The political reaction to Donald Trump’s indictment predictably has been a mess, but Ted Cruz actually made a good point — then, of course, quickly ruined it.
The Republican senator from Texas was responding to the following tweet from former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi:
The Grand Jury has acted upon the facts and the law.
— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) March 31, 2023
No one is above the law, and everyone has the right to a trial to prove innocence.
Hopefully, the former President will peacefully respect the system, which grants him that right.
Law students can recognize a problem lurking in the California Democrat’s otherwise laudatory statement that no one is above law. The problem is that defendants don’t need to prove their innocence at trial. Defendants have no burden at all. Rather, the burden is on the government to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt. (Also, if I’m being picky, and I am, we can’t presume that the grand jury “acted upon the facts and the law,” though a judge will review transcripts of the grand jury presentation in evaluating Trump’s inevitable motion to dismiss the indictment.)
Cruz, a former Supreme Court clerk and litigator, is aware of the burden of proof in criminal cases. And despite Trump having nastily attacked Cruz and his family in the past, the senator nonetheless defended his party’s de facto leader:
This tweet—and the indictment it’s praising—is a mockery of our justice system. Cruz is correct that Pelosi had it backward. But he took a wrong turn in prejudging the case by calling it “frivolous & an abuse of power.” As I wrote earlier today, there’s just no way for us to meaningfully start analyzing the case before knowing the charges and the prosecution’s theory of the case. Stay tuned as our politicians continue to embarrass themselves as this historic case unfolds.
Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro," a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined MS NOW, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.
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Pelosi says Trump has a “right” to “prove [his] innocence.”
That’s exactly BACKWARDS: Under our Constitution, you’re innocent until proven guilty.
The indictment is frivolous & an abuse of power. pic.twitter.com/E6qkCO0SrN
