May04

electoral-vote.com

Dem 51

   

GOP 49

Trump Legal Blotter: You Lose Some and You Lose Some

Normally, it's "You win some, and you lose some." But Donald Trump, of course, is a trailblazer. A trendsetter. A revolutionary. And so yesterday, he had bad news on the legal front, and then he followed that with... more bad news.

Let's start in Washington. Special counsel Jack Smith does not send out press releases or tell reporters what he's up to, but he can't keep (all of) his court filings a secret. And so, the news came out yesterday that Team Jack is investigating the handling of surveillance footage at Mar-a-Lago, and the failure to properly comply with subpoenas for same. Smith has issued a whole bunch of new subpoenas, and several senior Mar-a-Lago employees are expected to visit the capital this week for a nice talk with the grand jury. It's not entirely clear what's going on here, but it does bring to mind the line from Sir Walter Scott: "O! What a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive."

Moving on to New York, Trump took an embarrassing loss courtesy of Robert Reed. That's the Robert Reed who sits as a judge on the New York County Supreme Court, not the Robert Reed who played the father on The Brady Bunch. Recall that after The New York Times ran several stories about Trump's tax returns, aided by information from Trump's niece Mary, the then-president sued both the newspaper and the niece. Yesterday, Reed dismissed the suit against the Times and, to add insult to injury, ordered Trump to pay the newspaper's court costs. He doesn't even like to pay his own lawyers; it's surely going to be galling to him to pay the other side's lawyers. The suit against Mary Trump is technically still in effect, but in his ruling on the Times suit, Reed effectively gutted Donald's basis for going after Mary, observing that she was legally entitled to have and share the documents she gave the Times. So, a dismissal is surely coming soon.

Also in New York, Trump lawyer Joseph Tacopina advised the judge in the ongoing E. Jean Carroll lawsuit that the former president won't be mounting a defense of any sort. This could basically mean one of two things:

• The case that the plaintiff mounted is so weak that there is no need to respond to it.
  
  
• The witnesses that the defense might put up, including both Trump himself and one person who was scheduled to testify on his behalf, are such lousy witnesses, and are so at risk of being shredded on cross-examination, that silence is the wiser option.

This news would only be a "loss," and thus consistent with the theme of this item, if it was #2. You can probably guess which of these explanations we think is the correct one. (Z)