Jack Smith – always making with the jokes
Yes, I’m well aware that Jack Smith wasn’t meaning this filing as a joke. But it certainly reads like one:
The 20-page motion also argues that Trump shouldn’t be allowed to complain that the trial would interfere with his presidential campaign and that any arguments of this type should be forbidden.
“In addition to being wrong, these allegations are irrelevant to the jury’s determination of the defendant’s guilt or innocence,” Smith wrote, “would be prejudicial if presented to the jury, and must be excluded.”
Smith’s prosecution of Trump is obviously political and has obvious effects on Trump’s campaign schedule if it’s allowed to start when Smith would like: March 4, 2024. But Smith is doing what lawyers do – asking for the moon and hoping to get some of what he asks. With a friendly judge, he may get quite a bit of it.
Smith is also afraid that Trump will use the trial as a bully pulpit to point out the obvious discrimination against him, and that this will backfire on the anti-Trump forces. Maybe Smith should have thought of that in the first place.
Smith doesn’t understand the inconceivable, or jack, for that matter.
Those who engage in political persecution under the color of authority deserve to have done to them exactly what they have visited upon their victims.
If you were planning an insurrection, you would not offer 10,000 armed soldiers to protect the place where the insurrection was to occur, but if you wanted to create a false flag insurrection to weaponize against your opponent, you would turn down the protection of 10,000 armed troops and help incite a riot.
See also
Never Forget that Donald Trump posted a video on January 6th telling people to go home peacefully.
Twitter 1.0 took it down within 5 minutes.
From Smith’s filing: The court should exclude evidence regarding agency preparation for, and responses on, January 6.
Julie Kelly: Smith wants to preclude the jury from hearing evidence about Jan 6 in his Jan 6 case…
Yet another illustration of the term “clown world”.
Geoffrey Britain, perhaps you had this in mind:
Deut 19:15-19, “A single witness shall not rise up against a person regarding any wrongdoing or any sin that he commits; on the testimony of two or three witnesses a matter shall be confirmed. If a malicious witness rises up against a person to testify against him of wrongdoing, then both people who have the dispute shall stand before the Lord, before the priests and the judges who will be in office in those days. And the judges shall investigate thoroughly, and if the witness is a false witness and he has testified against his brother falsely, then you shall do to him just as he had planned to do to his brother.”
“A single witness shall not rise up against a person regarding any wrongdoing or any sin that he commits; on the testimony of two or three witnesses a matter shall be confirmed.
–Deut 19:15-19
Bill K:
In the Koran this was extended to four witnesses, which seems to make rape rather difficult to prove in an Islamic court.
How many rapes have four witnesses willing to testify?
______________________________
Islam Today: Does a victim of rape need to provide four witnesses?
The answer to this question is “yes” and “no”.
It is a Quranic injunction that to establish the crime of adultery or fornication, four witnesses are required to testify the act. Rape, however, is a different crime altogether, in that the act of having sexual intercourse is performed through coercion or some kind of pressure on the victim.
To establish that the alleged act falls under rape and was not consensual, the judge will require witnesses to be able to proceed under Islamic law. Since a perpetrator of rape will be dealt with under a hadd (statutory punishment prescribed by Allah the Almighty), the hadd can only be established if they give a confession or if four witnesses come forward to testify. This process of investigation is also prescribed by Allah the Almighty. No worldly court or judge has the discretion to alter the process of investigation or the punishment.
https://www.alhakam.org/islam-today-does-a-victim-of-rape-need-to-provide-four-witnesses/
______________________________
Such a beautiful religion and a boon to all mankind.
@ Bill K & huxley in re witnesses to adultery/fornication, especially false ones:
The story of Daniel’s masterly handling of the Jewish elders conspiring to convict Susannah of supposed debauchery has always been one of my favorites, and I wish it had been included in the Protestant Christian bibles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susanna_(Book_of_Daniel)
I have sometimes wondered if the story of Jesus and the woman taken in adultery was a call-back to the older tale (whether apocryphal or true), and recognized by the complainants as a warning about the consequences of their own possibly-false witness against her.
Re: Susanna / Book of Daniel
AesopFan:
Rats. That was my Second Act in this topic! Susanna is such a great story. I heard it as an Episcopalian.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susanna_(Book_of_Daniel)
Smilin Jack is Desperate!
@ huxley > I realized that my speculation about a connection of the two stories could not possibly be unique, although I had never encountered it in my studies, so I did some research via Google and discovered it’s been a feature of Catholic services for eons (“The connection between these two stories dates to as early as the fifth century when the Catholic church began to use them for the Saturday Mass after the third Sunday in Lent”), and there were a number of homilies available.
However, my interest has always been in the judicial process itself (and Daniel’s skill as an interrogator/detective), and how that might be analyzed in both stories, and so this was the most interesting article, and also in that regard the most complete (the above quote is from its footnotes).
https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/procedural-violations-in-the-trial-of-the-woman-taken-in-adultery/
I was surprised that the author is LDS, as we don’t include Susannah’s story in our scriptures (King James is our “official” text), and I’ve never heard it discussed in Sunday School or sermons.
The post is a nice, deep dive into the topic and references a lot of points from Mosaic law, some of which I didn’t remember — I’ve read all of the Old Testament several times, but most of the laws simply aren’t relevant anymore and don’t “stick.”
The author, Steven T. Densley, Jr., also speculates about the same thing I did:
“Since this story was well known at the time, it is quite possible the accusers were reminded of the story either by what Jesus had said to them or by what he wrote. This would be especially true if, as Derrett has suggested, Jesus wrote words from Exodus 23:7 on the ground, since this is the very verse Daniel cites in obtaining Susanna’s acquittal. The story of Susanna might also come to mind if, as some have suggested, the accusers themselves were guilty of adultery.”
Always nice to find confirmation that I’m sometimes au courant with respectable scholarship, although possibly in the same category as the blind squirrel.
https://i.etsystatic.com/6430349/r/il/587d3a/1845055901/il_fullxfull.1845055901_22f6.jpg
One of the top-ranked homilies was NOT a candidate for The Mosaic Law Review, but made some excellent points.
https://catholicpreaching.com/wp/the-god-who-saves-those-falsely-or-justly-accused-fifth-monday-of-lent-march-22-2021/
The Susannah story also calls to mind the very different story of Joseph (at the time a slave of Potiphar in Pharaoh’s court) and Potiphar’s wife. She tries to seduce him repeatedly, he refuses, and she accuses him of attempting to rape her. She has “evidence” (the garment he left when he ran away), but as he is a slave there is no legal process. Potiphar just has him thrown in prison. But all’s well that ends well for Joseph.
Continuing this digression into unjust prosecutions, here is a very interesting commentary on the two Biblical stories and their connection with Islamic law, from a Bangladeshi Christian writer. They are compared to the case of a Bangladeshi woman unjustly executed for alleged adultery, in the 1993 Case of Noorjahan, which is a dismal parallel to the scriptural accounts, as she had no one to rescue her from the corrupt judges.
This is one of the few articles produced in the current era in which condemnations of the oppressor/oppressed socialization and patriarchal dominance are actually justified.
https://d3hgrlq6yacptf.cloudfront.net/uspg/content/pages/documents/1596795485.pdf
In any event my point is that in Islam a woman may be raped *unless* she can produce four witnesses to testify on her behalf or her rapist chooses to condemn himself.
I’m far from a bleeding-heart feminist, but this is an Islamic license to rape without consequence.
Such a beautiful religion and a boon to all mankind.
Some more about the Daniel story, because we are on the subject of unjust judges as well as unrighteous prosecutors.
From Daniel 13 New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Daniel%2013&version=NRSVCE
That looks to me as if Daniel already knew the two judges were corrupt, and had been so for some time, including sexual immorality aka rape.
The phrase in the prologue “the Lord had said” seems to imply that either He told that to Daniel, thus inspiring him to intervene in Susannah’s case, or it was well known to the people (rather like Eli’s sons the unrighteous priests). Or, it could be an epilogue interpolated later, once they were exposed as hypocrites and the story was recorded.
Perhaps it’s time to bring back some of the old punishments for corrupting the courts.
Smith is going to win, get the death sentence for Trump, and witness Haley get slaughtered in the general election. Smith is elite and brilliant, the decision on march 4th will unfortunately cement him as a national hero
@ Jimmy — as is obvious, the Susannah text intrigued me, as I had never seen much commentary about it. Oddly enough, that interest lead to the Joseph-Potiphar story.
When I searched for “This is how you have been treating the daughters of Israel, and they were intimate with you through fear; but a daughter of Judah would not tolerate your wickedness” (which I hoped would turn up some exegesis on the judges’ as known to be corrupt), I found an article about Judah and his daughter-in-law Tamar, probably one of the most often omitted chapters from Sunday School readings (again, oddly, from another LDS author, whose purpose was to explain the story’s importance precisely because it was seldom studied in our lesson manuals).
https://rsc.byu.edu/vol-11-no-1-2010/story-judah-tamar
Skipping over the story itself (although it is very interesting from a women’s rights perspective), he notes that it is interpolated in the narrative about Joseph specifically to serve as a parallel to his brother Judah, exemplifying righteous versus unrighteous choices. I’ll leave out references probably familiar to anyone following this discussion, and the footnote citations (there are a lot).
All did end well for Joseph, and the House of Israel, but the story of Judah’s change in character may resonate as well, because despite his earlier moral lapses, in the end he chose to do what was right.
@ huxley > “I’m far from a bleeding-heart feminist, but this is an Islamic license to rape without consequence.”
The Bangladeshi writer I quoted earlier had this to say about that, which inverts the common understanding that the woman has to produce four witnesses that she was raped to exonerate herself from a charge of adultery, which is indeed a farce, and puts the responsibility on the accusers where it belongs:
I can’t speak to the accuracy of this interpretation, but if Dr Mukti Barton is correct, then it is likely that at least some Islamic judges are in error about their laws.
That would not be unique to Muslims.
It has been a long time, ten years or more, since I read this blog and it is fascinating to see how it, and the US has developed.
The poor old US seems so divided that every subject evinces a binary response, “Smith’s prosecution of Trump is obviously political” and I can easily find the same but mirrored responses from those on the left. All of this was there in the early years of this blog and social media but somehow it seems deeper, stranger and more vicious.
But the strangest thing of all is the nature of the leading right wing figure.
Donald Trump is a very odd man to lead conservatives. Most people, right or left, have little trouble believing he has the capacity to break or ignore laws. But some think he should be prosecuted for everything, however trivial and vindictive while the other believe he should get a free pass because he is, well, Trump.
And whatever the topic you can work out many people’s opinions simply by asking what they think of Trump. A country split right down the middle with a weird old man as the lightening rod of division and decay.
As an Englishman looking in from afar I do find this all a bit sad and wonder what became of the more bipartisan approach I used to find admirable in US politics. But surely even Neo still has faith in the rule of law, the judicial process and the constitution?
Once you lose faith in that you have lost your country.
Not sure why anyone should assume that the Constitution allows anyone the likes of Trump to defend himself….
Defend oneself? In “Biden”‘s “America”??
“Jack Smith asks court to ban Trump from introducing evidence of Jan. 6 security failures”—
https://justthenews.com/government/courts-law/jack-smith-asks-court-ban-trump-political-attacks-2020-election-trial
“Failures”?
Um, those weren’t failures.
Those were CONSPIRACY. And with wall-to-wall, weaponized DOJ planning and preparation AND media collusion, it worked like a charm.
Pelosi—and “Biden”—even got themselves a couple of suicides out of the act!
…and the government-induced terror is still going on…
Yep, the toxic clown show continues….
If I was the judge, I would respond “motion denied as the notion ‘the statements are wrong’ is prejudicial as presented to the judge”.
So its the hungarian phrasebook trial
What laws did he break again, are we on the pretend block
@Mortaffy
On what crime?
Please tell me you are merely joking or trolling and not serious.
Haley is a fundamentally weak candidate after her failures between 2020 and now but seeing this kind of nonsense might propel enough outrage and disgust thst it could help propel her forward.
Elite yes. Brilliant decidedly not. His conduct at Den Haag was disgraceful even if the accusations of outright bribery do not pan out, and his behavior now is only worse.
Maybe in the American Democratic Republic’s Stasi. But not to any honorable person. And this kind of stuff underlines why I fear for the future. I know eliminationist rhetoric and buildup and it is why the infighting in the right aggravated me so, whether it is for or against Trump. The idea that people can avoid the axe if they disassociate with Orange Bad Man or that this will not have deep and dark lingering consequences is a folly. Possibly a fatal one.
But its judge chutkin she only protects frauds liars and crooks see fusion awan brothers chadoury (who was the subject of a conviction thrown out by the 9th circus)
Yes that was a paragraph that didnt resemble a coherent thought.
Thats why i went with the python reference
Thought crime only punishable after 2020
Jack smith is an evil man he should have been disbarred and jailed years ago just for his part in mcdonnell
DCL I never thought that Trump was “leading conservatives”, but I do think he was fighting for conservatives. I never thought of myself as a conservative but I do believe in the Constitution. The DOJ appointed Jack Smith ignoring the fact that he doesn’t fit the criteria of the law. That being said, I believe the hatred of Trump is a creation of the Bureaucratic State, what some call the Deep State.
I believe that the Bureaucratic State is the greatest threat to America and American democracy. The Democrats are, in my opinion, aligned with the Bureaucracy not the other way round. Our bureaucracy has the ability to make regulations that have the force of law. And have a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and/or a $250,000 fine. This ability bypasses the legislative process.
One of Trump’s acts was to require that for every new regulation the bureaucracy made, two regulations had to be stricken.
In service to the Bureaucratic State we now have political prisoners in America. Most of all might be guilty of trespassing. The people who took part of the J6 protest belong to a demographic that is overwhelmingly armed. The “insurrectionists” were unarmed-by choice. The only deaths that day were on the protesters side. No fires set, nothing broken except doors. Compare that with the BLM/Antifa riots .
RE: the Potipher’s Wife story –
One of the few segments of the Koran that I’ve read is this particular story. The differences between it and the Judaeo-Christian version are… interesting.
Note that I didn’t read most of the Koran’s Joseph in Egypt story. I’ve only read the Potipher part of the story.
Basically, Potipher purchases Joseph, as in the version we’re familiar with, and Joseph catches the eye of Potipher’s Wife. He rebuffs her advances, and eventually is forced to leave his coat behind while fleeing her. And here’s where the versions diverge.
In the Koran, Potipher comes home and hear’s his wife’s accusation. He examines the coat, and notices it’s torn in the back. He realizes that this is where his wife grabbed the coat, causing it to tear, while Joseph was fleeing. As a result, he exonerates Joseph, and no action is taken.
Potipher’s Wife is now publicly humiliated because she’s been throwing herself at a slave. So she invites all of the women in the community to a meal. When all of the women are seated and eating, she has Joseph bring in some of the food. Joseph is so amazingly handsome and beautiful that all of the women are immediately distracted from their meal, and their knives slip, cutting their hands (but apparently not serious cuts). From this time forward, Joseph is constantly pursued wherever he goes by gaggles of besotted women, much like teenage girls and their favorite boy bands.
Potipher finally gets tired of the nonsense, and has Joseph thrown into prison just to make it stop.
There is never a shortage of Jack Smiths willing to do the dirty work; these really dangerous useful idiots exist anywhere independent of nationality, ethnicity, religion, level of education, socio-economic standing, culture, you name it.
I guess he is just following orders.
Geez, where have I heard that line of reasoning before ??
junior:
That’s quite a change to the story. Interesting.
Neo – agreed.
My thinking is that it’s the result of someone hearing the original, and not being able to absorb the lesson of Job that sometimes very bad things happen to very good people. I also find it absurd. Admittedly this is something that an atheist might claim toward any scripture. But the claim doesn’t resolve around any sort of supernatural affair, which is what might cause an atheist to deride. Instead, it’s the spectacle of an entire community of grown women who helplessly swoon and are unable to control themselves whenever the protagonist enters the scene.
Curious article by James Risen who claims Jack Smith turned his life upside down with malicious attempts to get Risen to reveal a source. But Risen wants Smith to go hard on Trump to prove that he’s also willing to go after the powerful, rather than just after the powerless (like himself). Some people never learn.