An Empirical Analysis of the Donald Trump Indictment: A Disgrace for the Prosecutorial Function and How to Focus it on the 2020 Election
Republican lawmakers and former elected officials have spoken out about former President Donald Trump’s historic indictment, many of them dismissing the allegations of misconduct as politically motivated.
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush: Bush defended Trump, calling the the Manhattan grand jury indictment “very political” and “not a matter of justice” in a tweet Saturday morning.
Former Attorney General Bill Barr: Barr, who served as attorney general under the Trump administration before stepping down over the former president’s election lies, called the indictment a “political hit job,” arguing that it’s a “weak case.”
Bush called for a Republican to challenge Trump in his bid for reelection in 2020. Trump lobbed insults at Bush on multiple occasions during the 2016 Republican primary before Bush suspended his campaign. The former governor said he would not vote for Trump.
Youngkin spoke Friday and called for the US to put politics down, instead of commenting on national narratives.
Murkowski told CNN not to rush to individual judgement on the Trump indictment before seeing the evidence.
I am keeping an eye on Donald Trump’s legal situation. No one is above the law in this country, but everyone deserves a fair legal process. She wrote that the indictment of a former President is “unprecedented and must be handled with the highest integrity and scrutiny.” “Instead of rushing to individual judgment, we must also evaluate the evidence as it becomes available and use it to inform our opinions and statements about what is actually happening.”
“It’s the archetypal abuse of the prosecutorial function,” Barr said at the National Review Institute summit held in Washington, DC. If it turns out that it’s something we believe it to be, it will be a disgrace.
He believed it would be damaging to the Republican Party. He called it a “no-lose situation” for Democrats, allowing them to focus the run-up to the 2024 election on Trump, either handing him the nomination or leaving the eventual nominee with another scandal to deal with.
CNN View of the Manhattan Case: A Brief History of a New York City-Boundary-Centric Stupidity Trial by Donald W. Honig
This weekly column is a newsletter and you should sign up to get it. We are looking at the best, smartest opinion takes of the week from CNN.
A graduate of the Ivy League, in his mid-20s, rented a studio apartment in New York City. The window looked out on an adjoining building’s water tank.
“I … tried to divide it up so that it would seem bigger. But no matter what I did, it was still a dark, dingy little apartment. Even so, I loved it,” wrote former President Donald Trump in his 1987 book, “The Art of the Deal,” co-authored with Tony Schwartz. “You have to understand; I was a kid from Queens who worked in Brooklyn, and suddenly I had an apartment on the Upper East Side. … I became a city guy and not a kid from the boroughs.
He was the first New Yorker since Roosevelt to make it to the White House. The Manhattan saga could be over by Tuesday a fewmiles from where it started, when he is due to appear in a downtown courtroom to face charges.
There isn’t a precedent for the latest chapter of the former president’s story, and no way to tell how it will end.
“It should be evident that no one is above the law, and that Trump should be held accountable for his actions in the way that any other citizen would be. The charge are the first step in the journey towards accountability.
Rodgers pointed out that if Trump is elected president in 2024, he will argue that the case against him needs to be dismissed based on Justice Department guidance that a president cannot be indicted. While in the office.
The first hurdle for the Manhattan District Attorney is to get a motion by Trump to have the charges thrown out. But even if he succeeds there, his prosecutors have to convince 12 jurors to vote unanimously to convict.
“Even if a case was tried in a part of the country where Trump isn’t very popular, statistically you are very likely to end up with one or more Trump voters on the jury of 12 people,” said Honig. I know from my days as a prosecutor that jurors are, in fact, human beings and they have the same emotions, biases, and incentives as any person would. And the legal bar at trial is far higher than in the grand jury…”
In the political arena, it’s possible that Trump not only survived but also thrived, wrote Zelizer. Trump’s political career is built on punching back against the people and institutions that are unfairly attacking him, he has an instinct for using moments of peril to his advantage. He has fallen back on a famous strategy of pretending to be the victim of a corrupt establishment in order to rally his supporters behind him.
“It must be said that of all the legal troubles Trump faces, the indictment in New York appears to pale in comparison to others, such as the potential racketeering and conspiracy charges Atlanta-area prosecutors are considering in connection to the attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.”
In the Washington Post, Henry Olsen wrote, “Anyone who cares about fairness in our criminal justice system should be queasy that Donald Trump will be prosecuted in one of the country’s most liberal jurisdictions. The case should be a federal one.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/02/opinions/trumps-manhattan-story-opinion-column-galant/index.html
The Case for an Involuntary Manslaughter at The Covenant School: Why the U.S. Department of Interior and Public Works have a Right to Investigate the Case
A week after a school shooting in Tennessee, people were still upset over the deaths of seven people at The Covenant School.
JAMES and JENNIFER RQURY, who have pleaded not guilty, allegedly neglected cries for Help from their son for months and dismissed serious concerns from the school the day before and the morning of the shooting. The crumbleys apparently ignored warning signs and went ahead and bought a gun for their son. Fifteen at the time of the mass shooting, their son pleaded guilty in October to terrorism and murder charges.”
The question of how to prevent shootings is raised by this. And they argued that on this front, there is a positive development — a move to hold parents accountable in certain cases:
“The parents of a teenager who shot and killed four students at Oxford High School in Michigan in November 2021 are set to stand trial for involuntary manslaughter after an appellate court last week rejected their contention that the charges have no legal justification,” Peterson and Densely observed.
The White House democracy summit was hosted by Costa Rica and the Netherlands, as well as South Korea and Zambia.
The premise of the summit is somewhat hollow because the Biden administration did an outstanding job of trumpeting its commitments to democracy and women’s rights, but abandoned 40 million Afghans to the Taliban just a year and a half ago.
There is a congressionally mandated bipartisan commission examining the entire 20 year war in Afghanistan, and House Republicans are investigating the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. “Of course, any examination of the US record in Afghanistan is something of a double-edged sword for Republicans,” Bergen noted, “since it was the Trump administration that signed the agreement with the Taliban in 2020 that set the stage for the total US withdrawal from Afghanistan.”
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/02/opinions/trumps-manhattan-story-opinion-column-galant/index.html
New Zealand’s Love Better Campaign: Fixing Social Media in the Wake of a Demonstration and the Israeli Insurrection
“It might seem an arcane issue to trigger a massive popular uprising, but Israelis promptly concluded their democracy was at stake, and what followed was one of the most far-reaching, disciplined and determined waves of protests inside a democratic country in recent memory.”
“On Monday, under nearly unbearable pressure, Netanyahu agreed to postpone the overhaul -— which was being rammed through the Knesset — until the next legislative term. The crisis, however, is not over.”
Breakups are bad. New Zealand is conducting a campaign that will help people deal with relationships that have ended. Holly Thomas said that their behavior doesn’t have to follow suit.
“The nation’s Love Better campaign … aims to help young people recover from breakups and build resilience. The campaign includes a dedicated phone, text or email helpline run by Youthline, an organization dedicated to supporting people ages 12 to 24.”
A survey of 1,200 16-22-year-olds, who reported experiences ranging from self- harm, substance abuse, risky sexual behaviors, and violence after rejection, was part of a broader strategy to eliminate family and sexual violence. It’s wild that campaigns like this aren’t common in other countries. It would improve our mental health. At most, it might save lives.”
Is Utah doing enough to fix social media? Kara Alaimo thinks so. Social Media companies have to verify the ages of users in the state, and children under the age of 18 have to get permission from their parents to have accounts.
Children ads, and accounts for kids without parental permission, will not be allowed between 10:30pm and 6:30am.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/02/opinions/trumps-manhattan-story-opinion-column-galant/index.html
Kirby, the King of Comics, and the Rise of the Nazis in the 1930s and the era of the invasion of Germany by the West
It will be gratifying to Moscow when they discover how Putin’s words have been spun in the West. Russia has already used nuclear weapons. They were used to deter the west from supporting Ukraine against Russia by trading on empty threats about nuclear strikes.
A year before the US entered World War II, a gutsy artist and his writing colleague introduced a new superhero, with the debut cover of the new comic showing him punching the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.
Schwartz wrote that Kirby’s son said “he was fearful and furious at the rise of Nazism in Europe and the US, especially after (British prime minister Neville) There was appeasement and Kristallnacht. Kirby made clear that Captain America was his when he said, “Captain America was myself.” His own anger came to the surface when he drew him punching Hitler.
As Schwartz noted, “After the war, superheroes fell out of favor and Kirby wrote and drew other genres of comics. When Stan Lee, by then the editor and head writer at what would soon be named Marvel, asked him to try superheroes again in 1961, the two created together the Fantastic Four, the Hulk, Thor, Ant-Man, Iron Man, the Avengers, the X-Men, Black Panther and countless others. This, combined with his artistic innovation, earned Kirby the moniker ‘King of Comics.’ It also made him one of the most influential artists of the 20th century.”