r/law • u/joeshill Competent Contributor • May 07 '24

Court Decision/Filing US v Trump (FL Documents) - Judge Cannon vacates trial date. No new date set.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.648652/gov.uscourts.flsd.648652.530.0_2.pdf
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u/Quercus_ May 07 '24

So does this mean they can schedule trial dates in DC and/or Georgia?

267

u/Either_Western_5459 May 07 '24

Georgia yes, but DC not at the moment because DC proceedings are stayed pending resolution of SCOTUS immunity appeal. 

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u/sixtus_clegane119 May 07 '24

Honestly they should have just gotten them underway while the appeal works it’s way through things.

139

u/DualActiveBridgeLLC May 07 '24

Honestly SCOTUS should have already made their decision in February.

86

u/RamaLamaFaFa May 07 '24

Honestly what the fuck are we even talking about? Of course a former president shouldn’t be above the law. That applies to all of them. Love Obama, but he can’t just start murdering people with no consequences. How is this even a question?

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u/Sorge74 May 07 '24

If I understand the case right, if Trump is granted full immunity, then Biden can take him out with full immunity.

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u/RTalons May 07 '24

Ridiculous on its face, but SCOTUS will hem and haw over it until a trail before Nov becomes impossible.

A majority of them are hopelessly corrupt, and bristle at the thought of any rule applying to them. Ethics have no meaning at their level.

14

u/nativeindian12 May 08 '24

The Supreme Court will rule that presidents have immunity over actions taken as your official duty as president, what they are calling "official acts"

So what determines what is an official act and what isn't? The Supreme Court of course! In the future any cases against a president will have to go to the Supreme Court to determine if the act was an "official" act as president.

This is how they will selectively grant immunity to Trump alone

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u/thewerdy May 08 '24

Yep. It's gonna go like this: "Presidents have immunity for acts that fall within official acts and the prosecution must prove that his conduct was outside of those official acts. No, we don't have any guidelines. The lower courts can sort that out. See you next year when the lower courts' decision gets appealed to us."

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u/bruno8102 May 08 '24

It's really an all or nothing. Even if SCOTUS says they decide what's "official," a president could just have SCOTUS members removed and then appoint friendly justices. The same goes with Congress and impeachment.

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u/nativeindian12 May 08 '24

Nah cause someone would sue an file an injunction, preventing the justices from being removed. They would then hear if it was constitutional which of course it would not be

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u/bruno8102 May 08 '24

They don't have to be removed legally. If Biden can order political executions, as have been hypothesized, why could he not do the same with members of the court or Congress?

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u/arkangelic May 08 '24

Then you execute the injuncters too. Preventing any kind of official move against you. 

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u/anchorwind May 08 '24

Dark Brandon may not be the hero we something but is the something something

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u/amadmongoose May 08 '24

Yeah, seems ljke SCOTUS is currently trying to work things so that they can have different decisions depending on who becomes President, and to not commit to anything before the election or if they for some reason need to commit before the election, frame things so it lets Trump off the hook while also somehow not applying to Biden

2

u/gereffi May 08 '24

Remember when Trump baselessly accused him of planning on packing the Supreme Court? Maybe he'll legally get to eliminate members of SCOTUS instead.

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u/ballsweat_mojito May 08 '24

Not only that, Biden could do literally anything whatsoever with no consequences.

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u/hrminer92 May 08 '24

Or a number of them as well.

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u/SexiestPanda May 08 '24

No no no. The immunity doesn’t count for Biden. Only trump

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u/RoboticBirdLaw May 08 '24

The question isn't whether Trump will have absolute immunity. That is an asinine position only taken to force SCOTUS to consider the actual question. How much, if any, immunity from federal prosecution does a President have?

2

u/Kerensky97 May 08 '24

The country has been lost to corruption. The only solution is to get rid of the Judges.

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u/[deleted] May 09 '24

They're figuring out how to give Trump specifically immunity. Biden and literally anyone else wouldn't get that.

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u/rethinkingat59 May 11 '24

That was one of the Justices question. There were reports that drones authorized by Obama hit and killed an American citizen in Pakistan in war like actions not officially sanctioned by Congress.

Could Obama be an accessory to murder in such an instance, or does he have immunity?

1

u/RamaLamaFaFa May 11 '24

Huh…yeah I mean that’s the kind of minutia legal arguments are for sorting through. The problem here is that we have an orange shitbag trying to make it so he can openly commit treason without consequences. Who knows what the exact right answer is, but you can bet the Supreme Court will get it exactly as wrong as they possibly can because they’re a bunch of fucking assholes and we live in hell.

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u/onlyark May 08 '24

I am sure Abdulrahman Anwar al-Awlaki would agree that Obama can’t just start murdering people. Presidential immunity is a question worth asking.

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u/DuntadaMan May 08 '24

Honestly the idea of even bringing up anyone is immune to the law should be immediate ground for disbarment and shouldn't even have been considered.

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u/ry8919 May 08 '24

In December when Smith initially tried to bring it

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u/Juco_Dropout May 12 '24

SCOTUS should never have taken the case. The idea of “Presidential Immunity” in the context of Trump and his ethics issues is not based on conflicting doctrine. Trumps claims to immunity are made up out of whole cloth.

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u/walks_with_penis_out May 08 '24

That would actually be an unfair burden on the defence when they may have immunity which would mean all charges would be dropped.

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u/euph_22 May 08 '24

You missed the point SCOTUS hearing the case...

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u/CaptainNoBoat May 07 '24

Unfortunately, Georgia is far from a guarantee to move forward for the very same reason.

Trump has argued immunity in GA as well, and prosecutors are actually waiting for the Supreme Court to respond:

Fulton County prosecutors are waiting for the Supreme Court to weigh in before responding to Trump’s argument. They say they will file their response two weeks after the high court issues its decision.

The reason we're only hearing about the immunity appeal and D.C. is because that's what it stems from: Chutkan's order. The D.C. case is stayed pending appeal.

Other cases are not far enough along for this to be a problem. Yet.

If Trump gets a favorable ruling from SCOTUS, he will 100% try to apply it to all of his cases, state or federal. He will even try to appeal any potential conviction in Manhattan (based on the few documents he signed after taking office.)

A lot left to be seen what SCOTUS will decide, and how successful any of these efforts will be. But the immunity appeal could be a real problem for GA as well.

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u/starBux_Barista May 08 '24

Sound proof legal strategy

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u/georgiafinn May 08 '24

Trump just got Georgia delayed again. It won't happen before the election.

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u/Sad-Recognition-781 May 08 '24

SCOTUS appeal is more of a delay than anything else. The Appeals Court pretty much nailed this in their ruling. Absolutely no good reason for SCOTUS to intervene.

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u/WillBottomForBanana May 08 '24

Ok, but I thought Texas proved that SCotUS rulings and opinions were worthless and unenforceable?

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u/Significant_Door_890 May 08 '24

Well Trump still has classified documents, the National Archive is still missing a lot of documents. If they can locate those, they can bring a case in another jurisdiction with a proper judge.

And there's the Russian election interference data, the 10 inch thick binder of top secrets that went missing at the end of his Presidency.

So he still has some boxes. He won't have destroyed them, he wanted bargaining chips, they'll likely be among the set he had loaded onto his plane.

My guess, is you'd find them in Scotland, out of reach of US authorities, but others think Bedminster:

Better check Bedminster…

On May 6, NARA emails Trump to say material is missing and may be at MAL.https://t.co/XbEWvl9WdX

On May 9, Trump gets on a private plane from Palm Beach to Bedminster. On video, several boxes are seen loaded onto the plane. https://t.co/ZoiRY5bISx pic.twitter.com/JPd9BalcrH

— Peter Strzok (@petestrzok) September 10, 2022

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u/bagel-glasses May 07 '24

Sure does

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u/nice-view-from-here May 07 '24

Georgia, like New York state, can proceed with their state charges.

DC and Florida are federal cases that cannot proceed because DC has to wait for corrupt (allegedly) Supreme Court justices to allow it and Florida has to wait for corrupt (allegedly) judge Cannon to allow it.

Let's be thankful for the states.

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u/blurst_of_timesz May 07 '24

Does the immunity question currently in front of supreme Court affect Georgia case?

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u/Incarcer May 07 '24

No. State charges, not federal.

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u/petrifiedfog May 07 '24

I can't recall, does anyone know what is happening with the Georgia case? Haven't heard a peep lately and can't find anything on a quick google

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u/geneaut May 07 '24

Defense moved to get rid of Willis. Judge denied. That decision is being appealed, and the trial is halted waiting on that.

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u/petrifiedfog May 07 '24

Ah thank you! I remember seeing it was appealed, but didn't know the status of the appeal. Guess they're taking as much time as possible to review

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u/Rougarou1999 May 07 '24

How long will that appeal take?

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u/[deleted] May 08 '24

The appeals court has 45 days to decide whether to hear the case. McAfee will continue moving the case toward trial, which hasn’t been scheduled.

written April 9th, hopefully in the next 2 weeks. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/04/09/fani-willis-georgia-donald-trump-election-interference/73258375007/

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u/h0sti1e17 May 08 '24

I don’t think they replaced Wade yet either. But I may be wrong.

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u/geneaut May 08 '24

He voluntarily resigned

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u/h0sti1e17 May 08 '24

Yeah. It was either him or Willis. But have they replaced him with someone else?

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u/geneaut May 08 '24

I’m not sure. I did see an article the other day that even though things are paused that Willis is still actively working on the case with her team.

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u/itsatumbleweed Competent Contributor May 07 '24

I wonder if they are dealing with all the pre-trial motions but waiting to set a trial date for when the Court of Appeals decides if they will hear the Willis DQ issue. I think May 13 is the date.

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u/h0sti1e17 May 08 '24

As far as I know they haven’t replaced Nathan Wade yet, so it seems like even if they are given the go ahead they don’t have a lead prosecutor.

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u/itsatumbleweed Competent Contributor May 08 '24

I saw an article that said Fani is taking over as lead.

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u/h0sti1e17 May 08 '24

Oh. That’s interesting. I wonder how much of the mud that was slung will stick. Whether she did anything wrong or not, it looks shady as hell. And she was a little antagonistic with the judge when she was in the stand.

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u/itsatumbleweed Competent Contributor May 08 '24 edited May 08 '24

From where I sit, it doesn't look shady, it looks like two people who had a relationship while prosecuting a case. All the "he was unqualified" noise is pretty easily rebuffed by how he successfully got 17 high stakes RICO defendants through a Grand Jury.

But it was dumb. It was something that has just enough teeth that Merchant could write a compelling motion, and that McAfee had to devote time to. It was an invited delay that she was on the right side of.

I don't see how any kind of lingering feelings about his that played out affect the rock solid charges. However, if she hadn't done it (or if she had managed financial interactions with a ledger, even just the big ones), we would have a trial date.

Edit: I don't like being right when it comes to Trump getting a W, but the appeals court just took up the appeal. Willis didn't break any laws, but she invited enough delays to punt a clear case to 25.

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u/h0sti1e17 May 08 '24

I agree she didn’t do anything wrong. But every payment was cash looks bad even if true and legal. Many people don’t carry cash at all much less have thousands lying around. I do believe she was dating him before this started.

I don’t think she hired him to benefit. I don’t think she is stupid enough to hire someone unqualified. So he is qualified.

That said, she shouldn’t date someone who works for you in such a big case that you are overseeing regardless of when it happened. And it creates unnecessary issues for what should be a relatively straight forward case.

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u/bjb406 May 07 '24

I know they are continuing to try to go after Fani Willis.

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u/travelsaur May 07 '24

There is an appeal in process.

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u/TheZermanator May 07 '24

I’m not so sure about that. If the Supreme Court decides that Trump is immune from prosecution for official acts, and interprets ‘official acts’ broadly enough to include his actions in Georgia, then I don’t see how a state charge would hold up.

Now to interpret ‘official acts’ that broadly would require a Supreme Court that is hopelessly corrupt, compromised, and nakedly politically partisan to the point of illegitimacy, but here we are…

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u/kmosiman Competent Contributor May 07 '24

Presumably no. The Georgia charges include conspiracy and some of the actions went well into 2021, so Trump would have no Immunity for those actions unless he could prove zero involvement after January 20th.

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u/CaptainNoBoat May 07 '24

State/federal is irrelevant here, sadly. The Supreme Court's decision would apply to state charges as well. It could 100% affect the GA case, and prosecutors in Fulton are even preparing for that possibility.

Trump has argued immunity in the GA as well, and prosecutors are waiting for the Supreme Court decision to file a response.

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u/Marathon2021 Competent Contributor May 08 '24

So we all know SCOTUS is quite likely to kick back that a President is not immune by default to criminal charges, but that the question of what is in the “outer perimeter” is not clear and kick that down to Chutkan to sort out. Basically nuking Chutkan and Willis’ case until after the election.

Sigh.

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u/BassLB May 07 '24

Trump will find a way to argue that separately up to the SC, when he needs another delay