Ruth Marcus is a Fact-Free Concern Troll Who Writes for the Washington Post

 [Wapo, 8/6, Ruth Marcus: 'How Trump will fight back in court; Trump won't stay quiet for long']

The headline is factually wrong ('Trump won't stay quiet for long.'). Trump has never been quiet. This fact has been the dominant news story of the past days, weeks and months. CNN's on-line headline for 8/6 is concordant with this fact. It reads: "Trump and team seek to destroy credibility of his election subversion trial before a date is even set."

In a news analysis, CNN's Stephen Collinson explains:

"Donald Trump and his legal team are escalating efforts to discredit and delay a trial over his alleged attempt to overturn the 2020 election, as his fight to avert criminal convictions becomes ever more indistinguishable from his presidential campaign.

"The former president’s attorney Sunday vowed to petition to relocate the trial from Washington, DC, claiming that a local jury won’t reflects the “characteristics” of the American people. And as prosecutors seek a speedy trial, he warned that his team will seek to run out the process for years in an apparent attempt to move it past the 2024 election.

"Trump demanded the judge set to hear the case recuse herself in a flurry of assaults on the process that may fail legally, but will play into his campaign narrative that he is a victim of political persecution by the Biden administration designed to thwart a White House comeback."

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 The truth of the Jan. 6 indictment (and the classified dox indictment) is that Trump's attorneys know they have no chance of winning a jury trial, in part because Trump has already admitted enough to satisfy the factual and 'consciousness of guilt' components of the prosecution's case. 

"Try him in the press," Richard Nixon said to his minions in the Watergate Oval Office tapes. Nixon was referring to Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers. Nixon understood that the best legal strategy is to never let an issue get to trial in the first place. Trump's only strategy is like Nixon's -- to 'try it in the press.' This means a legal strategy of doing anything and everything (including threatening fact witnesses) at each procedural turn of the screw to push back the date of jury selection to never.

Trump can't and won't testify in Court on either case. He would be dissembled within a few minutes by a rookie prosecutor. To win the empathy of even one juror, Trump has to display the courage and conviction of an innocent, unjustly accused man. That requires having the spine to take the stand. But he can't and won't because Trump is a self-admitted serial liar. In the documents case he has already claimed to be doing purely recreational lying (cf. the secret Iran war plan he was waving around at Bedminster, NJ was just a sheaf of news clippings. Even when Trump says he's lying, he's lying.). 

Lying is like eating for Trump. He does it for necessity and for pleasure. Trump enjoys lying to people. He likes knowing that his supporters desperately want to believe his lies. He likes knowing that as a billionaire, his flacks, sycophants, minions and 'body men' must always pretend they believe his lies. ['you speak wise and beautiful truths, Sire ...'] 

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A meta-story emerging from the indictments of Trump is the inability of some (but not all) of the mainstream press to show even basic journalistic competence as fact-presenters. In the WaPo example here, the headline writer ('Trump won't stay quiet for long') is utterly clueless. Did they not even watch the news all weekend?

The Washington Post of 2023 is not that of 1973.  The WaPo then was breaking fresh, original news reporting on Watergate every day and week. Its reporters and columnists were well ahead of the news curve -- not miles behind it.

The WaPo and Ruth Marcus seem afflicted with the syndrome of covering a serious public event as if it were a sports contest. Each season, the Alabama Crimson Tide plays football against some tiny, non-ranked opponent. Because it's obvious Alabama will win by seven touchdowns, the sports reporters previewing the game are forced to fantasize about how the tiny college team 'could win.' 

Ruth Marcus does the same with Trump (this is how Trump 'could' win at trial). It is pure fantasy for pure fantasy's sake. It is like the YouTube videos which ask, "What if the Sun exploded tomorrow?"

If Marcus had listened to Trump attorney John Lauro on Sunday, 8/5, she would have heard John Lauro plainly state his goal is to never go to trial. The CNN story plainly states this:

"And as prosecutors seek a speedy trial, he (Lauro) warned that his team will seek to run out the process for years in an apparent attempt to move it past the 2024 election."

Ruth Marcus has no idea what John Lauro might or could say to any future Jan. 6 jury. This is because John Lauro doesn't know either. Lauro is like a criminal whose entire 'plan' is to not get caught. Once caught, there is no 'plan' because ... the plan was to not get caught. Lather, rinse, repeat.

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U.S. Dept. of Interior Secretary James Watt once said on tape to a convention of Amway distributors: "If you're too tied up in your music or your job to be an Amway distributor, that's fine. After all, we don't want everyone selling Amway ... Someone has to buy it."