…meanwhile…

(Trump posted his own mug shot from the Fulton County jail to mark his return to his X-Twitter account.)

Proud Boy in 1/6 Gets 17 Years -- Proud Boy Joe Biggs convicted for sedition and other charges was sentenced Thursday to 17 years in prison, second-highest for anyone convicted in connection with the January 6 Capitol attacks, The Hill reports.

Biggs said he was "sick and tired of left versus right" and added, "I know I messed up that day, but I'm not a terrorist."

U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly applied a terrorism enhancement to the sentence, which means the defendant committed an offense that "was calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion, or to retaliate against government conduct." On January 6, Biggs tried to tear down a fence that would have brought the mob "one step closer" to their objective of disrupting Congress' certification of 2020 election results, the court found.

Biggs, who is 38 or 39 according to Wikipedia, had asked for a sentence between 27 and 33 months long, while prosecutors sought 33 years.

•••

Trump Pleads Not Guilty -- Donald J. Trump has entered a not guilty plea to charges he tried to overturn Georgia's 2020 presidential election results (NPR). The former president entered his plea in a court filing, thus waiving his right to appear at an arraignment in Fulton County scheduled for next Wednesday. Some of his 18 co-defendants have done the same, including former Trump attorney Sidney Powell.

•••

Russia to Buy Arms from North Korea – Russia is trying to purchase weapons from North Korea to support its invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said Wednesday (NPR’s Morning Edition).

“Russia is negotiating potential deals for significant quantities and multiple types of munitions from the PDRK to be used against Ukraine,” she told the UN, referring to the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea. Thomas-Greenfield cited U.S. intelligence that indicates recent visits by Russian defense ministers to North Korea set up deals to purchase arms from the country, which violates UN resolutions.

Meanwhile… Three months into its counter-offensive, Ukrainian forces have pierced Russia’s defensive line in Southeast Ukraine, The Wall Street Journal reports in an exclusive Thursday.

•••

Trump Inflated Values by $2.2b, NY AG Says – Donald J. Trump (see mug shot) and the Trump Organization propped up its property values by as much as $2.2 billion, New York Attorney Gen. Letitia James says. She has asked a judge to issue a summary judgment without a trial on the case (The New York Times). Trump attorneys have called for dismissal of the $250 million lawsuit, while James says there is a “mountain of undisputed evidence” of false and misleading statements over the course of a decade.

The suit alleges that the Trump Organization over-valued its properties for loan procurements and under-valued them for tax purposes. Trial of the civil suit of the ex-president, his sons Donald Jr. and Eric, and of the Trump Organization is scheduled to begin in two months.

•••

Another McConnell Health Scare – After Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) suffered a 30-second pause at a presser in Kentucky Wednesday, he held calls with close Senate allies, Minority Whip John Thune (R-SD), Conference Chair John Barrasso (R-WY) and John Cornyn (R-TX), Politico reports. The three also are top candidates to replace McConnell, 81, should he step down from GOP leadership or the Senate altogether before his current term ends in 2026.

McConnell’s office said the minority leader became lightheaded in the episode, his second since a similar pause at the Capitol in late July, and that he will consult a physician.

In the case of most vacancies in the Senate and House, the state’s governor chooses a replacement. But Kentucky has a popular Democratic governor, Andy Beshear, who is up for re-election this fall, and the state also has a special provision in such instances in which the governor must choose an interim senator from a small group recommended by the Kentucky GOP.

McConnell remains an anti-Trump force on Capitol Hill, refusing to refer to the GOP presidential frontrunner by name.

The full Senate reconvenes Tuesday, September 5.

•••

Giuliani Liable -- Former "America's Mayor" Rudy Giuliani has been ruled liable by U.S. Judge Beryl A. Howell for defaming two Georgia election workers he falsely accused of tampering with votes in the 2020 presidential election (The Washington Post). The judge ruled against Giuliani without a trial, saying he deliberately shirked his obligation to turn over discovery material in the case, which stems from former President Trump's attempt to overturn the election. Howell suggested Giuliani's payment to the two workers, who faced harassment and death threats, will be "significant." The former New York mayor and Trump ally already has been ordered to pay $132,000 in sanctions for failure to comply with a court order.

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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Trump's Fed 1/6 Trial is Next March

Tuesday 8/29/23

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkin has set March 4, 2024 in the federal case alleging ex-President Trump tried to retain power via the January 6, 2021 attack on the United States Capitol, one day before Super Tuesday. Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith had asked for a start date of January 2, 2024, while Donald J. Trump’s attorneys said the case should start no earlier than April 2026.

“While Mr. Trump has the right to prepare, the public has a right to prompt and efficient resolution of this matter,” Chutkin said.

Meanwhile: Trump is due in a Georgia court at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, September 6, for his arraignment on a Fulton County grand jury’s charges he and 18 others conspired to overturn that state’s November 2020 election results.

(Both news items via The Hill.)

_______________________________________________

Booked Again

Friday 8/25/23

Despite indications before Wednesday’s GOP presidential debate that Donald J. Trump would appear by midday Thursday to be booked at the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office for charges he tried to overturn the 2020 election, the ex-president’s Boeing 737 did not even leave Newark International Airport until after business hours. Fulton County inmate no. P01135809 was booked, fingerprinted and had his mug shot about 7:30 p.m. Eastern Time. Trump was released on $200,000 bond.

The Fulton County booking records Trump’s height at six-foot three inches and his weight at 215 pounds – about 25 pounds lighter than recorded by his last physical as president, though The New York Times reports that the sheriff’s office allowed his team to enter his own stats.

Prior to the booking, Trump replaced attorney Drew Fielding with prominent criminal defense lawyer Steve Sadow, according to the NYT. Fielding, along with attorneys Jennifer Little (who reportedly will remain on his team) and Marissa Goldberg were reportedly key in negotiating the former president’s bond.

By flying to Atlanta for booking Thursday, a day ahead of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ deadline, Trump sought to upstage that Wednesday GOP presidential candidates’ debate. But Thursday afternoon, Trump was upstaged himself with latest news on the apparent death of Russian mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin in an airplane crash some two months after an apparent coup on Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin.

In the context the plane crash timing versus Trump Perp Walk IV, a line in a piece by Brian Klas in The Atlantic could stand out for its unintended irony: “Coup plotters rarely die of old age.”

Willis’ trial date: D.A. Fani Willis has requested a start date for the trial of all 19 defendants, including Trump, of October 23. Trump’s attorneys have begun procedures to delay.

Meanwhile: House Republicans have begun an investigation into D.A. Willis.

And so it goes.

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Is This All There Is?

By Stephen Macaulay

There were two clown cars on the road Wednesday, one traveling to Atlanta, the other to Milwaukee. The former was piloted by Rudy Giuliani, the man who has gone from being a respected leader to the sort of man who has a sense of reality that is a few degrees off of what the rest of the world perceives … which may be a slight exaggeration as a distinction should be made that there is still something known as “Trump World,” the inhabitants of which seemingly live in a world that is defined only by what Donald Trump tells them …

“What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening. Just stick with us,” he pronounced on July 25, 2018, and they’ve been blind and illiterate ever since.

The other car — not an autonomous one, as that would be too technologically advanced and there is a suspicion of technology, as it is probably “woke,” even though they don’t quite have a definition for the word, but it sounds meaningful to their ears — carried people who are apparently running for vice president, including Ron DeSantis, Tim Scott, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Doug Burgum. While it isn’t clear precisely what they think needs to be done to improve anything (possibly because Biden has been doing a good job on things his predecessor didn’t: the unemployment rate is 3.5%, inflation is at 3.18% -- compare that to 6.2% in Germany and 6.8% in the UK -- and the Inflation Reduction Act has some $500 billion in spending and tax breaks that, among other things, are helping to rebuild the infrastructure that Trump never did anything about despite pronouncements that he would), what is clear is that they are still pledging fealty to Trump. Ramaswamy has come right out and said that he would pardon Trump were he convicted of any of the federal crimes he is currently charged with (isn’t this a slap in the face of the American voters: if he is convinced it will be by regular citizens, so Ramaswamy is essentially saying they don’t know what they are doing). DeSantis, Scott, Haley, and to a lesser extent Burgum, talk about the “weaponization of the Justice Department,” which is code for “How dare they pay any attention to the evidence that shows [think of the documents in the bathroom of Mar-a-Lago] wrongdoing!”

Chris Christie and Asa Hutchinson weren’t in that car, because they are actually running for president. And Pence, in effect, had to take a bus to Milwaukee because his apparent change of mind (soul?) on Trump is so late in coming that he couldn’t get a rental.

So they climb on the stage for the Fox News-hosted “debate,” though one wonders about the “News” part of that name: didn’t it settle a lawsuit costing nearly a billion dollars due to its election-results-denial “reporting”?

Characteristic of its slack-spined approach to things that may seem to be critical of Trump, Fox’s Bret Baier (let’s not call him a “moderator” because that would be to undignify real moderators) asked the assembled whether they would support “the elephant not in the room” — gee, Bret, a funny pun to boot! — were he convicted.

Convicted.

CONVICTED.

It is surprising Ramaswamy didn’t give himself a rotator cuff injury as a result of his eager hand raise.

Hutchinson stood by his stated conviction (not the same as being convicted of a felony) and didn’t raise his hand.

Christie half-assed it by raising a finger, then saying he didn’t approve of what Trump did. With all due respect to the man who was a U.S. attorney, “approval” isn’t the issue when condemnation should be. Christie was sufficiently critical of Trump to garner boos from the audience. But that digit goes a long, long way to make that less substantial than it really ought to be.

The rest of those who arrived in the clown car raised their hands.

While it may appear there is too much attention being given to Trump here and not enough on policy matters, there wasn’t a whole lot of discussion of what they would actually do to improve the lot of the American citizens, and Trump remains the issue if any of these people seriously want to move to the White House, not Number One Observatory Circle.

And how scary the prospect of The Return of Trump is can be discerned from his conversation with Tucker Carlson:

“Jan. 6 was a very interesting day because they don’t report it properly. People in that crowd said it was the most beautiful day they ever experienced. There was love and unity. I have never seen such spirit and such passion and such love.”

At the very least, the man is delusional.

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Rate the GOP Candidates from the Left

There were candidates among the eight on stage for the Republican presidential debate Wednesday, beside former governors Chris Christie and Asa Hutchinson, who seemed ready to move on past Donald J. Trump’s MAGA presidential debate.

Were there any you could live with? If you lean left, please leave a Comment below, or email editors@thehustings.news and list yourself as “left,” “liberal” or “progressive” in the subject line.

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Debating in Trump’s Absence

By Todd Lassa

Really, it didn’t seem to matter that much that Donald J. Trump skipped Wednesday’s GOP presidential debate in Milwaukee in favor of an X-Twitter romp with Tucker Carlson. The absence of the oldest candidate in the Republican field was made up for by the youngest candidate in the Republican field, Vivek Ramaswamy, age 38. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, polling a distant second to Trump for the GOP nomination, appeared largely ineffective from the Fiserv Forum stage Wednesday night. Those extensive, leaked debate talking points did not seem to matter.

Ramaswamy was resolute in his vow to pardon ex-President Trump for crimes yet to be tried, and he responded to a video question by a young conservative environmental activist saying, “climate change is a hoax … the anti-carbon agenda is the wet blanket on the economy…” and said the solution is to “drill, frack, burn coal and embrace nuclear.”

Former Veep Mike Pence, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley ganged up on Ramaswamy for taking the America-First Trumpian position he would pull military funding from Ukraine, and first work to fix problems at home.

This prompted Christie to recount the atrocities of Putin’s Russia against Ukraine.

“This is the Vladimir Putin who Donald Trump called brilliant and a genius,” Christie added. “If we don’t stand up to this autocratic killer, we will be next.”

The U.S. can solve problems at home and still back Ukraine, Pence said. “We achieve peace through strength.”

Haley noted that less than 3.5% of U.S. defense spending has gone to Ukraine; “You have no foreign policy experience, and it shows,” she told Ramaswamy.

The crowd at Milwaukee’s Fiserv Forum mostly seemed to back the pro-Ukraine candidates, even if the anti-Trump positions of Christie and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson were coldly received at best, booed at worst.

Haley and Pence argued over the appropriate level of restrictions on abortion (Pence wants a strict ban on the federal level).

The rest of the debate was mostly about the Republican Party’s issues with an ineffective, weak President Biden and the ravages of inflation and business regulation under his administration.

"We need to send Joe Biden back to his basement and reverse America's decline," DeSantis said.

Moderators Brett Baier and Martha MacCallum started things off with a clip of the video for country singer Oliver Anthony’s Rich Men North of Richmond and asked the candidates for reactions to controversy over the song.

This debate among eight GOP presidential candidates may not amount to much news, especially as Trump makes his fourth perp walk in Atlanta Thursday, but the polling numbers for those who showed, particularly Christie, Haley, Pence and Ramaswamy could serve as an indication of whether the GOP is ready to edge away from the ledge of the former president for 2024.

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Rate the GOP Candidates from the Right

Entrepreneur and political newcomer Vivek Ramaswamy emerged as the most MAGA of candidates on the Fiserv Forum stage in Milwaukee Wednesday, for the first Republican presidential debate, at least in Donald J. Trump’s absence. Yes, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was there too, but mostly to demonstrate why his candidacy has been flailing for several months.

Other candidates, including Trump’s vice president, Mike Pence, argued for why they think it’s time for the GOP to move on from the former president.

What do you think? If you count yourself as “conservative,” “right-wing,” pro-MAGA or anti-MAGA, please use the Comment section on this column to rate the eight who were on stage, or email editors@thehustings.news.

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Go To Substack

In The Hustings’ latest Substack post, the Editorial We discusses mainstream media comparisons of Donald J. Trump’s four indictments. Read the post at thehustings.substack.com.

Two of those four indictments involve the former president’s alleged plot to hold on to power following his 2020 presidential election loss to Joe Biden. Pundit-at-large Stephen Macaulay discusses both in separate columns on the right.

Please scroll down the page with the trackbar on the far right of the page.

As always, you are invited to submit civilly stated comments using the Comment section in this or the right column, or via email to editors@thehustings.news.

_____

…meanwhile…

(India's space agency successfully landed an unmanned spacecraft on the moon's south pole Wednesday morning, NPR reports, three days after an unmanned Russian craft crashed there. India becomes the fourth country to successfully land a craft on the moon, after the U.S., Soviet Union and China.)

Chesebro and Smith Surrender – The count as of Wednesday morning is four booked, 14 plus ex-President Trump to go. Former Trump campaign attorney Kenneth Chesebro and Atlanta attorney Ray Smith were booked on charges he participated in a criminal organization that attempted to turn over 2020 Georgia presidential election results, The Atlanta Journal-Constitutionreports. Chesebro posted a $100,000 bond, and Smith posted $50,000.

On Tuesday, ex-Georgia GOP chairman David Shafer, along with former Coffee County GOP chairwoman Cathy Lanham turned themselves in to Fulton County, each posting $75,000. Donald J. Trump is scheduled to appear Thursday. District Attorney Fani Willis has given defendants in her RICO case until Friday to appear before the court.

•••

DC Grand Jury Concludes – The federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., investigating Donald J. Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents has finished its work, according to a 12-page filing Tuesday by David Harbach, deputy to Special Counsel Jack Smith, The Washington Post reports. Prosecutors and defense attorneys had argued over the Justice Department’s use of two grand juries, with one in South Florida in addition to the D.C. grand jury. Prosecutors said it was proper to use both because the alleged criminal conduct took place in two places.

Perjury charges: Meanwhile, prosecutors charged Trump employee Carlos De Oliveira with lying to FBI agents, but not specifically to the grand jury. De Oliveira has pleaded not guilty, while another Trump employee, tech worker Yuscil Taveras, began cooperating with investigators after Trump was first indicted for the Mar-a-Lagogate case. WaPo says it previously had reported that Taveras changed lawyers “not long” after Trump’s June indictment and “subsequently offered testimony” against De Oliveira, Trump and Waltine “Walt” Nauta.

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

_______________________________________________

MONDAY 8/21/23

Trump Bond Set at $200,000 -- Ex-President Trump's bond has been set at $200,0000 in the Georgia case accusing him and 18 others of attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election, the AP reports. The bond agreement signed by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and Trump's attorneys prohibits the former president from intimidating co-defendants, witnesses and victims, including on social media, and prohibits him from communicating "in any way, directly or indirectly" about facts of the case with any co-defendant or witness, except through his attorneys.

•••

Democracy is Coming to Guatemala – Reformist candidate Bernardo Arévelo pulled off an upset win Sunday to become Guatemala’s next president, NPR’s Morning Edition reports. Arévelo was leading Sandra Torres, a candidate from the country’s long dominant ruling class by more than 20 points, even though Arévelo’s Semila Party had no money for the campaign.

“Democracy has been defended,” a voter told NPR’s Eyder Peralta.

As of Monday, Torres had not yet conceded to Arévelo, though Guatemala’s outgoing president had congratulated him and pledged he would help in the transition of power.

•••

No Moon Over Moscow – A Russian Luna-25 spacecraft headed for the moon’s south pole crashed after entering an uncontrolled orbit Sunday (The Washington Post). The landing was to be the first on the moon’s icy south pole and the first landing anywhere on the moon by the country since a Soviet Union landing in 1976. Let your schadenfreude toward Putin’s Russia run free: The Luna-25 was unmanned.

***

Once More, This Time with Feeling – It’s official, again, that ex-President Trump will not attend Wednesday’s GOP presidential candidate debate in Milwaukee. Yes, we’ve heard it before, but this time it appears to be officially official, with Trump having committed to an interview with Tucker Carlson on an as-yet unnamed platform.

Will Trump and Carlson try to call in to the debate?

And, of course, Trump still leads: A Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom Iowa poll of likely GOP caucus-goers there show Donald J. Trump with 42% to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at 19%, and Sen. Tim Scott (SC) at 9%. Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley is tied with former Vice President Mike Pence at 6%. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is at 5% and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy garnered 4% of the poll.

The debate in Milwaukee will be held Wednesday, same day as India’s expected moon landing.

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

The Debate Eight

(foxnews.com posted this photo of Trump on the morning of its GOP presidential candidate debate. At least he's not orange.)

Donald J. Trump will not attend Wednesday evening’s debate. That’s something we have known, on and off for weeks and officially confirmed in recent days. Instead, the former president will huddle with (ex) Fox News-pundit-in-exile Tucker Carlson in a recorded interview on X-Twitter.

Meanwhile, here’s the lineup for the live GOP presidential debate, according to Fox News. It was scheduled to air from Milwaukee 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. Eastern (or 8-10 local time). Moderators are Fox News hosts Brett Baier and Martha McCallum:

•Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and entrepreneur and upstart politician and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy will take center stage.

•Chris Christie. Fox News’ website virtually guaranteed he will slip from his already low poll numbers by introducing him thusly: “Who is Chris Christie? The former New Jersey governor is a vocal Trump critic popular with Democrats.”

•Mike Pence, who “has a rocky relationship with Trump.” (We all know the “too honest” former vice president’s candidacy is going nowhere, anyway.)

•Tim Scott. The well-funded senator from South Carolina is looking to “restore hope and create opportunities.”

•Nikki Haley. The former South Carolina governor and UN ambassador under Trump is “seeking to take on China and Biden.”

•And all the rest: Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and current North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum are the Professor and Mary Ann of the debate, as far as the Fox News website is concerned. The Washington Post notes that Burgum promised $20 gift cards to citizens who helped him meet the requisite number of donations in order to qualify for the debate stage.

--TL

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Macaulay x Two

Pundit-at-large Stephen Macaulay comments on RICO charges in Georgia against Donald J. Trump and 18 of all his best people in “Being and Somethingness.” Scroll down the page using the trackbar on the far right.

Scroll down further to read Macaulay’s column, “Trump’s Tinkerbell Defense,” about the federal indictment of the ex-president in United States of America v. Donald Trump.

As always, you are invited to submit civilly stated comments using the Comment section in this or the left column, or via email to editors@thehustings.news.

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No Pardon Possible for this Indictment

You’ve read it many times before.

Fulton County, Georgia’s indictment of Donald J. Trump is the one for which the former president and 2024 presidential candidate cannot be pardoned, by himself or by whomever is president in 2025.

Can mainstream Republicans move on?:

Special Prosecutor Jack Smith’s indictment of Donald J. Trump over an alleged plot to overturn the 2020 election has taken its toll on the former president’s popularity in his party. According to FiveThirtyEight’s averaging of national polls, Trump’s favorability among Republicans was at 52.9% after the New York indictment for paying hush money to the adult film star Stormy Daniels, and actually rose to 53.7% two weeks later.

But two weeks after the Justice Department’s second indictment, Trump’s favorability among Republican voters has fallen to 49.1%. Still, the GOP might be stuck with him through next year’s primaries, as Trump now has a record 38.7% lead in the polls over his closest presidential primary challenger, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Perhaps that last number has more to do with DeSantis than Trump?

Comment below or in the right column, or email editors@thehustings.news.

_____

…meanwhile…

(Fulton County D.A. Fani Willis wants Georgia's trial of Donald J. Trump and 18 associates over alleged election tampering to begin March 4. She will be competing with Special Counsel Jack Smith's federal case, plus two others.)

FRIDAY 8/18/23

Date Fight – Donald J. Trump’s attorneys want his trial for allegedly overturning the 2020 presidential election – the federal one -- to begin in April 2026, The Wall Street Journal reports, while Special Counsel Jack Smith, citing the public’s interest in a speedy trial, has requested a start date of January 2, 2024. The former president’s law team cited as much as 11.5-million pages of materials and testimony from hundreds of witnesses, as well as the historic nature of the case, in requesting Thursday a start date some 21 months after the next inauguration date. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan will rule on the trial date.

•••

About That News Conference – Regarding the other election tampering case – the one brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (above) -- former President Trump has cancelled his news conference next Monday in which he had planned to release a report claiming new “evidence” of fraud in Georgia’s 2020 presidential election, citing advice of his attorneys, The Associated Press reports, while reminding us that Republican officials in Georgia long ago said Trump lost fairly to Joe Biden and they backed that up with three ballot recounts.

Grand Jurors threatened: The Fulton County Sheriff’s Office said it is investigating online threats against grand jury members who voted to indict 19 people, including Trump, accused of tampering with Georgia’s 2020 presidential election results, The New York Times reports. The jurors’ names are listed in the 98-page indictment, as required in Georgia, making it an outlier in rules regarding federal and state grand juries.

--TL

_______________________________________________

THURSDAY 8/17/23

Line Forms to Try Trump – Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (above) Wednesday proposed March 4, 2024, as the trial date for former President Trump’s Georgia election case, The Washington Post reports. Willis also proposed individual arraignment hearings for each of the case’s 19 defendants to begin the week of September 5, motion hearings to begin December 11, and February 20 for a pretrial conference.

She will have to get in line with three other Trump cases.

“In light of defendant Donald John Trump’s other criminal and civil matters pending in courts of our sister sovereigns, the state of Georgia proposes certain deadlines that do not conflict with these other courts’ already scheduled hearings and filing dates,” Willis’ filing said.

Aggressive timeline: Legal scholars and pundits doubt all these court dates can be completed before the November 5, 2024, presidential election. Trump attorneys already are busy filing for various delays.

Read: “Giant Four-Indictment Comparo!” on our Substack newsletter, at https://thehustings.substack.com/p/giant-four-indictment-comparo

Worse than Watergate: Watergate prosecutor Jill Wine-Banks told NPR’s Morning Edition co-host Steve Inskeep Thursday that what President Nixon did 40 years ago is “child’s play” compared to ex-President Trump’s threat to the nation’s democracy: https://www.npr.org/2023/08/17/1194349569/are-there-parallels-between-the-nixon-era-scandal-and-trumps-indictments

Fed judge threatened: A Texas woman has been arrested on charges she left a voice mail left for the federal judge hearing the Justice Department’s case alleging Trump tried to overturn the 2020 election, WaPo reports.

A criminal complaint filed Friday, August 11, alleges Abigail Jo Shry, 43, of Alvin, Texas, left a racial slur on a phone in Judge Tanya Chutkan’s chambers and threatened her, saying “If Trump doesn’t get elected in 2024, we are going to kill you, so tread lightly, b----.” The VM was left on the phone two days after Trump’s arraignment in Washington, D.C., for election interference.

The complaint further alleges Shry also threatened to kill Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) as well as Washington Democrats -- apparently in general -- and members of the LGBTQ community.

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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Trump Indictment IV, This One in Georgia

TUESDAY 8/15/23

Mr. Ex-President, Here’s Your 11,780 – Or rather, 41-counts in one indictment by Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis (above) against Donald J. Trump and 18 other defendants, including former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and attorneys John Eastman and Sidney Powell. Following a nearly 10-hour grand jury hearing Monday according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Fulton County prosecutors charged 19 men and women under Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations law, or RICO, initially designed to target mob crime.

In her press conference just before midnight Tuesday, Willis gave defendants a noon Monday, August 21 deadline to enter their pleas. Responding to a reporter’s question, Willis’ rather surprising response was; “Do I intend to try 19 defendants together? Yes.”

Trump later was quoted as calling Willis a “rabid partisan,” according to NPR.

Willis on Monday night thanked law enforcement for protecting her team and the grand jury during the investigation.

The indictment alleges that the manner and method of the criminal conspiracy by the defendants included, but was not limited to:

•False statements to and solicitation of state legislatures in Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania in November and December 2020 “to persuade legislators in those states to unlawfully appoint their own presidential electors.

•False statements to and solicitation of high-ranking state officials.

•Creation and distribution of false Electoral College documents. The indictment notes that “Similar schemes were executed by members of the enterprise in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin” (as Georgia’s 16 Electoral College votes alone would not be sufficient to overturn the election in Trump’s favor).

•Harassment and intimidation of Fulton County election worker Ruby Freeman, including false accusations she committed election crimes in connection with the November 3, 2020 ballot count.

•Solicitation of high-ranking U.S. Justice Department officials – “In one instance, Donald Trump stated to the Acting United States Attorney Gen. [Jeffrey Clark] ‘Just say that the election was corrupt, and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen,’” the indictment alleges.

•Solicitation of the vice president of the United States.

•Unlawful breach of election equipment in Georgia and elsewhere.

In addition to Trump, Giuliani, Meadows, Eastman, Powell and Clark the indictment charges …

•Kenneth Cheseboro

•Jenna Ellis

•Ray Stallings Smith III

•Robert Cheeley

•Michael Roman, a Republican strategist

•David James Shafer, former Georgia Republican Party chairman

•Shawn Micah Tresher Still

•Stephen Cliffgard Lee, an Illinois pastor

•Harrison William Prescott Floyd, “who briefly ran for a suburban Atlanta U.S. House seat before serving as director of Black Voices for Trump” (per AJC)

•Trevian Kutti (former publicist for Ye and R-Kelly, according to Rolling Stone)

•Cathleen Alston Latham, former Coffee County Republican chairwoman

•Scott Graham Hall, an Atlanta bail bondsman

•Misty Hampton, a.k.a. Emily Misty Hayes, former Coffee County elections supervisor

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Being and Somethingness

By Stephen Macaulay

First a bit of a briefing.

A given prosecutor, based on information obtained from various sources, including individuals involved, determines whether to present a case to a grand jury. A grand jury is a group of regular folk, from 16 to 23 of them.

The grand jury hears testimony from witnesses. Sees any physical evidence. Then the prosecutor lays out the potential case against the person or persons in question.

The members of the grand jury vote, in secret, about whether the person or persons should be charged with a crime.

At least 12 jurors must determine there should be an indictment for it to go forward.

After a 2.5-year investigation, after presenting the case to a grand jury, Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani T. Willis charged former president Donald Trump with crimes, and the grand jury issued an arrest warrant.

“Charged with crimes.”

“Arrest warrant.”

Actually there were 18 other people charged with crimes related to trying to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia.

In what is somewhat ironic, the group of 19 is being charged with racketeering under Georgia’s version of RICO — Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations — Act, which one of the defendants, Rudy Giuliani, used to great effect when he was the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York in the early 1980s; he used it against members of the Mob.

The indictment opens:

“Defendant Donald John Trump lost the United States presidential election held on November 3, 2020. One of the states he lost was Georgia. Trump and the other Defendants charged in this Indictment refused to accept that Trump lost, and they knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump.”

“Knowingly and willfully.”

Yes, they are charged with being aware of the reality and trying to change it.

Let’s consider the reactions of some people to this, starting with the man who was once revered as “America’s Mayor,” a man who will probably be best remembered for the sweat-caused hair dye running down his face during a November 2020 “press conference” during which he said to a reporter: “You're actually seriously going to want me to take seriously the secretary of state of Michigan when the secretary of state of Michigan never bothered to find out that the votes in her state were being counted in Germany by a Venezuelan company?” Yes, it is stuff like that which came out of his mouth on more than one occasion.

Giuliani posted on X: “It’s just the next chapter in a book of lies with the purpose of framing President Donald Trump and anyone willing to take on the ruling regime. The real criminals here are the people who have brought this case forward both directly and indirectly.”

As the former prosecutor knows, “framing” involves made-up evidence or testimony—sort of like “counted in Germany by a Venezuelan company.”

And one can imagine that if a platform like X existed back in the early 1980s those people Giuliani charged would claim “the real criminals here are the people who have brought this case forward.”

Kevin McCarthy, House Speaker, went to X: “Justice should be blind, but Biden has weaponized government against his leading opponent to interference in the 2024 election. Now a radical DA in Georgia is following Biden’s lead by attacking President Trump and using it to fundraise her political career.”

Certainly, one can well imagine that McCarthy is making such pronouncements in order to sustain his political career. Wouldn’t Justice be deaf if the phone call made on January 2, 2021, to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger wasn’t listened to?

And then let’s not leave out Republican Rep. Jim Jordan, who took to X and claimed the indictment “is just the latest political attack in the Democrats' WITCH HUNT against President Trump. He did nothing wrong!”

Let’s see. . .Jordan is the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. Wouldn’t he reserve judgment before a trial is conducted, given his position?

“He did nothing wrong!”

Trump is charged with 91 felonies with the addition of the Georgia indictment.

91.

Nothing wrong?

Not even Venezuelans counting ballots from Wayne County, Michigan, in Germany would be likely to believe that.

Macaulay writes about politics and culture from Metro Detroit.

Comment below or email editors@thehustings.news.

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More Lux Travel for Thomas

ProPublica Thursday reported on even more luxury travel for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas at the expense of potential conflict-of-interest when voting on relevant cases.

The independent investigative outlet found additional luxury vacations that Thomas enjoyed, consisting of “at least 38 destination vacations, including a previously unreported voyage on a yacht around the Bahamas, 26 private jet flights, plus an additional eight by helicopter; a dozen VIP passes to professional and college sports events, typically perched in the skybox, two stays at a luxury resort in Florida and Jamaica; and one standing invitation to an uber-exclusive golf club overlooking the Atlantic coast.”

Contributing pundit for the left Jim McCraw has this to say about the report: “The latest revelations reported by ProPublica show a whole bunch more freebies forced down the throat of Clarence Thomas. This man is a disgrace. He should resign so Biden can try to even up sides on the court. Term limits of 10 years would be good here, along with court expansion and a written code of ethics for the nine people who run our lives.”

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Bring Your Laptop to the Beach?

(TIP -- If reading this on a smartphone: Hold your phone horizontally to read this in the intended left-center-right format.)

The House of Representatives and Senate are on their regular summer break for the entire month of August – ending just after Labor Day – but politics are not taking a holiday. The Fulton County District Attorney is expected to issue the latest indictment against ex-President Trump as early as Thursday.

It would be Donald J. Trump’s fourth, and his second over alleged attempts to flip the 2020 presidential election results. Meanwhile, Trump may or may not be preparing for the first debate between GOP presidential candidates scheduled for Wednesday, August 23, in Milwaukee.

Federal Judge Tanya Chutkan has set Monday, August 28, as the date for the first hearing in the second of two Justice Department indictments of the former president, in Washington, D.C.

There is a lot here to discuss, including Pundit-at-Large Stephen Macaulay’s right-column opinion piece on Trump’s planned defense in United States of America v. Donald J. Trump.

In our latest Substack weekly newsletter we discuss origins of authoritarianism in the far-right wing of the Republican Party. You can read it at thehustings.substack.com.

Write to us with your opinion on these or any other recent political matters in the Comment section in the left or right columns, depending on your political leanings. Or you can email us at editors@thehustings.news and please tell us in the subject line whether you come to the issue from the conservative or liberal perspective.

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…meanwhile…

(The Consumer Price Index rose to a 3.2% annual rate in July, the Commerce Department reports, a slight uptick from a 3.0% rate in June. Although it is the first CPI increase after 12 months of inflation easing from record highs, The Wall Street Journal says it remains modest and could deter the Federal Reserve from raising rates at its September meeting.)

MONDAY 8/14/23

Indictment Number Four? – More than two years since launching an investigation into former President Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn Georgia’s 2020 Electoral College vote, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is expected to begin presenting her case before a grand jury early this week, The Washington Post reports. Former Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan has confirmed he was subpoenaed to testify before the grand jury Tuesday.

New quote of the year: Duncan tweeted; “I look forward to answering their questions around the 2020 election. Republicans should never let honesty be mistaken for weakness.”

Did Trump team breach Georgia ballot boxes?: CNN says in an exclusive report that Georgia’s prosecutors have messages showing that Trump’s legal team was behind a Coffee County, Georgia voting system breach in January 2021.

--TL

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FRIDAY 8/11/23

Garland Names Weiss Special Counsel in Biden Investigation – U.S. Attorney Gen. Merrick Garland has elevated David Weiss, the U.S. attorney for Delaware appointed by the Trump administration to investigate Hunter Biden’s business dealings (The Hill) to special counsel in the case. The appointment puts focus of the investigation back on two whistleblowers, Gary Shapely and Joseph Ziegler, after U.S. District Court Judge Maryellen Noreika snuffed out a plea deal over Biden’s tax evasion issues.

Shapely and Ziegler claim the Justice Department slow-walked the Hunter Biden investigation, gave him preferential treatment and declined to pursue charges in California and Washington, D.C., where they say there was stronger evidence. The two also said Weiss earlier had sought and was denied special counsel status, a claim both Garland and Weiss deny.

While House Republicans had once called for Garland to promote Weiss to special counsel. They now are criticizing the move for potentially obstructing the House Oversight Committee’s own investigation into the younger Biden’s business dealings while his father was vice president.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has floated the possibility of an impeachment inquiry into Garland over how the case was handled, as well as a possible inquiry into President Biden over issues regarding the family’s foreign business dealings.

•••

Trump Backs Out of Debate – Will Donald J. Trump or won’t Donald J. Trump? The punditocracy has been a-twitter for a few weeks trying to figure out whether the former president and frontrunner by far in the race for the 2024 GOP nomination will join the party’s first debate, August 23 in Milwaukee. The answer appears to be “no,” and Trump’s rationale might take its toll on his popularity, at least among the non-MAGA Republicans who have failed to push back against him so far.

“I wouldn’t sign the pledge” to support another GOP candidate for president next year unless it is him, Trump told right-of-Fox News Newsmax, according to The New York Times. “Why would I sign a pledge? There are people here that I wouldn’t have.”

Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel told CNN last month that only candidates who sign a pledge they will support the eventual winner of the party’s nomination are allowed to participate in the debate.

“The rules aren’t changing. We’ve been very vocal with them.”

That won’t stop former governors Chris Christie (NJ) and Asa Hutchinson (AR) from signing the pledge, just to get on to the debate stage.

“I’m going to take the pledge just as seriously as Donald Trump took it in 2016,” Christie, who is running (in part) to help stop the former president’s efforts, told CNN.

Hutchinson, who so far has not met other qualifications to participate, said he would sign the pledge “based on the far-from-safe assumption” Trump won’t win the nomination, the NYT reports.

•••

Trump and Co-defendant Plead 'Not Guilty' -- Donald J. Trump and co-defendant Waltine Nauta pleaded "not guilty" to multiple charges alleging the former president kept classified documents at Mar-a-Lago and with help of two aides, tried to hide some material from government officials seeking their return to the National Archives. Trump did not appear in-person for the plea at federal court in Fort Pierce, Florida, but made the plea via his attorneys, The Washington Post reports. Nauda, who faces six charges in the initial indictment plus two additional crimes in a superseding indictment did appear. Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira was charged for the first time in the superseding indictment, and did not enter a plea.

•••

Imminent Perp Motorcade – A fourth indictment of former President Trump, this time from Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis over his alleged attempts to turn over Georgia’s Electoral College vote, are expected as early as Thursday. Willis and Sheriff Patrick Labat say they have prepared, in anticipation for Trump’s indictment motorcade, the biggest preventive security dragnet in the region since the 1996 Olympics, USA Today reports.

On the right: Don’t miss Pundit-at-Large Stephen Macaulay’s critique of Trump’s planned defense in United States of America v. Donald J. Trump, the former president’s alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election, now in the right column.

Tweet this: Twitter was fined $350,000 for failing to turn over Trump’s data from tweets made leading up to the January 6^thCapitol insurrection, The Washington Post reports. An appellate court referenced 18 of Trump’s tweets, including seven from January 6, 2021, in an order to turn over the data to Special Counsel Jack Smith.

•••

FBI Shoots Armed Man Over Biden Threats – FBI special agents shot to death Craig Deleeuw Robertson, of Provo, Utah, as they attempted to serve a warrant over accusations he made threats against President Biden ahead of an appearance in Salt Lake City, Wednesday. Robertson was armed at the time of the shooting, law enforcement officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told the AP. Self-described “MAGA Trumper” Robertson posted online Monday that he had heard Biden was coming to Utah, and would dig out a camouflage suit and begin “cleaning the dust off the M24 sniper rifle.”

•••

Ecuador Presidential Candidate Assassinated – Fernando Villavicencio, a presidential candidate who vowed to crack down on drug trafficking and corruption in Ecuador, was assassinated at a campaign event in the capital, Quito, Wednesday night (The Washington Post). A criminal gang named Los Lobos has claimed responsibility, the BBC reports. A former journalist, Villavicencio had been a member of Ecuador’s National Assembly since 2017. President Guillermo Lasso has announced that the first round of voting, scheduled for Sunday, August 20, will not be delayed.

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Trump’s Tinkerbell Defense

By Stephen Macaulay

It couldn’t be much simpler. Even understandable by those members of Congress who seem to have a difficulty understanding words with more than one syllable:

“The Defendant, DONALD J. TRUMP, was the forty-fifth President of the United States and a candidate for re-election in 2020. The Defendant lost the 2020 presidential election.”

So opens United States of America v. Donald J. Trump, which goes on to enumerate four counts against the defendant:

Conspiracy to Defraud the United States
Conspiracy to Obstruct an Official Proceeding
Obstruction of and Attempt to Obstruct an Official Proceeding
Conspiracy Against Rights

The document, signed by Jack Smith, Special Counsel, United States Department of Justice, goes on to detail, chapter and timeline, the rationale behind why a grand jury decided that this indictment is the real deal.

On NBC’s Meet The Press August 6, one of the defendant’s attorneys, John Lauro, opened, “The defense is quite simple. Donald Trump, President Trump, believed in his heart of hearts that he had won that election. And as any American citizen he had a right to speak out under the First Amendment.”

The first point is irrelevant. The second point is on the face of it true, but then not necessarily so. In a speech last October to The Heritage Foundation, Justice Samuel Alito pointed out, “We depend on freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is essential.” Then went on to note that the First Amendment doesn’t protect things like “extortion and threats” and “defamation.”

Yes, there’s that.

But what about believing “in his heart of hearts that he had won that election”?

Well, according to the “Manual of Model Criminal Jury Instructions” prepared by the 9^th Circuit, there’s this instruction that can go to jurors:

“4.9 Deliberate Ignorance. You may find that the defendant acted knowingly if you find beyond a reasonable doubt that: First, the defendant was aware of a high probability that [e.g., drugs were in the defendant’s automobile], and Second, the defendant deliberately avoided learning the truth.”

He could hold his breath until he turned blue and that wouldn’t make the second sentence in the opening of that indictment — "The Defendant lost the 2020 presidential election” — go away. His then-attorney general told him as much, as did plenty of others. His team and supporters brought suits about “fake electors” that would have led to the election being “stolen” and came up empty handed.

There are some who decry the so-called “weaponization of the Justice Department” against him.

Isn’t the department supposed to charge people who may have committed crimes? Isn’t that its job? Wouldn’t it be utter negligence were the people in the department to find what appears to be an overwhelming amount of evidence and simply ignore it or wait until it is convenient for the person they need to charge before they do something about it?

And while on the subject of “weaponization,” there’s this in the indictment:

“The Defendant and co-conspirators attempted to use the power and authority of the Justice Department to conduct sham election crime investigations and to send a letter to the targeted states that falsely claimed that the Justice Department had identified significant concerns that may have impacted the election outcome; that sought to advance the Defendant's fraudulent elector plan by using the Justice Department's authority to falsely present the fraudulent electors as a valid alternative to the legitimate electors; and that urged, on behalf of the Justice Department, the targeted states' legislatures to convene to create the opportunity to choose the fraudulent electors over the legitimate electors.”

Hmm. . .seems like someone was acutely interested in actually using the Justice Department as a tool.

But let’s get back to Lauro, as there were plenty of claims he made that are, to put it mildly, interesting:

“But what he's being indicted for, ultimately, is following legal advice from an esteemed scholar, John Eastman.”

Eastman is presently on trial in California in a case which could result in him being disbarred.

“Both Vice President Pence and President Trump saw that they had 10 million votes more than they had in 2016,” He told Meet the Press. “No president has ever lost under those circumstances.”

Well, every person who has run for office has lost because the other person got more votes, regardless of the number of additional votes than they had previously attained.

“In order to have a violation of law you have to have criminal intent. And in this case, corrupt intent. And what that means is that you have to have some desire to do something unlawful. If your – if your attorney is telling you that you have a right to petition Congress, then that completely eliminates any criminal intent.”

No one is disputing the right to petition Congress. It is the other stuff. And that is the unlawful part. And it goes well beyond “desire” to do something unlawful.

“A – a technical violation of the Constitution is not a violation of criminal law.”

According to a speech by Harold Furchtgott-Roth published by the American Enterprise Institute — an outfit as friendly to the defendant as The Heritage Foundation — "Who can violate the Constitution? Only a governmental entity can, or indirectly, an individual exercising responsibility for that governmental entity. Each of us, as private citizens, cannot violate the Constitution. It is beyond our power. But the government can violate the Constitution in a manner to harm each of us as individuals, by violating the First Amendment or much of the Bill of Rights, or the 14^th Amendment, or a few of the other amendments to the Constitution.

“We don't have to prove fraud. People don't understand that. All we have to do is prove that President Trump was acting with his conviction that this election was conducted improperly.”

He “was acting with his conviction.” Again, the Tinkerbell defense. If you really, really believe something. . . .

Macaulay is pundit-at-large for The Hustings.

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What We’re About

As official Washington enjoys a not-very-quiet summer recess while the 2024 presidential election heats up, The Hustings hopes to do what it can to build readership and foster civil discussion and debate of news and politics in a safe, comfortable online space.

We are not social media. We are civil media. We invite you to comment on political news and issues whether you lean left or right. Your liberal or conservative perspective, expressed with civility will appear in the left or right column, as appropriate. It’s a bit like tweeting – or exxing – your opinion but without echo chambers, fear of personal attacks from the other side or exposure to extreme left or right groupa.

Let’s build a community of Citizen Pundits with conservative and liberal perspectives expressed with civility all on the same page.

Please read the right column to learn how to add your comments.

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