October 1, 2023

While we're waiting -- UPDATE -- TIMELINE OF JACK SMITH DC FEDERAL PRE-TRIAL

previous post:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100218228229



Because the stakes for democracy are high, and because U.S. federal trials (even of historical and national importance) aren’t televised/broadcast, it’s important to know -- apart from biased media(tions) -- how our federal courts optimize fairness to, from, and for both plaintiff and defendant.

To that end, the court's schedule and excerpts from some of our side’s key docket filings helps us know the overall trial arguments in advance.

I’m timelining DC Federal docket filings for now because it's the earlier trial scheduled.

And from a layman's perspective, I'm listing key filings not ruled on yet, and bolding parts for emphasis.
(Future updates in between the DC March trial date & the FL trial date probably won't be necessary, because we'll get as familiar as paralegals with dockets and documents )

Other salient docket additions are welcome.






2.
DC Federal — United States v. TRUMP, 1:23-cr-00257, (D.D.C.) March 4 2024
— U.S. Dist.(DC) Judge Tanya S. Chutkan — E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_prosecution_of_Donald_Trump_(election_obstruction_case)

-- court docket

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67656604/united-states-v-trump/



UPDATE: Docket entries 39 (for pre-trial scheduling), 63 (new hearing re Trump's extrajudicial words and deeds), and 64 (govt evidence of Trump's extrajudicial violations of his bond conditions)



Notes on key DC docket filings (edited for readability):


8/28/2023 Docket Entry # 39:

PRETRIAL ORDER as to DONALD J. TRUMP: Upon consideration of the parties' Proposed Briefing Schedules 23, 30, 32,
the court hereby sets the following pretrial schedule:


1. 10/9/23 -- All pre-trial motions, excluding motions in limine, due...

10/16/2023 -- 10:00 AM hearing on the Smith's filed #57 Protective Order

2. 10/23/23 -- oppositions due, and ...

3. 11/6/23 -- and replies due.

4. 12/27/23 -- Motions in limine and Suppression Motions due, ...

5. 1/9/24 -- oppositions due and ...

6. 1/22/24 -- replies due.


7. 12/4/23 — the government (Smith) shall provide notice of evidence it intends to offer pursuant to Fed. R. Evid. 404(b).

8. 12/11/23 — Parties shall exchange expert witnesses.


9. 12/18/23 — Parties shall exchange exhibit lists and ...

10. 1/3/24 — file any objections to exhibits; ...

11. 1/9/24 -- replies due.

12. 1/15/24. — Proposed jury instructions and voir dire questions.


13. 2/19/24 — Parties shall exchange witness lists .

14. 3/4/24 — Trial will commence at 9:30 a.m. in Courtroom 9 unless otherwise specified.

See Order for additional details and instructions.
Signed by Judge Tanya S. Chutkan on 8/28/2023. (zjd) (Entered: 08/28/2023)




9/28/2023 Docket Entry #63

10/16/2023 -- 10:00 AM hearing on the Smith's filed #57 Protective Order

MINUTE ORDER as to DONALD J. TRUMP: The court hereby schedules a hearing on the government's 57 Motion to Ensure that Extrajudicial Statements Do Not Prejudice These Proceedings on October 16, 2023 at 10:00 AM in Courtroom 9.
The requirement of Defendant's appearance is waived for this hearing.
Signed by Judge Tanya S. Chutkan on 9/29/2023. (zjd)




9/29/2023 Docket Entry # 64:

REPLY in Support by USA as to DONALD J. TRUMP re 57 MOTION to Ensure that Extrajudicial Statements Do Not Prejudice these Proceedings (Gaston, Molly)


The need for the proposed order is further evidenced by a review of the defendant’s

prejudicial statements in the weeks since the Government initially filed its motion on September

5. See ECF No. 47-3. Since that date, the defendant has continued to make statements that pose

a substantial likelihood of material prejudice to this case and that fall within the narrowly tailored

order proposed by the Government. These include:

• On September 5, shortly before the Government filed its motion, the defendant posted an
article on the social media platform Truth Social, on which the defendant has more than 6
million followers, making claims about the Court with the sarcastic caption, “Oh, I’m sure
she will be very fair” and an article circulating a false accusation against a Special
Counsel’s Office prosecutor with the caption, “Really corrupt!” 3

• On September 6, on Truth Social, the defendant issued two posts attacking the former Vice
President, a witness identified in the indictment, in relation to this case, saying that he had
seen the Vice President “make up stories about me, which are absolutely false,” and that
the witness had gone to the “Dark Side”; 4

• In an interview aired on NBC’s Meet the Press on September 17, 5 the defendant answered
questions for more than an hour, and said, among other things:

o That the Georgia Secretary of State, a witness identified in the indictment, recently
said things that he had not, including that the defendant “didn’t do anything wrong”
during a phone call constituting an overt act in the indictment;

o That another witness identified in the indictment, the former Attorney General,
“didn’t do his job” during the charged conspiracy because he was afraid of being
impeached;

3
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/111013216116097929;
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/111013180388667397.
4
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/111019762094553476;
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/111019761485786681.
5
https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/transcripts/full-transcript-read-meet-the-press-
kristen-welker-interview-trump-rcna104778




page 10 of 22

• On September 22, on Truth Social, the defendant falsely claimed that the retiring Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a witness cited in the indictment, had committed treason and
suggested that he should be executed: 6




• On September 23, on Truth Social, the defendant re-posted with the caption “What a
mess!” the false claim that the Georgia Secretary of State “knew [of tens of thousands of
fraudulent votes in Georgia in 2020] and covered it up”; 7 and

• On September 26, on Truth Social, the defendant posted a link to an article singling out a
specific prosecutor in the Special Counsel’s Office and claiming that the SCO is a “team
of Lunatics that are working so hard on creating Election Interference . . . ” 8

The defendant’s baseless attacks on the Court and two individual prosecutors not only

could subject them to threats—it also could cause potential jurors to develop views about the



6
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/111111513207332826.
7
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/111112757748267246.
8
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/111133017255697239.




page 11 of 22


propriety of the prosecution, an improper consideration for a juror prior to trial. See Fieger, 2008

WL 474084 at *3-6 (E.D. Mich. Feb. 19, 2008) (magistrate judge imposing an order, adopted in

relevant part by district court, preventing defendant from publicizing, including through

commercials, his claims of improper, selective, or vindictive prosecution because they “create the

danger that potential jurors will associate the content of these commercials to this criminal

prosecution of Defendant Fieger. The commercials therefore are substantially likely to materially

prejudice a fair trial even though this pending criminal action is not explicitly mentioned.”);

Scrushy, 2004 WL 848221, at *4-*6 & n.5 (N.D. Ala. April 13, 2004) (ordering all trial

participants, including the defendant, to “remove from their existing webpages . . . allegations of

prosecutorial misconduct,” and ordering the defendant not to use “his morning television show

. . . to make statements about the case that his lawyers would be precluded from making by the

Rules of Professional Conduct”).

Likewise, the defendant’s continuing public statements about witnesses are substantially

likely to materially prejudice a fair trial. In his opposition, the defendant makes light of some of

his previous attacks on witnesses—some of whom are federal and state government figures in their

own right—by stating that such witnesses do not “sh[y] away from a hearty public debate with

[the defendant]” and were not intimidated by the defendant, or by implying that government

officials somehow have asked for his attacks because they “have made politics, for all its discord

and discourse, a large part of their lives.” ECF No. 60 at n.7. Even assuming that certain witnesses

are not intimidated by the defendant’s statements, other witnesses see and may be affected by what

the defendant does to those who are called to testify in this case. And regardless of whether certain

witnesses are intimidated by the defendant’s extrajudicial statements, the defendant should not be




Page 12 of 22


permitted to attack or bolster the credibility of any witness in a manner that could influence

prospective jurors.

In addition, the defendant’s argument essentially concedes that he is trying this case in the

public sphere, not in the courtroom, which is precisely the harm that Rule 57.7(c) is designed to

prevent. The defendant is publicly maligning witnesses and very intentionally commenting on the

specific topics of their potential testimony at trial. In the context of a pending criminal case and

trial, it is not the solution to the defendant’s improper and prejudicial statements to encourage a

“hearty public debate” in the media regarding witnesses and the merits of the case—it is the

problem. See Sheppard, 384 U.S. at 351 (“legal trials are not like elections, to be won through the

use of the meeting-hall, the radio, and the newspaper” and “freedom of discussion . . . must not be

allowed to divert the trial from the very purpose of a court system to adjudicate controversies . . .

in the calmness and solemnity of the courtroom according to legal procedures”) (internal citations

omitted). From the defendant’s statements, potential jurors may form improper views about

various witnesses’ reputations, veracity, or what they will say at trial. The Court can and should

prevent such improper dissemination of information about the substance of this case. Id. at 363;

see also Marshall v. United States, 360 U.S. 310, 312-13 (1959) (prejudice arising from jurors’

exposure to evidence from extrajudicial sources can be particularly acute because “it is then not

tempered by protective procedures.”); United States v. Lindh, 198 F. Supp. 2d 739, 743 (E.D. Va.

2002) (“Defendant has no constitutional right to use the media to influence public opinion

concerning his case so as to gain an advantage at trial. No such right inheres in either the Sixth

Amendment right to a public trial, or the public’s First Amendment right to a free press.”).

Contrary to the defendant’s claim, the Government is not trying to “unconstitutionally

silence” the defendant, ECF No. 60 at 2, and the proposed order would have no such effect. Since





Page 13 of 22


the Government’s initial filing, beyond the prejudicial examples cited above, the defendant has

made a large volume and wide variety of public statements—through social media posts,

interviews, and speeches—that would be unaffected by the proposed order. If the Court entered

the proposed order, it would in no way hinder the defendant’s ability to campaign and publicly

maintain his innocence. All it would limit is the defendant’s use of his candidacy as a cover for

making prejudicial public statements about this case—and there is no legitimate need for the

defendant, in the course of his campaign, to attack known witnesses regarding the substance of

their anticipated testimony or otherwise engage in materially prejudicial commentary in violation

of the proposed order.

ii. The Defendant’s Opposition Misstates the Facts

The defendant’s opposition makes no attempt to address most of the factual record that the

Government submitted to the Court regarding the defendant’s history and current practice of using

public statements to target individuals, see ECF No. 57 at 2-13, and instead advances conclusory

statements that the Government’s claims are baseless. That is because he cannot explain away the

obvious intent and well-known effect of his words. The single statement that the defendant does

address—in a footnote—is the threatening Truth Social post that he issued on August 4, the day

after his arraignment in this case: “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!” The

defendant complains that the Government’s motion did not note that after public outcry—given

the objectively reasonable understanding of the defendant’s post as a threat related to this case—

a spokesperson issued a statement claiming that the defendant had issued the threat “in response

to . . . special interest groups and Super PACs.” ECF No. 60 at n.8. But the spokesperson’s after-

the-fact explanation is implausible on its face. The truth is clear: the defendant was caught making

a public threat and then had a spokesperson issue an excuse. As the Court has stated, “even





page 14 of 22


arguably ambiguous statements from parties or their counsel, if they could reasonably be

interpreted to intimidate witnesses or to prejudice potential jurors, can threaten the process.”

Protective Order Hr’g 72 -10. The defendant should not be permitted to obtain the benefits of

his incendiary public statements and then avoid accountability by having others—whose messages

he knows will receive markedly less attention than his own—feign retraction. 9 Likewise, no other

criminal defendant would be permitted to issue public statements insinuating that a known witness

in his case should be executed; this defendant should not be, either.

The defendant’s opposition also makes the self-serving claim that rather than address the

source of the material prejudice—the defendant’s inflammatory statements—the Court should

employ alternatives to a Rule 57.7(c) order, such as change of venue, postponement of trial, voir

9
The defendant recently was caught potentially violating his conditions of release, and
tried to walk that back in similar fashion. In particular, on September 25, the defendant’s campaign
spokesman posted a video of the defendant in the Palmetto State Armory, a Federal Firearms
Licensee in Summerville, South Carolina. The video posted by the spokesman showed the
defendant holding a Glock pistol with the defendant’s likeness etched into it. The defendant stated,
“I’ve got to buy one,” and posed for pictures with the FFL owners. The defendant’s spokesman
captioned the video Tweet with the representation that the defendant had purchased the pistol,
exclaiming, “President Trump purchases a @GLOCKInc in South Carolina!” The spokesman
subsequently deleted the post and retracted his statement, saying that the defendant “did not
purchase or take possession of the firearm” (a claim directly contradicted by the video showing
the defendant possessing the pistol). See Fox News, Trump campaign walks back claim former
president purchased Glock amid questions about legality (Sept. 25, 2023),
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-campaign-walks-back-claim-former-president-
purchased-glock-amid-questions-about-legality (accessed Sept. 26, 2023). Despite his
spokesperson’s retraction, the Defendant then re-posted a video of the incident posted by one of
his followers with the caption, “MY PRESIDENT Trump just bought a Golden Glock before his
rally in South Carolina after being arrested 4 TIMES in a year.”
The defendant either purchased a gun in violation of the law and his conditions of release,
or seeks to benefit from his supporters’ mistaken belief that he did so. It would be a separate
federal crime, and thus a violation of the defendant’s conditions of release, for him to purchase a
gun while this felony indictment is pending. See 18 U.S.C. § 922(n).

page 15 of 22


dire, or j[b]ury instructions. ECF No. 60 at 14. But such alternatives are not adequate because they

would not address the source of the prejudice: the defendant’s repeated efforts to try this case in

the media. The Court’s duty here is to implement “measures that will prevent the prejudice at its

inception,” Sheppard, 384 U.S. at 363, and so long as the defendant persists in making materially

prejudicial statements on social media, in interviews, and in speeches, the defendant will continue

to affect the potential venire for this trial. In addition, the defendant’s statements have such broad

reach that as long as he makes them, he will taint potential jurors anywhere in the country. See

Gentile, 501 U.S. at 1075 (even “[e]xtensive voir dire may not be able to filter out all of the effects

of pretrial publicity, and with increasingly widespread media coverage of criminal trials, a change

of venue may not suffice to undo the effect of [trial participants’] statements”); Brown, 218 F.3d

at 431 (jury instruction may fail to address threat of “carnival atmosphere” around trial). Finally,

the alternatives that the defendant suggests the Court consider would have the perverse incentive

of encouraging, rather than curbing, the defendant’s prejudicial statements. The defendant has,

for instance, already stated publicly that he intends to seek a change of venue in this case. See

ECF No. 57 at 7-8. He should not be permitted to pollute the jury pool in this District with his

prejudicial statements and then seek a change of venue based on the complaint that the venire is

tainted.

The defendant seeks to deflect responsibility for his own prejudicial statements by claiming

that the indictment in this case was “false and derogatory” and that the Special Counsel’s brief

statement upon its unsealing was prejudicial because it ascribed to the defendant responsibility for

the events of January 6, 2021—which, according to the defendant’s opposition, the indictment

does not allege. ECF No. 60 at 19-20. The defendant is wrong. First, the indictment, filed in

court, does what indictments are supposed to do: set forth the criminal charges against the




page 16 of 22


defendant and give notice of the factual allegations that underpin them. The defendant provides

no support for his claim that the indictment can be a source of unfair prejudice here—because there

is no such support. And second, the indictment does in fact clearly link the defendant and his

actions to the events of January 6. It alleges—and at trial, the Government will prove—the

following:

• The defendant’s criminal conspiracies targeted, in part, the January 6 certification and
capitalized “on the widespread mistrust the [d]efendant was creating through pervasive
and destabilizing lies about election fraud,” ECF No. 1 at ¶4.

• In advance of January 6, the defendant “urged his supporters to travel to Washington
on the day of the certification proceeding, tweeting, ‘Big protest in D.C. on January
6th. Be there, will be wild!,’” id. at ¶87. He then “set the false expectation that the
Vice President had the authority to and might use his ceremonial role at the certification
proceeding to reverse the election outcome in [his] favor, id. at ¶96.

• Then, despite his awareness “that the crowd [ ] on January 6 was going to be ‘angry,’”
id. at ¶98, on the morning of January 6, the defendant “decided to single out the Vice
President in public remarks,” id. at ¶102, and “repeated knowingly false claims of
election fraud to gathered supporters, falsely told them that the Vice President had the
authority to and might alter the election results, and directed them to the Capitol to
obstruct the certification proceeding and exert pressure on the Vice President to take
the fraudulent actions he had previously refused,” id. at ¶10d.

• Finally, on the afternoon of January 6, after “a large and angry crowd—including many
individuals whom the [d]efendant had deceived into believing the Vice President could
and might change the election results—violently attacked the Capitol and halted the
proceeding,” the defendant exploited the disruption in furtherance of his efforts to
obstruct the certification, id. at ¶10e.

In short, the indictment alleges that the defendant’s actions, including his campaign of knowingly

false claims of election fraud, led to the events of January 6.

The defendant’s motion also attempts to downplay defense counsel’s clear violations of

Rule 57.7(b), and appears to suggest that the defendant’s attorneys reserve the right to violate that

Rule in the future. See ECF No. 60 at 19-22. But it is uncontroverted that, on multiple occasions

in the week following the unsealing of the indictment, defense counsel appeared on media




page 17 of 22


programs and talked extensively about this case, including on topics that Rule 57.7(b) prohibits

attorneys from discussing. See ECF No. 57 at 16 (citing Rule 57.7(b) and linking to lead counsel’s

appearances). The defendant’s opposition then complains that the Court would render his

attorneys inadequate if it were to restrict them from further public statements through the

Government’s proposed 57.7(c) order, but fails to recognize that most of its terms mirror existing

restrictions on all attorneys practicing in this District under Local Criminal Rule 57.7(b). Compare

Local Criminal Rule 57.7(b) (prohibiting attorneys from making extrajudicial statements

regarding, among other things, the “identity, testimony, or credibility of prospective witnesses”)

with ECF No. 57-2 (same, with prohibition on “disparaging and inflammatory or intimidating

statements” about parties, witnesses, attorneys, court personnel, or potential jurors).

Finally, the defendant’s opposition makes faulty claims about the scope and applicability

of the proposed order. In addition to making inaccurate claims about the proposed order’s breadth,

see ECF No. 60 at 17, the defendant suggests that the Government seeks to prevent the defendant

from “redress[ing] the unfairness of this proceeding through legitimate means” including “for

example, filing motions with the Court.” ECF No. 60 at 10-11. But nothing in the proposed order

prevents the defendant from doing so—rather, it explicitly states that he can. See ECF No. 57-2

at 1-2 (order “does not preclude the defendant or his attorneys, agents, or others acting on his

behalf from (a) quoting or referring without comment to public records of the court in the case”).

Similarly, the defendant’s opposition states that “the prosecution seeks only to bar [the defendant]

from speaking.” ECF No. 60 at 13. Not so. The proposed order applies to all parties—including

the Government. But the defendant’s allegation here is telling, in that it highlights that the

defendant—and no other party—is making materially prejudicial public statements in this case…


the Government has proposed that the Court enter an order with five

reasonable conditions:

(1) any party—whether the Government or the defendant—must notify the

Court ex parte before the party or “any individual or entity acting at the party’s direction or under

the party’s control undertakes any jury study in the District of Columbia;”

(2) the notice must include a brief description of the intended methodology, all questions to be asked, and the expected





Page 19 of 22


number of participants;

(3) the party cannot begin the jury study, or use any results from it, absent

the Court’s approval, which may be conditioned on editing or removing portions of the intended

jury study that threaten to materially prejudice the jury pool;

(4) the jury study must be completed

30 days before the start of jury selection; and

(5) the party must maintain the names and addresses

of the study participants and provide that information to the Court at least two weeks prior to jury

selection. See ECF No. 57-3. The defendant objects to every one of these provisions. 10

First, the defendant posits that “jury studies and polling have almost no chance of

influencing the jury,” noting that “Washington D.C. has almost 700,000 residents” and “[a]

statistically significant sample size would ordinarily include only a few hundred people.” ECF

No. 60 at 23. But the size of the jury pool is immaterial; indeed, the Government’s motion cites

to a standing order on jury studies in a Division of the Eastern District of Texas with a population

exceeding that of this District. See ECF No. 57 at 19 (citing Judge Clark’s standing order in the

Beaumont and Lufkin Divisions); https://www.census.gov/library/stories/state-by-state/texas-

population-change-between-census-decade.html (estimating the 2020 population of the counties

comprising the Division to be approximately 832,000). In addition, nothing would prevent the

defendant from creating and implementing a biased jury study and then publicizing its results—or

answers to specific, slanted questions—on a widespread basis to the entire potential jury pool. The

Court should exercise its discretion to protect against such prejudice by taking the simple step of

reviewing the proposal ex parte.




10
The defendant objects to the Government’s proposal, but “has no objection to informing
the Court of the dates and sample sizes of his polling in the District of Columbia.” ECF No. 60 at
23. The defendant’s alternative, however, would not address the potential tangible harm—
materially prejudicing the jury pool—posed by inappropriate studies.





Page 20 of 22


Second, the defendant suggests that no Court regulation is needed because “the purpose of

polling and jury studies is not to influence respondents, but to get a true read on the community’s

opinions or feelings on certain issues.” ECF No. 60 at 23. But in practice, jury studies, like other

polls, may be skewed to influence the participants or shape the results. See Ellen Kreitzberg &

Mary Procaccio-Flowers, Jury Selection: The Law, Art & Science of Selecting a Jury § 3:4 (2002)

(“Providing respondents with a misleading description of the facts may produce responses that are

pleasing to the client, but will be useless in providing insight into the reactions of the jurors who

will hear the whole truth during trial.”). 11 Because skewed studies could influence potential jurors,

the questions should be subject to review by the Court. See Brewer v. Lennox Hearth Prods., LLC,

601 S.W.3d 704, 726 (Tex. 2020) (“A campaign of disinformation, in whatever form, undermines

the sanctity of the judicial process and is inimical to the constitutional promise of a fair and

impartial jury trial.”).

Third, the defendant objects to a requirement that any jury study be concluded 30 days

before trial because “polling is most valuable if conducted close to trial.” ECF No. 60 at 24. Yet

at the status hearing one month ago, defense counsel suggested the defendant would “likely need

to do it sooner rather than later,” Transcript of Status Hearing, at 59 (Aug. 28, 2023), in reference

to polling for a Rule 26 motion, the filing deadline for which is October 9, 2023. See ECF No. 39

at ¶2 (setting deadline for “[a]ll other pre-trial motions, excluding motions in limine”). In any




11
While in office, the defendant provided an example of one type of distorted polling the
proposed order seeks to prevent: “A poll should be done on which is the more dishonest and
deceitful newspaper, the Failing New York Times or the Amazon (lobbyist) Washington Post!
They are both a disgrace to our County, the Enemy of the People, but I just can’t seem to figure
out which is worse?” See Trump Tweet, June 16, 2019, 9:39:22 EST, available at
https://www.thetrumparchive.com/ (last visited Sept. 27, 2023).




page 21 of 22


event, the proposed 30-day limit creates a reasonable buffer that would reduce the potential impact

of any jury study on the venire. See Brewer, 601 S.W.3d at 726.

Fourth, relying on Blankenship v. Fox News Network, LLC, No. 2:19-cv-00236, 2020 WL

7225765, at *1 n.3 (S.D.W. Va. Dec. 8, 2020), the defendant contends that “polls and jury studies

commissioned by defense counsel are work product and some parts, if not all, are attorney-client

privileged.” ECF No. 60 at 23. That inapposite case, though, dealt with a civil subpoena seeking

“all documents and communications that underlie these investigations as well as analyses carried

out on Plaintiff’s behalf and documents and communications between Plaintiff and his attorneys

and [the jury consulting company] pertaining to the criminal trial.” Id. at *2. Here, the proposed

order addresses a far more limited set of information—“a brief description of the intended

methodology. . . all questions that will be asked. . . [and] the expected number of participants,” as

well as the participants’ names and addresses. ECF No. 57-3 at 1-2. Assuming any privileges

applied to such information, they would dissipate when the “questions to be asked” were actually

asked of the participants. In other words, the parties cannot shield from the Court, on privilege

grounds, the questions they intend to broadcast to hundreds, if not thousands, of District residents.




page 22 of 22


The rationale for the proposed order is to protect the integrity of the trial and the jury pool,

and the regulations it would impose are modest. The defendant’s complaints are unfounded, and

the Court should exercise its discretion to enter the order.

III. Conclusion

Through both of its proposed orders, the Government seeks appropriate processes for

protecting the jury pool in this case and the integrity of this proceeding. The Court should grant

the Government’s motion and enter them.



Respectfully submitted,

JACK SMITH
Special Counsel

By: /s/Molly Gaston
Molly Gaston
Thomas P. Windom
Senior Assistant Special Counsels
950 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Room B-206
Washington, D.C. 20530







Readings:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innominate_jury

September 29, 2023

Carl Sagan -- Cosmos: A Personal Voyage

Perspective is work. It requires the will to do good work that outlives us.


"...The surface of the Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean. On this shore we've learned most of what we know. Recently we've waded a little way out, maybe ankle deep, and the water seems inviting. Some part of our being knows this is where we came from..."

September 28, 2023

Mehdi Hasan Contributes A Campaign Ad For Biden 2024

September 28, 2023

Trump's fantasyland of "monsters" trying to steal his 2024 election:

-- President Joe Biden:
"Biden is a criminal... the most corrupt and incompetent president in US history!"

-- Judge Chutkan:
"This political hack judge must be stopped!"

-- General Mark Milley:
Mark Milley’s phone call to reassure China in the aftermath of the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, was
“an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH.”
(The phone call was, in fact, explicitly authorized by Trump-administration officials.)

-- Judge Arthur Engoron:
"His name is Arthur Engoron, & he is a vicious, biased, and mean 'rubber stamp' for the Communist takeover of the great & prosperous American company that I have built over a long period of years ... 'He was appointed by my worst enemies. Case was to go to a new Judge, but he demands to keep it. I have no jury or Civil Rights!"

-- New York AG Letitia James:
The only person who may be worse than weak on violent crime A.G. Letitia 'Peekaboo' James, is the Judge we have on her ridiculous & highly partisan case against me & my family,'

-- Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg:
"...A Soros backed animal...“What kind of person can charge another person ... Only a degenerate psychopath that truly hates the USA!” “EVERYBODY KNOWS I’M 100% INNOCENT, INCLUDING BRAGG, BUT HE DOESN’T CARE. HE IS JUST CARRYING OUT THE PLANS OF THE RADICAL LEFT LUNATICS. OUR COUNTRY IS BEING DESTROYED, AS THEY TELL US TO BE PEACEFUL!”

-- Fulton County, GA DA Fani Willis:
"The people that tampered with it were the ones that rigged it, and sadly, phoney [sic] Fani Willis, who has shockingly allowed Atlanta to become one of the most dangerous cities anywhere in the world, has no interest in seeing the massive amount of evidence available, or finding out who these people that committed this crime are."

-- DOJ Special Counsel Jack Smith:






No matter the frequency of Trump's attacks, neither he nor his cult will stop the scale of Rule of Law and Reality, where his Fantasyland of Monsters will introduce him to both.

September 26, 2023

Donald Trump's day so far:

- Loses New York fraud trial
- Massive financial penalties incoming
- Goodbye Trump Org!
- Trump's NY business licenses being revoked
- Four Trump criminal trials still coming
- Trump is going to prison

It's still only 5:30 pm.

Trump's life so far:

September 26, 2023

100 Years of Star Wars -- An AI Production, Or AI Madness

100% scary, but shows you where AI proponents are at in ‘taking over the industry.’

September 25, 2023

Middle Age Riot

September 25, 2023

The States Project -- a BFD

Ever heard of it? I hadn't until today. Thank you, NYT.

When the stakes of 2024 are the highest, we might finally be catching up with the Koch billionaire network through our own billionaires' investing in liberal representation across states.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/25/us/politics/states-project-democrats.html


Non-paywall

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/25/us/politics/states-project-democrats.html?unlocked_article_code=--GXF-CwVF8yTQZFEMICApddI0-KhGQvWEn8GdxkNm5RXX0oxSqzt2y0mgZkm0eqf_2iE8bIOvszqzwi-umYOee-C90FCuJykwgNxw59SFnVL7_FnYo8fwHkzbCedo28JG97EHvRl12HUo2a6T9vfOc64_Bd_s8uTkzIDfXocASKJJknj9hY6Fmm9pCx-b_5h08YM2x4aTZFOGTJdM2oDwcGI3JVDSYTCUIdMhqaBx1pcW_Per3n6mWhcyfhGJivCzOz7NaQ58Cb-3dVG3Yswdzxi1z1MTkq2E6MlXqtETtcys6i3jwPHrRPn4XLwnqty5ZoBwRdlCq7PxwP_mhmiV9Aa3plkA&smid=url-share

September 21, 2023

The Shutdown is the Two Santa Clauses Scam Rearing its Ugly Head Again

(bolding is mine)

As the United States barrels toward a GOP-caused fiscal disaster and government shutdown, House Republicans have laid out their vision for the future of America.

In a budget document they released yesterday, the legislators proposed dramatic $9 trillion cuts to Social Security, food stamps, aid to women and children, Medicare and Medicaid, along a new round of tax cuts for America’s billionaires. Their argument is that we need to “balance the budget now!”

This is the classic Two Santas strategy that the GOP has been running ever since 1981. In addition to showing the hypocrisy and depravity of these politicians who are happy to live on the largesse of rightwing billionaires but see no benefit in feeding hungry children, it also shows that Jude Wanniski’s grand plan, adopted by Reagan in 1981, is alive and well.

It’s no accident or coincidence that the threat of a failure to pay the nation’s bills or fund an upcoming year never once happened during the presidencies of Reagan, Bush, Bush, or Trump. Or that it did happen every single time during the presidencies of Clinton, Obama…and, now, Biden.

You could even call it a conspiracy: there’s an amazing backstory — with a unique name — here. And it all started with a guy named Jude Wanniski, who literally transformed American politics with a plan that the American mainstream media, astonishingly, continues to ignore.

Here’s how it works, laid it out in simple summary:

To set up its foundation, Wanniski’s “Two Santas” strategy dictates, when Republicans control the White House they must spend money like a drunken Santa and cut taxes on the rich, all to intentionally run up the US debt as far and as fast as possible.

They started this during the Reagan presidency and tripled down on it during the presidencies of Bush and Trump with massive tax cuts for billionaires and increases in spending across-the-board.

Those massive tax cuts and that uncontrolled spending during four Republican presidencies produced three results:

-- They stimulated the economy with a sort of sugar high, making people think that the GOP can produce a good economy;
-- They raised the national debt dramatically (it’s at $33 trillion today, almost all of which tracks back to Reagan’s, Bush Jr.’s, and Trump’s massive tax cuts and Bush’s two illegal off-the-books wars);
-- And they made people think that Republicans are the “tax-cut Santa Clauses.”

Then comes part two of the one-two punch: when a Democrat is in the White House, Republicans must scream about the national debt as loudly and frantically as possible, freaking out about how “our children will have to pay for it!” and “you must cut spending to solve the crisis!”

The “debt crisis,” that is, that they themselves created with their massive tax cuts and wild spending.

Do whatever it takes, the “Two Santas” strategy goes. Tie up legislation, deny a quorum, filibuster, shut down the government, whatever.

Which is why, following Wanniski’s script, Republicans are again squealing about the national debt and saying they will refuse to fund the government, possibly crashing the US economy.

And, once again, the media is preparing to cover it as a “Debt Crisis!” rather than what it really is: a cynical political and media strategy devised by Republicans in the 1970s, fine-tuned in the 1980s, and since then rolled out every time a Democrat is in the White House.

Politically, it’s a brilliant strategy that was hatched by a fellow most people have never heard of: Jude Wanniski...

Republican strategist Wanniski first proposed his Two Santa Clauses strategy in The Wall Street Journal in 1974...

Wanniski argued back then that Republicans weren’t losing so many elections just because of Nixon’s corruption, but mostly because the Democrats had been viewed since the New Deal of the 1930s as the “Santa Claus party.”

On the other hand, the GOP, he said, was widely seen as the “party of Scrooge” because ever since the 1930s they’d publicly opposed everything from Social Security and Medicare to unemployment insurance and food stamps.

The Democrats, he noted, had gotten to play Santa Claus for decades when they passed out Social Security and unemployment checks — both programs of FDR’s Democratic New Deal — as well as their “big government” projects like roads, bridges, schools, and highways that gave a healthy union paycheck to workers and made our country shine.

Even worse, Democrats kept raising taxes on businesses and rich people to pay for all that “free stuff” — and Democrats’ 91% top tax rates on the morbidly rich didn’t have any negative effect at all on working people...

It all added, Wanniski theorized, to the public perception that the Democrats were the true party of Santa Claus, using taxes on the morbidly rich to fund programs for the poor and the working class.

Americans loved the Democrats back then. And every time Republicans railed against these programs, they lost elections.

Therefore, Wanniski concluded, the GOP had to become a Santa Claus party, too...

But because Republicans hated the idea of helping working people, they had to come up with a new way to convince average voters that the GOP, too, had the Santa spirit. But what?

“Tax cuts!” said Wanniski.

To make this work, the Republicans would first have to turn the classical world of economics — which had operated on a simple demand-driven equation for seven thousand years — on its head...

At a glance, this 1981 move by the Reagan Republicans to cut taxes while increasing spending seems irrational, cynical, and counterproductive. It certainly defies classic understandings of economics. But when you consider Jude Wanniski’s playbook, it makes complete sense.

To help, Arthur Laffer took that equation a step further with the famous “Laffer Curve” napkin scribble he shared with Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld over lunch. Not only was supply-side a rational concept, Laffer suggested, but as taxes went down, revenue to the government would magically go up!

Neither concept made any sense — and time and our $33 trillion national debt have proven both to be colossal idiocies — but if Americans would buy into it all, they offered the Republican Party a way out of the wilderness.

Ronald Reagan was the first national Republican politician to fully embrace the Two Santa Clauses strategy.

He told the American people straight-out that if he could cut taxes on rich people and businesses, those “job creators” (then a newly-invented Republican phrase) would use their extra money to “build new factories” so all that new stuff “supplying” the economy would produce faster economic growth.

George HW Bush — like most Republicans in 1980 who hadn’t read Wanniski’s piece in The Wall Street Journal — was initially horrified. Ronald Reagan was proposing “Voodoo Economics,” said Bush in the primary campaign, and Wanniski's supply-side and Laffer’s tax-cut theories would throw the nation into debt while producing nothing to benefit average Americans.

But Wanniski had done his homework, selling “Voodoo” supply-side economics to the wealthy elders and influencers of the Republican Party.

Democrats, Wanniski told the GOP, had been “Santa Clauses” since 1933 by giving people things. From union jobs to food stamps, new schools to Social Security, the American people loved the “toys” and “free stuff” the Democratic Santas brought every year, as well as the growing economy the increasing union wages and social programs produced in middle class hands.

But Republicans could stimulate the economy by throwing trillions at defense contractors, oil companies, and other fat-cat donor industries, Jude’s theory went: spending could actually increase without negative repercussions because that money would “trickle down” to workers from the billionaires and corporate CEOs buying new yachts and building new mansions.

Plus, Republicans could be double Santa Clauses by cutting people’s taxes!

For working people, the tax cuts would only be a small token — a few hundred dollars a year at the most — but Republicans would heavily market them to the media and in political advertising. And the tax cuts for the rich, which weren’t to be discussed in public, would amount to trillions of dollars, part of which they knew would be recycled back to the GOP as campaign contributions from the morbidly rich beneficiaries of those tax cuts.

There was no way, Wanniski said, that the Democrats could ever win again.

Every time a Democrat was in the White House, they’d be forced into the role of Santa-killers if they acted responsibly by raising taxes; or, even better, they’d be machine-gunning Santa by cutting spending on their own social programs.

Either one would lose them elections, and if Republicans executed the strategy right, they could force Democrats to do both!

Reagan took the federal budget deficit from under a trillion dollars when he was elected in 1980 to almost three trillion by 1988, and back then a dollar could buy far more than it buys today.

Republicans embraced Wanniski’s theory with such gusto that Presidents Reagan and George HW Bush ran up more debt in twelve years than every president in history up until that time — from George Washington to Jimmy Carter — combined.

Surely this would both “starve the beast” of the American government and force the Democrats to make the politically suicidal move of becoming deficit hawks.

Bill Clinton, the first Democrat they blindsided with Two Santas, had run on an FDR-like platform of a “New Covenant” with the American people that would strengthen the institutions of the New Deal, re-empower labor, and institute a national single-payer health care system.

A few weeks before his inauguration, however, Wanniski-insiders Alan Greenspan, Larry Sommers, and Goldman Sachs co-chairman Robert Rubin famously sat Clinton down and told him the facts of life: Reagan and Bush had run up such a huge deficit that he was going to have to both raise taxes and cut the size of government programs for the working class and poor.

Clinton buckled under the threat of a government shutdown: he raised taxes, balanced the budget, and cut numerous social programs. He declared an “end to welfare as we know it” and, in his second inaugural address, an “end to the era of big government.”

Clinton shot Santa Claus, and the result was an explosion of Republican wins across the country as GOP politicians campaigned on a “Republican Santa” platform of supply-side tax cuts and pork-rich spending increases...

Republicans got what they wanted from Wanniski’s work. Using the “fiscal responsibility” argument — essentially Two Santas in drag — Republicans have forced two Democratic presidents, and are about to try to force a third, to gut-shoot the Democratic Santa established by FDR.

Using this strategy, Republicans held power for forty years, transferred over $50 trillion from working class families into the money bins of the top one percent, and cut organized labor's representation in the workplace from around a third of workers when Reagan came into office to around 8 percent of the non-governmental workforce today.

Think back to Ronald Reagan, who more than tripled the US debt from a mere $800 billion to $2.6 trillion in his 8 years. That spending produced a massive stimulus to the economy, and the biggest non-wartime increase in America’s national debt in all of our history until Trump.

There was nary a peep from Republicans about that 218% increase in our debt; they were just fine with it and to this day claim Reagan presided over a “great” economy.

When five rightwingers on the Supreme Court gave the White House to George W. Bush in 2000, he immediately reverted to Wanniski’s “Two Santa” strategy and again nearly doubled the national debt, adding several trillion in borrowed money to pay for his two tax cuts for billionaires, and tossing in two unfunded wars for good measure, which also added at least (long term) another $8 trillion.

There was not a whisper about that debt from any high-profile in-the-know Republicans; in fact, Dick Cheney — who knew Wanniski personally — famously said, amplifying Wanniski’s strategy:

“Reagan proved deficits don’t matter. We won the midterms. This is our due.”

Bush and Cheney’s tax cuts for the rich raised the debt by 86% to over $10 trillion (and additional trillions in war debt that wasn’t be put on the books until Obama entered office, so it looked like it was his).

Then came Democratic President Barack Obama, and suddenly the GOP was hysterical about the debt again.

So much so that they convinced a sitting Democratic president to propose a cut to Social Security (the “chained CPI”). Obama nearly shot the Democrats’ biggest Santa Claus, just like Wanniski predicted, until outrage from the Democratic base stopped him. And then we got the “sequester” out of it...

It was a successful hostage-taking exercise that is still largely in place.

Next, Donald Trump raised our national debt by over $8 trillion, and the GOP funded the government without a peep every year for the first three years of his administration, and then suspended the debt ceiling altogether for 2020 (so, if Biden won, he’d have to justify raising the debt ceiling for 2 years’ worth of deficits, making it even more politically painful).

And now Republicans are using the renewal of government funding for fiscal year 2024 to drop their Two Santas bomb right onto President Joe Biden’s head. After all, it worked against Clinton and Obama and the media never caught on. Why wouldn’t they use it again?

This time they’re planning on adding the Newt Gingrich twist of shutting the government down and damaging the economy just as the Democratic president heads toward an election.

And if the GOP’s failure to fund the government crashes the economy, all the better. Republicans can just blame Biden: it’ll increase the chances of Republican victories in 2024!

Americans deserve to know how we’ve been manipulated, and by whom. Sadly, although I and others (it’s even detailed on Wikipedia!) have been calling out Wanniski’s scheme for decades, none of the national media have ever seriously examined this 40+ year GOP strategy...

Hopefully this time Democratic politicians and our media will, finally, call the GOP out on Wanniski’s and Reagan’s Two Santa Clauses scam and put an end to it once and for all."

https://hartmannreport.com/p/the-shutdown-is-the-two-santa-clauses-a95


Rethugs know and even use Wanniski's "two-santa" lingo.

It's time Democrats and President Biden not just invoke Amendment 14, Sec. 3, but publicly call rethugs out about their 40-year long con -- and corporate media's lazy complicity in that con.

September 21, 2023

Sheldon Whitehouse: Economic Inequality Constricts Economic Growth & Undermines Economic Stability

Senator Whitehouse (D-RI), Chair of the Senate Budget Committee, delivered the following opening statement at yesterday's Budget Comte. hearing entitled, “Reducing Inequality, Fueling Growth: How Public Investment Promotes Prosperity for All.”