It’s a rolling basis and the way it is in federal criminal courts they would see all of it that the government decides to use eventually anyway.
Discovery in federal court makes even criminal cases quite transparent. Evidence gets seen by both sides, which is always true anyway, even in state courts.
Who was appointed by Reagan and who gave the defense more than (I think) she had to today.
The judge refused to let them review the documents first. This was based on the fact that a search warrant was granted because prosecutors were able to show probable cause.
I know both sides are always all over who appointed whatever judge but that’s not a good way to try to determine what a federal judge will do.
They have lifetime appointments and are beholden to noone.
Aside from “both involve courts ordering meticulous review of documents and both have some relationship to the office of POTUS,” what parallels are you seeing?
I’m no lawyer but I’d guess probably a dozen court-ordered reviews are taking place any given week somewhere in the USA. (Would be curious if anyone actually knows.) Obviously this one is higher stakes, but frankly there just aren’t that many matters legal related to normal presidents that make it to this sort of scrutiny. Obama didn’t make a career out of abusing the courts or doing things that would get his associates dragged into court. He probably also could be trusted to respond to a subpoena, which is the genesis of this whole drama about Cohen’s documents.
So I’m not seeing the basis for generalizing from Bush v. Gore to United States v. Trump et al. or whatever the hell this morass ends up being named.
They think that anyone not specifically appointed by Trump cannot be impartial. And even then… (See e.g., Rod Rosenstein). So to them, unless Trump gets to put Marc Kasowitz or Jay Sekulow in charge of making the decisions, the system is unfair.
The construction of lies takes time.
On Wait, Wait one of the panelists asked whether they wear jackets.
Avenatti is on with Ari Melber.
https://twitter.com/renato_mariotti/status/985987443882065920
It’s going to slow things down. It’s not a win for Trump. His lawyers didn’t even want a special master. CNN is interpreting a win for Trump as meaning anything except a judgement from the bench that a taint team is the only way to go. This is cable news horse race bs.
yeah …
everybody gets to see everybody elses evidence …
What Cohen’s side wanted to do was keep out anything they didn’t like
from becoming evidence in the first place …
Not gonna happen ! , he he
Kimba Wood is a veteran judge (she was a year ahead of me in law school, although I’m sure she wouldn’t know me from Adam). This preliminary decision seems like just the thing she should have done. There has to be real concern when a lawyer’s files are seized, and even more when one of the clients is the President of the United States, and when the files are likely to be central to the case against him.
I know that’s what they wanted and they didn’t get it.
They lost, essentially.
@old_curmudgeon - that’s so cool. And I agree with you. I started to say that her deviations from the usual would make sense here - it is the President and it is his lawyer. I thought the ruling was extremely reasonable.
Avenatti said when Hannity’s name was spoken, it was like a bomb went off in the courtroom.
I’m no lawyer but it seems like that’s exactly what they’re figuring out in court right now. The standard process seems to be the one outlined in this story involving a DOJ taint team. The first one requested by TrumpCohen was for Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy to grab the documents and deliver them to TrumpCohen, who could choose which ones get destroyed and which ones get into evidence. The serious one now requested by TrumpCohen is to substitute the DOJ team with a “special master” (not to be confused with Vova Putin, Trump’s special master).
I think it’d be from the part of the family that “owes them one”. That loyalty thing. Donald wouldn’t know how to operate a shredder.
Yeah–as a nonlawyer, even if they do end up with a Special Master here I don’t see that the govt has lost much. Most likely Cohen thinks he can choose one of these bullshit arbitrators to be Special Master, so we all get to have a good laugh. But even if they really do get a neutral party to make this determination, their judgment shouldn’t be that different from the DOJ taint team’s.
And since it’s a neutral party, the Trumpkins get one less talking point… Aw, who am I kidding? Then they’ll rail about how sure the Special Master used to be chair of a state GOP but clearly has been a closet Democrat biding their time all these years to get back at Trump. They’re that insane.
Or his wife’s second cousin contributed to a Democrat — who knew! — in some mayoral race thirteen years ago… lol
I don’t have a problem with it. She’s proceeding cautiously and depending on how things go, might go with the standard taint team or might go with a special master. If I had confidence in the special master, I don’t think that’s a problem. It’s a review done most likely by a retired judge instead of FBI lawyers.
She’s listening to their concerns and ruling appropriately.
Isn’t evidence shared after charges are filed? So, it seems a forgone conclusion that Cohen will be charged -even by his lawyers- with something but they get a head start on some of the evidence? I guess it means I need to trust the system but with Trump rule bending/norm shattering, it is hard.