It’s a different Floridian that now holds their interest.
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Because like it or not, he’s a former president, and thus, the standard is going to have to be much, much, much, MUCH higher for him to be indicted or arrested. We’ve never indicted , arrested, or imprisoned a former president in this country and we’ve got plenty that likely did far worse than Donnie when we look back at what’s been found out about them (And what was known at the time, even.)
I’m all for indicting and imprisoning him, but this is going to be the first of many presidents indicted and imprisoned, and if looking at governors is any example of how this is going to work, it’s going to go back and forth. They’ll find something on Obama or Biden and indict/imprison them. That’s the kind of precedent we’re facing here and the kind of future this is going to be, and so I imagine the justice department is going to move very, VERY deliberately and cautiously on this.
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The phrase “long term strategy,” applied to 45 gives me cognitive dissonance.
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He’s an unpleasent client, that doesn’t pay his bills, and as a bonus, these days his lawyers are getting sanctioned, largely for doing the things he told them to. Now he’s having difficulty getting competent lawyers to represent him.
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Well, obviously the Deep State has intimidated all the lawyers who would otherwise be eager to represent him against these fraudulent and, er, trumped-up charges, and that’s why only a handful of lawyers of exceptional courage and patriotism are willing to step up and defend this astonishingly innocent man against the baseless charges leveled against him by his political enemies in an attempt to stop him from Making America Great Again.
Since, supposedly, ‘No One Is Above The Law’, I think those standards would need to be higher in order to convict a POTUS.
First time for everything.
Can’t think of any others that mishandled classified documents and was simpatico with various tyrants around the world.
What would be far worse than that?
That’s exactly what they have planned, anyway, if You Know Who gets back into power.
They are already bragging about impeaching Biden if/when they get the majority in the House.
Pretty sure that the Politics of Revenge has already escaped the barn, so there is absolutely NO downside to indicting, trying, convicting and executing You Know Who.
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At a fundamental level, he doesn’t understand/believe in/obey laws. He understands the legal system only as “abuse of process.” and laws as things that you throw lawyers at, not descriptions of things that you should or shouldn’t do. So if he wasn’t a COMPLETE idiot, he’d make damn sure that he paid his lawyers well and on time because he is completely dependent on having better lawyers than anybody that might try to go after him. And that would probably have continued to work well for him if he had continued to be a 2nd rate real estate developer/3rd rate reality TV star where the people that he tried to fuck over were contractors and the wanna be famous. But he went into politics and picked fights with parts of the US Government, and it is SLOWLY working out poorly for him.
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Oh, I think there is definitely an argument to be made that many presidents have done much worse things in the course of their duties as president - dropping atomic bombs on cities to speed the end of a war…(but mostly to see how they work), invading Vietnam, overthrowing other democracies, or invading Iraq under false pretenses spring to mind.
I cannot, however think of any that come close to Trump as far as awful things done outside the duties of office in addition to the shitty things he did in the execution of his office
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This is apparently not actually all that new, but it is certainly relevant.
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Dick Cheney and GWB were friendly with dictators throughout the world so long as they had oil for us. They war profiteered with the emir of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan… all nations that have called for the destruction of Israel and have at various points denied the holocaust. Reagan did similar war crimes throughout Latin America at the behest of some pretty shitty dictators. The Clintons likely took donations through the Clinton Foundation into PAC’s from a number of shady customers. Going futher back, you’ve got Andrew Johnson who organized genocides of native americans, and at the VP level you have Aaron Burr who sold out his country multiple times and was actually the only one ever charged with anything that high. An Andrew Jackson appointee to the CBP skimmed over a million dollars ($40 million in our time) and Jackson basically engineered his return to the US after a negotiated kickback. You have Johnson instigating the Gulf of Tonkin incident, purportedly leaking classified documents in order to instigate the vietnam war.
So maybe much of these genocides and thefts and leaks and treasons aren’t “far worse” than Donnie, that’s up for history to judge. But if we didn’t flinch for any of those, I just don’t expect the wheels of justice to move incredibly fast in this situation.
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Making Attorneys Get Attorneys
I am hoping that the difference here is that those things were done as part of their execution of their office (regardless of how wrong they were they were at least done as part of their duties as president) while the things that are going to get Donnie in trouble were things he did outside of those duties, for his own benefit not the nation’s (not that I think that any of the examples you gave benefitted the nation, but at least they had that cover)
Also if they accept his “I declassified them!” argument, don’t all of those documents become public? I am assuming he had full, unredacted copies at his fancy motel, so the full text would be declassified, right? That will be very very bad and will likely result in a huge setback for US intelligence as it will no doubt reveal sources, but I don’t see how they can avoid that if they go along with his claim.
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They’d become subject to the FOIA if applicable, but the “I declassified them” is irrelevant. The new president reclassified them, and Donnie can’t unclassify them since he’s no longer the president.
Those documents weren’t declassified.
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Not prosecuting Trump for real crimes won’t stop the Maga Republicans from prosecuting Biden for imaginary ones.
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This came up a couple weeks ago. Any changes on this front? Kise sounds competent, which is troubling.
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Excellent point about the overall amorality of this country’s actions over the years.
Those examples you cited are horrific, but didn’t serve to undermine Democracy in this country [and he is still at it]; and if it turns out that he did sell classified info to adversaries, well… that’s treason.
You Know Who is pretty much in a class by himself.
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I’m not saying we shouldn’t prosecute him. I’m saying that they need to take this cautiously and deliberately because they’re only going to have one shot, and if they miss, the republicans will take every election from now (by cheating or gerrymandering or whatever) until all us undesirables are hanging from trees, gallows, or lightposts.
I’m not willing to die for Joe Biden. They’re willing to kill for Donald Trump. This has to be successful and I’m okay with them not rushing it in order to make sure it is.
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Exactly my hope - all of the undermining of democracy, election overthrowing attempts, and misuse of classified documents after his term are defacto outside of the duties of his office and in fact a violation of his oath of office so I my hope is that he will not be shielded from the consequences of those like the perpetrators of the “part of the job” examples I listed
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And as such, the DOJ probably wants to make sure this is as air-tight of a case as they can make it as well.
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He really needs an expert in money laundering with dubious morals and ethics.
I think I know of one.
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