Trump-hating Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus isn’t happy. She wants a swifter witch hunt.
In a column headlined, “Slowpoke federal appeals court puts 2024 election in jeopardy,” Marcus laments what she considers to be the slow pace of justice in the federal case alleging that former President Trump plotted to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Trump has argued he is entitled to absolute immunity from criminal prosecutions involving actions he took as president. It’s an “audacious” defense, Marcus snarls. But the columnist insists it’s “bordering on unconscionable” that a federal appeals panel has yet to render a decision on Trump’s claim. It’s been nearly a month, after all.
Why, it only took 18 days past oral arguments for another panel of the D.C. Circuit to “largely reject” the former president’s challenge to the First Amendment-bludgeoning gag order against him, Marcus whines.
What does it take to get a decent star chamber in D.C. these days?! Marcus seems to blame a dearth of Biden appointees on the appeals court panel.
“The immunity panel included two Biden appointees — Florence Pan and Michelle Childs — and a George H.W. Bush nominee, Karen Henderson,” the WaPo columnist writes. “They appeared disposed to rule against Trump, but perhaps a concurring or even dissenting opinion is slowing things down.”
The nerve.
“Your honors, the clock is ticking more loudly every day,” Marcus admonishes.
The clock in this case has nothing to do with the legitimate turning of the wheels of justice but the left’s political fever to dispose of Trump before the party conventions this summer. If the multiple, politically weaponized indictments against Democrat President Joe Biden’s most likely challenger don’t end in quick convictions — if they are bogged down by superfluous judicial concepts like due process and defendants’ rights — well, that’s going to be a real stick in the machine to reelect Biden.
“Without strict court supervision and swift action to prevent Trump from running out the clock, his trial could easily collide with the party conventions and the height of the general election campaign,” Marcus moans. “It is not at all far-fetched to imagine it being postponed until after the November election — Trump’s ultimate goal, so he can win, take office and then order the case dropped.”
How dare the former president use every legal means possible to defend himself against the full force of the federal government — led, of course, by his presumed political opponent. Trump’s attorneys really should think of the good of the nation, as defined by the Democrat Party.
Think of the children! Think of the voters! Marcus insists failing to get this witch hunt, er… trial going would be a “terrible disservice to voters.”
“They are entitled to know before casting their ballots whether they are choosing a felon, especially one guilty of election interference,” the columnist asserts.
And if we’ve got to hurry up or rip apart American jurisprudence to do it, well, that’s the price we’ll have to pay to defend democracy.
My Federalist colleague Mark Hemingway nailed it in his response to Marcus’ cards-up commentary. “So they’re just saying out loud that convicting Trump was all part of Dems election strategy?” he tweeted Sunday afternoon.
A quick conviction is the Democrats’ strategy for beating Trump. The odds are getting longer that they’ll be able to beat Trump with the doddering and dangerous incumbent they’re presently going to the dance with, if the latest dour news for Biden via NBC News is to be believed. (Check out the poll’s findings on just how “competent and effective” U.S. voters believe Biden is.)
Marcus is telling us what we should already know: The left’s success depends on getting rid of Donald Trump, and the only way to do that is to put him in jail. Marcus and friends are growing frustrated — and impatient — that the plan is getting bogged down by justice.
