Trump.

[Jon Miller]

Thanks for the long replies JM. I think generally long well considered replies deserve long well considered replies of their own. I'll try to follow up more a bit later.

I cut my post, and then tried to split it into three, but I still had difficulty posting it. Sorry about that.

JM

[Geronimo]

You don't appear to understand the indictment. The issue isn't that Trump said 'I did nothing wrong with having these documents'. The issue is that Trump lied about having them, tried to hide them, ordered other people to hide them and lie about them, and so on.

It isn't that Trump cited executive privilege.

For your information https://www.justice.gov/storage/US-v...a-23-80101.pdf

First of all, I cited the ubiquitous usage of executive privilege simply to remind everyone that presidents as a rule are quick to freely use these presidential constitutional perks to provide cover for seemingly anything and everything that might put them in conflict with the rest of the federal government. It strikes me as absurd to hope that Biden or anyone else will refrain from using new privileges and perks that may cross their path. If you don't like to see the new described bounds of presidential immunity explored by a president I'm sorry to report that there really isn't any historic precedent for expecting some president other than Trump to be more restrained and to refrain from exercising such power.

As far as the unlawful willful retention of classified documents, unfortunately this is a race between Biden and Trump. Biden was certainly not found "not guilty" of willfully, unlawfully retaining such documents. Instead special council Robert Hur opined that Biden would present himself as "as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory" such that a jury would be unwilling to convict him. If our choice is between a man charged with willful unlawful retention of classified documents or a man deemed to be guilty of willful unlawful retention of classified documents but too senile to convict then I struggle to understand why the senile man becomes the clear preferred choice in that context. Is it simply because his opponent in the election was deemed sufficiently mentally fit and sufficiently uncharismatic to stand trial for the same crime?

https://<a href="https://www.npr.org...highlights</a>

Because he abused and claimed powers in Trump's first term that Biden didn't claim or abuse in his second term. Trump was trying to get the DoJ to go after his opponents; Biden didn't do that.

Here is the Trump immunity opinion https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinion...3-939_e2pg.pdf

You say "here is the Trump immunity opinion" (thank you for the link), but curiously you only quote the dissenting opinion, none of the majority concurring opinion. I considered quoting the the majority opinion in full here but the dissenting opinion was already unnecessarily long for the thread in the first place IMHO so I'll just assume you've taken the pains to read it. It is certainly fascinating reading. I'll quote a few choice points below:

Trump moved to dismiss the indictment based on Presidential immunity. In his view, the conduct alleged in the indictment, properly characterized, was that while he was President he (1) “made public statements about the administration of the federal election”; (2) communicated with senior Justice Department officials “about investigating election fraud and about choosing the leadership” of the Department; (3) “communicated with state officials about the administration of the federal election and their exercise of official duties with respect to it”; (4) “communicated with the Vice President” and with “Members of Congress about the exercise of their official duties regarding the election certification”; and (5) “authorized or directed others to organize contingent slates of electors in furtherance of his attempts to convince the Vice President to exercise his official authority in a manner advocated for by President Trump.” Motion To Dismiss Indictment Based on Presidential Immunity in No. 1:23–cr–00257 (DC), ECF Doc. 74, p. 9.Trump argued that all of the indictment’s allegations fell within the core of his official duties. Id., at 27. And he contended that a President has absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions performed within the outer perimeter of his official responsibilities, to ensure that he can undertake the especially sensitive duties of his office with bold and unhesitating action. Id., at 14, 24.

So Trump basically he can lawfully say almost anything he likes as president.

(i) The Framers designed the Presidency to provide for a “vigorous” and “energetic” Executive. The Federalist No. 70, pp. 471–472 (J.
Cooke ed. 1961) (A. Hamilton). They vested the President with “supervisory and policy responsibilities of utmost discretion and sensitivity.” Nixon v. Fitzgerald, 457 U. S. 731, 750. Appreciating the “unique
risks” that arise when the President’s energies are diverted by proceedings that might render him “unduly cautious in the discharge of
his official duties,” the Court has recognized Presidential immunities
and privileges “rooted in the constitutional tradition of the separation
of powers and supported by our history.” Id., at 749, 751, 752, n. 32.
In Fitzgerald, for instance, the Court concluded that a former President is entitled to absolute immunity from “damages liability for acts
within the ‘outer perimeter’ of his official responsibility.” Id., at 756.
The Court’s “dominant concern” was to avoid “diversion of the President’s attention during the decisionmaking process caused by needless worry as to the possibility of damages actions stemming from any particular official decision.” Clinton v. Jones, 520 U. S. 681, 694, n. 19.
By contrast, when prosecutors have sought evidence from the President, the Court has consistently rejected Presidential claims of absolute immunity. During the treason trial of former Vice President Aaron Burr, for instance, Chief Justice Marshall rejected President
Thomas Jefferson’s claim that the President could not be subjected to
a subpoena. Marshall simultaneously recognized, however, the existence of a “privilege” to withhold certain “official paper[s].” United
States v. Burr, 25 F. Cas. 187, 192 (No. 14,694) (CC Va.). And when a
subpoena issued to President Richard Nixon, the Court rejected his
claim of “absolute privilege.” United States v. Nixon, 418 U. S. 683,
703. But recognizing “the public interest in candid, objective, and even
blunt or harsh opinions in Presidential decisionmaking,” it held that a
“presumptive privilege” protects Presidential communications. Id., at
708. Because that privilege “relates to the effective discharge of a
President’s powers,” id., at 711, the Court deemed it “fundamental to
the operation of Government and inextricably rooted in the separation
of powers under the Constitution.” Id., at 708. Pp. 9–12.
(ii) Criminally prosecuting a President for official conduct undoubtedly poses a far greater threat of intrusion on the authority and
functions of the Executive Branch than simply seeking evidence in his
possession. The danger is greater than what led the Court to recognize
absolute Presidential immunity from civil damages liability—that the
President would be chilled from taking the “bold and unhesitating action” required of an independent Executive. Fitzgerald, 457 U. S., at
745. Although the President might be exposed to fewer criminal prosecutions than civil damages suits, the threat of trial, judgment, and
imprisonment is a far greater deterrent and plainly more likely to distort Presidential decisionmaking than the potential payment of civil
damages. The hesitation to execute the duties of his office fearlessly
and fairly that might result when a President is making decisions under “a pall of potential prosecution,” McDonnell v. United States, 579
U. S. 550, 575, raises “unique risks to the effective functioning of government,” Fitzgerald, 457 U. S., at 751. But there is also a compelling
“public interest in fair and effective law enforcement.” Vance, 591
U. S., at 808.
Taking into account these competing considerations, the Court concludes that the separation of powers principles explicated in the
Court’s precedent necessitate at least a presumptive immunity from
criminal prosecution for a President’s acts within the outer perimeter
of his official responsibility. Such an immunity is required to safeguard the independence and effective functioning of the Executive
Branch, and to enable the President to carry out his constitutional duties without undue caution. At a minimum, the President must be
immune from prosecution for an official act unless the Government can
show that applying a criminal prohibition to that act would pose no
“dangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive
Branch.” Fitzgerald, 457 U. S., at 754. Pp. 12–15.

So this isn't a novel issue. It is also likely that decisions to refrain from prosecuting prior presidents were likely driven by a desire to avoid forcing the courts to formally define the limits of such immunity.

We granted certiorari to consider the following question:
“Whether and if so to what extent does a former President
enjoy presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for
conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in
office.” 601 U. S. ___ (2024). zz0.800bat0sfr8zz

and

In dividing official from unofficial conduct, courts may not inquire into the President’s motives. Such a “highly intrusive” inquiry would risk exposing even the most obvious instances of official conduct to judicial examination on the mere allegation of improper purpose. Fitzgerald, 457 U. S., at 756. Nor may courts deem an action unofficial merely because it allegedly violates a generally applicable law. Otherwise, Presidents would be subject to trial on “every allegation that an action was unlawful,” depriving immunity of its intended effect.

can you refute this?

and

2) With the above principles in mind, the Court turns to the conduct alleged in the indictment. Certain allegations—such as those involving Trump’s discussions with the Acting Attorney General—are readily categorized in light of the nature of the President’s official relationship to the office held by that individual.

this is followed by an interesting but lengthy discussion of how all of the alleged conduct consists of communications between the president and people who have an officially defined relationship to the president and that all of the alleged conversation involve those defined relationships. After this they ask

the District Court to assess in the first instance whether a prosecution
involving Trump’s alleged attempts to influence the Vice President’s
oversight of the certification proceeding would pose any dangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch.

I'd love to include it all here but I'm sure that would immediately move the posts to pending moderator approval.

(iv) The indictment also contains various allegations regarding Trump’s conduct in connection with the events of January 6 itself. The alleged conduct largely consists of Trump’s communications in the form of Tweets and a public address. The President possesses “extraordinary power to speak to his fellow citizens and on their behalf.” Trump v. Hawaii, 585 U. S. 667, 701. So most of a President’s public communications are likely to fall comfortably within the outer perimeter of his official responsibilities

This make sense in light of all precedent and was probably why Trump felt safe making his passive aggressive attempt and nudging a mob to intimidate congress into placating his ego while refraining for several hours from doing anything to help put out the fire he lit or taking any responsibility at all for the crisis. I may have favored Trump's impeachment for this (and still regret the impeachments failure) as a gross dereliction of duty and cowardly act but it was never really a threat to the Republic. In fact as Jefferson noted, "A Little Rebellion Now and Then Is A Good Thing". Trumps cowardly plan had no realistic chance for success and almost certainly strengthened the resistance of the Republic to any future such attack. I still recognize Trump as having shown himself unsuitable for the presidency by his decisions on 06Jan2021 but I do not see more threat to the Republic by such antics than I see in Biden or any other president holding the white house.

here's the conclusion:

(c) Trump asserts a far broader immunity than the limited one the
Court recognizes, contending that the indictment must be dismissed
because the Impeachment Judgment Clause requires that impeachment and Senate conviction precede a President’s criminal prosecution. But the text of the Clause does not address whether and on what
conduct a President may be prosecuted if he was never impeached and
convicted. See Art. I, §3, cl. 7. Historical evidence likewise lends little
support to Trump’s position. The Federalist Papers on which Trump
relies concerned the checks available against a sitting President; they
did not endorse or even consider whether the Impeachment Judgment
Clause immunizes a former President from prosecution. Transforming
the political process of impeachment into a necessary step in the enforcement of criminal law finds little support in the text of the Constitution or the structure of the Nation’s Government. Pp. 32–34.
(d) The Government takes a similarly broad view, contending that
the President enjoys no immunity from criminal prosecution for any
action. On its view, as-applied challenges in the course of the trial
suffice to protect Article II interests, and review of a district court’s
decisions on such challenges should be deferred until after trial. But
questions about whether the President may be held liable for particular actions, consistent with the separation of powers, must be addressed at the outset of a proceeding. Even if the President were ultimately not found liable for certain official actions, the possibility of an
extended proceeding alone may render him “unduly cautious in the discharge of his official duties.” Fitzgerald, 457 U. S., at 752, n. 32.
The Constitution does not tolerate such impediments to “the effective
functioning of government.” Id., at 751. Pp. 34–37.
(e) This case poses a question of lasting significance: When may a
former President be prosecuted for official acts taken during his Presidency? In answering that question, unlike the political branches and
the public at large, the Court cannot afford to fixate exclusively, or
even primarily, on present exigencies. Enduring separation of powers
principles guide our decision in this case. The President enjoys no immunity for his unofficial acts, and not everything the President does is
official. The President is not above the law. But under our system of
separated powers, the President may not be prosecuted for exercising
his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for his official acts. That immunity
applies equally to all occupants of the Oval Office.

We always knew that sitting presidents could not be challenged criminally for their conduct while in office. Now this decision says that official acts must not be subject to prosecution. if anything this decision probably makes it less likely that a president, including Trump, will refuse to leave office because they will no longer require maintenance of their position as president to avoid prosecution for official acts as President.

In my earlier post I said

I cynically assume that all presidents will exploit all privileges and powers to accomplish their goals and protect their agendas.

You apparently intended to refute this with the set of links to news article below:

But you would be wrong.

Trump:

https://www.nbcnews.com/investigations/trump-doj-officials-supreme-court-made-easy-trump-attack-enemies-rcna160144

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/donald-trump-wants-control-justice-department-fbi-his-allies-have-plan-2024-05-17/

https://www.americanoversight.org/investigation/trump-administrations-politicization-justice-department

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/11/05/trump-revenge-second-term/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/11/09/trump-interview-univision/

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/20/us/politics/president-trump-justice-department.html

https://rollcall.com/2017/11/03/trump-urges-doj-to-investigate-his-political-foes/

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/11/03/trump-doj-investigate-hillary-clinton-244505

https://www.finance.senate.gov/chairmans-news/wyden-whitehouse-seek-justice-department-records-on-trump-admin-interference-that-reportedly-halted-caterpillar-investigation

Biden:

https://www.justice.gov/sco-durham

https://www.justice.gov/storage/report-from-special-counsel-robert-k-hur-february-2024.pdf

For your links to suggest I was wrong you would really need to show examples of where Trump achieved his goals by utilizing powers that Biden could have also achieved through use of such powers and refrained from doing so at the cost of not achieving his own goals. It would especially help to show that my short assertion was wrong if you could show that Biden refrained from doing so and restrained himself in order to help limit the abuse of such power. Your links certainly don't demonstrate that.

It is also clear that many of the articles you listed attempt to report a clear agenda on the part of Trump to reign in the FBI and DoJ. Trump was subject to enormous investigation before he had even taken office. It is entirely possible (especially given the total lack of incriminating evidence) that he was completely innocent of any of the alleged Russian collusion. If so, isn't it reasonable that he as the target of such an apparently totally unfounded and invasive investigation might conclude that:
A. The FBI was not very good at recognizing when such an investigation was baseless.
B. That maybe people in the FBI or DoJ in general were out to get him personally.

How can we know that Trump wasn't entirely innocent of the Russian collusion and that the investigation wasn't just a fishing expedition to reign him in? We don't. Even the vast majority of those within the DoJ arguably can't know that. Only Trump does and possibly any agents or bureaucrats directly involved in pushing the investigations.

Trump later stupidly and infamously fired James Comey this lead to even more push for investigation of possible "obstruction of justice." Of course the problem is that while firing Comey was politically stupid, nonetheless if in fact Trump knew he was innocent, then any ongoing and unresolved investigation must have seemed incompetent and intrusive to Trump the longer it went unresolved. The problem of course, is that if the investigation targeted Trump for political reasons (as an untrusted political outsider in the Whitehouse perhaps?) then no doubt heads should in fact roll and the involved institutions will have a crying need for reform. Trump's relatively sudden and dramatic raft of serious felony indictments and preceding investigations all cropped up late in his life. Trump had a long sordid history of bullying with lawsuits and of being sued by clients and business partners aplenty but criminal indictments weren't occurring. We can either suppose that Trump has finally succumbed to his criminal temptations only relatively recently as a septuagenarian or we can assume that investigations against Trump have been pursued more often for some reason. I do not know who I trust but it actually makes more sense to me as an explanation that Trump was targeted than that his behavior has changed. Who watches the watchers? generally speaking, it is the powers that be. I really doubt Trump was ever in their club. Do I have any faith in Trumps innocence? no. it could just as easily be that his wealth previously sheltered him from legal consequences of his behavior but if so, the mechanism by which that occurred previously and no longer occurs now is not publicly obvious and I want things shaken up wherever the corruption might have shielded him from justice. In that case any worries that Trump will attack the DoJ frankly won't worry me so much because it will already have been compromised.

It wasn't a previously unconsidered issue. Multiple presidents and the founders all said that Presidents were not immune.

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/founding-era-history-doesnt-support-trumps-immunity-claim

https://rollcall.com/2024/07/01/historians-legal-experts-express-dismay-at-trump-immunity-ruling/

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/nations-founders-pushed-elected-king-framing-presidential-powers/story?id=111621798

Trump tried to invalidate the vote of the American people in late December 2020 and early January 2021. No other president, even FDR, Lincoln, Nixon and Reagan, after attempted to do something so anti-democratic.

The indictment for Trump conspiring to defraud the US population of their vote : https://abcnews.go.com/US/latest-fed...y?id=101918701



I and the American people voted in 2020. When the counts were finished, when the court cased were concluded, when everything was done, Trump had lost. He hadn't shown that there was fraud or any effort to fake the vote. Despite this, he instructed and conspired with people in 7 states (Michigan, Georgia, Wisconsin, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Nevada and New Mexico) to introduce illegal and false electors (that were known to be) and instructed and directed people like his Vice President Pence (and the DoJ) to make sure that the false electors were counted instead of the true ones. When this didn't work (because Barr and Pence and others refused him), he then called together a crowd, incited them and instructed them to go and make Pence change his mind.

Read the indictment. It is the worst crime against the American people by a president in US history. https://www.justice.gov/storage/US_v..._23_cr_257.pdf

I agree that Trump's post 2020 election behavior was inexcusable. It was true that for literally decades several states have had various loopholes in their voting laws that might conceivably have allowed for enough voting fraud to change a presidential election outcome but Trump ran under these rules in 2016 and to the best of my knowledge never had a thing to say about it from his apparent 2016 victory until his apparent 2020 loss. Furthermore, while it is true that some states made some forms of almost undetectable voting fraud easier to commit with covid related changes to voting laws several other states took the opportunity to make their new covid voting laws even more secure and harder to cheat than their prior laws had been. If he wanted to complain about impossible to substantiate rumors of election fraud the time to do that was *before* the election or for the next election. By the time he had started crying foul play it would be too late to do anything about it unless the cheaters had used a detectable method of fraud. He and his team of desperate toadies and lawyers produced zero such evidence however. What actually happened (and is covered in the indictment and the supreme courts immunity decision) is that Trump tried to use the bully pulpit and job threats to beg and coerce anyone who could help him chase down a rabbit hole of undetectable voter fraud. I don't think we can be sure he knew that he had officially lost. I think rather that his sad little ego stopped him from accepting it and that made it "obvious" that the fraud must have occurred to "steal" the election. He probably "knew" in his own mind that if they looked they would corroborate the fraud he was hearing about or at least thought it had to be worth trying to look into. I think it's notable that Trump didn't get anybody fired over that which I could find, despite his clear documented threats to do so. Trump really didn't do anything concrete to hang onto power in the end. Much like his cowardly 06Jan2021 insurrection his attempts to steal the election from Biden avoided outright defiance of law on his part. I'm sure that part of the reason Trump didn't stay on is that while he was desperate to do so he didn't want to look bad. In his view showing that Biden "stole" the election and having other electors certified would look good to him I'm sure but he probably couldn't picture himself commandeering the armed forces to keep himself in power. Likewise I have no fear he will try to somehow keep and serve out an unconstitutional
third term because he would suppose he would look bad and ruin his self styled image.

I do think every single conceivable avenue to any kind of voter fraud in every state must be decisively closed especially avenues which would not be expected to produce evidence to find them later. We already closed several such loopholes just ahead of the 2020 election in some of those states that did so to setup their new voting laws to accommodate their covid lockdowns. unfortunately I think such efforts are now undermined by Trump's obvious self-serving agenda to only consider potential voting fraud when he loses.

I should keep posting. It is a a terrible accusation. Not business as usual, or even things like Iran-Contra or Watergate.

If what Trump did was right, then anyone who thinks it is right (and so acts similarly) will make sure there is never another democratically elected president again.

Trump's defense isn't that he didn't do the above. His defense is that he is immune, and that he had the right to do it.



It is the likely end of the republic. Maybe after Trump dies it could be recovered, but I wouldn't bet on it.

JM

I think we all need to commit to making all voting laws in every state as ironclad and difficult to cheat as possible so long as any person of any income or mobility could reasonably be expected to cast their vote. I don't think that would be such a hard bar to clear if the two parties would stop focusing only on voting laws that they anticipate will result in more votes for their party relative to their opponents.

[Jon Miller]

The explicit claims that Trump made about the 2020 election were proven to be false (I know of no 'unprovable' election fraud claims, the claims that were not substantiated were provable ones). This is went over in the indictment (https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023...dictment-dg/):

• The Defendant insinuated that more than ten thousand dead voters had voted in Georgia. Just four days earlier, Georgia's Secretary of State had explained to the Defendant that this was false.
• The Defendant asserted that there had been 205,000 more votes than voters in Pennsylvania. The Defendant's Acting Attorney General and Acting Deputy Attorney General had explained to him that this was false.
• The Defendant said that there had been a suspicious vote dump in Detroit, Michigan. The Defendant's Attorney General had explained to the Defendant that this was false, and the Defendant's allies in the Michigan legislature— the Speaker of the House of Representatives and Majority Leader of the Senate—had publicly announced that there was no evidence of substantial fraud in the state.
• The Defendant claimed that there had been tens of thousands of double votes and other fraud in Nevada. The Nevada Secretary of State had previously rebutted the Defendant's fraud claims by publicly posting a "Facts vs. Myths" document explaining that Nevada judges had reviewed and rejected them, and the Nevada Supreme Court had rendered a decision denying such claims.
• The Defendant said that more than 30,000 non-citizens had voted in Arizona. The Defendant's own Campaign Manager had explained to him that such claims were false, and the Speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives, who had supported the Defendant in the election, had issued a public statement that there was no evidence of substantial fraud in Arizona.
• The Defendant asserted that voting machines in various contested states had switched votes from the Defendant to Biden. The Defendant's Attorney General, Acting Attorney General, and Acting Deputy Attorney General all had explained to him that this was false, and numerous recounts and audits had confirmed the accuracy of voting machines.

Trump was engaging in knowing deceit. The claims that he was making both publicly and to the fraudulent electors who he tried to have invalidate Americans votes, were not ones that were impossible to substantiate and not provable. Rather they were claims that had been investigated, had gone through the courts, and how been found to be false. And he had been told so by all the people he had asked. Thus it was knowing deceit.

While to say that Trump is a convicted felon, we would have to have a Jury look at the evidence and convict him (And have it not be an official act according to the recent Supreme Court decision with the very broad definition of official act (when done by Trump) while it was clearly not an official act according to the very narrow definition of official act that the Supreme Court took a few years ago when doing so did not favor Trump, see https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/ar...uption/679107/ ). But since we have the indictment (which means that the DoJ thinks he is guilty) and we have seen (or can see) a lot of the evidence, like for example https://edition.cnn.com/politics/liv...ce803d8d8bb1f3 . So we have the responsibility to do so.

JM

[Geronimo]

I know my post was ridiculously long and my prose is typically difficult to read but I thought I made clear that not only did Trump have zero evidence of voter fraud but that my greatest concerns are exploits that allow for voting fraud with ultimately no forensic trail. Since I also pointed out that such fraud would have been at least as great of a danger in 2016 as 2020 I was disgusted to see Trump's whining about voter fraud only after he lost and incredulous when he announced his allegations of specific fraud that would be expected to leave a variety of forensic clues, which he never provided. I suppose he is likely accusing the investigators of lying but even if that were the case it would be pointless to claim the fraud because he still would have zero evidence and zero prospect of finding it. Trust no one in politics, including investigators. We can't afford to. For fraud which becomes undetectable as a result of corrupt investigators or officials many states raise the difficulty Immensely by maintaining enough access to the forensic evidence at all times and by all groups representing all contenders so that kind of fraud can be made nearly impossible to accomplish. I just want vigilance to ensure this becomes the norm in every state and that everyone is quick to call out the ones that don't take those strong precautions. This is fiendishly difficult to do in practice because so much of how the investigators and secretaries of states do their jobs can be opaque to the public in a way that makes the robustness of the safeguards (if any) much more difficult to evaluate.

I do think a look at *everything* that can be done to raise the difficulty of every kind of fraud while preserving basic access to voting is absolutely essential.

As mentioned above, a state can leave open exploits where a corrupt secretary of state or mandated set of corruptible investigators could practically unilaterally defraud the results. All such loopholes must be closed. The highest priority being those in which the number of corrupt individuals required to pull it off are smallest but also those where a small number of people would be in a position to hand-pick all of the individuals involved who would have an opportunity to defraud the election. These forms of fraud are essentially undetectable in the absence of a turn-coat whistleblower or sting operation. Given that states like Texas, Florida and Georgia have had some of the most centralized, least transparent and most potential for single party control of at least some forensic evidence of the states this would be expected to be an area that Dems would pay at least some attention to reforming but usually they are too focused measures to make voting "easier" rather than closing such dangerous loopholes.

Another opening for fraud are of the sort that allows for repeat voting and subverting the votes of known non-voters. so called "ground level fraud". Unfortunately these can be undetectable as well. It also trivially easy to organize these efforts on a large scale with encrypted communication and distributed cell organization such that detection of any of the fraud by law enforcement or forensics of almost any kind can become nearly impossible. If a couple examples are found it will in no way reveal the true potential scope of such fraud.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/29/politics/wisconsin-voter-fraud-harry-wait/index.html

it is much more difficult to find new non broken links to articles discussing these vulnerabilities since Trump made his unevidenced 2020 accusations of voter fraud. He's definitely set secure voting discussions way back and made such discussion more partisan and difficult than ever. Even worse, collaborative interstate tools are desperately needed to catch several types of voter fraud and existing organizations like ERIC have been essentially boycotted by conservative leaning states (because arch-enemy Soros funded them?) and this moronic effort is only increasing the vulnerabilities to such fraud. More and more each state needs a system contained entirely within the state robust enough to prevent fraud even where defacto one party rule exists. Such alarm is now totally subsumed into Trump's bruised ego 2020 tantrum and as a result the danger only continues to increase.

I do think a look at *everything* that can be done to raise the difficulty of every kind of fraud while preserving basic access to voting is absolutely essential.

[Lorizael]

I really think the takeaway from "man convinces base election was stolen by telling obvious lies about non-existent voter fraud, then incites violent segment of his base to stage poorly executed, ultimately unsuccessful insurrection" isn't "dang we really gotta do something about voter fraud." Trump and his allies were able to convince MAGA the election was stolen with transparently stupid non-evidence; no amount of robust election integrity is going to convince them the evil pedophile demon cabal didn't steal the election if they lose. We totally should try to make sure there isn't significant voter fraud, but that's not the lesson of January 6.

[Geronimo]

There are *many* lessons of Jan 6th. The "lesson" that most alarms me is the claim that Jan 6th shows the Republicans are the real enemies of democracy and that so long as we remain vigilant against them democracy will thrive. That would actually make the dangers to democracy even worse.

[Lorizael]

The people who knowingly submitted fake electors, the people who stormed the capitol in an attempt to coerce the vice president to accept those fake electors, and the people who incited that mob to storm the capitol are enemies of democracy, in about as clear and straightforward a way as anyone could be. I think your concern for polarization and the decay of discourse is commendable but (at this stage of the game) essentially obsolete. For the immediate preservation of democracy in the United States, nothing matters more than making sure the people who want to destroy it don't regain power. And to be clear, people who applaud when Trump says he wants to be dictator "for a day," people who want the president to be immune from prosecution, and people who think it would be great if the US had a king again are unambiguously advocating for the end of democracy.

[Geronimo]

The people who knowingly submitted fake electors, the people who stormed the capitol in an attempt to coerce the vice president to accept those fake electors, and the people who incited that mob to storm the capitol are enemies of democracy, in about as clear and straightforward a way as anyone could be. I think your concern for polarization and the decay of discourse is commendable but (at this stage of the game) essentially obsolete. For the immediate preservation of democracy in the United States, nothing matters more than making sure the people who want to destroy it don't regain power. And to be clear, people who applaud when Trump says he wants to be dictator "for a day," people who want the president to be immune from prosecution, and people who think it would be great if the US had a king again are unambiguously advocating for the end of democracy.

Actually I'm far more concerned about the possibility of undetected voter fraud than I am about the antics of any US president. If Trump had succeeded in his plan it would not have helped him stay in power past 2024 and it will be entirely useless for keeping him in power for more than 4 more years if he wins this time around.

I believe neither Democrats nor the Republicans truly value democracy or popular rule. To the extent that any democracy or popular rule is maintained it is a result of jealous party rivalry and checks and balances. That said if either party succeeded in subverting the election process sufficient to give themselves a permanent national lead, *that* would constitute the real "end" of democracy in the US. It kills me when people blow off potential undetectable vote fraud opportunities as simply a matter of not allowing the bad guys to gain power rather than ensuring that fiendishly difficult to corrupt and redundantly secure and transparent election systems are the rule in every state. That will never be possible while all concerns of potentially undetectable voter fraud are airily dismissed as unimportant so long as the bad guys don't win.

The one thing that would be vastly more dangerous than Trump winning would be complacency because he didn't win.

[Elok]

For the immediate preservation of democracy in the United States, nothing matters more than making sure the people who want to destroy it don't regain power.

Guess what they were saying around Capitol Hill on 1/6/21? Presumably your statement does not contemplate invading the Capitol, but essentially you have lost faith in the other side's willingness to honor the rules, which makes the question of whether or not you respect democracy pretty well moot. I'm pretty sure all those people very much do want a democracy; they just don't trust you and yours to be part of it with them. As part of that, they were willing to use motivated reasoning to argue that the election was invalid one ridiculous way and could be circumvented another ridiculous way--but that's a separate issue. I don't doubt they all believed it, on some level. And if it comes to that, if we want to argue that Trump legit deserves to be classified as a convicted felon (on 37 counts, no less) specifically because he paid off a woman he'd slept with more than a decade earlier, the payment being made roughly a week before an election, in a way that might theoretically have had some impact on that election (where he'd already been caught on mic much earlier bragging about his fondness for sexual assault, to little apparent effect), and therefore was "guilty" under a long-dormant nineteenth-century state law ... (shrug) Not saying those are equivalent in their ridiculousness, but motivated reasoning is found all over the place, and it's hard to deny that team blue really is out to screw the dude, even if he is a POS who brought it on himself.

[Lorizael]

Guess what they were saying around Capitol Hill on 1/6/21? Presumably your statement does not contemplate invading the Capitol, but essentially you have lost faith in the other side's willingness to honor the rules, which makes the question of whether or not you respect democracy pretty well moot.

Yeah, I lost faith in their willingness to honor the rules... when they stormed the capitol and attempted an insurrection. The difference is that I'm right and they're not, and you know that. You know there's no equivalency here. You know that what they attempted to do is actually much worse than... anything you could realistically imagine Democrats have done or tried to do.

I'm pretty sure all those people very much do want a democracy; they just don't trust you and yours to be part of it with them. As part of that, they were willing to use motivated reasoning to argue that the election was invalid one ridiculous way and could be circumvented another ridiculous way--but that's a separate issue. I don't doubt they all believed it, on some level.

It doesn't matter what they "believed" about the election, because what they did was try to capture the vice president and force him to accept false electors. (And maybe hang him if he didn't!) They were, at that point, whatever they told themselves about what they valued, done with the rule of law and democracy.

Yes, yes, the insurrection failed. I am completely unconvinced by the significance of this argument. Imagine a scenario where they broke through the windows a little bit sooner or breached the door the Secret Service was barricading or didn't get baited away from the Senate chamber by Officer Goodman... and they find and apprehend Pence. Yeah, sure, maybe some of them were content to sit at Pelosi's desk and take selfies and **** on the floor, but some were absolutely there with the gear and intentions to do a lot more. Imagine they have Pence, and they demand he accept and count the false electors and declare Trump the winner. What happens then? If Pence does the honorable thing and refuses, do they just let him? Or do they start taking hostages and threatening violence? How long can Pence hold out? Maybe they execute some congresspeople, or maybe the vice president himself. Then there's a semi-armed force representing the half the country that lost and they are in control of the seat of the legislature.

Or maybe Pence gives in and does what they want. Trump is declared the winner. Obviously many will object and declare the whole thing invalid, but what are the remedies? The courts? Courts take forever to act, and maybe Trump and his allies can rush an inauguration and at that point are they really going to let courts decide he can't be president? Congress? They could impeach Trump and remove him... except on January 6 the insurrectionists control the Capitol building and aren't just going to let Congress come back and undo what they've accomplished. Maybe then we have a government-in-exile. Yay.

...or the military? Maybe parts of our military decide the insurrectionists have to be removed by force. Maybe not all of them agree with this course of action. Maybe they manage it anyway and reclaim Capitol Hill. Historically, when the military puts down a coup, what often happens next, for security? Or maybe there's not enough cohesion between various bits of our armed forces and some attempt to liberate Congress and others try to stop them... and they fight.

These are all terrible outcomes, even if they don't result in Trump getting a second term or being declared King of America. They aren't the kinds of outcomes that bode well for the longevity of a democracy.

You're gonna dismiss this all as breathless, paranoid, frightened fantasizing, but this was the fantasy of hundreds or thousands of very paranoid, very frightened people on January 6 who were incited by their president to act it out. Maybe they were disorganized, untrained, and ill-equipped. Maybe there wasn't a solid plan (beyond the fake elector slates, which were very clearly planned). Maybe there was no one in charge that day giving orders to take down the government. But none of that is why the above scenarios didn't play out. It didn't happen because... well, for the same reason Trump turned his head when he did and only got hit in the ear. By grace, good fortune, stupid dumb luck. A 20 year old who couldn't make his high school rifle team and didn't have anything in particular against Trump and planned out the whole thing maybe a couple days in advance almost managed to assassinate a presidential candidate with Secret Service protection. If he succeeded, would it have ensured a Biden victory? Probably not. But it would have made everything a lot messier and a lot worse. January 6 is the same. Yeah, the insurrectionists probably weren't going to manage to cleanly install Trump as dictator, but that doesn't mean they couldn't have made things a lot messier and a lot worse.

[Elok]

Well, first, if that kid had succeeded, Biden would be presiding over the country from a bunker in an undisclosed location right now. There is absolutely no chance Trumpists would believe that the kid was acting alone, especially in light of the gross incompetence of the secret service, and we would be gearing up for the largest spasm of political violence we've seen in my lifetime at the very least. The question would be whether there even was an election at all at that point, and if so who would participate in or honor it, and how much of the country would be on fire or occupied by militias or separatist elements of the armed forces come November. As a friend of mine put it, we all dodged a bullet last week.

What I'm trying to say is, it doesn't really matter who gets labeled "enemies of democracy," because all that's downstream of the fundamental problem of a breakdown in trust, which in turn is downstream of the political bifurcation of America that's been going on since the late eighties or so. You think ... whatever-the-hell-1/6-was is worse than blatantly weaponizing the courts against a candidate for political purposes; it's apples and oranges, but for the sake of argument let's say you're right. What are we supposed to be doing about it? Voting against him? Sure. I'm certainly not going to vote for the galoot, but I intend to write-in, because Biden is frankly not an acceptable candidate either and the LP I nominally associate with is a dumpster fire. It doesn't matter anyway because I'm in Florida.

Anything other than voting against Trump would be undemocratic, and I assume you're not proposing subverting democracy to save it. You will, I imagine, vote for Biden. I will vote for neither. A third of the country will vote for Trump. The election will depend on the decisions of a relatively small number of other people in strategic locations, most of whom will not be thinking about 1/6. Probably most of them will just be moping about inflation or abortion or freaking out about how senile Biden's looking. Unless something changes drastically we will see another Trump term, by legitimate electoral vote, and I expect it will be about as pathetic and unproductive as the first one. I'm mildly hopeful that he might waste slightly less money than Biden, albeit mostly due to congressional obstruction and his own incompetence. There are problems I want fixed, and some will be improved without his help, some he will help mostly by accident, and some he will make worse if only by ignoring them (ten years till Medicare and Social Security go insolvent!). Such is life.

[Lorizael]

Well, first, if that kid had succeeded, Biden would be presiding over the country from a bunker in an undisclosed location right now. There is absolutely no chance Trumpists would believe that the kid was acting alone, especially in light of the gross incompetence of the secret service, and we would be gearing up for the largest spasm of political violence we've seen in my lifetime at the very least. The question would be whether there even was an election at all at that point, and if so who would participate in or honor it, and how much of the country would be on fire or occupied by militias or separatist elements of the armed forces come November. As a friend of mine put it, we all dodged a bullet last week.

Yeah, that's what I said. It would have been messy and bad. The difference is the bullet we dodged last week appears to have been fired by a solitary angry depressed loner, whereas the bullet we dodged on January 6 was fired by Trump and his croniest of cronies. But hey, we've proven over and over again we're not going to do anything about gun violence, so I guess it only make sense we wouldn't try to prevent another January 6, either.

What I'm trying to say is, it doesn't really matter who gets labeled "enemies of democracy," because all that's downstream of the fundamental problem of a breakdown in trust, which in turn is downstream of the political bifurcation of America that's been going on since the late eighties or so. You think ... whatever-the-hell-1/6-was is worse than blatantly weaponizing the courts against a candidate for political purposes; it's apples and oranges, but for the sake of argument let's say you're right. What are we supposed to be doing about it? Voting against him? Sure. I'm certainly not going to vote for the galoot, but I intend to write-in, because Biden is frankly not an acceptable candidate either and the LP I nominally associate with is a dumpster fire. It doesn't matter anyway because I'm in Florida.

"Oh no, our raft fell apart and we're heading for that waterfall!"

"Tsk tsk, that's all downstream of poor raft maintenance."

Unless something changes drastically we will see another Trump term, by legitimate electoral vote, and I expect it will be about as pathetic and unproductive as the first one.

Trump did a lot of bad, man. Yes, he wasn't Hitler reincarnated, but he did a lot of bad.

I'm mildly hopeful that he might waste slightly less money than Biden, albeit mostly due to congressional obstruction and his own incompetence.

Trump added more to the national debt than Biden did, with or without counting pandemic-related borrowing.

[Geronimo]

What's the source for Trump presiding over more spending than Biden or more debt added?

[Uncle Sparky]

Why did Trump need to pick a new VP? Wasn't the one Trump ordered his mob to attack available? They hunted him down, but they didn't kill him.

[Jon Miller]

According to https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/amer...national-debt/, in 2020, debt to GDP was 127%. It has sense dropped to 123%. That includes Covid spending.

I remember seeing that Trump's tax cuts actually added a huge amount to the future debt, but only after he left office.

JM