Trump’s 3rd indictment resulted in the U.S. losing a top-notch rating
The 2020 Presidential Insurrection: Donald Trump’s Legal Warfare Against a False-Electoral-Elector Scheme
At last. The criminal justice system in the US is going to legal war against a dishonest and damaging conspiracy. The special counsel Jack Smith brought the indictment against Donald Trump on Tuesday due to the attempt to overthrow the results of the American presidential election.
The indictments against the former president on 34 counts of faking business records and 37 counts of mishandling classified documents mean he faces a lot of legal trouble in the future. Trump has denied the charges in both cases.
In the weeks after the 2020 election, the legal system was in a defensive crouch, repelling an onslaught of patently frivolous claims designed to reverse the election results. In the months and years since the violent insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, the legal system has switched from defense to offense. The charges against the foot soldiers were brought with deliberate speed. Prosecutors pursued the organizers of Trumpist militias who were involved in a conspiracy to keep Trump in the White House.
At the time, Trump didn’t acknowledge what his advisers were telling him. There was no evidence of widespread fraud that would change the election’s outcome.
In the weeks following the election, Trump’s campaign pursued dozens of lawsuits in states where Trump lost. Courts rejected the Trump team’s election fraud claims many times.
He kept pushing his false claims and trying to raise money to repay them. According to the House Jan. 6 Committee, Trump raised nearly $250 million between Election Day and Jan. 6, 2021.
Trump, leaning on legal theories proposed by outside attorney John Eastman, wanted Pence to refuse to count certain Electoral College votes — a theory that Pence rejected as unconstitutional.
Eastman is currently fighting to retain his law license. The State Bar of California opened a case against him in June and has argued that Eastman knowingly and willfully pushed false allegations of voter fraud during the 2020 election.
Republican officials in some states were pushed to put forward alternate electors even though Biden won those states, because Trump advisers were trying to create a fake-elector scheme.
Trump had a rally next to the White House while Congress met on Capitol Hill. In a long, rambling speech, he repeated his claims of election fraud and told the crowd to “fight like hell” and march to Congress.
Thousands of Trump supporters did just that. They fought their way to the Capitol, where they raided the building and sent people fleeing for safety.
The Justice Department began a nationwide investigation to find the people who broke into the Capitol and to hold them accountable. So far, more than 1,000 people have been arrested in connection with the attack.
Even before the indictment was unsealed, Trump and his allies were actively working to control the narrative, calling this a sham indictment and accusing the Biden administration of trying to interfere with the 2024 election.
A number of legal troubles are likely to loom over next year’s presidential election because of Tuesday’s development. Trump is the front-runner for the Republican nomination. He also faces separate federal charges over allegedly obstructing an investigation into classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida resort.
According to court documents, a federal grand jury indicted former President Donald Trump on Tuesday on four counts related to his failed attempts to change the result of the presidential election.
The Associated Press and the U.S. Attorney’s Office: The Chutkan Indictment as Political Persecusion
Chutkan, the former public defender who was nominated to the bench by President Barack Obama, has been handling more than 800 cases so far and has taken the hardest line against defendants on January 6.
The punishment Chutkan got for the rioters stood out to The Associated Press. In at least seven cases examined by the AP, Chutkan imposed harsher penalties than what federal prosecutors sought for those rioters.
In this case, Trump is also facing a serious Washington, D.C., federal judge with years of experience, Tobias said. The case has been assigned to a judge.
On Truth Social, Trump said a “Fake Indictment” was evidence of prosecutorial wrongdoing. His campaign issued a statement and fund-raising pitch regarding election interference. And his Republican allies in Congress — plus even some of his GOP primary foes — cast the indictment as political persecution at the hands of the Biden administration.
The case has more people in it than the ones brought so far in New York and Florida.
During the Civil Rights era prosecutors used this charge to prosecute people who intimidated and harassed Black voters.
After the Civil War, it was passed to prevent members of the Ku Klux Klan and other groups from intimidating and harassing Black voters in the South.
Why Donald Trump is indicted with state crimes? All Things Considered on the January 6, 2021 assault of our nation’s Capitol
The Justice Department’s investigation into the events of January 6, 2021, is not happening with any of these investigations.
The most recent Republican nominee for Michigan attorney general, who worked with Trump’s team to try to contest his 2020 loss in the state, was charged on Tuesday with state crimes for trying to gain access to voting machines.
And it works. In March, several weeks before the first indictment, Trump had just 43% of the vote in Republican polling, according to a RealClearPolitics average. But a day after he was charged in a hush-money scheme to an adult film actress, his numbers had jumped to 50%.
After two impeachments and three indictments, Trump conditioned his supporters to view each accusation against him as a reason to support him.
But as NPR White House correspondent Franco Ordoñez pointed out in an interview with All Things Considered, the attacks from Trump and his supporters are focusing on the process — not so much the substance.
It is reasonable to deduce that they are related to former DOJ attorney Jeffrey Clark and former Trump lawyers Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani.
Some are attorneys who helped promote bogus election fraud claims. The co-conspirator 3 acknowledged that the election fraud claims were crazy. A Justice Department official worked on civil matters and tried to use the DOJ to open election crime investigations and influence state legislatures.
This newest indictment only has Trump as a suspect, he is the only one who is charged. But the court document scatters some clues for the future in terms of who else might potentially face charges.
The attack on our nation’s Capitol on January 6th of 2021, was an unprecedented assault on American democracy according to the statement by the special counsel. It was fueled by lies, as described in the indictment. Lies by the defendant, targeted at obstructing a bedrock function of the U.S. government.”
U.S. loses $AA$ rating; the brain extreme heat: A brief note on Trump’s 3rd indictment
The leading candidate in the Republican primary race is still Donald Trump. If he pleads not guilty, we could be hearing about his trial as he makes his case for the presidency.
A family in a wild island that is close to the front of the war in Ukraine keeps their Zaporizhzhian Cossacks traditions by using bare hands and swords to fight. The 17th-century warriors are revered in Ukraine for their insistence on freedom and self-governance. Take a look at photos of their training facilities and traditional weapons.
It’s a good idea to blame a brain fart on the heat. Multiple studies have suggested that higher temps can have multiple effects on our cognitive performance, from slowing down reaction times and lowering productivity to making us moody and irritable.
Henrietta Lacks’ family has settled with the biotech company it says used cells taken without Lacks’ consent more than 70 years ago. Lacks was being treated for cancer in the 1950s when Johns Hopkins University doctors took cells from a tumor without her knowledge. The cells have played a role in scientific breakthroughs like the development of polio and COVID-19 vaccines. Her descendants say she and other Black women were never compensated for their genetic material.
Source: Up First briefing: Trump’s 3rd indictment; U.S. loses AAA rating; heat and the brain
The Breakdown of the Low-Cost Fading-Federal-Gauge-Government Debt Paradigm
Yesterday, the federal government’s rating was cut by one notch, from AA+ to AA-, due to a decrease in standards of governance. The move came two months after Washington averted a major federal debt default.
It is a good morning. You are reading the newsletter. You can get it delivered to your inbox or listen to the Up First show if you want the latest news to start your day.
