Rule of Law vs. Anyone (including Trump)

Trump Mug Shot, Fulton County Sheriff's Office, State of Georgia

Earlier today a good friend asked me if I didn’t think the upcoming March 25th, 2024, criminal case in New York City against former President Trump, wasn’t just minor stuff that no one else would be prosecuted for?

Let’s review…

Civil and business cases post presidency:

1) Trump’s company was convicted in 2022 on 17 criminal charges including tax fraud. Their CFO also plead guilty to multiple felony counts, and spent time in prison. 

2) A 2023 jury in New York City found that Trump defamed and sexually abused E Jean Carol. In two trials for damages, he was ordered to pay a total of $88.3 million dollars. He is currently appealing, although a bond has not yet been posted on $83.3 million dollars from the second trial.

3) A 2024 New York State Court found Trump liable for financial fraud. He was ordered to pay over $464 million dollars including pre & post judgement interest. He is currently appealing, although a bond has not yet been posted.

4) A consolidated case including multiple U.S. Congressman, and two U.S. Capitol police officers, suing for damages over the January 6th attempt to violently overthrow the 2020 presidential election. Both the trial judge and the Court of Appeals held Trump was not immune as he was acting in his personal capacity as a presidential candidate, not in his official capacity as president. 

There are four current criminal cases against the former president, for 91 felony charges. Trump has pled not guilty to all charges.

Federal criminal cases: 

1) January 6th (Washington DC) on 4 felony counts for efforts, conspiracy, and obstruction in attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election and stay in office after having lost. The case was scheduled for trial, but is currently resolving an immunity dispute.

In a dispute over immunity, both the trial judge and the Court of Appeals ruled that former presidents are liable for criminal acts committed while president, that to allow otherwise would put presidents beyond the law which is against the very nature of the United States and the Constitution. The immunity dispute is currently scheduled for argument April 22, 2024 in the Supreme Court.

2) National Security and Classified Documents (Florida) on 40 felony counts for intentionally keeping and concealing classified documents, including war plans, and nuclear weapons documents, and for obstructing justice. The case is currently in pre-trial motions.

State criminal cases:

3) RICO conspiracy case (Georgia) on 13 felony counts of conspiracy and obstruction, for efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. The case is currently in pre-trial motions.

4) Hush money & records fraud (New York City) on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in an attempt to hide hush money paid to a porn star, all done in an attempt to influence the 2016 presidential election in New York and the nation. The case is scheduled for trial, March 25, 2024.

My friend got all of them except the last one, starting next month. They thought it silly to charge Trump for business records fraud and hush money payments, that it was just too small.

I disagreed, and explained why as follows… 

Rule of law vs. Anyone (including Trump)

My bottom line is these Trump cases are necessary to stop a career criminal mob boss from destroying or badly damaging the Rule of Law. 

That is why both Capone and Gotti were tried repeatedly, until they brought them down any way that they could. They were MOB bosses, career criminals. You get them any way you can, BECAUSE of the danger they are to the law, and to society.

Fuck the politics, or even the minor cases being minor.

In Trump’s case none of it is minor anymore BECAUSE he is a lifelong criminal, a mobster breaking the law everywhere, while weaponizing and destroying the institutions which we as a country depend on to protect all of us.

Trump not only must be convicted and imprisoned, he must be publicly seen as a convicted criminal. 

His conviction and imprisonment won’t stop the cultism, but it will make it very clear to the rest of our country, and to our allies, that while we bent, in the end we did not break. That the United States remains a country truly under the Rule of Law. Period.

When people today, and children not yet born, think of using violence and crimes to overthrow elections or to win them, the historical record needs to be clear: have the politics you want. But cross THIS line, and you will be caught, convicted, and imprisoned. Even if you were the President. NO ONE gets to fuck with our elections, or our national security.

I don’t care what they convict him for.  The consequences to our nation and western democracies of leaving him not convicted, not sent to prison, are simply too grave. And yeah… I want the Jan 6th case to proceed. But in the interim, I want him convicted now and I am no longer picky about how. 

Capone. Gotti. Trump.

Remember — Trump is from New York. He has operated there his entire life, like his criminal father before him. New York knows who Trump is. He has victimized New Yorkers for half a century.

New York is taking down a lifelong gangster whom for over fifty years has been breaking New York laws, accused of sexual assaulting & raping New York residents, and stealing from New Yorkers, while running a deeply criminal organization.

Like other mob bosses, they will take him down any way they can. As they should.

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Supreme Court Strikes Down Voter Intimidation Decision in Ohio

There was grim news earlier this week as the Ohio GOP won a court case in Ohio concerning voter database and registration questions. The lower court case, if it had stood, would have opened the door to voter intimidation for 200,000 or more voters in Ohio. And it would have caused acrimonious and unfair treatment of voters at the polls on Nov. 4th.

On Friday, the Supreme Court said no to the GOP case in Ohio.

Washington - The Supreme Court on Friday overturned a lower court's order requiring state officials in Ohio to supply information that would have made it easier to challenge prospective voters. The decision was a setback for Ohio Republicans, who had sued to force the Ohio secretary of state, a Democrat, to provide information about database mismatches to county officials. The decision has the potential to affect as many as 200,000 of the 660,000 new voters who have been registered in Ohio since Jan. 1, according Social Security Administration and state election officials.

The Supreme Court, in a brief, unsigned decision, said lower federal courts in Ohio should not have ordered the secretary of state, Jennifer Brunner, to turn over the information. The court acted just before a deadline requiring Ms. Brunner to act set by a federal judge in Columbus.

A 2002 federal law, the Help America Vote Act, or HAVA, requires states to check voter registration applications against government databases like those for driver's license records. Names that do not match are flagged. Ohio Republicans sought to require Ms. Brunner to provide information about mismatches to local officials.

Those officials could use information to require voters to cast provisional ballots rather than regular ones. They could also allow partisan poll workers to challenge people on the lists. Given Democratic success in registering new voters this year, those actions would probably affect that party's supporters disproportionately.

The court said it expressed "no opinion on the question whether HAVA is being properly implemented." But it said that Congress probably had not intended to allow private litigants like political parties to sue to enforce the part of the law concerning databases.

Ms. Brunner welcomed Friday's ruling from the Supreme Court. - By ADAM LIPTAK and IAN URBINA, New York Times

This is for sure a big win for us and all our brand new voters in Ohio and around the country. I have no doubt that if this had succeeded the GOP would be filing similar actions in battleground states everywhere. Glad that the voter's privacy has been protected and that this bad decision was overturned.

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