{"id":36679,"date":"2024-10-04T10:23:02","date_gmt":"2024-10-04T17:23:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=36679"},"modified":"2024-10-04T10:23:02","modified_gmt":"2024-10-04T17:23:02","slug":"jack-smiths-october-surprise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2024\/10\/04\/jack-smiths-october-surprise\/","title":{"rendered":"Jack Smith’s October Surprise"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

04 october 24<\/a><\/strong><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Austin Sarat\/Salon<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"JackJack Smith\u2019s latest filing in the election interference case against Donald Trump contains explosive reminders and bombshell revelations about the former president\u2019s conduct following his 2020 election loss. (photo: Getty)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

03 october 24<\/strong> (RSN.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Smith\u2019s filing comes at a crucial time, weeks before Election Day<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Jack Smith\u2019s latest filing <\/a>in the election interference case against Donald Trump<\/a> contains explosive reminders and bombshell revelations about the former president\u2019s conduct following his 2020 election <\/a>loss that would have made even Niccolo Machiavelli<\/a> blush. In his famous 16th-century book “The Prince<\/a>,” Machiavelli lays out an ultra-pragmatic, no-holds-barred account of how to succeed in politics. Reading it, like Smith\u2019s 165-page response to Trump\u2019s claim of presidential immunity, is not for the faint at heart. Smith, like Machiavelli, pulled no punches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smith has exposed the truth of what Trump did and, in so doing, punches holes in Trump\u2019s deceptions and delusions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA man who wishes to make a profession of goodness in everything must necessarily come to grief among so many who are not good,\u201d Machiavelli cautioned his readers. \u201cHence it is necessary for a prince wishing to maintain his position to know how to do wrong, and to make use of it or not according to necessity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smith\u2019s filing suggests that Trump surely knew \u201chow to do wrong\u201d in his quest to \u201cmaintain his power\u201d despite a democratic decision to oust him from the Oval Office. As Smith puts it in simple straightforward prose, Trump \u201cresorted to crimes to cling to power.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coming one day after the vice presidential debate, the filing is a devastating rebuttal of Republican Sen. JD Vance\u2019s<\/a> Orwellian effort to turn the horrible and violent events of January 6<\/a> into just another step in the peaceful transfer of power. \u201cOn January the 20th, what happened?\u201d Vance said during the debate in an effort to push past the violent Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. \u201cJoe Biden became the president. Donald Trump left the White House.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This accounting was, as the New York Times observes<\/a>, \u201cshort a few details \u2014 the violence, the deaths and injuries, the alleged criminal scheming, the \u2018Hang Mike Pence\u2019 of it all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whatever else it is, Smith\u2019s filing is not short on details. As a result, it makes an important contribution to our collective understanding of how close we came to losing our democracy and of Trump\u2019s central role in the coordinated efforts carried out by the sycophants, courtiers, and corrupt lawyers who did his bidding. Reading it is like returning to the scene of a disaster. We are invited to relive the trauma. Sometimes that is what being a citizen in a democracy demands \u2014especially so in the age of Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It turns out that being such a citizen also is not for the faint at heart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smith\u2019s filing follows on the monumental report of the January 6 Committee<\/a>, Smith\u2019s August 2023 indictment of Trump for his role in January 6<\/a> and the superseding indictment<\/a> handed down one year later. His latest filing is the work of a wizard of legal craftsmanship. Smith carefully weaves his way through the intricacies of the Supreme Court\u2019s infamous decision about presidential immunity<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That decision seemed<\/a> at the time it was handed down like a get-out-of-jail-free card for Donald Trump. But despair not. What the Supreme Court giveth, Jack Smith could take away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To those who thought that the immunity decision would leave Smith nothing to prosecute, his new filing asks in essence \u201cWhat can be retained?\u201d The answer: Just about everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the filing states, \u201cThe defendant asserts that he is immune from prosecution for his criminal scheme to overturn the 2020 presidential election because, he claims, it entailed official conduct.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNot so,\u201d Smith insists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAlthough the defendant was the incumbent President during the charged conspiracies,\u201d Smith explains, \u201chis scheme was fundamentally a private one. Working with a team of private co-conspirators, the defendant acted as a candidate when he pursued multiple criminal means to disrupt, through fraud and deceit, the government function by which votes are collected and counted \u2014 a function in which the defendant, as President, had no official role.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Donald Trump, don\u2019t rest easy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smith makes clear that the charges, which could very well land Trump in jail, are not going away. He reveals powerful evidence to show \u201cthe defendant\u2019s and co-conspirators\u2019 knowingly false claims of election fraud.\u201d He claims that \u201cThey used these lies in furtherance of\u2026 a conspiracy against the rights of millions of Americans to vote and have their votes counted.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then delivering a body blow to Trump\u2019s immunity claim, Smith asserts, \u201cAt its core, the defendant\u2019s scheme was a private criminal effort. In his capacity as a candidate, the defendant used deceit to target every stage of the electoral process\u2026 \u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Smith details that scheme, he offers gems on almost every page. Let me note a few highlights, starting with what we learn about former Vice President Mike Pence\u2019s grand jury testimony. Pence seems to have mounted a campaign to flatter and cajole Trump into giving up on his lies about the 2020 election and accepting defeat. On page 13 of the filing, Smith recounts the steps that Pence took.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At a \u201cprivate lunch on November 12\u2026.Pence reiterated a face-saving option for the defendant: \u201cdon\u2019t concede but recognize the process is over.\u201d Four days later, Smith notes, \u201cPence tried to encourage the defendant to accept the results of the election and run again in 2024, to which the defendant responded, \u2018I don\u2019t know, 2024 is so far off.\u201d\u2019 Not to be deterred, Pence tried again on December 21, when he \u201c\u2018encouraged\u2019 the defendant \u2018not to look at the election \u2018as a loss \u2014 just an intermission.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Trump turned the Machiavellian tables on Pence. As Machiavelli warned, the ruler must not be taken in by flatterers. And this time, Trump was not taken in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe defendant disregarded,\u201d Smith says, \u201cPence in the same way that he disregarded dozens of court decisions that unanimously rejected his and his allies\u2019 legal claims, and that he disregarded officials in the targeted states\u2014including those in his own party\u2014who stated publicly that he had lost and that his specific fraud allegations were false.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On January 6, when Trump learned from an aide that Pence had to be hustled to a secure location in the Capitol as the mob he dispatched chanted \u201cHang Mike Pence,\u201d the former president showed his callous ruthlessness when he responded, \u201cSo what?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shocking, but not surprising. Machiavelli would be smiling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smith arrays these facts in a narrative driven by the need to convince Federal District Court Judge Tanya Chutkin that what Trump did was not done in his capacity as president, but rather as a candidate for office. Smith contends, after scrupulously parsing the Supreme Court\u2019s immunity decision, that Trump\u2019s conduct \u201cwas not official, and, in the alternative, that the Government has rebutted any presumptive immunity for any of the remaining conduct that the Court finds to be official.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whatever Chutkin ultimately decides, Smith\u2019s filing comes at a crucial time, with little more than a month before Election Day. It should help Americans decide whether to trust their fate to Machiavelli\u2019s disciple, this time seemingly unleashed by the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

04 october 24 Austin Sarat\/Salon Jack Smith\u2019s latest filing in the election interference case against Donald Trump contains explosive reminders and bombshell revelations about the former president\u2019s conduct following his 2020 election loss. (photo: Getty) 03 october 24 (RSN.org) Smith\u2019s filing comes at a crucial time, weeks before Election Day… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36679"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36679"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36680,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36679\/revisions\/36680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}