The new charges against Donald Trump offer conclusive proof that there can be no talk of a free and fair election in 2024, Tom Fitton, president of conservative legal and election watchdog group Judicial Watch believes.
“This indictment is a naked threat and act of intimidation by the Democratic Party against any and all of their political opponents. The message from the Biden regime is: ‘We will put you in jail if you dispute elections’. A free and fair 2024 election is officially impossible,” Fitton wrote in a release following Tuesday’s indictment.
“The Biden administration has left the rule of law and the US Constitution behind with its latest indictment of President Trump for daring to dispute the 2020 presidential election, as is his God-given right as a president, a citizen, and a candidate under state, federal and constitutional law,” Fitton added.
The non-profit head accused President Biden and Justice Department chief Merrick Garland of “trying to jail” Trump and turn him “into a political prisoner” to distract the public from “conclusive evidence” of President Biden’s “personal corruption” related to his and his son’s alleged pay-to-play political influence peddling scheme.
Fitton called on Congress to “do everything under the law to undo this attempt to wreck our republican form of government,” and called on the courts to “finally step up and shut down this unprecedented prosecutorial abuse.”
What is Trump Being Charged With This Time?
Donald Trump is the first president in US history to face felony indictment, and now has three outstanding sets of charges against him – including 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to an alleged payoff to a former adult film star, and 31 counts related to “willfully retaining national defense information under the Espionage Act” over his storage of classified documents at his Florida estate. The latest indictment features four counts for alleged attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, including: conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and a conspiracy against rights.
If convicted on all counts, the former president of the United States could get up to 641 years in jail (i.e. over 25 consecutive life sentences).
Trump has dismissed all charges against him as a “witch hunt,” with his attorneys characterizing the attempts to prosecute him as a politicized “clown show.” His supporters believe the charges are a bald-faced attempt to pressure and intimidate him out of running for office for a third time in 2024 after the collapse of Russiagate (the claim that Trump was a secret Kremlin agent) and twin impeachments (the first related to an attempt to get Kiev to reopen a probe into Hunter Biden’s dealings in Ukraine, the second to the January 6, 2021 unrest at the Capitol).
Pence Turns on Trump
Trump made himself an enemy of the US political establishment after unexpectedly winning the 2016 election, and is loathed both by Democrats and many neo-conservative Republicans. After his loss in 2020, many members of his administration, including former Vice President Mike Pence, revealed their true attitudes toward their former boss.
Following Trump’s indictment Tuesday, Pence issued his strongest-ever attack against Trump, saying the indictment “serves as an important reminder” that “anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be president of the United States.”
“On January 6th, former president Trump demanded that I choose between him and the Constitution. I chose the Constitution and I always will,” Pence said.
The former vice president’s take drew immediate comparisons to Judas Iscariot among Trump’s supporters.
Trump’s latest indictment comes at an interesting time in the 2024 campaign, with recent polling showing him at 45 percent support compared with 40 percent for Biden if elections were held today.