Breaking 1-06-21: MAGA terrorist attack on Capitol

What, does turley just not know the law, or is he lying?

 

I'm not a lawyer, but these "state of mind" arguments seems to be conflating two different things. Trump is charged with crimes relating to his attempt to interfere with the certification of the election and the transition of power, not on whether he believed the election fraud conspiracies.

In fact, if he believes the conspiracies, it seems to strengthen the case that he intended to overturn the election as a response. The article mentions homicide as a charge that requires intent. And the defense might be that it was an accident. Trump didn't just stumble into a conspiracy to overturn the election. I don't even know how that is possible. His defense isn't "I believe that election was stolen", his defense would have to be "I didn't believe I was trying to subvert the election and stay in power."

 

NYT article says it's Boris Epshteyn.

 

#6 Boris Epshteyn, come on down!

 

Having read the indictment, it seems to me that Trumps only hope is as hung jury via a trumper juror. He will be tried in a heavy democrat venue that was the epicenter of J6. The case outlines by the indictment tells a compelling story and trumps intent and scheme is clear.

Trial will feature mountains of evidence of Trumps knowledge that the big lie was a lie, and trump was fully aware of and participated in the fake elector scheme.

the defense will not be able to refute with Trump testimony because they won’t put him on the stand. The defense will have to argue that (1) trump relied on the lawyers and advisors who said there were election irregularities and (2) the fake elector scheme could be legal.

It will be quite easy for a juror to conclude that Trump didn’t care if there really was a problem with the election or if the fake elector scheme was legal. That’s a layup.

I think it will be quite easy for a Washington DC jury to conclude that he knew damn well there the election wasn’t stolen and the fake elector scheme was illegal.

Pence knows that this trial is how history will remember him. I think he has signaled just how he intends to be remembered - a champion of the constitution, a hero and savior of the republic, and a true patriot. He is going to come down hard on trump.

I suspect meadows has cut a deal and will also bury trump with his testimony.

it comes down to credibility and Trump has none. His only hope is a trumper juror willing to hang the jury.

 

Nice post, I think Meadows could be the ace in the hole with Pence and his meticulous notes will be a close second. When Pence stated that trumps "kooky lawyers" tried to get him to break the law and not simply pause it, that threw in some ammo for the prosecution as you have the VP stating that these crazy crackpot lawyers didnt know what the hell they were talking about

I saw Eastmans lawyer on an interview last night and it seemed like trumps defense is ", hey I was just listening to my lawyer and that's not illegal. The problem is the white house lawyers were all against it and trump chose to listen to the ONE lawyer who told him what he wanted to hear and then Eastman got the crazy lady to jump on board and go fight these in court and promptly lost 60+ cases because while they talked about "theories", they dont trump actual laws and they were quickly dismissed..............then you have text messages from Jason Miller who told him straight up these were all just conspiracy theories.

Folks like turley will go on and lie on fox as usual because they know the maga crown will NEVER actually read the indictments so they can spew lie after lie, just like the surrogates. During the last campaign when Obama went on the stump and said we are voting for DEMOCRACY, I never thought we would actually be in a worse place now but we are, it's not just maga folks who go out and lie, and not the little white lies were used to from politicians but flat out lies from folks like MTG, Gaetz, Rubio and the rest of the brat pack along with their fox variety show and the rest of the extreme
right wing pundits

 

Just amazes me that this could be considered a good defense...

 

Same with Hillary Clinton... oh wait, neither Clinton nor Gore did any of those things.

 

I agree that's the case if this does go to trial.

Right now I doubt Trump and his people are really focused on trying to get friendlies on the Jury, but instead are going to be focused on delaying the trial after the election which likely to be the case with all of the indictments.

Even if the government does get a conviction before the election, he'll still appeal which will take another year or so keeping him out of jail before the election.

The fact is if Trump does not win the election in November, there's just NO WAY Trump can possibly beat all 74 counts .... and counting with more charges likely to come. His survival depends on him winning the election next November, and pardoning himself. For the state charges, even if found guilty I find it hard to believe that they will be able to enforce seizing him, and sending him to jail while serving.

So again this whole situation will come down to the voters saving this country from autocracy. Because if Trump wins again, I guarantee you he will not only escape justice, but he will turn the government on its head to ensure him, and his inner circle never have accountability ever again.

 

This is the most important thing you wrote. Pence will flip in a heartbeat as he doesn't wsnt history to remember him as a bad guy. He wants to paint himself as the white knight.

A vice president snitching on his boss aka POTUS is devastating

 

I don't think it has hit people yet that a Vice President testified AGAINST the former President he served with. Just think about that for a second. Still boggles my mind.

 

Media outnumber demonstrators at Trump arraignment stakeout

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/poli...p&cvid=30f1d1b79d0a4cb2b07aedf75bc5ed6b&ei=44

 

Less funds for state lotteries.

Poor kids.

 

It's kind of a silly exercise in some sense, right? Making legal arguments again TV political statements?

Trump (and FOX) exist solely in the political sphere. Laws are inconveniences and, maybe when in power, tools to exert influence or punish opponents. (That's one reason some of them, including Trump maybe, honestly do see some of these indictments as political tools to punish Trump, independent of his actual behavior and actions. That's what he would want to do with DOJ if he got enough cronies in there.)

So, I found it telling that Ted Cruz is already preparing his followers for a conviction, setting a very low bar of expectations, and saying it's meaningless anyway. The political sphere is just whatever works on social media, and our politicians are increasingly leaving the job of legislating and rule-making to exist in the puffy hot-air world of social media politics. Fascinating (and super depressing).

Anyway, yeah, there it is:
1. Make political arguments to the public, mis-representing the legal details of the indictments and making a "defense" -- not what works in a court of law but what works and trends well in bite-sized social media chunks (like chunks in vomit, sorry).
2. Try to delay trial in every way possible.
3. If DJT convicted before the election, just claim "of course liberal DC in a rigged court with rigged indictments found him guilty. It means nothing."

I don't think laws have ever meant anything to Trump. Grab them by the p***y.
If you want to think like Trump and figure out what he's planning, get in touch with your lizard brain. And it seems that increasingly works for what FOX News is planning for their messaging too.

 

I think Bill Barr sees himself as some of the carnage left in trump's wake. If he does, he wouldn't be wrong, in my opinion. At least he does himself a bit of credit, even if it's just a bit, by speaking out now. Better late than never.

 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/this-t...race-2024-307a4021?mod=hp_opin_pos_5#cxrecs_s

This Trump Indictment Imperils the Presidency
His conduct is hard to defend, but a conviction for fraud would set a dangerous precedent.
By David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey
Aug. 2, 2023 at 6:26 pm ET

The latest indictment of Donald Trump takes the courts and the country into uncharted territory. Special counsel Jack Smith and a District of Columbia grand jury accuse Mr. Trump of conspiring to steal the 2020 presidential election and charge him, among other things, with defrauding the U.S. But Mr. Trump’s status as president when the alleged crimes took place raises questions about whether he can be successfully prosecuted—and, if he is, troubling implications for future presidents.

The president is immune from civil and criminal liability for actions taken in the execution of the office. That immunity is absolute, like the immunity accorded to judges and prosecutors. Courts have allowed only that the president may be subject to subpoena in certain circumstances that don’t impose great burdens on his ability to function as chief executive.

Former presidents can be held liable for personal actions while in office, but only those that fall beyond “the outer perimeter of his official responsibility.” In Nixon v. Fitzgerald (1982), the Supreme Court held that Richard Nixon was immune from a civil damages action in which a former federal employee claimed he was illegally fired as punishment for revealing Pentagon cost overruns. The justices reasoned that absolute immunity for official acts was “a functionally mandated incident of the President’s unique office,” since “personal vulnerability” to suit could warp a president’s decision-making and deter him from performing his duties “fearlessly and impartially.” That’s obviously even truer of criminal liability, so the court can be expected to extend presidential immunity accordingly. (An exception is offenses for which a former president has been impeached and convicted, the prosecution of which the Constitution explicitly authorizes.)

The critical legal question, then, is whether Mr. Trump’s alleged offenses fall within the “outer perimeter” of his responsibilities as president. The courts have only started to grapple with this issue. In Thompson v. Trump (2022), Judge Amit Mehta of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia held that Mr. Trump’s contacts with local election officials after the 2020 election weren’t official acts. That case, which involved a civil action against Mr. Trump by plaintiffs alleging injuries suffered during the Jan. 6, 2021, riots, could be reversed by the D.C. Circuit or the Supreme Court.

Whatever the higher courts make of Judge Mehta’s conclusion, he made a key analytical error in reaching it. He fell into the trap of relying on Mr. Trump’s motivation, in the guise of his “purpose,” which was to preserve his “incumbency.” But the justices in Nixon made clear that the determination of whether a president was acting in his official capacity couldn’t be based on either motivation or the legality of his actions, as that would “subject the President to trial on virtually every allegation that an action was unlawful, or was taken for a forbidden purpose.” The court also noted that the president’s discretionary authority under the Constitution is so broad that “it would be difficult to determine which of the President’s innumerable ‘functions’ encompassed a particular action.”

Mr. Smith fell into the same trap. His focus vis-à-vis Mr. Trump is very much on whether he honestly believed the election had been stolen from him. The proper question is whether the actions he allegedly took after the 2020 election fall objectively within “the outer perimeter of his official responsibility.”

The strongest argument that they don’t is that supervision of state election officials, the selection of presidential electors, and the vice president’s role in counting those votes aren’t ordinarily presidential responsibilities. But it isn’t so clear that, in a case where voting irregularities were reported in the media from numerous critical states—even if incorrectly—the president has no official role in investigating and addressing those claims.

The selection of presidential electors is in part a matter of federal law. The Constitution vests this task in the state legislatures under the Electors Clause, which governs presidential elections. Because the states had no such authority before the Constitution, this critical power is substantially federal in character.

In Moore v. Harper (2023), the Supreme Court recognized that a parallel constitutional provision, the Elections Clause—which divides authority for setting the rules of congressional elections between the state legislatures and Congress—was sufficiently federal in nature to justify the high court’s review of state court decisions involving these rules, even though it ordinarily has no authority to scrutinize a state court’s interpretation of state laws.

It was Mr. Trump’s constitutional duty to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” He had no power to direct state officials’ actions, but urging them to ensure the integrity of federal elections could fall within the outer bounds of his responsibility. He has no authority to direct the vice president’s discharge of his constitutional duties as Senate president, but his exhorting or pleading with the vice president to take certain actions is arguably within the bounds of his authority. Presidents do it routinely when the vice president is called on to cast a deciding Senate vote.

Judge Mehta adopted an unduly crabbed legal test for what constitutes an official presidential action. He asserted that “a sitting President has no expressly identified duty to faithfully execute the laws surrounding the Certification of the Electoral College.” But the Take Care Clause, which is a key component of presidential duties, is broadly framed to include ensuring compliance with all federal laws, including the Constitution. Moreover, the clause is only a subset of the power conveyed to the president by the Vesting Clause, which provides that the “executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States.”

Pursuant to that broad authority, a president may communicate with, cajole and even browbeat officials over whom he has no supervisory authority, urging them to pursue policies that he believes are in the national interest. Many presidents take such actions; both Mr. Trump and President Biden, for instance, pressed states to follow federal Covid-19 recommendations. Wise or not, those were undoubtedly official actions.

The indictment of Mr. Trump means that the Supreme Court will almost certainly be called on to determine the scope of a former president’s immunity and whether Mr. Trump’s actions after the 2020 election fell within the outer reaches of his official responsibilities.

Mr. Trump’s conduct may be hard to defend, but the stakes here are far greater than his fate. One can easily envision a future president using military force, sending weapons to another country, engaging in a major diplomatic endeavor or authorizing a prosecution based on what opponents believe—perhaps rightly—are self-serving lies. Under Mr. Smith’s theory, he could be charged with defrauding the United States.

The specter of such prosecutions would cripple the ability of all future presidents to perform their constitutional responsibilities vigorously and fearlessly. That’s why we have presidential immunity in the first place.

Messrs. Rivkin and Casey practice appellate and constitutional law in Washington. They served at the Justice Department and the White House Counsel’s Office in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations.

Appeared in the August 3, 2023, print edition as 'This Trump Indictment Imperils the Presidency'.

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