Trump Indicted

He just lied about having them for 30 years...

again, your faith in DJT is so charming - you are childlike in your faith. Like a boy looking up to his father.

wsj.com

Clarence Thomas’s Vacations Prompt Calls for Stronger Ethics Rules for Supreme Court

Lindsay Wise and Jan Wolfe

The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee promised to take action on strengthening Supreme Court ethics rules, responding to a report that Justice Clarence Thomas accepted lavish vacations and private-jet travel.

Open link

Will this get deleted if I post it here?

We’re in right winger central, that’s like asking if water is wet

What in God's name are you talking about? Does 2 impeachments and the Mueller investigation during his presidency sound like Trump was treated with impunity?

They could have gone after him for trying to personally profit from the presidency on day one. He quite flagrantly did not properly divest himself from his business interests. And, he could very plausibly been impeached for obstruction of justice during the Mueller investigation (wasn't it John Bolton who said he could "personally attest" that attempts to obstruct justice were routine in the Trump White House?).

As for the impeachments, that they took as long as they did, and did not lead to conviction in the Senate, in spite of having been based on extremely strong evidence, says as much about wariness around setting risky precedents wrt to holding presidents to legal account as it does about partisanship.

At every juncture of the Trump drama, there were Democrats who expressed extreme wariness about going after any President, even one who was all but daring them to, lest it break with the precedent of almost carte blanche political impunity for senior US leaders, and thus endanger national stability. This is exactly what the leadership on both sides are referring to when they say that only the electorate should be allowed to punish a rogue president.

What enrages Trump about the predicament he's in is not at all any belief that he's been falsely accused. I don't think he operates in terms of truth or falsity, but rather winning and losing. What drives him crazy is the double standard he believes is being applied to him as President (e.g. recall his response to Bill O'Reilly's comment about V. Putin being a "killer": "We have killers too, you know".) You see some of this same outrage in the comments of people who support him even in this thread. When he's being a sober realist about the US and its politics (rare, but not unheard of), Trump is often not wrong.

But what Trump and his supporters have lost sight of is that, cynical as they are, there eventually ARE limits to what the American political establishment-- and probably electorate, too, but we'll see-- will allow its leadership to do. And he, as has been his wont all his life, has blown well past them.

OK, genius. Just what crime will be alleged with respect to Bragg? Even one of Trump's attorneys has admitted that his actions were at least misdemeanors. So will the charge against Bragg be 'overcharging"? Seems unlikely given the evidence amassed that the improperly reported payments were funded by campaign funds and were for the purpose of hiding the affair during the election season.

And even if overcharging is a crime, it is a state crime. The DOJ would no be involved and, even if President, the obese orange man can't order or influence an indictment for that.

As a final note, this isn't a "precedent'. It has always been possible to charge a politician for crimes, and it has happened in the past.

It’ll be easy.

Once Donald Trump gets back in office, first thing he’ll do is to outlaw grand jury and annul all cases that started with grand jury indictments.

Then he’ll retroactively make it a crime to have a grand jury and have Alvin Bragg arrested for violation of that law and also for violating United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Alvin Bragg will be sent to MCC and he’ll be sent to general population at the request of Trump and he’ll become meat piñata by the end of the day.

Feeling scared now?

Biden should be in jail not Trump.

I'm trying to figure out which one of "Ih8..." and "execute all..." is a parody and which one is s real right winger. It's surprisingly hard to distinguish.

Bragg won't end up in jail, but he will be known for all time among liberals as the guy who failed to finish Trump off.

It's the orderly process of rule of law. No shortcuts. And no kings.

He did the whole time he hid them.

The fact that it's always been possible to charge politicians with crimes, yet it so rarely happens, particularly the higher up you go in office, tells you all you need to know about the overriding fear of setting precedents around accountability for senior American leaders.

Bill Clinton-- a lawyer by trade-- lied under oath. Rather than being charged with perjury, he simply had his law license suspended for life 5 years. He then became one of the most popular ex-presidents of all time! Ronald Reagan circumvented Congress to break US law, then lied about it. His punishment: elevation to the Presidential pantheon by the ostensible party of law and order. Then there's Richard Nixon, a domestic and international criminal by any definition (who famously defended his actions in terms of absolute Presidential immunity), who was pardoned by his successor "in the name of national healing", then enjoyed a late life rehabilitation as a master statesman. Others include Henry Kissinger (illegal bombing), and basically the entire senior leadership of the GW Bush administration (illegal war and all that follows).

The American political class has demonstrated time and again that it favors political stability and empire over strict adherence to the rule of law and equal justice for all. The cynical realpolitic practiced abroad by US regimes lead by either party (to say nothing of the accommodations made to the reactionary south to keep it in the fold after Reconstruction and up to WWII) could not help but infect the country's domestic politics in the longer term. That the system eventually gave rise to a figure like Trump-- someone who would attempt to extend the Presidential license to its logical extreme-- was entirely unsurprising. He's grotesque, of course, but he's not entirely wrong to cry hypocrisy.

Scared? No. A bit concerned that you may be out in public without a handler.

Trump, even as President, has no authority to outlaw grand juries on the state level. He can't even "outlaw them on the Federal level, although he could ask his AG to instruct the department to not use them. But that is pointless as a prosecutor generally can bring charges without a grand jury. And, of course, everyone should know that Presidents don't make laws and in any case couldn't make a law that has retroactive effect.

Once again demonstrating who you are. You, along with the rest of the Trumpettes, simply cannot conceive of a human being having principles. So when you see it, you exclaim, "unreal".

Going for the Stup!d Award?

The documents "scandals" provide a perfect example of how the Trumpers fail, or pretend to fail, at passing the Sesame Street "One thing is not like the other" test. Trump had documents. The current D president had documents. The Trump-licking R ex-VP had documents. Mature citizens see/suspect that the Biden and Pence situations are likely similar. ("Simple") negligence. And most of them would probably say, "Let them be punished as the laws or rules allow for everyone else." One D, one R, probably similar situations, resulting in similar views across much of the political spectrum. See how mature folks do it?

But the Trumpers can't manage that. They HAVE to tell themselves that Biden's situation was JUST AS BAD as Trump's. Even though, quite clearly from what we know, it wasn't. Moreover, Trump's alleged behavior is COMPLETELY in-line with his behavior his entire life. But they still can't manage an honest, differential assessment of the situations.

Folks like adult, failing maturity and/or intelligence and/or honesty tests, daily.