TRUMP 1460: HAVE A GOOD LIFE, WE WILL SEE YOU SOON!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > TRUMP 1460: HAVE A GOOD LIFE, WE WILL SEE YOU SOON!

TASER BALLS This poll is closed.
TASER BALLS	420	85.89%
TASER BALLS	69	14.11%
Total:	489 votes

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tacodaemon: Nov 27, 2006

Schnorkles posted:

if you want to go through gin fast shove the bottle up your rear end you loving alcoholic

tacodaemon posted:

another thing about Canada is I was once in this Stag Shop in downtown Toronto and they had the biggest silicone replica human forearms to stick up your rear end I had ever seen

# ? Dec 4, 2020 03:07

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Jun 12, 2024 15:11

Bert Roberge: Nov 28, 2003

Vim Fuego posted:

# ? Dec 4, 2020 03:08

Buddykins: Feb 12, 2011; stu pid FUCK asshole shit gizzard

Bert Roberge posted:

# ? Dec 4, 2020 03:08

Mokelumne Trekka: Nov 22, 2015; Soon.

tacodaemon posted:

Trump Associates Said to Have Been Scrutinized in Suspected Pardon Scheme

A billionaire from San Francisco sought clemency for a psychologist convicted of monetary crimes. The Republican donor Elliott Broidy and a lawyer for Jared Kushner were enlisted.

By Michael S. Schmidt, Kenneth P. Vogel, Katie Benner and Adam Goldman

Dec. 3, 2020, 8:34 p.m. ET

The Justice Department investigated as recently as this past summer the roles of a top fund-raiser for President Trump and a lawyer for his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, in a suspected scheme to offer a bribe in exchange for clemency for a tax crimes convict, according to two people familiar with the inquiry.

A federal judge in Washington unsealed heavily redacted court documents on Tuesday that disclosed the existence of the investigation into possible unregistered lobbying and bribery. The people said it concerned efforts by the lawyer for Mr. Kushner, Abbe Lowell, and the fund-raiser, Elliott Broidy, who pleaded guilty in October to a charge related to a different scheme to lobby the Trump administration.

A billionaire San Francisco real estate developer, Sanford Diller, enlisted their help in securing clemency for a Berkeley psychologist, Hugh L. Baras, who had received a 30-month prison sentence on a conviction of tax evasion and improperly claiming Social Security benefits, according to the filing and the people familiar with the case. Under the suspected scheme, Mr. Diller would make �a substantial political contribution� to an unspecified recipient in exchange for the pardon. He died in February 2018, and there is no evidence that the effort continued after his death.

As part of the effort, someone approached the White House Counsel�s Office to �ensure� that the �clemency petition reached the targeted officials,� according to the court documents. They did not say who made the contact or how the White House responded.

Mr. Baras did not receive clemency.

No bribe was paid, said Reid H. Weingarten, a friend of and lawyer for Mr. Lowell who confirmed his client had represented Mr. Baras in his unsuccessful efforts to avoid incarceration. Mr. Baras went to prison in June 2017 and was released in August 2019.

No one has been charged in the inquiry. No government officials are �currently a subject or target of the investigation disclosed in this filing,� a Justice Department official said. This summer, investigators sought communications related to the scheme to �confront� the people they were scrutinizing, the court documents showed.

A White House spokesman did not return an email seeking comment, and a Justice Department spokesman declined to comment. Mr. Trump tweeted earlier that the investigation was �fake news.�

Mr. Weingarten said he spoke to department officials who left him �with the impression they had absolutely no concerns with Mr. Lowell�s conduct.�

�This is much ado about precious little,� Mr. Weingarten added. �They investigated and concluded that nothing was amiss. In addition, prosecutors did not have the slightest issue with Abbe.�

A spokesman for Mr. Broidy did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Marc J. Zilversmit, a lawyer who represented Mr. Baras at trial and in appeals, said he was not Mr. Baras�s lawyer �for the purposes of a pardon� but otherwise declined to comment.

The people familiar with the case spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss it.

The scheme outlined by prosecutors underscores the transactional nature of Mr. Trump�s term, where people leveraged connections to him or framed their causes in terms of his personal or political benefit to influence his decisions.

Mr. Trump has wielded his clemency powers to aid people with personal or political connections to him. He commuted the sentence of Roger J. Stone Jr., his longtime friend and adviser convicted of charges brought by the special counsel, and he pardoned the pro-Trump conservative commentator Dinesh D�Souza and the former Wall Street executive Michael Milken.

And last week, Mr. Trump pardoned his former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn, kicking off what is expected to be a wave of pardons as Mr. Trump�s presidency ends.

Presidents have unchecked authority over clemency, and there is a history of donors or their family members getting pardons. No law bars people from lobbying for pardons, nor is it necessarily illegal to give a donation to a president after receiving a pardon. But bribery laws prohibit explicitly predicating donations or other gifts of value to the granting of a pardon.

Prosecutors contended in the court papers that because the participants in the effort did not register as lobbyists, it could violate both lobbying laws and bribery laws.

The filings unsealed this week by Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, set off a flurry of intense speculation in Washington and theories involving high-profile convicts.

But the case relates to the conviction of Mr. Baras, 77, who was sentenced in 2014 and ordered to pay restitution of about $594,000 for tax evasion and illegally claiming disability insurance benefits to which he was not entitled from the Social Security Administration.

Mr. Baras fought the conviction for years, suing to vacate, set aside or reduce his sentence. His lawyer sought to appeal up to the Supreme Court, arguing Mr. Baras was deprived of a fair trial partly because the court declined to allow him to present evidence that he made an effort to pay his back taxes and to pay back the improperly received disability benefits. The Supreme Court declined to take the case and Mr. Baras reported to prison in June 2017.

At some point during his fight, Mr. Diller took up his cause. He spoke of Mr. Baras having helped him in some way and he felt obliged to return the favor, according to one of Mr. Diller�s sons, Bradley Diller.

�This was his thing,� Bradley Diller said. �I don�t know what the history of his relationship with Hugh Baras was, why he felt this kind of personal obligation, but he was making a kind of huge effort to help out this person.�

While Sanford Diller had trained as a lawyer, he was not practicing and did not appear in court filings as working on Mr. Baras�s behalf.

Bradley Diller said that he did not know about his father�s relationship with Mr. Broidy or Mr. Lowell, and that his father never discussed enlisting their help � or anyone�s � in trying to obtain a pardon for Mr. Baras.

�I doubt my father would do something like that,� he said, adding that, based on their discussions, he believed his father �was just trying to help him on the up and up through legal means.�

Sanford Diller knew Mr. Broidy through Republican Jewish donor circles, according to a person familiar with their relationship. Both donated to conservative and hawkish foreign policy groups, including the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

While Mr. Diller gave $133,400 to Republican Party committees in 2016, there is no record of a donation from him to Mr. Trump�s campaign. With the exception of $23,400 in donations to Republican Senate candidates in 2014, Mr. Diller did not have a lengthy track record of Republican giving before that.

Mr. Broidy, a California businessman who owns a defense contracting firm based in Virginia, had helped raise money for Mr. Trump�s 2016 campaign, and after the election, he became a top fund-raising official for Mr. Trump�s inauguration and the Republican National Committee, as well as a member of Mr. Trump�s private South Florida club, Mar-a-Lago.

Mr. Broidy marketed his access to Mr. Trump to potential business partners and others seeking favor from the administration, including foreign governments and interests in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Europe.

It is not clear how Mr. Lowell became involved. He was well-known for his ties to Mr. Kushner.

Mr. Weingarten said the events took place in 2017. He played down the potential bribery scheme, saying that Mr. Lowell�s role �was simply as a routine lawyer who advocated on behalf of his client unsuccessfully.�

Mr. Weingarten said that he believed the allegations came to light after federal investigators examined an array of Mr. Broidy�s communications.

Judge Howell said in her order that emails �indicating additional criminal activity� among the people involved in the pardon issue were discovered while investigators examined over 50 devices � including iPhones, iPads, laptops, thumb drives and hard drives � that were seized in a separate investigation.

Mr. Broidy�s efforts to influence to influence the administration had become the subject of federal investigations by the summer of 2018.

He had resigned that April as deputy finance chairman of the Republican National Committee after the revelation that he had agreed to pay $1.6 million to a former Playboy model who became pregnant during an affair.

Mr. Broidy pleaded guilty in October to conspiring to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act as part of a covert campaign to influence the Trump administration on behalf of Chinese and Malaysian interests.

Mr. Broidy, 63, agreed to forfeit $6.6 million to the federal government and to cooperate with prosecutors on a range of potential investigations related to his fellow conspirators and others.

Mr. Lowell, one of the most high-profile defense lawyers in Washington, had represented one of Mr. Broidy�s co-conspirators in the case. He was also the counsel for House Democrats during the Clinton impeachment and in 2018, he helped Senator Bob Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, beat federal corruption charges.

Shortly after Mr. Trump became president, Mr. Lowell began representing Mr. Kushner, a senior White House adviser to his father-in-law who faced legal issues related to his security clearance and the Russia investigation.

The court filings were made public as a result of a decision by Judge Howell to grant prosecutors access to emails to investigate the scheme. She ruled that based on a small selection she had seen, she did not believe the emails were covered by attorney-client privilege.

I read and analyzed this for hours, and my conclusion is that the cheeto man is likely bad

# ? Dec 4, 2020 03:08

sullat: Jan 9, 2012

Salt Fish posted:

Wait I though it was a trilogy.

Probably but the subject of the book was unable to pull off a win. SAD!

# ? Dec 4, 2020 03:09

WrasslorMonkey: Mar 5, 2012

smarxist posted:

iirc you need to use arrows

# ? Dec 4, 2020 03:09

Buddykins: Feb 12, 2011; stu pid FUCK asshole shit gizzard

orange man.....bad?

# ? Dec 4, 2020 03:10

Salt Fish: Sep 11, 2003; Cybernetic Crumb

sullat posted:

Probably but the subject of the book was unable to pull off a win. SAD!

Thats for the courts to decide!

# ? Dec 4, 2020 03:10

snoo: Jul 5, 2007

UFOTacoMan posted:

snoo my kid told me today that rats laugh.
It's quiet laugh.

mine just scream

# ? Dec 4, 2020 03:11

Foo Diddley: Oct 29, 2011; cat

Louisgod posted:

have a feeling the biden admin is going to be indistinguishable from the trump admin re: ~~covid response~~ everything

# ? Dec 4, 2020 03:11

Good Soldier Svejk: Jul 5, 2010

Schnorkles posted:

if you want to go through gin fast shove the bottle up your rear end you loving alcoholic

I'm not trying to step on ginshitters gimmick

# ? Dec 4, 2020 03:12

KaptainKrunk: Feb 6, 2006

biden admin's strategy is literally do nothing until everyone is infected or vaccinated and then claim a great victory

# ? Dec 4, 2020 03:13

Squizzle: Apr 24, 2008

snoo posted:

mine just scream

same w yr fav mods!!

# ? Dec 4, 2020 03:13

WrasslorMonkey: Mar 5, 2012

snoo posted:

mine just scream

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-84UJpYFRM

# ? Dec 4, 2020 03:13

twoday: May 4, 2005; C-SPAM Times best-selling author

Foo Diddley posted:

also how much you askin' for this book? $100? 2?

it is 30 for a normal one and I believe 200 for a hand bound leather cover version with gold-embossed trump face cover

# ? Dec 4, 2020 03:14

magiccarpet: Jan 3, 2005

# ? Dec 4, 2020 03:14

Chris James 2: Aug 9, 2012

Louisgod posted:

have a feeling the biden admin is going to be indistinguishable from the trump admin re: everything except not going through with war teases

# ? Dec 4, 2020 03:14

Good Soldier Svejk: Jul 5, 2010

magiccarpet posted:

Oh poo poo are they bringing Sifl and Olly back

# ? Dec 4, 2020 03:15

Burkion: May 10, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

Aglet56 posted:

trump couldn't match Reagan's evil if he worked 25 hours a day

That's because Reagan had a very competent team.

Never underestimate how incompetence hinders desire. Trump has it in him to be the worst of the worst, he just sucks too much to see it through. He's a loser

# ? Dec 4, 2020 03:15

Buddykins: Feb 12, 2011; stu pid FUCK asshole shit gizzard

biden just loving blows, ok?

# ? Dec 4, 2020 03:15

2DCAT: Jun 25, 2015; pissssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss ssssssss sssssssssssssssssss sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss ssssss ssssssssssssssssssssssssssss sssssssssssssss; Gravy Boat 2k

Bert Roberge posted:

# ? Dec 4, 2020 03:16

CredulousAtBest: Oct 4, 2020; My name is CredulousAtBest. Glenn Greenwald constantly owning me has resulted in my prodromal schizophrenia, so please be polite when you deal with psychotic breaks and kindly nod to my unintelligible tripe.

twoday posted:

it is 30 for a normal one and I believe 200 for a hand bound leather cover version with gold-embossed trump face cover

A steal that will make visitors WTF forever

# ? Dec 4, 2020 03:16

RealityWarCriminal: Aug 10, 2016

dont blame me, i voted trump

# ? Dec 4, 2020 03:17

Glimm: Jul 27, 2005; Time is only gonna pass you by

Louisgod posted:

have a feeling the biden admin is going to be indistinguishable from the trump admin re: covid response

eh they'll probably actually help coordinate things between states like vaccine distribution which trump has already said he doesn't give a poo poo about

does anyone remember states bidding against one another for ventillators? lmao good times

# ? Dec 4, 2020 03:19

Plastic Megaphone: Aug 11, 2007; No more credit from the liquor store.

sesame street christmas specials have changed since 1978's Christmas Eve on Sesame Street

# ? Dec 4, 2020 03:19

magiccarpet: Jan 3, 2005

Glimm posted:

eh they'll probably actually help coordinate things between states like vaccine distribution which trump has already said he doesn't give a poo poo about

does anyone remember states bidding against one another for ventillators? lmao good times

they are still planning to do distribution through cvs and walgreens so good luck with that diamond joe

# ? Dec 4, 2020 03:21

twoday: May 4, 2005; C-SPAM Times best-selling author

Reality Protester posted:

dont blame me, i voted avenatti

# ? Dec 4, 2020 03:22

Foo Diddley: Oct 29, 2011; cat

twoday posted:

it is 30 for a normal one and I believe 200 for a hand bound leather cover version with gold-embossed trump face cover

ooooooo, leather one for me and a normal one for everyone i know who might like a copy

i'll eat ramen for a bit it's nbd

# ? Dec 4, 2020 03:24

Squizzle: Apr 24, 2008

wtf convinced the algorithm to recommend this to me

# ? Dec 4, 2020 03:24

Glimm: Jul 27, 2005; Time is only gonna pass you by

magiccarpet posted:

they are still planning to do distribution through cvs and walgreens so good luck with that diamond joe

i suppose that's better than making Alabama outbid Texas for doses

# ? Dec 4, 2020 03:25

Hadlock: Nov 9, 2004

tacodaemon posted:

another thing about Canada is I was once in this Stag Shop in downtown Toronto and they had the biggest silicone replica human forearms to stick up your rear end I had ever seen

Just wanted to call out that you specified that these are silicone replica human forearms, as if that needed clarification

# ? Dec 4, 2020 03:27

twoday: May 4, 2005; C-SPAM Times best-selling author

Foo Diddley posted:

ooooooo, leather one for me and a normal one for everyone i know who might like a copy

i'll eat ramen for a bit it's nbd

Follow the book of c spam thread and I'll get you what you want in due time but I guess I should focus more on the production than the logistics right now

# ? Dec 4, 2020 03:27

An Apple A Gay: Oct 21, 2008

bustin bustin bustin bustin

# ? Dec 4, 2020 03:28

platzapS: Aug 4, 2007

neutral milf hotel posted:

one of Biden's kids was 13 months old when she died in a tragic car accident

yeah that's a riot there. good jokes man

lmao his poison womb is making heaven too fuckin crowded

# ? Dec 4, 2020 03:28

Vox Nihili: May 28, 2008

Goth Odell Beckham posted:

loving owned

# ? Dec 4, 2020 03:28

Next-Gen: Sep 22, 2004; Ted Nugent is the next generation in Joint Combat soldiers

hello i presdent???

# ? Dec 4, 2020 03:28

DAD LOST MY IPOD: Feb 3, 2012; Fats Dominar is on the case

tacodaemon posted:

another thing about Canada is I was once in this Stag Shop in downtown Toronto and they had the biggest silicone replica human forearms to stick up your rear end I had ever seen

do they sell silicon replica human asses for me to stick my forearm up

# ? Dec 4, 2020 03:29