Columns, Courts, Media, Supreme Court

No, the Court is Not “Slow Walking” the Trump Immunity Case

Below is a slightly expanded version of my column on Fox.com on the attacks on the Court for granting review of the immunity challenge brought by former president Donald Trump. The scheduling of oral argument has unleashed the familiar voices against the justices and allegations of political machinations. The claims of “slow walking” the appeal ignore the history and culture of the Court.

Here is the column:

The decision of the Supreme Court to review the immunity question in the Trump prosecution has brought forth the usual (and a couple not so usual) attacks on the integrity of the Court.  While some are calling the justices now part of the “insurrection,” others are accusing them of “slow-walking” the appeal to push any trial past the election. MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin added that, due to the delay for a review of the matter, she was “beyond terrified for our country”

In reality, the claim that the Court is moving slowly is factually and historically untrue. Indeed, in comparison to most cases, this is a NASCAR pace for an institution that is more focused on issuing right rather than rapid decisions.

While the Court has had shorter schedules on emergency matters, this case will be heard in a fraction of the usual period for appeals and the calendar is consistent with past expedited cases. Moreover, the conditions that led to the shorter expedited calendars in a few past cases are not present in this case.

Craven Insurrectionists

Some of the usual voices immediately came forward to declare that, once again, the justices are exposing themselves as raw partisans. MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow declared the review of the matter as “BS” and exposed “the cravenness of the court.” She further declared, again, that the action undermined “legitimacy of the court.”

MSNBC host Chris Hayes alleged declared “Today, the Supreme Court signaled that it is in cahoots. The plot is on. It is a go.”

Mary Trump, the niece of the former president, went further and declared that “the Supreme Court of the United States just reminded us with this corrupt decision that the insurrection did not fail–it never ended.”

Former Wyoming congresswoman Liz Cheney (R., Wy) said that the review effectively “suppresses critical evidence that Americans deserve to hear.”

Regular MSNBC guest Elie Mystal (who previously called the Constitution “trash“) had a more novel take.  With MSNBC host Alex Wagner nodding in apparent agreement, Mystal explained to viewers that this was just an effort of Justice Clarence Thomas (and possibly Samuel Alito) to retire. The theory goes something like this: Thomas does not want to have a Democrat fill his seat, so he is going to postpone the appeal, which will delay a trial for Trump, which will allow Trump to be elected, which will permit Trump to appoint his successor, which will allow Thomas to drive off in his RV for an unending retiree roadtrip. See, it’s that simple.

There is, of course, another possible explanation. Some justices have serious concerns about the lower court decision.

The Historical Comparisons

At the outset, there are a couple of glaring problems with the claim of “slow-walking” to push the trial past the election.

First, the Court did not create this collision with the election. Both state and federal prosecutors have waited until shortly before the election to bring charges for actions taken almost four years ago. They are now demanding expedited and in some cases abridged reviews due to an urgency that they created.

Second, this matter has already been curtailed and expedited. Special Counsel Jack Smith has repeatedly pushed to deny Trump standard appellate options and time to present his case. After the Supreme Court refused to effectively cut off his right to an appellate review, the D.C. Circuit did so by pressuring Trump to file directly with the Supreme Court rather than seeking the review of the entire court in an en banc appeal. That standard en banc option was all but eliminated by an order that would have returned the mandate to the district court within days — forcing Trump to argue an appeal while being forced into the resumption of pre-trial proceedings.

Third, the Court has expedited the matter. The fact is that this is a much shorter schedule and the Court is fitting the case in the middle of a long scheduled and crowded calendar. It allowed the parties a few weeks to fully brief a question with major implications for our constitutional system.

It ordinarily takes months for the Court to even accept a case. The Court has set this matter for argument in April to allow the parties to fully brief the issue and will likely rule by June.

Some have pointed out that there are cases where the Court moved more swiftly. However, those cases have important distinctions.

For example, Michael Waldman, president of New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice, noted that in 1974 the Court considered United States v. Nixon “in a matter of weeks.” That is a valid point, but there are a couple of missing relevant facts.

The district court issued the subpoena to Nixon to turn over the famous White House tapes in April 1974. It then ordered compliance in May 1974 when Nixon refused. In allowing a direct appeal, the Court then held oral argument on July 8, 1975. It issued its unanimous decision on July 24, 2975. That was roughly two months after the initial appeal.

That is certainly a faster track by a few weeks. However, the Court was unanimous and this was not an appeal by a criminal defendant. While there was always the chance of an indictment of Nixon (until his pardon by Gerald Ford after he left office), the case concerned the access to evidence in the Watergate investigation. Criminal defendants are afforded the highest level of protection and review in cases.

Critics also cite the Bush v. Gore decision where the Supreme Court decided the matter in days.  Once again, that is true. I covered that decision for CBS as a legal analyst and it was a rocket pace. However, the Court was not looking at an approaching election but an approaching inauguration of the next president. The case was decided on December 12, 2000 — roughly three weeks away from the certification of the election by Congress.

The Issue Presented

This case is not going to decide whether an election can be held or whether a candidate can be certified. The original March trial date has already been discarded. It is not clear if a trial will occur before the election. It could still theoretically occur even with a June decision of the Court, though it is admittedly less likely with every delay.

That trial could cut both ways. Trump could be acquitted or convicted or it could result in a hung jury. The Court, however, rarely engages in such political calculations. Indeed, some justices may not agree with the exceptional treatment given this case by the appellate panel, including effectively cutting off the option of an en banc review.

For some, this case has been marked by fast walking, not slow walking, by courts. The Supreme Court previously rejected Smith’s arguments that the urgency of trying Trump should override the ordinary appellate process or schedule.  Some justices may resent the pressure to dispatch these claims to allow for a trial that may influence an election.

Notably, the Court has previously rejected expedited appeal requests from Trump, including some issues related to the last presidential election. This appeal is not dependent on the election or tied to its certification.

The Court has laid out a difficult question for review:

“Whether and if so to what extent does a former president enjoy presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office.”

It is clear that, unlike the Nixon case, the court is not likely to be unanimous on this question. I have previously expressed doubt over the sweeping claim of immunity presented by the Trump team. However, justices may have good-faith concerns over the implications of the lower court decision as well.

The Court has had a long, collegial tradition in allowing justices to resolve such questions even when they may be in the minority.

Some justices have long supported a robust view of executive privilege and power.  They may want to delineate the scope of this privilege with greater precision. In that sense, the Court could uphold the result of the D.C. Circuit while offering a different or more nuanced view of the immunity.

Of course, none of that is nearly as captivating as calling the justices “insurrectionists” or spinning tales of some retirement conspiracy with the RNC and the AARP.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University where he teaches a course on the Supreme Court. He is also a Fox New contributor.

 

 

 

322 thoughts on “No, the Court is Not “Slow Walking” the Trump Immunity Case”

  1. I hope the court upholds no immunity for official acts. Obama denied an American citizen his constitutional right to trial and conspired to murder the American citizen (likely with Biden) with a drone.

    When Trump is elected, he should prosecute both for capital murder in the jurisdiction of the drone operator.

    1. Anwar al-Awlaki had declared war on the US, and Obama got a legal opinion before ordering the drone strike. Not likely that he’ll be charged for it.

      1. The American Left has “declared war” on Donald Trump. I’m not sure if they got a legal opinion on that.

        1. Do you not understand the difference between figurative speech and literal speech?

          1. Apparently you do not either, based on your response to edwardmahl.

      2. That’s akin to “Bozo the Clown” declaring war on the U.S. or any other sovereign nation.

  2. So maybe the court can issue a ruling before the election that gives trump exactly what he wants. The ability to use Seal Team 6 to kill his opponents. Then Biden could do exactly that. And if any Senator were to take up impeachment proceedings, kill them as well.

      1. Not quite, Obama had a U.S. Citizen killed overseas, he was not a political opponent, just a random dude causing problems. Killing your opponent at a campaign rally would be a new low.

        1. How is that not what this Dem lawfare, designed to keep Trump off the ballot, is all about? Instead of physically killing the frontrunner from the opposing party, the Dems are trying to prevent him from running, or if he runs and wins, from assuming office. It’s a difference in degree, not in kind. How has the GOP ever done anything close to that to the Dems? To me you seem to be projecting your own party’s antics onto your adversaries who are innocent of those tactics.

          More generally, when has Trump ever expressed that he’d like to physically kill his political opponent?

            1. His lawyer said he could kill his opponent and only be held liable if the House Impeached him and the Senate Convicted him. So why let the impeachment proceed. Just kill them before they impeach him.

              1. The lawyer said that in oral argument? That’s what you base your assertion on? You clearly know nothing about the law or how court cases work.

                1. Yes, his lawyer said that in oral argument, and that’s one of the reasons that the DCCA ruled against criminal immunity.

                  1. Anon – Bob said Trump *wants* to kill his opponent. The question was: when has Trump ever expressed such a desire. Bob’s answer was: someone else (Trump’s lawyer) said in a court oral argument that Trump *could* do so and be immune. So . . . Bob is just making it up.

                    1. And my point is that Trump’s argument is garbage that has legally unacceptable consequences, as was made clear by his lawyer’s argument before the DCCA.

                2. Oldman, Bob is an idiot who intentionally misquotes and provides bad information. We should only laugh at his ignorance and lies.

                    1. Here are some more zingers.

                      DJT – “They want you to say what they want you, what they want to have you say. And we’re not gonna let that happen. You’re going to say as you want and you’re going to believe, and you’re going to believe in God. You’re gonna believe in God because God is here and God is watching.”

                      DJT “Nobody can explain to me how allowing millions of people from places unknown, from countries unknown, who don’t speak languages,” he confusingly railed. “We have languages coming into our country. We have nobody that even speaks those languages. They’re truly foreign languages. Nobody speaks them, and they’re pouring into our country, and they’re bringing with them tremendous problems, including medical problems, as you know.”

                  2. Trump: “Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.”

                    Did I miss something?

                    1. Bob, you have a habit of repeating stupid. Since you are repeating stupid I will repeat my previous answer to you.

                      Bob, Trump is male, so it is not unusual for him to be attracted to the female sex. Ignorance being your most prominent characteristic, you seem lost when the subject of human sexuality arises.
                      It is OK if you are attracted to the male sex and grab for a male’s genitals, but you need to stay away from children. That propensity violates the law.

          1. Bob gets the skip-over treatment from me. I will not wade thru tons of BeeEss, on the off chance there is one statement that might accidentally be smart, or true. Same with GiGi, DMcIntyre, Anonymous, FishWings and other shills. Not worth the eyeball time. Might as well go out and pay attention to some guy talking to the telephone poles. A schizophrenic might say something smart, once in a while, but do you want to go through hours of “momma told me heads are not right on pigs so eat my carrots when Bugs Bunny come on Playboy Mansion killers all in jailhouse now rock rock rock around the clock seventeen bang bang bang call pigs . . .”

            1. Floyd, you are correct, but in one place, Bob brings to the table the ideas the idiocracy holds. If he says something bright, either he or his source made a mistake.

              I intend to keep reminding him of his misquote of Trump, waiting for him to apologize. I believe that will take us all through Trump’s inauguration on January 20, 2025. Then Bob’s head will explode and make a mess.

            2. Floyd posted this valid observation:
              “Bob gets the skip-over treatment from me. I will not wade thru tons of BeeEss, on the off chance there is one statement that might accidentally be smart, or true.”

              Floyd, there is much to be said for that approach i.e. ‘don’t justify these raging Democrat police state fascists with a response.’

              However, my last load station during my 30 year military career and all expenses paid government vacations to the two way rifle range was training and deployment doing influence activities i.e. “Psy Ops”. Cool words, but essentially psy ops is marketing. Whether you’re going to shuras with village elders to win them over to the idea that letting their young men play for pay with the Taliban is a bad idea – or it’s our resident Soviet Democrat police state fascists that you named repeatedly posting that what Jack Smith et al are doing to Trump (and others who have nothing to do with Trump) is American Equal Justice For All and Nobody Is Above The Law.

              Say it often and loud, and as Herr Goebbels observed, more and more people will begin to accept what is being repeatedly claimed is actually the truth.

              Which is why a majority of Democrats still believe the “Russia Dossier” was verified factual intelligence agency product.

              Which is why a majority of Democrats still believe Trump said that neo-Nazis are very fine people – instead of the exact opposite.

              I could list other examples, but there is this:

              Silence is consent.

              Consent to lies and deliberate misrepresentations being proclaimed to be the truth without any pushback.

              Consent that legitimizes those whose purpose is to come here to present lies instead of engage in vigorous discussion and debate.

              Consent to the lies being presented eventually being accepted by many as the truth.

              Never bend the knee to these Soviet Democrat police state fascist thugs and their Lavarentiy Beria’s like Fani Willis and Jack Smith.

        3. Former Presidents can be impeached too – simply to disqualify them from all future office and to strip away any self-pardons.

  3. Maddow is a Jacobin crazy. There sure are a lot of them in positions of influence and power. We can only hope that it’s a case of those whom the gods would destroy, first make mad.

  4. Professor Turley’s critics are out in force today. One thing they’re not doing is disagreeing with any of his points in the above article. If I could summarize their comments: (a) Mommy, Turley isn’t delving into legal issues in the article about the Supreme Court and its history, (2) brfjmmff Ukraine djsljsfdf. That’s about the size of it.

    1. Actually, the legal complaint is that Turley isn’t delving into legal issues of the DCCA ruling, or the QP that SCOTUS announced and how it differs from the issues that Trump wanted SCOTUS to address, or any other legal issues. His columns are almost always political, designed to feed the “age of rage” that he repeatedly complains about.

      2. Another feckless Soviet Democrat Anonymous coward tried this schtick out:
        “Actually, the legal complaint is that Turley isn’t delving into legal issues of the DCCA ruling, or the QP that SCOTUS announced and how it differs from the issues that Trump wanted SCOTUS to address”

        Translated: we Soviet Democrat police state fascists drooling over Jack Smith being brought back to play Lavarentiy Beria for a second time, this time to take out Trump in the same fashion as he took out Governor Bob McDonnell who was Obama’s biggest threat to reelection, don’t like Turley’s op-eds because he’s a Democrat and isn’t writing like he’s supposed to.

        Which is why cowardly Anonymous Soviet Democrat party apparatchiks show up here on a daily basis to criticize what Turley is writing. How DARE a prominent Democrat not think like the rest of the Soviet Democrat borg.

        If there’s one thing Soviet Democrat Marxist Useful Idiot Anonymous cowards hate more than a traitorous conservative black American like Justice Thomas who won’t be their Uncle Tom, it’s a traitorous Democrat constitutional law professor who won’t be their Joseph Goebbels.

      3. What makes you think that anyone dictates to the Supreme Court which questions they should address?

  5. Rachel Maddow as a political commentator is about like asking gasoline if the fire is hot enough and might need some more accelerant and Liz Cheney is the mini-me of the Never Trump brigade. Both need fire resistant materials tossed over them. Senator Romney is a once celebrated individual who has let his hate consume him. There is no reason for him to state his position since we already all know it. He has filled the John McCain seat on the Republican side of the Senate (he reminds me of Cato and his unbridled hate for Julius Caesar). Mitch McConnell is in a race with Joe Biden to determine how few brain cells you need to actually still function politically (so to speak). Fani Willis is the greatest sex scandal since Bill and Monica.
    Letitia James, Alvin Bragg, and Gov Hochul are the 3 Furies of New York and on a mission to destroy a once proud state and as a side bet also try to destroy Donald Trump.
    All should remember that the Senate in Rome also tried to destroy Julius Caesar and of course they did kill him but then they were the ones that had to flee the city and then ended up with Mark Antony and proscription lists and eventually Octavian who felt no real impulse to show mercy, unlike his Uncle.
    Just a little historical perspective.

      1. Anyone who knows history should know that Trump is too old to be a wannabee dictator. Caesarism is for young men.

  6. Since Democrats have destroyed the RULE OF LAW
    Republicans should IGNORE it as well…as THEY JAIL DEMOCRATS BY THE THOUSANDS!

  7. anyone go to prison for the DEMOCRATS Russian Hoax Conspiracy?

    We need to JAIL thousands of criminal democrats from across government….judges, congressmen, FBI, DOJ, AGs, DAs, cabinet members, etc. They are FIGHTING AN ACTUAL Civil War? Heck lets THROW Obama in jail for the BLM TREASON riots!

      1. Derek Williams cited the always unbiased Wikipedia to defend the Soviet Democrats ‘Russia, Russia, Russia’
        “Russia had direct involvement in the US elections, and continue to do so:”
        Wow, twelve words and a link to Wikipedia that’s longer than the words. That’s a hell of well thought out comment, analysis, etc!

        I will forgo monetizing the left wing Soviet Democrat/Woke apparatchiks that control content on Wikipedia by clicking that link. Wikipedia is about the LAST place anyone should link to and hope people will accept the content is unbiased and uncensored by left wing apparatchiks having administrator control of Wikipedia. Particularly where the ‘Russia, Russia, Russia’ “Russia Dossier” is concerned. Might as well believe The Big Guy claiming he has no knowledge of his son having Russian oligarchs as his customers while he was Vice President.

        I’ll leave it to Derek Williams to confirm for everybody that Wikipedia page mentions that the “Russia Dossier” was a creation of Clinton, Obama/Biden, the DNC – and of course Obama’s FBI. That Wikipedia’s page also mentions that John Brennan warned Obama MONTHS before the FBI launched Crossfire Hurricane that Clinton was planning to create a falsehood that Trump was conspiring with Russia. That Wikipedia’s page mentions that Crossfire Hurricane was launched without any legitimate predicate, and those running Crossfire Hurricane repeatedly committed felonies by perjuring themselves to FISA courts while uttering false documents to those courts while doing so.

        That Wikipedia page you want everybody to click on gives full disclosure, Derek Williams? It isn’t stripped of context, nuance, and inconvenient facts? Yes or no?

        We can safely assume that, if you’re silent, Wikipedia is deliberately concealing that inconvenient truth at the link you provided. And from that, we can presume it’s mostly misdirection and lies to favor the Soviet Democrats’ political ambitions.

        Wouldn’t it be nice if the children in the room could join the adults and agree that full context and nuance matter if you’re actually looking for truth? That all the facts matter, not just those which fit your agenda, which are then given a heavy political spin and presented with loaded language? Rather than the Wikipedia, Washington Post, CNN, etc. version of them speaking Their Truth? Speaking Their Truth with context and nuance removed to provide the correct spin?

        How many years were Americans sold the ‘Russia, Russia, Russia’ lie that was the Soviet Democrats’ “Russia Dossier” was verified fact?

        So here’s the one Wikipedia fact without context and nuance that is true: Russia has been involved in US elections. That is a fact – without context, nuance, and all the facts. Russia has been doing that since before Kruschev and JFK’s election.

        Now lets have some other facts that almost certainly aren’t mentioned by Wikipedia, along with some nuance and context they also almost certainly do not cover.

        Russia dropped the equivalent of pocket change during the 2016 election both on behalf of the Trump campaign as well as on the Clinton campaign. Best guess was it was a cheap gamble to hopefully create some chaos.

        Years before the 2016 election, Russia was directly involved in that election by buying Hillary Clinton when she was SecState and presumed to be the next president (odd how the bottom fell out of the millions flowing into the Clinton organization after she lost to Trump). There’s some Russian involvement in American elections for you!

        Then there was Ukraine during the 2016 election interfering in that election on behalf of the Clinton campaign, trying to defeat Trump. Last thing Ukraine’s strongman at the time wanted was Trump as president asking “why was the Vice President’s son getting millions of dollars for doing something while he was a pathetic drug addict with his own video porn channel? While Vice President Biden as Obama’s foreign policy expert refused to provide Ukraine with military aid to fight invading Russians as we agreed to do?” Here’s a Russia involvement question: did Putin want a Trump as president who would give Ukraine the military weaponry to use on invading Russian troops that Obama and his foreign affairs expert Biden wouldn’t?

        Meanwhile, other country’s involved in US elections: the ChiComs buying themselves a Vice President while he was in office, with the Biden Bucks slowing to a trickle at the end of his Vice Presidency, and then flowing again when he became a hopeful future President.

        Yes, Russia got involved with some paltry pocket change to boost the Trump campaign while doing the same to boost the Clinton campaign as well. However, the Russia direct involvement in the 2016 election that eclipsed that spending and scope during the 2016 election was Clinton/Obama/Biden/the DNC hiring a Russian stooge to get directly involved in writing their “Russia Dossier” to interfere in THAT election. A Russian stooge who, BTW, was at the time being investigated by Obama’s FBI for committing espionage in the USA on behalf of Russia. (Did Wikipedia mention that, Derek?)

        The Soviet Democrats’ Russian scriptwriter’s “Russia Dossier” cost Clinton and the DNC millions of dollars to have written and then pushed into public consciousness. And ultimately, the Soviet Democrats cost American taxpayers tens of millions of dollars with their illegal “Russia Dossier” fraud. Mueller’s thugs investigating the “Russia Dossier” they knew from day one to be a fraud cost American taxpayers a cool $30+ million dollars. Add to that the FBI spending on investigating what they know to be a fraud: Crossfire Hurricane.

        Other foreign country involvement in that election was Obama and Biden recruiting the Five Eyes intelligence agencies to help drive their “Russia Dossier” fraud to take out Trump so that Clinton could win as they portrayed Trump as the one working with Russias. Britain’s MI6 in particular – who started screeching bloody blue murder when Trump said he was going to declassify the British (and Australian) involvement in Obama and his FBI thugs creating the “Russia Dossier” hoax. One of Trump’s failures: not following through with releasing the details of how those foreign intelligence agencies who also knew the “Russia Dossier” was a fraud, but helped promote it to some degree.

        And because America is no different, we interfere in foreign elections FAR more than Russia would ever hope to get away with. Barack Obama using taxpayer money to send propagandists to Israel to financially support and advise opponents trying to take out Israel’s prime minister Bibi Netanyahu is a prime example of that. Which is illegal, BTW… won’t be hearing about Special Counsels being appointed to investigate that one.

        There’s some context and nuance for you – you won’t see any of that at Wikipedia’s page; you’ll see the approved Soviet Democrat version. The Soviet Democrats’ “Russia, Russia, Russia…” gets old.

        Particularly when the party and the politicians doing the most illegal financial and political dealings with Russia are the Soviet Democrats and their politicians like Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden who took millions of dollars from Putin associated banks and oligarchs.

      2. D W – Even if true, the FBI’s and CIA’s involvement is far greater and more dangerous.

  8. People fretting about democracy being in danger don’t want the voters to be able to vote for the candidate of their choice.

    1. oldmanfromkansas posted:
      “People fretting about democracy being in danger don’t want the voters to be able to vote for the candidate of their choice.”

      Well, they’re the same people as those here lustily cheering for and defending Jack Smith being brought back as an illegitimate police state fascist Special Counsel to take out Trump as Biden’s most feared opponent – as he took out Obama’s most feared opponent Governor Bob McDonnell in the earlier Democrat president reelection campaign.

      Our resident “democracy is in danger” Soviet Democrats hope nobody remembers what a unanimous SCOTUS said while excoriating Jack Smith and his prosecution of Bob McDonnell for Obama/Biden prior to the 2012 primary.

      To wit:
      But our concern is not with Government’s tawdry tales of Ferraris, Rolexes, and ball gowns. It is instead with the broader legal implications of the Government’s boundless interpretation of the federal statutes.

      SCOTUS also singled out Smith for rebuke for what he did and a warning:
      the uncontrolled power of criminal prosecutors is a threat to our separation of powers.

      And this is who our resident Soviet Democrat police state fascists claim meets the standards of a Special Counsel: unbiased, impartial, with no ties to any political party or an administration Department of Justice… and of course an unblemished record while previously serving as a federal prosecutor.

      To normal Americans, it would appear that Lavarentiy Beria type prosecutors like Jack Smith serving their political masters is what a real ‘democracy is in danger’ threat looks like.

      The Soviet Democrats in political power and their apparatchiks pimping for them here are police state fascists. Have been since Obama first took office.

      That needs to be said in response to their lies and police state fascism.

      Every. Single. Day.

  10. The Republican Party have a 6/3 majority on SCOTUS. True, there will not be unanimity on Trump’s claim of presidential immunity from prosecution for inciting a riot, but only because the 3 Democrat judges won’t support Trump’s on-the-record claim that he could “walk down 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and not lose any voters”. As for Russian collusion, Smirnov is now jailed for lying the Congress about his evidence adduced to impeach Biden, citing Russian sources. The Republican Party are the Kremlin’s 5th Column in the USA, refusing aid to Ukraine directly contrary to both national and international interests, and in flagrant violation of pledges to back Ukraine’s defence from Russia’s invasion “no matter what”. The Budapest Memorandum was supposed to guarantee Ukraine’s security after it handed its entire nuclear arsenal over to Moscow. Once Trump returns to the White House and withdraws the USA from NATO, all smaller nations such as Finland and Sweden must immediately acquire nuclear weapons as a deterrent to Russia’s revanchist aggression.

    1. Ukraine has been invaded twice in the last 10+ years. Once when Obama was President and the second time during the current Biden presidency. Yes indeed, those republicans are at it again.

      1. The 2014 war never really ended. It just got reinvigorated in 2022.

    2. derek, those earrings you are wearing in both ears have caused you to lose signal. Take out one earring so that you can hear both sides of the story.

    3. D W – You say: “Smirnov is now jailed for lying the Congress”. False. He is being imprisoned before trial, probably unjustly, for fear of flight.
      As to your claim that we have a duty to defend Ukraine, you cite our “national and international interests” and “pledges”. It is not in our interests to blunder into another world war. As to pledges, we can be obligated only by treaties affirmed by 2/3 of the Senate. Do we have such a treaty with Ukraine?

    4. Derek Williams is back with more spin after his earlier Wikipedia spin to Speak His Gaslighting Truth:
      “The Republican Party have a 6/3 majority on SCOTUS.”

      Can we be amused that Derek and his fellow Soviet Democrat police state fascists here supporting Jack “Lavarentiy Beria” Smith’s actions as an illegitimate Special Counsel keep claiming John Roberts is their mortal enemy?

      After he was the swing vote on two decisions that rammed Obamacare down Americans’ throats, allowing Obama to create legislation from the Oval Office. Does Derek need a list of political policy decisions Republican appointees supported benefiting Democrat policy, to compare to the list that Bader Ginsberg et al voting with Republicans on Republican policy issues i.e. gun control?

      There wasn’t any whining from the Derek Williams of America when there was a majority of Democrat activist judges on SCOTUS, legislating from the bench. Which is exactly what Derek Williams and the rest of the Soviet Democrats expect SCOTUS to exist for: to give them what they can’t get from American voters at the ballot box.

    5. Derek Williams provides the ol’ Special Justice For Me comments using the Saul Alinsky playbook

      The double standards of police state fascist Soviet Democrats with Russia! Russia! Russia! is like the Soviet Democrat party trademark.

      As for Russian collusion, Smirnov is now jailed for lying the Congress about his evidence adduced to impeach Biden, citing Russian sources.

      He is… but there’s more!

      Given Dereck’s cosplaying concern regarding charging and jailing those who lie about presidents to lead to impeachment and citing Russian sources, he must be absolutely outraged over the last seven years.

      Outraged that Obama’s last two Attorney Generals, two of Obama’s FBI Directors, the Russian who lied to the FBI and wrote the Soviet Democrats’ “Russia Dossier”, Mueller and other FBI agents who perjured themselves to the FISA courts that the Soviet Democrats’ “Russia Dossier” was factual and had been verified are still walking around free as a bird after lying about Trump. Smirnov is not one of the names on that list.

      Derek, buddy… need a list of all those who lied or perjured themselves regarding that “Russia Dossier” that your police state fascist Soviet Democrat politicians commissioned and paid for to take out Trump? I know your reliable sources at Wikipedia don’t give you that list.

      Why doesn’t that bother you, Derek, but Smirnov does? Is it The Big Democrat Different Justice System that is the reason for that not bothering you as Smirnov does?

      The Budapest Memorandum was supposed to guarantee Ukraine’s security after it handed its entire nuclear arsenal over to Moscow.

      True. But this is the part Derek Williams did his Wikipedia impression and left out: When Putin invaded Ukraine, Obama fulfilled his promise to Putin that after his reelection he would be flexible with Russia.

      In other words, Obama and his foreign policy expert Biden deserted Ukraine just as they deserted the Americans killed by Hajji terrorists in Baghdad. Obama and Biden are Soviet Democrats like Derek – not Republicans.

      Derek also forgot to mention that Bribery Biden after taking all that Russian oligarch Putin money did nothing but watch while Putin prepared and then invaded the second time. Bribery Biden is currently the head police state fascist of the Soviet Democrats.

      The Republican Party are the Kremlin’s 5th Column in the USA, refusing aid to Ukraine directly

      Normal Americans would say the opposite: the Soviet Democrats take Putin cash, allow Putin to repeatedly invade Ukraine, and enlist Putin stooges in the USA who are being investigated for espionage to write “Russia Dossier” scripts in hopes of first stealing an election and after that failed impeaching the elected American president.

      But that line Derek posted is straight out of the Soviet Democrat playbook provided by Obama’s favorite communist, Saul Alinsky, and his Rules For Radicals: Accuse your opponents of doing the exact same thing that you yourself are doing.

      Nice try, Tovarisch Derek. Sophomoric hypocritical gaslighting, but you did put the effort in.

  11. If you want a full understanding of Ukraine watch Colonel Douglas Macgregor and Scott Ritter breakdowns. Both of these men are well respected and knowledgeable of the matter. Although I empathize with any loss of life, it could have all been prevented but the swamp must feedon the produce of war. By backing Zelensky Amertca helped kill a generation of Ukraainians and destroy a country in a war they could NEVER win, all at the cost of $30B to a broke US taxpayer. While we are being invaded, the best is yet to come I am sure.

      1. Did not know Ritter was a perv but I would ask does that mean Bill Clinton and every Epstein Island participant is now devoid of any credible knowledge or insight they may have from their experiences?
        History of the region supports their claims and views.

      2. The brain dead references to Hitler and WWII never stop, do they? Your puppet masters need to get a little more creative in their propaganda talking points.

    2. It has been closer to $130B than $30B. And you left out the part about our corrupt and incompetent state department walking us into WWIII and a possible nuclear showdown, all to enrich their cronies in the military industrial complex.

    3. Traveler wrote:
      “By backing Zelensky Amertca helped kill a generation of Ukraainians and destroy a country in a war they could NEVER win, all at the cost of $30B to a broke US taxpayer.”

      We’re talking about Ukraine on a topic regarding the Soviet Democrats’ police state fascist, Jack Smith, being brought back to take out Trump in the exact same manner he took out Obama’s most dangerous opponent to reelection, Bob McDonnell? Why?

      Okay; I’ll play. I won’t bother with the link, just a question:

      Does either of them mention that neither Ukrainians or Russians would be dying in this war if the Soviet Democrat cowards in the White House, Obama and Biden, had flatly told Putin that we would honor our commitment to defend Ukraine that we gave in exchange for them making us feel safer by surrendering their nukes? How many billions would it have cost us if they had done that?

      Any adults in the room capable of concluding why Putin only invaded when the White House had a Soviet Democrat president in it, while Putin behaved himself while Trump was in office?

      The Ukrainians were right beside us outside the wire every day we were in Afghanistan (and then Iraq) from day one to the last day when Biden deserted Afghanistan and Americans still in Afghanistan. Even though their country wasn’t struck by hajji terrorists as we were, even though the Muslim demographic in their country is so small they have nothing to worry about. Even though some of our NATO allies never showed up, others never went outside the wire, while others showed up late and/or left early.

      The Ukrainians were still there beside Obama as Commander In Chief after he allowed Putin to invade their country without honoring that promise to come to their defense in exchange for surrendering the nukes that could be used as a deterrent to Russia.

      Couldn’t at least Obama and his foreign policy expert Joe Biden have at least said “Hey Ukraine; what are you still doing here outside the wire beside us – this isn’t your war. Go home. You’re a bankrupt young nation; quite spending money and sending troops here… go home”.

      None of that supports how the government has finally decided to support Ukraine only after Putin firmly got his fangs well embedded in Ukraine is being done right, or rationally. It is not.

      Obama and Biden have left Ukraine as a situation with no good outcome. No matter what we do, there will be negative second and third order affects with both adversarial and friendly nations.

      I just came here for the SCOTUS/immunity discussion, man…

  12. Another day, another column that avoids delving into the legal issues.

    1. Turley’s weapon is always diverting distracting and misdirected opinion. The purpose is to rile and get rage from his Trump cult base. And if anybody follows todays comments they can read the hate and rage Turley’s column will produce.

      1. What rage?
        The good professor is pointing out the SC is not slow walking the immunity case. He backs up his opinion with historical facts. What is to rage about that?

        1. Upstate, disagreeing with a leftist is a micro aggression that sends them into a rage; they then project their own rage back onto the speaker.

      2. FishAnus once again expressed his rage that Professor Turley is a traitor to the Soviet Democrat police state fascism:
        “Turley’s weapon is always diverting distracting and misdirected opinion.

        Same FishAnus that joins in with and celebrates Dennis McIntyre/Baghdad Bob’s completely off topic posts attempting to divert pieces that have nothing to do with trump to his propaganda and lies about Trump.

    2. Its the continuing documentation of the lies and disinformation of the media.
      The single narrative surrounding the legal issues. The lockstep analysis, full of half truths.

      In short, just pointing out another example of propaganda prevalent in media.

      1. For a law professor, it’s striking how often he chooses not to comment on the legal issues.

        1. Anonymous at 9:12 am – He is also a citizen, who can comment on issues that affect our polity. If his opinions were not interesting, we would not be discussing them.

        2. Another Feckless Anonymous Soviet Democrat Anonymous Coward tried this lie about Professor Turley:

          It’s obvious why these cowards hide behind the username “Anonymous”:
          For a law professor, it’s striking how often he chooses not to comment on the legal issues.

          And the title of the op-ed he’s whining doesn’t have anything to do with legal issues? “No, The Court is Not “Slow Walking” the Trump Immunity Case”

          Yeah… the police state fascist Jack Smith got what he asked for from the Supreme Court. But this cowardly Anonymous liar wants to claim Professor Turley dealing with accusations made about SCOTUS’ handling of this case is not a legal issue.

          Without lies (and a police state fascist “Special Counsel”, Jack Smith, these Soviet Democrats have nothing. Never bend the knee to these police state fascist Soviet Democrats and their liars: call them out, every single time.

    3. The column is about the speed of the appeal to SOCTUS, not a legal issue. You can always go to MSNBC for Mary Trump’s legal analysis. Of course she is not a lawyer or even went to law school, but that shouldn’t matter to you.

      1. Once the Republican SCOTUS grant presidential immunity, then Trump can copy his idol, Putin, and have his political enemies killed, just as he declared he could “walk down 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and not lose any voters”.

        1. And your comment has nothing to do with my comment, but that’s okay.
          Why do people find it so hard to stay on topic? Maybe because they don’t have an actual response so they just change the subject? What do you think Mr. Williams?

        2. If that were the case, why would he wait, immunity has thus far been granted in US history. Are Supreme court justices exempt from your proposed target scenarios if they don’t agree? Seems to me it was the left protesting and planning assassinations of Justices, Kavanaugh comes to mind. Try harder.

          2. Traveler posted inconvenient truths to respond to Derek Williams’ gaslighting in defense of police state fascism:

            Williams’ gaslighting smacks of the trademark of Soviet Democrats: two very different standards of justice, and open in your face hypocrisy so thick you could cut it with a knife. And complies with Obama’s favorite communist, Saul Alinsky, who told Obama and his followers: “Accuse those who stand in your way of doing exactly what you are doing.”

            Are Supreme court justices exempt from your proposed target scenarios if they don’t agree? Seems to me it was the left protesting and planning assassinations of Justices, Kavanaugh comes to mind.

            It was. Obama and Biden inspired the mass murder attempt of House Republicans during a softball practice by a Soviet Democrat campaign worker. An attack on Senator Rand Paul put him into intensive care. The Soviet Democrat intending to murder Republican SCOTUS judges was arrested before he could attack.

            I also remember Biden standing there smirking while Obama told the surrounding rage filled Marxist Useful Idiots to go out and attack opposing voters. Which would be a little before Soviet Democrat Maxine Waters told Soviet Democrat street thugs to hunt down Republican Trump administration officials and senators/congressmen while out in their public lives and “get in their faces”. Before then Senator Skanky Ho told Soviet Democrat street thugs who had attempted an assault on the White House with Trump and his family inside: “they will not stop, nor should they stop”.

            Derek Williams activities today all center around support for the Soviet Democrats’ well known corrupt police state fascist, Jack Smith.

            The Jack Smith that SCOTUS wrote in the unanimous McDonnell decision was a threat to the republic in his fraudulent prosecution of Obama’s most dangerous reelection opponent, Bob McDonnell.

            Derek Williams is delighted that Biden has brought back Jack Smith to attempt to take out his most dangerous opponent, Trump – using tactics that are a carbon copy of what Smith previously did with McDonnell.

            Like Obama knew then and Biden and Derek Williams know now: even if SCOTUS does later throw any convictions Smith gets against Trump out with another unanimous decision that once again names Smith as a threat to the republic, they know that won’t happen until AFTER the election is over.

            These Soviet Democrats are police state fascists in the service of police state fascism. Lying and everything else they do to support that is just what comes with the vile crap they throw in our faces while demanding we don’t believe our lying eyes.

            This is why they are Soviet Democrats. This is why they are police state fascists.

        3. Putin endorsed Biden.
          Why?
          Another four years of a weak Biden admin benefits Putin, China, Iran, Hamas, the drug cartels the most.

        4. IF they rule the President has immunity like trump wants, use Seal Team 6 to kill opponents. Then that leaves Biden to do exactly that. And if any Senator were to talk about impeachment, kill them as well.

          1. Bob convinces the blog he is an idiot but finds a need to double down to convince the dumber-than-dumb.

            Have you read the transcript yet, Bob? You lied and made up a comment by Trump that was a lie. Anyone reading Bob knows he is a fibber.

        5. It is Democrats and their deep-state allies, who put their opponents in jail. They also like gag orders. Look about you.

        6. Derek Williams, proud defender of his fellow Soviet Democrat police state fascist, Jack Smith, tried this distraction:
          “Once the Republican SCOTUS grant presidential immunity, then Trump can copy his idol, Putin, and have his political enemies killed”

          Derek, it would be easier and far further reaching for Tump to just put together an equivalent to Clinton/Obama/Biden/DNC copying Putin with their “Russia Dossier”. Other than Navalny, tell the audience how many of his political opponents Putin took out using Lavarentiy Beria type prosecutors like your police state fascist, Jack Smith.

          Trump could go full Clinton/Obama/Biden police state fascist: order the FBI to once again go perjure themselves to FISA courts to get false search warrants as they did for Trump. Lie that the manufactured evidence they were presenting to justify the warrants was all true and met all the requirements of the Woods procedures before they sought the warrant. Make sure his Attorney General was part of that perjury just as Obama’s were.

          Then take a page from the actions of Strzok, Weissman, and now Jack Smith and hunt down every one of your fellow Soviet Democrat police state fascists in the Obama, Clinton, and Biden camps that had anything to do with the “Russia Dossier” they pushed out about Trump. Not just the DoJ and FBI, but the participants who were in the State Department, CIA, Homeland Security, etc.

          Do a little bit of that unmasking that VP Biden and Susan Rice did in their last days of the Obama administration. Expose every single one of them – leak it all to the news media that the Soviet Democrats to be the worst in the tank for Republicans. Just as Biden and Rice did…

          They could give Biden and Obama’s lawyers the exact same treatment that Jack Smith, Mueller, and other police state fascists have given Trump’s and other Republicans’ lawyers: detain them in public, handcuff them in the restaurant while publicly searching them, confiscate their cellphones with client information to dive into before a Master can be sought and appointed. Threaten to bankrupt their lawyers and jail their children if they won’t roll over and say incriminating things about Clinton, Obama, Biden, their spouses, their children, etc.

          Trump could appoint a Summer Of Mostly Peaceful Protest Insurrection Presidential Commission. Part of whose mandate would be to investigate potential criminality (including RICO felonies) between the Soviet Democrat Politburo and their Soviet Democrat street thugs in Pantifa and Black Liars & Marxists who rioted, looted, pillaged, burned and murdered their way across America for months.

          How much co-ordination was there between Bribery Biden, VP Skanky Ho, Commissar Pelosi, Schumer, etc and the street thug insurrection’s leaders? Americans need to know!

          Or was it free speech and not fomenting insurrection when Bribery Biden encouraging them by telling them they were “a courageous group of Americans”, while then Senator Skanky Ho went on nationwide TV to say “they will not stop, nor should they”.

          Yep, Trump could roll out a mirror version of Commissar Pelosi’s Very Un-Select January 6th Commission. Or Commissar Pelosi’s Soviet style impeachment of Trump that Americans had never seen before. Would you prefer those Commissar Pelosi/Putin rules: behind closed doors, no media allowed, only approved questions of the selected witnesses allowed, destroying some evidence while corruptly editing other evidence.

          Track down every Soviet Democrat who burst into the Senate to disrupt the confirmation vote for Associate Justice Kavanaugh – throw them in jail the same as the January 6th indicted… for the exact same amount of time. Disrupting an official function of Congress????? Americans must see justice done.

          Track down every single Soviet Democrat involved in the attempted assault in the White House that took place a few months before January 6th. Yup… track down every one of them, even if any of them are old grannies living somewhere in Kansas. Throw them in jail the same as was down with the January 6th indicted. Again, Americans need to see nobody assaulting the White House with his family present inside is Above The Law.

          A slight difference however – Trump could have his Summer Of Mostly Peaceful Protest Insurrection Presidential Commission not based in Washington DC, but instead where Commissar Pelosi found her favorite Republican for her committee: Liz Cheney’s Wyoming.

          Appearing before Wyoming judges and Wyoming grand juries, rotting for the same amount of time as J6 defendants in Wyoming jails… and being tried before Wyoming juries instead of Washington DC or New York City juries. Equal justice for all, eh Tovarisch Williams!

          Wouldn’t that be fun! The mirror image of your Soviet Democrat Nobody Is Above The Law Equal Justice For All. Just change party membership and the location of where the show trials and jails are located.

          Y’know… if Trump had done a tenth of what Bribery Biden did while Vice President, you would have had no problem at all impeaching Trump or having him in jail long before now. You wouldn’t need your fellow despicable, corrupt police state fascists like Jack Smith.

      2. Oh but yes they are, “at it again”. Republicans have control of the Congress, and are using it refuse aid to Ukraine under Trump’s direction. Trump has already said he would end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours. That only be by continuing what he is currently doing by directing his party to refuse aid, thereby handing Ukraine to his friend Putin, and at some point withdrawing USA from NATO, thereby forcing ALL constituents to acquire nuclear weapons as a priority. Neither Trump nor Putin will live forever, but Russia’s revanchist re-occupation of its 27 former Soviet possessions, such as Poland, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Estonia and the rest, against the clear and present will of their respective populations, will destroy generations to come. The Republican Party is the Kremin’s 5th Column in the USA. All of a sudden, you will one day find Russian becomes the 1st language in America.

        1. Derek.

          Please lay out the plan where Ukraine pushes back Russia and retains all of its territory?
          Their numbers are decimated, with to way to replace the killed and injured

          So exactly how is more military aide going to turn the tide?

          1. In two years, at an estimated loss of 30,000 men, Russia advanced 10km to take Avdiivka, mirroring earlier losses in Bakhmudt which is now just rubble. To complete Russia’s declared intention to wipe out Ukraine’s entire population man for man, Russia will sacrifice 40 million men, leaving zero Ukrainians in Ukraine and a smoking crater of a country, but still 100 million Russians left to crow over the destruction they will have wrought. Russia destroys everything it touches, judging by the before and after photos of all the Ukrainian towns they have “liberated”. Ukraine have held Russia back with the aid of vastly superior Western ordnance, and retook swathes of territory stolen by Russia, including Kherson. The glacial space with which weapons were approved and supplied by the West gave Russia time to dig hundreds of kilometres of trenches and plant untold numbers of landmines. Ukraine are fighting for the survival of their free nation, whereas Russia are fighting to steal territory they have no right to, and signed the Budapest Memorandum to guarantee security too. Ukraine can kick Russia out of their country, restoring borders internationally recognised under the Minsk Agreements with Western aid. They currently have our guns, but are now being refused bullets. This is not morally right by any reckoning.

            1. Derek, its a simple question.
              YOU need to support your demand that the US spend more of our treasure for Ukraine to win this war with Russia. You (and a dozen or more people I have asked) refuse to support your demands.

              Please lay out the plan where Ukraine pushes back Russia and retains all of its territory?
              Their numbers are decimated, with to way to replace the killed and injured

              So exactly how is more military aide going to turn the tide?

        2. You clearly have no understanding of the economics and logistics of warfare.
          If you did, you would know and understand how you assessment is moronic.
          If you have ever read and studied Sun Tzu, you would of known the Ukraine/Russian war was over before the first shot was taken.

          1. UpstateFarmer posted:

            If you have ever read and studied Sun Tzu, you would of known the Ukraine/Russian war was over before the first shot was taken.

            What would Sun Tzu say about how to stop Russia from taking the first shot in that war?

            Upstate, I had to read and study Sun Tzu. Also did the war thing a bunch of times during my 30 years. Finished those 30 years doing CIMIC psy ops over in A’Stan. I think that Obama and Biden have left us with a shyte show that is akin to waiting until cancer is at stage four before you start deciding how you’re going to cure the cancer.

            What does Sun Tzu say about whether or not there would have ever been a war, IF Ukraine had not surrendered their nukes in exchange for American promises to be their replacement overwhelming force of defense and so they did not need that nuclear deterrent?

            Does Sun Tzu suggest Putin have gone into Ukraine (with the Holdimor in living memory) while Ukrainians had equal nuclear strength for MAD?

            What would Sun Tzu do if he’d make the agreement America made with Ukraine? A mutual security pact: for them to satisfy our fears and need to feel nuclear security, in exchange for us satisfying Ukraine’s need for a reliable, certain defense?

            Best Sun Tzu interpretation: would this war have ever started if Obama, and then Obama’s Third Term i.e. Biden had flat out told Putin that an attack on Ukraine would result in the response that America had promised to Ukraine? Remember Sun Tzu’s principles on evaluating the relative strength of the enemy before choosing to attack or invade?

            Must be a reason Putin was eager to invade Ukraine only after Bush was gone and he had a Big Red Reset with Obama, then behaved himself for four years after Trump handed him a couple of FAFO’s in the Middle East, and then got suddenly eager to invade Ukraine a second time once Trump was gone and Biden was providing Obama’s Third Term.

            Putin’s war in Russia is our war, thanks to the cowardice and fecklessness of Obama and Biden reneging on our promises and allowing a far weaker Russia to attack our allies in that agreement and fighting beside us in Afghanistan in the first place.

            I do not see any good outcome for Ukraine or us at this point after what Obama and Biden have done and where we are now during Obama’s Third Term. Just different versions of second and third order negative effects that also affect us, not just Ukraine.

            I do know that the economic power of Amereica and it’s allies to crush both the Russian and the ChiCom economies if necessary is far more powerful than all the guys like me America could put on the ground in full battle rattle in any part of the world including Russia and Communist China.

        3. Dennis Williams Tells His Truth, Saying the GOP and not the Soviet Democrats deserted Ukraine to their buddy Putin:

          Tovarisch Williams: you’re a proud Soviet Democrat and you’re playing you’re confused on which party and which party leaders deserted Ukraine every time Putin invaded Ukraine?

          Oh but yes they are, “at it again”. Republicans have control of the Congress, and are using it refuse aid to Ukraine under Trump’s direction.

          That would be the Ukraine funding that’s chained with providing Bribery Biden with more money to spend on keeping the southern border wide open to illegal aliens, fentanyl, and the world’s criminals.

          Refresher course for Soviet Democrat supporters pleading ignorance in this issue: Obama and his foreign policy expert VP Biden did nothing but watch while Putin invaded Ukraine the first time.

          Then when Biden was providing Obama’s Third Term, Biden did nothing but watch and bluster while Putin prepared for months and then invaded again a second time.

          When Trump was President, a few hard lessons taught Putin sat in his hole and behave himself the entire time Trump was president.

          The Republican Party is the Kremin’s 5th Column in the USA.

          Dennis Williams is Putin’s 5th column apparatchik and police state fascist in this comment section. Let’s refute Dennis’s most recent lie:

          Obama, Biden, and Clinton gave Putin his Big Red Reset Button during their first term in office while.

          Obama, Biden and Clinton allowed Putin into the Middle East for the first time since WWI. With Obama’s permission, Russia now has naval, air and land assets in Libya and other areas of the Middle East.

          Obama got caught on a hot mic telling Putin’s puppet president that, if he would just be nice until after Obama was safely reelected, he could be “flexible” on Putin invading Ukraine as he’d done in Georgia. After Obama was safely reelected, he promptly made good on his promise to Vlad and scrapped missile defense plans for Poland and the Czech Republic.

          Seeing Obama’s feckless cowardice, Putin then promptly invaded Ukraine. And Obama’s response was to renege on America’s guarantee to defend Ukraine and desert Ukraine to the forces of his buddy Vlad. Almost like Obama or his foreign policy expert Joe Biden were bought and paid for Putin assets.

          Then along came Trump. Who gave Putin one warning and then took out Putin’s assets at a Middle East Russian airbase. When Putin didn’t learn from that FAFO and tried it again, Trump delivered another FAFO and killed several hundred of Ukraine style “dissident” troops threatening American forces in the Middle East. Putin was a nice boy after that.

          And then came Obama’s Third Term, delivered by Bribery Biden’s- who’s second best family customer was Obama’s buddy, Putin. Putin watched Biden promptly desert Afghans and Americans in Afghanistan and started preparing forced on the Ukraine border for a second invasion. So Biden stood there doing nothing – although he’d been paid off to do nothing – watching while Obama’s besty Vlad spent months preparing and finally invaded Ukraine a second time.

          We’re supposed to believe that Putin’s besties Clinton, Obama, and Biden are Republican 5th Columnists helping Putin out as they did all of that?

          Hard to believe that, Tovarisch Williams.

      3. The reasons Putin and the Kremlin gave for the invasion are lies, which makes their committing of mass murder, arson and industrial-scale demolition of schools, hospitals, art galleries, museums, churches, mosques, synagogues, kindergartens, energy infrastructure, food supplies, civilian dwellings war crimes.

        Lie no 1: Ukraine is ruled by Nazis
        Lie no 2: Ukraine committed genocide of 14,000 Russian speaking civilians in Donbas
        Lie no 3: Ukraine allowed America to set up biological weapons laboratories along their border with Russia.
        Lie no 4: Ukraine was about to join NATO.

        These claims are risible and provably false as enumerated below:

        Lie No 1: Ukraine has a centrist government headed by a Jewish president whose ancestors perished in the Nazi Holocaust. You’ll need to come up with evidence that this is a “Nazi regime”.
        Lie No 2: An OSCE monitoring mission active in Ukraine since 2014 has found no evidence of mass targeted killings of civilians in the Donbas region. So far, the Russian Foreign Ministry has not provided any proof to back up its claim that the people of eastern Ukraine are subject to systematic extermination. Of 13,300 deaths in the region, 3,350 were civilians and 5,650 insurgents, according to the UN. It says that 4,100 of those killed were members of the Ukrainian military.
        Lie No 3: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has brought false claims on social media that Putin is targeting U.S.-run biological weapons labs there. There are no U.S. military-run labs in Ukraine, rather, the U.S. Department of Defense Cooperative Threat Reduction Program has provided technical support to the Ukrainian Ministry of Health since 2005 to improve public health laboratories, whose mission is analogous to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. These laboratories have recently played an important role in stopping the spread of COVID-19. False allegations about biolabs are so prevalent that the Defense Threat Reduction Agency released a video on Jan. 11 to counter them and explain what the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program does. The Kremlin’s claims are pure disinformation.
        Lie No 4: Ukraine was not eligible to join NATO as explained above, and was not about to. Since the invasion, Finland (previously invaded by Russia in 1939) and Sweden have joined NATO and Ukraine are joining the European Union, so what was the point? Russia invaded Ukraine in direct and flagrant violation of the Budapest Memorandum and the Minsk Agreements.

      4. Name calling is not rebuttal. Nuclear weapons are a deterrent. Why else does Russia have the largest nuclear arsenal on Planet Earth? If Russia are allowed to reoccupy Ukraine, and the USA withdraws from Poland, they can reoccupy. Russia has gone to war in Finland, Afghanistan, Syria, Moldova, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Chechnya, and now Ukraine to expand its borders or install puppet leaders. It has occupied Romania, Estonia, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Poland, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Moldova. Only two of these countries were voluntarily occupied by Russia. Not one voluntarily signed up to be ruled by Russia’s Soviet empire.

        In almost every case, these countries were invaded and involuntarily occupied in the horrific bloodbath of the Russian Empire’s expansionism with concomitant mass-slaughter of civilian populations. Human suffering caused by Russia’s brutal, barbaric treatment of the people upon whom it imposed its rule sometimes became apparent only after these countries were liberated. Under Stalin, over 20 million Russians were themselves put to death for opposing the regime. Lessons to be learned from this by Ukraine and all Western countries, NEVER do a deal with fascist Russia, and NEVER give up your nuclear weapons.

        1. Oh, Russia went to war…? What did America do in Iraq? What did Obama do in LIbya by killing Muammar Gaddaffi right here in Africa… and the war in Syria? Why did America encourage a war in Ukraine in a situation where negotiations wopuld have played a trick?
          I am Agien Aaron NYANGKWE in Cameroon here in Africa. I don’t know the system of this blog is registering me as an anonymous person.

          1. Agien Aaron – thanks for your perspective from outside the USA. It benefits all of us.

          2. Whataboutism is not rebuttal. Unlike Russia’s incursions into its neighbouring countries and others, US foreign wars have not been to permanently occupy and empire build. Where it has been to assist regime change, such as in Libya, it has been at the behest of credible revolutionaries. This is not to say I support the illegal second invasion of Iraq.

            It is not a legal defence to say you murdered somebody because somebody else murdered somebody.

            There are boundaries that separate countries from each other, geographically, politically, ethnically, linguistically, artistically, culturally, economically and militarily.

            US Afghanistan invasion was the aftermath of 9/11, because the country was harbouring Bin Laden. Prior to that, Russia had invaded and occupied Afghanistan for 10 years, laying the ground for the formation of the medieval Taliban who threw them out and who have also thrown the US out.

            The UN-approved first Iraq war was for the defence of Kuwait, however the second was a ghastly mistake based on faulty WMD intelligence, and was not a NATO exercise, instead carried out by UK, US, Poland and Australia when neither NATO nor the UN would support it. Saddam Hussein had previously illegally invaded Kuwait and Iran and gassed the Kurds, so already himself a war criminal.

            Libya came about as the result of a request from a fomenting revolutionary group seeking to overthrow Gaddafi. Libya was never ‘invaded’ and is self-governing.

            Syria is not under occupation by the US, it is a Russian ally and is preparing mercenaries to assist Russia’s invasion of Ukraine alongside Putin’s Wagner mercenaries.
            https://acleddata.com/2022/08/30/wagner-group-operations-in-africa-civilian-targeting-trends-in-the-central-african-republic-and-mali/

            Bringing these Middle-Eastern wars into this present conflict is false equivalence, even if it highlights hypocrisy. It is better to take the high moral ground, rather than to claim that because other people did bad things, Russia should be excused from its manifest war crimes.

            Russia has gone to war in Finland, Afghanistan, Syria, Moldova, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Chechnya, and now Ukraine to expand its borders or install puppet leaders.

            It has occupied Romania, Estonia, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Poland, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Yugoslavia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Moldova.

            If you think US incursions as described above are wrong, then why would you think Russia’s destruction of Ukraine is right?

        2. “Name calling is not rebuttal.”

          You’re funny.

          You keep accusing others of ad hominem. Yet that’s your entire schtick: R’s — Putin lovers; R’s — in Trump’s pocket . . .

          You don’t even have the intellectual integrity to summarize the oppositions’ *arguments*.

          When such people introspect, if they ever do, what on earth do they see?

        3. Derek Williams tried this:

          Name calling is not rebuttal.

          Lies claiming that is the Republicans, not Obama and now Biden, empowering Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, accompanied by supporting Putin style Soviet police state fascism straight out of Putin’s prosecution of Novalney is neither legitimate argument or rebuttal.

          Calling a lie a lie, and the liar who posted that lie a liar is not name calling, it is accurate labeling of what occurred.

          Calling police state fascism what it is is also not name calling. Nor is it name calling to label police state fascists like Putin and Biden exactly what they are.

      5. As previously stated, name-calling is not rebuttal. If you have evidence from reliable sources in support of Republican support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, then by all means adduce.

      6. I thought you were talking about SCOTUS, but I see now you say it was SOCTUS – my bad. But in reference to the speed of the Supreme Court, that is material to the coming election, in that while a convicted criminal cannot vote, he can still stand for POTUS. FYO, not everyone has to go to law school to do research from reliable sources. Facts don’t change when uttered by lawyers instead of non-lawyers.

      9. That’s one, and Russia was, and still is, all over the US elections. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_elections

        Advertisements bought by Russian operatives for the Facebook social media site are estimated to have reached 10 million users. Many more Facebook users were contacted by accounts created by Russian actors. 470 Facebook accounts are known to have been created by Russians during the 2016 campaign. Of those accounts six generated content that was shared at least 340 million times, according to research done by Jonathan Albright, research director for Columbia University’s Tow Center for Digital Journalism. The most strident Internet promoters of Trump were paid Russian propagandists/trolls, who were estimated by The Guardian to number several thousand. The Mueller Report found the IRA spent $100,000 for more than 3,500 Facebook advertisements from June 2015 to May 2017, which included anti-Clinton and pro-Trump advertisements. In comparison, Clinton and Trump campaigns spent $81 million on Facebook ads.

        1. D W – I believe that there were two Facebook advertisements, with a possible Russian connection, run before the 2016 election. I believe they both dealt with masturbation. I’m not sure which candidate they helped.

        2. Advertisements bought by Russian operatives for the Facebook social media site are estimated to have reached 10 million users.

          That was $200,000 .

          Total expenditures by both parties exceeded $2 Billion.

          You BELIEVE .01% of total ad buys changed the results of a Presidential Election

          1. Iowan2,
            Yeah, 10 million users were some how swayed by $200,000 in FB ads.
            Just s back then in 2016, pretty much everyone knows who they are voting for this November, least some sudden surprise change.
            I stated last year I was voting for whomever was the Republican candidate, even if it was Trump.

        3. Derek Williams threw this out from Wikipedia:

          Advertisements bought by Russian operatives for the Facebook social media site are estimated to have reached 10 million users.

          Context and nuance time again. The content Russian operatives illegally hired and paid by Clinton and Obama to write their fraudulent “Russia Dossier” reached how many million users? More or less than 10 million? Where is the link where Wikipedia or research from Columbia University provide that number?

          You have that link, right? Why not share it?

          The Soviet Democrats’ Russian operative (who was under FBI investigation for espionage when they questioned him about writing the “Russia Dossier”) was extremely expensive compared to the $100,000 IRA messages. That cost Clinton and Obama/the DNC at least the $9.2 MILLION in just the money laundered through Clinton/DNC lawyer Marc Elias to illegally hire one foreign Russian operative from Putin and one from Britain’s MI6 to write and distribute the “Russia Dossier”.

          Then there was the millions they paid to unregistered foreign agent Fusion GPS to spread their campaign “Russia Dossier”.

          [Sidebar: to date neither Mueller, the FBI, or any branch of the DoJ has charged Clinton, Obama, Donna Brazile as chair of the DNC, Mark Elias, or the principles at Fusion GPS for the felony of hiring a foreign Russian operative to write that “Russia Dossier” to use in their campaign. Used all the available justice up hunting Trump.]

          Clinton/Obama’s Russian operative was extremely successful! Best money you police state fascists ever spent in an election Dennis was hiring those Russian and British spies to write your “Russia Dossier”!

          Despite Mueller finding no collusion, Congressional committees finding no collusion, Special Counsel John Durham laying out in detail how it was a Soviet Democrat fairy tale (and charging one of your Russian operative employees who wrote parts of it), a poll after all of that found that 82% of Democrats who vote Soviet Democrat STILL believe your “Russia Dossier” is real and Trump conspired with Russia.

          82% of 48 million registered Democrats still believing your fraudulent “Russia Dossier” is factual means your Russian operative reached at least 39.3 MILLION gullible Democrat useful idiots!

          Idiots who are so brainwashed they reject the truth when it’s put in front of them. The Ruskies without the help of Clinton and Obama only reached 10 million users in comparison.

          Well done, Soviet Democrats! Police state fascism works as well for you as it does in Russia!

          The Mueller Report found the IRA spent $100,000 for more than 3,500 Facebook advertisements from June 2015 to May 2017

          What pages in The Mueller Report do we turn to in order to read his findings on who actually commissioned the “Russia Dossier” he spent $30+ million investigating? I have the report sitting as a .pdf right here in front of me, my pages will be the same as the ones in your copy of that report.

          How much does Mueller say in his report that the DNC along with Clinton and Obama spent on illegally hiring Russian operatives and the distributors responsible for that Russia Dossier he so carefully investigated?

          Must be there somewhere: it is illegal to hire foreign operatives and money launder to pay for election campaign products like the “Russia Dossier” and Mueller wasn’t shy about charging anyone. I just can’t find any references Mueller makes in his report on Clinton, Obama, and the DNC’s spending on illegally hiring Russian operatives to write the “Russia Dossier”. And hey! He didn’t charge a single one of them!

          Isn’t that strange! Mueller and his handpicked dream team of the best investigators in America never figured out who paid for the “Russia Dossier” they spent years investigating, now how much those people spent to produce that campaign fraud to tilt the election.

          Context and nuance, Tovarisch.

  13. Rachel Maddow is exemplary of what division of society is achieved by giving a MSM platform to a crazed LGBT activist. Same with CNN and Don Lemon, they both spread non stop lies about Russia collusion for the entire Trump term. I think they both should pay for the damage their lies have caused.

      1. Maddow did spread disinformation for three years.
        Cry harder over that.

        1. Please cite, say, three instances of misinformation spread by Maddow, and that it was done so intentionally and never redacted if proven.

            1. You could throw in her obsession with Trump’s tax returns. That one crashed and burned.

            2. UpstateFarmer reminded the Sea Lion of this:

              Three years of Russia collusion hoax.

              Don’t forget her saying a competing network was “the most obsequiously pro-Trump right wing news outlet in America really literally is paid Russian propaganda.”

              She got a pass on a Fox style defamation damages award from an Obama judge – while another Obama judge a year later slammed Fox for a guest on the show making defamatory statements about Dominion.

              It’s The Big Democrat Different Justice System.

              And yes, Rachael Maddow is a serial, pathological liar in all things concerning Trump. She can give Bribery Biden competition in that regard.

          2. You pick any one of her opening monolouges and there are lots of mis and dis information. Her whole schtick, is propaganda.

              1. You need to provide three of her monologues, and I’ll type my response slow so you can understand.

          3. For his next act, Derek Williams plays a Sea Lion!

            Please cite, say, three instances of misinformation spread by Maddow

            Normally I don’t trust the rabid left wing Soviet Democrats running Wikipedia, but they ARE Tovarisch Williams favorites:

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning

            Well, there’s all the years that Maddow continued to insist the Soviet Democrats’ “Russia Dossier” was verified fact. Even after Congressional investigation found it to be illegally created campaign fairy tales by the Soviet Democrats: Clinton, Obama, Biden, and Donna Brazile of the DNC. Even after two Inspector General investigations found it to be fraudulent and unverified by the FBI who perjured themselves to FISA courts that it was verified.

            But why is this relevant? Remember when Rachael Maddow flat out told her viewers that a competitor network was paid by Russia and a co-conspirator of Trump and Putin conspiring to steal the election? Maddow: “in this case, the most obsequiously pro-Trump right wing news outlet in America really literally is paid Russian propaganda.”

            No worries! One of Obama’s newly minted judges let Maddow off the hook on the defamation lawsuit – because the judge said it couldn’t be defamation when her audience knows she lies:

            https://www.greanvillepost.com/2021/06/22/a-court-ruled-rachel-maddows-viewers-know-she-offers-exaggeration-and-opinion-not-facts/

            The question now is… does Tovarisch Williams know Rachael Maddow lies as the rest of her viewers supposedly know she does (according to this Obama judge who protected her from a Fox style defamation award)?

        1. kurdysgramj didn’t finish this:

          He who cannot argue effectively offers ad hominem…

          … and He who cannot lie and get away with it, when caught lying claims it is ad hominem to call him a liar after he’s been caught doing just that.

          Example: “Republicans are Russia’s 5th column in America”

          Need a longer list?

          Advice: don’t throw BullSchiff in normal Americans’ faces and expect them to believe you telling them it’s Magic Fairy Dust they feel and smell.

  14. 𝐖𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐯𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐓𝐫𝐮𝐦𝐩 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐂𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐝𝐨’𝐬 𝐮𝐩𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲?
    (Colorado) Fremont County Clerk Justin Grantham says he has been asked “every day” whether a vote for GOP candidate Donald Trump will be counted on Super Tuesday. “𝙒𝙚 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙞𝙣 𝙖 𝙡𝙞𝙢𝙗𝙤 𝙨𝙞𝙩𝙪𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙬𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙬𝙚 𝙙𝙤𝙣’𝙩 𝙠𝙣𝙤𝙬 𝙞𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙐.𝙎. 𝙎𝙪𝙥𝙧𝙚𝙢𝙚 𝘾𝙤𝙪𝙧𝙩 𝙬𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙙𝙚𝙘𝙞𝙙𝙚,” said Grantham, who until recently was also president of the Colorado County Clerks Association. “The question before us right now is ‘Will they order us to suppress the vote for the outcome of President Trump, if he is not eligible to be an elected candidate?’”
    By: Caitlyn Kim ~ March 1, 2024
    https://www.cpr.org/2024/03/01/colorado-presidential-primary-trump-votes/

    Re:
    𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐓𝐞𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐕𝐨𝐭𝐞 𝐨𝐧 𝐒𝐮𝐩𝐞𝐫 𝐓𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐝𝐚𝐲:

    Alabama
    Alaska
    Arkansas
    California
    Colorado
    Maine
    Massachusetts
    Minnesota
    North Carolina
    Oklahoma
    Tennessee
    Texas
    Utah
    Vermont
    Virginia
    American Samoa

  15. Gotta love it when the good professor brings fact to the table.

    1. Except he missed the mark. He notes the Nixon lower court case was unanimous, which justified its expedited schedule. How many DC Circuit Court judges sided with Trump again?

      1. This is an expedited schedule. Your fascist side had 3 years to bring the case but instead tried to finesse the election schedule.

        1. First, I have no side.
          Second, what would the purpose of delaying be?

  16. 𝐋𝐢𝐳 𝐂𝐡𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐲 𝐍𝐮𝐤𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐮𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐭 𝐎𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐓𝐫𝐮𝐦𝐩 𝐃𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐲—𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐇𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐃𝐞𝐦𝐬 𝐚 𝐖𝐞𝐚𝐩𝐨𝐧
    What percentage of voters know that Trump can cancel prosecutions of himself if he wins back the White House?
    By: Greg Sargent ~ March 1, 2024
    https://newrepublic.com/article/179438/liz-cheney-supreme-court-trump-trial-delay-dems-weapon

    1. Only the Federal prosecutions. Everyone knows he can pardon himself. The State prosecutions, not so much, and I believe the NYC prosecution is actually the greatest threat to Trump.

  17. This will be CJ Roberts greatest moment. The Court will be unanimous in favor of Trump on the ballot issue. There are so many reasons why the CO Supreme Court was wrong that even J. Sotomayor must agree that at least one of those reasons justifies reversal. But the Court will also be unanimous in allowing the Jan. 6 trial to proceed. Regardless of whether the Court rules that a President has immunity for “official acts” and regardless of the split on that issue, left open will be the question of whether what Trump did was an “official act”. That is a factual matter that will be left to the jury to decide, possibly assisted by the Court’s definition of “official act”. The Court will be unanimous that the trial will go forward. So, the Court will be unanimous once in favor of Trump and once against him. The Rachel Maddows of this world will be eating crow, and Roberts goes down as the greatest CJ since John Marshall.

    1. Except for the three lefties, I cannot believe the Court would leave that issue up to an inner-city jury.
      Gordy Thomas has a better scenario.

  18. PREDICTION: Dems will rue the day they force-rushed the 2nd impeachment of President Trump AFTER January 6th for “incitement of insurrection”. SCOTUS will rule that Trump has already faced justice under the constitution and he can only be deprived of immunity through an impeachment proceeding.

    2. No, in fact, they already rejected that argument when they identified the single question they’d address.

    3. The incitement to insurrection is a distraction technique that appears to be working. Many commenters have bought into Jack Smith’s case being about the riot on Jan 6th and Trump’s role in stoking it. Not even close. He’s being prosecuted for working with lawyers to mickey the Electoral College. Trump is not denying that he did this. In his Jan 6th speech, he self-incriminates along with John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani.

      Because of narrative-allegiance, few people understand what happened hour-by-hour on J 6th. Trump was expecting Mike Pence to overturn the election and name Trump as the winner during the Joint Session. “Be there, it will be wild” means, “you’ll witness Congress throw out Biden as the winner and install me”. Trump sent the crowd to the Capitol to cheer on and witness the art of lawyerly gamesmanship played at the highest level.

      Other than a few hundred militia types who are always looking for a physical fight, the crowd was noisy but peaceful until 2;24. That’s when everything fell apart. Trump saw on TV that Pence was not going thru with the plan, and fired off a tweet denouncing him as having betrayed Trump supporters. The violence was spontaneous, unplanned (except for the militia guys). So, the facts are that Trump did not plan violence, he planned lawyer gaming.

      Which brings me back to Jack Smith and the DC trial. Smith isn’t charging trump with insurrection, because that wasn’t what he was plotting. He’s been charged with attempting to undermine the EC Count using lawyers. So, there’s no defense to these charges based on Trump not having planned any violence.

      Even Turley the lawyer seems confused about this.

      1. maybe Turley the lawyer has more contacts and knows a little more than you do.

      2. “He’s being prosecuted for working with lawyers to mickey the Electoral College.”

        PbinCA, 18 U.S. Code § 2383 is the criminal code for insurrection. What is the code for “mickey the Electoral College”?

        The real question is, if there is no code for an act disapproved of by Democrats and leftists, are they permitted to make up their own codes and indict their opponents?

        “Because of narrative-allegiance, few people understand what happened hour-by-hour on J 6th. ”

        Actually, there are written hour-by-hour records showing the damage done by Nancy Pelosi on J 6th. Those records do not include a spot to make up phony criminal code numbers.

        Here are some suggested numbers to meet the criteria you bring to the table.

        18 U.S. Code §Malarky
        18 U.S. Code §MickeyMouse
        18 U.S. Code §PbinCA

        1. S. Meyer made me smile with this response to pbinCA attempting to be an Internet Lawyer:

          The real question is, if there is no code for an act disapproved of by Democrats and leftists, are they permitted to make up their own codes and indict their opponents?

          What’s funny is also scary.

          It’s scary because that is EXACTLY what Jack Smith previously did to indict the most dangerous potential Republican opponent to Obama/Biden’s reelection in 2012.

          To quote from the unanimous SCOTUS ruling throwing out Jack Smith’s conviction of McDonnell:
          “But our concern is not with Government’s tawdry tales of Ferraris, Rolexes, and ball gowns. It is instead with the broader legal implications of the Government’s boundless interpretation of the federal statute.”

          And further on referring to Jack Smith’s actions as an Obama DoJ prosecutor fraudulently prosecuting Obama’s most dangerous potential opponent, SCOTUS rebuked Smith and warned that “the uncontrolled power of criminal prosecutors is a threat to our separation of powers.”

          And that’s separate from Smith during the same reelection campaign conspiring with Louis Lerner of the IRS that they could shut down Republican get-out-the-vote groups for the duration of the reelection campaign by investigating their tax status. They apologized and admitted they did wrong AFTER the election of course.

          Louis Lerner invoked the Fifth Amendment after being subpoenaed to testify, Jack Smith got a promotion – and Barack Obama said “I didn’t know about any of this, just like I didn’t know Secretary Of State Clinton never once used a legal electronic device or email server in all of our communications of classified material”.

          So yes, Soviet Democrats have already proven they will make up and modify the existing substantive law to indict their opponents while ignoring prohibitions on their conduct as prosecutors.

          And then bring back Jack Smith who is the complete opposite of the requirements for being a Special Counsel to do again what SCOTUS excoriated him for doing a few years earlier.

          It’s truly scary that pbinCA and so many others here will pimp for the Soviet Democrats going police state fascist with culls like Jack Smith who should be disbarred if not in jail instead.

          1. Airborne, that so many cannot divorce themselves from their wants and live within the rule of law is very disturbing.

      3. phinCA – you say: “Trump was expecting Mike Pence to overturn the election and name Trump as the winner during the Joint Session.“ Can you substantiate this statement? Rejecting electors is not the same thing as declaring someone else “the winner.”
        V P Pence could have left open the question of who actually won the several states in question. I don’t think such a decision would have continued Trump’s term beyond 1/20/2021. It would have made the Speaker of the House the President ex tempore. This would have been uncharted terrritory, but it would not have been unconstitutional.

      5. pbinCA is confused over legislation and what is legitimate and what is illegitimate again:

        He’s being prosecuted for working with lawyers to mickey the Electoral College. Trump is not denying that he did this. In his Jan 6th speech, he self-incriminates along with John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani.

        The criminal offense of “mickying”? The criminal offense of working with lawyers? Are the lawyers he was working with also charged with “mickying” as co-conspirators in that felony?

        Where, outside of police state fascist run governments, did it become a felony to work with lawyers using relevant existing legislation? Is “working with lawyers” one of the elements of the felony of “mickying” the Electoral College?

        Trump is being persecuted by a police state fascist, Jack Smith, that SCOTUS said in a unanimous decision throwing out his near identical persecution and conviction of Governor McDonnell, is a threat to the republic. And now despite that the Soviet Democrats have brought him back to take out Trump before this election as he took out McDonnell before that election.

        Jack Smith should be just getting ready to be released from jail given the witness and evidence tampering he did in that prosecution. But the corrupt Washington DC bar and courts protects their own. Whether protecting Jack Smith or the lawyer that altered evidence exonerating Carter Page so that it read Page was a traitor to his country – he was also not disbarred, nor even jailed after being convicted of doing that.

        Jack Smith does not meet a single one of the criteria required to be a legitimate Special Counsel – in fact, he is the complete opposite. Jack Smith is a Shyte Stain on the American justice system, he shouldn’t even be a member of the bar after the SCOTUS decision regarding how he invented and reinterpreted law to prosecute McDonnell. And how he is going after Trump is a carbon copy of how he went after McDonnell and his wife.

        Furthermore I simply cannot understand why those so obsessed with supporting the police state fascist Jack Smith getting Trump to trial in the name of justice are not howling that all the Soviet Democrats’ rich and famous who offered bribes to Electoral College voters to become faithless electors and switch their votes from Trump to Clinton are not being prosecuted. Why is that?

        Different and completely legal form of mickey’ing an election? Offering bribes to Electoral Voters is a legal way to micky the Electoral College?

        As for the supposed offense: there is exactly ZERO “self-incrimination” in using the Electoral Count Act’s legal provisions to challenge aspects of counting the Electoral College votes. Democrats in Congress have used the provisions of that Act three times in the last 20+ years in attempts to block Electors proceeding to confirm a newly elected Republican president. Like Trump, those Congressional Democrats made their attempts, and like Trump they were rejected.

        This is not Soviet Democrat Law 101, where there’s one set of laws and their administration for Soviet Democrats, and a completely opposite set of laws for Trump (and the two just elected Republican presidents before him).

        And there is no special exceptions for a president seeking election to a second term

  20. They will unanimously agree that there is immunity for “official acts”. They will split 7/2 on whether what has been alleged is an “official act”, with the majority saying it is not and Thomas and Alito saying it is. Take it to the bank.

    1. I tend to agree with this short analysis. Trump has spoken to the question raised by wiseoldlawyer by saying as the nation’s chief executive, he had an obligation to ensure that the election was held properly and in accordance with statutes. Yes, doing so also had a personal element to it but that should be considered secondary and incidental to his primary duty to maintain the integrity of the electoral process. I also agree with the predicted vote of the Court.

      1. That’s not how the Framers designed national elections….they gave the states complete control over the running of Presidential elections. Why? So the big wigs in DC could not try to mickey the results. All 9 Justices understand this architecture. It will be argued that an incumbent President seeking re-election must NEVER interfere with the State processes and the Electoral College, because of inherent conflict-of-interest.

        So Trump as President had zero legitimacy to “oversee” his own Presidential re-election votes in the States.
        End of case. He had the opportunity to go into state courts to challenge the results, and he sent Rudy, Sydney and Lin to do this — they had no evidence, only speculation (Rudy: “We have plenty of theories but no evidence”). That was Trump’s legitimate means of challenge, and it was a dud because there wasn’t massive cheating anywhere. (The largest attempt was MS-13 trying to take over the mayorship of Hawthorne CA through absentee ballot fraud, with 8000 fraudulent requests made for ballots — it was caught too early to have any impact).

        Would someone like to offer another defense for Trump and lawyers waging a massive public fraud, and trying to game the Electoral College? Would it be defensible if a Democrat President tried to block a Repub President-elect in this manner? Would you want to set a precedent where those attempts become consequence-free?

        1. “Would someone like to offer another defense for Trump and lawyers waging a massive public fraud, and trying to game the Electoral College? “

          Do you have a legitimate code for what you are claiming, or are you basing this response on 18 U.S. Code §PbinCA?

    2. This is plausible.

      I agree that there is a good chance they will reverse the D.C. Circuit and conclude there is immunity for official acts. I doubt that will be unanimous though.

      I am less certain that they will decide whether the allegations here all relate to official acts. They did not grant cert on that question, the record is undeveloped and neither the District Court nor the D.C. Circuit decided it one way or the other. They could give some guidelines on how to resolve this question and then remand it to the District Court to decide it. Presumably, any decision on that could be appealed before the trial begins.

      On the question of delay, had the Court wanted to do so it could have granted Trump’s stay request but not treat it as a request for a grant of cert, giving him the full 90 days he had to do that. Doing so would have punted the hearing into the next term, and the decision until June 2025, potentially.

      1. Chutkan: “neither the Indictment nor the federal statutes under which Defendant is charged involve an ‘official act.’”

        DCCA:
        “in Blassingame, taking the plaintiff’s allegations as true, we held that a President’s ‘actions constituting re-election campaign activity’ are not ‘official’ and can form the basis for civil liability. 87 F.4th at 17. In other words, if a President who is running for re-election acts ‘as office-seeker, not office-holder,’ he is not immune even from civil suits. Id. at 4 (emphasis in original). Because the President has no official role in the certification of the Electoral College vote, much of the misconduct alleged in the Indictment reasonably can be viewed as that of an office-seeker …”

        1. As the Sitting President, as the Chief Law Enforcement Officer of the United States, has the ultimate power to investigate elections.

          1. Not when he’s acting as a candidate, and the alleged crimes aren’t “investigating elections.” The alleged crimes are 18 USC 371, 18 USC 1512(c)(2), 18 USC 1512(k), and 18 USC 241.

        2. Neither the District Court nor the D.C. Circuit decided whether the allegations were official acts. Both courts said do explicitly.

          Had they done so, and concluded they were not, they would not have had to decide whether there was immunity for official acts.

            1. Quotes are not decisions. They did not decide that question and said so explicitly.

      2. They could still punt it to next term and relist it if it is too hard to come up with workable standards for presidential immunity. They might hope that the problem goes away on its own and they won’t have to decide it.

    3. WOL – your are persuasive, but I think that the obvious tactic of Lawfare being waged by Democrats may have a majority of the court wanting to put some guardrails on it. The two party system exists outside the text of the Constitution, but nevertheless history shows that every stable democracy is a party system where the governing party is always at risk of being voted out of office. If one party can outlaw the other party, and make elections are meaningless exercise, we will not be a stable democracy anymore. Something must be done, and the S Ct is best suited to do something.

    4. “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”

      “We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated. Lawfully slated.”

      “And we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them.”

      – President Donald J. Trump, January 6, 2021

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Res ipsa loquitur – The thing itself speaks

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