Yet Another Indictment for Non-Crimes

We have a scripture reading schedule at church, and my husband and I do some daily reading to keep up. Thursday morning we happened to be on Acts 24, in which Paul is accused of sedition. Those bringing him before the authorities have no evidence to provide against him. They are prosecuting him mainly because of his beliefs, which differ from their own.

This was nearly 2000 years ago, but it looks an awful lot like current news headlines.

Fox News headline, but I got the screenshot from The Benny Show.

On Tuesday, law vlogger Robert Gouveia went through the indictment, reading major portions of it online, splashed with some of his commentary. [He’s been covering this every day. This is Wednesday’s, which was also good. You can get all the clips and sources he uses from his daily mind map, available on his website, RobertGouveia.com.] Most surprising, he points out, is that there is no charge for seditious conspiracy. There are members of the Proud Boys in prison right now, convicted of seditious conspiracy, who claim they were led by Donald Trump. But there’s no charge that Trump was conspiring with them or participating in any actual sedition.

Of course there’s the possibility that they’ll add that charge later in a superseding indictment. Nothing is past the government at this point.

But, in reading through what the charges actually are, it comes down to this: Trump was told by multiple people that the election was not stolen, and that his plan to have alternate electors considered was not legally sound. He therefore knew (had mens rea) that what he was saying about the election was not true, and that what he was asking for in the counting of electors couldn’t be done.

What the charging document fails to note is that there were also multiple people, including very respectable legal counsel, telling him what most readers here believe: there was enough wrong with the election to suspect, or even assume, it was stolen. And one reading of the Constitution—which has historic precedence, and which the Democrats have attempted multiple times this century—is that when a state’s slate of electors are challenged, Congress can go into discussions and consider the claims of both sides. (Side note: there was enough confusion about what the VP had the power to do that a 2022 law clarifies it—meaning there was plenty of ambiguity in 2020.)

The various legal counsel with that opinion are now being called co-conspirators in an attempt to defraud the United States.

Charlie Kirk, on his Wednesday, August 2, podcast, interviewed attorney John Eastman and asked him whether he could confirm speculation that he was one of the co-conspirators. John Eastman verifies:

Yeah, well, it’s— It doesn’t take much to go from speculation to confirmation. They quote unindicted co-conspirator number 2; they quote a number of public documents of mine that are in the public realm. So, anybody that spends half a minute looking at this stuff knows I’m co-conspirator number 2. My attorneys put out a statement to that effect last night. But I suppose it’s good news, from my point of view, that I’m an unindicted co-conspirator rather than an indicted conspirator. I look forward to maybe being called as a witness, to come to President Trump’s defense.

Because, getting legal advice about contested interpretations of constitutional provisions is not and never has been and never should be a criminal action.

The most important point here is that getting legal advice about contested interpretations of law must not ever be considered criminal. You can think one way or another about Trump and still want the actual rule of law—rather than lawfare—to prevail.

This is both ridiculous and extremely dangerous. Legal counsel isn’t required to be right or else be punished with prison. Legal counsel is to give a plaintiff advice about ways to present a case. It is about presenting ideas and opinions in what is intended to be an adversarial system. You eliminate any balance of the scales of justice, if one side arbitrarily gets to decide it is right—before trial—and anyone disagreeing is not only wrong but illegally subversive.

from Wikipedia

John Eastman goes on to describe what we might call lawfare:

What’s really going on here is an attempt to prevent people who are unpopular with the elites in our country from having competent legal representation—from having any representation at all. The effort by the 65 Project to go after every one of the attorneys that was involved in any of these election challenges—they make no bones about it. They specifically said, “Our goal here is not just to have them disbarred, but to make them toxic in their firms and in their communities so that right-wing legal talent will never take on these election challenges again.” Of course, if that’s succeeds, then it clears the path for complete manipulation of election processes without anyone willing or able to step up to challenge it in the courts.

It takes a certain personality to engage in lawfare. Prosecutor Jack Smith is one such example. In a podcast (“Jack Smith - A Psychological Analysis” August 2, 2023) Mr. Reagan (Christopher Kohls) might be on the verge of name calling. But he calls out prosecutor Jack Smith as a nerd—a cool-guy wannabe who hasn’t grown out of his awkwardness even well into middle age. Smith exaggerates, uses dramatic emphasis in his delivery, and in every way verifies to us that he is unhinged by his hatred of all things related to Trump—and, by extension, all of us. His wife produced a documentary on Michelle Obama. There isn’t a chance Smith is unbiased or professional. He’s just a tool.

Humor helps in times like these.
meme found on Facebook

It has been a while since I read Orwell’s 1984. I remember the “memory hole” way of changing history. Check. And I remember the unwillingness to accept differing views. Check. I remember the protagonist, Winston, being subjected to something considered therapeutic to eliminate his unwillingness to submit to the state’s version of truth—until he finally comes out gladly proclaiming that 2+2=5. Let’s call that an attempted check so far. In the book, did they arrest and imprison people for disagreeing with Big Brother? Maybe they did. So, we’re either like the 1984 dystopia, or we’re worse.

I say this as I still freely write this and post it (albeit in obscurity). Because, at this point government power is attempting to be absolute, but the people have not yet submitted.

Two podcasts I listened to played a clip of one of Rush Limbaugh’s last broadcasts [The Benny Show and the Charlie Kirk podcast]. It’s worth quoting Rush here:

I know that they desperately want Trump gone. And I know that they desperately want it codified that Trump cannot run again, because, make no mistake, they remain scared to death of you, and they remain scared to death of Trump. Trump’s 75 million, 80 million votes. And I’m going to tell you, you’re not going anywhere. Even if Trump does, you’re not. They can’t separate you from Trump. And, more importantly, they can’t separate you from the ideas. They can’t separate you from MAGA. They can’t separate you from Make America Great Again—which I think remains one of our big campaign strengths going forward. They believe that they can destroy this bond that exists between you and Trump, if they somehow make Trump look bad, make Trump look like a reprobate, embarrass you about Trump. They can’t do it, because you came before Trump.

The great Rush Limbaugh, in one of his last shows.
Screenshot from here

Rush reminded us that their persecution of Trump is essentially a proxy war for their persecution of us—the ones with minds that they do not yet control. They can’t stand not controlling us. And Trump is in their way. Trump himself has said as much.

The enemy seems to have this misconception that, because our side is made up of law-abiding citizens, we must be scandalized by a federal indictment of a candidate. Trump must be bad if the feds have brought charges against him, right? But too many of us see this as it is: a political attack—on us, through him. So his poll numbers go up.

OK, back to the document. One of the charges suggests Trump is guilty of “conspiracy against rights,” whatever that means. Charlie Kirk explained it on his show:

Conspiracy against rights. What in the fresh heck is conspiracy against rights? 18 U.S.Code § 241. What in the heck is that? Conspiracy against rights?

Well, it was passed in the 1870s, known as the KKK Act. Not used very frequently. It’s hard to prove. But for those of you that watch our show closely and carefully, for those of you that take our warnings seriously, there was a test case.

Do you remember the young, innocent man, who we tried our best to raise legal support for? Who— Actually, I think Turning Point donated I think $10,000 to his legal fund. Douglass Mackey. Does that name ring a bell? Well, recently Douglass Mackey was sentenced—well, I don’t know if he’s been sentenced; he’s been convicted, awaiting sentencing—because he made a meme in the 2016 election. Remember that? Because he made a meme making fun of Hillary Clinton, the Biden DOJ goes and says, “We’re going to put you in federal prison.”

Now, we were infuriated about this. Tucker Carlson, to his great credit. By the way, there’s clear examples of Democrats doing the exact same thing. Douglass Mackey, being a white, conservative meme warrior, faces nearly a decade in federal prison. But it was a test case. Because they indicted him on 18 U.S.C. § 241, Conspiracy against rights, dusting off a KKK era bill, a law that allows the federal government to criminalize your activity, your constitutional rights, if it’s a threat to the regime—if they can convince twelve people to do it.

This is a well-orchestrated legal trial-and-error. They try it on Douglass Mackey to be able to use it against Donald Trump.

And a lot of people said, “Oh, the Douglass Mackey thing. He made a meme. How does that impact me?” Well, Douglass Mackey was patient zero. Douglass Mackey was patient zero of the dusting off of 18 U.S.C. § 241, Conspiracy against rights.

I looked up the meme. 

meme attributed to Douglass Mackey, found here

It’s clearly satire, mocking low-information Democrat voters. If someone lacks the intelligence to know that, without a well-publicized change in the law (see 2020, when such things as illegal voting process changes happened, but were definitely well-publicized), you have to actually vote in person, not by social media post, then that person lacks the intelligence to vote. Now, while we don’t have an intelligence test for voters (although there are times when that might seem like a prudent option to pursue), a real voter ought to know, among all the other facts, that there is more than one race on the ballot, so you actually need a ballot in order to vote. This satire didn't infringe on any actual person's right to vote. Nevertheless, Mackey is convicted, pending appeal.

The timing of the Trump indictment seems to be following a pattern. More than one person has pointed out the correlation between bad news coming out about Biden and new charges against Trump. [As an aside, there’s a similar correlation between bad Biden news and alien reports—called UAPs now instead of UFOs.] Trump attorney Alina Habba provides the list: 

The fact that I am standing here for the third time in five months is not a coincidence. This is the Biden political lawfare that we have seen time and time again. It is a deflection from everything that they have done. And if you don’t believe me, look at the facts:

·        On March 17 Hunter accidentally admits that it was his laptop from hell. The next day DA Alvin Bragg indicts President Trump.

·        June 8^th, an FBI document is released, showing that the Ukrainians paid the Biden crime family millions and millions of dollars. The next day, the Mar-a-Lago Raid, and the Mar-a-Lago indictment.

·        Last week Hunter Biden’s sweetheart plea deal fell through when the judge realized it had blanket immunity. The following day, a superseding indictment against Donald Trump.

·        July 31^st Devon Archer goes to testify in front of the House. That was only after they failed to put him in jail prior to the fact. What happens the next day? The January 6^th indictment that we’re here for today.

This is not a coincidence. This is election interference at its finest, against the leading candidate right now for president, for either party. President Trump is under siege in a way that we have never seen before. President Trump and his legal team, and everyone on his team, will continue to fight—not for him, but for the American people.

 In his Wednesday night special, Glenn Beck went over a number of things we’re facing. But there was something somewhat hopeful that he said:

You have to realize you have the power still. You have all of the real power. You just don’t believe it. The Deep State was forcibly exposed last week in court. Does that happen without people like you and me speaking out every time we see this stuff? I don’t think it does.

The exposure needs to continue, because, if we don’t, we will lose.

It’s hard to see times as bad as these and be hopeful. But companies who showed that they hate their customers have learned they need those customers more than the customers need those companies. This has been true for Budweiser, Target, Disney, and a number of others. We stop doing business with them, and the companies sink. We had more power than we realized.

We have that power—God given—in the political sphere as well. We used to think it was our collective votes that made us powerful, but they have mainly taken that from us. So it will have to be either recovering free and fair elections or some other way we can’t yet see. May God show us what to do, and when, so we can recover our constitutional republic!

The Politicization of the Judicial System

A New York court indicted former President Donald J. Trump on Thursday, March 30, 2023. That’s historic. A former president has never been indicted.

Trump speaks at rally in Waco, TX, March 25, 2023.
Getty image by Brandon Bell, found here

You’d think for this historic moment to happen, it would be for some extremely nefarious act, like using his influence with foreign nations for profit in ways that hurt the United States (like Joe Biden has actually done). But no. It’s for a non-crime. It’s for what appears to be a possible error in bookkeeping, which couldn’t be more than a misdemeanor, and on which the statute of limitations passed years ago.

However, there’s some loophole, if they can connect the dots, claiming that the misdemeanor was committed with the intention of being able to accomplish a federal criminal act, then they can extend the statute of limitations. However, it’s a state misdemeanor and state court; they do not typically adjudicate federal crimes. Not to worry. They’re just glad to be of service—by prosecuting this “crime” that multiple federal and state officials have passed on, because it takes some contortion to frame it as a crime at all.

 

What Was the Crime?

What are the details? Well, the indictment is under seal and hasn’t been leaked yet, so we don’t know all the counts. But the prosecutors claim that Trump paid hush money to a porn star just before the 2016 election to keep her from talking about a long-ago supposed affair, and that he did that to affect the election, and then he called it legal fees.

So the underlying misdemeanor is calling something legal fees instead of hush money. Hush money, by the way, is not illegal. In this case both Trump and the porn star calling herself Stormy Daniels say that the affair never happened. Despite Trump’s history as a lothario, committing adultery during previous marriages, this particular affair seems implausible to people who know him. It supposedly happened when his wife, Melania, was pregnant with son Barron, who is now in his teens and taller than his dad. So Trump was younger enough then for more plausibility. However, people who know him point out both that he is a germophobe and that he has a certain style preference, and a porn star is not that style nor level of cleanliness. A more likely story is that lawyer Avenatti, who has specialized in blackmail for a living and is currently serving a 14-year prison term, threatened put out the story, releasing it to the media right before the election when he wouldn’t have time to defend himself—unless he paid. Blackmailing is a crime; paying a blackmailer is not.

Trump’s lawyer/fixer, Michael Cohen, probably said he could take care of it. He may or may not have gotten instructions from Trump on how to do that; he may not have asked for instructions. The easiest and quickest way, and possibly even the cheapest way was to pay her off. It was $130,000. To a billionaire, that is probably in the range of worth it to make a problem disappear. Cohen paid the fee—the blackmail—out of his own funds and then charged Trump for the legal services—time and expenses.

Did it help with the election? Maybe, but not necessarily. Just before the 2016 election, the tapes of him in locker room talk about women practically throwing themselves at people like him came out. But they made nary a blip in the polls. That kind of past was baked in with Donald Trump. He had a reputation as a billionaire playboy, not a churchgoer. Second, the tape didn’t say he actually took advantage of women in that way, just that it was possible to. Anyway, the public didn’t seem to care. Chances are this Stormy Daniels thing would have been dismissed in much the same way, as irrelevant to the current election.

And it is just as likely—or more so—that Trump would not want Melania to have to hear the accusations, from years ago, with someone so inferior to her in beauty and class.

Then there’s the fact that Trump paid Cohen with his own money. He is allowed to use unlimited funds of his own in a campaign. But he’s also allowed to use his own money to “make problems go away,” as in paying off a blackmailer if it’s not worth going through the alternatives.

So there is no federal crime for the supposed state misdemeanor to connect with, and that means the state misdemeanor passed the statute of limitations and shouldn’t be prosecuted at all. And if it hadn’t passed that deadline, it would be worthy only of a fine, not a big news indictment, perp walk arrest, jail time, and eventual show trial.

So why are they doing it? We call it Trump Derangement Syndrome, and that seems to be quite a real affliction. But it’s more than that. Trump represents us, the people of the United States who do not easily submit to the tyranny of the elites. He’s just the symbol. They hit him; that is how they hit us—and warn us that, if they can do it to him, they can do it to us, so we’d better learn to shut up and submit.

As President Trump puts it, “They’re not coming after me; they’re coming after you. And I’m just standing in their way.”

Trump’s refusal to submit galls them. They think that with him out of the way, the rest of us would fold. Because they do not know the real American people.

 

The Talking Point Giveaway

There’s a talking point the opposition to freedom is using—that no one is above the law, which we can agree with, even though we know they don’t mean it; and that it was on a small crime, like tax evasion, that they finally got Al Capone, even though they knew he was guilty of a great many heinous crimes that they couldn’t prove. There’s a difference. They haven’t got something as big as tax fraud here. And they don’t have a long list of heinous crimes they can’t prove because of reasons like no one willing to testify against Capone. So those using this talking point are giving themselves away as Deep Staters, which may be relevant when power shifts back to the American people.

These Deep Staters do have a list; it’s just not of real crimes:

·        He colluded with Russia to interfere with the 2016 election—actually that was a lie paid for by the Clinton campaign and the DNC.

·        He had a phonecall with the president of Ukraine asking for dirt on his opponent, Joe Biden, for which he was impeached and acquitted—actually, when we all heard the phonecall, it was obvious he hadn’t done what they had accused, but was warning the Ukrainian president about possible corruption, for which there is now proof on the Hunter Biden laptop.

·        He is a racist who said white supremacists were good people—actually, in reference to the conversation about the confederate flag he said there were good people on both sides, which was obvious to anyone who heard what he actually said instead of what they claimed he meant.

·        He cleared protesters from a church for a photo op—actually that never happened. The police cleared the area earlier, where there had been some violence. It was clear already, and his going there later that evening had nothing to do with its being cleared.

·        He refused to accept the results of the 2020 election—this is true, but it is not illegal. A candidate can question the results and ask for remedy. There are many possible ways for that to be handled. In this case, some legal means were tried, but for reasons we don’t yet understand the courts refused to see the evidence. Most of the country looks at Biden winning and asks, “How could that have happened?” The final remedy was to be at the counting of conflicting slates of electors on January 6, a legal means the Democrats had attempted several times this century.

·        He made a phonecall to the Georgia Secretary of State asking him to “find more votes” related to the Georgia Senate runoff. This one is in court. But the call was recorded, and it appears to a fair-minded person that he was trying to get an accurate count of the votes, not get fake votes added in.

·        He instigated an insurrection on January 6, 2021—actually, he encouraged people to come for a peaceful rally. He was still speaking a mile from the capitol when some violence started. His speech was on video and recorded, and we can all witness that he never called for violence, only peaceful protest. When he later became aware that there was some rioting, he tweeted a message for everyone to go home; we need peace—Twitter deleted it, and deleted his entire account. His press secretary then put out a video message letting people know the President was calling for peace and for people to go home; it was deleted as well.

o     Even though he was out of office, they impeached him for this, but failed in this second impeachment—again for lack of evidence that he had done anything wrong.

o     Trials are ongoing for people who entered the capitol that day. It seemed likely from the beginning and is becoming clearer that this was likely a false flag operation; agent provocateurs were instigating violence. There were many paid confidential human sources (essentially FBI agents and/or informants) were involved and actually trying to increase the violence.

o     It was not a violent insurrection. There was no insurrection—no takeover of the government. No one has been charged with insurrection. The very few who have been charged with seditious conspiracy are beginning to appear to be victims of a setup. No police officers were killed by the rioters. It may be that no officers were severely injured. One protester, Ashli Babbitt, was killed at point blank range by a capitol police officer, while she was unarmed. Another woman appears to have been beaten to death by police, but other protesters along with other police tried unsuccessfully to revive her; her death is called natural, possibly because of a drug overdose.

o     Additional security was offered by President Trump, knowing the crowd was going to be very large, but refused by Capitol Police, Nancy Pelosi, and DC Mayor Muriel Bowser.

o     There are multiple anomalies, like the planting of the bomb at DNC headquarters not showing up on the surveillance video. And the more capitol surveillance video that comes out—which was withheld from defendants—the more it seems obvious the police allowed people in, they walked through peacefully, and then they left. Very little damage was done. Business continued that evening. There was no insurrection. There were no arms. And there was no planning for an insurrection.

·        He had classified government documents in his possession after leaving office—actually, as president he had the unilateral power to declassify; also, he does not lose his top secret clearance upon leaving office. Also, he was cooperating with Archives to return any documents they asked for. They knew where he was keeping them—locked, under video surveillance and his secret service detail. Yet they raided Mar-a-Lago and tried to claim he was illegally holding classified documents, possibly for the purpose of betraying the country. It has been very inconvenient for them that Joe Biden has documents stashed all over the place, from as far back as his days as senator. And former VP Pence also has some. Neither of them had power to declassify.

These things they’re accusing him of aren’t just hard to prove—like Al Capone calling for a hit on someone; these things never happened. They can’t seem to come up with anything heinous. In fact, for someone involved in real estate in New Jersey, where a person might have had to deal with crime bosses, Trump has an astoundingly clean record. He might be right; he might be the most innocent person they’ve ever accused. Well, with the exception of all those J6 “insurrectionists” languishing in solitary confinement for taking a tour of the capitol on the wrong day.

 

What Next?

What is going to happen from here? I expect the New York jury will find him guilty, even though the evidence will prove that he is not. Then there will be appeals, eventually to a level that is not replete with people suffering from TDS, and then he will be exonerated.

I expect other cases to continue as well, with similar results.

By the way, indictment in these cases does not mean he cannot run for president. So I guess they’re hoping that just the stain of being indicted will be off-putting enough for him to lose support.

The airport rally crowd at Waco, TX, March 25, 2023
image from Donald J. Trump for President campaign, found here

But it might be the opposite. It might be that there are voters who are tired of the drama surrounding Trump and were willing to be looking at other candidates. But now they see that this is a line that cannot be crossed without consequence. The only way to protect all of us from these evil tyrants is to fight them, to vote for the one person who will stand up to them—stand up to them for us. So it’s likely to backfire and actually strengthen support for him. In between his announcement and the indictment, he had his first official campaign rally, in Waco, Texas, last Saturday, where the worst thing the media could say about it was that the crowd wasn’t as big as he claimed—their usual. (Epoch Times places the crowd count at around 25,000.) By the way, the rally was on the 30^th anniversary of the Branch Davidian standoff, at which law enforcement burned the place down, killing women and children inside. Some say that’s a call to right-wingers to revolt; or, it could be a way of pointing out who the tyrants are.

I’m wondering about the announcement Trump made about the indictment ahead of time. He gave people a chance to find out the details of the case and prepare. He put the accusers in a bad situation. First they claimed he didn’t know what he was talking about; they had no definite plans to indict—because they didn’t want him to be right. But then they were setting up barricades as though expecting (hoping for) large protests or riots in the streets. Then they sent the grand jury home. And we thought maybe they realized their case was too weak to move ahead. But then they felt like they had to move ahead or lose face. So they indicted. In other words, was Trump controlling the entire situation?

One more thing. They have set a precedent: a former president can be indicted. While some people express concern that this will cause a tit for tat political prosecution the other way when power eventually changes parties, it is also possible that actual crimes will be revealed and prosecuted—no matter how high up the perpetrator might be. That will be a good thing. But it will also be ugly and messy and very full of drama. As the scriptures say, with much “weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.”

Resources

News will continue to come out. My commentary is mainly to help me think through and try to understand this history as it’s happening. Here are a few sources I went to the first day:

·        “Trump indicted by N.Y. grand jury, first ex-president charged with crime” story by Shayna Jacobs, Jacqueline Alemany, Josh Dawsey, and Devlin Barrett for the Washington Post, March 30, 2023. 

·        “Former President Donald Trump indicted by Manhattan grand jury” by Carlos Garcia for The Blaze, March 30, 2023. 

·        “TRUMP INDICTED” Robert Gouveia podcast, March 30, 2023. 

·        Bourbon with Barnes livestream March 30, 2023. 

·        “Ep 3033b – [DS] Lost The Court Of Public Opinion, The Bait Has Been Set, Years Of Planning” X22 Report, March 30, 2023 (before the indictment). 

·        “Ep 3034b – Bait Taken, Hunters Now Become The Hunted, Precedent, Pandora’s Box Has Been Opened” X22 Report March 31,2023.