Ask Me Help Desk - SCOTUS full of Trump

SCOTUS said today that 1512(c)(2) was not an appropriate felony charge against the Jan 6 rioters because it only applies to evidence tampering . Many of the rioter will have the most serious charges against them reversed . Trump is also charged with violating the statute in his DC Jan 6 case.

For one person the decision comes too late. Matthew Lawrence Perna died on February 25, 2022 from suicide.

He entered the Capitol on Jan 6 through a door that had been opened .He hung out there for 5-10 minutes taking pictures within a roped in area.
Pictures of him at the Capitol ended up on his Fakebook page. The Feds asked for the public’s help to identify rioters . A person familiar with Perna recognized him and flagged him to police.

When notified that the police were looking for him he surrendered to them . He plead guilty to all their charges.
Then he found out that the Feds were looking to tack on additional charges .He became despondent. .

His obit said
“The constant delays in hearings, and postponements dragged out for over a year. Because of this, Matt’s heart broke and his spirit died,”

Jan. 6 Capitol rioter dies by suicide because of 'broken heart' over case (nypost.com)

Quote:

“When Matthew was unexpectedly charged with the felony of Obstruction of an Official Proceeding—after initially facing only misdemeanors—his world collapsed. The weight of a potential lengthy prison sentence bore down on him, filling his days with insurmountable worry and anxiety. At that time, there was no glimmer of hope that this severe charge would be dropped.

Supreme Court Overturns DOJ's Use of Key J6 Felony Court (declassified.live)

People should be held responsible for this madness.

Just heard driving home from my hike that SCOTUS ruled Presidents have ABSOLUTE immunity for OFFICIAL ACTS . This should delay or put a fork in the DC trials and the doc case . I need to read the opinion to see if they clarify what is considered an 'official act '. I believe that none of these cases will be resolved before the election

Surely Official Acts are those conducted while in the elected role\office and not after the fact.
So rules out some, but not all of the current actions...
Either way typical murky SCOTUS ruling.

Correct they punted

Trump was in office until January 20 2021 . The events of Jan 6 happened when he was in office.

I just read the decision .

Quote:

It is these enduring principles that guide our decision in this case. The President enjoys no immunity for his unofficial acts, and not everything the President does is official. The President is not above the law. But Congress may not criminalize the President’s conduct in carrying out the responsibilities of the Executive Branch under the Constitution. And the system of separated powers designed by the Framers has always demanded an energetic, independent Executive. The President therefore may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled, at a minimum, to a presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts. That immunity applies equally to all occupants of the Oval Office, regardless of politics, policy, or party.

23-939_e2pg.pdf (supremecourt.gov)

What SCOTUS said was a President has absolute immunity when doing core acts and presumptive immunity when doing official acts . SCOTUS did not decide the case against Trump. They went point by point in the indictment against him and instructed the lower courts to evaluate the extent of his immunity based on their guidelines.

What will happen now is that the courts that denied his appeals before will evaluate and deny his appeals again . This just brought Trump and SCOTUS time. Eventually SCOTUS will have to decide the merit of each indictment .

Trump wins because the delay will push the cases against him beyond the election. If he wins he fires the prosecutor and has an Attorney General who dismisses the cases .

I honestly don't know when official acts begin and acts by a President are subject to criminal prosecution . It is a very murky slippery slope.
As an example ;the emperor ordering the killing of American citizen; Anwar al-Awlaki,( a cleric born in New Mexico making him a birthright American ;but an al Qaeda leader in the Arabian peninsula ) with a drone .

The emperor wacked an enemy of the country . But al-Awlaki was not given due process entitled to every American citizen. Legal scholars have been debating whether the emperor was acting within his powers or was he guilty of murder ?

He was not given his day in court as was his co-conspirator Rajib Karim given in the Brit courts.
So did the emperor exceed his powers as his official duty as Commander in Chief of the Armed forces ? What is clear was that it was far easier to drone his a$$ than to go though the ponderous judicial process.

Let the government prove that Trump was NOT acting in his official capacity . That shouldn't be hard right ?

As a sidebar and perhaps more interesting is that Justice Clarance Thomas in a separate concurring opinion opened up the possibility that prosecutor Jack Smith's appointment violated the Constitution.

Quote:

"Respecting the protections that the Constitution provides for the Office of the Presidency secures liberty. In that same vein, the Constitution also secures liberty by separating the powers to create and fill offices. And, there are serious questions whether the Attorney General has violated that structure by creating an office of the Special Counsel that has not been established by law,"

Quote:

By requiring that Congress create federal offices ‘by Law,’ the Constitution imposes an important check against the President – he cannot create offices at his pleasure,"

Trump has made that contention especially in the Florida document case.

Roberts in his opinion gave instructions to the lower courts they could NOT consider the President's motives but only to decide if his acts were official Presidential acts .

For the record Trump's motives are clear . He thought he was defrauded . He tried to get AG Barr to investigate election fraud and Barr refused.
He tried to get states officials to investigate fraud and change electoral votes he thought were fraudulent . He tried to convince VP Pence that his duty was more than just a ceremonial rubber stamp of fraudulent election results ;that Pence should delay until the concerns were addressed. Finally he called on his supporters to go to Capitol Hill to protest the certification. That turned violent.

Trump contends that all his acts were official acts .

Meanwhile Justice Sotomayor's dissent is a meltdown. She got right to the Dem talking point . Again ;all the court did was refer the case back to the lower courts. She makes it sound that they crowned a king. She uses the tired trope you hear so often from the Dems " No man is above the law" . ( “a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of Government, that no man is above the law.”)This they will not use when Clueless Joe unilaterally decides that student loans are forgiven or that the borders are now open.

I can't emphasis how hysterical and unhinged Justice Sotomayor's dissent sounds.

She seriously claims that a President can now order the Navy Seals to assassinate a political rival with immunity . She says a President can organize a coup to retain power.

She says that a President can take a bribe for a pardon .

She is wrong although past Presidents have not been held accountable for that .

Hasidic Clemency Case Entangles Hillary Clinton - Los Angeles Times (latimes.com)

Bill Clinton’s pardon of fugitive Marc Rich continues to pay big (nypost.com)

The issue was separation of powers . SCOTUS confined their opinion to that issue. The charges against Trump have not gone away. The prosecution can proceed . Had the DOJ taken that into account then there would not have been this delay. But their goal is not justice under the law. It is "get Trump" .

Bold prediction. Now that it looks like other cases will be delayed until after the election ; Judge Merchan in NY will sentence Trump to jail July 11 . 4 days before the Repub convention.

Trump's lawyers have petitioned the Judge to set aside the verdict based on the SCOTUS ruling. That will be denied. The case was local and personal not subject to Presidential immunity.

The Dems want him in jail by any means necessary. Riker's Island is perfect for their purposes where a random shiv can always be found or an unexplained suicide.

Here is Clueless Joe's remarks about the SCOTUS immunity ruling.

Quote:

“Today's decision almost certainly means that there are virtually no limits on what the president can do,” “The power of the office will no longer be constrained by the law, even including the Supreme Court of the United States. The only limits will be self-imposed by the president alone.”

President Biden Delivers Remarks on the Supreme Court's Immunity Ruling (youtube.com)

And here is his reaction to SCOTUS ruling on his student loan forgiveness .

Joe Biden on X: "I promised to ease student debt for millions of folks. The Supreme Court blocked me, but it didn’t stop me. I found another way to help more than 3.7 million people—teachers, nurses, police officers, firefighters—with over $130 billion in relief." / X

Quote:

"I promised to ease student debt for millions of folks. The Supreme Court blocked me, but it didn’t stop me. I found another way to help more than 3.7 million people—teachers, nurses, police officers, firefighters—with over $130 billion in relief."

Translation. "I promised to force millions of other Americans to fork over money we could use to pay off these student loans that were oftentimes foolishly entered into. But not to worry! As with most new federal spending initiatives, no taxes will be raised. We'll just borrow it, thus postponing the pain until years down the road. We're clever little buzzards, aren't we? And now, of course, we expect those who benefit from this boondoggle to vote democrat."

Here is how Robert's addressed Sotomayor's concerns in her dissent

Quote:

The dissents overlook the more likely prospect of an Executive Branch that cannibalizes itself, with each successive President free to prosecute his predecessors, yet unable to boldly and fearlessly carry out his duties for fear that he may be next. … Without immunity, such types of prosecutions of ex-Presidents could quickly become routine. The enfeebling of the Presidency and our Government that would result from such a cycle of factional strife is exactly what the Framers intended to avoid. Ignoring those risks, the dissents are instead content to leave the preservation of our system of separated powers up to the good faith of prosecutors.

BAM !!!!

wow in a surprise move Bragg has authorized a letter to Judge Merchan indicating he does not oppose a delay in sentencing to consider the SCOTUS immunity decision's impact on the case.

Honestly I don't think it impacts the case at all because none of it was related to Trump's official duties as President .

Judge Merchan delayed Trump sentencing until Sept 18 . I still contend they will put him in jail before the election.

Not surprising ;the DOJ is not happy that convictions and admissions of guilt involving the Jan 6 riot at the Capitol will likely have to be reversed or at least revisited .

The SCOTUS Fisher decision said that Sec 1512(c)(2) is about document tampering ;not disrupting a Congressional proceeding.

You can count on the fact that Jack Smith won't let it rest . His record with SCOTUS is one of failure ( see when SCOTUS unanimously smacked down his conviction of former governor of Virginia, Robert McDonnell
Supreme Court Throws Out Former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell's Conviction : The Two-Way : NPR
.)
Jack Smith tends to overreach .

Look for him to try to rewrite the convictions and indictments in a language that is more acceptable to SCOTUS interpretation of the law ;probably something like they targeted the documents that the Senate was using or some other nonsense like the "ballot " being a document.

Then the charade of DC judges rubber stamping and DC juries convicting the defendants will proceed .