Trump has not paid a nickle of these fines yet. He may well pay something after years of appeals, but it will likely be much less than the original amounts.
The other trials are just irritating for him. That’s all. He’s using them quite effectively to campaign and fundraise.
Get back to me when Trump is actually serving a prison sentence. I’ll wait. And wait.
Right, this is more realistic.
Not true. Trump has lost civil suits in the past that cost him a lot, e.g.:
Trump University was also the subject of two class actions in federal court. The lawsuits centered around allegations that Trump University defrauded its students by using misleading marketing practices and engaging in aggressive sales tactics. […] Despite repeatedly insisting he would not settle, Trump settled all three lawsuits in November 2016 for a total of $25 million after being elected president.
You know that he is required to be in court every day for the duration of his current NY trial, right? He’s not able to campaign in person during that time. And it doesn’t seem as though Trump is “just irritated.” He looks like he’s in hell, which is fine with me.
It could happen in just a few weeks, actually. Would you consider home confinement a sentence that meets your requirements? I would be happy to see that happen too.
Read your cites.
The settlement was paid not by Trump but by his Las Vegas hotel business partner, billionaire Phil Ruffin.
In other situations, Trump often paid for settlements via his (now dissolved) foundation, eg with other peoples’ money.
Yeah, he is one of the great grifters of all time. Even so, these lawsuits were not good for his brand, etc., and I would not assume they had no effect on him. His casino bankruptcies also seem to have been a great strain on him.
He GOT ELECTED after bankrupting casinos, and while the Trump University lawsuit was still in process (he settled only after the election, and paid, as was pointed out, with other people’s money).
I admire your enthusiasm and unbridled optimism, I really do.
My dimmer view is that Trump WILL be the R nominee for 2024, and the money owed for lawsuits WILL be reduced on appeal (and likely paid by someone else), and that Trump WILL NOT spend 10 seconds incarcerated for any reason, ever.
He SHOULD pay all that money himself, and he SHOULD go to jail.
It’s not fair, but most of the time life is not fair.
Yep, his political disgrace is a disgrace to our country (not yours–Canada, right?).
Dude… you’ve been following this thread. There is no enthusiasm or optimism. I will repeat: extirpating the MAGA disease from our politics will take a generation. It is a fucking cancer on our society that one election won’t cure.
He’s had other judgments that have affected him. His foundation, for example, is gone. I think the fines will be crippling and he will spend time in the hoosegow unless he dies first (which is entirely possible).
Trump has gotten away with more obscene shit than 99.999% of ill-willed individuals in human history, but he is not magic, and his time is coming to an end. The return to some sort of political normalcy, however, will take much longer to effect.
I pray you are correct. I fear you are not.
20 quatloos says Trump’s fines will be reduced by 50% or more by the time the appeals are finished (years)
30 quatloos says Trump will have someone/something else pay these fines.
100 quatloos says that Trump will spend no time at all in jail/prison/confinement
500 quatloos says that Trump will be the Republican Nominee for president.
I don’t think he’ll win, but he’ll come close. Too close for comfort.
Jan. 12, 2024*$392,638:** Trump was ordered to pay nearly $400,000 in legal fees to The New York Times after a court tossed his lawsuit taking issue with the newspaper acquiring and publishing his tax records, which the Times said in February Trump has now paid.*
Jan. 19, 2023*$937,989.39:** Trump and his attorney Alina Habba were jointly ordered to pay nearly a million dollars in sanctions over the ex-president’s lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and other Democrats, which a judge ruled was “inadequate in nearly every respect” and “unsupported by any legal authority”—Habba has said the fine has been paid, though Trump is appealing the case.*
Jan. 13, 2023*$1.6 million:** While not against him personally, the Trump Organization was sentenced to pay over a million after being found guilty for criminal tax fraud after it evaded paying taxes using gifts and other off-the-books compensation; the court confirmed in Feb. 2023 the judgment had been paid.*
This is the United States. Our jails and prisons are not disused - they are full.
I haven’t read those threads. Putting ex-President in prison is a unique situation that hasn’t been faced yet. The closest we came was Nixon, and he was pardoned before any trials to save the country embarrassment. Protecting the ex-pres is still the Secret Services responsibility. There’s no way he goes into a normal prison - even a Club Fed white collar one.
What, does he get isolation from gen pop? Special privileges for someone in “solitary confinement”?
I don’t see it - and I would love to. My number one scenario would be Trump broke from judgements and sitting in prison for a long, miserable time.
With his health and political realities, number 2 would be broke and in home confinement, but not his own guilded estate because he’s broke, so some cheap dump of an apartment.
I suppose a good third would be losing his mind and rotting in a vegetative stupor. Letting all the MAGAs watch him physically deteriorate while mentally mush into silence. Because he’s past incoherence.
Dying outright is a distant, unsatisfying ending. I want repurcussions, and I want him to know it.
No. In an actual jail/ prison alongside other lawbreakers.
The departments of correction have lots of experience dealing with “special” prisoners—e.g., governors, former members of Congress, etc. if we want, we could compare notes with South Korea, who recently sent an ex-president to the slammer.
I think the likeliest outcome would be a facility with exactly one prisoner—Trump. There likely exists such a place, or they could easily construct one. Trump will never be anywhere near a general prison population. Picture Frankie Pentangeli’s setup in The Godfather II.
And accommodating a SS detail would be trivially easy. It would be the most boring detail of their careers, but I’m sure they could provide a few stools so the agents wouldn’t have to stand all day.
I’m sure there is at least one county jail in New York state that is not in use because they just built a bigger one, etc. But as I said, it could be a “similar facility.” He could be put in any room somewhere, so long as it has a bed and a john and the building can be made sufficiently secure.
Right. He won’t be “alongside other lawbreakers” or anyone who could possibly do him harm.
It might be a nightmare, however, if they have to listen to Trump try to talk to them all day and sit in the stink of his stool.
IANASSA, but in a secured facility, I don’t think Secret Service agents would need to be in Trump’s immediate presence 24/7.
I also seriously doubt he would have to be the only prisoner, either. I imagine a minimum security (i.e., “country club”) prison would do, with regular screenings of the other prisoners whenever Trump was in the general population for meals or exercise. Or perhaps he would have separate meal/exercise sessions with a select group of trustees, if mixing with the gen pop was considered too risky.
If the courts sentence him to prison or jail, the Secret Service will figure out a solution. They don’t get to say, “Sorry, no can do.”
And of course, assuming he loses, Biden could just rescind his SS protection.
Nope, not a chance. There is a zero probability that anyone will take even a tiny chance that anyone not part of security will get anywhere near Trump. No one is going to allow a former president to be harmed or killed on his watch.
ETA: And his guards will be background checked to within an inch of their lives.
That is something conceivable. It gets closest to my desire for prison time. A real facility with all the limits of a typical prison, including bars on the doors, a crapper in the cell, limited amenities, and boring gray walls. No gold gilding or plush chairs.
In that kind of accommodation, SS would probably be the jailers. Yeah, no gen pop means little risk.
Oh I agree, I just think there will be considerable pressure on the courts to avoid actual prison. House arrest at Mar-a-lago or any fancy property he owns is insufficient. But I could see appeals go rapidly up the court system to keep him out of any real prison, even a “club fed”. And this Supreme Court, there’s no telling what they will do.
Pressure from whom? What bad thing might occur if the judge ignores said pressure?
Oops! Got it. Mea culpa.
This is the closest thing we have to a “Trump run-up to the 2024 general election thread”, so I’m putting this Paul Ryan blurb here. @Aspenglow, if this better posted elsewhere (I considered it in the “Biden run-up” thread), feel free to move this post.
…
Not as good as Geoff Duncan’s Biden endorsement, but Ryan’s defection is yet another flake of paint chipping off the Trump machine.
Paul Ryan has no interest in giving Donald Trump another chance come November.
The former House speaker told Yahoo Finance on Tuesday that he doesn’t plan to vote for the former president, adding he would be writing in a Republican candidate instead.
“Character is too important for me,” Ryan told us at the Milken Institute Global Conference. “[The presidency] is a job that requires the kind of character [Trump] doesn’t have.”
He’s in Wisconsin, a swing state where writing in a Republican candidate is the near-equivalent of voting for Trump.
What a brave, brave guy!