Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Kaleredar]

No law against running from Prison. Its been done before.

I imagine that the appeal to non-sycophant Trumpsters will be very small if Trump is actually convicted, even if that acquiesces to real jail time or not.

[postman1782]

No law against running from Prison. Its been done before.

He won't be able to travel the country, he won't be able to televise anything, he won't have the same freedoms he did running in 2016 or 2020.

[Edge-]

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-b2159176.html

Apparently Meadows is handing over more texts and communications now...that he may have intentionally withheld earlier.

Is the National Archives going to be the instigator for bringing down the organized crime that took place in the White House? It's looking like it, which is pretty wild.

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https://www.businessinsider.com/ron-...hortage-2022-9

And Ron Johnson, continuing to be a piece of shit, thinks that seniors need to get off their lazy bums and come out of retirement to fill job vacancies.

Which many are doing out of necessity to begin with. But he's proposing no payroll tax for these seniors, so at least he sorta came up with a new idea for it. Kinda. Not really. But he's trying!

[Breccia]

he's proposing no payroll tax for these seniors

Whaaaaat? The tax cut for the rich wasn't enough? It's almost like, gasp, it didn't go to most working-class people!

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Rep. Jamie Raskin (Ph-D-MD) went on the Sunday talk circuit and said two people basically need to testify: Pence and Ginni Thomas.

Pence, from what we've heard, seems more or less okay with that. It's not like he committed any crimes.

This might be the first time a SCOTUS family member is given a subpoena, should it come to that. It'd be a gutsy move...but no-one is above the law.

[Ursus]

This might be the first time a SCOTUS family member is given a subpoena, should it come to that. It'd be a gutsy move...but no-one is above the law.

Unprecedented times call for unprecedented measures.

[Corvus]

Trump seems to be frothing at the brain even more than usual in his latest rally speech in Pennsylvania. He has called Biden a 'enemy of the state' over the FBI raids. You may be large enough to be a state, but that isn't how it works, fatso.

He also said the raids will lead to "a backlash the likes of which nobody has ever seen". Does that sound like an incitement to violence there?

[Bakis]

I wonder what diagnoses history will give Trump. Its far more than extreme narcissism and hubris.
Maybe someone with knowledge of psychological diagnoses can pop some possible options

[Breccia]

He also said the raids will lead to "a backlash the likes of which nobody has ever seen". Does that sound like an incitement to violence there?

No, he was intentionally vague enough.

Of course, look at what the GOP is saying on the news. There isn't a backlash against Biden. It's more against him.

[gondrin]

Trump, proving for the millionth time he is a whiney bitch, is complaining "That's unfair." then asks "Why haven't they've raided Joe Biden's house?"

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...69fb5723750161

'That’s unfair': Trump complains that the FBI never raided Joe Biden’s house

Donald Trump lashed out at the FBI and President Joe Biden in a post on his Truth Social platform on Labor Day.

The former president claimed that federal agents should have raided Biden’s house over corruption allegations against the president's son.

“So they riffled through the living quarters of my 16 year old son, Barron, and the loved and respected former First Lady of the United States, Melania,” the former president wrote Monday morning, “but, despite proven high crimes and treason, and just plain common theft, all pointed out in the Laptop from Hell (and elsewhere), they never Raided or Broke Into the house of Hunter Biden or, perhaps even more importantly, the house of Joe Biden - A treasure trove! This is a Country that’s unfair and broken. We are truly a Nation in Decline!!!”

On Saturday, Trump branded Biden an "enemy of the state" as he hit back at the US president's assertion that the Republican and his supporters are undermining American democracy, and slammed last month's FBI raid of his Florida home.

On Sunday, Trump insisted he was innocent and was being wrongly targeted by the FBI.

“So much talk, back and forth, including from my many patriotic ‘defenders & supporters,’ about our Federal Government working every seldom (or never used) rule and regulation in order to get and destroy, at any cost, President Donald J. Trump,” he wrote on Truth Social. “Same concepts, anger, and Radical Left maniacs and RINOs who have been working the system of Hoaxes and Scams ever since I came down the ‘golden escalator’ in Trump Tower seven years ago. They also have the same problem, however - I DID NOTHING WRONG!!!”

The Justice Department has said in court filings that highly classified government documents, including some marked "Top Secret," were discovered in Trump's personal office during the raid.

A detailed list of what was seized also showed Trump held on to more than 11,000 unclassified government records that he claims are his to keep -- but legally are owned by the National Archives.

Among the papers seized were 18 documents labelled "top secret", 53 labelled "secret" and another 31 marked "confidential."

Of those, seven top secret files, 17 secret files and three confidential files were retrieved from Trump's private office.

Agents also found several dozen empty folders labelled "classified" in the office, raising speculation that sensitive documents may have been lost, destroyed or moved.

[Breccia]

he is a whiney bitch

Trump not only could have had the FBI raid Hunter and/or other Bidens while he was in the WH, but was elected in no small part based on his promise to prosecute Clinton -- for which he was met with thunderous applause.

There are plenty of terms to describe someone who only complains about the rules when they're being penalized for not following them. "Whiny bitch" is at least in the top ten, probably top three.

[gondrin]

Trump not only could have had the FBI raid Hunter and/or other Bidens while he was in the WH, but was elected in no small part based on his promise to prosecute Clinton -- for which he was met with thunderous applause.

There are plenty of terms to describe someone who only complains about the rules when they're being penalized for not following them. "Whiny bitch" is at least in the top ten, probably top three.

I love how he claims that somehow Biden did "High crimes and treason" and it was on the laptop. Whenever he speaks, projection is the game.

[gondrin]

This is still one of his major talking points, too.

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1566216111179415553

Half of those clips, might as well call Trump "The Ramblin Man".

[Breccia]

This TheAtlantic article and this Republican former House member agree: Biden's address acc--

"Wrong thread."

Nope. Biden's address accomplished what it was supposed to do: bait Trump into being Trump. @gondrin nailed it, too.

Simply put, Trump heard that someone didn't like him and spent what could have been a coherent speech about the direction of this country and how He Alone Could Fix It and instead made it about how thin his skin is, and how much of a whiney bitch he was.

Most Republican candidates don’t want anything to do with Donald Trump in this general election. They want this to be about Joe Biden and the Democrats, but to the extent Trump inserts himself into this conversation, he’s giving the Democrats a major gift right now.

I am not so sure that the Trump did anyone any good with that speech tonight. Just by showing up in Pennsylvania, he is making the election much more about himself.

-- Charles Dent (R-PA, former)

"Why was he even there?"

Backing Dr. Oz.

"...he knows that's a lost cause, right?"

If it wasn't him, it'd be someone else. Maybe Biden intentionally planned for the "Trump is a danger to democracy" speech to be just before his Pennsylvania rally and was designed to sabotage it specifically, as Trump isn't physically travelling much -- he has to buy his ass an extra seat and his ego fills the entire cargo compartment. Poor Kushner has to cling to the wing.

For the 2022 election cycle, smart Republicans had a clear and simple plan: Don’t let the election be about Trump. Make it about gas prices, or crime, or the border, or race, or sex education, or anything—anything but Trump. Trump lost the popular vote in 2016. He lost control of the House in 2018. He lost the presidency in 2020. He lost both Senate seats in Georgia in 2021. Republicans had good reason to dread the havoc he’d create if he joined the fight in 2022.

So they pleaded with Trump to keep out of the 2022 race. A Republican lawmaker in a close contest told CNN on August 19, “I don’t say his name, ever.”

Maybe the pleas were always doomed to fail. Show Trump a spotlight, and he’s going to step into it. But Republicans pinned their hopes on the chance that Trump might muster some self-discipline this one time, some regard for the interests and wishes of his partners and allies.

One of the purposes of Biden’s Philadelphia attack on Trump’s faction within the Republican Party was surely to goad Trump. It worked.

Trump has spent his whole life not just being told how important he is, but also using his wealth and power to crush the people who worked for him and dared to ask to be paid. He's basically a high-level elite in a low-level zone.

Biden is a tank. There's nothing Trump can throw at him that does any damage, but Biden can focus Trump's attacks on himself while the DPS (with and without search warrants) whittle down that orange health bar of his.

But, there's more.

Trump spoke at length about the FBI search of his house for stolen government documents. He lashed out at the FBI, attacking the bureau and the Department of Justice as “vicious monsters.” He complained about the FBI searching his closets for stolen government documents, inadvertently reminding everyone that the FBI had actually found stolen government documents in his closet—and in his bathroom too. Trump called Biden an “enemy of the state.” He abused his party’s leader in the U.S. Senate as someone who “should be ashamed.” He claimed to have won the popular vote in the state of Pennsylvania, which, in fact, he lost by more than 80,000 votes.

The rally format allowed time for only brief remarks by the two candidates actually on the ballot, Oz and Mastriano. Its message was otherwise all Trump, Trump, Trump. A Republican vote is a Trump vote. A Republican vote is a vote to endorse lies about the 2020 presidential election.

On and on it went, in a protracted display of narcissistic injury that was exactly the behavior that Biden’s Philadelphia speech had been designed to elicit.

Here's a question: why doesn't the fish section of your grocery store smell bad? Well, they use ice to keep the fish at a safe temperature. If you smell it, they're spoiling, don't buy it.

Here's a relevant question: why wouldn't this Biden taunting the boss thing work next time? Or the time after that? Or indefinitely? Trump has a long, public history of rising to any perceived challenge to his bigliness, even as the feds walk out of his house with all the top secret information he stole.

Trump is, quite possibly, literally insane. Sociopath, dementia, maybe. Narcisist, definitely. And we all know the definition of insanity, currently displayed by Trump and his big fat Vaas.

[gondrin]

This TheAtlantic article and this Republican former House member agree: Biden's address acc--

"Wrong thread."

Nope. Biden's address accomplished what it was supposed to do: bait Trump into being Trump. @gondrin nailed it, too.

Simply put, Trump heard that someone didn't like him and spent what could have been a coherent speech about the direction of this country and how He Alone Could Fix It and instead made it about how thin his skin is, and how much of a whiney bitch he was.


-- Charles Dent (R-PA, former)

"Why was he even there?"

Backing Dr. Oz.

"...he knows that's a lost cause, right?"

If it wasn't him, it'd be someone else. Maybe Biden intentionally planned for the "Trump is a danger to democracy" speech to be just before his Pennsylvania rally and was designed to sabotage it specifically, as Trump isn't physically travelling much -- he has to buy his ass an extra seat and his ego fills the entire cargo compartment. Poor Kushner has to cling to the wing.



Trump has spent his whole life not just being told how important he is, but also using his wealth and power to crush the people who worked for him and dared to ask to be paid. He's basically a high-level elite in a low-level zone.

Biden is a tank. There's nothing Trump can throw at him that does any damage, but Biden can focus Trump's attacks on himself while the DPS (with and without search warrants) whittle down that orange health bar of his.

But, there's more.



Here's a question: why doesn't the fish section of your grocery store smell bad? Well, they use ice to keep the fish at a safe temperature. If you smell it, they're spoiling, don't buy it.

Here's a relevant question: why wouldn't this Biden taunting the boss thing work next time? Or the time after that? Or indefinitely? Trump has a long, public history of rising to any perceived challenge to his bigliness, even as the feds walk out of his house with all the top secret information he stole.

Trump is, quite possibly, literally insane. Sociopath, dementia, maybe. Narcisist, definitely. And we all know the definition of insanity, currently displayed by Trump and his big fat Vaas.

You know, I think he still thinks Hoover is in control of the FBI as much as he brings up going through Melania's clothes. Maybe he is afraid zombie Hoover was going to tell the agents to steal him some clothes so he can wear them.

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Remember folks, Trump is so attached to his money that he will attempt to pay off bills by giving stuff away to people he owes things to.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...c0b10d3d3b76bb

Trump Attempted To Pay Attorney With Horse, Upcoming Book Says

Reputed attorney-stiffer Donald Trump once tried to pay a lawyer with a horse, according to a new book by The New York Times’ David Enrich.

In a segment of “Servants of the Damned: Giant Law Firms, Donald Trump and the Corruption of Justice” reported Monday by the Guardian, Trump owed $2 million to “a lawyer at a white-shoe firm” in the 1990s.

The lawyer showed up unannounced at Trump Tower to confront Trump.

″‘I’m not going to pay your bill. I’m going to give you something more valuable,’ Trump replied, according to the book, due out later this month. “What on earth is he talking about? the lawyer wondered. ‘I have a stallion,’ Trump continued. ‘It’s worth $5 million.’ Trump rummaged around in a filing cabinet and pulled out what he said was a deed to a horse. He handed it to the lawyer.”

“This isn’t the 1800s. You can’t pay me with a horse,” the stunned attorney replied, threatening to sue.

Trump eventually “eventually coughed up at least a portion of what he owed,” the author wrote.

The colorful anecdote bolsters Trump’s alleged history of shirking attorney fees.

New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman said last week that Trump is having difficulty securing legal help for various probes because attorneys fear they won’t be paid.

He even reportedly failed to pay Rudy Giuliani for millions of dollars of services.

I wonder if he named him Mr. Ed.

[Templar 331]

Remember folks, Trump is so attached to his money that he will attempt to pay off bills by giving stuff away to people he owes things to.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...c0b10d3d3b76bb



I wonder if he named him Mr. Ed.

I thought it said "house" for a second there, but that would have made a little too much sense and had to read it again. What's sad is I don't doubt he paid $5 million for it expecting to make more, but more than likely it's another one of those "the value is what I feel like it should be" kind of things.

[Canpinter]

You know, I think he still thinks Hoover is in control of the FBI as much as he brings up going through Melania's clothes. Maybe he is afraid zombie Hoover was going to tell the agents to steal him some clothes so he can wear them.

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Remember folks, Trump is so attached to his money that he will attempt to pay off bills by giving stuff away to people he owes things to.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...c0b10d3d3b76bb



I wonder if he named him Mr. Ed.

Bet you 20 bucks it was just Don Jr in the back half of a Halloween costume.

[Poopymonster]

Bet you 20 bucks it was just Don Jr in the back half of a Halloween costume.

That would cost $130000 in Trumpland.

[Breccia]

Yet another "defense" of Trump has been squashed, thanks again to Trump's own words and actions. In this case, lack thereof.

One of the many conflicting excuses Trump gave was "They were for my Presidential Library". He claimed he filed that in court, but I'm skeptical.

So here's the thing: name one time, before August of this year, Trump even once mentioned his future library.

1) Because that's their job, NARA set up the site Jan 20, 2021. You'll notice it's a dot-gov site.

The Trump Presidential Library is part of the Presidential Libraries system administered by the National Archives and Records Administration, a federal agency.

Oh, dear. That's bad news for Trump.

Politico points out that Trump probably won't make one, unless it's private, Jan 22, 2021. And WaPo basically told him he shouldn't do either, but definitely not the private one.

None of this, however, means that Trump could actually create a presidential center similar to the one planned for former president Barack Obama, or those dedicated to former presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. As Anthony Clark, author of “The Last Campaign: How Presidents Rewrite History, Run for Posterity & Enshrine Their Legacies,” wrote recently in Politico, it is unlikely that Trump has the focus, administrative savvy and financial resources to execute a presidential center: “Presidential libraries are complicated. And if you understand how they work — and how Trump himself works — it’s nearly impossible to imagine him actually pulling it off,” Clark writes.

But that doesn’t mean that Trump won’t try and that, in trying, cause further damage to the country. That is why Congress should use this moment to reconsider the legislation that helped create and shape the presidential libraries now administered by the National Archives, not just to prevent Trump from perpetrating one last, giant grift, but to reform the system so it serves the country better. This is long overdue, and would need to be done even if Trump weren’t trying to raise $2 billion for a Trump center. But his intention to do so makes this urgent, even an issue of national security.

The case of Trump is exceptional by any standard, and he should be afforded no discretion over his records or any privilege to extend the amount of time before the public can see them. Trump’s 2017 requirement that the National Archives withhold access to his materials until 2033 should be abrogated, and Congress should begin an extraordinary effort to recover as much of his communications legacy as possible, even material that wasn’t deemed “presidential.” Trump’s presidency mixed public and private interests in a way that was unprecedented in modern American history, so his decisions on these matters can’t be trusted. He incited an insurrection, and many of the people who may have participated in that, including members of Congress, are still actively engaged in public life. The need to know who they are and what they did isn’t just a matter for the FBI, the Justice Department and prosecutors.

As Clark points out, Congress has intervened before in an exceptional presidential records case. A little more than four months after Richard Nixon was forced from office in disgrace, President Gerald Ford signed the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act, which gave the government direct custody over Nixon’s records to prevent their destruction. It wasn’t just that Congress didn’t trust Nixon, it also felt “the need to provide the public with the full truth, at the earliest reasonable date, of the abuses of governmental power popularly identified under the generic term ‘Watergate,’ ” according to the law’s text.

That WaPo article was published Jan 28, 2021. And, wow, the author has to feel like Nostradamus right now.

In other words, it was common knowledge that, no, you can't steal things from the WH to make your own private library.

2) By April 2021, Trump had already shown that he wasn't interested in making a library.

3) And there were rumors it was going to be a theme park.

4) Palm Beach didn't want one.

But you know what I didn't find? Any statement from Trump, other than early vagueness about $2 billion that, HAHAHAHA, no he doesn't have $2 billion, and those stopped Jan 28th. Since then, until the FBI came calling, he's said either zero or essentially zero.

Well, not in public. From the NBC News article I cited first:

Advisers describe discussions about a Trump presidential library over the years as off and on. One ex-adviser recalled looking at Florida property maps during meetings in the small White House dining room near the Oval Office. A longtime Trump adviser said that Trump allies were “scouting locations” in the Palm Beach area, home to Mar-a-Lago. (A joke among those involved in the planning was that they would put the library in Greenland, the island that Trump entertained buying midway through his term, one person close to him said.)

Another person close to Trump who spoke briefly to him about a library earlier this year said, “He didn’t seem terribly interested. He wasn’t like, ‘I gotta get my library going.’ He’s more interested in being president again.”

One Trump confidant, who, as was the case with others, spoke on condition of anonymity to speak more freely, added: “Presidential libraries are for ex-presidents. He’s a next president. He’s coming back.”

But other than those people who were not just confidential, but possibly joking, Trump has said nothing on the subject since losing the election. Did I miss it? Maybe one of our local Trump supporters can find where Trump said, in public, he was still going to make a library, because other than a few knockoff tweets after the FBI kicked down his door, he's said nothing for 18 months at least that I can find.

There are so many reasons why the "library" excuse is fat orange bullshit.

One, if he was going to win again, why didn't he just leave everything behind? He would be able to get it later, right?

Two, let's do the math. Presidential records get sealed for five years minimum. Right now, Trump won't see them published until 2026 at the earliest. If he had won in 2020, that'd push back to 2029. If he wins in 2024, God help us, but if the country survives somehow, then 2033.

When he'd be 88.

The best way to get his legacy into a library, while he's still alive to see it, was to lose the election and start right away. Well, he's halfway there.

Three, if you really wanted to make a library, why were 10,000 random things thrown into boxes in a basement for 18 months?

Four, the total number of boxes handed over seems to be in the 45-range. I doubt every single one of them was 100% filled to the brim, but let's pretend it was. How big of a library can you make with 45 banker's boxes full of materials? I hypothesize "not a very bigly one, not very yuge".

And of course, the answer to "can you just take WH documents to use in your own private display case?" remains "no, that shit's illegal". The fact that Trump may, at one point within a week after losing the election fairly and legally, suggested having a $2 billion library, doesn't change that. He's free to build whatever building he wants, put whatever books he can buy in it, and therefore ensure that the items only show him in a positive viewpoint. But he can't take government property to do that. At best, he could have asked them to lend him the material, which in turn, brings up

Trump lawyer compares keeping classified documents at Mar-a-Lago to not returning 'an overdue library book'

Oddly enough, if Trump had done things the correct way, this statement would have a point. The National Archives does lend stuff out to former Presidents like Obama. Loan. Libraries don't give you books to keep forever. If you get a library membership, check a book out, and don't bring it back on time, yes, that's against the rules and a minor fine. If you just take the book and leave, that's still stealing.

There is nothing useful for Trump that backs up the Sudden Library defense, other than as listed, maybe a couple of people scouting locations one weekend. And, even if he was really making a library, the materials the FBI returned to their rightful owner wouldn't have been his.

EDIT: Adding a bit more, because paywall.

Robert Clark, a former National Archives official at the Franklin D. Roosevelt library in Hyde Park, New York, said every president was entitled to build a library.

“But there is a process. He can’t just store the stuff in his garage until the library gets built. That’s not how it works,” Clark said.

One of Trump’s worries was that a library would end up showing material that painted him in an unflattering light, said a former senior White House official. He wanted some control over what the library would contain, the source added.

Modern presidential libraries have two main components: a trove of presidential records overseen by the National Archives, and a museum open to the public. Ex-presidents aren’t supposed to control the records that the library collects.

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Second judge in the case: I authorize a "special master".

DOJ: Sure, whatever. We already separated it out for you. Take your time, we weren't going to arrest him until after the 2022 election anyhow.

EDIT: Oh sorry, I should add, the judge specifically cites that Trump told the court the FBI took medical records, and would like those back please. I mean, if Trump shoved random shit all in the same box, that's on him, but yes, he should probably get those back.

The judge also called out Trump's childish court filings, but basically said "just because the motion was written like a fourth grader on a sugar rush doesn't automatically kick it out of court".

Trump is getting some of what he asked for, but this isn't going to help him. The stuff he stole isn't coming back, and it's still objective evidence of his crimes. Yes, he should get his passport(s) and medical bills back, I think we're all agreed on that. This will just get them back sooner.

EDIT EDIT: The judge goes onto suggest the filter team's efficiency is questionable, because some of the FBI saw potentially privileged material before the filter team did. Again, that's Trump's fault for throwing everything together. It really reads like the judge was searching for reasons to grant this completely inconsequential request, possibly because it was inconsequential, and she didn't want even the suggestion of malice involved.

[CastletonSnob]

IMO, Democrats should be investigating DeVos, the Thomases, and the Kochs. Hold these people accountable for what they've done.

[Breccia]

IMO, Democrats should be investigating DeVos, the Thomases, and the Kochs.

There needs to be probable cause of a crime. I don't think we've seen that.