By Sara Kropf Regular readers of this blog (hi Mom!) know that I enjoy it when a court disagrees with the Department of Justice. After all, DOJ usually wins. A federal judge recently told DOJ that it cannot hire a private company (Deloitte) to help process voluminous...
By Sara Kropf As a general matter, there’s no love lost between prosecutors and defense lawyers. But in one very important way, defense lawyers place an incredible amount of trust in prosecutors. When I say there’s no love lost, I don’t mean on a personal level; I’m...
By Sara Kropf According to media reports this week, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office “has convened the grand jury that is expected to decide whether to indict former president Donald Trump, other executives at his company or the business itself, should...
By: Sara Kropf There has been a lot of news lately about grand jury subpoenas. It’s not often you see a sitting President filing multiple motions seeking to prevent his accountant from producing copies of his tax records. These are certainly unusual times. So, what...
By: Sara Kropf Last week, news hit that Donald Trump had received written questions from Special Counsel Robert Mueller. More interesting, President Trump asserted he answered them “very easily.” Here’s what he said during the interview: I write the answers. My...
By: Sara Kropf The government filed its opposition to Michael Cohen’s motion for a temporary restraining order today. I wrote earlier this week about the search warrant and noted that there would be a court battle coming. Well, here it is. Oddly, the public docket has...
By: Sara Kropf Elected officials under government investigation try to avoid indictment like any other white-collar client. They know that if charged with a crime, it will be nearly impossible to win re-election. Once indicted, though, they fight back, and fight back...
By: Sara Kropf In Part I of this series, I pointed out that DOJ uses the media as a tool to punish defendants. It publicizes indictments, without equally publicizing acquittals and dismissals. This post is the second in a series exploring how defense lawyers are...
By: Sara Kropf Public access to criminal trials is a fundamental principle of our justice system. As the Supreme Court articulated in 1980: [Supreme Court precedent] recognized that open trials are bulwarks of our free and democratic government: public access to court...