Trump judge says the quiet part out loud
U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman, appointed by President Donald Trump, declared a mistrial on Tuesday in the “terrorism” trial of nine people whom the Trump administration says are part of a “North-Texas antifa cell.”
Now, there is no mechanism by which Trump can designate antifa or anything else as a “domestic terrorist organization,” because that is not a thing that exists in the law. A non-Trumpy judge might have grappled with that little problem instead of doing whatever the hell it is Pittman is doing.
Pittman is a real innovator here, what with the wildly unusual decision to declare a mistrial during jury selection. What, pray tell, required such a measure?
One of the defense attorneys, MarQuetta Clayton, committed the unbelievable crime of wearing a T-shirt with images of civil rights leaders and protests from the Civil Rights Movement, in honor of Jesse Jackson, who had died that morning.
Clayton had worn the shirt all day, so Pittman should’ve had ample time to see it, but he didn’t decide that a mistrial was necessary until Clayton began questioning potential jurors.
Pittman first halted jury selection because he was frustrated with Clayton’s questions, which is a problem in itself. Then he decided what he was really mad about was the shirt: “I don't know why in the world you would think that's appropriate.” A portion of the pool of 75 prospective jurors had voiced views against Trump and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and it looks like Pittman decided to torpedo the jury pool because of that. Gotta put on a show if you want to hand Trump a win!
Pittman said that the shirt was a political message that could bias jurors by equating the defendants with the Civil Rights Movement and that the defense lawyers would be mad if the prosecutor wore pro-ICE or pro-Trump clothing.
Except the defense attorney wasn’t wearing anything related to ICE, Trump, or even recent civil rights history. Pittman is saying that the mere invocation of decades-old civil rights history is unfair to the poor sweet babies of ICE because potential jurors might view them as violating civil rights, which … if the shoe fits?
A former federal prosecutor for the district twisted herself in knots when trying to justify Pitman’s move to the media: “The fact that it was a T-shirt that had graphics that could be connected to the theme of the defendant's defense, which was that she attended a peaceful protest and did not intend to hurt any law enforcement officer, is likely why he found a mistrial."
That explanation might hang together a bit more if Pittman had talked to Clayton about it immediately. Instead, he waited hours to throw his little tantrum.
Part of why Pittman doesn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt here is that he’s been openly targeting the defense attorneys for months. In January, he fined three of them because he didn’t like their discovery motions. He almost blocked another one, George Lobb, from representing one of the defendants because Pittman said Lobb didn’t meet the residency requirements to practice there. This is not an evenhanded fellow.
This isn’t all that surprising from a standard-issue Trump judge like Pittman. He’s a guy who loved nationwide injunctions back when Barack Obama was president, but who, during Trump’s first term, criticized a judge’s nationwide injunction against Trump’s Muslim travel ban.
Pittman was also certain that Obama’s Department of Justice was just sitting around doing woke DEI all the time rather than prosecuting people. “In practice, the Justice Department’s congressionally-mandated job of prosecuting criminals often took a back seat to curing perceived social ills, such as the prosecution of local police departments for not having enough female or minority officers,” Pittman said in a 2017 speech.
If only Obama had instead decided to install a bunch of unqualified former personal attorneys and fired scores of career attorneys for having worked on past cases Obama didn’t like, then perhaps his DOJ could have been as resoundingly successful as the current one, right?
Pittman is a clown for even entertaining the whole “Trump wrote down on a piece of paper that he hated antifa very much so that is law now” thing that is going on here. The president cannot make laws via executive order. He cannot invent new crimes via executive order. But Pittman doesn’t seem all that bothered by such niceties, unlike when he threw out former President Joe Biden’s student loan relief measures, howling that it represented a “complete usurpation” of congressional authority by the president.
So, using an existing law as the basis for ordering student loan relief? Monstrous and democracy-ending. But letting Trump just rule via pettiness, persecution, and vibes? Amazing, democracy-enhancing.
Pittman is set to reconvene the trial on Monday with a new set of jurors, presumably ones thoroughly vetted for their deep and abiding love of ICE. Pittman ended Tuesday with a little speech about how “absolutely disgusted” he is about partisan division, adding that “we have to find a way to turn down the anger.”
Buddy, you torpedoed a trial because you got sad about a shirt. You are the partisan here. Turn it down yourself.
Daily Kos relies on small donations to make ends meet
Ad revenue can't support Daily Kos operations—and it hasn't been able to for more than a decade.
Digital ad revenue has declined everywhere, especially for news organizations for whom it was once their lifeblood. Companies are spending less money on ads, and Amazon, Facebook and Google are gobbling up an ever-greater share of what remains. This has left almost nothing for places like Daily Kos. The only reason we've been able to survive is because of the support of readers like you. That's why we're asking:
Can you take one minute right now to donate $5 or more to Daily Kos? It would mean so much to us.
