Last night time, legal professionals for Donald Trump filed three completely gonzo motions to dismiss his election interference case in federal courtroom in DC, together with one searching for to strike “inflammatory” references to the occasions of January 6, 2021 from the indictment.
Each petition was insane in its personal particular method, and it’s a tough activity to rank them so as of craziness. But right here at ATL, we like a problem. So, from least batshit to OMGWTFLOL …
#4: PRESIDENT TRUMP’S MOTION TO DISMISS THE INDICTMENT BASED ON STATUTORY GROUNDS AND MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT
We start with a recognizably motion-shaped object, which hews to conference at the very least insofar because it addresses the precise felony prices in opposition to the defendant. Accusing prosecutors of “targeting an audience other than this Court,” Trump’s attorneys John Lauro and Todd Blanche argue that their consumer can’t be charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States underneath 18 U.S.C. § 371 as a result of there was no deceit or trickery. Trump merely engaged in protected political advocacy, making his case within the open, and thus couldn’t have conspired to hinder an official continuing underneath 18 U.S.C. §§ 1512(ok) or 1512(c)(2).
Never thoughts that their consumer urged a number of officers, together with Mike Pence to violate their oaths of workplace and assembled slates of faux electors to disrupt the lawful certification of electoral votes. And please ignore the truth that the DC Circuit simply endorsed the other place with respect to “corrupt” intent under18 U.S.C. § 1512.
The indictment additionally prices the previous president with conspiracy in opposition to the appropriate to vote and to have one’s vote counted, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 241, a Reconstruction Era statute enacted to make sure poll entry by Black Americans. As a number of commentators have famous, that is significantly applicable in gentle of Trump’s false claims about vote fraud in majority Black cities like Detroit and Philadelphia, and his focusing on of Black civil servants, like Atlanta ballot staff Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss. There’s additionally the minor element that stealing the swing state electoral votes would have disadvantaged 20 million Americans of the franchise by canceling their votes.
To this Trump responds the he “was lawfully exercising his rights under the Electoral Count Act.” Sticklers for constitutional regulation would possibly quibble that the president has no rights underneath the ECA, and that his interference really violated the separation of powers.
#3: PRESIDENT TRUMP’S MOTION TO STRIKE INFLAMMATORY ALLEGATIONS FROM THE INDICTMENT AND MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT
This movement makes the weird argument that Special Counsel Jack Smith’s determination to not cost Trump with incitement signifies that he’s not entitled to say something that occurred on January 6, 2021. It doesn’t specify which language within the indictment ought to be stricken.
Would this embrace references to Trump’s speech on the Ellipse the place he falsely advised the group that Pence had the appropriate to unilaterally reject electoral votes? Would it embrace what occurred within the chamber when his allies tried to substitute faux electoral certificates for actual ones? Would it merely exclude references to the violence Trump’s supporters visited on the seat of presidency? Unclear!
But Trump does have robust help for this place from MAGA weirdo Andy McCarthy, AKA “not Jonathan Turley, the bald one.” McCarthy penned an opinion piece within the New York Post entitled Jack Smith Hasn’t Charged Trump With the Jan. 6 Riots – But He Wants to Use It as a Judicial Cudgel, ipso facto DISMISS!
#2: PRESIDENT TRUMP’S MOTION TO DISMISS FOR SELECTIVE AND VINDICTIVE PROSECUTION
Donald Trump ran for workplace promising to place Hillary Clinton in e-mail jail. While there, he used the Justice Department to research Joe Biden, tried to extort grime on Biden from the Ukrainian president, and referred to as day by day for the arrest of everybody from James Comey to Hunter Biden. He was lately deposed by former FBI official Peter Strzok who’s suing for wrongful termination, as the federal government insists that Trump’s dozens of requires him to be fired had nothing to do with the FBI short-circuiting its personal procedures and doing precisely that.
In quick, Trump spent his complete time period of workplace screaming for the weaponization of the Justice Department and claiming that he had each proper to do it. Nevertheless he now calls for that this case be dismissed as a result of the New York Times stated that President Biden has privately expressed the opinion to associates — i.e. NOT Attorney General Merrick Garland — that Trump ought to be prosecuted. Incidentally, quoting copy from the story in such a method as to indicate that it’s a direct quote from the president is … different candor.
The pleading cites Trump’s personal obnoxious social media rants throughout a selected week in June as proof that the August indictment was punitive — as if Trump doesn’t lob vitriol at Biden every single day of the week.
“Following President Trump’s not-guilty plea in Florida and his public criticisms, the Special Counsel’s Office filed the indictment in this case on August 1, 2023,” he writes, including later, “After President Trump exercised his constitutional right to plead not guilty in Florida, the prosecutors added additional charges in this District. The record is more than sufficient to support a presumption of vindictiveness.”
Trump additionally makes the weird declare that his standing as a former president places him in a protected class of individuals shielded from discriminatory prosecution. Or maybe it is a First Amendment declare? Look, it’s transparently bullshit — they’re not likely losing a variety of time hashing it out.
#1: PRESIDENT TRUMP’S MOTION TO DISMISS THE INDICTMENT BASED ON CONSTITUTIONAL GROUNDS AND MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT
And now for the magnum opus of derp, during which Donald Trump insists that there is no such thing as a knowable reality, all of the officers he appointed to the federal government had been Deep State, and the Senate’s refusal to convict him means jeopardy attaches and he’s dwelling free.
Forget all of the recounts, the handfuls of election lawsuits, the state stories proving that there was no critical fraud within the 2020 election. Lots of individuals imagine it, so there might be no goal reality.
It’s all vibes, man:
[C]laims that the 2020 Presidential election was “rigged” or tainted by fraud and irregularity … don’t contain “easily verifiable facts.” Such claims require the evaluation of mountains of data from which every particular person will draw competing inferences based mostly on info in addition to their private, deep-seated political beliefs and presuppositions.They aren’t readily verifiable or falsifiable, they relate to politically charged points, and other people’s evaluation of them is deeply linked to their political predispositions and their belief in establishments, together with governmental establishments. This is why Americans’ opinions on these points are profoundly divided, very a lot to this present day. The First Amendment doesn’t allow the prosecution to dictate what’s “true” and what’s “false” on such broad, vigorously disputed, politically charged questions—particularly not within the context of a felony prosecution that successfully seeks to criminalize a political viewpoint shared by over 100 million Americans.
Yeah, positive, everybody from Bill Barr to Jared Kushner to the pinnacle of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency stated there was no fraud. But why ought to Trump imagine these guys when Rudy and Sidney and a few man named Catturd on Twitter stated it was “RIGGED AND STOLLEN?”
The indictment repeatedly alleges that President Trump made “knowingly false claims of election fraud.” But in each case, the indictment’s foundation for the allegation that President Trump’s claims had been “knowingly” false is {that a} member of the political institution assured President Trump that they had been false. [Emphasis original.]
And anyway, Donald Trump can’t be prosecuted as a result of “The Constitution’s plain text, structural principles of separation of powers, our history and tradition, and principles of Double Jeopardy bar the Executive Branch from seeking to re-charge and re-try a President who has already been impeached and acquitted in a trial before the U.S. Senate.”
Sure, that sounds silly once you say it out loud. But see, Article 1, § 3 says “Judgement in Cases of Impreachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgement and Punishment, according to Law.” And working backward, that signifies that a celebration not convicted is ever after immune from prosecution for a similar conduct. Clear as mud, proper?
Again, sticklers would possibly be aware that that is insane, and likewise that Trump was impeached for incitement to riot, not obstruction of Congress and conspiring in opposition to rights and to defraud the United States. But actually, that’s the least of the issues right here.
Liz Dye lives in Baltimore the place she writes about regulation and politics and seems on the Opening Arguments podcast.
For extra of the newest in litigation, regulation, offers and monetary providers traits, join Finance Docket, a partnership between Breaking Media publications Above the Law and Dealbreaker.
