SDNY COURTHOUSE,
Dec 28 -- Everywhere now the talk
had moved from COVID to its variant Omicron,
and in the courtroom it was no different.
Overnight Ghislaine
Maxwell's lawyers had sent Judge Nathan a
letter urging a supplemental instruction about
the flights to New Mexico. Judge Nathan came
to the bench to hear the prosecutors' oral
response. But her main purpose, it seems, was
to lay down the law about Omicron.
Given
the spread, she said, and the danger of a
mistrial, she would require the jurors to
deliberate from now on every day from 9 am to
6 pm - and she meant everyday. This would
include Thursday December 30, which she had
promised the off, and Friday December 31 - and
even Saturday January 1. That should focus the
mind, someone said.
Or set
up an appeal for Maxwell if convicted, said
another.
To
Kurt the point was, if Omicron was so serious
that a person he'd come to know had been
blocked from entering the courthouse on
Monday, how could Judge Nathan continue to
deny his requests for a public call-in line,
and not even docket them? Kurt prepared and
filed another one, convinced this time it had
to work.
Kurt
went on a podcast in the UK and repeated it -
it was a point of principle. The courts should
be open and transparent. It was when they
weren't that conspiracy theories grew.
#MaximumMaxwell.
But
as the hours went by - after Judge Nathan
dropped half of her ultimatum on the jurors
before dismissing them at 5pm, and in the now
sanitized Saffian scrum in Foley Square
(Saffian hailed the Uber and only then did
Isabel Maxwell come over, after dropping a
bagged pizza on the ground as she was asked
about the MEGA Group and pedophilia in
Spanish) - Judge Nathan did not even docket
the request.
What
about the promise made, and legal requirement,
that trials be open to the public? Even a
corporate journalist complained of being
barred. The gray zone citizen journalist who
had outright been disallowed from entering 40
Foley said it again to Kurt. Even if the judge
disbelieved it, shouldn't it be inquired into?
Or was the idea to hold the nose and get it
done, wrap up this trial and scandal before
the end of 2021 and move on?
Of
course, there would be ongoing strands. Also
that day Prince Andrew through his lawyer made
a filing in his case, one that to Kurt smelled
of dirty doxing.
The lawyer, who had only begrudgingly
appeared in the case by Virginia Roberts
Giuffre, had bought her Colorado voting
records from some genealogy website and put
them into PACER, with no redaction at all.
Kurt took and photo, added his own redaction
through the watermark of his blog, and put it
out with a story.
What's
wrong with that? some Prince defenders
replied. Don't feed the trolls, others advised
Kurt. But that was what Kurt did, his M.O.. It
had gotten into trouble, terminal trouble,
uptown at the UN. Might it also here?
#MaximumMaxwell.
And so it
continued. Click
here
for Patreon and more
(2d).
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).
***
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