PolitiSage Sunday, August 20, 2023
Trump asks for delay in trials until after he's dead. Plus cool stuff.
Trump Asks for Trial Delay Until After He’s Dead
OK, I’m being facetious, but his lawyers did ask for a delay in the trial of the January 6th case brought against Trump by Special Counsel Jack Smith—until April of 2026. The speculation is that Trump expects to win the presidency and then pardon himself. Such a self-exoneration would be challenged all the way to the Supreme Court, which could take a couple of years.
Some called the delay request “laughable”—as there no chance that Judge Tanya Chutkan, who just had her life threatened by a MAGA-ite in Texas, will grant the request.
In an exchange with MSNBC’s Joy Reid, Neal Katyal, former Acting Solicitor-General of the United States said:
“I mean, laughable gives it so much credit, Joy. I don’t actually have adjectives in my vocabulary – at least not ones I can say on television. … I’ve never in my 20-plus years of practicing law seen a request anything like that, and I’ll eat my hat if Judge Chutkan accepts it because look, justice delayed is justice denied.”
Katyal went on to say that the request was an admission of Trump’s culpability and indicates that he isn’t really focused on proving innocence—which he knows will be impossible to do with all that’s on tape and under sworn testimony. Katyal says:
“He talks all the bluster he wants outside the courtroom but he is terrified of actually being in the courtroom, and when he is in one, he clams up. So to me, this is just further indicia of his own consciousness of guilt. ... I think that it tells us a lot about his own state of mind.”
So, he is, first, just scared. And for good reason: he can’t fairly win this case. And he will need two years of a presidency to see if he can fly a self-exonerating pardon.
Meanwhile, his next move will be to try to move the case from state to federal court where he stands a better chance of staying out of jail.
Judge in E. Jean Carroll Defamation Case No. 2 Refuses To Delay Trial
The January 6th case isn’t the only one for which Trump appealed for a trial delay. Another is the classified documents case. And a third is the second defamation trial brought against Trump by E. Jean Carroll, who prevailed against him in his rape/defamation trial earlier this year.
Trump asked first for an appeal of his previous conviction—which Judge Lewis Kaplan denied on the grounds that he’d almost certainly lose it, therefore making the appeal “frivolous”—a fraught legal term which the judge can declare of his own volition and which effectively blocks any further political move on the issue. So the sexual assault and defamation case decided on May 9th stands and will enjoy no appeal. Pay up, Mr. Trump.
Kaplan’s court also ruled against any delay to consider that Trump had presidential immunity when defaming an American citizen, in serial fashion, in the worldwide press. Kaplan shut him down again, saying Trump had lost the right to make such a claims as he’d waited three and a half years to bring up the potential defense.
Trump promptly said he’d go to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York to see if it will overrule Kaplan’s decision—and then claimed that he would suffer “irreparable harm” if E. Jean Carroll’s second defamation case proceeds on schedule. Denying an attempt to delay for a second time, Judge Lewis Kaplan responded with a priceless retort:
"The only purported harm Mr. Trump reasonably may claim he would suffer in this case would be having to stand trial."
The trial will be heard in the Southern District of New York, as scheduled, on January 15th, 2024.
This Week
Last week a fire destroyed almost all of Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii. At this writing, with 78% of the burn area searched, the death toll stands at 114. But authorities are saying that 1,000 people are still missing—and that land predators are trying to buy people out with the state trying to head them off. FEMA has authorized $3.6 million in funds for 2,200 people already known to have lost their homes, and more state and federal aid is coming. Meanwhile, the one glimmer of hope is that Lahaina’s magnificent 150-year-old banyan tree is still alive. Earlier this week we had a look at her history and what she means to the residents of Hawaii. More here:
The Lahaina Banyan Tree Is Alive!
A whole world exists in her umbrage: picnic tables, lounging benches, street lamps, walkways. Rudyard Kipling famously said that “only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun,” but, until last week, if you found yourself in Lahaina, you had a friend.
Donald Trump and 18 Cronies Were Indicted on RICO Charges in Georgia for Trying to Steal the Presidency of the United States
We had a deeper look at this, too, and invite you to read this one and weep—and also to have great hope that this can never, ever happen again because the courts of the United States and states like Georgia held true. For those who missed The Sopranos, a RICO statute is a law against organized crime (read: mobsters). This episode of The Trumpsters is subtitled “Goodfellas Went Down to Georgia.”
Trump and 18 Others Indicted in Georgia
Vicious, conniving, and pitiless, this throwback to the era of Capone and Lansky was, this night, indicted by a Black DA whose vote he would have stolen. Unlike the three other cases against him — Bragg’s documents case in the Stormy Daniels hush money payoff case, Jack Smith’s Mar-a-Lago case, and the recently charged January 6th case br…
Meme of the Week
Because it’s beautiful …
I deeply thank you for joining us. Would you please kindly share us with your friends and ask them to join us? We would appreciate it so much. Happy Sunday from a loft in San Francisco and a sweet home by the sea in Devon, UK.
The photo of the leopard on the desert viewing the sunset pretty much sums up all of religion for me. May we rest in peace!