JoAnn Shares Her Answers to Various Media Questions About the Trump Verdict
Your reaction to the Trump verdict? Although I am not surprised, make no mistake – this is a very dangerous, historically significant fork in the road for the United States. Blowing through all due process norms previously afforded to defendants, the judge instructed the jury they didn’t have to find an underlying crime or come to a unanimous decision.
Such brazen abuse of legal and judicial institutions by both the district attorney and a judge in an attempt to politically damage and delegitimize a political opponent can and will dramatically destabilize this nation. The American people need a swift, strong, detailed rejection of the sham trial from respected constitutional “rule of law” experts. The American people instinctively know this was unfair, but they need to be shown every single way the rule of law was bastardized and trampled. Why? Because if this can happen to a former US President, it can happen to any of us.
What about the hush money, sexual relations, falsifying business records? I haven’t seen the evidence allegedly presented to the jury; therefore, I will not comment on Trump’s alleged actions, but prosecutors can and do win convictions in cases that shouldn’t have been brought in the first place. This case should never have made it to a jury. Bragg’s inflation of alleged actions that were classified as misdemeanors in order to morph them into a felony charge was an unprecedented contortion of the law to “get Trump.” They wanted a conviction and worked backwards to construct the convoluted scenario to get them to the desired outcome.
If Trump’s alleged “crimes” from 2016 and 2017 were so egregious, why weren’t they brought forward in 2018? 2019? 2020? 2021? It’s 2024. Political manipulators know timing is everything; but they have sorely misread the American people on this matter.
How do you think Trump being convicted of felony crimes will impact how Smith County residents and Texans overall vote in November? Smith County citizens are very well informed and will overwhelmingly vote for Trump in November. Grassroots America intends to work with its statewide coalition to turn out the strongest vote possible all across Texas. The “people connector” turnout tool used in the primary and runoff elections was demonstrably effective. We’re gearing up.
What are the political consequences of the verdict? The lasting consequences go far beyond the political. This “lawfare” verdict is just more evidence that we are living in post-Constitutional America. When personal animus becomes the standard of condemning people and the justice system is perverted to carry out political hatred via convictions based on everything but the rule of law, we are well into Banana Republic territory. The American people have had a two-tiered justice system shoved in their faces for long enough. They are looking for candidates and elected officials who understand what time it is in America and fight back – not just talk about it. Historical awareness dictates that this threat to our justice system must be destroyed at every level of government.
As to political consequences, Republicans in Congress need to get a clue. The American people are angry and fed up with political posturing with no results. Year after year after year, we see the likes of Lindsay Graham and other Uni-party Republicans with veins popping out on their foreheads, pounding the table to assure us that they are going to “investigate” Democrats and their bureaucratic lap dogs for all manner of crimes against the American people. Have we ever seen any of these judiciary committee investigations produce one iota of justice for the American people? No. Not one.
Thinking, aware Americans are sick of any Republican who is willing to be nothing more than controlled opposition.
How will this impact Trump’s electability? Yesterday was the day Donald Trump’s election as the 47th President of the United States was confirmed. His small dollar donations are soaring. People laboring under today’s growing economic distress who will sacrifice to donate to any political campaign will crawl over broken glass to get that candidate elected. The giant is now fully awake.