May 30, 2024
Permission to republish original opeds and cartoons granted.
Biden and the Democrats had better hope Trump is acquitted as former President continues to lead the polls
< By Robert Romano
The American people are waiting with bated breath for the verdict in former President Donald Trump’s New York City trial on an alleged campaign finance violation being prosecuted locally as a bookkeeping fraud case.
The jury deliberations come as Trump has continued to lead both national and state polls in his bid to unseat incumbent President Joe Biden. Nationally, Trump has been ahead in the average of polls compiled by RealClearPolling.com since Sept. 2023, and continues to lead by a point, 47.6 percent to 46.7 percent.
The implication is that the national popular vote is in play, which Republicans in recent elections have not needed in order to win majorities in the Electoral College, with 2000 and 2016 as the most recent examples of a Republican losing the popular vote but winning the election. 2004 stands as the last time a Republican received the most votes overall in the general election.
At this point in the race in 2020, Biden was ahead by more than 5 points nationally.
Looking at the Electoral College, Trump is also running far ahead of where he was in either 2016 or 2020 at this point in the race—in those cases he was running from behind.
In Arizona, Trump leads the RealClearPolling average against Biden 47.8 percent to 43.8 percent.
In Nevada, Trump is ahead 48 percent to 42.6 percent.
In Wisconsin, Trump leads ever so slightly 47.4 percent to 47.3 percent.
In Michigan, Trump is also in the lead, 47.1 percent to 46.6 percent.
In Pennsylvania, Trump is ahead 47.8 percent to 45.5 percent.
In North Carolina, Trump is ahead 47.5 percent to 42.7 percent.
And in Georgia, Trump leads 48.4 percent to 43.6 percent.
It is in this context that the attempts to disqualify Trump from the ballot, the 2016-2019 top secret surveillance of the Trump campaign and administration and the Trump trials today, whether in New York City, Washington, D.C., Miami, Fla. and Fulton County, Ga. must be understood. It is to use the force of government to achieve what Biden and Trump’s other opponents could not politically on their own.
But it is a fatal error, I believe, for in so doing, by weaponizing government to silence political opponents—unquestionably a tyrannical endeavor—has attracted support for Trump’s cause in ways that might not have manifested themselves had he been left alone. It has exposed practices by an administrative state in Washington, D.C., now that they are exposed, eventually will be countered, if not by Trump, then by his successors.
Undoubtedly, an acquittal in New York would help Trump since it would show the case should have never been brought in the first place to most observers, but a guilty verdict would help him even more in exposing a corruption so deep it penetrates the body politic at the prosecutorial and jury pool level, a partisanship so fierce it demands censorship, surveillance and criminalizing opposition as a moral imperative.
If he is jailed, even more so, as supporters will begin hanging posters and billboards that proclaim “FREE TRUMP!” and hold candlelight vigils.
In truth, it might be too late to save Biden politically, thanks to inflation and foreign policy catastrophes, no matter how the trials turn out, although the President’s incumbency advantage should still not be underestimated. Trump’s opponents mean to inflict political harm through political and legal force, but the risk always was that it would backfire.
Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government Foundation.
To view online: https://dailytorch.com/2024/05/biden-and-the-democrats-had-better-hope-trump-is-acquitted-as-former-president-continues-to-lead-the-polls/
Cartoon: Seeking Guidance
By A.F. Branco
Click here for a higher level resolution version.
To view online: https://dailytorch.com/2024/05/cartoon-seeking-guidance/
Zack Smith: Judge’s Problematic Jury Instructions in Trump’s Hush Money Trial
By Zack Smith
Let’s get the obvious out of the way: Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a rogue prosecutor, never should have brought his case against Donald Trump.
But here we are, with a jury of 12 Manhattan residents being asked to decide whether the former president committed 34 felony offenses.
And the only reason they are being asked to decide whether Trump committed 34 felony rather than misdemeanor offenses is because Bragg has sought to turn these ordinarily misdemeanor booking charges into felonies using a novel legal theory—essentially that Trump committed the bookkeeping offenses with the intent of covering up another crime.
But what is that other crime? And what does Bragg, a Democrat, have to prove about that other crime? Those questions have been present throughout the case, but catapulted to the forefront Wednesday after Judge Juan Merchan gave startling instructions to the jury.
For those unfamiliar, the instructions the judge gives to a jury tell the jurors what the applicable law is for the case they’re deciding. Here, Merchan told the jury that to convict Trump of falsifying business records in the first degree under New York Penal Law § 175.10, Bragg must prove—beyond a reasonable doubt—that Trump intended “to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.”
But the judge also told the jury that Bragg “need not prove that the other crime was in fact committed, aided, or concealed.”
That other crime? According to Merchan, it would be a violation of New York Election Law § 17-152, which “provides that any two or more persons who conspire to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means and which conspiracy is acted upon by one or more of the parties thereto, shall be guilty of conspiracy to promote or prevent an election.”
One of the law’s key—and confusing—phrases is “to promote or prevent the election … by unlawful means.” (My emphasis.)
Merchan told the jury that to convict Trump, all 12 jurors “must conclude unanimously that the defendant conspired to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means, [but they] need not be unanimous as to what those unlawful means were.”
Buckle up, because this is where things get weird.
Merchan told jurors that those unlawful means could include violations of the Federal Election Campaign Act. They could include falsifying certain other business records, including bank records and tax forms. And they could include certain alleged state and federal tax law violations.
But again, all of the jurors don’t have to agree which one of these three unlawful means Trump used—and never mind that the federal government previously declined to pursue any federal campaign finance violations against Trump.
Even rabid Trump haters who argue that this sort of instruction could be permissible under New York law anticipated that Merchan might “require unanimity anyway, just to be safe, rather than unnecessarily risking a guilty verdict that might not hold up on appeal.” Well, obviously he didn’t.
It’s understandable why Trump lamented after closing arguments began Wednesday that even “Mother Teresa could not beat these charges.”
Love him or hate him, all Americans should be troubled by the perversion of our criminal justice system that this prosecution has proven to be.
To view online: https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/05/29/judges-problematic-jury-instructions-in-trumps-hush-money-trial/