Paxton said that the 20-year-old woman who received the pills ended up in a hospital with complications. It was only after that, the state said in its filing, that the man described as “the biological father of the unborn child” learned of the pregnancy and the abortion. //

Texas laws prohibit a physician or medical supplier from providing any abortion-inducing drugs by courier, delivery, or mail service. Additionally, no physician may treat patients or prescribe Texas residents medicine through telehealth services unless the doctor holds a valid Texas medical license.

Dr. Carpenter knowingly treated Texas residents despite not being a licensed Texas physician and not being authorized to practice telemedicine in Texas. Attorney General Paxton requested the court enjoin Dr. Carpenter from violating Texas law and impose civil penalties of no less than $100,000 for each violation of the law. //

Just Me Here
5 hours ago
If they can mandate on-line sales tax by state they should be able to mandate on-line sales restriction for items based on state laws.
As I type this I remember they do this with many items sold in CA (many restrictions) and for hemp items in various states.
Guess I answered my own question.

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has delivered a landmark decision striking down Nasdaq’s board diversity rules, marking a significant setback for corporate diversity initiatives imposed by regulatory bodies.

While the rules aimed to increase representation of women and minorities on corporate boards, the court found them inconsistent with federal securities laws, emphasizing limits on the authority of regulatory agencies to shape corporate governance. The Fifth Circuit's ruling deals a blow to recent, progressive trends in the corporate world - pushed by government agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) - calling for more diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) on corporate boards. //

The ruling redefines the landscape for diversity efforts in corporate America. It underscores that DEI goals must be pursued voluntarily and market-driven rather than through regulatory mandates. Nasdaq, acknowledging the court’s decision, stated it would not seek further review. Meanwhile, the SEC is evaluating its response.

Trump campaign lawyer Jim Troupis, who helped guide the alternate electors plan, spoke publicly for the first time as AG files more charges.

The day before the contentious 2020 election, Jim Troupis ranked among the most respected attorneys in Wisconsin. Two years after he represented President Donald Trump in his Badger State election challenges, Troupis says he couldn’t find a lawyer to write his estate plan. A lot of the friends he worked with over his distinguished legal career disappeared faster than a lawsuit against a prosecutor.

“Nothing had changed, I had simply represented Donald Trump,” Troupis told conservative talk show host Vicki McKenna Tuesday afternoon. “This has been unbelievably painful for me and my family.”

The pain got worse Tuesday as Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, a highly partisan Democrat with higher political ambitions, announced more criminal charges against Troupis, fellow Trump attorney Kenneth Chesebro, and Trump campaign official Michael Roman. The three men are caught up in Kaul’s politically driven electors prosecution, a last-ditch effort to try to lock up allies of President-elect Trump and send a message that the left’s scorched earth lawfare campaign is far from over.

“…as a condition of participating in the modern economy, Americans are forced to disclose details of their private lives to a financial industry that has been too eager to pass this information along to federal law enforcement.”

A report from the House Judiciary Committee and Government Weaponization Subcommittee exposed the FBI for abusing the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) to spy on Americans’ bank accounts without a warrant.

“Documents show that federal law enforcement increasingly works hand-in-glove with financial institutions, obtaining virtually unchecked access to private financial data and testing out new methods and new technology to continue the financial surveillance of American citizens,” according to the report.

Afederal judge on Monday granted former President Donald Trump’s request for the appointment of a special master to review the documents seized by the FBI during a raid on his Mar-a-Lago home last month. Presiding Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, further held that the Department of Justice cannot review or use for criminal investigative purposes any material seized pending the review process.

Besides handing Trump a victory in his battle for some oversight of the Biden administration’s digging into his documents, Cannon highlighted several significant facts over the course of her 24-page order that further call into question the DOJ’s targeting of Trump.

Here are the seven top-line takeaways:

1. President Biden Was Directly Involved

The very idea that a blanket preemptive pardon would be handed out is an anathema to the very idea of justice because it would occur before any charges were made. And it would prevent any charges from ever being leveled. As such, the idea of preemptive clemency simply gives one carte blanche to act in any manner he/she sees fit while in office, provided they have the expectation of pardon. //

I don't see how this leads to anything but a pathway to the abuse of political power. //

If you cannot ever have a trial, then a guy like Mayorkas can treat the entire country like his own little fiefdom and forever change the United States culturally, socially, and legally. All on his own. And with a blanket and preemptive pardon, presidential cabinet members, NGOs, and partisan bureaucrats have the freedom to make policy that we didn't vote for and probably never would.

What the progressives could gain, if Markey were to get his Christmas wish, is a short-term insurance policy against prosecution for guys like Mayorkas, or John Brennan, or Mark Milley, but it will set a precedent for long-term abuse by presidents in the future. Trump could employ the same tactics, and while the progs would scream and shout, there wouldn't be much they could do about it legally, not to mention the fact that they were the ones who started rolling that snowball down the hill in the first place. //

Now, for Trump, if he were to find himself in the position where he could not prosecute certain individuals for treason or malfeasance, perhaps he could at least have them investigated. The products of such interrogatories might not lead to any charges because of the pardons, but at least such "fact-finding endeavors" might illuminate what abuses (if any) actually occurred so that we could avoid more in the future. This information would be made public to the electorate, and from that, what happens happens.

Tearing down institutions and traditions tears apart a society, a country. Sure, things can evolve over time, but to rip stuff out by the roots all at once is very reckless. Issuing preemptive pardons before any charges are even leveled prevents justice because we never have an opportunity to find out if it was ever being served in the first place. Did Mayorkas break the border all of his own volition just because he felt like it? Was he instructed to do it? If so, by whom? Who does he report to? Oh...the president. //

Billy Wallace
20 minutes ago edited
Pardoning everyone in your administration will be the new normal if Biden does it

if Biden does it, Trump most certainly will in January 2029, and why wouldn't he? I would

it will just become standard operating procedure, as will issuing an executive order declaring any and all records and documents in your possession to be declassified personal records

During a Monday night panel on Fox News’ Hannity, investigative journalist John Solomon, editor of Just the News, and Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett discussed the ongoing risks facing Hunter and the Biden family. //

Solomon said, “You can’t bring criminal charges against Hunter Biden, but there’s nothing that prevents the Trump Justice Department from filing a fraud case and seeking civil remedy and taking money from him and other members of the family on allegations that they reported false information. They committed fraud. Those are things that are still on the table. A pardon doesn’t protect you from civil actions.”

“He no longer will be able to deny or say ‘I don’t want to testify in any proceedings because I invoke my Fifth Amendment right against incrimination.’ The president took that away from him, so he’s going to have to testify if he’s compelled.”. //

The panel unanimously agreed that the pardon was more than just a selfless gesture from a loving father. Its broad immunity, covering the period from January 2014 to December 2024, revealed its true intent. As I mentioned yesterday, 2014 marked the beginning of Hunter’s tenure on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings. This was the year the family’s influence-peddling operation ramped up, and the flow of money began.

Tristan Leavitt
@tristanleavitt
·
Follow
🚨 This opinion from the judge overseeing the tax prosecution of Hunter Biden is worth reading every word…
Jerry Dunleavy IV 🇺🇸
@JerryDunleavy
U.S. district court judge takes issue with Biden’s claim in his pardon that no reasonable person looking at the case could reach any conclusion other than that Hunter was targeted because he is the POTUS’s son, noting that federal judges & Biden’s own DOJ rejected that argument.
8:40 PM · Dec 3, 2024

The net effect of Scarsi's order is that the California case against Hunter is now also terminated. But after first noting that Hunter's team botched things by merely providing a hyperlink to the White House press release regarding the pardon rather than filing an accurate copy of the pardon, Scarsi included some delicious parting shots on the matter (emphasis added, citations omitted):

The President’s statement illustrates the reasons for the Court’s disapproval, as representations contained therein stand in tension with the case record.

For example, the President asserts that Mr. Biden “was treated differently” from others “who were late paying their taxes because of serious addictions,” implying that Mr. Biden was among those individuals who untimely paid taxes due to addiction. But he is not. In his pretrial filings, Mr. Biden represented that he “was severely addicted to alcohol and drugs” “through May 2019.”...Upon pleading guilty to the charges in this case, Mr. Biden admitted that he engaged in tax evasion after this period of addiction by wrongfully deducting as business expenses items he knew were personal expenses, including luxury clothing, escort services, and his daughter’s law school tuition.

...

According to the President, “[n]o reasonable person who looks at the facts of [Mr. Biden’s] cases can reach any other conclusion than [Mr. Biden] was singled out only because he is [the President’s] son.” But two federal judges expressly rejected Mr. Biden’s arguments that the Government prosecuted Mr. Biden because of his familial relation to the President...And the President’s own Attorney General and Department of Justice personnel oversaw the investigation leading to the charges. In the President’s estimation, this legion of federal civil servants, the undersigned included, are unreasonable people.

In short, a press release is not a pardon. The Constitution provides the President with broad authority to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, U.S. Const. art. II, § 2, cl. 1, but nowhere does the Constitution give the President the authority to rewrite history.

As a matter of past-practice in this district, courts do not dismiss indictments when pardons are granted. Rather, in each of the most recent cases where pardons have been granted by former President Obama and former President Trump, the United States District Court for the Central District of California has not dismissed the indictment. Instead, it has been the practice of this court that once an Executive Grant of Clemency has been filed on the docket, the docket is marked closed, the disposition entry is updated to reflect the executive grant of clemency, and no further action is taken by the Court. //

What is clear is that the Government, while it accepts Joe Biden's act of mercy as to his son, is not cool with the notion that the "charges should be wiped away because the defendant falsely claimed that the charges were the result of some improper motive." For good measure, the pleading adds, "No court has agreed with the defendant on these baseless claims, and his request to dismiss the indictment finds no support in the law or the practice of this district."

The pardon power has seen some... questionable uses throughout the history of the Republic.

Now that Donald Trump is headed to the White House, he has to make a decision vital to the Republic's health. Over the last eight years, President Trump and his allies have been the subject of a non-stop stream of lawfare attacks designed to cripple him while he was president and later, after he peacefully turned over the reigns of power to the addled Joe Biden, to imprison him for what could have been the rest of his life. The campaign to jail him was clearly a conspiracy involving Biden Attorney General Merrick Garland, New York Attorney General Letitia James, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, and Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis.

The extent to which the civil cases against him were coordinated with the criminal cases has never, as far as I know, been explored, but it is hard to imagine that it did not exist. This use of the judicial system to attempt to impoverish and imprison political opponents is foreign to the United States and to its founding principles. The decision that Trump has to make is to either ignore the attacks calculated to ruin his life or should he be faithful to the promise he made at CPAC in March 2023, seek retribution.

In 2016, I declared I am your voice. Today I add I am your Warrior, I am your Justice, and for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your Retribution. //

Here is where we'd part company. These people tried to imprison Trump for what would have statistically been the rest of his life. They went after the January 6 protesters using a patent over-expansion of the law that the Supreme Court had to smack it down: Supreme Court Hands Down Blockbuster Ruling in Case That Will Impact Multiple J6 Defendants. Even now, Garland's prosecutors are fighting to extend misdemeanor sentences into terms lasting years behind bars because the Supreme Court repudiated them.

As recounted in our posts on Garland's thugs bringing a false and malicious prosecution against a pro-life demonstrator, these people were willing to lie to put their political enemies behind bars and to try and intimidate them. //

Just remember, the convictions are icing on the cake. The process is the punishment. A battalion of bankrupted and unemployable DOJ lawyers and FBI agents living in refrigerator cartons under bridges across the country would provide a daily lesson to what happens when you abuse your power and try to deprive other people of their freedom and livelihoods. //

Only when we've plowed the soil of the Deep State with salt can we talk about a truce. But the personal damage we inflict over the next four years, in terms of jail time, bankruptcies, and legal judgments, must so terrify that second tier of Deep Staters that no matter what another batch of Democrat operatives cook up, they will refuse to get involved. //

eattheelite Mongoose
4 hours ago edited
With humans being human, and all, a caution against abuses from our side is warranted. Trump will not humiliate a fellow president to advance a political ball or satiate his righteously outraged supporters and he's been clear about that much. The best, and, in general, the only, truly sustainable preventive measure is the vigilence of an informed electorate, and it worked precisely as forseen by the Founders even in the face of globalist headwinds. This time. There's a bigger picture here than an eye for an eye. If we get lost in it, which I could so easily find myself doing after eight years of political jujitsu, we'll lose the better of what MAGA can do for Americans and the world. My two cents. Now I'll go back to streaming the View and watching Ellen's English mansion flood because I do get a kick out of witnessing the cosmic justice of their all-consuming and well-earned misery. A guilty pleasure, I know. (I just don't care. Well, I just don't care yet, anyway.) I believe the left calls it self-care! //

anon-o62w
7 hours ago
It's not revenge. It's not payback. It's a crime against the American People. There must be some severe ramifications to deter this tactic by either party in the future. Trumps cases were manufactured. People in power colluded. If proven..jail. Like anyone else. It's not just Trump..it's Jan 6ers, Rudy G....the list is endless. The mistake is Trump is targeted because he's Trump. Believe me, DeSantis, Vance..they will be victims next cycle if the full weight of the law is not brought down on officials who have engaged in this tactic. //

GBenton
6 hours ago
Andy McCarthy is a muppet. He got the Russia Russia thing wrong and a lot more. They all need to pay with reciprocal lawfare for one key reason he failed to address: Trump was innocent but they are actually guilty.

So it's not even lawfare, though I would be fine with reciprocal lawfare either way for reasons this post states already. But the fact is we have to restore the rule of law and prove no one is above it, least of all those who abused power. They must be made to care, as the saying goes, or we will never see the end of this.

On top of everyone mentioned in this post, the folks who engage in voter and election fraud need prison time. If we do not secure our elections we will someday no longer have a country. I do not believe the left can win national elections without illegal aliens and dead people and bogus ballots. We need voter ID, but we also need to absolutely crucify those who stole any elections within the statute of limitations, mostly figuratively speaking but I'm open to literally, too, if they are convicted because stealing elections should be regarded as akin to treason.

Abolute power corrupts absolutely - and the ability to steal elections is simply too dangerous to let be a feature of our process. Paper ballots, voter ID, and life sentences for cheaters and those who organize and fund cheating.

Then we can deal with the media who do nothing but gaslight us with Democrat propaganda. //

Marek76
8 hours ago
Forget the higher ground, justified prosecution for actual crimes is essential if we are to be a nation of laws. The DOJ needs to fear accountability if they abuse their power.

More than 120 corporate giants have just issued a joint letter putting themselves squarely on the side of patent infringers and against America’s smaller innovative companies.

They present their case in the appealing-sounding language of “disclosure” and “transparency.” But when smaller inventors are in court trying to enforce their lawful patent rights against infringement, the main effect of a sweeping new disclosure requirement would be lengthier proceedings, more expenses, and a big advantage for deep-pocketed infringers.

The letter’s proposal, now under consideration in Congress in draft legislation known as the Litigation Transparency Act, is aimed directly at the ability of such inventors to pay legal bills and other expenses they incur when they go to court to enforce their patents. The legislation would impose a strict disclosure requirement on sources of funding for their lawsuits.

Yet such funding has nothing to do with whether infringement has taken place and, if so, what damages are due. For the sake of smaller inventors who depend heavily on intellectual property rights, this legislation needs to go back to the drawing board.

The letter-writers and Rep. Darrell Issa, the legislation’s author, claim that withholding information about financing is “unfair” and “fundamentally alters the dynamics” of legal cases.

I disagree. Rather, imposing invasive disclosure requirements would reduce or eliminate funding, and therefore, access to justice.

America’s startups and small businesses are facing unprecedented attacks on their intellectual property. Rather than taking the proper steps to legally license patent rights on their product, some wealthy corporations are simply appropriating the patented technologies they want. When caught, they call on their vast financial resources to prolong lawsuits and make them as expensive as possible. In many cases, such tactics have forced startups to surrender or, at best, settle out of court for a fraction of their losses.

Though unfair, the practice is frequently effective. It’s known as “efficient” or “predatory” infringement.

Infringers simply treat any damages they end up paying as a cost of doing business. In fact, predatory infringement is so pervasive that CEOs are willing to boast about it publicly. //

Courts have demonstrated their ability to strike an appropriate balance between transparency and safeguarding privileged information. An invasive mandatory disclosure rule would place small businesses and startups at a disadvantage by revealing their legal strategies and financial resources. Infringers could exploit this information to prolong trials, inundate opponents with motions and challenges to court filings, and launch damaging harassment campaigns against third-party investors.

But they apparently weren't done yet. They hit the trifecta on Friday when they had to, for the third time in a week, read legal notes, and this time, they had to do it four times in a single show. //

Doug Powers
@ThePowersThatBe
·
Follow
“And now a word from our attorneys” has become my favorite daily segment on The View.
Nicholas Fondacaro
@NickFondacaro
Sunny Hostin sighs as she's forced to, for the third time this week, read a legal note about The View's claims against Matt Gaetz and Pete Hegseth.
Joy Behar then baselessly accuses Hegseth of witness tampering. No legal note was provided for that false claim.
Embedded video
1:52 PM · Nov 22, 2024

Cernovich
@Cernovich
·
Follow
A Soros DA dropped charges, that's what this case was about. Jussie Smollett is innocent as a matter of law, guilty as a matter of fact.
Jason Meisner
@jmetr22b
JUST IN: The Illinois Supreme Court has undone Jussie Smollett's conviction for orchestrating and reporting a phony hate crime.
Background:
https://chicagotribune.com/2021/12/09/jussie-smolletts-conviction-for-orchestrating-and-reporting-a-phony-hate-crime-punctuates-actors-sudden-downfall/
11:28 AM · Nov 21, 2024

The ruling does not mean that the court is saying Smollett is innocent of the crime; they’re saying that Kim Foxx’s original deal with him should have protected him from being charged a second time. //

Watt
12 minutes ago
The rule in the opinion (text at link at the end of the second block quote in this post) appears to be that, although a unilateral nolle prosqui by the State allows the state to re-bring the charges, that is not the case when the State and defendant (as here) enter a bilateral agreement to nolle pros that by its terms indicates that the parties intend to bring finality to the case. Oh well...

The files are all exhibits to a motion filed in a defamation case in Florida related to the sex trafficking allegations levied against Gaetz - allegations the US Department of Justice investigated for 18 months before declining to pursue charges because, sources told the Washington Post, the two main witnesses weren't credible. Some of the exhibits, including deposition testimony from a woman who claims she had sex with Gaetz when she was 17, have been sealed by the judge presiding over that case. //

In reply to ABC's "story," Gaetz said:

"These allegations are invented and would constitute false testimony to Congress. This false smear following a three-year criminal investigation should be viewed with great skepticism.". //

As I wrote back then, after Gaetz blistered Wray over the FBI's harassment of COVID whistleblower and Chinese defector Dr. Yan Li-Meng during a congressional hearing:

Is it any wonder that the entire Democrat/Media Complex is trying to destroy Matt Gaetz? Think about when the questions into his supposedly improper relationships with females started flooding the airwaves and which government organization is “investigating” Gaetz. I’m sure it’s all just a big coincidence and not an attempt to silence or intimidate Gaetz.

Bash Ars Scholae Palatinae
20y
1,191

Freedom of speech does not include the right:

• To incite imminent lawless action.
  Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969).
• To make or distribute obscene materials.
  Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476 (1957).
• To burn draft cards as an anti-war protest.
  United States v. O’Brien, 391 U.S. 367 (1968).
• To permit students to print articles in a school newspaper over the objections of the school administration. Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, 484 U.S. 260 (1988).
• Of students to make an obscene speech at a school-sponsored event. Bethel School District #43 v. Fraser, 478 U.S. 675 (1986).
• Of students to advocate illegal drug use at a school-sponsored event.
  Morse v. Frederick, U.S. (2007).

What Does Free Speech Mean?
Among other cherished values, the First Amendment protects freedom of speech. Learn about what this means.
www.uscourts.gov

The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit summarily vaporized 46 years of Federal environmental regulations. Writing in a case called Marin Audubon Society, et al v. FAA, et al, the majority of a three-judge panel ruled that the Council on Environmental Quality, a cabal inside the Executive Office of the President charged with ensuring that National Environmental Protection Act requirements are interpreted uniformly across the federal government, had illegally used the Federal Register to publish that guidance thereby giving citizens, agencies, and even the courts the impression that their internal guidance had the authority of law. //

The CEQ regulations, which purport to govern how all federal agencies must comply with the National Environmental Policy Act, are ultra vires.

Ultra vires means the CEQ was acting "beyond the legal scope of it authority."

The court goes on to detail the shenanigans by which an advisory body with no regulatory authority was able to write environmental regulations for the entire United States for nearly a half-century just because it decided it could.

Making the case even more awesome is that it was set off by enviro-wackos suing the FAA for allowing sightseeing flights near some national parks. The enviros claimed the FAA used the wrong standard established by the CEQ to permit the flight. They ended up being right in a backhanded kind of way. //

frylock234
13 hours ago
I love the smell of bureaucracy burning in the morning. Which windows do I leave open to enjoy that scent? Do you think Mrs. Walz would know?

Daily Wire @realDailyWire
·
EXCLUSIVE: Internal messages obtained by The Daily Wire show a FEMA official ordered relief workers in Florida not to help houses with Trump signs
4:28 PM · Nov 8, 2024. //

FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell announced the firing of a FEMA manager who ordered her staff not to assist residents displaying flags or yard signs supporting President-elect Donald Trump's campaign. Using a Saturday afternoon message on the social media platform "X," formerly known as Twitter, Criswell acknowledged the veracity of the report that first appeared in the Daily Wire (see OUTRAGE: FEMA Workers Working Hurricane Milton Aftermath Ordered to Bypass Houses With Trump Signs). This follows a report that the responsible official was "removed" from their position on Friday. //

Firing is a necessary but not sufficient step.

First, this announcement does not appear on FEMA's website in any form other than a tweet. It seems to me that this should rate some sort of an official statement.

Second, Washington's message does not give the impression that she came up with it independently. In my opinion, it looks very much like a safety briefing she took down at a meeting.

Third, firing her and referring the case to the Office of Special Counsel looks more like an exercise in butt-covering and scapegoating than concern about her actions.

Fourth, while her actions may be viewed as just the petty tyranny we've come to expect from a highly politicized federal bureaucracy, depriving citizens of federal assistance because they supported a major party candidate is a violation of multiple federal laws. FEMA seems to be attempting to appear to take action until the heat dies down. Fortunately, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis isn't going along to get along. //

At a minimum, all staff working under her supervisory chain need to be questioned about the instructions they received. It is entirely possible that Washington was the only team leader dim enough to write down and disseminate something meant to be unsaid. In fact, it is unbelievable that this was not FEMA policy in that area. A thorough investigation that results in firing everyone involved with this policy is not enough. Asses need to go to jail. //

Dutchsinse @RealDutchsinse
·
In their own words this is illegal Mr. Desantis .. see here!!!! https://dhs.gov/civil-rights-emergencies-and-disasters

Political discrimination during disasters is also covered under the law confirmed. Screenshot from DHS site directly attached.
5:12 AM · Nov 9, 2024

As a result of the election held on November 5, 2024, the defendant is expected to be certified as President-elect on January 6, 2025, and inaugurated on January 20, 2025. The Government respectfully requests that the Court vacate the remaining deadlines in the pretrial schedule to afford the Government time to assess this unprecedented circumstance and determine the appropriate course going forward consistent with Department of Justice policy, //

MINUTE ORDER as to DONALD J. TRUMP: The Government's 278 Unopposed Motion to Vacate Briefing Schedule is hereby GRANTED. All remaining deadlines in the pretrial schedule are VACATED. By December 2, 2024, the Government shall file a status report indicating its proposed course for this case going forward. Signed by Judge Tanya S. Chutkan on 11/8/2024.

Merchan might throw out the conviction due to the Supreme Court ruling that a president has “at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts.”. //

retiredcantbefired | November 7, 2024 at 6:10 pm
Why won’t Merchan uphold the conviction and then sentence Trump to as much prison time as he can pile on?

Hasn’t that always been the aim? //

TargaGTS in reply to retiredcantbefired. | November 7, 2024 at 6:23 pm
He could do that. But, because immunity claims are immediately appealable. He can sentence Trump to prison but that sentence would immediately be stayed by an appellate court pending appellate review. In fact, had SCOTUS issued their presidential immunity opinion prior to trial starting, that immunity claim as applied to the facts of this case would have had to have been settled prior to the trial starting. The thought process is, if someone is immune from prosecution, it’s not enough to keep them out of prison. It must be a prohibition on the process of the prosecution itself. //

PrincetonAl | November 7, 2024 at 6:14 pm
Merchan isn’t going to do anything for Trump’s benefit. He would do this for Democrats benefit.

The strategy would be rather than having this thrown out on appeal in NY, complain about the Supreme Court and throw it out pre-emptively. A NY state Court loss does the Democrats no good.

This would allow them to further attempt to undermine the Supreme Court and the immunity decision (which was a very reasonable one)

If he does it, that is why. //

Hodge | November 7, 2024 at 9:26 pm
The conviction was a political gambit to influence the election, and indeed almost every single one of my Democrat friends mentioned at least once in every conversation, so arguably it did have some impact.

However, it didn’t have enough impact; Trump won.

So, now the question is, what is the best path for the Democrats in winding this thing up? Trump will not run again and this makes the exercise rather pointless. Further, there seems to be some reason to believe that when this case reaches the Federal appeals level it will be exposed as legally insufficient, and keeping it in the limelight may more publicly expose questionable decisions and actions by the key players.

So, it may be better for Merchan to toss the whole thing, while blaming the Supremes for protecting Trump. The Democrats like to claim that the court in in the bag for Republicans, so that would play nicely to their base as an excuse while allowing Merchan to continue as a judge without any picky picky investigations into his conduct.