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Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump

nytimes.com

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Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump

#211

Post by EGreg »

mbgerring wrote: post #55

Nearly the entire point of the United States at its founding was that the law should apply to political leaders. We are overdue for setting the precedent of a former President being charged with a crime, and we ought to go back and charge a few other former Presidents with crimes while we’re at it.

At the same time there is a different dimension to jailing political leaders, which is why Nixon was pardoned.

In countries like Ukraine and Georgia, they have recently jailed their presidents or opponents. Yanukovich jailed Timushenko. Saakashvili was jailed.

This can wreak a lot of havoc in a country. Look at how the supporters of Imran Khan are reacting, as his opponents always try to arrest him:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Imran_Khan_arrest_attem...

Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump

#212

Post by MuffinFlavored »

mbgerring wrote: post #55

Nearly the entire point of the United States at its founding was that the law should apply to political leaders. We are overdue for setting the precedent of a former President being charged with a crime, and we ought to go back and charge a few other former Presidents with crimes while we’re at it.

It's kind of interesting because, according to a lot of other people (whether they are speaking factually or in an opinionated fashion), Trump has managed to avoid a lot of laws (inciting an insurrection, etc.). Why is this hush money thing the biggest law a Grand jury is able to stick on him? If he's supposedly guilty for so many other things, why is this all he's been indicted on the past few years? Genuinely asking. I really have no dog in this race/don't care, just find it interesting.

Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump

#213

Post by jagraff »

webdood90 wrote: post #194
mbgerring wrote: post #55

Nearly the entire point of the United States at its founding was that the law should apply to political leaders. We are overdue for setting the precedent of a former President being charged with a crime, and we ought to go back and charge a few other former Presidents with crimes while we’re at it.

I'm 100% in support of applying the law to all people. What I don't love is the timing of it. It makes it easily dismissible as political theatre. Wait until after the election.

They can’t - the statute of limitations will have run out by then (there’s an argument that Trump will make that it has run out already).

Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump

#214

Post by umvi »

webdood90 wrote: post #197
umvi wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like the political equivalent of digging through someone's comment history on social media, looking for something that can be weaponized to cancel them. If power balances shift slightly I'm sure the new regime will be able to find a crime Biden committed and indict him for it. And so on and so forth with revenge indictments everytime power shifts to the other party

Great! I'm all for it! People that break the law should be punished. Why is this a problem for you or I?

It's not directly a problem for you or I per se, but it is a new form of political warfare that will further polarize and destabilize the nation...

Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump

#215

Post by anonymouskimmer »

jmull wrote: post #153
pessimizer wrote: post #123

This seems like an obvious call to civil war when we jail an ex-president who is the frontrunner for the next election. Jailing a person who could as likely as not be be supported by a majority of voters for the presidency would probably be the single most anti-democratic act to ever occur in the US. I never thought we could outdo secret trials, but here we are, doing a speedrun into total collapse. I'm just astounde…

> If you believe in democracy, you hate this. If you run for president the law shouldn’t apply to you? Because if it were, there would be armed rebellion? You aren’t describing a democracy. (Maybe this is a political prosecution, but if so, we don’t know it yet.)

Even if a prosecution is political, that doesn't mean it's wrong. Only trumped up charges (pun not intended), biased application of the law, extenuating circumstances, or a bad law make a prosecution wrong,

Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump

#216

Post by zamalek »

poulsbohemian wrote: post #167

I know it is campaign finance fraud that is the actual charge, but that fact that of all the possible things they could have charged him with, it's something tied to a sexual act feels so both disappointing and so American. It's likely they can actually get a conviction, so I guess there's that. You can already assume right-wing media will spin this into "Really? All you could get him for was a BJ?" Feels a bit like…

The sex stuff is merely more along than the others, and it opens him up to more discovery. For example, Trump's client attorney privilege was pierced just this week due to his using lawyers to commit crimes (in the classified documents case).

Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump

#217

Post by norwalkbear »

webdood90 wrote: post #194
mbgerring wrote: post #55

Nearly the entire point of the United States at its founding was that the law should apply to political leaders. We are overdue for setting the precedent of a former President being charged with a crime, and we ought to go back and charge a few other former Presidents with crimes while we’re at it.

I'm 100% in support of applying the law to all people. What I don't love is the timing of it. It makes it easily dismissible as political theatre. Wait until after the election.

[flagged]

Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump

#218

Post by fnordpiglet »

anonu wrote: post #172

[flagged]

I’ve not looked recently but when I paid more attention trumps base made up 25% of the electorate. The key question will be if mainstream republicans continue to stick by him, especially if he is convicted of paying off a porn star to hush up an extramarital affair while his wife was pregnant. It’s one thing to say it’s nonsense and a witch hunt by an over zealous politically motivated DA, but a conviction by a jury sets a whole different tone.

Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump

#219

Post by pasquinelli »

pessimizer wrote: post #123

This seems like an obvious call to civil war when we jail an ex-president who is the frontrunner for the next election. Jailing a person who could as likely as not be be supported by a majority of voters for the presidency would probably be the single most anti-democratic act to ever occur in the US. I never thought we could outdo secret trials, but here we are, doing a speedrun into total collapse. I'm just astounde…

eh, i'm guessing nothing much will come of it and no one will much care. everytime people are freaking out online about something, that's how it goes. give it a week.

but it opens the door to some funny possibilities. my guess is--if it comes to it--biden will pardon trump, which would be very funny. another interesting scenario is if trump goes to jail, he can still run for president, and honestly, i think that would give him a better chance of winning.

and when he wins and pardons himself his fans will be so happy with the fuck all he does in another four years, and his antifans will have a stroke everyday about the nothing that's happening. then the other team will win and the fans and antifans will trade places. meanwhile, in all the ways that matter it'll be as if nothing happened, a straight line from nixon to now.

if you think this is the death of democracy you haven't been in the real world, hate to break it to you.

Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump

#220

Post by [deleted] »

eru wrote: post #108
mbgerring wrote: post #55

Nearly the entire point of the United States at its founding was that the law should apply to political leaders. We are overdue for setting the precedent of a former President being charged with a crime, and we ought to go back and charge a few other former Presidents with crimes while we’re at it.

> Nearly the entire point of the United States at its founding was that the law should apply to political leaders. I thought the point of the US was to allow the president to do some sweet real estate deals? From https://www.econlib.org/archives/2016/12/bruce_bueno_de.html > His stories about George Washington, none of which I knew, are even more fascinating. Bueno de Mesquita claims, quite plausibly, that a huge par…

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