To win a legal argument a lawyer must wield a blunt instrument, the law, with precision. A prosecutor must prove every element of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt or there is no conviction. There are many ways for wealthy, politically connected defendants to game the system and gain long delays in trial, conviction and sentencing. Ultrawealthy scofflaws enjoy tremendous advantages in court, as in life, and it is frustrating as hell to watch these litigious fucks run roughshod over law and decency.

Once in a blue moon we have a moment of seeming legal clarity. It is a beautiful thing to see an indictment lay out a case against one of these fucks that allows for no reasonable doubt. You can read that kind of indictment here, the very readable superseding indictment Jack Smith’s office recently brought against serial offender Donald J. Chrump.

The indictment uses plain language to lay out in clear, crisp detail, every element of each of the four crimes the Orange Polyp has been indicted for. The superseding indictment steers clear of the MAGA Supreme Court’s unconstitutional made-for-Trump July ruling that presidents may legally commit crimes, if they do this in the course of carrying out their core “official duties”. (Thought experiment challenge — imagine a criminal act that would be necessary for a noncriminal president to commit in order to carry out his official duties).

The revamped indictment removes references to losing candidate Trump’s “official acts”, as when he sought to promote an unqualified loyalist, American Eichmann Jefferey Clarke, to Attorney General to give an official stamp to his Stolen Election lie, or when he told officials just to lie and his allies in Congress would do the rest. It is an easy read that leaves the reader in no doubt as to the guilt of the infallible criminal candidate in knowingly spreading a lie about the rigged and stolen 2020 election, using that lie to whip up duped supporters and raise money, arm twist, wheedle and threaten government officials, inviting election officials of a state he lost to the Oval Office to convince them to change the votes in their states, signing on to a fake elector plan, exhorting an angry crowd he’d lied to for over an hour, at a private event, to “fight like hell or you won’t have a country anymore” and taking no action, for hours, outside of stoking the mob’s anger at Mike Pence, as the peaceful mob of reverent tourists he inspired shut down a joint session of Congress.

In Defendant’s defense, during his hour long, lie-studded harangue of the angry mob at the Ellipse, a private event paid for by private funds (as Smith points out), losing candidate Trump used the word “peaceful” several times. So when he told them to go down to the Capitol to fight like hell or you won’t have a country anymore, he meant to fight peacefully, you know, as one does when your country is about to be stolen from you.

The law is a blunt instrument and many serious harms are considered trifles by a system of law, designed for all, that routinely favors the rich and powerful. It is a refreshing thing to see a case laid out as beautifully, as indisputably, as Jack Smith’s office did in the reworked election interference indictment of Trump. We can lament the many delays a spoiled, entitled, unaccountable, law suit wielding, blustering, lying, ultra-wealthy bully like Trump always gets, and that Merrick Garland, a stickler for norms and rules, waited so long to appoint a Special Counsel, but, damn, this indictment is good. Check it out.

Now we just have to make sure very fine American Nazis don’t steal the upcoming election for their criminal figurehead so the trial can go forward, with all deliberate speed, in the several cases of US v. Trump (and his indicted co-conspirators).