At a political rally Tuesday, Donald Trump misrepresented a recent Supreme Court ruling while slandering the Department of Justice. It was only one in a series of lies. Just because his lies are extensive (and repetitive) does not mean we should ignore them. The contrary, actually.
On June 28, 2024, in Fischer v. United States, the Supreme Court narrowed the application of a law that “prohibits corruptly obstructing an official proceeding.” Its direct effect is on those charged only with a 1512(c)(2) offense, a teeny fraction of the 1,200+ charged.
The upshot is that the decision means little in terms of the pending charges against former President Donald Trump. It means potentially more to a subset of the January 6th defendants who were charged under this statute, who comprise only a fraction – 24% – of the existing January 6th defendants. And even within that 24%, in the great majority of cases that have resulted in a guilty verdict (by plea or after trial) for a 1512(c)(2) offense, the defendant was also found guilty of one or more other felonies (62%). Further, as to the 71 defendants who have been charged under Section 1512(c)(2) and are still awaiting trial, all of them are charged with crimes in addition to 1512(c)(2), and a majority are charged with one or more other felonies (emphasis added).
Just Security points out that “only 26 of these defendants have been (or were scheduled to be) sentenced solely for a violation of 1512(c)(2).” How many have been charged with federal crimes? More than 1,400.
Yet Trump implied, falsely, that the Court had exonerated all arrested for actions that day.
To be clear, a hostage is an innocent bystander who kidnappers detain in order to extract a specific behavior from those who care about the life of the hostage.
- Arrests follow a publicly accessible, legal process.
- People in the United States who are arrested are not hostages.
- Trials follow a publicly accessible, legal process.
- People in the United States who are on trial are not hostages.
Perhaps Trump was thinking of Russia, where political prisoners are kept hostage as a matter of course.
The speech from non-sequitur hell
According to The Guardian, Trump returned to campaigning with “a rambling 75-minute speech” at his golf club in Doral, Florida.
Among the non-sequitur’s they identified:
- “Biden, he insisted, had raised the price of bacon four-fold. ‘We don’t eat bacon any more,’ Trump said.”
- “Electric cars, he said, ‘cheated’ the US public because drivers had to stop for three hours to recharge their vehicles after every 45 minutes of driving.”
- “[H]e challenged [Biden] to 18 holes over the Doral course while granting a 10-stroke concession.”
The New Republic characterized it as “a particularly incoherent speech.”
For example (read it twice):
“Mothers will never again be forced to watch their children overdosing in hosp … and we will never allow mothers to watch their child hopelessly dying in their arms screaming, ‘What can I do, what can I do? Help me God, what can I do?’ We are a nation whose once revered airports are a dirty, crowded mess,” Trump continued, pivoting suddenly.
“You sit and wait for hours and then are notified that the plane won’t leave, that they have no idea when they will. Where ticket prices have tripled. They don’t have the pilots to fly the planes, they don’t seek qualified air traffic controllers, and they just don’t know what the hell they are doing.”
Another ramble and non-sequitur from Aaron Rupar:
Trump in Doral: “A waitress came over, beautiful waitress, and I never like talking about physical. She’s beautiful inside. Because you never talk about a person’s look. Ever. You never mention it. The other day I got very angry. Some man called Chris Christie fat. And I said, ‘sir!’ And then he said he was a pig. I said, ‘sir! Chris Christie is not a fat pig. Please remember that.'”
Non-sequitur two also contains a lie, via Aaron Rupar:
Trump in Doral: “We will take over the horribly run capital of our country in Washington DC … right now if you leave Florida — ‘oh, let’s go darling, let’s look at the Jefferson Memorial’ …
and you end up getting shot, mugged, raped. We’re gonna take over our capital and we’re gonna run it tough and smart.”
Comparing the first three months of 2024 with the same period in 2023, “there’s been a 36% drop in homicides.” Compared with 2022, a 23% decline.
In summary:
Bravo @Sulliview
“The media feeding frenzy is over the top, almost gleeful in its relentlessness & it takes up time, space, resources & attention that should be given much more than is the case to-
Trump’s appalling unfitness for office.”https://t.co/NruL1b7YDy#BidenHarris2024 pic.twitter.com/aWW8k7J5n2— MeemaSue6isTrueBlue (@841920Meema6) July 10, 2024
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Image created by Kathy Gill from Flickr CC image and OpenClip Art.
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Known for gnawing at complex questions like a terrier with a bone. Digital evangelist, writer, teacher. Transplanted Southerner; teach newbies to ride motorcycles. @kegill (Twitter and Mastodon.social); wiredpen.com