Of the major cases the US Supreme Court has heard this term, one that might not have gotten as much attention as it should have, is SEC versus Jarkesy. The court heard oral arguments at the end of November, 2023. The case goes to the question of whether or not administrative agencies have the ability to use administrative courts with administrative law judges rather than those that are under the Third Article of the constitution to enforce their regulations and rulings.

The case is broadly seen as getting to the heart of separation of powers. increasingly executive agencies have found ways to concentrate power within themselves and not having to deal with the other branches of government.

The appeal filed held the argument that using administrative judges violates the constitution. The filing stated that the executive using its own judges to rule effectively meant that there was no oversight of the executive agencies that were pressuring the charges.

It also noted that the 7th Amendment of the Constitution gives the defendant the right of a trial by jury. For any civil damages that are greater than $20 one can also seek a jury. Executive agencies using their own courts have consistently refused to allow juries to be used.

Bottom line: Congress can amend §666 to make it clear that acts like what Snyder did are illegal. What will come of this is bad faith actors pointing at the court and claiming that Snyder is another example of the high court defending corruption. Rather, it is SCOTUS defending liberty and requiring Congress to define criminal statutes with clarity and specificity.

In legal disputes, the threat of a lawsuit is often used as leverage to prompt a resolution. However, it’s essential to understand whether telling someone you will sue them constitutes a threat and the legal implications of such an action. This guide explores the legality and appropriateness of threatening to sue.

Is Telling Someone You Will Sue Them a Threat?

Yes, if you have a valid basis to sue someone, you absolutely can threaten to do so. A threat to sue, when based on legitimate legal grounds, is typically seen as part of legal negotiations and not inherently unlawful. //

Extortion or Coercion

Making a threat to sue with the intent to extort, coerce, or harass the other party can lead to legal consequences. Ensure your threat is based on seeking a legitimate legal remedy.

Defamation

Publicly threatening to sue or making defamatory statements about the other party can result in a defamation claim against you. Keep communications private and factual.

 The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a part of President Trump's 2017 'Tax Cuts and Jobs Act' that levied a tax on capital appreciation is constitutional. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote the majority opinion. Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch dissented.

The court ruled 7-2 that the mandatory repatriation tax, or MRT, is constitutional under the taxation regimes defined in Article I and the 16th Amendment. In short, the MRT imposed a one-time requirement for US citizens and companies to repatriate money held overseas. //

The Moores had earned $0 from their investment, but the value of their investment had increased because the business they invested in was successful. Because their investment was successful, that unrealized gain, which could totally disappear in a few months if things went pear-shaped, was taxed.

Why is this important?

The lodestar of the far left is "income inequality." They want everyone to be poor but them. Where their policies are defeated is by frugality and investment. //

The wealth tax's strategy is to prevent the accumulation of intergenerational wealth and penalize those who work hard, save, and invest in favor of those who consume. Every time your stock portfolio or home increases in value, a wealth tax would make that gain taxable, even if you didn't cash out. //

FreeWilledThinker
an hour ago
I just read the opinion and, even though I am a Constitutionalist and favor strict construction, I would have voted with the majority on this one. The reason why is due to the pass-through nature of the company. Every LLC in the U.S. works this way, where you get a K-1 and get taxed, even where not a cent has come into your bank account.

I think the muddy water comes from the ownership mechanism. As a shareholder, the Moore's wish to treat the pass-through as though it is not taxable on the owned company's income, but it would be were it based in the U.S. and did not pay any tax on the base income. //

Buckeye kamief
18 minutes ago
But that interest would be taxable if NOT in an IRA -- which is the crux of this. These folks were catching gains on a foreign corporation NOT in an IRA, yet because of reinvestment, they weren't paying any taxes. Compare to US tax code in existence -- if you have a stock and it's in a dividend re-investment program, which is effectively exactly what they were doing, you DO PAY TAXES on those dividends, even though you chose to re-invest. That's another reason I agree with the USSC on this one. Their Indian corporation was making money, but not calling it a "dividend", and they kept putting it back in....sorry that's basically tax evasion by US code.

 JSobieski
3 hours ago edited
This is nothing new and it is nothing bad.

Scalia and Thomas, while they voted more similarly than any other two justices during their shared tenure, actually had a BIG philosophical difference in how they approached the job. Barrett is kind of taking of making the Scalia-esque point, but because people see things almost exclusively through a political lens, they miss the bigger picture and context for the disagreement.

Justice Thomas is someone who subscribes to the concept of "natural law". A snarky liberal might call this concept the right-wing version of substantive due process, although natural law has a pedigree older than the US. https://www.thepublicdiscou...

Justice Scalia in contrast was a strict textualist. This approach is often referred to as "legal positivism". Scalia is famous for ignoring things like legislative history for example. https://www.cmc.edu/salvato... .

These two men agreed on the outcome the vast majority of the time, but their approaches to that outcome were actually quite different. Thomas was called Scalia's lapdog by people who looked at things through a political lens, but philosophically, they were in some ways very very different.

Barrett is apparently Scalia's intellectual heir... at least in this particular dispute.

Tolly JSobieski
2 hours ago
'Justice Scalia in contrast was a strict textualist.'

Agreed. Where some go sideways, I believe, is that some believe "textualism" equates to "originalist". There are distinctions. Those distinctions are many times found whenever the text of an Act are at issue, in the first instance, and when the provisions of the Constitution are in question, in the second.

etba_ss JSobieski
2 hours ago
Well said.

And Thomas' philosophy is superior.

JSobieski etba_ss
2 hours ago
Maybe. It depends on how much your prioritize self government.

There is some validity to the argument that "natural law" is just the right-wing version of "substantive due process", i.e. a doctrine that is sufficiently malleable to reach whatever outcome is desired.

When I was in law school, I agreed with you. But now as a seasoned lawyer and a long time follower of politics, I think strict textualism is the best way to constrain the judiciary. Of course, constraining the judificiary may then in fact enable Congress to overreach---so it is a pick your poison kind of thing.

There is a lot to be said for legal positivism.

Scholar JSobieski
2 hours ago
The question is the preference whether constraining judiciary or the legislature. The Founders preferred the latter as they are the representatives of the people. If Common Law was not so outdated we didn't have to have this dillema.

Tolly JSobieski
2 hours ago
Don't you mean constraining the legislators? If legislation was enacted that respected what the judiciary has already achieved by substantive due process, what then is the need for any other argument than precedent?; or "pedigree rather than principle", as Justice Barrett argues?

JSobieski Tolly
an hour ago
I mean constraining the legislature---the collective action of legislators. I guess you could call taht constraining legislation, but it is more common to think of constraining people. Separation of powers is typically said to constrain the branches of government, not the outputs created by the three branches of government. Same with respect to the constraining impact of federalism (prior to the income tax and New Deal expansion of the Commerce Clause).

To put it plainly, the left hates President Trump more than they love this country. Government officials at the federal and state levels have censored President Trump, filed civil suits in order to sanction him, illegally removed him from the ballot, and perverted the law in order to prosecute him. This is a strategic attack against a former President of the United States, against a current candidate for President, and against the value we as a Nation place on our system of government, our legal system, and our very identity. The term lawfare, while apt, fails to adequately convey the moral depravity underpinning this strategic attack. I encourage this body to address each tactical front in the broader conflict provoked by lawfare. //

Bailey outlines numerous flaws inherent in the prosecution:

1. Failing to uphold the rules of professional conduct by which prosecutors are bound
2. Failing to specify the other crime Trump was alleged to have committed/intended to commit in falsifying the business records, such that his Sixth Amendment rights were violated
3. Seeking a gag order in violation of Trump's First Amendment rights
4. Perverting the law to meet the facts rather than objectively applying the law
5. Failing to require unanimity from the jury on the predicate offense(s) //

Ready2Squeeze
18 minutes ago

To put it plainly, the left hates President Trump more than they love this country.

This should read:

To put it plainly, the left hates President Trump more than they love hate this country.

The prosecution team destroyed exculpatory evidence supporting one of the most basic defenses available to President Trump in response to the politically motivated charges in this case. The Special Counsel’s Office has wrongfully alleged that President Trump was aware of the contents of boxes in August 2022, where those boxes were packed by others in the White House and moved to Florida in January 2021. The fact that the allegedly classified documents were buried in boxes and comingled with President Trump’s personal effects from his first term in office strongly supported the defense argument that he lacked knowledge and culpable criminal intent with respect to the documents at issue. Any proximity between allegedly classified documents and other dated materials from years before the move, such as letters and newspapers, would have further strengthened this argument. The prosecution team’s instructions to agents who executed the raid essentially acknowledged these propositions, and directed the agents to take care to document the location of both seized items and potentially privileged materials.

However, the agents disregarded those instructions. The government was more interested in staging—and leaking—manipulated photographs to the press than preserving key exculpatory evidence that has now been lost forever. Trump, ECF No. 48-1.2 The agents did not maintain the order of the documents, and they did not take photographs that would have served as alternative evidence of the documents’ sequence in each box. In July 2023, the agents disclosed this fact during a meeting with prosecutors from the Special Counsel’s Office and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida (“USAO-SDFL”). But the Office did not timely disclose the notes from that meeting for almost a full year. Indeed, they persisted in that suppression, notwithstanding that the notes were responsive to an October 2023 discovery request from President Trump, while urging the Court to rush to trial based on false assurances that they were in compliance with their discovery obligations.

In hearings during March and April 2024, the Special Counsel’s Office misrepresented to the Court that the pre-raid sequence of the documents was intact. Only after an evidence inspection by counsel for President Trump’s co-defendants revealed the extent of the problem did the Office disclose in a May 3, 2024 filing that the documents were not intact as had been claimed previously. Vague language in that submission and corresponding additional discovery demands from President Trump caused these due process violations to further unravel.

KEY POINTS

• Plaintiffs argue that what's commonly known as the COVID-19 vaccine isn't a vaccine at all (because it doesn't prevent transmission), but is a therapeutic, so it cannot be mandated by law.
• At the U.S. District Court level, a judge ruled that a 1905 Supreme Court ruling (Jacobson v. Massachusetts) related to mandatory smallpox vaccination allowed the COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
• The 9th Circuit panel ruled that, taking the Plaintiff's pleadings as true (which they must at this point in the proceedings), Jacobson does not apply and that employees cannot be forced to receive "treatment" they don't want to receive.
• The ruling rejected LAUSD's claim that the suit is moot since the district had rescinded its mandate two weeks after oral arguments in this appeal went very poorly for the district, and gave a detailed timeline of LAUSD's continued attempts to manipulate the legal proceedings.

To fully appreciate LAUSD's manipulative tactics, you have to understand the timeline... //

Leslie Manookian of Health Defense Freedom Fund, one of the plaintiffs in the case, noted in a 2023 opinion piece that there's an unresolved conflict between Jacobson and another precedential SCOTUS case, Cruzan vs. Director, which held that medical treatments may be refused even if they might save a recipient’s life. And, she states, in Jacobson "the court decided that vaccines could be mandated in clearly defined and limited situations, such as a deadly smallpox outbreak. But COVID is not smallpox. What’s more, Jacobson allowed those who declined the vaccine to pay a fine — Jacobson did not allow the state to force a vaccine on unwilling recipients on pain of losing their livelihoods."

Public health officials, including former CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, have admitted for years (even before LAUSD's resurrected mandate on August 13, 2021) that the COVID-19 mRNA shot does not prevent transmission of the virus and was ineffective against the Delta variant.

And just this week former NIAID Director Dr. Anthony Fauci admitted under questioning from Congress that the COVID vaccine didn't stop transmission of the virus. //

In the decision Judge Ryan D. Nelson (a Trump appointee), detailed the unimpressive and unethical tactics used by LAUSD and its attorneys. //

It's important to note that the court did not find as a fact that the mRNA COVID shot is a treatment and not a vaccine, and did not find as a fact that it does not prevent the spread of COVID-19, as proceedings have not reached that stage; the court was simply ruling on a procedural motion as to whether the suit was moot and whether LAUSD's motion for judgment on the pleadings was properly decided.

Coordinated attacks on SCOTUS’s integrity, led by Democrats and their allies in the corporate media, try to deceive Americans into believing partisans hijacked the highest court in the land and ideologically fractured it into near-dysfunction. The prominence of unanimous opinions and even more unanimous judgments not only discredits this notion but suggests a far more concerning narrative about the politicization of lower courts.

Since its inception, the Supreme Court has wielded its authority to deliver decisions rooted in bench agreement. In recent years, especially, justices “defied critics” with “historic unanimity” on cases that circuit, appeals, and state supreme courts decided in defiance of the Constitution. Of the 32 cases already decided in the 2023 term, 21 of the judgments were agreed upon by all of the presiding justices. Many of them signaled justices’ concern that lower courts abused their ruling power to violate the Constitution. //

The Supreme Court’s recent string of unanimous decisions not only serves as a reminder that corporate media are deliberately deceptive, but also suggests that lower courts are abusing their power to achieve partisan and, more importantly, unconstitutional results.

Due to the sheer volume of the complaints, Pryor deemed the situation exceptional and ordered the clerk to post the order to the website rather than attempting to send a copy to each complainant.

Pryor also notes that four of the complaints received since May 16th have been considered and dismissed for lack of sufficient evidence of any misconduct. //

Leslie McAdoo Gordon 🇺🇸 @McAdooGordon
·
Nothing Judge Cannon has done is judicial misconduct.

Falsely accusing a judge of misconduct & encouraging others to do so IS misconduct by a lawyer, however, in most jurisdictions.

Glenn Kirschner @glennkirschner2
Judge Aileen Cannon's Pro-Trump Bias Is Showing: Here's a step-by-step guide to filing a Judicial Misconduct Complaint with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. Because #JusticeMatters https://youtu.be/0MXVfiTa3KM?si=if3qYyfWIHZhUA2q
4:46 PM · May 12, 2024. //

Donner’s Party
8 hours ago
When Merchan disregards Due Process, the Rights of the Defendant to Call Witnesses, on his behalf, doesn’t even insist that the prosecution name the crime, and prods the jury to find the defendant guilty for any reason out of four,(without any chance they won’t find him guilty), he’s a hero!
Cannon insists that the prosecution abide by the laws, that THEY are sworn to enforce, and SHE’s the Villain!
Yeah, we are ripe, bring on the Rapture. //

Fishin'withFredo
5 hours ago
Over 1000 complaints since May 16? Orchestrated is an understatement. Cannon has been the only objective judge in this entire fiasco.

should Trump be reelected (Alvin Bragg may well have just sealed the deal on that), he would be a head of state, and would therefore have diplomatic immunity under the UN Convention on Special Missions of 1969. //

anon-x8p1
4 hours ago
I stand with George Washington, a felon if ever one existed.

anon-x8p1
4 hours ago
Which Founder of our entire country could not be branded as a treasonous felon against the Crown.

Happens from time to time. Go Team Trump.

GBenton anon-x8p1
4 hours ago
When the government is corrupt and the rule of law is persecution, conviction becomes a badge of honor.

First, any civil or criminal defendant in a federal case who plausibly asserts that political or ideological factors may taint a jury pool can veto the Washington DC circuit and receive a hearing in his or her choice of another randomly chosen circuit or the circuit of his or her home dwelling.

Second, regardless of what circuit a federal case is filed in, any civil or criminal defendant who plausibly asserts that political or ideological factors may taint a jury pool shall be entitled to a jury pool that is proportionally selected from a region that did not vote more than 70 percent in favor of one party’s candidate in the most recent presidential, senatorial, or congressional election.

Third, plaintiffs or prosecutors in a federal case may elect to have the case decided in a randomly assigned circuit other than the District of Columbia. This would ensure that corrupt and criminal Democrats do not get a free pass on anything they do simply because they know a DC jury pool would never convict them of anything, no matter how egregious the offense.

Fourth, Congress should mandate that any states receiving federal funds for any legal or law enforcement purposes must abide by the same rules guaranteeing a defendant a politically fair jury pool.

Fifth, state legislators should enact similar laws ensuring political fairness for trials in their state.

In summary, all Americans are entitled to a jury of our peers, or at least a jury that is not politically biased. Unfortunately, conservative Americans are being increasingly subjected to politically weaponized lawfare. //

Indylawyer
10 hours ago
This is a badly needed reform. Excellent point. We also need to eliminate most federal criminal statutes, and make sure the ones that are left are clearly and narrowly defined. They wouldn't be able to wage most of this lawfare without these vague and overweening criminal statutes. //

anon-8gsr
12 hours ago
All this articles says to me is conservatives have been woefully neglectful in preparing to fight the opposition, and still are. We all knew that though.

GBenton anon-8gsr
12 hours ago
If Trump wins in November we have to view this as the last opportunity to right the ship. After what Biden has done, including the lawfare and threats to pack the Supreme Court and end the filibuster, the mission is to destroy the corruption and neutralize the threat should a Democrat win in 2028.

That said, I think if the American people knew the full truth about the left there might not be much of a Democrat party for a while. Trump should declassify anything and everything on the Dems and their corruption going back to JFK (and before, as relevant), since I believe they had JFK killed, they set up Nixon, and they have their fingerprints on a whole lotta bad stuff including Waco, etc, not to mention what Hillary and Obama did.

Expose all the dirt. make it public.

GBenton Arik
12 hours ago
Stealing elections needs to carry a price similar to treason since it interferes with the peaceful tranfer of power and threatens the stability and survival of the republic and invites tyranny. //

I would only note it's not really "tit for tat" — it's about adhering to the law and applying it equally. //

Dieter Schultz
14 hours ago

"I'm not talking about violence," she made clear. "I'm talking about tit for tat," she said.

I'd just be happy if the GOP just decides to fight like they're in an existential war for this country's soul and act accordingly.

That might mean something that resembles "tit for tat" but, more important than that is just playing to win rather than playing to let the Dems win.

Betterdeadthanred Dieter Schultz
9 hours ago
Indeed. Sticking to our principles has gotten us here. Its certainly not going to get us out or guarantee a place at the back of the line at the camps.

Dieter Schultz Betterdeadthanred
9 hours ago edited

Indeed. Sticking to our principles has gotten us here.

I'm pretty sure it's not principles we're sticking to that's gotten us here.I keep saying that there are two kinds, and definitions, of conservative, the ideological and the personality type.

We can't seem to grok that the personality type conservative sounds a lot like the ideological conservative but with the basic impetus of "Favoring traditional views and values; tending to oppose change" and, because of that, they are NOT the same and, in fact, behave like RINOs.

It's not principles that are 'getting us here', it is being confused about which 'conservative' we're working with and wondering why people that 'tend to oppose change', you know, refuse to change the status quo that the left is clever enough to create for them so that they will 'refuse to act' to correct the ideological errors of the left's positions.

Tuesday, Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., who chairs the House Republican Conference, filed a complaint with the New York State Unified Court System alleging Judge Juan Merchan was secretly selected in contradiction to a legal mandate for the random assigning of judges. Judge Merchan, Stefanik noted, was somehow randomly selected to preside over a previous trial against the Trump Organization, an upcoming trial against former Trump White House adviser Steve Bannon, and Bragg’s criminal trial against Trump himself.

“If justices were indeed being randomly assigned in the Criminal Term, the probability of two specific criminal cases being assigned to the same justice is quite low, and the probability of three specific criminal cases being assigned to the same justice is infinitesimally small,” Stefanik wrote in a letter to state officials. “And yet, we see Acting Justice Merchan on all three cases.”

Pelican State officials have approved a proposal that says sex is “immutable,” that a “female” is someone who produces eggs absent a biological anomaly, and that a “male” is someone who produces sperm.

The proposal also says that K-12 educators must call a minor-age student by the name or pronoun listed on the child’s birth certificate.

Those provisions are similar to The Heritage Foundation’s model bills—and are bulwarks against dangerous gender ideology threatening women and girls. (Heritage founded The Daily Signal in 2014.)

Gov. Jeff Landry’s signature would make Louisiana the eighth state to adopt a version of a “Given Name Act,” which requires parental permission before a teacher can socially affirm a child’s confusion about his or her sex by using a name or pronoun that does not correspond to the student’s official records.

Lawmakers should insert parents back into important health-related conversations educators may have with the parents’ students. Children confused about their sex need compassion and wise counsel—and for their primary caregivers to be a part of those conversations.

It’s a dry heat
9 hours ago edited
Just to be clear, including a provision in the direction for conducting the search warrant specifically authorizing heavily armed men to use deadly force is not deemed by Smith as creating "a significant, imminent, and foreseeable danger" to a former President and his family is perfectly okay; but for Trump to recite verbatim this authorization to use deadly force against him and his family somehow creates an intolerable risk to Smith and his goons? That's the argument? Oh please, someone play some tiny violin music while Smith cowers against the possibility that the FBI threat to kill Trump might make some people mad.

Smith should include in his request that Trump not make mention of the fact the FBI staged that infamous photo of the so-called classified material that it recovered. When I read that it made me really mad.

Parents cannot effectively remove technology from their children day to day, so we must target the source of the danger itself. //

In the digital age, shielding our children from the pervasive threat of explicit online content has become an urgent concern demanding innovative and effective solutions. //

The singular dependency on individual filters stems from Supreme Court rulings in the late ’90s and early 2000s that ultimately determined that the internet was not so pervasive as TV and radio and therefore not subject to the same regulations. Adults’ rights to pornography outweighed the need to implement protections because the burden of government involvement was too restrictive and a disproportionate response to the problem at hand. The idea was that parents should simply protect their kids on their own dime rather than potentially threaten First Amendment rights.

Here’s the thing: First Amendment rights have never applied to obscenity. And while we might forgive the court for not predicting the future of broadband internet, the fact is it is now much more pervasive than TV and radio. The safety of our children demands action. //

The SCREEN Act, with its requirement for robust age-verification technologies, reflects a pragmatic and narrowly tailored solution to a complex problem. //

The only thing this bill does is ensure that pornography platforms perform the same age-verification checks that are already done by alcohol, tobacco, and gambling websites. This should be a slam dunk.

UpLateAgain Lightning47
5 hours ago
The raid should NEVER have been authorized. It was total BS. But should the language restricting the use of deadly force have been removed from the op order? Absolutely NOT. The Deadly Force Policy RESTRICTS the use of deadly force. It's not a green light to use it. It specifies the only conditions under which it can be used. Police at every level (including the FBI) are commonly reminded of the department's shooting policy before an action. To remove it would be LEGALLY seen as inviting gun play. //

GBenton Lex Naturae
4 hours ago
As in War Games, the only way to win this is not to play.

There should have been no raid. The language, per se, is not the real issue. Every raid has the language for a reason. But it IS a very big freaking reason why they never, ever should have done this. //

GBenton mikwcas
5 hours ago
yeah, we're witnessing fascism, Communism, and tyranny. And we're parsing whether the use of force order was extraordinary.

We need to make them live by their own rules. They hype up nonsense into crimes. Well, turn around is fair play. They create a scenario for an illegitimate raid that included potential for use of deadly force, they gotta own it.

Tone it down? No. Wrong answer. Shout it from the rooftops. Biden tried to kill Trump if the circumstances allowed. And Jack Smith tried to frame him and set up the hit.

Oh, it's not unique to Trump. SO WHAT?

The entire raid shouldn't have been used in the first place. And this only makes that a zillion times more true. //

GBenton bk
5 hours ago
Good people project their good nature on others. It's hard for some to see that evil is being done intentionally on our soil by our government. Conservatives want to have faith in law enforcement and the legal system. But it's all been perverted.

The bottom line is they are manufacturing fake crimes to persecute Trump and those around him, not to mention Christians, parents, etc.

We should not ever again give these filth the benefit of the doubt. When our side gets back in power, and it will happen some day, odds are, the game needs to change: They need to be prosecuted for their actual crimes and abuse of power.

The Bush/McCain/Romney doctrine of let bygones be bygones is suicide. Only one said plays by the rules so the game is rigged against us.

Or, we could keep taking the high road, not pushing every advantage, and let them basically win by default over time. //

GBenton Susie Moore
4 hours ago
Agree 100% Characterizing it as a "hit" is over stepping.

But that the order made it possible use of force could have resulted in death underscores how wildly irresponsible this raid was in the full context.

There should never have been a raid if that inherently involved a risk of loss of life over documents, etc.

Jonathan Turley
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9h
@JonathanTurley
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Follow
Blanche just got Cohen to say that he handed over $20,000 in a paper bag to close end a financial dispute. There is something quintessentially Cohen about the scene...
Jonathan Turley
@JonathanTurley
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Follow
...Weisselberg later paid Cohen for $60,000 rather than $20,000. Cohen admits that he stole from the Trump organization. He also told federal prosecutors about stealing the money but was never charged with larceny...
2:12 PM · May 20, 2024

Jonathan Turley
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9h
@JonathanTurley
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Follow
Replying to @JonathanTurley
...These are hits below the waterline for Cohen but also the prosecutors. They had a man admitting to a major larceny but never charged Cohen. That made Cohen not only their man, but allowed him to keep stolen money...
Jonathan Turley
@JonathanTurley
·
Follow
...Blanche is now going in for the kill. He was that he lied to Weisselberg and "to this day you have never fixed that" and disclosed this to the District Attorney...
2:14 PM · May 20, 2024 //

I can say with some certainty that in any normal situation, having the prosecution's star witness admit to being a dishonest thief would be a death blow to the case's credibility. Remember, everything revolves around Cohen, who is now claiming to be a patsy who was just doing the bidding of Trump in cutting the check to Stormy Daniels. //

FloridaTransplant
8 hours ago
Hey wait up. If the DA knew about the theft, didn't fix it, didn't inform the trump organization, and didn't prosecute, doesn't that make everyone involved in the DAs office and accessory to grand larceny? Arguably even conspiracy to the crime? //

FloridaTransplant DKnight
8 hours ago
Yes. Prosecutorial discretion is a thing. If for example the Trump organization discovered the fraud and reported it. Here however it seems that the DA discovered the fraud in the trial prep and DID NOT REPORT IT to the Trump organization. That is what should make them an accessory.

Thank you, Your Honor. I appreciate it. Family, friends, and allies and foundationalists and honored adversaries, today we enter the next phase in the fight to protect our God-given rights from a government that wishes to take them from us and grant us mere privileges in return. To quote another patriot from another place and time, "This is not the end. This is not even the beginning of the end. This is perhaps, the end of the beginning."

And so, as we enter this new phase, there should be no question in the mind of any patriotic American as to why we fight. After all, only slaves lack the right to arm self-defense and we are no slaves, but free citizens of a great republic and we contain multitudes each of us from builder, a healer, a teacher, a statesman, a soldier, a judge, an attorney at law, a sergeant at arms, and an image of God. So, we know why we fight.

The question before us is how we must fight. What kind of discipline we must bring with us into battle and what spirit we must show to our friends and adversaries alike and by way of answering, we refer to our core doctrines.

The foundationalist's manifesto calls us to listen closely and to speak clearly. To deny the self at the same time to defend the individual. To respect tradition and also to cultivate the future. In short, as foundationalists, we are called to embrace disciplines that seem to contradict each other but nonetheless, to embrace them with all of our strength.

So, it is in our current fight because this system as dysfunctional as it often is, as unjust as it often is, it is nonetheless, our system. It is a feature not a bug of our American civilization. Like any other structure built from man's crooked timber, it is not perfect. Judges and attorneys and trial courts and juries in the light of day are not perfect. Judges and attorneys and trial courts and juries in the light of day are merely what we have instead of the blood feud and the vendetta and the dagger in the dead of night.

Knowing this, we give challenge even as we give thanks. Knowing this, we prepare ourselves for battle in a spirit of profound dissatisfaction and profound gratitude in equal measure.
...
When I was a boy my grandfather told me that fire is a great servant, but a terrible master and so it is with Government. And to the extent that our own Government attempts to be our master, we must oppose it. We must fight to the utmost limits of our strength, but in that fight, our spirit must be one of restoration, not destruction. We must confront the enemy as the firefighter confronts his enemy and for the same reasons that the structure itself may yet, be saved.

God bless and keep you all and may God bless the United States of America. Thank you, Your Honor.