(Photo
by
Win
McNamee/Getty
Images)
When
God
closes
an
appeal
he
opens
a
quashal.
Or
…
something?
Yesterday
was
a
mixed
bag
for
the
criminal
ex-president,
as
three
courts
in
two
states
weighed
in
on
his
multiple
pending
cases.
In
New
York,
the
Second
Circuit tossed
Trump’s
motion
for
an
emergency
stay
of
the
“remand
order”
by
Judge
Hellerstein
that
wasn’t
a
remand
at
all.
This
was
part
of
Trump’s
desperate
attempt
to
fend
off
sentencing
in
the
false
business
records
case
by
removing
the
case
to
federal
court.
Except
removing
a
case
more
than
30
days
after
arraignment
requires
leave
of
the
district
court
judge,
and
he
didn’t
get
it.
Trump
appealed
to
the
Second
Circuit,
falsely
characterizing
Judge
Alvin
Hellerstein’s
denial
of
leave
to
file
as
a
“remand,”
when
in
fact
the
case
had
never
been
in
federal
court,
and
there
was
nothing
to,
uh,
mand.
But
then
New
York
Supreme
Court
Justice
Juan
Merchan
acceded
to
Trump’s
demand
to
delay
sentencing
until
after
the
election,
which
functionally
mooted
the
need
for
emergency
relief.
So
the
Second
Circuit
denied
the
request
“in
light
of
the
state
court’s
adjournment
of
sentencing.”
Also
yesterday
the
New
York
Court
of
Appeals
swatted
away
Trump’s
attempt
to
get
rid
of
what
remains
of
the
gag
order
in
that
case.
Post-trial,
Justice
Merchan
lifted
the
ban
on
attacking
the
jury
and
witnesses.
But
Trump
howls
that
his
First
Amendment
rights
are
being
cruelly
trampled
because
he’s
not
allowed
to
send
trollstorms
after
the
line
attorneys
or
the
judge’s
family.
Red
state
AGs,
led
by
Missouri
Attorney
General
Andy
Bailey,
even
filed
a
batshit
Supreme
Court
motion
demanding
that
the
justices
swoop
in,
lift
the
protective
order,
bar
the
state
from
sentencing
Trump
pre-election,
and
save
democracy.
That
effort
failed,
and
so
did
Trump’s
appeal
to
the
First
Judicial
Department,
which
ruled
in
August
that
“the
People’s
evidentiary
submissions
in
opposition
to
his
motion
in
Supreme
Court
demonstrate
that
threats
received
by
District
Attorney
staff
after
the
jury
verdict
continued
to
pose
a
significant
and
imminent
threat.”
And
now
the
state’s
high
court
has
bounced
it
as
well,
“upon
the
ground
that
no
substantial
constitutional
question
is
directly
involved.”
But
the
day
wasn’t
a
total
loss
for
Trump,
as
three
charges
from
the
41-count
Georgia
RICO
indictment
were
quashed
by
Fulton
County
Superior
Court
Judge
Scott
McAfee
under
the
Constitution’s
Supremacy
Clause.
Trump’s
coup
lawyer
John
Eastman
and
fake
elector
Shawn
Still
moved
to
dismiss
the
entire
indictment
on
the
theory
that
it
implicated
exclusively
federal
conduct.
The
court
rejected
the
sweeping
challenge,
finding
that
there
were
numerous
violations
of
state
law.
But
he
did
dismiss
counts
14,
15,
and
27,
all
of
which
implicated
false
statements
to
a
federal
court.
Specifically,
the
electors
mailed
copies
of
the
fake
electoral
certificates
and
their
attestations
to
the
chief
judge
of
the
Northern
District
of
Georgia,
and
Trump
and
his
lawyers
made
false
claims
about
dead
voters
and
felons
voting
illegally
in
a
federal
suit
against
Governor
Brian
Kemp. Judge
McAfee
tossed
those
charges,
ruling
that
“Georgia
does
not
have
a
‘legitimate
interest’
and
jurisdiction
to
punish
such
statements.”
And
Trump’s
lawyers
must
be
delighted
with
a
footnote
in
a
separate
ruling
denying
a
motion
to
dismiss
count
one,
the
big
RICO
charge.
The
court
wrote:
The
United
States
Supreme
Court’s
decision
in
Trump
v.
United
States,
144
S.
Ct.
2312
(2024)
will
likely
affect
the
allegations
of
Count
One,
particularly
the
overt
acts
contained
within.
However,
unlike
the
many
other
challenges
raised
by
the
Defendants,
the
impact
of
Presidential
immunity
has
not
been
fully
briefed
or
argued
by
the
parties,
and
this
order
does
not
reach
that
issue.
Similarly,
this
Order
does
not
address
Defendants’
arguments
brought
under
the
Supremacy
Clause
or
a
theory
of
federal
officer
immunity.
The
Supreme
Court’s
presidential
immunity
opinion,
particularly
its
ban
on
use
of
evidence
of
official
acts
to
prove
non-official
crimes,
was
clearly
going
to
pose
a
problem
for
the
indictment.
But
Judge
McAfee’s
acknowledgment
that
it
may
doom
the
entire
indictment
makes
the
District
Attorney’s
decision
to
charge
this
case
as
a
massive,
interconnected
conspiracy
look
even
more
suspect.
Of
course,
thanks
to
her
other
suspect
decisions,
the
entire
enterprise
is
on
hold
for
the
foreseeable
future.
So,
there’s
that
bit
of
good
news
for
President
Crimetime
as
well.
Liz
Dye lives
in
Baltimore
where
she
produces
the
Law
and
Chaos substack and podcast.