Seismic Shift for Trump in 2024 Race as Democrats’ Rhetoric, Presidential Debate, Lawfare Backfire

Donald Trump and JD Vance at RNC

A seismic shift has occurred in the 2024 presidential race as the Democrats’ rhetoric, debate performance, and persistent lawfare against former President Donald Trump have appeared to backfire on them, with support for him continuing to increase, including after the assassination attempt.

Trump has been called a “threat to democracy” by Democrats, charged with numerous felony counts in federal and state cases, debated President Joe Biden with CNN moderators, and survived an assassination attempt, all of which have appeared to backfire on Democrats in the presidential race and increase the former president’s popularity as he runs to return to the White House.

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Mar-a-Lago Case Dismissal Could Spell the End of Smith’s D.C. Prosecution and Anti-Trump Lawfare

Mar-a-Lago Documents

After surviving an assassination attempt over the weekend, Trump began the week with good news in the form of Judge Aileen Cannon dismissing special counsel Jack Smith’s Mar-a-Lago case against him in a seismic ruling that could spell the end of his federal legal woes and build on his existing momentum in the national spotlight.

Smith had charged Trump in connection with his storage and retention of materials at his Mar-a-Lago estate, which the FBI raided in August of 2022. Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Smith in late 2022 to pursue the case and he brought an initial indictment in 2023. Trump pleaded not guilty though Smith in July of that year brought a superseding indictment with additional charges. The former president has long maintained he was innocent of any wrongdoing and that the case was part of a broader political witch hunt designed to derail his 2024 bid for the White House.

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Julie Kelly Commentary: Meltdown in Florida

“I’m going to ask that you just calm down. I understand this is sensitive and it’s difficult, but these questions are briefed and they’re before the Court.” So said Judge Aileen Cannon to David Harbach, one of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s lead prosecutors in the government’s espionage and obstruction case against former president Donald Trump, during a hearing on Wednesday. While temperatures spiked outside the federal courthouse in Fort Pierce, Florida throughout the day, so too did the climate inside Cannon’s courtroom.

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Commentary: Judge Cannon Puts Jack Smith on Trial

Jack Smith

U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon may have just indefinitely postponed Donald Trump’s espionage and obstruction trial but that doesn’t mean her federal courtroom in Fort Pierce, Florida will lie dormant over the next few months.

In officially vacating the existing May 20 trial date—an impossibility considering the defendant will be in a Manhattan courtroom for the foreseeable future—Cannon declined to set another date, calling it “imprudent” at this stage of the process. She noted a “myriad” of unresolved matters in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s 42-count indictment against the former president and his two co-defendants, Mar-a-Lago employees Waltine Nauta and Carlos De Olivera, for willfully retaining national defense information and attempting to impede the government’s investigation.

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Commentary: Unredactions Reveal Early White House Involvement in Trump Documents Case

Stern Su Trump

Top Biden administration officials worked with the National Archives to develop Special Counsel Jack Smith’s case against Donald Trump involving the former president’s alleged mishandling of classified material, according to recently unsealed court documents in the case pending in southern Florida.

More than 300 pages of newly unredacted exhibits, containing emails and other correspondence related to the early stages of the hunt for presidential papers, challenge public statements by Joe Biden about what he knew and when he knew it regarding the case against his political rival.

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Trump Calls for Sanctions, Censure of Special Counsel Jack Smith

Jack Smith and Donald Trump (composite image)

Former President Donald Trump called for special counsel Jack Smith to be sanctioned or censured for “attacking” the judge in Trump’s classified documents case. 

Trump’s comments on Thursday come after Smith and his team of prosecutors made it clear they think Judge Aileen Cannon’s latest ruling was based on “an unstated and fundamentally flawed legal premise.” Prosecutors objected to Cannon’s order to produce proposed jury instructions under two different legal scenarios. Smith said both legal scenarios were flawed.

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