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The Screaming Moderate

The official allegations against Trump are mounting

8/15/2023

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Four indictments in four months. Enough, Donald John Trump says, to win him the presidential election.

Interestingly, so far the indictments have only helped him in the race to be the 2024 Republican candidate. There seems nothing that affects adversely his standing with his base.

If you read the indictments, it boggles your mind that anyone can believe he should be the Republican candidate let alone be elected or serve again as president.

The latest and broadest indictment, in Georgia, presents some differences from the others:


  • It’s a state indictment so if convicted and if elected, Trump cannot pardon himself. Presidents have no authority over such a state action.
  • It charges Trump and 18 others, accusing them of racketeering and conspiracy  to commit a crime.
  • It will be televised, thus, among other things, interesting to see how Trump handles himself in front of a judge when his freedom is at stake. Can he resist his seemingly uncontrollable urges in a court of law?
  • It opens the door for a multitude of people – those charged and those, so far, not charged – to “flip” on him with the prosecutors.
  • It may just offer Trump the opportunity to achieve what seemed a lifelong goal: to be a mob boss.

I say that last point only partly in jest. Trump has performed as a mob boss on many levels – publicly calling anyone who doesn’t support him 100 percent a bum, liar and worse. Even cabinet members and a vice president that he chose and praised when he did.

Indeed, the mafia’s motto is “omerta” an extreme form of loyalty in the face of authority.

No matter what he is charged with there seems a chunk of voters who back him without hesitation and with great enthusiasm (less than a majority of the Republican Party but enough to win him the nomination especially with too many candidates against him who can split up the anti-Trump vote).

One also should note that from the Congressional investigation into Jan. 6 through Georgia’s indictment yesterday, all of the damaging testimony is from Republicans. This is not a Democratic plot, despite what Trump supporters have been brainwashed to believe.

On top of that, show me an elected Republican at almost any level in law enforcement who would take on  Trump.

Interestingly, there is nothing that prohibits a convicted felon from running or serving as president. Ironically, if convicted as a felon Trump would lose his right to vote, but would not lose his  ability to serve as president. Imagine.

Which case comes first also can play a role. That New York indictment involving his paying off a porn star for her silence about an alleged affair is considered the weakest and the one that has the smallest effect on Trump politically.  Probably helps him, as he says. Hate to see that case go first, it just doesn't measure up to the effort to overthrow our government.

The federal indictment of Trump, the one brought by special counsel Jack Smith, is a significant indictment, that is narrowly targeted, at this stage, only at Trump. Seemingly, that is so the focus is totally on what Trump allegedly did wrong, unconfused by other issues or defendants.

This new Georgia indictment goes the furthest in terms of numbers of men and women indicted,  the conspiracy charge and naming it a violation of RICO, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. In Georgia that law was adopted in 1980 and makes it a crime to participate in, acquire or maintain control of an “enterprise” through a “pattern of racketeering activity” or to conspire to do so.

It’s important to note that even if that scheme is unsuccessful, it is still a crime.

There is a very long way to resolving those cases and, of course, to decide who will be the GOP’s 2024 presidential candidate.

Trump still maintains a stranglehold over nearly every elected federal senator and House member. If they began to back away from Trump, how might that affect him? Well, we likely will never know because not one has demonstrated even a hint of breaking with Trump.

As Franklin Roosevelt once said: “Courage is not the absence of fear but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear.”  

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Another Trump indictment, the biggest one

8/2/2023

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 No prosecutor worth his salt would indict a former President of the United States without believing/knowing he could win the case in court,

And Special Prosecutor Jack Smith is salt and pepper.

Put yourself in his place: You are instructed by the Attorney  General to investigate the January 6 insurrection and to follow the law wherever it leads. Thus, Smith begins his indictment with the simple statement:

“The defendant Donald J. Trump was the 45th President of the United States and a candidate for reelection in 2020. The defendant lost the 2020 presidential election.”

Simple statement. Written so anyone reading it would understand. He then goes and lays out about 45 pages of the facts and accusations against, at the moment, the sole defendant in the case, Donald J. Trump.

If you ever read an indictment, read this one. It is the most important indictment in U.S. history. Here’s a link: https://www.scribd.com/document/662462402/Trump-Indictment

In talking to a lawyer, I learned a key question in a trial will be what Trump’s state of mind was at the time(s) he was (and still is) lying about the outcome of the 2020 election. No one, I was told, can testify to his state of mind except the defendant himself. But, there is testimony about things Trump said that likely will be let into evidence.

To me, the most telling was when Trump was reading a classified document to a few people in his office, post-his presidency. He told the gathering it was classified so they shouldn't mention it to anyone. He also said at the meeting - for which there is an audio tape - “As president, I could have declassified, but now I can’t.”

That may be a key bit of evidence in the trial. He knew he was no longer president and still was denying his loss.

According to the indictment, there was a Jan. 1, 2021, meeting between Trump and his vice president, Mike Pence. Trump still was trying to convince Pence to send the votes back to the states when he was chairing the session for the Senate to count the electoral votes. Pence said he did not have the authority to do that. Trump responded, "you're too honest." Implying he, Trump, was not.

 Seems not a bad piece of evidence either.

Also, as you read the indictment, pay attention to who is being cited as sources for the facts – all are or were appointments made by Donald Trump to his Administration, which he once said would only have “the best people.” The part of that thought he did not say out loud was, until they aren’t doing what I tell them anymore. Then they become, Trump always says, dishonest people, Republicans In Name Only (RINOs)/

Trump's lawyers are already signaling Trump’s defense: He only was doing what he was advised by lawyers (not true) and he really did think (and still does think) that he won the election. Among the people who told him there was no widespread fraud in the election were his former Attorneys General, his former intelligence officials, and the man Trump appointed to oversee elections. Also there were those various state-level officials he tried to strong arm into doing his bidding who said there was no fraud sufficient to change the election in their state.

One of his lawyers has already sent a message that they will seek a change of venue from Washington, D.C., which voted overwhelmingly for Biden, to West Virginia, which  overwhelmingly voted for Trump.

They didn’t complain when Smith filed his fist indictment against Trump in Trump-friendly Florida, where the jury pool is more likely to produce at least one juror who is a Trump supporter and who Trump will expect to vote him not guilty.

As many of you, I’ve served on juries. One, in Washington, D.C., where the defendant, if I remember correctly, was charged with attempted murder. I took  seriously the instruction that the prosecution must prove their case “beyond a reasonable doubt”. No prejudice, just did the prosecution prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt.

It took me into the second day of deliberations to go from a “not sure” to a “guilty” because I took the reasonable doubt issue quite seriously. But my fellow jurors convinced me (and others who had been “not guilty” jurors) to see that the reasonable doubt didn’t really exist. And that a preponderance of the evidence said the defendant was guilty, as the jury ultimately voted.

Also, those six un-indicted co-conspirators, still may flip. I for the life of me can't believe anyone would lie to keep someone else out of jail while putting themself behind bars.

One of the six is Rudy Giuliani, a former prosecutor himself who has already been on  "TV" (one of the right-wing channels) claiming Trump's innocence. But when it's his backside that may be going to jail, he may sing a different tune. The truth.

Another, thought to be co-conspirator three, is Sidney Powell. Her crazy election fraud theories even Trump said he thought were crazy. According to Jan. 6 committee testimony,  Trump muted his speaker phone and said, "this does sound crazy, doesn't it?"

 
Call me naïve (you’ll be the first) but I do think when people take an oath, whether they are being sworn in as a federal employee or as a juror, the vast majority of them take that oath seriously. If not, our court system cannot exist.

I mentioned this is most important indictment in our history and the biggest vote on our democracy that may be held since our founding fathers voted. If Trump is found not guilty in this trial, our country will be forever changed to the negative.

Not because Trump will be re-elected but down the road another “Trump” will be, and the battle will get much more difficult.


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    B. Jay Cooper

    B. Jay is a former deputy White House press secretary to Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush. He also headed the communications offices at the Republican National Committee, U.S. Department of Commerce, and Yale University. He is a former reporter and is the retired deputy managing director of APCO Worldwide's Washington, D.C., office.
    He is the father of three daughters and grandfather of five boys and one girl. He lives in Marion, Mass.

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