Well, my fellow Americans, it is up to us to hold Donald Trump accountable. at the polls. We cannot count on the courts before election day.
This was supposed to be the first week of Trump's Jan. 6 trial, the first of a former president facing criminal charges, for his unprecedented attempt to overturn a U.S. election and remain in power. The verdict could have been pronounced long before November.
opinion columnist
Jackie Calmes
Jackie Calmes brings a critical look to the national political scene. He has decades of experience covering the White House and Congress.
But today there is no trial in Washington, thanks to the Republican-majority Supreme Court, a third of whose members are appointed by Trump. The courts decision Last week, spending months considering Trump's spurious claim of absolute immunity from criminal charges will likely postpone the Jan. 6 trial so long that a verdict will not be returned before Nov. 5. Almost impossible.
Experts who suggest otherwise underestimate Trump's talent for forcing delays and the willingness of some judges and justices to accommodate him.
Obviously it matters if there is a pre-election verdict. Center show consistently a significant number of voters would reject the presumptive Republican presidential nominee if he were a convicted felon, enough to swing a close election toward President Biden. (Remember that Trump has already been found responsible for financial fraud and to sexual assault and defamation in civil courts.)
Only the least significant of the four criminal trials Trump faces appears likely to begin soon. The case of the state of New York, alleging which falsified business records to cover up money paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election, is scheduled for March 25.
Meanwhile, the Georgia gerrymandering case is up in the air as the judge considers whether Fulton County Dist. Lawyer. Fani Willis can keep trying amid questions raised by the Trump side about her conduct.
And most of us long ago gave up hope that Trump-appointed freshman federal judge Aileen Cannon would do anything more than what she has done: pander to their delaying tactics in the Mar-a-Lago case, in which he is accused of taking top-secret documents, lying about them and obstructing justice.
But it is the case of January 6 that is (was) the most crucial before the elections. Americans deserve to see whether a jury would find Trump guilty of conspiring to subvert the 2020 election. before They vote to return him to office in 2024.
Rarely has the saying “justice delayed is justice denied” seemed so accurate. In this case, evil will be done. for us, the voters.
We can apportion the blame. Lawyer. General Merrick Garland has been so absorbed in erasing the stain of politicization that the Trump gang left on the Justice Department (a thankless task, as Republicans' baseless comments about its “militarization” attest) that he paused before naming special counsel Jack Smith to investigate Trump. Willis has in fact shown bad judgment. And Cannon appears to be auditioning for a promotion to the high court by a re-elected Trump.
Smith, at least, acted with alacrity, along with the federal judge in the Jan. 6 case, Tanya Chutkan. But the Supreme Court has all but thwarted his efforts.
The judges could (should) have accepted Trump's immunity claim in December. That month Chutkan refused Trump favored what she called “a lifetime 'get out of jail free' pass” and when Trump appealed, Smith urged the Supreme Court to cut out the middleman (the D.C. appeals court) and quickly decide the landmark issue. . She refused.
Then, after the appeals court panel unanimously ruled against Trump, the judges could (should) have accepted his widely praised opinion as the last word. They didn't do it.
Worse yet, in a case that has more consequences for the outcome of a presidential election than any since Bush v. Gore, one of the members of the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas, has a clear conflict of interest, and is refuse to recuse the same. Thomas' wife has been implicated in pro-Trump machinations to overturn Biden's victory.
A ruling by the judges could come at the end of June. They are not expected to support Trump's immunity claim, but could send the case back to the appeals court, further postponing the trial. A verdict on Trump's bid to stay in power is now “much more unlikely” before the election, according to former conservative appeals court judge J. Michael Luttig. said MSNBC.
That is why the voters' verdict is even more critical. Like Liz Cheney often says, Trump should not be allowed to “get anywhere near the Oval Office again.” If he is re-elected, he can throw out the federal cases against him, and has promised to pardon those already convicted for his actions on January 6.
Dan Pfeiffer, former Obama White House adviser, said readers of his Thursday newsletter that Democrats “should make chicken salad with this shitty chicken.” Call the already unpopular Supreme Court, he argued, and make the argument that “Donald Trump is running for president for one reason and one reason only: to avoid accountability for the crimes he committed.”
We should stop looking at calendars and calculating with our fingers when Trump can be convicted in court. We are the jury we were waiting for.
And then once Trump is defeated again, tests can be developed. And those other jurors can finish the job of holding citizen Trump accountable.
