So it’s time to get serious about it or stop paying lip service and get used to living in a banana republic without the bananas.
FBI Search and Seizure at Trump's Mar-A-Lago Residence, August 8, 2022, Case Dismissed July 15, 2024
It’s one thing to say that a sitting President is above the law. Unfortunate, but things like that are rather in the nature of the beast.
It’s quite another to say that an ex-President is above the law. We voted him out, and part of the reason we did that was so we could hold him accountable.
Indeed. Do we just let him continue to commit crimes for as long as he’s alive? Do we let him incite an insurrection (again)? Does he have complete freedom to steal classified documents and sell them to foreign agents? Just where do Republicans draw the line on this?
It’s not a line. It’s a circle. As many Republicans that they want can be in the exclusive above the law circle.
Precisely! That is what I meant when I talked about privileges being abused and expanded. Executive privilege doesn’t apply, even the courts have said as much multiple times. This needs to end.
This is probably a useful juncture to mention that it took eight years and two trials to successfully try and convict John Gotti. Mr. Gotti didn’t even have the available options to claim such protections as executive privilege.
With respect to Trump, as I have mentioned numerous times, even if we know (or hope we know, at least) the inevitable outcome of him testing ridiculous notions, he has the right to do it.
Even in the documents case – the one we should be discussing in this thread – Trump can assert privileges as a former president that other regular defendants cannot. And because this is all brand new legal ground, he can test legal theories that no other citizen could.
Trump is a legal terrorist. He knows how to use the courts to delay. He’s going to do it every chance he gets.
That doesn’t mean he won’t be held to account.
I think it just feels longer because a lot of people believe he’s gotten away with being a tax fraud for so long.
I just hope I live long enough to see him suffer one damn consequence.
I like the comparison to Gotti, who died in prison on June 10, 2002.
Let’s say criminal charges are brought against Trump. He gets a jury trial. Is being a Trump supporter a disqualification during jury selection? If not, that’s an automatic win for Trump if even one of his supporters gets on the jury, I would think. I can’t imagine any circumstances where any Trump supporter would convict Trump of anything.
I’m hoping he gets tried in DC just for that reason. Of course, Loose Cannon would probably claim jurisdiction and order the trial held in North Dakota.
With some of the Jan 6th convictions, especially big ones, I’d have to say do not give up on the American jury pool. Until we must.
No, but being unable to accept facts as facts when presented is. Also bringing preconceived bias and notions into the courtroom such as that Trump actually won the election would be disqualifying.
He’ll be tried in DC for both cases (if it gets to that point). DC has jurisdiction over all classified materials cases, and the insurrection conspiracy occurred in DC.
Thanks for that info and thank goodness for that. MAGAbots are a lot rarer in DC than anywhere else.
That’s a fair point.
This is disingenuous.
It took eight years to conduct a painstaking investigation to find probable cause to directly wiretap the mob’s bosses. After enough evidence was collected, the guy was arrested practically immediately.
This guy committed most of his crimes live on TV. Mueller, the Jan 6 committee, the White House all have reams of evidence, recorded phone calls and other damming stuff.
If the DoJ wanted they could have arrested Trump the same day as the search of MaL. They didn’t, they won’t.
Stop trying to compare this shit to real investigations, there is no investigation necessary: There is plenty of evidence in the fucking public domain. What is needed is the will to indict, Garland will be “investigating” to find that for the foreseeable future.
The DoJ hopes this stuff will go away on its own.
They do not want to tangle with the people who deleted the SS logs, they don’t want to be involved in a lengthy trail where they might find themselves prosecuting people who sign their paychecks.
They think going after politicians is politicians work.
(I am not assigning nefarious motivations to Garland: I’m pointing out practical considerations that would make any DoJ employees weary of putting Trump in a docket)
Right on, brother. Sing it.
And I look forward to a ‘selective persecution’ defense, next time some schmuck ‘happens’ to take home classified documents and gets arrested for it.
This is true. From the Georgia call to the boxes in his basement. They have the evidence. Nonetheless, I remain hopeful.
To be fair, there was evidence of election fraud in the public domain, too. I read online that some guy’s wife’s aunt’s hairdresser’s brother-in-law saw the pizza boxes full of fake ballots being delivered to the counting rooms.
Courts should have a high standard of evidence no matter who is bringing it.
This is a very good point. Trump was dodging the courts, manipulating the law and dodging justice long before he went into politics. He’s an expert in mob boss language and evading reasonable doubt, he and his companies been convicted in civil courts multiple times, and the people around him have frequently been criminally convicted.
Sure, we have never indicted an ex-President before. We don’t have that many of them. But the leaders of other first world liberal democracies have been indicted after leaving office, and plenty of high level politicians in the US have been indicted. I’m tired of hearing the pearl clutchers claiming that “this is unprecedented”.
The Nixon Administration was arguably as corrupt as the Trump administration- it wasn’t just Watergate. Nixon actively interfered with the ongoing Vietnam peace talks during his candidacy and Agnew was collecting bribes from Maryland construction companies in exchange for contracts while he was in office as VP. And I maintain that the only reason Nixon and Agnew evaded prison was that they were ultimately willing to play ball and cut deals, which is something Trump will never do, and that is the reason Trump might be the first ex American President to go to jail.
I predict that even with indictments, they will never cuff him, and the worst he’ll face is house arrest. And he will be catered to, in that, unlike most incarcerated felons, he’ll have unlimited visitors, and if the course isn’t contiguous to his place of confinement, he’ll be driven to his golf. And he’ll never be denied electronic media. And he will 24/7 complain about how unfair it all is.