I'm reading "How Two First Ladies Weathered a Most Unusual Presidential Transition/Jill Biden wanted to keep teaching. Melania Trump just wanted to go home..." (NYT):
In the days before the attack on the Capitol... Mrs. Trump had also started repeating a version of her husband’s false belief that he had actually won the election, telling her associates that “something bad” had happened....
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115 comments:
Millions of Americans think the lack of proper Voter ID, ballot stuffing, and improper ballot counting - gave us Crook Joe.
Do Millions of Americans need re-programming? Do millions of Americans need to be prosecuted by Jack Smith(D)? Perhaps millions of Americans need a stint in the Progressive NBC 'you will be made to think-correctly' - leftwing Soviet Gulag?
You're not wrong.
That's the story, and they are sticking to it. They all cheated on their metaphysics final and got away with it. They know. They looked. Do YOU want to look into that place? Trump's soul? Not me.
On this, we build the future of the republic.
Schrodinger's beliefs.
"But the Jack Smith case against Trump requires the prosecution to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump did not believe that he had won, that he was lying when he said he had won. That's the opposite of a "false belief that he had actually won." Correct me if I'm wrong."
Sure- like this will be some kind of hurdle to overcome. The verdict in this case, should it reach a jury at all, was decided the moment it was filed in D.C. Jack Smith himself could blurt out into the open court in front of the jury that he believed all the evidence showed that Trump did believe the election was fraudulent, and the jury would still convict. This trial should be moved out of D.C to, at the very least, somewhere else in Virginia where Trump might receive something resembling a 10% fair jury pool.
They violated state election laws with mail in voting.
They ignored SCOTUS instructions to segregate ballots.
They bragged about "fortifying" the elections.
They constantly declared that Trump was a danger to this country.
But we're supposed to believe that there's no way that they could have cheated.
Trump massively increased his vote totals.
He won something like 18 of 20 bellweather counties
GOP turnout was at 2004 and 1988 levels.
But somehow Biden just barely managed to scrape by in three swing states.
I'm willing to accept that Biden's significantly outperformed Trump with Independents, enough to make it a close race. What I'm not willing to accept, and many other Americans aren't either, is the almost hysterical insistence by the political class that the election was pure as the driven snow.
My guess is that in 10-15 years- once Trump and Biden have both passed on, and enough time has passed that no prosecutor would touch the case- we'll start seeing books admitting that fake ballots were flooded in at the last moment.
If Melania was also saying it, couldn't that be interpreted as showing that Trump really did believe it? Especially for a woman who had just wanted to go home, it doesn't make sense to "aid" in promoting that if she believed it was a lie.
I have a belief that a lot of underhanded stuff happened during that election. My belief is real. I can't tell if it's unfounded or not. More transparency would solve that problem, but instead it just gets more opaque.
We have so many don't we. Fine people in charlotte, man-made climate change, the border is secure, wearing a mask will help fight covid, the covid vax will keep you from getting or spreading covid. Jessie Smollet was abducted, Fani Wills was not sleeping with her associate before the trial. Joe Biden did not purposefully keep classified documents, "I did not sleep with that woman".
So much conventional wisdom. All crap.
When do facts matter in lawfare?
More propaganda. Jill just wants to live the high life like the Obamas. She is an elder abuser, who should be shamed, and shame on the Pravda NYT's for spewing hate and division. Progressives need to stick together because the American people are waking up to their lies.
They are so confident in the election they have to preface Belief with false.
It's false, see? False. FALSEY FALCEY FALSE!!
"attack on the Capitol"?
What happened to INSURRECTION?
"But the Jack Smith case against Trump requires the prosecution to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump did not believe that he had won..."
Yes, and the Letitia James case required the prosecution to prove that there was actual fraud and that someone was harmed, and for the fine to bear some relationship to actual damages. And yet...
I believe this is related to something I came a across via YouTube.
From Wikipedia:
"The Gettier problem, in the field of epistemology, is a landmark philosophical problem concerning the understanding of descriptive knowledge. Attributed to American philosopher Edmund Gettier, Gettier-type counterexamples (called "Gettier-cases") challenge the long-held justified true belief (JTB) account of knowledge. The JTB account holds that knowledge is equivalent to justified true belief; if all three conditions (justification, truth, and belief) are met of a given claim, then we have knowledge of that claim. In his 1963 three-page paper titled "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?",[1][2] Gettier attempts to illustrate by means of two counterexamples that there are cases where individuals can have a justified, true belief regarding a claim but still fail to know it because the reasons for the belief, while justified, turn out to be false. Thus, Gettier claims to have shown that the JTB account is inadequate because it does not account for all of the necessary and sufficient conditions for knowledge."
"But the Jack Smith case against Trump requires the prosecution to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump did not believe that he had won.."
Oh my. No. It only requires that Smith find a jury to accept his claim that the prosecution has proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump believed that he had won.
Neither Smith nor the jury needs to actually believe it beyond a reasonable doubt.
The justice system that placed a jury of peers as final arbiter of truth has been broken and is no longer valid.
It should say claim rather than belief.
A good rule of thumb is that when someone uses the word "false" outside of the context of "true or false" or uses the word "falsehood" at all, that person is lying about something.
Reason: "Falsehood" had completely fallen out of American verbal discourse, and "false" was very limited in the contexts in which it survived, before someone in media around 2017 (give or take) used them as synonyms, after which they spread through imitation. Thus when someone uses "falsehood" or "false," they aren't using their "own" natural discourse but are mentally cut-and-pasting. Using someone else's words is a well-recognized sign of lying (and maybe it says something slightly good about humans in that we unconsciously prefer not to lie in our own words and therefore adopt other people's when we are lying).
(1) All of the actual evidence suggests the election was filled with fraud on a scale that could have changed the outcome. (2)The assertion that Joe Biden won the election fair and square and there was no fraud at scale that could have changed the outcome is the one without any actual evidence. The first is a possibly false belief, the second is a probably false belief. No one, who was in a position to make it happen, was willing to actually do the investigation that was necessary to add to the pool of facts- what was always needed was a forensic investigation of the mail-in-ballot signatures. Such a thing was supposed to happen at the canvassing stage before the ballots were separated from the envelopes, but was short-circuited everywhere the Democrats had complete control of the counting process and even happened in places where Republicans had a measure of control.
Verification by signature needs to end if you ever want to regain a measure of trust and confidence in electoral outcomes. It was near worthless before mail-in-ballots became more than 2-3% of the ballots cast- it is now worse than completely worthless at 40% of the ballots cast and growing.
Is it a lie if you believe it?
-- George
As in all these lawfare cases against Trump, indictment before the election is the prosecutor's goal, not being upheld on appeal.
Did Al Gore think he had won the election when he asked for a selective recount?
Jack Smith will parade Bill Barr and the Director of Homeland Security (most secure election in history) and the White House legal counsel , among others, stating how they told him it was a secure election.
That leaves us Eastman (a coup in search of a legal theory) or Trump himself telling the DOJ: “just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican Congressmen.”
In their own filings, Trump’s attorneys have argued that he was entitled to reject any and all the information he was given. It’s a weak legal argument to start with, but it’s also quite desperate.
“Can You Believe I Lost to This Effing Guy?’ Trump Knew Biden Won, Aides Testify
Former President Donald Trump privately conceded he lost the 2020 presidential election, according to Jan. 6 committee testimony, despite his public claims that he had won the race. ~ WSJ
Trump Knew He Lost the Election, Aides Testify
https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/jan-6-committee-hearing-trump-today/card/trump-knew-he-lost-the-election-aides-testify-8d6wDzeJeTFKRvrZEGL7
Trump privately admitted he lost 2020 election, top aides testify
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/oct/13/trump-admission-election-aides-january-6-panel
Bill Barr says Donald Trump 'knew well he lost the election'
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-66388176
Assuming Trump is not an irrational person, his attorneys will have to show that he had credible evidence his claims were true — evidence that made it rational for him to believe them rather than what he was told by numerous high-level sources in positions to know. Unable to point to such evidence on which Trump’s presumed beliefs in election fraud were based, it is very unlikely his attorneys can rebut the prosecution’s powerful case that Trump knew his outrageous claims were false.
“ But the Jack Smith case against Trump requires the prosecution to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump did not believe that he had won….”
Ann, that assumes that a DC jury will follow the jury instructions. After the Mark Steyn case, we know that won’t happen.
We’re fucked. We’ve lost the Rule of Law. And the DOJ is jailing political opponents.
I learned from the Tucker Carlson interview of Michael Benz that beginning in April of 2020, millions of tweets that complained about mail-in ballots were censored. National security, doncha know.
Government-tech censorship is real. See, Missouri v. Biden.
Rich dissembling again. Sad.
Howtizer Howard: "It should say claim rather than belief."
LOL
Just back away from this conversation now.
Rich, you are an idiot. People profess to believe in God, the power of astrology, or that magnets can treat arthritis, for example, and, by using your own arguments, are all liars, right? Right?
Here is the point- no one that you listed in your idiotic post ever showed Trump actual evidence that contradicted his assertions that the election was fraudulent- their own opinions on the matter are not facts countering his professed belief. Even worse, saying, if he he said it at all, asking "Can you believe I lost to this effing idiot," isn't the gotcha that you seem to think it is- it could just easily be described as a rhetorical question that again asserts that he couldn't have truthfully lost. And this isn't me stretching the words to fit a conclusion the way you are attempting to- it is me understanding how normal people make argumentative statements. So, you are either not a normal person, or you are just a scummy liar willing to write anything to support a point.
All I see is a sore loser, DJT. He has been on my radar as vomit worthy since about 1988. Didn't thin much of him then, with his faux "billionaire" claims...Think even less of him now. No class, NONE. For all that high class education (his words not mine), he should know better...
Vicki from Pasadena
This is a tic of MSM coverage. They cannot say "Trump claimed ... .". They have to say "Trump falsely claimed ...". Every statement must include refutation. The style is Soviet and pervasive. Logic is the last tool that they would think to apply.
A "false belief" is a belief in something that is not true.
That is not a way to express the idea of lying about believing something that you know isn't true.
You wouldn't say he has a false belief that he won the race if what you meant was he falsely claims that he believes that he won.
My point is that when their guard was down, people at the NYT casually let it show that they don't think Trump knew he was asserting something he knew wasn't true.
Please stop restating that you mistrust the jurors in D.C.
I'm making a different point, and the jury verdict will be subject to review on appeal, and the Supreme Court has a super-majority of conservatives. We'll see what happens.
My point is that I can't see how Smith can have the evidence to prove what he needs to prove.
Professor Althouse is absolutely correct that to prevail the prosecution has to prove that Trump knew that his claims of outcome determinative election fraud were false. Rich has laid out some of what is in the public record. Here's what the indictment says the prosecution can prove about Trump's fraud claims:
"11. The Defendant, his co-conspirators, and their agents made knowingly false claims that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the 2020 presidential election....These claims were false, and the Defendant knew that they were false. In fact, the Defendant was notified repeatedly that his claims were untrue-often by the people on whom he relied for candid advice on important matters, and who were best positioned to know the facts and he deliberately disregarded the truth. For instance:
a. The Defendant's Vice President-who personally stood to gain by remaining in office as part of the Defendant's ticket and whom the Defendant asked to study fraud allegations-told the Defendant that he had seen no evidence of outcome-determinative fraud.
b. The senior leaders of the Justice Department-appointed by the Defendant and responsible for investigating credible allegations of election crimes told the Defendant on multiple occasions that various allegations of fraud were unsupported.
c. The Director of National Intelligence-the Defendant's principal advisor on intelligence matters related to national security--disabused the Defendant of the notion that the Intelligence Community's findings regarding foreign interference would change the outcome of the election.
d. The Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency ("CISA")-whose existence the Defendant signed into law to protect the nation's cybersecurity infrastructure from attack-joined an official multi-agency statement that there was no evidence any voting system had been compromised and that declared the 2020 election "the most secure in American history." Days later, after the CISA Director-whom the Defendant had appointed-announced publicly that election security experts were in agreement that claims of computer-based election fraud were unsubstantiated, the Defendant fired him.
e. Senior White House attorneys-selected by the Defendant to provide him candid advice-informed the Defendant that there was no evidence of outcome-determinative election fraud, and told him that his presidency would end on Inauguration Day in 2021.
f. Senior staffers on the Defendant's 2020 re-election campaign ("Defendant's Campaign" or "Campaign")-whose sole mission was the Defendant's re election-told the Defendant on November 7, 2020, that he had only a five to ten percent chance of prevailing in the election, and that success was contingent on the Defendant winning ongoing vote counts or litigation in Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin. Within a week of that assessment, the Defendant Jost in Arizona-meaning he had lost the election.
g. State legislators and officials-many of whom were the Defendant's political allies, had voted for him, and wanted him to be re-elected repeatedly informed the Defendant that his claims of fraud in their states were unsubstantiated or false and resisted his pressure to act based upon them.
h. State and federal courts-the neutral arbiters responsible for ensuring the fair and even-handed administration of election laws-rejected every outcome-determinative post-election lawsuit filed by the Defendant, his co conspirators, and allies, providing the Defendant real-time notice that his allegations were meritless."
As Rich points out, Trump will of course be free to argue, or testify, that he had reason to disbelieve what all these friends, allies and neutrals were telling him and that he was not deliberately ignoring them. But that may not be an easy position to sustain.
"The Defendant, his co-conspirators, and their agents made knowingly false claims that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the 2020 presidential election....These claims were false, and the Defendant knew that they were false."
Maybe it will turn out that there is a crucial distinction between fraud and "outcome-determinative fraud." That is, he might have sincerely believed there was fraud — that "something bad" happened — but he could not have believed that there was enough fraud to make up the discrepancy. Maybe elections are never perfect and perfect isn't the standard, but responsible people ought to give up and concede when the margin of victory is sufficient, because we need an answer and we want people to feel secure and satisfied that the system works.
concede? why?
Is it required?
Considering the Russia Russia Hoax - perpetrated by our on intelligence agencies - why would anyone feel secure with our new "No ID required" voting system?
There is no proof either way. That's the problem. You can't say either view is definitely true or not until there is concrete forensic evidence either way. The fact that audits and legal filings were declined cast the whole thing into a cloud of smoke from which we can never recover. We'll never feel settled about it. This advantaged Biden et al and was wholly un-democratic.
At root, mail-in balloting is to blame. It has to go back to being that rare thing for special cases.
That weird tiered voting protocol also has to go, but for other reasons - no one understands how it works.
11:43 - Rabel.
That.
12:19 Dave B.
That. That. That. That.
"My point is that I can't see how Smith can have the evidence to prove what he needs to prove."
Professor Althouse, If the prosecution can prove what it alleges in Paragraph 11 of the indictment, cited in my last post, do you think a jury would be entitled to conclude that Trump knew his fraud claims were false?
Bear in mind that the law of "knowledge" specifically includes "willful blindness," that is a motivated refusal to look for or at evidence contrary to one's stated belief in a situation where there is reason to believe that doing so would disprove one's belief.
I am course assuming that Trump will not argue that he was delusional or crazy--not a good look for a Presidential candidate who claims to be completely on top of things. But even that argument would be a problem for him--the jury would certainly not be required to accept it, given his claims to be the realist, practical thinker, can do guy.
Perhaps you believe that the government can't prove paragraph 11--but as Rich pointed out, there is a lot of stuff in the public record, in some cases under oath, on each of the points mentioned there.
Feel free to tell me if you think I am missing something.
"because we need an answer and we want people to feel secure and satisfied that the system works."
Yes, we do. But election reforms, not lawfare, is the route to that end.
I thought Trump won. I'm sure he did and still does.
What happened in Maricopa County (Arizona) and Fulton County (Georgia) stank to me. If it happened in those states, why not in Democratic strongholds in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania? After all, with Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin he'd have tied the Electoral College and won in states count.
GOD FORBID that the Times would speak of Trump's belief as "mistaken", which would offer an exculpatory explanation for his actions Jan 6.
But simply being wrong isn't a crime under the statut(s) Trump is being charged with, so the Times instead uses "false" to leave ambiguous the proposition he knew he was wrong, and pushed a false narrative nevertheless. Let's see if Smith can prove that.
Thing is, the idea of lying as "uttering a deliberate falsehood" has been fuzzed up to mean "saying something wrong that I disagree with".
Thus "They lied to us about the Pyramids!"-- meaning an archaeologist said something reflecting the best knowledge when he spoke, but later discoveries showed him to be wrong.
LIAR!!!
I worry DC jurors will be unaware of the legal distinction and treat a mistaken belief as lying.
Ann:
Trump will be in jail during his appeal. The trial judge will order him into custody the very minute he’s convicted. That’s what happens in state court. I know that the federal practice and rules are different, but the rules don’t apply to Trump. Trump’s appeal time in that other DC Circuit case was shortened. One court can’t change the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure.
And that’s when our Bastille moment happens. The Dems have pushed us to the breaking point because of their desire to stay in power and their rampant cheating. Biden stole the election.
We’ve become a post-rule of law society.
And it’s not that I distrust DC jurors, I know that DC jurors are lawless. Look what they did to Mark Steyn.
"Professor Althouse, If the prosecution can prove what it alleges in Paragraph 11 of the indictment, cited in my last post, do you think a jury would be entitled to conclude that Trump knew his fraud claims were false?"
We'll see, if it goes to trial, how that testimony looks. I have trouble seeing how you wouldn't have at least some doubt. A lot of people told him something (exactly what?) and he still maintained his belief. That's not so hard to believe. I wouldn't say he must have known. I can see even now that many Trump supporters believe that Trump won the election. Is it so hard to see him as mistakenly optimistic and bull-headed? You'd have to say he knew he was lying?
Of course Trump believes his lies. That's one of the requirements for being a psychopathic narcissist.
It’s never just “his belief.” It’s always ”his false belief.” In case anybody has the temerity to want to come to their own decisions about it.
The guy standing over the corpse with a bloody knife in his hand is the alleged assailant, but Trump’s belief that this extraordinarily vulnerable election system was successfully gamed is for sure false.
victoria: "All I see is a sore loser, DJT. He has been on my radar as vomit worthy since about 1988."
victoria of pasadena, who declared the Biden clan perfectly normal, will never forgive DJT for not showering with his adolescent daughter like her hero Joe Biden did.
But, thats what you get with psycho leftists like victoria.
Another way of putting the point is that proving isolated instances of fraud is, as a matter of state law, not a sufficient basis for setting aside an election in any state. If it were, then no election outcome would be stable. So arguing that because there were isolated instances of fraud, the election should be set aside is fundamentally a lawless, frivolous position. And so what Trump was seeking to accomplish by having VP Pence throw out the single slates from each swing state was to disenfranchise those states, in violation of their own law and federalism principles.
Perhaps Trump's best answer would be to say when I said the election was stolen by the Democrats, I didn't mean stolen by fraud, I meant stolen because of non-fraudulent violations of state law by the courts of the states in question that were serious enough to violate the independent state legislature doctrine and hence give rise to a federal claim. There are lots of serious problems with that argument, too, both factually and legally, but I wouldn't be surprised if he tried to assert it.
"requires the prosecution to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump did not believe that he had won"
Actually, it only requires the prosecution to convince the jury that it has proven the case beyond a reasonable doubt. Easy in DC.
Also easy the other way for black defendants. Ask OJ.
"I have trouble seeing how you wouldn't have at least some doubt."
It's nice to be so reasonable. It would aso be nice to live in an Althousian world. Alas, this one ain't it.
Not a problem, a DC jury just found that Mark Steyn actually believed that the Hockey Stick was good science. As the prosecutor said, "It was a tough bar, but we did it!"
One thing that you can be sure of though, is that Trump will not be allowed to introduce any evidence to support his contention that he believes he won. Did he actually demand that the election be reversed? Or did he want the State Legislatures to look at the election, just like it says in the Constitution.
The reason that Legislatures should be the judge is because it would be impossible for the courts to act in a timely manner, and therefore a stolen election will automatically stand.
"I can see even now that many Trump supporters believe that Trump won the election."
Oh, for Christ's sake. You're damned straight we do. They shut down counting in five different states at 2:00 AM with Trump ahead. They did this because they had under-estimated how many illegal votes they needed to inject into the count. When they started up again, Biden was ahead. Go ahead. Piss on my leg. Piss on both my legs. Piss on all five of my legs, in five different states, and tell me it just happens to be raining all over the country.
On a rainy night in Georgia ...
While I'm on the subject, how crazy -- how completely, balls-to-the-walls, batshit-over-bowling-shoes, does a person have to be to believe that Joe Kennedy bought the 1960 election in Illinois and West Virginia? Is that right there enough to prove someone is clinically insane? Or would he have to believe it was raining, when actually someone is pissing on his leg?
People tell me stuff all the time that I simply reject, often without comment. I can now imagine being dragged into a courtroom and being convicted of something based on my secret beliefs because somebody, who may not have access to the same facts, told me something I quickly rejected as wrong.
Experts have repeated over and over again that the Hockey Stick is good science , yet that doesn't make the flaws in their arguments go away. In fact, it just makes them more glaring.
I often think, for example of when John Bolton said that Trump had "the attention span of a gnat" that Trump was simply rejecting his argument, which Trump understood very well, that the US will only be safe in the world if we go to war and humiliate every possible rival to our power one after the other. I think that Trump very likely concluded that such a strategy is doomed to unite the world against us, and will lead to failure, and possibly nuclear. war, so "John, stop right there." Of course Bolton thinks that anybody who doesn't agree with him is stupid.
"Bear in mind that the law of "knowledge" specifically includes 'willful blindness,'"
So this is just one more layer of mind reading trundled in on the word "willful"
What's scary is that what is really being said is that the orthodoxy pushed down on us by the regime is now defined as the Truth, and any deviations from it constitute "lying" since they told us what to believe, over and over, so we have no excuse.
The Thought Police would get him just the same. He had committed—would still have committed, even if he had never set pen to paper—the essential crime that contained all others in itself. Thoughtcrime, they called it. - 1984
Yancey Ward wrote: “People profess to believe in God, the power of astrology, or that magnets can treat arthritis, for example, and, by using your own arguments, are all liars, right?”
Given expected testimony that Trump had conceded to some staff that he lost, dozens of failed lawsuits, the vast informational resources available to a president, the fact that reliable sources told Trump there was no significant fraud and Trump’s habit of lying, it cannot simply be assumed that Trump believed his fraud claims.
Nor can it just be asserted that Trump believed them since assertions in court require evidence. Since believing is a state of mind and not empirically observable, courts may look to a defendant’s behavior for evidence he had the belief in question. In Trump’s case, the problem is that, while some of his actions are consistent with his believing the fraud claims, his behavior generally between the election and Jan. 6 is much more consistent with his knowing those claims were false and continuing to assert them publicly in an attempt to hold on to the presidency.
If you were the inventors of facebook you would have invented facebook…
Funny nit funny how the language masturbators aren’t interested in the won the election manipulation…
"because we need an answer and we want people to feel secure and satisfied that the system works."
That's what Nixon did when Kennedy stole the election from him in 1960, fat lot of good it did him. But really it was Hillary who started this whole trend of delegitimizing elections, but Hillary was on the powerful side, which controls the media and the courts and the prosecutors and the judges, so no worries!
"You wouldn't say he has a false belief that he won the race if what you meant was he falsely claims that he believes that he won."
Don't expect these assholes to keep their story straight.
from comments above leads me to a Q:
is analytic philosophy [a futile endeavor = word chopping not concern with facts or reality] so deeply embedded in American judicial and legal reasoning?
"Maybe elections are never perfect and perfect isn't the standard, but responsible people ought to give up and concede when the margin of victory is sufficient, because we need an answer and we want people to feel secure and satisfied that the system works."
And if they don't then, dammit, they just need to go to prison.
"the law of "knowledge" specifically includes "willful blindness," that is a motivated refusal to look for or at evidence contrary to one's stated belief in a situation where there is reason to believe that doing so would disprove one's belief."
That would be be an interesting thing to prove. There's certainly a lot of it to go around to be making it illegal.
Reminds me of standing and laches when under threat from TDS society/career vulnerability.
Professor Althouse is absolutely correct that to prevail the prosecution has to prove that Trump knew that his claims of outcome determinative election fraud were false.
This is true for normal decent people, but utterly false when we are talking about the 80 IQ welfare leeches and government scum who make up the jury pool in D.C.
Smith doesn't have to prove jack-shit. His closing argument doesn't need to be any more sophisticated than "Burn the witch!" for a slam-dunk verdict.
So, you are either not a normal person, or you are just a scummy liar willing to write anything to support a point.
Embrace the power of the word AND.
I keep wondering how a prosecutor can be going after Trump for his "false" beliefs in 2020-21, when so many books, articles and court cases the past three years have shown that election shenanigans happened in a number of states, enough to cast doubt on 2020's presidential election results.
Surely Trump's team will be offering those revelations into evidence.
Whether it will help him remains to be seen. Smith will probably argue that even if true, Trump didn't know about them at the time, so he must have been lying!
What a stupid game.
Professor Althouse,
You are correct, of course, that a jury would not be required to find knowledge even if the prosecution proves all of Paragraph 11. There is no summary judgment for the prosecution, and a hung jury would prevent a conviction.
With respect, your point about Trump supporters is not persuasive to me. It is true that many believe he won the election. But is that belief based on familiarity with the facts and law that Trump allegedly had been advised of, from multiple reliable sources, in the runup to January 6? Until this exchange, you yourself don't seem to have been fully familiar with those facts, or with those cited in the Lost Not Stolen report by conservative lawyers and jurists that I cited in an earlier post. The comments I see here, often from people who clearly mean well, are often grossly in error. Just the other day, one commenter argued that 98 of 100 cases brought by Trump were dismissed on non-merits grounds. The actual number is 20 of 64, with 30 heard on the merits (and rejected, often in stinging language) and another 14 dismissed voluntarily (often a sign of lack of merit). Right above me is a comment saying that filings and audits were declined--but in fact there were lots of decisions on the merits and multiple audits. One further example: Trump was personally informed by Bill Barr that the fraud claims based on voting machine manipulation were "bullshit"--and when the responsible Homeland Security official took the same position, he had him fired! Conversely, Trump voters learned on Fox News that those claims had merit, a position that the evidence suggests Fox News took, even though they believed it was false, because it did not want to offend or lose viewers who wanted to hear a different story. More generally, given the way information is siloed in this polarized country, and the way that people like Mitt Romney and Liz Cheney have been written out of the party for following the evidence about Trump's conduct where it leads, why should we assume that the beliefs of those who continue to believe the election was stolen have any connection to what Trump knew on or before January 6 from the multiple Republican or neutral sources cited in the indictment?
My point is that when their guard was down, people at the NYT casually let it show that they don't think Trump knew he was asserting something he knew wasn't true.
Please stop restating that you mistrust the jurors in D.C.
Our point, or mine at least, is not simply that we don't trust the DC jury. It's that the NYT is free to admit the emperor has no clothes (i.e. Trump really believed the election was stolen, so no fraud), because everyone knows that. As in the fairy tale, there are no consequences to saying it out loud, as the naked emperor (Jack Smith) simply ignores it and continues on his way.
Bear in mind that the law of "knowledge" specifically includes "willful blindness,"
"Willful blindness" seems like a more appropriate description of everyone's answer to Trump's attempts before and immediately after the election to see if it was on the up-and-up.
he might have sincerely believed there was fraud — that "something bad" happened — but he could not have believed that there was enough fraud to make up the discrepancy. Maybe elections are never perfect and perfect isn't the standard, but responsible people ought to give up and concede when the margin of victory is sufficient, because we need an answer and we want people to feel secure and satisfied that the system works.
I have zero doubt he genuinely believed there was enough fraud to make up the discrepancy. And if there's reason to believe he might be correct, and if a substantial portion of the public believes it as well, isn't it more important to investigate the claim, and also to reform voting procedures, if "we want people to feel secure and satisfied that the system works"? To say otherwise would make sense only if the only reason many people feel the election was stolen was because Trump says it. I don't think that's the case at all.
Doesn't matter. DC judge. DC jury.
Unusual things did happen on election night. Some anecdotal, some video evidence. As we approach another general, I hope these things get shared and talked about. We need to know what to be aware of the second time around and also to see what topics are sensitive and will be suppressed.
“Please stop restating that you mistrust the jurors in D.C.”
Okay, but I’ll note that it can’t be said often enough. Not that anything will change…
"Millions of Americans think the lack of proper Voter ID, ballot stuffing, and improper ballot counting - gave us Crook Joe."
Yes, well...those millions also think Trump is a decent, even exemplary human being, possessed of extraordinary intelligence and concern for others. Anyone who admits to believing that impeaches their claims to be being people of good reason.
Millions more do NOT believe Trump was the actual winner.
(I didn't vote for either Trump or Biden and I don't believe Trump actually won. He and his lawyers--no doubt, stiffed on their fees, as is typically the casae with those he hires to do work for him--have failed to provide sufficient evidence to convince a court to pursue the matter further.)
As to whether Trump himself knows he truly lost or thinks he truly won, there's no way to know. Given his huge (and hugely fragile) ego, it seems to me very possible, even probable, he has always held on to the conviction that he was the actual winner.
Trump is so emotionally and psychologically invested in always being a "winner" and never a loser--so deep is his belief that a "loser" is the worst, most disgraceful state one can ever fall into, (like a suppressed homosexual who doubles up on the uber-alpha dog straight man shit)--I do not think he can or ever will admit to having lost. At least, not consciously. It may very well prey on him inside, that small voice that whispers to him, "You're a loser, you're a loser, you're a loser, etc."...forever.
Democracy is not viable without audits, dies in darkness.
"But the Jack Smith case against Trump requires the prosecution to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump did not believe that he had won, that he was lying when he said he had won. That's the opposite of a "false belief that he had actually won." Correct me if I'm wrong."
"My point is that I can't see how Smith can have the evidence to prove what he needs to prove."
In theory you're probably right, but in practice, all Jack Smith really has to do is to get the jury to say, Trump's 'Guilty'. And he's being treated to a DC jury pool that is already pre-disposed to return with that verdict, as we have seen in many other Republican trials. Trump is already guilty; The verdict is ready now, to be assigned the charges.
In my opinion Smith will not need to present proof that Trump knew he had lost. This case will be heard in front of a biased judge, who should recuse herself. But as we have seen recently, a biased judge might relish the opportunity to punish Trump. Assuming the judge is able to control her extreme revulsion of Trump the jury will be biased. Trump will be assumed to be guilty and have to prove he is innocent. It will be damn near impossible for Trump to prove that he believed he had won. Very much as hard as it would be for Smith to prove Trump knew he had lost. BUT in this trial Smith will not have to prove anything about Trump's state of mind, conjecture will be enough, the burden of proof will be on Trump.
Get Trump, the rule of law is failing........
1. "Please stop restating that you mistrust the jurors in D.C."
2. "My point is that I can't see how Smith can have the evidence to prove what he needs to prove."
OK. But:
My confidence in your legal judgment is near absolute. So, why is the US Department of Justice continuing the prosecution unless they are confident of a biased jury, which brings us back to the unavoidable point 1.
-This prosecution is based on the expectation of a biased jury.
-The Hur declination was based on expectation of a biased jury.
-The Fulton County prosecution is based on expectation of a biased jury.
-The NY defamation trial was based on expectation of a biased jury.
-The NY fraud trial was based on expectation of a biased judge.
Bias in the legal system is the overriding factor in all of these.
Debate on the finer points of law, or not so fine as you point out in this case - proving the unprovable - might be interesting but are ultimately a meaningless distraction from the fact that our justice system has been commandeered by political zealots working with bad intent.
Call them out. Stand up for the Constitutional system that defined your working life.
I'm not a Trump fan, certainly not a bitter-ender Trump fan, but I think there's grounds for reasonable doubt about the vote counts in several States. If those reasonable doubts could be resolved, it might ("might") change the election result.
The problem is that those doubts can't be resolved now, for reasons several commenters have given. In close elections, we don't demand a perfect vote count; "close enough for government work" suffices. Trump's advisors quoted in the indictment were almost certainly applying that standard. That's not the standard that Trump thought should be applied. And Trump probably also thought: They couldn't possibly have elected that fool over me!
The US government spent 3 years pushing a lie that Trump colluded with Russia based on a dossier that they knew couldn't be vetted written by a person they knew lied. All of this was to question the outcome of the 2016 election, which Hillary Clinton still claims was stolen from her. No Democrat has been held accountable in the slightest.
Blogger Mr Wibble said...
My guess is that in 10-15 years- once Trump and Biden have both passed on, and enough time has passed that no prosecutor would touch the case- we'll start seeing books admitting that fake ballots were flooded in at the last moment.
Everyone knew that LBJ cheated his primary win over Coke Stevenson in 1948. But everyone denied it.
In the 80s or the 90s when everyone that mattered was dead we got to see the picture, taken on election day 1948, of the cheaters with the famous ballot box 13 that gave him the victory and gave us 60,000 dead Americans in Vietnam.
And the shits are holding up the ballot box and grinning about it http://mondovista.com/lbj/box13.jpg
John Henry
All I see is a sore loser, DJT. He has been on my radar as vomit worthy since about 1988. Didn't thin much of him then, with his faux "billionaire" claims...Think even less of him now. No class, NONE.
All that hate is going to eat you up inside.
Good.
Is there anyone who doesn't accept, now, that the Demmies cheated their way to a win over Nixon in 1968?
Lots of denial going on about that in the 60s and 70s. not so much today.
John Henry
I’m not clear on how this different than Biden claiming “the border is secure.”
“Perhaps you believe that the government can't prove paragraph 11--but as Rich pointed out, there is a lot of stuff in the public record, in some cases under oath, on each of the points mentioned there.”
Being under oath is irrelevant, for the most part. As is the case of being in the public record. It is mostly inadmissible as HEARSAY. From a Due Process point of view, the big thing missing is the right for Trump and the other defendants, to cross examine the witnesses. That’s where the CO 14A § 3 case went off the rails - the CO SC could rewrite the CRE rule on Hearsay to allow into evidence the findings of Pelosi’s hand picked kangaroo court J6 investigation, but they couldn’t dodge the fact that the defendants were never allowed to confront and cross examine their accusers. One side got to (indirectly) put as many witnesses on the stand, the other side couldn’t, wasn’t allowed to cross examine the Dems’ witnesses, and, even determine much of who and what was testified, when the Dems in House encrypted, then deleted the witness transcripts before turning over control of the House in early 2023. That is probably part of why even the junior Justice, Jackson, otherwise a stanch Dem, will very likely vote against CO. It was a fairly fundamental violation of Due Process.
Here, the prosecution may have some sworn testimony, from, for example, Smith’s grand jury. But grand juries are notoriously unreliable. They typically only see what the prosecution wants them to see. Thus, for example, the sworn testimony before a grand jury can typically be used to impeach government witnesses, by defendants, but not to make their case in chief. Thus, if Smith wants the jury to hear AG Barr testify about what he said to Trump, and visa versa, they can call him as a witness. But then Trump’s attorneys can ask him what was the basis for his position that there was no fraud, that the election fraud that occurred didn’t affect the outcome of the election, etc. The reality, very likely, is that Barr was never in possession of adequate facts to have made those determinations. Opinions of his underlings, sure. And if the prosecution pushes this too hard, the defense should be able to rebut it, with evidence that there was significant fraud, etc.
“he might have sincerely believed there was fraud — that "something bad" happened — but he could not have believed that there was enough fraud to make up the discrepancy. Maybe elections are never perfect and perfect isn't the standard, but responsible people ought to give up and concede when the margin of victory is sufficient, because we need an answer and we want people to feel secure and satisfied that the system works.”
Yet, he was up by hundreds of thousands of votes in each of the critical swing states. The Dems closed the counting, evicted the Republican election judges, restarted counting, and, all of a sudden, those hundreds of thousands of votes disappeared, swamped by just enough questionable votes to barely eke out a victory for Biden.
Game, set, and match to Rabel at 4:45 PM. Succinct and on the bullseye.
@Robert Cook sez: "Yes, well...those millions also think Trump is a decent, even exemplary human being, possessed of extraordinary intelligence and concern for others. "
Cooky, baby..... what, do you believe that Trump voters put him up on a pedestal? You think they all have little shrines in their living room, draped with a MAGA scarf and with Trump votive candles lit, and little dingle-dangle memorabilia? Buddy, you've put yourself into a bell jar. Is this your comfort zone?
I know a lot of Trump voters, and none of them are like that. They all see him as a flawed human, an highly imperfect candidate - and the right man for the job based on past performance, and maybe even someone that has been methodically screwed over by the system, which is terrified of populist politics - you know, that whole 'consent of the governed' thingie - as is becoming more and more evident. Maybe you can't hear it, in your comfort zone.
Rich, you just continue to make yourself look like damned fool:
"it cannot simply be assumed that Trump believed his fraud claims."
It can't be proven that he didn't, Dumbass. It is an impossible task, and you citing hearsay isn't going to change that. Now, perhaps Smith can get Trump on the stand admitting he didn't believe it, then I will accept that as proof. But your insistence that statements like the ones you offered up tells me that you are either lying yourself, or are too stupid to understand basic English.
False belief sounds wrong because it's from a invalid picture of the psychology. False has to occur in the present and belief doesn't occur in the present but only retroactively as an account.
575. When I sat down on this chair, of course I believed it would bear me. I had no thought of its possibly collapsing. (Wittgenstein)
You could watch Trump at the time and the right thing to say was "He thinks he won the election."
Later you explain his actions by "He believed he won the election."
Nowhere is there a false belief. He was just wrong (say).
And Rich again:
"Nor can it just be asserted that Trump believed them since assertions in court require evidence."
So, Trump will finally get a court order to examine some mail-in-ballot envelopes from Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin? You can't demand he prove his beliefs with evidence, and then deny him the ability gather it, can you?
Rich is a bad faith enthusiast.
A challenge to Rich and Stephen:
What is the one piece of hard evidence that proves there wasn't nearly enough fraud in the mail-in-ballots to change the outcome in any of those 5 contested states. I really want to see what you consider to be proof that Trump couldn't possibly have seen that proof and still believe he won the election. Rich has already cited the opinions of several people, but he hasn't actually cited any evidence that supported those opinions- so I am asking you two- what was that evidence that, for example, informed Bill Barr's opinion about the matter, or anyone else Rich mentioned. How am I or anyone else to know that those opinions weren't false themselves?
they don't have to prove whether or not he believed any particular thing about the election, they have to prove that
- he knowingly undertook or conspired to undertake specific illegal acts
- he knew (or should have known) that those acts were illegal
Maybe elections are never perfect and perfect isn't the standard, but responsible people ought to give up and concede when the margin of victory is sufficient, because we need an answer and we want people to feel secure and satisfied that the system works.
The election system is broken, and a substantial portion of the electorate has very legitimate doubts about whether the system works. The answer cannot be "Well, you need to be a good loser and tell your people that the system works, so that the people won't question the system and we don't need to fix it."
The answer needs to be: fix the system and show people that we have a system that can be trusted. We have the opposite, and the opponents of fixing the system are happily and successfully making the system less accountable.
Mail in voting, machine voting, and extended voting periods are the base materials for election-rigging. You are not going to convince me that our elections are secure, when the evidence that they are not is so blatant and obvious.
Telling Trump "you're not going to be able to win on your claims that the state elections were stolen, so you lost the election" is not the same as telling Trump that those state elections were untainted by fraudulent ballots and rigged procedures. One is an assessment of practical realities, the other is a subjective belief (which is certainly at odds with the very real and copious evidence of chaos and tampering in the handling and processing of ballots).
Doesn't the fact that Trump and his supporters brought all of those "failed" lawsuits support a strong inference that they believed that they had been defrauded?
What illegal acts, Witness?
Dave Begley said "And that’s when our Bastille moment happens. The Dems have pushed us to the breaking point because of their desire to stay in power and their rampant cheating. Biden stole the election.
We’ve become a post-rule of law society.
And it’s not that I distrust DC jurors, I know that DC jurors are lawless. Look what they did to Mark Steyn."
THIS^^^^^^
"they don't have to prove whether or not he believed any particular thing"
"he knowingly undertook or conspired"
Hmm, taking a hard pass on that logic.
Also, Hillary's still out there peddling her BS.
"Dave Begley said 'And that’s when our Bastille moment happens. The Dems have pushed us to the breaking point because of their desire to stay in power and their rampant cheating. Biden stole the election.'"
Paranoid projection.
Until it isn't, Cook.
“But the Jack Smith case against Trump requires the prosecution to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump did not believe that he had won, that he was lying when he said he had won.“
I think this cuts both ways. If the defense doesn’t put Donald Trump on the witness stand, it will have a similar problem proving he had a sincere belief. Yes, the prosecution bears the burden of proof, but the prosecution will have evidence to overcome that burden so the defense will have to enter evidence to counter that. If the defense does put Donald Trump on the witness stand, I predict he will have an even harder time of proving sincere belief.
"Doesn't the fact that Trump and his supporters brought all of those 'failed' lawsuits support a strong inference that they believed that they had been defrauded?"
Maybe, maybe not. Trump has weaponized the courts throughout his public life and career. If you throw enough money at your opponents, you can financially beat them down, discourage them from continuing to fight, or even from initiating a challenge to you to begin with. Plaintiffs of modest financial means who are suing (or being sued by) a powerful and wealthy person or entity may have to concede, or, at best, accept a settlement with a drastically mitigated acknowledgement of wrongdoing and payment of damages--if any--simply to avoid being bankrupted by continuing to fight. The person with the greater sum of cash can typically out-spend and outlast and prevail over his poorer adversaries, and this has long been Trump's modus scamerandi.
Have you heard/read about the "Michael Mann Hockey Stick" trial against Mark Stein? A DC jury ignored the rules of law and ordered Stein to pay Mann $1million. At this point it's pretty naive to think politics hasn't poisoned our justice system, at least in hard left states.
Is that the sound of crickets I hear?
Maybe elections are never perfect and perfect isn't the standard, but responsible people ought to give up and concede when the margin of victory is sufficient, because we need an answer and we want people to feel secure and satisfied that the system works.
That would be a lie, and I'm not willing to push lies.
The Democrat "vote counters" in Fulton County, GA kicked out all the press and poll watchers with the announcement that they were done counting for the evening, then immediately went back to "counting votes" once they could visually verify that everyone was gone.
Before they did this, the "NYT Needle" had GA as "solidly Trump"
After they did this, the needle was at "slight Biden lead".
No sane person trust "vote counters" who "count" after kicking out all outside observers.
Maybe elections are never perfect and perfect isn't the standard, but responsible people ought to give up and concede when the margin of victory is sufficient, because we need an answer and we want people to feel secure and satisfied that the system works.
That would be a lie, and I'm not willing to push lies.
The margin in the 2020 presidential election in WI was less than the number of new "disabled" absentee voters. The thing about "disabled" absentee voters is that they're not required to provide any State issued photo id to prove that they actually exist, and are who they say they are.
If you don't see the potential and likelihood for fraud there, you are too stupid to have anything of worth or value to contribute, on any subject.
Maybe elections are never perfect and perfect isn't the standard, but responsible people ought to give up and concede when the margin of victory is sufficient, because we need an answer and we want people to feel secure and satisfied that the system works.
That would be a lie, and I'm not willing to push lies.
If you want to "preserve society's faith in elections" then it is incumbent upon you not to do things that cause thinking people to suspect there's actually a problem.
You know, like changing the rules illegally in the middle of the election, by having Democrats in the Executive and / or Judicial Branches of various States ordering changes in election law, without going through the boring process of getting a new law passed.
There is no such thing as an "emergency measure" that needs to be taken 90 days after the "emergency" has started. There was more than enough time to bring proposals to the State Legislatures, and vote on them.
The corrupt Democrats working to steal teh 2020 elections went around the law because they couldn't get their changes passed legally. Not because there wasn't time, but because the changes were ALL bad, and could not have survived any real legislative process.
So, you "want people to feel secure and satisfied that the system works"? Then don't break it
Bruce Hayden and Yancey Ward,
Both of you seem to be naive about what's required to prove that Trump knew his claims were false. The facts described in Paragraph 11 of the indictment, if the prosecution has witnesses to testify to them, and the jury credits them, are very strong---lots of people of substance, from his own AG, VP and Homeland Security Department, to the White House Counsel's Office, to Trump supporting election officials and state legislators, to the judgments of dozens of courts against him, which his lawyers were required to explain to him. It is extraordinarily rare to have such strong proof of scienter.
Bruce, You are correct that the prosecution will not be allowed to prove its case with hearsay and that there will be an opportunity to cross examine each witness. But these are not witnesses with an anti Trump bias--they are his VP, his AG, Governors and Secretary's of State of his own party. Moreover, they are at least presumptively competent. Plus, the evaluations of the evidence by courts, after an adversary presentation, are hard to cross examine. And some of the conduct, like Raffensberger's debunking of fraud claims and Trump's request to Raffensberger to "find me" enough votes to win in Georgia, is recorded.
Yancy, You are correct that Trump will be able to argue that when he said fraud, he meant fraud that, while not proven, could be inferred from the opportunity allegedly created by mail balloting. The indictment, though, charges numerous specific claims of fraud that have nothing to do with the asserted weaknesses of mail balloting; for those cases, Trump will need to show evidence supporting the view that the fraud actually occurred as he claimed. So far, he has never been able to provide such proof. In some cases where lawyers tried to present it, the claim was found to be frivolous. In others, lawyers refused to present claims of fraud because they could not ethically do so. And in other cases, claims of widespread cheating collapsed completely.
Moreover, the thrust of the claim that the election was stolen implies both an identified thief, and conduct that was clearly wrongful. Generalized claims that state mail in ballot laws permitted too many ineligible voters to vote or permitted eligible voters to vote twice, fit poorly in that framework--who exactly was the thief--the legislature who passed the law, the state election officials who administered it, the courts who held that the laws had not been violated, or the state legislatures who refused to act after the election--bearing in mind that in the swing states, those actors were often Trump Republicans? So the jury would not be required to believe that Trump actually believed those claims, either.
Bear in mind, also, there may well be evidence from Trump's mouth suggesting that Trump did not believe his own claims. The indictment recites that when Pence refused to do his bidding, Trump said to him: You are too honest Mike. If an eyewitness, whether it's Pence or one of his staffers, testifies to that, it will be a party admission--not hearsay, and not likely to help Trump's credibility.
Of course Trump could be acquitted even if all the allegations in Paragraph 11 are proven to my satisfaction, or even yours. The jury will decide. But the case against Trump is far stronger than your questions suggest. Moreover, if a jury were to decide that he was guilty, it would not do to suggest that they did so only because of the venue and the jury pool; after all, people like Mitt Romney and Liz Chaney--white Republican citizens of Utah and Wyoming, each with long experience in public affairs--have already reached substantially similar conclusions.
No, you are not missing anything. They will make one argument, then argue the exact opposite when it suits their purposes. For a DC jury, that's not even relevant. Smith only has to say "This is Donald Trump" and immediately close.
Either that or the New York Times is not reading the New York Times again. Apparently, that is a ironclad defense of defamation: don't read your own newspaper. Personally, I think not reading the New York Times a good practice, but it does bring into question why anyone would buy it given their own employees apparently do not think it worth their time.
That was a lot words, Stephen, to offer up nothing at all. Again, all those people you mention in your last comment have nothing but their own opinions about whether or not Trump fairly lost the election- it is not proof an anything, anymore than Trump's own statements on the matter which every opponent describes as a "false belief". I note for the record that you have retreated to a position where you think the prosecution can try to prove that Trump can't have believed the election was stolen in specific ways not related to mail-in-ballots, but that again runs up against the logical problem that you still can't prove beyond a reasonable doubt Trump didn't believe it without a recorded statement from Trump himself, nor can the prosecution prove the election was fraud-free even on those standards. And, you are just flat out wrong that the jury doesn't have to believe Trump was lying since the actions he took
You are trying to convict a man using a non-fact basis for doing so. I asked you specifically for the strongest piece of factual evidence of which Trump would have been aware and would have then been unreasonable in continuing to believe the election was stolen from him, and thus was trying to overturn a fair election. If Trump believe he was being robbed, then the actions described in the indictment don't amount to a crime, but rather a petition to the officials involved in certifying the election to set an injustice right- that is why the indictment specifically targets his belief about the matter. A DC jury isn't going to give a shit about this they will convict him even if Smith doesn't even put on a case, but the Supreme Court will care about it, I promise you, and if Smith does get a guilty verdict it will never stand precisely because it is an attempt to prove something that can't be proven without a confession.
I sent e-mails to my Senators, my House Representative, and to Mike Pence encouraging them to not certify the election on January 6th 2021. That was not a crime, nor was it a crime for Trump to ask the same. Pence might not have had the power to do what Trump asked for, but there also isn't a law against it either- the worse that would have happened is that Congress would have overruled his objections just like it overruled the objections in 2001, 2005, and 2017- Pence would have just been another member of Congress whose objections were turned away. Mark my words- if by some miracle Trump wins next November, the Democrats will try the exact same methods of trying to stop the confirmation of the result by Congress, and people like you would declare it isn't a crime after all, but protecting democracy.
"Moreover, if a jury were to decide that he was guilty, it would not do to suggest that they did so only because of the venue and the jury pool"
So, you are saying you would have no problem having the trial moved to Tennessee? Right?
Yancey,
I don't know which evidence that Trump knew what he was saying was false will prove most persuasive to a jury--it depends ultimately on the testimony and other evidence, both pro and con, and the skill of the lawyers involved, which will doubtless be high on both sides.
But consider Paragraph 12 (f) of the indictment:
"f. The Defendant asserted that voting machines in various contested states had switched votes from the Defendant to Biden. The Defendant's Attorney General, Acting Attorney General, and Acting Deputy Attorney General all had explained to him that this was false, and numerous recounts and audits had confirmed the accuracy of voting machines."
So let's assume that Bill Barr, Jeffrey Rosen, and Richard Donoghue testify that each personally informed him that there was no proof that voting machines in various contested states had switched votes from Trump to Biden and that they had informed him that "numerous recounts and audits had confirmed the accuracy of voting machines." It seems likely that they will do so, since all are on the public record as having said something very much like that to Trump.
Add to that that when claims of voting machine fraud were asserted in court by Trump himself, they uniformly failed, and in some cases were held to be frivolous.
What can Trump say in response? I didn't believe them? And what does he say when asked why he didn't believe them? They were biased in favor of Biden? Not very plausible, is it?
That they were incompetent? Barr was his hand picked man. That he didn't know about the judgements against him, even though he was the client and his personal lawyers had a fiduciary obligation to explain them to him?
Maybe Trump will say, other lawyers told me that there was good proof of outcome determinative fraud. But that will then waive the privilege as to all the advice he got about such fraud. So the prosecution will be able to pull in the lawyers who gave such advice, and all the other lawyers who told him that there was no evidence of fraud, or who refused to bring such claims because they were frivolous.
It's worth remembering that Fox News, which was defending the Dominion claims of fraud under a standard of knowing falsity very much like that applicable to Trump in the January 6 case, albeit under a preponderance standard, settled for nearly $800 million rather than defend those claims before a jury. The evidence of knowing falsity is likely to be stronger for Trump than it was for Fox.
This is just one example. It may not prove to be the strongest, but it's not nothing, as you suggest.
Finally, re venue. Yes, Tennessee would be a better venue for Trump. But venue is normally set where the crime occurred. That was DC in this matter, as it was Florida in the documents case. DC is better for the government in this case, Florida is better for Trump in the documents case. That's how the system works. In the eyes of the law, the DC jury and the Florida jury are the same.
The deeper point on venue you completely failed to address, which is that to be persuaded that Trump tried to ride knowing falsehoods to reverse Biden's victory you don't have to be a liberal Democrat, a person of color, or a resident of DC. Everything I've seen suggests that a jury of Mitt Romneys and Liz Chaneys would also be very open to finding that Trump made claims he didn't believe. This is not all about where the case is brought--the evidence of scienter matters, and there is reason to think it will be persuasive to all who put aside their prejudices.
Stephen, I am asking you what is the strongest piece of evidence- not what you think would convince the jury. I asking you for just a single piece of evidence that makes believing the election of 2020 was stolen completely unreasonable, and you have provided none. I note that in a previous comment, you claimed that the prosecution doesn't need to convince the jury that Trump was lying when he claimed the election was stolen- that ignores the big elephant on the pages of the indictment itself- Jack Smith pretty obviously thinks he needs to prove that- if it were otherwise, the indictment wouldn't bother with all the "evidence" you yourself have cited repeatedly.
Also, you explicitly conceded that the location of the trial matters, so I am, in fact, reasonable to dismiss any guilty verdict issued in D.C. as illegitimate, right? Trump would get a fairer trial in Tennessee than he will get in Washington D.C. just on a prima facie basis- Democrat candidates regularly get 30-40% of the vote here versus the 5% that Trump got in D.C. For a federal case, where the alleged crime took place really shouldn't be the deciding factor as to where the trial itself takes place, and fairness to the defendant should be the only determining factor.
And, your citing of Romney and Cheney weakens your argument, not strengthens it. Both literally hate Donald Trump, and did so long before the election of 2020. You might as well have cited David French, Jonah Goldberg, and George Will for all that it is worth. Using these as your argument only makes trying Trump in D.C. appear even more unfair.
Yancey,
I had penned a longer response but the system ate it. So, quickly.
Contrary to your suggestion, my earlier posts make clear that I recognize that Smith has to prove that Trump's falsehoods were knowing, and that Smith does too, see paragraph 6 of the indictment.
Your demand for the single strongest piece of evidence that Trump knew the election was not stolen doesn't make sense. The indictment charges Trump not with a broad claim that the election was stolen but with numerous specific false claims of fraud, often uttered on a state by state basis. And that makes sense, because Trump's charges covered seven swing states, and multiple means of alleged theft.
The single strongest piece of evidence demand also doesn't make sense because both falsity and knowledge of falsity are often proved through the cumulation of pieces of evidence, as illustrated by my discussion of the many different people who were telling Trump that the voting machine claims had no basis in fact. A similar cumulation of evidence caused Fox to pay $800 million to settle its voting machine fraud case.
That said, the basic classes of evidence that threaten to sink Trump's claims of honest belief are two: (a) every court that considered his claims of outcome determinative fraud rejected them on the merits as unsupported by the evidence or clearly implausible; and (b) dozens of strong Republican supporters with knowledge of the facts, including state election officials, state legislators, his Vice President and running mate, key officials in his Justice and Homeland Security Departments, his White House counsel's office, and campaign officials and lawyers told him, repeatedly and often to his face, that his claims of outcome determinative fraud were baseless. Category A is indisputable. As for Category B, neither you nor I know for sure whether the government will be able to muster such evidence at trial, but if it can, Trump will find it hard to answer.
As for venue, it is clear to me that venue in DC is lawful; indeed, it is probably the only place that the case could lawfully have been brought. You may worry that a DC venue will be difficult for Trump, just as I worry that a Fort Pierce Florida venue will be difficult for the government in the documents case. The system's response, justified in my view, is a fair system cannot please everybody in every case.
As for Mitt Romney and Liz Chaney, you may dismiss them as Trump haters. But they have also provided detailed written accounts, based on their evaluation of the evidence, stating why they reached the conclusions that they reached about Trump's conduct on January 6. Based on what I have read, many of Trump's former allies, including many of his senior staff, and his handpicked AG and Vice President, Bill Barr and Mike Pence, have reached similar conclusions on the basis of their knowledge of the evidence. These people cannot all be dismissed as Trump haters from day 1; many were mainstays of his administration. The fact that so many highly trained, white, Republican officials have reached the conclusion that Trump was dishonest suggests that if a DC jury also does so, that verdict cannot be simply discounted as the product of ignorance or prejudice, as you are gearing up to do.
And that's all I have on this one. Be well.
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