A federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., has reindicted Donald Trump on four felony charges related to his effort to subvert the 2020 presidential election.
The 36-page indictment, secured Tuesday by special counsel Jack Smith, is an attempt by prosecutors to recalibrate the case against Trump in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling last month that concluded presidents enjoy sweeping immunity from prosecution for their official conduct.
The new indictment removes some specific allegations against Trump but contains the same four criminal charges, including conspiracy to defraud the United States. It’s a signal that Smith believes the high court’s immunity decision doesn’t pose a major impediment to convicting the former president.
Jack Smith has been busy. Yesterday he filed an appeal to overturn Loose Cannon’s decision to dismiss the documents case. Here is Joyce Vance’s commentary. It’s expected the 11th Circuit will agree with Smith, but what happens after that isn’t clear. It might go to the Supreme Court. Smith didn’t ask that Cannon be removed from the case, but I understand the 11th Circuit could reassign the case. Note also that Smith didn’t ask for the case to be expedited. So nothing significant is likely to happen until after the election, and possibly not until next year. If Trump loses, perhaps SOTUS won’t try to protect him.
In other news: I’m seeing news stories that Trump is back to agreeing to the September 10 debate, on the same terms as the last debate. I haven’t heard that the Harris campaign has agreed.
Stuff to read: Greg Palast has a post headlined I was on the phone with RFK Jr.
When he lost his mind. Palast has known RFK the Lesser for many years. Years ago they wrote articles together. What Palast describes sounds like the brain worm really did scramble Lesser’s cognitive abiblities.
At the Atlantic, see Trump’s Evangelical Supporters Just Lost Their Best Excuse by Peter Wehner. Wehner explains that Trump has twisted himself into a pretzel trying to back away from abortion restrictions. And that was the primary issue keeping him tied to the evangelicals.
One more. Josh Marshall asks, Donald’s Fallen Down. So Why Can’t He Get Up?
Great article in the Atlantic. Thanks that dude has it right about our so called evangelicals "A movement that claims Jesus as its own should be more than a whitewashed tomb" he's right the magats will still vote for Stump no matter what he does, that's why Stump/Vance have no problem flip flopping on any issue. GOP voters don't give a shit what Stump stands for, as long as he acts as ignorant and hateful as they are he has their vote. I’d wager he could even call for an assault weapons ban!
I think Marcy Wheeler predicted that the superseding indictment was why Jack Smith requested a three-week delay. The USSC went as far out on a limb to provide cover for Trump as they could remotely justify. But it leaves Trump's butt in the rain for actions that are NOT part of Trump's duties. The USSC decided that Trump could talk to and promote Clark to A/G. Even for corrupt motives, it seems. So Jack removed that part entirely.
I asked a few days ago, quite rhetorically, if Trump loses the election and his attempts to steal the election fail… and if the trials progress in two states and two federal districts to convictions, how much further will the USSC go to protect Trump when he no longer has any political value to advancing the cause of the Heritage Foundation? IMO, the USSC put their thumb on the scale to 1) delay the J6 trial and 2) create avenues for Trump to appeal. (Jack Smith detoured around those avenues.)
The Fetus People spend so much time under the GOP bus they can draw a diagram of everything under there. They are ecstatic that they got what they wanted reversing Roe. I'd have thought they would fade away but they're just getting warmed up. Trump sees that he has to distance himself from the plans they have to abolish all abortion everywhere. And the fetus people think they are on the cusp of total victory but Trump is gonna bail on them. And he will – he's not running for President, he's running from prison. The fetus people are going to apply some serious leverage to get Trump back in line – I predict, before the election. Because after he's elected the evangelicals have NO leverage. And the only leverage they have now it the threat of withholding their votes from Trump. I think they will – they don't like the view from under the bus.
If the Evangelicals sit out the election to punish Trump, Harris will win. But the Evangelicals can play the long game. The next time they are in power, they want whoever is the new "Dear Leader" to know he can't cross them.
I just read that Harris is going to sit for an interview with CNN? She might as well go to FAUX or newmax, CNN has been running cover for Diaper Don for years, in fact this is the headline on their website right now: "The return of Trump’s legal issues to center stage presents new challenges for Harris" Stump gets new indictments and somehow it's a problem for Harris? I predict it's going to be lousy result for our side, Dana Bash will have the knives out for Kamala, fucking campaign malpractice.
I went to CNN and found the headline. The headline appears on the CNN home page, but when you click on it you get taken to an article headlined Trump’s new indictment rocks his newly reshaped race against Kamala Harris. Which is what the article is about. There's a subhead about challenges for Harris, but it doesn't clearly explain what those challenges are. Weird.
Yes, CNN has taken a sharp right turn in the last couple years, they let Stump do a "townhall" and lie for over an hour unfiltered, unchallenged with a pro Trump audience a couple months ago. If I were running the Harris campaign I would have picked a different network for my first interview as a candidate. I can almost guarantee she will not be treated fairly. Maybe they don't watch cable news?
Did the problem start with the 24/7 news channel? An old friend of mine, a media person, claimed it a bad idea. He contended there just was not enough real news to fill such a show. I think most all would agree there is rarely breaking news that merits the headline of breaking news. Most of that better headlined: SOMETHING A LITTLE NEW AT LEAST, NOT A REHASH. For other breaking news a better headline lately on some networks: SOMETHING THAT MIGHT BE NEWS OR MIGHT BE A FACT OR MIGHT BE ANOTHER LIE. Then you have too many items that need a different headline completely: MORE FILLER UNTIL THE NEXT COMMERCIAL BREAK.
For sure nothing is real news that Trump says anymore. You can't count on a crazy person, and his latest BS could be a lie or another double deal. Either way it is not real news. We have work to get done and he is no help. Remember the covid and his bad advice. We are all alive now in spite of him and his bad advice. Now he is attracting other crazy people we do not have time for. I wish my old friend was still alive so I could tell him how right he was about 24/7 news. I can keep his wise message and insight alive. That will need to do to fill my empty cup.
Maybe, but I suspect the rise of social media is a bigger factor. Also there have always been ways to manipulate media. Before most people had televisions Joe McCarthy was brilliant at planting bogus stories in newspapers about Communists in the State Department and whatever. And then television destroyed him; first Edward R. Murrow and then the Army-McCarthy hearings.
Thanks for that Atlantic link.
If you don't look at Crooked Timber here is a good item to make an exception for. Keven Munger adduces a case for expecting a Harris landslide victory in Nov.
The polls are still agonizingly close, but there are lots of reasons for hope. Hope even that if Trump loses this one, the wheels might finally come off of the Repbulican-Evangelical clown car.