Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

581–590 of 1001 posts

Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump

#581

Post by concordDance »

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.

While it would be great to actually charge former US presidents for what they've done (Bush and Obama war crimes anyone?), politically motivated selective prosecutions are extremely corrosive. And that's what campaign finance charges (not specifically Trump ones) look like to this non-American.

Honestly, what the US campaign financing system needs is a full overhaul, its full of legal and illegal-but-ignored corruption.

Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump

#584

Post by oxfordmale »

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…

If this is perceived to be a weak case, will this help Trump in his election campaign?

I understand even his loyal voter base are now sometimes embarrassed by his actions. For example, him storing confidential papers at Mar-a-Lago after his presidency finished.

That is different from when he was first elected as President. At that time he couldn't do anything wrong. I am sure the right wing press will spin this as a witch hunt, but will it fly with the voters on the ground?

Does anyone have more insight in this?

Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump

#585

Post by fnordpiglet »

pessimizer wrote: post #271
fnordpiglet wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> especially if he is convicted of paying off a porn star to hush up an extramarital affair while his wife was pregnant. We already know he did it. This is something that has had at least 100K articles written about it. The indictment isn't for that, it's for a campaign finance violation. Paying prostitutes to sign NDAs isn't a crime. edit: So I think a conviction will make absolutely no difference. I also think 25%…

Yes they are. But I also think there must be limits to what can be accepted by the non core base. The more extreme things become, surely - surely - there’s a point where the rational conservative says “wtf”

Re: the criminal charges. There have been a lot of article written but they’re easier to dismiss than a court of law finding fact.

Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump

#586

Post by piva00 »

roenxi wrote: post #548
behringer wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Popular political figures aren't above the law, they aren't special because they are popular. I don't believe that popularity should be in any way a consideration to put someone up for a trial after they break the law.

Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump

#587

Post by roenxi »

guelo wrote: post #466
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.

What about the rule of law? Isn't it important? Isn't it possible that Trump committed a crime and should be prosecuted?

There has been an 8-year witch hunt looking for a way to shut Trump down, with 10s of millions of dollars spent accessing and scrutinising his affairs looking for a legal attack vector. Likely no politician could have withstood that level of scrutiny without some sort of technically-illegal activity turning up.

A big part of the rule of law is treating people equally. Given the lead up, this is probably a question of selective persecution.

Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump

#588

Post by piva00 »

MichaelDickens wrote: post #481
otterley wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a sense, any prosecution of a political figure can be considered political. But what's the alternative? Treating political figures as immune from criminal prosecution? What would that mean for the rule of law? And what would that mean for our expectations of our leadership -- who, if anything, should be held to a higher standard as model actors for our society and our children?

The alternative would be for prosecutors to focus their attention proportionally to `severity of crime * prior probability of guilt`. In an ideal world, you'd see Democratic prosecutors going after Democrats and Republicans going after Republicans just as often as the opposite. But I have no clue how to get from our current world to that world.

In an ideal world you wouldn't have a partisan justice system, just that aspect of the USA's justice system is already pretty bizarre.

Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump

#589

Post by mise_en_place »

padjo wrote: post #545
brewdad wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

How would you like it if you were dragged from your house in the middle of the night for unspecified crimes. That’s what “sealed” charges are.

With the way things are going, I’m sure you will find out soon. This is the type of stuff that happens in authoritarian regimes, not liberal democracies. All I can say is, I hope you’re armed when they’re at your doorstep next.

Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump

#590

Post by ZeroGravitas »

roenxi wrote: post #542
guelo wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

Worth mentioning that Stormy Daniels claims that she and her child were threatened over this issue.

> 'Leave Trump alone. Forget the story.' And then he leaned around and looked at my daughter and said, 'That's a beautiful little girl. It'd be a shame if something happened to her mom.'

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/stormy-dan...

Post reply on HN