Depose the Despot

How do you think it would feel to know that a panoply of law enforcement agencies have you in their sights? Some of you who are reading this, may have had that experience and you know how it feels. Not good. Well, how would you like to be Orange Julius now? The thing about Orange Julius, though, is that he probably couldn’t care less.

Orange Julius has wriggled his way out of trouble, serious trouble, any number of times. He probably sees this as a challenge. And he likely also sees this as an opportunity – an opportunity to continue making baseless claims that only further solidify his anthropoids desire to make him God. 

Whichever way his warped mind sees it, hopefully, reality lies elsewhere. Many are saying that his greatest threat is posed by a conviction on one or more charges for: obstruction of justice based on January 6 and/or his stowing of national secrets in his basement; seditious conspiracy (a title that surely sounds like a watered-down version of treason); or even a state conviction for asking the Secretary of State of Georgia for a comp.

Now, that’s a lot of shit to have thrown at you. However, in a way, it is possible the Trump’s most dangerous threat comes from the civil suit filed by the New York State Attorney General.

This is not because of the Trump defenses that all of talking heads (and writing heads like me) continue to say are so difficult to overcome. It is true that any prosecutor has to get proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the events he surely caused were not just by indirection but were by his clear direction. Not easy when the defendant’s job – President of the United States – is to delegate everything. 

So, why is the civil suit so important? Well, surely, it’s not a criminal prosecution. The worst that can happen is that it costs Orange Crush some money, maybe a lot of money. Why should that worry him? He’s never had the amount of money that he has claimed to have anyway. Why not just continue to lie. Anyway, FOX will pay him many millions for a “Trump Tonight” talk show, maybe even more millions for a renewal of “The Apprentice.” It’s easy to envision the casting for that disturbing show. How about a panel of contestants consisting of Mark Meadows, Rudy Giuliani, Michael Flynn, Steve Bannon, and Stephen Miller. Now there’s a contest where no one should win.

But here’s why the civil suit filed by Attorney General Letitia James more important. It’s because in the course of the discovery phase, the Attorney General will be able to depose Orange Julius.  In criminal cases, the defendant never has to say anything, but in a civil suit Orange Julius would have to tell the truth under oath. He is physically incapable of doing that, so it will be a slam-dunk that he will perjury himself.

Yes, that may take a long time. If you take everything to trial, it takes many years. But the criminal cases aren’t exactly sprinting to the finish. The way civil trials work, it may not take as long as you think. You get to the discovery phase much faster than it will take to finish the damn thing. As soon as the deposition is taken, and as soon as Orange Julius utters no more than a dozen words, he will have lied. 

Typically, perjury is not that easy to prove. There are all kinds of nuances to whatever a person might say that makes it difficult to establish that what they said is, in fact, intentionally untrue. The genius of Orange Julius is that he lies so patently and so transparently and so often that the prosecutor most recently hired in the New York Attorney General’s Office could be expected to get a conviction.

So, roll on Letitia James. The sooner you get Orange Julius under oath, the sooner he will be under our thumb.