XPost: talk.politics.guns, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.politics.elections
XPost: alt.news-media
On 14 Feb 2022, Lefty Lundquist <
lefty_lundquist@ggmail.com> posted some news:sue681$7iq$
7@dont-email.me:
When Trump is reelected, the leftwits will be shitting themselves.
Maybe they will shit themselves to death.
Donald Trump’s political opponents had hoped his legal difficulties
would torpedo his third run for the presidency. But a knockout blow
before the election is looking increasingly unlikely.
The former president, who looks poised to sew up the Republican
presidential nomination after his win Tuesday in New Hampshire, is
proving less vulnerable on the legal front than many of his critics
predicted.
His lawyers are having success maneuvering to delay any legal reckoning.
And he has profited from good fortune in the two trials that pose his
greatest political vulnerability: those on his efforts to reverse his
2020 election loss.
Thanks to a serendipitous challenge to a law he has been charged with
breaking, the Supreme Court could water down Trump’s federal election-interference case in the coming months. Meanwhile, the parallel prosecution in Georgia faces steeper odds after allegations the
prosecutor leading it may have hired a paramour to run the trial.
All the while, Trump has raised money on his legal battles, seeing his
support grow as he depicts himself as a victim of partisan prosecutors marshaling a crooked justice system to thwart his bid for a second term
in the White House. Prosecutors have denied that claim.
“Everything has broken his way in connection with feeding his political narrative of being a victim,” said Ty Cobb, a now critical former Trump
lawyer. “He’s had some very lucky breaks.”
Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said the former president’s campaign trail success is a sign that some voters view the prosecutions as politically motivated, adding that Trump would win the election in “dominating
fashion.” A spokesman for the federal special counsel, Jack Smith,
declined to comment, and a spokesman for Fulton County, Ga., District
Attorney Fani Willis didn’t respond to a request for comment.
A conviction could still pose general election problems for Trump. An
exit poll published by CNN found that 42% of New Hampshire Republican
primary voters, who include a sizable number of independents, said Trump
would be unfit to serve if convicted. A Wall Street Journal poll in
December found Trump leading Biden by four points, but Biden winning by
one point if Trump had a federal conviction.
A legal obstacle course
Trump was charged last year in four separate criminal cases totaling 91 criminal counts. Two cases relate to his efforts to overturn his 2020
election loss, including one from local prosecutors in Georgia and one
from Smith, the federal special counsel. Another case from Smith charged
Trump with improperly retaining classified documents after leaving
office, and a fourth came from local prosecutors in New York over his hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels during the 2016 election.
Trump’s opponents long cast that legal obstacle course as possibly fatal
to his 2024 prospects. “The problem for Donald Trump in all of this is
his own conduct. He’s his own worst enemy,” former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said after Trump’s first federal indictment last year.
At least for primary voters, that argument has fallen on fallow ground.
This month, Christie dropped out of the GOP presidential nomination race
with his campaign stalled.
Meanwhile, Trump’s supporters rallied around the former president’s
accusation of an organized “witch hunt,” as did most of his primary
rivals, keen not to alienate his devoted base. Even his one remaining Republican rival, Nikki Haley, has only obliquely referred to Trump’s
legal jeopardy, calling him an agent of “Republican chaos.”
Trump, whose mug shot has become a campaign point of pride, has yet to
face any comeuppance in court. He is scheduled to go on trial on the
federal election-interference charges in Washington on March 4. But that
date is on hold as he appeals his claim, rejected by the trial judge,
that a former president generally can’t face criminal prosecution for
official acts he took while in office.
Courts have been skeptical of the sweep of Trump’s immunity claim, but
the challenge, which he is expected to try to take to the Supreme Court,
is likely to delay any trial for several months.
Unforeseen support
An unrelated case the Supreme Court has already agreed to hear could
also help Trump at trial. Joseph Fischer, a small-town police officer
from Pennsylvania who participated in the Jan. 6, 2021, pro-Trump riot
at the U.S. Capitol as Congress met to certify President Biden’s
election win, is one of hundreds of Jan. 6 defendants charged with
obstructing an official proceeding.
That charge also comprises two of the four counts Trump faces. It stems
from a provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002—enacted after the
Enron financial scandal—making it illegal to destroy records to
interfere with official proceedings, or otherwise obstruct influence or
impede them. Fischer challenged the use of the statute, saying
Congress’s vote certification wasn’t the type of proceedings the law was intended to cover. If Fischer wins, Trump could, too.
“The question is, can you obstruct justice even when there is no
evidence, or no investigation?” said Nick Smith, who unsuccessfully
argued the case for Fischer and several other Jan. 6 defendants before a federal appeals court.
Prosecutors counter that the law properly covers the rioters’ violent
actions, which forced lawmakers to halt the proceedings and flee to
safety.
The high court could also narrow the law’s scope so it doesn’t limit
Trump’s case, which accuses him of fraudulently trying to alter the
documented electoral results. “If Sarbanes-Oxley history requires some
sort of document offense, then we have that,” said Timothy Heaphy, who
was the chief investigative counsel for the House panel investigating
the Jan. 6 attack.
Either way, the open case could force the judge to push back the trial
further until the Supreme Court decides, legal experts said, likely in
June.
Trump also could get a break in Georgia. Fulton County District Attorney
Willis is facing allegations made public this month that she was dating
special prosecutor Nathan Wade when she awarded him a lucrative contract
to take on the case, and that Willis herself benefited financially from
the arrangement. Willis hasn’t commented on the allegations directly but
has attributed the criticisms to racial bias.
Those allegations aren’t likely to force either Willis or Wade off the
case, some legal-ethics experts have said. But they could infect the
case at trial, where any local juror will have heard about their alleged affair, said Chris Timmons, an Atlanta defense lawyer who has prosecuted
cases under the same racketeering law used against Trump.
“I have lost cases that were slam dunks when jurors thought the evidence
was there but said, ‘We don’t think it’s fair,’ ” said Timmons, who is
an ABC News contributor. “If they look at this and think there is
something wrong with the investigation, even if they think the evidence
is there, they will express their displeasure by acquitting.”
Slowly wending its way through court in South Florida, meanwhile, is the federal case stemming from Trump’s handling of classified documents at
his Mar-a-Lago club. That trial is set for May, but a likely
postponement has been signaled by the judge, U.S. District Judge Aileen
Cannon, who was nominated by Trump in 2020 and confirmed by the Senate
shortly after his November electoral loss.
Trump’s lawyers have privately cheered the random assignment process
that directed his case to Cannon, who has allowed lawyers to tangle for
months over evidentiary issues, criticized prosecutors and said she
would revisit in March Trump’s request to push off the trial date.
“He got incredibly lucky to get that judge,” Cobb said.
So far, the criminal cases have only buoyed Trump. A Journal poll in
December 2022 found the former president’s standing among Republican
voters had fallen and that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis held an early lead
over him for the 2024 nomination. A year and four indictments later,
DeSantis ended his presidential bid this month and endorsed Trump after
losing to him in Iowa’s caucuses by 30%.
Thwarting a Trump victory was never a factor in getting grand juries to
indict him, prosecutors have said repeatedly, but that intent remains a watchword among Trump supporters. “If creative prosecution was designed
to hurt him politically, it clearly hasn’t,” said James Trusty, another
former lawyer for Trump.
https://floppingaces.net/most-wanted/trump-rivals-were-hoping-for-a-court room-knockout-time-is-running-out/
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