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Predict Trump's first revenge prosecutions!

If both Comey's and James' prosecutions are thrown out as malicious and vindictive can the DOJ be forced to pay their legal fees?
 
Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!
WASHINGTON, Oct 7 (Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, appearing before a Senate panel on Tuesday, criticized Democratic lawmakers in personal terms as she faced pushback over the Justice Department's enforcement efforts in Democratic-led cities and investigations of President Donald Trump's critics.
Bondi, appearing before the Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee, said the department under Trump was "returning to our core mission of fighting real crime," citing the surge in federal law enforcement activity in Washington, D.C., and Memphis, Tennessee.
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Bondi said the Justice Department was ending the "weaponization of justice" even as several political adversaries of Trump face federal investigations and prosecutions.
The attorney general parried questions from Democratic lawmakers about her handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, a bribery probe into Trump border czar Tom Homan and the case against former FBI Director James Comey by criticizing her questioners in partisan terms unusual for the nation's top law enforcement officer.
Pressed on the Justice Department's reversal on releasing files on sex trafficking investigations into Epstein, a one-time friend of Trump, Bondi accused Democratic senators of accepting campaign donations from an Epstein associate.
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Hercules56 said:
If both Comey's and James' prosecutions are thrown out as malicious and vindictive can the DOJ be forced to pay their legal fees?
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Only through a separate action. The judge in the criminal cases has the option of levying sanctions against a malicious prosecutor, but those don't go to benefit the defendant. If your criminal case is dismissed on the grounds that it was selective or vindictive, then you can sue separately in civil court to recover your attorney's fees in the criminal case. You don't get any compensation for that action, though. You have to pay an attorney in a civil case to help you recover the fees you paid to the attorney in your criminal case.

Hercules56 said:

Interesting piece on how all these indictments may backfire fantastically.
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What this means on the ground is that the defense can now conduct discovery into the prosecutor's internal deliberations, which is not normally allowed and which doesn't necessarily fall under Brady. The Brady rule means that a prosecutor must turn over to the defense any exculpatory evidence it finds that benefits the defendant. But not everything a prosecutor does behind closed doors is that. When—as in this case—a judge finds it plausible according to evidence (e.g., the timing of charges) that the prosecutor might have acted improperly in bringing the charges, the court can order the prosecutor to cough up evidence at the defendant's request that touches on how the case was prepared, how it was decided to go to trial, and so forth. If a defendant claims selective or vindictive prosecution, that's an affirmative defense that incurs the burden of proof. The court can compel the other party to provide the evidence that may satisfy that burden.
 
Looks like Bolton has now been indicted (but last I heard details are not public.) This appears to have something to do with classified documents.

Unlike the James and comey prosecutions (built on flimsy pretexts against the recommendation of experienced prosecutors) I think this case may have a possible chance of succeeding. (They have an experienced prosecutor involved at the Grand jury, and there might be something they can conceivably spin into a real crime. (There still is the issue of selective or malicious prosecutions that might be used in his defense)

Eta: I have to admit I am a little less sympathetic towards Bolton than I am to James. Bolton voluntarily worked for the Trump administration, and although he became a trump "critic", he never said "vote democrat".
 
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dudalb said:
A. This is a civil suite, DOJ is not involved.
B.This is what is known as a nuisance suite something Trump has along history of doing. The Amount is ridiculous and it will probably get nowhere.I know you think Trump is all powerful, but he has no power to fix juries.
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Interesting looking at old but plausible comments.
 
Segnosaur said:
Looks like Bolton has now been indicted (but last I heard details are not public.) This appears to have something to do with classified documents.
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18 counts, split between mishandling of classified information and transmission of classified information to unauthorized parties. The indictment is too large to attach here, but I have read it.

Segnosaur said:
Unlike the James and comey prosecutions (built on flimsy pretexts against the recommendation of experienced prosecutors) I think this case may have a possible chance of succeeding. (They have an experienced prosecutor involved at the Grand jury, and there might be something they can conceivably spin into a real crime. (There still is the issue of selective or malicious prosecutions that might be used in his defense)
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Unlike the Comey and James indictments, each of which is around five pages, the Bolton indictment is a 26-page speaking indictment. This is not a Bondi-Halligan joint. While the U.S. Attorney for Maryland is a fairly recent Trump installation, she is at least an experienced prosecutor, and the indictment is countersigned by other attorneys in the Maryland district, notably Derek Shugert who will be the prosecutor of record. He is an experienced national security prosecutor, and the Maryland district is a no-nonsense district for such matters.

More importantly, this was the result of an investigation carried out primarily by the Biden administration. It will be very hard to dismiss this as politically motivated or selective. This case has a good chance of succeeding.

Bolton will be represented by Abbe Lowell, of Lowell & Associates. Lowell has represented many high-profile clients including members of the Trump family. Bolton claims the factual allegations in the indictment are old issues that were previously resolved.

Segnosaur said:
Eta: I have to admit I am a little less sympathetic towards Bolton than I am to James. Bolton voluntarily worked for the Trump administration, and although he became a trump "critic", he never said "vote democrat".
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I consider him more or less in the same category as William Barr. If you sign up to work for Donald Trump, I think you deserve what you get. It doesn't matter much if you grow a conscience later. Bolton knew who Donald Trump was when he joined the administration.

Trebuchet said:
Trump having Bolton indicted over classified documents. He owes me an irony meter.
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Indeed, those of us who have been privy to classified material generally consider it a strict liability matter. That is, it doesn't really matter what innocent thing you intended or what may have happened inadvertently; if you mishandled documents or divulged the information inappropriately, you're just cooked. Thus be ridiculously careful.

There has historically been some leeway for current and former high-ranking officials who discover that they have accidentally retained classified material, as long as they act promptly and candidly to return it. The Trump Mar-a-Lago fiasco was beyond the pale, and the notion that he got away with it is highly galling to those of us who took our responsibility extremely seriously.

John Bolton is accused of more than simply failing to exercise suitable care while serving as National Security Advisor. The factual allegations include claims that he was taking notes during meetings in which classified topics were discussed (usually a no-no), keeping the notes he took (a definite no-no), and using nonclassified tools to transcribe and store them digitally (a pretty serious crime). On the one hand, that may be an indicator of how cavalier a Trump administration is with top secret materials. But on the other hand, it's still quite forbidden to do what he is alleged to have done.
 
JayUtah said:
18 counts, split between mishandling of classified information and transmission of classified information to unauthorized parties. The indictment is too large to attach here, but I have read it.


Unlike the Comey and James indictments, each of which is around five pages, the Bolton indictment is a 26-page speaking indictment. This is not a Bondi-Halligan joint. While the U.S. Attorney for Maryland is a fairly recent Trump installation, she is at least an experienced prosecutor, and the indictment is countersigned by other attorneys in the Maryland district, notably Derek Shugert who will be the prosecutor of record. He is an experienced national security prosecutor, and the Maryland district is a no-nonsense district for such matters.

More importantly, this was the result of an investigation carried out primarily by the Biden administration. It will be very hard to dismiss this as politically motivated or selective. This case has a good chance of succeeding.

Bolton will be represented by Abbe Lowell, of Lowell & Associates. Lowell has represented many high-profile clients including members of the Trump family. Bolton claims the factual allegations in the indictment are old issues that were previously resolved.


I consider him more or less in the same category as William Barr. If you sign up to work for Donald Trump, I think you deserve what you get. It doesn't matter much if you grow a conscience later. Bolton knew who Donald Trump was when he joined the administration.


Indeed, those of us who have been privy to classified material generally consider it a strict liability matter. That is, it doesn't really matter what innocent thing you intended or what may have happened inadvertently; if you mishandled documents or divulged the information inappropriately, you're just cooked. Thus be ridiculously careful.

There has historically been some leeway for current and former high-ranking officials who discover that they have accidentally retained classified material, as long as they act promptly and candidly to return it. The Trump Mar-a-Lago fiasco was beyond the pale, and the notion that he got away with it is highly galling to those of us who took our responsibility extremely seriously.

John Bolton is accused of more than simply failing to exercise suitable care while serving as National Security Advisor. The factual allegations include claims that he was taking notes during meetings in which classified topics were discussed (usually a no-no), keeping the notes he took (a definite no-no), and using nonclassified tools to transcribe and store them digitally (a pretty serious crime). On the one hand, that may be an indicator of how cavalier a Trump administration is with top secret materials. But on the other hand, it's still quite forbidden to do what he is alleged to have done.
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Bolton only "grew a conscience" because TACO didn't go off and do the specific criminalities Bolton told him to do.
 
Segnosaur said:
The results of Comey's grand jury have been fairly well reported in the news. (Unusual as that was.)

From: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/judge-james-comey-indictment-confusion-trump/
A majority of the grand jury that reviewed the Comey matter voted not to charge him with one of the three counts presented by prosecutors, according to a form that was signed by the grand jury's foreperson and filed in court. He was indicted on two other counts — making false statements to Congress and obstructing a congressional proceeding — after 14 of 23 jurors voted in favor of them, the foreperson told the judge.

So barely half of the grand jury (where it was said you could indict a ham sandwich, and where there is no defense) agreed to 2 of the charges, and to get a conviction (where, you know, the defense actually get to present a case) they have to get 12 out of 12 to agree.

ETA: Oops, ninja'd by JayUtah.
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The prosecutor convened the grand jury at the unusual time of 6:45 pm, meaning that it's possible that some of the jurors felt that the fastest way to get home was to vote for an indictment.
 
TellyKNeasuss said:
The prosecutor convened the grand jury at the unusual time of 6:45 pm, meaning that it's possible that some of the jurors felt that the fastest way to get home was to vote for an indictment.
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infamously until the late 18th century a criminal trial could not recess or adjourn. It had to be heard in one sitting. That meant that a jury (a petit jury in this case) would often vote to convict just to end the trial. "Wretches hang that Jury-men may dine."

In the Comey case the first indictment was no-billed. Lindsey Halligan had to rewrite the indictment and make a new presentation, so she kept the grand jury after hours to hear the revised indictment. This is because the statute of limitations was fast running out. Comey has moved to unseal the grand jury transcript. Such a motion is almost never granted. To win one, you need prima facie evidence that the transcript will contain something that supports a dismissal of a charge—misconduct in the grand jury presentation.
 
Mojo said:
That sounds a bit Catch-22.
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It is. Often in law your burden of proof relies on evidence controlled by the other party or by a third party. Therefore a foundational concept in law is the compulsory production of evidence—you can subpoena witnesses and compel "discovery" of evidence held by an adverse party and a court will issue appropriate orders and enforce them if necessary. Alex Jones got the default judgments against him precisely by ignoring discovery orders.

Conversely, burden of proof itself derives from initial presumptions. In science we call it the null hypothesis. In law it goes by such names as presumption of innocence, presumption of regularity, etc. The presumption of regularity says that a prosecution is presumed to be well-brought and procedurally valid. If you want to argue that the prosecution should be dismissed not on the merits but instead by a violation of regularity, you have that burden of proof.

Anyone who gets a speeding ticket when it seemed that other drivers were going as fast or faster understands the desire to complain that you were unfairly singled out. But if every defendant could beg off by pointing to others who were not prosecuted for similar behavior, for whatever reason, no one would ever be punished. Therefore the burden to prove an inappropriately targeted prosecution has to be higher than just being singled out among many other examples of lawbreaking.

Similarly a prosecutor's internal deliberations among her colleagues is considered privileged. This serves the goal of prosecutorial discretion, which is somewhat in tension with the presumption of regularity. But in a civilized society we recognize that maybe we shouldn't ticket the 80-year-old woman for not shoveling the snow off her sidewalk within 24 hours (a law where I live). By the same token, we don't want the 30-year-old bodybuilder living next door to be able to nitpick the prosecutor's reasoning in deciding to ticket him. So we allow the prosecutor's discretionary deliberations a presumption of regularity and therefore a protection of privilege.

Now I'm probably confusing the various motions of the James and Comey cases, so I might have to come back and correct some details. I haven't kept up on the dockets for these cases. But inasmuch as the motions are starting to look the same, they might be considered appropriately interchangeable.

In order to pierce the presumption of regularity at this stage, all the defendant needs is prima facie evidence—a pretty low standard, but an effective one nonetheless because it rejects claims for which there is simply no evidence at all of irregularity. That's the case in almost all prosecutions. All that does at this stage is support a motion to get evidence that would normally not be discoverable. That's the evidence that would then be presented in a motion to dismiss on grounds of prosecutorial misconduct. So we surmount the Catch-22 by proceeding in small steps with escalating standards of proof and obligations to disclose evidence.

In these cases, Pres. Trump offered some pretty good prima facie evidence: the infamous Truth Social post that was supposed to be a private message to Attorney General Pam Bondi. It's pretty good evidence that the prosecutions were ordered by the President as political revenge on his antagonists rather than as the ordinary dispensation of justice for lawbreaking. When the defense can also point to public facts such as the departure of former U.S. Attorney Erik Siebert who reported the case was unsupported, you have enough evidence to convince a judge that misconduct might actually have occurred, and you deserve access to more evidence.

In this case, Comey gets to compel discovery of the internal records and communications at the U.S. Attorney's office having to do with his case. In a regular prosecution, these wouldn't be discoverable by the defense. With that evidence in hand, he may be able to prove to an appropriate standard that his charges should be dismissed as inappropriately targeted prosecutions. But to get that material at all, he had to show there was some reason to believe the material might contain evidence of wrongdoing rather than just being the regular workings of the office.

Similarly, Comey has also moved to obtain the transcript of the grand jury proceedings, which would ordinarily not be available to him. Here again you need to show a judge prima facie evidence of sufficient irregularity to get an order piercing that secrecy. And again, these are rarely granted motions because the prima facie standard is high enough.

Grand jury proceedings are not governed by the same rules of evidence as a trial. But there are still rules. You can't present privileged evidence, for example, such as statements between attorney and client. And the prosecutor must accurately instruct the grand jury (composed of lay members) on the law so that they can decide whether the elements of the crime are addressed in the indictment. You can infer that in some cases from the language of the indictment as compared to the text of the statutes allegedly violated.

Here, Comey has argued improper instruction. But he has also pointed out that one of the witnesses to the grand jury was an FBI agent who had access to privileged material. Ordinarly to prevent that, one set of agents filters the evidence for such things as privilege. Then another set formulates the actual case and testifies to the grand jury. Since the agents who testify never saw the inappropriate evidence, there's no prima facie evidence that the testimony was improper for that reason.

But only access to the actual grand jury transcripts would show whether privileged information was actually used inappropriately to obtain the indictment. And if so, it would be the defendant's burden to argue for a dismissal on those grounds so it's the defendant's obligation to convince a judge to let him see that. U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan opened the door by allowing a tainted witness to testify. That's enough to break the Catch-22 and allow the Comey to ask exactly what the testimony was.
 
Lordy, the ◊◊◊◊ show continues in the worst way.

The judge appointed to hear the motion to disqualify Interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan has bench-slapped her for providing edited transcripts of the grand jury proceedings. The judge wants to ascertain to what degree Halligan participated in the grand jury proceedings that procured the indictment against James Comey. But the transcripts provided for in camera review were only the testimony of the sole witness (an FBI agent). Halligan's statements were omitted.
 
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