Reverse-Spiderman

It is what it is

“Men are so simple of mind, and so much dominated by their immediate needs, that a deceitful man will always find plenty who are ready to be deceived.”

Niccolò Machiavelli

Well, I was hopelessly optimistic about the way that whole thing would turn out. Here I was, feloniously minding my own business, and writing things that looked cautiously optimistic. Look, I will say this again but, Donny T gets shit done, for better or for worse. The sad part is that America has not had this type of “hands-on” leader since the Reagan area. And THAT guy was a movie star and not a traditional politician as well.

How coincidental that this is another person who is changing Republican politics and ideology. As for the American criminal justice system? Hang ‘em high and break lots of things. Mass resignations of DAs and other assistant attorneys is predictable, because Trump’s staff demand rigerious loyalty to their vision of the criminal justice system, rather than traditional practices and procedures.

In short, the first justification for the motion—that Damian Williams’s role in the case somehow tainted a valid indictment supported by ample evidence, and pursued under four different U.S. attorneys—is so weak as to be transparently pretextual. The second justification is worse. No system of ordered liberty can allow the Government to use the carrot of dismissing charges, or the stick of threatening to bring them again, to induce an elected official to support its policy objectives.

Hagan Scotten - Former Assistant United States Attorney (Southern District of New York)

Yeah I have to agree with him on this one. The Eric Adam’s case is absolutely a quid pro quo. But that begs the question… was this already happening before, and we couldn’t see it? Probably. So then, it becomes a question of how you like your corruption: being lied to or being told the truth, but there isn’t much you can do about it?

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It’s good to be back into the writing thing. I’ve been a little backed up with other pieces i.e. the list and compilation of some of those justice-type thinkers, the research, and our justice-analysis.¹ I can’t stay away from releasing something, even if it is a somewhat half-baked response being hurled back into the face of what we all knew would really just be, what it was and always…what it be.

Let’s roll the highlights in the new year:

Pam “Lethal“ Bondi-njection

See what I did there? If Pam reads this, which I bet she does, I bet she will at least admire that use of word-play. If not, I might be on the next chopping block. This is from the memos that Bondi sent out on her first day in the new office.

Pursuant to President Trump's Executive Order, federal prosecutors at the Department, including at U.S. Attorney's Offices, shall seek the death penalty- if that is a penalty proscribed by Congress-for the most serious, readily provable offenses, and if doing so is consistent with the relevant statutory considerations and other applicable regulations and Department of Justice guidance. Absent significant mitigating circumstances, federal prosecutors are expected to seek the death penalty in cases involving the murder of a law-enforcement officer and capital crimes committed by aliens who are illegally present in the United States. This policy applies to the recent murder of U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agent David Maland during a traffic stop in Vermont… Debrina Kawam who was burned to death while she was riding the New York City subway…

Federal prosecutors are strongly encouraged to use applicable statutes, when appropriate, to aid in the Department's continuing fight against drug trafficking and the violence it brings.

Well, well, well, Ms. Bondi.² You play a pretty convincing card for someone who might have had me fooled for the second-coming of John N. Mitchell³ - except there is far more vitriol in Pam’s language here for the immigrants (and even those who aren’t immigrants) rather than the slightly curious and bellicose nature of Nixon’s AG against “drugs” (which was used as precontext for targeting POC).⁴ This is reactionary, but understandably so. When people are being burned on subways very nonchalantly, one has to question: who are we really letting in the country, and how are we failing to do a good enough job vetting those coming in before they arrive? You can talk about a wall all you want, but the real threat of immigration is people overstaying their visas, sometimes without little to no repercussions for decades. But the immigration thing is for another time and publication.

Reinstituting the feds with the death penalty should send shivers into any true libertarian’s synapses, and for the rest of us, there should be a bit of worry too. Look, did Trump get railroaded in a lot of respects? Absolutely. But blatant political retaliation in the hands of someone who yields the guillotine should be alarming to any regular red-white-and-blue citizen. Many of you may say “Gosh, but Trump and his administration would never do that… to me” but the fact of the matter is, as history has shown, anyone in power would use said power against anyone they could, if it was convenient for them.⁵

And Trump has already gone and dismantled many people he did not like and who did not show him support. One would hope the administration (or any administration) would never use the ultimate penalty in a nefarious way, but that may be too much to hope. Maybe all the resigned DOJ attorneys can form a resistance. Next story.

With Friends Like These

This story is a similar flavor, but a little different. There’s no real hiding from the fact that Donny T does get shit done. For better or worse, his work has been fast and furious to bring many people to heel, including despondent Eric Adams. This is now the third or fourth political cretin I have watched Trump bring in to the fold, much like Ramsay Bolton to Reek in Game of Thrones Season 4. Prior to Adams, there were a few: Chris Christie; Rudy Giuliani; and Mitt Romney.

Where are they all now? Irrelevant. But this crack-down and turn-around really came about because Trump had something Adams wanted, namely, a dismissal of those pesky corruption charges by Biden prosecutors.

Adams was charged with accepting illegal campaign contributions and free travel from Turkish officials and business leaders. Prosecutors say Adams, now running for reelection, responded with favors such as expediting safety inspections at a 36-story consulate building.

The Justice Department’s decision to drop the charges prompted multiple federal prosecutors to resign and elicited accusations that Adams agreed to cooperate with President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown in exchange for making his legal troubles go away.

USA Today

Btw, USA today is a terrible source, because it provides no primary sources for anything.⁶ The actual motion is here.

Matt Taibbi

is launching a new service which will hopefully resolve that, and so you should probably check that out, because I will be.

A look into the actual motion to dismiss and the respective order, the government asked for it to be dismissed without prejudice, meaning that the charges can be brought back at a later date. Honorable Judge Ho is confused, and rightly so - why in the P-diddy does the government want to dismiss this, when they just brought the charges in September 2024?

Wait for it…

Adams, Homan turn heads with joint appearance on ‘Fox & Friends’— that came with warning if NYC mayor fails on Trump immigration crackdown

You can watch the video here. There seems to be a “draining of the swamp” with the Trump admin, but that turn of phrase can be confusing too. A swamp epitomizes the murky, unclear, and dark reaches of a natural ecosystem. Its classically where alligators, witches, ogres, spiders, Yoda, aliens, and all sorts of negligibly awful characters have made their place to live. So if you “drain the swamp” really what you are doing is just saying that now we (the Trump admin) will be transparent about the corruption, which will be done in the open air. This placation of our desire to not be lied to has teleported us to a world in which we get the truth, even if it is quite nasty. We have to get ready for that and adjust to it because it can be hard to stomach from those who have been perpetually lied to.⁷

We did get what we asked for.

Updates and Loose Ends

John Taylor Case

So not much has happened in the case, as of the time being. There have been no pleadings as to not guilty or guilty as of this time, but the idea would be that there are some negotiations already happening. The next hearing is on March 12th, which I will be at. I haven’t actually gone to see any of these hearings, but the curiousness about the lack of bond conditions set is something that is interesting in this case. There was a $50,000 bond posted, but no other conditions on travel or otherwise.⁸

Tina Peters Grand Jury Documents

I had actually forgotten about this in the flurry of literally everything happening in my life. I was able to get my hands on some documents via the judicial branch. This is a case I really should have been more privy to, I worked with the investigator, but I am going to try to start reading through everything I got and will unpack more on that later in a segment.