Competing Accusations – Watching America

Once upon a time in America, there were election campaigns in which candidates faced off over their political visions and programs for social progress in employment, health, and education. At the current rate, the 2024 presidential election will consist of trench warfare fought in the courts.

While Donald Trump is notified by federal prosecutors that he will face a third indictment on charges related to the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol, a fourth indictment is on its way from Georgia. According to rumors, it will be the most serious — with incontrovertible evidence, including a recording of the telephone call in which Trump asks state election officials to “find” the 11,780 votes he needed to beat Joe Biden. This could be the gravest allegation to date: violation of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, the anti-racketeering law, with the disclosure of a complex system of pressure and threats brought to bear on various officials, including the state governor, by the then president and his allies. One such ally is Rudy Giuliani who, sued by two election workers whom he had accused of vote-rigging, has just admitted making false statements, in order to avoid conviction. In the meantime, the Florida judge in charge of the second indictment on charges relating to mishandling classified documents has moved Trump’s trial from December to next May, still prior to the presidential election.

Instead of dumping an unprepossessing candidate, even one backed by an army of disciples, the Republicans are reacting to all this by trying to dig up dirt on Joe Biden in return. The prosecutors who had been negotiating with the president’s son, Hunter Biden, faced pressure to charge him with minor offenses and penalties that do not carry prison sentences, pressure which has led them to narrowly interpret the plea bargain which, so revised, was rejected by Hunter Biden’s lawyers, reopening the way to a trial.

Meanwhile, with the Trumpists in Congress determined to attack the current president, the unstable House Speaker Kevin McCarthy says he wants to impeach Joe Biden, while other Republicans are holding back, fearing a boomerang effect given the inconsistency of the charges that would be brought. Once upon a time in America, there were election campaigns in which candidates faced off over their political vision and programs for social progress in employment, health, and education. At the current rate, the 2024 presidential election will consist of trench warfare fought in the courts. Rather than politics, we will discuss judges navigating their way through the litigation and lawyers with aces up their sleeves.