Capitol Hill Blue Forums Thread Like Summary - Justice closes in on the criminal Trump

As justice closes in, Trump is sinking in his toxic, depraved swamp

With luck, most of his MAGA mob of treasonous Republicans will down with him.



By DOUG THOMPSON
August 7, 2023

The never-ending, mind numbing circus called criminally-indicted and disgraced former president Donald John Trump’s scramble to avoid criminal trials, convictions and needed time behind bars in prison continues ad infinitum.

Writes our friend and favorite New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd:


Each set of indictments seem to drive up Trump’s popularity in his dwindling but still loud “MAGA” base, a collection of racists, white supremacists, bifots and brain-dead lemmings who would rather support a fraud and criminal than see America thrive under the democracy that he threatens.

In reality, Trump is a vicious traitor who deserves to be in prison, not the White House. The fact that he remains free is a testamint to the patience of a criminal justice system that still treats him like a former leaeder of our nation instead of the con-artist and criminal he is.

Special counsel Jack Smith, a seasoned prosecutor who has argued, and won cases before the World Court and put away international criminals, is a methodical, meticulous man who is closing the legal vice arouynd the despicgle Trump but the loose and vague rules hidden in our Constitution allow him to keep running for an office he doesn;t deserve or qualify for.

During the Jan. 6 2021 Capitol riot where mobs incited by Trump trashed the seat of democracy n America and came close to overturning a legal election, Trump aide, in a text asked: “How best [to] proceed tomorrow so we don’t look like a donkey show, particularly on the comms/media front?” Deputy campaign manager Justin Clark res;onded: “Here’s the thing the way this has morphed it’s a crazy play so I don’t know who wants to put their name on it.”

Trump, scrambling to saver his sordid political life and stay out of jail has no problem puttiing his name on the most toxic and illegal attempts to destroy the nation he had sworn to serve in a presidency he didn’t serve.

Dowd says it best:

The same must be said of the GOP ship of fools that is sinking under the weight of its own treasonous acts to support Trump in all his blatant criminality. How long, we wonder, can they tread water?

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I think his opportunity to flee is very nearly closed to him. Jack Smith just filed a brief with Judge Chutkan saying that Trump continues to contaminate the jury pool every day, despite being warned explicitly against that by the judge. If she throws him into pre-trial detention, then his flight chances are zero. I don't think revocation of bail is appealable, either.

Especially with a payload of a walrus and a week's supply of Big macs...

Trump's comptroller testified today that the "worthless clause" Trump keeps on bring up as a defense, is actually from his accounting firm Mazers. It's Mazers saying "this report is worthless because Trump changed our numbers." The documents even contain added notations that the final evaluations have to be approved by "DJT", Donald J. Trump. (Then he admitted Trump was worth MUCH less than he claimed. No wonder he loves George Santos so much.)

So this is very like Trump claiming the Presidential Records Act says he can keep anything he wants. Both complete fabrications. Works for talking to true believers. Not so good for court, since his claims actually amount to confessions.

Trump is accused of changing the evaluations of his properties drastically for paying taxes and applying for loans. The Florida tax assessor said Mar-A-Lardo was worth $26 million. Then Trump sent his lawyers to court to claim it was worth much less because of all the property covenants. So the judge said, "Okay, how about $18 million." So Eric went on a rant the other day claiming it was actually worth over a billion. He just admitted to the fraud, but claimed it was a much greater fraud! The best fraud! The biggest fraud ever!

I think the legal niceties and intricacies of the various indictments are fascinating. I've read most of almost all of them. I think they bracket the behavior nicely - encompassing actions before, during, and after the Trump residency - and are both laser-focused (the DC/Florida indictments) and broad (the Georgia indictment).

91 separate felony counts.

There is, in my humble opinion, almost no chance that Trump will beat all of these charges, and the minimum sentence he will receive is 5 years. Whether he will ever serve that time is an indictment of the system, rather than a comment on the merit of the charges.

We know his passport was taken because he couldn't go to Scotland for a recent PGA golf tournament at his own golf course. He had to "stay" in the U.S.

The poor criminal thing...

I should point out the obvious .... jury nullification. It appears from Fulton Co Special Grand Jury Report, there was one juror who consistently voted not to indict anyone.

Jury nullification is real and will be a consideration when Trump goes to trial.

Jury nullification is not important in Grand Juries because they need a simple majority to indict. So prosecutors are not so worried about it. They might do a more thorough investigation of potential jurors for a trial jury. And jury nullification just leads to a mistrial, unless the nullifier can convince everybody else to vote Not Guilty. I'm sure Fani Willis would just retry the case, and do it very quickly.

Fani had an interesting brief on federal removal today: She pointed out the whole reason for it is so state prosecution can't interfere with federal employees trying to do their job. The actual statute does not mention "former employees" because state prosecution of former federal employees CAN'T interfere with their job, because they no longer have any federal job duties to perform! She said Congress writes laws with specific wording, and when they leave something out, it is because they meant to leave it out. Now that is a very originalist viewpoint!

This woman is amazing. Her briefs are very convincing. I particularly like it when she uses a defendant's own words against them. Very hard to impeach the source.

That's much like Kevin McCarthy saying he will begin an impeachment investigation against Biden without a whole House vote. But Trump's Office of Legal Counsel said back when Nancy started one of the Trump impeachments, that an impeachment investigation can only be started after a whole House vote. That opinion is still binding on the agencies Kevin would like to subpoena! Talk about "hoist with his own petard".

Which, contrary to common opinion, has nothing to do with being hung with your own rope. It's actually a quote from Hamlet, about a bomb maker blowing himself up.

Trump's rickety jet is a Boeing 757-200 and was built in 1991. That's 32 years of take-offs and landings. Landings especially are hard on aircraft frames.

The criminal orange clown conned his MAGAt base into sending him money to fix his plane - as "billionaires" do.

Trump issues fundraising email about ‘Trump Force One’ after emergency landing

Fools and their money are soon parted.

On the other hand MTG got a pass on "I don't recall" responses to the many questions regarding her involvement in J6. I still don't understand how a judge didn't see through her lies ... under oath.

and I recall another person who was tried and acquitted.

so we do have several people who were involved in J6 holding office ... still.

Of course, SCOTUS punted. For a thoroughly biased majority, Smith put them between two grindstones.

If they rule according to the clear meaning and stated intent of the constitution and the rule of law, TFG is obviously libel for crimes he committed while in office - and especially crimes that are beyond any legitimate function of the office he held. But that would go against their personal partisan politics and enrage their political allies.

If they rule that presidents are forever immune to prosecution, no matter what they do while in office (and perhaps after they leave office), then Biden would be free to have them all arrested or executed along with any non-compliant congresspeople and install however he should choose. And they certainly do not believe that.

Oh! what binds we put ourselves in when we first flirt with mendacity and specious arguments.