Trump’s Ridiculous Sticky Note Steals the Show in Hush-Money Trial

At his hush-money trial on Tuesday, Donald Trump kept some crib notes around to help him remember some key points.

Those key points included, “This case should be dismissed by the judge but it’s totally corrupt,” written in Trump’s favorite black marker on a yellow sticky note. When news photographers were briefly allowed into the courtroom before proceedings started Tuesday, one of them snapped a picture of the note.

It’s not the first time he’s carried notes during an important event. According to the Associated Press, he carried a handwritten note that said, “I want no quid pro quo” when he spoke outside of his first impeachment hearing. In 2019 at the White House, he carried notes reading, “They want to impeach over acts that they did,” and “I’m going to keep working for the American people,” while speaking about infrastructure.

But why would he need a reminder of his own opinion? It seems Trump might have wanted the public and reporters to see the note and report on it. It also gets awfully close to violating his gag order in the trial, which prohibits the former president from attacking court staff, jurors, the prosecution, witnesses, and their families. He’s already been fined $10,000 for 10 violations and has been warned by Judge Juan Merchan that he could go to jail if does it again.

Or is it cognitive decline? Just last week, Trump was bragging at his Bronx rally about successfully putting on his pants and, less than two weeks ago, seemed to freeze while giving a speech at the National Rifle Association’s annual convention.

In any case, Trump may not have to spend much time in the “icebox” Manhattan courtroom for much longer, as closing arguments are winding down in his trial over payments made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels to cover up their affair before the 2016 election. He faces 34 felony charges for allegedly falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime, and has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges.

Judge Aileen Cannon may have slapped down a request to gag Donald Trump, but her indefinite delays on the trial could very likely put a deadline on her own involvement in the case entirely.

On Tuesday, Cannon rejected special counsel Jack Smith’s gag order request in Trump’s classified documents trial on the basis that the filing wasn’t polite enough, telling the federal prosecutor that he did not offer Trump’s legal team enough time to discuss (and ultimately reject) the request. But time is of the essence in Trump’s criminal trials—especially with a loose-lipped defendant who keeps haranguing federal agencies and a Trump-appointed judge who is slow-walking the case to an early grave.

Some legal experts have predicted that it’s that exact combination that will push the trial until after November and into a possibility where Trump could potentially pardon himself, avoiding any consequences for snagging the sensitive documents. But others believe that the constant delays could lead to another alternative: Cannon’s removal from the trial.

Cannon filed her decision Tuesday without prejudice, meaning that Smith can refile his request to gag the former president. If he does, Cannon would be forced to make a definitive ruling, explained MSNBC legal analyst Jordan Rubin.

Smith could then appeal that ruling—and “possibly [build] a case to try and get a new judge to preside,” Rubin wrote.

Legal scholar Matthew Seligman agreed that a renewed motion would put Cannon’s fate squarely in her own hands.If she doesn’t approve the renewed motion—or if she sits on it indefinitely—Smith could “potentially” go to the Eleventh Circuit and ask them to step in, Seligman told The New Republic’s Greg Sargent. Or if she denies it outright, there is an “overwhelming likelihood” that Smith will appeal to the Eleventh Circuit, during which he could ask for her removal.

“The obvious concern here is that Trump’s rhetoric is going to inspire violence against federal law enforcement officers, and this is something that can’t wait,” Seligman said, noting that the threat isn’t “purely hypothetical.”

In April, a former Navy submarine technician from North Carolina, Ervin Lee Bolling, rammed his SUV into the FBI’s Atlanta headquarters. His social media history revealed him to be an individual enmeshed in QAnon conspiracy theories—a political conspiracy that paints Trump as a messiah—making posts in support of Trump’s “Stop the Steal” election interference campaign, and said that he was “looking for a good militia to join” after a federal stimulus bill passed in December 2020.

But Trump’s recent messaging could do even more damage, Seligman warned. Over the weekend, Trump accused the Biden administration of authorizing the FBI to shoot him during its search and seizure of Mar-a-Lago—a claim that was, in actuality, a wild misread of a standard policy statement regarding the agency’s use of deadly force.

The Biden administration still won’t change its policy toward Israel, despite overwhelming photo evidence of gruesome casualties in Israel’s latest attacks on Rafah in Gaza.

That was the message Tuesday from National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby at a press conference.

“The Israelis have said this is a tragic mistake,” Kirby told reporters when asked whether Israel’s attacks over the weekend qualified as the type of “death and destruction” U.S. officials have warned about.

“We’ve also said we don’t want to see a major ground operation in Rafah that would really make it hard for the Israelis to go after Hamas without causing extensive damage and potentially a large number of deaths. We have not seen that yet,” he said, claiming that Israel was operating mostly in a corridor on Rafah’s outskirts.

One reporter at the press conference, CBS News’s Ed O’Keefe, pressed Kirby after those comments.

“How does this not violate the red line the president laid out?” asked O’Keefe.

“As I said, we don’t want to see a major ground operation. We haven’t seen that at this point,” Kirby replied.

“How many more charred corpses does the president have to see before he considers a change in policy?” O’Keefe asked in response.

“We don’t want to see a single more innocent life taken,” Kirby said, before flipping out and remarking that he “kind of” took “a little offense at the question.”

The exchange was telling, as the Biden administration has previously said that any major operation in Rafah would constitute a “red line.” Events over the weekend would seem to show Israel has embarked on such an operation, with an estimated 45 Palestinians killed in a strike on Sunday and chilling images of burned corpses circulating on social media.

As Israel’s brutal war in Gaza leads to more civilian deaths, Biden runs the risk of losing the support of voters critical to his reelection campaign. His administration has sought to bury a report on Israel’s actions in Gaza and has pledged to defend Israel and its leaders in the face of a war crimes inquiry by the International Criminal Court. Increasingly, Biden’s statements attempting to reassure the American public are being undermined by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the war continues. The best option, which Biden has been so far unwilling to adopt, may be halting weapons shipments to Israel, but there’s no telling if or when Biden will ever reach that point.

Judge Juan Merchan ripped into Donald Trump attorney Todd Blanche over his closing arguments during the former president’s hush-money trial Tuesday.

Blanche told the jurors that Trump could be sent to prison if convicted, drawing the ire of the prosecution, as well as Merchan. Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass called Blanche’s comment a “blatant” and “inappropriate move” by the defense, and Merchan concurred.

“I think that comment was outrageous, Mr. Blanche. You know as someone who has been a prosecutor that it’s simply not allowed, period. It’s hard to see how that was an accident,” Merchan said, once the jurors had been dismissed for lunch. Upon Steinglass’s request, Merchan agreed to give a curative instruction to the jury when they returned.

Merchan told the jury that Blanche’s comment was “improper, and you must disregard it.”

“If there is a verdict of guilty, it will be up to me to impose a sentence,” Merchan said, adding that a “prison sentence is not required in the event of a guilty verdict.”

Former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Harry Litman said this was embarrassing for Blanche.

It’s no secret that Trump faces jail time in this trial, but mentioning a potential sentence to a jury is considered a bad idea in criminal law. It’s not the first misstep for Blanche in this case, though. He’s been admonished by Merchan before when trying to come up with excuses for Trump to evade his gag order. He also had to be corrected by witness Michael Cohen during a cross-examination, and embarrassed himself reading insults in court. These missteps, as Merchan noted, should not be coming from someone who is a former federal prosecutor.

Trump is on trial for trying to cover up an affair with adult film actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election by paying her off with Cohen’s help. The Republican presidential nominee faces 34 felony charges for allegedly falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime, and has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Right-wing pundits and MAGA loyalists are losing their minds over something they made up, falsely claiming the Secret Service is knee-deep in preparations to ship their beloved Trump off to jail.

Reality is far less electrifying: CBS reported Tuesday that there’s little clarity on what would happen if Trump is found guilty in criminal court ahead of jury deliberations for his hush-money trial. Within that news item, CBS referred to an unnamed Department of Corrections source  who said that, as part of exploring the full scope of possibilities ahead of a verdict in Trump’s hush-money trial, Secret Service met with “local jail officials”—in this case, likely officials at New York City’s notorious Rikers Island.

It’s not even clear where Trump would be imprisoned, if he is at all. Trump’s 34 felony charges could entail sentences of up to four years in prison—per charge. In New York City, felony convictions with sentences over a year are typically sent to state prisons, not carried out at Rikers Island, which is technically only supposed to hold people whose sentences are around one year, as well as people held pretrial. A freshly convicted Trump could potentially be held temporarily at Rikers before being transferred to a state penitentiary, but this all rests on whether Judge Juan Merchan pursues hard time for Trump at all.

The process is unusual—most convicts don’t come with their own lifetime Secret Service detail—but is altogether routine for the matter at hand and by no means indicates Trump will be sent to the pokey: As CBS notes, Merchan may favor sentencing Trump to house arrest. Merchan previously described jailing Trump as “truly a last resort for me” when Trump repeatedly violated his gag order, taking into consideration the difficulties for Secret Service and jail staff to ensure Trump’s safety behind bars.

Jury deliberations in Trump’s hush-money trial are expected to begin Wednesday. Trump is charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. He has pleaded not guilty.