Convicted felon Donald Trump on Trial (Found guilty on 34 felony counts. 54 criminal count still in the air)

[Captain Wiggles]

A lil coup d'etat never hurt anyone. AiRite? 🤪

[China]

On 10/14/2023 at 2:12 PM, Darrell Green Fan said:

 

I hope you are right.  But the GA case is the best hope IMO.  

 

Don't pin your hopes on the GA case.  It won't be over before the election:

 

Georgia Prosecutor Sees Trump Case Stretching Into 2025

 

Fani T. Willis, the Atlanta district attorney leading an election interference case against former President Donald J. Trump and 14 of his allies, said on Tuesday that a trial would very likely “not conclude until the winter or the very early part of 2025.”

 

Click on the link for the full article

[PokerPacker]

49 minutes ago, China said:

 

Don't pin your hopes on the GA case.  It won't be over before the election:

 

Georgia Prosecutor Sees Trump Case Stretching Into 2025

 

Fani T. Willis, the Atlanta district attorney leading an election interference case against former President Donald J. Trump and 14 of his allies, said on Tuesday that a trial would very likely “not conclude until the winter or the very early part of 2025.”

 

Click on the link for the full article

I'm rooting for a stroke that leaves him barely functional and entirely incomprehensible (more-so than now), but fully able to feel the misery of his pathetic existence.

[Darrell Green Fan]

4 hours ago, China said:

 

Don't pin your hopes on the GA case.  It won't be over before the election:

 

Georgia Prosecutor Sees Trump Case Stretching Into 2025

 

Fani T. Willis, the Atlanta district attorney leading an election interference case against former President Donald J. Trump and 14 of his allies, said on Tuesday that a trial would very likely “not conclude until the winter or the very early part of 2025.”

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

Well that sucks and is surprising to be honest.  So the only real hope for a trial to be concluded now rests with the DC case?

[youngestson]

8 hours ago, mistertim said:

 

Bunch of MAGAs in that thread basically saying "But he did leave, so what's the big deal?" I don't think they quite grasp the concept that trying to do illegal **** but failing at it is still a crime.

 

"I mean sure, the guy went in and try to rob a bank, but he didn't actually make it out of there with any money. So no harm, no foul, right??"

If I had a dollar for every time I've used that analogy with those idiots...

 

And, with Thanksgiving on the way I get to trot it out again. Yahoo! (he said sarcastically).

[China]

Payback Scheme: Trump Tries to Get Michael Cohen’s Phone

 

Donald Trump’s obsession with seeking vengeance against his secret-spilling ex-lawyer Michael Cohen continued last month, with the former president’s lawyers trying to seize Cohen’s personal devices.

 

As the Manhattan District Attorney’s ongoing case against the former president builds toward a trial next year, Trump’s lawyers subpoenaed Cohen—who is a key witness to Trump’s porn star hush money coverup, according to documents obtained by The Daily Beast.

 

On Oct. 17, Trump lawyers Susan R. Necheles and Gedalia M. Stern filed a formal demand that Cohen fork over “all documents and communications regarding the topics below that are stored on any medium under your possession or control, including but not limited to phones (including encrypted messaging applications), tablets, computers, and hard copy.”

 

DA Alvin Bragg Jr.’s team is now scrambling to block the request, citing a growing concern at what it calls Trump’s “witness intimidation” and asking the state judge overseeing the case to intervene. His prosecutors say Trump is trying to abuse the regular document-sharing that occurs before a trial, using that exchange as an excuse to get information that’ll fuel his personal vendetta against the guy who once served as his right-hand man at the Trump Organization.

 

In a legal memo filed on Tuesday, prosecutor Matthew Colangelo called the latest Trump subpoena “an extraordinarily broad document demand that exceeds every parameter on the allowable scope of a trial subpoena.”

 

There’s a growing concern that the former president—who has shown no restraint in attacking political enemies as he seeks a return to the White House in 2024—would misuse the text messages, photos, or any other information on Cohen’s cell phone. Prosecutors explained that Cohen might be forced to turn over information that Trump “may then disseminate without restriction, posing a serious risk of witness intimidation and harassment and evading the court's existing protective order that governs the use of discovery materials in this case.”

 

Instead of focusing on the felony case at hand, Colangelo said, Trump is actually just trying to fuel his separate legal war against his former attorney—one who has transformed into a whistleblower of sorts who’s actively assisting law enforcement and congressional investigators.

 

Trump sued Cohen in Florida federal court in April, alleging that Cohen violated his duty as a personal attorney by dishing out client secrets. Notably, Trump dropped that lawsuit just before he was to sit down in a deposition and answer questions last month.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Califan007 The Constipated]

A back-n-forth I had with a MAGA member on Twitter...paraphrased:

 

Them (to someone else): "Only President Trump had authority to possess classified documents outside a secured location via the Presidential Records Act. Biden and Pence did not because they were VPs."

 

Me: "Actually, Trump didn't have authorization to take documents with him per the PRA because he was no longer president."

 

Them: "You are 100% incorrect. Try again, have someone explain it to you, then apologize."

 

Me: "You mean this part?" (I quote the PRA where it says all official documents are to remain with the National Archives when a president leaves office)

 

Me, again: "Here's more" (I provide the following screenshot--text emphasis in the screenshot is mine)

 

 

 

Them: "That's just someone's opinion. Obama kept classified documents in his sock drawer. That is an indisputable fact. There's your history of presidents taking documents with them. But NO INDICTMENTS or HARASSMENT by anyone!"

 

Me: "That's not an opinion piece...it's an official press release from the National Archives posted on the National Archives official government website lol...and it even references the sections of the PRA that backs up their statements."

 

Me, again: "And you're getting your MAGA talking points mixed up:

 

- Bill Clinton kept records and recordings in his sock drawer, not Obama.

- Clinton did this while still president (that's kind of important)

 

Your definition of "fact" differs wildly from everyone else's."

 

********

Crickets after that lol...although I suspect they will eventually respond with something even more asinine.

 

I kinda partially blame news media for not constantly correcting Trump's declarations that the PRA allows for him to take all those records with him. I mean, they do address it but usually not in real time, but rather they address it after the fact in some separate opinion piece or segment. Watched a CNN interview of some woman about Trump in which the host read one of Trump's asinine Truth Social posts that once again said the PRA says he's allowed to take the records with him. Immediately after reading it, the CNN host says to the expert they are talking to, "So how do you feel having Jenna Ellis and Sidney Powell making deals will effect Donald Trump's case in Georgia?"...she just let the entire PRA comment slide by without reminding viewers about the reality of what the PRA says.

 

Remaining silent indirectly provides evidence that what Trump said about the PRA is correct. However, If every single news media outlet made it standard practice to correct Trump's PRA statements immediately after they broadcast those statements to their viewers, it would weaken those statements' power to take hold in people's minds. We already know FOX, OAN, and whatever other right-wing "news" outlet is out there will never correct Trump's statements in real time (if at all). They may correct statements by other right-wing spokespeople, but never Trump. So if CNN, MSNBC, and the rest are also not immediately correcting him whenever he says it, then it gives an air of validity to those false statements.

 

MAGA will never watch mainstream news outlets, but the rest of the voting public will, at least occasionally. Remind them constantly what the PRA actually says. Don't let Trump take control of what it says.

 

 

 

Edited November 17, 2023 by Califan007 The Constipated

[LadySkinsFan]

CNN has veered right, even moreso since the 2016 election season when they publisized Trump everytime they opened their mouths. 

 

I wish that media would have corrected his lies every day instead of counting them up, then it became a game to Trump to see how many he could get away with. He knows he lies whenever it suits his purposes. Rational people know this, people who admire him don't or at least ignore it. 

 

He's a bully and purports to be a strong guy like his heroes Kim, Putin, and that other guy. He's really not, it's an act. That's what needs to get out. He's deathly afraid of going to prison because he knows he broke the law regardless of him saying he "believes" he won the election. That's why we are getting snippets of conversations where he admits he lost. Now the game is to stay out of prison.

[PokerPacker]

5 hours ago, Califan007 The Constipated said:

A back-n-forth I had with a MAGA member on Twitter...paraphrased:

 

Them (to someone else): "Only President Trump had authority to possess classified documents outside a secured location via the Presidential Records Act. Biden and Pence did not because they were VPs."

 

Me: "Actually, Trump didn't have authorization to take documents with him per the PRA because he was no longer president."

 

Them: "You are 100% incorrect. Try again, have someone explain it to you, then apologize."

 

Me: "You mean this part?" (I quote the PRA where it says all official documents are to remain with the National Archives when a president leaves office)

 

Me, again: "Here's more" (I provide the following screenshot--text emphasis in the screenshot is mine)

 

 

 

Them: "That's just someone's opinion. Obama kept classified documents in his sock drawer. That is an indisputable fact. There's your history of presidents taking documents with them. But NO INDICTMENTS or HARASSMENT by anyone!"

 

Me: "That's not an opinion piece...it's an official press release from the National Archives posted on the National Archives official government website lol...and it even references the sections of the PRA that backs up their statements."

 

Me, again: "And you're getting your MAGA talking points mixed up:

 

- Bill Clinton kept records and recordings in his sock drawer, not Obama.

- Clinton did this while still president (that's kind of important)

 

Your definition of "fact" differs wildly from everyone else's."

 

********

Crickets after that lol...although I suspect they will eventually respond with something even more asinine.

 

I kinda partially blame news media for not constantly correcting Trump's declarations that the PRA allows for him to take all those records with him. I mean, they do address it but usually not in real time, but rather they address it after the fact in some separate opinion piece or segment. Watched a CNN interview of some woman about Trump in which the host read one of Trump's asinine Truth Social posts that once again said the PRA says he's allowed to take the records with him. Immediately after reading it, the CNN host says to the expert they are talking to, "So how do you feel having Jenna Ellis and Sidney Powell making deals will effect Donald Trump's case in Georgia?"...she just let the entire PRA comment slide by without reminding viewers about the reality of what the PRA says.

 

Remaining silent indirectly provides evidence that what Trump said about the PRA is correct. However, If every single news media outlet made it standard practice to correct Trump's PRA statements immediately after they broadcast those statements to their viewers, it would weaken those statements' power to take hold in people's minds. We already know FOX, OAN, and whatever other right-wing "news" outlet is out there will never correct Trump's statements in real time (if at all). They may correct statements by other right-wing spokespeople, but never Trump. So if CNN, MSNBC, and the rest are also not immediately correcting him whenever he says it, then it gives an air of validity to those false statements.

 

MAGA will never watch mainstream news outlets, but the rest of the voting public will, at least occasionally. Remind them constantly what the PRA actually says. Don't let Trump take control of what it says.

 

 

 

You cannot reason someone out of a position that they did not use reason to entrench into.

[EmirOfShmo]

I'm assuming 'end of this week' is today(?)

 

‘Unprecedented’ Trump 14th Amendment trial in Colorado comes to a close

 

A trial in a landmark case seeking to bar former President Donald Trump from Colorado’s ballot concluded on Wednesday with closing arguments from Trump’s legal team, the Colorado Republican Party, the state’s top elections official and the plaintiffs who say a Civil War-era constitutional amendment makes the 2024 GOP frontrunner ineligible to hold office again.

...

Judge Sarah B. Wallace is expected to issue a ruling on the case by the end of this week. Similar challenges to Trump’s ballot eligibility have stalled in states including Minnesota and Michigan, but Colorado has been widely viewed as a more favorable venue for the plaintiffs due to the state’s election laws and existing court precedent. Regardless of the outcome, the Colorado case and other 14th Amendment challenges are likely to be appealed to higher courts, potentially as far as the U.S. Supreme Court, where conservatives hold a 6-3 majority.

 

https://coloradonewsline.com/2023/11/16/trump-14th-amendment-trial-colorado/

[Passizle]

I don't normally wallow in the filth of political talk, but I wanted to drop this dime... If you want (IMO) real fresh looks a real news with very little (if ever) political commentary, give Scripps News (formerly Newsy) a shot. I feel the more people watch that, the better informed they will be. IMO, Trump is unelectable. Ill only vote for Biden if there is no other option on the ticket. We need younger men/women that will have to live with the results of their policies for the next 30 years. I personally really liked BUttigieg in the last cycle, but I don't think the country is ready to vote for a gay man... especially with all "woke" nonsense parroted on the right. I don't really like anyone on the GOP side this election (maybe CHristie). In the past I was a Jon Huntsman supported (until he dropped out). I liked McCain too until the gop convince that guy to attach himself to a 2k lbs anchor in Sarah Palin. A Christie/Newsome race would be pretty interesting.

Edited November 17, 2023 by Passizle

[Jumbo]

I've been watching Scripps news the most while stuck in MT the last six months. They still offer a fair amount of commentary but not nearly the volume found in the other well known cable outlets.

 

It's decent, pretty good. I still see 'politicizing' occur but it's notably less than MSNBC or CNN (of course I can't treat fox news or newsmax or oan as anything other than so extreme they should have all freedom of expression removed and all employees should receive lifetime sentences in gulags 🙂)

 

When I do see it on Scripps it's a milder and less constant version of cnn's choices to actually try to give right-sided takes more legitimacy then they merit.

 

Outlets need clicks (clicks used as a board term for "consumer respond"). Clicks = $ and $ are always the bottom line.

 

I still prefer abc, cbs, and nbc. They have enough revenue to not worry about profitable news shows and I think are very underrated in the quality and general fairness/accuracy of their coverage.

 

I know their embrace of what a large swath of "conservatives" would call "wokeness" and celebrating cultural diversity is considered a lefty political bias by those people but I see it as just advocating for basic human decency more than them being politically "for" the left in their programming.

 

 

[EmirOfShmo]

You spout lies about a rigged election before the actual vote in November. Now you're telling us people went to the Capitol on January 6th because they thought the election was rigged?

You're a ****ing genius!

 

Trump Gives Away the Game With January 6 Confession in New Recording

 

Newly released audio from an interview recorded just two months after January 6 captures Donald Trump’s real thoughts on the insurrection. In his own words, the former president claimed it was within his abilities to stop the riot.

When asked by ABC chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl if he would have returned to the Capitol Building while thousands of MAGA supporters raided the building, Trump said he “would have.”

“I was going to,” Trump said in the recording, first published by CNN. “And then Secret Service said ‘you can’t’, and then by the time … I was thinking about going back during the problem to stop the problem, doing it myself. Secret Service didn’t like that idea too much.”

“And I could’ve done that,” Trump continued. “And you know what? I would have been very well received. Don’t forget, the people that went to Washington that day, in my opinion, they went because they thought the election was rigged. That’s why they went.”

 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-gives-away-game-january-163538743.html

[Dan T.]

God I hate that sociopath.

[Captain Wiggles]

Smart move throwing the agency what handles one's security under the bus. 🤭

 

[hail2skins]

One of the quotes that's slightly fuller from the Trump tape with Karl (from another article):

 

"I was going to, and then Secret Service said you can’t, and then by the time... I would have, and then when I get back, I saw... I wanted to go back. I was thinking about going back during the problem to stop the problem, doing it myself,” said Trump, who told his supporters to go to the Capitol.

 

First, did Karl follow up and ask "what problem are you referring to?"

 

Second, Trump was so concerned about the riot that was occurring that his thought was to tweet attacking Mike Pence for not having the courage to do his bidding. And I'm convinced that his tweet 15 minutes later asking for the crowd to cooperate with the police came as a result of someone in the WH telling him that he had to say something or that he was going to be in a lot of trouble.

 

Only a little over five more years of this, folks 😡

[Renegade7]

This is a Mr. Fantastic level stretch right here...

 

Quote

Because of “the absence of the president from the list of positions to which the amendment applies combined with the fact that Section Three specifies that the disqualifying oath is one to ‘support’ the Constitution whereas the presidential oath is to ‘preserve, protect and defend’ the Constitution,” Judge Wallace wrote, “it appears to the court that for whatever reason the drafters of Section Three did not intend to include a person who had only taken the presidential oath.”

 

Colorado Judge Keeps Trump on Ballot, Rejecting 14th Amendment Argument https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/17/us/politics/colorado-trump-14th-amendment.html?smid=nytcore-android-share

 

So what does support mean?

 

And if it's not clear if it applies to the President, then who does it apply to?. We didn't know so we won't apply it sounds weak AF.

[Sacks 'n' Stuff]

So we have just ruled that presidents are allowed to engage in insurrection. OK.

[Renegade7]

27 minutes ago, Sacks 'n' Stuff said:

So we have just ruled that presidents are allowed to engage in insurrection. OK.

 

Either folks too scurred to set precedent in first of its kind situation for our country or in on helping him get away with it.  Some are more obvious then others.

[China]

Chutkan denies Trump motion to strike Jan. 6 language from indictment

 

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan denied a motion Friday by former President Trump to strike some language about Jan. 6 from the indictment in special counsel Jack Smith’s case related to attempts to overturn the 2020 election.

 

In a late October filing, Trump’s legal team argued certain portions of the indictment “include repeated references to the actions of independent actors at the Capitol on January 6, 2021” and “does not charge President Trump with responsibility for any of these actions,” so therefore, they are “not relevant” and “prejudicial and inflammatory.”

 

“The allegations in the indictment are not unduly prejudicial or inflammatory,” Smith said in an early November filing. “In fact, evidence of the attack at the Capitol on January 6 is powerful and probative evidence of the defendant’s conduct, motive, and intent. The Court should deny the defendant’s motion.”

 

On Friday, Chutkan denied the former president’s motion to strike the portions from the indictment. In her ruling, she pushed back against the late October motion as well as another filing by Trump’s legal team in relation to his motion. 
 

“Regardless of whether the allegations at issue are relevant, Defendant has not satisfied his burden to clearly show that they are prejudicial,” Chutkan said in her ruling.

Click on the link for the full article 

 

 

[China]

This just in…Judge Aileen Cannon is doing her best to delay the trial as per Trump’s wishes, without appearing to do so overtly:

 

Trump classified documents trial running about four months behind schedule

 

Donald Trump’s trial on charges that he retained classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago club and obstructed justice is running about four months behind schedule after the federal judge presiding in the case in Florida declined to set a crucial filing deadline until at least next March.

The US district judge Aileen Cannon put off setting a deadline for Trump to submit a notice about what classified information he intends to use at trial – currently set for May – until after a hearing next year that almost certainly precludes the pre-trial process from finishing in time.

 

Click on the link for the full article 

 

 

[mistertim]

3 hours ago, China said:

This just in…Judge Aileen Cannon is doing her best to delay the trial as per Trump’s wishes, without appearing to do so overtly:

 

Trump classified documents trial running about four months behind schedule

 

Donald Trump’s trial on charges that he retained classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago club and obstructed justice is running about four months behind schedule after the federal judge presiding in the case in Florida declined to set a crucial filing deadline until at least next March.

The US district judge Aileen Cannon put off setting a deadline for Trump to submit a notice about what classified information he intends to use at trial – currently set for May – until after a hearing next year that almost certainly precludes the pre-trial process from finishing in time.

 

Click on the link for the full article 

 

 

 

Exactly what I guessed she would do. On such a high profile case she's not going to be as blatant and obvious about having her finger on the scale for Trump as she has in other cases. Instead she'll just keep pushing things back little by little until there's no way the trial will start before the election. She's a full-on MAGA and nothing is going to change that.

[Califan007 The Constipated]

8 hours ago, Sacks 'n' Stuff said:

So we have just ruled that presidents are allowed to engage in insurrection. OK.

 

I think "we" have just ruled to let some higher court decide on appeal what the president's government status is and what the definition of "support" should be. Because I doubt the group that brought the suit is just shrugging and saying "Oh well, we tried."

[China]

Appeals court suggests it may pare back Trump’s D.C. gag order

 

A federal appeals court wrestled Monday with the scope of a gag order imposed in the D.C. election-obstruction case of Donald Trump, grilling a government prosecutor and a lawyer for the former president over how much to protect Trump’s speech as he runs for president and awaits a criminal trial.

 

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit indicated it may narrow the order prohibiting the former president from attacking individual prosecutors such as special counsel Jack Smith, or from calling potential witnesses against him “liars” in the heat of next year’s campaign. But they noted that Trump was “not above the law,” or free from criminal prohibitions against intimidating or tampering with witnesses, including as conditions of his pretrial release on bail.

 

“There’s a balance that has to be undertaken here, and it’s a very difficult balance,” said Judge Patricia A. Millett, the senior member of the panel that heard Trump’s fast-tracked appeal. “We’ve got to use a careful scalpel here and not step into really sort of skewing the political arena, don’t we?”

 

Over nearly 2½ hours of oral arguments on Monday, far beyond the scheduled time, Millett, Pillard and Garcia struggled over how to juggle opposing constitutional interests in protecting Trump’s “core political speech,” on the one hand, and ensuring the government, defense and public a fair trial.

 

The judges appeared intent on holding Trump to the same standard of behavior as other defendants, even as they worried that such a standard might be overbroad and unfair in this instance. In trying to apply the few available precedents on the issue — U.S. courts have rarely addressed the question of gag orders — the judges noted that in some ways the entire subject was uncharted given the role that social media plays in modern life.

 

As Millett succinctly asked: Is it core political speech, or is it “political speech aimed at derailing or corrupting the criminal justice process?”

 

Assistant special counsel Cecil VanDevender alleged the latter, claiming a “dynamic” or “pattern” by Trump, stretching back years, in which he rhetorically targets his opponents, who then become “subject to harassment, threats and intimidation.” He said the former president is attempting to undermine the judicial system and his prosecution through a gusher of “disparaging and inflammatory attacks” against case participants, including potential witnesses.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Dan T.]

Just in time for Christmas: