Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter (no relation to this author), who remains in Congress despite facing trial for swiping campaign donor money to fuel his own five-mistress-having lifestyle (his wife pled guilty last month and could yet become a star witness against her money-stealing mistress-having husband, if she has had enough of him), filed a pre-trial motion asking the federal judge overseeing his case to dismiss the charges. The reason: Hunter says the charges are a conspiracy by the ever-malevolent deep state, or in this case by pro-Clinton assistant U.S. attorneys, to ruin him for his valiant truth-telling or Trump-liking or mistress-having or take your pick, and help install a Democratic congressperson in his district. This was hardly a surprising move. Whenever anybody within spitting distance of Donald Trump gets indicted for crookedness they are all quick to make the claim that it is a plot against them. There's not a lot of remorse to be had in this crowd, so the argument reliably tends to revolve not around "I did not commit this crime" but "investigators only found out about this crime because The Liberals are conspiring against me."
That's not going to fly, U.S. District Judge Thomas Whelan ruled Monday. He dismissed the motion; Hunter will stand trial.
That was always a long shot. A less-long long shot was Hunter's second request: If the case is not dismissed outright, it should at least be moved to a district where the jury pool more strongly supports Trump, in order to foil his own district's aforementioned evil, conspiring Democrats. Hunter's lawyers offered the Eastern District of California as new venue, which certainly fits the bill.
Hunter cannot get a fair trial in San Diego County because of the news reports against him, Hunter's team argued. He stands a better chance in a more Trump-supporting judicial district because those voters are less likely to ... let's say, read.
Nope. Judge Whelan shot down that motion as well.
He did say the issue would be revisited during jury selection, so Hunter might have a bit of grasping hope on that one—if the jury selection process gives credence to his claims that there are no jurors in the entire district who can be trusted to treat him fairly. Given the Trumpian nature of the county, however, the odds of that are very, very small.
Hunter's trial will begin in September. It will likely be extremely entertaining, both for the evidence presented and Hunter's apparent inability to come up with any defense that does not revolve around secret conspiracies against him.