What happens if Donald Trump actually wins the 2024 Republican nomination under indictment?

Politics & Elections
41

Even if I were to concede that Donald Trump was technically violateing federal law with the documents, I do not believe that he deserves to go to prison for 100 years.

There is not one shred of evidence that Trump did anything nefarious with these documents besides simple possession. He did not sell nuclear secrets and battle plans to adversaries or enemy countries.

And unlike Hillary Clinton’s classified emails, there is not one shred of evidence that the Trump documents were accessed by a foreign national from an adversarial country.

So here is what happened from A to Z:

Donald Trump took classified documents with him from D.C to Mara Lago.

Next, a dispute insued between Trump and the national archives as to which documents he could keep, and which ones had to go back to the national archives or to the Trump presidential library.

Finally, Trump lost the dispute, and at the end of the day, the government got their documents back, no harm done, and that’s the bottom line.

Now, assuming he can’t win this case based on the Presidential Records act, he is only guilty of a technicality.

However, in regards to this document dispute, the DOJ saw fit to indict him 37 times over it that could send him to prison for a maximum of 100 years.

So, even though Trump may have broken the law, nobody really believes that Trump should go prison for 100 years over document dispute.

That is absurd.

42

Can we get back to Rachel Maddow and what she said or implied about compromise? Where and when did you hear this?

43

Ever hear the phrase “Not even wrong”?

44

Even if no harm was done, ”no harm done” is not, in fact, the bottom line; folks do get, and should get, prosecuted for breaking laws even when no harm was done. The question is whether the law was broken, not whether harm was done.

45

The only difference here between Trump’s documents, and documents taken by other former presidents, and one vice president is that Trump filed a formal challenge to keep them, which was the nature of the dispute.

All former presidents as well as Joe Biden as Veep, just turned theirs over right away when requested by the national archives.

46

Pull the other one.

47

You left out lying about them and moving them secretly to keep them hidden.

48

And that right there tells me you didn’t read the indictment. He went far, far beyond “filing a formal challenge” to keep them. He actively conspired to keep them, suborned perjury in order to conceal them from the DoJ, and even lied to his own lawyers in order to try to keep them. None of that was an accident, and if he becomes president again, this behavior, to as near a certainly as it is possible to be, will be how he conducts himself while in office.

At this point, your opinions on the matter are utterly worthless.

49

I touched on this before, but I’m curious: do you think a drunk driver, after running a red light near a school, can just tell the cop, “but I didn’t hit anyone, and, hey, isn’t that the bottom line?” Do you think a guy can beat a charge for attempted murder by saying “well, the gun jammed when I pulled the trigger, so isn’t that the bottom line?”

And so on and so forth?

50

I just want to say that this thread has taken some odd turns.

51

You mean it’s been successfully threadjacked.

52

I guess? By the OP himself.

53

Yeah, I guess I need a different word. Probably one that you can’t use in this forum.

54

It was a ten minute segment on MSNBC with Lawrence O’Donnel shortly after Trump’s federal indictments were confirmed by the news media.

She did not come right out and say that she wanted this compromise directly, but she brought it up as an option, and directly implied that she would be O.K. with it if it became reality, not because she supports Trump, but that it would be good for the country as a whole.

With that being said, she also made it clear that she believes that the charges agianst Trump are serious, and should disqualify him from being president.

Iam not trying to say that she had sympathy for Trump, but she was clearly concerned about how all of this could play out.

55

Since you saw this directly that means you are in the habit of watching her and/or Lawrence’s show. Does what you say happened line up with other things she has said?

56

The only dispute over what documents needed to be returned was occurring in Donald Trump’s head. It’s kind of like someone that robbed a jewelry store attempting to negotiate with the store over which jewels to return.

As far as the archives were concerned, there wasn’t any negotiation or room for negotiation, they just wanted their materials back.

And there is plenty of precedent for convicting military officials that willfully retained classified documents even though they never sold them to our enemies.

Yes, there are plenty of crimes that Donald Trump didn’t commit. As far as we know, he didn’t sell nuclear secrets to North Korea. He didn’t murder the FBI agents that came to search his home and he didn’t bury their bodies in the basement of Mar-a-Largo.

But the fact that there are crimes he didn’t commit doesn’t excuse the ones he did.

I will admit that I do think that 100+ years is a little harsh, even for Trump, but federal prosecutions tend to be really harsh. I’d be down with a sentencing recommendation in line with those of other military officials convicted of the similar crime of willfully retaining documents without selling them.

57

She did what now?

Imply Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster

1

: to express indirectly

58

No, actually a guest on Steve Bannon’s show “War Room” on Rumble brought this up.

59

Here’s an idea for a compromise:

  • Charges against Trump are all dropped.
  • Trump is therefore allowed to keep any and all classified documents in his personal possession.
  • We know this is OK, because Trump declassified them with his mind.
  • Trump may keep these classified documents wherever and however he chooses. If he wants to keep them in a bathroom accessible to the public in cardboard boxes, this is OK
  • The classified documents can be anything; Nuclear codes, location of missile launchers, details of human intelligence, details of top secret new weapon systems - anything. They will be unclassified because Trump says he did that.
  • This is all OK, because charges were dropped, and this means that Trump has the absolute right to keep documents like this and store them in boxes in a bathroom.
  • We know that Trump would never sell the secrets, and that nobody would try to take them from the bathroom accessible to the public.

This should be done “for the good of the country”. Have I got that right?

60

So, you heard it third or fourth hand? Did you actually see this happen, or was the incident brought up on some other right-wing site?