121–130 of 1001 posts
Is there any way to read this other than Trump is cuddling up to crypto because it’s a tool for him and his cronies to make dodgy money?
Yes - he campaigned on making America more crypto-friendly in general; this could also be read as part of making good on that promise.
Serious question - it seems that many of this Administrations activities are illegal in some way or the other. I know that government officials are shielded from a lot of actions so they can not be prosecuted. What actions that have been taken could actually be prosecuted? For example, I would have to assume that the ballroom demolition and build-out is illegal, there were $0 appropriated from Congress for this, and…
So my guess is that whatever Trump is doing now, he'll later argue was done as a president.
Second, should be convicted of anything, the best shot is if it's a state law violation. I'm going to bet everything I own that Trump will either pardon himself, all his cronies, and/or when the time comes, step down and have Vance pardon him. So with that all federal crimes become pardoned.
The supreme court has been very frank about this: The only, and I do mean the only mechanism is a successful impeachment. And even if Trump by some miracle is successfully impeached, we have no way of knowing how that will play out. The current supreme court majority are seemingly true believers of the unitary executive theory, so I'm guessing that with time - we'll just see Trump get more and more unchecked power. And since it's going to be done via the shadow docket, it'll likely be valid for Trump only.
I think for all intents and purposes - and I don't mean to sound defeatist when I'm saying this - people should just accept the fact that Trump will be untouchable for the rest of his life.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Assuming a normal election where the pendulum swings back and a normal transfer of power (no certain things), the outgoing President could pardon everyone from his chiefs of staff and cabinet officers to low-level federal law enforcement on the way out, and then the Democrats would wring their hands and say there's nothing they can do, bar some large scale political realignment where Republicans lost control of numer…
Why it is even accepted that pardons can be issued before conviction?
Key line: > "Since Trump’s election, Binance has also been a key supporter of his family’s World Liberty Financial crypto venture, a business that has driven a huge leap in the president’s personal wealth." "Huge leap" meaning $5 billion, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-wlfi-world-liberty-financ... ( "New crypto token boosts Trump family's wealth by $5 billion" )
Not sure why you quote it, that's pretty huge. I'd call any double-digit percent increase on a billionaire's wealth huge.
Serious controls need to be placed around the pardon power.
In contrast, SBF is still in jail despite being Biden's second biggest donor.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have no proof of this, but I would bet that there will be some quid-pro-quo involved between Trump and the pardonee. Trump does not usually give things away, he leverages his power to get more power/money.
He didn't pardon Maxwell despite her coming out and saying she didn't see Trump do anything awful with Epstein.
I'm sure SBF and Elizabeth Holmes will be next.