I really think this is the strategy. It starts with falling back on the 1st Amendment protection and ends with the idea that if questioning the results of a national election is a crime, it shouldn’t be in the Great USA! This has a small, but real, chance of working on this Election Interference case, but it spreads to all the other cases.
Trump’s only hope of clearing all of these charges is a Presidential pardon (yeah, I know, Georgia). The above strategy lays the groundwork for justifying the pardon. So, if a Republican wins 2024 election, the road is paved to get the pardon granted. With a Presidential pardon, convincing the Republican-heavy pardon board in Georgia isn’t going to be too tough, particularly if you have enough money.
The problem with this strategy is that, in effect, it stipulates that Trump knew the election wasn’t stolen. By not providing evidence that Trump truly believed it was stolen (which I don’t see unless Trump and/or his toadies takes the stand to testify, which isn’t going to happen), he runs the risk of losing his base, as they are so heavily invested in the stolen election narrative. The Big Lie is what justifies Jan 6, restrictive election laws, and unwavering support for Trump. If the Big Lie turns out to be, well, just another lie, it all falls apart.
And there’s also the factor that Trump won’t give two shits about causing a crisis of State vs. Federal government powers. So even if Georgia convicts him, he’ll have no problems telling them to get bent. What is Georgia going to do? Invade Washington?
Exactly this. Somebody who thought they legitimately won an election doesn’t go around inciting a mob to “fight like hell” to help them overturn it, or try to pressure a secretary of state to “just find” 11,000 votes. There are legitimate avenues for identifying fraud and adjusting vote counts. They weren’t pursued because there was no fraud to identify. The court cases that were brought on Trump’s behalf were so laughably inept that it got lawyers in trouble.
But, isn’t there the option of appealing to 1 juror? Once he gets a mistrial, and is elected, can he instruct DoJ to cease all prosecutions against himself?
Something else I’m hearing in the background is an attempt to plant doubts about the Electoral Count Act. Sure, it may have been a minor (according to Eastman) violation of the ECA to suggest a pause, but shouldn’t the law allow for one? I mean, since people were Asking Questions about the Biden electors, surely it was more important to Get It Right than to follow every little crossed-t and dotted-i in the law, right? And since that’s obviously the case, you really can’t blame President Trump for putting the needs of the country ahead of legal nitpicks.
Or perhaps I’m imagining things. In any case, I’m reasonably certain that this judge would put the kibosh on that sort of argument toot sweet in the jury instructions (in the unlikely event that the prosecution hadn’t already torn it to shreds).
As for Lauro v Pence, I have no trouble accepting both statements — that Trump asked Pence to throw out the Biden electors and pause the proceedings.
On the right, it makes sense because they’re pretending that the false electors scheme doesn’t exist. It’s all about Jan 6 and whether Trump convinced the people to attack Congress.
On the left, it doesn’t make sense and yet nearly every headline that I see from a mainstream newspaper seems to be just as concerned about “proving” that Trump caused Jan 6, and that that’s the primary complaint.
I’m not sure why that latter proclivity exists.
My theories would be that either:
Trump’s team successfully got the media onto the wrong track by talking about “first amendment issues”, accepting interview requests to talk about it, and leaked information relative to that talking point. Basically, the mainstream media are idiots that are easily coaxed into helping Trump and giving him free advertising (again).
Getting Trump invalidated from office by the 14th Amendment is such an imperative for the left that they’ve all mentally banked entirely on showing that Jan 6 was an attempted insurrection that they’ve simply gotten themselves lost from what the actual story is.
In either case, the issue is the false electors scheme. Smith might be able to use the Jan 6 events as part of a portrait of trying to delay, stop, or hijack the counting but it’s not really a central element of that.
IIRC, Georgia doesn’t pardon people in a “get out of jail free” sense. It’s more a “your conviction is expunged from the record AFTER you’ve served out your sentence” deal.
And there were dozens upon dozens who were saying his schemes were not legal at all. He just chose to ignore them because that’s not what he wanted to hear.
Just because I can find a doctor who will tel me that horse de-wormer kills Covid doesn’t make it a true and medically accepted fact. Neither does finding a lawyer who will tell you what you want to be true and legal automatically make it true and legal.
No, it really does not matter if Trump had a genuine belief or not. What matters is if his actions show that he conspired to commit a criminal act. I could genuinely believe that a bank has ripped me off. I still cannot rob it to “get my money back”
