This is the guy who proclaimed to all the world in Helsinki that he trusted his good buddy Vlad’s word and rejected the findings of the entire US intel community, which includes the military intel.
His supporters apparently shrugged and said « Good on you Mr Prez. Far better to trust Vlad than all those libs in the CIA and the military intelligence community. »
And this is the guy who shared intel the US got from someone, likely an Israeli source, with the Russian Foreign Secretary and the Russian Ambassador, with a Russian translator and no US officials present. May have gotten the Israeli source killed.
I think there is a very good chance that he sold nothing and what would stop him would be disinterest and laziness. Secrets sell for a lot relative to you and me, but not a lot relative to Trump. Robert Hanssen was paid ~$1.4 million over twenty-two years for major intel. Even assuming Trump could get several times that, it’s not the kind of money to move the needle enough that he is necessarily going to want to put in the effort to figure out how to do it immediately out of office. Not that he isn’t all about the nickels and dimes, just more that he is lazy and is going to narcissistically demand top price for any sooper-seekrit info he has.
I could see him selling stuff, sure. I just wouldn’t be even slightly surprised if he just kept those files as an ego boost, to wave around to prove his silly arguments with the pool-cleaner guy (“I was the best President! Just look at THIS!”). Worth investigating, but if nothing turned up I wouldn’t assume he had got over on that one point.
I agree. It’s far, FAR more likely that the documents were either accessed by agents from other countries, or sold on by someone in Trump’s orbit who would be more tempted by a couple of million dollars.
They were kept in a fucking bathroom in cardboard boxes for Christ’s sake.
I look at it another way. Taking away someone’s passport is a punishment. I don’t want a presumed innocent defendant punished unless absolutely necessary. Also, if the defendant is guilty, and the crime isn’t one of extreme violence, and they flee the country — and stay away — that probably is in our national interest. (But don’t get hopes up — Trump is a low flight risk).
Donald doesn’t need to campaign abroad, but could consider it:
He does have business interests outside of the country, however. (Some legal, some probably not, I’ll allow.) Innocent until proven guilty and all that.
The purpose of bail is to ensure a defendant turns up for further proceedings. Is there any justifiable bail amount that could be set high enough to discourage Trump from fleeing if that were his intent?
Same justification for no mugshot. Is there any disguise he could wear that would work for any length of time? Any picture of him will do, and that’s what they did: Substituted another photo of him in lieu of the mugshot.
Would you be the pilot who was willing to ferry him overseas on a one-way trip? Not many would.
This is the same base that wasn’t outraged when Trump insulted McCain for being a POW when he said, “He’s not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.” Trump’s supporters don’t really stand for anything other than spite.
Getting back to: “Trump’s indictment-does it matter”
Does it matter politically?
Yes.
If swing voters (around 9 percent of the electorate) think that the Republican Party leader is crooked, while feeling Democrats are much more trustworthy, the indictment will help the Democrats. Verdicts won’t matter because swing voters lean towards cynicism, and cynical voters think that where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Plus, the likely alternative to conviction, a hung jury, will almost surely be majority for conviction — and even low info voters will hear the final jury vote. So I suspect it’s not about whether Trump runs from jail, but about whether swing voters think the prosecution came from a vindictive administration.
The indictment will help the Republicans if they can convince swing voters that the Democrats are thugs using the justice system, against their enemies, just like Trump would. Republican politicians, who despise Trump, know this and therefore claim the indictment is political:
This seems like a loser argument to me.
Loser, because in a 50/50 situation which is the best the GOP can hope for, almost no voters sympathetic to the Dems accept the argument that this prosecution is politically motivated, while some small number of voters normally sympathetic to the GOP will also reject that line of thinking.
It will secure the hardline MAGA voters, but they were already in the GOP’s camp.
Trump is so insecure that he needs constant reassurance that he is important. His precious boxes contained items that no one else has and he felt powerful when he could show them off. I seriously doubt it was just the two or three occasions we know about. There’s no telling how many Republicans he shared them with who are keeping quiet.
Nothing will ever fill the emptiness that is Trump. Not even being President. He is a bottomless hole of neediness.
The conservative mind is incomprehensible to me, as well. And I actually used to be one! Voted for Reagan twice. Then I got better. The Trump followers are truly a blight upon society.
So here’s a question about something that concerns the hell out of me. Taking into consideration the proportion of the US population who blindly worship trump, is there truly any hope in hell of getting a jury that will find him guilty? I mean, regardless of how jury selection is conducted, what are the chances of finding 12 people who are all truly capable of objective, critical thought and analysis, and capable of actually accepting that the evidence hasn’t been fabricated and concocted in some fashion?
Sadly, I don’t foresee a guilty verdict and it appalls and frightens me.
He was found liable by a jury in the defamation case.
And once the trial commences, and presuming he remains silent, he’ll eventually fade into window dressing - the real drama will come from tbe people actually testifying, and the lawyers sparring over their words.
Then, after hearing those people talk about the facts that lead to a crime, the jurors will gather in a room, where they have to face each other. Faced with clear and concise facts, one or two holdouts will likely feel hard pressed to maintain any insistence that the facts don’t matter, or that some imagined conspiracy theory holds sway.