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GlyphGryph posted:The claim was that it was "clear cut first amendment", not "criminal but practically impossible to prove". I agree on the second, but disagree on the first. So unclear that you're arguing with a completely different poster who did understand what I was saying? You can just admit you misunderstood, because in the full context of the discussion, and considering the posts I was responding to, its clear what I meant and that certain things were said to be rhetorical to make the point, not that I was literally saying "Trump was just exercising his first amendment rights why bully!?" But that it would be obviously the case that his speech falls sufficiently under the rubric of his freedom of speech rights that it would be impossible to prosecute because the bar is incredibly high, which I've said multiple times. Explaining my argument since you misunderstood it, isn't goalpost shifting. e to add: And to be clear, in the context of the "clear cut first amendment rights" post, its in response to The Bible suggesting that Trump committed a clear crime "asking the Russians to hack Hillary's emails" and my point since in my post I asked "Isn't that at a campaign rally?" to setup the tone of what the defence would obviously be. Which I spent the subsequent posts elaborating on. Raenir Salazar fucked around with this message at 16:10 on May 3, 2024 |
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May 3, 2024 16:05
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GlyphGryph posted:The claim was that it was "clear cut first amendment", not "criminal but practically impossible to prove". I agree on the second, but disagree on the first. It was pretty obviously a rhetorical flourish about how it'd be defended by Trump given the context of "he wasn't charged because they couldn't prove he did a crime to the very high standards". The fact of the matter is that the bar is REALLY high and while it's obvious that Trump is guilty circumstantially, 'beyond a reasonable doubt' for the law in question means you need to do more than infer the obvious. Inferring the obvious without gathering the evidence to confirm is always setting yourself up for a huge gently caress-up.
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May 3, 2024 16:22
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Charlz Guybon posted:Trump Media’s accounting firm charged with ‘massive fraud’ BF Borgers Did he go with them because the name reminded him of hamburgers?
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May 3, 2024 18:04
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Charlz Guybon posted:Trump Media’s accounting firm charged with ‘massive fraud’ I wonder if the new audit will be finished prior to Trump being allowed to sell his shares.
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May 3, 2024 18:05
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It is simply incredible that every single business venture and accounting effort is just a neverending loop of fraud. And has been for years.
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May 3, 2024 18:06
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MrMojok posted:It is simply incredible that every single business venture and accounting effort is just a neverending loop of fraud. Reading the article, this is firm wide at the accountant, not just Trump related. Which is probably why they chose them!
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May 3, 2024 18:31
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MrMojok posted:It is simply incredible that every single business venture and accounting effort is just a neverending loop of fraud. Crime Runs Everywhere Around Me C.R.E.A.M lose the money Dollar dollar bill Trump
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May 3, 2024 19:06
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Mark Meadows unmasked in Arizona fake electors indictment, faces 9 felony charges: Reportquote:Charges have formally been made public against Mark Meadows, the onetime chief of staff to former President Donald Trump, in the expansive fake electors case now underway in Arizona.
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May 3, 2024 20:08
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Nervous posted:Reading the article, this is firm wide at the accountant, not just Trump related. Which is probably why they chose them! When you are running a fake social media site to launder money to Trump you don't need a criminal accountant, you need a criminal accountant. They had to do a heavy Mea culpa last year due to blatant errors with their financial statements. It isn't unreasonable to assume that they were hired to 'massage' the numbers so that digital world could meet listing requirements. Honestly, it'd be wierder if they happened to hire the fraud factory by accident.
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May 3, 2024 20:17
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The Bible posted:It was a lot faster for the regular idiots who stormed the Capitol. He had to go to one of his kids' high school graduation, a fate worse than death for him.
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May 3, 2024 20:27
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Raenir Salazar posted:The point as Kchama says, is that this is an extraordinary high bar to clear, and in context of the original argument by The Bible this isn't actually relevant. Just because you think he's guilty, or obviously guilty doesn't mean there's a sensible way of actually arresting him or making the legal process go any faster than it would for anyone else. And that because you need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, and not according to the preponderance of the evidence, because all you have is "probably his intent" it's not enough without other things like an email by him specifically discussing a plan to ask it on TV with the hacker in question while etransfering a payment with a note attached saying "Payment for Crimes". Trump pardoned Roger Stone. Roger Stone is a poo poo head but in this case he could certainly tie Trump to his own illegal behavior. You are arguing that the first amendment protects what Trump said. It does not. Trump, through corrupt use of power and a conspiracy with his long time fraud advisor have obstructed justice in the way that only a president can. It's not a first amendment freeeeeeee speeeeeech issue no matter how hard you try to make it one. Its a criminal conspiracy by the loving president issue.
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May 3, 2024 20:41
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Lammasu posted:He had to go to one of his kids' high school graduation, a fate worse than death for him. There’s a good chance he doesn’t go. Not for nefarious legal reasons. He’s just a poo poo dad.
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May 3, 2024 21:01
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Murgos posted:Trump pardoned Roger Stone. Roger Stone is a poo poo head but in this case he could certainly tie Trump to his own illegal behavior. You're wrong. First, it isn't clear cut criminal incitement, it isn't automatically a crime, and prosecutable, or even likely to succeed on the merits if brought forward; because the defences are obvious. "It was a joke", "I was being rhetorical/metaphorical", etc. Trump is a political candidate doing political candidate things, otherwise you're suggesting that it is possible to criminalize figurative violent language like "We gotta stick to our guns and keep them in our sights and fight them to the end with all we've got to stop them from destroying our country!" The standards are even higher here for a political candidate doing political things because you risk accusations of "political prosecution!" The first amendment doesn't ipso facto protect automatically all speech but it does set a bar, a standard, that prosecution has to meet, or risk it being thrown out on its rear end. Because even if you can prove that Trump has some direct connection, the fact is the FA probably does protect "figurative" language that looks a lot like incitement; and iirc specifically what it doesn't protect the standard is "Is it imminent lawless violence?" like "Kill that red head in front me right now, winner gets 1,000,000$" is probably very illegal and probably would justify some kind of arrest; but Trump has largely been smart enough to not say anything like this. "Release the illegally obtained emails" is not the same ask. 2, I'm not sure what Trump pardoning Roger Stone has to do with the rally in question we're discussing. Why does that matter? It implies some kind of indirect connection, but not enough to probably arrest Trump for his words in the speech. Thirdly, The words themselves aren't a criminal conspiracy. It is maybe evidence of such a conspiracy, but the point the Bible was making/asking was "Why couldn't we arrest Trump for these clearly illegal words?" and while the words are maybe some kind of evidence for said conspiracy, iirc the evidence has never amounted to enough to directly charge Trump for various reasons so that immediately refutes your assertion of a criminal conspiracy that would justify his arrest (because if it were, he'd be arrested for it), they do not by themselves constitute a crime, and fail by basically every metric to meet the standards that would need to be met to even bother with a felony charge.
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May 3, 2024 21:04
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Trump has paid $9,000 fine for gag-order violationquote:Donald Trump has paid his $9,000 fine for violating the gag order in his hush money criminal trial.
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May 3, 2024 23:25
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I really want to know where that $9000 actually came from, and why they needed two separate checks.
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May 3, 2024 23:27
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Accipiter posted:I really want to know where that $9000 actually came from, and why they needed two separate checks. The attorneys probably just covered the cost of the fine with the expectation that they'll just add it to his bill (like they'll ever get paid). Two checks is probably because it came out of two different accounts from the company.
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May 3, 2024 23:32
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Velocity Raptor posted:The attorneys probably just covered the cost of the fine with the expectation that they'll just add it to his bill (like they'll ever get paid). Two checks is probably because it came out of two different accounts from the company. Makes sense. If that's accurate I do enjoy that they're already bleeding because of him less than a month into the thing.
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May 3, 2024 23:39
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He’s obligated to commit a crime in every act he takes, so he couldn’t not do a little structuring even if it wasn’t strictly necessary. Old habits die hard
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May 3, 2024 23:44
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Velocity Raptor posted:The attorneys probably just covered the cost of the fine with the expectation that they'll just add it to his bill (like they'll ever get paid). Two checks is probably because it came out of two different accounts from the company. I think I read previously on this thread that his more competent attorneys are being paid in advance, which is where all of the maga fundraising is going at the moment.
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May 3, 2024 23:45
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OrthoTrot posted:I think I read previously on this thread that his more competent attorneys are being paid in advance, which is where all of the maga fundraising is going at the moment. Yeah, if the attorneys are at all smart they asked for substantial retainer up front. The fine can be paid for from the retainer and then rebilled back to Trump.
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May 4, 2024 00:10
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OrthoTrot posted:... competent attorneys ... I would like to point out that just very a bit upthread, there is a story about how a Trump attorney asked a witness a question, didn't like how the answer is very comprehensive and bad for Trump, and attempted to strike his own question. Maybe these are not the most competent attorneys.
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May 4, 2024 02:04
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Look, more competent doesn't necessarily mean good, just better than the rest.
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May 4, 2024 03:04
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Main Paineframe posted:Sure, but that's not illegal. I'm pretty sure explicitly asking a foreign power to commit something recognized by US law as an act of war against the US is, in fact, probably some manner of crime.
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May 4, 2024 03:49
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I honestly wonder if these tiny fines don't do more damage to him personally, as in to his ego, because they aren't the bigliest fines ever deserved of by his magnanimous self, and he can't even campaign off them. "Psh, fines for a commoner!! How dare they!" Then again he keeps posting poo poo so clearly they're not effective in that regard.
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May 4, 2024 04:24
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The thing is that it's not a crime if you publicly announce "someone should do X". Even if someone does go ahead and do X and says they did it because you said to, that's legally not your fault (under current First Amendment law and precedents) unless the prosecution can prove that there was a very high and reasonably foreseeable chance that someone would do that thing immediately, and also that you intentionally made that announcement with that specific intention in mind. "Trump said Russian hackers should steal Hillary's emails, and then the next day Russian hackers stole Hillary's emails" is not, by itself, enough evidence to hold him responsible under Brandenburg. The prosecution would also have to prove that it was reasonably foreseeable that Russian hackers would watch a Trump campaign event and then go commit crimes because he said they should. And the bar for that is pretty high. Brandenburg can be a real pain at times like this, but it's also protects a number of protest leaders and orgs from being held responsible for crimes that individuals committed during protests. I don't think that "the government needs a bunch of solid evidence before prosecuting someone for terrorism or conspiracy or whatever, rather than just prosecuting them based on public statements alone" is a bad standard to set, even if it means you have to wait a couple of years for the conspiracy to be properly and thoroughly investigated. Since it seems like this conversation's wandering a bit away from where it originally started, it's probably good to remind people of the context here. I'm not saying Trump can't be prosecuted for coordinating with Russian hackers to hack his political opponent for material to be used for his political benefit. I'm saying that the government needed to find solid evidence of Trump or his associates coordinating with Russia, something that would require an actual investigation and thus take actual time. They can't prosecute solely based on him saying "Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing".
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May 4, 2024 04:35
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RoboChrist 9000 posted:I'm pretty sure explicitly asking a foreign power to commit something recognized by US law as an act of war against the US is, in fact, probably some manner of crime. The problem is that it isn't, really. In the lead up to the 2008 financial collapse banks engaged in all sorts of poo poo that offends the conscience. They sold deals they knew to be bad, misrated products and blatantly foreclosed on houses that they had no right to in the aftermath. But if any of that was illegal, it never shook out from the stuff that was merely immoral. There were civil cases here and there but when it came to criminal fraud charges you saw nothing because as it turns out selling billions in uncollatoralizrd CDS' isn't actually a crime. Even when it feels like it really should be. One thing that is insanely true of Trump is that most of what he doesn't isnt illegal, because huge chunks of things we intuit as illegal either aren't, or have no enforcement mechanism. The president (or a supremet Court Justice?) taking bribes? That feels like you should go to jail. But structured right, our system has no real answer for it. It is normitively unacceptable, but so was crossing the Rubicon. He shouldn't ask a foreign power to hack his rival, but or legal system doesn't have a meaningful answer for it. Hell, even when things are illegal, that doesn't necessarily mean anything. The emoluments clause is right there in the constitution, but because there is no meaningful enforcement mechanism it might as well not exist. This isn't even just a rich person thing either. My local jurisdiction had a ponzi scheme blow up back in 2022. The wind down of a half billion dollar fraud ended up being a 100,000 fine and a 20 year ban for selling financial products for a pair of women whose underlying charged crime was selling financial products without any authorization to do so. If you go after trump for inciting on Jan 6th, you will lose. Even though he blatantly said it, even though he obviously wanted it to happen. Even though he didn't do poo poo to stop. It. Because while it is gross and feels like it should be a crime, it isn't. Even if you got a jury to convict, it would get tossed on appeal. As it turns out, our law actually sort of sucks at punishing things more complicated than violent acts or drug offenses. Caros fucked around with this message at 07:17 on May 4, 2024 |
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May 4, 2024 07:12
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Mercury_Storm posted:I honestly wonder if these tiny fines don't do more damage to him personally, as in to his ego, because they aren't the bigliest fines ever deserved of by his magnanimous self, and he can't even campaign off them. Well, he got the rich guy equivalent of big boy fines with the Defamation case against Jean Carroll (and the super bigger fine for repeating it.) And that didn't stop him from posting. Whether he is more outraged/gets more milage with his base out of the Million Dollar civil judgment over the €1,000 fine is a different question.
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May 4, 2024 09:16
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Scorched Spitz posted:Look, more competent doesn't necessarily mean good, just better than the rest. Yeahs, I mean, that's my point. Legal Eagle has a good video on the tier list of Trump lawyers. From "actual lawyer" all the way down to whatever Giuliani and Habba count as.
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May 4, 2024 12:32
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Deteriorata posted:Mark Meadows unmasked in Arizona fake electors indictment, faces 9 felony charges: Report So why is Trump still unindicted? Was he smarter about avoiding the creation of evidence than these other people? Could that even be possible?
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May 4, 2024 13:47
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Subjunctive posted:So why is Trump still unindicted? Was he smarter about avoiding the creation of evidence than these other people? Could that even be possible? Waiting until they can get someone bigger to flip on him. Like mark meadows. Again.
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May 4, 2024 13:53
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FizFashizzle posted:Waiting until they can get someone bigger to flip on him. So they’re aiming for what, 6’6”, 245?
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May 4, 2024 14:00
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Subjunctive posted:So why is Trump still unindicted? Was he smarter about avoiding the creation of evidence than these other people? Could that even be possible? It's a matter of just how involved he was, whether it rises to the level of criminality, and how much evidence they have of it.
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May 4, 2024 14:11
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Subjunctive posted:So they’re aiming for what, 6’6”, 245? My god is that matty squids music!?
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May 4, 2024 14:13
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OrthoTrot posted:...all the way down to whatever Giuliani and Habba count as. Their very clearly in the "bad enough at practising law they're likely to end up in jail" tier. There were more than a few of them in that tier.
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May 4, 2024 14:25
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Somewhat off tangent, but I wonder what Trump supporters think he would do differently with regards to Russia, Ukraine, Gaza, Isreal, Iran, campus protests, etc. because it's all a real clusterfuck with no real clear cut solution to my eyes. Do they even know? Or is it just "I would fix it on DAY ONE - signed, DJT" and that's good enough for them? Obviously, Joe Biden has no answers either, is in way over his head and has a head full of mud so I'm not even saying the approach would altogether be worse, but has Trump even said what his would be and how it would be different?
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May 4, 2024 17:17
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BiggerBoat posted:Somewhat off tangent, but I wonder what Trump supporters think he would do differently with regards to Russia, Ukraine, Gaza, Isreal, Iran, campus protests, etc. because it's all a real clusterfuck with no real clear cut solution to my eyes. Do they even know? Or is it just "I would fix it on DAY ONE - signed, DJT" and that's good enough for them? Obviously, Joe Biden has no answers either, is in way over his head and has a head full of mud so I'm not even saying the approach would altogether be worse, but has Trump even said what his would be and how it would be different? It’s fascism. Their preferred solution is the same one that Tacitus described the Romans using : they make a wasteland and call it peace. They don’t want the problems solved in a constructive manner, they want everyone punished for daring to be not be in line with their worldview. Also this has gently caress all to do with Trump’s legal troubles.
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May 4, 2024 17:24
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BiggerBoat posted:Somewhat off tangent, but I wonder what Trump supporters think he would do differently with regards to Russia, Ukraine, Gaza, Isreal, Iran, campus protests, etc. because it's all a real clusterfuck with no real clear cut solution to my eyes. Do they even know? Or is it just "I would fix it on DAY ONE - signed, DJT" and that's good enough for them? Obviously, Joe Biden has no answers either, is in way over his head and has a head full of mud so I'm not even saying the approach would altogether be worse, but has Trump even said what his would be and how it would be different? What does any of that have to do with Trump's legal troubles?
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May 4, 2024 17:24
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BiggerBoat posted:Somewhat off tangent, but I wonder what Trump supporters think he would do differently with regards to Russia, Ukraine, Gaza, Isreal, Iran, campus protests, etc. because it's all a real clusterfuck with no real clear cut solution to my eyes. Do they even know? Or is it just "I would fix it on DAY ONE - signed, DJT" and that's good enough for them? Obviously, Joe Biden has no answers either, is in way over his head and has a head full of mud so I'm not even saying the approach would altogether be worse, but has Trump even said what his would be and how it would be different? You know how outside of Trumpist circles you sometimes see people complaining about how some complex policy or messaging problem hasn't been solved because feckless Dems allow it to be that way or whatever, and when you ask what they should do they say "I don't know but those big brained politics guys should and if they're not doing it it's because they don't want to?" Now imagine that except you're sure you know a big brained politics guy that's not afraid do it. That's it, that's the only difference.
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May 4, 2024 17:48
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RoboChrist 9000 posted:I'm pretty sure explicitly asking a foreign power to commit something recognized by US law as an act of war against the US is, in fact, probably some manner of crime.
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May 4, 2024 18:24
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Raenir Salazar posted:
There was an investigation into the conspiracy. Trump committed 10 counts of extremely well documented obstruction of justice which should reasonably allow anyone to draw the appropriate inference that Trump was hiding the details of the conspiracy. It’s not a first amendment speech issue no matter how much you want to ignore everything that happened. Trumps son is documented as asking for Russias help with Russian agents and somehow that didn’t result in a conspiracy charge. You can carry Trumps water but that bucket has holes in it big enough that they should have resulted in impeachment, charges, trial and imprisonment in any law based society. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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May 4, 2024 18:45
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