Poll: Most Americans Want Trump to Stand Trial Before Election

An overwhelming majority of Americans believe Donald Trump should stand trial before the 2024 election, according to a new Politico Magazine/Ipsos poll published Friday.

Roughly three in five people, or 61 percent of poll respondents, think the federal trial on Trump’s attempt to overthrow the 2020 election should take place before the general election in November 2024.

The poll, which surveyed 1,032 Democratic, Republican, and independent adults, is more bad news for the Republican Party’s front-runner. Trump has thus far spun his indictments as a “witch hunt” and painted himself a victim, not a perpetrator. 

In the new poll, nearly 90 percent of Democrats want an early trial date for Trump, while a third of Republicans agree. But what’s really damning are the responses from independents, a group Trump sorely needs to secure the presidency.

Sixty-three percent of independents said Trump should stand trial before the general election, a sharp increase from the 48 percent who responded to a similar question Politico/Ipsos asked in June, following Trump’s indictment in the classified documents case. This shows that independent voters are taking Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election quite seriously.

There are other damning numbers for Trump as well. The poll found that a majority of Americans believe that the federal 2020 election subversion case was based on a fair evaluation of the evidence, including 64 percent of independents. Additionally, roughly one-third of independents said that a conviction in the Department of Justice’s election case would make them less likely to support Trump.

The poll also showed that about half of the country (51 percent) believes Trump is guilty in both the Justice Department’s case on the 2020 election and the case out of Fulton County, Georgia, on overturning that state’s election results. A slightly higher 52 percent of respondents believe Trump is guilty in the Justice Department’s classified documents case.

Sarah Palin has called for people to “rise up” and potentially start a civil war over Donald Trump’s arrest in Georgia.

Trump surrendered to authorities in the Peach State Thursday evening, marking the fourth time he has been indicted and arrested this year. He is charged with felony racketeering for trying to overthrow the state’s 2020 presidential election results.

Palin expressed her outraged (and outrageous) opinion during an interview with Newsmax Thursday night.

“Those who are conducting this travesty and creating this two-tiered system of justice, and I want to ask them, ‘What the heck? Do you want us to be in civil war?’ Because that’s what’s going to happen. We’re not going to keep putting up with this,” Palin told host Eric Bolling.

“And Eric, I like that you suggested that we need to get angry. We do need to rise up and take our country back.”

Palin is now at least the second prominent right-wing figure to casually throw the concept of civil war around this week. Trump opted to release an interview with Tucker Carlson on Wednesday instead of participating in the first Republican presidential debate. At one point, Carlson asked Trump if he believed the United States is headed for “civil war.”

Trump began reminiscing about the January 6 riot, saying there was “tremendous passion, and … tremendous love” in the crowd, as well as “such hatred of what they’ve done to our country.”

Republicans’ tacit condoning of violent attacks is dangerous. Political violence has been steadily increasing in recent years, and it can be directly traced back to this kind of rhetoric.

Donald Trump surrendered to authorities in Georgia on Thursday evening, marking the fourth time he has been indicted and arrested this year.

This time, he was treated like other criminal defendants.

The Fulton County Sheriff’s Office booked him as inmate number P01135809. He was also registered as being 6’3”,  215 pounds, and with “blond or strawberry” hair color.

The Fulton County Sheriff’s office also released a photo of Trump’s mug shot. Fulton County Sheriff Pat Labat had promised earlier this month that the former president would get no special treatment and would have his mug shot taken.

And the list of alleged crimes is long: Trump has been charged with 13 criminal counts for his attempts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia. He has also pleaded not guilty to dozens of other charges related to making hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels, mishandling classified documents at his Florida estate, and trying multiple times to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Here is a list of all 91 official charges he faces.

Georgia: 13 counts

1 count of racketeering

3 counts of solicitation of violation of oath by public officer

2 counts of false statements and writings

1 count of conspiracy to commit impersonating a public officer

2 counts of conspiracy to commit forgery in the first degree

2 counts of conspiracy to commit false statements and writings

1 count of conspiracy to commit filing false documents

1 count of filing false documents

Washington: 4 counts

1 count of conspiracy to defraud the United States

1 count of conspiracy to corruptly obstruct an official proceeding

1 count of obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding

1 count of conspiracy against the right to vote

Florida: 40 counts

32 counts of willful retention of national defense information

1 count of conspiracy to obstruct justice

1 count of withholding a document or record

1 count of corruptly concealing a document or record

1 count of concealing a document in a federal investigation

1 count of scheme to conceal

1 count of false statements and representations

1 count of altering, destroying, mutilating, or concealing an object

1 count of corruptly altering, destroying, mutilating. or concealing a document, record, or other object

New York: 34 counts

34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree

Vivek Ramaswamy is trying to use his presidential campaign as an excuse to wiggle out of legal proceedings against him.

Ramaswamy was a board member of both Roivant Sciences, which he founded in 2014, and Sumitovant Biopharma until earlier this year. Sumitovant successfully negotiated to acquire Roivant subsidiary Myovant in October 2022. Under the deal, which was completed in March, Sumitovant agreed to pay $27 per share for all outstanding Myovant shares.

But soon after, the investment management firm Alpine Partners, a now-former Myovant shareholder, launched an appraisal rights lawsuit to determine that it and other shareholders had been fairly compensated for their stock. Alpine requested that Ramaswamy testify and provide materials about “how Sumitovant valued Myovant at the time of the merger and the negotiating process that led to the merger.” Alpine’s subpoena set Ramaswamy’s testimony for June 30; the filing also gave him a 30-day grace period to comply.

Ramaswamy responded on July 27, saying that he couldn’t possibly testify because he is too busy running for president.

“As a candidate for President of the United States, I must frequently travel across the United States to campaign, make speeches, give media interviews, and meet with voters,” he said in a court filing. “Consequently, I am often away from home, and when I am home it is often not until late in the evening after a full campaign day.”

“The subpoena request and resulting discovery would therefore constitute an undue burden and will materially affect my ability to run for higher office.”

Ramaswamy also insisted that he does not have “any material knowledge of the transaction that is the basis of the underlying Appraisal Proceeding.”

The judge has yet to rule on Ramaswamy’s motion. But Ramaswamy clearly thinks that he is above the law now that he is running for president.

Ramaswamy isn’t the only person using his campaign to avoid legal trouble. It seems he has taken the cue from Donald Trump, who is facing a mountain of lawsuits. He has repeatedly tried to set trial dates for well after the election, hoping that he will win and thus be immune from multiple cases.

Elon Musk’s reckless tweeting has once again come back to bite him.

The Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against SpaceX on Wednesday, alleging that the company discriminated against refugees and asylees. And it cited one of Musk’s own tweets as proof.

In June 2020, Musk tweeted that “US law requires at least a green card to be hired at SpaceX, as rockets are considered advanced weapons technology.”

The lawsuit lists this tweet as just one of a few public discriminatory statements that SpaceX’s CEO has made over the years. The lawsuit alleges that these public statements were intended to discourage refugees and asylees from applying to SpaceX. Those who did end up applying were not fairly considered, according to the lawsuit.

According to the suit, SpaceX repeatedly wrongly stated in job postings and public statements that the company could “only hire U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents” from at least September 2018 to May 2022.

The lawsuit also alleges that SpaceX “wrongly claimed” that U.S. export laws prevented it from hiring refugees and asylees. “Export control laws and regulations do not prohibit or restrict employers from hiring asylees and refugees; those laws treat asylees and refugees just like U.S. citizens,” the lawsuit says.

The investigation into discrimination was launched in May 2020 by the Department of Justice’s Immigrant and Employee Rights section, but was stalled significantly by SpaceX’s unwillingness to cooperate. SpaceX tried to slow down the DOJ’s investigation and only provided requested documents a full year after they were first requested.