I haven't written about the mounting evidence of Donald Trump's desperate attempts to hold onto power after losing the 2020 election, mainly because it seems like we've known most of this stuff all along. But it's true that we're now at a point where Trump is essentially admitting everything in public:
- He wanted Mike Pence to overturn the election.
- He personally asked his aides to investigate seizing voting machines.
- He has suggested he would pardon the January 6 insurrectionists if reelected.
- He asked his supporters to hold “the biggest protests we have ever had” if prosecutors try to hold him accountable.
- He tried to persuade the Georgia secretary of state to find some extra votes for him.
As always, keep in mind that his supporters don't care about any of this. Thanks to Fox News and others, they believe that Democrats stole the election and therefore Trump was justified in doing practically anything to fight them.
Was any of this illegal? Lawyers will have to chime in on that. But it sure makes Trump unfit to hold office.
Surely he was justified in doing everything to secure a second term given the massive cheating engaged in by Democrats.
How can every Democrat just vote and no one notices??!!
Trump was unfit to hold office in 2016. He was unfit to hold office from 2017 to 2021. He remains unfit to hold office. What will be done to prevent him from holding office in 2025?
Nothing. There are like 2 Republicans in the whole country that are not aboard the trump train.
It's possible he'll be in prison by then. No, the constitution doesn't bar incarcerated felons from running for the presidency nor serving if elected; but I'd imagine even Trump would find such a feat hard to pull off.
There's also been quite a bit of slippage in Trump's poll numbers among Republicans, with nearly half of respondents saying he shouldn't run again, and a number of high profile White House aspirants refusing to rule out entering the primary.
He lost the popular vote twice, by increasing margins, and Covid-death-wish is disproportionately concentrated in his most favorable demographic (old white folks). The trends aren’t in his favor.
No, the constitution doesn't bar incarcerated felons from running for the presidency nor serving if elected;
14th Amendment, Section 3:
"No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability."
Congress can -- and should -- declare Trump ineligible based on his planning and incitement of the Jan. 6 insurrection. Democrats can do that with majority votes. Clock is ticking.
A court challenge would be likely, but the Constitution is clear.
14th Amendment, Section 3:
Wishful thinking. There's no great prospect of majority support in the Senate for a fourteenth amendment solution. No Republican will support it, which means securing Sinema and Manchin (and their agreement to a filibuster carve-out). And even at that the resolution would face a court challenge. (Also, it doesn't matter what reasonable people think is the correct interpretation of that clause; it's abundantly clear by now that the right wingers on the court don't possess an ounce of intellectual integrity with respect to good faith interpretation of the Constitution. I'd love to think that, if it ever came to it, two Supreme Court Republicans could be found who would seize upon such a case as an opportunity to rid their party of a huge problem; but I wouldn't bet my life on it, and neither should you.)
Actually, I would expect SCOTUS to look for a way to keep Trump off the ballot but to avoid ruling against him. For example, to run out the clock.
Let another Republican who can be re-elected run and let the anger over this obviously politically motivated move to keep Trump off the ballot drive Republican turnout and a wave election.
If one thinks the #OurRevolution fleft loves El Jefe now, imagine how much they will after Senile Joe & Feckless Merrick turn the 45th president into Eugene Debs 2.
oh come! you seriously underestimate the moral fiber of the republican party. there are at least twice that many. maybe three times.
Yea, but he's a rich white old man so we are going to have to assume he is just confused.
This confusion is actually a huge problem for prosecuting him! How can he have intent?
Need another 32,000 pages of paperwork before anything could be done.
His father died of Alzheimer's, and I can't recall or quickly find what his mother died of.
While he could plead insanity or disability I'm sure he'd never do it. He has the brainest brain, everybody tells him that. And it's true! Who could deny it?
His mom was very sickly most of Trump’s life as the result of serious complications that occurred during the birth of his younger brother Robert. She had a total hysterectomy which led to severe osteoporosis. That caused her to suffer from multiple broken bones. His niece Mary Trump attributes Trump’s severe psychological issues in part to his mom not being around for months when he was so young. There is no mention of her having Alzheimer’s.
"I was president of the United States, but I had no idea what my real powers and responsibilities were, so any reckless or illegal acts were done out of naivety and ignorance with no criminal intent. Therefore, I am totally qualified and deserve to serve a second term".
The Franklin Pierce Theory.
At least that fucker came by his stupor the old fashioned way: thru alcoholism exacerbated by a suicidal depression following his only child's premature death.
Ignorance of the law is no defense.
Trump has a ZERO chance of ever being convicted.
To convict him, you would need to find 12 people who aren't MAGAs.
Even if this were to happen, he could get the case thrown out on appeal since the jury had prejudged the case. Even if tried in DC, it would quickly go the SCOTUS which would rule in his favor.
Am I missing something?
That's just to say no president, or in fact, no prominent public figure, could be convicted of anything because everyone will already have an opinion about them.
The Supreme Court hasn't been kind to Trump's various legal strategies to stave off investigation and prosecution up to now. I think the obvious reasons are A) the law's generally not been on his side and, B) the right wingers on the court are far more McConnell-style Republicans* than MAGAts, and would just as soon see Trump go away so they can get on with the business of defending persecuted plutocrats.
I think that's what you're missing.
*Also, they love the Republican Party, and, being capable of reading election returns, they're aware Trump hasn't been good for the cause of reactionary conservatism and economic libertarianism.
I'd figure that at least the younger SCOTUS justices, realizing that they have decades ahead of them on a court where nobody can tell them what to do, tend to care a little less about the next election cycle. After all, if you are Justice Barrett (age 50), Justice Kavanaugh (age 57), or Justice Gorsuch (age 54), you're probably not thinking retirement until sometime around 2050 at least. Trump isn't likely to be a force in politics, even *if* reelected, by the end of this decade, to say nothing of the decade or two after that. Hell, Trump is likely to be dead long before their tenures on the court really get into swing.
Particularly given how universally Trump is privately disparaged among even the moderately clever folks in his circle, I doubt any of even the justices he appointed feel any real loyalty to him.
(now, loyalty to their own authoritarian and doctrinal religious values--that's a different story!)
My response is simple. IF you try to impeach Trump a third time, and fail, you will make him stronger. ONLY proceed with impeachment if you have a high probability of success....
Impeachment proceedings against Trump aren't being contemplated.
He could run for office from a federal prison cell and still not lose any votes. In fact it would probably give him a boost over any pretenders or rivals.
The Jacobin would be so hard for Debs, Pt. 2.
I think Prof. Tribe is an interesting barometer on the potential for prosecuting Trump. He seems to be finally accepting that the missing link is the extreme lack of desire of the relevant prosecutors in NY, Georgia, and the DOJ to prosecute Trump or even take the formal steps which would allow them to gather evidence to make a prosecution possible.
People have spent years writing about Trump’s probable crimes (which are legion) but the reality is that there’s never been any real appetite for seriously investigating him let alone for trying to hold him to account. Even the civil case in NY seems to be an effort to run out the clock but still get credit for holding Trump “accountable”.
I think we need to accept that the Trump family will never be asked to do more than give campaign contributions to law enforcement. They will never be seriously investigated. Neither will they ever be held to account.
Why would a prosecutor want to touch it? Trump could murder Sen Cheney and Pence in the middle of 5th Ave and you still would get a hung jury.
The country is just that polarized.
I get the feeling that a lot of Republican donors and politicians find Trump to be more trouble than he is worth. They may throw support behind someone else, or find another way to keep him from winning the primary.
I don’t think the issue is picking a jury. The problem is going after Trump for money laundering or his frauds was always going to be more difficult and expensive than any prosecutor found acceptable. Plus, there were always campaign contributions to be extracted by corrupt or careerist prosecutors.
Couple that with an extreme reasonable fear of harassment or even murder by Trump’s violent MAGA mobs and his paramilitary forces. It adds up to taking on organized crime except that your target can kill you and your family without losing the unwavering support of the dominant political party (who will prevent him from suffering any consequences) and you’ve got a situation no prosecutor without a death wish would go near without a ten foot pole.
I think a jury would need to be concerned about the MAGA mobs too.
Fraud can be difficult to prosecute. With regard to his misrepresentations regarding loans for instance, the banks were likely complicit. They knew the properties were not as valuable as stated but lent the money anyway.
I agree about the juries.
To oversimplify, I would point out that DB and the other banks are federally insured so their complicity in the fraud wouldn’t absolve Trump. Rather, it would implicate DB in a variety of federal banking crimes.
For example, DB has recently said that can’t turn over Trump’s financial records because they don’t have them. It’s long been my belief that they likely never had them because they didn’t need them to evaluate Trump’s creditworthiness. My guess is the the bank was only a conduit between Russian oligarchs or other gangsters and Trump. But the bank’s participation in such a sham wouldn’t make it harder to prosecute Trump.
What it would require, however, would be the personal and political will to prosecute both Trump and a major money laundering bank with close ties to the German government. And that’s what is seriously lacking.
And this is where I go along with your comment that it’s more difficult and expensive than prosecutors find acceptable. The scheme you suggest, and that I agree is likely, it really complex and the target has, basically, unlimited funds.
I was involved in the investigation of a loan fraud scheme just before the crash. The perps were comparatively small time. The trial took 3 months, an entire summer for the jury to be listening to the most incredibly dull proceedings imaginable. The defendants spen approximately 750k of the victims money in their defense. How much it cost the county I don’t know but I suspect similar to much more. We got a guilty verdict but there was no guarantee that would be the case. It gave me a lot of respect for the difficulties facing prosecutors in these complex cases. In going after Trump I think that adage “If you try to kill the king, you must kill him” applies. You have to be 100% sure of your case and be willing to risk everything to go after him.
I think that’s exactly right. Only the feds have those resources and it’s evident that they’ve decided that a return to normalcy requires giving Trump a pass for everything—past, present, and future.
“Future” is a problem too. If you go after Trump and he manages to delay things until he is “re-elected” then there is a good chance the prosecution would be the ones prosecuted.
I’m not sure whether we are living in America or Sicily.
That isn’t stopping the NY Attorney General or the Manhattan District Attorney. They are going after Trump’s fraudulent business practices — finally!
I could be wrong (and I hope that I am) but it’s starting to become clear that these investigations are basically public relations exercises designed to kick the can down the road until the statute of limitations has run out on these various crimes.
The Manhattan DA has had these different cases for years now and the published information suggests that the new guy is looking to gracefully run out the clock. He seems to be shying away from charging Trump or DB with serious banking crimes or tax fraud. He’s not yet pulled the trigger on a single one of the many investigations he’s supposed to be pursuing and he does not seem to be doing the things that prosecutors normally do in cases which are high priority.
Similarly, it’s difficult to understand the Georgia DA’s investigation plan if it didn’t include using a grand jury on day one—as opposed to one which is not scheduled to start work until May of 2022, at the earliest. This is a very simple case which mainly requires obtaining the relevant documents and tapes (plus authenticating them); unless I’m missing something, it actually doesn’t require live GJ testimony from anyone because it all documented or on tape.
Plus, the implication of trying to subpoenaing the people who are implied in the articles and press statements is very strange since it also implies that these people (particularly the ones on the calls with Trump) are seen as wittinesses and not targets or even subjects of the investigation (who would normally be “ invited“ to testify but actually never expected to do so since that would be completely insane and their lawyers would never permit it). The implication is that the DA is looking to have a graceful exit from going against Trump via a GJ “no bill.
While I'm also somewhat doubtful that he or anyone in his family will ever face serious consequences for their crimes, I think one big reason Trump is in such "burn it all down" mode in recent weeks is precisely because all the myriad ongoing investigations against him and his empire are the closest to him they have ever been.
They may or may not end up with him actually facing charges or some type of penalty, but I think that for the first time in his miserable life he is actually afraid they may get him, which is why he is now instigating his cultist to get ready to storm the country if/when he is hauled into court to answer serious charges.
You could be right. He does seem more frantic than usual and he probably knows more about who is and isn’t coming after him than any of us. On the other hand, he seems to have dodged two really major bullets: the UK and Scottish governments seem to have given him a pass on the money laundering investigation into the sources of the money for his golf course in Scotland—that would’ve been pretty close to a slam dunk for a criminal conviction and now the threat is gone. Similarly, the revelations from DB about the documents would normally have attracted a huge federal and state investigation but apparently everyone is getting a pass for that too. So that probably means the big state level investigation is going in the tank along with the feds.
I would’ve thought he be feeling more relaxed because he’s bulletproof.
Until there is an airtight case against t-Rump, he will slither and slide out, just as he has done in the past. Why no one wants to take him on is a mystery, other than the fact that it would be years, dollars and goes no where. Alas, t-Rump and his mephitic progeny will slide, again....
I wish they would arrest trump, but that is just not going to happen. I really wish for a worse fate to befall the creep. Biden should pull Trumps secret service detail and cut him off from all government support. That won’t happen either.
All hail King trump. Get used to that.
I don’t believe the US military should defend Ukraine from Russia. I do believe they should defend Americans from real threats. But they won’t.
Imagine if Biden pulled Trump's Secret Service detail and then someone killed Trump.
Democrats would not have a chance at the national level for a generation.
Don't be stupid.
Two days ago: "The Senate Republicans' campaign and fundraising arm is launching a new podcast — with Donald Trump as its debut guest and donor lure."
That was the day after Trump's statement openly admitting he wanted Pence to "overturn the election".
There have been numerous instances in history of a powerful political movement openly working to overturn an undemocratic system of government. I can't think of any precedent for the reverse. Republicans stand alone.
This is why we need to fully fund the IRS to go after ultra wealthy tax frauds. Just because they make it difficult or expensive to prosecute does not mean they should be able to get away with this nonsense.
As for banks "knowing" this was going on, but went along anyway--the prosecutions will show they did not do their due diligence, and opening themselves up to shareholder lawsuits.
One can dream....
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