Friday Round Up! 7/28/23

Hunter's plea deal falls apart. And Watergate meets The Three Stooges, a.k.a. the superseding indictment in the Mar-a-Lago case.

It was heavy indictment watch this week, with expectations that the Washington, D.C. grand jury might return an indictment against Trump for his role on Jan. 6. Alas, that did not materialize, though we did see a superseding indictment in the Mar-a-Lago case, naming an additional Trump minion employee, Carlos DeOliveira, as a defendant and adding additional charges related to obstruction of justice. DeOliveira is Mar-a-Lago’s head of maintenance, who, along with Trump’s valet, Walter Nauta, attempted to persuade another Trump employee to delete surveillance video which had been subpoenaed by the Justice Department. It’s worth reading the new facts in the indictment, if for nothing but their entertainment value: In my mind it was like a John LeCarré novel with Benny Hill music playing in the background. The superseding indictment also added an additional count to the documents retained by Trump to include the Top Secret war plans which Trump had boasted about and waved around in front of reporters in Bedminster soon after he left office.

When we recorded last week’s podcast, the superseding indictment hadn’t come down yet. But we did record on the heels of another drama, which was the breakdown of Hunter Biden’s plea deal. I was on standby for ABC News and catching the play by play — it was actually a great example of how the interests of the defense, prosecution, and the judiciary can be out of alignment, as they clearly were here. The agreement consisted of two components: A plea agreement (concerning two misdemeanor tax charges) and a pretrial diversion agreement (concerning an illegal possession of a firearm). It became clear through the course of the proceeding that there was not complete clarity between the prosecution and defense on what, exactly, was being agreed upon. Further, the wording of the pretrial diversion agreement was unusual in that it inserted the judge into a process where the judiciary doesn’t play a role, raising separation of powers concerns. I’ve included a couple of pieces worth reading on the plea deal below to supplement Renato’s and my breakdown. (When Renato and I discussed the issue the actual documents hadn’t been released yet.)

Articles worth reading:

• This analysis by Renato Mariotti for Politico on why Hunter Biden got special treatment — meaning, especially harsh treatment — given the crimes he was charged with

• This additional analysis by The Popehat Report (written by former white collar prosecutor Ken White) with a more detailed analysis of the actual agreements after they were released publicly

Noteworthy clips from this week:

ABC News set up a crew in my sister’s living room for five hours Wednesday, in anticipation of a special report on the Hunter Biden situation. Here is the clip:

Upcoming events:

Thank you all for your patience last week as Professor Gage and I juggled schedules. We are back on for this coming week, and I have pushed this month’s office hours to the following week.

• NEW DATE/TIME: Guest Speaker Beverly Gage, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century, Wednesday, August 2, 4 p.m. EDT. Zoom link will be sent to paid members at 1 p.m.

• NEW DATE/TIME: Zoom Office Hours, Wednesday, August 9 at 12 p.m. EDT. Zoom link will be sent to paid members at 9 a.m.

• August Wine & Fries Happy Hour with Michael Cohen (yes that Michael Cohen!), date/time TBA — I promise this will be a fun and hilarious conversation you won’t want to miss!

I’ll be doing college visits with my son and prepping for the new school year/semester the last two weeks of August — which is a great time to catch up on some of the previous material if you recently joined the course. I’ll still be sending my weekly round ups, as well as analysis of breaking news (I am hoping for both a January 6 indictment and the Fulton County indictment before the end of summer!) and we will resume with our next lesson the first week of September!

In the meantime, here is Randy Rainbow’s latest musical masterpiece, in case you missed it: