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Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: Aftermath of the third indictment [1]

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Date: 2023-08-04

Will Bunch/Philadelphia Inquirer:

It’s justice that Trump, who wanted to toss Black votes, gets charged under a KKK Act Donald Trump's rise and his Jan. 6 insurrection are deeply rooted in racism. How fitting he's charged under a law to stop the KKK. They wanted to overturn the results of a free and fair election. In the days immediately after the vote, there was a wave of violence. Some people were dragged from their homes by members of a white-hooded mob and killed for supporting the wrong party — but that was only the beginning. A Republican governor wrote to the White House to warn that insurrectionists were plotting to storm the seat of government and prevent certification of the winner. Gov. Robert K. Scott told the president that loyalists to the party that got fewer voters “will not submit to any election which does not place them in power.” He further warned: “I am convinced that an outbreak will occur here [on] the day appointed by law for the counting of ballots.” The year was 1870, and the state was South Carolina.

Thursday’s arraignment of Donald Trump felt like a mob boss’ trial: "Don't commit any crimes. Don't mess with the jury. You may go."

On the other hand, watching him being treated like any other mob boss in court (down to addressing him as “Mr.” Trump, not “President” Trump) was oddly reassuring.

Rule of law and all that.

x Yes. When I play Russian Roulette, I prefer to have all the chambers loaded instead of just one. https://t.co/UEXaxZFGJw — Xeorge Xonway (@gtconway3d) August 3, 2023

Glenn Kirschner/MSNBC:

Why this Trump indictment is the most important The alternative could have been a true national disaster. This indictment is as important as it is historic. The principles of prosecution set out that the government charges those who break our society’s laws for several reasons: to vindicate the rights of the victim; to protect others in the community who would otherwise be subjected to the continued crimes of the offender; and to hold accountable those who choose to violate the laws that represent the considered values of the citizenry, as embodied in the criminal statutes enacted by the peoples’ duly elected representatives. Another important principle, though one generally associated more directly with sentencing a criminal defendant, is deterring others from committing the same or similar crimes. This last factor — what the law calls “general deterrence” — is perhaps the most important vis-à-vis Trump’s crimes regarding Jan. 6 and the 2020 election.

x Yes. That is the law. https://t.co/qLsN6lP9ih — Bradley P. Moss (@BradMossEsq) August 3, 2023

Mediaite:

Pence SHREDS Trump’s ‘Crackpot Lawyers’ in Fiery Statement on the Campaign Trail: ‘I Had No Right to Overturn the Election’ On the alleged co-conspirators: You know, I’m a student of American history, and the first time I heard in early December, somebody suggests that as vice president, I might be able to decide which votes to reject and which to accept. I knew that it was false. Our founders had just won a war against a king, and the last thing they would have done was vest unilateral authority in any one person to decide who would be the next president. I dismissed it out of hand, but sadly, the president was surrounded by a group of crackpot lawyers that kept telling him what itching ears wanted to hear.

x #AZSen: New numbers from Noble Predictive Insights



Gallego 34

Sinema 26

Lake 25

Undecided 15



(July 13-17; 1,000 RVs; +/-3.1%) https://t.co/mQoFIqUWoY — Matt Holt (@mattholt33) August 3, 2023

POLITICO Playbook:

THE TRUMP DEFENSE TAKES SHAPE — In social media posts and interviews, both Trump and one of his main lawyers, JOHN LAURO, have now outlined how they will respond to the new Smith indictment. In an interview with NPR, Lauro, a white-collar criminal defense attorney with over four decades of experience, detailed five pillars of his defense: 1. SLOW IT DOWN [...] 5. ATTACK D.C. But the argument that Trump and his GOP allies are giving the most attention is that Washington is an inherently unfair venue for a trial.

x The just-released transcript of the Devon Archer testimony just completely eviscerates what Comer and Jordan were saying on TV. Totally embarrassing. — Philip Bump (@pbump) August 3, 2023

Cliff Schecter:

Matt Robison/Newsweek:

No, These Indictments Don't Strengthen Trump. That's Just Media Nonsense The indictments aren't helping Trump and they aren't the reason he's increasing his lead. For that, you can thank the fact that Ron DeSantis is a historically terrible candidate. As the second place contender, he's widely viewed as the most likely Trump alternative, and as he has gotten more exposed in the national press, he's dropped half of his support. From March 10 through August 1, DeSantis went from 31.4 percent to 15.6 percent. And where did those voters go? That ain't exactly rocket science either. Surveys show that Trump is the second choice of around 40 percent of DeSantis supporters. Lo and behold, as DeSantis has sunk, about 40 percent of the 15 point evaporation in his support has now shown up in Trump's column.

x This violates Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics https://t.co/LEMf6lC29q — Greg Dworkin (@DemFromCT) August 3, 2023

Benjy Sarlin/Semafor:

Donald Trump is ignoring anti-abortion activists and winning anyway What’s going on here? Most Republicans identify as “pro-life” and say abortion should be mostly or entirely illegal in polls. But a May survey by our partners at Gallup found that only 21% of Republican voters who consider themselves “pro-life” say they only vote for candidates who share their view on abortion. That’s notably far less than the 37% of “pro-choice” Democrats who say they only vote for like-minded candidates, and the biggest gap between the two sides that Gallup has ever recorded. Trump himself has argued abortion is overrated as a vote driver even as he continues to take credit for the fall of Roe v. Wade. He blamed “the abortion issue” for contributing to 2022 election losses, saying activists supported policies that were too extreme and that their supposed backers “just plain disappeared” after Dobbs.

x As a Watergate historian, it’s worth noting that nothing Nixon did—and he had plenty of crimes and conspiracies, involving more than 60 people criminally charged—approached the scale and severity of Trump’s assault on American democracy. https://t.co/34ivpckXp7 — Garrett M. Graff (@vermontgmg) August 2, 2023

John Burn-Murdoch/Financial Times:

Tragic fallout from the politicisation of science in the US Many countries had partisan divides on Covid vaccination, but they were more lethal in the US than anywhere else It would be easy to dismiss this trend as merely exasperating — an obstacle to progress on climate change and a source of irritation at extended family gatherings — but over the past 18 months, the politicisation of attitudes to science may have directly cost as many as 60,000 American lives.This is the stark implication of a new study from the Yale school of public health, which found that since Covid vaccines became widely available in the US, the mortality rate of registered Republicans in Ohio and Florida climbed by 33 per cent during America’s winter Covid wave last year, compared with just a 10 per cent rise among Democrats.

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