“The already-slim likelihood that Donald Trump will face a criminal trial brought by special counsel Jack Smith before the 2024 election appeared to dwindle further Thursday in the face of withering scrutiny from the Supreme Court’s conservative majority.” skriver Politico nærmest skuffede. USAs Højesteret tager stilling til, om hvor langt præsidentens immunitet for at blive retsforfulgt rækker. På den ene side kan man ikke have en situation, hvor en præsident ikke kan handle af frygt for at blive retsforfulgt af politiske fjender, på den anden side, er en præsident ikke en midlertidig diktator. Team Trumps argument er, at Rigsretten i forvejen sikrer dette og det ser altså ud til at balancen vil hælde i den retning, som Politico afslutter deres artikel

At the conclusion of the tense and historic argument session, there was one final sign that Trump’s team had a good day. Roberts called on Sauer to offer a customary rebuttal — a chance to get the last word that Supreme Court advocates seldom pass up.

“I have nothing further,” Sauer said.

 Collagen-bomben Dr Steve Turley citerer i sin vanlige hoverende stil fra New York Times, der skriver

It got worse for the prosecution. More or less out of nowhere, Justice Brett M. Cavanaugh suggested that one of the charges against Trump, conspiracy to defraud the United States, relies on a statute that is so broad and vague  that it could be misused by future prosecutors against future presidents. Justice Samuel A. AlitoJr. jumped into second the suggestion, taking up a criticism of the prosecution that Trump’s lawyers hadn’t even raised.

Steve (ikke at forveksle med Jonathan, som vi skal høre fra om lidt) Turley noterer, så kommer det som en ‘overraskelse’, at en jurist kan konkludere, at hvad der gælder for Loke, gælder for Thor.

Since the court just heard arguments in a separate case that could invalidate two of the four charges against Trump – those under the federal obstruction statute – an opinion invalidating another charge could force Smith to soldier on with only one remaining charge against Trump, conspiracy against rights. That charge relies on the electorate’s rights to have votes counted, which is a somewhat indirect approach to accountability Trump’s pernicious post-election conduct.

Jonathan Turley, juraprofessoren, skriver bl.a

Chief Justice John Roberts noted the DC Circuit failed to make any “focused” analysis of the underlying acts, instead offering little more than a judicial shrug.

Roberts read its statement that “a former president can be prosecuted for his official acts because the fact of the prosecution means that the former president has acted in defiance of the laws” and noted it sounds like “a former president can be prosecuted because he is being prosecuted.”

The other cliff is more than obvious from the other proceedings occuring as these arguments were made. Trump’s best attorney proved to be Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

If the justices want insight into the implications of denying any immunity, they just need to look north to New York City.

The ongoing prosecution of Trump is legally absurd but has resulted in the leading presidential candidate not only being gagged but prevented from campaigning.

Alvin Bragg is the very personification of the danger immunity is meant to avoid.

(…)

The problem for the court is presidential privilege and immunity decisions are meant to give presidents breathing room by laying out bright lines within which they can operate.

Ambiguity defeats the purpose of such immunity. So does a test that turns on the motivation of an official act.

The special counsel insists, for example, Trump was acting for his personal interest in challenging certification and raising electoral fraud since he was the other candidate.

But what if he wasn’t on the ballot — would it have been an official function to raise such concerns for other candidates?

When pressed on the line between official and nonofficial conduct, the special counsel just dismissed such concerns and said Trump was clearly acting as an office-seeker not an officeholder.

Likewise, the special counsel argued the protection for presidents must rest with the good motivations and judgment of prosecutors.

It was effectively a “Trust us, we’re the government” assurance.

Jonathan Turley har tillige “developed a weird fascination with the utter madness of the scene unfolding in Manhattan”, som han altså mener er Trumps bedste argument for at beskytte præsidentens beslutningsevne, fordi den ligner en Rube Goldberg (Storm P.) tegning.

In the trial, Bragg added a type of frying pan flip to his Rube Goldberg contraption by arguing that Trump may have been trying to hide his violation of another dead misdemeanor under yet another New York election law prohibiting “conspir[ing] to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means.” 

In other words, Trump was conspiring to try to win his own election. This even though the notations were made after he had won the election, and even though Trump was running for a federal, not a state office.

So again, what is the unlawful means?

The machine then flips you back to the beginning — seeking “to influence the election.” There are still the federal election violations, but that theory was rejected after an investigation. And if it were a real crime, it would be brought by federal, not state prosecutors. 

There are also the misdemeanor falsifications of business records under section 175.05. So Bragg would use one dead misdemeanor to trigger a second dead misdemeanor to create a felony on the simple notations used to describe payments for a completely legal nondisclosure agreement.

This circular reasoning is already incredibly creative, but the actual evidence used to propel this ball through the machine is even wackier. Bragg decided to start with a witness to discuss an affair that is not part of the indictment. David Pecker, former publisher of the National Enquirer tabloid, had supposedly been paid to kill a story of a Trump affair with a different woman, Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model. 

Pecker proceeded to make the prosecution case even more convoluted. On cross examination, Pecker admitted that had Trump told him that he knew nothing about any reimbursement to Cohen for any hush money, that he had killed or raised such stories with Trump for decades before he ever announced for president and that he had also killed stories for other celebrities and politicians, including Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tiger Woods, Rahm Emanuel and Mark Wahlberg.

He also testified that Trump told him that paying hush money never really worked because stories still get out. And he understood that Michael Cohen was working as Trump’s personal counsel, not his campaign counsel. Finally, he testified that Trump had no direct involvement in arranging any payments to McDougal.  

Mens bygningsarbejdere i New York råbte “We love Trump” legede Trump med tanken om at føre valgkamp i New York. New York er traditionelt så Demokratisk en bastion, at det er spild af ressourcer for en Republikansk kandidat, men Trump har lukket en imponerende stor del, af det hul han tabte staten til Hillay Clinton med i 2016. Der er først og fremmest et skyggetal, man kan hente ved de vælgere, der ikke motiveres til at komme op ad sofaen, når en valgkamp ikke giver dem håb.

Men der er også mulighed for, at Demokraternes retsforfølgelse af Trump i New York har givet en stor del af borgerne en afsmag over det eklatante magtmisbrug, der truer alle, der måtte vække magtens vrede. I debattens hede, kan man måske ønske politiske modstandere i fængsel, men den store del af befolkningen lægger først og fremmest vægt på, at loven gælder, for Loke, som for Thor. Hvis systemet er råddent, hedder kuren Trump og den er trods alt kun midlertidig, 4 år er hurtigt gået. Traditionelle Demokrater, som også Republikanere, vil ikke tages som stemmekvæg.

Trump er her i sit es, ulig nogen til at “læse rummet”, som Scott Adams pointerer. Han har ikke blot loddet, at folkestemningen er langt mere favorabel (hvor favorabel får vi at se) i forhold til hans chancer, men at kampen i New York vil være på hans præmisser. Han stiller direkte op imod den uretfærdighed, som flere Newyorkere er blevet forskrækket over.

Som flere forretningsmænd istemte, er New York blevet et farligt sted at gøre forretninger i, når bystyret summarisk kan konfiskere folks formuer, som det skete, da en anden statsanklager, Letitia James, besluttede at Trumps forretninger med Deutsche Bank, som begge parter ellers var glade for og ville gentage ved lejlighed, var et spørgsmål for almenheden. Så absurd var justitsmordet, at guvernøren offentligt lovede, at det ikke blev gældende retspraksis, men kun gjaldt Trump – og således bekræftede hun Trumps pointe, at det var et politisk attentat med retsvæsenet som våben. Det gør ingen trygge.

Mens Demokraterne således bruger det juridiske system til at fjerne Trump fra stemmesedlen og således berøve amerikanerne et regulært valg af deres egen præsident, svigter man almindelige borgeres krav på lov og orden. Da en tidligere marinesoldat pacificerede en psykisk syg mand med flere voldsdomme og seksuelle overgreb på samvittigheden, i undergrundstoget, blev han anklaget for drab med et racistisk motiv. Anklageren var Alvin Bragg, der dog frafaldt sagen efter et offentligt ramaskrig. I dag er sikkerheden i undergrundsbanen så langt ude af kontrol, at guvernøren har indsat regulære soldater til at passe på pendlerne.

Det er, som Adams siger, et perfekt billede på Trumps kamp mod et overlejret magtapparat, der ikke har hensynet til borgerne, som sin prioritet.

How much does his base love to see him taking offense? He’s gonna fill Madison Square Garden! Do you know what that’s gonna look like? He is gonna walk out of his little bullshit, fake, rigged lawsuit, he’s gonna go across the street and he is just going to rock the biggest arena!

Måske var det derfor, at Biden lod sig “interviewe” af radiolegenden Howard Stern, der ellers normalt forsøger at chokere. Som Mike Cernovich mindede om, så sexualiserede Stern Olson tvillingerne, da de kun var tretten år gamle og jokede med, at hvis han havde begået Columbine massakren, at han ville have sex med ofrene, før han skød dem. Men her kunne han lade gæste sørge for det chokerende.

Biden fortalte at han i sin tid som livredder, havde frelst mere end en håndfuld børn og unge fra den våde død, at han fik sjofle billeder fra kvinder da han var nyvalgt senator, som han videregav til Secret Service, at han, trods sin astma, var tæt ved at blive den mest scorende fodboldspiller i delstaten og at han som dreng blev anholdt fordi han protesterede imod segregering ved at sidde sammen med en sort familie på deres terrasse. Biden må have glemt det, da han senere blev senator, for han modarbejdede aktivt de-segregerings-politikken.