One nice thing about a short week is that Friday arrives when you aren’t even looking.
Hope everyone is having a good week.
Better than these guys for sure. I didn’t realize they had all turned down plea deals that were so low. FAFO indeed.
Good.
Arrests continue in Jan. 6 riot; fifth man charged in attack on Fanone
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/09/06/snoots-charged-fanone-jan6/?itid=hp_national_p014_f001
Stonks!
Nasdaq falls for a fourth straight day as Wall Street frets over potential of higher interest rates: Live updates
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/06/stock-futures-are-little-changed-wall-street-shifts-focus-back-to-path-of-interest-rates.html
Sprots! Football is starting. Don’t worry it’s only 100 degrees out.
Bleacher Report’s Expert Week 1 NFL Picks
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/10088413-bleacher-reports-expert-week-1-nfl-picks?utm_source=cnn.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=editorial
Whoa!
Actor Danny Masterson sentenced to 30 years to life on rape conviction
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2023/09/07/danny-masterson-prison-sentence/
Have a super weekend!
Pride goeth before the jail time
They always think they’re the smartest person in the room. Always.
I don’t know about all of them, but at least a couple were represented by Norm Pattis, the attorney who had his law license suspended following his conduct defending Alex Jones in the Sandy Hook parents case.
https://lawandcrime.com/live-trials/proud-boys/alex-joness-lawyer-benched-from-proud-boys-seditious-conspiracy-case-until-disciplinary-proceedings-resolve/
Part of Trump’s defense scheme has been getting key players to accept lawyers who are hardcore ideologues. But he has some significant gaps because people like Meadows and Pence knew the traps and got their own attorneys. And his risk in the stolen documents case got worse when the IT guy at Mar a Lago got independent counsel and cooperated with prosecutors.
I suspect the IT guy was smart enough to realize that all the morons that chose Trump advocates as their attorneys were going to jail. Or maybe somebody pointed it out to him. It will be interesting to see how the sacrificial lambs start handling their defenses going forward.
Along those lines, looks like Captain Combover is trying to throw a fig leaf over his refusal to pay legal bills for his many co-conspirators (and try to keep them from flipping on him):
Donald Trump and His Adult Sons Are Planning a Dinner Party From Hell to Raise Money for His Alleged Coconspirators: Report
Of course, he won’t just part with any of his money. He wants big groups of suckers to shell out to pay for the defense of his lackeys and lickspittles. But little Jan. 6 fish? Those people are fucked.
My understanding is that the IT guy dumped the Trump attorney the minute it was made clear to him that his testimony was in direct conflict with another lackey being defended by the same attorney which put him at risk of a perjury conviction. He jumped like a grasshopper on a hot stove and within minutes of conferring with the public defender he changed his testimony.
He was just a grunt and was never cultivated by Trump like the other two, who are pretty clearly true believers and are sticking with their Trump-funded attorney.
I think the Proud Boy result is an interesting example of how hardcore believers let network effects override rational decision making, and how giving information is less important than disrupting support networks.
Prosecutors made reasonable offers, and what’s more the defense attorneys had to convey it truthfully to avoid legal trouble of their own. But sleazy attorneys will use the addtional information as fuel for their own agendas.
They’ll say things like “look at how much less time you’d serve with a deal — maybe the government is afraid they have a weak case. You could take the deal, but you’ll lose the chance to speak out in court and the government may be afraid of people learning the truth. If you take the deal and the others fight, what are they going to think of you?”
And typically prosecutors in this situation will avoid endless back and forth adding more information in the mix which will only allow the defense attorney to reinforce the network effects and cement their relationship with the defendants.
What prosecutors may do is see if there are ways to disrupt the network — such as look for family members who are outside of the network and let them know of the offer and its implications.
The goal isn’t to keep pushing rational arguments — it’s to get a mom or brother to start pointing out that the defendent needs a new lawyer.
When they’re dealing with rational clients and good faith attorneys, prosecutors will negotiate in a way which emulates rational discussion. But when it’s nuts and fanatics, they’re careful to limit intellectual engagement and work on other forms of persuasion. Which is the best way to achieve a rational outcome.
…I think there’s another avenue which a lot of the usual suspects have form on…attempts to game &/or abuse process…discovery in particular
…in a few ways that one is somewhat straightforward but it’s still hard to prevent the part where some defendants from tried to acquire information or testimony that sheds light on charges relating to other people &/or other cases that those defendants want but don’t have rights to
…another (somewhat related) bit of shenanigans that I recall dr wheeler pointing out repeated instances of while the committee hearings were all over the airwaves was that bad faith witnesses can give conflicting testimony which undermines the utility of the bits that the DoJ used to build trial strategy because the committee weren’t great at coordinating stuff with DoJ…partly to avoid the whole politicization of the DoJ issue…which of course is a charge levied by the side of the aisle that actually does that shit against the one that by & large manages to avoid it
…but (fingers crossed) it doesn’t seem to have obviously tripped them up yet that I can think of off the top of my head
…either way, the MAGA attorney club isn’t just useful to dolt45 in terms of giving their “clients” bad advice…it also allows for forms of coordination that can get you disbarred?
The Proud Boys: Too stupid for plea town. Too pleading for stupid Town.
I used to watch That 70’s Show and Danny Masterson’s character used to remind me of a friend of mine… except my friend never raped anyone.
Hard to watch that show without wishing great harm to the actor.
That 90’s Show is a lot of fun. They made an interesting choice about Masterson’s character: They don’t reference him. At all. Not one word. No explanations of his whereabouts, no stories about his “death,” no nothing. I think it’s pretty brilliant.
Trump advisor Peter Navarro was convicted of contempt of Congress for stiffing the January 6 Committee.
https://www.npr.org/2023/09/07/1198261601/peter-navarro-found-guilty-january-6-investigation
Navarro was also one of Trump’s top Covid bunglers, attacking Fauci in a USA Today op-ed that editors called factually wrong and later regretted, handing out hundreds of millions in contracts to unqualified politically connected companies, and led the stupid push for hydroxychloroquine. He’s a prime example of how Trump’s incompetence killed.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/16/business/media/usa-today-peter-navarro-fauci.html
https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-covid-pandemic-contracts
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/07/10/peter-navarro-hydroxychloroquine-coronavirus/
Also the judge in E. Jean Carroll’s second defamation case ruled that he’s already guilty and the jury in January will only need to consider how much more he will have to pay.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/06/politics/e-jean-carroll-trump-defamation-lawsuit/index.html
This highlights how handwringing abstract questions about the First Amendment in his conspiracy case are just flat out naive. The law is clear when it comes to limits on the First Amendment, and defamation and crime are notable examples.
Oh man, we coulda had Lindsey Graham indicted too https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/special-grand-jury-report-georgia-trump-case-released-rcna104040
We can always dream. Jack Smith’s grand jury in DC is still plugging away.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/07/politics/jack-smith-2020-election-interference-grand-jury/index.html
(Graham has a lot of extra protection as a member of Congress, but there a sliver of a chance he crossed a line.)
I think Lindsey is savvy enough to walk right up to the line but not cross it. He’s got a ton of experience at being a spineless weasel, and part of that probably includes avoiding consequences. But who knows? One of the other defendants might just throw him under the bus.