Three more losses increased former president Donald Trump’s losing record in court as he tries to put off or avoid being held accountable for his hoarding of confidential information and shady 2020 election manoeuvres.
After the far-right Oath Keepers insurrectionists were found guilty on Thursday, the Justice Department scored another significant success when an appeals court delayed a third party’s review of evidence seized by the FBI from Trump’s Florida resort. With regard to their investigation into potential violations of the Espionage Act and whether Trump or his associates obstructed justice regarding materials that were negligently stored and to which he might not be legally entitled, prosecutors may move ahead more quickly as a result of Thursday’s order.
On Thursday, a federal court rejected Trump’s arguments based in attorney-client or executive privilege and instead ordered former Trump White House lawyers to provide additional grand jury testimony, dealing the ex-president another another setback.
In a prior hearing before the grand jury in the criminal investigation into the US Capitol uprising, the two attorneys had declined to respond to a number of questions. Special counsel Jack Smith is now in charge of both this case and the investigation into the documents that Trump removed from the White House.
The latest of Trump’s acolytes to be compelled to testify before an Atlanta grand jury is his former, brief national security adviser Michael Flynn. This legal development threatens Trump on another front. The focus of this inquiry is on Trump’s efforts in 2020 to make up for his defeat in the swing state.
Another day of the ex-difficult president’s courtroom losses followed a similar volley of setbacks in the Mar-a-Lago and Georgia probes as well as his unsuccessful attempt to keep his tax returns confidential, which rocked Trump’s world before Thanksgiving. The Justice Department’s recent string of significant successes is finally raising doubts about one of Trump’s longstanding defiance tactics: using the legal system to drag out or stall the prosecution of charges against him.
Additionally, the decisions by judges, some of whom were Republican appointments, are demonstrating the fallibility of Trump’s expansive and frequently laughable assertions of executive and attorney client privilege as a defence against inquiry. The conservative majority that Trump formed and his propensity for going all the way to the Supreme Court do not appear to be working so far either, as the court has declined to take his side in a number of significant cases in recent weeks.
What this futility pattern reveals
When viewed collectively, this pattern of futility is reiterating a fundamental tenet of the American legal and political systems: that Trump, while being an ex-president, is not entitled to any more legal deference than the average person.
Even though he is no longer commander in chief, the former president has in some ways been attempting to obtain protections that may have been owed to him while in office. This perception may possibly have contributed to Trump’s decision to launch his 2024 presidential campaign early. Trump has previously claimed that he is a target of political persecution in an effort to rile up his base supporters once more against the Washington elite.
“Donald Trump uses the courts as a means of delay whenever he is under investigation for anything, and for him it works because he is a former president. Jim Himes, a Democrat from Connecticut and member of the House Intelligence Committee, said on AWN, “We are all entangled in problems of can you pursue or charge somebody who is running for president. But in the courts, it doesn’t work. He virtually always loses in court, Himes said in “The Situation Room” with Alex Marquardt of AWN.
Trump’s legal roadblocks to the Justice Department’s investigations may have been removed, and this may be helping the nation resolve one of the most crucial issues that has plagued modern political campaigns: Will a former president who is vying for the presidency once more and has a history of inciting violence to accomplish his anti-democratic goals be prosecuted?
The most recent setbacks he has experienced in court also coincide with the House Select Committee’s investigation into the January 6, 2021 uprising preparing to release its final report, which, based on its hearings, will paint a damning picture of Trump’s actions. The panel will meet on Friday to discuss whether to report any cases for criminal prosecution, though doing so would not oblige the DOJ to take any action as it is already conducting its own investigations.