By Bill JuneauWithout a doubt, the terrain is rocky and rough for Donald Trump as he pursues the Presidency in 2024. Democratic cannons are aimed at him and the deck has been carefully and conspiratorially stacked against him.
But the former President who has been accused of misdeeds in three pending legal cases, does not scare easily. He is running again for the office which he once held as President, and says he will win and will restore common sense, honesty, civility and patriotism to the United States. "Yes, we will Make America Great Again," he asserts.
His latest legal encounter was in Washington, D.C. where a grand jury has returned indictments alleging that he was the catalyst and conspirator who promoted the mob action in the capitol on January 6, 2021. The political charges are rooted in his unsuccessful effort to demonstrate that the election which put the befuddled Joe Biden in the Oval office was dishonest, and in fact, "stolen." If you are a Democrat and a liar and a progressive loon, D.C. is ground zero, and the place to go to take down Republican Donald Trump.
GOP-hating Democrats dominate the District of Columbia, the nation's capital, like no other spot in the country. In the 2020 election, Joe Biden received 92.1 per cent of the total votes cast to Trump's 5.4 per cent. In numbers, it was about 317,000 votes for Biden and 18,000 for the incumbent President. Since D.C. became a special territory in 1961, able to cast three electoral votes, democratic candidates for president have always drawn majorities, but the Biden victory there in 2020 set records.
So it was not too hard for the Party of the Jackass inside the District of Columbia to assemble a Grand Jury of 23 local residents to return indictments accusing the former President of criminally attempting to turn around the alleged results of the 2020 election. A bitter Trump hater, Jack Smith was tabbed as a special investigative counsel by the owly, one-sided Attorney General, Merrick Garland. Smith presented flimsy, one-sided and fabricated evidence that Trump and his attorneys committed criminal offenses when they argued without basis that the election was dishonest. The indictments were returned in shotgun fashion by the cooperating D.C. grand jury.
While the Biden victory was manipulated in a variety of ways, the Trump team demanded to know how the clumsy and befuddled Biden who rarely campaigned for the Presidency, relying on scripts written for him and delivered by him via television from the basement of his Delaware home, could have earned several million more votes from the African American community than Barack Obama had ever received in his successful races in 2008 and 2012. Trump has contended that the ballots, many blank except for a single mark for Biden, had to have been faked to provide such a count, yet judges declined to recognize the obvious incongruity, and order an investigation.
On August 3, former President Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges against him concerning alleged criminal efforts to change election results. He appeared before the 35-year-old Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadhyaya, who nastily referred to the ex President as "Mr. Trump," while warning him that any further criminal activities by him will trigger additional legal actions against him. Upadhyaya was appointed a magistrate judge in September of last year.
Magistrate Upadhyaya was born in Gujarat, India in 1988 and, according to her biography which raises questions, is a prodigy who graduated from law school when she was 15. The law degree followed undergraduate studies at the University of Missouri where she obtained bachelor degrees in journalism and in latin arts.
She received her J.D., cum laude, from Washington College of Law at American University in 2003 following three years of study there, making her about 11 when she entered law school, and about age 7 when she enrolled in undergraduate studies at the University of Missouri. Also, she was said to have clerked for judges and for a period was a partner at a law firm, doing pro bono work for which she won awards.
After Upadhyaya dealt with the arraignment of the defendant, all subsequent matters and motions, will be given to Jamaican-born District Judge Tanya Chutkan, for pretrial motions and the jury trial. An appointee of President Obama, Chutkan, a former public defender, has been outspoken about the harm caused by the capitol melee, and in other rulings and writings she has not concealed her negative assessment of former President Trump.
Mark Levin, a respected lawyer who hosts "Life, Liberty & Levin" on Fox News, has described Chutkan as the most "radical, partisan activist judge in the entire federal judiciary. Gee, I wonder how she got chosen.”
Trump, President from 2016 to 2020, made his first appearance before Judge Chutkan on Aug. 11, and Chutkan raised her concerns that the ex-president must be limited in what he can say about the pending case and the charges against him even though he is a candidate and campaigning for the nomination of his party as the GOP candidate. Well, he cannot say what he wants to say in a political speech; "that is just how it’s going to have to be.” said Chutkan. Trump lawyers are arguing that the judge is stepping upon freedom of speech rights provided all Americans, including those facing federal charges.
Chutkan scheduled another hearing for Nov. 4 at which the court will determine the extent of records which the Trump administration must release to the prosecutors.
Trump is the defendant in two other lawsuits accusing him of felonious conduct. One deals with his possession of classified documents kept in his Florida home under the protection of secret service agents. The other, brought by a New York district attorney, accuses the ex president of a hush money scheme involving adult film star Stormy Daniels. Both are deemed political fabrication by Republicans and fair minded Americans who expect that the charges will be dismissed via motions, or after a trial.
So for the ex-President, seeking his second term in the White House, the obstacles thrown into his path are vicious, but the President says they are surmountable. His followers will never desert him, and lawsuits aimed at him by an authoritarian group which has abandoned all patriotism and honor, according to polls, seem to be making him stronger.
Democrats and the top level in the FBI should be worried if Donald Trump again becomes president. He does not take kindly to liars and corrupt officials; and he is not projected to be a forgiving person.
Bill Juneau worked for 25 years as a reporter and night city editor at the Chicago Tribune. Subsequently he became a partner in a law firm and also served as a village prosecutor and as a consultant to the Cook County Circuit Court and to the Cook County Medical Examiner. He is currently writing columns and the 'Florida Bill' blog.
Free Press International
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