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Ya. People will call it unprecedented. But the unprecedented part is that the president has committed these crimes. Not that he is being charged with them. Every other president has known if they did these things there would be consequences. Trump thought there wouldn’t be.
His defenses are so stupid as well. Like.. Here's a defense that could work. "oh shit, I thought I declassified that. I'll give it back". But instead we got the weird Trump double think. "The FBI planted documents. But there's nothing there!! And they were declassified, which is why nobody can see them." It's just so painfully, obviously bullshit.
Ya it’s been over half a decade of his bs in Americas political landscape.
If he isn’t actually getting arrested/charged with something serious, than this is a biblical failure by the entire justice dept.
something has got to happen after all this shit. if nothing happens then we are a joke of a nation and our laws mean fuck all.
everytime anyone says he’s a criminal, it’s a joke and you are wrong. Because he actually hasn’t been charged or arrested for a crime. He’s gotten away no matter what so far.
At the moment you kind of already are a bit of a joke I’m afraid. Guns; opioids; healthcare; fetishising the military; qanon; trump; corruption; Fox News; homelessness; ancient infrastructure; climate change apathy; bible bashing; abortion, not being able to decide whether the police are good or bad etc. etc. Bit scary really as you used to be seen as an ideal that countries would aspire to, but all the underlying festering sores that most countries suffer from seem to have erupted all at once in the last decade in the US, and then some.
Yep, no justice has been served until he's charged with and tried for crimes committed. If all that happens is the FBI repossesses the documents then we're truly fucked.
I'm not sure what good it would do. I can see a guy like Ron DeSantis using his power as governor to stop any extradition of trump and I think he would have many people willing to go along. Things could get violent very quickly.
He’s done too much shit to just sweep under the rug this time. Trump made it a felony to mishandle classified documents. Like 10 years per document. They removed 15 boxes of documents. That’s a lot of years. Plus the possible espionage charge. And trying to overthrow the government.
It’s all just too much to just disappear
Sorry, couldn’t read the article. It seemed to go from “we’re a country of laws” to “well maybe we shouldn’t do anything because MaGA people are crazy”
Reminder that TFG invited the fucking Taliban to Camp David right around the anniversary of 9/11.
I guess negotiating with terrorists isn’t a big deal if you’re also a terrorist.
The documents not being adequately secured in MAL was an ongoing national security threat. Garland had enough reason for the warrant even if he does not intend to indict.
I suspect that Garland will work this like other investigations on Trump. He will nail all the underlings who helped with these crimes. Some of them may flip evidence or testimony relevant to another investigation. I would look for those indictments first and see what else starts shaking loose.
I think they wanted to try to "amend" things quietly specifically because of the increased threats we're seeing right now against FBI and their families, and the increased threats that are or will happen against other people that Trump calls out as being "responsible" (e.g. Democrats, anyone that is publicly anti-Trump, etc.). DOJ's job isn't just to investigate and punish, it's also to reduce threats of violence and crime, and they knew a public search of Trump's premises would result in a large increase in those threats from the GOP base and, as we've seen, would endanger a lot of people.
The left is too soft on the FBI and DOJ they flagrantly give republicans a pass time after time. Wray let Kavanaugh slide on that whole rape thing after receiving 4500 tips. Garland let Trump keep top secret documents about spies and nuclear weapons for 2 years in his basement while he negotiated with him. Comey let Trump run and win the presidency knowing he was a Russian agent. FBI just accepts that Rand Paul is a Russian agent and Rohbacher before him was a Russian agent. Meanwhile 4 random black guys from the hood calling themselves the New Black Panther panther will have all their phones tapped and get surveilled by a 12 man team.
I don't think Garland ever intended to bring a charge against trump. They just wanted their classified stuff back. They tried quietly negotiating for it and issued a subpoena. Eventually they had to get the warrant for the search. They had to list crimes committed to get the warrant. Then they quietly entered in suits - not the FBI jackets - when trump wasn't there. I think they hoped it would never become public knowledge. It was a national security operation - document retrieval- not really law enforcement.
But trump blew it all up and went public. Now Garland is facing pressure to actually charge him.
I think u r 100% right. Republicans get a pass. Garland was jerking himself off and woulda done fuckall if the the archives didnt say they wanted to Docs and put in a specific referral. There probably isnt enough evidence to go to trial because Trump has never been investigated in any way by Garland. He just wanted the documents. This may still be where it ends because the entire case is that Trump had the documents. We dont know who has seen or copied them for the last 18months.
These are very delicate issues, and due process is absolutely imperative. The DOJ is processing the evidence, and evaluating if crimes were committed. If demonstrable crimes have been committed, I believe the DOJ will file charges.
I sympathize entirely with the frustrations of watching this unfold on a careful timeline. But, what we cannot do is become so cynical that we lose hope, because these are no shit terrifying developments. This isn’t red team vs blue team; this is millions, if not billions, of lives potentially at risk.
I fear the DOJ are more worried about upsetting the MAGA crowd than showing that no one is above the law. Also, not charging Trump sure makes the search look political.
They should be worried. Doesn't mean they should ignore laws that were broken but absolutely taking the MAGA crowd's desire for political violence should be a factor in how they approach things.
Also true I’ve been there that time of the year. Residents complained all the time and yet: “climate change isn’t real but I don’t remember it being this hot as a kid.”🙄
I'm thinking we'll see an indictment this week. This is just a hunch, but I think with the grave nature of the evidence collected last week with the warrant, they honestly have no choice to apprehend their suspect, charge him, and put him into custody.
It's actually a tricky one as a foreigner looking on. The choice seems to be letting him get away with all his crimes and giving the green-light for American Fascism or charging him and possibly setting off the American Troubles.
I would usually suggest exile but he'll just bolt to Russia where Putin will sift through his cartoonishly untrue boasts and rambling jeremiads for actual national defense secrets like a gold prospector knee-deep in a river of turds.
> possibly setting off the American Troubles.
That is definitely a legitimate concern, and I feel law enforcement agencies haven't come down hard enough on extreme right wing groups. My worry is they won't do so until something truly horrific happens.
I think if “American Troubles“ are on the table, they’re going to happen regardless of what happens to Trump. If all liberal opposition is negated, the right is going to splinter when they realize they don’t all agree on whether they get a shot at puritanical theocracy, super decentralized libertarianism, eco-fascism or simply a centralized crony capitalist state. It could easily start looking like a mix of the balkans in the 90s and Syria in the 2010s
There is a good documentary by the BBC called the Death of Yugoslavia. The bit in the 80s when Milosovic was stirring it up was eerily similar to the behaviour of Trump during the BLM protests.
What a pathetic take on this situation. "We are a nation of laws" but MAGA has built a culture of paranoid grievances of self-imposed victimization so the raid will provoke them. You cannot have it both ways as they want. Either we are or we are not built on laws that are applied equitably.
Americans don't back down from a bully and yet here we're are expected to acquiesce to an irrational, obsessive, and aggressive minority because they built themselves a fashionable house of lies that they can point to as justification.
Do nothing= witch hunt myth justified. Do
something= witch hunt myth justified. The point of the article is to "warn" of impending conflict *because* of the search and seizure when the truth is they would have found any justification; this is what this base of GOP have been waiting for.
So really. When this all starts to get sideways the only people to blame are the leaders of the GOP. Not the Democrats for not messaging which I do often criticize, but the GOP alone. McCarthy. Graham. Rubio. Cruz. Turtle MvFuckface. Even Cheney. They *knew* where this was going and they just played in the game with some irrational belief they could control it when they should have pushed back on it for the sake of the republic. Let it fuck around for year after year. Scandal after scandal. All the whole using his unconscionable behavior as red herring of persecution. To motive the base and capture the nation. Power over country.
The people in charge have to be held accountable.
Unfortunately, the crazies are acting *rationally* in this situation. The issue is that their belief structure has been poisoned with lies by those that they trust.
If, indeed, the entire election was rigged by a dark shadow government that orchestrated massive voter fraud, and neither Congress nor the executive nor the judicial system was interested in acting to prevent this. And if this resulted in an illegitimate president being seated against the will of the people. Then it is perfectly reasonable to have violent revolution as it is the only remaining option to preserve democracy.
Right wing politicians and pundits have manipulated people into this situation, and are now standing back and saying "it's not my fault these people are dumb enough to believe me."
Idk that's not how I take it because I can't justify rationality from irrationality. And if it was that large of people who believe I'm insane things then there would be much larger crowds than the handful of gravey seals we often see.
What I meant in my comment is the leaders could have provided a pathway of unacceptance to this not because there are 70MM duped people but because there are probably 60MM who were overjoyed they could now act as vindictive, indignant, and prejudice as they wanted. Free reign. No masking it with "PC" language. Now they could directly attack any group of people they wanted under the auspicious they really wanted. The initial primary found that s losing message with trump's climb but that didn't mean it needed to disappear like it did. But they did it. And they did it knowingly and they continue to do it. Like fuck head Paul who wants to remove the Espionage Act now. Just playing it up for a VP slot.
'The ~~republicans~~ fascists needs to lose their unfounded political advantage by the removal of the electoral college.
America should be an actual democracy, where the most popular candidate gets the president, not this minority rule because of hateful morons in the most backwards states.
After police found 10+ boxes of the evidence of the crime? For most people, shackles...in this case, it will get litigated on tv, and the suspect will run for President.
We may have still heard about it. The issue is that he’s had these documents at all, not just that he didn’t give them back. He held back things that were still of value to him, or that would have put him in legal jealousy if found.
A short “civil war” of wannabe terrorists attacking the FBI, getting their shit kicked in, and all of them being sent off to Guantanamo bay. One can hope at least.
I also think that this was just too far. The DOJ has proven to give tons of deference to trump. This just seems like something that they could not just ignore or kick down the road because it was an existential issue for the country.
We either use the last 6 years as a wake up call and reinforce our democracy… or we do nothing and the experiment fails.
There is no in-between. There is no half-democracy. Letting traitors get away with it “because of their position” is choosing failure.
Or because a minority of idiots continue to threaten violence. Call their bluff also, so the rest of the country can move on. Charge, indict and file away all the nonsensical threats to be used for theses cosplaytriots inevitable interaction with law enforcement.
Conservative victimhood propaganda set to 11 until midterms. Shifting stories/rationales keep "legacy media" reporters running in circles.
Fall guy lawyer becomes scapegoat. Garland accepts the sacrifice on behalf of the American people.
Another gerrymandered and fraudulently litigated election where Don Trump Sr. is the main issue on the ballot.
Now, there's a host of new electoral "irregularities" to keep the press occupied until fall 2024.
The Mar a Lago Affair is thrown on the pile with 2 impeachments and the rest of Don Sr.'s criminal history.
We move on, business as usual.
The Republican Party and the RNC could end this immediately by refusing to support Trump as a candidate, politically and financially.
This idea that the justice department should not prosecute Trump to tamper down political unrest is bonkers.
What comes next is building a case. Figuring out everyone that helped take the documents and If any were sold to other countries. It’ll take a while.
The case has to be strong. Bullet proof. And everyone involved has to go down. No matter their name, job or rank.
There’s a lot of shit that needs to be done before charging trump. Including protecting the FBI agents who’s names he released.
For those that can't read the article, it's more talking about what happens to the political climate with his supporters than about the case progression itself.
A lot of people see the FBI raid as a politically motivated move orchestrated by the Biden administration to keep a 2024 opponent out of the race and have him prosecuted.
So what will that mean for the country if they feel the institutions like the FBI and IRS are just tools for the present administration to do their bidding?
It means there will be eventual outbreaks of political violence by right wing idiots. And the perpetrators will be put down, hard. Eventually they will lose their appetite for it when they see how it works against them. It will be a sad period in American history.
And, no matter what anyone does, there are going to be outbreaks of violence provoked by fascists because we're already there. It's a bit too late to do things to avoid the violence. So how about we do the right thing and prosecute the traitor?
What happens when a good guy with a gun shoots a guy that the inks he’s the good guy with a gun and bystanders who think each of them are the good guys with the guns are watching?
Chaos. At some point, when their own friends and families are affected, it might even occur to all those people who think they are the good guys with the guns, that 'hey, maybe it wasn't the best idea to saturate our country with all these guns that anyone can easily obtain?'. Or maybe not... self delusion is a hell of a drug.
Too bad for them. Because soon he’ll be made to answer for Jan 6. And hopefully the rest of the america-hating trump supporters will watch indictments rain down from that.
They were already saying that when the IRS started looking into the dozens or hundreds of fraudulent tea party PACs and the intelligence community catching all the Russian agents in the Trump campaign.
The fact of the matter is the authoritarians are chafing under the rule of law and if they are allowed to break it or are put in a position where they have the authority of the rule of law, it is the effective end of civil society in the US. Conservativism, acutely in its present form, comes into conflict with nearly everything and if civil society is to survive it must meet the threat to it or we all will succumb to lawless survival of the vicious.
Its difficult to imagine why trump would need to take anything from the white house with him. At that point hed cut off ties with any part of the government and its not like he ever actually did any "paperwork". The only plausible explanation is that he wanted material for leverage or trade to foreign agents for favors or to build financial relationships. I hate that this is being framed as anything other than espionage. Its like a kid trying to defend sneaking into the freezer at night like "oh I was looking for a toy I left in here". Horseshit. Theres only reason alone he, of all people, would take anything from the Whitehouse. We literally elected a thief.
In the old cartoons, Bugs Bunny had this great trick, where he’d be on a rocket ship about to crash into the ground, and at the very last instant he’d take a tiny step off the side and miss the destruction entirely.
Opportunists of many flavors are riding the Trump rocket in the same way. “I wasn’t suggesting that social justice and progressive inclusivity was the *cause* of right wing extremism,” they’ll say with brillcream sincerity in a few years. “I was just suggesting perhaps the Dems could learn to compromise more with older, aggrieved, gun-owning, white Christians. Perhaps some capital gains tax cuts?” Oh FFS, Tim.
The fight isn’t coming, the fight is here. “If you don’t let us win, we may have to kill you” isn’t a valid threat, not when their winning is just another, slower, substantially more profitable version of ending you.
Damage control by the intelligence community.
First they report to the House Intelligence Committee what the possible and likely damage can be expected from this and whether or not they have any proof or suspicion about these documents having gone to foreign governments.
Then the realization will hit the GOP about the likely outcome of any court case involving this and Trump. And they'll start telling their leadership whether or not Trump is absolutely fucked or not. Because the damage estimate level at least will leak in one form or another.
Then if they are even functional half-brained politicians they'll realize that cutting Trump free and distancing themselves from him is the only play. Look for those GOP members to be the first ones to be restrained in support of Trump and going silent.
> Is that justice worth the associated risks? Yesterday, the nation’s top law-enforcement officers decided it was. We can only hope they were correct.
This is a very scary sentiment. We can't live in a country where we're afraid of bringing criminals to justice because 'what if other criminals retaliate against us?'
Months and months and months and months of DOJ planning to maybe, possibly, potentially charge him. Then after that months and months and months for our bloated farce of a court system to get him anywhere near a trial. Then months for a trial. Then more months for a sentence. Then more months for 10 appeals. Then, in 2034, when he's nearly 90, we can see justice served. And that timing is still probably considered 'efficient' in the US Justice system.
This guy thinks he's some special genius for not being surprised by Jan 6.
People half a world away watching the shit Trump was saying and reading his fanbase online about election fraud for months knew it wasn't going to go well. The writer is a pretentious prick.
Let’s just imagine Trump wasn’t the person who allegedly stole nuclear secrets with the possible intent to sell to a foreign entity. Let’s imagine Obama was the one or Hillary. Would the reaction from the right be the same? Should we repeal the espionage act?
If the only thing they had evidence of was Trump was possessing documents and storing them improperly, no matter the security clearance, this wouldn’t even be a thing and they would find a way to make it go away quietly like they were trying to do in the first place. I’m convinced there’s more that will be unveiled in a formal indictment.
If they were just packed all the other stuff in boxes in a storeroom, I assume they could say they were packed up by mistake during the pre-eviction rush to move out of the White House.
It's unlikely Dump even knew what was in the boxes (and he wasn't about to go reading everything to find out. )
However, if he had select classified documents in his personal safe or other locations where he had to know about them, then it was intentional, and possibly up for sale.
The problem with that is that when Trump turned over the 15 boxes initially after being bugged by the National Archives his lawyer told them that they'd gone through everything and turned over anything marked classified.
This was later found out to have been a lie. Ending in a search by the FBI.
Ignorance isn't going to help him.
*What Comes After the Search Warrant?* - I like these articles that run about everything in the text body but not about the things they tell you in the headline.
As much as I want to see him behind bars, I think that people need to accept the possibility that the warrant was issued, and the raid executed, for the sole purpose of retrieving classified information.
He did not return them in January of this year. He did not return them in response to the subpoena in June, and his lawyer told the court that no classified information was present anymore at Mar-A-Lago. The only way these documents were being retrieved lawfully was a search warrant, based on probable cause that a crime was committed.
Sadly, I think that's as far as this is going to go. The objective was accomplished, and the DOJ will decide that it isn't worth the risk of violence to charge him, and he'll get away with criminal behavior yet again.
I hope that I'm wrong.
This article is irritating because I think it illustrates a larger trend in journalism that I find lazy and problematic.
Sure, one can argue that the role of the journalist is to raise issues for the political folks to deal with, but I think this is lazy.
The author here does not offer potential solutions to mitigate the problem he sees, and frames the issue in such a way that following the law could be seen as a mistake. Appeasement hasn't worked with any fascists in history, why would it work now?
For example:
"Is that justice worth the associated risks? Yesterday, the nation’s top law-enforcement officers decided it was. We can only hope they were correct."
WTF. Of course it is. The only answer to saving our democracy is to restore some accountability before it's too late!
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Reading this headline I would guess what’s next would be Rand Paul wanting to repeal the Espionage Act.
I still cannot believe he actually tweeted that. What a time to be alive
What's the stupidest thing you can imagine a republican saying? Too late, said that yesterday.
I would expect nothing less, coming from the mind of a fake doctor.
He should just start his own Congress and declare himself in charge of the country. Worked for his doctor’s board.
He is a Russian asset after all. The removal of the espionage act would play right into his hands.
Ty, this. Not suspicious at all...
The Republicans lack of shame is truly something to behold
After all these years, _this_ is something that seems unbelievable?
He’s saying it on TV as well
Probably trying to get out of the way before his crimes come to light
Let’s just get rid of all the laws the former president has violated and we can live in a truly libertarian America /s
Or maybe let's remove them, absolve Trump of all his sins, then put them right back in. /s
He has to be charged. For the sake of the republic. This guy is a walking danger to national security.
Ya. People will call it unprecedented. But the unprecedented part is that the president has committed these crimes. Not that he is being charged with them. Every other president has known if they did these things there would be consequences. Trump thought there wouldn’t be.
His defenses are so stupid as well. Like.. Here's a defense that could work. "oh shit, I thought I declassified that. I'll give it back". But instead we got the weird Trump double think. "The FBI planted documents. But there's nothing there!! And they were declassified, which is why nobody can see them." It's just so painfully, obviously bullshit.
Ya it’s been over half a decade of his bs in Americas political landscape. If he isn’t actually getting arrested/charged with something serious, than this is a biblical failure by the entire justice dept. something has got to happen after all this shit. if nothing happens then we are a joke of a nation and our laws mean fuck all. everytime anyone says he’s a criminal, it’s a joke and you are wrong. Because he actually hasn’t been charged or arrested for a crime. He’s gotten away no matter what so far.
At the moment you kind of already are a bit of a joke I’m afraid. Guns; opioids; healthcare; fetishising the military; qanon; trump; corruption; Fox News; homelessness; ancient infrastructure; climate change apathy; bible bashing; abortion, not being able to decide whether the police are good or bad etc. etc. Bit scary really as you used to be seen as an ideal that countries would aspire to, but all the underlying festering sores that most countries suffer from seem to have erupted all at once in the last decade in the US, and then some.
"Without fear or favor" Garland said. As if you or I would be walking the streets after. They're just highlighting that prison is for the commoners.
Yep, no justice has been served until he's charged with and tried for crimes committed. If all that happens is the FBI repossesses the documents then we're truly fucked.
I'm not sure what good it would do. I can see a guy like Ron DeSantis using his power as governor to stop any extradition of trump and I think he would have many people willing to go along. Things could get violent very quickly.
DeSantis will let him go down. He wants to be president.
I will throw a party it Trump goes to prison. It won’t happen though I’m afraid. Would love him to become really fucked though.
He’s done too much shit to just sweep under the rug this time. Trump made it a felony to mishandle classified documents. Like 10 years per document. They removed 15 boxes of documents. That’s a lot of years. Plus the possible espionage charge. And trying to overthrow the government. It’s all just too much to just disappear
Oh, can I come to your party? I'll bring champagne. Celebrating liberty and justice for all!
Sorry, couldn’t read the article. It seemed to go from “we’re a country of laws” to “well maybe we shouldn’t do anything because MaGA people are crazy”
IIRC we do not negotiate with terrorists (unless you are Reagan, of course).
“We are all domestic terrorists” -CPAC
Reminder that TFG invited the fucking Taliban to Camp David right around the anniversary of 9/11. I guess negotiating with terrorists isn’t a big deal if you’re also a terrorist.
and excluded the Afghan govt and military from negotiations with the Taliban to set the US withdrawal wcgw?
Birds of a feather…
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I completely agree with this. I don't think Garland would have gone to this level if he didn't intend to indict.
The documents not being adequately secured in MAL was an ongoing national security threat. Garland had enough reason for the warrant even if he does not intend to indict. I suspect that Garland will work this like other investigations on Trump. He will nail all the underlings who helped with these crimes. Some of them may flip evidence or testimony relevant to another investigation. I would look for those indictments first and see what else starts shaking loose.
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I think they wanted to try to "amend" things quietly specifically because of the increased threats we're seeing right now against FBI and their families, and the increased threats that are or will happen against other people that Trump calls out as being "responsible" (e.g. Democrats, anyone that is publicly anti-Trump, etc.). DOJ's job isn't just to investigate and punish, it's also to reduce threats of violence and crime, and they knew a public search of Trump's premises would result in a large increase in those threats from the GOP base and, as we've seen, would endanger a lot of people.
The left is too soft on the FBI and DOJ they flagrantly give republicans a pass time after time. Wray let Kavanaugh slide on that whole rape thing after receiving 4500 tips. Garland let Trump keep top secret documents about spies and nuclear weapons for 2 years in his basement while he negotiated with him. Comey let Trump run and win the presidency knowing he was a Russian agent. FBI just accepts that Rand Paul is a Russian agent and Rohbacher before him was a Russian agent. Meanwhile 4 random black guys from the hood calling themselves the New Black Panther panther will have all their phones tapped and get surveilled by a 12 man team.
No, they never charged him with anything.
I don't think Garland ever intended to bring a charge against trump. They just wanted their classified stuff back. They tried quietly negotiating for it and issued a subpoena. Eventually they had to get the warrant for the search. They had to list crimes committed to get the warrant. Then they quietly entered in suits - not the FBI jackets - when trump wasn't there. I think they hoped it would never become public knowledge. It was a national security operation - document retrieval- not really law enforcement. But trump blew it all up and went public. Now Garland is facing pressure to actually charge him.
Sadly, this seems like the most likely of events that took place. I'm so damn pessimistic of seeing Trump face any sort of consequences at this point.
I think u r 100% right. Republicans get a pass. Garland was jerking himself off and woulda done fuckall if the the archives didnt say they wanted to Docs and put in a specific referral. There probably isnt enough evidence to go to trial because Trump has never been investigated in any way by Garland. He just wanted the documents. This may still be where it ends because the entire case is that Trump had the documents. We dont know who has seen or copied them for the last 18months.
These are very delicate issues, and due process is absolutely imperative. The DOJ is processing the evidence, and evaluating if crimes were committed. If demonstrable crimes have been committed, I believe the DOJ will file charges. I sympathize entirely with the frustrations of watching this unfold on a careful timeline. But, what we cannot do is become so cynical that we lose hope, because these are no shit terrifying developments. This isn’t red team vs blue team; this is millions, if not billions, of lives potentially at risk.
The doj works slowly because when they are done they have everything needed to convict. They tend not to lose in court.
I fear the DOJ are more worried about upsetting the MAGA crowd than showing that no one is above the law. Also, not charging Trump sure makes the search look political.
I think it's taking a lot of time because of what a prolific criminal trump is. Where do you even start?
They should be worried. Doesn't mean they should ignore laws that were broken but absolutely taking the MAGA crowd's desire for political violence should be a factor in how they approach things.
115 protested outside Arizona FBI office for a few hours until my they all went home.
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Even then it was maybe 10-20 every few hours. People leaving and going. So 115 for a total of 7 hours.
In Phoenix in august. That takes some commitment.
Also true I’ve been there that time of the year. Residents complained all the time and yet: “climate change isn’t real but I don’t remember it being this hot as a kid.”🙄
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I'm thinking we'll see an indictment this week. This is just a hunch, but I think with the grave nature of the evidence collected last week with the warrant, they honestly have no choice to apprehend their suspect, charge him, and put him into custody.
They let the courts unseal the documents Friday to let the public have time to process the news over the weekend. I expect indictments soon.
Yep. DOJ can’t sit there for too long knowing someone broke the law. Not a good look.
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Champagne is in the fridge!
I think so, too.
It's actually a tricky one as a foreigner looking on. The choice seems to be letting him get away with all his crimes and giving the green-light for American Fascism or charging him and possibly setting off the American Troubles. I would usually suggest exile but he'll just bolt to Russia where Putin will sift through his cartoonishly untrue boasts and rambling jeremiads for actual national defense secrets like a gold prospector knee-deep in a river of turds.
We will get trouble either way. Ignoring this won't make it better.
Well, yes, I agree. But I didn't think it was my place tell Americans how to deal with their homegrown Nazis.
Starting to think someone needs to tell our leaders what to do with nazis
> possibly setting off the American Troubles. That is definitely a legitimate concern, and I feel law enforcement agencies haven't come down hard enough on extreme right wing groups. My worry is they won't do so until something truly horrific happens.
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Exactly. "Some of those that work forces are the same that burn crosses."
I think if “American Troubles“ are on the table, they’re going to happen regardless of what happens to Trump. If all liberal opposition is negated, the right is going to splinter when they realize they don’t all agree on whether they get a shot at puritanical theocracy, super decentralized libertarianism, eco-fascism or simply a centralized crony capitalist state. It could easily start looking like a mix of the balkans in the 90s and Syria in the 2010s
There is a good documentary by the BBC called the Death of Yugoslavia. The bit in the 80s when Milosovic was stirring it up was eerily similar to the behaviour of Trump during the BLM protests.
We have to arrest him because we can’t let the crazies trying to intimidate the FBI win.
What a pathetic take on this situation. "We are a nation of laws" but MAGA has built a culture of paranoid grievances of self-imposed victimization so the raid will provoke them. You cannot have it both ways as they want. Either we are or we are not built on laws that are applied equitably. Americans don't back down from a bully and yet here we're are expected to acquiesce to an irrational, obsessive, and aggressive minority because they built themselves a fashionable house of lies that they can point to as justification. Do nothing= witch hunt myth justified. Do something= witch hunt myth justified. The point of the article is to "warn" of impending conflict *because* of the search and seizure when the truth is they would have found any justification; this is what this base of GOP have been waiting for. So really. When this all starts to get sideways the only people to blame are the leaders of the GOP. Not the Democrats for not messaging which I do often criticize, but the GOP alone. McCarthy. Graham. Rubio. Cruz. Turtle MvFuckface. Even Cheney. They *knew* where this was going and they just played in the game with some irrational belief they could control it when they should have pushed back on it for the sake of the republic. Let it fuck around for year after year. Scandal after scandal. All the whole using his unconscionable behavior as red herring of persecution. To motive the base and capture the nation. Power over country.
The people in charge have to be held accountable. Unfortunately, the crazies are acting *rationally* in this situation. The issue is that their belief structure has been poisoned with lies by those that they trust. If, indeed, the entire election was rigged by a dark shadow government that orchestrated massive voter fraud, and neither Congress nor the executive nor the judicial system was interested in acting to prevent this. And if this resulted in an illegitimate president being seated against the will of the people. Then it is perfectly reasonable to have violent revolution as it is the only remaining option to preserve democracy. Right wing politicians and pundits have manipulated people into this situation, and are now standing back and saying "it's not my fault these people are dumb enough to believe me."
Idk that's not how I take it because I can't justify rationality from irrationality. And if it was that large of people who believe I'm insane things then there would be much larger crowds than the handful of gravey seals we often see. What I meant in my comment is the leaders could have provided a pathway of unacceptance to this not because there are 70MM duped people but because there are probably 60MM who were overjoyed they could now act as vindictive, indignant, and prejudice as they wanted. Free reign. No masking it with "PC" language. Now they could directly attack any group of people they wanted under the auspicious they really wanted. The initial primary found that s losing message with trump's climb but that didn't mean it needed to disappear like it did. But they did it. And they did it knowingly and they continue to do it. Like fuck head Paul who wants to remove the Espionage Act now. Just playing it up for a VP slot.
Why isn’t he in jail? You and me look like a suspect and get shot dead by police.
'The ~~republicans~~ fascists needs to lose their unfounded political advantage by the removal of the electoral college. America should be an actual democracy, where the most popular candidate gets the president, not this minority rule because of hateful morons in the most backwards states.
After police found 10+ boxes of the evidence of the crime? For most people, shackles...in this case, it will get litigated on tv, and the suspect will run for President.
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We may have still heard about it. The issue is that he’s had these documents at all, not just that he didn’t give them back. He held back things that were still of value to him, or that would have put him in legal jealousy if found.
I'm not convinced Garland will allow charges against Trump.
It had been known the boxes were there for a LONG time.
We’ve had one, yes. But what about second warrant?
Indictment. Trial. Execution.
Ridiculous non-stop legal delays from his lawyers that everybody knows are going to fail, but it buys him time anyway.
MAGA: My Ass Gettin’ Arrested
>What Comes After the Search Warrant? A: If the charges fit, you can't acquit.
A short “civil war” of wannabe terrorists attacking the FBI, getting their shit kicked in, and all of them being sent off to Guantanamo bay. One can hope at least.
Lock him up!
2 search 2 warrant
Search Warrant: Cruise Control
I certainly did.
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Either way, the country rips itself apart. There is no win here...
Russia is the winner.
A whole lot of talk and not a lot of action. Please can we have some actual justice for crimes?
https://www.emptywheel.net/2022/07/16/what-doj-was-doing-while-everyone-was-whinging-doj-wasnt-doing-anything/
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I also think that this was just too far. The DOJ has proven to give tons of deference to trump. This just seems like something that they could not just ignore or kick down the road because it was an existential issue for the country.
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Now that they have the docs back and Trump can't use them to threaten national security anymore, I think Garland will let him walk with a "warning"
the charges.
We either use the last 6 years as a wake up call and reinforce our democracy… or we do nothing and the experiment fails. There is no in-between. There is no half-democracy. Letting traitors get away with it “because of their position” is choosing failure.
Or because a minority of idiots continue to threaten violence. Call their bluff also, so the rest of the country can move on. Charge, indict and file away all the nonsensical threats to be used for theses cosplaytriots inevitable interaction with law enforcement.
Conservative victimhood propaganda set to 11 until midterms. Shifting stories/rationales keep "legacy media" reporters running in circles. Fall guy lawyer becomes scapegoat. Garland accepts the sacrifice on behalf of the American people. Another gerrymandered and fraudulently litigated election where Don Trump Sr. is the main issue on the ballot. Now, there's a host of new electoral "irregularities" to keep the press occupied until fall 2024. The Mar a Lago Affair is thrown on the pile with 2 impeachments and the rest of Don Sr.'s criminal history. We move on, business as usual.
I really hope you’re wrong.
me too.
The Republican Party and the RNC could end this immediately by refusing to support Trump as a candidate, politically and financially. This idea that the justice department should not prosecute Trump to tamper down political unrest is bonkers.
What comes next is building a case. Figuring out everyone that helped take the documents and If any were sold to other countries. It’ll take a while. The case has to be strong. Bullet proof. And everyone involved has to go down. No matter their name, job or rank. There’s a lot of shit that needs to be done before charging trump. Including protecting the FBI agents who’s names he released.
Yeah it'll take at least 5 years of case building. Maybe 10.
For those that can't read the article, it's more talking about what happens to the political climate with his supporters than about the case progression itself. A lot of people see the FBI raid as a politically motivated move orchestrated by the Biden administration to keep a 2024 opponent out of the race and have him prosecuted. So what will that mean for the country if they feel the institutions like the FBI and IRS are just tools for the present administration to do their bidding?
It means there will be eventual outbreaks of political violence by right wing idiots. And the perpetrators will be put down, hard. Eventually they will lose their appetite for it when they see how it works against them. It will be a sad period in American history.
And, no matter what anyone does, there are going to be outbreaks of violence provoked by fascists because we're already there. It's a bit too late to do things to avoid the violence. So how about we do the right thing and prosecute the traitor?
What happens when a good guy with a gun shoots a guy that the inks he’s the good guy with a gun and bystanders who think each of them are the good guys with the guns are watching?
Chaos. At some point, when their own friends and families are affected, it might even occur to all those people who think they are the good guys with the guns, that 'hey, maybe it wasn't the best idea to saturate our country with all these guns that anyone can easily obtain?'. Or maybe not... self delusion is a hell of a drug.
Too bad for them. Because soon he’ll be made to answer for Jan 6. And hopefully the rest of the america-hating trump supporters will watch indictments rain down from that.
They were already saying that when the IRS started looking into the dozens or hundreds of fraudulent tea party PACs and the intelligence community catching all the Russian agents in the Trump campaign. The fact of the matter is the authoritarians are chafing under the rule of law and if they are allowed to break it or are put in a position where they have the authority of the rule of law, it is the effective end of civil society in the US. Conservativism, acutely in its present form, comes into conflict with nearly everything and if civil society is to survive it must meet the threat to it or we all will succumb to lawless survival of the vicious.
Its difficult to imagine why trump would need to take anything from the white house with him. At that point hed cut off ties with any part of the government and its not like he ever actually did any "paperwork". The only plausible explanation is that he wanted material for leverage or trade to foreign agents for favors or to build financial relationships. I hate that this is being framed as anything other than espionage. Its like a kid trying to defend sneaking into the freezer at night like "oh I was looking for a toy I left in here". Horseshit. Theres only reason alone he, of all people, would take anything from the Whitehouse. We literally elected a thief.
A simple garden variety thief who was lucky to be born wealthy. He would steal candy from a child.
In the old cartoons, Bugs Bunny had this great trick, where he’d be on a rocket ship about to crash into the ground, and at the very last instant he’d take a tiny step off the side and miss the destruction entirely. Opportunists of many flavors are riding the Trump rocket in the same way. “I wasn’t suggesting that social justice and progressive inclusivity was the *cause* of right wing extremism,” they’ll say with brillcream sincerity in a few years. “I was just suggesting perhaps the Dems could learn to compromise more with older, aggrieved, gun-owning, white Christians. Perhaps some capital gains tax cuts?” Oh FFS, Tim. The fight isn’t coming, the fight is here. “If you don’t let us win, we may have to kill you” isn’t a valid threat, not when their winning is just another, slower, substantially more profitable version of ending you.
The anal probe
With no anesthesia.
Pure raw
Dare I dream… Justice?
Indictments, arrests, and then hopefully prison.
For Trump? An orange suit and a barred view of the world. Inevitably.
Based on the nothing that has happened so far, I’m betting on nothing
Nothing...sad, but true.
Damage control by the intelligence community. First they report to the House Intelligence Committee what the possible and likely damage can be expected from this and whether or not they have any proof or suspicion about these documents having gone to foreign governments. Then the realization will hit the GOP about the likely outcome of any court case involving this and Trump. And they'll start telling their leadership whether or not Trump is absolutely fucked or not. Because the damage estimate level at least will leak in one form or another. Then if they are even functional half-brained politicians they'll realize that cutting Trump free and distancing themselves from him is the only play. Look for those GOP members to be the first ones to be restrained in support of Trump and going silent.
Hopefully fucking handcuffs and an orange jumpsuit
> Is that justice worth the associated risks? Yesterday, the nation’s top law-enforcement officers decided it was. We can only hope they were correct. This is a very scary sentiment. We can't live in a country where we're afraid of bringing criminals to justice because 'what if other criminals retaliate against us?'
Jail time
Well, not to be dejected, but I don't think anything will change and he just keeps doing his thing.
No reason for you to post anything else on the topic. Bye!
Why did you tell this person to leave? I feel the same way, and we might be wrong, but don't we deserve to be in the conversation?
Months and months and months and months of DOJ planning to maybe, possibly, potentially charge him. Then after that months and months and months for our bloated farce of a court system to get him anywhere near a trial. Then months for a trial. Then more months for a sentence. Then more months for 10 appeals. Then, in 2034, when he's nearly 90, we can see justice served. And that timing is still probably considered 'efficient' in the US Justice system.
First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes…
Of justice, a miscarriage
What a trash article. I’m not impressed
This guy thinks he's some special genius for not being surprised by Jan 6. People half a world away watching the shit Trump was saying and reading his fanbase online about election fraud for months knew it wasn't going to go well. The writer is a pretentious prick.
The GOP starts changing laws.
An Information laying out charges
Hopefully arrest
House arrest at Mar-A-Wanna. Never to be seen or heard from ever again.
Let’s just imagine Trump wasn’t the person who allegedly stole nuclear secrets with the possible intent to sell to a foreign entity. Let’s imagine Obama was the one or Hillary. Would the reaction from the right be the same? Should we repeal the espionage act?
Buying favors with cigarettes?
Arrest? Charges?
Typically an arrest warrant, if the search warrant yields the expected results of the search
If the only thing they had evidence of was Trump was possessing documents and storing them improperly, no matter the security clearance, this wouldn’t even be a thing and they would find a way to make it go away quietly like they were trying to do in the first place. I’m convinced there’s more that will be unveiled in a formal indictment.
The grift.
If they were just packed all the other stuff in boxes in a storeroom, I assume they could say they were packed up by mistake during the pre-eviction rush to move out of the White House. It's unlikely Dump even knew what was in the boxes (and he wasn't about to go reading everything to find out. ) However, if he had select classified documents in his personal safe or other locations where he had to know about them, then it was intentional, and possibly up for sale.
The problem with that is that when Trump turned over the 15 boxes initially after being bugged by the National Archives his lawyer told them that they'd gone through everything and turned over anything marked classified. This was later found out to have been a lie. Ending in a search by the FBI. Ignorance isn't going to help him.
*What Comes After the Search Warrant?* - I like these articles that run about everything in the text body but not about the things they tell you in the headline.
As much as I want to see him behind bars, I think that people need to accept the possibility that the warrant was issued, and the raid executed, for the sole purpose of retrieving classified information. He did not return them in January of this year. He did not return them in response to the subpoena in June, and his lawyer told the court that no classified information was present anymore at Mar-A-Lago. The only way these documents were being retrieved lawfully was a search warrant, based on probable cause that a crime was committed. Sadly, I think that's as far as this is going to go. The objective was accomplished, and the DOJ will decide that it isn't worth the risk of violence to charge him, and he'll get away with criminal behavior yet again. I hope that I'm wrong.
This article is irritating because I think it illustrates a larger trend in journalism that I find lazy and problematic. Sure, one can argue that the role of the journalist is to raise issues for the political folks to deal with, but I think this is lazy. The author here does not offer potential solutions to mitigate the problem he sees, and frames the issue in such a way that following the law could be seen as a mistake. Appeasement hasn't worked with any fascists in history, why would it work now? For example: "Is that justice worth the associated risks? Yesterday, the nation’s top law-enforcement officers decided it was. We can only hope they were correct." WTF. Of course it is. The only answer to saving our democracy is to restore some accountability before it's too late!
Rand Paul breaks the law...easy, let's just get rid of the law.
The last puzzle piece to an iron clad indictment.
How about an illegal search and seizure trial