Category Archives: legal stuff

caedite eos

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It’s been reported by both the Washington Post and CNN that Whiskey Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense (not War) has committed either war crime or murder. Well, they didn’t come right out and say that, but they’re reporting he gave orders to “kill everybody” (‘everybody’ in this case refers to the 11 people aboard a civilian vessel allegedly carrying drugs).

Whether it was murder or a war crime depends on whether you 1) buy into the Trump administration’s bullshit argument that the folks on that boat were involved in a “non-international armed conflict” or 2) believe those 11 people were ordinary run-of-the-mill drug smugglers. If you go for Door Number 2, then killing them with a couple of rockets is plain old mass murder. You can’t just execute people you suspect are drug smugglers; you have to go through that whole ‘due process’ business guaranteed by the US Constitution. (Also? Eleven people? On a smuggling run? Them’s some really inefficient smugglers.)

If you buy Door Number 1, then it’s a war crime. It becomes a war crime because the initial rocket attack didn’t kill everybody. Two people survived the first explosion and were clinging to the wreckage when Hegseth (allegedly) ordered a second strike to kill them. The Geneva Conventions clearly state that people who are not capable of engaging in combat due to “sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause” have to be “treated humanely.” Blowing up people clinging to the wreckage of a boat is pretty fucking far from humane.

Either way–murder or war crime–Pete Hegseth ought to be removed from office and…I don’t know, made to cling to some wreckage in the Caribbean.

Mr. P. Hegseth, Secretary of WTF

Hegseth, it seems, sees himself as some sort of modern-day crusader. He has a Jerusalem cross (also known as the crusader cross) tattooed on his chest and the words Deus Vult (God wants it) tattooed on his bicep. Both of that phrase and that symbol can be found on the coat of arms of the Order of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem–a militant group of Christian warriors founded in 1099 during the First Crusade to protect Christians and Christian property.

It’s maybe instructive to remember (or learn for the first time) that not all of those famous crusades took place in what are called the holy lands. Nor were they all directed against Muslims. But they were all really really really fucking brutal. For example, the Albigensian Crusade (1209 to 1229) took place in southern France and northern Italy and its purpose was to eliminate the Cathars, a Christian sect considered by the Church (there was only the one recognized Christian church back then) to be heretics.

It was a popular crusade among the ruling classes of the early 13th century because 1) it was a LOT less fuss and expense to go kill people in Europe than to travel all the way to the Middle East, where they spoke different languages and ate strange food, 2) unlike the Muslims, the Cathars were pacifists, so killing them was less dangerous, and 3) you still got cred from the Church for being a Good Christian.

There was a big Cathar community in a town called Béziers on the Mediterranean coast. A crusader army under the command of Arnaud Amalric was sent to deal with them. There was an attempt to get the local Cathars to surrender themselves, but it failed. During the negotiations, a small skirmish got out of hand. Amalric was told that it was impossible to differentiate between the ‘good’ Christians and the Cathars, so he gave the order, “Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius,” which is translated as “Slay them. The Lord knows those that are His.” In other words, kill them all and let God sort it out.

Amalric reported it to the Pope, writing “Our men spared no one, irrespective of rank, sex or age, and put to the sword almost 20,000 people. After this great slaughter the whole city was despoiled and burnt.”

Assuming the reporting is accurate (and given all we know about him, it certainly could be), Hegseth’s order to “Kill everyone” can be seen as a smaller, more modern version of the crusader order, “Caedite eos,” Slay them. If they’re not guilty, God will deal with it. So long as you’re doing God’s work, it’s okay. You can’t make an omelet, and all that.

Three years after the massacre at, Arnaud Amalric was made the archbishop of Narbonne. Three months after sinking that particular boat, Pete Hegseth is facing a Congressional investigation. With Comrade Trump as president, we may soon see Hegseth become an archbishop.

unlawful orders

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We’re seeing a lot of discourse about troops and how they should respond to unlawful orders. That’s good. What’s NOT so good, though, is that almost all of the discourse is naive. Much of it comes from civilians who’ve never served and don’t understand how the military operates, or from veterans who were officers. Very little of it is coming from former enlisted personnel–the poor bastards who actually have to carry out those orders.

Here’s a True Thing and in order to actually understand the current discourse you have to accept the truth of this: the foundation of all military hierarchies is grounded on one simple rule: you are required to immediately obey a direct order from a superior officer. In the military, a direct order is a specific, clear command to do something. Go there, do this. The military instills this in all enlisted troops because in combat, you don’t have time to discuss direct orders. You can’t mull over the moral, ethical, or legal implications of the order. You just have to obey it. Even if the direct order is stupid, even if it’s blatantly obvious to you that it’s the wrong thing to do, even if it puts you or others in extreme danger. You’re supposed to just fucking DO it and do it immediately. You’re actually trained to just fucking do it.

The only acceptable military response to a direct order is “Yes sir.”

But but but…what if the order is unlawful? You’re obligated to obey a direct order, but you’re also obligated to REFUSE to obey a direct order if it’s not lawful. The problem, of course, is most troops have a rather vague notion of what is and what isn’t lawful. That problem is compounded by the fact that a direct order must be obeyed immediately.

What’s a lawful order? Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice isn’t particularly helpful. It suggests a direct order should be presumed to be legal:

“An order requiring the performance of a military duty or act may be inferred to be lawful, and it is disobeyed at the peril of the subordinate. This inference does not apply to a patently illegal order, such as one that directs the commission of a crime. The lawfulness of an order is a question of law to be determined by the military.”

So, what’s a service member to do if they’re given a direct order and they’re skeptical about the order’s lawfulness? There’s a protocol for that. You’re supposed to:

  1. Seek clarification of the order. Ask the officer, “Sir, I want to make sure I understand. Are you ordering me to do this thing that seems to me like it might be really fucking illegal?” If the officer answers ‘yes’, but you’re STILL not sure it’s legal, then you’re supposed to…
  2. Consult a higher authority. “Sir, I’d like to talk to your superior or maybe a lawyer before I do this thing that seems to be really fucking illegal.”

Odds are at this point, the officer will order some other service member to put you under arrest. If the order turns out later to have been lawful, you’re fucked; you may do time in a military prison and you’ll get a dishonorable discharge. If it turns out to have been unlawful, guess what: you’re still fucked. Every officer you deal with in the future will be sure to give every shit detail that comes along, because you can’t be trusted to follow orders from your superior officers.

This is what’s missing from the discourse. The military is unlike civilian life. If you go to work and your boss tells you to do something you think violates the law, you can refuse. The worst that will happen is you’ll be fired. In the military, you could go to prison.

It’s easy to say to troops, “Just don’t obey.” It’s not that easy for the troops. Especially when they’re serving under a Commander-in-Chief who pardons and celebrates war criminals. It’s easy to remind troops that ‘just following orders’ didn’t help Nazis during the Nuremberg trials. It’s not that easy when it’s your ass that’s looking at arrest and imprisonment.

That said, troops SHOULD ABSOLUTELY REFUSE to obey orders they believe are unlawful. But we should also be aware of the risk we’re asking them to take.

but what if he’s guilty?

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The concept of due process is getting a lot of attention right now, and rightly so. It’s at the heart of the Trump administration’s attempt to destroy democracy. Due process–the adherence to the laws that balance the power of the State against the civil rights and liberties of the individual–is the primary defense against the US becoming a police state.

Most folks can grasp that concept in theory, but a LOT of people have trouble with the practice itself.

I spent seven years or so as a private investigator specializing in criminal defense; I had a contract with a Public Defender program. For the most part, the lawyers I worked for represented people charged with major crimes…robbery, rape, murder, etc. I rarely told strangers what I did for a living, because it would almost always result in some variation of this conversation:

“Do you ever have a guilty client?”
“Almost all of my clients are guilty.”
“How can you defend a person you KNOW to be guilty?”
“Because I believe in civil rights and liberties.”
“But if you KNOW they’re guilty?”
“They still have rights.”
“But if you KNOW they’re GUILTY?”
“The only way to protect the rights of the innocent is to force the State to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt every single time.”
“Sure, you have to protect the innocent, but if YOU KNOW THEY”RE GUILTY?”

The Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution tells us No person shall…be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law. It’s really that simple. It doesn’t say ‘No citizen.’ It doesn’t say, “No white person.’ It doesn’t say, “No rich person.’ It says NO PERSON. Period. Every person who is at risk of losing their life, their liberty, or their property MUST be allowed the full protection of the law BEFORE any penalty can be applied.

“Let the jury consider their verdict,” the King said, for about the twentieth time that day.
“No, no!” said the Queen. “Sentence first–verdict afterwards.”

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who probably paid a higher proportion of his income in taxes than Donald Trump, has the right to expect the same due process of law as Donald Trump. Not because he’s been illegally detained and imprisoned (although he has), but because EVERYBODY in the US is–or should be–protected by due process. Timothy McVeigh, who killed 168 people in an act of terrorism 30 years ago yesterday, received more due process than Garcia.

I’ll also say this. As somebody who spent years helping defend the guilty, there is nothing more terrifying than an innocent client. There is so much at stake with an innocent client. Seeing an innocent person go to prison feels a hundred times worse than seeing a guilty person go free. And the ONLY way to protect the rights of an innocent person is to require the State to follow the law EVERY SINGLE TIME, even with the guilty.

innocence doesn’t matter

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Okay, first you have to understand that I’m a criminal defense guy. I spent several years as a private investigator specializing in criminal defense. Prior to that, I’d been a counselor in the Psych/Security unit of a prison for women; a significant proportion of the inmates there didn’t need (or deserve) incarceration. I’ve also taught courses in criminology and policing at American University in DC and at Fordham in NYC. I have a solid understanding of how the criminal justice system works. Or fails to work.

Second, you need to understand that I am completely opposed to the death penalty for any crime. I can present lots of arguments against capital punishment, but to spare you that, let me simply say this: the State should not be in the business of killing its own citizens. That’s it, end of argument for me.

I’m telling you this up front so you’ll understand my position when I see a social media post that makes this claim:

[W]e killed an innocent man in Missouri last week; his name was Marcellus Williams.

Criminal trials are about evidence–testimony and forensic evidence. Can the State present enough evidence to convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant committed the crime of which they are accused? At best, it’s an imperfect system. Sometimes factually guilty people will go free, sometimes factually innocent people will get convicted. That’s an indisputable fact (and also a solid argument against the death penalty).

Marcellus Williams

A lot of people are making the claim that Marcellus Williams was innocent. Was he? Despite those claims, we don’t really know (another argument against the death penalty). What DO we know? We DO know the following:

  1. Felicia Gayle was murdered. She was stabbed 43 times with a knife taken from her kitchen.
  2. Her purse, jacket, and a laptop computer belonging to her husband were missing at the crime scene, presumably stolen by her murderer.
  3. Henry Cole, a convicted criminal, testified that Williams admitted killing Gayle while they were both in jail for crimes unconnected to the murder. His testimony conformed to published public reports of the crime and contained no new information. He did NOT come forward until after a reward for information was offered (he accepted the reward: US$5000). Although there’s no overt connection to this case, when Cole violated his parole the State chose NOT to revoke his parole. It’s possible this may have been influenced by his decision to testify against Williams.
  4. Laura Asaro, Williams’ girlfriend at the time of Gayle’s murder, testified Williams admitted to her that he’d killed Gayle. She also said she saw a laptop in Williams’ car and found a purse that contained Gayle’s ID. In addition, she testified that she saw scratches on Williams’ neck, blood on his shirt. Although she did NOT accept any reward money, a neighbor said Asaro claimed she was getting paid to testify. No flesh was found under the fingernails of the victim, making her testimony about scratches moot. Asaro, who’d been arrested for solicitation (prostitution), lied about that arrest during deposition. No bloody shirt was found during a later search, nor was Gayle’s purse recovered.
  5. A warranted search of Williams’ car produced a calculator belonging to Gayle and a ruler with the logo of Gayle’s employer.
  6. The laptop taken from Gayle’s home was recovered from a witness who claimed he’d bought it from Williams.
  7. There was no physical forensic evidence tying Williams directly to the scene of the murder. No fingerprints that matched Williams; none of his shoes that were tested matched the bloody footprints found at the scene; DNA taken from the murder weapon did not match Williams. Police suggest Williams may have worn gloves and could easily have disposed of a bloody shirt, shoes, and Gayle’s purse.
  8. All capital cases are tried before death-qualified juries. Potential jurors who are categorically opposed to the death penalty are automatically disqualified. Research strongly suggests death-qualified juries are more likely to vote for convictions.
  9. Williams was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death.

The Innocence Project (a group I respect) made much of the fact that the State offered no motive for Williams to have murdered Gayle. Despite what you see on television, motive is rarely a major factor in a criminal investigation. The fact is, people do stuff all the time without being able to explain why they did it. That’s even more true of people with drug issues or problems with impulse control. The absence of an obvious motive doesn’t mean much when it comes to criminality.

Back to Williams. Was he innocent? There was evidence that he was involved in the murder, but that evidence is largely circumstantial. There was testimony that he’d confessed, but the veracity of testimony given by a fellow inmate who sought a reward and an ex-girlfriend is questionable. Williams offered no explanation for why he had the victim’s calculator and ruler in his vehicle, or why another witness testified he’d sold the victim’s laptop. The evidence presented to the death-qualified jury was enough to convince them of his guilt.

So, was Williams innocent? Maybe. Maybe not. We don’t know. I’m inclined to think he was probably guilty. But in the end, I really don’t care.

His guilt or innocence doesn’t matter to me in terms of his death sentence. Even if he murdered Gayle, I don’t believe the State should have the power or authority to kill its own citizens. I also believe that when we base our opposition to the death penalty on the innocence of the accused, we’re tacitly agreeing with the argument that it’s okay to execute the guilty.

The State should not have executed Marcellus Williams, regardless of his guilt or innocence.

fuck everything, especially those guys

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Yeah, I’m talking about those Nazgûl motherfuckers on SCOTUS. Like almost everybody I know, I spent yesterday vacillating between 1) feeling depressed and helpless and 2) wanting to set fire to the entire combustible world. The decision yesterday that POTUS (and Trump in particular) is essentially above the law was appalling and frightening, but the fact that it was delivered in smug terms by the most conspicuously corrupt and openly partisan SCOTUS in history was insulting. It’s like they’re standing there, grinning in their black robes, saying “Fuck yeah, we’re corrupt. And ain’t nothing you plebs can do about it.”

Justice Sotomayor, in her properly raging dissent, wrote, “in every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law.” And she’s right. That whole notion that nobody is above the law has gone straight down the porcelain facility. This is an unprecedented fuckwankery. This is deep fuckwankery; fuckwankery down at the cellular level. I mean, the spouses of two of the Justices (Alito and Thomas) openly supported the insurrection/insurrectionists, and yet those two tainted pricks didn’t have the fundamental sense of decency to recuse themselves from the case.

What makes this even more galling is the fact that those arrogant motherfuckers on SCOTUS were put on the bench by partisan politicians who represent a minority of US citizens. A combination of partisan gerrymandering, voter suppression, and the absurdity of the Electoral College means that the US is largely ruled by the minority. And in recent years, that minority cheated, lied, and wriggled around enough to install three partisan hacks onto the SCOTUS bench.

Wipe the smiles off the faces of 6 of these corrupt wankers.

Every single one of the Justices sitting on this SCOTUS testified under oath that they respected stare decisis, the legal concept that courts should follow precedent. At least six of them lied about that. This Court has largely shat all over precedent. For almost half a century, Roe guaranteed a woman’s right to choose. That’s gone. The Bakke decision on race-conscious admissions in higher education was the law of the land for almost as long. Not any more. For 40 years, Chevron — Jesus suffering fuck, people, there have been 70 SCOTUS and some 17,000 or so lower court cases based on Chevron, which states courts need to defer to the experts in various regulatory agencies when deciding how to interpret a law. A judge probably doesn’t know enough to decide what level of exposure to a certain chemical or substance would be harmful to a child. A judge probably doesn’t have a fucking clue about the long term effects of effluent run-off from a hog containment farm into a local river upstream from a small town. Experts need to decide this shit, not judges. But nope, this SCOTUS has turned that power over to elected or appointed judges.

Wait…I forgot bribery. Last week, this SCOTUS (and I am NOT MAKING THIS UP) made the bizarre decision that while it’s illegal for a public official (like, say, a mayor or a member of Congress, or possibly a judge) to accept a bribe, it’s perfectly for fine for them to accept a gratuity. A bribe is the offer of money (or something of value) from a person/entity before the public official makes a decision affecting that person or entity. A gratuity is accepting the same fucking thing after the decision is made. Seriously, the Court says bribes are bad but gratuities are okay. This decision was written by the Justice whose massive credit card debt was mysteriously paid off before he was nominated. You know who I’m talking about–the guy reliably accused of sexual assault. That guy. (Okay, Kavanaugh.)

If you’re reading this hoping that at the end I’ll suggest some way to make you feel better about the situation…sorry. If you’re hoping I’ll cobble together ideas for a way forward, or maybe offer some practical advice on how to minimize the damage…nope. Maybe tomorrow or at some point in the future. For now, all I have to say is let yourself be angry or depressed for a while. Maybe just be numb for a while.

But pretty soon we’ll need to get over it and resist. Resist in any way we can. Resist in every way we can. But today it’s literally raining here in the heartland, and for today that’s fine.

chik chik chik chik

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Guilty as charged in all thirty-four counts. Everybody has a take on this, of course. Most of those takes are focused on either Comrade Trump’s immediate future or the effect these convictions will have on the 2024 presidential election.

Take a step beyond that. Remember that this case–these 34 indictments–was the most complicated and weakest of the four sets of indictments Trump is/was facing. The prosecution had to convince a jury of ordinary people that 1) Trump knowingly falsified some business documents, and 2) he falsified them with the intent to commit another crime. That’s not as easy as it sounds. It’s fucking hard to prove intent, because intent takes place in the mind. In this case, the State was able to prove intent almost entirely because Trump’s malignant personality got in his way.

Trump’s other cases are much less complicated; the evidence in those cases is a lot more clear and easy to understand. The Georgia case has a fucking tape of him trying to strong-arm the Georgia Secretary of State to “find” votes that weren’t there, to “find” enough votes for Trump to claim he’d won that state. There’s SO MUCH clear, easily understood evidence in that case. The Florida documents case? Tons of evidence that he took them, denied he had them, refused to give them back, left them lying about unsecured in a goddamn golf club that was frequently visited by foreign agents, moved them around to make them harder to find, lied about moving them. Sure, the judge in that case is doing everything she can to kneecap the prosecution, but if it ever goes to trial, it’ll be pretty one-sided. The insurrection case has texts, recordings of phone calls, eyewitness testimony, and hours of video of assholes actually storming the goddamn capitol in an effort to stop the electoral college vote, not to mention hundreds of other participants already serving prison sentences.

Compared to those other sets of indictment, the NY indictments were like hieroglyphics. If a jury could figure them out and reach a verdict in the NY case, the other cases should be significantly easier.

chik chik chik chik

What this first case does is further erode the notion that Trump is untouchable. Trump has lost legal cases before, of course, but the last year was (I believe, I hope) the beginning of a cascading sequence of increasingly serious legal setbacks for Trump.

  1. In May of 2023 Trump was found legally liable for sexually abusing and defaming E. Jean Carroll; he was ordered to pay her US$5 million in damages.
  2. In July of that year, the judge acknowledged that the jury had found Trump raped Carroll, according to the common definition of the term.
  3. In January of this year, 2024, a second trial brought by Carroll as a result of Trump’s continued defamation awared her an additional $83.3 million in damages.
  4. In February, Trump (along with his sons and his company) was found to have committed years of fraud by lying about the worth of his various properties. He was fined $355 million.

What makes Trump so admirable to his cadre of MAGA fuckwits? His sense of invincibility. The notion that he can do whatever he wants, no matter how outrageous, and get by with it. Remember, this is the guy who bragged he could shoot somebody on 5th Avenue and not lose any votes. The guy who bragged he could grab women by the pussy because, “when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.” MAGA loves that shit.

That aura of invincibility is being shattered. Each of those cases exposes Trump as a loser. A consistent loser. Right now, of course, the MAGAverse is awash in bullshit patriotic pro-Trump rhetoric. Trump is raising funds calling himself a political prisoner. The congressional MAGA remora who’ve attached themselves to Trump continue to feed on his backwash. And on FreeRepublic they’re digitally shouting “Remember May 30th!” like the courtroom in lower Manhattan is the fucking Alamo. BUT…

But they know. They may not admit it to anybody, to themselves, but they know. In their secret hearts, they know Trump’s not really Trump anymore. He’s not what he was. He’s failing, he’s getting shoved around, he’s unable to defend himself, he’s weak.

That first domino was tapped. It took a while for the second to fall. Then the third. If you listen, you can hear it. That inevitable chik chik chik chik.

juries

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Okay, long story.

Years ago, when I was a criminal defense investigator, I worked a bank robbery case. Our client had been charged with robbing a bank in a small New Hampshire town near the border of Massachusetts. It was a local bank, had been in that town for decades, the clients were all local folks. The bank was so small there were only two teller windows. So small, they’d never installed security cameras or security dividers at the teller windows. So small, they’d only just installed a drive through window.

Here’s what happened: guy comes into the bank shortly after it opens, says he has a gun, orders the tellers to empty their cash drawers into a bag. While they’re doing that, the guy is so nervous he pisses himself. They give him the cash, he leaves. Nobody sees him drive away.

The two tellers give the police a very basic description: the robber is maybe six feet tall, short curly dark hair, pale complexion, maybe some acne scars. No arrest is made.

A few weeks later, one of those tellers is working the new drive-through window. Guy drives up, makes a deposit, drives off. The teller says it’s the robber. The local police respond, chase him down, stop his car on the side of the road, order him out at gun point. He gets out, pisses himself. He’s maybe 5’10”, long straight dark hair, fair complexion, no acne scars. The tellers identify him as the robber. He’s arrested, charged with robbery, and taken to jail.

Another couple of weeks pass. Guy walks into the bank shortly after it opens, robs it, manages NOT to piss himself, takes the money, leaves, nobody sees him drive away. The two tellers report to the police saying it’s the same robber as before. The problem is, the guy they’d already arrested is sitting in a jail cell. The police eventually release him. No arrest is made in the second robbery.

Couple of months pass. Across the border in Massachusetts, police bust a couple of guys in a drug deal. Some of the money seized turns out to be from the first bank robbery. The guy holding the money is maybe five-eight, reddish hair, ruddy complexion, no acne scars. But he’s from NH and he’s got no solid alibi for the date and time of the robbery. The NH police charge him with bank robbery. The tellers identify him as the robber.

That was my client. When his lawyer and I interview him, he tells us he didn’t rob the bank and has an alibi he didn’t tell the police; he claims he was in Cape Cod when the bank robbery took place; he’d been there for a couple of days, selling drugs. He gives me some names of people who might confirm his alibi.

I spend a couple of days in and around Truro, talking to drug users. Some confirm the client was there for a few days, but deny buying drugs and can’t/won’t confirm the date (drug users are pretty shitty when it comes to keeping a calendar). Some deny seeing him or knowing him at all. But two guys admit buying drugs from him. They can confirm the date (they had friends from out of state visiting), and can confirm when and where they bought the drugs from (the friends wanted to visit a cemetery near where the dismembered bodies of the Cape Cod Vampire’s victims were found in the late 1960s; that’s where they arranged to meet the client). But, of course, they were very very reluctant to testify about it.

The defense attorney and client conferred. They decided to rely on the strong ID defense. After all, the tellers had already mistakenly identified a different guy once, and their description of the robber at the time of the crime didn’t match the client. They decided an alibi of “I was selling drugs to serial murder fans at the Cape Cod Vampire murder scene” wouldn’t help their already strong ID defense. Besides, Truro was only about three or four hours away from the small NH town; it would have been possible for the client to be selling drugs in Truro, drive to NH, rob a bank, and return to Truro to sell more drugs. And while a jury might wonder why a drug dealer would interrupt a successful drug dealing holiday on Cape Cod to drive 7-8 hours round trip to rob a bank of a few thousand dollars, the alibi seemed to raise more problems than it solved.

The case went to trial, and the jury voted to convict. The client was sentenced to 20 years for a bank robbery he (probably) didn’t commit.

The Jury — by John Morgan (1861)

Why am I telling you this? Because today, Judge Merchan will be instructing the jury in Comrade Trump’s election interference case. And because folks who know I’ve spent a lot of time in and around criminal courts have been asking me for an opinion about the outcome of this trial. Here’s my opinion: the evidence against Trump is solid and the defense case is weak.

But juries are fucking weird. No matter if the case presented by the prosecution or by the defense is solid, once the jurors close the doors and start deliberating, anything can happen. All it takes is one juror who thinks maybe Michael Cohen can’t be trusted (and let’s face it, Michael Cohen CAN’T be trusted, even if he’s telling the truth now) and the State’s case goes down the porcelain facility.

I generally disagree with folks who describe a jury trial as a crap shoot. The dice are usually loaded in the prosecution’s favor. But once the dice start bouncing around, they can bounce in bizarre, unpredictable directions. All we can do is wait.

I’m hoping they bounce toward guilty.

it’s not a ‘hush money’ trial

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Jury selection for Comrade Donald Trump’s first criminal trial is scheduled to begin on the 15th. People and the news media (you’d think the ‘news media’ would be populated by ‘people’ but I swear, it’s more a collection of rabid ferrets tied up in a gunny sack) keep referring to it as “the hush money trial.”

There’s a good reason for that, of course. Trump did actually pay money to hush up a sleazy sexual episode. Three sleazy sexual episodes, in fact (the one-night stand with Stormy Daniels, the 9-month affair with Playboy model Karen McDougal, and Trump Tower doorman Dino Sajudin who claimed Trump fathered a child with a former employee). Hell, Trump’s probably paid hush money on multiple occasions to multiple people. This is a thing rich assholes do. Nobody is ever really surprised when rich assholes pay money to suppress their disreputable behavior.

But here’s the thing: the hush money isn’t the issue. The issues are: 1) how Trump paid the hush money and 2) how his attempts to hush up the way the hush money payments were made.

Does that sound confusing? Well, it kinda is. Here’s what happened (according to the prosecution, anyway). The various hush money payments were listed in Trump’s business records as a ‘legal expense’ payable to Michael Cohen (who, by the way, pled guilty to violating campaign finance laws, tax fraud, and bank fraud; he picked up a three year sentence in federal prison, fined US$50,000 fine, and was eventually disbarred from practicing law in the state of New York.). Shuffling the money through Cohen involved falsifying business records, which is only a misdemeanor UNLESS that falsifying is done to cover up another crime. That turns the misdemeanor into a felony. The other crime, in this case, is violating campaign finance laws. Trump is facing 34 felony counts in this trial.

It’s one thing for a rich asshole to dip into his pockets to pay a person money in order to hide his disreputable behavior. It’s one thing to pony up some of your own coin so your family and/or business acquaintances won’t find out that you’re a despicable creep. That’s just ordinary everyday sleazy rich asshole behavior.

It’s another thing altogether to dip into campaign pockets to pay a person money in order to suppress a story that would lead voters to believe you’re a despicable creep, which might make them decide not to vote for you.

Trump is being prosecuted for falsifying business records in order to disguise the fact that he used campaign money to suppress ugly stories that might hurt his chance of being elected to the highest political office in the United States.

Maybe the most horrible part of this trial is that Trump probably didn’t need to…well, do anything at all to hush up his bad behavior. His attorneys could argue that Trump’s supporters would vote for him even if he publicly admitted he’d cheated on his wife with a porn actor. I mean, this is the guy who bragged he could shoot somebody on 5th Avenue in New York City and not lose any votes. This is a guy who is EXPECTED to behave like a total asshole, and who regularly lives up to that expectation.

Trump: Yeah, that’s right, I cheated on my first wife with my second wife, and I cheated on my second wife with my third wife, and I cheated on my third wife with a porn star. I’ve cheated on everybody at every chance I got in every aspect of my life. Why shouldn’t I? You’d do it too if you thought you could get away with it. Vote for me!
MAGAverse: Hell yeah! We love his honesty! He’s just like us! We’d be total assholes too if we thought we could get away with it! Vote Trump! He’ll make America great for total assholes again!

That may be true, but it’s not a legit defense in a criminal matter. The victims in this case aren’t Stormy Daniels or Karen McDougal or the many voters Trump were lied to. The true victim is the electoral system itself, not the voters who use it.

The total asshole in question.

This isn’t a case of a rich total asshole paying hush money to salvage his reputation. It’s a case of a rich total asshole paying hush money to gank the electoral system—to gank it so he could gain access to power and influence. And hey, it worked. The motherfucker actually got himself elected (with the aid of a hostile foreign nation, Russia). And to nobody’s surprise, when he was faced with losing a second election, he tried to gank the system again. And almost succeeded.

Trump is still trying to gank the electoral system. The upcoming trial is the first real attempt to hold the motherfucker accountable.

EDITORIAL NOTE: I have a baseball cap with ITMFA on the front. It originally stood for Impeach the Motherfucker Already. And hey, they did impeach him. But it didn’t take. So then ITMFA stood for Impeach the Motherfucker Again. And they did. And it didn’t take. Then it stood for Indict the Motherfucker Already. And they did. Now ITMFA stands for Incarcerate the Motherfucker Already. (I reserve the right for the I to eventually stand for ‘incinerate’.)