Dem
49
GOP
51
As expected, Ryan Wesley Routh has been charged with several additional crimes, including "Attempted Assassination of a Major Presidential Candidate" (a violation of 18 USC 351). This would seem to imply that if you take a shot at, say Jill Stein or Cornel West, you're in less trouble than if you go after Donald Trump. If so, that is... interesting.
In any case, Routh's immediate future is going to involve spending a fair bit of time in court, which means a judge had to be assigned to his case. And who did he draw? That's right, Aileen Cannon, who appears to be the only federal judge in the entire state of Florida. Given her proclivities, Routh better get his affairs in order.
Of course, not all federal judges are quite so Trump-friendly. In fact, some of them are not Trump-friendly at all. You know, that whole thing about justice being blind, calling balls and strikes, not taking sides? Among the judges who is not in the bag is Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the Washington case. A few weeks ago, she set a bunch of deadlines for filings and hearings in the case, making clear that she does not care about the election calendar. Trump's attorneys filed a motion to change all the deadlines, on the basis of, in effect, "but the election!" Yesterday, Chutkan advised that she's having none of it, and that Trump's attorneys can take their motion and shove it.
And finally, it is possible (though it seems unlikely) that Trump will face criminal charges in yet another venue. Ohio state law allows private citizens to bring criminal charges, in some circumstances. And so, Guerline Jozef, of the Springfield, OH, based Haitian Bridge Alliance, has brought criminal charges against both Trump and J.D. Vance. The charges are disrupting public services, making false alarms, telecommunications harassment, aggravated menacing and complicity.
The next step here is an as-yet unscheduled hearing, at which it will be determined if the charges have merit. If so, then the plaintiffs are asking that arrest warrants be issued for both Trump and Vance. We are hardly experts in Ohio law, particularly the relatively obscure areas that this suit raises. However, we do know that the local DA chose not to pursue charges, and that several law firms declined to represent the Haitian Bridge Alliance. So, we infer from this information that the case is a longshot. An even longer shot is the possibility of issuing arrest warrants for candidates for office while an election cycle is underway. That said, you never know, which is why we pass it along. (Z)