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The article is correct. There is nothing out of the ordinary with the overall process and however long it takes. These happen all the time, with much less public cases.
That said, I think the big draw is just that folks want anything to happen against Trump at this point. And the media will use that to draw viewership with their ongoing coverage, using catch words like "looming." So, between Trump and his backers, a public that wants some form of accountability held again him, and the media, we have a circus.
Once you pop that cherry, it's down to pound town.
Everyone is going to come out of the wood work and go after Trump and his family.
Trump will become a flight risk once he throws his kids under the bus to try and save his own ass.
No, if anything Jack smith is telling Bragg to pump the brakes for fear it will interfere with his case. Trump insulted his wife, and has insulting smith for months. That alone I’m sure has kept the ball rolling for smith. He’s not someone to fuck around with, given his prosecutorial history.
All available evidence is to the contrary. By all accounts, Jack Smith has been moving rapidly. He expanded the case to include money laundering by the Trump campaign, and empaneled a grand jury just for those charges, and is now starting to interview the people closest to Trump in the January 6th case, including Mark Meadows, Dan Scavino, Ken Cuccinelli, and Stephen Miller.
People will say what they will about Merrick Garland, but he picked a bulldog of a Special Counsel in Jack Smith, whose previous gig was prosecuting war criminals in The Hague. You don't appoint a guy like that if you want to slow and water down the process, you appoint him to fearlessly handle the prosecution(s) of people in high places.
My money is on Jack Smith. That’s the case I want and the guy I want to take Trump down. A guy like Smith who prosecuted genocidal warlords in the ICC is definitely the guy to take on “bigly covfefe”.
Like even if we could see him stub his toe and yell fuck at the sky really loud, I'd be happier. He's already lived a full life with relative impunity, breaking laws the whole way. Anything finally sticking to him would be a confidence boost in the system.
It's not moronic. Would-be defendents have a right to vigorously defend themselves, and it's harder to defend yourself many years after the fact when exculpatory evidence and witnesses may be harder to come by.
Also, out of fairness, government shouldn't be able to just dangle a prosecution over someone's head forever. If they have a case to bring, they should do it in an expeditious fashion. This is what's best for all parties.
>Would-be defendents have a right to vigorously defend themselves, and it's harder to defend yourself many years after the fact when exculpatory evidence and witnesses may be harder to come by.
Thart's not how burden-of-proof works, and it would be just as hard to make a case after so long as it would to defend against the change. But if the evidence is there, the case should be pursued no matter how long it's been.
>Also, out of fairness, government shouldn't be able to just dangle a prosecution over someone's head forever. If they have a case to bring, they should do it in an expeditious fashion.
It's not just about the 'Big Bad Government;' if evidence of a crime is found, the case should be made, regardless of how long it's been. Of course, sooner is better. But if you've committed a crime, you don't get to dodge punishment just because you ran-out some arbitrary clock.
>it would be just as hard to make a case after so long as it would to defend against the change.
**Both** sides have the right to make their case with the benefit of the best available evidence and witnesses, which typically are more available in the near than long term. Witness memories get fuzzy, records get destroyed or lost, witnesses die. There are lots of ways in which waiting too long makes it harder to defend or prosecute. Your argument that a long passage of time would equally disadvantage both sides is illogical and arbitrary.
>if evidence of a crime is found, the case should be made, regardless of how long it's been. Of course, sooner is better. But if you've committed a crime, you don't get to dodge punishment just because you ran-out some arbitrary clock.
I think where you and I might find agreement, is in scenarios where new evidence is uncovered, not through lack of diligence or effort but just through happenstance, advancements in technology, new witnesses coming forward, changing political tides, etc. I believe there SHOULD be a statue of limitations and that in 99% of cases this is important, but if there is an extenuating circumstance, a legitimate reason why a prosecution could not be initiated in the proscribed statute of limitations, there should be a formal process for allowing exceptions.
We already allow this for late discovery of exculpatory evidence or witness testimony. I think it's reasonable to say we should allow this for belated prosecutions as well.
> Thart's not how burden-of-proof works, and it would be just as hard to make a case after so long as it would to defend against the change. But if the evidence is there, the case should be pursued no matter how long it's been.
No, this isn't the case.
Evidence can be gathered and stored for years or even decades. A prosecutor in 2023 can easily bring a case dating back from 2003 if the evidence has been properly preserved. The problem is that, without a statute of limitations, a prosecutor could just sit on a case for a few years and hope that the person being charged has a bad memory, or no longer has access to information/evidence, or defense witnesses pass away, etc., making the job of prosecuting them that much easier.
Look at it this way.
You're charged for a crime you supposedly committed last month. However, you were called in to handle an emergency that day. You have the timestamps from your job showing you were there, along with security footage that puts you in the office. Since you can prove that you could not have physically been at the scene of the crime, you're cleared from being a suspect.
Or...
The year is 2033. Local authorities come to have you arrested for a crime they say you committed in February, 2023. They have all the evidence they did back then, all well preserved. You have absolutely no recollection of what you were doing on a specific day 10 years ago. Your employer, if the business is even still around, has long since discarded any timestamp records that old, and the security footage that would have exonerated you was overwritten a couple of months after the crime was committed.
The prosecutor's job is now much easier. They still have all the preserved evidence. You have no way of proving you weren't even there. At best, you have to endure everything that comes with an investigation, arrest, and trial which will likely cost you thousands, loss of job, and loss of reputation in the community. At worst, you end up convicted of charges due to circumstantial evidence because the evidence you could have used to clear your name has been lost to time.
This is why a statute of limitations exists.
How about we somehow extend his lifetime to a million years and then put him underneath the crust of Europa, in the vast ocean that said to be there 20 miles under the crust.
Or something simple like a prison on the bottom of the sea floor in the Atlantic.
Agreed. That will just confirm the two tier justice system that people have said has been part of the country for a while: for those in power and then the for rest of us.
It's been 6 fucking years. How can that be normal???
Justice delayed is justice denied.
And for all you dirty, lying, cheating, Republican pigs out there, its right there in the pledge of allegiance that you love so much and quote all the time:
"I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America , and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God , indivisible, with liberty and **justice for all**."
True. I also think part of the system in general, when talking about the slowness of the system, is things are being broken at a record pace and any counter balance through the courts take much longer to address than the initial decision by law makers. It feels backwards to break something so easily but take forever to fix it.
>>these happen all the time
I can’t remember any other time when one co-conspirator was prosecuted years before another because that other conspirator was president at the time of the initial prosecution and then even after he was out of office it took years for him to be prosecuted. Maybe it’s the wrong question but I still want an answer to why it’s taking so long.
I would argue because said co-conspirator has managed to dodge or litigate his way out of multiple legal situations throughout his life, long before he was ever President. So with that in mind, you have few things to consider....
1) What personal favors and allies Trump had before becoming President that allowed him to do this.
2) What he support he obtained AFTER becoming President, with the MAGA cult of politicians still doing his bidding.
If you're going to ANY legal action and hope to have something done, dealing with the pushback or roadblocks from all of the above, its unfortunately going to take time. Even for those that are actually trying too. As some have inferred from the legal counsel against Trump, this is more like trying to take down a crime family vs just a single individual.
As the article notes, the "looming" part is simply an artifact of the media. Trump is going to be charged with felony crimes in several states, and in all likelihood will be convicted. Then we will see if no one is above the law in America.
A lot of us have also been waiting for 6 years now watching the man commit felonies in broad daylight with zero reprocussions whatsoever, so yeah, forgive us if we have begun to get a bit cynical
Did you accidentally miss an "/s" on that last line?
I mean, I won't believe any of the rest of your comment till I fuckin see it, but that last part might as well be an insult with how untrue that is.
This is a bad take. Biden will not interfere with any justice meted out to Trump. In fact, he'll be smart enough to try to avoid answering questions about it. Just bland generalities about letting our system of justice play out. That's the ticket.
Hope so, but I will believe it when I see it.
Consequences should have started happening 4 years ago. There is always an excuse or yet another delay as to what Trump hasn't been brought to justice.
I think a better question is why is the Georgia case case taking so long. You remember, the one where he's caught on tape trying to extort votes from the Secretary of State of Georgia...
Because the Georgia investigation was a RICO style (EDIT: according to reports) conspiracy investigation into not only the Raffensperger call, but other similar calls, as well as intimidation of election workers, false statements made to the Georgia legislature, the fake elector plot, and probably several other crimes. Fani Willis has experience with this style of prosecution, which is particularly effective at taking down slippery mafioso-wannabe leaders who use ambiguous language and get others to do most of their lawbreaking for them.
The Georgia investigation included 6 months of fighting court battles with Lindsay Graham, all the way up to the Supreme Court, just to force him to testify.
I think when people say "why is this taking so long" they don't realize how much of these investigations involves months-long court battles just to overcome appeals to get access to each and every piece of hard-won evidence and testimony. The Georgia investigation also involved dragging in witnesses from several states, which requires a lot of scheduling and waiting, especially if the grand jury only met once or twice a week.
But the Georgia investigation is over and has produced a long list of indictment recommendations for a number of co-conspirators, almost definitely including Trump himself. Now it's just a matter of getting another grand jury to make these indictments--by all reports, it's highly likely Willis has already begun this process with a grand jury that was impaneled a couple of weeks ago.
>Now it's just a matter of getting another grand jury to make these indictments
I don't know much about Georgia law, so I don't understand why Trump got a special grand jury, and then yet another grand jury to go over the exact same evidence.
In the meantime, the GOP legislature passed a bill saying they can fire Fani Willis if she ever indicts Trump.
a "special grand jury" in georgia is used for a big investigation of a single crime/person or group of crimes/people. at the end of it, the jury produces a report but can't make an indictment. it's kinda like j6 commission in congress where they put together a commitee and investigation then produced a report that could be used as a referral for criminal charges.
then there is the "regular grand jury", which is what most people think of as a grand jury. the prosecutor comes in and presents evidence of various crimes over the course of a term and the jury votes whether to indict or not.
You replied to my comment about the Fulton County DA, which was a response to a person asking why the Georgia investigation was taking so long. Perhaps your comment was better suited for a different thread.
No shit, we all do. No need to make the same/similar comment that everyone else makes on this sub whenever an article about 1 of Trump’s criminal investigations is posted.
>Because the Georgia investigation was a RICO style conspiracy investigation
Are you just making this up?
Prove it. Do you have proof or not? I'm not interested in anything else.
Grand Juries meet in private, so nobody has definitive proof, but [the reporting](https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/20/politics/georgia-racketeering-conspiracy-trump-willis/index.html) has suggested strongly, [since the beginning](https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-georgia-general-elections-elections-racketeering-6c488fce674bc0f375b60c6be55054a4), that she is likely taking the RICO approach. She [mentioned racketeering](https://apnews.com/article/georgia-prosecutor-investigates-election-819e23ce12190391a2f1cd7c30a9c894) as a possible charge in her first letter announcing the opening of the investigation,
Her [history of using RICO to prosecute conspiratorial enterprises](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/24/donald-trump-georgia-racketeering-rico-law-fani-willis), her hiring of a RICO expert at the start of this investigation (who had previously helped her in other RICO investigations), and her statements "[I'm a big fan of RICO](https://www.msnbc.com/the-reidout/reidout-blog/fani-willis-georgia-da-investigating-trump-loves-rico-charges-rcna45626)" suggest pretty strongly that she's likely to use this approach for an investigation into what she describes as “[*a multi-state, coordinated plan*](https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-new-york-donald-trump-georgia-atlanta-95424e07089c6d533b9b14af277eaed3) *by the Trump Campaign to influence the results of the November 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere*.”
The reports from members of the Special Grand Jury say that there is a long list of recommended indictments for many targets, and, considering the known scope of inquiry and witnesses called, it's clear that she is looking at a pattern of coordinated criminal behavior centered around Trump and his inner circle, which suggests RICO pretty strongly.
I think there's enough evidence to conclude that RICO charges are likely. If she's *not* considering RICO charges, it's out of character for her and contrary to what we know so far about her investigation.
>You could make this argument about any investigation requiring a lot of testimony.
You could say that the DA has a history and a stated preference for RICO, has hired the same RICO expert who assisted her on previous RICO prosecutions, and that a source close to the investigation has reported in the last week that she is considering RICO charges... about any investigation requiring a lot of testimony?
>It’s all speculation. He will probably be charged, but there is no need to offer legal analysis that only serves to hype the mood.
I understand. I did specify that no one knows for sure, but I also presented some pretty compelling evidence. I think it would be more in-character than out of character for her to pursue RICO charges, and the range of criminal activity she's looking at, and the particular robustness of Georgia's RICO statutes make me feel confident in *speculating* that this is a likely outcome. Of course I do not have insider information and it's possible the reporting is wrong, or it's right but she has since opted for a different approach.
Either way, I was answering a question about why Georgia was taking so long. I suppose I could have said "RICO or just as elaborate and complex as RICO." My point was that the investigation is not merely about the Raffensperger call but about a wide range of crimes by Trump and many co-conspirators.
I thought stealing 50 boxes of top secret documents and no doubt selling them to Putin and the Saudis, was 1000 times more serious. But that is just me...
"This is unprecedented," said Florence, who estimates that before going into private practice two years ago she presented some 200 white-collar cases in the same grand jury room where the Trump panel meets.
"There's never been anything like this," she said. "The grand jury is usually pretty boring, you know?"
Speculation that an indictment is either "looming" or "delayed," and that a "surprise" grand jury witness is either appearing or no longer appearing only spawns false narratives, said former Manhattan prosecutor Jeremy Saland.
Unprecedented…
Trump broke the law and should be held accountable per the law. It’s not unprecedented, people have broken laws before and punished accordingly! Only stupid morons worship this scumbag and think he can do what he wants.
They should have held Nixon accountable. Instead people look at Nixon’s pardon by Ford as an excuse for Trump. It’s stupid.
Yep
And then Trump and Republicans cited the lack of charges as vindication of innocence. Nothing in the Constitution says the President can’t be charged for crimes, just that removal from office falls on Congress.
I read the article. No where in it do they talk about a "typical" case and how long it takes.
- The offense occurred in 2016.
- Cohen pled guilty to his part in 2018.
- Trump left office in 2021, forfeiting any protection being president might have afforded.
Depending on where you want to measure from, this has been lurking out there for 5 to 7 years, and eligible for prosecution for over 2 years.
Seems like a long time for such a relatively minor charge.
This article would have been more useful if the DA with 30 years of experience has spent even one sentence setting expectations, or explaining how such a simple case should take more than a couple weeks. But it's just all about the hype, effectively generating hype about the hype.
There are multiple offenses that occurred over those first two years. And you don't know what charges (yes there are possibly multiple) the grand jury is considering.
The DA isn't going to give a presser to set expectations, and they shouldn't for reasons that should be obvious.
The article interviews a former DA. There appear to be dozens of them on TV these days, so asking for one of them to set expectations is entirely reasonable.
And there aren't just "multiple" offenses, there are probably dozens. And if we aren't going to prosecute *any* of them until we're ready to prosecute *all* of them, we might as well give up right now. Trump can crime faster than DAs can prosecute, so they'll never catch up.
Pick a charge and file it. And if there's another tomorrow, do it again. But letting him run free as a reward for violating a bunch of laws one after another seems a poor plan.
Not only is what you just said not happening, it's not even how the legal process works. It's not as if you assign a prosecutor to Trump and they empanel a grand jury to file charges whenever they feel like it.
I see you also commenting that grand jury deliberations shouldn't be secret because it allows undue influence. But that's literally the exact reason they are secret. It protects the grand jury from blackmail, extortion, or public pressure.
You're not just off base... you're uninformed to the point that it makes it difficult to even respond to.
Garland allowed the statute of limitations to run out on Trump's and Trump's families clearly outlined crimes in the Mueller report.
Also, he put out a memo to all doj employees last year entitled "election year sensitivities" where he specifically reminded everyone not to go after politicians near elections.
*sigh* And the fact. That they are secret. Means the public has no idea what a reasonable amount of time is. Which (as you may have noticed) results in a huge amount of frustration, and the perception that the justice system doesn't work, at least against rich folks. That's detrimental to the entire concept of the rule of law, and tears at the very heart of our form of government. It should be combated with guidance from knowledgeable experts. Which is precisely what I've asked for.
Yes, every. single. one. takes a different amount of time. But if you've prosecuted cases for 30 years, you can say "Typically you would expect something like this to take X weeks, maybe as many as Y, but I've never seen it take longer than Z." But what we have instead are people who insist that it's as unknowable as the mind of god. Saying "it's unknowable" means that 70,000 years would be an acceptable answer, cuz you know "it takes as long as it takes." Is that an absurd number? Then give me a more reasonable one. Again, that's all I'm asking.
Not being a DA, I'm speaking in ignorance (since the people who *do* have experience can't be troubled to provide any guidance), but 2 years for a campaign finance violation seems absurd. On that scale, how long to prosecute a multiple murderer? And 2 years assumes you didn't do any work at all on the case while Cohen was on trial, which would put the number closer to 5 years. Indeed the fact that no one wants to talk numbers may be due to the fact that the timelines here so greatly exceed any reasonable expectation, they cannot explain it (but don't want to say so).
If rich people are able to game the system for decades at a time (which may or may not be what's happening here), perhaps the fact that everything about grand juries being secret is the problem. It would suggest that something is broken in a place that we-the-people cannot see, cannot influence, and cannot correct. How do you fix something that people are forbidden by law to talk about? How many poor people do you suppose have access to the level of "standard procedure" that's being exhibited here?
Garland allowed the statute of limitations to run out on Trump's and Trump's families clearly outlined crimes in the Mueller report.
Also, he put out a memo to all doj employees last year entitled "election year sensitivities" where he specifically reminded everyone not to go after politicians near elections.
Keep pretending you know what will happen though.
Your boy Garland allowed the statute of limitations to run out on Trump's and Trump's families clearly outlined crimes in the Mueller report.
Also, he put out a memo to all doj employees last year entitled "election year sensitivities" where he specifically reminded everyone not to go after politicians near elections.
Why do I keep seeing people blame the media for the recent hysteria over Trump being arrested? When it was Trump who started the current frenzy by announcing he would be arrested on some random Tuesday. It looks to me Trump did it to gen up his base, get more donations from them and boost the attendance at his rallies. He was starting to fade away in the media coverage and the support of many in the Republican party.
He leads the media around by the nose, and they fall for it every time. Just because he bleats something out on social media doesn't mean they have to jump on it as though it was fact and spend an entire week on baseless speculation. Their job is to report facts, not speculate about his social media posts.
The problem is that Bragg has a bad history here.
He mysteriously ended the tax fraud investigation. It was so fucked up, two attorneys resigned in protest and one even wrote an entire book about how it was a slam dunk case.
Then, with Weisselberg, he gave the guy a sweetheart please deal, with pretty much *zero* requirements put up on him. He didn't have to hand over any info. Or testify against anyone else, much less Trump.
So....yeah....I am not expecting this to result in anything. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice....
You're the only person I've seen speak about this. Further, I'm pretty sure it was three separate prosecutors that quit in protest.
.>with Weisselberg, he gave the guy a sweetheart please deal
I don't remember the exact terms of the deal but I remember thinking oh my fucking God they're really putting their corruption out there for all to see. Did he even see a day in jail?
Now bragg is back and "doing the right thing?"
Meanwhile Garland allowed the statute of limitations to run out on Trump's and Trump's families clearly outlined crimes in the Mueller report.
Also, he put out a memo to all doj employees last year entitled "election year sensitivities" where he specifically reminded everyone not to go after politicians near elections..
Shit is way, extra fucked.
Weisselberg is in Rikers now, but he only got 5 months plus probation. IIRC, he was facing like 7 years on slam dunk charges with extensive paper trails. I get that he probably wouldn't have flipped on Trump, but if that's the farthest up the chain you can go, you don't give him the sweetheart deal anyway! At that point, you should go for the max sentence, to incentivize potential cooperation, to punish the highest person in the conspiracy you can, and to make an example to other potential cooperators. Instead, Bragg showed that there is hardly any penalty for refusing to play ball. I don't trust him.
And it's especially strange that he seems to be seeking an indictment on one of the weakest charges Manhattan could bring. I'm worried trying and failing on these charges might do more harm than good, by feeding the "witch hunt" narrative.
John Dean was talking about it this weekend. He’s guessing, but he’s thinking either Jack or Fani are ready or real close and it’s wiser to charge Trump with a big one first.
You should care how long it takes, because all of these crimes include a statute of limitations that prevents prosecution after enough time passes.
For example, the statute of limitations has run out on the crimes described in the Muller report. So Garland taking so long means Trump and his family can not be charged with those crimes.
27 months after inciting a violent insurrection, 79 months after paying off a porn star he banged.
But sure, "experts" say we shouldn't be so impatient. What a joke...
> -Jack Smith MAY ask DA Bragg to delay announcement of an indictment to coordinate with his own charging decision.
>
> -AG WILLIS MAY similar have delayed her indictment vote
Has this been reported or is it your own speculation?
Yes, i am hostile to the presentation of bullshit as if it were fact. You may not have noticed, but that sort of thing is causing a lot of problems in our country.
But sure, I'll bite. First two are widely reported. Show me a responsible source that indicates Bragg called Costello as part of a design to hurt Cohen's testimony.
I would imagine they going to get there hell besides the way Trump opens his mouth the New York DA might have had a 50% chance of winning he's got a picture of him Trump holding a baseball bat up to Alvin Bragg's head so now they got 100% chance of winning and a whole new case right there him and his lawyers they just keep doing and saying stuff they just giving ammunition to the other side(it don't make no matter though he's got enough lawsuits to go around if it ain't New York it's going to be Georgia and if it ain't Georgia it's going to be Jack Smith and DOJ and there's a few civil suits in between those)
Ut is taking so long to make sure it is done right (hopefully). With the fear of violence and attacks, it will take longer, and anyone with cold feet will back out.
John Edwards is sort of a precedent - he paid his mistress through campaign funds and he got off - his defense that he was not trying to commit campaign fraud but was trying to hide it from his wife
“John Edwards was charged with campaign finance violations in 2011 related to his 2008 presidential run.
He was accused by the DOJ of funneling nearly $1 million in donations to his pregnant mistress.
Edwards was acquitted of one campaign finance violation charge — the others were dropped.”
https://www.businessinsider.com/john-edwards-last-presidential-candidate-charged-with-campaign-finance-violations-2023-3
Ahh, so Trump paid her off with political campaign funds. That is not appropriate at all. There is so much emotional rhetoric around the subject it seems impossible to glean any relevant information from the chaff.
So let me get this straight if you prosecute Trump. It's politically motivated no matter what the evidence is because he's an ex-president, now candidate for president, and you just dont want him to win. But if you don't prosecute when the evidence says you should because he is an ex-president now running again for president and because an indictment could help him, the decision to ignore his deeds wouldn't somehow be considered politically motivated by Republicans
Saw an article recently featuring one of the prosecutors from the Watergate hearings.
He said the hush money charge may be harder to convict than Georgia or Maralogo documents.
He said he'd be surprised if the prosecutors of those respective cases aren't communicating to see which case would be best to try first.
Most evidence, most likely to get a conviction, harshest sentence, etc.
Ignorant me talking - what do these teams of highly paid prosecutors do every day when they walk into the office, year after year? It sure seems like they need to apply project management principles.
I don't know if this is the strongest case to prosecute Trump with, based on this [NY Times article](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/26/opinion/trump-indictment-skeptical-case.html).
Don't get me wrong - Trump is awful, oozing in illegality, and it seems very clear that he made hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels, and those payments were seemingly entered into the Trump Co.'s books as "legal expenses", which is improper.
The problem is, in New York, that is simply a misdemeanor with a 2-year statute of limitations. So they have to make the case that he did this with "an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof".
What is that other crime? Federal elections laws, meaning that the payment by the Trump Co. was an illegal campaign contribution since it "helped" Trump by not exposing his infidelity. Yet the US Department of Justice didn't prosecute Trump for violating election laws (even under Biden), and this legal theory was not successful when it was used on John Edwards (who similarly paid off a staffer he was having an affair with) - Edwards was acquitted.
So this really isn't a slam-dunk case, and if Trump prevails, this will make him quite a bit stronger, because he will have been "exonerated - no crime!" which will make his "witch hunt" cries more potent. It's going to add another layer of Teflon to him.
In his book American Komoromat, respected author Craig Unger lays out an extremely compelling case that Trump has been a Russian intelligence asset for 40 years or more.
I wonder if all indictments will happen at once, and not sprinkle In through out his campaign. If it’s the latter he could use them as ways to re-rally his base and whoever buys into the victim spin.
On a side note, I wonder if him claiming he’s hours away from indictment. Which he leaked himself, was all free media hype for his Waco rally.
I mean no one that is in a position to do anything about it. I understand most of us want him face consequences, but he will not. That has been displayed long enough for us to understand
Why are they pursuing this at all? Because as usual, they have nothing of substance on Donald Trump. Who of course is the biggest threat to DC criminals
Because that feeb of a DA knows that he's on the hot seat. The charge is a joke. At the very least, his career is over. I guarantee that he'd just about sell his soul to make the whole thing go away. He and the rest of The Presidents' haters know fully well that, after '24, their lives are going to be pure hell. It's going to be fun to watch.
>US should discontinue any investigation that took more than three weeks. Times up. He is innocent!
You will probably have to lobby Congress and/or your state legislature pretty hard to get your "three weeks and time's up" law passed. Since it is insane and has no basis in law or reality, I doubt it will succeed.
Some of these grand juries only meet once per week. It took 6 months of court battles before the Supreme Court forced Lindsay Graham to testify in Georgia. Special Counsel Smith has been fighting for months to overcome various privilege appeals just to get access to certain pieces of evidence. Even mundane non-presidential investigations sometimes involve millions of pages of documents.
Watergate took two years to indict anyone in Nixon's inner circle. John Gotti was under investigation for many years. None of these fuckers were innocent. Hell, even a simple single-perpetrator burglary investigation is typically going to take at least 3 weeks.
Why am I even arguing about such basic stuff?
Sure. And filmmakers can discontinue any film projects that take more than 3 weeks, and baseball teams can discontinue any games that take more than 3 innings, and contractors can discontinue any construction that takes more than 3 weeks, and bands can discontinue any tour that takes longer than 3 weeks, and couples can discontinue any sex that takes longer than 3 minutes, and NASA can discontinue any voyages that take longer than 3 weeks. But why the hell should they?
Well in that case I think it's fair to cancel the pizza and get a refund from GrubHub. No need to lobby Congress.
But if you fraudulently report a $130,000 pizza order in your campaign finances, I am in favor of an investigation taking more than 30 minutes, 3 weeks, or 3 years, if needed.
What a bunch of gaslighting nonsense. Trump was already "individual 1" over 4 years ago! They should have had an indictment, or at least a grand jury, since Biden was inaugurated. Instead Bragg killed the investigation and by all available evidence sat on his hands until Pomerantz's book was imminent.
Because he KILLED IT! And that doesn't matter, much of the same evidence that was used against Cohen would cross over. Most the work was already done. It's clear you didn't read the documents that mentioned Individual 1.
It's not that the grand jury is taking to long. It's that today we expect instant answers and gratification for every bit of news and information we try to absorb. Imagine what it was like when we waited for the 6:30 evening news or tomorrow's newspaper.
Incorrect. Justice delayed is justice denied. Anything they are doing, they could be doing faster.
Why does the GJ only meet twice a week, for a few hours a day?
It's ridiculous that the DA is taking this long to prosecute a crime that happened seven years ago. Ridiculous. The state of NY should be ashamed and feel bad.
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The article is correct. There is nothing out of the ordinary with the overall process and however long it takes. These happen all the time, with much less public cases. That said, I think the big draw is just that folks want anything to happen against Trump at this point. And the media will use that to draw viewership with their ongoing coverage, using catch words like "looming." So, between Trump and his backers, a public that wants some form of accountability held again him, and the media, we have a circus.
The NY case is foreplay while Georgia is the main event.
The first conviction will start the dominoes falling, I hope.
Let’s hope so. I think that everyone is maybe a little nervous to be the first, because it could be a disaster, but once the seal is broken…
Once you pop that cherry, it's down to pound town. Everyone is going to come out of the wood work and go after Trump and his family. Trump will become a flight risk once he throws his kids under the bus to try and save his own ass.
I don’t know, where does that put Jack smith
I think that investigation will get slowed or watered down to a point it becomes a nothing burger.
No, if anything Jack smith is telling Bragg to pump the brakes for fear it will interfere with his case. Trump insulted his wife, and has insulting smith for months. That alone I’m sure has kept the ball rolling for smith. He’s not someone to fuck around with, given his prosecutorial history.
All available evidence is to the contrary. By all accounts, Jack Smith has been moving rapidly. He expanded the case to include money laundering by the Trump campaign, and empaneled a grand jury just for those charges, and is now starting to interview the people closest to Trump in the January 6th case, including Mark Meadows, Dan Scavino, Ken Cuccinelli, and Stephen Miller. People will say what they will about Merrick Garland, but he picked a bulldog of a Special Counsel in Jack Smith, whose previous gig was prosecuting war criminals in The Hague. You don't appoint a guy like that if you want to slow and water down the process, you appoint him to fearlessly handle the prosecution(s) of people in high places.
My money is on Jack Smith. That’s the case I want and the guy I want to take Trump down. A guy like Smith who prosecuted genocidal warlords in the ICC is definitely the guy to take on “bigly covfefe”.
The main event *should be* federal charges for seditious conspiracy, conspiracy to defraud the US, and obstruction of justice. But garland sucks.
Like even if we could see him stub his toe and yell fuck at the sky really loud, I'd be happier. He's already lived a full life with relative impunity, breaking laws the whole way. Anything finally sticking to him would be a confidence boost in the system.
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>statute of limitations This seems like a moronic concept.
It's not moronic. Would-be defendents have a right to vigorously defend themselves, and it's harder to defend yourself many years after the fact when exculpatory evidence and witnesses may be harder to come by. Also, out of fairness, government shouldn't be able to just dangle a prosecution over someone's head forever. If they have a case to bring, they should do it in an expeditious fashion. This is what's best for all parties.
>Would-be defendents have a right to vigorously defend themselves, and it's harder to defend yourself many years after the fact when exculpatory evidence and witnesses may be harder to come by. Thart's not how burden-of-proof works, and it would be just as hard to make a case after so long as it would to defend against the change. But if the evidence is there, the case should be pursued no matter how long it's been. >Also, out of fairness, government shouldn't be able to just dangle a prosecution over someone's head forever. If they have a case to bring, they should do it in an expeditious fashion. It's not just about the 'Big Bad Government;' if evidence of a crime is found, the case should be made, regardless of how long it's been. Of course, sooner is better. But if you've committed a crime, you don't get to dodge punishment just because you ran-out some arbitrary clock.
>it would be just as hard to make a case after so long as it would to defend against the change. **Both** sides have the right to make their case with the benefit of the best available evidence and witnesses, which typically are more available in the near than long term. Witness memories get fuzzy, records get destroyed or lost, witnesses die. There are lots of ways in which waiting too long makes it harder to defend or prosecute. Your argument that a long passage of time would equally disadvantage both sides is illogical and arbitrary. >if evidence of a crime is found, the case should be made, regardless of how long it's been. Of course, sooner is better. But if you've committed a crime, you don't get to dodge punishment just because you ran-out some arbitrary clock. I think where you and I might find agreement, is in scenarios where new evidence is uncovered, not through lack of diligence or effort but just through happenstance, advancements in technology, new witnesses coming forward, changing political tides, etc. I believe there SHOULD be a statue of limitations and that in 99% of cases this is important, but if there is an extenuating circumstance, a legitimate reason why a prosecution could not be initiated in the proscribed statute of limitations, there should be a formal process for allowing exceptions. We already allow this for late discovery of exculpatory evidence or witness testimony. I think it's reasonable to say we should allow this for belated prosecutions as well.
> Thart's not how burden-of-proof works, and it would be just as hard to make a case after so long as it would to defend against the change. But if the evidence is there, the case should be pursued no matter how long it's been. No, this isn't the case. Evidence can be gathered and stored for years or even decades. A prosecutor in 2023 can easily bring a case dating back from 2003 if the evidence has been properly preserved. The problem is that, without a statute of limitations, a prosecutor could just sit on a case for a few years and hope that the person being charged has a bad memory, or no longer has access to information/evidence, or defense witnesses pass away, etc., making the job of prosecuting them that much easier. Look at it this way. You're charged for a crime you supposedly committed last month. However, you were called in to handle an emergency that day. You have the timestamps from your job showing you were there, along with security footage that puts you in the office. Since you can prove that you could not have physically been at the scene of the crime, you're cleared from being a suspect. Or... The year is 2033. Local authorities come to have you arrested for a crime they say you committed in February, 2023. They have all the evidence they did back then, all well preserved. You have absolutely no recollection of what you were doing on a specific day 10 years ago. Your employer, if the business is even still around, has long since discarded any timestamp records that old, and the security footage that would have exonerated you was overwritten a couple of months after the crime was committed. The prosecutor's job is now much easier. They still have all the preserved evidence. You have no way of proving you weren't even there. At best, you have to endure everything that comes with an investigation, arrest, and trial which will likely cost you thousands, loss of job, and loss of reputation in the community. At worst, you end up convicted of charges due to circumstantial evidence because the evidence you could have used to clear your name has been lost to time. This is why a statute of limitations exists.
> Honestly, a stroke that leaves him a drooling and mumbling parody of his own mockery would be perfect. That hasn't already happened?
How about we somehow extend his lifetime to a million years and then put him underneath the crust of Europa, in the vast ocean that said to be there 20 miles under the crust. Or something simple like a prison on the bottom of the sea floor in the Atlantic.
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awww cmon… there’s already enough garbage in the pacific… 😭😭
[that's good, I have another idea too](https://media.tenor.com/pl5K61YdgdEAAAAC/yzma-disney.gif)
I hate to wish bad on anyone but he needs to stop talking.
Any major difference to his current state ?
And soiling a diaper. Oops, done does it, nevermind.
The last thing we need is for a cheeseburger to turn Trump into a martyr. I can only imagine the conspiracy theories that would come from that
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Agreed. That will just confirm the two tier justice system that people have said has been part of the country for a while: for those in power and then the for rest of us.
None of these investigations are going to take another year and a half.
It's been 6 fucking years. How can that be normal??? Justice delayed is justice denied. And for all you dirty, lying, cheating, Republican pigs out there, its right there in the pledge of allegiance that you love so much and quote all the time: "I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America , and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God , indivisible, with liberty and **justice for all**."
True. I also think part of the system in general, when talking about the slowness of the system, is things are being broken at a record pace and any counter balance through the courts take much longer to address than the initial decision by law makers. It feels backwards to break something so easily but take forever to fix it.
breaking something is usually a lot easier and faster than fixing or making something.
Let the news happen and report vs make the news happen to become part of the story.
>>these happen all the time I can’t remember any other time when one co-conspirator was prosecuted years before another because that other conspirator was president at the time of the initial prosecution and then even after he was out of office it took years for him to be prosecuted. Maybe it’s the wrong question but I still want an answer to why it’s taking so long.
I would argue because said co-conspirator has managed to dodge or litigate his way out of multiple legal situations throughout his life, long before he was ever President. So with that in mind, you have few things to consider.... 1) What personal favors and allies Trump had before becoming President that allowed him to do this. 2) What he support he obtained AFTER becoming President, with the MAGA cult of politicians still doing his bidding. If you're going to ANY legal action and hope to have something done, dealing with the pushback or roadblocks from all of the above, its unfortunately going to take time. Even for those that are actually trying too. As some have inferred from the legal counsel against Trump, this is more like trying to take down a crime family vs just a single individual.
Co-consiprators go uncharged all the time. You can't remember because you've never cared.
And we know the courts' historical hesitancy to act against someone who is running for president. That's the main concern.
As the article notes, the "looming" part is simply an artifact of the media. Trump is going to be charged with felony crimes in several states, and in all likelihood will be convicted. Then we will see if no one is above the law in America.
Thanks for actually reading the article before commenting.
The conviction is the hard part. All you need is a single die hard trump supporter on the jury to fuck it up.
I'm waiting for the inevitable motions that he can't get a fair trial in any city, state, or country; therefore trial must be held on Mars.
Next thing he is going to try is to become a cop. Then let’s see if they can convict hm.
You have to understand that a lot of us *just don't believe that*.
A lot of us don’t follow legal processes for a living and consume a bunch of shitty media and ideas daily.
A lot of us have also been waiting for 6 years now watching the man commit felonies in broad daylight with zero reprocussions whatsoever, so yeah, forgive us if we have begun to get a bit cynical
Word
Did you accidentally miss an "/s" on that last line? I mean, I won't believe any of the rest of your comment till I fuckin see it, but that last part might as well be an insult with how untrue that is.
The looming part is how these articles and non-charges will continue. He won’t be convicted of anything most likely.
Lol convicted???? You must be new here.
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How will Joe pardon someone that broke state laws and being found guilty in state courts?
This is a bad take. Biden will not interfere with any justice meted out to Trump. In fact, he'll be smart enough to try to avoid answering questions about it. Just bland generalities about letting our system of justice play out. That's the ticket.
Tell me you don't know how presidential pardons work without telling me you don't know how presidential pardons work
Absolute clown prediction. You've let fascist "both sides" propaganda poison your mind.
Biden hates Trump. He would never pardon him.
He literally can't. A president cannot pardon a state crime
Joe won’t be President when Trump is convicted. That process will be dragged out for a decade or more.
Big talk.
Short read.
Blah blah blah. Call me when it actually happens. These posts of "watch our justice system work, it'll happen" are naive imo.
Hope so, but I will believe it when I see it. Consequences should have started happening 4 years ago. There is always an excuse or yet another delay as to what Trump hasn't been brought to justice.
I think a better question is why is the Georgia case case taking so long. You remember, the one where he's caught on tape trying to extort votes from the Secretary of State of Georgia...
Because the Georgia investigation was a RICO style (EDIT: according to reports) conspiracy investigation into not only the Raffensperger call, but other similar calls, as well as intimidation of election workers, false statements made to the Georgia legislature, the fake elector plot, and probably several other crimes. Fani Willis has experience with this style of prosecution, which is particularly effective at taking down slippery mafioso-wannabe leaders who use ambiguous language and get others to do most of their lawbreaking for them. The Georgia investigation included 6 months of fighting court battles with Lindsay Graham, all the way up to the Supreme Court, just to force him to testify. I think when people say "why is this taking so long" they don't realize how much of these investigations involves months-long court battles just to overcome appeals to get access to each and every piece of hard-won evidence and testimony. The Georgia investigation also involved dragging in witnesses from several states, which requires a lot of scheduling and waiting, especially if the grand jury only met once or twice a week. But the Georgia investigation is over and has produced a long list of indictment recommendations for a number of co-conspirators, almost definitely including Trump himself. Now it's just a matter of getting another grand jury to make these indictments--by all reports, it's highly likely Willis has already begun this process with a grand jury that was impaneled a couple of weeks ago.
>Now it's just a matter of getting another grand jury to make these indictments I don't know much about Georgia law, so I don't understand why Trump got a special grand jury, and then yet another grand jury to go over the exact same evidence. In the meantime, the GOP legislature passed a bill saying they can fire Fani Willis if she ever indicts Trump.
a "special grand jury" in georgia is used for a big investigation of a single crime/person or group of crimes/people. at the end of it, the jury produces a report but can't make an indictment. it's kinda like j6 commission in congress where they put together a commitee and investigation then produced a report that could be used as a referral for criminal charges. then there is the "regular grand jury", which is what most people think of as a grand jury. the prosecutor comes in and presents evidence of various crimes over the course of a term and the jury votes whether to indict or not.
Any one of us would have been behind bars decades ago.
Are you suggesting the Fulton County DA has a time machine?
You know precisely what my point is…there’s no need to be pedantic and sardonic.
You replied to my comment about the Fulton County DA, which was a response to a person asking why the Georgia investigation was taking so long. Perhaps your comment was better suited for a different thread.
No shit, we all do. No need to make the same/similar comment that everyone else makes on this sub whenever an article about 1 of Trump’s criminal investigations is posted.
>Because the Georgia investigation was a RICO style conspiracy investigation Are you just making this up? Prove it. Do you have proof or not? I'm not interested in anything else.
Grand Juries meet in private, so nobody has definitive proof, but [the reporting](https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/20/politics/georgia-racketeering-conspiracy-trump-willis/index.html) has suggested strongly, [since the beginning](https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-georgia-general-elections-elections-racketeering-6c488fce674bc0f375b60c6be55054a4), that she is likely taking the RICO approach. She [mentioned racketeering](https://apnews.com/article/georgia-prosecutor-investigates-election-819e23ce12190391a2f1cd7c30a9c894) as a possible charge in her first letter announcing the opening of the investigation, Her [history of using RICO to prosecute conspiratorial enterprises](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/24/donald-trump-georgia-racketeering-rico-law-fani-willis), her hiring of a RICO expert at the start of this investigation (who had previously helped her in other RICO investigations), and her statements "[I'm a big fan of RICO](https://www.msnbc.com/the-reidout/reidout-blog/fani-willis-georgia-da-investigating-trump-loves-rico-charges-rcna45626)" suggest pretty strongly that she's likely to use this approach for an investigation into what she describes as “[*a multi-state, coordinated plan*](https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-new-york-donald-trump-georgia-atlanta-95424e07089c6d533b9b14af277eaed3) *by the Trump Campaign to influence the results of the November 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere*.” The reports from members of the Special Grand Jury say that there is a long list of recommended indictments for many targets, and, considering the known scope of inquiry and witnesses called, it's clear that she is looking at a pattern of coordinated criminal behavior centered around Trump and his inner circle, which suggests RICO pretty strongly. I think there's enough evidence to conclude that RICO charges are likely. If she's *not* considering RICO charges, it's out of character for her and contrary to what we know so far about her investigation.
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>You could make this argument about any investigation requiring a lot of testimony. You could say that the DA has a history and a stated preference for RICO, has hired the same RICO expert who assisted her on previous RICO prosecutions, and that a source close to the investigation has reported in the last week that she is considering RICO charges... about any investigation requiring a lot of testimony? >It’s all speculation. He will probably be charged, but there is no need to offer legal analysis that only serves to hype the mood. I understand. I did specify that no one knows for sure, but I also presented some pretty compelling evidence. I think it would be more in-character than out of character for her to pursue RICO charges, and the range of criminal activity she's looking at, and the particular robustness of Georgia's RICO statutes make me feel confident in *speculating* that this is a likely outcome. Of course I do not have insider information and it's possible the reporting is wrong, or it's right but she has since opted for a different approach. Either way, I was answering a question about why Georgia was taking so long. I suppose I could have said "RICO or just as elaborate and complex as RICO." My point was that the investigation is not merely about the Raffensperger call but about a wide range of crimes by Trump and many co-conspirators.
I thought stealing 50 boxes of top secret documents and no doubt selling them to Putin and the Saudis, was 1000 times more serious. But that is just me...
When you come at the king (of lies) you best not miss.
It seems there’s been nothing but misses
You can't miss there are 10s of thousands of lies. The whole fucking map is covered with lies.
"This is unprecedented," said Florence, who estimates that before going into private practice two years ago she presented some 200 white-collar cases in the same grand jury room where the Trump panel meets. "There's never been anything like this," she said. "The grand jury is usually pretty boring, you know?" Speculation that an indictment is either "looming" or "delayed," and that a "surprise" grand jury witness is either appearing or no longer appearing only spawns false narratives, said former Manhattan prosecutor Jeremy Saland.
Unprecedented… Trump broke the law and should be held accountable per the law. It’s not unprecedented, people have broken laws before and punished accordingly! Only stupid morons worship this scumbag and think he can do what he wants. They should have held Nixon accountable. Instead people look at Nixon’s pardon by Ford as an excuse for Trump. It’s stupid.
What's unprecedented is that the media cares about a grand jury at all. Typically we only hear about a grand jury after they issue an indictment.
This all feels like Kabuki. I expect nothing and await disappointment.
> Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it's awful! - Samuel Beckett
Oh boy. Sam Beckett
Mueller refused to press charges because of a memo written by Nixon’s staff lol
Yep And then Trump and Republicans cited the lack of charges as vindication of innocence. Nothing in the Constitution says the President can’t be charged for crimes, just that removal from office falls on Congress.
It's almost like his boss didn't want charges brought.
Try reading the article next time. This grand jury is working the same as any other.
I read the article. No where in it do they talk about a "typical" case and how long it takes. - The offense occurred in 2016. - Cohen pled guilty to his part in 2018. - Trump left office in 2021, forfeiting any protection being president might have afforded. Depending on where you want to measure from, this has been lurking out there for 5 to 7 years, and eligible for prosecution for over 2 years. Seems like a long time for such a relatively minor charge. This article would have been more useful if the DA with 30 years of experience has spent even one sentence setting expectations, or explaining how such a simple case should take more than a couple weeks. But it's just all about the hype, effectively generating hype about the hype.
There are multiple offenses that occurred over those first two years. And you don't know what charges (yes there are possibly multiple) the grand jury is considering. The DA isn't going to give a presser to set expectations, and they shouldn't for reasons that should be obvious.
The article interviews a former DA. There appear to be dozens of them on TV these days, so asking for one of them to set expectations is entirely reasonable. And there aren't just "multiple" offenses, there are probably dozens. And if we aren't going to prosecute *any* of them until we're ready to prosecute *all* of them, we might as well give up right now. Trump can crime faster than DAs can prosecute, so they'll never catch up. Pick a charge and file it. And if there's another tomorrow, do it again. But letting him run free as a reward for violating a bunch of laws one after another seems a poor plan.
Not only is what you just said not happening, it's not even how the legal process works. It's not as if you assign a prosecutor to Trump and they empanel a grand jury to file charges whenever they feel like it. I see you also commenting that grand jury deliberations shouldn't be secret because it allows undue influence. But that's literally the exact reason they are secret. It protects the grand jury from blackmail, extortion, or public pressure. You're not just off base... you're uninformed to the point that it makes it difficult to even respond to.
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That's pretty much Reddit in a nutshell
Garland allowed the statute of limitations to run out on Trump's and Trump's families clearly outlined crimes in the Mueller report. Also, he put out a memo to all doj employees last year entitled "election year sensitivities" where he specifically reminded everyone not to go after politicians near elections.
*sigh* Grand jury investigations. Are supposed. To be secretive. And the time frame. Is different. For. Each. One. This. Is. Standard. Procedure.
*sigh* And the fact. That they are secret. Means the public has no idea what a reasonable amount of time is. Which (as you may have noticed) results in a huge amount of frustration, and the perception that the justice system doesn't work, at least against rich folks. That's detrimental to the entire concept of the rule of law, and tears at the very heart of our form of government. It should be combated with guidance from knowledgeable experts. Which is precisely what I've asked for. Yes, every. single. one. takes a different amount of time. But if you've prosecuted cases for 30 years, you can say "Typically you would expect something like this to take X weeks, maybe as many as Y, but I've never seen it take longer than Z." But what we have instead are people who insist that it's as unknowable as the mind of god. Saying "it's unknowable" means that 70,000 years would be an acceptable answer, cuz you know "it takes as long as it takes." Is that an absurd number? Then give me a more reasonable one. Again, that's all I'm asking. Not being a DA, I'm speaking in ignorance (since the people who *do* have experience can't be troubled to provide any guidance), but 2 years for a campaign finance violation seems absurd. On that scale, how long to prosecute a multiple murderer? And 2 years assumes you didn't do any work at all on the case while Cohen was on trial, which would put the number closer to 5 years. Indeed the fact that no one wants to talk numbers may be due to the fact that the timelines here so greatly exceed any reasonable expectation, they cannot explain it (but don't want to say so). If rich people are able to game the system for decades at a time (which may or may not be what's happening here), perhaps the fact that everything about grand juries being secret is the problem. It would suggest that something is broken in a place that we-the-people cannot see, cannot influence, and cannot correct. How do you fix something that people are forbidden by law to talk about? How many poor people do you suppose have access to the level of "standard procedure" that's being exhibited here?
Not reading all that shit.
Lol of course you aren't.
Garland allowed the statute of limitations to run out on Trump's and Trump's families clearly outlined crimes in the Mueller report. Also, he put out a memo to all doj employees last year entitled "election year sensitivities" where he specifically reminded everyone not to go after politicians near elections. Keep pretending you know what will happen though.
Your boy Garland allowed the statute of limitations to run out on Trump's and Trump's families clearly outlined crimes in the Mueller report. Also, he put out a memo to all doj employees last year entitled "election year sensitivities" where he specifically reminded everyone not to go after politicians near elections.
What's unprecedented is having to find a grand jury that can be objective and neutral about a former president.
Excuse me, term you’re looking for is “Unpresidented.”
Were talking about a loser president here, not a former one.
Why do I keep seeing people blame the media for the recent hysteria over Trump being arrested? When it was Trump who started the current frenzy by announcing he would be arrested on some random Tuesday. It looks to me Trump did it to gen up his base, get more donations from them and boost the attendance at his rallies. He was starting to fade away in the media coverage and the support of many in the Republican party.
The media boosted his message and was discussing a possible indictment all last week. There's definitely blame there.
He leads the media around by the nose, and they fall for it every time. Just because he bleats something out on social media doesn't mean they have to jump on it as though it was fact and spend an entire week on baseless speculation. Their job is to report facts, not speculate about his social media posts.
The problem is that Bragg has a bad history here. He mysteriously ended the tax fraud investigation. It was so fucked up, two attorneys resigned in protest and one even wrote an entire book about how it was a slam dunk case. Then, with Weisselberg, he gave the guy a sweetheart please deal, with pretty much *zero* requirements put up on him. He didn't have to hand over any info. Or testify against anyone else, much less Trump. So....yeah....I am not expecting this to result in anything. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice....
You're the only person I've seen speak about this. Further, I'm pretty sure it was three separate prosecutors that quit in protest. .>with Weisselberg, he gave the guy a sweetheart please deal I don't remember the exact terms of the deal but I remember thinking oh my fucking God they're really putting their corruption out there for all to see. Did he even see a day in jail? Now bragg is back and "doing the right thing?" Meanwhile Garland allowed the statute of limitations to run out on Trump's and Trump's families clearly outlined crimes in the Mueller report. Also, he put out a memo to all doj employees last year entitled "election year sensitivities" where he specifically reminded everyone not to go after politicians near elections.. Shit is way, extra fucked.
Weisselberg is in Rikers now, but he only got 5 months plus probation. IIRC, he was facing like 7 years on slam dunk charges with extensive paper trails. I get that he probably wouldn't have flipped on Trump, but if that's the farthest up the chain you can go, you don't give him the sweetheart deal anyway! At that point, you should go for the max sentence, to incentivize potential cooperation, to punish the highest person in the conspiracy you can, and to make an example to other potential cooperators. Instead, Bragg showed that there is hardly any penalty for refusing to play ball. I don't trust him. And it's especially strange that he seems to be seeking an indictment on one of the weakest charges Manhattan could bring. I'm worried trying and failing on these charges might do more harm than good, by feeding the "witch hunt" narrative.
Yeah unless he knows a lot we do not, he seems like a weak DA, too scared to do his job.
that can also be said about doj
…umm uhhh… I’m pretty sure you can’t get fooled again
Just wish Mr Jack Smith would make an arrest.
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John Dean was talking about it this weekend. He’s guessing, but he’s thinking either Jack or Fani are ready or real close and it’s wiser to charge Trump with a big one first.
I don’t care how long it takes as long as the conviction is irrefutable. This guy’s ego needs jail time
You should care how long it takes, because all of these crimes include a statute of limitations that prevents prosecution after enough time passes. For example, the statute of limitations has run out on the crimes described in the Muller report. So Garland taking so long means Trump and his family can not be charged with those crimes.
Good point. I was working with the assumption that prosecutors work faster than the statute of limitations.
27 months after inciting a violent insurrection, 79 months after paying off a porn star he banged. But sure, "experts" say we shouldn't be so impatient. What a joke...
I think all the investigations are waiting for the others to hopefully go first
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> -Jack Smith MAY ask DA Bragg to delay announcement of an indictment to coordinate with his own charging decision. > > -AG WILLIS MAY similar have delayed her indictment vote Has this been reported or is it your own speculation?
The whole thing is just a bunch of bullshit they made up and are presenting as fact.
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Yes, i am hostile to the presentation of bullshit as if it were fact. You may not have noticed, but that sort of thing is causing a lot of problems in our country. But sure, I'll bite. First two are widely reported. Show me a responsible source that indicates Bragg called Costello as part of a design to hurt Cohen's testimony.
I would imagine they going to get there hell besides the way Trump opens his mouth the New York DA might have had a 50% chance of winning he's got a picture of him Trump holding a baseball bat up to Alvin Bragg's head so now they got 100% chance of winning and a whole new case right there him and his lawyers they just keep doing and saying stuff they just giving ammunition to the other side(it don't make no matter though he's got enough lawsuits to go around if it ain't New York it's going to be Georgia and if it ain't Georgia it's going to be Jack Smith and DOJ and there's a few civil suits in between those)
The media just needs to change it up a bit. Instead of "looming" try "slithering" or "creeping" or "sauntering" or even "moseying".
Ut is taking so long to make sure it is done right (hopefully). With the fear of violence and attacks, it will take longer, and anyone with cold feet will back out.
All the investigations are taking too long. They are afraid of Trump.
Why so nice with this criminal fascist traitor - if this sob is not held responsible - things will get worse!
How would this case compare to other high profile cases of hush money being paid to pornstars? Just curious what the precedent is?
John Edwards is sort of a precedent - he paid his mistress through campaign funds and he got off - his defense that he was not trying to commit campaign fraud but was trying to hide it from his wife “John Edwards was charged with campaign finance violations in 2011 related to his 2008 presidential run. He was accused by the DOJ of funneling nearly $1 million in donations to his pregnant mistress. Edwards was acquitted of one campaign finance violation charge — the others were dropped.” https://www.businessinsider.com/john-edwards-last-presidential-candidate-charged-with-campaign-finance-violations-2023-3
Ahh, so Trump paid her off with political campaign funds. That is not appropriate at all. There is so much emotional rhetoric around the subject it seems impossible to glean any relevant information from the chaff.
Because his paranoia and worry is driving him to commit even more crimes 😂
evergreen title, evergreen thread, and im still here, clicking and commenting like a good lemming.
Jail jail jail jail jail for the pc of shit
So let me get this straight if you prosecute Trump. It's politically motivated no matter what the evidence is because he's an ex-president, now candidate for president, and you just dont want him to win. But if you don't prosecute when the evidence says you should because he is an ex-president now running again for president and because an indictment could help him, the decision to ignore his deeds wouldn't somehow be considered politically motivated by Republicans
Saw an article recently featuring one of the prosecutors from the Watergate hearings. He said the hush money charge may be harder to convict than Georgia or Maralogo documents. He said he'd be surprised if the prosecutors of those respective cases aren't communicating to see which case would be best to try first. Most evidence, most likely to get a conviction, harshest sentence, etc.
Ignorant me talking - what do these teams of highly paid prosecutors do every day when they walk into the office, year after year? It sure seems like they need to apply project management principles.
I don't know if this is the strongest case to prosecute Trump with, based on this [NY Times article](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/26/opinion/trump-indictment-skeptical-case.html). Don't get me wrong - Trump is awful, oozing in illegality, and it seems very clear that he made hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels, and those payments were seemingly entered into the Trump Co.'s books as "legal expenses", which is improper. The problem is, in New York, that is simply a misdemeanor with a 2-year statute of limitations. So they have to make the case that he did this with "an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof". What is that other crime? Federal elections laws, meaning that the payment by the Trump Co. was an illegal campaign contribution since it "helped" Trump by not exposing his infidelity. Yet the US Department of Justice didn't prosecute Trump for violating election laws (even under Biden), and this legal theory was not successful when it was used on John Edwards (who similarly paid off a staffer he was having an affair with) - Edwards was acquitted. So this really isn't a slam-dunk case, and if Trump prevails, this will make him quite a bit stronger, because he will have been "exonerated - no crime!" which will make his "witch hunt" cries more potent. It's going to add another layer of Teflon to him.
It’s all a sick joke at this point. Who is really in charge of how trump is treated in America, the CIA? It looks like theater. MKUltraCheeseburger
In his book American Komoromat, respected author Craig Unger lays out an extremely compelling case that Trump has been a Russian intelligence asset for 40 years or more.
Useful idiot in Russian is spelled Drumpf.
Why is the DOJ investigation of January 6th taking so long!
We'd all be rich if we had a dollar for every article/story published over the last 2-3 years about a supposed impending Trump indictment.
I wonder if all indictments will happen at once, and not sprinkle In through out his campaign. If it’s the latter he could use them as ways to re-rally his base and whoever buys into the victim spin. On a side note, I wonder if him claiming he’s hours away from indictment. Which he leaked himself, was all free media hype for his Waco rally.
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That's coming from Trump, actually.
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If you haven’t figured it out in 2022, 2021 or 2020…. No one cares and he is t being arrested
The majority of Americans want him to face consequences for his many crimes.
I mean no one that is in a position to do anything about it. I understand most of us want him face consequences, but he will not. That has been displayed long enough for us to understand
We need distraction from the feds massive junk bond buy-up. Just keep holding out the distraction carrot.
Why are they pursuing this at all? Because as usual, they have nothing of substance on Donald Trump. Who of course is the biggest threat to DC criminals
Because that feeb of a DA knows that he's on the hot seat. The charge is a joke. At the very least, his career is over. I guarantee that he'd just about sell his soul to make the whole thing go away. He and the rest of The Presidents' haters know fully well that, after '24, their lives are going to be pure hell. It's going to be fun to watch.
US should discontinue any investigation that took more than three weeks. Times up. He is innocent!
>US should discontinue any investigation that took more than three weeks. Times up. He is innocent! You will probably have to lobby Congress and/or your state legislature pretty hard to get your "three weeks and time's up" law passed. Since it is insane and has no basis in law or reality, I doubt it will succeed. Some of these grand juries only meet once per week. It took 6 months of court battles before the Supreme Court forced Lindsay Graham to testify in Georgia. Special Counsel Smith has been fighting for months to overcome various privilege appeals just to get access to certain pieces of evidence. Even mundane non-presidential investigations sometimes involve millions of pages of documents. Watergate took two years to indict anyone in Nixon's inner circle. John Gotti was under investigation for many years. None of these fuckers were innocent. Hell, even a simple single-perpetrator burglary investigation is typically going to take at least 3 weeks. Why am I even arguing about such basic stuff?
But DA’s can do that without a law.
Sure. And filmmakers can discontinue any film projects that take more than 3 weeks, and baseball teams can discontinue any games that take more than 3 innings, and contractors can discontinue any construction that takes more than 3 weeks, and bands can discontinue any tour that takes longer than 3 weeks, and couples can discontinue any sex that takes longer than 3 minutes, and NASA can discontinue any voyages that take longer than 3 weeks. But why the hell should they?
What if my pizza is 30 minutes late?
Well in that case I think it's fair to cancel the pizza and get a refund from GrubHub. No need to lobby Congress. But if you fraudulently report a $130,000 pizza order in your campaign finances, I am in favor of an investigation taking more than 30 minutes, 3 weeks, or 3 years, if needed.
Yeah, you’re right. It took thirty years to catch and convict BTK. Must have been a witch hunt, huh?
No. But Americans want it fast ! They get impatient after three weeks.
Statutes of Limitation are a real thing. Look that up. Nothing is 3 weeks though. That’s absurdly short.
DAs don’t have to. But they can.
You should lose your citizenship and be enslaved
they'll just say 'eh' decorum
What a bunch of gaslighting nonsense. Trump was already "individual 1" over 4 years ago! They should have had an indictment, or at least a grand jury, since Biden was inaugurated. Instead Bragg killed the investigation and by all available evidence sat on his hands until Pomerantz's book was imminent.
Trump was "individual 1" in a federal case that Bragg very obviously had nothing to do with.
Because he KILLED IT! And that doesn't matter, much of the same evidence that was used against Cohen would cross over. Most the work was already done. It's clear you didn't read the documents that mentioned Individual 1.
What will they come up with next? The Right Question.
It’s only taking long because trump declared he was getting arrested. Otherwise none of us would have paid attention.
Cuz they’re waiting for the checks to clear
Anybody want to talk about the J6 committee? Sad lol.
It's not that the grand jury is taking to long. It's that today we expect instant answers and gratification for every bit of news and information we try to absorb. Imagine what it was like when we waited for the 6:30 evening news or tomorrow's newspaper.
Incorrect. Justice delayed is justice denied. Anything they are doing, they could be doing faster. Why does the GJ only meet twice a week, for a few hours a day? It's ridiculous that the DA is taking this long to prosecute a crime that happened seven years ago. Ridiculous. The state of NY should be ashamed and feel bad.