John's Muse
GATEKEEPERS
The gatekeepers once prevented an autocrat from being elected president of the United States. There are four gates through which a despot would have to pass to get the nod. The first two keepers have failed, the third held with an audible squeak, and the fourth hangs in the balance.
The first gate is the nomination process via the political parties. Not fully trusting the people to keep an unqualified person out of office, the founders created the Electoral College as a built-in screening tool. However, the Parties have abrogated their authority over the College to exclude unqualified candidates.
Currently, laws in 48 of the 50 states require the winner of the plurality of the statewide popular vote to receive all that state’s electoral votes. This action annuls the Electoral College’s gatekeeping ability to exclude incompetent office seekers. Winner-take-all systems, especially with representation not proportional to population, do not align with the principle of “one person, one vote.” In the 2016 election, for example, Michigan cast 4,548,382 votes for either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. Trump won by 10,704 votes, less than a quarter of one percent, but received all sixteen electoral votes.
The number of electors each state appoints is determined by the size of its congressional delegation, with at least three regardless of population. The apportionment of the rest is only roughly proportional. This allotment scheme has caused the second-place finisher to become president in 1824, 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016, where Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump by over two million, eight-hundred thousand popular votes. Electors in the so-called “swing states” now decide who will be president. All other democracies have abandoned electoral colleges in favor of direct elections for an executive president.
This wasn’t always so. Until the 1830s, party caucuses chose candidates in some form of Washington smoke-filled room. Many felt this system was too closed, so we changed to national party conventions. Local party committees in each state selected the convention delegates who supported their views. The Electoral College electors surrendered their role to filter out those who threaten democracy or are otherwise unfit to hold office. This structure continued to favor political insiders, as candidates outside the parties could not garner the delegates.
At the 1920 Republican convention, after four days and nine ballots, the delegates remained deadlocked over four candidates. In a nicotine-fogged room at the Blackstone Hotel, a string of Old Guard party leaders discussed getting 493 delegates to agree on a candidate. General Leonard Wood led with 287 delegates, followed by Governor Frank Lowden, Senator Hiram Johnson, and Senator Warren Harding. Party bigwigs came and went late into the night, debating the candidates’ pros and cons. They picked Warren Harding. The point is that the back-room-boys served a gatekeeping function to keep unfit candidates from the office.
https://www.amazon.com/How-Democracies-Die-Steven-Levitsky/dp/1524762938
In parliamentary democracies, the leading parties choose the prime minister from the members of parliament, ensuring that they will be acceptable to political insiders and qualified to lead. The Constitution of 1787 created the first presidential system, entirely omitting political parties. This was no accident. The framers of the new Constitution desperately wanted to avoid the divisions that had ripped England apart in the bloody civil wars of the 17th century. Many saw parties—or “factions,” as they called them—as corrupt relics of the monarchical British system that they wanted to discard in favor of a genuinely democratic government. They did not foresee a two-party situation negating the filtering value of the Electoral College.
https://www.history.com/news/founding-fathers-political-parties-opinion
The founding fathers understood that, ultimately, virtue was necessary to maintain a democracy. Unfortunately, we cannot legislate virtue. The unreliability of virtue is an inherent fault. But an overreliance on gatekeeping is undemocratic if party bosses can ignore the people’s will. Democracy will always be a delicate balance reflecting society’s moral fiber.
The second gate is the electorate. Voters’ judgment should prevent an obviously unqualified person from becoming president. But what if people elect an autocrat?
Within genetic limits, our environment shapes our beliefs. Our parents, education, and media exposure determine who we are. Public schooling has traditionally offered a culturally homogenous frame of reference within reasonable limits. The major newspapers’ and networks’ news filtering supported a generally accepted reality backdrop. However, the proliferation of social media has enabled us to shift our focus to the outlets that support our Weltanschauung at the expense of a standard set of facts. After all, there is a limit to the time we devote to media input. The result is that most of us live in an echo chamber that reinforces and amplifies our preexisting beliefs, insulated from rebuttal or opposing views.
A well-informed electorate is a prerequisite for democracy. We can trust people to govern themselves if they are well-informed. But “well-informed” means accepting a standard set of facts. There is always a dispute about what makes up “facts.” However, we owe the creation of our modern society to the Scientific Method (question, research, hypothesis, experiment, analysis, conclusion, and communication) for determining facts. It is an empirical method for acquiring knowledge.
But this logical cascade is under attack. Science has proven the world is not flat, vaccinations work, and Trump lost the 2020 election. After the election, Trump’s campaign and others filed 62 lawsuits contesting election processes, voting counting, and certification in 9 states and the District of Columbia.
Lack of evidence or standing led to the dismissal or dropping of nearly all the lawsuits, including thirty dismissed on merits. Among the judges who rejected the lawsuits were some appointed by Trump. Judges, lawyers, and other observers described the suits as “frivolous.” Only one ruling was initially in Trump’s favor: the timing within which first-time Pennsylvania voters must provide proper identification to “cure” their ballots. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court later overturned this ruling, which affected very few votes, anyway. Yet polls show that about a third of Americans and most Republican voters believe Biden was not the lawful winner in 2020.
We cannot rely on the electorate to operate the second gate.
The Third Gate is the United States Congress. However, like people everywhere, they prioritize their position over their constituents. With conservative support so strong for Trump, they must get on board the Trump wagon or lose their primary elections and community position.
At noon on January 6, 2021, at a rally on the Ellipse one mile from the Capitol in Washington, D.C., Trump claimed election fraud and called on Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the 2020 election results by refusing to certify some electoral votes. Near the conclusion of his speech, several thousand attendees began marching toward the U.S. Capitol, where a crowd had assembled and clashed with police. By 2 p.m., the rioters broke through the police barricades. The mob then entered the Capitol building, with some people smashing through windows and doors. Soon after, both the Senate and House of Representatives—in the middle of debating a Republican objection to Arizona’s electoral votes—adjourned.
The rioters assaulted the Capitol police force and ransacked the complex, destroying property and sending members of Congress and their staff to hide in offices and bunkers. Protesters assaulted some 140 members of law enforcement. Police shot one protester who died.
Finally, Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller called up 1,100 members of the D.C. National Guard, who secured the perimeter, allowing law enforcement and the FBI to clear the rioters from the U.S. Capitol.
By 8 p.m., the police declared the Capitol complex free of rioters, and Vice President Pence called the Senate back into session. At 9 p.m., Speaker Pelosi did the same in the House. Congress voted to confirm Joe Biden’s electoral college win at 3:24 a.m.
One week later, the House of Representatives impeached President Trump for incitement of insurrection. The Senate found Trump not guilty. Not guilty? We all watched it live on TV. His guilt was/is obvious.
In July 2021, Speaker Pelosi formed a bipartisan House select committee to investigate the January 6 riot. On December 19, 2022, the committee investigating the attack voted to refer former President Trump and others to the Justice Department for criminal charges, including inciting or aiding an insurrection.
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/january-6-capitol-riot
Congress abrogated their responsibility to guard the gate when they failed to remove Trump from office after January 6, 2021.
Over its 200-year history, the nation’s legislative seat has withstood multiple episodes of violence. But this was the first attempt to overturn an election by violent means. All that stood between autocracy and democracy was Mike Pense. The gate to prevent an autocrat from taking over the government withstood this attack with an agonizing squeak.
The last gate is the Justice system.
Justice too long delayed is justice denied. We all watched the events of January 6 on television. Trump spread voter fraud lies (still does) and stoked the protests that led to the attack. It was 690 days later before the Department of Justice indicted him with a federal crime.
Appeal, appeal, appeal—Everything ends up at the Supreme Court. He is determined to avoid accountability before the general election, and so far, the U.S. Supreme Court, the last bastion of authority, is helping him.
Trump has no legal grounds to delay a ruling in his plea for presidential immunity. Trump’s reason for slowing the immunity appeals process is apparent: to postpone the trial date, hopefully pushing it into a time when, as president, he would control the Department of Justice and thus could quash the prosecution altogether. The Supreme Court has disgraced itself by being a party to this. The sole issue before the Court is presidential immunity. Special Counsel Jack Smith has law and policy on his side in seeking a prompt determination on immunity and a speedy trial soon after that. Yet the Court has ignored all that. The Supreme Court’s decision to delay the immunity case for an April 25 hearing puts them in cahoots with the Trump toadies. There is no plausible reason to oppose a rapid resolution. The public has a right to a speedy trial.
How we got here: After Judge Tanya Chutkan ruled against Trump’s claim of presidential immunity on December 1 and Trump appealed that ruling to the D.C. Circuit, Smith asked the Supreme Court to hear the appeal immediately, leapfrogging delay in the circuit-level argument and decision. Trump opposed that, and the Supreme Court declined Smith’s invitation. The circuit court expedited its appeal and, on February 6, rejected Trump’s immunity argument in toto. Trump then sought a stay in the Supreme Court and advocated various measures to slow the Court’s hearing of the case. The Supreme Court then deliberated for a couple of weeks before accepting the case for review but did not schedule the argument until two months later—on the last day of oral arguments for this session.
Delay, delay, delay. If he did not seek to avoid any trial before the general election, Trump would be interested in a speedy resolution of the immunity question. Anyone with a legitimate immunity claim would not want to suffer even a day more under the dishonor of multiple criminal charges.
The law itself recognizes the need for speed on this issue. In cases involving immunity, courts grant permission for an appeal before a trial, bypassing the usual rule that only allows appeals after a verdict. In allowing for this, the hope is to relieve someone from the humiliation and burden of a trial if the defendant is indeed immune. For the Court to set such a prolonged schedule—as opposed to the time necessary to decide the only issue before the justices—speaks volumes about the Court’s role in advancing the interests of the former president over the rule of law.
The public has a profound interest in a fair and speedy trial. As Justice Samuel Alito wrote for a unanimous Supreme Court, the Speedy Trial Act “was designed not just to benefit defendants but also to serve the public interest.” The refrain that “justice too long delayed is justice denied” has unmistakable resonance in this criminal context. The special counsel’s briefs in the D.C. case are replete regarding this well-settled case law. Courts have resolved that even when the accused seeks to delay his day in court, that “does not alter the prosecutor’s obligation to see to it that the case is brought on for trial,” as the Supreme Court has articulated. Many defendants seek to avoid the day of reckoning—hence Edward Bennett Williams’s famous quip that, for the defense, an adjournment is equivalent to an acquittal. The law provides that the public, the prosecution, and most emphatically, the courts need not oblige that stratagem.
If a defendant attempts to postpone a trial until the government can no longer prosecute, the Justice Department may request to schedule the trial before that deadline. DOJ’s interest in deterrence and accountability warrants this action. If Trump should win the election, he will become immune as president from a criminal trial for at least four years (and perhaps forever by seeking dismissal of the federal case with prejudice or testing the efficacy of granting himself a pardon). The Justice Department can accordingly uphold the public interest in deterrence and accountability by seeking the prompt conviction of the leader of an insurrection. This DOJ need not advance the goals of a future administration led by that very “oath-breaking insurrectionist.”
Another objective of criminal punishment is “specific deterrence,” ensuring the defendant does not commit offenses in the future. Given the grand jury’s determination that Trump committed felonies to interfere with the 2020 election, there are compelling law-enforcement reasons to secure a conviction to deter Trump specifically. Indeed, in proposing a trial date to Judge Chutkan, Smith quoted Justice Alito, on behalf of the whole Court, that speedy trials “serve the public interest by … preventing extended pretrial delay from impairing the deterrent effect of punishment.”
Trump’s public denigration of the legal system—his incessant claims that the criminal case is a witch hunt—also gives a nation committed to the rule of law a vital interest in holding a public trial where a jury can assess Trump’s actions. Trials can thus restore faith in the justice system.
When the government seeks its day in court, it simultaneously affords the defendant his day in court—providing him with more process, not less. Indeed, the Department of Justice’s so-called 60-day rule (more of a guideline than a rule)—which forbids it from taking overt actions in non-public cases regarding political candidates and closely related people right before an election—is there to avoid a federal prosecutor hurling untested new allegations against a political candidate precisely because he would not have time to clear his reputation before the election. Here, the government is seeking to provide just that forum for Trump to clear his name before the election—to test the criminal allegations against the highest legal standard we have for adjudicating facts—and yet right-wing critics attack Smith. Trump, of course, wants to avoid that test, but that is an interest the courts should reject.
The justices still have time to get back on track. Given these criminal charges, Trump’s claim that presidents have absolute immunity should be an easy issue to resolve. The appeals have delayed matters long enough at the expense of the right of the American people to a fair and speedy trial. Let them not stand in the way of ever having a trial.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/03/dc-trump-trial-speed/677862/
Lady Justice wears a blindfold and holds a balance scale. She is weighing democracy and autocracy. We are about to learn if she is peeking.
The first gate is the nomination process via the political parties. Not fully trusting the people to keep an unqualified person out of office, the founders created the Electoral College as a built-in screening tool. However, the Parties have abrogated their authority over the College to exclude unqualified candidates.
Currently, laws in 48 of the 50 states require the winner of the plurality of the statewide popular vote to receive all that state’s electoral votes. This action annuls the Electoral College’s gatekeeping ability to exclude incompetent office seekers. Winner-take-all systems, especially with representation not proportional to population, do not align with the principle of “one person, one vote.” In the 2016 election, for example, Michigan cast 4,548,382 votes for either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. Trump won by 10,704 votes, less than a quarter of one percent, but received all sixteen electoral votes.
The number of electors each state appoints is determined by the size of its congressional delegation, with at least three regardless of population. The apportionment of the rest is only roughly proportional. This allotment scheme has caused the second-place finisher to become president in 1824, 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016, where Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump by over two million, eight-hundred thousand popular votes. Electors in the so-called “swing states” now decide who will be president. All other democracies have abandoned electoral colleges in favor of direct elections for an executive president.
This wasn’t always so. Until the 1830s, party caucuses chose candidates in some form of Washington smoke-filled room. Many felt this system was too closed, so we changed to national party conventions. Local party committees in each state selected the convention delegates who supported their views. The Electoral College electors surrendered their role to filter out those who threaten democracy or are otherwise unfit to hold office. This structure continued to favor political insiders, as candidates outside the parties could not garner the delegates.
At the 1920 Republican convention, after four days and nine ballots, the delegates remained deadlocked over four candidates. In a nicotine-fogged room at the Blackstone Hotel, a string of Old Guard party leaders discussed getting 493 delegates to agree on a candidate. General Leonard Wood led with 287 delegates, followed by Governor Frank Lowden, Senator Hiram Johnson, and Senator Warren Harding. Party bigwigs came and went late into the night, debating the candidates’ pros and cons. They picked Warren Harding. The point is that the back-room-boys served a gatekeeping function to keep unfit candidates from the office.
https://www.amazon.com/How-Democracies-Die-Steven-Levitsky/dp/1524762938
In parliamentary democracies, the leading parties choose the prime minister from the members of parliament, ensuring that they will be acceptable to political insiders and qualified to lead. The Constitution of 1787 created the first presidential system, entirely omitting political parties. This was no accident. The framers of the new Constitution desperately wanted to avoid the divisions that had ripped England apart in the bloody civil wars of the 17th century. Many saw parties—or “factions,” as they called them—as corrupt relics of the monarchical British system that they wanted to discard in favor of a genuinely democratic government. They did not foresee a two-party situation negating the filtering value of the Electoral College.
https://www.history.com/news/founding-fathers-political-parties-opinion
The founding fathers understood that, ultimately, virtue was necessary to maintain a democracy. Unfortunately, we cannot legislate virtue. The unreliability of virtue is an inherent fault. But an overreliance on gatekeeping is undemocratic if party bosses can ignore the people’s will. Democracy will always be a delicate balance reflecting society’s moral fiber.
The second gate is the electorate. Voters’ judgment should prevent an obviously unqualified person from becoming president. But what if people elect an autocrat?
Within genetic limits, our environment shapes our beliefs. Our parents, education, and media exposure determine who we are. Public schooling has traditionally offered a culturally homogenous frame of reference within reasonable limits. The major newspapers’ and networks’ news filtering supported a generally accepted reality backdrop. However, the proliferation of social media has enabled us to shift our focus to the outlets that support our Weltanschauung at the expense of a standard set of facts. After all, there is a limit to the time we devote to media input. The result is that most of us live in an echo chamber that reinforces and amplifies our preexisting beliefs, insulated from rebuttal or opposing views.
A well-informed electorate is a prerequisite for democracy. We can trust people to govern themselves if they are well-informed. But “well-informed” means accepting a standard set of facts. There is always a dispute about what makes up “facts.” However, we owe the creation of our modern society to the Scientific Method (question, research, hypothesis, experiment, analysis, conclusion, and communication) for determining facts. It is an empirical method for acquiring knowledge.
But this logical cascade is under attack. Science has proven the world is not flat, vaccinations work, and Trump lost the 2020 election. After the election, Trump’s campaign and others filed 62 lawsuits contesting election processes, voting counting, and certification in 9 states and the District of Columbia.
Lack of evidence or standing led to the dismissal or dropping of nearly all the lawsuits, including thirty dismissed on merits. Among the judges who rejected the lawsuits were some appointed by Trump. Judges, lawyers, and other observers described the suits as “frivolous.” Only one ruling was initially in Trump’s favor: the timing within which first-time Pennsylvania voters must provide proper identification to “cure” their ballots. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court later overturned this ruling, which affected very few votes, anyway. Yet polls show that about a third of Americans and most Republican voters believe Biden was not the lawful winner in 2020.
We cannot rely on the electorate to operate the second gate.
The Third Gate is the United States Congress. However, like people everywhere, they prioritize their position over their constituents. With conservative support so strong for Trump, they must get on board the Trump wagon or lose their primary elections and community position.
At noon on January 6, 2021, at a rally on the Ellipse one mile from the Capitol in Washington, D.C., Trump claimed election fraud and called on Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the 2020 election results by refusing to certify some electoral votes. Near the conclusion of his speech, several thousand attendees began marching toward the U.S. Capitol, where a crowd had assembled and clashed with police. By 2 p.m., the rioters broke through the police barricades. The mob then entered the Capitol building, with some people smashing through windows and doors. Soon after, both the Senate and House of Representatives—in the middle of debating a Republican objection to Arizona’s electoral votes—adjourned.
The rioters assaulted the Capitol police force and ransacked the complex, destroying property and sending members of Congress and their staff to hide in offices and bunkers. Protesters assaulted some 140 members of law enforcement. Police shot one protester who died.
Finally, Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller called up 1,100 members of the D.C. National Guard, who secured the perimeter, allowing law enforcement and the FBI to clear the rioters from the U.S. Capitol.
By 8 p.m., the police declared the Capitol complex free of rioters, and Vice President Pence called the Senate back into session. At 9 p.m., Speaker Pelosi did the same in the House. Congress voted to confirm Joe Biden’s electoral college win at 3:24 a.m.
One week later, the House of Representatives impeached President Trump for incitement of insurrection. The Senate found Trump not guilty. Not guilty? We all watched it live on TV. His guilt was/is obvious.
In July 2021, Speaker Pelosi formed a bipartisan House select committee to investigate the January 6 riot. On December 19, 2022, the committee investigating the attack voted to refer former President Trump and others to the Justice Department for criminal charges, including inciting or aiding an insurrection.
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/january-6-capitol-riot
Congress abrogated their responsibility to guard the gate when they failed to remove Trump from office after January 6, 2021.
Over its 200-year history, the nation’s legislative seat has withstood multiple episodes of violence. But this was the first attempt to overturn an election by violent means. All that stood between autocracy and democracy was Mike Pense. The gate to prevent an autocrat from taking over the government withstood this attack with an agonizing squeak.
The last gate is the Justice system.
Justice too long delayed is justice denied. We all watched the events of January 6 on television. Trump spread voter fraud lies (still does) and stoked the protests that led to the attack. It was 690 days later before the Department of Justice indicted him with a federal crime.
Appeal, appeal, appeal—Everything ends up at the Supreme Court. He is determined to avoid accountability before the general election, and so far, the U.S. Supreme Court, the last bastion of authority, is helping him.
Trump has no legal grounds to delay a ruling in his plea for presidential immunity. Trump’s reason for slowing the immunity appeals process is apparent: to postpone the trial date, hopefully pushing it into a time when, as president, he would control the Department of Justice and thus could quash the prosecution altogether. The Supreme Court has disgraced itself by being a party to this. The sole issue before the Court is presidential immunity. Special Counsel Jack Smith has law and policy on his side in seeking a prompt determination on immunity and a speedy trial soon after that. Yet the Court has ignored all that. The Supreme Court’s decision to delay the immunity case for an April 25 hearing puts them in cahoots with the Trump toadies. There is no plausible reason to oppose a rapid resolution. The public has a right to a speedy trial.
How we got here: After Judge Tanya Chutkan ruled against Trump’s claim of presidential immunity on December 1 and Trump appealed that ruling to the D.C. Circuit, Smith asked the Supreme Court to hear the appeal immediately, leapfrogging delay in the circuit-level argument and decision. Trump opposed that, and the Supreme Court declined Smith’s invitation. The circuit court expedited its appeal and, on February 6, rejected Trump’s immunity argument in toto. Trump then sought a stay in the Supreme Court and advocated various measures to slow the Court’s hearing of the case. The Supreme Court then deliberated for a couple of weeks before accepting the case for review but did not schedule the argument until two months later—on the last day of oral arguments for this session.
Delay, delay, delay. If he did not seek to avoid any trial before the general election, Trump would be interested in a speedy resolution of the immunity question. Anyone with a legitimate immunity claim would not want to suffer even a day more under the dishonor of multiple criminal charges.
The law itself recognizes the need for speed on this issue. In cases involving immunity, courts grant permission for an appeal before a trial, bypassing the usual rule that only allows appeals after a verdict. In allowing for this, the hope is to relieve someone from the humiliation and burden of a trial if the defendant is indeed immune. For the Court to set such a prolonged schedule—as opposed to the time necessary to decide the only issue before the justices—speaks volumes about the Court’s role in advancing the interests of the former president over the rule of law.
The public has a profound interest in a fair and speedy trial. As Justice Samuel Alito wrote for a unanimous Supreme Court, the Speedy Trial Act “was designed not just to benefit defendants but also to serve the public interest.” The refrain that “justice too long delayed is justice denied” has unmistakable resonance in this criminal context. The special counsel’s briefs in the D.C. case are replete regarding this well-settled case law. Courts have resolved that even when the accused seeks to delay his day in court, that “does not alter the prosecutor’s obligation to see to it that the case is brought on for trial,” as the Supreme Court has articulated. Many defendants seek to avoid the day of reckoning—hence Edward Bennett Williams’s famous quip that, for the defense, an adjournment is equivalent to an acquittal. The law provides that the public, the prosecution, and most emphatically, the courts need not oblige that stratagem.
If a defendant attempts to postpone a trial until the government can no longer prosecute, the Justice Department may request to schedule the trial before that deadline. DOJ’s interest in deterrence and accountability warrants this action. If Trump should win the election, he will become immune as president from a criminal trial for at least four years (and perhaps forever by seeking dismissal of the federal case with prejudice or testing the efficacy of granting himself a pardon). The Justice Department can accordingly uphold the public interest in deterrence and accountability by seeking the prompt conviction of the leader of an insurrection. This DOJ need not advance the goals of a future administration led by that very “oath-breaking insurrectionist.”
Another objective of criminal punishment is “specific deterrence,” ensuring the defendant does not commit offenses in the future. Given the grand jury’s determination that Trump committed felonies to interfere with the 2020 election, there are compelling law-enforcement reasons to secure a conviction to deter Trump specifically. Indeed, in proposing a trial date to Judge Chutkan, Smith quoted Justice Alito, on behalf of the whole Court, that speedy trials “serve the public interest by … preventing extended pretrial delay from impairing the deterrent effect of punishment.”
Trump’s public denigration of the legal system—his incessant claims that the criminal case is a witch hunt—also gives a nation committed to the rule of law a vital interest in holding a public trial where a jury can assess Trump’s actions. Trials can thus restore faith in the justice system.
When the government seeks its day in court, it simultaneously affords the defendant his day in court—providing him with more process, not less. Indeed, the Department of Justice’s so-called 60-day rule (more of a guideline than a rule)—which forbids it from taking overt actions in non-public cases regarding political candidates and closely related people right before an election—is there to avoid a federal prosecutor hurling untested new allegations against a political candidate precisely because he would not have time to clear his reputation before the election. Here, the government is seeking to provide just that forum for Trump to clear his name before the election—to test the criminal allegations against the highest legal standard we have for adjudicating facts—and yet right-wing critics attack Smith. Trump, of course, wants to avoid that test, but that is an interest the courts should reject.
The justices still have time to get back on track. Given these criminal charges, Trump’s claim that presidents have absolute immunity should be an easy issue to resolve. The appeals have delayed matters long enough at the expense of the right of the American people to a fair and speedy trial. Let them not stand in the way of ever having a trial.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/03/dc-trump-trial-speed/677862/
Lady Justice wears a blindfold and holds a balance scale. She is weighing democracy and autocracy. We are about to learn if she is peeking.
Check out my book, THRILL CHASE, available on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08WS62CLN