Former President Donald Trump's victory in the Supreme Court 14th Amendment case, together with delay and disorder in the criminal cases against him, has set off panic among Democrats who hoped to use prosecutions and other legal maneuvers to keep Trump from winning a second term. "Supreme Court ruling darkens critics' hopes for a judicial curb on Trump," read one headline in the Washington Post.
You might find it outrageous that people in positions of great power and responsibility, in the midst of a campaign, would use the justice system to "curb" one of the two major presidential candidates. You might find it outrageous that those people -- a coalition of elected Democrats, Biden administration appointees, Democratic Party activists and career lawfare specialists -- are in fact desperately pushing the system to work faster to win verdicts by Election Day. But there it is.
The anti-Trump coalition has launched six main attacks on Trump. Attack No. 1 is the federal indictment, brought by the Justice Department-appointed special counsel Jack Smith, charging Trump with 40 felony counts in the classified documents case. No. 2 is the federal indictment, also brought by Smith, charging Trump with four felonies in the 2020 election and Jan. 6 case. No. 3 is the sprawling, 13-felony count racketeering indictment, based on the 2020 election, brought against Trump and 18 co-defendants in Georgia by the elected Democratic Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
Attack No. 4 is the 34-felony-count indictment, based on the payment of hush money in the 2016 election, brought by the elected Democratic Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. No. 5 is the effort, launched by various activists around the country, to remove Trump from presidential ballots by declaring him an "insurrectionist" under the terms of Section Three of the 14th Amendment. And No. 6 is the effort to bankrupt Trump by way of a lawsuit brought by the elected Democratic New York State Attorney General Letitia James.
Now, with their efforts in the news daily, it might be a good time to see where things stand. Go through them in reverse order of importance, that is, starting with the cases least likely to hurt Trump this year:
-- The 14th Amendment removal campaign. It's over. Having all nine Supreme Court justices agree that no state can take Trump off the ballot is as decisive as it gets. Still -- and keep an eye on this -- you might see the 14th Amendment argument revived if Trump wins and congressional Democrats look for a way to prevent him from taking office.
-- The Georgia case. What can be said about it? Right now, everyone is waiting for a judge to decide whether to remove Willis from the case on the basis of charges of misconduct raised by a number of defense lawyers. If Willis is removed, the entire case might collapse for want of another prosecutor to pursue it.
-- The federal classified documents case. It was always going to be hard to do this year, given that it involves millions of documents, security clearances and special handling of evidence. The judge in the case has entertained suggestions of starting the trial in mid-summer, but that seems extremely unlikely, and a verdict before election day seems even more unlikely.
-- The New York lawsuit. Unlike the others, this has been a ringing success for the people seeking Trump's financial ruin. Trying flimsy and blatantly unfair charges before a compliant judge -- under New York law, Trump did not have the right to a jury trial -- James won a $454 million judgment against the former president. Even if he manages to reduce the award on appeal, Trump has still been damaged. And James is having a ball taunting him on social media.
-- The federal 2020 election and Jan. 6 case. This is the showpiece case, the one so many anti-Trump forces have pinned their hopes on, because they see it as the prime vehicle to hold Trump "accountable" -- one of their favorite words -- for his efforts to challenge the 2020 election results. The trial was originally scheduled to begin this week but has been delayed by Trump's claim that he should be immune from charges over acts he took as president. Prosecutor Smith is scrambling to keep the case on track, but the Supreme Court will rule not only on the immunity issue, which Trump is expected to lose, but also on two of the four charges against Trump, which some argue simply do not apply to the case.
-- The Manhattan case. Bragg was the first to file criminal charges against Trump. It's safe to say he got little respect for it. Even Trump's adversaries admitted that the Bragg charges were weak; it's really a bunch of misdemeanors that Bragg conjured into felonies through a legally questionable maneuver. The other cases, bad as some of them are, got more respect and attention, and Bragg stepped into the background, offering to delay trying his case while the others went first. But now all those cases have encountered problems, and Bragg is steaming ahead to a March 25 trial date, less than three weeks away.
The reason for the Democratic panic is this: Some in the party think, "Sure, President Joe Biden is weak, and his polls are terrible, but if he falters, there is always lawfare. We've thrown case after case against Trump. Surely one of them will work." Now, there has been a lot of movement with the big six cases. Five of them might not be resolved, or resolved in Biden's favor, before the election. So it could be that the entire hopes of the Democratic Party and all those who seek to bring down Trump before Election Day rest with Bragg.
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