New CEO of failed Silicon Valley Bank was once fired from his Charlotte banking job
March 16, 2023
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Former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti this week said that former President Donald Trump is now in an "unusual" and "very dangerous" legal predicament.
Writing on Twitter, Mariotti broke down the significance of Judge Beryl Howell finding evidence that the former president misled his own lawyers about his possession of top-secret government documents stashed at his Mar-a-Lago resort.
What Mariotti found particularly intriguing about the judge's order was what she told Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran to turn over to prosecutors.
"She... ordered him to produce handwritten notes, invoices, and transcriptions of personal audio recordings," he wrote. "That is really important... Regardless of who he recorded, the Judge found that those recorded conversations constitute evidence of what she called Trump's 'criminal scheme.' That could be extremely powerful and important evidence."
DON'T MISS: Dems have plan to make Jim Jordan's defense of 'sleazy' Trump scheme backfire
Mariotti called Judge Howell's ruling "remarkable" and said that it frees up Corcoran, who faces his own potential criminal liability for purportedly writing a statement last year that falsely asserted Trump had already returned all requested documents to the DOJ, to spill the beans about his conversations with Trump.
"In my experience, the crime-fraud exception is often discussed but rarely ever invoked," he writes. "I can't remember an actual invocation of crime-fraud in my roughly 20 years of criminal law practice. This is an unusual situation and a very dangerous one for Trump."
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is publicly denouncing Uganda's latest Anti-Homosexuality legislation, which is being called a "Kill the Gays" bill for its capital punishment penalty for "aggravated homosexuality."
The legislation passed in a nearly-unanimous vote and now heads to Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni's desk.
"The Anti-Homosexuality Act passed by the Ugandan Parliament yesterday would undermine fundamental human rights of all Ugandans and could reverse gains in the fight against HIV/AIDS. We urge the Ugandan Government to strongly reconsider the implementation of this legislation," Secretary Blinken said via Twitter Wednesday morning.
Uganda, a far-right religious country has a long history of targeting and marginalizing its LGBTQ citizens, including passing a modified "Kill the Gays" bill that was signed into law in 2014, only to be overturned in court on a technicality. That law was drafted and promoted with the aid of American far-right evangelicals.
Ugandan lawmakers on Tuesday passed legislation that makes being LGBTQ illegal, proscribes the death penalty for certain same-sex acts, and decades or life in prison for identifying as LGBTQ. It also requires anyone with knowledge of another person being LGBTQ or engaging in same-sex acts to be reported to the government.
"All but two of the 389 legislators voted late on Tuesday for the hardline anti-homosexuality bill, which introduces capital and life imprisonment sentences for gay sex and 'recruitment, promotion and funding' of same-sex 'activities'," The Guardian reports.
“A person who commits the offence of aggravated homosexuality and is liable, on conviction to suffer death,” the bill states.
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, in a statement warned: "If the bill is signed into law, it will render LGBTIQ+ people in Uganda criminals simply for existing, for being who they are. It could provide carte blanche for the systematic violation of nearly all of their human rights and serve to incite people against each other."
One of the two Ugandan Members of Parliament who voted against the bill, Fox Odoi-Oywelowo, calls it "ill-conceived," and says parts are "unconstitutional."
He says it "reverses the gains registered in the fight against gender-based violence and criminalises individuals instead of conduct that contravenes all known legal norms.”
President Museveni, who signed into law a modified version of the 2014 "Kill the Gays" bill, will now have to decide if he wants to sign this version as well.
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A bottle of whiskey or a chew toy for dogs? Unless you've had too much to drink from said bottle, it's admittedly difficult to confuse the two.
US distillery Jack Daniel's is suing a dog products maker, however, arguing that its plastic squeaky toy called Bad Spaniels, which resembles the famous black label whiskey bottle, is violating copyright law.''
It also takes issue with toilet humor on the label.
The case going in front of the Supreme Court on Wednesday may have wider ramifications for how copyright law is applied in the United States as its nine judges weigh whether free speech trumps intellectual property rights.
In its suit against Arizona-based VIP Products, Jack Daniel's says that not only is the rectangle-shaped plastic bottle visually similar to its famous whiskey, but that Bad Spaniels is also hurting the reputation of Jack Daniel's with tasteless jokes.
While the label on the Tennessee whiskey advertises a 40 percent alcohol content, Bad Spaniels is described as containing "43 percent poo" that may end up on your "Tennessee carpet."
"To be sure, everyone likes a good joke," Jack Daniel's said in a legal filing to the Supreme Court. "But VIP's profit-motivated 'joke' confuses consumers by taking advantage of Jack Daniel's hard-earned goodwill."
'Freedom to mock'
The spirits maker, which is owned by Kentucky-based Brown-Forman Corp., took legal action in 2014, when the dog toy appeared on the market. After an initial court victory, Jack Daniel's lost on appeal.
As the case made its way to the Supreme Court, Jack Daniel's was backed by other big American corporations, such as food giant Campbell, whose soup cans were featured in Andy Warhol's famous paintings, and clothes makers Patagonia and Levi Strauss, who argued that such humor can hurt their reputations.
But VIP Products is unconvinced.
"Freedom of speech begins with freedom to mock," the company said in a legal filing. "Objects of mockery, satire, or parody—government officials, artists, celebrities, iconic brands—may bristle at negativity or loss of control over public discourse, but they are the price of fame."
The Supreme Court must issue a ruling in the case before June 30.
© Agence France-Presse
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