Tag Archives: classified docs

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Disgust is sinking in

There can be no way to describe adequately what I am feeling now about the progress of the criminal proceedings against the 45th president of the United States.

Dude somehow is managing to run out the clock on several fronts. What’s even more disgusting is that he might be getting help from a supposedly “impartial” jurist who might be setting the table for an instructed verdict of acquittal in the federal case involving the ex-POTUS’s pilfering of classified documents.

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, whom the former Moron in Chief appointed to the federal bench, keeps issuing goofball rulings that benefit her fella … the aforementioned ex-POTUS.

The latest one has been vilified by legal scholars from stem to stern on its weirdness. Cannon has instructed prosecutors led by special counsel Jack Smith and the criminal defendant’s counsel to provide reams of “discovery” evidence on the eve of when the trial is supposed to start.

The complexity of the ruling reportedly suggests that the judge might be able to issue a bench ruling calling for an acquittal. If it holds up! That’s not a sure thing, or so I am led to believe.

The ex-POTUS also is stalling in the case involving the New York state trial on the hush money he paid to the porn actress to keep her quiet about a one-night stand the two of them had in 2006. The former Idiot in Chief denies ever engaging in sex with Stormy Daniels but cut her a $130,000 check to keep quiet about it. Go … figure!

The trial on the 1/6 assault on our government — the one the ex-POTUS provoked on the Ellipse — has been delayed.

Oh, and the Georgia case? Who knows what’ll happen there. A judge says the DA can stay on the job, but the fellow with whom she had a relationship has resigned as lead prosecutor.

All of this points to the chaos created by the former guy’s stalling tactics.

Let us not forget that he has said all along he is innocent of anything being accused. Despite that, he acts very much like someone with something serious to hide. The stalling and the proclamations of innocence just do not add up.

crime news, legal news, national news

Televise the trials!

Donald John Trump is not your every-day criminal defendant, given that for four years he occupied the presidency of the United States.

Therefore, it is imperative that the federal judiciary do something far out of the ordinary. It needs to televise the federal trials that will determine whether Donald Trump is guilty of the crimes for which he is being charged.

Trump has four trials pending. Two of them are in state courts. New York and Georgia grand juries have indicted him for committing crimes against the nation he once took an oath to protect.

I want to focus on the two federal indictments. One of them came from a grand jury in Florida; that’s the classified documents case in which Trump pilfered documents from the White House and stashed ’em in his glitzy estate. The other came from a D.C. grand jury; that is the matter involving the 1/6 assault on our government.

You see, this is critical inasmuch as Trump was once elected to the presidency. He took an oath to protect the government against all enemies. Then he shunned that oath when the 2020 election didn’t turn out the way he wanted; he lost that contest to Joe Biden.

Americans who were governed by this fraud have a right to witness how these trials play out. Will they produce sideshows, melodrama and game-playing? Yes, they might … but that isn’t necessarily pre-ordained.

I recall meeting with Tom Phillips, who in the 1990s was chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court. The OJ Simpson trial was underway and Phillips said that the judge in that trial, California Superior Court Judge Lance Ito, had plenty of authority to rein in the lawyers. He could have set time limits on the presentations. He could have demanded decorum and dignity in the courtroom.

Phillips said trial judges have immense power to run these trials in orderly and concise fashions.

It’s that knowledge that gives me hope that if the federal judiciary turns on the TV cameras in the courtroom that they will expose the public to a ringside view of how one of our three branches of government does the job prescribed in the US Constitution.

crime news, national news, political news

This doesn’t happen every day

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Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought we could conduct a presidential election in which one of the major-party candidates is under criminal indictment.

What’s more, never would I have imagined that the four-times indicted, twice-impeached former POTUS would actually — in the gullible “minds” of followers — be considered a viable candidate to return to the office he once held and disgraced.

To say we live in the craziest era imaginable is to commit a gross (and grotesque) understatement.

Yet here we are.

The Republican Party’s presumed frontrunner for the 2024 presidential nomination may actually run for the White House while awaiting a sentence after being convicted of trying to overturn the previous election. The conviction might come early in 2024 if prosecutors are able to stave off Donald Trump’s expected efforts to delay the proceeding until after the election.

The feds have indicted Trump on two matters: inciting the 1/6 assault on our government and squirreling away classified documents after leaving the White House. State grand juries have indicted Trump on making an illegal payment to a porn star to keep her quiet about a tryst she said the two of them had and for working to interfere in the Georgia presidential election returns.

He stands accused of committing 91 crimes. Ninety-one of them!

Just think of how stupid the Republican Party faithful can be if they actually nominate this individual next summer.

OK. I have said all that but now I must stand behind my initial reaction to Trump’s latest presidential candidacy. I am going to remain hopeful that the GOP will come to what’s left of its senses and turn to someone else. I say that even though it is less than my initial belief that Trump in no way would ever be nominated. I am not as confident these days in the smarts of the GOP MAGA electorate.

Still, to see this unfit liar in position to lead the party down the path of destruction in 2024 is something I never imagined seeing.

Who knew?

crime news, legal news

Prosecutor vs. Perpetrator

Watching the drama building as the prosecutor pursues the perpetrator, I cannot help but be struck by the profound differences in  the way these men act in public.

Let’s look first at the prosecutor. His name is Jack Smith, appointed special counsel to investigate alleged crimes committed by the perp.

Smith has been studied, measured, professional, discreet, reticent. He has been faithful to his pledge to grant the perp in this case the presumption of innocence to which he is entitled. Yet he has compiled an astonishing array of evidence that the perpetrator knew he lost an election in 2020 but tried to overturn the results. He also has assembled a mountain of evidence that the perp took highly classified documents to his home in Florida and kept them in highly unsecured locations.

The perpetrator is Donald John Trump, the former president of the United States.

Trump has been, well, shrill, venal, vile, deceitful, defamatory, profane, highly vocal in his objection to the investigation that has taken place. He ignores lawyers’ advice to keep his trap shut. He continues to denigrate the prosecutor’s reputation, asserting that Smith has it in for him. He’s also chosen to hurl epithets at Smith’s wife who, as near as I can tell, has nothing at all to do with the probe underway.

Even if I didn’t already believe that the perpetrator is guilty of the crimes for which he has been indicted, I would be rooting for the prosecutor. Why? Because I believe strongly in the criminal justice system for which the prosecutor is working. I believe in the rule of law.

The prosecutor is facing a form of competition, as has been reported, from local district attorneys who are conducting their own probes into the perp’s post-2020 election behavior. They, too, might file indictments alleging criminal activity involving the search for votes that didn’t exist and for attempts to coerce and bully state election officials to overturn an election.

Do we hear the prosecutor telling the local DA’s to back off? That they should let the feds have first crack? The prosecutor is a seasoned pro with many years of experience under his belt. Granted, the perp in this instance happens to be the first of his kind ever held under investigation … given that he is a former POTUS, for crying out loud!

But my money clearly is on the prosecutor to deliver the goods in due course.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com