The Omnibus P01135809 Criminal Investigation Thread

At about an hour and fifteen minutes in, this episode explains some of the stuff. It's an actual lawyer talking, so presumably they know what they're talking about. If you want to poke around on some of their back episodes, you can find ones where they explain it in detail. Don't ask me which ones, I don't remember.

The Georgia Supreme Court unanimously voted to dismiss Trump's attempt to quash Atlanta DA Fani Willis's investigation into his election shenanigans.
via Politico...
The Georgia court said Trump was attempting an end-run around the normal process of seeking relief first in lower courts and there was no reason to permit that in these circumstances.

Israel has form when it comes to assassinations on foreign soil. Just saying.

https://crooksandliars.com/2023/07/israel-cant-get-trump-return-artifacts

Trump adjacent: The first fake electors have been indicted. 16 Michigan GOP individuals involved in the 2020 fake electors scheme have been charged, most of them with 8 felonies. Tik tok Donald.

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/n...ies-attorney-general-dana-nessel/70427042007/

ABC News confirms:

“The target letter mentions three federal statutes: conspiracy to commit offense or to defraud the United States, deprivation of rights under color of law, and tampering with a witness, victim or an informant.”

https://twitter.com/rgoodlaw/status/1681463988079534080

In DC, he only has a 31% chance of drawing a judge he appointed.

He also probably has much smaller odds of getting a hardcore MAGAt onto the jury than he does in Florida.

Since his two most realistic legal strategies are "get the judge to go along with delaying the trial until basically never" and "get a Trump cultist onto the jury to force a mistrial," he's gotta be shitting his Depends.

That depends. Are they leak proof?

The Independent is citing sources inside the US DOJ that charges for the Jan 6th insurrection could drop on Tre45on as early as 'Thurs or Friday this week' and that they include between '30 and 45' additional felony indictments.

Here's hoping this is true.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...-capitol-hill-indictment-timing-b2377451.html

I hope it's tomorrow. I'm going to be busy on Friday and not able to watch or read the coverage.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jul/21/georgia-trump-charges-fraud-election-2020

Bob Woodward says the odor barrier doesn't work.

This seems to me like a more difficult case than many of the others, because the line between fraud and protest is nebulous.

For example, trying to pass counterfeit currency is illegal. But if you show up at Walmart with a fistful of Monopoly money and demand to be allowed to pay with it -- say, because of some bizarre legal theory you've concocted or because you're one of those nuts who thinks any currency not backed by gold is worthless and you're trying to make a point -- you won't get arrested; they'll just say no.

There are 2 differences. Fake money, like monopoly money, have obvious differences and should say non-negotiable. It is illegal to possess countyerfeit money because it is so similar to official money as to be confused. Monopoly money and other funny money are clearly labelled as such and therefor would not be meant to fool others.

The other trouble is if you clearly are telling everyone yyour money is fake, then you are not trying to pass it off as real. If you walk up to the register with the funny money and attempt to pass it even though it is labelled as such you have attempted fraud and theft. There is intent to consider.

There may be other things associated with this, but those are obvious.

I do not know if the fake elector scheme would have been as illegal had they been overly honest about them being fake and not tried a scheme to get them presented over the real ones. It still would have looked stupid, but then it would be on the legislators who tried to push it rather than the participants if the participants labelled themselves obviously fake instead of trying to use a fraudulent certification.

Trump ally Bernard Kerik turned over documents to special counsel investigating events surrounding Jan. 6

https://twitter.com/asharangappa_/status/1684595983437410304?s=46&t=iYW3foyqIA6Tn8VWwn3nwQ

The other day, Giuliani admitted in court papers in a civil case that he defamed the Georgia poll workers who he and Trump claimed were part of the effort to steal votes from him and put votes for Biden (while claiming some sort of First Amendment or other defense that I'm not sure what it would be).

It seems like Trump will be hard-pressed to claim that he didn't know this was BS. From what I read/heard, in his "perfect" call with the Georgia SOS, Trump cited one of those poll workers like 18 times by name.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.238720/gov.uscourts.dcd.238720.84.2.pdf

Here is Giuliani's admission. Some things that occur to me (granted that I haven't done any legal research and I don't have any expertise in defamation law):

1. I am surprised to see that Giuliani himself signed off on this document personally.

2. Giuliani attempts repeatedly to try to constrain his admission to this litigation only. That's a bold strategy, Cotton. Let's see if it pays off for him. I can't imagine a situation where he could feasibly say "Well, I admitted that I deliberately lied and intended to inflict emotional distress in a court document, but I limited that admission to that court case only. So na-na-na boo boo, you can't use that in a disbarment proceeding, a criminal conspiracy trial or anything else or else I take backsies x infinity!"

3. He seems to think that he has a First Amendment defense. Pretty sure the First Amendment doesn't let you commit defamation or intentionally inflict emotional distress.

4. He also seems to think that he can argue that he should be let off the hook to the extent that these poll workers won settlements from media that published his defamation or other parties. Another bold strategy. A jury can and should hold him liable for what he did, regardless of what other culpable people may have paid out or may yet pay out.

DOJ has issued a superseding indictment in the documents case: 1 more willful retention of NDI for Trump; 1 new defendant; 2 new charges against Trump, Nauta, and the new guy for obstruction of justice (for deleting surveillance footage); and a false statements charge for the new guy.

If they can prove the conspiracy to delete surveillance footage, that's utterly devastating to any non-MAGAt juror as far as evidence of mens rea. You don't delete surveillance footage after a subpoena if you don't think you did anything wrong.

https://twitter.com/gtconway3dg/status/1684761940810428416?s=46&t=iYW3foyqIA6Tn8VWwn3nwQ

The only real chance I can see is if he can convince the jury that they are public people and that the “actual malice” provision of libel/slander law a applies. Of course, if you admit you knowingly lied

I don't think there's a plausible argument to be made that these poll workers were public figures, and I even think under the actual malice standard he would lose if they were considered so.

I just am puzzled why he wouldn't try to settle if he's going to concede this much ground.

The only thing that occurs to me is that I believe the poll workers were moving for sanctions because Giuliani had not turned over evidence, and so he might have tried to head that off at the pass by saying "OK, I'm admitting that I did these things so all the stuff I didn't turn over is irrelevant and I don't need to be sanctioned for it. So let's move on to what damages do they have and if I can raise any legal defenses."

Yeah, Rudy's really worried about what might come out during Discovery for some reason.

If they go back to the S1 Klingon design, I'm with him.

It's racist to bring charges against him?
Is he claiming to be octoroon?

https://www.rawstory.com/jack-smith-enough-evidence/