Special Counsel Jack Smith and New York attorney Alvin Bragg
While Donald Trump continues his impressive pace of rallies and interviews and running mate JD Vance continues to humiliate the regime press, Kamala Harris is re-upping Joe Biden's 2020 strategy of staying out of the public eye as much as possible; her schedule regularly consists of "internal discussions and briefings" rather than the sort of turf-hitting grind one expects of a presidential candidate.
Harris's disastrous pre-taped, partially-aired CNN interview before a nauseatingly-compliant Dana Bash last week is a reminder why she was the most unpopular vice president on record and why her team plans to keep her under wraps up to the finish line.
At the same time Kamala coasts during this critical period, the month of September will find Trump's lawyers in two courtrooms as the lawfare against the former president reaches different stages in New York City and Washington, D.C. The proceedings represent egregious election interference, which is infuriating considering it is unlikely either case ultimately survives the Supreme Court's immunity test presented in the landmark Trump v US opinion published in July.
Long term outcomes, however, are of no concern to the Democratic prosecutors and Democratic judges handling the Alvin Bragg state case in New York and Special Counsel Jack Smith's federal indictment against the former president related to January 6 in Washington. As long as the partisan prosecutors and judges successfully reinforce the party narrative that Donald Trump is a criminal and should not return to the White House, any future humiliation handed down by higher courts will be too late to reverse damaging headlines as Americans prepare to vote early in some key states.
© Diego M. Radzinschi / ALMU.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan
On September 5, the special counsel's team and Trump's attorneys will square off before Chutkan, who must decide how to proceed with a case she was desperate to get to trial earlier this year. (Her original March 4, 2024 trial date โ a mere seven months after Smith filed the unprecedented criminal case โ was vacated awaiting the Supreme Court's ruling.) Smith just issued a superseding indictment, which I cover here, in a half-assed attempt to conform to SCOTUS immunity guidance.
But a joint status report filed on Friday exposes the major obstacles the Department of Justice faces in salvaging the disintegrating J6 case. Trump's lawyers proposed a pretrial schedule that stretches well into 2025 and indicated several motions to dismiss the case based on presidential immunity, SCOTUS's decision in Fischer v. US, and Smith's unconstitutional appointment, which resulted in Judge Aileen Cannon dismissing Smith's documents case in Florida, are forthcoming. "We believe, and expect to demonstrate, that this case must end as a matter of law," John Lauro and Todd Blanche, Trump's lawyers in the D.C. case, wrote on August 30.
Team Trump further argues that Smith should not have retained the former president's communications with Vice President Michael Pence as evidence in the new indictment; SCOTUS designated those interactions as "presumptively immune," but Smith ignored that part of the opinion in a desperate ploy to make the new indictment appear substantive.
The special counsel offered little in the way of rebuttal except to propose submitting an "opening brief" to explain why the remaining elements in the indictment are not covered by immunity โ an idea that Trump's lawyers firmly rejected.
Chutkan, who has a history of making inflammatory remarks about Trump and promoting lies about the events of January 6 in court, will have the final say as to next steps.
Things are not going much better for Democrats in the Alvin Bragg case in New York; the immunity ruling is wreaking havoc on Trump's conviction on 34 felonies for falsifying business records as one of my contributors explained here.
© Associated PressJudge Juan M. Merchan rejected Donald Trump's request for a new judge in his New York "hush money" criminal case.
Trump's lawyers in that case also are seeking immediate relief. Not only did they refile a motion asking Merchan to recuse based on his daughter's profitable Democratic consulting firm but counsel just filed a second request seeking a transfer from state to federal court based on the tainted nature of Bragg's investigation and prosecution. "[The] Supreme Court held that President Trump is entitled to immunity from criminal prosecution for his official acts, and โ as particularly relevant here โ that prosecutors may not use official-acts evidence in connection with a prosecution that they claim arises out of unofficial conduct. President Trump's defense theory [is] that the prosecutors relied on official-acts evidence at trial and in grand jury proceedings," Blanche and Emil Bove wrote on August 29. (A 90-year-old Clinton judge denied a similar request last year.)
In a follow-up letter, they asked Merchan to postpone the September proceedings as the request to move the case to a federal jurisdiction is considered. "There is no good reason to sentence President Trump prior to November 5."
And as Democrats pound the GOP presidential candidate as a "convicted felon" while both cases re-enter the headlines, Trump is limited as to how he can respond. Chutkan and Merchan issued gag orders to prohibit Trump from making various public statements including comments about Merchan's daughter, Loren, who has raked in at least $13 million this year alone.
Harris, meanwhile, operates under a voluntary gag order โ and few in the media say a word about it.
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