Georgia grand jury investigating Trump returns indictments

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

There should probably just be a Trump Indictments megathread at this point.

He's facing seven different trials (three civil, four criminal for a total 84 felonies) between now and November 2024. We should probably have a megathread for each one. A single thread would make discussion impossible. 

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

The NYT, not a publication to miss the chance to praise Donald w faint damns, already has its take:Ho, hum, another indictment

Another grand jury, another indictment. For the fourth time in as many months, former President Donald J. Trump was charged on Monday with serious crimes and what was once unprecedented has now become surreally routine.

The novelty of a former leader of the United States being called a felon has somehow worn off. Not that the sweeping 98-page indictment handed up in Georgia accusing him of corruptly trying to reverse the state’s 2020 election results was any less momentous. But a country of short attention spans has now seen this three times before and grown oddly accustomed to the spectacle.

Fifteen paragraphs in, they get around to mentioning some of the charges, before immediately pivoting to a Republican flak explaining how unimportant this is.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/110891980483375835

So, the Witch Hunt continues! 19 people Indicated tonight, including the former President of the United States, me, by an out of control and very corrupt District Attorney who campaigned and raised money on, “I will get Trump.” And what about those Indictment Documents put out today, long before the Grand Jury even voted, and then quickly withdrawn? Sounds Rigged to me! Why didn’t they Indict 2.5 years ago? Because they wanted to do it right in the middle of my political campaign. Witch Hunt!






"Indicated."

The one that gets me with all the whining here and elsewhere about "how long it took" is so obviously ignoring all the delays created by Trump and his co-conspirators. I mean, I'm not really expecting anything different, but it is so damned blatant, it ought to (but won't) make him a national laughingstock for that alone.

I mean, Quayle's career was effectively destroyed by misspelling 'potato' while Trump lies about his own actions every single day and the collective GOP response is, "eh".

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

One underrated aspect of this indictment is that, as I understand it, if Trump is convicted of the most serious charges here, he faces mandatory minimum jail time that he must start serving immediately and -cannot- be released pending appeal.

Definitely, that's also how CNN explained it. I just wonder what theoretically would happen if he's convicted after being inaugurated as president.

Rule of law take: His VP will take over as Acting President while Donald serves his sentence.

Failed state take: The President is above the law, Trump is free as long as he's President!

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Trump this morning V

I easily won the Great State of Georgia in 2016, did a fantastic job, as President, for Georgia and the entire USA, received 10 Million more votes than I got, nationwide, in 2016, got by far the most votes in history for a sitting President, but shockingly,  “LOST” Georgia. All this despite winning nearby Alabama and South Carolina in Record Setting Landslides. Why did Georgia officials agree to, and sign, the one sided Consent Decree? Does anybody really believe I lost Georgia? I DON’T!

Actually, yes I do 🙋

lol

Yeah, because that's how elections work!

By that logic Biden should have won Utah because he won Colorado by a record margin. And even then, Alabama and South Carolina still lightly swung to Biden in 2020.

Why the f*** am I wasting my time writing this...?

You writing a response because a large part of Trump's power comes from his ability to spew absolute bullsh**t and have the media and his peers absolutely refuse to call him on it.

99% of what comes out of Trump's mouth can be very accurately reported as "Trump said some more self-serving lies" (with the remaining 1% being threats and other encouragement of crimes). Yet from the the GOP hardliners to the mass media to Democratic politicians to individual voters, very few people are willing to be so blunt about it. Instead everyone pretends there's some greater meaning there. Donald is at his weakest when people ignore his words and judge him by his actions.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

It seems sometimes even the most foolish rats can figure out that not only is the SS Trump sinking, but that its captain was lying about the lifeboats.

Georgia’s fake electors acted at Trump’s direction, indicted ex-GOP chair says

avid Shafer, former chairman of the Georgia Republican Party and one of the 19 defendants in the Georgia election interference case, claimed in a court filing that he and the other Republican electors who tried to falsely certify Donald Trump as the winner in Georgia were acting at the former president's behest.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Does anyone - including blue avatars - really believe this man is 215 lbs?

215 lbs at 6'3" is legitimately athletic territory.

Obviously, any hypothetical future election-winning "Donald J. Trump" will also be 6'3" and 215 lbs. And if not, they would clearly be an impostor and not entitled to any office. 

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Does anyone - including blue avatars - really believe this man is 215 lbs?

215 lbs at 6'3" is legitimately athletic territory.

Yeh here's literally no way in hell he's less than 260. He remains incredibly vain and a world-class liar.

I wouldn't be surprised if he was close to 300, maybe even tipping it. Even his well tailored suits can't hide his obesity

There's obviously only one possible way to settle this: Donald Trump must produce his original real girth certificate.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Trump's attorney slips, speaks truth for a moment,
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/donald-trumps-lawyer-slips-up-during-live-tv-interview/ar-AA1g5kor

"Elected officials have to do what's popular and sometimes not what's right and that's a problem. That's why I think people get nervous with Trump. He doesn't do what's popular or what's right."

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

In which case a sitting president will be unable to visit certain states or else he will be arrested.

He'd probably specifically go to Fulton just to dare Willis to order his arrest. It would be, at best, a standoff between the secret service and the Fulton County PD.

Which is why it's so important to not only incarcerate Trump before the election (if he is found guilty), but to also make sure that he loses the election.

This is easily solved, if the GOP simply doesn't nominate Donald Trump. If they do nominate (let alone elect) Donald Trump in spite of his clear legal jeopardy, that's a vote to end rule of law in the United States. Government, particularly our flawed justice system, will have lost whatever moral authority and social credibility it had left.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

That is surprising

Not really. Judge McAfee was appointed by Kemp only recently, served as an assistant US Attorney during the Trump administration, and is running for election to the bench for a four-year term next year. While I've seen no evidence that Judge McAfee is a Cannon-style cult member, it's doubtful that Trump will get anyone more favorable to him and his scofflaw lawyers than a Republican freshman judge with limited experience on the bench.

If he'd gotten it into federal court, he'd have a less than 1 in 3 chance of getting a judge who would even possibly tolerate his crap. And that's presuming it didn't somehow get moved to DC.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Trump now trying to claim Powell was never his attorney lol

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

If that date held and it's with a 10+ codefendants it could last through the election I imagine. Televised.

They should stick to June and get it done before the election.

The issue is the Classified doc trials will likely be going on then .

That one's probably getting pushed back.

Can anyone explain why committing lots and lots of crimes in many different state entitles a defendant to delay facing justice for them?

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/BradMossEsq/status/1725614305754636546

Since May is the current Florida date, it's possible Georgia moves up a few months once that is moved. I think NY is scheduled for late March too.

Expect Cannon to push back the Florida trial incrementally, so as to try and sabotage both it and the GA trial for the benefit Donald's campaign to escape justice via the Presidency.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Even after the verdict, Giuliani again said that everything he said about them is supportable.

This is getting to become the standard MO for Republicans: say one thing under oath, then walk out of the courtroom and start lying again. And the problem there isn't that they do it, but that Republican voters continue to support the people who engage in this sort of behavior.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Trump Is Selling Pieces of His Mug Shot Suit
It’s not just a piece of political memorabilia — it’s a strategy.

When Donald J. Trump walked into a Georgia courthouse on Aug. 24 to be booked as part of his fourth criminal indictment, becoming the first former president (and only current presidential candidate) to have a mug shot taken, the picture seemed destined to become a symbol of this fraught, unprecedented moment in American history. As has become increasingly clear, however, Mr. Trump and his team have come to see the mug shot in a different way.

Specifically, as the source material for a new strain of political pop culture mythmaking and memorabilia.

Almost overnight they splashed the image, with Mr. Trump’s signature glower, across mugs, T-shirts and posters in their campaign store, using it and all it represents as a key component of their fund-raising. Then, this week, NFT INT, the official licensee of the Trump name and image for digital trading cards, began selling a special “Mugshot Edition” NFT set that includes, for a certain few willing to buy the whole thing, pieces of the blue suit and red tie Mr. Trump wore in the photo.

Or, as the NFT INT website calls the garment, “The most historically significant artifact in American history.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/14/style/trump-mug-shot-suit-nfts.html

Anyone want to take a guess at what the odds are that the fabric isn't actually from the suit? (From sheer laziness and poor logistics, if nothing else.)

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Donald's lawyers present new defense argument: he was too stupid to know election interference was illegal.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-georgia-case-dismissed-immunity-b2475100.html

Attorneys for Donald Trump claim that the former president didn’t have “fair notice” that his attempts to reverse his Georgia loss in the 2020 presidential election could result in criminal charges against him.

A flurry of filings in Fulton County Superior Court on Monday argue that the sprawling election interference case against Mr Trump “consists entirely of core political speech at the zenith of First Amendment protections”.

Attorneys for the former president want the case dismissed on grounds that he has “presidential immunity” from actions while in office, that he was already acquitted for similar allegations in his second impeachment trial, and that he was never told that what he was doing in the state – where he is charged as part of an alleged racketeering scheme to unlawfully subvert the state’s election results – could be prosecuted.

As always, one of the few things worse than Donald Trump is people supporting Donald Trump.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Cyberattack hits Georgia county where Trump faces election interference charges

A cyberattack that hit government systems in Fulton County, Georgia, over the weekend affected the offices of the district attorney who is prosecuting former President Donald Trump on election interference charges, local officials said Monday.

All desktop phones, intranet and devices using county servers are down for all departments, including District Attorney Fani Willis' office, said a county official with knowledge of the situation.

County employees received an email notification about the outage Monday, the official said.

Fulton County Board of Commissioners Chairman Robb Pitts confirmed at a news briefing Monday afternoon that the outage, which he said affected the county’s phones, courts and tax systems, "was a result of a cybersecurity incident" and that law enforcement was investigating.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

DA Fani Willis, prosecutor Nathan Wade should step down from Trump election fraud case: expert

“It’s a terrible look,” former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani said of Willis’ alleged “clandestine” romantic relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade.

You are prosecuting probably the most politicized trial in American history. And to do something foolish like this, you are a public servant you need to make sure that people have faith in our criminal justice system,” Rahmani said.
…
It’s incredibly foolish, it’s potentially unethical and maybe even criminal,” Rahmani said. “If I were her, I would say ‘I’m walking myself off from the case. Wade is no longer handling the case. The career prosecutors from my office will continue to handle it and I won’t have anything to do with it,'” the lawyer said
…
Still, Rahmani said that the bid by Trump co-defendant Michael Roman to get the criminal charges against him tossed on conflict-of-interest grounds based on the alleged affair isn’t likely to succeed since it wouldn’t change “the merit of the case.”

https://nypost.com/2024/02/01/news/da-fani-willis-nathan-wade-should-step-down-from-trump-case-expert/

I get that Trump and his proxies repeat it a lot (so of course the right eats it up), but I've yet to see any actual evidence of this alleged affair that has even the weight of, say, the allegations that Donald Trump is a child rapist

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Attacking the prosecutor doesn't refute the charges. Where is Trump's actual defense? Oh, that's right, he doesn't have one.

His defense is getting back into  1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. This is a delaying action to help him get there.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

I get that Trump and his proxies repeat it a lot (so of course the right eats it up), but I've yet to see any actual evidence of this alleged affair that has even the weight of, say, the allegations that Donald Trump is a child rapist

There are bank records indicating that Wade bought items, like travel tickets, for Fani (i.e. he bought the tickets in her name, and Fani used them. So we logically deduce he bought them just for her). The tickets were for trips to Miami and such, payable to agencies like "Vacation Express" and "Royal Caribbean Cruise." From that detail, we can deduce that the travel tickets were for romantic getaways, not business or platonic meetings. And Neither Fani nor Wade have publicly denied the accusations. Wade's wife has a divorce proceeding against Wade, and she alleges infidelity

You were right here.  And this does fail the Caesar's Wife test.

As far as it ending the case against Donald Trump in Georgia... why on Earth would any Republican argue for that, while believing that Donald Trump (whose blatant nepotism and the resultant bribes are a matter of public record) is fit for public office?

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/20/politics/willis-wade-cash-payment-napa-valley-winery/index.html

After spending more than two hours tasting wine at a Napa Valley estate with her top prosecutor on the Georgia election subversion case, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis reached into her purse and pulled out about $400 in cash.

Willis used the money to pay for two bottles of wine – each valued at roughly $150 – and the $50 tasting, according to Stan Brody, who said he hosted Willis and a guest he later learned was Nathan Wade, at Acumen Wines in early 2023.

Brody, who was the estate ambassador for Acumen Wines that day, told CNN he was surprised when Willis paid using hundreds of dollars in cash – a memorable transaction, he said, as such cash sales are rare in Napa Valley. The self-described “news junkie” said his memory was jogged as he watched Willis and Wade testify last week about their romantic relationship and bat down allegations of self-dealing while under oath.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Does this mean that the Democrats now have to say "Trump has been charged with 85 felonies?"

It's means that to be completely accurate, Trump's critics (a group to which all decent Americans, not just Democrats, should belong),  would now say, "Donald J. Trump was charged with 91 felonies, 3 of which were dropped after judicial review, meaning that between multiple states and the federal government he now faces only 88 felony charges."

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1768761618576331233

Inb4 blue avatars come in and say that he was threatened by BLM and Antifa.

Reminder: when the right accuses the left of political violence, it is often the right in a mask pointing at the mirror.

FBI: Far-Right Extremist Posed As BLM Protester, Fired On Minneapolis Police Precinct
White nationalist group posing as antifa called for violence on Twitter

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Looks nearly assured now that Trump's current NYC trial will be the only one to go forward before election day.   

Not really.  The 1/6 one could still happen before the election depending on what the Supreme Court does as could this one.  The only one that definitely won’t happen before then is the Classified Documents case.

I will be shocked if the corrupt Roberts Court puts justice and America over Donald Trump and the Republican Party.