Why they are so determined to try Trump in Georgia
There are four criminal cases now pending in the lawfare against Trump, an extraordinary, unprecedented, and coordinated drive to either stop him from running for president, stop him from being elected president, or stop him from serving as president if elected.
Two of the cases are in the federal court system, and even if Trump were to be convicted, if he becomes president he apparently could pardon himself. But two are in state systems where conviction would be immune to presidential pardon.
Of course, if convicted in any of these cases, a state appeals court could overturn a conviction in the state cases, and/or SCOTUS could do so if it decided to hear either case. SCOTUS also could overturn either of the federal cases, of course. But I don’t think that Democrats are so very upset by the prospect of any conviction being overturned if it happens after an election; the first order of business is to harass and distract Trump while he’s running as well as taint him with voters, and -they hope – keep him from being elected in the first place.
But if Trump doesn’t win an appeal, convictions in either New York or Georgia (the states involved in the state cases) would be subject to pardons only according to the rules of the state itself. New York has a Democrat governor unlikely to ever pardon Trump. Georgia has a Republican governor, but one who is not Trump-friendly – although that latter point is irrelevant because in Georgia the governor cannot issue pardons.
Georgia has a somewhat unusual system that goes like this:
Georgia’s RICO charge carries a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison if convicted.
In Georgia, a pardon is an “order of official forgiveness” only granted to those who have completed their sentence, according to the State Board of Pardons and Paroles’ website. …
In Georgia, pardon power does not rest with the governor (aka Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican) but with the State Board of Pardons and Paroles, a board within the state’s executive branch.
The State Board of Pardons and Paroles is made up of five members who are appointed by the governor and then confirmed by the state Senate for a seven-year term.
“Once confirmed, members would be insulated from political pressures by the fact that no one official could remove them from office until they completed their terms,” the State Board of Pardons and Paroles’ website states.
To qualify for a pardon in Georgia, according to the State Board of Pardons and Paroles’ website, you must have completed your sentence at least five years before applying. You must not have committed any crimes in those five years or have any pending charges, among other qualifications.
The power given to courts to mount political prosecutions is enormous. All that is needed is an unscrupulous politically-motivated prosecutor – there are plenty of those – and a venue in which most of the judges are biased in a certain direction and/or the same is true of the jury pool.
Both the Georgia case and the New York hush money case are considered novel interpretations of existing law. These convoluted prosecutions are being used against a political opponent. The Georgia case is considered at least somewhat stronger than the New York case, although both are weak in the legal sense. But that doesn’t matter if the court is biased enough. In the Georgia case, there’s another element too. From last October:
Texas attorney Sidney Powell pleaded guilty to election interference charges in Fulton County Superior Court on Thursday, one day before jury selection was scheduled to begin for her trial.
As part of the plea deal, Powell was sentenced to six years of probation for conspiring to interfere with the performance of election duties for orchestrating a Coffee County elections system breach following the 2020 presidential election. …
According to the plea agreement, Powell agreed to testify in other election interference trials about the hacking of voting machines and software that occurred in rural south Georgia shortly after the incumbent Republican president lost the state of Georgia by less than 12,000 votes to Democratic President Joe Biden. …
Powell admitted Thursday that she hired forensic computer experts to compromise voting software and other confidential voter information from the Coffee County elections office in early 2021. She also agreed that prosecutors would have proven during trial that Powell, along with several co-conspirators, plotted with Coffee County elections director Misty Hampton to illegally access election machines by tampering with electronic ballot markers, voting software and other equipment.
So Powell is poised to testify in at least some of these cases, although it appears from that article that her testimony may be limited to the hacking of voting machines; I’m unaware of any allegations that Trump was connected to any of that at all. So it’s possible that Powell’s testimony won’t hurt him. But the fact that she was at least briefly connected with his challenge of the 2020 election, and that she pleaded guilty, certainly doesn’t help him. Here’s an article discussing some of the possibilities.
Something strikes me as very fishy—the odor of mendacity (or should that be “Biden”-induced “terror” in this case?)—WRT Powell’s purported plea deal and her related “disclosure”.
Fishy as in, it stinks.
As in the prosecutions, lies and intimidation that the Jan. 6 defendants have been forced to endure stinks.
As in, it doesn’t add up.
Keeping in mind that, while defending Michael Flynn, she single-handedly demonstrated how stinkingly corrupt Judge Sullivan was, might one wonder what kind of “boot-stomping” pressure was put on her by a tyrannical regime whose goal is total power forever?
One last question: How do you write, “It’s PAYBACK time”? (which is clearly the Democrats’ FAVORITE time of day…)
I [really] hope that it doesn’t come to this but:
As far as I can tell, there is no: [New York State law, or a Georgia law, or a Federal law…that says that Trump can’t-
take some: cellphones, internet computer(s), + some Secret Service agents, and then-run the Oval Office/be the US President- while he’s living in a [state or federal prison].
I don’t think that Trump would be the happiest man in that arrangement, but I believe that no [federal law or state law] exists, that bars someone from being the US President, while that person is in a New York jail, or in a Georgia-state jail.
Hm.
Because they enabled a fraud why shouldnt she have gotten access to these bogus unverifiable counts
There was no case hence the plea
So was Trump a threat to these guys, too?
“Four-Star Sellouts”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/four-star-sellouts
Related?
“Anti-Trump Neocons Raising $50 Million To Keep Open-Border Democrats In Power”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/anti-trump-neocons-raising-50-million-keep-open-border-democrats-power
Meanwhile, there does seem to be a pattern here…but it’s a pattern NO ONE can really talk about.
“Democrat-Darling Rachael Rollins Disbarred After Justice Refuses To Prosecute One Of Its Own”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/democrat-darling-rachael-rollins-disbarred-after-justice-refuses-prosecute-one-its-own
Yep, we’re definitely in “Elephant in middle of the Living Room” territory….
The political prosecution of Trump is driving a stake through the heart of our former justice system. In doing so both those responsible and those in support of that immoral evisceration of the rule of law will “deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out.”
Never forget what they have done and until they admit to the grave immorality of what they have done and support… never forgive.
Forgiveness requires sincere repentance.
I assumed Georgia was just a state that Trump had some involvement with after the election, as well as a state where a big city prosecutor willing and able to put him in prison for any reason or no real reason at all. If the Democrats really did take the pardon system in the state into account, that was brilliant strategizing, and it suggests that their election “fortification” machine is firing on all cylinders.
I would wonder if knowing that Trump couldn’t get an pardon without doing serious time might affect the jury’s deliberations, but I suppose that the prosecution would object to the jury finding that out — and that the jury might well want to put Trump in a prison cell for any reason or for none at all.
Eugene Debs, call your office. He ran for Pres while in Prison on Federal Charges.
@TR:
There’s not any laws about it. Only the Constitution discusses the qualifications for President, specifically, Article II.
Were I Trump, I wouldn’t even dignify these proceedings. Refuse to appear, and just don’t go to Georgia. The Fulton County D.A.’s office, or any Georgia peace officer, has no authority outside of Georgia, and the FBI can’t do anything because it’s not a federal case, so they lack jurisdiction.
I suppose Trump’s protective detail could detain him, which would set up some neat optics with an executive agency reporting to the current president detaining for arrest his prime opponent in the upcoming election. Popcorn, meet mouth.
Geoffrey+Britain hits the nail on the head, a stake has been driven through the heart of our justice system. We are now in the era of “ends justifying the means” as legal doctrine.
Perhaps ten years ago, I would view a scofflaw of the law in a negative light, and assume that the government had an honest case and a fair intent in serving the public good.
Today? I’d view it as a badge of honor and another reason to vote for him if Trump gives Fani Wills and the whole garbage farce of a prosecution the middle finger.
“When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another”, and all that jazz.
TR on March 16, 2024 at 3:43 pm
But there is still the risk of him being impeached under those circumstances.
And potentially then convicted by the Senate.
Perhaps this is unlikely if he has a better than expected win at the polls.
But many, especially those who held their nose as they voted for him as the least worse option, might favor such a result if he is legally convicted in GA or NY.
In that case the definition of that “legality” becomes as much a political issue as a rule of law issue.
Pingback:Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup - Pirate's Cove » Pirate's Cove
Democrats are playing with fire.
Surely it all depends on how many see this as a death blow to whatever was left of the US legal system, compared to how many pearl-clutching AWFLs there are. Remember, even if Trump is convicted, it would (a) be a problem to arrest him after he’s been elected, and (b) a tough call to do so during the campaign.
I think it’s a race who can get DJT’S scalp first, it could be the ticket to Marxist Greatness
now Sydney was very curt in her statement, as she has been through this rodeo before, whereas Jenna really tried to show her legs to the crocodiles,
How the media reacted to Trump’s latest comment Is why Americans have lost trust in the media – RE POST
https://commoncts.blogspot.com/2024/03/how-media-reacted-to-trumps-latest.html