https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/trump-indicted-federal-election-interference-case-supreme-court-immuni-rcna168503
The Supreme Court’s decision last month barred the government from using certain “official acts” Trump had taken as president in its prosecution.
No real changes here, next date to watch is Friday, 8/30:
If you're trying to keep track of where we're at in the Trump prosecutions:
Updated 08/27/2024
Washington, D.C.
4 federal felonies
January 6th Election Interference
Investigation
Indictment
Arrest <- You Are Here
Trial - The trial, originally scheduled for March 4th, had been placed on hold pending the Supreme Court ruling on Presidential Immunity.
The Supreme Court ruled that the President does enjoy limited immunity for "official acts", it now returns to lower court to determine what, if any, of his acts leading up to 1/6 were "official".
https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/01/politics/supreme-court-donald-trump-immunity/index.html
On 8/27, a new federal grand jury re-indicted Trump on all four counts in a hearing this time excluding evidence barred by the Supreme Court.
Previously, Jack Smith had asked for a delay until 8/30 to determine a path forward, it would seem this new indictment is the path.
Conviction
Sentencing
New York
34 state felonies
Stormy Daniels Payoff
Investigation
Indictment
Arrest
Trial
Conviction <- You Are Here Guilty, all 34 counts.
Sentencing - Originally scheduled for July 11, 2024, now delayed until September 18th following the Supreme Court's ruling on Presidential immunity.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/02/politics/trump-sentencing-date-delay-proposal/index.html
Georgia
10 state felonies
Election Interference
As of 3/13/24 - Judge McAfee cleared 6 charges, 3 against Trump, saying they were too generic to be enforced.
As of 3/15/24 - The case may proceed, but either Fulton County DA, Fani Willis and her office or Special Prosecutor Nathan Wade must remove themselves due to the appearance of impropriety.
Investigation
Indictment
Arrest <- You Are Here
All 19 defendants have surrendered. n
Trial - October 4th, 2024 hearing has been set to determine if Fani Willis can remain on the case.
Three defendants, Kenneth Chesebro, Sidney Powell, and bail bondsman Scott Hall, have all pled guilty and have agreed to testify in other cases.
Conviction
Sentencing
Florida
40 federal felonies
Top Secret Documents charges
Investigation
Indictment
Original indictment was for 37 felonies.
3 new felonies were added on July 27, 2023.
Arrest <- You Are Here
Trial - The trial had been set to begin May 20, 2024, but was subsequently delayed indefinitely by the judge, and has now been dismissed outright under the claims that the prosecutor was not Constitutionally appointed.
https://www.reuters.com/legal/judge-tosses-trump-documents-case-ruling-prosecutor-unlawfully-appointed-2024-07-15/
Jack Smith appealed Judge Cannon's ruling on Monday, 8/26 to the 11th circuit.
https://www.npr.org/2024/08/26/g-s1-19642/special-counsel-jack-smith-judge-cannon-appeal-trump-classified-documents
Conviction
Sentencing
Other grand juries, such as for the documents at Bedminster, or the Arizona fake electors, have not been announced.
The E. Jean Carroll trial for sexual assault and defamation where Trump was found liable and ordered to pay $5 million before immediately defaming her again resulting in a demand for $10 million is not listed as it's a civil case and not a crimimal one. He was found liable in that case for $83.3 million.
There had been multiple cases in multiple states to remove Trump from the ballot, citing ineligibility under the 14th amendment.
The Supreme Court ruled on March 4th that states do not have the ability to determine eligibility in Federal elections.
There is a change, though.
Jack Smith reworded the indictment to get around the corrupt SCOTUS, and STILL GOT A GRAND JURY TO AGREE THAT A CRIME WAS PROBABLY COMMITTED.
Damn the torpedoes! Full steam ahead, boys!
No real changes on a legal front true, as you have shown, but every bit of bad news makes Trump just a little bit more deranged and turns a few more people off, so I'm fine celebrating it anyway.
The article mentioned that it was a surprising verdict but didn't expand on why. Can anyone shed light?
A) It's not a verdict, it's an indictment, which means there will be a trial. They had to rule out some of the evidence they presented to the first grand jury based on the Supreme Court ruling.
B) I assume you're referring to Trump's own response. The quotation marks are important:
Trump blasted the fresh indictment as “shocking” and “a direct attack on democracy” in a string of social media posts. “The case has to do with ‘Conspiracy to Obstruct the 2020 Presidential Election,’ when they are the ones that did the obstructing of the Election, not me,” he wrote.
Because one of the (supposed) fundamental principles of the United States is that "no one is above the law", and the Supreme Court has ruled that the President is above the law. Terms and conditions obviously apply (at least at the moment), namely that the President has to be able to successfully argue that a given act was an "official act" - something that, given the current courts, will be excessively easy for a Republican to argue and very difficult for a Democrat to argue.
There was also some part of the decision (I cba to look it up rn) that excluded wide categories of evidence from being [?subpoena'd ?submitted to the court] to support a prosecution argument that something was outside the President's "official acts" unless they'd already gotten past the "this was an official act" argument first, which means it ends up being a Catch-22.
For example, say that the DOJ absolutely knows (as a purely hypothetical example) that an ex-President had illegally taken highly-classified government documents, including nuclear secrets, and was storing them next to a photocopier in an easily-accessible bathroom at a golf club (again this is purely a hypothetical example). The ex-President claims that there are no documents, that any documents he might have seen were automatically declassified by the official act of him thinking about declassifying them, that any documents that might have been removed were done as part of the official act of vacating the White House, etc, etc.
In the end, the DOJ spends years and years trying to get the documents back and proving that the ex-President is trading access to the photocopier-equipped bathroom to the Russians, Saudis, Chinese, and anyone else who wants to "buy" some insanely over-priced "NFT trading cards" of the ex-President (or a batch of special Bibles, or a truckload of gold tennis shoes, etc). But the DOJ and FBI can't get their argument into court because the ex-President claims everything is an "official act" and the courts give him every possible bit of leeway there is, so the FBI ends up not being able to raid the golf club and get the highly-classified nuclear secrets back from the ex-President, and all the while the ex-President continues to host people from unfriendly governments at the bathroom of his golf club.
Again, this is a purely hypothetical example, as we both know that nothing this outrageous would ever happen outside of the movies.
Partially I agree with "official acts" being above the law. For example certain judges can order someone to be killed and not fave murder charges... If I order my neighbor to be killed, I get murder charges. That "official act" is above the law. We granted those judges that right. Cops can break speed limits when chasing criminals. Again that's an official act and should be above the law.
Now the concern comes from who declares an action "official".
A judge can't say Rob a bank and declare it an official act. A police officer can't distribute child porn and declare it an official act.
The rendering of a sentence as part of a just trial is absolutely a part of the law, not above the law.
The entire process is spelled out: prosecution, indictment, jury selection, trial, conviction, appeal, etc. fully within the confines of the law.
I dont think they cut much, just one charge and most (all?) references to the Department of Justice. Indictment went from 46 down to 35 pages, still carries 6 charges. A new grand jury considered it and voted to indict. Nothing about this sequence of events indicates this is a weak case.
I personally wouldn't want a federal indictment of 36 pages against me.
Well, there's a lot of money that wants it all to just go away. Money can buy lots of stuff.
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