How To Handle The Trump Trials
Celebrity trials are often messy and ungainly – unlike courtroom dramas on TV or film.
by Bob Cesca
WASHINGTON, DC – There's a warrant for Donald Trump's arrest.
We all know it, but it's super fun to say out loud following this week’s criminal indictments handed up in Atlanta, Georgia. We’re so accustomed to this petty tyrant getting away with obvious crimes and things that’d otherwise be regarded as career-ending blunders that an arrest warrant feels mindblowingly surreal.
It doesn’t necessarily mean Trump is going to prison, but among the various other indictments, this one seems most likely to stick, chiefly because there’s no chance for a presidential or gubernatorial pardon. Even if Trump and his co-conspirators successfully move the venue to a federal court, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis will remain the prosecutor and Georgia state laws will still apply. If Trump is convicted, it’s quite likely that he’ll be locked away in some form or another.
One of my favorite angles on this story has to be the bleak reality that Trump and his henchmen are of a certain age where they might be calculating whether they can stall and delay long enough so they end up dying of old age before going to prison – or if they end up going to prison, how long will they remain incarcerated before they die?
I’m getting ahead of myself here, since there are eleventy-billion things that need to happen before a prison sentence begins. This will inevitably be a process wrought with chaos, stress, and frustration as we observe – perhaps on live television – the sausage-making of our judicial system.
And that’s why we need to calibrate our expectations starting now. So here are several things we need to bear in mind as these four criminal cases advance toward juries, trials, and verdicts.
1) The Old Man and the Sea.
We need to be prepared for the prosecutors to lose in court – not the cases themselves necessarily but on procedural things. In other words, like Ernest Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea, these cases will be picked apart by sharks as we row closer and closer to shore. This could result in witness testimony and evidence being stricken from the record, reduced sentencing, and so on. The same thing will happen to the defense teams, of course, but we hope it’ll end up being a net-advantage for the prosecution teams. In other words, those of us who want Trump to be punished for his crimes will have some bad days mixed in with the bombshell days.
2) Every conviction will be appealed.
If Trump is convicted, he will appeal the shit out of the verdict. And it’s possible that he could be released on bond pending those appeals. Same goes for his co-conspirators. However, there will be terms for the appeal bond and if Trump were to violate any of those terms, the bond would be revoked and he’d be locked up. Plus, an appeal carries no guarantees for the defendant.
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3) The race to trial vs. the race to Election Day
Fani Willis is looking for a March 2024 start date, but I spoke with a former criminal attorney from Georgia who’s convinced it’s unlikely the trial will end before the election due to the cavalcade of usual delays. One upside here is this: Trump’s spending on his legal defenses are costing his fanboys a fortune. It’s unheard of to face four trails at around the same time. Among other things, it’s an expensive-as-hell proposition. Trump can’t necessarily afford to drag this out indefinitely. Much like how the space race and the nuclear arms race eventually bankrupted the Soviet Union, this could easily sap Trump of his slush funds and his personal wealth.
4) Not guilty?
Given the 91 counts against Trump alone across all four trials, it’s possible Trump could be found not guilty on some of these charges. Conversely, like a shotgun blast, the sheer volume of charges could surely lead to convictions. Put it this way, though: I’d much rather be Alvin Bragg, Fani Willis, and Jack Smith than Donald Trump. One way or another, this saga will end badly for Trump.
5) Trump will absolutely make things worse for Trump.
There’s no doubt in my mind that the list of charges against Trump will grow from here. Why? Trump always makes things worse for himself. Always. It’s safe to expect more superseding indictments as well as the possibility of further witness tampering – at the very least. We can also expect some if not all of Trump’s lawyers to quit or be fired. And if Trump insists on an advice-of-counsel defense, he’ll have to testify, which will mean perjury charges for sure.
6) It’s in the journey.
There are obviously significant political benefits to Trump being convicted and imprisoned. But don’t underestimate the power of the trials themselves – and especially the televised revelations presented in the Georgia case. This could have a significant impact on how certain voters perceive Trump and his party at the height of the presidential campaign season, and not in a good way. Remember: our elections are decided by wafer thin margins and particularly damning courtroom events could swing the balance of the election our way.
If you’re expecting all of the worst possible things to happen to Trump, you might end up feeling disappointed or even disillusioned with the process. Celebrity trials are often messy and ungainly – unlike courtroom dramas on TV or film. The best advice is to take each step as it happens, rather than establishing lofty expectations for something that won’t occur for another year or more.
The endgame here is for justice to be served and for Trump to keep on losing until he’s no longer a factor in our politics. To that end, I strongly believe Trump will be convicted, at least once, as a consequence of all this – that is if his arteries last that long. But bear in mind that there will be moments when it looks like he’s getting away with it. In the end, he won’t.
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Ben Shapiro Is Gaslighting America
Conservative grifters are conspiring to exonerate Trump from his egregious crimes while vilifying the Democrats at the same time.
by Ben Cohen
Ben Shapiro posted this to Twitter after a grand jury in Georgia indicted Trump and 18 allies on state charges relating to his attempts to overturn his 2020 electoral defeat:
The stunning 41-count indictment includes charges of racketeering, forgery, conspiracy to commit election fraud, and multiple counts related to making false statements and impersonating a public officer. It was unsealed earlier this week, making a new total of 91 charges leveled against the former president in four different jurisdictions.
The Georgia indictment, like the others, is devastating. Former President Nixon’s White House counsel John Dean told CNN Trump’s latest indictment is “much bigger than Watergate,” and for good reason. The indictment lays out in meticulous detail an extraordinary attempt by multiple parties to overthrow the election on the basis of provable lies. It is the text book definition of a criminal conspiracy and outlines clear violations of Georgia’s RICO law (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization).
No one with a shred of credibility believes the indictment is unwarranted, which makes Ben Shapiro’s statement all the more ridiculous. But it is worth analyzing for several reasons.
The Youtube intellectual
In the Youtube/Twitter era of political media, the 39 year old Shapiro is generally regarded as the Right’s most prominent intellectual. He is a product of “The Intellectual Dark Web” — a renegade alliance of mostly conservative influencers like Jordan Peterson, Joe Rogan, and Dave Rubin who made their names gaming social media algorithms with controversial, clickbaity opinions.
Shapiro is a religious conservative (he’s an orthodox Jew), and a reluctant Trump supporter who claims only to be behind the MAGA movement because “Democrats have lost their minds.” This gives him a unique position in American conservative circles where he can speak to Trump supporters and traditional conservatives alike.
Shapiro is a savvy operator with his own growing media empire, The Daily Wire, that profits from this highly lucrative niche. The Wire isn’t overtly MAGA, but it provides intellectual cover for conservatives keen to justify their support for the MAGA agenda. Given his huge audience, this means what Shapiro says matters.
Logical lunacy
Let’s look carefully at Shapiro’s words:
“Whatever you might think of the Trump indictment, one thing is for certain: the glass has now been broken over and over again.”
This is an explicit acknowledgment that Shapiro isn’t interested in the contents of the indictment…
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He doesn't seem to have a problem golfing one day the on site campaign the next. Cut a few golf dates and he can make all court appointments and campaign appointments.
And the secret service is good at multitasking meat sacks they protect.
Let's see...91 felonies...plea bargain to drop half of the charges and sentence him to one year for each of the other half. To be served consecutively. That would still be 45 years (or so) and he'd still die in prison. And he'd probably only hear "one year" and think he was getting a good deal.