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What do you do when you have a political crime, but not a legal one? You keep trying to attach laws to what you consider a political crime. As I already noted in my analysis, Clinton ally Jack Smith took random unrelated laws and then waved his arms a lot while talking about democracy.
Describing publicly conducted election challenges as an effort to “defraud” the United States government turns 18 U.S. Code § 371 into an open-ended tool for suppressing a wide range of political dissent. Treating lobbying or any kind of advocacy as the equivalent of witness tampering weaponizes 18 U.S. Code § 1512 against virtually anyone trying to influence a function of government. Which is to say virtually everyone who is interested in politics. And finally deploying 18 U.S. Code § 241, originally designed to fight the KKK, against Trump and anyone trying to verify legitimate election results makes election fraud into a civil right.
Instead of finding specific crimes committed, Jack Smith took the House Democrat J6 Committee report and then did his best to fit them into some federal statutes somewhere. Including one that bans wearing disguises on highways which was created to fight the KKK.
The New York Times has to be polite and supportive so it describes Smith’s tactics as “novel”.
(Note to non-lawyers, prosecutors using novel tactics is rarely a good thing for the targets, the prosecutors or the country. Laws are supposed to be reasonably straightforward and so are prosecutions. A country where prosecutors are constantly figuring out how do novel things either has bad laws or is a totalitarian regime.)
In accusing former President Donald J. Trump of conspiring to subvert American democracy, the special counsel, Jack Smith, charged the same story three different ways. The charges are novel applications of criminal laws to unprecedented circumstances, heightening legal risks, but Mr. Smith’s tactic gives him multiple paths in obtaining and upholding a guilty verdict.
America isn’t a “democracy”, subverting it is what political parties do, and there was nothing illegal in trying to contest an election.
‘Stories’ aren’t charged, crimes are. But Smith doesn’t have a crime, he has a ‘story’ that he’s trying to criminalize by throwing whatever statutes he has at the wall to see what sticks.
Kimberley A. Strassel quickly shows the implications of this “novel” approach in her Wall Street Journal piece.
Take Mr. Trump out of the equation and consider more broadly what even the New York Times calls Mr. Smith’s “novel approach.” A politician can lie to the public, Mr. Smith concedes. Yet if that politician is advised by others that his comments are untruthful and nonetheless uses them to justify acts that undermine government “function,” he is guilty of a conspiracy to defraud the country. Dishonest politicians who act on dubious legal claims? There aren’t enough prisons to hold them all.
Consider how many politicians might already be doing time had prosecutors applied this standard earlier. Both Al Gore and George W. Bush filed lawsuits in the 2000 election that contained bold if untested legal claims. Surely both candidates had advisers who told them privately that they may have legitimately lost—and neither publicly conceded an inch until the Supreme Court resolved the matter. Might an ultimate sore winner have used this approach to indict the loser for attempting to thwart the democratic process?
And why limit the theory to election claims? In 2014 the justices held unanimously that President Barack Obama had violated the Constitution by decreeing that the Senate was in recess so that he could install several appointees without confirmation. It was an outrageous move, one that Mr. Obama’s legal counselors certainly warned was a loser, yet the White House vocally insisted the president had total “constitutional authority” to do it. Under Mr. Smith’s standard, that was a lie that Mr. Obama used to defraud the public by jerry-rigging the function of a labor board with illegal appointments.
What’s the betting someone told President Biden he didn’t have the power to erase $430 billion in student loan debt. Oh, wait! That’s right. He told himself. “I don’t think I have the authority to do it by signing with a pen,” he said in 2021. The House speaker advised him it was illegal: “People think that the president of the United States has the power for debt forgiveness. He does not,” Nancy Pelosi said. Yet Mr. Biden later adopted the lie that he did, and took action to defraud taxpayers by obstructing the federal function of loan processing—until the Supreme Court made him stop.
If even a former president can be hit with conspiracy charges, what’s to protect a mere congressman, or a failed candidate, or a consultant? For how long did Stacey Abrams falsely dispute her loss in the 2018 Georgia governor’s race and pressure Georgia lawmakers to alter election procedures in ways that might undermine voting integrity on the basis of untruths? Would the advisers who egged her on in that pursuit qualify as co-conspirators, like the lawyers in Mr. Smith’s indictment?
Strassel goes on like this for a while and obviously she has a point. Legally. Politically, it’s another matter.
The Al Capone tax case wasn’t as absurdly corrupt and abusive as in The Untouchables, but it was obviously corrupt and, for once, not by Capone. The presumption was that Capone had skipped justice too many times and that he was a public menace, all true, and that he had to be locked up no matter what.
That’s the reasoning behind supporting the otherwise nightmarish premises that Jack Smith sets out. Democrats are assuming that they won’t be used against them or much of anyone except maybe Trump, some ‘right-wingers’ and then it’ll stop.
Just like it did in the Soviet Union, Communist China, and Revolutionary France.
A new arrival to Gulag is asked: “What were you given ten years for?” – “For nothing!” – “Don’t lie to us here, now! Everybody knows ‘for nothing’ is three years.”
That was five years.
“The charges are novel applications of criminal laws to unprecedented circumstances, heightening legal risks, but Mr. Smith’s tactic gives him multiple paths in obtaining and upholding a guilty verdict.” Translation: It’s OK to bend the law if you can stop a threat to your political Party. If Joebama had truely got the most votes, not ballots, they wouldn’t be threatened by Trump’s candidacy. They are showing desperation this early, imagine what they might resort to later in the campaign season.
I’d rather not imagine what the Joebama folks will resort to. I’m already pretty depressed as it is.
Please don’t be depressed. I know people here have lost faith in the Republicans, but most states’ Repub Parties have strong representation on the county election boards. Please go sign up to work there, starting in the spring with the primaries in your state. Get your friends to do this, too. I have been doing this in two states since the 1990s. It makes a difference!
Smith will live to regret this J6 joke indictment because Trump will finally have his day in Court to expose the massive corruption and fraud in the 2020 election. The Courts were too chicken schitte to step in and stop the fraud under the guise of “the plaintiffs have no standing”. Never once was a trial held on the merits of the cases. PA and Wisconsin election officials conveniently changed the law to support their efforts to poison the election, even after appeals were made to the State Supreme Courts rightfully stating that only the Legislatures have the legal right to change the laws. Remember the 3 hooligans in Atlanta that pulled out boxes of Biden ballots and ran them through the scanners multiple times? They were never prosecuted for election fraud. And the list goes on.
You’re still on the Clown Bus. Do you think Trump can pardon himself? If there’s one GOP candidate the Democrats are rooting for to win the GOP nomination, it’s DJT.
DJT is a one man crime wave.
Luckily, our bulldog Special Prosecutor sniffed out those Espionage Act violations. Otherwise Trump would still be colluding with the Kaiser.
I’m not convinced those posting down arrows know how to read.
Some people have a difficult time recognizing sarcasm.
On my Ipad I cant consistently click the up arrow and it frustrates me as there are so many brilliant witty comments.. At times it runs into a down arrow or visa versa. So, I just refrain.
This comment system leaves a lot to be desired.
I can’t read who makes up votes and down votes. That’s irritating.
They sure don’t recognize irony.
Still waiting.
Why are you doing this?
We can recognize TDS when we see it.
Pretty astute of Jack Smith to sell novelties to theJoebama carnival crowd that loves such things.
Out of curiosity, I posted my comment on minute prior to yours.
How long did you spend being “moderated”.
This one too.
Wish the Manhattan Project were this well guarded.
And the next one too.
It’s okay. I can be trusted. I shook Richard Nixon’s hand in 1960, and didn’t try to shiv him.
I’m not sneaking in an explosive device wrapped inside a paragraph.
And the next one too.
Application of FPM’s moderation policy reminds me of spider webs constricted by arachnids dosed with LSD.
You cannot be serial.
I saw photos of spider webs spun by LSD dosed spiders in Omni magazine back in the 80s. They were really F’ed up! How you dose a spider with LSD, I have no idea but those spiders were high as kites, based on their sloppy webs.
I think spiders are creepy, although jumping spiders make me laugh. Ugly little f’ers, though. And when I was a kid I would slowly burn black widows up with a magnifying glass. We would put them in bottles with Drain-O and water, too. Good times. You know how boys are. Those things were all over Riverside CA were I grew up and the AZ Mojave. I think my brother and me did a public service by killing the ones at the retard and cripple school near our house. They were in every playground thingy that had darkness, which they like.
They just need to put Trump at the mercy of a crooked judge so they can lock him up. The merits and the law matter not st all to the Democrats.
Sors and Company needs banish from America for Life and even Longer and he can take his Open Society group with him
Correct me if I’m wrong but it looks to me that Jack Smith’s charges are all “conspiracy to” type charges, meaning that no action was ever taken. Let me get this, Smith is prosecuting Trump for thinking of committing s crime. How is this jackass going to prove what Trump was thinking? I wasn’t aware that mind reading was admissible in a court of law. Jack Smith proves that old adage, “they’re using lawyers in laboratory experiments now, they found out there were just some things a rat won’t do.
The guy is so horrible looking. I wondered, couldn’t they find someone in DC who wasn’t so creepy to look at. I loved DJT’s original comment re: “Jack Smith:–is that his real name?” Jack is being used, bigtime. His wife is some activist, too.. Typical DC “power couple.” Those parties must suck!
They only have to tie DJT up with all these legal troubles to neutralize him. It doesn’t matter if the charges don’t stick, or if they don’t even state a crime or make sense. The Dems are setting DJT up to win the GOP nomination. Just so they can destroy him and the GOP in the general election. Face facts now, people: Trump can’t win.
Smith is ramping up the number of charges on the assumption that he’ll likely garner at least a few convictions. It’s a numbers game. It’s not unheard of in cases with multiple charges that jurors will haggle over charges without unanimous votes. They all want to go home, so some will vote guilty on this charge if the rest vote innocent on another.
My answer is no. The answer is Trump is retard but where Trump isn’t is even more retard.
Lay off the booze, Una.
Moderate retards unite. Trump is your flag. And what a flag.
You see, this way we are going to hell in a moderate way which is kind of moderate and gradual. Gotta love it.
Why do you hate Trump so much? He’s so cool.
Narcissistic braggarts never really appealed to me, especially those who demand personal “loyalty,” like Mussolini did, while they belittle their former supporters.