Georgia starts investigation into Trump's election interference

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/28/opinion/trump-prosecution-free-speech.html

There’s a Good Chance Trump Will Be Found ‘Willfully Blind’
Aug. 28, 2023
By Burt Neuborne
Mr. Neuborne is a professor emeritus at New York University Law School, where he was the founding legal director of the Brennan Center for Justice.

More than a decade ago, a divided Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Alvarez that an elected member of a district water board in California could not be prosecuted criminally for lying to an audience about winning the Medal of Honor. The court ruled that efforts to criminalize mere lying, without linking the lie to an attempt to gain a material advantage, posed an unacceptable threat to robust exercise of First Amendment rights.

Given that decision, Jack Smith, the special prosecutor investigating former President Donald Trump, was right in concluding that Mr. Trump has a First Amendment right to lie to the general public.

So, where’s the legal beef in the indictment arising from the eventsthat culminated in the storming of the Capitol brought by Mr. Smith against Mr. Trump? It’s in the fact that Mr. Smith isn’t merely charging the former president with lying; he is contending that Mr. Trump lied to gain an unlawful benefit — a second term in office after voters showed him the exit. That kind of speech-related behavior falls comfortably within what the justices call “categorical exceptions” to the First Amendment like true threats, incitements, obscenity, depictions of child sexual abuse, fighting words, libel, fraud and speech incident to criminal conduct.

As the court put it in 1949 in the case of Giboney v. Empire Storage and Ice Co., “It rarely has been suggested that the constitutional freedom for speech and press extends its immunity to speech or writing used as an integral part of conduct in violation of a valid criminal statute.”

That is why Mr. Smith will most likely seek to prove that the former president was engaged in “speech incident to criminal conduct” when he and his co-conspirators lied to state legislators, state election officials, gullible supporters, Justice Department lawyers and Vice President Mike Pence in an illegal effort to prevent Joe Biden from succeeding him as president. Since Mr. Trump is charged with, among other crimes, conspiracy to defraud the United States and to deprive people of the right to have their votes counted, Mr. Smith would clearly be right in arguing that the Alvarez decision doesn’t apply.

Characterizing Mr. Trump’s words as “speech incident to criminal conduct” would neatly solve Mr. Smith’s First Amendment problem but at a substantial cost to the prosecution. To win a conviction, the government must persuade 12 jurors to peer inside Mr. Trump’s head and find beyond a reasonable doubt that he knew he was lying when he claimed to be the winner of the 2020 election. If Mr. Trump actually believed his false assertions, his speech was not “incident to criminal conduct.”

How can Mr. Smith persuade 12 jurors that no reasonable doubt exists that Mr. Trump knew he was lying? The prosecution will, no doubt, barrage the jury with reams of testimony showing that he was repeatedly told by every reputable adviser and administration official that no credible evidence of widespread electoral fraud existed and that Mr. Pence had no choice but to certify Mr. Biden as the winner.

But there also will probably be evidence that fervent supporters of Mr. Trump’s efforts fed his narcissism with bizarre false tales of result-changing electoral fraud and frivolous legal theories justifying interference with Mr. Biden’s certification as president-elect. Those supporters could include Rudy Giuliani; Sidney Powell, a lawyer and purveyor of wild conspiracy theories; Jeffrey Clark, the acting head of the Justice Department’s civil division, who apparently plotted with Mr. Trump to unseat the acting attorney general and take control of the department; and John Eastman, the lawyer who hatched the plan that Mr. Pence refused to follow to keep Mr. Trump in power.

Maybe Mr. Trump himself will swear to his good faith belief that he won. With all that conflicting testimony, how is a conscientious juror to decide for sure what was really going on inside his head?

The answer lies in the Supreme Court’s doctrine of willful blindness. A dozen years ago, in the case of Global-Tech Appliances v. SEB, Justice Samuel Alito, writing for all but one justice, ruled that proof of willful blindness is the legal equivalent of proving guilty knowledge.

As Justice Alito explained it, “Many criminal statutes require proof that a defendant acted knowingly or willfully, and courts applying the doctrine of willful blindness hold that defendants cannot escape the reach of these statutes by deliberately shielding themselves from clear evidence of critical facts that are strongly suggested by the circumstances.”

In other words, when a defendant, like Mr. Trump, is on notice of the potential likelihood of an inconvenient fact (Mr. Biden’s legitimate victory) and closes his eyes to overwhelming evidence of that fact, the willfully blind defendant is just as guilty as if he actually knew the fact. While this argument is not a slam dunk, there’s an excellent chance that 12 jurors will find, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Mr. Trump hid from the truth by adopting willful blindness.

Burt Neuborne is a professor emeritus at New York University Law School, where he was the founding legal director of the Brennan Center for Justice. He was the national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union from 1981 to 1986.
​

 

Georgia legislature intends to use new commission established in GA to oust DAs who won’t prosecute drug offenses to remove Fani Willis from her post.

 

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2023/08/march-4th.php

March 4th
by Scott Johnson
AUGUST 29, 2023

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan set Donald Trump’s trial date on four counts of election-related misconduct for March 4, 2024 — the day before the Super Tuesday slate of Republican election primaries. “The public has a right to a prompt and efficient resolution of this matter,” Judge Chutkan said according to the New York Times story on the hearing yesterday.

The overriding consideration in criminal case is usually deemed the defendant’s right to a fair trial. President Trump will be challenged to mount a defense with three other criminal trials competing for his time and attention among other matters. Indeed, Fulton County prosecutor Miss Fani seeks the setting of trial in the Georgia case on the same date.

The March 4 date, by the way, is the day before the presidential primaries to be held on Super Tuesday. Speaking of election interference, I wonder if Judge Chutkan has any thoughts about the timing.

The colleagues of prosecutor Krazee-Eyez Killa Jack Smith anticipate it will take them four to six weeks to put in their case at trial. Trump’s lawyers estimate a roughly similar amount of time. The guilty verdict is scheduled to arrive no later than July 4.

If I have that right, Judge Chutkan can schedule sentencing some time in September after Labor Day, as the general election campaign would otherwise be occupying our attention. Perhaps Judge Chutkan can actually order Trump’s incarceration before election day. The whole thing presents an impressive example of just-in-time manufacturing.

You can’t tell the trials without a scorecard. The trial of Mr. Killa’s case against Trump seems destined to conflict not only with the Georgia case but also with the Manhattan case involving hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels in advance of the 2016 election. That case is set for trial on March 25. If the trial on the 2020 election-related charges runs more than 11 weeks, it might also conflict with Mr. Killa’s case against Trump et al. in the documents case set for trial in Florida in late May.

Judge Chutkan seems a little cold on the question of her own possible election interference: “Mr. Trump, like any defendant, will have to make the trial date work regardless of his schedule,” Judge Chutkan said, adding that “there is a societal interest to a speedy trial.”

Students of the Constitution may recall that the right to a speedy trial belongs to defendants. The “societal interest” Judge Chutkan has in mind may be related to the just-in-time manufacturing to which the case is now subject.
​

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This might take some of the steam out of any effort to remove Willis...

 

https://washingtonpress.com/2023/08...-times/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Another MAGAt commits voter fraud.....

DD

 

Two years less than Crystal Mason was given for casting a provisional ballot when she was ineligible...

And three years less than Pamela Moses.

 

...rats deserting a sinking ship.

....this is a pretty good way to make America great again.

 

He is also pissed Biden actually had an infrastructure week.

 

Who needs lawyers

 

Anything but Truth is what typically spurts out his mouth.

 

As Trump and Republicans target Georgia's Fani Willis for retribution, the state's governor opts out

A few GOP lawmakers in Georgia were calling for a special session to impeach and remove Willis or defund her office. Others proposed amending the state constitution to let Kemp pardon Trump. Georgia’s General Assembly hasn’t impeached anyone in more than 50 years.

Georgia voters amended the state constitution to shift pardon power from the governor to a parole board in the 1940s after a governor was accused of selling pardons. I have no doubt that selling pardons for favors, political power or cash is the kind of thing Trump did when he pardoned his white collar criminal associates.

Looking for other options to go after Willis, some Georgia Republicans are coalescing around a plan to seek her removal by a new state prosecutorial oversight commission that begins work on Oct. 1.

If the commission’s first act is to pursue Willis, critics say that will prove that it’s nothing but a political tool to enforce GOP rule in Georgia. Using the commission against Willis would confirm that it's what its opponents warned it would be — “an assault on prosecutorial independence and the latest attempt to subvert democracy in Georgia."

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wir...gias-fani-willis-retribution-states-102665854

 

I'm shocked the guy is lying.

 

Nice try magats...

 

Turley
Fani Willis Fights for a Mass Trial As the Georgia Defendants Scatter
https://jonathanturley.org/2023/08/...mass-trial-as-the-georgia-defendants-scatter/

 

What Fani Willis Got Wrong in Her Trump Indictment

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/29/opinion/fani-willis-trump-indictment-georgia.html

excerpt:

By assembling a sprawling, 19-defendant RICO indictment with 41 counts, District Attorney Fani Willis of Fulton County has brought the sort of charging instrument that has typically led to monthslong trials, complicated appeals and exhaustion for the participating attorneys. Now, as some co-defendants seek federal removal while others demand speedy trials in state court, we are starting to see the costs of complexity.

By contrast, the Georgia indictment is a sprawling account of a conspiracy among the former president, his closest advisers and state and local Republican officials to change the outcome of the 2020 Georgia election through an escalating series of falsehoods. For many, it is a satisfying political document. But as a legal instrument, its ambitious scope will provide the co-defendants with many opportunities for delay, appeals, and constitutional challenges.
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more at the link