Let's look at these 4 indictments from DC.
- Charge of conspiracy to defraud the United States, which includes plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 election
- Conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, including plotting to prevent the 2020 election certification
- Obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, which includes actually blocking the certification of the 2020 election results
- Conspiracy against rights, which includes a plan to deprive someone of a constitutional right (in this case, that is the ability to vote)
Plotting to overturn the result of an election.
You have the legal right to challenge an election. Trump's lawyer Eastman has shown several legal scholars' opinions that what Trump did was 100% legal. The law was definitely ambiguous in this spot and it was changed last year where the VP is now just a figurehead.
Conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, including plotting to prevent the 2020 election certification
Obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, which includes actually blocking the certification of the 2020 election results
The Enron Law. DC has been using this "Conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding" to go after J6ers as well. The problem is that it was not meant to go after protestors but people trying to influence/intimidate a jury. In fact, this is already at the SCOTUS due to a J6 appeal and will be knocked down.
Conspiracy against rights, which includes a plan to deprive someone of a constitutional right (in this case, that is the ability to vote)
Wut? Using an old KKK law to go after Trump. This is such a stretch.
How can any conservative in their right mind who's on the bench think any of this is legit? This isn't just bad but it's hilariously bad.
You don't need to convince me. I think the DC case is weak but not because I think the statutes couldn't apply to something like this. Many of them are written intentionally broad (regardless of what originally justified them) to cover a lot. However, it's not criminal to contest an election. It's not even criminal to ask the VP to reject electors, even if it's ridiculous. Hell, you can
ask almost anything you want without it being criminal.
For me (who supported impeaching Trump) to support a criminal conviction of Trump, you'd have to tie him to those who actually broke the law at the Capitol. At least so far, I see no credible evidence tying him to that.
The problem is that they will undoubtedly come up with some kind of rationale that a DC jury will buy, which won't be hard. Not only will it be a liberal jury (even moreso than in NY and Atlanta), it will be a blatantly political and partisan jury. Maybe they'll get a Proud Boys operative to testify that Trump told them on the side to go kick Pence's *** if he doesn't go along. Who knows? Couple that with Trump not actively trying to stop things for awhile, and that will be enough for a jury of partisan Democrats to convict him. That's going to leave Trump's team having to look for errors of law. Maybe they'll find something in the trial. Maybe SCOTUS will say the statutes are being applied too broadly. Maybe they won't. Hard to say.
You also have the classified documents case. It'll be in a more conservative venue, so you won't get a jury dominated by liberal hacks. However, this is also the case with the most legal merit and the easiest to sell to a jury that's committed to following the charge of the court. If the jury does convict, it'll likely stand. That doesn't mean there's no injustice here, but the injustice comes from the fact that DoJ is throwing the book at Trump after letting Hillary slide for something similar and probably more dangerous. But none of that is admissible or proper to even mention in court. I still think he'll likely win, but it's not a slam dunk.
Finally, we also have to consider the NY and GA cases. Those are in state court, so the courts of last resort on the interpretation of the substantive law will be the Court of Appeals of NY and the GA Supreme Court. As dumb as the NY case is, it'll have a a liberal jury and liberal judges from trial through appeals. Any judge who overturns it will lose his political career. The GA case will also be before a liberal jury, and though the judges who handle the appeals are Republicans, there's no guarantee they'll be Trump-friendly. They are elected in a state that's pretty red but only if the candidate isn't perceived as close to Trump. They'll have little incentive to bail him out if the jury convicts.
My point is that if you're evaluating Trump's chances in the general election, him being a convicted felon by November '24 isn't something to dismiss. It's a real and substantial risk in at least one of these cases.
