Dem
51
GOP
49
In the weeks after the 2020 election that he lost, Donald Trump told his supporters that the election was "a long way from over." He filed lawsuits hither and yon, telling state and federal courts that he was suing in his capacity as a political candidate, not as an incumbent president. Now he has changed his tune and is saying the exact opposite. He now claims the election was over and he filed the lawsuits in his capacity as president trying to oversee fair elections. Hint: It's not the president's job to oversee elections; elections are run by the states.
The problem here is that this new position directly contradicts numerous legal filings made in 2020 in which he said he was filing as a candidate. Even after the votes had been counted and certified, Trump continued to file lawsuits claiming he was a candidate.
At the moment, Trump is engaged in a legal battle claiming, as Nixon did, "when the president does it, it is not illegal." He is trying to stop the federal trial scheduled for March 4 in its tracks by claiming that riling up the mob at the Capitol was an official act of the sitting president and thus not a crime. But in the 2020 filings, he claimed that and related acts were simply him as a candidate fighting for his rights as a candidate.
This inconsistency has not gone unnoticed. In a December ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for D.C. noted that all the court cases Trump started in 2020 relating to the election results were done in his capacity as a candidate, not as the incumbent president. This would mean his claim to immunity and the request to throw out the federal case are both invalid. To bolster his sudden revelation that the 2020 election is over, last week he posted a video to his failing boutique social media site claiming that by Jan. 6, 2021, "The election was long over. I wasn't campaigning. I was just doing my job. I am entitled to immunity."
It is now convenient that the Trump fighting the election results in 2020 was President Trump, not candidate Trump. Unfortunately, his own lawyers didn't see it that way. For example, John Eastman has produced an unsigned engagement letter written by the campaign and dated Dec. 5, 2020, which characterized Eastman's legal services as work for Trump the candidate, not Trump the president. The letter drafted by the campaign contains the sentence: "This client relationship includes President Donald J. Trump in his capacity as a candidate for elected office." If this is true, Trump's efforts to block the election results were not part of his job as president, he is not immune, and he will have to stand trial on March 4.
Oral arguments were held last week, but the paper trail is not encouraging. The judges now have to determine if everything Trump did to stay in power after the election was part of his job as president or was part of his effort as a candidate, and whether that finding also determines his immunity from prosecution. Recent attempts to switch his position are not likely to fool the judges. A decision is expected very soon. (V)