Government

Trump Too Busy Presidenting For Criminal Process, Still Finds Time To Sue All Media

If it weren't for bad faith...

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(Photo by Ali Shaker/VOA)

This week, future deputy attorney general Todd Blanche and principal deputy attorney general Emil Bove informed Justice Juan Merchan that the safety of the republic requires him to dismiss the criminal charges against Donald Trump.

“Immediate dismissal of this case is mandated by the federal Constitution, the Presidential Transition Act of 1963, and the interests of justice, in order to facilitate the orderly transition of Executive power following President Trump’s overwhelming victory in the 2024 Presidential election,” they huffed, adding that “dismissal is necessary here” because “the Constitution forbids ‘plac[ing] into the hands of a single prosecutor and grand jury the practical power to interfere with the ability of a popularly elected President to carry out his constitutional functions.’”

That quote is from an Office of Legal Counsel memo from 2000 opining that a sitting president is immune from criminal indictment or prosecution. Of course, Trump has already been indicted and convicted, and he won’t be the president again until January. But in his telling, the pendency of his appeals bars the state judge from sentencing him. Also, he’s basically president now, since he’s in the middle of the transition and has to go find another sex crimer to serve as Blanche and Bove’s boss.

Whodathunk that these guys would demand that sentencing be moved until after the election to avoid looking political, and then turn around and claim that the entire case must be dismissed because of politics!

DA Bragg objects to dismissing the case, requesting instead that it be stayed until the end of Trump’s presidency. But he knows he got outmaneuvered here by sitting on this prosecution for two damn years.

Meanwhile across the street in federal court, Trump’s lawyers are singing a different tune. There the president-elect is suing Bob Woodward and Simon and Schuster for copyright infringement over an audiobook using tapes made during his first term. He’s alleging a conspiracy to “collate and cobble together more than eight hours of ‘raw’ interviews” and demanding $50 million to make him whole. In November of 2023, Trump filed an opposition to the defendants’ motion to dismiss his second amended complaint — third time’s a charm! — after which everyone wandered off to do literally anything else. But now Trump is hot to trot.

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In a letter to Judge Paul Gardephe, his counsel Robert Garson wrote yesterday that Trump is eager to pursue this case:

The Court is aware that President Trump is soon due to be inaugurated as the 47th President of these United States of America.1 The issues in this case, namely the unlicensed for-profit use of President Trump’s voice that was recorded in an unofficial interview, is both timely and ripe, for fear of further unaccounted for profit being made from the President’s voice. In addition, we trust that the Court can accommodate a discovery process that will cause minimal interference with the President’s impeding obligations.

Indeed, Trump continues to vigorously pursue civil litigation against ABC and CBS, while threatening to sue the New York Times and Penguin Random House for $10 billion. He’s got time for that, of course. And he’s got time to hawk merch from the businesses he’s not even pretending to divest from this time around.

But criminal process? That’s a threat to a democracy.

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Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she produces the Law and Chaos substack and podcast.

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