Strange Trump Isn't In Prison Yet
A day after appealing Trump’s MAGA judge Aileen Cannon’s decision to toss out the stolen documents case, Jack Smith was busy in DC on the other federal case. This time it’s the 4 felonies related to Trump’s efforts to subvert the 2020 election. You can read the 36 page superseding indictment here. In short, Special Counsel Jack Smith has stripped “out some charges in order to help it survive the Supreme Court’s recent ruling granting former presidents broad immunity for official acts in office. So they “removed all the allegations concerning Trump’s attempts to strong-arm the Justice Department into supporting his false claims that the election had been rigged against him... Trump faces the same four charges, accused of overlapping conspiracies to defraud the United States, to obstruct the certification of the election at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and to deprive millions of Americans of their rights to have their votes counted… Trump still stands accused of working with his subordinates to create fake slates of electors claiming that he won the election in several key swing states that were actually won by President Biden. He is also still facing charges related to his efforts to pressure his vice president, Mike Pence, into throwing the election his way during the Jan. 6 certification proceeding at the Capitol.”
Marcy Wheeler listed the half dozen changes:
Removal of everything having to do with Jeffrey Clark
Removal of everything describing government officials telling Trump he was nuts (such as Bill Barr explaining that he had lost Michigan in Kent County, not Wayne, where he was complaining)
Removal of things (including Tweets and Trump’s failure to do anything as the Capitol was attacked) that took place in the Oval Office
Addition of language clarifying that all the remaining co-conspirators (Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Sidney Powell, Kenneth Chesebro, and— probably— Boris Epshteyn) were private lawyers, not government lawyers
Tweaked descriptions of Trump and Mike Pence to emphasize they were candidates who happened to be the incumbent
New language about the treatment of the electoral certificates
There’s virtually no chance that the trial will start before the election. Friday is the deadline for each side to propose next steps and the judge, Tanya Chutkan, has scheduled a hearing on September 5 to chart the way forward. Trump rage-tweeted stuff like this yesterday:
The stolen documents case is on hold with Smith urging the Atlanta-based appeals court to overturn Cannon’s ruling, “defending his appointment as lawful and arguing U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon's decision tossing out the charges against Trump and his co-defendants was wrong. Cannon, whose opinion was written for her by Trump's legal team, dismissed the indictment against Trump, aide Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos de Oliveira in July after finding that Smith's appointment as special counsel violated the Constitution's Appointments Clause. Trump has until Sept. 26 to submit a response to the special counsel's arguments.”
Strange Trump Isn't In Prison Yet
No it isn't. It must be by design. Doing trump for treason and the insurrection is childs' play. Doing him for the stolen docs is a slam dunk. Doing him for various election frauds would be trivial.
NOT doing anything? Has to be a reason. Even the laziest AG ever would at least pretend. No, the party knew they needed him to be their opponent or they'd lose bigly. Interestingly, at least this time, they appear to be correct.