Category: January 6

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Crime Donald Trump January 6

Former Prosecutor Mocks Trump After Judge In Jan. 6 Trial Treats Donnie Like A ‘Truant Child’

Former federal prosecutor Harry Litman said Friday on MSNBC that Tanya Chutkan, the federal judge overseeing the January 6 criminal trial of failed former president Donald Trump like a “truant child” and also making it clear with her remarks in court today that she doesn’t trust the disgraced ex-president as far as she can throw him.

After a hearing this morning, Chutkan issued a protective order that limits what Trump and federal prosecutors are allowed to disclose, including any personally identifying information, sealed orders, witness testimony, or recordings and transcripts from witness interviews.

MSNBC anchor Alicia Menendez asked, “I want to underline a part of this. If they would be reasonably interpreted to intimidate witnesses. Does Trump’s post about, ‘If you come after me, I’ll come after you’ — does that fly?”

Litman replied:

“I think it falls totally flat. One more point. She treated Trump like a truant child. The most sort of galling thing of all. Obviously, he started at a level of mistrust. So he started with a record, as it were. Now, there will be exactly this debate. The reason there is something for him is not just what he got, but there will be a next level where they argue about terms and then she imposes something more strict.”

If Trump does defy the judge’s orders, Litman continued, Chutkan still has other ways of dealing with him.

“The big hammer she has, of course, but she doesn’t want to deploy it early or at all if they could help it, it is putting him in jail.”

“But they know that at the end of the day, it is her courtroom and her witnesses to worry about and it is her process to take account of,” Litman concluded. And she will, I think, she showed today, be unafraid — if he pushed her to the wall of responding with the most severe sanction.”

 

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Crime Donald Trump January 6

Former Judge Predicts Trump Is About To Be Silenced With A Far-Reaching Gag Order

Having proven that he will not comply with the instructions given to him by a federal magistrate judge when he was arraigned in Washington, D.C. last week, former president Donald Trump is likely to be hit with a far-reaching gag order, according to retired California Superior Court Judge LaDoris Hazzard Cordell

Cordell was a guest on CNN’s “The Source with Kaitlan Collins,” and was asked for a prediction regarding what the presiding judge in the case, Tanya Chutkan, will do to control Trump from making posts such as the one in which he threatened “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!”

“I don’t know necessarily that that quote impacts the protective order, but that certainly would get me thinking if I were the trial judge about a gag order in this case,” Cordell said.

“It’s clearly a threat, and a good trial judge doesn’t just look at the law, you use common sense,” she added.

That means a gag order is likely, Cordell continued, and “my guess is Trump would violate it in a heartbeat and then we’ll see what the judge does in terms of consequences for violating yet another court order.”

That led Collins to ask, “So you think there will be a gag order here? At least you think that there should be?”

Cordell: “I absolutely can see it coming because this man cannot shut up. He’s a ‘chatty Charlie’ and he’s going to just talk and talk and he really doesn’t care about rules that say you can speak or cannot speak.”

“So this is where the test of a good trial judge comes about. If you’re going to have a fair trial, it’s going to be by the rules set by that person in the black robe,” Cordell continued. And if the rules are you do not talk about this other than in the court, because it’s not punishment it’s to ensure fair trial. If that doesn’t happen, there have to be immediate consequences to violating a court order.”

“Only in that way can everyone have respect for the system.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vJO2EkEs0w
 

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Crime Donald Trump January 6

Trump’s Lawyers Whine To Judge That Biden Is Trolling Their Client With A Coffee Mug

If you needed any further proof that attorneys representing failed one-term, twice-impeached and thrice-indicted former president Donald Trump have absolutely no idea what they’re doing, consider the filing they made today in response to a request by Special Counsel Jack Smith for a protective order to prevent Trump from trying intimidate witnesses via social media postings.

According to the filing from Trump’s lawyers, President Joe Biden has taunted and trolled their client with a coffee mug.

“President Biden has … capitalized on the indictment, posting a thinly veiled reference to his administration’s prosecution of President Trump just hours before arraignment.”

But wait, it gets better. Again, quoting the filing from Trump’s attorneys:

https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1687120734793986048 (last accessed August 6, 2023); see also Kwan Wei Kevin Tan, Joe Biden appeared to throw major shade at a thrice-indicted Trump
with a new Dark Brandon meme, and Twitter loved it, Business Insider (August 3, 2023). Indeed, President Biden promised from the outset that his administration would ensure President Trump “does not become the next President again,” adding an unprecedented political dimension to this
prosecution. Remarks by President Biden in Press Conference (November 9, 2022). Moreover, the Biden Justice Department waited over two-and-a-half years to seek this indictment, during an election cycle in which President Trump is the leading candidate.

So now the legal team for Trump is afraid of Dark Brandon videos and memes. And yet they don’t see why it’s a big deal when their client posts on Truth Social, “If You Go After Me, I’m Coming After You.” Coffee mugs are bad, but threats are totally cool.

Sounds like Trump has exactly the attorneys he deserves because they’re just as incompetent as he is.

 

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Crime Donald Trump January 6

Judge May ‘Fast-Track’ January 6 Case Against Trump For His Violent Rhetoric

As he continues to try and push the limits of what he can say on social media regarding the numerous criminal charges that have been filed against him in federal court, failed former president Donald Trump may soon find that his defiance of one particular federal judge has major consequences, including a fast-tracking of the case that will significantly increase the ex-president’s already precarious legal situation.

According to Dennis Aftergut of The Bulwark, Trump appears to have already reached the breaking point for U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan.

Late Friday, Special Counsel Smith quoted Trump’s Truth Social post in a new legal motion for a protective order. Smith asked Judge Tanya Chutkan, the no-nonsense jurist assigned to Trump’s 2020 election/January 6th-related case, to limit his ability to share the discovery material that Smith will soon give to Trump’s lawyers.

Smith wrote: “If the defendant were to begin issuing public posts using details . . . obtained in discovery here, it could have a harmful chilling effect on witnesses or adversely affect the fair administration of justice in this case.”

Despite that filing by Smith and the fact that Trump’s attorneys have until 5 p.m. today to respond as to why Judge Chutkan shouldn’t impose a protective order against future Trump posts, the disgraced former president seemed to threaten his former vice president, Mike Pence, even after he’d been admonished by the judge. Trump posted this on Truth Social:

WOW, it’s finally happened! Liddle’ Mike Pence, a man who was about to be ousted as Governor Indiana until I came along and made him V.P., has gone to the Dark Side. I never told a newly emboldened (not based on his 2% poll numbers!) Pence to put me above the Constitution, or that Mike was “too honest.” He’s delusional, and now he wants to show he’s a tough guy. I once read a major magazine article on Mike. It said he was not a very good person. I was surprised, but the article was right. Sad!

Pence is a likely witness against Trump in the Jan. 6 trial that Chutkan will preside over, so the posting could well be considered witness intimidation, and that is likely to have serious consequences, Aftergut notes.

Judge Chutkan has broad discretion over Trump’s D.C. trial date. Anger her and you add incentive to set a trial as early as is consistent with the time Trump’s lawyers need to adequately prepare.

If a trial occurs in the spring of 2024, the prospects for a pre-election conviction are strong. A Thursday Reuters-Ipsos poll told us that if a conviction occurs, 45 percent of Republicans would not vote for him, compared to 35 percent who would.

Tough getting back into the Oval Office with those numbers.

Will Trump dial back his rhetoric? Based on his past actions, that seems unlikely, which means he’s about to be slapped silly by a judge who doesn’t take any shit.

As usual, Donald Trump is his own worst enemy, and he’s too damn arrogant, obstinate, and childish to shut his big mouth.

 

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Capitol Insurrection Donald Trump Eric Trump January 6

Eric Trump May Have Incriminated His Dad With Videotaped Remarks On The Jan. 6 Attack

Alex Holder is a British documentary filmmaker who spoke with members of failed, one-term, twice-impeached former president Donald Trump’s family during the 2020 campaign — including in the days leading up to the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol — and portions of his upcoming film, “Unprecedented,” were subpoenaed by the House Select Committee investigating the Capitol insurrection.

According to The Independent, which spoke with Holder, ex-president Trump’s son, Eric, seemed to indicate that the family believed violence was a viable response to what they thought had been a stolen election:

“When I asked Eric about the potential danger of sort of rhetoric and the sort of the belligerence, he felt that it was … fair game in that it … was sort of the equivalent on the other side of the political discourse, or he felt that it was the right thing to do … because the election was stolen.”

Holder also revealed that he wasn’t surprised when the rioting began at the Capitol because of all the anger and vitriol that had been spewed by the former president from the moment it became clear he had lost the election in a landslide to President Joe Biden:

“The idea of violence, to me, seemed likely because of the fact that when you tell 75 million people that their vote didn’t count, and the person that’s telling you that is not just the guy you voted for, but also the incumbent President of the United States, the chance of violence was always there.”

Eric’s remarks are especially troublesome for his father, who has repeatedly insisted that he never thought anyone would storm the Capitol and that he was merely calling for a peaceful protest on the day thousands of his supporters broke into the seat of government with chants of “Hang Mike Pence” and open calls to find and kill key Democrats, including Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

Eric Trump has made his father’s already perilous legal situation much worse.