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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

#561

Post by roenxi »

wodenokoto wrote: post #459
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…

My understanding from legal eagle on YouTube is that the payment was done illegally. Both in terms of taxes and in terms of how you are allowed to spend money on campaigning (she was hushed to aid the presidential campaign)

> (she was hushed to aid the presidential campaign)

It seems more likely that this is pretty routine with Trump and had not much to do with the campaign. I doubt he started sleeping with hot women only after deciding to run for president; and there is probably a lot of money in it for the women. One of the perks of dating billionaires.

Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump

#562

Post by mhh__ »

eldritch_4ier wrote: post #498
wodenokoto wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding from legal eagle on YouTube is that the payment was done illegally. Both in terms of taxes and in terms of how you are allowed to spend money on campaigning (she was hushed to aid the presidential campaign)

[flagged]

He's just a lawyer who happens to be a liberal. He obviously has a personal opinion but other than that I've never found him to be untruthful.

(Almost?) All lawyers do this unless talking informally. There's always a "but", they hate making judgement calls.

Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump

#563

Post by zo1 »

skellington wrote: post #485
WORMS_EAT_WORMS wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just need a mental gut check after reading this comment. Do people not think this is political?

In the sense that they are trying to get him for things that they would never even consider charging a Democrat for, yes. That doesn't mean he did or did not do something illegal. The difference is Hillary/etc. can't be prosecuted for anything. How many campaign finance skeletons do you think most of the big politicians have in their closets that will never be investigated much less prosecuted?

At the very least we have to concede that investigation and likelihood of prosecution is proportional to the noise that is made in the media and by vocal voices. It's a thousand tiny little decisions that affect the direction on the aggregate.

I'm trying to keep this comment impartial. But I want to note that right now there is a huge belief that the media and companies and the wider "acceptable" social narrative are biased against a lot of the core beliefs that people on the right align to. I too hold that belief, and I've yet to see sufficient proof to convince me otherwise.

You combine these two wide points, and I'd argue that we should sympathize with those people and not call them "crazy conspiratists" for trying to shed light on this. It's actually a difficult to prove and isolate, second-order type of conclusion.

Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump

#564

Post by philosopher1234 »

dang wrote: post #47
philosopher1234 wrote: post #5

[flagged]

That is a bad thing to guess about when you can just ask us! though sinister speculation is more fun, I know. Moderation didn't see it until someone told us about it and then we put it back on the front page.

Sorry dang. I thought it would say flagged if thats the reason it disappeared, but it had no flag marking. Moderation hiding this post isnt necessarily sinister, but i agree that speculation is more fun.

Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump

#565

Post by watwut »

vl wrote: post #547
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“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…

Not prosecuting Trump would be populist choice to appease his voters.

Also, I really dont think that "presidents should be entitled to commit any crime, because no one can prosecute them" is a good legal system to have. That would attract even more criminals to high politics, because it would make them immune to crimes.

Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump

#566

Post by xdennis »

plandis wrote: post #143
aaronbrethorst wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention finally becoming a signatory to the International Criminal Court. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_and_the_Internat...

I really hope the US doesn’t agree to give up full sovereignty of its judicial process.

If the US never prosecutes its war criminals, someone has to.

Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump

#567

Post by Seam0nkey »

WORMS_EAT_WORMS wrote: post #186
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.

Just need a mental gut check after reading this comment. Do people not think this is political?

In the sense that a former president of the US was just indicted for the first time ever, yes, it's political. By definition, in fact.

However, to engage in a counterfactual: would I expect in the scenario that a different president not eligible for reelection were to generate the same fact pattern as Trump to also be indicted? Or another scenario: a politician who is eligible for reelection to a different lower office?

Yes, in both cases.

In other words, by virtue of Trump's position I think special care and thought was taken to make sure things are on the up and up. I think prosecutors are smart people and generally are aware and thoughtful about the position they are in. I do not think they are pursuing this issue with extra vigor because Trump is Trump.

Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump

#568

Post by mhh__ »

vl wrote: post #541
sashank_1509 wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[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.

If you think hackernews is overrun by ultra-lefties you need to see twitter or Tumblr or something.

Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump

#569

Post by vmladenov »

djha-skin wrote: post #114

To play devil's advocate a little bit. From a structural perspective, it was pretty much impossible for the courts to recruit any jury that wouldn't be biased. Furthermore, the case was in New York, which is a very democratic city. I would be surprised if any jury picked from there wasn't biased and wouldn't have convicted him of any crime the judge put in front of them. To be perfectly clear, I am not a fan of Donal…

In the very democratic city you cite, 3.2 million people voted for Trump to Biden’s 5.2. I’m sure the defense can find a handful of supporters among that population they’re content with.

Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump

#570

Post by watwut »

zarzavat wrote: post #346
djha-skin wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand your point and understanding both sides of the country is very important, but so also is justice. I mean, what if he is guilty? If 48% of the population is ticked off by a guilty conviction that theoretically could be correct, that shouldn't stop us from convicting a criminal. I'm not saying Trump is a criminal; I am not on the jury and do not have the facts. But I'm saying someone should be convicted if…

Let he who is without sin throw the first stone. Should Joe Biden be prosecuted for negligently storing classified documents in his home? Every person in the US is guilty of some baseline level of criminality, and the more “interesting” your life, the more crimes you are likely to have committed. If the US wants to have non-criminal presidents then it should reform its vast state and federal criminal codes so that su…

I dont think that is reasonable or fair comparison at all. Bidens treatment of documents was much different then Trumps ... and notably his layers returned documents by themselves upon realizing the issue.

> Until that happens, a norm against criminalizing ex-presidents (except for serious crimes) is a good norm to have.

Funny enough, the framers back then claimed that law applies to presidents too ... and that this is what makes United States special and different then monarchy.

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