Donald Trump throws a fit after learning Jared Kushner testified against him to Jack Smith’s grand jury
Anyone familiar with how grand juries work is well aware that Jared Kushner literally had no choice but to testify against Donald Trump. Grand jury subpoenas are not optional in any way. They can be challenged with regard to the scope of the testimony, but they can’t really be dragged out in court. Defying a grand jury subpoena would get you hauled in by the court. Pleading the Fifth isn’t an option when you’re not a co-conspirator to begin with. And lying to the grand jury to protect someone will just get you sent to prison for perjury.
It turns out Donald Trump apparently isn’t familiar with how grand juries work. The New York Times is now reporting that Trump was shocked and upset to learn that Kushner testified against him to the grand jury. If Trump knew how anything worked, or had competent lawyers around him who could explain to him how anything works, he wouldn’t have been surprised at all that Kushner testified against him. Everyone ends up having to testify to the grand jury in the end. There is no way for anyone to magically avoid it.
Then again, when people grow as desperate and hopeless as Donald Trump, they do tend to start relying on fantasies about how they’re going to magically survive it all. Perhaps Trump fantasized that if his relatives were defiant enough in the face of the grand jury, Jack Smith would simply give up and drop the probe. But nothing works that way. The worsening extent of Trump’s delusional rescue fantasies is the surest sign yet Trump has no reality-based way of surviving this.
