Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Gorsameth]

Until he gets a diagnosis, "legit willing Nazi" is the default. Just because he's stupid doesn't mean he's insane. Plenty of non-insane people were Nazis. And I'm not yet willing to handwave this with "well of course he's crazy, look what he did". We open that door, then mass murderers stop going to jail. "Of course he's insane, what sane person would gun down four, ten, fifty people?" is not a defense I want gaining traction.

This case will go to court, and we'll get the answer eventually. Until then, until proven otherwise, I'm going with "actual willing participant in authoritarian culture and violent terrorism, waving a Nazi flag" as the evidence directly suggests, and "Trump supporter" as the evidence only implies but does not directly prove yet.

Nazi alone is not enough to be insane. Even Nazis know right from wrong, they just did wrong anyway, see also "I was just following orders".

And yes, I'm going to continue this line of thinking in this thread until someone (ideally a Trump supporter, come out and comment, it literally can only help your standing here) points out how this anti-Biden authoritarian Nazi is, somehow, not on Trump's side.

Your focussing on the Nazi part. Being a Nazi doesn't make him, potentially, mentally ill.
Deciding drive into the WH and kill Biden to take control of the country by himself is what makes him mentally ill.

[Endus]

Nazi alone is not enough to be insane. Even Nazis know right from wrong, they just did wrong anyway, see also "I was just following orders".

I feel this is overly reductive.

Yes, Nazis (and any other such group, like American Confederacy types) know right from wrong. That shouldn't be in question.

The problem is that they think that ideas like "Jews are leeches who are trying to destroy the superior Aryan races" are "right" and "correct" beliefs, and that their actions to annihilate the Jewish population to address that is thus also "right and correct". They literally see it as the correct moral choice, and that anyone refusing to agree with that is either part of the Jewish conspiracy themselves or, at best, completely clueless as to reality.

That makes no sense from the perspective of any viewpoint that understands the world primarily from objective reality and a lack of prejudice, obviously. But that's not the world they live in.

And before anyone mistake this as me being an apologist, the point here is not "and therefore we can't judge them because who's to say who's right?" The point is that we must judge them, that we must call out the underlying moral premises they endorse and believe in to be evil, and anyone basing their personal views upon those premises is thus also an evil person.

That's what makes them "evil". The desire to inflict suffering upon others, in pursuit of a moral agenda of cruelty, informed by lies that serve only to justify that intentional cruelty. They don't know it's "wrong"; they know society knows it's wrong, and they disagree. They think the cruelty and abuse is their moral guidepost.

And that's why you can't ever point out the cruelty and evil and get them to change their mind. They already know all that. They're not unaware of their choices. They just really want to hurt innocents and are gonna get increasingly upset that you won't let them. They're Cruella DeVille, entirely insistent that it's their right to brutally kill Dalmatian puppies because they want a neat coat.

You can't argue them out of that position. All you can do is inform everyone else as to who they really are so there are no shadows for them to hide in, and to condemn them so thoroughly they retreat entirely from public life and hide themselves and their views away. Y'know, like pedophiles do. You can't stop pedophiles from wanting to fuck kids, but you can ruin their lives if they're acting on those views and make them fear exposure enough they (hopefully) keep it to themselves and don't do anything that could ever risk exposure, like actually victimizing a child.

That's the only real option on the table, with Nazis. You have to put every one of them in the same category as "pedophiles" and "cannibals" and "serial killers" and "sheep fuckers". Discussing morality is pointless and won't ever convince anyone to reform. All you can do is apply enough legal pressure to suppress this bullshit until, at least in cases of chosen views like Nazism rather than mental illnesses like some of the others, the entire concept chokes to death from lack of oxygen and daylight.

[Breccia]

Your focussing on the Nazi part. Being a Nazi doesn't make him, potentially, mentally ill.
Deciding drive into the WH and kill Biden to take control of the country by himself is what makes him mentally ill.

Valid concern, but it changes nothing about my stance on the issue. The fact that he even attempted the crime, is not a defense, for the fact that he attempted the crime. "Nobody in their right mind would blow up an office building" is not an acceptable defense for the man who (tried to) blow up an office building.

You can be stupid, rash, thoughtless, ill-informed, or any mix of the above, without actually being insane. I'm still waiting for the diagnosis. Perhaps his friends and/or family will talk to the press and we'll have it sooner than his court date? Until that happens, all available evidence says he's a stupid, willing, Nazi, but sane, terrorist. The fact that nobody else would have tried this doesn't change that.

[postman1782]

huh? Renting a U-Haul isn't exactly complicated.

I just googled it and most companies require you to be at least 25 to rent a car, you would think it would be the same or worse for something more awkward than an box truck from U-Haul.

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What a stupid kid. Life is not a video game, you don't get to just kill the leader of a faction and boom, now you're in charge. Does he even know anything about how our government works beyond "the President is the leader"?

With the flag he had in his possession, no he doesn't. He sounds like he was a dropout or from the stupid parts of the country.

[Edge-]

I just googled it and most companies require you to be at least 25 to rent a car, you would think it would be the same or worse for something more awkward than an box truck from U-Haul.

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With the flag he had in his possession, no he doesn't. He sounds like he was a dropout or from the stupid parts of the country.

For proper car rentals yes. Uhauls are only 18/valid driver's license unless they have different rules around DC.

[postman1782]

For proper car rentals yes. Uhauls are only 18/valid driver's license unless they have different rules around DC.

TBH, that should be a law.

[s_bushido]

I just googled it and most companies require you to be at least 25 to rent a car, you would think it would be the same or worse for something more awkward than an box truck from U-Haul.

/shrug If they did that, they'd lose a lot of the "college kids going off to school" business.

You can be stupid, rash, thoughtless, ill-informed, or any mix of the above, without actually being insane. I'm still waiting for the diagnosis. Perhaps his friends and/or family will talk to the press and we'll have it sooner than his court date? Until that happens, all available evidence says he's a stupid, willing, Nazi, but sane, terrorist. The fact that nobody else would have tried this doesn't change that.

It's not a defense. I'm just saying, a person doesn't think they can single-handedly take over a country with a rented truck and a flag they bought online without something going on... Nazi or no Nazi.

[Edge-]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/james-...p-poll-numbers

House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY) insisted with a straight face on Tuesday afternoon that he never actually tied his committee's investigation into the Biden family to former President Donald Trump’s poll numbers.

Of course, just the day before, Comer literally said that “Donald Trump is seven points ahead” of President Joe Biden because the “American people are keeping up with our investigation.”

Comer, whose anti-Biden probe has so far come up short with “hard proof” tying Biden to any corruption, has even come under fire from Fox News recently over his inability to provide any evidence to back up his lofty promises of a grand criminal scheme involving the president. Additionally, Comer has come away with even more egg on his face after he claimed that one of his investigation’s informants had gone “missing.”

Appearing on Fox & Friends First early Monday morning, Comer asserted that he was making real progress in his investigation, prompting co-host Ashley Strohmier to note that a conservative columnist recently wrote that the mainstream press couldn’t ignore the probe any longer.

“So do you think that because of your investigation, that is what’s moved this needle with the media?” Strohmier asked.

“Absolutely. There’s no question. You look at the polling, and right now Donald Trump is seven points ahead of Joe Biden and trending upward,” Comer responded. “Joe Biden’s trending downward. And I believe that the media is looking around, scratching their head, and they’re realizing the American people are keeping up with our investigation.”

Do not believe what your eyes see. Do not believe what your ears hear.

Only believe what the party tells you.

[postman1782]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/james-...p-poll-numbers



Do not believe what your eyes see. Do not believe what your ears hear.

Only believe what the party tells you.

They are just trying the same tactic they used against Hillary Clinton.

[Zaydin]

They are just trying the same tactic they used against Hillary Clinton.

Someone probably reminded Comer that McCarthy accidentally telling the truth about the Ben Ghazi hearings cost McCarthy the Speakership that year when Boehner resigned.

[postman1782]

Apparently John Eastman had the gall to actually ask the supreme court to wipe away a ruling that he might have committed a crime with Trump with the fake electors.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/24/polit...ils/index.html

He really is fucking stupid.

[Breccia]

It's not a defense.

Not from you or the others here, no.

I expect it to be used by his fellow Nazis and probably his lawyer.

[Dontrike]

Apparently John Eastman had the gall to actually ask the supreme court to wipe away a ruling that he might have committed a crime with Trump with the fake electors.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/24/polit...ils/index.html

He really is fucking stupid.

"The evidence is making us look bad!" - Whiny lawyer

[Edge-]

https://archive.is/A0DDi

Two of Donald Trump’s employees moved boxes of papers the day before FBI agents and a prosecutor visited the former president’s Florida home to retrieve classified documents in response to a subpoena — timing that investigators have come to view as suspicious and an indication of possible obstruction, according to people familiar with the matter.

Trump and his aides also allegedly carried out a “dress rehearsal” for moving sensitive papers even before his office received the May 2022 subpoena, according to the people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a sensitive ongoing investigation.

Prosecutors in addition have gathered evidence indicating that Trump at times kept classified documents in his office in a place where they were visible and sometimes showed them to others, these people said.

Taken together, the new details of the classified-documents investigation suggest a greater breadth and specificity to the instances of possible obstruction found by the FBI and Justice Department than has been previously reported. It also broadens the timeline of possible obstruction episodes that investigators are examining — a period stretching from events at Mar-a-Lago before the subpoena to the period after the FBI raid there on Aug. 8.

That timeline may prove crucial as prosecutors seek to determine Trump’s intent in keeping hundreds of classified documents after he left the White House, a key factor in deciding whether to file charges of obstruction of justice or of mishandling national security secrets. The Washington Post has previously reported that the boxes were moved out of the storage area after Trump’s office received a subpoena. But the precise timing of that activity is a significant element in the investigation, the people familiar with the matter said.

Grand jury activity in the case has slowed in recent weeks, and Trump’s attorneys have taken steps — including outlining his potential defense to members of Congress and seeking a meeting with the attorney general — that suggest they believe a charging decision is getting closer. The grand jury working on the investigation apparently has not met since May 5, after months of frenetic activity at the federal courthouse in Washington. That is the panel’s longest hiatus since December, shortly after Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Jack Smith as special counsel to lead the probe and coinciding with the year-end holidays.

Smith also is investigating Trump’s efforts to block the results of the 2020 election. And the former president — who is again a candidate for the White House — has been indicted in New York on charges of falsifying business records and is under investigation for election-related matters in Fulton County, Ga.

Trump has denied wrongdoing in each case. “This is nothing more than a targeted, politically motivated witch hunt against President Trump that is concocted to meddle in an election and prevent the American people from returning him to the White House,” Steven Cheung, a Trump spokesman, wrote in a statement. “Just like all the other fake hoaxes thrown at President Trump, this corrupt effort will also fail.”

Cheung accused prosecutors of showing “no regard for common decency or key rules that govern the legal system,” and he claimed that investigators have “harassed anyone and everyone who works [for], has worked [for], or supports Donald Trump.”

“In the course of negotiations over the return of documents, President Trump told the lead DOJ official, ‘anything you need from us, just let us know,’” he continued. “That DOJ rejected this offer of cooperation and conducted a raid on Mar-a-Lago proves that the Biden regime has weaponized the DOJ and FBI.”

A spokesman for Smith declined to comment. Justice Department officials have previously said they conducted the search only after months of efforts to retrieve all classified documents at Mar-a-Lago were unsuccessful.

Of particular importance to investigators in the classified-documents case, according to people familiar with the probe, is evidence showing that boxes of documents were moved into a storage area on June 2, just before senior Justice Department lawyer Jay Bratt arrived at Mar-a-Lago with agents. The June 3 visit by law enforcement officials was to collect material in response to the May 2022 grand jury subpoena demanding the return of all documents with classified markings.

John Irving, a lawyer representing one of the two employees who moved the boxes, said the worker did not know what was in them and was only trying to help Trump valet Walt Nauta, who was using a dolly or hand truck to move a number of boxes.

“He was seen on Mar-a-Lago security video helping Walt Nauta move boxes into a storage area on June 2, 2022. My client saw Mr. Nauta moving the boxes and volunteered to help him,” Irving said. The next day, he added, the employee helped Nauta pack an SUV “when former president Trump left for Bedminster for the summer.”

The lawyer said his client, a longtime Mar-a-Lago employee whom he declined to identify, has cooperated with the government and did not have “any reason to think that helping to move boxes was at all significant.” Other people familiar with the investigation confirmed the employee’s role and said he has been questioned multiple times by authorities.

Irving represents several witnesses in the investigation, and his law firm is being paid by Trump’s Save America PAC, disclosure reports show. A lawyer for Nauta, Stanley Brand, declined to comment.

Investigators have sought to gather any evidence indicating Trump or people close to him deliberately withheld any classified papers from the government.

On the evening of June 2, the same day the two employees moved the boxes, a lawyer for Trump contacted the Justice Department and said officials there were welcome to visit Mar-a-Lago and pick up classified documents related to the subpoena. Bratt and the FBI agents arrived the following day.

Trump’s lawyers gave the officials a sealed envelope containing 38 classified documents and a signed attestation that a “diligent search” had been conducted for the documents sought by the subpoena and that all relevant documents had been turned over.

As part of that visit, Bratt and the agents were invited to visit the storage room where Trump aides said boxes of documents from his time as president were kept. Court papers filed by the Justice Department say the visitors were told by Trump’s lawyers that they could not open any of the boxes in the storage room or look at their contents.

When FBI agents secured a court order to search Mar-a-Lago two months later, they found more than 100 additional classified documents, some in Trump’s office and some in the storage area.

In a court filing in August explaining the search, prosecutors wrote that they had developed evidence that “obstructive conduct” took place in connection with the response to the subpoena, including that documents “were likely concealed and removed from the Storage Room.”

Prosecutors also have gathered evidence that even before Trump’s office received the subpoena in May, he had what some officials have dubbed a “dress rehearsal” for moving government documents that he did not want to relinquish, people familiar with the investigation said.

The term “dress rehearsal” was used in a sealed judicial opinion issued earlier this year in one of several legal battles over the government’s access to particular witnesses and evidence, some of the people said. It was used to describe an episode when Trump allegedly reviewed the contents of some, but not all, of the boxes containing classified material, these people said.

At the time, Trump and his legal team were engaged in a back-and-forth with the National Archives and Records Administration over whether he had taken from the White House records and property that were supposed to stay with the government. That dispute over presidential records is what ultimately led to the discovery of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago — some of them highly sensitive, including information about a foreign country’s nuclear capabilities; Iran’s missile system; and intelligence gathering aimed at China.

The former president, the people familiar with the situation said, told aides he wanted to make sure he could keep papers that he considered his property.

That dress rehearsal episode is one of several instances in which investigators see possible ulterior motives in the actions of Trump and those around him. Lawyers for Trump and some of those witnesses, however, have argued in recent months that prosecutors are viewing the sequence of events in too suspicious a light. They say Smith’s team has unfairly dismissed claims that people were not trying to hide anything from the government but simply were carrying out what they considered to be routine and innocent tasks of serving their boss.

Prosecutors separately have been told by more than one witness that Trump at times kept classified documents out in the open in his Florida office, where others could see them, people familiar with the matter said, and sometimes showed them to people, including aides and visitors.

Depending on the strength of that evidence, such accounts could severely undercut claims by Trump or his lawyers that he did not know he possessed classified material.
The people familiar with the situation said Smith’s team has concluded the bulk of its investigative work in the documents case and believes it has uncovered a handful of distinct episodes of obstructionist conduct.

One of those suspected instances of obstruction, the people said, occurred after the FBI search on Aug. 8. They did not provide further details, but the Guardian has previously reported that in December, Trump’s lawyers found a box of White House schedules, including some that were marked classified, at Mar-a-Lago. In that instance, a junior aide apparently moved the box from a government-leased office in nearby West Palm Beach.

And more and more evidence of intentional obstruction appears. As if you know, the year+ of refusing to simply hand over documents in response to lawful requests wasn't enough.

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https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-b2346007.html

And in an apparent olive branch offering to sweeten the pot for Trump cultists...DeSantis is discussing pardoning Trump if DeSantis wins the election. My how the tables have turned.

[Kaleredar]

https://archive.is/A0DDi



And more and more evidence of intentional obstruction appears. As if you know, the year+ of refusing to simply hand over documents in response to lawful requests wasn't enough.

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https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-b2346007.html

And in an apparent olive branch offering to sweeten the pot for Trump cultists...DeSantis is discussing pardoning Trump if DeSantis wins the election. My how the tables have turned.

…even though trump can’t be pardoned of state crimes?

Plus, that kind of implies that desantis believes trump did and will be convicted of those things, no?

[Edge-]

Plus, that kind of implies that desantis believes trump did and will be convicted of those things, no?

No, it means that DeSantis will protect Trump against the DEEP STATE(TM) leftists that are engaged in the most outrageous witch hunt of all time, even more outrageous than when they were tossing women into lakes tied to stones, crushing them with stones, and burning them to death to see if they were witches or not!

/s

It's just read meat for the culture war base.

[Poopymonster]

…even though trump can’t be pardoned of state crimes?

Plus, that kind of implies that desantis believes trump did and will be convicted of those things, no?

The Federal charges for documents around Mar-A-Lardo are the ones carrying the largest penalties.
On one hand, that's red meat for the base "DEEP STATE WITCH HUNT! VOTE TO MAKE DESANTIS WIN! MAGA! I'M GONNA GO FUCK MY DAUGHTER NOW!"
On the other hand, that might exclude the 5th amendment defense in other cases.
On the gripping hand, optically that would look like Desatan saved Trump who was in trouble.
Trump's response would be fucking hilarious to that one.

[Edge-]

I think its more meant to embarrass Trump than protection for him.

It is, but it's a play for his base as well.

"If I win you have to vote for me because I'm the only one who will keep your cult leader out of federal prison."

He gets to throw shade at Trump while offering an olive branch to a crowd that kinda fuckin hates his guts.

[Canpinter]

There is no way trump doesn't spend the entire main campaign season badmouthing desantis if trump loses the primary, and no way desantis doesn't take it personally.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

There is no way trump doesn't spend the entire main campaign season badmouthing desantis if trump loses the primary, and no way desantis doesn't take it personally.

If DeSantis (or anyone other than Trump) wins the Republican nomination...I hope Trump runs as an independent just to be a spoiler candidate and to "prove" that the GOP needs him to win.