I’m sure there’s been extensive lobbying and gladhanding happening in many many arenas the last few months. I think the lawsuit signals a failure on Disney’s part to buy enough state congresscritters to protect itself. Quite the opposite: they’re about to scrub the law requiring him to resign if he runs for president. Just one more way the state legislature is demonstrating they’re fully in the employ of the executive branch rather than their constituents.
There’s no riding this out. He’s only going to get worse once he’s campaigning.
Pence spent 7 hours today in front of the grand jury that is investigating Trump for his involvement in Jan. 6. Since he is not accused of anything, I presume he would not be able to stand on his 5th amendment rights. If he didn’t want to tell about those conversations with Trump, and didn’t want to lie under oath, the only thing he could do is claim not to remember, I suppose.
But I can’t imagine why he wouldn’t want to testify to the truth. He seems to be still publicly loyal to Trump, Og knows why, but it seems like a good opportunity to get a giant monkey, sorry, orangutan off his back. Tell the truth, Mike, tell it all!
I believe he can claim the Fifth on anything that could open him up to criminal liability even when he’s not the target of the investigation. He can still claim some amount of executive privilege, though I believe a judge has severely circumscribed the areas where he can do so.
Trump was able to spin people like Robert Mueller, Lisa Page, and Peter Strzok as “Liberals” even though they were all Republicans. That automatically made him immune to all allegations, in the mind of his supporters, because “Liberals” are lying, conspiratorial traitors.
At the end of this, we want everyone to trust that Trump went to jail for committing crimes against his nation and not because he was targeted by the Deep State of George Soros. That means that prominent figures who have come through as faithful adherents to the Republican party, need to continue to preserve that standing or it all falls apart and we have more civil strife.
We won’t really know how many in the House and Senate - McCarthy, Graham, etc. - are really “for” Donald Trump until the man goes to jail and we start counting tears.
Aren’t those called to testify for the Grand Jury granted some form of immunity with respect to their testimony? If so, the Fifth is not relevant (or is at least limited).
Hmm. My impression is that once someone is subpoenaed, some form of immunity must be granted, or at least typically is, since it would either be pointless or violative of the Fifth to proceed without it. But IANAL.
It’s also important to remember that whether or not he succeeds in stripping Disney of control over RCID is almost entirely immaterial. In our new crazy world, it’s the fight that matters, not whether you win or lose. You have to attack the right people as loudly as possible, and even better be attacked by the right people (or claim they are attacking you), and then just watch the votes come pouring in.
I don’t think that that is the case (IANAL) - people who are subpoenaed can take the Fifth, if it applies, but there are plenty of cases where the subpoenaed person is not being asked questions for which the Fifth applies. This cartoon has a nice summary of Fifth amendment issues Fifth Amendment Flowchart | The Illustrated Guide to Law
Actually, I hate Disney and everything they represent, so I don’t root for them, I just root against deSantis. If Disney’s side happens to win, I can live with that. It just means nothing much has changed.
The conflict with having to root for Disney vs DeSantis is easily resolved by regressing to my childhood memories of Disney as emblematic of Walt Disney Presents, the Magic Kingdom, all the great old Disney movies, and genial ol’ Walt himself. Whereas DeSantis is pure evil. There! Problem solved!
