I think you'll now see many voters swinging toward Trump as vengenance against Biden who supports or at least complicit to attrocities in Gaza.
Jack Smith Keeps Telegraphing Some Seriously Scandalous Trump Crimes https://www.thedailybeast.com/jack-smith-keeps-telegraphing-some-seriously-scandalous-trump-crimes Did Donald Trump accept a bribe? Order his FBI director to fake evidence? Tell the National Guard to kill critics? Sell nuclear secrets? Jack Smith is being awfully suggestive. As Special Counsel Jack Smith makes the case that former President Donald Trump shouldn’t have vast immunity to commit crimes, Smith has compiled a very curious list of theoretical misdeeds that seem to telegraph potential bombshells at his upcoming D.C. trial. Accepting a bribe, ordering an FBI director to fake evidence against a political foe, ordering the military to murder critics, and even selling nuclear secrets to a foreign enemy—these are the particular and peculiar crimes that prosecutors say Trump could get away with if he succeeds in arguing that presidential immunity gives him king-like powers to do as he pleases from the White House. Again, theoretically, of course. “In each of these scenarios, the president could assert that he was simply executing the laws; or communicating with the Department of Justice; or discharging his powers as commander-in-chief; or engaging in foreign diplomacy,” prosecutors wrote to appellate judges on Saturday. They used nearly identical phrasing in a court filing to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan in October. The billionaire and the special prosecutor are currently battling ahead of a criminal trial in the nation’s capital, tentatively scheduled to begin in March on the eve of Super Tuesday. Trump is desperately trying to delay it, with his lawyers openly complaining that the trial could interrupt his presidential campaign at the height of the state primary elections. Meanwhile, Smith wants to start it as soon as possible, something that would allow GOP voters choosing their top Republican candidate to see federal prosecutors finally lay out their evidence that Trump broke the law by trying to overturn the 2020 election. But D.C. appellate judges must first consider key issues, including whether Trump can effectively render himself immune from criminal prosecution by justifying everything he did as an official presidential act. That’s what has Smith’s prosecutors warning that Trump’s delusions of invulnerability pose a danger to the fate of the republic. “The implications of the defendant’s broad immunity theory are sobering. In his view, a court should treat a President’s criminal conduct as immune from prosecution as long as it takes the form of correspondence with a state official about a matter in which there is a federal interest, a meeting with a member of the executive branch, or a statement on a matter of public concern,” they wrote on Saturday. Over the weekend, the usual legal commentators who weigh in on MAGA madness zeroed in on Smith’s bizarre examples of specific scandals. “Interesting choice of hypotheticals…” tweeted the lawyer George Conway, whose ex-wife Kellyanne Conway long served as a Trump political adviser. “It took quite an imagination,” he later added, sarcastically. Smith’s prosecution team has been incredibly tight-lipped in the run-up to trial, forcing journalists to rely almost entirely on the steady stream of court documents in the case—but leaving the curious crowd of onlookers reading the tea leaves and trying to make sense of hints and innuendo. Some found it humorous when the D.C. indictment charging the 45th American president ran 45 pages. This time around, the peanut gallery swears Smith is telegraphing his case. Former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti, who co-hosts the It’s Complicated legal podcast, drew his followers’ attention to Smith’s warning that blanket immunity would spare any president “who instructs the FBI Director to plant incriminating evidence on a political enemy [or] a president who orders the National Guard to murder his most prominent critics.” Trump’s attorneys have previously shrugged off any notion that these theoretical crimes are rooted in reality. The last time prosecutors floated these ideas, defense lawyers Todd Blanche and John F. Lauro ripped into Smith’s team for even venturing into that zone. “Ignoring actual lessons from history, the government provides a list of lurid hypotheticals that have never happened—including treason and murder,” they wrote in a Oct. 26 court filing. They also tried to make a legal distinction between Smith’s examples and whatever Trump actually did, doubling down on their theory that the billionaire was acting in his official capacity when he told Georgia’s top elections official to “find” 11,780 non-existent votes, attempted to employ fake electors, and tried to pressure his vice president to interrupt certification of the election results. But in distinguishing between Smith’s examples and Trump’s actions, defense lawyers also cornered themselves—making clear that if Trump actually did any of Smith’s “lurid” hypotheticals, there’s no way his official position would save him. “Some or all of these hypotheticals, depending on the facts, would likely involve purely private conduct, rendering them irrelevant here,” they wrote. The fate of the trial is now in the hands of Judges J. Michelle Childs, Karen LeCraft Henderson, and Florence Y. Pan. The judges haven’t heard oral arguments yet, but they gave some indication on Tuesday that they plan to explore whether they might just kick the case right back to the trial judge—or force Smith off the case entirely. In an extremely brief order on Tuesday, the judges advised that “counsel be prepared to address” what they called “discrete issues” raised in court filings by third parties. So far, that only includes an argument made by the government watchdog nonprofit American Oversight that Trump’s supposed immunity isn’t even an appellate issue before the trial takes place—and an argument by five former officials in Republican administrations that giving Trump the blanket immunity he desires would "unleash a future president" into becoming a dictator who could "deploy the military in efforts to alter the results of a presidential election." Smith’s prosecutors and Trump’s defense team are scheduled to argue in court next Tuesday.
Trump’s odd Jan. 6 defense: It was the Russian interference After years of mocking intel that showed Russia meddled, now his defense cites it https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/01/02/trumps-odd-jan-6-defense-it-was-the-russian-interference/
Because Nothing screams 'I'm innocent' like demanding immunity and threatening the other guy Trump Claims He’s ‘Entitled’ To Full Immunity In Frantic Post Threatening Biden https://dailyboulder.com/trump-claims-hes-entitled-to-immunity-in-frantic-post-threatening-biden/
I expect the judge will slap down this nonsense quickly. Trump wants Georgia election subversion case dismissed, arguing he has presidential immunity https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/08/politics/trump-fulton-county-georgia-immunity/index.html Former President Donald Trump is seeking to have the sweeping criminal conspiracy case against him in Georgia thrown out by arguing he is protected from prosecution under presidential immunity. Trump’s immunity claims in the Georgia case, filed on Monday as part of a motion to dismiss state-level criminal charges against the former president, are similar to those argued by his defense team in the federal election subversion case. “The indictment in this case charges President Trump for acts that lie at the heart of his official responsibilities as President. The indictment is barred by presidential immunity and should be dismissed with prejudice,” the motion filed by Trump’s lawyer in the Georgia case reads. Monday’s filing in the Georgia case reiterates what the former president’s lawyers have repeatedly asserted – that Trump was working in his official capacity as president when he allegedly undermined the 2020 election results and therefore has immunity. Trump’s attorney argues that the specific acts in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ indictment “lie squarely within the ‘outer perimeter’ of the President’s official duties.” This includes Trump’s public statements about the administration of the 2020 election, communicating with the Justice Department about investigations related to the election and “urging the Vice President and Members of Congress to exercise their official responsibilities consistent with the President’s view of the public good.” “Organizing slates of electors in furtherance of that effort to have Congress exercise its responsibilities falls within the President’s official duties as well,” Trump’s lawyer argues. As such, Trump’s indictment in both the Georgia and federal case are unconstitutional because presidents cannot be criminally prosecuted for “official acts” unless they are impeached and convicted by the US Senate. Steve Sadow, lead counsel for Trump in the Fulton County case, also noted in a statement they previously sought to dismiss the case on First Amendment grounds, which the courts haven’t yet decided. On Tuesday, the DC US Circuit Court of Appeals will hear arguments by attorneys for Trump and special counsel Jack Smith over the same two claims of immunity, a hearing Trump himself is set to attend. Monday is the deadline for pre-trial motions to be filed in the sprawling Georgia racketeering case against Trump and the remaining co-defendants accused of helping the former president try to overturn the 2020’s election results in the state. Fulton County prosecutors said they want the trial to begin in early August 2024, which could potentially be directly in the middle of Trump’s presidential election campaign if he wins the Republican nomination. Supremacy clause arguments Trump’s legal team is invoking the supremacy clause of the US Constitution to try to shield him from criminal prosecution in Georgia. In court filings, Trump’s team argues the state-level justice system can’t interfere with federal duties. This argument, if successful, could further expand the protections around the presidency, even more so than what Trump argues related to protections he believes he should have under presidential immunity. “The Supreme Court has held that states cannot use their criminal law to interfere with actions that are inseparably connected to the functioning of the national government. There can be no doubt that the election of the President of the United States is so connected to the function of the national government,” his attorneys wrote. Trump’s legal team also filed a motion to dismiss the charges against him on double jeopardy grounds, saying that the indictment should be dismissed because he was already impeached and tried in the Senate, where he was acquitted for his role in the January 6, 2021, riots. ‘Lacked fair notice’ of possible criminal activity In addition, Trump’s lawyers argue the Georgia case should be dismissed on due process grounds, claiming the former president “lacked fair notice” that his baseless claims about widespread election fraud could be criminalized. “Our country has a longstanding tradition of forceful political advocacy regarding widespread allegations of fraud and irregularities in a long list of Presidential elections throughout our history, therefore, President Trump lacked fair notice that his advocacy in the instance of the 2020 Presidential Election could be criminalized,” Trump’s lawyers write. “Due process bars courts from applying a novel construction of a criminal statute to conduct that neither the statute nor any prior judicial decision has fairly disclosed to be within its scope,” they add.