Former President Donald Trump arrives at National Airport in Washington on Thursday, Aug. 3, 2023, as he heads downtown to face a judge on federal conspiracy charges to subvert the 2020 election: NAJ screen shot
By Glynn Wilson –
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Former President Donald Trump pleaded ‘not guilty’ on Thursday to charges that he conspired to overturn the presidential election of 2020, appearing before Federal Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadhyaya not far from the United States Capitol where a mob of his supporters stormed the building in a violent effort to halt the peaceful transfer of power on Jan. 6, 2021.
At least for now, Trump is still running for the office again hoping to take back over the government he tried to overthrow. But in the trial itself, which will be presided over by Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, appointed to the court by President Obama in 2014 — before a D.C. jury pool that is 90 percent Democrat — puts Trump in more legal peril than he has ever faced in his life. If he is convicted on the charges, which seems likely, that would make him ineligible to run for public office — and that could very well happen before the Republican National Convention next August.
This would upend all the analysis being put out there on the airwaves at this time by all the pundits, who keep talking about a close race and a rematch between Trump and Joe Biden. By next summer, this entire picture will have changed, so don’t put much stock in any polls taken at this time.
The New York Times, with reporters inside the courthouse, called this moment “the most momentous, the beginning of what prosecutors say should be a reckoning for his multipronged efforts to undermine one of the core tenets of democracy.”
Special counsel Jack Smith, who is being trumpeted as a hero by Democrats all over social media, sat on the front row and observed the proceedings.
Security was heavy around the courthouse, it was reported, with officers on foot and on horseback and barricades erected on the sidewalk, but there were more reporters than supporters or protesters in the crowd, some carrying pro-Trump signs and others shouting anti-Trump slogans, including “Lock him up!”
No cameras were allowed in the courtroom for the arraignment, and no cameras will be allowed in the courthouse during the trial. Sorry cable news fans.
Prosecutors requested no bail and no restrictions on Trump’s travel, acknowledging his status as a leading candidate for the 2024 presidential Republican nomination.
Trump made a brief statement and took no questions at national airport, calling it “a sad day for America,” and other blather, calling it a political persecution and claiming he was far ahead of Biden in the polls, which is emphatically NOT true.
The New York Times polling outfit this week called the race a tie, but I don’t believe it. Most of the polls show Biden leading all the potential Republican contenders at this point, including holding a slight lead over Trump.
Related: President Joe Biden Leads All Republican Contenders in Early Presidential Polls
Trump already faces indictments in two other cases. He is charged with 40 counts in the documents case and 34 felony counts in a New York State case in the spring in connection with a hush-money payment to Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. He could face a fourth criminal case before the month is over as the district attorney in Fulton County, Ga., is also investigating Trump’s efforts to undermine the 2020 election.
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