Everything you need to know about my Contemplating Coup Convictions newsletter is contained under the four main headings below. Heading A sets out what the newsletter is intended to do. Heading B explains why you should believe that the newsletter will deliver what is intended. Heading C describes how the newsletter will operate. Finally, Heading D briefly previews the subjects of the first two editions of the Contemplating Coup Convictions newsletter.

A. What is “Contemplating Coup Convictions”?

Contemplating Coup Convictions is a newsletter which:

1. primarily focuses on providing in-depth legal analyses of what is happening, and what may happen, with the current prosecutions, and potential future prosecutions, arising from:

   1. the facts as alleged in the four criminal indictments that are currently pending against Donald J. Trump and other people; and

   2. the related investigations that preceded and followed the filing of those indictments;

2. secondarily addresses moral issues surrounding the 2024 presidential and Congressional elections;

3. examines the ways in which the news media—across the political spectrum—has failed to address a number of the important topics encompassed within Items A1 and A2 above, and has provided inaccurate, misleading, or incomplete information on a number of other important topics encompassed within those two items; and

4. in the course of providing the information and analyses listed in Items A1 through A3 above, furnishes the reader with insights and tools designed to enable the reader:

   1. to recognize the sorts of logical or cognitive fallacies, or psychological self-deceptions, which people unintentionally or intentionally rely upon to support their moral or political views relating to Trump, and

   2. to assist others in obtaining such recognition.

B.Why do I believe, and why should you believe, that this newsletter will provide the material promised under Heading A above?

1. My background, experience, and achievements

   My background, experience, and achievements can be found in my LinkedIn profile.

   N. B.: You’ll be wasting your time if you try to contact me through LinkedIn; I don’t use LinkedIn for communications, or for much of anything else. Instead, if you are a subscriber, you can email me with your questions, comments, suggestions, corrections, criticisms, etc. at contemplatingcoupconvictions@substack.com.

2. The extent of my ability to accurately predict what Trump is going to do and what is going to happen to him

   1. The September 27, 2016 and February 19, 2017 editions of my original Trump newsletter warning about the reasonable likelihood that Trump would want to, and ultimately might well, become an American dictator

      Item B3a below describes the Trump newsletter which I created in 2016, prior to that year’s general election, and which I issued through December of 2023. Below and in editions of Contemplating Coup Convictions, I will refer to that earlier newsletter as “my Trump newsletter” or “the Trump newsletter.”

      The September 27, 2016 edition of that newsletter, headlined “The American Cassandra and the American Dictator,” warned of the connections between Trump’s 2015-16 presidential candidacy and “It Can’t Happen Here”—Sinclair Lewis’s cautionary, extraordinarily prescient, and highly topical novel about a potential American dictatorship—which was published in 1935, five years after he won the Nobel Prize in Literature.1 I followed up on that edition with the February 19, 2017 edition, the first heading in which was “Trump’s Steady March Toward Totalitarianism.”

      It wasn’t until years after I issued those two Trump newsletter editions that the American news media began reporting the palpable threat that Trump posed to democracy and the reasonable likelihood that he would become a dictator.

   2. The October 16, 2016 edition of my Trump newsletter, warning of the reasonable likelihood that, if Trump were elected later that year, one day while he was in office he would create a 'Reichstag Fire' situation

      That Trump newsletter prediction was based on this article published by the New York Times earlier on the day I issued the edition. As far as I am aware, it wasn’t until after Trump left office that the news media first mentioned the possibility that Trump might create a ‘Reichstag Fire’ situation. For example, this Washington Post article, published six months after Trump left office, carried the following headline: “Joint Chiefs chairman feared potential ‘Reichstag moment’ aimed at keeping Trump in power.”

   3. My oral statement to people in the early autumn of 2016 that Trump was reasonably likely to be elected president in November of that year

      In my February 19, 2017 Trump newsletter edition, I wrote what I had said orally months before:

      The willingness to ignore significant probabilities that very bad things will happen explains why so many of those who opposed Trump in the general election were shocked when he won. Before the polls closed on Election Day, the New York Times, which is trusted by so many liberals, gave Trump a one-in-seven chance of winning, and FiveThirtyEight--which had correctly predicted the presidential election results in virtually every statewide contest in 2008 and 2012--game [sic] him a three-in-ten chance of winning. So why were liberal people so surprised when Trump won the election?

      If I handed you a die which we agreed was fair and thus had a one-in-six chance of coming up four on any given roll, then, if you rolled the die and a four came up, would you be surprised, much less shocked? Of course not.

   4. My Trump newsletters of June 29 and July 27 of 2019, explaining why, by the time the 2016 election was being held, it was reasonably foreseeable that:

      1. if Trump were elected in 2016, then toward the end of his term, he would try to use the military, and/or try to summon his supporters to use force, to enable him to remain in the White House after Inauguration Day of 2021; and

      2. if a pandemic arose during his term in office, Trump’s lies and other improper conduct would exacerbate the harm caused by that pandemic.

         Those things that I wrote in 2019 were reasonably foreseeable on Election Day 2016 actually came to pass in 2020 and early 2021. See, e.g., this.

   5. Finally, my September 19, 2023 Trump newsletter edition, warning that Trump had been encouraging, and would continue to encourage, “jury nullification” at his criminal trials

      Generally speaking, the term “jury nullification” refers to a situation in which a juror in a criminal trial votes to find the defendant not guilty, not because the juror believes that the prosecution has failed to establish the defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt pursuant to the evidence introduced at trial and the instructions the judge has given the jury about the law applicable to the case; but because the juror, for some other reason or reasons, does not want that defendant to be convicted.

      When the criminal indictments finally began to be filed against Trump 2.5 years after he left office, it was obvious to me that Trump was encouraging, and would continue to encourage, jury nullification in his criminal trials. So I began adding to my knowledge of, and research into, jury nullification by doing additional legal and other research on the subject.

      ---

      My September 19, 2023 Trump newsletter edition, discussing Special Counsel Smith’s motion earlier that month for a gag order on Trump, included the following passage:

      In his social-media posts and oral public statements, Trump has been disclosing a wealth of information which could “prejudice the jury pool.”

      Thus, he has made statements of fact about the case which could not be placed before the jury unless he were to testify, and there is strong reason to doubt whether he would testify at trial. For example, he has frequently posted or orally stated what his state of mind was when he was doing or saying various things.

      Also, Trump has frequently complained publicly that, in various ways, his First Amendment rights are being violated. But that is not a matter that would be placed before the jury.

      Moreover, as Smith’s motion papers describe, Trump, in repeatedly, publicly, and falsely claiming that the criminal prosecutions against him are political “witch hunts” in which politicians, judges, and prosecutors are conspiring against him, is trying to place in the minds of the various jury pools that, regardless of what evidence the prosecutors may ‘concoct’ against him, the jury, or at least one juror, should vote to acquit him because he is an innocent victim of political retribution. (See Heading III above.) In other words, Trump is seeking a perverse version of “jury nullification.”

      Footnote 22 in Smith’s motion papers reads, “At a later date, the Government intends to file a motion regarding other issues related to the jury, including the use of a juror questionnaire.” I am hopeful that that motion, including its coverage of juror questionnaires, will address the issue of jury nullification.

      I will be writing much more in the future about the connection between the Trump prosecutions and jury nullification. It may well come to pass that, because of the prosecutions of Trump and his codefendants, the term “jury nullification” will be among the most searched terms online in this country next year, and perhaps even this year, or both years.

      I wrote that newsletter edition at a time when it was the position of the Fulton County District Attorney that the Georgia trial would begin in 2023. However, that has turned out not to be the case.

      ---

      I am not aware that, prior to December 27, 2023, Special Counsel Smith, or any others currently prosecuting Trump, had publicly used the term “jury nullification” in connection with any Trump prosecutions. Prior to that date, I had only heard or read of two persons who regularly appear in the news media—both former federal prosecutors—who have publicly used that term in relation to those prosecutions. And even those two did not suggest that Trump, or anyone else, was attempting to, or might attempt to, encourage the use of jury nullification in Trump’s cases.

      However, on December 27, Smith filed a motion in the D.C. case seeking an order barring Trump’s attorneys at the trial from trying to encourage the jurors to engage in jury nullification by bringing certain matters to the jurors’ attention via questioning of witnesses, introducing other evidence, or making arguments to the jury. Smith’s motion papers used the term “jury nullification” seven times.

      Moreover, the matters that Smith wants Trump’s lawyers to be barred from placing before the D.C. jury are basically the same matters I covered in the above-quoted portion of my September 19 newsletter. But the stratagems that Smith is trying to prevent Trump’s attorneys from effecting are only a few among the many means available to Trump, and those who assist or support him, to try to induce the juries in his cases to engage in jury nullification.

      Some of my future Contemplating Coup Convictions newsletter editions will closely examine a number of issues concerning jury nullification and how that concept may relate to the Trump prosecutions, including the following:

      1. a discussion of the arguments for and against jury nullification, and of which jurisdictions bar or permit jury nullification, and the extents to which they do permit it;

      2. my detailed analysis of the main arguments that Trump’s attorneys are likely to make in response to Smith’s motion. In a nutshell, those arguments will be: that Trump has a right to have his attorneys engage in some, or all, of the conduct which Smith is asking the court to bar; that jurors have a right to engage in jury nullification; and that Trump has a right to have his attorneys encourage the jurors to engage in jury nullification, and perhaps even to have the jurors instructed by the judge that they may engage in jury nullification. I will also analyze in detail the opposing arguments that Smith is likely to make in his reply papers;

      3. the numerous other measures which Trump and those who assist or support him are reasonably likely to take in their effort to induce the jurors in his cases to engage in jury nullification; the countermeasures, including preemptive ones, that Smith is reasonably likely to take; and the potentially-available legal arguments in support of, and against, those measures and countermeasures; and

      4. as to each of the criminal prosecutions pending against Trump, an assessment of the probability that at least one seated juror will engage in jury nullification, and the significance of having such a hung jury.

3. My experience with writing newsletters and with using similar modes of online mass-communication

   1. My creating and publishing a “Trump newsletter” beginning prior to the 2016 general election and continuing up to the launching of my Contemplating Coup Convictions newsletter

      Prior to the general election of 2016, I created, and began publishing, a newsletter—sent directly from my email account to friends and relatives (and to their friends or relatives who expressed an interest in receiving the newsletter)—primarily concerning the threat that Trump posed to the country and the world. As impeachment proceedings, criminal investigations, and criminal prosecutions began to crop up during Trump’s term in office and thereafter, I used my knowledge and experience as a criminal appellate lawyer to examine those legal matters in my newsletter editions.

      Altogether, I posted approximately 100 editions of that newsletter. That newsletter has now been superseded by my Contemplating Coup Convictions newsletter on Substack.

   2. My creating and publishing a COVID-19 pandemic newsletter beginning in March of 2020 and continuing today

      In March of 2020, I created, and began publishing, a newsletter—sent directly from my email account—concerning the moral, political, and medical aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Altogether, I have posted approximately 500 editions of that newsletter.

   3. My creating and running a Yahoo group in the early 2010s for members of the Criminal Justice Act (CJA) panel of criminal appellate attorneys of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit

      In 2011, I created a Yahoo group that enabled members of the CJA panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit to communicate with each other en masse in order to obtain assistance, or to provide important information, concerning the representation of indigent criminal defendants on their appeals to that court. I promptly answered the majority of requests for assistance, and wrote the majority of postings that provided important information.

   4. My 2004 Platonic-style dialogue concerning Ralph Nader’s presidential candidacies

      In June of 2004, I wrote a 45-page, single-spaced Platonic-style dialogue in which a New Yorker that year approached Socrates with a problem: The New Yorker strongly believed that the right thing to do was to vote for Ralph Nader in the 2004 presidential election, and yet essentially all of the New Yorker’s friends said that s/he was making a terrible mistake. Socrates ultimately convinced the New Yorker that s/he was absolutely right: that, at the very least, in a noncompetitive state (which New York was then, and which the great majority of states, including New York, are these days) the correct action would be to vote for Nader. I emailed a PDF version of that dialogue to dozens of my friends, relatives, and others—Democrats, Republicans, independents, libertarians, and others.

      I received numerous responses, none of which were hostile, and I provided all of the recipients of the dialogue with a set of replies to many of the common responses. That exercise demonstrated that people who disagree strongly on a political or moral question can nevertheless have a nonhostile, reasoned discussion with each other on the matter.2 For a somewhat similar, and quite topical, successful exercise, consider this recent piece (audio-recording and transcript) published online by the New York Times, entitled, “No, Campuses Are Not in Chaos Over Gaza—They’re actually hotbeds for civil debate.”

C. How the newsletter will operate—at least initially

1. At least initially, no public comments. Also, no fees or paywall.

   The Trump newsletter I began in 2016 and which has been replaced by my Contemplating Coup Convictions newsletter (see Item B3a above), my COVID-19 newsletter which I began in early 2020 and which continues today (see Item B3b above), and the Nader Platonic-style dialogue that I wrote in mid-2004 (see Item B3d above) all had two things in common that are relevant here. First, no mechanism was set up to allow for public comments to those publications. Second, no fee was charged (or paywall instituted) to be able to have access to those publications.

   1. No public comments, at least initially

      I did not enable public comments to any of those three publications for two reasons.

      The first reason was that the people on my distribution lists for those publications were simply friends and relatives whom I thought might be interested in receiving those publications, as well as persons whom those friends and relatives subsequently advised me were interested in joining the lists. Also, those publications were sent simply via my email account with all recipients addressed as ‘ccs,’ and not through a website, as I didn’t want the recipients of those publications to be bombarded with a bunch of reply-to-all emails, especially from people they did not know.

      The second, and primary, reason was that the subject matter of those three publications (Trump, Nader, and, although not initially, COVID-19) involved issues about which many people were likely to strongly disagree with me or with other recipients of the publications. My purpose in creating and issuing those publications was to have a nonhostile, reasoned provision of information and viewpoints on important matters. I believed, and believe, that the best way for me to achieve that purpose when highly controversial issues are the subject matter is:

      1. my setting forth in the publications my own views on a particular matter, including detailed arguments in support of my position and citations to, and perhaps quotations from, other sources to support my position;

      2. my analyzing positions or ideas put forth by experts (real or alleged), commentators, and others, including positions or ideas advocated or suggested by recipients of my publications (but with my not revealing the identity of a recipient unless the recipient wanted his or her identity disclosed; and with my anonymously referring to positions or ideas advocated or suggested by recipients without their advance consent only if I also received that information from one or more other sources, or if I considered the position or idea advocated or suggested by a single recipient to be particularly worthy of examination and the recipient had not indicated that s/he did not want her position to be mentioned in any of the newsletter editions, even if only anonymously); and

      3. my responding individually to recipients via email who provided me via email with questions, comments, suggestions, corrections, and/or criticisms.3

         For what it’s worth, as far as I can remember, only one person has ever asked to ‘unsubscribe’ from any of my newsletters and similar publications described in Items B3a through B3d above. Interestingly, that person indicated that s/he preferred to get uplifting emails from friends, and the newsletter edition which finally led her to request unsubscription was the one predicting in 2019 that Trump would use the military and/or his supporters to try to illegally remain in the White House past Inauguration Day in 2021 if he were defeated in the 2020 election. (See Item B2di above.)

         ---

         For at least three reasons, I am thoroughly convinced that the reasons I have set out above as to why I did not provide a mechanism for public comment to my earlier or existing publications apply with even greater force to my Contemplating Coup Convictions newsletter.

         1. At this time, ANYONE can subscribe to my Contemplating Coup Convictions newsletter, whether invited (or otherwise pre-approved) by me or not.

         2. Questions surrounding the Trump prosecutions and the 2024 presidential and Congressional elections will be hotly debated this year, and therefore will stoke or evoke around the country passions, prejudices, irrational views, and angry responses even more than did the subjects I tackled in my previous publications.

         3. Although it may not have been evident, or even true, when I created my first four online publications, it is certainly now both evident and true that a large number of Americans—often encouraged by the instigation, enablings, apologisms, and/or silence of others—are either unwilling or unable to articulate in a nonhostile manner reasoned arguments against oral or written statements with which they disagree; and therefore those Americans instead respond with oral or written attacks on those who made the statements. My decision at this time not to allow public comments to my Contemplating Coup Convictions newsletter editions will thus ensure that the newsletter will be free from such attacks which, among other things, can distract readers from properly understanding and responding to the reasoned, nonhostile content of those editions.4

   2. No fees or paywalls

      I have not created the Contemplating Coup Convictions newsletter to make money. Rather, I believe I have a moral obligation to do so. Therefore, there will be no fees, and hence no paywall.

   3. Potential future modifications based on potential changed circumstances

      Changed circumstances may lead me to modify what I have written under Item C1a above. Depending on factors such as the nature of the comments I receive from subscribers in response to Contemplating Coup Convictions newsletter editions and the number of people who subscribe, I may in the future decide that it is time to open up the newsletter to public comments.

2. Miscellaneous matters

   1. Relevant, nonhostile responses to my Contemplating Coup Convictions newsletter editions from people of all political stripes are always welcome.

      Such responses include questions, comments, suggestions, corrections, and criticisms, and should be sent to me via email at contemplatingcoupconvictions@substack.com. Indeed, all such responses hopefully will make the newsletter editions better, in terms of my being able to correct or supplement past editions and to add subjects and change styles in future editions.

   2. You’ll get the whole truth in my Contemplating Coup Convictions newsletters.

      1. Of course, “the whole truth” will inevitably include things that you may not want to read, or hear—regardless of what your moral or political views are—even though those sorts of truths are often the ones that most need to be read, or heard.

      2. As part of my attempt to provide the reader with accurate information, when I am propounding an opinion on a matter—especially a legal matter—I will try to indicate whether I am expressing that opinion based merely on my preexisting knowledge and experience, or whether, and to what extent, the opinion is based as well on research I have done in connection with formulating the opinion I am putting forth.

      3. When I use the terms “reasonably probable,” “reasonable probability,” “reasonably likely,”or “reasonable likelihood” in an edition of my Contemplating Coup Convictions newsletter, I mean that the likelihood that the matter in question will come to pass, while substantial, is not necessarily as high as ‘more likely than not.’5

      4. Finally, there will be occasions in newsletter editions in which I will write such phrases as “I haven’t read or heard anything in that news media that . . .” or “the only things I’ve read or heard in the news media about . . .” Obviously, my use of such phrases is not meant to imply that no, or only a small number of, members of the news media have written or said things about the issue in question. Although I follow Trump matters closely, I cannot read and listen to everything. Moreover, while the experts and commentators you may read or listen to may be focusing entirely, or almost entirely, next year on the legal cases in which Trump is a defendant (see Item A1 above), I will also be covering other matters in my Contemplating Coup Convictions newsletter editions (see Items A2 through A4 above).

   3. Do you have any concerns that my views about the dangers of Trump’s being in the White House, and my general pattern of voting for Democratic candidates, may get in the way of my telling the “whole truth”?

      I’ve made it quite clear above that I consider Trump to be a threat to democracy. (See Items B2a & B3a above.) I also indicated above that I generally vote for Democratic candidates. (See Item B3d above.)

      Nevertheless, there are two reasons why I believe you should feel reasonably confident that, using my knowledge, experience, and expertise, my analyses of the legal issues concerning the Trump and Trump-related criminal prosecutions (see Item A1 above) will be fair and balanced.

      1. The first reason is that the primary stated purpose of the Contemplating Coup Convictions newsletter is to fill the gaps left by the news media regarding those prosecutions, both in terms of their not addressing particular issues at all, or their covering them in a “inaccurate, misleading, or incomplete” manner. (See Items A1 & A3 above.) So I hardly have an interest in providing the reader with slanted information or opinions.

      2. The second reason is that I have repeatedly demonstrated above that I am willing to unabashedly criticize public officials and employees, members of the media, and other Americans regardless of their political stripes.

         1. Witness, for example, that the only times I voted for the Democratic nominee for president over the seven most recent presidential elections was when Trump was on the ballot. (See Endnote 3 below.)

         2. Also, in 2004, I went to the trouble of writing, distributing, and defending a 45-page, single-spaced dialogue providing my reasons as to why the appropriate thing to have done in that year’s general presidential election was to vote for Nader, at the very least if one lived in a noncompetitive state. (See that same endnote.)

         3. You may also note in this connection how, in one of my Trump newsletter editions, I made, and then provided the reasoning supporting, the following statement: “The willingness to ignore significant probabilities that very bad things will happen explains why so many of those who opposed Trump in the general election were shocked when he won.” (See Item B2c above.)

         4. Additionally, as a clear example of how my writings in my Trump newsletter editions about the Trump prosecutions have provided information and opinions which would displease a Democratic reader, consider the following, which I wrote in my December 20, 2023 edition: “I'm sorry to burst people's balloons, but I feel that you should know right now that I will be quite surprised if the United States Supreme Court permits any state to keep Trump off the ballot next year.” I then proceeded to supply reasoning to support that view. Nine days after I issued that edition, the New York Times published online a piece in which its Supreme Court journalist, Adam Liptak, said pretty much the same thing that I had written in that December 20 newsletter edition.

            ---

            Finally, it must be noted that when I “address[ ] moral issues surrounding the 2024 presidential and Congressional elections” (see Item A2 above) in my Contemplating Coup Convictions newsletter editions, I do the same thing I did with my other two newsletters (see Items B3a & B3b above) or the Nader dialogue (see Item B3d above): To support my moral conclusions, I provide reasoned, detailed logical arguments and citations to moral principles that, at least before 2015, the reader presumably professed to embrace, and may even continue to profess to embrace.

   4. Potential bifurcation of the two basic focuses of Contemplating Coup Convictions

      Item A1 above indicates that the primary focus of the Contemplating Coup Convictions newsletter is in-depth legal analyses of certain current, and potential future, criminal prosecutions relating to Trump (and others). Item A2 above reflects that the secondary focus of the newsletter will be moral issues surrounding the 2024 presidential and Congressional elections.

      The first phase of the newsletter will consist of editions which will almost exclusively, if not exclusively, involve issues subsumed under the primary focus. The second phase will consist of editions which will involve issues subsumed under both the primary and secondary focuses.

      Before the second phase begins, I may decide to bifurcate the newsletter—to the extent that bifurcation is reasonably possible—so that readers can restrict the editions they receive to only those which involve issues subsumed under one or the other focus. Of course, readers will be able to change their preference at any time.

   5. My Contemplating Coup Convictions newsletter is written for everyone, and not just for lawyers.

      I have always tried to write my newsletters in a manner that anyone with a reasonable level of intelligence can understand. My Contemplating Coup Convictions newsletter editions constitute no exception.

   6. My Contemplating Coup Convictions newsletter editions are not meant to provide legal advice to any individuals or groups.

      Whether one is reading or hearing information about the law or legal proceedings provided via my Contemplating Coup Convictions newsletter, any other newsletter, or any other form of the news media; or whether one is reading or hearing information about medical matters provided via newsletters or any other form of the news media, one must recognize that, unless explicitly stated to the contrary, one is not being provided with legal or medical advice. One should always consult directly with an attorney or medical professional if one desires such advice.

      And my Contemplating Coup Convictions newsletter is NOT intended to drum up business for myself or any other lawyer!

D. The first two editions of the Contemplating Coup Convictions newsletter

The inaugural edition of Contemplating Coup Convictions is a prime example of my covering a very important, highly topical matter that the news media has not been covering completely: why the United States Supreme Court is less likely to rule in Trump’s favor in the criminal cases coming before the Court in 2024 than most Americans believe. The follow-up edition examines the ways in which a case I won in the Supreme Court in 1987 provides confirmation of one of the main positions I took in the inaugural edition.

Be seeing you,

Brian Sheppard

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