NY: Convicted Felon Donald Trump!

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Trump's piercing glare is iconic

They're disappointed Trump isn't intimidated by the globalists.

What a flip-flopper you are.

Those two aren't contradictory at all? He's staring his adversary in the eye.

Thank you for recognizing that rule of law and Donald Trump are implacable foes.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/JoyceWhiteVance/status/1643329049442369537

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/JoyceWhiteVance/status/1643329049442369537

The daughter worked on the Biden-Harris campaign.

And Donald's son-in-law (and White House employee) just got another few hundreds of millions ftom Qatar and the UAE. Did you have a point?

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Given these charges and Alvin Bragg record of having being weak on far more serious offenses , I don’t know how the argument can be made that these weren’t politically motivated . The precedent this opens up is gonna ruin American politics for a while to come

The precedents were already set (or broken) much earlier. Donald refused to sell or shutter his business, and likewise refused to place it in a blind trust. Instead, he chose to keep doing business - often in ways that had the appearance of corruption, and that were blatantly unconstitutional. Donald chose to ignore precedent and the Constitution in direct violation of his own Oath of Office. That he now faces conseqences from having done so rests upon him (and the party that had every chance to remove him, but declined to do so.)

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

"Trump won't be indicted" has gone to "the charges are weak". The fact that he showed up to court shows that this is more serious than some of you want to admit.

The common denominator here is Bragg.

A grand jury voted to indict. It wasn't solely up to the District Attorney.

It takes 12/23 in the bluest area of the country bro.

I fully think Trump is guilty of paying off a porn star. Nobody denies that.

And using the business he continued to run in violation of his Oath of Office to cover up how he lied to the American people in order to get elected President. I understand that's not the sort of thing Republicans give a damn about, but honest Americans do.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/greg_price11/status/1643349194332053507

Republicans: "Lying to the American public and using the corporation you unconstitutionally control to bribe the sex workers you cheated on your wife with (and then lying about that) isn't serious."

Also Republicans: "We are a very serious party, not a cult. Family values!"

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Former Attorney General Bill Barr

"A Pathetically Weak Case"

https://www.foxnews.com/video/6323962566112

You don't have to change the location of the trial. This case is weak.

Bill Barr said the Mar-a-Lago document saga is the more serious case.

Yeah. Barr totally is 100% above board.

Barr abused his office to shut down what would have been a federal investigation into the same conduct Bragg is now charging Donald for. Just to be clear.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

OK, seriousposting time.

Since the 2016 campaign, all kinds of people have raised expectations regarding Trump's imminent demise as a political force, a President, a free man, etc. Whether they be the lamestream media, Democratic (and a few Republican) politicians, prosecutors, intelligence officials, and all manner of other “pundits” both professional and armchair offering their ongoing Twitter and Cable TV commentary on Trump’s controversies, there've been a lot of people with large audiences and influential platforms promising that career criminal, fascist-curious, unprecedented internal menace to American democracy Donald John Trump, Sr. is "about to face real consequences." Whether it came from the SDNY, FBI, impeachment, the military, or the vaunted "adults in the room" during the Trump Presidency, there were a lot of people making promises that someone, somewhere, would Stop Him.

All of the above has backfired. It has benefited Trump politically (and by extension, financially), played into his and his supporters' persecution complex about the Lyin' Media/Deep State being "out to get them", made his opponents look impotent, silly, and tiresome, and created staying power for Trump that he may very well not have otherwise had----at least, not as a political force post-Presidency.

Trump still should face serious criminal consequences for January 6th. For Christ's sake, he and his supporters wanted to hang his own Vice President, along with the Speaker of the House and every other Democrat and "RINO" in Congress! This is a man who should have been indicted two years ago!

I feel many of the same sentiments, with the caveat that if we had a better justice system, he would have been indicted over two decades ago and we never would have had to deal with his craptacular corruption of our country. But to paraphrase the old saying, you go after wanna-be dictators with the justice system you have, not the justice system you want. And it's not fair.

Trump, and those like him (which includes more Republicans than most of us would have guessed ten years ago) fight dirty. And we cannot fight back the same way, because their ultimate goal is to destroy the rule of law. That's the focus of much of their rhetoric not just projection, but the de-legitimization of the (flawed, but far better than what we'd have under GOP tyranny) justice system and rule of law we do have. We're fighting Marquess of Queensberry rules while they can use every dirty trick imaginable, because we want to have rules in the future, and they don't. (At least, not for themselves.)

On a relevant note, superb journalist Marcy Wheeler published something last month that is worth reading, on pretty much this exact topic:
"Just for Perspective: Investigations Take Longer When Presidents Don’t Wiretap Themselves "

The DoJ has not been wasting it's time, it's been doing it's job and building the most airtight case it possibly can over January 6th. And while that does take time, it's been time well spent, and not unusual given everything they need to do if they're to have any hope of bringing the head of the criminal Trump Organization to justice.
 

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

The third world is laughing at us:

<tweet deleted to save space>

In the countries that you’re talking about, do the prosecutors usually sit back and politely let said candidate finish serving out their entire term as President before filing the charges?

How many functioning democracies have a major party promoting the guy who launched an attack on the legislature to keep himself in office as their leading candidate in the next election?

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

What happened to "just wait until the indictment comes out, surely there's more to it than paying off porn stars guys"?

I was one of these people, and my immediate reaction (in this thread) to reading the indictment is that it’s extremely disappointing and underwhelming. Based on what has now been made public, I think the case is very weak and probably should not have been brought.

The idea that the case is "very weak" seems to be based on the fact that Bragg wasn't very specific about what election laws were violated.  But some analysts have said that Bragg was actually being smart in not going into specifics.  If so, the conventional analysis is way off the mark.  

The only laws available to him are very vague.

I think he was being vague not on the laws, but on the crimes Trump committed or sought to commit that supposedly turned the 34 counts into felonies instead of misdemeanors.

I actually don’t think Bragg was vague.  Bragg was pretty specific about the statutes he believes Trump broke, and how he believes Trump violated them.

I’m saying that these statutes themselves are vague, and it is unclear whether the conduct Trump is alleged to have committed constitutes a violation of those laws. And I don’t believe there are any additional specific facts that could be added that would resolve the vagueness, at least not in a way that would merit conviction.

You're entitled to your opinion, of course, but I find such a conclusion premature at best.  

This is worth a look:

https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2023/04/04/bragg-past-case-trump-indictment-miller-analysis-ebof-vpx.cnn

I think it is telling that virtually every Republican, even the most anti-Trump Republicans, have uniformly come to the conclusion that this prosecution is meritless. This was not the case with respect to any of the other pending criminal investigations of Trump, or either of Trump’s impeachments.

I think the near-universal Republican outrage at the case has more to to with charges that could concievably lead to a guilty verdict than with any objective judgement. (If they were willing to be remotely impartial in public, they would not be allowed to be Republicans.) With prior investigations and impeachments, they knew there was neither the will nor the votes to impose real consequences on Trump, no matter how minor. Here, it is a possibility. And that is what has them closing ranks. One thing that unites Republicans is the desire to avoid the consequences of their abuses.

What's telling to me is that among all the various Republican whines, screams, and complaints, I have yet to see a single one claim "he didn't do it". The GOP is a party of crime (and treason).  Of course they're rejecting the idea that an entitled jackwagon could possibly face justice - stopping that from happening is a large part of why they exist in the first place!

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

It's time to get back to the case at hand, after an interruption in the usual programming.

One major problem with the Bragg case is mixing and matching state and federal law. Using purported federal violations to extend the SOL for state violations causes considerable skepticism in elite legal circles. But now a new angle is the state bookkeeping fraud was to facilitate state tax fraud, state on state rather than state on federal.

The NYT article does not get very far in the weeds on this, so indulge me while I speculate a bit. Trump seemed to take a phony tax deduction by converting a non-deductible hush money payment into deductible legal services. Cohen converted a non-taxable reimbursement payment into pseudo taxable income for himself, and thus the gross up payment. The state might have ended up net with more tax revenue, but it was attended by fraud and involved switching taxpayers.

Normally a state would not be too motivated to pursue tax fraud where it made money, but nothing about this case is normal. Wheels within wheels within wheels. The new theory is confusingly pleaded, perhaps by design, but soon the prosecution will have to lay its cards on the table, and spill its guts: 

“What is going to happen now is that the prosecutors are obligated to disclose things in discovery,” he said. “Defense counsel will learn in discovery the nature of the elections laws violations and the tax issues that were raised by Mr. Bragg in his statement of facts.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/04/us/politics/trump-bookkeeping-fraud-taxes.html

IANAL, but is it possible that Bragg will tie these charges to the existing felonies for the Trump Organization?

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Trump, Cohen Met in Oval Office to Go Over Finances, Indictment Says

Donald Trump allegedly met with his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, to discuss parts of their "hush money" scheme in the Oval Office, according to the recently unsealed Manhattan indictment.

Trump was officially arrested by the Manhattan District Attorney on Tuesday afternoon and arraigned on charges relating to district attorney Alvin Bragg's long-running investigation into his alleged involvement in the hush money plan. According to the newly unsealed indictment, Trump has been charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records in an attempt to conceal a repayment to his former lawyer, who paid two women to stay quiet about affairs they had with Trump in the lead-up to the 2016 election. This included $130,000 paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels.

Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges on Tuesday and is next scheduled to appear in court in early December as the case moves ahead. He has long denied that the affairs ever happened and dismissed Bragg's work as politically motivated. This is the first-ever criminal indictment of a former president in U.S. history.

https://www.newsweek.com/trump-cohen-met-oval-office-finances-indictment-1792590

I keep seeing stuff like "the first-ever criminal indictment of a former president in U.S. history". Where was this same sense of history when Donald because the first President in U.S. history to violate the Emoluments clauses? The first President in U.S. history to openly run a criminal organization from the White House? The first President in U.S. history to commit treason and attempt a coup?

The shocking thing is not that he's been charged with crimes, but that it took so long.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Trump sues Michael Cohen for $500 million, alleging ex-attorney breached his contract

Former President Donald Trump is suing Michael Cohen for $500 million in damages for allegedly breaching his contract as Trump’s former personal attorney.

The lawsuit, filed in a Florida federal court on Wednesday, accuses Cohen of spreading false information about Trump and breaching his contractual obligations to the former president in Cohen’s public statements, published books, podcast series and other media appearances.

CNN has reached out to Cohen for comment on the lawsuit.

Cohen, Trump’s onetime “fixer,” has recently reentered the national spotlight after Trump pleaded not guilty last week to 34 charges of falsifying business records following an investigation into hush money payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels. The payments were coordinated by Cohen in the days before the 2016 election, and Cohen’s cooperation with prosecutors has drawn the ire of the former president.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/12/politics/donald-trump-michael-cohen-lawsuit/index.html

Somebody is lashing out in whiny desperation. He's hoping he'll get Cannon or another of his appointeestraitors.

Filing here:
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.645291/gov.uscourts.flsd.645291.1.0_2.pdf

Plaintiff President Donald J. Trump is a private citizen of the United States, and a resident
of the state of Florida

Has he legally changed his name? Because he can't be both.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Yeah it was him. Weissman thinks so too.

https://twitter.com/AWeissmann_/status/1648125684395433989

Then why TF is Bragg fighting this? Why TF is Jordan seeking this testimony? All jokes aside neither are imbeciles and must know how this is ultimately going to backfire on jordan/ help Bragg. That unless there's something significantly more to their expected testimony.

They'll generate soundbytes for FOX and have something they can spin. Don't underestimate how much effort the GOP puts into keeping their alternate reality afloat.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Just had New York County Supreme Court hearing where I believe my First Amendment Rights,“Freedom of Speech,” have been violated, and they forced upon us a trial date of March 25th, right in the middle of Primary season. Very unfair, but this is exactly what the Radical Left Democrats wanted. It’s called ELECTION INTERFERENCE, and nothing like this has ever happened in our Country before!!!

^ Trump

If Donald doesn't want to do the time (in court) he shouldn't have done the crimes.

This is just typical GOP whining at facing cosequences.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Prosecutors say they have a recording of Trump and a witness in Manhattan DA case

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office made the disclosure in a filing this week called an automatic discovery form and said the evidence had already been disclosed to Trump's attorneys.

The filing does not identify the witness or say when the recording was made or when Trump's lawyers were made aware of it. NBC News has reached out to attorneys and a spokesperson for Trump for a response.

A key witness in the case, former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, previously released a secretly taped audio recording of a discussion he had with Trump about the hush money payments in 2016. It's unclear if the recording referred to in the court filing is the same one.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Is there any confirmation of this outside of claims by well-known liar and idiot Donald Trump?

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Is there any confirmation of this outside of claims by well-known liar and idiot Donald Trump?

In the other thread there's a tweet ABC apparently confirmed it and CNN has apparently confirmed 7 counts.

Thank you (and the others who have posted links).

Presuming this boosts his fundraising again, how badly does all that money going into his personal slush fund instead of actual races hurt the GOP down ballot?

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Judge rejects Trump’s bid to move hush money case to federal court

U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, a Clinton appointee, granted the request of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s (D) office to keep the case in New York state court in a major blow to the former president.

Trump had argued the case must be moved to federal court because he was being prosecuted for an act under the color of his office as president and that Bragg’s prosecution was politically motivated. Granting the request would’ve also broadened the jury pool beyond deep-blue Manhattan to surrounding areas in New York.

“The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that the matter was a purely a personal item of the President — a cover-up of an embarrassing event. Hush money paid to an adult film star is not related to a President’s official acts. It does not reflect in any way the color of the President’s official duties,” Hellerstein wrote.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Trump sues Michael Cohen for $500 million, alleging ex-attorney breached his contract

Former President Donald Trump is suing Michael Cohen for $500 million in damages for allegedly breaching his contract as Trump’s former personal attorney.

The lawsuit, filed in a Florida federal court on Wednesday, accuses Cohen of spreading false information about Trump and breaching his contractual obligations to the former president in Cohen’s public statements, published books, podcast series and other media appearances.

CNN has reached out to Cohen for comment on the lawsuit.

Cohen, Trump’s onetime “fixer,” has recently reentered the national spotlight after Trump pleaded not guilty last week to 34 charges of falsifying business records following an investigation into hush money payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels. The payments were coordinated by Cohen in the days before the 2016 election, and Cohen’s cooperation with prosecutors has drawn the ire of the former president.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/12/politics/donald-trump-michael-cohen-lawsuit/index.html

Trump receives deposition notice in his $500 million lawsuit against Michael Cohen (July 31, 2023)

Former President Donald Trump has been called to sit for a deposition in September as part of his lawsuit seeking $500 million from his former attorney Michael Cohen.

In a filing Monday, Cohen's attorneys scheduled the deposition for Sept. 6 at a law office in Miami.

“I look forward to Donald’s deposition under oath and proving the frivolous nature of the lawsuit,” Cohen told NBC News in a statement.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

(This related to the civil fraud case the State of New York has brought against Donald Trump, stemming from the crimes of the criminal Trump Organization he leads. We don't appear to have a desperate thread for that.)

New York AG’s office alleges Trump inflated his net worth by as much as $2.2 billion in 1 year

Donald Trump inflated his net worth by as much as $2.2 billion in one year, lawyers for the New York attorney general’s office alleged as part of their civil fraud lawsuit against the former president, his adult sons and the Trump Organization.

Over a 10-year period, the attorney general’s office said that when it corrects the Trump financial statements for alleged misvaluations it “reduces Mr. Trump’s net worth by between 17-39% in each year, or between $812 million to $2.2 billion, depending on the year.” The $2.2 billion disparity came in 2014, the state said.

The new allegations were made in a partial summary judgment motion made public Wednesday by New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Trump's civil fraud trial in New York state court (as distinct from his criminal records falsification trial in New York state court, or his federal civil fraud trial in the Southern District of New York, or his damages trial for libel in New York state court) starts October 2nd, 2023. It will be a bench trial and is expected to take 3 months:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/donald-trumps-new-york-fraud-trial-will-last-nearly-3-months-judge-rcna104100

"The trial is scheduled to begin on October 2, 2023 and to end by December 22, 2023," Judge Arthur Engoron wrote in an order laying out scheduling and administrative plans for the case, which alleges that Trump, his children Don Jr. and Eric Trump, and the Trump Organization had for years been inflating their worth to the tune of billions of dollars in financial statements to banks and insurers.

The Manhattan trial will be a bench trial, meaning there's no jury and the case will be decided by the judge. Engoron said he'll hear the case five days a week.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Judge says the trial is moving ahead on March 25 with jury selection!

Something could still come up and push it back, but at least now we know it's not being held up by his other trials.

I may be wrong, but my recollection is that Judge Merchan is the one who, last year, caught Trump & his attorneys deliberately scheduling multiple court appearances in different states for the same date.

It's nice to see Donald's delay tactics failing, hopefully this will be part of a trend, and more judges will declined to help Donald avoid facing justice for his crimes.
 
Editing to add:
We're also getting a preview (apparently at the judge's displeasure) of what will doubtless become a common refrain over the next eight months: "Donald Trump is running for office, it's not fair to hold him to account now for the crimes he committed when he was previously running for office".

Lock him up!

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://thepostmillennial.com/its-not-a-crime-trump-speaks-out-against-alvin-braggs-falsified-docs-case-in-new-york

Speaking outside the New York City courtroom after the conclusion of a hearing in the alleged falsified business records case brought forth by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Trump addressed reporters, saying legal experts have said the actions alleged in the case are "not a crime."

The judge just ruled, in court, that it was in fact, a crime.

He also false claimed,

"This is all from the DOJ, this all comes out of Washington. They coordinated with the district attorney and the AG."

This is a trial in the state of New York, for violating the laws of New York. And, as always, it is projection: Former federal prosecutor says Barr fired him because investigations threatened Trump’s reelection chances



Anyone want to bet whether the MSM will call out Donald's blatant lies and projection while covering this?

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Donald Trump will get juror names at New York criminal trial but they’ll be anonymous to the public

Manhattan Judge Juan Manuel Merchan ruled Thursday to keep the yet-to-be-picked jury anonymous, with limited exceptions for the former president, his defense lawyers, prosecutors, jury consultants and legal staffs.

Only Trump’s lawyers and prosecutors will be allowed to know the addresses of the jurors’ homes and workplaces, Merchan said. Trump could risk forfeiting access to the names if he were to disclose them publicly.

Unless this changes, Judge Merchan will give a man on trial for illegally bribing a witness access to complete personal details on the jury.

These people's personal details will be widely, even if not publicly, disseminated, and they will be targeted by everyone from Christo-fascist billionaires to Russian intelligence.

I will be shocked if we get a guilty verdict. I suspect this trial is effectively over, and Bragg will be re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic.