Below is my column in The Messenger on the celebrations after the fourth indictment of former president Donald Trump — and the dismissal of any concerns over the implications of these prosecutions for free speech. Some Democrats are warning that they need to avoid the public displays of joy. The danger is that Democrats just might conga their way into another 2016 backlash against the establishment.
Here is the column:
The great novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote that “there is something awe-inspiring in one who has lost all inhibitions.” Fitzgerald’s observation came back to me in watching the media coverage of the latest Trump indictment. As I myself covered the indictment as a legal analyst for Fox, I once again felt a certain longing for the abandon shown by some of my counterparts who dismissed any concern over what are now roughly 100 criminal charges against former President Donald Trump in four different indictments. It was like watching a party through a window that you could not join.
I cannot say that I have ever been much of a party animal. However, there are times when being a legal analyst is like being the designated driver at a rave party. Everyone seems to have lampshades on their heads as you furiously google-map the safest route home.
At MSNBC, host Rachel Maddow interviewed Hillary Clinton in a segment that began with the two liberal figures laughing joyfully. Clinton then regained her composure and solemnly declared her “profound sadness” at this moment. The scene captured the dilemma for press and pundits in attempting to control emotions that seemed at times like the open ecstasy of a thrill kill.
Former Biden Press Secretary Jen Psaki had earlier pushed book clubs to adopt the indictments for collective reading, and others had suggested that families should read “every word” so as not to miss even a syllable of satisfaction. Nothing allows a Democratic child to sleep more contently at night than the predicate offenses to a Trump racketeering charge.
Former Democratic Senator and MSNBC contributor Claire McCaskill (who previously warned everyone to “back off” Hunter Biden) was in open rapture. She proclaimed “the good news is we finally have Rudy Giuliani indicted. Whoo-hoo! That makes me very happy.”
For her part, MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell took a moment to celebrate a “strong black woman standing up to Donald Trump,” adding a race element to the celebratory charging moment.
The celebration got to the point that a leading democratic adviser suggested others should tamp down the public displays.
It did little good. If you watched the last few days of cable programming, you would think that Porn Hub was about to introduce a new fetish category for “Trump Indictments.”
These “Whoo-hoo” moments are not shared by many who fear that these indictments are criminalizing political speech and chilling future challenges to elections. For many, it is hard to get to beyond the name on the caption to consider the downstream implications of these sweeping indictments.
It’s not hard to see the implications: Many of the over 160 individual acts described in the Georgia indictment are political speech ranging from actual speeches to tweets to telephone calls. Some of these crimes could as easily apply to Democrats in past challenges.
Hillary Clinton maintained for years that the 2016 election was stolen by Donald Trump who was an illegitimate president. Her campaign hid the funding of the infamous Steele Dossier and lied to media in denying the funding. It then pushed false claims of Russian collusion.
Stacey Abrams in Georgia refused to concede the election and alleged widespread voter suppression and election irregularities.
Clinton’s former general counsel, Marc Elias, challenged an election in New York on the basis for voting machines changing votes. Sound familiar?
In January 2005, then-Sen. Barbara Boxer joined former Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones to challenge George W. Bush’s victory over Democratic challenger John Kerry in the state of Ohio. Speaker Nancy Pelosi praised Boxer’s challenge as “witnessing Democracy at work … fundamental to our democracy.”
House Jan. 6 Committee chairman, Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), supported the challenge to the certification of the 2004 election results. His fellow committee member, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), sought to challenge Trump’s certification in 2016.
In both the indictments by Special Counsel Jack Smith and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, the prosecutors simply declare that Trump and his team knew that there was no voting fraud and therefore can be jailed for contesting the election of Joe Biden. No one suggested that the challenges in 2004 and 2016 had merit, but they were celebrated not prosecuted.
As politicians and pundits conga-line around this story, there is little concern over the growing anger and divisions in the country. A recent poll shows the country divided in half on the charges. Among the 53 percent favoring the charges are 85% of Democrats. Less than half of independents and only 16% of Republicans favor the charges. Other polls show 55 percent of the public viewed the earlier indictments as “politically motivated.”
The indictment (let alone the quadruple indictment) of the leading candidate for the presidency should not occur on novel or attenuated claims. That is what is happening in Atlanta, New York, and Washington. (I have previously written that the documents prosecution in Florida is a much stronger case.) As someone who criticized Trump on his election claims as well as his Jan. 6 speech, I find many of these allegations to be legitimately disturbing and deplorable. Yet, that does not justify the criminalization of the claims. It does not excuse the cost to the Constitution or the country in pursuing these cases.
Many pundits are fully aware of the impact these cases (and the public celebrations) are likely to have on the Republican base. They hope that it will secure the nomination for Trump, thereby securing an easy opponent for the general election. Yet, they are also playing a dangerous political game if they overplay (or over-celebrate) this moment.
Trump was swept into power on an anti-establishment movement that took Washington by surprise. The establishment has now given Trump an even greater appeal as a statement of defiance, particularly if Democratic prosecutors seek to jail him. It is the same feeling that I wrote about before the 2016 election. A significant number of those who oppose the indictments in polling are also expressing opposition to Trump as a candidate. That can easily change if the 2024 election becomes another vote against the establishment as opposed to a vote for Donald Trump.
Jonathan Turley, an attorney, constitutional law scholar and legal analyst, is the Shapiro Chair for Public Interest Law at The George Washington University Law School.
Turley 8/18/2023:
“In both the indictments by Special Counsel Jack Smith and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, the prosecutors simply declare that Trump and his team knew that there was no voting fraud and therefore can be jailed for contesting the election of Joe Biden.”
It is, of course, IMPOSSIBLE to know there was no voting fraud, not because there necessarily was, but because it’s simply one of those things that cannot be known. Likewise, no one can KNOW that there was not voting (or vote-counting) fraud sufficient to decide the election.
We can, however, be confident that the many other ways that the Democrats cheated did, in the aggregate, throw the election to Biden.
It seems in your reasonable, appreciated commentary, one glaring question should be addressed: What if the election really WAS stolen ?
Joe Biden brags about having “the most extensive and inclusive VOTER FRAUD organization” in history.
Do you really have doubt? Even if you disregard the questionable ballots and hacked Dominion machines, the election interference through the alphabet agencies should make every Americans lite bulb turn on. Obama weaponized our government agencies and engaged in fraud, subversion, sedition and treason. Freedom is never free, they can’t hide it anymore, corruption to the very core.
Correct. A reasonable person might still debate WHICH illicit method most altered the outcome of the race. So many to choose from – nursing home ballots completed by workers; mass drop off ballots coupled with blatant refusal to perform signature matching (as proven mathematically); Federal agencies in conspiracy with media to censor and alter the news; etc. However, no sane person can still convincingly maintain the fiction that the election was legitimate, for clearly it was not.
Don’t forget CTCL, Pfizer postponing the announcement of its vaccine until after the election (a lie by omission), the “color revolution”-style civil unrest drummed up by the Left, the enormous lingering effect of the Trump-Russia lies, and the possible (probable?) intentional leak of the Covid virus. I mean, they say there are no coincidences in politics.
A reasonable person might still debate WHICH illicit method most altered the outcome of the race. So many to choose from – nursing home ballots completed by workers; mass drop off ballots coupled with blatant refusal to perform signature matching (as proven mathematically); Federal agencies in conspiracy with media to censor and alter the news; etc. However, no sane person can still convincingly maintain the fiction that the election was legitimate, for clearly it was not.
What the democrats are doing to Mr. Trump is obscene. They are acting like high school kids at a football game where their teem just scored a touch – down. I see little to be joyful about in this display of unbridled hatred for a great man whose goal is to make America a better country than it has become under the democrats.
If there is a god, Trump will win the presidency and then the retributions can begin.
For the sake of the country, retribution should be severe and wide-reaching.
Prof. Turley – I completely dismiss concenrs regarding all these indictiments – they are garbage and the only concern is that our govenrment is so corrupt as to have engaged in them.
I learn alot through all of this – While I was previously aware of prior elections in which other contestants has engaged in similar speach and action – I was listing to Prof. Derschowitz who noted – sorry I missed the case citation, that previously Federal courts had actually RULED that the means to challenge the legitimacy of an election was specifically by offering to congress alternate slates of electors.
As with the idiotic MAL case – we once again have prosecutors and courts trying to manufacture crimes – not just out of thin air – but out of conduct they had previously given their impramtur to.
If the left wing nut media is frothing at the mouth – that is their problem – I dissmissed the left wing nut media long ago.
Purportedly Jake Tapper has recently noted that Biden Lied and Trump was telling the truth in the 2020 debate.
WOW!!! It has taken a left wing nut talking head almost 3 years to grasp what large numbers of people correctly understood the moment Biden utter his lie.
Jake Tapper is an intelligent person – many of those on the left holding these incredibly stupid beleifs are intelligent people.
All the left is doing is PROVING that even those with above average IQ’s and college degrees are capable of holding onto incredibly stupid beliefs for very long periods of time.
Regardless, I beleive we have PASSED peak woke. Isn’t denial one of the stages of grief.
Those on the left have demonstrated EN MASSE that they do not have the capability to govern. Frankly they do not have the judgement necescary to vote, though that is unfortunately a right.
Makes Starship Troopers argument that voting and public service should be conditioned on military service seem compelling.
John ADams noted that our constitution was only sufficient for a christian nation. While I think taking the christian part of that too litterally is error. Successful self govenrment REQUIRES an electorate and institutions that requardless of their qualifications, degrees, eductation and intelligence are OBVIOUSLY stupid.
Everyone of you on the left who has looked down your noses at Trump and Trump voters:
On EVERY SINGLE ISSUE OF CONSEQUENCE – They have been RIGHT and you have been WRONG.
Most of you do not have the charactor or morality to admit the many many many things you have been wrong about.
Worse none of this has been accidental. It is not because Trump is some rocket scientist, or those on the right have high IQ’s.
It is because bad ideolo0gy makes inteligent people Stupid.
Nasseem Talib noted this in the context of the 2008 financial crisis coining the term IYI – intellectual Yet Idiot.
But Dietrich Bonhoffer noted it 80 years ago when explaining that the Nazi’s did not ride to power on the coatails of ignorant peasants – as Mao did, but with the support or atleast aquiesence of germany’s smartest people.
Education and intelligence are NOT protection against stupidity. In all too many today they seem to be predictors of stupidity.
If those of you on the left wish to destroy your lives – go ahead.
But quit using FORCE to take the rest of us with you.
You are free to run off and live in abject poverty in the dystopia of your own making.
You are NOT free to take everyone else with you.
This country is NOT a democracy – and as Our founders (and John Stuart Mill) and history have confirmed – democracy is just about the worst form of govenrment in existance.
There is no limit to the desire as democratic power increases the ability of your neighbor to F$#K up your life.
“you can’t even run your own life
Be damned if you’ll run mine”
@johnbsay I suspect you are laboring under the same delusion as far too many on the right and center. “Taking us with them” is not some unintended side effect of their madness, nor the result of euphoric ignorance. It is the whole and entire point. The harms done to are nation are the result of decades of meticulous, malicious planning. It’s hard for many to allow themselves to believe – after all, WE would never contemplate doing such things. However, our willful ignorance (ignoring the evidence before our own eyes) is a core component of how they succeed. They use our disbelief against us.
We will never succeed in defeating an enemy we refuse to look at and see for what it truly is.
Correct.
It seems that those on the elite/left side of the political spectrum have long forgotten or suppressed any concern for the preservation of legal norms and law.
But seventeen years back, an Atlantic Magazine “quote of the day” suggested substitution of “al Qaeda” for “the Devil” in the famous passage from A Man for All Seasons. I doubt now whether they would urge the same for Trump or for any “deplorable” politician:
“William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
William Roper: Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that!
Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!”
https://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2006/09/quote-for-the-day/233337/
As it was an important caution seventeen years ago, so it is again now.
The fraud happens LIVE every election with the EDISON DATA which is the fraudulent data that went up and down LIVE ON TV!
They use.computer data and EDISON DATA to rig all the elections for both party establishment candidates which is why the RNC does nothing!
Why do people, especially legal types try to find logic in a lynch mob? It is as if we have been taken over by a foreign power and we still think our constitution protects us. For all the legal clap-trap, the behemoth has not changed course.
Maybe this is the actual coup and we are in too much disbelief to recognize it!
“Hillary Clinton maintained for years that the 2016 election was stolen by Donald Trump who was an illegitimate president. Her campaign hid the funding of the infamous Steele Dossier and lied to media in denying the funding. It then pushed false claims of Russian collusion.”
That says it all. We all know what we are looking at. The criminals are in charge.
Wrong verb tense: she maintains to this day.
If the Left had not been smearing, kneecapping, corruptly prosecuting Trump since 2016, some of those Georgia allegations might be worth considering.
In determining the validity of a claim, or whether it’s even worth entertaining, a person’s (or a movement’s) history and motivation matter. They speak to credibility. Tonya Harding lost hers. As did the Left.
(I said “might be.”)
Taxpayer-funded ‘inclusive science’ fellowship excludes white faculty
White faculty are excluded from a National Science Foundation-funded “inclusive science” fellowship, in what one legal group calls a “blatant violation” of federal law.
https://www.thecollegefix.com/taxpayer-funded-inclusive-science-fellowship-excludes-white-faculty/
Ya know, if you were not around during the 2016 election when Trump, Guiliani and others constantly used a crowd pleasing chant at their rallies of “Lock Her Up” with very little basis you would not understand why Hillary is laughing so hard when Trump, Guiliani and others are finally getting some accountability. Really, they printed it on t shirts and everything.
So Turley writes this article as if Trump, Guiliani and others did not do anything to warrant Hillary laughing at them and just makes it sounds like Hillary’s laughing at them came out of nowhere, and poor, poor Republicans are the victims of unwarranted poor behavior as always.
Your are acting like Hillary did nothing wrong. Trump was indicted for talking about doing something Hillary and her employees actually did. Something the Director of the FBI said no reasonable prosecutor would prosecute.
Guess he was wrong.
This is about a con man who sold steaks, an airline, chocolate, travel, casinos, university degrees, books, his brother, wives, and the presidency of the United States to make a buck and brag about it. He is disgusting and finally got caught. He has been lying and ripping people off since he was a teen.
When he goes to prison there will be dancing in the streets.
It is disturbing that his excuse for his crimes is “but Hillary”, “Obama has a funny middle name”, “witch hunt, witch hunt” greatest biggest ever, no one even know these things only Trump.
Ha ha
“This is about a con man who sold steaks, an airline, chocolate, travel, casinos,…”
Stupid people do not recognize that the vast majority of new businesses fail or never produce much of an income.
Trump, however, succeeded and made his mark. Virtually millions of people have benefitted from his endeavors. You represent failure and envy. You don’t know what success is, and have nothing to show.
H1llary murd3rs her opponents. Arkanc1de is real.
That Hurricane was misspell to not give her credit for the death that occurs. They may have a book already out on Amazon telling about her destruction
A statistical certainty.
idiot. she broke the law and walked. he didn’t and won’t. wake up moron.
But as the truth has come out , she should have been locked up . She along with democats were corrupt .
I must have missed where $hrillary was prosecuted.
They could not afford to prosecute her. She would have taken thousands of others down with her.
Conspiring to place “cut-n-paste” classified info into e-mails, which were “cc’d” to CCP, and stored on a home brew server, Clinton’s Sock Case, conspiring to screw Bernie Sanders out of DNC nomination and stealing alk of the DNC money, receiving answers to debate questions before they were asked from Donna Brazile, then there is the question of Seyth Rich’s mysterious murder, renting out the Lincoln Bedroom, using Crowdstrike, based in UKRAINE, to check for who hacked who and who knows what else, blatant destruction of said e-mails and smashing of phones under subpoena, and using aliases and several burner phones, falsely fingering Carter Page, and that other guy, funding of false RussiaGate Hoax, stealing bazillions of taxpayer dollars to fund the FAKE Mueller Investigation, running dubious legal offices to whitewash, launder information, all while paying off co-conspirators, running the same grift under the Clinton Criminal Foundation as Biden (90% to the Big Girl – 10% to everyone else), selling all our Uranium to Russia, stealing White House antiques, hiding a multitude of FBI records, (which they weren’t supposed to have), WhiteWater and TravelGate, and multiple deaths left in her wake, seem to me reasonable possibilities for incarceration.
The difference here is that Hurricane Hillary actually did many things unlawfully and indeed incompetently. There IS evidence of widespread voter fraud in 2020. There are too few in the judicial system with the requisite testicular fortitude for the facts to come to light in court.
The fact that she was and is a criminal would constitute the “lock her up” chant. Destroying cell phones bit washing hard drives and deleting over 30k emails along with the creation of the Steel report, and not mentioning the Clinton Foundation case that’s still open would have landed anyone else in jail.
Very little basis? Please share what you’re taking, it is strong indeed.
Hillary confessed publicly to over 600 counts of felony Espionage good for up to 3,000 years in prison. That is not “very little basis,” Cletus. The specific statute of which she is guilty does not, despite Comey’s little song and dance rationalizing why they refused to charge her, make any allowance whatsoever for “intent.” The deed is the crime, Hillary is guilty and perhaps our country’s record holder for the number of crimes we KNOW she committed yet was never indicted.
“Lock her up!” was a cry for justice. “Trump is a criminal!” is a desperate play to maintain stolen power.
The problem with Turley’s examples, is they are legitimate electoral challenges. They do not involve an attempt to use illegitimate elector certificates, or an attempt to get the Vice President to act unilaterally to both ignore certified certificates and count illegitimate ones. Such conduct is a violation of the Electoral Count Act and obstruction of a congressional proceeding and, possibly, the fraud statutes.
Or if it is not, the good professor needs to elaborate on why it is not. Not simply state that there have been electoral challenges in the past.
Everybody knows that. That is hardly news or support in and of itself for anything.
Making an argument to the VP is not a crime.
The submission of the elector documents was not intended to deceive nor were the electors impersonating public officials. The purpose of the submission was to trigger consideration of the validity of the formal process and to ensure that there were Trump electoral votes to be counted if Congress determined they and nog the Biden votes were valid.
Well first, you’ve already addressed the specifics of this matter more than Turley has. You are not simply stating that electoral challenges have happened in the past, and claiming that somehow means something here.
The problem is solicitation to commit a crime does not require that the solicited party take any action to commit the crime. And there is no legal basis by which Congress could have counted votes of non-certified electors at the January 6th hearing.
“there is no legal basis by which Congress could have counted votes of non-certified electors at the January 6th hearing.”
Let us assume you are correct. That doesn’t make the action illegal.
Well I shouldn’t have used the passive voice. It’s illegal. Mike Pense was asked to break the law. He didn’t have the authority to count illegitimate certificates or to throw out legitimate ones. He would have broken the Electoral Count Act and obstructed a congressional proceeding under 18 U.S.C. § 1512. I don’t think the fraud statutes can be summarily dismissed.
I believe Eastman argued that his proposals were lawful. Pence disagreed. That’s all that happened. How is that a crime?
Eastman is in the midst of disbarment hearings, and he also wrote that he was urging something illegal. So no, what you say is not “all that happened.”
Why do you link disbarment to criminal activity especially in Eastman’s case? The Bar is a group of like-minded people with power who can disbar honest people and permit dishonest ones to rejoin the Bar. The Bar has become ideological and looks after itself.
You should know this. It shows how little you understand the law and why people shouldn’t listen to you.
Thank you.
Exactly right. More to your point, in Georgia now, according to Fani Willis, the losing party in every lawsuit is guilty of the crime of suborning a public official’s violation of his oath of office by asking the judge to decide a dispute in favor a party not justly entitled to prevail.
Steve, tell me how bringing forth an argument to Congress that the VP could refuse and Congress could reject is fraud. Is there a specific law against it?
“count illegitimate certificates”
To determine illegitimacy, doesn’t one first have to determine they are illegitimate? Who makes that decision? If it hasn’t been determined illegal, how can you call that action illegal unless there is a law against it?
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1512
Breaking the law does not constitute committing a crime. There was no applicable criminal statute to charge Pence under if he had done what Trump wanted. But it doesn’t matter because it *is* legal to solicit illegal conduct by officials, all the more so when the legality is determined only after the fact. Part of the job of public officials is to know or decide what is legal and what is not, subject to possible review by a judge.
Christine Pelosi tried to get electors to not vote for trump as required by law. Do you hold her to the same standard?
Steve,
You are ignorant of the facts & the law. The president of the congress ( the VP of the USA) has the right to hear objections to the seating of electors and can send disputed electors back to the state legislatures to determine their legality. Presidential candidates have a right to offer alternate electors to the disputed electors. This does not make the alternate electors “fake” or illegal or subject to arrest as alleged in some states or the offering of alternate electors a crime! Republican prosecutors are criminalizing widely used & common practice. Using constitutional means to overturn an election is constitutional and not a crime. This has no meaning or significance to Republican prosecutors who wish to prevent Donald Trump from becoming the 47th POTUS!
This is false. They most defiantly tried to deceive. They sent their fake elector forms to the National Archives with not comment that it was a just-in-case option. They tried to sneak the papers to the VP in hopes they would count them instead.
The idea that they were trying to “ sneak the papers to the VP” in this context is absurd. This was a public process with a lot of publicity surrounding it, including coming from Shafer himself. Byron York had an article recently showing how open all this was.
Deceive whom? How?
We deplorables are not stupid, we are tired of being pissed and told it’s raining. There are likely very uncivil events on the horizon. One side largely controls the narrative, the media, the airwaves, and their acolytes buy the pure bravo sierra without question. The deplorables are akin to a wounded grizzly, cornered, and frightened for the future of the once greatest nation the world has ever seen. They work, they have children to raise and protect. That grizzly will likely come out of the corner resolved to do unimaginable damage to its pursuers. The left/elite/media are whistling past the grave yard of their own graves, freshly prepared for them. I hope I am wrong, but I greatly fear that I am not. Now y’all have a real good evening, sleep tight.
Whether or not alternate electors are legal is an undecided question, Cletus. And EXPLORING their use is not illegal – if you question their legality, the correct remedy is to challenge it in court. If it turns out the use was NOT legal, the only remedial action would be to “unwind” whatever actions they took – just as Trump sought to “unwind” the theft of the 2020 election.
Trump acted correctly. The election, we now know beyond any conceivable doubt, was stolen in a myriad of ways. A rational person may argue WHICH of those ways most affected the outcome, no sane person can convincingly argue that the outcome was unchanged.
In such a case it is not only proper for POTUS to challenge the election and ask State representatives to perform their duty by looking for fraudulent ballots to toss – it is their Constitutional duty to do everything within their power to stop the coup.
“The problem with Turley’s examples, is they are legitimate electoral challenges. They do not involve an attempt to use illegitimate elector certificates, or an attempt to get the Vice President to act unilaterally to both ignore certified certificates and count illegitimate ones. Such conduct is a violation of the Electoral Count Act and obstruction of a congressional proceeding and, possibly, the fraud statutes.”
No one can “violate” the Electoral Count Act other than someone whom the Act gives a role in the process. Petitioning those people for a redress of grievances — as in any other context — is not a crime or even a “violation”.
Actually Professor, Porn Hub does in fact have a Trump category. Simply google: “Porn Hub Trump category” and you’re good to go.
Figures you would know that.