The Weekly Sift

If the charges against him are all political shenanigans engineered by Biden, Trump should seek speedy trials leading to a series of jury acquittals before the election. So why is he doing the exact opposite?

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For several years now, Rachel Maddow has been repeating: “Watch what they do, not what they say.” This week Rep. Eric Swalwell invited us to apply that maxim to the particular case of Trump’s indictments:

Weird. You’re telling me the guy who says he is being corruptly prosecuted has no interest in the right to speedily contest the charges?

Trump’s people are saying the charges against him are bogus, that it’s all politics waged by overzealous partisan prosecutors. It’s “election interference” whose purpose is to promote slanders against Trump during the campaign. And it’s all being coordinated behind the scenes by Joe Biden. (Biden, meanwhile, is supposedly senile. So how he manages to stay on top of his sprawling conspiracy to weaponize law enforcement seems like a hole in the plot.)

But if that’s what’s going on, then Trump’s lawyers should be chomping at the bit to get into a courtroom, where they can tell the real story, introduce the “complete” and “irrefutable” evidence that clears Trump, cross-examine the witnesses arrayed against him (who are mostly members of his own party and his own administration — probably including his vice president), and generally poke holes in the prosecutors’ narrative.

After all, we’ve already seen what happens when a politicized prosecution goes to trial: Twice, John Durham brought charges based on his Clinton-conspiracy theory of the Trump/Russia investigation. Both times, juries were not fooled and voted quickly and unanimously for acquittal.

So if all Trump’s indictments are nothing but “weaponization of the justice system“, that’s what he should want: Bring in 12 ordinary Americans who are not part of the vast Biden conspiracy, let them examine all the evidence, and then see what they think. In particular, Trump should want to get as many vindicating verdicts as possible on the record before the election, so that voters could put aside all doubts about his guilt. What’s more, a string of unanimous juries voting quickly for acquittal would expose Biden’s nefarious plotting, and turn the whole issue in Trump’s favor. The momentum from those not-guilty verdicts would probably propel Trump back into the White House.

But if you look at what Trump, his lawyers, and his cultists are doing, they seem scared to death of him facing a jury. His legal strategy revolves around endless delay, especially delay beyond Election Day. It’s as if he believes that maintaining the uncertainty about his guilt is good for him, and resolving the issue would be bad.

He constantly points not to exculpatory evidence, but to his “absolute immunity“, or some other magic get-out-of-jail-free card exempting him from prosecution. He calls on his allies in Congress to harass, defund, or remove from office the prosecutors who have sought his indictment. He tries to intimidate Democrats with threats of reprisal. He retweets supporters’ calls for violence — even “civil war” — if Trump’s trials go forward.

Anything to avoid a jury.

The American way to deal with outrageous charges is to say “See you in court.” But apparently that’s not Trump’s way, at least not in these cases.

You can make your own judgment, but here’s how I resolve the contradiction between what Trump and his people say and what they do: They’re lying. They know that the indictments are legitimate, and that he in fact is guilty. They are desperate to avoid a trial, because if 12 ordinary Americans see the evidence against Trump, they will send him to prison.