NY: Trump on Trial!

[Torie]

https://www.rove.com/article/3-23-23-wsj

I just read Karl Rove's article, "Trump’s Indictment Won’t Win Him Votes"

Usually, Rove is the most astute political commentator whom I've read / listened to. But this article is weak.

The main reason, he says, that Trump's indictment won't win him votes is that "if the charge is filed and the former president doesn’t plead guilty, the case will be heard. With Mr. Trump running again, there will be political fallout, especially if more indictments follow."

And Rove also argues that Trump made a lose-lose mistake by calling on his supporters to "PROTEST! PROTEST! PROTEST!"

But in this same article, Rove admits that Trump is now front-and-center on mainstream news whereas he was, for a while, an afterthought. He acknowledges that Trump has raised a ton of money since the story broke. He explains that the indictment has put the other GOP primary hopefuls in a tough spot, as they struggle to respond to questions about Trump's indictment. All of these details would indicate that the indictment is helping Trump, contrary to the title of Rove's article

I think this is one of those csaes where two things can be true: the pending indictment (let's not forget that it hasn't happened yet) may be helping Trump among GOP voters *right now* for the reasons you mentioned.  But once things become more serious, it will hurt him in the future -- possibly among GOP voters, but definitely in the general electorate.

Not if the trial court on motion before trial, or on motion after trial, for a bench finding of not guilty notwithstanding the verdict, throws out the case, or if Trump is found not guilty by the jury, or an appellate court overturns the verdict. Those are real possibilities. This is a very problematical case. Based on what I know to date, it should not be brought. And it may not be brought. I assume the DA is competent and is pondering all of this carefully. He may very much want to bag Trump, but if his bullets turn out to be blanks, it will all backfire in his face, while turbo-charging Trump.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://www.rove.com/article/3-23-23-wsj

I just read Karl Rove's article, "Trump’s Indictment Won’t Win Him Votes"

Usually, Rove is the most astute political commentator whom I've read / listened to. But this article is weak.

The main reason, he says, that Trump's indictment won't win him votes is that "if the charge is filed and the former president doesn’t plead guilty, the case will be heard. With Mr. Trump running again, there will be political fallout, especially if more indictments follow."

And Rove also argues that Trump made a lose-lose mistake by calling on his supporters to "PROTEST! PROTEST! PROTEST!"

But in this same article, Rove admits that Trump is now front-and-center on mainstream news whereas he was, for a while, an afterthought. He acknowledges that Trump has raised a ton of money since the story broke. He explains that the indictment has put the other GOP primary hopefuls in a tough spot, as they struggle to respond to questions about Trump's indictment. All of these details would indicate that the indictment is helping Trump, contrary to the title of Rove's article

I think this is one of those csaes where two things can be true: the pending indictment (let's not forget that it hasn't happened yet) may be helping Trump among GOP voters *right now* for the reasons you mentioned.  But once things become more serious, it will hurt him in the future -- possibly among GOP voters, but definitely in the general electorate.

As we're seeing, it is not just the (possible) charges, it is Trump's response to them that can damage him. January 6th may not have resulted in impeachment or other direct consequences, but it hasn't been disappeared, either. Every time Trump screams and threatens violence he looks more unhinged. That will make the general, and maybe even the primary, harder for him to win.

[Inmate Trump]

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/package-suspicious-powder-delivered-manhattan-da-office-trump-investigation

Bragg is receiving death threats now. That is Trump’s fault.

[BG-NY]

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/package-suspicious-powder-delivered-manhattan-da-office-trump-investigation

Quote from your link:

The grand jury was scheduled to meet Wednesday to hear from at least one additional witness in the case, but proceedings were canceled.


Two familiar sources told Fox News Digital on Wednesday that the grand jury was canceled amid "major dissension" within the district attorney's office. One source claimed the district attorney is having trouble convincing the grand jury on potential charges due to the "weakness" of the case.

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/package-suspicious-powder-delivered-manhattan-da-office-trump-investigation

Quote from your link:

The grand jury was scheduled to meet Wednesday to hear from at least one additional witness in the case, but proceedings were canceled.


Two familiar sources told Fox News Digital on Wednesday that the grand jury was canceled amid "major dissension" within the district attorney's office. One source claimed the district attorney is having trouble convincing the grand jury on potential charges due to the "weakness" of the case.

As noted upthread, Fox is so far the only news outlet reporting that.  I am skeptical unless/until there is corroboration elsewhere.

[Progressive Pessimist]

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/package-suspicious-powder-delivered-manhattan-da-office-trump-investigation

Bragg is receiving death threats now. That is Trump’s fault.

Yeah, this situation is totally going to make the average American sympathize with Trump and validate his persecution complex.

[emailking]

Even if it's true it's not chaos, lol

[Hindsight was 2020]

I don’t know who to believe the credible news outlets that reported that Costello was such a bad witness for Trump that Cohen wasn’t even called back to refute or the two rw Murdoch owned outlets that openly coordinate with Trump.

[Yoda]

He’s now threatening “death and destruction” to the United States and its people if he’s charged with a crime.

Shame on every single Trump voter.

Sure sounds like a terrorist to me. I believe I heard Saddam use the exact same threat several times.

[Torie]

https://www.nationalreview.com/the-weekend-jolt/the-trump-desantis-fight-is-going-to-be-hideous/

 “Imagine the perfervid rantings in a padded cell of a mental patient off his lithium and you’re mostly there” is how Jeffrey Blehar scene-sets Trump’s early take on the Bragg rumblings."

Sounds like something I would pound out on the keyboard actually.

[Torie]

Andrew Cuomo chimes in. Not sure that this is the best route to ramp up his Senate campaign but whatever.


https://www.aol.com/news/andrew-cuomo-slams-ny-georgia-131629422.html

[Eraserhead]

Andrew Cuomo chimes in. Not sure that this is the best route to ramp up his Senate campaign but whatever.


https://www.aol.com/news/andrew-cuomo-slams-ny-georgia-131629422.html

It is if he's running as a Republican.

[HillGoose]

He’s now threatening “death and destruction” to the United States and its people if he’s charged with a crime.

Shame on every single Trump voter.

Sure sounds like a terrorist to me. I believe I heard Saddam use the exact same threat several times.

trump is owned by the russkis, red chinese, and the rest of the axis of evil

how his followers havent caught on to that yet is wild

[President Johnson]

Andrew Cuomo chimes in. Not sure that this is the best route to ramp up his Senate campaign but whatever.


https://www.aol.com/news/andrew-cuomo-slams-ny-georgia-131629422.html

He's a Blue Trump. Kind of embarrassed I ever liked this moron.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Andrew Cuomo chimes in. Not sure that this is the best route to ramp up his Senate campaign but whatever.


https://www.aol.com/news/andrew-cuomo-slams-ny-georgia-131629422.html

One corrupt sexual harasser defends another corrupt sexual harasser. 

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

He’s now threatening “death and destruction” to the United States and its people if he’s charged with a crime.

Shame on every single Trump voter.

Sure sounds like a terrorist to me. I believe I heard Saddam use the exact same threat several times.

trump is owned by the russkis, red chinese, and the rest of the axis of evil

how his followers havent caught on to that yet is wild

They've caught on. They want in.

The things a fascist pretends to believe are not their beliefs. They're not bottoming for Putin because they're confused about who America's friends are. They're doing it out of ideological dedication to the post-liberal world. They fully expect a fascist America to dominate that world - at which point the marriage of convenience can end.

Assuming the Trumpists defeat the Americans, their plan is still stupid and suicidal. There's no way these imbeciles are going to emerge from murdering half of their neighbors and not get immediately obliterated by Beijing - who'll spend the whole time tech rushing military AI with the scientists their country didn't feed to dogs.

The MAGATs don't believe it, and wouldn't care if they did.

They don't want to murder their non-MAGAT fellow citzens wholesale (although they certainly want to be free to murder us on a whim), they want to enslave us. Oh, they're not going to call it slavery, but their vision of the future is one where they're on the top steps of the pyramid,  enjoying the fruits of the labor of those under them (who in turn have zero chance to compete with them). Because they believe that's their right as fascist, white-supremacist, patriarchal MAGATs.

They cannot conceive of losing. And if they're forced into a loss of global power and influence, they still won't care, as long as they're on the top here at home.

[emailking]

Former National Enquirer CEO testified before Trump grand jury

David Pecker was the witness at today's grand jury hearing in the Trump hush money probe, NBC News confirmed. He is the former CEO of American Media and publisher of National Enquirer. This would be his second appearance before the grand jury.

Pecker was granted immunity in the federal case regarding Cohen.

American Media, which publishes the National Enquirer, was referenced in court papers in the Cohen case, along with a $150,000 payment made to ex-Playboy model Karen McDougal, who alleges she had an affair with Trump more than a decade ago.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/live-blog/-trump-news-ny-grand-jury-indictment-live-updates-rcna76525

So that's definitely relevant to the hush money, so they haven't just abandoned that as some have speculated.

[Eraserhead]

This story died off quick as can be. 

[T'Chenka]

This story died off quick as can be. 

It's still ongoing, but people aren't sure when it's going to end and if Trump will end up arrested. People stopped paying a lot of attention when they realized that Trump wasn't one or two days from being cuffed.

[emailking]

yeah yesterday the grand jury heard from the rebuttal witness to Trump's witness, unless that wasn't clear. Pecker is a big witness because he's testified under an immunity agreement that Trump was in the room when the hush money was discussed and it was coordinated to help the campaign.

[Inmate Trump]

This story died off quick as can be. 

It's still ongoing, but people aren't sure when it's going to end and if Trump will end up arrested. People stopped paying a lot of attention when they realized that Trump wasn't one or two days from being cuffed.

I think there was never an indication of arrest but Trump made it up so that when it didn’t happen he’d somehow look victorious against the deep state or whatever.

[Sir Mohamed]

This story died off quick as can be. 

Not sure it's dead yet, as it's still ongoing, but the endless headlines "walls are closing in on Trump" have been more than just tiresome. It's almost like the just want to give him free publicity.

[Badger]

Can we please unsticky this thread until when and if, probably the former, Trump is actually indicted?

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

This story died off quick as can be. 

It's still ongoing, but people aren't sure when it's going to end and if Trump will end up arrested. People stopped paying a lot of attention when they realized that Trump wasn't one or two days from being cuffed.

I think there was never an indication of arrest but Trump made it up so that when it didn’t happen he’d somehow look victorious against the deep state or whatever.

Trump made it up to distract from Judge Howard's finding that he'd likely conspired with his attorney to commit crimes, invalidating his attorney-client privilege, and forcing Corcoran to testify and turn over his records to the special prosecutor's Grand Jury.

In her sealed filing, Howell ordered that Evan Corcoran, an attorney for Trump, should comply with a grand jury subpoena for testimony on six separate lines of inquiry over which he had previously asserted attorney-client privilege.

Sources added that Howell also ordered Corcoran to hand over a number of records tied to what Howell described as Trump's alleged "criminal scheme," echoing prosecutors. Those records include handwritten notes, invoices, and transcriptions of personal audio recordings.

In reaching the so-called prima facie standard to pierce Corcoran's privilege, Howell agreed prosecutors made a sufficient showing that on its face would appear to show Trump committed crimes. The judge made it clear that prosecutors would still need to meet a higher standard of evidence in order to seek charges against Trump, and more still to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

News of Howard's sealed finding broke late Friday afternoon, 3/17, after reports earlier the 17th that officials were "conducting security assessments" regarding Trump's possible arrest "as early as next week".

The report of an imminent arrest, including the Tuesday prediction, came from Trump himself very early on the morning of Sunday the 18th. Without that, the next week of coverage would have been "judge finds Trump likely conspired with lawyer to hide stolen top-secret documents" instead of "Trump facing arrest for lying about bribing the sex worker he cheated on his wife with" (and then not getting arrested).

It was a powerful and effective ploy, that largely worked. Whether it will make any difference in the end, I don't know.

[emailking]

The Grand Jury doesn't meet today, is meeting tomorrow but not hearing anything related to this case. Unknown if they will hear the case on Mon & Wed of next week, but then they are on a holiday break from April 5-24 per CNN. So unless it comes early next week I guess it won't be for a while.