aggiehawg said:
SwigAg11 said:
What is the reasoning for the defendants wanting the case moved to federal court? Better possibility it gets dismissed? I would think federal court would get moved to DC which would be a worse jury pool. Or would it somehow stay in GA?
Stays in Georgai just goes to the federal district court for the Northern District of Georgia. Still the same prosecutor. Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and Evidence apply.
There are some federal legal defenses that would be more properly heard by a federal judge not an elected state judge. Also a slightly better jury pool since it will be pulling from all of the counties within the district and not just Fulton County which went for Biden by like 76%.
BTW, it is not that usual for criminal cases to be removed from state court to federal court. Happens often in civil cases but not criminal cases. So kind of murky. Then again, these are not all just run of the mill defendants either.
A President, his Chief of Staff and an DOJ Asst. AG are al federal officrs with their job duties and responsibilities. Allowing some podunt county attorney being ablr to charge them with crimes for carrying their work would cause chaos.
But the pitfall here is how these various indictments were daisy chained together. Smith's DC indictment involves actions outside of Washington and folds in a lot of the acts complained of in Georgia. So if that case largely gets tossed in federal court, it affects his indictment too.
Important part here and where I will deviate from the herd a bit. Presidential Immunity in particular is something that could not from a Constitutional perspective be decided in a state court and I would suggest could also not be settled by federal courts. Its is a pure question as to whether POTUS himself acted within the executive powers and his oath of office.
But this is not clear in the Constitution and the argument could be made that the Founding Fathers did not envision or did not wish to envision what is going on now. An abuse of executive power by POTUS to target a political opponent using the Executive against the former Executive. It is not a trivial question for state judge, federal judge, etc to determine - how could they and where is that power granted to them in the US Constitution? I have not seen it.
Before someone says a former POTUS can be indicted... yes, for crimes committed before or after their term. Questions of crimes committed whilst POTUS are covered in the Constitution. Its filed under impeachment.
So who decides? SCOTUS seems like the logical place but they also have an issue. Again, the US Constitution does not grant them this power. The power is reserved for Congress. I fully expect this to rise to SCOTUS and SCOTUS to punt to Congress. These are the early steps in the defense many decried that if it was a legit defense then why didn't Trump say this day 1...?
Not how it works. Standing and such.
These are my personal views after long consideration of the laws and since this is unprecedented (to the extreme), one has to go back to the founding of this Country and gleam what was intended by the Constitution and even further by the Founding Fathers.
A low level judge deciding Presidential Immunity is the stuff of banana republics and blatantly, laughably unconstitutional. Else, Biden could be arrested tomorrow if some West Texas judge says he conspired to commit murder by funding abortions past 15 weeks in Texas. Chew on that.