Ya Got Trouble right here in the GOP
The Trump crime spree appears to be near an end. Fresh news came in the past 2 days on these three cases…. and more.
There’s not one Georgia phone call that Trump made in pursuit of votes trying to thieve it away from Georgia voters. He called the Georgia Governor, its Secretary of State, the Georgia House Speaker and Frances Watson, (the chief investigator at the Georgia secretary of state’s office) at least. The evidence in the Fulton County prosecution is going to be insurmountable by his defense attorneys. The jury recommended indictments of more than a dozen people.
Special prosecutor Jack Smith yesterday issued more than 2 dozen subpoenas in the stolen documents case, both to members of the strange ex-president’s inner circle and numerous Mar-A-Lago employees.
The NY prosecution regarding the hush money paid to Stormy Daniels is likely the least of his legal perils. But an indictment there and in Georgia should be expected within 7 weeks and as early as next week, based on legal expert estimates.
DOJ’s Jack Smith is seeking info through a minimum of at least 8 courts where the info is sealed, so it’s currently unavailable to the press. The E. Jean Carroll rape defamation case is scheduled to begin April 17 in New York, kicking off Prosecution Season. More from NY, DC, FL and GA should quickly follow, all before Independence Day.
The Florida legislature recesses after the first week of May so Governor Desantis should be hitting the campaign trail in earnest by mid-May. As the DOJ historically tries to avoid actions against political figures after Labor Day in presidential election years, any indictment by June 30 this year provides a 14 month window for trials and subsequent appeals but as the last court of appeal, the SCOTUS, recesses after June 2024, that narrows the window to a year. That campaign schedule and SCOTUS schedule likely will drive the timing of Jack Smith’s actions, along with the scheduled state court cases that are anticipated before the DOJ actions.
On Wednesday, Steve Bannon’s Chinese buddy ran into trouble as well.
After the indictment and while FBI agents were searching Kwok’s NY penthouse, a mysterious fire broke out there too. Kwok’s also previously played host to Flynn, Lindell and Giuliani and has been involved in the multi-year effort to implicate Hunter Biden in some sort of crime that has never been borne out by that stuff known as ‘evidence’.
On top of all that, it was also revealed two days ago that Trump Media, the parent company of Truth Social, is now under investigation for money laundering in connection to two payments made to it. Entities reportedly controlled by allies of Vladimir Putin made two payments totalling $8 million.
Truth Social is the site Trump launched after getting banned from Twitter due to his efforts to steal the 2020 election. On this latest news, the stock price plummeted from its already declining trend and Trump Media now looks to be the next in the long line of Trump’s bankrupted businesses.A review of his chief competitor - the Florida governor - is also required. Yesterday he called Russia’s War on Ukraine a ‘territorial dispute’ that wasn’t vital to US national interests. It’s the latest evidence that he also remains unfit to be POTUS. Russian fighter jets have been taking more aggressive actions with US aircraft recently, with the attack on a drone in international airspace near Crimea, and others in Syria.
Ukraine’s government invited DeSantis to visit Ukraine in response. Containing Russian aggression and Chinese aggression are certainly in US national interests, despite the obvious risks that would come if direct conflict occurs. Signalling appeasement at this point increases the odds that Russia will expand its aggression to other European nations and would also encourage China with its desire to control Taiwan.
A fresh peril now exists in the Middle East, as well, since Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu is trying to dissolve Israel’s judiciary to end his own prosecution on several charges. Many Israelis are considering departing that country if its democratic government is replaced by a Netanyahu dictatorship.
(Why do I keep hearing Robert Preston singing ‘Ya got trouble right here in River City’ ?)
As for the governor’s domestic policies, he’s being stymied there as well, with this news yesterday.
The initial injunction was created by US District Judge Mark Walker who said the anti-woke law is “positively dystopian.” It’s pretty easy to see why.
If a teacher is simply teaching history, how can the teacher be held accountable for the feelings of the students? No teacher can control that. Sure, if a teacher was in attack mode, directly blaming a student or student’s family for some heinous act, that could be a problem, but I’m not aware of any teacher anywhere in the US doing that. The legislative act is a solution in search of a non-existent problem.
And so is DeSantis, who claims epidemiologists, Mickey Mouse and drag queens are public menaces but Vladimir Putin isn’t.
A growing number of Florida parents feel overwhelmed by the governor’s efforts to demonize parents and educators.
The GOP has trouble if Trump and DeSantis are the best they’ve got.
Re: the late GA Speaker:
"In February 2019, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and WSB-TV reported that Ralston regularly used his position as speaker to benefit his Blue Ridge-based private law practice.[15] A 1905 state law (O.C.G.A. § 17-8-26)[16] requires judges and prosecutors to defer to the schedules of any member of the general assembly who is also a practicing lawyer, and as speaker, Ralston was able to claim scheduling conflicts any time of year. By delaying court cases in this manner, Ralston was able to keep his clients free on bond for months or even years, while weakening court cases over time by letting memories fade and evidence expire. Some of Ralston's clients retained him specifically for these reasons.[17]
Journalists found that over the course of 21 cases, Ralston requested delays 57 times, and that on 76 of the 93 conflicting days, the legislature was not in session; he would commonly delay individual cases over a dozen times each. Charges against Ralston's clients who benefited from this include drunk driving, child molestation, and assault.[18]
In April 2019, an independent researcher reviewed Ralston's court cases across eight counties and found that from 2010 through 2019, Ralston delayed 226 cases a total of 966 times. Multiple attorneys wrote formal complaints to various judges regarding Ralston's delays. In response, Ralston said that the researcher "does not understand the legal system or the criminal justice system... [and] didn't have anything critical to say about my performance as speaker."[19]
The original law allowing this was amended over a century later in 2006 by SB 503. Previously, the law allowed representatives to delay court hearings only during the legislative session and for the following three weeks. A committee was formed to reconcile differences between the house and senate versions of SB 503, and Ralston himself was named a member. His exact role in crafting the current law's language is unknown.[20]
Little to no pushback from judges has been found. Ralston had been known to seek revenge on political opponents and, as speaker, controlled two seats on the investigative panel of the state judicial qualifications commission. Further, the Georgia legislature made itself exempt from the Georgia Open Records Act. Georgia House Speaker."https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ralston
David Ralston (R-Blue Ridge) was a dirtbag of the highest order:
HIs wiki is...restrained. I know people he has hurt with his abuse of the law; and his dying of a painful but undisclosed ailment over some years, days after reelection by the useful idiots of Fannin, Gilmer, and Pickens Co, is not commensurate with the pain he caused. And he faced no meaningful sanction.
But he was a pragmatist: he managed to keep the worst of the TEAParty/MAGA and Religious Right legislation at bay as "bad for business". The new GAGOP House leadership is not, so much.
And his response to Agent Orange was pretty much shutting the Churl down: saying he'd do what he could for tRump, meaning he wasn't going out of his way. tRump had in effect lost Georgia for the GOP
by repeatedly demeaning the expensive new voting system (that is, due to US Dist. Court Judge Amy Totenberg's supervision...where have I heard that name?) that was transparent, and had a paper audit system, and left no scope for Sec. o'State Raffensperger to pull the requested ~11,700 votes out of his ass.
Trump depressed his own votes, by repeatedly insisting it was already rigged, and was crapping on the runoffs that elected Warnock and Ossoff. Herschel was in some way tRump's revenge...
That said, Ralston also knew the GA Lege's schedule/calendar is pretty much set in stone, and that Gov. Kemp, disgusted w/tRump's idiocy (and no one calls him "Brain Kemp") was not going to take the extraordinary effort to call a Special Session.
Dying was the best thing he's done for Blue Ridge in some time, even if a MAGA idiot is replacing him.