2020 Election: Predictions, Results and Reactions

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I think there is a lot more to it than what they are reporting.

Also, Marcy Wheeler notes that it appears that they are claiming privilege over hundreds of items, despite having waived the right to claim privilege over those items. I'm not sure if she is correct, but it seems like she is.

RUDY GIULIANI APPEARS TO BE CLAIMING PRIVILEGE OVER HUNDREDS OF ITEMS HE ALREADY AGREED WERE NOT

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Here we go.

OK, here is the big news. Trump lawyers arrive at DOJ for a final meeting. An indictment will follow in short order, perhaps even today.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

And, from Kyle Griffin:

Kyle Griffin
@kylegriffin1
BREAKING: Two sources with direct knowledge of the situation tells NBC News that Trump attorneys Todd Blanche and John Lauro are meeting with prosecutors in the Special Counsel's office in Washington and have been told to expect an indictment against Donald Trump.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

And more from Harry Litman.

Meeting with Trump attorneys over. Lasted about an hour. Theoretically possible to vote out an indictment today, but expected course would be to take a little time to consider the (almost certainly meritless) arguments from team Trump

That is not a long meeting for something like this, so I doubt that there are many arguments from team Trump to consider. Still, I doubt it will be today. Normally the grand jury meets on Tuesday and Thursday, so maybe not until Tuesday, though they probably could meet tomorrow and do it then.

ETA: Tuesday would be consistent with what happened last time. DoJ met with Trump's lawyers on Monday, June 5, and the indictment came down on June 8, three days later. Three business days from today is Tuesday.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

While all eyes are on D.C., it looks like things are happening in Georgia, too.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I think it is fair to say that Noone has lost more cases than Donald Trump

Judge dismisses Trump’s ‘Big Lie’ lawsuit against CNN

[N.E. Brigand]

The big story this weekend, reported first in the Washington Post and then matched by the New York Times, is that Trump's "Save America" PAC (that is "the entity in which Mr. Trump had parked the more than $100 million raised when he sought small-dollar donations after losing the 2020 election ... [which he] claimed he needed the support to fight widespread fraud in the race") has spent $40 million so far this year on Trump's legal defense (and that of a number of witnesses), is cash poor, and in consequence requested a refund of part of the $60 million it had previously given to the campaign.

These articles are scoops in advance of the official campaign disclosure to be filed Monday, and both articles' authors are known to regularly get their tips from people near to Trump, so some observers suspect that there may be still worse news in the official disclosure. We'll know soon, I guess.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I thought this was amusing:

And as for "forensic misconduct" --while both sides have done enough talking, posting, tweeting ("X'ing"?), and press conferencing to have hit (and perhaps stretched) the bounds ofGeorgia Rules of Professional Conduct 3.6(a) and 3.8(g) --neither movant has pointed to any averments from the District Attorney or her team of lawyers expressing belief that 'Irump or Latham is guilty or has committed this or that offense.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

The election interference/January 6th grand jury apparently left for the day at around 2 p.m., which is unusual since they usually work until 5, unless they are done with their work. Now we have this news from CNN:

Reid: There’s one detail we've learned from our colleagues at the courthouse, that is that the foreperson has remained behind and that is significant because you only need the foreperson when a grand jury returns an indictment.

Harry Litman says:

And if that's accurate, hard to think of another reason that the foreperson would remain behind .

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Asha Rangappa is funny.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Meanwhile in Michigan.

Democracy Docket
@DemocracyDocket
NEW: Failed Michigan attorney general candidate Matthew DePerno (R) and others face criminal charges for illegally accessing and tampering with voting machines after the 2020 election.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Marcy Wheeler and Kyle Cheney point out that even if there is an indictment today in D.C., we might not hear about it for days.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Anna Bower is funny, too.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Donald Trump apparently thinks that the DoJ should have indicted for January 6 without conducting any investigation at all.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I am confident enough that this is real that I'm going to split off this discussion into a new thread about the pending indictment

[N.E. Brigand]

Donald Trump just shared a further message reading just: "Unprecedented fraud requires unprecedented cure!"

It is possible, as Marcy Wheeler suggested earlier today, that what's really driving Trump's heated calls today to throw out the U.S. Constitution is not last night's "news" about Twitter and Hunter Biden but the implications of former White House lawyers Pat Cipollone and Pat Philbin having testified yesterday, presumably about what Trump said and did before, during, and after the events of January 6th.

Edit: That said, some on the right are certainly taking the story about Twitter as their cue to call for violence. A former Minnesota political candidate who unsuccessfully vied to be the Republican nominee challenging Rep. Ilhan Omar this year responded on Twitter to Taibbi's publication by saying it showed that Democrats had to be defeated by "bullets" rather than "ballots". After she was criticized for that comment, the Republican former candidate, Shukri Abdirahman, said "It's no secret that our Founders would've taken up arms and put to use the real purpose of the 2nd Amendment to take out this tyrannical government."

(People who claim that the 2nd Amendment was intended to allow the populace to overthrow the U.S. government if necessary never reckon with the fact that President George Washington led an army to western Massachusetts to put down a rebellion of farmers who refused to pay their taxes.)

Just using this reference to Philbin to note that in an entirely unrelated matter, he is representing former Fox News and current CBS journalist Catherine Herridge against a lawsuit brought by a Yanping Chen, a scientist who runs a graduate research program in Virginia who is suing the FBI, Dept. of Justice, and Dept. of Homeland Security for violating her privacy in 2017 because, after they closed a six-year counterintelligence investigation into her activities (they suspected her of working for the Chinese government), personal information about Chen from their investigation was leaked to Herridge who reported it on Fox. Chen wants a judge to force Herridge to reveal her source.

I don't care at all for Herridge, who regularly carries water for Donald Trump and Republicans, but I'm actually on her side here, although the law may not be, and although Philbin himself in the past took a hard line against leaks when he defended Donald Trump in the former president's first impeachment trial in January 2020. At that time, Philbin complained that Congressional Democrats "selectively leaked" testimony about Trump's actions "to a compliant media to establish a false narrative about the president," and he noted that such leaks if they had been of testimony to a grand jury "would have been a criminal violation."

Today the judge in this case ruled that Catherine Herridge must disclose her source to Yanping Chen.

[N.E. Brigand]

Earlier today:

A Pennsylvania state judge on Monday ruled that an election worker cannot sue former President Trump over statements he made sowing doubt in the 2020 election results while in office, finding the statements are protected by presidential immunity.

Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas Judge Michael Erdos said Trump was immune for a tweet he issued and comments he made remotely from the White House during a Pennsylvania state Senate committee hearing in November 2020. The statements, made without evidence, claimed fraud in Pennsylvania’s election tabulations.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Judge Chutkin was the judge who ruled that White House documents could be turned over to the 1/6 select committee despite Trump’s objections, a decision that was upheld bu the court of appeals and not reviewed by SCOTUS. She has overseen some 1/6 criminal cases and has been a relatively harsh sentencer (despite being a former public defender).

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I am very pleased to see that Judge Beryl Howell is not letting Guiliani get away with his bullshit stipulation without clarifying exactly what it means:

MINUTE ORDER (paperless) DIRECTING defendant Giuliani to CLARIFY his [84-2] "Nole Contendre [sic] Stipulation" ("Giuliani Stipulation"), submitted in response to plaintiffs' 81 Motion for Discovery Sanctions Against Defendant Rudolph Giuliani For Failure to Preserve Electronic Evidence ("Pls.' Motion"), which unsworn stipulation signed by defendant Giuliani contests no part of plaintiffs' motion but rather purports to set out concessions sufficient to avoid further discovery demands and the risk of concomitant sanctions for failure to comply with discovery obligations, under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 26 through 37, but simultaneously contains multiple caveats and limitations undercutting that purpose. For example, the Giuliani Stipulation concedes:

1. that defendant Giuliani "made the statements of and concerning Plaintiffs, which include all of the statements detailed in Plaintiffs['] [sic] Amended Complaint, ECF No. 22 at ¶¶ 57-101,"

2. "that the statements carry meaning that is defamatory per se,"

3. that defendant Giuliani "published those statements to third parties,"

4. "that, to the extent the statements were statement of fact and otherwise actionable, such actionable factual statements were false[,]" and

5. that defendant Giuliani "does not contest... the factual elements of liability (subject to any retained affirmative defenses not expressly waived herein) regarding Plaintiffs' claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress and other related tort claims."

Giuliani Stip. ¶¶ 1-4. Yet, these concessions appear to be significantly limited with caveats that the Giuliani Stipulation:

1. is made only "for the purposes of this litigation before this Court and on Appeal," id. ¶ 1; see also id. ¶¶ 2-4;

2. "does not affect... his argument that his statements are constitutionally protected statements or opinions or [that plaintiffs' claims are barred by] any applicable statute of limitations," id. ¶¶ 3, 4, despite denial of defendant Giuliani's 26 Motion to Dismiss plaintiffs' complaint on these same grounds, in which motion plaintiffs' allegations were legally required to be assumed as true, see generally Freeman v. Giuliani, Civ. No. 21-3354 (BAH), 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 197768 (D.D.C. Oct. 31, 2022), leaving no room for continued viability of such defenses, let alone reservation of such defenses, if plaintiffs' allegations are conceded as true, as the Giuliani Stipulation purports to do;

3. is "subject to any retained affirmative defenses not expressly waived herein," Giuliani Stip. ¶ 4, which affirmative defenses may include any one of the six such defenses asserted in Def.'s 33 Answer ¶¶ 193-198, that may provide a complete defense to liability and were not "expressly waived" in the Giuliani Stipulation;

4. "does not affect Giuliani's ability to seek setoff, offset or settlement credit, or that Giuliani's conduct, in fact, caused Plaintiffs any damages, and the amount of any alleged damages Giuliani's conduct may have caused," Giuliani Stip. ¶ 4; and

5. "does not affect Giuliani's argument [as to] any other legal defense not expressly waived by this Stipulation," id., which may allude to the six affirmative defenses asserted in Def.'s 33 Answer ¶¶ 193-198, or other unspecified defenses.

Given the seemingly incongruous and certainly puzzling caveats contained in the Giuliani Stipulation, plaintiffs' counsel recounts efforts to obtain clarification from defendant Giuliani's counsel, see Pls.' 86 Reply Supp. Mot. For Discovery Sanctions Ag. Def. Giuliani For Failure to Preserve Electronic Evid., at 3-5 (recounting defense counsel's confirmation to plaintiffs' counsel that defendant Giuliani (1) stipulates to all elements of plaintiffs' claims for defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and civil conspiracy; and (2) "would 'not contest willfulness for purposes of punitive damages'"), but no such clarification has been submitted directly to the Court by defendant Giuliani or otherwise acknowledged by defendant Giuliani.

Accordingly, for the above reasons, defendant Giuliani is DIRECTED, by August 8, 2023 at 4:00 PM, to submit to the Court either:

(a) a superseding stipulation in which he

(i) concedes, for purposes of this litigation, all factual allegations in plaintiffs' 22 Amended Complaint as to his liability for plaintiffs' defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and civil conspiracy claims, and his liability as to plaintiffs' claim for punitive damages, see U.S. Sec. & Exch. Comm'n v. China Infrastructure Inv. Corp., 189 F. Supp. 3d 118, 128 (D.D.C. 2016) (Howell, C.J.) (noting that "[a] defaulting defendant concedes all well-pleaded factual allegations as to liability, though the court may require additional evidence concerning damages") (quoting Al-Quraan v. 4115 8th St. NW, LLC, 123 F. Supp. 3d 1, 1 (D.D.C. 2015)); and

(ii) concedes that entry of default judgment on liability is appropriate in this case, see Adkins v. Teseo, 180 F. Supp. 2d 15, 1718 (D.D.C. 2001) (entering default judgment after finding that plaintiffs "satisfied each element" of the pleaded cause of action); or

(b) an explanation for declining to submit the superseding stipulation described in paragraph (a), above, that also provides clarification as to what precisely his original stipulation conceded regarding the plaintiffs' factual allegations and legal claims.

Should defendant Giuliani not file the superseding stipulation described in paragraph (a), above, the parties are DIRECTED to appear in Courtroom 26A on August 15, 2023 at 11:00 AM for a hearing on both plaintiffs' 81 Motion, and the status of defendant Giuliani's compliance with the Court's May 31, 2023 Minute Order ("May Order") (as amended by the June 16, 2023 Minute Order), directing him to "search and produce all materials responsive to plaintiffs' RFPs... within the date ranges agreed to by the parties, with the assistance of a professional vendor." Signed by Judge Beryl A. Howell on August 4, 2023. (lcbah4) (Entered: 08/04/2023)

Absolutely perfect.

[RoseMorninStar]

Geez.. wilier than mobsters.