By Matthew Russell Lee, Author on Patreon Song Ruling
BBC - Decrypt - LightRead - Radio - Podcast
SDNY COURTHOUSE, Dec 20 -- The trial has reached endgame. When Kurt got to the courthouse on Monday morning for closing arguments, he expected Judge Nathan before the jury was brought in to address in some way the opposition to the withholding of all slides and so-called demonstratives during the closings. But no.
Judge Nathan has so-ordered AUSA Maurene Comey's request, only asking that some redacted version be made available two hours after it was all over, another blow to anything like live coverage Kurt was trying to provide, as #CourtCaseCast.
She asked, as to the long withheld exhibits, if redacted versions had been put in the public docket. She might have just looked at the PACER screen on her computer on Courtroom 318.
Comey replied that no, redacted versions had gone on her office's file sharing platform. But file sharing with whom? Kurt was on the list, but this was not making them publicly available, as he'd gotten Judge Rakoff to do in the Eaze / Wirecard trial of US v. Weigand and Akhavan. There was more and more wrong with this #MaximumMaxwell trial.
Within the minimized scope, AUSA Alison Moe launched into a three house speech about dildos, lube and nipple pinching. Some thought it was a devasting indictment. But where were the passengers of the Lolita Express, the debauchers of Little St Jeffs?
Where were the videos of them, how they had been used for blackmail and to what effect?
The prosecution did not seem to want to know this, or to let anyone else know. Kurt recorded his first podcast on the closings in the fire stairs and headed up to another pre-re-trial proceeding about CIA Vault 7 leaker Josh Schulte. No one pretended that CIA case, which also involved child porn charges, did not have a political and transparency angle. But #MaximumMaxwell had been softened.
Maxwell's team put Laura Menninger in the glass box. She called the four witnesses gold diggers and alluded to a chart of their lawyers, which was not show to the public. She said this was all tabloid journalism and even appeared to praise Jeffrey Epstein.
Then AUSA Maurene Comey gave an ah, shucks rebuttal, in the nature of C'mon, or, Gimme a Break. The latter was Kurt's reaction when Judge Nathan spent an hour reading the 80 page jury charge which she had only then put in the docket, too late for anyone but the parties to analyze it for what had been left out.
The jury retired, as they called it, from 4:30 pm and people milled around. By 5:30 Judge Nathan sent them home, telling them not to read the Internet, and to return Tuesday at 9 am. Kurt would be there too, just as he was after the jury left out in Foley Square, the daily ritual of Ghislaine's brother and sister and also Leah Saffian, Kurt now noticed, squeezing into a black SUV and driving north.
The fight or boxing match, limited to a small square in the middle of the ring, had been completed. Now it was time for the referees to score it, and for the complaints to begin. #MaximumMaxwell.
Note: On October 29, 2021 and again on November 12 Ghislaine Maxwell and the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York filed a flurry of motions in limine, heavily redacted; the Government argued that trial exhibits are not public and will be withheld. Inner City Press opposed and opposes the continued secrecy.
Inner City Press will cover the trial, and all the comes before and after it; #CourtCaseCast and song I, Song 2, Song 3, fifth song and now Nov 27 song
The underlying case is US v. Maxwell, 20-cr-330 (Nathan).
***
Your support means a lot. As little as $5 a month helps keep us going and grants you access to exclusive bonus material including Maximum Maxwell, and other Maximum, on our Patreon page. Click here to become a patron.
