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   From: nowomr@protonmail.com   
      
   Former President Donald Trump’s legal troubles got dramatically worse   
   Tuesday, when he was indicted on criminal charges by a federal grand jury   
   in special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into efforts to overturn the   
   2020 election leading up to the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol.   
   Trump has now been indicted on nearly 80 felony counts and has dug himself   
   into the deepest possible hole.   
      
      
   The ramifications of these charges for Trump and the country are enormous.   
      
   The most recent set of indictments — four felony counts leveled by Smith’s   
   office — is bigger than Trump and bigger than anything his co-conspirators   
   in the indictments might have done.   
      
   The trial, which may well happen before the next presidential election,   
   will be about the battle to protect American democracy itself. So far,   
   Trump has denied all wrongdoing and has pleaded not guilty to the previous   
   charges.   
      
   The charges in the third indictment are the most serious yet against the   
   former president. Experts consider the first set of indictments, 34 counts   
   for business fraud brought by the Manhattan district attorney in March, to   
   be technical and unusual, given that the underlying crime, campaign   
   finance fraud, is a federal offense for which Trump has not been charged.   
      
   The second set of indictments, involving the handling of classified   
   documents and including four additional charges in the superseding   
   indictment released last week by Smith’s office, is undoubtedly serious,   
   as 32 out of the 40 counts he faces in that indictment stem from the   
   Espionage Act. But the third indictment goes further — for the first time   
   — by charging Trump with criminal attempts to undermine American   
   democracy.   
      
   The former president only has himself to blame for the misconduct he has   
   been charged with, especially after having been repeatedly told by members   
   of his staff, his Cabinet and state officials that there was no election   
   fraud significant enough to affect the outcome of the election in 2020.   
   trump north korea announcement   
      
   Opinion: GOP leaders backing Trump are in a moral abyss   
      
   Trump’s Attorney General Bill Barr told the press, in early December 2020,   
   that “we have not seen fraud on a scale” that could have produced a   
   different outcome in the presidential election, and, in 2022, Barr   
   testified before the January 6 House select committee that Trump was   
   “detached from reality” in persistently fantasizing he had won the   
   election. Trump 2020 campaign adviser Jason Miller even described some of   
   the election fraud claims as “conspiracy shit beamed down from the   
   mothership.”   
      
   According to the indictment, Trump knew his fraud claims were false “but   
   the defendant repeated and widely disseminated them anyway — to make his   
   knowingly false claims appear legitimate, create an intense atmosphere of   
   mistrust and anger, and erode public faith in the administration of the   
   election.”   
      
   Tuesday’s indictment does not charge Trump with being a bad loser, and it   
   goes out of its way to acknowledge Trump had his First Amendment right to   
   complain about the election. Instead, it makes a convincing case that   
   Trump is singularly responsible for his own words and actions to subvert   
   the constitutional mechanisms for the peaceful transfer of power.   
      
   In this newest set of charges, he finds himself before a judge who has   
   spoken out strongly about the danger the nation faced due to the Jan. 6   
   riot. Trump is facing the possibility of more than 20 years of   
   imprisonment if he is convicted on more than one of the recent   
   indictments. On top of all that, his legal bills are straining his   
   campaign’s finances.   
      
   The latest indictment exposes, like each of the other two, the absurdity   
   of Trump’s defenses. Indeed, Trump’s defenses are screeds aimed at bucking   
   up his political support, but none are legally significant, as he has   
   claimed that the indictments are the product of a president and a Justice   
   Department determined to weaponize the criminal justice system against   
   him, that President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden are kingpins in the   
   “Biden Crime Family” and committed crimes worse than he ever committed and   
   that he was merely voicing criticisms of the electoral system that are   
   protected by the First Amendment.   
      
      
   Opinion: Why are Trump’s donors paying for his legal fees?   
      
   The third set of indictments is based on credible evidence of Trump’s   
   conspiring to hinder or undo the final certification of the Electoral   
   College votes in Congress. Indeed, the media closely covered Trump on   
   January 6, including his incendiary speech telling his supporters, “you’ll   
   never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and   
   you have to be strong.” The evidence and testimony laid out in the January   
   6 House select committee’s hearings are not imaginary or false; they   
   plainly support the misconduct charged in the most recent indictment.   
      
   The indictment released Tuesday underscores the extent to which the   
   Republican Party has abdicated its oft-repeated claims that it is the   
   party of law and order and moral values. Many of the Republicans running   
   for president alongside Trump have said or hinted they would likely pardon   
   him in the federal indictments he now faces. A minority — former New   
   Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and former   
   Rep. Will Hurd of Texas — have expressly urged voters to turn away from a   
   likely felon for president.   
      
   Each set of indictments tests the country’s commitment to the rule of law,   
   which is the foundation of our democracy. This is especially true given   
   the steadfast support Trump continues to enjoy among Republican voters.   
   He’s polling at more than 50% in the Republican national primary polls —   
   more than all his opponents combined.   
      
   But the rule of law is only meaningful if the law applies to everyone,   
   including the mightiest among us. As  President Theodore Roosevelt   
   declared in his annual message to Congress in 1903, “No man is above the   
   law, and no man is below; nor do we ask any man’s permission when we   
   require him to obey it. Obedience to the law is demanded as a right; not   
   asked for as a favor.”   
      
   The federal judge overseeing the criminal proceedings against Trump in the   
   classified documents case denied a request from Trump to delay them until   
   after the election. His lawyers had argued that he couldn’t get a fair   
   trial while he was running for president.   
      
   Both a superior court judge and the Georgia Supreme Court have rejected   
   Trump’s motions to stop a grand jury in Atlanta from considering indicting   
   him for pressuring state officials to overturn the Georgia election.   
      
   Trump rightly failed, in other words, to get special treatment as a   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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