Briefly Noted: Drones And Lawfare
I know—it sounds like two overlapping topics. And it’s true that I don’t even have an educated guess to offer, but there is matter of interest in these items.
First, the drones. There appears to be a mistranslation or unclear translation in the first tweet. I don’t know the Russian, but I can guess (based on my Polish) that “since” reflects an original that really means something like “as of” or “up to”. “Kept” probably reflects an original verb in the imperfect aspect—meaning continued or repeated activity. So the first paragraph probably means: “As of this morning, American recon aircraft were continuing to operate in the Black Sea area.”
Rybar Force
@rybar_force
Now this is interesting. Since this morning, American recon aircraft have kept operating in the Black Sea area. Along the Romanian and Bulgarian coast, as well as in the SW Black Sea, MQ-9A [Reaper], RQ-4B [Global Hawk] and R-8A [RQ-8A?] operated. But,
12:38 PM · Aug 3, 2023
just a couple of hours ago, the Reaper left the zone with emergency squawk code 7600 and went to Câmpia Turzii Air Base, Romania, and after some time the Global Hawk went back to Sigonella with code 7400.
These, of course, may be technical issues with American UAVs. But we'd like to believe that the issues with these aircraft, which provide targeting for Ukrainian UAVs, arose due to the actions of our electronic warfare units, which are disrupting the work of US intelligence.
You can find a full list of “squawk” or transponder codes here. Here are the two named codes as described:
7400 US, UK, Australia Unmanned aerial vehicle lost link.
7600 ICAO Radio failure (lost communications).
I’ll hazard a guess and suggest that the simultaneous communication failures of these two drones—which provide targeting information against Russia—was probably a result of Russian action. This may be a Russian escalation short of a shootdown. In any event, this illustrates the type of EW cat and mouse game that is ongoing. The use of US drones to actively seek out and provide targeting information to Ukraine seems to me to be an unquestionable act of war. While Russia has responded with restraint, this is the type of thing that they will certainly not forget.
Now as for lawfare—the Ruling Class jihad against Trump—I’ve looked at various articles that explain the latest indictment. There uniformly scathing, and for good reason—the basic legal theory behind the charges has been previously used by Smith against a GOP candidate and was rejected 8-0 by the SCOTUS. Here’s an article that reviews the purely theoretical issues of law involved in the indictment in what I believe is a pretty clear and succinct style:
6 Ways Jack Smith’s Latest Indictment Is Legally Flawed And Politically Shady
This is the author (I’ve cited him in the past):
Will Scharf is a former federal prosecutor, who also worked on the confirmations of Supreme Court Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. He is currently a Republican candidate for Missouri Attorney General.
Scharf says everything you’d expect him to say about the attempted criminalization of political speech and related issues—which, as noted, was previously attempted by Smith and rejected resoundingly by the SCOTUS in the Bob McDonnell case in VA. The big question going forward, however, seems to be whether Trump would be best served by insisting on a speedy trial or by dragging the process out with thorough discovery. This is an issue of legal tactics—but also of political tactics. I’ve seen commentators coming down on both sides and I have to admit that I’m not qualified to decide.
Scharf states that the repeated Dem calls for a speedy trial are pure cynicism. I suspect he’s absolutely correct—they see political advantage in bringing Trump to trial ASAP. On the other hand, could it be that they’re wrong about this? It wouldn’t be the first time. Are they really ready to go to trial and, if they’re not, would Trump be better served by pushing the issue himself? I suspect they’re not ready for a serious trial but want to sucker Trump into dragging the process out—while they smear him in the media. But maybe I’m wrong about that.
Here’s what Scharf says, in general. His views seem, to me, to be pretty inarguable:
As he did with his original indictment in the documents, Jack Smith accompanied his announcement of charges yesterday with a cynical call for a “speedy trial.” More than anything else, Smith’s insistence that these cases that he is bringing should be tried at the height of a presidential election adds fuel to the fire of Trump’s expressed view that the special counsel is waging a political campaign against him, not a valid legal investigation.
…
… In the documents case, Smith followed his speedy trial call with a voluminous discovery production consisting of close to a million pages of documentary evidence, nine months of video recordings, and terabytes of data to be analyzed by Trump’s defense team. He then proceeded to file a superseding indictment adding new charges and a new defendant. That case was either ready for trial at the time it was brought, or it wasn’t, but Smith can’t have it both ways — his public statements and court filings amount to a gaslighting of the federal court and indeed of the American people.
…
Inserting this case into the presidential election season has all the appearances of an attempt by Smith to substitute the judgment of his office, a single judge, and 12 D.C. jurors for the millions of Americans who would otherwise have had the opportunity to weigh these facts, alongside all the other political considerations that go into a presidential election. ...
Prosecuting a political opponent during a presidential election in this manner smacks of banana republic politics.
Jeff Childers substack from Aug. 2nd lays it out in a way I more easily understand (indictments).
(Apologies for the length).
"First, nearly all the conduct described in the four counts is speech, and not just speech, but political speech. Political speech is the most protected kind of speech under the Constitution’s First Amendment. That probably won’t stop the Obama-appointed judge from letting the case survive an inevitable motion to dismiss, but my initial take is the counts can’t survive without rewriting the Constitution.
The situation is slightly more complicated because the DOJ framed the counts as “fraud,” which is a type of speech that isn’t protectable, but that raises its own problems. Even if Trump did lie, which is debatable, lying isn’t illegal, not without something more, like being under oath, or harming someone who relied on the lie.
So the DOJ must first prove Trump lied, and then it must marry the lies to something else that can except them from First Amendment protection.
Which brings us to the DOJ’s next big problem, which is an interesting twist. A central material issue in this shiny new indictment is the truth or falsity of whether significant 2020 election fraud occurred or not. After all, the DOJ is claiming that Trump “lied” about election fraud, thereby — ironically — committing a fraud of his own.
In other words, they’re saying Trump committed fraud by alleging fraud. You can’t make this stuff up.
Now cast your mind back two years. Remember that none of Trump’s 2020 lawsuits ever got a chance to present evidence, since they were all dismissed on technical or procedural grounds. None of them got to take discovery, either.
But this time, now that he and his lawyers are defendants in a criminal case, President Trump can not only put on evidence of election fraud, but he must. And before that, he will have the right to conduct discovery under the demanding federal rules. And they’re not going to like it.
And, while I’m sure the giddy prosecutors are currently planning to just sit back and make Trump’s lawyers prove there was election fraud, the prosecutors will soon confront another unpleasant surprise related to what they must prove.
Right now, the prosecutors think proving their case will be easy and they won’t have to do much. But, as Trump’s lawyers begin to assemble evidence of election fraud — much of which was already pulled together in 2020 (but never considered by a court) — the DOJ prosecutors will start to realize at some point that they can’t just remain silent. They don’t see it yet, but they will eventually have to prove the negative; they will have to prove that election fraud didn’t happen.
They can’t just rely on “everybody knows” there wasn’t voter fraud. They can’t just wave their hands at the dismissed 2020 cases. They’ll almost certainly have to prove the absence of fraud.
And that, they cannot prove. Not only because proving a negative is incredibly difficult, but because it’s already very clear there was significant fraud, as demonstrated by sources like 2,000 mules. Plus, the more they look into whether fraud happened, the more it will hurt the government case.
Finally, of course, bringing this case two and a half years after January 6th during the middle of a presidential election campaign — against a candidate — is a total Banana Republic move. I’m expecting to see Joe Biden pop up wearing a medal-covered jacket covered any day now."
Scharf cuts to the chase as he shows Smith's obtuseness in bringing these political charges framed as speech crimes against Trump. I would like to see, as one of Trump's lawyers indicated, a new avenue of discovery into the asserted election fraud and the government and media campaign to silence any who disagreed on social media.
Another angle I've seen commented on, is how each time a negative Biden 'bombshell' story such as the Archer testimony hits the news cycle, a new indictment is landed on Trump. With all the new derogatory information on the Biden bribe scheme coming out and still to be released, the democrats are running out of future indictment possibilities.
A final thought. Do you suppose any of the Biden family members who received the dispersed bribe money in those shell company accounts declared that as income and paid taxes on that income? You know, not the major players like Joe, Jim, and Hunter, but the sisters, wives, children, etc.? If not, it seems they would be exposed as potential IRS investigative targets as well.