Honestly that bit about how even some of the press people who were there, don't believe it, is itself a good argument for it being staged.
I am also really curious how the trial goes. Because as it stands, it very easily could be spun up as not even an "assassination attempt". He didn't get anywhere near Trump, it seems like he didn't even get in the room. He may not have even fired shots. I mean, overall, he could be found guilty of something, just not "assassination."
I wonder about that, too, because the legal definition of an attempt is often tricky. In England the
Criminal Attempts Act 1981 tells us that
If, with intent to commit an offence to which this section applies, a person does an act which is more than merely preparatory to the commission of the offence, he is guilty of attempting to commit the offence.
So being found trying to force the lock on a door is probably attempted burglary, assuming the jury thinks that's why the defendant was trying to force the lock, that is, but simply being near the locked door with a set of lockpicks probably isn't, since any intended burglary is still at the "merely preparatory" stage (though it may well be
Going equipped for stealing).
Assuming US law is similar, I'd think that he was well beyond the merely preparatory stage by the time he emailed his letter to The New York Daily News and left his hotel room with a loaded gun, but it's less clear what he was actually preparing to do. To my mind it looks like attempted murder, even though he didn't get anywhere near the ballroom, but I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say the evidence supported, to the criminal standard, the attempted murder of any particular individual.
So charging it as an attempted assassination of the president, as opposed to the attempted murder of any of the members of the administration he could find, may be pushing things a bit.
But I don't know what the US law is on the subject, or what the evidence is.
If the grand jury throw it out, I'll laugh like a drain.
