He’s so excited that Joe’s even been having trouble falling asleep at his normal bedtime of 6:30pm. He can’t wait! The New York Post broke the story Friday, headlined “
Biden plans to address Trump ‘hush money’ verdict from the White House: report.”
Per unnamed White House sources, as soon as the jury renders its verdict in former President Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial, current President Robert L. Peters plans to give a totally not-political, televised national address from a “White House setting.”
Get the idea? It’s for
the contrast. An orange man in an orange jumpsuit versus a man in a custom Chinese business suit in the Oval Office.
As far as the trial goes,
closing arguments begin this morning,
not streamed, so we must rely on live updates and post-argument summaries. I expect closing arguments will confuse the jury even more, if possible.
Politico listed five ways the trial could end: conviction on all 34 counts, conviction on some counts but not others, acquittal, a hung jury, or a directed judicial verdict dismissing the case (still under review).
In one of the most hilarious facets of this ridiculous political show trial, trying to jail Trump for up to 134 years for victimless bookkeeping offenses, prosecutors have offered three different possible underlying crimes as the predicate to transform Trump’s brief check stub notations from misdemeanors into a life-sentence felony.
In other words, the trial is over, and Trump still doesn’t even know exactly what crimes they’ve charged him with.
Like hot dishes on a statutory Golden Corral buffet, prosecutors have served jurors with a cafeteria of underlying crimes — it could be a violation of state election law, federal election law, or a tax avoidance crime, you choose! According to a truly awful ruling by Judge Merchan, jurors can pick one, two, or three of the offered crimes, or can even dream up a whole different crime they thought of themselves — and they don’t even have to agree.
They only have to be unanimous in agreeing that
something bad happened.
This sort of hazy and malleable view of culpability makes the trial
literally Kafkaesque. Like Josef K. in Kafka’s disturbing novel, Trump can never quite pin down the precise nature of the case against him. The jury can find Trump “guilty” in a general sense without specifically defining the crime.
Commenters quickly pointed out that under federal law, the jury can’t just willy-nilly scoop underlying crimes off an all-you-can-charge buffet of possible offenses. Under established Supreme Court law, jurors must unanimously agree on exactly which underlying crimes were committed. Even a major U.S. governor weighed in Friday:
Of course, there’s a catch. If you’re now wondering whether Judge Merchan is off his rocker, Greta’s helpful case citation was a bit of a hot take, and was not completely accurate. The case of
Richardson v. United States is helpful, logical, and persuasive, but since it applies to
federal law and
federal juries, it does not bind
state court charges like Trump’s.
Unfortunately,
Byron York’s much more detailed takedown of the murky panoply of claims levied against Trump noted that Trump’s lawyer already admitted New York
state law
does allow for mix-and-match underlying crimes: “Bove conceded New York law allows a jury to take its pick of unlawful means, but this is ‘an extraordinarily important case’ for which ‘there’s not much, if any, precedent.’”
That link to Byron’s article also included a video clip (11:31) worth watching if you are interested in the particulars.
Let’s return to Biden’s rumored plan to give a big speech right after the jury verdict. The speech would undoubtedly confuse the news and muddy public reaction, especially in the unthinkable event Trump is
taken into custody. Biden would paternalistically counsel the Nation to peace and acceptance, express his deep, abiding regret for Trump’s unhappy outcome, and remind everyone what happened last time to the January 6th protestors.
But the Post also noted that Biden’s campaign team is desperately praying for Trump’s conviction, since they’ve
already prepared a flurry of new campaign ads referring to President Trump as “Convicted Felon Donald Trump,” a discordant melody that will be endlessly repeated by corporate media like a scratched record until the end of the year, assuming the jury does what everyone expects them to.
Since the Post’s story was anonymously sourced, and since a post-verdict Biden speech would seem like gloating, no matter what he says, and would be painfully undignified — even for the hair-sniffer-in-chief — it’s not perfectly clear this unbelievable plan is true. But, it’s 2024. So. Second, if Biden were smart, instead of calling Trump “Mr. Convict” for the rest of the election season, he’d smash expectations with magnanimity, such as by immediately pardoning Trump, explaining it was so the judicial system wouldn’t become election interference or something.
That is what Biden would do if he were
smart. But, you know.
Biden preps post-conviction address; Trump trial preview; legal issues; betting prefers Trump anyways; Powell beats disbarment; Buttigieg loses billions on green tech; South Park slams medicine; more.
www.coffeeandcovid.com
