Donald Trump

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: Donald Trump

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

Question Time... in the Senate
"interesting questions from Sens. Mitt Romney, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski -- Republicans who seem likely to vote to convict -- about when Trump knew the Capitol was in danger, what exactly he did to protect it, and whether he knew about the danger faced by Vice President Mike Pence." - these are picks from yesterday, by CNN

A further question: can they call the accused as a witness :roll:
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Re: Donald Trump

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ArmChairCivvy wrote:Al was allowed to serve his sentence in his mansion
I believe the local authorities responsible for Mar el Largo are taking Trump to Court for breaking the terms of his planning agreement. When he converted it to a golf course, he agreed that no-one was allowed to live in the property and that the rooms were only for short-term stays, with a maximum duration of 72 hours. Maybe he won't even get to stay in his mansion.
The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
Winston Churchill

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: Donald Trump

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Caribbean wrote:Maybe he won't even get to stay in his mansion.
Well, he narrowly avoided one :) eviction already
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: Donald Trump

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Lovely, one witness has been requested (to give the details of a Republican leader pleading Trump to stop stalling with sending help during the riot) and the defending side says: Oh, no, for you to get your witness, we will call hundreds .., and stall any legislation for 2-3 months (as collateral damage)

Ted Cruz who is good at inventing stories, but at least got the label right: (procedural) pandemonium
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

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Pseudo
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Re: Donald Trump

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ArmChairCivvy wrote:Lovely, one witness has been requested (to give the details of a Republican leader pleading Trump to stop stalling with sending help during the riot) and the defending side says: Oh, no, for you to get your witness, we will call hundreds .., and stall any legislation for 2-3 months (as collateral damage)

Ted Cruz who is good at inventing stories, but at least got the label right: (procedural) pandemonium
Holding the trial at the start of Biden's presidency was always a stupid idea. There was no chance of the exhaustive trial that the Democratic base wants because Congressional Democrats want to move on as quickly as possible in order to get on with passing Biden's legislative agenda, while the Republicans want to turn the trial into a time consuming circus so that they can point to it as an example of Democrats incompetent congressional leadership and delay and progress on Biden's legislative agenda for as long as possible.

The way I see it, the acquittal gives Republicans the ability to be dismissive of hearings and investigations by allowing them to claim that the matter was settled in the impeachment trial and Trump was acquitted. They should have held off on the impeachment trial. It should have been a coup de grâce, the denouement of a year or so of hearings and investigations.

Democrats really should have held off on the trial until late next spring. While some might argue that the further we get from the event itself, the less the American public would care. I tend to think that a year of investigations and hearings combined with criminal investigations in to his businesses and media investigations in to the conduct of his administration would likely to keep Trump very much in the public consciousness and further convince those that are open to convincing of his guilt on a variety of charges.

On top of that, a trial closer to the midterms completely flips the incentives for Republicans. By next spring, midterms are on the horizon and it would no longer been in their interest to drag things out and make the trial as disruptive as possible. In fact, their inventive would be to get it over and done with as quickly as possible to try and minimise the damage that it would do to their support amongst swing voters and "establishment" Republican voters in those elections.

Scimitar54
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Re: Donald Trump

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By finding Trump “Not Guilty” those Senators who so voted, may be seen by the electorate to be condoning the behaviour of the then POTUS and by implication, the insurrection. What future can there be for the GOP now? Talk about Turkeys voting for Christmas (Or perhaps that should be Thanksgiving)!

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: Donald Trump

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Scimitar54 wrote: What future can there be for the GOP now?
That is the real question. While it is a good idea to fight reality shows with reality TV (fight fire with fire; burn out zones to stop the spread and 'kettled in' it will not spread, not go out, but will just smoulder), there is now a base (of perception) that the soon-to-come criminal processes can build on
- btw. the Georgia 'find votes' is one of the first of those, not a political one like what has just ended

But back to the real question. If the GOP were to split, polls say (influencers included, not just those who already sit in the Congress) that
- 30% would follow Trump, 40% join Centre Right 'party', 37 % may be follow Trump
- and as always in politics, 30% 'don't know'
- even leaving the latter out, the 107% total shows that even the slightest nuance in the question will change the outcome = confusion and uncertainty reigns

So many have tainted themselves by nailing the colours to the mast that it is likely that the influential turncoats (McConnell, Haley... and Pence who 'owns' the evangelicals), who can give a reasoned rationale for their decision will determine the outcome (like e.g. no split).
- going back to the reality show(s), there is only so much that people will allocate (beyond quick headlines) from their 'time budget'... I, for instance, only watched the final statements, And this was a 'quick' trial!
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

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Pseudo
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Re: Donald Trump

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Scimitar54 wrote:What future can there be for the GOP now?
The same as it always was. Using their legislative majorities in state governments to gerrymander congressional districts and pass laws restricting voting rights that disproportionately impact demographics where they have the least support.

The sad reality is that most of the senators that voted to acquit are from deeply red states and have more to fear from being challenged in the primaries by a Trumpista opponent than they do from a Democrat or any other opponent in the election, so for them it would have been voting to convict that would have been like turkeys voting for Christmas.

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: Donald Trump

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Pseudo wrote:so for them it would have been voting to convict that would have been like turkeys voting for Christmas.
So getting the evidence imprinted on the minds of everyone, while still fresh, was important? Because that outcome would not have changed regardless of the timing
- and now all the criminal proceedings can 'proceed' without them being all lumped under a 'political witch hunt' label?
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

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Pseudo
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Re: Donald Trump

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ArmChairCivvy wrote: I tend to think that a year of investigations and hearings combined with criminal investigations in to his businesses and media investigations in to the conduct of his administration would likely to keep Trump very much in the public consciousness and further convince those that are open to convincing of his guilt on a variety of charges.
Not necessarily. As I said, most of those senators that voted to convict fear a primary challenge more than any of their electoral opponents, so delaying the trial until late April next year when the filing deadlines in most states will have passed would remove the possibility of a primary challenge based solely on their vote for those up for re-election in 2022.

Either way I doubt a conviction would happen, but that's not the main reason that the Democrats should have delayed the trial to next spring. The reason is that by then midterms are on the horizon and the incentive for Republicans would be to get the trial over and done with as quickly as possible to try and minimise the damage that it would do to their support amongst swing voters and "establishment" Republican voters in the four or five swing state senate elections (PA, WI, NC, FL & OH) that if the Democrats were to win would give them a clear majority that might be large enough for them to retain a majority following the 2024 senate elections.

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: Donald Trump

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Pick up lines, followed by 'love letters' (an infantile mind?)

"Trump reportedly knew that Kim Jong Un had traveled to their second summit in Vietnam by train so offered to take him home on Air Force One instead."
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: Donald Trump

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Who will get him first?

For the Georgia electoral crime there is evidence even in the public domain.

The SC has confirmed the subpoena that "required Trump’s accounting firm, Mazars U.S.A., to turn over millions of pages of personal and corporate records, dating from 2011 to 2019, that Trump had withheld from prosecutors and the public. "
- and that's New York and Cyrus Vance, Jnr (66 years old)

Can Trump claim political asylum in Florida?
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

SDL
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Re: Donald Trump

Post by SDL »

i suspect the Georgia stuff is an easier case to make... so that could be the one to get him first

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Pseudo
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Re: Donald Trump

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SDL wrote:i suspect the Georgia stuff is an easier case to make... so that could be the one to get him first
I love the idea that he might have had a defence if he'd asked Raffensperger to find him the ~400,000 ballots that he claimed on the call that he'd won the state by because he could say that he honestly believed that he had won the state by that amount, but because he only asked Raffensperger to find him ~11,000 votes he can't make that defence because that's a figure that he knows to be false.

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Re: Donald Trump

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Wasn't Trump asking for a very specific amount of votes to be found... not just 11k, but a specific number between in the 11k region

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Pseudo
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Re: Donald Trump

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SDL wrote:Wasn't Trump asking for a very specific amount of votes to be found... not just 11k, but a specific number between in the 11k region
Yeah, but I couldn't remember the exact number so I wrote a ~11,000 to indicate that the number was around that figure. I remember it being exactly enough to win by one vote so after checking the results it must have been 11,780 votes that asked for.

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Re: Donald Trump

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the fact he asked for 11,780 specifically is what does him in IMHO... it shows that the phone call's intention was to have the other guy commit election fraud... and in doing so, Trump committed it himself. It's a slam dunk IMHO.... but only if the Georgia justice system actually does it job

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Pseudo
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Re: Donald Trump

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SDL wrote:the fact he asked for 11,780 specifically is what does him in IMHO... it shows that the phone call's intention was to have the other guy commit election fraud... and in doing so, Trump committed it himself. It's a slam dunk IMHO.... but only if the Georgia justice system actually does it job
Yes, it's that he asked for 11,780 is what does him. That's because in the call he claimed that he won the state by 400,000 votes which means that he was asking Raffensperger to falsify the results because he was asking him to change the result to a number that he knew to be false if he believed that he'd won the state by 400,000 votes. If he'd asked Raffensperger to change the result by 411,779 votes then he'd have some defence (though maybe not a vey compelling one) in being able to say that he believed he'd won the state by 400,000 votes so he was asking Raffensperger to correct the results rather than falsify them.

I just find it really amusing that what might well sink Trump's defence is that he didn't ask Raffensperger to falsify the results be enough votes.

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: Donald Trump

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The political cases (which can be criminal, because there are laws about the process and tampering with it) aside, the Manhattan Prosecutor fired by Trump v early on has given an interview. Here's what he says about the most prominent investigation:

"There’s not that much that we know about by way of criminal investigations. The one that we know about most directly and most prominently is the one you mentioned, the Manhattan district attorney’s investigation into Trump’s finances and business dealings.
“I tend to agree with those people who liken Trump to a mob boss who doesn’t have to say the words. Historically, it’s been very hard to prosecute the mob boss for these precise reasons.” — Preet Bharara
= A comment lifted out fro the rest of the interview

I don’t know because I’ve not been in the grand jury, I’ve not interviewed the witnesses. Cy Vance doesn’t call me up and tell me stuff, but there is some signaling going on. Cy Vance is not running for reelection. Vance is, as they say, a lame duck. As a lame duck, he’s done certain things, including hiring an outside forensic accounting firm, which is not super unusual but it’s not that common. He’s done something else that is less common, which is hire an outside lawyer, Mark Pomerantz, who’s a very distinguished, well-respected lawyer in New York. I’m not going to put too much weight on it, but it seems like the kind of move you make when you believe that there’s going to be a charge or there’s a good likelihood of a charge, because it’s a pretty public thing to do. It also risks alienating people in your own office. It’s just a gut feeling that I have that taking these actions indicates to me that that office believes there’s a decent likelihood of a charge, and so that’s the one I’d be watching."
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/202 ... ility.html
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: Donald Trump

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'Deep State' tables turned around (and it does not stop there, but goes into opposing-party Intelligence Committee members (heh-he: oversight; something we have forgotten about over here):
" Former Trump White House counsel Don McGahn and his wife received disclosures from Apple last month that their account records were sought by the Justice Department in February 2018, while McGahn was still the top lawyer representing the presidency, according to a person familiar.



Democrats push for testimony. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Sunday demanded Senate Republicans join Democrats to subpoena former Attorneys General Jeff Sessions and William Barr."
- thru CNN, on Sunday
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: Donald Trump

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Oh dear,
while non-violent demonstrators are being spared jail, the first violent rioter has gone to jail for 41 months, and the first general is being sued for non-cooperation with the investigation by Congress (max. 1 yr for it, though),
getting to the C-in-C's documents is still two levels of courts away. CNN has been looking into the legal opinions that would be key to the outcome of that (protracted) process:
" since the entire Nixon ordeal, Congress had adopted the Presidential Records Act, which changed ownership of a president's official files from private to public; the House committee is seeking the archived Trump files under the act's terms.

Nixon lost in 1977 by a 7-2 vote. A threshold question for the justices in that case of Nixon v. Administrator of General Services was whether Nixon, as a former president, could assert executive privilege -- a right intended to ensure a president confidentiality in his dealings with advisers and usually given significant protection. In an earlier case, the 1974 United States v. Nixon, the court had said the privilege is not absolute, as it required Nixon to turn over Watergate tapes for a criminal investigation. (Nixon resigned soon after that decision.)

In the 1977 Nixon dispute, the justices said a former president can, even after leaving office, assert executive privilege. "The privilege survives the individual President's tenure," Justice William Brennan wrote for the majority.
Yet the court emphasized a significant condition relevant to the Trump case: "At the same time, however, the fact that neither President (Gerald) Ford nor President (Jimmy) Carter supports appellant's claim detracts from the weight of his contention that the Act impermissibly intrudes into the executive function and the needs of the Executive Branch," Brennan wrote. "This necessarily follows, for it must be presumed that the incumbent President is vitally concerned with and in the best position to assess the present and future needs of the Executive Branch, and to support invocation of the privilege accordingly." ["]

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/11/poli ... index.html
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

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Re: Donald Trump

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Trump may not of been a likely person and the media in particular detested him but had this gone it he other way it would if plastered front page news not buried which says a lot about the standard of todays news reporting

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-59168626.amp

A Russian analyst who worked on a dossier that made unsubstantiated claims linking Donald Trump to the Kremlin has been arrested in the US.
The Department of Justice charged Igor Danchenko, 43, with lying to the FBI.
He was detained as part of an inquiry into the origins of baseless claims that Mr Trump colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election.

The so-called Steele Dossier was used by the FBI to obtain surveillance warrants on a top Trump aide.
The document was held up by Democrats to paint Mr Trump as a Russian puppet, a narrative amplified in a feedback loop by most US media for much of the president's four years in office.

Mr Steele was hired to conduct the research through a law firm on behalf of Mr Trump's political opponents, including the campaign of Hillary Clinton, the Democratic candidate in the 2016 election.

According to the federal indictment, a US-based public relations executive "who was a long-time participant in Democratic Party politics" was "a contributor of information" to the dossier.
Mr Danchenko, it is alleged, lied to agents when he said he had never communicated with this unnamed PR executive about the dossier allegations.

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SKB
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Re: Donald Trump

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Trump was right!
From 2018:

(CBS News) 11th July 2018
President Trump used the NATO summit to criticize allies, including Germany, over a natural gas pipeline deal with Russia. He also upset tradition by demanding NATO countries spend even more on defense

TSharpe28
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Re: Donald Trump

Post by TSharpe28 »

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... 6-election

This is the ultimate news from him.

Scimitar54
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Re: Donald Trump

Post by Scimitar54 »

“OLD NEWS” Mis-use of the US Justice system in order to get free (Presidential Campaign ?) publicity ?

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