And how. Somehow I can’t see him at the controls of the truck. Maybe he was out there with the smoother?
Don’t some concrete jobs require the wrangling of a wheelbarrow to get into inaccessible areas? He put that fine physique to good use.
Trump’s team is attempting to fight bias that they themselves are creating. They pick the clerk out as an enemy, accuse her of something ridiculous and then paint any attempts to protect her from the mob as political interference. But to Trump and crew, their opponents just drawing breath is political interference. I am glad the judge has very little tolerance for this and even though I am sure Trump would theoretically love it for riling up the crowd, I hope Engoron does indeed put Mr. Trump in a cell to think about his actions here.
I’m happy with the ever escalating fines, because while Trump would hate being in jail, he’d love the attention, and we’d have weeks of twuths about how the staff there came up to him, with tears in their eyes, begging forgiveness for being “forced” to be so unfair.
But Trump loves money. I just want the fines to escalate on an exponential scale, not a simple doubling. Once the numbers get big enough, even Trump will start to pay attention. But, what I -really- want to see at this point, since Trump is largely a lost cause, is for Trump to pressure his lawyers to keep being aggressive, and ever more Trump lawyers get sanctioned / disbarred / forced to hire lawyers of their own.
Nothing would have stopped Trump from trying his bullshit once the Republicans decided to bow to his rabid minions and not do the right thing at the second impeachment. But if after the 60+ failed lawsuits, almost all the lawyers involved had faced serious consequences immediately, he’d have had a harder time finding more patsies to throw their own careers under a bus for him. If his current crop walk away (from not being paid) or are forced to focus on their own defense in the near future, he’s eventually going to find himself left with nothing but unforced errors.
How much pain is involved in spending other people’s money?
Exhibit One: The US Congress 
I’d agree if it weren’t for the obvious fact that he still considers the money in his PACS and other fundraising his own piggy bank. See the refusal to fund other politicians, even those that he’s already depending upon to cover his back, or refusing to use said funds to pay the legal fees of those who then end up flipping.
He blows off small fines because he has no idea of what the money means at that scale, 10k is like “oh, that’s a trip to McDonalds right?” - once it gets to the hundreds of thousands or millions, then he’ll start thinking it’s actually money.
Not sure I totally agree, but it’s a well made point.
I think – if they do hit him with a nine-figure fine, and/or the Receiver starts selling off his trophy properties – that may be the first time he feels pain … well … in his life.
I doubt he’d be able to recover from that kind of a hit via the usual channels.
Doubling the previous fine(s) is exponential. $25,000 => $50,000 => $100,000 => $200,000 => $400,000 => $800,000 => $1,600,000…
@Johnny_L.A if it turns out that way, I’ll be happy, but right now we’ve only seen the $5k and $10k. If it sticks to a doubling each time, I can certainly live with it. But with only two data points on our graph I’m not betting on it yet.
But you’re right, my language was sloppy. And I still bet he’ll keep running his mouth until the figures reaches sums he can understand based on his personal sliding scale of wealth.
I hope this is the correct thread (there are so many Trump legal problems threads that it can be difficult to keep them straight), but I’m looking forward to Trump being on the stand in New York, under oath, tomorrow (Monday, November 6).
I have a feeling that there’s a chance that he’ll throw Don Jr. and Eric under the bus. It’s a longshot, but it wouldn’t surprise me. “They say that they know nothing, that they just signed what the accountants prepared, because the accountants are accountants, and they’re not. But Don Jr. and Eric knew everything, and if they didn’t, that’s their fault, because they should have. I turned over my business interests to them when I became president, because that’s what I had to do, so they knew everything. They were in the know, and I wasn’t.”
I wouldn’t put it past him to do such a thing. His self-preservation seems to be the most important thing to him, and if others, even family members, get in the way, well, sucks to be them.
Regardless, I’m sure that his testimony will provide us with plenty of things to comment on tomorrow. It won’t be televised, but enough should be reported on during breaks and at lunch that we’ll be kept up-to-date.
I would hope that the state’s attorney would start with the line of questions about his turning the business over to his sons, get him to brag about how he did a very very terrific job of that. Then use that to corner him into throwing the sons under the bus.
He already threw Eric under the bus in his sworn deposition.
It looks like Trump’s lawyers are going to ask for a mistrial due to Engeron’s clerk having “interfered” in the trial. Which is, of course, malarky.
This is absolutely transparent horseshit.
Normally, attorneys get in professional trouble when they insist on repeatedly firehosing the courtroom with feculent nonsense.
Is it too much to hope that Trump’s team gets hammered for this?
Just turned on CNN, so that’s my source.
Apparently, by now (1024 hrs EST), Trump has already been told by the judge that he is to answer questions, and not to pontificate or speechify.
judge to trump: you can attack me, but answer the question.
it looks like they are trying to get the judge to do something, anything that they can get to appeal.
I believe this to be their main legal strategy at this point. See if they can bait the judge into an outburst and appeal. I suspect the judge already knows this, however.