Trump could face up to 1,000 years in prison for his document espionage

This kind of pessimism just propagates itself.

The world won’t get better unless we can see it getting better.

Day Today GIF

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Meme Reaction GIF by Robert E Blackmon

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If Biden pardons him, I’m never voting again

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You say that now but, when they come for your hero? The OP is right.

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I can totally see him actually going to court, and it being an INTENSELY frustrating experience. Expect to hear “I plead the 5th” about 500-1000 times.

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Well I still expect him to die before he faces consequences.

I guess that is a balance between speed of prosecution and his health.

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But… yeah, ain’t going to happen.

Sending an ex-president to prison is really uncharted territory here. Actual prison time seems incredibly unlikely - but I’m not sure if some sort of house arrest is off the table… But boy I, too, would like to see some actual prison time.

Though he signed into law a change to the (I think foreign intelligence surveillance act?) that specifically makes what he did a felony, which unlike the espionage act, does not rely on intent. As far as I know, no one has yet been prosecuted under it, and he’s clearly, admittedly, in violation of that law. So… /shrug

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… sell him a cage on Guantánamo Bay and confine him in his “new home” :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

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Meanwhile

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I’d be shocked if he even testifies.

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So is indicting an ex-president, which more and more people are saying is practically inevitable at this point.

I do agree actual prison time is unlikely just based on the time it would take. From indictment to trial to appeals, to prison are all very long roads, which TFG’s lawyers will do their best to prolong. While I don’t see a DOJ in a Democrat administration pulling any punches, the reality is likely is that he can stretch this out for several years until death, irrelevancy, or coronation. But an indictment sure would be nice to see.

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Trump is not likely to see much more than a decade in prison under any system, but I’m ok with keeping his body interred somewhere for the rest of the millennium as an example to others.

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FISA has to do with procedures that need to be followed to conduct surveillance on foreign individuals in the US and abroad, and what happens if such surveillance happens to catch some evidence of wrongdoing of a US citizen, so that wouldn’t have anything to do with this. The only other law I’ve heard brought up is the Presidential Records Act, and I don’t think that law really spells out any kind of punishment for violations of that law, so I’m not sure what other law might be involved here.

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Anybody can become president they say and anybody can be indicted.

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Well, so was sending a former-game-show-host-who-plays-a-billionaire-on-TV into the Oval Office in the first place. I figure we’re way, way into Large Hadron Collider effects by now.

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There are also issues around e.g. his mandatory secret service protection while in prison…

It’s kind of weird as the change was to a section of law about the penalties for mishandling government documents (unrelated to actual surveillance or foreign individuals). It was passed, ironically, as a response to Hillary Clinton’s email, to make sure someone in her position would be prosecuted in the future, and it 100% applies to Trump. It removes issues of intent (which is why Clinton couldn’t reasonably be prosecuted) and increases mandatory penalties.

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If his lawyers are halfway competent and he listens to them, he’ll never testify. Of course, both parts of that are big "if"s.

But he’ll be severely limited as to what he can “plead the 5th” on if he does testify. The prosecution can only ask him questions about what he testifies about on direct (where he can’t plead the 5th), and he can’t plead the 5th on things he brought up.

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:rofl:

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Trump? Good behaviour?

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If pigs fly, I’m giving up buffalo wings.

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