Trump January 6 Trial Taken Off Court Calendar, Indefinitely Postponed

Via the Washington Post,

Former president Donald Trump’s March 4 trial date on charges of plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 election has been dropped from the public calendar of the federal court in Washington, a sign of what has long been anticipated — that his claim of presidential immunity from criminal prosecution would delay his trial while it remains on appeal.

. . . As of at least Thursday, the March 4 trial date was dropped from a date-searchable calendar on the public website of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. It was not immediately clear when it was removed. An internal master court trial calendar distributed Jan. 26 showed Trump’s trial date, suggesting the change was recent, according to a federal official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an internal document.

Chutkan also has acknowledged that Trump’s March trial was off. On Jan. 24, for example, Chutkan scheduled a new trial for April 2, when Trump’s projected six- to eight-week trial would have been ongoing. On Wednesday, Chutkan set a March 18 hearing for another defendant, saying, “I suspect in March I will not be in trial.”

Chutkan’s next trial is set for July 2. The judge set that date in December, a sign that she believed Trump’s trial would be over by then.

On Sunday, I noted the increasing concern that the DC appeals court had not issued an expected quick rebuff of Trump's appeal. The Post concludes,

But since Trump’s appeal paused his case, Chutkan has no authority to set a new trial schedule or impose other burdens or deadlines on the defense until higher courts respond. Chutkan has also made clear that if and when she gets the green light to set a new date, she would not set shorter deadlines that would require Trump’s attorneys to make up for lost time, suggesting the trial would be pushed back weeks if not months.

The concern at the appeals court's delay has only been building. From Politico on Wednesday, before the news of the case's disappearance from the court calendar:

Whether Donald Trump faces a potential prison sentence in 2024 is at the mercy of a federal appeals court that’s operating on its own schedule — at a time when every day matters.

More than 50 days have elapsed since Trump’s criminal proceedings in a Washington, D.C., trial court — on charges for attempting to subvert the 2020 election — were paused indefinitely. They won’t resume until the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals and, most likely, the Supreme Court resolve the question hanging over the entire case: whether Trump, as a former president, is immune from criminal prosecution.

. . . Lengthy delays in his federal criminal cases create the possibility that, if he wins the presidency this November, Trump could avoid the charges altogether by having the Justice Department end the prosecutions or perhaps even by pardoning himself.

The original lawfare strategy, which appears to have been finalized in mid-2023, relied on the New York civil cases to establsih Trump as a fraudster, rapist, and slanderer, with the January 6 case going to trial on March 4, the day before Super Tuesday. The intent appears to have been to knock Trump out as a general election candidate in the Republican primaries, but so far, it appears that the New York cases haven't been taken seriously by the electorate, given the bizarre figures like Judge Engoron and E Jean Carroll who've emerged, while disappointing performances by all of Trump's Republican primary opponents have put that contest out of reach well before March 4, with that particular trial now postponed to the indefinite future.

In fact, as I noted on Sunday, much more delay from the DC appeals court means that even if it does issue a stern rebuke to Trump in coming days or weeks, Trump will appeal to the US Supreme Court, but the court will likely not take up the case before its summer break, almost certainly pushing the trial past the November election even if the Supreme Court eventually also rejects Trump's argument.

My spidey sense, though, also tells me that even the DC appeals panel, whatever their political loyalties, feels deeply uncomfortable about being stampeded into a quick decision to achieve a limited political goal, and the refusal of the US Supreme Court to hear the case on an expedited basis already reflects a judicial instinct not to be rushed into a decision on such a momentous issue.

But this whole question leaves out the separate issue of District Attorney Willis's problems in the Fulton County RICO trial. Again, the lawfare strategy appears to have had an inchoate goal of somehow getting Trump into a prison cell, or at least convicted of a conspiracy, before the November election. The difficulty is that, as with the New York civil trials, even if Willis and Wade manage to hold onto their posiitons and continue the prosecution, the proceedings will turn out to be too farcical to carry much credibility with the electorate.

As far as anyone can tell, the lawfare strategy was going to be a centerpiece of Biden's reelection campaign. Right now, it appears not just to be collapsing, but degenerating into slapstick.

UPDATE: Via Just the News:

U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan on Friday officially suspended former President Donald Trump's March 4 trial in special counsel Jack Smith's election case, The Hill reported.

Both Parties Are Terrified Of Trump On The Border

Last Saturday, I noted that Trump had effectively killed the Langford Republican border compromise. Since then, Langford and others have blamed "intetrnet rumors" for destroying the plan's prospects:

Lankford said, “Right now these internet rumors is all the people are running on. It would be absolutely absurd for me to agree to 5,000 people a day. This bill focuses on getting us to zero illegal crossings a day. There’s no amnesty. It increases the number of border patrol agents, increases asylum officers. It increases detention beds so we can quickly detain and then deport individuals. It ends catch and release. It focuses on additional deportation flights out. It changes our asylum process so that people get a fast asylum screening at a higher standard, and then get returned back to their home country. This is not about letting 5,000 people in a day. This is the most misunderstood section of this proposal.”

The problem is that Langford won't release any specifics about the plan that would refute the rumors, and he complains the problem is that it's a "presidential election year", which is a backhanded acknowledgement that Trump is driving policy for enough Senate Republicans to kill the deal. Meanwhile, Biden's response has been that Republicans are preventing action on the border by delaying the same deal:

Biden announced his endorsement of the deal late Friday evening.

“Securing the border through these negotiations is a win for America. For everyone who is demanding tougher border control, this is the way to do it. If you’re serious about the border crisis, pass a bipartisan bill and I will sign it,” Biden said in a statement.

But via the same link, the deal is already dead, and Trump killed it:

Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has backed away from the deal, and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has told colleagues that the deal is “dead on arrival” in the House.

Former President Donald Trump, the likely Republican presidential nominee, has helped expose the deal’s details to hugely expand overall immigration to the United States — publicly and privately urging Senate Republicans to oppose the effort.

Sens. Thom Tillis (R-NC), Mitt Romney (R-UT), John Thune (R-SD), and Todd Young (R-IN) have complained that Trump’s influence has made the deal toxic for other Republicans to sign on to.

Trump's ability to drive events is continuing to worry Republican senators. According to Politico,

Asked if the agreement appears to be on a path toward passing the Senate, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) replied: “It certainly doesn’t seem like it.”

“There are a number of our members who say, ‘Well, I'll join a majority of the Republicans but if it doesn't enjoy that sort of support, then count me out,'” Cornyn said in an interview. “The whole idea of passing something that the House won't even take up is another challenge."

There are two main reasons for the growing questions about the bill’s future: Trump's attacks and Johnson's vows not to take it up. And the two seem related; Johnson said Tuesday he had talked to Trump about the issue “at length” though he denied they are opposing it for political reasons.

Opposing it for political reasons in a presidential election year with Trump the likely Republican nominee? Perish the thought! But the fear is extending beyond Republicans:

Some Democrats and the White House have acknowledged that President Biden could take executive actions to better secure the U.S. border without additional legislation passed by Congress.

Pressure is mounting on Biden to issue executive orders to address the border crisis after he rescinded many Trump-era border executive orders upon taking office. Biden unilaterally ended the border emergency that Trump had implemented after he took office in January 2021 as well.

Just the News asked Rep. Lou Correa, D-Calif., how he responds to those who argue that Biden could fix a lot of the border issues unilaterally since he eliminated a lot of former President Donald Trump's border executive orders when he came into office.

"There's a lot of issues here, OK? There's some things he could do," he said. "I'm hoping that as soon as the Senate comes up with their deal, that we get at least a shot at looking at it, voting. I'm not sure if I'll support it. Give us a shot at voting on it."

But it's likely there will never be a vote in the plan -- even Democrat senators don't want to be on record voting for the controversial and as yet unpublished aspects of the "compromise". As of yesterday, Speaker Johnson declared the deal "officially dead".

Trump is happy to get credit for killing the deal:

On Saturday, at a campaign rally in Nevada, the Republican presidential front-runner seemed to gloat about his efforts to kill the bill.

"As the leader of our party there is zero chance I will support this horrible open borders betrayal of America. It's not going to happen," Trump said. "I notice a lot of the Senators are trying to say -- respectfully they are blaming it on me, I say that's OK please blame it on me, please, because they were getting ready to pass a very bad bill."

With the bill dead and even Democrats acknowledging Biden can and must act over the border, this leaves the next step up to Biden, whose options are now pretty limited. If he does anything, it will appear that Trump forced him to do it.

More Comes Out On The January 6 Pipe Bomb Investigations

Yesterday's post on the FBI and ATF investigations of the January 6 pipe bombs was based primarily on testimony before the House Judiciary Committee from last summer. Since then, new allegations about those investigations have emerged. As of yesterday's post, the official story was that notwithstanding the FBI's huge investigative resources, three years of searching for the bomber have come up empty, while it seems as if the person who discovered the bomb the next day was never seriously considered as a suspect, despite this being a basic investigative principle.

Via the Daily Wire this past Monday:

A former FBI agent said that the Bureau quickly believed that it tied the person who planted pipe bombs at the Democrat National Committee and the Republican National Committee to a particular Metro fare card and license plate, but did not allow him to interview the person of interest and pulled his team off of the lead.

. . . Kyle Seraphin, who led FBI surveillance teams, told The Daily Wire that shortly after January 6, a counterintelligence team met him at a firehouse in Falls Church, Virginia to brief him on his next surveillance target: They had used security footage to follow the person into a Metro station after he planted the bombs, and identified the fare card that was used.

That fare card then allowed them to determine that the person got off at a Metro stop in Northern Virginia, where surveillance footage showed the person entering a car. Both the car and the fare card were in the name of the same person — a retired Air Force chief master sergeant who was now working as a contractor with a security clearance, they said.

Seraphin and his team were assigned to stake out the person’s row house for days, but the FBI blocked his request to interview the person, he said. Then they were called off the target completely and told to pore through low-priority leads about minor January 6 participants, he said.

This information was initially published in May 2023:

The Washington Times first reported the allegation in May 2023. The article, which was paywalled, did not get widespread attention, yet when the House Judiciary Committee interviewed Steve D’Antuono, the former head of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, it seemed to be on his mind.

“People like Kyle Seraphin and others that are not a case agent, have no knowledge of the case, have no knowledge of what happened in the case, he also made another accusation too that there was an individual with a Metro card. My understanding is all that was chased down. There was a lead that was chased down, but he says that we didn’t chase it down,” D’Antuono said.

His comment seemed to confirm that the Metro card lead did exist, and he did not explain how or why it ultimately resulted in nothing.

Yesterday, more information also came out about the person who found the pipe bombs:

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) on Tuesday confirmed the person who found the January 6 pipebombs is a current US Capitol Police Officer.

Earlier this month new explosive J6 footage was released. It turns out that a plainclothes police officer found the DNC pipebombs at 1:05 pm on January 6.

Darren Beattie said according to sources who have seen the extended video, bomb robots showed up several minutes later and dismantled and diffused [sic] the pipe bomb.

Although former FBI Washington Field Office head D'Antuono discounted Kyle Seraphin's knowledge of the case, Seraphin did raise a key question in the first link above:

"The bureau is far too competent to fail this,” he said. “When they had the World Trade Center bombing in ‘93 they went under four stories of rubble and were able to find a partial VIN number that they used to track it down to the people responsible. And you’re telling me you had a pristine, non-detonated bomb and they couldn’t find anything on it?”

As a true crime fan, I've got to say this would appear to be another case of Investigations 101 -- you look at product information from the off-the-shelf components of the bomb, manufacturer, SKUs, batch numbers, and so forth, that you trace back to the store that sold them on a particular date and location. Then you look at surveillance video of the sale. The kitchen timer, apparently a common item, would be one line of inquiry, but electrical components, the pipe, and even the explosive would be another -- and since the bomb didn't detonate, all these items would be intact and available.

It appears that the Republicans are on the case, and more will inevitably come out. I'm still intrigued at the strange echoes of the Richard Jewell case -- there, the FBI focused on Jewell as the suspect, because he found the bomb. Now I note that the DNC bomb was planted under a park bench, which is where Jewell found the Atlanta bomb. It's almost as though someone in the FBI cooked up a scenario for a phony bombing based on the easiest example he could think of.

The Puzzle Of The January 6 Pipe Bombs

Yessterday I mentioned in passing the curious case, one of several from January 6, of two pipe bombs that were planted outside the Democrat and Republican national headquarters respectively. The FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms haven't been fully forthcoming over this case, and among other things, the perp or perps have never been idenified.

"People surmise and suspect that, 'oh, there's all this video all over the country, all over D.C.' It's not true," Steven D'Antuono, the former head of the FBI Washington Field Office, testified before the House Judiciary Committee on June 7, 2023.

. . . "We did every check, every lab test, every data. We ran this through systems back and forth, up and down, sideways, all over the place," he testified about the search for the suspect.

The bombs did not detonate, however, the FBI noted that the suspect placed them in "residential and commercial areas in Capitol Hill just blocks from the U.S. Capitol with viable pipe bombs that could have seriously injured or killed innocent bystanders."

"Over the past three years, a dedicated team of FBI agents, analysts, data scientists and law enforcement partners has worked thousands of hours conducting interviews, reviewing physical and digital evidence, and assessing tips from the public about who may have placed pipe bombs on Capitol Hill," said David Sundberg, assistant director in charge of the FBI Washington Field Office.

One of the questions raised about the bombs' viability, though, was the type of timers used. Although Mr D'Antonuo in his testimony claimed the FBI had determined that the bombs were viable, the problem remains that they didn't explode even though they were apparently intended to do so. Photos of the bombs indicate that the timers were one-hour kitchen type timers, but the bombs were discovered unexploded 17 hours after they had been placed. Per the House Judiciary Committee's release:

While Mr. D'Antuono referenced a report from the FBI laboratory in Quantico, Virginia, that the pipe bombs were viable, and 'they could explode, and they could cause harm or death,' Mr. D'Antuono also acknowledged that the timer used on the pipe bomb could not have detonated the pipe bomb given the time already elapsed between placement and discovery.

He testified:

Mr. Massie. Well, let me ask you this: Do you think it was technically possible for a kitchen timer . . . that has [a] 1-hour duration . . . to detonate a bomb 17 hours later?

A. No, I don't. And I saw the same kitchen timer as you. I agree. I don't know when they were supposed to go off. Maybe they weren't supposed to go off. We can't—we don't know. We honestly don't know, and that's some of the pain . . . .

A second problem was the FBI apparently never considered the person who discovered the bombs might be a suspect and seems to know nothing about him. Per the transcript of Mr D'Antuono's interview:

Mr. Massie. Because I think it's remarkable it was discovered within minutes of the other bomb being discovered. And my staff and I found video, and I don't know if you're aware of it, that seems to indicate that a passerby in a black hoodie --

Mr. D'Antuono. Oh, okay.

Mr. Massie. -- discovered that. Remarkably coincidental time. Walked up to a Metro police car, told the Metro police, who seems to have directed that individual in the video that I've seen to a detailee of the Vice President's car, another SUV, and within minutes, they get out of their SUV, find -- the officials now see the bomb. And then incoming Vice President Kamala Harris is evacuated. This all happens within minutes.

Mr. D'Antuono. Okay.

Mr. Massie. But the individual in a hoodie going up to two police cars after he's passed by that bench, did your investigation review this video?

Mr. D'Antuono. I'm not aware of the video you're talking about, sir. I'm not.

Mr. Massie. If you had seen that video, would you be interested in speaking to that person --

Mr. D'Antuono. Absolutely.

Mr. Massie. -- who seems to have discovered that second bomb?

Mr. D'Antuono. In any investigation, whoever discovers the device is somebody you need to talk to, right, because they could be the one that planted the device in the first place. You know, so that's just investigation 101.

But as far as anyone knows, even though the person or people who discovered the bombs went up to Capitol Police to report them, nobody seems to have taken their name or names and followed up.

This is especially puzzling, since the FBI has clear institutional memory of another bombing investigation, the Richard Jewell case:

During the 1996 Summer Olympics, a security guard named Richard Jewell discovered a bomb in Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Park on July 27, 1996. Thanks to Jewell’s quick thinking, he was able to evacuate dozens of people just before the bomb exploded, saving untold lives.

But just a few days later, media reports surfaced that the FBI had made Jewell the prime suspect in the bombing. The hero quickly became a villain in the public eye. Media outlets across the country — from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution to CNN — painted Richard Jewell as a wannabe cop who was so desperate to play the hero that he was willing to kill people for it.

For an agonizing 88 days, everyone seemed to agree that Richard Jewell was guilty — even though he had never even been officially charged with the crime. In reality, the FBI soon stopped investigating Jewell when they realized that he wasn’t the man they were looking for.

For that matter, the FBI had its institutional memory refreshed just two years earlier with the release of the 2019 Clint Eastwood film that covered the case. All of this feeds reasonable suspicion that if federal provocateurs didn't plant the bombs themselves, the FBI was aware of the effort and has been feigning incompetence to cover it up.

If we ever get good answers, it will only be after Trump is reelected in 2024.

What's The Real 2024 Subtext?

A CNN op-ed from Julian Zelizer, a Princeton history professor, from last Friday asks some productive questions about Trump's so-far highly successful 2024 candidacy:

Following Trump’s strong showing in the New Hampshire primary, which has effectively knocked his final opponent — former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley — out of the race, some of his critics continue to search for slivers of good news.

They point to the fact that despite “almost” being an incumbent, he didn’t receive a share of the vote on par with what previous incumbents have encountered in primary contests. Incumbents usually bring to the table unequaled name recognition, fund-raising capacity and the benefit of looking presidential as they run for reelection. Trump has most of this, with his supporters holding on to the memory of him in the Oval Office, and with many of his backers believing he literally won the presidency in 2020, yet Haley pulled a decent part of the electorate away from him.

The ambiguity of Trump's quasi-incumbent status is generally acknowledged, not least by Joe Biden himself over the weekend:

While giving an economic speech to voters in South Carolina, Biden stated, “Did you see what he recently said about. . . he wants to see the economy crash this year? A Sitting President.”

Prof Zelizer come close to the point when he notes that many of Trump's backers believe he literally won the election. On the other hand, I think it's more accurate to say they'll sign on to the idea that the election was "stolen". The connotation of the word goes far beyond any literal definition of a property crime; definition 3 for "steal" in this on line dictionary is "to take or gain insidiously or artfully", as in "he stole her heart" or "she stole the spotlight".

Wikipedia continues to characterize Trump's insistence that the 2020 election was "stolen" as a "conspiracy theory":

As of June 2021, Trump has continued to echo the conspiracy theory that the election was "stolen"; particularly focusing on the efforts of Arizona Senate Republicans to audit the results of the election in Maricopa County and on a lawsuit disputing the results of the election in Georgia.

But even absent proof of electoral fraud sufficient to overturn ballot results, the use of the word "stolen" outside a specific legal context isn't a conspiracy theory; it's no more of a big lie than to claim an umpire is blind or someone can't organize a two-car funeral, when after all, if we check the facts, he quite possibly can, and for that matter, the umpire can see perfecly well.

The fact is that since 2020, the American public has seen a sequence of stories from establishment opinionmakers that have been, at minimum, hinky, ranging from COVID and its multifold subsidiary embargoes that have proven unnecessary and destructive; to George Floyd, Black Lives Matter, and "mostly peaceful protests"; to January 6 and the many unanswered questions about government provocateurs, deliberately withheld National Guard troops, and mysteriously unexploded pipe bombs.

If there was an effort to conceal from the public the simple question of whether Joe Biden was actually capable of performing in the chief executive role, the metaphorical use of the word "stolen" is entirely appropriate. Biden's increasingly visible struggle just to handle the basics of his job -- for whatever reason -- is a major 2024 issue:

The most pressing political challenge confronting President Joe Biden as he drifts uncontested toward renomination is that which he can do the least about: voters’ profound misgivings about his age and fitness to serve another full term.

Yet what’s striking, and to his allies increasingly unnerving, is Biden’s unwillingness even to try to fully address questions about his capacity to run for reelection next year, when he’ll turn 82.

There's been a mostly unexpressed misgiving over the past four years that Biden was misrepresented, both as a capable executive and as a unifying figure, in the 2020 election, with the outcome "stolen" in the metaphorical sense beyond any need to prove specific electoral fraud. Nor can this misgiving be dismissed as just a conspiracy theory; thre's a significant feeling of discomfort about Biden's occupancy in the White House that 's reflected in a desire, if not to reverse the 2020 election outright, at least to do it over.

This is what's behind the ambiguity in Trump's status as a quasi-incumbent, a sense that if he wasn't duly elected in 2020, by all indications, he should have been, and the 2024 election will be a do-over.

By The Way, Where Is The DC Circuit Court?

Remember this?

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit heard oral arguments Jan. 9 on Trump's broad claim of presidential immunity in the federal election interference case brought by special counsel Jack Smith[.]

This in turn happened because Trump's lawers filed an appeal to the DC Circuit on the basis that a US president is immune from prosecution for official acts while in office. Smith filed a plea with the US Supreme Court asking it to rule immediately on the issue, but the court declined to hear the case before the appeals court ruled. This was generally felt to be a threat to Smith's schedule to begin Trump's January 6 trial on March 4, the day before the Super Tuesday primaries:

The ruling is a scheduling win for Trump and his lawyers, who have sought repeatedly to delay the criminal cases against him as he campaigns to reclaim the White House in 2024. It averts a swift ruling from the nation’s highest court that could have definitively turned aside his claims of immunity, and it further throws into doubt the possibility of the landmark trial proceeding as scheduled on March 4.

The issue will now be decided by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which has signaled it will act quickly to decide the case. Special counsel Jack Smith had cautioned that even a rapid appellate decision might not get to the Supreme Court in time for review and final word before the court’s traditional summer break.

Smith had pressed the Supreme Court to intervene, citing significant public interest in a prompt resolution to the case. The request to leapfrog the appeals court, which Smith himself acknowledged was “extraordinary,” also underscored prosecutors’ concerns that the fight over the issue could delay the start of Trump’s trial beyond next year’s presidential election.

But although the DC Circuit had indicated it would review the case quickly, three weeks after it heard oral arguments, there's been no decision. Even if it rules over the coming week, it will put the tentative March 4 start date for the trial just a little over four weeks away, giving Trump's attorneys grounds to have the trial postponed, epecially since Judge Chutkan was forced to reiterate that no pretrial work could take place while the case was on appeal. So what's going on?

[L]egal analyst Harry Litman was among many experts who had expected a decision by now.

"The delay in the D.C. circuit opinion on immunity is worrisome not just, and not even primarily, because of the passage of days," Litman said. "It’s more because it augurs a divided (Henderson writing separately?) or complicated rationale that could lead to additional delays."

Litman was referring to Republican-appointed judge Karen Henderson, who raised the possibility during oral arguments that the case could be sent back to the trial court to analyze whether Trump's actions could be considered official acts as president — which could impact his immunity claim and possibly delay the trial that's scheduled to start in early March.

In other words, the lawfare strategy of starting a Trump January 6 trial the day before the Super Tuesday primaries was always flawed, and opinions I've read in the past suggest the idea of implementing the plan with indictments in mid-2023, expecting trials to begin before the 2024 election, much less the primary season, was expecting too much from the legal system and never realistic. The whole stretegy should have been put in motion at least a year ahead of 2023 if the Democrats expected it to succeed.

Coverage of Smith's December plea to the Supreme Court, as we see in the links here, carried the implication that Smith was expected to start the trial before Super Tuesday. Although his ability to do this is now seriously in question, even if he's able to bring it off, that part of the plan has been overtaken by events, since Trump effectively put the nomination out of reach for any other candidate in Iowa and New Hampshire, making any later primaries moot.

But observers like Mr Litman had probably been in denial from the time the Supreme Court declined to hear the case. Even if the DC Circuit resoundingly rejects Trump's immunity appeal -- indeed, even if it had done so the day after the January 9 oral arguments -- Trump's attorneys would simply have resumed their appeals, both to the DC Circuit en banc and then to the Supreme Court. As Jack Smith himself pointed out above, "even a rapid appellate decision might not get to the Supreme Court in time for review and final word before the court’s traditional summer break".

Thus at this point the January 6 case under Judge Chutkan, unlikely to begin on March 4 as hoped, is now also unlikely even to get to trial before the November election, by the prosecution's own estimate. This is just one blow to the lawfare strategy, which had initially been to damage Trump's chances in the primaries and promote the nomination of a general-election candidate whom the Democrats might find easier to defeat.

But this leaves aside the problem of the Fulton County trial, whose appearance of legitimacy has been largely destroyed via salacious allegations whatever the eventual outcome for DA Willis. Even here, the likely collapse of these two trials is just a symptom of a bigger set of factors that's giving Trump an advantage in 2024, which I'll go into tomorrow.

Trump Is Already Changing Things

The results of the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, having effectively decided the Republican nomination, seem to have changed political calculations within days, if not hours. The potential Senate compromise on the border is dead, not just in the House but in the Senate:

"The great Republican compromise is: ‘We’re for two-thirds of Joe Biden’s open borders, we’ll let in 6 million instead of 9 million,'” scoffed [Sen] Cruz.

“This [legislation] makes utterly no sense,” said Cruz. “There’s a reason Republican leadership is like Charlie Brown with Lucy and the football. Over and over again they run for the football and over and over again, Lucy Schumer pulls it away and Republican leadership lands on their ass.”

According to The Hill:

While some congressional Republicans had been hoping for a piece of election-year legislation aimed at fixing immigration and border security problems, Republican front-runner former President Trump is opposed, which means Senate Republicans are growing more hesitant. Trump’s push to kill the border deal to deny President Biden a legislative win is upsetting members on both sides of the aisle as negotiators hope to wrap up work on an agreement within days.

. . . Trump had been the sleeping giant in the background of talks, but his wins in Iowa and New Hampshire, coupled with his recent remarks calling for Republicans to oppose any border compromise, have complicated the path forward for the Senate.

Trump's view, as he's now in a position to weigh in as the likely nominee, has carried great influence in the House:

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said in a Friday letter to his colleagues that Senate legislation addressing the border and aid to Ukraine and other countries would have been “dead on arrival” in the House, if reports about its terms are true.

The letter follows separate signals from House leadership aides and conservatives in the House and Senate that the supplemental package has no future in the House, even if approved by the Senate.

. . . Former President Trump’s wins in the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary and his opposition to the border deal is a big part of the problem: Trump sees the package as not going far enough. He’s also said to want to use the border issue against President Biden in November.

The evidence of Trump's political strength has begun to disturb the Obama camp:

Insiders snitched that tensions between the two presidents recently exploded after irate Obama rushed to a secret meeting and confronted Biden about his fading chances to fend off surging Republican candidate Donald Trump in the upcoming November election.

"Obama read Joe the riot act," spilled a Beltway insider to the National Enquirer. "He told him to up his game or step aside for a candidate who can win the race."

. . . In desperation, sources said Obama bellowed at bumbling Biden to go on the attack — and make sure trusted aides are constantly by his side on the campaign trail to keep them from committing the disastrous gaffes that have defined his presidency.

His surrogate David Axelrod is ramping up his warnings:

On Thursday’s broadcast of NPR’s “Here and Now,” former Obama adviser David Axelrod stated that President Joe Biden does have to be “very aggressive” in addressing the “crisis” on the border and that he needs “real action steps, quickly, about how to stem the flow of immigrants. Because that is one of the symbols to people that things are out of control.”

It appears that the White House has at least been making minor adjustments in response:

National Security Council Senior Director for Transborder Issues Katie Tobin will leave the White House amid mounting criticism of the administration's border security policies.

Tobin has held the post for roughly three years and plans to return to Chicago to spend time with family, The Hill reported, citing White House foreign policy spokesman John Kirby.

"To spend more time with family" has always been code for for saying you've been fired. But this is nothing but a token move; he only meaningful change would be to fire Secretary Mayorkas. And there's no sign of a newly aggresssive stance from Joe himself; instead, Gavin Newsom is campaigning for him as a surrogate in South Carolina:

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) hit the campaign trail for President Joe Biden in South Carolina on Wednesday and Thursday, where he vouched for Biden’s mental fitness.

. . . As Politico California Bureau Chief Christopher Cadelago wrote, at an event in Allendale, South Carolina, Mayor James L. Cohen raised concerns to Newsom “about the ‘narrative’ that Biden is not mentally fit to stand for reelection.”

Cadelago later shared a video of Newsom’s answer to X. After stammering for a few seconds, Newsom vouched for Biden’s fitness for office, noting he and Biden have spent plenty of time together in recent years.

For now, though, it looks like Joe himself is checked out and not likely to take much interest in his campaign, while Trump is beginning to show savvy and initiative we didn't see in his first term.