Trump Wants to Hide His Attempt to Assassinate Mike Pence from Voters

[riversedge]

Trump Wants to Hide His Attempt to Assassinate Mike Pence from Voters


https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/08/31/trump-wants-to-hide-his-attempt-to-assassinate-mike-pence-from-voters/

August 31, 2024


25 Comments/in 2020 Presidential Election, 2024 Presidential Election, emptywheel, January 6 Insurrection /by emptywheel

In 2016, Donald Trump bragged, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?”

This election, Trump wants to hide from voters details of how he almost killed his Vice President, Mike Pence, and his claim that doing so was an official act protected by presidential immunity.

That’s the primary thing you need to know about the joint status report presented to Judge Tanya Chutkan in Trump’s January prosecution last night.

Jack Smith doesn’t propose a schedule (thereby avoiding any claim he’s trying to push pre-election developments), but he’s ready to get this process started right away. He does want Judge Chutkan to make determinations regarding immunity first and foremost. He cites Chutkan’s own order and SCOTUS’ remand order to justify that.

The Court has indicated that it intends to conduct its determinations related to immunity first and foremost. See, e.g., ECF No. 197 (Order denying without prejudice the defendant’s motion to dismiss the previous indictment on statutory grounds and specifying that he “may file a renewed motion once all issues of immunity have been resolved”). The Government agrees with this approach, both because the Supreme Court directed such a process on remand, see Trump v. United States, 144 S. Ct. 2312, 2340 (2024), and because the Supreme Court has “repeatedly . . . stressed the importance of resolving immunity questions at the earliest possible stage in litigation,” Hunter v. Bryant, 502 U.S. 224, 227 (1991) (internal citations omitted).

[bucolic_frolic]

1. Forgot that parallel ... maybe the shooter was a pence Republican

and that's why they haven't said much