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Defend Our Country Digest

Defend Our Country Digest — October 17, 2023

By October 17, 2023No Comments

Driving the Day

Must Read Stories

Updates for Trump’s federal trials: Judge implements gag order for Trump

  • CNN: Trump ‘does not have the right to say and do exactly what he pleases,’ Judge Chutkan says, issuing gag order: “A federal judge on Monday issued a gag order on former President Donald Trump, limiting what he can say about special counsel Jack Smith’s federal prosecution into his alleged attempt to subvert in the 2020 presidential election. The order restricts Trump’s ability to publicly target court personnel, potential witnesses, or the special counsel and his staff. The order did not impose restrictions on disparaging comments about Washington, DC, – where the jury will take place – or certain comments about the Justice Department at large, both of which the government requested.”
  • Wall Street Journal: Trump’s Freewheeling Posts Raise Prospect of Federal Gag Order: “Former President Donald Trump’s online tirades have already landed him with a gag order from a state judge in New York. Now he faces the prospect of similar restrictions from a federal court in Washington. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan is set to hold a hearing Monday on whether to limit Trump’s ability to publicly address criminal charges that he conspired to overturn the 2020 election results as he makes another bid for the White House. Any such gag order by Chutkan would pose the dilemma of how to enforce restrictions on a former president who considers it a right, and even an obligation, to disparage the criminal justice system as it closes around him. Trump has pleaded not guilty on all charges.”
  • The Hill: Trump push for incremental delays risks upending federal trials: “Former President Trump’s first few months in federal court as a defendant have shown that he is employing the same strategy he typically brings to his civil cases: seeking delay. Trump made headlines with one motion suggesting his May trial in the Mar-a-Lago documents case should be bumped until mid-November 2024 — after the election. It was a fallback from an earlier position that a Florida judge shouldn’t even set a trial date. And in his election interference case, also brought by special counsel Jack Smith, Trump’s attorneys initially suggested the trial should be in 2026. But the effort to punt his trials far into the future have overshadowed motions seeking more limited delays that, if successful, could collectively bump the trials beyond election season.“
  • NBC: Trump wants to subpoena ‘missing’ Jan. 6 committee records in election interference case: “Former President Donald Trump wants to subpoena the successor to the House Jan. 6 committee and several other entities in connection with the federal election interference criminal case, contending that there are ‘certain missing records’ that could be relevant to his defense. In a court filing in one of the two cases brought by special counsel Jack Smith, Trump’s lawyers said they would like to subpoena the U.S. archivist, the clerk of the House of Representatives, the Committee on House Administration (which took over material from the defunct Jan. 6 committee), the special counsel to the president, the Department of Homeland Security’s general counsel, Rep. Barry Loudermilk of Georgia and Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., who chaired the Jan. 6 committee. Loudermilk, a Republican on the House Administration Committee, wrote in an earlier letter that only written transcripts were transferred after the Jan. 6 committee dissolved and that ‘video recordings of transcribed interviews and depositions, which featured prominently during the Select Committee’s hearings, were not archived or transferred.’”
  • New York Times: Tanya Chutkan, an Unflinching Judge in the Trump Jan. 6 Trial: “It has not been lost on Mr. Trump that Judge Chutkan, a Black woman who has a history of supporting Democrats, is the antithesis of a Mar-a-Lago habitué. Less known is her commanding presence in the courtroom, a reflection of her extensive trial experience and an upbringing in a prominent Jamaican family. Unfamiliar to the spotlight though she may be, Judge Chutkan has shown little sign of being intimidated by it. So far she has treated Mr. Trump like any other defendant, and has indicated to colleagues that she will approach the trial as she would any criminal proceeding. Even in the midst of a history-making case against a former president, she continues to take on more routine cases and has not requested a reduction in her docket.”

Senator Menendez faces growing legal quagmire with new foreign influence and bribery allegations

  • New York Times: The Real Estate Tycoon Whose Fingerprints Are on the Menendez Indictment: “Mr. Daibes, 66, was accused of giving the Menendezes bribes in exchange for the Democratic senator’s efforts to help him in the bank fraud case by installing a U.S. attorney inclined to ease up on the prosecution. Envelopes stuffed with cash bearing Mr. Daibes’s fingerprints and nine bars of gold bullion with serial numbers tracked to him were seized during a search of Mr. Menendez’s home, according to federal prosecutors in Manhattan. Still, the senator’s effort to meddle in the bank-fraud case failed, prosecutors said. In the end, there was no trial. Mr. Daibes pleaded guilty to a single count of making false entries in connection with a $1.8 million loan document as part of an agreement, approved by the U.S. attorney’s office in New Jersey, that required no prison time. Last week, however, a judge rejected that plea agreement, scuttling the original deal altogether and complicating an already sprawling web of allegations that poses new threats to Mr. Daibes’s real estate empire.”
  • The Hill: Menendez accused of acting as foreign agent to Egyptian government in superseding indictment: “Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) faces a new charge of acting as a foreign agent of Egypt, less than a month after the New Jersey Democrat was hit with federal charges of accepting luxurious bribes in exchange for his political influence. Menendez is accused of conspiring with his wife, Nadine Arslanian, and New Jersey businessman Wael ‘Will’ Hana to act as an agent of the Egyptian government between January 2018 and June 2022, according to a superseding indictment filed Thursday. ‘Among other actions, Menendez provided sensitive U.S. Government information and took other steps that secretly aided the Government of Egypt,’ the indictment reads.gent to Egyptian government in superseding indictment.”
  • New York Times: Behind a Senator’s Indictments, a Foreign Spy Service Works Washington: “What else can the love of my life do for you?” asked Nadine Arslanian, the girlfriend of Senator Robert Menendez. She posed the question at a cozy dinner at a steakhouse in May 2019 attended by Gen. Ahmed Helmy, Egypt’s top spy in Washington. The discussion was revealed in a federal indictment on Thursday. As General Helmy would come to find out, even if Ms. Arslanian and her soon-to-be husband were not always able to deliver what Egypt wanted, they at least seemed to try very hard. The indictment charged Mr. Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, and his now wife with conspiring to act as agents of the Egyptian government. The document, in addition to another indictment made public last month, paints an unseemly picture of how the couple advanced Egyptian interests on numerous fronts.”

Surge in threats against Jews and Muslims raises concerns of hate-motivated violence

  • New York Times: F.B.I. Tracks Increased Threats to Jews and Muslims After Hamas Attack: “The Federal Bureau of Investigation is tracking increased numbers of threats against both Jewish and Muslim Americans in the wake of the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, bureau officials said Sunday. Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, said the attack could inspire violence in the United States. The greatest potential threat of violence in the United States comes from lone actors, who can be hard to detect because such people are typically not known to law enforcement officials ahead of time.While F.B.I. officials said they had not detected evidence that Hamas was trying to direct attacks in the United States by its supporters, Mr. Wray said it was possible.”
  • USA Today: Swastikas in NYC and Irvine; anti-Semitic trolls upend meetings: “Organizations who monitor hate speech online registered a significant surge in such content since Saturday’s invasion. The posts primarily target the Jewish population and Israel, but an organization that monitors anti-Palestinian hate has also seen increases. The large tech companies who run the major social media platforms appear overwhelmed by what is happening. But they have also worsened the situation by laying off hundreds, if not thousands, of trust and safety employees, experts said. This has created an environment where hate speech and disinformation is thriving. ‘Social media platforms are putting the burden of monitoring hate speech, incitement and violent speech on civil society organizations with limited resources and this is not OK,’ said Mona Shtaya, a nonresident fellow at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy.”

In The States

TEXAS: Trump-appointed federal judge rules that the new Galveston County commissioner map violates the Voting Rights Act

  • Texas Tribune: Federal judge rules Galveston County commissioner maps violate Voting Rights Act: “A U.S. District Judge ruled Friday that Galveston County violated the federal Voting Rights Act in 2021 when it drew new districts for its commissioners court. Judge Jeffrey V. Brown, appointed by former President Donald Trump, ruled the county’s 2021 commissioners court precinct map ‘denies Black and Latino voters the equal opportunity to participate in the political process and the opportunity to elect a representative of their choice to the commissioners court.’ As a result, the county has been ordered to redraw the map by Oct. 20. The lawsuit stands as the first county-level redistricting case since the most recent census that drew intervention from the federal government. The trial, which began in August, focused on how the county utilized its first opportunity to redraw precincts without federal oversight to break up the sole commissioner precinct where Black and Latino voters made up a majority of the electorate. Precinct 3, where Black and Latino residents had built political groups and selected their representative on the court, was chopped in the 2021 map.”

GEORGIA: Federal judge declines to block part of Georgia’s voting law amid legal challenges from voting rights groups

  • Georgia Recorder: Georgia’s controversial 2021 voting law overhaul survives preliminary legal challenge: “A Georgia federal court judge declined this week to temporarily block the state’s controversial election rules, which several voting rights and civil rights organizations claim will disenfranchise Black voters throughout the 2024 election. U.S. District Judge J.P. Boulee on Wednesday ruled that U.S. Department of Justice and voting rights groups were unable to support their claims that Republican lawmakers intentionally discriminated against Black voters in 2021 by signing into law new ID requirements for mail-in voting, adding restrictions on absentee drop boxes, shortening the deadline to request absentee ballots and ramping up criminal penalties for passing out refreshments to voters standing in line. Boulee wrote in a 62-page ruling that the plaintiffs’ expert witnesses and other evidence did not warrant a court-ordered injunction. ‘This court cannot find that plaintiffs have presented enough evidence to show that the Legislature foresaw or knew that SB 202 would have a disparate impact on minority voters,’ he wrote.”

WISCONSIN: Republicans lawmakers signal that they will back down from their effort to impeach Supreme Court Justice Janet Protasiewicz before gerrymandering case

  • New York Times: Wisconsin Republicans Retreat From Threats to Impeach Liberal Justice: “Wisconsin Republicans signaled on Thursday that they were retreating from their threats to impeach a recently seated liberal State Supreme Court justice, Janet Protasiewicz, before the newly left-leaning court could throw out the gerrymandered legislative maps that have cemented the G.O.P.’s hold on power in the state. Robin Vos, the powerful Republican speaker of the State Assembly, said at a news conference in Madison that he would not seek to remove Justice Protasiewicz based on the argument he and fellow Republicans had been making for two months — that statements she made calling the maps ‘rigged’ during her campaign for office this year compelled impeachment if she refused to recuse herself from a case challenging them. Now, Mr. Vos said, ‘the focus would be on what Justice Protasiewicz does ‘in office.’ He said that if the court ruled against the Republican-drawn maps and other conservative causes, he would appeal its decisions to the U.S. Supreme Court. Impeachment, he said, remained ‘on the table’ but was not something Republicans would pursue now.”
  • Wisconsin Public Radio: Vos says SCOTUS will have last word in voting maps fight. Experts say that’s far from certain.: “Days after Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Janet Protasiewicz announced she will not step away from a legal challenge seeking to overturn Republican-drawn voting maps, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, issued a statement suggesting U.S. Supreme Court precedent ‘compels her recusal, and the United States Supreme Court will have the last word here.’ But legal experts say that’s far from certain. The precedent Vos is referring to comes from a 2009 U.S. Supreme Court decision known as Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co. Inc., in which the High Court required a justice on the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia to recuse himself from a coal company owner’s appeal of a $50 million jury verdict against the business. Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority, concluded there was a ‘serious risk of actual bias — based on objective and reasonable perceptions’ because the West Virginia judge ruled in the company’s favor after receiving $3 million in campaign donations from the company’s owner. ‘Our decision today addresses an extraordinary situation where the Constitution requires recusal,’ Kennedy wrote.

What Experts Are Saying

Judge Tanya Chutkan in Monday’s hearing: “This is not about whether or not I like the language Mr. Trump uses. This is about language that presents a danger to the administration of justice.”

Journalist Katherine Stewart quoted in Salon: “We need to stop calling the Republican Party’s dominant faction ‘conservative.’ The real conservatives, right now, are the incrementalists on the center-left, people who think that we should try to preserve, build on and improve our key democratic institutions and international alliances. Leaders of the New Right and related movements are not remotely conservative. I would say they are revolutionaries without a rational or coherent purpose, or reactionary nihilists.”

Joyce Vance on X (Twitter): “Now that Judge Chutkan has entered a limited restraining order that protects candidate Trump’s 1st Amendment rights but restrains him from impugning prosecutors, court personnel & witnesses & from inciting violence, it’ll be interesting to see if he can comply.”

FBI Director Christopher Wray, in a speech at the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference in San Diego, according to the FBI website: “History has been witness to antisemitic and other forms of violent extremism for far too long. Whether that be from foreign terrorist organizations, or those inspired by them, or domestic violent extremists motivated by their own racial animus, the targeting of a community because of their faith is totally unacceptable.”

Richard Painter, about Senator Menendez’s charges, on X (Twitter): “An unregistered foreign agent was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for how long? This is a national security disaster. Menendez should be expelled from the Senate immediately.”

Headlines

Extremism

Washington Post: Justice Dept. focuses on violence by protesters at abortion clinics

Trump investigations

Washington Post: Trump Trials: Hear them out

CNN: Fulton County DA rebuffs Jim Jordan’s request for information on her investigation of Trump

ABC: Donald Trump returning to civil trial next week with fixer-turned-foe Michael Cohen set to testify

Daily Beast: How Trump’s Team Twisted His Bank Fraud Trial Into a Farce

January 6 and the 2020 Elections

Washington Post: He claimed he was helping police on Jan. 6. He was convicted of assault.

NBC: Feds seek 8 years for ‘Bullhorn Lady’ who smashed a Capitol window during Jan. 6 attack

Opinion

New York Magazine: You Can’t Blame MAGA on the South

In the States

New York Times: A Legal Fight Over Whether Governors Can Deny Thousands the Vote

The Carolina Journal: Hearing scheduled Nov. 21 in federal voter ID lawsuit

Carlsbad Current-Argus: Republicans plan to appeal verdict to uphold maps in New Mexico gerrymandering lawsuit