Queens Man Arraigned  🌻 🌻 🌻

Miami Vice:  Yesterday the man from Queens was arraigned in a Miami courthouse. He was represented by two lawyers, Todd Blanche the former federal prosecutor representing him in the NY “hush money” case and Christopher Kise, a former Florida solicitor general who, despite being paid $3 million upfront to join the Trump legal squad, had previously tried to extricate himself from the purloined documents case. Kise reluctantly agreed to step up to fill the Florida attorney role when Trump couldn’t find another competent local attorney willing to do so.  Trump’s co-conspirator, Walt Nauta, joined Trump in Miami where he was fingerprinted and photographed but wasn’t formally arraigned because unlike Trump Nauta still doesn’t have a Florida attorney, convenient because Trump’s trial clock won’t start ticking until Nauta is formally arraigned. The case against Trump and Nauta is strong, probably even stronger with more witnesses and evidence than has been revealed so far, so instead of disputing the facts, their lawyers are expected to go after the way the key evidence were obtained, arguing that the prosecutors shouldn’t have been granted the crime fraud exemption that allowed them to pierce attorney client privilege, an argument that former Trump lawyer Tim Palatore previewed on MSNBC yesterday.  While Trump’s lawyers file countless stalling motions, giving Judge Eileen “loose” Cannon should she still be so inclined, plenty of opportunities to rule in his favor, Trump’s plan is to do his usual thing, taking his case to the public.  To that end, yesterday following his court appearance he, with body man co-conspirator Nauta in tow, went for a celebratory lunch in a Miami Cuban restaurant before flying back to Bedminster.  Upon arrival in New Jersey, Trump delivered a rambling speech where he admitted he took all the documents in question with him when he left Washington, asserting that he could because as President it was his right to do so while going on to say that he was being unfairly treated because of all that witch hunt stuff and besides why weren’t Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden who he will immediately have prosecuted for his horrible crimes as soon as he makes it back to his rightful perch in the Oval office and anyway all those scenes of documents popping out of boxes were staged by the complicit FBI.  While Trump was spouting lies, Fox news displayed a split screen showing the real POTUS, Biden, with the all caps chyron: WANNABE DICTATOR SPEAKS AT THE WHITE HOUSE AFTER HAVING HIS POLTICAL RIVAL ARRESTED. So much for Fox moderating its behavior post its $787 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems and so much for Rupert Murdoch’s decision to pivot away from Trump.  Clearly Fox has decided that the $787 million and any subsequent amount they may be required to pay Smartmatic is a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of money that can be made amping up viewership by stoking the flames of our democracy.   

Houses of Cards:  Despite Trump’s call for masses of “peaceful” protestors to show up in Miami, only a few hundred protestors showed up to cheer him on at the courthouse. However, his supporters in Congress remained out in force.  Speaking for most of his caucus, Kevin McCarthy whose problems wrangling his cats are only getting worse, said it was okay that Trump kept documents in a Mar a Lago bathroom because bathrooms have locks, so what if those locks are inside. Ohio’s hillbilly guy Senator JD Vance announced that he will block all of Biden’s nominees to the Department of Justice to protest the indictment, saying “Trump is merely the latest victim of a DOJ that cares more about politics than enforcement.” That’s the same DOJ that, in a closed-door meeting with big donors, Florida’s Ron DeSantis promised to shrink and refocus on important things like fighting woke liberal ideology.  Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who was one of those cheering Trump on outside of the Miami courthouse, called on all of the other Republican presidential wannabees to join him in committing to pardon Trump if elected and though she had earlier acknowledged that the charges against Trump were to be taking seriously because absconding with war plans puts military personnel like her husband at risk, Nikki Haley said that she’d be inclined to grant that pardon.  One candidate who likely wouldn’t is Chris Christie who used his fairly impressive oratorial skills to eviscerate Trump on Monday night in one of those CNN townhalls.  Sadly, given CNN’s current viewership and Christie’s anemic support, few were watching. While most of the Republicans in the House, or at the very least most of those willing to go on the record are Team Trump, Senate Republicans with the exception of Trump’s biggest fans, a group that in addition to Vance includes Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, Tommy Tuberville and Josh Hawley, are taking a wait and see approach.  By wait and see, they’re twisting their pearls, concerned about his crimes and all that sharing of secret war plans,  but will ultimately jump on the Trump train if he’s their party candidate.

More Legal Woes: Special Counsel Jack Smith quietly sat in on the Miami arraignment, staring down Trump and proving that he, unlike Trump who said that the only reason he had all those boxes in the Mar a Lago bathroom and ballroom was because he’d been too busy playing golf to unpack them, can multi-task. We know that triathlete Smith can multitask not just because of all his biking, swimming, and running but because his team in Washington is still calling witnesses to testify in front of the grand jury, the one tasked with investigating the January 6^th uprising.  Among those who testified on Tuesday about their fake elector roles were Nevada GOP Chair Michael McDonald, a close Trump ally, and Jim DeGraffenreid, the Nevada party vice chair.  And there’s a good chance that Trump’s decision to keep defaming E Jean Carroll could cost him more bucks, real ones as opposed to Trump bucks.  Yesterday Federal Judge Lewis Kaplan said that E Jean could revise an earlier defamation case she has against Trump, allowing her to seek an additional $10 million in damages.