Trump's lawyers just helped Jack Smith prove his election interference case: Analyst – Raw Story
Matthew Chapman is a video game designer who attended Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and lives in San Marcos, Texas. Before joining Raw Story, he wrote for Shareblue and AlterNet, specializing in election and policy coverage.
Donald Trump's attorneys inadvertently just helped Special Counsel Jack Smith prove a major part of his case against the former president, argued Aaron Blake in a column for the Washington Post on Wednesday.
Blake looks at a recent legal brief in Trump's appeal for presidential immunity in his in the federal election conspiracy case, which he argues contains a "remarkable" detail useful to Smith's team.
"His attorneys refer to a social media post from Trump the same day of the filing — Tuesday — which links to a report from an unnamed source running down various voter-fraud claims," writes Blake. "The report, to put it lightly, is a mess."
Blake writes that the report contains "astonishing and false claims" that fly in the face of fact, specifically that no evidence exists that President Joe Biden won the 2020 election and that Trump's early swing state leads prove interference occurred.
"But even Trump allies had acknowledged before the election that the expected late arrival of ballots from populous and heavily Democratic areas, as well as mail-in ballots, would create an illusion of an early Trump lead," Blake writes. "There is nothing suspicious about how those states flipped as time went on."
That was just the tip of the iceberg of spurious claims made in this document, writes Blake.
Blake believes bringing this document to the court's attention will be a choice Trump's lawyers come to regret.
"What it demonstrates is how much this entire effort was about manufacturing smoke," Blake concludes. "And in that way, the Trump lawyers in effect just proved the prosecutors’ point."
Donald Trump's former attorney Ty Cobb received strong criticism Wednesday after he appeared on CNN and argued the former president had the "winning hand" under the constitution.
Cobb, a vocal critic of the former president, argued the 14th Amendment's insurrectionist ban did not apply to Trump because U.S. presidents are not technically officers.
"I'm sad to say on this one that I believe that the president's lawyers are correct constitutionally," he said during an appearance on CNN's "Out Front" with Erin Burnett on Wednesday. "Other people disagree."
Fellow legal wiz George Conway was quick to declare himself among those nay-sayers in a X thread that went viral Wednesday night.
Conway said Cobb's contentions that 'the president of the United States is not an officer" were "severely misguided."
Cobb argues that Section 3 only applies to office holders, and officers are appointed and not elected. He also says that presidents don't pledge to uphold the constitution, but to protect it, therefore lifting the presidency above Section 3.
Conway begged to differ.
"The fact that the president appoints various officers of the United States does not mean he or she is not an officer," Conway wrote. He also notes the Constitution "refers to the presidency dozens of times as an 'office'!"
His followers agreed.
"Since the POTUS is referred to as Commander in Chief and Chief Executive," wrote @karenelizabeth60. "Trump was an officer. The End."
"If you have to swear into an Oath of Office, then you are an officer," added Scott Harrison. "Can’t be more simple than that."
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A newly filed "surprise" argument could blow a hole in former President Donald Trump's strategy to avoid criminal prosecution in his federal election conspiracy trial, according to a former federal prosecutor.
The watchdog group American Oversight's new filing could destroy Trump's chances of delaying Special Counsel Jack Smith's case, Harry Litman wrote Wednesday in the Los Angeles Times.
Experts believe Trump is trying to delay the Justice department case past the November 2024 election so that he can kill the case if he reclaims the White House.
Litman believes the brief filed with the Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, currently considering Trump's presidential immunity claim, just shortened the odds against him.
"The brief makes the apparently compelling argument that the court shouldn’t be hearing this appeal at all because it lacks jurisdiction — that is, the power to consider it in the first place," wrote Litman. "If the court agrees, it would mean dismissing the appeal and returning the case to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, abruptly aborting Trump’s best opportunity to delay the federal Jan. 6 trial."
Chutkan has paused all trial proceedings, even matters such as jury selection, until the immunity question has been settled. The Supreme Court denied a request by Special Counsel Jack Smith to leapfrog over the lower court and consider the matter immediately.
"If the argument succeeds, it will be an appellate version of the sort of Perry Mason moment that rarely happens in a real courtroom," concluded Litman. "With a wave of a jurisdictional wand, Trump would be back in the district court preparing for an only slightly delayed trial."
Former President Donald Trump’s name appears in newly unsealed documents in a Jeffrey Epstein-linked court case, reports show.
Epstein, who died by suicide in a Manhattan jail cell accused of orchestrating a massive sex-trafficking ring, is quoted saying he would invite Trump, then a real-estate magnate, to a casino, USA Today reports.
In another document, an unnamed witness says she was never asked to have sexual relations with Trump, according to the report.
Trump has never been accused of wrong doing over his well-documented relationship with Epstein.
Read More: Jeffrey Epstein client information unsealed
Epstein and convicted accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell were photographed with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in 2000, and Trump was quoted calling Epstein a “terrific guy” in 2000.
Trump said in 2019 he broke with Epstein 15 years previously and that he wasn’t a “fan,” but the 2000 interview appears to contradict that second claim.
“He’s a lot of fun to be with,” Trump said at the time. “It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side."
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