“It’s Time To Call It A Day” 🎶

The media covering the Trump indictment barely acknowledges what a slam dunk case it is in favor of endlessly speculating about whether the MAGA judge or possible MAGA juror will ignore the indisputable facts.

— Schooley (@Rschooley) June 15, 2023

Isn’t it just politics in another arena? Because that’s the only way they know to cover it.

Not to mention maybe spending more time on the natsec implications than on the political implications might make the politics moot.

— Schooley (@Rschooley) June 15, 2023

And give up show business?

So much more discussion of Trump the pack rat than Trump the rat.

— Schooley (@Rschooley) June 15, 2023

A criminal complaint or indictment is not required to prove the charges alleged; just give enough evidence to show the allegations are well grounded.  Under Brady the prosecution has to turn over to the defendant all exculpatory information. But the prosecution is never required to provide all the evidence it has, even at trial. The evidence alleged in the indictment is usually understood by the defense to be the tip of the iceberg. Where it isn’t, the prosecution is probably in deep, deep trouble, having given the game away in the first filing.

And calling Trump a “pack rat” is more objective than calling him a “rat.” Discuss.

Republicans abstracted the crimes they imagined for Hillary Clinton to their advantage and now they are trying to abstract the actual crimes Trump is charged with to their advantage.

— Schooley (@Rschooley) June 15, 2023

Yeah, it’s not working.

I wrote this thread a while back, but can someone ask GOP folks still pushing the S.T.U.P.I.D.* defense why a POTUS would want to declassify things like our vulnerabilities to attack, or nuclear secrets, w/o telling anyone? Like, think real hard…who does that benefit 🤔🙄 https://t.co/1fzUwEJxtG

— Asha Rangappa (@AshaRangappa_) June 15, 2023

This is, IOW, the quality of reasoning that Biden is a doddering old man drooling in his oatmeal, and yet he also outmaneuvered the House GOP and buffaloed McCarthy & Co.

Hang on I want to chase this thread down:

3. If you *really* think something should be public, then you want to take steps to protect the sources of the intel before you release it. But Trump claims he did it secretly. That means he *intentionally* wanted to leave these sources and methods exposed

— Asha Rangappa (@AshaRangappa_) August 31, 2022

5. Of course, he conveniently trots out the claim that he "declassified" them know -- once he is found out. The gig is up, so now he thinks it's a shield. But you only secretly "declassify" if you want secrets to remain valuable while giving yourself "cover" if you get discovered

— Asha Rangappa (@AshaRangappa_) August 31, 2022

The DOJ arguably has evidence (through Corcoran) that Trump said the documents were his. His because he’s a baby and wants everything to be his? Or his because they have value? I tend towards the former explanation, but it doesn’t rule out the latter. Both and a little bit of neither, probably. He knows the value of things, and what he wants is his because he wants it.

Either way, it’s still not a defense.

"Of all of the ground noise out there, nobody is saying Trump’s innocent! Nobody is saying he did not commit the crimes that will put him in jail for over 100 years if convicted on all things."— @JoeNBC calls out Republicans defending Trump indictment https://t.co/VVfu2jxGuB

— Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) June 15, 2023

"Which of these facts is [Trump] going to dispute, and the answer is he can't dispute any of them." --@gtconway3d on the indictment and what the government needs to prove "to go 37 for 37 on this indictment". pic.twitter.com/1ssuBaMGib

— Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) June 15, 2023

And this sounds familiar, too:

…a PR strategy isn’t a legal strategy. The bizarre arguments outside the courthouse made by Alina Habba, Trump’s lawyer and seemingly chief Miami mouthpiece, wouldn’t fly in an actual courtroom. And for all of Trump’s bluster, veteran prosecutor Andrew Weissmann told Lawrence… https://t.co/37fvMHjefK

— Jen Psaki (@jrpsaki) June 15, 2023

Is Trump winning by playing this as reality TeeVee?

First of all, and not to begrudge the power of public relations (a career I spent nearly 20 years in), a PR strategy isn’t a legal strategy. The bizarre arguments outside the courthouse made by Alina Habba, Trump’s lawyer and seemingly chief Miami mouthpiece, wouldn’t fly in an actual courtroom. And for all of Trump’s bluster, veteran prosecutor Andrew Weissmann told Lawrence O'Donnell that Trump's Bedminster, New Jersey speech was a “straight-out confession” and confirmed that what Trump says on the campaign trail can be admissible in court.

This is a good point, too:

Second of all, quantity of public engagement doesn’t equal quality. Nor does it win elections. If it did, Trump would still be president. He dominated the media coverage back in 2020, to the point that prominent Democrats were wringing their hands about Joe Biden’s so-called pandemic basement strategy. 

Indeed, my former White House colleagues see it differently. From their perspective, Biden won in part because he didn’t dive into the fray of the PR war in 2020. And their bet is that the American people are still smarter than that. The president’s own view is that one of the core promises he made in 2020 was that he would respect and protect the independence of the Justice Department. In keeping with that promise, his team is basically forbidden from commenting on the criminal indictment. (That’s no easy feat, as Biden’s joke about notes at a State Department event Tuesday made clear.) 

There is some recent polling to suggest Team Biden’s bet on the public is right. A recent ABC News poll showed 61% of Americans found the charges either very or somewhat serious. And a recent CBS News poll found 69% of voters thought his hoarding of documents about military plans and nuclear systems was a national security risk.

I’ll adopt the apocalyptic language I criticize to say: if Team Biden’s bet isn’t right, the American experiment is well over. And it isn’t.