A Timeline of Trump Litigation in 2024

My best effort to imagine the year to come

Good Evening:

First off, it is time for my annual end-of-the-year reminder to you all to support Lawfare.

There are 10,000 of you. You are all great Americans. Lawfare brings important stuff to great Americans. It employs a bunch of other great Americans. It brings you daily podcasts and weekly livestreams. It brings you articles you simply can’t get anywhere else. It brings you classes on hacking and unparalleled coverage of the Trump trials. It brings you uniquely serious shit. And while I don’t want to get all naggy like they do on NPR, it is my job to remind you occasionally that this uniquely serious shit is not free to produce.

There are, for starters, our palatial offices—including the off-site in the Bahamas and the ski chalet in Vail. There are the enormous salaries we pay our student contributors. And that’s all before you figure in the giant bonuses we dole out to our editorial staffers—all of whom have serious kickbacks they have to pay to me to keep their positions. There’s also the protection money we pay to the Deep State to make sure we attract no enforcement scrutiny. You know, running a non-profit is tough these days!

In all seriousness, we keep Lawfare remarkably lean. We spend a shockingly high percentage of our budget actually producing the material you read and listen to. So if you value what we do, and if you are not already a contributor, please consider becoming one:

---

The latest from Windsor Mann and Ruthie Windsor-Mann:

---

I wrote the following little verse the other day, while flying back from Europe:

I imagined it as the chorus to a song, a response to all of the people I know who profess themselves “tired” by world events, domestic politics, or the news in general. I’ve been meaning to set it to music—and maybe write some verses for it.

But in the meantime, something interesting has happened. Judging from the social media reaction to it, Ukrainians seem to think it’s about Ukraine, and Americans seem to think it’s about domestic politics.

This pleases me. Because it’s about both—and a lot of other things.

---

Today’s #BeastOfTheDay are the therapy llamas that are, according to this here article in the Washington Post, patrolling the airport in Portland, Oregon.

Photo credit: Shannon Joy

I want a therapy llama.

---

Trump Trial Diary, December 27, 2023

It’s going to be a heck of a year.

At a minimum, there will be a presidential election just under ten months from now, with one of the candidates facing or having faced four separate criminal cases. There will be at least one, and likely two or three, major Supreme Court cases involving these litigations or the candidate’s eligibility for office. There will likely, but not certainly, be one or more actual criminal trials.

And that’s all just the substance—before you get to any of the noise and theatrics.

Let’s try to map out that part of the year which we can foresee with any clarity.