70 Comments

Trump has cherry picked words and phrases from E. Jean Carroll’s publications and interviews. He’s running a vile text on Truth Social. I hope her brilliant attorney and the judge in her upcoming case will use his tirade to up her settlement.

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That is all he ever does but cherries... more like crab apples😎

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I would like to see the settlement have at least 9 digits. Let the billionaire boys club funding Trump's antics pay out the cash that someone worked hard to earn them.

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Jan 4·edited Jan 4

Jay, can you please explain why it is OK for the lawyers to include falsehoods in their filings? (e.g., "widespread disputes over the election outcome" that were shot down about 61 out of 62 times in courts)

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author

They walk right up to the edge of what is okay. There are widespread disputes—but that doesn’t make those disputes substantive in any way. Trump’s lawyers always have to debase themselves, and some have been disciplined by the bar for it.

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More than just having been "disciplined", some have actually lost their licenses to practice law, such Rudolph Giuliani, I believe, for both NY and Washington, DC.

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I get that there are ways to fudge the language, but even though "disputes" exist, they are fictional, i.e., false, and have been ruled so by courts. And this is just one example of what I mean. Another example would be the argument before SCOTUS utilizing a hypothetical argument based on an event that did not happen, i.e., the case of the web designer who had never designed a web page refusing to design a page for a gay client who never asked her to design a page and apparently wasn't even gay. Why is a lie like this valid before a court?

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"In the law courts no one gives a rap for the truth."

- Socrates, "Phaedrus"

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Exactly right, and his hack lawyers should be sanctioned for polluting his motion with BS "evidence", regardless if they were simply "honoring the client's requests".

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Practicing law ethically should not take a back seat to “honoring clients requests”. As an attorney you’re hired to look out for your client’s interests and when the insist on something that isn’t, the attorney should tell them “No.”. And if they still insist, “Then get a different attorney.”

So, I guess Trump already has the “different attorney”.

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Jan 4Liked by Jay Kuo

Thank you for your clear explanations of these legal filings and their implications.

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What happened to the over 20 other women who stepped forth with allegations of sexual misconduct against Trump? How many women have to say he is a rapist before he is treated accordingly?

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Exactly! They have been bought off or scared off.

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Jan 4Liked by Jay Kuo

As always excellent and pertinent information Jay! I honestly would not have a clue what is going on without your briefs here!

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A college freshman knows you can't make up cites and references! Did these guys graduate from Trump Law School?

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author

He didn’t make them up! He is citing himself! /s

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Also bad form...LOL!

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Jan 4·edited Jan 4

Not to mention that he's citing himself from a site with "Truth" right there in the name! Ta daaaa! Case dismissed!

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Trump: “There is evidence of fraud out there. It says so here in my Truth Social posting. That I can’t find the evidence is proof it’s been destroyed. And since they destroyed evidence, this whole case should be dropped!”

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I would call this “the because I said so” defense.

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“My dog ate the evidence” --says so right there in my Truth Social post.

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Having been a librarian at a university, sorry to say you are giving college students WAY too much credit here. The state of affairs regarding how to conduct research and cite sources is shocking, to say the least. But not entirely surprising due to underfunded public education and homeschooling with no oversight.

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Hi Kate--Dean of a B-School here. I understand what you are saying, but my Freshman Leadership and Honors Students are a lot smarter than these pseudo-lawyers.

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I’m sure at that level they definitely are.

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There are motivated individuals and those who could care less.

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Man, you're a smart guy! And I always feel a little smarter after I've read your explanations. Thank you! All of this is so exhausting. I get to a point of sadness, anger, and helplessness. Your writing makes it feel more manageable.

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Jan 4Liked by Jay Kuo

I read your analysis of these complex matters daily. I have gotten to the point where I can no longer watch the news. Too depressing to see that maniac given any deference.

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Not only is it depressing to see how the media slavishly follows him about for news bites--but they also includes clips of his ugly phiz constantly--as though we cannot possibly remember who he is unless they run his hideous face whenever they also run his deliberatelly exploitative stunts as though they are "news".

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Still sticking with my predictions: DC Circuit 👎👎👎 on immunity and "double jeopardy; SCOTUS 👎👎👎 on cert.

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I would love to have them go even further and say, “Case not stayed.” But maybe I’m just dreaming.

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"His" Justices are done with the criminal insurrectionist/rapist/ fraud, and no longer are willing to countenance any further diminishing of what remains of the Court's prestige by indulging this man's patent delaying tactics to avoid trial.

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With one exception--Clarence Thomas, who is protecting his Insurrectionist wife.

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And unfortunately, probably Alito too, who reasons like a sixth-grader who thinks the principal has never heard this nonsense before and just has to go along with it.

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And protecting himself because of what appears to be corruption far more serious than that for which Justice Abe Fortas resigned from the court. (I think when Lyndon Johnson was President.)

But I am not as convinced as Mr . Khrome above that the Court yet cares enough about its seriously diminished reputation.

To date Chief Justice Robert remains weak and Samuel Alito unreconstructed vis “ethics and appearance of corruption” don’t apply to him or any Justice even though his own wife ALSO has questions about her making $$ through Court connections.

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I wouldn’t count on that. If they had any integrity they wouldn’t have let the reputation of the Court become so tarnished.

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(1) I've read that Trump's 2022 legal bills amounted to some $20 million plus and that 2023 and 2024 are expected to be higher. I know the former republican party has paid Trump's legal charges in the past, but wonder if they still do. Or, are ihndividuals (rich and non rich) and corporations providing the needed funds? Somehow, I doubt Trump himself or his firms are compensating his army of lawyers. (2) Trump refused to place his businesses, properties etc into a blind trust as his predecessors post Watergate, had done. Thus, the very recent Democratic Congressional report that foreign governments and their agents paid over $7 Million to Trump properties during his administration, may add additional charges to the 91 felonies he currently faces in 4 courts.

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Perhaps even foreign powers are paying for his lawyers

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It would be nice if, in light of these recently disclosed profits TFG made while in office, there could be added charges under the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause, but two lawsuits, CREW v. Trump and D.C. and Maryland v. Trump, were dismissed as moot on January 25, 2021, by the Supreme Court vacating lower court decisions that went against Trump, because he was no longer in office. The court's decision effectively ended all litigation against Trump on the emoluments issue.

I’m filled with disappointment and disgust with these continued get out of jail free card decisions.

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His cultists are paying. Every little setback or new accusation is a fresh fundraising opportunity, and the slavishly dig deep and pony up. They buy tickets to events, they buy merch (anyone want a piece of the suit he was wearing for his mugshot?) including his ridiculous trading cards and NFTs. He asks, they write checks.

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🤮

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A majority of the Court is not adverse to politically motivated reasoning. The Chief and the three justices who are often with him in dissent are institutionalists. They well understand that Trump II would respect no past nor any future opinion of the Court. If that bloc can peel off one of Gorsuch, Kavanaugh or Barrett the Court may survive to rule another day. But only if it doesn’t dwaddle.

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Would love the take on the 22nd Amendment argument that I had heard somewhere (I think related to Maine).

You have someone running around screaming "i won the 2020 election and it was stolen from me..." The 22nd Amendment states that no one can be president for more than 2 terms (which means no one can win more than 2 elections for president or stand for election for president having won twice).

Now — WE KNOW he didn't win. But he has convinced his base that he was the winner in 2020.

How much impact would it have for him to have to be brought to a courtroom, where he openly would have to face a judge who asks him directly — "Who won the 2020 election?"

If he answers that he won it in court — and thus believing it; a judge would have to contend with that — which could simply be telling him in open court that he lost the election, and that he needed to change diapers to feel better about himself... I do not believe the court would say "since you believe you won, you cant run again..."

But...if he believed that the court could bar him from running under term limits based on what he believed — how impactful would it be for him to have to stand before a judge and say, "I Lost the 2020 election." How impactful would that be in all of these legal cases — with him admitting he lost the election.

When the 22nd Amendment case came up — I just felt like it was both humorous and creative.

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One of the petitioners in the Maine case made that argument, and the SoS basically laughed him out of court. The 22nd Amendment says a person cannot be *elected* more than twice (or once if they served more than half a term to which they were not elected, like Gerald Ford for example). What a person claims has nothing to do with it. Since Trump was only elected once by the Electoral College the 22nd Amendment is not a bar to him running (unlike the 14th Amendment, which arguably is).

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A case was just filed in Illinois per the Peoria Patch to keep trump off of the ballot

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Trump is a stochastic terrorist and the threats of violence from him and his supporters speaks for itself. He shouldn’t even be out on bail re: his espionage indictments and, now, a missing binder of top secret material. Entertaining more appeals and grandstanding is detrimental to justice and law-abiding citizens.

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Jan 4Liked by Jay Kuo

Thanks once again for clarifying these murky issues.

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"motions to reduce bail, motions concerning the double jeopardy clause in the Constitution, and motions under the Speech or Debate Clause"

A little ticky-tacky, but it's also been extended to motions for forced medication.

American Oversight left it off, and it's probably just a small oversight on their part. However it's not meaningless because the difference is whether the list Scalia mentioned is descriptive or prescriptive.

If Scalia's list of immediately appealable orders is simply descriptive, American Oversight's brief loses. If it is prescriptive then American Oversight's brief wins.

To be clear I don't think there's a clear answer. Either way, the fact the Supreme Court was in the business of making the list longer even as Scalia was writing down the list favors descriptive. If the Court that Scalia was writing for really viewed the list as written in stone, they likely wouldn't have added to the list two years later.

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author

Fair point.

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