The Loser loses again

[TSherbs]

Deep state conspiracy, dontcha know

[Chip]

Appeals Court Orders Trump Lawyer to Hand Over Records in Documents Inquiry

The ruling compelling the lawyer, M. Evan Corcoran, to turn over documents came after a lightning round of appeals court filings overnight.

Alan Feuer, Ben Protess and Maggie Haberman
March 22, 2023

A federal appeals court ruled on Wednesday that a lawyer representing former President Donald J. Trump in the investigation into his handling of classified material had to answer a grand jury’s questions and give prosecutors documents related to his legal work.

The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia was a victory for the special counsel overseeing the investigation and followed Mr. Trump’s effort to stop the lawyer, M. Evan Corcoran, from handing over what are likely to be dozens of documents to investigators.

The behind-the-scenes fight shed new light on the efforts by prosecutors to assemble evidence about whether Mr. Trump committed a crime in defying the government’s efforts to reclaim classified materials he took after leaving the White House. The litigation — all of which has taken place behind closed doors or under seal — centers on whether prosecutors can force Mr. Corcoran to provide information on who knew what about the continued presence of classified material at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s residence and private club in Florida, after the government had demanded its return last spring.

In particular, prosecutors have been focused on a document that Mr. Corcoran drafted last spring stating that a “diligent search” had been conducted at Mar-a-Lago and that no further classified material remained there — an assertion that would be proved false. Prosecutors have been seeking to learn what Mr. Trump knew about that statement, according to people briefed on the matter.

The case involves a balancing act between attorney-client privilege, which generally protects lawyers from divulging private communications with their clients to the government, and a special provision of the law known as the crime-fraud exception. That exception allows prosecutors to break through attorney-client privilege when they have reason to believe that legal advice or legal services have been used in furthering a crime, typically by the client.

The spat began last month when the office of the special counsel, Jack Smith, sought to pierce assertions of attorney-client privilege that Mr. Corcoran and Mr. Trump had made in the documents inquiry. In an initial appearance before a grand jury investigating the case, Mr. Corcoran had asserted the privilege as a way to limit the scope of the questions he would have to answer as well as the number of legal records he would have to turn over.

But in seeking to obtain as much information from Mr. Corcoran as it could, Mr. Smith’s office invoked the crime-fraud exception in a filing to Judge Beryl A. Howell, who sits in Federal District Court in Washington. Prosecutors working for Mr. Smith wanted Judge Howell to set the attorney-client privilege aside and compel Mr. Corcoran to give them what they wanted.

On Friday, Judge Howell issued a ruling saying that the government had indeed met the threshold to invoke the crime-fraud exception and that prosecutors had made a preliminary case that Mr. Trump had violated the law in the documents case.

Judge Howell’s finding that “the government had made a prima facie showing that the former president committed criminal violations” did not mean prosecutors necessarily had enough evidence to charge Mr. Trump. Rather, it was enough to justify setting aside attorney-client privilege and requiring Mr. Corcoran to divulge information about his interactions with Mr. Trump.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/22/u...e=articleShare

[TSherbs]

Trump has mostly been losing all these flak filings....this is what he do....

[Chip]

Who are you calling "insidious," punk?


US judge throws out Donald Trump’s lawsuit against New York Times

Lawsuit alleged newspaper sought out niece Mary Trump and persuaded her to join ‘insidious plot’ to obtain Trump’s tax records



Guardian Staff
3 May 2023 20.34 EDT

A judge in New York has thrown out Donald Trump’s 2021 lawsuit accusing New York Times reporters of an “insidious plot” to obtain his tax records.

The former president has also been ordered to pay all attorneys’ fees and legal expenses the Times and its reporters had incurred. The lawsuit alleged that the newspaper sought out Trump’s niece Mary Trump and persuaded her “to smuggle the records out of her attorney’s office”.

The Daily Beast first reported the news. Donald Trump had also made claims against his niece, which have yet to be ruled on.

The Times’s 2018 Pulitzer-winning stories relied on information from Mary Trump to cast doubt on the ex-president’s claims that he was a self-made millionaire, showing that he inherited hundreds of millions through “dubious tax schemes”. The series also revealed a history of tax avoidance.

Robert Reed, a New York supreme court justice, said that Trump’s claims “fail as a matter of constitutional law”, which allows for reporters to engage in legal, ordinary newsgathering. “These actions are at the very core of protected first amendment activity,” Reed wrote.

Charlie Stadtlander, a spokesperson for the Times, told the Guardian: “The New York Times is pleased with the judge’s decision today. It is an important precedent reaffirming that the press is protected when it engages in routine newsgathering to obtain information of vital importance to the public.”

“We will weigh our client’s options and continue to vigorously fight on his behalf,” Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba said in a statement.

Last year, the former president also sued CNN, claiming defamation and seeking $475m in damages. In 2020, his re-election campaign also sued the New York Times and the Washington Post over opinion pieces linking him to Russian interference in the election. The cases against each newspaper were dismissed.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...e_iOSApp_Other

[TSherbs]

Yeah, this line is noteworthy:

Robert Reed, a New York supreme court justice, said that Trump’s claims “fail as a matter of constitutional law”, which allows for reporters to engage in legal, ordinary newsgathering. “These actions are at the very core of protected first amendment activity,” Reed wrote.

Autocrats hate a free press.

Also noteworthy:

The former president has also been ordered to pay all attorneys’ fees and legal expenses the Times and its reporters had incurred.

awe, shucks

[TSherbs]

The Big Loser just lost BIG.

[Chip]

Trump found liable for sexually abusing and defaming E. Jean Carroll in civil trial and is ordered to pay $5 million

Carroll sued the former president, accusing him of battery over an alleged rape in the 1990s and of defamation for calling her account a "hoax."

Adam Reiss and Dareh Gregorian
May 9, 2023

A New York jury found former President Donald Trump liable Tuesday for sexually abusing writer E. Jean Carroll in a Manhattan department store in the 1990s but not liable for her alleged rape.

The jury awarded her $5 million in damages for her battery and defamation claims.

Asked on its verdict sheet whether Carroll, 79, had proven “by a preponderance of the evidence” that “Mr. Trump raped Ms. Carroll,” the nine-person jury checked the box that said “no.” Asked whether Carroll had proven “by a preponderance of the evidence” that “Mr. Trump sexually abused Ms. Carroll,” the jury checked the box that said “yes.” Both allegations were elements of Carroll’s battery claim.

The six men and three women also found Trump had defamed Carroll by calling her claims a “hoax” and a “con job.”

The jury deliberated for only about three hours. It awarded Carroll just over $2 million on the battery claim and just under $3 million on the defamation claims.

“I filed this lawsuit against Donald Trump to clear my name and to get my life back. Today, the world finally knows the truth,” Carroll said in a statement Tuesday. She didn’t speak to reporters outside the courthouse. In a separate statement, her lawyer Roberta Kaplan said: “No one is above the law, not even a former President of the United States. We are so thrilled that the jury agreed."

Trump, a 2024 presidential candidate, has consistently denied Carroll’s claims. He blasted the verdict on his social media website shortly after the verdict was handed down. "I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHO THIS WOMAN IS. THIS VERDICT IS A DISGRACE — A CONTINUATION OF THE GREATEST WITCH HUNT OF ALL TIME!" he wrote on Truth Social.

A Trump campaign spokesman said in a statement, "Make no mistake, this entire bogus case is a political endeavor targeting President Trump because he is now an overwhelming front-runner to be once again elected President of the United States."

"This case will be appealed, and we will ultimately win," the statement said.

The verdict marks the first time a former president has been found civilly liable for sexual misconduct. Republican presidential candidate Asa Hutchinson, a Trump critic, said, "The jury verdict should be treated with seriousness and is another example of the indefensible behavior of Donald Trump."

Carroll sued in Manhattan federal court last year, alleging Trump raped her in the dressing room of a Bergdorf Goodman department store near his Fifth Avenue home in 1995 or 1996. She first went public with the claim in 2019 in her book “What Do We Need Men For? A Modest Proposal.”

The verdict carries no criminal implications. The legal standard for liability in the civil case — the preponderance of the evidence — wasn’t as high as in criminal cases. The civil benchmark is that it is more likely than not that something occurred, while the standard for convictions in criminal cases is proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Trump, first as president and then as a private citizen, called Carroll’s account a fiction that she concocted to boost book sales, and he has said she is “not my type.” He didn’t testify at the trial, but parts of his video deposition from October were played for the jury.

The verdict was required to be unanimous.

Carroll was her own star witness at the trial, which began April 25. “I’m here because Trump raped me,” she told jurors during her three days on the witness stand.

Carroll said she'd met Trump once before, in the late 1980s, before she bumped into him at the entrance of the department store near Trump’s home and office in Trump Tower.

Carroll, who was an advice columnist for Elle magazine at the time, said Trump told her he was shopping for a lady friend and invited her to come along. “He was very personable,” she said. She said she'd had a fun time chatting with him as the excursion eventually led to the sixth-floor lingerie department. “He was joshing and pleasant and very funny,” she said, and they each joked about trying on lingerie.

Carroll alleged that Trump motioned her toward the dressing room and that when she went in, he “shut the door and shoved me against the wall” and raped her. “I couldn’t see anything was happening, but I could certainly feel that pain,” she said, alleging the attack lasted a “few minutes” before she was able to flee.

Carroll said that she called a friend, writer Lisa Birnbach, afterward to tell her what had happened and that Birnbach told her to call the police. Carroll said she told her “no way,” because she blamed herself for the attack. Carroll also said that she told another friend, Carol Martin, what happened days later and that Martin urged her not to go to the police for fear Trump and his lawyers would “bury her.” Birnbach and Martin both testified in Carroll’s behalf and supported her account.

Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina told jurors in his opening statement that Carroll’s claims were “unbelievable.” “She is doing this for money, political reasons and status,” he alleged. “And in doing so, she is minimizing true rape victims and destroying their pain and capitalizing on them.”

When Carroll was on the witness stand, he asked whether she’d been “supposedly raped.” “I was raped,” she responded.

Tacopina also repeatedly pressed her about why she didn’t scream for help or go to the police.

“He raped me, whether I screamed or not,” Carroll told him. Asked whether she agreed that not reporting the attack to the police “is an odd fact,” Carroll said, “Many women do not go to the police, and I understand why.

Tacopina also grilled Carroll, a Democrat, about her politics and her old social media posts, including one from 2012 in which she said she was a “massive” fan of Trump’s show The Apprentice.” “I was a big fan of the show. Very impressed by it,” Carroll testified, adding that she didn’t like and wouldn’t watch the parts with Trump firing contestants.

Trump’s attorneys wound up resting their case without having put on any witnesses on the stand. Trump had been listed as a possible witness, but he waived his right to testify, Tacopina told U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan on Thursday.

The same day, Trump told reporters in Ireland he was returning to New York to deal with the case. His comments prompted the judge to give Trump the opportunity to change his mind about testifying, and he gave him until 5 p.m. Sunday to say whether he would like to take the stand. He didn't.

Trump claimed Tuesday morning on Truth Social that he was being "silenced." "Waiting for a jury decision on a False Accusation where I, despite being a current political candidate and leading all others in both parties, am not allowed to speak or defend myself, even as hard nosed reporters scream questions about this case at me," he wrote. "I will therefore not speak until after the trial, but will appeal the Unconstitutional silencing of me, as a candidate, no matter the outcome!"

Carroll’s attorneys played excerpts from Trump’s deposition to the jury, including a part in which he misidentified a picture of Carroll in the 1980s as being his ex-wife Marla Maples.

They also tried to bolster Carroll's case by presenting testimony from two other women who alleged they were accosted by Trump.

Jessica Leeds, 81, alleged Trump started to grope her out of the blue while they were sitting next to each other on a flight to New York in the late 1970s. The other accuser, Natasha Stoynoff, testified she’d gone to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in 2005 to interview him and Melania Trump for a story on their first wedding anniversary. She alleged Trump pushed her against a wall and started kissing her before a staffer interrupted them.

Trump has denied Leeds’ and Stoynoff’s allegations. At a campaign rally in 2016, he appeared to make fun of Leeds’ appearance while ridiculing her accusations, saying she “would not be my first choice.”

He defended those comments in his deposition, in which he also repeatedly insulted Carroll, her attorney Kaplan, Leeds and Stoynoff. “I don’t want to be insulting, but when people accuse me of something, I think I have a right to be insulting because they’re insulting me. They’re doing the ultimate insult, they make up stories and then I’m not allowed to speak my mind? No. I disagree with that,” he said.

In an unusual move for a civil case, the judge used an anonymous jury, citing Trump’s history of inflammatory rhetoric about the justice system. “It bears mention that Mr. Trump repeatedly has attacked courts, judges, various law enforcement officials and other public officials, and even individual jurors in other matters,” Kaplan said in his decision.

He said he was keeping jurors' identities secret even from both sides’ lawyers, because “If jurors’ identities were disclosed, there would be a strong likelihood of unwanted media attention to the jurors, influence attempts, and/or of harassment or worse of jurors by supporters of Mr. Trump.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/don...rump-rcna82778

[TSherbs]

I didn't know about the anonymous jurors part. I've never heard of that, actually.

The rest of this is just so ugly. What an absolute unrepentant creep.

[Chuck Naill]

There are many things in my past for which I now wished I had not done. I can't judge Trump. What I can do is say he could be forgiven if he would change his mind. I think, for how many years he has left, he could find a path to freedom if he decided.

[TSherbs]

After getting her day (3) in court, Kari Lake jumps back into the losers collumn. Sounds like she is now going to run for a different office--announcement later today?

Newsweek, on Kari Lake's latest court case loss

[TSherbs]

A loser lies again: Arizona is cursed with this woman:

https://www.azcentral.com/story/opin...s/70270242007/

[TSherbs]

The heat is turning up on Trump after he loses this motion in Georgia: https://apnews.com/article/trump-geo...55a59174d10d4f

[724Seney]

I always get a good chuckle out of seeing Chip and/or TSherbs post in this specific thread which is entitled "The Loser loses again."
How very appropriate!!

I don't bother reading the posts they put up, they are always the "same old, same old."
But to see these two loser morons refer to anyone else as a "loser" is always a hoot!

[Chuck Naill]

I always get a good chuckle out of seeing Chip and/or TSherbs post in this specific thread which is entitled "The Loser loses again."
How very appropriate!!

I don't bother reading the posts they put up, they are always the "same old, same old."
But to see these two loser morons refer to anyone else as a "loser" is always a hoot!

You should read. They are the purveyors of truth.

[724Seney]

I always get a good chuckle out of seeing Chip and/or TSherbs post in this specific thread which is entitled "The Loser loses again."
How very appropriate!!

I don't bother reading the posts they put up, they are always the "same old, same old."
But to see these two loser morons refer to anyone else as a "loser" is always a hoot!

You should read. They are the purveyors of truth.

Thanks.
I can and do read.
Unlike them, I read other than their boutique, progressive shiny sheets.

They are the non-thinking mouthpieces of the left.
Total lemmings constantly spewing hateful, woke bullshit.

And, you know this is so Chuck..........

[Chuck Naill]

I always get a good chuckle out of seeing Chip and/or TSherbs post in this specific thread which is entitled "The Loser loses again."
How very appropriate!!

I don't bother reading the posts they put up, they are always the "same old, same old."
But to see these two loser morons refer to anyone else as a "loser" is always a hoot!

You should read. They are the purveyors of truth.

Thanks.
I can and do read.
Unlike them, I read other than their boutique, progressive shiny sheets.

They are the non-thinking mouthpieces of the left.
Total lemmings constantly spewing hateful, woke bullshit.

And, you know this is so Chuck..........

It is true that no thinking or rational thought is involved. I trust they can change.

[Chip]

Seney is posting. dneal must have his pants down.

[dneal]

Another internet stalker fantisizing about me...

[724Seney]

Another internet stalker fantisizing about me...

Hey, give the guy a break.
I mean he can only have so much fun "doing" sheep. I'm sure it gets old.
Baaaaaaaaaa!

[TSherbs]

It is true that no thinking or rational thought is involved.

Says the guy who believes in turning water into wine.