Closer and closer

 "Why didn't they do this 2.5 years ago?" whined the defendant on his pitiful social media site.  He still doesn't understand due process, the accumulation of evidence from scores of witnesses, the painstaking construction of a criminal case in the most dangerous assault this democracy has faced.  

As he sees it, Joe Biden has "an Article Two" that grants him the powers of a medieval prince, and he had only to order "his" Justice Department to lock Trump up -- assuming he did anything wrong, which he still denies.  As he sees it, it's all in the timing -- waiting until he's out haranguing the MAGAts and collecting their hard-won coin to re-assume the presidency, only to have his "freedom of speech" stolen, too.  That's the line the whole cult has taken -- Trump is being persecuted now because the election is less than eighteen months away and besides, all he did was make a speech to a group of passionate patriots who happened to run into one another near the Capitol one frosty morning in January 2021.  He can't help it if he's the greatest orator since Pericles.  He didn't tell them to bring the bats and the bear repellant.

If that is Trump's defense to the astonishing 45-page indictment (a coincidental number?), then the millions he, or rather his PACs, spend on lawyers might as well go to building him a Black Sea dacha next to Putin's.  "Despite having lost, the Defendant was determined to remain in power."  That's the lede.  That's the takeaway.  That's a fine epitaph for whatever golf property his kids dump him in.

It should have worked.  The rioters were supposed to stop the count, not delay it.  Then the majority who elected Biden would riot in the streets as Trump thinks all angry people, especially Black ones, regularly do, burning cities to the ground and necessitating martial law.  And then the Insurrection Act would be invoked and Trump would rule by decree.

It sounds suspiciously like the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks on New York and the Pentagon, when Rudolph Giuliani proposed delaying or cancelling the mayoral election scheduled for that November.  Clearly the city, and by extension the country of which a sentimental press had proclaimed him mayor, could not go on without his wisdom and steadiness.  Though barred by law from running for a third term, he might be persuaded to stay on.  Indefinitely?  Until Ground Zero was excavated?  For the sake of continuity?  As it happened, New York had had enough of him and the City Council did not grant an exception.  Michael Bloomberg was duly elected and sworn in, and life went on.  But the authoritarian impulse dies hard, and soon enough Giuliani attached himself like a leech to someone who was much better at it.  There he, or should I say "Co-conspirator 1," remains at this hour.  His sobbing, slobbering defense of The Boss was a delight to wake up to.  If the mob could get hold of Jack Smith they'd lynch him the way they wanted to lynch Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi and anyone else who couldn't run as fast as Josh Hawley.

(For further evidence of Giuliani sleaziness, though none is needed, read this.)

A maximum sentence of fifty-five years?  Sounds about right.  Aileen Cannon can grant delay after delay; in DC, Smith randomly drew Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is the opposite of a pushover.  He seeks a speedy trial and she may concur.  After all, the only obstacle is all the other criminal indictments in Florida and Georgia.  A Black woman, a native of Jamaica, an Obama appointee -- I can already imagine the verbal abuse.  I'm sure she can, too.  After all, she's been giving January 6 rioters the max for months.   And today the Senate Office Buildings were evacuated after an "active shooter" threat. 

When Trump is arraigned tomorrow he won't have a mugshot taken.  There are too many pictures of his mug already.