With All Eyes on Trump at Arraignment, Pay Attention to Three Important People Sitting Quietly at Back of Courtroom
Former President Donald Trump was arraigned on Thursday.
Big deal.
Impeach the guy twice (including when he’s out of office), raid his house, charge his household employees, accuse him of colluding with Russia, and on and on and on.
So what could they do next? Of course — indict him for trying to overturn the 2020 election.
Are Democrats also going to charge the 147 Republicans who voted not to certify all of the states’ 2020 election results?
Interesting. Over a fourth of Congress agreed that there was something fishy about that election, and Trump gets indicted?
A lot of us were paying attention on election night when there were irregularities in vote-counting in Michigan and Georgia. And there were all of those suspicious accounts of ballot drop boxes, along with the admitted manipulations of social media in favor of now-President Joe Biden.
Biden, of course, barely campaigned, yet received more votes than Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama.
At any rate, there was quite a crowd at the arraignment in the Washington, D.C., courtroom of Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadhyaya.
To gain entrance, members of the news media had to be selected by lottery. Taking up the jury box and the public gallery were law clerks, court staff, sketch artists and a few members of the public, The Hill reported.
Several judges of Washington’s federal district court were seated at the back of the room, according to Politico. Among them were Chief Judge James Boasberg and Magistrate Judge Michael Harvey.
Also on hand was Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who had previously criticized Trump as she sentenced some defendants from the Jan. 6 Capitol incursion.
Washington loves a spectacle.
Courtroom sketch of Donald Trump’s arraignment in Washington DC today pic.twitter.com/ujRmqYyhym
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) August 3, 2023
Much of this brings to mind an action by President Gerald Ford in September 1974, when he pardoned former President Richard Nixon for any crimes he may have committed while in office.
Nixon had resigned the month before following two years of the Watergate ordeal and had been impeached, with conviction likely.
Even though it may have cost him the 1976 election, Ford said his pardon was an attempt to heal the nation’s wounds. Although critical of Ford at the time, even Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy later conceded he had done the right thing.
Now, of course, short-sighted politicians care nothing about the nation’s divisions or even the effects the bogus criminal charges against Trump will have on the future and prestige of the republic.
And they forget the world is watching — so it will be more than Donald Trump on trial.
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