Trump Derangement Syndrome

NY Times columnist Bret Stephens wrote a column yesterday in which he reviewed for readers the history of the FBI’s actions during the Trump administration with regard to the Steele dossier. Stephens argues that if Igor Danchenko is convicted, it will be a real embarrassment for the media outlets who promoted the dossier. However he says that putting the media’s role aside, Danchenko’s indictment is an even bigger blow to the credibility of the FBI…

Good read.

KENOSHA, Wis. (NewsNation Now) — The jury has been sent home without reaching a verdict for the second straight day in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial. Earlier on Wednesday, Rittenhouse’s attorneys asked the judge to declare a mistrial because their team received a lower-quality version of drone footage compared to the prosecution.

Defense attorney Corey Chirafisi told Judge Bruce Schroeder the request would be made without prejudice, meaning the state could try Rittenhouse again if the case is thrown out.

Prosecutors countered Wednesday that the jury saw the highest-quality version during the trial and that it was played without objection.

Prosecutor James Kraus said it was not the fault of prosecutors that the file got compressed when received by the defense: “We’re focusing too heavily on a technological glitch.”

Rittenhouse Prosecutor: We Did Not Alter the Video Evidence

The prosecution and defense attorneys clashed Wednesday afternoon in the Kenosha County Court before Judge Bruce Schroeder over disputed video evidence as jurors continued a second day of deliberations.

The dispute involved several videos, especially a high-definition video that the prosecution used in closing arguments on Friday, but which had not been provided to the defense, which only received a low-definition version. The defense moved for a mistrial Tuesday on that basis.

More… Rittenhouse mystery: What happened to mistrial motion over prosecutorial misconduct?

Good question. In fact, as the Chicago Tribune points out, defense attorneys for Kyle Rittenhouse accused prosecutors of two separate acts of misconduct — one that made a splash in the courtroom, and one that pointedly did not. Both give reason for Judge Bruce Schroeder to declare a mistrial with prejudice, according to the defense brief … but Schroeder has yet to rule on either.

They’re the real enemies of the people.

Way back when, President Trump stirred a maelstrom when he called the mainstream media the “enemy of the people.” Although “anything Trump” immediately generates intense feelings on all sides, essentially ending much reasoned discussion and informed reciprocal debate, it is worthwhile considering that we need accurate media for a more wholesome society. Mass media can be a profoundly important bolster to a better world. The media have the power to root out and expose corruption by the powerful, to inform the public about real dangers, and to protect from tyranny.

Kyle Rittenhouse’s legal team accused prosecutors of holding back key video footage that is at the heart of their case in a formal motion for a mistrial, court documents show.

Lawyers for the 18-year-old Kenosha gunman already called for a mistrial during the hearing, and filed a formal seven-page request less than an hour before closing arguments Monday, The Chicago Tribune noted.

The motion argues any conviction should be overruled and seeks to forbid any chance of a retrial if Rittenhouse is cleared of the five felonies he faces for the deadly triple shooting at last year’s Kenosha riots.

And here is the HD version that was withheld from the defense team

The HD version clearly shows Kyle did not aim his rifle at the Ziminskis pic.twitter.com/DQRxfhrlE1

— Jacek Posobiec 🇺🇸🇵🇱 (@JackPosobiec) November 17, 2021

Kyle Rittenhouse prosecutors HELD BACK high-def drone footage of Kenosha shootings from defense and gave them low quality video – sparking them to file mistrial motion that could see teen walk free

h/t SDMatt, RM, DS

KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) — Jurors weighing charges against Kyle Rittenhouse were to return Wednesday for a second day of deliberations in his murder trial, after they failed to reach a swift verdict on whether he was the instigator in a night of bloodshed in Kenosha or a concerned citizen who came under attack while trying to protect property.

The jury of 12 deliberated for a full day Tuesday without reaching a decision. Several appeared tired as they walked into the courtroom Tuesday evening and indicated with a show of hands that they were ready to go home.

Closing arguments of Wisconsin state prosecutors against Kyle Rittenhouse can best be summed up for the jury as, “Never mind! Don’t believe the video evidence or independent witnesses introduced in this trial; believe this alternate version of events that we’re telling you right now instead.”

The left cheered on 28-year-old Gaige Grosskreutz when he took the stand against Kyle Rittenhouse. To them, he was a hero who attempted to stand up to what they’re calling a mad white supremacist with an assault rifle, and when Grosskreutz and his missing chunk of arm testified against the teenager who shot him, mainstream press outlets were sympathetic and Twitter aflutter.

“This is an unpleasant task because on the legal merits Kyle Rittenhouse ought to be acquitted by a unanimous jury on every one of the five felony accounts against him, with the State having failed to prove provocation beyond a reasonable doubt and having failed to have disproven self-defense beyond a reasonable doubt.

And that may still happen. I hope it does. He deserves those acquittals.”

The jury in the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse will retire to consider their verdict on Tuesday at 9am, as the city of Kenosha braced for protests ahead of the verdict.

Rittenhouse, 18, is charged with first-degree intentional homicide and other counts for killing Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber and wounding Gaige Grosskreutz on August 25, 2020.

On Tuesday deliberations will begin in the case that has stirred fierce debate in the U.S. over guns, vigilantism and law and order.

The jury has not been sequestered.

WHOA: Rittenhouse Prosecutor Thomas Binger Aims AR-15 at People in Courtroom, Finger on the Trigger

Thomas Binger, lead attorney in the floundering prosecution against Kyle Rittenhouse, during closing arguments Monday aimed an AR-15 at people in the courtroom with his finger on the trigger.

The media’s coverage of the Rittenhouse shootings has been disgracefully biased and dishonest.

Officially, it’s Kyle Rittenhouse who’s on trial in Kenosha County Courthouse. But to some of us it looks like the mainstream media are in the dock, too. We await the jury’s decision on whether Rittenhouse is guilty or not guilty of homicide. But we already have a pretty good sense of the culpability of the media in fashioning an almost entirely skewed narrative around the Rittenhouse shootings. The more the trial has dug into the events of that fateful day of 25 August 2020, when a 17-year-old Rittenhouse fatally shot two men and injured another, the more we have seen just how cynical, partisan and outright deceptive so much of the media coverage of this tragic affair has been. There’s no doubting it: the media are guilty of pursuing a culture war against Mr Rittenhouse and against what he is seen to represent – problematic white men.

Remember when Christopher Steele’s dossier supposedly incriminating President Donald Trump was treated as almost infallible holy writ by much of the mainstream media, especially CNN? Well, now that the primary source of that dossier has been indicted for lying to the FBI, where are the corrections to the record by those same media outlets?

John Durham has indicted three people but he may break our hearts yet

“… So far, anyway (and this brings me to the heartbreaking part of the narrative) all of Durham’s three indictments suggest that, as McCarthy puts it, “the FBI was duped, not that the bureau intentionally lied to the court.” That’s not what I want to hear, nor is it what I think is true. That is, I think that the FBI is an institution that is out of control. I believe it has become thoroughly politicized and is in effect a tool of the Democratic establishment. The fact that the Biden administration just turned it loose on Project Veritas because the group may have had Ashley’s Biden diary is only the latest example of its weaponization as a sort of geheime Staatspolizei. Why is the FBI involved in recovering a private document of no national security import? In my view, the FBI does not need to be reformed. It needs to be dismantled and replaced.”

Assistant District Attorney Thomas Binger ‘lied to the jury’s faces’ in his closing statement when he said that Kyle Rittenhouse provoked the situation that saw him shoot two men dead and injure a third on August 25, 2020.

This was the startling opening to defense attorney Mark Richards’ closing statements when he stood to address the court Monday afternoon.

Speaking with a furious energy he said, ‘This case is not a game. It’s my client’s life. We don’t play fast and loose with the facts, pretending that Mr. Rosenbaum was citizen A, number one guy.

In medieval days, before there were secular dramas, there were roving bands of semi-professional actors performing morality plays. The plays were often short and sometimes even farcical. Plots were designed to encourage moral choices or illustrate Biblical stories. The audience was a mostly illiterate populace who paid for the entertainment with small change.