Tag Archives: Trump indictments

crime news, legal news

Date set, let justice rule

Mark down the date of March 4, 2024, which is what I intend to do.

That is the date set by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan for the start of a trial to determine whether Donald J. Trump is guilty of trying to overturn the results of a free, fair and legal presidential election.

Judge Chutkan has declared her intention to proceed with a “speedy trial” for the former president of the United States. Interestingly, for a man who says he did “nothing wrong,” Trump has been trying to delay this proceeding until sometime in 2026.

That prompts me to wonder: If Donald Trump is as innocent of the serious felonies for which he has been indicted as he insists he is, why delay the trial?

OK, we’re a long way from the start of the trial. There will be lots of “discovery” to be made. Lots of motions to consider. Chutkan, though, appears set to proceed with a trial that will begin one day prior to the Super Tuesday Republican Party presidential primary election in which several states will decide whom to nominate for POTUS.

Even more remarkable has been the statements from Fulton County (Ga.) District Attorney Fani Willis, who says she is ready to go to trial as early as October … in 2023, just a couple of months from today.

A Fulton County grand jury indicted Trump for violating state law in seeking to overturn those election results. Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, one of the 19 defendants indicted by the panel, is seeking to move the state trial to federal court, claiming he was acting as an agent of the federal government when he was doing the then-president’s bidding. Good luck with that, chief.

To be honest, all this maneuvering in all four courts has me a bit befuddled. I just hope all the judges who are hearing these cases — in New York, Atlanta, in Florida and in DC — can keep everything straight.

However this all plays out, it is looking for all the world to me that Donald John Trump is a world of some serious hurt.

crime news, legal news, national news

Televise the trials!

Donald John Trump is not your every-day criminal defendant, given that for four years he occupied the presidency of the United States.

Therefore, it is imperative that the federal judiciary do something far out of the ordinary. It needs to televise the federal trials that will determine whether Donald Trump is guilty of the crimes for which he is being charged.

Trump has four trials pending. Two of them are in state courts. New York and Georgia grand juries have indicted him for committing crimes against the nation he once took an oath to protect.

I want to focus on the two federal indictments. One of them came from a grand jury in Florida; that’s the classified documents case in which Trump pilfered documents from the White House and stashed ’em in his glitzy estate. The other came from a D.C. grand jury; that is the matter involving the 1/6 assault on our government.

You see, this is critical inasmuch as Trump was once elected to the presidency. He took an oath to protect the government against all enemies. Then he shunned that oath when the 2020 election didn’t turn out the way he wanted; he lost that contest to Joe Biden.

Americans who were governed by this fraud have a right to witness how these trials play out. Will they produce sideshows, melodrama and game-playing? Yes, they might … but that isn’t necessarily pre-ordained.

I recall meeting with Tom Phillips, who in the 1990s was chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court. The OJ Simpson trial was underway and Phillips said that the judge in that trial, California Superior Court Judge Lance Ito, had plenty of authority to rein in the lawyers. He could have set time limits on the presentations. He could have demanded decorum and dignity in the courtroom.

Phillips said trial judges have immense power to run these trials in orderly and concise fashions.

It’s that knowledge that gives me hope that if the federal judiciary turns on the TV cameras in the courtroom that they will expose the public to a ringside view of how one of our three branches of government does the job prescribed in the US Constitution.

crime news, legal news

Conviction = condemnation

One almost can predict with metaphysical certitude what will happen if a federal jury convicts Donald J. Trump on any of the charges being brought before them.

The MAGA mob of morons will condemn the jury. It will blast the presiding judge to smithereens. It will cast doubt on the integrity of the federal judiciary. It will demonize the Justice Department, starting with the attorney general and the special counsel.

None of will — or at least it shouldn’t — have any material effect on the outcome. We still would have a former POTUS standing as a convicted felon facing years in prison.

I won’t wager which of the charges holds the most potential for conviction. My opinion on all of that changes with the direction of the wind.

Oh … and then we have the two state trials that Trump is likely to face. He’s got the one in New York City and quite likely one in Fulton County, Ga. Both of those prosecutions are being led by Black district attorneys, which of course feeds into Trump’s racist wheelhouse. We damn sure can look forward to hearing Trump bloviate on the racial component of those actions.

Now, of course none of this will matter if he’s acquitted, if he walks away cleanly, if the feds and the states cannot persuade juries to convict beyond a reasonable doubt of Trump’s guilt in his effort to steal the 2020 presidential election and of his hiding of classified documents taken from the White House. Then we have the hush money payment he made illegally to the adult film star to keep her quiet about a tryst the two of them had … but which Trump denies ever occurred.

We are heading for a major storm. Let’s all hold on.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, legal news

All this legal trouble makes me dizzy

Allow me this admission … which is that I am having a bit of difficulty keeping straight all the legal battles awaiting the immediate past president of the United States.

He has three indictments sitting in front of him: two from the federal government he once pledged to protect and another from a New York district attorney.

A fourth indictment from the Fulton County (Ga.) DA appears imminent. They all appear to be serious to the max. If he gets convicted on all the charges, Donald J. Trump could spend the rest of his life in prison. Given his advanced age, it well might be that even a partial conviction could imprison Trump for the duration.

What is most astonishing as I watch this drama unfold is witnessing how Trump no longer is in control of his own future; control rests with three judges who are presiding over the various trials awaiting the former POTUS.

One of them, U.S. District Judge Tanya  Chutkan is the most interesting. She is an immigrant from Jamaica appointed to the federal bench by President Obama. Thus, she presents a challenge to Trump; she hails from a “sh**hole country,” as Trump once said and she owes her lifetime job to a man Trump despises. Trump is likely to anger her beyond all measure before this case gets resolved.

Special counsel Jack Smith wants the indictment he obtained regarding the 1/6 assault on our government to be tried quickly. Judge Chutkan holds the key to that matter.

Well, I am sitting out here in the peanut gallery watching and waiting with a good bit of anticipation on what could happen to the most unfit man ever elected to the presidency. I’ll just have to keep my mind clear to stay caught up with what appears to be a whirl of activity for the rest of the current year and into the next one.

I will have to hold on with both hands.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

Keep your distance, Mr. POTUS

Joe Biden has issued a directive ordering White House staffers to maintain a vow of silence regarding the indictments surrounding his immediate predecessor as president of the United States.

The president did so as a show of respect for the isolation he honors between political matters and those involved with administering the rule of law.

Many Democrats want President Biden to speak out, to take the fight to the Republicans, to — in effect — ignore the isolation.

Wrong! That is a fool’s option.

It is clear that Biden’s predecessor never would honor such a principle. Indeed, he says if he’s elected (God forbid!) in 2024 that he’s going to appoint a special counsel to go after Hunter Biden, Joe Biden and possibly any other Democrat he considers a worthy target.

I will interject that the current special counsel, Jack Smith, was selected by Attorney General Merrick Garland, that the White House had no role in finding this individual. AG Garland felt the need to separate himself from the twin probes into the 1/6 assault on our government and the classified documents caper that has produced a 37-count indictment against the former POTUS.

I believe President Biden’s fealty to the rule of law must stand. He won’t offer personal comment on his predecessor’s plight. Nor should he.

Nor should the White House staff weigh in with cheap shots and innuendo. Let’s just allow the process to do its work … according to the United States Constitution, which all elected public officials take an oath to “defend and protect.”

As for the leading 2024 GOP pretender for the White House, let him yammer on. The more he says the deeper he seems to sink into an abyss from which he might not escape.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

DA lays indictment groundwork

Fulton County, Ga., District Attorney Fani Willis has given the world fair warning.

She is going to seek criminal indictments against Donald John Trump no later than September and is putting out the word to law enforcement to be ready for possible violence as a result.

Willis made the statement today in a letter posted by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper. Why is this significant? Because Willis is acutely aware that she is seeking multiple indictments against the former POTUS and possibly against many of his compatriots who colluded with him to seek to overturn the results of a legitimate, free, fair and legal presidential election.

The Manhattan, N.Y. indictment alleging hush money payments to a porn store, thus, will be reduced to the small potatoes case it appears to be. Willis — as well as special counsel Jack Smith, hired by the Justice Department to examine document theft and inciting an insurrection — is preparing to suit up for the main event.

I long have thought that the Georgia charges against Trump had the most starch, and well might be the most provable. We have an audio recording of Trump bullying the Georgia secretary of state into seeking to “find” enough votes to hand the state’s Electoral College votes to the defeated ex-POTUS.

And there likely will be much more to learn later this year when DA Fani Willis drops the indictment bombs on Donald Trump … whose life is likely to get a whole lot worse.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com