Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Breccia]

"Help me Hunter Biden's laptop, you're my only hope"

You laugh, but conservative media is doing exactly that. This story from the National Review, why yes it was posted yesterday, says the FBI was told not to investigate Hunter Biden's laptop just before the election.

Oh no! How horrible! Wait, isn't that what Team Trump is saying now? That politics shouldn't guide investigations? I guess Republicans can't complain about that.

Also, wasn't Trump in charge of the FBI back then? I mean, sure, you could claim Trump had more important things to do...seems odd, Giuliani brought him the laptop, Giuliani's not part of the DOJ...but if you claim Trump wasn't running this FBI investigation, I think you'd have to also claim Biden's not running this one.

Oh, and...um...what was supposed to be on that laptop, anyhow? I know he's had other problems, but the laptop itself, was was the concern about it? Because I seem to remember there was concern there could be national secrets on it.

Well, you know what that means. Anyone who expresses concern about Hunter Biden's laptop must explain what was on it, that shouldn't have been. And if the answer is "government secrets" then, guess what, they have to say what Trump did was also illegal.

[gondrin]

Well, to go from one incompetency to another, you too could make your own Truth Social network, name and all, to compete directly with Trumps and there is nothing he can do about it because their name is has been rejected for trademark status.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...age=AA116Vk9|3

Trump's Truth Social platform had its trademark application rejected because its name wasn't unique enough

Former President Donald Trump has run into a significant setback with trademarking the name for his social media platform, Truth Social.

According to a filing released this month and tweeted by Josh Gerben, a trademark lawyer, Trump's social media app had its application refused by the US Patent and Trademark Office because its name bore too much resemblance to the names of other business entities.

The patent office found that Trump's company name was "confusingly similar" to other entities, including Vero — True Social, an app-based social media platform, and the Truth Network, a Christian radio broadcast network.

Among the patent office's concerns was that Truth Social's name bore the "same dominant feature" — the word "Truth" — as the Truth Network. In relation to Vero — True Social, the patent office wrote that the "dominant wording TRUTH and TRUE communicate the same idea of being honest or emphasizing fact while networking socially."

"Moreover, both marks also contain the wording SOCIAL meaning they look and sound similar generally outside of a small variation of TRUTH," read the filing.

"Because the marks are similar and the goods and services are related, there is a likelihood of confusion as to the source of applicant's goods and services, and registration is refused pursuant to Section 2(d) of the Trademark Act," the filing concluded.

Trump has until February 2023 to respond to the filing.

This is not the first setback Trump's social media platform has faced. In June, the company buying Truth Social warned that the deal might fall through because of a slew of grand jury subpoenas it received. The planned merger of Digital World Acquisition Corp, a special purpose acquisition company, and Truth Social is also under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Built by the Trump Media and Technology Group, Truth Social strongly resembles Twitter, which permanently suspended Trump's account in January 2021. Truth Social was also plagued by technical difficulties shortly after its launch in February — with potential users placed on waitlists after finding themselves unable to create accounts.

[Corvus]

No doubt the patent office is now part of the WITCH HUNT against the yugest biggliest president ever.

[Ripster42]

Attorney-client privilege doesn't exclude anything related to any matter you might have talked to your lawyer about. It only means your lawyer can't be forced to produce evidence or testify against you. If you talk to your lawyer about what to do about the guy you murdered, and the cops find the murder weapon on a search warrant of your house, your lawyer doesn't get to exclude that evidence on the basis of privilege. That's insane. And yet, that seems to be the argument they're making here.

You don't understand attorney-client privilege. It covers all coms between you and your lawyer about legal advice, regardless of whose possession it's in. They wouldn't be able to exclude the murder weapon because they didn't find it because of what the attorney said. Your comparison isn't good either. Trump absolutely can claim attorney-client privilege on specific documents if they're coms with his lawyers, which could be the case if you actually looked at the warrant, which is why the FBI is using a taint team to go over the collected evidence, because they actually know the law.

Your skepticism is almost certainly warranted and @Kaleredar is almost certainly correct. I've kept selling the idea that Trump had pretty normal stuff in his safe, like his will and the deed to the run-down motel where he bangs whores. It is possible some unrelated, non-secret, non-WH items were in there. Fine, but that's what the filter team is for. Which Team Trump is arguing shouldn't be used.

WH material doesn't fall under lawyer-client privilege. That's it.

The warrant allowed them to take all docs stored near any material marked confidential, not just docs marked as confidential. There could absolutely be privileged info there and likely was.

Nothing about claiming attorney-client privilege will do anything to affect the case the DoJ is putting together in a negative way. If it's evidence of a crime being plotted between a lawyer and their client, attorney-client privilege doesn't apply. Like kaleredar was saying, just a smokescreen/meat for his groupies.

Since Trump is not the defendant here, is it possible for a judge to actually deny Trump from representing himself? "Get a lawyer or the case will be dismissed" kind of deal.

What gave you this idea? Odds are, he's the target of the investigation.

He's the plaintiff.

He's the "movant" in a case seeking to limit the information collected during a search executed in an investigation he's the likely target of. That's not the same as a plaintiff.

It does, good point. If you represent yourself as the plaintiff, well, as they said, even Clarence Darrow had an attorney.

As stated, he's not the plaintiff. He's the movant in a defensive motion.

The Constitution says you're entitled to a defense, not an offense.

Right to petition to redress grievances.



Guys, for real, tighten up. All of the stuff above I addressed is BadLegalTakes fodder.

Why exactly should Trump have access to classified, secret and top secret documents now that he is no longer President?

He shouldn't. It's why he's going to lose that specific petition.

So GTeam Trump released the letter from the National Archives asking for their stuff back.

"Why?"

Nobody has any idea.

My guess? It was john solomon. Dude literally hates america and thinks propping up trump is the best way to destroy the country. He's doing what junior did about the trump tower meeting: trying to front run and downplay bad news.

Literal worst President in the history of the US who lost the popular vote and ended up fucking up the economy with his regressive policies. The worst president who can't help himself and shut his mouth for two fucking seconds? Gee, I wonder why people hate this guy.

I've got him fighting for that spot, but I've still got to give it to andrew "genocide" jackson over trump. You know, because of the genocide.

- - - Updated - - -

Well, to go from one incompetency to another, you too could make your own Truth Social network, name and all, to compete directly with Trumps and there is nothing he can do about it because their name is has been rejected for trademark status.

"From the guy who brought you the lawsuit against the twitter account 'Devin Nunes' Cow' we bring you the un-trademarkable 'Truth Social!'" The GOP is nothing but a pack of idiot grifters and has-beens.

[Breccia]

Right to petition to redress grievances.

He doesn't get a public lawyer to do that.

My guess? It was john solomon.

You don't need to guess. It was John Solomon. The question is why, not who.

[Ripster42]

He doesn't get a public lawyer to do that.



You don't need to guess. It was John Solomon. The question is why, not who.

Yes, and I addressed that: He's trying to front-run bad info like junior tried to do.

[fwc577]

I've got him fighting for that spot, but I've still got to give it to andrew "genocide" jackson over trump. You know, because of the genocide.

Nah, going to give it to Trump still. I care less about the 4000 dead during the Indian Removal Act because that number pales in comparison to the hundreds of thousand extra deaths thanks to politicizing covid and the thousands of dead civilians in the middle east from Trump ramping up air strikes. Not to mention the thousands of extra jihaidist today who lost love ones with all the civilian casualties.

To top that up, The Indian Removal Act was an ACT from Congress, so they have a hand in the blame of that shitshow.

Trump was the at the forefront of bleaching your asshole and eating lightbulbs and horse paste or some shit to battle covid.

And the crazy part about the COVID response? If he had worked with the Democrats and had unified, bipartisan messaging, he would still be president today.

[Breccia]

It's not the crime, it's the cover-up. Which is also a crime.

Since the release of the search warrant, which listed three criminal laws as the foundation of the investigation, one — the Espionage Act — has received the most attention. Discussion has largely focused on the spectacle of the F.B.I. finding documents marked as highly classified and Mr. Trump’s questionable claims that he had declassified everything held at his residence.

But by some measures, the crime of obstruction is a threat to Mr. Trump or his close associates that is as much or even more serious. The version investigators are using, known as Section 1519, was part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, a broad set of reforms enacted in 2002 after financial scandals at companies like Enron, Arthur Andersen and WorldCom.

The heavily redacted affidavit provides new details of the government’s efforts to retrieve and secure the material in Mr. Trump’s possession, highlighting how prosecutors may be pursuing a theory that the former president, his aides or both might have illegally obstructed an effort of well over a year to recover sensitive documents that do not belong to him.

To convict someone of obstruction, prosecutors need to prove two things: that a defendant knowingly concealed or destroyed documents, and that he did so to impede the official work of any federal agency or department. Section 1519’s maximum penalty is 20 years in prison, which is twice as long as the penalty under the Espionage Act.

You know...how much of this could have simply been handled by, I dunno, giving the stuff back?

[Dontrike]

But Trump would literally have had to actively shred the documentation to come close to Hillary.

Do you not know that he not only did that shit constantly, but he also ATE certain ones to hide shit. How do you not know this, what with you being a fan of Trump you'd think you'd know his favorite food is secrets.

You wish to talk about context, but haven't given any impression beyond that you think the FBI is above reproach when given the context of the most recent issue of mishandling of classified documents. I don't elevate them to that degree.

At no point did I say that about the FBI, not sure why you're trying to change topics and lie some more, but it's hilarious that anyone believes you here or with you believing "but Hillary" has not only anything to do with what Trump did, but that is absolves him in any way. Seriously, go look shit up if you not only don't know he tore up documents, and ate some of them, but the shit he's doing here.

[Breccia]

Watched Tucker Carlson for about 30 seconds, not because I couldn't stand it anymore, but because he talked about the affidavit for 10 seconds -- commenting on how redacted it was, which yeah, it was supposed to be -- then turned to a scandal that would have stopped Biden from being elected IF WE HAD ONLY KNOWN!

"What was it?"

Bullshit, most likely. He pivoted really hard off the "Trump is a criminal" story to a deflection. Whatever the story is, it's either false or irrelevant. I give a lottery-winning chance that, not only was there a major criminal action by Biden that would have hurt his chances, but also that somehow Carlson found out about it today when he needed it most. But it adds to the pile of "nobody can defend Trump on the merits" admissions. I'm guessing later in his broadcast he told his viewers that Biden would come for them next or something. I have yet to hear someone say "the warrant was illegal" and then explain why in a non-debunked way. I have heard a fair number of people saying "yes Trump had the documents, but it wasn't a crime" but those cries are dying down now that we know that, yes, it is.

[arandomuser]

nothing like the"america first" nationalist party casually getting our global spy networks systemitcally murdered. im sure republicans will say they were "Deep state" that deserved it anyways.

https://twitter.com/PaulaChertok/sta...43353319550976



https://www.thedailybeast.com/its-ov...icted?ref=home
this has to happen, righties will lose their minds and them and their cop buddies might try and stage a coup, but let them -we need them to act out for america to see their danger, and show the evidence to everyone how bad trump is,

[Corvus]

If, as reported, Trump made handwritten notes on some of the recovered documents, how could they be planted?

[Fugus]

How this guy has managed to fail upwards for 70+ years is beyond me.

Not really when you look at it, he was born into billions and has done nothing but fail and lost money hand over fist his entire time.

His only selling points was he learned to lie and stick to it because that is all you need to do for many people to believe you or at the very least not bother calling you out on it because it wasn’t worth the effort.

Knew one person who was the type to steal your stuff and then help you look for it and even if you caught them in the act they would deny it till the end of time. Just that level of stubborn got them further than you would think with people who just avoid the conflict that goes nowhere and just deals with them in public.

So you have a guy who is nothing but a failure but with such a huge stock pile that he can fail his entire life and still fake like he succeeded to anyone who doesn’t look into his stuff. Quite literally even when he loses all that, he won’t admit he lost even to himself and will just stop thinking the moment it goes to that or will blame others so it isn’t him who lost.

Combine that with massive ambition, that delusional thinking, that thievery, and that amount of money to start with and an entire political party primed to fall for that fake strength and illusion of success by people who were trying to get them to vote against their families best interests and this is where we end up.

If Trumps family only had 500 million when he was born he would be homeless right now. He wouldn’t have been able to keep up the illusion with the level of losses he racked up, especially not long enough to draw the attention of foreign nations who could use him for their benefit as Trump evidently might have been abusing real estate to funnel and launder money for them potentially.

If the GOP hadn’t spent decades lying to their base and making them so afraid of the world and the facts they would have clung onto what they saw as a strong man so much.

If Trump had had even a mediocre intellect to match his money and ambition the US would be goosestepping to him already with many of us silently going to the concentration camps.

If the GOP had an educated voter base, they would have saw though it and laughed him off stage, but that would have required the GOP to actually put forward good policies to keep that base which they don’t want to do. Debated enough of them to see they conditioned themselves to avoid any thoughts or facts that would require they admit they were wrong.

[Breccia]

I've been saying all day, I haven't seen anyone attempt to defend Trump on the merits, and have the authority to speak on it.

And, I kind of still haven't, but there is at least one attempt that could count. Big surprise, it's Alan Dershowitz.

Feel free to read it, but I'll sum up his four parts.

1) There was probable cause for a warrant.
2) But there was no reason to issue one, a subpoena would have worked fine.

Obviously we've talked about this. Trump was asked by the WH multiple times and lied about it. The FBI didn't raid for months after that, during those months, Trump didn't return anything and instead tried to hide it.

3) The spread of the warrant was excessively large, and there was no reason to open the safe.

Earlier reports said they searched three rooms and opened Trump's safe. Now, I had said multiple times, and we now have proof, there was nothing in the safe in Melania's closet. But if you ask a random-ass person "where do you keep your most important stuff" and they have a safe, they're going to say "it's in the safe".

4) There's enough here to indict, but that's a very low bar to set.

Then, Dershowitz brings up Clinton. No, really.

It is precisely because it is so easy to obtain an indictment that prosecutorial discretion is so important. In order to indict a former president who may well be a future presidential candidate, two unofficial political/legal standards must be met: The Richard Nixon standard, which means that the evidence of a serious crime must be so overwhelming that even members of the former president’s own party would support an indictment; and the Hillary Clinton standard, which requires the Justice Department to distinguish Trump’s alleged wrongdoing from Hillary Clinton’s handling of State Department emails that led to a 2016 FBI investigation of her conduct — meaning that Trump’s conduct in this instance must be far more deserving of criminal punishment than Clinton’s.

So...yeah, that's bullshit. He threw in Clinton the way other Trump defenders on these forums have thrown in Clinton: a lame-ass limp-dick attempt to deflect from IMPOTUS. If someone is so clearly guilty that even his own party will convict, that is clearly past this completely made up "Clinton standard" because, well, members of Clinton's party didn't arrest Clinton.

Imagine someone saying "to be pulled over for speeding in a 65MHP zone, you must be doing at least 85MPH, and also, 10 MPH faster than that black guy who wasn't pulled over for speeding even though he was doing 70MPH". That second line adds nothing except demonstrating bias. That's what Dershowitz did.

Now I know you guys, and a lot of you who haven't already drawn the parallel between Clinton and Trump yet will be tempted to do so. Please, don't. There's no point. Even Team Trump has proven they don't really believe it -- it's just a distraction. The only comparison, as Dershowitz has shown us, is between Trump and Nixon.

Is Trump as guilty as Nixon? Is Trump so very guilty, that he'll actually end up arrested -- something Nixon never did?

I will add one more thing: Dershowitz believes the non-redacted affidavit isn't enough to get Trump convicted, therefore, he shouldn't be arrested. Dershowitz, bless him, he's trying so hard to defend Trump, but everyone including he knows full well it's not just the non-redacted parts Trump has to worry about. The non-redacted parts don't even make up the majority of the evidence presented to get the warrant.

For the record, I get the idea of not making an arrest if you know for a fact you'll never get a conviction -- I don't agree with it, but I understand it. I'll also note that, as many of us have already discussed, the case looks pretty objectively bad. The FBI found the documents Trump stole right where they knew they'd be, after Trump said he didn't have them, and there's yet to be no charge made against the warrant at all. Oh look, it's past midnight, time to check on the special master.

Burning a CNN point.

Trump was ordered to submit the filing after US District Judge Aileen Cannon, the Florida judge assigned to his case seeking a special master, identified several shortcomings in his initial Monday request for more oversight for the FBI's review of the evidence seized.

In the new Friday night filing, Trump pointed to some additional legal discussion of case law that he said supported his request. One of those cases had to do with his former attorney Rudy Giuliani. Nowhere in the filing did Trump suggest that material dealing with attorney-client privilege was seized in the FBI's search of his resort.

The new response appeared to fall short of the elaboration Cannon was seeking. Trump did not elaborate on what exactly he hoped a special master -- a third-party attorney -- would filter out, besides general allusions to "privileged and potentially privileged materials."

Only Trump's bigly yuge crack legal team would file a tweet as a legal filing, and when asked to clarify, post a vague Facebook status update.

This is childish. Dershowitz made a point about the warrant possibly being overextended, and Trump's only response is the legal equivalent of shitting your pants on purpose.

It took Team Trump three days to write twelve pages that say nothing. In the filing, Trump makes four requests which, I'm no expert, but seem kinda vague in a legal standpoint.
1) "appointing a Special Master" yes that's the entire thing, no there's no direction, that's all.
2) stopping the DOJ from reading what they collected...um...he knows they've had it for a couple weeks, right?
3) the DOJ must supply an itemized receipt, which they did when the warrant was executed, his lawyer has a copy, we went over this fuckwit
4) the DOJ must return everything they took that wasn't evidence, which, um, yeah, they do that anyhow.

So one vague request, one useless request, and two unnecessary requests. Brilliant!

Give Dershowitz some credit: he may be defending questionable things with questionable excuses, but even that's better than this "dog ate my homework" that Trump turned in.

- - - Updated - - -

I feel there's something else I should add.

Baseball team shuts out pro-life organizations, cancels family night hours before first pitch

This is the top headline on FOX News right now. And, no, it's not MLB. It was the Rocky Mountain Vibes.

That's what it's come to. FOX News has no defense, knows they have no defense, so they're talking about a political stance at a sporting event.

They don't deserve a second chance, but their #2 headline is the affidavit, and they like many have five take-aways. Nothing wrong with that. I particularly like how #2 is "Lots of pages". Yes, that is an exact quote.

Prof. Mark W. Smith, a professor at the Ave Maria School of Law and senior fellow in law and public policy at The King's College told Fox News Digital the length still raises questions.

"The length of the probable cause affidavit is not unprecedented, but it is a bit odd. The more explaining an attorney must do in writing often that translates into a longer legal document and frequently signifies a weaker legal position," he said. "The reference to multiple federal statutes and detailed discussion of confidential designations makes the document look a bit like an educational tool for the public or perhaps for the Florida federal courts."

Or. Or! This wasn't Sheriff Bubba Jo Jimbob Bubba going after Methhead McDrugface. This was the FBI going after a WH evictee. Even when FOX News is desperate, they can't find shit to work with. No wonder it was #2.

[Ursus]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/feds-p...s-inner-circle

A Russian-speaking woman from Ukraine was able to pose as a banking dynasty heiress and infiltrate Mar-a-Lago last year on numerous occasions, including one instance where she played golf with Trump himself.

It seems like Mar-a-Lago is even easier to get into than Trump University was.

[P for Pancetta]

Apparently a Russian spy infiltrated Mar-a-Lago pretending to be from the Rothschild family. Which shows how little the Russians think of Trump since that's a rather easy thing to figure out. Seeing as they're one of the richest and most powerful dynasties on earth right now. Should take a half competent person less then 15 minutes to figure that one out. Ah well.

this is her with Trump and Lindsey Graham
https://newsinteractive.post-gazette...investigation/

They could've googled her name and found out she wasn't who she said she was.

[Paranoid Android]

I'm hearing from people that the documents Trump had in his possession has led to a "troubling amount of informants being captured or killed" This is Trump speak btw, how he always magically had some guy who was whispering the truth.


https://twitter.com/FrankFigliuzzi1/...wmsA2JYbX0KH_w

So this is and could be an incredible story if true. That's why I used the Trump speak above.

[postman1782]

I'm hearing from people that the documents Trump had in his possession has led to a "troubling amount of informants being captured or killed" This is Trump speak btw, how he always magically had some guy who was whispering the truth.


https://twitter.com/FrankFigliuzzi1/...wmsA2JYbX0KH_w

So this is and could be an incredible story if true. That's why I used the Trump speak above.

And now there is another investigation into this. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/0...ments-00054006

Because the Russians visited the Whitehouse the 31st of July in 2019, 3 days later Trump asks for a list of spies strangely on August 3rd. Later that year, spies and informants were dying or being captured.

https://www.salon.com/2019/08/03/tru...spies_partner/

[Paranoid Android]

And now there is another investigation into this. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/0...ments-00054006

Because the Russians visited the Whitehouse the 31st of July in 2019, 3 days later Trump asks for a list of spies strangely on August 3rd. Later that year, spies and informants were dying or being captured.

https://www.salon.com/2019/08/03/tru...spies_partner/

Yeah I saw that also. Chose not to post, but this could be a very important piece of the story if all this starts falling in line.

[DarkTZeratul]

I'm hearing from people that the documents Trump had in his possession has led to a "troubling amount of informants being captured or killed" This is Trump speak btw, how he always magically had some guy who was whispering the truth.

So, as I understand it, this is merely a possibility that's raising some questions. Basically, the CIA revealed that back in October, a shockingly high number of informants were captured, killed, or compromised. Since the documents Trump took to Mar-a-Lago might have included data on such informants, people are suggesting that there might be a link there, either because Trump intentionally revealed the information to our enemies or because Trump incompetently left them unsecured and someone accessed them.

Either way, it's not quite as clearly spelled out as some of the information that's come out, but it's a distinct possibility that's being taken seriously by people in the chain.