The Omnibus P01135809 Criminal Investigation Thread

We have to save democracy by destroying democracy.

"I want to vote for the insurrectionist traitor!! ".

https://bsky.app/profile/joshuajfriedman.com/post/3kmlao2g3532h

https://wapo.st/3P6sibt

It might not actually be the worst idea for Smith not to start a trial too close to the election. Jeopardy attaches at the beginning of trial. If the trial starts and Trump wins the election, he can have Smith fired and presumably his replacement would drop the charges. Boom, Trump walks free, even if he were somehow impeached and convicted over it. But if the trial hasn’t started, there’s an argument that the statute of limitations tolls during the presidency, and, assuming there is another election and another president, far from a given, unfortunately, the next administration could resurrect the charges and finally nail his ass to the wall.

Good translation.

Seems to me that hypothetically, if things were slowed to the point where the trial started in November. the trial would presumably be concluded before Trump could mess with it He only gets to do it after he's re-inaugurated January 20, 2025 (or thereabouts). I'd like to think that the trial of Donald Trump for the D.C. case should not take 2 months. So then we would potentially get into the issue of him pardoning himself.

Even if found guilty couldn’t it be dismissed up until he is sentenced which would be a couple months later?

If Trump were found guilty, he could appeal as a criminal defendant and then once president have the Justice Department drop the appeal or be content that the Justice Department wuuld not likely try to have Trump thrown in jail for the remainder of his presidency.

But that is a different issue than delaying things to avoid the possibility of double jeopardy attaching. First, I think there would likely be enough time for a trial between November 1 and January 20 potentially. Second, I would add that Jack Smith did not maximize the federal charges on which Trump could be tried for the conduct related to almost any of his conduct. So it would likely be possible for Smith/another special prosecutor to charge Trump with additional crimes after Trump leaves office. Third, hypothetically Trump could be tried for the exact same conduct by the D.C. justice system as that is a separate sovereign that doesn't cause double jeopardy to be an issue.

Well yes except the decision could easily be to send it back to Chutkin for consideration of the question they just raised (are SOME official acts MAYBE subject to immunity and if so is this one of them?)

Take the question in Feb 2023, as this year, hear the case in April, kick it back to Chutkin in June and go on summer break. She processes the question in the mean time, Trump appeals to the 11th, Smith asks to go to SCOTUS in December and they decline, 11th does their thing and Trump appeals and...here we are. Same place.

Consider this: IF SCOTUS affirmed that a President cannot be prosecuted, even after leaving office, for official acts done under the color of office, then by that logic Biden could order Trump arrested and held indefinitely in GITMO and declare him ineligible for any office.

But he won't.

Meanwhile Conway seems to think it could backfire on Trump and it's not impossible that he would be on trial in DC during the post Labor Day sprint.

(I'm skeptical that Cannon won't find a way to get underfoot and mess that up - If I were Smith I'd ask for her removal before she had the chance but so far he's not)

George Conway Explains: SCOTUS order could be BAD NEWS for Trump | George Conway Explains It All - YouTube

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: SCOTUS is going to take every opportunity they can to punt on this hoping that they don't ever have to rule on it because either Trump's lost the election or is in jail for something. If Trump wins the election, then everyone who involved with attempting to prosecute him is going to be dead or running for their lives before he ever takes the oath of office. If Trump loses by a narrow margin, we're in a civil war, and his going to jail or going free isn't going to change that. If he gets clubbed in the election like a baby harp seal, then nobody's going to pay attention to if he's prosecuted or not. I'm not willing to lay odds, at this date, as to who will win the election, but I am willing to lay odds that the chance of him getting clubbed in the election, like a baby harp seal, are very low.

Again, hypothetically, SCOTUS could do whatever it wants. But it doesn't really make sense to me that they would argue that there would be some level of fact-finding for the district court to do here. This is largely a pure legal issue as can be: Does the Constitution afford a president absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for any official acts committed while in office if he is not impeached in the House and convicted in the Senate? It seems to me that the answer to that should be an obvious and resounding no. But perhaps there is a good-faith reason why SCOTUS didn't just let the appellate court decision stand. Perhaps SCOTUS felt the need to flesh out the law in what is a case of first impression to make it more clear, for example, what constitutes "an official act," because IMO all the campaigning to "stop the steal" and challenge the election results should not be considered "official acts" of the presidency in the first place. Perhaps they want to make clearer why there should be a distinction between broad civil immunity and criminal immunity (because, for example, anyone can sue over anything which would mean that it would be easy to tie a president up in knots if they had to be concerned about personal liability for everything they did or failed to do, whereas we can better rely on prosecutors to be ethical enough to only bring cases where they believe they have evidence of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt, and indeed, the fear that adversaries would weaponize the criminal justice system has not come to fruition, as no one has attempted to bring charges against any former president except Trump).

But even in the hypothetical world where Trump had been originally charged about a year earlier, SCOTUS heard arguments in April 2023, and in a September 2023 decision told the district court to do some fact finding first, I would think that we would likely have been able to complete that process before now.

Also, if SCOTUS were plausibly going to do that in this hypothetical, they can do it in our actual situation, meaning that there would be no chance of a decision before the election, let alone a trial on this aspect of things.

Also, if SCOTUS were plausibly going to do that in this hypothetical, they can do it in our actual situation, meaning that there would be no chance of a decision before the election, let alone a trial on this aspect of things.

Which is still the most likely outcome, TBH. They are not behaving as good faith actors.

On the other hand, some unadulterated good news:
@KatiePhang

BIG news out of Ft. Pierce: The DOJ advises Judge Cannon that the "60-day rule" does NOT apply in Trump's case as he has already been indicted & the case is already being litigated. So, no reason to delay taking him to trial, even with elections in November.

https://x.com/KatiePhang/status/1763619058145259633?s=20

This would also be true of any other charges already pending. J6 in DC, and the Georgia RICO are not constrained by the rule (though may very well be constrained by each other).

FYI, DC is in its own circuit, not the 11th. The 11th covers Florida.

Yes. This is the argument for expanding SCOTUS to 13. One for each of the numbered circuit courts plus the DC and Fed ones.

I knew that.

all this shit runs together sometimes

Court watchers think they will give the go ahead for everyone to ignore the 14th tomorrow... which is in character.

The one thing I will say is Trump has not been convicted by a jury on charges that can be considered insurrection as of yet. I believe that that should have been something that should be defined by a legal statute that he should have been charged with, but he has not been convicted of this yet. Yes, I know a judge has ruled it was an insurrection, and Trump was involved, but there does need to be a criminal conviction. The reality that Joe Biden and his Ag Merick Garland have been too weak and complicit in the Trump insurrection means we should be tossing them out on their asses for not doing the important job we elected them to do. Namely protecting the US from enemies both foreign and domestic. Still, it has not happened.

If SCOTUS eliminates Trump based on some judiciary opinions without an actual conviction, then any judge that Trump has appointed, or any other president, can eliminate Joe Biden or anyone else simply by stating they did an insurrection by allowing migrants to cross the border. How much would the repugs love to have dems and SCOTUS open up that door for abuse?

Let us stop blaming SCOTUS for the fact they have not been presented with a proper criminal charge or conviction on insurrection at this point because the Joe Biden admin and every state AG has waited years too long to file charges which should have come in February 2021. You can't stop it now without opening up precedent for the repugs to abuse the fuck out of.

Thank you Joe Biden.

I think he objectively should have been convicted by now on principle, but as a matter of historical precedent - none of the people who were disqualified under this provision in the 19th century were convicted of insurrection first.

So the clear intent was not for that to be a requirement. I mean, not that SCOTUS doesn't retcon everything they say to get to the conclusion they wanted to in the first place.

That is not a good thing. We have people on the right trying to make the case that Biden is doing an insurrection and committing high crimes and misdemeanors because he has not done what they want on the border. So when we go down the road of opinion and not a court conviction becoming the basis for denying people to run for president we start getting into an area where innuendo and suggestion become a way to legally keep your opponent off the ballot. In a world where the right wants to criminalize gay sex and pretend trans people are mutilating children and assaulting people just with their presence in the rest room, we might want to remember that it is important to not deny poeople access to things based upon someone's interpretation and not a conviction of criminal charges in a court of law.

No, I do not want to start eliminating Trump without a conviction. I do not want the court of public opinion to become a legally binding court. The moment you open that door they will come for Trans people first. They are already clawing at that door like rabid dogs. Believe me, there is nothing an old catholic bastard like Biden would love to see more than the repugs hanging us. He would not lift a finger to save us. That is just like he won't stop- shelling out money to the Isrealis to kill brown people. That is like how he helped the right kill muslims during his time in congress and as VP during record breaking slaughter of inno0cent muslims. That is like how he has done nothing to get women back the rights to their own bodies because he loves the fact Roe was overturned because he has always wanted these things.

This is what Biden loves. he loves letting the repugs fuck people over while he sits there and pretends he did not do anything. He woul;d be the person who smiles to your face telling you he is cool with everything while ratting you out to the company for doing drugs, being gay, being trans, going to a drag show, or whatever else that slimy little false ally does.

He leaves these methods of corruption and persecution intact because he uses them. Unlike Trump he hides his actions and pretends he isn't. This is why Biden is worse. Because he fools other people while corrupting the protections for women, brown people, and the GLBT community. This is why the complicit and shadow bigots love him. They can vote for him all day long while the minority loses and then pretend they did not do a fucking thing while they have supported him letting people be persecuted, harassed, killed, and have their lives eroded.

https://www.businessinsider.com/tru...nsom-threat-fulton-county-hack-lockbit-2024-2

That was last week. They claimed Fulton County paid; Fulton claimed they did not. They did not release anything, most likely because their data were damaged in the raid.

And ransoms are okay as long as it Trump, right leftforge?

You didn’t read the article again, did you?

It's become fairly clear that what FF considers reading and the actual activity are as related as what Trump considers sex and what Stormy does.

I can't speak for all on the left, but:

1. No, I don't approve of crimes being committed generally speaking even if "my side" benefits or "the other side" gets hurt.
2. In the case of data attacks, even less so.
3. The broad strokes of what the evidence might show are already known.
4. Releasing information that is currently non-public might pose a risk to not just the prosecution of the case but people's lives as it might make them subject to doxxing or other targeting by Trump and his catspaws.

F-. Clearly didn't open the link you are commenting on. See teacher after class.