Oh boy, here it comes again. 
Yaawwwnnn.
Really. Seven more days to come up with more bullshit, and then another few weeks to determine whether that bullshit is bullshit, and then …
Gotta be an appeal in there, too. Oh, I’m sleepy.
To quote myself
this all feels like it’s on purpose and specifically in an attempt to create another delay.
From Trump’s POV, I see a few ways he could have hoped this would work:
1)Oops, that was worded incorrectly, lets delay things while I get the contract written properly.
Welcome to the Cynics Across The World club.
The trouble may come when all the delays come crashing into each other, and Trump is found guilty of a criminal offense in New York at the same time he’s on trial for another criminal act in Georgia, at the same time his appeal for the Carroll defamation case is denied, at the same time that Letitia James is starting to confiscate his assets, at the same time banks begin to call the loans, at the same time his Truthy Social stock goes right into the toilet.
Yup. I may have mentioned it one of these threads, but these countless delays have come at the risk of everything kinda collapsing on him over the next few months with the reward being that if he could delay them until after he wins the election, he’d never have to deal with the penalties (jail, fines etc). Also, it’s worth noting that the reward part requires BOTH delaying things until after the election and winning the election.
And you don’t even need hindsight to realize that he could have dealt with some of these a long time ago and everyone would’ve forgotten by now.
He can try to pardon himself for federal crimes, but not for state crimes.
He won’t pardon himself, he’ll just have the Federal cases dropped. As for the State cases, he’ll ignore them and/or threaten those states with a “Federal takeover” or whatever nonsense he thinks will work. Pardons are for guilty people and Trump doesn’t think he has done anything wrong.
I’ll disagree with this, somewhat. I’m fairly certain that he knows he’s broken the law (both in this case, and others); it’s that he feels that following the law is something that only suckers and fools do. He feels that, if it benefits himself to not follow the law, then he’d be an idiot to follow the law.
He believes that he’s smart enough to obscure his tracks, and he historically has used financial obfuscation (witness the incredibly complex web of shell companies which make up his empire) and delaying tactics to wiggle out of the worst of things.
And, honestly, until now, those strategies have worked for him.
It gets posted here from time to time. It’s time:
Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.
–Frank Wilhoit
“How did you go bankrupt?"
Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.”
― Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises
We’re just about in agreement. I’d only tweak it thusly: It’s not that he thinks the law is for suckers and he’s so slick he can find a way to do what is clearly illegal. I think that concepts like “accountability” and “legal” and “responsible” are meaningless to him. They’re made-up words. Whatever benefits him is “right,” and that’s enough.
Perhaps a distinction without a difference.
I’m actually a bit more in tune with @Stratocaster’s interpretation. Think about it, if it was just the “Following the lawis something that only suckers and fools do” then when he got caught in this, or any of the other cases, he’d have copped a quiet plea or deal, paid a minor fee (comparatively) and moved on.
The denials, they efforts to cover up shit, to then say everything was absolutely normal, and finally get dragged into the courts actually speaks to him finding the concept of being held accountable or responsible for anything abhorrent to his self-image in some way.
I try to avoid the pop-psych analysis, but I think it’s clear that in the past, he was much more in the first category: try to skate, baffle them with bull, and finally settle on the cheap. But during and after the presidency, if not earlier, he changed. It may be the trope of corruption of actual power, it could be worsening mental condition, the insulation and pomp of his situation, or some combination, but he’s clearly changed for the worse.
Which is saying something.
I see this said as if it’s a foregone conclusion. If he wins he will tell the justice department to drop all of the charges. But isn’t one of the features of appointing a special counsel that they are not accountable directly to the DOJ and cannot be fired by an incoming administration? Or is that just one of our customs and norms?
Assuming you are speaking of Jack Smith, Wikipedia’s article on the special counsel states that he can be fired by the Attorney General:
It’d seem likely that, were Trump to win in November, he’d look to appoint an AG who would find a pretext to fire Smith.
A pretext isn’t even necessary. When Henry Ford II fired Lee Iacocca, his reasoning was reportedly “I just don’t like you”. When an authoritarian dictator or would-be dictator fires a subordinate, even less reasoning is required. Sometimes the subordinates just fall out of windows.
Trump has never ever admitted that he has ever done anything wrong. So “copping a plea,” loudly or quietly, is out of the question.
This isn’t pop-psych analysis, it’s the evidence of our eyes and ears. In his mind (excuse the expression) he never does anything wrong and never makes a mistake. So there is no need for accountability. Everyone else is always wrong, mistaken, lying, or out to get him. Pick one.
A comment about the Knight insurance bond…
The bond was called into question, and the State of NY demanded some answers from Knight Insurance - these were given at the very last minute on Monday.
One issue was that Knight was required to have a certain amount of liquidity in order to cover Trump’s bond - which they did not seem to have. A second was that the company is not licensed to issue surety bonds in New York, nor has it obtained a certificate of qualification from the state’s Department of Financial Services.
The company responded to these concerns with:
“Knight Specialty Insurance Company is not a New York domestic insurer, and New York surplus lines insurance laws do not regulate the solvency of non-New York excess lines insurers,”
This sounds odd and contradictory to me. It’s like if a business needed a license to sell raw pork in the city, and there was also a law saying you had to store your pork products at a minimum temperature. You can’t get away with storing your pork products at room temperature just by saying “I don’t have a license, so the rules don’t apply to me.”
That seems just like something Trump would say to deflect the blame and buy himself some time.