You can read and download the indictment here.

I am still making my way through it. I may have more to say later.

In case you were wondering what I have been doing with myself lately …

With impeccable timing, I have chosen the eve of the issuance of the Georgia Trump indictment to publish … a 16,000 word essay I have worked on for weeks about the last indictment.

You know, the one for stealing the election.

I have split up this newsletter into two gigantic sections. Gigantic Section Number One (8,900 words) addresses prudential arguments made by conservatives that the indictment sweeps up too much protected First Amendment activity and sets a bad precedent for the future. Here is the conclusion of my argument:

In short, the argument I have made here goes as follows: Donald Trump tried to steal a presidential election, a horrific action that would have destroyed the country if it had succeeded. While there are prudential arguments against prosecuting such activity, there are also prudential arguments against establishing a policy of never prosecuting such activity. Rather than throwing up our hands and being paralyzed with indecision, we should draw a line, and decide whether this case falls on the prosecutable part of the line. I conclude that it does.

Assuming Smith has the evidence to prove the elements of the charged crimes beyond a reasonable doubt, Trump engaged in a lot more than just protected advocacy. In addition to threatening at least one state official with prosecution if that official did not alter the vote count in Trump’s favor, Trump allegedly tried (and I believe did try) to engineer a scheme where his co-conspirators would present fake documentation to Congress as a pretext for them and/or Vice President Pence to ignore the will of the people and install Trump through a sham.

If you have a provable case, prudence requires that you bring this case, so that nothing like this ever happens again.

And here is a teaser from Gigantic Section Number Two, the 7,600-word paid section:

Is It Enough to Show Trump Deliberately Blinded Himself to the Truth?

Many people ask: but what if Trump willfully blinded himself to the truth? For example, Jack Smith describes a meeting among Trump, Pence, John Eastman, and others in which Trump tried to convince Pence to throw the election to him. Smith alleges at paragraph 92:

The Defendant deliberately excluded his White House Counsel from the meeting because the White House Counsel previously had pushed back on the Defendant’s false claims of election fraud.

Indeed, throughout the indictment, Trump is shown to be willfully ignoring any and all evidence that showed he lost. This passage from Smith’s description of the Raffensperger call is a good illustration:

When the Georgia Secretary of State then offered a link to a video that would disprove Co-Conspirator l’s claims, the Defendant responded, ” I don’t care about a link, I don’t need it. I have a much, [Georgia Secretary of State], I have a much better link.”

Is this sort of behavior relevant to show a fraudulent or corrupt intent on Trump’s part? I think it might be.

There’s a lot of law talkin’, for those who like that sort of thing.

Read it here. Subscribe here.