Trey Gowdy says case against Trump is part 'dead,' part has 'faint pulse'

By 
 July 5, 2024

During a Hannity special on Fox News on Wednesday, former congressman Trey Gowdy weighed in on the case against former President Donald Trump in the aftermath of the Supreme Court ruling on the immunity of former presidents from prosecution for official acts. 

"Here's the way I read Jack Smith's D.C. case: Part of it is dead, part of it has a faint pulse, it's on life support, and then you have the fake elector scheme, which is going to require fact-finding, it's going to require hearings, not a trial, but hearings," Gowdy said.

He called the fake elector prosecution in Georgia a "Lifetime movie," referring to the situation in which the district attorney and lead prosecutor were found to be having an affair.

Gowdy seemed to think there was little chance of any serious legal action against Trump before the election, and noted that if Trump did win, "a Trump Justice Department is not going to prosecute the boss."

Conviction may be tossed

Even the sentencing of Trump by Judge Juan Merchan after a jury convicted him of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records is in question, Gowdy said, because some of the evidence introduced in the trial was from Trump's time as president and likely falls under the immunity ruling.

The ruling was a huge victory for Trump, and Merchan acknowledged that the case against him in New York might not stand against it when he postponed the sentencing two months "if such is still necessary."

Trump repeatedly raised the issue of immunity during the trial, but Merchan refused to consider it. Neither did the judges in his other indictments until the Supreme Court stepped in to settle the issue.

Now they all have to face the fact that most of these prosecutions should not have been brought against a former president in the first place, no matter how much the prosecutors hate Trump.

Trump railed against Smith in a series of Truth Social posts on the July 4th holiday, saying, “Someone else that I have to compliment is a Deranged Biden Prosecutor named Jack Smith, who has become a Legend in his own mind for all of those cases he has lost. The Corrupt Prosecutors are working hard for Crooked Joe, but it will never be enough – MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas suggested in a concurring opinion to the immunity ruling that Smith's appointment as special counsel may have been unconstitutional because he was a private citizen at the time and did not go through a congressional confirmation process.

" A free people [claim] their rights, as derived from the laws of nature."
Thomas Jefferson