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Donald Trump thread v2.0


Muda69

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On 8/30/2022 at 10:57 AM, swordfish said:

Nearly 2 years later - the truth starts coming out......and members of the FBI at the highest level are complicit.  Watching the rats starting to abandon the ship......

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/09/12/justice-subpoena-trump-aides-00056274

The Justice Department has issued some 40 subpoenas to aides of former President Donald Trump regarding Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, POLITICO confirmed Monday.

The subpoenas, first reported by The New York Times, are a major step forward in the ongoing investigation of the events leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. They also come as Trump is dealing with a separate inquiry into his handling of presidential records and classified material that he took with him to his home in Florida after the end of his presidency. Trump’s lawyers and the Justice Department are currently in a protracted legal battle over the custody of those records.

Former Trump adviser Stephen Bannon was the first to discuss the recent batch of subpoenas, saying on his podcast last week that 35 had been issued. That number appears to have been a slight lowballing of the actual figure.

Among matters that investigators are reportedly looking into is Trump’s post-election fundraising and his efforts to overturn the election by appointing false electors. As POLITICO previously reported, a grand jury issued subpoenas last week seeking information about Trump’s Save America PAC.

On his show Monday night, Fox News host Tucker Carlson said he had obtained a copy of a subpoena that was issued and that it pertained to “any claim that the vice president and/or the president of the Senate had the authority to reject or to choose not to count presidential electors.” POLITICO was not able to independently verify the language of the subpoena.

40 Subpoenas - Desperation seems to be setting in on the January 6 committee.  Even the My Pillow guy got his phone confiscated......

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https://nypost.com/2022/09/21/ny-ag-letitia-james-sues-donald-trump-kids-and-company/

New York Attorney General Letitia James on Wednesday filed a $250 million lawsuit against former President Donald Trump, his kids Eric, Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr., and the Trump Organization — alleging “staggering” fraud in the family real estate business.

The 220-page civil suit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court is the culmination of a three-year investigation by the Democrat’s office to determine whether the Trump Organization’s assets were exaggerated for loan, insurance and tax purposes.

It seeks to tear away Trump’s ability to run businesses in the Empire State and to prohibit him and his company from buying up commercial real estate for several years.

“Donald Trump falsely inflated his net worth by billions of dollars to unjustly enrich himself, and cheat the system, thereby cheating all of us,” James said at a news conference announcing the suit.

“Claiming you have money that you do not have does not amount to the art of the deal, it’s the art of the steal,” she said, referring to Trump’s 1987 book.

 

SF would have to think if the charges listed against DJT had any factual basis, he would already be in jail......So the goal is obviously to keep litigating him until he isn't running in 2024.

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22 hours ago, swordfish said:

SF would have to think if the charges listed against DJT had any factual basis, he would already be in jail......So the goal is obviously to keep litigating him until he isn't running in 2024.

305622505_10220802027671594_2323736190560553093_n.jpg?_nc_cat=109&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=dbeb18&_nc_ohc=Jqu4enmocDwAX8-UEJi&_nc_ht=scontent-ort2-2.xx&oh=00_AT_WBbXeJvAlOpNASF9xY_XrkuB6-xrU_XI0a4ur8rbNQQ&oe=63310D2E

 

 

 

‘I’m not sure he’s going to escape jail’: could Trump’s legal woes prevent a 2024 run?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/21/donald-trump-lawsuit-new-york-investigation

Quote

Donald Trump’s legal perils have become insurmountable and could snuff out the former US president’s hopes of an election-winning comeback, according to political analysts and legal experts.

On Wednesday, Trump and three of his adult children were accused of lying to tax collectors, lenders and insurers in a “staggering” fraud scheme that routinely misstated the value of his properties to enrich themselves.

 

The civil lawsuit, filed by New York’s attorney general, came as the FBI investigates Trump’s holding of sensitive government documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and a special grand jury in Georgia considers whether he and others attempted to influence state election officials after his defeat there by Joe Biden.

The former US president has repeatedly hinted that he intends to run for the White House again in 2024. But the cascade of criminal, civil and congressional investigations could yet derail that bid.

“He’s done, said Allan Lichtman, a history professor at American University, in Washington, who has accurately predicted every presidential election since 1984. “He’s got too many burdens, too much baggage to be able to run again even presuming he escapes jail, he escapes bankruptcy. I’m not sure he’s going to escape jail.”

.......

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

WTF?  The FBI "offered" a million bucks for evidence (that didn't exist)?

https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/11/politics/steele-dossier-fbi-durham-danchenko/index.html

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/justice/republicans-react-report-fbi-offered-steele-1m-proof-dossier-claims

Republicans blast report that FBI offered Steele $1 million for proof of dossier claims

 October 12, 2022 01:20 PM

Republicans expressed shock and outrage after a report emerged that the FBI offered MI6 agent Christopher Steele up to $1 million to prove his salacious allegations against former President Donald Trump in his now-discredited dossier.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) described the revelation as a "disgrace," while others said it was an absurdity unbecoming of the foremost domestic intelligence and security service. Many pointed to the incident as evidence the FBI is corrupt and must be reined in.

"You can't make this stuff up. But I think it just underscores how out of touch and how political the FBI has become," Jordan said in an appearance on Fox Business, later adding the episode "further validates what we all know, which is that the FBI is purely political now, going after their political opposition."
"What a disgrace," Donald Trump Jr., son of former President Donald Trump, said regarding the news.
"Steele never got the money because he could not 'prove the allegations.'"

"Well, duh," the House Judiciary GOP Twitter account wrote, mocking the FBI's performance.


"The FBI allegedly tried to payout $1 million to corroborate reports about President Trump that Hillary Clinton’s campaign fabricated," Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) tweeted.

Many of the allegations in Steele's dossier have since been debunked, such as the claim the Trump campaign was colluding with Russia, which was undermined by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz's 2019 report. A watchdog also found the DOJ and the FBI put forth at least 17 “significant errors and omissions” related to the FISA warrants against Trump's 2016 campaign associate Carter Page and the FBI's reliance on the discredited dossier.

If Republicans win control of the House in the November midterm elections, Jordan will be poised to become chairman of the Judiciary Committee. The Ohio representative said he would use his new position to open investigations into the FBI over the Steele dossier, as well as several other recent incidents that Republicans decry as overreach.

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A "political hit job"?  Well DUH....

That's what she ran for election on.......

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/political-hit-job-bill-barr-blasts-letitia-james?utm_source=outbrain&utm_medium=rss_feed_full_aud_dskt&dicbo=v1-d5d51a22ef5b4f159b8400bb6c3b3ab9-007b53bdf6d85e0f464f54f4a4d7cc0278-ha3tkyzqha2geljxgmzgkljugjsweljymu4toljsmeytmnrwguygmodfmq

Former Attorney General William Barr slammed a lawsuit against his onetime boss, former President Donald Trump, highlighting its political undertones.

Barr contended that it is hard not to conclude that the suit, announced Wednesday by New York Attorney General Letitia James, is a "political hit job" and jabbed at James for engaging in "gross overreach" by dragging Trump's children into the suit, hypothesizing that the legal tiff will backfire against her.

"It's hard for me not to conclude it's a political hit job," Barr told Fox News. "I'm not even sure if she has a good case against Trump himself. But what ultimately persuades me that this is a political hit job is she grossly overreaches when she tries to drag the children into this."

James unveiled a massive $250 million civil lawsuit against Trump, three of his adult children, and management at the Trump Organization, alleging they engaged in a pattern of fraudulent and deceptive business practices.


She accused the Trumps of manipulating asset valuations for tax and business benefits and cited a litany of appraisals and other financial documents in her sprawling, 200-plus-page lawsuit. As part of the suit, she is seeking to ban Trump, Eric Trump, Ivanka Trump, and Donald Trump Jr. from being "an officer or director in any corporation" or similar entity in New York.

"Yes, they had roles in the business," Barr continued. "But this was his personal financial statement. It was prepared by the CFO, accounting firms were involved in it. Listen, the children aren't going to know the details of that ... nor are they expected in the real world to do their own due diligence."

Both Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. have tweeted clips of James's past remarks, in which she committed to "be a real pain in the a** to him." Trump himself also lambasted the suit as a "witch hunt." James noted during a press conference that the courts have not disqualified her from investigating Trump despite her past remarks.

James began her investigation into the Trump Organization in 2019 after former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen testified to Congress that Trump's business empire engaged in fraudulent activity. She claims to have uncovered evidence of criminal activity and has referred the matter to the IRS and the Southern District of New York.

"I think [it] is gonna end up backfiring on them because I think it will make people sympathetic for Trump. This is another example of people piling on because of a Trump derangement syndrome," Barr added.

Barr famously had a falling out with Trump during the waning days of his turbulent tenure atop the Justice Department, which he departed in December 2020. Barr and Trump were vehemently at odds over the former president's insistence that the election was "stolen" from him — assertions Barr called "bulls***."

Since his exit from the Trump administration, Barr has been candid about his opinion on Trump, prodding the GOP to select anyone other than his former boss to be the party standard-bearer in 2024. But he has also come to Trump's defense on several occasions.

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  • 4 weeks later...
55 minutes ago, WalterSobchak said:

If the GOP was smart they'd run Ron DeSantis or Brian Kemp in 24. 

Trump if he wins the nomination will kill the GOP.

I think last night changes things a little. 
Ron DeSantis doesn’t have to do anything right now except govern Florida. Let Trump Jim in, he’ll peter out, I think more people every day are seeing thru his bullshit. He was the right person at the right time, but that time has passed. 

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Old Mar-A-Lago Man Yells At Cloud: https://www.theamericanconservative.com/old-mar-a-lago-man-yells-at-cloud/

Quote

 

 

Golly:


DeSantis should just keep quiet and let this petulant man-child destroy himself. This is the worst of Trump: an inverse proportion between ego and maturity. Or ego and tact. Or ego and courage. Or ego and just about any good quality you expect in a man of stature.

See, this is why a meaningful number of people who aren't liberal, and who aren't Never Trumpers, just can't bring themselves to vote for the man. I know this is old news, but damn, his bitter attacks on DeSantis, a proven winner who can govern (and can govern without all the stupid drama), are a fresh reminder of just how crazy Donald Trump is. And yet, if he's the 2024 nominee, I'll probably vote for him, in the same way I would vote for the unfit Herschel Walker in Georgia, because some of what the Democrats stand for is simply evil. Not just mistaken, but evil. Even someone as decadent and hapless as Donald Trump is not as bad for America as the race-dividers, baby-aborters, and child-transitioners.

But I hope I don't have to make that choice again. I hope I don't have to put on my car the bumper sticker, "Vote For The Douchebag, It's Important". I'm 55, and the first presidential election I voted in was 1988 (I was a lib then, and voted Dukakis, the first and the last Democratic presidential candidate I voted for, except for Wendell Berry as a 2008 write-in). Ever since then, with the exception of Pat Buchanan in the GOP primaries, every Republican I've voted for in a presidential race got my vote because he wasn't a Democrat. Seems to me like Ron DeSantis 2024 would be the first Republican presidential candidate I voted for positively -- that is, because I liked him, not because he wasn't a Dem.

I've been wondering how DeSantis is going to get past Trump in the primaries. I'm now starting to think that Trump is going to take care of that problem by destroying himself in his rage.

...

 

Screen-Shot-2022-11-11-at-10_32.17-AM-e1668159829121.jpg

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The DC establishment (uni-party) is certainly terrified of another Trump presidency.  SF has learned a new appreciation for the idea of a 3rd party from the past 2 elections where both (left and right) sides have successfully divided the voters into tribal entities that are fixed in place.

Trump's win in 2016 slowed so much in the world that had relied on a Clinton victory meant to weaken the US leadership in the World.  Russia had to wait 4 years to continue it's aggression in Ukraine.  North Korea kept relatively quiet, China was held in check until the pandemic they caused (Yeah, I went there again) https://www.c-span.org/video/?465845-1/universal-flu-vaccine

Say what you will about the man, but SF truly believes he only delayed the progression this country and the world is headed towards.  He didn't stop it, and probably can't but SF hopes somehow the uni-party in DC can be broken and right now he's the only one I can even picture with the will to do something/anything about it.  

Maybe his newest announcement will be he's gonna run third party.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

This editorial says it best - Yeah, Trump got rooked, but you can't change anything, so get over it, and move on to the future .

https://nypost.com/2022/12/04/sorry-donald-here-are-the-real-takeaways-from-the-twitter-files/

Leave it to ex-President Donald Trump to present exactly the wrong takeaway from the Twitter Files: “A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution,” he posted Friday night.

No, it doesn’t. In fact, the Constitution was written with full awareness of humanity’s imperfections, including election cheating (which is as old as democracy itself). The Electoral College count is the final word, no matter how messy the process that leads to it.

The nation couldn’t function if elections didn’t truly end, and the Founding Fathers were practical idealists. Heck, they gathered to write the Constitution (for ratification by the 13 sovereign states) precisely because the nation’s then-government, under the Articles of Confederation, wasn’t working. All the nation’s later political woes, even the Civil War, would sadden but not surprise them.

That is, in a (completely imaginary) world where Trump somehow today finally produced actual proof of all his wild 2020 ballot box-stuffing claims, Joe Biden would still be our legitimate president (though it’d certainly bring a vast political firestorm).Not to mention the simple fact that neither Twitter nor the rest of the mainstream media (social and old-school) did anything illegal in suppressing our Hunter Biden laptop reporting: They simply failed their own expressed principles (not remotely for the first or last time). Americans’ rights to a free press, and free speech, allow for all manner of mis- and even dis-information.

Similarly, the 51 top former intelligence officials whose (transparently disingenuous) letter suggesting the laptop was “Russian disinformation” stand revealed as partisan political hacks, not (for this, anyway) as criminals.

It’s entirely possible that the active-duty FBI agents who prepared the ground for the suppression were engaged in criminal activity, abusing the powers of their office — but that still wouldn’t make Trump the 2020 winner.

Knowledge today of other 2020 dirty tricks, like the Zuckerberg family’s abusive “charitable giving” to boost turnout overwhelmingly in heavily Democratic areas, doesn’t change the result, either — even if could be shown to have cost Trump the election.

It can’t be, by the way, any more than we can know if honest coverage by other media of the laptop revelations would’ve turned the election. The inherent limits of what we can know about such things are among the many reasons the Founders made the Electoral College count, as ratified by Congress, the final word. (They made provisions, incidentally, for what to do if the College didn’t produce a winner: See the elections of 1800 and 1824.)

Trump’s welcome to take the news as reason to feel even more aggrieved. For everyone else, the real takeaways here include the need for:

  • 1) Proper investigations of what the laptop tells us — e.g., did Joe “Big Guy” Biden do anything in exchange for the millions showered on Hunter & Co. (besides give face time to a host of unsavory characters)? Did he later take any actions for fear of blackmail?
  • 2) A thorough look at government insiders’ efforts to (mis)direct media coverage.
  • 3) Lowered trust in the mainstream media generally (already well underway).
  • 4) Thundering condemnation of Twitter’s then-management’s failure to live up to its professed mission “to give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly without barriers,” Facebook’s fails on “Better connecting you with the pages and groups you care about,” the New York Times’ lapses on “All the news that’s fit to print,” the Washington Post’s hypocrisy on “Democracy dies in darkness” and so on.

As for us: We’re confident Alexander Hamilton would be OK with our political reporting, and would be an avid reader of Page Six. And he’d outright laugh at all the whining now about how our reporting helped boost New York Republicans in the last election.

P.S.: We’re also still outraged at the suppression of our early commentary on the possibility that COVID started at that Wuhan lab. But we’re not demanding any do-overs — we just want the rest of the press to do better next time.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Trump Emigrates To Clown World: https://www.theamericanconservative.com/trump-emigrates-to-clown-world/

Quote

The 45th president of the United States, a man who aspires to return to the White House, has officially beclowned himself in a way that not even hardline MAGA folks can explain away:

Screen-Shot-2022-12-15-at-8_14.53-PM-713x1024.thumb.jpg.8d91a0e96100f6f5b59df14a5d19385e.jpg

It's hard to know what to say about this. The thing speaks for itself. Trump is a grown-ass man, a former president. And now he's grifting NFTs. Meanwhile, what's going on with his main rival for the 2024 GOP nomination? This:

1077331522_Screenshot2022-12-15152658.jpg.48a7e682b33c90bd8b6b6eec795af3b1.jpg

The choice is clear. Oh boy, is it ever clear. It seems too that it's finally over for Donald Trump. When you're getting headlines like the one below (from this story), launching an NFT grift is not the thing you want to be doing to regain ground lost to a Republican governor and political rival who actually gets stuff done.

ffScreen-Shot-2022-12-15-at-8_26.08-PM-1024x212.thumb.jpg.2a3b2c2dd904bafde87cecdb7bbeb15b.jpg

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Day Three: House Begins Eighth Round Vote For Speaker

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/day-three-mccarthy-caves-concessions-republican-holdouts-stand-ground

 

Quote

...

To the surprise of no one, Kevin McCarthy doesn't have the votes to become Speaker of the House as the 7th round of voting comes to a close.

Hilariously, Rep. Matt Gaetz voted for Donald Trump for Speaker.

Interestingly, Trump could become Speaker - as the Constitution does not specify that the Speaker must actually be a member of the House. In a 2021 report, the Congressional Research Service noted that "Although the Constitution does not so require, the Speaker has always been a Member of the House.

Mr. Trump is elected to speaker, Mr. Biden is 25th amendmented, Ms. Harris is impeached, Mr. Trump is president.

Checkmate. 

Edited by Muda69
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  • 2 months later...

Of course it is......Think what you want, but the top story on the morning news today was about a former President's alleged payment to a porn star back in 2016 - Not about the real factual money that came directly from China to the many Biden family members since 2017 for nothing in particular (kinda like the money that went to the Clinton family......)

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11878715/Fox-anchor-suggests-Trumps-possible-arrest-timed-distract-probe-Biden.html

Fox News anchor Maria Bartiromo suggested Trump's potential indictment over hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels may be part of a plot to distract from recent revelations about Joe Biden's questionable family finances.

Speaking on Sunday Morning Futures with former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, Bartiromo said it was 'disturbing' that news of Trump's indictment was broken just days after a Congressional committee released documents that appeared to indicate members of Biden's family were paid more than $1million by the Chinese government.

The report was released by House Republicans on Thursday and showed the president's son, Hunter Biden, the widow of his son Beau Biden, and other relatives of the president's family received the cash in 2017 from an associate who had entered into a business deal with a Chinese energy company.

Just two days later, Trump wrote on Truth Social that he'd received information indicating the Manhattan District Attorney's office was planning to arrest him this Tuesday.

Speaking to Bartriromo, Ratcliffe said this timing did not feel like a coincidence. House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, who led the investigation into the Biden family finances, also appeared on the show and said the timing was suspicious.

Fox News anchor Maria Bartiromo (left) spoke with former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe on Sunday Morning Futures

On Saturday evening, Trump appeared at the NCAA Wrestling Championships in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he flashed a defiant fist to the crowd and received a standing ovatione

After discussing Biden's foreign policy record with Ratcliffe, Bartiromo asked him whether or not she thought the timing of Trump indictment news was a coincidence.

'This is so incredibly disturbing, do you think there's a coincidence that as soon as James Comer comes out exposing those bank records that suddenly Trump is going to be indicted?' she said.

'Your were just talking about this soft approach from Joe Biden to China, we're constantly asking, why, why not protect America? Is it a coincidence now that Trump is going to get indicted on Tuesday after these bank records were revealed last week?'

Ratcliffe said he did not believe in coincidences, and that he hoped the investigation into Biden would not be deterred. 

'I don't really believe much in coincidence, so I do think that it's important what Congressman Comer is doing, and it's a way for the American people to really find out what's happening. And I hope that that effort continues, and I think that it will.' 

Comer himself joined the conversation and said the timing raised eyebrows.

'It's very odd that this would come out just the very next day after I revealed bank records which showed that the Biden family, the president in particular, hasn't been truthful with respect to his family receiving parents directly from the Chinese Communist Party,' he said. 

'So it almost looks like it's an effort to detract, But at very least, it's another example of a two-tiered system of justice.'

 

 

 

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The Three Ps of the Potential Trump Indictment: https://www.cato.org/blog/three-ps-potential-trump-indictment

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The multiple ongoing criminal investigations of Donald Trump present prosecutors with something they rarely encounter: A genuinely bad actor who almost certainly cannot be induced to plead guilty and will therefore have to be tried and convicted in open court. But that’s increasingly unfamiliar territory in a system where more than 95 percent of criminal convictions come from guilty pleas instead of jury trials, and prosecutors seeking to convict a former president on less‐than‐ironclad charges may find they’ve bitten off more than they can chew. Accordingly, there are three Ps to consider in deciding how best to proceed: Prudence, politics, and plea bargaining.

Prudence

No current or former president of the United States has ever been charged with a crime, let alone actually prosecuted. That’s no small thing, and those who are clamoring for prosecutors to bring various state and federal charges against Donald Trump would do well to reflect on it more than it appears some of them have.

Two things are both true and in tension here: First, no one is above the law, and we pride ourselves (though perhaps unduly) as a nation where the powerful and the powerless are equally subject to the same set of laws. But second, there are strong prudential reasons for to proceed with caution when considering whether to prosecute former heads of stateparticularly in markedly overcriminalized and increasingly polarized democracies like ours.

Has Donald Trump committed felonies? Probably. But you know what? You probably have too. Indeed, there’s an entire legal literature devoted to the proposition that most Americans have committed serious crimes for which they could in principle be prosecuted. And that’s even more true of people who’ve run for office, thereby exposing themselves to the intricate web of state and local election laws that present a virtually unnavigable hazard for Republicans and Democrats alike. And the less said about illegally mishandling classified documents, the better—for both parties.

So the question really isn’t whether high‐ranking officials have committed crimes for which they could be prosecuted—like most of us, the answer for most of them is presumably yes—but rather which of those crimes (if any) they should be prosecuted for? The answer to that question is hard, not easy, and the consequences for getting it wrong could well be dire. In South Korea, for example, “presidents have routinely been jailed after the end of their terms” and “[f]requently investigations have felt politically motivated.” Can there be any doubt that a second‐term President Trump would seek to weaponize the Department of Justice and unleash it on his perceived antagonists, perhaps including (former) President Biden himself?

None of this is to say that former presidents are entitled to all‐inclusive free pass just because there’s a risk of initiating a vicious cycle of retributive prosecutions. If Donald Trump were caught handing over trash bags full of classified information to Russian intelligence—like FBI agent Robert Hansen or CIA officer Aldridge Ames—then of course he should be prosecuted for that. But there’s a legal spectrum here that runs from harassing fellow golfers on a federally operated course to a certifiable act of treason as described above; and it’s fatuous to pretend otherwise. Accordingly, prudence dictates that prosecutors proceed with the utmost caution when considering whether to indict a former president and seek to ensure that any charges they bring are not only well‐founded in fact and law, but in some sense necessary as a matter of basic civic duty.

Politics

This point is simple and flows naturally from the discussion of prudence: Any decision to prosecute a former president mustn’t have even the slightest whiff of politics about it. Thus, if Donald Trump actually were to shoot someone dead in the middle of Fifth Avenue, he might or might not lose any voters (he claims not), but he would most certainly be prosecuted for it—regardless of the serving DA’s political affiliation.

But of course, things are rarely so clear‐cut. As suggested above, most crimes fall along a spectrum from ho‐hum to horrific, and the decision whether to prosecute a given offense takes place against the backdrop of a criminal justice system that does a remarkably poor job of solving even the most serious crimes. Thus, the decision to commit resources to a case necessarily entails withholding those resources from prosecuting some other, potentially more serious malefactor.

In that context, the Manhattan DA’s investigation—and, if Trump himself is to be believed, imminent indictment—of the former president for falsifying documents in connection with a 2016 hush‐money payment strikes some as self‐evidently politically motivated. True, Trump’s former lawyer/bagman Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign‐finance violations for his role in facilitating that payout, but it’s unclear at this point whether Trump’s alleged acts rise to the level of a felony. And even if they do, there’s a non‐trivial statue‐of‐limitations issue that could torpedo the whole case.

Thus, as various pundits have argued, it seems wildly implausible to suppose this seven‐year‐old case would have been pursued if the defendant were anyone else but Trump. And even of one disagrees with that assertion, it’s sufficiently plausible to raise specter of politics—that is, the possibility that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s decision to present this case to a grand jury, to invite Trump to testify before the grand jury (a traditional precursor in that jurisdiction to returning an indictment), and perhaps to indict Trump on state charges of falsifying business records is at least partly motivated by political considerations.

Again, the key point is not whether Bragg was in fact motivated by politics—only he knows for sure, and he would certainly never admit it if so; instead, the point is whether it’s plausible to suppose that he is. Unfortunately, the behavior of some Democratic activists in the latest midterms—including providing financial support to Trump‐favored Republican candidates on the correct assumption that they would be more likely to lose to Democrats in the general election—lends credence that supposition. Bottom line, someone who detects the aroma of politics emanating from the Manhattan DA’s office may well be mistaken, but they’re certainly not crazy.

Plea Bargaining

The last of the three Ps concerning the potential Trump indictment is plea bargaining—or, more precisely, the strong likelihood that unlike in the vast majority of criminal cases there won’t be any. Why do I think that and why does it matter?

First, all four of the known criminal investigations of Trump—falsifying business records in New York; election‐tampering in Georgia; January 6 incitement in DC; and mishandling classified documents in Florida—have problems of various kinds, and none is a slam‐dunk. It would certainly not be irrational of Trump to think that he can beat each one in court, whatever the odds of actually doing so might be. A well‐resourced defendant with confidence in his ability to mount a zealous and effective defense will be less inclined to accept a plea offer, which in turn requires more than the usual amount of pressure from prosecutors.

But the kinds of tactics that prosecutors commonly use to “induce cooperation” (which is their preferred euphemism for inducing a defendant to waive his right to trial and plead guilty) can appear extraordinarily brutal and even thuggish, especially to the uninitiated. These include but are not limited to the gratuitous use of pretrial detention (with our without an additionally motivating dose of “diesel therapy”); charge‐stacking; mandatory minimum sentences; savage trial penalties; and even threatening to indict (or promising not to indict) a defendant’s family members (a tactic that has been repeatedly appealed and repeatedly upheld in federal court). While those and other tactics are perfectly routine in run‐of‐the‐mill cases, it seems most unlikely that prosecutors would choose to put them on public display in such a high‐profile prosecution.

Finally, as suggested above, there are serious questions about the propriety of pursuing any of these cases, and seeking to convict a former president for marginal conduct may strike some potential jurors (even ones who dislike Trump personally) as a bridge too far. All it takes is one juror to say—as they have every right to do—“You know what? He may be guilty as hell, but I simply can’t go along with this.” If you think the chances of such a person ending up on a Trump jury are zero just because the trial’s in Manhattan—or for any other reason—then you’ve never picked a jury and you’ve never tried a case. Moreover, the use of so‐called jury nullification to protect criminal defendants from politically motivated prosecutions is among the most ancient and enduring features of our system.

Whatever its merits and demerits, plea bargaining has proven an effective tool for smoothing the rough edges off of dodgy cases and sweeping messy facts under the rug. As ubiquitous a tool as it has become in our system, however, prosecutors shouldn’t count on Trump to go down without a fight—and a messy one at that.

 

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Thus, as various pundits have argued, it seems wildly implausible to suppose this seven‐year‐old case would have been pursued if the defendant were anyone else but Trump.

And if he wasn't already on the slate of potential Republican Presidential contenders for 2024.  That sealed the deal for Mr. Bragg......

His people (supporters and ilk) only want to see Trump's head on a platter not on a ballot, no matter what......

 

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You would think that eventually the left would learn to stop giving the former POTUS the air time he relishes so much.  It's pretty bad when even the Grand Jury in this case it is "skeptical"...... 

https://nypost.com/2023/03/23/why-braggs-case-against-trump-is-falling-apart/

Trump has said for years that Democrats have weaponized the criminal justice system against him and Bragg just gave him proof positive to support that claim.

With this raw political prosecution, Bragg fulfilled the narrative of Trump, who is rising in the polls at the very time that Biden is plunging.

The expectation is still that Bragg can get an indictment even out of a skeptical grand jury. He could then bank on a favorable and motivated judge and jury.

Moreover, even if the case ultimately fails on appeal, many in New York will still praise Bragg.

 

 

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