Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[cubby]

In another shove-it-in-your-face moment most of us already know and admit we know, Trump was informally deposed today by--

"Wait, you mean formally deposed."

No, he did it via camera and, last story I cited at least, there would be no cross-examination. This is informal shit.

As a reminder, Trump is being sued for something he's accused of from 2015. He stalled and used Executive Time while in office, which should have been illegal because he wasn't in office for the event in question. He tried to use Executive Time after, too, but at least now he's on the record.
@cubby any corrections plus your insight are welcome.

Trump is doing here what he's done his entire life - cheat and steal and then hide behind his lawyers until the other side gives up. Here we can see him taking a case way beyond what is necessary, and when he's finally in "court" it's only a one-way essentially verbal statement. He is the epitome of rich assholes getting away with [grabbing her by the pussy] because they can afford to file literally the kitchen sink in appeals and motions to keep anything from actually happening. And then using the courts slowness to avoid any repercussions.

Stuff like this is why I'm fearful that Trump will never see any kind of justice for his literal insurrection treason and election tampering.

[Hollycakes]

Help me peel this banana these monkeys have thrown.
And I'll use their language here.

From their pov, what are they so afraid of if they've nothing to hide.
Why sue to keep anything from public view.
I don't want what we think(the obvious logic), I want what they are thinking.

"We were patriots on a tour of the white house and no ill deeds nor ill intent done, so what's to hide?"

If I was a Proud Fuckboy, wouldn't this be a question I'd be asking myself?
Isn't justice best done in public?
If anything shouldn't it show all the illegal radical plans the demoncrats have that Trump was fighting against?
Won't the truth being made public absolve us of their denial of election fraud and prove Trump was right all along?

Aren't any of these questions they should be asking?

[Breccia]

Trump is now suing the 1/6 committee

It looks like the Republican Party is already trying to fight this. Yeah that post is dated Oct 6th, they knew this shit was coming.

First of all, it's worth noting that "executive privilege" was more or less defined during Eisenhower's admin and clarified by the 1974 Nixon case the RNC cites...for some reason. Nixon was stomped flat. Basically, Nixon said "It's the President who decides what the limits of his own Constituional power is" and SCOTUS said "well to be fair, that's only the second worst thing you've said" and demanded the tapes be turned over. Nixon resigned two weeks later.

Let's go through it one by one.

• Presidential communications
  As the RNC points out, there was a SCOTUS Nixon case on this. Naturally, I found it and cited it above. That was stupid, but at this point, Republicans are so averse to facts they don't even care what their own sources say. They just make shit up.
  Trump is in nearly the identical position as Nixon -- he is accused of a massive democracy-ruining crime, there are tons of witnesses under legally-figurative gunpoint to testify against him, he's trying like hell to keep the evidence locked up, and he sweats more than a human being should be able to survive. There is one big difference, of course, but we'll get to that in a bit. There is no compelling reason to believe that, if Nixon lost, Trump would win. Other than a stacked court desperate to protect him, which so far, this SCOTUS has not proven they are.
• Deliberative process
  The process by which the Executive Branch decides how to enforce the laws. I suppose it's possible they said "hey let's not arrest or prosecute the people in the murderous insurrection, because we are the ones who sent them". But if that's their defense, they've admitted being involved. Boom. Headshot. Other than that, won't help.
• Attorney-client communications
  We've discussed over and over and Powell and Giuliani and Cohen and over how attorney-client privilege does not stop co-conspirators from testifying. I don't see why it would help here.
• National security
  I would pay real money to sit in the courtroom to see Trump, Giuliani, or Powell try to argue before SCOTUS why their discussions about the riot they started was somehow National Security Lol. It might be the funniest thing on TV in 2021. It would have to involve why Trump remaining in power, after losing an election, was National Security Lol.
• Law enforcement
  See "Deliberative process" above, but there's more. Privilege prevents the DoJ (etc) from releasing info about an ongoing investigation. That's the exact opposite of what's happening here. I guess if Biden was conducting an investigation, Trump could point to that, but um...see below.

There doesn't appear to be much to work with here. Trump's best bet is to argue the communications angle and hope his stacked court sides with him.

But here's where those bits I hinted at above come into play:
1) There is one big difference between Trump and Nixon. When Nixon had to turn over the tapes, he was still President. Trump is not. This immediately leads to...
2) Executive Privilege is what keeps the Executive Branch from turning over information to Congress. It does not prevent the Executive Branch from turning over information to itself. If, somehow, SCOTUS decides to protect Trump, Biden can simply say "well, we'll do it ourselves, then". Or, just for fun, he can simply make them all public. We know full well Presidents over time have unmasked things masked by earlier administrations. Trump did it personally so he knows it's 100% okay to do this. And even if the courts somehow magically find a way around this, too, that information will already be out and public.

Trump has one desperate play at that point: claiming that he can hide something so well, nobody is even allowed to look for it. (If he claims that the discussion was National Security Lol then he loses this defense -- locking away National Security documents so that nobody can read them won't work, it's not a fucking MiB neuralizer) If that's the case, it raises a lot of questions that would have to be answered:
1) If this was true, how did Nixon lose?
2) If this is true, why wouldn't every single President privilege literally everything and claim "communications" on the way out the door? If it's unbreakable by every single process, why wouldn't literally every President do that, every time, just in case? Hell, why didn't Trump do that? "I declare Executive Privilege on literally everything, and that means nobody can ever look at it ever ever, the end", he could have said, but didn't.

So let's turn back to the Republican Party.

For much of U.S. history, the standard for determining whether executive privilege was appropriate was a simple evaluation of the nation’s best interests, made by the president. If a current president does not think executive privilege is appropriate, would his opinion preclude or weigh against the invocation of executive privilege by his predecessor? The Supreme Court weighed the views of successor presidents in the 1977 case, but the 1974 case based privilege on the need for frank discussions. Allowing subsequent disclosure would presumably negate some of the value of having the privilege while president.

First of all, fuck you for hiding behind tradition when you elected Trump. That's hypocrisy and you all know it. Fuckers.

Second of all, the Republican Party says "weighed the views of the successor" but failed to actually say how it ended. That's what you have me for. Nixon lost. Again. It was ruled that, while Nixon could claim privilege retroactively -- which Trump may or may not be doing, don't know, don't care, not the point -- that it wouldn't necessarily work. The courts said that current executive officials looking at old executive files were not intruding to the point of being unConstitutional.

For added fun, that 1977 court case was at least partly about Nixon's business records. Enjoy the parallel.

I'm actually curious what Team Trump were stupid enough to write down in the first place. Either they had an official transcriber present while discussing treason, in which case you fucking morons, or they didn't but wrote stuff down and put it in Biden's desc in an envelope marked "Please do not read the evidence of our treason", in which case, you fucking morons.

Republicans are likely going to hide behind "there isn't enough evidence to say conclusively" which is what I would say, if the only thing that could keep my chosen leader from jail was something that's only been tested twice, in nearly identical circumstances, and my side lost both of them. "We don't know if that sniper's really that good of a shot," I tell my remaining soldiers as blood pours from the two formerly filled skulls of their colleagues, "Private Redshirt, stick your head out."

---

TL:DR
And all of this, all of this, ignores the main concept of Executive Privilege. The idea was, that the Executive Branch can't do its job if they have to stop every 10 minutes to sign a form, stamp it five times, and take it under a limbo bar to Congress. They're too busy doing their job to explain every detail of how they're doing their job. If there's a massive problem, say, FBI officers intentionally shooting unarmed African-Americans, Congress can step in, but they can't ask for progress reports like it's an uploading YouTube video.

That's not happening here. Trump is not concealing normal Executive Branch business as usual. He's defending how he lost an election, and tried to storm the Capitol to upend democracy itself.

Nothing about this lawsuit must be permitted to stand. Burn it all down.

[Gorsameth]

Can a former President even call upon Executive Privilege? Isn't it a power limited to the current sitting President?

Asking a former President or former aids wtf they were doing does not inhibit the working of the Executive Branch. If it does the current President is free to invoke Executive Privilege.

Or is this one of those wonderful cases where its not defined because far reaching blanked powers should always be as vague as possible...

[Breccia]

Can a former President even call upon Executive Privilege?

As listed above, they're allowed to ask.

- - - Updated - - -

So an update on two things: remember how Bannon said he was not going to testify, because of Trump's lawsuit? At the time, Trump hadn't sued yet. Well, he has now. So Bannon either knew, or guessed, or blackmailed Trump into suing.

Two problems, however.

One, other people are already testifying.

Two, most of the stuff Congress is asking for is communication between Bannon and the murderous insurrectionists. That's not covered. Also Bannon might not have been high-ranking enough to be privileged anyhow.

Bannon is likely to still face criminal charges, including jail time and fines.

[Yuujin]

As listed above, they're allowed to ask.

- - - Updated - - -

So an update on two things: remember how Bannon said he was not going to testify, because of Trump's lawsuit? At the time, Trump hadn't sued yet. Well, he has now. So Bannon either knew, or guessed, or blackmailed Trump into suing.

Two problems, however.

One, other people are already testifying.

Two, most of the stuff Congress is asking for is communication between Bannon and the murderous insurrectionists. That's not covered. Also Bannon might not have been high-ranking enough to be privileged anyhow.

Bannon is likely to still face criminal charges, including jail time and fines.

Hell of a gamble to drum up support for his cause, get Trump reelected in 2024, and get himself another pardon.

[Kaleredar]

Hell of a gamble to drum up support for his cause, get Trump reelected in 2024, and get himself another pardon.

And here's hoping all three of those prospects fail.

[Ripster42]

Read: "The WASP motherfuckers busybodies that staff our school board can't handle the cognitive distress of knowing they got conned by an idiot and are instead taking it out on their students and staff, because denial isn't just a river in Egypt."

Again, this is yet another entry in the lists of why private education should be banned.

WASPs are mainline protestant, not evangelical. Think methodist or anglican, not baptist or pentecostal. Traditionally, evangelicals are looked down on by WASPs as 'mumblers and shakers', little better than low class idiots. Basically how "old money" looks down on "new money" with a bit of added prejudice.

[Elegiac]

WASPs are mainline protestant, not evangelical

I don't really care to make that distinction or see it as a necessary one because at the end of the day, all Protestants be shopping.

[Breccia]

We're learning more about this new molnupiravir, a drug you take if you get COVID and it puts you in the hospital.

Today, for example, we're learing Biden bought 1.7 million treatments' worth with the option for double that later. The US has 77% of its people with at least one dose, but five million doses of molnupiravir is not enough for everyone left to get one. It also apparently costs about $700.

[Lanrefni]

We're learning more about this new molnupiravir, a drug you take if you get COVID and it puts you in the hospital.

Today, for example, we're learing Biden bought 1.7 million treatments' worth with the option for double that later. The US has 77% of its people with at least one dose, but five million doses of molnupiravir is not enough for everyone left to get one. It also apparently costs about $700.

Isn't it great that a company can buy something created with Federal grant money then sell it for astronomically more than it costs to make?
And no,they are not recouping research costs,that was done by the university that created it.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2021...-a-46x-markup/

[Breccia]

Isn't it great that a company can buy something created with Federal grant money then sell it for astronomically more than it costs to make?

Pharm research will always be a seriously debated topic and probably deserves its own thread. That said, I'm not saying I agree or disagree with you. I am saying, $1.2 billion divided over America's taxpayers means you probably paid $3 to help Americans who didn't get vaccinated, survive the consequences of not getting vaccinated.

- - - Updated - - -

What’s a vaccine dose? $2000? No? The vaccine is less than $50/dose? Weird.

Hey Scoobs, what's the conversion rate between an ounce of prevention and a pound of cure? HINT: The numbers line up so well it's fucking eerie.

And also, jinkies, how do you feel about leading questions?

[Breccia]

Well. It has not been a good 24 hours for Donald Trump.

1) This happened:



Yep, a Gallup poll found that international approval of US leadership is already back to Obama levels.

Remember when Trump said the US would be respected again? It is...now that he's gone.

2) Trump's deposition apparently didn't go as I expected. It's true that Trump refused to answer questions, but it's also true that he hasn't gotten away with it...yet. Remember how Trump said he was happy to get his story on the record? That was a lie. He dodged questions for four hours straight.

The "prosecuting" lawyer says he plans to ask the judge if he can force Trump to answer.

3) Trump should get used to this. Trump tried to dodge another lawsuit with Executive Privilege, namely, from an Apprentice candiate who says he groped her in 2007. Trump called her a liar, so in 2016 she sued. Trump tried the defense "I'm far too busy to deal with this" despite (a) Clinton had to, and (b) Trump spent almost a literal calendar year on the golf course. Regardless, he has no excuse now. Oh, and he's either countersuing or planning to, and I don't see a realistic way he can do that without taking the stand.

4) That "Food to Families" thing Ivanka made such a big deal about that?

"I don't remember that name ever coming up."

Yeah, I don't think it was mentioned on this site even once. Not even by the rabid fanbase. Probably because even they knew it wasn't going very far, just like we did. Turns out, everyone was right.

A Congressional report found that the Farmers to Families Food Box program gave large amounts of money to, you guessed it, companies without food or experience with food. Nobody was screened, and red flags were ignored.

The yearlong congressional investigation also identified problems with the deliveries themselves, including food safety issues, failed deliveries and uneven food distribution. Some contractors also forced recipient organizations to accept more food than they could distribute or store.

My favorite?

The congressional report also highlighted the application of an avocado grower who was initially awarded a $40 million contract before it was canceled after a review. Under the section of the application that required applicants to list references, the farmer wrote, “I don’t have any.”

The stated point of the program was to repurpose food that was originally going to waste due to COVID changing everyone's plans, and honestly, the idea isn't bad. The execution turned out to be bribery, as companies were just handed large piles of money and a "signed" letter from Donald Trump.

Trump's legacy in a nutshell, everyone.

5) Trump called Cheney a disloyal warmongering psycho.

I don't think I need to comment further on that.

6) But of course, I saved the best for last.

Trump's website was hacked.

"Wait, I thought Trump said this in the debates:"

I have a son. He's 10 years old. He has computers. He is so good with these computers, it's unbelievable. The security aspect of cyber is very, very tough. And maybe it's hardly doable. But I will say, we are not doing the job we should be doing. But that's true throughout our whole governmental society. We have so many things that we have to do better, Lester, and certainly cyber is one of them.

"Surely someone who said such a clear message takes his own private cybersecurity, this is a man who claims to be worth TEN BILLION DOLLARS by the way, would have a nearly unhackable website? I mean, he used the word 'cyber' twice. AND mentoined a 10 year old boy. He has computers. He has computers, Breccia!"

You'd think, right? No, Trump is of course a cheapskate and it shows. While no personal data is known to be missing -- not that Trump would say if it was -- the main page became a link to an Erdogan speech.

Of course, we don't know it was Erdogan. I mean, it could be Erdogan, but it could also be China. It could also be lots of other people. It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds, OK?

[draynay]

It was probably a 10 year old, they're so good with these computers.

[solinari6]

Two, most of the stuff Congress is asking for is communication between Bannon and the murderous insurrectionists. That's not covered. Also Bannon might not have been high-ranking enough to be privileged anyhow.

I wonder if they have secretly subpoenaed Bannon's communications direct from apple, signal, telegram, etc .. already?

[madethisfor1post]

It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds, OK?

Why would Trump hack his own site? Did he view the page source?

[Benggaul]

Monday's quickie report:

53,135 new cases; 684 deaths, bringing the total to 746,509. We'll be passing 750k this week.

Related news:

Covid-related scams have bilked Americans out of $586 million--Not including the hydroxychloroquine, bleach, UV light and ivermectin scams.

Chicago has begun to put officers on no-pay leave if they haven’t reported their COVID-19 vaccine status--Good. Also, this might end up in the police thread depending on the outcome.

Colin Powell’s death after a ‘breakthrough’ case of COVID-19 is already being used by anti-vaxxers--Pretty sure everyone called this. Because they're so fucking stupid they can't see why the vaccine might be less effective for an 84 year old with a compromised immune system battling cancer.

Stay safe, folks.

[Breccia]

Monday's quickie report

That's what Graham's wife calls it when I--

Because they're so fucking stupid they can't see why the vaccine might be less effective for an 84 year old with a compromised immune system battling cancer.

I've already seen the response which I will adopt as well: Colin Powell didn't die because he was vaccinated. He died because you weren't.

To be fair, if the talking point becomes "vaccines don't work if you're 80+ and have blood-killing cancer and someone unvaccinated brings COVID to your doorstep" I'll have to say "well I guess you do have a point there". Of course, the number of people 80+ with blood-killing cancer seems pretty niche, so, I don't know how good of a talking point that would be. It's gotta be around the same number as alt-reicht talk show hosts taking horse dewormer.

- - - Updated - - -

Shit, I missed one.

Covid-related scams have bilked Americans out of $586 million

Okay not directly related, but who here knows who Evander Kane is? I admit I don't, but you pointed out the basketball player from my earlier post was apparently pretty famous.

So he's suspended, and we don't know if it's because he beat his wife, an investigation that's apparently ongoing, or because he used a fake COVID vaccination card.

The National Hockey League announced today that San Jose Sharks forward Evander Kane has been suspended for 21 regular-season games, without pay, for an established violation of, and lack of compliance with, the NHL/NHLPA COVID-19 Protocol

Either way, it cost him $1.7 million because of the games he'll miss. Yeah, apparently, if you have a sports contract and miss games because you were suspended for doing something stupid, you forfeit the money to (checks site) the NHL's Players' Emergency Assistance Fund. Huh. Well, I can't complain about that.

This was a gutsy move on Kane's part, and by "gutsy" I mean "stupid bordering on mentally ill". For one, he's broke.

Evander Kane's saga regarding his bankruptcy case continued Tuesday with a report from The Athletic's Daniel Kaplan stating that a lender is suing the Sharks player for $15 million plus attorney fees. Kane filed for bankruptcy in January, claiming $26.8 million of total debt.

Professional Bank, the lender suing Kane, alleges that he defrauded the company in the process of securing a loan of $1.5 million. The amount they're asking for in the suit is 10 times as much as the loan because of "punitive" damages, per the report.

"At around that same time, Kane was also borrowing enormous amounts of money from other banks including Centennial Bank, Zions Bancorporation, and South River Capital," the lawsuit states. "Kane was also incurring enormous amounts of debt owed to other creditors. By all appearances, the plan back then was that these amounts were never going to be paid or paid back."

For two, in addition to those fraud claims which could themselves be a felony I guess? Fake COVID cards are a federal felony. Biden's DoJ likely has little to no love of hockey players. In fact, it's hard to find anyone who loves them anymore.

"Wait, did you just cite ratings?"

Yep. Now the Trump supporters have to agree with me. Or, you know, admit they're hypocrites.

- - - Updated - - -

Latino groups are suing Texas, claiming the new redistricting is so Gerrymandered it's unConstitutional.

I don't think they'll win. I think Texas probably has fine print saying they can do this.

- - - Updated - - -

This goes back to the "I don't understand this part" part.

Trump is now on public record saying that, if he was still in the WH, he wouldn't impose vaccine mandates, because he wouldn't need to.

In the Bill O'Really? interview, he once again took credit he didn't deserve by inventing "they" as in "they said I couldn't make the vaccine in five years" which, um, who said, exactly?

(checks old news)

Well it certainly wasn't Fauci. Here's a story from April 2020. Fauci said 12 to 18 months. Related personal story: I got my second dose one year, minus four days, after that interview. There were skeptics, but Fauci wasn't one of them. Not sure "five years" is as easy to back up...but whatever.

Anyhow, we know Trump has taken credit for the vaccines for some time. And bleach, UV lights, hydroxycut, etc etc. He takes credit for everything good and nothing bad, because he's a fat fucking liar. Old news.

But...why isn't he telling people to take the vaccine now? He says they work, he claims people will listen. Why not, you know, tell people to take it? Like, right now?

People will point out that, the last time Trump tried to do this, he was booed. Trump instantly 180'd and said "no no, you should have your freedoms, you should have the freedom to not take this amazing vaccine I personally made that's better than any vaccine ever ever ever" Which he did in the Bill O'Really? interview. But if it's that good, that safe, that effective, that bigly, and that yuge...why not just tell people "take the vaccine, it works" right now?

Or, I guess more to my point, since he's saying it's great and it works...why aren't his own voters doing it? Why did he have to back off? Why was he booed? Why are vaccination rates lower in red states? Why is Colin Powell dead? Why are broke wife-beating hockey players making fake COVID cards?

I believe the answer comes in two doses.

One: Trump wants crowds of people cheering his name. He wants people to love him to the point that they view him as the only source of information, even to the point he can tell people that it was raining on, that it wasn't raining on them. Which means, that because Trump's interest is and only ever has been himself and not the growth and prosperity of his country, that he will avoid telling people "you should get the vaccine, it's good and it works" if he thinks it will cause empty seats at his rallies. Well, more of them. His conviction that the vaccine works is not as important as his media traffic numbers. It's like that old joke that ends "well now we've established you're a whore, now we're just negotiating the price". Trump's price is Likes. He's an NPC from Death Stranding, only with fewer Monster product placement.

Two: Trump spent years building up a following of people willing to believe whatever crazy conspiracy he invented, over facts and evidence. Only through this was he able to directly work with Russia in public while telling people Clinton had a stroke. Problem is, he created a monster bigger than he's capable of handling. For once, he wants to tell the truth, but the conspiracy theorists have other ideas, and Trump can't steer his followers back on track.

Originally, I was going to compare Trump's inability to control his own rabid fanbase with the GOP's ability to control Trump, but I don't know if that's true yet. The GOP willfully handed over control to Trump, and now, can't survive without him. Trump's followers might hate vaccines, but there's a solution to that -- they might get sick and die.

[PrimiOne]

Or, I guess more to my point, since he's saying it's great and it works...why aren't his own voters doing it? Why did he have to back off? Why was he booed? Why are vaccination rates lower in red states? Why is Colin Powell dead? Why are broke wife-beating hockey players making fake COVID cards?

Stupidity as default explanation works wonders many times but this particular antivaxx movement (and others) has a deep root in the pack syndrome.

People feel the need to belong , to be respected and apreciated by their peers so we got this phenomenon where a guy is not totally convinced about the "conclusive and extensively documented" fraud proofs , he has his doubts but can in no way express them because that will automatically kick him out of his inner circle. The violence and hostility this kind use is a premeditated tool to enforce that:"Know that if you dissent i'm not gonna argue with you, no...I'm gonna call you a commie traitor and break any contact".

So people roll with the pack because they need a pack. The snowball starts going down the hill and before you notice it's avalanche and in that moment the cognitive persistence forces you to change reality whenever a dissonace is found ...not changing how you think. I mean: it's not easy for a catholic priest to lose his faith because...now what? Did I wasted my life in fairytales? No, that's a meatball too hard to swallow, it's better to just "persist".

In the particular case of the antivaxxers and the way the right made it into an ideological issue it's as much a true belief as a way of expressing their alignment.

So why the fuck a Trumper like me (figure of speech) refuse the vaccine that Trump himself - with his very own tiny hands - made? Because my brother in law and my best friend read on reddit it has ( not making this up, it has been said) little magnetic monsters with tentacles that are part of a Satanic plan ( I wonder...maybe did they see for the first time in their lives a retrovirus?) and I just don't wanna fuck my relationship with them.

So I roll with the pack.

[Breccia]

@Breccia cancer is the second leading cause of death. It’s not that rare in the elderly pop.

Agreed. Powell's specific form was especially cruel on the immune system.