Let us not mince words: Donald Trump is without a doubt a clear and present danger to the political establishment in this country.
He must be dangerous, for how else to explain the obsessive insistence of the Democrats and the Special Counsel Jack Smith in pursuing still more charges against Donald Trump, even as Smith grapples with the challenges of prosecuting an active candidate for the United States Presidency?
Former President Donald Trump is likely to be accused of being the leader of a conspiracy to obstruct the government from certifying the votes in the 2020 presidential election, argued Timothy Heaphy, former lead investigator for the House January 6 Committee.
This comes as the former president announced on Tuesday that he has received a target letter from special counsel Jack Smith — a clear sign he is likely to be indicted in the investigation.
What purpose, then, in pursuing still more charges against the man? Even if there were not significant constitutional issues with the charges themselves, at what point does piling on still more counts to the indictment cease to be an operative pursuit of legal justice?
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Former President Donald Trump said Tuesday he has received a letter informing him that he is a target of the Justice Department’s investigation into efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, an indication he could soon be charged by U.S. prosecutors.
"The order Raskin used is exactly the order that I think we'll see in the indictment," said Heaphy. "The lead charge here, in my view, is 1512(c), the evidence that the president and his co-conspirators specifically intended to obstruct, impede, or interfere with an official proceeding, a joint session in which President Biden's election was certified, is the lead count. I think the others are important too.
(1) alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record, document, or other object, or attempts to do so, with the intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding; or
(2) otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so,
shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.
What is notable about this likely charge is that it has zero connection to the Espionage Act charges previously filed against Trump. Whether that means a completely separate trial or whether the charges could be consolidated into a single trial is indeterminate at this time, although the disparate facts of the two cases to my layman’s eye would make a consolidated trial difficult if not impossible. The evidences involved and the prosecutions theory of the case would be separate for each, and at this time there is no obvious overlap.
In recent days, the grand jury has issued subpoenas to a handful of people who are connected to the inquiry, those familiar with it said. While it remains unclear who received the subpoenas and the kind of information prosecutors were seeking to obtain, it is clear that the grand jury has stayed active and that investigators are digging even after a 38-count indictment was issued this month against Mr. Trump and a co-defendant, Walt Nauta, one of his personal aides.
Prosecutors often continue investigating strands of a criminal case after charges have been brought, and sometimes their efforts go nowhere. But post-indictment investigations can result in additional charges against people who have already been accused of crimes in the case. The investigations can also be used to bring charges against new defendants.
The special grand jury that investigated former President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia recommended multiple indictments, its forewoman told the New York Times.
"You're not going to be shocked. It's not rocket science," the forewoman, Emily Kohrs, answered when asked if the jury recommended charging Trump personally.
Wisconsin’s top elections administrator on Tuesday became the latest official in a battleground state to say they have been interviewed by federal investigators as part of the special counsel’s probe into the 2020 election.
Wisconsin Elections Commission administrator Meagan Wolfe answered questions from the FBI and Justice Department officials in person in April, her spokesperson Riley Vetterkind said. Investigators have also spoken with the leader of elections in New Mexico, Michigan and Georgia.
With one set of charges already preferred against Donald Trump, another federal indictment presumably on the way, along with potential charges from Fulton County, Georgia, and Jack Smith needs to track down even more allegations to level against Trump in other states? All for the shocking crime and unpardonable sin of doubting and contesting the 2020 election?
How does this effort not look like a fishing expedition?
Particularly in the diversity of charges and avenues of investigations being pursued by Jack Smith, the strategy seems clear: force Donald Trump to defend himself in multiple trials on multiple charges in multiple venues at the same time.
Just the fact that the federal government has that level of prosecutorial resources to level against someone is scary enough. That such power should be leveled against the main opponent to a sitting US President, at a time when it would just happen to knock said opponent out of contention (or at least force him to withdraw to focus on the criminal cases), is too pat, too convenient, to be anything short of terrifying.
The crimes of which Trump is accused are fundamentally offenses of bad judgment. He is not accused of theft or fraud or drug trafficking, much less hurting anyone physically or selling out American interests to a foreign government. If the allegations in the initial indictment are true, Trump behaved like a childish, entitled imbecile. (Shocker!) But he did no real damage to anyone.
For people aiming to become President, there is already a process to adjudicate whether or not that person has sufficient judgement to sit behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, and that process is an election.
National polling shows that Trump's dominance in the GOP 2024 race has not waned despite his increasing legal woes. A Morning Consult poll released this week shows Trump garnering 55% support among Republican primary voters, a 35 percentage point lead over DeSantis, who polls at 20%. No other candidate polls in the double digits after Trump and DeSantis.
The possible indictment may even lead more GOP voters to identify with Trump's claims he is a victim of political targeting. Case in point: Republicans have also used the possible indictment to once again decry a two-tier justice system between Democrats and the GOP, in particular the treatment of President Joe Biden's son Hunter and his legal problems. Hunter Biden agreed to plead guilty last month to federal charges over a failure to pay income taxes and illegally possessing a firearm.
Whistleblowers claiming the Justice Department improperly interfered with a yearslong investigation into Hunter Biden will testify before Congress on Wednesday as House Republicans accelerate their probes into the president and his family.
Leaders of the House Judiciary, Oversight and Accountability, and Ways and Means committees will lead a hearing with two Internal Revenue Service employees — Greg Shapley and an as-yet-unnamed “whistleblower x” — who claim there was a pattern of “slow-walking investigative steps” into Hunter Biden, including delayed enforcement actions in the months before the 2020 election won by Joe Biden.
Among many allegations, the pair specifically allege the FBI’s investigation forewarned Hunter Biden of any future searches for materials that could be used as evidence, as Breitbart News previously reported.
They also alleged Assistant U.S. Attorney Lesley Wolf refused to allow investigators to ask about Joe Biden being “the big guy.”
Wolf also allegedly cautioned the investigation team from searching Joe Biden’s guest house in Delaware for evidence against Hunter Biden because of “optics.”
It takes no great leap of logic to fathom, then, why the charges against Donald Trump are not diminishing support for his candidacy, and may even be increasing it.
Officials at the White House know who handled a packet of cocaine that was found inside the Executive Mansion, and have confirmed that finding via fingerprint evidence, according to sources with direct knowledge of the investigation.
“We know who handled it,” one security source said. “We’ve known since last week.”
Two sources disclosed the name of the person who is believed to have handled the packet. Soldier of Fortune is withholding the name pending official confirmation.
If there are fingerprints recovered from the cocaine package, and that package tracks back in any way to Hunter Biden, then one has to wonder if its not the White House that stands guilty of obstruction of justice, by preventing what would be an ordinary case of drug possession into a coverup of Nixonian proportions.
However, there is a risk in pursuing so many charges against Donald Trump at the same time, while bending over backwards to give Hunter Biden special treatment. Given Trump’s populist message within his campaign, given his pledge to “Drain The Swamp of Washington Corruption" and to ensure “Free, Honest, and Lawful Elections”, the heavy handed approach where Donald Trump is concerned goes a long way towards proving the truth of his assessment of the Democrats’ obsessive desire to get rid of him.
After the vote, Trump tweeted out an image containing a seemingly profound message for his supporters, which said: "In reality they're not after me. They are after you. I'm just in the way."
Profound or not, accurate nor not, given the vehemence and the legal bulldozing tactics being applied against Donald Trump, it is not hard to fathom why such a narrative would resonate among Trump supporters and beyond.
In a very real sense, the charges being leveled against Donald Trump are becoming Donald Trump’s campaign message and campaign theme. The more Trump supporters see these charges as a political persecution of Donald Trump, the more that even disaffected nominal independents such as Alex Berenson—who is no fan of Donald Trump and his “reality TV” tactics—perceive a grotesque injustice in pursuing Trump for what are debatable crimes at best, while allowing those close to the White House to evade charges despite considerable evidence of tax evasion, drug possession and even drug trafficking, as well as innumerable instances of official corruption including bribery, the more the Democrats risk being seen as simply too corrupt to be tolerated any further.
That the Democrats are willing to burn down the nation’s criminal justice system simply to “stop” Donald Trump is a political message that, if it takes hold in the broader electorate, could make even for those not particularly enamored of Trump a second Trump Presidency a better option than a second term of naked corruption and cynical abuse of our governing institutions.
A deluge of criminal charges against Trump appearing all at the same time stands a very real chance of making the case even among independent and centrist Democrats that a putatively bombastic and reckless President Trump is a better choice than a continuation of a nakedly corrupt and clearly malevolent Biden Regime.
In order for this persecution by prosecution strategy to succeed, the Democrats have to be very careful not to overplay their hand. This rapid bombardment of charges from all sides could prove to be the Democrats undoing.
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There are a lot of us that just want to reelect him to stick it to the regime. I don’t care about his policies (though they were generally very good), I don’t care about his mean tweets (though, I find him hilarious and clever), and I don’t care about whatever trumped up charge they have this week. I heard something interesting a month or so back, if you believe the institutions can be saved--Desantis is your President, if you believe they are beyond saving--Trump is your vote. Very accurate in my case.
The amount of time and energy put into the coverage and examination of charges against Trump leaves a lot less air in the room to look at the alleged criminal activities by Joe Biden and family.
Political Paradox: The Trump Indictments Are Becoming The Trump Campaign
There are a lot of us that just want to reelect him to stick it to the regime. I don’t care about his policies (though they were generally very good), I don’t care about his mean tweets (though, I find him hilarious and clever), and I don’t care about whatever trumped up charge they have this week. I heard something interesting a month or so back, if you believe the institutions can be saved--Desantis is your President, if you believe they are beyond saving--Trump is your vote. Very accurate in my case.
The amount of time and energy put into the coverage and examination of charges against Trump leaves a lot less air in the room to look at the alleged criminal activities by Joe Biden and family.