|
 |
On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee takes up the nomination of Todd Blanche and decides whether to advance it to the floor for an up-or-down confirmation vote. It’s clear Blanche serves the president, not the people. As the Epstein survivors wrote to Senators Cornyn and Tillis after their hastily arranged meeting with him, “Survivors received an hour of deflection, interruption and gaslighting.” That’s what the American people can expect from Blanche too, as attorney general. Except that it will go on for much longer than an hour.
Thursday will be a busy day. Todd Blanche has until then to turn over specific documents from the Epstein Files that Judge Emmet Sullivan has ordered him to in Phang v. Blanche. He also has to provide backup documentation substantiating the government’s efforts to justify redactions on those documents despite the requirements of the Epstein Transparency Act. The juxtaposition of the vote and the legal obligation could get interesting…
 |
BBC Case
In Miami, federal Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué Lett ruled last Tuesday that Donald Trump will have to turn over information about his finances as part of the discovery in the $10 billion defamation lawsuit Trump filed against the BBC. Judge Lett ruled that “All of President Trump’s brand, properties and businesses are impugned or said to have been impugned. Reputational, economic damages, all of that is now at issue in this case.”
His lawyers tried to avoid this moment, telling the Judge that the president was retracting damage claims he’d made in filing the lawsuit over a 2024 BBC documentary he claimed had both caused him financial damage and diminished the value of his companies. The lawyer told Judge Lett that Trump is only going to claim damage to his reputation and not to his businesses. But she admonished him she does not have the ability to excise Trump’s initial damages demand from the complaint—Trump does not appear to have filed a motion to do so.
Even though the case isn’t set for trial until March of 2027, things only get worse for Trump from here on out. Discovery in civil cases can consume a great deal of time. The Judge’s order permits inquiry into more than 400 Trump entities, and Trump himself will almost certainly have to sit for a deposition.
Magistrate judges’ decisions can be appealed, and Trump, given his courtroom demeanor, is certain to do so. We’ll watch for that this week. But the Judge’s decision is so clearly right in the context of the case Trump brought that it’s not wrong to start wondering how long it will take Trump to dismisses the lawsuit—before he’s forced to turn over information he has long sought to keep out of the public view. Expect some sort of mumbo jumbo excuse about the demands of the presidency forcing him to step aside.
The case itself is flawed. It was filed over a 12-second clip in a 2024 documentary, which spliced together two parts of Trump’s January 6 speech to make it appear he’d said them together: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and I’ll be there with you, and we fight. We fight like hell.” Trump said it made him sound unduly violent. The BBC apologized for “unintentionally” giving “the mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action.” In a defamation case, a plaintiff must demand a defendant do so before filing a lawsuit and an appropriate retraction usually ends the matter. That will make it difficult for Trump to proceed.
But it will also be difficult to prove damages, since Trump won the election, including in Florida where the lawsuit was filed. And the documentary was never shown in Florida or anywhere else in the U.S.
Vote By Mail and the Postal Service
The First Circuit Court of Appeals has rejected the Justice Department’s effort to legitimize Trump’s effort to use the Postal Service (USPS) to implement his executive order to end voting by mail. Amy Klobuchar said it perfectly Sunday night: “A federal appeals court just blocked Trump's attempt to restrict mail-in voting ahead of the midterms. Elections are run by the states, not the president. Mail-in voting is a safe, secure option relied on by millions of Americans—and even Donald Trump himself.”
The ultimate irony is that Trump votes by mail because he’s a busy guy, but doesn’t want you and me to be able to. That tells you everything you need to know. We also know this is headed to the Supreme Court. They’ve got a horrible record when it comes to protecting voting rights of perceived Democratic voters, but have done better on mail-in voting and efforts by Trump to bring elections, contrary to the dictates of the Constitution, under federal control instead of permitting each state to run its own.
Expect Trump to push hard this week on the SAVE Act, after the revelation last week that a glitch in New Jersey voter registration practices allowed several hundred non-citizens to register to vote between June 2023 and June 2024. The state fixed the problem in 2024, but it never made the situation public. New Governor Mikie Sherrill opted for transparency. Perhaps instead of criticizing, Donald Trump should take note of how a democracy is supposed to work.
ABC News reported that “Sherrill said the error occurred when individuals applying for drivers' licenses or identification cards were asked if they wanted to register to vote. Even though they indicated they were noncitizens, the system made them eligible to register.” So this is not a situation where people intended to vote—it was a glitch that registered people who reported they were not eligible. Four hundred people voted, in different elections and for different parties, without influencing the outcome of elections, likely confused when they received information about voting in the mail.
Expect Trump to wax melodramatic about this one. But people are human, and they make mistakes. The good news is that this was caught quickly, fixed, and the key point: doesn’t give us any concern about future elections. Above all what it doesn’t do is add up to a justification for the SAVE Act, which would make it far more difficult for large numbers of eligible voters, including married women, to exercise their rights. That’s the outcome Trump is hoping for in an election where massive turnout will be essential to countering his predictable claims of fraud.
Rogoff
We’ll continue to watch the case involving court-appointed U.S. Attorney Roger Rogoff in Seattle, whom Todd Blanche fired less than an hour after he was put in place. The issue, which we discussed Friday night in case you missed it, involves whether the Senate still has a role to play in confirming the president’s nominees to key positions like that of U.S. Attorney. This case, too, could be headed to the Supreme Court, and there are likely to be fireworks this week as Rogoff’s lawsuit gets underway.
The case will be heard by federal District Judge Stanley Bastian, an Obama appointee, in the Eastern District of Washington. It was originally assigned to a judge in the Western District, but since that is the court that appointed Rogoff to service, he recused. See how easy that was? Judges can easily sit out cases where they have a conflict of interest.
Thanks for being here with me at Civil Discourse. Your paid subscriptions make the newsletter possible.
We’re in this together,
Joyce