With Christmas less than a month away, many Americans are equally stressed about the holidays and exhausted by politics, including the legal travails of former and future President Donald Trump.
That’s especially true as Trump’s legal proceedings are quietly concluded or frozen: Special Counsel Jack Smith has quietly obtained the dismissal of both cases under his jurisdiction; Meanwhile, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ 2020 election interference case has been on hold for months as Trump and multiple co-defendants question her ability to lead that prosecution. And of course, after agreeing to suspend all remaining post-trial proceedings until after the election, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is now fighting to preserve the New York hush money case, which Trump filed in a motion that was made public on Tuesday, wanted to reject.
It’s tempting to tune out. But this latest letter from Trump demands attention, perhaps less because of how it could affect the future course of the lawsuit and more because of what it signals about the incoming Trump administration. That’s especially true because it was signed by just two lawyers — Todd Blanche and Emil Bove — whom Trump has picked for top positions at the Justice Department in his new administration.
Here are three things worth noting about the new command:
It contains several statements that are misleading at best.
The letter contains several clear statements of alleged facts that range from misleading to unfounded. For example, there is no evidence that Biden’s Justice Department “sent” Matthew Colangelo, who served as chief assistant to Deputy Attorney General Vanita Gupta, to the Manhattan district attorney’s office, let alone that the DOJ and Bragg’s team were in cahoots to “unfairly attack President Trump in this empty and lawless case.”
Likewise, the Trump team, by claiming that the DA’s office tolerated the repeated lies of former Trump fixer Michael Cohen, while former Trump Organization director Allen Weisselberg was punished with a second prison sentence due to ‘alleged perjury’, blamed the prosecutor for choosing the ‘morally bankrupt choice’. But it ignores that Weisselberg plADed guilty against two perjury counts related to his testimony in Trump’s civil fraud case, which is currently on appeal.
The new argument, about the case that disrupted Trump’s transition efforts, does not reflect his actual handling of the transition.
Trump’s order extends constitutional concerns about prosecuting a sitting president to a certain period for his term: the transition. Specifically, Trump emphasizes that anything short of a complete rejection of the Manhattan case would disrupt his transition efforts and thus disrupt the functioning of the federal government. But even if that argument were legally justified — and that in itself is debatable — it is belied by what we can see in real time of the Trump transition.
Specifically, according to NBC News, Trump’s representatives ignored multiple requests from both the White House and congressional leaders to formally participate in the transition process, which begins well before the presidential election. And although the Trump transition team belatedly signed an agreement with the White House on November 26, at the time of publication it has still declined to do so with the General Services Administration (GSA), refraining from providing “additional resources to assist with the transition, including financing and office space’, and instead operates as a ‘self-sustaining organization’. By refusing to cooperate with the GSA, the Trump transition has also forfeited cybersecurity support, which “could also make the Trump transition a softer target for foreign hackers – who already successfully penetrated the campaign earlier this year.” (This is hardly a momentary concern: Kash Patel, Trump’s announced choice for FBI director, was recently a target of an Iranian cyberattack.)
Particularly given Trump’s overt delay and/or inability to adhere to the processes laid out in the Presidential Transition Act, it is not clear why an indictment tied to a jury verdict months ago “is likely to happen.”[s] the functioning of the federal government.”
His arguments about misconduct or bias take on an ominous tone given Trump’s key law enforcement choices.
Trump’s proposed nominees to lead key federal law enforcement agencies, namely Pam Bondi at the DOJ and Kash Patel at the FBI, have publicly warned that critics of Trump and/or those who prosecuted him will be prosecuted. In light of these commitments, allegations of misconduct and/or bias by certain individuals, whether prosecutors, a member of the prosecutor’s family, or even the CEO of a political consulting firm in which the judge’s daughter partner is included in the report. , takes on an ominous tone.
To be fair, not everyone in a Trump-led DOJ shares Bondi or Patel’s thirst for revenge and/or the drive to purge the so-called “deep state.” The Trump world includes more reasonable, experienced minds who certainly recognize that no federal statute criminalizes even the letter’s most allegations, such as the claim that by the time Trump was tried last spring, “the prosecutors were willing to say anything or to do to obtain a conviction.” But, assuming they oppose any planned prosecution of those involved in Trump’s criminal cases, can they prevail? And will they survive? I’m not convinced.
So yes, the holidays are here. And you’re tired of Trump evading justice and people like me playing Cassandra. I get it. But given the longer-term stakes of some of the positions set out in this most inevitable of assignments, don’t look away.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
