Former president trump indicted.

[Dalisclock]

That's true, but we should also remember that if we're judging by midterm results, Trump's popularity has waned significantly since then.

Plus, this time we'd get the spectacle of Trump and DeSantis, with their respective vociferous cults and mutual hatred of one another, tearing eachother apart in the Primaries.

I'm personally enjoying watching Trump and DeSantis eat each other and will continue enjoying it for as long as it lasts. Especially if it leads to them splitting the GOP in 2024 between them. longer would also be nice.

 

[Schadrach]

The big smoking gun MAGA (thinks it) has about Hunter involves the possibility of nepotism. But this requires MAGA to fiercely oppose something they otherwise celebrate. If nepotism is such a dire crime that Trump is ''forced'' to blackmail Ukraine to get it addressed, then why do they all glorify Trump who's both a product of, and practitioner of nepotism.

For the same reasons that Trump and co using private email while in office was OK while Hillary doing it was the source of "Lock her up!" (Frankly lock them all up, until our elected officials and their appointees start caring about infosec and public record keeping.)

I'd be more fearful and concerned about corporate influence on politics than nepotism in putting people into positions in government personally.

Por que no los dos?

This isn't a binary choice, the correct answer is to be concerned about both.

We didn't even get a perp walk or a mugshot

This timeline sucks!

Probably worried he'd mint his mugshot as an NFT and sell it for a mint.

It's important to remember she did handily beat him in popular vote,

...by fewer people than she won California by. I wouldn't call "my entire national popular vote lead was by fewer votes than my lead in a state that would elect a literal bag of sand if it ran with a (D) beside it's name" (really the Dem version of Texas as far as voting goes) beating him "handily".

 

[Trunkage]

I've been following the Hillary hate since the 1990's and by god it just never fucking ends. I have no love for her but some people it's a fucking burning obsession that I don't understand beyond she's a uppity woman or some such bullshit.

One can argue corrupt and sure, she's no doubt corrupt, but seemingly no more then average member of congress.

I honestly don't give a shit if Hillary goes to jail or not at this point. If she's guilty of something, indict her. If she's not, shut the hell up.

The one thing I find detestable is her starting only campaigns to target political figures. It does not matter which side of the aisle it is as long as its political advantageous. She was one of the first to create a Twitter army to take down oppenentd before you coule just outsource it to bots. Like, she stated thar Trump did Jan 6 at Putin request. No, Trump did it all by himself. You're just shitstirring


She is one of the reasons Sanders and the Left were unpopular with Dems. She repeated GOP lines about Socialism and it's no wonder the Left is gaining traction now that her power is diminished

That being said, she never went as far as Newt Gringich who perfected what the GOP does now in the 90s, including taking down a speaker over the same infidelities he personally partook in. I used to say that she was as bad as the average GOP MP but they are generally following the Gringrich/ Limbaugh model now so she's some where between the average GOP and Dem

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

I'm personally enjoying watching Trump and DeSantis eat each other and will continue enjoying it for as long as it lasts. Especially if it leads to them splitting the GOP in 2024 between them. longer would also be nice.

My dearest hope is that the party utterly destroys itself in the same kind of civil war it so desperately wants with the rest of us.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

I'm personally enjoying watching Trump and DeSantis eat each other

...

Not something I'd expect someone to admit to but you do you.

 

[Dalisclock]

...

Not something I'd expect someone to admit to but you do you.

 

[Kwak]

Opinion | Trump’s Day of Martyrdom Didn’t Go Quite as He Expected (Published 2023)

The images and the legal charges that emerged from Tuesday’s arraignment turned out to be both humbling and deeply serious.

www.nytimes.com

....
And the 34 felony charges, to which Mr. Trump pleaded not guilty, turned out to be more significant and more sweeping than previously suspected. The Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, described a broad conspiracy, with Mr. Trump at the center, to falsify business records for the purpose of unlawfully influencing the 2016 presidential election. The former president, he said, “orchestrated a scheme with others to influence the 2016 presidential election by identifying and purchasing negative information about him to suppress its publication and benefit the defendant’s electoral prospects.”
....

But it turned out that Mr. Bragg and the grand jury had more than one basis for making the charges felonies. The prosecutor argued on Tuesday that in addition to the federal campaign finance violations, Mr. Trump violated a state election law that makes it a crime to prevent any person from being elected to public office by unlawful means while acting in a conspiracy with others. Mr. Bragg is on much safer ground tying fraudulent business records to a violation of state law, because the defense cannot argue that he lacks jurisdiction on the matter — though Mr. Trump’s lawyers can still argue that state law doesn’t apply to a federal election.

And that wasn’t the only state law that Mr. Bragg said he would cite. The payments to Ms. Daniels were made by Mr. Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen, who was reimbursed by Mr. Trump in a fraudulent way, the prosecution said. The charging document said this reimbursement was illegally disguised as income in a way that “mischaracterized, for tax purposes, the true nature of the payments made in furtherance of the scheme.” So add state tax violations to the list.

The charges also revealed the breadth of Mr. Bragg’s case, showing he intends to persuade a jury of a conspiracy that extended from Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen to David Pecker, a former publisher of The National Enquirer, who was allegedly paid $150,000 by Mr. Trump to procure the silence of a second woman with whom Mr. Trump had an affair, the former Playboy model Karen McDougal. It was not certain until Tuesday that the relationship with Ms. McDougal would be part of the case. The felony charges are specifically about Ms. Daniels, but to prove them, Mr. Bragg made it clear that he would describe a much broader pattern of payoffs that included Ms. McDougal.


Prosecutors also revealed that they would rely on more than just the oral testimony of their star witness, Mr. Cohen, who already served a year in federal prison for his role in the payments and whose credibility will be challenged. There will, for example, be an audio recording of Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen discussing how exactly the payment to Ms. McDougal should be made to The National Enquirer’s parent company. And the evidence will also include texts and email messages discussing Mr. Trump’s suggestion to delay paying Ms. Daniels until after the election, “because at that point it would not matter if the story became public,” prosecutors said. (Those texts may effectively short-circuit any attempt by Mr. Trump to claim the payments were made solely to prevent his wife from learning about his affairs.)

 

[tstorm823]

The charges also revealed the breadth of Mr. Bragg’s case, showing he intends to persuade a jury of a conspiracy that extended from Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen to David Pecker, a former publisher of The National Enquirer, who was allegedly paid $150,000 by Mr. Trump to procure the silence of a second woman with whom Mr. Trump had an affair, the former Playboy model Karen McDougal.

The charges here are pretty illogical, and including Karen McDougal makes them extra silly:

He's being charged with falsifying documents starting in 2017, a crime that allegedly effected the election in 2016, and their evidence includes a story about an affair that went public before the 2016 election. They've kinda forgotten how time works, I think.

Edit: I'm not even trying to dispute their theory. I don't know if the laws as written can prosecute someone for paying for silence during a campaign, but having events listed out in the order they're being presented does not bode well for the success of the prosecution.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

You've got it backwards. Maga is not exposing hypocrisy, they're practicing it. Its they who cast something as the greatest sin they otherwise don't just accept but downright glorify. Its not clever teasing towards the left, its just a pathetic bit of projection. The right has no way to deny Trump us supremely corrupt and a frequent practitioner of nepotism. The left can easily dismiss the Hunter thing by pointing he's not the president, and that no matter how hard the Republicans try they don't seem to be proving a whole lot against Hunter.

It's the idea or corporate governance vs basically dynasty governance.

The big difference Hunter's conflict of interest comes from the corporate world.
The argument for conflict of Interest with Trump etc is from family related.

Giving people power in the White House, the most powerful administrative institution on the planet is a far, far bigger perk, and far, far more dangerous than allegedly giving someone a job in a company no one heard about that doesn't affect anyone. Even if we assume the worst about Hunter then Trump putting his kids in the White House is still far worse.

Depending on the company and their lets say nature for want of a better word it's more dangerous because it's potential leveage against said person in the most powerful administrative institution on the planet.

What else was the Trump administration BUT corporate influence on politics? That was the whole game. An openly corrupt businessman running for president so he could enrich himself and his cronies. Part of why the Trump administration was so uniquely corrupt probably had to do with the business elites infesting the administration.

You mean rather than controlling it from the shadows like normal?

 

[Hades]

It's the idea or corporate governance vs basically dynasty governance.

The big difference Hunter's conflict of interest comes from the corporate world.

Trump in his entirety is a conflict of interest that emerged from the business world. You can't on one hand put an openly corrupt businessman on a pedestal and cheer him on as he enriches himself and his cronies, and then point to a guy you don't like and use his connections to the business world against him. It doesn't work like that.

You mean rather than controlling it from the shadows like normal?

I mean......kinda. Undue influence from the business world on politics is preferable to downright surrendering politics in their entirety to the business class. The very reason why the Trump administration was so wildly corrupt is because every aspect of it was infested with the business class.

Depending on the company and their lets say nature for want of a better word it's more dangerous because it's potential leveage against said person in the most powerful administrative institution on the planet.

Its less dangerous. Potential leverage from the business class is less dangerous than the business class just having all the political power. The prospect of a gass company no one ever heard off trying to blackmail Biden isless worse than the Trump organisation seizing the white house so they can abuse federal power for their own gain. We don't have any suggestion of Burisma trying to blackmail the Bidens, but we do have plenty of instances of world leaders trying to bribe Trump by suddenly making use Trump's establishments and paying the Trump organisation.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

The full list of indictments has been released.

The Trump indictment is now public. Read it here.

Donald Trump, the first current or former president in US history to face criminal charges, is being arraigned Tuesday after being indicted last week by a Manhattan grand jury. Follow here for the latest live news updates.

www.cnn.com

30 counts.

All the same flavour.
All for the same basic thing.

No bank fraud.
No business fraud other than the Stormy Daniels payments

I rest my case on this being a petty vendetta in the end that will come down to the most bureaucratic nonsense not moral right or wrong.

edit: ...

well, since the tweet is now unavailable, i'll just say that there is entirely too much focus on Trump given all the other news. Like for example 15 million people were thrown off medicaid this week, Israel is bombing Damascus for some number of days in a row, and of course there are train derailments like every single day.

But the fact that one criminal president out of the several that are still alive (which is to say all of them, even Jimmy Carter) has been indicted means our "democracy" is saved and "no one is above the law".

ssshhhhh hate the orange man not in power he's to blame for all of this not the present administration who could have acted to deal with some of this but are choosing not to.

How Hatred Came To Dominate American Politics

To anyone following American politics, it’s not exactly news that Democrats and Republicans don’t like each other. Take what happened in the presidential debate…

fivethirtyeight.com

OK, hope you're sitting down.
I concede: Trump is not perfect.
Show me the man, I'll show you the crime. I think, and I've written this in this thread, you can find something to tie anyone to a crime. You create a totalitarian state when you then selectively prosecute. It's worse if the prosecutor gets "creative" which I think is what has happened here.

Look I didn't know the thing could be used to make bioweapons when I helped make it ok. I thought I was helping research on the properties of a chemical normally found in puffer fish.

More on what you said, they're arguing he cheques were faked. How the hell are they going to prove the cheques were faked again? Are they going to suddenly recover the cheques themselves to show Trump wrote "To Pay off Stormy horse face" on them or something?

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

Right, but then why the particular, vociferous objections to lesser crimes, while being unconcerned about greater ones?

To be clear based on the charges here.

The lesser crimes in your view: Smoking crack and banging hookers while helping to unduly influence the actions of a member of congress tipped to be president.

The Greater crime: Paying a lawyer from the wrong account.

For the same reasons that Trump and co using private email while in office was OK while Hillary doing it was the source of "Lock her up!" (Frankly lock them all up, until our elected officials and their appointees start caring about infosec and public record keeping.)

Slight difference though.

Trump (that we know of) had his devices secured by the info sec guys and used his private emails on them. Also the server wasn't sitting in Trump's own home with minimal tech security.......

 

[gorfias]

they're arguing [t]he cheques were faked. How the hell are they going to prove the cheques were faked again? Are they going to suddenly recover the cheques themselves to show Trump wrote "To Pay off Stormy horse face" on them or something?

That's a new one (checks were faked?) Troubling I've heard that the indictment fails to specify a law that Trump broke. They do refer to one actual misdemeanor for which statute has run and said that is the material source of other crime, without specifying to the grand jury what the actual crime that is to be prosecuted is making me worry about the competence and trustworthiness of the grand jury.

I'm not from New York. Maybe that jurisdiction is different. But my understanding of a grand jury does (and why you can indict a ham sandwich) is have a fact pattern presented to them and if that pattern is true and committed by the defendant (IF. The proving part is for later but not now for the GJ) that fact pattern fits a violation of law. How does one do that with no actual law enumerated?

Opinion | The Gaping Hole in the Middle of the Trump Indictment

What exactly are the ‘other crimes’ the former president is alleged to have committed that justify bringing the case?

www.politico.com

Some fear the Judge, if not criminally biased himself can throw the case out.

So now I hear Stormy is going to allege rape.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

The charges here are pretty illogical, and including Karen McDougal makes them extra silly:

He's being charged with falsifying documents starting in 2017, a crime that allegedly effected the election in 2016, and their evidence includes a story about an affair that went public before the 2016 election. They've kinda forgotten how time works, I think.

Edit: I'm not even trying to dispute their theory. I don't know if the laws as written can prosecute someone for paying for silence during a campaign, but having events listed out in the order they're being presented does not bode well for the success of the prosecution.

Time is just one of those social constructs we all live at all times at once according to the truly most "progressive" out there.

What is Indigenous Science? – WISN.org

wisn.org

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

Trump in his entirety is a conflict of interest that emerged from the business world. You can't on one hand put an openly corrupt businessman on a pedestal and cheer him on as he enriches himself and his cronies, and then point to a guy you don't like and use his connections to the business world against him. It doesn't work like that.

Trump came from a business background and the objections of nepotism mostly so far were him giving his kids positions in his government lol

I mean......kinda. Undue influence from the business world on politics is preferable to downright surrendering politics in their entirety to the business class. The very reason why the Trump administration was so wildly corrupt is because every aspect of it was infested with the business class.

At least you knew who was doing what without the need to follow the strings.

Its less dangerous. Potential leverage from the business class is less dangerous than the business class just having all the political power. The prospect of a gass company no one ever heard off trying to blackmail Biden isless worse than the Trump organisation seizing the white house so they can abuse federal power for their own gain. We don't have any suggestion of Burisma trying to blackmail the Bidens, but we do have plenty of instances of world leaders trying to bribe Trump by suddenly making use Trump's establishments and paying the Trump organisation.

Not really because them being in power lets people try and hold them accountable. Them having a proxy lets them just keep switching it out if something goes wrong.

Also on the point of Trump establishments etc.

You mean like big donations of a "Non profit" foundation that mysteriously suddenly saw it's donations crater after an election loss?

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

That's a new one (checks were faked?) Troubling I've heard that the indictment fails to specify a law that Trump broke. They do refer to one actual misdemeanor for which statute has run and said that is the material source of other crime, without specifying to the grand jury what the actual crime that is to be prosecuted is making me worry about the competence and trustworthiness of the grand jury.

I'm not from New York. Maybe that jurisdiction is different. But my understanding of a grand jury does (and why you can indict a ham sandwich) is have a fact pattern presented to them and if that pattern is true and committed by the defendant (IF. The proving part is for later but not now for the GJ) that fact pattern fits a violation of law. How does one do that with no actual law enumerated?

Opinion | The Gaping Hole in the Middle of the Trump Indictment

What exactly are the ‘other crimes’ the former president is alleged to have committed that justify bringing the case?

www.politico.com

Some fear the Judge, if not criminally biased himself can throw the case out.

So now I hear Stormy is going to allege rape.

Yeh a number of the charges mention specific cheque stubs as part of the charge of falsifying business accounts because it was a business cheque book used for them

 

[Silvanus]

The Greater crime: Paying a lawyer from the wrong account.

It's a bit more to do with all the felonies actually.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

It's a bit more to do with all the felonies actually.

That's what 34 of the 34 felonies boil down to basically though lol.
Trump paid his Lawyer from the wrong account we have evidence this happened because he tried to cover it up here which would then count as false financial statements if he did it.

 

[Trunkage]

That's what 34 of the 34 felonies boil down to basically though lol.
Trump paid his Lawyer from the wrong account we have evidence this happened because he tried to cover it up here which would then count as false financial statements if he did it.

Paid it from the wrong account... 34 times. Over a bunch of years

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

Paid it from the wrong account... 34 times. Over a bunch of years

Nope if you read the sheet basically all the charges are from 2017 and it goes like this for them

1) Records indicate a payment of a Lawyers invoice on this date this was fraudulent to report as a business payment.
2) The Payment was recorded in official ledgers as [reference number] reporting it in the ledger is a fraudulent representation of it as a business expense.
3) In support of the payment a cheque stub marked [refence number] was submitted onto file, submitting this cheque stub as evidence constitutes fraud.

It's 12 instances they're arguing were some secret payments being made in an illegal way to his lawyer but with 11 of them they've added each individual part of the recording of the payment process as it's own fraud charge.