DON'T LISTEN TO THE BULLSHIT

TRUMP FEARS PROSECUTION

"I've never done anything wrong. Nobody can prove that I ever did anything wrong. It's pretty tough when a citizen with an unblemished record must be hounded from his home. I am feeling very bad - very bad. How would you feel if the FBI, paid to protect you, acted towards you like they acted towards me?"

- Al Capone December 10, 1927.

MAGA world and conservative media are desperate to convince public opinion that Trump’s indictment Tuesday for conspiring to overturn the 2020 election and remain in office is somehow misconceived, and/or that it is a vicious attack on the former president.

Within hours of the indictment being released, Trump’s MAGA supporters and allies and conservative media began pushing the strangest, weirdest conspiracy theory of all: Jack Smith wants wants to punish Trump with either hundreds of years in prison or … death.

Yes, death!

On Wednesday, Breitbart published a piece floating the theory that Smith might be pursuing the death penalty in the case.

The article examined the Section 241 charge, citing a part of the statute that says the death penalty could be considered if “death results from the actions covered under this provision.”

They quoted Section 241, which does say this:

“They shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, they shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.”

The Breitbart article argues that, because people died during the insurrection and because some of Trump’s supports wanted to kidnap VP Mike Pence, then, of course - logically! - the special prosecutor may be seeking the death penalty against Trump.

Ashli Babbitt, the ignoramus shot by a law enforcement officer, did die as a result of the insurrection on January 6, which the indictment states was the result of Trump’s claims about the election.

Democrats have blamed Trump for the unrelated deaths of several protesters and Capitol Police officers. Democrats and some Never-Trup Republicans, have also blamed him for efforts by some of the rioters to kidnap then-Vice President Mike Pence and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).

Despite the fact there is no argument presented in the indictment that Trump should be subject to the death penalty, Breitbart argued that Smith could try to argue for this in the trial.

This bullshit runs up against the fact that indictments where the death penalty is sought for the individual indicted always contain a statement to the effect that this punishment will be sought. But facts and truth have never stopped Breitbart since Andrew Breitbart founded the clickbait disinformation project.

The Trump campaign followed this by telling supporters in a fundraising email that Trump faces “561 YEARS” in prison. “With Crooked Joe’s corrupt DOJ having unlawfully INDICTED yours truly yet again, reports indicate that I could now face a combined 561 YEARS in prison from the Left’s witch hunts.”

This is apparently the result of taking the maximum sentence for each count of the indictiment and adding them together as if it is certain that Trump will receive consecutive sentences for each count.

This is presented as “fact” despite the fact that Federal sentencing doesn’t work that way.

Trump himself is sharing his belief that the indictments are actually helping him in the polls. It stands to reason that the more trouble Trump is in, the more support he’ll be able to accrue.

Good thing those evil, insane, Marxist leftist prosecutors are so bloodthirsty.

Trump’s defense attorney John Lauro has also promoted another bullshit argument regarding the indictment. This one has managed to sucker in the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, and other mainstream media outlets.

Lauro said on NBC’s Today Show Wednesday morning that the case involved charging Trump for exercising his First Amendment rights to freedom of speech, going on to say that Jack Smith would be required to "prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Donald Trump believed that these allegations were false."

This defense is, in other words, that Trump is not a criminal; he's just delusional.

Lauro received immediate pushback by Today Show host Savannah Guthrie, who pointed out that the indictment states that Trump has a First Amendment right to challenge the election, and that he is specifically not being charged for exercising that right. “He is charged for the actions he took,” Guthrie argued.

Over at Faux Snooze, where the grass is blue and the sky is green, Lauro’s bullshit was immediately embraced by the propagandists masquerading as pundits.

Brian Kilmeade exclaimed "You can’t get inside his head!" on Fox & Friends. Co-host Ainsley Earhardt followed up by saying Smith needs "to prove that he [Trump] actually believed that he lost, because you’re allowed to question an election."

Alleged “anti-Trump” conservative publications like National Review have picked up the same line, with editors there writing that the case requires prosecutors to "prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump hadn’t actually convinced himself that the election was stolen from him (good luck with that)."

This “argument” has also now been adopted as fact by the mainstream media. The Washington Post claims in articles today that a "threshold question" in the case is whether Trump "knew that the false things he said were false." Axios claimed that "proving that Trump pushed theories of voter fraud that he knew were false will be key to prosecutors' efforts to convict Trump." The New York Times writes that "establishing that Mr. Trump knew he was lying could be important to convincing a jury to convict him." CNN says "that there will be a burden on prosecutors to prove definitively that he [Trump] knew the fraud claims were wrong."

The problem with this analysis is that it is wrong. It is complete and utter bullshit. So of course the over-educated, under-intelligent, otherwise-unemployable trust fund babies of the MSM would latch onto it, since they are desperate for clickbait and to create a political environment in which Trump continues as a viable candidate, so they can maintain their traditional “horse race” reporting of the 2024 campaign.

It’s time to use facts as a Bowie Knife to slash this hot air balloon of bullshit. A successful prosecution does not hinge on what Trump believed regarding the 2020 election. Trump will be convicted based on his actions, which are the basis of the charges.

The indictment makes clear from the outset that Trump "had a right, like every American, to speak publicly about the election and even to claim, falsely, that there had been outcome-determinative fraud during the election and that he had won." If all Trump did was lie, there would be no indictment.

The indictment demonstrates that prosecutors collected voluminous evidence that shows Trump knew he was lying. The indictment lays out that Trump didn't just lie; working in concert with his co-conspirators, he "pursued unlawful means of discounting legitimate votes and subverting the election results."

The indictment charges that Trump participated in three conspiracies which violate three federal statutes: obstructing the process by which "the results of the presidential election are collected, counted, and certified by the federal government;" obstructing "the January 6 congressional proceeding;" and interfering with "the right to vote and to have one's vote counted."

There is no requirement that the evidence to establish that Trump violated each statute depends on whether Trump believed his lies.

The efforts of Trump and his co-conspirators to cling to power by creating a fake slate of pro-Trump electors is a key piece of the case against Trump. Trump and Co-Conspirator 2, who has been identified as lawyer John Eastman, "called the Chairwoman of the Republican National Committee [Ronna McDaniel] to ensure that the plan was in motion." Eastman "falsely represented to her that such electors' votes would be used only if ongoing litigation in one of the states changed the results in the Defendant's favor." According to the indictment, many of the fake electors were told the same thing. These efforts resulted in "fraudulent electors convened sham proceedings in the seven targeted states to cast fraudulent electoral ballots" in favor of Trump.

The campaign lost all its cases challenging state results; despite what Eastman promised McDaniel, "the targeted states' fraudulent elector certificates were mailed to the President of the Senate, the Archivist of the United States, and others."

If proven in court, this scheme alone would be sufficient to substantiate all four felony charges. It has nothing to do with whether Trump believed (or still believes) he won the 2020 election.

Even if Trump believed with all his heart that he actually won Arizona despite the vote count, there is no right for him to conspire to create a fake set of electors to disrupt the certification process and the January 6 congressional proceeding.

That is illegal regardless of any belief.

Marc Elias explained how the law works with an analogy:

“I walk into a bank, and I think they are wrongfully holding my money. I think my balance is $5,000, and they think my balance is zero. And I genuinely believe that I am owed $5,000. That doesn't excuse me from robbing the bank. I can't pull out a gun and take the money.”

Politicians who genuinely believe they won close elections in which they los do not have the right to undermine the process of free and fair elections. They are limited to courses of action set out in the law, such as filing a lawsuit seeking a recount.

Trump filed 60 such lawsuits and lost every one when the courts found no evidence of any activity that would have handed the election in that state to Trump.

Other key aspects of the indictment do not depend on what Trump believed.

The indictment alleges that Trump and his co-conspirators pressured Department of Justice officials to issue a statement asserting that the Department had "identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple States.

He may have believed fraud impacted the electoral outcome, but the issue is not what Trump believed; it's what the Department believed. Trump was told by the Acting Attorney General that the Department had not identified any "significant concerns" but continued to pressure them to send the statement anyway. "Just say that the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen.”

Smith spends so much of the indictment documenting that Trump knowingly lied because - while the jury will receive an instruction from the judge stating that the government does not need to establish a motive for the defendant's alleged crimes, juries want to hear a motive, so the government always tries to prove motive.

Smith is attempting in the indictment to establish that Trump was motivated by a corrupt desire to remain in power, even though he knew he lost.

There is in fact a great deal of compelling evidence that Trump knew he was lying.

In addition to all the people who told him there was no evidence of fraud, Trump privately acknowledged he was not being truthful. When Mike Pence told Trump that he [Pence] had no legal authority to overturn the election while he performed his ceremonial role of receiving the electoral college votes, Trump replied, "You're too honest."

Smith's effort to establish a motive is not a legal necessity; it's a trial tactic.

Given the media’s desperation to keep a narrative going for the next 15 months that Trump is a normal candidate and that there is a genuine competition between him and Biden, we will see them trying to magnify and use every bullshit argument this professional bullshitter and his sycophants in conservative media and the fifth-rate lawyers he’s able to attract to defend him will be putting forth in the run-up to this trial.

Don’t believe any of these over-educated, under-intelligent otherwise-unemployable morons. They’re the same ones who defended their uncritical coverage of the lies and bullshit he spouted at his campaign hatealongs in 2016 as being “good for ratings.”

Please consider supporting That’s Another Fine Mess with a paid subscription for only $7/month or $70/year.

Comments are for paid subscribers.