Justice delayed is political: Trump's election interference case must continue ahead of the election

Justice delayed is political: Trump’s election interference case must continue ahead of the election
The federal trial of Donald Trump on January 6-related charges must proceed without further delay

By Praveen Fernandes - Donald K. Sherman
Published September 8, 2024 8:58AM (EDT)


(Salon) The Supreme Court conservative majority’s opinion in Trump v. United States has rightly drawn considerable criticism. Its conclusion that former presidents enjoy presumptive immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts committed during their presidency is flabbergasting. As legal scholars across the ideological spectrum have explained, this immunity finds no support in the Constitution’s text and history, or the Supreme Court’s own precedent. A blistering dissent by Justice Sotomayor (joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson) exposes this rootlessness and expresses “fear for our democracy.”

That’s not where the harm ends. The Court’s slow pace in handing down its decision is already largely responsible for delaying for more than 200 days the federal criminal trial of Donald Trump for alleged January 6-related crimes.

But even though the D.C. District Court has only recently been able to restart its proceedings, Americans already know a lot about Donald Trump’s actions and responsibility for January 6 through rigorous fact-finding developed by two other governmental bodies: (1) the bipartisan House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol; and (2) the Colorado state court system, which adjudicated Anderson v. Griswold.

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There are good reasons for wanting the federal trial of Donald Trump on January 6-related charges to proceed without further delay, and good reasons to laud Judge Tanya Chutkan’s attempts to keep the trial on track in D.C. District Court. Criminal trials, with their juries of everyday Americans and their high standards of proof—beyond a reasonable doubt versus the lower preponderance of evidence standard used in civil trials—are often considered the gold standard when it comes to understanding culpability for bad acts. But the absence of a guilty verdict in an ongoing criminal trial doesn’t mean the American public lacks information about January 6 and Trump’s involvement. Nothing could be further from the truth. Thanks to the fact-finding of the bipartisan Select Committee and the Colorado courts, we know a lot. .............(more)

https://www.salon.com/2024/09/08/justice-delayed-is-political-trumps-interference-case-must-continue-ahead-of-the/