Below is my column in the New York Post on the developments in the pending Trump cases. I previously wrote that, if Trump prevailed in this election, it was likely that Special Counsel Jack Smith would “not see a jury in either of his cases.” This morning, Smith is reportedly in discussions on the possible dropping of his two federal cases against the president-elect. The prosecutorial campaigns appear to be collapsing with the political campaigns against Trump.
Here is the column:
After years of thrill-kill prosecutions, the thrill is gone for lawfare warriors.
Election Day’s greatest losers may be special counsel Jack Smith, New York Attorney General Letitia James and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
Donald Trump’s victory was the largest jury verdict that some of us anticipated for years of unrelenting weaponization of the legal system.
Smith’s prosecutions ended with the 270th Electoral College vote secured around 2 a.m. Wednesday. His unrelenting efforts to convict Trump and then, when prevented from holding a trial, to release damaging material before the election have collapsed with the blue wall in the Midwest.
Trump has said he plans to fire Smith on Day 1. That means the end of both the January 6 and the classified documents cases.
That leaves James and Bragg as residue of long-forgotten lawfare battles, but even there Trump’s prospects look good.
James was able to secure a fellow lawfare warrior in Justice Arthur Engoron, who imposed a grotesque $455 million in fines and interest.
That ruling is pending an appeal that is expected to be a partial or even total victory for Trump.
Unlike Engoron, the appellate judges expressed great skepticism in September over the size of the penalty and even the use of this law.
Trump faced half a billion dollars in penalty in a case where no one lost a dime, and the alleged victim banks wanted more business with Trump and his company.
Separately, there is a hearing scheduled in front of Judge Juan Merchan for Nov. 11 on the “hush money” case involving Stormy Daniels, and a possible sentencing on Nov. 26.
If Merchan seeks to jail Trump, it is unlikely to be carried out, as Trump appeals the case and the many alleged errors committed by the judge.
Merchan made an utter mess of a case that should never have been filed, let alone tried. Even commentators like CNN’s senior legal analyst, Elie Honig, have denounced the case as a selective and unfounded prosecution.
The case should result in a conditional discharge with no jail time if Merchan can resist the temptation to unjustly punish Trump, a level of restraint that has largely proven difficult for him in the case.
Merchan created layers of appealable errors in the case. Putting those alleged errors aside, any sentencing to jail would create its own constitutional conflict with Trump’s performance of his federal duties.
The question is whether the election will bring a moment of sobriety for New Yorkers who have spent years in a full rage-driven celebration of lawfare.
While Trump did not prevail in New York, he came closer than any Republican in decades.
After this steady diet of politicized prosecutions in New York, Trump secured 44.3% of the vote, while Harris received 55.7%. In 2020, the margin was 23 points.
It is doubtful that the election will completely kill the appetite for lawfare in New York. As I wrote in my recent book, “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” “rage is liberating, even addictive. It allows us to say and do things that we would ordinarily avoid, even denounce in others.”
What people do not want to admit that is that they like the rage.
Rage addicts will continue to push James and Bragg to continue these unhinged campaigns. It is not prosecutorial — it is recreational.
We can only hope that James and Bragg feel a twinge of humility when their cases fall apart along with the Kamala Harris campaign.
And Merchan has the opportunity to use this brief sobering moment and issue a conditional discharge without home or actual confinement.
He can take judicial notice of Trump’s election as our next president and end this circus in Manhattan.
Instead of listening to the braying mob, he can act as a judge and tell New Yorkers, in the immortal words of B.B. King:
“The thrill is gone
It’s gone away for good
All the thrill is gone
Baby, it’s gone away for good…
I’m free from your spell
And now that it’s all over
All that I can do is wish you well.”
Jonathan Turley is a Fox News Media contributor and the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University. He is the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
The people will never see the evidence of Trumps crimes and he will avoid any accountability for his criminal conduct. Just as the fascists who voted for him wanted.
When the US falls, it will be Republicans cheering the demise. Traitors to the Constitution and the concept of a free country.
@Sammy
Today you have just been relegated to mildly amusing. If you are paid – wow. Those dollars may as well have been lit on fire. If not: you are certainly entitled to your view, but that’s all it is. We are entitled to ours, too, and there is no disputing today you are in the minority, and you aren’t some kind of righteous scrapper; you are someone we used to see on a street corner.
I personally think you are a laptop liberal in NYC or similar with plenty of privilege, and other people thinking for themselves is terrifying to you. Go blow. We have shown, nationally, pretty dang clearly you what we think of you.
Poor Sammy, his diarrhea is particularly bad today.
GFY Sammy. You predicted Trump would lose bigly. It made you feel good to think you were in the majority.
YOU AIN’T
Sammy’s ovaries are screaming in rage today: The people will never see the evidence of Trumps crimes and he will avoid any accountability for his criminal conduct. Just as the fascists who voted for him wanted.
Stalin’s chief prosecutor Lavarentiy Beria to the USSR’s “Uncle Joe”: “Show me your political enemies and I’ll prosecute and destroy them for crimes”. America’s Uncle Joe Biden did the same with his prosecutors like Jack Smith.
You never expressed any concerns that Obama, Clinton, Biden et al had the evidence of their serial felonies in first hiring and paying foreign spies to write their “Trump-Russia Dossier” and the accompanying felonies of Obama directing them to perjure themselves to FISA courts and utter false documents to those courts.
You weren’t concerned because that’s how filthy communists like you operate.
Trump is like a Super Hero. He has survived:
a gigantic conspiratorial hoax (Russiagate); too many smaller hoaxes to enumerate (e.g., “fine people on both sides”);
banning from social media just before a Presidential election;
suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story;
the manipulation of electoral laws in the run-up to the 2020 election; the illegal release of his tax returns; the invasion of his attorney-client privilege; unprecedented prosecution for having possession classified documents
even though he had been Commander-in-Chief;
personal betrayal by military underlings; two groundless impeachments; prosecution (civily) for a 30 year old rape charge when the Statute of Limitations was magically waived;
prosecution for defrauding “someone” as to property valuations where there was no victim, no damage, and no fraud;
violating federal campaign finance laws by failing to report a hush money payment as a contribution, even though the state court had no jurisdiction;
prosecution for legally challenging the results of a Presidential election, as Al Gore had done without penalty;
two assassination attempts;
and endless vilification.
Yet he lives.
His strength has been tempered by fire.
These prosecutors and leftist judges have wasted taxpayer dollars that should have been spent going after drug dealers, thieves, rapists, assaulters, and murderers.
Garnish their pensions with interest and punitive treble awards until those wrongly accused and convicted have been paid back in full. It’s the only way to change their lawless behavior if they want to continue judging others.
Dennis, Gigi, Sammy and George…where you at folks? Awaiting your insights on this topic and the current circumstances!
Hmmm. I wonder if the DNC Sock Puppet Shill Farm had to close down in light of the loss??? Wouldn’t that be loverly! Hope their last paychecks all bounce!
James just spoke about continuing the fight! Doesn’t seem as though she gets it.
Smith is looking for an exit ramp now.
I think that we need a signed confession from Biden about exactly what he and his family did to get paid millions by foreign countries. He was not president at the time and he acted against this country’s interest. We have a right to know.
Then he can be pardoned.
@sd
Really: these people are bloody evil. there is no other word for it. They can take their cawing about ‘democracy’ and shove it. Do they really want a revolution? There is way too much to discuss there. Do NOT let them subvert your freedom, no matter what. And I cannot believe that even needs to be said. This is preposterous.
James,
Do they really want a revolution? We should ask our leftist friends here on the good professor’s blog like Sammy, Fishstick, Dennis, Gigi, George et al. Do you really want a revolution? After the results of this election? I would really like to hear what they think on the topic. What they think would be the outcome.
Love that thought. Full disclosure then pardon and invisibility and forever confined to Delaware.
Trump took the high road in discouraging Justice from pursing Hilary last time for her involvement in the Steele dossier (not to mention destruction of documents and even having classified documents on a private server). Somehow, she thought that was a license to lecture us for the ensuing 8 years. I like the confession and pardon better than sweeping stuff under the rug.
I’d like to never hear from the Clintons, Bidens, Obamas et al ever again.
Please, please, PLEASE, Jack, Alvin, Leticia and Ergo nuts! Keep up the lawfare! It is only a matter of time before the pendulum of justice and entertainment swings toward you. AND WE MUST HAVE OUR ENTERTAINMENT!!!!!!!!
Special Counsel Jack Smith
I suggest a one-way ticket to Cambodia, Russia, China, North Korea.
None of them have extradition treaties with the U.S.
A three-hour tour with the castaways on the Minnow would also suffice.
“I suggest a one-way ticket to Cambodia, Russia, China, North Korea.”
Why burn all that fuel? Cuba is much closer.
I wonder if it will ever come home to them that their blatantly unethical antics actually helped to elect Trump.
Unlikely. Self-reflection just isn’t in their wheelhouse.
“If 71 million people giving (Leftists) the finger as eight years of statements and predictions go belly up on live TV won’t budge these idiots out of their “All people who are not me are racist” bubble, nothing will.” –Matt Taibbi
THANK YOU – A MILLION TIMES – PROFESSOR TURLEY – THE VOICE OF TRUTH, WISDOM AND LIGHT RING IN EVERY ONE OF YOUR WORDS.. A BRILLIANT, MASTERLY SUMMARY OF THE TRIUMPH OF GOOD OVER EVIL WHERE THE JUSTICE SYSTEM IN THE USA IS CONCERNED… ANOTHER MIRACLE IN THE WELCOMED RESURRECTION OF DONALD TRUMP… EVEN A ONCE ‘CLASSIC LIBERAL’ LIKE ME SEES JUSTICE HERE.. THANK YOU.
Not bloody likely. What the modern left has morphed into has no care for any of this, and is very much evident, the will of the people be damned. We have made our voices very, VERY clear. The rest is detritus, so much more so than Bush v Gore, it beggars belief. We will not go gently into that winter night; we are a nation of free people, and we proved that yesterday, whatever our origins. This is straight up bulls***, and in a free country, that is painfully obvious. This is the legal equivalent of Kamala being on SNL. We have demarcated very, very clearly what we want as a MAJORITY. Nonsense.
Surely the left, against such odds, could not be so foolish.
Charges must be brought by Congress, the DOJ, and district attorneys against the criminal purveyors of illicit lawfare.
President Trump must give his full attention to situating America squarely back onto the Constitution through immediate and mass impeachment of high-criminal officers of the U.S., deportation of fraudulent “asylum” seekers, and privatization of every governmental department, agency, benefit, and entitlement.
If Biden had the sense he was born with (obviously most has departed due to his age), he would immediately pardon Trump and announce that is quite obvious that the prosecutions and lawsuits were politically instigated and pushed onto the court system with reckless abandon. What right minded judge in all of America, except his honor Engoron in the State of NY, would attempt to impose at one half billion dollar “civil penalty” on a sole individual when there was no harm involved? Engoron rhymes with another word and it just might apply. The judge should motu proprio rescind his judgment recognizing its absurdity and grossness. Just as the Professor’s column has a great title, res ipsa loquitur justly applies to Judge Engoron’s actions.
I think the left had better leave something for the rabid far-out-there crowd to gnaw on for a while. Pent up rage can do no good and there is a great deal of bewilderment/incomprehension on their side as to how the rest (majority) of the real world disagrees with them – it must be some sort of mistake they claim… Totally clueless, useless flotsam with no purpose other than to whine and complain.
@whimsicalmama
Obama and his minions need to accept that his time is done. We stated that very much indisputably yesterday. This is straight up nonsense. Even California very nearly flipped, and in 2024 that is as good as flipped; nobody wants this. Not a single one of us.
As long as there were 40+% who still support the prog/woke/left and will cast their votes for the likes of Adam Schiff and Elizabeth Warren we are not a healed nor safe nation yet. Just what do we do to “unbrainwash” so many? This us only a first step and we need a good decade or more to even begin to clean the swamp, the media and our education industry; just to start. Trump’s win was a start but there are legions against us still.- their very livelihoods depend on a socialist system.and they will act out of desperation.
@whimsicalmama
We probably can’t. That is something that will be hard to accept, but again, it is all the fault of the modern left. We have to make a way forward that excludes zealotry. It is going to be a long road, but the people you question will likely be marginalized as their forebears that think the fact that they were addicted to heroin in the 70s somehow excuses their 2024 behavior. It won’t be pretty, but it is necessary. A 50 year-old with a ‘comfort’ animal is not something any of us should aspire to.
A trend that I find quite disconcerting is the choice of young healthy straight adults to not have children. Sure you can fill your vapid lives with cute puppies but you will need someone when yo enter your 60s+ and there will be no one – no children, grandchildren; nothing to connect to the world other than a job that will not last much longer. What fools feminists have been and how they have trashed the traditional family that has always been the glue that held all societies together. I could not take someone seriously who display the certain indicators of an attachment to the unreal such as odd colored hair, body piercings/tats, unawareness of social minimal graces, and mostly; a lack of character with regard to cultural norms that have stood western cultures in good stead for millennia. I suppose it is my age that allows me to see what is happening through the lens of experience and historical perspective but I do not see smooth sailing just yet – the well has been poisoned.
I suppose it is my age that allows me to see what is happening through the lens of experience and historical perspective but I do not see smooth sailing just yet – the well has been poisoned.
🎯
I have told STEM graduate / MD students / physicians in their 30/40s that if they do not get married and have children, they will find themselves discarded to a nursing home or euthanized by the state when they reach a mature age. The look on their faces: horror.
They don’t think about societal norms that have carried the human race, reflecting a very low emotional IQ. Their parents were failures at producing vibrant offspring.
Excellent comment esp the “vapid lives with cute puppies” bit
Well said. Children are tough but they make you a better person and it gives you a vote on where the future will go. Otherwise when you are dead, you’re just another monument or headstone to trip over.
“As long as there were 40+% who still support the prog/woke/left and will cast their votes for the likes of Adam Schiff and Elizabeth Warren we are not a healed nor safe nation yet.”
If Trump can return us to some strong semblance of the Republic the Founders designed (meaning divesting FedGov of ALL of its unconstitutional powers and responsibilities), then states like California and Massachusetts could go their own way, including committing financial and societal suicide if that is what their population wishes and votes for, without destroying the rest of us. Under those circumstances, it should be a largely self-resolving problem.
Hi Jon,
Obviously, President-Elect Trump will dismiss Smith for this case or outright pardon himself. He will also likely pardon all of the previously convicted January 6 rioters/insurrectionists. He has the legal capacity to do all three. With that being said, Smith’s case against Trump is quite strong regarding January 6 and the collusion surrounding the attempt to modify an obviously free and fair election in 2020. Additionally, all of the convicted January 6 defendants were found guilty by juries of their peers. Your point surrounding the NY cases has serious merit. It does not quite have the same strength of argument surrounding the much more serious charges. Finally, a political election does not simply free anyone in this nation from previously unlawful actions. The nation needs to see a proper trial for such actions. Indeed, in all fairness to the new president, he deserves to have his day in court also.
I will be happy to agree with you if hillary, hunter, pelosi, et al are also so closely prosecuted for their alleged crimes – otherwise it remains the farce that it is
Should Obama, Hillary et al. be prosecuted for conducting their coup d’etat in America against President Trump beginning in 2016?
Jeff tried this: With that being said, Smith’s case against Trump is quite strong regarding January 6 and the collusion surrounding the attempt to modify an obviously free and fair election in 2020.
REALLY???? Jeff, you don’t notice that Smith’s “quite strong case” is almost a carbon copy of his 2012 election indictment and prosecution of Obama/Biden’s most feared reelection GOP nominee, Governor Bob McDonnell? That he prosecuted against that feared opponent as a member of the Obama/Biden DoJ?
You remember that prosecution Jeff? The one that when it finally got to SCOTUS after Obama/Biden were safely elected, SCOTUS promptly threw it out in a rare unanimous decision? Remember how SCOTUS said Jack Smith both changed the meaning of settled law while adding new law of his own? Both during his presentations to the Grand Jury to win the indictments and then to the jury that heard the case? That they named him a “threat to our separation of powers”?
So why would the Soviet Democrat police state fascists you voted for, including last night, hope to sell normal Americans that Jack Smith is the embodiment of a Special Counsel: an unbiased, impartial prosecutor with absolutely no ties to the current DoJ and an impeccable record during his time as a prosecutor working under Obama/Biden?
(you do know that his partner in the Governor McDonnell indictment, conviction is now Biden’s Deputy Attorney General, don’t you?)
Convince the audience that Jack Smith is actually what you’d want for an impartial, fair, unbiased, and unconnected Special Counsel if they decide to prosecute the Bidens and every single Democrat engaged in your party’s “Trump Russia Dossier” if they could find a Republican prosecutor who worked within the Trump DoJ who had a record of political prosecutions like Jack Smith.
The nation needs to see a proper trial for such actions. Indeed, in all fairness to the new president, he deserves to have his day in court also.
In all fairness Jeff, you’ve had EIGHT YEARS to demand that former president Obama, vice president Biden, Clinton and every single Obama Attorney General, FBI Director and agent who perjured themselves to FISA judges deserve to have their day in court.
And then there’s the years of Biden bribery, money laundering, and influence peddling whose participants deserve the fairness of being indicted and tried in fair trials.
You know, so the nation can see those proper trials for such actions.
You’re a two faced fraud, Jeff. Time to run away now.
Jury Pools also have a great deal to do with indictments and trial results.
I’m sure the INNOCENT O.J Simpson continued to look for his ex-wife’s murderer on every golf course in America and he finally ended up in Prison anyway (different crime). I note that the only place Trump got reasonable courts were in south Florida. Certainly no real Justice in D.C., Fulton County, or Manhattan.
You need to try selling that manure at the next farm down the road. There are no buyers here.
* OH yes, don’t ever forget the 8 years of unending persecution , attempted assassination… these aren’t people to toy with. It’s not a game is it , Mrs. Nungaray.
Omg, poor peanut 😢
Can you write a column without referring to your book? It is getting stale.
“Can you write a column without referring to your book? It is getting stale.”
Free columns without a paywall; a comments section that doesn’t even require you to create a Usename. No amount of free stuff given to commies will ever be enough.
I have a solution: Don’t let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya when you head out the door to never come back.
The US electorate is the ultimate jury. They’ve heard the accusations, arguments and seen the “evidence” both against Trump and, ironically, against the legal system. They have rendered their verdict.
All of the state cases will have to be decided at the appellate kevel. Too much hubris on the part of the judges and prosecutors.
Somewhere in squirrel heaven, Peanut (“P’nut”) the squirrel smiles.
<<…and a goat named Cedar.
https://nypost.com/2024/11/05/us-news/calif-girl-wins-300k-settlement-from-police-who-seized-slaughtered-goat/
Even I didn't realize how out of control these little yocal governments have become. So we provide the government officials with weapons of war to fight criminals and terrorists, and they use them to engage in combat and recon ops against American children to kidnap and kill their pets?!?
At least the kid (owner), in this case settled for 300K (of Californians tax payer dollars wasted by their incompetent state government officials), not to mention what it cost to have the California cops run around on 500 mile trips to try and find the goat. And someone belly aches because Trump has an idea (whether or not he could ever get it past the buffoon's on Capitol Hill), to replace income tax with tariffs. That got my vote right there.
This is how our tax money (confiscated income), is put to use, to run roughshod over children and kill their pets (speaking of children, also wasting our tax dollars in losing track of over 300k children they illegally smuggled across the Southern border). How ever many may still be left alive, somewhere.
But no, let's just let them be lost and unaccounted for in violation of Federal Law, (no one's above the law – what a joke), while we waste tax dollars on hunting down squirrels and goats.
“how out of control these little yocal governments have become.”
There are a lot of wannabe tin pot dictators / penny ante neocons out here at that level. Nothing new or novel about that. Provide same with an unneeded arsenal, as was the case for the “War on Drugs” that segued into the “War on Terror”, and I guarantee the power-mad will eventually use it for *something*, and that almost certainly won’t be anything good.