Democrats are threatening to undermine the legitimacy of the judicial branch with an unprecedented campaign of politically motivated litigation against their top political opponent in the run-up to this year’s election. The lawfare strategy comes after years of Democrats’ persistent attacks on the Supreme Court.
Last year, Donald Trump, the now presumptive Republican presidential nominee, became the first former president to be indicted on criminal charges and currently faces 88 state and federal charges across four cases. The Trump campaign, meanwhile, has been forced to spend more than $76 million in legal bills while the former president himself owes more than half a billion in fines from civil cases brought before activist judges. As New York Attorney General Letitia James prepared to seize Trump’s assets to pay down fines of more than $450 million, Trump won an appeal on Monday to have the bond reduced and is now required to set aside $175 million within 10 days to pause the $464 million judgment.
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“These are Rigged cases,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Monday morning, “all coordinated by the White House and [Department of Justice] for purposes of Election Interference.”
House Republicans are now investigating the use of federal funds by Manhattan District Attorney Alvinn Bragg to prosecute the president over a case previously determined too weak to pursue by the U.S. attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York. Lawmakers are also investigating coordination between Trump’s antagonists on the since-disbanded House Select Committee on Jan. 6 and Fani Willis, the Georgia prosecutor caught in an inappropriate relationship with a member of her staff. Nevertheless, a judge ruled that Willis is allowed to remain the principal prosecutor of the former president and his Republican co-defendants, who are likely to appeal and delay prosecutors’ progress.
The White House, meanwhile, remains eager to land a conviction of the regime’s chief rival by November. Several polls found voters are less likely to vote for the former president if he is criminally convicted, even as a majority of voters see the Democrats’ aggressive lawfare strategy as a campaign to take out a prominent political opponent. The case most likely to give Democrats their election-year conviction comes straight out of Washington, D.C., and pertains to Trump’s speech about the 2020 election on Jan. 6, 2021. The federal judge presiding over this case, Tanya Chutkan, has already affirmed her belief that Trump is guilty.
Last fall, Chutkan refused to recuse herself from this case despite her prior prejudicial statements raising doubt over Trump’s ability to receive a fair trial.
Chutkan, who, according to the Associated Press, has built a reputation as “a tough punisher of Capitol rioters,” previously appeared to bemoan the fact that Trump had not yet been prosecuted over the 2021 Capitol riot.
“Such statements, made before this case began and without due process, are inherently disqualifying,” a petition from Trump’s attorneys read. “Although Judge Chutkan may genuinely intend to give President Trump a fair trial — and may believe that she can do so — her public statements unavoidably taint these proceedings, regardless of outcome.”
“Other judges typically have handed down sentences that are more lenient than those requested by prosecutors,” the AP reported last year. “Chutkan, however, has matched or exceeded prosecutors’ recommendations in 19 of her 38 sentences. In four of those cases, prosecutors weren’t seeking any jail time at all.”
Trump demanded that Chutkan remove herself from the case and called for a change in the trial’s venue. Chutkan denied the petition and pledged to move forward. Progress will resume after the Supreme Court rules this summer on whether Trump and other Jan. 6 defendants can be charged with two out of the four indictments brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith.
Residents in the far-left capital, meanwhile, remain eager to convict the former president. A 2023 Emerson College survey found that 64 percent of D.C. residents said they would vote in favor of conviction compared to 28 percent who were undecided. Just 8 percent said they would support Trump’s innocence.
The 2024 election will not only be unique in that it offers the nation a choice between two presidents, but it also highlights the Democrat’s weaponization of the judiciary to undermine their opposition.
