.

It’s a decision he might soon regret.

The Judge Mercan gag order is unlike anything Donald Trump has faced before. Mary Trump explains:

Unlike Judge Engoron’s more narrow, limited gag order, which pertained only to verbal attacks on court staff, Judge Merchan’s goes a step further, and covers additional groups of people involved in the court process, including witnesses and even potential witnesses. 

I consulted lawyer Joe Gallina, and he said “Donald could find himself in jail soon. Especially as the court notes his record of prior extrajudicial statements. It seems very unlikely this judge will allow Donald to violate this order again and again when he already has a long history of being warned.”

While Donald seemed to skirt his previous gag orders, his fragile ego and destabilitizing insecurity put him in a precarious position. There is evidence that Donald is becoming even more unhinged and his decision-making process even less reliable. The more stress he feels from being prevented from saying or doing whatever he wants will push his rhetoric to become even more violence-oriented  and extreme.

My family and I have seen Donald’s narcissism and lack of self-control firsthand. When he is under pressure, Donald has zero self-control. The question now is whether or not Donald will violate the most strict gag order he has faced.

Mary Trump seems to think the answer is yes; after all, he has violated these kinds of orders in the past and faced relatively small fines as punishment. This time, the punishment could be much more severe:

As a reminder, Donald was fined $5,000 by Judge Engoron’s court for violating that gag order, and he was fined another $10,000. The judge twice warned him about the potential for possible imprisonment (and he should have been sent to prison).

He may finally be out of chances.

As often seems to be the case on stories about Donald Trump, the media seems to be missing the real story here, Mary states:

While the focus is on Donald’s likelihood of paying stiff penalties and ending up in jail, I invite you to consider another consequence: the gag order limits Donald’s ability to control the narrative and poison the court of public opinion.

Donald has always presented himself as history’s most aggrieved victim, a lone fighter battling against a system he claims is rigged against him. This strategy has worked well for him and it appears it’s one he’ll continue to employ as his civil and criminal legal challenges mount.

Donald wrote after his New York fraud verdict: “A Crooked New York State Judge, working with a totally Corrupt Attorney General who ran on the basis of ‘I will get Trump,’ before knowing anything about me or my company, has just fined me $355 Million based on nothing other than having built a GREAT COMPANY. ELECTION INTERFERENCE. WITCH HUNT”

No matter how many times he is warned, Donald Trump can't help himself. Treating people with disrespect and insults never is a good strategy. With judges, it is a particularly bad idea, They have the authority to put you in places you do not want to be. Mary writes:

Donald has frequently claimed that these investigations — the “witch hunts” and “hoaxes” as he calls them — are politically motivated attempts to undermine him and his campaign. By doing so, he seeks to rally his base and portray any adverse outcomes as the result of unfair treatment and bias against him.

In other words, Donald Trump refuses to take responsibility for anything and plays his supporters for fools -- and quite a few of them go along with it, perhaps because they ARE fools. Mary writes:

By taking away Donald’s ability to go on the attack against court staff and witnesses, Merchan is inadvertently stripping Donald of one of his go-to tools to keep his base angry and try to make inroads with disillusioned independents.

Will this latest development lead to the self-inflicted blow that finally lands Donald behind bars? Maybe. Will it further hurt his election chances? They had certainly better.

It’s time to grab a seat with me, and break out the 🍿.

Mary Trump is a leading figure in a nationwide effort to keep Donald Trump out of the presidency, a position, she says, he is profoundly unfit to hold:

I’m doing my best to get critical information to the public, including stories that the corporate media is either unwilling or too inept to cover, even if they could have a strong impact on the election.

It’s important that I do everything I can to support my team, improve the newsletter, and expand into new areas that will benefit and expand this community.

Our efforts are paying off. This newsletter is breaking through to the wider media and helping to shape the narrative.

The more support I have, the more I can provide fact-based posts while being totally straightforward about where we are as a country and what we need to do to prevail in November. 

For those who can afford it, will you join me in my efforts by upgrading now? That will help make this newsletter free for those on a low or fixed income.

Thank you for those who become supporting subscribers: it means so much to me!
– Mary

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Trump's wild day in court gets wilder when sketch surfaces of him and Jesus sitting together in a courtroom. No wonder Trump gets favorable rulings

 

Sketch of Trump and Jesus in court

How best to describe Donald Trump's zany experience in court yesterday? We'll go with this headline from the Above the Law (ATL) legal website: "Trump Has Reduced Bond, New Trial Date, Jesus Complex; Let he who is without sin post the first Truth." Let's turn to ATL's Liz Dye for details:

‘Twas the best of mornings, ’twas the worst of mornings for the former president, as two parts of the New York Court system issued rulings in his civil and criminal cases.

‘Twas the best of mornings, ’twas the worst of mornings for the former president, as two parts of the New York Court system issued rulings in his civil and criminal cases.

It began with Trump likening himself to Jesus (via a social media post from a supporter.)

 If you have come to expect weirdness, and a lack of clarity, from Trump . . . this account will not disappoint. Writes Dye, with several doses of sarcasm:

Happy Holy Week to all the haters and the losers!

And indeed, he did get a giant chocolate bunny from the Appellate Division, where the judges of the First Judicial Department reduced his bond from $464 million to $175 million. Trump claimed last week to be sitting on almost half a billion dollars in cash, but said that he preferred to hang onto it and let the state seize his real estate empire and sell it off at fire-sale prices. He also screamed bloody murder about the fine and statutory interest, which he bizarrely attributed to Justice Arthur Engoron.

Presumably he’ll be able to get the lower bond underwritten with Chubb, his longtime insurer who covered the $91-million bond in the E. Jean Carroll case. In the meantime, the appeals court also continued the interim stay of most of the enforcement provisions, including those which barred the individual defendants from serving as corporate officers in their own company. But it left intact the enhanced responsibilities of retired Judge Barbara Jones, who has served as special master at the Trump Organization for more than a year. And the company will still be under the supervision of a to-be-named Independent Director of Compliance, to make sure that it don’t do any more major frauding.

When the scene shifted to the New York Supreme Court, Trump did not receive such a favorable welcome. It seems he and his lawyers have a knack for pissing off judges, and Dye describes how that went down in this instance, which centers on the hush-money case involving porn actress Stormy Daniels:

Things went less well back at the Supreme Court, where Justice Juan Merchan took an extremely skeptical view of Trump’s argument that the government had engaged in such serious misconduct with respect to discovery that the criminal charges of creating false business records should be dismissed.

In reality, the Manhattan District Attorney asked the US Attorney for documents relating to Michael Cohen a year ago and gave Trump’s lawyers everything produced by the feds in June. Trump waited until January to subpoena the DOJ, and then acceded to multiple delays in production, such that tens of thousands of pages of documents arrived on the eve of the scheduled start of the trial today, March 25. In the ensuing scuffle, Trump’s lawyers blamed the DA, and the DA blamed Trump’s lawyers, and the trial got knocked off the calendar.

But this morning, Justice Merchan clearly sided with the state, noting that the bulk of the new materials were Michael Cohen’s bank records, having nothing to do with the instant case.

Dye concludes with more details about New York's convoluted court system, one of its pissed off judges, and a tad more sarcasm:

Trump’s lawyers tried to argue that SDNY’s (Southern Distrcit of New York) failure to turn over documents in a timely fashion could be imputed to DANY, (Defense Association of New York) and thus amounted to deliberate misconduct. Which makes perfect sense if you pretend that the DANY and SDNY are one entity, instead of two entirely separate offices which mutually loath each other.

There’s also the minor detail that the information appears to be largely inculpatory, and thus does not constitute Brady or Giglio material.

In any event, Justice Merchan appears to have emerged from the hearing even more pissed off than before at Trump and his attorneys.

After a brief recess, he ruled from the bench. The motion to dismiss or delay this trial further was denied. Jury selection will begin on April 15.

But on the plus side, Trump’s grift platform rose 35 percent on it’s first day of trading, making the former president billions in paper profits. So, HOSANNAH, the MAGA Lord and Savior is risen.

Care for one more dose of strangeness? Trump shared on Truth Social a supporter's sketch of Trump and Jesus sitting side-by-side in a courtroom. No kidding! The image can be viewed at the top of this page.

I feel the earth move under my feet: Could it be a sign that Alabama's Balch & Bingham law firm is about to implode under the weight of giant missteps piling up?

Is an implosion under way at Balch & Bingham?

 

Is Birmingham's Balch & Bingham law firm about to implode due to a series of missteps over roughly the past 10 years? Sources tell K.B. Forbes, of banbalch.com, that the once-proud Balch firm might be on the verge of collapse. Forbes, publisher of the Ban Balch blog and CEO of its parent organization, the CDLU public charity and advocacy group, examines the wreckage under the headline "Imploding? Top Balch & Bingham Partners Flee; Houston Closure a Crushing Blow" Forbes writes:

Is Balch & Bingham on life support? Near death?

Is the government pork trough of Mississippi, and Southern Company’s unholy allegiance, keeping the firm alive?

The legal circles are on fire 🔥, speculating about Balch’s future after the once prestigious and feared law firm shut down its Houston office, as we were the first to report last week.

Now even more damning news:

Balch legacy partner Brandon N. Robinson of Birmingham has fled the firm after 15 years and has jumped ship to Maynard Nexsen. Robinson is a leading and respected legal expert on cybersecurity and privacy. 

Two top Balch partners in Austin appear to have resigned in the past week. Stacie Bennett and highly-regarded lobbyist Aaron Cole Gregg have seen their profiles wiped from Balch’s website.

Bennet joined the firm less than a year ago as a partner in their energy practice group while Gregg joined the embattled firm in November of 2021, with great fanfare.

Fanfare, however, does not seem to last long at Balch these days, Forbes reports:

Balch issued a news release at the time, writing:

Aaron, who joins the firm as a partner, is an attorney and lobbyist with demonstrated success working on matters before the Texas Legislature and executive agencies on behalf of corporations, nonprofits and trade associations.

“Aaron’s experience, long-standing relationships in Texas, respect by his peers and clients and accomplishments are impressive and will add value to our practice, while also enhancing our ability to serve as strategic partners  to our clients as we continue our Texas expansion.” said Stan Blanton, managing partner.

So much for that. A planned expansion in Texas, instead of providing a lifeline, now appears to be dragging the firm down, Forbes writes:

Obviously Balch’s Texas expansion has become an apparent implosion.

Who would want a strategic partnership with Balch & Bingham where two former Balch attorneys are currently sitting in federal prison?

The stench must be so bad that yet another Balch partner, Andy Lowry, left the firm last year after five years, eventually becoming a law clerk in the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Mississippi.

A law clerk appears to be a move up, step up, promotion away from the imploding manure lagoon created by the late Schuyler Allen Baker, Jr., and amplified by the collector of make-believe diversity awards, Balch’s Managing Partner Stan Blanton.

Legal analysts respond with scorching criticism to court's reduction of Trump bond, calling it a "mistake, a "travesty of justice,' and "unf---ingbelievable"

 

Legal experts were highly critical of a New York appellate court's ruling this morning to reduce Donald Trump's bond by 68 percent and extend his time to post a bond by 10 days in his civil business-fraud case, according  to a report at AlterNet.Under the headline "'Travesty of justice': Legal experts stunned over unexplained ruling helping Trump," David Badash writes:

Just hours before Donald Trump’s deadline to post a $454 million bond or start to see the wheels of justice move to seize his assets, a five-judge New York appeals court panel sliced the bond amount by more than half, and handed him an extra 10 days to come up with the cash.

Trump is now required to post a $175 million bond, CNN reports, calling the ruling, “a major lifeline for the former president.

Legal experts are stunned.

Harvard University Professor Emeritus Laurence Tribe, a professor of law for decades who wrote the textbook on the U.S. Constitution, called the appellate court’s ruling “unexplained” and, “a travesty of justice.”

“Let’s hope public disgust with this preferential treatment will come back to bite Trump politically,” Tribe added.

Professor of law, MSNBC legal analyst, and former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance said on-air the judges’ decision is a “mistake.”So here’s the problem. When we think about these sorts of appeals bonds, the numbers are sky high and we don’t always stop to account for what they’re supposed to do,” she began, explaining the purpose of a bond. “This bond is Donald Trump’s promise that he will be able to pay the judgment if he loses on appeal. In essence, the people of New York say you have a right to take an appeal to do that. But we’re entitled to collect our judgment. And this is Trump’s way of saying no all’s good. I believe I might win my appeal, but I’m willing to pay this money and to show that I’m willing to comply with the rule of law.”

“And that’s the problem here. Donald Trump is not willing to comply with the rule of law. In my judgment, it was a mistake for the court to reduce this amount of money because even if he pays $175 million in cash into the court fund. it won’t secure the entire judgment if he loses on appeal. And that’s the whole point of what this is intended to do.”

Attorney Tristan Snell, a former New York State Assistant Attorney General who successfully prosecuted the $25 million Trump University case, denounced what he says is Trump’s “special treatment.”

“Donald Trump has a private jet. Donald Trump lives in private clubs. Donald Trump assembled a private militia to attack the Capitol. Now he gets his own private system of justice — available to him alone. NO ONE ELSE would get the special treatment he gets. NO ONE should.”

“Appellate judges hand Trump a gift,” Snell continued, “cut bond down to $175 million, give him 10 extra days Imagine a basketball team down by 40 points, and with 1:00 left in the game, refs give the losing team 5 more minutes — and lower the hoop from 10ft to 6ft.”

On MSNBC Snell called it “so infuriating I don’t even now what to do,” and added, "whatever process they used to come up with the lowered bond amount is “flawed.”

MSNBC legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner declared, “The verdict is in: the rules, the laws, and the Constitution do not apply to Donald Trump the way they apply to you and me.”

Alex Aronson, former chief counsel to Democratic U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, responded to the news with one single word: “Unfuckingbelievable.”

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In a report at Salon, Attorney General Letitia James, who has led the case against Trump, was fairly laid back about the latest developments:

“Donald Trump is still facing accountability for his staggering fraud," New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement. "The court has already found that he engaged in years of fraud to falsely inflate his net worth and unjustly enrich himself, his family, and his organization. The $464 million judgment – plus interest – against Donald Trump and the other defendants still stands.”

Here are more reactions from the Salon piece:

“We had anticipated this possibility, given that court's pro-business reputation, but they certainly waited to the last minute to do it,” tweeted former U.S. Attorney Harry Litman.

Conservative attorney and frequent Trump critic George Conway said he was “not surprised” by the ruling.

“I had a feeling they’d split the baby somehow,” he wrote. “Still, a $175m bond is a pretty substantial undertaking.”

One attorney describes Trump's lawsuit against ABC and George Stephanopoulos as "vulgarly bad," perhaps exposing the candidate to an "abuse of process" claim and other unpleasantries that could lighten his wallet

Donald Trump and George Stephanopoulos (AP Photo)

 

Donald Trump's lawsuit against ABC News and anchor George Stephanopoulos is not designed to win a valid case, but is a form of bullying the media, according to an article at Yahoo! News, with original reporting from Rolling Stone (RS). In fact, Trump could wind up facing legal consequences -- including  a countersuit for a tort known as "abuse of process" -- and that could cost him significant financial damages.

Under the headline "Trump’s ‘Lunatic’ ABC Lawsuit Is About Bullying the Media, Not Winning," reporters Adam Rawnsley and Asawin Suebsaeng write:

According to those who’ve spoken to him lately, former President Donald Trump doesn’t seem to think he’s actually going to win his defamation lawsuit against ABC News and its star host George Stephanopoulos — but that’s not the point.

In a recent interview with U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R.-S.C.), Stephanopoulos asserted that Trump had been “found liable for rape and defaming” the victim, writer E. Jean Carroll, by judges and two juries. As a factual matter, a jury found Trump defamed and sexually abused Carroll — and he was ordered to pay $83 million for defaming her again. Trump’s lawsuit claims Stephanopoulos’ comments were “false, intentional, malicious, and designed to cause harm.”

Behind closed doors, the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee has told confidants and lawyers that a primary purpose of the suit is to make an example of Stephanopoulos, two people with direct knowledge of the matter tell Rolling Stone. In recent days, Trump has privately said that “everyone” in the media should think twice about calling him a “rapist” on TV and in print, and that “tak[ing] them to court” — win or lose — is a good way to remind them of that, one of the people says.

“‘It’s not about the money,’ was the impression that I got,” says the other source, who discussed the situation with the ex-president. “This is about not fucking around with Donald Trump.”

(Note: Judge Aileen Cannon, the Trump appointee who has repeatedly made rulings that favor him in the classified-documents case, hears cases in the Southern District of Florida, where the case was filed. Did Trump bring this case with hopes of having it  wind up before Cannon?)

This lawsuit is just another example of Trump acting with terrible judgment -- and it adds to the mountain of evidence that he is unfit to serve in the presidency or any other public office. In fact, the Rolling Stone headline, describing the Trump lawsuit as "lunatic," probably is being charitable. For one thing, the case appears to be filed in the wrong jurisdiction. ABC News is based in New York City -- This Week is filmed at ABC headquarters -- and Stephanopoulos and his family live in Manhattan.

Alejandro Brito, Trump's attorney, is based in Coral Gables, FL, but that does not mean jurisdiction for the Trump lawsuit is proper in U.S. District Court of South Florida, Miami Division. In fact, the case almost certainly will have to be heard in New York. As a veteran of many court skirmishes, Trump should know that, and his lawyer certainly should know it. That the case was improperly filed in Florida suggests Trump and his team are trying to pull a fast one -- imagine that -- adding to evidence that Trump is not fit to serve in public office.

Two, it is a matter of public record that Stephanopoulos' statements regarding the E. Jean Carroll case were "substantially true", and that is all he and ABC have to prove in order to overcome a defamation claim. That means Trump's suit is baseless and likely will be dismissed at summary judgment, without even going to a jury.

Lewis Kaplan, judge in the Carroll case, went on record calling Trump a "rapist," as the term is commonly understood among the general public and in many courts. Kaplan wrote:

The definition of rape in the New York Penal Law is far narrower than the meaning of ‘rape’ in common modern parlance, its definition in some dictionaries, in some federal and state criminal statutes, and elsewhere,” the court noted, citing dictionaries and other jurisdictions’ laws defining “rape” as non-consensual penetration of any kind. The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was “raped” within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump “raped” her as many people commonly understand the word “rape.” Indeed, as the evidence at trial makes clear, the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.

Stephanopoulos accurately reported the judge's finding, and according to the judge, the findings of the jury. Trump's case would have to improve to deserve the tag "without merit.'

Alejandro Brito, Trump's attorney, is based in Coral Gables, FL, but that does not mean jurisdiction for the Trump lawsuit is proper in U.S. District Court of Florida, Miami Division. In fact, the case almost certainly will have to be heard in New York.As a veteran of many court skirmishes, Trump should know that, and his lawyer certainly should know it. That the case was improperly filed in Florida suggests Trump and his team are trying to pull a fast one -- imagine that -- adding to evidence that Trump is not fit to serve in public office.

Two, it is a matter of public record that Stephanopoulos' statements regarding the E. Jean Carroll case were "substantially true", and that is all he and ABC have to prove in order to overcome a defamation claim. That means Trump's claim is baseless and likely will be dismissed at summary judgment, without even going to a jury.

Lewis Kaplan, judge in the Carroll case, went on record calling Trump a "rapist," as the term is commonly understood among the general public and in many courts.

Sephanopoulos accurately reported the judge's finding, and according to the judge, the findings of the jury. Trump's case would have to improve to deserve the tag "without merit.'

The American justice system has mechanisms to punish those who bring baseless cases -- and Trump should have known that, unless he is not capable of learning anything from his courtroom experiences. We have four years of evidence, via his first term, that Trump cannot handle the presidency. His hatchet job on the preventable coronavirus pandemic, which resulted in 1.2 million American deaths -- is the most glaring example.

As for "abuse of process," this is how the Stimmel Stimmel & Roeser website describes it:

Abuse of process refers to the improper use of a civil or criminal legal procedure for an unintended, malicious, or perverse reason. It is the malicious and deliberate misuse of regularly issued civil or criminal court process that is not justified by the underlying legal action.

Abuse of process includes litigation actions in bad faith that is meant to delay the delivery of justice. Examples include serving legal papers on someone which have not actually been filed with the intent to intimidate, or filing a lawsuit without a genuine legal basis in order to obtain information, force payment through fear of legal entanglement or gain an unfair or illegal advantage. The determination of what in unfair and wrong is for the court to determine on the individual facts of each case.

If Trump is too intellectually limited to know about abuse of process -- or at least ask a reputable lawyer about it -- he is too dim to be president, and it's past time for Americans of all political stripes to grasp that harsh reality. The Rolling Stone article indicates Trump's lawsuit against ABC News is a classic case of abuse of process.

What provided fuel for Trump's claim?  Rawnsley and Suebsaeng offer background:

During a combative interview with Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) on March 10, Stephanopoulos pressed Mace to answer how she could support a candidate who the ABC News host claimed had been “found liable for rape,” in a reference to the Carroll lawsuit. In May 2023, a federal jury found Trump liable for defamation and sexual abuse, but not rape, for assaulting Carroll in 1996 in a Bergdorff Goodman dressing room. (Trump has denied the accusations, and did so again earlier this month.)

Trump, the sources recount, grew absolutely livid when he saw the Stephanopoulos interview, and began calling up advisers and demanding a suit from his vast gallery of personal attorneys.

Some had advised the ex-president that a lawsuit could risk drawing more attention — including from voters in a crucial election year — to Carroll’s sexual-assault allegations, or possibly invite expensive sanctions from a court, the sources add. Trump, in conversations with close associates and MAGA-aligned lawyers, emphatically did not seem to care.

Trump apparently was too busy being a smart aleck to listen to sound advice -- a great quality to have in a president, right? From Rolling Stone: 

Stephanopoulos has been under Trump’s skin lately, even before the interview with Mace. Earlier this month, the former president attacked Stephanopoulos during the Oscars, as part of a screed against the award show’s host, Jimmy Kimmel. “Get rid of Kimmel and perhaps replace him with another washed up, but cheap, ABC ‘talent,’ George Slopanopoulos,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “He would make everybody on stage look bigger, stronger, and more glamorous.”

Trump has a lengthy track record of lodging frivolous, intentionally vengeful lawsuits against his political and personal enemies. This one may be a longshot, too, though some legal observers are taking this suit more seriously than Trump’s past lawsuit threats and filings. For instance, Matt Ford at The New Republic argues that “the former president has a long losing streak against the media, but George Stephanopoulos’s rape commentary may have opened the door to his first big victory.”

As Ford notes, in Trump’s complaint, his lawyer points out that when Stephanopoulos interviewed Carroll last year, he specifically asked her what she was thinking when it was announced in the courtroom that Trump “was not found liable for rape.” If Stephanopoulos' reporting was "substantially true," and we have shown that it was, anything he asked about Trump being "liable for rape" does not matter.

It long has been a holding in American law that truth is an absolute defense to defamation, and the reporting only has to be "substantially true," not true on  every element of the story. That likely is why other legal experts and longtime attorneys aren’t sold on Matt Ford's take.

“This lunatic Trump suit is purely performative and substantially less meritorious than even his typical performative lawsuits,” says Ken "Popehat" White, a First Amendment litigator and former federal prosecutor, describing the lawsuit as “complete bullshit.” The attorney adds, “it’s more attention-grabbing, more swinging fists at the media, another opportunity to get more political donations.”

Again, this is stuff Trump should have known -- or known how to find out. That he didn't could wind up biting him in the wallet, via "abuse of process" and other legal mechanisms designed to punish those who file meritless lawsuits. Rolling Stone concludes:

After a federal jury found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation against Carroll, Trump’s attorneys sought a new trial on damages in the case because, they argued, the sexual abuse for which the jury found him liable “could have included groping of [Carroll’s] breasts through clothing or similar conduct, which is a far cry from rape.”

Judge Lewis Kaplan, who presided over the trial, found the argument “entirely unpersuasive.”

“The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was ‘raped’ within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape,’” Kaplan wrote, denying the motion for a new trial. “Indeed, as the evidence at trial makes clear, the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.”

White argues the Trump defamation lawsuit is “very obviously wrong on its face, if you know anything about the cases.” He says, “Judge Kaplan in the E. Jean Carroll cases already rejected this same claim by Trump, who tried to bring a counterclaim against Carroll, claiming that she defamed him by saying the jury found that he was liable for ‘rape’ … Trump has had a run of really bad lawsuits. This one is unusually, vulgarly, obviously bad. This one doesn’t even pass the plausible claim test.”