Trump Indicted. To be Arrested in Days.

[It Aint Necessarily So]

The Democrats have generally been way too soft on the Republicans - except for Trump, for whatever reason. They were way, waaaay too soft on Bush. With the WMD mendacity, Abu Ghraib, and Gitmo, they could have thrown the book at him and thrown away the key.

Agreed, which is likely why Trump felt that he could crime with impunity. This is why the J6 convictions are so important now when MAGA presumably sees all of this as unjust.

Will never happen.

It already has, and it will be happening again and again.

Trump is above the law.

Maybe. Let's find out what America is made of. Let's see if it has the resolve to defend its stated principles - whether those principles mean anything in America.

the modern day template is more along "guilty until proven innocent" if the postings here are any indication of it in the court of public opinion.

They're quicker at reaching a verdict. Regarding Stormy Daniels, I can't comment on his guilt. But how much more evidence do we need to call Trump guilty of inciting an insurrection, attempting to illegally overturn the results of an election, election tampering, and stealing state secrets? Guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty. You might like to see him walk for all of that, but you already know he's guilty like everybody else who is aware of that evidence.

It’s political

It's a criminal investigation of a politician. That doesn't make it political.

sets a precedent

Long overdue. Hopefully, convictions will follow and set another precedent - a president held accountable for flouting the law.

The Biden crime family will be next!

Now THAT comment is political, and I have little doubt that if the Republicans get the opportunity to exact revenge, they will. It characterizes them psychologically. Isn't that what all of this political theater in the House is - committees that it is hoped will vex and embarrass Democrats? They have no hope of getting any legislation passed, which must be frustrating if you consider yourself a legislator, so they just have to settle for being investigators, which is a trivial function of Congress and not its purpose.

I watched a documentary last night - Nixon in his own words. Like Trump, he was characterized by a need to punish perceived enemies, He wanted the press persecuted. Reagan and Bush also broke the law, but they were not personality disorder cases like Nixon and Trump. If only Nixon had been successfully prosecuted. America failed there.

The only people who colluded with Russians was the DNC paying for a fake Dossier “used” by Russian intel to create division. You got played!

Yet it's Trump and much of his orbit that is in the crosshairs.

Porn actress Stormy Daniels purportedly met with Trump 3 times and had sex once. It was consensual. She wanted to be on the Apprentice but that never happened. She tried to sell her story for $15,000 dollars but after purported threats decided not to. Then she denied that she had sex with Trump. When Trump ran for office the issue resurfaced. Her attorney and Trumps agreed on a payment of $150,000 for not disclosing the claim.

Who got played? She got the bucks and Trump got indicted.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Opinion | Trump Seems to Be the Victim of a Witch Hunt. So What?

It’s hard to believe prosecutors would bring this case against anyone else. But that doesn’t mean they’re wrong.

www.politico.com

You might like this one.

It was interesting to a degree, but I'm unconvinced by it in terms of whether Trump 'should' be charged. I can accept that he has been. I remain unconvinced that is good, for all that I have wanted Trump to go away from the moment he appeared even slightly likely to win Republican nomination. The man is bad for the USA (imho) and unfortunately what impacts on the US has some smaller impact on the rest of us.

 

[Colt]

Agreed, which is likely why Trump felt that he could crime with impunity. This is why the J6 convictions are so important now when MAGA presumably sees all of this as unjust.

It already has, and it will be happening again and again.

Maybe. Let's find out what America is made of. Let's see if it has the resolve to defend its stated principles - whether those principles mean anything in America.

They're quicker at reaching a verdict. Regarding Stormy Daniels, I can't comment on his guilt. But how much more evidence do we need to call Trump guilty of inciting an insurrection, attempting to illegally overturn the results of an election, election tampering, and stealing state secrets? Guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty. You might like to see him walk for all of that, but you already know he's guilty like everybody else who is aware of that evidence.

It's a criminal investigation of a politician. That doesn't make it political.

Long overdue. Hopefully, convictions will follow and set another precedent - a president held accountable for flouting the law.

Now THAT comment is political, and I have little doubt that if the Republicans get the opportunity to exact revenge, they will. It characterizes them psychologically. Isn't that what all of this political theater in the House is - committees that it is hoped will vex and embarrass Democrats? They have no hope of getting any legislation passed, which must be frustrating if you consider yourself a legislator, so they just have to settle for being investigators, which is a trivial function of Congress and not its purpose.

I watched a documentary last night - Nixon in his own words. Like Trump, he was characterized by a need to punish perceived enemies, He wanted the press persecuted. Reagan and Bush also broke the law, but they were not personality disorder cases like Nixon and Trump. If only Nixon had been successfully prosecuted. America failed there.

Yet it's Trump and much of his orbit that is in the crosshairs.

Who got played? She got the bucks and Trump got indicted.

If you don't realize that this is politically motivated then you don't have any credibility. Its the American people who are being played! laugh all you want!

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

You say "nonsense", but that's exactly what I'm criticizing.
Lying about hush money isn't inherently illegal.
If he declared it as a business deduction, that's normally
a matter for the IRS to simply levy penalties & interest
against an ordinary citizen.
But the masses would go to prison for perjury & suborning
perjury. Yet Clinton escaped even the lightest scrutiny for
those. And then there was the selling of pardons. No
prosecution at all.
The double standard smacks of politics.

And yet, with the indictment still sealed, nobody but the DA and Grand Jury knows what he is charged with. Surely the DA presented the relevant law, the specifics of what constitutes guilt, and convinced them that there is indeed a crime -- and that's why they indicted.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

If you don't realize that this is politically motivated then you don't have any credibility.

I think it's long past time something like this happened. It should have happened to Nixon, but oh, wait, he was pardoned before anything could be brought against him. Regan and Iran Contra? Nothing there? And yes, Clinton and his perjury and suborning perjury.

In my view, it is these things that only go to encourage Presidents to behave recklessly -- because history seems to have declared them to be somehow above the law, even after they are no longer President. And this indictment may well serve to rein future Presidents in a bit.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

I'd like laws to be applied even handedly, and with some degree of consistency. Indeed, that's what I'm arguing for.



I'm not sure how you would get even a hint of that from my post, so I'm perhaps misunderstanding. Random or biased applications of the law are contrary to my preference, and what I think is effective.

Sorry, I phrased my response badly. I did not mean to imply that you thought anything of the kind.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Answered in other posts.

It's amazing how Democrat Presidents are defended
against all prosecution, but only Bush & Trump are the
ones they continually call to prosecute.
It all stinks to high Heaven of partisan vengeance, when
it really should be about prosecuting everyone who
commits such a range of crimes.

I had no problem with the prosecution of Bill Clinton. He abused the system a bit. He was nowhere near as bad as Trump. I do not see prosecuting Bush. He appeared to be guilty of bad judgement more than anything else. but then so were many of the Democrats.

 

[F1fan]

The only people who colluded with Russians was the DNC paying for a fake Dossier “used” by Russian intel to create division. You got played!

Your disinformation is not accepted by well informed members. It's your reputation to ruin by posting right wing disinformtion.

 

[Stevicus]

Don't forget that torture occurred under
Democrats too, eg, Johnson, Obama, Kennedy.
Why prosecute only Republicans?
This is telling.

Well, you're right, they should have been prosecuted, too. Maybe that's the reason none of them get prosecuted, because they're all complicit.

 

[Revoltingest]

Your disinformation is not accepted by well informed members. It's your reputation to ruin by posting right wing disinformtion.

The left is no better, with unsupported claims of Russian-Trump collusion.
Both sides should stick to claims with evidenced cromulence.

 

[Revoltingest]

Well, you're right, they should have been prosecuted, too. Maybe that's the reason none of them get prosecuted, because they're all complicit.

An incestuous system it is.
High ranking officials ensure that only
subordinates fall on their sword.

 

[F1fan]

Lying during such testimony, & suborning perjury are crimes.
The subject being sex (more than a BJ) doesn't make it legal.
And there is the selling of pardons. (Marc Rich ring a bell?)

I'm disgusted that so many Presidents can commit crimes,
& get away without ever being charged. Prosecution
shouldn't be limited to Trump.

Remember that Clinton was still president and was re-elected, so it was some 5 years afterwards to indict him for lying. I'm not sure what the statute of limitations is but it wasn't considered a huge priority. Remember 9-11 happened soon afterwards. I was a gun dealer at that time and BATF officers informed dealers that routine record checks of dealer sales would be suspended because they had to focus on national security. And remember, indictments can only be made if there is evidence available. Sure sometimes crimes are obvious at face value, but there is a lack of evidence to show a jury. That's the way it goes. Clever criminals can get away with it. Look at the Murdaugh and Idaho Four murders. Both cases were made by a few crucial pieces of evidence that if not available would have allowed the killers to get off.

 

[F1fan]

The left is no better, with unsupported claims of Russian-Trump collusion.

Sorry but it was observed that Trump campaign officials met with Russian officials 112 times during the 2016 campaign from the time Trump announced until the election. There was a lot of suspicious actuvity, and it was assumed to be business related as Trump wanted a hotel in Moscow, but even Trump denied that. And surely you heard Trump seldom said anything negative about putin. And don't forget his infamous appela to Russia to hack Hilary's emails, and days later Russia did hack the RNC and DNC. If not collusion the relationship was fishy. And of course, Manifort gave Russians polling data, so that is something.

Both sides should stick to claims with evidenced cromulence.

Blah, blah, blah both sides blah, blah blah. Comments like this doesn't but you in a clean middle ground, this puts you in murky swamp waters with fence sitters and flip floppers, who probably don't vote so they can complain no matter who wins. If you are going to make an argument use some clear examples. No doubt politics is messy, but both sides are clearly not the same.

 

[F1fan]

Reagan and Nixon got away with their crimes. The Democrats have generally been way too soft on the Republicans - except for Trump, for whatever reason. They were way, waaaay too soft on Bush. With the WMD mendacity, Abu Ghraib, and Gitmo, they could have thrown the book at him and thrown away the key.

Clinton was sleazy and got caught, and republicans tried to trap him as a poiltical act. Was his affair really that much a threat to national security? And if all Trump had against him was bribing a porn star to veep quiet, that could be let go, too. It is the exceptionally bad character of Trump, him being a threat to the nation and national security, and his election fraud, etc. that makes him someone who law enforcement acknowledges needs to be stopped. The threat Trump poses to the USA if law enforcement does nothing is an anomaly among other presidents. This isn't just a president that committed crimes, this is a president who committed crimes that threaten the USA. I'm stunned that many seem to equate Trump and his crimes as if a parking ticket is on par with murder. Trump is a recognized threat to Americas. MAGA continues to be a threat to America. This is the real nuance that citizens can't afford to overlook.

 

[Colt]

Your disinformation is not accepted by well informed members. It's your reputation to ruin by posting right wing disinformtion.

You appear well indoctrinated rather than informed:

FBI Suspected Steele Dossier Claims Were Russian Disinformation​

Four footnotes in the Inspector General report on the FBI’s Russia investigation, which were partially declassified on Friday, indicate that the FBI suspected that portions of the Steele dossier contained Russian disinformation as early as 2017.

FBI officials had also expressed concerns about former British spy Christopher Steele’s ties to Russian oligarchs as early as 2015, but those concerns were never relayed to the team that investigated the Trump campaign. The Steele dossier eventually played a “central role” in the FBI’s application to the FISA court to surveil Trump campaign aide Carter Page despite its dubious origins.

Steele had “frequent contacts with representatives for multiple Russian oligarchs, [and] we identified reporting the Crossfire Hurricane team received from (redacted) indicating the potential for Russian disinformation influencing Steele’s election reporting,” reads footnote 350. “The [redacted] stated that it did not have high confidence in this subset of Steele’s reporting and assessed that the referenced subset was part of a Russian disinformation campaign to denigrate US foreign relations.”


The same footnote casts doubt on allegations that the Russian government had blackmailed President Trump by allegedly compiling video footage of him with prostitutes during a visit to Moscow in 2013.

“A [redacted] report dated [redacted] 2017, contained information about an individual with reported connections to Trump and Russia who claimed that the public reporting about the details of Trump’s activities in Moscow during a trip in 2013 were false, and that they were the product of [the Russian Intelligence Service] ‘infiltrat[ing] a source into the network'” that compiled the dossier, the footnote states.

The footnotes also show that the FBI concluded that Russian intelligence planted the allegation that Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen had met with Russian officials in 2016, and that a Russian intelligence source had penetrated the network of information sources used for the dossier. While the footnotes indicate that the FBI knew of the possible Russian disinformation in 2017, the agency was aware as early as 2015 of Steele’s problematic connections to Russian oligarchs.


“It’s ironic that the Russian collusion narrative was fatally flawed because of Russian disinformation,” Senators Ron Johnson (R., Wisc.) and Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa), both of whom had pushed for declassification of the footnotes, said in a statement. “These footnotes confirm that there was a direct Russian disinformation campaign in 2016, and there were ties between Russian intelligence and a presidential campaign – the Clinton campaign, not Trump’s.”

The Steele dossier was compiled as opposition research for the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign in 2016. The campaign hired Fusion GPS, which contracted Steele’s team in June 2016.

 

[Sand Dancer]

If you believe that, then you really don't even believe in the law. Or your Constitution. Only a monarch can be above the law, because, as Goneril said in King Lear, "The laws are mine, not thine. Who can arraign me for 't?" Your Constitution says that America has no King. Why do you want one?

Our country is corrupt enough to cover up for those with cult followings.

 

[Stevicus]

An incestuous system it is.
High ranking officials ensure that only
subordinates fall on their sword.

Sometimes, I've noticed a general tendency to view the President as more of a detached figurehead who is not necessarily directly involved in the actual nuts and bolts of the workings of their administration. So, when crimes occur within their organization, the main question that comes up is "What did the President know and when did he know it?" So, the bottom line is that if they can't actually prove what the President knew, then the case reaches a dead end.

That may get them off the hook legally, but then they're revealed to be very poor managers, bordering on incompetence.

 

[Nakosis]

The comedian Chris Rock gazed out at the audience at an awards ceremony in Washington earlier this month. “Are you guys really going to arrest Trump?” he asked bluntly. “This is only going to make him more popular!”

 

[Stevicus]

Clinton was sleazy and got caught, and republicans tried to trap him as a poiltical act. Was his affair really that much a threat to national security? And if all Trump had against him was bribing a porn star to veep quiet, that could be let go, too. It is the exceptionally bad character of Trump, him being a threat to the nation and national security, and his election fraud, etc. that makes him someone who law enforcement acknowledges needs to be stopped. The threat Trump poses to the USA if law enforcement does nothing is an anomaly among other presidents. This isn't just a president that committed crimes, this is a president who committed crimes that threaten the USA. I'm stunned that many seem to equate Trump and his crimes as if a parking ticket is on par with murder. Trump is a recognized threat to Americas. MAGA continues to be a threat to America. This is the real nuance that citizens can't afford to overlook.

Yeah, I get what you're saying. I guess it's kind of same logic of going after Al Capone. He was a criminal, murderer, and a menace to society - yet they couldn't pin anything on him except for tax evasion. It's like some kind of consolation prize, where they can't let him get away scot-free, and this would be better than nothing.

I seem to recall that Republicans thought Clinton was a threat to the nation and national security, although they couldn't really pin anything on him, so they also went for the consolation prize - and lost.

I have observed that perceptions of national security have gotten highly polarized, although it seems that bringing it up at all puts the public in a "nationalistic" frame of mind that might have some unintended consequences.

 

[Revoltingest]

Remember that Clinton was still president and was re-elected, so it was some 5 years afterwards to indict him for lying. I'm not sure what the statute of limitations is but it wasn't considered a huge priority.

Priorities....they're politically driven things.