Goldtent TA Paradise

You have to admit…The Orange Man has the best name for his Work…Ever 🙂

CAN YOU SAY…EPIC BACKFIRE ?

………..

Here is Jeff Childers take on the latest Trumped Up Charges

Jan. 6 charges.” On Tuesday — the day after Devon Archer testified about Joe Biden’s shady connections to a bunch of sketchy oligarchs — special counsel Jack Smith issued a horrible 45-page indictment tacking yet another criminal case onto President Trump’s mounting legal docket.

This newest indictment includes four counts, for mainly two reasons: that President Trump “conspired to defraud the United States,” and that he “conspired to interfere with the certification of the election.” Here’s how the Hill explained it:

“Despite having lost, the Defendant was determined to remain in power. So for more than two months following election day on November 3, 2020, the Defendant spread lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the election and that he had actually won,” the indictment states.

“These claims were false, and the Defendant knew that they were false,” it continues. “But the Defendant repeated and widely disseminated them anyway—to make his knowingly false claims appear legitimate, create an intense national atmosphere of mistrust and anger, and erode public faith in the administration of the election.”

The Hill, quoting bug-eyed reptilian Congressman Adam Schiff, all but admitted that the so-called House January 6th Committee was always intended to produce this singular result: charging Trump with J6-related crimes. The odious Schiff couldn’t wait to take the credit:

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) on Tuesday credited the investigation, saying the indictment was “based in large part on evidence we uncovered through our work.”

Although the indictment didn’t explicitly name them or indict them (yet), it claimed Trump worked with six co-conspirators: “The Defendant enlisted co-conspirators to assist him in his criminal efforts to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election and retain power.” Based on comments from the indictment, people are guessing the co-conspirators include five of Trump’s attorneys: Rudi Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Jeffrey Clark, Kenneth Cheseboro, and John Eastman, plus an unidentified political consultant.

In a long series of poorly-considered Trump cases, this is one of the dumbest yet.

First, nearly all the conduct described in the four counts is speech, and not just speech, but political speech. Political speech is the most protected kind of speech under the Constitution’s First Amendment. That probably won’t stop the Obama-appointed judge from letting the case survive an inevitable motion to dismiss, but my initial take is the counts can’t survive without rewriting the Constitution.

The situation is slightly more complicated because the DOJ framed the counts as “fraud,” which is a type of speech that isn’t protectable, but that raises its own problems. Even if Trump did lie, which is debatable, lying isn’t illegal, not without something more, like being under oath, or harming someone who relied on the lie.

So the DOJ must first prove Trump lied, and then it must marry the lies to something else that can except them from First Amendment protection.

Which brings us to the DOJ’s next big problem, which is an interesting twist. A central material issue in this shiny new indictment is the truth or falsity of whether significant 2020 election fraud occurred or not. After all, the DOJ is claiming that Trump “lied” about election fraud, thereby — ironically — committing a fraud of his own.

In other words, they’re saying Trump committed fraud by alleging fraud. You can’t make this stuff up.

But this time, now that he and his lawyers are defendants in a criminal case, President Trump can not only put on evidence of election fraud, but he must. And before that, he will have the right to conduct discovery under the demanding federal rules. And they’re not going to like it.

And, while I’m sure the giddy prosecutors are currently planning to just sit back and make Trump’s lawyers prove there was election fraud, the prosecutors will soon confront another unpleasant surprise related to what they must prove.

Right now, the prosecutors think proving their case will be easy and they won’t have to do much. But, as Trump’s lawyers begin to assemble evidence of election fraud — much of which was already pulled together in 2020 (but never considered by a court) — the DOJ prosecutors will start to realize at some point that they can’t just remain silent. They don’t see it yet, but they will eventually have to prove the negative; they will have to prove that election fraud didn’t happen.

They can’t just rely on “everybody knows” there wasn’t voter fraud. They can’t just wave their hands at the dismissed 2020 cases. They’ll almost certainly have to prove the absence of fraud.

And that, they cannot prove. Not only because proving a negative is incredibly difficult, but because it’s already very clear there was significant fraud, as demonstrated by sources like 2,000 mules. Plus, the more they look into whether fraud happened, the more it will hurt the government case.

Finally, of course, bringing this case two and a half years after January 6th during the middle of a presidential election campaign — against a candidate — is a total Banana Republic move. I’m expecting to see Joe Biden pop up wearing a medal-covered jacket covered any day now.

? Yesterday, the Hill ran a related story headlined, “Judge rules Trump false election claims while in office covered by presidential immunity.”

James Savage, a 2020 Pennsylvania voting machine supervisor, filed two lawsuits (now consolidated) alleging that Trump, Rudy Giuliani, two poll watchers and others conspired to defame him. Mr. Savage alleged the President’s statements claiming the 2020 election was stolen caused him to get death threats and have two heart attacks.

Yesterday, Judge Michael Erdos dismissed the claims against Trump, ruling the statements about the election were part of Trump’s official duties, since he was speaking to the public on matters of public concern. Official duties provide public officials with immunity from civil claims.

“[T]hen-President Trump’s Gettysburg remarks and his tweet were public,” Judge Erdos wrote. “Moreover, the topic of these statements—claims from third parties and the President himself about irregularities in the Presidential election which on their face called into question the integrity of the election and whether now-President Joseph Biden had been duly elected—was undoubtedly a matter of great public concern.”

Undoubtedly. And it remains a matter of great public concern.

The bottom line is that’s one Trump case resolved. To be clear, this wasn’t one of Trump’s three criminal cases, but rather was one of the many civil cases proceeding against the President around the country. It is a good start, and Trump’s attorneys will be able to use this result to persuade other civil judges to go the same way.

The decision was also helpful to the new lawsuit, particularly in its spectacular timing. It’s not dispositive, because federal criminal standards are different, but you can’t help but draw a line from this case to the new Jack Smith indictment.