Trump Charged With 37 counts of Espionage, Obstruction and related crimes

[Voronwë the Faithful]

The motion for reconsideration is pretty damning. I would not be shocked if, when Cannon inevitably denies it, they not only appeal to the11th Circuit but also seek recusal.

ETA: Judge Cannon has absurdly given the defendants two weeks to respond to the motion for reconsideration.

[N.E. Brigand]

I'm finding that a segment of the public thinks that the Special Counsel who investigated Joe Biden is the same one investigating Donald Trump.

[N.E. Brigand]

Marcy Wheeler has been busy poking holes in Hur's report, but while her work may be useful later, it appears to be too subtle for the general public to follow, and anyway, Hur's report seems like a PR trap, and I think Biden would be better off not belaboring the argument even if he can win: the sooner it becomes yesterday's forgotten news the better.

[N.E. Brigand]

Heh. As I mentioned in the Israel/Gaza thread, President Biden took some flak tonight because as he was explaining how he had pressured President Sisi of Egypt to accept Gaza refugees, he said "Mexico" instead of "Egypt." Now, I'm not saying that Biden was aware of this, but it turns out that there's a been a long-running gag in Egyptian social media (for reportedly complicated reasons that I haven't examined) to refer to President Sisi as "The Mexican." So Egyptians are loving Biden's gaffe tonight.

I think there's a reasonable chance that President Biden knows this. The reason that Egyptians refer to their president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, as "The Mexican," is that in Egypt you're not allowed to criticize the president. So instead, Egyptians will criticize "El Meksiki" ("The Mexican") because of the assonance with "el-Sisi." This certainly seems like the sort of thing that might be mentioned in a presidential briefing on that nation.

[N.E. Brigand]

Chatting with a coworker who is very active on social media and very interested in social justice, but also very busy with his job, I found that he vaguely knew that some report was released yesterday, but not that it pertained to President Biden having classified documents, not that it cleared Biden of any wrongdoing, not that it also criticized Biden's memory, and not that Biden had subsequently given a press conference in which he confused the names of two countries. If he is in the least indicative of the public at large, this whole thing may prove to be of no importance come November.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

The Real “Robert Hur Report” (Versus What You Read in the News)
How the Special Counsel report has been misinterpreted

[N.E. Brigand]

I've only read the first 50 pages of the report, and the big surprise for me so far is that Donald Trump's initial reaction to it showed a more accurate understanding of what Hur & co. wrote than did most press write-ups, although it appears from a skim of Weissmann & Gooodman at that link and of Wheeler here that even what Hur actually wrote is pretty flawed.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

The biggest flaw in the report is that the summary that Hur wrote doesn't accurately reflect what the report actually says (though that is by no means the only flaw!!). Essentially, Hur acted as his own BIll Barr, and the media swallowed it whole, because they don't have the time or inclination to actually read the whole damn thing.

[RoseMorninStar]

[N.E. Brigand]

Another decent article, this time from Glenn Kessler in the Washington Post:

"What the Hur report says about Biden’s ‘willful retention’ of documents."

Kessler notes that there are five categories of documents discussed in Hur's report. Here are those categories and what Kessler says is the finding for each:

1. Notebooks used for a memoir:
Bottom Line: This is the strongest example of Biden possibly mishandling classified information. But the report concludes that the case would be weak, given the Reagan example and given that Biden generally appeared to be careful to not repeat classified information to someone not cleared to receive it.

2. Afghanistan documents:
Bottom Line: The report concludes it cannot claim that Biden willfully kept this information — and that it may no longer be that sensitive anymore.

3. Handwritten Thanksgiving memo:
Bottom Line: The report concludes that Biden did not think this memo was classified and it probably was not.

4. Classified materials found at Penn Biden Center:
Bottom Line: The report exonerates Biden and blames staff error.

5. Classified materials found at the University of Delaware:
Bottom Line: The report exonerates Biden and blames staff error.

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It's widely believed that Benjamin Netanyahu would rather have Donald Trump than Joe Biden as U.S. President, but even so, Netanyahu, who has spoken with Biden many times over the past few months, said this morning that "I found him very clear and very focused" and that Biden showed no "lack of understanding".

Netanyahu also noted that one of those conversations happened in person, because Joe Biden made what was only the second trip ever by a U.S. President to a war zone not under U.S. control when he visited Israel in October.

As it happens, Joe Biden also made the first visit by a U.S. president to a war zone not under U.S. control when he visited Ukraine last February.

[N.E. Brigand]

The 388-page report includes a rebuttal on pp. 384-388 from the president's lawyers, who point out that witnesses often have hazy memories about years-old events. (I was just at the hospital visiting my dad who had hernia surgery today. He's spent many weeks in the hospital over the past few years. He's doing generally fine now and today's surgery went well. He (age 78), my stepmother (age 69), and I (age 51) struggled to recall when he previously had a hernia surgery. Was it 2019 or 2020 or 2021? Eventually we worked it out, but it took some time.) The lawyers also point out some mistakes in the report that tend to show a bias against President Biden.

It was widely reported that Special Counsel Robert Hur noted that President Biden couldn't remember, during his October interview, when his son died. That comes from this passage on pp. 211-212 of the report (Zwonitzer was Biden's ghostwriter):

Mr. Biden's memory also appeared to have significant limitations-both at the time he spoke to Zwonitzer in 2017, as evidenced by their recorded conversations, and today, as evidenced by his recorded interview with our office. Mr. Biden's recorded conversations with Zwonitzer from 2017 are often painfully slow, with Mr. Biden struggling to remember events and straining at times to read and relay his own notebook entries.

In his interview with our office, Mr. Biden's memory was worse. He did not remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended ("if it was 2013 - when did I stop being Vice President?"), and forgetting on the second day of the interview when his term began ("in 2009, am I still Vice President?"). He did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died. And his memory appeared hazy when describing the Afghanistan debate that was once so important to him. Among other things, he mistakenly said he "had a real difference" of opinion with General Karl Eikenberry, when, in fact, Eikenberry was an ally whom Mr. Biden cited approvingly in his Thanksgiving memo to President Obama.

In a case where the government must prove that Mr. Biden knew he had possession of the classified Afghanistan documents after the vice presidency and chose to keep those documents, knowing he was violating the law, we expect that at trial, his attorneys would emphasize these limitations in his recall.

Following the release of Hur's report last Thursday, Biden held a short press conference in which he addressed this point:

President Joe Biden forcefully rejected the suggestion that he had trouble remembering when his son, Beau, had died, as special counsel Robert Hur claimed in his scathing report released Thursday.

"How in the hell dare he raise that," a visibly angry Biden said Thursday night from the Diplomatic Reception Room in the White House, where he delivered hastily scheduled remarks to address the special counsel's report on his handling of classified documents. "Frankly, when I was asked that question, I thought to myself, 'Wasn't any of their damn business.'"

"I don't need anyone to remind me when he passed away," Biden added, appearing emotional as he referenced a rosary he wears that had belonged to Beau.

"Every Memorial Day we hold a service (to) remember him attended by friends and family and the people who loved him," Biden said, after a pause. "I don't need anyone –- I don't need anyone to remind me when he passed away."

I didn't say so last week, but I suspected that both Hur's tale and Biden's response sounded too good to be true, and now that someone is leaking more information about the interview to the press, it seems I was right. NBC reports that Hur didn't ask Biden when his son Beau died. Rather:

Sources familiar with Biden's view of the interview say Hur induced the president to bring up his son by asking a series of personal questions related to Beau. They included questions about Biden's memoir, Promise Me, Dad, in which he writes about his son's battle with cancer and 2015 death. Hur also asked about Biden's work for the Biden Cancer Initiative, founded in Beau's memory.

These sources did not dispute that it was Biden, not Hur, who first mentioned a date for Beau's death. But they said Biden felt betrayed by the comments in Hur's report about his memory and mental state. During the interview, Hur asked him to recall events years in the past as best he could, and Biden agreed to speak freely and expansively, rather than in the clipped and careful manner of a typical witness.

I figured it was something like that. But here's the kicker: "Biden got the date—May 30—correct, but not the year."

There are discussions underway about releasing a transcript of President Biden's interview (redacted to protect classified and privileged information).

[Voronwë the Faithful]

None of these motions are likely to have much merit, though who knows what Cannon will do with them. At the very least, this will give her an excuse to indefinitely delay the trial date.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Marcy Wheeler on Trump's nutso-cuckoo motions to dismiss on the grounds of absolute presidential immunity and the Presidential Records Act.

TRUMP’S DEFENSE: HE INTENDED TO STEAL BOXES AND BOXES OF CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS

[RoseMorninStar]

[N.E. Brigand]

CNN earlier today: "Trump’s plan to use Judge Cannon to block Judge Chutkan and avoid trial."

"A primary aim for Trump’s legal team, according to people familiar with the strategy, is to put the judge in DC overseeing the 2020 federal election obstruction case, Tanya Chutkan, in a position where she can’t start a trial before Election Day. 'Meaning, ice her,' said a person familiar with Trump’s trial schedule strategy. 'Making it impossible for her to jam a trial down before the election, by things that are out of her control.'"

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For some reason, this interview that Fox News' Sean Hannity conducted with Donald Trump last spring (as cited in that post by V) is recirculating today, so I thought I'd take a moment to transcribe it:

Hannity: "I can't imagine you ever saying, 'Um, bring me some of the boxes that we brought back from the White House. I'd like to look at them.' Did you ever do that?"

Trump: "I would have the right to do that. There's nothing wrong with it."

Hannity: "But I know you--I don't think you would do it."

Trump: "Well, I don't have a lot of time. But I would have the right to do that. I would do that. There'd be nothing wrong--"

Hannity: "All right, let me move on--"

Trump: "Remember this. This is the Presidential Records Act. I have the right to take stuff. Do you know they ended up paying Richard Nixon I think $18 million for what he had. They did the Presidential Records Act. I have the right to take stuff. I have the right to look at stuff. But they have the right to talk and we have the right to talk. This would have all been worked out. All of a sudden they raided Mar-a-Lago, viciously raided Mar-a-Lago. I have, and I gave them tapes, you know, I gave them tapes of storage areas [unintelligible]. I gave it to them. I could have held that back. I wasn't holding anything back that I cared about. I gave them tape. But you know the tape they don't want me to reveal? If possible. They've asked me, and I've, I've so far adhered to it. The raid itself."

Hannity: "Wait a minute. I'll take that tape, and I'll air that tape."

Trump: "I know you would. Everybody would take that tape."

That was more than two months before Trump was indicted in this case.

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Special Counsel Jack Smith today filed a "Surreply in Opposition to Defendants' Motion to Compel Discovery."

[Voronwë the Faithful]

A small hint at how the SCO will respond to Trump's vindictive and selective prosecution claims.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

No rulings at today's hearings, though Judge Cannon reportedly expressed disdain at both sides' proposed trial schedules, and suggested that she would not reconsider her ruling ordering the unsealing of the names of witnesses and their expected testimony.

[RoseMorninStar]

By 'unsealing' and 'publishing' is that for the Judge alone, the public or ??

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Public

[RoseMorninStar]