Refreshing the Charges Against trump

Oh, and in case you missed it - and you likely did because the New York Times didn't even put it on the front page like they did with Hillary's emails in 2016 /rage - Special Prosecutor Jack Smith re-indicted donald trump for his role in the January 6th insurrection.

David A Graham at the Atlantic has some of the details (paywalled):

When the Supreme Court ruled last month that presidents are immune from prosecution for anything done as an official act, many observers reacted with immediate horror. They warned that the ruling would allow future presidents to act as despots, doing whatever they like without fear of accountability. And in the immediate term, they predicted doom for the federal case against former President Donald Trump for attempting to subvert the 2020 election.

The effect of the ruling on future presidents will not be clear for some time. But Special Counsel Jack Smith, who is prosecuting Trump for the Justice Department, isn’t acting too rattled by the Supreme Court’s decision.

Smith obtained a superseding indictment today in the case against Trump, whom he had previously charged with four felonies. The new document is a little more concise and changes some language, but it keeps the same four felony charges and most of the same evidence. After taking a few weeks to review the Supreme Court ruling, Smith has apparently concluded that it doesn’t change much about his case at all.

Roberts and his conservative buddies on SCOTUS can try to warp reality all they want, but what trump did was criminal and by GOD he needs to answer for it.

In addition to some slight rephrasing here and there, Smith makes two notable changes. First, he takes out all references to Trump’s attempt to involve the Justice Department in his subversion. Trump, who has spent much of his current presidential campaign warning about the “weaponization” of the federal government, attempted just that as he sought to stay in office. The then-president asked the department to issue a letter saying the election was corrupt and then “leave the rest to me and the R[epublican] Congressmen,” according to meeting notes taken by a DOJ official. One of Trump’s confederates was Jeffrey Clark, a Justice Department official whom Trump tried to install as acting attorney general to further the scheme, before fierce resistance from DOJ and White House lawyers stayed his hand.

But the Supreme Court ruled that “because the President cannot be prosecuted for conduct within his exclusive constitutional authority, Trump is absolutely immune from prosecution for the alleged conduct involving his discussions with Justice Department officials.” The superseding indictment thus takes out references to Trump’s conversations with these officials. It removes Clark from a list of co-conspirators. And it deletes a section of the initial indictment that explained how Trump tried to enlist the department to help solicit slates of false electors from states.

The fact that Smith and his team were able to re-indict trump to basically the same four charges underscores just how much dirt they still have on trump that the Supreme Court can't wash away (for now).

If I can refer to Marcy Wheeler at Emptywheel to get her take on this:

Altogether, the changes incorporate not just SCOTUS’ immunity decision, but also the DC Circuit’s Blassingame decision deeming actions taken as a candidate for office are private acts, and SCOTUS’ Fischer decision limiting the use of 18 USC 1512(c)(2) to evidentiary issues.

The logic of Blassingame is why Jack Smith included these paragraphs describing that Trump and Pence were acting as candidates.

1. The Defendant, DONALD J. TRUMP, was a candidate for President of the United States in 2020. He lost the 2020 presidential election.

[snip]

5. In furtherance of these conspiracies, the Defendant tried–but failed–to enlist the Vice President, who was also the Defendant’s running mate and, by virtue of the Constitution, the President of the Senate, who plays a ceremonial role in the January 6 certification proceeding.

As I’ve said repeatedly, it’s not clear that adopting the Blassingame rubric will work for SCOTUS, even though they did nothing to contest this rubric...

The decision to supersede this indictment may have turned what could have been an immediate dispute about the viability of the indictment at all into an evidentiary dispute to be managed later...

At the very least, Jack Smith suggests he has something viable on which to arraign Trump (and Trump’s Xitter wails treating this as a real indictment suggest he may believe that)...

This should serve - again - as a reminder to the general American voting public that trump is dangerous, that he's not pursuing the presidency for some lofty purpose: trump is running for President to keep his orange ass out of jail. It's not only the criminal charges trump is still facing - not only in DC but also in South Florida as Smith appeals to the appellate level to reinstate the classified documents case Cannon dismissed, and in Georgia with the state fake electors case - but also the criminal matter in Manhattan where he sits with 34 jury-confirmed felonies (with the presiding judge ruling mid-September on what happens next).

And those are the criminal charges and convictions. trump's civil trials found him liable for business fraud, defamation, and sexual assault (that the judge rose to the level of rape).

We've never had a major national party stoop so low as to have a convicted felon and confirmed sex offender like trump running for the highest office in the land (remember, Debs was a minor party candidate who never had a chance).

Every registered voter in America needs to understand how horrifying and criminal that is, and make certain that trump never gets within 100 miles of the White House again.

For the LOVE OF GOD AND JUSTICE, America, STOP VOTING trump.