Me too, but have little optimism that, irrespective of any amount of pressure, the Dems will take strong action - or any action - to bolster any defences against future assaults
Yet he will find a way. And even if the bill IS paid, he won’t pay it. Grifting for funds from his devoted rubes will be how it gets paid.
Trump won’t pay for Dearie’s time, but he will pay for Dearie’s deputy.
As a United States District Judge in active service, the undersigned will seek no additional compensation for performing the duties of Special Master in this action. The undersigned proposes that Judge Orenstein be compensated at the hourly rate of $500. The undersigned further proposes that the Special Master will provide the parties with monthly invoices, starting on October 1, 2022, setting forth the hours worked and expenses to be reimbursed.
One of my favourite jokes goes as follows: a Superintendent enters the Police Station and is greeted by a Sergeant.
Sergeant, “Morning, Super’!”
Superintendent, “Hello, gorgeous!”
I’m trying to imagine the reaction if any Democrat made similar arguments.
Fixed that for ya
By all means, DON’T UPSET THE FASCISTS!
Yes, because they absolutely won’t set their own precedent the first chance they get.
Also, not setting a precedent is also giving more tools to the fascists.
Why can’t people realise that the fascists don’t give a fuck? They will do their atrocities with or without our support.
As I understand it, Dearie has asked Trump’s lawyers to specify which of the documents allegedly found at Mar-a-Lago were planted by law enforcement, and so far the only answer has been *crickets*.
In order to understand how the system treats the right versus how it treats the left, compare the fates of Kyle Rittenhouse and Michael Reinoehl
They don’t need our help. They have been screaming to arrest Hillary, Obama, Biden, etc, etc, etc. Given they power to do so, I am not willing to bet they will not carry through. And having actual crimes will not matter. When the Nazis are in charge, they never do.
This is fun to watch but I thought the special master’s remit was just to separate the possible attorney-client stuff from the non-attorney-client stuff?
This is part of the procedural mess Trump has created. In this case with the special master, he is the plaintiff in a civil suit against the United States. This is not (at this point, in this proceeding) a case about the government proving criminal guilt. It’s a civil case where plaintiff Trump has the burden of proving that he is entitled to the relief requested. This is not a thing that happens with normal criminal investigations.
Anyway, that’s why the special master effectively said, “Put up or shut up” by ordering Trump to file, among other things,
A list of any specific items set forth in the Detailed Property Inventory that Plaintiff asserts were not seized from the Premises on August 8.
i.e., anything he claims was “planted” if he or his lawyers actually want to make that claim in court and support it with any evidence. He’s said it, or suggested it, in the media, but he (and his lawyers who are supposedly bound by our ethical rules not to lie to the court) haven’t presented any evidence or even made that claim in the lawsuit he chose to file. If he actually wants to make that claim in court, in the civil suit he filed, then the burden of proof really is on him.
I was with you until here.
Rule of law has to matter. Fascism puts some people above the law, and rule of law helps protect us from fascism. Not prosecuting former leaders for war crimes and treason is a big part of how the US got into this mess.
Not living by our principles because of some vague worry about what fascists might do in the future is never the right move. Fascists are going to attempt terrible things regardless. We must live justly by our principles no matter what, or all is lost.
After the NY AG is done with him the DOJ and Espionage problems will land him in House Arrest at one of his LUXURIOUS BEST EVER PROPERTIES with rules around no public speaking or appearances and that trips between whatever is left of his golf empire require court sign off.
He will then fly without permission between two and force a slap on the wrist.
Sure. Let’s let him get away with breaking the same law that would get you a life sentence. Makes totes sense… /s
Ask any punk from the 80s what happens when you let fascists run wild as opposed to standing up to them and ensuring consequences for their behavior…
It will no longer exist if he gets away with it. Nixon SHOULD have been prosecuted, but that asshole Ford pardoned him.
Would he though? I mean, he just had a kinder veneer, but lets not forget that he also gutted public institutions and political norms, cut taxes left and right, employed racist dog whistles, aligned with the religious right against women and the LGBQT+ community, and let a pandemic run rampant because he believed it was killing the “right” people. He was an awful president who did shitty things. May he rot in hell.
No matter what we do, they will continue to come after all of us who do not think like them. They are not interested in compromise, but in the destruction of all of us who aren’t them. They WANT piles of dead bodies, not a peaceful society where we can all get along, despite our differences.
I imagine you would agree that there are some things that you would be ok with jailing a former leader for. If, for example, Trump really did murder someone on 5th Avenue in broad daylight, I hope you would be ok with putting him in prison for that. So you need to reframe your statement. It’s not jailing Trump that’s the problem you have. It’s what he might be jailed for. Here’s my opinion. If all he did was take these documents and keep them at Mar-a-Lago because he’s a narcissist and that made him feel important, and he didn’t give copies to anyone else or sell them to the Russians or let any foreign agents look at them, then I think a hefty fine with no jail time would be something I could live with. If, on the other hand, it turns out that he did share classified information with foreign agents, or tried to, then he needs to go to jail. And yes, if he gets charged with something like that, at that point the burden will be on the government to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. In this case, however, as @FlyerJack correctly points out, this is a civil case and Trump is the plaintiff. The burden is on him to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that some of these documents belong to him. So far, the government has provided prima facie evidence that they belong to the government and Trump has provided zero evidence of anything. Trump and his lawyers are making plenty of claims on NewsMax and FoxNews, but they have not brought any of those claims to court, and Dearie is telling them to knock it off, in a legal way.
I hate to say it, but I don’t think our justice system works that way. Not with the rich and powerful.
45 dodged two impeachments that he should have been removed from office for. His campaign demonstratably DID coordinate with Russian Intelligence to illegally discredit his opponent. He did intimidate and threaten a foreign head of state to help him create negative PR about his upcoming opponent. And he’s fattened his own pocket, and those of his family and friends, illegally, by leveraging his position to benefit his own businesses.
Those injustices build up. When you can nail him cold on something else, you nail him to the fucking wall. Just like they did to Capone.
I would love to see Trump rot in jail. I’m just not seeing a case that could result in that so far, realistically. Now, if the DOJ is sitting on evidence that Trump shopped these documents around, then that would change my assessment. I understand you want him punished for the sum total of all the shit he’s done over the years. I do, too. But this isn’t 1931 and Trump isn’t a 32 year old syphilitic mobster who had literally killed people with his own hands (or a bat, to get technical). Some of the reports I’ve seen that Trump could technically get 1,000 years or whatever are nonsense. Again, unless DOJ is sitting on something they haven’t revealed yet, Trump is looking at an absolute maximum of 5 years. Sure, that would keep him from running for President again, and I’m all for it, but I’m not holding my breath waiting for that to happen, because I don’t think it will.
There are lawyers citing laws that it’s 10 years per document. Even if that’s just the SCI documents, it’s longer than he has left. And there are exacerbating circumstances. He didn’t just have the documents in his possession (for your 5 years). He was told to return them and refused, then swore he returned all of them, and he lied about it. He moved documents to keep them from NARA. That all should add to the sentence. And no one who violates the Espionage Act should be eligible to run for any office, anywhere, much less the presidency.
Again, if any one of us were found to possess one page of any of these documents, we’d be in jail for all or most of our lives. Where is Reality Winner? Where is Chelsea Manning? Where is Snowden? And those were all whistleblowers who had those documents to show the public that some facet of the government was breaking laws. 45 just had them, AT BEST, for selfish reasons. I fundamentally disagree with your assessment. The only way the law can be served is for Trump to get serious prison time. That’s NOT wishful thinking. That’s justice.
The precedent that leaders can commit serious crimes without facing jail doesn’t give more tools to the fascists?
