1. #80861
    Quote Originally Posted by Breccia View Post
    I called the Mar-a-Lago not a warning shot, but the starter's pistol, and I might have been even accidentally right at this point.
    Nah, the starter’s pistol will forever be @Skroe getting perma banned. I’m sure he’s drinking some whiskey and laughing through all of this.

  2. #80862
    Quote Originally Posted by Paranoid Android View Post
    https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1...5KPmKxpRQ&s=19

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

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

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



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

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

  3. #80863
    Banned cubby's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Breccia View Post
    [S]everal members of his legal team are likely going to jail and/or being disbarred. Cohen and Giuliani are likely doing color commentary on the "who is next" list, while Ty Cobb sips a mint julep and smiles knowingly.

    But all is not lost! Six years, six entire years, and finally we see not just a hint, but proof, of a competent legal mind in Trump's entourage.
    Kise seems too good at this shit to accept anything other than a large pile of cash up-front from Trump. Whether he is a cultist or just wants fame and fortune, there's "I have faith in the process" and there's "I just got fired for taking on an objectively guilty client".

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

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

    Incidentally, Kise's cunning goes further. He left his old law firm to start his own, possibly (as we've seen) because lawyers who don't do that tend to be thrown out of their own firms.
    Kise is making a yuge money grab for himself, and he's doing it brilliantly. By leaving his old firm and starting a new one, the entirety of the $3MM fee will be his, rather than being divvied up amongst his partners. He can farm out the busy work to a few associates, and keep most of it himself.

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

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

  4. #80864
    And Trump is the sort of client that would hold back the retainer.

    Trump is so short on lawyers willing to represent him that a lawyer can say "you will pay me 3mil upfront and take my word that I will try my best" and Trump has to take it.
    It ignores such insignificant forces as time, entropy, and death

  5. #80865
    Void Lord Breccia's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by cubby View Post
    By leaving his old firm and starting a new one, the entirety of the $3MM fee will be his
    That's an aspect I hadn't even considered. I just assumed he left because his old firm didn't want the shit smeared on their walls.

    Quote Originally Posted by Gorsameth View Post
    And Trump is the sort of client that would hold back the retainer.
    I get why Trump would only pay for results -- the motive makes sense. It's worked so well for him for so long, he held back the paychecks for people who did give results.

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

    Eat your fucking vegetables, fatso.

  6. #80866
    The Lightbringer tehdang's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Breccia View Post
    And yet, you spent the last ten days doing nothing but pushing incorrect stories about how it was major in the first place. You even continue to bring it up as if it's relevant or important in the literal very next line you write.
    Mainly it was correcting replies to me about the legal precedent concerned. I never made this out to be more than DoJ/FBI errors in the process of their investigation.

    By the way, Trump still hasn't taken the stand or signed anything that hit court, so, everything you've argued is still as incorrect
    The DoJ never needed Trump on the stand to screw up their performance in the investigatory steps (possibly) leading up to that. It was an error.

    Quote Originally Posted by Dontrike View Post
    Because you haven't been asking honest questions, you've been constantly saying that Trump is innocent and the FBI are evil while at the same time trying to bring up Hillary as though she mattered.
    Never said Trump was innocent. To frame it in your terms, you and others haven't been giving honest responses. It's always been garbage attempts to frame any criticism of DOJ mistakes as some full-throated defense of Trump. You'd be quoting back to me my responses and what I was responding to if you actually believed what you wrote.
    "I wish it need not have happened in my time." "So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."

  7. #80867
    Quote Originally Posted by tehdang View Post
    Mainly it was correcting replies to me about the legal precedent concerned. I never made this out to be more than DoJ/FBI errors in the process of their investigation.

    The DoJ never needed Trump on the stand to screw up their performance in the investigatory steps (possibly) leading up to that. It was an error.

    Never said Trump was innocent. To frame it in your terms, you and others haven't been giving honest responses. It's always been garbage attempts to frame any criticism of DOJ mistakes as some full-throated defense of Trump. You'd be quoting back to me my responses and what I was responding to if you actually believed what you wrote.
    But you didn't correct anything, you lied. Trump doesn't have any executive privilege, only the sitting president does.

  8. #80868
    Void Lord Breccia's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by tehdang View Post
    Mainly it was--
    Handwaved. You have proven you don't want to be taken seriously as a poster. Stop acting to be treated as such when you've demonstrated you have neither earned it nor want it.

    On-topic: Trump claims he invented the word "caravan", played the QAnon theme song at his rally, and commits crimes against his own followers.

    Glenn Kirschner said on Sunday that ex-President Donald Trump has committed "crimes against" his supporters who continue to defend him despite his continuous actions that some critics deem controversial.

    During an episode of his show Justice Matters that was posted on YouTube, Kirschner spoke about Trump's Save America PAC which recently reportedly paid $3 million as a retainer to cover the legal fees of Chris Kise, a new lawyer hired for the former president, according to CNN.

    The former federal prosecutor said that Trump's supporters don't have an "influential" and connected criminal defense lawyer, "so they're being indicted, tried, convicted and imprisoned, while presumably some of them continue to send the few dollars they have to Donald Trump's Save America PAC so he can do what? so he can take their money and pay his own criminal defense attorney."
    We've spoken about this before. Using PAC money on his own personal defense, while it's being investigated, is a bold move, and one you think Trump wouldn't risk. Yes I know he hates paying for things, and if he's arrested the PAC money could have an entirely different set of peoblems, and if he's convicted then the SEC investigation isn't the worst thing. But this still feels like fleeing from the cops by setting a building on fire. It's not really helping.

    EDIT: Shit, hit submit before I was done.

    Okay, so Trump paying Kise from his PAC for this defense must be legal, despite Trump not running. He's doing it and it's public, and nobody's slammed down on him. So either there's a grace period, or a PAC can be used to pay for a wider spread of options than I thought. I don't get how Trump is allowed to do this, but spending PAC money on himself and keeping it isn't exactly new here.
    Last edited by Breccia; 2022-09-18 at 11:34 PM.

  9. #80869
    Trump’s favorability rating drops to new low: poll

    A new NBC News poll released Sunday found that 34 percent of registered voters said they have a positive view of Trump, while 54 percent say they have a negative view of him. Trump’s favorability rating was at its lowest in April 2021, when his rating fell to 32 percent in the same NBC poll.

    The former president’s favorability score is down slightly since last month, with the same 54 percent saying they have a negative view of Trump, but 36 percent saying they had a positive view of him.

  10. #80870
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    Quote Originally Posted by Breccia View Post

    Okay, so Trump paying Kise from his PAC for this defense must be legal, despite Trump not running. He's doing it and it's public, and nobody's slammed down on him. So either there's a grace period, or a PAC can be used to pay for a wider spread of options than I thought. I don't get how Trump is allowed to do this, but spending PAC money on himself and keeping it isn't exactly new here.
    Could be it is illegal. And they are waiting for the perfect moment nail him about the money, potentially seizing it or returning it to donors. Probably right before it hits Kise's bank account.
    Which leads to a high power lawyer being stiffed, suing Trump, and having all the information on Trump. Discovery had best match exactly what Kise was aware of, and not one page less.

    Who would take his case? "I need you to defend me."
    Why?
    "I didn't pay my lawyer and he's suing me."
    ...payment up front.
    "Trust me, I'll pay you right after we win the case."
    ....
    Quote Originally Posted by Crissi View Post
    Quit using other posters as levels of crazy. That is not ok


    If you look, you can see the straw man walking a red herring up a slippery slope coming to join this conversation.

  11. #80871
    Trump claims during Ohio cult rally with Qtards that he got 200 million votes in 2020.

    'I really believe it's 200 million people we're talking about, not the 75 million, which is a record in the history of our country for a sitting president,' Trump told supporters after accusing the Biden administration of weaponizing the Justice Department when the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago. 'Not the 75 million people that voted - I think it's a lot more than that.'
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ally-Ohio.html

    LOL, how stupid do you feel now JD Vance? Trump was literally making fun of him for kissing Trump's ass about the nominations.

  12. #80872
    Quote Originally Posted by Paranoid Android View Post
    Oh goodness I'm down the rabbit hole.

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

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




    Alright, here is the thing. These people are effin losers! No matter what this is, where, who and why are you all getting together to throw up some symbol for unity of Trump I guess. Jeez this is such a cult. Some sewer type shit, where they are on Facebook, reddit, 4chan, whatever to come up with the next salute or praise of their god, emperor. Losers!
    Not seeing anything nazi-esque there, nope. Not at all.

    Has anyone told them the one finger salute was an ISIS thing before they started doing it?

  13. #80873
    Void Lord Breccia's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Corvus View Post
    Has anyone told them the one finger salute was an ISIS thing before they started doing it?
    To be fair, they've probably gotten more than a few one-finger hand signals for some time.

  14. #80874
    The Lightbringer tehdang's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by postman1782 View Post
    But you didn't correct anything, you lied. Trump doesn't have any executive privilege, only the sitting president does.
    The Supreme Court disagrees with you, bud. I already asked you if you think Nixon was never president, or if he was still president in 1977, and you refused to answer either question.

    Quote Originally Posted by Breccia View Post
    You have proven you don't want ...
    you have neither earned it nor want ...
    I never sought to prove myself to your satisfaction, or any other poster here. I'd find something very wrong if, after confusing the issues at play, refuting arguments I never made, and dispelling claims from Trump, you managed to correctly ascertain I'm serious and honest in showing DOJ mis-steps in their investigative process.
    "I wish it need not have happened in my time." "So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."

  15. #80875
    Quote Originally Posted by tehdang View Post
    Never said Trump was innocent.
    In those words? No, you haven't, and you are correct. Unfortunately, by you consistently saying it was okay for Trump to steal secrets, keep them, and then bitch about the FBI going to get them and going after a criminal you have in fact alluded to Trump being innocent again and again. You're not fooling anyone with this "no I didn't," bit when there is weeks of you orange knighting for Trump.

    To frame it in your terms, you and others haven't been giving honest responses.
    Might be because you've been lying for weeks. You don't need Scooby Doo to solve that mystery.

    It's always been garbage attempts to frame any criticism of DOJ
    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA "criticism" AAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAH. I love you've deluded yourself into believing that's what you're doing.

    mistakes as some full-throated defense of Trump. You'd be quoting back to me my responses and what I was responding to if you actually believed what you wrote.
    When you spend weeks defending Trump by bringing up Hillary, as though it absolves him, and at no point have answered the questions of "Why he had them", "Why stole them", and "Why he continued to keep them," it shows you are not arguing in good faith and why no one is willing to put up with your bullshit.

    You have yet to question anything about Trump and yet seem to question literally every other person involved that isn't him or someone on his side. You want better responses? Then stop lying and stop shilling for the orange racist.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by tehdang View Post
    I never sought to prove myself to your satisfaction, or any other poster here.
    Nor have you sought to speak the truth, you forgot that one.

    Dontrike/Shadow Priest/Black Cell Faction Friend Code - 5172-0967-3866

  16. #80876
    Quote Originally Posted by tehdang View Post
    The Supreme Court disagrees with you, bud. I already asked you if you think Nixon was never president, or if he was still president in 1977, and you refused to answer either question.

    I never sought to prove myself to your satisfaction, or any other poster here. I'd find something very wrong if, after confusing the issues at play, refuting arguments I never made, and dispelling claims from Trump, you managed to correctly ascertain I'm serious and honest in showing DOJ mis-steps in their investigative process.
    No, the supreme court actually doesn't disagree with me. I literally linked you the fucking case that Trump doesn't have fucking executive privilege. They said as much literally this fucking year.

  17. #80877
    Void Lord Breccia's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by tehdang View Post
    I never sought--
    Handwaved. You spent 11 days posting on something irrelevant. Wake me when Trump says "privilege" on the stand, otherwise you chosen to contribute nothing.

    On topic: the indictment of Trump may be unavoidable, since not even shrills of "privilege" from the cultists who follow him change the issue here. His looming arrest and @Shadowferal limp, drooping poll numbers are already hurting the GOP's 2022 chances. Even Biden is now opely commenting, something he's been cautious about.

    I thought, what data was in there that may compromise sources and methods? And by that, I mean, names of people who help etc., and it's just totally irresponsible.
    -- the current and legal US President Joe Biden

    Biden is getting a poll bump, from Trump. Trump continues to make 2022 and in theory 2024 all about him, while he's surrounded by fewer and fewer allies and more and more criminal investigations.

    But it's not just Trump having a bad day.

    Alex Jones' texts reveal he cyberstalked his ex-wife.

    The texts describe extensive surveillance during his multi-year custody battle with his ex-wife Kelly Jones — including information on her activities and whereabouts, three people familiar with the matter tell Rolling Stone. One of the sources says the pundit’s ex-wife was being monitored by a ragtag “spy ring” of human intelligence.

    “Alex is obsessed with me, has had me followed for years, has done everything to infringe on my liberties and personal freedom to impose himself into my life,” Kelly Jones says. “My life is a gauntlet of waiting for his next nefarious or disingenuous or overtly threatening move. I’m not surprised to find out that he’s engaged in this activity. I would really like to find out the extent to which this has occurred, [and] if it’s even legal.”

    According to another of the sources, the texts reveal Alex Jones’ snooping habits extend to his current marriage. Jones’ phone, the source said, indicated he has been tracking his current wife, Erika Wulff Jones, until 2020, and possibly beyond. The texts reveal Alex Jones had enlisted Tim Enlow, a former Blackwater mercenary on his security detail, to track his wife. In the texts, Alex Jones would repeatedly check in for updates on Wullff Jones’ location. Enlow’s responses included screenshots of a GPS phone app that he said was tracking her car, as well as Enlow’s own descriptions of her physical location, according to the source.
    Meanwhile, a new book details how Giuliani went from the 9/11 hero to a skull-melting stooge.

    Trump’s 2016 victory gave Giuliani sway with the most important person on the planet: the president of the United States. The same spaghetti-on-the-wall strategy Giuliani had deployed against Clinton he now aimed in the general direction of the Biden family, trying to build a case of corruption out of Ukraine, where Joe Biden’s son Hunter had business interests. Rather than get his client Trump reelected, Giuliani helped get him impeached.

    And still, people believed.

    In Tampa, 38-year-old crane operator Paul Hodgkins watched a televised news conference in late 2020 in which Giuliani claimed the election had been stolen from Trump. As Giuliani spoke, what appeared to be dark hair dye oozed down the side of his face. Hodgkins thought Giuliani was not someone who would make something up or “chase fairy tales.”

    By then, Giuliani had been publicly chasing fairies and goblins for the better part of four years. But Hodgkins still believed in America’s Mayor, so he went to Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, took part in the pro-Trump riot and was sent to jail.

  18. #80878
    Quote Originally Posted by tehdang View Post
    The Supreme Court disagrees with you, bud. I already asked you if you think Nixon was never president, or if he was still president in 1977, and you refused to answer either question.
    Keep telling yourself that. They don't. The case cited doesn't say what you're saying it does. I ignored your bullshit the first time because this reading is absurd on its face, and the judge has been lambasted up and down over it. It's just amazing you're spewing this bullshit still.

    Relevant: None of the classified material is trump's property, by definition. The PRA gives archivists the right to review all the material trump would have any shred of claim towards, which, again, is none. From the case:

    the claims of Presidential privilege must yield to the important congressional purposes of preserving appellant's Presidential materials and maintaining access to them for lawful governmental and historical purposes.
    Investigating crimes is one of the duties the executive is charged with.

    Again, from the case:

    While he has a legitimate expectation of privacy in his personal communications, the constitutionality of the Act must be viewed in the context of the limited intrusion of the screening process, of appellant's status as a public figure, his lack of expectation of privacy in the overwhelming majority of the materials (he having conceded that he saw no more than 200,000 items), and the virtual impossibility of segregating the apparently small quantity of private materials without comprehensive screening.
    This, again, reinforces the executives right to access the materials.

    Again:
    His First Amendment claim is clearly outweighed by the compelling governmental interests promoted by the Act in preserving the materials. Since archival screening is the least restrictive means of identifying the materials to be returned to appellant, the burden of that screening is the measure of the First Amendment claim, and any such burden is speculative in light of the Act's provisions protecting appellant from improper public disclosures
    Investigating crime is a compelling gov't interest, and improper public disclosure isn't an issue.

    It can best be summed up in the heading paragraph of the case though:

    The Act's regulation of the Executive Branch's function in the control of the disposition of Presidential materials does not, in itself, violate such principle, since the Executive Branch became a party to the Act's regulation when President Ford signed the Act into law and President Carter's administration, acting through the Solicitor General, urged affirmance of the District Court's judgment. Moreover, the function remains in the Executive Branch in the person of the GSA Administrator and the Government archivists, employees of that branch.

    This is why the judge was getting roasted. She's full of shit, the case she cited doesn't support her at all, and you bringing it up as some "wowee I'm right" just lets everyone know how much shit you're full of. To the gills is an understatement. The clear reading of the case directly contradicts you:

    The mere screening of the materials by Government archivists, who have previously performed the identical task for other former Presidents without any suggestion that such activity in any way interfered with executive confidentiality, will not impermissibly interfere with candid communication of views by Presidential advisers, and will be no more of an intrusion into Presidential confidentiality than the in camera inspection by the District Court approved in United States v. Nixon
    It's a joke. The criminal case, US v Nixon allowed them to view coms between the prez's advisors and the prez.
    Quote Originally Posted by Rudol Von Stroheim View Post
    I do not need to play the role of "holier than thou". I'm above that..

  19. #80879
    Void Lord Breccia's Avatar
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    This article reads like the Darth Vader redemption arc, only in Trumpian terms. The author was at FOX News until 2019.

    In the article, which I will briefly summarize but is worth a real read, the author says "I voted for Trump twice and I regret my decision".

    For the first year after the Jan. 6 insurrection, I was in the camp of, "Yeah, it was bad but it's being overblown." Then I began to look at the event more objectively, started to learn more about how many of the participants were radicalized, and continued to witness Trump traumatize the nation with his stolen election lies. I say — with no qualms and no fear of being hyperbolic — that Trump is the most politically traumatizing figure in American history. His "rigged and stolen election" is the new version of the Confederacy's "Lost Cause."
    For those of you not familiar with the term, "Lost Cause" could easily be described by that context alone. More info here, but a better description is this Family Guy scene. Basically, the South said "we'll accept that we lost, but not that anything we did was wrong, or that our actions led to these consequences, also we still want to own and murder black people".

    Basically, "Lost Cause" is "the Civil War wasn't about slavery, it was Northern Oppression".

    A Big Lie.

    The honouring and near sainthood of Lee began early, right after his death in 1870. Many of his former officers fashioned a history of the war that made Lee a nearly infallible warrior betrayed by lesser subordinates.
    Sound eerily familiar? If you can't place the reference, try again after a cup of covfefe.

    The article needs to be joined. The author left the Republican Party, as have others. We need to see more of that. More people saying "we draw the line at treason". I would say they should have drawn the line before that...but that Atlanta has been burned.

    But there's more.

    In my view, the Democratic Party is relatively healthy, although it has two major blind spots: It takes for granted many historically Democratic voting blocs — such as religious minorities, LGBTQ citizens and Black and Latino voters — and it almost entirely ignores rural America. In contrast, the Republican Party is terminally ill, and its leadership knows that; that's why they have staked a path forward that is, well, backward, with increased emphasis on everything male/Caucasian/Christian and heterosexual.
    Yeah I know this is rich coming from a Biden supporter, but question "Name one prominent Republican who isn't old, white, at least claims to be hetero, and rich". DeSantis comes to mind, because he's not old. Next behind him...are Gaetz, Greene, increasingly Stefanik that whore, and other devoted Trump cultists. (DeSantis isn't devoted, he's not insane, he just wants the devoted's votes and money)

    The Republican Party took a step they even warned themselves about in 2016, and now, its the poison they shot up is rotting through their skin. It's time to amputate the limb.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Edge- View Post
    Yo, was anybody working for Trump not an unregistered foreign agent?
    UPDATE: Trump confidant Thomas Barrack faces trial for allegedly acting as foreign agent

    Federal prosecutors say Barrack, who served as a Trump campaign adviser and chair of Trump's inaugural committee, tried to leverage his influence to advance the UAE's interests. Barrack has been out on $250 million bond since soon after his July 2021 arrest, when he was charged with acting as an undisclosed foreign agent for the UAE, obstruction of justice and making false statements to the FBI about his dealings.
    I believe the $250 million bail is already pretty telling about how serious these charges are.

    Prosecutors said in Barrack's indictment that he used his close friendship and insider access to try to sway Trump's foreign policy positions during the 2016 presidential campaign and in the early years of the Trump administration.

    Speaking at the 2016 Republican National Convention, Barrack described Trump as "one of my closest friends for 40 years." After the 2016 election, he was a frequent visitor to the Trump White House, often offering the president advice on Middle East affairs.

    Barrack is accused of trying to fulfill a UAE "wish list" of U.S. foreign policy positions in the first two years of the Trump administration. The indictment cites text messages and emails
    (sighs)

    Look, I'm not upset or worried or anything when a criminal leave evidence that lets him get not just caught but convicted. The issue isn't that they got caught. The issue is how brazenly they went about doing so. If I, for even God doesn't know what reason, wanted to say "I need to pay a woman for sexual intercourse, but I don't have $130,000 do you have someone less expensive, maybe on the Stefanik level?" you can be damn well sure I wouldn't use my work email, my private email, or my own fucking phone. Because I know what I'd be doing was illegal, and I wouldn't want to get caught. I don't think these people are necessarily all that stupid, Trump maybe the rest are questionable. They just don't think the rules apply to them. The Alex Jones idea, that it's suddenly unheard of for a cop to take your phone as evidence. It's not unheard of. You just didn't think it would happen to you.

    in which Al Malik, an Emirati citizen then living in California, allegedly texted Barrack proposed language for a speech sent by a UAE official. In another exchange, prosecutors said Barrack emailed Al Malik about a TV interview he had done.

    The charge of working as an undisclosed foreign agent has for decades been used in cases involving espionage
    Ain't that topical.

    said attorney Antonia Apps, a former federal prosecutor.

    "What's interesting about the Barrack case is that it seems that it's much closer to conduct that looks more like lobbying on behalf of a client, the United Arab Emirates," said Apps, a partner at the Milbank law firm. "Lobbying Donald Trump by using your connections."

    Apps said the Barrack case is indicative of a shift in Justice Department behavior with regard to the foreign agent law.

    "It's pretty much the second time the government has focused on conduct that resembles lobbying on behalf of a foreign government," Apps said, citing the case of Bijan Rafiekian, who was accused of acting as an unregistered foreign agent for Turkey during Trump's 2016 campaign. Rafiekian's 2019 conviction was vacated by the trial judge, and a new trial was ordered.

    In another recent case involving the law, Russian Maria Butina pleaded guilty in 2018 to being an unregistered foreign agent. Prosecutors said she was a "covert Russian agent" who infiltrated several prominent Republican-aligned groups and "the US national decision-making apparatus to advance the agenda of the Russian Federation."

    In the Barrack case, prosecutors said Al Malik attended the 2016 presidential inauguration as Barrack's guest. Soon after, prosecutors say Grimes, who was an executive at Barrack's company, texted Al Malik that they could "take credit" for setting up a phone call between the new president and a senior UAE official.

    Barrack is accused of lying to FBI agents multiple times during a voluntary interview in June 2019, including about efforts to connect two UAE officials with Trump after the 2016 election.
    Barrack, who I swear is trying to hide from MMO-C and Google searches with that name hiding behind (a) Obama (b) where Russian soldiers sleep, is going with the defense of "I never signed a contract with the UAE" which is a lot like me saying "Yeah I killed that hooker, but nobody paid me to kill that hooker, so it's not really murder, I just wanted to save $130,000"

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Shadowferal View Post
    A new NBC News poll released Sunday found that 34 percent of registered voters said they have a positive view of Trump, while 54 percent say they have a negative view of him. Trump’s favorability rating was at its lowest in April 2021, when his rating fell to 32 percent in the same NBC poll.
    UPDATE: Hold my beer.

    The share of Republicans who choose loyalty to former President Donald Trump over the Republican Party has dropped to its lowest level since the NBC News poll began asking about it [EDITOR: Jan 2021], according to new numbers from the survey.

    Just 33% of registered Republican voters in the new poll view themselves more a "supporter of Donald Trump" over the Republican Party. By comparison, 58% say they view themselves as a "supporter of the Republican Party." Just 3% say both and 4% say neither.

    The share of those supporting Trump primarily is slightly below the previous low, a 34% mark from a May 2022 poll of Republican adults. Trump's loyalty among registered Republicans has been as high as 54% in the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll from late October of 2020.
    We've talked about this on these forums, too.

    Q: What do you call someone who supported Trump every step of the way, and only backed away when they failed?
    A: A Trump supporter.

    We've all predicted this, that people were going to slowly back away and pretend like they never supported Trump. Some, at least, will admit they made a mistake and try to learn from it -- I just posted an OP ED of that type. Those who voted to overthrow law and order and the American government, only to slink into the shadows afterwards hoping they wouldn't be seen? Yeah, it's better than continuing trying to overthrow democracy, but remorse for your actions doesn't make you not guilty. It just lessens your sentence if you plead out.

  20. #80880
    https://www.businessinsider.com/hr-m...nt-book-2022-9

    Per another forthcoming book - man the Trump administration is great for writers, more books about that administration already than I think we've had about Obama's 8 years but I digress - H.R. McMcaster, former national security advisor to Trump, was so worried that Rudy Giuliani was acting as an agent for a foreign government that he ensured he was present whenever Giuliani visited the Oval Office.

    And according to "The Divider," McMaster, who succeeded Flynn as a national security advisor, told people he was "so concerned about Trump's friend Rudy Giuliani acting as an 'influence agent' on behalf of Turkish or other interests that he had a policy of making sure he was in the Oval Office whenever the former New York mayor visited."
    From "America's Mayor", loved around the world and celebrated, to an old conspiracy theorist nutter with bad teeth, bad spray-on-hair coloring that runs when he sweats (which is often), and a guy repeatedly suspected of acting as an agent of foreign governments and, essentially, a national security risk.

    It seems the arc of even many previously "decent" Republicans ends in the Trump swamp.

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