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“The mob takes the Fifth. If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?”
President
Donald J. Trump, at a rally, September 2017
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1/20/22: Today, we mark the anniversary of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s rise to the presidency of the United States. To say that not everything has gone as well we who supported him might have wished is simply fact. Inflation is a problem. The coronavirus won’t go way – even though his predecessor claimed it would as soon as he left office. Remember? Trump said the free press was just trying to talk about it all the time and make him look bad, and really COVID was just the flu.
Still, you can argue that Mr. Biden’s
first year in office has been a smashing success. He has cured the body politic
of that painful political hemorrhoid known as Rejected-President Donald J.
Trump.
 |
Justice Clarence Thomas. |
Consider a spate of recent developments on the investigatory front. First, the House Select Committee looking into events surrounding the January 6, 2021, attack, has won access to Trump’s presidential records related to that day. (The U.S. Supreme Court just turned back his request to block release, on an 8-1 vote, with Justice Clarence Thomas alone backing Loser Don.) Wednesday, the court cleared the way for the National Archives to start releasing documents. Within hours, investigators were getting hundreds of pages of material to help understand just what occurred in the days leading up to that attack, and on January 6 itself.
Justice Thomas likely should have recused himself. His wife Ginni helped organize busloads of protesters to show up in Washington D.C. on the day of the riot.
That much is legal.
It may be that she had a role
in planning what became a riot, at best, an insurrection, at worst. She may be innocent
of wrongdoing. Her husband should have recused himself. We do know that recently,
when eleven Oath Keepers were charged with seditious conspiracy, that Mrs.
Thomas decided to add her signature to a letter blasting the Select Committee. According
to that letter, she and the other signatories believe the defendants “have done
nothing wrong.” (See: 1/12/22.)
*
WE ALSO KNOW that in New York, investigators say they have “significant evidence” of fraud carried out by the Trump Organization and assorted individuals associated with its operation. It is alleged, for example, that officials and members of the Trump family agreed to overstate the value of lands donated in New York and California to justify millions in unmerited tax deductions. It is also alleged that in an effort to trick banks into providing favorable loans, the Organization claimed that Donald Trump’s penthouse in New York was three times larger than it was. That made it appear to be an asset worth $200 million. Sort of a precursor to claims like, “My inaugural crowd was the biggest crowd ever,” and, “I had a bazillion more votes in the last election than ‘Sleepy’ Joe Biden.”
Rejected-President Trump has
naturally labeled this investigation, and every other, a “witch hunt.” The
reality, however, is plain. If you go to a witches’ coven that’s where you find
the witches.
By now we know Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, plead guilty to eight felonies and went to prison. We know Trump was listed in Cohen’s indictment as “Individual 1.” Had he not been president at the time, he assuredly would have been charged.
We further note that Mr. Cohen testified under oath before Congress and said that his old boss had been cheating on his taxes. As Cohen explained to reporters, Trump’s “biggest fear is … he will end up with a massive tax bill, fraud penalties, fines, and possibly even [a felony for] tax fraud.”
We also know that Andrew
Weisselberg, former chief financial officer for the Trump Organization, has been indicted for fraud.
And for pure fun, according to Letitia James, the Attorney General for the State of New York, when Eric Trump sat for six hours to give testimony before a grand jury, regarding the actions of the Trump Organization, he invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 500 times.
That couldn’t have looked more suspicious, if Eric had worn a pointed hat to court and arrived riding a broom.
In any case, that may be an all-time family record for taking the Fifth. He certainly smashed the previous record, when his dad took the Fifth 97 times during a divorce hearing.
Sadly, Eric seems to have tied Weisselberg, who also plead the Fifth more than 500 times during grand jury testimony.
As for Eric’s
father, Loser Donald, the former-president-who-once-said-he-could-pardon- himself
is apparently suffering from Alzheimer’s. Hearing that Don Jr. and Ivanka might
soon be called to testify in assorted legal settings, dad began
to howl.
“It's
a very unfair situation for my children. Very, very unfair,” he told
the Washington Examiner in an interview for an
op-ed published Friday.
“It’s
a disgrace, what’s going on. They’re using these things to try and get people’s
minds off how incompetently our country is being run. And they don’t care. They’ll
go after children,” he said.
This is quite ironic if we scratch our heads a moment and remember all the times President Trump wanted his attorney general to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Hunter Biden, make sure he got arrested, and tarred and feathered just for the fun. This is why we have grand juries – which will be explained in the next section.
Hunter Biden was fifty when Trump wanted to see him run through a legal ringer. Donald Trump Jr. is apparently still a “child” at 44. Ivanka is a “child” at 40, and Eric is a “child” at age 38.
Democrats aren’t going after
Trump’s children. Tiffany isn’t charged because she’s not under a cloud of
suspicion.
*
FINALLY, the most dangerous case that may be filed is still brewing in Georgia. On the one-year anniversary of the blessed removal of Mr. Trump from the White House, Fani T. Willis, district attorney for Fulton County, Georgia, has asked a judge to convene a special grand jury.
Purpose: to gather evidence regarding then-President Donald J. Trump’s call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, bluntly asking him to “find” enough votes to change Biden’s win in that state to a loss, so Don could get his grubby mitts on Georgia’s sixteen electoral votes. (See: 1/3/21.)
We at this blog – namely, me, myself, and I – understand the law. For example, when a person pleads the Fifth, a jury is rightly instructed not to consider that in any respect as admission of guilt.
Eric Trump? Could be innocent.
Weisselberg? Him too.
Having said that, I’ve listened to the phone call Trump made to Raffensperger. If it doesn’t open him up to a charge of conspiracy to commit voter fraud, I don’t know what it would take.
If you’re a decent American, who cares about free elections, you need to listen to that call. Here’s how it should always work. If you can catch and convict President Biden of some crime – then out he should go. If he doesn’t start performing up to your standards, help vote him out. Put any Republican, who is moderately honest, in the White House in 2024, if you can.
But don’t fall for idiotic claims by Trump and his allies. It was they who tried to steal “back” an election that had never been stolen at all.
The Washington Post offers both a recording and a transcript of the call. Don’t be ignorant , and label it, reflexively, “Fake News.”
Four ballots were cast by persons deceased.
Trump doesn’t claim he didn’t make the call. He did make it. He’s simply delusional enough to argue that the call was “perfect.”
In a statement following news that there might be a special grand jury impaneled, Loser Donald responded in a statement:
My phone call to the Secretary of State of Georgia was perfect, perhaps
even more so than my call with the Ukrainian President, if that’s
possible. I knew there were large numbers of people on the line, including
numerous lawyers for both sides. Although I assumed the call may have been
inappropriately, and perhaps illegally, recorded, I was not informed of that. I
didn’t say anything wrong in the call, made while I was President on behalf of
the United States of America, to look into the massive voter fraud which took
place in Georgia.
So, let’s recap. Voter fraud found so far in Georgia. Three recounts. No significant fraud which would overturn results. More recently, a specific check of 5,000 dead people who supposedly voted was conducted. Result: four ballots were cast by deceased individuals – including at least one for Donald J. Trump.
Asked about the call, itself,
Secretary of State Raffensperger writes
that he felt he was being “threatened.”
That brings us, for today, to a good stopping place. A regular grand jury is often presented with several cases to consider. The purpose is to ensure that prosecutors are not overzealous in filing charges, for example, to harass individuals that may have annoyed government officials. A grand jury listens to evidence presented by prosecutors. No defense is offered. If jurors believe the case is strong enough to merit prosecution, they vote accordingly. In Georgia, a grand jury is composed of 23 persons. Only 12 need vote in favor for the case to go forward.
In this matter, District Attorney Willis is asking for a special grand jury, which is standard when cases are complex. If the judge allows, jurors would hear evidence related to only this case.
Interestingly enough, in Georgia, 90% of grand juries vote to indict. Across the U.S. the average is 95%.
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