2024-02-09 16:34:36
Donald Trump won the Nevada primaries tonight with 99.2 percent of the vote and scooped up its 26 delegates on the way to securing his sure nomination for the presidency on behalf of the Republicans, a victory not surprising at all considering his control of the party and the fact that there was no real challenger against him, including Nikki Haley. But the real gift was received by the former president a few hours earlier, when the special prosecutor’s report on the classified documents discovered in Joe Biden’s possession was published and provided the Trump campaign with punch lines that will star in the election campaign.
Prosecutor Robert Herr’s investigation began a year ago, after classified documents were discovered in Biden’s private home in Delaware and in the office where he sat at a research institute in Washington after he finished his term as vice president. Most of the materials – which included classified documents on the military and foreign policy in Afghanistan and notebooks with Biden’s handwriting that contained sensitive information, including intelligence sources and methods of operation – were turned over to the Justice Department by Biden’s lawyers, and others were discovered in searches by federal agents.
Trump in court in New York (Photo: REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/Pool)
Bottom line, the special prosecutor, Robert Herr, ruled that no criminal charges would be filed against Biden even though he “knowingly possessed classified materials and disclosed information,” and he made it clear that this was his conclusion even if Biden was not a sitting president who could not be prosecuted. According to Herr, Biden’s full cooperation during the investigation was a significant factor in the decision to close the case.
The main reason for the decision, which Har stated in the 388-page report, was particularly amazing. “Biden’s memory was significantly limited, both during his taped interviews with the Shadow Writer in 2017 and in an interview with our office in 2023,” the prosecutor wrote. “Biden is expected to present himself to jurors, as he did in our interview with him, as an old, sympathetic, well-meaning man with a failing memory. It will be difficult to convince jurors that they should convict him – when he is a former president in the 1980s – with a serious offense requiring a mental state of malice “.
Soon after, Biden rushed to hold a meeting with the press to declare that “my memory is perfectly fine.” But within minutes, he confused when he said that Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is the president of Mexico instead of Egypt, and this joins other confusions this week, when he switched between the presidents of France Francois Mitterrand and Emmanuel Macron, and between the former chancellors of Germany, Helmut Kohl and Angela Merkel.
Egyptian President al-Sisi (Photo: Saudi Press Agency/Handout via REUTERS)
Herr’s statement about the 81-year-old president came at a very dangerous time for Biden, just nine months before the election, when in public opinion, including on the Democratic side, there is a majority of those who think he should not run for another term due to his advanced age, more than any other president in American history. . Just this week, an NBC poll was released that showed 62 percent of voters said they had serious concerns about Biden’s mental and physical fitness to serve as president, with another 14 percent saying they had moderate concerns. 54 percent of Democratic respondents expressed severe or moderate concern. By comparison, 61 percent answered that they had serious concerns about Trump’s ability (77) to serve as president due to the legal problems, and another ten percent said they had moderate concerns.
Trump’s first reaction to Harr’s report was an attack on the fact that he should face federal prosecution for the classified documents discovered in his possession, without noting that he – unlike Biden – deliberately concealed the materials he took from the White House and even avoided cooperating with federal authorities until FBI agents had to raid Mar-a-Lago Estate. The supporters of the jury are of course not interested because they again see a “witch hunt” against Trump.
Trump’s vacation home in Florida (Photo: REUTERS/Marco Bello)
The classified documents found in Trump’s home (Photo: Reuters)
Although Trump himself did not touch on the point of Biden’s health, perhaps for fear of being referred to his own advanced age, there were others who did it for him. The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, and the rest of the Republican leaders in Congress were quick to declare that “a person who is unable to stand trial for improper handling of classified information is certainly not qualified for the Oval Office.” There will be no reason to be surprised if election broadcasts will soon also appear on television screens and networks The social networks that will present the relevant sections from Har’s report with the same slogan: “Biden – not qualified”.
Harr’s report wasn’t the only gift Trump received Thursday. Although it is still expected to be a few days to a few weeks until the Supreme Court judges decide whether Trump can be disqualified from running in the elections due to the insurrection clause in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution – as determined by the Colorado Supreme Court – yesterday’s argument phase indicated that the judges are not inclined to remove the The former president’s name from the notes.
The questions presented by the conservative justices during the hearing showed that they were reluctant to grant the authority to a single state to determine whether any person can run for office at the national level, but liberal Justice Elena Kagan also raised the concern that the approval of Colorado’s decision could set a precedent for other states. Her liberal colleague, the newest Justice Katanji Brown Jackson, pointed out that Article 3 was aimed at Southern supporters in the Civil War to stop them from running in their states for Congress, not the presidency.
Therefore, Trump can be satisfied with the developments of the last day, but it is not certain that he will be for a long time. The Supreme Court will soon have to determine whether Trump enjoys immunity that would prevent him from being prosecuted in the trial for trying to disrupt the results of the 2020 presidential elections, and the former president has dozens more charges that are not expected to disappear until this November. As for the other side, Biden will have a lot of work to do to convince the voters that despite Harr’s report, and despite the confusion, he is still the right person to continue leading America and the world.
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