I agree, he knew what he was doing. But the requirements for proof in a court of law are not the same as BoingBoing.
Also, this has nothing to do with plausible deniability (different type of defense). This is about state of mind. All he has to claim is that he was sure he’d won and was demanding that justice be served even if it meant the official final tally had him ahead by only one vote.
I know and you know it would be BS. But proving it is another matter.
I had a conversation with my uncle, a high level career prosecutor, about why bankers weren’t prosecuted after the housing bubble. He explained that they may have guilty hands, but proving they had guilty minds would be essentially impossible. Without direct evidence to the contrary, all that’s required is a plausible explanation of what they were thinking. Same for Trump.
I’m not suggesting he’s innocent. Just that if he’s going to get nailed to the wall, it’s going to hinge on something he did that does not require any evaluation of what he thinks. For example, harassing an election official.
It’s not that he thought he won, and it’s not about by how much. It’s the specific number of votes he demanded that exhibits that he knew that he had lost, by exactly how many votes, and that Georgia needed to find the “right” number. I don’t think a court requires literal mind-reading for this because then no one would ever be convicted of a crime. It just requires evidence of the state of mind.
It’s like having a recorded conversation of the mastermind of a bank robbery demanding his share of the haul. “I want my money!” probably wouldn’t cut it, but “I want my $11,780, or else!” probably would.
Him asking for the exact number isn’t evidence he knew he lost. It’s evidence he knows the number N of votes Georgia counted that he is behind on. All he has to say is that he just needed election officials to find N+1 of the hundreds of thousands of discarded votes to avoid an unjust election. Think of the children. Blah blah blah.
You’re still focused on the wrong thing. Trying to prove he is trying to steal the election could be hard. “Mind reading” could come into play. But nailing him for election interference could be easy. Merely calling to discuss could be a crime regardless of his motives.
By definition = lost. Loser. Not winner. The result has been certified and safe harbor date passed. Even if they found a million votes, it would not legally change the outcome in Georgia.
You’re preaching to the choir. He’s a loser and nothing can change it. But apparently he is unable to accept that. Maybe hoping to give congressmen and senators grist for debate and maybe get Georgia tossed or reversed. Who knows. He’s an idiot.
But he can claim he believes he’s not for purposed of criminal defense for some things.
I’m curious who the person is that Trump accused of producing fraudulent ballots. Her name has been redacted because the accusations are bogus, but is it as dumb as saying that Stacy Abrams herself was producing fraudulent ballots or is it someone else? I don’t really want to go to the rightosphere to find out but it seems to me that there might be yet another defamation lawsuit coming out of this as well.
Regardless of his infinite, well-documented, disqualifying, antidemocratic, morally reprehensible failings, the sack of excrement with just over two more weeks to sit in the Oval Office is a goddamn ninja of self preservation.
People don’t appreciate how difficult it is to go bankrupt running a casino. It’s really really hard. If you’re halfway competent at business, you have to want bankruptcy badly.
Criminal law doesn’t work that way. You seem to be using the preponderance of evidence requirement. Beyond a reasonable doubt is a very high standard that doesn’t just mean you believe or don’t believe someone. Rather, it’s not reasonable to have a doubt. A judge might just toss on this alone.
Can you provide evidence that he knew what he was saying about changing the vote count was criminally wrong? He’s certainly wrong, but that’s not enough. There needs to be a statement that shows he knows fewer people voted for him than Biden. He may be an idiot, but he’s been a consistent idiot on this point.
However, veiled threats don’t have the same protections. He might be able to get away with asking about all the ways, in his mind, a great wrong could be corrected. We should all have that protection. But using carrots or sticks is not. He skated awfully close to the edge there.
