February 20, 2024
Permission to republish original opeds and cartoons granted.
With South Carolina GOP primary looming, voters don’t care about prosecutions as Trump continues to dominate polls
By Robert Romano
With the Feb. 24 South Carolina Republican presidential primary looming, former President Donald Trump continues to dominate polling in the Palmetto State, averaging in the latest RealClearPolling.com reading of polls a 25-point lead over former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley who if she cannot win her home state, it’s safe to say she cannot win.
So far, Trump has swept the first three contests in the GOP primary — Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada — a feat never achieved in a competitive nomination battle, underscoring the incumbency advantage that the former president still appears to retain in the contest.
After all, who’s more qualified to be president in the eyes of voters than somebody who has already done the job before? Sitting presidents running for reelection do that all the time, but never a Republican who wasn’t in office at the time of running. Opposing Trump in this context, especially as he retaine strong popularity within the GOP, might have always been a futile endeavor.
And so far, GOP primary voters appear unintimidated by the simultaneous prosecution of Trump by Democratic prosecutors in New York City, Fulton County, Ga., Washington, D.C. and Miami — with Trump on the potential verge of sweeping the primaries.
For example in the last poll taken by USA Today-Suffolk Feb. 15 through Feb. 18, Trump garners 63 percent suport, while Haley trails with just 35 percent. Trump leads across all age categories by roughly the same margin: leading 18-34-year-olds 64 percent to 36 percent, 35-49-year-olds 61 percent to 36 percent, 50-64-year-olds 67 percent to 31 percent and 65-years-old-and-older 62 percent to 36 percent.
By now, voters in the Republican presidential primary have had every opportunity to evaluate what they think of Trump’s prosecutions, with the verdict being that they either don’t care, or the prosecutions have counterproductively made them even more likely to support Trump.
This comes even as Special Counsel Jack Smith has sought for expedited trials against Trump hoping for a conviction before the election in November, but if the results so far are any indication, even locking up Trump might not matter to the support he garners at the polls — and it might even help him win the election. Why?
For starters, as partisan as many but not all Americans are, with some seeing their political opponents not merely as adversaries to be debated, but criminals to be jailed, the majority of Americans including independents remain fair-minded and do not wish to see the Republic be wrecked by these political prosecutions — one antidote to which is to simply vote against who the prosecutors are attempting to remove from the ballot.
The short-term thinking afoot when it comes to prosecuting Trump — a process that began in 2015 and 2016 when he ran for president the first time and the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC managed to get the FBI to open a counterintelligence investigation against their opponent on made-up charges that Trump was a Russian agent — is somewhat astounding, as it discounts the diminishing reputation and legitimacy of the nation’s prosecutorial and judicial systems.
Unfortunately for the American people, the more Trump wins electorally, the worse it seems to get as efforts now revolve around getting the U.S. Supreme Court to affirm Colorado and Maine’s decisions to arbitrarily remove Trump from the ballot. Even if Trump prevails at the nation’s highest court and remains on the ballot, the long-term damage that has been done to the electoral system in the government’s war against Trump remains difficult to calculate.
Even as voters in the short-term appear to be rejecting the prosecution of political opponents including Trump, the normalization of the practice should still be troubling to the American people. Right now, the current generation appears to at least clinging to the pretense of due process, but only barely, whereas future generations might be emboldened to see the deep constitutional issues posed today by political prosecutions to be mere technicalities to be overcome.
Lawfare today could become warfare tomorrow, unless the impartial administration of justice and limited government is somehow restored before it is too late. For now, Republican voters seem to be saying, you can’t lock up their leaders, they’ll vote for them anyway — but is that enough to protect our electoral freedom in the long term?
Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government Foundation.
To view online: https://dailytorch.com/2024/02/with-south-carolina-gop-primary-looming-voters-dont-care-about-prosecutions-as-trump-continues-to-dominate-polls/
James Lynch: Left-Wing Activists Who Orchestrated Trump Ballot Removal Called For Clarence Thomas To Resign
By James Lynch
The left-wing legal organization that facilitated former President Donald Trump’s removal from the Colorado Republican primary ballot has called for conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to resign.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), the group responsible for the lawsuit that got Trump kicked off the Colorado ballot, argues that Thomas should resign and face investigations by Congress and the Department of Justice (DOJ) based on stories by left-wing outlet ProPublica about gifts he received from billionaire Harlan Crow.
“Your conduct has likely violated civil and criminal laws and has created the impression that access to and influence over Supreme Court justices is for sale,” CREW President and CEO Noah Bookbinder wrote in a May 9, 2023, letter to Thomas. “While we appreciate your many years of public service, your conduct has left you with only one way to continue faithfully serving our democracy. For the sake of our judiciary and the sake of people’s faith in its legitimacy, you must resign.”
CREW has written similar letters to House and Senate Judiciary Committees calling for investigations into Clarence Thomas and his wife, conservative activist Ginni Thomas. In addition, CREW has filed a civil and criminal complaint urging the DOJ and Chief Justice John Roberts to investigate Thomas.
ProPublica and CREW share common left-wing donors, such as the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, Marisla Foundation and George Soros-backed Foundation to Promote Open Society, the Daily Caller News Foundation previously reported. ProPublica has also cited legal ethics experts with past donations to Democrats and left-wing activist groups. (RELATED: Left-Wing Legal Group Behind Trump Ballot Removal Immediately Fundraises Off Colorado Ruling)
Thomas filed an updated financial disclosure in August to comply with updated Judicial Conference ethics rules. The attorneys who prepared the disclosure said it refuted accusations of ethics violations generated by the ProPublica reports.
Colorado’s Supreme Court ruled 4-3 on Tuesday to disqualify Trump from the state’s GOP primary ballot under the 14th Amendment for his alleged role in the Jan. 6th, 2021, Capitol riot. Trump has not been criminally charged or convicted for fomenting an insurrection.
CREW was previously overseen by Democratic party operative David Brock, who made the organization part of his $40 million effort to fight the Trump administration, Politico reported. (RELATED: Wife Of Dem Senator Who Called For Clarence Thomas To Resign Made Up To $1.75 Million From Stock Sales, Disclosure Shows)
Bookbinder donated repeatedly to former President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign when he worked in the Senate, Federal Election Commission (FEC) records show. He is currently a member of the Biden Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC) tasked with advising DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on a range of issues.
Colorado’s ruling is on hold until Jan. 4 as the Supreme Court reviews the decision. In the meantime, CREW is using the decision to solicit donations on Democratic party fundraising platform ActBlue.
“Unsurprisingly, the all-Democrat appointed Colorado Supreme Court has ruled against President Trump, supporting a Soros-funded, left-wing group’s scheme to interfere in an election on behalf of Crooked Joe Biden by removing President Trump’s name from the ballot and eliminating the rights of Colorado voters to vote for the candidate of their choice,” said Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung in a statement.
“The Colorado Supreme Court issued a completely flawed decision tonight and we will swiftly file an appeal to the United States Supreme Court and a concurrent request for a stay of this deeply undemocratic decision. We have full confidence that the U.S. Supreme Court will quickly rule in our favor and finally put an end to these unAmerican lawsuits,” Cheung continued.
To view online: https://dailycaller.com/2023/12/20/left-wing-activists-trump-ballot-removal-clarence-thomas-resign/