Donald Trump

Cropduster-80

I wouldn’t want to be a journalist assigned there from a non favoured network.

These people will be pissed and standing outside with nothing to do. 

I’m just waiting for trump to let them use his lawn in anticipation of a possible arrest.  The cops can’t do a thing if he lets them on the property unless there is some zoning issue with large gatherings. Then he has a buffer and no one knows what happens if the FBI needs to come back 

OnWis97

Cropduster-80 said:

I wouldn’t want to be a journalist assigned there from a non favoured network.

These people will be pissed and standing outside with nothing to do. 

I’m just waiting for trump to let them use his lawn in anticipation of a possible arrest.  The cops can’t do a thing if he lets them on the property unless there is some zoning issue with large gatherings. Then he has a buffer and no one knows what happens if the FBI needs to come back 

My guess is things will happen slowly enough that they'll be gone by the time anything would come of it.

Cropduster-80

OnWis97 said:

Cropduster-80 said:

I wouldn’t want to be a journalist assigned there from a non favoured network.

These people will be pissed and standing outside with nothing to do. 

I’m just waiting for trump to let them use his lawn in anticipation of a possible arrest.  The cops can’t do a thing if he lets them on the property unless there is some zoning issue with large gatherings. Then he has a buffer and no one knows what happens if the FBI needs to come back 

My guess is things will happen slowly enough that they'll be gone by the time anything would come of it.

Wonder how they could even arrest him logistically.

secret service isn’t letting him out of their sight. He also gets a bigger detail once he is a candidate again.

you’ve got competing interests within the government.

mace1229

Cropduster-80 said:

HughFreakingDillon said:

is there a liberal version of tucker carlson people on this forum have been watching that I'm not aware of? my lord. 

They said trump would beat Clinton… he did
they said they were going to storm the capital… they did 

they said there is a civil war coming

they said a lot of other stuff too that seemed crazy at the time. They did it all 

im just listening to them 

Didn’t those same people say Trump won and it would be proven and Trump would be president again? Not to mention they said Hilary and Hunter would be in jail.
Say enough things, some of it is bound to come true.

Lerxst1992

Halifax2TheMax said:

From the NYT email blast:

Good morning. What should you make of the F.B.I.’s search of Donald Trump’s home? We offer a guide.

 

Donald Trump in Las Vegas last month.Roger Kisby for The New York Times

Two scenarios

 

Perhaps the central question about the F.B.I.’s search of Donald Trump’s Florida home is whether it is a relatively narrow attempt to recover classified documents — or much more than that.

Either scenario is plausible at this point. The Justice Department has long been aggressive about investigating former officials whom it suspects of improperly handling classified material, including Hillary Clinton and David Petraeus. If the F.B.I. search merely leads to a legalistic debate about what’s classified, it probably will not damage Trump’s political future.

 

But it also seems possible that the search is a sign of a major new legal problem for him. People familiar with the search told The Times that it was not related to the Justice Department’s investigation into the Jan. 6 attack and Trump’s role in it. And it’s unlikely that Merrick Garland, the attorney general, would have allowed the search-warrant request — or that a federal judge would have approved it, as was required — unless it involved something important.

“I don’t think you get a judge to sign off on a search warrant for an ex-president’s house lightly,” Charlie Savage, a Times reporter who has been covering legal issues since the George W. Bush administration. “I think the world looks pretty different today than it did 48 hours ago.” (It’s even possible that Trump could be prosecuted over classified documents alone, although that might not keep him from holding office again.)

 

Support for Trump outside Mar-a-Lago yesterday.Saul Martinez for The New York Times

As Charlie emphasizes, there is still much more that’s unknown about the search than known. That probably won’t change until the Justice Department gets much closer to making a decision about how to conclude its investigation. “A central tenet of the way in which the Justice Department investigates and a central tenet of the rule of law is that we do not do our investigations in public,” Garland recently said.

 

But at least two big points seem clear. First, even though Garland has said that nobody is above the law, the Justice Department will not treat Trump like any other citizen. The bar for filing criminal charges against him will be higher, given that he is a former president who may run again — against the current president.

“The considerations when you’re talking about a political leader are certainly different and harder,” Andrew Goldstein, a former federal prosecutor who investigated Trump’s ties to Russia, recently told The Times. “You have the very clear and important rule that the Department of Justice should try in every way possible not to interfere with elections, to not take steps using the criminal process that could end up affecting the political process.”

 

Still, some legal experts who previously criticized Garland for moving too timidly in investigating Trump said they were encouraged by the Justice Department’s recent signs of boldness, including the Mar-a-Lago search. Andrew Weissmann, another former prosecutor who previously investigated Trump, is one of those experts (as he explained in this New Yorker interview). Quinta Jurecic, a senior editor at Lawfare, is another. “At what point does not investigating and not prosecuting a former president itself indicate that the rule of law is being undermined because it sends a signal that this person is above the law?” Jurecic told us.

She added: “That doesn’t mean that this is going to translate to an indictment of the president.”

 

The second point is that Trump appears to be a subject of multiple criminal investigations — and prosecutors may decide that his violations of the law were so significant as to deserve prosecution. One of those investigations is by state prosecutors in Georgia, who may not be as cautious about charging a former president as Garland seems likely to be.

Either way, the answer will probably become clear well before November 2024. Prosecutors — especially at the Justice Department — generally try to avoid making announcements about investigations into political candidates during a campaign. (James Comey’s decision to ignore that tradition and announce he had reopened an investigation into Clinton late in the 2016 campaign was a notable exception, and many experts believe he erred in doing so.)

 

The rest of today’s newsletter summarizes the latest Times reporting about the F.B.I. search of Mar-a-Lago — and also gives you a quick overview of the multiple investigations Trump is facing.

The latest

 

Before the raid, Justice Department officials had grown concerned that Trump had kept some documents, despite returning others. If convicted, could Trump be barred from holding office? A relevant law is untested.

The Justice Department did not give the White House advance notice of the search, President Biden’s press secretary said. Representative Scott Perry, a Pennsylvania Republican who pushed to overturn Trump’s loss, said the F.B.I. had seized his cellphone.

 

The Trump investigations

Prosecutors in Georgia are investigating efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn his 2020 election loss there, including a phone call in which Trump asked an election official to “find” additional votes. The Times’s Annie Karni explains the possible charges. The Justice Department is also questioning witnesses before a grand jury about Trump’s efforts to reverse his election loss. And federal prosecutors are examining his allies’ plan to submit fake electors from key states to disrupt certification of Biden’s win. Trump faces a few other investigations, some of which could result in civil but not criminal penalties. The main exception is a criminal inquiry into his business by the Manhattan district attorney, but that seems to have unraveled. Trump will face questioning under oath today by the New York attorney general’s office, which is investigating his business practices.

 

If it’s just about recovering documents and related charges, that would be a huge mistake by garland. Trump could have declassified all his documents at the end of his term. It’s nothing more than administrative oversight. This needs to be serious, something approaching treason or creating danger to Americans, or garland just gave trump a win back your reputation card with swing voters.

Cropduster-80

mace1229 said:

Cropduster-80 said:

HughFreakingDillon said:

is there a liberal version of tucker carlson people on this forum have been watching that I'm not aware of? my lord. 

They said trump would beat Clinton… he did
they said they were going to storm the capital… they did 

they said there is a civil war coming

they said a lot of other stuff too that seemed crazy at the time. They did it all 

im just listening to them 

Didn’t those same people say Trump won and it would be proven and Trump would be president again? Not to mention they said Hilary and Hunter would be in jail.
Say enough things, some of it is bound to come true.

If he becomes president again they will be in jail. They also think he won, and think that it’s proven he did. 

Not saying everything they say makes sense.  Some of it does require him being president again though which also isn’t out of the question. 

They feel they need to do their part to make that happen by whatever means necessary 

Lerxst1992

OnWis97 said:

I actually think DeSantis is meaner than Trump. Trump just did whatever he did for himself, which often involved going with the christofascist flow (despite being, I would guess, an agnostic).

DeSantis, if he could, would get draconian in punishing women and abortion providers. He's already shown he wants to go after "woke" corporations. Trump wasn't even smart enough for this, but DeSantis wants an entire country that conforms to "tradition" and those that don't should be dealt with severely.

Yes DeSantis is nasty. He suspended a locally elected DA for not prosecuting abortion cases, while there are no cases to even prosecute, and he gets the thumbs up from moderates,

..

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis took the extraordinary step on Thursday of suspending the locally elected prosecutor of Hillsborough County, home to Tampa. Andrew Warren, the suspended prosecutor, promptly denounced the move as an “illegal overreach.” 

The suspension of this Democratic official, announced by the Republican governor at a news conference where he was flanked by Hillsborough County’s Republican sheriff and other local officials, is the latest chapter in the GOP’s sustained attacks on reproductive rights and transgender rights in Florida, as well as broader criminal justice reform efforts. 

DeSantis based the suspension on Warren’s statements that his office would not prosecute abortion-related cases and cases involving anti-transgender laws. DeSantis also mentioned Warren’s policies establishing a presumption against prosecuting certain behaviors.

DeSantis claimed that with those statements and policies Warren “neglected” his duties and “display[ed] a lack of competence” to carry out his duties. 

DeSantis replaced Warren with Susan Lopez, a local judge who is a member of the conservative legal organization the Federalist Society. His decision effectively kicked the Democratic Party out of an office it won in both 2016 and 2020, in a county that DeSantis himself lost by nine percentage points in 2018.

Florida Representative Anna Eskamani, a Democrat and fierce critic of DeSantis, called the governor’s move “a fascist approach to governing, if you can even call it governing.”

But the broad move by DeSantis against Warren included no such report underlying it. It also made no mention of any cases that DeSantis objects to. The governor’s executive order instituting the suspension only mentions the prosecutor’s “public proclamations of non-enforcement.” 

Halifax2TheMax

Lerxst1992 said:

Halifax2TheMax said:

From the NYT email blast:

Good morning. What should you make of the F.B.I.’s search of Donald Trump’s home? We offer a guide.

 

Donald Trump in Las Vegas last month.Roger Kisby for The New York Times

Two scenarios

 

Perhaps the central question about the F.B.I.’s search of Donald Trump’s Florida home is whether it is a relatively narrow attempt to recover classified documents — or much more than that.

Either scenario is plausible at this point. The Justice Department has long been aggressive about investigating former officials whom it suspects of improperly handling classified material, including Hillary Clinton and David Petraeus. If the F.B.I. search merely leads to a legalistic debate about what’s classified, it probably will not damage Trump’s political future.

 

But it also seems possible that the search is a sign of a major new legal problem for him. People familiar with the search told The Times that it was not related to the Justice Department’s investigation into the Jan. 6 attack and Trump’s role in it. And it’s unlikely that Merrick Garland, the attorney general, would have allowed the search-warrant request — or that a federal judge would have approved it, as was required — unless it involved something important.

“I don’t think you get a judge to sign off on a search warrant for an ex-president’s house lightly,” Charlie Savage, a Times reporter who has been covering legal issues since the George W. Bush administration. “I think the world looks pretty different today than it did 48 hours ago.” (It’s even possible that Trump could be prosecuted over classified documents alone, although that might not keep him from holding office again.)

 

Support for Trump outside Mar-a-Lago yesterday.Saul Martinez for The New York Times

As Charlie emphasizes, there is still much more that’s unknown about the search than known. That probably won’t change until the Justice Department gets much closer to making a decision about how to conclude its investigation. “A central tenet of the way in which the Justice Department investigates and a central tenet of the rule of law is that we do not do our investigations in public,” Garland recently said.

 

But at least two big points seem clear. First, even though Garland has said that nobody is above the law, the Justice Department will not treat Trump like any other citizen. The bar for filing criminal charges against him will be higher, given that he is a former president who may run again — against the current president.

“The considerations when you’re talking about a political leader are certainly different and harder,” Andrew Goldstein, a former federal prosecutor who investigated Trump’s ties to Russia, recently told The Times. “You have the very clear and important rule that the Department of Justice should try in every way possible not to interfere with elections, to not take steps using the criminal process that could end up affecting the political process.”

 

Still, some legal experts who previously criticized Garland for moving too timidly in investigating Trump said they were encouraged by the Justice Department’s recent signs of boldness, including the Mar-a-Lago search. Andrew Weissmann, another former prosecutor who previously investigated Trump, is one of those experts (as he explained in this New Yorker interview). Quinta Jurecic, a senior editor at Lawfare, is another. “At what point does not investigating and not prosecuting a former president itself indicate that the rule of law is being undermined because it sends a signal that this person is above the law?” Jurecic told us.

She added: “That doesn’t mean that this is going to translate to an indictment of the president.”

 

The second point is that Trump appears to be a subject of multiple criminal investigations — and prosecutors may decide that his violations of the law were so significant as to deserve prosecution. One of those investigations is by state prosecutors in Georgia, who may not be as cautious about charging a former president as Garland seems likely to be.

Either way, the answer will probably become clear well before November 2024. Prosecutors — especially at the Justice Department — generally try to avoid making announcements about investigations into political candidates during a campaign. (James Comey’s decision to ignore that tradition and announce he had reopened an investigation into Clinton late in the 2016 campaign was a notable exception, and many experts believe he erred in doing so.)

 

The rest of today’s newsletter summarizes the latest Times reporting about the F.B.I. search of Mar-a-Lago — and also gives you a quick overview of the multiple investigations Trump is facing.

The latest

 

Before the raid, Justice Department officials had grown concerned that Trump had kept some documents, despite returning others. If convicted, could Trump be barred from holding office? A relevant law is untested.

The Justice Department did not give the White House advance notice of the search, President Biden’s press secretary said. Representative Scott Perry, a Pennsylvania Republican who pushed to overturn Trump’s loss, said the F.B.I. had seized his cellphone.

 

The Trump investigations

Prosecutors in Georgia are investigating efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn his 2020 election loss there, including a phone call in which Trump asked an election official to “find” additional votes. The Times’s Annie Karni explains the possible charges. The Justice Department is also questioning witnesses before a grand jury about Trump’s efforts to reverse his election loss. And federal prosecutors are examining his allies’ plan to submit fake electors from key states to disrupt certification of Biden’s win. Trump faces a few other investigations, some of which could result in civil but not criminal penalties. The main exception is a criminal inquiry into his business by the Manhattan district attorney, but that seems to have unraveled. Trump will face questioning under oath today by the New York attorney general’s office, which is investigating his business practices.

 

If it’s just about recovering documents and related charges, that would be a huge mistake by garland. Trump could have declassified all his documents at the end of his term. It’s nothing more than administrative oversight. This needs to be serious, something approaching treason or creating danger to Americans, or garland just gave trump a win back your reputation card with swing voters.

C’mon, we’re talking a former SCOTUS nominee, not a spiked diet Dr. Pepper swilling former attorney giving testimony before the 1/6 committee.

stuckinline

If Trump was a true leader, he would tell the Pro-Trump protestors to stand down and go home. This country does not need more violence.

Halifax2TheMax

stuckinline said:

If he was a true leader, he would tell the Pro-Trump protestors to stand down and go home. This country does not need more violence.

Oh but it does, it does. You’ve got to get those jackboots on the necks of those “others.”

Halifax2TheMax

Karma can be a bitch.

Analysis: Citizen Trump may have broken a law that President Trump made a felony 

Not many people know exactly why FBI agents searched former president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate on Monday, but most are operating on what’s been revealed by Trump’s team and public reporting: The FBI search was largely or entirely a function of the investigation into Trump’s retention of documents after leaving the White House.

That material included some documents that were classified.

As The Post’s Philip Bump notes, if Trump is found to have violated federal law in removing and retaining classified documents without authorization, he could be convicted of a felony punishable by five years in prison. And that conviction would be a felony carrying that punishment because of a law signed by President Trump.

Here’s how that happened:

During Trump’s first year in office, a central tool used for surveillance by the intelligence community — Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act — was set to expire. Shortly before it did, Congress passed an extension of the authority for another five years.

But that didn’t come without turmoil. Trump came into office angry at the intelligence community for revealing to reporters that it believed Russia had interfered in the 2016 election. He excoriated intelligence agencies on Twitter — and continued to do so as the contours of the investigation into that interference became clear. ... 

On Jan. 18, 2018, he signed it into law.

While what became law was S. 139, Congress replaced the legislation with H.R. 4478, which extended Section 702 for another five years. This is a common process because sometimes Congress hollows out existing legislation and replaces it entirely with other legislation to move the process forward more quickly.

H.R. 4478 includes the following provision:

Whoever, being an officer, employee, contractor, or consultant of the United States, and, by virtue of his office, employment, position, or contract, becomes possessed of documents or materials containing classified information of the United States, knowingly removes such documents or materials without authority and with the intent to retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than one year, or both.

With Trump’s signing, S. 139 into law, that became: “ … shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than five years, or both.” (Emphasis added.) And, with that, it became a felony.

And so, you can see how Trump absconding with classified material to Mar-a-Lago would facially violate the law as articulated.

Philip argues that Trump may now claim he declassified these documents while still president, even if no formal record of the declassification was made. This introduces a slew of other questions, since that material would now presumably be publicly available in some form.

Read more about this possible defense here.

mickeyrat

cutz said:

mickeyrat said:

mickeyrat said:

cue halifax......

https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-ny-investigation-testimony-a4e6264d44b194d24dfb916ffc7f51ca

 

Trump says he took the Fifth Amendment in NY investigation

By MICHAEL BALSAMO, MICHAEL R. SISAK and MICHELLE L. PRICE

14 mins ago

NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump invoked the Fifth Amendment and wouldn't answer questions under oath in the New York attorney general's long-running civil investigation into his business dealings, the former president said in a statement Wednesday.

Trump arrived at state Attorney General Letitia James' offices in a motorcade shortly before 9 a.m., announcing more than an hour later that he "declined to answer the questions under the rights and privileges afforded to every citizen under the United States Constitution.”

“I once asked, ‘If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?' Now I know the answer to that question,” the statement said. “When your family, your company, and all the people in your orbit have become the targets of an unfounded politically motivated Witch Hunt supported by lawyers, prosecutors and the Fake News Media, you have no choice.”

continues......

nothing?

https://twitter.com/rocandscott/status/1557428687162720256

man, theres a tweet for every occasion isnt there.....

Halifax2TheMax

I find it interesting that the media is now reporting that the information about additional boxes of documents being at Mar-I-Lieo came from an “informant.” Why is this interesting? Because “informants” are typically folks who have committed a crime and agree to inform because they are aware that crimes are being committed in exchange for a lighter sentence when the shit hits the fan or new identity and relocation or their conscience has them report to law enforcement what they know or have witnessed. As such, “informants” also wear wires or agree to have their phone conversations tapped/taped. So, was this “informant” in the inner circle? At the White House before POOTWH left office? And/or at MAR-I-Lieo post transition? Who is it? And what do they know or witness that lead them to inform, become one or otherwise participate in the resulting investigation? There’s meat and potatoes here.

How’s that for fruit from the poisonous tree or beef in the hamberder?

Cropduster-80

How do they know? That wouldn’t be in the search warrant. That’s purposely vague and the only document not in possession of the FBI

if there is a leak that’s not good 

Halifax2TheMax

Cropduster-80 said:

How do they know? That wouldn’t be in the search warrant. That’s purposely vague and the only document not in possession of the FBI

if there is a leak that’s not good 

It was the WSJ that CNN was saying was reporting this. WSJ is owned by Rupert Murdick and the POOTWH camp was notorious for leaking, and I don’t mean on a bed in the VIP suite at The Ritz in Moscow. I think you can connect the dots.

Halifax2TheMax

Trumpworld informant reportedly told FBI about classified docs at Mar-a-Lago

The search of Donald Trump’s Florida residence comes after a FBI source reportedly revealed that the ex-president was concealing classified national defence information from the government he once ledAn insider with knowledge of what government records former president Donald Trump still possessed more than 18 months after he left the White House reportedly tipped off FBI officials to a cache of classified documents at the ex-president’s Palm Beach, Florida home and office. According to Newsweek, two “senior government officials” have said the Monday search of Mr Trump’s rooms at Mar-a-Lago — the mansion turned private club where he spends most of his year — came after a confidential FBI source provided agents with information on “what classified documents [Mr Trump] was still hiding and ... the location of those documents”.https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-informant-fbi-mar-a-lago-b2142596.html

gimmesometruth27

does anybody else think there is a cell out there that may be planning to blow up a federal building? mcveigh blew one up in retaliation for waco. there are way more hardcore trump supporters out there than there ever were waco sympathizers. i think the heat on trump could trigger someone to so something worse.

some of these right wing anti government types are serious as a heart attack. 

all i know is the feds better make this air tight with a bulletproof legal case, and they had best be prepared to protect all of us from the fallout that is sure to happen.

Lerxst1992

gimmesometruth27 said:

does anybody else think there is a cell out there that may be planning to blow up a federal building? mcveigh blew one up in retaliation for waco. there are way more hardcore trump supporters out there than there ever were waco sympathizers. i think the heat on trump could trigger someone to so something worse.

some of these right wing anti government types are serious as a heart attack. 

all i know is the feds better make this air tight with a bulletproof legal case, and they had best be prepared to protect all of us from the fallout that is sure to happen.

I donno man, you’ll have plenty of commenters here saying many Rs are reasonable and won’t go to war for trump.

Yet as you cite,  the Rs are on the warpath right now and we went from news cycles about what a great batch of laws the Dems passed to trump is a victim and the Dems are on another witch hunt. This better be a big deal.

You don’t indict former presidents for parking tickets and poor document retention policies, despite what Hal posts on here. Garland has been  silent for two days now, fully knowing the firestorm he was creating, while he hides behind “we don’t comment on investigations.” That policy is for everyone else, not former presidents.

Cropduster-80

gimmesometruth27 said:

does anybody else think there is a cell out there that may be planning to blow up a federal building? mcveigh blew one up in retaliation for waco. there are way more hardcore trump supporters out there than there ever were waco sympathizers. i think the heat on trump could trigger someone to so something worse.

some of these right wing anti government types are serious as a heart attack. 

all i know is the feds better make this air tight with a bulletproof legal case, and they had best be prepared to protect all of us from the fallout that is sure to happen.

Of course.  100% someone is planning something, doing something is possible too but not 100%. Some of these people tried to kidnap a sitting governor and then do who knows what to her. Regardless of the trial outcomes, they were going to do it I believe 

this is all pointless though as their odds of getting a conviction are near zero.  No way they can exclude every trump supporter from a jury and all they need is one. It would be like excluding someone specifically because of their race.  It’s going to be hard for the DOJ to look good after this with no conviction, no matter the evidence.

gimmesometruth27

Lerxst1992 said:

gimmesometruth27 said:

does anybody else think there is a cell out there that may be planning to blow up a federal building? mcveigh blew one up in retaliation for waco. there are way more hardcore trump supporters out there than there ever were waco sympathizers. i think the heat on trump could trigger someone to so something worse.

some of these right wing anti government types are serious as a heart attack. 

all i know is the feds better make this air tight with a bulletproof legal case, and they had best be prepared to protect all of us from the fallout that is sure to happen.

I donno man, you’ll have plenty of commenters here saying many Rs are reasonable and won’t go to war for trump.

Yet as you cite,  the Rs are on the warpath right now and we went from news cycles about what a great batch of laws the Dems passed to trump is a victim and the Dems are on another witch hunt. This better be a big deal.

You don’t indict former presidents for parking tickets and poor document retention policies, despite what Hal posts on here. Garland has been  silent for two days now, fully knowing the firestorm he was creating, while he hides behind “we don’t comment on investigations.” That policy is for everyone else, not former presidents.

i actually kind of think garland needs to make a statement in this case. if for no other reason than to stop the narrative that this is a politically motivated hit job on trump.

i agree though. they took 25 boxes out of there and they were tipped off by someone who knew what was there and exactly where it was.

trump can leak the warrant and what was taken and why, but why would he? he gets more sympathy by saying it was a hit job and providing no further information.