Finally finished reading Special Prosecutor Jack Smith’s 165-page well-deserved and sublimely executed pushback to the atrocity wrought by SCOTUS known as U.S. v. Trump. In what’s referred to as the October 2 immunity brief but is officially called the Government’s Motion for Immunity Determinations, DOJ pulls no punches with eviscerating language and brutal brevity.
To wit, the second sentence of this brief simply states, “Not so.” This in response to the absurd claim perpetuated by six SCOTUS justices that the defendant—otherwise known as Donald Trump, former felonious president—was somehow engaging in “official conduct” and therefore had presidential immunity when he attempted to overthrow our democracy with a violent insurrection on January 6, 2021.
“In Trump v. U.S.,” the brief states, “The Supreme Court held that presidents are immune from prosecution for official conduct— including the defendant’s use of the Justice Department to further his scheme, as was alleged in the original indictment—and remanded to this Court to determine whether remaining allegations against the defendant are immunized. The answer to that question is no.”
Dismissive simplicity lobbed at judicial simpletons masquerading as defenders and interpreters of the Constitution, as well as scintillating use of the word scheme, quickly repeated when stating that, despite the defendant being the incumbent president at the time, “his scheme was fundamentally a private one.” Delicious. Do you think maybe those seditious SCOTUS six might just know well what a scheme is?
I could almost hear the searing snark as I read, “This motion provides the framework for conducting the ‘necessarily fact bound’ immunity analysis required by the Court.”
It remains appallingly abhorrent that Jack Smith has to walk the bleeping Supreme Court, no less, through the basics of the Constitution—and constitutional law. To wit, he has to repeatedly explain how “the Executive Branch has no role in the certification proceeding—and indeed the President was purposely excluded from it by design.” That role is reserved for the Vice President per official responsibilities of the President of the Senate, Smith schooled.
The immunity brief therefore lays out in devastating detail the distinction between an “office-seeker,” for whom no presidential immunity attaches, versus “an office-holder.” There are several reasons this is a lengthy document, including a resuscitation of the defendant’s detailed actions taken to illegally screw with votes in seven states, among them Nevada. So bear with me for a moment as I, a Nevada voter, offer choice, clear, and pleasingly pugilistic excerpts of that:
“When the defendant lost the 2020 presidential election, he resorted to crimes to try to stay in office. With private co-conspirators, the defendant launched a series of increasingly desperate plans to overturn the legitimate election results in seven states that he had lost—Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin (the target states).”
“The throughline of these efforts was deceit: the defendant’s and co-conspirators’ knowingly false claims of [election] fraud.”
“The defendant and his co-conspirators also demonstrated their deliberate disregard for the truth—and thus their knowledge of falsity—when they repeatedly changed the numbers in their baseless fraud allegations from day to day. At trial, the Government will introduce several instances in this pattern, in which the defendant and his co-conspirators’ lies were proved by the fact that they made up figures from whole cloth.”
“As President, the defendant had no official responsibilities related to the States’ administration of the election or the appointment of their electors, and instead contacted state officials in his capacity as a candidate. Tellingly, the defendant contacted only state officials who were in his political party and were his political supporters, and only in states where he had lost.”
Some additional tidbits:
“The defendant personally set the fraudulent elector plan in motion in early December.”
“…defendant’s steady stream of disinformation.” Gotta love the alliteration, along with, “private, partisan electioneering.”
“The defendant used these lies to inflame and motivate the large and angry crowd of his supporters to march to the Capitol and disrupt the certification proceeding.”
“The defendant sought to encroach on powers specifically assigned by the Constitution to other branches, to advance his own self-interest and perpetuate himself in power, contrary to the will of the people.”
The entirety of this brief amounts to Jack Smith literally having to explain the obvious, wherein criminalizing private actions taken by Trump doesn’t interfere with or affect a president’s execution of official duties. All because six SCOTUS justices decided to pretend that the real issue and concern was chilling the president from possibly committing crimes amongst those executed as official duties:
“The Executive Branch has no authority or function to choose the next President. To the contrary, the Constitution provides that the States will appoint electors to vote for the President and the Vice President.”
“When it comes to the certification proceeding specifically, not only has the President been deliberately excluded from the process, but the Vice President’s role, as President of the Senate, is highly circumscribed and ministerial in nature. The Twelfth Amendment gives the President of the Senate no substantive role in determining how to count the votes of electors appointed by the States.”
Do you think maybe SCOTUS already knows this despite the MAGA six’s smarmy attempt at subterfuge and sabotage— which in fact fooled no one who has taken a basic civics class, much less attended law school? You know what else they surely knew? That, “Defendant’s interactions with Pence as a running mate were unofficial.”
Before I move on to the meaty social media bits of this brief, a sidebar regarding the targeted states and the TV show Scandal I blogged about last week. Because there does appear to be an uncanny connection, though surprisingly no one has mentioned it in the media or elsewhere.
As the brief reiterates, “Throughout the post-election-period, the defendant and co-conspirators repeatedly made claims about the security and accuracy of voting machines across multiple states, despite the fact that they were on notice that the claims were false.”
My hunch is that they were also keenly on notice of the fictionalized Scandal plotline wherein Republicans rigged voting machines in an Ohio county and later aimed to do the same in California. Perhaps Rudy G and his contemptuous thugs thought it’d be a hoot to accuse Democrats of that in real life, but in no way can you convince me that their idea was original. The timing alone in term of the TV series seasons’ airing is quite telling.
Despite no mention of Scandal the TV show in this brief that lays out many political criminal scandals, DOJ does note how the Defendant mocked Sidney Powell’s claims about Georgia fraud, calling them “crazy” and referencing the Star Trek sci fi series. But my personal favorite is its mention of how Michigan officials deemed voting machine fraud claims to be “fucking nuts.”
The hardest part of this brief to read, which I admit I rapidly skimmed, was the reiteration of exactly what happened on January 6, and how and why, beginning with the rally at the Ellipse dubbed the “Save America Rally” by MAGA manipulators. I took particular note, however, of references to Nevada, where the fucking nuts claims were about dead voters and fraud via signature matching machines:
“In his Ellipse speech on January 6, the defendant repeated multiple claims explicitly rejected by Nevada courts.” The brief notes how the Nevada Secretary of State’s office said, “…we have yet to see any evidence of widespread fraud…Four separate cases were heard by Nevada judges including the NV Supreme Court. After examining records presented, each case was discounted due to a lack of evidence.”
Ya think? Among ludicrous lies Trump touted about Nevada in that Jan 6 speech were signature verification machines were flawed, their accuracy settings purposely lowered, and also that 42,000 Nevadans had “double voted.” Would that be the dead or alive voters? Makes you wonder how many Republicans must have “double voted” in Nevada, given how every Trump and MAGA minion accusation is a projection—as in an admission of guilt.
In any event, Jack Smith’s brief offers extensive argument as to how the Jan 6 Ellipse speech was part of a political event, a campaign rally, and therefore not a function of a president’s official duties for which he might claim immunity. Notable points include:
“The Secret Service, which is charged with the President’s protection at all times, even during unofficial events, considered the rally to be a ‘campaign event.’”
“The rally was completely funded by a $2.1 million private donation by P65, a grocery chain heiress.”
Most telling, Trump didn’t enter the event to the official tune of Hail to the Chief played by a military band. Instead, he entered and exited to songs used throughout his campaign, including “God Bless the U.S.A.” and the Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.”
I confess I had a moment’s pause wondering if that last (decidedly gay-pride) song mention has ever made it into any other official legal briefs. I mean, really?
Jack Smith is nothing if not thorough. Which brings me to the final portion of this blog post, and the final portion of the immunity brief itself. Tweets. Yes, tweets as in Twitter. Yet another subject that is now front and center on the legal evidence scene. Something we surely couldn’t have fathomed twenty years ago, along with a president using this social media platform to engage in his official duties as well as private and vicious vitriol.
I couldn’t help but marvel at an official federal government legal brief with a section title of “Tweets.” Not to mention multiple subtitles, including: Tweets making claims of election fraud; Tweets, as candidate, casting doubt on election integrity; Tweets and re-Tweets attacking those speaking the truth about the election; Tweets regarding Pence’s role on January 6; and Tweets regarding defendant’s 2:24 p.m. Tweet on January 6.
I told you Jack Smith was thorough. Also, due to so many references to Twitter and tweets, one wonders if perhaps that’s why Elon Musk felt the kneejerk need to change the name after he bought the platform so he could continue, and continue to perpetuate, Trump’s dirty work.
Indeed, the immunity brief contains page after page of damning and derisive tweets by the former president to be used as direct evidence against Trump at trial. Such sweet justice his toxic tweets will now bring, where they once brought annoyance, outrage, and alarming disgust to those of us using (and still calling it) Twitter.
Tweets with every typo, every excessive use of all-caps, and every ridiculous capitalization of random words appear in this brief, just as they will as evidence at trial. As Jack Smith stated:
“Simply because a Tweet relates to a matter of public concern does not automatically transform it into an official communication” deserving of immunity.
“The private and Campaign nature of the Tweets is further confirmed when viewed in the context of the defendant’s increasing desperation as even his unlawful path to remain in power narrowed.”
“That Tweet showed that the defendant understood that his gathering supporters, who were angry and believed his false claims that the election had been stolen, were a powder keg.”
“He used his Twitter account to undermine public confidence in the electoral system, spread false claims of election fraud, attack those speaking the truth that the defendant had lost the election, exhort supporters to travel to Washington for the certification proceeding, and marshal his supporters’ anger at, and pressure on, Pence.”
My only beef might be Jack Smith’s use of a too-polite euphemism, “pressure campaign,” to refer to defendant Trump’s relentless bullying and threatening of his vice president. The amount of which continues to be shocking in its damning detail, as shown in this brief.
No doubt there is so much more to be revealed at trial. Bottom line? “The Supreme Court required that its rebuttal analysis focus on Executive Branch authority and functions—not merely on anything that the President might say or do while at the White House.”
Chief Justice Roberts and his corrupt cohorts have egg on their face. They asked for it. Jack Smith delivered with precision. Quite frankly, they look stupid. And they so deserve the comeuppance for their utter erosion of confidence in the rule of law.