Jonathan Turley on the election and its effect on the lawfare against Trump
Turley is one of those lawyers I came to deeply respect years ago. He’s an Independent, as far as I can tell, but more importantly he’s a person who’s not afraid to follow the truth wherever it leads him. Sure, now and then I disagree with him; what else is new? But most of the time I think he’s spot on, as well as informative about the law.
And so I bring you this column of Turley’s written the day after the election:
Nearly two years ago, I wrote that Democratic prosecutors’ lawfare campaign against Donald Trump would make the 2024 election the single largest jury decision in history. Now that the verdict is in, the question is whether prosecutors will continue their unrelenting campaign against the president-elect and his companies.
The jury’s decision: acquittal
More [emphasis mine]:
The election reflected a certain gag sensation for a public fed a relentless diet of panic and identity politics for eight years. The 2024 election will come to be viewed as one of the biggest political and cultural shifts in our history. It was the mainstream-media-versus-new media election; the Rogan-versus-Oprah election; the establishment-versus-a-disassociated-electorate election.
It was also a thorough rejection of lawfare. One of the things most frustrating for Trump’s opponents was that every trial or hearing seemed to give Trump a boost in the polls. As cases piled up in Washington, New York, Florida and Georgia, the effort seemed to move more toward political acclamation than isolation.
Now, these cases are now legal versions of the Flying Dutchman — ships destined to sail endlessly but never make port.
If there is a single captain of that hapless crew, it is Special Counsel Jack Smith. For more than a year, Smith sought to secure a verdict in one of his two cases in Washington and Florida before the election. His urgency was seemingly shared by Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington, but by few other judges or justices.
Around 2 am, Smith became a lame-duck prosecutor. Trump ran on ending his prosecutions and can cite a political mandate for it. Certainly, had he lost, the other side would be claiming a mandate for these prosecutions.
Trump’s new attorney general could remove Smith and order the termination of his continued prosecution. That is less of a problem in Florida, where a federal judge had already tossed out the prosecution of the classified documents case, which some of us saw as the greatest threat against Trump.
In Washington, Chutkan, who proved both motivated and active in pushing forward the election interference case, could complicate matters. Under federal rules, it is up to Chutkan to order any dismissal. …
In the end, Trump read the jury correctly. Once the lawfare was unleashed, he focused on putting his case to the public and walked away with a clear majority decision. It is unlikely that this will end all of his lawfare battles, but it may effectively end the war.
I don’t think these cases are going anywhere even if one or two sputters on, because there’s always appeal to SCOTUS and I don’t think the Court would let a guilty verdict stand.
Also there’s this, although I don’t know if anything will come of it:
Jack Smith:
Preserve your records. pic.twitter.com/Toazp1EATk
— House Judiciary GOP ?????? (@JudiciaryGOP) November 8, 2024
As President Obama once said, when he was riding high: “Elections have consequences.”
“Turley is one of those lawyers I came to deeply respect years ago. He’s an Independent, as far as I can tell . . . .”
My best “take” is that he’s what a liberal used to be: a Hubert Humphrey / Pat Moynihan / John F. Kennedy liberal. Someone with whom I might disagree, but the disagreement would be cordial if not genial. We would be disagreeing in good faith [no “fascist”s]. He and his kind would be people by whom I’d rather not be governed, but I could live happily under their governance. (And I would not fear for my progeny’s well-being.)
In short, to me, Turley is a liberal with his head screwed on (as far as I can discern).
I like Turley, just as I like Glenn Greenwald. Both are liberal, but what I think of them as ‘principled’ liberals. They don’t ignore reality, and have no trouble admitting truth when they see it, regardless whether it helps their case or not.
I can’t possibly dispute any of Professor Turley’s points, and I agree with all of them anyway, so I will put on my grammar-maven (nazi?) hat and pick on his rhetoric, because he does something here that irritates me about a LOT of writers, because it’s careless.
“It was the mainstream-media-versus-new media election; the Rogan-versus-Oprah election; the establishment-versus-a-disassociated-electorate election.”
He’s setting up a parallelism that’s fine and correct, but watch the twist in the middle:
mainstream media VS new media
Rogan VS Oprah
establishment VS disassociated electorate
If you know noting about the two celebrities, what team would you put Joe Rogan on based on these comparisons?
People do that all the time — because they know what they mean — and it not only ruins the rhetorical effect, it is confusing. Even when I know what they are referring to (Oprah and Rogan clearly should be switched around), I have to do it in my head and that takes effort and distracts from the main points being made.
For people who don’t know all the players, it’s a mess.
/rant
I concur with AesopFan (6:03 pm). As a closely related example, one of the many pointers that were shown to me in an excellent technical writing class I took, was:
If the writer lists points (1), (2), and (3), the writer should subsequently take up the points /in that order/ (rather than touch on them willy-nilly, or in a different order).
In like manner, the parallelism of mainstream media versus new media should be maintained throughout. It’s good, organized writing, and yes, otherwise, it “takes [additional and unnecessary] effort and distracts from the main points being made.”
Writing (and not just technical writing) ought to be reader-friendly; sometimes I find myself astonished at how reader-hostile some writing can be. Carry on, folks . . .
The narcissistic virtue signalers of Tik Tok or MSNBC think they’re subject to concentration camps. The reality is that the vast right wing conspiracy doesn’t want them in jail; it wants them front and center as the face of the Democratic Party.
The ones I want in jail are those who destroyed people’s lives on the basis of trivial or non-existent crimes: Willis, Bragg, Smith and most of all Merrick Garland.
The lawfare made it easy to tell who to ignore. Anybody who went on and on about the 34 indictments or the felony conviction or E.Jean Carroll and assumed that you didn’t know that it was all fugazy could safely be ignored.
That Jean Carroll case. Didn’t even know which year it was supposed to have happened. Yea, I believe her. ( Sarcasm)
I know lawyers. There’s all sorts of shady stuff in their internal communications.
Trump better pick a good AG. I can’t do the job because I am the Special Knox County Attorney!
“As President Obama once said, when he was riding high: Elections have consequences. ”
What is that old statement being hoist by your own petard?
as for these folks jvermeer referenced
“The narcissistic virtue signalers of Tik Tok or MSNBC think they’re subject to concentration camps.”
We should just ignore them totally. no coverage no 15 minutes of fame just ruthlessly ignore them. As the Good Book says “The wicked flee where no man pursues”. They’ll just go have a nervous breakdown over in the corner and maybe reason will come to them. I doubt it, but hey Trump won, miracles do happen from time to time.
“Old time” liberals like JFK, Moynihan, etc., did not hate the USA and believed in adhering to the US Constitution and that the USA, warts and all, was a force for good in the world.
(by the way, Daniel Patrick Moynihan detested Hillary Clinton).
Today’s “liberals” (e.g., Obama) hate everything about the USA and are, in reality, not liberals but – and here I stick my neck way out there, but here goes – really fascists.
Why do I say this?
Well here is a good and concise definition of fascism:
” All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.”
This statement is in total accord with the political ideology of today’s liberal progressives, who wish to control every aspect of people’s lives.
In case you are wondering, the definition of fascism was uttered by the one and only, Mussolini, who…….drum roll please……is the “father” of fascism.
And here is a quotation of his re: democracy.
“Democracy is talking itself to death. THE PEOPLE DO NOT KNOW WHAT THEY WANT; THEY DO NOT KNOW WHAT IS BEST FOR THEM. There is too much foolishness, too much lost motion. I have stopped the talk and the nonsense. I am a man of action. Democracy is beautiful in theory; in practice it is a fallacy. You in America will see that some day.”
The talking heads of the MSM in recent days are all about the people being too stupid to know who to vote for or even what they are experiencing or seeing on a daily basis.
Excellent points, John Tyler.
IMO, Nazism, Fascism, Socialism, Communism, and Progressivism are different names for what the end point of their theories are – authoritarian government. It’s related to the old Feudal System where only nobles and kings owned land. The serfs or peasants paid rents (taxes) to the landowners for the privilege of farming the land. And there was no social mobility. Born a serf? You’re a serf for life.
This kind of government seems to be rooted in human nature. Those who consider themselves to be superior to the masses (the elites of
whatever type) are convinced they know best. Their rationale will vary somewhat for their belief that they should be in charge. Nazis and Fascists want to make society more efficient. Socialist/Communist/Progressives claim to want a fairer egalitarian society. However, those systems always evolve into a party elite having the wealth and running things while the masses are equal – equally miserable.
The rights of individuals and free speech as granted by the Constitution are incompatible with those systems of government. IMO, it’s quite simple to understand and yet, multitudes don’t get it.
@ J.J. > “The rights of individuals and free speech as granted by the Constitution are incompatible with those systems of government. IMO, it’s quite simple to understand and yet, multitudes don’t get it.”
Lincoln, speaking in Alton for the seventh and final debate with Douglas:
“It is the same spirit that says, ‘You work and toil and earn bread, and I’ll eat it.’ No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle.”
Forgot my reference (although it can be found many places on line) from 2008:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-lincoln-bested-douglas-in-their-famous-debates-7558180/
Thanks for the Lincoln reference, AesopFan. Good to know that Abe and I are on the same page. 🙂
Your researching abilities and comments put me in awe. I’ve neither the energy nor eyesight to do what you do. 🙁
@ J.J. – thank you for your kind words. I can still see a computer screen and read a book, but street signs are beginning to be a challenge.
I enjoy this kind of research, and the internet makes it so easy, if you can outwit the search engines.
“Some folks have hobbies like tennis or philately”… I read political pundits.