Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Breccia]

Process mistakes were never major in the first place

And yet, you spent the last ten days doing nothing but pushing incorrect stories about how it was major in the first place. You even continue to bring it up as if it's relevant or important in the literal very next line you write.

By the way, Trump still hasn't taken the stand or signed anything that hit court, so, everything you've argued is still as incorrect as it is hypothetical, and even you are now trying to move the goalposts (again) by saying it's not major. Your posts are therefore summarily handwaved. You have no point. You just admitted it.

[Breccia]

The walls are closing in on Donald Trump. NYState continues to press civil and criminal charges against his company, while Trump takes the 5th five hundred times -- basically forfeiting any defense in exchange for not being personally dragged in...yet. The Georgia "find me the votes" case is continuing as well, with only Graham managing to escape. His PAC is under investigation, his CyberTrump 2077 deal is also under investigation and also likely doomed, and the FBI kicked down his door and took back all the government property he stole. All that, and all his friends are having their phones seized and/or being subpoena'd. Legal bills will be high, he has to pay for the "special master" now, and any attempt to do so with his PAC are questionable if (a) the investigation into that was due to misuse of funds and/or (b) Trump announces his candidacy.

Plus, several members of his legal team are likely going to jail and/or being disbarred. Cohen and Giuliani are likely doing color commentary on the "who is next" list, while Ty Cobb sips a mint julep and smiles knowingly.

But all is not lost! Six years, six entire years, and finally we see not just a hint, but proof, of a competent legal mind in Trump's entourage.

Kise seems too good at this shit to accept anything other than a large pile of cash up-front from Trump. Whether he is a cultist or just wants fame and fortune, there's "I have faith in the process" and there's "I just got fired for taking on an objectively guilty client".

The WSJ reports that "large pile of cash up front" is three million dollars. But it did come from the PAC.

Now, maybe paying legal bills to defend you personally from a criminal investigation is somehow okay. I didn't think it was, I didn't think the SEC thought so either. But I think Kise is smart to demand that money up front, not just because Trump doesn't pay people and Kise is apparently not fucking retarded, but because if the PAC isn't allowed to do that, it's not on Kise to return the money. Cohen proved that. Trump has to return the money. Kise still gets paid.

Incidentally, Kise's cunning goes further. He left his old law firm to start his own, possibly (as we've seen) because lawyers who don't do that tend to be thrown out of their own firms.

The WSJ has also reported that several of Trump's outreaches to other lawyers failed because, yes, Trump is well-known for not paying and also objectively guilty.

Related:

1) Conway, like others, is saying that Trump is going to incite violence if he's arrested. As before, I say "Trump's supporters are cosplay militia with a zero percent success rate. There are some true believers out there ready to take up arms, but not enough to succeed. If they try, they'll get suicide by cop'd and it will be their own fault."

*ahem*

Also.

Literally every person on these forums who even once took a swing at BLM for using violence as a form of protest, even if those claims were false, must immediately say the same thing about any Trump supporter who, for example, fire shots at the FBI. If their issue was violence in the guise of politics, they must do so, or else they're left being hypocritical and racist.

2) GOP candidates are less and less comfy with campaigning with Trump.

Trump is preparing to swoop into Ohio on Saturday to rally Republicans behind J.D. Vance in a key Senate race. Two weeks earlier, he did the same for Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania.

Neither candidate invited him.

Instead, aides to the former president simply informed the Senate campaigns that he was coming. Never mind that Mr. Trump, while viewed heroically by many Republicans, remains widely disliked among crucial swing voters.

Some of Mr. Trump’s chosen candidates, after pasting his likeness across campaign literature and trumpeting his seal of approval in television ads during the primaries, are now distancing themselves, backtracking from his positions or scrubbing their websites of his name.

The moves reflect a complicated political calculus for Republican campaigns, which want to exploit the energy Mr. Trump elicits among his supporters — some of whom rarely show up to the polls unless it is to vote for him — without riling up the independent voters needed to win elections in battleground states.

In North Carolina, Bo Hines, a Republican House candidate who won his primary in May after proudly highlighting support from Mr. Trump, has deleted the former president’s name and image from his campaign site. A campaign official described the move as part of an overhaul of the website to prioritize issues that are important to general-election voters.

In Wisconsin, Tim Michels, the Republican nominee for governor, erased from his campaign home page the fact that Mr. Trump had endorsed him — but then restored it after the change was reported, saying it had been a mistake.

Etc etc you get the idea.

3) After Chris Christie gave an interview -- why yes, we can add him to the "lawyers who Trump fucked over" pile -- Trump basically went revenge porn on him and fat-shamed him with a picture. I think I have it here...



No, that's not it...



No, that's not it either...



Okay, I know it's around here somewhere. Until then, enjoy these pictures of glass houses.

4) DWAC is down for the day/week/month again.

5) More sources are independently verifiying that the Trump family offered to settle with NYState and were turned down. This, again, suggests not only does NYState know they have Trump dead to rights, but that the knows it.

Trump's usual tactic of bullying weaker opponents with his legal team had a good run, but just because you're top 5 DPS in LFR doesn't mean shit when you're in a Mythic +25. NYState is not a weaker opponent. Neither is the DOJ. I called the Mar-a-Lago not a warning shot, but the starter's pistol, and I might have been even accidentally right at this point. Trump's foes are legion and his defenses are crumbling.

Actually, I'm wondering if $3 million is enough, at this point. Hey @cubby not that you would, but if a lawyer was willing to basically destroy their entire career for life for an obviously objectively guilty client, how much do you think they should ask for up front? $3 million sounds a little low.

[Gorsameth]

I wonder, did NYState turn down a settlement because its not about the money, its about the principle of taking Trump to court or, and I consider this more likely, the amount Trump offered is insulting. Probably because he has no way to pay anything close to the real sum NYState would seek from him.

I have the feeling, which may totally be wrong ofc, that usually these tax evasion things get settled out of court.

[Fugus]

I wonder, did NYState turn down a settlement because its not about the money, its about the principle of taking Trump to court or, and I consider this more likely, the amount Trump offered is insulting. Probably because he has no way to pay anything close to the real sum NYState would seek from him.

I have the feeling, which may totally be wrong ofc, that usually these tax evasion things get settled out of court.

Or they have them dead to rights where no amount of money or dragging it out could risk him getting off.

Think of it this way, there is a murder, you have the suspect on camera committing the act, the gun with his finger prints on it and multiple witnesses with videos of him bragging about it mentioning them by name and how he did it. How eager do you think the police would be to settle that?

And this is a guy who has been a thorn in their sides for a long time.

[Kaleredar]

I wonder, did NYState turn down a settlement because its not about the money, its about the principle of taking Trump to court or, and I consider this more likely, the amount Trump offered is insulting. Probably because he has no way to pay anything close to the real sum NYState would seek from him.

I have the feeling, which may totally be wrong ofc, that usually these tax evasion things get settled out of court.

If NY state was just in it for just getting the money they probably would have simply done a round of offers and counter-offers until they arrived at an adequate settlement.

I'm all for using Trump's various instances of breaking the law to make an example out of him. The more, the better.

[Breccia]

I wonder, did NYState turn down a settlement because its not about the money, its about the principle

That's a good point. I would like to think that law enforcement doesn't make those kinds of decisions, but I'd also like to think America would provide health care for all of its citizens.

[Dontrike]

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trum...graham-1743811



Lindsey Graham on Trump's stranglehold on the party. Sure he lies, but he's a fun guy! And he could kill dozens of Republicans and they'd still support him!

He's not technically wrong, how many Republicans did Trump help kill with Covid? They still think he did a good job with it.

- - - Updated - - -

Process mistakes were never major in the first place. I didn't understand all the opposition to questions that will be resolved in future court pleadings.

Because you haven't been asking honest questions, you've been constantly saying that Trump is innocent and the FBI are evil while at the same time trying to bring up Hillary as though she mattered.

[Breccia]

He's not technically wrong, how many Republicans did Trump help kill with Covid? They still think he did a good job with it.

Pro-Trump counties now have far higher COVID death rates. Misinformation is to blame

From Dec 2021.

NPR looked at deaths per 100,000 people in roughly 3,000 counties across the U.S. from May 2021, the point at which vaccinations widely became available. People living in counties that went 60% or higher for Trump in November 2020 had 2.73 times the death rates of those that went for Biden. Counties with an even higher share of the vote for Trump saw higher COVID-19 mortality rates.

In October, the reddest tenth of the country saw death rates that were six times higher than the bluest tenth, according to Charles Gaba, an independent health care analyst who's been tracking partisanship trends during the pandemic and helped to review NPR's methodology. Those numbers have dropped slightly in recent weeks, Gaba says: "It's back down to around 5.5 times higher."

So, using the conservative 2.75 times death rate, assuming the disproportion between Trump/sane voters extended further back, and even assuming that Trump's influence stopped when he fairly and legally lost the election -- his influence didn't end there, but giving him some credit -- the fact the country was fairly close to 50/50 but one side had triple the deaths means Trump was personally responsible for about 300,000 COVID deaths or so. Or, maybe a touch more fairly, it wasn't necessarily Trump's direct intervention (or lack thereof) but the culture of not believing in experts or science that Trump intentionally clung to -- yes, it could be correllation and not causation. But either way, if Trump voters had been as careful as sane voters, by Jan 20th 2021 the US would have lost 200,000 to the pandemic and not 500,000.

Obviously some of that is unfair to Trump -- NY got hit early and hard and nobody knew shit about it for a while yet. But if Trump gets to claim the FBI raided his house for newspaper clippings, I get to say he personally murdered 300,000 people and at least my claim is as accurate as his.

[gondrin]

he has to pay for the "special master" now

Well, he did offer a "supposed" really nice stallion worth a few million dollars to a lawyer once. The government never stated it wouldn't take horse either.

[Ripster42]

Well, he did offer a "supposed" really nice stallion worth a few million dollars to a lawyer once. The government never stated it wouldn't take horse either.

I really don't understand what it is about rich people and horses.

[Lanrefni]

I really don't understand what it is about rich people and horses.

Easy money laundering,a horses value is entirely subjective so it makes it easier to shuffle money around and if the horse gets hurt you can use it's drop in value/earning potential to lower your net income so as to avoid higher tax rates for that year.

[akris15]

Easy money laundering,a horses value is entirely subjective so it makes it easier to shuffle money around and if the horse gets hurt you can use it's drop in value/earning potential to lower your net income so as to avoid higher tax rates for that year.

Also really expensive to take care of properly...easy status symbol while retaining value so its not like a white elephant.

[Paranoid Android]

Book: Trump wanted to trade Puerto Rico for Greenland t

https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1...5KPmKxpRQ&s=19

Oof! We laugh, yet this is Trump's broken brain.

We all remember this story of at least buying Greenland, yet not trading for Puerto Rico. I was trying to give Trump credit that his little brain overheard about climate change (he would deny this) that there was potential natural resources under Greenland. Once more, Trump just wanting to exploit a place, nothing else.

So I was wrong and it's hilarious coming from Trump's mouth.

Trump said in an interview for the book that the idea to buy Greenland was his own idea.

“I love maps. And I always said: ‘Look at the size of this. It’s massive. That should be part of the United States,’” Trump reportedly said.

Nope Trump just liked the size. Overcompensating for something I guess. In same article, Bolton tried to help by saying it would be strategic for China. Kind of a reach.

Just as when Puerto Rico was hit by a hurricane we read the leaks of his disdain for Puerto Rico, by not sending aid, etc.

[Shadowferal]

Trump compares his own Senate candidate to Kim Jong-un in bizarre rally speech

Donald Trump gave a rambling speech to an under-capacity crowd of 6,000 people in Ohio’s Youngstown on Saturday, during which he dished out a series of humiliating jibes to mock venture capitalist JD Vance, his own pick for the state’s tight US Senate race.

The former president compared the Republican candidate to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at one point and said “JD is kissing my a**” now for support.

“This is a very important race,” Mr Trump said to a crowd at the Youngstown Covelli Centre. “This is a great person who I’ve really gotten to know.
-----------
And this is why Vance didn't invite Trump to the rally to begin with.

[Paranoid Android]

Oh goodness I'm down the rabbit hole.

This Trump rally finger salute is curious. Some on Twitter are calling it a QAnon salute, with 1 finger for "Where we go 1," and Trump is playing a pro-Q song as he talks. I've never seen this happen before, though, so if it's a Q thing it's new.

The one finger thing might also be for “America First.” The white nationalist groypers, for example, do a one finger salute for that reason




Alright, here is the thing. These people are effin losers! No matter what this is, where, who and why are you all getting together to throw up some symbol for unity of Trump I guess. Jeez this is such a cult. Some sewer type shit, where they are on Facebook, reddit, 4chan, whatever to come up with the next salute or praise of their god, emperor. Losers!

[swiftowner]

I called the Mar-a-Lago not a warning shot, but the starter's pistol, and I might have been even accidentally right at this point.

Nah, the starter’s pistol will forever be @Skroe getting perma banned. I’m sure he’s drinking some whiskey and laughing through all of this.

[gondrin]

https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1...5KPmKxpRQ&s=19

Oof! We laugh, yet this is Trump's broken brain.

We all remember this story of at least buying Greenland, yet not trading for Puerto Rico. I was trying to give Trump credit that his little brain overheard about climate change (he would deny this) that there was potential natural resources under Greenland. Once more, Trump just wanting to exploit a place, nothing else.

So I was wrong and it's hilarious coming from Trump's mouth.



Nope Trump just liked the size. Overcompensating for something I guess. In same article, Bolton tried to help by saying it would be strategic for China. Kind of a reach.

Just as when Puerto Rico was hit by a hurricane we read the leaks of his disdain for Puerto Rico, by not sending aid, etc.

Sounds like an odd game of Risk.

[cubby]

[S]everal members of his legal team are likely going to jail and/or being disbarred. Cohen and Giuliani are likely doing color commentary on the "who is next" list, while Ty Cobb sips a mint julep and smiles knowingly.

But all is not lost! Six years, six entire years, and finally we see not just a hint, but proof, of a competent legal mind in Trump's entourage.

Kise seems too good at this shit to accept anything other than a large pile of cash up-front from Trump. Whether he is a cultist or just wants fame and fortune, there's "I have faith in the process" and there's "I just got fired for taking on an objectively guilty client".

The WSJ reports that "large pile of cash up front" is three million dollars. But it did come from the PAC.

Now, maybe paying legal bills to defend you personally from a criminal investigation is somehow okay. I didn't think it was, I didn't think the SEC thought so either. But I think Kise is smart to demand that money up front, not just because Trump doesn't pay people and Kise is apparently not fucking retarded, but because if the PAC isn't allowed to do that, it's not on Kise to return the money. Cohen proved that. Trump has to return the money. Kise still gets paid.

Incidentally, Kise's cunning goes further. He left his old law firm to start his own, possibly (as we've seen) because lawyers who don't do that tend to be thrown out of their own firms.

Kise is making a yuge money grab for himself, and he's doing it brilliantly. By leaving his old firm and starting a new one, the entirety of the $3MM fee will be his, rather than being divvied up amongst his partners. He can farm out the busy work to a few associates, and keep most of it himself.

The only issue is how it was set up. Typically a large up-from sum is a retainer, held in escrow by the firm, with fees and costs debited to the retain account (it's more complicated than that, because well, attorneys - but that's the gist). That retainer can be held back by the client if the client feels they haven't received adequate counsel, or any thing else, really. I would bet dollars to Trump Steaks that Kise took the entire fee up front, and it's his, period, with no escrow control by the client or other entity.

In which case Kise is brilliant. Huge pay day, with likely more money coming later, he gets the fame (and the fees) as well. And he's got plenty of warning up front of how to submit sworn documents based on Trump's statements, so I'm sure he'll be extra cautious.

[Gorsameth]

And Trump is the sort of client that would hold back the retainer.

Trump is so short on lawyers willing to represent him that a lawyer can say "you will pay me 3mil upfront and take my word that I will try my best" and Trump has to take it.

[Breccia]

By leaving his old firm and starting a new one, the entirety of the $3MM fee will be his

That's an aspect I hadn't even considered. I just assumed he left because his old firm didn't want the shit smeared on their walls.

And Trump is the sort of client that would hold back the retainer.

I get why Trump would only pay for results -- the motive makes sense. It's worked so well for him for so long, he held back the paychecks for people who did give results.

That was when he had all the power and time. He now has neither. NYState, Georgia and the DOJ are beyond his ability to intimidate, they're all attacking at once, and they're all looking at a Trump 2024 run as a complication. Trump will have to change his mindset and let people tell him what he has to do, even if he doesn't like it.

Eat your fucking vegetables, fatso.