Democracy Docket's Marc Elias echoes our thoughts about the failure of our judicial system in holding the most corrupt, dangerous person ever to gain the presidency accountable. Here's an extended snippet:
... With the fate of democracy hanging in the balance, we are left wondering whether the courts are up to the task of holding Trump accountable at all. Increasingly it seems that they are not.
When it comes to Trump versus the judiciary, the failed former one-term president has serious advantages. The first is his utter shamelessness. Even when judges are wrong, they don’t call people childish names or make up complete lies. Judges do not maintain armies of Twitter trolls to enforce their judgments and cannot unleash shameless surrogates to go on TV on their behalf.
This does not excuse the judiciary’s failures, however. The truth is that nearly every judge who has dealt with Trump in the last four years has paid him too much respect and deference. As a criminal defendant, he has too frequently been afforded rights that no other criminal defendant would receive.
Trump has managed to create an assumption among many in the media that his status as a candidate entitles him to special privileges — to make outrageous remarks that threaten the safety of witnesses, jurors and court staff and to delay his criminal trials until after the November election. Though neither the criminal code nor the Department of Justice rules contain a blackout period this fall for trials of political candidates, Trump is acting as if he is entitled to special dispensation.
Let’s be clear, Trump doesn’t want a trial before Election Day or after. He wants to abuse the legal system so that he never faces trial. No criminal defendant has that power, not even a former president. That is, unless the courts cede it to him. No other criminal defendant facing serious felonies is afforded the privilege of blocking out certain months not to stand trial because they are too busy with other matters... (our emphasis)
He wrote this before news of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's offer of a 30- day delay in the start of the Malignant Loser's porn star hush money trial that's already been delayed for many months. The issue there concerns 31,000 pages of records from Federal prosecutors who investigated the hush money payments and apparently were slow- walking producing the evidence to Bragg after declining to go forward with charges against the Malignant Loser (thanks again, Bill Barr and Merrick Garland!). The Washington Post picks up the thread:
... The crux of the dispute goes back to the convoluted, years-long legal saga of the hush money case. Trump — and his former lawyer, Michael Cohen — were investigated by federal prosecutors in New York over the payments. That investigation led to a guilty plea from Cohen in 2018, but federal authorities did not pursue criminal charges against Trump.
People familiar with the federal investigation, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe internal deliberations, have said one of the reasons for not pursuing such charges was that they considered Cohen a very flawed prosecution witness.
Years after Cohen’s guilty plea in federal court, Bragg filed state charges, saying Trump violated New York State law by classifying his reimbursement payments to Cohen as legal fees, rather than a campaign expense.
Trump’s defense lawyers have sought records from the federal prosecutors that they believe will show the weakness of Cohen as a witness and the prosecution case in general. Cohen was spotted at the district attorney’s office Wednesday. [snip]
On Wednesday, Bragg’s filing said, federal prosecutors “produced approximately 31,000 pages of additional records and represented that there will be another production of documents by next week.”
The district attorney’s office said it has begun reviewing those records and they appear “to contain materials related to the subject matter of this case, including” material that the district attorney had asked their federal counterparts to turn over more than a year ago. That request was rebuffed, Bragg’s filing said.
A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney declined to comment.
The district attorney’s office also told the judge that it has reviewed the 73,000 pages produced for the defense earlier this month. Those documents “were largely irrelevant to the subject matter of this case,” except for about 172 pages of witness statements, according to Bragg’s filing.
In suggesting a one-month delay, Bragg blamed Trump’s legal team for the problem. He said prosecutors had “diligently sought the full grand jury record” from the federal probe and that defense lawyers waited until mid-January to subpoena federal prosecutors for the material. (our emphasis)
What this suggests to us is the glaringly obvious: that the judicial system is being manipulated, in some cases willingly by Malignant Loser- friendly judges and prosecutors, in a manner inconsistent with the need for a swift adjudication of the scores of felony counts against the presumptive nominee of the Christofascist Republican MAGA cult. As Elias noted above, the Malignant Loser isn't looking for swift justice because he has a consciousness of guilt and wants to avoid trials altogether. Justice delayed is justice denied.
One more point concerning manipulation of the judiciary. The Judicial Conference of the United States just issued new rules governing the right- wing practice of "judge-shopping" that would end that tactic used for finding judges who would rule favorably for you. This has quite naturally raised the hackles of Christofascist Republicans who are used to sabotaging popular legislation through this method. One of the loudest squealers telling courts to ignore those rules is the godfather of destroying the judiciary by overloading it with far- right political hacks: the damnable Sen. Mitch McConnell.
BONUS:
The reality here is that the SDNY, not to mention the DOJ, is packed with Republicans. That is simply incompatible with upholding the rule of law. https://t.co/APGd24y7u0
— Joseph O'Neill (@JosephONeillx) March 15, 2024
