Send in the Clowns
Hello from the beach! I am typing this from a veranda overlooking the ocean whilst eating goat stew. This week’s newsletter will be abbreviated to cover a single topic, which is:
Perverting the Legal System
There has never been a better time to observe how the wealthy and powerful use lawyers to attempt to evade responsibility for their crimes. If you are a normal person without a multimillion-dollar legal team and you are charged with a crime, you hire an attorney. They will present your options, and perhaps meets with the prosecutor to negotiate a deal - nearly all criminal and civil cases end in some form of agreement.
If you are certain of your innocence and not willing to negotiate, your case goes to trial and your legal team springs into action. The judge sets guidelines, a jury decides on the facts, and a guilty or innocent verdict (or mistrial) is delivered. All pretty straightforward, right?
Not if you’re a wealthy or powerful person! Especially not if you’re an ex-president who is using most of his campaign funds to pay his legal bills. Or, maybe, one of his random cronies or defenders.
Donald
Since being indicted for a variety of crimes, Trump’s legal team has pulled out every stop to tip the scales in his favor. His first case - the hush money trial in New York - explored the concept of ‘removal’, or bumping a state case up to a federal court because, Trump’s lawyers argued, Trump was paying hush money to a porn star in his role as a federal government official. The judge denied the motion, perhaps because Trump was only a candidate at the time, but that hasn’t stopped them from attempting the same gambit in the more recent Georgia election interference case.
Moving a state case to federal court means Trump could potentially find a favorable jury, because the pool widen beyond Manhattan or Atlanta, and the chances of a loyal MAGA ending up in the final twelve would increase beyond, like, five percent. Legal scholars are highly skeptical of this defense, but Trump’s got the money and lawyers willing to book the billable hours to explore it.
Believe it or not, Trump is even trying to move his DC sedition trial to West Virginia to find a ‘fairer’ jury. A DC resident who committed crimes in DC and was indicted by a DC grand jury believes he should be able to pick a new venue because they voted for him overwhelmingly in an election. It’s highly unlikely to succeed, but it illustrates what you can try if you’ve got the money.
Elsewhere, Trump’s mugshot crew has, for whatever reason, sought a speedy trial in Georgia, leading Trump to attempt to extricate himself from them, because an October trial would be disastrous for his campaign fundraising, which his legal strategy literally rests upon.
Mark
One of Trump’s newly indicted co-conspirators Mark Meadows is taking a different approach. He’s arguing that he shouldn’t be charged with crimes at all because he was acting in his official duty as White House chief of staff when he pressured Georgia election officials to overturn the election. Presidents and their employees are not charged with overseeing elections, but hey, it’s worth a shot.
His lawyers filed an appeal with a federal judge to block him from being arrested in Georgia, after the DA denied repeated requests for an extension for Meadows to turn himself in. Again, normal criminals are not given 2 week leeway to report for booking like Trump and his crew were, but such is the deference shown the politically connected.
This week, as part of his gambit, Meadows testified for over three hours claiming everything he did was as part of his duty as a federal government employee and servant of the US. Much like Trump’s claim that his attempts to influence the election were ‘free speech’, the idea that Meadows being immune from doing crimes while on government payroll is laughable on its face, but he only has to convince one federal judge - many of whom his old boss appointed - to further drag things out and delay justice.
Worth noting in Meadows and Trump et al’s cases is if they get kicked up to federal charges they could be eligible for a pardon if Trump or one of the GOP sycophants running against him were to regain office.
Ken
Our old friend Ken Paxton is in the midst of a wide-ranging, ongoing impeachment hearing as well as a federal criminal investigation into his many abuses of office and general corruption (not to be confused with his securities fraud trial, which happened before he got into office.)
Fresh allegations about Paxton are coming out on a nearly weekly basis - perhaps the most symbolic is the story that he bought designer jackets on the state’s dime and stole cakes from his staffers.
How is Paxton responding? Well, his legal team has argued that most of his impeachment charges should be thrown out because voters elected him despite knowing about his rampant corruption:
In their motion to dismiss, Paxton’s lawyers argued that almost all of the allegations outlined by House investigators were known to voters at the time of his most recent election, and that his impeachment would thus negate the will of Texas voters.
This is not technically a case that’s being prosecuted in a public court, but it’s still quite the gambit. It probably won’t work, but we can still admire the gumption involved in trying to invalidate corruption charges because you won an election.
Rudy
If you’re pounding the table chanting his name like you’re in Madison Square Garden for a wrestling match, you aren’t alone. America’s Mayor is a regular around these parts, because he simply cannot stop doing illegal shit. What’s Rudy up to lately?
He’s been seen at a bail bond office, which doesn’t bode well for his criminal defense in Georgia. His uh, ex- or current boss is clearly not ponying up for his legal defense, but he agreed to slap a few damp palms at a fundraiser for Rudy this month.
Rudy’s general approach to the many lawsuits and now criminal complaints against him is, to put it mildly, lackadaisical. While Meadows and Trump and some of the other folks involved are hiring competent lawyers to provide them with representation, Rudy is taking another approach and mostly doing stuff to get sanctioned and piss off judges.
His latest gambit in his ‘legal’ defense was to admit that he defamed Georgia election workers for….reasons?
Mr. Giuliani’s legal team has sought to clarify that he was not admitting to wrongdoing, and that his stipulations were solely meant to short circuit the costly process of producing documents and other records to Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss so that he could move toward dismissing the allegations outright.
Stipulating you lied when you’re being sued for lying is perhaps not the most coherent legal strategy, but Rudy is not the most coherent former lawyer. He’s facing a divorce proceeding, a criminal proceeding, and at least one new civil lawsuit claiming he stole a bunch of money from donors after promising to make a damaging Biden documentary that never happened, which tracks with his general approach to both attempts to overturn the 2020 election and his life more generally. Good luck Rudy, I’m sure whatever lawyers willing to defend your broke ass in court will do a great job.
Short Cons
Verge - “Tornado Cash is a so-called “mixer,” a privacy service meant to obscure the trail of ownership for cryptocurrency that passes through it. The mixer “knowingly violated” US sanctions and “laundered more than $1 billion in criminal proceeds…”
NYT - “In total, 7,704 Facebook accounts, 954 Facebook pages, 15 Facebook groups and 15 Instagram accounts tied to the Chinese campaign were removed by Meta…”
Gizmodo - ““We do not share SAT scores or GPAs with Facebook or TikTok, and any other third parties using pixels or cookies,” said a College Board spokesperson. […] The spokesperson then acknowledged that the College Board’s website actually does share data about the GPAs students report, along with the SAT ranges students use for searches.”
ProPublica - “He’d been disciplined by medical boards in over a dozen states, lost privileges in multiple hospitals and settled federal allegations of fraud, admitting that his company had performed procedures without any documented need. Pennsylvania had tried to shut his clinics down. Just a few months ago, federal attorneys announced a case against him, claiming he put “profits over the health and safety of his patients” when performing invasive artery procedures, regardless of symptoms or need.”
NY Times - “The last time the Food and Drug Administration approved new active ingredients for use in sunscreens was more than two decades ago, and at times it can feel as if the rest of the world has surpassed the United States in the development of new sunscreen formulations and protocols.”
Know someone contemplating overthrowing an election with a bunch of dime store crooks? Send them this newsletter.