Editorial written by The New York Daily News’ Editorial Board.
It’s hard to believe but true, like so much else about Donald Trump’s tenure: The 45th president’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election and thwart the peaceful transfer of power were even worse than previously thought. So says a 165-page brief filed by Special Counsel Jack Smith, made public last week by D.C. Federal Judge Tanya Chutkan.
That brief recalibrates the government’s charges against Trump in light of the summer’s Supreme Court ruling giving presidents immunity or the presumption of immunity from criminal prosecution in many realms. As a result, certain previous prosecutorial threads are no longer there — but remaining elements of the case now come into even sharper focus than before.
The core point, Smith asserts, is that Trump was almost entirely acting as a candidate for office and not as president when he orchestrated most of the plot to upend the will of the people and steal the White House from the man voters had chosen in a free and fair election: “Although the defendant was the incumbent president during the charged conspiracies, his scheme was fundamentally a private one.” Translation: The Supreme Court ruling, as bad as it is, doesn’t shield him from criminal liability, not by a longshot.
Smith and his team then go on to flesh out the case against Trump.
In mid-November, in the runup to the Jan. 6 insurrection, VP Mike Pence offered Trump a “face-saving option,” suggesting he not concede “but recognize the process is over.” Trump rejected it.
And when Trump was told that Pence had to be rushed to a secure location for refusing to help him overturn the election — for doing his constitutional duty — Trump said “So what?” When the hordes chanted “Hang Mike Pence!,” the power-hungry madman didn’t care.
And an assistant to the president overheard a remark Trump made to family members post-election: “It doesn’t matter if you won or lost the election,” he was overheard saying. “You still have to fight like hell.”
And when one of Trump’s lawyers told him that his lies that the election had been stolen were doomed to fall apart in court, Trump answered, “The details don’t matter.”
In a typically ridiculous I’m-rubber-you’re-glue move, Trump, of course, is attacking the judge for releasing evidence about his conspiracy to subvert the last election as an attempt to subvert the coming election. But the public has every right to know how hard the Republican candidate for president worked to cancel the will of the people four years ago, making the United States more like a corrupt developing-world democracy than the leader of the Free World.
Last week in Ripon, Wisconsin, the birthplace of the Republican Party, former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney campaigned alongside Kamala Harris— making their case that though Republicans and Democrats disagree on plenty, they should stand united for Harris and against Trump.
Cheney, a lifelong Republican who backed Trump in 2016 and 2020, was appalled by the Jan. 6 attack on the seat of our government and became the vice chair of the House Jan. 6 panel examining Trump’s assault on the Constitution and the rule of law that led up to the riot. She saw the mountain of evidence and now thanks to Jack Smith and Judge Chutkan, every American can also see it.
