<![CDATA[2024 Election]]>

Even the Washington Post Admits the Case Against Trump Is Probably BS

March 31, 2023 by Jeff Charles Leave a Comment

When you’re a far-leftist district attorney prosecuting the man the left hates the most, and you have lost the Washington Post, you might want to rethink your position. This is the situation in which New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg finds himself as he continues functioning as the head of the progressive spear to be used to kill former President Donald Trump’s chances of occupying the White House once again.

The Post’s editorial board published an op-ed titled “The Trump indictment is a poor test case for prosecuting a former president,” in which the authors cast doubt on the chances that Bragg will be able to carry out a successful prosecution of the former president based on the Stormy Daniels matter. They wrote:

Donald Trump deserves the legal scrutiny he’s getting — which has come from many corners on many counts. Yet of the long list of alleged violations, the likely charges on which a grand jury in New York state voted to indict him are perhaps the least compelling. There’s cause for concern, and caution, ahead.

The latest developments in the ongoing legal saga surrounding former President Donald Trump come as a result of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s decision to shift his focus to the so-called “zombie” case. The case centers on a $130,000 payment made to adult film star Stormy Daniels in exchange for her silence about an alleged affair she had with Mr. Trump about a decade earlier, which the former president denies. Michael Cohen, Mr. Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, pleaded guilty to related crimes in 2018.

While the exact charges against Mr. Trump are not yet known, sources suggest that prosecutors are investigating him for his alleged involvement in allegedly falsifying records related to reimbursements for the hush-money payment. Such falsification is typically a misdemeanor in New York, but if it is found to have been done to cover up another crime, it could be elevated to a felony charge. The argument is that the payment constituted an illegal political donation that benefited Mr. Trump, especially given its timing so close to the election.

However, the fact that Bragg’s office is trying to do legal wrangling to get Trump on a felony might be an issue. From the Post:

Pyramiding two transgressions of state rules to go after a federal candidate is legally plausible. But the strategy is also novel, and courts may regard it with skepticism. What’s more, the potential campaign finance charge itself is shaky. When federal prosecutors charged former senator John Edwards (D-N.C.) with a similar crime following his 2008 presidential run, he rebutted the accusation by arguing he was trying to disguise his faithlessness from his wife rather than from the voting public. The trial ended in acquittal on one count and a hung jury on others — at which point the Justice Department dropped the charges.

The article also notes that “[t]his prosecution is now bound to be the test case for any future former president” and could also jeopardize the other legal cases Democrats wish to use against Trump. “Other investigations underway include Justice Department examinations of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and classified documents discovered at Mar-a-Lago, where the possibility of obstruction of justice is particularly grave,” the authors noted. “These are straightforward cases compared with the one proceeding in Manhattan.”

The article concludes that Bragg’s prosecution must be “airtight” or that “[o]therwise, it’s not worth continuing.”

For once, the Post got it right. I guess what they say about broken clocks is true. But if even these people could see how risky this indictment is, then others probably do too.

If Bragg is relying on the Stormy Daniels issue to target Trump, then this whole effort will be dead in the water. Moreover, it will work to Trump’s favor, giving him more ammunition to use against those using the power of the government to attack him. He will continually draw attention to the reality that Democrats are weaponizing the state in an effort to interfere in the 2024 election. In other words, the Democrats could be playing right into the former president’s hands and just might live to regret it.

The opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of RedState.com.

Even the Washington Post Admits the Case Against Trump Is Probably BS

March 31, 2023 by Jeff Charles Leave a Comment

Donald Trump deserves the legal scrutiny he’s getting — which has come from many corners on many counts. Yet of the long list of alleged violations, the likely charges on which a grand jury in New York state voted to indict him are perhaps the least compelling. There’s cause for concern, and caution, ahead.

However, the fact that Bragg’s office is trying to do legal wrangling to get Trump on a felony might be an issue. From the Post:

Pyramiding two transgressions of state rules to go after a federal candidate is legally plausible. But the strategy is also novel, and courts may regard it with skepticism. What’s more, the potential campaign finance charge itself is shaky. When federal prosecutors charged former senator John Edwards (D-N.C.) with a similar crime following his 2008 presidential run, he rebutted the accusation by arguing he was trying to disguise his faithlessness from his wife rather than from the voting public. The trial ended in acquittal on one count and a hung jury on others — at which point the Justice Department dropped the charges.

The article concludes that Bragg’s prosecution must be “airtight” or that “[o]therwise, it’s not worth continuing.”

For once, the Post got it right. I guess what they say about broken clocks is true. But if even these people could see how risky this indictment is, then others probably do too.

The opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of RedState.com.

WaPo: Say, you know who wanted an “assault weapons” ban?

March 28, 2023 by Cam Edwards Leave a Comment

I’m still wading through the Washington Post’s 10-part hit piece on the AR-15 released on Monday, but reporter Emily Miller has discovered this little nugget involving former President Donald Trump. According to the Post, back in 2019 Trump floated the idea of banning modern sporting rifles in 2019, just months after the ATF enacted a ban on “bump stocks” under his watch.

Shortly after Parkland, President Donald Trump repeatedly floated the idea of supporting a new assault weapons ban.
He mentioned it on live television to one of the Senate’s most vocal gun-control backers, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), and in a private meeting with Parkland families. His comments rattled NRA officials and some of his own advisers.
NRA representatives later warned Trump against taking action. “They came up here and said to him, the base is going to blow you up,” according to a former official who sat in during a series of meetings with the NRA. They, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private interactions.
But Trump kept coming back to the idea, according to several former administration officials.
In the summer of 2019, after back-to-back mass shootings in Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso involving an AR-15-style pistol and an AKM-style rifle, Trump told aides that he wanted to ban AR-15s, accordingto people present for the statements.
“I don’t know why anyone needs an AR-15,” Trump told aides as he flew on Marine One to the White House in August 2019, according to a person who heard his comments.
As one former official put it in describing the real estate developer turned politician, “His reflexes were a New York liberal on guns. He doesn’t have knee-jerk conservative reflexes.”
But Trump was also petrified of the NRA and others taking him on, former advisers said, and heard from a number of advisers that it would be unpopular. Trump ultimately stopped entertaining the idea of working with Democrats on gun control later that year, when he was caught in a scandal over his now-infamous phone call with Ukraine’s president.
“F— it, I’m not going to work with them on anything. They’re f—ing impeaching me,” Trump said in one Oval Office meeting, according to a participant.
Steven Cheung, a Trump spokesman, did not respond to detailed findings in this article but said that “there had been no bigger defender of the Second Amendment than President Trump.” He said that Trump had offered other proposals after mass shootings, such as adding security guards to schools and allowing teachers who are licensed to carry a weapon to do so.

That’s an interesting non-denial on the part of Cheung. While Trump’s record on the Second Amendment has to take into account his judicial nominations, which have been a boon to gun owners nationwide, his administration did enact a gun control law through regulation; one that the Fifth Circuit says was beyond the ATF’s authority. And the Post’s reporting on Trump’s supposed desire for a gun ban does kind of fit with some of his other comments while in office, including his endorsement of “red flag” laws following the shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida in 2018.

“I like taking the guns early, like in this crazy man’s case that just took place in Florida … to go to court would have taken a long time,” Trump said at a meeting with lawmakers on school safety and gun violence.
“Take the guns first, go through due process second,” Trump said.
Trump was responding to comments from Vice President Pence that families and local law enforcement should have more tools to report potentially dangerous individuals with weapons. {mosads}
“Allow due process so no one’s rights are trampled, but the ability to go to court, obtain an order and then collect not only the firearms but any weapons,” Pence said.
“Or, Mike, take the firearms first, and then go to court,” Trump responded.

Trump eventually backed off on his support for “red flag” laws, just as he supposedly did with an “assault weapons” ban, but his first instinct was to embrace one of the gun control lobby’s top demands.

Over at Hot Air, my colleague David Strom says gun owners and Trump supporters shouldn’t be surprised by the WaPo’s revelation, calling him a political chameleon who changes positions with the wind and arguing that a second term for the former president would give him the opportunity to reverse course once again.

On abortion that would be, mostly, a non-issue. His Supreme Court appointments have made their mark, and Democrats have undone decades of abortion restrictions at the federal level. Those aren’t coming back anytime soon.
But a presidential change of heart would be a big deal on guns. With anyone as mercurial as Trump he would be very unpredictable on this issue in a second term.
… Trump can only be relied on to support Trump. He will say what he needs to in order to keep the political enthusiasm for his candidacy high among his supporters. Should he get elected for a second term, expect policy reversals once he feels he can get away with it.

I know that Trump supporters may want to dismiss the WaPo’s story as “fake news”, but the Post’s report is in line with some of Trump’s other public statements in support of gun control, and I don’t think they can be simply explained away by media bias, even if those nameless officials who related his comments didn’t want to go on the record with their recounting,. How big an issue this will be for his base of support in 2024 remains to be seen, but many gun owners may be reluctant to roll the dice on a second term (at least in the primaries) for a guy whose first instinct on 2A issues has all too often lined up with the anti-gun views of groups like Everytown and Moms Demand Action.