Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump
nytimes.comAll: please don't post low-substance and/or high-indignation and/or political battle comments to this thread, or any HN thread. We're trying for something else here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
This is on the front page because it's historically significant and intellectually interesting; so please comment if you have something to say that enhances those aspects. I know it's hard to detach from the passions of the moment, but that's kind of necessary for curious conversation*, so it's good practice.
* https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor....
I've scrolled through the top ~10 or so comments, and none of them, describe or comment on the nature of the charges against Trump. To be fair to the commenters, most stories are vague.
The charges relate to hush money payments to Stormy Daniels, but hush money is not a crime. It's also not a crime to have an affair with Stormy Daniels. So the most salacious parts of the story are not what the crime is.
My understanding is that the crime is around how the money was delivered. I'm having trouble finding a good description, but CNN has this to say:
> Hush money payments aren't illegal. Prosecutors are weighing whether to charge Trump with falsifying the business records of the Trump Organization for how they reflected the reimbursement of the payment to Michael Cohen. Falsifying business records is a misdemeanor in New York.
> Prosecutors are also weighing whether to charge Trump with falsifying business records in the first degree for allegedly falsifying a record with the intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal another crime, which in this case could be a violation of campaign finance laws. That is a Class E felony, with a sentence minimum of one year and as much as four years.
I'm not a lawyer and it's hard to parse the above, but it sounds very technical. It sounds like they have to prove two separate crimes, and connect them with intention. Intent of course is always hard to prove in court.
Overall this seems like a weak case to me.
The indictment is sealed so the actual charges aren't public, yet. Everyone is just speculating.
Interesting items:
- This is from the NY State courts so it is NY State laws in play (likely campaign finance laws), not Federal. If it were Federal it would be prosecuted by Federal attorney's in a Federal court.
- A Grand Jury (for those that don't know) is composed of citizens, about 16-20 or something, that proceed like a court case understanding laws and evidence presented, including witness interviews, and the result here is that they chose to indict. This means that 12 (or more) citizens decided there was enough evidence that specific laws might have been broken to bring charges against him.
- I believe (common sense here) that campaign finance funds have to be kept separate from personal or business funds, as in different accounts. Depending on the laws in various states the laws may require disclosure forms of funds into/out of the accounts, etc.
Its likely that this is technical and could be traceable - if the funds for hush money came from a campaign finance account through his attorney and noted as such its probably not a case that is worth trying. That doesn't appear to be illegal, its a (morally questionable) campaign line item. If the source of the funds was from a personal/business account then that could violate campaign finance laws by using the wrong account. This kinda sounds like how they got Al Capone on tax evasion and not the myriad of other potential crimes. I'm not comparing the people, just my layman knowledge of the cases.
> A Grand Jury (for those that don't know) is composed of citizens, about 16-20 or something, that proceed like a court case understanding laws and evidence presented, including witness interviews, and the result here is that they chose to indict. This means that 12 (or more) citizens decided there was enough evidence that specific laws might have been broken to bring charges against him.
There's also a famous saying, though, that any prosecutor could get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich (interestingly, I never knew the original author of that quote was a judge who subsequently served 13 months in prison, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sol_Wachtler).
But, the overall point is that the bar for grand jury indictment is intentionally low. I'm not going to speculate on aspects of the indictment because I don't know what they are yet (and it always amazes me how so many folks always dig in to be part of "their team" even before they know what the game is), but before the indictments I did see some legal experts who were definitely not Trump fans argue that it was not a case they would've brought.
> some legal experts who were definitely not Trump fans argue that it was not a case they would've brought
Legal experts or not, unless they have seen the evidence (incl witness testimony) and charges their speculation is as good as any internet commenter. I read a headline that there are 34 charges in the indictment, could be many unique ones or it could be one of those things like 34 wire fraud charges because there were 34 transactions from 34 accounts or whatever.
Yep, I totally agree. These commenters weren't commenting so much on the specifics of the case, but in generalities of prosecuting these types of crimes (i.e. where the underlying act, paying hush money, is not a crime, but the record keeping/campaign finance violations are).
But yes, 100%, folks should calm down until the contents of the indictment are made public.
Jon Stewart's show or maybe one of the podcast episodes commented on how the mainstream media goes absolutely crazy over the potential of him getting caught or in court or whatever. Like weeks of talking about purely speculative things with zero actual news. It gets the networks lots of revenue.
To be fair, a lot of the conversation that goes on when these topics come up are around the legal and social ramifications. There was an expectation that he was going to be indicted, and so it's important to think about if that's a good idea, and also weigh the pros and cons.
It's important to hear from politicians, former prosecutors, scholars, historians, and also to get input from people in other countries as well. How would it impact world perception? How would it impact US soft power?
It's also important to think about the civil implications. Could there be riots? Targeted domestic terror attacks against law enforcement (which has happened)? How is law enforcement prepared to handle it?
I think when robust conversations like these happen, it's easier for the public to understand when a prosecutor makes a move. Because it's not the prosecutor's job to explain this to anyone. Some people (even in this thread) really need a civics lesson. Like, people expecting the defense to have a crack at the grand jury, and if they don't then it's somehow a biased process or that due process has been violated. That's just how it works, and Bragg doesn't have to explain that to people. But because we have no other mechanism to do this, it's really the media's role at this point, which is sad, but that's where the conversation happens.
Just because a case is in New York State court does not mean that only New York State law will be at issue. It’s common for a state court to be asked to opine on the law of another state or on federal law.
That being said I don’t know if the NY statute that elevates the misdemeanor into a felony requires the predicate crime to be specifically prohibited by NY statute.
> could violate campaign finance laws by using the wrong account
My understanding is that there is no limit to the amount of a candidate's own money they are permitted to spend on their campaign. So what legitimate state interest could be advanced by laws that nitpick the exact boundary between what is and isn't campaign funding when it comes to the candidate's own money?
Do candidates have to report all their food expenditures as campaign funding-- since they obviously couldn't campaign if they don't eat? :)
I think it might be more like a business expense report when you travel. If I'm on a business trip and get a coffee, that's a business expense because I'm traveling for the purposes of work. If I'm working from home and go get a coffee, that's not a business expense. Replace business expense with campaign expense and there are likely rules about what a campaign can pay for and what it can't as well as rules around using personal money for campaign expenses, subverting the necessary disclosure rules.
I read a headline just a bit ago that there were 34 counts in the indictment so I'm guessing what they found spans more than a single transaction.
>It sounds like they have to prove two separate crimes, and connect them with intention. Intent of course is always hard to prove in court.
Michael Cohen pled guilty and was sentenced to three years for the campaign finance law, and he's been very vocal about Trump's knowledge and involvement. So proving intent doesn't seem impossible. And, by definition, falsifying business records comes with a record of false information.
I've seen arguments in the right-ophere that Cohen improperly plead guilty to a non-crime. Which seems like a weird thing for a high-level well-connected lawyer to do.
There was a fairly effective push to dismantle groups linked to Trump's electoral success [0]. They had a similar air of bullshit charges that only became an issue because prosecutors wanted to achieve political ends.
It is weird, but it is likely he is being threatened. If they can get Trump arrested for this, they can certainly put Cohen in jeopardy.
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/21/us/mueller-tr...
EDIT Also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Bannon#2022_New_York_sta... is probably going to fall into the same basket
Worth mentioning that Stormy Daniels claims that she and her child were threatened over this issue.
> 'Leave Trump alone. Forget the story.' And then he leaned around and looked at my daughter and said, 'That's a beautiful little girl. It'd be a shame if something happened to her mom.'
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/stormy-dan...
that alone is pretty serious stuff, the hard part is proving it actually happened (if I was dealing with such things I would always record every conversation on some tiny recorder, not phone, but thats me)
> if I was dealing with such things I would always record every conversation on some tiny recorder
that would also be illegal though, and could not be used in court as evidence? (Not a lawyer, not legal advice) On the other hand, nowadays it's pretty easy to fake voice recordings. I'm not sure if it can be done in a way that is hard to detect by experts.
At the US Federal level the law is "one party consent", meaning that someone who is a party to a private conversation can record it without requiring the approval of the other part(y/ies). You can't record someone else's private conversation without approval, but you can record those you are a party to.
Some states have stricter "two party consent" laws which require both/all parties to approve, which is why most national companies put automated warnings in their phone systems if they're recording any calls.
IANAL, but I think recording the conversation surreptitiously is legal in NY, as long as one party knows they’re being recorded.
That wasn't the only crime he pled guilty to. Likely had to plea guilty to all crimes to get his deal.
Cohen was not crime lawyer. And any high-level lawyer will tell you that even them will not represent themselves in a criminal investigation nor are they immune from make false confessions under the pressure of the federal government.
Cohen and Stormy Danielle changed their stories. What they say is unreliable.
https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-did-stormy-daniels-admit...
https://nypost.com/2018/08/23/how-long-before-cohens-lawyer-...
Only thing that matters: what is said under oath.
The rest is marketing/BS.
> Only thing that matters: what is said under oath
You mean that what a witness has said outside of court can't be presented as evidence?
I don’t think it can. You’d need the witness to testify or sign an affidavit and submit it as evidence. But there’s a lot of particulars about evidence so I think depends on how they said it.
Have you ever watched a criminal trial? Some of them are streamed online now. Seriously go watch them, you often get career lawyers commenting on them too, for free.
What someone said publicly can definitely be used and has been used criminal trials.
From what I read, the indictment is sealed. Does that mean we don't really know precisely what the charges are yet? I'm willing to wait and see.
Also, from everything I've read, well defended people are remarkably hard to convict. This is as it should be, as it may let some people go scot free, but protects the rest of us.
Convicting Trump will be hard. It might fail. Does this mean that charges should not be brought in the first place? That's a question I don't know how to answer, for any "white collar" or prominent defendant.
How does it protect the rest of us if "well defended people" means "those able to afford better lawyers"?
Admittedly, I thought I was being concise, but edited my post into a real head-scratcher.
I was thinking along the lines of protections such as presumption of innocence, and burden of proof, as making it hard to convict people. But it does require competent defense to enforce those things.
An example of easy to convict is countries where prominent dissidents are arrested for nebulous "corruption," and basically stand no chance.
Ah, I see now. Good point.
I love common law but one aspect that seems inescapably (though perhaps not wholly) negative is the different levels of access to justice that come with different levels of wealth.
same question here...
Because only the well-funded can establish precedent. At least until Dobson, precedent was generally applicable, respected by lower courts and enforced on police and prosecutors.
Interesting, but that being said, if the defense does prevail, the precedents that’ll be set will likely broaden the range of shady things that can be paid for during a political campaign. Probably not a good thing for average folks.
Precedent can be and is open to change - and should be in the case of bad precedent - and did you mean Dobbs?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dobbs_v._Jackson_Women%27s_Hea...
Since there is the concept of sealed indictment, why are all the indictments not sealed (or none of them)?
I guess this is to preserve the person that is accused (because an accusation is easier to make than to defend, given the visibility decided by the media, supporters, etc)) - do why some are more preserved then others?
Since the topic is a hot one, please note that I am from France and have no stakes nor interest in the political discussion, I am genuinely interested in that concept of this seal which we do not have AFAICT.
> Since there is the concept of sealed indictment, why are all the indictments not sealed (or none of them)?
There are a variety of reasons to seal an indictment (which will only remain sealed until the defendant is arrested), one of which os to facilitate arrest and avoid flight, another is to protect information in the indictment for as long as possible, especially if there is information that may be sensitive to ongoing investigations beside that of the person indicted, or if there is concern for the safety of victims/witnesses identified in the indictment.
> I guess this is to preserve the person that is accused
No, it is not. It is mostly to protect against actions of that person or their confederates, not to protect them.
Thank you - as mentioned in a parallel comment, I was completely mistaken about the reason for the seal. Now this is clear. Thanks.
Most indictments are never sealed (if the accused has been arrested on other charges, for example, there isn't much use in trying to keep it secret from the accused), and the ones that are always become unsealed in order to go to trial. There are a number of reasons to file an indictment under seal - ranging from juvenile records to managing flight risks of the accused.
The one that is probably most pertinent in this case has to do with testimony in front of a grand jury: both encouraging it to occur, and preventing it from being tampered with by the accused.
Ahhhh, the seal is there to keep the details secret for everyone, including the accused. OK, now I understand the reason behind this mechanism (especially that the indictments are unsealed when when going to trial).
Thank you for the precisions
> I am from France and have no stakes nor interest in the political discussion
The impact of U.S. politics goes well beyond its borders.
Yes, but when reading the comments I see a lot of US political discussions about whether this is a problem or not, Whether D Trump is ok or not, etc. I am not interested in these and did not want my question about what a seal is to diverge on whether this is a good thing or not to seal (or not seal)
Trump has a habit of not paying his bills. This has led him to complain in the past year that he is having trouble hiring attorneys.
It's too early to say if it's a weak case because we just don't know the details. There are (AFAIK unconfirmed) reports that there are 34 charges in the indictment. You wouldn't get that just from the Stormy Daniels payoff so, if true, there's more to this indictment. Maybe related to the Trump Organization fraud? We can only speculate.
This will be unsealed when Trump is processed and arraigned. I believe this is set for Tuesday. Note that processing includes the mug shot, fingerprinting and DNA.
My understanding is the payoff was upgraded to a felony because it had to be. If it were a misdemeanour it would be beyond the statute of limitations. So this isn't even a case where the prosecutor has "insurance" with a lesser charge. A felony seems to require actual intent, as in knowing this would impact the election. Whose to say it wasn't done to protect his marriage, for example? Of course, there may be evidence to support this.
But I have trouble believing the Manhattan DA would indict just on this (alleged) offence. There has to be more to this. Hopefully we'll learn a lot more next week.
> Note that processing includes the mug shot, fingerprinting and DNA.
He fought E Jean Carroll for three years to avoid giving a DNA sample that could have proved his guilt or innocence in the sexual assault case.
Once he is booked he will have a record in the national DNA database (CODIS) that can be checked against any physical evidence such as Carroll's dress as well as outstanding unsolved cases.
This is really all that's worth saying until next week
The theory as I understand it is that the payment was a large unreported contribution to his presidential campaign. It's not legal to do that, and the prosecutors believe they can demonstrate that's what happened.
Campaign finance violates are a dime a dozen. I don't think any serious candidate didn't have values similar or greater than what's discussed in this case. None of them got indicted criminally they all just paid fines.
`The commission documents said Perkins Coie — where a partner at the time, Marc Elias, was representing the Clinton campaign — paid Fusion GPS slightly more than $1 million in 2016, and the law firm was in turn paid $175,000 by the campaign and about $850,000 by the party during six weeks in July and August 2016. Campaign spending disclosure reports described most of those payments to Perkins Coie as having been for “legal services” and “legal and compliance consulting.”`
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/30/us/politics/hillary-clint...
If they're a dime a dozen (I don't think they are), then we should either make sure to provide high visibility instances in order to dissuade others from breaking the law, or we should change the laws if we don't think they are worth enforcing.
Note that Hillary Clinton's campaign was fined for a campaign finance violation.
https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2022-03-30/dnc...
How is it relevant what someone else has done to this indictment?
Because it shows politically motivated use of legal power, which is especially bad. I'm all for prosecuting Trump and Clinton and all the rest of them, but to only prosecute Trump when there's a sea of malfeasance stinking up the place seems like an overwhelmingly bad idea.
But to only prosecute Trump
The article referred to in the parent asserts that Clinton was also prosecuted (albeit for a different, and lesser charge). As many others have been. So the argument you're making here seems rather weak.
Hillary Clinton was not prosecuted, for anything, nor was she charged for anything. Regarding the campaign fund violation, her campaign was fined $8000 by the FEC and the DNC was fined too. As the article states:
> The Clinton campaign agreed to a civil penalty of $8,000
It really helps to know the difference between civil, criminal, charge, prosecution and indictment when reading such things, and to keep note of who is being charged etc by whom.
Regarding the email server farrago, she was not prosecuted for that either. As this helpful article[0] comparing the raids on Mar-a-Lago to the email stuff points out:
> So prosecutors decided "there was no basis" to charge Clinton or her aides, the inspector general said.
and
> "The biggest difference right now between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump" is that with Clinton, "we know there was no prosecution -- that ship has sailed,"
The NYT article also backs this up by not mentioning any charge, indictment or prosecution. I certainly didn't notice it. Hillary Clinton is mentioned once.
> Some Democrats pointedly recalled Trump supporters’ calls during the 2016 election for Hillary Clinton, then the Democratic presidential nominee, to be arrested.
> “Those lock her up chants that people were chanting like hyenas in a stadium around the country were never funny,” Representative Jared Moskowitz, a Florida Democrat, said in a Twitter post. “Perhaps they now understand why.”
That's it.
[0] https://abcnews.go.com/US/fbis-trump-investigation-hillary-c...
Which felony-class (or other criminal) violations, specifically, do you maintain that Clinton should have been indicted for?
Where did I write that she should've been indicted?
I didn't. Thanks for taking the time to properly read my comments in future.
Your exact words were, "I'm all for prosecuting Trump and Clinton."
Don't try to take it back now.
a) That's not a should.
b) It's an example of lack of discrimination, not a wish or obligation to have them prosecuted - I'm all for prosecuting Trump and Clinton. I could've written Biden or Pelosi, or Clinton B.
c) You're tumbling in the weeds now.
My advice, you mucked up in your reading - of the article you mentioned and of my comments - and you're clearly finding it hard to deal with having that pointed out. Just take it, learn from it, and move on. Arguing about it like I care about Republicans or Trump isn't going to get you anywhere. It's certainly not going to magic up anything that matches what's happening to Trump, like a charge for Hillary.
Good info!
How does it show that? The campaign broke the law, was caught, and punished (fined).
Degree of severity and attempts to conceal a crime are both considered serious factors in punishment a crime merits.
How were similar cases treated in the past? One case that keeps being discussed is the John Edwards case. Edwards was a presidential candidate; he had an affair with his videographer and had a child by her while his wife was dying of cancer. He paid a very large sum to the woman as hush money and was charged similarly with campaign finance violations. He specifically solicited money from wealthy donors to pay the hush money. Jury acquitted him on one charge and deadlocked on the rest; the DOJ dropped the rest of the charges.
Similarly the DOJ looked at the Trump hush money case and declined to prosecute.
Campaign finance laws in the US are a land mine and need reform. There is too much prosecutorial discretion and not enough clarity for people to know whether they are breaking the law. Campaign finance laws have become a way to fish for a crime against political enemies.
To wit: Bragg actively campaigned for his position promising to investigate Trump.
Rule of law should be about observing and then prosecuting crimes, not about spending years and millions investigating people looking for a crime that they committed.
I think this is the best comment here! It helps resolve the dissonance I feel here where I really don't love that this is the thing he's being charged for, but I also hate the idea that things that are illegal can't be prosecuted due to purely political considerations. But your point about prosecutorial discretion in campaign finance cases helps square this circle for me.
But I'd still say that we need to see more details of the case than have been released yet before drawing any conclusions.
We. Don't. Know. What. The. Charges. Are. Yet.
We do; they’ve been leaked to media. 30ish counts of falsifying business records related to if/how Trump reimbursed Cohen.
Equality under the law matters greatly and when officials of any type use their discretion to obtain outcomes that are not in the fat part of the bell curve for how said discretion is usually applied to similar fact patterns it needs to be well justified.
We haven't seen the indictment yet so it may be well justified but the scuttlebutt so far does not seem to strongly indicate that.
> How does it show that? The campaign broke the law, was caught, and punished (fined).
> Degree of severity and attempts to conceal a crime are both considered serious factors in punishment a crime merits.
Which do you consider a more direct violation of campaign finance law with direct intent to benefit a campaign?
1. Paying a lawyer to pay a woman to not speak about an elicit affair from a decade prior.
2. Paying a lawyer to pay a private investigator to compile a negative dossier about your political opponent in the, at the time, current US general election.
As you have written it, neither of those two things are illegal to do, funnily enough.
Maybe reflect then on why one campaign settled a law suit, and Trump is being indicted at the moment, if again, neither is actually illegal under campaign finance law.
Hint: it's legal to pay for opposition research, but a violation to not disclose that you're doing it.
It's also legal to pay for an NDA, but not legal for the NDA to be created by direction of one's private lawyer, and then subsequently to use campaign finances to reimburse and list bonuses to that lawyer for legal services they never rendered to the campaign.
The comparison is that if it’s indeed illegal, how is one that is clearly only directly benefiting the campaign a mere misdemeanor fine and the other a felony?
It's very likely Bragg's attempt to push this to a felony fails. It's just speculation (SINCE WE DON'T KNOW THE CHARGES) about what evidence is available and what people might be doing.
If Trump gets a $1000 fine for this, I feel like that's justice.
> If Trump gets a $1000 fine for this, I feel like that's justice.
It's felony or nothing as the statute of limitations has expired on the misdemeanor. My money is on the latter.
You wrote this like it's obvious which one is worse under current law, but I have no idea. We also don't know what the actual charges against Trump are yet.
The solution is either to punish them all or none at all? That doesn't help, at all, to bring some kind of justice. Or would it be the case that given it's a sea of malfeasance and it's impossible to prosecute all of them to simply give up on the law and let it be a free-for-all?
Such an odd take.
It’s not an odd take, in the context of what op is saying is that in has the overt appearance of bias and weaponisation of the legal system against your political opponents. This is the sort of thing Putin did to Nevsky.
Odd if you make a false dilemma, yes, but I wasn't doing that.
The solution is to indict both. Otherwise you do not have "some kind of justice". You are perverting justice system turning it into weapon.
And that "impossible to prosecute all" is BS. We are talking couple of people here.
It's normal in our legal system to have a scale of punishment based on the scale of lawbreaking. We don't know enough here to know whether the laws broken in the two cases are of the same scale. Some things are punished with minor fines and others are major fines and possible jail time. The details of the case determine which.
Seems like they did prosecute the Clinton case, and the outcome was a fine? The outcome of the Trump case may also be a fine...
When was Clinton indicted and arrested for this crime? It was never prosecuted, she just received a fine from the FEC
That's compatible with my comment.
Bah, I can't edit anymore, but I just noticed I wrote "provide" in this comment when I meant to write "prosecute".
Yeah but they weren't being persecuted for obviously political reasons. Usually the ruling class avoids eating their own because they know then that the guillotine can come for them. But in this case, Trump is too much of a danger to the war-machine establishment.
Hillary paid for the Steele Dossier and improperly reported it and was fined for it. They didn't try to press criminal charges against her for that or for mishandling classified emails (also a crime technically).
Did you notice how talk of Trump's crimes related to classified documents disappeared completely after Biden was found with improperly handled classified documents?
It's all theater.
> Did you notice how talk of Trump's crimes related to classified documents disappeared completely after Biden was found with improperly handled classified documents?
Well, it could also be because Biden's discovery (a) was smaller and self-reported, (b) his legal team helped in resolving the situation, AND (c) the documents have been recovered in both cases and the ball is now in competent authority's court.
It's like this - say you and I both run over someone. I hide the evidence and try my best to prevent my guilt from surfacing. You, on the other hand, co-operate with the authorities and accept your blame. Which story is more likely to linger longer in the papers? I'd say mine simply because I'm being obstinate and refusing to do the right thing as expected by the law and by common decency.
I'd say that's why Biden's story died because of this.
Analogies are imperfect, but I think a little more detail would make it the analogy fair.
Let me restate your example of running over someone:
Let's say you and I both run over someone. I did it last year, and you did it 6 years ago. You say nothing for 6 years, I say nothing for 1 year. I get caught, and provide no cooperation whatsoever. You watch me get caught and excoriated in the press and decide you need to fess up and cooperate. 6 years after the fact.
Minor correction requested - "I ran over someone six years ago NOT knowing I had run over someone. Then I saw you getting beat up by the law so I checked my dash cam footage and realized that, oh sh!t, that lawman could come for me next so I turned myself in."
That's a truer representation of what actually happened.
Trump actively engaged in attempts to deceive authorities and the courts with regards to very current and highly secret documents.
The Biden team discovered some very old files nobody ever knew were missing and turned them over immediately.
Another point: The reality is that what Biden did, find some old documents and give them back, happens all the time and we need to build better systems to prevent that from happening. In the relevant law, intent is important and Biden apparently convinced the relevant people that he did not intend to keep these documents.
Trump meanwhile, clearly intended to take these documents, clearly lied to the feds about having these documents, gave some of them back when the feds said they knew he had them, lied about having more, and other stonewalling tactics. The feds TRIED to keep this hush hush for like a full year. If Trump would have given everything back at the first question, we might never have even heard of it.
> self-reported
IIRC the first instance wasn't, it was the second and third that were afterwards.
Also the FBI knew about and helped secure the documents Trump had before they were "discovered".
The parent poster was claiming that the story around Trump has died, seemingly suggesting that high profile figures on the Democrat side have realised it doesn't pay to keep pushing a story that now makes their own guy look bad. Personally I'm not convinced, most stories tend to fall out of the spotlight sooner or later unless new discoveries are made that can keep them interesting. Plus it's premature to suggest we've heard the end of that story anyway.
I think it’s because of (c) I.e., everything worth reporting has been reported, the ball is in the justice department’s court to decide what to do about both Biden and Trump. Merrick Garland is a methodical guy so it’s wait-n-watch wrt to the classified docs story.
Don’t think it’s malicious.
I find all these "look at me I'm very clever and I know what's really going on here" takes very tiresome.
Trump is too much of a danger to the war-machine establishment.
Trump is the war-machine establishment, bro. Recall he wanted (and according to some stories yesterday, still wants) to invade Mexico.
Violations like that are charged all the time. This particular offense was already charged against Trump's lawyer, so it makes sense to charge Trump who directed Trump to do it.
It wasn't just a campaign finance violation. It also was a major financial misstatement, even fraud telling the election bureau, the IRS and state officials this was legal expenses, which it clearly wasn't. There's no way no how one can make the claim "not a big enough deal to charge". Things like that and even more minor get charged all day long. It's just that there is a very long history of Trump and his goons interfering with this charge getting brought and making a much bigger deal about it.
As someone who ran for a state-level elected office, I can tell you that campaign finance violations are not "a dime a dozen".
> Overall this seems like a weak case to me.
The Economist, no fan of Trump, made much the same point [1], archived at [2]
> Prosecuting Mr Trump for the campaign-finance violation relies on a convoluted argument. In 2016 Michael Cohen, the president’s personal lawyer (who later went to prison himself), paid $130,000 to Ms Daniels out of his own pocket. Mr Trump allegedly reimbursed Mr Cohen with payments disguised as routine legal expenses. Falsifying business records can be a misdemeanour under New York law. The felony indictment would indicate that prosecutors are going to argue that the minor crime facilitated a more serious one: failing to declare the payment, which was made a few weeks before the election, as a de facto campaign expense.
> The payment probably did benefit the campaign and it was indeed undeclared. Mr Cohen, the lawyer, pleaded guilty to breaking campaign-finance law. But legal theory for prosecuting Mr Trump in Manhattan is untested. The campaign-finance rules that he may have broken are federal. The accounting rule is a state one. Linking the two in this way is unusual, and a judge may decide it is unwarranted.
And today it has a leader [3], archived at [4] which goes into greater detail, and concludes
> If Mr Trump is to be prosecuted, it should be for something that cannot be dismissed as a technicality, and where the law is clearer. The Manhattan DA’s case looks like a mistake.
[1] https://www.economist.com/united-states/2023/03/23/the-cases... [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20230329221711/https://www.econo... [3] https://www.economist.com/leaders/2023/03/30/prosecuting-don... [4] https://web.archive.org/web/20230331115631/https://www.econo...
The second archived link seems to still be pay walled. Here's a mirror just in case
What I've been wondering about is: can he be prosecuted for multiple things in different courts? Can he be prosecuted for this, the Georgia election, and the classified documents, at the same time? Or is there a law against that because it's hard to defend yourself against 3 cases simultaneously?
Yes, he can be prosecuted for all 3 simultaneously. They are different cases, in different jurisdictions which will be handled by different prosecutors and different court systems.
This is why you should only break one law at a time.
One law at a time? The guy can tell more than one lie at a time
Weak consequences doesn't mean legal. One state investigation has no impact on the others.
My understanding from legal eagle on YouTube is that the payment was done illegally. Both in terms of taxes and in terms of how you are allowed to spend money on campaigning (she was hushed to aid the presidential campaign)
If a person you had an affair with 10 years ago threatens you that they will tell your spouse or try to damage your reputation unless you pay them 130k, I think that would generally be considered extortion.
First, extortion would typically be with a threat of violence or destruction, so you are thinking of blackmail.
Second, criminal blackmail excludes legal processes.
Third, she didn't threaten trump, she tried to sell her story after he lied to her about being a contestant on the apprentice.
https://www.scrofanolaw.com/federal-blackmail-and-extortion/
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/19/nyregion/trump-stormy-dan...
Blackmail is a form of extortion. If it were true that extortion required violence or destruction (it does not) then so would blackmail.
I’m not exactly what you mean when you say that “criminal blackmail excludes legal process,” but if you mean that threatening to go to the police with evidence of a crime if the criminal does not give you something of value, you are absolutely mistaken.
Threatening to go to the police without seeking something of value for your silence is certainly legal, but the moment you try to sell your silence you’re going to be wandering around in the vicinity of extortion.
> “criminal blackmail excludes legal process,”
They're saying that "If you don't pay me $X, I'll tell your wife I slept with you" is not illegal, so it doesn't constitute criminal blackmail.
I’d probably run that assertion by a lawyer before I lived by it.
Pay me or I will ruin your reputation is very much blackmail. Investigative journalism would become potentially extremely profitable if it wasn't.
Of course it's blackmail. The question is if it's criminal or not.
Blackmail is a crime, so this would be a pretty safe bet.
> (she was hushed to aid the presidential campaign)
It seems more likely that this is pretty routine with Trump and had not much to do with the campaign. I doubt he started sleeping with hot women only after deciding to run for president; and there is probably a lot of money in it for the women. One of the perks of dating billionaires.
He certainly didn't start sleeping with hot women only after deciding to run for president, but he absolutely did make a payoff to someone he [allegedly] slept with ten years earlier during the middle of his campaign. Hard to argue the timing is unrelated to campaign objectives, even in the likely event the Trump Organization paid hush money to other people related to other disputes or allegations long before Trump established himself as a political figure,
Considering he's a serial adulterer it might not be hard to show intent if this is the only case he tried to hush in this manner. If this is the only instance in which he committed fraud to hide the payment it might set an important timeline link between his campaign and the case.
Since the affair happened in 2006, I strongly doubt he went back in time to sleep with a porn star.
> (she was hushed to aid the presidential campaign)
There was so much crap spewed about Trump this would not have affected the campaign in any way. If all the other crap didn't damage, why would they believe that would? He wanted to keep his private life private. She wasn't paid off until the month before the election. It was VERY clear by that point the affair would have little affect on the election.
According to which "political experts"? He got hammered with the Access Hollywood tapes. You can easily make a case that he had an incentive to not repeat that experience. The proximity to the election and the distance to the actual event is just to damning.
He also doesn't have a history of hush money payments, but rather openly admitting, even inventing scandals about his love life (he claimed he was dating Madonna ffs). So why all of a sudden would he pay hush money and try to cover up the hush money in an illegal scheme? Nothing to do with the election a few days away? Really?
The gist of it is, the hush money payments were covered up by filing false business records claiming it was for "lawyer's fees". That's the first issue. The second issue is that it can be considered an improper campaign contribution because it was to benefit the campaign.
In order for it to be a felony, you need to connect the two together. Otherwise it's a misdemeanour.
In terms of it being a "weak case", I would just say let's wait to see what the prosecutors' argument is - this will be released when the indictment is unsealed on Thursday. It's a document-heavy case. There is a witness who carried out the crime (Michael Cohen), and other witnesses as well. I would also posit that the prosecutors, and a grand jury (who unanimously voted to indict) would not take the unprecedented step to charge a former President unless they thought there was a strong case.
So, let's just wait and see.
Cohen plead guilty to the hush money as an excessive personal campaign contribution. Going forward, it's not likely that the contribution can be recharacterized for the purposes of charging DJT with a crime. This case is going to be tossed out of court.
> lawyer's fees
This seems to be a very popular way to label questionable payments during presidential campaigns, given that both major candidates did it in 2016.
The reason nobody is reporting on the actual charges (other than that there are ~30 of them) is because Grand Jury indictments are sealed until the suspect has been arraigned.
There is speculation that many of the charges are related to falsifying business records to cover up the payment, which would explain the number of charges involved. If true, then this case has parallels with what happened with Bill Clinton in the Monica Lewinski case: it wasn't the affair that was criminal act, it was the coverup after the fact.
Based on one article that quoted an anonymous source from one of Trump's advisors or confidants, said that they are working toward an arraignment on Tuesday. But it's a high profile case with exceptional circumstances--namely the involvement of the Secret Service--so we should probably take that date with a grain of salt.
To be fair to Bill, he asked for a definition of "sex" and the definition he was given did not include a blowjob as part of that definition. Everybody else knows that a blowjob is a sexual act (when I lived in Florida, it was listed as "sodomy" but then if you weren't a married couple, everything other than "missionary" was defined as "sodomy").
> it wasn't the affair that was criminal act
I always thought this was bullshit, despite being otherwise happy with bill Clinton’s presidential leadership. To me it seemed bill was in a position of power over Monica and it’s a clear case of statutory rape.
To me (as a personal opinion).
It's worth mentioning that the former senator John Edwards was prosecuted for a similar hush money case. It ended in a acquittal on some and mistrial on other charges. The issue was that it is not obvious what he was alleged to have done was even a crime. And Trump's case is even weaker than that of John Edwards.
>>this seems like a weak case to me.
Said another commenter who, like everyone else outside of the DA's office, has literally no data on what is in the now-reported to be 34 indictments.
>> hard to parse the above, but it sounds very technical So, "I don't know what I'm talking about, generally don't like it, so I'll just call it weak.", is itself a very weak statement.
It is extremely unlikely that this reluctant prosecutor would go to the mat with a weak case around one event such as a payoff to one woman, even if it was done in a way to violate tax and campaign finance laws.
We know no details, but there are clues in the public domain. The same DA office already convicted the Trump Organization on 17 counts and got the maximum fines [0]. There were witnisses called before the Grand Jury who would have spoken to much more than a single payoff scheme. There were multiple women, and David Pecker, former publisher of the National Enquirer, who was known to have paid for and killed multiple scandalous stories on Trump's behalf, and Allen Weisselberg, the former chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, who plead guilty in a 15-year Trump Org Tax Scheme.
Based on this, it is a reasonable inference to expect charges of a years-long conspiracy to commit tax, business, and campaign fraud.
I suppose if you consider white-collar crime "technical" and therefore weak, any such indictments would be weak.
But in terms of the actual strength of the case, based both on that DA's record of convictions, and the historic profile of this case (and the career-terminating consequences of losing it), they would not be bringing charges unless they thought they were extremely strong and they were extremely confident of winning.
[0]https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-organization-sentenced...
> 34 indictments
A word of caution, 11 of those counts likely correspond to the 11 reimbursements of Cohen. There are likely many repeated actions which all work together as a unit. So I wouldn't make too much of the number until we have more information.
Yes it seems weak.
However:
1 iirc Grand Jury's are the ones that get to do everything behind closed doors. So we wouldnt know if they had a smoking gun until after trial possibly.
2 The US has a history of pursuing people it doesn't like through financial crimes. Rico etc.
I think its easy to see this in the lens of "oh its another attack on trump that will go away again" and if you experience your entire life through the highs and lows of the media cycle thats quite possibly going to be the case. But I think each prong of attack opens up a little more of Trumps weakness and eventually, either through weight of legal cost or dumb luck they will find something to hang him with.
> But I think each prong of attack opens up a little more of Trumps weakness and eventually, either through weight of legal cost or dumb luck they will find something to hang him with.
The thing that surprised me yesterday was learning that being convicted of a felony doesn't prevent you from running for public office or the office of President of the United States! So it seems like a pretty impotent "hanging". I had assumed that barring him from running for re-election was the major motivation behind pursing these indictments, but I guess that's not the case. So that suggests that these moves are mainly about public opinion? If that's what it is, then this particular indictment seems like the weakest of the possible ones that have been talked about. Taking all this into account, I can't help but think that this kind of plays into Trump's desire to be the center of attention.
>being convicted of a felony doesn't prevent you from running for public office or the office of President
The vast majority of american democracy relies on "norms" and "the public will do the right thing" and "surely they will only elect people who deserve it"
> doesn't prevent you from running for public office
For the vast majority of elected offices, one of the most important qualifications is "registered to vote in the district you are going to represent". Most offices have some age requirement (which might be as simple as "old enough to register to vote") and extremely few had some occupational requirement (like District Attorney has a law degree/license requirement, but Sheriff has no such requirement). When I ran for office in Colorado, failing to be registered to vote in the district you represent was the fastest and most automatic way of getting thrown out of office: no trial, no impeachment, just out you go.
The requirements for President are listed in the Constitution. Getting on the ballot in each state is harder as each state has different requirements.
> being convicted of a felony doesn't prevent you from running for public office
This depends on the state. Being convicted of a felony in Florida bars you from running for public office or voting in the state (until granted clemency). A conviction in Georgia would similarly bar Trump from voting in Florida, but not one in New York (which does not disenfranchise felons).
But yes, it doesn't affect his ability to run for federal office, even if it would make it hard for him to campaign from jail.
> So that suggests that these moves are mainly about public opinion?
You know, we also have this thing in the Western world called "the rule of law". It's this really weird idea that when someone breaks the law, they should be punished for it, no matter how powerful or well-liked they are.
You can't know all the evidence. And the evidence you could know, but probably don't, isn't "weak".
Bragg wouldn't have brought this case if he wasn't sure he can get a conviction. And that's actually unfair treatment: With any other defendant he may take bigger chances, be less hesitant, less careful. And the case wouldn't have been derailed that long. Do you even know the whole history how this got deferred during the Trump presidency and even after?
> through weight of legal cost or dumb luck they will find something to hang him with.
"Show me the man, I will find you a crime"
> describe or comment on the nature of the charges against Trump. To be fair to the commenters, most stories are vague.
That's because the charges haven't been announced yet. The facts that we know are that a grand jury has voted to indict Donald Trump and has delivered a True Bill to the prosecutors.
The indictment is at this moment sealed. It should be unsealed shortly (speculation was a timeline of tonight/tomorrow, but I could also see it being early next week).
So, it's not known publicly what the specific charges are. Which is why people haven't described them in this thread. They're not yet known.
> most stories are vague.
This is partly because there's not a lot of information, but it's also because the news media needs to pump out an endless amount of content around this story (since it's both historic, and they have a profit incentive to keep people reading/watching), but there's really only a few paragraphs* of information that's currently available or relevant.
> It sounds like they have to prove two separate crimes, and connect them with intention. Intent of course is always hard to prove in court.
The speculated charges (which, again, are speculation, not the known public charges) involve a crime which is, on its own, a misdemeanor. The crime becomes a felony if it was committed with intent to commit another crime.
So, if (and again, this is a big if, since it's not the actual charges, just speculation) the prosecutors are going down that road, they don't actually have to prove two crimes. They have to prove the first crime and intent to commit another crime. They don't actually have to prove the facts of the second crime.
> Intent of course is always hard to prove in court.
Intent is hard to prove, but it's also something that gets proved in court cases frequently. For example, murder is (in almost all states) an intent crime. Prosecutors are still able to charge and convict on murder. So, while an intent element makes a case harder to make, it doesn't by default make it impossible.
For a crime similar to the being speculated about, consider Breaking and Entering. In many states a B&E is only a crime if it's done with the intent to commit another crime (in Washington state, for example, this is "Residential burglary" RCW 9A.52.025†). But if someone is caught breaking into a property at night with a ski mask and a burlap sack, prosecutors won't find it a challenge to demonstrate the requisite intent.
> Overall this seems like a weak case to me.
I think it's really too early to say at this point. I'd at least wait until the indictment is unsealed and released publicly so we can know the actual charges. Once we know the charges, and a summary of the available evidence, we'd be in a much better position to make a claim about the quality of the case.
* There's really only a single sentence of _news_ to report, but there's probably a decent amount of explaining the process that can reasonably happen, since most people aren't familiar with the details of the process.
† https://app.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=9a.52&full=true...
Seriously. At this point we don't know whether Trump is being indicted on a minor campaign violation or for running a child sex ring and hiding bodies under the 17th green of Trump National.
Logic and the rumor mill suggest it's far closer to the former but until the indictment is unsealed we are all going to have to wait and see.
The 24 hour news cycle can't handle that vacuum but that's their problem.
Doesn’t stop people like Pence and Lindsey Graham from cynically playing to the crowd by describing as outrageous charges that haven’t been made public yet
How would you like it if you were dragged from your house in the middle of the night for unspecified crimes. That’s what “sealed” charges are.
With the way things are going, I’m sure you will find out soon. This is the type of stuff that happens in authoritarian regimes, not liberal democracies. All I can say is, I hope you’re armed when they’re at your doorstep next.
I think you have a misunderstanding of the system.
Sealed indictments are not new. All indictments are sealed after the Grand Jury returns a True Bill. Indictments must be unsealed before an arrest warrant is issued.
While the indictments haven’t yet been unsealed, Trump also hasn’t been arrested, nor has an arrest warrant been issued.
Finally, an arraignment (the first Court appearance where you are formally notified of the charges) will never happen with a sealed indictment.
The 6A protects you from being tried on secret charges.
However, when being arrested the police *are not* required to notify you for the reason for your arrest.
So, nothing novel is happening in this instance related to the sealed indictment. The thing that’s unusual here is the case is so high profile we know about it after the Grand Jury returned an indictment but before it was unsealed.
Oh no, I may possibly be arrested on nebulous charges regarding campaign finance laws(after pilfering classified documents, naturally, and calling election officials saying that I need a certain number of votes). And your advice is to have weapons when legitimate authorities come knocking. Somehow I think you may be overly paranoid about the possibility of this happening. It's certainly not something I lose sleep over at night. And I definitely won't be using force against them; we have a functional court system to provide an extra check against excesses like you presume to exist. For the record, I'm aware that the system isn't perfect by any means, but it's also nowhere as bad as you surmise.
He has a chance to voluntarily surrender, get processed and go home immediately. Much unlike many suspects/defendants, actually. He will get his charges read.
Even if this results in a prison sentence, that prison sentence wouldn't be served in prison, more likely he'll get some home detention, because of the practicalities of secret service protection and what not. Maybe they restrict his TV access and tee times.
So yes, Trump gets treated extremely unfairly in the justice system.
Liberal democracies prosecute former leaders for crimes all the time. And civilised countries don’t need their citizens to be armed.
of course we do, if they had anything real on trump they would be mandating it be tattooed on the inner eyelid of every single US citizen
that's how it seems to me too, but CNN claims "30 counts", so hopefully they have more to it.
If they only have a weak case, it will be easy to pass it as an attempt to prevent him from running 2024, so it will only serve to further polarize the country
The indictment was filed under seal, so why does CNN and the New York Times know what's in it?
Think of it like a book where the publisher releases a preview chapter.
There are hints in the court record which, despite sealing of an indictment, would give a determined investigator enough information to speculate on the charges in the grand jury. The DA office probably just provided the media with some top-line updates on the process so that there would be a general understanding of the big news to head off speculation or a leak.
"Sources"
Thanks for your curious conversation. This is what Hacker News is all about.
Because they leaked what they think is the most damaging information to their propaganda arm
>Overall this seems like a weak case to me.
His attorney already went to jail over this and if he wasn't president, he'd have been charged years ago.
If this is perceived to be a weak case, will this help Trump in his election campaign?
I understand even his loyal voter base are now sometimes embarrassed by his actions. For example, him storing confidential papers at Mar-a-Lago after his presidency finished.
That is different from when he was first elected as President. At that time he couldn't do anything wrong. I am sure the right wing press will spin this as a witch hunt, but will it fly with the voters on the ground?
Does anyone have more insight in this?
> If this is perceived to be a weak case, will this help Trump in his election campaign?
Trump organized a violent coup against his own government to prevent the peaceful transfer of power to his political rival. So will his indictment over an unrelated crime help his campaign? No. It's hosed from the start. Because he organized a coup against the government, and everyone saw it on TV.
Unfortunately a lot of people are HAPPY he did those things
About 40% of those who are politically engaged, which is pretty consistent with his popular vote share of 45-47%, to his opponents' 48-51%.
It'll come down to the campaigns and the electoral college. He is not sure to be defeated but he will continue to be an underdog unless he broadens his message.
Might help him in the primary, but Trump's performance in the general election in 2020 fell pretty dramatically from 2016. The margin of popular vote victory for his opponent was much wider in 2020.
People who gave Trump a chance in 2016, or stayed home because they didn't think he'd be that bad, changed their minds in 2020. Persuadable voters in Michigan and Wisconsin who moved away from Trump are not more likely to vote for him because he was arrested.
The grievance politics works exceptionally well among a certain block of voters, but he needs to make gains beyond this block if he wants to win. There's just not enough of them.
It's weak case that has unified the party and base around Trump.
Desantis fought with Trump two days ago, is now about him like a dear friend.
If they couldn't get anything on Trump for J6, then they have nothing, and it's all witch hunts here.
Bragg literally campaigned on arresting Trump too.
> It's [a] weak case
Without knowing the evidence presented to the grand jury, nor the charges on the indictment, it's hard to judge the strength or weakness of the prosecution's case again the man.
> If they couldn't get anything on Trump for J6, then they have nothing, and it's all witch hunts here
"They" are different prosecutors in different jurisdictions investigating different potential crimes. I don't see how it's possible to conclude that if evidence is lacking in one or more cases, that it's categorically improbable for this man to have committed crimes relative to any and all cases. In essence, you are claiming that lacking evidence of a causal connection to the events of January 6, we are to conclude that any criminal investigations involving this man in unrelated matters must likewise be baseless. This is illogical.
From what I understand, it's a big violation of campaign finance laws, and it's what Michael Cohen already went to prison for. It's certainly not the worst of Trump's crimes, but it's weird that Cohen went to prison so quickly, but it took years before Trump himself was finally indicted. Surely if Cohen was guilty, then so was Trump?!
The entire impossibility of prosecuting Trump is weird to me. There's a host of crimes to pick from, from using/withholding already approved support for Ukraine to bribe/blackmail Zelensky for personal gain (dirt on a political opponent), to pressuring people to violate election laws, to instigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol, to keeping hundreds of highly classified documents in his basement and lying about it when he's requested to return them.
Lots of people have gone to prison much quicker for a fraction of this. So why is it so hard to prosecute a president or former president? It really feels like he is above the law, and lots of people want presidents to be above the law, apparently.
> There's a host of crimes to pick from
The only reasonable conclusion to draw here is that the evidence of those crimes is even weaker than this (already pretty weak) charge.
A more reasonable conclusion is that there's incredible resistance to prosecuting former presidents. He's the first, and he's not the first president who has committed a crime.
Are (ex-)presidents above the law?
Another reasonable conclusion is that more complex or serious crimes take more time to investigate and prosecute.
There's a lot we don't know, and I would caution you against drawing "the only reasonable conclusion" from extremely limited evidence.
This is the same he law he supposedly broke.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/30/politics/clinton-dnc-steele-d...
Have you looked into why the FEC did not fine Trump?
I found this [0] to be interesting, however, because I'm not well versed in law, I'm still unclear on a lot. Maybe a real lawyer could weigh in?
[0] https://www.justsecurity.org/85745/survey-of-prosecutions-fo...
> So the most salacious parts of the story are not what the crime is.
It’s funny how so many people think less of this crime because the misappropriated campaign funds where used for something so redicules, compared to if it had been just plainly stolen or used to buy a luxury car or something like that.
Is it possible that this would be simply an opening to gain further investigative access? Like how Al Capone was caught for tax issues?
Hillary Clinton: Charged with $113,000 for breaking campaign finance law.
Obama: Charged with $375,000 for breaking campaign finance law.
Regardless of how you vote, this is a political stunt and witch hunt. Next Biden will be indicted when he leaves office, then the next opponent, and so on…
This is an extremely dangerous precedence that will do nothing but fuel both sides.
This topic is a joke, since when does Hacker News consist of posters who don't understand the concept of a Grand Jury?
Showing that democrats were also pursued doesn't help your case.
I hope it fuels both sides.
Actually it does.
If we want to hold people accountable, then the same charges should have been brought against Clinton and Obama.
This is a stunt. Nothing more, nothing less.
No Trump fan but this is more political/media theater B.S. and brought on by all his many deep pocketed enemies. He surely has tons due to his awful mouth (shut it and do your job like Biden does for the people or Bush did or Obama).
Nothing will happen to him just more lame reality TV type drama that gets ratings.
Worse. As many have pointed out: "If he gets arrested, he's your next president."
Wouldn't be the first leader whose arrest led to raging popularity and revolt.
Prominent Republicans (like John Bolton) have claimed that Democrats are intentionally targetting Trump to increase his popularity with his base so that he'll definately become the nominee and then be easy to beat.
Whether you believe that or not, its wild that we're in such a position that claims like that could be made.
It's not wild. It's precisely what they did in 2015, as revealed by WikiLeaks: https://www.salon.com/2016/11/09/the-hillary-clinton-campaig...
Wow...who needs friends with enemies like that. But jeez...you'd think they would have at least learned their lesson. I was pretty convinced 2 years ago (around the time of the injecting hydrochloric acid comments) that Trump would be almost universally be considered a national embarrassment by now. If there weren't powerful people running around deliberately trying to inflate support for him hoping it will somehow work out in their own interests I'm still pretty sure he would be.
He never advocated injecting hydrochloric acid.
Well no, he technically didn't advocate injecting bleach either but I gather he did seriously suggest a task force should investigate it as a possible covid treatment. HCl is used as a bleaching agent even if it's not commonly an ingredient in commercial bleaches - I conflated the two in my head.
It didn't happen that way either: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/jul/11/joe-biden/...
He initially referred to UV light as a disinfection agent, and then to the "bleach". He was rambling about use inside the body and did mention "injection", but he wasn't specifically advocating something, and when asked to clarify a few moments later he explicitly said he didn't think it should be injected.
Was it loose talk and pretty dumb? Absolutely. Did the media exaggerate and lie about it for years as a political talking point? Of course! Such is life in modern America.
Wild in politics... nothing is wild to me with politics ..win at all cost and angles. Make things up ..smear your opponent..etc... been playing that game forever.
Nothing for me to pay attention to just vote based on who aligns with my issues and doesn't come off like slimeball or an idiot!
Didn't Biden only best Trump by a small percentage? If correct, is that really 'easy to beat'?
Democrats explicitly had commercials pumping up Trump aligned Republicans in Senate primary races in swing states because Democrats thought they would be easier to defeat (they were right).
If that's true then that's morally acceptable to stop republicans who have promoted lies about election fraud in an attempt to steal power in a democracy
"I'm not a fan of Trump but I think he would be the best president ever and is god like in my eyes."
As other commenters have pointed out, the actual indictment is sealed, so we won't find out the concrete charges until he's arraigned.
I've recently served on a jury for a criminal trial, so I've learned some things about the process that courtroom dramas did not teach me.
One: stacked charges (in this case, 30+) can indicate repeat offenses of the same crime / crimes on separate occasions (usually denoted as separate dates). I do not think this is simply a matter of a single hush money payout (or two, as has been reported in the news). I would not be surprised if there are 10 or more distinct events in play. edit: Note that the jury can render separate verdicts for each charge if desired.
Two: the grand jury merely decides whether there's enough evidence to bring this to trial. The standard of evidence for a grand jury is much lower than the actual trial jury.
Three: this is more theoretical because I'd be surprised if this happens, but the defendant in any criminal proceeding is more than entitled to neither testify on his own behalf, and the defense is not required to call any witnesses to the stand, as the presumption is that Trump is innocent until proven guilty. The burden of proof lies with the prosecution.
Four: I'm going to paraphrase the judge in my case slightly, but "beyond an unreasonable doubt does not mean beyond any possible doubt. There is always going to be some shred of doubt. Beyond an unreasonable doubt means that you have a moral conviction that the defendant committed the alleged crimes."
> it sounds very technical
That's totally expected, as is the case for even the most mundane-seeming laws. The jury is not expected to have a legal background. The judge will instruct them regarding the points of the law (along with definitions of legal terms), and in particular provide criteria that must be met (sometimes with alternatives, e.g. direct vs constructive possession) in order to find the defendant guilty of a crime. https://nycourts.gov/judges/cji/2-PenalLaw/175/175.10.pdf is probably pretty similar to what the jury might expect to see.
As for intent being hard to prove: you are approximately never going to have direct evidence regarding intent. The prosecution can try to establish intent through circumstantial evidence from which the jury can make a reasonable inference. Again, paraphrasing the judge: if you see someone come into the courtroom with wet clothes and shaking water off an umbrella, you can infer that it was raining. Similarly, if the prosecution establishes that Trump took specific actions that could not be reasonably interpreted in a different way other than being made intentionally, or that there were too many of these unlikely occurrences for it to be coincidental, then the jury may use that to establish intent. Further, note that ignorance of the law is not a defense.
You can bet that the prosecution's case is going to center around providing evidence to directly prove those points, regardless of any narrative the lawyers on either side want to spin. At least in our case, we were instructed only to use evidence as presented in exhibits and per witness testimony. Any of the words of the lawyers (questioning, or even opening statements / closing arguments) were not allowed to be considered. The closing arguments are essentially suggestions re: how to view the evidence.
One last note: you cited that a class E felony in NY has a mandatory minimum of 1 year. Even if Trump is convicted of 30 class E felonies, those can be served concurrently, so theoretically the judge could hand down a sentence of 1 year prison time if he so desired. I think that's highly unlikely, but it is possible.
>beyond an unreasonable doubt
That is not the legal burden of proof in a criminal case. It’s beyond a reasonable doubt.
That's correct. I mistyped, sorry!
To me this also pales on comparison to investment benefits legislature seems to enjoy a little too much. This is not the core problem of corrupt politics.
I'm probably wrong, but google indicates statute of limitations for misdemeanors is only 2 years in New York. Curious how this ties into things, the stormy daniels fiasco is what 5+ years ago? Surely there is a felony charge in there?
So, the theory presented by the poster above is the speculation from media outlets about the charges. However, as of now the charges haven't actually been unsealed and released publicly, so we don't *know* what the specific charges are.
The general speculation around the falsified business records charge is that according to NY law it's a misdemeanor that gets escalated to a felony if it was done with the intent of hiding another crime.
That would be NY PL 175.10
> A person is guilty of falsifying business records in the first degree when he commits the crime of falsifying business records in the second degree, and when his intent to defraud includes an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.
> Falsifying business records in the first degree is a class E felony.
https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/PEN/175.10
So, that's the speculation about how a prosecutor would get a felony of the falsifying business records charge (which, I'll reiterate one more time is speculation since we don't yet know the specific charges).
There are other statute of limitations factors that complicates things. I heard one legal analyst claim that the NY statute of limitations is tolled when someone has permanently left the state (which means while Trump is in Florida, the NY statute of limitations clock would be paused). I haven't been able to find a source for that information, so... I'm not confident that it's accurate.
But, while the statute of limitation math can by mildly complicated, but it would be absolutely stunning if the DA fucks it up in a case this high profile.
I quoted the relevant section in another comment ( https://youtu.be/AAZLOygmR78 ). (late edit - it was https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35381723 - not the YouTube link)
The statue of limitations in New York doesn't accumulate when the defendant is outside of the state.
I would be sure to make note of who is suggesting that legal approach. The full opinions of the court in that case can be found https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/19-635_o7jq.pdf
> I quoted the relevant section in another comment ( https://youtu.be/AAZLOygmR78 ).
Your link is wrong, but now I probably know what you watch on youtube.
> I would be sure to make note of who is suggesting that legal approach. The full opinions of the court in that case can be found https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/19-635_o7jq.pdf
Please make note of it for me, because I don't want to read a 68 page legal opinion just to figure out what you already seem to know.
I was mistaken on the link - my comment was https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35381723 (alas, lazy clipboarding and not double checking)
Page 18 of ALITO, J., dissenting. It is on page 82 of the pdf overall.
It might be interesting to argue whether taking public office as the president counts towards residency requirements. I don't know if it counts for statute of limitations, but for instance military members are still considered resident of their state when on duty elsewhere.
The intent of that provision in NY law is so that if someone is trying to run out the clock for NY state by being outside of its jurisdiction and ability to indict them doesn't get a free pass.
The question will be "is it literally 'being outside of New York' or is it 'being outside the jurisdiction New York, of which assuming the role of POTUS is example of'?"
Seems like something that will undoubtedly get litigated. Not to say this should dissuade justice, but this is going to be remarkably expensive for the people of New York.
> Your link is wrong, but now I probably know what you watch on youtube.
What is the point in such a statement?
Just the statute of limitation should have made any judge laugh.
It's the justice system of New York state that's on trial, not Trump.
It's well within the statute of limitations for 2 reasons;
1. NY paused it in 2020 due to COVID
2. Trump has lived outside of the state for a few years, meaning it's paused
> 1. NY paused it in 2020 due to COVID
for some civil cases, not criminal ones: https://www.natlawreview.com/article/governor-cuomo-s-tollin...
> 2. Trump has lived outside of the state for a few years, meaning it's paused
Surely you must be trolling?
I mean gee, all these Ivy League law professors (most of them not being Trump supporters) must not have been aware of that, somehow...
In what way would I be trolling? It's true, look it up.
Besides, I very much doubt that the Manhattan District Attorney would go to all the effort of prosecuting a former president only to have not noticed that the statute of limitations has expired.
> In what way would I be trolling? It's true, look it up.
Actually I did, even if the burden of proof was on you. And no, statute of limitation doesn't "pause" for criminal cases for any reasons as for the reason of their existence is memories and evidence fading over time and to avoid wrongful convictions. Being out of state has no effect on that.
> Besides, I very much doubt that the Manhattan District Attorney would go to all the effort of prosecuting a former president only to have not noticed that the statute of limitations has expired.
That's not the only novel legal theory being at play to convict for the first time a President here.
The very first result I clicked on: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/03/31/trump-sto...
> Normally, the statute of limitations extends only five years, so criminal acts that occurred in 2017 would not count.
>
> However, New York has a stipulation that another five years can be added to the statute of limitations if “the defendant was continuously outside this state” during the first five years. As president from 2017 to January 2021, Trump certainly was.
Keyword here is "continuously"...
You mean Trump never went to New York for the past seven years? That's hard to believe...
Courts have ruled that it doesn't mean brief visits invalidate it. Whether you think that's appropriate or not, that's the legal precedent.
You are aware that the Trump Tower exists right?
He doesn't live there. He lives in Florida. Before that he lived in the White House.
The criteria for the tolling of the statute of limitations is to unavailable. Trump being the President was. This was meant for people going into hiding.
The punctuated green site from yesteryear had a special moderation carve-out for funny comments distinct from the insightful contributors to keep things on track and interesting. But the parent poster dignifies neither and is better deserving of an Onion headline IMHO.
>> I've scrolled through the top ~10 or so comments
>> I'm not a lawyer and it's hard to parse the above.
>> Overall this seems like a weak comment to me.
I commented on my understanding of the situation on reddit a while ago. Copy/pasting here:
He paid off Stormy Daniels to keep her from talking about their relationship. Paying her to stay silent is 100% legal, there is absolutely no issue with an NDA like that. The illegal part isn't the what, it's the how.
Political campaigning laws set a limited budget for how much money you can spend on campaigning, which is defined as "any payment made by any person for the purpose of influencing any election for Federal office". Daniels talking about her relationship with Trump is something that could have had a significant impact on Trump's presidential campaign, so paying her to stay quiet is considered a campaign expense. Paying your lawyer for legal advice/representation is not a campaign expense, though, so what happened was that Cohen himself paid Daniels (there's no law against that), and the campaign paid Cohen for "legal expenses" (which aren't considered campaign expenses).
The problem here is that, of course, this was just a way to make Cohen an intermediary for the process of the campaign paying Daniels. This is problem in two ways. First, it goes against the campaign spending limits, so goes against campaign laws. Second, it's a form of falsifying business records.
Not a lawyer, nor am I American. No horse in this except maybe a citizen of the world. This seems like a weak case to me. For a former president and polarizing figure, you would think the bar on prosecution would be air tight. If he goes to jail for a crime the population (or his support base) considers is trivial or if he does not get convicted, it raises Trump's stock to the stratosphere. Perhaps if he goes to jail, he can't run for office? Still .. seems very dubious based on the info in the news so far.
Here is an analogy I thought of. Say my firm's database gets ransomewared. If I pay the ransom directly, that may be a particular way of accounting. But say, I pay McCohen Computer Associates to fix the problem. Why do I not book it as a computer expense? I am not an accountant but am curious how this works.
Also, booking something in the wrong accounting category, doesn't seem like a very convincing charge. On the other hand, Tax and election violations are very serious.
The prosecutor can only look at crimes in their jurisdiction. In this case it's a NY prosecutor and only crimes in that state can be charged. In fact, we don't know what the charges are yet as they are sealed (although the leak says it's 30+ charges). There are other, stronger cases against Trump being pursued in Georgia and at the Federal level (and perhaps more than that).
In the end, this is important though as we already have convictions that his company was committing tax fraud but those don't go back to him personally because the CFO was non-cooperative (and Trump probably wasn't directly involved enough to be convicted).
The campaign finance part though is definitely personally handled by him. He allegedly used money donated by people to his campaign to pay his lawyer who then used the money to pay Stormy Daniels. That money was billed as legal expenses for the campaign. That's more than accounting fraud - it's tax fraud and it's fraud against our democracy.
The bar should be fairly air tight. Cohen has already served time for this crime. Moreover, he was charged with acting in conspiracy with “Individual 1”. While Trump will face a separate trial, with all that entails, in practice there was already a successful trial for at least some of Trump’s crime. In your example, both payments would be legitimate business expenses.
I believe Bragg probably knows what he's doing, but the charge against Cohen isn't a good argument.
Cohen really got a raw deal from the prosecutor and basically got threatened with more charges, and his wife getting charged, unless he pleads guilty within a day or so. That's why the quality of the individual charges in that plea deal can't be taken for granted.
> Cohen has already served time for this crime.
No, he hasn't. He pled guilty to seven unrelated financial charges and to one charge related to the payment to Stormy Daniels: making an excessive campaign contribution.
That last charge doesn't apply to Trump, who is allowed to contribute as much as he wants to his own campaign.
And Cohen's plea tells us nothing about whether recording the payment as "legal expenses" is a crime.
This seems like a weak case to me.
Assuming the charges are limited to the Daniels payment, you're correct. It's a weak case. They have to prove the misdemeanor accounting charge, then to elevate to a felony, the DA must prove that crime was used to cover-up some other more serious crime (likely campaign finance related).
The last time a similar case was brought, it was against John Edwards (who took money to pay for housing for his mistress, or something like that). He was acquitted.
But, it appears the indictment has 34(?) charges. If they're counting each check to Cohen as a charge, that's 11(?), so there's something else there. Some of that could be conspiracy charges, but we don't know.
Say my firm's database gets ransomewared. If I pay the ransom directly, that may be a particular way of accounting. But say, I pay McCohen Computer Associates to fix the problem. Why do I not book it as a computer expense? I am not an accountant but am curious how this works.
The two-step payment through Cohen is only illegal if it's done to cover up other illegal activities or it's in violation of some other law.
In this case, it's likely the hush money was funneled through Cohen to keep it off the campaign books - that's what makes it illegal.
I just want to point out that the last time a similar case was brought was against Cohen for this exact same crime. Cohen was convicted and served time in federal prison. In his trial, Cohen testified that he broke the law at the direction of somebody only referred to in the public disclosures as “Individual 1”. The only plausible person this can be is Donald Trump.
So, regardless of what you think of the case. Leaving out that somebody was already successfully convicted of this exact crime is a significant omission.
We do not know the charges yet of course. The most significant are likely to be campaign finance related with details of falsified records and hush money payments providing supporting evidence of those crimes as much as they are crimes themselves.
Just a clarification: Cohen plead guilty as part of a plea deal. So the case never went to trial with an adversarial argument of facts between Prosecution and Defense. Therefore, we don't really know how good the case was.
The fact that Cohen is a lawyer would seem to indicate that the case was solid enough that he was concerned he would lose on merit. However, a friend of mine who is managing partner in a legal firm says that "Once a trial goes to a jury, it's approximately a coin flip as to who will win, and the odds only go down from there." That's mainly because if the case is black-and-white, then there will be some settlement/plea deal prior to a trial.
However, Trump has put himself into a corner where he probably cannot accept any plea deal other than one that would drop the criminal charges but keep any misdemeanor charges. I'm not sure that the NY DA, Alvin Bragg, would be willing to do that unless the case starts falling apart. But in the case Trump will push for an aquial rather than a plea deal so that he can use it to rile up his base.
> drop the criminal charges but keep any misdemeanor charges.
Misdemeanor charges are criminal charges.
It's not clear to me that this is the "exact same crime". Also, is it significant that Cohen plead guilty? I'm not sure Trump will.
Yeah, I was thinking of politicians who faced similar charges.
>Assuming the charges are limited to the Daniels payment, you're correct. It's a weak case.
CNN, at least, is reporting that he's facing 30 charges. If that's the case, it's probably charges related to the Trump Org's shenanigans that the corp was found guilty of. The organization's indictment had a lot of shady stuff and a lot of stuff that looked like flat out fraud. Lots of criminal looking behavior that plausibly can be directly tied to Trump himself.
> Perhaps if he goes to jail, he can't run for office?
There is no restriction on a candidate for the US presidency vis-a-vis current or former incarceration. Anyone could constitutionally run a presidential campaign or even serve while in jail. This is because the Supreme Court has held that only the Constitution can set qualification requirements. [0]
The sole, debatable exclusion seems to be the 25th Amendment, which allows the vice president and cabinet (or the president themselves) to shift presidential powers to the vice president when "the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office." [1]
[0] https://fortune.com/2023/03/30/donald-trump-can-still-run-fo...
Indeed, Eugene Debs ran for president while in prison in 1920:
https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/debs-received-millio...
If he is convicted of a felony and does run for president again, then he won't be able to vote, right?
Maybe it'll be an impetus to create a clearer path for convicted felons who served their time and don't reoffend to regain their voting rights. Probably not, but it would be nice.
Convicted felons should 100% be allowed to vote though. I never quite understood the fear of letting them vote. Indeed keeping them engaged in society instead of ostracizing them feels like it helps prevent them from reoffending.
I think the idea of suspending voting rights is less about "punishment" than it is about preventing those who have demonstrated that they're willing to make choices that we've agreed are harmful to other people from voting in ways that are aligned with their poor judgment.
In practice, I think most states with laws that suspend voting rights, do so as a form of punishment. That certainly seems to be the case with states that permanently suspend voting rights even after a convicted felon has served their time.
I personally think felons currently serving time shouldn't be allowed to vote. Suspending that right temporarily seems reasonable. That's not a strong conviction I hold though. I could be convinced that voting is a right as fundamental as the other rights we still extend felons while incarcerated.
Once a felon has completed their sentence I think they should have full voting rights restored. I also think they should no longer be considered a felon, to the point where their records are sealed once they've served their sentence. The idea of "once a felon, always a felon" seems counter productive towards rehabilitation and reengaging someone in society, and simply vindictive. In most states, being convicted of a felony comes with an automatic, unspoken life sentence of always being a felon, where the ostracization continues until they die. That doesn't seem healthy for anyone, let alone the person who served their time.
FWIW, in the UK:
* Prisoners can't vote; however, a court decided under the Human Rights Act that they should be allowed to, but so far the government has ignored this
* Once released, ex-prisoners can vote as usual
* Many convictions are "spent" after a certain amount of time [1], meaning that after that you don't need to disclose them when applying for a job etc (but nothing resulting in a prison sentence of four years or more, and there are some cases where you still have to disclose them)
As far as i know, nobody thinks any of this is a problem.
> it is about preventing those who have demonstrated that they're willing to make choices that we've agreed are harmful to other people from voting in ways that are aligned with their poor judgment.
So if you lose all your money because of poor decisions, you should also lose your ability to vote right? If you get take in by an obvious scam or cult, you should lose your right to vote too, no?
I agree with a lot of what you’ve said in the rest of the post, but this reasoning seems critically flawed because there are lots of people with fatally poor judgement and we don’t take away their voting rights. Singling out people who have ended up on the wrong side of the criminal justice system for this punitive take is flawed. They’re already being punished and removed from society. If anything, giving criminals a right to participate in government makes the government accountable to how they treat prisoners (it’s truly a dire situation here in the US) and how they choose to apply laws. Maybe we would have learned how bad the drug laws were much earlier if the government didn’t have the power to strip voting rights from citizens.
Additionally, the government makes a non trivial amount of mistakes in terms of incarcerating innocent people. So there’s a large number of people who are disenfranchised without demonstrating “bad judgement”.
Unfortunately, I may have led you astray. I should have tried to make it clear that I was making a guess as to the rationale behind suspending voting rights - one that I don't 100% agree with. I was just echoing what supporters of that particular line of thinking have said.
Having had more time to think about it, I really can't get behind any reason for suspending voting rights.
What's the actual risk of letting those serving time vote? That they'll vote for their interests? That they might use poor judgement? If that's the concern, we have a lot more people who aren't in prison who vote for their interests and demonstrate poor judgement already.
I think that those in favor of suspending voting rights have one motivation: it's just another injustice on a pile of injustices meant to separate people in the "prison system" from "normal society," causing more harm than good for actual society.
Worse it creates incentives to convict people who are likely to be political opponents to prevent them from voting. This practice also removes a voice from one of the most vulnerable groups in society, the incarcerated.
Like many things, it ties back to the failure of Reconstruction. Many felony disenfranchisement laws were passed alongside Black Codes. 7.4 percent of African American adults are disenfranchised compared to 1.8 percent of those who are not African American.
Many but not all states put conditions on such voting. As you might expect, the severity of a state's restrictions correlates with its political leanings.
https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/felon-voting-ri...
> for a former president and polarizing figure, you would think the bar on prosecution would be air tight.
This i the crux I think - It's clearly a crime, but should he be held accountable or not due to notoriety? personally, I think public figures (especially politicians) should be held to a higher standard than mere-mortals; but many seem to believe the opposite.
You don't want your <insert political candidate> arrested/prosecuted? Don't elect a morally ambiguous one then. Higher standards, not lower.
> I think public figures (especially politicians) should be held to a higher standard than mere-mortals; but many seem to believe the opposite.
I think people should be seen as equals before the law. Having one set of standards[law] for one group and a different set for another group is antithetical to rule of law which is purportedly a common American value FWIW.
> It's clearly a crime
What, exactly, is "clearly a crime"?
The accounting issue is at worst a misdemeanor, unless the DA can show that the payment to SD was a campaign finance violation.
But if it was "clearly" a campaign finance violation, why haven't federal prosecutors charged him with that?
Bragg is a motivated prosecutor trying to find a way to prosecute Trump for a charge he has no jurisdiction over, while the prosecutors who do have jurisdiction don't think it's worth prosecuting.
And that's dangerous. Prosecutions should not be motivated by politics.
I'd imagine part of the strategy is to get Trump on the stand.
He's going to lie (because he can't help it) and that opens him up to perjury charges.
But there are bizarre aspects to this case. One is that Trump associates like Giuliani and Deripaska were raided, but there don't seem to have been any subsequent charges.
Another is that there's so much on Trump - from tax dodging, to Jan 6, to links to suspect foreign money - that it seems like a strange case to highlight.
Hmm, knowing this it's unlikely that his lawyers will let him do that. From what I've been hearing this case is really all about optics + the 2024 election.
Democrats are banking on the fact that he won't be able to mount an effective primary or general campaign if he's under investigation. The democratic opponent will be able to just say "my opponent is under investigation!"
The Republicans are banking on two things: This case is flimsy and will fall apart, then the line will be "look at how the dems are doing political prosecutions". The other thing they are banking on (and polls have indicated this), that if Trump were prosecuted, his base would vote for him overwhelmingly and effective give him the nomination.
For the democrats there's also the "5D Chess" aspect where they want trump to win the nomination because biden already beat him once (this is a dangerous bet for dems though).
From my perspective reading the news I think the Republicans have the 2024 election in the bag. It's going to either be Desantis or Trump, the democrats just don't have the same kind of figure on their side. The democrats are going to be banking on running an effective "negative" campaign like they did in 2020 (no one voted for Biden because they liked the guy, they voted against Trump).
I know this is a pipe dream but I'm hoping that Vivek Ramaswamy gets elected. He seems the lest slimey and most pragmatic among the pack. TBH I need to go live on an island because I'm just so done with the sesspool that is American Politics.
Trump already lost 2020 before he started lying about election fraud. You think moderates, who decide elections, are going to switch to him?
Desantis and Trump will burn each other for the nomination and if Trump wins that he'll lose. The youth are going to be all over the anger is seething. I can't even look at a Trump supportor without getting angry, first time I've cared about politics.
This will be the death of the republican party and they deserve it
Before 2016/2017, I could tolerate Republican voters. Maybe we didn't agree on politics, but there was nothing personally distasteful about they themselves.
2017-2019, I found myself distancing myself from Republicans, it was like walking on eggshells trying to not say anything that would tangentially launch them into a political tirade or give them an opportunity to parrot the fox news talking point of the day.
2019, the pandemic happened. The loud screaming masses of Republicans went off the deep end due to their intolerable outrage over the personal inconvenience of trying to spare random "other people" from dying, even while they themselves were dying in droves.
2020, Jan 6. Republicans cheered as a shoddily assembled coup attempt dashed itself to pieces in Congress. A month later my texas republican trump loving dad died of covid because he refused to wear a mask or believe that the "china-virus" was anything other than a hoax.
He didn't even call me to tell me he had covid because he didn't want me to have even a moment of being proven right. He wanted to beat it and then laugh it off, show my liberal ass that there was no reason to be as cautious and concerned as I was.
So, yeah, when I find out someone is a republican today I can only assume that either you have immense hatred for anyone or anything that might show you the cracks in your preferred version of reality or at the very least that you are some combination of abominably stupid and heartless, and either way you look at it I want nothing to do with you.
The news media would like us to all believe that democrats and republicans are two tidy groups of people. Fox News would have you believe that all democrats fall neatly into the "liberal snowflake" category and CNN or MSNBC would have you believe that all republicans fall into the "january 6th rioters" category.
The truth is there is a vast spectrum on both sides. In fact I would argue there is really just one spectrum and that all of us fall somewhere on it. You have republicans that participated in January 6th and then you have the ones that think that Jan 6 was the dumbest effing idea ever, dont give a damn about the culture war, and just want to pay lower taxes. They call themselves republicans but they would vote for anyone that supports lowering taxes (as an example).
And I'm sure there are tons of folks all on the democratic side that would each disagree with one another on just about everything except who they vote for. Bottom line is, the US has a population of ~350M and to think that each one can be categorized into two neat boxes is silly.
Everything you said is correct however my arguement is it doesn't matter since we aren't a direct democracy.
Who you vote for is all that matters if blame or responsibility is being assigned. There may be a wide spectrum of views from Republican voters but they all vote Republican and who they vote for makes the decisions (noting that most vote with the party). Decisions on things like Abortion, drag shows, guns, and etc. This isn't just rhetoric, it's real changes that affect people.
So why should I care what a persons goals, intent, or actual views are over who they vote for?
"They call themselves republicans but they would vote for anyone that supports lowering taxes"
This goes along with what I just said. If someone votes for candidate because they want lower taxes (I was going to say greed but that's another debate) they are saying "I value lower taxes over whatever else that candidate said they support" right?
Because they have to accept responsibility whatever that politican says they would do. This is especially true if they are voting to reelect them
Everywhere past the first line, that post talks about "republicans", so it sounds like people that identify with the GOP.
That doesn't sound to me like an attempt to fit people into two boxes. It's a reaction to people choosing a particular box, as opposed to the other big box or neither of those boxes.
The indisputable fact is that everyone who votes Republican is voting for the party that supported and continues to refuse to denounce the Jan 6 coup attempt.
This, on top of being the party that is actively working to create laws to make it easier to hurt people they don't like all over the country, and laws to make sure they get to determine the results of elections anywhere they can ram it through.
> I can't even look at a Trump supportor without getting angry
I mean this with absolute sincerity: what makes you angry about him? Maybe it's because I've been reading the news for so long now but I feel like I'm completely desensitized to politics. With this indictment I find myself almost completely indifferent to it, it feels like another move in some elaborate chess game.
My best advice around politics is know that both sides are playing for your emotions. Both sides portray topics to evoke a particular emotion in you, most of the time the emotion they are going for is anger towards the other side, because negativity sells. Don't give these people access to your emotions, they don't deserve it.
What makes me angry about trump or his supporters?
He is lying about fraud and the people that support him are also guilty of this.
He's the greatest traitor in the last 100 years casting doubt, without evidence, on elections undermines our democracy
As for your false equivalence argument. What about people negativity affected by the policies of the Republican party? You are implying it doesn't matter who's in power.
They're separate investigations. I am sad that I'm on Hacker News right now. This is not more "curious" conversation than anything you find on Fox or MSN.
I’m not sure he’s going to lie. He seems to have a keen awareness of the perils of lying when there are actual legal consequences.
You think Trump is known for self control?
He avoids depositions like the plague, and last year when he couldn’t he pleaded the 5th 440 times.
Yes, I agree that one of his tactics is to avoid consequences. While I can see how that is a form of self control he also tweets outrageous things.
Maybe he's more careful when cornered, like if he's on the stand he'll change to a much safer personality.
> Another is that there's so much on Trump - from tax dodging, to Jan 6, to links to suspect foreign money - that it seems like a strange case to highlight.
Exactly. It's not that this particular case isn't worth prosecuting, but there's so much more that's far worse, and not much seems to be moving on those other fronts. I don't understand why it took so long and why this is the first one to finally go to trial. Was January 6 not reason to arrest him? What about those classified documents in his basement? Those sound like more urgent cases to prosecute, though admittedly a lot more recent.
> there's so much on Trump - from tax dodging, to Jan 6, to links to suspect foreign money - that it seems like a strange case to highlight.
This is what I don't get. This is a guy who has sketchy real estate deals around the world, many of them large enough that he's probably in bed with the Mob in New York City and with God knows what other organizations -- supposedly he's mixed up with the BJP for his Indian developments, and I strongly suspect he's done shady stuff in Ukraine as well. Surely there's something there? There've been years to carry out an investigation, why has none of this been chased to ground?. I feel like The Economist got more dirt on him, around 2017 or so, than I'm seeing here.
By comparison to all that substantive stuff, the current charges have a "Clinton got a blowjob" air about them. I guess the phrase "hush money to a porn star" focus-grouped well, but why should I really care? Does it make the guy look kind of sad and pathetic? Certainly. Does it make him look evil? No.
The Hunter Biden stuff was similar, but the other way around. The Republicans released those photos, acting like they were damning. But they weren't. They just made me feel sorry for Hunter Biden -- and more sorry for Joe Biden, for having to hold shit together for his loser son (doesn't every family have problems?). In a strange way it increased my respect for Joe Biden, because there he was, a guy who'd been through a lot, caring for his family. To me it just made the Republicans look bad -- like, who the fuck are you, to gloat about his son's problems like this?
My sympathy for Trump is nowhere near as high in this case as it was for Biden in that one, but there's a little bit of an overlapping feeling. Like -- congratulations, you discovered that the man is a weakling with bad taste who gives in to really lame temptations. So what? This almost humanizes him. I feel like I'm watching Better Call Saul.
It just feels like playground back and forth over irrelevant sex-taboos (we still have those? I thought there were parades every year). I don't care. It just makes me lose respect for everyone involved, including the prosecution. Makes me feel that our leaders, of whatever stripe, simply are not worthy. There's no dignity in any of it.
The aspect that matters to national politics is possible interference with the electoral process. Did that happen? Then I would sure as hell want to know.
Instead it's kindergarten bickering.
And you know what I really want? Stop talking about where a decrepit wrestling heel put his wrinkly old cock, and instead spend some time on --
-- why the fuck can't people I care about get health insurance?
-- why, when there's a shortage that's going to make an economy car cost me an extra six grand than it's supposed to, are all the automakers closing ranks to reduce output?
-- why do two highly-educated adults need to work their asses off and never see their kids (like they have any), to maintain a lifestyle that within living memory could be held down by one man with a nine-to-five?
-- why, when the ice caps are apparently melting, and money is flowing to things marked "ESG", do I see nothing but lumbering SUVs and F-150s around me, and big stupid McMansions, and new strip malls getting built, for the zombies to drive to?
The phrase "profoundly unserious" echoes in my mind.
We keep saying that we care, but I only see a bunch of chimps screeching.
Would Bernie Sanders spend this much time talking about Trump's peccadilloes? Or would he answer in half a sentence and then say, "but we should really be talking about the working people in this country"? We all know the answer.
Get the paid actor off my television screen and try organizing people to do something useful.
The strategy is the democrats have been fundraising on this idea for years and the donors are getting upset
I haven't heard of this. Who are they raising funds from who are being promised an indictment on Trump?
You have it the other way around. There isn't much on Trump, and that's precisely wht they have to cling to weak technical stuff like this.
A famous mob boss was brought down by the tax evasion.
Criminal proceedings for ex heads of state or government aren’t at all uncommon in perfectly functioning democracies. It seems to me that the US is more of an outlier in this regard, so this seems to me a positive sign of the US moving in the right direction.
From what I understand, you can run for office even if you’re in prison.
While technically true, and is, in my opinion, one way to avoid jailing political enemies just to take them off the ballot, there's a reason candidates do a lot of rallies while they're campaigning. If a candidate is actually in jail, they'll legally be on the ballot, but they'll face a very steep uphill battle for the practical needs of a campaign.
When you say “avoid jailing political enemies just to take them off the ballot”, do actually mean “avoid prosecuting criminals just to avoid accusations that you are politically motivated”?
In my view, the only reason to jail anybody is because they violated the law. If somebody that violated the law is subsequently jailed, it feels pretty dishonest to say that it was done “just to take them off the ballot”. Not only that, it is inaccurate. Jailing somebody does not take them off the ballot. However, not prosecuting them DOES put them above the law.
Perhaps we have different ideas about the real problems described above.
> This seems like a weak case to me.
This is why we can't have nice things. None of the charges have been disclosed so why even opine on this yet? It's all speculation at this point.
No at all a Trump fan but another one of these things that could easily backfire and make him look like a hero.
It wreaks of some type of attempt to politically assassinate him before the next election.
Like I said, not a fan, just kind of seems suspicious.
I find it interesting to consider “who would the Democrats most prefer to run against in 2024?”
If the economy is weak, I think they’d rather run against Trump (who has a base that’s fiercely loyal but more narrow) rather than a GOP candidate who will pull the majority of Trump’s base but also a wider swath from the “center” population by hammering on the economy.
If the economy is strong, historically it doesn’t matter much who the incumbent runs against.
Those people in the "center" are so disingenuous. They "aren't republicans" but they will criticize democrats for anything and suddenly be "concerned about the economy" when gas prices raise a few cents. It's pathetic.
Meanwhile the economy and government budget regularly do better under Democrats but noooooo only Democrats have to face the """"economy is doing poorly"""" nonsense.
I think plenty of the center are happy to criticize both parties when they do stupid things (as is healthy and appropriate, IMO).
Fervent supporters of a particular side might notice a lot more when their party is criticized.
Bingo. This strategy doesn't 'backfire' if it helps Trump become the 2024 GOP candidate. Feature not bug.
> another one of these things that could easily backfire and make him look like a hero
That's Trump's real accomplishment—complain so loudly that the idea of being held accountable for your crimes makes you look like a hero.
*reeks
So what if the case is weak? They should just let it slide then? Whatever country you're from, or whatever ideology you subscribe to, maybe you can appreciate the beauty of putting a strongman POS dictator wannabe on trial for even a parking violation.
Yeah I don't understand why so many people seem to be against this just because it's unlikely it will be raised to a felony or connected to other crimes.
Isn't it fine if this just hits Trump with a small fine or 3 days in jail or something? A fair punishment for a misdemeanor would be fine with me for this case. That's like the whole point of justice, that even the former president should have to follow the fine details.
In my state, our Democrat governor was accused of being a tyrant because of some minor paperwork she didn't do during emergency covid meetings. She still paid the fine because she committed the "crime" (procedural violation?) and that's how it should be. Politicians should not be immune to the little stuff. If they are speeding, they should get a ticket. If they shoplift, they should face a fine. If they forget to report a W2 to the IRS, they should get a pleasant letter telling them their mistake and they owe a few hundred dollars.
I consider that a GOOD thing
My concern isn't that this case is being prosecuted, but that all the stronger cases aren't. Sure, breaking campaign finance laws is bad and should be prosecuted, but he tried to overthrow the government! He had tons of classified documents in his basement and refused to return them. I truly do not understand why he hasn't been arrested for those two. They're more serious crimes, and there's plenty of evidence.
I'm pretty sure there is no cap on how much Trump was allowed to spend on his own campaign; that's why US politics is filled with so many rich people spending so much on their campaigns for office (sometimes for very little effect, as happened with Bloomberg). What's capped is how much any single other individual can contribute. Also, it's probably not all that clear that the payment should count as campaigning; if I remember rightly there was some speculation at the time it first became public that Trump might've funded the payment with campaign funds and people came up with equally plausible arguments that this would've been illegal because it obviously wasn't a campaign expense.
The whole thing is... probably not great grounds on which to carry out the first criminal indictment of a former US president, but the state of US politics and media in 2023 is such that outside of Trump circles the issues will be largely ignored.
As far as I can tell, here's how the justification that it's a crime worth charging goes:
1. Would Stormy Daniels announcing weeks before the election that she and Donald Trump had an affair have impacted the election? Yes.
2. Was the (perfectly legal) money paid to Stormy Daniels to prevent that thus intending to influence the election? Yes. Ergo, it's a campaign expense.
And here's where it turns into what I believe they'll be charging.
3. Knowing the above, did Trump funnel the payment through Michael Cohen with the intent to conceal it from campaign finance disclosure transparency? If so, that's conspiracy and a felony through falsifying business records to conceal another crime.
If you break the law inadvertently, that's generally a lesser crime. If you specifically know you're breaking the law and still do it, that's usually a higher charge. And if you take additional actions to conceal the fact that you broke the law, that's an even higher charge.
And because these are financial crimes, it's easier to find records of the intermediate payments.
> did Trump funnel the payment through Michael Cohen with the intent to conceal it from campaign finance disclosure transparency
but if Trump paid directly himself, it wouldn't violate campaign finance laws? Because there is no campaign finance limit on Trump himself.
That said, they still have to prove "Ergo, it's a campaign expense" - any individual is motivated to protect their reputation aside from campaigns.
but if Trump paid directly himself, it wouldn't violate campaign finance laws?
That's my (uneducated) understanding, but the speculation is that he didn't pay it himself because then he couldn't deny (to friends/family/fans/donors/voters) that he knew her.
> but if Trump paid directly himself, it wouldn't violate campaign finance laws?
Correct. My understanding is that if Trump had paid Stormy Daniels directly and classified it as a campaign expense, it would have been legal and there would be no case.
As for intent, expect it will turn on the exact language in the charged campaign finance laws. If Trump can find a reason he wasn't required to disclose, there is no felony concealment.
On the whole, a good thing for campaign finance law to have a high profile fight between two well-resourced legal teams. Hopefully it might drive some future reform and better law, as the boundaries are clarified.
> if Trump paid directly himself, it wouldn't violate campaign finance laws?
That is still a campaign expense and needs to be reported to the state. Reporting on who donated money is a totally separate report.
Yup, you're right:
> Candidate contributions to their own campaigns are not subject to any limits.
https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/candidate...
They're getting him on the technicality that it was not him but one of his corporations that made the payment.
This isn't about campaign contribution limits, it's about declaring campaign expenses.
As far as I've read, it was money his campaign legally had, spent on something he could legally spend it on... that he attempted to conceal the payment for, so it wouldn't show up in campaign finance reports.
Ironically, if he'd just paid it directly from campaign funds and given it an obfuscated name ("PR Services"), he'd be in much less legal trouble now.
Corporations can not directly give money to candidates which includes sending money to a 3rd party at the direction of the candidate. It's a much more serious violation that simply a failure to report. Usually reporting violations are dealt with civilly, though I couldn't confirm that there are no criminal penalties with a brief google search.
The Economist article someone mirrored farther down has the clearest trace of the payments I can find: https://archive.is/0rJIh
Michael Cohen paid Stormy Daniels. The Trump organization reimbursed Michael Cohen. The candidate Trump never declared the payment on his campaigning behalf.
Do you have any links on the specific laws that preclude candidate-directed corporate payments? Haven't seen specific laws in the reporting thus far, although I expect when the charges come out it'll be all over.
Those sound like very tenuous grounds. Most peoples' lawyers bill them for ancillary expenses, from printing/copying to first-class flights and other purchases in the line of work. It's not inconceivable that hush money would be in that category. Anything on a legal bill tends to go on most peoples' books as a "legal expense." In New York, there's no requirement to give clients itemized legal bills, although the client can request them. High-end lawyers tend to avoid itemizing their bills unless you ask (implying some sort of fee dispute).
At the same time, is this really the kind of thing you want a prosecutor to go after a former president and likely future presidential candidate from the opposing party for?
Why would you have a lawyer pay hush money? The concealment of the payment (having Cohen pay from his company, then reimbursing him as part of a larger payment) is the crime, not the payment.
And yes, I think all politicians should be gone after for breaking any campaign-finance-related law.
The legal ways to use money have so many loopholes (wink-nudge a PAC to pay off Stormy Daniels) that we shouldn't compromise an inch on what few restrictions we do have on the books.
This is a campaign finance violation. If we're not going to hold politicians beholden to those laws, then where is the line?
Lawyers often pay ancillary expenses for their jobs (including hush money), and bill their clients afterwards. In my own life, my lawyer pays my fees to the PTAB and then puts them on my monthly bill. That goes in my accounting books as "patent-related legal expenses," and this is fine according to my accountant - it's a bill from a lawyer, so it's a legal expense. I don't even know how much the PTAB bills me - the line on my itemized bills is a lump sum that includes administrative work in that line item (and as I understand it, the administrative work is actually quite expensive for a patent).
I think classifying this as "breaking any campaign-finance-related law" is a little bit of a strawman based on the fact pattern. It's one thing to go after someone for giving/accepting donations that are clearly illegal, but it's another thing to go after them for classifying hush money paid through a lawyer as a "legal expense" rather than a "PR expense." However, if New York were serious about justice, they would have had a clearly-politically-motivated prosecutor assign a special counsel to look for malfeasance here instead of running the prosecution himself.
Also, you should read the book "3 felonies a day," and it will give you more context on how much gray area there actually is in most crimes. The thesis of the book is that there is enough of a gray area that the average American commits 3 felonies a day.
This isn't an accounting crime. He's entitled to account for it in a variety of legal ways.
It's a campaign finance disclosure crime. Either he properly classified and disclosed a campaign related expense, or he didn't.
The difference with your example is that you presumably aren't running for office, and hence aren't required to formally disclose campaign expenses.
The ad hominem attacks on the prosecutor also seem... desperate and distasteful. Trump has enough money to afford a good legal defense team -- why should the country be in the business of deciding who is too big to prosecute?
And I've read it.
> why should the country be in the business of deciding who is too big to prosecute?
They are in this business because they have put themselves there - "3 felonies a day" should have told you about how that happened. Now that they are there, they have to avoid even creating the appearance that they are misusing the power in circumstances like this, where they are trying to prosecute political opponents. This is how civil wars start.
> The ad hominem attacks on the prosecutor also seem... desperate and distasteful.
Alvin Bragg campaigned on the fact that he was going to get Trump. It is a pertinent fact that the prosecutor going after Trump is literally trying to fulfill a campaign promise that he made publicly. If that isn't evidence that he was politically motivated, I don't know what is.
Civil wars start because an absence of the rule of law. I.e. politicians being able to avoid charges simply by virtual of their office.
And why does it matter if the prosecutor has a political ax to grind with Trump?
The distastefulness of the ad hominem attacks is the seeming thought process behind them: {prosecutor is political} == {no crimes he charges can be true}
Do crimes cease being crimes unless the prosecutor is inhumanly unbiased?
That's what a robust defense team is for.
About 80 million people have an ax to grind with Trump. Only a few of them are prosecutors who were literally elected on a promise of prosecuting him. That changes things, in my book. The correct way for him to have handled this would have been to follow through on his promise and also avoid his bias by appointing a special prosecutor with a very high budget to do the investigation - like the federal investigations before.
Also, believe it or not, prosecutors have strict ethical rules around being "advocates for justice" rather than trying to get their guy, and the hint of bias actually does mean that Trump's lawyers can get this charge thrown out on those grounds. It is actually true that on some level {prosecutor is political} == {no crimes he charged can be true}. The courts in the USA understand that to a degree, the process is the punishment, and so prosecutors can also get in trouble for nakedly biased prosecutions like this. This is different than civil litigators, who are free to be as biased and litigious as they want.
Personally, I would have had no issue if he had found some actual, serious malfeasance. In fact, I was hoping he would find some serious malfeasance in the Trump organization given all the other shit we know they did (but couldn't link back to the big guy). But no, the best he could find was Trump's accountant possibly misclassifying an expense on a disclosure form.
>Ironically, if he'd just paid it directly from campaign funds and given it an obfuscated name ("PR Services"), he'd be in much less legal trouble now.
No, he would have probably instead be indicted for using campaign funds to pay a mistress under the theory that such a payment is not a valid campaign expense. The rules are so unclear that you could prosecute him either way.
That would be a misdemeanor, not a felony.
I ran for elected office in Colorado. I refused to take donations because I didn't want to go through the paperwork and regulatory hassle of taking donations. However, every penny I spent on my campaign still had to be reported to the state. Funding the campaign by yourself still needs to fill out paperwork only in months you actually spend money instead of every month (with legal restrictions on what you are allowed/required to do with any funds left over after the election).
Bloomberg ran because if Sanders' tax plans would have cost Bloomberg about $2 billion in higher taxes, so spending 1/4 of that to keep Sanders from getting the nomination was a reasonable maneuver.
The difficulty here, as I understand it, is that Trump could have plenty of reasons for paying off someone, not all of which are to do with political campaigning. For instance, he could argue that he paid off SD to avoid damage to his relationship with his wife or family, and that it had nothing to do with his campaigning.
(In fact, you could argue that this defence is even stronger because he is Donald Trump. He has plenty of dedicated supporters who seem to stick with him regardless of his transgressions; accusations of infidelity might be less damaging to him politically than to other politicians!)
So, the prosecutors have to somehow convince a court what his intent really was, i.e. it's less about what he did and more about why he did it.
I'm not convinced it's the strongest possible case that could be brought against Trump, but I think he'd have a tough job convincing people that he arranged to pay someone in the middle of an election campaign in 2016 not to talk about something that happened in 2006 without any expectation of it having any impact upon his campaign, particularly not when his lawyer already pleaded guilty to violating campaign finance laws for his part in the payment.
> I think he'd have a tough job convincing people that he arranged to pay someone in the middle of an election campaign in 2016 not to talk about something that happened in 2006 without any expectation of it having any impact upon his campaign
You must have not seen much of the 2016 election crap then. It was pretty clear that it would not have any impact on his campaign by the time she was paid in October. So much crap was said about him by then, it would have been a small side story.
> It was pretty clear that it would not have any impact on his campaign by the time she was paid in October. So much crap was said about him by then, it would have been a small side story.
All election ads and promotional activities are small side stories in the scope of the overall campaign (and his family heard all the other crap said about him too!). Fact remains that the time Trump's lawyer paid off Stormy Daniels was years after the event but weeks before an election, and Cohen has already pleaded guilty to it being a campaign finance violation. In the scope of campaign finance violations it doesn't sound like a particularly massive one and the reasons for not wanting to declare it are obvious and unlikely to be related to any sort of wider conspiracy, but it stretches credulity to imagine that the election wasn't a consideration.
Even worse for the intent angle is that he did it through his lawyer. Proving someone acted with illegal intent by following the advice of their lawyer seems to be an oxymoron.
It's well understood that Cohen was Trump's fixer, so I don't think that'll be that big a hurdle.
It's even easier than that - Cohen already pled guilty and was convicted for this campaign finance violation. During the trial Cohen explicitly named Trump as a co-conspirator while the prosecutor decided to call him "Individual 1" in the filings
In criminal law, for intent, the prosecution doesn't have to prove no other intent, or what the "main intent" was. In fact, in some legal systems (perhaps the US as well) it is often enough to establish that the accused:
1. Was aware of his relevant actions
2. Was aware the actions are likely to have the relevant effect
3. Acted anyway
and - again, in some legal systems - this creates a presumption of intent. The onus is then on the accused to establish that they had an entirely different intent (in which case they acted "recklessly") or was not actually aware of the consequences (in which case they acted "negligently" because they should have been aware).
I am not a (US) lawyer, so I'm not sure that's the exact legal situation for Trump.
Luckily in the US an accused isn't required to prove the absence of a given intent just because a third party believes that intent might have been there.
Suppose you point a gun at someone and shoot someone. There are witnesses of you having done so, and of you being alert and sane at the time. But the prosecution cannot find any evidence of your intent to hurt that person. Would you not be convicted for having shot that person?
Culpability and the exact crime actually depends a LOT on your mental state and what intent you supposedly had. Let's start with some basic cases and get weirder:
* Intent to kill or harm someone - murder (with degree being dependent on how much pre-meditation you had)
* Intent to pull the trigger, but not to kill or hurt anyone - manslaughter
* No intent to pull the trigger (eg accidental discharge - maybe the trigger pull on the gun is very light and you put a little too much pressure on it) - possibly manslaughter on recklessness grounds if you knew there were people around or the person was there, but also maybe a lower crime (or not a crime at all) if you were being careful with the gun and got unlucky about where it was pointing when it discharged
* Not mentally competent to understand that you might be hurting someone or that hurting someone is wrong - not guilty because of insanity
* Intent to kill the person in self-defense and the person is intending to kill or harm you - not guilty of any crime due to self defense (a murder, but not a crime)
* Intent to kill someone else who is attacking you in self-defense, but you missed - also self defense (intent follows the bullet)
There are probably 10+ more other major scenarios to cover here with different outcomes. This is partly why when someone kills someone else with a gun, the prosecution tries to hit them with murder, manslaughter, and reckless handling of a deadly weapon. They don't know which one will stick, but they can be pretty sure that a jury will find one kind of intent.
That depends on whether the fact you shot someone is a disputed fact in the case.
you can't have direct evidence of someones alertness or state of mind, only circumstantial.
the direct evidence from witness testimony is only needed if the shooting is disputed.
assuming the shooting is proven, with no evidence of intent, you can't have murder 1, and likely can't have murder 2 either and are probably stuck with involuntary manslaughter.
obviously it depends on the state.
however even manslaughter requires some requisite knowledge and intention of what you are doing - but proving something like insanity or incapacity is usually on the defense to prove.
> and likely can't have murder 2 either and are probably stuck with involuntary manslaughter.
Can you refer to an explanation of this? Or to some case law explaining the non-attribution of volition?
> cannot find any evidence of your intent to hurt that person
in CA second degree murder is the unlawful killing of a human being that is done without deliberation and premeditation, but with malice aforethought (or with an intent to commit an act)
if there is literally zero evidence available as to intent, it cant be murder.
Contrived strawman aside, this is exactly why there are different legal definitions for murder in the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd degrees, as well as manslaughter. And different punishments for each based.
In this example, it's probably open-and-shut 2nd degree but the prosecution now has to prove that you premeditated this if they want to go for 1st degree (IANAL). They don't get to just say "it was clearly premeditated" and then put the onus of proof on the defendant.
Oh, ok, certainly, there can be different levels of gravity for the same offense. But it's not the case of "you haven't positively proven intent so no conviction".
They're required to prove absence of a given intent in the sense of "to the jury's satisfaction."
If the prosecution says "Here are all the things that indicate intent" and the defense says "I'm not going to respond to any of those, because none of them prove intent" then that's rolling some pretty loaded dice with a jury.
How exactly do you prove that this wasn't paid to prevent further embarrassment to his wife and to salvage his relationship? He did go around at the time calling Stormy Daniels "Horse Face". Which does directly relate to his wife being a former model, being more beautiful, and can be seen as an attempt to reassure her. Intent is hard to prove.
> The problem here is that, of course, this was just a way to make Cohen an intermediary for the process of the campaign paying Daniels. This is problem in two ways. First, it goes against the campaign spending limits, so goes against campaign laws. Second, it's a form of falsifying business records.
The interesting bit is that Hillary Clinton also violated campaign finance law in a similar way for funding the Steele dossier. She was fined $8000. People are really going to have a field day with this.
If this is the case, it seems to be a _relatively_ technical breach of the rules. Maybe intent would get to the heart of the matter. I'm no expert, but it's surprising to me that they would indict a previous president over this with all of the ramifications.
Curious - which laws are serious/important enough to hold ex-presidents to, then?
> indict a previous president over this with all of the ramifications.
Some would argue that the consequences are positive. It's important for every citizen to know that nobody is above the law.
Also surprising in the wider context of politicians generally being involved in shenanigans across the board, this one is quite particular, and still not that conclusive.
I mean I'm pretty sure we could find some serious insider trading crimes without too much investigation...
Why should a president be above the law?
As I understand it, the amount that you can spend on your own campaign is unlimited (thanks to the first amendment), but the amount that other people can contribute is strictly capped due to campaign finance laws. Michael Bloomberg took advantage of this when he did his "primary blitz" in 2020.
If this was actually Trump paying his own hush money via his lawyer, then it makes Michael Cohen a liar (when he said that he paid it out of his own pocket, thus admitting to violating campaign finance law), but Trump seems to not be implicated at all.
> If this was actually Trump paying his own hush money via his lawyer
The allegation is that Trump reimbursed Cohen for what had (provably) been paid to Daniels. So, as usual, in the real world things get a bit more complicated. Is that still "paying his own hush money" ? Does using an intermediate make it not so? Does using an intermediate who first uses their own funds and you later reimburse them make it not so?
Yeah, that's 100% him paying his own hush money. Your lawyer is often an extension of you in that respect - that's why a "power of attorney" document is called that. As long as it flows through agents with that kind of close arrangement, the path the money takes doesn't matter - it's coming straight from the client. For example, my patent lawyer pays for my fees at the PTAB and then puts them on my monthly bill, but puts my name (or my corporation's) down on the form as the person who paid the fee.
Another commenter suggested that the real crime was that the expense was named incorrectly on the campaign's books, which makes more sense to me but also seems kind of tenuous.
Interestingly, I tried to Google one of the paragraphs from your paste and it returned no results.
When I tried DuckDuckGo, only HN came up.
I was curious what redditors thought of your response and what context it was made, but search engines seem to fall down on finding a great deal of what's been hidden on the Internet these days.
I expect that's because the post itself was deleted. Also, deleted threads don't get much traction, so Reddit didn't have much to say on the topic :)
https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/11xfj6m/...
If you search for the entire 3rd paragraph and append 'reddit' on Google it is the first result. However, I agree with your point that search engines are performing poorly - obviously I was only able to get this to work because I already knew the answer.
I don’t think it was the campaign that paid her, was it? I thought it was just some Trump business entity.
Yes but if the intent was to help or protect the campaign, and Trump's business paid for it (rather than the campaign or Trump personally) it's an illegal campaign donation because it's above the limit.
Seems like a pretty thin theory for such an unprecedented case. (I mean. Imagine if the campaign HAD paid for it!)
I’m all for accountability and rule of law. But I’d hope the grand jury has something a little bit better than just this.
Cohen paid her, and then was reimbursed by a Trump Org.
> so paying her to stay quiet is considered a campaign expense
isn't this a bit of a stretch? lots of things that could "make trump look bad" (TM) might have a political consequence, but does that make them all defacto campaign related? Aren't there plenty other (personal) reasons he would pay her off unrelated to the campaign (he's done/said things unrepentantly that could equally impact his campaign, so it's not clear Trump is even motivated to pay her off for this reason).
If I'm not mistaken Obama's campaign was fined for the same offense -- non-disclosed campaign distributions.
https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/01/07/obama-campai...
You are mistaken, these are not the same offense.
Do explain. As far as I understand the problem is that Cohen paid for the hush money, so it was essentially a campaign contribution that was not reported.
Paying her to stay silent is not 100% legal when it's done for the direct benefit of political campaign and not disclosed.
Except the campaign finance laws are federal and so NY has no jurisdiction on that claim. The jurisdiction that does handle that declined to prosecute so there is no crime for the NY law to apply to.
Nearly the entire point of the United States at its founding was that the law should apply to political leaders. We are overdue for setting the precedent of a former President being charged with a crime, and we ought to go back and charge a few other former Presidents with crimes while we’re at it.
> Nearly the entire point of the United States at its founding was that the law should apply to political leaders.
I think that's overstated.
First of all, it was the Magna Carta which established that the king was not above the law, so in that sense the founding of the United States was more "and we don't need a king".
Second, there are frequently legal discussions in the present day as to whether a sitting president can be charged with a crime, so there is at least a substantial idea that there is some "sovereign immunity" (quotes because that's not what sovereign immunity refers to)
Third, the founders were also well aware of the threat of political motives for prosecutions and wanted to diminish them with various balance of power checks and balances.
Just to clarify. The King of the UK is above criminal law. The monarch of the UK cannot be arrested or charged with an offence, or be personally involved in criminal proceedings.
That is similar to the immunity given to the sitting US President. What is different is that monarch is not really expected to obey the law either. For example, the Prime Minister was fined for illegally not wearing a seatbelt. If the king didn’t wear a seatbelt, it would not be a big deal - the royal family freely ignore traffic laws (and more serious laws) without consequences. Queen Elizabeth did agree to start paying taxes, but there was never any suggestion that she be compelled to pay taxes, merely that it would be the right thing to do.
On the flip side... England did actually arrest, try and convict the King once. Also did the same to an ex-queen, in Lady Jane Grey. After first having un-queened her, which is also a thing that cannot be done.
The thing about Britain's constitutional arrangements is that there are many things which 'can't' be done, which it turns out simply 'aren't' done.
I mean, that's really true of any sort of law or political arrangement. They can all be broken or ignored. To mangle a quote, the law isn't power - power is power.
So very similar to the US then. It's not that an incoming Governor of the opposition party can't be stripped of executive power it's just that no one had done it until recently.
All good points. A small note though I believe the Queen started paying taxes in exchange for the state’s help rebuilding Windsor caste after the 92 fire. So seems more quid pro quo than something she felt was the right thing to do.
Still didn’t pay inheritance tax on her personal wealth though
There are also all the laws the monarch / monarch’s lawyers interfered with e.g. police can’t enter Sandringham Estate without an invite, leaseholders on the Duchy of Cornwall are excluded from buying their freehold
Nobody cares until to revolt. You’re centuries behind any other democracy.
Indeed
Funny how some people down vote facts…
This short article gives a better explanation than I could ever give at this hour of the morning: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jul/14/what-does-qu...
What is sovereign immunity?
Sovereign immunity is a centuries-old doctrine dictating that the monarch cannot be prosecuted or subject to civil legal action under the law. Its origin lies in doctrine and convention, rather than statute, and there is no law setting out the rules underpinning the concept.
It stems partly from the medieval concept that the monarch is the source of justice, and can therefore do no wrong. It also relies on an argument that because the courts belong to the Queen she cannot be compelled to appear in them, since she would, in effect, be prosecuting herself.
Since at least 1800, the monarch has also had a legally distinct private persona, created to allow them to have independent wealth and property that could be inherited by their children. However, the lines between the two are somewhat blurred, and sovereign immunity has typically been interpreted to apply to both the public and private identities of the monarch.
That the king is above criminal law does not directly dispute the Magna Carta thread of this conversation.
We take it for granted now, but it was a beginning of constitutional order - king and government should follow certain laws and rules for how to run the country. And the UK is after all a constitutional monarchy, no longer at mercy to the whims of an autocratic monarch.
You really think anyone in the royal family has ever done anything because "it would be the right thing to do"?
This also happened before he was a sitting president, so all the stuff about “Bush Iraq war crimes” and “Nixon’s burglary” and similar historical presidential baggage is mostly irrelevant, at least in terms of new precedent.
The social/civil consequences of this sort of criminal indictment before election is enough to kill a presidential campaign and has enough times in history. As it should be.
This is behaviour before/after presidency when the stakes are far lower.
Trump is a fundamentally different player than Bush or Nixon. They were establishment in times the establishment wasn't nearly as hated as it is now.
This just plays to Trump's strength as the ultimate rebel.
In terms of game theory, this is a very different game than Nixon or Bush. Trump annihilated the Bush Legacy, and is hated by both sides of the establishment.
Trump is part of "the establishment" himself. And that he can bullshit people like you into believing otherwise is part of his superpower as a lifelong pathologic liar.
Which raises the question if one part of the establishment can protect you from the consequences of the law.
At least some of the legally problematic reimbursement payments to Cohen happened while he was president.
Doesn't that just give over power to prosecutors to pick who you get to vote for?
The alternative is a country where political candidates are not bound by the rule of law.
That juice is not worth the squeeze.
Just in case, I am hereby declaring my candidacy for the President of the United States for the upcoming election and all future elections in my lifetime.
Same here but the trick is also being popular.
Yes - look at Comey's comments about butter emails that severely damaged Hilary Clinton's electoral chances.
I think you mean "influence elections" - "picking who[m] you get to vote for" is quite a stretch.
The only reason there are any discussions about whether a sitting president can be charged with a crime is because the USA elected an evil administration that was willing to seriously suggest and push that idea.
It is so tragic and disappointing.
Nope. There is a constitutional argument that a sitting president should not get indicted. But for one thing that's not settled law in any form, nor is it based in "sovereign" powers, nor is it even an immunity. The constitution and the oath of office requires him/her to faithfully execute the laws. That means he can't be immune, he can't be above the law... And yes, the US constitution is beyond messed up. It just barely works well enough not to risk switching it up.
In Germany for example we have sort of an "updated" version, with lessons learned. But one thing I actually want changed is that members of parliament have actual real immunity. Not in the practical sense - immunity for individual members has historically always been waived by parliament at the slightest whiff of an investigation. But the example of Trump teaches us that it is a fallacy to trust in the decency of politicians and unwritten rules.
It's kind of interesting because, according to a lot of other people (whether they are speaking factually or in an opinionated fashion), Trump has managed to avoid a lot of laws (inciting an insurrection, etc.). Why is this hush money thing the biggest law a Grand jury is able to stick on him? If he's supposedly guilty for so many other things, why is this all he's been indicted on the past few years? Genuinely asking. I really have no dog in this race/don't care, just find it interesting.
The most interesting aspect to this indictment is that, until now, there’s been a clear reluctance to go all the way on nailing Trump for the sort of extremely common crimes that many of our wonderful politicians/wealthy engage in on a regular basis.
It’s why they didn’t stick him on emoluments, nepotism, tax dodging - even “improperly storing classified documents” somehow turned out to be a brush too broad.
So now Alvin Bragg is (supposedly) indicting him for campaign finance violations. Okay. He’s probably guilty. But both Obama and Hillary paid fines for the exact same crime. So did John Edwards, for a VERY similar situation to the Stormy Daniels thing iirc.
This isn’t whataboutism - my point is that, if this indictment goes forward with the rumored rationale, every single politician will now have to watch their ass on campaign funds for the foreseeable future lest the opposing party find out.
That’s a good thing for America and a very obnoxious thing for the entire political class. I suspect Alvin Bragg is getting many angry phone calls tonight from folks who would otherwise like to fire Trump into the sun.
The Obama comparison doesn't hold water. Those were civil penalties for time to report donations. Trump is being charged criminally with felonies for intentionally hiding hush money payments in legal payments from the campaign (although we don't know what all the charges are yet).
https://www.snopes.com/news/2018/08/22/election-law-violatio...
Bragg campaigned on arresting Trump.
Yes. Dems were never going to, for example, indict Trump on selling US policy to the Saudis, that’s a key political-racket revenue source.
This is one of several cases against Trump that has advanced beyond the Grand Jury stage.
Potentially we could see several other indictments. Such as the Federal cases for the classified documents and the Georgia case for interfering with an election.
This is just the first one. Doesn’t have to be the last nor does it mean he is instantly ruled guilty and is going to prison or paying a fine. He will have his chance in court to make a case for his innocence in the face of these specific charges.
There are other investigations ongoing in other jurisdictions, including an investigation related to inciting the insurrection. Those investigations may likely lead to indictments from grand juries as well.
The United States has many local prosecutors that operate independently within their jurisdictions and are not bound to hold their charges in deference to some other charges that may be more serious coming later.
I get the impression that there's no explanation required for how all the forces of the most powerful government in the world and its intelligence agencies, which are the largest, best financed, and since 9/11 least restrained in the world can't prove the liberal claims of a vast array of crimes that a slightly stupid wrestling valet game show host who largely lived off branding agreements with real estate developers committed with the aid of a small network of self-serving d-list dipshits.
Yeah it’s hard to look at something like the Rod Blagojevich saga and then look back at Trump and not immediately wonder what the hell is going on here.
They very clearly have the capability to coordinate the entire media apparatus, law enforcement, etc to cuff a sitting Governor and quickly send him to a federal pit and down the memory hole for essentially the exact same sort of quid pro quo that was underpinning the first Trump impeachment.
Trump isn’t Phoenix Wright, he’s only still a free man because the Blob either can’t come to a consensus on “Blago’ing” him - or else the constant “The walls are closing in on Drumpf THIS time” drama is serving a larger purpose.
A state governor doesn't have control or influence over federal law enforcement, nor do they get the cloud of ambiguity created by presidential immunity.
I don't think the Manhattan DA has direct access to the full capacity of US intelligence agencies to use against citizens or former presidents.
> how all the forces of the most powerful government in the world and its intelligence agencies, which are the largest, best financed, and since 9/11 least restrained in the world can't prove the liberal claims
It's not the job of all those intelligence agencies to do that. This is a law and order question, which must be handled by the legal system, not the NSA and CIA.
You’re talking about the 76-year-old WWE hall-of-famer who posted upwards of 200 tweets a day despite famously eschewing technology for paper and pencil. There’s nothing fake about this political figure. Or any others, for that matter.
Gold.
Time, juridiction, and witness cooperation lined up for this one.
The alleged crime happened 8 years ago by now. Some more recent misdeeds might still yield more indictments.
The jurisdiction is New York state, where Trump's status as former president is irrelevant (unlike insurrection related issues, which I guess are federal, and therefore for which his status as sitting president would've made impeachment the remedy rather than criminal prosecution).
There is a cooperating witness spilling the beans on this one. On his mini coup attempt, maybe they were a bit better at containing associates.
Despite your disclaimers, this seems to be in bad faith given that “all they’ve got” implies he’ll never be indicted again. Also, Al Capone was indicted for what?
> Despite your disclaimers, this seems to be in bad faith given that “all they’ve got” implies he’ll never be indicted again
I'm sorry, I'll try to reword it to come across differently. My whole question is: Why hasn't he been indicted of bigger/harsher crimes already?
> Why hasn't he been indicted of bigger/harsher crimes already?
I think that's a perfectly reasonable question. The basic answer I'd give is that the bigger/harsher a crime is the longer it takes to build as a case.
The bigger or harsher a crime is, it usually has more protections and requirements in order to prove. It takes longer to gather the relevant evidence, longer to put together a theory of the case, and longer to button everything down and present to a grand jury.
It's kind of like asking why it takes developers longer to build the biggest/coolest features in a video games. It's a lot more work!
This was also a question that came up quite frequently when the first Jan 6th defendants were charged. The first wave of defendants were charged with things like "trespassing" and other fairly mild charges. A lot of people were upset about that. But they just came first because they were much easier cases to proves and make. Eventually more serious charges such as "assault with a deadly weapon", "obstructing congress" and "seditious conspiracy" were later charged and convicted in front of a jury.
So, I generally wouldn't be surprised to see the easier/simpler cases come before more complicated cases. That's not to say that he will be charged with bigger/harsher crimes. Maybe the facts won't bear those cases out, and they won't be charged. But the ordering doesn't seem like it should be particularly surprising.
Criminal investigations, especially when the subject is this high-profile, move very slowly.
I guess my question is more like
did he or did he not incite an insurrection on January 6th? there was an entire committee about it. he did, right? ok... so... not indicted, got it, moves slowly
did he have classified documents when he shouldn't have? yes. not indicted
did he do something wrong in regards to votes in georgia? yes. not indicted
i guess i just don't get it shrug it's as if like... based on the fact that he hasn't been indicted, you can conclude... he didn't do anything illegal, because if he did, he'd be indicted, right?
But all of the things you cite are "not indicted, yet". They're literally active investigations for all of those things.
At the federal level, Jack Smith is currently investigating the January 6th case, the related forgery of documents, and the classified documents. Since he's a special prosecutor if he declines to indict on the things in his remit he's required to file a report to Merrick Garland with his declination decision and reasoning. That hasn't happened yet.
Similarly for Georgia, a Special Grand Jury made a report recommending he be indicted. That then goes to a Grand Jury, which will make the decision on whether he be indicted. That Grand Jury hasn't sat yet, so that's also in process.
So, all of those things are in process. They haven't made a decision not to indict yet, so it's incorrect to draw conclusions assuming he won't be indicted for those things yet. It's too early to say, for each of the things you identified.
These are all separate cases.
> did he or did he not incite an insurrection on January 6th? there was an entire committee about it. he did, right? ok... so... not indicted, got it, moves slowly
The latest on this is that Mike Pence is going to appear before that grand jury: https://www.politico.com/news/2023/03/28/judge-says-pence-mu...
So the correct status is not yet indicted.
> did he have classified documents when he shouldn't have? yes. not indicted
Latest status: Some of Trump's lawyer's records must be presented to the court:
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/03/22/trump-court-rejects...
not yet indicted.
> did he do something wrong in regards to votes in georgia? yes. not indicted
Trump's lawyer there is fighting to avoid him being indicted (as you'd expect):
In a 483-page filing, Trump’s attorney Drew Findling urged a state court in Georgia to prohibit an Atlanta-area district attorney there from filing charges related to Trump’s bid to subvert the 2020 election.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/03/20/trump-georgia-indic...
not yet indicted.
The legal system is slow, but I think it's fair to say that in all these cases the legal teams are being very careful because bringing a case against a former President is unprecedented, and they want to be sure it is a good case.
No. These things take time. If you’re going to indict a former president who has declared that he is going to run again you need to be totally sure about your case. It’s not what you know, it’s what you can prove.
Does it suck that it’s taking so long? Of course. Unfortunately, that’s how the system works.
The remedy to his insurrection on January 6th was impeachment. He was impeached, and his jury found him not guilty. The jury in this case being the United States Senate.
Impeachment is a political process, not a legal process.
EDIT: To back this up, from Wikipedia:
In the United States, impeachment is a remedial rather than penal process,[13][14]: 8 intended to "effectively 'maintain constitutional government' by removing individuals unfit for office";[14]: 8 persons subject to impeachment and removal remain "liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law
Criminal impunity for political elites backstops their entire racket: laundering hard bribes into soft, insider trading and so on. They've blocked T•••• prosecution for things like the coup because federal law enforcement report to them, and they're wedded to the immunity. Only the most egregious get prosecuted, e.g. the Congressman insider-trading on the phone in the background of a public T•••• event.
The most malevolent things he did were political and while in office. As anti-Trump as I am though, the clock ran out on that and the remedy (conviction of impeachment) was never completed. In that sense, that chapter is closed and now we move to all the other stuff.
Prosecutors in their respective jurisdictions should look for crimes and prosecute if they see malfeasance. In the case of NY, these are the charges that were at the top of the priority list for that one prosecutor. Multiple other prosecutors are looking at crimes in other jurisdictions and I would expect Trump to be facing charges in at least 2 and maybe 3 or 4 courtrooms on entirely independent indictments.
Because Trump has nearly religious following that scares many many people on the left and right.
They will do ANYTHING to stop him out of fear, anger, arrogance etc. The problem here is Trump is an expert at reflection. This HAS ALREADY empowered his base, and strengthened Ron Desantis.
I think the hardest part to accept is nearly half the nation DOES NOT AGREE with progressive principles at their very core.
The democratic nominee for President has won the popular vote in something like 7 of the last 8 presidential elections. A majority of Americans do have progressive principles, but America is a minority rule country at the moment.
Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, and Bill Clinton represent progressive principles? Hardly. Even Barack Obama, who opposed gay marriage when he ran for office was closer to being a Republican than a Progressive in his political rhetoric (though he is clearly a progressive at heart).
Al Gore at least seemed to have some progressive appeal on the environmentalism front, but yes, as a non-American that was exactly my thought - there's been no real indication from federal elections in the US in recent decades at least that very many Americans could be considered genuinely progressive in their political leaning. Pretty much all the Democrats supported policies that would be considered quite conservative (or downright regressive) in many other Western nations. None of which has anything much to do with my dismay that Trump still has the support he does.
> Even Barack Obama, who opposed gay marriage when he ran for office
Wasn't that just a political play? Given that America as a society at large is pretty conservative, even within the Democrats base, pandering to opposing gay marriage gives a net positive voting.
Whether it matters that it was a political play aside, I guess I really don’t believe it was. Maybe there is some presidential historian who has dug into the documents, I’m just going on vibes I remember from the time.
Well, this is politics so I fail to see the difference.
We don't have a popular vote for President. Candidates, campaigns, and voters would all behave differently if we did.
It's like if your baseball team lost a game and saying "yeah, but they had the fewest batters struck out!" OK... but that's not how the winner is determined, and both teams would have played differently if it were. We can't know what the outcome would have been, in that case.
your comment has nothing to do with the topic we were discussing. The person I replied to made a comment about what a majority of people in America believe.
Aside from addressing the irrelevance of the single piece of evidence you supplied to support that, sure, it's got nothing to do with it.
Pointing out that we have the electoral college days absolutely nothing about what a majority of people believe which was the topic being discussed.
Those facts don't support your conclusion. The popular vote is not even close to "a majority of Americans". Something like 120 million American adults didn't even vote in 2016, versus around 66 and 63 million who voted for Clinton and Trump respectively. Clinton winning would still have been "minority rule" by this measure.
Also, broadly speaking, being progressive means wanting change and being conservative means being more comfortable with the status quo. It seems obvious that of the 120 million people who weren’t motivated to vote, more of those would be latent conservatives. Or at least, it’s very hard to see a progressive majority in there.
> It seems obvious that of the 120 million people who weren’t motivated to vote
Could be true, but it's certainly not "obvious". There are myriad reasons (especially in the USA) why people might not vote that nothing to do with their political opinions (ideology or intensity). I am sure that a significant number of the 120 million non-voters were "not motivated", but not all of them. And of the "not motivated", it is hard to know the real reasons why and what it means. Some of them, for example, would never vote, regardless of who ran or what the platforms were. Maybe some of them would vote for radical progressive if there was one with credible chance of winning. Maybe some of them would vote for a blatantly Mussolini-inspired candidate. Either way, it isn't obvious that motivation was the reason to not vote for all of them and it certainly isn't clear that they are more likely to be "latent conservatives".
You’re right, it’s not obvious. And perhaps to strengthen your point, countries with compulsory voting (e.g. Australia) don’t seem to show any particular skew.
Regarding the original point, Pew published some interesting stats on voter preferences:
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/11/09/beyond-red-v...
According to this, progressives are a very small slice of the population, and nowhere near a majority even if you include adjacent groups.
The Pew study is interesting, but I feel that it's whole approach manages to elide the more important question of what specific policies a majority of the population would support. It is clear (in general, and in the Pew report) that there are many policies that both the "progressive left" and "conservative right" will never agree on. But it is less clear what might be the support for policies like e.g. government industrial policy involving investment in US-based businesses which can be spun either way but are generally "populist".
Alas, we appear unlikely to find out, since no presidential/senate candidate is going to do anything truly populist with economic policy for fear of pissing off the big donors.
Yes, that’s the big unknown. It’s hard for any sort of anti-establishment populist to emerge. Trump is an example of this: he basically ran against both parties, was rendered ineffective, and they haven’t stopped trying to bury him. Ross Perot, Ron Paul & Bernie Sanders covered similar ground (albeit from different angles) and hit the same wall.
According to Pew, the wall they ran into is that their policies are not popular enough.
But anyway, I do not consider Trump as having been rendered ineffective, and he certainly isn't buried.
More centrally, there's no obligation of those with the (literal or metaphorical) printing presses to spread the good word Our Favorite Populist of the moment. In the USA, we ceded control of "the press" to the private sector, without any expectation that they would ever act against the interests of their owners. There's no reason why any multi-(m|b)illion corporation is ever going to champion Bernie Sander's policies. On the other hand, Trump's policies (from day one) were just fine for the largest news organization on the planet, precisely because they were never threatening to the status quo.
If people actually want to hear populist policies, they're going to have to pay attention to something other than corporate owned media, regardless of its nominal political orientation.
Playing with numbers is fun!
I'll do it too:
Republicans have won 8 out of the past 14 elections, and won the popular vote as well as the electoral college in six out of eight [1].
Or, looking at it another way, of the past 14 elections, republicans won the popular vote by an average of 7.42%, while democrats only won by 5.28%, which if you took that pointless cherry picked data seriously could convince you that on average republican candidates are significantly more popular than democrats.
The fact is, this country is split fairly evenly along the nonsensical left/right axis.
A more interesting evaluation would be along the authoritarian vs antiauthoritarian axis. I think a much larger percentage of Americans fall along the antiauthoritarian axis, and that the noise in the left/right false dichotomy is a result of that more than anything.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presid...
This is only true if you evaluate votes by district. Historically, the only thing Republicans love more than picking judges is gerrymandering districts.
If they didn't go to absurd lengths to chop up districts and make it harder for poor people to vote, it wouldn't even be a close fight.
“Republicans have won … the popular vote … in six out of eight”
Your own link shows that Democrats have won the popular vote 7 out of the last 8.
If the question was "Would you support a strong leader who might make some unpopular decisions that would make America great again?", and a lot of people said yes, would call them anti-authoritarians or authoritarians?
Well, that's a pretty simple question.
Here are more complex ones:
"[Party A] is actively censoring speech that they don't agree with, calling it misinformation, even though their 'fact checkers' have shown strong political bias. Do you support this?"
and
"[Party B] wants to restrict your right to your body and self-ownership by limiting access to healthcare like abortion and gender affirming care for adults. Do you support this?"
These are the sorts of political "points" that both parties try to score. There are lots more examples.
What's the common theme?
There's an underlying message of "scary authoritarian government controlling me".
I think that most Americans, regardless of political party, have fairly strong antiauthoritarian leanings. I think both political parties attempt to exploit this in political messaging, but neither actually mean it.
By definition, a political party seeks power.
Of course, no one wants to point out their own power-seeking, so the only option is to point out your opponent's.
You're attempting to leverage the ambiguity in the word "censorship". Don't want to play.
The sort of authoritarian instincts I was thinking of involve things more like: incarceration camps for people with national origins in the wrong place, immigration policies denying entry to people from the wrong place, ignoring Constitutional separation between church & state to allow "just a little" theocratic bleed-through (imagine if the "church" in question was a mosque), using the army for law enforcement, outlawing more strikes by "critical workers", seeking to restrain the behavior of corporate persons (previously established as subject to the first amendment by SCOTUS) ... and we could go on. Basically, "fascism light" - nothing too horrible, just round one of Pastor Niemoller's famous anecdote.
When you consider population clusters in the big urban areas, your point is diluted a bit.
There's a reason we don't do popular vote; California and New York would pretty much pick the president every election.
Take a look at the geographic distribution of red v blue by county in the 2020 presidential election [1].
Relying on only the popular vote could devolve the country into a hunger games type dystopian hellscape where 90% of the country is controlled by a few dense urban clusters.
The disconnect here is that to many of us, it seems 100% rational that the majority of people (whether popular or representative) should pick the president. Not because of who people in cities tend to vote for, but because it makes no logical sense to allocate so much influence to so few people.
The universe doesn't owe unpopular ideas equal footing. People who don't like what cities think might feel like the odds are stacked against them in a popular contest. They are correct.
We don't give new chess players extra queens, either.
One person should = one vote, absurd that Wyoming gets 70× the Senate influence with the population of Modesto.
Land doesn’t vote, people do. Your argument justifies federalism, not unequal voting power.
The US is a republic of states, not a democracy. We vote by electoral college, and not directly by the population, for a reason. The electoral college is weighted using both the House (population-weighted representation) and Senate (equal state representation) so the small states don't get ignored and controlled by the large states.
States are artificial, national elections should be ranked choice, or at worst simple majority vote.
Electoral college was a sop to slavers and should be deleted. It doesn't empower small states, it empowers large states which happen to be swing states.
On the other hand, if power in the US was as centralized at the time as you seem to suggest it should be, federal marshals would have simply enforced the escaped slaves act over abolitionist state's protests.
Returning escaped slaves was in the constitution itself (fugitive slave clause).
Founders’ intent is pretty irrelevant to today’s problems. They ran forced labor plantations, hadn’t mastered electricity or germ theory of disease, and the biggest city was ~30K people.
1 person = 1 vote, get rid of all the rural planter rigs.
"States" are a fiction. There are only people. So to translate what you wrote into on-the-ground reality: the senate exists to make sure that the people who live in states with small populations are not subject to the will of the majority of people in the country.
This is defensible, and I'm sure you would not balk at being called "anti-majoritarian", but lets be clear about what is going on.
Also, post-Civil War, this "we're a republic not a democracy" stuff really changed significantly. While it may have been absolutely true in 1776, it became much less true in the 1800s, and has continued to become even less so in the 1900s. It may have been better if the Constitution had been amended to reflect this (since it was happening anyway), but it's burying your head in the sand to pretend that the original conception is reality on the ground today.
We have state governments and different laws across states, and people move between states in part because of the effects those laws have on their lives. It is still very much a reality.
What we have is a heirarchy of laws, ranging from constitutional to federal to state to county to local. I think this is a great idea. But it doesn't mean that we're "just" a republic of states.
> They will do ANYTHING to stop him out of fear, anger, arrogance etc
ANYTHING, eh? Please tell me, what did they do? Trump won an election (thanks to the mechanics of the Electoral College), he served as president, he passed laws (some of which the courts overturned, as happens with most presidents), he handed out pardons (some wise, some not), and then he lost an election.
What is this "ANYTHING" that has been done to stop him?
Agree, and let's reverse it. Trump will do ANYTHING to stay in power, including the incitement of a violent coup attempt where they were chanting to hang his own VP!
"nearly half" — T•••• controls ~a quarter of the GOP, which is ~a third of US voters, so < 10% of US electorate.
You nailed it. There's nothing on him so they have to grasp at straws. Or, like other commenters mentioned, it's an intentional move by dems to increase his popularity (in the hopes that he'll be easier to beat in 2024)
Why did they only get capone on tax evasion?
That was also an outrageous and silly charge and representative a failure of the legal system to live up to its ideals of process and fairness. It wasn't especially political though, because by and large there is consensus that being a gangster should be illegal and that Capone was probably a gangster.
Attempting to take a popular political figure out by blatant abuse of the legal abuse is a bit more concerning.
Popular political figures aren't above the law, they aren't special because they are popular. I don't believe that popularity should be in any way a consideration to put someone up for a trial after they break the law.
I'm reminded of a quote from Pirates of the Caribbean: "One good deed does not excuse a man for a lifetime of wickedness!" "But it seems enough to condemn him!"
What crime, or type of crime, would you consider it OK to prosecute a popular political figure for?
I assume murder. What else?
Bit of a tautology, isn't it? I thought a crime was anything that it was OK to prosecute someone for.
The issue here is that people went looking for a crime for almost a decade, singling out Trump in a deranged crusade. Bush levelled entire countries. Obama put the foundations of the global spying apparatus in place. Biden might be on the verge of igniting WWIII with the policies of escalation that the US is employing.
Then in that background, there is speculation that Trump is going to be arrested for something related to Stormy Daniels after the levels of effort put in to pinning something on him. The people who feel that is appropriate can't serious. Based on what we've seen of the Trump saga so far, this is probably abuse of process. If that level of effort was put into another politician, they'd be in jail too.
Think about how much investigations through government agencies have changed since 1930?
Considering we still regularly still do lie detector tests, dog searches, entrapments, confessions under duress or even torture, I would say we haven't changed as much as you think.
The reason nobody should be above the law is because it’s important for our sense that the law is impartial.
This is also why it’s important to not use the law as a political tool. Otherwise trust in the law is undermined.
Not to mention finally becoming a signatory to the International Criminal Court. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_and_the_Internat...
> Not to mention finally becoming a signatory to the International Criminal Court.
We actually were a signatory (and one of the prime movers for regularizing the ad hoc processes which we had also been a prime mover for creating in Yugoslavia and Rwanda) of the Rome Statute under Clinton, though the signature was effectively withdrawn under Bush.
I really hope the US doesn’t agree to give up full sovereignty of its judicial process.
> The seven countries that voted against the treaty were Iraq, Israel, Libya, China, Qatar, Yemen, and the United States.
Not a great look.
>As of March 2023, 123 states are members of the Court.[3] Other states that have not become parties to the Rome Statute include India, Indonesia, and China.[3]
I looked into it more and while 7 voted against, 21 abstained so votes don't tell the whole picture. Between China, Indonesia, India and The US you're talking a major chunk of the world population.
Not sure "a major chunk of the world population" is a good way of looking at this.
Anything China does is "a major chunk of the world population". Same with India.
“In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.”
Which is all fine and good until you go committing war crimes on foreign soil in regions that may not have proper legal frameworks. Committing war crimes in Iraq for instance. Which is kind of where the whole ICC thing comes into play - it's not really for like, speeding tickets. The US had the opportunity during development of the framework to engage and ensure all the other terms could be fairly met. Note that the text you quoted was also an amendment to what was meant to be a living document, albeit long since ossified.
The US did tried to do that, it was overruled which is why the Clinton administration voted no.
The US government is not allowed to participate or facilitate a criminal prosecution that would deny a US citizen their constitutional rights there has been a Supreme Court case about this already ironically in 1998 which was also one of the triggers for voting no.
On a side note the ICC is terrible, any party can bring up a case, there is no separation of duties, no defined scope and no right of appeal.
The ICC is nothing more than virtue signaling, and should never been established in its current form the world was just too high on its own supply of late 90’s hopium at that point to care.
Any argument that contains the phrase "virtue signaling" can be safely discarded.
What was the court case?
UNITED STATES v. BALSYS https://via.library.depaul.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1...
If the US never prosecutes its war criminals, someone has to.
There are plenty of prosecutions and convictions of US soldiers for war crimes in the US.
Never will happen. The US controls military power around the globe for now.
That cannot happen without a significant change to the constitution which will never happen.
Yes it can. And I know this, because it already happened (the US became a signatory in 2000, but repudiated any intent to ratify in 2002.)
Are there potential circumstances where the US Constitution might conflict with obligations under the Rome Statute? Maybe; that certainly fairly regularly happens in practice with the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, but the US has signed and ratified that treaty.
Treaties have an effect similar to a constitutional amendment.
> Treaties have an effect similar to a constitutional amendment.
They obviously do not. If they did, you could basically abolish the Constitution with one with only the presidency, a bare majority of the Senate, and the cooperation of a foreign power. An actual Constitutional amendment must meet a much, much higher bar.
No they do not, treaties when ratified become federal law, they are still bound by the constitution.
My apologies, I phrased that inelegantly. It’s not that black and white.
Treaties have and do grant the Federal government additional powers. They cannot diminish powers or add something that is taken away.
They do not, self executing treaties become domestic laws, if these laws are not constitutional then the treaty is pretty much void.
And non self executing treaties are meaningless they pretty much mean that the US government promised something but it is not compelled to do anything about it and there is no mechanism that would require it to comply.
The US constitution is supreme it takes precedence over anything the legislative branch might legislate and any action the executive branch might take.
Alien tort is also not accepted when interpreting the constitution so you literally cannot interpret the constitution from the point of view of international or foreign laws.
No, Treaties have an effect similar to (but not quite identical to) federal statute law.
This is not true - at least not any more.
Congress does get extra power when a law is passed as a treaty. Issues that are state business under the 10th Amendment become federal business.
But it’s nothing like a constitutional amendment.
Seems problematic for compatibility with US Constitution though
Meanwhile, adjacent to presidents, Henry Kissinger remains both alive and not charged in any international criminal courts. I think he's literally 99 years old now.
Doesn't the US credibly threaten to invade the Hague should any international court there decide to pursue charges against an American citizen?
Best you could hope for is domestic charges or for Kissinger to make a visit to Viet Nam and get arrested there.
You're thinking of the American Service-Members' Protection Act of 2002: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Pr...
The Hague invasion aspect, and Hague Invasion Act nickname, are perhaps largely symbolic; the less symbolic effects are that it prohibits any part of government in the US from assisting the ICC except in limited circumstances, and bans ICC agents from doing any investigative work in the US.
> bans ICC agents from doing any investigative work in the US.
Doesn't this make the US a safe haven for other countries' war criminals?
You'd think the rule would be that there will be no support for ICC agents investigating US citizens.
The US relationship with the ICC has been quite variable. The law was passed in 2002, though it does provide for specific exemptions for specifically-named foreigners. Likewise, in 2020, the US had executive orders outright freezing ICC officials' assets, sanctioning them with OFAC, and banning them and their family members from entering the US (these were removed in 2021). At other times, the US has been somewhat supportive, if not to the extent of modifying the law or recognizing the court.
The US loves ICC, as long as it doesn’t apply to us.
Most of its prosecutions would be impossible without US help.
Which is really why this international criminal court has no real meaning - only the winner in a conflict gets to also win in the court.
For example, do you really think that by charging putin, that he'd really get arrested in participating countries? Or would the warrant be ignored?
And if putin does lose his war, and goes into exile, the ICC warrants would then be possible to enforce (now that no nukes is on the line). But putin knows this, so if the war goes badly, would it not make better sense to fight it out to the bitter end, rather than lose out to being arrested if he goes on exile?
The court that has no enforcement mechanism is mostly just political show boating.
There is the slim possibility that if the war goes very badly a small group of very senior Russian generals arrange to capture Putin, depose him, put themselves in place as some sort of junta, remove russian ground forces from Ukraine, and hand him over to the ICC to repair Russia's relationship with the rest of the world.
This is misunderstanding how Russia works - Russia is not a military dictatorship, it's a security services dictatorship.
The Military in Russia is a low-status organisation and it is not capable of doing anyrhing in internal politics. They commonly end up on the recieving end of racketeering by low-level gangs. Yes, people that drive tanks and fire missiles pay 'taxes' to bandits armed with pistols.
Putin was sending generals to their deaths without worry.
Various internal police forces have a higher chance of removing FSB from power than the military does. If thongs get bad enough, thats not impossible.
You can say approximately the same about the Stalin's USSR when Beria was the most feared man. But just after Stalin's death Beria was promptly executed and the military played the major role in that.
Thank you for pointing this out! It makes sense, but I hadn’t made those connections.
Yeah, except the West isn't equal to the world and chances of Russian generals handing Putin to ICC are the same as US generals delivering Bush or Obama to the ICC.
Sounds like Serbia.
I don't think one NATO country can credibly threaten to invade another, so not really, no... But clearly the US did not sign up to the international criminal court / war crimes courts etc because they were worried about random US DoD personnel who killed civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan being hauled in front of the court. Somebody like Robert Bales for instance:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kandahar_massacre
As he has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole the US takes the position that they want to prosecute such things within their own system.
Greece and Turkey have been credibly threatening each other for decades.
Bullshit. The Netherlands are a NATO member.
I think it’s rare for individuals in extreme-stress jobs like the SoS position he held to live much past 70. I have to guess that everyone who cared about charging him thought that it would be a waste of time, energy, and money based on his age for the last 30 years.
It's more than that or people wouldn't be charging 90+ year olds who were concentration camp prison guards in their teens and early 20s.
He’s also politically active - supporting conservative organizations in various ways.
Yes. I’m pretty sure Obama should have to answer for the drone executions he ordered (some which were even American citizens, which seems very illegal).
I'm down with it. Though the executive exercising war powers seems as far as possible from a non-president commiting state-level fraud.
Just need a mental gut check after reading this comment. Do people not think this is political?
In a sense, any prosecution of a political figure can be considered political. But what's the alternative? Treating political figures as immune from criminal prosecution? What would that mean for the rule of law? And what would that mean for our expectations of our leadership -- who, if anything, should be held to a higher standard as model actors for our society and our children?
The alternative would be for prosecutors to focus their attention proportionally to `severity of crime * prior probability of guilt`. In an ideal world, you'd see Democratic prosecutors going after Democrats and Republicans going after Republicans just as often as the opposite. But I have no clue how to get from our current world to that world.
In an ideal world you wouldn't have a partisan justice system, just that aspect of the USA's justice system is already pretty bizarre.
In the sense that a former president of the US was just indicted for the first time ever, yes, it's political. By definition, in fact.
However, to engage in a counterfactual: would I expect in the scenario that a different president not eligible for reelection were to generate the same fact pattern as Trump to also be indicted? Or another scenario: a politician who is eligible for reelection to a different lower office?
Yes, in both cases.
In other words, by virtue of Trump's position I think special care and thought was taken to make sure things are on the up and up. I think prosecutors are smart people and generally are aware and thoughtful about the position they are in. I do not think they are pursuing this issue with extra vigor because Trump is Trump.
He committed crimes, drew a bunch of attention to himself, and here we are. I don’t think it’s any more complicated than that.
In the sense that they are trying to get him for things that they would never even consider charging a Democrat for, yes.
That doesn't mean he did or did not do something illegal. The difference is Hillary/etc. can't be prosecuted for anything.
How many campaign finance skeletons do you think most of the big politicians have in their closets that will never be investigated much less prosecuted?
At the very least we have to concede that investigation and likelihood of prosecution is proportional to the noise that is made in the media and by vocal voices. It's a thousand tiny little decisions that affect the direction on the aggregate.
I'm trying to keep this comment impartial. But I want to note that right now there is a huge belief that the media and companies and the wider "acceptable" social narrative are biased against a lot of the core beliefs that people on the right align to. I too hold that belief, and I've yet to see sufficient proof to convince me otherwise.
You combine these two wide points, and I'd argue that we should sympathize with those people and not call them "crazy conspiratists" for trying to shed light on this. It's actually a difficult to prove and isolate, second-order type of conclusion.
I don’t.
Meh, he's an ex-president. Of course indicting him is political. Not indicting him would be also political. It's not like there's a "non-political" Oracle that will tell us the most impartial course of action.
When it comes to Trump, people seem to be blind to the effects of soft power. Trump is beloved by his base in a way no other president in the last 100 years is.
The danger of this half-assed prosecution to the republic is fucking enormous, I'm actually scared.
Trump's "base" doesn't particularly matter. They'll continue on in denial/spite regardless of what happens. The damage they themselves can do is limited, as long as we have functioning law enforcement.
The only way we're getting out of the larger situation is for Republicans and independents to realize that Trump is/was just another basic grifter capitalizing on frustration with the system. Just because someone is despised by the people at the country club doesn't mean they're your friend. While we're hungry for reform, this doesn't mean that every type of change is a step in the right direction. And despite the suffocating dynamic, there's actually a damn good reason we've come to expect that politicians should be a bit neutered. Ultimately true conservatism for the American status quo that we've come to take for granted, as much as it pains my past self to write that.
Trump’s base scares the hell out of DC for very good reason.
“Jan 6th but an actual insurrection with guns and political/military leaders”
Or
“Southwestern sheriff decides to expel illegal immigrants on his own, requests ‘MAGA patriots’ to come on down and get deputized, atrocities ensue, feds get involved and it spirals into a state vs federal fiasco (which sounds fanfic but Abbott and DeSantis are clearly sympathetic to the idea)”
I honestly think that the second scenario or at least another Malheur Wildlife Refuge/Waco style standoff is only a matter of time - and judging by DoJ’s public priorities, they’re extremely concerned about it as well.
What about the rule of law? Isn't it important? Isn't it possible that Trump committed a crime and should be prosecuted?
There has been an 8-year witch hunt looking for a way to shut Trump down, with 10s of millions of dollars spent accessing and scrutinising his affairs looking for a legal attack vector. Likely no politician could have withstood that level of scrutiny without some sort of technically-illegal activity turning up.
A big part of the rule of law is treating people equally. Given the lead up, this is probably a question of selective persecution.
"some sort of technically-illegal" is a funny way to describe a combined lawfare coup / violent coup attempt.
At the same time there is a different dimension to jailing political leaders, which is why Nixon was pardoned.
In countries like Ukraine and Georgia, they have recently jailed their presidents or opponents. Yanukovich jailed Timushenko. Saakashvili was jailed.
This can wreak a lot of havoc in a country. Look at how the supporters of Imran Khan are reacting, as his opponents always try to arrest him:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Imran_Khan_arrest_attem...
> At the same time there is a different dimension to jailing political leaders, which is why Nixon was pardoned.
Nixon was pardoned, but he also resigned and quit politics.
Political leaders are easy to replace, which means that the bar for replacing them should be low. If a leader is accused with crimes and the charges seem plausible enough, they are expected to resign to avoid a divisive trial. Similarly, unless the charges are particularly serious, the other side is expected to pardon the accused. Then the former leader is expected to quit politics and stop being a problem.
This all happens, because political leaders are supposed to care about national interests. Granting a disgraced leader a dignified exit and a chance for a peaceful retirement is often a good idea, as long as the former leader agrees to remain a former leader. On the other hand, pardoning active politicians is about as bad idea as anything can be. That way you get entitled leaders who consider themselves above the law.
The opposite — the US constitution is more like a slaver bill of rights, rife with plantation oligarch backdoors. The checks and balances are akin to NBA owners negotiating how not to ruin each other. Those rights originally were only extended to white men formally, and only rich white men in effect.
"Nearly the entire point of the United States at its founding was that the law should apply to political leaders"
The founders of the United States were criminals and traitors.
"we must all hang together, or we shall all hang separately"
> Nearly the entire point of the United States at its founding was that the law should apply to political leaders.
I thought the point of the US was to allow the president to do some sweet real estate deals? From https://www.econlib.org/archives/2016/12/bruce_bueno_de.html
> His stories about George Washington, none of which I knew, are even more fascinating. Bueno de Mesquita claims, quite plausibly, that a huge part of George Washington’s motive for fighting the Revolutionary War was to protect his substantial, and critically placed, landholdings in the Ohio Valley.
Remember that the 'Royal Proclamation of 1763' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Proclamation_of_1763 :
> The Proclamation forbade all settlements west of a line drawn along the Appalachian Mountains, which was delineated as an Indian Reserve.[2] Exclusion from the vast region of Trans-Appalachia created discontent between Britain and colonial land speculators and potential settlers. The proclamation and access to western lands was one of the first significant areas of dispute between Britain and the colonies and would become a contributing factor leading to the American Revolution.[3]
> British colonists and land speculators objected to the proclamation boundary since the British government had already assigned land grants to them. Including the wealthy owners of the Ohio company who protested the line to the governor of Virginia, as they had plans for settling the land to grow business.[15] Many settlements already existed beyond the proclamation line,[16] some of which had been temporarily evacuated during Pontiac's War, and there were many already granted land claims yet to be settled. For example, George Washington and his Virginia soldiers had been granted lands past the boundary. Prominent American colonials joined with the land speculators in Britain to lobby the government to move the line further west.
More context from https://www.econlib.org/archives/2016/12/bruce_bueno_de.html
> [...] his story made me realize that a large part of my belief in GW is romantic: because I learned about him so early in life, that romantic view is harder to shake and I’ve been less willing to put GW under the public choice microscope than with any current or recent president.
> An excerpt about GW’s wealth:
>> His last position, just before becoming President, was President of the Patowmack Canal Company–the Potomac Canal, as we know it, from the Potomac River. What that canal did was bring, make it possible to bring produce from the Shenandoah Valley–which George owned–up to the port in Alexandria, which had been built by Lawrence, by the Ohio Valley Company, in which George had a direct interest, and shipped goods out. So it was a very profitable undertaking–or so he thought it would be, in the long run, for him. And that’s what motivated him. Most people think of Washington as–besides a great hero, which he certainly was–as kind of a gentleman farmer. Economists have estimated the worth in real dollars adjusted for inflation, not appreciated, of George Washington’s estate, in contemporary terms; and it’s about $20 billion dollars. He is by far the wealthiest President. He is the 59th wealthiest person in American history. Three of the American founding fathers are in the list of the top 100 wealthiest Americans in all of history: Hancock, who was wealthier than Washington–made his money smuggling; and Ben Franklin, who was not quite as wealthy, who made his money because he had a monopoly on the printing press. These are the folks who led the Revolution. These were not the downtrodden. These were not the oppressed. These were people who stood to lose huge amounts of wealth because of the King’s policies. And so they fought a Revolution. Which was, by the way, not very popular. Sixty percent of the colonists either were neutral or opposed to the Revolution.
> Nearly the entire point of the United States at its founding was that the law should apply to political leaders.
The Brits already had that system in place, so no need to secede because of that. Yes, the King was above the law, but he was a figurehead and by the time of the colonials' insubordination the country was already run by parliament and Prime Minister.
I wonder if all the innocent people killed in the US's overseas wars will get justice or their families get reparations. There seems like such a long list of justice that has yet to be delivered that makes me ponder if this is the beginning of an avalanche of change or just a small bump on a slow moving boulder. If its the former, that bodes really well for humanity but if its the latter then I am not sure how much this event will do to slow the continued erosion of institutions here and worldwide.
That would be great, if it was a relevant crime. Which is there is plenty in need of investigation among US politicians. This is a big show about an ex-President stealing the Whitehouse pencils
And Secretaries of State. Looking at you H.K.
While it would be great to actually charge former US presidents for what they've done (Bush and Obama war crimes anyone?), politically motivated selective prosecutions are extremely corrosive. And that's what campaign finance charges (not specifically Trump ones) look like to this non-American.
Honestly, what the US campaign financing system needs is a full overhaul, its full of legal and illegal-but-ignored corruption.
An indictment doesn’t say much about if this is an example of the law applying to a political leader.
I'm pretty sure I could pay hush money to a porn star and nothing would come of it, even if I blogged about it incessantly to get attention.
Paying hush money is not a crime and no one is claiming it is.
If they don't serve a day in prison does it matter or is it just fodder for the masses?
Plenty of governors have been put in prison but an ex-president is going to have secret service, even in prison?
This is a crime another person served time for so it's definitely a crime worthy of prison but of all the crimes, this is so damn stupid in comparison.
I'd settle for CEOs and Bankers going to prison for all the crimes they have gotten away with on a daily basis than even one president as despised as they are.
I'm 100% in support of applying the law to all people.
What I don't love is the timing of it. It makes it easily dismissible as political theatre. Wait until after the election.
This logic doesn't hold up. If he wins then they have to indict a sitting president and 9 years will have passed, and the "timing == political theater" seems even stronger. If they wait until he's out of office, it's 13 years.
If you treat your life as one big show, any accountability will seem like theater, but that doesn't mean you get to avoid it.
The vast majority of people understand this is 100% political theater. Some just hope it takes him out of the running from 2024, but the truth is this probably empowers Trump to take 2024.
He's always sold him self as the ultimate "Rebel", and a half assed prosecution on something so minor to the grand scheme of things solidifies it. Human Nature 101 which seems to be something hackernews engineers don't understand as much as I'd like as a manager of many engineering teams.
I really don't understand how he drives his enemies to make so many basic mistakes, but he does.
I think it ensures he’ll be the nominee and also ensures he will lose the general if he doesn’t do a deal in the other indictments to drop out.
Your mistake is thinking a disastrous president that lost re-election somehow understands the modal voter. He doesn’t even understand the modal voter in swing states.
They can’t - the statute of limitations will have run out by then (there’s an argument that Trump will make that it has run out already).
From Trump v. Vance; Justice Alito in the dissenting opinion:
> ... And the district attorney should set out why he finds it necessary that the records be produced now as opposed to when the President leaves office. At argument, respondent’s counsel told us that his office’s concern is the expiration of the statute of limitations,11 but there are potential solutions to that problem. Even if New York law does not automatically suspend the statute of limitations for prosecuting a President until he leaves office,12 it may be possible to eliminate the problem by waiver.13 And if the prosecutor’s statute-of-limitations concerns relate to parties other than the President, he should be required to spell that out.
> ...
> 12: See N. Y. Crim. Proc. Law Ann. §30.10(4)(a) (West 2010) (statute tolled when defendant outside the jurisdiction); see also People v. Knobel, 94 N. Y. 2d 226, 230, 723 N. E. 2d 550, 552 (1999) (explaining New York rule for tolling the limitations period when a defendant is “continuously outside” the State and concluding that “all periods of a day or more that a nonresident defendant is out-of-State should be totaled and toll the Statute of Limitations”).
T•••• should've been arrested in the hours after the Capitol attack, like Brazil did with its coup attempt.
Sure if there’s an actual crime, but what exactly is worthy of charging here? The point of a fair justice system is not to charge a specific someone with something, it’s to go after a specific crime.
The legal gymnastics this DA is jumping through to attach charges here makes a joke of the entire justice system. I won’t be surprise if Bragg is disbarred for this.
> Sure if there’s an actual crime, but what exactly is worth of charging here?
... because there is a law on the books that says "it's a crime to do this thing" and this person pretty clearly did that thing.
Like, from a political perspective, I'm in the boat of "uggggh, I wish it wasn't this thing that is the first thing he is charged for". But from a legal perspective ... this is a thing you're not allowed to do ... which he did ... so ...
It seems wild to make this argument before the indictment has been unsealed. Shouldn’t we wait to see the allegations before we declare them baseless?
Apparently 34 charges.
Has the indictment been released, or is that a leak from someone with knowledge?
Source: CNN reporter Jim Sciutto.
The sheer number of baseless charges does not grant additional weight to any of them individually.
But… the charges haven’t been released yet? How do you already know they’re baseless?
Like, it’s crazy to me that anyone would assert that the charges are baseless or that they’re solid before the charges have even been announced. How do you know they’re baseless?
I agree that the number of charges doesn’t make a point one way or another, about the strength of the charges.
And yet, NYT is somehow allowed to speculate on what those are without knowing them. I am sure you will agree that the same should extent to mere posters here.
I’m not saying we can’t speculate about the charges. Was there anything in my question that indicated I thought people here should be prohibited from speculation?
I’m asking how someone can be absolutely certain in their speculation about those charges.
Is the NYT saying the charges are particularly strong, or are they saying the charges are particularly weak? I haven’t seen that from them, but if they are then I have the same questions.
I’m not holding anyone here to a higher level of scrutiny than the NYT. I merely asked where someone’s confidence came from.
Cmon, you are 100% saying we shouldn't. don't deny it.
The New York Times thinks this is a huge mistake.
I deny it. I said it was crazy to me, and I said it was wild. There are lots of things that are baffling to me, or inscrutable to me, that I don’t think should be prohibited.
But, like, no one has answered the question I asked. How did you become confident that the allegations are baseless without seeing the allegations? That’s crazy to me.
You’re welcome to do it. It’s a free country, after all. I’m just trying to figure out if it’s rational in some way I don’t understand, or just baseless and overstated speculation.
It seems inherently irrational to me to state the strength of the allegations before we’ve seen the allegations (either meritorious or without merit), but I’ve been wrong before.
So far no one has stepped up and offered an answer to that question though.
> The New York Times thinks this is a huge mistake.
“Is it a mistake” is an entirely different question from “are the charges meritorious”?
Personally, I think they should be the same question, but lots of people think he shouldn’t be indicted even if he committed a crime, or that he should be indicted even if he didn’t. I think both are wrong, and the only mistake is giving him special treatment. He should be charged if, and only if, the facts and law demonstrate that he broke the law.
So, for me “is it a mistake” is a question that we can only start to address once the indictment is unsealed (and fully resolve once evidence by both sides is presented).
> lots of people think he shouldn’t be indicted even if he committed a crime, or that he should be indicted even if he didn’t. I think both are wrong, and the only mistake is giving him special treatment. He should be charged if, and only if, the facts and law demonstrate that he broke the law.
You seem to be using "special treatment" differently between your sentences. Almost all crimes that get committed do not result in any indictments. Committing to indict if a law was broken is extremely unusual. Observing that a law was broken and then not indicting is the second-most-common case, behind only to failing to observe that a law was broken and then not indicting. Why is the normal case "special treatment" while the very rare case isn't?
By special treatment I'm referring to:
- lots of people want to see Trump indicted come hell or high water. That's special treatment.
- lots of people think Trump shouldn't be indicted, even if he committed a crime, because he's a former President. That's special treatment.
- lots of people think Trump shouldn't be indicted, because it would inflame his base. That's special treatment.
Throw all of that out. Let's deal with the facts and the law.
If the prosecutor thinks they have enough evidence to convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that he committed a crime, then he should be charged.
If the prosecutor doesn't have the facts, or evidence, or law to support a charge beyond a reasonable doubt, then he shouldn't be charged.
Throw all the politics and "special reasoning" around Trump out. Charge based on the facts, evidence, and law. A declination even if the prosecutor thinks Trump is guilty, but they don't have the evidence to convince a jury isn't special treatment. That's—as you note—a routine declination. But a declination because you're afraid of the political ramifications of an indictment is wrong. Similarly, charging a weak case because you're afraid of the political ramifications of a declination is wrong.
> Throw all the politics and "special reasoning" around Trump out. Charge based on the facts, evidence, and law.
That is not done in other cases. Why is it not "special treatment" to do it to Trump?
> A declination even if the prosecutor thinks Trump is guilty, but they don't have the evidence to convince a jury isn't special treatment. That's—as you note—a routine declination.
That's not what I'm noting. Failing to prosecute is the ordinary case for almost all crimes. It is absolutely routine for nonviolent crimes. So we have a prosecutor that thinks that Donald Trump really is guilty of whatever the charge is, and it's easy to prove it in court.
And the same prosecutor also knows that everyone in the government within three levels of the president really is guilty of very similar crimes, and those would all also be easy to prove in court.
Then he charges Trump and moves on with his life. That's not special treatment?
> That's not special treatment?
I think your hypothetical would be partially special treatment, but I don't think your hypothetical is accurate.
The one way in which it _wouldn't_ be special treatment, is I generally think it's most appropriate to charge top-down. That is, let's say at a company you know three people were all involved in the commission of a crime (maybe embezzlement, that's a popular white collar crime): The CEO, a mid-level manager, and a low-level employee. Assuming all three cases are the same difficulty to charge, and each person has approximately equal responsibility for the criminal acts, but you only have the resources to charge a single case, then I'd think the CEO would be the most appropriate person to charge.
But, assuming the prosecutor _had_ the resources to charge everyone, and only chose to single out one person, then I'd agree that is inappropriate special treatment.
> And the same prosecutor also knows that everyone in the government within three levels of the president really is guilty of very similar crimes, and those would all also be easy to prove in court.
I just...don't think this part is true. Especially the part around "would all also be easy to prove in court." I don't think it's particularly likely that the prosecutor thinks that. Especially given that this is a NY state prosecution, so most people within three levels of the President probably wouldn't have a nexus to NY or be subject to NY state laws.
So, I mostly concede that your hypothetical would be special treatment, but your hypothetical doesn't strike me as particularly likely (note, that it's not impossible, and if you convinced me it was accurate, I'd say we should bring the other charges).
It's not the fact its baseless, its the context around it. That's what's crazy. Your irrationality comes from the fact, you are trying to ignore the context around it.
Braggs is case is being criticized heavily from the LEFT and the RIGHT. It is unprecedented and to most of the world similar with banana republics and like reeks of a setup.
You got the New York Post, the New York Times, The Rolling Stone, ABC, Fortune, Slate, The Hill, NBC, National Review, Daily Beast, Politico and more saying this is a bad idea. Don't you wonder why people more familiar with politics who are democrats AND republicans than you think that is ?
So you make America look horrible in the face of - your allies in the elite political circles - your allies internationally - your core base
All the while selling Trump on his ultimate brand as the "Rebel", of which he sells T-shirts off.
You cannot ignore the context around all of this, which weakens America significantly in already trying time as countries around the world are dropping the reserve currency USD and also belief in American Ideals.
Well, I’m not going to apologize for my belief that the rule of law should be based on the facts, the evidence, and the law and not politics.
Your appeal to the authorities of political figures falls on deaf ears for me. I do not give a single flying shit about the political calculus. That’s what makes it a banana republic decision. Nothing about the decision to charge or not charge should be based on politics. So, fuck the Democrats, fuck the Republicans, and fuck Politico. I don’t give a shit about any of their opinions.
Frankly, the appeal to people who know more “about politics” on this topic is anathema to me.
Show me the charges, show me the evidence, and show me the law. Everything else is for the birds.
What I understand from your take is that Trump shouldn't be indicted because that's a bad view for America.
Like... What? Rule of law is completely not considered, at all, Trump should be above the law because he's just too big of a popular figure. That's simply absurd to read.
A grand jury sat and apparently found charges to be warranted.
It’s funny, Republicans used to often wax in about the sanctity of the rule of law. For some reason, the entrancing powers of Mr. Trump led many to throw that away to stand behind the demagogue.
We should demand better. I live in New York. 2/4 most recent governors left office as part of a deal to avoid prosecution. Prominent legislative leaders were convicted and removed from office.
Regardless of party, there needs to be a standard. Breaking the law and laundering money to buy the silence of a sexual dalliance is a serious crime. Former NY Governor Spitzer was facing federal charges for money transfer violations of his own money to solicit an escort.
Mr Trump seeks to make this a political matter because that distracts from the heart of the matter — his actions. The people who in good faith donated to his campaign wanted to “make America great again”, not pay hush money to porn actresses.
Spooky23 says >"A grand jury sat and apparently found charges to be warranted."<
As New York Judge Sol Wachtler said in 1985, “If a district attorney wanted, a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich.”
Explanation at https://abovethelaw.com/2016/02/criminally-yours-indicting-a...
That actually came from a case called ABSCAM in the 70s and 80s. ABSCAM was a case where the FBI ran a sting (or entrapment depending on your POV) that ensnared and convicted of bribery about 30 people, including a dozen politicians... a half dozen members of the house and a US Senator.
Well, the Grand Jury looked at them and the evidence and seemed to think there is a crime worthy of prosecution here.
That's why we have grand juries, to make sure a crime is truly serious before revealing in public the alleged crime.
In all due time, the charge will be public and we will see the evidence ourselves. The news event is that the prosecutors have crossed one of the major hurdles of a typical criminal court case and have convinced a grand jury to proceed.
While a Grand Jury should theoretically be a high bar to cross, it certainly seems like (in practice) they’re not so much of a challenge.
I’m also generally much more skeptical of state level pre-indictment processes which generally aren’t quite as buttoned down as federal pre-indictment processes (though, that’s a pretty broad generalization).
But, the indictments will come out soon, and the evidence supporting them eventually, so time will certainly tell.
His personal lawyer went to prison for 2 years on charges related to this crime, and was the primary witness against Trump in this Grand Jury investigation.
Whatever he told them, along with whatever other evidence was presented, it was sufficient for them to indict.
The Grand Jury indicted Trump, not Alvin Bragg.
They had better have some pretty solid evidence aside from his testimony. Building a case around the word of a man convicted of perjury, especially one with a public hatred of the defendant, seems like a profoundly stupid thing to do.
I'll be waiting with my popcorn, because one way or another, this is gonna be good.
To be fair, he's only hated the defendant since he went to prison on behalf of the defendant.
A prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich. I've been on a grand jury, and the indictment rate is >95% in most cases.
This just means there’s a high standard to empaneling a grand jury.
They got Michael Cohen for this, and Trump was mentioned in his proceedings as “individual one”.
The relevant phrase in the Michael Cohen indictment referring to Trump was "unindicted co-conspirator". Individual one is how they referred to him. Trump was supposed to be featured much more prominently in the indictment, but the Barr's DOJ intervened on Trump's behalf to minimize his presence in the proceedings, and they went out of their way not to mention him.
Remember John Edwards, former Democratic nominee for vice-President, was essentially indicted for the same thing Trump is now, that is using political contributions as hush money. Edwards was facing 30 years for all the charges arraigned against him.
We still don't know the specifics or the extent of Trump's legal issues, as the Grand jury is still ongoing for this case and others.
Also of note is that Edwards was acquitted and the Biden justice department, the previous NY district attorney, and even Bragg himself previously, has already rejected going after Trump for FEC violations that are apparently at the heart of how he’s constructed a felony charge.
> Also of note is that Edwards was acquitted
Perhaps he had some sort of defense. I hear that's how courts work. Along with dealing in findings of fact and law, rather than speculation about whether it's vaguely fair or vaguely unfair.
I'd imagine a billionaire who is also a former President of the United States also has the resources to muster a defense as effective as a non-billionaire former Senator, if there's an effective defense to be made.
It's the opposite, using personal funds is the crime because it should have been a disclosed campaign contribution. Trump also went through several extra steps of having his lawyer and CFO create shell companies and then funnel payments and kickbacks through them falsifying documents all along the way. I'm assuming the DA of a city can't bring FEC violation charges. The charges will be about all the lying and possibly tax evasion. Things his lawyer and CFO have already been convicted of.
Do you have access to the case including evidence? The jury did and voted to indict, how can you be sure that this is legal gymnastics?
The grand jury system is a bit of a joke. You've seen how badly prosecutors twist facts and inaccurately frame things during cases. The grand jury is basically that except without anyone disputing anything they say. Only the most inept prosecutors don't get the indictments they want.
> The jury did and voted to indict
I honestly wouldn't put any faith in a jury choosing to indict. As famously once said, you can convince a jury to indict a ham sandwich. I'm waiting to see what the charges actually are and the evidence for them.
(1985 quote)
> In a bid to make prosecutors more accountable for their actions, Chief Judge Sol Wachtler has proposed that the state scrap the grand jury system of bringing criminal indictments.
> Wachtler, who became the state’s top judge earlier this month, said district attorneys now have so much influence on grand juries that “by and large” they could get them to “indict a ham sandwich.”
I served on a grand jury. There were cases where we heard evidence and it became clear that the charged crimes didn't occur. Those cases were not voted on and the public never heard about them. The vote is a formal procedure _after_ the evidence has built a case.
He later went on to serve prison time after a trial, after a grand jury indictment. Maybe we shouldn't take the ham sandwich's word on its innocence.
Keep in mind we don’t know the charges yet, or details of the case, like what evidence there is.
If you pronounce it a joke or predict the disbarment of Bragg now, you aren’t doing it based on the merits of the case.
I’m pretty sure that George Bush Jr. qualifies for way more charges solely based on the fact that there were no weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq. But no, hush payments to porn stars is a lot more important. Welcome to clown world!
Is it illegal for the president to lie to Congress and the American people? Other than that, the military adventures were authorized, and Bush was within his Constitutional power to prosecute those military adventures.
Wild what-aboutism. Some other guy probably did crimes, so this guy should be able to also. That would be the clown world.
I prefer my presidents not pay hush money to porn stars
Stick them in the same cell?
How can you know this? The indictment hasn’t even been unsealed.
It has a negative political impact upon his chosen party. The truth of the crimes are irrelevant. If Trump were to plead guilty — and given his notoriously stupid outbursts he may — it wouldn’t matter. Only party matters, not guilt or innocence.
Even if it’s a conviction I hope the sentencing is appropriate. Wealthy men making sex workers wealthier in order to not disrupt their ostensibly conservative social values is pretty low on my own criminal punishment tier list (especially compared to something that happened during the presidency like the burglary of election-connected properties by Nixon, or more favourable to Clinton’s consensual acts vs his credibility destroying behaviour after). The social/civil consequences of the reveal are often good enough and mostly a pure self-own. If it really is about a misappropriation of some campaign funds/laws then sure I hope there’s an adequate punishment scaled to the crime.
It’s often difficult to disconnect the actual crimes from wanting Justice generally for a person’s net life behaviour… which isn’t how this works IRL nor how it should work. Whether other crimes and social taboos should be better enforced is another matter entirely.
There was nothing wrong or illegal about the payment. No one has ever pointed to a charge that related to the payment itself that I’ve heard.
They are targeting the record keeping.
> No one has ever pointed to a charge that related to the payment itself that I’ve heard.
When the story rolled around the first time, people did indeed make the argument that the payment itself was illegal.
The campaign finance laws require expenditures that help your electoral chances to be declared as campaign expenditures.
They also prohibit declaring any expenditures that help you in your personal life.
This leads to the obviously terrible result that while you're campaigning for office, it's illegal to pay for anything that simultaneously helps you electorally ("the voters will never hear about my affair with a stripper!") and in your personal life ("my wife will never hear about my affair with a stripper!"). If you don't declare the campaign expense, you're violating the disclosure laws. If you do declare it, you're embezzling from the campaign.
The Feds specifically declined to prosecute for this.
It’s a very bizarre legal theory, and also I believe entirely untested and hugely problematic as you say.
Edwards used actual campaign donations to payoff his mistress to the tune of $1mm and they brought charges and he was found not guilty by the jury.
Here we have a long-standing “fixer” for Trump doing something he had always done and had a history of doing for Trump, with or without a campaign ongoing.
Calling it a campaign finance violation for a business partner to do the legal things that they always did is absurd on its face, besides the fact that such a law would put every politician everywhere in legal jeopardy, and yet surprisingly this theory seems to only be trotted out against Trump!
34 charges for just record keeping must be a pretty serious lack of accounting. I’m looking forward to reading the full indictment to understand the details better.
I completely agree!
> JOHN MILLER: I am told by my sources that this is 34 counts of falsification of business records, which is probably a lot of charges involving each document,, each thing that was submitted as a separate count and a couple of matters.
> a pretty serious lack of accounting
Trump has a long, long, long history of illegal accounting incidents many of which he's gotten in trouble for in civil court. This is just the first time it's been in criminal court.
In the mean time, you can watch David Frum, he's one of the connected neocons that championed the invasion of Iraq. These are the people behind this strategy, so critically listening to his projections, will give you a good idea what this is all about. He seems okay with civil war, if that's the price you have to pay to defeat Trump.
Well I've certainly heard most eager civil war talk coming from the same side that did it last time.
You should care when elite people that directly influence policy are okay with it.
I don't think anyone has ever accused donald trump of 'ostensibly conservative' social values. Everyone who voted for him knew his behavior in these areas and voted for him despite it, not because of it.
That sounds... wrong. I think many who voted for him appreciate and laud his social values.
I think it sets a good precedent. If indicting past presidents (and vice presidents) for crimes committed while in office (or while running for office), well, the courts are going to be busy on this front for years to come. Bush and Cheney are certainly candidates, r.e. those "Saddam has an active WMD program" claims. The list could be expanded to include charges related to the unConstitutional domestic spying programs, the assassination of an American citizen without due process, the kickbacks from foreign countries in the form of jobs for family members, the lack of prosecutorial effort regarding the 2008 subprime fraud situation... and just imagine if these prosecutorial standards were also applied to the House and Senate? The perp walk would stretch around the block.
I think the reason this indictment is tolerated is precisely due to it not being about any of those things. Anyone who wants to be President will be comfortable doing all the things you list, and probably worse we don't know about, but they are also generally savvy enough to keep their non-political crimes plausibly deniable. So, go after Trump specifically when he wasn't able to do that much.
100% even if Clinton had done something similar with his sex stuff and got charged that doesn’t mean Bush/Cheney would have been more likely to be held legally accountable. Especially at a time when it mattered.
Certainly, Bush and Cheney invaded a country under false pretenses after lying to the public. They also set up a surveillance state with the help of major corporations. And, maybe not so much of a crime, they set us on the path of thinking that deficits don't matter in this country: so for their increases in spending they steadfastly lowered taxes. And the bank bailouts....
The unfortunate matter though is the damage they did to this country was fairly bipartisan, which I believe plays a large part in Bush's rehabilitation in the public image after leaving office. At least he didn't make mean jokes like some people.
George Bush killed 1 million Iraqi's and we're here arguing about hush money for hookers. Gotta love it.
Let's not forget Clapper who literally perjured himself in front of congress.
Also most of the creatures in the state department during the Bush years, including of course Bolton, and also others, Frum in particular.
And of course, let's not forget Hillary, who is silent as a rock right about now. Since you know, breaking the law is now en vogue to prosecute.
Clapper did not literally perjure himself in front of Congress. He _absolutely_ did not.
It was impossible for him to do so because he was never testifying under oath.
See: <https://www.c-span.org/video/?311436-1/senate-intelligence-c...> for a recording of what I believe is the Senate hearing to which you are referring.
Also consider the following quote from the Congressional Research Service about how the Senate chooses to place folks under oath:
> By statute, any Senator is authorized to administer the oath to a witness (2 U.S.C. 191). Committee rules commonly allow testimony under oath at the discretion of a committee’s leaders. (In practice, most committees rarely require witnesses to testify under oath at legislative hearings. Sworn testimony is more common at investigative hearings and confirmation hearings.)
(via: <https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/RS/98-392>)
Now, the NSA's lawyers absolutely _did_ lie under oath to the Supreme Court.
What happened because of that? Absolutely fuckall.
So, even if Clapper was testifying under oath, I'd expect absolutely nothing would have happened. (Don't forget that this is mostly the same Congress that gave every telecom company that (very, _very_ much illegally) permitted NSA warrantless access to their phone and data networks _retroactive_ immunity from prosecution.)
> It was impossible for him to do so because he was never testifying under oath.
To make my position on this clear, it absolutely _should_ be standard practice for folks testifying on matters in front of Congress to be sworn in and give testimony under oath.
The fact that it's actually very uncommon ("It's not done because our Honored Guests might think that we're impugning their honor and integrity!" is more or less the excuse I've heard for not doing it.) says (to me) quite enough about how disinterested Congress is in justice and integrity.
I think receiving testimony from people not under oath has its place too. When they are testifying under oath, they must be much more careful about what they say. Even to the point of saying almost nothing at all if they're not totally certain which is often the case. This even applies to those who aren't actually trying to lie in any way (many recommend to never talk to police and especially not the FBI without a lawyer present under any circumstances after all). Consider if the members of Congress and the Senate were forced to take an oath before they stood up to debate. Would there be any debate at all?
That said I do agree that _more_ testimony should be made under oath and that we should in general consider testimony not under oath is much more suspect. But I don't think there is a generally correct approach here.
Congress is going to make laws and policies based on what people say. People should be much more careful when saying things to congress.
We’ve prosecuted a vice president candidate for similar crimes.
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-senator-and-presidenti...
Exactly. I also guarantee you that this 2011 prosecution was of remote interest and wasn't raced to the top of HN at the time and even if it was posted it would be either ignored, or flagged to oblivion as it is off-topic.
Furthermore, I don't see how is this whole thread is related to 'Hacker News', or where this is 'intellectually interesting' as it is already reported in the news.
It is only for pure politics and a degraded comments section with flamebait.
The “how is this related to HN?” is the most boring category of comment on HN. If it wasn’t of interest to our demo and was mostly producing flamewars it would be quickly flagged off the frontpage.
We don’t need heavy handed moderation to determine what’s relevant to HN, like Reddit pretends it needs. The community does a good job and the mods step in when necessary.
And if HN occasionally doesn’t flag stuff and it bothers you then don’t click on it. We don’t always get it right.
That VP was not convicted, however.
And more importantly, that's not what Trump was indicted for. Indicting him for misusing campaign funds would be straight-forward, if they could prove it.
So the fact that they indicted him for something else seems to show that they couldn't prove he misused campaign funds. They actually indicted him for recording a payment to his lawyer as "legal expenses", because it was allegedly used to pay for Stormy Daniels silence.
What I don't understand is why this is different from the many other cases when people and companies pay to settle claims in exchange for a non-disclosure agreement. Those are usually considered legal expenses.
We don’t know yet what he was indicted for exactly.
And yet the media has been explaining it for weeks. I guess I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt, assuming that they have sources and aren't just making it up.
Can you provide a link.
"Trump ... being indicted by a Manhattan grand jury for his alleged role in the [SD payment], according to multiple sources familiar with the matter."
https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/10/politics/trump-manhattan-dist...
It doesn’t mention any specific charges or the evidence to support them.
This is one of the first paragraphs from your link!
“ The indictment has been filed under seal and will be announced in the coming days. The charges are not publicly known at this time, one source told CNN.”
Yes, it was under seal, and yet they claimed to have "multiple sources familiar with the matter."
It's not uncommon for the media to publish things that haven't been officially revealed. Leaks, you know.
What are the specific charges, and what is the evidence? Anything less is pure speculation.
I've had trouble finding the exact quote, but one of the Obama administration's justifications for not pursuing the abuses of the Bush administration was the precedent it would establish. As I recall, there was some worry that this would establish a norm where every outgoing administration could be targeted.
> r.e. those "Saddam has an active WMD program" claims
I mean, Saddam was the one making these claims the loudest (to look strong).
I don't think anything in this particular battle concerns anything he did in an official capacity while in office.
Does anyone have standing to sue under 4th amendment spying violations?
I thought this was settled years ago
I don’t believe all those can be traced to some law broken, though.
Yes, for WMD, president Obama for weaponizing the IRS. Both ought to be brought to trial.
Someone either doesn’t like bush or Obama hah
If, somehow, Bush and Cheney are even considered for an investigation, I will gladly support Bragg's effort. That said, can you give me a rough estimate of a chance of that happening in the next decade?
On what grounds would the DA of Manhattan have for prosecuting Bush and Cheney?
edit: I missed the DA of Manhattan part so the comment below no longer applies, but I decided to keep it unaltered since we seem to be forgetting history rather quick.
<< On what grounds would the DA of Manhattan have for prosecuting Bush and Cheney?
Is it a real question?
On the off chance it is a real question, I am going to open with Iraq war, associated war crimes[1] and go from there[2] to people who wrote about it rather extensively and have some knowledge of the subject[3].
I am starting to think that there is wisdom in just waiting. Clearly, you can do anything if you let just enough time pass.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War#By_Coalition_forces_a... [2] https://www.youtube.com/embed/TY2DKzastu8?feature=oembed&ena... [3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wesley_Clark
I was being cheeky, sorry. To make my point directly, I think you get that it's the DA's job to prosecute crimes in his district. The year is 2023, and before him he has details of a crime. It doesn't matter that some other crime at some other time in the past wasn't prosecuted by some other prosecutor. It was never on Bragg to do so. The decision to prosecute this crime must be based on the evidence. It cannot be based on who Trump is, and whether other people who held his position were prosecuted for other unrelated things.
This has nothing to do about forgetting history, I lived through it and was calling for Bush to be prosecuted then. It's so weird to me that the people today who are saying "Well what about Bush!!" are mostly those who voted for him twice, at least in my circles.
No worries. It is a charged subject at it is very easy misinterpret posts.
I absolutely agree with you in terms of principles as they should be executed ( no one is untouchable ). I actually agree on the DA part too ( you are responsible for the area you are responsible for ).
However, between limited resources ( we only have X amount of time and money ) and high visibility investigation target that does have resources ( unlike most people in US, can fight back in regular court and in court of public opinion ), it is simply a bad idea to go for a relatively minor charge ( although I suppose we will know more come Tuesday ). The benefit to society is questionable. And DA has to prioritize.
So real question is why he did prioritize this case if that benefit is not entirely clear? And that is the problem I have with this. If the benefit in fact is 'we got him, because we just know he did SOMETHING', that in itself is problematic. It does not reinforce the 'justice is blind' belief. It does the exact opposite.
This is relevant, because, and this is very much a personal opinion, I am worried about where we stand as a society. The general trust in existing structures is already low. I can't reasonably argue this action adds to trust in those structures. In fact, I personally would argue that it does the opposite AND manages to play into existing narrative used by Trump himself ( 'system is rigged' ).
<< It's so weird to me that the people today who are saying "Well what about Bush!!" are mostly those who voted for him twice, at least in my circles.
I am admittedly a little weird in terms of US political landscape, but then I come from EU ( at the time I left, old country had a bunch of small parties, but that has been consolidating lately like in US ).
I don't want to add my voting history into the mix, but I can openly admit I never voted for either Bush, but I could be an outlier here. I just.. would like the rules to be applied uniformly ( and based on your argument, I get the feeling you want the same ).
<< The year is 2023, and before him he has details of a crime.
We go back to the priorities question. Should just about any charge be prosecuted? Would you accept jaywalking? How about public urination?
It is a practical question. Trump is a (1)former president AND (2)current presidential candidate AND a (3)likely presumptive nominee given point#1.
Is that crime worthy of indictment? It is a crime, but is it.. bad enough to make it worth DA's time and money.
And this is how we get to this particular indictment.
Is it bad enough? Public opinion already weighed on it once based on the available leaks so the case better be ironclad.
Like I said. Priorities and the reality of the situation.
edit: I decided to add something I don't typically do here ( add a jokey youtube video mildly aligned with my stance[1] ). It is annoying how well they capture the lines of tension.
NY grand juries (regular people) do all of the actual work without prompting from the DA.
The only thing the DA does is provide witnesses and physical evidence and read the laws relating to the evidence.
The grand jury asks all the questions of the witnesses and reviews all the evidence.
Then they vote to indict or not in private. The DA asks if they voted and how. They report their votes.
At no point is the DA coercing anyone to vote a certain way, which would be illegal. At no point are jurors discussing the case with anyone outside the jury room (also illegal).
The rumors are there are dozens of indictments, each one based on evidence and witness testimony.
There’s this huge cloud of politicization over this, but the reality is Trump, his attorney, and possibly others committed crimes and this grand jury is holding him accountable.
As law-abiding citizens, is this not what we expect and has it not been the foundation of our judicial system for 247 years?
Or is a former president simply immune from our laws and judicial processes?
> As law-abiding citizens, is this not what we expect and has it not been the foundation of our judicial system for 247 years?
Not to cut against your point, but just want to clarify that 247 years ago was 1776, which is not when our judicial system was founded. The first constitution, the Articles of Confederation, wasn't ratified until 1781 and did not include a judiciary. The second constitution, which created the judicial branch, didn't go into effect until March 4, 1789. Subsequently, the judicial system was established by the Judiciary Act on September 24, 1789.
Thanks for the clarification!
>the reality is Trump, his attorney, and possibly others committed crimes and this grand jury is holding him accountable.
>As law-abiding citizens, is this not what we expect and has it not been the foundation of our judicial system for 247 years?
Well it's what I've been expecting for 50 years, ever since he started coming to South Florida in the 1970's as a quintessential unknown fake millionaire, where the locals recognized right away what his still-strongest defining characteristics were; that he cheats at golf and couldn't be trusted in a real estate deal.
You should have seen what it said in our local paper (The National Enquirer) way before he was on TV, when he was associated with only scandals and bankruptcy. This was a known gossip tabloid and some things might have been exaggerated but surely even more things made it under the radar and were never reported at all. For a few years now I've been wondering where the archives for the National Enquirer are anyway. It would give today's reporters a lot of potential ideas of people who still might be good to talk to.
Now in the 21st century he's still the furthest thing from a life-long Republican, and could never reach high enough to even shine the shoes of Ronald Reagan who was more of an actor than a president himself.
And if you want to invoke great Republican Presidents like Eisenhower or something, ask yourself if you were a Republican what kind of person would you rather vote for, Honest Abe or Dishonest Don?
I suppose the political argument would be that the DA manufactured evidence and coached witnesses what to say in order to “get Trump.”
But there are dozens of people involved in a grand jury and there is just no way to manufacture anything without it becoming public knowledge. Someone in the NYC AD office is very likely a Trump voter and they’d never play along.
This is just a standard legal process with an extraordinary target.
No great fan of Trump but the case against him seems weak. The law should be there to prosecute criminals, not to have a go at politicians you don't like.
Just going to drop this here, make of it what you will.
"By intentionally obscuring their payments through Perkins Cole and failing to publicly disclose the true purpose of those payments,” the campaign and DNC “were able to avoid publicly reporting on their statutorily required FEC disclosure forms the fact that they were paying Fusion GPS to perform opposition research on Trump with the intent of influencing the outcome of the 2016 presidential election,” the initial complaint had read."
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-2022-midterm-elect...
The truth is you could pin a charge on a large percentage of politicians if you were determined to. There's clearly an element of selective prosecution here, regardless of whether the charge is valid. To make a martyr of Trump over small time crimes is not going to be good for the country in the end.
> The truth is you could pin a charge on a large percentage of politicians if you were determined to.
I mean... great, let's do that. If they're all committing crimes, let's start arresting them until they stop. That's how they treat us after all.
Yes, but first we should arrest trump, we promise we'll arrest pelosi and the other scoundrels later!
Gotta start somewhere... the guy who has been identified as an unindicted co-conspirator in this very crime is as good as any.
if we "gotta start somewhere", why are we starting with someone who is an outsider to the bipartisan political in-group? assume this prosecution is successful—are we really to believe that then, thereafter, members of the bipartisan political in-group will somehow receive equal scrutiny? upon what basis should we assume this eventual justice will occur?
it should be clear to any sufficiently neutral observer that this is nothing more than making an example out of a problematic political outsider for daring to run for President again. this is not the start of some great wave of justice on behalf of the people, against the entrenched bipartisan political in-group class.
He's the former POTUS and defacto leader of the Republican party, commanding the majority of support from the Republicans, and receives pledges of fealty and defense from elected Republicans at all levels of government. Trump is the definition of a political insider.
> Trump is the definition of a political insider.
right, which is why the 2016 Republican nomination debates had a record number of debaters on stage—they really just wanted to provide maximum contrast against their favored candidate to make him more electable, you see, not because they were doing everything they could to dismantle his candidacy, or anything like that. Trump also got along with every other Republican 100% of the time, and never had beef with any of them, especially the most entrenched ones, like the torchbearers of various entrenched Republican political dynasties, such as the Bushes.
it's really amusing to me that anyone can pretend to objectively view the sequence of events of the past seven years and come away with the conclusion that Donald Trump is "the definition of a political insider", when the opposite is so blatantly, obviously true. you don't need to be a fan of the guy or his politics to see that he is most definitely an outsider compared to the rest of the entrenched political class, and in fact that is most of the source of his appeal.
if Trump is really a political insider, then why did he get indicted for something that is objectively small potatoes compared to crimes of other federally-elected officials? why didn't his entrenched brethren cover for him, as they have for so many others, in both parties? surely if you can get Bush and Obama in the clear for their demonstrable war crimes, covering up for paying off a porn star should be simple and straightforward?
if the Democrats really wanted to take the GOP down a peg, they would've indicted Bush (and much of his cabinet) on war crimes. if the GOP really wanted to take the Democrats down a peg, they would've indicted Obama (and most of the rest of his cabinet, including HRC) on war crimes. but neither of those things happened, because the entrenched political class goes easy on each other when it comes to anything more than spouting rhetoric at the podium, or as a talking head on television. only Trump has been uniquely attacked in this way, not for the scale or impact of his alleged crimes, but simply because he's an unwanted foreign body in the federal government, and antibodies must be deployed to dispose of him.
again: none of this analysis is predicated upon liking Donald Trump, wanting him to be President, finding him to be of strong moral fiber, agreeing with him politically, or anything like that. rather, one must simply look at the manner the entrenched political class reacted to his running for President, and eventual election—the man clearly has few true friends in Washington.
> 2016 Republican nomination
Right, but it's 2023. He became POTUS and the entire Republican party reoriented around him. Things change, and the outsiders are now named Cheney and Bush.
> only Trump has been uniquely attacked in this way
Because maybe Trump is uniquely a criminal. I guess we'll see after the trial(s). If he's acquitted, then maybe it was a witch hunt after all. But if he's convicted, then it's more likely it was a legitimate investigation all along that put a deserved criminal behind bars.
> the man clearly has few true friends in Washington.
He has very true friends in life, because he's an odious individual and serial career criminal. I mean, the man has been found guilty in a court of law of fraud. His namesake charity was a fraud. His namesake school was a fraud. His namesake company was found guilty of criminal tax fraud. Is it really such a surprise that now he's crossed the line into criminal territory?
none of those things either are or are on par with war crimes and other sorts of criminal government corruption that countless other high-level officials are most definitely guilty of, so, it's odd that you would characterize Trump as being uniquely criminal among politicians, and it's odd that you think that this move—led by other politicians, many of whom are themselves criminally corrupt—would somehow "open the door" to further politician corruption prosecution down the road.
additionally: is it really still therapeutic to expound on how much you dislike the guy? didn't we all get that out of our systems a few years ago? it would be nice to have a frank discussion about facts and logic instead of letting that sort of thing continue to seep in, all these years later.
> none of those things either are or are on par with war crimes
War crimes are one thing. I have no idea how that kind of prosecution would go, but the DA of Manhattan definitely wouldn't bring that to court.
> crimes and other sorts of criminal government corruption that countless other high-level officials are most definitely guilty of,
Yes, and we routinely prosecute such people for their offenses:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_federal_polit...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_state_and_loc...
These lists are really long. Trump is just one more name to this list, and it shouldn't matter that he was President if he committed the crimes he's accused of.
> Trump as being uniquely criminal among politicians
Well he's not unique in that the law should apply to him, but find me one other politician who has been found to run a fraudulent company, charity, and university; and has been criminally indicted.
> is it really still therapeutic to expound on how much you dislike the guy?
Well I'd be talking less about him if he hadn't tried to overthrow the government I support, and is now running to lead it again. He will be the nominee at this rate, and so these opinions cannot be left unsaid unfortunately.
> it would be nice to have a frank discussion about facts and logic instead of letting that sort of thing continue to seep in, all these years later.
Yes! And at long last we will have that discussion in the courtroom, where facts prevail. We will finally cut through the BS, posturing, politics, and the facts will be presented in front of an impartial jury. They will render a verdict based on the facts, and when they do, he will either be guilty or not. That will be the end of the story for me, and it hopefully that will finally put an end to some of the debate. Obviously it will continue, but we will have heard the evidence.
That issue was resolved when the FEC did an investigation and issued a fine. There was accountability. Why should there be no accountability for Trump?
It’s just Whataboutism. What the DNC did or did not do is entirely irrelevant to the case, because the DNC is not who was standing before the grand jury.
“You could pin this on a large percentage of politicians”. Yes, please. It will in fact be good for the country. I don’t care what party they come from.
I'm not sure if you're intentionally being selective here, but I'll assume good intent.
GP goes on to say:
> There's clearly an element of selective prosecution here, regardless of whether the charge is valid. To make a martyr of Trump over small time crimes is not going to be good for the country in the end.
Their point is quite specifically _not_ whataboutism. They use another example to point to what they believe to be selective prosecution, not to ask "why not proscute the others who did this?".
> It’s just Whataboutism. What the DNC did or did not do is entirely irrelevant to the case, because the DNC is not who was standing before the grand jury.
No it is not. The DNC was not trying to hide something about their private personal life which would not have had a material affect on the election. She was not paid until the month before the election. There was so much crap that had been spewed about Trump by then, this would have been a drop in the sea. The DNC was trying to actively trying harm an opposing candidate which I would say is far worse.
To play devil's advocate a little bit. From a structural perspective, it was pretty much impossible for the courts to recruit any jury that wouldn't be biased. Furthermore, the case was in New York, which is a very democratic city. I would be surprised if any jury picked from there wasn't biased and wouldn't have convicted him of any crime the judge put in front of them.
To be perfectly clear, I am not a fan of Donald Trump, and personally think he is likely guilty. I'm just commenting on a specific aspect of the case that I find interesting.
The defense gets to voir dire the jury. There were still millions of votes for Trump in NY and many that didn't vote at all.
I don't think this is the case for grand juries...
Which is why they don't have the final say; the verdict is made by the trial jury after hearing from both sides.
Yeah that's pretty much the point I was trying to make. A lot of people seem to be getting confused about the process difference between a grand jury and the jury in a trial.
A fair point.
> To be perfectly clear, I am not a fan of Donald Trump, and personally think he is likely guilty. I'm just commenting on a specific aspect of the case that I find interesting.
Why is it necessary to state this? I find these kind of statements very interesting. They tell us a lot about unspoken rules, societal taboos, Overton windows etc etc
Everyone assumes there's a 2nd degree hidden intention. "You would only defend Trump on anything if you were a huge fan of his!"
Exactly
The charges aren't even published and people like the commenter replied to are saying he's guilty. Literally QED of the entire event (and the total lack of self awareness, 2nd+3rd order consequences) in and of itself.
"Everyone in my home town knows and hates me" is one hell of an argument.
To be fair Trump has always played into the rich villain character with the media even in the 1990s… well before his formal entry to politics in the 2000s when the media realized they had a wall-to-wall supervillain story on their hands.
But before he was president he was uncontroversially pretty popular in NYC. Even when playing the villain to the local gov/media. It’s difficult or impossible to disconnect this reality from national perceptions well beyond NYC. He was a president of the United States after all. He’s not just a local. That changes the stakes 1000x fold.
Every New Yorker hates pretty much every mayor that they've ever had, despite electing them to be mayor.
Are you calling NYC a "hometown"?
He was born in NYC and lived there until college. I think either of which would make it safe to call his "hometown", unless something specific about NYC (its size?) precludes people from calling it a hometown.
Sure, but you can apply this same logic to any other possible decision maker. There are no unbiased juries, judges, political leaders, or anyone else.
Someone still has to make a descision.
In general, I'd say there is huge bias in favor of Trump though. People respect authority and fame to a shocking degree.
While it would certainly be difficult or impossible to find a jury of people who’ve never heard of Trump, I think it’s easy for us online news-followers to underestimate the number of people who don’t really follow news or politics. Sure Trump was a controversial president, but so was Obama and Bush and Clinton and etc - if you only follow the vague shape of the news and not the specifics.
In the very democratic city you cite, 3.2 million people voted for Trump to Biden’s 5.2. I’m sure the defense can find a handful of supporters among that population they’re content with.
Martin Shkreli also attempted this defense.
The Donald was very popular with the blue collar in NYC back in the day.
We are a people who have decided to be governed by laws rather than kings, or religions or dictators or putins. The laws applies to all the people equally. Everyone is entitled to a jury. A jury of peers decides. That is who we are. That is what a democracy is.
Since when has the law applied to all the people equally?
Never. But the intent of the law is that it applies to people equally. And we have a jury to temper that with some humanity. And here is a question - is there another system that is better?
We use the word "democracy" without understanding of what it means and what the intent is. If our best definition of democracy is "voting" then we have become a cargo cult democracy.
If it's the intent and that's what democracy is predicated on but it isn't then why does it matter? The purpose of a system is what it does, not what it was designed to do
That’s a really strange twisting of words. “Purpose” and “what [something] was designed to do” are literally synonymous. It’s the definition of purpose.
That reality deviates from purpose does not change the purpose, it just means no system is perfect.
My point was that the intent does not matter
Half the country thought Hillary Clinton should be arrested for emails. Not a good metric.
Arrests are not made on popular votes. The FBI was the legal authority to investigate and decide on charges, and they clearly said nothing was near a legal threshold to charge.
Hillary complied with them, didn't fight in the courts for years, didn't obstruct. The only places making such nonsense noise was certain media outlets.
The only accurate info the public has is from the FBI statements (and a few later FOIA releases). Rad those to get a correct idea of what is known.
So such polls are at best outrage fodder.
As the OP said, we have laws. Not mob lynchings.
“Half” is an obscenely generous estimation.
> “Half” is an obscenely generous estimation.
It is actually low by 6%, if you read “disagrees withe the decision not to recommend charging her with a crime” as equalling “believes she should be arrested” (though I suppose it is theoretically possible to think the FBI should have recommended charges but the DoJ should still not have charged, or to not understand that arrest is a natural consequence of criminal charges.)
https://www.cnn.com/2016/07/11/politics/hillary-clinton-fbi-...
And no DA could find 12 people to agree to press charges?
Maybe think about the implications of that one
Hacker News is better without unrelated political news.
The problem is that people draw the related/unrelated line very differently. The site mandate is intellectual curiosity, not political battle—but that still leaves quite a few stories with political overlap. If you look at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html you'll see the phrase "interesting new phenomenon". The current story surely qualifies as that.
I've posted various explanations about this over the years - a bunch are at https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so.... Some good threads to start with might be https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21607844 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22902490. Also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869, which shows how far back political discussion goes on HN, as well as the argument about politics on HN.
If anyone reads those past explanations and has a question about this that I haven't answered there, I'd be happy to take a crack at it.
This has NOTHING to do with intellectual curiosity.
Just try stating that Trump is innocent from another account and watch your comment get flagged and downvoted into oblivion.
This kind of thread can be a lynch party, but nothing else. Anyone with any other thoughts will be silenced and punished by the majority.
It's an interesting phenomenon which is perfectly fine for intellectual curiosity, and there are plenty of comments in this thread relating to it that way. And of course there are also plenty of commenters bashing each other with partisan clubs. In that sense you are right. You're exaggerating the bias in the thread, though. For example the top subthread says "looks like a weak case" and was heavily upvoted.
Thanks dang! Hope your day is going well!
The unfortunate thing is that many people do look at this article as a political piece. That it is, but it is also a piece of news that carries with it significant impact to our judicial system. It is an unprecedented case. Surely its novelty alone qualifies it for HN readers, much less its complexity or implications. Whether looking at it as a political piece, or a curiosity, that is a choice.
My knowledge of political events is sparse because I haven't dedicated the time it takes to acquire the prerequisite knowledge.
However, I'd be interested in learning more from those here who do have that knowledge and are willing to share perspective on these sort of events.
In general, I think it's valuable to be curious about things you're not necessarily interested in.
Wikimedia maintains a world news section [0] that is well linked to the context. Hacker News is not optimized to provide the prerequisite context for a topic like this. Topics like these attract bikeshedding value statements rather than extended breakdowns of topics and links to primary sources.
Everything you say can be true and it doesn't change the fact the HN would be worse because of it.
HN is a place I come to escape the rest of the internet.
I hope it doesn't get ruined by politics, like everything else in the world seems to have been.
There are usually a few threads discussing major or controversial political news. Dang is good about collapsing them and keeping things isolated there. It is pretty easy to avoid these threads and they fall off the front page quickly. I don’t think they add much to HN, but I like to skim them as this community’s take is the least biased.
There was a busy front page thread for each of Obama's election wins, Trump's First, and Biden's win. There were numerous busy threads on the Obama campaign's use of technology leading up to his first election. I'd say it's working out okay ~15 years into the experiment of unkilling certain historically significant political threads.
I like hearing and considering arguments to change the status quo.
I already understand the status quo, so I don't enjoy hearing arguments which defend the status quo.
What's the status quo?
This is simply not a good forum for that, precisely because it's populated by people whose knowledge of political events is sparse.
Mods suggest otherwise: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27608484>
Yes. I am disagreeing with dang.
Have to agree. I don't read extremist right- (or left-) wing websites, so HN is really my only exposure to how some of these people think. It's not a good look.
If it's discussions about how X person is bad and Y person is good, then I would agree (even if I dislike X and like Y). If it's a meta discussion about the judicial process or such, then I would disagree.
Edit: The comments above yours (at the time of writing) are mostly okay, but as I read further down, it ventures into the territory of 'such and such person and party is bad' which I think HN is not a good place for that kind of discord.
It is isn't it? However, it seems that someone wants outrage. If it was a different political person, it wouldn't be on the front page.
The admission here is that the only reason why this was upvoted or on the front page is because the only good news is Trump schadenfreude and the opportunity for launching cheap attacks here.
The only 'bad news' is any good news that benefits Trump. (Which never makes it on top on HN anyway, and it shouldn't and vice versa because it is pure politics and creates a complete mess of the comments and dang knows it.)
Just look at the wave of flagged comments everywhere in this thread. It tells use that there is good reason why such news like this should not be on top of this page. (It is not intellectually interesting, it is partisan and a heavily divisive flame-bait topic.)
It never helps pouring fuel on the flames.
Hacker News has been a shitstorm of political news since at least 2010.
I think you misspelled "the United States".
Europe isn't any different, just the things being argued about.
But no, back in those days this board was absolutely dominated by ancaps and other libertarian types. The socialists and other progressives only really started getting active in the aftermath of Occupy Wall Street. Like any other causeheads, they tirelessly fill these boards with their messaging. The only thing that they really come together to agree on is "fuck the poor". You see it whenever posts about homelessness, zoning or rent regulation pop up.
Lectures are fun though. At least here in the United States, we're so serious about bigotry that even a statement that can be misinterpreted will destroy your career. Then Europeans deride us for being a divided, racist country...meanwhile all across Europe you have major political parties getting large double digit percentages of the vote running on hateful anti-immigrant platforms, major political candidates pulling stunts like burning the Quran as a party demonstration and football players getting racist expletives shouted at them during their matches. And we haven't started talking about Asia yet. That gets even more special.
So please, tell me more about how this is limited to the United States.
I know it is campaign finance fraud that is the actual charge, but that fact that of all the possible things they could have charged him with, it's something tied to a sexual act feels so both disappointing and so American. It's likely they can actually get a conviction, so I guess there's that.
You can already assume right-wing media will spin this into "Really? All you could get him for was a BJ?" Feels a bit like the late-night comedy of the Clinton impeachment.
I don't know. It feels a lot like the indictment of Al Capone. His lawyers were always concentrating on the big picture but they ignored the small stuff and the government was able to catch him on tax evasion.
Getting indictment of any sort can lead to larger ones.
I see this alot. Donald Trump isn't Al Capone,and the analogy fails enormously. Donald Trump is a former president of the United States. He's beloved by his base in quasi-religious way, even across the globe. Italy had parade with a "God-emperor Trump".
Trump cannot be treated with like Al Capone. He has run as the anti-establishment candidate, and by god you better have a bulletproof case on him or you have just angered millions of people.
He literally won half the country, his rallies ALWAYS have huge turnsouts. This guy is a Napoleon or Caesar in the making, and New York has just given him something to boost his profile when it was failing against Desantis.
Donald Trump isn't Al Capone, that analogy does them both a disservice and distorts reality.
Donald Trump was literally president of the united states for 4 years, any prosecution has to be air fucking tight or the whole system collapses.
Potentially angering millions of people is not a compelling reason to not pursue criminals through your legal system, of course.
> He literally won half the country ...
Well that's not true, no matter how you slice it, or which election you look at.
In neither did he win more than 50% of the vote (2016 it was 46.1% of voters, compared to 48.2% who voted for Hillary - and in 2020 it was 46.8%, compared to the 51.3% for Joe).
And while that sounds tantalisingly close enough to half, it overlooks the fact that in those two elections, respectively, only 59% and then 70% of eligible voters (or 54% and 55% of age-and-citizenship-eligible-but-not-registered) actually voted.
So that means that you're looking at less than half of roughly 2/3's of the voting population -- a demographic that in turn is only around 3/4 of 'the country'.
He literally, therefore, won about 20% of US citizens, or 25% of eligible voters.
> ... his rallies ALWAYS have huge turnsouts.
That's neither true or compelling. Garry Glitter and Elvis used to have huge crowds.
> He's beloved by his base in quasi-religious way, even across the globe. Italy had parade with a "God-emperor Trump".
This wasn't the loving display of affection that you make it out to be:
> The official description of the statue says that the float was created by artist Fabrizio Galli, whose past sculptures included satirical depictions of Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin.
> "God-emperor Trump"
“It’s a joke, but in fact he’s trying to destroy nations with the economy instead of nuclear missiles,” Mr Galli told the Italian media. “This is one of the strongest actions, let’s say, that powerful people like Trump can use.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...
The Mafia is also beloved by many and anti-establishment. Al Capone is a good comparison if only for the end up getting caught on something ridiculous part. Of course Trump isn't a gangster, only a grifter, but do you really think someone is confused by this analogy?
Trump and Capone were both indicted. Though to be fair Capone never lost an election and then claimed he didn’t.
> Donald Trump isn't Al Capone
https://www.thewrap.com/donald-trump-twitter-comparing-himse...
> This guy is a Napoleon or Caesar in the making,
Did Napoleon or Caesar also try to overthrow the democratically elected government when they lost the election?
Napoleon was never up for election, but as for violently overthrowing an elected government: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coup_of_18_Brumaire
There are a couple more investigations potentially resulting in indictments, maybe in next few months or so. One is influencing Georgia election, another is misplaced confidential documents.
> another is misplaced confidential documents.
No, the Special Counsel’s investigation is not just the documents issue, though that was the case most in the news at the time the Special Counsel was assigned both DoJ Trump-connected criminal investigations once Trump declared his candidacy for 2024.
The issues assigned to the Special Counsel were:
(1) “whether any person or entity violated the law in connection with efforts to interfere with the lawful transfer of power following the 2020 presidential election or the certification ofthe Electoral College vote held on or about January 6, 2021” (excluding charges already being prosecuted and future “prosecutions of individuals for offenses they committed while physically present on the Capitol grounds on January 6, 2021.”)
(2) the documents issue.
This is just one indictment based on the evidence gathered by one local prosecutor related to one set of potential criminal acts.
Other indictments are likely coming from other ongoing investigations.
The sex stuff is merely more along than the others, and it opens him up to more discovery. For example, Trump's client attorney privilege was pierced just this week due to his using lawyers to commit crimes (in the classified documents case).
There's quite a few active other legal cases forming. This is the first case with an indictment, which is not too surprising given the age of the activity compared to most of the other state and federal cases.
If I squint my eyes it looks like the sex stuff is being dragged into the sunlight to get a big part of his base (the loud Christian one that outwardly claims they're aghast at infidelity) to reconsider their allegiances.
Of all the conversations I’ve heard in the last 24 hours, this is one of the more unique takes - great point, thanks for raising it
> I know it is campaign finance fraud that is the actual charge
No, you don’t know what the actual charges are.
You know the central focus of the investigation was a particular campaign finance fraud.
What the–reportedly more than 30–charges that have come out of the investigation are, is another question. What are they? We’ll see.
Is it weird that I don't care? When he was in office he drove me insane. Now I really couldn't be bothered. I think I'm desensitized to... politics, or justice, or something.
No i think this is a reasonable response. I’ve completely checked out of politics as well after 4 years of trump and two years of a continued culture war.
Same here. Sad thing is that I used to enjoy following politics. Now, I just steer clear entirely.
It’s all a farce, both sides. The media needs to stop making Trump relevant so that we all can move on.
He’s the first former President to be indicted. There’s no way for him to not be relevant.
They need to start ignoring the leading GOP candidate who actively conspired to overthrow the election and just received a criminal indictment -- a first ever in this nation's history?
Weirdly enough, I've been far more interested in local politics lately because I can see stuff actually get done that improves my life.
Unfortunately the playbook of these types is to "flood the zone" with so much stuff that you get desensitized / give up on trying to figure out what's true and what matters.
No. When Trump was in power, he mattered and his nonsense had real consequences, and he had a presence on all of the major social media platforms, and people willing to take violence to the streets for him. Now he's shrieking in all caps in his little corner of the internet and making deranged threats about "consequences" if he's arrested and... almost no one seems to care. He's no longer leader of the free world, he's just a rich, corrupt asshole shrieking into the void and shilling NFTs.
There are worse things coming down the pipeline than Trump anyway, it seems he was just a trial balloon for the fascist era we're heading into. I just wish he'd go away already.
I want the next Trump to know they're not above the law. This indictment is good practice for our system. Trump caught it off guard because so much ran on tradition and the assumption that presidents think the constitution is rad because they pledge to protect it.
I agree, and the justice system certainly should care. I can't blame anyone else for no longer caring, though.
I agree but I do want the guilty to pay. But yeah, I’m ready to move on from the political climate.
if anyones wondering why an indictment might not have charges announced, its generally because the prosecution is working to limit the ability of the defendant to influence the court of public appeal before the trial. The prosecution is certainly versed in former president Trumps histrionic theatricality.
So it remains sealed until the trial?
That would be a very effective way of getting convictions :), but no, he has to know the charges against him so that he can provide a defense.
while i’m not a fan of donald trump, it is chilling to realize that this could happen to any one of us after using campaign funds to make hush money payments to pornstars
personally i'm not worried. i'll just have my lawyer take the fall. the best lawyers my supporters money can buy.
The only news we have is that the indictment consists of more than 30 counts related to business fraud. The exact list has not been released yet. So, speculating is pointless.
The indictment is sealed. Nobody knows what it says, not even Trump his lawyers. Trump and his lawyers might know Tuesday at Trump’s arraignment.
CNN Law Enforcement analyst John Miller reported (based on two sources) to Erin Burnett that the indictment has 34 counts relating to falsification of business documents/records.
Alright let me make the argument why indicting Trump is a horrible idea. It's really not hard to see why, if you have any insight into what the other side thinks:
1. First there are two alternative realities being played in real time in US: This arguably is the first time this has happened in US history (maybe civil war was another time) but two populations have become so isolated that they essentially live in 2 different realities. An amusing moment that depicts this occurred in John Oliver's recent segment where he plays a clip of Ron Desantis bragging that the UN hates the laws he passed and John plays it completely incredulous why would someone brag that he is hated by the UN. Since this audience is mostly liberal and understands the liberal worldview, please quiz yourself what worldview would brag about being hated by UN. If you cant understand, you literally can't understand anything about ~48% of the country, and if you're serious about politics you need to at least understand the 2 sides, ideally more than that. The fact is most of the US population barely understands the other side and so they will necessarily clash on most political issues.
2. There is a huge amount of democratic energy on both sides. There was always a lot of political energy on the left, since RooseVelt, Civil Rights movement, now LGBTQ, Black Lives Matter etc. It used to be a characteristic of the left. Now there is in fact a suprisingly large amount of political energy on the right, that first started with the Tea Party Movement in the 2010's and of culminating Trump who could essentially be considered a Populist Leader from the Right.
3. So we have two populations, with large political energies compared to any time in recent history, who also see the world so differently that neither can understand each other. The only reason this hasn't led to civil war like situation is because they both still to some extent follow the law, and still believe in Democracy as a schelling point for choosing who rules them. Now if you go ahead and jail the populist leader, you are going even closer to complete political fracture especially after a good chunk of the population believes the election was stolen from him. If you think this will convince any Trump supporters they're wrong (lol), I have a pipe dream to sell you.
Quick question, who is the most criminal president in US history? If your instant answer wasn't Obama (or if it was Obama because of drone strikes lol), you definitely do not understand the other side in any meaningful way to heal any political fracture this country is suffering with. So good job playing your reenactment in our version of Populares vs Optimates, and we all know how that ended
“We shouldn’t hold politicians accountable for their crimes because their supporters won’t like it” is one of the weirder takes I’ve seen in this thread. Obviously someone’s followers won’t like seeing their hero held accountable for crimes, but having a lot of followers shouldn’t make someone immune from consequences for their crimes. That’s one hell of a slippery slope.
> Now if you go ahead and jail the populist leader, you are going even closer to complete political fracture especially after a good chunk of the population believes the election was stolen from him. If you think this will convince any Trump supporters they're wrong (lol), I have a pipe dream to sell you
This post has a high density of non sequiturs. The purpose of the indictment wasn’t to convince Trump voters that the election wasn’t stolen. It’s unrelated to basically anything you wrote about. It’s about enforcing laws and following up on crimes.
Also, you seem to have missed Trump’s recent decline in popularity. He hasn’t been very popular for a while now, outside of the staunch core supporters. Even Fox News has started moving on and isn’t afraid to criticize him any more.
> “We shouldn’t hold politicians accountable for their crimes because their supporters won’t like it”
This is not the point OP is making. The point is that there is deep divide, and this is populist move from once side trying to remove one of the contenders from the race (ironically, dems would be better off if they would allow Trump to run since then they are likelier to win).
This move is extremely dangerous since it is directed on ex-president. If presidents know that once they will leave office others side would come for their head, guess what, they would not leave office. Dictatorship, police state, potential civil war, and risk it for what? For getting cheap brownie points agains washed-out politician?
Not prosecuting Trump would be populist choice to appease his voters.
Also, I really dont think that "presidents should be entitled to commit any crime, because no one can prosecute them" is a good legal system to have. That would attract even more criminals to high politics, because it would make them immune to crimes.
I love seeing politicians piss in their pants as much as the next guy. Hopefully the charges aren't politically motivated, but if they are that's where I think things get dicey. The law being applied more strongly and more rigorously if you are a political enemy is both difficult to prove and insidious, and it undermines the democratic process. I have no idea if this is the case with trump, or the prosecution is just a coincidence.
You see this applied elsewhere... for instance police may target black areas. Sure the black people they arrest may actually be committing crime and the arrests may be valid, while still achieving an insidious quality of policing.
>Quick question, who is the most criminal president in US history?
Your post is a lot of meta talk and very short on actual....crimes. The idea behind this indictment is that Trump broke the law as a citizen. Not that he did stuff in office that people dislike.
Which law did Obama break which you think he evaded prosecution for on account of being president. Please be specific.
Be specific about the charges in this case?
How confident are you that they couldn't find something on every single President?
You could find something about almost anyone. See “two felonies a day”
My question was something which he would normally be prosecuted for, but wasn’t on account of being president.
> evaded prosecution for on account of being president
Not parent, but I am relatively certain you can't just kill US citizen with a wave of a hand ( not legally that is[1]). Obama did just that.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Abdulrahman_al-Awla...
The argument that this is legal was from Bush Jr's office: https://thenewamerican.com/cia-has-program-to-assassinate-us...
Your Wikipedia link makes it seem like an honest mistake. Which would not be a crime, though could have civil penalties if government immunity wasn't involved.
Unless I am misreading it, the link you provided makes it sound even worse than, by comparison, benign Wiki article:
<< The Bush administration had made a point of claiming unlimited power under the << “the Obama administration has adopted the same stance.”
I am aware of the theory about 'imperial presidency', but I think we can agree that US president does not actually have unlimited power.
<< our Wikipedia link makes it seem like an honest mistake.
Yeah. Funny how the president did not address it himself, but instead we have mere 'leaks' to speculate on.
<< Which would not be a crime, though could have civil penalties if government immunity wasn't involved.
No. Factually wrong. It would be a crime were government immunity not involved. If you kill a person in US by a sheer stroke of bad fortune, you may still end up being convicted for a crime ( involuntary manslaughter ).
Naturally, this being government makes it fairly complicated, because the actual responsibility is spread across many decision centers, but, as the saying goes, 'the buck stops here' so one would think that if it was a.. mistake, it would be addressed as such and not quietly forgotten and dismissed.
> two populations have become so isolated that they essentially live in 2 different realities.
Don't make the mistake of thinking that "both" realities are equally valid. They are not, and that matters.
Reality matters, and you don't get to make up your own just because you're angry, numerous and armed.
I understand your point and understanding both sides of the country is very important, but so also is justice. I mean, what if he is guilty? If 48% of the population is ticked off by a guilty conviction that theoretically could be correct, that shouldn't stop us from convicting a criminal.
I'm not saying Trump is a criminal; I am not on the jury and do not have the facts. But I'm saying someone should be convicted if they're guilty even if it has political implications.
Whether or not people are angry at a result, that is their choice to make.
Let he who is without sin throw the first stone.
Should Joe Biden be prosecuted for negligently storing classified documents in his home? Every person in the US is guilty of some baseline level of criminality, and the more “interesting” your life, the more crimes you are likely to have committed.
If the US wants to have non-criminal presidents then it should reform its vast state and federal criminal codes so that such a person can actually exist. Until that happens, a norm against criminalizing ex-presidents (except for serious crimes) is a good norm to have.
[I’m not sure it has to be said here, but my political beliefs are completely disjoint with Trump’s]
> Every person in the US is guilty of some baseline level of criminality, and the more “interesting” your life, the more crimes you are likely to have committed.
What's the point of having these laws if they're not enforced?
Yes, yes, and yes. Every little legal infraction should be prosecuted, no matter how small or who you are. If they don't matter or shouldn't matter, the law should be changed; keeping them on the books and selectively enforcing them when it's convenient isn't fair to anyone.
I dont think that is reasonable or fair comparison at all. Bidens treatment of documents was much different then Trumps ... and notably his layers returned documents by themselves upon realizing the issue.
> Until that happens, a norm against criminalizing ex-presidents (except for serious crimes) is a good norm to have.
Funny enough, the framers back then claimed that law applies to presidents too ... and that this is what makes United States special and different then monarchy.
Yes, if you commit a crime, petty or not, rich or poor, you should face a court. If you park in front of a fire hydrant, whether you're a mom picking up her kid or the president, you should get a ticket.
If there is no attempt at equality in the face of the law, then what's the point?
There’s a strong argument that regulations and punishment should be increased with power and authority. Those who are in power should behave exceptionally well.
When I worked for a bank we had to undergo quarterly insider trading training. When we were and weren’t allowed to trade stock, should we come into possession of material information. Of course that kind of stuff was way above my pay grade, but we were instructed to avoid even the appearance of impropriety.
And yet Congress is allowed to day trade during classified hearings.
The US already has one of the largest imprisoned populations in the world, per capita. If the problem is unfairness and inequality (which I completely agree are serious problems), the solution is not to imprison even more people, but just richer people for white collar crimes to “balance things out”.
No, the solution is to imprison fewer people from disadvantaged classes. Imprisoning Trump does little to help all the people in prison for dubious reasons.
The logical conclusion of a policy of investigating and punishing all violations of all the laws currently on the books, is that almost everybody in America should be criminalized. That is not what a well functioning criminal justice system looks like.
Putting Trump in prison for his crimes is not about helping anyone from any class. It’s about enforcing basic laws governing the conduct of powerful people. In Trump’s case he very likely engaged in some kind of fraud, which is illegal for rich and poor alike.
> he very likely engaged in some kind of fraud
So you are assuming guilt before innocence? Based on what? The charges haven't even been unsealed.
If it’s any comfort to you, I’m not in the jury pool.
I was just asking you to clarify your morals and reasoning.
The solution is to get rid of certain laws or reduce punishment instead of ignoring them for the wealthy and powerful.
Bad example to use there because Trump will very possibly be indicted for doing the same, but much worse, in terms of his own classified information!
Yes exactly, otherwise you end up with impotent policemen who are incapable of enforcing the law.
But all high-level politicians are criminals. And perhaps we would be better off if they are all in jail.
The problem is that coming for ex-presidents in particular leads to them not leaving office and becoming dictators. And this is far worse outcome.
Notice how Trump didn’t come for Obama, although he vocally promised to do so. Then errors of his ways were explained to him and after election he stopped talking about it completely. Now social and political contract is broken in regard to him, while he did demonstrate necessary restraint himself.
> please quiz yourself what worldview would brag about being hated by UN. If you cant understand, you literally can't understand anything about ~48% of the country
For a non-American, could someone kindly explain what worldview would brag about being hated by UN?
There is a strong current of isolationism in contemporary US conservative politics (see Trump's frequent disparagement of NATO, and the questioning of Western support for Ukraine for example). On the lunatic fringe many believe the UN is just the first step towards a "one world government" or "new world order" that would deprive them of their liberties as Americans.
Haha, while other commenters spew some nonsense, what actually happened is that Desantis signed controversial anti-riot bill that was later condemned by UN. This is beyond farcical since there are many countries with far stricter anti-riot bills.
An intersection of nationalists + anti-globalists looking to shirk the rest of the world might brag about being hated by the UN as a way to imply, "We're so important/powerful/rich/cultured/etc, no other country [or their opinions of us] even matters."
As the kids once said, "They hate us 'cause they ain't us."
FWIW UN peacekeepers have a pretty horrible reputation for worldwide rape and sexual abuse. Not to say they do it more than others, but I wouldn't want to be associated with them.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/01/11/un-peacekeeping-has-sexu...
https://apnews.com/article/united-nations-pakistan-africa-se...
All of this is political. None of what you said even takes into consideration whether or not a law was broken...
You could have written this exact comment about the political environment if there were live footage of him shooting someone on Fifth Avenue.
That Fifth Avenue comment was so shocking back in the day, and it's more shocking today in how true it was.
> two populations have become so isolated that they essentially live in 2 different realities.
This is not true. Republican voters have been proven to be able to discern fake news when monetarily motivated. They only swallow lies for free. Here is the paper on it.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-023-01540-w
> There is a huge amount of democratic energy on both sides.
This is not true, as the entire gain on the right has been on the back of disenfranchment, gerrymandering, populism and threats of anti democratic measures.
This goes from having no polls in democratic areas, to passing laws making it hard, confusing or impossible to register and get mail in ballots on time.
Having people with guns near voting stations, having the sitting president asking people "to find the votes", having the media peddle a stolen election when the president lost the popular vote twice.
None of that is democratic energy.Then again the GOP went to 2024 without a manifesto. First time in political history that a running party doesn't even make promises, but who cares, they were not there to win votes but to make others lose them.
> The only reason this hasn't led to civil war like situation is because
Its because one side is economically, and numerically dwarfing the other. What are states with the economy of a third world country and the population of a medium city gonna do if federal taxes stop propping up their economy. Since 2008 not a single Republican state has paid more in taxes than has taken in federal income. They are all sucking the tit of the federal gov and a "civil war" situation would end in about 5 minutes when their entire military doesn't get paid.
> Quick question, who is the most criminal president in US history? If your instant answer wasn't Obama
God you would have to explain this one. Because you have a tape of Nixon's aid saying they invented the war on drugs to convict black people and left wing protestors. And that is hard to top as both failed policy, criminal behaviour, loss of gdp, freedom, politically motivated state terrorism... like jesus to top that you would have to prove Obama did 9/11
The most criminal president in history is Trump by virtue of two impeachments, with one getting huge crossover support.
8 years of investigations, two special prosecutor, two impeachments 3-4 non federal investigations all for different crimes... its almost comical to list all of that out and still have people think this isnt purely political.
"he was exceptionally criminal so they investigated him a lot more than normal" is a weird thing to use as evidence of political motivation.
So your opinion seems to be that investigations can never be political? Keep in mind that Trump is being indicted for a misdemeanor that they are contorting into a felony to avoid statute of limitations issue. I think everyone has to make up their own mind when an investigation is political and imho this one is comically so. So much so that i really struggle to see how any one can in good faith claim otherwise
As if Trump didn't corruptly use the power of his office to obstruct a lot of those investigations.
devils advocate: Or you could say the most vindicated.... impeached twice but never convicted.
Not being convicted by your own party is a pretty low bar to pass.
Nope, just the most criminal.
<< Populares vs Optimates
I apparently knew the concept, but not the phrase. Thank you for making me learn something new today!
> what worldview would brag about being hated by UN
Surely not the constitutional originalists, since under the constitution and its original interpretation the UN Charter is the supreme law of the land.
Excellent points. If anything this will only continue to polarize the US even further and once everyone is push to the extreme you reach a critical mass for serious conflict. The scales of justice can stay in balance only as long as the scale can support the weight.
Finally a sensible comment that 'gets' it. People are too eager to punish fellow Americans, and uninterested in understanding them.
Is this what you say any time someone is being prosecuted for breaking the law? Like is your thought about all the fraud Sam Bankman Fried committed that "we're too eager to punish fellow Americans, and uninterested in understanding them"?
If there isn't compelling evidence that laws were broken here, then fine. But if there is, then it seems like the way to deal with evidence of lawbreaking is to prosecute it...
I think the main question is: Why does Trump get indicted and Bush does not? The answer could be: Bush did a crime that supported some of the elite's supposed interests, while Trump demystified the president's role, which is clearly against the interests of "the elite", if you want to call it like that. In my opinion, war crimes are far worse than not declaring hush money correctly, but everybody has their own priorities.
What would John G. Trump (1907-1985) think?
https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.6.4.2018101... & https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_G._Trump
> American electrical engineer, inventor, and physicist. A professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1936 to 1973, he was a recipient of the National Medal of Science and a member of the National Academy of Engineering ... In 1943, after the enigmatic Nikola Tesla’s death, the Federal Bureau of Investigation asked Trump to examine Tesla’s papers to determine whether he had been working on anything that might have relevance to the war. ... After the war Trump became the director of MIT’s High-Voltage Research Laboratory, a position he held from 1946 until his retirement in 1980.
I do think that presidents should be charged and tried just like anybody else. IMO they should get no special treatment - same laws and process should apply. It does seem like an odd indictment in light of past crimes committed by presidents, so if they are going to go after Trump, they should go after others as well.
I appreciate that this is not the most clear cut charge against Trump and potentially helps his chances at reelection (theoretically).
Anyone else would've been at least indicted as well. This is an indication that the rule of law is prevailing. Even former presidents aren't above the law.
> After he became president, Mr. Trump and his company reimbursed Mr. Cohen for the hush money and falsely recorded those payments as legal fees.
yeah, paying money to someone to keep them quiet isn’t necessarily illegal (i think.. a lawyer’s knowledge would be appreciated here), but trying to write it off as legal fees seems to be the issue. i imagine there are tax implications, as well as what pool of cash the money was paid from (i.e. if it was from campaign money). it’s impossible to say for certain what the exact issue is until the charges are revealed
The legal fee thing is a case of misdemeanor falsification of business records on its own.
The fact that it was done to cover up a second crime (breaking federal campaign finance law) arguably converts it to a felony according to New York state law.
But NY can’t charge for that felony. It’s an absurd combination and nothing like it has ever been brought.
It reeks of a targeted campaign, well because it is. It’s why the DA was elected and exactly what he said he would do. So that’s really not a good look, no matter who it’s against.
It’s just so classless. Back in the day you just turned to a rich supporter and they wrote the check directly (Kennedy, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, Bush). No need to need to circumvent paperwork with Federal declarations on them.
Capone gotta Capone…
IANAL but I know that a lot of companies when they lay people off give them various "parachutes" in the form of money and included are anti-disparagement clauses, that if broken you have to return the money.
And a lot of settlement cases could be argued to do the same thing. Using campaign money to do it might be illegal. Again, not a lawyer.
And then there's the whole "a DA can indict a ham sandwich" notion.
I don't pretend to know how this is going to shake out, but I've got my popcorn.
Seems like a good time to remind folks that "indicted" is a synonym for "accused"
More like "committed to stand trial." There's a certain level of evidence required to get to this point, so as not to be wasting the courts' time.
Something interesting, number of corrupt US presidents:
GOP
Warren Warding, Teapot OIL reserve scandal
Richard Nixon, Watergate which was funded by illegal Corp political funds which were money laundered through Mexican banks
Donald Trump, Alledged money laundering to fund hush money to porn star, alledge russian money in Apartment sales via Netherlands anonyomous corps, etc.
I cannot seem to find any factual stuff on corrupt Democratic Presidents, aha aha while the Electoral College act was inspired by the Civil War events including the only time Democrats attempted voter fraud none of the elected Democrat presidents were involved in that effort.
No surprise that the amount of ignorance in this thread is breathtaking.
HN > Reddit > Twitter > FB > ...
I am going to post a mildly unpopular opinion on what it actually means.
In a word: nothing.
Regardless of how you see Trump, he is, and has been basically since he became President, the presumptive nominee of the Republican party with remaining candidates hoping to take him down. With all that in mind, what does this indictment actually mean in terms of possible penalty?
In a word: nothing.
Felon can still run for POTUS spot. There is a reason for that too along the lines of "well, you don't want current political party to just make up shit willy-nilly".
All this before we even get to the substance of the actual transgression, which, to me at least, is on about the same level as Bill Clinton's charge ( and arguably, his was worse depending on deeply you want to discuss it -- because contrary to some comedians, it was not just about a bj ).
So who benefits?
Trump. Media ( good circus equals good ratings ). The guy who will be running the circus will make a name for himself.
And.. that is it. I am not even sure why I am taking this as stoically as I am. Maybe the over the top happiness displayed on other social media made me hesitate.
FWIW, I am all about 'no one is above the law', but, I think, anyone on this forum can easily point to instances where that is not exactly axiomatic lately. And I think you will note my restraint in not pointing out any names for the sake of trying to keep this post semi-neutral in tone.
Now.. note that they are getting him on some relatively small stuff. All that stuff about Russia, nuclear secrets raid, running bs charity, being peed on.. none of that panned out in a way that touched Trump. And that is the last card to play.
You would think they would get him at least on something better to put on the news. They are getting him on a legal technicality that he will shrug off the same way he shrugged off not paying taxes.
And this? This will only make believers more adamant and it does not in any way damage Trump. This is democrats saying:
"We don't know how, but by golly we are gonna lose this one!"
You gotta laugh man. You gotta. Otherwise you will start crying.
> Now.. note that they are getting him on some relatively small stuff. All that stuff about Russia, nuclear secrets raid, running bs charity, being peed on.. none of that panned out in a way that touched Trump. And that is the last card to play.
There are like 3 other criminal investigations currently ongoing into him, plus a civil one in New York.
https://www.nytimes.com/article/trump-investigations-civil-c...
It is possible I did not make my point clear. I will attempt to rephrase it more explicitly.
Trump has been under investigation the moment he won. No one serious ( based on some accounts that included DJT ) thought he would actually win.
I will make it even more explicit. CNN promised me I will real life equivalent of House of Cards intrigue with charges that would make political world spin with disbelief. What we seem to have gotten is a receipt for a parking ticket so far..
Let us assume, for the sake of discussion, that he is guilty of this crime. Should we ignore it? If we further acknowledge that he is a nitwit without an inkling of knowledge about history, respect for democracy or the United States unless it aligns with his aggrandizement, then is this not like trying to nail Al Capone for tax fraud?
Are their supposedly intelligent people on this forum who truly believe Donald Trump to be a patriotic American, holding the interests of the country above the interests of himself?
Most countries immunize declared candidates for parliaments or the presidency, because it's a basic premise of democracy. If the population, by direct referendum, believes this person should be in government, whatever forces that are doing the prosecuting are a minority.
Makes sense to have some minor flexibility in this standard, so people aren't continually running for elections in order to stay out of prison. But if (for example) a criminal like K. Fujimori is running for president of Peru, she is obviously a serious candidate and shouldn't be legally threatened.
Do you have such a list of countries? Australia, for example, does not allow anyone with a criminal record to hold office (and they get kicked out if they are convicted while serving).
And how do you feel about convicted felons not having voting rights (as seems to be the case in many US states)?
> Most countries immunize declared candidates for parliaments or the presidency
I don't think this is true factually, and even if it is, I disagree that it's a good policy. But even if I thought it was a good policy, it isn't the policy we have in the US.
It’s about time that there are consequences for a man who took over the USA on a platform of essentially denying that he could ever face consequences.
Let the wheels of justice turn.
Which law does that violate?
As the saying goes: "A grand jury would indict a ham sandwich". Still big news...I'll just wait and see if the charges stick.
Indictment is an unfamiliar and intimidating word. In reality it begins a much more involved process and it doesn’t indicate guilt. It is most certainly not a verdict or a prelude to a sentence being handed down, as many people seem to believe judging by social media.
But you can imagine the governments case is extra extra buttoned up considering the accused.
Biden pardons Trump.
Outrage mitigated. Base can’t rage.
Biden easily wins re-election.
This isn't a federal charge. Biden can't pardon anything.
They’re saying the charge is related to campaign finance violations, isn’t that a federal crime?
This is a state prosecutor. In the US system, state prosecutors can’t charge federal crimes, only state ones.
Unlike some other countries-here in Australia, state prosecutors can charge federal crimes and federal prosecutors can charge state ones. Australia doesn’t have the hard separation between state and federal legal systems that the US has
The speculation has been that he is being charged with a state crime of falsifying documents. Usually this is just a misdemeanor and the statue of limitations has long since expired, however if combined with violating federal election laws then it becomes state felony.
The question asked is: can the President pardon Trump for the federal part of the crime, thus reducing the charge to a misdemeanor. The answer is “No”, because he has not been convicted in federal court, there is nothing to pardon him of.
However it does raise the question: Is it proper to convict someone of a state crime based on “criminality” where the criminality is a federal crime that they have not been convicted of in federal court? It seems unlikely.
In any case, I believe all of this is just media speculation and presumably there will be more clear-cut charges in the real indictment.
> The answer is “No”, because he has not been convicted in federal court, there is nothing to pardon him of.
I don't think that's right – the US President can pardon someone for a federal crime which they haven't even been charged with yet. Ford pardoned Nixon even though he hadn't been charged with any federal crime, and that was sufficient to bar any future federal prosecution of Nixon for the crimes to which the pardon applied.
However, from what I understand, the state charge is not that he violated federal election laws, but rather he committed the state crime with the intention of violating federal election laws. So, they don't need to prove he actually committed a federal crime, only that he committed a state crime with the intention of committing a federal crime, even if he never actually committed the federal crime which (they allege) he was intending to commit. Which is probably why any federal pardon would be legally irrelevant. However, it likely does give the federal courts greater grounds on which to hear an appeal than they normally would in a state criminal case – if a state court concludes that Trump intended to do X, and that X is a federal crime, federal appellate courts could always rule that X is not a federal crime (whether or not Trump did it), thereby destroying the legal theory behind the state conviction.
> However it does raise the question: Is it proper to convict someone of a state crime based on “criminality” where the criminality is a federal crime that they have not been convicted of in federal court? It seems unlikely.
Personally, I think people are going to look back on this as a big mistake on Alvin Bragg's part – charging Trump on what appears to be a highly technical and complex legal theory, for acts which in themselves were on the low end of criminal severity. Trump is likely to beat this one way or another, which will help his narrative of "I'm being persecuted by left-wing prosecutors".
If you believe Trump is guilty of far worse offences (such as trying to overturn the result of a democratic election), you don't want to see that narrative being given legs, since it may make it harder for prosecutors to win if they bring those more serious charges. It is even possible that this might lead to the Republican party uniting behind Trump and guaranteeing him the nomination–what happens if Trump wins in 2024 (whether fairly or unfairly)? Future historians may come to see this as a key event in helping make that happen. In hindsight, people might come to see Alvin Bragg as having unintentionally done Trump a big favour.
> In any case, I believe all of this is just media speculation and presumably there will be more clear-cut charges in the real indictment.
My impression this is not mere "speculation", rather leaks coming from insiders who know what is in the sealed indictment, making it more likely to be true – but of course, with any leaks, there is always the chance they are inaccurate in some way. We'll see.
Perhaps. There would also be justifiable outrage by reasonable people.
Pardoning Trump would continue the example set by Gerald Ford in pardoning Nixon.
"Helping the country heal" seems hollow to me. To use a few metaphors:
1. Physical healing can't properly happen until the foreign object is cleared and infection removed from the body.
2. Mental healing doesn't fully happen until person comes to terms with what's happened. Burying the trauma is a risky time-bomb of a "solution".
If injustice goes unpunished or unaddressed, victims typically don't have closure. They lose confidence in the rule of law. Some take it into their own hands.
Large portions of the American public have been traumatized by Trump's behavior. We are seeking justice.
And any temporary comfort from pardoning Trump would be undermined by the uneven application of justice.
Trump and Nixon are also two very different situations. When Ford pardoned Nixon, Nixon was done with politics. He had no chance of coming back as a politician. If he had not resigned, he was going to be impeached and he was going to be removed from office. There was bipartisan support for his removal. Ford spent his political capital to pardon Nixon and heal the nation, but he also knew that Nixon would not be a factor going forward.
The same is not true for Trump today. Even if Biden pardoned Trump, establishment politics would continue to have to deal with him moving forward. He has shown no indication that he would stop attacking everything around him.
Currently Trump is devisive candidate for republican party. Ironically dems would benefit if he is around and party is fractured.
I believe that since these are state charges, the pardon would need to come from the governor of New York.
I could see that happening for this charge. In the scheme of things, paying off a sex worker is a petty transgression. Many will have done worse at some point. Showing forgiveness will be a win for everyone.
But if one of the insurrection prosecutions makes it up - then it's hard to see it being pardoned. "Petty" is not a word that springs to mind when describing the events of Jan 6th.
Interesting. This could be a power play for Biden if he can arrange it. The problem is that Biden is unfit to be president even today, what to speak for a second term. He is hanging on by a very thin thread.
One can hope, but doubtful.
Braggs ignored many democrats advice on this and went rogue.
I'm generally cynical about party politics, but this takes the cake.
Perhaps if other recent elites were prosecuted for lying the United States into wars or openly advocating for torture, I would have a bit more patience for prosecuting Trump's bad bedroom behavior.
I am reminded of Clinton's Lewinsky scandal. Although I was very young at the time, it seemed so trivial in comparison to the magnitude of the office. The next administration went on to destabilize the Middle East under false pretenses. Where was the equivalent outrage for, "Lying to congress" ?
The president is largely a figurehead and a politician foremost. There's nothing honest or reputable about the profession. They could be uncharitably described as professional liars. Their sexual peccadilloes are of no interest to me. The obsession with their bedroom activities seems totally dysfunctional. These people should not be idolized or presented as a standard of behavior in any regard, much less for their sex lives.
Hard not to see this as yet another "The Emperor Has No Clothes" moment for party politics and US democracy. Outstanding issues remain, such as the existing wars, new wars and serious economic issues. Given this context, under what standard is it relevant how Mr. Trump paid a sex worker?
I wish the best for the US and the world at large, but this is just insane. For those somnambulists who are under the influence of this illusion, for those who think this is a rational endeavor which is not symptomatic of a much larger dysfunction - Please, I implore you to take a step back and examine the bigger picture. Consider a brief glance in the mirror as well.
Many interesting posts here. One thing I wonder, is if they're trying to use this case as a precedent for further/additional criminal charges. If you prove one, then the subsequent charges become easier to indict for. Makes making subpoenas easier to request in a court of law.
Remember, a Grand Jury indicted John Edwards, a vice-Presidential candidate, for essentially the same thing Trump is being accused of -- that is using campaign funds to hide an affair.
Prior to Edward's indictment he was thought be the future of the democratic party, if Edwards was convicted on all counts he faced up the 30 years in prison, he beat the charges though -- a rarity in federal prosecutions.
So there is precedent for indictments for this particular crime, not that this should matter, in a republic everyone is subject to the same law and jurisprudence.
Sounds like there are 34 counts of falsifying business records so it is probably more than just that one payoff.
Or the same crime stated 34 different ways. Prosecutors do this all the time
>Prior to Edward's indictment he was thought be the future of the democratic party
Respectfully he wasn't seen that way. His indictment was in 2011. Obama was president and still had another election to do. Edwards had not been relevant since 2008, really since 2004, as no one thought he could be Hilary or Obama in the primary.
>So there is precedent for indictments for this particular crime
One could argue its shows this is a waste of time and money.
The country doesn't need this. Trump was fading away.
It is never a bad time to pursue justice and allow the rusty machinery of our democracy to operate. I don't really care what comes of it, though I have an opinion of what is right and also what will happen. Many people treat this like a zero sum game: either he wins or he loses, and that result is good for Red Team or Blue Team. It would be helpful to our Nation if we recast this indictment as whether a public hearing on the alleged crimes is beneficial to the longevity of our way of governing. To show that none is above the law sends a powerful and unifying signal. So many of us -- my self included -- have already lost faith in our institutions, and while one trial will hardly restore them to glory or depolarize our politics, we must give our laws and processes credence by engaging them. Otherwise for what good are they?
The fact that you're factoring in how popular he polls to determine whether this prosecution is worth it cements in my mind that it is 100% worth it.
Popularity should be the last factor in whether someone is prosecuted for a crime.
He's running for president is at the top or 2nd place in polls with Republicans
He is lying about election fraud, states tried to send fake electors, they used the courts to push phony cases.
Your first paragraph is correct. Your second probably is as well, but it's not this case.
Al Capone was finally locked up because of tax fraud and it's celebrated.
Same situation
Not the same in the slightest, Al Capone wasn't a presidential candidate with millions who view him as the "god emperor".
Yes, so it's more important he face justice
Whether or not Trump was fading away has nothing to do with whether he should be charged, which is a function of his conduct and the law, not his political success or lack thereof.
>The country doesn't need this. Trump was fading away.
Agree with the former, disagree with the latter. he's still the frontrunner to win the gop primary
in 2015/6 The GOP field didnt know what do with Trump and for the most part only half attacked him thinking he was a side show who would burn out. He also had no political baggage and no prominent court cases
Now he as alienated a lots of people, he lost an election, facing multiple court cases. He will have at least one or two R candidates who will directly attack him. He will have to fight 'wars' on multiple fronts. Plus he is 8 years older than when he first started running. Closer to 80 than 70.
Is it possible he would have won nomination? Yes but I think was less likely and slipping away from him.
The bad thing for Trump might not be the indictment but that it didn't happen in December 2023.
Why are you saying "would have won"? The primary has not happened yet and he's still the favorite
> So there is precedent for indictments for this particular crime
Sure, but boy does it seem like a Plan Z attempt by Democrats to get literally any kind of charge to stick to Trump after 7!!! years of trying. And this particular case is one that's been known about for pretty much that entire time but was shelved, probably because they know it's weak.
It absolutely does even the New York Times is calling this a disaster!
LegalEagle has quite a few videos on the various investigations into Trump, his organization, and his associates if you're curious about process: https://www.youtube.com/@LegalEagle/search?query=grand%20jur...
He'll probably have a video out on this soon.
LegalEagle posted a video about it last week, though I don't know if new details have emerged since then.
On the Trump side, I like TechnoFog's analyses. They're also heavily involved in tracking the Epstein scandal: https://technofog.substack.com/about
Pretty weak case. Is this really what they go after Trump for? Not sure this emboldens the belief in the rule of law either way, as this is clearly politically motivated.
> Pretty weak case.
How do you know? The charges are sealed.
Also there are 34 charges, and 12 people agreed there is substancial evidence to go ahead with the case.
It's about him paying money to a porn star not to talk about their affair? That's not a crime. Now I can see how they can find some stuff in there to make SOMETHING stick, but if the same kind of scrutiny would be applied in general, 50% of the US population would go to jail.
Oh wait, a large percentage of the US population actually IS in jail.
> It's about him paying money to a porn star not to talk about their affair?
No. It isn't.
> That's not a crime
Also not what he did.
> Now I can see how they can find some stuff in there to make SOMETHING stick
So you called it a weak case. Despite not seeing the 34 charges and severely misunderstanding the basic facts of the situation?
Maybe its not a weak case and you just do not know about it?
Trump's lawyer, Michael Cohen paid 130,000 dollars to a pornstar to hush about sex she had with Trump in 2006 while Melania was pregnant. He did this weeks before the election. This can be considered campaign financing violation, similar to what Clinton did with the Steele Dossier. Despite this, he lied about it, and a number of other charges were discovered. So he pleaded guilty and got a 6 year ruling.
During this trial he admitted Trump told him to pay that money, this opened the investigation into Trump's involvement. The first discovery was that Trump had paid Cohen with money from his business to give him back the 130,000$. That is misclassification of business files to commit a crime, which is a felony, the investigation fo said felony opened up a ton of documentation into Trump's finances and business. The DA got access to Trumps taxes in 2020, and after over 2 years of investigation are now presenting 34 charges, all of which the jury found substancial evidence to indict.
What started it, a misdemeanor of paying off someone to not make you look bad right before an election, opened up the investigation into the entire trove of potentially illegal business fillings. Some of which appear to be felonies.
Lets see when the case is unsealead if it's so weak, but it is not looking good.
I didn't misunderstand anything here, and I didn't mean "weak" in any legal sense. These are all technicalities, and many people will not think that any real crime has been committed. Furthermore, things you present here as facts still need to be proven in a court, which might be another technicality that evens out the other technicalities.
Edit: I guess I DID misunderstand something here. Thanks for the clarification. Let's see how it goes, and if they found some real meat.
> I didn't mean "weak" in any legal sense.
So having a strong legal case is not enough for you?
> These are all technicalities
How do you know, the case is sealed. Like you keep arguing against something you cannot possibly have any knowledge of.
Like one of the crimes can be multi million dollar tax evasion from Trump org. Or killing a dog with a dog with a shovvel. Who knows what the 34 charges are. All that is known is that the investigation started on the payment to Stormy Daniels.
> many people will not think that any real crime has been committed.
12 people have already agreed they have seen enough evidence to warrant an indictment. who cares about any number of people who have not seen the evidence?
> Furthermore, things you present here as facts still need to be proven in a court
The things I presented as facts, ARE facts. All those events have been either sworn under oath, or are so easily factual as to not need any verification (like the dates or ammounts of the payments).
What has since been uncovered, in the 3 year investigation we do not know as it is sealed. All we know is a jury saw the evidence and saw enough to convince them to indict.
> which might be another technicality that evens out the other technicalities.
Going from manslaughter to murder is based on the technicality that you planned it and meant it. It being a technicality doesn't make the crime not stick. What kind of silly defense is this?
Yes legal charges are based on technicalities, depending on the ones you did you are charged for a crime or another.
I heard they were going to charge him for painting his house? That's not a crime. What's next, charging him for changing a lightbulb?
Oh, that's not what he's being charged with? They don't typically charge high profile cases on a whim for things that aren't a crime? Nevertheless. What's up with the U.S. justice system? No, like what's UP with it!? Haha. What are the basics, and what's an attorney? Why do they wear those suits? If THAT were a crime, we'd ALL be in jail, haha.
Oh wait, what point AM I trying to make?
Are you all right?
I think this post should be removed now that most people have had a chance to see it or atleast discussion should be stopped. HN shouldn't be a political platform.
Inciting a legion of goons to attack the White House is one thing, but paying hush money to a porn star is on a whole new level; that just can't be ignored. No siree.
If it makes you feel better, he's also going to be indicted for that in the near future.
There's a lot of questions I think to what extent politicians (or appointed government offcials) should be accountable when they leave office.
I think the poster child for this is Henry Kissenger.
http://edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/04/22/uk.kissinger/...
The tricky questions are all around things officials did in their official capacity. But crimes allegedly committed during the campaign prior to becoming a government official are not in this gray area.
Yes, for US law. But Europe and other international criminal courts offer no protection to war crimes done while in office.
Perhaps this is a concerted, organized legal strategy that Georgia, NYC and the Feds have organized.
Watching this play out from abroad, it looks like a political prosecution. Not a good look for the US.
Biden should pardon him if he gets convicted. Would do wonders for the unity of our country.
Biden can’t pardon state crimes
Sounds like we will know the specific charges on Tuesday when Trump turns himself in.
I thought I read something that said he stated he won't go quietly or was it just hearsay?
I'm curious (as an outsider) about what are the chances his arrest might cause unrest?
Not much coordinated unrest, not immediately at least. His lawyers said he will voluntarily submit for processing, so that won't be the catalyst. January 6th, 2021 had been advertised as the day for many months, by a more cohesive apparatus. Multiple apparati, really. The 6th fractured that, so that even his most ardent supporters are more paranoid about being baited into unrest.
If/when the Georgian DA and federal special prosecutor move towards indictments, things may get dicier.
He's called for his supporters to protest and posted an image of him swinging a baseball bat at the DA's head while calling him a "Soros backed animal". About the indictment, he called the police the gestapo and said "our country is being destroyed, as they tell us to be peaceful!" He is trying to incite violence.
It's like handing out speeding tickets at a racetrack.
agnostic non political comment based on logic:
Possible the arrest comes to thwart presidential nomination?
Political theater. If anything, this will help Trump and possibly give him a boast in his own party.
Even in the absolute worst case scenario for Trump (he loses and... has a massive fine? Is in jail for a bit?), this is a huge boost to Trump's campaign handed to him on a silver platter.
Honestly thats exactly what Democrats want too, as they would rather run against Trump than Desantis or a Never Trumper.
This framing comes up all the time. Is there anything that would…not be good for Trump’s campaign?
Yes... but it takes a global pandemic at exactly the right time. That doesn't change his support, but it does get people off the couch who might otherwise have decided that Both Sides Are Bad.
Other than that most news is Heads I Win Tails You Lose. Any publicity is good publicity when it puts you in front of cameras to cast aspersions on your opponents.
There is no such thing as bad publicity.
Ignoring him and letting him yell at clouds. But they couldn’t help themselves. They’ve seen massive losses in the polls and figured they’d drag the guy out as they did ok last time against him. I think this will backfire though.
No publicity at all.
ignoring him?
His supporters wouldn’t ignore him though. Everyone has made their mind up many years ago.
And now a lot more people won’t ignore him. Many will vote for him now since he represents a truly anti-government position having been made a prisoner of said government. I might vote for him now out of sympathy and newly acquired anti-regime sentiment.
>Honestly thats exactly what Democrats want too, as they would rather run against Trump than Desantis or a Never Trumper.
Isn't this the kind of thinking they had back in 2015, which resulted in Trump winning?
> Isn't this the kind of thinking they had back in 2015, which resulted in Trump winning?
No, I don’t think so. Trump was actually the weakest general election candidate of the major Republicans, what resulted in Trump winning was institutional power in the Democratic Party aligning betwern a candidate that was, equally clearly, the weakest general election candidate of the major Democratic contenders, and whose negatives were much firmer than Trump’s were as a relative political cipher.
Also, Democrats didn't get Trump nominated, a Republican nomination system designed to build sipport for the early leader by providing disproportional delegate majority’s to the magnitude of popular victory—a system designed to favor the pick of the institutional party and cut the knees of “insurgent” campaigns—did that, because the institutional powerbase couldn’t unite behind a candidate.
Were Trump to be nominated in 2024, he will face the same problem as in 2020—he won’t be running against Hillary Clinton.
He ran against like 17 Republicans, including major political dynasties like the Bush's. He easily swept the primaries...
Then in the generals he went and flipped Pennsylvania and won more counties than any R since Reagan.
You can look at the turnout and total votes to see it blows away your "weak candidate" argument.
I just don't think America likes dynasties or the political establishment. You can see it from grassroot campaigns like Reagan and Trump.
Most of the time they get shoved in your face and there's no choice, but when there is a popular alternative, it's a clear choice.
> He ran against like 17 Republicans, including major political dynasties like the Bush's.
Yes, that was actually the problem for the establishment; establishment support was split between (early on, which is what matters most the way the system works by design); they didn't coalesce behind one candidate after Bush was largely written off for failing to connect with voters before the actual primaries began, establishment support was initially split between several candidates,
I don't agree, even when the large majority dropped out, all but one didn't have a double digit polling percentage.
In the end it was Ted Cruz with 22%, so you can assume most of the no-trumpers coalesced behind him (because he was one of the few non-dynasties).
Even that is miniscule. The 3rd R (when there were 3 remaining) had 6.5% at their peak...
Trump remained the clear majority, maintaining a 75% majority until the end.
> I don’t agree, even when the large majority dropped out, all but one didn’t have a double digit polling percentage.
There is literally no point in time when that was true before May 3, when Cruz (the strongest opponent) dropped out because it was mathematically impossible for Trump not to win the nomination, and everyone stopped polling. (Heck, it wasn’t even true in the last major poll which was conducted almost entirely after that point [May 2-8].)
> Even that is miniscule. The 3rd R (when there were 3 remaining) had 6.5% at their peak…
> Trump remained the clear majority, maintaining a 75% majority until the end.
In the last pre-Super Tuesday poll, Kasich was polling at 9%, Rubio at 18%, Cruz at 20%, and Trump at 39%.
Trump’s absolute high point in polling – in that last major poll conducted, again, largely after he had mathematically secured the nomination, was 60%. In the same poll, the #3 Republican (Kasich) was at 13%, the #2 (Cruz) at 21%.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationwide_opinion_polling_for...
> I just don't think America likes dynasties or the political establishment. You can see it from grassroot campaigns like Reagan and Trump.
Exactly: For a time in that same election Bernie Sanders also managed to present himself like this. When he dropped out, a lot of people who were leaning towards Sanders flipped to Trump.
Obama had a similar message during his first presidential run, but pretty much ended up just being more of the same.
I don't really understand this. What evidence is there that this is the case?
Oh, this is interesting. By the same reasoning, would a grand jury indict companies who pay former employees they fired not to speak ill of them?
No, because that does not violate campaign finance laws.
Oh I see. I wonder if he will be allowed to settle, as Hillary Clinton's team did for "intentionally obscuring their payments through Perkins Coie and failing to publicly disclose the true purpose of those payments" with the Steele Dossier. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/mar/31/hillary-clin...
I'm sure he'll have a chance to plead guilty.
Without the law applying to all, there is no law.
The fact that we've come this far -- with all that Trump has done -- and are now only getting to what equates to a grain of sand in the grand scheme of all that he has managed to pull off... that tells you a lot. We've been playing with fire for a long time. If this isn't just the start of charges, we're in a lot of trouble.
I understand this is a revised case, with a new legal theory. Public opinion matters, the case has to be sufficient enough to go after a leading candidate for president.
so lots of questions like this will come up:
What does the state of NY have anything to do with enforcing federal election laws?
How is paying hush money a crime, when it hasn't been before?
How can it be an illegal Campaign contribution, when Trump was financing his own campaign?
7 year old case, how isn't this past statue of limitations?
The State's witness is a self-confessed liar, how can his testimony be sufficient.
Judging comments from republicans on Twitter "this is a political prosecution, from a biased Soros backed prosecutor"
Selective prosecution to try to sway an election was rejected once by voters after when Bill Clinton was impeached for his affair. So this will not directly boost Democrat's chances, might even make Donald a martyr. But would make sense if the strategy was to split the vote on the right.
Trump being in legal trouble is the carrot that got DeSantis to run. The problem is if DeSanits defeats Trump in the primary, he can't win in the general precisely because he defeated Trump. Trump has too many supporters that will never switch sides.
> Bill Clinton was impeached for his affair.
He was impeached for lying about the affair in a legal setting and not for the affair itself.
Desantis just backed Trump, we are summoning something that is escalating out of control and cannot be contained.
Republican Twitter keeps talking about "6 Christians Marytred and ignored by Joe Biden and the Corporations" , "3 leftists state insurrections", and more.
Banks collapse. Weakening of the dollar. Former American president indicted. Plots to pause and inhibit AI technologies development through petition. Never ending rain and gloom on the west coast. School shootings.
I am not one for conspiracy but it really does not seem like the tides are moving in the United States favor right now.
Why does every day feel like we are getting closer to some kind of tipping point? Into what I don’t know, but I’m hoping we don’t get to a point where there’s no going back.
It is hard not to read this as politically motivated. A lot of this crowd tends to lean excessively left, but I would urge you to be aware of the broader geopolitical considerations of what is at hand here.
It’s because you’re ignorant of history. If anything we are closer to morning in America than anytime since 2000. No new wars, massive advancements in hard tech and AI, and the lowest unemployment rate in 50 years.
The new American century is being built as we speak by the most brilliant and hardworking humans on the planet, I suggest you not overlook it.
Refreshing optimism, thank you.
I guess my glass is just half empty
I remember helicopters flying back and forth when the riots broke out, kept me up. Will I be watching Civil War across the border? I'm getting the feeling that things are going too far, and sensible people let the crazies take over. Feels like a setup for DeSantis to run, while keeping Trump in legal limbo.
The argument for what makes it a bad precedent is that it means incumbent parties will use it to prosecute their opposition. If the best you can do is jail your opponents to keep them from running, that's not representation, it's just a war for control of a weapon. I think he will gain unexpected support from some principled moderates as a result.
There is a streak of nihilism in the tactics used against this former president, and it has become an attrition game where winning means being the last one disqualified for cheating or the only one left not in jail. As though they think it's only organized crime when you lose. Comedian Duncan Trussel quipped the other day that politics has become, "an Olympics for narcisistic sociopaths," and that's a pretty good characterization. I'm not American and I can't say I'm neutral, but I do think that the malice this indictment demonstrates is weakness, and that's a fundamentally un-american sentiment that will repel a lot of reasonable people. I have acquaintences who will treat it as a betrayal, but what I believe is that Americans are better than this. Poignant that we live in a time where that could be so unforgivable.
You would think a topic like this would be somewhat lower ranked in a tech-oriented forum but it seems even those of us who are technically inclined cant evade the pull of politics.
As side note, heres my 2 cents:
This is extremely dangerous and unprecedented. Its a long standing practice common law tradition to refrain from prosecuting political leaders unless a serious crime is involved (Prosecutorial discretion).
Ignore Trump, he'll likely win or worse-case get a misdemeanour. This just changed the whole game, the judicial branch just got weaponised as political tool.
Unless somebody puts a conclusive stop to this nonsense, things are about to get very ugly. This is the kind of thing you see from third world countries with corrupt/unstable institutions.
The alternative take here is that this is saying no one is above the law. That ISN'T the sort of thing you see in corrupt/unstable institutions.
A lot of Americans seem super comfortable with the idea that their leaders and aristocrats aren't supposed to be subject to the law.
This may be one of those times that there's actually enough of a case that judicial branch feels it can take a shot at one of their betters and actually hit. We won't know until things are unsealed.
With all due respect, I'm of the opinion that the alternative here is the weaponisation of the judicial branch.
Most commenters on this post has knowingly or unknowingly broken the law multiple times in their lives. As the Buffet saying goes: "If a cop follows you for 500 miles, you’re going to get a ticket."
Buffet said this in relation to JP Morgan's "London Whale" scandal. Whats interesting here is he went on further to say: "You can’t be active in a big business without making some mistakes, and sometimes they may be big ones". This is especially true for government.
For example, something as simple and normal as taking some work docs home or discussing work with a spouse could lead to breaking serious federal laws.
Clinton's private email server is a perfect example of this, she committed a clear crime here but Comey chose to not prosecute. Despite this decision, he faced heavy scrutiny for delaying the decision which many believe had an impact on the outcome of the election.
It is important to take note of my earlier point, this is not a debate on whether leaders and "aristocrats" should be subject to the law. We are witnessing a departure from practices established centuries ago in common law tradition.
> "If a cop follows you for 500 miles, you’re going to get a ticket."
There's a lot of nuance here. Again, we don't know whats in the indictment, but the 500 laws I break today probably are going to be minor or non-felonies. This isn't a matter of "well everyone breaks the law", this is a matter of "some people break major laws and they aren't being held accountable".
> For example, something as simple and normal as taking some work docs home or discussing work with a spouse could lead to breaking serious federal laws.
And that's why intent is included when considering whether someone has broken the law.
> Clinton's private email server is a perfect example of this, she committed a clear crime here but Comey chose to not prosecute.
And I believe that if there was a case that could have been brought against Clinton there should have been. I don't think that's a get out of jail card for others, I think that was a failure of justice. I wouldn't have had one moment of poor sleep over her going to jail.
> We are witnessing a departure from practices established centuries ago in common law tradition.
That tradition has led to a place where obvious criminality isn't punished. There appears to be no respect for the law from the leadership. If this is a departure, it's a good one.
We'll I suppose we are somewhat at an impasse.
I Believe you understand why it is prudent for the judicial branch to refrain from prosecuting key figures from both political parties if the crime committed is just a minor technicality such as not paying a parking ticket or accidentally using non-secure lines of comms.
I think we disagree on whether what Trump is rumoured to be charged on falls under the category of "reasonable to refrain from prosecuting".
I think this is a politically biased DA, going out of his way to use a technicality to charge Trump. In my opinion, this is way outside of what is acceptable. If the rumours are true there is no major nor minor crime committed here, this is at best a technicality and will likely be thrown out.
Besides my opinions on the specific case, I think we also disagree on how much leeway these key political figures and officials should be given before the justice department gets involved.
I personally believe we should give much more affordances. I despise the modern idea of the "civil servant". Its a sort of neutering of what should be very revered roles. Everything from the laughable law salaries which are earned by 20 something kids in silicon valley or wall street. To little things like the secret service being able to veto the president on what he/she wants do etc.
It just seems so unamerican to me. In a very short timeframe, we have lost so much of the reverence and weight given to these roles.
Anyways, I can go on a very long tangent here, so I'll stop myself.
If the charges do turn out to be minor I too will agree he shouldn't be prosecuted. We just don't know. At the moment I think it's disingenous and diminishing to assume it's something like a parking ticket.
> I personally believe we should give much more affordances.
Yeah, totally at an impasse here. I'm not American, but it seems very un-American to me to consider political leaders part of an untouchable special class. I'm fairly certain one of the founding ideals of America was that there should be no kings. I agree that they should be respected, but that requires holding them to a higher standard. You don't become senator or president and then can do whatever you want. A country can only ever be as good as its leaders.
> she committed a clear crime here
False.
> “Instances of classified information being deliberately transmitted via unclassified email were the rare exception and resulted in adjudicated security violations. There was no persuasive evidence of systemic, deliberate mishandling of classified information.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2019/10/18/state-department-hi...
> “While there were some instances of classified information being inappropriately introduced into an unclassified system in furtherance of expedience, by and large, the individuals interviewed were aware of security policies and did their best to implement them in their operations,” the report said.
I didn't mean to get into the politics of it, I was using the case as an example where Comey went as far as setting a new precedent of "intent" as the standard of prosection in order to avoid the prosecution and impacting the election.
Mishandling of classified material is a crime, regardless of intent. Here's a short summary of chatGPTs take:
> This statute does not require that the person transmitting the information have a specific intent to harm the United States or aid a foreign government;
> Additionally, under 18 U.S. Code § 1924, it is a federal crime to knowingly remove classified material from its proper place of custody or to transmit it to an unauthorized person, regardless of whether there is any intent to harm the United States or aid a foreign government.
> a new precedent of "intent"
I'm confused by this. Intent is a well considered and discussed topic in the legal system. People are charged for entirely different crimes based upon intent (for example, murder vs homicide) and sometimes won't even be charged (for example, in an instance of a vehicle accident causing death).
The key is "as the standard of prosecution".
They could've still prosecuted her and gave her a slap on the wrist. This is what they would've done to anybody a level or two beneath her but Comey set a new precedent that the standard to prosecute would be intent.
This is why they can't prosecute trump for the files at Mara-lago, besides the (very reaosnable) argument that he was the president so be definition anything he takes home should be deemed unclassified, Comey set the precedent of intent so if they cant prove intent they cant prosecute.
> This is why they can't prosecute trump for the files at Mara-lago, besides the (very reaosnable) argument that he was the president so be definition anything he takes home should be deemed unclassified, Comey set the precedent of intent so if they cant prove intent they cant prosecute.
According to most legal experts I've heard from that's not actually the case. Declassification is a process that must be gone through and it's not just an "at-will" activity[1]. I also believe that, if charges do come about, it will be an attempt to prove that the documents Trump hid were repeatedly and willfully withheld, which, given his unwillingness to work with and repeated lying to the government, does seem to be the case. Again, intent.
[1] The American Bar Association: "In all cases, however, a formal procedure is required so governmental agencies know with certainty what has been declassified and decisions memorialized. A federal appeals court in a 2020 Freedom of Information Act case, New York Times v. CIA, underscored that point: “Declassification cannot occur unless designated officials follow specified procedures,” the court said." https://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/aba-news-archives/2...
I appreciate the attempt, but this poster has already resorted to posting ChatGPT responses, so I don't think it's worth the effort. They aren't serious responses. And actually, I just noticed they're ban evading and using ChatGPT to write all their responses, because apparently, HN is too PC for their edgy takes.
I can't speak to your other accusation, but I don't think these are written by ChatGPT - unless they are throwing in intentional spelling mistakes:
"besides the (very reaosnable) argument that he was the president so be definition anything he takes home should be deemed unclassified"
Edit: Though I see they claim that in their profile. Troll account's be trolling I guess.
I don't troll, I just use chatGPT to rewrite some of my comments so that I don't get flagged/banned.
I'm slightly autistic so I find myself constantly being scrutinised not for the substance of my comments but its insensitive style.
Take this topic for example, my original text had a lot of parts questioning the intelligence of the people who don't recognise how dangerous and short sighted this is. I did this using some colourful language which the prompt got rid off.
In an ideal world, I wouldn't need to resort to these things but we live in a world resembling that Black Mirror episode where the lady had to constantly fake politeness.
P.S. If you don't believe me, just put what ever I wrote into an AI detector. Also the autism isn't an official diagnosis, I had a doctor friend diagnosis me lol.
(Not who you responded to)
Spiro Agnew was felonious, so there is some precedent. He did plead however. The courts are frequently already seen as weaponized, for legislative purposes at least. The grand jury system isn't seen that way though, and I have trouble seeing how it would be twisted to be so.
meh. we rightly realized there is more danger from leaving the ability to prosecute political leaders then from letting them get away with it. we're also entirely comfortable with letting 9 in 10 get away to preserve a high standard of doubt (blackstone's ratio). because the alternative is weaponizing the justice system, which undermines trust in it even more surely than letting a politician get away with a parking ticket or paperwork discrepancy.
we've already killed impeachment as having high legitimacy, clinton case was pretty politically motivated as were trump's. let's not have the whole ass criminal justice system follow pls and ty.
btw i am not saying he's innocent, this is just a dumb case.
this whole shitshow has a very third world look to it.
> we're also entirely comfortable with letting 9 in 10 get away to preserve a high standard of doubt (blackstone's ratio).
All this tells me is that this is could be the 1 in 10. We don't know yet.
> which undermines trust in it even more surely than letting a politician get away with a parking ticket or paperwork discrepancy.
Are you certain that's what's occurring here? The implication at the moment is there's a felonies involved. Why are we assuming that Trump is being accused to committing no crimes larger than a parking ticket?
It seems to me that there's an general assumption (not saying it's your assumption) that all politicians are lairs and corrupt and criminals and that's the norm. I think that's an incredibly sad state of affairs and it needs to change. If the justice department wants to start taking shots at politicians who have committed felonies with ironclad cases (we don't know if that's the case here), I say fire away. I don't care what team they represent.
Everyone is currently diminishing the coming unsealing with the idea that somehow it's going to be that Trump jaywalked twice. We don't know that's the case and it would be ridiculous for NY to be taking swings at him for that. If that proves to be the case I'll be vocally against it, but for now I'm assuming that those pressing charges are halfway competent.
Political leaders need a different legal standard because there are ulterior motives to subject them to immense scrutiny. If he weren't Donald Trump, would he be getting charged for this? Think about all the deductions you fudged on your taxes; those transgressions went unnoticed because you are a "normal person". Impeachment is our recourse for a corrupt president and that ship has sailed.
> Think about all the deductions you fudged on your taxes
To be clear - absolutely none. This is a way to normalize deviant behavior by assuming everyone does it. Not everyone does. Many do, but that doesn't make it right.
> Impeachment is our recourse for a corrupt president and that ship has sailed.
He's no longer president, he's just a citizen. Keep in mind, if the rumors are true, these are crimes he committed before he became president. Is the argument here that once someone is president they are forever immune to prosecution?
> If he weren't Donald Trump, would he be getting charged for this?
Yes. Michael Cohen went to jail for this already.
What sets this apart is that the payout is campaign finance related, which makes it a felony. Otherwise it would have been a misdemeanor and beyond statutory limits. The DOJ never took this case because the evidence was so flimsy.
Like nearly every comment on this topic, this is basically useless because we don't know the details of the indictment, other than that there are 34 counts -- far more than anyone who was making similar points to the ones you're making now predicted.
1. The FEC/DOJ elected not to pursue the case in 2018. 2. Cohen's attorneys produced a letter saying Cohen was not reimbursed for the $130K 3. Stormy Daniels attorneys produced a letter denying that an affair ever occurred. 4. North Carolina failed to convict John Edwards in 2012 of a similar charge, though with actual campaign funds. 5. Bill Clinton settled Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit in 1998, while a president for $850K. 6. Law professors from Turley, Desrchowitz, both liberals, have stated there's no case here. 7. Bragg himself had previously declined to pursue these charges. 8. Bragg routinely does not pursue charges against major crimes. 9. Hillary Clinton, Joe & Hunter Biden and a host of other shady political figures have not been indicted and in some cases, not even investigated for far more serious offenses. 10. This confirms in the mind of Trump supporters as well as to the average man on the street that there are two systems of justice, one for the left and one for the rest. 11. This will not end well for Bragg nor the country. It's bound to ignite a response from Republican AGs in some states.
Welcome to the mess created by the democrat party and there Big Tech/media axis.
I find it humorous how a simple list of factual statements can be down voted by some people here.
You're spreading misinformation, that's why. One easy google search away:
https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-stormy-daniels-2018-st...
> AP’S ASSESSMENT: Missing context. The signed statement with the denial was publicly released on Jan. 30, 2018. Not long after, Daniels recanted the statement and said that an affair had occurred. She said her denials were due to a non-disclosure agreement and that she signed the statement because parties involved “made it sound like I had no choice.”
And yes, misinformation includes statements that are technically true by themselves, but intentionally leave out crucial details to create a narrative.
Spare me AP fact checkers. Folks here need to be far more skeptical of “authorities”. It doesn’t matter if she recanted. It is a factual statement that her law firm released the letter. Nor are any of the others inaccurate. As I said, hating Trump is one thing. Corrupting the system to harass political opponents is another.
Again, cherry-picking facts to push your favored narrative is misinformation. It does matter that you conveniently forgot/left out/whatever that she recanted. You were downvoted because people don't feel like wasting time dealing with bullshit.
Please stop doing that, or at least stop whining about it.
This seems like an obvious call to civil war when we jail an ex-president who is the frontrunner for the next election. Jailing a person who could as likely as not be be supported by a majority of voters for the presidency would probably be the single most anti-democratic act to ever occur in the US. I never thought we could outdo secret trials, but here we are, doing a speedrun into total collapse.
I'm just astounded that the centrist blob thinks that they can get away with this utilizing a largely right-wing military, an extremely right-wing police force, and a extremely well-armed and numerous right-wing element of the population. It's madness. Maybe (most likely) the lords of surveillance and and propaganda have a better idea of the country's pulse and and potential reaction than I do. Maybe the incompetents in the Biden Admin aren't running the show, and the intelligence agencies are fully and competently in control.
If some African, Central Asian or South American country arrested the presidential frontrunner for paying a prostitute not to mention that he patronized her, everyone would recognize it as a country about to fall into violent anarchy. It's sad that in the clouds our suburban upper-middle class have their heads in, there apparently aren't any mirrors.
If you believe in democracy, you hate this. If you believe in the version of the "rule of law" being bandied around that insists that law occupies some abstract space above the will of the deplorable population, a place ruled by angels that resemble the Warren Court and were educated at Harvard, Yale, or small private liberal arts colleges in the northeast - I think you may be absolutely blindsided in the coming months.
edit: somehow, corporations got the unlimited ability to bribe politicians and political parties, but campaign finance laws can be warped to cover this shit.
> If you believe in democracy, you hate this.
If you run for president the law shouldn’t apply to you? Because if it were, there would be armed rebellion? You aren’t describing a democracy.
(Maybe this is a political prosecution, but if so, we don’t know it yet.)
Even if a prosecution is political, that doesn't mean it's wrong. Only trumped up charges (pun not intended), biased application of the law, extenuating circumstances, or a bad law make a prosecution wrong,
Law means anything if its applied equally to all sides. Biased applications of law, does not mean anything.
Nuremberg Trials were political: We humiliated and destroyed the Nazi's for loosing and killing 6 million jews. Nothing wrong with it but nothing lawful about it either.
If Nuremberg Trials were lawful, then we should have put US generals on trial for indiscriminately burning Tokyo, Osaka, Nagasaki killing millions (including small children). I don't see how this is any different from the holocaust except that its close to 700k dead vs 6 million in holocaust. If you think this numerical difference gives complete immunity to US soldiers for targeting civilians, I'm really interested in your moral philosophy.
We should also have put most of Russian Army on trial for massacring most of the German Army and a large chunk of their population (Close to 10 million). Arguably the charges would be much lower since most law allow killing of soldiers, however without soldiers it was still close to a million civilians killed.
Thinking that Nuremberg trials wasn't just a political show that was arguable necessary to maintain peace, but was instead pursuing some ephemeral Universal Justice is being deluded
I deleted the Nuremberg comment before you replied.
What's allowed in self-defense, or defense of another, isn't allowed in offense, in most countries of the world (e.g. "Stand your ground" laws). This is partly why Germany was justifying its early invasions as protecting German residents of those countries. And is definitely why Russia is so justifying its invasion and annexation of Ukraine and Moldovan territory.
> I'm just astounded that the centrist blob thinks that they can get away with this utilizing a largely right-wing military
Trump pissed off all the higher ups at the military.
And what would they do anyways? Start overturning jury results they don't like? That's effectively military rule, and they know that'd just end in disaster.
> Trump pissed off all the higher ups at the military.
Absolutely true, but the vast bulk of the military lean Trumpy, and the generals will sort themselves out based on their self interests.
> And what would they do anyways? Start overturning jury results they don't like? That's effectively military rule, and they know that'd just end in disaster.
It's weird how you can talk about a military coup as if it's an impossibility that has never ever happened. What's never happened is the US indicting a president, and in this case it's arresting the frontrunner in the next election on an extremely shaky premise that most people I've encountered have trouble explaining clearly.
The thing about coups is they require groundwork. Trump hasn't done any of it. Support of military leadership is pretty key, for obvious reasons.
They can attempt a coup regardless. It'll just end up being an embarrassing disaster, which is pretty much what happened on Jan 6th.
If the US is a nation of laws and not men, then shouldn't candidates and sitting presidents be subject to the same laws?
Bill Clinton was impeached while in office for perjury over some embarrassing lies about his personal life. (Albeit as it may have related to a possible pattern of bad behavior.)
In the USA you can still run for president while in prison. And if you're elected President they're going to, at minimum, move you to house arrest at the White House.
Regardless, though, he'd probably remain free until the election. Either because the trial is ongoing, or because of appeals.
Elizabeth Holmes was found guilty in January 2022. Sentenced to prison in 10 months later in November 2022. And is still not yet in prison (because of her pregnancy).
> a largely right-wing military
https://www.statista.com/chart/22761/us-military-voting-inte...
> A new poll published by The Military Times contains bad news for President Trump with his levels of support within the U.S. military waning. Between October 2016 and August 2020, the share of active-service members finding the president favorable has fallen from 46.1 percent to 37.8 percent. With the November election swiftly approaching, 37.4 percent of active-duty troops say they would vote for Donald Trump while 41.3 percent would opt for Joe Biden.
> And if you're elected President they're going to, at minimum, move you to house arrest at the White House.
why wouldn't you just pardon yourself?
State sovereignty. The federal president can't pardon state charges.
It's also probably not possible to pardon oneself. For federal charges the VP would have to do so (while sitting as acting president).
eh, i'm guessing nothing much will come of it and no one will much care. everytime people are freaking out online about something, that's how it goes. give it a week.
but it opens the door to some funny possibilities. my guess is--if it comes to it--biden will pardon trump, which would be very funny. another interesting scenario is if trump goes to jail, he can still run for president, and honestly, i think that would give him a better chance of winning.
and when he wins and pardons himself his fans will be so happy with the fuck all he does in another four years, and his antifans will have a stroke everyday about the nothing that's happening. then the other team will win and the fans and antifans will trade places. meanwhile, in all the ways that matter it'll be as if nothing happened, a straight line from nixon to now.
if you think this is the death of democracy you haven't been in the real world, hate to break it to you.
I believe in Democracy and don't hate this. No one is above the law in a Democracy.
The guy is a fucking criminal and this is long overdue. Your rant is unhinged.
0 convictions and he's a criminal?
I'll take twice impeached and likely only not convicted of the second impeachment by way of McConnell running the clock out then claiming that as a technicality as to why they couldn't proceed.
That's the value of the rule of law for you.
The problem isn't the payment. It's the payment with campaign contributions.
This seems like an obvious call to civil war when we jail an ex-president who is the frontrunner for the next election
Yeah, we should just let politicians get away with criminal activity because of some vague concern that civil war is going to break out.
the centrist blob thinks that they can get away with this utilizing a largely right-wing military, an extremely right-wing police force, and a extremely well-armed and numerous right-wing element of the population. It's madness.
It's astonishing to me that your view is that we shouldn't pursue justice out of fear that the right-er half of the country will react violently. You're literally just saying that we should give in to terrorists before they've even shown their hand. Absolute insanity.
I think this is unfortunate because it cheapens American democracy even further in the eyes of adversaries who want nothing more than to mock us on the world stage. Whatever your view of the balance between the need to enforce laws vs. keeping national politics out of law enforcement: From a foreign policy point of view, it's a catastrophe.
There are three classes of countries, as I see it, that indict or jail leaders out-of-power in the opposition. (1) dictatorships like Myanmar (2) quasi-dictatorships acting under a veil of democracy, like Brazil (3) places on the brink of civil rupture, like Israel.
To say that this was intended by the Constitution of a breakaway American Republic is mad, because no sane English colonist would have chosen to renounce the crown if they'd known an idiot like Donald J Trump would be President 200 years later. Of course power should be held to account! As many people here have said, Presidents that committed war crimes would be a better target for prosecution. Or Trump's own crimes in office would be.
This prosecution under these auspices and for these reasons places us (Americans) squarely in the realm of third world semi-democracies.
I don't know if anyone has brought this up, but I hope Joe Biden will be wise enough to immediately issue Trump a pardon and bring this to a close. If Trump is indicted again for something serious, like insurrection, that would be a different matter. It's not possible to divide politics from law in a case where the defendant has a rabid political following and was the President of the country (as insane as that seems). Biden needs to pardon him right away.
You are simply uninformed. Many democracies have held formers leaders accountable for crimes. France, Italy, South Korea, Japan, etc. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/31/world/trump-world-leaders...
>...no sane English colonist would have chosen to renounce the crown...
Consider that while the rate of economic productivity was much lower during the colonial era, the average rate of tax was between 1% and 1.5%. I have seen figures quoted as high as 3%.
For this, a revolution was mounted. The indignation of being taxed by parliament (not the crown) without a chance to vote compelled colonists to take up arms. Contrast this to today's general apathy towards the political process, low voter turnout, higher rates of taxation and unending regulation of citizens' lives.
https://www.mountvernon.org/george-washington/colonial-life-...
South Korea also has a history of jailing leaders:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park_Geun-hye#Arrest,_detentio...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Myung-bak#Controversies_an...
> I don't know if anyone has brought this up, but I hope Joe Biden will be wise enough to immediately issue Trump a pardon and bring this to a close. [...] Biden needs to pardon him right away.
Good stuff. You should lead with this next time for the reader's sake.
> I think this is unfortunate because it cheapens American democracy even further in the eyes of adversaries who want nothing more than to mock us on the world stage.
Sorry to inform you, but most of us haven't taken American "democracy" seriously since at least the 90s.
I’m not sure if you’ve spoken to many people from other countries in the last 10 years, but america is absolutely viewed as a third world country (masquerading as a first world country) by much of the rest of the developed world