Judge sets May 2024 trial date in criminal case against Trump for stealing classified documents

 

Judge sets May 2024 trial date in criminal case against Trump for stealing classified documents

Barry Grey

21 July 2023

On Friday, US District Judge Aileen M. Cannon scheduled the federal criminal trial against Donald Trump for illegally taking and withholding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago mansion to begin on May 20, 2024. Judge Cannon said the trial would be held in her southern Florida court.

The setting of the trial date—one among many criminal and civil trials facing the former president and current Republican presidential candidate—takes place in the midst of an escalating war against Russia and a growing wave of strikes and protests by workers in the US and internationally. It highlights the unprecedented crisis and breakdown of the US political system.

Former President Donald Trump speaks with supporters at the Westside Conservative Breakfast, June 1, 2023, in Des Moines, Iowa. [AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall]

It is not clear how the 2024 elections will be carried out—following the near collapse of the last presidential election—under conditions of an explosive conflict within the ruling elite and the state.

If the Mar-a-Lago case goes ahead as scheduled, Trump will be in court during the final days of the presidential primary elections, by which time the Democratic and Republican candidates will have likely been determined.

The criminal indictment of a former president is unprecedented, let alone the prospect of a convicted felon heading the ticket of one of the two established big business parties and possibly being elected. The long-festering political crisis in the United States has become a crisis of class rule.

At a hearing earlier this week, lawyers for Trump argued for delaying the trial until after the 2024 elections on the grounds that it would otherwise interfere with the presidential campaign of the ex-president, who is the leading contender for the Republican nomination. Lawyers for Special Counsel Jack Smith, who is heading up investigations into Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election and his theft of state secrets, had argued for beginning the trial this December.

Judge Cannon labeled the trial “complex,” involving many thousands of pages of evidence, including classified documents. She could still agree to further delays in the course of pre-trial proceedings. Appointed to the bench by Trump in 2020, Cannon last year ruled in favor of a motion by Trump’s lawyers to allow an outside review of all documents seized from Mar-a-Lago by the FBI. An appeals court unanimously overturned her ruling.

A spokesman for Trump touted Cannon’s decision as “a major setback to the DOJ’s (Department of Justice’s) crusade to deny President Trump a fair legal process.” Neither Smith’s office nor the Biden administration, which is maintaining total silence on the legal proceedings against Trump, issued a statement.

Smith’s office has yet to announce an expected indictment of Trump on the core issue of his role in the conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election and the US Constitution and retain power as de facto dictator, which culminated in the violent attack on the US Capitol by a fascist mob summoned by Trump on January 6, 2021.

On Tuesday, Trump announced that his lawyers had received a “target letter” from Smith on Sunday, informing them that Trump could face charges for violating three criminal statutes, including conspiracy to defraud the government and obstruction of an official proceeding. The letter cited a third statute, enacted after the Civil War to protect former slaves from retaliation by the Ku Klux Klan, making it a crime to “conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person” in the “free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States.”

The letter gave Trump until Thursday, July 20, to voluntarily appear before a grand jury in Washington D.C. that is taking evidence on the attempted coup. As expected, Trump failed to appear. A criminal indictment is widely expected and could be handed down by the grand jury at any time.

Such prosecution of the fascist ex-President Trump is entirely warranted and, indeed, long overdue. The fact that the Biden administration chose first to indict Trump for stealing and refusing to return top secret documents containing US war plans against targeted countries, including the potential use of nuclear weapons, while for months slow-walking and even blocking a criminal investigation of Trump and his co-conspirators on the plot to overturn the election, underscores the warning issued by the WSWS that workers cannot rely on the capitalist courts or the Democratic Party to defeat fascism and defend democratic rights.

Indeed, following the events of January 6, Biden rushed to rescue the Republican Party, declaring his support for a “strong” GOP and calling for “bipartisan unity” with his Republican “colleagues.” The Democrats’ opposition to Trump has from the outset focused on foreign policy—above all, the prosecution of war against Russia to remove it as an impediment to settling accounts with China. Biden has sought to maintain a relationship with the Republicans so as to carry through the war.

Even were Trump to be convicted and jailed, that would not remove the danger of fascism. Trump’s coup was backed by significant sections of the political and corporate establishment, including a large majority of Republican lawmakers, many billionaire corporate heads, entire media outlets such as Fox, and key elements within the military and intelligence apparatus, including Trump’s acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller and former National Security Adviser Gen. Michael Flynn.

It is a product of the staggering growth of social inequality, the disintegration of the traditional middle class and the massive economic decay and decline of American capitalism.

There is no democratic side in the Mar-a-Lago documents case. Trump is a billionaire parasite and imperialist politician who brought the US to the brink of war with Iran during his presidency. The Biden administration is prosecuting him in the documents case for jeopardizing the sanctity of state secrets, i.e., war plans and plots against foreign powers and people, including the use of nuclear weapons, which are never to be revealed to the American people.

It is basing its case on the 1917 Espionage Act, which has been used against socialists and opponents of imperialist war from Eugene Debs to the leaders of the American Trotskyist movement, and more recently to persecute and jail Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning and others who courageously exposed the war crimes of the US government.

A central consideration in the move finally to prosecute Trump for his attempted coup is the determination of the faction of the ruling class and the military/intelligence apparatus represented by the Democrats to marginalize him politically, not because of his fascist politics, but because he has not fully lined up behind Washington’s drive to dramatically escalate the war against Russia. Indeed, in his campaign speeches Trump continues to tout his good relations with Putin and boasts that if elected, he will end the war in Ukraine within 48 hours—another of his many lies.

Trump relies on the militarist policies of Biden and the Democrats and their attempt to make the working class pay for the war against Russia and coming war with China through the gutting of social programs, to portray himself as the victim of a “deep state” conspiracy, which he denounces as “communism.” Of course, his program is to impose even more directly and brutally the dictatorship of capital over the working class.

In addition to his criminal indictment in the documents case, Trump has been criminally indicted on state charges in New York in connection with his payment of hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels in the run-up to the 2016 elections. He is scheduled to appear in court in Manhattan in that case on March 25, 2024.

This October a civil fraud trial against him begins in New York, followed by a civil defamation trial brought by writer E. Jean Carroll, who previously prevailed in a civil trial charging Trump with rape.

Trump also faces the likelihood of criminal charges by Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis in connection with his attempt to overturn Biden’s 2020 victory in that state. This includes Trump’s notorious call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger, in which he asked Raffensberger to “find” 11,780 votes he needed to reverse his loss.

The Guardian newspaper reported Thursday that Willis was preparing to indict Trump later this month or in early August under the state’s racketeering statute. A special grand jury in Atlanta that sat for 11 months and heard evidence recommended charges against more than a dozen people, including the former president. Willis empaneled a regular grand jury on July 11 to review the evidence and issue an indictment.

US writers and actors continue their fight against entertainment giants

 

US writers and actors continue their fight against entertainment giants

David Walsh

21 July 2023

Tens of thousands of US writers and actors are confronting the giant entertainment companies, in a strike with global and historical significance. There are no negotiations at present and no immediate end in sight. Figures on both sides of the conflict are talking about the possibility of the walkout lasting for months, although the Biden administration and powerful sections of the establishment will try with all the means at their disposal to suppress it.

With the contracts of hundreds of thousands of UPS and autoworkers expiring soon, the possibility of major shutdowns of critical industries looms. 

Writers and actors picketing in New York City on July 21, 2023. [Photo: WSWS]

The WSWS argued at the beginning of 2023 that the “long period of enforced stagnation through the mechanism of the trade union apparatus is encountering mass opposition. In country after country, there is a renewal of working class militancy. ‘The laws of history,’ as Trotsky once wrote, ‘are more powerful than the bureaucratic apparatus.’” This is being borne out in increasingly explosive eruptions of social struggle, which will bring in wider and wider layers of the working class.

The current strike by the actors, members of the Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA), came about in particular only because of a semi-revolt by thousands of performers against the danger their union leaders would once again sell them out.

The processes occurring in the entertainment and media industries resemble those taking place in many others—increased casualization, loss of decent-paying jobs, the wiping out of gains made over the course of decades. The companies speak about “new realities,” “new business models” and “new technologies” for which workers must pay and pay again.

Members of the WGA, SAG-AFTRA and IATSE picketing in New York City. [Photo: WSWS]

The film, television and media giants are attempting to reduce their workforce to “gig” status, available when needed and other than that, essentially disposable. 

The conditions of the writers and actors have been deteriorating for years, thanks to the acquiescence of the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and SAG-AFTRA. Contract after contract, the unions have retreated in the face of the companies, surrendering their members’ incomes and interests. 

Writers sacrificed a great deal in the 100-day strike in 2007-2008, at the end of which the WGA assured its members that a “historic” agreement had been reached, protecting writers against the threat of streaming. In truth, the companies were given a virtual green light, and the union is now forced to admit that writers have been the victims of the transition to streaming.

The conglomerates are operated by billionaires, who intend to impose poverty wages and precarious working conditions on hundreds of thousands of workers in the film and television industry to bolster and increase their profits. The billions raked in by the member companies of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) and their executives are well known and increasingly notorious.

The companies continue to lie and claim, in the face of widespread anger and nearly unanimous strike votes by both WGA and SAG-AFTRA memberships, that their offers are generous and their employees have never had it so good. Why then are they prepared to strike for weeks or months on end?

Actors and writers on strike in New York City [Photo: WSWS]

SAG-AFTRA asked for an 11 percent general wage increase in year one, 4 percent in year two and 4 percent in year three of a three-year contract. This might cover the increases in the cost of living over the term of the contract, but it would not make up for what actors have lost over the past decade and more. In response, the AMPTP proposed increases of 5 percent in year one, 4 percent in year two, 3.5 percent in year three, leaving actors worse off at the end of the contract then they are now, given the current rate of inflation.

The companies insultingly reply that their offer “is historic by any measure. The last time the Union secured a general wage increase of 5% in any year was in 1988.”

The AMPTP has offered writers even less, increases of 4 percent in minimum rates the first year, followed by 3 percent and 2 percent.

According to the Writers Guild, writers are increasingly working for “guild minimums,” the lowest rate that can be paid to a WGA member. A union survey indicated that writers’ pay has fallen by 14 percent in five years, and writer-producers earn 23 percent less than a decade ago. Anecdotally, many writers claim their incomes have been cut in half.

“In the 2013-14 season,” the union argues, “33% of all TV series writers were paid minimum; now half are working at minimum.” Whereas in 2013-14, only 2 percent of showrunners (the individual with creative authority and management responsibility for a television program) were paid minimum rates, that had increased to 24 percent in 2021-22.

Meanwhile, according to the Los Angeles Times, the “average pay for Hollywood’s top execs climbed to $28 million in 2021, up 53% from 2018 (and roughly 108 times the average writer’s pay).” “Average writer” itself is deeply misleading, as a relative handful of individuals attached to massive projects earn the bulk of the collective writers’ pay.

On residuals, the AMPTP rejects out of hand the union’s modest proposal that “Casts share in the revenue generated when their performances are exhibited on streaming platforms,” asserting that this was “a roadblock to reaching an agreement.”

The companies are hoping to starve the writers and actors back to work, with the help of the WGA, SAG-AFTRA and the rest of the union leaderships. Countering the assault of the corporations will require a concerted, mass offensive by the working class, a strategy that is anathema to the well-paid, pro-corporate officials of the entertainment unions, including IATSE, as well as the Teamsters, the UAW and the rest of the AFL-CIO.

July 21 picketing in New York City [Photo: WSWS]

New means of struggle are necessary. Workers will increasingly turn to the formation of rank-and-file committees, organized on an international scale, unleashing the genuine power of the working class and opposing, in the words of the WSWS statement earlier this year, “the bureaucratic [union] apparatus, which has worked in close collaboration with the corporations and the government in a desperate attempt to contain social anger.”

On Friday, British actors expressed their solidarity with US strikers at rallies in London’s Leicester Square and in Manchester’s Media City. Succession star Brian Cox told the London crowd that “We are at the thin end of a really horrible wedge.” He said things were worse in the US due to the lack of a national health service. “What is important to SAG actors is health, and they need that. That’s why they need their residuals.”

Cox referred to a fellow actor, who had recently contacted him. “He’s playing a reasonable part in a TV show, and he’s on a what they call a supporting artists contract,” Cox told the rally. “The horrible thing was that he was told in no uncertain terms that they would keep his image and do what the f___ they liked with it. That is a completely unacceptable position and a position we should be fighting against.”

Also in attendance were actors David Oyelowo, Hayley Atwell, Simon Pegg, Imelda Staunton and Jim Carter.

The WSWS spoke Friday to striking WGA and SAG-AFTRA members and their supporters, some 300 of whom picketed in front of Netflix’s New York headquarters. The majority were actors, but there were also a considerable number of writers on hand. A WSWS reporter commented, “The picketing was spirited and drew a good deal of attention in the narrow, congested streets of Lower Manhattan. Nearby Union Square has been the site of workers’ demonstrations for well over a century. Many drivers honked and pedestrians applauded the strikers. An enormous cheer went up from the pickets when a UPS driver drove by honking his horn.

“The picket line had an energy that was different from many other recent strikes in the New York area. Not only did the crowd of workers cross occupational lines, with the joint strike of actors and writers, but many members of IATSE, scene painters and other support staff joined the picketing line because they are now idled by the strike. Public school teachers from the largest school district in the country, fresh off a contract betrayal by the union bureaucracy, also joined in, and even high school youth came to show their support.

“Two high school students, would-be writers, told the WSWS they had come because they believed in equality, that billionaires should not have everything for themselves. One of them said, ‘The more people go on strike, the stronger the possibility is for change.’ Generally, the mood of the strikers the WSWS spoke to was angry and reflected deep opposition to the oligarchy that controls the film and television industry.

“Some pickets told the WSWS that the same conglomerates that owned the entertainment industry had their claws in almost every other aspect of the economy. Nearly every striker raise the possibility of a UPS strike at the end of the month. Some spoke of the hotel strike in Los Angeles, and others spoke of the threat of fascism in ‘our supposed democracy’ or the role of Biden in suppressing the railway workers strike last year. Yet others connected their struggle to the abominable treatment of asylum seekers in New York City by Mayor Eric Adams.”

Striking actors and writers in New York speak to the WSWS: “This money, this greed, could ultimately end art as an industry”

Sandy English@Sandy_English

7 minutes ago

On July 21, hundreds of actors, writers and their supporters picketed the offices of Netflix in Lower Manhattan in New York City. The location is in one of the oldest parts of the city with its narrow, congested streets. Drivers honked and passersby applauded. Despite heat and high humidity, the pickets were spirited and determined.

The WSWS spoke to a variety of people who had joined the picket line, including actors and writers, but also scenic artists, members of IATSE, who were not on strike but were idled because most of the film and television industry has been shut down. Also present were New York City teachers and high school students.

Corvin and Val, actors

Corvin: What we’re talking about is unfettered capitalism. A capitalism that operates in such a way that doesn’t benefit the entire industry and all the people that contribute to it, but rather the select few at the very, very top. They are trying to turn us into day laborers and hourly workers, who will not have a lot of advocacy for ourselves or a lot of leverage to even negotiate contracts in the future.

WSWS: What impelled you two actors to strike and to be on the picket line today?

Val: Life is really difficult. It’s a humbling experience.

How we pay our bills is not actually by our paycheck through television, film, media.

Val, actor

I work at a restaurant almost full time. And it’s a difficult experience because every day I’m humbled. I go do my TV job. I go there, and I’m grateful for my job. But people ask, “What do you do? Are you an actor?” Of course, I am. That’s why I’m feeding you right now. That’s why I’m giving you drinks right now. “What shows have you been in?” You tell them. “Oh, my God, how wonderful. You made my week. I love seeing that. Why are you here?”

And I say, “Because I’m waiting on my check. I’m waiting on my money. I have to pay my bills.” We are here today because of that Deadline article that came out. Whatever the source was—“We’re going to let this bleed out until they lose their houses.”

I wasn’t there. None of us were there to hear it straight from the mouth of whoever it was. But they picked the wrong ones to say this to. “You’re going to lose your house, and you’re going to lose your apartment.” Because if there’s anything that artists are, it’s creative and hustlers. So we’re going to find a way to figure our shit out.

Corvin: I’m fortunate enough to be a full-time working actor, or before this strike, I was. 

But that took 10 years. And I’m not making crazy money. People think that we’re all Hollywood celebrities making a bunch of money. But there’s about 150,000 members of this union. Not all of them are George Clooney or Meryl Streep.

Many of them, like my friend here, are working day jobs. These corporate executives think that we’re going to lose our houses … the majority of us make a living from their day jobs so that they can have a career in this industry or make enough just to qualify for the health insurance. It’s $26,000 [a year] to qualify. And 87 percent of the union members do not make that annually.

WSWS: What is the importance of a joint writers-actors strike? 

Corvin: Again, people think that we’re writers and we’re actors, that this is just a Hollywood problem. But I want to just remind people about the beginning of COVID in 2020. We remember seeing all those videos about Amazon workers being worked to death under harsh conditions, unable to even go to the bathroom, and the scare tactics that were employed on them to not unionize.

Corbin, actor

One of the networks we are fighting is Amazon Prime Video. It’s the same company. We’re seeing the same tactics used on two different groups of people in two different branches of their workforce. UPS will be striking. Some of those UPS people … 

Val: They honked loud as hell for us! 

Corvin: That’s the same union of people [the Teamsters] who drive us to and from the set. Right. So, it’s like the hair and makeup people on Broadway. They’re fighting Broadway and Disney Theatrics. Disney owns part of Broadway. They also own Disney+. You don’t have to be an actor to get what this is. 

WSWS: Are art and capitalism incompatible?

Val: In late stage capitalism, when we get to extremes, extreme wealth, extreme greed? Sure.

Corvin: These companies are now corporate conglomerates, where our entire industry is just one folder on a table full of folders of other projects. This money, this greed, could ultimately end art as an industry in general, or at least in this industry.

Molly and Becky, writers

WSWS: Why are you striking?

Molly: It’s been really hard to get jobs the past couple of years because they’ve been cutting down writers’ rooms so much and still paying writers the same rate. It used to be eight to 10 writers writing a season of television; now it’s one or two. Studios are forcing tighter and tighter timelines for these writers to deliver and not paying them more. So, essentially, you can’t make a living as a writer anymore. The past couple of years I’ve had to work in restaurants and things like that to make ends meet.

WSWS: What’s the significance of a combined strike by writers and actors?

Molly: All production has stopped, which is great. The picket lines have doubled in size, which is awesome. It’s just more leverage against the studio.

Becky: It’s a matter of recognizing what we all have in common. Sure, actors may be the face of these things, but we are all the labor. We are the ones who are getting screwed. Us, them, a lot of the directors. Everyone’s getting screwed except for a few people at the top. 

Movies and television don’t exist without all of us.

Striking actors and writers picketing in New York City, July 2023.

WSWS: What about the issue of residuals?

Molly: I have never in my career received residuals, ever, because I’ve only written for streaming services, and that’s just something that’s completely foreign to me. In the time of my career, it just hasn’t existed.

In terms of the broader significance of the strike, I think post-pandemic, we’re seeing a huge movement of labor realizing their value. Before in my industry and also in the hospitality industry, you were replaceable, but then a million people in the United States died, and we realized, “Oh, the worker is not replaceable anymore. The worker is key.”

WSWS: What about greater realism in film and television?

Molly: It’s unfortunate to see how many reboots and sequels and replays are happening instead of investing in real human stories and individual, modern, pressing issues as opposed to superheroes. There’s always going to be a place for superheroes. We all want to have that escapism and be able to manage that. But where is the new? Where is the innovation? Where is the exciting? I don’t think anyone cares about telling those interesting stories anymore.

If we think about even the most successful show this year, which was Succession, it was still a story about billionaires. It was a story about the one percent. It was a satire, and it was a takedown, it was very cognizant about how much that one percent has taken over the way we all conduct our lives. But I think that there are too many people who see Succession as aspirational and don’t take it as the cutting satire it is supposed to be.

WSWS: What would you as writers say to the readers of the WSWS around the world?

Molly: Things seem really scary right now. We read these comments from the big production company that they’re going to starve us out, that they’re going to just wait till we all lose our homes and get into a doom spiral. But coming out here and marching and seeing how much solidarity there is, and how much dancing and joy there is being together, has really lifted my spirits and made me believe that this is a battle we’re going to win. It’s just going to take time, but we’re going to win it. 

Becky: AI can come for anyone. You think your job is safe? It’s not. We’re fighting for limits on AI now that every industry needs. So because we’re fighting for it now, it’s your future. It’s my future. It’s everyone’s future. So just be … on … guard.

Julia, member of United Scenic Artists Local 829

WSWS: Why did you join the picket line?

Julia: It’s about something much bigger than these contracts. This is about the people at the top, who have organized the system so they can profit the most, pushing out the lowest level of labor so they can continue to profit. And they don’t care about the jobs that could be lost. They don’t care about the working conditions that have slowly gone down—quickly gone down, actually. 

They just want things created so quickly that we’re working in such unsafe standards in terms of how fast they want to pump out this content. And it’s not just they want us to do our jobs at a breakneck speed, but they want all of the crews to be working on top of each other. 

Julia, see Nic artist

So it’s crowded. We have riggers working on top of carpenters and scenics. And not only is it unsafe, it’s completely unnecessary. There’s no reason for us to have to work that quickly and that unsafely to get this stuff done. We’re making TV shows and movies here. We’re not curing the sick.

It’s the dignity of having a job that you like. Isn’t that supposed to be what the American dream is all about? You like showing up to work. You like what you do. You’re proud to do the work that you do that has slowly deteriorated. 

If you’re on set, you might be working a regular 14-hour day, five days.