Sorting Through Trump’s Legal Chaos With Liz Dye
It’s all lies on top of delays on top of smears.
Legal journalist Liz Dye from the
podcast and newsletter joins me on The Play Typer Guy to try and make some sense out of Donald Trump’s 8 million simultaneous trials, especially when Trump’s own legal strategy is to “deceive, inveigle, and obfuscate.”Read some excerpts from our discussion below and watch the full video at your leisure. Please like, share, and subscribe to The Play Typer Guy YouTube channel!
SER: So something I’ve observed and written about myself is that normal people who aren’t as plugged into politics on a daily basis as you and I are, they are almost oblivious to everything [Trump-related.] It’s like a cloud. This runs the gamut of college educated people [to] working class folks. I’ve tried to talk to as many people from different walks of life as possible. And [there’s] a common theme of viewing this as an otherwise normal political campaign, sort of a rematch between Trump and Biden when obviously it’s far from normal that a major political candidate is someone under indictment for serious felonies, including — only with mild hyperbole — espionage and insurrection.
LIZ: Right. Well, I don’t think that’s at all hyperbole. He is indeed charged under the Insurrection Act and he was impeached for incitement, although not convicted in the Senate. This is some crazy stuff
What is Trump world’s legal plan, such as it is?
LIZ: … the plan is delay, delay, delay, delay. And in some sense, it is actually working. His plan is to delay these trials as long as possible … Trump is under four indictments, right? So he’s under indictment in the state of New York … that’s the case most people think of as the weakest. It’s false business records created in connection with the Stormy Daniels payoff in 2016. Most people think this is not an amazing case. That is theoretically going to trial in March. We shall see.
He’s been charged in Georgia in that ginormous RICO suit with, you know, 18 other defendants. And that one looks to be a little bit on the rocks, too, to the extent that it was ever going to go to trial before the election. It’s now super in doubt because there’s issues with the prosecutor, Fani Willis, who was revealed to be in a romantic relationship with the special prosecutor hired by her office. There is a strong possibility that … she’s going to be disqualified and not just that she would be disqualified from prosecuting, but that her entire office would be disqualified, which would mean that it would have to be assigned to a new office …
If it’s assigned to a prosecutor that doesn’t want to prosecute this case in the same way, it might be DOA. So that’s up in the air. In the Southern District of Florida, he’s charged in the documents case for retaining all of those classified documents and government documents … and refusing to give them back even when subpoenaed.
And in the US District Court in the District of Columbia, he’s charged with the January 6 crimes … He’s not charged with incitement. He’s not charged with insurrection, but he is charged with obstructing Congress and obstructing the counting of the [Electoral College] vote.
That trial was just taken off the calendar. It was scheduled for March 4, but it was taken off the calendar on Friday by Judge Tanya Chutkin. In deference to the reality that the US Circuit Court, the Court of Appeals in D.C., has not ruled on Trump’s claim of immunity. And thus, it’s just not going to be timely. There won’t be enough time to meet the original trial date. So those are the cases that are there, but as you can see, he’s been able to push them off by various stratagems.
Why Republicans Keep Enabling A Known Rapist
SER: People are saying Nikki Haley’s really sharpened her attacks against Trump, but what she’s been doing so far has been … saying, oh, he’s unhinged … and these trials are a “distraction” … well, why is it a distraction?
I’ve likened it to in 1998, if … Republicans were just saying … Bill Clinton is being distracted by some cases. We’re not going to talk about what these cases are in very gruesome detail and put that in everyone’s head, the image of what’s happening. We’re just going to say in a general sense, “Wow, Bill Clinton’s really distracted.” That doesn’t make any sense.
[Nikki Haley’s] someone who said that trans girls playing in women’s sports is
“the women’s rights issue of our time,” [but she won’t say] that her political opponent is a rapist. You can say it legally. He is a rapist.
LIZ: And Judge Kaplan did say that. Trump’s lawyers made a bunch of very bizarre arguments that since he was only convicted of sexual abuse and not rape, that he was not a rapist. And that gave Judge Lewis Kaplan about 15 opportunities to say, “No, no, no. Forcible penetration is rape.” It doesn’t matter whether you manage to get your penis in there. Sorry to be graphic.
That’s just a sneak peek of our deep dive! Go check out the rest on YouTube and later in podcast form. (Don’t worry, I’ll let you know when that drops.)
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As it was obvious from the beginning that Trump's only strategy in these cases was "delay", and in some of these matters the facts that gave rise to appointing a special counsel were publicly known in January 2021, it is all the more inexcusable that Merrick Garland took almost two years to appoint one.
If Trump wins, puts an end to these prosecutions, and becomes a dictator--all very live possibilities now--this will make Garland's name live in infamy for what could at best be described as gross incompetence.
The Georgia case seemed the strongest and best opportunity to hold Trump accountable for his bad actions. It's infuriating to think the prosecutors may have literally f*ked that case's chances.