We don't yet know the details, but apparently the shoe has finally dropped in the Georgia "find 11,780 votes" case. A grand jury has returned ten indictments against Donald Trump, but we won't know exactly what the charges are for another hour or two.
In any case, Trump has now been impeached twice for high crimes and misdemeanors, indicted four times on felony conspiracy and obstruction charges, and forced to pay tens of millions of dollars in civil actions for fraud and sexual assault. That's quite a record.
TWO HOURS LATER: We have details. The grand jury indicted 19 people on 41 separate counts, including RICO conspiracy charges for some of them. Among the indicted are:
- Donald Trump, disgraced former US president
- Rudy Giuliani, demented former "America's Mayor"
- John Eastman, crackpot lawyer
- Mark Meadows, panicky former White House chief of staff
- Sidney Powell, another crackpot lawyer
- Kenneth Chesebro, unscrupulopus lawyer who conceived the whole fake electors scheme
Plus there are 13 others charged on various counts of mopery and dopery.
Ten, not necessarily all of Trump. Giuliani is a target as are several fake electors. There are probably others. You're likely to see more than just Trump.
The fact that it won’t be just Trump is what interests me most.
It may be that Trump won’t be charged in this batch of indictments. It could be that prosecutors are teeing up potential cooperators and basically clearing away some issues that might make it easier to get at Trump later. It could be that Rudi and the Kracken lady are wobbly and also some or all of the fake electors or the people that breached the election computers—if so, the DA. might be looking to scoop them up to strengthen the case against Trump. Not likely but a possibility.
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While it’s likely to include Trump, all we know at this point is that the grand jury signed off on ten indictments.
Could be anybody. But I’m betting on at least Trump, Giuliani, and The Kraken (Sidney Powell).
Yup, the list is emerging. Includes Trump, Giuliani, Powell, John Eastman, Mark Meadows, Jeff Clark, Jenna Ellis, Ken Chesebro, plus a bunch of others I haven't heard of before.
Wow!
"The 98-page indictment charges 19 defendants, including Trump, across 41 criminal counts."
There's a link to the indictment here.
https://www.meidastouch.com/news/donald-trump-and-co-conspirators-charges-in-georgia-in-sprawling-98-page-indictment-read-the-indictment
Those ones you haven't heard of are would-be fake electors, the ones who didn't turn State's evidence. Hey guys (and gals) of the "Georgia Electors" scam, the bus has left the station; you missed it.
You clearly think that you did nothing wrong, and that's every American's right. It's also dead wrong; there are documents you signed fraudulently, illegal meetings you attended, and a long string of electronic communications snarling your futures.
I didn't realize this till today, but in GA the governor can't issue pardons, it's done by the Board of Pardons and Parole. But more than that, as far as I can tell, they can't issue a pardon until 5 years after the sentence has been completed. It doesn't shorten a prison sentence just restores certain rights post release. So if there's convictions on these charges and they carry prison time, I don't think there's any way for him to avoid doing the time.
https://pap.georgia.gov/parole-consideration/pardons-restoration-rights
WOW, this is a REAL hammer to crack Giuliani and Powell. But I hope Ms. Willis just hangs up on Chesebro's and Eastman's lawyers when they call begging for mercy. That little twerp Eastman is going to become some big guy's very compliant punk.
He can use his sentence to "study" same-sex "marriage". He might find a new enthusiasm for it once he's in one.
Just to be clear, I did a year in McAlester (Oklahoma), fortunately mostly as a trustee. So I do know a bit about the "romances" and jealous rages "inside".
Have a good time, John.
Oh, if tfg manages to get re-elected, he’ll find a Jeffrey Clark 2.0 who will declare Georgia’s attempt to jail a President an insurrection, and DJT will send the troops in …
This definitely will be one of those laws that the GOP changes once it’s clear that prominent Republicans are becoming ensnared in it.
So if there's convictions on these charges and they carry prison time, I don't think there's any way for him to avoid doing the time.
You do realize Donnie has a private jet and a lot of foreign dictators on his Rolodex, right?
What I think is being overlooked is that conviction anywhere except in Georgia on RICO charges will not make any difference to Trump’s life or ability to run for president. It seems extremely unlikely that he’s actually going to be imprisoned like an ordinary person which means that he will get some kind of probation.
But, for Trump, probation (like his terms of release) will be a nullity since the thing that compels obedience to judicial orders is the threat of imprisonment. If he’s not going to be locked up like an ordinary person, Trump’s really got nothing to worry about.
Which means that he’s not going to take a plea or run away to a foreign country to avoid being sent to prison. And he’s not going to obey the orders from these different judges not to incite violence against the prosecutors or the witnesses.
I agree he can run for president all he wants while he's under indictment, on trial, in prison, etc. But what makes you think that if he's convicted, and the sentencing guidelines are pretty clear about prison time, why he won't actually have to be incarcerated in some way? Now, I doubt it would be in a regular federal pen with the general population, but why wouldn't he go to some Club Fed, maybe with a special suite where the SS can still keep an eye on him?
yeah, people keep saying "he'll never do time even if he's convicted", and i get why that's a possibility, but it doesn't seem like a certainty to me. people also said he'd never be charged, and here we are with 4 indictments and 90+ felony charges i believe. never say never.
There’s certainly a first time for everything. I just think it’s very unlikely. And I’m pretty sure that’s what Trump thinks too.
My reason is the special status of presidents as basically non-heredity monarchs. I don’t think it would be acceptable to the elites in this country (who largely enjoy impunity themselves) to actually put a former president in prison (even in “keep away”).
The other reason is that Donald Trump’s the head of one of the two major political parties (and, arguably, the dominant one. And this is a political party with essentially an armed wing which includes a significant number of MAGA-killers who are likely to engage in terrorist reprisals until Trump is released. This control over the Republican Party is a source of great power for Trump and it’s the main reason why I say that he feels free to ignore the conditions of his pretrial release and why he won’t go to prison if he is convicted.
That is exactly why he should be jailed. The precedent he sets demands a countervailing precedent, at whatever the risk or cost.
And, in fact, I think the risk would fade rapidly, except among a few of the real nutcases, when he is no longer present to egg them on.
The few nutcases wouldn't be able to control themselves and so will end up at the end of a mini-gun hailstorm from an Apache.
well, if this leads to conviction and him fleeing the country, that's not quite as good as prison but i'll take it. however, i'm not so sure any of his dictator buddies really give a shit about him if he doesn't have a chance to be president again, at least not enough to earn the ire of the US by harboring him post conviction. you think putin is any more loyal to his lackeys than trump?
There was also some concern on the intertubes earlier this morning that Kemp might be able to pull a De Santis and remove the DA because there will be a new law coming into effect in Georgia later this year that allows elected prosecutors to be impeached or removed under certain circumstances. Fortunately, it appears that 1. the process to do so is actually pretty complicated and not directly controlled by the governor and 2. Kemp issued a statement a short time ago that made it pretty clear he thinks Trump is a guilty piece of shit and has no intention of intervening in the legal process.
So: no possibility of a federal pardon for Trump someday. No possibility of a state pardon in GA. His only hope is jury nullification, but this will probably be the most carefully vetted jury pool in history, so that's not likely either. He's going to prison.
Just shows "THEY" are out to get him. He has never, ever done anything less than "perfect".
Just ask him.
"...impeached twice for high crimes and misdemeanors, indicted four times on felony conspiracy and obstruction charges, and forced to pay tens of millions of dollars in civil actions for fraud and sexual assault."
Plus the dissolution of his phony university and crooked foundation.
and he's the runaway frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination. trump's criminality and general horribleness is just a reflection of the republican party as a whole.
From felon Spiro Agnew to Richard Nixon to the Iran-Contra scandal under Ronald Reagan, then the production of the Iraq War under G.W. Bush, republicans set the stage for criminality on a whole new level with trump. What would you expect from the ‘law & order’ party.
Not to mention that three of the greatest economic catastrophes to ever strike America happened on Republican watches: the Great Depression under Hoover; the Great Recession under Bush; the Covid pandemic under Trump. Plus all the corruption scandals you mention.
Yet Republicans are still ranked better on the economy and, yes, thought of as the law and order party. The mind reels.
The key appears to be Georgia's RICO and the central crime is attempted election fraud. The other crimes are in furtherance of election fraud and Georgia's RICO allows DA Willis to pull in people who would have otherwise escaped ties to a criminal enterprise at the federal level.
My reading of this is that, because Georgia's RICO involves minimum prison sentences (no probation), once they're able to prove election fraud, all 19 should also be found guilty of Georgia's RICO and everyone named in the conspiracy, including Trump, cannot escape prison time.
The idea of Trump, the ultimate mob boss wanna-be, finally getting taken down by RICO charges of all things... *chef kiss*
Yeah, the Defendant should be proud! He's finally made the big time!
Too bad Roy Cohn isn't here to see it.
Here's something I've been thinking about. WHAT IF, the Biden Administration is indeed persecuting Donald Trump, and the reason they are doing it is to Troll "The Base" into supporting him lock stock and barrel, handing him the nomination.
The "independents" who didn't vote for Trump in 2020 are particularly horrified by the anti-democratic (small "D") sulfur that burst from the Trump Volcano in the aftermath of the election and his increasing derangement since. Even though they are seriously underwhelmed by Joe Biden and worried about his ability to perform for five and a half more years -- I am too -- they'll hold their noses and vote against Trump.
I know; I know; it's a seventh-dimensional three-cushion bank shot, but it makes more and more sense by the day.
“… worried about his ability to perform for five and a half more years…”
I do love how the fat orange blob who constantly eats junk food, never exercises and is only 4 years younger than Biden is somehow seen as the one more likely to survive until 2029.
A seventy-seven year old has a statistical life expectancy of 9.32 years. An eighty-one year old has only 7.25. As I understand it, life expectancy is the age that 50% of people living at a certain age will attain before their personal death.
So it's not unreasonable to say that the 93% percent probability that a standard deviation confers happens within about half that time.
So you can say that Trump has roughly a 50% "certainty" of living five more years, while Biden has only 33%. There is a real difference in those numbers.
And the truth is that Trump never occupied the office of President with diligence and commitment. His day was about five or six hours five days a week; "staff" did the real work. Biden does the job 24/7/365.
Sure but the specific 81 year old we're talking about here is getting literally the best possible medical care of any human being on the face of the earth. I would venture a guess that a sitting president has very little in common with the vast majority of 81 year olds that only have 7.25 years of life expectancy left, and so statistics are inappropriate to use for estimating his life expectancy. (After all, most 81 year olds don't have a doctor waiting in the next room 24/7/365 to respond to their every cough, wheeze or sneeze... which are of course the first signs of impending death for people of all age groups.)
I think you're using the Social Security Actuarial Tables, right? They have life expectancy of 9.32 years for a 77-year-old and 7.25 for an 81-year-old. But I don't think you're using them correctly. I get a 73.3% probability of a 77-year-old living 5 more years, and a 62.5% probability for an 81-year-old. I got that by dividing the number of 77-year-olds still alive after five years (at 82) by the number alive now-- in this case 39,360 divided by 53,685. (And similarly for the 81-year-old living to 86 -- 26,518/42,420.) That's a difference of less than 11 percentage points, and they're both likely to make it (unlike in your calculations). And I think even my calculations are too conservative -- rich, well-educated people have better-than-average life expectancy at any age, and of course presidents have other health and treatment advantages.
Thanks. That's a good way to do the math directly rather than with statistical estimates.
But it doesn't matter, because Faux and, sadly, the "mainstream media" are going to run pictures of Biden stumbling 24/7 from now until next November. Faux will do it willingly, but the mainstreamers will do it because they don't want to lose all those advertising buckos from the Repugnants' deep pocketed backers.
When they're done the only images of Joe Biden that voters will have is of him falling.
Fred Trump, TFG’s dad, lived to be 94, but developed Alzheimer’s in his later years. People are saying Donald already shows symptoms.
"I know; I know; it's a seventh-dimensional three-cushion bank shot".
Yeah.
"but it makes more and more sense by the day."
No.
What if Trump is being charged because he committed actual crimes in multiple jurisdictions?
Of course that's true, and obviously the Documents case was delayed a bit after they were found to be missing by the Archives because the Government was actually giving Trump a chance to return the documents with no repercussions. It's on Trump that he did not take the opportunity.
It can't be denied, though, that the Justice Department DID dilly-dally for the first two years after January 6th and it's not clear why.
It has proven to be a real opportunity for Biden, though, because a young and "sane" Republican ticket -- not Ronito DeSantolini obviously, but Rick Scott or Glenn Youngkin -- would beat him badly.
‘Dilly-dally’? They’ve been investigating Hunter Biden for five years! Ken Starr spent four years pursuing the Clintons and came up with a blue dress. I’d say two years is breakneck speed for the DOJ.
But, to be clear, the DOJ evidently wasn’t investigating anything for those wasted years. It was just trying to avoid going up against Trump and the Republican Party.
From what I understand, there was no investigation above the lackeys in the Capitol Building until the January Sixth Committee essentially shamed them into opening one.
Rick Scott is 70. And no “young, sane” (as if!) Republican was ever going to defeat tfg for the nomination — his cult will have no other gods before him.
I meant Tim Scott. Apologies. Rick Scott is a horrible person corrupt to the core.
That’s enough horrible for me …
"Even though they are seriously underwhelmed by Joe Biden..."
As Dark Brandon says, malarkey will not go unchecked, Jack!
Between huge generational investments in infrastructure (including advanced chip manufacturing), the most significant steps to combat global warming in history, a master class in foreign policy that has strengthened NATO and taken Russia and China to the woodshed, and of course the lowest unemployment rate in ages (after a global pandemic), all accomplished against a Republican party full of demonic jackals, can you name a president in modern American history that has had a more effective first couple years in office?
I agree with you that Biden’s been a very good president. Also, unless there’s a universally accepted Democratic alternative, the 2024 election will almost certainly be a binary choice between Trump and Biden. So it’s either re-elect Trump and lose our democracy or it’s re-elect Biden and hope that he makes another four years or that Kamala’s a good president if he doesn’t.
Who of your acquaintances who isn't a partisan Democrat even KNOWS about the things you listed? If the American people knew all this wonderful stuff -- and it IS wonderful! -- would Biden have a 40% approval rating? Don't be stupid in your complacency.
I popped over to Fox News to see what they say.
Their main article is very informative, straight news. My guess is they don't care because it is so long that their readers won't get through it.
Their subsidiary articles, of course, are all of conservatives bashing the indictment. Not one quote from a sane person.
The main link is to Hannity interviewing Gingrich, but almost all the conversation was about Democrats: Obama's "corruption," Hillary's "crimes," and then the usual lies about Hunter Biden.
How cold! How callous! Their man made them so much money during his heyday, and now they've apparently dumped him like a used condom.
(heh, heh)
Given that ~35-40% of the country seems like it will back Trump no matter what and seems to believe (or at least pretends to) that he can do no wrong and is being politically persecuted, I have absolutely no expectation of him being convicted of any of these crimes.
The cases will be decided by juries, not the national population. In DC only 5.6% voted for Trump, so there is about an even chance that a jury randomly selected from voters will not have a Trump voter. In Fulton County GA 26.2% voted for Trump so mostly likely there will be three Trump voters on the jury. In Florida the jury could contain a majority of Trump voters (depending on country).
Just being a Trump voter is also no guarantee that they'll vote to acquit no matter what. Recall that one of the jurors on the E. Jean Carrol case later admitted to being a conservative Trump supporter -- and he voted guilty (or "liable" or whatever).
I think the prosecutors and the judge will be pretty careful to weed out any seriously crazy MAGAts who want on the jury just to they can sabotage the whole thing.
I just don't know how they'll be able to find a "jury of his peers" for any of these indictments. There can't be that many Demon Lords of Corruption walking around, and by definition they're probably really good at getting out of jury duty.
And the Georgia court proceedings may be televised - risky, but necessary.
Yes, this case is in many ways the complement to the DC case. That one is minimalist, focused on Trump, designed for speed, and following the letter of judicial propriety.
This one highlights the conspiracy and conspirators, and seems to be designed for public exposure and the resulting public discussion. Ergo, being televised is necessary.
Read the indictment. It's long, but there's a lot there.
I'm no lawyer, but I can see why this took so long to put together, it's literally the basis for a book on what Trump and his Merry Band did following the election loss, and even before.
I think the best part of it is it includes Trump but maybe it's also a call to not be stupid just because the president calls you to be stupid. The other thing I got from it, don't lie in Georgia, the Bulldogs don't like lying.
He has always been a pathological lying piece of shit. Except now instead of defrauding contractors, investors, banks, suppliers, those poor folks who signed up for his bull shit university, he defrauded the Federal Government and a whole bunch of states. Instead of civil lawsuits that he had the money to overwhelm, counter sue the plaintiffs, and force a crappy settlement, he has multiple criminal charges brought by entities that have almost unlimited resources to go after him.