The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog.

Donald Trump may claim he’s immune to prosecution for multiple crimes to overturn the 2020 election results, but you can read the Government’s just-released response to federal District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan showing why he acted as a private citizen and must be held accountable. Trump’s trial should have started last spring but was upended by the Supreme Court’s long-delayed landmark ruling that a President is immune for crimes charged if they are committed as part of his official duties. Special Counsel Jack Smith has demonstrated in a riveting 165-page response why Trump was acting as a private citizen, committing crimes as a candidate for office, not in his public capacity, and only to further his own private interests.

There were, of course, multiple crimes “to disrupt through fraud and deceit the government function by which votes are collected and counted – a function in which the defendant, as President, had no official role.” In short, Trump was acting as an office seeker not as an office holder. The details of what Trump and his co-conspirators did are voluminously laid out: the decision made in advance of the 2020 election to claim he had won; the multiple charges of election fraud debunked in more than 60 court cases; the evidence that his private advisors had told him his claims were false; candidate Trump’s repeated pressures on targeted state officials (all Republicans who resisted his false claims); the widespread conspiracy with his private lawyers and staffers to create false slates of electors; the heavy-duty campaign to pressure Mike Pence, as Senate president charged with counting the electoral votes; his incitement to violence by MAGA supporters at the private rally on January 6th; and his disregard for the officials whose lives were endangered by the pattern of lies he created out of whole cloth.

The Government’s document (superseding the indictment that was issued prior to the Supreme Court’s case-interrupting immunity decision) outlines the legal framework for establishing why none of the allegations and evidence are protected by presidential by immunity. The document goes state by state, crime by crime, in staggering detail. It includes a trail of emails and tweets between and among Trump and numerous co-conspirators. It cites both a plethora of witness statements from those inside and outside Trump’s circle and also videotape evidence of Trump’s illegal incitements and fraudulent claims. (The Washington Post has identified the key co-conspirators whose names were redacted.)

One of the most significant takeaways for me was Vice President Mike Pence’s heroism under repeated attacks by Donald Trump trying to force him to break the law. Despite four years spent largely as Trump’s lap dog, Pence refused to bow to Trump’s unyielding pressure on him to accept to accept slates of fake electors or otherwise delay the certification of the 2020 electoral vote. Even with his life endangered by Trump’s explicit threats and his inciting the insurrection terrorists to do citizen Trump’s dirty work, Mike Pence bravely stood firm. It is not hyperbole to say that, on January 6, 2021, Mike Pence – with backup from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi – saved our democracy. (Pence showed far more spine than the craven GOP members of Congress who today privately disparage Trump but publicly continue to enable him.)

Trump continues to prove in many ways that he is unfit to be President of the United States. He has made clear that whatever illegal and norm-busting actions he took during his first term are just a lukewarm hint of what he has in mind if he has a second term. That’s why, despite their policy differences with Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, a host of prominent courageous Republicans – including Liz Cheney, Jeff Flake, Nancy Kassebaum, Mickey Edwards, and Adam Kinzinger – are actively supporting her. More than 100 former members of Congress and national security officials from Republican administrations (Reagan, H.W. Bush, W. Bush and Trump) have signed a letter outlining why Donald Trump is “unfit to serve again.” Other letters have some 200 signatories including those who have worked for previous Republican nominees, including Mitt Romney. Romney has declined to come out publicly for Harris out of fear, he says, for his family’s safety. Pence himself now says that “anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be president of the United States.”

Now, a month from the 2024 elections and before a repeatedly Trump-delayed trial can commence, it’s up to the voters to save our democracy. Given how close the race is, it’s not enough for never-Trumpers to abstain, vote for a third party candidate, or write in a symbolic protest vote. Whatever their policy differences with Kamala Harris, they need to acknowledge that policy differences can be debated and changed. Ceding the election to a would-be authoritarian dictator is a challenge that can’t be easily overcome. Not to decide is to decide.