Judge's 'soup-to-nuts' ruling showed how guilty Trump is in docs case: ex-Trump attorney – Raw Story
M.L. Nestel joined Raw Story in 2023. An award-winning writer and editor, his work has been published in New York Magazine, Los Angeles Magazine and The Guardian, among other titles. He also produces and writes for true-crime genre TV shows. Prior to that, he served on the Newsweek masthead as a senior writer, wrote as a correspondent at ABC News and held the titles of West Coast bureau chief and senior writer at The Daily Beast. Priors also include working as senior national correspondent at The Daily Mail and investigative reporter at all three NYC tabloids: The New York Post, The New York Daily News and Newsday. He traveled around the country as a national correspondent at The Daily. M.L. published hundreds of stories about underground music and cinema — most notably as a critic for Box Office Magazine and the New York editor at Soma Magazine. He also headed development at Fountainhead Films. M.L. splits his time between Los Angeles and New York.
A lawyer who worked for Donald Trump's White House says the 45th president is guilty as sin and it's all spelled out in a ruling from last year — before the case virtually went to sleep in U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon's court.
Ty Cobb appeared on CNN's "Out Front" on Wednesday to weigh in on the federal criminal case accusing Trump of hoarding the documents and obstructing the recovery of them by the feds.
On Wednesday, Special Prosecutor Jack Smith's team bludgeoned a motion to dismiss the case by Trump's defense team as a "garbage argument" brought by the former president's body man and co-defendant Walt Nauta (along with Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira) alleging vindictive prosecution.
ALSO READ: What Trump's weird WWE Hall of Fame speech tells us about his presidential debate strategy
Trump along with Nauta and De Oliveira pleaded not guilty to the charges.
“Real people have to decide these issues,” Cannon exclaimed on Wednesday.
Yet as she considers the claim, Cannon has snailed along without addressing how the classified evidence at issue can be used at trial and refuses to calendar the case for trial.
The earlier Trump ruling also included a footnote suggesting Trump consciously violated the law when an unnamed witness scanned and saved confidential documents onto a super PAC laptop.
"She should read that opinion because it takes it from soup to nuts and makes it very clear how guilty the president is in this case, which has been laid out so clearly," Cobb said, and even assigning the ruling as reading material by Cannon so that she can see for herself.
"To be sure, the government has not provided direct evidence that the former president deliberately retained, or was even aware of, the particular classified-marked documents located by his counsel at Mar-a-Lago in December 2022," reads the document filed by U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell.
However, she scolded Trump's defense for being aloof to the presence of the stacks of banker boxes decorating his Mar-a-Lago palatial home in Palm Beach, Florida.
Howell wrote: "notably… no excuse is provided as to how the former president could miss the classified-marked documents found in his own bedroom at Mar-a-Lago."
"She makes it very clear that the evidence is really overwhelming," Cobb praised. "And to the commission of crimes and Trump's attempt to use his own lawyer as an instrumentality of the crimes by hiding documents from him and moving documents out of the storage facility so that when he searched it — he would not find the classified documents."
The post-search documents were initially discovered after Trump's former lawyer, Timothy Parlatore, arranged for a sweep of Trump's properties to make certain there were no other sensitive documents.
That move came on the heels of a 2022 Justice Department subpoena mandating Trump to return the critically sensitive records.
Watch below or click here.
A chorus of Democratic lawmakers ramped up their calls for a recusal of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito on January 6th-related cases after it was revealed that he flew yet another flag that had been brandished by Capitol rioters at his New Jersey summer home.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), speaking on behalf of the Court Reform Now Task Force, posted a letter penned to Alito pleading for him to recuse himself from Trump absolute immunity case.
"A New York Times report revealed that on and around January 17, 2021, between the January 6 insurrection and the inauguration of President Biden, an inverted United States flag was photographed flying from the front lawn of your personal residence,” wrote the Task Force.
The New York Times broke the story of both flags waving at Alito's Washington home and now his New Jersey one.
READ MORE: 'Need the Senate': Republicans brush off worries of anti-Trump GOPer being an 'irritant'
Sen. Dick Durbin (D–IL) who chairs the Judiciary Committee also piled on the recusal alarm sounding.
He posted a photo of the "Appeal to Heaven" flag hoisted at the Long Beach Island pulled from The Times scoop.
Durbin pointed out that the second flag revelation is further proof of "apparent ethical misconduct by a sitting justice, and it adds to the Court’s ongoing ethical crisis."
“This incident is yet another example of apparent ethical misconduct by a sitting justice, and it adds to the Court’s ongoing ethical crisis,” reads a thread posted on Twitter/X. "Justice Alito must recuse himself immediately from cases related to the 2020 election and the January 6th insurrection.
"It's for the good of our country and the Court. And the Chief Justice must see how this is damaging the Court and immediately enact an enforceable code of conduct."
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D–CT) also chimed in during an appearance on MSNBC’s "All In with Chris Hayes" criticizing Alito’s flag hoisting.
“Supreme Court justices are supposed to be above reproach and above politics, and I am sad, really sad and shocked to say Justice Alito is rapidly showing himself to be unfit to serve on the United States Supreme Court,” he said.
The flag itself dates back to the early Revolutionary War era and was used as a battle flag that featured the phrase, “An Appeal to Heaven,” from John Locke’s opposition to a king's divine right to rule.
The flag was also spotted outside the doorway of House Speaker Mike Johnson's office.
"It’s George Washington’s flag," Alito told CNN. "I've always flown that flag."
Alito denied that his decision to fly it had any relation to the Jan. 6 "Stop The Steal" protest.
Former Fox News contributor and Trump appointee Monica Crowley was under fire on Wednesday after making a claim about the FBI search of Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago golf resort.
Crowley, a conservative commentator, columnist, and radio host, was Trump's choice for senior director of strategic communications for the National Security Council.
"Just so we're clear: The FBI – Biden, Garland & Wray – authorized the use of deadly force for their raid on Mar-a-Lago over some papers," she wrote Wednesday. "Not to apprehend a terrorist or a drug kingpin. To see about some papers, many of which likely incriminate them in treasonous crimes."
ALSO READ: What Trump's weird WWE Hall of Fame speech tells us about his presidential debate strategy
She went on to say that "they wanted to create a pretext to use force against their top political opponent – and prepared for it."
"We now have terror squads dressed up as 'law enforcement' roaming the country, targeting regime dissidents," she also added. "The hour is much later than you think. Work to save America – and pray for her."
Crowley was called out almost immediately.
@PoliticsEsq, who is self-identified as an international and appellate attorney, pushed back.
"Just to be clear, they attached the regular policy guidelines that are attached to every search warrant guideline that the FBI conducts," the account wrote. "And, just to be further clear, the word 'engage' in 'prepare to engage' means encounter not kill."
@85badger replied, "That's not what happened but good spin."
@sandiechill said, "So, are you now looking to disarm law enforcement, not just defund them?"
Jarrad Christian For Congress 2024 claimed the statement is a "misrepresentation of the facts."
"Side note: It could be argued Trump falls into the categories you mentioned," he added.
Gregg Nunziata, executive director of the Society for the Rule of Law, also chimed in.
"Just to be clear. This tweet is breathtakingly stupid, irresponsible, or both."
CNN's Kaitlan Collins' yes or no question to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) triggered a lively back-and-forth.
Cruz sat opposite Collins to chat about a variety of items including his stance on IVF (he's for it), past grievances with former President Donald Trump churning a lie that his father for the assassination of President John F. Kennedy (Cruz forgave him).
But when it came to whether or not he would embrace the results of the upcoming 2024 election, Cruz stayed vague.
ALSO READ: What Trump's weird WWE Hall of Fame speech tells us about his presidential debate strategy
"I do want to ask what the election you were the first senator to object to the votes in 2024 will you certified the election results: Do you plan to object or will you accept the results regardless of who wins the election?
He told her instead: "So Kaitlan, I gotta say, I think that's actually a ridiculous question."
"It's a yes or no question," she retorted.
"No, it's not; let me explain why it's ridiculous question — it's not a question — have you ever asked a Democrat that question?"
Cruz asked why Democrats aren't asked the same question.
"You cannot compare the two situations," she told him. "But have you ever had a sitting president who refused to facilitate peaceful transition of power. Refused to acknowledge that his successor won the presidency?"
Cruz responded, "We did have a peaceful transfer of power," he said. "I was there on January 20. I was there on the swearing in.
"Barely," Collins reminded him.
An unfazed Cruz kept going: "B…. In 2001 Democrats went to the Senate floor and objected to President George W. Bush… In 2016, Democrats went and objected to Donald Trump."
Collins then educated Cruz: "So what happened in 2016? Because, I remember a guy named Joe Biden who was vice president — and he went to the Senate floor and certified the votes. Am I wrong?"
Cruz then tried to clarify his position.
"So you're asking: Will you promise no matter what to agree an election as illegitimate regardless of what happens," he asked. "And that would be an absurd thing to claim."
"Like we have an entire election law system that people challenge elections, elections get overturned, voter fraud gets proven — that happens all the time and the media engages in this weird game post-Donald Trump that you insist no voter fraud has ever existed. Why does every state have laws in place to challenge voter fraud if it occurs?"
But Collins informed him: "Only Republicans are asked that tried to block the transition of power. You have to acknowledge that. We've never seen it on a scale of what happened in 2020. And we've never seen the president refused. He wouldn't even let Joe Biden get classified briefings at the beginning."
Watch below or click the link.
Copyright © 2024 Raw Story Media, Inc. PO Box 21050, Washington, D.C. 20009 | Masthead | Privacy Policy | Manage Preferences | Debug Logs
For corrections contact corrections@rawstory.com , for support contact support@rawstory.com .