‘No Point In It’: McCarthy Says Smith Ending Prosecution Proves Cases Were About ‘Preventing Trump From Winning’
'They’re taking the position this is dismissal'
Will Trump get full presidential immunity? Law expert explains
Former President Donald Trump is in the midst of multiple legal battles, but everything could change if the Supreme Court rules that he has full presidential immunity.
“The Court is a lot more concerned about the presidency than about Trump,” National Review contributing author Andrew McCarthy tells Glenn Beck.
“It’s an important point to make because a lot of the coverage has been this hysteria over whether the Trump-packed Supreme Court is in the tank for him and they’re going to get rid of Jack Smith’s prosecution,” McCarthy says. “I don’t think that’s going to happen at all.”
Rather, McCarthy believes that the court will send the case back to the trial judge in Washington “with instructions to sort out what things in the indictment against Trump are what you would call "official acts" that might arguably be immune from prosecution” and “what are private acts or private wrongs that he would not have immunity for.”
However, according to McCarthy, Trump’s lawyer has admitted that a lot of conduct charged in the indictment is considered private conduct that wouldn’t fall under an immunity claim.
“What are some of the acts that could fall under private?” Glenn asks, adding, “and what are the acts that are the president and you don’t prosecute?”
One of the “solid examples” McCarthy uses is that “Trump’s lawyer conceded that if Trump made a private scheme with private lawyers to get slates of electors designated for him and to supply documents to the Congress suggesting that they were the authentic, actual slate of electors designated by a state, that would be private conduct because it’s purely office-seeking.”
“On the other hand,” McCarthy explains, “there’s an allegation in the indictment that Trump tried to use the Justice Department to signal to states that there were serious concerns about fraud and considered both removing the attorney general when he got push back and considered sending a letter that they never sent from the Justice Department to the state of Georgia to tell them that they needed to do more scrutiny over what happened in the popular election.”
“Trump argues very strongly, and I think the court will probably go along with this, that is the president’s control over the Justice Department,” he says.
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Former prosecutor dumps cold water on Dem narrative that FBI informant's arrest clears Biden family of corruption allegations
Former federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy blew apart on Wednesday the assertion that allegations of Biden family corruption collapsed when the FBI arrested Alexander Smirnov.
Last week, a grand jury indicted Smirnov for allegedly lying to the FBI. Special counsel David Weiss accuses Smirnov — previously a confidential human source for the FBI — of falsely claiming Ukrainian energy company Burisma paid then-Vice President Joe Biden and Hunter Biden $5 million each in 2015 and/or 2016.
Democrats are using Smirnov's arrest to absolve the Bidens of wrongdoing.
But Democrats aren't being honest, according to McCarthy, who explained on Wednesday an obvious fact: Smirnov's allegations were not the "lynchpin" of the corruption allegations.
"[Investigators] had immense evidence that there was corrupt activity involved in that before hearing that there was an FBI informant who said that there was $10 million in bribes, and Smirnov information about that is not connected to what the House Republicans already had about Burisma," McCarthy said on Fox News.
"I think the Democrats are trying to spread the idea that he's the key to the case because now that his testimony is obviously been knocked down by the false statements charges — that makes it looks like the case collapses," he continued. "But It doesn’t for example disappear the $24 million that went into the Biden’s coffers from agents of corrupt and anti-American governments."
McCarthy, moreover, highlighted why he is "skeptical" about Weiss' conduct, especially over the timing of the Smirnov indictment.
"I still think that Weiss' main job here is to protect President Biden," McCarthy accused.
"He went a long time without charging Hunter, then tried to disappear the case on a sweetheart plea deal. He's only charged Hunter in the two cases because he didn't get away with that," he noted. "But when he pled the tax indictment against Hunter, he took pains to keep President Biden's name out of it even though the income that Hunter got was from exploiting his relationship with the president."
Additionally, McCarthy pointed to unusual details in court documents alleging that Smirnov had contact with high-level Russian officials.
"This whole business about whether Russian disinformation — I think this is a very peculiar complaint," he said. "There's stuff in there at the end [of the court document] that said Smirnov was told that Hunter stayed in a place in Kiev that the Russians had wired. There are no charges in the indictment or the complaint that relate to that information. It's like they just threw that in at the end."
Normally, McCarthy said, the Justice Department would not include that type of information in unredacted court documents because information about Russian intelligence activities is "highly, highly classified."
Indeed, some in the media are already using the Russian intelligence angle to claim that Hunter Biden was the victim of a Russian disinformation campaign.
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Legal experts identify the significance of what is missing from Jack Smith's newest indictment against Donald Trump
Legal experts quickly identified on Wednesday that what is missing from special counsel Jack Smith's newest indictment is as important as what is included.
The indictment hit former President Donald Trump with four new criminal charges: conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights.
But the charges do not include accusations of conspiracy for incitement of the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol or a seditious conspiracy.
"One of the things that I was looking for [in the indictment] is — I assumed that Smith had this type of 'A-ha!' moment, that there's something in there that the Jan. 6 committee didn't find that supported, we heard about witness tampering — it's not in there," George Washington Law School professor Jonathan Turley explained on Fox News.
"The other thing that is not in here is conspiracy for incitement; not in here is a seditious conspiracy," Turley continued. "Those were the claims that Democrats used in the impeachment and said the evidence was absolutely clear. ... Well, the [charges] are not in here."
Rather, Smith, according to Turley, is using the "favorite of prosecutors," referring to vague charges of conspiracy and obstruction.
Former federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy agreed, accusing Smith of doing the "low-rent stuff that prosecutors are not supposed to do" by attempting to connect Trump to incitement without charging him with it outright.
"If you've got evidence that Trump committed incitement, then charge him with incitement. But, of course, I can say as somebody who actually successfully prosecuted a seditious conspiracy case, they don't have a prayer of a case like that," McCarthy explained.
"What Smith does here is kinda a nod and a wink," he continued. "There's a section [in the indictment] that's called 'exploiting the violence of Jan. 6' — I forget exactly how it's articulated, but he talks about exploiting it because he can't accuse him of actually aiding and abetting it or committing it in any actionable way."
The problem, of course, is that after the indictment was announced, Smith released a statement in which the lion's share of his remarks focused on Jan. 6 and accused Trump of inciting the violence that day.
In that speech, according to McCarthy, Smith is exploiting Jan. 6 to prosecute Trump in the court of public opinion.
"That was one of the most demagogic presentations I've ever seen in a high-profile criminal case," McCarthy said. "Anyone who listened to that, any normal person reacting to that, would assume that Trump was alleged to have carried out the Capitol riot. The entire presentation that he made was not about what the core charges in his case are, it was about the Capitol riot and the security personnel who were injured the Capitol riot.
"Then you turn to his indictment, he’s not charged with the Capitol riot," he noted. "So if that's what he has to resort to in order to sell his case to the public, I think that's very telling in terms of how compelling his case is."
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