Adrastos, Law/Justice, Legal Docket, Political Crack, The Darnold

Indictment Watch

I am tired of writing about Donald Trump. But I am not tired of visualizing him in the dock as Defendant Trump. This week’s events moved us closer to that possibility.

Dateline: Atlanta, Georgia.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is an underrated news organization. They’ve excelled in covering the Trump election scandal in their backyard.

The state of Georgia has some squirrelly laws. In most jurisdictions, grand jurors take a vow of silence. Not so in Georgia, they’re allowed to discuss their service but not the precise results. The AJC sat down with five grand jurors for an inside look at the proceedings.

There’s a major revelation in the AJC story. There’s another recorded “perfect” phone call:

They also divulged details from the investigation that had yet to become public.

One was that they had heard a recording of a phone call Trump placed to late Georgia House Speaker David Ralston in which the president asked the fellow Republican to convene a special session of the Legislature to overturn Democrat Joe Biden’s narrow victory in Georgia.

One juror said Ralston proved to be “an amazing politician.”

The speaker “basically cut the president off. He said, ‘I will do everything in my power that I think is appropriate.’ … He just basically took the wind out of the sails,” the juror said. “‘Well, thank you,’ you know, is all the president could say.”

Ralston and other legislative leaders did not call a special session. A former Ralston aide declined to comment for this story, and a Trump campaign spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.

He able to shut up the garrulous Trump? He wasn’t just “an amazing politician” he was a magician. Making Trump’s verbiage disappear is a major accomplishment.

The jurors found their experience interesting but dull on the days when witnesses such as disgraced General Mike Flynn and all-around disgrace Rudy Giuliani took the Fifth. I suspect Flynn grunted out “the Fifth” as he did for the J6 Committee.

Our little friend The Incredible Mr. Lindsey resisted testifying but made the BIG LIE sound like a low budget sci-fi flick:

One grand juror recalled U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham’s testimony about Trump’s state of mind in the months after the 2020 election.

“He said that during that time, if somebody had told Trump that aliens came down and stole Trump ballots, that Trump would’ve believed it,” the juror said.

Even Lindsey Graham thinks the Kaiser of Chaos is a delusional buffoon. Why did he sell his soul to him in 2016? That’s right: he doesn’t have a soul to sell.

The AJC piece closes with juror reactions:

Said another juror: “I tell my wife if every person in America knew every single word of information we knew, this country would not be divided as it is right now.”

The grand jurors said they understand why the public release of their full final report needs to wait until Willis makes indictment decisions.

“A lot’s gonna come out sooner or later,” one of the jurors said. “And it’s gonna be massive. It’s gonna be massive.”

The ball is in Fani Willis’ court to decide who to indict. Given what we know about the evidence, an indictment of former President* Pennywise seems likely absent interference from the Georgia lege. Stay tuned.

For those who think this investigation proceeded at lightning speed,  the inquiry was opened in February, 2021 and the special grand jury was convened in May, 2022.

Repeat after me: The Law Is Slow.

The last word of our Georgia grand jury tour goes to George Jones:

Dateline: Manhattan. New York, not Kansas.

The action in the Stormy Daniels hush money case has been frantic this week. Michael Cohen testified to *that* grand jury. One thing Cohen and his former boss have in common is hyperbole. Cohen said the grand jurors were “mesmerized” by the prosecutors. I hope that’s true, but it set off my bullshit detector. I set it on high for Trump’s former fixer.

The Kaiser of Chaos’ latest lawyer sat for an interview with MSNBC’s Ari Melber and made an ass of himself:

More bluster and bullshit from Team Trump. Anyone surprised? It’s all they have to offer.

The most significant development in the New York case was the District Attorney’s office inviting future Defendant Trump to testify. This is likely a prelude to an indictment. This inquiry was initiated in 2018, dropped, then restarted. Not exactly lightning speed.

I mentioned the slowness of the Georgia and New York inquiries because the DOJ’s Trump probes have been criticized for their slowness. I, too, wish they would have started earlier BUT they are proceeding. When we can add them to the Indictment Watch remains to be seen. Stay tuned.

Prosecutors in all three jurisdictions need to get this right, not fast. The Omar maxim still applies:

Repeat after me: The Law Is Slow.

The last word of our grand grand jury tour goes to Aaron Neville: