Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Breccia]

McConnell calls on the DoJ to treat Trump and Biden equally in terms of their documents.

"After all, if you treated them according to the merits of their cases, Trump would be behind bars and Biden wouldn't even go to trial," he should have added. "The cases are in no way similar, but we need to pretend they are to appease Trump. He has all our money."

[Fugus]

McConnell calls on the DoJ to treat Trump and Biden equally in terms of their documents.

"After all, if you treated them according to the merits of their cases, Trump would be behind bars and Biden wouldn't even go to trial," he should have added. "The cases are in no way similar, but we need to pretend they are to appease Trump. He has all our money."

The DoJs response to McConnell should be "We will treat each case equally based on the facts presented in them".

If they want to go further can just respond that equality of treatment does not mean equality of outcomes.

[Edge-]

https://www.rollingstone.com/politic...rs-1234663031/

I didn't take the documents, there are no documents.
There are documents, but they were planted.
I may have taken some documents, but they were trivial.
My people took a lot of documents, not me!
I may have taken a lot of classified documents, but I declassified them all with my mind.

ALRIGHT FINE, I TOOK A BUNCH OF EMPTY CLASSIFIED FOLDERS AS "COOL KEEPSAKES" AND THE FBI PLANTED DOCUMENTS IN THEM! ALSO I WAS NEVER GIVEN A CHANCE TO COOPERATE WITH THE ARCHIVES OR DOJ AND WHY IS BIDEN'S HOUSE NOT BEING RAIDED!

We're at this stage in the extensive lies that Republicans continue to defend wholesale.

[Breccia]

We're at this stage in the extensive lies that Republicans continue to defend wholesale.

Claiming that the FBI planted documents is a stupid thing to do when you already said you took then and declassified them. Admittedly he lied about that too.

[Edge-]

https://jalopnik.com/va-gov-youngkin...ina-1850000540

In which Trump alcolite and Virginia Governor Glenn Younkin tells Ford and their $3.5 Billion (yes BILLION with a B) plant that he doesn't want those jobs in Virginia.

Because it's part of a partnership Ford has with a Chinese battery company, and apparently that means that Ford is basically an arm of the Chinese Communist Party and they can't have none of that in Virginia.

I'm sure people who are desperately looking for work that pays well in Virginia because they have bills to pay will sleep easier knowing that their governor just protected them from potentially filling one of the 2,500 jobs that this would bring to some of the most economically depressed parts of the state.

Elections have consequences, and sometimes you keep electing Republicans that keep either making deals that give a company billions in tax breaks only to have them bring next to zero jobs (sup Wisconsin's Foxxcon plant!) or breaks deals ensuring that thousands of potential jobs and billions in investment will never appear in the state.

[Paranoid Android]

EXCLUSIVE: Former President Trump is preparing for his return to Facebook and Twitter.

Trump's campaign sent a letter to Meta on Tuesday, petitioning to unblock his Facebook account.

Campaign advisers are workshopping ideas for his first tweet.

https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/1...otk1ZWhIA&s=19

Trump is coming back and likely burying his own Truth Social. It is what is. Idk if this is news anymore.

I feel dirty posting this on this loser. I hope only time is if prosecuted. I don't even want to say anything until he sadly becomes the Republican nominee.

[Edge-]

Damn man, I really shoulda shorted the shit outta DWAC when it was at like $100/share or some shit.

[postman1782]

https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/1...otk1ZWhIA&s=19

Trump is coming back and likely burying his own Truth Social. It is what is. Idk if this is news anymore.

I feel dirty posting this on this loser. I hope only time is if prosecuted. I don't even want to say anything until he sadly becomes the Republican nominee.

So, he is going to violate his FCC contract? Color me shocked. He has an exclusivity contract with DWAC, the company that owns the majority with Truth Social.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-63725948

If Donald Trump were to stop posting, or do it elsewhere, he could potentially tank the share price of DWAC, wiping hundreds of millions of dollars off its value.

So important was Donald Trump's exclusivity with Truth Social to the proposed merger with DWAC, that a legal provision was placed in the agreement.

It states that "President Trump is generally obligated to make any social media post on Truth Social and may not make the same post on another social media site for 6 hours."

It means that not only could Donald Trump lose a lot of money by using Twitter (by spooking investors) but he could also get sued.

"It's hard to say for sure who would win, but it wouldn't be a completely crazy suit to try to bring," says Ohlrogge.

It means Donald Trump is now in a quandary. He might want to go back to Twitter. But he is financially - not to mention legally - incentivised not to.

[Breccia]

Damn man, I really shoulda shorted the shit outta DWAC when it was at like $100/share or some shit.

It's been a while since I looked, but I think you can ionly short a stock inside a single day of trading. And DWAC didn't really dive enough in a single day for you to have second thoughts.

For example, on the news that

Trump is coming back and likely burying his own Truth Social.

Thanks P.A. for that, by the way. Today, the stock dropped about 7.50%! Which...is a dollar thirty per share.

Oh, and it's too late now. The stock has an effective floor of $10 due to the nature of these special types of buyouts. Yes, I suppose it could technically drop lower if the free market thinks DWAC doesn't have enough money to pay back all its investors, but somehow, I think they all saw this coming, and don't want to get sued or jailed.

Your best bet numerically would have been to buy it at $10 and sell it immediately, honestly. That shit happened nearly instantly.

Also I hate to disagree with the BBC and/or @postman1782 so...I won't. Well, not entirely. Various sites I have used before say about 30 million shares of stock were sold. So if, for example, the current price of $16 drops to the basement of $10, that's $6 x 30 million = $180 million. That's just barely "hundreds of millions" but the article was written in Nov 2022 when the stock was...well it still sucked, but it didn't suck balls.

On that note, if anyone still exists who bought at $10 and hasn't sold yet, they're...okay their judgement is questionable for (a) not selling yet and (b) getting in bed with Trump or (c) please don't conjure that mental image, that is +60% on your investment since Oct 2021, which really isn't that bad, honestly. But you had plenty of options to sell earlier than this, so even though +60% over 15 months isn't horrible, you could have had much more than that. Easily.

By contrast, if you bought it at the bargain basement price on Dec 20, 2022, it went from $15 to $16 and this would be a very good time to pre-market flee. You made 6.66% (repeating of course) profit in just under three weeks. That's also pretty good.

If you are literally any other owner, you're fucked. Because I think I just cited the only two days in the stock's history where it was under $16. And besides the news posted today, there's still upcoming votes that are likely to end in the SPAC's dissolution. Because not only is there not a human being alive who thinks Trump will run for office again but stay off Twitter, but there's also not a human being alive who thinks Trump won't break a contract just because he feels like it.

Edge- you might be kicking yourself, but at least you're not kicking yourself while you're down.

[postman1782]

Trump is shitting his depends on Truth Social. He is scared of Jack Smith, and the death threats to Smith and his family and the families of the investigators, should add a couple decades to his prison sentence.

[Breccia]

Trump is shitting his depends on Truth Social.

I particularly like how Trump calls him a potential criminal and terrorist. I cannot think of any more textbook example of projection than that.

[postman1782]

I particularly like how Trump calls him a potential criminal and terrorist. I cannot think of any more textbook example of projection than that.

Especially after openly admitting to committing a felony.

[Breccia]

Especially after openly admitting to committing a felony.

Well, he didn't admit it under oath. But yes, if you have two different defenses you don't have any. If the FBI planted the documents, it's not because you legally declassified and kept them.

[beanman12345]

So, he is going to violate his FCC contract? Color me shocked. He has an exclusivity contract with DWAC, the company that owns the majority with Truth Social.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-63725948

He needs Facebook for the fundraising for his campaign. Twitter he probably don't care too much other than his usual shitposting.

[Cthulhu 2020]

I mean, we already know that Trump tried to declassify these documents found at Mar a Lago on Jan 19th 2021. The request was submitted and denied. So Trump just took them. This proves intent, which is the hardest part of a case. If he's not indicted, our justice system truly is broken beyond repair.

[postman1782]

I mean, we already know that Trump tried to declassify these documents found at Mar a Lago on Jan 19th 2021. The request was submitted and denied. So Trump just took them. This proves intent, which is the hardest part of a case. If he's not indicted, our justice system truly is broken beyond repair.

See, I haven't seen any report of him actually trying to declassify them. And even then, he still cannot have them. Especially some that even he cannot declassify, like SIGINTEL, human intel, and nuclear documents.

[SoulForge]

See, I haven't seen any report of him actually trying to declassify them. And even then, he still cannot have them. Especially some that even he cannot declassify, like SIGINTEL, human intel, and nuclear documents.

This. Declassified or not the documents are not his to just take. Can't seem to get that through some people's thick skulls.

EDIT; Just read Trumps most recent bullshit excuse about folders being cool keepsakes and they were actually empty. This man is beyond stupid and didn't learn a fucking thing while he was president. This new excuse is so unimaginably stupid just like the rest. It doesn't matter if the folders are empty. You treat anything marked with a classification the same. It could be an empty folder, a box, or an actual document with information in it. Until the markings are removed or the item destroyed its handling is the same.

[Edge-]

See, I haven't seen any report of him actually trying to declassify them. And even then, he still cannot have them. Especially some that even he cannot declassify, like SIGINTEL, human intel, and nuclear documents.

What are you talking about? He declassified them WITH HIS MIND

[Breccia]

As the Jan 6th panel is shut down by people who supported the insurrection, we see its effects taper off. Navarro, for example, filed a court motion to have his contempt of Congress charge removed, and with the panel dissolved, naturally the j--

Judge declines to dismiss contempt charges against ex-Trump aide Peter Navarro

Wait, what?

A federal judge declined to dismiss charges of criminal contempt of Congress against former Trump White House adviser Peter Navarro on Thursday, clearing the way for a trial in a case that’s dragged on in court since Navarro refused to comply with a subpoena issued by the now-defunct House Jan. 6 select committee.

Navarro pleaded not guilty in June to two counts of contempt of Congress, one for refusing to appear for a deposition and the other for refusing to produce documents requested by the committee.

He has maintained that he cannot testify because Trump invoked executive privilege, which can allow presidents and their aides to sidestep congressional scrutiny. If convicted, he faces up to one year in jail and a fine of up to $100,000.

Navarro has "failed to come forward with any evidence to support the claimed assertion of privilege," District Judge Amit Mehta wrote in the 39-page ruling.

He has offered "neither a sworn affidavit nor testimony from him or Trump" to back up his claims, Mehta said. "Without actual proof, the court cannot find that there was a formal invocation of privilege."

Mehta further dismissed Navarro's argument that the committee should've reached out to Trump about his invocation of privilege.

Huh. Well, didn't see that coming.

I particularly like that last line. I was under the impression the panel did ask Trump to stop by -- but if they didn't, then Navarro saying they should have sounds like something Trump and Navarro should talk about. Preferably while in adjoining cells.

[Edge-]

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/20/trum...y-clinton.html

A federal judge on Thursday imposed nearly $1 million in sanctions on former President Donald Trump and his lawyer for filing a “frivolous” lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and others that claimed they tried to rig the 2016 presidential election in Clinton’s favor.

“This case should never have been brought,” wrote Judge John Middlbrooks in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida in his order sanctioning Trump for the suit the judge previously tossed out.

“Its inadequacy as a legal claim was evident from the start,” Middlebrooks wrote.

“No reasonable lawyer would have filed it. Intended for a political purpose, none of the counts of the amended complaint stated a cognizable legal claim.”

Trump and his lead lawyer in the case, Alina Habba, are jointly and severally liable for the total amount of sanctions the judge imposed: $937,989.39.

“The amount of fees awarded in this case, while reasonable, is substantial,” Middlebrooks wrote.

I hope they send some repo guys to maralago.