• @[email protected]
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        191 year ago

        If he isn’t pardoned I think he will spend the rest of his life on house arrest or in prison. These charges are serious, there’s undeniable evidence, and there’s about to be multiple venues so he can’t rely on a judge helping him in every case. Without a pardon his best outcome is being in a mar a lago prison until he dies.

        But he’s likely to get a pardon before then.

        • @[email protected]
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          151 year ago

          Hes gonna get a sweetheart plee deal where hes inelligeble to run for office, payd a big fine, and never sees prison. The US already has displayed is had no idea how to punish people like him. They straight up dropped the chages on Matt Gaetz for diddling children, I have no hope for anything real happening to Trump.

        • @[email protected]
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          1 year ago

          Federal pardons issued by the president apply only to federal offenses; they do not apply to state or local offenses or private civil offenses. Federal pardons also do not apply to cases of impeachment. Pardons for state crimes are handled by governors or a state pardon board.

          • @[email protected]
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            1 year ago

            State charges don’t and will never affect presidents while they are in office. Alabama can’t just issue an arrest warrant for Biden. They would if they could. NY and/or GA state will have to wait until after he’s out of office to continue its judicial outcomes, if he wins.

            And no senate is going to impeach trump as long as there is a Republican Party.

        • @[email protected]
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          21 year ago

          His best case scenario is he gets elected in '24 and courts are mired in the unprecedented nature of what to do with a commander in chief that is a criminal. You’d think it’s simple, but it’s really not.

          His second best case scenario is that another Republican wins in '24. Even in that case, I have a hard time envisioning how he goes from today where he’s like 15 pts ahead but his party acquiesces because of that even though they hate his fucking guts, and he also somehow loses the primary and someone who has enough tolerance for him and the political fallout from a pardon actually goes through with it.

          And then there’s the problem that even if he’s pardoned from the federal crimes, it doesn’t extend to the state crimes.

          Right now, the likely and not optimal scenario is that he’s a very obese nearly 80 year old incontinent man who hasn’t seen exercise or vegetable in decades has been mainlining diet coke and mcdonalds the entire time. There is a likelihood that he doesn’t see consequence because he doesn’t make it that far. This is also why I wouldn’t be very worried about '28.

          Outside of that, there are public recordings with him virtually confessing to every one of these crimes. Hell, half of them were on TV. So, although I won’t be surprised if he somehow rides off into the sunset, it seems unlikely. But anyway, his actual chance at multiple pardons are basically 0.

        • @[email protected]
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          -131 year ago

          Respectfully you’re delusional. Sorry to burst this bubble of yours but disabuse yourself of that dream, you’re only going to be disappointed.

      • @[email protected]
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        01 year ago

        i am not saying the “both sides” shit

        but the reason they won’t prosecute him properly is because then they all will be prosecuted properly as well when they do crime which they are all doing

    • TechyDad
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      131 year ago

      Not even sharing, if either of us had taken 1% of the documents Trump had taken and kept them in a publicly accessible area like Trump did, we’d be sitting in a prison cell awaiting trial. We wouldn’t be able to travel the country telling people why it’s “so unfair” that we were being prosecuted for taking classified documents.

      Trump is right that he’s being treated differently than other people. Where he’s wrong is assuming “differently” means he’s being treated harsher than everyone else is treated. Instead, he’s being treated with the softest of kid gloves. He was given multiple chances to return the documents, chances that we likely wouldn’t have gotten. Had he returned everyone, he likely wouldn’t be facing charges in this case. Instead, he tried to keep the documents and impede the investigation. Now, he’s facing consequences for his actions while screaming that consequences are unfair for one such as himself.

    • oo1
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      101 year ago

      Be careful what you wish for.
      Some other extreme right-wing nutjob was imprisoned after a failed ‘coup’ about 100 years ago.

      That gave him a whole load of martyr rhetoric to play off.

      • Flying Squid
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        221 year ago

        So Trump shouldn’t face consequences? He should be allowed to just get away with it to stop him becoming a martyr?

        • @[email protected]
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          11 year ago

          I don’t agree with the guy who posted that but I kind of think the US government does. I think Trumps gonna get a sweetheart plea deal because theyre either afraid of his supporters or one of his supporters.

          • Flying Squid
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            71 year ago

            Don’t they have to negotiate the plea deal with Smith? Because I don’t think he’d play ball on that.

            • @[email protected]
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              31 year ago

              That and you don’t offer a plea deal on a slam dunk case. The federal government does not often lose when it brings charges. The info in that indictment should be enough, but if that’s the high level of what they have, the evidence presented in court will be wild.

      • @[email protected]
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        191 year ago

        People need to be held accountable for their actions. Right now, politicians and those in powerful positions, such as CEOs of the biggest companies, are given way too much power and influence with a complete lack being held responsible when shit hits the fan. Worst case for most of them is that they but their way out of their problems. It’s pathetic and it shows how the system that was supposed to prevent this shit is broken.

        • oo1
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          11 year ago

          whoa, i just said be careful, not let him off scott free.

          but sometimes the social consequences of a legal sytem designed for normal people can become inflammatory when cult leaders get involved. (citation deliberatly withheld - likely apocryphal anyway

          all i mean is, if you can find a way to achieve what you want from the punishment, but minimize or otherwise control those risks , it’d be a good idea.

      • @[email protected]
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        131 year ago

        That gave him a whole load of martyr rhetoric to play off.

        Only because they let him off easy. He should never have been let anywhere near a political position after his coup attempt. Same for Trump!

        • oo1
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          11 year ago

          true, i dont know anyting about the USA politics.
          Would the criminal conviction block politcal office for life?

          I’d advise against crucifiction though.

      • @[email protected]
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        41 year ago

        Hitler was a hell of a lot younger than Trump though. The shaved orange orangutan is running out of runway for that kind of shit. Hell, as are a lot of his supporters for that matter.

        • oo1
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          01 year ago

          tbf - i dont think it was really youth he needed, it was probably as much the combination of lingering ww1 debt and the wall st crash .

          Hopefully theres been stock market crashes recently that people are a bit more resilient and dont get so suggestible.

        • @[email protected]
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          51 year ago

          Trump has never written a book. He paid other people to write books and slap his name on the cover. I doubt he’s even read the books he claims to have written.

        • @[email protected]
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          1 year ago

          He didn’t write shit, he dictated it to Hess. And it is a rambling mess.

          If Trump decided to dictate a book to Guilani in jail it would probably have a lot in common with Mein Kampf.

          • @[email protected]
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            11 year ago

            You got me, I’ve never read it or even recall any excerpts from it, I just assume that he must have been more intelligent than Trump.

    • @[email protected]
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      21 year ago

      I think he’s only charged with retention/obstruction. No one in recent times has gotten a prison sentence for retention just fines. If you leak or sell classified information that’s a different story.

        • @[email protected]
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          11 year ago

          Do you have a source on that? Every news source I look up just shows “willful retention” which is a slap on the wrist offense in recent history.

          • @[email protected]
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            21 year ago

            It’s in the article:

            In a 60-page superseding indictment unveiled Thursday, prosecutors also accused Trump of possessing a highly classified war plan that he shared with people lacking security clearances months after his presidency ended.

            • @[email protected]
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              11 year ago

              I just read through the indictment and while he’s only charged with retaining those documents they do have evidence he shared some of them with his staff as well. In the transcript he even says “As president, I could have declassified, but now I can’t”. What an idiot.

    • @[email protected]
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      11 year ago

      It’s one big circus. However, we’re the clowns cause we keep waiting for the main act to start.

    • Umbra
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      1 year ago

      You weren’t the supreme commander of the US armed forces …

      • Flying Squid
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        151 year ago

        Were being the operative word. He was not CiC when he retained or showed off the plan to go to war with Iran, and despite what he (and maybe you) thinks, he doesn’t have the power to declassify with his mind.

  • @[email protected]
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    461 year ago

    “Vorpious de liporius octo”, the coverup is worse than the crime.

    Let’s hope if the crime isn’t enough that his attempts to cover it up are what takes him down.

      • @[email protected]
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        591 year ago

        Wrong!

        They learned they’d never let one of their criminals face punishment ever again. As a result they created FOX News in order to always be able to control the narrative and always muddy the waters.

        It has worked brilliantly for them so far. And the only cost has been a complete erosion in the trust of news, complete erosion in civil discourse complete erosion in bi partisanship.

        They have taken a metal pipe to democracy’s kneecaps just to make sure their criminals never have to pay any real consequences.

        All of this btw is fully documented. I’m sad to say say, but some brilliant minds put a lot of work into establishing and creating fox news… It’s very sad.

        It’s kind of like today we have brilliant engineers spending their time fighting ad blockers and shoving ads down people’s throats.

      • Alien Nathan Edward
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        21 year ago

        they absolutely learned from watergate. they got everything they wanted from trump. hell, with what they learned from watergate they got away with selling crack to fund right-wing death squads on behalf of coca cola.

    • Flying Squid
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      151 year ago

      I don’t know if that fits. He was showing off war plans. That could have had dire consequences.

      • @[email protected]
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        81 year ago

        Totally fair, I’m not trying to downplay what he initially did, I just think focusing on the coverup aspect is, in some ways, more effective. They can convince their followers that what he did wasn’t actually wrong (even if it absolutely was) but it’s harder to explain trying to cover up something that “wasn’t wrong”.

        • shuzuko
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          41 year ago

          You would think so, but their explanation will just be “he covered it up because he knew the libs would act like this”.

    • @[email protected]
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      1 year ago

      I don’t know that the coverup is “worse” … but its often easier to charge and prove

  • @[email protected]
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    401 year ago

    What gets me is how lowbrow and petty all this is and yet so many people just act like it doesn’t exist. I mean, the universe served up the most obvious villain doing the worst job of criming that I’ve ever seen. I mean his antics are nearly indistinguishable from scooby doo, I’m expecting someone to have a mask pulled off, find out it’s trump who then somehow gets away with it all despite meddling from those kids.

    I feel like the entire world has been pranking me specifically to see how long I can believe that my fellow humans are capable of believing this.

    • Alien Nathan Edward
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      111 year ago

      how long I can believe that my fellow humans are capable of believing this.

      stop assuming they’re stupid and start realizing that they see in his corruption a chance to do a little bit of corruption of their own, maybe some political violence, all the absolute worst urges in them. they see in him the real liberty they’ve been seeking: the freedom to harm others and enrich themselves. they claim to believe, but really they’re just relying on the fact that you can’t actually go into their brains and prove that they don’t.

    • SolidGrue
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      61 year ago

      The WWE crowd took an interest in national politics. It was inevitable, and the results sadly predictable.

      It’ll take a generation for them to get bored with it again and go away, but for now were stuck with them.

      (Don’t look them in the eye, it just provokes them.)

      • @[email protected]
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        1 year ago

        Dude no. I’m a wrestling fan, I have friends who are wrestling fans, and trust me, absolutely none of us are buying this shit. Even as a wrestling storyline, this does not make sense.

        • SolidGrue
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          61 year ago

          Busted. You’re right. Full stop.

          I’ll own the intellectualism in my position. In my locale, the people who host and invite me to their WWE PPV events are “truthy,” or I would not have made the accusations. The bias is mine.

          So I’ll own that I made an out-class of WWE fans if you can agree that some of those fans fit the mold I described, and their position on it is not acceptable. My in-class are JUST as insufferable, and In will happily throw them under the same bus.

          Thanks for challenging sloppy opinions online. 🍻

          • @[email protected]
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            21 year ago

            Oh for sure. This is probably an occasion where the venn diagram of groups I cross over with is a little sketch, but still lol

      • Meldroc
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        11 year ago

        I predict a significant number would get bored when Trump either dies or ends up in prison, and can’t get his face in front of news cameras nearly so easily.

        • SolidGrue
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          -11 year ago

          I’m not comfortable with the implied homophobia in your comment, but I don’t know what to do about it

          • @[email protected]
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            41 year ago

            I actually thought the implication was the opposite, as in the WWE is not nearly as conservative as the people who watch it.

            • Alien Nathan Edward
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              41 year ago

              that was almost it. for the WCW that I grew up with in the 80s and 90s it would have been exactly it. people tended to forget that wrestling is theater, the tyler durden effect takes hold and people who are (or aspire to be) like the characters these wrestlers play miss out on the fact that these are characters being played by actors. the audience wasn’t guaranteed to be 100% in on the joke.

              nowadays everyone knows. kayfabe is permanently broken and everyone is having a fabulous time. CM Punk shows up with a sign that says “support trans youth”, Anthony Bowen has a storyline where one of the female wrestlers tries to seduce him only to be shut down by the crowd spontaneously (and very supportively) chanting “He’s gay”. There are dozens of out LGBTQ wrestlers across the major and minor promotions. Professional wrestling is very gay. It always has been, but only in the era of the smart mark have they started to be open about it and that openness has helped them find a shockingly deep well of support among the fans.

    • @[email protected]
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      1 year ago

      Yeah people have unrealistic expectations of villainy these days after hollywood set the bar so high with all their criminal mastermind tropes. I suppose it’s a good thing that most criminals are really dumb because as you said, half the country barely cares. If he’d been even remotely smart about it…

    • Meldroc
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      1 year ago

      I know right? Everyone keeps calling him a mob boss, but I’d say he’s more the mob boss who’s so fucking stupid, he doesn’t know not to say the quiet part out loud.

      The only occupation that could be worse would be a spy that’s too stupid to know not to say the quiet part out loud, so let’s be glad Trump wasn’t charged with… Ooooooh…

  • Doug Holland
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    381 year ago

    I’ll say the obligatory “Trump’s a criminal and needs to be in prison,” and I mean it, but mostly I just think it’s cool that our page is big enough here to have a megathread.