Jack Smith, special prosecutor who filed two accusations against the magnate, is already preparing his resignation // Open favoritism in the Supreme Court towards the Republican
▲ Donald Trump, president-elect of the United States, pictured on May 16 leaving a criminal court in Manhattan. To his left, Matt Gaetz, whom he recently appointed to be attorney general.Photo Afp
David Brooks and Jim Cason
Correspondents
La Jornada Newspaper
Thursday, November 14, 2024, p. 21
New York and Washington. How can you escape criminal justice in the United States and even possible imprisonment? Win a presidential election.
Donald Trump is the first former president and presidential candidate convicted on criminal and civil charges, and under indictment of federal crimes including his role in subverting an election and illicit handling of national intelligence documents, and is therefore now the first president elected criminal. But with his victory, it is very likely that Trump will avoid at least two criminal proceedings against him at the federal level, another state case pending in Georgia, and it is now in doubt whether he will be sentenced in the state case in New York, after having been convicted of concealing payments to a pornography actress.
The legal proceedings against the president-elect are now in doubt. In New York, Trump’s sentencing date after a jury found him guilty in May of hiding payments to buy the silence of a pornography actress before the 2016 election, was postponed until the 19th of this month by the judge Juan Merchan to evaluate whether or not the matter will proceed. It was in this trial that Trump became the first former president convicted of a crime. Immediately after the election, Trump’s lawyers asked that the case be dismissed entirely as their client prepares to lead the country in light of the Supreme Court’s recent ruling that a president enjoys near-complete immunity. for actions while in the White House, and also to avoid unconstitutional impediments for Trump to start governing.
Prosecutors also do not know how to proceed. These are unprecedented circumstancesone of the prosecutors wrote to the judge, and said that the prosecution is evaluating how to handle the verdict against a defendant who is about to assume the presidency.
Those same arguments by Trump’s lawyers have been used in the criminal cases he faces at the federal level. But after the elections, special prosecutor Jack Smith is already preparing his resignation, before Trump assumes the presidency and fires him as promised, according to the New York Times. All experts agree that the prosecution of the two federal cases – one accused of conspiracy to subvert the results of the election he lost four years ago and the other surrounding his illicit handling of secret intelligence and national security documents after of leaving the White House – is effectively annulled with his re-election.
The Justice Department is guided by a rule of not prosecuting a sitting president, although that is not established in the country’s laws, and the Supreme Court’s ruling on expanded immunity also derailed part of this process.
At the center of both cases was the argument by the Department of Justice and its special counsel that no one is above the lawincluding a former president. Now, the virtual Executive and his allies have apparently managed to prove the opposite and are even proceeding to carry out their threat to pursue his persecutors within the government, among them prosecutor Smith, who has been protected from death threats by Trump fans since two years ago.
Meanwhile, another state-level criminal case is pending in Georgia accusing Trump of attempting to subvert the 2020 election, and it is not yet known whether this one will proceed or not.
Trump also has, as president, the power of pardon, which it was speculated would be used for himself if the federal cases against him had proceeded. That power does not extend to state cases.
The magnate and his lawyers used legal tactics to hinder and delay all the cases against him – the one in New York was no longer able to avoid it – during the last years, betting that his electoral campaign and eventual victory would be the great escape from his problems. legal proceedings in which he potentially faced even prison sentences.
Now, when he returns to the White House, many will be watching to see if he proceeds, as promised, to pardon accomplices in his crimes and legal violations and even his sympathizers. Among his first decisions is how far he will fulfill his promise to pardon and/or grant executive clemency to the hundreds of those criminally convicted of the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, whom he has called patriots celebrating a day of love. Doing so would overturn the largest federal criminal prosecution in history.
The rule of law?
Given all this, it can be concluded that the fact that there is no one above the law – the constitutional foundation of this republic that partly with this principle celebrates its birth as the day of liberation of a supreme king – is no longer respected even symbolically. With a Supreme Court that openly favors the president-elect and his movement, and with the idea that constitutional limits and norms do not necessarily apply to basic rights or the management of a government, the law becomes less and less prevailing, giving in to impunity at the highest level.