Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Elegiac]

Trump's remaining personal lawyers are worried because the Democrats control the House, the Senate, and most importantly the IRS in a matter of hours.

But as is on brand, Trump's main concern today seems to be the fact that Lady Gaga and Tom Hanks are attending Biden's inauguration when they boycotted his.

[Breccia]

Actually let's extend that line of thinking.

Donald Trump faces an array of legal trouble when he leaves office

DONALD TRUMP has spent the two months since his electoral defeat furiously trying and consistently failing to overturn the results. Armchair psychiatrists claim that Mr Trump’s lifelong fear of being seen as a loser has inspired his battle against democracy. But another motive is possible: at the stroke of noon on January 20th, the legal shield that Mr Trump has wielded to stave off lawsuits will vanish, exposing him to an abundance of civil and criminal legal peril.

The most serious trouble Mr Trump faces may be in his former home town, where the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance, has been investigating several possible financial crimes, including Mr Trump’s alleged hush-money pay-offs to an adult-film star and a Playboy model on the eve of the 2016 election. Michael Cohen, Mr Trump’s former lawyer and fixer—now under home confinement for lying to Congress and other crimes, including campaign-finance violations—says his old boss directed him to pay these women, Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, to prevent revelations of extramarital dalliances that could have dented his presidential run. (Mr Trump denies these allegations.)

As part of his investigation, Mr Vance subpoenaed eight years of financial records and tax documents from Mazars USA, Mr Trump’s accountant. Mr Trump sued to block the subpoena, losing in both the district and circuit courts. He appealed, and in July 2020, a 7-2 Supreme Court majority found that “the public has a right to every man’s evidence”—including the president’s. But while the justices rejected Mr Trump’s claim that presidents have total immunity from criminal investigation, they gave him a lifeline: one more chance to make less outlandish arguments against the subpoena in the lower courts. Mr Trump fared no better in the second round, but the Supreme Court proceeded to sit on a final appeal for three months, staying mum and keeping the documents out of the district attorney’s hands.

Mr Vance seems ready to pounce when, as court-watchers expect, the Supreme Court finally dismisses the appeal. Some observers think that dismissal could come just as Mr Trump is leaving town. The ramifications could be serious for Mr Trump as he reprises his role as private citizen: Mr Vance’s office has suggested the investigation may range significantly more broadly than just pay-offs. A task-force is ready to sort through reams of documents that Mazars could send over within weeks. Potential charges, if evidence is found, could include scheming to defraud, falsification of business records, insurance fraud and criminal tax fraud. Some of these are felonies carrying penalties of up to 25 years.

Whether Mr Trump or members of his family might face criminal indictments is still unclear; Mr Vance won’t know how strong a case he has until the documents arrive. For now, all we know is that Mr Trump fought assiduously to keep his finances under wraps and soon they may be scrutinised by a grand jury.

It goes on from there. I'll summarize.

2) The insurance/tax assesor different real estate values thing.

3) Rape/defamation lawsuits.

*4) Emoluments clause issues, which the DoJ will no longer handwave.

5) Trump breaking DC law by overcharging his own campaign and pocketing the money.

6) DC charges of instigating a murderous insurrection that killed a DC policeman.

7) Extorting Georgia election officials.

8) It's also against NY law to call Ukraine and extort them for political information on a rival.

It could be a feeding frenzy. Honestly, Trump's family might hope Trump dies before any of those lawsuits kick in and take their illegal money.

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According to JH data, the US surpasses 400,000 COVID victims on Trump's last day of office.

As we've discussed before, that's banging on the door of "killed more Americans than WWII"

It's also more than died of the flu during Obama's entire tenure.

One hundred thousand Americans died in the last 36 days.

The US is the fourth worst deaths per capita in the world, and about triple that of Canada.

We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China. We have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.

And as a reminder: Trump voluntarily took the blame. The H1N1 outbreak, which Trump blamed on Obama and Biden (and therefore took ownership of COVID deaths for himself) killed about 12,500 in about the same amount of time. Which means, despite saying

If you go back to the swine flu, it was nothing like this. They didn’t do testing like this...They started thinking about testing when it was far too late …They had a very big failure with swine flu. A very big failure.

and

Their response to H1N1 Swine Flu was a full scale disaster, with thousands dying, and nothing meaningful done to fix the testing problem, until now. The changes have been made and testing will soon happen on a very large scale basis. All Red Tape has been cut, ready to go!

and

Biden/Obama were a disaster in handling the H1N1 Swine Flu. Polling at the time showed disastrous approval numbers. 17,000 people died unnecessarily and through incompetence!

Trump lost about thirty times as many people in the same amount of time. To put "killed thirty times as many people" into comparison, it's like "a Boeing 737 crashed and everyone died" versus "a Boeing 737 crashed into the LA Raiders stadium on a sold-out day and everyone died".

"But Breccia! Surely the virus was thirty times more lethal, therefore skewing the numbes."

Hmm.

Flu season is coming up! Many people every year, sometimes over 100,000, and despite the Vaccine, die from the Flu. Are we going to close down our Country? No, we have learned to live with it, just like we are learning to live with Covid, in most populations far less lethal!!!

That line was yanked by Twitter and FB for being incorrect and dangerous in early October, at which point, COVID had already killed 200,000 plus Americans. Three times what he'd earlier claimed was the most lethal end of the flu, and the year wasn't over. Also it had already killed Herman Cain. Oh, and he'd tested positive.

Which means, even if the blame goes to the virus for being more lethal, Trump repeatedly blocked any effort to handle the virus as if it was more deadly. Which means he's thirty times more incompetent than he said Biden was.

[TigTone]

I wonder how many history books in trump states will have him as some underdog “hero” while the other states will have him by the facts of being a terrible president.

[Breccia]

I wonder how many history books in trump states will have him as some underdog “hero” while the other states will have him by the facts of being a terrible president.

The big money textbooks don't aim for only being sold in 35% and falling of the USA. The smart move is to be objective and let the history teacher do the spinning.

[Benggaul]

The numbers are largely meaningless today because of the holiday yesterday which throws off reporting (every fucking time, I swear), so it's going to be another quickie:

171,525 new cases and 2,768 deaths, bringing the total to 411,486. I'm unsure if tomorrow will also be garbled due to corrections or if it'll be more spread out throughout the week. Several states still have not reported tonight.

'To heal, we must remember': Biden leads national mourning of 400,000 Americans killed by COVID-19--So, what was current Resident Trump doing today? Oh, right, supposedly pardoning criminals. Priorities.

Stay safe, folks.

[Felya]

So... I looked into what makes MyPillow so special... uhm... It seems to be the product of advertising, not innovation or anything special. He came up with the logo, before the product. It’s just foam... doesn’t even have a zipper to adjust the density... I don’t get it.

He spends 1.5 million per week on advertising a pillow filled with foam.

[YUPPIE]

It was an anti-climactic end. Just a calm phoned in speech. Bye I guess. For a while now I'm wondering if Trump is being threatened off-screen per recent speeches on what he says or does because he has none of the same vigor he had with the insane shit the last few months.

[beanman12345]

omg "patriot party" my sides. do it trump. do it.

non paywall context
https://www.mediaite.com/news/trump-...patriot-party/

[Nastard]

It was an anti-climactic end. Just a calm phoned in speech. Bye I guess. For a while now I'm wondering if Trump is being threatened off-screen per recent speeches on what he says or does because he has none of the same vigor he had with the insane shit the last few months.

Maybe he realized that by inciting a riot on the Capitol, his words have meaning. He may have accepted the fact that by bitching and complaining to try to save his ego, he may be destroying the country.

But more likely, it's that he realizes if he incites ANOTHER incident, the senate will vote to remove him and may remove his special rights including the lifelong secret service detail. If he loses their protection, there are far too many people who've been screwed over/lost loves ones due to him... it would only be a matter of time before one with nothing else left decides to get revenge.

[YUPPIE]

may remove his special rights including the lifelong secret service detail. If he loses their protection, there are far too many people who've been screwed over/lost loves ones due to him... it would only be a matter of time before one with nothing else left decides to get revenge.

so wait, you're telling me Trump is not going to pay for any of his actions as it is now? He's just gonna leave and that's it?

[Benggaul]

omg "patriot party" my sides. do it trump. do it.

non paywall context
https://www.mediaite.com/news/trump-...patriot-party/

You have to wonder what it means for him to be pushing for a party which could be abbreviated as "PP".

[Belize]

You have to wonder what it means for him to be pushing for a party which could be abbreviated as "PP".

It'll be pretty small if he does even manage to get it up and running...

[Ripster42]

You have to wonder what it means for him to be pushing for a party which could be abbreviated as "PP".

As the mueller report said, "...the flow of tapes from russia has stopped..."

[Breccia]

omg "patriot party" my sides. do it trump. do it.

I don't think Trump knows how much effort setting up such a party is.

The last person to try it was richer than he was, split the vote, and led to the first four years of Clinton.

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omg "patriot party" my sides. do it trump. do it.

Actually I'm wondering if he "chose" to do this, or if McConnell threw him out. Remember the Republican Party got Trump to sign a loyalty pledge in 2016 in exchange for letting him primary as a Republican. It's increasingly likely the Republican Party doesn't want him back. Trump, of course, would rather die than be seen as a loser, and coulld be claiming that leaving the Republican Party was his choosing.

[Corvus]

I don't think Trump knows how much effort setting up such a party is.

The last person to try it was richer than he was, split the vote, and led to the first four years of Clinton.

Trump has a much larger rump, er, base, and they have been proven to throw buck loads of cash at him.

If nothing else, it would be a perfect grift for him.

[kaid]

omg "patriot party" my sides. do it trump. do it.

non paywall context
https://www.mediaite.com/news/trump-...patriot-party/

Yes this needs to happen he needs to do exactly this.

[Kathranis]

It was an anti-climactic end. Just a calm phoned in speech. Bye I guess. For a while now I'm wondering if Trump is being threatened off-screen per recent speeches on what he says or does because he has none of the same vigor he had with the insane shit the last few months.

He's afraid of making the situation worse for himself. His family and legal advisors have had to hold him by the hand and make sure he doesn't slip up and do something to further incriminate himself. Left to his own devices you get the tweets and videos he put out during the insurrection which were a fucking disaster.

so wait, you're telling me Trump is not going to pay for any of his actions as it is now? He's just gonna leave and that's it?

He may or may not face any consequences of impeachment, but McConnell has basically given Republicans a green light to vote to convict him and/or bar him from holding office again, so it's a possibility. If the vote passes, they will be setting some new legal precedents.

Apart from impeachment, when he loses presidential immunity tomorrow he's going to be facing a mountain of debt, lawsuits, and criminal investigations.

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Yes this needs to happen he needs to do exactly this.

It's almost a shame that he probably won't have the opportunity to actually get it up and running personally. Would love to see the Republican vote split though.

[Dontrike]

Ok, then who would have been able to prevent Covid-19 from killing anyone in the US?

So it wouldn't kill anyone? Not one person. So it would kill far less? Anyone with an IQ higher than a stripper pole.

[Breccia]

We did what we came here to do, and so much more

-- Donald Trump's last lie in office

[Breccia]

I hope this thread dies a quick death after tomorrow.

Nope.

Just you wait until we find out the stuff he tried to keep hidden.

Oh, and when he's dragged into court.

This thread's not going anywhere.