The chances that the former president of the United States Donald Trump I finished condemned in some of the four processes he faces in the courts of that country They have been growing like foam.
(Read here: Why is Biden plummeting in the polls one year before the US presidential election?)
Especially in the cases he faces at the state (Georgia) and federal level for his efforts to ignore the results of the 2020 elections, which lost to Joe Biden.
In both processes, many of those involved, including advisors, lawyers and people who are being investigated for their role in that effort, have entered into plea and/or cooperation agreements with the Georgia Attorney General’s Office and Special Prosecutor Jack Smith (who is leading the federal investigation) in exchange for sentence reductions or not being prosecuted for their role in this plot.
Over the past few weeks, several former Trump lawyers and officials accused of wrongdoing in the Georgia case They pleaded guilty in exchange for a reduced sentence and gave testimony to prosecutors.
Among them are Jenna Ellis, Kenneth Chesebro, Sidney Powell and Scott Hall.
Likewise, in the federal case that Smith handles, others have given testimony such as Cassidy Hutchinson, Eric Herschmann, and Jeffrey Rosen.
But this week, the newspaper Washington Post revealed excerpts from the confessions they gave Ellis, Chessebro, Powell and Hall.
This is what key witnesses revealed in court
I don’t want people to know we lost, Mark (Meadows)
In the cases of Hutchinson, Herschmann and Rosen, they had already testified before Congress and are now cooperating with authorities in the federal process.
The serious thing for Trump is that what everyone declared dismantles the former president’s main argument in both processes: that his actions were justified because he always believed he had won the election and that, in any case, he was only following the legal recommendations of his lawyers.
Ellis, for example, testified to telling Dan Scavino, one of Trump’s closest advisers, that options for contesting the election were running out. According to her, Scavino replied that this was irrelevant and that his boss (Trump) had already decided not to leave the White House.
“Well, we don’t care and we’re not going to leave. The boss is not going to leave under any circumstances. “We are going to stay in power,” Ellis said of Scavino’s response.
Chesebro, in the recorded statement revealed by the Post, spoke of a White House meeting in which he briefed Trump on electoral challenges in Arizona and summarized a memo in which he offered advice on how to assemble alternative slates of electors in states key for them to vote for him when certifying the results, despite the fact that Biden had won the elections in them.
This testimony would undermine any defense claim that the president did not know about the plan to replace the electors, which is illegal.
Hutchinson, in another statement, said he had informed both the president and Mark Meadows, his chief of staff, about a Supreme Court decision that ruled out any illegality in the results.
“I don’t want people to know we lost, Mark (Meadows). This is shameful. Fix it. We need to figure it out,” the president said, according to Hutchinson. Another proof that Trump was aware that he had lost the elections.
Powell, for his part, maintained that at the end of the efforts, Trump was only heeding his and others’ advice. Rudy Giuliani -another lawyer for the former president- because they were the only ones among his entire entourage of lawyers who had not told him that the case was lost.
Herschmann and Rosen, for their part, stated that they had told Trump that both the plan to create fake electors and to force then-Vice President Mike Pence to ignore the outcome of the election “was crazy.”
What would these statements prove?
According to Jennifer Rubin, columnist for Washington Postwhat these statements show is that Trump did know that he had lost the election and therefore Therefore, he acted with “criminal intent,” which is what prosecutors accuse him of in both cases.
Since all of the above reached agreements with the authorities, it is presumed that they will testify for prosecutors when they try to prove their case before a jury starting in March of next year.
Of course, the jury will have the last word. But what was revealed by the Post, as well as what is known from the testimonies before Congress, would indicate that both Smith and Fani Willis (the prosecutor in the Georgia case) have a powerful case against the former president in their hands.
Although the Georgia case may not be resolved before 2025, Smith’s case could conclude in June or July of next year.
Which opens the possibility that the Republicans, if they elect Trump in the primary process, will reach the November elections with a candidate already convicted of trying to ignore the results of the last elections.
SERGIO GÓMEZ MASERI
EL TIEMPO correspondent
Washington
On Twitter @sergom68
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