Trump on Trial

[Bereta_Eder]

So he got convicted for giving money to a prostitute?

Must be something more

I'm not following closely but it seems the world is overall ready for another magnificent clusterf

[BeBMan]

Hunter Biden's laptop s also in trouble now. Kid predicted everything exactly, except that it was actually not about the laptop, but about guns or somesuch

[Geronimo]

No expertise required: Trump's argument is laughable because literally everything is transactional with him and everyone around him.
The jury has spoken. I have no interest in your Whatabout Clinton sideshow.​

I knew whataboutism would be dropped as a deflection of any alarm over the appearance of partisan taint of the judicial process and frankly I'm surprised it took as long as it did. I do hope that when you say "the jury has spoken" you're indicating you just were interested which verdict they might render and are no longer interested in the thread and not instead trotting out the tired line that everyone needs to respect what jury speaks in its verdict. Not after decades of jury nullification during Jim crow and various more recent cases like the infamous OJ trial. But either way, if a red district were to retaliate against a prominent progressive after the Prosecutor ran for his office promising to do so, how would you evaluate that? No "whataboutism" allowed right?

[N35t0r]

I knew whataboutism would be dropped as a deflection of any alarm over the appearance of partisan taint of the judicial process and frankly I'm surprised it took as long as it did. I do hope that when you say "the jury has spoken" you're indicating you just were interested which verdict they might render and are no longer interested in the thread and not instead trotting out the tired line that everyone needs to respect what jury speaks in its verdict. Not after decades of jury nullification during Jim crow and various more recent cases like the infamous OJ trial. But either way, if a red district were to retaliate against a prominent progressive after the Prosecutor ran for his office promising to do so, how would you evaluate that? No "whataboutism" allowed right?

So you think that (former) presidents should be held to lower standards than regular citizens just in case it looks partisan?

In any case, you seem convinced that this case is just 'progressive retaliation', and not, you know, Trump having actually broken the law, so I'm not sure what you expect to get out of this.

[Edit:] regarding your dumb counter-retaliation example, if the 'prominent progressive' had _actually broken the law_, then _it is not retaliation_ (although I guess it could be, depending on how the trial is carried, like not offering the possibility of a plea deal when normally it is for such cases, but there's so many hypotheticals it's not really useful to continue on such tangents).

Also your claim that there are more serious things that trump should be tried for is, as -Jrabbit mentioned, very silly, since there's nothing that states that people should only be tried only for the worse thing they've done. You're afraid that justice might seem partisan?
To recap, Trump has:
Taken top secret documents (including nuclear security information) home, some just weeks before his term ended.
Lied about having taken them. Then lied about having already returned them. Then actively worked to hide said documents from the FBI when they went to retrieve them.
This includes returning empty top secret documents folders, without being able to return their content.
And that trial is being verrrryyyy sllloooowwwlllyyyy moving forward by a trump-appointed judge who was already admonished by the 11th circuit panel.

[Geronimo]

So you think that (former) presidents should be held to lower standards than regular citizens just in case it looks partisan?

Of course! Not because lower standards were ever warranted but because it is everywhere obvious. If there appears to be obvious special treatment, especially when it comes to presidents and former presidents it very quickly destroys faith in non-partisan justice when that special treatment is removed for one candidate. Especially by prosecutors running for their office in extremely partisan districts and actively campaigning on a record of litigation against a specific political candidate and on a platform of pursuing that candidate's unspecified "crimes". Especially when the crime that the prosecution eventually pursues seems to set a new standard not just for former presidents but for everyone. Nobody has been prosecuted for the crime Trump was convicted on with anything like these statute of limitation problems, let alone for a crime with no material harm to any victim. And yet it's obvious that despite Bill Clinton's very public felony perjury being, in terms of conduct and any resulting theoretical harm, at least as dangerous as Trump's crime, Bill Clinton was never made into a felon for his much easier to prosecute felony of perjury. rolling our eyes and dismissing the glaring disparity in outcomes as "whataboutism" will do nothing to deflect dangerous accusations of partisan justice. The only safe way to bring these higher standards down to grounded normal standards is to do so gradually with small precedents and definitely don't start with front runner current candidate for the office for a crime which frankly had absurdly low damage to anyone. In fact, any time someone is prosecuted for a crime more than 6 years after the fact which supposedly has been on the books for years and which the statute of limitation has run out for both the misdemeanor (2 years) as well as for the felony (5 years) - and which is totally dependent on the never prosecuted misdemeanor- prosecution of the case that point definitely looks as if the standard must be *higher* than for the general public. There isn't any direct harm to the public interest with these amounts and these motivations at all which means the decision to prosecute a novel case seems to scream partisan justice.

In any case, you seem convinced that this case is just 'progressive retaliation', and not, you know, Trump having actually broken the law, so I'm not sure what you expect to get out of this.

what I get out of posting my concern and alarm over the case? What I want to get is discussion of the dangers and acknowledgement of the problem. It would also be welcome to find that my concerns are misinformed and get a new perspective on the case.

[Edit:] regarding your dumb counter-retaliation example, if the 'prominent progressive' had _actually broken the law_, then _it is not retaliation_ (although I guess it could be, depending on how the trial is carried, like not offering the possibility of a plea deal when normally it is for such cases, but there's so many hypotheticals it's not really useful to continue on such tangents).

Also your claim that there are more serious things that trump should be tried for is, as -Jrabbit mentioned, very silly, since there's nothing that states that people should only be tried only for the worse thing they've done. You're afraid that justice might seem partisan?
To recap, Trump has:
Taken top secret documents (including nuclear security information) home, some just weeks before his term ended.
Lied about having taken them. Then lied about having already returned them. Then actively worked to hide said documents from the FBI when they went to retrieve them.
This includes returning empty top secret documents folders, without being able to return their content.
And that trial is being verrrryyyy sllloooowwwlllyyyy moving forward by a trump-appointed judge who was already admonished by the 11th circuit panel.

I'm alarmed that once the seed is firmly planted that the justice system is readily partisan then it will provide enormous political cover to things like partisan pardoning of criminals and special partisan legislation designed to address the partisan justice problem which could perversely make prosecution of partisan candidate defendants for actual harm to the public interests far more difficult and make partisan justice outcomes even more likely. probably vastly more likely. Furthermore, especially if Trump is elected president, every case you mentioned becomes far more likely to either fail because of the partisan measures I just mentioned or to fail because of the problems this case will cause for political appointees who are responsible to pursue these cases.

My dumb counter-example has happened in the past. It took special federal legislation to reign in partisan justice in pursuit of jim crow. What is going to dampen the problem this time?

[Geronimo]

I do hope that Hunter Biden's conviction helps defuse some of the perception of partisan judicial outcomes but its ability to do so will be severely limited by the simple fact that Hunter Biden doesn't actually hold any office, run for any office or even express interest in eventually holding any kind of public office. Definitely it would have been more dangerous if Hunter had escaped prosecution or if he had only escaped conviction, but if the electorate is already convinced that Trump is a purely transactional individual who views the interests of his family as totally subservient to his political goals and therefore incapable of making false records to protect them then obviously it won't be much of a stretch for people imagining Clinton, Biden or any other career politician following the same calculus and only protecting their family if and when it helps them politically.

[Geronimo]

I also think that either none of the other cases against Trump rise to the level of damages set by the civil lawsuit against the appalling "Trump University" which he settled while he was president, or I think that they are cases that may well rise to at least that level of damage but for which all other high-profile politicians are very publicly escaping prosecution on. I only mention the Trump civil lawsuit because that case really ticked me off and because since he settled it as president, I'm not sure that we can credibly claim that he has a history of using political office to escape from justice. A claim which is often levelled as a kind of justification for judicial partisanship specifically targeting Trump. That claim may be justified in the end if Trump is elected president but now this case in combination with earlier cases only undermines that assertion i the meantime. If you really don't want to see Trump regain the presidency this case may have the opposite effect in that regard especially.

Furthermore, I'm more than a little ticked off that Trump supposedly is a career criminal who gets prosecuted for being lousy and sloppy at covering his tracks and yet he never got convicted of a felony until he's a partisan household name and in the very suspicious political setting I described earlier. What's the message? if you want to be prosecuted then you should run for office as a major party candidate upsetting the applecart in the party you run in? It's already almost impossible to succeed in either major party as any kind of platform upsetting "outsider" and Trump only succeeded because his enormous personal wealth made him harder to marginalize. When Trump ran for president, I immediately recognized him as a wealthy elite insider even more than as a political outsider but now successful prosecution of Trump, especially if he wins the presidency afterwards, will only serve to further highlight and underline the perceived political non-viability of "outsiders" especially those without any enormous personal wealth to protect them from ruin and retain expensive legal counsel. Succeeding as any kind of "outsider" rather than as a political "insider" will become even more contingent on wealth and leave "outsiders" of any ordinary means dismissed as non-viable.

My suggestion isn't let's refrain from prosecuting Trump or let's refrain from prosecuting wealthy perceived political "outsider" candidates. no. My suggesting is to stick to cases with actual harm. stick to cases with actual victims and if there's huge publicly known prior examples of very similar, very public crimes being committed by similar candidates for or holders of public office under very similar circumstances not leading to conviction then maybe at least make sure that the prior non-prosecuted cases are from the same party or general side of the political divide as the case that we decide to prosecute because, again, perceptions of systematic political/partisan judicial bias are extremely toxic in a society with respect for rule of law.

This conviction of Trump in particular is going to have plenty of damaging effects and zero potential for any good ones.

[Dauphin]

Bill Clinton was never made into a felon for his much easier to prosecute felony of perjury.

I looked back at this. Clinton entered a form of plea deal. Law licence was revoked. Paid costs. Had to public admit his perjury. In response the case was not prosecuted.

Trump could have conceivably copped a deal with New York case. But Trump is adamant he did nothing wrong. So I am not surprised there was no agreement. What I don't know is what could have happened if Trump had taken the route of 'what do I say or do in atonement to make this case go away' - would the DA have set a reasonable and commensurate bar? Would Trump have become a felon?

[Geronimo]

I looked back at this. Clinton entered a form of plea deal. Law licence was revoked. Paid costs. Had to public admit his perjury. In response the case was not prosecuted.

Trump could have conceivably copped a deal with New York case. But Trump is adamant he did nothing wrong. So I am not surprised there was no agreement. What I don't know is what could have happened if Trump had taken the route of 'what do I say or do in atonement to make this case go away' - would the DA have set a reasonable and commensurate bar? Would Trump have become a felon?

Of course, the thing is plea deals generally aren't a result of altruism. There wasn't much Clinton could possibly say to defend himself from accusations of felony perjury. Essentially everyone saw him get caught red handed.

Trump on the other hand is accused of criminally falsifying his personal expense documents and business ledgers (by characterizing hush money that he paid to his lawyer to personally handle the hush money payments as "legal expenses") not to help keep his extramarital affairs quiet for his family or his marriage but purely as a way of criminally avoiding a campaign contribution. This despite the fact that an extra $450k (accepting all tangentially related expenses as being "campaign contributions") let alone no more than an extra $130k (if we only include the actual fraudulent payments) is tiny change in billion dollar presidential campaigns. Are we seriously to believe that Trump with no prior felonies committed felonious fraud over this amount purely in order to skirt the letter and spirit of campaign finance reform law? Are we also believe that if he instead had dutifully reported the expenses as "campaign contributions" that the result and impact would be a meaningful adjustment to his campaign war chest and finances that the spirit of the law was intended to protect rather than instead overwhelmingly consist of publication of an extramarital affair that the hush money contract was intended to cover and thereby causing hush money contracts to become impossible for candidates for political office? You can't seriously believe that is the intent or public interest behind the campaign finance laws invoked in this case. Perjury on the other hand is simpler. If you will make knowingly false statements under oath for any motive, especially to win your day in court then when you get caught red handed no surprise a plea deal is offered and accepted. Why should Trump have believed he committed a felony if he had been offered a plea? The charges were not reasonable. He might have reasoned that a misdemeanor to cover an extramarital affair was just that. a misdemeanor and that campaign finance law could not be reasonably said to apply in such situations.

It's about as ridiculous as if he had recorded extra payments to his butler as "housekeeping expenses" when in fact they were to offset the butler's expenses for personally paying the expenses associated with handling a big surprise party for his wife while Trump was running for president and the guests included some potential future campaign contributors. The butler paying caterers and DJs and bands wouldn't ordinarily be regarded as "housekeeping" expenses and hypothetically the event could have indirect campaign impact but all that was really happening was the surprise party being concealed at the expense level from his wife. if these guests decide to contribute to his campaign its not going to because they were guests and its not reasonable to expect that Trump would need to classify potentially everything he does as a campaign contribution because we can construe campaign benefit and want to dismiss the alternative explanation of that otherwise perfectly legal expenditure and documentation.