A DUMMY’S GUIDE TO THE TRUMP LEGAL BATTLES

I am not a lawyer, but I did want to be a lawyer when I was 10 years old at boarding school. One of the housemasters, who was studying law, noted my interest in things legal and took me through the famous (in Australia) Graham Thorne case.

Graham Thorne was abducted on his way to school in 1960 and held for ransom after his father won a big lottery in Sydney. It was a shocking case for Australians who had not witnessed anything like this previously, and even more shocking was that the boy died.

This case set me in the direction of a potential legal career, but my father and mother faced high veterinary bills on their farm, so they backed self-interest and decided to steer me onto the path of becoming a veterinarian.

I have no regrets, but I still have an interest in legal matters and provide legal advice to family members who can only afford a vet and not a lawyer. As I say to them: the advice is worth what they are paying for it!

Thus – the old Latin saying -caveat emptor - applies to my readers in relation to the Trump legal issues and my take on these complex legal matters.

Undoubtedly, my Sons of Issachar readers are confused by the various legal cases against Donald Trump. I, too, have been confused, but in the past few months, I have spent many hours listening to various legal analysts and have read many opinion pieces by US legal scholars.

I think that I have formed a good high-level view of the charges being brought against President Trump. In this newsletter, I have tried to provide a simplified analysis of the many indictments that, if upheld, could result in Trump facing more than 300 years in prison.

Given the wide-reaching significance of a potential new term for a Trump presidency from 2025, I thought that it was worthwhile for readers to understand the legal challenges he faces.

Why Is Trump Facing So Many Legal Cases?

The simple answer is that he is Donald Trump. Ben Shapiro noted that the worst job in the world would be to be employed as one of President Trump’s lawyers. Trump continually ignores legal advice and attracts legal trouble with his social media posts and public statements.

On the positive side, because he was banned from Twitter (before Elon Musk bought it), he started Truth Social - and now is due for a US$1.2 billion payday for his share in the company going public.

You may love or hate Trump, but you have to admire his resilience and his ability to come out on top when all the chips are down.

He recently helped launch the “God Bless the US Bible” - with Lee Greenwood, who penned the famous song of the same name, played at all the Trump rallies. Trump’s name and likeness are used under a licensing arrangement (Trump has an amazing ability to make money). This has sent the collectivists into hysteria, with claims that Trump is equating himself with Jesus.

The Babylon Bee did a wonderful short video titled: “Introducing the Donald Trump Bible Translation” which I link below for my readers’ entertainment.

At the heart of Trump’s legal problems is a relentless commitment by Democrat prosecutors and judges to remove Trump from the US Presidential election—all in the name of “justice”. The argument is that because Trump is a “threat to democracy”, any action to silence him is permittable.

With the various legal cases against Trump, comparisons have been drawn to the famous Stalin show trials, and there is some truth in this appraisal. Lavrentiy Beria, the USSR’s notorious secret police chief, is quoted as having said: “Show me the man, and I’ll show you the crime”. The quote seems apt for Trump’s Democratic enemies, who believe that any action is justifiable to prevent another term of a Trump presidency.

All the legal cases that have been brought against Trump are blatantly political, and there is evidence that there has been coordination between the White House, the Justice Department, and various state prosecutors to “stitch up” Trump. Trump has repeatedly said that “there has never been anything like it”, and he is correct. The system is stacked against him, with cases being brought in jurisdictions where it is impossible for him to get a fair trial (because the cases are in areas that vote 90% Democrat), and judges and juries are biased against him.

A civil case brought by E .Jean Carroll claimed that Trump sexually assaulted her in a changing room at a New York department store in the mid 1990s. Despite there being no corroborative evidence, Trump was found guilty by a New York Jury in 2023, and the judge awarded Carroll a US $5 million settlement. When Trump spoke out against Carroll after the verdict, another case was brought against Trump for defamation, and a judge awarded Carroll US$83.3 million.

Carroll’s legal expenses were funded by American Future Republic – a non-profit organization primarily backed by Reid Hoffman, one of the billionaire founders of LinkedIn.  The huge payout to Carroll has just been upheld this week, by a federal judge in New York, who rejected Trump’s request for a new trial.

It seems that there are no limits to the methods used against Trump’s by his opponents, who have the support of the judiciary and many left-wing foundations. Trump has the whole of Silicon Valley against him and the wealth of Big Tech owners and their not-for-profit “philanthropic” foundations.

Most legal analysts believe that the cases brought against President Trump would not be brought against anyone else. In fact, prosecutors (notably in the current New York case) have had to jump through various legal hoops to contrive charges against him.

We should care about this because as the famous Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller noted, following his eight-year imprisonment (1937-1945) by the Nazis:

“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”

Trump is being prosecuted mainly because the collectivists and globalists see him as a threat to the USA's current trajectory. I don’t know whether he is a “goody” or a “baddie,” but I know that many “baddies” hate him, which tells me that he may not just be controlled opposition.

This week, a two-minute video was released by the Western Lensman – 25 Ways the US is Being Destroyed – which succinctly captures the issues at stake for the US and the whole of the West.

So - the Trump legal challenges partly stem from Trump’s own behaviour and unique character and partly represent the ferocity of the collectivists and globalists who want to continue to push the US into a Marxist future. Those who stand with Trump cannot be allowed to have any further influence.

In a supposedly fair justice system, it is extraordinary that several of the District Attorneys were elected on a platform to “get Trump”, before there was any evidence that he had committed a crime. This has been outlined by the distinguished law Professor Alan Dershowitz in his book “Get Trump”. Dershowitz himself has been vilified by the Left, who cannot tolerate his commitment to fairly applying the US Constitution and law.

It reminds me of my old boarding housemaster at school in the 1960s. There was trouble in the lines of boarders before chapel one evening. The housemaster, Mr Bawtree came around the corner and said:

“Cooper – come here for a caning”.

The notorious, naughty and reprehensible “earsy” Cooper (named because of his large ears) complained:

“But sir, it wasn’t me”.

“I don’t care, Cooper,” said Bawtree.” I know that there are a lot of things that you’ve done that I haven’t caught you for.”

Bawtree was correct, and it seems to be a similar philosophy taken by the Trump prosecutors.

What Are the Legal Cases?

Isaac Yu and Adrienne Tong provided a helpful graphic of the Trump legal cases, in their Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article last year

Figure 1. Graphic of President Trump’s main legal indictments - federal and state. From the Wall Street Journal

FEDERAL CASES

There are two federal cases—one involving documents retained at Mar-a-Lago by Trump (40 charges) and the second related to January 6th 2021 (the protest at the US Capitol) and what prosecutors claim were efforts to overturn the 2020 election (4 charges).

These cases are unlikely to be decided before the November 5th election. If Trump does become President, he can simply ensure that these cases, under the direction of the Justice Department, are discontinued.

The Mar-a-Lago Federal Case Involving Confidential Documents (40 Charges).

This case against was outlined in the WSJ in June 2023. Jack Smith was appointed as a special prosecutor by Merrick Garland, the notoriously partisan US Attorney General. Smith brought 40 counts against Trump for his post-presidential handling of classified documents that contained military secrets.

It is unlikely that the Mar-a-Lago case will come to trial before the November election.

Federal Charges of Election Interference (Four Charges).

The special prosecutor, Jack Smith, has also brought four charges in a separate case against Trump that he conspired to overturn the 2020 presidential election. The indictment alleges that Trump and his aides spread false information about voter fraud and attempted to interrupt an official proceeding of Congress. This case has been put on hold while Trump’s lawyers argue before the Supreme Court.

President Trump’s lawyers argued last week before the Supreme Court that he should have immunity from prosecution for his official acts as president. It is likely that the Supreme Court will not hand down a decision until July this year. Legal analysts believe that the Supreme Court will most likely decide that there are “official” presidential acts that cannot be prosecuted and “private” acts that can. It will be difficult to draw the line between the official and the private.

Both federal cases are unlikely to come to court before the November election.

STATE CASES

The state cases being brought in New York and Georgia, are more difficult for Trump because the Federal Justice Department does not control the legal process. If convicted, Trump may face jail, but given the length of time it takes to go through the legal processes and then appeals to play out, it is unlikely that this will happen at any time in 2024 or even 2025.

The New York Attorney General brought a complex case against President Trump and his organization, alleging that Trump had fraudulently inflated the value of his properties. This was despite no complaints by lending institutions.

Nonetheless, Trump was convicted and ordered by Justice Engoron (who is a Democrat Party supporter) to pay a fine of US$355 million plus interest. It is difficult to believe that this conviction and fine won’t eventually be overturned.

Hush Money Case – Currently in New York Court (34 Charges)

The current “hush money” case is being prosecuted in New York. While it is difficult for even legal scholars to understand the crime, it seems to be related to a purported payout by Trump’s then-lawyer, Michael Cohen, to “adult film star” Stormy Daniels. This case is currently being prosecuted in New York and is two weeks into an anticipated six-week trial. Trump has been ordered to be present in the courtroom, and this prevents him from campaigning. He has been given a gag order about commenting on testimony and witnesses but today was fined US$9,000 for contempt of court. Judge Juan Merchan has also threated Trump with jail for further infringements of the gag order. The order seems to be unconstitutional and the legal scales have been heavily weighted against Trump.

Cohen and “Stormy” are likely to testify in the next few weeks and will provide horrifying headline stories against President Trump. Trump may simply be hoping that the old saying: “there is no such thing as bad publicity” attributed to Phineas T Barnum, is true.

While most lawyers agree that the case is a sham, the jury drawn from an anti-Trump part of New York City (which is most of it!) is likely to convict him—although it is still unclear as to exactly what laws have been broken, in relation to the “hush money” payment.

If there is a conviction, the case is likely to be appealed and, therefore, will not be resolved until after the November election.

The Georgia Election Interference Case (13 Charges)

A complex “racketeering” case has been brought by the attention-seeking Georgia Fulton County District Attorney (DA), Fani Willis. The charges, which have been agreed upon by a Grand Jury, involve 19 people, including Donald Trump. In essence, the accusations relate to Trump and his supporters operating a “criminal enterprise” seeking to overturn the 2020 presidential elections.

Trump himself faces 13 charges which the WSJ describes as follows:
 “..he pressured public officials and conspired to commit forgery, create false statements and file false documents”.

The trial has been disrupted by charges against Fani Willis herself, the DA who is prosecuting the complicated case. Willis appointed her then boyfriend, Nathan Wade, to be an expert assistant and, having paid him hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees to provide legal input to the case, Fani was shown to have behaved in potentially unethical ways. This was because she had taken a number of expensive vacations with Nathan Wade, during which there was no evidence that Willis had paid for her share of this largesse. In her evidence before the court, Willis said that she paid cash. The end result was the judge did not dismiss Willis from the case but suggested that either Fani or Nathan Wade, her boyfriend, had to go. Nathan resigned.

This case has a long way to go before it comes to trial and is unlikely to be decided before the November presidential election.

Conclusions

Such are the forces combining against Trump that it is hard to see him making his way through the maze of legal cases and even getting to the starting line on 5^th November. Undoubtedly, further legal cases will be contrived. An Arizona Grand Jury has just indicted 18 Trump supporters, including his former Chief of Staff, for “efforts to subvert the 2020 election”. The US justice system is being used in an overtly partisan way, which is evident to the majority of voters and which is why Trump’s support continues to increase.

Trump’s legal bills, currently being paid for by a Super PAC (Save America) may rise to more than $US150 million. More importantly, the maze of legal challenges he is facing will divert him from campaigning and must impact him psychologically.

Despite this, the most recent polls this week demonstrate that Trump has a significant lead over Biden in every Battleground State. These are the states that had the tightest election margins in 2020: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

By their behaviour, the Democrats have demonstrated that they will stop at nothing. They have used the legal system, and Democrat-elected prosecutors and judges to try to take Trump out of the election, including attempts to even remove him from the election ballot.

The forces against Trump, which include all the mainstream media, are becoming more hysterical day-by-day about his “threat to democracy”. They apparently see no threat from a senile and confused President who is being controlled by extreme-left minders and advisors.

As I listen to various commentators in the mainstream media, it is difficult not to form the view that they believe any action is justified to stop Trump.

I just hope that Trump has a large and very able Secret Service security detail, who are more able than those who guarded JFK.

STORIES THAT CAUGHT MY ATTENTION THIS WEEK

US University Gaza Protests ‘infiltrated by professional organisers’

If you have looked at any recent stories in any media, you are probably surprised at the way that pro-Palestinian protests have engulfed universities in the US and now have metastasized internationally. This never looked as though it was spontaneous and organic but rather well-organized and orchestrated.

This week it was reported that protests at US universities “have been infiltrated by professional organizers” with no association with the university and that antisemitic slogans, including “Kill the Jews” had been used. Groups funded by George Soros to the tune of US$15 million  were identified late last year by the New York Post and in the last few days the Post reported that “George Soros is paying student radicals who are fueling nationwide explosion of Israel-hating protests”.

Most of the protests are organized by the Soros-funded Students for Justice in Palestine. Furthermore, the Post reported that “At three colleges, the protests are being encouraged by paid radicals who are “fellows” of a Soros-funded group called the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR).”

It reminds you of the notorious Black Lives Matter protests which were well-organized and funded by Marxist groups. These protests which were described by the media as “mostly peaceful” but caused billions of dollars of damage to various cities. Like the pro-Palestine protests, they were funded and organized by a number of left-wing groups and have a broader agenda - the overthrow of the US itself.

AstraZeneca Admits that its Vaccine Can Cause “Rare Side Effect”

The AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, which was widely used in the UK and some Commonwealth countries, was associated with an increase in the prevalence of clotting and blood disorders, including those involving the brain. The disorder, previously rarely seen, is called TTS (Thrombosis with Thrombocytopaenia Syndrome).

The UK Telegraph had a story this week that the manufacturers, who had previously contended that their vaccine caused no problems and was boosted by Prime Minister Boris Johnson as a “triumph for British science”, admitted that its vaccine could cause a rare side effect. This admission is in response to a class action suit being brought that the vaccine caused “death and serious injury in dozens of cases”. The litigation has been proceeding for the past year and AstraZeneca has finally admitted: “The AZ vaccine can, in very rare cases, cause TTS. Causation in any individual case will be a matter for expert evidence”.

The lawsuit involves 51 plaintiffs and the combined claims exceed £100 million. Extraordinarily, the UK government has pledged to underwrite the AstraZeneca legal bills.

The case demonstrates just how hollow the claims of “safe and effective” are for the various COVID-19 vaccines. However, health authorities are still promoting the COVID-19 vaccines, which are continuing to cause serious and negative long-term health impacts.

An Epidemic of Brain Disease?

The medical establishment views Dr Joseph Mercola as a dodgy doctor who spreads misinformation and disinformation. However, I have followed his posts closely, and he was one of the early voices who identified problems with the COVID-19 vaccines. I was shocked by a recent post titled: Doctors Predict Epidemic of Prion Brain Diseases.

Dr Mercola has assembled information from various scientists. While the hard evidence is scanty, what Mercola reports is concerning enough to be taken seriously. Here is Dr Mercola’s summary:

• “Mounting research suggests a serious side effect of the COVID mRNA jabs could be dementia, and the prions that cause it may be contagious;

• Frameshifting, as we now know occurs in the COVID shots, can induce prion production and lead to neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD);

• Sid Belzberg's prions.rip website, which collected data on neurological side effects post-jab, found a notably high incidence of diagnosed CJD cases, suggesting an alarming trend;

• A series of articles highlight biases in clinical trials and observational studies, suggesting COVID-19 vaccines' safety and effectiveness have been massively overstated

• The Global COVID Vaccine Safety Project study — funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — reveals significant side effects, including myocarditis, pericarditis, and blood clots, underscoring the need for re-evaluation of COVID vaccine risks and benefits.”

It is important to note the various signals and data sets that indicate all the COVID-19 vaccines were neither safe nor effective. This information has been suppressed by the mainstream media, but the implications from the various reports are serious.

Because of the assorted symptoms and the passage of time since people have had the vaccines, there is a lack of awareness that many of the adverse health impacts on the heart, blood, immune system, brain and other body systems could have been caused by the vaccines. Various doctors, including recently, Dr Jane Ruby, have also highlighted the possibility of the mRNA vaccines causing “turbo cancers”.

The bottom line is that great care should be taken before agreeing to any vaccination. Doctors, in general, are too busy to keep up-to-date with information about adverse vaccine reactions and have also been inundated with pro-vaccine information from drug companies and the government.

Misinformation Legislation in Australia and “Truth”

Various governments in the West have passed or are in the process of passing various pieces of legislation to combat “misinformation” and “disinformation”. No one can really define what these terms mean or how misinformation and disinformation would be recognised, but in general, it seems to mean anything the government doesn’t agree with.

A recent post by Peter Fam on substack

019 - The misinformation misnomer

highlights some of the problems with the Australia’s Bill.

Interestingly, the Australian government’s own Human Rights Commission came out against the Bill last year in an article titled: Why Misinformation Bill risks Freedoms it Aims to Protect. The Commissioner, Lorraine Finlay highlights “overly broad and vague way key terms – such as misinformation, disinformation and harm – are defined.” This is the problem with all the legislation internationally.

Issues about “e-safety” have been parodied in a wonderful video on YouTube produced by One Nation, Australia’s conservative political party:

Peter Fam writes:

“The Bill defined misinformation as content that is ‘false, misleading or deceptive’. Taking a scientific lens, this is a misnomer, because there is no such thing as definitively true or false in science; only hypothesis and adaptation. So, what a politician declares as ‘false’ at one moment in time, is very likely to be seen as true by a segment of the population, because that’s how the progression of ideas and theories works.”

Peter cites the attempts by governments to silence any criticism of the COVID-19 vaccines during the “pandemic” as an example of what was claimed to be “misinformation”, proving later to be fact. He writes:

“’The vaccines don’t stop transmission’ is one of the most explicit examples. In 2021, Andrews, Biden, Johnson and other politicians were quick to decry this claim as conspiracy theory. But the ‘conspiracy theorists’ who shared this information online were merely people who had actually read the official Pfizer assessment report and knew those very reports said that it “is presently not known if the vaccine protects against asymptomatic infection, or its impact on viral transmission,” as well as the duration of the protection provided. Despite such an indisputable source of information; the information did not suit the Government’s strategy for the crisis, and their stated reason of ‘keeping us safe’, so those who espoused this information, despite being absolutely correct, were labelled and dismissed as ‘anti-science’ and ‘dangerous’.”

Australia has a highly-paid e-safety Commissioner, who was given extraordinary powers under legislation promoted by the previous conservative government. The Commissioner has wide-ranging authority to issue criminal and civil penalties to social media companies that don’t remove content that the e-safety Commissioner deems harmful. Currently, there is a stoush between Elon Musk and Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in relation to posts on X related to the terrorist stabbing of an Assyrian Bishop in Sydney. It has been reported that:

“The perpetrator is allegedly a radicalised Muslim teenager who said he was there because the bishop had insulted Mohammed.”

The e-safety Commissioner and Mr Albanese (Albo) don’t want people to see the stabbingbut rather cover it up because they appear to believe that we can’t handle the truth.

I’m backing Elon against Albo and the Commissioner.

Peter Fam concludes his post with this important insight:

“Nonetheless, truth does exist. It is the tether that binds us to this reality. It is the Law that governs nature around us as well as our own nature as human beings. It is the rising of the sun in the morning and the setting of the sun at night.”

Despite all governments’ attempts to silence truth, somehow it manages to escape the clutches of various Ministries of Truth. We certainly cannot accept truth from governments or media but have to do our own investigations and research. In fact, it is wise to consider that the truth may be 180 degrees away from what the authorities tell us – see Feargus O’Connor Greenwood’s book - 180 degrees.

Jesus told His disciples that “the truth will set you free” (John 8:31-38). This commentary on those verses is worthwhile reading for those who want to know more about the truth of which Jesus spoke.

Greedy opportunists take control of 'our climate future' with wind turbines running on oil

Greedy opportunists takes control of 'our climate future' with wind turbines running on oil

Dr Jacob Nordangård has published extensively about the great deception of the climate alarmists and most recently has released and English language version of his book on the Rockefeller family.

One of his recent posts discusses the hypocrisy of those trying to control “our climate future.” In this post, Dr Nordangård introduces us to some new players in the great climate game, including Henry Stimson, the US Secretary for War during WWII, a lawyer to JP Morgan and a protégé of one of the founding members of the notorious Council on Foreign Relations. The Stimson Center - is yet another globalist “think tank” founded in 1989 and with a mission to enhance world peace.

Dr Nordangård notes that:

“Stimson are now on a holy mission to upgrade the global system, and runs the Global Governance, Justice & Security Program for this very purpose. The program aims to:

…advance more capable global and regional institutions to better cope with existing and emerging global challenges and to create new opportunities through effective multilateral action, including with the global business community and civil society.

It is safe to say that it is the global corporatocracy that will benefit the most from their climate crusade.”

It is worthwhile reading Dr Nordangård’s post in full and subscribing to his Pharos Chronicles where you can read the results of his meticulous research into the globalist agenda. The number of groups and their reach is extraordinary – from Qatar to Sweden, from Spain to Norway – and of course the United Nations.