A couple of weeks ago, just after Trump announced his receipt of a target letter, I started a "Hey, it's Stupid" post to suggest a reason why the special counsel was putting this thing out now, and why none of the other conspiracy suspects seemed to be getting target letters of their own: to get as much of the material out to the public, preferably to hold the trial itself, before the election, so that voters would have every opportunity to factor it in to their November decision, and make it as simple as possible, with just the single defendant, putting his confederates on trial later in less of a hurry.
But I got stuck in some legalistic weeds and never wrote it; not having the indictment in hand yet, I couldn't hack my way out of an opening paragraph, and abandoned the thing. Now we do have the indictment, and it's not even Stupid any more. I think more or less everybody is clear that this is exactly what Garland and Smith have in mind, including the Trumpies—Donald himself keeps calling out "election interference" as if it was being directed from the Kremlin, or from a Justice Department stacked, as his people intend to stack it if he's reelected, with his personal supporters and sycophants under the terms of his so-called "Schedule F" order:
Mr. Vought and Mr. McEntee are involved in Project 2025, a $22 million presidential transition operation that is preparing policies, personnel lists and transition plans to recommend to any Republican who may win the 2024 election. The transition project, the scale of which is unprecedented in conservative politics, is led by the Heritage Foundation, a think tank that has shaped the personnel and policies of Republican administrations since the Reagan presidency.
It's funny how these Republicans enjoy complaining about the "weaponization" of government under the Biden administration even as they're laying out these elaborate prescriptions for how do do it—among Biden's first orders in office was the one rescinding Trump's Schedule F, literally depriving himself of the tools you'd need to reshape the federal civil service in your party's image.
While Eric Trump reacts in wonderment to his father's criminal indictment.
— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) August 3, 2023
Speak for yourself, Eric. You're certainly no "better than this", that's been clear for a long time, ever since you started leading those "lock him up" chants. Not that you all didn't try hard enough with using the FBI and IRS to persecute those FBI guys.
Anyway, it's now clear that Smith has been doing what I was thinking two weeks ago, trying to put together the conditions for a single Trump trial for conspiracy, leaving the coconspirators for a later date, and to get it done as fast as possible, preferably even before the stolen documents case goes to trial. Is it imaginable that there could be a verdict before November 2024?
It seems like a pretty simple case. There's no classified material to deal with, the thing that is baking delay into the Mar-a-Lago case (of which, with the superseding indictment, there will now be more). Four counts, all of them alleging the same three conspiracies, the fraudulent impeding of the vote count, the fraudulent obstruction of the elector certification, and the general joint purpose of depriving the voters of the right to have their votes counted. The four counts don't need to be argued separately, it's exactly the same evidence for each.
And it's even somewhat familiar evidence, thanks to the special House committee on January 6 and its spectacular televised hearings. I've heard it suggested, can't say by whom, that it was part of AG Garland's calculations that allowing the representatives to get the case out to the public first in this way would enable the side of the prosecution to seize control of the narrative without DOJ violating its secrecy rules—"we didn't do that, we weren't even talking to them, didn't you hear Adam Schiff complaining every day about how close-mouthed we were?" If so, this is a tremendous example of how Democrats can adopt a Republican tactic for once.
And then there isn't any defense, at least not so far. The Republicans are out complaining that the whole thing is an abuse of Trump's freedom of speech—over his lying about who won the 2020 election, which the seem prepared to acknowledge was lying—when the indictment makes it supremely clear that that is not the charge
—he was completely entitled to say it all he wanted, and moreover to test the question in every court in the country, as his confederates did. But his belief didn't entitle him to do anything illegal, and it's the illegal things, the pressuring of the state governments to alter their vote counts, the setting up of the fake elector scheme, and the refusal to stop the Capitol insurrection until it had clearly failed, and his continuing to pressure congressmembers after it failed, that he'll be tried for. All of which he unarguably did.
And also what the defense can do, gum up the court with endless motions of challenge, may be pretty limited (questions of attorney-client privilege, since so many of the witnesses are lawyers who worked in the White House; but none of them are the lawyers who worked for Citizen Trump—those people are all unnamed coconspirators who haven't given evidence), since they've tried them all out already and failed, in the grand jury proceeding.
And the judge has announced she'll set a trial date on August 28, which is extremely soon.
People, I'm starting to think this could be happening.
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