Two things are supposed to happen this week with regards to Trump’s avoidance of legal accountability tour. First up, Special Counsel Jack Smith is supposed to turn in his homework assignment on jury instructions from so called Judge Aileen Cannon tomorrow or Tuesday. I have no idea what Smith will do, especially since this wasn’t yet an order but a request. Next, there is debate whether it’s Weds or Thursday when Trump has to pony up the funds for his $175 million bond, and we really do not know if Trump will be able to come up with the cash, at least not yet.
As I said, I have no idea what Jack Smith is going to do on the insane jury instructions, but there was discussion of this subject on Alex Witt’s MSNBC show:
Former New York Assistant Attorney General Adam Pollock said U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon was "stacking the deck" in favor of Donald Trump…
"He has to comply with the order," Pollock explained. "He'll get an order back from the court about these jury instructions... Then he'll have an appealable order."…
"He has successfully appealed prior orders from this judge to the appellate court, and the appellate court has, on multiple occasions, reversed this judge," Pollock replied. "I would expect that if there is an order on these jury instructions, as she's already signaling she is likely to order, that he'll go right back to the appellate court."
What was missing from the Raw Story article was that Pollock first said that Smith would “remind” Judge Cannon that her jury instructions were just plain wrong on the law. This would probably result in Cannon ORDERING Smith to comply with her jury instructions, then the order could be appealed to the 11th Circuit.
For those who have forgotten what those jury instructions are to be:
The order that triggered the inquiries was one that Judge Cannon, of the Southern District of Florida, issued four days after a hearing in Fort Pierce at which she had heard arguments on two of Trump’s seven motions to dismiss. The order asked the parties to “engage with” two prospective jury instructions relating to the term “unauthorized possession,” an element of the crime of “willful retention” of national defense information under 18 U.S.C. Section 793(e), which is the offense charged in the first 32 counts of the indictment. Many observers were particularly alarmed by the second of her two proposed instructions, which appeared to require the jury to find that Trump, by the mere act of removing the documents to his home at the end of his term, had exercised unreviewable discretion to designate them as “personal” under the Presidential Records Act. That was so, the instruction effectively said, even if the documents did not remotely fit the definition of “personal” provided in that act. Furthermore, since the instruction related to the definition of “unauthorized possession” in Section 793(e), it appeared to be saying that Trump had authority to possess the charged documents—thus inviting or requiring jurors to acquit. Her other proposed instruction was less shocking but still quite controversial; it called for the jury to decide whether the classified documents in question were “personal” under the PRA. In the government’s view, these highly classified documents could not have been personal as a matter of law and, furthermore, their status under the PRA was wholly irrelevant to whether Trump’s possession was “unauthorized,” which was a matter determined by the terms of Executive Order 13526.
Let me see if I can translate for the non-lawyers. One of the jury instructions basically tells the jury to consider the Presidential Records Act (PRA) that Trump had the right to keep those classified documents because they were “personal.” Problem is that this is NOT about the Presidential Records Acts. This is about violation of the Espionage Act. Even still, this is a misread of the PRA.
The other jury instruction is to let the jury review the classified documents to determine if they are personal or government documents. This is nuts. We are supposed to let 12 ordinary people to make evaluations of top secret documents? This is a greymail move by Judge Cannon.
Next, Trump has to come up with the cash for his reduced bond sometime this week. The damn NY appellate court decided to cut that bond from $454 million to 175 million. No explanation was given, but most think this was just the courts bowing to the rich and powerful. Trump calmed down once he was given this victory, but if Trump had the money (which he claims he does — HAH!), why not pay it sooner than later? He is getting hit with interest payments every day.
And that’s all for this week from what I can tell.