Jenna Ellis told investigators a senior White House aide insisted to her that Trump was just going to “stay in power” despite losing the 2020 election.
The telegraphed defense so far for Trump has been that he believes he actually won, and this testimony is a direct rebuke of that idea. This will naturally require more corroborating testimony presented to a jury to reach “beyond a reasonable doubt” on his intent to ignore the election and stay in power, but it proves such testimony already exists.
I guess that’s where my concerns lay. Without physical evidence, I don’t know how you get to “beyond a reasonable doubt”. I don’t know, without like, actual physical records of some kind, you prove that. And yes, they stole bankers boxes of documents, and for all we know, destroyed the evidence. At the same time, these conspiracies were far reaching, and in a digital age, being confident that you’ve completely destroyed all records of a communication could be very difficult. The inference of intent from hearsay, even qualified hearsay, seems like not a great strategy.
You do that by having enough people that were nearby, or better, involved in the overall conspiracy testifying that they were operating with the knowledge that what they were doing was illegal.
“Beyond a reasonable doubt” is not “beyond the shadow of any doubt.”
If you have three or four insiders saying that Trump wanted to do X (which was an illegal act), and corroborating testimony that he was told by these lawyers, like Ellis, that the law doesn’t work that way, that this is illegal, it’s not reasonable that Trump can righteously still believe he was not committing a crime. By that point it’s “ignorance of the law” at best, which is not a defense.
Testimonies will be catered to pointing this out, and there will be plenty of arguments about the intent of text messages and emails and conversations surrounding Trump, they will ultimately establish everyone was aware that this illegal obstruction is being done knowingly and at Trump’s direction. Once you’re there, it requires an absolutely unreasonable juror to conclude he had any reason to believe be was in the right.
I guess that’s where my concerns lay. Without physical evidence, I don’t know how you get to “beyond a reasonable doubt”. I don’t know, without like, actual physical records of some kind, you prove that. And yes, they stole bankers boxes of documents, and for all we know, destroyed the evidence. At the same time, these conspiracies were far reaching, and in a digital age, being confident that you’ve completely destroyed all records of a communication could be very difficult. The inference of intent from hearsay, even qualified hearsay, seems like not a great strategy.
You do that by having enough people that were nearby, or better, involved in the overall conspiracy testifying that they were operating with the knowledge that what they were doing was illegal.
“Beyond a reasonable doubt” is not “beyond the shadow of any doubt.”
If you have three or four insiders saying that Trump wanted to do X (which was an illegal act), and corroborating testimony that he was told by these lawyers, like Ellis, that the law doesn’t work that way, that this is illegal, it’s not reasonable that Trump can righteously still believe he was not committing a crime. By that point it’s “ignorance of the law” at best, which is not a defense.
Testimonies will be catered to pointing this out, and there will be plenty of arguments about the intent of text messages and emails and conversations surrounding Trump, they will ultimately establish everyone was aware that this illegal obstruction is being done knowingly and at Trump’s direction. Once you’re there, it requires an absolutely unreasonable juror to conclude he had any reason to believe be was in the right.
I suppose that puts weight on the fact that its his lawyers have flipped.