Trump on Trial

Fines and gag orders are ineffective; next up: imprisonment.


I wonder if Riker's Island will confiscate his toupée?

Quote :

Back in 2018, Trump’s ex-lawyer Michael Cohen struck a plea deal with federal prosecutors and implicated Trump in an illegal campaign finance conspiracy – but the Justice Department never charged Trump with that alleged crime. But Cohen has cooperated with New York state investigators and is set to testify against Trump next week at Trump’s civil business fraud trial there.

Michael Cohen is going to testify against Trump too.

Like rats leaving a sinking ship.

The Captain may well try to cut a deal of his own to avoid jail time. Hopefully Smith & Willis will put a few stipulations on his deal:

1. No runs for public office, ever
   
2. No public pronouncements about the case
   
3. No incitement of his MAGAts to violence
   
4. Trump Org is permanently dissolved
   
5. No fundraising off his verdict

Hell, I dunno. I'm not sure they (in fact I'm pretty sure they DON'T) have the power to make all 91 indictments go 'poof.' They might settle the Georgia case, but that still leaves New York, Mar-A-Largo and E. Jean Carroll. Those will continue unabated even if Trump cops a plea.

NoCoPilot wrote:

Jocelyn Benson (MI) and Judge Luddig and Lawrence Tribe And two scholars at the Federalist Society all agree: Trump and several Republican Congressmen are barred from office by the 14th Amendment. It’s in the Constitution. Congress doesn’t need to pass a law, the people under discussion don’t even need to be convicted in a court of law. The standard has been met.

Several states may bar them from running. Will it be enough to make an Electoral College count impossible?

Looks like Colorado may actually be successful in keeping Conspirator #1 off the ballot. Other states to follow?

The limited gag order was ineffective, and derided by the ACLU as anti-1st Amendment, so Judge Tanya Chutkan may be nudged toward jailing the motherfucker next time he bursts out.

One can always dream.

I mean, once again, running for president is not a protected right.

I read somewhere that escalating fines first is a good way to start, so that when he does land in jail he can't argue that he wasn't warned. Of course, he won't stop, so hopefully third time will be the charm.

Oh ho-ho-ho Judge Engoron has ruled that Ivanka has to testify under oath in her father's trial.

This should be a) hilarious and b) infuriating to The Donald.  Let the fireworks begin!

Don Jr testifies on Wednesday. Eric on Thursday. Ivanka on Friday. Don Sr on Monday. They're all PROSECUTION witnesses, i.e. they're going to be verifying evidence the state already has. There will be no avenue for them to offer alternative explanations, or to refuse to answer questions.

There will be opportunity for perjury.

Let's see if they can keep their stories straight.

Stupid, stupid judge. Gag orders don't work.

You need to JTMFA.

Trump's three adult children have adopted an ignorance defense, in the Trump Organization's civil fraud case. It won't work.

NoCoPilot wrote:

NoCoPilot wrote:

Jocelyn Benson (MI) and Judge Luddig and Lawrence Tribe And two scholars at the Federalist Society all agree: Trump and several Republican Congressmen are barred from office by the 14th Amendment. It’s in the Constitution. Congress doesn’t need to pass a law, the people under discussion don’t even need to be convicted in a court of law. The standard has been met.

Several states may bar them from running. Will it be enough to make an Electoral College count impossible?

Wait.  Electoral College votes are winner-takes-all in 48 of the 50 states (Maine and Nebraska being the exceptions).  Keeping Trump off the ballot would only matter in states where Trump would have won the state -- which is to say, probably unlikely to happen.

Judges in Minnesota and Michigan have ruled that Trump can't be removed from the ballot. Colorado has yet to rule. So far these are the only three states to file a petition.

If Trump has his bail revoked and is remanded to custody, they'd better put him in solitary for his own safety. That would also allow them to release his Secret Service detail, rather than locking them up too.

Trump wins a narrow victory on his gag order. Now we wait.  This won't be revisited until somebody is killed by Trump supporters.

Quote :

Recognizing that there is value in a brand name, even if that brand went out of business, is not something new,” he added. “You watched another company buy Bed Bath and Beyond’s intellectual property immediately after it went out because a brand is a tough thing to kill.”

I can see it now.  Steve Bannon buys the Trump name after New York shuts him down.

Jack Smith moved this morning to have the Supreme Court rule on the concept of absolute presidential immunity, without waiting for this Trump defense to work its way through the lower courts.

Smart.  But a calculated risk, because this SCOTUS is by no means predictably law abiding.

Jesus Christ, this is just now being reported???  This is espionage, treason, capital punishment stuff.

Quote :

One source said the intelligence referenced in the report actually proved the opposite of what Republicans were claiming – saying it showed that Russia was meddling in US elections and seeking to personally manipulate Trump and help him win.

Is it too late to re-open the Mueller investigation?

And House Republicans know all about it. They should all be locked up in Guantanamo, awaiting execution.

NoCoPilot wrote:

Looks like Colorado may actually be successful in keeping Conspirator #1 off the ballot.  Other states to follow?

Yay Colorado.
https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/colorado-trump-14th-amendment-12-19-23/index.html

Stupid stupid Republicans:

Quote :

Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel attacked the Colorado Supreme Court's decision to remove former President Donald Trump from the state's 2024 ballot

She called it "election interference" in a post to X, and said the RNC's legal team "looks forward to helping fight for a victory."

GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy called the court's decision an “actual attack on democracy."

In a post on X, Ramaswamy pledged to withdraw from the Colorado GOP primary unless Trump is allowed to be on the ballot. He called on other candidates — Ron DeSantis, Chris Christie and Nikki Haley — to do the same, arguing, “or else they are tacitly endorsing this illegal maneuver which will have disastrous consequences for our country.”

“Today’s decision is the latest election interference tactic to silence political opponents and swing the election for whatever puppet the Democrats put up this time by depriving Americans of the right to vote for their candidate of choice,” he wrote.

House Speaker Mike Johnson said the ruling was "nothing but a thinly veiled partisan attack." He said voters should be able to decide the nominee.

"Regardless of political affiliation, every citizen registered to vote should not be denied the right to support our former president and the individual who is the leader in every poll of the Republican primary," Johnson said.

Several Trump allies expressed outrage at the ruling:

• Trump's former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Dr. Ben Carson claimed Colorado "decided to disenfranchise the people of their state by choosing to remove Donald Trump from the ballot."
• House GOP Chairwoman Elise Stefanik slammed the decision as "unprecedented, constant, and illegal election interference."
• Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, who campaigned for Trump in Iowa on Friday, asserted on X that the decision was exemplary of “what dictators do,” repeating a line used by the Trump campaign when fundraising off the court’s ruling.
• Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake labeled the judges as “partisan,” calling the decision “HISTORIC election interference.”

The Republicans are predictably losing their minds, calling this "judicial over-reach" and "election interference" and "partisan."  They say VOTERS should decide who is on the primary ballot, not the courts.

But that's dead wrong.  Here's why.

The 14th Amendment is specifically (though silently) aimed at preventing a popular insurrectionist from running for office. If an insurrectionist was NOT popular, there'd be no reason to bar him or her from holding office. It is specifically because an insurrectionist, who might ruin the republic, might get elected that the 14th Amendment was drafted to protect the republic.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/20/politics/trump-supreme-court-2024-election/index.html
https://www.msnbc.com/the-reidout/watch/trump-disqualified-from-being-president-under-14th-amendment-colorado-supreme-court-rules-200597061962

Trump claims that immigrants are "poisoning the blood of our country."

That's not against immigrants who simply live here; it's specifically about immigrants reproducing with non-immigrant stock and thus diluting the pure bloodlines with immigrant blood.

Melania Trump is an immigrant.

Ivana Trump was an immigrant.

I guess Tiffany Trump, the one he never talks about, the daughter of Marla Maples, is the ONLY Trump child without 'poisoned blood'?  Eric,  Don Jr.,  Ivanka and Barron are all vermin, according to his logic.

But... at another level?  How many First Nations Native Americans are in positions of power?  We're all immigrants, compared to them.

Did you hear about the VERY CLEVER WAY the Colorado Supreme Court couched their argument in throwing DJT off the ballot?  They quoted Neil Gorsach, when he was a Colorado judge, in a ruling keeping another candidate off the ballot for not meeting letter-of-the-law requirements.  Then they crafted an originalist argument, stating that the 14th Amendment was crafted for exactly this situation, and must be executed as written.

SCOTUS will probably take the case, and probably overturn the Colorado Supremes (because, well, they don't care about the law).  But they made it such that SCOTUS will be rightly excoriated for doing do, and heavily damaged.  Might even lead to reforms or packing the court or something if Biden wins.

Masterful.  If you can't win, at least go down fighting.

And, as I read the articles, if SCOTUS rules in favor of the Colorado court, as a national (federal) ruling, that would potentially automatically throw Trump off state ballots nationwide, for life.  Quel fromage!  Talk about a constitutional crisis! He may be MORE dangerous as a non-candidate than as a candidate. Further motivation to lock him up forever.

And... Ginni Thomas might be liable for prosecution?

NoCoPilot wrote:

But they made it such that SCOTUS will be rightly excoriated for doing so, and heavily damaged.  

When faced with a tough choice, do nothing.

Fucking cowards.  There goes the country.

George Conway is more optimistic than me.
https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2023/12/23/conway-reax-trump-scotus-rejects-immunity-case-lead-vpx.cnn

He's a lawyer and has argued before SCOTUS so he's better informed than me.  I hope he's right.

Trump's lawyers are gambling that either, A) they can delay all trials until after the election and Trump will win, at which point he can pardon himself for MOST of the charges, or B) his continued protestations that the indictments are political will keep his followers from taking the trials seriously.
https://www.npr.org/2026/01/01/1198916092/zz-considerthis-bonusdraft

But here's the thing. By delaying the trials he runs the risk of being in court, and being publicly exposed for his criminal activity, during the height of the pre-election primary season. This throws the GOP into a TERRIBLE bind.

Say, during July just prior to the 7/15 primary, some bombshells come out about his Russian ties.  What is the RNC to do?  Would they have to quickly pivot and appoint Nikki Haley as their designate, despite Trump having higher poll numbers?  That chaos would doom the GOP's chances for all 2024 races, and probably years afterward.

Or even worse: Trump is selected July 15 as the candidate-designee, and then in August he's found guilty of several felonies.  What does the GOP do then?  Hold another convention?  Decide to "sit out" the 2024 election? Run a convicted felon facing jail time as their candidate?

What a miserable future.

If Ronna McDaniel had any balls(!) she'd take hold of this situation NOW before this train reaches the washed out tracks.

New Jack Smith filing includes list of Trump arguments that 'must be excluded' from courtroom

Quite reasonable and sensible, but no doubt the fascist's supporters will throw a fit.

Quote :

Biden could get away with [killing Donald Trump] ― “as long as he could assert some sort of national security rationale for doing so.”

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/biden-trump-presidential-immunity_n_65943b0fe4b0f27b6e356793
This is precious. If SCOTUS rules in favor of Trump's immunity claim, Biden will get free reign to fix the country.

He could also send 154 Republican Congressmen to Guantanemo, without trial, for supporting the insurrection.

That's the best way to treat a cancer you know, just cut it all out. Otherwise it just metastasizes.

Quote :

Over the span of about 30 minutes Thursday morning, Trump made 31 posts about Carroll on Truth Social. Although he didn’t say anything himself, he shared stories from conservative outlets attacking her and comments from internet users calling her “creepy.” He also shared media interview clips and social media posts that appear to come from Carroll, all stripped of context so as to paint her as some sort of sexual deviant.

But then Trump did it again about nine hours later, publishing 40 additional items to his online platform. Most featured this text: “Except for a Fraudulent Case against me, I had no idea who E. Jean Carroll was. She called her African American Husband an ‘ape,’ and named her Cat ‘Vagina.’ Look at her Tweets, Stories, and the CNN Interview about her. The Judge on the Case is another Highly Partisan Clinton-Appointed Friend. He should have recused himself long ago!”

The Republican published this exact same message, word for word, over and over and over and over and over and over again for nearly an hour.

Here's another possible denouement to the Trump Trials: he goes stark raving mad.

Thom Hartmann wrote:

Judge Florence Pan asked:

Quote :

“You’re saying a president could sell pardons, could sell military secrets, could order SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival?”

Trump’s lawyer answered that a sitting president could only be held criminally liable for those crimes the judge listed — which is making me wonder if Jack Smith has proof that he was selling pardons and military secrets — if Congress had first impeached him. 
In other words, yes, Trump may have sold those missing top-secret documents to Putin, probably sold all those last-day pardons for $2 million each as Rudy Giuliani said, and could even order the assassination of somebody he didn’t like in the future.

If Smith has evidence, why hasn't Trump been charged with selling pardons and military secrets?