For the past eight years, the chattering classes have constantly horked that this time they’ve finally got the Bad Orange Man. Even before Donald Trump was sworn in, they were screeching “Impeach!”, for what exactly, didn’t matter. Then it was a gaggle of preening Hollywood nitwits importuning the Electoral College to (illegally in many states) break faith with their state’s voters. And so it went on.
The Democrats tried twice, each time on increasingly flimsier grounds, to unsuccessfully impeach Trump. As the 2020 election neared, the ever-more-desperate Democrats resorted to truly Stalinist stuff, throwing one obviously bogus court case after another at the ex-President. Each round of lawfare only made Trump’s standing with voters stronger, to the point that he is an all-but unassailable shoo-in for the Republican nomination.
But we’ve got him THIS time! the left is hooting. It’s their strongest article of faith outside the conviction that socialism will work next time.
And just as certain to end in tears.
Don’t be fooled into thinking Donald Trump’s myriad legal woes are getting worse by the massive fine meted out to him by a Manhattan court last month for business fraud.
As for the most blatantly un-democratic move so far, simply banning the candidate from appearing on ballots…
The Supreme Court’s emphatic rejection of fringe political efforts to strip Donald Trump of ballot access should be a reminder that things have been going his way on the legal front for some time.
Far from having the Bad Orange Man on the ropes, Trump’s been notching up solid gains on the legal front.
The serious threats posed by his four indictments, federal and state, spanning 91 criminal charges, any one of which could land the former president in jail, look a lot less scary for Mr Trump today than they did a few months ago.
The Supreme Court’s 9-0 ruling on Monday (Tuesday AEDT) that guarantees Mr Trump will almost certainly appear on all 50 state ballots in November was the second Supreme Court decision to cause a major headache for Democrats hoping the judicial process can succeed where Democrats’ political efforts have been failing.
In other words, having failed to beat Trump at the ballot box, the Democrats are reverting to the Obama playbook: weaponising the state security apparatus against political opponents.
Special Counsel Jack Smith’s signature election subversion case against Mr Trump was meant to start today, 4th March, the day before Super Tuesday, ensuring an ignominious backdrop for the former president who at one point was supposed be facing a field of competitive Republican challengers.
Last week the Supreme Court said it would hear Mr Trump’s appeal related to whether he’s even able to be prosecuted for acts committed as president.
Because those hearings won’t start until late April, with a decision likely late June, it’s entirely possible the case won’t be wrapped up by November 5th, after which it could well disintegrate if Trump is re-elected.
As for the other indictment, alleging he mishandled classified documents, the scab has been ripped off that one, too. Because it was beyond doubt that Joe Biden did exactly the same thing. Yet, Biden is let off, scot-free. The excuse pandered, that Biden is too mentally incompetent to stand trial, is hardly high praise of his presidency.
In any case, it’s likely that the trial will be pushed past election day — and ultimately collapse.
His Georgia indictment, always the most dangerous given any conviction would elude the president’s pardon power, is hanging by a thread as well.
In this case, because the Democrats’ corruption is so blatant, and their apparatchiks so astonishingly stupid.
Georgia judge Scott McAfee is ruminating on whether to remove district attorney Fani Willis from the sprawling racketeering case against Donald Trump, amid allegations she hired her boyfriend Nathan Wade as the lead prosecutor for the case, in part to benefit herself.
If she’s removed, the whole case, including 13 criminal charges against Mr Trump, could be dropped. Even if she’s not, the perception of corruption left by weeks of highly publicised hearings into Ms Willis’s might even subconsciously bias jurors against Ms Willis’s case.
That leaves the obviously silly “hush-money” case in New York, and, also in New York, the even more obviously politically-motivated “fraud” case.
The Supreme Court may ultimately help lighten the load of Mr Trump’s US$454 million fine too, if it ultimately hears the appeal, in a way that will further enhance its reputation for the politically blind delivery of justice.
In 2019 it ruled in Timbs v Indiana, in an verdict authored by arch progressive justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, that the state’s seizure of a man’s Land Rover was a grossly excessive punishment for a minor drug conviction, citing the constitution’s 8th amendment against excessive fines.
The Australian
Where does that leave a half-billion dollar fine for a “crime” where nobody was robbed, everyone got paid as per the terms of their contract, and the state’s case rests entirely on a wholly subjective “evaluation” of property values?
