Our Felonious Ex-President

A lawyer representing Donald Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen filed a court brief that cited three cases that do not exist, according to a federal judge. The incident is similar to a recent one in which lawyers submitted fake citations originally provided by ChatGPT, but it hasn’t yet been confirmed whether Cohen’s lawyer also used an AI tool.

“On November 29, 2023, David M. Schwartz, counsel of record for Defendant Michael Cohen, filed a motion for early termination of supervised release,” US District Judge Jesse Furman wrote in an order to show cause yesterday. “In the letter brief, Mr. Cohen asserts that, ‘[a]s recently as 2022, there have been District Court decisions, affirmed by the Second Circuit Court, granting early termination of supervised release.’”

Schwartz’s letter brief named “three such examples,” citing United States v. Figueroa-Florez, United States v. Ortiz, and United States v. Amato. The brief provided case numbers, summaries, and ruling dates, but Furman concluded that the cases are fake.

“As far as the Court can tell, none of these cases exist,” Furman wrote. Furman, a judge in US District Court for the Southern District of New York, ordered Schwartz to provide copies of the three cited decisions by December 19.

How is it that absolutely anybody who even tangentially relates to Trump ends up being so bad at anything they do? It’s like Trump’s got the reverse Midas touch, everything he touches turns to shit.

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including the nation

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I mean, it worked for Stormy, so…

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GLOD. It turns to Glod, Terry Pratchett’s dwarf who found himself transported to a faraway kingdom due to a mistranscribed wish, and relentlessly duplicated. This is why Floridians to this day are notably short of stature and ill-tempered.

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Back in 2018, Mr Giuliani’s divorce case heard claims of his lavish spending. His ex-wife, Judith Giuliani, said that in a five-month period he spent nearly a million dollars.

This was said to include $12,012 on cigars, $7,131 on fountain pens, $286,000 on an alleged mistress, $447,938 “for his own enjoyment” and $165,000 on travel.

$447,938? I didn’t know Kleenex cost that much.

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Gotta keep up with the Newport van Blecks.

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“Of course I don’t regret it,” Mr Giuliani told reporters on 11 December. “I told the truth. They were engaged in changing votes.”

In another instance on 15 December, he said his statements “were supportable and are supportable today”.

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Maybe he should have, you know, supported them in the last lawsuit instead of getting ruled against for not showing anything. But then, I’m not a fancy lawyer with a suspended license currently fighting to avoid disbarment or anything, so what do I know?

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I think the people in charge of making the BAR exams and setting the standards are going to be quite busy after seeing Trump’s lawyers in action.

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In comparing Trump to Hitler, is the Biden campaign losing the argument based on Godwin’s law?

I’ve never said that just because you’re invoking the Nazis you’re losing the argument. If you’re going to compare somebody to Hitler or the Nazis or raise the specter of the Holocaust, be sure you’ve got your facts right. But there’s nothing categorically wrong with Biden’s — or anyone else’s — comparison of Trump calling people vermin or talking about blood poisoning to Hitler.

I wasn’t a particular scholar of Hitler or the Nazis before, and I still don’t count as one, but I’ve always taken pains to know enough history to know whether a comparison was valid. And in general, dehumanizing rhetoric is a hallmark of Hitler’s rhetoric. So, Trump’s opening himself up to the Hitler comparison.

Yup.

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the purpose of democratic institutions is not to put the best people in power, it’s to maintain democracy even when the worst people are in power.

That’s a statement that says a lot.

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I mean, Godwin made the rule so I feel he has the final say here.

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Some interesting inside information.

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Heh, oops, I was beaten to the punch in another thread.

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