The most powerful and prestigious circuit of the U.S. court of appeals, the 2nd District, which covers Southern New York, is getting tired of Trump’s constant appeals, according to the New York Daily News. That doesn’t portend well for Trump’s hopes in keeping his taxes hidden.

One of the things that seems to bother the court the most is that Trump’s attorneys cannot help themselves and continue to sling insults and accusations against the Manhattan District Attorney’s office. In law, we rarely go after the other side in such personal or attacking tones. We attack what they “do” but not who they are or their motives. The strategy alone says a great deal about the level of desperation to which Team Trump has descended:

Noting that “the three judges on the panel appeared deeply skeptical of arguments by Trump attorney William Consovoy,” the Daily News reports that Judge Pierre Leval called Trump’s attacks against Vance “deeply contrived.”

When judges jump to smash arguments as “contrived” it says a great deal. Judges will say that the arguments don’t fit the facts, they’ll say that they’re not relevant to the issue, or other “professional” means to say “bullshit,” but they don’t just throw out loaded words like “contrived,” which is telling the Trumpers that they’re just “pulling it out of your ass.”

Perhaps most significantly for Trump, Leval indicated that the only thing stopping Vance from enforcing his subpoena on Trump’s accounting firm, Mazars, was Vance himself. The DA has agreed with Trump to delay enforcement of the demand while Trump pursued appeals. The judge requested further briefing on the issue.

This is important, though maybe overstated a bit by the Daily News. A criminal attorney’s worst nightmare is to make a mistake in seeming to be “over-aggressive” and losing a successful case on appeal by not being “fair enough.” However, for the judge to point out that the state is being very reasonable strongly rebuts team Trump’s constant whining that they’re such victims.

Judge Robert Katzmann also piled on the president for  claiming the the grand jury Vance is using to investigate the Trump Organization should be limited in scope, telling the president’s attorney, “Grand juries, as you know, are given broad authority to do their work. Are you asking us to change the way grand juries have done their work for time immemorial just because someone is President of the United States?”

OUCH!

It sounds like Trump’s team is about to be on the losing end. They will then appeal to the SCOTUS – again – of course, but the SCOTUS can (and likely will) simply say they decline to even hear the case. And then there’s not a damn thing team Trump can do.

No, the information won’t be out before the election, it’ll be in front of a grand jury. But it’s still possible that toward the end of November, maybe even early December, while Trump is still litigating the election to save his life, massive news could break from charges by the state of New York. It’s possible.

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Peace, y’all
Jason
[email protected] and on Twitter @JasonMiciak