As the election season continues to slog forward, it seems increasingly clear that the barrage of indictments and prosecution efforts against former President Donald Trump are not having the intended effect – at least not yet. This reality was made even more apparent in the results of a recent focus group.
A group of undecided voters expressed skepticism about the ongoing prosecutions against the Orange Man What Is Bad™, indicating they viewed them as politically motivated.
Of course, this is obvious to anyone who pays attention to politics. However, the fact that more and more data shows that a significant chunk of the voting public can clearly see that the prosecutions are aimed at influencing the outcome of November’s elections suggests that this strategy has failed miserably.
The focus group looked at the opinions of voters in important battleground states.
A focus group of undecided voters in battleground states admitted Wednesday that they are skeptical about the indictments against former President Trump, believing the timing to be politically motivated.
Eight undecided voters from Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin were asked questions about a wide range of topics for a new project called “The Undecideds” by the video platform 2WAY in association with Wick Insights. The voters unanimously blasted President Biden’s economic policy in another segment.
Journalist Mark Halperin, one of the founding members of the 2WAY platform who helped design “The Undecideds” project, asked the focus group their opinions regarding the multiple indictments against the former president and whether it would influence their vote.
A participant from Pennsylvania characterized the prosecutions as “a political farce” and asked, “Why wasn’t this brought up in 2020 or 2021?” given that the Constitution guarantees the right to a speedy trial.
Others indicated that they believed Trump could have possibly committed a crime, but still viewed the indictments as a “weaponization” of the Justice Department.
“It just feels like the DOJ at this point is completely abusing the justice system. Don’t get me wrong, there are some things that I agree, like, he probably…well, I don’t have the facts, but he probably should be charged, he probably was guilty of some of that. But it’s entirely being weaponized, and it doesn’t seem fair at all. It feels like just like a Big Brother tactic to keep dissenters down,” Omar, a Michigan voter who supported Biden in 2020, said.
A Michigan voter asked why these cases are “being dragged out so far” if the authorities had the proof needed to convict Trump.
When asked whether a conviction would sway her voting decision, she said it “would depend on the charges.”
The findings of this focus group appear to jibe with recent polling. A survey conducted last month found that 56 percent of voters believe that “Joe Biden wants to stop President Trump from winning the election by putting him in jail.” Additionally, about 58 percent believe the president has played a role in prosecuting his rival.
The results seem to suggest that a substantial percentage of Americans clearly see that Democrats are pushing these prosecutions to skew the election in Biden’s favor. It appears that despite Democrats’ denials of political motivation, the proverbial writing is on the wall.
There are several reasons why Democrats have failed to trick the public into believing the prosecutions against their most feared boogeyman are entirely above board.
For starters, they overplayed their hand. If I were in charge of the Democratic Party’s Department of Corrupt Practices™, I would have directed them to focus on one or two of the strongest cases they have against the former president.
But, instead, whoever heads that department at the moment decided to go buck wild, pushing a long list of indictments against Trump, including 91 freaking charges. This gave the appearance that Democrats were simply throwing everything possible at Trump and hoping at least a few charges would stick.
The problem with this strategy is that it is blatant overkill. Especially given the flimsy nature of most of the allegations. This leads me to my next point.
Most of the more scandalous indictments against the former president involve efforts to twist the law in a way that could potentially result in felony convictions. Manhattan’s “hush money” trial is set to start in less than a week. It was the first major effort against the former president and was the most sensational given that it involved Trump’s alleged tryst with a porn star.
Yet, even from the beginning, it was evident that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg was displaying some legal creativity in his effort to get Trump.
The indictment was not immediately released, but according to prior reporting the grand jury was considering indicting Trump under a state law against falsifying business records.
That charge ordinarily is a state misdemeanor with a two-year statute of limitations, but under the reported theory it would be elevated into a felony by alleging it was done in commission of a federal campaign finance violation.
Former Trump attorney Michael Cohen pleaded guilty in Manhattan federal court in 2018 and was sentenced to three years in prison for tax evasion and crimes related to the Daniels payment and another to former Playboy model Karen McDougal he helped arrange prior to the 2016 election.
George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley said Bragg “is attempting to bootstrap [a] federal crime into a state case,” and brought up how the Justice Department used a similar method against disgraced presidential candidate John Edwards. “That was a much stronger case, but they lost,” he said.
Then, we have the Fulton County, Georgia, case against Trump for election interference. On the surface, it seems Democrats have a strong case. But it might not be quite as strong as they would like us to believe. Turley chimed in on this prosecution effort as well, focusing on the phone call Trump made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in which he asked him to “find” enough votes to force a recount. This is what the left believes is the smoking gun in this case.
When the Washington Post first reported this call, I posted a critical tweet based on its initial, erroneous account that Trump had ordered Georgia officials to just “find” the needed votes. I noted that such a demand would be breathtaking and further noted that, even if they did so, it would not stop Biden from winning the presidency.
But a few hours later, the actual transcript of the call was released, showing a strikingly different context for the “find” comment than the Post had reported. Trump was clearly referring to his objective in finding votes and the threshold he needed to meet. That is a predictable argument for a candidate in pushing for a continued investigation.
Lastly, we have the suspect timing, an issue that was not lost on members of the focus group. If the authorities truly believed Trump was guilty of these crimes, why would they wait until election season to begin prosecuting him? They could have easily done so much earlier with most of the charges they are throwing at him.
The answer is obvious: This never had anything to do with the pursuit of justice. It had everything to do with the reality that Trump has a decent chance of defeating President Biden in November. In light of this, it is no surprise that most people know Democrats are using the justice system against their political opponent.
