Charge: “Criminal Enterprise” to foment insurrection and to overturn the 2020 election result.
Court: U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia
Trial Judge: Judge Tanya Chutkan
Defence: as to illegal actions that are "official acts" while President, a President has "immunity" from being charged "in perpetuity".
Trial Judgment - Trump has no "immunity".
Update 24/7/7
When Judge Chutkan rejected the motion to dismiss based on presidential immunity in 2023, the appeals court fast-tracked the appeal, rejected the motion, and also fast-tracked the appeal process to the Supreme Court.
Appeal in the Supreme Court of USA (Trial paused since Dec./23)- it decided to hear Trump's Appeal from the lower court decision that Trump has no "immunity".
SCOTUS Judgment (24/7/1): Presidents and former presidents enjoy “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution for “conduct within his exclusive sphere of constitutional authority.” So, there is immunity for “official” acts, but not “private” acts, by a President. Case returned to Judge Chutkan for further analysis/judgment.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, with Justice Clarence Thomas adding his own concurring opinion. Justice Amy Coney Barret concurred in part, noting several lines of legal disagreement with the majority. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote the dissenting opinion, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, who also penned a separate dissent.
The court has now set guidelines for which acts in former President Donald Trump’s federal election case can remain in the indictment. But this leaves large amounts of litigation for the district court.
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#in...BsjrglGxprrVzp
End of Update
Substantive Trial Issues
# 1 – Which acts of then President Trump were “official” and which acts were “private”? To which acts does immunity apply?
Central to Trump’s immunity argument is the claim that only a former president who was impeached and convicted by the Senate can be criminally prosecuted. Trump was impeached over his efforts to undo the election in the run-up to the violent riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. But he was acquitted, not convicted, by the Senate in 2021.
# 2 - The Sarbanes-Oxley Law
Different Relevant Current Case Before the USA Supreme Court: USA vs Fischer
Special Prosecutor, Jack Smith, decided to charge more than 350 January 6 defendants with violations of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which was signed into law in 2002 in the wake of the implosions of Enron and WorldCom. The law is intended to punish crooks for “corruptly obstructing, influencing, or impeding an official proceeding.”
The Nine [members of the USASC] mulled whether a law that punishes anyone who “alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record” is applicable to those who rioted at the Capitol, like Joseph Fischer, a police officer by trade. He pleaded guilty to multiple felonies, but contends that the Sarbanes-Oxley charges are instances of unlawful prosecutorial overreach. As his lawyer, Frederick William Ulrich, put it, that statute is “Enron-driven.”
The high court appeared open to that argument. Justice Clarence Thomas telegraphed that the government could be acting selectively, observing that “there have been many violent protests that have interfered with proceedings. Has the government applied this provision to other protests?” To that, Solicitor General Prelogar claimed that there has never been anything like January 6.
Justice Samuel Alito allowed that “what happened on Jan. 6 was very, very serious” but told General Prelogar that “we need to find out what are the outer reaches of this statute under your interpretation.” The solicitor general called one of the words at issue, “otherwise,” a “classic catchall.” Fischer’s counsel, though, finds it to be more of a “dragnet.” "
Relevance to Trump Case
USA S.C. Argument by Jack Smith, Special Prosecutor, against Trump
"Even if the Nine dismiss the Sarbanes-Oxley charges against the January 6 defendants, Mr. Smith is likely to argue that they should stick against Mr. Trump, who did not himself set foot at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Instead, the special counsel argues, he engaged in the kind of obstruction contemplated by the statute. Two of the four charges Mr. Trump faces are based on Sarbanes-Oxley.
The relevant subsection mandates that someone is criminally culpable if “he alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record, document, or other object, or attempts to do so, with the intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding.” The special counsel argues that the certification of the results of the 2020 election were such a proceeding.
Mr. Smith’s accusation that Mr. Trump pursued a “conspiracy to corruptly obstruct and impede the January 6 congressional proceeding at which the collected results of the presidential election are counted and certified” could insulate the special counsel’s case from any Supreme Court ruling in the Fischer, or other, case, that upends the Department of Justice’s prosecution of the other defendants similarly charged."
Sentence: The 45th president could ...be sent to jail for as much as 20 years under this draconian law known as Sarbanes-Oxley.
https://www.nysun.com/article/suprem...0%202024-04-16
Bob A
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