Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Huehuecoyotl]

On topic: Donald Trump claims Bill Clinton ‘lost’ the nuclear codes in Truth Social post.

I don't feel that requires any further commentary.

Remember; everything with these guys is projection. Is Trump telling us there was a point during his presidency where he lost the nuclear codes? Even for a short while?

The fact that feels entirely plausible tells its own story.

[Breccia]

Hmm, haven't checked in on DWAC in a while.

Truth Social SPAC again delays shareholder vote

Ah. Dropped from $17 to $16 on that announcement yesterday.

A former company executive reportedly filed a whistleblower complaint with federal securities regulators in August, and it remains unable to access hundreds of millions of dollars tied to a prospective merger with a blank check acquisition company.

The company doesn't currently generate any revenue, and has said it only has enough cash to last through next spring.

Shareholders of the blank check company, Digital World Acquisition Corp., have been asked to approve a one-year extension to their merger. The original vote already fell short, and DWAC's sponsor continues to beg for votes ahead of a new November 3 deadline.

"Whoa whoa whoa, they're looking at a billion-dollar price tag. How do they not have enough operational cash for a few shareholder votes?"

DWAC is an SPAC, IIRC FWOW, OK? Barring special procedures, every single dollar of original investment must be returned to the investors if the deal falls apart. Two special procedures I've mentioned before include
a) this option which

The Financial Times reported Tuesday that DWAC Chief Executive Patrick Orlando is negotiating with investors who said they would back the company through a private investment in public equity, or PIPE, deal.

The PIPE investors are hoping to bring down the minimum conversion price for their preferred stock from $10 to as low as $2, the FT reported, citing a person involved in the talks. That would boost their potential profit on the deal, even in the worst case scenario, as it would give the investors more shares and dilute other shareholders’ stakes – including Trump’s.

b) and special votes to pump in special money to pay operational expenses

So the idea seems to be, DWAC announces their opening investment, people give them money, that money goes into a trust, and they are given founder shares for their money. Once the stock hits the NYSE it's basically out of DWAC's hands, but they still have that trust money in case the deal falls through, so they can buy the stocks back. Honestly I'm not sure all the details. But as

Trump-linked SPAC changes address to UPS store as investments pulled

As of Friday, DWAC had lost $138.5 million of its $1 billion in private financing.

shows, investors are not locked in. But the $1 billion buyout is still in the contract. Investors leaving doesn't change that. And new investors are not likely to arrive, either. CyberTrump 2077 said they'd have 50+ million users by 2024. I don't know how many they have, someone should call Elon Musk who could yell "bots, I'm suing, bots!" at the camera, but we do know Trump himself has about 4 million followers, after a surge of new users after Mar-a-Lago had its illegal contents seized. Trump had 86 million followers on Twitter, and he's claiming his Chinese Twitter knockoff would be at least half that. He's lying, or he's stupid.

If DWAC cannot stay above water, they will have to dissolve.

Also a little while ago, I wondered why Trump wasn't pushing his own brand to get the investors to a meeting and to vote "yes". That still has not happened. The Elon Musk deal is showing signs of life, which isn't helping.

And let's not forget the SEC investigation. The Miami Herald sure hasn't.

William Wilkerson, a senior vice president of operations at Sarasota-based Trump Media, filed a whistleblower complaint in August with the SEC, alleging securities violations involving the Trump Media and Digital World merger.

His attorneys said Wilkerson, who may be entitled to an award through his complaint, is cooperating with federal authorities in their investigation of the merger. Wilkerson is an eyewitness who has turned over internal business documents to SEC enforcement officials, federal prosecutors and FBI investigators. He has been part of the team that founded and built Trump Media, so as an insider he can chronicle the events under scrutiny.

Wilkerson, who has also had an up-close view of the launching of the social media platform as an alternative to Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, told the Herald that he believes Truth Social’s future is shaky. He argues the site has quickly become more about promoting Trump than giving voice to a range of conservatives and others, and that the operation is struggling with issues that go beyond regulatory questions about the financial structure that created it.

Wilkerson said that if shareholders don’t approve the merger extension on Monday, the Trump Media marriage to Digital World would probably be called off and investors’ funds would be liquidated and returned to them.

“One way or another, this company is going to go bankrupt,” Wilkerson, 38, told the Herald. “I don’t think the company is going to be approved by the SEC.”

Ah, yes, bankrupt. That's be the Trumpiest way ever for this to end. If DWAC spends some of that trust-fund cash to stay alive -- possibly because they keep pushing their votes down and down the line -- and can't get it back (because, for example, the stock price sucks) -- then, yes, they will have to admit to a very public court that investing in Trump was a bad idea and they can't afford to repay their investors who also believed in Trump.

Hey remember when

I don’t need financing, I’m really rich!

That was September 4. I have not found since any articles about Trump adding money to the account himself. Considering a billion dollars of money is on the line, you'd think it was a smart idea to, say, add the $138.5 million back. Maybe he can't, that could be an SEC issue, but I'm pretty sure he hasn't.

From the public headlines, if the upcoming Dec 8 deadline comes and no new extension is voted for, I'm fairly sure DWAC won't go bankrupt, but CyberTrump 2077 will immediately fold. Initial investors will basically have their money returned after not earning anything for a year, and there are worse problems. Anyone who bought stock after the initial investment, when the price jumped to $100+ and then sloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo(deep breath)oooooooooooowly dropped to the current price of $16, and who don't sell their stock first, will get $10 for it and lose 30% to 90% of their money. And the people holding out for paychecks from Trump will almost assuredly en masse form a class-action lawsuit.

65% of shares need to vote "yes", so being absent doesn't help. Multiple votes have already failed purely due to low attendance.

Literally everyone who said "this is a dumb idea" are more and more right with every passing day and every lost dollar.

[Shadowferal]

New moves show Merrick Garland's indictment of Trump is 'inevitable': analysis

Atlantic journalist Franklin Foer has been closely observing Attorney General Merrick Garland for months, and he now believes that a criminal indictment of the twice-impeached former president is "inevitable."

"An indictment would be a signal to Trump, as well as to would-be imitators, that no one is above the law," Foer argues. "This is the principle that has animated Garland’s career, which began as the Justice Department was attempting to reassert its independence, and legitimacy, after the ugly meddling of the Nixon years."

Foer then recounts Garland's career at length, and in particular summarizes ample evidence that Garland is, at heart, an institutionalist who would ideally love to avoid indicting Trump and igniting a political firestorm that could lead to a new wave of political violence.

However, he also argues that Trump's behavior has brought out a pugnaciousness in Garland that he had previously not seen.

"When Trump began to assail the search of Mar-a-Lago, Garland asked the court to unseal the inventory of seized documents, essentially calling out the ex-president’s lies," argues Foer. "Rather than passively watching attacks on FBI agents, whom Trump scurrilously accused of planting evidence, Garland passionately backed the bureau. As Trump’s lawyers have tried to use a sympathetic judge to slow down the department’s investigation, Garland’s lawyers have responded with bluntly dismissive briefs, composed without the least hint of deference."

Foer concludes by noting that while Garland will only indict Trump if he believes there is overwhelming evidence against him, he thinks that bar has been met and that the attorney general will act.

"Every time he’s asked about the former president, he responds, 'No one is above the law,'" he writes. "He clearly gets frustrated that his answer fails to satisfy his doubters. I believe that his indictment of Trump will prove that he means it."

-------------

...any day now..

[bladeXcrasher]

Looks like ol' Tulsi is finally completing her character arc as a MAGA girl.

https://www.axios.com/2022/10/11/tul...edium=news_tab

[Breccia]

Looks like ol' Tulsi is finally completing her character arc as a MAGA girl.

"I can't support an elitist cabal of warmongers, so I'm joining the Republicans".

Fucking what?

[The Stormbringer]

...any day now..

I can't help but wonder if he's planning on waiting until the day after the 2022 Elections to avoid any calls of being 'political'. I'm guessing there's also some fears that doing it before the election could incite the Republican voter base to vote en masse in the hope of undoing it (that wouldn't work but it might be something they'd try). It would certainly be a great thing to learn the morning after Voting Day that Trump is being slammed with criminal charges and put under house arrest...

[Shadowferal]

I'm reminded of "Yao the Collector" in MoP;

Yao the Collector yells: Hey... HEY! What are you doing?
You're stealing my inventory, aren't you? Don't make me stand up!
I'll do it, I swear! I'm about to stand up!
Yao the Collector yells: Here I go!

Oh, who am I kidding? You are a wily one, thief.

[bladeXcrasher]

"I can't support an elitist cabal of warmongers, so I'm joining the Republicans".

Fucking what?

Gotta use the republican train of thought, it's not warmongering if you're bombing muslims.

[Xyonai]

Gotta use the republican train of thought, it's not warmongering if you're bombing muslims.

Also I'm sure the 'war mongering' in this case is making sure Ukraine isn't genocided by Russia.

[Draco-Onis]

Also I'm sure the 'war mongering' in this case is making sure Ukraine isn't genocided by Russia.

Even that doesn't really make sense since republicans and democrats (aside from Trump) are lock step when it comes to Ukraine.

[bladeXcrasher]

Even that doesn't really make sense since republicans and democrats (aside from Trump) are lock step when it comes to Ukraine.

She's a fox talking head, I don't know about Hannity, but Tucker isn't lock step when it comes to Ukraine...so the possibility exists

[Edge-]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...e_iOSApp_Other

“When I’m secretary of state of Nevada, we are going to fix it, and when my coalition of secretary of state candidates around the country get elected we’re going to fix the whole country, and President Trump is going to be president again in 2024,” he said.

Republicans are just openly talking about their plans to steal an election now.

- - - Updated - - -

https://thehill.com/policy/national-...ndled-records/

Once again, the National Archives is unambiguous -

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) said Tuesday that while records are transported to president’s libraries, any temporary storage has “met strict archival and security standards, and have been managed and staffed exclusively by NARA employees.” It added that any insinuations that records were stored in substandard conditions “are false and misleading.”

Trump keeps making shit up and lying about facts.

[Breccia]

Trump keeps making shit up and lying about facts.

They're not especially thrilled about Trump's proven false statements about "everyone does it". Honestly, considering Trump made an objectively false declaration of fact in public, NARA has a decent defamation case. Trump can't object, he does that shit all the time. Also he can't object because he's out of lawyers.

[postman1782]

Gotta use the republican train of thought, it's not warmongering if you're bombing muslims.

Well, she does support that fascist piece of shit Modi, who wants to eradicate Muslims from India.
https://theintercept.com/2019/01/05/...ionalist-modi/

She also supports Trump, Putin, and Bashar Al-Assad. She is the elite cabal of warmongers.

[Breccia]

Trump appeals to the Supreme Court.

"On what grounds?"

That they owe him a favor, apparently.

So, Trump is apparently saying that the "special master" should, in fact, be allowed to review the 100 special documents that the DOJ has said is instrumental to an ongoing national security investigation. Based on other results so far, Trump knows he can't stop the DOJ from reading them, but if they get to the "special master" list, he'll at least know what they are. And then he can start planning his defense for the next trial, in which those documents are used as evidene against him, but not for the fact Trump had them (ship, sailed) but for their contents. So, they're probably communications between him and someone he really doesn't want people to know he talked to -- Putin, the Oath Keepers, or Ginni Thomas, for example.

Naturally, the DOJ have responded with "Trump has no legal standing on anything at all". He doesn't own the WH property he stole, therefore, he cannot be harmed by their return to the government. They're not privileged, either, as they're not lawyer-client and Biden waived the rest, and as everyone here knows (even if one poster won't admit it) Trump couldn't invoke new privilege once he left the WH. Trump said he should have 24/7 access to the records because of the PRA, but the DOJ correctly points out that the PRA only applies to things NARA has, and Trump stole these documents from NARA, therefore, the PRA didn't apply and he shouldn't have had any access to them at all.

And the big one? Trump said the 11th didn't have the authority to make that decision, the DOJ naturally said "um, yes it does, otherwise Cannon's ruling would also be moot and we wouldn't have a special master at all". See, the DOJ opposed the appointment of a "special master", Trump filed motions in court to block that opposition with the 11th, therefore, Trump says the 11th has jurisdiction here, and cannot reasonably now change their mind.

Trump is arguing that holding these 100 documents back is slowing the "special master" down and that there's a ticking clock, the problem is, he's done nothing but stall and delay in every single court motion, so the filing rings hollow.

And pretty much everyone knows it.

Harvard Law's Laurence Tribe, who has argued three-dozen cases before the Supreme Court, was among the legal experts analyzing DOJ's filing.

"The Justice Department’s response opposing the emergency application Trump’s legal team filed in the Supreme Court, with a stopover in Justice Clarence’s chambers, is utterly devastating," Tribe tweeted. "It pulverizes all of Trump’s arguments and leaves none standing."

Attorney Luppe Luppen of the popular @nycsouthpaw account wrote, "with a new filing at SCOTUS, we get to read what the Solicitor General’s office thinks of Judge Cannon’s order appointing a special master to review the Mar-a-Lago search. Not much!"

MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin posted a thread, writing, "I've read DOJ's brief opposing Trump's emergency request for relief so you don't have to. DOJ nicely swats away the legal thrust of Trump's argument -- that the appellate court lacked pendent jurisdiction."

Rubin explained, "what interests me is whether DOJ refuted any of Trump's factual allegations with its own narrative. While it could have addressed Trump's insistence that all of the classified docs were sent to Mar-a-Lago *before* his presidency was over, it didn't. And the reason, says DOJ without raising that or any other particular 'fact' Trump offered, is that it doesn't matter. Even a purportedly declassified document can't be his personal property and can't be the subject of any attorney-client privilege. It's still a 'red herring.'"

The DOJ did point out...again...that Trump has had multiple opportunities to say "these are declassified" and has yet to do so. That we knew.

Nevertheless, we'll find out soon enough if SCOTUS decides they want to just throw out both the letter and spirit of the law and rule that "Trump gets whatever he wants because he's Trump". Because there doesn't seem to be any legal reason, at all, to side with Trump on pretty much anything he's asked for. "I just don't want to" is not legal standing, it's admission you have none.

[postman1782]

https://www.politico.com/news/magazi...t-cop-00060556

So, Michael Fanone took many recordings with people he met with after January 6th. He has records of him with Kevin McCarthy, Lindsay Graham, his Union Leader in DC.

He had fellow cops threatening him after January 6th because they supported Trump.

[Breccia]

WaPo reports that--

"Paywall."

Fine, here's everything.

The probably final public hearing of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol is expected to highlight newly obtained Secret Service records showing how Trump was repeatedly alerted to brewing violence that day, and he still sought to stoke the conflict, according to three people briefed on the records.

The committee plans to share in Thursday’s hearing new video footage and internal Secret Service emails that appear to corroborate parts of the most startling inside accounts of that day, said the people briefed, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal records. Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified in June that Trump was briefed on Jan. 6 that some of his supporters were armed for battle, demanded they be allowed into his rally and insisted he wanted to lead them on their march to the Capitol.

Surveillance footage the committee plans to share was taken near the Ellipse that morning before Trump’s speech and shows throngs of his supporters clustered just outside the corralled area for his “Stop the Steal” rally. Secret Service officers screened those entering who sought to get closer to the stage. Law enforcement officials who were monitoring video that morning spotted Trump supporters with plastic shields, bulletproof vests and other paramilitary gear, and some in the Secret Service concluded they stayed outside the rally area to avoid having their weapons confiscated, according to people familiar with the new records.

Other internal emails likely to be revealed at the hearing further buttress accounts about staff members warning Trump about the risk and then the reality of violence that day, as he continued to press nervous Secret Service agents to take him to the Capitol to join his supporters marching there, the three people said. After being alerted to violence erupting at the Capitol when he returned to the White House, Trump tweeted criticism of Vice President Mike Pence for not blocking the certification of the election, whipping up supporters who had already trampled over security barricades and were battling police to break into the halls of Congress.

The newly obtained Secret Service records are just part of a larger hearing in which the committee hopes to summarize and remind the American public of all the ways Trump is said to have played a central role in fomenting a violent insurrection at the Capitol, one of the most brutal attacks on democracy in U.S. history, according to multiple people briefed on the evidence and committee plan. While the committee’s previous hearings took center stage over several weeks this summer, the committee is trying to revive interest in its probe and deliver what it has privately called its “closing arguments” about past and ongoing threats to democracy as voters prepare to cast ballots next month in the midterm elections.

The hearing aims to highlight new evidence gathered by investigators that corroborates the committee’s key findings about Trump and the Jan. 6 insurrection, according to the people briefed: that he sought to rile up his supporters to help block the certification of Joe Biden’s electoral victory; used his bully pulpit to encourage a fiery showdown at the Capitol; and then refused to budge to help rescue thousands of lawmakers, staff members and police officers on Capitol Hill who were either fleeing or fighting for their lives that afternoon.

It’s unclear, however, if the new material will shed any light on a particularly dramatic part of Hutchinson’s testimony, in which she recounted a senior Secret Service official telling her that Trump had erupted in anger and lunged at the lead security agent in his motorcade when told he could not go to the Capitol.

One email the committee has obtained highlights the level of alarm inside Secret Service headquarters on Jan. 6 about the possibility that Trump would get his wish to head to the Capitol — and join a melee in progress.

By 1 p.m. Eastern time that day, according to police testimony, hand-to-hand combat between protesters and officers was breaking out on the steps and platforms immediately outside the Capitol. The Secret Service had just then offered to send reinforcements to help an overwhelmed U.S. Capitol Police force, according to texts and testimony from then-Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund.

The new correspondence obtained by the committee shows that while Trump was still speaking to his supporters and announcing he was going to the Capitol, Secret Service personnel in charge of transportation and field operations scrambled to try to secure a safe motorcade route for the president and his entourage, two people briefed on the records said. The Secret Service staff members sought D.C. police help to block intersections. But with tens of thousands of protesters in downtown Washington, and D.C. police being dispatched to help Capitol Police with protesters breaking through barricades, D.C. police declined the Secret Service’s request.

About 1:10 p.m., Trump had left the Ellipse in his motorcade after finishing his speech and demanded to go to the Capitol. Trump’s detail leader, Bobby Engel, riding with Trump in his sport utility vehicle, told an enraged Trump that they were heading back to the White House and it was not safe to take him to the Capitol, The Washington Post previously reported.

“We don’t have the assets,” Engel told Trump of the inability to secure safe passage for his motorcade, according to a Secret Service official briefed on Engel’s account. By about 1:20 p.m., Trump was back at the White House.

One of the committee’s newly obtained documents shows that sometime between 1:30 and 2 p.m., a senior Secret Service supervisor for protective operations emailed Engel with an urgent update and seeking to know if Trump’s plan to go to the Capitol was successfully quashed. It came after a tumultuous hour for the Secret Service detail, which had effectively ignored a command from the president.

Even with Trump back at the White House, Secret Service headquarters wanted to be sure the president was staying put. The supervisor, Ronald L. Rowe, warned Engel that the situation was rapidly devolving at the Capitol and sought Engel’s confirmation he was not considering taking Trump there, according to a senior law enforcement official familiar with the records turned over to the committee. Rowe urged Engel to call him.

Rowe declined to comment, but Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said Rowe’s email reflected the larger agency’s position: Trump’s idea of going to the Capitol was a non-starter.

In other internal emails, agents relayed reports that Trump was angry about being told he couldn’t go to the Capitol.

Some of the information, the people briefed said, calls into question the previous testimony of Engel and Anthony Ornato, then a Secret Service leader who was serving in an unprecedented political role of White House deputy chief of staff. Both men told the committee in closed-door depositions that they could not recall certain events relayed by other witnesses, including Trump’s demand that the Secret Service let armed people into his rally.

After Hutchinson testified that Ornato told her that Trump had lunged at Engel inside the sport utility vehicle they were traveling in, anonymous Secret Service sources said that Engel and Ornato disputed any altercation occurred and were prepared to say so under oath. The committee has not yet re-interviewed the two men, as lawmakers sifted through the additional trove of Secret Service records. Ornato and Engel, through a Secret Service spokesman, declined to comment.

The vast trove of records turned over to the Jan. 6 committee is the result of an ironic twist of events, according to the people briefed on the documents. The same Secret Service that permanently deleted agents’ texts from Jan. 6 and the surrounding days amid congressional requests last year has now provided to the committee this large volume of internal communications from the same time period. Voluntarily, the agency has turned over every record it kept of logistical planning, security concerns and private discussions related to the scheduled protests and president’s movements.

This extensive sharing of records — more than 1 million pages’ worth and many which the committee did not specifically request — followed a period when the Secret Service came under fire for executing an agencywide destruction of all texts exchanged from agents phones in that key period. Federal regulations mandate the preservation of government records, and the Secret Service’s deletion of these records prompted a federal investigation into the failure to do so. The texts were wiped from agents’ phones as part of a Secret Service-wide update of employees phones that began in January 2021. Secret Service officials have said the mass deletion of reams of potential evidence was unintentional, and the agency’s telephone provider has concluded those texts are now impossible to recover.

The committee had considered sharing a portion of its videotaped interview with Ornato at a previous hearing and it’s unclear if lawmakers will do so Thursday. In one portion of his interview, according to two people briefed on his account, Ornato described briefing White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows the afternoon of Jan. 6 about detailed reports of violence breaking out at the Capitol, as well as police officers being transported to a hospital. The committee learned from other witnesses that Meadows then briefed Trump.

The hearing could build out the evidence that Trump took steps to ratchet up the conflict at the Capitol, despite being warned of escalating violence. Lawmakers on the committee have grown particularly suspicious about the agency’s transparency with congressional investigators as they’ve struggled to obtain some information they requested over a year ago.

The committee’s hearing Thursday, probably its final one before the release of its report, will also illuminate how associates of Trump — including chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon and Roger Stone, a longtime friend and onetime adviser — planned on declaring victory regardless of the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, The Post previously reported. The House select committee intends to show video footage of Stone recorded by Danish filmmakers during the weeks before the Jan. 6 violence.

Another portion of this week’s hearing is expected to focus on the continuing threat of domestic extremism and political violence spawned by efforts to overturn the 2020 election, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The committee has continued interviewing witnesses in the lead-up to the final hearing, and it interviewed Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the conservative activist and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, last month. It’s unclear whether the committee will use any of Thomas’s interview, which was only transcribed and not videotaped or recorded, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) said recently in an interview on MSNBC.

Emphasis mine. Not only did Trump know there was violence, he did nothing to stop it, and wanted to be there to see it, or be part of it.

Trump is a traitor.

[Edge-]

https://www.politico.com/news/magazi...t-cop-00060556

So, Michael Fanone took many recordings with people he met with after January 6th. He has records of him with Kevin McCarthy, Lindsay Graham, his Union Leader in DC.

He had fellow cops threatening him after January 6th because they supported Trump.

What an absolute boss. If only conservatives in America were actually open to listening to one of the law enforcement they so loudly and proudly shriek about supporting.

And they love to fly that stupid, racist flag. I think they just might like flags.

- - - Updated - - -

https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/12/us/tr...per/index.html

A Minnesota man who claimed Antifa set fire to his camper during the political unrest of 2020 because he had displayed a Trump campaign flag admitted to staging the event and committing insurance fraud, the Justice Department announced Tuesday.

Burning down your trailer and committing insurance fraud to own the libs!

“Mr. Molla was obviously remorseful during his federal plea hearing today,” Ryan Garry, Molla’s attorney, told CNN via email Tuesday. “It’s easy for the general public to look down on him, without knowing what was going on in his life, and cast immediate judgement. Mr. Molla is a wonderful husband and father who made a mistake that he sincerely regrets. Unlike many others, he has accepted full responsibility for his actions and is sorry for what happened.”

His attorney is right, it is easy to look down on this liar who burned his own property, blamed it on a largely fictional political "opponent", and then broke the law by committing insurance fraud.

[Breccia]

I think they just might like flags.

"It's not about the flag! It's about the meaning! It represents an ideal which I show respect to by showing respect to that flag!"
"So, following that line of thinking, if someone were to kneel during the anth--"
"UNACCETPABLE!"

In other Trump news, arguably the most Trumpian headline is Trump appeals judge’s decision to toss lawsuit against Hillary Clinton , but not just because it's Trump being a fat orange petty hypocrite by going after a political rival and trying to expand what "defamation" is but only for other people.

It's because of this:

Court records show the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida received Trump’s appeal Tuesday but flagged filing deficiencies in the appeal, including at least one missing signature.

It's routinely embarrassing how bad his legal team is. At, like, everything. Speaking of which, the NYTimes goes out of their way to spell out how Trump's lawyer Bobb is, erm, okay you know how some people say certain villains are sympathetic and others disagree? We've reached that stage.

In the past two years, Ms. Bobb has emerged as one of his truest of true believers, embracing conspiracy theories with a fervor that has at times seemed over the top even to her colleagues, according to interviews with a dozen people who have worked with her over the past several years.

Ms. Bobb has not been shy about expressing her opinions on conservative news outlets, speaking expansively about the court-authorized F.B.I. search and her low opinion of those who executed it.

“I don’t believe that there was any classified material in there, though I’m sure the F.B.I. will say that there is,” she said in an interview with the conservative activist Dinesh D’Souza two days after the warrant was executed.

Another conservative activist, Mike Farris, asked if she was concerned by the Justice Department’s aggressive approach.

“I’m not too worried about it,” she replied. “They are all a bunch of cowards; they don’t have anything.”

Ms. Bobb was present in the pro-Trump “command center” at the Willard Hotel in Washington before the Capitol attack, along with Rudolph W. Giuliani and other Trump stalwarts.

She acted as Mr. Giuliani’s go-between with state officials in Arizona and helped fund-raise for a recount in Maricopa County that Republican leaders called a “sham.” She drafted a memo and participated in meetings to discuss a plan to appoint alternate slates of electors to reverse legitimate state election results. And Ms. Bobb created the computer file used to draft a proposal, never carried out, for Mr. Trump to issue an executive order for the federal government to seize voting machines.

So, yeah, Bobb is a cultist, one of the frothiest of the rabid fanbase. A true believer and a Trump, well borderline fanatic.

And yet...

Trump was in the midst of an escalating clash with the Justice Department about documents he had taken with him from the White House at the end of his term. The lawyer, M. Evan Corcoran, met Ms. Bobb at the president’s residence and private club in Florida and asked her to sign a statement for the department that the Trump legal team had conducted a “diligent search” of Mar-a-Lago and found only a few files that had not been returned to the government.

Ms. Bobb, a 39-year-old lawyer juggling amorphous roles in her new job, was being asked to take a step that neither Mr. Trump nor other members of the legal team were willing to take — so she looked before leaping.

“Wait a minute — I don’t know you,” Ms. Bobb replied to Mr. Corcoran’s request, according to a person to whom she later recounted the episode. She later complained that she did not have a full grasp of what was going on around her when she signed the document, according to two people who have heard her account.

Ms. Bobb, who relentlessly promoted falsehoods about the 2020 election as an on-air host for the far-right One America News Network, eventually signed her name. But she insisted on adding a written caveat before giving it to a senior Justice Department official on June 3: “The above statements are true and correct to the best of my knowledge.”

"Oh, no! Magneto had a family before he murdered all those innocent people!"

Well, it's worse than that. Bobb was demonstrably not just one of Trump's hardest-corest supporters, but also, a valuable employee. Trump destroyed her anyhow. They didn't just throw her to the wolves, they slathered her in gravy first. I'm no longer concerned that some poor clueless sap was fooled, anyone working for Trump knows what they're getting into, and she wanted that so badly, she did things she knew were questionable even by rabid fanbase standards. You don't get to kill both your parents then plead for mercy because you're an orphan. The issue here, is how Team Trump treats even their most useful and loyal members. Badly. On purpose.

For the record, I don't think "to the best of my knowledge" counts as a "get out of indictment free" clause. She's not saying "someone snuck those classified documents into Trump's basement without my knowledge". She signed the form having not looked at all.

So what is the escape exit? Another tried and true Trump and/or mafia classic: taking everyone down with you.

On Friday, Ms. Bobb sat for a voluntary interview with Justice Department lawyers in Washington, according to three people familiar with the situation. She told them that another Trump lawyer, Boris Epshteyn, contacted her the night before she signed the attestation and connected her with Mr. Corcoran. Ms. Bobb, who was living in Florida, was told that she needed to go to Mar-a-Lago the next day to deal with an unspecified legal matter for Mr. Trump.

In her meeting with the department — a development reported by NBC News on Monday — Ms. Bobb, who was accompanied by her criminal defense lawyer, John Lauro, emphasized that she was working as part of a team rather than as a solo actor when she signed the statement attesting to the return of all the documents, the people said.

Mr. Corcoran, she told the Justice Department, had walked her through how he had conducted a search of a storage facility at Mar-a-Lago for the documents. She said she had believed at the time she signed the attestation in June that it was accurate, according to a person with knowledge of the situation.

This goes to what I asked @cubby for help with multiple times. If I lie to my lawyer, and that lawyer accepts my lie and signs the court form with a lie on it, what happens? Well, the answer right now appears to be "conspiracy to obstruct justice". Asking someone to lie to the feds for you has got to be a crime, whether they do it or not. It's illegal for me to hire an assassin even if they shoot the wrong target or miss.

But it's not just Trump having all the fun in court. Let's talk about Denis Molla.

He's fucked.

Burning your own stuff down, blame BLM, commit insurance fraud and then setup a GoFundMe to guilt people into giving money? Must be a day of the week that ends in y the Qanon insanity crowd.

Molla pled guilty to a bunch of fraud-related issues. He defecated his (cough) he defaced his own property and blamed it on BLM Antifa Biden Pizzagate Clinton, then not only charged his insurance $61,000 -- actually he charged them $300,000 but only got $61,000 and I'm just guessing the insurance company wants it back -- but also started a GoFundMe for another $17,000. That's wire fraud.

Molla submitted multiple insurance claims seeking coverage for the damage to his garage, camper, vehicles, and residence caused by the fire. When Molla’s insurance company denied some of those claims, Molla submitted a written complaint to the insurance company claiming that it was defrauding him and threatened to report the company to the Department of Commerce and to the Attorney General.

"I'm going to guess 'vehicles' = both pickup trucks."

What an amazingly coincidental lucky guess, how on earth did you do it?

So, Molla now has a bunch of damaged goods, didn't get the money to fix them all, will almost certainly have to repay the rest of it with money he doesn't have, I'm legit surprised he wasn't charged with arson too, and then go to jail for a few years. Hopefully the thoughts of his loving family will keep him warm, almost as warm as the fire he started on his own property on purpose and then blamed some black people.

The fire was Sept 23, 2020. This article from Sept 24, 2020 shows he didn't even paint the symbols correctly. The story also says

He gave chase but abandoned the pursuit after realizing he was still in his boxer shorts. But one of the people he chased dropped a matchbox, which Dennis collected before heading back inside to warn the family.

which is what I would say, if I wanted to explain my fingerprints on the "murder weapon".

"Wait, his kids were in the house that he set fire to himself?"

I mean, you act like this was a well-thought-out plan or something. Also I didn't mention the four puppies in the garage which--

"OH MY GOD."

Yeah, from now on, whenever someone says "Well this one Democrat did XXX therefore XXX is what Democrats do" I want you to bring up Denis Molla, who set his house, trucks, and garage on fire, in which were his wife, both children (one a baby), and four puppies. And then say "You really want to judge a group by its extremists, that's fine by me".

- - - Updated - - -

"It’s easy for the general public to look down on him, without knowing what was going on in his life, and cast immediate judgement."

Oh shit, Edge- beat me to it. But, Mr. Garry The Lawyer sir, set the garage on fire with four puppies in it. Then lied to the cops about three black dudes. I think it's 100% safe to cast judgement on that.

[Edge-]

https://forward.com/culture/520949/t...-antisemitism/

And Tucker Carlson is stanning for Kanye's deep mental illness and antisemetism. Unsurprising.