Jack Smith Asks for Three Weeks
Jack Smith just requested and got a consent motion to file a status report “or otherwise inform” Judge Tanya Chutkan of what they’re going to do with the January 6 case.
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. By December 2, 2024, the Government will file a status report or otherwise inform the Court of the result of its deliberations. The Government has consulted with defense counsel, who do not object to this request.
If that “otherwise inform” is a report, it would be done in plenty of time for Dick Durbin to hold a hearing.
How likely is it that Durbin will hold a hearing? Or that the news media will cover it accurately and fairly? Seems to me to be a very weak reed although it might do some good if it happened.
Right now, there’s a continuing resolution that funds everything until Dec 20, so everyone will be coming back to DC shortly to deal with the FY 25 budget. While those negotiations are going on, Durbin could use his post as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee to look at whatever Smith might provide.
How likely is it? I suspect it depends on how much Trump behaves like an king over the next couple of weeks. The more Trump acts like a king, the higher the likelihood of a hearing. The Democrats are still in control of the Senate until (IIRC) Jan 4, 2025, so that’s the deadline Durbin is facing.
In addition to Peterr’s helpful explanation, Timothy Snyder reminds us not to obey in advance.
Go Dick!
Such levity in two short words! Facetiousness or sarcasm, you decide.
Now there’s a hopeful thought.
Deep appreciation for this site.
Narrator voice: Dick Durbin declined to hold that hearing.
“…it depends on how much Trump behaves like an king over the next couple of weeks.”
TBD if Mister No Impulse Control can play it cool before Day 1 as a dictator.
Anecdotal sidebar: Mme. punaise was listening to an interview with former French PM Lionel Jospin. and in the snippet I caught he cluelessly referred to Trump’s new post-victory conciliatory tone. Dude, sérieusement?
Apparently he had Elon Musk on a call with him and Zelenskyy earlier today. That doesn’t give me a whole lot of confidence.
Way to say “Fuck You” right out of the gate. You just know Musk turned around and bleated to Putin about it, one way or another.
Trump: All this money spent, all these people dead, and you’re barely holding on. You obviously can’t win, so it should be clear that you need to make a deal with Russia. I’m willing to help with that, but you gotta make a deal.
Zelenskyy: I’d like you to do us a favor, though.
Trump: What?
Zelenskyy: Wasn’t that the phrase from that ‘perfect phone call’ all those years ago? “I’d like you to do us a favor, though”?
Trump: Oh.
Zelenskyy: Yes, I’d like you to do us a favor. I’d like you to have your new attorney general investigate some people who has been terribly problematic, and done all kinds of illegal things against us: Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Bannon.
Trump: Well, I can’t just do that.
Zelenskyy: You can’t, or you won’t? I thought you were a strong leader, and made you own decisions.
Trump: I *am* a strong leader.
Zelenskyy: OK, Mr. Strong President, let’s compromise a bit. You just *announce* that you are going to have your attorney general investigate Mr. Guiliani and Mr. Bannon, and we’ll take it from there . . .
If only.
You really need another career as a screenwriter. Zelenskyy would probably love to produce your work.
Long long ago, when I was a State Dept intern, I helped write a speech given by Al Haig in Europe. Our office wrote a first draft, and then the speechwriter on the 7th floor trimmed it down and added fluff. They would send it down to our office for review, and we would strip out fluff and push more content. Back upstairs, and the speechwriter would trim the content and add more fluff. Lather, rinse, repeat. When I talked with my boss about this, he laughed. “Yes, that’s how this generally works. But we’ve got the upper hand, because I am going on the plane with the Secretary and the speechwriter is staying home. We get the last word.”
Let’s just say that I know a bit about how these conversations might go (in reality or in my head), and I haven’t lost my touch with words.
But my bishop might be sad if I changed careers at this point.
Punaise @ 3:58
It will take a lot of sedation.
Dick `Blue Slips’ Durbin? He’s going to be busy with what should have been Job One for the last 4 years:
After G.O.P. Wins, Senate Democrats Eye Major Push to Confirm Biden Judges [NYT, paywalled]
“Senate Democrats are weighing a major push in the coming weeks to confirm as many of President Biden’s judicial nominees as they can in the lame-duck session of Congress, before their power to reshape the federal courts ends with the Republican takeover of the White House and the Senate in January.
Democrats had hoped to hold onto the Senate and the White House, allowing them to continue their drive to counterbalance the 234 conservative-leaning judges — including three Supreme Court justices — who were confirmed during the first Trump administration. But with the re-election of Donald J. Trump and the Republican takeover of the Senate, that possibility is now gone.
Senator Chuck Schumer, the New York Democrat and majority leader who has prioritized judicial confirmations, on Friday indicated a willingness to devote significant Senate floor time to seating more judges in the post-election session that begins next week. About 30 nominees are currently in the confirmation pipeline. …”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/08/us/politics/senate-democrats-judges.html
For some definition of pipeline.
“I can’t help myself. If I see a law I want to break it. If you are president the Supreme Court lets you do it”
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Stupid question of the day… So as a TSLA shareholder which is legally open to all US citizen investors, is there any TSLA Board recourse for Elmo’s extreme GOP partisan shift which alienates liberal investors?
A quite remarkable…historic, even…sentence:
As a layman, I think it is critical that Smith document and file everything before the Orange Menace takes office. Even then, Trump and his minions will claim he is as pure as the driven snow. Sickening. We must document, categorize and index and file everything this vile man says and does to warn future generations about what people like him are like and how to quash them.
Trump allies are already going after Smith. So says yesterday’s WaPo, “Trump allies push to punish Jack Smith in first test of retribution vow” https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/11/08/trump-dc-criminal-case-suspend-deadlines/ As I interpret, they are probably trying to intimidate him into either preparing an anodyne report or no public report at all, thereby suppressing public release of additional evidence of Trump’s crimes.
At the head of the line is Trump’s new billionaire buddy, and probably his mouthpiece, Elon who tweeted “Jack Smith’s abuse of the justice system cannot go unpunished.”
OK, so here’s an unnecessarily benign view of the present junction in American history.
1. It was a blessing in disguise that DJT won both the popular and electoral votes convincingly. Not only did it avert likely violence, but it also saved us all the anxiety that goes with sorting out the winner in a normal close election. It also saves us years of resentment of the usual Democratic popular winner / Republican electoral winner split. The guy won, and that’s that.
2. Some say that DJT is looking for love and approval. Well, now he has it. There is no serious dispute that he won this one, and that most people preferred him to the alternative. This might help him simmer down.
3. DJT cannot be re-elected, and he’s 78. He doesn’t need anybody any more: no re-election prospects, no worry about being convicted of a Federal crime. So he can ignore any part of his base that he pleases. They say that he holds fundamentalists in contempt, and, as President, he has no further use for private militias. His campaign bark may well turn out to be worse than his bite on deportations.
4. DJT has probably figured out by now that Putin was playing him, and, having attained re-election, need have no further fear of anything that Putin has in the way of kompromat. Putin is now also openly aligned with China, North Korea, and Iran, at least two of which DJT seems not to like, especially since Iran just got caught trying to kill him. Not to mention that Iran is also tight with Hamas.
5. Elon is said to have needed to observe others to learn how to have a normal conversation. Brilliant in his own way, but lacking in others. My guess is that he has no real friends. They say that DJT has no real friends either. Maybe they can be friends, and that may help them both be better people.
6. I was encouraged by DJT and Elon having, apparently, a cordial and productive conversation with Zelensky. DJT has got to have respect for Zelensky, who has guts and doesn’t quit, and Zelensky knows how to handle people. (Notice he praised DJT’s “historic landslide victory,” which is perhaps a bit of an exaggeration, but exactly what DJT wants to hear, and it does no harm to butter him up.)
I will now take off my rose-colored glasses.
“DJT has probably figured out by now that Putin was playing him”
He was told this repeatedly during his first term by his own staff and he pointedly disregarded them.
Understand this: like an untreated addict who is compelled to obtain their fix, Trump cannot resist fluffing by persons he perceives as authority figures. Putin is just such a figure, and persons like Elon Musk are his proxies.
The cordiality of the conversation with Zelenskyy is but an illusion over the underlying reality; Zelenskyy now knows exactly what he and his nation are up against if he didn’t already.
We are now once again in the hands of an addict, this time with even fewer restraints. Heaven help the most vulnerable including Ukraine.
WTF was Elmo there?
Trump has the attention span of a gnat. He’ll need a shadow president.
There will be a long line of them. If they’re lucky, they’ll tag team each other and move their agenda along. But Trump is Trump. After a while, he’ll stop cooperating. And if they stop cooperating with each other and start engaging in politically mortal combat, it would lead to Byzantine palace politics.
Donald Trump will never figure out that Vlad the Impaler is playing him. It would be like staring into the abyss. His fear would deprive him of any ability to respond. He’ll always take the blue pill rather than the red.
re 1. “Trump won convincingly” he won by about 4 million votes and got 301 EC votes. Biden won 2020 by 7 million votes and got 306 EC votes. Clearly Biden won more convincingly.
As they count they still-outstanding votes, his margin keeps dropping. It’s down to about 2.5%, which is less than overwhelming.
Not overwhelming, no, but convincingly. I don’t think anyone doubts the result.
You could hear us screaming’ a mile away
As he stepped through the White House door.
Punaise, the original,is still a great tune. I need those three steps even more now, in the wake of recent events.