What’s Going on with the Election Interference Case?

Last Friday, Judge Tanya Chutkan received the election interference case back from SCOTUS. Despite ostensibly being on vacation, she wasted no time.

On Saturday, she tossed out Convicted Felon Trump’s “Motion to Dismiss for Selective and Vindictive Prosecution”. Full Ruling. In addition, she scheduled a Status Conference for 16 August, 10 a.m., Courtroom 9. Full Order. This is where the parties will finalize what the schedule is going to be for the next set of pretrial and evidentiary hearings. They need to submit, by this Friday, 9 August, proposals for scheduling. Theoretically, the two sides are supposed to work together for a joint calendar. And yet…expect one side to yell “election interference” at the top of their lungs and asked for hearings to be delayed until at least 21 January 2025. Expect the other side to have some version of “We are ready now, Your Honor, and will be happy to appear on whatever dates you calendar.” Expect Judge Chutkan to align with the latter side.  

You may wonder why we care, since obviously the trial won’t occur and conclude prior to the election. It’s because of the hearings that can and likely WILL be held between now and the election.

If you remember from watching Law & Order, not all evidence is acceptable at trial. And Judge Chutkan will need to hold “evidentiary hearings” to ascertain what can and cannot come in when the actual trial is held. We’re talking here about written evidence, texts, recorded phone calls, any other recordings, video and WITNESSES.

Yes.

Because of the SCOTUS decision, Judge Chutkan will need to determine what are, and are not, official acts. And that means witnesses. Let’s take ex-Vice President Mike Pence (R -Potential Hanging Victim). From the indictment:

At 11:15 a.m., Trump called Pence “and again pressured him to fraudulently reject or return Biden’s legitimate electoral votes. The Vice President again refused. Immediately after the call, the Defendant decided to single out the Vice President in public remarks he would make within the hour, reinserting language that he had personally drafted earlier that morning — falsely claiming that the Vice President had authority to send electoral votes to the states — but that advisors had previously successfully advocated be removed.”

Is that an official act? At this point, it doesn’t matter, what DOES matter is that Mike could be called to testify about what happened at 11:15 a.m. on 6 January 2021. And THAT can happen between now and the election.

The names of the co-conspirators have never been publicly released, but are most likely Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Jeffrey Clark, Kenneth Chesebro, Sidney Powell and Boris Epshteyn. Here’s some background on their criminality. Since that article was published, Rudy lost his law license, John’s law license was suspended, Sidney lost her law license after pleading guilty in the Georgia election interference case, Ken lost his license after pleading guilty in the Georgia election interference case and a few days ago, it was recommended that Jeff lose his law license for 2 years. Jeff, by the way, is on the short list for AG if Convicted Felon Trump wins in November. ONLY THE BEST PEOPLE!  

Some might testify in evidentiary hearings if they are willing to trade testimony for a reduced sentence. Not to mention, scuttlebutt says that Mark Meadows turned state’s evidence.

The point is that from now until 5 November, Vice President Harris, her running mate (not yet named at the time of this writing), and her surrogates, will be out on the campaign trail, enthusing large crowds, working to get to the magic number of electoral college votes (it’s 270, in case that’s not burned in your brain, as it is in mine) and doing so in concert with all of us out talking to voters, making phone calls, texting, writing postcards and VOTING. (Early voting begins in September in some places.)

Meanwhile, the MAGA crowd will be trying to get some sort of cohesive message to communicate, trying to fill auditoriums that have recently been empty, and keeping the people there (they tend to start walking out about 15 minutes in to the rant, after the prayers) and trying to get their fearless leader to stay on message. If you wonder why people are leaving, it’s because TFG is completely unhinged and even his minions are noticing.

They will be endeavoring to do this while every last detail of the whole January 6th coup attempt is reported by the media to all of those who may have forgotten. (Not joking, there are people who no longer remember the storming of the Capitol for the first time since the War of 1812.)

Mike Pence will never forget this:

Buckle up boys and girls! It’s going to be great.