“Trump, who first revealed the news earlier Thursday in a post on his Truth Social platform, faces seven counts, according to his lawyer and another source. The charges include false statements, conspiracy to obstruct and a charge related to the Espionage Act, sources said.”
Complete indictment here
Data published by the Pew Research Center in 2019 highlighted how federal prosecutors have a 99.6% conviction rate. This is true because federal prosecutors almost never file charges unless they have the accused dead to rights. That seems to be the case here as well. Given that the former President almost certainly did everything he is accused of, given that there is a mountain of testimony and physical evidence, and given that his own words have exacerbated his problems, his lawyers have a real challenge. What’s the defense? Most federal defendants (nearly 9 out of 10) plead out, but Trump is not one to negotiate a plea deal, so his lawyers will need to concoct some strategy as yet unforeseen.
Since a legal defense has not yet emerged, the Trump loyalists will undoubtedly try to muster a full-throated political defense. Don’t look for any of them to try to prove that Trump is innocent, although they may generalize that “he’s an innocent man” without taking any questions after making such a claim. They know what he did, and they know it was illegal. Instead, they will be screaming about the fact that the charges are politically motivated, and they will be creating a false equivalency to the Pence and Biden documents. Those red herrings will convince many in the general public that Trump is somehow being treated unfairly, but will not help him obtain a “not guilty” verdict. Even if it were true that the investigation was politically motivated, that argument is irrelevant in court, where the issues are (1) “which crimes is he accused of?” and (2) “did he actually commit them?”
Interesting the current catch phrase of disgruntled, sore loser Reps ~ the Dems are weaponizing the justice dept. 😮
Jan. 6th proud boys/oath keepers, etc insurrectionists led by der führer the don say hold my beer! Oh the irony … Did I mention Reps have always been better at messaging er misinformation ie bullshit!
Seriously, Reps really are sore losers ~ full stop!
All part of Trump and his clueless lemmings plan to win back the middle/swing voters. ok, ok, they’ve pretty much given up on undecideds and are now totally concentrating on voter suppression. And so it goes …
Re: the 2024 potus election get ready for about 3+ mos. of Dem campaign commercials showing Trump’s Jan 6th insurrection on a loop 24/7.
Indeed the party of national security, law and order, defense, anti-communism, fiscal responsibility yada, yada, yada.
Digressing …
Remember if trump gets charged and his was locked up. Means biden with his senate and vp classifed docs he should not have had . That were out in the open in his house and in his car unlocked
Will have to be charged to. Remember its a conservative special coucil lol. I say bring it on.
Are you always this out of it? Dream on.
And I don’t remember anything about Biden moving such stuff a thousand miles (well, 998 to be precise).
As for Trump,
To paraphrase Daniel Drew:
If he gets caught with what wasn’t his’n.
he must skip town or go to prison.
You’re losing sight of the key questions:
1. Is he accused of serious crimes?
2. Did he commit them?
In both cases, the answer seems to be “yes, obviously.”
All of that has nothing to do with Biden or Pence or Hilary or Hunter. In fact, there is nothing in the Trump charges that would apply to Biden or Pence. He is not charged with merely having documents, but rather with retaining them willfully, as demonstrated by his multiple evasions to retain them, and then failing to surrender them when their existence was discovered and reported.
(And of course with several counts involving corruptly and illegally concealing and withholding them.)
Update – What was 7 counts is now THIRTY-SEVEN FELONY COUNTS!
The federal conviction rate is so high because almost everyone pleads out. They offer extremely lenient deals compared to what you would otherwise be facing. With that being said, if you don’t take the deal, the feds almost always win in court. What the conviction rate would be if no one took plea deals would be hard to calculate. All in all, they definitely don’t prosecute without the smoking gun(s). This situation may be unique if it is indeed political. What is more concerning is if this is a precedent we as a nation will regret. They GOP will come for Biden.
And almost everyone pleads out because they are guilty. What America regrets is “electing” Trump in 2016 + Ford pardoning Nixon 9/1974 hence, ergo, therefore letting Nixon off the hook and setting an unwanted precedent.
Indeed, America fought a Civil War over slavery 😮 indicting Nixon would have been a blip on the radar. What has changed since then is fake news ie Fox/Newsmax/OAN etc and 24/7 conservative misinformation on social media/cable.
+ Reps are just sore losers as per usual + they have always been better at messaging again misinformation.
Jack Smith ~ “one set of laws which apply to everyone.”
Trump and his sheep will continue to whine ’til the end of time so, in essence, nothing has changed. 😛
Have a lovely day!
Well if your option is being guilty and serving 4 years or maybe being not guilty and serving life, it’s a pretty simple calculation. I watch/read most news outlets. They are all full of shit. If you get a bunch of different views however, sometimes you can sort out some truth. Personally I am a big fan of the WSJ.
One news outlet recently paid a $787.5 million for defamation iow conservative news outlets flat out lie and make no apologies or retractions because that’s what their sheep want to hear.
Indeed, most every news outlet has a POV, but very few prevaricate 24/7.
Yielding back the balance of my time …
Except for the editorial page which is mostly pure shit.
Except for Peggy Noonan’s occasionals, that’s the only part of the Journal I pretty much skip
The conviction rate is a mere 96% for those that go to trial.
Of every 1000 cases charged, (approximately) 900 plead out, 96 result in trial convictions, 4 result in acquittals.
Taking a plea deal leads to a conviction.
That’s why the overall conviction rate is stated as 99.6% rather than a mere 96%. To derive that figure, all the guilty pleas are counted as convictions. The lower (96%) figure represents only the ones that go to trial.
My only point is that we don’t know how those plea deal convictions would have turned out had they gone to trial.
No, we don’t, but we do know that of the defendants who are convinced they can win the case, only about 4% succeed. It seems pretty reasonable to assume that the percentage would not be higher from the ones who are not convinced they can win.
There seems to be no evidence that the charges are motivated by anything except the pursuit of justice, but once again, it doesn’t even matter whether the charges are politically motivated. That’s just a talking point for talk shows, not a legal defense.
The legal issues are:
1. Of which crimes is he accused?
2. Did he commit those crimes?
The answers seem to be
1. 37 serious felonies involving compromises of national security.
2. Pretty obviously, yes.
Agreed but then the GOP is coming for Biden. Gloves are off.
Excepting McConnell, the combined IQ of the Republican leadership is somewhere between 77 and 83. Biden will somehow survive.
Off top., Cohen has got to be awfully happy he didn’t fork out the money for DeGrom.
LOL. The GOP took off the gloves back when Bill Clinton was president. They haven’t had any gloves to take off since Obama. Now, their lies and ludicrous claims whip up their own base but are ignored by everyone else.
The next step of escalation would have been cratering the economy and hoping Biden got the blame for that, but Republicans not only did not do that, they gave up any chance of doing it until after the 2024 elections. (My guess is that their billionaire donors gave them a firm “NO!” on that idea, but that’s just my opinion.)
So where have they got to go? More voter suppression? Didn’t the Supreme Court just give them a kick in the pants on that? Threats of violence? I don’t think so, because who wants to die for Trump now? That fizzled on January 6th, when it had SOME chance of going somewhere. I sure don’t think it will do any better now.
So, please, ‘rino, let me know what your threat means. A good laugh is always welcome.
Once again, don’t confuse political and legal matters. Of course the GOP will come for Biden. He’s the presumptive nominee. They will come up with all sorts of wild, unverified accusations, as they always do. To be frank, nothing will change at all. It’s all politics as usual.
All of that has nothing to do with whether Trump is guilty of serious crimes that could have placed the USA in peril. An overwhelming mountain of evidence says he is. That’s a legal matter, not a political one.
As for Hunter Biden, I believe his time is coming. He will probably face at least one felony count and possibly several other charges. Is the DOJ slow-walking the case? Maybe. I just don’t know.
If he serves a day in jail, I’ll eat my hat. He has the resources to delay, postpone, obfuscate, sway the jury pool, etc. It’s a different system for the very rich. It only takes one juror to stop a conviction and if you don’t think they’ll pull out all the stops to get a MAGA on the jury, or use every trick in the book to get to individual jurors, then you haven’t been paying attention. Odds are that at least one MAGA judge will give him every break possible. Add to that the lack of political will to nail the bastard even by some Democrats. And there’s a very good chance he will be pardoned “to change our national focus. . . to shift our attentions from the pursuit of a fallen President to the pursuit of the urgent needs of a rising nation.”
This is probably just the first of (3) federal indictments. Stay tuned.
But good to know you wear a hat? A more likely outcome is he dies before the end of the appeal(s) process.
The most probable outcome…Or he gets a pardon… the country lacks a rule of law for the rich and powerful.
I’m no legal expert, but since when do judges tag-team trials? Also what’s with the gift judge? From the New York Times:
Mr. Trump is expected to appear in Federal District Court in Miami on Tuesday afternoon. Judge Aileen M. Cannon is scheduled to preside over that initial hearing, according to people familiar with the matter. It was not clear whether Judge Cannon, who was criticized by a higher court for handing Mr. Trump a series of unusually favorable rulings during the early stages of the investigation, would remain assigned for the entirety of the case.
Every time I ask myself why or what was in it for him the same answer comes back. Stupid people do stupid shit.
He has that severely twisted need to prove himself, probably due to daddy issues as a kid. Ended up desperately needing to show the entire planet how rich, successful, smart, essential, beloved, well-hung, etc. he is. He even takes great pride in qualities many think of as negatives: sneaky, diabolical, ruthless, racist, misogynistic.
Elect a sicko like that President, his ego goes spiraling completely out of control, and you see what we’ve seen. Stealing our nation’s most secret docs and showing them to random people who pass through his house, bragging that he had control over wars and how he was going to handle them. A tiny little boy playing dictator. He’s as deranged as anyone I’ve ever heard of, more so than many serial killers & mass murderers. At least Dahmer acknowledged his crimes & sicknesses, while Trump still thinks he’s God. A Pink Floyd lyric comes to mind: “Ha ha, charade you are.”
“still thinks he’s God”
And his hard core racist/anarchist/sore loser lemmings think he’s the second coming. Which is America’s bigger problem moving forward.
Stay tuned …
By all accounts he didn’t read documents while he was president. So I have yet to see a statement from him or his lawyers why he wanted them so badly. The easy answer is “to sell or make deals”…but really?
As I wrote before, I don’t believe the indictment by NY DA Alvin Bragg has merit. My biggest objection to that indictment was that it would make it easier for Trump to argue that his looming federal indictment was also politically motivated. But unlike an indictment for using his own money to pay off his mistress, I think these charges are both warranted and well deserved. But while federal prosecutors may win 99.6% of the time, the odds of securing a conviction on these charges are significantly less, but hopefully still more likely than not.
First of all, most federal defendants aren’t billionaires that can afford to bring as many resources to a defense as the feds can to a prosecution. But second of all, it will only take one disciple of the MAGA religion on the jury to prevent a conviction. I’ve only been called for jury duty once in my life. I was placed on a panel for an inmate at Rikers Island accused of having a razor. On the panel with me were a cop and the wife of a prison guard. I watched them both try really hard to be selected for the jury. Neither was picked, but the defense probably had to use peremptory challenges. How many MAGA lovers are there in Florida? How many that are called for jury duty will do everything they can to make it onto Trump’s jury? No matter how overwhelming the evidence, I fear that a hung jury is a likely, if not the most likely, verdict from a Florida jury.
One last aside, while Kevin McCarthy may be Trump’s loudest defender, he isn’t a Trump cultist. Instead, McCarthy is an ambitious and cowardly worm. We learned from that leaked recording from January 6th what McCarthy really thinks of Trump. But he decided to go kiss his ring as soon as it seemed that Trump was still popular with the GOP base. I think most elected Republicans would like Trump just to go away, but they are too afraid that if they aren’t seen as sufficiently loyal, they will be primaried and find themselves out of office. I have a very low opinion of most elected Republicans, but I suppose I’d rather they were cowards than they were true Trump believers. I really wish the GOP had more principled conservatives in office, but that isn’t what the GOP base wants. The base deserves most of the blame here, which I can say since I will not be running for any office.
“most federal defendants aren’t billionaires that can afford to bring as many resources to a defense”
Why then doesn’t he have better lawyers? Asking for a friend … Besides the fact he has a history of not paying for services rendered and many of his former lawyers have been convicted or will be.
Re: jurors, as a rule they do the right thing 99% of the time regardless. Having been a juror recently was amazed how every one of us listened intently and had something significant to say during deliberation.
Key word during deliberations ~ “intent”.
Re: south FL be careful what you “wish” for.
btw, I was chosen jury foreman because nobody else wanted to read the verdict. 😮 Hey, I can read. Another key phrase re: trials ~ common sense!
As always, no charge for my keen grasp of the obvious!
Hey…maybe you can be part of Trump’s legal team…
Indeed, it’s a very low bar ~ pun intended.
Current strategy: the FBI “extorted” witnesses. Or tried to. Whatever that means. His lawyer wrote a sworn letter and everything!
They provide no evidence, and nobody is even sure what that means anyway, but that’s what they’re saying.
The GOP are just doing the usual chorus. Hillary, Hunter, Biden Biden Biden, witch hunt. They’ll ride the republic as it dies as long as they’re in charge when it happens. Trump is a massive loser. He lost the election. He lost the midterms for them. He just keeps losing. His cultists in the house are keeping the GOP from acting out their wackadoodle agenda (banning imaginary gas stove bans) because they’re angry Mccarthy didn’t crash the economy to spite Biden.
Despite this, he’s all they have. Because the alternative is to side with Biden in any way, shape, or form and that can’t happen. It’s partisanship to the absolute extreme. If they were all poisoned and a Democrat held the antidote, each and every one of them would die, writhing in agony, blaming Hillary and Hunter.
There may have been some witnesses that testified to the grand jury in order to keep themselves from being prosecuted, but I don’t know that is what happened. But many others might have been “coerced” to testify by a subpoena and the threat of a perjury prosecution. I was in law school during much of the Whitewater investigation. My criminal law professor, Roger Groot, gave a talk about the Whitewater investigation that was open to our entire school. Prof. Groot was not only one of the best defense attorneys in Virginia; he was a Democrat. At that time, Susan McDougal, one of the Clintons’ business partners in the Whitewater development, was serving time for contempt for refusing to testify before the Whitewater grand jury. Prof. Groot maintained that she was doing the smart thing because the Independent Counsel had laid a “perjury trap” for her. In other words, she could either serve 18 months for contempt or she could serve a longer term for perjury. Now maybe I am naive, but wouldn’t giving honest testimony be a third option? Well, I think it’s possible that is how the witnesses to the Trump grand jury could have been coerced. If they had refused to testify, they would have been jailed for contempt, and if they had lied, they could have been charged with perjury. I mean, they had no choice but to tell the truth about Trump!!!
Trump’s 1A priority is to not go to jail, but 1B is to squeeze as much cash as he can out of his imbecile followers. Ironically, the indictments which work against 1A are an asset for 1B.
Note that “to get re-elected” probably isn’t really that big a priority, unless it helps him to accomplish 1A and 1B.
If Trump is convicted under the Espionage Act can he be President again?
Yes. Eugene V. Debs ran for president while actually imprisoned in Atlanta after his own conviction for violating the Espionage Act. Nothing in the Constitution would have prevented him from holding office if he had won.
(Big “if.” He only got 3% of the votes.)
Based on the haggard way he looks lately, I wonder if he’ll be alive when it’s time to go to prison for his crimes. He still delusionally thinks his MAGA gang of idiots will somehow come to his rescue, but when a laughable 15-time loser like Kevin McCarthy is your loudest defender, your base is drying up. And without that base, he’s just Nixon in San Clemente, only without the pardon. Once it sinks in that he’s gonna be locked up with the likes of the Unabomber & BTK, I expect he’ll be found face down in a sand trap on the 18th hole somewhere, before he ever puts on a prison uniform.
Many of his maga gang of idiots are or will be in jail. btw, IIRC even after Nixon resigned in disgrace after violating the U.S. Constitution every which way but looses he still had around 25% job approval. 😮 iow IOKIYAAR.
The force is strong within the Rep party er maga crime family, eh. 😛
Only in America …
What is the “15-time loser” a reference to? You lost me there.
Elected Speaker on 15th vote, so really he’s only a 14 time loser.
Oh that’s right. Thanks for the refresher.
It is a very good day
But, but, but Biden/Biden/Biden er Carter, Clinton, Obama, Hillary. 😮
When the facts are on your side pound the facts. When the law is on your side pound the law. When neither the facts nor the law are on your side pound the table! And when Trump is your client !@#$%^&*.
The prosecution rests.
Yielding back the balance of my time …
That’s why he can’t get lawyers w/ any actual skills
The clowns he had are the best he can get
Expect Dershowitz to join his legal team…