Okay, fair enough. Investigations in general may have a way of uncovering shit that no one even knows about that may be embarrassing, but not illegal. Such that Trump is worth a few million, or something similar. Maybe that’s why, but I don’t know. Maybe he has indeed committed numerous crimes.
Maybe this is the problem. I’m not talking about you. You are taking this way too personally. God, I’m responding again… Anyway, yes I used the term “left”, but I would think that since I bring up someone specifically, that that would tip people off that I don’t mean everyone. Hell, if I meant that, I’d have to put myself in the camp, as I am as big of a liberal/progressive as anyone on the board.
Most of the commentators I’ve heard and read talk about Trump and his taxes have, indeed, speculated that Trump’s vehemence in keeping his tax records private is likely due to exactly that – it’s likely one (or both) of the following:
- He’s a massive tax cheat (illegal)
- He is worth far far less than he wants people to believe (highly embarrassing, but unless it involves having defrauded others because of that, probably not illegal)
And they also may uncover things that are illegal.
This was not a demand that he release his taxes to the public, as every other presidential candidate has done for decades, this was a demand that he turn them over to investigators. If there was nothing illegal, then there would be nothing released to the public.
And to be honest, the reason for releasing them to the public is to show that there is nothing embarrassing in them. But, that’s not a law, just a precedent that has served us well to have presidents who don’t have anything embarrassing in their financial history.
Good point. But as we all know, leaks happen in D.C. all the time. If only we knew his exact motivation, but then I guess we wouldn’t need any more evidence of crimes if he has indeed committed them, as he would have to tell them in his explanation.
Yes, during the election, I often wondered how popular Trump would have been if he was a NYC realtor, but on the bottom tier instead of the (supposed top) in his telling.
Well, once he is no longer in a position to obstruct investigations into his crimes, then we may find out.
Unless he pardons himself, or it is decided that looking into a past president’s crimes is too political.
If I (as a prosecutor) am investigating you for financial crimes, and rather than answer my subpoena, you shred your financial documents, do I really need to know your exact motivation for doing so?
There is that whole “proportionality” bit you keep ignoring that makes conversation about that pretty much useless.
Wasn’t specifically taking about Trump. The media is doing the same thing to Biden, and it’s gonna get worse as time goes on.
Agreed. You don’t. I was just “sayin’”.
First off, I have not as yet forgotten that I started the damn thread, so goodbye New Year’s resolution! LOL
I don’t mean to ignore anything. I’m not saying that everyone on the left lies as matter of course, which I hope I have made clear. Just that specific people on the left will lie in your face. Now here’s the deal: I literally only have so much time for posting here, so again please forgive me for not going into details on this particular topic or wanting to discuss it in depth.
This has nothing whatsoever to do with the proportionality problem.
Czarcasm, I don’t know what you mean.
To add:
I truly believe that if people would listen very carefully to MSNBC and CNN over a rather lengthy period of time, and question everything that someone says there, that they would agree that the left media is not above propaganda and outright lies. I am firm in my belief of this, as I have stated due to watching cable news for so long. Others may disagree. But because I am sure of it, I don’t feel the need to discuss it specifically as of now.
As far as congressional subpoena’s: Appeals court rules it can't enforce congressional subpoena of former White House Counsel Don McGahn - CBS News . So, yes, you could defy one. And you don’t have to be president to do so.
Politics is all about appearances, not truth, so yes, it would work in his favor not to release the tax returns, and there isn’t legislation to make it mandatory. Breaking precedent is up to the president. I would guess that the other 44 presidents have broken precedents at one time or another, and even broken laws if they thought it necessary, but still giving the appearance that they haven’t to the public. Public perception is more important than strict adherence to precedents.
I don’t think Trump will ever be jailed for anything. He should be, just like he should’ve been long before he ran for President. He won’t be, for the same reason he wasn’t before he became President.
Most of his crimes are financial crimes. I love financial crimes. I love the details, the intricacies. I read up on them in great detail, that how I know Trump has committed them.
But most people don’t. They bore most people to tears. They can’t follow them, and even if they grasp the broad outlines - they think of it as rich people stealing from other rich people. Even when they are committed on a scale that costs an entire nation a decade of prosperity, they don’t make the connection. If a group of people break a window and steal a bunch of sneakers from a retail chain, causing $100,000 in damage and lost merchandise, they are outraged. But if a bunch of guys in suits steal 100 million from the shareholders of the same retail chain, they yawn and change the channel.
Donald Trump will continue to lie, steal and cheat, just as he always has. Sometimes he’ll get caught. When that happens he will do what he’s always done when he gets caught - he’ll make some noise about how innocent he is, he’ll disparage and intimidate his most persistent accusers, then he’ll quietly agree to give everyone their money back if they keep their mouths shut. And since most of his victims just want to be made whole, he’ll succeed.
He’ll be buried in civil litigation from individuals and governments and it’ll cost him a fortune in settlements, but he’ll manage to avoid criminal charges, just as he always has.
He won’t be prosecuted for any of this dealings when he was President, the situations are just too unique. There’s just way too much stuff that would be illegal for a private citizen to do, but legal for President of the United States. In order to bring charges, prosecutors need to justify their charging decisions and this is typically done by pointing to similar cases from the past.
Besides, they’ll need to find a jury of 12 that doesn’t include members of the Trump cult, and that’s not going to happen, you know they’ll be lying and trying to get on the jury.
I think some of his cronies may go down for stuff they did on his behalf. Members of his inner circle worked in concert with the National Enquirer to attempt to blackmail reporters and other public figures into changing their reporting and public statements. I can think of a couple of times when they failed, and I would not be surprised if there were attempts that were not made public and attempts that succeeded. I believe this was done on a rather large scale…Hi Lindsey!
But I think he’ll dodge personal responsibility, I’m not sure if they can make a conspiracy case and Trump did most of this stuff through cronies…Hi Jared! (extortion is in his blood).
As to the assault in the dressing room - I believe the woman has DNA evidence, which should be fun. But at this point I think she’s suing him for disparaging her reputation by claiming he was never alone with her - which the DNA would disprove. But I think the statute of limitations is up for any possible criminal charges - and she could never prove beyond reasonable doubt that it was non-consensual.
Oh, wait, that the right does it more?
Since being home for Covid, I’ve been watching Fox and MSNBC. Up to the election, Fox was regularly and by far more fair and balanced than MSNBC. They regularly had pundits from both sides on, where each was allowed to have their say and given a fair hearing. Rarely, if ever, did MSNBC have two pundits like this. I stress that this was only during the day, certainly not primetime, and after the election, Fox went back to its usual bullshit.
Anyway, I see this is not what you meant, so it’s not all that relevant.
If one person lies about exactly how an event occurs, and another person(with much greater political power and influence) lies about losing an election through vast voter fraud and illegal shenanigans involving high officials and governmental agencies then goes around promoting insurrection, then both sides are NOT doing the same thing.
Okay, got it. No, they are not, but I did not get specific on the actual lies, as again, it wasn’t my intent to go down that road.
Never mind. This indicates that further discussion with you on the subject would be a waste of time.
I trust you saw my qualification of what I said about Fox, that it was during the day, not primetime, and not after the election. Did you watch Fox during the day, regularly, from March 31 to election day? If so, what is your opinion on their coverage vs. MSNBC?
ETA: to be sure, I do not include Fox and Friends in the fair list. Kilmeade, et al, were their usual pathetic selves.