Donald Trump: Classic or Dud?

grate expectations

none of these people were going to do 20 years for trump.

is it true that biden already has more followers on truth social than trump? because if true that is pretty funny. crowd size and all. sorry if talked about already.

The Biden campaign has more than the Trump campaign: https://www.axios.com/2023/10/18/biden-truth-social-followers-trump

gotta think truth social isnt too long for this world

yeah a bit misleading because Trump doesn't really have a "campaign" like Biden does, I'm sure Trump the person has more Truth Social followers than anybody

6.4M compared to the two campaigns' collective 45K

dt is a campaign unto himself

I can only assume anyone who signs up for Truth Social automatically gets subscribed to Trump, MySpace Tom style

xp He is large, he contains multitudes

Looks like a similarish arrangement to Powell, except he's pleading guilty to a felony, ergo I'm sure he's got a lot more stuff to spill:

Chesebro pleaded guilty to 1 felony count of conspiracy to commit filing false documents. He will be ordered to serve 5 yrs probation, pay $5,000 in restitution, complete 100 hrs of community service, write a letter of apology to citizens of GA, and testify truthfully at trial. — Sam Gringlas, WABE

after previously just having a sketchy concept (well, clueless tbh) of what a RICO case is and how it works from watching The Sopranos and other US crime movies and stuff. This has been very educational for me.

It has been mentioned previously, but just to reiterate, RICO statutes in the state of Georgia are very broad, covering many types of crimes that do not fall under RICO at the federal level. This has led prosecutors, including Fani Willis, to pursue RICO charges in some fairly unconventional cases, and has at times raised ethics questions concerning those cases. Doesn't mean that's an issue for this particular case, but it is context to keep in mind.

A little more under the radar since Trump wasn't charged there directly but per WaPo:

Also this week, a Michigan prosecutor told a judge she had reached a cooperation agreement with one of the 16 Republicans who had signed official-looking paperwork falsely claiming Trump had won that state.

The judge on Thursday dismissed the charges against Trump elector James Renner, but neither side made public the terms of the prosecution’s deal with him.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel (D) in July charged Renner and 15 others with eight felony counts each, including forgery and conspiracy to commit forgery. The prosecution of the others is ongoing.

xp

I don't like the idea of RICO being used against groups of ordinary citizens with no connection to power because making something a conspiracy seems to dispense with some of the ordinary legal protections defendants would have. But idgaf about this one!

Protestors of the planned law enforcement training center in Atlanta have been charged under the RICO statute.

Sixty one of them, to be precise.

Some them for run of the mill activism. Once you define something as a criminal enterprise then anyone who does anything to help it is a co-conspirator.

Yeah, it's like the government deciding you are a "terrorist."

i fucking hate trump. his hair looks fucking ridiculous in that courtroom. who goes to court with their hair like that?

i loved when jimmy kimmel said the other night that you are so used to trump being a scumbag that you forget what a dick he is!

sorry. just needed a good old-fashioned FUCK TRUMP. i'm good now.

Biden campaign should buy truth social and use it to deprogram his cult.

I have no doubt there will be some abhorrent use of RICO. Tbh my interest in this one is mainly just for entertainment. I just need the distraction from how depressing everything else is.

more like chesemelt amirite

― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra),

curtain call for this, very good

otm

Without commenting on this particular situation, FYI there are civil claims under RICO statutes too. Civil RICO claims can be brought by the government or by private citizens. There is no prison time in civil RICO claims.

So not every instance of a RICO case will mean someone's in jeopardy of going to prison.

Well I guess anyone in a courtroom is in jeopardy of going to jail if they behave badly enough. I just mean prison not a remedy under civil RICO.

BREAKING: Attorney JENNA ELLIS is taking a plea deal in Fulton County. She's pleading guilty to one count of aiding and abetting false statements and writings

— Tamar Hallerman (@TamarHallerman) October 24, 2023

For those the can't or won't read Twitter (fair!), she goes on to post:

The terms:
5 years probation
$5000 restitution to the Georgia Secretary of State’s office
First offender status
100 hours community service
Apology letter
Testify truthfully
No communication with co-defendants, witnesses and media
Additional recorded statements to prosecutors

And as someone else posts:

Nice little reminder that as these various co-defendants plead guilty they're all implicating Trump in different prongs of the larger RICO conspiracy.

the fact that the sentences are so lenient has to be pretty appealing to the rest

https://t4.ftcdn.net/jpg/00/72/03/89/240_F_72038944_pdmoHuXTyDyxrgqOtshAJvMAEoKa7OBm.jpg

hate to be this guy but what are the chances none of this is gonna matter because of a hung jury?

A well-hung jury

Carrot/stick, etc.

who knows, but I will enjoy laughing when dipshit whines that his "deal" wasn't as lenient as everyone else's

The Art of the Squeal

I swear I misread "Testify truthfully" and "Testify tearfully"

so they started off last month with a shortlist of 900 potential jurors. I was thinking how many of these can be jury candidates who are genuinely impartial and unopinionated on this case - there will be some recusals and perhaps some dishonesty. I imagine the screening process for such a big case will be putting these mofos under a microscope, the FBI probably already have everything they've ever posted!

What exactly is the point of a jury system where the jurors are hand-picked by the legal teams? Hardly a cross-section of 'peers'. Maybe they should use all 900 and let them fight it out in a vast jury room a la A Matter of Life and Death.

As I understand it, it's not that they are hand-picked, per se, but that lawyers have a certain number of "vetoes," and have to do so strategically. (Lawyers, is this right?) Like, lawyers can't just say "no" to every juror, forever, especially when everyone knows the defendant and their alleged crimes.

makes me think of the OJ case. which infamously returned the wrong verdict

I like how this guy is starting to increasingly rely on 'look over there!' responses, per WaPo:

Steve Sadow, lead counsel for Trump in the Georgia case, pointed to the prosecution’s willingness to dismiss Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations charges, commonly known as RICO, as evidence of what he indicated was Willis’s true strategy.

“For the fourth time, Fani Willis and her prosecution team have dismissed the RICO charge in return for a plea to probation,” he said. “What that shows is this so-called RICO case is nothing more than a bargaining chip for DA Willis. Moreover, this plea was to a completely separate charge, not a part of the original indictment, which doesn’t even mention President Trump.”

I also turn on the waterworks when I plead guilty to making bad posts

Steve Saddo

“What that shows is this so-called RICO case is nothing more than a bargaining chip for DA Willis."

Congratulations for understanding how the U.S. justice system works.

Cohen testified about the statement of financial condition: "I was tasked by Mr. Trump to increase the total assets based upon a number that he arbitrarily elected, and my responsibility, along with Allen Weisselberg, predominantly, was to reverse engineer...

— erica orden (@eorden) October 24, 2023

...the various different asset classes, increase those assets in order to achieve the number that Mr. Trump had tasked us."

As Cohen testified, Trump shook his head, looking red in the face.

— erica orden (@eorden) October 24, 2023

Cohen is a bit of a dickhead but has a fantastic Noo Yawk accent. Bad move by Trump to make an enemy of someone who was involved with this particular financial fraud and has the receipts.

Trump has been doing this kind of stuff for so long it may be inconceivable to him that there's any other way to do things. He would probably also say that everybody does it, which is almost certainly true! And he woulda got away with it if it weren't for those pesky kids getting elected president and trying to overthrow an election.

I have no doubt it's a wide spread practice. Maybe the cost of investigating is just too high, but they really should be prosecuting more of these.

one thing the trump story has demonstrated or at least strong suggested is that white collar crime is wide spread and only lightly policed