Briefly Noted: Legal Matters, Polling

Just some quick catch-up here.

From yesterday, James Bovard had an overall discussion of the DoJ prosecution of January 6 Event participants: The Coming "January 6" Train Wreck. It's worth some time if that interests you. Basically, Bovard is pointing out that, while the FBI is crowing over identifying particpants, DoJ is facing two problems. 

The first is that it appears from early cases that the trial judges are unimpressed with the cases and won't be handing out significant sentences. It's still a travesty of justice, but it's a passive-aggressive form of judicial pushback against a political witchhunt.

The second problem is that the case management--assembling evidence into coherent packages, managing discovery, etc.--is turning into a nightmare. Bovard concludes:

Will Justice Department prosecutors be caught in a Catch-22, pressured by the White House to harvest as many scalps as possible but crippled by the lack of proof that most of the accused were guilty of anything besides trespassing or “willfully and knowingly parading” in the Capitol? Political pressure for high-profile convictions resulted in disastrous courtroom defeats for federal attorneys prosecuting Ruby Ridge, the Branch Davidian standoff at Waco, and other cases. If juries rebuff prosecutors on more than a few January 6 cases, then the entire political storyline could quickly collapse.

Federal prosecutor Mona Sedky is calling for harsh punishment for January 6 defendants because of “the need to preserve respect for the law.” But at this point, “respect for the law” is a loss leader in this process. That won’t be remedied when people realize that taking selfies can result in a federal sentencing enhancement.

My take is that this legal jihad may backfire in the long term, even if DoJ gets convictions from DC juries. We already know that the public is more concerned about violence on the streets of our cities that they are with trespassers taking selfies in the Capitol. That effect and the impression it gives will continue to grow. Further, the result will be DoJ tying up enormous personnel resources for very doubtful benefits. The major benefit they were seeking was political rather than strictly prosecutorial, and that promise of benefit is slipping away.

The other FBI/DoJ case that's making news is the Whitmer kidnapping case--and all the news is very negative for the regime. Jonathan Turley has a full length article discussing the effect that the felony arrest of the FBI case agent, Richard Trask, is likely to have. He concludes--duh!--that no good is likely to come of it for the regime's case. Again, if you like a legal deep dive of this sort, Turley's got it for you: Could The Arrest of FBI Agent Undermine The Whitmer Kidnapping Case? While the conclusion may be a no-brainer, the discussion is shrewd, from an experienced defense lawyer. For example, despite the fact that Trask's state felony charges having nothing to do with the federal Whitmer case ...

As the author of the key affidavit, Trask could do considerable harm to the federal case. Even without such testimony in favor of the defense, his current status as an accused felon will likely be raised with the court. A judge could conclude that the two cases are unrelated and disclosure to a jury would be prejudicial and immaterial. However, the defense could argue that the pending charges could influence his testimony. He could seek to satisfy his former federal colleagues in the kidnapping case to improve his position in seeking a plea bargain with their state counterpart. Such testimony could also be cited to mitigate any sentence or charged the assault case. Finally, Trask’s FBI career is likely over even if he pleads guilty to a lesser charge.  However, any chance to stay a federal employee could depend on his federal testimony — a motivation that the defense could highlight in rebuttal if the court allowed it.

Any entrapment defense carries a very heavy burden that defendants can rarely shoulder successfully in federal cases. The advantage remains with the government in this case. However, this case has a credible claim of entrapment and one of the core witnesses for the government has suddenly become a liability. The Widner [sic] case is one o the “matinee” prosecutions of the Biden Administration but one of its stars may have just gone off-script.

Finally, ABC/Ipsos has new polling out on pessimism about the direction the country has taken; that's bad news for the Zhou regime. The Dems have been counting on distracting the public with legal circuses but, predictably, that's only working with the radical Left base. The rest of the public have lives to live. I quote here from the Red State account. It's obvious that economic woes would figure largely but, in what could prove significant as Dems threaten more lockdowns, it appears that the Covid Regime is increasingly unpopular. Could someone explain this to the GOPe?

[The public's] optimism about the direction of the country has plummeted almost 20 points since May, according to a new ABC News/Ipsos poll. That’s a huge drop. Notice ABC even uses a picture of Biden when reporting this.

A majority — 55% — of the public say they are pessimistic about the direction of the country, a marked change from the roughly one-third (36%) that said the same in an ABC News/Ipsos poll published May 2. In the early May survey, Americans were more optimistic than pessimistic by a 28-percentage point margin. Optimism is now under water by 10 points. Looking ahead to the next 12 months, fewer than half — 45% — now report feeling optimistic about the way things are going, a significant drop from about two-thirds (64%) in the May poll.

The decline in optimism has occurred across the board among Democrats, Republicans and independents. Optimism is down about 20 points among Democrats and Republicans and down 26 points among independents.

Part of that is worry about how Baidan is dealing with the pandemic and concern about possible new lockdowns. Their feeling about how Baidan is dealing with the economy has also dropped seven points since March, with another rise in jobless claims.

Although he’s still above water on the pandemic and the economy, he’s underwater on every other issue, even with Democrats, according to ABC. One of the issues which is really resonating is the border, where fewer than 4 in 10 Americans approve of Baidan's immigration approach. Disapproval of his handling of gun violence has gone up to 61%.

These are things normal people with lives are worrying about. Instead of dealing with these issues the Zhou regime and Pelosi are trying to force feed Americans legal circuses and CTR. Republicans are on their own--if they intend to lose in Election 2022 they'll have to do it by themselves.