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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

#541

Post by vl »

sashank_1509 wrote: post #450
graeme wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Quick question, who is the most criminal president in US history? Your post is a lot of meta talk and very short on actual....crimes. The idea behind this indictment is that Trump broke the law as a citizen. Not that he did stuff in office that people dislike. Which law did Obama break which you think he evaded prosecution for on account of being president. Please be specific.

[flagged]

This beyond funny how you present well-researched answer explaining republican’s point of view in a post contrasting left-vs-right viewpoints but just get downvoted for doing so.

HN is so overrun by ultra-lefties and is so unmoderated (on such topics), that is impossible to have productive discussion here.

Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump

#542

Post by roenxi »

guelo wrote: post #451
vharuck wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It sounds like they have to prove two separate crimes, and connect them with intention. Intent of course is always hard to prove in court. Michael Cohen pled guilty and was sentenced to three years for the campaign finance law, and he's been very vocal about Trump's knowledge and involvement. So proving intent doesn't seem impossible. And, by definition, falsifying business records comes with a record of false infor…

I've seen arguments in the right-ophere that Cohen improperly plead guilty to a non-crime. Which seems like a weird thing for a high-level well-connected lawyer to do.

There was a fairly effective push to dismantle groups linked to Trump's electoral success [0]. They had a similar air of bullshit charges that only became an issue because prosecutors wanted to achieve political ends.

It is weird, but it is likely he is being threatened. If they can get Trump arrested for this, they can certainly put Cohen in jeopardy.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/21/us/mueller-tr...

EDIT Also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Bannon#2022_New_York_sta... is probably going to fall into the same basket

Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump

#543

Post by trafficante »

mindslight wrote: post #419
stuckinhell wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When it comes to Trump, people seem to be blind to the effects of soft power. Trump is beloved by his base in a way no other president in the last 100 years is. The danger of this half-assed prosecution to the republic is fucking enormous, I'm actually scared.

Trump's "base" doesn't particularly matter. They'll continue on in denial/spite regardless of what happens. The damage they themselves can do is limited, as long as we have functioning law enforcement. The only way we're getting out of the larger situation is for Republicans and independents to realize that Trump is/was just another basic grifter capitalizing on frustration with the system. Just because someone is de…

Trump’s base scares the hell out of DC for very good reason.

“Jan 6th but an actual insurrection with guns and political/military leaders”

Or

“Southwestern sheriff decides to expel illegal immigrants on his own, requests ‘MAGA patriots’ to come on down and get deputized, atrocities ensue, feds get involved and it spirals into a state vs federal fiasco (which sounds fanfic but Abbott and DeSantis are clearly sympathetic to the idea)”

I honestly think that the second scenario or at least another Malheur Wildlife Refuge/Waco style standoff is only a matter of time - and judging by DoJ’s public priorities, they’re extremely concerned about it as well.

Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump

#544

Post by anonymousiam »

marcell wrote: post #389

I've scrolled through the top ~10 or so comments, and none of them, describe or comment on the nature of the charges against Trump. To be fair to the commenters, most stories are vague. The charges relate to hush money payments to Stormy Daniels, but hush money is not a crime. It's also not a crime to have an affair with Stormy Daniels. So the most salacious parts of the story are not what the crime is. My understand…

The indictment was filed under seal, so why does CNN and the New York Times know what's in it?

Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump

#545

Post by padjo »

brewdad wrote: post #512
ncallaway wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> describe or comment on the nature of the charges against Trump. To be fair to the commenters, most stories are vague. That's because the charges haven't been announced yet. The facts that we know are that a grand jury has voted to indict Donald Trump and has delivered a True Bill to the prosecutors. The indictment is at this moment sealed. It should be unsealed shortly (speculation was a timeline of tonight/tomorro…

Seriously. At this point we don't know whether Trump is being indicted on a minor campaign violation or for running a child sex ring and hiding bodies under the 17th green of Trump National. Logic and the rumor mill suggest it's far closer to the former but until the indictment is unsealed we are all going to have to wait and see. The 24 hour news cycle can't handle that vacuum but that's their problem.

Doesn’t stop people like Pence and Lindsey Graham from cynically playing to the crowd by describing as outrageous charges that haven’t been made public yet

Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump

#546

Post by MrOwnPut »

dragonwriter wrote: post #407
midoridensha wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Honestly thats exactly what Democrats want too, as they would rather run against Trump than Desantis or a Never Trumper. Isn't this the kind of thinking they had back in 2015, which resulted in Trump winning?

> Isn't this the kind of thinking they had back in 2015, which resulted in Trump winning? No, I don’t think so. Trump was actually the weakest general election candidate of the major Republicans, what resulted in Trump winning was institutional power in the Democratic Party aligning betwern a candidate that was, equally clearly, the weakest general election candidate of the major Democratic contenders, and whose nega…

He ran against like 17 Republicans, including major political dynasties like the Bush's. He easily swept the primaries...

Then in the generals he went and flipped Pennsylvania and won more counties than any R since Reagan.

You can look at the turnout and total votes to see it blows away your "weak candidate" argument.

I just don't think America likes dynasties or the political establishment. You can see it from grassroot campaigns like Reagan and Trump.

Most of the time they get shoved in your face and there's no choice, but when there is a popular alternative, it's a clear choice.

Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump

#547

Post by vl »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #403
sashank_1509 wrote: post #199

Alright let me make the argument why indicting Trump is a horrible idea. It's really not hard to see why, if you have any insight into what the other side thinks: 1. First there are two alternative realities being played in real time in US: This arguably is the first time this has happened in US history (maybe civil war was another time) but two populations have become so isolated that they essentially live in 2 diff…

“We shouldn’t hold politicians accountable for their crimes because their supporters won’t like it” is one of the weirder takes I’ve seen in this thread. Obviously someone’s followers won’t like seeing their hero held accountable for crimes, but having a lot of followers shouldn’t make someone immune from consequences for their crimes. That’s one hell of a slippery slope. > Now if you go ahead and jail the populist l…

> “We shouldn’t hold politicians accountable for their crimes because their supporters won’t like it”

This is not the point OP is making. The point is that there is deep divide, and this is populist move from once side trying to remove one of the contenders from the race (ironically, dems would be better off if they would allow Trump to run since then they are likelier to win).

This move is extremely dangerous since it is directed on ex-president. If presidents know that once they will leave office others side would come for their head, guess what, they would not leave office. Dictatorship, police state, potential civil war, and risk it for what? For getting cheap brownie points agains washed-out politician?

Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump

#548

Post by roenxi »

behringer wrote: post #222
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 askin…

Why did they only get capone on tax evasion?

That was also an outrageous and silly charge and representative a failure of the legal system to live up to its ideals of process and fairness. It wasn't especially political though, because by and large there is consensus that being a gangster should be illegal and that Capone was probably a gangster.

Attempting to take a popular political figure out by blatant abuse of the legal abuse is a bit more concerning.

Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump

#549

Post by Seam0nkey »

BrandoElFollito wrote: post #531
analog31 wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I read, the indictment is sealed. Does that mean we don't really know precisely what the charges are yet? I'm willing to wait and see. Also, from everything I've read, well defended people are remarkably hard to convict. This is as it should be, as it may let some people go scot free, but protects the rest of us. Convicting Trump will be hard. It might fail. Does this mean that charges should not be brought…

Since there is the concept of sealed indictment, why are all the indictments not sealed (or none of them)? I guess this is to preserve the person that is accused (because an accusation is easier to make than to defend, given the visibility decided by the media, supporters, etc)) - do why some are more preserved then others? Since the topic is a hot one, please note that I am from France and have no stakes nor interes…

Most indictments are never sealed (if the accused has been arrested on other charges, for example, there isn't much use in trying to keep it secret from the accused), and the ones that are always become unsealed in order to go to trial. There are a number of reasons to file an indictment under seal - ranging from juvenile records to managing flight risks of the accused.

The one that is probably most pertinent in this case has to do with testimony in front of a grand jury: both encouraging it to occur, and preventing it from being tampered with by the accused.

Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump

#550

Post by guelo »

adam_arthur wrote: post #539

Just going to drop this here, make of it what you will. "By intentionally obscuring their payments through Perkins Cole and failing to publicly disclose the true purpose of those payments,” the campaign and DNC “were able to avoid publicly reporting on their statutorily required FEC disclosure forms the fact that they were paying Fusion GPS to perform opposition research on Trump with the intent of influencing the ou…

That issue was resolved when the FEC did an investigation and issued a fine. There was accountability. Why should there be no accountability for Trump?
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