The case of Donald J. Smith: The prosecution of a seditious campaign to keep the Trump campaign from revealing a fraudulent election campaign
Smith is pursuing Trump and six other people for allegedly being involved in criminal schemes that reached the highest level of American government. This is the case that, if successful, can once and for all strip Trump of any pretense of good faith or good will. But make no mistake, the outcome of this case is uncertain for exactly the reason it’s so important: So very much of the case depends on Trump’s state of mind.
The former president now faces legal peril in three criminal cases — following March’s indictment on 34 counts of falsifying business records and June’s indictment on 37 counts of mishandling classified documents. Trump has pleaded not guilty in both cases.
In the weeks immediately after the 2020 election, the legal system was put on defensive, repelling claims that were designed to reverse the election results. The legal system switched from defense to offense after the violent insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021. The charges against the foot soldiers of Trump were brought quickly. Next, prosecutors pursued the organizers of Trumpist right-wing militias, the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, who had engaged in a seditious conspiracy to keep Trump in the White House.
Donald Trump refused to acknowledge the results after he claimed on election night that the election was being stolen and that he was the winner.
In the weeks following the election, the Trump campaign filed dozens of lawsuits in the states where they lost. Courts repeatedly rejected the Trump team’s election fraud claims.
Instead, he continued to push his false claims of fraud and raise money off them. Between the Election Day and the 6th of January, 2020, Trump raised more than $250 million.
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.
The man is trying to retain his law license. The State Bar of California opened a case against him in June, which alleges that he knowingly and willfully pushed false allegations of voter fraud during the 2020 election.
There was a fake-elector scheme being done by Trump advisers and they were trying to push Republican officials in states like Arizona, Wisconsin and Georgia to put up alternate electors even though Biden had won those states.
But as Congress was meeting on Capitol Hill, Trump was hosting a rally down by the White House. He told the crowd to fight and march to Congress and repeated his claims of election fraud.
Thousands of Trump supporters did just that. They marched from the Ellipse to the Capitol, where they fought through police lines, stormed the Capitol and sent lawmakers fleeing for safety.
The Justice Department launched one of their largest investigations in history to find the people who broke into the Capitol and attempt to hold them accountable. So far, more than 1,000 people have been arrested in connection with the attack.
Tuesday’s unsealed indictment lays out a case against Trump and those around him as he scrambled to try to hold on to power even after losing the 2020 presidential election by 74 votes in the Electoral College and more than 7 million in the popular vote.
The president has several criminal charges in two other cases. His alleged withholding of classified documents and the accounting of hush money payments in New York are both factors that can be used to calculate one in Florida.
According to court documents, a federal grand jury indicted Donald Trump on Tuesday for allegedly trying to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Analyzing the cases of Jan. 6 rioters against a prosecuting former assistant public defender and a U.S. attorney general
“Chutkan, a former assistant public defender nominated to the bench by Obama, has taken the hardest line against Jan. 6 defendants and is handling more than 800 cases thus far,” the AP wrote.
According to The Associated Press, Chutkan stood out for her tough punishment for Jan. 6 rioters. 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.
Elsewhere, investigations into election interference are ongoing. There’s a Democratic attorney general in Arizona investigating the 2020 fake electors, as well as a Georgia prosecutor preparing to announce her charges in an investigation into attempts by Trump and his allies to overturn the election there.
Six people are labeled as co-conspirators in the indictment. They are given individual numbers and potentially identifying traits but they are not identified by name in the court document.
Tobias noted that prosecutors used this charge especially during the Civil Rights era to prosecute those who intimidated and terrorized Black voters at that time as well.
This law was part of the Enforcement Act, passed between 1868 and 1870, and “served as the basis for federal activism in prosecuting corruption of the franchise until most of them were repealed in the 1890s,” according to the Justice Department.
A Justice Department investigation into the attack on our Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021: Special Counsel Matthew DePerno for the Michigan attorney general charged with unlawful access to voting machines
The Justice Department is conducting a long and complex investigation into the events of Jan. 6, 2021.
Matthew DePerno — 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 arraigned Tuesday on state charges for an alleged effort to unlawfully gain access to voting machines.
It works. Donald Trump had just 43% of the vote in Republican polling in March according to a RealClearPolitics average. On the day that he was charged he had his numbers jump to 50%.
Trump conditioned his supporters to rally around him after two impeachments, three indictments and a lot of scandals.
NPR White House correspondent Franco Ordoez pointed out in an interview with All Things Considered that the attacks from Trump and his supporters are looking at the process rather than substance.
Their descriptions are similar to those of people who could be of interest, such as former Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman, and former DOJ attorney Jeffrey Clark.
Some are attorneys who helped promote bogus election fraud claims. Co-conspirator 3 is described as an attorney who privately acknowledged that the unfounded election fraud claims were “crazy.” A Justice Department official who worked on civil matters attempted to open sham election crime investigations in an effort to influence state Legislatures.
Trump is the only one charged in this indictment, and he is the only one who is guilty. The document gives some clues about who else might face charges.
“The attack on our nation’s Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy,” said the special counsel in a short statement before reporters. “As described in the indictment, it was fueled by lies. The lie was aimed at obstructing the US government’s bedrock function.
Source: 5 things to know about the latest charges against Donald Trump
Trump’s 3rd indictment: U.S. loses AAA rating; heat and the brain (and his case for the White House)
Trump, who has been summoned to appear in court on Thursday, is still the leading candidate in the Republican primary race. As he makes his case for the White House, we could be hearing about his trial as he makes his case.
People are taught to fight with weapons on an island far from the front lines of the war in Ukraine. The 17th-century warriors are revered in Ukraine for their insistence on freedom and self-governance. See photos of their training facilities and traditional weapons, and hear their complex history.
The next time you have a brain fart, blame it on the heat. Studies have shown that higher temps can have a variety of effects on cognitive performance, from making us angry to slowing down reaction times.
The family of Lacks has settled with the company that used his cells without his consent. Lacks was being treated for cancer in the 1950s when it was discovered that she did not know her cancer cells had been taken. The cells are believed to have played a role in making scientific discoveries like the development of 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
Up First: A podcast for the ups and downs of the U.S. government in the wake of the AA+ cut-off
Fitch Ratings, one of the nation’s big credit watchdogs, downgraded the federal government’s AAA rating to AA+ yesterday, citing a “steady deterioration in standards of governance.” The move comes two months after Washington dodged a potentially disastrous federal debt default.
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