Sunday, 17 November 2024

Lawfare crises: Impartial jury possible? How can Jack Smith nail Trump if he can’t leave NYC?

World Tribune
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by WorldTribune Staff, April 18, 2024

One of the dismissed jurors in Donald Trump's hush money case in New York said it likely is not possible to seat an impartial jury.

Reports from the fourth day of the proceedings noted that it may take at least two weeks to seat the full jury of 12 and six to eight weeks after that to wrap up the trial.

That is making Jack Smith's beard grow more gray by the minute.

It may take two weeks to seat a jury and alternates in the Donald Trump hush money case in New York. / Video Image

How is Joe Biden's special prosecutor in the “classified documents” case in Florida supposed to practice lawfare when Trump is stuck in New York City?

The dismissed juror told MSNBC that other jurors had spoken about how it’s a “historical case” and how it’s going to “define so many things, but at the same time, our job as a juror is to be impartial, like to be unbiased.”

The same dismissed juror, who said she only recently became a U.S. citizen, told Fox News that she was dismissed because she raised her hand to indicate that she can’t be unbiased. She said she couldn’t explain further, saying it’s a “personal thing.”

She said her initial reaction to Trump was that “he looked less orange, definitely, like more yellowish,” adding that “he doesn’t look angry, I think he looks bored, like he wants this to finish and go do his stuff.”

On Wednesday, 48 potential jurors were dismissed when they indicated that they could not be impartial, according to NBC News.

On Thursday, two jurors who had been selected were dismissed, meaning five jurors of the 12-person jury had been selected. Alternates also need to be chosen as well.

One woman was dismissed from the jury on Thursday after she expressed concerns about her ability to be impartial and her identity being revealed. One man was dismissed after questions were raised about the man's responses, and the prosecution found that he had a prior arrest, according to CNN.

The slow-moving process in New York is not sitting well with Smith, who has filed many motions seeking to speed up the process in the “classified documents” case he is prosecuting against Trump in Florida.

Judge Aileen Cannon has said she will not schedule any hearings while Trump is tied up in the New York case, where Judge Juan Merchan has insisted Trump be at for all of the proceedings.

It is a setback for Smith that could delay his “classified documents” case until after the November election.

Then there is the D.C. case, where Smith is pursuing Trump on the so-called “obstruction of Congress” and other charges related to the events of Jan. 6, 2021.

On Monday, Smith filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court urging the nation’s highest judicial body to dismiss Trump’s presidential immunity claims. This prompted the former president’s legal team to file a motion essentially arguing that Trump “should be immune from prosecution because the conduct he is accused of constituted official acts of the president,” as Fox News summarized.

“The President’s constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed does not entail a general right to violate them,” Smith claimed.

The Federalist noted: “As legacy media rushed to elevate the special counsel’s arguments against Trump’s immunity claims, they ignored a footnote in Monday’s filing that telegraphs how Smith will attempt to have the former president convicted on several counts — even if those same charges are effectively dismissed in a separate case by SCOTUS.

“In an apparent attempt to sidestep such a ruling, however, Smith argued in his Monday brief that even if SCOTUS deems the DOJ’s use of 1512(c)(2) unlawful, the related charges filed against Trump should still stand because Trump somehow impaired evidence for use in an official proceeding.”

“Petitioner asserts … that the grant of review in Fischer v. United States … suggests that the Section 1512(c)(2) charges here impermissibly stretch the statute. But whether the Court interprets Section 1512(c)(2) consistently with a natural reading of its text or adopts the evidence-impairment gloss urged by the petitioner in Fischer, the Section 1512 charges in this case are valid,” Smith wrote, additionally claiming that “the use of falsehoods or creation of ‘false’ documents satisfies an evidence-impairment interpretation.”

As investigative reporter Julie Kelly explained, Smith is essentially contending that “the alternative electoral certificates” supported by Trump and his election team and submitted to Congress “represent ‘documents’ that were fraudulently used in an ‘official proceeding.’ ” By arguing this, Smith is attempting to preserve his ability to go after Trump based on subsection (1) of the statute even if his ability to prosecute based on subsection (2) is nullified.

“This argument requires Smith to make the case that “Pieces of paper signed and sent by other Americans to protest of a rigged election are now equal to accounting records destroyed in service of covering up a crime,” Kelly explained.

It’s worth noting that contingent electors casting votes for their presidential candidate is neither illegal nor unprecedented.

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Lawfare crises: Impartial jury possible? How can Jack Smith nail Trump if he can't leave NYC? added by on April 18, 2024
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