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

[N.E. Brigand]

Matt Yglesais points out the unfortunate truth that despite this:



"The telling thing about the Trump sub scandal is that not only does nobody on the right care, nobody in the mainstream press is surprised that they don’t care — everyone knew the media's stated passion for info security issues in 2016 was in bad faith, but they agreed to pretend."

Because it's better for media companies' bottom line for the 2024 election to be a both-sides horse race.

Where were the mainstream editorials calling for Donald Trump to be held without bail for his espionage charges just as Jonathan Toebbe and Diana Toebbe were held without bail for theirs? Or if you favor leniency, where were the mainstream editorials calling for the Toebbes to be released because Trump isn't locked up?

[RoseMorninStar]

If this is accurate, might it change how he is sentenced in this case? I would think so. Loose lips sink ships.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

To the best of my knowledge this is not actually part of the case so unless they file a new superseding indictment, it won't have any impact.

Meanwhile, Judge Cannon has granted an indefinite stay of the deadlines for Trump to make CIPA filings while she ponders his motions to continue his CIPA deadlines and other delays. This could be looked at in two ways. 1) She is doing her due diligence in reviewing the motions; or 2) this is a prelude to her granting Trump's motion to delay the case until after the election. While my tendency would be to guess that it is the latter, I will withhold judgment for now.

[N.E. Brigand]

Here's a list of ten instances in which Donald Trump (as president or after) shared secret information when he probably shouldn't have.

As president, Trump had pretty wide authority to share classified information as he saw fit. That said, I can certainly imagine situations in which a president who did so nonetheless would be breaking the law, and at least one of Trump's oversharings as president -- #1 on that list -- should have been investigated for that possibility.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

With any other judge, this would not only be a non-starter, but a recipe for a judicial scolding. With Judge Cannon, we'll see. I cannot express how utterly inappropriate it is that they are making a whole new request, for a continuance of the trial date, no less, in a reply brief. The special counsel must ask for leave to file a response to the new request.

They did better than that. They simply treated the new request as a new motion and filed an opposition to that motion, absolutely evicerating the arguments made by Trump's team.

But ... Cannon.

[N.E. Brigand]

Reporters in Florida say that Judge Cannon got angry with Jack Smith's team (for possibly dubious reasons) and cut short a hearing today.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

As I understand it, the issue is that at the hearing the special counsel office brought up for the first time the argument that Stanley Woodward should be prevented from addressing in closing arguments the credibility of Yuscil Taveras, the IT director at Mar-a-Lago who Woodward formerly represented and who admitted to having lied after he changed attorneys. They cited cases from outside the 11th Circuit to support that argument, which they had previously cited in their briefs. As a result, Cannon was pissed and postponed the hearing until they could do more briefing. Some have reported that the issue related to Woodward cross-examining Taveras, but I don't believe that was the case. Roger Parloff, who attended the hearing and is one of the legal commentators that I respect the most, opined that the prosecutors had screwed up and that Cannon was not out of line, though he said that she was overly intemperate.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Here is Roger Parloff's detailed report on the hearings last Thursday.

https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/wh ... a-imploded

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Judge Cannon actually has moved fairly quickly on rescheduling Nauta's Garcia hearing, setting it for this Friday, October 20, and ordering that the parties meet and confer by tomorrow, the special counsel office file a supplemental brief by Wednesday, and Nauta respond to that by Thursday. Each being no more than 5 pages.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Judge Cannon may be signaling that she is going to grant Trump's request to continue the trial with this little-noticed and innocuous-seeming order this morning:

"PAPERLESS ORDER: The parties are advised that production of classified discovery to defense counsel is deemed timely upon placement in an accredited facility in the Southern District of Florida, not in another federal district. It is the responsibility of the Office of the Special Counsel to make and carry out arrangements to deposit such discovery to defense counsel in this District, in consultation with the Litigation Security Group for security purposes. The Office of the Special Counsel shall update and/or clarify any prior responses to the Standard Discovery Order in accordance with this Order. Signed by Judge Aileen M. Cannon on 10/17/2023. (AMC) (Entered: 10/17/2023)"

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Judge Cannon actually has moved fairly quickly on rescheduling Nauta's Garcia hearing, setting it for this Friday, October 20, and ordering that the parties meet and confer by tomorrow, the special counsel office file a supplemental brief by Wednesday, and Nauta respond to that by Thursday. Each being no more than 5 pages.

The special counsel's office filed its supplemental brief late last night, basically saying that Woodward conceded almost everything that they had claimed to be the case at the aborted hearing. It will be interesting to see whether Woodward agrees with that when he responds today, and then what happens at the hearing tomorrow.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

At a hearing today, Stanley Woodward confirmed that he will not cross-examine his former client Yuscil Tavares when he testifies for the prosecution, or his current client "Witness 1" (who I don't believe has been identified) if that person is called to testify. I don't know if he agreed that he will not try to address the credibility of those witnesses during closing arguments. Nauta waived any resulting conflict of interest.



Judge Cannon did get the prosecutors to reveal some more information about Tavares' non-prosecution agreement.



Meanwhile, Judge Cannon has scheduled a hearing for November 1 on Trump's various motions for continuances and has postposed all deadlines until then. I doubt she will make a ruling on the spot, but rather, will continue to delay things as much as possible, and then grant Trump's motion to continue the trial. But we'll see.

[N.E. Brigand]

My other question is, since Feinberg appears to have been right on the money on the timing of the indictment, was he also on the money about Meadows?

I guess he was on the right track? But the wrong case? Or did this cooperation happen later?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

It is not clear to me when it happened, but it was some time ago. And it is possible (I would even say likely) that Meadows testified before both grand juries as part of his immunity deal.

[N.E. Brigand]

Not sure if this will come up in this case or not, but it certainly is related.

Kyle Griffin: "Breaking ABC: Months after leaving office, Trump allegedly discussed potentially sensitive information about U.S. nuclear submarines with a member of Mar-a-Lago -- an Austrialian billionaire who then allegedly shared the information with scores of others."

Donald Trump this week pushed back on this story after the New York Times had new reporting on how this billionaire, Anthony Pratt, paid $1 million for tickets to a New Year's Eve party at Mar-a-Lago whose actual cost was just $50,000.

In other words, it looks like Donald Trump shared classified information in exchange for a $950,000 bribe.

[N.E. Brigand]

Jack Smith's office has provided Donald Trump's legal team with four classified laptops which they can use to submit briefings that reference the classified material Trump had in his possession. Or maybe five laptops? I can't tell if the four laptops mentioned in that filing include the one that was previously provided to the Trump team.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Yeah, that part of the filing is surprisingly poorly written. I would guess that the first laptop is included in the four, but it really isn't clear (and I'm not sure it matters all that much.

My two favorite parts of the new filing are these ones:

... despite defendant Trump’s accusations, defense counsel was hardly in a rush to review the Government’s latest production of classified discovery. As the Government explained in a recent filing, ECF No. 187 at 5-6, it informed the defense on October 6 that the production had been provided to the Classified Information Security Officer (CISO) and inquired the next day when the defense would resume its review of classified discovery in the defense SCIF, so the Government could arrange for it to be delivered there. Defense counsel waited 11 days, from October 6 until October 17, to receive the materials in the defense SCIF.

defendant Trump alleges that one of the discs included 13,584 “additional” pages of discovery. ECF No. 191 at 1. That is wrong—all but 15 pages of this 13,584-page set of materials had already been produced in unclassified discovery; and the reason the entire set of materials—including the previously produced unclassified pages—was provided together in classified discovery is that the defense asked that it be done that way.

If this was before any other judge, I would expect the possibility of sanctions against Trump's lawyers for making blatantly false assertions in their filings. With Judge Cannon, I will not be surprised if she still uses the false allegations of discovery abuses as an excuse to delay the trial. We should get some idea of her thinking (if not an actual ruling) at the hearing she has scheduled for next Wednesday.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

No big surprise here. Honestly, I do think it would have been difficult to complete the D.C. trial in time to start the Florida trial in May, but I suspect that Cannon will now just put this case out beyond the election, as Trump has wanted all along.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

As I mentioned in the other thread, following the hearing in this case, the Trump team made a filing in the D.C. case asking to have that case stayed altogether until the judge ruled on their absolute presidential immunity motion to dismiss. The SCO made a filing in this case giving notice of that filing and stating: "As the Government argued to the Court yesterday, the trial date in the District of Columbia case should not be a determinative factor in the Court’s decision whether to modify the dates in this matter. Defendant Trump’s actions in the hours following the hearing in this case illustrate the point and confirm his overriding interest in delaying both trials at any cost. This Court should allow itself to be manipulated in this fashion."

Somehow, I doubt that last sentence is going to impress Judge Cannon very much.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Sure enough, she responded with a pithy paperless order saying:

PAPERLESS ORDER ON NOTICES: The parties are hereby reminded of the requirements of Local Rule 7.8 on Notices of Supplemental Authority. Except as authorized by Court order, the substantive content of any such notice (or response) may not exceed 200 words and may not be used as a surreply absent leave of Court. Future non-compliant notices or unauthorized filings will be stricken without further notice.